Closing the Gap

Abstract

IT IS WITH BOTH PRIDE AND HESITATION THAT I AGREED TO WRITE THIS ARTICLE ON phenomenology and logical analysis. John Searle and Bert Dreyfus are for me two of the paradigm figures of contemporary philosophy, so I am extremely proud to have been offered the opportunity to engage with their work. The editors of The Harvard Review of Philosophy, it seems to me, have shown a keen sense of what is deep and important in our discipline by publishing extended interviews with these two influential thinkers. At the same time, writing this article meant entering into a debate between Searle and Dreyfus about the priority of their respective philosophical methodologies, and this, I am afraid, is at best a no-win situation. My strategy, therefore, has been to try to engage as sympathetically as possible with the programs of each philosopher, and to draw from their work lessons that seem to me important for any philosophical account of intentionality and social reality. I have not shied away from criticism; indeed the whole paper is an extended series of criticisms of the work of both philosophers. But I hope they will recognize this for what it is: an engagement with the work of each that is based on the deepest respect and admiration. Before I jump into the fray, I should mention that I owe a personal debt of gratitude to Searle and Dreyfus as well. They were not only my two advisors in graduate school, but were the two main reasons I entered philosophy. Having become dissatisfied with the formal worlds of mathematics and computer science, their respective critiques of artificial intelligence and cognitivism showed me the rich possibilities of philosophy and struck me as a reason to become a philosopher. It is a difficult discipline, sometimes unforgiving; but I am glad I followed them into it.