Praxis and Action: Contemporary Philosophies of Human Activity

Part IV. The Concept of Action: Analytic Philosophy

PART FOUR THE CONCEPT OF ACTION 4 ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY @ MARXISM, EXISTENTIALISM, AND PRAGMATISMare all deeply rooted in nineteenth-century philosophy. One who is unfamiliar with this philosophic tradition-especially as developed during the period from Kant to Hegel-would be at a severe disadvantage in making sense of the primary concerns and fundamental thrusts of these movements. Each of the thinkers we have examined thus far was struggling with the issues raised by this tradition, appropriating what he took to be sound, rejecting what he thought to be misleading and false, and developing his own point of view against the background of this thought. But when we approach analytic philosophy, the situation appears to be totally different. It is almost as if the nineteenth century had never existed-at least the main tradition of German thought-and we initially discover a much deeper affinity with the type of philosophizing characteristic of traditional empiricism and rationalism. This seeming lack of continuity is, in part, responsible for the failure of significant communication between analytic philosophers and continental philosophers working in the mainstream of European philosophy. With Marxism and existentialism , despite all their differences, there is at least a common universe of discourse within which we can compare and contrast these positions . And with pragmatism-for all its attempt to break with its nineteenth-century roots-we can locate its point of departure from this tradition. Philosophers working in these movements felt the inadequacies of Hegelianism, and each in his distinctive way focused on human activity as the means for "going beyond" Hegel. But with the analytic movement there is both ignorance and revulsion against the type of philosophizing that provided the intellectual sources of these other three movements. Hegel is not even a philosopher who has to be taken seriously, and who must be answered. He represents ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY 231 what is worst and most irresponsible in traditional philosophy: he is obscure, confused, vague, and inconsequential. One cannot underestimate the fervor with which early analytic philosophers rejected traditional philosophy, especially that of the nineteenth century. They found their inspiration in the sciences and in the great advances in logic, not in philosophy. There were, of course, some favored "historical" philosophers such as Hume and there was a recognition of affinities with nineteenth-century empiricism and positivism. But even here the value placed on such positions was because of their approximation to new analytic techniques. The time had come-so the original members of the Vienna Circle believedto be rid of the nonsense that was characteristic of so much of traditional philosophy, and finally to put philosophy on a sound, rigorous, scientific basis. Almost to a man, the members of the Vienna Circle were trained as scientists, not as philosophers, and they exhibited a missionary spirit in their desire to make philosophy legitimate and respectable. The early positivists celebrated the end of metaphysics and speculative philosophy; they condemned to historical curiosity the meaninglessness, mistakes, and superstitions of two thousand years of philosophy. The situation was slightly different in England where English philosophers, along with the Vienna Circle, provided the fountainhead of the analytic movement. Russell and Moore, two central figures in the analytic movement, started with heavy doses of English absolute idealism. But they soon reacted against this imposing doctrine and quickly came to share the sentiments expressed by William James when he declared at the opening of his lectures delivered at Oxford in 1908, "Fortunately, our age seems to be growing philosophical again-still in the ashes live the wonted fires. Oxford, long the seed-bed, for the English world, of the idealism inspired by Kant and Hegel, has recently become the nursery of a very different way of thinking. . ..It looks as if the ancient English empiricism, so long put out of fashion here by nobler sounding germanic formulas, might be repluming itself and getting ready for a stronger flight than ever."l James could hardly have realized how prophetic his words were. Today, one would be amused that anyone could speak of Oxford as the "seed-bed, for the English world, of the idealism inspired by Kant and Hegel." This was a brief and 1. William James, A Pluralistic Universe, p. 3. 232 T H E C O N C E P T O F ACTION unfortunate chapter-a temporary aberration-in the ancient tradition of British empiricism. The above picture is oversimplified but it was one that...