The Analytic Approach in Philosophy

I started writing my third post for this blog but it ended up becoming a draft paper on my philosophical methodology¹ so there’s been a gap of time since my last blog post.

(I’ve also accidentally been on Pacific Time apparently, according to my blog settings, so my times are wrong but I’ve corrected it for this post.)

Here I want to carry on from a fuller version of the last quote, which I cite in that draft paper, namely:

‘There is a sense of community among contributors to these debates, however overtly critical analytic philosophers can seem of each other’s work. Progress comes through criticism, often in the form of unexpected counterexamples to general theses. Jenefer Robinson’s paper on “Expression and Arousal of Emotion in Music” (Part XI) nicely illustrates how a debate advances. She enters into a dialogue with other contributors and defines her own position in relation to theirs. This is the familiar analytic mode. The cumulative effect of such debates is a sense of concentrated effort on carefully circumscribed ground”²

I like the way Lamarque and Olsen have chosen a female philosopher as an example of someone who successfully demonstrates how analytic philosophy goes about constructive debate. This, I think, helps bust the myth that women are not naturally suited to debates structured around counter-argument. Surely, to assume that this style of argumentation requires male traits is, in itself, a sexist assumption? Attributing aggressive, antagonistic and adversarial intentions to the analytic approach to philosophy is unfounded and misleading. If philosophy is conducted as a general humanities style discussion, then philosophy loses its distinctive flavour and contribution as a discipline. It makes it indistinguishable from intellectual history which effectively merely states and reproduces what people have thought down the ages. This eradicates the valuable tools of philosophy which uses logic and features of scientific discourse to dissect, investigate, evaluate and critically assess arguments in philosophy/philosophical texts to arrive at the truth and to engage in independent thinking. It also begs the question which ideas, which groups of people are these historians picking out. This makes it just as susceptible to being influenced by bias and ideology as any other subject. The History of Ideas must not be confused with the History of Philosophy. The latter focuses on philosophy whereas the former is rooted in history. Analytic philosophy also helps us to understand the approach of philosophers of the so-called long early modern period which is roughly from the seventeenth century through to the mid-nineteenth century. As Scruton sums up Spinoza’s attitude:

“Spinoza would have condemned the practice (known nowadays as the ‘history of ideas’) whereby a study of the ancestry of ideas takes precedence over an enquiry into their truth and meaning.”³

Hence, when I go about researching a philosopher I have my analytic philosophy hat on. I don’t read the texts of eg Spinoza as though they are a novel to be discussed or a history book containing factual information which may or may not be disputed as to its accuracy. I read Spinoza to understand his philosophical arguments and where his independent thinking took him. I go on a journey with him in a way that does not superimpose my own modern perspectives. Nor do I wish to ‘box him in’ into a confined, narrow cultural, time-ridden space because he wished to transcend thought-time. He saw Judaism as not confined by certain present day strictures of his era but as a religion open to independent thought and discourse while keeping its fundamental religious principles. I think Spinoza was able to keep things like this in tension without confusion. Maybe this is a situation that is often experienced by those reading Spinoza, that what appears to many as a contradiction, for Spinoza, is not.

So, I strive to strike a balance between appreciating philosophical arguments in themselves while bearing in mind Walton’s comment⁴ which I cross-apply to the History of Philosophy, that ‘It cannot be correct… to perceive a work in categories which are totally foreign to the artist and his society…’, or as in this case, foreign to the philosopher and his environment.

     

¹You can read it on my academia page at: https://www.academia.edu/33536608/Spinoza_Paper_on_Methodology_2017_draft_

²Lamarque, Olsen (ed) (2004), General Introduction to “Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art: The Analytic Tradition: An Anthology” edited by Lamarque and Olsen, Blackwell Publishing p5

³Scruton, R., (1986) “Spinoza”, Past Masters Oxford University Press p21

⁴Walton, K., “Categories of Art” in “Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art: The Analytic Tradition: An Anthology” (2004), edited by Lamarque and Olsen, Blackwell Publishing p154