UPDATE: London Ed does an excellent job of misunderstanding the following post. Bad comments incline me to keep my ComBox closed. But his is open.
Fred Sommers' "Intellectual Autobiography" begins as follows:
I did an undergraduate major in mathematics at Yeshiva College and went on to graduate studies in philosophy at Columbia University in the 1950s. There I found that classical philosophical problems were studied as intellectual history and not as problems to be solved. That was disappointing but did not strike me as unreasonable; it seemed to me that tackling something like "the problem of free will" or "the problem of knowledge" could take up one's whole life and yield little of permanent value. I duly did a dissertation on Whitehead's process philosophy and was offered a teaching position at Columbia College. Thereafter I was free to do philosophical research of my own choosing. My instinct was to avoid the seductive, deep problems and to focus on finite projects that looked amenable to solution. (The Old New Logic: Essays on the Philosophy of Fred Sommers, ed. Oderberg, MIT Press, 2005, p. 1)
Sommers says something similar in the preface to his The Logic of Natural Language (Oxford, 1982), p. xii:
My interest in Ryle's 'category mistakes' turned me away from the study of Whitehead's metaphysical writings (on which I had written a doctoral thesis at Columbia University) to the study of problems that could be arranged for possible solution.
What interests me in these two passages is the reason that Sommers gives for turning away from the big 'existential' questions of philosophy (God, freedom, immortality, and the like) to the problems of logical theory. I cannot see that it is a good reason. (And he does seem to be giving a reason and not merely recording a turn in his career.)
The reason is that the problems of logic, but not those of metaphysics, can be "arranged for possible solution." Although I sympathize with Sommers' sentiment, he must surely have noticed that his attempt to rehabilitate pre-Fregean logical theory issues in results that are controversial, and indeed just as controversial as the claims of metaphysicians. Or do all his colleagues in logic agree with him?
The problems that Sommers tackles in his magisterial The Logic of Natural Language are no more amenable to solution than the "deep, seductive" ones that could lead a philosopher astray for a lifetime. The best evidence of this is that Sommers has not convinced his MPL (modern predicate logic) colleagues. At the very most, Sommers has shown that TFL (traditional formal logic) is a defensible rival system.
If by 'pulling in our horns' and confining ourselves to problems of language and logic we were able to attain sure and incontrovertible results, then there might well be justification for setting metaphysics aside and working on problems amenable to solution. But if it turns out that logical, linguistic, phenomenological, epistemological and all other such preliminary inquiries arrive at results that are also widely and vigorously contested, then the advantage of 'pulling in our horns' is lost and we may as well concentrate on the questions that really matter, which are most assuredly not questions of logic and language — fascinating as these may be.
Given that the "deep, seductive" problems and those of logical theory are in the same boat as regards solubility, Sommer's' reason for devoting himself to logic over the big questions is not a good one. The fact that philosophy of logic is often more rigorous than 'big question' philosophy is not to the point. The distinction between the rigorous and the unrigorous cuts perpendicular to that between the soluble and the insoluble. And in any case, any philosophical problem can be tackled as rigorously as you please.
Sommers' is a rich and fascinating book. But, at the end of the day, how important is it to prove that the inference embedded in 'Some girl is loved by every boy so every boy loves a girl' really is capturable, pace the dogmatic partisans of modern predicate logic, by a refurbished traditional term logic? (See pp. 144-145) As one draws one's last breath, which is more salutary: to be worried about a silly b agatelle such as the one just mentioned, or to be contemplating God and the soul?
And shouldn't we philosophers who are still a ways from our last breaths devote our main energies to such questions as God and the soul over the trifles of logic?
It would be nice if we could set philosophy on the "sure path of science" (Kant) by abandoning metaphysics and focusing on logic (or phenomenology or whatever one considers foundational). But so far, this narrowing of focus and 'pulling in of one's horns' has availed nothing. Philosophical investigation has simply become more technical, labyrinthine, and specialized. All philosophical problems are in the same boat with respect to solubility. A definitive answer to 'Are there atomic propositions?' (LNL, ch. 1) is no more in the offing than a definitive answer to 'Does God exist?' or 'Is the will libertarianly free?'
Ask yourself: what would be more worth knowing if it could be known?
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