Thinking Things Through Historically

Clark Glymour’s book Thinking Things Through: An Introduction to Philosophical Issues and Achievement offers a history of philosophy focused on the achievements of science. Glymour argues in passing that what he calls “primitivism” has pernicious consequences; he thinks that Marxists, phenomenologists and deconstructionists are primitivists. The author of this article claims, rather, that there is no reason to think that primitivism necessarily has these political implications, nor to believe that the philosophical tradition Glymour champions intrinsically has any particular view of political life. There need be no particular relationship between a philosopher’s view of scientific objectivity and that person’s politics—at least, there is no argument in Thinking Things Through to show that there is any such necessary connection. Published in conjunction here is a short response by Glymour.