THE HARVARD REVIEW OF PHILOSOPHY vol.XII no.1

I particularly learned from his criticism of dividing philosophy into what he called ‘isms’ and schools of philosophy. He believed there were many philosophical questions and ways of arguing about them, but that attaching labels like ‘physicalism’ or ‘idealism’ to any particular way of answering philosophical questions was extremely mechanical and also misleading.

Many philosophers pursue a line of argument in a very linear fashion, in which one proof caps another proof, or a refutation refutes some other supposed proof, instead of thinking laterally about what it all might mean.

Stuart Hampshire used to say that historically, there have been two aims or motives for philosophy. One was curiosity and the other was salvation (laughs). Plato, as he managed to combine almost every thing else, combined the two (laughs again). I think that Wittgenstein was very much on the side of salvation. So was Kierkegaard, though he was so clever that curiosity was always catching him out.