>
>Perhaps "AP" can be _defined_ as the rejection of discussions of "method"
>(i.e., how logical analysis and empirical study should be combined to
>answer moral, empirical, and other questions)? So issues like the debate
>between Kuhn, Popper, Lakatos, and others who study the philosophy of
>science are deemed to be irrelevant (or even silly) by the practitioners of
>AP?
No, the anti-method thing is more of a pragmatist trope than a general AP
thing. I, predictly, do not believe there is any such thing as "scientific
method," and as someone trained in philosophy of science and political
science, I will say that I find nothing so silly and irrelevant as social
scientists who look to the philosophy of science literature for a models of
how to do social science--it's appallingly common. I would sit in my pol sci
seminars and laugh, tell the other stidents and prof, pay no attention to
what WE say, just go out and find good examples of actual reserach and
follow those! That's the danger of discussions of method, they will be
treated as recipes.
>
>Okay, so the AP types gave us greater understanding of formal logic. This
>is all for the good, though I can imagine that logic, like mathematics, can
>easily be fetishized in the face of an empirical world that often seems
>illogical or at least too heterogeneous and mixed to be fit into logical
>categories.
Absolutely.
Then, how is AP distinguished from other schools of
>philosophy
>that accept the validity and importance of logic?
In a pragmatic, sociological sort of way, by the articles students are
taught to read and model their work on and that professors are expected to
cite and discuss, and also by a sensew of what problems and what kind of
answers are important and acceptable. But you knew this, so whya re you
asking me? Are you trying for a concession that there is no essence of AP,
that all philosophy is AP? What?
For example,
>Bertell
>Ollman tries to be as logical as possible. The way the term "analytical
>philosophy" is used, at least as I've encountered it, it would exclude
>him.
No shit. He doesn't use logical formalsim, doesn't refer to Quine and
Davidson or Rawls for his vocabulary and questions, doesn't think that their
questions are interesting or their answers important, and responds to APs
who find his own use of Hegelian-MArxist dialectics obscure with the charge
that they are fetishized, that is, with more H-M dialectics. So he's not an
AP,w hether that is good or bad.
Would it also exclude my brother the philosophy professor,
>who's into
>"natural law"? BTW, he's also very logical, given his premises.
>
I don't think AP is dogmatic about doctrines anymore. It's a matter of style
and reference. Hell, you can be an analytical Marxist,a s long as you do it
the way the APs do their stuff. So you can be an analytical Thomist, I
guess.
What's the point of this discussion? I am not be arrogant about AP: it came
up because I was trashing it as ignorant and uncultured.
--jks
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