Leiter comments on the strength of ancient philosophy in the US here. I'm not sure we can say the same thing about the UK, unfortunately, perhaps as a result of a decline in publicly-funded graduate places and also as part of a more general slide. But I'd need to think about that.
I also wondered about Leiter's comment:
It's undeniable that Owen and Vlastos made a difference to the way ancient philosophy was perceived by philosophers and to the way it was done. Does anyone think they still have a strong direct influence on the work being done now or are we already two generations on?It's an interesting question when the profession will come to realize that the kind of revolution in scholarship on ancient philosophy wrought by Owen and Vlastos fifty years ago has been going on in scholarship on 19th-century European philosophy for a generation now, and that the fruitful philosophical connections with many areas of contemporary interest are at least as plentiful there.
3 comments:
I'm probably not the right person to answer this, but it seems clear that there's no direct influence. I don't know whether Leiter claims otherwise, though.
Diego: No, I don't think Leiter is claiming otherwise. But I nevertheless wonderered whether these two do indeed still have a direct influence.
Owen certainly has a direct influence on the topics I study, but mostly because no one has questioned whether he is right. Obviously on some topics there has been a lot of work done saying "Owen/Vlastos was WRONG!" (such as the Peri Ideon industry). But, at least in my small bit of ancient philosophy, there are still plenty of places where I can say that.
So at least some people are still engaging with the views that they put forward, not just doing ancient philosophy in the way they showed us.
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