Does modern philosophy still make valuable contributions that create new knowledge, or are contemporary philosophers just busy analyzing existing knowledge?
If we assume that philosophers do create new knowledge (that cannot be found in the natural or social sciences), why is it so difficult - or even impossible - to detect progress in the philosophical debate ? My impression is that philosophers are still debating the same basic topics they were busy debating 50 or even 100 years ago, and that there is little hope that they will come to a conclusion.
Why is that so? — Matias
Aside: it's worth remembering that not all philosophy is known to all philosophers. So we need to rehash old insights to learn ideas that are new to us, even though, perhaps, others learned the same things in the past. We are not born knowing Cratylus; we have to learn about him. — Pattern-chaser
This is the domain of analytic philosophy, philosophy of language and ordinary language philosophy. — Janus
Philosophy gives us knowledge of how we think and of what the limitations of our thinking are, and it gives us this knowledge through analysis of linguistic practices and also through introspective analysis of our intuitions of meaning and reference. — Janus
But such things are not exclusively the domain of analytic philosophy or modern or contemporary philosophy. — Fooloso4
As to whether their way of thinking is a mark of progress remains an open question. — Fooloso4
why is it so difficult - or even impossible - to detect progress in the philosophical debate ? — Matias
I'd say that the difference between philosophy in the 19th century (and , say, the first half of the 20th too) and the situation today is that at that time philosophers used to be also public intellectuals, they opened - as philosophers - new horizons of thoughts and then fed these insights into the public debate, whereas professional philosophy has become during the last decades a rather esoteric occupation: professionals sitting in their "ivory tower" and their "bubbles" talking at each other, citing each other, debating ultra-subtle questions that have no significance for the public. — Matias
It is worth noting that until recently analytic philosophers all but ignored the history of philosophy, the assumption being that they had progressed to the point where the ancients could have nothing to teach them. — Fooloso4
https://www.iep.utm.edu/analytic/#SH5cBecause analytic philosophy initially saw itself as superseding traditional philosophy, its tendency throughout much of the twentieth century was to disregard the history of philosophy.
I'd say that the difference between philosophy in the 19th century (and , say, the first half of the 20th too) and the situation today is that at that time philosophers used to be also public intellectuals, they opened - as philosophers - new horizons of thoughts and then fed these insights into the public debate, whereas professional philosophy has become during the last decades a rather esoteric occupation: professionals sitting in their "ivory tower" and their "bubbles" talking at each other, citing each other, debating ultra-subtle questions that have no significance for the public. — Matias
It is not clear whether you are laughing at my claim or at their presumptuousness. — Fooloso4
it seems to me that the ideas of the French postmodern philosophers have had a massive impact over the past 50 years on political thought, political correctness, the advent of the social justice warrior, attitudes toward gender and race, etc. — Joshs
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