warwick.ac.uk

2019

This brief introduction is for people who want to know the leading approaches to philosophy in the twentieth century in English-speaking countries but do not have much time to study them. The book contains texts of lectures and quizzes with explained answers. By the end of this book, you will understand what analysis is and how to practice it in a philosophical way. Moreover, you will be able to talk confidently about some of the great ideas of such philosophers as L. Wittgenstein, B. Russell, G. E. Moore, A. Ayer, J. Austin, W. V. O. Quine, P. F. Strawson, and more.

Over a period of some years, chiefly before 2000, I wrote this for my students. Quite a few other people have found it useful. I should like to call attention to the thesis that analytic philosophy has two wings: one descended from Russell, the other from Moore. Standard accounts of analytic philosophy (for instance the history by Soames) are, at the least, heavily biased toward the Russellian (today the dominant) variant. As will become evident, the original plan was much more extensive than this, with essays on major figures and movements. That plan fell victim to other projects. Only an essay on Moore and a partial one on Russell were ever completed – they are included here as sequels to this introduction.

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

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.

Philosophical Books, 1983

Kant, analytic, analitik,

N/A, 2017

The endeavour to understand the truth value of a statement without appealing to empirical evidence is perennial in analytic philosophy. Equally, the existence of a priori knowledge has been a source of debate within philosophy since its introduction. In this paper I shall address these topics by examining pragmatist Clarence Irving Lewis’ account of a priori knowledge via knowledge of analytic truths in his 1923 paper “A Pragmatic Conception of A Priori”. I will contrast this account with the 1951 paper “Two Dogmas of Empiricism” by analytic philosopher Willard Van Orman Quine, in which he attacks two core aspects of logical positivism. Finally, I will provide my own account of a plausible a priori in response to these two papers.

Canadian mathematical bulletin, 1967