A NORMATIVE DEFINITION OF ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY

• Authors: Janikowski W.
• Languages of publication: PL

Abstracts

EN

Analytic philosophy cannot be defined as a philosophical school in the world. This is a broad type of philosophy and most prominent ideas popularly attached to the term 'analytic philosophy' are: (1) generally it concerns questions of language, concepts, logic and methodology; (2) it is rather rigouristic as to the way of exposition and considering of philosophical problems, perhaps more logically demanding and careful than any other sort of philosophy; (3) in consequence its primary objective is analysis of concrete concepts and theoretical problems, and only secondary (if at all) larger synthesis of thought. These three characteristics are however only common associations. As such they should be included in working out purely reportive definition of the term 'analytic philosophy', probably insuperable task. We stay with different definitions, and various analytic philosophies themselves. In spite of that the author proposes to stipulate one normative definition. It is also reportive due to equivalences or strong resemblance to definitions made by Ernest Nagel, Józef Maria Bochenski, Dagfinn Frilesdal, Ray Monk and many others (so often not quite explicit definitions, though understandings being sufficiently recognizable as pertaining to one genre). Summing up all definitional requirements, analytic philosophy has been characterized as: (1) having high standards of objectivity and justifiability (formulating explicit theses, always preferring uniquely and clearly interpretable expressions, finding scrupulous arguments pros and cons etc.); and (2) approving of (moderately at least) empirical sciences, with assumption of privileged status of empirical knowledge. Second feature is less important, and yet without it a philosophy cannot be completely analytic in preferred sense. Philosophical analyticity is gradable, relatively to these two features. There are some virtues of such definition. For example, we may properly say that Aristotle was certainly more analytic than Plato, but still consider whether Plato (with supposed unwritten and esoteric doctrine) was more analytic than Heidegger.

Keywords

EN

ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY; NAGEL ERNEST; NORMATIVE DEFINITION; REPORTIVE DEFINITION

Discipline

• PHILOSOPHY: PHILOSOPHY

• Publisher: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Szczecińskiego
• Journal: Analiza i Egzystencja. Czasopismo Filozoficzne
• Year: 2007
• Issue: 5
• Pages: 45-53
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Janikowski W.

• W. Janikowski, Uniwersytet Szczecinski, Instytut Filozofii, ul. Krakowska 71, 71-017 Szczecin, Poland.

Identifiers

CEJSH db identifier

07PLAAAA03316839