What Is Humane Philosophy and Why Is It at Risk?

Abstract

Abstract The chapter discusses the increasing prevalence of a science-inspired model of philosophy as a series of technical research specialities, and asks how it came about. A survey of the successive phases of twentieth-century philosophy leads to a critique of two influential conceptions of the philosophical enterprise: ‘analysis’ on the one hand and ‘theory tested against intuitions’ on the other. Both these, it is argued, face serious limitations if they are taken to define the boundaries of legitimate philosophizing. There is a need for a philosophy that is less fragmented, aiming for a broad synoptic conception of the world and our place within it. We need to develop a more humane philosophy, synthetic in its methods, synoptic in its scope, culturally and historically aware in its outlook, and open to multiple resonances of meaning that come from the affective as well as the cognitive domains.