Confusing Narratives.Robert Piercey -2023 -Philosophia 52 (1):21-28.detailsJukka Mikkonen argues that the cognitive benefits of narrative should be explained in terms of understanding rather than knowledge. An apparent consequence of Mikkonen’s view is that ‘plot-based’ conceptions of narrative are less interesting than has long been supposed. I argue that, although the concept of understanding does indeed outperform the concept of knowledge in this area, it would be a mistake to conclude that knowledge of plots is unimportant. Doing so ignores the distinctive kind of understanding gained from trying (...) to shape events into an orderly plot but failing to do so. (shrink)
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Doing Philosophy Historically.Robert Piercey -2003 -Review of Metaphysics 56 (4):779 - 800.detailsSome philosophers claim to "do philosophy historically." They study philosophers of the past not just to discover what they thought, but as a way of advancing their own philosophical agendas. In this paper, I offer an account of what it means to do philosophy historically. First, I examine a number of current views of the matter, and explain why I find them inadequate. Next, I ask what kind of understanding can be gained from a study of history. I do so (...) by drawing on John Herman Randall's discussion of the "genetic method." Finally, I extend Randall's discussion of the genetic method to philosophy, and use it to explain how a study of past philosophy might teach philosophical lessons. I also ask what assumptions we must make about philosophy if we are to learn such lessons, and I argue that these assumptions are plausible. (shrink)
The Uses of the Past From Heidegger to Rorty: Doing Philosophy Historically.Robert Piercey -2009 - New York: Cambridge University Press.detailsIn this book Robert Piercey asks how it is possible to do philosophy by studying the thinkers of the past. He develops his answer through readings of Martin Heidegger, Richard Rorty, Paul Ricoeur, Alasdair MacIntyre and other historically-minded philosophers. Piercey shows that what is distinctive about these figures is a concern with philosophical pictures - extremely general conceptions of what the world is like - rather than specific theories. He offers a comprehensive and illuminating exploration of the way in which (...) these thinkers use narrative to evaluate and criticise these pictures. The result is a powerful and original account of how philosophers use the past. (shrink)
Ricoeur's account of tradition and the gadamer–habermas debate.Robert Piercey -2004 -Human Studies 27 (3):259-280.detailsWhile it is clear that the Gadamer–Habermas debate has had a major influence on Paul Ricoeur, his commentators have had little to say about the nature of this influence. I try to remedy this silence by showing that Ricoeur''s account of tradition is a direct response to the Gadamer–Habermas debate. First, I briefly explain the debate''s importance and describe Ricoeur''s reaction to it. Next, I show how his discussion of tradition in Time and Narrative steers a middle course between Gadamerian (...) hermeneutics and Habermasian Ideologiekritik. Finally, I raise some critical questions about the adequacy of Ricoeur''s middle course. Specifically, I argue that it rests on an implausible distinction between the form and the content of tradition. (shrink)
Richard Rorty.Robert Piercey -2015 - In Niall Keane & Chris Lawn,A Companion to Hermeneutics. Chichester, West Sussex, UK: Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 446–450.detailsRichard Rorty's path to hermeneutics was different from that taken by most other philosophers. He revisited the hermeneutical tradition sporadically throughout the 1980s. The papers collected in Essays on Heidegger and Others, the fruits of an abortive, abandoned attempt to write a book about him, present an ambivalent view of the philosophers in this tradition. In Rorty's view, a concern with truth is a mere historical accident: a bump on the journey from a religious culture to a literary one. Rorty's (...) approach to social phenomena is also anti‐hermeneutical. Hermeneutical thinkers tend to be suspicious of individualistic or atomistic accounts of human existence. They prefer holistic accounts that see the social dimension of human existence as primary, and individuals as abstractions from it. Hermeneutical philosophers also tend to think that conveying the primacy of the social requires distinctive, inventive language. (shrink)
Historical Consciousness and the Identity of Philosophy.Robert Piercey -2010 -Journal of the Philosophy of History 4 (3-4):411-434.detailsIt is now widely accepted that philosophers should be historically self-conscious. But what does this mean in practice? How does historical consciousness change the way we philosophize? To answer this question, I examine two philosophers who put historical consciousness at the heart of their projects: Richard Rorty and Paul Ricoeur. Rorty and Ricoeur both argue that historical consciousness leads us to see philosophy as fragmented. It leads us to view our thinking from multiple perspectives at once, perspectives that are often (...) in considerable tension. But Rorty and Ricoeur reach radically different conclusions about how we should respond to this fragmentation. Their disagreement, I argue, is closely connected to their views of identity. Rorty and Ricoeur have different understandings of what it means for something to be unified, and thus different ideas about what it would take for our perspectives on ourselves to be brought together. My argument for this claim has four parts. First, I try to identify the problems that historical consciousness raises for philosophy, and explain why the most common response to them is unsatisfactory. Second, I discuss Rorty's claim that historical consciousness ought to make us ironists about our philosophical views, and to abandon truth as a goal of inquiry. Third, I contrast Rorty's position with Ricoeur's. Ricoeur argues that we can be historically self-aware and still see philosophy as a rational enterprise that aims at truth. I argue that Ricoeur's optimism on this point is rooted in his view of identity, and specifically in his distinction between idem- and ipse-identity. Finally, I ask what all of this shows about the options available to historically minded philosophers today. (shrink)
Active Mimesis and the Art of History of Philosophy.Robert Piercey -2003 -International Philosophical Quarterly 43 (1):29-42.detailsIt is often argued that a study of the history of philosophy is not itself philosophical. Philosophy, it is claimed, is an active, productive enterprise, whereas history is taken to be imitative and therefore passive. My aim in this paper is to argue against this view of the history of philosophy. First, I describe a famous criticism of historians of philosophy—Kant’s critique of the “spirit of imitation.” I claim that the source of this criticism is the received view of mimesis. (...) Since the received view has been widely discredited, I propose a different one—one that sees imitation not as passive but as active. Finally, I suggest that adopting this new view of mimesis demands that we rethink what it means for a history of philosophy to be true. And I propose that the philosophical hermeneutics of Hans-Georg Gadamer might help us to do so. (shrink)
Does Virtue Ethics Really Exclude Duty Ethics?Robert Piercey -2010 -International Philosophical Quarterly 50 (3):351-361.detailsThe paper considers whether virtue ethics should be regarded as excluding duty ethics or any of its essential elements. The argument suggested here consists of two steps: (1) an argument that there are two different versions of virtue ethics (moderate and strong) and that moderate virtue ethics does not exclude the duty ethics; (2) an analysis of various difficulties with the strong version of virtue ethics, which shows that moderate virtue ethics is more plausible because of its capacity to avoid (...) these difficulties. This capacity makes moderate virtue ethics more attractive as an ethical theory because it covers the entire range of moral phenomena described both by strong versions of virtue ethics and by duty ethics without the attendant difficulties. (shrink)
Gadamer on the Relation Between Philosophy and Its History.Robert Piercey -2005 -Idealistic Studies 35 (1):21-33.detailsThis article asks what Gadamerian hermeneutics can contribute to recent debates about how philosophy is related to its history. First, I explain how Gadamer understands this relation, paying particular attention to his debts to Heidegger and to the role of tradition in the human sciences. Next, I argue that Gadamer’s view raises serious difficulties—difficulties connected with what he calls historicalconsciousness. Finally, I try to respond to these difficulties by distinguishing two different ways of understanding what historians of philosophy do. While (...) my response is in some tension with what Gadamer explicitly says about the history of philosophy, it is, I argue, consistent with the spirit of his work. (shrink)
How Paul Ricoeur Changed the World.Robert Piercey -2008 -American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 82 (3):463-479.detailsLike Husserl and Heidegger, Ricoeur offers a powerful and original account of what the “world” is and how it conditions our thinking. But it is difficult to recognize Ricoeur’s contributions unless we view them in relation to another aspect of his work: his post-Hegelian Kantianism. Ricoeur tries to steer a middle course between Kant’s and Hegel’s views on this topic. He thinks the idea of the world plays a crucial role in regulating experience, but he tries to understand this idea (...) in a way that is concrete without being totalizing. Ricoeur’s theory of narrative does exactly this. It describes how narratives open up worlds for their readers:sets of specific existential possibilities that may be incorporated into readers’ lives. When Ricoeur’s account of narrative is viewed in relation to Kant and Hegel, itsheds valuable new light on many aspects of his work. (shrink)
How to Appropriate a Text.Robert Piercey -2021 -Idealistic Studies 51 (3):169-188.detailsOne of the core principles of Paul Ricoeur’s hermeneutics is that interpretation culminates in application, or appropriation. But what exactly is an appropriation, and what makes some appropriations better than others? I try to shed light on these difficult matters by examining Ricoeur’s own appropriation of Alasdair MacIntyre’s notion of the narrative unity of a life, and by contrasting it with Richard Rorty’s appropriation of the same notion. I argue that Ricoeur’s appropriation is more successful than Rorty’s, and that the (...) best explanation of its success is that it respects a distinctive norm that governs the activity of appropriation. I conclude by describing this norm, which I call the principle of ultimate compatibility. (shrink)
Hermeneutics without Historicism: Heidegger, MacIntyre, and the Function of the University.Robert Piercey -2016 -The European Legacy 21 (3):245-265.detailsMartin Heidegger and Alasdair MacIntyre both claim that universities perform important philosophical functions. This essay reconstructs Heidegger’s and MacIntyre’s views of the university and argues that they have a common source, which I call hermeneutics without historicism. Heidegger and MacIntyre are hermeneutical philosophers: philosophers who are sensitive to the ways in which thought is mediated by interpretation and conditioned by history and culture. But both of them reject the relativistic historicism sometimes associated with a hermeneutical approach to philosophy. This desire (...) to have it both ways leads Heidegger and MacIntyre to attach tremendous importance to activities that take place in universities but nowhere else. The essay also asks whether MacIntyre’s defenders should be troubled by the similarities between his account of the function of the university and Heidegger’s. I argue that they should not, because, while Heidegger’s account of the university has obvious moral and polit.. (shrink)
Kant and the Problem of Hermeneutics: Heidegger and Ricoeur on the Transcendental Schematism.Robert Piercey -2011 -Idealistic Studies 41 (3):187-202.detailsPaul Ricoeur sharply distinguishes his hermeneutics from Heidegger’s ‘ontological’ hermeneutics. An ontological hermeneutics, Ricoeur claims, is bound to be insufficiently critical. Yet this cannot be the whole story, since Ricoeur himself engages in ontological hermeneutics. What really distinguishes Heidegger’s hermeneutics from Ricoeur’s? I seek an answer to this question in the two thinkers’ appropriations of Kant. More specifically, I examine their appropriations of Kant’s view of the productive imagination, as conveyed in the Transcendental Schematism. Heidegger sees the productive imagination as (...) a ‘third basic faculty’ prior to sensibility and understanding. Conceived in this way, the imagination is so primordial that it must be characterized in a highly abstract way. Ricoeur sees this move as dangerous, and tries to avoid it by reinterpreting the imagination as a faculty that requires the mediation of concrete symbols. In doing so, he hopes to preserve Kant’s insights while leaving room for critique. (shrink)
Learning to Swim with Hegel and Kierkegaard.Robert Piercey -2012 -American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 86 (4):583-603.detailsIn two of their major works, Hegel and Kierkegaard seek philosophical instruction in the very same example: that of trying to learn to swim before one has entered the water. But they reach diametrically opposed conclusions about what this example shows. It might seem troubling that an example can teach two incompatible lessons. I argue that we will be troubled only if we make an implausible assumption about examples: that the lessons they teach are theory-neutral facts equally available to all. (...) Drawing on work by Onora O’Neill, I argue against this assumption. I try to show that philosophical examples can be quite mysterious: both free and rule-governed, both determinate and indeterminate—or, better, determinately indeterminate. In this respect, they may be fruitfully compared to Kantian judgments of taste. (shrink)
Metaphilosophy as First Philosophy.Robert Piercey -2010 -International Philosophical Quarterly 50 (3):335-349.detailsThis paper describes and evaluates two different ways of doing philosophy: a “reflexive” approach that sees metaphilosophical inquiry as fundamental, and a “nonreflexive” approach that sees metaphilosophy as dispensable. It examines arguments that have been advanced for these approaches by Gilbert Ryle, Jerry Fodor, and Richard Rorty, and claims that none of these arguments are convincing. Finally, the paper draws on Alasdair MacIntyre’s work to propose a different way of choosing between the approaches, one that asks which approach is more (...) successful at making its appeal intelligible to the other. From this perspective, the reflexive approach appears to have an important advantage over its rival. (shrink)
Narrative.Robert Piercey -2015 - In Niall Keane & Chris Lawn,A Companion to Hermeneutics. Chichester, West Sussex, UK: Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 172–179.detailsThe concept of narrative matters to hermeneutics for two reasons. First, whatever else hermeneutics is, it is the practice and theory of the interpretation of texts. But narrative also matters to hermeneutics for a deeper reason. Hermeneutics is not just the interpretation of texts; it is also a philosophical outlook, one that sees the topics of meaning and interpretive understanding as central to the business of philosophy. Hence, the study of narrative presents specialized versions of many of the questions that (...) have been raised about hermeneutics as a philosophical outlook. Its different meanings all orbit around a core meaning connected with the symbolic representation of action. Even White, who calls narratives verbal fictions, thinks these fictions can say something true. Finally, the relationship between narratives and reality is difficult to clarify, because narratives describe an order that inheres in things themselves but that is transformed in being brought to language. (shrink)
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(1 other version)Narcissism or Facts?Robert Piercey -forthcoming -New Content is Available for Journal of the Philosophy of History.details_ Source: _Page Count 21 This essay asks whether a pragmatist philosophy of history can make sense of the notion of historical facts. It is tempting to think it cannot, since pragmatists insist, as James puts it, that the trail of the human serpent is over everything. Facts, by contrast, are typically thought of as something untouched by the human serpent, something impervious to what we think and do. I argue, however, that there is a way of understanding facts that (...) is perfectly at home in pragmatist philosophy of history. Drawing on work by Robert Brandom, I propose that facts be interpreted inferentially. On this view, to call something a fact, or to say that the facts make my beliefs true, is simply a shorthand way of saying that a particular sort of relationship exists among certain sentences. I further show that this inferential understanding of facts is fully compatible with the distinctive features of historical inquiry. In particular, it is compatible with history’s irreducibly narrative character, and with the way different narratives can reveal radically different facts. Finally, I use this account of historical facts to respond to a classic criticism of pragmatism: the charge that pragmatism is _narcissistic_. I argue that pragmatism is narcissistic in only the minimal sense that it cannot countenance theory-neutral givens. But pragmatists can happily grant that there is more to truth than consensus, and that our claims are answerable to facts that everyone can get wrong. (shrink)
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Paul Ricoeur.Robert Piercey -2015 - In Niall Keane & Chris Lawn,A Companion to Hermeneutics. Chichester, West Sussex, UK: Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 412–416.detailsAfter Freud and Philosophy, the place of hermeneutics in Paul Ricoeur's thought changed. Up to that point, he had used hermeneutics, treating notions such as symbol and myth as tools for clarifying the nature of volition, or the experience of evil, or the status of the unconscious. Afterward, he became more and more a theoretician of hermeneutics. One way to clarify his conception of hermeneutics is to contrast it with his view of phenomenology. Ricoeur sees hermeneutics‐at least its twentieth‐century incarnation‐as (...) emerging from phenomenology. Ricoeur's contributions to hermeneutics may be divided into three phases: the first is concerned with the hermeneutics of symbols; the second concerns the hermeneutics of metaphor; and the third consists of a hermeneutics of narrative. The best way to identify Ricoeur's contribution to hermeneutics is to compare him to Gadamer. Like Gadamer, Ricoeur develops a post‐phenomenological hermeneutics that owes a particular debt to Heidegger. (shrink)
Reading as a Philosophical Problem.Robert Piercey -2011 -Philosophy in the Contemporary World 18 (1):1-10.detailsReading for enjoyment is a mysterious activity. This article surveys several paradoxes displayed by this activity, paying particular attention to a handful of paradoxes connected with subjectivity. It argues that responding to these paradoxes is a distinctively philosophical task, one that cannot be farmed out to other disciplines. Some suggestions are made about how philosophers can begin tackling these problems, with a special focus on the phenomenology of Wolfgang Iser. While not offering a developed theory of reading, the paper draws (...) attention to the problem of reading with the goal of understanding the problem. (shrink)
The crisis in continental philosophy: history, truth and the Hegelian legacy.Robert Piercey -2009 - New York: Continuum.detailsThe crisis in contemporary continental philosophy -- Hegel's mixed message to historians of philosophy -- Heidegger and the myth of the primordial -- Ricoeur's entanglements in the aporias of tradition -- Truth in history.
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Truth in History: The Crisis in Continental Philosophy of the History of Philosophy.Robert Piercey -2001 - Dissertation, University of Notre DamedetailsSince the mid-nineteenth century, many philosophers in the "continental" tradition have maintained that philosophy stands in a special relation to its history. Philosophy, they argue, is an inherently historical discipline, and it is impossible to do philosophy well without studying its past. Charles Taylor calls this view "the historical thesis about philosophy." But while the historical thesis is often taken for granted in recent European philosophy, it is notoriously difficult to pin down exactly what it means, or why one might (...) think it is true. This unreflective attitude towards history could be called a crisis, in Edmund Husserl's sense: a certain view of the history of philosophy has been handed down through the continental tradition, but without being adequately argued for, or even understood. ;This dissertation is a diagnosis and critique of the crisis. Its goals are to explain why continental thinking about the history of philosophy has become mired in confusion, and to determine what the tradition must do to come to terms with the crisis. My thesis is that since Hegel, continental thought has understood its relation to the past according to a single model---the model that Hegel himself proposed. But this model is flawed, because it is based on implausible assumptions about the nature of historical knowledge. To respond to the crisis, I argue, we must recognize the ways in which Hegelian assumptions dominate our understanding of history, and rethink them. And I propose an alternative view of historical inquiry, one that I believe avoids the difficulties raised by Hegel's account. ;The dissertation takes the form of a regressive historical narrative. Chapter One examines the arguments advanced for the historical thesis by three prominent contemporary schools: Derridean deconstruction, Gadamerian hermeneutics, and Levinasian ethical thought. I argue that each of these schools is deeply confused about the relation between philosophy and its past. Chapter Two explains how this confused approach to history first arose in Hegel's work on the history of philosophy. Chapters Three and Four describe how a Hegelian conception of the history of philosophy was unwittingly transmitted to contemporary thought via Heidegger and twentieth century hermeneutics. Finally, Chapter Five sketches an alternative to Hegel's view. Hegel believes that knowledge of history is unphilosophical because it is mimetic---that is, it merely imitates a pre-given past. I argue that Hegel is wrong about this. I claim that historical knowledge is in important respects active and productive, and that recognizing this is the first step towards understanding how truth can be genuinely in history. (shrink)
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