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PARTISAN REVIEW
spected by those who plan radio and television programs and by pub–
lishers. Academic philosophers are lured from their recesses and per–
suaded to display their peculiarly careful habits of thought publicly.
So far the effect has been that philosophy is associated with clever argu–
ment, with exact verbal distinctions and neat definitions. Philosophers
have earned respect as the learned lawyers of abstract discussion, as ex–
perts in the logical arrangement of ideas, whom it is always wise to con–
sult on the proper presentation of a case. They are also often seen as
sophists of a superior kind, properly kept in universities for training the
young in clear thought. But Morton White is, I think, requiring more
of analytical philosophers than this neutral, corrective cleverness, which
is a very small part of philosophy's main tradition. He believes that
they can, if they will, bring some positive enlightenment about the true
nature of law, of aesthetic enjoyment, and historical causation. They
are more than expert witnesses in the logical presentation of a case:
they have a case of their own. This is the claim that has been disputed
by some contemporary philosophers themselves and is now disputed
even by the general public. The issue is one of philosophy and not of
sociology. Let it be admitted that there is a public which clamors for
secular prophets, for grand philosophical designs in which art and
morality and social policy are each put in their place within a mag–
nificent whole. Let it be admitted that part of this public will turn to
Miss Hannah Arendt, and to other uninhibited speculators, if they
cannot find satisfaction in the empiricist philosophies now prevailing
in universities. Is it accidental or essential in analytical philosophy that
it should provide no such satisfaction?
If
it is essential, is this a defect
in the philosophy itself? Or is it rather a virtue, a symptom of ma–
turity? The answer is not obvious.
An
analytical philosopher of the present day might accept all of
the following propositions: (1) Every established human inquiry has
its own canons of relevance and methods of argument. A philosopher
can only make the logic of an inquiry more explicit and compare one
method of argument with another. He has no superior and independent
basis of criticism of his own. He can only draw attention to confusions
of purpose and method. (2) Any attempt to divide the different types
of inquiry from each other systematically must fail: for we can have
no
a priori
insight into the limits of human knowledge, and therefore
into the proper forms of its expression. (3) There is no essential differ–
ence between the methods appropriate to the study of human activities
and those appropriate to the study of natural objects. Rational method
in the pursuit of truth, outside mathematics, is the same whatever the
