Abstract
AbstractThis chapter is a pathology report. It diagnoses maladies that occur when six healthy philosophical impulses go into overdrive. Commitment to clarity begets the fetish of complete clarity; recognition of the disambiguating abilities of formalization gives rise to obsessive uses of formalisms; the power of a (poorly understood) faculty of “intuition” is grossly overestimated; the label “a priori” is sprinkled over claims as if it were fairy dust; other fields are raided for ideas that are paraded in cartoon versions; questions that have lost their pertinence are treated as if they were “timeless.” All are illustrated with examples.
Publisher
Oxford University PressNew York