Download Analytic Philosophy

Analytic Philosophy
Introduction and a Brief History
H.E. Baber
Analytic 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 Philosophy
The Analytic Philosopher’s Version
Western Philosophy Timeline
Continental Philosophy
Ancient
Plato
Aristotle
Hellenistic/
Medieval
Plotinus
Augustine
Anselm
Abelard
Aquinas
Ockham
Rationalists
Empiricists
Kant
Descartes
Leibniz
Spinoza
Locke
Berkeley
Hume
Kant
Our
Ouresteemed
Esteemed ancestors
Ancestors
Analytic Philosophy
Anglo-American Philosophy
Continental Philosophy
British Idealists
Empiricists
Locke
Berkeley
Hume
Analytic Philosophy
Early 20th Century
Rejection of
Idealism
(Defense of
Commonsense)
Logical Atomism
Logical Positivism
Ordinary Language
Philosophy
Contemporary
Analytic Philosophy
Subfields 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 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 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 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 Perception
The Veil of Perception
Thought 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 Problem
• Zombies: physical duplicates of “normal” humans who do not have
qualia.
• Qualia: contents of immediate experience, “raw feels” or “sensedata”
• 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 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 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 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!
• 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
Reference
• 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 RussellStrawson debate.
Logical 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”
Identity
• 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 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…
• …none of which are conclusive!