• This is a type of philosophy that is driven by the analytic epistemic style.



• The hallmark of analytic philosophy is the method of conceptual analysis. (If there is anything that gives unity to this type of philosophy, it is this.)



• Conceptual analysis is the analysis of concepts. (Surprise!)



• That is, it is the process of breaking concepts down into their constituents while remaining mindful of the relationships among these constituents.



• The term "concept" is ambiguous--it can stand for a type of linguistic entity, a type of mental representation, a type of social construct, or a part of ultimate reality (specifically, a property).



• Given a particular concept, there are two things we might ask about it:



• What is it?



• For an analytic philosopher, this question typically gives way to the question, What does it contain? (For many of these folks, this transition is motivated by a certain metaphysical picture in which reality has a compositional structure.)



• In the last century, this question was often answered using the technique of logical analysis, where a concept, understood as given in a proposition or mental representation, was broken down into its constituent parts and its logical form.



• One purported advantage to this approach is that is capable of revealing illusions. (E.g., Russell's analysis of definite descriptions, Quine's nominalism about universals, etc.)



• Have we good reason to believe in it?



• In other words, Does it correspond to the way the World really is?



• This question motivates a search for justification, which is conducted analytically. Such epistemological analysis aims at determining if the concept as a whole is supported by simpler items of evidence. (This typically resolves into assessment of the justification forthcoming for the parts, although this will not be how it works for more holistic concepts.)



• This leads naturally to a certain conception of understanding as achieved by discovering the component parts of concepts and their relationship to one another.



• In operation, conceptual analysis typically involves the making of polar distinctions designed to mark the path from complex structure to simple structure. The basic idea is that the best way of generating knowledge about the World is to break complex concepts into their simple constituents while remaining attentive to the relationships among those constituents, and then bring this compositional understanding of the concept to the tribunal of experience for judgment.



• As developed in the past century, this has been closely tied to language, which is not a surprise, given that this medium is particularly good at marking differences. (This also explains the privilege of place afforded logic in the methodology of analytic philosophy.)



• However, there is no special need to make language a necessary part of the picture, contra Dummett. There is no reason that concepts expressed pictorially or in analogue form cannot serve as objects of analysis.



• Thus, I take analytic philosophy to be marked by the logical and epistemological techniques of conceptual analysis. In many cases, at least among metaphysical and epistemological realists, this comes with a metaphysical commitment to a componential reality, and a Cartesian view of understanding.

III. Problems With Analytic Philosophy

• Methodological Concerns:



• Conceptual Confusion: Analysis presumes the legitimacy of the analytic/synthetic distinction, without which there is no reason to give privilege of place to logic. But there are reasons for thinking that this distinction is not sustainable, in which case the claims of the method become suspect (see Quine, Rorty, and others).



• Not Universal: The method does not apply universally, and so systems built atop the belief that it does are fundamentally flawed (e.g., logical positivism).



• Metaphysical Concerns:



• Metaphysical Holism: Reality is not componential--it is not Legoland writ large.



• Analysis as Violence: Application of conceptual analysis does violence to one's Worldview, forcing it out of alignment with the way things are.



• Epistemological Concerns:



• Epistemological Holism: Justification is not linear and foundational, but rather holistic; thus, the method of epistemological analysis is doomed to misrepresent the way knowledge works.



• Analysis as MISunderstanding: There is no such compositional understanding--understanding is not atomistic.

IV. Taylor's Broadside

• In Metaphysics, Richard Taylor argues that polar thinking stands in the way of understanding in many, if not most, real world situations. For instance, concerns about when humans move from not existing to existing lead to much confusion and worse.



• The argument runs something like this, in brief:

P1. If a method is capable of generating philosophical understanding, then it must not simplify complex differences in a way that generates confusion about the concepts in question.

P2. The analytic method involves liberal application of polar thinking.

P3. Polar thinking simplifies complex differences in a way that generates confusion.

4. The analytic method is not capable of generating philosophical understanding.

V. In Defense of Analytic Philosophy as a Method of Understanding

• Meaningfulness implies Difference



• Meaning would appear to require a connection between (at least) two different things, one of which represents how things stand (or could stand, or did stand, or...) with the other



• If there were no difference, there would be no meaning



• Difference implies Distinction



• Whether it is recognizable or not, real difference of the sort entailed by meaning requires distinguishability in principle, and this entails the existence of at least one distinction



• Note that we may be unable to make the relevant distinction, but our inability does not undermine the possibility of distinction



• Distinction implies Polarity



• It would appear that any distinction can be laid out in polar fashion, with one item separated from the different, second item.



• Threat:



• However, there are those who argue that some types of difference cannot be adequately represented in this way. In particular, there are those who argue that some types of things in the world are multivalent or even gradient (or analogue).



• If this is correct, then it would appear that any methodology that depends on the making of polar (i.e., bivalent) distinctions will be doomed to misrepresent these aspects of the world and so could not serve as a general investigative methodology.



• Response:



• We need to begin by distinguishing between polar and non-polar concepts and polar and non-polar thinking. The former are



• The debate about the existence between polar or non-polar concepts in the world (i.e., polar or non-polar reality) is not the relevant debate here. Rather, we must look at the question concerning polar and non-polar thinking



• Here is the threat, re-described in terms of these distinctions: if there is non-polar reality, then polar thinking will fail to represent it adequately, leaving us without a proper understanding; thus, if we wish to understand the world, we must be ecumenical about our intellectual methods, allowing in non-polar types of thinking



• I wish to defend the claim that the existence of non-polar reality does not imply the (local) failure of polar thinking.



• With multivalent concepts (e.g., True/False/Neither T nor F), we can engage in pairwise distinctions, so long as we recognize that the shifting points of focus form different moments in a spectrum of alternatives. That is, each point that figures into the multivalent concept can be distinguished from those it is not and then located in the conceptual constellation into which it figures.



• Gradient concepts (e.g., existence?) are the most threatening to polar methodologies, but here the issue of conceptual resolution arises--at some point, our perceptual and conceptual capacities give out. Then, from the investigatory perspective, the gradient collapses into the multivalent, which is amenable to polar analysis.



• But to maintain proper contact with ultimate reality, we must be willing to allow that there are gradations beneath the resolution of our capacities.



• This raises the question, Is there a way of differentiating multivalent and gradient concepts? How do we know which is which?



• Modification: Distinction implies the Viability of Polar Methods. (For analogy, consider proof by contradiction, which is a proof method that will always work--this is what I suggest is true of analytic methodology, so long as its limitations are acknowledged.)



• Thus, analytic philosophy does not do violence to the subject matter, and so stands as a viable approach to philosophical questions. It works as an explanatory method.

VI. Let's Hear It For Methodological Pluralism!

• Vague and probably objectionable comments in favor of mixing it up a little.