Previous Index Next



March 15, 1998

Norman,

I fully agree with the sentiments of your paper that philosophy has gone the way of negative, and very often personal, criticism. I do not consider that there is something inherent in philosophy itself that has led it to its current nadir, but, I submit that the way philosophy is practiced, especially analytic philosophy, leads it practitioners along the path of negative criticism. Criticism is a very easy thing to do, and criticism that gets personal is even easier. To me it indicates the lack of charity to the speaker on the part of the questioner. The lack of charity fits in with the larger issue of the lack of a positive project for analytic philosophy. Joe Margolis' paper, "A Biopsy of Recent Analytic Philosophy", Philosophical Forum, Spring 1995 is a good place to start on the muddle of recent analytic philosophy.

Thank you for writing a paper that diagnoses the current ills of the practice of philosophy. Your paper is needed to wake up the profession.

Yours truly,

Francis Remedios
Institute of Philosophy
University of Louvain
http://www.freenet.edmonton.ab.ca/~francisr
email: francisr@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca



Previous Index Next