Luban

Yet a history of analytic philosophy should, at precisely this juncture, distinguish these developments as pathologies rather than as constitutive of the tradition itself. They stand in clear tension with its methodological foundations, especially as articulated by the logical empiricists. Schuringa unfortunately overlooks the fact that more sophisticated methodological frameworks—such as Carnap’s method of explication and his framework-relativism—have recently enjoyed renewed attention for precisely this reason: they underwrite contemporary forms of conceptual engineering (e.g., Sally Haslanger) and formal ontology (e.g., Amie Thomasson) that are not only compatible with politically engaged philosophical projects (including potentially Marxist ones) but also decisively undermine the forms of foundationalism that Schuringa treats as analytic philosophy’s original sin and its supposed bourgeois core.

… One wishes he had taken the final step and traced a genuinely Marxist genealogy within analytic philosophy, rather than positioning Marxism solely in opposition to it. Doing so would not only have enhanced historical accuracy but also clarified the stakes of his argument. For if the left Vienna Circle and the Austro-Marxists were right, then orthodox Marxism-Leninism stands fundamentally at odds with both science and democracy. A political philosophy that aspires to be genuinely scientific and democratic cannot be Marxist in Lenin’s sense. Instead, it must approximate the Vienna Circle’s vision—one that unites objective scientific inquiry with the evaluative and practical attitudes of individuals—whereas Leninism sacrifices both scientific objectivity and individual freedom.

The real tension, therefore, lies within the Marxist tradition itself: between a dialectical-metaphysical understanding and a non-foundationalist, empiri cist conception of socialism. These perspectives are largely incompatible, rep resenting a decisive parting of ways that leads to two distinct lineages—one stemming from Lenin, the other from Mach. A history of analytic philosophy that implicitly sides with Lenin from the outset can scarcely account for the movement’s political dimensions and will almost inevitably deny the existence of a genuinely Marxist current within analytic philosophy. …

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Epistemic values are the most uncontroversial example of epistemically justified meta-values. They are justified because they lead to the production of true scientific claims and scientific knowledge, and their absence leads to the production of false claims and the absence of knowledge. But there are other meta-values that can also be seen as cognitively justified. These other meta-values also depend on epistemic values in that they use the possibilities of science and rationality to make our decisions more genuine, farsighted, and social. These values have something to do with instrumental rationality because they are all tied with investigation of consequences of a value or possible action and the task to choose desirable consequences and discard undesirable ones. Because these values concern fundamental rational principles that also guide scientific decision making, I will call them rational meta-values.

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Rational meta-values are epistemically justified, but unlike epistemic values, only indirectly, because the decisions they produce cannot be true or false in themselves. However, to act against these values is to make decisions that we later regret because they lead to consequences that we find undesirable, are inconsistent with other values, appear to be the result of a momentary surge of emotion or manipulation, or are non-cooperative and thus suffer from the fact that we must assume that there is a group of opponents who cannot accept our decisions and will therefore fight against them. In this sense, even though rational meta-values do not lead to claims that are true or false, but to decisions that cannot be true or false in themselves, these values are still cognitively justified because they characterize the good epistemic practice of rational reasoning.

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