Response by Kuklick (via Steve Austin)

Steve Austin posted the following, which does not, however, show up on the side bar, because the original post is no longer on the 'front page' of the blog. I wanted to call attention to it:

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Both your original post and your final comment deserve response. While I have my own answers to your questions, most of which seem unfounded upon a careful reading of the review, I thought the best thing to do would be to get Kuklick's own reaction and response. He was nice enough to provide me with such a reaction via email, and has given me permission to post it as a comment on your blog. So, in the name of giving your readership the whole story, I paste it here:

"On reflection I certainly don’t like the ugly phrase 'reinforcement of the stultification' either. But I don’t think what I said is hard to parse or bizarre. White wanted Oxford to get logic, and Harvard to get an interest in the ordinary world. Instead, the experience with logic may have turned Oxford further from it; and, similarly, seeing the commitment in England to ordinary usage may have made Harvard more interested in logic.

"Do I think that’s stultifying? Well, I was searching for an ambiguous phrase in 'what some would call.' Maybe I should have said what I believe more exactly: philosophy at each institution became more problematic after the 1950s. Ordinary language philosophy did not go anywhere. And yes, I find Quine after 'Two Dogmas' stultifying. He never did much, to my mind with the holistic epistemology hinted at in that essay and some other pieces, and I don’t think much of the epigoni. This opinion may be eccentric – I would prefer 'independent' – but I don’t think it’s bizarre."