Innovations in the History of Analytical Philosophy

373 Pages·2017·3.27 MB·English

by  Sandra Lapointe

innovations
in t he
histor y of
anal ytical
philosophy

edited by
sandra lapointe
christopher pincock
Palgrave Innovations in Philosophy
Series Editors
Vincent Hendricks
University of Copenhagen
Copenhagen, Denmark
Duncan Pritchard
University of Edinburgh
Edinburgh, UK
Palgrave Innovations in Philosophy is a new series of monographs. Each
book in the series will constitute the ‘new wave’ of philosophy, both in
terms of its topic and the research profile of the author. The books will
be concerned with exciting new research topics of particular contempo-
rary interest, and will include topics at the intersection of Philosophy
and other research areas. They will be written by up-and-coming young
philosophers who have already established a strong research profile
and who are clearly going to be leading researchers of the future. Each
monograph in this series will provide an overview of the research area in
question while at the same time significantly advancing the debate on
this topic and giving the reader a sense of where this debate might be
heading next. The books in the series would be of interest to researchers
and advanced students within philosophy and its neighboring scientific
environments.
More information about this series at
http://www.springer.com/series/14689
Sandra Lapointe · Christopher Pincock
Editors
Innovations
in the History
of Analytical
Philosophy
Editors
Sandra Lapointe Christopher Pincock
McMaster University Ohio State University
Hamilton, ON, Canada Columbus, OH, USA
Palgrave Innovations in Philosophy
ISBN 978-1-137-40807-5 ISBN 978-1-137-40808-2 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-40808-2
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017944557
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Series Editors’ Preface
Palgrave Innovations in Philosophy is a series of short monographs. Each
book will constitute the ‘new wave’ of pure or applied philosophy, both
in terms of its topic and the research angle, and will be concerned with
‘hot’ new research areas in philosophy and its neighbouring intellectual
disciplines. These monographs will provide an overview of an emerging
area while at the same time significantly advancing the debate on this
topic and giving the reader a sense of where this debate might be head-
ing next. While the series will devote attention to core topics of philoso-
phy, it will also feature books with an interdisciplinary outlook, as we
believe that many of the most exciting developments in our discipline
involve a fusion of philosophy with other subjects.
Copenhagen, Denmark Vincent Hendricks
Edinburgh, UK Duncan Pritchard
v
Preface
While ‘History of Analytical Philosophy’ as a label for a distinctive
philosophical specialty is recent enough to still count among its active
researchers those who first established the field, it has thrived in the
last 10 years. Over the course of that time, two academic associations,
the History of Early Analytical Philosophy Society (HEAPS) and the
Society for the Study of the History of Analytical Philosophy (SSHAP),
were created. If only the latter seems to have organized meetings and
recruited members in recent years, they were nonetheless both instru-
mental in providing the research community with its first dedicated
venues for expert scholarship. Something similar holds for the peer-
reviewed Journal for the History of Analytical Philosophy (www.jhapon-
line.org), founded in 2011, and publishing under a Creative Commons
license—online and at no cost—on a variety of topics that have
enriched the common conception of the kinds of questions that per-
tain to the field. More importantly, historians of analytical philosophy
today are raising questions concerning the value of the canon associ-
ated with the putative ‘analytic tradition.’ They are extending the reach
of their investigations beyond its customary associations with the birth
of modern logic, the foundations of mathematics and the philosophy
vii
viii Preface
of language. Part of the reason for this is that analytical p hilosophy
itself has evolved tremendously and so has analytical p hilosophers’
self-conception. Historians in the field, to the extent that they are
attuned to contemporary research, seek to reflect these new, broader
concerns. In turn, their work comes to inform the research and teaching
of their peers, providing a valuable historical perspective.
What motivated us to undertake this volume was originally the
thought that the distinctiveness and significance of works by at least
some of the many junior scholars would suit what used to be known
as Palgrave’s ‘New Waves’ series rather fittingly. This volume for
Palgrave’s ‘Innovations’ series is the outcome of this project. All contri-
butions to this volume are original: they were commissioned expressly
to reflect the diversity and recent development in the field: revisiting
standard narratives and canonical figures, doing justice to philosophers
who have been unfairly neglected, writing new chapters on the recent
developments, and establishing meaningful connections with other
philosophical ‘traditions’ such as pragmatism and phenomenology in a
way that reflects the sort of ecumenism that is characteristic of genuine
philosophical acumen.
Hamilton, Canada Sandra Lapointe
Columbus, USA Christopher Pincock
Acknowledgements
Preliminary versions of the papers published here were presented and
discussed in-depth at a workshop that was organized at McMaster
University in January 2015. We would like to thank the Bertrand
Russell Research Centre, the Department of Philosophy and the Faculty
of Humanities for their support. Our thanks also go to Sean Dudley for
his help with various editorial tasks.
ix
Contents
Introduction 1
Sandra Lapointe and Christopher Pincock
Part I Aspects of Analytic Philosophy
The Rise of ‘Analytic Philosophy’: When and
How Did People Begin Calling Themselves ‘Analytic
Philosophers’? 27
Greg Frost-Arnold
The Dissonant Origins of Analytic Philosophy:
Common Sense in Philosophical Methodology 69
Catarina Dutilh Novaes and Leon Geerdink
xi