The Depth(s) of the Twentieth Century — Galen Strawson

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The Depth(s) of the Twentieth Century

Strawson presents a compact indictment of a mid-to-late twentieth-century philosophical habit: reversing what he takes to be the natural explanatory order. Across desire, belief, meaning, emotion, consciousness, objects, powers, causation, and existence, he was taught that the outward, behavioural, dispositional, or experiential pattern explains the apparently prior inner or metaphysical fact. He thinks these reversals are the wrong way round. > It seemed to me that all these claims were the wrong way round. > I still think they’re all the wrong way round, but I feel a little less insecure.

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Philosophical atmosphere

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Strawson frames the list autobiographically: he took up philosophy in 1972 and encountered a family of claims presented as the sophisticated view of central topics. The joke of the title is that these were supposed to be philosophical depths, but to him they often looked like inversions. > I took up philosophy in 1972, and this... is what I was given to understand.

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General form of inversion

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The repeated structure is: not X explains Y, but Y explains X. Wanting is explained by trying; belief by behaviour; meaning by correct use; anger by expression; consciousness by observable dispositions. Strawson’s target is this broad explanatory style rather than one isolated doctrine.

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Insecurity before orthodoxy

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Strawson says these views made him doubt his philosophical competence. The piece is partly comic because he reports a young philosopher feeling insecure precisely because he found the reigning sophistication obviously inverted. > This led me to feel very insecure about my ability to do philosophy.

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The wrong way round

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The main judgment is blunt: across all these domains, Strawson thinks the explanatory order should not be reversed. Desire, belief, understanding, consciousness, objects, powers, causes, and existence are not made by their behavioural or experiential shadows. > I still think they’re all the wrong way round.

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Tentative improvement

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The final sentence is dryly hopeful. Perhaps the twenty-first century is recovering somewhat from these reversals, but only slightly. The note ends with philosophical irony rather than a full argument. > Perhaps things are looking up a little—but only a little—in the 21st century.

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Desire reversed

Objects reversed

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