Philosophers debate the death of philosophy as much as they debate the death of God. Kant claimed responsibility for both philosophy's beginning and end, while Heidegger argued it concluded with Nietzsche. In the twentieth century, figures as diverse as John Austin and Richard Rorty have proclaimed philosophy's end, with some even calling for the advent of "postphilosophy." In an effort to make sense of these conflicting positionswhich often say as much about the philosopher as his subjectIsabelle Thomas-Fogiel undertakes the first systematic treatment of "the end of philosophy," while also recasting the history of western thought itself.
Thomas-Fogiel begins with postphilosophical claims such as scientism, which she reveals to be self-refuting, for they subsume philosophy into the branches of the natural sciences. She discovers similar issues in Rorty's skepticism and strands of continental thought. Revisiting the work of late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century philosophers, when the split between analytical and continental philosophy began, Thomas-Fogiel finds both traditions followed the same paththe road of referencewhich ultimately led to self-contradiction. This phenomenon, whether valorized or condemned, has been understood as the death of philosophy. Tracing this pattern from Quine to Rorty, from Heidegger to Levinas and Habermas, Thomas-Fogiel reveals the self-contradiction at the core of their claims while also carving an alternative path through self-reference. Trained under the French philosopher Bernard Bourgeois, she remakes philosophy in exciting new ways for the twenty-first century.
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Translator’s Note
- Introduction
- Part I. The End of Philosophy, or the Paradoxes of Speaking
- 1. Skeptical and Scientific “Post-philosophy”
- 2. “Saying and the Said”: Two Paradigms for the Same Subject
- 3. The Antispeculative View: Habermas as an Example
- 4. Kant’s Shadow in the Current Philosophical Landscape
- Part II: Challenging the“Death of Philosophy”: The Reflexive A Priori
- 5. A Definition of the Model: Scientific Learning and Philosophical Knowledge
- 6. The Model of Self-reference’s Consistency
- 7. The Model’s Fecundity
- 8. Beyond the Death of Philosophy
- Part III: The End of Philosophy in Perspective: The Source of the Reflexive Deficit
- 9.
The “Race to Reference”
- 10. The Tension Between Reference and Self-reference in the Kantian System
- 11. Helmholtz’s Choice as a Choice for Reference: The Naturalization of Critique
- 12. Critique: A Positivist Theory of Knowledge or Existential Ontology?
- 13. Questioning the History of Philosophy
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Notes
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