MARK LILLA
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once the field and the battle ." Philosophy is an
activity,
not a method
or a revelation, and as such it cannot be divorced from its history or
the people who conduct it.
I have no idea whether Goodman, Putnam, and Rorty will
turn to these interesting issues now that foundational philosophy is ,
in a sense, behind them . In summarizing and quoting from their
work I have tried to highlight those sections that refer to the role of
tradition and convention in passing on concepts and categories.
Each seems to recognize the importance of the past in "worldmaking,"
"rationality for us," and "conversation," but none drives that insight
to a radical conclusion about philosophy and the genesis of
knowledge . This is no criticism of their work as such, for they have,
until now, been mainly interested in subverting modern analytic
philosophy . But I do not see how they can now avoid a deeper ex–
amination of tradition, or of the "given," as they themselves refer
to it.
Indeed, I would even go so far as to say that the examination of
tradition, the return to "the given," is at the heart of the postmodern
enterprise. When one ends the quest for certainty one finds oneself
not, as the existentialists thought, alone, but, in Edward Shils's
phrase, "in the presence of things past." The revival of interest in the
past in the arts, architecture, even literary criticism, is not simply a
reaction to the disappointments of modernism, a longing for a
warmer, more coherent world .
It
reflects a recognition of the fact
that we cannot fully transcend the world in which we are born. We
can take the one we inherit, extend it, criticize it, reorder it, but we
can never completely rise above it .
