J. Nubiola: "Review of M. Torrevejano, ed.: Filosofía analítica hoy".
International Journal of Philosophical Studies II, (1994), p. 176.
This volume has its origins in an extraordinary course in May of 1989 at the University of Santiago de Compostela covering the present situation of analytic philosophy and its confluence with other philosophical traditions. Torrevejano explains in the foreword that it was preceded by a set of lectures in various places in Galicia on the origins of the analytic movement and Wittgenstein.
The book opens with two general papers by Juan J. Acero and Ernst Tugendhat. Acero holds the view that analytic philosophy as a movement or active philosophical school ended in 1961 with the death of J. L. Austin. 'We find ourselves in a postanalytic stage' (p. 11): some main views of analytic philosophy are kept as a tradition and related to other central views of contemporary hermeneutical and phenomenological traditions. Acero remarks upon the 'surprising confluence between possible word semantics and Husserl’s theory of intentionality' (p. 23). Tugendhat offers an outline of the analytic conception of philosophical method, based partially on insights from Wittgenstein, and stresses the reflective character of philosophy as opposed to linguistics.
The central part of the book is made up of seven papers from Spanish analytic philosophers. Two of them deal with Wittgenstein: Alfonso G. Suárez writes on the supposed basic realism of Tractatus, and Ángel Álvarez on knowledge and certainty. Suárez opposes Pears's realist interpretation of Tractatus in his book The False Prison, and examines the strength of the arguments coming from Ishiguro and McGuinness. Alvarez deals in an expository way with Wittgenstein's On Certainty. Two other papers are about philosophy of mind: Manuel García-Carpintero tackles the difference between explanation and interpretation according to Davidson, and Vicente Sanfélix offers a general overview of analytic philosophy of mind. The fifth paper, by Jorge Pérez de Tudela, demonstrates the opposition between the analytic tradition expressed in Searle's theory of speech acts and some of Derrida's texts. Three final papers pay special attention to Hilary Putnam's contribution to analytic philosophy: Mercedes Torrevejano provides an historical account of Putnam's evolution, reflecting to some extent a recent shift of analytic movement. J. M. Sagüillo tries to challenge Putnam's model-theoretic argument on realism, and finally Luis Villegas translates into Spanish some relevant passages from Putnam's texts on realism.
This book is a valuable sample of analytic philosophy done by Spanish philosophers, which displays an up-to-date knowledge of the general contemporary philosophical discussion. To be more accessible to the analytic mainstream it would have been really helpful to include some English abstracts of the papers.
Última actualización: 30 de octubre 2007