Barman Explorer, Volume 2, Number 1, September 2009, ISSN 1998-

5568

Philosophical Investigation into Language:

20th Century Analytic Movement and Some Recent Phenomena

Dr. Binoy Barman*

Abstract

Philosophers have often been interested in language because, they have felt, language has an
intrinsic connection with thought and knowledge. Philosophers delved deep into the mind of
language users and attempted to discover the basic principles thereof. Philosophers’
engagement in language took the form of a movement in the twentieth century. The movement is
known as ‘Analytic Movement’, which claimed that philosophical problems can be solved if the
language in which the problems are expressed can be analyzed properly. The philosophers who
resorted to the analysis of language for resolving philosophical problems are known as analytic
philosophers. Analytic philosophers primarily concentrated on the problem of validity of
statements, stating what conditions should be fulfilled for a statement to be true. In the present
article I have tried to measure the contributions of the philosophers to the resolution of
philosophical problems through the technique of linguistic analysis and how their attempts have
solidified the way of philosophical investigation into language. It has been observed that in the
initial stage of development, the analytic philosophy demonstrated certain precisely defined
trends, but later the discipline diversified to a considerable extent as linguistic analysis lost its
pivotal role. The analytic movement for our purpose here has been grossly divided into five
phases, which seem to have subsumed all the works of mainstream philosophers interested in
language.

*Asst. Professor, Dept. of English, Daffodil International University

Email: binoy_barman@daffodilvarsity.edu.bd

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Philosophical Investigation into Language:

20th Century Analytic Movement and Some Recent Phenomena

Dr. Binoy Barman*

1. Introduction

Philosophers have often been interested in language because, they have felt, language has an
intrinsic connection with thought and knowledge. Philosophers delved deep into the mind of
language users and attempted to discover the basic principles thereof. A. P. Martinich (1990, pp.
3-4) identifies four reasons for philosophers’ interest in language. First, language is a distinctive
characteristic of human being, so it is important to know the language in order to know the
species capable of speaking. Second, better understanding of language should help solve or avoid
many philosophical problems as these arise from false beliefs about language. Third, if one could
understand the structure of language one could understand the structure of reality since language
is thought to be a reflection of reality. Fourth, language is an interesting object of systematic
study per se, so it should be studied profitably as a branch of knowledge.

Philosophical contemplation with language has culminated in the discipline now known as
‘Linguistic Philosophy’. It is an enterprise mainly initiated by analytical philosophers who were
rather interested in the analysis of language for resolving the problems very much of
philosophical nature. That is why this particular type of philosophy is also branded as ‘Analytic
Philosophy’. It may be compared and contrasted with the other discipline in the realm of
linguistics called ‘Philosophical Linguistics’. The two disciplines are related but their areas and
ways of investigation are different. Linguistic Philosophy concentrates on the problem of validity
of statement while Philosophical Linguistics deals with, broadly speaking, the problem of
communication or meaning. The former states what conditions should be fulfilled for a statement
to be true while the latter sheds light on the mechanism of encoding and decoding of meaning. In
this article an attempt has been made to measure the contributions of the philosophers to the
resolution of philosophical problems through the technique of linguistic analysis and how their
attempts have solidified the way of philosophical investigation into language.

Though philosophy is very old, philosophical interest in language has blossomed in the past
century, making inroads well into the twenty first century. Twentieth century Western
philosophy has two major branches: one is Continental Philosophy and the other is Analytic
Philosophy; the latter concerns us in the present discussion. Continental philosophy along this
line began with the work of Franz Brentano, Edmund Husserl, and Adolf Reinach on the
development of phenomenologyi. The analytic philosophy, on the other hand, was developed by
Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, G. E. Moore and A. J. Ayer, who found the utility of
language in philosophical investigation. E. D. Klemke remarks:

The twentieth century has been referred to as the age of analysis. Throughout this
period, a number of philosophical positions have been put forth and defended, all
of which are now commonly classified under the heading of analytic philosophy.
Some of these philosophies were the work of individual thinkers such as G. E.
Moore. Others represent the combined efforts of numerous thinkers who formed

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various groups and came close to being representatives of certain schools: for
example, logical positivism. (Klemke 1983, p. 15)

The development of analytic philosophy in the twentieth century has not been a straight-line and
single-track event. It has many twists and turns. In its course of development new ideas replaced
the old ones, with shifted emphasis on hitherto unexplored aspects with differing methods of
investigation coming into application. To track the twentieth century analytic philosophy,
Richard Popkin says:

The history of twentieth-century analytic philosophy is marked by the rapidity

with which major movements suddenly appear, flourish, lose their momentum,
become senescent, and eventually vanish. Examples include idealism, in its
absolutist and subjectist variants, sense-data theory, logical atomism, neutral
monism, and logical positivism. Popkin 1999, p. 604)

In the twenty first century, analytic philosophy has assumed a complicated shape with
immensely diversified trends. At the present state of affairs, a sort of eclecticism can be
discerned in the discipline.

2. Instrumentalities of the work undertaken

Thesis statement: Linguistic analysis proved to be a useful tool for the philosophers to resolve
philosophical problems, which in the 20th century led to the emergence of Linguistic
Philosophy, running into the current times with increasing diversification.

Methodology: The methodology in my work, descriptive-analytic in nature, has been to examine

the doctrines of the philosophers in the Analytic movement and how they proceeded to the way
of resolution of philosophical problems. I have tried to unravel the common and differing
features in their doctrines and map the territory in which they have infused their important
contributions. As a reflective and contemplative enterprise, the relevant theoretical information
have been analyzed and organized into this piece of writing with the vision of post-movement
era that I belong to as a linguist.

3. Defining the Job of Analytic Philosophy:

Analytic philosophy is intended to clarify language and analyze the concepts expressed in it.
Although no specific tenet is universally accepted for the movement, analytic philosophers agree
that the proper activity of philosophy is to clarify language or concepts. The purpose of this
activity is to resolve philosophical problems, which originate in linguistic confusion. Hallett
(2008, p. 6) thinks an analysis of language is required for the analysis of thought, whose
foundation is perceived to be language, again, clarity of which is the perquisite for knowledge.

A considerable diversity of views exists among analytic philosophers regarding the nature of
linguistic or conceptual analysis. Some have been primarily concerned with clarifying the
meaning of specific words or phrases to make philosophical assertions clear and unambiguous.
Others have been more concerned with determining the general conditions that must be met for

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any linguistic utterance to be meaningful. A group of analysts have been interested in creating
formal and symbolic language; still others, by contrast, have focused on the analysis of ordinary
or natural language. Samuel E. Stumpf remarks:

The dominant movement of philosophical activity in the contemporary English-

speaking world is known as analytic philosophy. To call it movement rather than
a school underscores the fact that although analytic philosophy has certain clear
distinguishing characteristics, the sources out of which it emerged, the changes it
has undergone, and the variety of ways in which it is pursued are many. What
unifies all analytic philosophers is their agreement concerning the central task of
philosophy. The task of philosophy, they say, is to clarify the meaning of
language. (Stumpf 1975, p. 430)

The great diversity of the twentieth century philosophical discussion centering language has also
been echoed by Bernard Harrison (1979) in his preface to “An Introduction to the Philosophy of
Language”:

Philosophical discussions of language this century has been almost coterminous

with philosophy itself….There is thus a bewildering variety and quantity of
philosophical writing about language and it does not, even within the loose
collection of philosophical outlooks called analytical philosophy, exhibit
community of what is called ‘approach’.

4. Empiricist Tradition and Analytic Philosophy

Empiricism is the philosophical doctrine which emphasizes observation and experimentation as

the method of investigation. On the epistemological question, it relies on the experience of
human beings rather than on innate ideas. In this respect, Empiricism is contrasted with Idealism
and Rationalism. Idealism counts idea or spirit as the ultimate reality and Rationalism resorts to
reason for explaining acquisition of knowledge. John Locke, George Berkeley, David Hume and
John Stuart Mill were the most influential empiricists in the history of Western philosophy.
Analytic philosophy has strong ties with this empiricist tradition.

During the last decades of the 19th century, English philosophy was dominated by Absolute
Idealismii that stemmed from the German philosopher G. W. F. Hegel. The seeds of modern
analytic philosophy were sown when two philosophers, Bertrand Russell and G. E. Moore, both
from Cambridge, broke with Idealism at the turn of the 20th century. They emphasized the role
of language in resolving the philosophical problems, on a par with empiricist interests, doctrines,
and methods, opposing the Idealist stance.

5. Trends in Analytic Philosophy

All through the twentieth century, analytic philosophy has proliferated not in a single line, but in
various streams. I identify five phases in the history of analytic philosophy. The first phase runs
approximately from 1900 to 1910. It is characterized by a turn toward language which was
manifested with the idioms of ‘proposition’ and ‘meaning’. The second phase lasts from 1910 to

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1930, when the propositional-semantic theorizing was abandoned in favor of realistic philosophy
of common sense and logical atomism. The third phase, approximately from 1930 to 1945, is
characterized by the rise of logical positivism, which emphasized the strict scrutiny of the
connection between linguistic and world phenomena. The fourth phase, approximately from
1945 to 1960, is characterized by the turn to ordinary language analysis, which highlighted the
importance of everyday language in philosophical analysis. The fifth phase starts from 1960 and
ends with the end of the century and, I should say, still runs today, albeit in different guises.
During the 1960s, analytic philosophy diversified into the philosophy of language, metaphysics,
epistemology and a variety of other philosophical sub-disciplines. So a kind of eclecticism or
pluralism now prevails in the scene of analytic philosophy.

Klemke & Geirsson (2000) identities the following trends in the analytic philosophy: realism and
common sense (G. E. Moore); logical atomism (Bertrand Russell); logical positivism (A. J.
Ayer); conceptual analysis (Gilbert Ryle, G. E. Moore, John Wisdom); logico-metaphysical
analysis (Gustav Bergman, W. V. O. Quine); linguistic analysis (J. L. Austin, P. F. Strawson, J.
R. Searle); and new realism (Saul Kripke, Hilary Putnam, Tyler Burge, Richard N. Boyd). All
these trends are somehow related to our scheme of five phases and the relationship will be clear
as we proceed with our discussion.

5.1. First Phase (1900-1910): Analysis and Linguistic Turn

Linguistic analysis as a method of philosophy is as old as the Greek Philosophy. Analytic

philosophy has its root in Platonic realismiii. Several of the dialogues of Plato are specifically
concerned with clarifying terms and concepts. He sought a universal form or essence in the
diversity of languages (Lavine 1984, p.406). However, the style of linguistic philosophizing has
received dramatically renewed emphasis in the 20th century. Influenced by the earlier British
empirical tradition, the 20th-century English philosopher G. E. Moore became the founder of this
linguistic trend. Moore first revolted against idealism with his influential paper, “The Nature of
Judgment” (1899), and next with “The Refutation of Idealism” (1903).

According to Moore, philosophy is first and foremost analysis. The philosophical task involves
clarifying puzzling propositions or concepts. Puzzling propositions or concepts are transformed
into easier ones. Once this task is completed, the truth or falsity of problematic philosophical
assertions can be determined more adequately. Moore argues that each common sense
proposition has an ‘ordinary meaning’ which is apparent to the knower. So, according to Moore,
the task of the philosopher is not to question the truth of common sense propositions, but to
provide their correct analyses or explanations. Moore’s use of the term ‘analysis’ in this way is
the source of the name ‘Analytic Philosophy’.

Bertrand Russell came to defend what Moore called the common sense or ordinary view of the
world. He joined the Moorean camp and together established what is called Cambridge Realism,
initiating a ‘linguistic turn’ in philosophical investigation. This linguistic turn is regarded by
many as constituting a revolution in philosophy. Richard Rorty, an enthusiastic American
philosopher, highlighted its significance in his anthology “The Linguistic Turn” (1967), where
he identified linguistic philosophy as ‘the most recent philosophical revolution’. He said that
philosophical problems may be solved either by reforming language or by understanding more

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about the language. The linguistic turn is very significant in the history of analytic philosophy.
Timothy Williamson observes:

The linguistic turn has subsequently become the standard vague phrase for a
difficult event … in twentieth-century philosophy, one not confined to signed-up
linguistic philosophers in Rorty’s sense. For those, who took the turn, language
was somehow the central theme of philosophy. (Williamson 2008, p. 10)

5.2. Second Phase (1910-1930): Ideal-Language Analysis and Logical Atomism

The second phase of analytic philosophy is characterized by the turn to ideal language, which is
thought especially suitable for rigorous analysis. On one side, Russell developed his formal
logic, following the work of Gottlob Fregeiv. On the other, he worked closely with Ludwig
Wittgenstein, and together laid the foundation of logical atomism.

Russell emphasized the dissecting of propositions and facts into atoms in parallel. On the
linguistic level, the atoms are atomic propositions, the simplest statements about the world,
corresponding to atomic facts. More complex propositions, called molecular propositions, can
then be built up from atomic propositions via logical connectives such as ‘either…or…,’ and
‘both…and….’ For example, ‘this leaf is green’, can be expressed in logical symbolism: “F(a)”.
Both the proposition F(a) and the fact F(a) are ‘atomic’. A molecular proposition can be ‘p and
q’. Such a proposition will be true if and only if its constituent propositions ‘p’ and ‘q’ are true
on their own. Thus, the truth-value of the molecular proposition is a function of the truth values
of its component atomic propositions. Alfred Weber and Ralph Barton Perry evaluate Russell’s
theory in the following terms:

…Russell construes the particular existences of sense as ground common to the

physical and the psychical realms. The sense-datum is either physical or psychical
according to the causal relations in which it is viewed. Hence the physical world,
or the world of science, is composed of the same stuff as our sensory
consciousness. (Weber & Perry 2002, p. 590)

Wittgenstein expressed his idea of logical atomism in Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1922),

where he attempted to set the criteria and limits of meaningful saying. He made it clear that
language is meaningful only when it pictures facts for us. That ‘a sentence is a picture’ is
construed as the picture theory of meaning. According to the theory, a proposition will be true if
it provides a picture of the actual fact. Propositions which fail to picture the actual facts are
meaningless or nonsensical.

5.3. Third Phase (1930-1945): Logical Positivism

Influenced by Auguste Comte, Ernst Mach, Russell, and Wittgenstein, a group of philosophers
and mathematicians in Vienna during 1920s initiated a movement called Logical Positivism.
Logical positivists held that in order for a sentence to be cognitively meaningful, it has to be
verifiable. The group reputed as Vienna Circle was led by Moritz Schlick and Rudolf Carnap.
The idea of logical positivism was made popular in England by the publication of A. J. Ayer’s

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“Language, Truth and Logic” (1936). Bertrand Russell defends the positivist stance in the
following terms:

It gradually became clear that a great part of philosophy can be reduced to

something that may be called syntax, though the word has to be used in a
somewhat wider sense than has hitherto been customary. Some men, notably
Carnap, have advanced the theory that all philosophical problems are really
syntactical, and that, when errors of syntax are avoided, a philosophical problem
is thereby either solved or shown to be insoluble. (Russell 1961, pp. 784-785)

According to logical positivism, the only function of philosophy is clarifying language by

providing a logical analysis of statements. There are three ways of doing this. First, philosophy
can provide a measuring standard of meaningfulness so that meaningless statements can be
exposed and discarded. Second, philosophy can clarify scientific statements by analyzing them
into observable statements. Third, all the sciences can be unified by reducing them to the
language of physics in an orderly logical procedure. (Ravine 1984, p. 400)

The positivists divided all meaningful assertions into two classes: analytic propositions and
empirically verifiable propositions. Analytic propositions, which include the propositions of
logic and mathematics, are statements, the truth or falsity of which depends on the meanings of
the constituent terms. An example would be the proposition ‘two plus two equals four’. The
second class of meaningful propositions includes all statements about the world that can be
verified by sense experience. This verifiability theory of meaning would demonstrate that
scientific statements are legitimate factual claims and that metaphysical, religious, and ethical
sentences are factually empty. John Shand spells out its consequence:

Logical positivism, by way of a theory of meaning, involves the elimination of

much of traditional philosophy, in particular metaphysics and also theology, as
literally meaningless. What this amounted to was the view that the investigation
of any substantial facts about the world was the province of science alone, not
philosophy, which could be concerned only with conceptual elucidation and
linguistic task of precise definition. (Shand 1993, p. 259)

5.4. Fourth Phase (1945-1960): Ordinary-Language Analysis

After World War II, turning away from formal language, the analytic philosophy moved towards
ordinary language, resulting in ‘ordinary language philosophy’. Ordinary language philosophy is
sometimes called ‘Oxford philosophy’, as the principal philosophers in this movement came
from the Oxford University. The band of philosophers includes Gilbert Ryle, Ludwig
Wittgenstein, J. L. Austin and Paul Grice.

Ryle is best known for his analysis of mentalistic language, language that misleadingly suggests
that the mind is an entity in the same way as the body. According to Ryle, the task of philosophy
is to restate ‘systematically misleading expressions’ in forms that are logically more accurate. He
was particularly concerned with statements, the grammatical form of which suggests the

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existence of nonexistent objects. His theory was expressed in his book “The Concept of Mind”
(1949).

In a later thesis expressed in “Philosophical Investigations” (1953), Wittgenstein pays attention

to the way language is actually used in ordinary discourse. He says the meaning of a proposition
must be understood in the background of its context, that is, in terms of the rules of the language
gamev, of which that proposition is a part. Wittgenstein concludes that philosophy is an attempt
to resolve problems that arise as the result of linguistic confusion, and the key to the resolution of
such problems is ordinary language analysis and the proper use of language.

Austin wrote “How to Do Things with Words” (1962) to set a trend that has been followed out in
a growing literature. He took ‘speech act’ as the starting point of analysis, which allowed him to
focus on such points as the speaker's intentions in making an utterance and its expected effect on
the audience. His analysis of language eventually led to a general theory of speech acts, that is, to
a description of the variety of activities that an individual performs when something is uttered.

Grice is remembered mainly for his contribution to the study of speaker meaning, linguistic
meaning, and the interrelation between the two. In order to explain how nonliteral utterances can
be understood, he postulated a general ‘cooperative principle’, as well as certain special ‘maxims
of conversation’. In order to describe certain inferences, which are not explicit, he introduced the
notion of ‘implicature’. His philosophy may be met in his seminal 1957 essay “Meaning” and
1981 essay “Presupposition and Conversational Implicature”. Grice's work is one of the
foundations of the modern study of Pragmaticsvi.

5.5. Fifth Phase (1960-2000): Eclecticism

In the sixties the scene of philosophical inquiry into language changed in spectacular
kaleidoscopic shapes. The centrality of language in resolving the philosophical questions
diminished in intensity and scope, leading to various consequences. Although contemporary
philosophers self-identify as ‘analytic’, they have widely divergent interests, assumptions and
methods. Analytic philosophy, in its contemporary state, may be defined by the precision and
thoroughness of investigation about a narrow topic, avoiding cavalier discussions of broad
topics. I term the philosophical practice in contemporary analytic philosophy as ‘eclectic’ or
‘pluralistic’, due to widely diversified tendency. The eclecticism or pluralism can be understood
from the vast array of subfields found today, some of which are touched on lightly in the
following sections.

5.5.1. Philosophy of Language

As analytic philosophy disintegrated, the centrality of language remained intact in the domain of
the Philosophy of Language, or as sometimes called, Philosophical Linguistics. Acknowledging
the authority of language in philosophical investigation, it now concentrates on the problem of
meaning or communication (Hallett 2008). The most important philosophers in this field include
Alfred Tarski, W. V. O. Quine, Donald Davidson, Saul Kripke, Hilary Putnam, Ruth Barcan
Marcus and J. R. Searle.

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Alfred Tarski first gave the inductive definition of truth in “The Concept of Truth in Formalized
Languages” back in 1936. Some have called it a correspondence theory of truth, which states
that the truth or falsity of a statement is determined only by how it relates to the world, and
whether it accurately describes that world. Quine analyzed the relationship between language
and ontology. For him, the justification for speaking one way rather than another is a thoroughly
pragmatic one. His philosophy has been expressed in “Word and Object” (1960).

In 1967 Donald Davidson published “Truth and Meaning”, in which he argued that any
learnable language must be statable in a finite form, even if it is capable of a theoretically infinite
number of expressions. Otherwise it could not be learned through a finite, empirical method such
as the way humans learn their languages. Saul Kripke developed direct reference theory, which
claims that some words, particularly proper names, have no meaning, but simply serve as ‘rigid
designators’ for the things they name. Along with Saul Kripke and others, Hilary Putnam
developed the causal theory of reference, inventing the notion of semantic externalism based on
a famous thought experiment called Twin Earthvii.

Bertrand Russell also contributed to the philosophy of language with his description theory of
proper names. He said existence can only be asserted of description. For example, we can
consider the statement ‘Scott wrote Waverly’. It will be interpreted as ‘One and only one man
wrote Waverly and that man was Scott.’ Or, it can be expressed logically as: “There is an entity c
such that ‘x wrote Waverly’ is true if x is c and c is Scott”. (Russell 1961, p. 785) Ruth Barcan
Marcus extended the idea and proposed that proper names are mere ‘tags’. (“Modalities and
Intentional Languages” 1961). These tags are used to refer to an object, i.e. the bearer of the
name. The meaning of the name is regarded as exhausted by this referential function. His idea is
different from that of Saul Kripke expressed in “Naming and Necessity”. Professor Timothy
Williamson marks the difference in “Laudatio: Professor Ruth Barcan Marcus” presented in
Lauener Prize award ceremony on 29 May 2008:

One of the ideas in them that resonates most with current philosophy of language
is that of proper names as mere tags, without descriptive content. This is not
Kripke’s idea of names as rigid designators, designating the same object with
respect to all relevant worlds, for ‘rigidified’ definite descriptions are rigid
designators but still have descriptive content. Rather, it is the idea, later developed
by David Kaplan and others, that proper names are directly referential, in the
sense that they contribute only their bearer to the propositions expressed by
sentences in which they occur.
(http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/files/Laudatio.doc)

J. R. Searle developed the speech act theory following Grice and published it in his famous book
“Speech Acts” (1969). He presented an account of 'illocutionary act', which is perceived via
language as an associative meaning. His idea of illocutionary act ultimately led to other theories
such as the theory of intentionality (“Intentionality: An Essay in the Philosophy of Mind” 1983)
and the theory of consciousness (“The Rediscovery of the Mind” 1992), and the theory of social
reality (“The Construction of Social Reality” 1995) and the theory of rationality (“Rationality in
Action” 2001).

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Within the discipline, some philosophers have taken interest in the development of theory of
metaphor. They have attempted to examine whether metaphors can be paraphrased in literal
terms. The philosophers in this line include George Lakoff and Mark Johnson (“Metaphors We
Live By” 1986), and Andrew Goatly (“The Language of Metaphors” 1997). Earlier the problem
was taken up by Donald Davidson (‘What Metaphors Mean” 1978) and J. R. Searle
(“Metaphor” 1979).

5.5.2. Analytic Metaphysics

One striking break with early analytic philosophy was the revival of metaphysical theorizing in
the second half of the twentieth century, which Tom Rockmore (2001) termed ‘Hegelian turn’.
Philosophers such as David Lewis, David Armstrong and Gustav Bergmann developed elaborate
theories on a range of topics such as universals, causation, possibility and necessity. For
Bergmann, the basic question of ontology is: what kinds of things must exist in order for us to
devise a formal language in which everything can be perspicuously expressed? Since 1950s the
problems of analytic metaphysics have been studied in Britain by Stuart Newton Hampshire and
Peter Frederick Strawson. The former pursued in the manner of Spinoza, with the relationship
between thought and action, and the latter in the manner of Kant, with describing the major
categories of experience as they are embedded in language. P. F. Strawson formulated his theory
of descriptive metaphysics, to explore the structure and content of natural languages to illuminate
different metaphysical worldviews. In the U.S. metaphysics has been pursued much in the spirit
of positivism by Wilfred Stalker Sellars and W. V. O. Quine. Sellars has sought to express
metaphysical questions in linguistic terms, and Quine has attempted to determine whether the
structure of language commits the philosopher to asserting the existence of any entities. Quine’s
views about meaning and verification opened the door to ‘speculative metaphysics’ by showing
that theory cannot be reduced to observation even in science.

5.5.3. Philosophy of Mind

In recent years, a central focus for research in the analytic philosophy of mind has been
consciousness, rather than behavior, as it was earlier, under the aegis of behaviorism and logical
positivism. While the prime concentration is restricted to neural network, there are many other
theories in fashion. The best known theories are heterophenomenology of Daniel Dennett,
representationalism of Fred Dretske and Michael Tye, higher-order thought theory of David M.
Rosenthal and higher-order perception theory of David Armstrong and William Lycan. An
interesting development in psychology has ensued from Computer Science. Analytic
philosophers in this line use the technique of ‘computation’ in the analysis of concepts (Cohen
1986, p. 193). Some others have been interested in resolving philosophical problems through
‘thought experiment’ (Schick & Vaughn 1998). One current topic in the philosophy of mind is
the individual identity, whereby anti-individualism comes in sharp focus. Tyler Burge worked in
this field. As an anti-individualist, he expressed his theory in “Foundations of Mind” (2007).
According to him, the foundations are conditions, causal, social and psychological, in the
individual or the wider world that determine the natures of mental kinds. Paul Churchland is
another famous contemporary philosopher of mind noted for his studies in neurophilosophy
(“Neurophilosophy” 2007). He is a major proponent of eliminative materialism, which claims

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that everyday mental concepts such as beliefs, feelings and desires are unnecessary for scientific
understanding of the brain and will be eliminated in future science and philosophy.

5.5.4. Analytic Epistemology

Owing largely to a 1963 seminal paper of Edmund Gettier titled “Is Justified True Belief
Knowledge?” epistemology has seen a rebirth in the analytic philosophy. In his article, Gettier
challenged the ‘justified true belief’ definition of knowledge. He showed that justified true belief
can involve luck, instead of solid evidence and thus fall short of knowledge. His account was
consistent with the work of many other philosophers like Clarence Irving Lewis (“An Analysis of
Knowledge and Valuation” 1946) and Roderick Chisholm (“The Nature of Epistemic
Principles” 1990). On the justification of belief, at least three theories have been put forward --
infinitism (infinite series of justification is possible), foundationalism (some beliefs are self-
justifying) and coherentism (beliefs are justified circularly if they are coherent). Recent work has
also investigated the conditions of truth and the extent of human knowledge. We get a clear
picture of contemporary analytical epistemology in Robert Audi’s “Epistemology: A
Contemporary Introduction” (2002), which tapped new research in the fields of virtue
epistemology, feminist epistemology and social epistemology. The theory of New Realism has
also revived the issue of knowledge in recent years. According to the theory, knowledge is not
mediated by any mental state, idea or sensation but real objects are directly presented in
knowledge (Patrick 2004, p. 355).

5.5.5. Analytic Approach to Ethics

As the influence of logical positivism began to wane in the mid twentieth century, contemporary
analytic philosophers took a renewed interest in ethics. G. E. M. Anscombe’s “Modern Moral
Philosophy” (1958) sparked a revival of Aristotle's virtue ethical approach and John Rawls’s “A
Theory of Justice” (1971) of Kantian ethical approach. At present, contemporary ethical
philosophy is dominated by three schools: utilitarianism, virtue ethics, and Kantianism. Perhaps
most influential in this area is Elizabeth Anscombe, whose landmark monograph “Intention” was
called by Donald Davidson ‘the most important treatment of action since Aristotle’. Richard N.
Boyd, well known for his book “The Philosophy of Science” (1991), is also a famous moral
philosopher in the contemporary scene. He has made important contributions to the development
of Cornell realism, a distinctly naturalistic position in moral philosophy. According to the theory,
there are suitably mind-independent and objective moral facts that moral judgments describe.

5.5.6. Analytic Approach to Philosophy of Religion

The collapse of logical positivism led to the revival of spiritualistic and mystic philosophies.
Analytic philosophy of religion was primarily inspired by the works of Søren Kierkegaard and
Ludwig Wittgenstein. Philosophers such as Peter Winch and Norman Malcolm developed what
has come to be known as contemplative philosophyviii. Many analytic philosophers have
undertaken to analyze language of religion in connection with religious rituals and customs.
Cambridge philosopher John Wisdom made important contribution to this area. Although,
according to him, metaphysical and theological statements are technically non-sensical, they may
play a significant role in human life. In ‘Gods’, for example, he explored the functions and uses

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of religious language independent of supernatural claims. We get other philosophers taking

interest in the philosophy of religion. In “The Philosophy of Religious Language: Sign, Symbol
and Story” (1996), Dan Stiver has examined how developments in philosophy of language have
impinged upon religious language.

5.5.7. Analytic Approach to Political Philosophy

Current analytic political philosophy owes much to John Rawls, who produced a sophisticated
theory in defence of a liberal welfare state. Jürgen Habermas is another important figure in
contemporary analytic political philosophy, whose social theory is a blend of social science,
Marxism, neo-Kantianism, and American pragmatism. An offshoot of analytic political
philosophy is Analytical Marxism. Members of this school seek to apply the techniques of
analytic philosophy, along with the tools of modern social science to the elucidation of the
theories of Karl Marx and his successors. Feminist question has also cropped up in recent
literature. Does language make women invisible and encode a male worldview? It has been an
important aspect of feminist philosophy. In “Analytical Political Philosophy: From Discourse,
Edification” (2006) David Braybrooke illustrated how human populations can avoid the worst
evils of recent politics. He based his theory on his earlier works -- “Moral Objectives, Rules, and
the Forms of Social Change” (1998), “Natural Law Modernized” (2001) and “Utilitarianism:
Restorations; Repairs; Renovations” (2004).

5.5.8. Analytic Approach to Philosophy of Science

The analytic philosophy of science arose from the questions of method, validity and certainty of
scientific theories. Sir Karl Popper set ‘falsifiability criterion’ which distinguished between
science and non-science. He said a statement is meaningful if and only if there is a way it can be
falsified. Thomas Kuhn denied the thesis of the logical positivists that scientists choose between
competing theories in a purely rational fashion. According to Kuhn, the sciences do not
uniformly progress strictly by conventional scientific method. There is often paradigm shift in
sciences with the emergence of new methods. Paul Feyerabend rejected the existence of
universal methodological rules in scinece. In his books “Against Method and Science in a Free
Society” (1975), he claimed that there are no methodological rules which are always used by
scientists. Any single prescriptive scientific method might limit the activities of scientists, and
hence restrict scientific progress. In his view, science would benefit most from a dose of
theoretical anarchism. The problem of science/non-science distinction has taken center stage in
the debate regarding evolution and intelligent design. The philosophy of science has also tended
to be particular discipline-specific as manifested in the philosophy of physics, philosophy of
biology, philosophy of chemistry and the philosophy of mathematics etc in recent decades.

5.5.9. Analytic Approach to History of Philosophy

Because analytic philosophy initially saw itself as superseding traditional philosophy, its
tendency throughout much of the twentieth century was to disregard the history of philosophy.
Beginning in the 1970s, some scholars in the analytic context began to rebel against this anti-
historical attitude. The following remembrance by Daniel Garber describes well the emerging
historical consciousness in the analytic context:

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What my generation of historians of philosophy was reacting against was a bundle

of practices that characterized the writing of the history of philosophy in the
period: the tendency to substitute rational reconstructions of a philosopher’s views
for the views themselves; the tendency to focus on an extremely narrow group of
figures (Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley and Hume in my
period); within that very narrow canon the tendency to focus on just a few works
at the exclusion of others, those that best fit with our current conception of the
subject of philosophy; the tendency to work exclusively from translations and to
ignore secondary work that was not originally written in English; the tendency to
treat the philosophical positions as if they were those presented by
contemporaries, and on and on and on. (Garber 2004, p. 2)

Eventually, this new historical approach was adopted by philosopher-scholars interested in the
analytic philosophy. As a result, the last couple of decades have seen the emergence of
historiographyix as an increasingly important sub-discipline within analytic philosophy.

6. Conclusion

So it is clear that the analytic philosophy dominant in the twentieth century has been primarily
concerned with resolving philosophical problems through the analysis and clarification of
language, though the second half of the century has been abuzz with varied trends inside and
around the core inquiry. No doubt, analytic philosophy will continue to develop in multifarious
streams, through a process of thesis, anti-thesis and synthesis. Philosophical investigation is
cumulative in nature, deeply embedded in history. Juliet Floyd and Sanford Shieh notes:

As with most human activities, philosophy has been shaped by its past. More
importantly, it is, like other intellectual pursuits, deeply conditioned by its
conception of its own history. For this reason, the history of philosophy is never
far from the center of philosophical consciousness. Indeed, history is a prominent
mode of philosophizing because of the self-knowledge it provides. The more we
know about how our questions have been shaped by their original motivations, the
better we will be able to see new possibilities in the problem-space to which they
belong -- new ways of posing old questions and new questions to pose. (Floyd &
Shieh 2003, p. 393)

There has been a chain of development in the realm of philosophical investigation. Modern
philosophy is indebted to the medieval philosophy, which again owes to ancient philosophy.
Avrum Stroll rightly observes:

…Old philosophy has the power to educate and improve new philosophy. And
new philosophy not only preserves the quality and character of old philosophy but
has the capacity to refresh it. Intermingling, preservation and refreshment are thus
characteristics that define the relationship between contemporary philosophy and
its intruding history. (Stroll 2000, p. 246)

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The analytic philosophy in the twenty first century will continue to be eclectic/pluralistic, with
increasing vigor, opening up new horizons of philosophical investigation, taking necessary
lessons from the historical traditions. New questions will arise as a result of advancement in the
pursuit of knowledge through various disciplines and those will be answered with a mix of old
and new insights, as ever.

References:

Cohen, Jonathan, L. (1986). The Dialogue of Reason: An Analysis of Analytical Philosophy.

Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Floyd, Juliet & Shieh, Sanford. (2003). Future Pasts: The Analytic Tradition in Twentieth-
Century Philosophy. New York: Oxford University Press.
Garber, Daniel. (2004). “Philosophy and the Scientific Revolution,” in Teaching New Histories
of Philosophy, Princeton: Princeton University Center for Human Values. Online at
http://www.pdcnet.org/tnhp.html
Hallett, Garth L. (2008). Linguistic Philosophy: The Central Story (S U N Y Series in
Philosophy). New York: State University of New York Press.
Harrison, Bernard. (1979). An Introduction to the Philosophy of Language. London: The
Macmillan Press Ltd.
Klemke, E. D. & Geirsson, Heimir. (2000). Contemporary Analytic and Linguistic Philosophies.
2nd edition. New York: Prometheus Books.
Klemke, E. D. (1983). Contemporary Analytic and Linguistic Philosophies New York:
Prometheus Books.
Lavine, T. Z. (1984). From Socrates to Sartre: The Philosophic Quest. New York: Bentham
Books.
Martinich, A. P. (1990). The Philosophy of Language. 2nd edition. New York: Oxford University
Press.
Patrick, Geroge Thomas White. (2004). The Introduction to Philosophy. Delhi: Surjeet
Publications.
Popkin, Richard H. (1999). The Columbia History of Western Philosophy New York: Columbia
University Press.
Rockmore, Tom. (2001). “Analytic Philosophy and the Hegelian Turn” in The Review of
Metaphysics, Vol. 55. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America.
Russell, Bertrand. (1961). History of Western Philosophy. London: Routledge.
Schick, Theodore, Jr. & Vaughn, Lewis. (1998). Doing Philosophy: An Introduction through
Thought Experiments. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Shand, John. (1993). Philosophy and Philosophers: An Introduction to Western Philosophy.
Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press.

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Stroll, Avrum. (2000). Twentieth Century Analytic Philosophy, New York: Columbia University
Press.
Stumpf, Samuel Enoch, (1975). Socrates to Sartre: A History of Philosophy. New York:
McGraw-Hill Book Company.
Weber, Alfred & Perry, Ralph Barton. (2002). History of Philosophy. Delhi: Surjeet
Publications.
Williamson, Timothy. (2008). The Philosophy of Philosophy (Blackwell Brown Lectures in
Philosophy). Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.

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i
Endnotes:
E

Phenomenology is the philosophical investigation and description of conscious experience in all its varieties without
reference to the question of whether what is experienced is objectively real or not.

ii
Nineteenth century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel preached the philosophy of absolute idealism.
Hegel believed that absolute truth, or reality, exists and that the human mind can know it. This is so because ‘whatever is
real is rational’. To him, reality was Absolute Spirit, or cosmic reason. The world of human experience, whether subjective
or objective, is the manifestation of Absolute Spirit.

iii
Platonic realism refers to the idea that these are the existences in the form of universals corresponding to the objects in the
external world after the Greek philosopher Plato (427-347 BC). Since universals were considered by Plato as ideal forms
this stance is confusingly also called Platonic idealism. Plato's own articulation of the realism regarding the existence of
universals is expounded in his The Republic, Phaedo, Phaedrus, Meno, and Parmenides.

iv
German mathematician and philosopher Gottlob Frege of the University of Jena developed a system of formal logic,
which greatly influenced Bertrand Russell. Frege had provided his own system of formal logic, with distinct symbolic
notation. Frege’s goal was to prove logicism, the view that mathematics is reducible to logic. This was also Russell’s goal in
the Principia Mathematica.

v
Ludwig Wittgenstein introduced the concept of ‘language-game’ to refer to simple examples of language use and the
actions into which the language is woven. This is based on his important book ‘Philosophical Investigations’.

vi
Pragmatics is the branch of linguistics that studies language use rather than language structure. It is the study of the
aspects of meaning and language use that are dependent on the speaker, the addressee and other features of the context of
utterance.

vii
The ‘Twin Earth’ thought experiment was presented by philosopher Hilary Putnam in his 1973 paper ‘Meaning and
Reference’ and subsequent 1975 paper ‘The Meaning of Meaning’, as an early argument for what has subsequently come to
be known as semantic externalism. According to the experiment, in two remote identical worlds, two apparently similar but
compositionally dissimilar objects may be referred to by the same name. Therefore, Putnam argued, meaning is not just in
the head, but external to human mind.

viii
Contemplative philosophy lays importance on contemplation rather than observation or reasoning. It calls a philosopher
to transcend the everyday level of understanding towards a deeper dimension of life and reality. Its aim is wisdom, which
implies openness of understanding to realms beyond our limited and self-centered perspective, towards new layers of being.

ix
Historiography is employed in a special sense in philosophical literature, a little different from history. History, in its
broadest sense, is the totality of all past events, although a more realistic definition would limit it to the known past.
Historiography is the written record of what is known of human lives and societies in the past and how historians have
attempted to understand them.