Race, Gender, and the
History of Early Analytic
Philosophy
Race, Gender, and the
History of Early Analytic
Philosophy
Matt LaVine
LEXINGTON BOOKS
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Published by Lexington Books
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Is Available
ISBN 978-1-4985-9555-1 (cloth: alk. paper)
ISBN 978-1-4985-9556-8 (electronic)
For Krista and Marguerite
Contents
PART 2—Race, Gender, and Analytic Philosophy (The Method)
1 Discursive Injustice and the History of Analytic Philosophy: The Marcus/Kripke Case
2 The History (and Future) of Logic (and Ethics)
PART 3—Race, Gender, and Analytic Philosophy (The Movement)
3 Starting Points in Philosophy and Starting Points in the Analytic Tradition
4 Post-Tractarian Critique of Metaphysics and Ethics
5 Logical Empiricism and the Scientific Worldview
6 Black Lives Matter and the Logic of Conversation
7 Quinean Naturalized, Socialized Epistemology for Critical Theory
PART 4
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index
About the Author
While lots of people say things like this, this book really would never have happened without people being willing to talk with me, share with me, and teach me. As I said at the outset of my dissertation, and still strongly believe,
As I see it, philosophy is in large part about understanding and bettering humans’ connections between, and behaviors toward, each other. So, I think philosophy is social to its very core. For this reason, my philosophical development has occurred almost exclusively by talking with people. Thus, I have an embarrassingly long list of people to thank for their help. (LaVine 2016a, iii)
This is certainly true here again and I would like to very sincerely thank the following folks for help along the way. Beginning with the actual writing, I would like to thank Iva Apostolova, Matt Chick, Catarina Dutilh Novaes, Dwight Lewis, Jeff Maynes, Krista Medo, Tim Murphy, Mike Tissaw, and an amazingly diligent and helpful reviewer for Lexington Books. Thank you all for being willing to look at this work in various stages and for giving extremely useful feedback. A special shout out to Iva and Dwight—who gave feedback on a lot of the manuscript!
With respect to the ideas contained therein, I have specific memories of helpful feedback and conversation from these folks mentioned above, as well as Tewentenhawihtha Aldrich, Zaneta Bailey, Thomas Bittner, David Braun, Liam Kofi Bright, Chris Brown, Priscilla Burke, Walter Carnielli, Breanne Ciovacco, John Corcoran, Rick Creath, David Curry, Marcello D'Agostino, Randy Dipert, Christine Doran, Juliet Floyd, Claudia Ford, Marilyn Friedman, Latesha Fussell, Alicia Gayken, Joseph Goodrow, Lewis Gordon, Cole Heideman, Jill Hernandez, David Hershenov, Kate-Nicole Hoffman, John Kearns, Teresa Kouri Kissel, Rebecca Kukla, Sandra Lapointe, Jacob MacDavid, Maria Manzano, Nikolay Milkov, Mike Moran, Jwuan Murphy-Rodriguez, Israel Payero, Michael Popovic, Lewis Powell, Machella Raymond, Stephanie Rivera Berruz, Gillian Russell, Sheryl Scales, Shaili Singh, Karlee Square, Nimo Sugulle, Maie Thomas, Abel Ulloa, Gaylynn Welch, Starr Williams, Lonel Woods, Nicole Wyatt, and John Youngblood. For those I have forgotten, my apologies.
I also need to thank a couple of scholars and activists who were extremely gracious in allowing me to reprint their words here. Thank you, Jonathan Cunningham, for allowing me to reprint your insightful words that appeared in the Macklemore, Ryan Lewis, and Jamila Woods song, “White Privilege II.” Your thoughts make a very important point clear—namely, that there is a certain sense in which what the Black Lives Matter movement is calling for is obvious. For those who do not know, Jonathan Cunningham is cofounder of The Residency, a youth development through hip-hop social justice program based in Seattle, WA. Please check it out at www.theresidencyseattle.org! Lastly, thank you Liam Kofi Bright for allowing me to reprint some of your thoughts from “Empiricism is a Standpoint Epistemology” and “Carnap Did Nothing Wrong” from your awesome blog—The Sooty Empiric. Again, readers, please check it out at http://sootyempiric.blogspot.com/. There is more important thinking in several paragraph posts there than in entire issues of most journals.
Finally, and most importantly, I need to thank my family. K, Momma, Arles, Izit, Alyssa, and DK—what would I do without you? I know I have been basically nothing but trouble for y’all. So, your unwavering support never ceases to amaze me. Thank you for everything you do for me to keep me going each day.
The fall of 2010 was a fortunate one for me. Not only had I recently been given a fresh start after recovering from nine months of cancer treatment—during which I read Wittgenstein and Quine constantly while working on an MA in mathematics—four of the most intellectually stimulating events of my life occurred that first semester of graduate work in philosophy at Buffalo. First, I was introduced to, and began learning from, John Corcoran. Next, I stumbled upon Scott Soames’ Philosophical Analysis in the Twentieth Century while hanging out in the Talking Leaves bookshop near my first apartment in Buffalo. After this, I heard Sandra Lapointe give a talk on Bolzano for the Buffalo Logic Colloquium. Finally,