Mark Lilla, in Partisan Review (no. 2, 1984), 121 Bay State Rd., Boston, Mass. 02215.
Since the turn of the century, philosophers in the United States and Great Britain have been preoccupied with increasingly esoteric studies of language. In the process, they have become "peripheral to American intellectual life," writes Lilla, executive editor of the Public Interest. But he sees signs of a "postmodern" revival in American philosophy.
Anglo-American philosophers first focused...