Introduction

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This introductory chapter looks at how philosopher Richard Rorty advanced the thesis that Platonism and philosophy are more or less identical. The point of insisting on this identification is the edifying inference Rorty thinks is to be drawn from it: If one finds Platonism unacceptable, then one ought to abandon philosophy. Hence, a rejection of Platonism is really a rejection of the principles shared by most philosophers up to the present. The chapter then poses the opposition between Platonism and Naturalism as the opposition between philosophy and anti-philosophy. Plato states in his Republic in a clear and unambiguous way that the subject matter of philosophy is “that which is perfectly or completely real,” that is, the intelligible world and all that it contains. If Rorty is right, then the denial of the existence of this content is the rejection of philosophy. But self-declared Naturalists divide over whether philosophy has a distinct subject matter. Nevertheless, the most consistent form of Naturalism will hold that with the abandonment of the Platonic subject matter must go the abandonment of a distinct subject matter for philosophy.