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Conceptions of Analysis in Analytic Philosophy

• 1. Introduction
• 2. Gottlob Frege
• 3. Bertrand Russell
• 4. G. E. Moore
• 5. Ludwig Wittgenstein
• 6. Susan Stebbing and the Cambridge School of Analysis
• 7. Rudolf Carnap and Logical Positivism
• 8. Oxford Linguistic Philosophy
• 9. Conceptual Analysis
• 10. Conceptual Engineering
• 11. Conclusion

1. Introduction to Supplement

This supplement provides an account of the development of forms andconceptions of analysis in analytic philosophy as it originated inEurope around the turn of the twentieth century. The emergence oflogical analysis as the distinctive form of analysis in early(Western) analytic philosophy is outlined in§6 of the main document.

Annotated Bibliography, §6.1

2. Gottlob Frege

Although the work of Gottlob Frege (1848–1925) shows theenormous potential of logical analysis, it is not incompatible withother forms of analysis. Indeed, its whole point would seem to be toprepare the way for these other forms, as philosophers in the secondphase of analytic philosophy came to argue (seeStebbing and the Cambridge School of Analysis). One such form is traditional decompositionalanalysis—understood, more specifically, as resolving a wholeinto its parts (e.g., a ‘thought’ or‘proposition’ into its constituents). Decompositionalanalysis does indeed play a role in Frege’s philosophy, but whatis of greater significance is Frege’s use offunction–argument analysis, which operates in some tension towhole–part analysis.

In developing his logic in his first book, theBegriffsschrift, Frege’s key move was to representsimple statements such as ‘Socrates is mortal’ not insubject–predicate form (‘S isP’,i.e., analysing it into subject and predicate joined by the copula)but in function–argument form(‘Fa’)—taking ‘Socrates’ as theargument and ‘x is mortal’ as the function, whichyields as value what Frege calls the ‘judgeable content’of the statement when the argument indicated by the variable‘x’ is filled by the name ‘Socrates’.(We gloss over here the controversial issue as to how Fregeunderstands functions, arguments and judgeable contents at thisparticular time. In his later work, he regards the result of‘saturating’ a concept by an object as a truth-value.) Itwas this that allowed him to develop quantificational theory, enablinghim to analyse complex mathematical statements. (For details, seeBeaney 2016.)

To appreciate some of the philosophical implications offunction–argument analysis, consider the example that Fregegives in theBegriffsschrift (§9):

(HLC) Hydrogen is lighter than carbon dioxide.

According to Frege, this can be analysed in either of two ways,depending on whether we take hydrogen as the argument andislighter than carbon dioxide as the function, or carbon dioxide asthe argument andis heavier than hydrogen as the function. Ifwe respected subject–predicate position, we might wish toexpress the latter thus:

(CHH) Carbon dioxide is heavier than hydrogen.

But on Frege’s view, (HLC) and (CHH) have the same‘content’ (‘Inhalt’), each merely representingalternative ways of ‘analysing’ that content. There doesseem to be something that (HLC) and (CHH) have in common, andfunction–argument analysis seems to permit alternative analysesof one and the same thing, since two different functions withdifferent arguments can yield the same value.

However, in response to this, it might be suggested that both theseanalyses presuppose a more ultimate one, which identifiestwoarguments, hydrogen and carbon dioxide, and arelation(a function with two arguments). Michael Dummett (1981b, ch. 17), forexample, has suggested that we distinguish betweenanalysisanddecomposition: there can be alternative decompositions,into ‘component’ concepts, but only one analysis, intounique ‘constituents’. (By ‘analysis’ Dummettmeans what has here been called ‘decomposition’,which—pace Dummett—seems to imply a uniqueend-product far more than ‘analysis’, and by‘decomposition’ Dummett means function–argumentanalysis.) But which relation do we then choose,is lighterthan oris heavier than? Clearly they are not the same,since one is the converse of the other. So if we accept that (HLC) and(CHH) have the same ‘content’—and there isundoubtedly something that they have in common—then it seemsthat there can be alternative analyses even at the supposedly ultimatelevel.

The issue, however, is controversial, and leads us quickly into thedeepest problems in Frege’s philosophy, concerning the criteriafor sameness of ‘content’ (and of‘Sinn’ and ‘Bedeutung’, intowhich ‘content’ later bifurcated), the fruitfulness ofdefinitions, and the relationship between Frege’s contextprinciple and compositionality. (For discussion, see Baker and Hacker1984, ch. 6; Beaney 1996, ch. 8; 2007d; Bell 1987, 1996;Bermúdez 2001; Currie 1985; Dummett 1981b, ch. 15; 1989; 1991a,chs. 9–16; Garavaso 1991; Hale 1997; Levine 2002, 2007; Picardi1993; Tappenden 1995b; Weiner 1990, ch. 3. For more on Frege’sphilosophy, see the entry onFrege.)

Annotated Bibliography, §6.2

3. Bertrand Russell

InMy Philosophical Development, Bertrand Russell(1872–1970) wrote: “Ever since I abandoned the philosophyof Kant and Hegel, I have sought solutions of philosophical problemsby means of analysis; and I remain firmly persuaded, in spite of somemodern tendencies to the contrary, that only by analysing is progresspossible” (MPD, 11). Similar remarks are made elsewhere(cf., e.g.,POM, 3;IMP, 1–2;PLA,189 {Quotations}). Unfortunately, however, Russell never spells out just what he meansby ‘analysis’—or rather, if we piece together hisscattered remarks on analysis, they by no means reflect his actualpractice. In a paper entitled ‘The Regressive Method ofDiscovering the Premises of Mathematics’, dating from 1907, forexample, Russell talks of ‘analysis’ in the regressivesense, i.e., as the process of working back to ‘ultimate logicalpremises’, and this as an inductive rather than deductiveprocess. In the chapter on analysis and synthesis in his abandoned1913 manuscript,Theory of Knowledge, on the other hand, hedefines ‘analysis’ as “the discovery of theconstituents and the manner of combination of a given complex”(TK, 119 {Quotation}). This best captures Russell’s ‘official’ view, anddecompositional analysis undoubtedly played a major role inRussell’s thought (cf. Hylton 1996; Beaney 2007a). Yet, assuggested in§6 of the main document, what characterizes the founding by Frege andRussell of (at least one central strand in) the analytic movement wasthe use made of logical analysis, in which a crucial element was theformalization of ordinary language statements into a logicallanguage.

It was logical analysis that was involved in Russell’scelebrated theory of descriptions, first presented in ‘OnDenoting’ in 1905, which Ramsey called a ‘paradigm ofphilosophy’ and which played a major role in the establishmentof analytic philosophy. In this theory, (Ka) is rephrased as (Kb),which can then be readily formalized in the new logic as (Kc):

(Ka) The present King of France is bald.

(Kb) There is one and only one King of France, and whatever is King ofFrance is bald.

(Kc) ∃x (Kx & ∀y(Ky →y =x) &Bx).

The problems generated by attempting to analyse (Ka)decompositionally disappear in this analysis. Russell’sproblem was this: if there is no King of France, then the subject termin (Ka)—the definite description ‘the present King ofFrance’—would seem to lack a meaning, in which case howcould the whole have a meaning? Russell solved this problem by‘analysing away’ the definite description. The definitedescription has no meaning in itself, but (Ka) as a whole does have ameaning, a meaning that is given by (Kb), to which (Ka) is seen asequivalent. The meaning of (Kb) has still to be explained, but thiscan be done by drawing on the resources of the logical theory, inwhich the logical constants and quantificational structure revealed in(Kc) are clarified.

Just as Frege provided a diagnosis of what is wrong with theontological argument, at least in its traditional form (see§6 of the main entry), so Russell showed how to avoid unnecessaryreification of the purported objects of our discourse. If we can findan equivalent to a statement involving some problematic expression,then the problems drop away in the very process of‘translating’ it into a logical language. Although Fregehimself seems not to have fully appreciated the eliminativistpossibilities opened up by this strategy of logical analysis, Russellclearly did, and in the process initiated a reductionist programmethat has been influential ever since. Although, as Russell andWhitehead acknowledge in their preface toPrincipiaMathematica, “In all questions of logical analysis, ourchief debt is to Frege” (PM, viii), Russell’s ownadvance lay in extending logical analysis and in suggesting thepossibilities of eliminativism.

(For further discussion of Russell’s theory of descriptions andits development, see Beaney 2016; Griffin 1996; Hylton 1990, ch. 6;2003; 2007; Linsky and Imaguire 2005; Neale 2005; Noonan 1996. Formore on other aspects of Russell’s philosophy, see the entriesonBertrand Russell,Russell’s Paradox,Russell’s Logical Atomism, andLogical Constructions.)

Annotated Bibliography, §6.3

4. G. E. Moore

G. E. Moore (1873–1958) is generally regarded as one of thefounders of analytic philosophy, yet his own early conception ofanalysis is surprisingly traditional. In ‘The Nature ofJudgement’, published in 1899, he sees analysis simply as thedecomposition of complex concepts (which is what propositions were forMoore at the time) into their constituents: “A thing becomesintelligible first when it is analysed into its constituentconcepts” (NJ, 8 {Quotation}). This conception underlies the main theses of Moore’s firstmajor work,Principia Ethica (1903), including his famous‘open question’ argument.

In the first chapter, entitled ‘The Subject-Matter ofEthics’, Moore considers how ‘good’ is to bedefined. By ‘definition’ here Moore means‘real’ rather than ‘nominal’ definition,concerned not with the meaning of a word but with the nature of theobject denoted (cf.PE, 6). He comes to the conclusion that‘good’ is indefinable, since good has no parts into whichit can be decomposed:

My point is that ‘good’ is a simple notion, just as‘yellow’ is a simple notion; that, just as you cannot, byany manner of means, explain to any one who does not already know it,what yellow is, so you cannot explain what good is. Definitions of thekind that I was asking for, definitions which describe the real natureof the object or notion denoted by a word, and which do not merelytell us what the word is used to mean, are only possible when theobject or notion in question is something complex. You can give adefinition of a horse, because a horse has many different propertiesand qualities, all of which you can enumerate. But when you haveenumerated them all, when you have reduced a horse to his simplestterms, then you no longer define those terms. They are simplysomething which you think of or perceive, and to any one who cannotthink of or perceive them, you can never, by any definition, maketheir nature known. (PE, 7)

Insofar as something is complex, according to Moore, it can be‘defined’ in terms of its component parts, and, unless weare to go onad infinitum, we must eventually reach simpleparts, which cannot themselves be defined (PE, 7–8).Since ‘good’, like ‘yellow’, is not a complexnotion, it is indefinable.

Moore’s ‘open question’ argument is then offered tosupport his claim that ‘good’ is indefinable. Consider aproposed definition of the form:

(G) The Good isX.

(Suggested candidates for ‘X’ might be‘that which causes pleasure’ or ‘that which wedesire to desire’; cf.PE, 15–16.) Then either‘the Good’ means the same as ‘X’, orit does not. If it does, then the definition is trivial, since‘analytic’; but if it does not, then the definition isincorrect. But for any substitution for‘X’—other than ‘the Good’itself, which would obviously make (G) analytic—we can alwaysraise the question (i.e., it is always an ‘open question’)as to whether (G) is true; so ‘X’ cannot mean thesame as ‘the Good’ and hence cannot be offered as adefinition of ‘good’. In particular, any attempt atproviding anaturalistic definition of ‘good’ isbound to fail, the contrary view being dubbed by Moore the‘naturalistic fallacy’.

This argument has been influential—and controversial—inmetaethical discussions ever since. But in its general form what wehave here is theparadox of analysis. (Although the problemitself goes back to the paradox of inquiry formulated in Plato’sMeno, and can be found articulated in Frege’s writings,too {Quotation}, the term ‘paradox of analysis’ was indeed first used inrelation to Moore’s work, by Langford in 1942.) Consider ananalysis of the form ‘A isC’, whereA is theanalysandum (what is analysed) andC theanalysans (what is offered as the analysis).Then either ‘A’ and ‘C’ havethe same meaning, in which case the analysis expresses a trivialidentity; or else they do not, in which case the analysis isincorrect. So it would seem that no analysis can be both correct andinformative.

There is a great deal that might be said about the paradox ofanalysis. At the very least, it seems to cry out for a distinctionbetween two kinds of ‘meaning’, such as the distinctionbetween ‘sense’ and ‘reference’ that Fregedrew, arguably precisely in response to this problem (see Beaney 2005;2017, ch. 3). An analysis might then be deemed correct if‘A’ and ‘C’ have the samereference, and informative if ‘C’ has adifferent, or more richly articulated,sense than‘A’. In his own response, when the paradox wasput to him in 1942, Moore talks of theanalysandum and theanalysans being the sameconcept in a correctanalysis, but having differentexpressions. But he admittedthat he had no clear solution to the problem (RC, 666). Andif this is so, then it is equally unclear that no definition of‘good’—whether naturalistic or not—ispossible.

However, if Moore provided no general solution to the paradox ofanalysis, his work does offer clarifications of individual concepts,and his later writings are characterized by the painstaking attentionto the nuances of language that was to influence Oxford linguisticphilosophy, in particular.

(For fuller discussion of Moore’s conception of philosophicalanalysis, see Baldwin 1990, ch. 7; Bell 1999. For more onMoore’s philosophy, see the entries onGeorge Edward Moore,Moore’s Moral Philosophy, andMoral Non-Naturalism.)

Annotated Bibliography, §6.4

5. Ludwig Wittgenstein

In the preface to his first work, theTractatusLogico-Philosophicus, Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951)records his debt to both Frege and Russell. From Frege he inheritedthe assumptions that the logic that Frege had developed wasthe logic of our language and that propositions areessentially of function–argument form. “I construe aproposition—like Frege and Russell—as a function of theexpressions contained in it” (TLP, 3.318; cf. 5.47).From Russell he learnt the significance of the theory of descriptions.“Russell’s merit is to have shown that the apparentlogical form of a proposition need not be its real one”(TLP, 4.0031). Unlike Frege and Russell, however, he thoughtthat ordinary language is in perfect logical order as it is(TLP, 5.5563). The aim was just to show how this is sothrough the construction of an idealnotation rather than anideallanguage, revealing the underlying semantic structureof ordinary propositions no longer obscured by their surface syntacticform.

Arguably unlike Frege, too, Wittgenstein was convinced at the time oftheTractatus that “There is one and only one completeanalysis of a proposition” (TLP, 3.25). Thecharacteristic theses of theTractatus result from thinkingthrough the consequences of this, in the context of Fregean logic.Propositions are seen as truth-functions of elementary propositions(4.221, 5, 5.3), and elementary propositions as functions of names(4.22, 4.24). The meaning of each name is the simple object that itstands for (3.203, 3.22), and these simple objects necessarily existas the condition of the meaningfulness of language (2.02 ff.). ForWittgenstein, the existence of simple objects was guaranteed by therequirement that sense be determinate (3.23; cf.NB, 63). Itwas in this way that Wittgenstein reached conclusions—which atleastappear metaphysical—by rigorously pursuing theimplications of his logical views. As he noted in hisNotebooks in 1916, “My work has extended from thefoundations of logic to the nature of the world” (NB,79).

According to Wittgenstein, then, analysis—inprinciple—takes us to the ultimate constituents of propositions,and indeed, to the nature of the world itself. That Wittgenstein wasunable to give any examples of simple objects was not seen as anobjection to the logical conception itself. Equally definiteconclusions were drawn as far as our thought was concerned. “Ifwe know on purely logical grounds that there must be elementarypropositions, then everyone who understands propositions in theirunanalysed form must know it” (TLP, 5.5562). The claimmight seem obviously false, but it was precisely the task of analysisto bring out what we onlytacitly know.

This whole logical and metaphysical picture was dismantled inWittgenstein’s later work (see especiallyPI,§§ 1–242). The assumption that Fregean logic providesthe logic of language and the world was rejected, and themany different uses of language were stressed. The idea that namesmean their bearers, the various theses of functionality andcompositionality, and the associated appeal to tacit processes ofgenerating meaning were criticized. On Wittgenstein’s laterview, “nothing is hidden” (PI, §435; cf.Malcolm 1986, 116); philosophy is simply a matter of getting clearabout what is already in the public domain—the grammar of ourlanguage (PI, §§ 122, 126).

Our investigation is therefore a grammatical one. Such aninvestigation sheds light on our problem by clearing misunderstandingsaway. Misunderstandings concerning the use of words, caused, amongother things, by certain analogies between the forms of expression indifferent regions of language.—Some of them can be removed bysubstituting one form of expression for another; this may be called an‘analysis’ of our forms of expression, for the process issometimes like one of taking a thing apart. (PI, §90 {Full Quotation})

Wittgenstein’s earlier conception of analysis, as combininglogical analysis with decompositional analysis, has given way to whathas been called ‘connective’ analysis (Strawson 1992, ch.2; Hacker 1996, ch. 5). Given how deeply embedded that earlierconception was in the whole metaphysics of theTractatus, thecritique of theTractatus has been seen by some to imply therejection of analysis altogether. But Wittgenstein does not repudiateanalysis altogether, although (as the passage just quoted suggests) hedoes tend to think of ‘analysis’ primarily in its crudedecompositional sense. Not only may logical analysis, in the sense of‘translating’ into a logical language, still have value infreeing us from misleading views of language, but connective analysisis also a form of analysis (as we have shown throughout this entry,and as we shall see further in the next three sections).

(For further discussion, see Beaney 2017, ch. 4; 2023; Engelmann 2021;Glock 1996, 203–8; Hacker 1996, chs. 2, 5; Malcolm 1986, chs.6–7; McGinn 2006; White 2006. For more on Wittgenstein’sphilosophy, see the entries onLudwig Wittgenstein andWittgenstein’s Logical Atomism.)

Annotated Bibliography, §6.5

6. Susan Stebbing and the Cambridge School of Analysis

The Cambridge School of Analysis, as it was known at the time, wasprimarily active in the 1930s. Based in Cambridge, it drew itsinspiration from the logical atomism of Russell and Wittgenstein andthe earlier work of Moore. Susan Stebbing (1885–1943) was itsleading figure, not least for writing what was in effect the firsttextbook of analytic philosophy,A Modern Introduction toLogic, which was published in 1930, with a second edition in1933. As well as Stebbing and Moore himself, its members included JohnWisdom, Max Black and Austin Duncan-Jones. Together with C. A. Maceand Gilbert Ryle, Stebbing and Duncan-Jones (who was its first editor)founded the journalAnalysis, which first appeared inNovember 1933 and which remains a key journal of analytic philosophytoday.

The paradigm of analysis at this time was Russell’s theory ofdescriptions, which (as we have seen in relation to Russell andWittgenstein above) opened up the whole project of rephrasingpropositions into their ‘correct’ logical form, not onlyto avoid the problems generated by misleading surface grammaticalform, but also to reveal their ‘deep structure’. Embeddedin the metaphysics of logical atomism, this gave rise to the idea ofanalysis as the process of uncovering the ultimate constituents of ourpropositions (or the primitive elements of the ‘facts’that our propositions represent).

This characterization suggests a distinction that has already beenimplicitly drawn, and which was first explicitly drawn in the 1930s bySusan Stebbing (1932, 1933b, 1934) and John Wisdom (1934), inparticular, between what was called ‘logical’ or‘same-level’ analysis and ‘philosophical’ or‘metaphysical’ or ‘reductive’ or‘directional’ or ‘new-level’ analysis. Thefirst translates the proposition to be analysed into better logicalform, whilst the second aims to exhibit its metaphysicalpresuppositions. In Russell’s case, having ‘analysedaway’ the definite description, what is then shown is just whatcommitments remain—to logical constants and concepts, which mayin turn require further analysis to ‘reduce’ them tothings of our supposed immediate acquaintance.

The value of drawing this distinction is that it allows us to acceptthe first type of analysis but reject the second, which is just whatMax Black (1933) did in responding to Stebbing (1933b). Attacking theidea of metaphysical analysis as uncovering facts, he considers thefollowing example:

(E) Every economist is fallible.

Black suggests that a metaphysical analysis, on Stebbing’sconception, at least at an intermediate level, would yield thefollowing set of facts:

(E#) Maynard Keynes is fallible, Josiah Stamp is fallible, etc.

Yet (E) does not mean the same as (E#), Black objects, unless‘means’ is being used loosely in the sense of‘entails’. But analysis cannot exhibit the propositionsentailed, since this would require knowing, in this example, the nameof every economist. The correct analysis, Black suggests, issimply:

(E*) (x) (x is an economist) entails (x isfallible).

This is a logical analysis of structure rather than a metaphysicaluncovering of facts. (1933, 257)

Similar arguments might be offered in the case of other generalpropositions, which together with negative propositions provedparticularly resistant to ‘reductive’ analysis, and therejection of the latter in favour of logical analysis, and later,linguistic analysis, came to characterize the next phase of analyticphilosophy.

(For further discussion, see Baldwin 2013; Beaney 2002b; Hacker 1996,ch. 4; Passmore 1966, ch. 15; Urmson 1956. For more onStebbing’s philosophy, see the entry onSusan Stebbing.)

Annotated Bibliography, §6.6

7. Rudolf Carnap and Logical Positivism: Quasi-analysis and Explication

The rejection of metaphysical analysis is characteristic of logicalpositivism, which developed in Vienna during the 1920s and 1930s. Thecentral figure was Rudolf Carnap (1891–1970), who was influencednot only by Frege, Russell and Wittgenstein but also by neo-Kantianism(see Friedman 2000, Richardson 1998). His work can be seen as markingthe transition to logical and linguistic forms of analysisunencumbered, at least officially, by metaphysical baggage.

Carnap’s key methodological conception in his first major work,Der logische Aufbau der Welt (1928) is that ofquasi-analysis. Carnap held that the fundamental‘units’ of experience were not the qualities (the colours,shapes, etc.) involved in individual experiences, but thoseexperiences themselves, taken as indivisible wholes. But this meantthat analysis—understood in the decompositionalsense—could not yield these qualities, precisely becausethey were not seen asconstituents of the elementaryexperiences (1928, §68). Instead, they were to be‘constructed’ byquasi-analysis, a method thatmimics analysis in yielding ‘quasi-constituents’, butwhich proceeds ‘synthetically’ rather than‘analytically’ (1928, §§ 69, 74).

In essence, Carnap’s method of quasi-analysis is just thatmethod of logical abstraction that Frege had used in §62 of theGrundlagen (albeit without seeing it as‘abstraction’). An equivalence relation holding betweenthings of one kind (concepts in Frege’s case) is used to defineor ‘construct’ things of another kind (numbers inFrege’s case). Just as numbers are notconstituents ofthe concepts to which they are ascribed, but can be constructed fromappropriate equivalence relations, so too can other‘quasi-constituents’ be constructed. (For detaileddiscussion of quasi-analysis, and the complications and difficultiesthat it gives rise to, see Goodman 1977, ch. 5; Richardson 1998, ch.2.)

Carnap’s use of the term ‘quasi-analysis’ isrevealing, for the ‘quasi’ suggests that he is still inthrall to the decompositional conception of analysis, despite hisrecognition that there are other forms of analysis, e.g., which useabstraction instead. By the early 1930s, however, Carnap is happy touse the term ‘analysis’—or more specifically,‘logical analysis’—for methods of abstraction andconstruction. In a paper called ‘The Method of LogicalAnalysis’, given at a conference in 1934, for example, he wrote:“The logical analysis of a particular expression consists in thesetting-up of a linguistic system and the placing of that expressionin this system” (1936, 143). By this time, Carnap’s‘linguistic turn’ had occurred (see Carnap 1932, 1934);but the conception underlying theAufbau remained: analysisinvolves exhibiting the structural relations of something by locatingit in an abstract theoretical system.

In his later work Carnap talks of analysis as‘explication’, though this also goes back to theAufbau, where Carnap talked of ‘rationalreconstruction’. (The connection between the two ideas is madeclear in Carnap’s preface to the 2nd edition of theAufbau). InMeaning and Necessity (1947), Carnapcharacterizes explication as follows:

The task of making more exact a vague or not quite exact concept usedin everyday life or in an earlier stage of scientific or logicaldevelopment, or rather of replacing it by a newly constructed, moreexact concept, belongs among the most important tasks of logicalanalysis and logical construction. We call this the task ofexplicating, or of giving anexplication for, the earlierconcept … (1947, 7–8)

Carnap gives as examples Frege’s and Russell’s logicistexplication of number terms such as ‘two’—“theterm ‘two’ in the not quite exact meaning in which it isused in everyday life and in applied mathematics”—andtheir different explications of definite descriptions (1947, 8).

A fuller discussion of explication is provided in the first chapter ofLogical Foundations of Probability (1950 {Quotation}), where Carnap offers criteria of adequacy for explication, and givesas his main example the concept of temperature as explicating thevaguer concept of warmth. The idea of a scientifically defined conceptreplacing an everyday concept may be problematic, but theidea that analysis involves ‘translating’ something into aricher theoretical system is not only prominent in a central strand inanalytic philosophy but has also been implicit in analytic projectsthroughout the history of philosophy. It can be found right at thebeginning, for example, in ancient Greek geometry, though it becamemuch more explicit in analytic geometry (see the supplementary sectiononDescartes and Analytic Geometry). It was not therefore new, but it was certainly foregrounded inphilosophy and given a modern lease of life in the context of the newlogical systems developed by Frege, Russell and Carnap.

(For further discussion of Carnap’s methodology, see Beaney2004; Beth 1963; Coffa 1991, Part II; Proust 1989, Part IV; Strawson1963; Uebel 1992. For more on Carnap’s philosophy, see the entryonRudolf Carnap.)

Annotated Bibliography, §6.7

8. Oxford Linguistic Philosophy: Linguistic and Connective Analysis

Michael Dummett (1991a, 111) has suggested that the precise moment atwhich the ‘linguistic turn’ in philosophy was taken is§62 of Frege’sGrundlagen, where in answer to thequestion as to how numbers are given to us, Frege proposes to definethe sense of a proposition in which a number term occurs. Dummett hasalso stated that ‘the fundamental axiom of analyticalphilosophy’ is that “the only route to the analysis ofthought goes through the analysis of language” (1993, 128). Yetboth Frege and Russell were hostile to ordinary language, and the‘linguistic turn’ was only properly taken inWittgenstein’sTractatus, before being consolidated inthe work of Carnap in the early 1930s. But Dummett’s axiom hasbeen held by many analytic philosophers and it was certainlycharacteristic of Oxford philosophy in the two decades or so after theSecond World War.

Gilbert Ryle (1900–76) can be taken as representative here. Inone of his earliest works, dating from before the war, he had arguedthat language is ‘systematically misleading’ (1932),although as he himself later remarked (in Rorty 1967, 305 {Quotation}), he was still under the influence of the idea that was always a‘correct’ logical form to be uncovered (see§6 of the main document). But with the breakdown of logical atomism (see§6 above), the emphasis shifted to the careful description of what Rylecalled the ‘logical geography’ of our concepts.Ryle’s most important work wasThe Concept of Mind,published in 1949, in which he argued that the Cartesian dogma of the‘Ghost in the Machine’ was the result of a‘category-mistake’, confusing mental descriptions with thelanguage of physical events. Again, Ryle was later critical of theimplication that the single notion of a category-mistake couldfunction as a ‘skeleton-key’ for all problems (1954, 9);but the detailed accounts of individual concepts that he provided inhis work as a whole demonstrated the power and value of linguisticanalysis, and offered a model for other philosophers. In chapter 2,for example, he draws a distinction betweenknowing how andknowing that, about which there has been much debate inrecent epistemology. There are many things that Iknow how todo—such as ride a bicycle—without being able to explainwhat I am doing, i.e., withoutknowing that I am followingsuch-and-such a rule. The temptation to assimilateknowinghow toknowing that must thus be resisted.

J. L. Austin (1911–60) was another influential figure in Oxfordat the time. Like Ryle, he emphasized the need to pay carefulattention to our ordinary use of language, describing hismethodological approach as ‘linguistic phenomenology’(1956, 182). He was influential in the creation of speech-act theory,with such distinctions as that between locutionary, illocutionary andperlocutionary acts (1962a). Although Austin shared Ryle’sbelief that reflection on language could resolve traditionalphilosophical problems, linguistic analysis has since come to beemployed more and more as a tool in the construction of theories oflanguage. But one good illustration of the importance of suchreflection for philosophy occurs in section IV of Austin’s bookSense and Sensibilia (1962b), where Austin considers thevarious uses of the verbs ‘appear’, ‘look’ and‘seem’. Compare, for example, the following (1962b,36):

(1) He looks guilty.

(2) He appears guilty.

(3) He seems guilty.

There are clearly differences here, and thinking through suchdifferences enables one to appreciate just how crude some of thearguments are for theories of perception that appeal to‘sense-data’.

Ryle, in particular, dominated the philosophical scene at Oxford (andperhaps in Britain more generally) in the 1950s and 1960s. He wasWaynflete Professor of Metaphysical Philosophy from 1945 to 1968 andEditor ofMind from 1947 to 1971. His successor in the chairwas P. F. Strawson (1919–2006), whose critique ofRussell’s theory of descriptions in his own seminal paper of1950, ‘On Referring’, and hisIntroduction to LogicalTheory of 1952 had also helped establish ordinary languagephilosophy as a counterweight to the tradition of Frege, Russell andCarnap. The appearance ofIndividuals in 1959 andTheBounds of Sense in 1966 signalled a return to metaphysics, but itwas a metaphysics that Strawson called ‘descriptive’ (asopposed to ‘revisionary’) metaphysics, aimed at clarifyingour fundamental conceptual frameworks. It is here that we can see how‘connective’ analysis has replaced ‘reductive’analysis; and this shift was explicitly discussed in the work Strawsonpublished shortly after he retired,Analysis and Metaphysics(1992). Strawson notes that analysis has often been thought of as“a kind of breaking down or decomposing of something”(1992, 2), but points out that it also has a more comprehensive sense(1992, 19), which he draws on in offering a ‘connectivemodel’ of analysis to contrast with the ‘reductive oratomistic model’ (1992, 21). Our most basic concepts, on thisview, are ‘irreducible’, but not ‘simple’:

A concept may be complex, in the sense that its philosophicalelucidation requires the establishing of its connections with otherconcepts, and yet at the same time irreducible, in the sense that itcannot be defined away, without circularity, in terms of those otherconcepts to which it is necessarily related. (1992, 22–3)

Such a view was not new. The point had also been made by A. C. Ewing,for example, in a book on ethics published in 1953. Respondingdirectly to Moore’s arguments inPrincipia Ethica (see§4 above), Ewing remarks that “To maintain that good isindefinable is not to maintain that we cannot know what it is like orthat we cannot say anything about it but only that it is not reducibleto anything else” (1953, 89). Whatever one’s view ofreductionist programmes, an essential part of philosophy has alwaysbeen the clarification of our fundamental concepts. Reflected in theidea of connective analysis, it is perhaps this, above all, that hasallowed talk of ‘analytic’ philosophy to continue despitethe demise of logical atomism and logical positivism.

(For further discussion, see Baldwin 2001; Beaney 2007b; Hacker 1996,ch. 6; Lyons 1980; Passmore 1966, ch. 18; Rorty 1967; Stroll 2000, ch.6; Warnock 1989. For more on Ryle’s philosophy, see the entry onGilbert Ryle, on Austin’s philosophy, see the entry onJohn Langshaw Austin, and on Strawson’s philosophy, see the entry onPeter Frederick Strawson.)

Annotated Bibliography, §6.8

9. Conceptual Analysis

As mentioned at the beginning of this entry, (Western) analyticphilosophy should really be seen as a set of interlockingsubtraditions held together by a shared repertoire of conceptions ofanalysis upon which individual philosophers draw in different ways.There are conflicts between these various subtraditions. In hisinaugural lecture of 1969, ‘Meaning and Truth’, Strawsonspoke of a ‘Homeric struggle’ between theorists of formalsemantics, as represented in their different ways by Frege, the earlyWittgenstein and Chomsky, and theorists of communication-intention, asrepresented by Austin, Paul Grice and the later Wittgenstein (1969,171–2). The ideas of the former were to be developed, mostnotably, by Donald Davidson and Michael Dummett, and the ideas of thelatter by Strawson himself and John Searle; and the debate hascontinued to this day, ramifying into many areas of philosophy. Nor isthere agreement on what Dummett called the ‘fundamentalaxiom’ of analytic philosophy, that the analysis of language isprior to the analysis of thought (1993, 128). As Dummett himself noted(ibid., 4), Gareth Evans’s work,The Varieties ofReference (1982), would seem to put him outside the analytictradition, so characterized. To suggest that he only remains inside invirtue of “adopting a certain philosophical style and …appealing to certain writers rather than to certain others”(Dummett 1993, 5) is already to admit the inadequacy of thecharacterization.

Since the 1960s, the centre of gravity of analytic philosophy hasshifted towards North America, counterbalanced slightly by theblossoming in recent years of analytic philosophy in continentalEurope, South America and Asia and its continued growth inAustralasia. Although many of the logical positivists—mostnotably, Carnap—emigrated to the United States in the 1930s, ittook a while for their ideas to take root and develop. W. V. O. Quine(1908–2000) is the towering figure here, and his famous critiqueof Carnap’s analytic/synthetic distinction (Quine 1951) wasinstrumental in inaugurating a view of philosophy as continuous withthe natural sciences, with the corresponding rejection of the viewthat there was anything distinctive about conceptual analysis. Hiscritique was questioned at the time by Grice and Strawson (1956), butit was only in the 1990s that the issue was revisited with a morecharitable view of Carnap (Ebbs 1997, Part II; Friedman 1999, ch. 9;Richardson 1998, ch. 9).

One defence of conceptual analysis, with a qualified rejection ofQuine’s critique of analyticity, was offered by Frank Jackson inhis book,From Metaphysics to Ethics (1998). OnJackson’s view, the role of conceptual analysis is to makeexplicit our ‘folk theory’ about a given matter,elucidating our concepts by considering how individuals classifypossibilities (1998, 31–3). To the extent that it involves‘making best sense’ of our responses (ibid., 36), it iscloser to what Quine called ‘paraphrasing’ (1960,§§ 33, 53) than the simple recording of our ordinaryintuitions (Jackson 1998, 45). Jackson argues for a‘modest’ role for conceptual analysis, but in so far as headmits that a certain “massaging of folk intuitions” maybe required (ibid., 47), it is not clear that his conception is asneutral as he suggests. Consider, for example, his central argument inchapter 4, offered in defence of the view that colours are primaryqualities of objects (ibid., 93):

(Pr. 1) Yellowness is the property of objects putatively presented tosubjects when those objects look yellow.

(Pr. 2) The property of objects putatively presented to subjects whenthe objects look yellow is at least a normal cause of their lookingyellow.

(Pr. 3) The only causes (normal or otherwise) of objects’looking yellow are complexes of physical qualities.

(Conc.) Yellowness is a complex of the physical qualities ofobjects.

(Pr. 1) exemplifies what Jackson calls our “prime intuitionabout colour”, (Pr. 2) is a “conceptual truth aboutpresentation”, and (Pr. 3) is the empirical truth that isrequired to reach the metaphysical conclusion (Conc.) that‘locates’ yellowness in our ontology. (Pr. 1) is intendedto encapsulate our ordinary ‘folk view’. But as it standsit is ambiguous. Does (Pr. 1) say that thereis a property,but one about which we are unsure whether it is really presented to usor not, or that the property itself is only putative? The latterreading is closest to the ‘triviality’ Jackson says hewants as his “secure starting-place”, which might bebetter expressed as “yellowness is the property objects look tohave when they look yellow” (cf. 1998, 89); but it is the formerthat is doing the work in the argument. If the property itself is onlyputative (i.e., if colours are not properties of objects at all, assome people have held), then (Pr. 2) is false; at the very least, itis not a conceptual truth that putative properties can be normalcauses. This is not to say that Jackson is wrong about the primaryquality view of colour. But it does illustrate just what assumptionsmay already be involved in articulating ‘folk intuitions’,even on a supposedly ‘modest’ understanding of conceptualanalysis. In the end, as the history of conceptions of analysis shows,no conception can be dissociated from the logical and metaphysicalcontext in which it operates.

(For further discussion, see Beaney 2001 (on Jackson); Dummett 1993;Hacker 1996, chs. 7–8; Hookway 1988 (on Quine); Stroll 2000,chs. 7–9.)

Annotated Bibliography, §6.9

10. Conceptual Engineering

In recent years there has been growing interest in what is called‘conceptual engineering’, seen by some as the successor toconceptual analysis, with greater focus on the evaluation andimprovement of concepts. The idea goes back to at least Carnap’sconception of ‘explication’ (see §7 above), accordingto which a vague concept used in everyday life is replaced by a moreexact, scientifically defined concept. In a paper published in 2000,entitled ‘Gender and Race: (What) Are They? (What) Do We WantThem to Be?’, Sally Haslanger argued that our ordinary conceptsof gender and race are defective, in leading to undesirable socialeffects, and should be replaced by new concepts, a project that shetermed ‘ameliorative analysis’. In her later work,Resisting Reality (2012), she drew back from talk of‘replacement’, suggesting that the project was more amatter of making clearer the concepts we already have. It was‘analysis’ rather than ‘explication’, thoughqualifying it by ‘ameliorative’ indicated the revisionaryaim.

In his monograph,Replacing Truth (2013), Kevin Sharp wasmore explicit about the explicatory character of his project: theconcept of truth, he argued, was inconsistent, and at least for thepurposes of formal logic, did indeed need to be replaced—by twonew concepts of ‘ascending truth’ and ‘descendingtruth’. Also in 2013 Alexis Burgess and David Plunkett publishedtwo papers on what they called ‘conceptual ethics’,defined as concerned with “normative and evaluative issues[hence the ‘ethics’] about representational choices andchanges [hence the ‘conceptual’]” and described as“a nice partner to broad uses of ‘conceptualanalysis’” (2013a, §3). In 2018 HermanCappelen’s book,Fixing Language: An Essay on ConceptualEngineering, appeared. As well as tracing the roots of conceptualengineering in the work of Frege and Carnap, it also addresses variousphilosophical questions that arise in such revisionary projects,especially concerning issues of language and communication.

The two ideas of conceptual engineering and conceptual ethics werebrought together in a collection of papers edited by Burgess, Cappelenand Plunkett, which was published in 2020. The introduction attemptsto stitch the two ideas together, united in the (ironically) vagueidea of evaluating and improving concepts, but it is clear from theexamples that are given and explored that there is a whole range ofevaluative and ameliorative strategies. There can be no‘theory’ of conceptual engineering (or conceptual ethics)any more than there can be a ‘theory’ of analysis. Whattakes its place is detailed accounts of all the cases thatare—or could be—described as conceptual engineering. Andwhen it comes to identifying such cases, we are told that they arefound throughout the history of philosophy, with history of analyticphilosophy a particularly rich source:

Many philosophers, working in many different theoretical traditions,across many centuries, have thought of their work as involving somekind of conceptual engineering or conceptual ethics, and/or conceivedof the work of other philosophers along such lines (even if theydidn’t use the terminology we use here). ... Frege,Wittgenstein, Carnap, Stebbing, and other founders of analyticphilosophy were extensively engaged in conceptual engineering. Sorather than describe conceptual engineering as a ‘hot’ newtopic in analytic philosophy, we could instead think of it as simplypaying more attention to a key aspect of analytic philosophy that hasbeen with us since it[s] origins. (2020, 18–19)

In effect, the concept of conceptual engineering is being offered as areplacement for the concept of conceptual analysis, presumably on theground that ‘traditional’ conceptual analysis wasinsufficiently evaluative and ameliorative. But if Frege and otherswere ‘extensively engaged’ in conceptual engineering, thenthey were doing this after all, even if only implicitly. There maywell be forms of conceptual analysis that are part of revisionaryprojects that are insufficiently recognized as such, and talk ofconceptual engineering and conceptual ethics may encourage us to doso. No doubt, too, in a climate in which science is the model forresearch, talk of conceptual ‘engineering’ may be morelikely to attract funding than centuries-old talk of‘analysis’ (and as science increasingly raises ethicalquestions, talk of conceptual ‘ethics’ may also seem hotand trendy). There may be value in weaving new clothes for analysis,but the analytic projects that form the content of the history ofphilosophy are still there to be returned to, unpicked, interpreted,and (re)connected—all in accord with the four modes of analysisdistinguished in this entry. Analysing these analytic projects itselfmay be motivated by the prospects of reviving or revising them for newpurposes in contemporary contexts, and concern with conceptualengineering and conceptual ethics can be seen as just the most recentinstance of this continually evolving philosophical process.

Annotated Bibliography, §6.10

11. Conclusion

What is generally regarded today as analytic philosophy has its rootsin the work of Frege and Russell and their development and use oflogical analysis, in particular. Since then, it has broadened andramified into a highly complex tradition in which various forms andconceptions of analysis compete and pull in different directions.Reductive and connective, revisionary and descriptive, linguistic andpsychological, formal and empirical elements all coexist in creativetension; and it is this creative tension that is the great strength ofthe analytic tradition. The very idea of analysis, then, has evolvedin the processes of philosophical thinking, with the history ofanalytic philosophy being just the latest chapter in a rich andfascinating story that is continually being rewritten as it inspiresnew generations of thinkers.