Back to the linguistic turn? P.M.S. Hacker and T. Williamson on the future of analytic philosophy
The article is concerned with two opposite views on the future of analytic philosophy, as presented by P.M.S. Hacker and T. Williamson. According to the frst, conservative, the best prospect is the preservation of methodological attitudes of the linguistic turn. Sharing such point of view P.M.S. Hacker is convinced that analytic philosophers should completely abandon the establishing metaphysical truths and limit themselves to research of the verbal level of thinking. According to the second, more progressive, methodological attitudes of the linguistic turn should be discarded, and the radical ban on metaphysics should be rethought. T. Williamson is favoring that kind of revision. In the opinion of the author of the article, both points of view interpret the history of analytic philosophy in a simplifed manner, ignoring the inevitability of the conﬂict between the two primordial “super tasks” of that tradition: on the one hand, the eradication of speculative-metaphysical philosophizing, on the other, putting it on a scientifc track. Consideration of analytical philosophy in the context of the truth of only one of those lines obstructs a correct assessment of its prospects.