The Changing Temper of American Philosophy

Extract

When the question of a “new age” is put to a philosopher there are two quite different ways in which he can define the issue and accordingly respond. On the one hand, he might construe his task as that of a clarifier of some general claim about cultural revolutions. From this perspective he would set about the task of analyzing the concept of a cultural revolution in terms of some loose analogue of necessary and sufficient conditions. These criteria having been laid down, he could then make suggestions as to whether or not those conditions obtain which would justify the claim that we are in the midst of such a cultural revolution. On the other hand, he might construe his charge more specifically as that of assessing the present state of his own field to see if something like a shift in perspective is manifest in this narrower domain. In this paper I am going to take the latter tack. I will, first, briefly survey the contemporary scene in philosophy to illustrate the “changing temper” I am to talk about; secondly, locate these phenomena in a broader historical context; and, thirdly, try to get at the reasons underlying the changes on which I am focusing. The major part of the paper will be devoted to the third point.