Abstract
Analytic philosophy is one of the dominant styles of philosophizing. On the other hand, every philosopher, past or contemporary is (or even must be) analytic to some extent because he or she intends to explain or clarify something, offers explicit or provisional definitions, divides things and perform critical or approving comparisons of his/her doctrines with proposals of other thinkers. All these activities require more or less analytical work. Yet, restricting our attention to the past, the degree of the analyticity of particular philosophical theories varies from case to case. Socrates was more analytical than Parmenides, Aristotle more so than Plato, the Stoics more so than the Epicureans, St. Thomas Aquinas more so than St. Augustine, Hume more so than Berkeley, Leibniz more so than Spinoza and Kant more so than Hegel and so on. Clearly, there is no minimal amount of analysis in a particular philosophical enterprise. Consequently, we can start the history of analytic philosophy at any arbitrary historical moment, but it is conventional historical-philosophical wisdom to say that proper analytic philosophy arose at the end of the nineteenth century because some philosophers, let’s call them the founding fathers of the analytic movement, like Gottlob Frege, Bertrand Russell or G. E. Moore, considered analysis to be the only (or to be more temperate, the main) method of doing philosophy. This leads to speaking of analytic philosophy as a part of the scenario of contemporary philosophy and not as something cultivated in earlier epochs.
The paper is a part of the project “The Significance of the Lvov-Warsaw School in European Culture” supported by the Foundation for Polish Science. The title suggests an approach to the “essence”, if any, of analytic philosophy. Although I will touch on some general problems of this kind, my primary task is different. In particular, I will argue that the dominant manner of presenting the history of analytic philosophy overlooks its development in countries which are not regarded as its strongholds. This preliminary assertion will be concretized in what follows.
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Notes
- 1.
For instance (in order of chronology): M. Munitz, Contemporary Analytic Philosophy. Saddle River: Prentice Hall 1981; M. Dummett, Origins of Analytical Philosophy. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press 1993; A.P. Martinich, D. Sosa (Eds.), A Companion to Analytic Philosophy. Oxford: Blackwell 2001; S. Soames, Philosophical Analysis in the Twentieth Century. Vol. I: The Dawn of Analysis. Vol. II: The Age of Meaning. Princeton: Princeton University Press 2003; J. Peregrin, Kapitoly z analytické filosofie [Chapters from Analytic Philosophy)]. Prague: Filosofia 2005; H.-J. Glock, What is Analytic Philosophy? Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2008; S.P. Schwartz, A Brief History of Analytic Philosophy from Russell to Rawls. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell 2012; M. Beaney (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the History of Analytic Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press 2013; S. Soames, The Analytic Tradition in Philosophy. Vol. I: The Founding Giants. Vol. II (in preparation). Princeton: Princeton University Press 2014.
- 2.
Since my general remarks about analytic philosophy concern commonly known facts, I will not documents them with references to the writing of particular analytic philosophers. Relevant bibliographical data can be found in books already quoted.
- 3.
See H.-J. Glock, What is Analytic Philosophy, pp. 62–63 for mentioning earlier anticipations.
- 4.
Let me mention two episodes. Roman Ingarden, one of the most important phenomenologists and my teacher in philosophy, told me once (it was in the early 1960s) that phenomenology was the most proper analytic philosophy. In 1964, he attended a lecture on applications of logical methods in philosophy. The speaker reported the view of many ordinary language philosophers that the ambiguity and vagueness of natural language should be tolerated. During the discussion, Ingarden said that it was a barbarian view. Both episodes show that the contrast between analytic and non-analytic philosophy is analytically imprecise.
- 5.
J.V. Canfield (Ed.), Philosophy of Meaning, Knowledge and Value in the 20th Century. Routledge History of Analytic Philosophy. Vol. 10. London: Routledge 1997, p. 1.
- 6.
Clearly, the great career of Frege began after his works were available in English (it happened in the second half of the 20th century).
- 7.
I give relatively exact temporal co-ordinates, because it is dubious whether pragmatism can be included into the analytic camp. Needless to say, neo-pragmatism is an analytic philosophy.
- 8.
A.P. Martinich, D. Sosa (Eds.), A Companion to Analytic Philosophy.
- 9.
S. Soames, Philosophical Analysis in the Twentieth Century.
- 10.
The actual historical situation is additionally complicated by the fact that Wittgenstein, Carnap, Popper and Tarski emigrated to the UK or the USA, and von Wright acted as the professor of philosophy in Cambridge. However, these facts do not result in recognizing them as “pure” British or American philosophers. To avoid possible misunderstandings, the Companion does not qualify these philosophers in such a way.
- 11.
S. Soames, The Analytic Tradition in Philosophy (it is an enlarged version of S. Soames, Philosophical Analysis in the Twentieth Century) is more extensive, because this book has a chapter on Frege. However, we should wait for the second volume in order to evaluate the historical scope of the entire monograph.
- 12.
I say that the situation of analytic philosophy is not typical, but not that it is exceptional. In fact, postmodernism, post-structuralism and feminism share the same status, very characteristic for contemporary mass culture.
- 13.
This school is extensively presented in Skolimowski 1967 and Woleński 1989. Glock (H.-J. Glock, What is Analytic Philosophy? p. 68) wrongly speaks of the Warsaw-Łódź group. Although such an error can happen to anybody, a German-speaking philosopher should observe the difference between Litzmannstadt (Łódź) and Lemberg (Lvov).
- 14.
I mention only some names, mostly of philosophers (or logicians) whose works appeared in English, French or German (many translations have been published in the last 50 years). These philosophers (26 people) could be potentially known abroad and mentioned in historical surveys of analytic philosophy. Of course, it would be incorrect to say that all are unknown. It is perhaps interesting that LWS had about 70 active philosophers and was probably the most numerous philosophical school acting in the world in the interwar period.
- 15.
M. Beaney (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the History of Analytic Philosophy.
- 16.
I do not suggest that the differences in these questions explain everything. The fate of the reception of Frege, Wittgenstein and the Vienna Circle shows that ideas which arose outside of Anglo-Saxon philosophy became well assimilated inside the English-speaking world. Explanation of this fact exceeds this paper.
- 17.
The last category comprises (among others) Ajdukiewicz’s semantic epistemology (see K. Ajdukiewicz, “A Semantical Version of the Problem of Transcendental Idealism”, in: K. Ajdukiewicz, The Scientific World Perspective and Other Essays 1931–1965. Dordrecht: Reidel 1978, pp. 140–153 (originally published in 1937); K. Ajdukiewicz, “Epistemology and Semiotics”, in K. Ajdukiewicz, The Scientific World Perspective and Other Essays 1931–1965. Dordrecht: Reidel 1978, pp. 182–191 (originally published in 1948)); analytic aesthetics (see S. Ossowski, The Foundations of Aesthetics. Warsaw-Dordrecht: Polish Scientific Publishers – D. Reidel 1978; originally published in 1933; W. Tatarkiewicz, A History of Six Ideas. An Essay in Aesthetics. Warsaw – The Hague: Polish Scientific Publishers – Martinus Nijhoff 1980; originally published in 1975) or analytic ethics (W. Tatarkiewicz, Analysis of Happiness. Warsaw – The Hague: Polish Scientific Publishers – Martinus Nijhoff 1976; originally published in 1947; M. Ossowska, Moral Norms. A Tentative Systematization. Warsaw – Amsterdam: Polish Scientific Publishers-Elsevier 1980; originally published in 1970).
- 18.
I do not mention specialized works in logic, but only logical results which are philosophically important. I also do not provide bibliographical data, assuming that relevant works related to (A)–(B) are easy to be find.
- 19.
I restrict illustrations to general surveys of analytic philosophy, in fact, to the books listed at the beginning of this paper.
- 20.
S.P. Schwartz, A Brief History of Analytic Philosophy from Russell to Rawls.
- 21.
Ibid., p. 6.
- 22.
By the way, I also asked Schwartz why he ignores the Uppsala School and other Scandinavian philosophers, but he did not reply.
- 23.
M. Beaney (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the History of Analytic Philosophy.
- 24.
The inspection of other books leads to similar conclusions, although Dummett (M. Dummett, Origins of Analytical Philosophy. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press 1993) and Glock (H.-J. Glock, What is Analytic Philosophy?) are more historically accurate than: M. Munitz, Contemporary Analytic Philosophy; A. Stroll, Twentieth-Century Analytic Philosophy. New York: Columbia University Press 2000; A.P. Martinich, D. Sosa (Eds.), A Companion to Analytic Philosophy; S. Soames, Philosophical Analysis in the Twentieth Century and his The Analytic Tradition in Philosophy.
A few words on Peregrin’s book (J. Peregrin, Kapitoly z analytické filosofie) are in order. The author comes from the Czech Republic, that is, a country not from the center of analytic philosophy, but he also overlooks Polish philosophy. On the other hand, he devotes some attention to analytic philosophy as developed in Czechoslovakia. I asked him why he is silent about Poland. He answered that he sees the situation in this way. It seems that Jaroslav Peregrin combines a typical Anglo-Saxon attitude to the history of analytic philosophy, somehow tempered by patriotism.
- 25.
K. Ajdukiewicz, The Scientific World Perspective and Other Essays 1931–1965. Dordrecht: Reidel 1978.
- 26.
S. Leśniewski, Collected Works. Ed by S.J. Surma et al. Dordrecht and Warsaw: Kluwer and PWN 1991.
- 27.
Beaney (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the History of Analytic Philosophy, p. 1044.
- 28.
Smith entirely ignores Polish secondary literature about Husserl’s influence on the development of formal semantics.
- 29.
I stress once again that I am speaking about general historical surveys of analytic philosophy. Specialized studies in this field are much more accurate from the historiographical point of view.
References
Ajdukiewicz, K. 1978a. A Semantical Version of the Problem of Transcendental Idealism. In The Scientific World Perspective and Other Essays 1931–1965, ed. K. Ajdukiewicz, 140–153. Dordrecht: Reidel.
———. 1978b. Epistemology and Semiotics. In The Scientific World Perspective and Other Essays 1931–1965, ed. K. Ajdukiewicz, 182–191. Dordrecht: Reidel.
———. 1978c. The Scientific World Perspective and Other Essays 1931–1965. Dordrecht: Reidel.
Beaney, M., ed. 2013. The Oxford Handbook of the History of Analytic Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Canfield, J.V., ed. 1997. Philosophy of Meaning, Knowledge and Value in the 20th Century, Routledge History of Analytic Philosophy. Vol. 10. London: Routledge.
Dummett, M. 1993. Origins of Analytical Philosophy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Glock, H.-J. 2008. What is Analytic Philosophy? Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Leśniewski, S. 1991. In Collected Works, ed. S. J. Surma et al. Dordrecht/Warsaw: Kluwer/PWN.
Martinich, A.P., and D. Sosa, ed. 2001. A Companion to Analytic Philosophy. Oxford: Blackwell.
Munitz, M. 1981. Contemporary Analytic Philosophy. Prentice Hall: Saddle River.
Ossowska, M. 1980. Moral Norms. A Tentative Systematization. Warsaw/Amsterdam: Polish Scientific Publishers-Elsevier.
Ossowski, S. 1978. The Foundations of Aesthetics. Warsaw/Dordrecht: Polish Scientific Publishers - D. Reidel.
Peregrin, J. 2005. Kapitoly z analytické filosofie [Chapters from Analytic Philosophy]. Prague: Filosofia.
Schwartz, S.P. 2012. A Brief History of Analytic Philosophy from Russell to Rawls. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
Skolimowski, H. 1967. Polish Analytical Philosophy. A Survey and a Comparison with British Analytical Philosophy. London: Routledge & K. Paul.
Soames, S. 2003. Philosophical Analysis in the Twentieth Century. Vol. I: The Dawn of Analysis. Vol. II: The Age of Meaning. Princeton University Press: Princeton.
———. 2014. The Analytic Tradition in Philosophy. Vol. I: The Founding Giants. Vol. II (in preparation). Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Stroll, A. 2000. Twentieth-Century Analytic Philosophy. New York: Columbia University Press.
Tatarkiewicz, W. 1976. Analysis of Happiness. Warsaw / The Hague: Polish Scientific Publishers – Martinus Nijhoff.
———. 1980. A History of Six Ideas. An Essay in Aesthetics. Warsaw / The Hague: Polish Scientific Publishers/Martinus Nijhoff.
Woleński, J. 1989. Logic and Philosophy in the Lvov-Warsaw School. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
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Woleński, J. (2017). How to Speak About History of Analytic Philosophy. In: Brożek, A., Stadler, F., Woleński, J. (eds) The Significance of the Lvov-Warsaw School in the European Culture. Vienna Circle Institute Yearbook, vol 21. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-52869-4_2
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