I picked up that line somewhere ages ago, perhaps when I was an
undergraduate minoring in philosophy, perhaps at our family
dinnertable in my youth.  My father was a professor of philosophy, and
a lot of everyday conversation at our house was fairly esoteric.  I
believe I heard this remark more than once.  At any rate, I thought it
was a familiar quotation, at least in an academic context.  But when I
alluded to it the other day, the person I was speaking to had never
heard it.  I went straight for my favorite search engine, of course,
to look for source and exact wording.  My search turned up nothing,
either with variations on the phrasing or with dropping the word
"philosophy" (as if, perhaps, the original subject had been
replaced and the line coopted by the person whom I heard say it).  Now
I'm wondering if I was lucky enough to hear someone's clever one-liner
and not just a well-worn quotation.  Can anyone shed any light?

Thank you,
Apteryx

Hello Apteryx,

Interesting question!

Two published sources credit Herbert Feigl as the creator of the phrase. 

From Dictionary of the History of Ideas:

'It was especially under Wittgenstein's influence that the primary (if not the
sole) task of a sound philosophy was considered as a kind of "therapy"
of thought. Inspired by this veritable bouleversement, H. Feigl
impudently defined philosophy as "the disease of which it should be
the cure." (This may have been an unwitting plagiarism or paraphrase
of the witticism of Vienna's great political satirist, Karl Kraus, who
had said that "psychoanalysis
is the disease whose therapy it pretends to be").'
source:
Dictionary of the History Ideas, Page 546, Volume 3, hosted by virginia.edu:
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/cgi-local/DHI/dhi.cgi?id=dv3-69


From The Metaphysics of Logical Positivism:

"Philosophy is the disease of which it is the cure.5...
5  This phrase is Feigl's..."

source:
The Metaphysics of Logical Positivism (1967) by Gustav Bergmann,
hosted by hist-analytic.org:
http://www.hist-analytic.org/BergmannMLP.htm
---------

Here's a short biography of Herbert Feigl from Philosophy of Science Association:
http://www.mcps.umn.edu/feiglbio.htm

------------

search strategy:
"philosophy is the disease"
Feigl, philosophy, disease, cure

I hope this helps.

---

Request for Answer Clarification by apteryx-ga on 14 Dec 2003 23:13 PST

Thank you, juggler!  Was the comment originally made in English, or
has it been translated?  If the latter, then my wording, an inexact
match for what you found, might be equally valid; otherwise I have to
do a memory erase and reset.

Apteryx

---

Clarification of Answer by juggler-ga on 14 Dec 2003 23:50 PST

From the context, the Dictionary of the History of Ideas seems to
imply that Feigl's quotation comes from the period when he was part of
the "Vienna Group" (circa 1918-1930). Thus, there's a fairly strong
possibility that the quotation was originally in German rather than
English, so, yes, your version could also be accurate.

'H. Feigl impudently defined philosophy as "the disease of which it should be
the cure." (This may have been an unwitting plagiarism or paraphrase
of the witticism of Vienna's great political satirist, Karl Kraus, who
had said that "psychoanalysis is the disease whose therapy it pretends
to be").'
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/cgi-local/DHI/dhi.cgi?id=dv3-69

I'd be curious to see a paper copy of The Dictionary of the History of
Ideas (1973).  Perhaps there's a footnote or endnote citing a specific
source. Sometimes notes are deleted when books are scanned and put
online. I'd also be interested in seeing exactly how the paper version
is organized. Notice that Herbert Feigl's name is at the very end of
the page as if he wrote (or edited?) the entire piece.  And, yet,
wouldn't it be odd if he were writing about himself using terms like
"impudently" and "unwitting"?

A copy of this "Dictionary" is actually located at a university
library near me. Next time I visit that library (perhaps in a few
weeks), I will take a look at the book.  I'm curious myself!

Entirely satisfactory, juggler.  If you learn more, I'm interested.  I
do find that I can imagine someone who's impudent enough to utter this
remark and also impudent enough to write about himself in the third
person and describe himself as impudent.  Not that I'm the sort of
person who would ever think of doing such a thing or would even know
anyone as impudent as that.  Of course not.

Unwittingly,
Apteryx

Thanks for the tip.  Yep, Feigl may indeed have been impudent enough
to write the piece about himself. I will definitely take a look at the
book next time I visit that library.
Enjoy the holidays!
-juggler

It's worth noting that Wittgenstein said a number of things similar in
spirit, if not phrasing, to this quote.  One that springs to mind is
"Bad philosophers are like slum landlords.  It's my job to put them
out of business!"