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Analysis, Schmanalysis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Stephen Petersen
Stephen Petersen*
Affiliation:
Niagara University, NY14109, USA
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Extract

A widely held view in current philosophical theory says to be wary of conceptual analysis and its quest for analyticity. The major source of this suspicion traces back to reasons W. V. Quine gave 50 years ago in ‘Two Dogmas of Empiricism’ — namely concerns about reliance on notions of meaning and synonymy that are unclear. Since that time, there have been new sources of suspicion. In the philosophy of mind, for example, debates over consciousness have some philosophers doubting whether conceptual analysis can furnish as hefty a metaphysical conclusion as the denial of physicalism (Block and Stalnaker, 1999; Chalmers, 1996). And in epistemology, Stephen Stich and others worry that conceptual analysis of epistemic norms can only end up endorsing local intuitions about good thinking — intuitions that depend arbitrarily on the culture in which they were formed.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 38 , Issue 2 , June 2008 , pp. 289 - 299
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2008

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