I read a lot of papers and books and I hear a lot of talks and debates that start with something to the effect of, "[Philosophy, culture, politics, education, etc...] is in a crisis."

Very rarely does anyone ask 'Why?' Instead, the question is 'How do we fix it?' or 'How do we soldier on in spite of it?' What follows is a long, fruitless discourse. It seems to me that, a prerequisite of 'How do we fix it?' is 'Why?' Some have tried to answer the 'Why?' of the crises that seem to have enveloped the contemporary world. Some have even dared to answer it in terms of philosophy.

Susan Haack tried by noting that many in the analytic school set theories of knowledge up as belonging to two opposing camps: foundationalism and coherentism. She responds by proposing a 'foundherentism' which is a combination of the two, though Tramel has suggested that her system reduces to foundationalism after all.

Richard Rorty has tried to address the problem by, I think, pointing to the divergence of the Anglo-American philosophers and the European philosophers and trying to bridge the analytic and continental schools. He has numerous critics.

There is a growing list of philosophers that have tried to answer 'Why?' with the intention of answering 'Where do we go?' or 'How do we fix it?' All of them have their critics and none of them have given the "transcendental, objective, universal" answer that will quiet all debate and resolve all crises.

I put forward my own suggestion. The roots of the crisis of contemporary philosophy are in Descartes, Hume, and Kant. It is the contemporary refusal to surrender modern needs.

For modern philosophers, there was a need for any claim to truth to be such that it would have to be accepted in any time and at any place. It had to be "universally true." Philosophers (like Descartes) proposed that, in order to have "universal truths," you would have to find a foundation for all claims that would be accepted universally. When skeptics (like Hume) challenged the foundations proposed, others (like Kant) replied that, in order for all claims to be accepted universally based on that foundation, you would have to have a transcendental structure of rationality that everyone would have to accept.

For contemporary philosophers, these criteria are still in play, but the sheer diversity of methods, schools, and sub-schools that have sprung up claiming to have this "transcendent, foundational, and universal system" is staggering. And the reaction to these schools yields a set of neo-this and post-that systems that makes the number of given structures exponential.

This is the crisis that hangs over contemporary philosophy. And it is only a crisis because contemporaries will not relinquish their need for the modern criteria of "universal, transcendental, and foundational." In this light, I want to suggest that the solution to the problem is in finding a way to accept the reality that universal, transcendental, and foundational knowledge is not possible while at the same time finding a way to warrant the willingness to continue to make truth-claims in such a way that the one making the claim is justified in believing that the claim is universal, transcendental, and foundational without imposing those criteria as a standard.

LifeIsAbsurd wrote:...contemporaries will not relinquish their need for the modern criteria of "universal, transcendental, and foundational." In this light, I want to suggest that the solution to the problem is in finding a way to accept the reality that universal, transcendental, and foundational knowledge is not possible while at the same time finding a way to warrant the willingness to continue to make truth-claims in such a way that the one making the claim is justified in believing that the claim is universal, transcendental, and foundational without imposing those criteria as a standard.

I dont hold much hope for your solution. Your diagnosis and intentions I agree with to an extent, but your solution is, as far as I can tell, just more of the same internalist/subjectivist (sub)standards. I agree with another poster here: the Kantian age of the subject as the epistemic centre has run its course, its time to consider a non-Kantian subject-object synthesis. Or better yet, construct an epistemology that transcends the subject-object dichotomy.

PS lol at your name

I don't think the subject-object distinction has to be a dichotomy. It's only a dichotomy when you approach it out of a Kantian need to overcome skepticism. I think it's a useful distinction when it is only a distinction and not a necessary distinction. In this way I'm post-Kantian not non-Kantian. So I'm with you to an extent as well.

ps, Life IS absurd, in a way Mr. Mitty might have appreciated, if only he knew...

LifeIsAbsurd wrote:I don't think the subject-object distinction has to be a dichotomy. It's only a dichotomy when you approach it out of a Kantian need to overcome skepticism. I think it's a useful distinction when it is only a distinction and not a necessary distinction. In this way I'm post-Kantian not non-Kantian. So I'm with you to an extent as well.

Hmmm, Im not even sure its a useful distinction. It probably depends on how you define it, or the context in which it is used. Again, though, Im skeptical even of its utility.

ps, Life IS absurd, in a way Mr. Mitty might have appreciated, if only he knew...

Sartre, or Camus? I was talking of 'John Klocke', btw.

Hmmm, Im not even sure its a useful distinction. It probably depends on how you define it, or the context in which it is used. Again, though, Im skeptical even of its utility.

I definitely agree it depends on the context, and I'd support your being skeptical of its utility as well. I just find it useful to use the distinction when dealing with people who use the distinction, which I assumed would be most people who read the post. Perhaps a better way to express my solution to the crisis of contemporary philosophy in this conversation is to say, "The willingness to express truth-claims with the intention of believing them to be true as opposed to the need to express truth claims with the intention of universalizing them."

Sartre, or Camus? I was talking of 'John Klocke', btw.

Camus. And yeah, the Klocke thing always gets a laugh. It gets a bigger laugh when I tell them I'm an empiricist.

LifeIsAbsurd wrote:

MalterWitty wrote:Hmmm, Im not even sure its a useful distinction. It probably depends on how you define it, or the context in which it is used. Again, though, Im skeptical even of its utility.

I definitely agree it depends on the context, and I'd support your being skeptical of its utility as well. I just find it useful to use the distinction when dealing with people who use the distinction, which I assumed would be most people who read the post.

Heh, yes, fair enough.

I should probably try and clarify my own position a little. When I consider the original philosophical 'distinction' of subject-object and its subsequent genealogy, I see something which, all things considered, should be irrelevant (obselete?) to contemporary philosophy. That is, it had a purpose, and served a purpose, much in the same way Plato's Form's did. If anything, the continued use of the 'distinction' seems more a thing of tradition than anything else; a case of needing to be awoken from ones dogmatic slumber, perhaps. Especially when the distinction is possibly responsible for much of the antinomy evident in philosophy of mind and epistemology.

If anything could qualify as a Sisyphean boulder in philosophy, it is the subject-object distinction. And Im not even sure the internalist-externalist distinction transcends this predicament either.

Perhaps a better way to express my solution to the crisis of contemporary philosophy in this conversation is to say, "The willingness to express truth-claims with the intention of believing them to be true as opposed to the need to express truth claims with the intention of universalizing them."

Okay, are you proposing some sort of coherentism as opposed to correspondence here? Im unclear if you think 'universal' also encompasses 'absolute'?

Sartre, or Camus? I was talking of 'John Klocke', btw.

Camus. And yeah, the Klocke thing always gets a laugh. It gets a bigger laugh when I tell them I'm an empiricist.

Well, it dosnt appear your slate is blank so all good.

WalterMitty wrote:When I consider the original philosophical 'distinction' of subject-object and its subsequent genealogy, I see something which, all things considered, should be irrelevant (obselete?) to contemporary philosophy. That is, it had a purpose, and served a purpose, much in the same way Plato's Form's did. If anything, the continued use of the 'distinction' seems more a thing of tradition than anything else; a case of needing to be awoken from ones dogmatic slumber, perhaps. Especially when the distinction is possibly responsible for much of the antinomy evident in philosophy of mind and epistemology.

If anything could qualify as a Sisyphean boulder in philosophy, it is the subject-object distinction. And Im not even sure the internalist-externalist distinction transcends this predicament either.

I more or less agree, or I can see your point as useful/valuable/viable.

Okay, are you proposing some sort of coherentism as opposed to correspondence here? Im unclear if you think 'universal' also encompasses 'absolute'?

I don't think so. Let me put it this way. I am skeptical of a universal standard of rationality, not that there is an absolute reality which is what it is. G.E. Moore's "Here is a hand, here is another hand" is enough to bust radical skepticism for me. But it always seemed to me an admission of the skepticism of certainty. It was if he was saying, "I know we can't ever be certain of all this stuff, but I think it's probably more convincing to say that there is a real world, not a mind-world, than to be skeptical of the real world."

So, with regard to coherentism, you could have a set of truth-claims that are completely coherent and sensible with regard to one-another, but which are not true (which are not really the way things are). Similarly, you could have a set of beliefs that are well-founded, but which rest on foundations which are not true (not really the way things are), although to a certain person they seem self-evident.

So what we ultimately need is an epistemology which doesn't require a philosopher to universalize his or her claims, but which has room for the philosopher to suggest that the claim should be believed as absolutely, really the way things are. I don't have a name for it, but it flies in the face of the analytic tradition (which is damnable in Anglo-American circles).

I don't know that there is a crisis. Certain issues - epistemology, ethics, metaphysics - have been settled, but this hardly entails a crisis. It merely means that the focus has shifted. Philosophy in the twentieth century was concerned with the attacking and criticising of political institutions and revealing their underlying materialistic grounds. A contemporary Marxist analysis. We saw such analyses of psychiatry and even medicine, but also imprisonment - Foucault. Some of these critiques have succeeded, psychiatry and imprisonment, whereas medicine has failed (AIDS turned out to be real rather than a means of demonising homosexuals).

The most important task in the modern world is no longer to speak of 'what is beautiful', 'what is true', 'what is real' - this forum is filled with such fatuous questions on consciousness that have as much relevance to real life as discussing the number of angels that may dance on a pinhead - but rather to value social movements, institutions, effects, i.e. social phenomena. Now, one might look at the Arab spring and ask whether they sprung from the Tiber.. Did George W. Bush's actions cause this? It's not only about this question itself, but what the meaning is of the idea of 'dumb Bush' and 'arab spring'.. How does this network of social phenomena operate?
In other words, Spinoza - not controlling but understanding the world - criticising and attacking cultural institutions and exposing the values they are supported by. In essence, philosophy.

Comte de St.-Germain wrote:I don't know that there is a crisis. Certain issues - epistemology, ethics, metaphysics - have been settled, but this hardly entails a crisis.

I'm always wary of the one who says, "This has been settled." It may well have been settled within a certain tradition, school, or subschool, but not for me or for someone else. When someone says, "This has been settled/This is trivial/Don't ask, don't bother," I interpret it as authoritarian and intellectually destructive. Perhaps you don't mean it in such a way, but I think it is highly presumptuous to say, "Certain issues - epistemology, ethics, metaphysics - have been settled."

Comte de St.-Germain wrote: It merely means that the focus has shifted.

I think the language has shifted, the focus has not, especially if you take the scope of philosophy as more generally than "clarifying thought" or "criticizing social structures."

Comte de St.-Germain wrote:Philosophy in the twentieth century was concerned with the attacking and criticising of political institutions and revealing their underlying materialistic grounds.

Not all philosophy. Much philosophy was devoted to this, but many philosophers had plenty to say about the "certain issues" that were supposed to be settled. There are Continental philosophers who would not have been interested in revealing "underlying materialistic grounds," there are pragmatists who would not have cared about what grounds one might put forward so long as a given system worked. There are analytic philosophers (Anscombe and the like) who had ethical and epistemological qualms with their contemporaries. Heidegger, who wanted to shrug off the very framework of much of 20th century philosophical function.

This claim seems to me a gross oversimplification.

Comte de St.-Germain wrote:A contemporary Marxist analysis. We saw such analyses of psychiatry and even medicine, but also imprisonment - Foucault. Some of these critiques have succeeded, psychiatry and imprisonment, whereas medicine has failed (AIDS turned out to be real rather than a means of demonising homosexuals).

I would be happy to include these analyses as within the scope of philosophy, but certainly not the whole of philosophy, or even the point of philosophy.

Comte de St.-Germain wrote:The most important task in the modern world is no longer to speak of 'what is beautiful', 'what is true', 'what is real' - this forum is filled with such fatuous questions on consciousness that have as much relevance to real life as discussing the number of angels that may dance on a pinhead - but rather to value social movements, institutions, effects, i.e. social phenomena.

One cannot criticize a social movement, institution, phenomenon, or effect without having some sense of disbelieving the claims of a movement or institution ("what is true"). One cannot disagree with the value of a social structure unless one has some sense as to why that structure is wrong or destructive ("what is good"). And one won't have a sense of what is true or what is good without having some idea as to what is real.

The claim that philosophy has nothing to do with the real world doesn't hold water when the people acting in a society or forming a social structure have beliefs which are philosophical.

Comte de St.-Germain wrote:In other words, Spinoza - not controlling but understanding the world - criticising and attacking cultural institutions and exposing the values they are supported by. In essence, philosophy.

I think philosophy, in essence, ends up with answering the question "How should I live life?" not "What is wrong with society?"

LifeIsAbsurd wrote:

WalterMitty wrote:
Okay, are you proposing some sort of coherentism as opposed to correspondence here? Im unclear if you think 'universal' also encompasses 'absolute'?

I don't think so. Let me put it this way. I am skeptical of a universal standard of rationality, not that there is an absolute reality which is what it is. G.E. Moore's "Here is a hand, here is another hand" is enough to bust radical skepticism for me. But it always seemed to me an admission of the skepticism of certainty. It was if he was saying, "I know we can't ever be certain of all this stuff, but I think it's probably more convincing to say that there is a real world, not a mind-world, than to be skeptical of the real world."

I take it the skeptic is in some capacity impressed by the esse; Kant appeared to be, but his response as to how our knowledge can be secured against skepticism comes at an obvious cost. But why must our knowledge be secured? If, by its very nature, our knowledge can never be guaranteed with absolute certainty, be that by a priori foundationalism or 'the indubitible', we should embrace this predicament; or at least accept it instead of trying to do the impossible.

Skepticism is, really, criticism, and we're all capable of being critics; it is by criticism that our knowledge grows and evolves. But under a Cartesian conception of knowledge, where 'genuine' knowledge must be founded on what is indubitible, there seems to me little capacity for knowledge to grow: the cogito takes no risks, and offers little room for expansion. And for what, to avoid the possibility of error? If 'genuine' knowledge entails (or leaves us vulnerable to) skepticism, due to the nature of our language, then so be it; any attempt to absolutely negate skepticism by seeking to secure knowledge is futile and inauthentic.

So, with regard to coherentism, you could have a set of truth-claims that are completely coherent and sensible with regard to one-another, but which are not true (which are not really the way things are). Similarly, you could have a set of beliefs that are well-founded, but which rest on foundations which are not true (not really the way things are), although to a certain person they seem self-evident.

Yes; you seem, then, to be hinting at correspondence theory.

So what we ultimately need is an epistemology which doesn't require a philosopher to universalize his or her claims, but which has room for the philosopher to suggest that the claim should be believed as absolutely, really the way things are. I don't have a name for it, but it flies in the face of the analytic tradition (which is damnable in Anglo-American circles).

Going by what youve said, this looks (generally) very much like Popper's 'evolutionary epistemology'. Im not sure how familiar you are with him, but his general epistemology tends to be overlooked due to his fame surrounding falsifiability and science. This, I think, is unfortunate.

EDIT: Do you think the crisis you talk of is reducible to a subjectivist conception of knowledge, where knowledge is understood as 'justified true belief'?

LifeIsAbsurd wrote:

Comte de St.-Germain wrote:I don't know that there is a crisis. Certain issues - epistemology, ethics, metaphysics - have been settled, but this hardly entails a crisis.

I'm always wary of the one who says, "This has been settled." It may well have been settled within a certain tradition, school, or subschool, but not for me or for someone else. When someone says, "This has been settled/This is trivial/Don't ask, don't bother," I interpret it as authoritarian and intellectually destructive. Perhaps you don't mean it in such a way, but I think it is highly presumptuous to say, "Certain issues - epistemology, ethics, metaphysics - have been settled."

I'm not saying these questions are trivial, nor that you shouldn't ask or shouldn't bother. I'm simply stating my views on contemporary philosophy and the view that there is no such crisis like the one you speak of.

Comte de St.-Germain wrote: It merely means that the focus has shifted.

I think the language has shifted, the focus has not, especially if you take the scope of philosophy as more generally than "clarifying thought" or "criticizing social structures."

To include what, exactly? Settled themes? The focus of continental philosophy is clear.

Comte de St.-Germain wrote:Philosophy in the twentieth century was concerned with the attacking and criticising of political institutions and revealing their underlying materialistic grounds.

Not all philosophy. Much philosophy was devoted to this, but many philosophers had plenty to say about the "certain issues" that were supposed to be settled. There are Continental philosophers who would not have been interested in revealing "underlying materialistic grounds," there are pragmatists who would not have cared about what grounds one might put forward so long as a given system worked. There are analytic philosophers (Anscombe and the like) who had ethical and epistemological qualms with their contemporaries. Heidegger, who wanted to shrug off the very framework of much of 20th century philosophical function.

Heidegger? Seriously?

This claim seems to me a gross oversimplification.

Of course, because you include several more projects than myself, that I consider settled. Academics concerned with such projects I would call fringe and unimportant. Indeed, on a social level, they are fringe and unimportant. Outside of the realm of atheism, no one has heard of Daniel Dennett (and in the studies of religion he is looked upon with suspect eyes) and outside his field in general, no one cares about his argument (no one cares about consciousness).

Comte de St.-Germain wrote:A contemporary Marxist analysis. We saw such analyses of psychiatry and even medicine, but also imprisonment - Foucault. Some of these critiques have succeeded, psychiatry and imprisonment, whereas medicine has failed (AIDS turned out to be real rather than a means of demonising homosexuals).

I would be happy to include these analyses as within the scope of philosophy, but certainly not the whole of philosophy, or even the point of philosophy.

Good for you. I'm not in crisis. You are.

Comte de St.-Germain wrote:The most important task in the modern world is no longer to speak of 'what is beautiful', 'what is true', 'what is real' - this forum is filled with such fatuous questions on consciousness that have as much relevance to real life as discussing the number of angels that may dance on a pinhead - but rather to value social movements, institutions, effects, i.e. social phenomena.

One cannot criticize a social movement, institution, phenomenon, or effect without having some sense of disbelieving the claims of a movement or institution ("what is true").

Of course you can. It's the whole idea behind a Marxist investigation. Whereas a Marxist materialistic view of history considered not the stated causes but far more probably materialistic causes (the crusades being motivated not by religious ideology but by materialistic interests), a Marxist perspective here means not considering the claims of a movement or institution, but considering their effect coldly. Materialism in this sense considers the claimed motivations as beside the point. Truth is not required for this project.

One cannot disagree with the value of a social structure unless one has some sense as to why that structure is wrong or destructive ("what is good"). And one won't have a sense of what is true or what is good without having some idea as to what is real.

Nonsense. One can prefer certain values over others - there is no need for an ethical framework. At the most, what is required is an aesthetic framework of values.

The claim that philosophy has nothing to do with the real world doesn't hold water when the people acting in a society or forming a social structure have beliefs which are philosophical.

Society is not structured by the philosophical beliefs that you espouse. Epistemological positions, metaphysical positions, ethical positions do not define social structure.

Comte de St.-Germain wrote:In other words, Spinoza - not controlling but understanding the world - criticising and attacking cultural institutions and exposing the values they are supported by. In essence, philosophy.

I think philosophy, in essence, ends up with answering the question "How should I live life?" not "What is wrong with society?"

Who said anything about 'what is wrong with society', criticism is a constructive process.. You're missing a whole lot of points for someone who believes he can determine and solve the crisis in the whole of contemporary philosophy.

If there is a crisis, why jump to the conclusion that it needs to be solved? I notice in the OP that culture is included in the list of areas of which it is said "it is in a crisis". Well, we hear that all the time in my field, music. I can't recall whether it was Glenn Gould or Pierre Boulez who responded: "every artist is always in a state of crisis, or he wouldn't be an artist". That seems true to me.

Please understand that I'm not talking about the melodramatic image of the romantic, agonizing artist. I'm simply pointing to the fact that the impulse to create something new comes from a need to do so - in other words, an instability. And the act of creating inevitably raises new questions, opens up unforeseen paths, creates a new instability, and leads the creative artist on to the next project. For the audience, a work of art is an end product. For the creator, it is the residue of activity, and a stepping stone to the next work. Look at it this way: walking (as opposed to standing still) is an ongoing state of instability, of "crisis", if you will. Therefore, to be an artist is to work in a constant state of crisis. That's the name of the game, and artists, as they gain experience, understand this. The last thing an artist wants is for that conflict to be solved, for then he would cease to create. (Writer's block, for example, causes anxiety, to be sure - but it doesn't feel like a state of crisis, in the sense I'm speaking of. Rather, it feels like a horrid, deadening stability. A lack of the essential propulsive crisis.)

Might this be true in philosophy as well? I'm just speculating here. It's always assumed that it's best to solve crises. (The other option, seen above, is to deny that there really is a crisis.) But I think it's at least worth considering that it might be best not to solve some crises. Instead, use them as fuel for the fire, so to speak.


edited: clarity

Comte de St.-Germain wrote:Of course, because you include several more projects than myself, that I consider settled.

This is where we are in disagreement. I don't think I can convince you to include my extra projects, and I doubt you'll convince me to drop them, so I don't know if we are in disagreement, but that our focuses are different, after all. I see the point you were trying to make.

orpheus wrote:If there is a crisis, why jump to the conclusion that it needs to be solved? I notice in the OP that culture is included in the list of areas of which it is said "it is in a crisis". Well, we hear that all the time in my field, music. I can't recall whether it was Glenn Gould or Pierre Boulez who responded: "every artist is always in a state of crisis, or he wouldn't be an artist". That seems true to me.

I don't think I should want to solve it in the sense that all things would be settled, after all. The solution for me is to find a way that I can proceed to philosophize creatively while at the same time recognizing the value of contemporary philosophy.

I suspect my initial post was, in itself, poorly framed. Back to the drawing board.

orpheus wrote:
Might this be true in philosophy as well? I'm just speculating here. It's always assumed that it's best to solve crises. (The other option, seen above, is to deny that there really is a crisis.) But I think it's at least worth considering that it might be best not to solve some crises. Instead, use them as fuel for the fire, so to speak.

I agree with you that creativity depends on some sort of 'instability', and the act of seeking to overcome this (or at least express it). But Im sure youll agree with me that life is such that solving some crisis rarely, if ever, sees the end of instability. In discourses such as philosophy, and science, solving one problem innevitably opens up the possibility of other problems, new problems that would not have been evident otherwise; thats one way discourses (and knowledge) progress and evolve. There is an argument in this, then, that science and philosophy will never be complete as long as they pose problems (and/or we face them).

LifeIsAbsurd wrote:

Comte de St.-Germain wrote:I don't know that there is a crisis. Certain issues - epistemology, ethics, metaphysics - have been settled, but this hardly entails a crisis.

I'm always wary of the one who says, "This has been settled." It may well have been settled within a certain tradition, school, or subschool, but not for me or for someone else. When someone says, "This has been settled/This is trivial/Don't ask, don't bother," I interpret it as authoritarian and intellectually destructive. Perhaps you don't mean it in such a way, but I think it is highly presumptuous to say, "Certain issues - epistemology, ethics, metaphysics - have been settled."

Comte de St.-Germain wrote: It merely means that the focus has shifted.

I think the language has shifted, the focus has not, especially if you take the scope of philosophy as more generally than "clarifying thought" or "criticizing social structures."

Comte de St.-Germain wrote:Philosophy in the twentieth century was concerned with the attacking and criticising of political institutions and revealing their underlying materialistic grounds.

Not all philosophy. Much philosophy was devoted to this, but many philosophers had plenty to say about the "certain issues" that were supposed to be settled. There are Continental philosophers who would not have been interested in revealing "underlying materialistic grounds," there are pragmatists who would not have cared about what grounds one might put forward so long as a given system worked. There are analytic philosophers (Anscombe and the like) who had ethical and epistemological qualms with their contemporaries. Heidegger, who wanted to shrug off the very framework of much of 20th century philosophical function.

This claim seems to me a gross oversimplification.

Comte de St.-Germain wrote:A contemporary Marxist analysis. We saw such analyses of psychiatry and even medicine, but also imprisonment - Foucault. Some of these critiques have succeeded, psychiatry and imprisonment, whereas medicine has failed (AIDS turned out to be real rather than a means of demonising homosexuals).

I would be happy to include these analyses as within the scope of philosophy, but certainly not the whole of philosophy, or even the point of philosophy.

Comte de St.-Germain wrote:The most important task in the modern world is no longer to speak of 'what is beautiful', 'what is true', 'what is real' - this forum is filled with such fatuous questions on consciousness that have as much relevance to real life as discussing the number of angels that may dance on a pinhead - but rather to value social movements, institutions, effects, i.e. social phenomena.

One cannot criticize a social movement, institution, phenomenon, or effect without having some sense of disbelieving the claims of a movement or institution ("what is true"). One cannot disagree with the value of a social structure unless one has some sense as to why that structure is wrong or destructive ("what is good"). And one won't have a sense of what is true or what is good without having some idea as to what is real.

The claim that philosophy has nothing to do with the real world doesn't hold water when the people acting in a society or forming a social structure have beliefs which are philosophical.

Comte de St.-Germain wrote:In other words, Spinoza - not controlling but understanding the world - criticising and attacking cultural institutions and exposing the values they are supported by. In essence, philosophy.

I think philosophy, in essence, ends up with answering the question "How should I live life?" not "What is wrong with society?"

Hi, welcome.
I enjoyed your post. That there is (or might be) a crisis in contemporary philosophy, only serves to highlight the problems with [contemporary] philosophers... and not philosophy itself. Those who consider matters "settled" are indicative of that so-called problem... are the problem.

jamest wrote:Hi, welcome.

Welcome?

I enjoyed your post. That there is (or might be) a crisis in contemporary philosophy, only serves to highlight the problems with [contemporary] philosophers... and not philosophy itself. Those who consider matters "settled" are indicative of that so-called problem... are the problem.

For all intents and purposes, you are discussing philosophy on a level of three to four hundred years ago. You are about as contemporary as a heliocentric view of the universe.

lobawad wrote:

Comte de St.-Germain wrote: The focus of continental philosophy is clear.

Could you tell me what that focus is, then? I honestly do not know (though I could come up with some pretty entertaining conjectures).

Didn't I already? The evaluation of values - at a social and cultural level. I.e. Criticising and attacking social institutions for their orientation and stated purpose. Concrete example: What is the aim of the education system and is this system achieving that system, on what basis are we considering the success or failure of the education system and do these things correspond? The same can be said for the penal system. Are we trying to reduce crime or punish?

Philosophy here is not divorced from science, in fact, it uses distinctly scientific methods. The point is that its critical orientation, its attacking and critically assessing of society and its values is philosophical.

The question whether the education system is achieving its aims can be answered scientifically. Complementary medicine does not ask questions that can be answered scientifically, or refuses to allow scientific answers. This is not necessarily the case for my example and it is certainly not suggested by it.
My inclusion of science at the core of philosophy is not obscurantist.