1 / 22

Analytic Philosophy

Analytic Philosophy. Introduction and a Brief History H.E. Baber. Analytic Philosophy.

alphonse
Download Presentation

Analytic Philosophy

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Analytic Philosophy Introduction and a Brief History H.E. Baber

  2. 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."

  3. A History of Philosophy The Analytic Philosopher’s Version

  4. Western Philosophy Timeline Continental Philosophy Hellenistic/ Medieval Rationalists Empiricists Kant Ancient Plotinus Augustine Anselm Abelard Aquinas Ockham Descartes Leibniz Spinoza Locke Berkeley Hume Kant Plato Aristotle Analytic Philosophy Our Esteemed Ancestors Our esteemed ancestors

  5. 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

  6. 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

  7. 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

  8. 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?

  9. 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?

  10. Representative Theory of Perception

  11. The Veil of Perception

  12. 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.

  13. The 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

  14. 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)

  15. 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

  16. 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?

  17. 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

  18. 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 Russell-Strawson debate.

  19. 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”

  20. 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?

  21. 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.

  22. And now for some solutions… • …none of which are conclusive!

More Related