(Smith, 2014)
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Analytic Philosophy is Ending Not With a Bang But a Whimper
This is the way Analytic philosophy ends
This is the way Analytic philosophy ends
This is the way Analytic philosophy ends
Not with a bang but a whimper[i]
What is Analytic philosophy? In the late 19th century and early 20th century, a group of Young Turk avant-garde philosophers carrying the banner of the new tradition of classical Analytic philosophy came onto the scene, following on from the work of Gottlob Frege (as it were, the intellectual Father of the founding Trinity of classical Analytic philosophy), but led by G.E. Moore and Bertrand Russell (the other members of the founding Trinity—as it were, the Son and the Holy Ghost—who were, appropriately enough, students and Apostles,[2] research fellows, and then lecturers at Trinity College, Cambridge University), by the young Ludwig Wittgenstein, another Trinity College genius and Apostle, by the even younger Frank Ramsey,[3] by The Vienna Circle Logical Empiricists/Positivists (especially Rudolf Carnap, but also including Kurt Gödel and Alfred Tarski), and by W.V.O. Quine. Moreover, in a sociocultural sense, classical Analytic philosophy also stood in an important elective affinity with the rise of what James C. Scott has aptly called “a high modernist ideology,” or high modernism for short, which
is best conceived as a strong, one might even say muscle-bound, version of the self-confidence about scientific and technical progress, the expansion of production, the growing satisfaction of human needs, the mastery of nature (including human nature), and, above all, the rational design of social order commensurate with the scientific understanding of natural laws (Scott, 1998: p. 4),
especially in the applied and fine arts, the formal and natural sciences, and engineering (Janik and Toulmin, 1973; Galison, 1990; The Vienna Circle, 1996; Reisch, 2005; Isaac, 2013). At the same time, the classical Analytic philosophers were also engaged in a serious intellectual competition with phenomenology, especially Husserlian transcendental phenomenology (Hanna, 2013) and Heideggerian existential phenomenology (Friedman, 2000; Hanna, 2008: pp. 149-150). In any case, and again in a nutshell, classical Analytic philosophy is founded and grounded on two basic theses: (i) that all necessary truth is logical truth, which is the same as analytic a priori truth, and that there are no non-logical or non-analytic necessary truths, which I’ll call the thesis of modal monism, and (ii) that all a priori knowledge is knowledge of analytic truths and that this knowledge follows directly from the process of analysis, which I’ll call the thesis of a-priori-knowledge-as-analysis (Urmson,1956; Pap, 1972: Hacking, 1975; French, 1981; Tugendhat, 1982: esp. part I; Bell and Cooper, 1990; Dummett, 1993; Hanna, 2001; Soames, 2014; Beaney, 2013; Isaac, 2019).
In The Fate of Analysis (Hanna, 2021), I argued—among other things—(i) that the philosophical program of classical Analytic philosophy from Frege to Quine was defunct by the early 1950s, (ii) that since the early 1950s, classical Analytic philosophy has been gradually succeeded by post-classical Analytic philosophy, which has dominated professional academic philosophy in a social-institutional sense for the last 70 years, right up to 6am this morning (see also Soames, 2018), (iii) that in its post-classical period, the difference between Analytic philosophy and non-Analytic philosophy is purely sociological and not theoretically substantive (see also Rorty, 1982: esp. p. 217), and (iv) that contemporary post-classical Analytic philosophers don’t actually either practice philosophical analysis or believe in the very idea of an analytic-synthetic distinction. In short, first, Analytic philosophy as originally conceived, has been dead since the early 1950s, and actually has no future whatsoever, and second, Kant’s theoretical philosophy is actually significantly closer in content and methodology to classical Analytic philosophy, than post-classical Analytic philosophy is (Hanna, 2001, 2006a: chs. 5-7, 2015: chs. 4-8, 2021; see also Lewin, 2023a, 2023b). This is doubly ironic. For not only does Analytic philosophy itself actually have no future whatsoever, but also whatever was worth saving from the wreckage of Analytic philosophy—i.e., the analytic-synthetic distinction (now supplemented by an intelligible and defensible theory of synthetic a priori necessary truth and knowledge), and the thesis that analytic a priori necessary truth and knowledge are genuine kinds of a priori necessary truth and knowledge (even if not the only kinds of genuine a priori necessary truth and knowledge)—is already preserved in contemporary and future-oriented Kantian philosophy (Hanna, 2015, 2024a).
It was therefore not only gratifying but also quite surprising to discover that (arguably) the leading contemporary post-classical Analytic philosopher, Timothy Williamson, Wykeham Professor of Logic at Oxford (see, e.g., Williamson, 2000, 2007, 2013), recently explicitly confirmed my theses (iii) and (iv):
[T]he current sense of the phrase ‘analytic philosophy’ is quite serviceable. It refers to a broad tradition, with various sub-traditions. Like other traditions, it has evolved over time, and is unified not by shared intrinsic features (for example, of doctrine or method) but by historical connections of influence (for example, the teacher-pupil relation). Although the distinction between ‘analytic’ and ‘non-analytic’ or ‘continental’ philosophy is rough, with many borderline cases, it marks an observable sociological divide in the profession, which for almost a century has played a major role in philosophers’ understanding of what they are doing and its likeness or unlikeness to what their contemporaries do; it is reflected in how they use the pronouns ‘us’ and ‘them’. A future historian of philosophy in this period who ignores that distinction will miss something in many philosophers’ self-understanding, and to that extent will be doing a poor job as a historian. (Williamson, 2023: p. 52)
I obviously belong to the tradition labelled ‘analytic philosophy’. For example, Michael Dummett supervised me for the final year of my doctoral studies at Oxford, and a glance at the bibliography and index in any of my books will show which philosophers I most engage with. Yet my philosophical theorising cannot be classified as ‘analysis’ in any useful or distinctive sense. I rarely seek necessary and sufficient conditions. I find attempts to divide truths into the ‘analytic’ or ‘conceptual’ and the ‘synthetic’ or ‘empirical’ deeply misleading. (Williamson, 2023: p. 53)
Perhaps Williamson thought that by burying his frank, revealing metaphilosophical remarks in an obscure venue called Kantian Journal, no one but a few woolly-minded contemporary Kantians would ever read them. After all,
my writings don’t engage with Kant’s. I have no wish to be drawn into the endless maze of Kant hermeneutics; I happily leave others to wander there. To my knowledge, I’ve never been accused of transcendental idealism. (Williamson, 2023: p. 67)
Quite so; perish the thought.
But, what if leading contemporary professional academic physicists publicly admitted that the difference between physics and non-physics is purely sociological and not theoretically substantive, and that they themselves don’t actually either practice physics or believe in the very idea of physical laws? That would be an intellectual scandal of the first order, fully equivalent to the notorious Sokal Hoax (Sokal, 1996; Wikipedia, 2024).
In a precisely analogous way, if leading (not to mention rank-&-file) members of the dominant “Us” versus “Them” group in professional academic philosophy are continuing to call themselves “Analytic philosophers,” even though there’s no theoretically substantive difference between Analytic philosophy and non-Analytic philosophy, and even though they don’t actually either practice philosophical analysis or believe in the very idea of an analytic-synthetic distinction, then it’s another intellectual scandal of the first order. Far more accurate and honest labels for their actual philosophical practice and theory would be “Pseudo-Analytic philosophy” or “Quasi-Analytic philosophy.” Otherwise, their continuing to conduct business under the unqualified brand name “Analytic philosophy” is nothing but false advertising, and professional academicbullshit (Frankfurt, 1988).
What other evidence do I have that Analytic philosophy is quietly and quietistically withering away, and going down into the ash-heap of history?
One bit of good evidence is that that even just a quick survey of today’s listings of upcoming presentations, talks, conferences, workshops, and so-on on the professional academic philosophy listserv PhilEvents reveals two things: first, that contemporary professional academic philosophy and post-classical Analytic philosophy are essentially indistinguishable, and second, that the problems, topics, theories, and methods being explored by contemporary professional academic philosophers, and a fortiori by post-classical Analytic philosophers, have no unifying structure or theme whatsoever, and in fact are all over the map (PhilEvents, 2024). Another bit is that both professional academic philosophy in general and post-classical Analytic philosophy in particular, alike, suffer from the ultimately fatal affliction of essential-irrelevance-to-humanity (Hanna, 2022). And yet another bit is that it’s demonstrable that professional academic philosophy, and a fortiori post-classical Analytic philosophy, hasn’t produced any important ideas in the last 48 years (Hanna, 2024b). As everyone knows, three bits of good evidence are tantamount to a proof.
Is there a relevant alternative to this anticlimactic fizzling out of Analytic philosophy? Yes. Non-Analytic, non-Kantian philosophers, and demobilized former Analytic philosophers, alike, could instead pursue the collective project I call Kantian futurism (Hanna, 2024a). What is that collective project? It contains three futuristic philosophical ideas. First, in order to be able to explain the existence and real possibility of contemporary physics, the essential structure of the manifestly real natural universe must conform to the innate structure of our conscious, intelligent and more generally rational human animal minds. Second, the manifestly real natural universe, especially including rational human minded animals, is fundamentally organic—processual, purposive, and self-organizing—not mechanical; and all natural mechanical processes are metaphysically and ontologically derivative from organic processes. Third, morality and sociopolitics are grounded on human dignity, not on group identity. These ideas jointly constitute the foundational tripod of a Kantian philosophy of the near future: rational anthropology, the general philosophical theory of the rational human condition, i.e.,humankind’s existential predicament—including its epistemic, metaphysical, logical, mathematical natura-scientific, moral, sociopolitical, and religious or spiritual modes—in this thoroughly nonideal natural and social world (Hanna, 2015, 2018a, 2018b, 2018c, 2018d, 2024c).
If, in concert and collaboration with futuristic Kantian philosophers, those non-Analytic, non-Kantian philosophers and demobilized former Analytic philosophers I mentioned in the immediately-preceding paragraph above did all commit themselves to pursuing those three futuristic philosophical ideas, then they’d not only finally come to terms with contemporary philosophy’s Kantian foundations and origins, but also enable genuine progress in philosophy.
NOTES
[i] Riffing, of course, on the last four lines of T.S. Eliot’s “The Hollow Men” (Eliot, 1925/1974).
[ii] That is, they were all members of the Cambridge Apostles, then as now, a highly-selective and highly exclusive Cambridge secret society and discussion group, whose members also include Henry Sidgwick, Whitehead, John Maynard Keynes, Frank Ramsey, and (somewhat fitfully) Wittgenstein. See, e.g., (Levy, 1980).
[iii] There’s been a recent burst of interest in Ramsey and his work. See, e.g., (Methven, 2015; Potter, 2019; Misak, 2020). For a long time, Ramsey had been mainly known as a co-translator of the Tractatus and as a minor figure in classical Analytic philosophy, although, to be sure, during his all-too-brief lifetime, he had already been exceptionally highly regarded by the Cambridge people and The Vienna Circle people alike (see, e.g., Edmonds, 2020: pp. 44, 46, 48, 51-52, 84-85, and 92). But what explains the current Ramsey boom? In my view, it’s simply that (i) since the 1980s, Moore’s reputation has been significantly downgraded, hence a replacement-genius is needed to fill out the classical “founding Trinity = Frege, Russell, and X” narrative of early Analytic philosophy, (ii) unlike Moore, Russell, and Wittgenstein, Ramsey wasn’t importantly influenced by the neo-Kantians, and (iii) the combination of logicism, pragmatism, and scientific naturalism in Ramsey’s work also very conveniently fits the tick-the-boxes profile of post-Quinean, late 20th-century/early 21st-century, post-classical Analytic philosophy.
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