Analytical Philosophy
Analytical And Continental Philosophy
Throughout much of the twentieth century analytical philosophy was very different from the approach to philosophy characteristic of "continental" philosophers such as Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. One reason for this was simply their ignorance of logic, which excluded them from any serious understanding of analytical philosophy. Conversely analytical philosophers, by and large, remained uncomprehending of the phenomenological project of recovering the basic structures of intentionality. By the end of the twentieth century, however, with translations of all the main works involved into the relevant languages, a much greater degree of mutual comprehension has been achieved. As a result, while continental philosophers such as Jacques Derrida have sought to appropriate analytical techniques such as speech-act analysis, analytical philosophers have turned their attention to the theme of intentionality, though sometimes with conclusions far removed from those of continental philosophers. Thus the situation is now one of dialogue despite profound disagreements.
See also Continental Philosophy; Idealism; Language, Philosophy of: Modern; Philosophy of Religion; Positivism.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Analysis (1933–). A journal founded to promote analytical philosophy. See the statement in vol. 1, which remains a characteristic expression of this kind of philosophy.
Austin, John Langshaw. How to Do Things with Words. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962. Austin here begins to develop speech-act theory.
Ayer, Alfred J. Language, Truth, and Logic. London: Gollancz, 1936. A brilliant statement of the logical empiricist position.
——, ed. Logical Positivism. Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1959. An excellent collection of papers.
Baldwin, Thomas. Contemporary Philosophy: Philosophy in English since 1945. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. A book in which the author of this entry discusses the main themes of analytical philosophy since 1945.
Butler, R. J., ed. Analytical Philosophy. 2 vols. Oxford: Blackwell, 1962–1965. Two collections of papers characteristic of mid-twentieth century analytical philosophy.
Carnap, Rudolph. "The Elimination of Metaphysics through Logical Analysis of Language." 1932. In Logical Positivism, edited by A. J. Ayer, 60–81. Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1959. Originally published in German as "Uberwindung der Metaphysik durch logische Analyse der Sprache," this is Carnap's classic statement of his logical empiricism.
——. "Empiricism, Semantics and Ontology." Revue Internationale de Philosophie 4 (1950): 20–40. Reprinted in The Linguistic Turn: Recent Essays in Philosophical Methods, edited by Richard Rorty. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967. 2nd ed., 1992. Carnap here introduces a distinction between "internal" and "external" questions to clarify his defense of analyticity. Rorty's collection is a useful resource, and the 2nd ed. contains two interesting skeptical retrospective essays.
Cohen, G. A. Karl Marx's Theory of History: A Defence. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978. A work showing how analytical philosophy can be applied to the study of Marxism; the starting point of "analytical Marxism."
Davidson, Donald. Essays on Actions and Events. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980. This collection includes Davidson's discussions of "logical form."
Derrida, Jacques. "Signature, Event, Context." In his Margins of Philosophy. Translated by Alan Bass. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982. Derrida's critical discussion of Austin.
Frege, Gottlob. Begriffsschrift. 1879. In Frege and Godel: Two Fundamental Texts in Mathematical Logic, edited by J. van Heijenoort. Translated by S. Bauer-Mengelberg. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1970. Frege's revolutionary new logical theory.
Fricker, Miranda, and Jennifer Hornsby. The Cambridge Companion to Feminism in Philosophy. Cambridge, U.K., and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000. A collection of papers showing how issues in feminist philosophy are addressed by analytical philosophers.
Montefiore, Alan, and Bernard Williams. British Analytical Philosophy. London: Routledge, 1966. A useful collection in which the British conception of analytical philosophy is expounded and discussed.
Moore, G. E. "The Nature of Judgment." 1899. In G. E. Moore: Selected Writings, edited by Thomas Baldwin, 1–19. London and New York: Routledge, 1993. Moore's early rejection of the idealist theory of judgment.
——. Principia Ethica. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1903. Rev. ed., edited by Thomas Baldwin. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Moore's classic presentation of his analytical ethics.
Quine, Willard van Orman. From a Logical Point of View: 9 Logico-Philosophical Essays. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1953. A collection which includes some of Quine's early papers, especially "Two Dogmas of Empiricism" in which he launches his critique of analyticity.
——. Ways of Paradox. New York: Random House, 1966. A collection that includes two of his main papers on logical empiricism, "Truth by Convention" and "Carnap on Logical Truth."
Rorty, Richard. Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1979. Rorty here sets out his skeptical critique of analytical philosophy.
Russell, Bertrand. "On Denoting Mind." 1905. In Logic and Knowledge: Essays, 1901–1950, edited by R. Marsh, 41–56. London: G. Allen and Unwin, 1956. Russell's presentation of his theory of descriptions.
——. Our Knowledge of the External World as a Field for Scientific Method in Philosophy. Chicago, Ill.: Open Court, 1914. Russell's presentation of his logical-analytic method in philosophy.
Strawson, P. F. Logico-Linguistic Papers. London: Methuen, 1971. A collection that includes Strawson's early criticisms of Russell's logic and his later reflections on logic and language.
Wisdom, John. Problems of Mind and Matter. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1934. An early example of an exposition of "analytic" philosophy as such.
Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Philosophical Investigations. Translated by G. E. M. Anscombe. Oxford: Blackwell, 1953. Wittgenstein's later discussion of language-games, rule-following, and psychological concepts.
——. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated by C. K. Ogden. London: K. Paul, Trench, Trubner and Co., 1922. Wittgenstein's early attempt to present philosophy as logical analysis.
Thomas Baldwin
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