The distinguished historian of philosophy (and fellow NewAPPSer), Dennis Des Chene, appeals to lack of citations to claim that Benardete's Infinity had no influence in the "real world." (For the record: I hope any of my works will get cited more than 70 times in the real world!) But as any historian of early modern philosophy can tell you, citations don't tell the whole story. Here's a relevant example from the recent history of metaphysics (I am recycling an earlier post): let's focus on the methodology of one of the classic papers of contemporary metaphysics (Hawthorne & Cortens, 1995), "Toward Ontological Nihilism." This piece follows the rhetorical/argumentative-methodology of Bennett's Rationality (which I like to call his Fable of the Bees) almost exactly. This is no surprise because Bennett (who was one of Hawthorne's teachers; I believe also Cortens but less sure) is generously cited in the paper, although Rationality isn't. I think this is a nice case of very plausible, unconscious influence (something Hawthorne proposed to me in correspondence after I asked him about it).
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