Philosophy after Wittgenstein and Heidegger
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 10347706 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Charles Guignon (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1990 |
| Volume | 50 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 649-649 |
| Publication date | 1990-06-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Philosophy and Phenomenological Research (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0031-8205 • E-ISSN: 1933-1592 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.2307/2108228 |
| OpenAlex | W2314496440 |
| Language | DE |
| Citations received | 4 |
Richard Rorty began a series of lectures in the early seventies by saying, Just as no one in the nineteenth century could go on doing philosophy without coming to terms with Kant, so no one in our century can go on doing philosophy without coming to terms with Wittgenstein and Heidegger. Though not everyone would agree with this judgment, it does pose an interesting question about what it is we are supposed to come to terms with in the writings of these two figures. How are we to understand the upshot of their thought for philosophy? Rorty himself seems to hold that Wittgenstein and Heidegger are master diagnosticians of the tradition whose therapies and de-structions have enabled us to stop doing philosophy. In contrast, Charles Taylor claims that their writings open the way to a new type of inquiry into the conditions for the possibility of intentionality. In his view, what they offer is a critique of epistemology in which we discover something deeper and more valid about ourselves [as agents], . . . something of our deep or authentic nature as selves.' Rorty replies that Taylor has gone only halfway in grasping the consequences of Wittgenstein's and Heidegger's thought. For if human beings are truly self-interpreting animals, if they are interpretation all the way down (in the phrase Taylor borrows from H. L. Dreyfus), then there are lots of ways to describe, and thus to study, human beings, and hence there is no metaphysical privilege attached to [the] way of describing them as agents that Taylor advocates.' Taylor, for his part, thinks Rorty is too precipitous in taking the collapse of foundationalism to mean the end of philosophy. What Wittgenstein and Heidegger show us is not how to shut
Analytic philosophy · Contemporary philosophy · Epistemology · Metaphysics · Philosophy of mind · Philosophy · Philosophy, Ethics, and Existentialism · Pragmatism in Philosophy and Education · Wittgensteinian philosophy and applications
| Unique citing works | 4 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,31 |
| Citation span | 2013 - 2025 (13) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 4 |