[FOM] "Progress" in philosophy

[Ignacio Nattochdag]

On 3/11/07, Robbie Lindauer <rlindauer at gmail.com> wrote:

"Cantor, for instance, regarded his own work as existing for the sake of these
metaphysical problems.  Cantor's mathematical work was an extension in
a way of his theology"

A beautiful thing that could be done today towards making progress in
philosophy would be to present precisely and completely the thought of
those who made progress in philosophy yesterday: Leibniz, Descartes,
Cantor, Frege, Santayana, Russell, Weyl, Wittgenstein, Brouwer, to
name but a few westerners of relatively recent history.

This would be "something", instead of the trivial chatter that goes on
regularly in academic philosophy about what Wittgenstein "really"
meant when he said: "this is my hand", a chatter that is certainly
nothing, as the medieval discussion of how many angels could be in the
tip of a needle was nothing.

I am thinking of works along the line of Russell's: "A critical
exposition of the philosophy of Leibniz".

A note on the side: I think that instead of "progress" we should talk
about "achievements" in philosophy: this is a clearer notion and it
avoids the vague "judgemental" character of the word "progress". For
instance: some philosopher could argue that the theory of types was
not "progress" in philosophy: but no philosopher could say that it was
not an achievement, unless of course he is an idiot.

I. N.