Analytical Philosophy

Although there was much disagreement among the logical empiricists their position constituted an immensely influential antimetaphysical paradigm for mid-twentieth-century philosophers, especially after the rise of the Nazis had led to the emigration of the leading philosophers of the group from Central Europe to the United States. While traditional philosophers complained, quite rightly, that the antimetaphysical rhetoric of the position concealed its own metaphysical assumptions, two other lines of criticism were especially important for the subsequent development of analytical philosophy. In Britain, especially after 1945, the logical empiricists' emphasis on logical analysis was felt to be excessively restrictive. It was argued by the defenders of "ordinary language philosophy" such as J. L. Austin and Peter Strawson that formal logic does not adequately capture the complex conceptual structures of our thought and language, and thus that a much more heterogeneous and informal approach to conceptual analysis is required. This work led to the development of a variety of approaches to the study of language, especially speech act theory, which treats speech as a kind of action and therefore conceives of its meaning in the light of the things speakers do by means of their speech acts (for example, making a promise or naming a child). At much the same time Wittgenstein's later Philosophical Investigations (1953) were published, with a similar emphasis on the need to understand our ordinary "language-games" instead of relying on formal logic to capture the structure of thought. One of the most challenging features of Wittgenstein's later investigations was his critical discussion of psychological concepts, and this, together with other work, has helped to direct recent analytical philosophers at least as much to the philosophy of mind as to the philosophy of language.