THE
SOCIOLOGICAL ABOLITION OF PHILOSOPHY:
A CHALLENGE FOR MEDITATION AND RESPONSE
Voprosy
Filosofii, 2008,
No 3. P. 38-50.
One of core development lines of
philosophical thought is the intellectualistic tradition of abolition and prevail of philosophy (Sanchez, Descartes, Bacon, Espinoza,
Leibniz, Locke, Hume, French Encyclopedists, Kant, Marx, Comte, Nietzsche,
Buchner, Moleschott, Russell, Husserl, Vienna Circle, Wittgenstein, Heidegger).
Now sociologists first of all R.Collins and S.Fuchs make a new attempt. For
Collins philosophers are doomed to eternal debates and
repeating splitting and merging of positions according to “the law
of small numbers”. Fuchs says that “philosophy has made little, if
any, progress in resolving it foundational enigmas” and the reason is not
theirs deep and mysterious nature but wrong approach. He shows “how to sociologize with a hammer” philosophical problems
— to reduce them to problems of “the comparative sociology of
observers” allowing variation. History, dependence of
relations and conditions of observation and description. Some outline
ways of counterargumentation are
suggested. The conclusion is that modern attempts of abolitions and
prevail of philosophy should be not neglected but used for renewal and further
development of philosophical thought.