The philosopher Alva Noe, in a comment below, says the following about the so-called 'technical-humanist' divide:
"Here's an attempt to get at what people may have in mind when they talk about such a divide. We all recognize the stereotype of the philosopher, or the humanist, at work in his attic, thinking deep thoughts, making ready, after long and isolated effort, to spring his (rarely her) efforts, perfect and whole, on the world without. That humanistic stereotype may be contrasted with a different sort of paradigm: research as collaboration. On this model, dominant in the sciences, research is a genuinely collective undertaking, produced by teams, in laboratories or research groups, centers and institutes. Well, I think that in the last several years we have seen the emergence, within philosophy, of something more like the scientific, collaborative model. Many philosophers now work collaboratively, and view publication less as the offering of Finished Products, than as a contribution to an ongoing discussion. Philosophers of this sort are more likely to publish more, for they set a 'lower' standard on when work is ready for publication, and they are more likely to team up with others, and perhaps even more likely to blog. Certain departments have a reputation for the more rough-and-tumble, outgoing, collaborative kind of philosophy. Others have a reputation for the more traditional, work-alone style. (This may just be related to the age of the faculty.) And there is likely to be an opposition between these groups. From the standpoint of the more gregarious team-workers, the humanists may seem rather old-fashioned. And from the standpoint of the more traditional humanistic philosophers, the new folks may seem to lack depth."
Alva also says he does not think this is a "deep divide", and that it doesn't map onto a deep difference in philosophical orientation. In other words, Alva is arguing that the divide is much more over changing philosophical style than over substance. Back in May, David Velleman made some interesting comments on this blog, which are an entertaining juxtapositon to Alva's remarks:
"Many oldsters...tend to regard the philosophical blogosphere as symptomatic of troubling intellectual trends, of which I'll list just a few: an indiscriminate fascination with puzzle cases, and a correlative loss of interest in foundational issues; a fascination with snippets of empirical information drawn from linguistics, neuro-science, evolutionary biology, and so on, with no serious thought about whether their apparent relevance to philosophy is real; a blurring of the distinction between recreational philosophical banter and polished works of philosophy, with the result that speed and cleverness of response is valued over intellectual substance; and, finally, an expectation of recognition and reward simply for being at the center of the puzzling-solving, factoid-citing, one-upping action, irrespective of any prospects for lasting intellectual impact."
David's comments are, as he emphasizes, much exaggerated for the sake of argument (knowing David, there is no strong reading of what he says that he believes). But David's comments do suggest that some see the difference in style that Alva points to as in fact tracking a difference in substance, and that this perception divides somewhat along generational lines.
My interest has been in a slightly different distinction in philosophical styles than the ones Alva discusses. In the 'style-clash' I'm thinking of, people also are too quick to infer from stylistic differences to substantive ones (this would also be my critique of David's comment above). Again, resorting to caricature: On one side of the divide I'm thinking about, people are too quick to infer from the fact that someone's arguments are dense and hard to penetrate, and they exploit perhaps needlessly large vocabularly words and references, that the person is just projecting the illusion of depth. On the other side, just because a person's arguments are perfectly clear, or they appeal to something in logic or science, it doesn't follow that the person isn't after something very deep.
I'm not sure how this difference in style relates to the ones Alva and David are discussing. But it's just as real, and results in just as real divisions.
-Jason
