Re: analytical philosophy

[ALI KADRI <akadri_00@xxxxxxxxx>]

I think the issue in this case may have have to do
with the development of thought outside of practice or
the historical circumstance. Can thought develop on
its own such that logic is a deus ex machina or is it
in a state of becoming that is both dependent and
independent of historical condoitons (account being
made of practice being a predicate of thought). In
trying to argue the case for laws and objectivity in
economics, Oscar lange referred to the rules of logic
as something like the ultimate judge of the "truth."
But of course if logic changes so does the truth. And
evidently logic is always changing. In this respect
there is no escape from Hegel's critique of formal
logic.
--- Jim Devine <jdevine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> [was: Re: Have You Read All These Books?]
>
> I wrote: >> Okay, we agree in practice. _In
> practice_, AP's [analytical
> philosophy's] method involves discouragement of
> scholarship as Justin
> defines it here. <<
>
> Justin responds: >Of course we could drop the
> "method involves" and have a
> sentence that means almost the same thing, which
> undermines the point of
> talking about "method." However, there is no point
> in raking this over again.<
>
> Perhaps "AP" can be _defined_ as the rejection of
> discussions of "method"
> (i.e., how logical analysis and empirical study
> should be combined to
> answer moral, empirical, and other questions)? So
> issues like the debate
> between Kuhn, Popper, Lakatos, and others who study
> the philosophy of
> science are deemed to be irrelevant (or even silly)
> by the practitioners of
> AP?
>
> I asked:>>The _official_ or desired method of AP is
> logic? then what
> distinguished it from Aristotle? of from any other
> school of philosophy
> (except maybe post modernism)? haven't almost all
> philosophers since
> Aristotle thought that formal logic was extremely
> revealing if not
> absolutely necessary to clear thinking? Does AP add
> anything to logic that
> previous philosophers didn't know about?<<
>
> Justin responds: >Analytical philosophy is the heir
> of logical positivism,
> which gave modern logical, as developed by Frege,
> Russell and Whitehead, et
> al. an absolutely central place in doin philosophy.
>
>  >Modern mathematical logic is a quantum jump over
> the Aristotlean logic
> that preceded it in power and flexibility; there's
> no comparison. ... So,
> yes, I think you can say that analytical philosophy
> has advanced the study
> of logic a bit--more than anyone had since
> Aristotle, truth be told.
>
>  >Russell's analutical philosophy, the early
> Wittgenstein, and logical
> positivism (the Vienna Circle) made the use of this
> logic basic to the
> doing of philosophy; problems were formulated in
> terms of it, and those
> that couldn't be were dismissed. The only previous
> philosophical movement
> that made logic so central was scholasticism, where
> philosophers were
> likewise expected to be
> fluent in formalism and able to think that way as
> part of professional
> competence. Of course the logic was much more
> primitive. Analytical
> philosophy has discarded most of the tents of
> logical positivism--the
> verification principle, etc.--but it has retained
> the emphasis on logic.
>
>  >At Michigan grad school in philosophy, you had to
> pass the math logic
> course with a high grade, and it also fulfilled the
> language requirement,
> on the grounds taht it was a "formal language." ...<
>
> Okay, so the AP types gave us greater understanding
> of formal logic. This
> is all for the good, though I can imagine that
> logic, like mathematics, can
> easily be fetishized in the face of an empirical
> world that often seems
> illogical or at least too heterogeneous and mixed to
> be fit into logical
> categories. Then, how is AP distinguished from other
> schools of philosophy
> that accept the validity and importance of logic?
> For example, Bertell
> Ollman tries to be as logical as possible. The way
> the term "analytical
> philosophy" is used,   at least as I've encountered
> it, it would exclude
> him. Would it also exclude my brother the philosophy
> professor, who's into
> "natural law"? BTW, he's also very logical, given
> his premises.
>
> Jim Devine jdevine@xxxxxxx &
> http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
>


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