Brief History of Analytic Philosophy

Stephen P. Schwartz is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Philosophy and Religion at Ithaca College, New York. He has published numerous articles in leading analytic philosophy journals.

“Schwartz's book…is, in my estimation, the most useful introduction to the history of analytic philosophy currently available for a general audience.”  (Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, 15 December 2012)“As far removed as I am from my own university studies in the history of philosophy, I found reading the book a bracing refresher of things learned long ago (and sometimes forgotten) and a source of more than a few new insights on familiar controversies."(Teaching Philosophy, 1 March 2013) “Summing Up: Highly recommended.  Lower-and upper-level undergraduates.”  (Choice, 1 December 2012)

• Preface xi Introduction: What is Analytic Philosophy? 1Leading Analytic Philosophers 61 Russell and Moore 8Empiricism, Mathematics, and Symbolic Logic 8Logicism 12Russell on Definite Descriptions 20G. E. Moore's Philosophy of Common Sense 27Moore and Russell on Sense Data 30Moore's and Russell's Anti-Hegelianism 33Summary 382 Wittgenstein, the Vienna Circle, and Logical Positivism 46Introduction 46Ludwig Wittgenstein and the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus 48Historical Note: The Vienna Circle and their Allies 58The Elimination of Metaphysics and the Logical Positivist Program 59The Demise of the Vienna Circle 68The Influence of the Logical Positivists 693 Responses to Logical Positivism: Quine, Kuhn, and American Pragmatism 76Introduction 76The Demise of the Verifiability Criterion of Meaningfulness 78Quine’s Rejection of the Analytic/Synthetic Distinction 82Quinean Empiricism without the Dogmas 86American Pragmatists after Quine: Nelson Goodman, Richard Rorty, and Hilary Putnam 1014 Oxford Ordinary Language Philosophy and Later Wittgenstein 119Introduction 119The Attack on Formalism – Strawson and Ryle 124Philosophy of Language – Austin and Wittgenstein 128Philosophy of Mind – Ryle, Strawson, and Wittgenstein 138The Rejection of Sense Data Theory 147The Legacy of Ordinary Language Philosophy 1535 Responses to Ordinary Language Philosophy: Logic, Language, and Mind 160Part 1: Formal Logic and Philosophy of Language 161G¨odel and Tarski 161Davidson 166Grice 174Carnap – Meaning and Necessity 178Chomsky 180Part 2: Philosophy of Mind 183Functionalism 183Objections to Functionalism – Bats and the Chinese Room 188Anomalous Monism 192The Problem of Mental Causation 1946 The Rebirth of Metaphysics 204Modal Logic 204Possible Worlds 212Problems with the Canonical Conception of Possible Worlds 216Transworld Identity and Identification 223The Modal Version of the Ontological Argument 2297 Naming, Necessity, and Natural Kinds: Kripke, Putnam, and Donnellan 239Introduction 239The Traditional Theory of Meaning and Reference 240Kripke's and Donnellan's Criticism of the Traditional Theory: Names and Descriptions 243Natural Kind Terms 247Problems for the New Theory of Reference 253Applications of the New Theory of Reference to the Philosophy of Mind 257The Social, Cultural, and Institutional Basis of Meaning and Reference 2608 Ethics and Metaethics in the Analytic Tradition 264Introduction 264G. E. Moore's Principia Ethica 266The Non-Cognitivism of C. L. Stevenson 269The Universal Prescriptivism of R. M. Hare 272The Return to Substantive Ethics 275Questioning the Fact/Value Divide 278Peter Singer and Animal Liberation 281John Rawls' Theory of Justice 2859 Epilogue: Analytic Philosophy Today and Tomorrow 299Analytic Philosophy since 1980 299What is the Future of Analytic Philosophy? 321References 327Index 337