A Map of Analytic Philosophy

From the opening pages

Analytic philosophy is not a doctrine. This is the first disappointment. A doctrine would be convenient. It would let us say, “Analytic philosophers believe X,” then write X on a card, memorize it, and feel educated by Thursday. But analytic philosophy is less like a creed and more like a way of behaving in the presence of claims. It is a style, a discipline, a set of intellectual manners, and occasionally a personality disorder with footnotes.

The analytic philosopher’s first question is not usually “What is the destiny of humanity?” or “How does Spirit reveal itself in history?” or “What cosmic wound gives birth to meaning?” These are perfectly respectable questions, especially if one has a cloak. The analytic philosopher is more likely to ask, “What do you mean by that?” This question sounds small. It is not small. It is a crowbar.

Analytic philosophy grew into a recognizable tradition in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, especially in Britain, Austria, Germany, and later the United States. Its early figures include Gottlob Frege, Bertrand Russell, G. E. Moore, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and later philosophers such as Gilbert Ryle, J. L. Austin, Elizabeth Anscombe, Peter Strawson, Willard Van Orman Quine, Saul Kripke, and many others. The names matter not because they formed a club with matching badges, though one suspects Russell would have designed a rather severe one, but because they helped make philosophy more attentive to logic, language, argument, and analysis.