On mythic philosophic history: or philosophy without concern for politics is comedy.

On the Leiter report there is a discussion about Sluga's claim that "Attempts to revive [Cassirer's] fortunes are, I am afraid, doomed to failure." See this interesting review of a book by Peter Gordon. Sluga offers three reasons (they are not arguments) for his claim: i) Cassirer lacks "stature" vis a vis Heidegger; ii) Cassirer lacks "radicalism"  (but Wittgenstein, Foucault, or Derrida have it!); c) Cassirer lacks the "incisive scientific acumen of a Russell, Quine, or Rawls." The third is manifestly false (Cassirer was extremely knowledgeable of history of physics and then-contemporary mathematics), and suggests Sluga doesn't know what he is talking about. (I have deep respect for Rawls' knowledge of mathematics and economics, by the way.) The first two reasons are very much in the eye of the beholder, and (if I have learned anything at all in my career as a philosophical historian) it is very hard to foretell how posterity judges. (See this review, where I offer a thought experiment on these matters.) Sluga attempts to legislate what he is incapable of having authority over.

I have no idea if Cassirer should be revived. My main reason for blogging about the review is because of the following: Sluga's review quotes (without comment)  "Gordon's final judgment, "the ultimate tragedy of the Davos encounter is not that it ended in victory for politics of the wrong kind. The deeper tragedy is that it ended in politics at all." (p. 357)" This strikes me as presupposing a spectacularly misguided understanding of what philosophy is about (and certainly what *European philosophy* was about). It presupposes a *myth* of philosophy uncontanimated by politics. Now as Plato recognized, it is a recurring temptation to wish the political context away from philosophy proper. And there is no doubt that there is a lot of very fine philosophic activity that can take place without politics entering into it. But this is often *made possible* by prior philosophic-political arrangements-settlement. Or to put it simply: if philosophy ends in politics this can often be traced back to non-trivial philosophic choices. (I have theorized about this in terms of what I call the "Socratic Problem.") It is not the stuff of tragedy, but as anybody who has read the *Apology* knows, the stuff of comedy.