bon bon! Ask Bob Bob's opinon on Simon Critchley.

I don't know much about Critchley, as he's in the "Continental" tradition (people like Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger, Foucault, and Derrida) and I'm in the "analytic" one (people like Frege, Bertrand Russell, Popper, Quine, and Kripke). So take everything I'm about to say with a grain of salt.

I think he's best at popularizing, rather than producing independent research. He apparently likes to make grand pronouncements about both Continental and analytic philosophy, saying of the former:

The goal of philosophy in the continental tradition is emancipation, whether individual or societal[.]

The problem with this statement is that only some continental philosophy is about this. Husserl, for example, does not concern himself with liberation. I'm guessing that Heidegger doesn't as well. (And this two are two of the four most important continental philosophers, so that's a rather big gap.)

He says of analytic philosophy:

What I dislike most about [analytic] philosophers is the idea that they think because they are smart as philosophers they have nothing to learn from anybody else. You find this repeatedly. I'd argue that they've got lots to learn, not just from cognitive scientists, but from lawyers, historians, anthropologists and sundry others.

The problem with this is that analytic philosophy, especially over the last thirty years, has done lots of interdisciplinary work. In fact, there's a whole burgeoning field of philosophy, "experimental philosophy", which is all about uniting the techniques of psychology with philosophy.

(I get Critchley's quotes from this: [link]

Overall, I'd take what Critichley says with a grain of salt, though I don't think he's a bad philosopher.

I forgot to congratulate Dana and her DH earlier...congrats! Great news!

Overall, I'd take what Critichley says with a grain of salt, though I don't think he's a bad philosopher.

Thanks, bob bob! And congratulations on the job/move/crazylifechanges.

Those do seem to be sweeping generalizations, and more obfuscating than illuminating.

Of course, now I want to know: Who is a bad philosopher?

I'm not so hot at philosophizing.

And I love that meara is pimping the Pacific Northwest ... from Indianapolis (it IS Indianapolis, isn't it? or are you still in Texas?)

Yep, Indy. But I can still pimp my new city! It's not like I'm STAYING in Indy. Or CHOOSING to be here!! It's not like THIS is the city where I walk around and turn a corner every few feet and go "DAMN, it's pretty here!!!"

Congrats Dana and DH and bon bon and bob bob! Woot for big life changiness and jobs, etc.

DH and I are going out tonight--we've been married for 14 years today. I still can't quite get over that amount of time. Our marriage is old enough to be a freshman in high school.

I have to say bob bob, that after reading Leiter's blog he comes off as extremely axe-grindy. That was some serious academic hair-pulling and slapfighting there. (Leiter's attempt to link Derrida and Reaganism seemed pretty specious, though.)

Our marriage is old enough to be a freshman in high school.

Does that mean your marriage is pimply, prone to B.O. and subject to wild mood swings?

Clear skin and smells like roses.

Two out of three ain't bad.

Who Is a bad philosopher? Well, it depends on the standard you're using. I was taking myself to be an average philosopher; compared to me, Critchley is certainly not a bad philosopher. On the other hand, if you're talking about people like Kant and Descartes, well, they're of course world-shatteringly great, and it's really hard to compare modern-day people to them. Critchley would be a bad philosopher compared to them because his ideas won't stand the test of time, and insofar as they do, it will only be because they're perfectly ordinary or worse than ordinary examples of philosophy done in this day and age. Still, if by average philosopher you mean someone who gets the respect of his peers as being expert at least in his or her area of specialization, then Critchley would probably count as an average philosopher. A bad philosopher would be probably be someone like Peter Kreeft (Boston College) or Bruce Wilshire (Rutgers)--people who seem to make fallacious arguments time and again, and who don't really add anything for their areas of specialization. Of course, in Kreeft's case, he's almost entirely a popularizer, so the incompleteness of his arguments is probably a function of that. I've also heard Akeel Bilgrami (Columbia) is a bad philosopher, in that he's a very mean person, he's very political, and his contributions are derided as muddled by people who are expert in his field. For all that, though, I'm sure he's very smart.