A few weeks ago on this blog, I made a serious joke-suggestion that Moritz Schlick should replace Frege-our-Father as the representative founder of analytic philosophy. This week's most underrated philosopher of the week, Sandra Lapointe (who teaches at Kansas State), is a far more serious scholar of these matters; she has almost single handedly revived interest in Bolzano with a large number of books (including a few more in French) articles (including this one that I find very helpful), and conferences. (Of course, there was work on Bolzano before Lapointe, but sometimes a devoted scholar can really focus attention.) I don't know if Lapointe thinks of Bolzano as founder of analytic philosophy, but she certainly makes a good case for him being one of our direct ancestors. I am also impressed by her work in the history of philosophy more broadly--few scholars can get Frege and Husserl into focus at same time; this may be my favorite paper of hers.
Anyway, I welcome private and public nominations for my weekly, most-underrated philosopher of the week post! Here are the rules: 1. no dead people; 2. no people currently or about to be employed in a Leiter top 50 (or equivalent) department (even thought these are also filled with underrated folk); 3. no former dissertation advisors, or other teachers from graduate school; 4. no former students; 5. No untenured folk. 6a: Excellence in more than one AOS, or 6b: noticeable public impact. (That is I want to recognize *interesting* philosophers, not just hyperspecialized ones!)
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