BL is Ben Laurence
oh gotcha. he was a tenure denial though.
UChicago junior faculty
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They do HPT but primarily of analytic philosophers, esp SM, who primarily teaches like Kant, Hume, Rousseau, etc. and wouldn’t look out of place in a phil dept. Sub disciplinary boundaries aren’t that hard.
This is some real galaxy brain stuff.
Kant and Rousseau are analytic philosophers?
SM could teach in a philosophy department?
Neither of these statements is true. Not even close.kant and rousseau are studied in analytic philosophy departments, yes
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This is an incoherent standard. Analytic philosophers also study Nietzsche. Does that make Nietzsche an analytic philosopher?
Anyway, back to the point: SM and JP art HPT scholars, not philosophers. As such, neither of them would be allowed to teach in a philosophy department.
And that’s a good thing. Because SM and JP are excellent scholars whose interests are in HPT, not in the dustbin of esoteric nonsense that governs many anglophone philosophy programs.Philosophy departments have historians of philosophy and non-historians often do historical work too. Elizabeth Anderson's current book project is on the history of egalitarian political thought for example. Kant is obviously of extremely central importance to the analytic tradition of political philosophy and the leading Kant scholars, like Arthur Ripstein and Christine Korsgaard, are generally in philosophy departments. As someone who has spent a lot of time in philosophy departments the idea that work on the history of Enlightenment political thought would not be welcome there is utterly bizarre.
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Philosophy departments have historians of philosophy and non-historians often do historical work too. Elizabeth Anderson's current book project is on the history of egalitarian political thought for example. Kant is obviously of extremely central importance to the analytic tradition of political philosophy and the leading Kant scholars, like Arthur Ripstein and Christine Korsgaard, are generally in philosophy departments. As someone who has spent a lot of time in philosophy departments the idea that work on the history of Enlightenment political thought would not be welcome there is utterly bizarre.
Cool. No one mentioned the history of philosophy. What was mentioned was the history of political thought, which is a field housed mostly in political science departments but that also has a strong overlap with history departments in anglophone universities across the North Atlantic.
Anyway, the point is that, as currently constructed, no philosophy department would hire SM or JP. Anderson is an exception that proves the rule: she is in a philosophy department because she has a PhD in philosophy. As far as I know, neither SM or JP have PhDs in philosophy. That’s the point.
To say they “do HPT but primarily of analytical philosophers” is to say absolutely nothing, because, as you just pointed out, many of the thinkers studied by analytic philosophers are also studied by continental philosophers and political theorists. It’s weird for someone to simply appropriate figures in the history of political thought like that. It leads to the logical tangle in which you’ve found yourself (e.g. Kant is an analytic philosopher, SM is a scholar of Kant, ergo SM is a scholar of analytic philosophy and thus employable in a North American philosophy department). That’s, frankly, just not a good account of how North American philosophy departments operate. And it also misidentifies the audience of people like JP and SM as well as their self-conception.
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Philosophy departments have historians of philosophy and non-historians often do historical work too. Elizabeth Anderson's current book project is on the history of egalitarian political thought for example. Kant is obviously of extremely central importance to the analytic tradition of political philosophy and the leading Kant scholars, like Arthur Ripstein and Christine Korsgaard, are generally in philosophy departments. As someone who has spent a lot of time in philosophy departments the idea that work on the history of Enlightenment political thought would not be welcome there is utterly bizarre.
Cool. No one mentioned the history of philosophy. What was mentioned was the history of political thought, which is a field housed mostly in political science departments but that also has a strong overlap with history departments in anglophone universities across the North Atlantic.
Anyway, the point is that, as currently constructed, no philosophy department would hire SM or JP. Anderson is an exception that proves the rule: she is in a philosophy department because she has a PhD in philosophy. As far as I know, neither SM or JP have PhDs in philosophy. That’s the point.
To say they “do HPT but primarily of analytical philosophers” is to say absolutely nothing, because, as you just pointed out, many of the thinkers studied by analytic philosophers are also studied by continental philosophers and political theorists. It’s weird for someone to simply appropriate figures in the history of political thought like that. It leads to the logical tangle in which you’ve found yourself (e.g. Kant is an analytic philosopher, SM is a scholar of Kant, ergo SM is a scholar of analytic philosophy and thus employable in a North American philosophy department). That’s, frankly, just not a good account of how North American philosophy departments operate. And it also misidentifies the audience of people like JP and SM as well as their self-conception.Why does this even matter?
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1. The original couple of posts included the claim that SM wouldn’t look out of place in a philosophy department. That claim is obviously absurd and Sigmund is correct to say so. 2. Analytic philosophy is normally understood as arising with the work of people like Russell, Moore, and Frege, so most philosophers would not think SM does the history of analytic philosophy. 3. Most historians in philosophy departments work unsurprisingly on the history of philosophy, not the history of ideas of imperialism and international order, and they would not think SM does the history of philosophy. 4. If those points aren’t obvious to you, you know nothing about philosophy departments.
They do HPT but primarily of analytic philosophers, esp SM, who primarily teaches like Kant, Hume, Rousseau, etc. and wouldn’t look out of place in a phil dept. Sub disciplinary boundaries aren’t that hard.
This is some real galaxy brain stuff.
Kant and Rousseau are analytic philosophers?
SM could teach in a philosophy department?
Neither of these statements is true. Not even close. -
Right, SM and JP are not analytic philosophers. It is true that with CC tenured and JLW a solid bet to get it, Chicago now has an analytic pol theory presence in a way that it didn't in the past. Not like you'd go there over Princeton for it, but its ethos used to be everything-but-analytic.
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Right, SM and JP are not analytic philosophers. It is true that with CC tenured and JLW a solid bet to get it, Chicago now has an analytic pol theory presence in a way that it didn't in the past. Not like you'd go there over Princeton for it, but its ethos used to be everything-but-analytic.
Sure. But why call it analytic? It’s normative political theory. This language of analytic/continental has very little value in political theory, no?
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From personal experience SM's classes at Chicago are like 50% people from the philosophy department. He teaches close reading of Kant, Mill, etc. and makes you write the same sorts of papers you would in a philosophy class. This conversation is asinine.
Analytic philosophy is normally understood as arising with the work of people like Russell, Moore, and Frege
By this definition, there is no analytic political philosophy or ethics, as the early analytics generally rejected their possibility. "Analytic philosophy" now generally refers to "the sort of philosophy people do in mainstream English-speaking philosophy departments" and is not limited to M&E work descended from the early analytics.
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Sure. But why call it analytic? It’s normative political theory. This language of analytic/continental has very little value in political theory, no?
The analytic/continental divide is the reason e.g. Judith Butler isn't someone people who want to study Rawls care about, so it has some relevance, but yes I suspect nobody on this thread is actually that confused about the terminology
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Like this is the course description for SM's annual seminar, it's pure history of phil, he doesn't primarily teach "the history of ideas of imperialism and the international order"
A comparative examination of the political thought of Thomas Hobbes, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Immanuel Kant, with a focus upon the interrelated themes of freedom and authority; resistance and domination; and equality and inequality. We will also consider these political theories in the context of earlier sixteenth century texts on tyranny and resistance, such as the Vindiciae, Contra Tyrannos and La Boétie's Discourse on Voluntary Servitude, and in comparison with Enlightenment writings by John Locke and David Hume.
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Like this is the course description for SM's annual seminar, it's pure history of phil, he doesn't primarily teach "the history of ideas of imperialism and the international order"
A comparative examination of the political thought of Thomas Hobbes, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Immanuel Kant, with a focus upon the interrelated themes of freedom and authority; resistance and domination; and equality and inequality. We will also consider these political theories in the context of earlier sixteenth century texts on tyranny and resistance, such as the Vindiciae, Contra Tyrannos and La Boétie's Discourse on Voluntary Servitude, and in comparison with Enlightenment writings by John Locke and David Hume.
If by “history of phil” you mean HPT, then sure. This description is textbook Cambridge school HPT.
For an actual course description from a historian of philosophy working in an anglophone philosophy department, see this one on Leibniz and Locke:
“These lectures will (i) introduce you to some of the central themes in the philosophcal thought of two of the foremoest thinkers of the early modern age, Leibniz and Locke, whose influence deeply reverberates up to this day. They will also (ii) take seriously the idea that philosophy happens in dialogue. We thus won’t explore Locke’s and Leibniz’s views in isolation, but always by comparing and contrasting them. Finally, by discussing Locke’s and Leibniz’s answers to such fundamental questions as the basic structure of the world, the nature of the self, and the extent of our knowledge, this course will give you an opportunity to explore some of the foundational issues of modern philosophy, which were just as relevant then as they are today.”