On the Wright Method

"My one complaint with the volume is that several of the contributors seem to have recycled earlier work, rather than coming up with anything new. This issue is hardly particular to the present volume, of course, and in general editors and referees acting on behalf of presses should be doing more to ensure that contributors are offering genuinely new material to volumes that aren't anthologies of previously published work."--Aidan McGlynn.

I would add reviewers to McGlynn's list of folk that need to do more to ensure that "contributors are offering genuinely new material to volumes."

Anyway, the lines above are the conclusion of McGlynn's excellent review. It's never easy to review edited volumes, especially Festvolumes. But McGlynn manages to offer a nice balance of useful summary and critical commentary. Moreover, at various places the review manages to convey a personal appreciation of Crispin Wright and an insider's look behind the scences at the way Wright does philosophy:

"As for Wright's replies, their format allows them to capture something of his present modus operandi, which involves collaborative engagement with a number of seemingly disparate topics, looking for unexpected points of overlap between them. The distinctiveness of this approach is often largely lost by the time its outputs make it into print, but interestingly that hasn't happened here."

Let's stipulate McGlynn offers an accurate description of Wright method. I want to note six features of it: if I have understood it correctly, (i) this is a model in which an attempt is made to capture the benefits of both specialization as well as generality; (ii) it requires people that can contribute both (i.e., specialist knowledge and general philosophical skills); (iii) the contributors to Wright's project must have a willingness and capacity to communicate with people not in their specialty; (iv) the aim of the Wright Method seems to be to generate unexpected truths; (v) an "experimental system" is a surprise generating machine (see Rheinberger); (vi) the Wright method seems to be a philosophical experimental system. (Note i-vi is not meant to be a valid argument, although if the reader wishes, she can turn it into one!)