Analytic PhilosophyAnalytic Philosophy

Introduction and a Brief History

H.E. Baber

Analytic PhilosophyAnalytic Philosophy

• Analytic philosophy is a generic term for a style of philosophy that came to dominate English-speaking countries in the 20th century. In the United States the overwhelming majority of university philosophy departments self-identify as "analytic" departments. This situation is mirrored in the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia. [Wikipedia—but if you don’t trust Wikipedia…]

• Brian Leiter, the “philosophical gourmet,” notes: "All the Ivy League universities, all the leading state research universities, all the University of California campuses, most of the top liberal arts colleges, most of the flagship campuses of the second-tier state research universities boast philosophy departments that overwhelmingly self-identify as "analytic": it is hard to imagine a "movement" that is more academically and professionally entrenched than analytic philosophy.”

• See also John Searle's judgment (in Bunnin & Tsui-James (eds.), The Blackwell Companion to Philosophy (Blackwell, 2003), p. 1): "Without exception, the best philosophy departments in the United States are dominated by analytic philosophy, and among the leading philosophers in the United States, all but a tiny handful would be classified as analytic philosophers."

A History of PhilosophyA History of Philosophy

The Analytic Philosopher’s Version

Western Philosophy TimelineWestern Philosophy Timeline

AncientHellenistic/Medieval Rationalists Empiricists Kant

Continental Philosophy

Analytic Philosophy

PlotinusAugustineAnselmAbelardAquinasOckham

PlatoAristotle

DescartesLeibnizSpinoza

LockeBerkeleyHume

Kant

Our esteemed ancestorsOur Esteemed AncestorsOur Esteemed AncestorsOur Esteemed AncestorsOur Esteemed Ancestors

Anglo-American PhilosophyAnglo-American Philosophy

Empiricists

Continental Philosophy

Analytic PhilosophyLockeBerkeleyHume

British Idealists

Early 20th CenturyRejection of Idealism(Defense of Commonsense)Logical Atomism

Logical Positivism Ordinary Language Philosophy

Contemporary Analytic Philosophy

Subfields of PhilosophySubfields of Philosophy

• Traditional Subfields

– Logic

– Ethics

– Metaphysics

– Epistemology

– History of Philosophy

• Additional Special Fields

– Philosophy of Mind

– Philosophy of Religion

– Philosophy of Science

– “Applied Ethics” specialties

– Aesthetics

– Philosophy of Language

Our Philosophical IssuesOur Philosophical Issues

• Skepticism and the External World

• Meaning and Reference

• The Logical Positivist Program

• The Mind-Body Problem

• The Problem of Universals

• Externalism and the mental

• Identity (including personal identity)

• Time and time-travel

The External WorldThe External World

• Epistemological, metaphysical questions and philosophy of language issues.

• Do we know there’s an external world? If so, how?

• What are the constituents of this external world?

• How should we analyze talk about these things?

The Epistemological QuestionThe Epistemological Question

• External world: mind-independent objects

• Immediate experience and inference (I hear a screeching when I step on the brakes and infer that the pads are worn and metal is grinding on metal. Sight is no different.

• Veridical and non-veridical experience

• Do we have any good reason to believe that any of our experiences are veridical? How could we know?

Representative Theory of PerceptionRepresentative Theory of Perception

The Veil of PerceptionThe Veil of Perception

Thought ExperimentsThought Experiments

• We want to know what is logically (or metaphysically) possible

– E.g. Is it possible for persons to “exchange bodies”? Survive bodily death? Reappear in resurrection worlds? Be reincarnated?

• Conceivability is (roughly) a criterion for logical possibility so…

• We produce and consider thought experiments to ascertain what is conceivable.

• These thought experiments—stories about zombies, transport via Startrek Machine, Brains in Vats and life in the Matrix, apparent cases of body-exchange, etc. are fictions intended to pump our intuitions.

The Mind-Body ProblemThe Mind-Body Problem

• Zombies: physical duplicates of “normal” humans who do not have qualia.

• Qualia: contents of immediate experience, “raw feels” or “sense-data”

• The Mind-Body Problem (crude version): is the mind the brain? (or, are mental states just brain states?)

• Conceivability as a criterion for (“logical”) possibility

Zombies and Mind-Body DualismZombies and Mind-Body Dualism

• Zombies are logically possible (we can conceive of them, right?)

• A zombie’s brain states are perfect duplicates of the brain states of normal individuals experiencing qualia

• There must be something more then that brain state when an individual has qualia

• The mind is not just the brain (mental states are not just brain states)

More Mind-Body ProblemMore Mind-Body Problem

• The Knowledge Argument, Reversed Spectrum, etc.

• Can machines think? The Turing Test and Searle’s Chinese Room

• Are meanings in the head? Hilary Putnam and the Twin Earth problem

The Problem of UniversalsThe Problem of Universals

• Statements of the form “x is P” can be true or false.

• Intuitively, what makes them true or false is an object’s having a property

• Intuitively, when objects are similar it is because they “share” properties

• But are there “properties” and, if so, what are they? And how can they be shared?

All standard solutions are unintuitive!All standard solutions are unintuitive!

• Nominalism makes it difficult to account for the fact that some ways of grouping are correct while others incorrect.

• Conceptualism begs the question: What is it in the object that corresponds to my idea and what is that correspondance? What makes my idea of red the same as your idea?

• Realism posits crazy, immaterial objects

ReferenceReference

• Plato’s question: “how can I think the thing that is not?”

• Fictional entities: What makes it true that Pegasus is a flying horse--and not a unicorn or magic mushroom? What makes it true that Pegasus doesn’t exist?

• Again, construing Pegasus, et. al. as “ideas” doesn’t help so we seem stuck with the existence of crazy, non-existant objects.

• Russell’s theory of descriptions & the Russell-Strawson debate.

Logical PositivismLogical Positivism

• Metaphilosophical issues: Hume’s Fork and the rejection of “metaphysics”

• Hume’s Fork and the Analytic/Synthetic distinction

• Phenomenalism: objects as “permanent possibilities of sensation”

• Quine’s “Two Dogmas of Empiricism”

IdentityIdentity

• An equivalence relation

– Reflexivity: x = x

– Symmetry: if x = y then y = x

– Transitivity: if x = y and y = z then x = z

• An indiscernibility relation: if x = y then they have all the same properties

• Is the converse true also, i.e. if x and y have all the same properties does x = y?

Identity PuzzlesIdentity Puzzles

• Indiscernibility of Identicals and Frege’s puzzle

• Identity of Indiscernibles, symmetrical worlds (“Black’s Balls”) and Eternal Return

• “Branching Cases”: the Ship of Theseus, etc.

• Personal identity: Locke’s identity problem, survival, “fission,” etc.

And now for some solutions…And now for some solutions…

• …none of which are conclusive!