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IRIS MURDOCH
misleading." Later he speaks of this empiricism as based on "one
or two misunderstandings-the view that there is a rigid logical
skeleton underlying our discourse, and the theory that our know–
ledge is literally built up from little atoms." But, he asks, "how
many people have seriously suffered from these misunderstand–
ings?" To speak in this way seems to be an abandonment of
philosophy; and I suspect that Mr. Gellner, who twice uses the
phrase "the sterility of philosophy"
in
speaking of past, not present
philosophy, is ready to jettison the whole business
in
favor of
science, helped out perhaps by a certain amount of moralizing
pragmatism.
This seems to me, if it is Mr. Gellner's attitude, to be a
dangerous one, especially when it is accompanied by attacks upon
the alleged irresponsibility of people with a classical education who
are too lazy to mug up mathematics in middle age. Mr. Gellner's
book would have been more useful if he had been prepared to show
his hand, and not to conclude with vague generalizations about
philosophy as being properly "basic thought" and "evaluation,'·
which in the context read like lip service paid to a notion which
he really rejects.
Critics of modern philosophy often fail to notice that
in
separ–
ating its disciplines from those of science and in rejecting certain
metaphysical types of explanation, philosophy has made a sub–
stantial move in the direction of truth. It is, of course, a move
which has landed it in a state of confusion. But concerning funda–
mental issues confusion is not new. (Mr. Gellner accuses modern
philosophers of reversing Plato's procedure and of leading people
back into the Cave. When, I wonder, were we ever out of the
Cave?)
But this much at least seems clear, that philosophy has and
should have, in a free society, three important roles: that of at–
tempting to solve characteristically philosophical problems, many
of them old ones; that of providing a critical running commentary
on the concepts used by other groups of persons, including scien–
tists (and especially in the "humane" sciences) ; and that of
invent–
ing,
especially in the moral and political sphere, new types of ex–
planatory concept. Linguistic Philosophy has so far been more
concerned with the first two tasks; the third task must in a scientific
