[FOM] "Progress" in philosophy

[Gergely Buday]

On 08/03/07, Charles Silver <silver_1 at mindspring.com> wrote:
>         Articles in the most prestigious journals generally consist almost
> exclusively of excessively niggling comments on views by noteworthy
> authors belonging to the same philosophical inner circle. (It has
> been frequently claimed for many years that the status of the
> author's university is also a criterion for publication.)  Scarcely
> do these articles contain anything one might out of generosity call
> an "idea".  However, there are a few creative philosophers who stick
> their necks out and actually express ideas, mostly in books.   These
> ideas become the necessary "data," so to speak, for the other 95% to
> hack away at and to churn out needed publications.

That makes me think of  Wittgenstein who, as a professor of
philosophy, did everything to discourage his students to become an
academic philosopher. He called the authors described above as
"philosophical journalists". Not with a pleasing intent...

To say something about the original topic, Wittgenstein had a remark
(of course in his late work) that no expression of mathematical logic
can be counted as philosophy (sorry I have no reference).

Last, but not least, the concept of "progress" is all dubious to me
but this leads far away from "foundations of mathematics".

- Gergely