Analytical Philosophy

The expression “ analytical philosophy ” indicates the philosophical current which uses the news contemporary Logique created by Gottlob Frege and Bertrand Russell at the end of the 19th century and at the beginning of the 20th century to clarify the great philosophical questions. Its step is based on a logical analysis of the Langage, seeking to highlight the errors of reasoning which it can induce, and thus helps with the clarification of the ideas and concepts.

The Logical and the Philosophie of the language are the two first and principal fields of analytical philosophy, although the recent rise of the cognitive Sciences, of the Philosophie of the action, the Philosophie of the spirit, as well as the increase in attention which carry the analytical philosophers to the Decision theory, to the Game theory but also to the Métaphysique called into question their prevalence, so that since second half of the 20th century analytical philosophy recovers all the traditional fields in philosophy. Another characteristic, shared with the Physical , of analytical philosophy is the use of the experiments of thought. There exists also a analytical Métaphysique (Kripke, David Lewis, Nathan Salmon, Peter van Inwagen) and even an analytical theology (Alvin Plantinga, Richard Swinburne), as well as an analytical tradition in political Philosophie (for example John Rawls and Robert Nozick) and in Morale.

Beginning of analytical philosophy

At the origin, this current was opposed mainly to the currents resulting from the German Idealism, the hegelianism and the Dialectique. The philosophy of the knowledge and the logic of Gottlob Frege was also opposed to empiricism, the naturalism and the Psychologisme authors like John Stuart Mill. For Bertrand Russell and the logical Positivisme, the logical analysis was however to be accompanied by a method empirist (even if Russell continued to defend a realistic metaphysics).

One can consider that the first analytical philosophers were Frege, Russell, George Edward Moore, then Wittgenstein. The Circle of Vienna and the Philosophy of the ordinary language resulting from Ludwig Wittgenstein and of the “semantic increase” were criticisms of all Métaphysique. Since the decline of the logical Positivism, analytical philosophy developed in various directions.

Analytical philosophy

The analytical expression philosophy is a somewhat ambiguous expression, which it is advisable to clarify by distinguishing three directions: doctrines, method and the tradition.

the doctrines generally indicated by this expression are the logical Positivisme and the logical Atomisme; but the expression can also indicate the Philosophie of the ordinary language, the Philosophie of the common direction, or a mixture of all the doctrines quoted above. This use was current until in the years 1950, when the analytical philosophers were in general engaged in a research program related to these doctrines.
the method of analytical philosophy is a general approach of philosophy, a style of analysis which answers certain rational requirements. It was first of all primarily related to the projects of logical analysis of the philosophical problems (direction 1 of the years 1950); this method is conceived today either like a program, but like a preoccupation of clearness and a precision, requiring to give a important role to the argumentation, the discussions and the evidence, to avoid any ambiguity, and to pay an special attention to all the nuances of details which can enter a problem. This concern resulted in carrying out works more technical and specialized and carried to solve obscure questions like the Sens of the life than in the past, or than in other philosophical traditions, which is a criticism that one often makes with this method; however, its defenders propose the profit of rigor which results from it, and the possibility, according to them, to arrive thus to really making progress, even modestly, the philosophical debates.
As a tradition, analytical philosophy begins with Gottlob Frege, Bertrand Russell, G.E. Moore, and Ludwig Wittgenstein at the beginning of the XXe century.

This tradition starts with Frege, and one can expose of them the original problems by the following questions:

can one philosophize while following a scientific method?
can one introduce more rigor in philosophy while proceeding by logic?
can philosophy be reduced with logic?

Formalism and the natural language

The goal of the analytical approach is to clarify the philosophical problems by examining and clarifying the language of which one is used for oneself to formulate them. This method counts among its major contributions the modern logic, the setting at the day of the problem of the direction and the denotation in the construction of the significance, the Théorème of incomplétude of Kurt Gödel, the theory of the definite descriptions of Russell, the theory of the Réfutabilité of Karl Popper, the semantic theory of the truth of Alfred Tarski.

The two principal branches of the analytical tradition are, on the one hand, research to include/understand the language by using formal logic, i.e to formalize the philosophical questions and to solve them starting from this formulation; in addition, research to include/understand the philosophical ideas more particularly by examining the natural language used to formulate them, and to clarify them starting from this examination. These two types of research are opposed sometimes completely, but are sometimes identical. Wittgenstein started with the first type of research, then continued its research on the side of the natural language.

Formalism

Logical atomism and ideal language

For authors like Gottlob Frege, Bertrand Russell, Rudolf Carnap or even Willard Van Orman Quine, the ordinary language confused, simplistic, is filled of errors and must be corrected in a more rigorous version formal and without ambiguity, which will give rise to the contemporary Logique (cf for example, the article of Frege: That science justifies a recourse to the ideography ). This formalization does not have only consequences on the manner of expressing a problem: it raises the question to know so some of the old problems should not at the same time be removed. For example, if the problems arising from the popular Psychologie are stripped of direction, should it be concluded from it that our usual designs on the spirit are fictions?

The origin of analytical philosophy is in the development, by Frege, of the Calcul of the predicates which made it possible to extend logical formalization to a greater number of statements. In the same way, Russell and Whitehead were given for goals, in their Principia Mathematica :

to show that mathematics can be reduced with logic;
to show that the logical result is an ideal language.

Russell regarded the logical formalism as essential tools to expose the fundamental structures of the philosophical problems. For example, the word " est" , can be according to him analyzed in three distinct ways:

"the cat is endormi" : the is preaching means that X is P, that is to say P (X)
" it is a chat" , or " there is a chat" : the is of existence means that there is X, that is to say: ∃ (X)
" three is half of six" : the is identity means that X is identical to there, that is to say x=y

Russell thus tried to solve various philosophical problems by applying such clear and precise distinctions, the most known example being the current king de France. This attempt rests on the thesis founder of the logical atomism according to which the structure of reality is primarily the same one as mathematical logic. Consequently, all the problems have a logical formulation.

The Tractatus

Enough generally, one considers that Ludwig Wittgenstein developed the logical atomism of Russell in a short and difficult book, the Tractatus logico-philosophicus : this book is held like one of the most important books of philosophy of the XXe century. The general objective is to trace interior of the language of the limits beyond whose proposals are stripped of direction. However, the remarks of Wittgenstein itself on its work question the way in which this text was included/understood and located in the history of logic.

Wittgenstein supported that the world is the existence of irrefutable facts; these irrefutable facts can be expressed in a logic of the predicates of first order. So a table of the world can be carried out by expressing the atomic facts in atomic proposals and binding them by logical operators.

“5.6 the borders of my language are the borders of my world. ”

This thesis is one of the reasons of the close relationship between Philosophie of the language and analytical philosophy: the language is from this point of view the main thing, or only, tool of philosophy. Thus, for Wittgenstein, and many other analytical philosophers, the purpose of philosophy is to clarify the use of the language. By this method, the hope is to see solved all the philosophical problems when the language is used with a perfect clearness. Besides Wittgenstein estimated to have stated the final solutions of all the philosophical problems:

“Nevertheless, the truth of the thoughts communicated here seems to me intangible and final. My opinion that I have, essentially, is thus solved the problems in a decisive way. ”

It left and became teacher. But it returned later while recognizing the inadequacy of the logical atomism, and it brought new developments in its posthumous work, philosophical Investigations.

Natural language

The philosophy of the ordinary language (sometimes also called linguistic philosophy) is current analytical philosophy which claims to avoid the philosophical “theories”, excesses of formalism to give more attention to the uses and the practices of the ordinary language and common direction. The return to the ordinary language is a reaction against the origins of the analytical philosophy, which one sometimes called the “philosophy of the ideal language”.

Philosophy of the spirit and sciences cognitive

Relations of analytical philosophy and continental philosophy

One traditionally opposes this whole of “schools” to the “continental Philosophie”, even if many Europeans practice analytical philosophy and of many non-European practice philosophy known as “continental”. In France in particular, there exists a debate between the detractors (whose preference goes to the continental Philosophie) and the partisans of analytical philosophy.

In France, analytical philosophy is represented for example by Jacques Bouveresse and Pascal Engel.

The relations of these two types of philosophy are the object of many stormy debates and competitions enough sharp. These debates and competitions raise to the first chief the question to know what distinguishes them exactly; a distinction rather current, but considered to be inaccurate, to see distorts, by much, consists in distinguishing them by their respective geographical surface, and consequently, linguistics. Analytical philosophy would be primarily anglophone, while continental philosophy would be of especially German inspiration, and, according to Heidegger, French who philosophizes puts at speaking German.

It is possible to present these debates in a form set of themes

The teaching of analytical philosophy throughout the world

Contrary to an generally accepted idea, analytical philosophy is called wrongly Anglo-Saxon: initially, the first philosophers of this tradition are German or Austrian (Frege, Wittgenstein); then, logical philosophy is particularly illustrated in Poland. The geographical location of analytical philosophy is thus misleading.

Analytical philosophy is dominant philosophy in the university Departments of philosophy in the anglophone countries but also in Israel, in the Scandinavian countries and certain countries of Eastern Europe like the Poland.

This " partage" does not go without complaint on behalf of the ones and others: the continental philosophers fear one supposed imperialism of the logical thought, associated with a form of expansionism cultural Anglo-Saxon; the analytical philosophers, in France at least, complain to be able to teach an important form of philosophical method in an university institution turned towards interpretation and the history, as well as the preparation with the contests, which involves according to them conservatism and sterility of research.

Clearness and precision

The defenders of analytical philosophy make the point that this one has an objective of clearness and precision on the level of the description of the philosophical problems, which thus brings philosophy closer to the methodology of the scientific disciplines. This clearness in the description of the problems and the formulation of the solutions makes it possible to avoid the ambiguity and the difficulties of interpretation often reproached “literary” philosophy. Analytical philosophy is also characterized by a concrete approach, “by problems”. It thus results from it the precise description of philosophical problems, clearly identified, and for which it is advisable to seek a solution. Among these problems, one can quote in particular: the Problem body-spirit, the Paradox of the liar, the Paradox of Hempel, etc

Criticisms on these points are the following ones:

Some think that it is there only one simple normative injunction with clearness and the rigor and that described one tradition more, of the periodicals, the readings and references common, the recurring examples and problems, that a true scientific “method”.
the logical reduction is considered to be too surface, and even too metaphysical, whereas continental philosophy estimates to go back to the very conditions of metaphysics, i.e., according to Heidegger, with an opening to the to be which would precede any categorization logico-metaphysics and which would be thus more fundamental, deeper. For this reason, analytical philosophy is seen as a thought which remains inside the history of the metaphysics, and which fails to leave there, which thus remains at a former stage of the philosophical thought.

An answer of the analytical philosophers consists in analyzing the theses of the continental philosophers and showing the absence of rigor of it, to see the sophistical character. But a philosopher as Heidegger considers that in the field of the thought, any refutation is stupid.

Philosophy and science

The methodology of philosophy brings it closer to sciences, and its ideal of clearness and precision makes it possible to thus make testable and refutable the philosophical assertions which are expressed there. This last criterion, highlighted by Popper indeed makes it possible to distinguish the assertions which present a scientific character or not.

Certain philosophers call into question the cogency or the value of analytical philosophy. Some estimate that philosophy cannot be limited to “the analysis of the concepts” and that the criticism of the distinction between Analytique and Synthétique by Willard Van Orman Quine also ruined the conceptual analysis.

According to certain detractors of analytical philosophy, this approach of philosophy restricts its spectrum of investigation to the epistemological analysis and ontological. Any idea is only judged according to the quality of the rational argumentation which supports it. Thus a whole part of the thought is denied, and philosophy must moderate its ambitions while being subjected to science.

According to other detractors, except its original reference to contemporary logic, there is no unifying idea or of dogma characteristic of analytical philosophy.

Future and perspective of these two currents of philosophy

The evolution of the report/ratio of these two currents was the reflection object many as for the legitimacy of such a separation.

Thus, according to certain authors, the two traditions can be reconciled, and it could result from it a synthesis from the two tendencies, which would borrow the best of the two traditions. It should be noted that the writing of certain French authors (Engel, 1997) borrows already, in a synthetic way, with this double tendency, by combining an achieved literary style and the clearness and the precision of the speech. But beyond these aspects, Pascal Engel wants to show that the two currents have joint topics, and can thus communicate.

This last point is important, because the reciprocal points of view most radical could make think that such a communication is impossible: from the analytical point of view, indeed, continental philosophy seems one characteristic heroic attitude more, for example, of the French Theory , and whose expressions are stripped of direction; in the worst of the cases, continental philosophy can even appear as a intellectual Terrorisme which refutes itself by its relativism historicist. In the same way, and always by exposing the most distinct opinions, for the continental philosophers, analytical philosophy is only a scientistic pinaillage which dissolves very thought in the unimportant one: analytical philosophy does not even seem to them philosophical.

This is why, according to some, the two traditions will continue to evolve/move without being read and while deviating more and more, so much so that there will be nothing any more but a Homonymie between these two tendencies. Such is the opinion of Richard Rorty, which expresses its skepticism on the possibility of a bringing together between these two currents, and which estimates that this division of philosophy is insurmountable. It should besides be noticed that this duality of the thought is not so new only that: Lange, in its History of the materialism , watch how follow one another and clashes idealistic theories and materialists; the interest of this remark is that Lange thinks that the human nature is thus made that it is inevitable to see certain men poetizing on vague and soft things, it is the human imagination and desires which make it inevitable, and they thus give a great dash to humanity, though this dash changes sometimes is delirious about it religious, in integral irrealism; but, by another faculty, the reason, the man returns to the reality of the Science, and it transforms the dash first into passion of the Connaissance; however this passion is finally desiccated by the pure scientific method, and impoverishes the human life; imagination must react, for inspiring the human spirit, etc again

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