The 'death' of philosophy? (On Jean-François Revel’s thesis)

Abstract

This paper contains an analysis of the thesis about the 'death' of philosophy advanced by the celebrated French author, member of the French Academy Jean-François Revel in his History of Western Philosophy (Histoire de la philosophie occidentale, de Thalès à Kant, 1994), the book which for its 2003 reprint was announced as intended for the “honest man of the 21st century”. Revel’s idea of the “death” of philosophy is based on a peculiar understanding of its function and historical role, and a closer look at his arguments allows fresh insight into the nature of philosophical knowledge. Revel built up an impressive doctrine with regard to what he calls the common “illusions” of the philosophers and their unjustified claims. It makes Revel the foremost representative of an important contemporary attitude toward philosophical texts. This approach refuses to be reduced to abstract logical analysis and wants to make philosophy an emotional experience. It finds its manifestation in unfounded, but very generic statements dispraising the entire areas of philosophical knowledge. No doubt Revel's critical remarks against some philosophers and the style of their writing are very reasonable. Still, his position is hardly convincing. His attempt to present as the sum of philosophy certain views typical only of a restricted period in its history significantly brings down the value of his judgements. Moreover, while discounting the argumentative part of philosophy as some sort of external and irrelevant cover, he completely ignores the 'architectonics' of philosophical systems, outside which it becomes increasingly difficult to understand the originality of each system and the internal logic of its construction. By stating the 'death' of philosophy, Revel in fact pronounces his sentence only against an outdated idea of it.