ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY: THE HISTORY OF AN ILLUSION

"For at least 30 years now, analytic philosophy has consisted in an increasingly loose and variable amalgam of philosophical topics, views and methods, while maintaining a dominant role in the philosophical profession. Dissatification with this state of affairs has led some to claim that, despite its professional entrenchment, analytic philosophy is in a state of crisis. Analytic Philosophy: The History of an Illusion argues that this is so, and that the crisis is deeper and more longstanding than is usually recognized. Synthesizing data from early and recent studies on the school's historical and philosophical foundations as well as from canonical primary texts, it argues (1) that analytic philosophy has never involved the kind of agreement on substantive philosophical views that one would expect of so successful a school of philosophy, and thus that it has always been in this state of crisis, (2) that this fact was long hidden by the illusion that analytic philosophy originally possessed a defining doctrine in the metaphilosophical thesis that the business of philosophy is the analysis of language, and (3) that the rise of analytic philosophy under this illusion and the preservation of its privileged status since the illusion's demise have been facilitated by a scientistic mentality or 'stance' which ignores the traditional philosophical duty to examine one's most fundamental assumptions."--Jacket.