Analytic Philosophy

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Analytic Philosophy
Analytic Philosophy
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Logic and the dream of a precise and unambiguous
language

• Leibniz and the Characteristica universalis and
  the Calculus ratiocinator

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Gottlob Frege (1848-1925)University of Jena

• Recognized as father of analytic philosophy
• Logicism (reduction of mathematics to pure logic
  i.e. no psychologism or intuition)
• Quantification theory

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Freges Begriffschrift
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Jena
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Jena
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C. S. Peirce

• Truth table method
• Quantification theory
• Theory of relations
• Modal logic
• 3-valued logic

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Peirces existential graphs
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Harvard, Cambridge Mass.
Sever Hall
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Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)University of
Cambridge

• Logicism
• Principia Mathematica 1910-13 with Alfred North
  Whitehead
• 1916 dismissed from Cambridge and imprisoned
  during Great War for pacifism

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University of Cambridge
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Vienna (Wien) Austria
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The Vienna Circle (Der Wiener Kreiss)

• Logical Empiricism/ Logical Positivism
• Mathematics, Modern Symbolic Logic Natural
  Sciences (theory of relativity, quantum physics)
• Humes relations of ideas matters of fact

• When we run over our libraries persuaded of
  these empiricist principles, what havoc must we
  make? If we take in our hand any volume of
  divinity or school metaphysics, for instance let
  us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning
  concerning quantity or number math. No. Does it
  contain any experimental reasoning concerning
  matter of fact and existence natural science.
  No. Commit it then to the flames for it can
  contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.
• David Hume An Enquiry Concerning Human
  Understanding (1748)

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Moritz Schlick (1882-1936)

• Founder of the Vienna Circle
• Murdered by a former student and Nazi for his
  Jewish sympathies
• Metaphysics results from a confusion over
  language pseudoproblems

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Einstein Gödel
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Kurt Gödel (1906-78)

• Member, Vienna Circle
• Mathematician, logician
• Completeness proof 1st-order predicate logic
  incompleteness theorems -gt trouble for the
  logicist program

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Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951)
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Wittgenstein

• Studied with Russell at Cambridge (1911-13) on
  Freges advice
• Fought for Austria in Great War (1914-18)
• POW in Italy writes Tractatus Logico-Philosophicu
  s
• Some-time member Vienna Circle 20s
• 1929 return to Cambridge, DPhil for Tractatus
• 1936-37 Norway, writes Philosophical
  Investigations
• 39-Cambridge professor
• becomes British citizen (as a Jew not comfortable
  in Nazi Austria)
• Philosophical puzzles result from misapplications
  of our ordinary uses of language
• Language games forms of life pragmatic
  approach

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Rise of Hitler and the National
Socialists1933-1945
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Heidegger (1889-1976)

• Philosophy of Being Dasein
• Member of Nazi party
• Highly eccentric in its terminology, his
  philosophy is extremely obscure. One cannot help
  suspecting that language here is running riot. An
  interesting point in his speculations is the
  insistence that nothingness is something
  positive. As with much else in Existentialism,
  this is a psychological observation made to pass
  for logic. Russell, Wisdom of the West, 303

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Alfred Jules Ayer (1910-1989)Oxford

• Visit with the Vienna Circle 1932-33
• Language Truth and Logic 1936
• Verifiability theory of meaning (any statement
  that cannot be verified is meaningless)

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Willard Van Orman Quine (1908-2000)Harvard
University

• PhD under Whitehead on PM
• Visit with Vienna Circle 1932-33
• Two Dogmas of Empiricism
• Epistemology naturalized

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Hilary Putnam (1926-)Harvard

• Mathematics, Logic and Philosophy
• Reason, Truth and History 1980
• Critique of metaphysical realism (the Gods
  eye view)
• Internal realism (realism from within a
  conceptual scheme/language)

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Richard Rorty (1931-2007)Stanford

• Major critic of analytic philosophy
• Though analytically trained himself
• Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature 1980

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Language and the World

• How does language hook onto the world?
• Can there be one uniquely true account of
  reality?
• Or are there multiple accounts/descriptions
  suitable for distinct purposes? E.g. scientific,
  spiritual/religious
• Is this relativism? What of objectivity?

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Analytic Philosophy Today