Permanent Contributions in Philosophy

Abstract

Abstract Has any school or movement in all of Western philosophy made a permanent contribution, permanent in the sense that it will last as long as philosophy does? More narrowly, has there ever been put forward athesisthat has achieved lastingconsensus? After carefully defining “philosophical thesis” and “consensus,” so as to forestall uninteresting answers, this paper argues that the ancient Greeks made one or two such contributions, and the Analytic philosophers (ca. 1890–1960) made a few, but there have been no others. Moreover (a) the Analytic contributions were more empirical than philosophical, and (b) they were almost entirely negative. So, the basic short answer to our question is “no.” The paper concludes by asking in what way(s) there has beenprogressin philosophy.

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