2013

It has become commonplace to talk about the difference between "analytic philosophy" and "continental philosophy", and many philosophers identify themselves as "analytic philosophers", or "continental philosophers". But what, more precisely, is meant by these labels, is much less clear than one usually seems to assume. There are differing views about the nature of analytic philosophy, and about who exactly count as real analytic philosophers. Literally taken, the dichotomy analytic-continental is obviously problematic. As Bernard Williams has remarked, dividing philosophy to analytic and continental involves a strange crossclassification-rather as though one divided cars into front-wheel drive and Japanese. Furthermore, this terminology does not harmonize well with the fact that the roots of analytic philosophy are strongly in continental Europe: its important background figure Frege, its opinion leader Wittgenstein, and the paradigmatic representatives of it, the logical positivists of the Vienna Circle, were all from the continent. Neither is the interest in "continental philosophy" confined to the European continent. (Williams 1995) By more substantive criteria, analytic philosophy is sometimes contrasted with the phenomenological tradition and its offspring. Often one means, by "analytic philosophy", loosely the tradition-in its all variety-which in some sense begun from Frege, on the one hand, and from Russell and Moore, on the other hand, and which has been somewhat dominating especially in the Anglo-American countries. But in addition to the fact that this is quite a vague characterization-perhaps intolerably so-usually this way of understanding analytic philosophy is based on historically problematic interpretations of Frege, Russell and Moore as philosophers of linguistic analysis-as the first representatives of the later dominating pure analytic philosophy (more on this below). But be that as it may, standardly one takes as the paradigmatic analytic philosophy on the one hand the logical positivism of the Vienna Circle and more broadly the logical empiricism that emerged from it, and, on the other hand, the philosophy of linguistic analysis which used to be dominant in Cambridge and Oxford, and its kin. The heyday of both was from 1930s to 1950s. Further, one often counts, as analytic philosophy, philosophy which has in some way or other been influenced by these schools. As examples of analytical philosophers are often mentioned such philosophers as Strawson, Searle, Dummett, Quine, Davidson, Lewis, Kripke and Putnam-though, in the case of some of them, it is more controversial whether they really belong to the circle of analytic philosophy (see below). At this point, the borders of analytic philosophy begin to blur. In fact, a lively discussion on what exactly analytic philosophy is emerged in 1990s. The main activators of the debate were Michael Dummett (1993) and G.H. von Wright (1993), who received numerous differing reactions. It turns out the views of even those who should be in the know diverge considerably here. Hans-Johann Glock's book What is Analytic Philosophy (2008) is an extended contribution to this dispute-apparently the most comprehensive and detailed one up to now. There is no question that it is obligatory reading for anyone interested in this issue, and everyone can learn a lot from it. Glock makes numerous insightful points, and he successfully rebuts many popular attempts to characterize analytic philosophy. Nevertheless, in the end, I am still inclined to disagree about the fundamental question, the nature and demarcation of analytic philosophy. 1 I shall focus on motivating my own alternative view, rather than on commenting on the details of Glock's rich account. I'll try to make my discussion sufficiently self-contained.

in An Introduction to Philosophy and Logic, John Nwanegbo-Ben and Bonaventure I. Ozoigbo (Eds.), Owerri, Applause Multi-Sectors Ltd, 2019, 201-239, 2019

2011

warwick.ac.uk

2013

2 As Glock notes, something like it has been offered by Sluga (212, 219). See Sluga 1998.

In Search of a New Humanism, 1999

is a prominent analytical philosopher who has written about the very notion of analytical philosophy. Other analytical philosophers are present here and they have their ideas on this notion. As for me, I believe that it is not at all an obvious notion. Sometimes it seemed to me that analytical philosophy does not exist, or at least that there is no single common feature shared by all so-called analytical philosophers and only by them, though there are many family resemblances. Therefore I thought I might take the opportunity of this meeting in honour of Professor Von Wright and propose as one of our themes for discussion, precisely the question: "what is analytical philosophy?". The natural start is Professor Von Wright's description of analytical philosophy. When Professor Von Wright writes about analytical philosophy, for example in the first chapter of Explanation and Understanding, he says that The logical positivism of the 1920's and 1930's was a main, though by no means the sole, tributary out of which grew the broader current of philosophical thought nowadays commonly known as analytical philosophy.

Journal for the History of Analytical Philosophy, 2015

Journal for the History of Analytical Philosophy, 2013

2 As Glock notes, something like it has been offered by Sluga (212, 219). See Sluga 1998.

Festschrift in Honour of Panu Raatikainen on the Occasion of his Sixtieth Birthday, 2024

This is my take on the question of how 'analytic philosophy' ought to be defined. I consider the approach that seeks to capture 'analytic tradition' by means of an analytic definition (necessary and sufficient conditions), and point out a number of defects. I argue that not even a modestly revisionary definition of 'analytic philosophy' (as in some works by Panu Raatikainen) will do the job in a satisfactory way, basically because it inevitably misrepresents the phenomenon that it seeks to capture. I also outline an alternative, which is an historical approach. This is not unlike what Hans-Johann Glock argued for in his 'What is Analytic Philosophy+* (2008); on his view, 'analytic philosophy' is a family resemblance and genetic-historical category. But even this won't do as such, basically because it fails to do justice to the 'features' that supposedly characterize the analytic tradition (even when this characterization is construed in terms of family-resemblance). We have to see the analytic tradition as an historically extended, socially embodied argument (MacIntyre). I make some remarks on what is involved here, using 'linguistic philosophy' as an example. Finally, it is argued that the primary job of the 'features' that we use to understand the analytic tradition is not typological at all but explanatory.