The Focus on Minutiae
Clifford Sosis (Coastal Carolina) has published a new interview at his What Is It Like To Be A Philosopher? site, this time with Florida State University’s David McNaughton.
The interview ranges over a wide range of aspects of McNaughton’s life, work, and views, and there are a few provocative claims in there, including:
Naturalism has reached epidemic proportions in USA, though I have never seen a decent argument for it.
But there was also one little line—apologies for focusing on it, but, well, you know—in response to a question about how he sees the future of philosophy:
I fear that the tendency to focus on minutiae and ignore the big picture will get worse.
I can hear Empedocles, in his day, saying the same thing about the future of chemistry.
Is McNaughton right? Is this a tendency, and is it something to fear?
And if it is a tendency, who are the philosophers today who run counter to it?
The whole interview is here.