Some remarks about Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra's advice on the language of philosophy.
| Autor | Ruffino, Marco |
| Cargo | Artículo en inglés |
RESUMEN: En este artículo discuto la nota de Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra sobre la lengua apropiada para publicar textos en filosofía analítica. Básicamente coincido con él en el aspecto práctico, es decir, que publicar en inglés aumenta la posibilidad de interacción con otras comunidades. Sin embargo, discrepo si acaso el "debería" cobra más fuerza en sus consideraciones, ya que no hay nada en la esencia de la filosofía analítica que la ate a la lengua inglesa. Concluyo con la advertencia de que su consejo no debe ser mal interpretado y degenerar en un exhorto a lo que yo denomino "flojera lingüística".
PALABRAS CLAVE: filosofía analítica, diálogo, crítica, flojera lingüística, historia de la filosofía analítica
SUMMARY: In this paper I discuss Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra's notes on the proper language for publishing texts in analytic philosophy. I am basically in agreement with him on the practical side, i.e., publishing in English increases the chances of philosophical exchange with other communities. I disagree, however, if one wants to read a stronger "should" in his advice, for there is nothing in the essence of analytic philosophy that ties it to the English language. Finally, I end with a caveat that his advice should not be misunderstood and degenerate into an exhortation of what I call "linguistic laziness".
KEY WORDS: analytic philosophy, dialog, criticism, linguistic laziness, history of analytic philosophy
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Although Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra is a very fine philosopher, his note "The Language of 'Analytic' Philosophy" is not a piece of philosophical work properly speaking. It is not even a work on metaphilosophy, i.e. it is not about the nature of philosophical problems or the proper methodology for solving them. His note is concerned with a strictly practical question, namely, the language in which one should write and publish original philosophical work. Hence, my comments on Gonzalo's note are not meant to be philosophical either, but only as remarks about the practicality of doing philosophy in English. Gonzalo restricts his discussion to contemporary analytic philosophy; I will follow him and simply write 'philosophy' meaning by it only contemporary analytic philosophy. (Like Gonzalo, I will not try to explain what I understand by analytic philosophy, but will rely on a common understanding of it. He is silent about formal logic, but since I think that some substantial contributions to contemporary analytic philosophy come from the technical and semi-technical works of prominent logicians, I will use 'philosophy' as covering formal logic as well.) His text does not intend to bring to light any essential aspect of philosophy in connection with the language in which it was produced. This is so because he does not give any decisive weight to the fact that a great number of the classics that are relevant to large parts of philosophy were written in languages other than English (such as Greek, Latin, German, etc.) and that a smaller but no less important part in the language of symbolic (first and higher-order, modal, etc.) logic.
Gonzalo's thesis is simply that analytic philosophy should be written and published only in English. Since it is not concerned with the essence or point of doing philosophy nor with philosophical methodology, the 'should' present in its formulation must be understood as highly hypothetical and relative. On the one...
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