DANIEL DENNETT'S FAUSTIAN BARGAIN

by Dave Maier

In his recent book Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking, Daniel Dennett relates that he likes to put to his fellow philosophers the following dilemma: which of the following would you rather accomplish?

(A) You solve the major philosophical problem of your choice so conclusively that there is nothing left to say (thanks to you, part of the field closes down forever, and you get a footnote in history).

(B) You write a book of such tantalizing perplexity and controversy that it stays on the required reading list for centuries to come.

The wording of the alternatives suggests a common conception of the distinction between analytic and continental philosophers. On this view, the former are "problem-solvers", engaged, much like scientists, in a collective search for truth. Most of the time they proceed by focusing on a particular well-defined problem in isolation, in the hope of chipping off a modestly-sized piece of truth and placing it reverently in its honored place in the Repository of Established Philosophical Truths. The latter, on the other hand, have waved off the search for truth as a hopelessly naive fantasy, and instead offer provocative readings of a series of canonical texts. If these new texts are sufficiently scintillating, they themselves join the canon to be interpreted by others, part of a continuing conversation with no end in sight.

Although, or perhaps because, it is manifestly unfair to both sides, this account of the analytic/continental divide has proved remarkably durable. Dennett himself has no apparent love for continental philosophy. (From the Introduction: "Continental rhetoric, larded with literary ornament and intimations of profundity, does philosophy no favors […] If I had to choose, I'd take the hard-bitten analytic logic-chopper over the deep purple sage every time.") However, he is not using this dilemma to illuminate the analytic/continental divide (i.e. such that it is the virtuous former who choose (A) and the self-serving latter who choose (B)). Instead, as he tells it, it is scientists who universally choose (A), "shak[ing] their heads in wonder (or disgust?) when they learn that this is a hard choice for many philosophers, some of whom opt, somewhat sheepishly, for (B)". He compares these philosophers, not without sympathy, to "composers, poets, novelists, and other creators in the arts, [who] want their work to be experienced, over and over, by millions".

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