8/16/2023 0 Comments Peter adamson on william of ockham![]() Nevertheless, it is worth noting that topics of discussion are reinforced or excluded in this way. ![]() This is worth noting because, if correct, it entails that the perceived relevance of topics is due to political power in academia. Rather it is (also and perhaps crucially) reinforced by the fact that certain members of that group are quite powerful when it comes to the distribution of jobs, grants, publication space and other items relevant to survival in academia. The relevance of such a topic, however, is reinforced not by the mere fact that all members of the dominant group are interested in that topic. Now where does the normative force of such locutions originate? Talking about historical positions, such “we” locutions seem to track the relevance of a given topic for a dominant group, the group of philosophers identifying as analytic. So the sentence “Currently, we have a heated debate about the trolley problem” has to be taken in the same vein as the sentence “We don’t eat peas with our fingers.” It states at once what we (don’t) do as well as what we should (or should not) do.* Locutions with this kind of normative “we” are at once descriptive and directive. It is normative in that it does not merely pick out individuals who are interested in certain issues rather it specifies what any individual should be interested in. In the latter sense, however, the word would pick out a certain group, specified as “analytic philosophers”. Thus, it might refer to a quite diverse set of individuals. Using the word in the former sense, it includes all the people who are reading or (in the given cases) are studying history of philosophy. Clearly, it suggests a distinction between an indexical and a normative use of the word “we”. I think this is a rather timely remark and worth some further discussion. In any case, whether it is empty or not, a felt tactical need to speak to that audience might explain why the “we” locution is so common.” The historian is almost bound to speak to the interests of that imagined population, which is still a rough approximation of course but not, I think, a completely empty notion. ![]() “… as a pragmatic issue, at least professional philosophers who work, or want to work, in the English speaking world cannot easily avoid imagining a population of analytic philosophers who have a say in who gets jobs, etc. While agreeing with the general point, Peter Adamson remarked that ![]() I called this phenomenon synchronic anachronism. Someone claiming that we today are interested in certain questions might easily obscure the fact that current interests are rather diverse. ![]()
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