Progress in Philosophy

Abstract

A great deal has been written about progress in ^^ science; little has been written about progress in philosophy.1 Perhaps the very subject is some? thing of an embarrassment. What is to be avoided in an undertaking of this sort is the temptation to evaluate progress in philos? ophy according to a scientific paradigm. This temp? tation is almost overpowering, due to the success of science. Only an obscurantist of heroic stubborn? ness would attempt to deny the dramatic progress of science. Yet it is clear that as long as our notion of progress is limited to its scientific epitomization, we will be unable to make out any sense of progress in philosophy. An understanding of progress that is a suitable context for observations about philos? ophy is needed. At first blush, it would seem that progress in any activity presupposes some goal, and is mea? sured with respect to that goal. Therefore, the first question that must be asked is Does philosophy, in general, have a goal?and if so, what is it? Before we can hope to answer it, however, there is other work to do. The dieter makes, or fails to make, progress toward svelteness, the runner toward swiftness, the insurance salesman toward quota, and so on. What each of these cases has in common is a decidable goal. An ideal body weight, a target running time, a required number of policies sold?in each case, it is possible for the individual to decide with con? fidence whether progress has been made during a given interval. It is possible for an observer to decide it as well. Call this progress1? the kind of progress that is available when there is a specifi? able, decidable goal. Not surprisingly, there is a whole range of cases where things are not so crisply decidable. The con? valescent makes progress toward health, the figure skater toward perfect form, the poet toward the perfection of her poem. Can any of these people say in advance just what will mark the attainment of their goal? Probably not. It is likely, however, that any of them would have a very well-developed sense of when progress is being made and when it is not. They may, but need not, rely on the judgment of an observer to tell them this. Sometimes they must rely upon their own judgment. Call this prog ress2. Progress2 is the sort of progress that can be made even where the goal cannot be specified in any clear way, but given intervals of change can nevertheless be identified as progress or regress, by either the individual or some observer. To place a further restriction upon progress2, we shall stipu? late that neither the overall goal nor the intermediate sub-goals has clearly specifiable criteria. The poet, the painter, the composer and the sculptor are guided by some inner sense that tells them when they are getting it right and when they are not. It is an intuitive sense; it is highly unlikely that any of them could articulate even strictly personal criteria for the subgoals (if any) that go into their activities. Therefore, what they do exemplifies progress2. The salient feature of progress2 is that its main criteria are subjective; it is the kind of progress that we associate with creative activity. In spite of this subjectivity, it is still a very real sense of progress. The subjectivity is balanced by the con? straints placed on individual practice by the com? munal context in which it occurs. Even the most iconoclastic artist works within a cultural context that lets her (and others) judge the progress of her work. The accomplished musician makes progress2 by extending her interpretive power (as distin? guished from the novice musician who learns scales). To a certain extent, she is able to know that she is doing so in virtue of her sense of being able to perform more difficult passages than was previously the case. The subjective sense of aug? menting one's previous range of competence and of penetrating into areas of increasing difficulty are very important for assessing progress2, up to a

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