The Challenge of Philosophy CH15

Chapter 15: What are words for? The challenge of analytic philosophy

The chapter explores the analytic approach in philosophy and its contrast with the continental approach.
The analytic approach, prominent in England, the United States, and Japan, emphasizes careful analysis of concepts to illuminate philosophical difficulties.
The chapter starts with a quote from Ludwig Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations I 428: “This queer thing, thought”- but it does not strike us as queer when we are thinking. Thought does not strike us as mysterious while we are thinking, but only when we say, as it were, retrospectively: “How was that possible?” How was it possible for thought to deal with the very object itself? We feel as if by means of it we had caught reality in our net."

The divide between continental and analytic philosophy can be traced back to Kant.
Kant distinguished between:
- Reality an sich (in itself): The noumenal realm.
- Reality as it appears and is interpreted by us: The phenomenal realm.
Kant argued that humans have no epistemic access to the noumenal realm, making knowledge of objective reality impossible.
Continental philosophy has largely abandoned the idea of an objective, mind-independent reality that science can fully explain.
Analytic philosophy is divided: some believe science can discover mind-independent truths, while others believe the most fundamental laws of physics will remain beyond our grasp.
Analytic philosophers agree that careful analysis of our concepts can clarify philosophical problems.

Descartes questioned how our ideas could accurately represent mind-independent reality.
Philosophers began to question the meaning of "idea".
The focus shifted to language, as ideas are communicated through language.
The central question became: How do our words connect to reality?
This shift led to the birth of the philosophy of language.
Michael Dummett: analytical philosophy believes that a philosophical account of thought can be attained through a philosophical account of language, and that a comprehensive account can only be so attained

Gottlob Frege (1848-1925) was a father of the analytic movement.
Frege distinguished between "sense" and "reference".
- Sense: The meaning of a term.
- Reference: The object or state of affairs in the world that the term refers to.
Expressions with different meanings can have the same reference.
Example: "Evening star" and "morning star" have different meanings but both refer to Venus.

Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) was another founder of the analytic movement.
Russell aimed to clarify ambiguity in language using logical notation.
He noted the ambiguity of the word "is" and distinguished three uses:
- "Is" of identity: Example: "Water is H20," represented as water = H20.
- "Is" of predication: Example: "The sky is blue," represented as Bs (B is capitalized predicate, s is the subject).
- "Is" of existence: Example: "God is," represented as (\exists x) Gx, meaning there is an x such that God is x.

Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus during World War I.
The book defends the picture theory of propositions:
- A proposition is a picture of reality.
- When we say "the book is on the table," the proposition describes a relationship between objects.
- If the relationship accurately describes a real state of affairs, the sentence is true.
Wittgenstein sought a logical foundation for language to remove ambiguity and vagueness, thereby resolving all traditional philosophical problems.
Wittgenstein: Most propositions and questions about philosophical matters are not false but senseless because we don't understand the logic of our language. These are like asking whether the Good is more or less identical than the Beautiful (4.003)
Wittgenstein argued that thought is simply language, not a mysterious accompaniment.
- Thinking is a kind of language, a logical picture of a sentence.
His view of mind is similar to Gilbert Ryle’s logical behaviorism.
The Tractatus concludes: "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must remain silent."
- We can speak about things that can be pictured, but metaphysical issues are beyond discussion.

Wittgenstein later developed a different approach, known as the "later Wittgenstein."
His book Philosophical Investigations is the most important work from this period.
He abandoned the effort to create a logically perfect language.
He critiqued Augustine’s account of how language is learned.
He defended the idea of meaning as use: the meaning of a word is its use in a language.
Meanings are not universal concepts or Platonic essences.
He used the word "game" as an example: there is no single universal formula that describes all activities referred to as "game."
To learn the meaning of a word, one must participate in a community of language users (a "language game").
Philosophical problems arise when we misuse language.
Philosophy may in no way interfere with the actual use of language; it can in the end only describe it.

The contemporary challenge of philosophy is to clarify ongoing disputes in:
- Epistemology
- Metaphysics
- Ethics
Key questions include:
- Can humans discover the basic physical laws governing the universe?
- Can we reach a consensus about the self and moral responsibility?
- How can we explain how brain states relate to an objective, mind-independent reality?
- Can we reach a consensus about what it means to be a decent human being?