How Philosophers Appeal to Priority to Effect Revolution

This article argues that philosophers tend to employ a particular method in constructing their theories and critiquing their opponents. To substantiate this claim, the article examines the work of Nietzsche and Locke, the Empiricists and Rationalists, Heidegger, Levinas, and Derrida, and Russell and Wittgenstein, showing how each relies on a method the article labels “revolution‐through‐return.” The method consists in identifying the authority behind your opponent's theory, then appealing to something “prior to” that authority, from which you then proceed to derive your own theory. The article distinguishes between several senses of priority (temporal, ontological, axiological, and so on), argues that modern philosophers tend to rely on temporal priority, and discusses the questions in priority theory that need to be addressed in order evaluate and construct revolution‐through‐return arguments.