School · 1848 CE–2022 CE
Analytic philosophy
Analytic philosophy is a family of approaches that made logical form, language, argument, and conceptual analysis central to philosophical practice.
Shared questions
- What can clarity about language, logic, and evidence settle about philosophical problems?
Internal disagreements
- Whether analysis discovers the structure of reality, clarifies ordinary and scientific language, or dissolves pseudo-problems.
Key texts
- Begriffsschrift · 1879 — Frege's formal notation for quantification is the technical starting point the tradition builds on.
- Principia Ethica · 1903 — Moore's argument against defining the good in natural terms opened the century's metaethics.
- Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus · 1921 — Wittgenstein's numbered propositions were read in incompatible ways by the Vienna Circle and by his own later work.