Talk:Analytic philosophy

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This article states that this is the dominant form of philosophy in English speaking countries. Among the college educated, isn't it also the dominant form of philosophy in Russian and other nations in the former Soviet Union? Outside of religious schools, isn't it also the dominant form of philosophy in Israel? RK 19:51, 5 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Perfectly true. Also Scandinavia and Japan, if I am correctly informed. And, for that matter, France and Germany despite what literary theorists would have us believe. (that Descombes is more philosophically significant than Derrida, is what I mean.) But that doesn't make the article's claim contenious, since, while it does say that most philosophy practiced in the English speaking world is analytic; it does not say or imply that this is not true of other countries as well. This is sensible for two reasons: (1) This is an English enyclopedia, and it is most useful to adress what philosophy denotes to speakers of English. (2) Analytic is most likely to be contrasted, if at all, with Continental; constraining its claim to generality within the English speaking world forestalls complaints by "Continentalists" that they are being maltreated. (Or perhaps oppressed.)

Hear, hear. But a list of countries in which analytic philosophy is prominent woudl also be interesting. Banno 21:35, Aug 3, 2004 (UTC)

Gadamer has considerable influence in Germany (=here), and I'd hesitate to say analytic philosophy is more influential than phenomenology here. The humanities vs. science divide is, if anything, a bigger deal here than elsewhere, with humanities being stronger than in anglosaxon countries, which benefits phenomenology. No doubt, though, that analytic philosophy is a big deal here in Germany though. ---- Charles Stewart 07:35, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Moved from article:

History of Analytic Philosopy

Here's a sketch for how this might proceed:

1. G. E. Moore, Common Sense philosophy. Rejection of British Post-Hegel Idealism.

2. Russell: Logical Analysis, Logical Atomism. Sense-data theory.

3. (Early) Wittgenstein: Tractatus. Formal Logic. "Ideal Language Philosophy"

4. Logical Positivism and Logical Empiricism. Vienna Circle. Carnap. Verificationism. Analytic-synthetic distinction. Rejection of Metaphysics, Ethics, Aesthetics. "Emotivism."

5. Oxford School. Ryle, Austin. Teachings of later Wittgenstein. "Ordinary Language Philosophy."

6. Published late work of Wittgenstein. "Linguistic Philosophy"

7. Late American pragmatism. Immigration of logicians and scientists from Europe in the 30s. Philosophy of science. Quine. Behaviourism.

8. Philosophy of Language. Natural Language Semantics. Davidson. Oxford in 70's. Strawson, Dummett, McDowell, Evans.

9. The Re-emergence of Metaphysics: modal realism, Humean Supervenience, counterfactual analysis of causation, the writings of David Lewis.

10. Revival of Political philosophy: Rawls, Nozick, Dworkin.

11. Philosophy of Mind, Cognitive Science. Turing . . . Churchlands.

12. New pragmatism: Rorty, Putnam.

Banno 08:36, Apr 12, 2004 (UTC)

---

Would it be useful to put this in terms of the historic divergence between early-modern british empericism (the progenitor of contemporary analytic) and early-modern continental rationalism (the progenitor of contemporary continental)? --mporch 01:28, 3 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I would like to remove the new paragraph which states:

Analytic philosophy, perhaps because its origin lay in dismissing the releance of Hegel and Hegelian philosophers (such as Marx)...

I don't remember learning anything like this in college! And since analytic philosophy existed before Hegel and Marx, isn't claim this just analytic-philosophy bashing? RK 00:21, Aug 17, 2004 (UTC)

You've been misinformed or are confusing two issues. In a broad sense, you could call all rigorous, well-thought-out philosophy "analytic philosophy", if you wanted, but nobody uses the term that way, and the article is quite explicit that the term names philosophy descended from Russell, Frege, and Moore, and, by extension, any post-Russell-Frege-Moore philosophy working with a certain amount of technical rigour and use of logic, etc. This "analytic philosophy" did not exist before Marx or Hegel--couldn't have--and was, in the case of Russell and Moore , very clearly and explicitly a reaction against Hegel and Hegelians. (Frege was only ever considered an analytic philosopher retrospectively, largely via the work of Michael Dummett.) And, in any case, this sense of "analytic philosophy" is the one intended by all but the most casual contemporary use of the term by all philosophers I've read.

More to the point, (regarding the context of the remark you quote) analytic philosophy in fact did produce almost no politicial philosophy until A Theory of Justice. That very fact seems to constitute a much bigger criticism of early analytic philosophy than claiming that they rejected Hegel, which, if anything, at least offers them an excuse for not theorizing about politics. Most assessments of Rawls' contribution to philosophy will point to this exact fact, uncontroversially to my knowledge. In any case, analytic philosophy can do political theory (case in point), and the remark certainly wasn't intended as "bashing". (I wrote it, along with the paragraph earlier on this "talk" page assessing the (lack of) merits of the "analytic" and "continental" distinction.)

Also, Popper was quite explicitly anti-Hegel. --Goethean 16:58, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Missing figures, Chomsky's influence

Key figures missing from above: Kripke (I suppose he is implicit in modal realism), ethical skeptics (Anscombe, Macintyre, Williams), Blackburn.

The history should make explicit the impact of Chomsky's ascendancy on the way that philosophy of language was done, especially in the USA. Eg. when Quine wrote The problem of meaning in linguistics, Bloomfield was the alpha male of US linguistics. Anti-Chomskians in philosophy are interesting, therefore, eg. Warren Goldfarb ---- Charles Stewart 07:35, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I've always thought of MacIntyre as an American Continental-style philosopher, if you get my drift. But I don't know if anyone else considers him such. --Goethean 17:00, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Missed this comment first time round... MacIntyre's exposure to (and reaction against) ordinary language philosophy, and his study of Wittgenstein in the days when only analytics were excited about him, have left a distinctly analytic imprint on him: have a look at the philosophical articles in Against the Self Images of the Age. Certainly, his involvement with Thomism doesn't look very analytic, but if you take a step back, there's something similar about the path he has taken and that which Williams has. And while we're at it, he did his philosophy boot camp in the UK, which makes him a British philosopher in my eyes. --- Charles Stewart 14:21, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)