The late Gary Gutting used to be the big swinging dick of matters ontological and epistemic. I remember seeing him stand toe-to-toe with Basil van Fraassen, constructive empiricist extraordinaire, in an epic heavyweight dust-up in the pages of Monist back in '82. With his 2015 book What Philosophy Can Do, Gutting has attempted to go mainstream. He argues that philosophy can be useful in, say, potentially polarized political debates, as it can identify the convictions behind (and the limitations within) any given liberal or conservative position. This all smacks of the optimism of the pre-post-Truth era, and that seems to be the dustbin to which Gutting's book has been consigned. Just the other day, I saw more than a few copies marked down to $2 at my local paper peddler. Apparently, philosophy can't do much for anyone anymore. Thorough, well-researched, and well-considered arguments don't fly in this day and age of Trump and trigger-warnings. Nice try, Mr. Gutting, but everybody just goes with their gut now. If psychiatric drugs can't help these people, do you think philosophy has any hope? May peace be upon you, because we certainly won't have it here on earth.
