Analytic Philosophy
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Analytic philosophy is a
branch A branch, sometimes called a ramus in botany, is a woody structural member connected to the central trunk of a tree (or sometimes a shrub). Large branches are known as boughs and small branches are known as twigs. The term '' twig'' usually ...
and tradition of philosophy using analysis, popular in the Western world and particularly the Anglosphere, which began around the turn of the 20th century in the contemporary era in the
United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
,
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,
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, Australia,
New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 List of islands of New Zealand, smaller islands. It is the ...
, and Scandinavia, and continues today. Analytic philosophy is often contrasted with continental philosophy, coined as a catch-all term for other methods prominent in Europe. Central figures in this historical development of analytic philosophy are Gottlob Frege,
Bertrand Russell Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British mathematician, philosopher, logician, and public intellectual. He had a considerable influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, linguistics, ar ...
, G. E. Moore, and Ludwig Wittgenstein. Other important figures in its history include the logical positivists (particularly
Rudolf Carnap Rudolf Carnap (; ; 18 May 1891 – 14 September 1970) was a German-language philosopher who was active in Europe before 1935 and in the United States thereafter. He was a major member of the Vienna Circle and an advocate of logical positivism. He ...
), W. V. O. Quine, and
Karl Popper Sir Karl Raimund Popper (28 July 1902 – 17 September 1994) was an Austrian-British philosopher, academic and social commentator. One of the 20th century's most influential philosophers of science, Popper is known for his rejection of the ...
. After the decline of logical positivism, Saul Kripke, David Lewis, and others led a revival in metaphysics. Elizabeth Anscombe,
Peter Geach Peter Thomas Geach (29 March 1916 – 21 December 2013) was a British philosopher who was Professor of Logic at the University of Leeds. His areas of interest were philosophical logic, ethics, history of philosophy, philosophy of religion and t ...
, Anthony Kenny and others brought analytic approach to Thomism. Analytic philosophy is characterized by an emphasis on language, known as the linguistic turn, and for its clarity and rigor in arguments, making use of formal logic and
mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...
, and, to a lesser degree, the natural sciences. Brian Leiter (2006) webpag
''"Analytic" and "Continental" Philosophy''
Quote on the definition: "'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."
It also takes things piecemeal, in "an attempt to focus philosophical reflection on smaller problems that lead to answers to bigger questions". Analytic philosophy is often understood in contrast to other philosophical traditions, most notably continental philosophies such as
existentialism Existentialism ( ) is a form of philosophical inquiry that explores the problem of human existence and centers on human thinking, feeling, and acting. Existentialist thinkers frequently explore issues related to the meaning Meaning most comm ...
,
phenomenology Phenomenology may refer to: Art * Phenomenology (architecture), based on the experience of building materials and their sensory properties Philosophy * Phenomenology (philosophy), a branch of philosophy which studies subjective experiences and a ...
, and
Hegelianism Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (; ; 27 August 1770 – 14 November 1831) was a German philosopher. He is one of the most important figures in German idealism and one of the founding figures of modern Western philosophy. His influence extends ...
. The analytical tradition has been critiqued for ahistoricism.


History

The history of analytic philosophy (taken in the narrower sense of " 20th-/
21st-century The 21st (twenty-first) century is the current century in the '' Anno Domini'' era or Common Era, under the Gregorian calendar. It began on 1 January 2001 ( MMI) and will end on 31 December 2100 ( MMC). Marking the beginning of the 21st cen ...
analytic philosophy") is usually thought to begin with the rejection of British idealism, a
neo-Hegelian Absolute idealism is an ontologically monistic philosophy chiefly associated with G. W. F. Hegel and Friedrich Schelling, both of whom were German idealist philosophers in the 19th century. The label has also been attached to others such as J ...
movement. British idealism as taught by philosophers such as F. H. Bradley (1846–1924) and
T. H. Green Thomas Hill Green (7 April 183626 March 1882), known as T. H. Green, was an English philosopher, political radical and temperance reformer, and a member of the British idealism movement. Like all the British idealists, Green was influ ...
(1836–1882), dominated English philosophy in the late 19th century. Since its beginning, a basic goal of analytic philosophy has been conceptual clarity,Mautner, Thomas (editor) (2005) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy'', entry for "Analytic philosophy", pp. 22–23 in the name of which Moore and Russell rejected
Hegelianism Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (; ; 27 August 1770 – 14 November 1831) was a German philosopher. He is one of the most important figures in German idealism and one of the founding figures of modern Western philosophy. His influence extends ...
for being obscure—see for example Moore's " A Defence of Common Sense" and Russell's critique of the
doctrine of internal relations 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 be what they are without them. It was a term used in British p ...
. Inspired by developments in modern formal logic, the early Russell claimed that the problems of philosophy can be solved by showing the simple constituents of complex notions. An important aspect of British idealism was
logical holism In Philosophy, logical holism is the belief that the world operates in such a way that no part can be known without the whole being known first. Theoretical holism is a theory in philosophy of science, that a theory of science can only be underst ...
—the opinion that there are aspects of the world that can be known only by knowing the whole world. This is closely related to the opinion that
relations Relation or relations may refer to: General uses *International relations, the study of interconnection of politics, economics, and law on a global level *Interpersonal relationship, association or acquaintance between two or more people *Public ...
between items are ''internal relations'', that is, properties of the nature of those items. Russell, along with Wittgenstein, in response promulgated logical atomism and the doctrine of ''external relations''—the belief that the world consists of ''independent'' facts. Russell, during his early career, along with his collaborator Alfred North Whitehead, was much influenced by Gottlob Frege (1848–1925), who developed predicate logic, which allowed a much greater range of sentences to be parsed into logical form than was possible using the ancient Aristotelian logic. Frege was also influential as a
philosopher of mathematics The philosophy of mathematics is the branch of philosophy that studies the assumptions, foundations, and implications of mathematics. It aims to understand the nature and methods of mathematics, and find out the place of mathematics in people ...
in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. In contrast to Edmund Husserl's 1891 book ''Philosophie der Arithmetik'', which argued that the concept of the
cardinal number In mathematics, cardinal numbers, or cardinals for short, are a generalization of the natural numbers used to measure the cardinality (size) of sets. The cardinality of a finite set is a natural number: the number of elements in the set. T ...
derived from psychical acts of grouping objects and counting them, Frege argued that mathematics and logic have their own validity, independent of the judgments or mental states of individual mathematicians and logicians (which were the basis of arithmetic according to the " psychologism" of Husserl's ''Philosophie''). Frege further developed his philosophy of logic and mathematics in ''
The Foundations of Arithmetic ''The Foundations of Arithmetic'' (german: Die Grundlagen der Arithmetik) is a book by Gottlob Frege, published in 1884, which investigates the philosophical foundations of arithmetic. Frege refutes other theories of number and develops his own ...
'' (1884) and ''The Basic Laws of Arithmetic'' (german: link=no, Grundgesetze der Arithmetik, 1893–1903), where he provided an alternative to psychologistic accounts of the concept of number. Like Frege, Russell argued that mathematics is reducible to logical fundamentals in '' The Principles of Mathematics'' (1903). Later, his book written with Whitehead, '' Principia Mathematica'' (1910–1913), encouraged many philosophers to renew their interest in the development of
symbolic logic Mathematical logic is the study of formal logic within mathematics. Major subareas include model theory, proof theory, set theory, and recursion theory. Research in mathematical logic commonly addresses the mathematical properties of formal ...
. Additionally, Russell adopted Frege's predicate logic as his primary philosophical method, a method Russell thought could expose the underlying structure of philosophical problems. For example, the English word "is" has three distinct meanings which predicate logic can express as follows: * For the sentence 'the cat ''is'' asleep', the ''is'' of
predication Predicate or predication may refer to: * Predicate (grammar), in linguistics * Predication (philosophy) * several closely related uses in mathematics and formal logic: ** Predicate (mathematical logic) ** Propositional function ** Finitary relatio ...
means that "x is P" (denoted as P(x)). * For the sentence 'there ''is'' a cat', the ''is'' of existence means that "there is an x" (∃x). * For the sentence 'three ''is'' half of six', the ''is'' of identity means that "x is the same as y" (x=y). Russell sought to resolve various philosophical problems by applying such logical distinctions, most famously in his analysis of definite descriptions in "
On Denoting "On Denoting" is an essay by Bertrand Russell. It was published in the philosophy journal ''Mind'' in 1905. In it, Russell introduces and advocates his theory of denoting phrases, according to which definite descriptions and other "denoting phras ...
" (1905).


Ideal language

From about 1910 to 1930, analytic philosophers like Russell and Ludwig Wittgenstein emphasized creating an ideal language for philosophical analysis, which would be free from the ambiguities of ordinary language that, in their opinion, often made philosophy invalid. During this phase, Russell and Wittgenstein sought to understand language (and hence philosophical problems) by using logic to formalize how philosophical statements are made.


Logical atomism

Russell became an advocate of logical atomism. Wittgenstein developed a comprehensive system of logical atomism in his '' Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus'' ( de , Logisch-Philosophische Abhandlung, 1921). He thereby argued that the universe is the totality of actual states of affairs and that these states of affairs can be expressed by the language of first-order predicate logic. Thus a ''picture'' of the universe can be constructed by expressing facts in the form of atomic propositions and linking them using logical operators.


Logical positivism

During the late 1920s to 1940s, a group of philosophers of the Vienna Circle and the Berlin Circle developed Russell and Wittgenstein's formalism into a doctrine known as "
logical positivism Logical positivism, later called logical empiricism, and both of which together are also known as neopositivism, is a movement in Western philosophy whose central thesis was the verification principle (also known as the verifiability criterion o ...
" (or logical empiricism). Logical positivism used formal logical methods to develop an empiricist account of knowledge. Philosophers such as
Rudolf Carnap Rudolf Carnap (; ; 18 May 1891 – 14 September 1970) was a German-language philosopher who was active in Europe before 1935 and in the United States thereafter. He was a major member of the Vienna Circle and an advocate of logical positivism. He ...
and
Hans Reichenbach Hans Reichenbach (September 26, 1891 – April 9, 1953) was a leading philosopher of science, educator, and proponent of logical empiricism. He was influential in the areas of science, education, and of logical empiricism. He founded the ''Gesel ...
, along with other members of the Vienna Circle, claimed that the truths of logic and mathematics were tautologies, and those of science were verifiable empirical claims. These two constituted the entire universe of meaningful judgments; anything else was nonsense. The claims of ethics, aesthetics, and theology were consequently reduced to pseudo-statements, neither empirically true nor false and therefore meaningless. In reaction to what he considered excesses of logical positivism,
Karl Popper Sir Karl Raimund Popper (28 July 1902 – 17 September 1994) was an Austrian-British philosopher, academic and social commentator. One of the 20th century's most influential philosophers of science, Popper is known for his rejection of the ...
insisted on the role of falsification in the philosophy of science—although his general method was also part of the analytic tradition. With the coming to power of
Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
and
Nazism Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...
in 1933, many members of the Vienna and Berlin Circles fled to Britain and the US, which helped to reinforce the dominance of logical positivism and analytic philosophy in anglophone countries. Logical positivists typically considered philosophy as having a minimal function. For them, philosophy concerned the clarification of thoughts, rather than having a distinct subject matter of its own. The positivists adopted the
verification principle Verificationism, also known as the verification principle or the verifiability criterion of meaning, is the philosophical doctrine which maintains that only statements that are empirically verifiable (i.e. verifiable through the senses) are cognit ...
, according to which every meaningful statement is either analytic or is capable of being verified by experience. This caused the logical positivists to reject many traditional problems of philosophy, especially those of
metaphysics Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...
or
ontology In metaphysics, ontology is the philosophical study of being, as well as related concepts such as existence, becoming, and reality. Ontology addresses questions like how entities are grouped into categories and which of these entities ...
, as meaningless.


Ordinary language

After
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
, during the late 1940s and 1950s, analytic philosophy became involved with ordinary-language analysis. This resulted in two main trends. One continued Wittgenstein's later philosophy, which differed dramatically from his early work of the ''Tractatus''. The other, known as "Oxford philosophy", involved J. L. Austin. In contrast to earlier analytic philosophers (including the early Wittgenstein) who thought philosophers should avoid the deceptive trappings of natural language by constructing ideal languages, ordinary-language philosophers claimed that ordinary language already represents many subtle distinctions not recognized in the formulation of traditional philosophical theories or problems. While schools such as logical positivism emphasize 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. The most prominent ordinary-language philosophers during the 1950s were the aforementioned Austin and Gilbert Ryle. Ordinary-language philosophers often sought to dissolve philosophical problems by showing them to be the result of ordinary misunderstanding language. Examples include Ryle, who tried to dispose of " Descartes' myth", and Wittgenstein.


Contemporary analytic philosophy

Although contemporary philosophers who self-identify as "analytic" have widely divergent interests, assumptions, and methods—and have often rejected the fundamental premises that defined analytic philosophy before 1960—analytic philosophy today is usually considered to be determined by a particular style, characterized by precision and thoroughness about a specific topic, and resistance to "imprecise or cavalier discussions of broad topics". During the 1950s, logical positivism was challenged influentially by Wittgenstein in the '' Philosophical Investigations'',
Quine Quine may refer to: * Quine (surname), people with the surname ''Quine'' * Willard Van Orman Quine, the philosopher, or things named after him: ** Quine (computing), a program that produces its source code as output ** Quine–McCluskey algorithm, ...
in " Two Dogmas of Empiricism", and Sellars in '' Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind''. After 1960, anglophone philosophy began to incorporate a wider range of interests, opinions, and methods. Still, many philosophers in Britain and America still consider themselves "analytic philosophers". "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. Practitioners of types of philosophizing that are not in the analytic tradition—such as phenomenology, classical pragmatism, existentialism, or Marxism—feel it necessary to define their position in relation to analytic philosophy."
John Searle John Rogers Searle (; born July 31, 1932) is an American philosopher widely noted for contributions to the philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, and social philosophy. He began teaching at UC Berkeley in 1959, and was Willis S. and Mario ...
(2003), ''Contemporary Philosophy in the United States'' in N. Bunnin and E. P. Tsui-James (eds.), ''The Blackwell Companion to Philosophy'', 2nd ed., (Blackwell, 2003), p. 1.
They have done so largely 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. Many philosophers and historians have attempted to define or describe analytic philosophy. Those definitions often include an emphasis on conceptual analysis:
A.P. Martinich Aloysius Patrick Martinich (born June 28, 1946), usually cited as A. P. Martinich, is an American analytic philosopher. He is the Roy Allison Vaughan Centennial Professor Emeritus in Philosophy at University of Texas at Austin. His area of intere ...
draws an analogy between analytic philosophy's interest in conceptual analysis and analytic chemistry, which aims to determine chemical compositions. Steven D. Hales described analytic philosophy as one of three types of philosophical method practiced in the West: " roughly reverse order by number of proponents, they are phenomenology, ideological philosophy, and analytic philosophy". Scott Soames agrees that clarity is important: analytic philosophy, he says, has "an implicit commitment—albeit faltering and imperfect—to the ideals of clarity, rigor and argumentation" and it "aims at truth and knowledge, as opposed to moral or spiritual improvement ..the goal in analytic philosophy is to discover what is true, not to provide a useful recipe for living one's life". Soames also states that analytic philosophy is characterized by "a more piecemeal approach. 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". A few of the most important and active topics and subtopics of analytic philosophy are summarized by the following sections.


Philosophy of mind and cognitive science

Motivated by the logical positivists' interest in verificationism, logical behaviorism was the most prominent theory of mind of analytic philosophy for the first half of the 20th century. Behaviorists tended to opine either that statements about the mind were equivalent to ''statements about'' behavior and dispositions to behave in particular ways or that mental states were directly equivalent to behavior and dispositions to behave. Behaviorism later became much less popular, in favor of type physicalism or functionalism, theories that identified mental states with brain states. During this period, topics of the philosophy of mind were often related strongly to topics of cognitive science such as
modularity Broadly speaking, modularity is the degree to which a system's components may be separated and recombined, often with the benefit of flexibility and variety in use. The concept of modularity is used primarily to reduce complexity by breaking a sy ...
or innateness. Finally, analytic philosophy has featured a certain number of philosophers who were dualists, and recently forms of property dualism have had a resurgence; the most prominent representative is David Chalmers.
John Searle John Rogers Searle (; born July 31, 1932) is an American philosopher widely noted for contributions to the philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, and social philosophy. He began teaching at UC Berkeley in 1959, and was Willis S. and Mario ...
suggests that the obsession with the philosophy of language during the 20th century has been superseded by an emphasis on the philosophy of mind, in which functionalism is currently the dominant theory. In recent years, a central focus of research in the philosophy of mind has been consciousness. While there is a general consensus for the global neuronal workspace model of consciousness, there are many opinions as to the specifics. The best known theories are
Daniel Dennett Daniel Clement Dennett III (born March 28, 1942) is an American philosopher, writer, and cognitive scientist whose research centers on the philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, and philosophy of biology, particularly as those fields relat ...
's heterophenomenology, Fred Dretske and Michael Tye's representationalism, and the higher-order theories of either David M. Rosenthal—who advocates a higher-order thought (HOT) model—or
David Armstrong David or Dave Armstrong may refer to: Politicians *David H. Armstrong (1812–1893), US Senator from Missouri * David L. Armstrong (1941–2017), American lawyer and politician * David Malet Armstrong (1926–2014), Australian philosopher * David ...
and
William Lycan William G. Lycan (; born September 26, 1945) is an American philosopher and professor emeritus at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was formerly the William Rand Kenan, Jr. Distinguished Professor. Since 2011, Lycan is also ...
—who advocate a higher-order perception (HOP) model. An alternative higher-order theory, the higher-order global states (HOGS) model, is offered by
Robert van Gulick The name Robert is an ancient Germanic given name, from Proto-Germanic "fame" and "bright" (''Hrōþiberhtaz''). Compare Old Dutch ''Robrecht'' and Old High German ''Hrodebert'' (a compound of '' Hruod'' ( non, Hróðr) "fame, glory, honou ...
.


Ethics in analytic philosophy

Due to the commitments to
empiricism In philosophy, empiricism is an epistemological theory that holds that knowledge or justification comes only or primarily from sensory experience. It is one of several views within epistemology, along with rationalism and skepticism. Empir ...
and
symbolic logic Mathematical logic is the study of formal logic within mathematics. Major subareas include model theory, proof theory, set theory, and recursion theory. Research in mathematical logic commonly addresses the mathematical properties of formal ...
in the early analytic period, early analytic philosophers often thought that inquiry in the ethical domain could not be made rigorous enough to merit any attention. It was only with the emergence of ordinary language philosophers that ethics started to become an acceptable area of inquiry for analytic philosophers. Philosophers working with the analytic tradition have gradually come to distinguish three major types of moral philosophy. *
Meta-ethics In metaphilosophy and ethics, meta-ethics is the study of the nature, scope, and meaning of moral judgment. It is one of the three branches of ethics generally studied by philosophers, the others being normative ethics (questions of how one ought ...
which investigates moral terms and concepts; *
Normative ethics Normative ethics is the study of ethical behaviour and is the branch of philosophical ethics that investigates the questions that arise regarding how one ought to act, in a moral sense. Normative ethics is distinct from meta-ethics in that the ...
which examines and produces normative ethical judgments; *
Applied ethics Applied ethics refers to the practical aspect of moral considerations. It is ethics with respect to real-world actions and their moral considerations in the areas of private and public life, the professions, health, technology, law, and leaders ...
, which investigates how existing normative principles should be applied to difficult or borderline cases, often cases created by new technology or new scientific knowledge.


Meta-ethics

Twentieth-century meta-ethics has two origins. The first is G.E. Moore's investigation into the nature of ethical terms (e.g., good) in his ''Principia Ethica'' (1903), which identified the naturalistic fallacy. Along with Hume's famous is/ought distinction, the naturalistic fallacy was a major topic of investigation for analytical philosophers. The second is in logical positivism and its attitude that unverifiable statements are meaningless. Although that attitude was adopted originally to promote scientific investigation by rejecting grand metaphysical systems, it had the side effect of making (ethical and aesthetic) value judgments (as well as religious statements and beliefs) meaningless. But because value judgments are of significant importance in human life, it became incumbent on logical positivism to develop an explanation of the nature and meaning of value judgments. As a result, analytic philosophers avoided normative ethics and instead began meta-ethical investigations into the nature of moral terms, statements, and judgments. The logical positivists opined that statements about value—including all ethical and aesthetic judgments—are non-cognitive; that is, they cannot be objectively verified or falsified. Instead, the logical positivists adopted an
emotivist Emotivism is a meta-ethics, meta-ethical view that claims that ethical Sentence (linguistics), sentences do not express propositions but emotional attitudes. Hence, it is colloquially known as the hurrah/boo theory. Influenced by the growth of anal ...
theory, which was that value judgments expressed the attitude of the speaker. For example, in this view, saying, "Killing is wrong", is equivalent to saying, "Boo to murder", or saying the word "murder" with a particular tone of disapproval. While analytic philosophers generally accepted non-cognitivism, emotivism had many deficiencies. It evolved into more sophisticated non-cognitivist theories such as the expressivism of Charles Stevenson, and the universal prescriptivism of R.M. Hare, which was based on J.L. Austin's philosophy of speech acts. These theories were not without their critics.
Philippa Foot Philippa Ruth Foot (; née Bosanquet; 3 October 1920 – 3 October 2010) was an English philosopher and one of the founders of contemporary virtue ethics, who was inspired by the ethics of Aristotle. Along with Judith Jarvis Thomson, she is cre ...
contributed several essays attacking all these theories.
J.O. Urmson James Opie Urmson (4 March 1915 – 29 January 2012), was a philosopher and classicist who spent most of his professional career at Corpus Christi College, Oxford. He was a prolific author and expert on a number of topics including British anal ...
's article "On Grading" called the is/ought distinction into question. As non-cognitivism, the is/ought distinction, and the naturalistic fallacy began to be called into question, analytic philosophers showed a renewed interest in the traditional questions of moral philosophy. Perhaps the most influential being Elizabeth Anscombe, whose monograph ''Intention'' was called by Donald Davidson "the most important treatment of action since Aristotle". A favorite student and 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 unproductive, and resulted in a revival of virtue ethics.


Normative ethics

The first half of the 20th century was marked by skepticism toward and neglect of normative ethics. Related subjects, such as social and political philosophy, aesthetics, and
philosophy of history Philosophy of history is the philosophical study of history and its discipline. The term was coined by French philosopher Voltaire. In contemporary philosophy a distinction has developed between ''speculative'' philosophy of history and ''crit ...
, became only marginal topics of English-language philosophy during this period. During this time, utilitarianism was the only non-skeptical type of ethics to remain popular. However, as the influence of logical positivism began to decrease mid-century, analytic philosophers had renewed interest in ethics.
G.E.M. Anscombe Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret Anscombe (; 18 March 1919 – 5 January 2001), usually cited as G. E. M. Anscombe or Elizabeth Anscombe, was a British analytic philosopher. She wrote on the philosophy of mind, philosophy of action, ...
's 1958 " Modern Moral Philosophy" sparked a revival of
Aristotle Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical Greece, Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatet ...
's virtue ethical approach and John Rawls's 1971 '' A Theory of Justice'' restored interest in Kantian ethical philosophy. Today, contemporary normative ethics is dominated by three schools: consequentialism, virtue ethics, and deontology.


Applied ethics

A significant feature of analytic philosophy since approximately 1970 has been the emergence of
applied ethics Applied ethics refers to the practical aspect of moral considerations. It is ethics with respect to real-world actions and their moral considerations in the areas of private and public life, the professions, health, technology, law, and leaders ...
—an interest in the application of moral principles to specific practical issues. The philosophers following this orientation view ethics as involving humanistic values, which involve practical implications and applications in the way people interact and lead their lives socially. Topics of special interest for applied ethics include environmental issues,
animal rights Animal rights is the philosophy according to which many or all sentient animals have moral worth that is independent of their utility for humans, and that their most basic interests—such as avoiding suffering—should be afforded the sa ...
, and the many challenges created by advancing medical science. In education, applied ethics addressed themes such as punishment in schools,
equality of educational opportunity James Samuel Coleman (May 12, 1926 – March 25, 1995) was an American sociologist, theorist, and empirical researcher, based chiefly at the University of Chicago. He was elected president of the American Sociological Association in 1991. He stud ...
, and education for democracy.


Analytic philosophy of religion

In ''Analytic Philosophy of Religion'', Harris noted that As with the study of ethics, early analytic philosophy tended to avoid the study of philosophy of religion, largely dismissing (as per the logical positivists) the subject as part of
metaphysics Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...
and therefore meaningless. The demise of logical positivism renewed interest in philosophy of religion, prompting philosophers like William Alston, John Mackie, Alvin Plantinga,
Robert Merrihew Adams Robert Merrihew Adams (born September 8, 1937) is an American analytic philosopher, specializing in metaphysics, philosophy of religion, ethics, and the history of early modern philosophy. Life and career Adams was born on September 8, 1937, ...
, Richard Swinburne, and Antony Flew not only to introduce new problems, but to re-study classical topics such as the nature of miracles, theistic arguments, the problem of evil, (see existence of God) the rationality of belief in God, concepts of the nature of God, and many more. Plantinga, Mackie and Flew debated the logical validity of the ''free will defense'' as a way to solve the problem of evil. Alston, grappling with the consequences of analytic philosophy of language, worked on the nature of religious language. Adams worked on the relationship of faith and morality. Analytic epistemology and metaphysics has formed the basis for some philosophically sophisticated theistic arguments, like those of the
reformed epistemologists In the philosophy of religion, Reformed epistemology is a school of philosophical thought concerning the nature of knowledge (epistemology) as it applies to religious beliefs. The central proposition of Reformed epistemology is that beliefs can be ...
like Plantinga. Analytic philosophy of religion has also been preoccupied with Wittgenstein, as well as his interpretation of
Søren Kierkegaard Søren Aabye Kierkegaard ( , , ; 5 May 1813 – 11 November 1855) was a Danish theologian, philosopher, poet, social critic, and religious author who is widely considered to be the first Existentialism, existentialist philosopher. He wrote cr ...
's philosophy of religion. Using first-hand remarks (which was later published in ''Philosophical Investigations'', ''Culture and Value'', and other works), philosophers such as
Peter Winch Peter Guy Winch (14 January 1926 – 27 April 1997) was a British philosopher known for his contributions to the philosophy of social science, Wittgenstein scholarship, ethics, and the philosophy of religion. Winch is perhaps most famous ...
and Norman Malcolm developed what has come to be known as ''contemplative philosophy'', a Wittgensteinian school of thought rooted in the "Swansea tradition", and which includes Wittgensteinians such as Rush Rhees, Peter Winch, and
D.Z. Phillips Dewi Zephaniah Phillips (24 November 1934 – 25 July 2006), known as D. Z. Phillips or simply DZ, was a Welsh philosopher. He was a leading proponent of the Wittgensteinian philosophy of religion. He had an academic career spanning five decade ...
, among others. The name "contemplative philosophy" was first coined by D.Z. Phillips in ''Philosophy's Cool Place'', which rests on an interpretation of a passage from Wittgenstein's ''Culture and Value''. This interpretation was first labeled, "Wittgensteinian Fideism", by
Kai Nielsen Kai Nielsen is the name of: * Kai Nielsen (footballer) * Kaj Nielsen (footballer) * Kai Nielsen (sculptor) (1882–1924), Danish sculptor * Kai Nielsen (philosopher) (1926–2021), American, Canada-based professor of philosophy * Sixten Kai Niel ...
but those who consider themselves Wittgensteinians in the Swansea tradition have relentlessly and repeatedly rejected this construal as a caricature of Wittgenstein's considered position; this is especially true of D.Z. Phillips. Responding to this interpretation, Kai Nielsen and D.Z. Phillips became two of the most prominent philosophers on Wittgenstein's philosophy of religion.


Political philosophy


Liberalism

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 defense of a generally liberal egalitarian account of distributive justice. This was followed soon by Rawls's colleague
Robert Nozick Robert Nozick (; November 16, 1938 – January 23, 2002) was an American philosopher. He held the Joseph Pellegrino University Professorship at Harvard University,
's book '' Anarchy, State, and Utopia'', a defence of free-market
libertarianism Libertarianism (from french: libertaire, "libertarian"; from la, libertas, "freedom") is a political philosophy that upholds liberty as a core value. Libertarians seek to maximize autonomy and political freedom, and minimize the state's en ...
.
Isaiah Berlin Sir Isaiah Berlin (6 June 1909 – 5 November 1997) was a Russian-British social and political theorist, philosopher, and historian of ideas. Although he became increasingly averse to writing for publication, his improvised lectures and talks ...
also had a lasting influence on both analytic political philosophy and liberalism with his lecture " Two Concepts of Liberty". During recent decades there have also been several critiques of liberalism, including the
feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...
critiques of Catharine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin, the communitarian critiques of Michael Sandel and Alasdair MacIntyre (although neither of them endorses the term), and the multiculturalist critiques of Amy Gutmann and Charles Taylor. Although not an analytic philosopher,
Jürgen Habermas Jürgen Habermas (, ; ; born 18 June 1929) is a German social theorist in the tradition of critical theory and pragmatism. His work addresses communicative rationality and the public sphere. Associated with the Frankfurt School, Habermas's wor ...
is another prominent—if controversial—author of contemporary analytic political philosophy, whose social theory is a blend of social science, Marxism, neo-Kantianism, and American pragmatism. Consequentialist libertarianism also derives from the analytic tradition .


Analytical Marxism

Another development of political philosophy was the emergence of the school of analytical Marxism. Members of this school seek to apply techniques of analytic philosophy and modern social science such as
rational choice theory Rational choice theory refers to a set of guidelines that help understand economic and social behaviour. The theory originated in the eighteenth century and can be traced back to political economist and philosopher, Adam Smith. The theory postula ...
to clarify the theories of
Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...
and his successors. The best-known member of this school is
G. A. Cohen Gerald Allan Cohen, ( ; 14 April 1941 – 5 August 2009) was a Canadian political philosopher who held the positions of Quain Professor of Jurisprudence, University College London and Chichele Professor of Social and Political Theory, All Sou ...
, whose 1978 work, '' Karl Marx's Theory of History: A Defence'', is generally considered to represent the genesis of this school. In that book, Cohen used logical and linguistic analysis to clarify and defend 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. The work of these later philosophers have furthered 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 to advance a socialist theory of justice that contrasts with both traditional Marxism and the theories advanced by Rawls and Nozick. In particular, he indicates Marx's principle of from each according to his ability, to each according to his need.


Communitarianism

Communitarians such as Alasdair MacIntyre, Charles Taylor,
Michael Walzer Michael Laban Walzer (born 1935) is an American political theorist and public intellectual. A professor emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in Princeton, New Jersey, he is editor emeritus of ''Dissent'', an intellectual magazine ...
, and Michael Sandel advance a critique of liberalism that uses analytic techniques to isolate the main assumptions of liberal individualists, such as Rawls, and then challenges these assumptions. In particular, communitarians challenge the liberal assumption that the individual can be considered as fully autonomous from the community in which he lives and is brought up. Instead, they argue for a conception of the individual that emphasizes the role that the community plays in forming his or her values, thought processes and opinions.


Analytic metaphysics

One striking difference with respect to early analytic philosophy was the revival of metaphysical theorizing during the second half of the 20th century. Philosophers such as David Kellogg Lewis and
David Armstrong David or Dave Armstrong may refer to: Politicians *David H. Armstrong (1812–1893), US Senator from Missouri * David L. Armstrong (1941–2017), American lawyer and politician * David Malet Armstrong (1926–2014), Australian philosopher * David ...
developed elaborate theories on a range of topics such as universals, causation, possibility and necessity, and abstract objects. Among the developments that resulted in the revival of metaphysical theorizing were
Quine Quine may refer to: * Quine (surname), people with the surname ''Quine'' * Willard Van Orman Quine, the philosopher, or things named after him: ** Quine (computing), a program that produces its source code as output ** Quine–McCluskey algorithm, ...
's attack on the analytic–synthetic distinction, which was generally considered to weaken Carnap's distinction between existence questions internal to a framework and those external to it. Important also for the revival of metaphysics was the further development of
modal logic Modal logic is a collection of formal systems developed to represent statements about necessity and possibility. It plays a major role in philosophy of language, epistemology, metaphysics, and natural language semantics. Modal logics extend other ...
, including the work of Saul Kripke, who argued in '' Naming and Necessity'' and elsewhere for the existence of essences and the possibility of necessary, a posteriori truths. Metaphysics remains a fertile topic of research, having recovered from the attacks of A.J. Ayer and the logical positivists. Although many discussions are continuations of old ones from previous decades and centuries, the debate remains active. The philosophy of fiction, the problem of empty names, and the debate over existence's status as a property have all become major concerns, while perennial issues such as free will, possible worlds, and the
philosophy of time Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. S ...
have been revived.Van Inwagen, Peter, and Dean Zimmerman (eds.) (1998), ''Metaphysics: The Big Questions.'' Science has also had an increasingly significant role in metaphysics. The theory of special relativity has had a profound effect on the philosophy of time, and quantum physics is routinely discussed in the free will debate. The weight given to scientific evidence is largely due to widespread commitments among philosophers to scientific realism and naturalism.


Philosophy of language

Philosophy of language is a topic that has decreased in activity during the last four decades, as evidenced by the fact that few major philosophers today treat it as a primary research topic. Indeed, while the debate remains fierce, it is still strongly influenced by those authors from the first half of the century: Gottlob Frege,
Bertrand Russell Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British mathematician, philosopher, logician, and public intellectual. He had a considerable influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, linguistics, ar ...
, Ludwig Wittgenstein,
J.L. Austin JL or Jl may refer to: Businesses and brands * JL Audio, a manufacturer of consumer audio products * Jeep Wrangler (JL) model, beginning production in 2018 People * Justin Langer (born 1970), former Australian cricket player Places *Jubaland, a ...
, Alfred Tarski, and W.V.O. Quine. In Saul Kripke's publication '' Naming and Necessity'', he argued influentially that flaws in common theories of proper names are indicative of larger misunderstandings of the metaphysics of necessity and possibility. By wedding the techniques of modal logic to a causal theory of reference, Kripke was widely regarded as reviving theories of essence and identity as respectable topics of philosophical discussion. Another influential philosopher,
Pavel Tichý Pavel Tichý (; 18 February 1936, Brno, Czechoslovakia – 26 October 1994, Dunedin, New Zealand) was a Czech logician, philosopher and mathematician. He worked in the field of intensional logic and founded transparent intensional logic, an o ...
initiated Transparent Intensional Logic, an original theory of the
logical analysis Logic translation is the process of representing a text in the formal language of a logical system. If the original text is formulated in ordinary language then the term "natural language formalization" is often used. An example is the translati ...
of
natural language In neuropsychology, linguistics, and philosophy of language, a natural language or ordinary language is any language that has evolved naturally in humans through use and repetition without conscious planning or premeditation. Natural languages ...
s—the theory is devoted to the problem of saying exactly what it is that we learn, know and can communicate when we come to understand what a sentence means.


Philosophy of science

Reacting against both the verificationism of the logical positivists as well as the critiques of the philosopher of science
Karl Popper Sir Karl Raimund Popper (28 July 1902 – 17 September 1994) was an Austrian-British philosopher, academic and social commentator. One of the 20th century's most influential philosophers of science, Popper is known for his rejection of the ...
, who had suggested the falsifiability criterion on which to judge the demarcation between science and non-science, discussions of philosophy of science during the last 40 years were dominated by social constructivist and cognitive relativist theories of science. Thomas Samuel Kuhn with his formulation of
paradigm shift A paradigm shift, a concept brought into the common lexicon by the American physicist and philosopher Thomas Kuhn, is a fundamental change in the basic concepts and experimental practices of a scientific discipline. Even though Kuhn restricted t ...
s and Paul Feyerabend with his epistemological anarchism are significant for these discussions. The philosophy of biology has also undergone considerable growth, particularly due to the considerable debate in recent years over the nature of
evolution Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...
, particularly
natural selection Natural selection is the differential survival and reproduction of individuals due to differences in phenotype. It is a key mechanism of evolution, the change in the heritable traits characteristic of a population over generations. Cha ...
. Daniel Dennett and his 1995 book '' Darwin's Dangerous Idea'', which defends Neo-Darwinism, stand at the foreground of this debate.


Epistemology

Owing largely to Gettier's 1963 paper "Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?", epistemology resurged as a topic of analytic philosophy during the last 50 years. A large portion of current epistemological research is intended to resolve the problems that Gettier's examples presented to the traditional justified true belief model of knowledge, including developing
theories of justification A theory is a rational type of abstract thinking about a phenomenon, or the results of such thinking. The process of contemplative and rational thinking is often associated with such processes as observational study or research. Theories may be s ...
to deal with Gettier's examples, or giving alternatives to the justified true belief model. Other and related topics of contemporary research include debates between internalism and externalism, basic knowledge, the nature of
evidence Evidence for a proposition is what supports this proposition. It is usually understood as an indication that the supported proposition is true. What role evidence plays and how it is conceived varies from field to field. In epistemology, evidenc ...
, the value of knowledge, epistemic luck, virtue epistemology, the role of intuitions in justification, and treating knowledge as a primitive concept.


Aesthetics

As a result of attacks on the traditional aesthetic notions of beauty and sublimity from post-modern thinkers, analytic philosophers were slow to consider art and aesthetic judgment. Susanne Langer and Nelson Goodman addressed these problems in an analytic style during the 1950s and 1960s. Since Goodman, aesthetics as a discipline for analytic philosophers has flourished. Rigorous efforts to pursue analyses of traditional aesthetic concepts were performed by Guy Sircello in the 1970s and 1980s, resulting in new analytic theories of love, sublimity, and beauty. Guy Sircello, ''A New Theory of Beauty.'' Princeton Essays on the Arts, 1. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1975.


See also

*
Analytic phenomenology Phenomenology (from Greek φαινόμενον, ''phainómenon'' "that which appears" and λόγος, ''lógos'' "study") is the philosophical study of the structures of experience and consciousness. As a philosophical movement it was founded i ...
* Analytical Thomism * Logicism * Philosophical analysis * Postanalytic philosophy *
Scientism Scientism is the opinion that science and the scientific method are the best or only way to render truth about the world and reality. While the term was defined originally to mean "methods and attitudes typical of or attributed to natural scientis ...


Notes


References

* Aristotle, ''
Metaphysics Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...
'' * Geach, P., ''Mental Acts'', London 1957 * Kenny, A.J.P., ''Wittgenstein'', London 1973. * * Wittgenstein, '' Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus''


Further reading

* Th
London Philosophy Study Guide
offers many suggestions on what to read, depending on the student's familiarity with the subject

* Dummett, Michael. ''The Origins of Analytical Philosophy''. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993. * Hirschberger, Johannes. ''A Short History of Western Philosophy'', ed. Clare Hay

* Hylton, Peter. ''Russell, Idealism, and the Emergence of Analytic Philosophy''. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990. * Soames, Scott. ''Philosophical Analysis in the Twentieth Century: Volume 1, The Dawn of Analysis''. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003. * Passmore, John. ''A Hundred Years of Philosophy'', revised ed. New York: Basic Books, 1966. * Weitz, Morris, ed. ''Twentieth Century Philosophy: The Analytic Tradition''. New York: Free Press, 1966.


External links

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