>Most philosophical debates are not merely afflicted by but driven by confusions over words. Do we have free will? Depends what you mean by "free."
Well, yes, which is why philosophers have been trying to clarify the various possible senses of 'free' and to determine whether or not we have free will in each of these various senses. Either we ignore the question, or we try to clarify it and answer it in one of it's clarified forms. And indeed, philosophers have been doing the latter, quite productively, for thousands of years. If there's now a third option, PG doesn't bother telling us what it is.
>Meanwhile, sensing a vacuum in the metaphysical speculation department, the people who used to do literary criticism have been edging Kantward, under new names like "literary theory," "critical theory," and when they're feeling ambitious, plain "theory."
PG is apparently unaware of the resurgence of metaphysics in the past few decades. You could hardly describe EJ Lowe as a literary critic.
> it would be misleading to say the field is 2500 years old, because for most of that time the leading practitioners weren't doing much more than writing commentaries on Plato or Aristotle while watching over their shoulders for the next invading army.
Again, total ignorance of the history of philosophy.
First you accused me, with no proof, of not having read modern philosophy. I disabused you of that view.
Now you are calling us 'unaware' and ignorant because you don't agree with this viewpoint.
You've fallen to the level of name calling.
Had a quick google and a lot of the people I read at uni are still listed as great present day philosophers, Derek Parfitt, David Chalmers, Thomas Nagel, Saul Kripke, Daniel Dennett.
Some of those books still sit on my shelf. I remember Reasons and Persons being very good.