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“… or is the question of being at once the most basic and the most concrete?” On the ambitions and responsibilities of contemporary American philosophy

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Abstract

At its centennial in 2001, the American Philosophical Association bravely proclaimed: “Philosophy Matters.” But does it? It won’t unless it reaches the concreteness of everyday life. To do so was Martin Heidegger’s ambition, and one can read Saul Kripke’s books as an attempt to get mainstream American philosophy beyond its abstractions. At length, Kripke’s efforts, on one reading, failed while Heidegger’s remained incomplete. A theory of commodification can get us closer to the things that matter to us in everyday life.

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Notes

  1. Borgmann (1995) and Leiter (2004) among many other accounts.

  2. Heidegger (1960) translations are mine.

  3. Branch (1977) and McGrath (2006).

  4. Soames (2003) and Hughes (2004).

  5. The situation is complicated. Kripke has reservation about metaphysical naturalism, and the one philosopher he has extensively discussed, Wittgenstein, is usually invoked as the founder of the minority analytic school Brian Leiter has called quietism. See Leiter, The Future, pp. 7–19.

  6. Wittgenstein (2001).

  7. Carnap (1963).

  8. Weinberg (1993).

  9. Rorty (1982).

  10. Reichenbach (1951).

  11. Kim (1989).

  12. Kripke, Naming, p. 5.

  13. Kripke, Wittgenstein, pp. 7–84.

  14. Ibid., pp. 55–145.

  15. Kripke, Naming, pp. 46, 47, 52–53, 57, 61–62, 126, 142.

  16. Kripke, Wittgenstein, pp. 79, 89, 108–109, 134–135.

  17. Kripke, Naming, pp. 64, 81, 83, 85, 93; Wittgenstein, pp. 67–68.

  18. Kripke, Naming, p. 113, n. 55.

  19. Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, pp. 50–52.

  20. Ibid., pp. 126–30 and 166–80. See Borgmann (2005).

  21. Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, p. 38.

  22. Heidegger (1962).

  23. Nozick (2001). See also p. 155.

  24. Ibid., pp. 148–55.

  25. Heidegger, Die Technik, pp. 21–23.

  26. Heidegger (1978).

  27. Heidegger (1995).

  28. Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, pp. 43–44.

  29. Heidegger (1989, 1994).

  30. Netting (1981).

  31. See http://www.com/catalog/pfanni-roesti-die-knusprigen-p-232.html, retrieved October 5, 2008.

  32. Borgmann (2006).

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  1. Department of Philosophy, The University of Montana, Missoula, MT, 59812-5780, USA

    Albert Borgmann

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Borgmann, A. “… or is the question of being at once the most basic and the most concrete?” On the ambitions and responsibilities of contemporary American philosophy. AI & Soc 25, 19–26 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-009-0238-x

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