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Not sure the point of having a filter to select only authors born after 1900. Does show the bias towards the American end of Anglo-American analytic philosophy

Not sure the point of having a filter to select only authors born after 1900. Does show the bias towards the American end of Anglo-American analytic philosophy though. Quine is ponderous. No idea how David Lewis made it to the top of the list either. Without Wittgenstein included, to me this list seems fairly pointless. Realise he might not be close to the top but without his work most of these American philosophers would be nowhere. Maybe I have a different idea as what counts as “contemporary”. Hume seems pretty contemporary to me. So does Nietzsche.

kome 2y ago
modern yes, contemporary no...
- gizajob 2y ago
  What if I cited them last week?
  - keiferski 2y ago
    In the philosophy world, Modern Western Philosophy typically means circa 1500-1600-1700 or so and a class in the subject will include Hume, Locke, Descartes, etc. Here’s a typical syllabus from Rutgers: https://philosophy.rutgers.edu/syllabus-repository-2/spring-2020-syllabi/872-205-01-intro-to-modern-phil-r-fry-spring-2020/file https://philosophy.rutgers.edu/syllabus-repository-2/spring-... Contemporary doesn’t really mean anything other than “somewhat recently”; there is no established set of thinkers considered contemporary ones.
    - robwwilliams 2y ago
      “Contemporary” as in Belonging to the same period of time. "a fact documented by two contemporary sources." Of about the same age. Current; modern. "contemporary trends in design."
      - keiferski 2y ago
        Yes, I know what the word means in the standard sense. The point was that it doesn’t have a separate meaning in philosophy the way modern philosophy does. Or in art, where modern art doesn’t mean “art of today” but instead “art of roughly 1880-1960.”
      - marginalia_nu 2y ago
        In philosophy there's a well defined capital-M modernity, that breaks away from scholastic philosophy following the antique Aristotelian tradition, and attempts to re-invent philosophy starting in the late medieval period. Modern philosophers are thus found from the renaissance up until the period that is referred by non-philosophers as modernity. This is because they themselves used the term modern.
cscurmudgeon 2y ago
I have always felt Wittgenstein's work is a non-philosopher's (or a mediocre philosopher's) idea of outstanding philosophy. Wittgenstein wasn't universally inspirational. I have not found in Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations anything that seemed to me interesting and I do not understand why a whole school finds important wisdom in its pages. Psychologically this is surprising. The earlier Wittgenstein, whom I knew intimately, was a man addicted to passionately intense thinking, profoundly aware of difficult problems of which I, like him, felt the importance, and possessed (or at least so I thought) of true philosophical genius. The later Wittgenstein, on the contrary, seems to have grown tired of serious thinking and to have invented a doctrine which would make such an activity unnecessary. I do not for one moment believe that the doctrine which has these lazy consequences is true. I realize, however, that I have an overpoweringly strong bias against it, for, if it is true, philosophy is, at best, a slight help to lexicographers, and at worst, an idle tea-table amusement. - Bertrand Russell Another analogy, Wittgenstein is the equivalent of fast food in the philosophy world. Ubiquitous but not super rich in quality, whatever nourishment you can find there, you can find from other earlier philosophers if you look hard enough (notably Indian philosophers from millennia ago [1]). Funnily, your criticism of not citing Wittgenstein also applies to Wittgenstein not citing Easter philosophers. [1] https://www.britishwittgensteinsociety.org/various-aspects-of-indian-philosophy-and-wittgenstein-4th-wittgenstein-conference-of-ludwig-wittgenstein-philosophical-society/ https://www.britishwittgensteinsociety.org/various-aspects-o...
- keiferski 2y ago
  Your quote is Russell criticizing the later Wittgenstein work, while praising the earlier work. It is a known thing that his late work was something of a repudiation of his early work. And that’s not mentioning that Russell was literally the person that recognized Wittgenstein’s genius and brought him into academia. “He was perhaps the most perfect example I known of genius as traditionally conceived, passionate, profound, intense, and dominating. He had a kind of purity which I have never known equalled except by G.E.Moore.” - Russell in his autobiography, about Wittgenstein Your comment seems to not understand this distinction, which to me indicates that you aren’t actually familiar with Wittgenstein’s work at all.
keiferski 2y ago
I think the point is to get a snapshot of contemporary working thinkers and not merely a list of the heavy hitters like Plato and Aristotle. Otherwise there wouldn’t be a ton of insight here.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
bbor 2y ago
I would agree on Wittgenstein, but the author clearly has a coder’s sensibility and wanted to stick to the rules. He didn’t really start to impact the broader field sustainably until the 40s and 50s, so I totally understand the urge to see him on the list. I think you might be putting your own goals onto this work, tho: you seem to be trying to think of the best philosophers, whereas this is a more narrow attempt to understand 2024 philosophy and its priorities. Nietzsche is on the line for sure, but I’d say including classical thinkers (namely Hume, Kant, and Hegel) would be less interesting because their dominance is pretty stable at this point. I’m much more interested to see how the fight against Quineanism is going ;) Either way thanks for the insightful comment; will be taking these thoughts into consideration as I try to improve on this. It’s good to see academic philosophy discussed meaningfully on HN!
- defrost 2y ago
  Speaking of "putting own goals onto this work" The encyclopedia was created in 1995 by Edward N. Zalta, with the explicit aim of providing a dynamic encyclopedia that is updated regularly ~ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_Encyclopedia_of_Philosophy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_Encyclopedia_of_Philo... I recall when this first appeared online and how a core "early gang" fleshed out a skeletal framework, eg: the first draft of the Sorites Paradox was belted out in 1997 by Dominic Hyde https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sorites-paradox/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sorites-paradox/ https://hpi.uq.edu.au/profile/388/dominic-hyde https://hpi.uq.edu.au/profile/388/dominic-hyde and I can still see today the residual hand of he and his various peers that worked together to build an outline that represents the largely computer literal | math | logical philosphy student of the late 1980s|early 1990's PoV.
- gizajob 2y ago
  Yes thanks for doing it. It was interesting for me to see. There is a big gulf between analytic philosophy in UK and American universities which this list highlights - at no point did I read anything by Quine at university in England, nor did I need to, yet he’s used at length in the US. Hope the fight gets won.
vehemenz 2y ago
I'm not at all surprised by Quine, given that his impact in contemporary philosophy is immense. I'm more surprised by Carnap's non-appearance on this list, given that he was one of Quine's mentors, more influential, and his arguments have better withstood the test of time.
- robwwilliams 2y ago
  Carnap born 1891.
beepbooptheory 2y ago
This is what SEP is though. Its not meant to be canonical in anyway and aims to be a (maybe anglo/analytic-skewed) non-public wiki for philosophy. If you read any of the articles its easy understand this decision, which are more about communicating concepts than writing exegesis of primary source material. This shows neither "modern philosophy" nor something more essential, its a particular snapshot of a particular facet of academic philosophy, that is all.
rudolfwinestock 2y ago
>Quine is ponderous. No kidding. I tried to learn predicate logic by reading his works (mainly Methods of Logic). I wanted to throw his books across the room. I made it, but comparing his treatment of the completeness and compactness theorems with Tao's treatment was enlightening (and infuriating). It's as though Quine worked hard at being obscure.
jhickok 2y ago
It's odd that someone would be surprised David Lewis on the list. Lewis was the most important figure to the most important grad schools on the east coast for decades.
- gizajob 2y ago
  I live in the UK, where he doesn’t feature prominently in academic philosophy.

kome 2y ago

modern yes, contemporary no...

gizajob 2y ago
What if I cited them last week?
- keiferski 2y ago
  In the philosophy world, Modern Western Philosophy typically means circa 1500-1600-1700 or so and a class in the subject will include Hume, Locke, Descartes, etc. Here’s a typical syllabus from Rutgers: https://philosophy.rutgers.edu/syllabus-repository-2/spring-2020-syllabi/872-205-01-intro-to-modern-phil-r-fry-spring-2020/file https://philosophy.rutgers.edu/syllabus-repository-2/spring-... Contemporary doesn’t really mean anything other than “somewhat recently”; there is no established set of thinkers considered contemporary ones.
  - robwwilliams 2y ago
    “Contemporary” as in Belonging to the same period of time. "a fact documented by two contemporary sources." Of about the same age. Current; modern. "contemporary trends in design."
    - keiferski 2y ago
      Yes, I know what the word means in the standard sense. The point was that it doesn’t have a separate meaning in philosophy the way modern philosophy does. Or in art, where modern art doesn’t mean “art of today” but instead “art of roughly 1880-1960.”
    - marginalia_nu 2y ago
      In philosophy there's a well defined capital-M modernity, that breaks away from scholastic philosophy following the antique Aristotelian tradition, and attempts to re-invent philosophy starting in the late medieval period. Modern philosophers are thus found from the renaissance up until the period that is referred by non-philosophers as modernity. This is because they themselves used the term modern.

cscurmudgeon 2y ago

I have always felt Wittgenstein's work is a non-philosopher's (or a mediocre philosopher's) idea of outstanding philosophy. Wittgenstein wasn't universally inspirational. I have not found in Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations anything that seemed to me interesting and I do not understand why a whole school finds important wisdom in its pages. Psychologically this is surprising. The earlier Wittgenstein, whom I knew intimately, was a man addicted to passionately intense thinking, profoundly aware of difficult problems of which I, like him, felt the importance, and possessed (or at least so I thought) of true philosophical genius. The later Wittgenstein, on the contrary, seems to have grown tired of serious thinking and to have invented a doctrine which would make such an activity unnecessary. I do not for one moment believe that the doctrine which has these lazy consequences is true. I realize, however, that I have an overpoweringly strong bias against it, for, if it is true, philosophy is, at best, a slight help to lexicographers, and at worst, an idle tea-table amusement. - Bertrand Russell Another analogy, Wittgenstein is the equivalent of fast food in the philosophy world. Ubiquitous but not super rich in quality, whatever nourishment you can find there, you can find from other earlier philosophers if you look hard enough (notably Indian philosophers from millennia ago [1]). Funnily, your criticism of not citing Wittgenstein also applies to Wittgenstein not citing Easter philosophers. [1] https://www.britishwittgensteinsociety.org/various-aspects-of-indian-philosophy-and-wittgenstein-4th-wittgenstein-conference-of-ludwig-wittgenstein-philosophical-society/ https://www.britishwittgensteinsociety.org/various-aspects-o...

keiferski 2y ago
Your quote is Russell criticizing the later Wittgenstein work, while praising the earlier work. It is a known thing that his late work was something of a repudiation of his early work. And that’s not mentioning that Russell was literally the person that recognized Wittgenstein’s genius and brought him into academia. “He was perhaps the most perfect example I known of genius as traditionally conceived, passionate, profound, intense, and dominating. He had a kind of purity which I have never known equalled except by G.E.Moore.” - Russell in his autobiography, about Wittgenstein Your comment seems to not understand this distinction, which to me indicates that you aren’t actually familiar with Wittgenstein’s work at all.

keiferski 2y ago

I think the point is to get a snapshot of contemporary working thinkers and not merely a list of the heavy hitters like Plato and Aristotle. Otherwise there wouldn’t be a ton of insight here.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

bbor 2y ago

I would agree on Wittgenstein, but the author clearly has a coder’s sensibility and wanted to stick to the rules. He didn’t really start to impact the broader field sustainably until the 40s and 50s, so I totally understand the urge to see him on the list. I think you might be putting your own goals onto this work, tho: you seem to be trying to think of the best philosophers, whereas this is a more narrow attempt to understand 2024 philosophy and its priorities. Nietzsche is on the line for sure, but I’d say including classical thinkers (namely Hume, Kant, and Hegel) would be less interesting because their dominance is pretty stable at this point. I’m much more interested to see how the fight against Quineanism is going ;) Either way thanks for the insightful comment; will be taking these thoughts into consideration as I try to improve on this. It’s good to see academic philosophy discussed meaningfully on HN!

defrost 2y ago
Speaking of "putting own goals onto this work" The encyclopedia was created in 1995 by Edward N. Zalta, with the explicit aim of providing a dynamic encyclopedia that is updated regularly ~ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_Encyclopedia_of_Philosophy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_Encyclopedia_of_Philo... I recall when this first appeared online and how a core "early gang" fleshed out a skeletal framework, eg: the first draft of the Sorites Paradox was belted out in 1997 by Dominic Hyde https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sorites-paradox/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sorites-paradox/ https://hpi.uq.edu.au/profile/388/dominic-hyde https://hpi.uq.edu.au/profile/388/dominic-hyde and I can still see today the residual hand of he and his various peers that worked together to build an outline that represents the largely computer literal | math | logical philosphy student of the late 1980s|early 1990's PoV.
gizajob 2y ago
Yes thanks for doing it. It was interesting for me to see. There is a big gulf between analytic philosophy in UK and American universities which this list highlights - at no point did I read anything by Quine at university in England, nor did I need to, yet he’s used at length in the US. Hope the fight gets won.

vehemenz 2y ago

I'm not at all surprised by Quine, given that his impact in contemporary philosophy is immense. I'm more surprised by Carnap's non-appearance on this list, given that he was one of Quine's mentors, more influential, and his arguments have better withstood the test of time.

robwwilliams 2y ago
Carnap born 1891.

beepbooptheory 2y ago

This is what SEP is though. Its not meant to be canonical in anyway and aims to be a (maybe anglo/analytic-skewed) non-public wiki for philosophy. If you read any of the articles its easy understand this decision, which are more about communicating concepts than writing exegesis of primary source material. This shows neither "modern philosophy" nor something more essential, its a particular snapshot of a particular facet of academic philosophy, that is all.

rudolfwinestock 2y ago

>Quine is ponderous. No kidding. I tried to learn predicate logic by reading his works (mainly Methods of Logic). I wanted to throw his books across the room. I made it, but comparing his treatment of the completeness and compactness theorems with Tao's treatment was enlightening (and infuriating). It's as though Quine worked hard at being obscure.

jhickok 2y ago

It's odd that someone would be surprised David Lewis on the list. Lewis was the most important figure to the most important grad schools on the east coast for decades.

gizajob 2y ago
I live in the UK, where he doesn’t feature prominently in academic philosophy.