analytic philosophy
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Analytic philosophy (sometimes,
analytical philosophy) is a generic term for a style of
philosophy that came to dominate
English-speaking countries in the 20th century. In the
United States,
United Kingdom,
Canada,
Scandinavia,
Australia, and
New Zealand, the overwhelming majority of university philosophy departments identify themselves as "analytic" departments.
(1)(2) characterized by an emphasis on clarity and argument, often achieved via modern
formal logic and analysis of
language, and a respect for the
natural sciences.
(3)(4)(b) specific developments in early twentieth century philosophy, such as the work of
Bertrand Russell and
Gottlob Frege, and
logical positivism. In this sense, analytic philosophy makes specific philosophical commitments (some are rejected by contemporary analytic philosophers), in particular:
(5)
- the positivist view that there are no specifically philosophical truths and that the object of philosophy is the logical clarification of thoughts. This may be contrasted with the traditional foundationalism which views philosophy as a special sort of science, the highest one, which investigates the fundamental reasons and principles of everything.(6) As a result, many analytic philosophers have considered their inquiries as continuous with, or subordinate to, those of the natural sciences.(7)
- the view that the logical clarification of thoughts can only be achieved by analysis of the logical form of philosophical propositions.(8) The logical form of a proposition is a way of representing it (often using the formal grammar and symbolism of a logical system) to display its similarity with all other propositions of the same type. However, analytic philosophers disagree widely about the correct logical form of ordinary language.(9)
- the rejection of sweeping philosophical systems in favour of close attention to detail,(10) common sense, and ordinary language.(11)
The analytic movement, 1900–1960
File:FourAnalyticPhilosophers.JPG|thumb|Four analytic philosophers. From top-left clockwise:
Bertrand Russell,
Peter Singer,
Saul Kripke.
Rosalind HursthouseRosalind HursthouseIn its narrower sense, "analytic philosophy" is used to refer to a specific philosophical program that is ordinarily dated from about 1900 to 1960.
History
The analytic program in philosophy is ordinarily dated to the work of
English philosophers Bertrand Russell and
G. E. Moore in the early 20th century. They turned away from then-dominant forms of
Hegelianism (objecting in particular to its
idealism and purported obscurity)
(12)(13) and began to develop a new sort of conceptual analysis, based on new developments in logic.
Origins: Frege
Russell, in his early career, along with collaborator
Alfred North Whitehead, was deeply influenced by
Gottlob Frege, who helped to develop
predicate logic, which allowed a much wider range of sentences to be parsed into logical form. Frege was also a key figure in
philosophy of mathematics in Germany at the turn of the 20th century. In contrast to
Husserl's 1891 book
Philosophie der Arithmetik, which attempted to show that the concept of the
cardinal number derived from psychical acts of grouping objects and counting them,
(14) Frege sought to show that mathematics and logic have their own validity, independent of the judgments or mental states of individual mathematicians and logicians (which were the foundation of arithmetic in the "
psychologism" of Husserl's
Philosophie). Frege's own work, the
Begriffsschrift, developed the concepts of a specific form of modern logic by making use of the notions of the "sense" and "reference"{{Citation needed|date=August 2009}}. Frege further developed his philosophy of logic and mathematics in
The Foundations of Arithmetic and
The Basic Laws of Arithmetic where he provided an alternative to psychologistic accounts of the concept of number.Like Frege,
Bertrand Russell and
Alfred North Whitehead attempted to show that mathematics is reducible to fundamental logical principles. Their
Principia Mathematica (1910–1913) encouraged many philosophers to take a renewed interest in the development of
symbolic logic. In addition, Bertrand Russell adopted Frege's predicate logic as his primary philosophical tool, a tool he thought could expose the underlying structure of philosophical problems. For example, the English word “is” has three distinct meanings in predicate logic:
- 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 identity says that x is the same as y: x=y
Russell sought to resolve various philosophical issues by applying such clear and clean distinctions, most famously in his analysis of
definite descriptions in "On Denoting."
(15)Ideal language analysis
From about 1910 to 1930, analytic philosophers like Russell and
Ludwig Wittgenstein focused on creating an ideal language for philosophical analysis, which would be free from the ambiguities of ordinary language that, in their view, often got philosophers into trouble. This philosophical trend can be called "ideal-language analysis" or "formalism". In this phase, Russell and Wittgenstein sought to understand language, and hence philosophical problems, by making use of
formal logic to formalize the way in which philosophical
statements are made.
Ludwig Wittgenstein developed a comprehensive system of logical atomism in his
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. He there argued that the world is the totality of actual states of affairs and that these states of affairs can be expressed in the language of first-order predicate logic. So a
picture of the world can be built up by expressing atomic facts in atomic propositions, and linking them using
logical operators.
Logical positivism
In the late 1920s, '30s, and '40s, Russell and Wittgenstein's formalism was developed by a group of thinkers in Vienna and Berlin, who formed the
Vienna Circle and
Berlin Circle into a doctrine known as
logical positivism (or logical empiricism). Logical positivism used formal logical tools to underpin an empiricist account of our knowledge of the world.
(16) Philosophers such as
Rudolf Carnap and
Hans Reichenbach, along with other members of the
Vienna Circle, held that the truths of logic and mathematics were
tautologies, and those of science were verifiable empirical claims. These two constituted the entire universe of meaningful judgments; anything else was nonsense. The claims of ethics, aesthetics and theology were, accordingly, pseudo-statements, neither true nor false, just meaningless nonsense.
Karl Popper's insistence upon the role of falsification in the philosophy of science was a reaction to the logical positivists.
(17) With the rise of
Adolf Hitler and
National Socialism in Germany and Austria, many members of the Vienna and Berlin Circles were forced to flee
Germany. Most commonly, they fled to Britain and America, which helped to reinforce the dominance of logical positivism and analytic philosophy in the Anglophone world.
(18)Logical positivists typically saw philosophy as having a very narrow role. For them, philosophy concerned the clarification of thoughts, rather than having a distinct subject matter of its own. The positivists adopted the
verificationism, according to which every meaningful statement is either
analytic or is capable of being verified by experience. This led the logical positivists to reject many traditional problems of philosophy, especially those of
metaphysics or
ontology, as meaningless.
Ordinary language analysis
After the
War in the late 1940s and 1950s, analytic philosophy took a turn toward
ordinary-language analysis. This movement followed in the wake of Wittgenstein's later philosophy, which departed dramatically from his earlier work. In contrast to earlier analytic philosophers (including early Wittgenstein) who thought philosophers should avoid the deceptive trappings of natural language by constructing ideal languages, ordinary language philosophers held that ordinary language already reflected a large number of subtle distinctions that had gone unrecognized in the formulation of traditional philosophical theories or problems. While schools such as logical positivism focus on logical terms, supposed to be universal and separate from contingent factors (such as culture, language, historical conditions), ordinary language philosophy emphasizes the use of language by ordinary people. Some have argued that ordinary language philosophy is of a more sociological grounding, as it essentially focuses on the use of language within social contexts. The most prominent ordinary language philosophers in the 1950s were
Austin and
Ryle. Some say {{Citation needed|date=September 2008}}that this movement marked a return to the common sense philosophy advocated by
G.E. Moore.Ordinary language philosophy often sought to disperse philosophical problems by showing them to be the result of misunderstanding ordinary language. See for example Ryle (who attempted to dispose of "
Descartes' myth") and Wittgenstein, among others.
1960 and beyond
In the 1950s, logical positivism was influentially challenged by
Wittgenstein in the
Philosophical Investigations,
Quine in "
Two Dogmas of Empiricism," and Sellars in
Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind. Following 1960, both logical positivism and natural language philosophy fell rapidly out of fashion{{Citation needed|date=November 2008}} and Anglophone philosophy began to incorporate a wider range of interests, views, and methods{{Citation needed|date=November 2008}}. Nonetheless, most philosophers in Britain and America still consider themselves to be "analytic philosophers."
(19) Largely, they have done so by expanding the notion of "analytic philosophy" from the specific programs that dominated Anglophone philosophy before 1960 to a much more general notion of an "analytic" style, characterized by precision and thoroughness about a narrow topic and opposed to "imprecise or cavalier discussions of broad topics."
(20) This interpretation of the history is far from universally accepted, and its opponents would say that it grossly downplays the role of Wittgenstein in the sixties and seventies.
Peter Hacker(21), reflects the view of Wittgensteinians when he contends that much contemporary philosophy that calls itself analytic does not deserve the title. According to him
(22) characterized by precision and thoroughness about a narrow topic, and resistance to "imprecise or cavalier discussions of broad topics."
(23)John Searle suggests that the obsession with linguistic philosophy of the last century has been superseded by an emphasis on the
philosophy of mind,
(24) in which
functionalism is currently the dominant theory. In recent years, a central focus for research in the philosophy of mind has been
consciousness. And while there is a general consensus for the global neuronal workspace model of consciousness,
(25) there are many views as to how the specifics work out. The best known theories are
Daniel Dennett's
heterophenomenology,
Fred Dretske and
Michael Tye's representationalism, and the higher-order theories of either
David M. Rosenthal — who advocates a higher-order thought (HOT) model — or
David Armstrong and
William Lycan — who advocate a higher-order perception (HOP) model. An alternative higher-order theory, the higher-order global states (HOGS) model, is offered by Robert van Gulick.
(26)Ethics in analytic philosophy
The first half of the twentieth century was marked by the widespread neglect of ethical philosophy and the popularity of skeptical attitudes towards value (e.g.
emotivism). During this time,
utilitarianism was the only non-skeptical approach to ethics to remain popular. However, as the influence of
logical positivism began to wane mid-century, contemporary analytic philosophers began to have a renewed interest in ethics.
G.E.M. Anscombe’s 1958
Modern Moral Philosophy sparked a revival of
Aristotle's virtue ethical approach and
John Rawls’s 1971
A Theory of Justice restored interest in
Kantian ethical philosophy. At present, contemporary ethical philosophy is dominated by three schools: utilitarianism, virtue ethics, and Kantianism.Another major development in the latter half of the twentieth century (c. 1970), has been contemporary ethical philosophy's overwhelming concern with practical applications, especially in relation to
environmental issues,
animal rights and the many challenges thrown up by advancing
medical science.
(27)(28)(29)As a side-effect of the focus on logic and language in the early years of analytic philosophy, the tradition initially had little to say on the subject of ethics. The attitude was widespread among early analytics that these subjects were unsystematic, and merely expressed personal attitudes about which philosophy could have little or nothing to say. Wittgenstein, in the
Tractatus, remarks that values cannot be a part of the world, and if they are anything at all they must be beyond or outside the world somehow, and that hence language, which describes the world, can say nothing about them. One interpretation of these remarks found expression in the doctrine of the
logical positivists that statements about
value — including all ethical and aesthetic judgments — are
non-cognitive; that is, not able to be either true
or false. Instead, it was held that they expressed the attitude of the speaker. Saying, "Killing is wrong," they thought, was equivalent to saying, "Boo to murder," or saying the word "murder" with a particular tone of disapproval. Social and political philosophy, aesthetics, and various more specialized subjects like
philosophy of history moved to the fringes of English-language philosophy for some time.By the 1950s debates had begun to arise over whether — and if so, how — ethical statements really were non-cognitive.
Charles Stevenson argued for
expressivism,
R. M. Hare advocated a view called
universal prescriptivism.
Phillipa Foot contributed several essays attacking all these positions, and the collapse of logical positivism as a cohesive research programme led to a renewed interest in ethics. Perhaps most influential in this area was
Elizabeth Anscombe, whose landmark monograph "Intention" was called by
Donald Davidson "the most important treatment of action since Aristotle", and is widely regarded as a masterpiece of moral psychology. A favorite student and close friend of Ludwig Wittgenstein, her 1958 article "Modern Moral Philosophy" introduced the term "consequentialism" into the philosophical lexicon, declared the "is-ought" impasse to be a dead end, and led to a revival in virtue ethics.
Analytic philosophy of religion
As with the study of ethics, early analytic philosophy tended to avoid the study of
philosophy of religion, largely dismissing the subject as part of metaphysics and meaningless (a notable exception is the series of
Michael B. Forest's 1934-36
Mind articles involving the Christian doctrine of creation and the rise of modern science). The collapse of logical positivism renewed interest in philosophy of religion, prompting philosophers such as
William Alston,
John Mackie,
Alvin Plantinga,
Robert Merrihew Adams,
Richard Swinburne,
David Alan Johnson and
Antony Flew to not only introduce new problems, but to re-open classical ones, such as the nature of
miracles and the arguments for and against the
existence of God.
(30)Plantinga, Mackie and Flew debated the logical validity of the
free will defense as a way to solve the
problem of evil.
(31) Alston, grappling with the consequences of analytic
philosophy of language, worked on the nature of religious language. Adams worked on the relationship of faith and morality.
(32)Analytic philosophy of religion has also been preoccupied with
Ludwig Wittgenstein, as well as his interpretation of
Søren Kierkegaard's philosophy of religion.
(33) Using first-hand remarks (which would later be published in
Philosophical Investigations,
Culture and Value, and other works), philosophers such as
Peter Winch and
Norman Malcolm developed what has come to be known as
contemplative philosophy, a Wittgensteinian school of thought rooted in the "Swansea tradition" and which includes Wittgensteinians such as
Rush Rhees,
Peter Winch and
D. Z. Phillips, amongst others. The name "contemplative philosophy" was first coined by D. Z. Phillips in
Philosophy's Cool Place, which rests on an interpretation of a passage from Wittgenstein's "Culture and Value."
(34) This interpretation was first labeled, "Wittgensteinian Fideism," by Kai Nielsen but those who consider themselves Wittgensteinians in the Swansea tradition have relentlessly and repeatedly rejected this construal as caricature of Wittgenstein's considered position; this is especially true of D. Z. Phillips.
(35) Responding to this interpretation,
Kai Nielsen and
D.Z. Phillips became two of the most prominent philosophers on Wittgenstein's philosophy of religion.
(36)Political philosophy
Current analytic political philosophy owes much to
John Rawls, who, in a series of papers from the 1950s onward (most notably "Two Concepts of Rules" and "Justice as Fairness") and his 1971 book
A Theory of Justice, produced a sophisticated and closely argued defence of a
liberalism in politics. This was followed in short order by Rawls's colleague
Robert Nozick's book
Anarchy, State, and Utopia, a defence of
free-market libertarianism.
Isaiah Berlin has had a notable influence on both analytic political philosophy and
Liberalism with his lecture entitled :
Two Concepts of Liberty.Recent decades have also seen the rise of several critiques of liberalism, including the
feminist critiques of
Catharine MacKinnon and
Andrea Dworkin, the
communitarian critiques of
Michael Sandel and
Alasdair MacIntyre (though it should be noted both shy away from the term), and the
multiculturalist critiques of
Amy Gutmann and
Charles Taylor. Although not an analytic philosopher,
Jürgen Habermas is another important — if controversial — figure in contemporary analytic political philosophy, whose social theory is a blend of social science, Marxism,
neo-Kantianism, and American
pragmatism.
Analytical Marxism
Another development in the area of political philosophy has been the emergence of a school known as
Analytical Marxism. Members of this school seek to apply the techniques of analytic philosophy, along with tools of modern social science such as
rational choice theory to the elucidation of the theories of
Karl Marx and his successors. The best-known member of this school is Oxford University philosopher
G.A. Cohen, whose 1978 work,
(Karl Marx's Theory of History: A Defence) is generally taken as representing the genesis of this school. In that book, Cohen attempted to apply the tools of logical and linguistic analysis to the elucidation and defense of Marx's materialist conception of history. Other prominent Analytical Marxists include the economist
John Roemer, the social scientist
Jon Elster, and the sociologist
Erik Olin Wright. All these people have attempted to build upon Cohen's work by bringing to bear modern social science methods, such as rational choice theory, to supplement Cohen's use of analytic philosophical techniques in the interpretation of Marxian theory.Cohen himself would later engage directly with Rawlsian political philosophy in attempt to advance a
socialist theory of justice that stands in contrast to both traditional Marxism and the theories advanced by Rawls and Nozick. In particular, he points to Marx's principle of
from each according to his ability, to each according to his need.
Maurice Cornforth was a student and friend of Wittgenstein, who embraced orthodox Dialectical Materialism and became the official philosopher of the
CPGB. In the 1960s he renounced some of his more dogmatic views and attempted to reconcile Marxism with analytics.
Communitarianism
Communitarians such as
Alasdair MacIntyre,
Charles Taylor,
Michael Walzer and
Michael Sandel advance a critique of Liberalism that uses analytic techniques to isolate the key assumptions of Liberal individualists, such as Rawls, and then challenges these assumptions. In particular, Communitarians challenge the Liberal assumption that the individual can be viewed as fully autonomous from the community in which he lives and is brought up. Instead, they push for a conception of the individual that emphasizes the role that the community plays in shaping his or her values, thought processes and opinions.
Analytic metaphysics
One striking break with early analytic philosophy was the revival of metaphysical theorizing in the second half of the twentieth century. Philosophers such as
David Kellogg Lewis and
David Armstrong developed elaborate theories on a range of topics such as universals, causation, possibility and necessity, and abstract objects.Among the developments that led to the revival of metaphysical theorizing were
Quine's attack on the
analytic-synthetic distinction, which was generally taken to undermine
Carnap's distinction between existence questions internal to a framework and those external to it.
(37)Metaphysics remains a fertile area for research, having recovered from the attacks of
A.J. Ayer and the
logical positivists. And though many were inherited from previous decades, the debate remains fierce. The philosophy of fiction, the problem of empty names, and the debate over existence's status as a property have all risen out of relative obscurity to become central concerns, while perennial issues such as free will, possible worlds, and the
philosophy of time have had new life breathed into them.
(38)(39)Science has also played an increasingly significant role in metaphysics. The theory of special relativity has had a profound effect on the philosophy of time, and quantum physics is routinely discussed in the free will debate.
(40) The weight given to scientific evidence is largely due to widespread commitments among philosophers to
scientific realism and
naturalism.
Philosophy of language
Philosophy of language is another area that has slowed down over the course of the last four decades, as evidenced by the fact that few major figures in contemporary philosophy treat it as a primary research area. Indeed, while the debate remains fierce, it is still strongly under the influence of those figures from the first half of the century:
Gottlob Frege,
Bertrand Russell,
Ludwig Wittgenstein,
J.L. Austin,
Alfred Tarski, and
W.V.O. Quine. In the second half of the 20th century the work of
Saul A. Kripke and
Donald Davidson has been very influential. Kripke's
Naming and Necessity is one of the most influential books of the second half of the 20th century. The book constitutes an attack on descriptivist theories of proper names. Kripke attributes variants of descriptivist theories to
Frege,
Russell,
Ludwig Wittgenstein and
John Searle, among others. According to descriptivist theories, proper names either are synonymous with descriptions, or have their reference determined by virtue of the name's being associated with a description or cluster of descriptions that an object uniquely satisfies. Kripke rejects both these kinds of descriptivism. He gives several examples purporting to render descriptivism implausible as a theory of how names get their reference determined (e.g., surely Aristotle could have died at age two and so not satisfied any of the descriptions we associate with his name, and yet it would seem wrong to deny that he was Aristotle). As an alternative, Kripke adumbrated a causal theory of reference, according to which a name refers to an object by virtue of a causal connection with the object as mediated through communities of speakers. He points out that proper names, in contrast to most descriptions, are rigid designators: A proper name refers to the named object in every possible world in which the object exists, while most descriptions designate different objects in different possible worlds. For example, 'Nixon' refers to the same person in every possible world in which Nixon exists, while 'the person who won the United States presidential election of 1968' could refer to Nixon, Humphrey, or others in different possible worlds.Kripke also raised the prospect of a posteriori necessities — facts that are necessarily true, though they can be known only through empirical investigation. Examples include “Hesperus is Phosphorus”, “Cicero is Tully”, “Water is H2O” and other identity claims where two names refer to the same object.Finally, Kripke gave an argument against identity materialism in the philosophy of mind, the view that every mental fact is identical with some physical fact (See talk). Kripke argued that the only way to defend this identity is as an a posteriori necessary identity, but that such an identity — e.g., pain is C-fibers firing — could not be necessary, given the possibility of pain that has nothing to do with C-fibers firing. Similar arguments have been proposed by David Chalmers.Kripke delivered the John Locke lectures in philosophy at Oxford in 1973. Titled Reference and Existence, they are in many respects a continuation of
Naming and Necessity, and deal with the subjects of fictional names and perceptual error. They have never been published and the transcript is officially available only in a reading copy in the university philosophy library, which cannot be copied or cited without Kripke's permission.
Philosophy of science
Reacting against the earlier philosopher of science Sir
Karl Popper, who had suggested the
falsifiability criterion on which to judge the demarcation between science and non-science, discussions in
philosophy of science in the last forty years were dominated by
social constructivist and
cognitive relativist theories of science.{{Dubious|date=December 2009}}
Thomas Samuel Kuhn is one of the major philosophers of science representative of the former theory, while
Paul Feyerabend is representative of the latter theory. Philosophy of biology has also undergone considerable growth, particularly due to the considerable debate in recent years over
evolution. Here again, Daniel Dennett and his 1995 book
Darwin's Dangerous Idea stand at the foreground of this debate.{{Dubious|date=March 2009}}
Epistemology
Owing largely to a
Gettier's 1963 paper "What is Justified Belief?", epistemology saw a resurgence in analytic philosophy over the last 50 years. A large portion of current epistemological research aims to resolve the problems that Gettier's examples presented to the traditional justified true belief model of knowledge. Other areas of contemporary research include basic knowledge, the nature of evidence, the role of intuitions in justification, and treating knowledge as a primitive concept.
Schools of thought in analytic philosophy
CoherentismIn epistemology, the view has been advanced both as a theory of knowledge and of justified belief. As a theory of knowledge, coherentism can be roughly stated as follows: "Someone's belief is true if and only if it is coherent with all or most of his or her other beliefs." As a theory of justification, coherentism can be roughly stated: "Someone's belief is justified if and only if it is coherent with all or most of his or her other beliefs."
Compatibilism In metaphysics, it is the view that free will and determinism are compatible ideas and that it is possible to believe both without being logically inconsistent. Compatibilism is also known by the name,
soft determinism.
ContextualismIn epistemology, contextualism is the treatment of the word 'knows' as context-sensitive. Context-sensitive expressions are ones that "express different propositions relative to different contexts of use."
Deflationism In epistemology, the view that assertions that predicate truth of a statement do not attribute a property called truth to such a statement. However, there are many competing deflationist theories:
redundancy theory,
performative theory,
semantic theory,
disquotationalism,
prosententialism, and
minimalism.
Direct realismIn epistemology, the view that the world is pretty much as common sense would have it. Furthermore, when we look at and touch things we see and feel those things directly, and so perceive them as they really are. In contrast, indirect or representative realism claims that we are directly aware only of internal representations of the external world. Direct realism is also known by the names,
naïve realism or
common sense realism.
EpiphenomenalismIn philosophy of mind, epiphenomenalism is a view according to which some or all mental states are mere epiphenomena (side-effects or by-products) of physical states of the world.
Incompatibilism In metaphysics, it is the view that free will (and therefore moral responsibility) and determinism are logically incompatible categories. This could include believing in determinism and therefore free will is an illusion (
Hard Determinism) or that free will exists and therefore determinism is false (
Libertarianism).
ExternalismContrasted with internalism, externalism names several distinct views across several branches of philosophy. For example, in moral philosophy a motivational externalist claims that there is no necessary connection between moral judgments and moral motives. In epistemology, a justification externalist claims that there are factors other than those which are internal to the believer which can affect the justificatory status of a belief. In philosophy of mind, externalism is the view that the contents of at least some of one's mental states are dependent in part on their relationship to the external world or one's environment.
Functionalism In philosophy of mind, functionalism is a philosophical position holding that mental states (beliefs, desires, being in pain, etc.) are constituted solely by their functional role — that is, their causal relations to other mental states, sensory inputs, and behavioral outputs. Since mental states are identified by a functional role, they are said to be multiply realizable; in other words, they are able to be manifested in various systems, even perhaps computers, so long as the system performs the appropriate functions.
InternalismContrasted with externalism, internalism names several distinct views across several branches of philosophy. For example, in moral philosophy a motivational internalist claims that moral judgments are intrinsically motivating. In epistemology, a justification externalist claims that everything necessary to provide justification for a belief must be immediately available in an agent's conscious. In philosophy of mind, internalism is the view that the contents of all of one's mental states are independent of their relationship to the external world or one's environment.
Logical atomismThe theory holds that the world consists of ultimate logical "facts" (or "atoms") that cannot be broken down any further.
Logical positivism Logical positivism (or logical empiricism) is a school of philosophy that combines empiricism, the idea that observational evidence is indispensable for knowledge of the world, with a version of rationalism, the idea that our knowledge includes a component that is not derived from observation.
Naturalism Naturalism is the view that the scientific method (hypothesize, predict, test, repeat) is the only effective way to investigate reality. Most notably defended by
W.V. Quine's with his work to reduce
epistemology to
psychology.
NeopragmatismNeopragmatism, sometimes called
linguistic pragmatism, is a recent (since the 1960s) philosophical term for philosophy that reintroduces many concepts from pragmatism. It has been associated with a variety of thinkers, among them Richard Rorty, Hilary Putnam, W.V.O. Quine, Donald Davidson, and Stanley Fish though none of these figures have called themselves "neopragmatists".
Non-cognitivismIn metaethics, non-cognitivism is the view that ethical sentences do not express propositions and thus cannot be true or false. Examples of this view
emotivism,
prescriptivism,
quasi-realism, and
expressivism.
Ordinary language philosophyOrdinary language philosophy is a philosophical school that approached traditional philosophical problems as rooted in misunderstandings philosophers develop by forgetting what words actually mean in a language.
ParticularismMoral particularism is the view that there are no moral principles and that moral judgement can be found only as one decides particular cases, either real or imagined.
Physicalism In philosophy of mind and metaphysics, physicalism is a philosophical position holding that everything which exists is no more extensive than its physical properties; that is, that there are no kinds of things other than physical things. The term was coined by Otto Neurath in a series of early 20th century essays on the subject.
Property dualismIn philosophy of mind, the view that, although the world is constituted of just one kind of substance—the physical kind—there exist two distinct kinds of properties: physical properties and mental properties.
QuietismIn metaphilosophy, the view that the role of philosophy is therapeutic or remedial. Quietist philosophers believe that philosophy has no positive theses to contribute, but rather that its value is in defusing confusions in the linguistic and conceptual frameworks of other subjects.
ReliabilismIn epistemology, the view has been advanced both as a theory of knowledge and of justified belief. As a theory of knowledge, reliabilism can be roughly stated as follows: "One knows that p (p stands for any proposition--e.g., that the sky is blue) if and only if p is true, one believes that p is true, and one has arrived at the belief that p through some reliable process." As a theory of justified belief, reliabilism can be formulated roughly as follows: "One has a justified belief that p if, and only if, the belief is the result of a reliable process."
Substance dualismIn philosophy of mind, the view that there exist two kinds of substance: physical and non-physical (the mind), and subsequently also two kinds of properties which adhere in those respective substances.
Verificationism Verificationism is the idea that a statement or question only has meaning if there is some way to determine if the statement is true, or what the answer to the question is.
Virtue EthicsThe contemporary revival of virtue theory is frequently traced to the philosopher G. E. M. Anscombe's 1958 essay, Modern Moral Philosophy and to Philippa Foot, who published a collection of essays in 1978 entitled Virtues and Vices.
Notes
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[See, e.g., Avrum Stroll, Twentieth-Century Analytic Philosophy (Columbia University Press, 2000), p. 5: "[I]t is difficult to give a precise definition of 'analytic philosophy' since it is not so much a specific doctrine as a loose concatenation of approaches to problems." Also, see ibid., p. 7: "I think Sluga is right in saying 'it may be hopeless to try to determine the essence of analytic philosophy.' Nearly every proposed definition has been challenged by some scholar. [...] [W]e are dealing with a family resemblance concept."]
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[See Hans-Johann Glock, What Is Analytic Philosophy (Cambridge University Press, 2008), p. 205: "The answer to the title question, then, is that analytic philosophy is a tradition held together both by ties of mutual influence and by family resemblances."]
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[H. Glock, "Was Wittgenstein an Analytic Philosopher?", Metaphilosophy, 35:4 (2004), pp. 419-444.]
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[Colin McGinn, The Making of a Philosopher: My Journey through Twentieth-Century Philosophy (HarperCollins, 2002), p. xi.: "analytical philosophy [is] too narrow a label, since [it] is not generally a matter of taking a word or concept and analyzing it (whatever exactly that might be). [...] This tradition emphasizes clarity, rigor, argument, theory, truth. It is not a tradition that aims primarily for inspiration or consolation or ideology. Nor is it particularly concerned with 'philosophy of life,' though parts of it are. This kind of philosophy is more like science than religion, more like mathematics than poetry -- though it is neither science nor mathematics."]
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[All three traits can be found in a characteristic paragraph by Bertrand Russell: "Modern analytical empiricism [...] differs from that of Locke, Berkeley, and Hume by its incorporation of mathematics and its development of a powerful logical technique. It is thus able, in regard to certain problems, to achieve definite answers, which have the quality of science rather than of philosophy. It has the advantage, as compared with the philosophies of the system-builders, of being able to tackle its problems one at a time, instead of having to invent at one stroke a block theory of the whole universe. Its methods, in this respect, resemble those of science. I have no doubt that, in so far as philosophical knowledge is possible, it is by such methods that it must be sought; I have also no doubt that, by these methods, many ancient problems are completely soluble." A History of Western Philosophy (Simon & Schuster, 1945), p. 834.]
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[See Aristotle Metaphysics (Book II 993a), Kenny (1973) p. 230.]
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[This is an attitude that goes back to Locke, who described his work as that of an "underlabourer" to the achievements of natural scientists such as Newton. In the twentieth century, the most influential advocate of the continuity of philosophy with science was Quine: see, e.g., his papers "Two Dogmas of Empiricism" and "Epistemology Naturalized".]
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[A.P. Martinich, "Introduction," in Martinich & D. Sosa (eds.), A Companion to Analytic Philosophy (Blackwell, 2001), p. 1: "To use a general name for the kind of analytic philosophy practiced during the first half of the twentieth century, [...] 'conceptual analysis' aims at breaking down complex concepts into their simpler components."]
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[Wittgenstein, op. cit., 4.111]
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[Scott Soames, Philosophical Analysis in the Twentieth Century Vol. 1 (Princeton UP, 2003), p. xv: "There is, I think, a widespread presumption within the tradition that it is often possible to make philosophical progress by intensively investigating a small, circumscribed range of philosophical issues while holding broader, systematic questions in abeyance. What distinguishes twentieth-century analytical philosophy from at least some philosophy in other traditions, or at other times, is not a categorical rejection of philosophical systems, but rather the acceptance of a wealth of smaller, more thorough and more rigorous, investigations that need not be tied to any overarching philosophical view." See also, e.g., "Philosophical Analysis" (catalogued under "Analysis, Philosophical") in Encyclopedia of Philosophy , Vol. 1 (Macmillan, 1967), esp. sections on "Bertrand Russell" at p. 97ff, "G.E. Moore" at p. 100ff, and "Logical Positivism" at p. 102ff.]
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[See, e.g., the works of G.E. Moore and J.L. Austin.]
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[See for example Moore's A Defence of Common Sense and Russell's critique of the Doctrine of internal relations,]
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["Analytic philosophy opposed right from its beginning English neo-Hegelianism of Bradley's sort and similar ones. It did not only criticize the latter's denial of the existence of an external world (anyway an unjust criticism), but also the bombastic, obscure style of Hegel's writings." JOURNAL, Jonkers, Peter, 2003, Perspectives on Twentieth Century Philosophy:A Reply to Tom Rockmore, Ars Disputandi, 3, 1566-5399,weblink ]
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[JOURNAL, Willard, Dallas, Husserl on a Logic that Failed, Philosophical Review, 52–53, 89, 1, ]
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[JOURNAL, Russell, Bertrand, 1905, On Denoting, Mind (journal), Mind, 14, 473–93,weblink ]
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[BOOK, Carnap, R., The Logical Structure of the World, ?, 1928, ]
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[BOOK, Popper, Karl R., The Logic of Scientific Discovery, Routledge, 2002, ISBN 0-415-27844-9]
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[Prominent amongst these were Ludwig Wittgenstein and Rudolf Carnap. Karl Popper might also be included, since despite his rejection of the label his method bears many of the hallmarks of the analytic tradition.]
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[See, e.g., weblink, where Brian Leiter notes: "All the Ivy League universities, all the leading state research universities, all the University of California campuses, most of the top liberal arts colleges, most of the flagship campuses of the second-tier state research universities boast philosophy departments that overwhelmingly self-identify as "analytic": it is hard to imagine a "movement" that is more academically and professionally entrenched than analytic philosophy." See also John Searle's judgment (in Bunnin & Tsui-James (eds.), The Blackwell Companion to Philosophy (Blackwell, 2003), p. 1): "Without exception, the best philosophy departments in the United States are dominated by analytic philosophy, and among the leading philosophers in the United States, all but a tiny handful would be classified as analytic philosophers."]
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[Analytic Philosophy [Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]]
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[Hacker, P. M. S. (1996) Wittgenstein's Place in Twentieth-century Analytic Philosophy . Oxford : Blackwell, .]
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Contemporary analytic philosophy
Although contemporary philosophers who self-identify as "analytic" have widely divergent interests, assumptions, and methods—and have often rejected the fundamental premises that defined the analytic movement before 1960—analytic philosophy, in its contemporary state, is usually taken to be defined by a particular style [See, e.g., Brian Leiter weblink "'Analytic' philosophy today names a style of doing philosophy, not a philosophical program or a set of substantive views. Analytic philosophers, crudely speaking, aim for argumentative clarity and precision; draw freely on the tools of logic; and often identify, professionally and intellectually, more closely with the sciences and mathematics, than with the humanities."]
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Philosophy of mind and cognitive science
Motivated by the logical positivists' interest in verificationism, behaviorism was the most prominent theory of mind in analytic philosophy for the first half of the twentieth century. {{Citation needed|date=November 2008}} Behaviorists tended to hold either that statements about the mind were equivalent to statements about behavior and dispositions to behave in particular ways or that mental states were directly equivalent to behavior and dispositions to behave. Behaviorism later became far less popular, in favor of type physicalism or functionalism, theories which identified mental states with brain states. During this period, topics in the philosophy of mind were often in close contact with issues in cognitive science such as modularity or innateness. Finally, analytic philosophy has featured a few philosophers who were dualists, and recently forms of property dualism have had a resurgence, with David Chalmers as the most prominent representative.[{{sep entry|dualism|Dualism}}]
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[Postrel and Feser, February 2000, Reality Principles: An Interview with John R. Searle atweblink]
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[Dennett, Daniel C. (2001) "Are We Explaining Consciousness Yet?" Cognition 79 (1-2):221-37.]
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[For summaries and some criticism of the different higher-order theories, see Van Gulick, Robert (2006) "Mirror Mirror — Is That All?" In Kriegel & Williford (eds.), Self-Representational Approaches to Consciousness. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. The final draft is also available here. For Van Gulick's own view, see Van Gulick, Robert. "Higher-Order Global States HOGS: An Alternative Higher-Order Model of Consciousness." In Gennaro, R.J., (ed.) Higher-Order Theories of Consciousness: An Anthology. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.]
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[Brennan, Andrew and Yeuk-Sze Lo (2002). "Environmental Ethics" §2, in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.]
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[Gruen, Lori (2003). "The Moral Status of Animals," in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.]
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[See Hursthouse, Rosalind (2003). "Virtue Ethics" §3, in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and Donchin, Anne (2004). "Feminist Bioethics" in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.]
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[Peterson, Michael et al. (2003). Reason and Religious Belief]
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[Mackie, John L. (1982). The Miracle of Theism: Arguments For and Against the Existence of God]
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[Adams, Robert M. (1987). The Virtue of Faith And Other Essays in Philosophical Theology]
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[Creegan, Charles. (1989). Wittgenstein and Kierkegaard: Religion, Individuality and Philosophical Method]
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[Phillips, D. Z. (1999). Philosophy's Cool Place. Cornell University Press. The quote is from Wittgenstein's Culture and Value (2e): "My ideal is a certain coolness. A temple providing a setting for the passions without meddling with them.]
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[{{sep entry|fideism|Fideism}}]
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[Nielsen, Kai and D.Z. Phillips. (2005). Wittgensteinian Fideism?'']
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[S. Yablo and A. Gallois, Does Ontology Rest on a Mistake?, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volumes, Vol. 72, (1998), pp. 229-261+263-283 first part]
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[Everett, Anthony and Thomas Hofweber (eds.) (2000), Empty Names, Fiction and the Puzzles of Non-Existence.]
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[Van Inwagen, Peter, and Dean Zimmerman (eds.) (1998), Metaphysics: The Big Questions.]
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[Ibid.]
See also
References
{{Ibid|date=March 2010}}
- Aristotle, Metaphysics
- Geach, P., Mental Acts, London 1957
- Kenny, A.J.P., Wittgenstein, London 1973.
- {{iep|/a/analytic.htm|Analytic philosophy|Aaron Preston}}
- Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
Further reading
External links
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