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Analytic philosophy (sometimes, analytical philosophy) is a term used in two main senses. First, it can be used to denote a specific movement in early 20th century philosophy, led by Bertrand Russell, G.E. Moore, and Ludwig Wittgenstein, which made substantial contributions to philosophical logic, held that philosophy should apply these logical techniques to the attainment of conceptual clarity, and sought to be consistent with the success of modern science. Bertrand Arthur William Russell 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970 was a British Philosopher, Historian "GE Moore" redirects here For the cofounder of Intel see Gordon Moore. Logic is the study of the principles of valid demonstration and Inference. Science (from the Latin scientia, meaning " Knowledge " or "knowing" is the effort to discover, and increase human understanding Second, “analytic philosophy” can be used as a catch all phrase that includes all branches of contemporary philosophy not focusing on a certain group of European continental philosophers. Continental philosophy, in contemporary usage refers to a set of traditions of 19th and 20th century philosophy from mainland Europe

These two senses of "analytic philosophy" are related. Most of the branches of "analytic philosophy" in its broader sense owe an intellectual debt to the methods and style of the analytic movement proper, and some argue that the diverse fields of contemporary analytic philosophy are unified by a common style,[1] deriving from pioneering work at Cambridge in the early 20th century. However, the relation between these two senses of “analytic philosophy” should not be overemphasized. Many branches of contemporary philosophy--for example, philosophy of mind and political philosophy--bear remarkably little resemblance to the work of Russell and Moore and make little use of the concepts, methods, and tools they developed. Philosophy of mind is the branch of Philosophy that studies the nature of the Mind, Mental events Mental functions mental properties Political philosophy is the study of questions about the City, Government, Politics, Liberty, Justice, Property, Rights Furthermore, most philosophers since 1960 have rejected the basic precepts that underlay the analytic movement proper, precepts that were decisively challenged by the influential critiques of W.V. Quine and the later Wittgenstein. Willard Van Orman Quine (June 25 1908 Akron, Ohio &ndash December 25 2000 (known to intimates as "Van"

Contents

The Analytic Movement: 1900 - 1960

In its first sense, "Analytic Philosophy" is used to refer to a specific philosophical program that is ordinarily dated from about 1900 to 1960.

Key Traits

As a historical program, "Analytic Philosophy" can be summarily characterized in three broad strokes:[2]

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. England is a Country which is part of the United Kingdom. Its inhabitants account for more than 83% of the total UK population whilst its mainland Philosophy is the study of general problems concerning matters such as existence knowledge truth beauty justice validity mind and language Bertrand Arthur William Russell 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970 was a British Philosopher, Historian "GE Moore" redirects here For the cofounder of Intel see Gordon Moore. They turned away from then-dominant forms of Hegelianism (objecting in particular to its idealism and purported obscurity)[9][10], and began to develop a new sort of conceptual analysis, based on new developments in logic. Hegelianism is a Philosophy developed by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel which can be summed up by Hegel's "the Rational alone is real" which means In Western civilization, Idealism is the philosophy which maintains that the Ultimate nature of reality is ideal or based upon ideas values essences The so-called

Origins: Frege

Russell in his early career, along with collaborator Alfred North Whitehead, was deeply influenced by Gottlob Frege. Alfred North Whitehead, OM ( February 15 1861, Ramsgate, Kent, England &ndash December 30 1947, Friedrich Ludwig Gottlob Frege ( 8 November 1848, Wismar, Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin  &ndash 26 July 1925 Most importantly Gottlob Frege helped to develop predicate logic. Friedrich Ludwig Gottlob Frege ( 8 November 1848, Wismar, Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin  &ndash 26 July 1925 In Mathematical logic, predicate logic is the generic term for symbolic Formal systems like First-order logic, Second-order logic, Many-sorted This permitted 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. The philosophy of mathematics is the branch of Philosophy that studies the philosophical assumptions foundations and implications of Mathematics. In contrast to Husserl's Philosophy of Arithmetic, which attempted to show that the concept of the cardinal number derived from psychical acts of grouping objects and counting them,[11] 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 Husserl's "psychologism"). This article describes cardinal numbers in mathematics For cardinals in linguistics see Names of numbers in English. 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. Begriffsschrift is the title of a short book on Logic by Gottlob Frege, published in 1879, and is also the name of the Formal system Frege further developed his philosophy of logic and mathematics in The Foundations of Arithmetic and The Basic Laws of Arithmetic where he provides an alternative to psychologistic accounts of the concept of number. Die Grundlagen der Arithmetik (The Foundations of Arithmetic is a book by Gottlob Frege, published in 1884 in which he investigates the philosophical foundations

Like Frege, Bertrand Russell and Alfred North Whitehead attempted to show that mathematics is reducible to fundamental logical principles. Bertrand Arthur William Russell 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970 was a British Philosopher, Historian Alfred North Whitehead, OM ( February 15 1861, Ramsgate, Kent, England &ndash December 30 1947, Their Principia Mathematica (1910-1913) encouraged many philosophers to take a renewed interest in the development of symbolic logic. The Principia Mathematica is a 3-volume work on the Foundations of mathematics, written by Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell Symbolic logic is the area of Mathematics which studies the purely formal properties of strings of symbols 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. Bertrand Arthur William Russell 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970 was a British Philosopher, Historian For example, the English word “is” can be parsed in three distinct ways:

Russell sought to resolve various philosophical issues by applying such clear and clean distinctions, most famously in the case of the Present King of France. A definite description is a denoting phrase in the form of "the X" where X is a noun-phrase or a singular common noun

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. Logic is the study of the principles of valid demonstration and Inference. That is, in one way or another they sought to formalize the way in which philosophical statements are made. Ludwig Wittgenstein developed a comprehensive system of logical atomism in a brief book, the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus is the only book-length work published by Austrian Philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. The argument therein suggests that the world is the existence of certain states of affairs and 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. Table of logic symbolsIn Logic, two sentences (either in a formal language or a natural language may be joined by means of a logical connective to form a compound sentence

Logical Positivism

Main article: Logical Positivism

In the late 20s, 30s, and 40s, Russel and Wittgenstein's formalism was picked up by a group of thinkers in Vienna and Berlin, who formed the Vienna Circle and Berlin Circle and developed a doctrine known as logical positivism (or logical empiricism). Logical positivism (later and more accurately called logical empiricism) is a school of philosophy that combines Empiricism, the idea that observational evidence is The Vienna Circle (in German: der Wiener Kreis) was a group of philosophers who gathered around Moritz Schlick when he The Berlin Circle was a group that maintained logical empiricist views about Philosophy. Logical positivism (later and more accurately called logical empiricism) is a school of philosophy that combines Empiricism, the idea that observational evidence is Logical positivism used formal logical tools to underpin an empiricist account of our knowledge of the world. [12] 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 that tautologies, together with verifiable empirical claims, constituted the entire universe of meaningful judgments; anything else was, strictly speaking nonsense (including, for example, the claims of ethics, aesthetics and theology). Rudolf Carnap ( May 18, 1891 &ndash September 14, 1970) was an influential German -born philosopher who was active in Hans Reichenbach ( September 26, 1891 in Hamburg – April 9, 1953 in Los Angeles The Vienna Circle (in German: der Wiener Kreis) was a group of philosophers who gathered around Moritz Schlick when he Karl Popper's insistence upon the role of falsification in the philosophy of science was a reaction to the logical positivists. Sir Karl Raimund Popper ( July 28 1902  &ndash September 17 1994) was an Austrian and British Philosopher and a professor [13] 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, on account of their leftist sympathies. Hi and welcome to Wikipedia! Please understand that this article is frequently vandalized and vandalism is reverted immediately Nazism, which was a short name for National Socialism (Nationalsozialismus refers primarily to the Ideology and practices of the National Socialist German Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany ( ˈbʊndəsʁepuˌbliːk ˈdɔʏtʃlant is a Country in Central Europe. Most commonly, they fled to Britain and America, which helped to reinforce the dominance of logical positivism and analytic philosophy in the Anglophone world. [14]

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 typically adopted some type of verificationism, according to which every meaningful non-analytic statement is capable of being verified in terms of more basic statements about experiences or observables. A verificationist is someone who adheres to the verification principle proposed by A The analytic-synthetic distinction is a conceptual distinction used primarily in Philosophy to distinguish propositions into two types analytic propositions and This led the logical positivists to reject many traditional problems of philosophy, especially those of metaphysics or ontology, as meaningless. Metaphysics is the branch of Philosophy investigating principles of reality transcending those of any particular science In Philosophy, ontology (from the Greek, genitive: of being (part

Ordinary Language Analysis

Main article: Ordinary language philosophy

After war in the late 40s and 50s, analytic philosophy took a turn toward ordinary-language analysis. Ordinary language philosophy is a philosophical school that approached traditional philosophical problems as rooted in misunderstandings philosophers develop by forgetting what words actually World War II, or the Second World War, (often abbreviated WWII) was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including Ordinary language philosophy is a philosophical school that approached traditional philosophical problems as rooted in misunderstandings philosophers develop by forgetting what words actually This movement followed in the wake of Wittgenstein's later philosophy, which totally departed 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. It may be argued, then, 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. John Langshaw Austin ( March 26, 1911 – February 8, 1960) was a British philosopher of language, born in Lancaster and Gilbert Ryle ( 19 August 1900 - 6 October 1976) was a British Philosopher, and a representative of the generation of In some ways, this movement also marked a return to common sense philosophy, which had long been emphasized by G.E. Moore. "GE Moore" redirects here For the cofounder of Intel see Gordon Moore.

Ordinary language philosophy was often used to disperse philosophical problems, by exposing them as results of fundamental misunderstandings regarding the ordinary usage of the pertinent linguistic terms. Indeed, this is apparent in Ryle (who attempted to dispose of "Descartes' myth"), as well as Wittgenstein, among others. The ghost in the machine is British philosopher Gilbert Ryle 's derogatory description for René Descartes ' mind-body dualism.

The End? 1960 and Beyond

In the 1950s and 1960s, analytic philosophy as it had existed came under heavy attack. In the early 1950s, logical positivism was critically challenged by Wittgenstein in Philosophical Investigations, Quine in Two Dogmas of Empiricism, and Sellars in Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind. Philosophical Investigations ( Philosophische Untersuchungen) is along with the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, one of the two major works Willard Van Orman Quine (June 25 1908 Akron, Ohio &ndash December 25 2000 (known to intimates as "Van" W V O Quine's paper " Two Dogmas of Empiricism " published in 1951, is one of the most celebrated papers of Twentieth century Philosophy Wilfrid Stalker Sellars ( May 20, 1912 - July 2, 1989) was an American philosopher By 1960, these critiques had been widely read and were generally received favorably.

Following 1960, both logical positivism and natural language philosophy fell rapidly out of fashion. Many philosophers in Britain and America (although not all) began to move away from the distinctive linguistic analysis that had characterized analytic philosophy until this point. Far more than it had in the previous half-century, Anglophone philosophy began to incorporate wide range of interests, views, and methods, and has perhaps entered an age of eclecticism or pluralism, in which philosophers tend to specialize in very narrow and detached subfields.

Whether philosophy in general in this period should still be called "analytic" is a question of some dispute. Peter Hacker[15], for one, contends that much contemporary philosophy that calls itself analytic does not deserve the title. Peter Michael Stephan Hacker (born 15 July[[ 939]] in London is a British philosopher As he argues, philosophy’s center of gravity shifted from Britain to the US in the mid 70s (mostly for economic reasons), where, under the influence of the growing prestige of certain exciting scientific and technological developments, like computers, neurophysiology and Chomskyan linguistics, Wittgenstein’s arguments against his original Tractatus position were disregarded in the face of a somewhat vulgarised revival of that very position. Neurophysiology (from Greek grc νεῦρον neuron, "nerve" grc φύσις physis, "nature origin" and grc -λογία Avram Noam Chomsky (noʊm ˈtʃɑmski born December 7 1928 is an American linguist, Philosopher, cognitive scientist, Political This now calls itself analytic philosophy, though writers such as Hacker dispute its right to that title. “What from Wittgenstein’s perspective were diseases of the intellect, to many of which he had succumbed as a young man and which he had laboured long to extirpate, broke out afresh in mutated virulent forms’. [16]

However, in general, most philosophers in Britain and America (who do not specialize in continental philosophy) still consider themselves to be "analytic philosophers. Continental philosophy, in contemporary usage refers to a set of traditions of 19th and 20th century philosophy from mainland Europe " [17] 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. Often the analytic style is thought to be opposed to "imprecise or cavalier discussions of broad topics. "[18] The state of so-called "analytic philosophy" after 1960 will be the focus of the next section.


Contemporary Analytic Philosophy

In Britain and America, most philosophers who do not specialize in continental philosophy still call themselves "analytic philosophers,"[19] in spite of the many differences from the work that defined analytic philosophy before 1960 (see the previous section). Continental philosophy, in contemporary usage refers to a set of traditions of 19th and 20th century philosophy from mainland Europe In the way these philosophers are using the term, "analytic philosophy" is not unified by any particular interests, premises, or methods (in all three areas, analytic philosophers have widely divergent positions). Instead, analytic philosophy, in its contemporary state, is usually taken to be defined by a particular style [20] characterized by precision and thoroughness about a narrow topic, and resistance to "imprecise or cavalier discussions of broad topics. "[21]

Given this scope, it is difficult to identify non-trivial philosophical claims that would be common to all analytic philosophy. The term "analytic philosophy" may mark merely a family resemblance across disparate philosophical views, or historical lines of influence. This article is about the philosophical term proposed by Ludwig Wittgenstein not about the common observation that offspring resemble parents and one another [22][23] Insofar as broad generalizations can be made, analytic philosophy is defined by its emphasis on clarity and argument, often achieved via modern formal logic and analysis of language, and a respect for the natural sciences. Mathematical logic is a subfield of Logic and Mathematics with close connections to Computer science and Philosophical logic. A language is a dynamic set of visual auditory or tactile Symbols of Communication and the elements used to manipulate them In Science, the term natural science refers to a naturalistic approach to the study of the Universe, which is understood as obeying rules or law of [24][25][26]

A few of the most important and active fields and subfields in analytic philosophy are summarized in the following sections.

Philosophy of mind and cognitive science

Main article: Philosophy of mind

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. Philosophy of mind is the branch of Philosophy that studies the nature of the Mind, Mental events Mental functions mental properties Behaviorism or Behaviourism, also called the learning perspective (where any physical action is a behavior is a philosophy of Psychology based on the 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 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. Type physicalism (also known as Type Identity Theory, Mind-Brain Identity Theory and Identity Theory of Mind) is a theory in Philosophy of mind Functionalism is a theory of the mind in contemporary Philosophy, developed largely as an alternative to both the Identity theory of mind and Behaviourism During this period, topics in the philosophy of mind were often in close contact with issues in cognitive science such as modularity or innateness. Cognitive science may be broadly defined as the multidisciplinary study of mind and behavior The concept of modularity is also used in other fields See Modularity. For nativism as a political force see Nativism. In the field of Psychology, nativism is the view that certain skills or abilities Finally, analytic philosophy has featured many philosophers who were dualists, and recently forms of property dualism have had a resurgence, with David Chalmers as perhaps the most prominent representative. In Philosophy of mind, dualism is a set of views about the relationship between mind and matter which begins with the claim that mental phenomena are in some David John Chalmers (born April 20, 1966) is a Philosopher in the area of Philosophy of mind. [27]

Ethics in analytic philosophy

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, like metaphysical claims, literally meaningless and therefore non-cognitive; that is, not able to be either true or false. Logical positivism (later and more accurately called logical empiricism) is a school of philosophy that combines Empiricism, the idea that observational evidence is Value theory encompasses a range of approaches to understanding how why and to what degree humans should or do value things whether the thing is a person idea object or anything else Cognitivism is the meta-ethical view that ethical sentences express Propositions and can therefore be true or false (they are truth-apt Social and political philosophy, aesthetics, and various more specialized subjects like philosophy of history thus moved to the fringes of English-language philosophy for some time. Philosophy of history or historiosophy is an area of Philosophy concerning the eventual significance if any of human History.

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. Charles Leslie Stevenson (1908–1979 was an American Analytic philosopher best known for his work in Ethics and Aesthetics. Expressivism in Meta-ethics is a theory about the meaning of moral language. Richard Mervyn Hare ( 21 March 1919  &ndash 29 January 2002) was an English moral philosopher who held the post of White's Universal prescriptivism (often simply called prescriptivism) is the meta-ethical view which claims that 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. Philippa Ruth Foot (née Bosanquet born 1920 is a British philosopher, most notable for her works 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. G E M Anscombe ( 18 March, 1919 &ndash 5 January, 2001) born Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret Anscombe, but better known as Elizabeth Donald Davidson is the name of Donald Davidson (poet (1893–1968 American poet Donald Davidson (philosopher (1917–2003 American philosopher 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 avoided the study of philosophy of religion, dismissing the subject as part of metaphysics and meaningless. Philosophy of religion is a branch of Philosophy that is concerned with the philosophical study of religion including arguments over the nature and existence of God religious 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 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. William P Alston (born 1921 is professor emeritus at Syracuse University, and has made influential contributions to the Philosophy of John Leslie Mackie (1917&ndash1981 was an Australian philosopher, originally from Sydney. Alvin Carl Plantinga (born 1932 is a contemporary American Philosopher known for his work in Epistemology, Metaphysics, and the Philosophy For other persons named Robert Adams see Robert Adams (disambiguation Robert Merrihew Adams ( Bob Adams; born 1937 is an American Richard G Swinburne (born December 26, 1934) is an eminent British Professor and Philosopher primarily interested in the Professor Antony Garrard Newton Flew (born 11 February 1923 is a British Philosopher. A miracle is an event believed to be caused by interposition of Divine intervention by a Supernatural being in the Universe by which the ordinary operation Arguments for and against the existence of God have been proposed by philosophers theologians and others [28]

Plantinga, Mackie and Flew debated the logical validity of the free will defense as a way to solve the problem of evil. In the Philosophy of religion and Theology, the problem of evil is the problem of reconciling the existence of Evil or Suffering in the world [29] Alston, grappling with the consequences of analytic philosophy of language, worked on the nature of religious language. Philosophy of language is the reasoned inquiry into the nature origins and usage of Language. Adams worked on the relationship of faith and morality. [30]

Analytic philosophy of religion has also been preoccupied with Ludwig Wittgenstein and his interpretation of Søren Kierkegaard's philosophy of religion. Søren Aabye Kierkegaard (ˈsœːɐn ˈkʰiɐ̯kəˌɡ̊ɒˀ in Danish Anglicized as;) [31] 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 a fideist interpretation of Wittgenstein. Philosophical Investigations ( Philosophische Untersuchungen) is along with the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, one of the two major works Peter Guy Winch ( January 14, 1926 in London – April 27, 1997) was a British philosopher known for his contributions Norman Malcolm (1911 &ndash 1990 was an American philosopher, born in Selden Kansas. Fideism is the view that Religious belief relies primarily on Faith or Special revelation, rather than rational inference or observation [32] Responding to this interpretation, Kai Nielsen and D.Z. Phillips became two of the most prominent philosophers on Wittgenstein's philosophy of religion. Kai Nielsen (1926 -) is adjunct Professor of Philosophy at Concordia University in Montreal and professor emeritus of philosophy at the Dewi Zephaniah Phillips ( 24 November 1934 &ndash 25 July 2006) known as D [33]

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 liberal welfare state. John Rawls ( February 21, 1921  &ndash November 24, 2002) was an American Philosopher, a Professor of A Theory of Justice is a widely-read book of political and Moral philosophy by John Rawls. This article refers specifically to the Welfare state of the United Kingdom. This was followed in short order by Rawls's colleague Robert Nozick's book Anarchy, State, and Utopia, a defence of free-market libertarianism. Robert Nozick ( November 16, 1938  &ndash January 23, 2002) was an American Philosopher and Pellegrino University Anarchy State and Utopia is a work of Political philosophy written by Robert Nozick in 1974. A free market is a Market in which property rights are voluntarily exchanged at a price arranged completely by the mutual consent of sellers and buyers Libertarianism is a term used by a broad spectrum of political philosophies which prioritize individual Liberty and seek to minimize or even abolish the Isiah Berlin has had a notable influence on analytic political philosophy with his lecture entitled : Two Concepts of Liberty. Sir Isaiah Berlin, OM (6 June 1909 &ndash 5 November 1997 was a philosopher and historian of ideas regarded as one of the leading liberal thinkers of the twentieth century Two Concepts of Liberty was the inaugural Lecture delivered by Isaiah Berlin before the University of Oxford on October 31, 1958

Analytical Marxism

Another interesting development in the area of political philosophy has been the emergence of a school known as Analytical Marxism. Analytical Marxism refers to a style of thinking about Marxism that was prominent amongst English-speaking philosophers and social scientists during the 1980s 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. Rational choice theory, also known as rational action theory, is a framework for understanding and often formally modeling social and economic behavior 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. Gerald Allan "Jerry" Cohen, (born 1941 is a marxist political philosopher presently the Chichele Professor of Social and Political Theory, All Souls College 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. John E Roemer is an American Economist and Political scientist. Jon Elster (born 1940 is a Norwegian social and Political theorist who has authored works in the Philosophy of social science and Rational choice Erik Olin Wright (b 1947 Berkeley, California) is an American until recently Analytical Marxist sociologist, specializing in 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. Socialism refers to a broad set of economic theories of social organization advocating state or collective ownership and administration of the Means of production and distribution In particular, he points to Marx's principle of from each according to his ability, to each according to his need. From each according to his ability to each according to his need (or needs) is a Slogan popularized by Karl Marx in his 1875 Critique

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. Communitarianism, as a group of related but distinct philosophies began in the late 20th century opposing in its opinion exalted forms of Individualism while advocating phenomena Alasdair Chalmers MacIntyre (born January 12, 1929 in Glasgow, Scotland) is a philosopher primarily known for his contribution to moral Charles Margrave Taylor (born November 5, 1931) CC GOQ MA DPhil FRSC is a Philosopher from Michael Walzer ( 3 March 1935) is an American Political philosopher and Public intellectual. Michael Sandel ( 1953 - is a political philosopher and a professor at Harvard University. 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 Lewis and David Armstrong developed elaborate theories on a range of topics such as universals, causation, possibility and necessity, and abstract objects. David Lewis may refer to: Academics David Lewis (lawyer (c1520–1584 civil lawyer and first Principal of Jesus College Oxford David David Armstrong may refer to David Armstrong (English footballer (b

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. Willard Van Orman Quine (June 25 1908 Akron, Ohio &ndash December 25 2000 (known to intimates as "Van" The analytic-synthetic distinction is a conceptual distinction used primarily in Philosophy to distinguish propositions into two types analytic propositions and Rudolf Carnap ( May 18, 1891 &ndash September 14, 1970) was an influential German -born philosopher who was active in [34]

Further reading

External links

Notes

  1. ^ See, e. g. , Brian Leiter [1] "'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. "
  2. ^ All three traits can be found in a characteristic paragraph by Bertrand Russell: "Modern analytical empiricism [. Bertrand Arthur William Russell 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970 was a British Philosopher, Historian . . ] 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.
  3. ^ See Aristotle Metaphysics (Book II 993a), Kenny (1973) p. 230.
  4. ^ This is an attitude that goes back to Locke, who described his work as that of an "underlaborer" to the achievements of natural scientists such as Newton. John Locke (29 August 1632 – 28 October 1704 was an English Philosopher. In the twentieth century, the most influential advocate of the continuity of philosophy with science was Quine: see, e. Willard Van Orman Quine (June 25 1908 Akron, Ohio &ndash December 25 2000 (known to intimates as "Van" g. , his papers "Two Dogmas of Empiricism" and "Epistemology Naturalized".
  5. ^ 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. "
  6. ^ Wittgenstein, op. cit. , 4. 111
  7. ^ 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" (cataloged 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.
  8. ^ See, e. g. , the works of G.E. Moore and J.L. Austin. "GE Moore" redirects here For the cofounder of Intel see Gordon Moore. John Langshaw Austin ( March 26, 1911 – February 8, 1960) was a British philosopher of language, born in Lancaster and
  9. ^ See for example Moore's A Defence of Common Sense and Russell's critique of the Doctrine of internal relations
  10. ^ ". A Defence of Common Sense is an influential 1925 Essay by Philosopher G The doctrine of internal relations is the philosophical doctrine that all relations are internal to their bearers in the sense that they are essential to them and the bearers would not . . 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. " Peter Jonkers, "Perspectives on twentieth century philosophy: A Reply to Tom Rockmore," [2]
  11. ^ Willard, Dallas. "Husserl on a Logic that Failed". Philosophical Review 89 (1): 52-53.  
  12. ^ Carnap, R. (1928). The Logical Structure of the World. ?.  
  13. ^ Popper, Karl R. (2002). The Logic of Scientific Discovery. Routledge.   ISBN 0-415-27844-9
  14. ^ Prominent amongst these were Ludwig Wittgenstein and Rudolf Carnap. Rudolf Carnap ( May 18, 1891 &ndash September 14, 1970) was an influential German -born philosopher who was active in Karl Popper might also be included, since despite his rejection of the label his method bears many of the hallmarks of the analytic tradition. Sir Karl Raimund Popper ( July 28 1902  &ndash September 17 1994) was an Austrian and British Philosopher and a professor
  15. ^ Hacker, P. M. S. (1996) Wittgenstein's Place in Twentieth-century Analytic Philosophy . Oxford : Blackwell, .
  16. ^ Hacker p272
  17. ^ See, e. g. , [3], 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. Brian Leiter (born 1963 is an American philosopher and legal scholar who is currently John Wilson Professor of Law at the University of Chicago and Director of Chicago's Center " See also John Searle's judgment (in Bunnin & Tsui-James (eds. John Rogers Searle (born July 31 1932 in Denver Colorado) is an American Philosopher and the Slusser Professor of Philosophy at the University ), 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. "
  18. ^ http://www.iep.utm.edu/a/analytic.htm
  19. ^ See, e. g. , [4], 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. Brian Leiter (born 1963 is an American philosopher and legal scholar who is currently John Wilson Professor of Law at the University of Chicago and Director of Chicago's Center " See also John Searle's judgment (in Bunnin & Tsui-James (eds. John Rogers Searle (born July 31 1932 in Denver Colorado) is an American Philosopher and the Slusser Professor of Philosophy at the University ), 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. "
  20. ^ See, e. g. , Brian Leiter [5] "'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. "
  21. ^ http://www.iep.utm.edu/a/analytic.htm
  22. ^ 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. "
  23. ^ 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. "
  24. ^ H. Glock, "Was Wittgenstein an Analytic Philosopher?", Metaphilosophy, 35:4 (2004), pp. 419-444.
  25. ^ Colin McGinn, The Making of a Philosopher: My Journey through Twentieth-Century Philosophy (HarperCollins, 2002), p. Colin McGinn (born March 10, 1950) is a British Philosopher currently working at the University of Miami. 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. "
  26. ^ A.C. Grayling, Philosophy 1: A Guide through the Subject (Oxford UP, 1998), p. Anthony Clifford Grayling (born 3 April 1949 is a British philosopher and author 5: "Analytic philosophy is not so much a school of thought as a style or method. It is a style of philosophizing which seeks to be rigorous and careful, which at times makes use of ideas and techniques from logic, and which is aware of what is happening in science. It is, in particular, alert to linguistic considerations, not because of an interest in language for its own sake, but because it is through language that we grasp the concepts we use, and it is by means of language that we express our beliefs and assumptions. One of the principal methods of analytic philosophy is analysis of the concepts we employ in thinking about ourselves and the world. "
  27. ^ Dualism entry at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  28. ^ Peterson, Michael et al. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP is a freely-accessible Online encyclopedia of Philosophy maintained by Stanford University. (2003). Reason and Religious Belief
  29. ^ Mackie, John L. (1982). The Miracle of Theism: Arguments For and Against the Existence of God
  30. ^ Adams, Robert M. (1987). The Virtue of Faith And Other Essays in Philosophical Theology
  31. ^ Creegan, Charles. (1989). Wittgenstein and Kierkegaard: Religion, Individuality and Philosophical Method
  32. ^ Fideism entry at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  33. ^ Nielsen, Kai and D. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP is a freely-accessible Online encyclopedia of Philosophy maintained by Stanford University. Z. Phillips. (2005). Wittgensteinian Fideism?
  34. ^ 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

References

The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (IEP is a free Online encyclopedia on philosophical topics and philosophers founded by James Fieser in 1995

Dictionary

analytic philosophy

-noun

  1. (philosophy) A style of philosophy that came to dominate English-speaking countries in the 20th century.
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