Topics Philosophy

Question I've often heard that Anglo-American philosophers have somewhat alienated themselves from their colleagues in disciplines like history, literature, the arts, anthropology, and so on. Is this true? (As far as I can tell, I think this is at least truer in the Anglosphere than on the Continent.) If it is, how can this be explained? Is it because Anglo-American philosophers do not feel that they share a common language with their colleagues? For example, whereas their colleagues may have no qualms using words like 'meaning', 'truth', ‘duty’, 'subjectivity' quite freely in their writings, analytic philosophers seem to take great pains even to define them.

Accepted:
October 19, 2006

Comments

There are philosophers who have a rather arrogant attitude to practitioners of other disciplines, but then this is not uncommon among anthropologists, historians etc. either. Professionals usually try to magnify their self-importance by criticizing other approaches to issues. In fact, people are very careful about how they define terms in all the fields you mention, not just philosophy, so whatever language we happen to be working in, we do share a common language. The picture you describe may be an accurate account of a limited period in the sixties when philosophy did sometimes set out to take a very haughty attitude to other subjects, but those days are long gone. And good riddance to them.