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Analytic Philosophy article development

[edit]

Talk page Analytic philosophy as of 3 Feb 07:

Contents [hide]

1 Some Clarification Needed:

2 Nietzsche and analytic attitude

2.1 Re: Nietzsche and analytic attitude

2.2 Re: Nietzsche and analytic attitude (Carnap on Nietzsche)

2.3 Analytic v Continental philosophy

3 Moved from article:

3.1 Is Carnap German or Austrian?

3.2 History of Analytic Philosopy

3.3 Missing figures, Chomsky's influence

3.4 "Analytic"

4 tractatus

5 section headings

6 Is the Article Bias Towards Analytic Philosophy?

7 Name Dropping

8 Poor account

9 German article on "Analytische Philosophie"

10 Improvements to "Relation to continental philosophy"

11 Euro Society for Analytic Philosophy

12 G. H. von Wright

13 Analytic metaphysics

14 Political Philosophy

15 Analytic philosophy

16 New start

17 Further work on intro


Some Clarification Needed: In the following clause:

As a young Austrian soldier, Ludwig Wittgenstein expanded and developed Russell's logical atomism into a comprehensive system in a brief book, the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. The world is the existence of certain states of affairs; 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.

i restructured the first sentence to what is shown, removing the POV word "remarkable." Also, the entire clause is in need of clarification: are the statements made a summary of viewpoints from the book? i can only assume this is so, but it's not entirely clear. As i am personally unfamiliar with analytic philosophy, this is a clarification job for someone else to do. MiraFirefly 21:50, 30 January 2007 (UTC)


Nietzsche and analytic attitude I think it would be useful (as a critique of analytic philosophy) -to mention the influence of Nietzschean perspectivism over continental philosophy and the social sciences in general. Analytic philosophy is averse to anything that eludes the analytic framework. Continental philosophy craves for perspectives -and thus the influence from the social sciences, history, psychology, etc.

Analytical philosophy is also an ATTITUDE -i.e. mocking continental positions by invoking half-ass comments about the words they are expressed in. For a very good criticism of analytic attitude/posturing, see the first issue of 'Radical Philosophy' on 'Professional philosophers'. Also, the Penguin dictionary of Philosophy has a very powerful (albeit short)criticism of analytic philosophy. Analytic philosophy goes round in circles and does not achieve much -but 'hey, we're consistent/right and logical, no?'. In a world marked by the death of God, I fear these kids have gone mad! --Cookydog.


Re: Nietzsche and analytic attitude I don't think it would be useful to discuss Nietzsche's influence on continental philosophy because it has no relation to analytic philosophy at all. If you wish to mention Nietzsche in the criticism of analytic philosophy section featured on the page, go for it, but it seems to be well written as is.

In terms of your normative claims, not every analytic philosopher is completely averse to anything not analytic. Some analytic philosophers have attempeted to logically analyze continental positions. For example, many people read Plato from a continental viewpoint, but a lot of studies like those done by Gallop have tried to logically analyze Plato. Most intuitions, from any philosophy or perspective, are logically analyzable and probably contain some form of an argument structure. Of course, if you look at some of the implications of analytic philosophy, especially the logical positivists and Wittgenstein, there are things a continental philosopher can also take from that and argue for or against. On the other hand, here's a link to an article written by Keith DeRose where he tries to tackle his failure to understand, and severe distaste of, postmodernism ... http://bengal-ng.missouri.edu/~kvanvigj/certain_doubts/index.php?p=453.

Lastly, I imagine that most analytic philosophers would understand the fallacy in mocking a philosophical position. An analytic philosopher is very aware that sound argumentation isn't performed with extreme emotion and attacks. However, sometimes a word or two in jest is quite separate from a full-blown derviable argument against another philosopher's position.


Re: Nietzsche and analytic attitude (Carnap on Nietzsche) It is also interesting to note that while the logical positivist, Rudolf Carnap let loose on Heidegger in "The Elimination of Metaphysics Through Logical Analysis of Language," he had nothing but praise for Nietzsche. There, Carnap discerned similarities between Nietzsche's critique of metaphysics as found in say *Human, All too Human* and his own. He seems to have regarded Nietzsche as a "metaphyscian" who had the good sense to avoid the errors for which he reproached other metaphysicians. He admired the "empirical content" of Nietzsche's work, including especially its "historical analyses of specific artistic phenomena, or a historical-psychological analysis of morals." And he praised Nietzsche for having chosen the medium of poetry in such works as *Thus Spoke Zarathustra* for presenting his ideas rather attempting to present them in a theoretical treatise. The fact that Carnap found much to praise in the work of Nietzsche is significant since in "The Elimination of Metaphysics Through Logical Analysis of Language," Carnap went on the attack against Heidegger, whose metaphysical statements, Carnap dismissed as meaningless. Apparently for Carnap,part of Nietzsche's greatness was the fact that he used poetic means for expressing himself. This fit in with Carnap's view that metaphysics fails because it makes meaningless statements. For Carnap, language had a variety of functions to perform. One of those is the making cognitively meaningful statements. Other functions include the making of what Carnap described as emotive statements. Such language can express Lebensgefühl. Metaphysics attempts to express Lebensgefühl too but fails because it can only issue meaningless statements. The appropriate means for expressing Lebensgefühl is art rather than metaphysics, and Nietzsche was praised by Carnap for realizing that. For Carnap, Nietzsche was the metaphysician who had the greatest artistic talent.

BTW I have recently been reading Arthur Danto's Nietzsche book. There Danto makes the point that Nietzsche in his work anticipated some of the central ideas of 20th century philosophical movements including logical positivism and existentialism. Curiously, enough, I can find no reference in Danto's book to Carnap. --JimFarm 01:48, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

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)



[edit] Analytic v Continental philosophy Without wishing to seem defensive I'd say that in my limited experience continental philosophers spend far more time taking a haughty attitude towards analytic philosophy than vice versa. As to your claim that analytic philosophy doesn't achieve much, I'd dispute that but it really depends on your definition of achieve. I think it's practice creates a greater clarity of mind and allows for a deeper understanding of important philosophical questions and plausible positions in response to them, even if analytic philosophers only rarely reach a consensus on what the right answers are. Besides if your complaint about it not achieving much is in relation to analytic philosophers rarely reaching consensuses much the same could be said of the alternatives. Also in terms of achievements look at the mathematical discoveries inspired and connected to analytic philosophy. Also consider interdisciplinary work that analytic philosophers do with computer science, cog sci, physics and other sciences.


[edit] Moved from article:

[edit] Is Carnap German or Austrian? Currently he is listed as Austrian, but I thought he was German.



[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

I think Macintyre (along with Martin Jay, but thats another story for another time) is a philosopher whose work shows how meaningless (in both the ordinary language and philosophical sense) the distinction between 'analytic' and 'continental' philosophy becomes whenever it attempts to incorporate the work of a philosopher who fails to accept the self-images of the age, as it were. While he certainly has no lack of training in the methodology of anglo-american philosophy, his historicist approach to philosophical speculation and his 'narrative consciousness' theories are far from standard operating procedure. He has also written approvingly about Freud, and felt the need to specifically engage with Lacan over differences in interpretation of psychoanalytic theory. Asking whether Macintyre is analytic or continental is like asking if John Lennon is a mod or a rocker. As far as he is concerned, he's an aristotelian and that is that.Jimmyq2305 19:39, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Analytic" I was just wondering if the "analytic" in "analytic philosophy" has anything to do with the use of the term analytic in logic, i.e. the analytic/synthetic distinction...? Also, would Quine be considered an Analytic philosopher?

yes to both your questions Hanshans23


Analytic is characterized, normally, by its effort to clarify philosophical issues by analysis and logical rigor--i.e., by method (2), above. This seems to imply that other philosophies do not care for logical rigor. Furthermore G.E. Moores defense of common sense realism and ethical intuitionism does not really owe much to logical rigour. Instead, common sense and intuitionims relies on supposedly self-evident facts (because of the lack of logical arguments). That's my humble opinion. Kikl 12:44, 1 February 2006 (UTC)


[edit] tractatus "The Tractatus is a dense and thought-provoking work; but perhaps its most interesting utterance from the point of view of the method of analytic philosophy is: 5.6 The limits of my language mean the limits of my world. This shows clearly the reason for the close relationship between philosophy of language and analytic philosophy. Language is the principal—or perhaps the only—tool of the philosopher. For Wittgenstein, and for analytic philosophy in general, philosophy consists in clarifying how language can be used. The hope is that when language is used clearly, philosophical problems are found to dissolve." The first sentence of that excerpt is pretty astonishing. I would have thought that identifying the single most 'interesting utterance from the point of view of the method of analytic philosophy' would be a bold undertaking for a lone writer, with no NPOV obligations to worry about, let alone a Wikipedia article.

The rest of the excerpt presents Wittgensteinian quietism as a universal characteristic of analytic philosophy, which is patently false. Obviously quietism is fairly prevalent in anayltic philosophy, but so is antagonism to it, even amongst philosophers who support the central role of philosophy of language.

All in all, this section strikes me as pushing an agenda, and falling far short of NPOV.

Ncsaint 01:08, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

No one has responded to this one way or another, so I took a first shot at rewriting the section. - Ncsaint 17:48, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Nice. Same part of article goes on:

"Wittgenstein thought he had set out the 'final solution' to all philosophical problems, and so went off to become a school teacher." That's from the Preface to the 1918 edition to the Tractatus - "I therefore believe myself to have found, on all essential points, the final solution of the problems". Should a reference to the source be added and the single quotes changed to double? Atherton 20:20, 28 February 2006 (UTC)


[edit] section headings what is the story with the section headings with no coherent content beneath them? Are those placeholders for content that someone is about to provide? If so, is anyone actually working on said content? - Ncsaint 01:44, 27 February 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Is the Article Bias Towards Analytic Philosophy? As I read the article I noticed that there was no section or even a sentence about criticism of Analytic Philosophy. Could someone do some sources for Criticism of the topic so that both sides can be heard?

I believe an example of a critic of this Philosophy was Ayn Rand but I can't remember in what book she wrote about the subject. The Fading Light 9:21, 21 March 2006

Actually, the article features a fairly lengthy criticism in its section on the analytic ethical position and in the section talking about its relations to continental philosophy. The article notes that Philippa Foot vigorously attacked the logical positivist stance on ethics, and also says that Wittgenstein realized that his logical atomism "solution to all of philosophy" was inadequate. Also there is this explicitly critical passage, "analytic philosophy, under one interpretation, failed by its own systematic lights to demonstrate the meaninglessness or fictitiousness of the concepts it attacked. At least, few analytic philosophers today would agree that they have anything like an exact and proven theory of which terms are meaningful and which meaningless. Contemporary analytic philosophy journals are — for good or ill — as rich in metaphysics as any continental philosopher." Also, I always thought that Ayn Rand supported analytic philosophy, especially from what I read of the collection of her lectures in Objectivism: the Philosophy of Ayn Rand. However, I'm not certain about this. --Brizimm 05:38, 22 March 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Name Dropping THe introduction of the article is really bad. The introduction does not provide any introduction to analytic philosophy as it should. Instead, a whole bunch of more or less famous philosophers is mentioned. So what. Such a list may be added to the end of the article. It is inappropriate at the beginning.

Yeah, there's too many names and too many links; it's a bit overwhelming. --Brandon Dilbeck 04:36, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Poor account This is a remarkably poor article. Virtually no citations, to start with. The factual accuracy of much of it is questionable. The little history it presents is questionable. Indeed the main point of the article appears to be to contrast analytic with continental philosophy - a pointless exercise! "The doctrines most often called "analytic philosophy" are logical positivism and logical atomism" - cobblers! Must come past and fix it up some time. Banno 20:04, 27 November 2006 (UTC)


[edit] German article on "Analytische Philosophie" The german version is very nice and readable, yet does have quite a different narrative, if not so say tells a completely different story than the english version. Maybe someone could cross-check them. Anyway, the German thing ends with stating that, since the 80ies, Analytical philosophy is critized for being ahistoric and not taking into account the subjective nature of natural language, therefore making 'objective', positivist truth finding via language and logic unviable. Pretty much the same argument I heard from a Prof from the University of Vienna (Franz Martin Wimmer, you can google him). He specializes in intercultural philosophy and is interested in the way language forms the ontological systems we think and operate in. By the way, Poststructuralism is not dead and any important political philosophy of the last 30 years of course is based on or influenced by Michel Foucault, who is very close to a God (but of course, you anglophony philosopher don't believe in him either). Noname IP from Vienna, Austria. 19:07 10th of December 2006 (GMT+1)


[edit] Improvements to "Relation to continental philosophy" I note the improvements made in this section recently but still it gives the impression that Analytic offers no critique of Hegel. It is given simply as some kind of instinctual "backlash against British Idealism". Now the move of Moore and Russell was also against pragmatism, and was not just a fresh start from nothing but also a return to Leibniz, mathematics, and rationalism. ---- Lucas (Talk) 03:16, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree that there is a need for more extensive additions. Not sure I agree with your rendition here, though. But with proper citations, go ahead and add it. Your marking of the need for citations is quite appropriate. Banno 09:41, 28 January 2007 (UTC) Good work, guys. I support your ability to talk to each other. I hope FT2 is watching. And I assume Good Faith (Wiki Rule) about it, as I hope you do with me. Peace. --Ludvikus 15:53, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Euro Society for Analytic Philosophy I dont think that illuminating the relation to Continental is served by one-sided "news-flash" quotations from the Euro-Society for Analytic Philosophy without any historical setting. Is not a claim of reivival from such a party obviously POV, too temporal, and in their interest, as it attempts to stimulate demand for their own organization and in their once per three year meetings?

Also it gives only the relation of Analytic to the Continent of Europe, not its relation to Continental philosophy.

The list of countries given is incomplete and adequate. If one person teaches/studies Analytic amongst the 80m Germans, does German get listed? By giving such a long list you give the impression of an accuracy which is not there. I think we need to clarify the fact that Analytic and Continental are taught in most Universities the world over but that in certain places one is more predominant. Most US/UK universities also have offerings (however meagre) of Continental philosophy and vice-versa. -- Lucas (Talk) 21:29, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

I think the discussion already takes up too much space in the article. But if you have a better source, please use it. In the mean time, leave it in. Banno 21:37, 29 January 2007 (UTC) Also note, if you visit the Euro-Analytic website for France/Portugal/Spain/Central Europe/Croatia you'll find a number of them appear to be defunct having only had meetings in the 90s or in 2000/2001. Of the other two countries, Italy and German, there appears to be some ongoing activities. -- Lucas (Talk) 21:43, 29 January 2007 (UTC)


[edit] G. H. von Wright Where does he fit in the grand scheme if things? --Ludvikus 16:26, 29 January 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Analytic metaphysics Strawson's Individuals is almost fifty years old, and I wasn't sure what the phrase about coming "into its own" meant, so I moved Strawson up the list and put in a neutral description which doesn't refer to it being recent. KD Tries Again 20:19, 29 January 2007 (UTC)KD


[edit] Political Philosophy The article used to say:

Analytic philosophy, perhaps because its origin lay in dismissing the relevance of Hegel and Hegelian philosophers (such as Marx), had little to say about political ideas for most of its history. This was changed radically, and almost single-handedly, by John Rawls in a series of papers from the 1950s onward ... This mention of Hegel and Marx has been removed today. Does anyone have a reference to backup such a removal? Or is there any other information apart from Russell & Moore's strong critique of Hegel and British idealism in founding analytical philosophy? -- Lucas (Talk) 01:25, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

The removal of an unsupported suggestion requires a citation? That Analytic philosophy avoided politics because it doesn't like Hegel needs a citation, or it is OR. Banno 18:03, 31 January 2007 (UTC) I'm not so sure about this. Consider if ever substantive comment in wiki-philosophy that was without a full and accurate citation was deleted. What would it look like? There is a case perhaps for any major changes to some long-established or self-evident ideas in wiki-philosophy to be only warranted by at least some citation or argument on its talk page. For the removal of this idea which I would say is quite commonly held there has been no talk nor citation. -- Lucas (Talk) 20:36, 31 January 2007 (UTC) I have some sympathy for that view. It might be commonly held that Analytic philosophers thought (think?) Hegel irrelevant. But it is not commonly held that this was the reason they did not do much political philosophy. This last requires support. Banno 20:43, 31 January 2007 (UTC) Well that sounds reasonable to me. Hegel was deprecated, political philosophy was absent for some time. But we cannot see a link between these two statements as being obvious. The issue in any case is complicated, even if it is in a Hegelian manner, by the fierce politics of the time. -- Lucas (Talk) 21:12, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

I have removed the sentence as not only is the first part original research without support, but the supposed effect is quite dubious as well. I discussed this issue with User:Lucas on the Talk page for Continental philosophy, and it was his citation of this sentence that brought the sentence to my attention. For those of you missing out on said page's enlightening discussions, I have excerpted one relevant paragraph (by me, addressing Lucas): The sentence you quote from the article on analytic philosophy is an example of why I generally ignore other poorly-written articles when trying to improve another one. It is weaselly POV speculation ("perhaps...") that trades in a false stereotype: analytic philosophy had little to say about politics? But what about the Vienna Circle's association with leftist politics ("most of us, myself included, were socialists" - Carnap), as published in the Wissenschaftliche Weltauffassung? Russell's numerous political publications and highly visible antiwar activism, from WWI to Vietnam? Popper's massive book against totalitarianism? Rorty and Putnam were practically Communists in the 60s and 70s. Oh, and Chomsky and Rawls and Nozick and Sen and Williams and.... Yeah, except for them, analytic philosophy had "little to say about political ideas".

The political activism of the Vienna Circle was well-known, appeared in print, and was explicitly seen as part of their philosophical program. Pending a more nuanced discussion of analytic political philosophy pre-1970, I have deleted the dubious sentence. 271828182 22:19, 31 January 2007 (UTC) Part of a program but is not part of analytic philosophy. Nor is this page talking of Vienna but of Analytic.

I would say that analytic philosophy as philosophy had little to say about politics until Rawls. I would say that certain philosophers who practiced Analytic happened to have political views (like anyone), and may have published in support of these ideas, since they had a name, but these things were not part of their Analytic philosophy or "the philosophy of language". Would you say any of these pre-Rawlsian non-philosophical efforts, are now studied as part of philosophy? I don't think so. -- Lucas (Talk) 23:01, 31 January 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Analytic philosophy Some remarks below on the article as it stands today (2 Feb 2007). It is mostly critical, as you see, but there are plenty of hints as to how it might be improved. I will have a go at improving it over the weekend. Dbuckner 08:15, 2 February 2007 (UTC)


1. The introduction contains no overall characterisation of what analytic philosophy is (by a 'characterisation' I mean a list of characateristics or features that would allow the reader easily to identify the characterised thing when he or she saw it, and also to identify anything else as not being the characterised thing). It says it is a dominant philosophical movement (yes, but what are the distinguishing features, slogans, beliefs, methods of that movement), that its founders were Moore and Russell (who were they, asked the uninformed reader), that these in turn were influenced by Frege (who was he?) and that many leading analytics came from Germany and Austria (OK, but what actually is analytic philosophy?). There is then the usual Wiki list of analytic philosophers (fine, but who are these people and what do they do for a living – what actually is analytic philosophy?).

Nor is analytic philosophy properly a single movement, but rather a range of approaches to philosophical issues. The trouble is of course that there will be some exceptions to any proposed definition, which will be argued about until a bunch of weasel words are introduced, and then someone will edit those out, starting the cycle once again. Banno 01:40, 3 February 2007 (UTC) 2. Thus the introduction is practically useless. The next section is called 'The term analytic philosophy'. This begins by saying that a.p. includes ' logical positivism, logical atomism and ordinary language philosophy'. Fine, but what are these fields? What actually is a.p.? Then, even worse, it says that few analytic philosophers adhere to any of these. Right. And that it would be a mistake to equate any of these to analytic p. Fine. As a reader who came to this article without any idea of what this subject is, I am now well and truly in the dark.

3. The section goes on to talk about the methods which characterise a.p., which is the closest the article gets to saying what it is. That's good, but why did I, the naïve reader, have to wait so long? However, this bit is far from correct, as it is much too wide. It gives necessary conditions, such as clarity and precision, emphasis on argumentation &c, which characterise many philosophical schools apart from a.p. It does not mention the importance given by a.p. to formal methods of analysis (Russell's Theory of Descriptions as being a widely held paradigm for a.p., e.g.). The next two sentences (a.p. not being about 'meaning of life', and the stuff about focus and debate) are badly written, uncited and probably untrue.

4. The final part of this section says it began with Frege, Russell, Moore and Wittgenstein. This repeats the introduction, is not properly part of this section anyway, and moreover fails to say what these philosophers actually did. It says that a.p. includes 'all those who work in their vein'. Yes, but what was their vein? The gentle reader is still in the dark.

5. The next section is called 'Relation to continental philosophy'. This is awkwardly written. It says the distinction is 'problematic', which is a bad way of beginning a section about something, and it says that it contrasts a method against a region. Possibly, but the reader still hasn't the faintest idea about what the analytic method actually is, so how does this help? There is a short passage about the The European Society for Analytic Philosophy, but it is unclear why it is in the section.

6. The next section is called 'Formalism and natural languages'. This starts with the unhelpful claim that 'Part of analytic approach is the clarification of philosophical problems by examining the language used to express them'. Yes, but how do analytics think this helps? Any informative answer would have to mention the two conflicting view on this held by analytics, namely 1. Ordinary language is misleading disguises its logical form, and that philosophical propositions become meaningless or trivial once we attempt to reduce them to the correct logical form. 2. Ordinary language is not misleading, and the correct logical form of ordinary language is ordinary language. However, 'philosophical propositions' are not ordinary language because they contain ersatz metaphysical terminology – once this terminology is analysed using plain language, we find it is meaningless nonsense (e.g. Geach's remarks on 'Nothing noths' in 'Mental Acts').

7. The next sentence 'Two major threads weave through this tradition: formalism and natural language' is poorly written and, once again, fails to explain the issue, which is the two threads mentioned in (6) above (formalism = the belief that analysis should be reduction of ordinary language to logical form, natural language = the view that ordinary language is not misleading, but metaphysical language is. The next sentence attempts to clarify this by saying ' The former seeks to understand language, and hence philosophical problems, by making use of formal logic.'. Yes, but for goodness' sake how? It then says 'it seeks to formalize the way in which philosophical statements are made'. This does not explain why formalist analytic p's would do this, namely (as just explained above) to show that the problem disappears on reduction, because the p. statement either is shown to be trivial, or cannot be so reduced, thus meaningless.

8. The sentence that follows deserves quoting in full, because it is such WP:BOLLOCKS.

This has led to a number of successes, including modern logic, recognizing the primary importance of sense and reference in the construction of meaning, Kurt Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem, Bertrand Russell's theory of definite descriptions, Karl Popper's theory of falsificationism and Alfred Tarski's Semantic Theory of Truth. What? The statement that this (whatever this is, presumably the 'two threads' first mentioned) led to modern logic is either nonsense, or wrong. What is meant by 'modern logic'. If it means first order predicate calculus, most of the development of this took place very early on (Frege and Peirce gave us most of it), was complete by the 1920's, and in any case took place in parallel with anything else that happened in the Analytic tradition. The phrase 'recognizing the primary importance of sense and reference in the construction of meaning' is gobbledegook. What follows returns to the usual list-salad – things mentioned to show the erudition of the writer, without any context or explanation. The mention of the Theory of Descriptions is good, as it is the paradigm of the analytic method (said Ramsey). But, er, what actually is the Theory of Descriptions? And what is the Incompleteness Theorem, the theory of falsificationism (sic), the Semantic Theory of Truth. Obscurum per obscurius.

9. Then we have "The other thread seeks to understand philosophical ideas by a close and careful examination of the natural language used to express them – usually with some emphasis on the importance of common sense in dealing with difficult concepts." But why do OLP's do this? And the mention of common sense here seems to confuse earlier methods of philosophy (Reid, Berkeley) with the underlying principles of OLP. The statement that 'These two threads intertwine, sometimes implacably opposed to each other, sometimes virtually identical' was clearly intended as a masterpiece of prose, but quite out of place in an encyclopedia article. The statement 'Famously, Wittgenstein started out in the formalism camp, but ended up in the natural language camp.' is probably the only accurate statement in the article, but of course without clear and accurate statements of what "formalism camp" and "natural language camp" represent, it is completely meaningless.

10. The next section is called 'Formalism'. The first subsection is called 'Logical atomism'. It opens with the oft-repeated statement that analytic philosophy has its origins in Gottlob Frege’s development of predicate logic. This adds a little to the many statements that went before, but only a little. What is predicate logic? Does this not conflict with the earlier statement about 'modern logic' developing as a result of the analytic movement. It contains the blatantly false claim that 'This permitted a much wider range of sentences to be parsed into logical form.' This is debatable: some (e.g. Sommers, plural quantificationists) hold that predicate calculus in the form developed by Frege is more restrictive than the old traditional logic, other (e.g. Wittgenstein II) held that the logical form of ordinary language is ordinary language.

11. Next there is a potentially useful remark about Russell's use of predicate calculus to analyse the word 'is. But it is too far out of context to be useful

12. There is another allusion to the Theory of Descriptions in the sentence "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." Good God. We are nearly there, we have nearly arrived at the paradigm itself. But the term 'Theory of Descriptions' is missing. And how does 'the Present King of France' connect with anything at all?

13. The next subsection is called "The Tractatus". It correctly state that "As a young Austrian soldier, Ludwig Wittgenstein expanded and developed Russell's logical atomism into a comprehensive system in a brief book, the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus". Presumably the remark about 'Austrian soldier' is the work of the editor whose subtle hand may be detected throughout the article, and who covertly maintains that there is no such thing as 'continental philosophy' because it was really all the work of the Austrians and others. But only an insider will know that. And what, again, is 'logical atomism'? Then it continues with some summary doctrines of the Tractatus. Obscurum per obscurius again. The Tractatus is a famously opaque and difficult book. How does it help our grandmother, whose complete understanding of the basics of analytic philosophy should be the intended result of this article, to repeat the sybilline pronouncements of one of the most difficult books ever written? 'A picture of the world can be built up by expressing atomic facts in atomic propositions'. Indeed.

14. There follows a brief mention of the 'limits of my language mean the limits of my world'. Now this is really important. The philosophical doctrine which underlies all of Wittgenstein's philosophy, in all periods, is that the result of philosophy is not a number of 'philosophical propositions' [philosophische Sätze], but to make propositions clear. Philosophy should make clear and delimit sharply the thoughts which otherwise are, as it were, opaque and blurred. This is one of the central ideas of analytic philosophy, and is a manifesto of positivism. But it occurs too late, and might be confused with a brief subsection about the biography of one of its leading figures.

15. The sentence 'Wittgenstein thought he had set out the 'final solution' to all philosophical problems, and so went off to become a school teacher' is 1066-ish, and moreover conceals the importance of the section by disguising it as biography. (Actually, an insider will understand it is not really biography, as W's decision to do this is deeply connected with the 'limits of language' thing. But this will only be obvious to insiders, whereas the article should clearly explain analytic philosophy to outsiders and grandmothers.

16. "However, he later revisited the inadequacy of logical atomism, and further expanded the philosophy of language by his posthumous book Philosophical Investigations." Pure 1066.

17. The section "Natural language semantics" helpfully explains that "This section is a stub. You can help by expanding it." Indeed.

18. The section "Reaction against idealism" is another stub.

19. The section "Ordinary language philosophy" refers us to another article. (Main article: Ordinary language philosophy).

20. There is a brief mention of the Oxford school (list of philosophers), and contains the frightful sentence "Rather than viewing philosophical problems with respect to logic, ordinary language philosophy sets forth the notion of consideration with respect to the ordinary usage of the linguistic terms germane to such problems. " Word salad.

21. A bit of OR "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."

22. The section entitled " Logical positivism and logical empiricism" is a list, and contains no verb anywhere in sight.

23. "Philosophy of mind and cognitive science" Stub.

24. The section "Ethics in analytic philosophy" is helpful in that it explains how and why the analytic tradition initially had little to say on the subject of ethics. This, relatively speaking, is the best section of the article, but that isn't really saying much.

25. "Political philosophy" is both listy and short.

26. "Analytical Marxism" is interesting, but I know nothing about the subject, so won't comment.

27. "Communitarianism", likewise. These final sections are generally better than anything that goes before, but you could hardly blame the average reader for not venturing this far. It was a pretty brave and intrepid expedition on my part, I felt, to get to the very end of this ignoble article about a noble and great tradition.

Dbuckner 08:15, 2 February 2007 (UTC)


All good points. Have you had a look at the German page? The four "phases" are a bit dubious, but an historical approach would be the best way to go; as brief as possible, of course, with links to the main articles. I intend to fiddle around the edges for a few days, and look forward to any other contributions. Banno 08:55, 2 February 2007 (UTC) I strongly agree with DBuckner's points. This article is more laundry list than coherent, and is riddled with bad writing and basic errors. It's also worth noting that analytic philosophy post-1970 is so broad and diverse as to resist an easy overview. 271828182 14:02, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New start My recent edits[1] are not by any means supposed to be definitive, but perhaps to give some direction. An introduction with a rough outline of what AP is, then a very brief history, and perhaps an account of the present situation; these to be made more detailed in the body of the article. I've not referenced it either, since this can be done in the main body. The result I hope has been to remove the emphasis on the juxtaposition of Continental and analytic philosophy, which is of quite secondary importance in the present context, and to ready the article for a more detailed historical account. Banno 03:33, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

As to defining Analytic in a way other than the previous intro, it might not be easy. To quote from the Oxford Companion on this: The philosophical disagreements between, say, Logical Positivism and the later Wittgenstein, or the methodological divergences between, say, Frege and Ryle, make it hard to give ‘analytical philosophy’ clear sense or reference One solution might be to follow the example on the Continental page where a list of various philosophical positions or areas within Continental are given. So for analytic it might look something like: philosophy of science(disputable), ordinary language philosophy, descriptivism, logical positivism, philosophy of science, semantic realism, ontological relativity, transcendentalism (or "connective analysis"), phil of mind, etc.. As to mention of the AP/CP "juxtaposition", it's amusing to see another editor is also busy trying to remove any mention that analytic differs from continental. Why the sudden change? Especially if there is evidence that the division has become more rather than less extreme over the past few years? Is analytic philosophy on wiki entering a denial stage? Does it not suit Anglophone politics or is it suddenly embarassed to find someone else was in the room all along? I ask these questions since your partner editor, who is also suddenly entering denial on this, could not give me any reasonable explanation (or neutral sources) and so I must turn to these less logical explanations. I would suggest you are in any case doing an injustice to analytic philosophy. And by the way, you fail to mention, in your new intro, from which continent that weakness for logical positivism arrived! Which reminds me, while you are at it, why dont you start airbrushing logical positivism out of analytic. -- Lucas (Talk) 04:52, 3 February 2007 (UTC) What are you talking about? Who denies that the division has become more extreme, or that there ever was a division. Dbuckner 09:19, 3 February 2007 (UTC) Oh I see, Banno said the juxtaposition was of 'secondary importance'. Yes. It is of some importance that analytic philosophy sees itself as opposed, but it is not of fundamental importance. Dbuckner 09:21, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Further work on intro I have built on Banno's excellent work on the intro. I moved some of his edits into a section on 'history'. I removed the section on Continental philosophy, for now.

The current intro stresses three main features of analytic philosophy. There should be three sections in the main article corresponding to these.

First, the view that there are no specifically philosophical propositions. This can lead to a discussion of positivism generally, and then the views of Russell and Wittgenstein.

Second, the idea of logical form. This is the place for Russell's theory of descriptions, Wittgenstein's and Ramsey's view of it as the 'paradigm of philosophy'. Something about the disagreements about what the correct logical form is (which is the real disagreement of analytic philosophy).

Third, the point that analytic philosophy somehow defines itself as opposed to 'continental' philosophy. The Internet Encyclopedia (which is a pretty good resource) mentions this. I am surprised that Lucas thinks people are claiming there is no distinction. Who said that? Not me. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Dbuckner (talk • contribs) 09:18, 3 February 2007 (UTC).

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