2 Apr
2025
2 Apr
'25
10:42 a.m.
Dear all,
our next speakers in the Philosophy of Science Colloquium organized by the Institute
Vienna Circle are Paolo Tripodi and Guido Bonino (University of Turin), who will give a
talk on April 3, 4.45-6.15 pm.
All are welcome!
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Philosophy of Science Colloquium TALK: Paolo Tripodi & Guido Bonino (University of
Turin)
Academic Success in America: Analytic Philosophy and the Decline of Wittgenstein
Philosophy of Science Colloquium
The Institute Vienna Circle holds a Philosophy of Science Colloquium with talks by our
present fellows.
Date: 03/04/2025
Time: 16h45
Venue: New Institute Building (NIG), Universitätsstraße 7, 1010 Wien, HS 3A
Abstract:
There is a rather widespread consensus, among historians of philosophy, concerning the
decline of Wittgenstein amid recent analytic philosophy. However, the exact import of such
a decline, its chronological development, as well as its causes and several other
features, are difficult to ascertain with the traditional methods of the history of
philosophy. In this talk we apply a distant reading approach, and a variety of other
quantitative methods, to provide a more reliable and accurate account of
Wittgenstein's decline. We focus on a corpus consisting of the metadata of US PhD
dissertations in philosophy from 1981 to 2010 (although other kinds of data are also taken
into consideration), and we try to relate the topic of the dissertation to the success of
the candidate in his/her subsequent academic career. The results of this analysis,
corroborated by other evidence, allow us to put forth the more reliable and accurate
account just hinted at, and at the same time to suggest – as a contribution to external
history of philosophy – a plausible mechanism at the basis of the decline itself, notably
a process driven by those who controlled the recruitment policies in the philosophy
departments.