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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 Analysis ( : analyses) is the process of breaking a complex topic or substance into smaller parts in order to gain a better understanding of it. The technique has been applied in the study of mathematics and logic since before Aristotle (3 ...
, popular in the
Western world The Western world, also known as the West, primarily refers to the various nations and states in the regions of Europe, North America, and Oceania.
and particularly the Anglosphere, which began around the turn of the 20th century in the
contemporary era Contemporary history, in English-language historiography, is a subset of modern history that describes the historical period from approximately 1945 to the present. Contemporary history is either a subset of the late modern period, or it i ...
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,
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, and
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, 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 Friedrich Ludwig Gottlob Frege (; ; 8 November 1848 – 26 July 1925) was a German philosopher, logician, and mathematician. He was a mathematics professor at the University of Jena, and is understood by many to be the father of analytic ph ...
,
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, ...
,
G. E. Moore George Edward Moore (4 November 1873 – 24 October 1958) was an English philosopher, who with Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein and earlier Gottlob Frege was among the founders of analytic philosophy. He and Russell led the turn from ideal ...
, and
Ludwig Wittgenstein Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein ( ; ; 26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrian-British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. He is con ...
. Other important figures in its history include the
logical positivists 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 of ...
(particularly Rudolf Carnap),
W. V. O. Quine W. may refer to: * SoHo (Australian TV channel) (previously W.), an Australian pay television channel * ''W.'' (film), a 2008 American biographical drama film based on the life of George W. Bush * "W.", the fifth track from Codeine's 1992 EP ''Bar ...
, and Karl Popper. After the decline of logical positivism,
Saul Kripke Saul Aaron Kripke (; November 13, 1940 – September 15, 2022) was an American philosopher and logician in the analytic tradition. He was a Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and em ...
, David Lewis, and others led a revival in metaphysics.
Elizabeth 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, ...
, Peter Geach, Anthony Kenny and others brought analytic approach to Thomism. Analytic philosophy is characterized by an emphasis on language, known as the
linguistic turn The linguistic turn was a major development in Western philosophy during the early 20th century, the most important characteristic of which is the focusing of philosophy and the other humanities primarily on the relations between language, langua ...
, and for its clarity and rigor in arguments, making use of
formal logic Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or of logical truths. It is a formal science investigating how conclusions follow from premis ...
and mathematics, and, to a lesser degree, the
natural sciences Natural science is one of the branches of science concerned with the description, understanding and prediction of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation. Mechanisms such as peer review and repeatab ...
.
Brian Leiter Brian Leiter (; born 1963) is an American philosopher and legal scholar who is Karl N. Llewellyn Professor of Jurisprudence at the University of Chicago Law School and founder and Director of Chicago's Center for Law, Philosophy & Human Values. ...
(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, purpose, and valu ...
,
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. The analytical tradition has been critiqued for
ahistoricism Ahistoricism refers to a lack of concern for history, historical development, or tradition. Charges of ahistoricism are frequently critical, implying that the subject is historically inaccurate or ignorant (for example, an ''ahistorical'' attitud ...
.


History

The history of analytic philosophy (taken in the narrower sense of " 20th-/ 21st-century analytic philosophy") is usually thought to begin with the rejection of British idealism, a neo-Hegelian movement. British idealism as taught by philosophers such as
F. H. Bradley Francis Herbert Bradley (30 January 1846 – 18 September 1924) was a British idealist philosopher. His most important work was ''Appearance and Reality'' (1893). Life Bradley was born at Clapham, Surrey, England (now part of the Greater ...
(1846–1924) and T. H. Green (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 for being obscure—see for example Moore's " A Defence of Common Sense" and Russell's critique of the doctrine of internal relations. Inspired by developments in modern
formal logic Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or of logical truths. It is a formal science investigating how conclusions follow from premis ...
, 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—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 between items are ''internal relations'', that is,
properties Property is the ownership of land, resources, improvements or other tangible objects, or intellectual property. Property may also refer to: Mathematics * Property (mathematics) Philosophy and science * Property (philosophy), in philosophy an ...
of the nature of those items. Russell, along with Wittgenstein, in response promulgated
logical atomism Logical atomism is a philosophical view that originated in the early 20th century with the development of analytic philosophy. Its principal exponent was the British philosopher Bertrand Russell. It is also widely held that the early works of his ...
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 Friedrich Ludwig Gottlob Frege (; ; 8 November 1848 – 26 July 1925) was a German philosopher, logician, and mathematician. He was a mathematics professor at the University of Jena, and is understood by many to be the father of analytic ph ...
(1848–1925), who developed
predicate logic First-order logic—also known as predicate logic, quantificational logic, and first-order predicate calculus—is a collection of formal systems used in mathematics, philosophy, linguistics, and computer science. First-order logic uses quantifie ...
, 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 in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. In contrast to
Edmund Husserl , thesis1_title = Beiträge zur Variationsrechnung (Contributions to the Calculus of Variations) , thesis1_url = https://fedora.phaidra.univie.ac.at/fedora/get/o:58535/bdef:Book/view , thesis1_year = 1883 , thesis2_title ...
'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 Psychologism is a family of philosophical positions, according to which certain psychological facts, laws, or entities play a central role in grounding or explaining certain non-psychological facts, laws, or entities. The word was coined by Johan ...
" 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 t ...
'' (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 ''The Principles of Mathematics'' (''PoM'') is a 1903 book by Bertrand Russell, in which the author presented his famous Russell's paradox, paradox and argued his thesis that mathematics and logic are identical. The book presents a view of ...
'' (1903). Later, his book written with Whitehead, ''
Principia Mathematica The ''Principia Mathematica'' (often abbreviated ''PM'') is a three-volume work on the foundations of mathematics written by mathematician–philosophers Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell and published in 1910, 1912, and 1913. ...
'' (1910–1913), encouraged many philosophers to renew their interest in the development of symbolic logic. 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 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 description In formal semantics and philosophy of language, a definite description is a denoting phrase in the form of "the X" where X is a noun-phrase or a singular common noun. The definite description is ''proper'' if X applies to a unique individual or o ...
s in " On Denoting" (1905).


Ideal language

From about 1910 to 1930, analytic philosophers like Russell and
Ludwig Wittgenstein Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein ( ; ; 26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrian-British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. He is con ...
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 Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or of logical truths. It is a formal science investigating how conclusions follow from premise ...
to formalize how philosophical
statements Statement or statements may refer to: Common uses *Statement (computer science), the smallest standalone element of an imperative programming language *Statement (logic), declarative sentence that is either true or false *Statement, a declarative ...
are made.


Logical atomism

Russell became an advocate of
logical atomism Logical atomism is a philosophical view that originated in the early 20th century with the development of analytic philosophy. Its principal exponent was the British philosopher Bertrand Russell. It is also widely held that the early works of his ...
. Wittgenstein developed a comprehensive system of logical atomism in his ''
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus The ''Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus'' (widely abbreviated and cited as TLP) is a book-length philosophical work by the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein which deals with the relationship between language and reality and aims to define th ...
'' ( 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 operator In logic, a logical connective (also called a logical operator, sentential connective, or sentential operator) is a logical constant. They can be used to connect logical formulas. For instance in the syntax of propositional logic, the binary ...
s.


Logical positivism

During the late 1920s to 1940s, a group of philosophers of the
Vienna Circle The Vienna Circle (german: Wiener Kreis) of Logical Empiricism was a group of elite philosophers and scientists drawn from the natural and social sciences, logic and mathematics who met regularly from 1924 to 1936 at the University of Vienna, ch ...
and the
Berlin Circle The Berlin Circle (german: die Berliner Gruppe) was a group that maintained logical empiricist views about philosophy. History Berlin Circle was created in the late 1920s by Hans Reichenbach, Kurt Grelling and Walter Dubislav and composed o ...
developed Russell and Wittgenstein's formalism into a doctrine known as " logical positivism" (or logical empiricism). Logical positivism used formal logical methods to develop an empiricist account of knowledge. Philosophers such as Rudolf Carnap and Hans Reichenbach, 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 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) i ...
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, 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 exi ...
, 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 vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
, 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 John Langshaw Austin (26 March 1911 – 8 February 1960) was a British philosopher of language and leading proponent of ordinary language philosophy, perhaps best known for developing the theory of speech acts. Austin pointed out that we u ...
. 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 Gilbert Ryle (19 August 1900 – 6 October 1976) was a British philosopher, principally known for his critique of Cartesian dualism, for which he coined the phrase "ghost in the machine." He was a representative of the generation of British ord ...
. 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 ''Philosophical Investigations'' (german: Philosophische Untersuchungen) is a work by the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, published posthumously in 1953. ''Philosophical Investigations'' is divided into two parts, consisting of what Wittgens ...
'', Quine in "
Two Dogmas of Empiricism "Two Dogmas of Empiricism" is a paper by analytic philosopher Willard Van Orman Quine published in 1951. According to University of Sydney professor of philosophy Peter Godfrey-Smith, this "paper ssometimes regarded as the most important in all o ...
", 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 (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 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 Scott Soames (; born 1945) is an American philosopher. He is a professor of philosophy at the University of Southern California (since 2004), and before that at Princeton University. He specializes in the philosophy of language and the history o ...
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 In the philosophy of mind, logical behaviorism (also known as analytical behaviorism) is the thesis that mental concepts can be explained in terms of behavioral concepts. Logical behaviorism was first stated by the Vienna Circle, especially Rudolf ...
was the most prominent
theory of mind In psychology, theory of mind refers to the capacity to understand other people by ascribing mental states to them (that is, surmising what is happening in their mind). This includes the knowledge that others' mental states may be different fro ...
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 Type physicalism (also known as reductive materialism, type identity theory, mind–brain identity theory and identity theory of mind) is a physicalist theory in the philosophy of mind. It asserts that mental events can be grouped into types, and ...
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 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 David John Chalmers (; born 20 April 1966) is an Australian philosopher and cognitive scientist specializing in the areas of philosophy of mind and philosophy of language. He is a professor of philosophy and neural science at New York Univers ...
. John Searle suggests that the obsession with the philosophy of language during the 20th century has been superseded by an emphasis on the
philosophy of mind Philosophy of mind is a branch of philosophy that studies the ontology and nature of the mind and its relationship with the body. The mind–body problem is a paradigmatic issue in philosophy of mind, although a number of other issues are add ...
, in which functionalism is currently the dominant theory. In recent years, a central focus of research in the philosophy of mind has been
consciousness Consciousness, at its simplest, is sentience and awareness of internal and external existence. However, the lack of definitions has led to millennia of analyses, explanations and debates by philosophers, theologians, linguisticians, and scien ...
. 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's
heterophenomenology In the thought of the philosopher Daniel Dennett, heterophenomenology (" phenomenology ''of another'', not oneself") is an explicitly third-person, scientific approach to the study of consciousness and other mental phenomena. It consists of applyi ...
,
Fred Dretske Frederick Irwin "Fred" Dretske (; December 9, 1932 – July 24, 2013) was an American philosopher noted for his contributions to epistemology and the philosophy of mind. Biography Born to Frederick and Hattie Dretske, Dretske first planned to be ...
and Michael Tye's
representationalism In the philosophy of perception and philosophy of mind, the question of direct or naïve realism, as opposed to indirect or representational realism, is the debate over the nature of conscious experience;Lehar, Steve. (2000)The Function of Consc ...
, and the higher-order theories of either David M. Rosenthal—who advocates a higher-order thought (HOT) model—or David Armstrong 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.


Ethics in analytic philosophy

Due to the commitments to empiricism and symbolic logic 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 which investigates moral terms and concepts; * Normative ethics 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 leadersh ...
, 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 In philosophical ethics, the naturalistic fallacy is the claim that any reductive explanation of good, in terms of natural properties such as ''pleasant'' or ''desirable'', is false. The term was introduced by British philosopher G. E. Moore in ...
. 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 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 ...
investigations into the nature of moral terms, statements, and judgments. The
logical positivist 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 of ...
s opined that statements about
value Value or values may refer to: Ethics and social * Value (ethics) wherein said concept may be construed as treating actions themselves as abstract objects, associating value to them ** Values (Western philosophy) expands the notion of value beyo ...
—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 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 In meta-ethics, expressivism is a theory about the meaning of moral language. According to expressivism, sentences that employ moral terms – for example, "It is wrong to torture an innocent human being" – are not descriptive or fact-stating; ...
of Charles Stevenson, and the
universal prescriptivism Universal prescriptivism (often simply called prescriptivism) is the meta-ethical view that claims that, rather than expressing propositions, ethical sentences function similarly to imperatives which are universalizable—whoever makes a mo ...
of
R.M. Hare Richard Mervyn Hare (21 March 1919 – 29 January 2002), usually cited as R. M. Hare, was a British moral philosopher who held the post of White's Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Oxford from 1966 until 1983. He subseque ...
, which was based on J.L. Austin's philosophy of
speech acts Speech is a human vocal communication using language. Each language uses phonetic combinations of vowel and consonant sounds that form the sound of its words (that is, all English words sound different from all French words, even if they are th ...
. These theories were not without their critics. Philippa Foot contributed several essays attacking all these theories. J.O. Urmson'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 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, ...
, 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 In ethical philosophy, consequentialism is a class of normative, teleological ethical theories that holds that the consequences of one's conduct are the ultimate basis for judgment about the rightness or wrongness of that conduct. Thus, fro ...
" 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, became only marginal topics of English-language philosophy during this period. During this time,
utilitarianism In ethical philosophy, utilitarianism is a family of normative ethical theories that prescribe actions that maximize happiness and well-being for all affected individuals. Although different varieties of utilitarianism admit different chara ...
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'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 period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of ph ...
's virtue ethical approach and
John Rawls John Bordley Rawls (; February 21, 1921 – November 24, 2002) was an American moral, legal and political philosopher in the liberal tradition. Rawls received both the Schock Prize for Logic and Philosophy and the National Humanities Medal in ...
's 1971 ''
A Theory of Justice ''A Theory of Justice'' is a 1971 work of political philosophy and ethics by the philosopher John Rawls (1921-2002) in which the author attempts to provide a moral theory alternative to utilitarianism and that addresses the problem of distributi ...
'' restored interest in
Kantian Kantianism is the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, a German philosopher born in Königsberg, Prussia (now Kaliningrad, Russia). The term ''Kantianism'' or ''Kantian'' is sometimes also used to describe contemporary positions in philosophy of mind, ...
ethical philosophy. Today, contemporary normative ethics is dominated by three schools:
consequentialism In ethical philosophy, consequentialism is a class of normative, teleological ethical theories that holds that the consequences of one's conduct are the ultimate basis for judgment about the rightness or wrongness of that conduct. Thus, fro ...
,
virtue ethics Virtue ethics (also aretaic ethics, from Greek ἀρετή arete_(moral_virtue).html"_;"title="'arete_(moral_virtue)">aretḗ''_is_an_approach_to_ethics_that_treats_the_concept_of_virtue.html" ;"title="arete_(moral_virtue)">aretḗ''.html" ; ...
, and
deontology In moral philosophy, deontological ethics or deontology (from Greek: + ) is the normative ethical theory that the morality of an action should be based on whether that action itself is right or wrong under a series of rules and principles, r ...
.


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 leadersh ...
—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 Environmental issues are effects of human activity on the biophysical environment, most often of which are harmful effects that cause environmental degradation. Environmental protection is the practice of protecting the natural environment on t ...
,
animal rights Animal rights is the philosophy according to which many or all Animal consciousness, sentient animals have moral worth that is independent of their Utilitarianism, utility for humans, and that their most basic interests—such as avoiding s ...
, and the many challenges created by advancing
medical science Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care practic ...
. In education, applied ethics addressed themes such as punishment in schools, equality of educational opportunity, 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 Philosophy of religion is "the philosophical examination of the central themes and concepts involved in religious traditions". Philosophical discussions on such topics date from ancient times, and appear in the earliest known texts concerning ph ...
, 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 William Payne Alston (November 29, 1921 – September 13, 2009) was an American philosopher. He is widely considered to be one of the most important epistemologists and philosophers of religion of the twentieth century, and is also known for hi ...
, John Mackie,
Alvin Plantinga Alvin Carl Plantinga (born November 15, 1932) is an American analytic philosopher who works primarily in the fields of philosophy of religion, epistemology (particularly on issues involving epistemic justification), and logic. From 1963 to 198 ...
,
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 Richard Granville Swinburne (IPA ) (born December 26, 1934) is an English philosopher. He is an Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oxford. Over the last 50 years Swinburne has been a proponent of philosophical arguments for ...
, and
Antony Flew Antony Garrard Newton Flew (; 11 February 1923 – 8 April 2010) was a British philosopher. Belonging to the analytic and evidentialist schools of thought, Flew worked on the philosophy of religion. During the course of his career he taught a ...
not only to introduce new problems, but to re-study classical topics such as the nature of
miracle A miracle is an event that is inexplicable by natural or scientific lawsOne dictionary define"Miracle"as: "A surprising and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore considered to be the work of a divi ...
s, theistic arguments, the
problem of evil The problem of evil is the question of how to reconcile the existence of evil and suffering with an omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and omniscient God.The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy,The Problem of Evil, Michael TooleyThe Internet Encycl ...
, (see
existence of God The existence of God (or more generally, the existence of deities) is a subject of debate in theology, philosophy of religion and popular culture. A wide variety of arguments for and against the existence of God or deities can be categorize ...
) 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 In analytic philosophy, philosophy of language investigates the nature of language and the relations between language, language users, and the world. Investigations may include inquiry into the nature of meaning, intentionality, reference, ...
, 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 like Plantinga. Analytic philosophy of religion has also been preoccupied with Wittgenstein, as well as his interpretation of Søren Kierkegaard'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 and
Norman Malcolm Norman Malcolm (; 11 June 1911 – 4 August 1990) was an American philosopher. Biography Malcolm was born in Selden, Kansas. He studied philosophy with O. K. Bouwsma at the University of Nebraska, then enrolled as a graduate student at Ha ...
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 Rush Rhees (; 19 March 1905 – 22 May 1989) was an American philosopher. He is principally known as a student, friend, and literary executor of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. With G. E. M. Anscombe he was co-editor of Wittgenstein's pos ...
, Peter Winch, and D.Z. Phillips, 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 Fideism () is an epistemological theory which maintains that faith is independent of reason, or that reason and faith are hostile to each other and faith is superior at arriving at particular truths (see natural theology). The word ''fideism'' c ...
", by Kai Nielsen 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 John Bordley Rawls (; February 21, 1921 – November 24, 2002) was an American moral, legal and political philosopher in the liberal tradition. Rawls received both the Schock Prize for Logic and Philosophy and the National Humanities Medal in ...
, 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 ''A Theory of Justice'' is a 1971 work of political philosophy and ethics by the philosopher John Rawls (1921-2002) in which the author attempts to provide a moral theory alternative to utilitarianism and that addresses the problem of distributi ...
'', produced a sophisticated defense of a generally liberal egalitarian account of distributive justice. This was followed soon by Rawls's colleague Robert Nozick's book ''
Anarchy, State, and Utopia ''Anarchy, State, and Utopia'' is a 1974 book by the American political philosopher Robert Nozick. It won the 1975 US National Book Award in category Philosophy and Religion, has been translated into 11 languages, and was named one of the "100 m ...
'', a defence of
free-market In economics, a free market is an economic system in which the prices of goods and services are determined by supply and demand expressed by sellers and buyers. Such markets, as modeled, operate without the intervention of government or any ot ...
libertarianism. Isaiah Berlin also had a lasting influence on both analytic political philosophy and liberalism with his lecture "
Two Concepts of Liberty "Two Concepts of Liberty" was the inaugural lecture delivered by the liberal philosopher Isaiah Berlin before the University of Oxford on 31 October 1958. It was subsequently published as a 57-page pamphlet by Oxford at the Clarendon Press. It ...
". During recent decades there have also been several critiques of liberalism, including the feminist critiques of
Catharine MacKinnon Catharine Alice MacKinnon (born October 7, 1946) is an American radical feminist legal scholar, activist, and author. She is the Elizabeth A. Long Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School, where she has been tenured since 1990, ...
and
Andrea Dworkin Andrea Rita Dworkin (September 26, 1946 – April 9, 2005) was an American radical feminist writer and activist best known for her analysis of pornography. Her feminist writings, beginning in 1974, span 30 years. They are found in a dozen solo ...
, the communitarian critiques of
Michael Sandel Michael Joseph Sandel (; born March 5, 1953) is an American political philosopher and the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Government Theory at Harvard University Law School, where his course Justice was the university's first course t ...
and Alasdair MacIntyre (although neither of them endorses the term), and the
multiculturalist The term multiculturalism has a range of meanings within the contexts of sociology, political philosophy, and colloquial use. In sociology and in everyday usage, it is a synonym for " ethnic pluralism", with the two terms often used interchang ...
critiques of
Amy Gutmann Amy Gutmann (born November 19, 1949) is an American academic and diplomat who is the United States Ambassador to Germany. She was the eighth president of the University of Pennsylvania. In November 2016, the school announced that her contract ...
and Charles Taylor. Although not an analytic philosopher, Jürgen Habermas is another prominent—if controversial—author of contemporary analytic political philosophy, whose social theory is a blend of social science, Marxism,
neo-Kantianism In late modern continental philosophy, neo-Kantianism (german: Neukantianismus) was a revival of the 18th-century philosophy of Immanuel Kant. The Neo-Kantians sought to develop and clarify Kant's theories, particularly his concept of the "thin ...
, and American
pragmatism Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition that considers words and thought as tools and instruments for prediction, problem solving, and action, and rejects the idea that the function of thought is to describe, represent, or mirror reality. ...
.
Consequentialist libertarianism Consequentialist libertarianism, also known as consequentialist liberalism or libertarian consequentialism, is a libertarian political philosophy and position that is supportive of a free market and strong private property rights only on the grou ...
also derives from the analytic tradition .


Analytical Marxism

Another development of political philosophy was the emergence of the school of
analytical Marxism Analytical Marxism is an approach to Marxist theory that was prominent amongst English-speaking philosophers and social scientists during the 1980s. Described by G. A. Cohen as "non-bullshit Marxism", members of this school seek to apply the t ...
. Members of this school seek to apply techniques of analytic philosophy and modern social science such as rational choice theory 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, 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 John E. Roemer (; born February 1, 1945 in Washington, D.C., to Ruth Roemer and Milton Roemer, namesake of Roemer's law) is an American economist and political scientist. He is the Elizabeth S. and A. Varick Stout Professor of Political Scien ...
, the social scientist
Jon Elster Jon Elster (; born 22 February 1940, Oslo) is a Norwegian philosopher and political theorist who holds the Robert K. Merton professorship of Social Science at Columbia University. He received his PhD in social science from the École Normale Su ...
, and the sociologist
Erik Olin Wright Erik Olin Wright (February 9, 1947 – January 23, 2019) was an American analytical Marxist sociologist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, specializing in social stratification and in egalitarian alternative futures to capitalism. He w ...
. 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 Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the ...
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 "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" (german: Jeder nach seinen Fähigkeiten, jedem nach seinen Bedürfnissen) is a slogan popularised by Karl Marx in his 1875 '' Critique of the Gotha Programme''. The principle ref ...
.


Communitarianism

Communitarians such as Alasdair MacIntyre, Charles Taylor, Michael Walzer, and
Michael Sandel Michael Joseph Sandel (; born March 5, 1953) is an American political philosopher and the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Government Theory at Harvard University Law School, where his course Justice was the university's first course t ...
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 David (; , "beloved one") (traditional spelling), , ''Dāwūd''; grc-koi, Δαυΐδ, Dauíd; la, Davidus, David; gez , ዳዊት, ''Dawit''; xcl, Դաւիթ, ''Dawitʿ''; cu, Давíдъ, ''Davidŭ''; possibly meaning "beloved one". w ...
and David Armstrong developed elaborate theories on a range of topics such as universals, causation, possibility and necessity, and abstract objects. Among the developments that resulted in the revival of metaphysical theorizing were Quine's attack on the
analytic–synthetic distinction The analytic–synthetic distinction is a semantic distinction, used primarily in philosophy to distinguish between propositions (in particular, statements that are affirmative subject–predicate judgments) that are of two types: analytic propos ...
, which was generally considered to weaken
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. ...
'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, including the work of
Saul Kripke Saul Aaron Kripke (; November 13, 1940 – September 15, 2022) was an American philosopher and logician in the analytic tradition. He was a Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and em ...
, who argued in ''
Naming and Necessity ''Naming and Necessity'' is a 1980 book with the transcript of three lectures, given by the philosopher Saul Kripke, at Princeton University in 1970, in which he dealt with the debates of proper names in the philosophy of language. The transcript ...
'' and elsewhere for the existence of
essence Essence ( la, essentia) is a polysemic term, used in philosophy and theology as a designation for the property or set of properties that make an entity or substance what it fundamentally is, and which it has by necessity, and without which it ...
s and the possibility of necessary, a posteriori truths. Metaphysics remains a fertile topic of research, having recovered from the attacks of
A.J. Ayer Sir Alfred Jules "Freddie" Ayer (; 29 October 1910 – 27 June 1989), usually cited as A. J. Ayer, was an English philosopher known for his promotion of logical positivism, particularly in his books '' Language, Truth, and Logic'' (1936) a ...
and the
logical positivists 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 of ...
. 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. Some ...
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 Scientific realism is the view that the universe described by science is real regardless of how it may be interpreted. Within philosophy of science, this view is often an answer to the question "how is the success of science to be explained?" Th ...
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 Friedrich Ludwig Gottlob Frege (; ; 8 November 1848 – 26 July 1925) was a German philosopher, logician, and mathematician. He was a mathematics professor at the University of Jena, and is understood by many to be the father of analytic ph ...
,
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, ...
,
Ludwig Wittgenstein Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein ( ; ; 26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrian-British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. He is con ...
, J.L. Austin,
Alfred Tarski Alfred Tarski (, born Alfred Teitelbaum;School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of St Andrews ''School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of St Andrews''. January 14, 1901 – October 26, 1983) was a Polish-American logician a ...
, and
W.V.O. Quine Willard Van Orman Quine (; known to his friends as "Van"; June 25, 1908 – December 25, 2000) was an American philosopher and logician in the analytic tradition, recognized as "one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century" ...
. In
Saul Kripke Saul Aaron Kripke (; November 13, 1940 – September 15, 2022) was an American philosopher and logician in the analytic tradition. He was a Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and em ...
's publication ''
Naming and Necessity ''Naming and Necessity'' is a 1980 book with the transcript of three lectures, given by the philosopher Saul Kripke, at Princeton University in 1970, in which he dealt with the debates of proper names in the philosophy of language. The transcript ...
'', 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 A causal theory of reference or historical chain theory of reference is a theory of how terms acquire specific referents based on evidence. Such theories have been used to describe many referring terms, particularly logical terms, proper names, and ...
, Kripke was widely regarded as reviving theories of essence and identity as respectable topics of philosophical discussion. Another influential philosopher, Pavel Tichý initiated Transparent Intensional Logic, an original theory of the logical analysis of natural languages—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, who had suggested the
falsifiability Falsifiability is a standard of evaluation of scientific theories and hypotheses that was introduced by the philosopher of science Karl Popper in his book '' The Logic of Scientific Discovery'' (1934). He proposed it as the cornerstone of a s ...
criterion on which to judge the demarcation between science and non-science, discussions of
philosophy of science Philosophy of science is a branch of philosophy concerned with the foundations, methods, and implications of science. The central questions of this study concern what qualifies as science, the reliability of scientific theories, and the ult ...
during the last 40 years were dominated by
social constructivist Social constructivism is a sociological theory of knowledge according to which human development is socially situated and knowledge is constructed through interaction with others. Like social constructionism, social constructivism states th ...
and cognitive relativist theories of science.
Thomas Samuel Kuhn Thomas Samuel Kuhn (; July 18, 1922 – June 17, 1996) was an American philosopher of science whose 1962 book ''The Structure of Scientific Revolutions'' was influential in both academic and popular circles, introducing the term '' paradigm ...
with his formulation of paradigm shifts and
Paul Feyerabend Paul Karl Feyerabend (; January 13, 1924 – February 11, 1994) was an Austrian-born philosopher of science best known for his work as a professor of philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley, where he worked for three decades (195 ...
with his
epistemological anarchism Paul Karl Feyerabend (; January 13, 1924 – February 11, 1994) was an Austrian-born philosopher of science best known for his work as a professor of philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley, where he worked for three decades (1958 ...
are significant for these discussions. The
philosophy of biology The philosophy of biology is a subfield of philosophy of science, which deals with epistemological, metaphysical, and ethical issues in the biological and biomedical sciences. Although philosophers of science and philosophers generally have long ...
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 ''Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life'' is a 1995 book by the philosopher Daniel Dennett, in which the author looks at some of the repercussions of Darwinian theory. The crux of the argument is that, whether or not Darwin ...
'', which defends
Neo-Darwinism Neo-Darwinism is generally used to describe any integration of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection with Gregor Mendel's theory of genetics. It mostly refers to evolutionary theory from either 1895 (for the combinations of Dar ...
, stand at the foreground of this debate.


Epistemology

Owing largely to
Gettier Edmund Lee Gettier III (; October 31, 1927 – March 23, 2021) was an American philosopher at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He is best known for his short 1963 article "Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?", which has generated an exten ...
'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 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 Internalism and externalism are two opposite ways of integration of explaining various subjects in several areas of philosophy. These include human motivation, knowledge, justification, meaning, and truth. The distinction arises in many areas of d ...
, basic knowledge, the nature of evidence, the value of knowledge,
epistemic luck The Gettier problem, in the field of epistemology, is a landmark philosophical problem concerning the understanding of descriptive knowledge. Attributed to American philosopher Edmund Gettier, Gettier-type counterexamples (called "Gettier-cases") ...
,
virtue epistemology Virtue epistemology is a contemporary philosophical approach to epistemology that stresses the importance of intellectual and specifically epistemic virtues. A distinguishing factor of virtue theories is that they use for the evaluation of knowledg ...
, 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 Postmodernism is an intellectual stance or mode of discourseNuyen, A.T., 1992. The Role of Rhetorical Devices in Postmodernist Discourse. Philosophy & Rhetoric, pp.183–194. characterized by skepticism toward the " grand narratives" of moderni ...
thinkers, analytic philosophers were slow to consider art and aesthetic judgment.
Susanne Langer Susanne Katherina Langer (; ''née'' Knauth; December 20, 1895 – July 17, 1985) was an American philosopher, writer, and educator known for her theories on the influences of art on the mind. She was one of the earliest American women to achieve ...
and
Nelson Goodman Henry Nelson Goodman (7 August 1906 – 25 November 1998) was an American philosopher, known for his work on counterfactuals, mereology, the problem of induction, irrealism, and aesthetics. Life and career Goodman was born in Somerville, M ...
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 *
Analytical Thomism Analytical Thomism is a philosophical movement which promotes the interchange of ideas between the thought of Thomas Aquinas (including the philosophy carried on in relation to his thinking, called 'Thomism'), and modern analytic philosophy. ...
*
Logicism In the philosophy of mathematics, logicism is a programme comprising one or more of the theses that — for some coherent meaning of 'logic' — mathematics is an extension of logic, some or all of mathematics is reducible to logic, or some or all ...
*
Philosophical analysis Philosophical analysis is any of various techniques, typically used by philosophers in the analytic tradition, in order to "break down" (i.e. analyze) philosophical issues. Arguably the most prominent of these techniques is the analysis of concep ...
*
Postanalytic philosophy Postanalytic philosophy describes a detachment from the mainstream philosophical movement of analytic philosophy, which is the predominant school of thought in English-speaking countries. The ''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' defines the mo ...
* Scientism


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 The ''Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus'' (widely abbreviated and cited as TLP) is a book-length philosophical work by the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein which deals with the relationship between language and reality and aims to define th ...
''


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

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Analytic Philosophy 20th-century philosophy 21st-century philosophy Contemporary philosophy History of logic History of mathematics History of philosophy Intellectual history Philosophical movements Philosophical schools and traditions Philosophical traditions Western culture Western philosophy