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thought and presentation-and with which I agree. Mr. Barrett and I
have shared a similar professional experience. For many years we were
academic outsiders, as it were, during the heydays of the boom in ana–
lytic and scientific philosophy. Thus I also find myself in
~ympathy
with Mr. Barrett's spirited defense of existential thought and his critical
forays against the sterile scholasticism and pretentious scientism of
logical positivism. This good fight may not even be necessary at this
stage of the game. Positivism, to be sure, continues to beat its drums
loudly in a few academic enclaves. Moreover, as an intellectual attitude
and as a methodological tool, it is firmly entrenched in the corporate
structure of science, technology, and bureaucracy; and I see no prospect
of dislodging it from this stronghold. But as a
Weltanschauung,
or a
philosophy of life, positivism has had its brief hour upon the stage of
our times and is heard no more. In fact, it is not difficult to detect,
among the logical positivists themselves, that they are secretly hank–
ering after intellectual, yes, spiritual nourishment that would make
up for the dietary deficiencies in their philosophical
Lebenswelt.
Existentialist ideas and postures, on the other hand, have so far
permeated the intellectual and cultural climate of the 'fifties that
I tend to view this development with more concern than Mr. Barrett
does. Thus precisely because there is a considerable area of agreement
between us, it is perhaps appropriate
if
I also record that I believe
that there are basic issues on which I would seriously differ from
Mr. Barrett's reading of existential philosophy. In the limited space
at my disposal, these critical comments cannot but create a distorted
impression in that they tend to obscure those parts of Mr. Barrett's
study for which I have nothing but high respect.
To begin with, I was puzzled by the title. I first thought that
"irrational man" was a concession to the publisher's need for a catchy
blurb; but as I read on, it became clear that the title corresponded
to
Mr. Barrett's own thoughts on the subject of existentialism. The major
theme of his study is the discovery of irrationalism, or the rediscovery of
the Furies, in man and society. Now this theme, as Thomas Mann noted
a long time ago, is open to a fateful ambiguity: it is one thing to
say that we have discovered irrational powers in man and society–
surely, we don't need existential thinkers to bring this truth home
to us; it is quite another thing to say that this discovery entitles us
to appeal to these underground powers as superior sources of human
knowledge or in celebrating "irrational man" as a superior type of
being. Mr. Barrett, I believe, does not come to grips with this ambiguity;
or insofar as he does, he seems to resolve it in favor of irrational man.
