2. Philosophy - Stefano Franchi

2. Philosophy
P HILOSOPHY
Discourse about the end of philosophy has never thrived more than lately. Not so long
ago the reserved hunting ground of Heideggerian and post-Heideggerian philosophers, it
has diffused, in subtly different forms, to both sides of the Atlantic. Indeed, if we only con-
sider that much of the work done in analytic philosophy is conducted under the banner of
different forms of naturalization, e.g. of ontological or epistemological forms of reduction-
ism, we might want to apply to “eliminativism,” “epiphenomenalism,” and all the other
various “isms” what Habermas once said à propos of the continental philosophical tradi-
tion:
these pseudonyms are by no means disguises under which the traditional
form of philosophy lies hidden; the drapery of philosophical concepts more
likely serves as a cloak for a scantly concealed end of philosophy. 2
Habermas’s view on the positive role philosophy that can assume as “interpretative medi-
ator” is well known. He sums it up as follows: “What remains for philosophy and what is
within its capabilities is to mediate interpretively between expert knowledge and an every-
day practice in need of orientation. What remains for philosophy is an illuminating further-
ance of lifeworld processes of achieving self-understanding, processes that are related to
totality.” 3 As for the various “isms” alluded to in the text, consider that native (and even
more so adopted) analytically minded thinkers have been busy for a long time compiling
positivistically accurate death certificates on behalf of the empirical sciences (or, in certain
cases, mathematics) that will soon come up with definite answer to close off century-long
“pseudo-problems.” W. V. O. Quine’s “naturalization” of epistemology can be considered
the most recent ancestor (but by no means the absolute starting point) of the effort to “ex-
plain away” age-old unresolved issues like the mind-body problem by grounding (and ac-
tually reducing) philosophy to either psychology or biology. As for a few contemporary
examples, it will be sufficient to mention the well-known works by Patricia Churchland,
2. Jürgen Habermas, The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1987) 53.
3. Jürgen Habermas, Postmetaphysical thinking (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1992) 17.
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