Analytic philosophy

Analytic philosophy is the dominant philosophical movement of English-speaking countries, although one of its founders, Gottlob Frege, was German, and another, Ludwig Wittgenstein, was Austrian.

Relation to continental philosophy

The term "analytic philosophy" in part denotes the fact that most of this philosophy traces its roots to the movement of "logical analysis" at the beginning of the century; in part the term serves to distinguish "analytic" from other kinds of philosophy, especially "continental philosophy". The latter denotes mainly philosophy that has taken place on continental Europe after (but not including) Kant.

Related Topics:
Continental philosophy - Continental Europe - Kant

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

One term (analytic) conventionally indicates a method of philosophy, while the other indicates, rather, a geographical origin. The distinction is for this reason quite misleading. Analytic philosophy's founding fathers, Frege, Wittgenstein, Carnap, the Logical Positivists (the Vienna Circle), the Logical Empiricists (in Berlin), and the Polish logicians were all products of the continent of Europe. Much philosophy in Germany and Italy today, most of that in Scandinavia, and a great deal scattered over the rest of the continent and in so called Latin America, is likewise analytic. Conversely, continental philosophy is pursued today perhaps by more people in English-speaking countries than anywhere else, if primarily in comparative literature or cultural studies departments.

Related Topics:
Frege - Wittgenstein - Carnap - Logical Positivist - Berlin - Polish logic - Germany - Italy - Scandinavia - Latin America - Comparative literature - Cultural studies

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Many now claim that the distinction is worthless: that none of the subject matter of continental philosophy is incapable of being studied using the now-traditional tools of analytic philosophy. If this is true, the phrase "analytic philosophy" might be redundant, or maybe normative, as in "rigorous philosophy". The phrase "continental philosophy", like "Greek philosophy", would denote a certain historical period or series of schools in philosophy: German idealism, Marxism, psychoanalysis qua philosophy, existentialism, phenomenology, and post-structuralism.

Related Topics:
Greek philosophy - German idealism - Marxism - Psychoanalysis - Existentialism - Phenomenology - Post-structuralism

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The split between the two began early in the twentieth century. The logical positivists of the 1920s promoted a systematic rejection of metaphysics, and a generalised hostility to certain metaphysical concepts that they considered meaningless or ill-conceived: for example, God, the immaterial soul or universals such as "redness". This was at the same time that Heidegger was dominating philosophy in Germany, and becoming influential in France, and his work became the object of frequent derision in English-speaking philosophy departments.

Related Topics:
Metaphysical - God - Soul - Universals

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Analytic philosophy, in the end, failed by its own systematic lights to demonstrate the meaninglessness or fictitiousness of the concepts it attacked. At least, few analytic philosophers today would agree that they have anything like an exact and proven theory of which terms are meaningful and which meaningless. Contemporary analytic philosophy journals are — for good or ill — as rich in metaphysics as any continental philosopher.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~