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Comment by intellectronica | Hacker News Reader

Daniel Dennett, himself a contemporary caricature of a philosopher, opens by asking whether a philosopher would be happier to become so successful as to strike down philosophy completely, or rather to become popular and read forever. Wittgenstein, says Dennet, aimed for the former, but achieved the latter.

To my mind, though, Wittgenstein did, in fact, succeeded in shooting down philosophy as we knew it. He did so by demonstrating with his own unique story and bizarre writing that (if to paraphrase Clemenceau) philosophy is far too important to be left to the philosophers. Wittgenstein's generation was the first one in which Philosophy as an academic and literary endeavour has contributed virtually nothing to our understanding of the world.

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I disagree with you. Wittgenstein's generation of philosophers did contribute something crucial to the twentieth century thought. At least Karl Popper (1902-1994) should be mentioned in this context. His arguments against the political philosophies that emphasise metaphysics are traces of the world that resulted in communism and fascism.

The German philosophers before Wittgenstein (Hegel especially) created a philosophical atmosphere in which it was acceptable to create large metaphysical constructions such as the proletarian state or the third Reich. Popper among the other liberal thinkers devoted significant part of their academic work to show that communism and fascism were founded on metaphysical constructions that could not deliver the dream they promised.

You are right about Popper (other commentators mention him too), but he's the exception

Wittgenstein's generation was the first one in which Philosophy as an academic and literary endeavour has contributed virtually nothing to our understanding of the world.

I think I remember this refrain from a history textbook somewhere, perhaps. Maybe it is a common view, but I have never seen it supported. To begin with, it would be necessary to show precisely what previous philosophy had done to contribute to "understanding of our world". That very phrase, which is being wielded so causally to criticize analytic philosophy, is precisely the sort of idea that analytic philosophy would handle much more carefully...

To my mind, Wittgenstein's work is actually incredibly helpful, because it helps clear up deep linguistic confusions... confusions that have inhibited real progress in philosophy.

Daniel Dennett, himself a contemporary caricature of a philosopher

Why should anyone bother to continue reading your comment after that poisoning of the well?

Perhaps I should have avoided this side remark, since I didn't have the bandwidth to justify it.

I am not sure if you are cheap-shotting Dennet and Wittgenstein or philosophy as a whole.

I think if you were to genuinely throw away the last 100 years of philosophy, you would not find yourself in an intellectually better place.

I definitely wouldn't want to throw away a century of philosophy, but I don't think we'd miss much if we threw away a century of philosophers.

Karl Popper was in that century. And Richard Feynman. That's two good philosophers.

Feynman was not a philosopher (which proves my point). Popper is indeed an exception.

Feynman has a philosophy book (_The Meaning of It All_) which is excellent. He discussed philosophy of science frequently in his books and lectures, and sometimes other types of philosophy, e.g. educational philosophy.

Feynman is not noted as a philosopher, which perhaps proves the point that people are looking for the wrong thing in a philosopher.

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