Analytic Philosophy

[JazzRemington]

Edit: Bah, can a mod or a admin move this to Learning? I didn't mean to post it in Philosophy.

I've been getting more and more interested in analytic philosophy these days, mostly thanks to Cohen's book, Karl Marx's Theory of History, and mostly because of my knowledge of the "movement" known as Analytical Marxism.

I would like to know, especially from Rosa as I understand she is most knowledgable of philosophy, of any good general introductions to analytic philosophy. I'm aware of the wikipedia article and it mentions several people and works but Wittgenstein's Tractatus appears to be most prominent. ComradeRed, in chat, recommended A.J. Ayer's "Language, Truth, and Logic." Would these be good jumping off points, or is/are there good general introduction(s) available?

[rouchambeau]

What is Analytic Marxism? The only kind of Marxism that I have run into has been of the Continental tradition.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Analytic Marxism is the name given to a way of interpreting Marxism, allegedly using the techniques of Analytic Philosophy. It probably began with Gerry Cohen 'Karl Marx's Theory of History, A Defence' published in 1978:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytical_Marxism#Beginnings

If you read the comment I left on the 'discussion page' at the above link, you will see why I used the word "alleged", here.

Analytic Philosophy is generally marked as beginning with the work of Frege, but there is widespread disagreement over this. Others see it as beginning with the revolt against Idealism in the work of George Moore and Bertrand Russell (in the very early 1900's), others with the work of Wittgenstein a few years later. Some even date it back to the pioneering work of Bernard Bolzano (a Czeck mathematician).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytic_philosophy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Bolzano

As you can see, the most important influences are not 'Anglo-Saxon', but E European! Moreover, its origins are closely linked to developments in modern mathematics (Bolzano was a highly original mathematician, as were Frege and Russell. Wittgenstein began his career in aeronautics, and moved into the foundations of mathematics very quickly).

I have to say that I do not know of a good introduction to this movement.

The best I can suggest is John Passmore's 'One Hundred Years of Philosophy' and Peter Hacker's 'Ludwig Wittgenstein's Place in 20th Century Analytic Philosophy'.

Another is 'The Semantic Tradition From Kant to Carnap', by J Coffa (but this is more advanced).

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/reader/05214470...700#reader-page (http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/reader/0521447070/ref=sib_dp_pt/203-0497089-4156700#reader-page)

I am not at home right now; but when I get back, I'll give this more thought and see if I can suggest something else.

Steer clear of Ayer's book, though, it is useless!

Also, check out my comments here:

http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=64866

[JimFar]

Although so-called Analytical Marxism is largely (though not exclusively) an anglophone phenomenon, there have been other movements which have held similar views. Some of the Austro-Marxists were very much taken up with Ernst Mach's empiriocriticism, with Otto Neurath also being one of the proponents of logical empiricism. Poland had its Poznan (http://www.fmag.unict.it/~polphil/PolPhil/Poznan/PoznanEngl.html) school whose approach was rather similar to that of the Analytic Marxists. Also see this (http://web.archive.org/web/20020202182705/http://www.cs.okstate.edu/~poznan.studies/) concerning the Poznan school.

Some of the later Soviet philosophers while continuing to describe themselves as dialectical materialists attempted to integrate the ideas of analytical philosophers into their work. For example, see Igor Naletov's Alternatives to Postivism which is available online here (http://www.autodidactproject.org/other/naletov0.html), and Dmitry Gorski's Generalisation and Cognition. Both of these works both critique and at the same time draw upon the writings of anglophone analytic philosophers like Russell, Popper, Tarski, Carnap. Quine, Davidson etc.

[JimFar]

Rosa wrote (concerning Ayer's Language, Truth, and Logic)


Steer clear of Ayer's book, though, it is useless!

Although many, if not most of that book's substantive theses were wrong (as Ayer himself admitted years later), it has over the years inspired lots of people to take up analytical philosophy, so I am not sure that it is totally useless.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Jim Farr:


Although many, if not most of that book's substantive theses were wrong (as Ayer himself admitted years later), it has over the years inspired lots of people to take up analytical philosophy, so I am not sure that it is totally useless.

I'd like to know of an example where this has happened.

But, even supposing this were so, it would create in the mind of anyone so duped an entirely false impression even of logical positivism.

As I said earlier, it is not about language, contains little that is true and nothing that is logical.

It is, shall we say, to Analytic Philosophy what The Da Vinci Code is to historical research -- entertaining, but 99% wrong.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Ok, Jazz, over and above the ones listed above, here are some references that might help you (those marked with an ** are introductory):

Biletzki, A., and Matar, A. (1998) (eds.), The Story Of Analytic Philosophy (Routledge).

Dummett, M. (1993), Origins Of Analytic Philosophy (Duckworth).

French, P., Uehling, T., and Wettstein, H. (1981) (eds.), The Foundations Of Analytic Philosophy, Midwest Studies in Philosophy 6 (University of Minnesota Press).

Glock, H-J. (1997) (ed.), The Rise Of Analytic Philosophy (Blackwell).

Hylton, P. (1990), Russell, Idealism And The Emergence Of Analytic Philosophy (Oxford University Press).

Irvine, A., and Wedeking, G. (1993) (eds.), Russell And Analytic Philosophy (University of Toronto Press).

**Martinich, A., and Sosa, D. (2005) (eds.), A Companion To Analytic Philosophy (Blackwell).

Monk, R., and Palmer, A. (1996) (eds.), Bertrand Russell And The Origins Of Analytic Philosophy (Thoemmes Press).

Reck, E. (2002) (ed.), From Frege To Wittgenstein. Perspectives On Early Analytic Philosophy (Oxford University Press).

**Stroll, A. (2000), Twentieth-Century Analytic Philosophy (Columbia University Press).

Tait, W. (1997) (ed.), Early Analytic Philosophy (Open Court).

**Weiner, J. (2004), Frege Explained. From Arithmetic To Analytic Philosophy (Open Court),

Hope that helps!!

[JazzRemington]

It does, thanks. I'll try to obtain that Companion to Analytic Philosophy and Twentieth Century Analytic Philosophy through interlibrary loan at my school.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Ok, I am glad it's of some use.

I should, however, have put a ** next to the last one in the list.

I have corrected it on edit.