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Analytic philosophy
Analytic philosophy is the dominant philosophical movement of English-speaking countries that began with Gottlob Frege at the turn of the twentieth-century and whose primary emphasis is on the analysis of language or meaning. It is characterized by its effort to clarify philosophical issues by analysis and logical rigor. Several lines of thought originate from the analytic philosophy tradition. These include: logical positivism, logical empiricism, logical atomism, logicism and ordinary language philosophy.
Table of contents showTocToggle("show","hide")
1 Relation to Continental Philosophy
2 Formalism and natural languages
3 Formalism
3.1 Logical Atomism
3.2 Natural Language Semantics
4 Natural Language
4.1 Reaction against Idealism
4.2 Language as use
5 Logical Positivism and Logical Empiricism
6 Philosophy of Mind, Cognitive Science
Relation to Continental Philosophy
The term "analytic philosophy" in part denotes the fact that most of this philosophy traces its roots to the movement of "logical analysis" at the beginning of the century; in part the term serves to distinguish "analytic" from other "kinds" of philosophy, especially "continental philosophy." The latter denotes mainly philosophy that has taken place on continental Europe after (but not including) Kant. One term indicates a method of philosophy and the other indicates a range of subject matter; and the "distinction," prevalent as it is, reflects painfully many inaccuracies: Frege, Wittgenstein, Carnap, the Logical Positivists (the Vienna Circle), the Logical Empiricists (in Berlin), and the Polish logicians were all products of the continent, and were as analytic as it is possible to be. Much philosophy in Germany today, most of that in Scandinavia, and a great deal scattered over the rest of the continent, is likewise "analytic." Conversely, "continental philosophy" is pursued throughout the United States, although often just in literature departments.
There are many who now claim that the distinction is worthless: none of the subject matter of "continental philosophy" is incapable of being studied using the traditional tools of "analytic philosophy." If this is true, the phrase "analytic philosophy" is just redundant (or maybe normative, as in "rigorous philosophy"), and the phrase "continental philosophy" (like "Greek Philosophy") just denotes a certain historical period or series of schools in philosophy: German Idealism, Marxism, Psychoanalysis, Existentialism, Phenomenology, and Post-Structuralism.
The split between the two began early in the twentieth century: the logical positivists promoted a systematic rejection of metaphysics and a general hostility to certain metaphysical concepts that they considered meaningless or ill-conceived: for example, God, the immaterial soul or universals such as "redness". This was at the same time that Heidegger was dominating philosophy in Germany and France, and his work therefore often became the object of derision in English-speaking philosophy departments. Analytic philosophy, in the end, failed by its own lights ever to systematically demonstrate the meaninginglessness or fictitiousness of the concepts it attacked--at least, few analytic philosophers today would agree that they have anything like an exact and proven theory of which terms are meaningful and which meaningless--and contemporary analytic philosophy journals are--for good or ill--as rich in metaphysics as any continental philosopher.
Formalism and natural languages
The aim of the analytic approach is to clarify philosophical problems by examining and clarifying the language used to express them. This has led to a number of successes: modern logic, recognizing the primary importance of sense and reference in the construction of meaning, Kurt Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem, Bertrand Russell's theory of definite descriptions, Karl Popper's theory of falsificationism, Alfred Tarski's Semantic Theory of Truth.
Two major threads weave through the analytic tradition. One seeks to understand language by making use of formal logic. That is, in one way or another it seeks to formalise the way in which philosophical statements are made.
The other thread seeks to understand philosophical ideas by a close and careful examination of the natural language used to express them – usually with some emphasis on the importance of common sense in dealing with difficult concepts.
These two threads intertwine, sometimes implacably opposed to each other, sometimes virtually identical. Famously, Wittgenstein started out in the formalism camp, but ended up in the natural language camp.
Formalism
Logical Atomism
Analytic philosophy has its origins in Gottlob Frege’s development of first-order predicate logic. This permitted a much wider range of sentences to be parsed into logical form. Bertrand Russell adopted it as his primary philosophical tool; a tool he thought could expose the underlying structure of philosophical problems. For example, the English word “is” can be pares in three distinct ways:
- in 'the cat is asleep: the is of predication says that 'x is P': P(x)
- in 'there is a cat”: the is of existence says that there is an x: ∃(x)
- in 'three is half of six': the is of equivalence says that x is the same as y: x=y
Russell sort to resolve various philosophical issues by applying such clear and clean distinctions, most famously in the case of the Present King of France.
Sense-data theory
(Early) Wittgenstein: Tractatus. Formal Logic.
Natural Language Semantics
Davidson. Oxford in 70's. Strawson, Dummett, McDowell, Evans.
Natural Language
Reaction against Idealism
G. E. Moore, Common Sense philosophy. Rejection of British Post-Hegel Idealism.
Language as use
Oxford School. Ryle, Austin. Teachings of later Wittgenstein. "Ordinary Language Philosophy."
Austin and Searle
Logical Positivism and Logical Empiricism
Vienna Circle. Carnap. Verificationism. Analytic-synthetic distinction. Rejection of Metaphysics, Ethics, Aesthetics. "Emotivism."
Immigration of logicians and scientists from Europe in the 30s. Philosophy of science. Quine. Behaviourism.
Philosophy of Mind, Cognitive Science
Turing , Churchlands, Dennett
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