Dagfinn Føllesdal, professor of philosophy emeritus at Stanford University and the University of Oslo, has died.

Professor Føllesdal was known for his work in philosophy of language, logic, and on the philosophies of Husserl and Quine. (When named a Commander of the Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav by the King of Norway in 2009, it was partly in recognition of his contributions bringing together analytic and Continental philosophy.) You can learn more about his writings here.

Professor Føllesdal joined the faculty at Oslo in 1967 and the faculty of Stanford in 1968, holding appointments at both institutions for many years. He earned his PhD from Harvard University, coming there after studying science and mathematics at Oslo and the University of Göttingen.

In an interview published in 2020, Føllesdal discusses his life, education, career, and ideas. Here’s a brief excerpt:

Einar Bøhn: Just one more question. Earlier we asked you about the theses you are the most convinced of. Are there any theses or claims that you think are obviously false? Any widely held theses that you think are obviously wrong?

Dagfinn Føllesdal: What has affected me most in my philosophical life, and something that I am fighting all the time, is this use of labels. “Positivism”, … maybe because it has been such an obstacle to all these things that I wanted to get changed, in the university and so on, and all the debates going on in newspapers. I think that the use of labels is just so detrimental… When I see debates and so on with these labels, I turn against them immediately. So it is not a philosophical view, but it is at least an argumentative pattern that I react against.

Øystein Linnebo: There is a question about the so-called analytic/continental distinction. What is your take on that? I take it that is related to what you just said about labels.

Dagfinn Føllesdal: That’s right. I think that much harm has been done to philosophy by introducing those labels. Instead of learning from one another, one has rejected the other unseen. The fact that I often start my lectures on Husserl by building up from some main, simple ideas in Bolzano, that’s no problem – those who use labels have never heard of Bolzano. However, when I make use of Frege to explain some basics in Husserl, then label-users react. Frege, the hero of the analytic philosophers, and Husserl, the founder of continental philosophy. To think that there could be any connection at all is just awful, they think. This reaction reflects the fact that “continental philosophers” have hardly ever read much of what is going on in “analytic philosophy”, they say “it’s analytic, it’s really irrelevant to all the important issues in life”, and, conversely, the analytic philosophers say “oh, it’s pretty incomprehensible, it’s not worth wasting one’s time on”.

Øystein Linnebo: So you think we should simply forget about these labels and stop talking about analytic philosophy versus continental philosophy?

Dagfinn Føllesdal: Yes. That’s exactly what I say when some people praise me because I have bridged a gap between analytic and continental. I say “just drop those labels”.

Øystein Linnebo: No gap to be bridged, other than a cultural one?

Dagfinn Føllesdal: Yes. Several times I have said and written “labels close people’s minds”. And I think that is right, it has that kind of effect.

You can read the rest of the interview here.