Fashionable Nihilism

Bruce Wilshire

Description

Thoreau wrote that we have professors of philosophy but no philosophers. Can't we have both? Why doesn't philosophy hold a more central place in our lives? Why should it? Eloquently opposing the analytic thrust of philosophy in academia, noted pluralist philosopher Bruce Wilshire answers these questions and more in an effort to make philosophy more meaningful to our everyday lives. Writing in an accessible style he resurrects classic yet neglected forms of inquiring and communicating. In a series of personal essays, Wilshire describes what is wrong with the current state of philosophy in American higher education, namely the cozy but ultimately suffocating confinements of professionalism. He reclaims the role of the philosopher as one who, like Socrates, would goad us out of self-contentedness into a more authentic way of being and knowing.
Preface

1. Nihilistic Consequences of Analytic Philosophy

2. “The Ph.D. Octopus”: William James's Prophetic Grasp of the Failures of Academic Professionalism

3. The Pluralist Rebellion in the American Philosophical Association

4. Phenomenology in the United States

5. Nature or Nurture?: The Significance of Indigenous Thought

6. Conceptual Problems in Grasping Genocide

7. Henry Bugbee: Philospher of Intimacy

8. William James on the “Spiritual”

9. Looking for Bek

Acknowledgments

Index

Sujets

• Philosophy

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 01 février 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780791488379
• Langue: English

Extrait

Fashionable Nihilism

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Fashionable Nihilism

A Critique of Analytic Philosophy

Bruce Wilshire

State University of New York Press

Published by State University of New York Press, Albany

State University of New York

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No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

For information, address State University of New York Press, State Street, Suite, Albany, NY

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Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data

Wilshire, Bruce W. Fashionable nihilism : a critique of analytic philosophy / Bruce Wilshire. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN---(alk. paper) — ISBN---(pbk. : alk. paper) . Philosophy.. Analysis (Philosophy). I. Title.

B.W  ′.—dc

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For my Pluralist colleagues, here and there, young and old, and to the memory of my grand teachers at New York University.

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There are many things to know in this world, but how to live is the only thing that really matters. —Leo Tolstoy

Philosophy lives in words, but truth and fact well up in our lives in ways that exceed verbal formulation. There is in the living act of perception always something that glimmers and twinkles and will not be caught, and for which reflection comes too late. No one knows this as well as the philosopher. He must fire his volley of new vocables out of his conceptual shotgun, for his profession condemns him to this industry, but he secretly knows the hollowness and irrelevancy. —William James

I may know something but insulate the knowledge, as it were . . . live as if it were not there. If knowledge is to bear fruit in us, we must think of it daily . . . [it must] affect me bodily here and now. I know of it, to be sure, when I am asked; but I think there is time. No, there is not much time. —Karl Jaspers

In those days I was convinced that I sincerely and totally affirmed certain propositions, such as, “The sun is shining.” I would have said that my belief in the reality of the sun’s shining was complete and unreserved. But the sunlight didn’t reach me, didn’t suffuse me through and through. —Anonymous

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Preface / xi

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Nihilistic Consequences of Analytic Philosophy /

“The Ph.D. Octopus”: William James’s Prophetic Grasp of the Failures of Academic Professionalism /

The Pluralist Rebellion in the American Philosophical Association /

Phenomenology in the United States /

Nature or Nurture?: The Significance of Indigenous Thought /

Conceptual Problems in Grasping Genocide /

Henry Bugbee: Philospher of Intimacy /

William James on the “Spiritual” /

Looking for Bek /

Acknowledgments /

Index /