Analytic Philosophy Research Articles

Bibliometrics beyond citations: introducing mention extraction and analysis

Standard citation-based bibliometric tools have severe limitations when they are applied to periods in the history of science and the humanities before the advent of now-current citation practices. This paper presents an alternative method involving the extracting and analysis of mentions to map and analyze links between scholars and texts in periods that fall outside the scope of citation-based studies. Focusing on one specific discipline in one particular period and language area—Anglophone philosophy between 1890 and 1979—we describe a procedure to create a mention index by identifying, extracting, and disambiguating mentions in academic publications. Our mention index includes 1,095,765 mention links, extracted from 22,977 articles published in 12 journals. We successfully link 93% of these mentions to specific philosophers, with an estimated precision of 82% to 91%. Moreover, we integrate the mention index into a database named EDHIPHY, which includes data and metadata from multiple sources and enables multidimensional mention analyses. In the final part of the paper, we present four case studies conducted by domain experts, demonstrating the use and the potential of both EDHIPHY and mention analyses more generally.

Agent Causation and Motivating Reasons

AbstractAgent causation, roughly stated, is the view that an agent can stand in direct causal relation to (at least some subset of) her actions. Although agent causation has had a patchy reputation throughout much of contemporary analytic philosophy, it is now considered by many to be a viable theoretical option in various domains in action theory. That said, agent‐causalists continue to grapple with a number of important issues. This paper focuses on one such issue—namely, how to integrate motivating reasons into a picture of agent causation. More specifically, I canvass a number of options for the agent‐causalist, focusing in particular on various causalist accounts, and flagging various problems along the way. I conclude with some brief considerations about how to move forward.

The life sciences and the history of analytic philosophy.

Comparative to the commonplace focus onto developments in mathematics and physics, the life sciences appear to have received relatively sparse attention within the early history of analytic philosophy. This paper addresses two related aspects of this phenomenon. On the one hand, it asks: to the extent that the significance of the life sciences was indeed downplayed by early analytic philosophers, why was this the case? An answer to this question may be found in Bertrand Russell's 1914 discussions of the relation between biology and philosophy. Contrary to received views of the history of analytic philosophy, Russell presented his own 'logical atomism' in opposition not only to British Idealism, but also to 'evolutionism'. On the other hand, I will question whether this purported neglect of the life sciences does indeed accurately characterise the history of analytic philosophy. In answering this, I turn first to Susan Stebbing's criticisms of Russell's overlooking of biology, her influence on J.H. Woodger, and her critical discussion of T.H. Huxley's and C.H. Waddington's application of evolutionary views to philosophical questions. I then discuss the case of Moritz Schlick, whose evolutionist philosophy has been overlooked within recent debates concerning Logical Empiricism's relation to the philosophy of biology.

Regrounding the Unworldly: Carnap’s Politically Engaged Logical Pluralism

Recent discussions of logical pluralism trace its origins to Rudolf Carnap’s principle of tolerance; indeed, the principle is seen as one of Carnap’s lasting philosophical contributions. In this paper, I will argue that Carnap’s reasons for adopting this principle are not purely logical, but are rather founded in the Vienna Circle’s manifesto—a programmatic document that brings the Circle’s philosophical work together with a program of social change. Building on work by Uebel, Romizi, and others, I argue that we must understand the principle in light of Carnap’s role in writing the manifesto, and thus as integrated into the larger philosophical and political goals of the Circle. This history illuminates the often-ignored relationship between Carnap’s logical pluralism and his political views. Finally, I turn to the political situation of the post-World War 2 period in the United States. During this time, the Circle’s emigres in the USA transitioned their work from active efforts to reform society to the technical work that we recognize as the foundation of American analytic philosophy today. In this final section, I argue that the reasons that Carnap distanced himself from the political foundations of his view were due in large part to McCarthy-era persecution of left-wing academics.

Spinoza and Spinozism in Twenty-First Century Anglophone Philosophy

In this paper, I survey some prominent developments in Spinoza scholarship in English-speaking countries in the past quarter-century. Picking up where Tom Cook left off in his analysis of the reception of Spinoza in Anglo-American philosophy in the hundred years after the founding of the Vereniging Het Spinozahuis (1897–1997) (“Spinoza's Place in Twentieth Century's Anglo-American Philosophy”), I seek to identify some of the main currents in the rich profusion of twenty-first century Spinoza scholarship in the USA, UK, Canada, and Australia. Scholarship on Spinoza’s metaphysics has continued to blossom, harkening back in some respects to the idealist interpretations with which Cook opens his survey. But whereas there was a notable lack of scholarly works on Spinoza’s moral and political philosophy in the twentieth century, there is now an abundance of scholarship in these fields. I will conclude by examining the reach of Spinozism in the twenty-first century, looking at the ways in which scholars and journalists have presented Spinoza’s philosophy to a non-academic readership, and exploring the ways in which contemporary metaphysicians and philosophers of emotion and cognition have cast their work under the “brand” of Spinozism.

G. H. von Wright on Logical Empiricism

Georg Henrik von Wright (1916–2003) started his studies in theoretical philosophy at the University of Helsinki in 1934. His teacher, Professor Eino Kaila (1890–1958), was an associate of the Vienna Circle who had changed the course of Finnish philosophy with his own version of logical empiricism. Under Kaila’s supervision, von Wright wrote his early studies on probability and defended his doctoral thesis The Logical Problem of Induction in 1941. Von Wright met Ludwig Wittgenstein in Cambridge in 1939 and 1947 and eventually became his successor there in 1948–1951. Later, von Wright characterized these two philosophers as his “father figures”: “Kaila had turned me into a logical positivist or empiricist. Wittgenstein, on the other hand, thoroughly eradicated this personality of mine.” This article studies von Wright’s changing relation to logical empiricism. The main sources include his correspondence with Kaila in 1937–1958 and his books Den logiska empirismen (in Swedish in 1943; in Finnish in 1945) and Logik, filosofi och språk (in Swedish in 1957, in Finnish in 1958). In his “Intellectual Autobiography” (1989), von Wright described the former book as “a farewell to the philosophy of my student years”. Wittgenstein’s influence can be seen in von Wright’s denial of the unity of science and his cool cultural pessimism as expressed in his critical essays. But it is also evident that logic and exact thinking continued to be central tools and ingredients of his subsequent and highly appreciated work as an analytic philosopher.

Do Social Sciences Threaten the Autonomy of Ethics? Reconstructing the Marxian Metaethical Response

AbstractIn the present paper, I attempt to provide a reconstructed Marxian response to the question of whether the social (and behavioral) sciences constitute a philosophical threat to the autonomy of ethics. I suggest that shedding light on some aspects of the Marxian work (especially the Theses on Feuerbach), from the standpoint of the debate on naturalism in contemporary analytic philosophy, can offer valuable philosophical insights against the framework of scientific naturalism. This framework is responsible for presenting the social sciences as a philosophical threat to the autonomy of ethics. I argue that Marx detects and rejects three fundamental presuppositions of scientific naturalism: empiricism, ‘God’s point of view,’ and methodological individualism. I conclude that the Marxian view is a liberal naturalist perspective which allows both the scientific comprehension of the social world and the autonomy of ethics.

Spinoza’s Place in Twentieth Century Anglo-American Philosophy

This paper began as an address at the 100th anniversary celebration of the Vereniging het Spinozahuis in Amsterdam in 1997. I trace the highlights of Spinoza reception and scholarship in the Anglo-American philosophical community from the late nineteenth to the late twentieth century. Beginning with the British Idealists’ enthusiasm for Spinoza as a systematic metaphysician, I move through the indifference of the (anti-metaphysical) positivists to the renewal of interest among more naturalistically-minded analytical philosophers in the second half of the twentieth century. Along the way there are brief discussions of a few individual thinkers who engaged with Spinoza in especially interesting or influential ways, such as Caird, Santayana, Russell, Wolfson, Hampshire, and Curley.

The nature of nonduality: The epistemic implications of meditative and psychedelic experiences

AbstractIn Jylkkä's (Philosophy and Psychedelics: Frameworks for Exceptional Experience, Bloomsbury Academic, New York, 2022) Mary on Acid: Experiences of unity and the epistemic gap, the author contends that psychedelic experience, by inducing unitary—nondual—experiences of subject–object dissolution, brings to light the epistemic gap between unitary knowledge, constituted by experience, and relational knowledge, distinct from experience. Jylkkä draws a connection between the nondual experience as occasioned through psychedelic usage, and Buddhist contemplative practices. While Jylkkä's attempt to establish a dialogue between analytic philosophy, Buddhism and the science of psychedelics is laudable, we contend that more rigorous attention is required to characterizing nondual experience, the forms of experience occasioned by psychedelic use, and whether they truly constitute parallel to states cultivated through Buddhist practice traditions. While such parallelism may speak to a deeper unification, such a claim requires substantiation to avoid the perennialist eliding of the varied and rich engagement with nonduality across completive traditions. This article highlights the internal tensions that exist surrounding the nature of the nondual as elucidated across Indo‐Tibetan traditions, dangers of decontextualizing states induced through culturally embedded contemplative practices including the underrecognized epistemic function of ceremonial ethnomedicine usage in generating Indigenous metaphysics; and the under acknowledged potential of psychedelic substances for attenuating introspective bias in first‐person phenomenological inquiry.

Immunity to error through misidentification: some trends

ABSTRACT According to a prominent strand of thought in analytic philosophy of mind, certain judgments of the form “a is F” are such that, although one can be mistaken about what property it is that a has, one cannot be mistaken that it is a that has the relevant property. Judgments of this kind are said to be immune to error through misidentification (IEM). This article has two main aims. On the one hand, it responds to a need for a systematization of the debate about immunity to error through misidentification, which consists of multiple contributions in epistemology, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, and metaphysics that have accumulated throughout the last 80 years – since the publication of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Blue Book – and which no one – to the best of our knowledge – has drawn together in an exhaustive and accessible way. On the other hand, the article will take a stand on matters concerning the nature, scope, explanation, and significance of immunity to error through misidentification.

Classical Indian Vitalism Found in the Abhidhamma as an Approach to the Hard Problem of Consciousness: Problems and Perspectives

Currently, vitalism stands as a discredited theory in the Western empirical sciences. However, the Indian analytical traditions, specifically the Jaina, Bauddha, Sankhya-Yoga, and the Vedanta, unanimously propose a vital energy “prana” or “jivitindriya” to bridge the explanatory gap between internal conscious states and physical states in the body. The philosophical development of vitalism both in the East and West follows independent and different trajectories. In this article, the view of consciousness as a transient internal state (found in the Abhidhamma) and the modes of its interaction with physical states is critically examined. An attempt is made to find some parallels between the classical Abhidhamma model of consciousness and modern biophysical studies. How the model arose from meditative observation and the status of vital energy prana in mediating the interaction between internal and physical states, is discussed. The article ends by noting the application of these concepts in a therapy found in the Ayurvedic system of medicine.

Anthropological Dimension of Wartime Ecocide: Ecofeminist Methodological Assessments

Purpose. The authors aim to disclose the anthropological dimension of ecocide during and after Russia’s war against Ukraine, relying on the multidisciplinary practices and intellectual production of ecofeminist women thinkers, including philosophers, sociologists, historians, psychologists, and others. The theoretical basis methodological approaches in philosophical anthropology, phenomenology, analytical philosophy, communicative philosophy, existentialism, ethics of justice, and ethics of care determine the study’s theoretical basis. Originality. For the first time, a systematic analysis of the anthropological dimension of ecocide has been carried out based on ecofeminist methodology. The specifics of the Ukrainian resistance to ecocide were revealed as part of a single struggle – an anti-imperial and ecological struggle for independence and prosperity. It is emphasized that during the war, the opposition to ecocide is a component of the fight for national sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country, and therefore, the ideas of pacifism in this period are subordinated to this primary goal. After the war, preventing threats of ecocide should become an integral part of the struggle for stable peace and prosperity. Ecofeminist pacifist perspectives should be a priority among the most essential goals for that period. Conclusions. Ecofeminist methodological assessments offer valuable insights into the anthropological dimension of ecocide in wartime and post-war contexts, highlighting the complex interplay between gender, violence, and environmental destruction. By focusing on the experiences and perspectives of women and marginalized communities, ecofeminist analyses contribute to a more holistic understanding of ecocide and its impacts on both human populations and ecosystems.

The Influence of Early analytic Philosophy on Kelsen's Pure Theory

لقد أحدث الفقيه النمساوي هانس كلسن انعطافًا جوهريًا في مذهب القانون الوضعي، تمثلَ في عنايتهِ الخاصة بالمنطق القانوني تحريرًا وتأصيلًا، إضافةً إلى اهتمامه بالتحليل اللغوي للمفاهيم القانونية، وهذا التميز في مذهب كلسن قد يُعزز من فرضيةِ هذه الدراسة، وهي تأثر الفقيه كلسن بالتحول الذي شهده القرن العشرين في علم المنطق من المنطق التقليدي إلى المنطق الرياضي، بقيادةِ فلاسفةِ المدرسة التحليلية. ومن هذا المنطلق يدرس هذا المقال الأصول التاريخية والفلسفية لمذهب الفقيه كلسن، في ضوءِ فرضيةِ تأثره بالفلسفة التحليلية المبكرة في موقفهم من المنطق واللغة، ويستند هذا البحث في طرح هذه الفرضية إلى عددٍ من أوجه التشابه في نظرية كلسن في القانون الخالص مع مسلك الفلسفة التحليلية المبكرة. ويتمثلُ الدافع في كتابةِ هذا البحث في قلةِ اهتمام الفقه العربي بالفقيه كلسن، مما استدعى تسليط الضوء عليه؛ بوصفه واحدًا من أهم الفلاسفة المؤثرين في مدرسة الفقه الوضعي الحديثة، كما أن هذ البحث قد يكون مدخلًا مُهمًا للمقارنةِ بين أصول الفقه الإسلامي والفقه الغربي. وقُسِّمَ البحث إلى ثلاثة مباحث؛ أولها: كان الحديث عن القانون بوصفه نظامًا معرفيًّا، أي بوصفه نظامًا يتألفُ من مجموعةٍ من الحقائق التي تجمعها رابطة منطقية ضرورية، ثم كان الحديث في المبحث الثاني عن الفلسفة التحليلية المبكرة وأبرز المشكلات الفلسفية التي حظيت بعنايتها، وتناول المبحث الثالث الآثار المحتملة للفلسفة التحليلية المبكرة لدى كلسن. وقد اتّبع البحث في دراسة الفرضية المنهج التحليلي الاستقرائي. وقد توصل البحثُ إلى أن كلسن في صياغته للنظرية المحضة في القانون قد يكون وقعَ تحت تأثيرِ الفلسفة التحليلية المبكرة؛ فجاءت نظريته متشابهةً لمسلكهم في الغاية والمنهج؛ حيث اشترك كلسن معهم في اتّباع منهجٍ صارمٍ في المنطق لتمييز المنطق القانوني معرفيًّا بشكل يحقق له ذاتيته من داخلهِ دون حاجةٍ إلى تبريره عبر نظم معرفية أخرى، كما يشترك كلسن مع الفلسفة التحليلية في مواجهة ما يُسمى بالنزعة النفسية لدى فقهاء القانون، وهي النزعة نفسها التي واجهها فريجه عند الفلاسفة، كما سعى كلسن أيضًا إلى مقاربة المنطق القانوني ومنطق الرتبة الأولى الذي يعتمد بشكل أساسي على الفئات؛ حيث إنَّ حقائق القانون عند كلسن تقع ضمن هرمية منطقية خاصة تنتهي إلى ما يُسمى بالقاعدة القانونية الأساسية، كما يقوم نظام كلسن على الالتزام المعرفي بوجودِ ما يُسمى بالكيانات المجردة، وهي السنن القانونية، وهي كيانات يمكن مقابلاتها بالكيانات الرياضية لدى فلاسفة المدرسة التحليلية. ويميل البحث إلى القول بعدمِ وجودِ تأثيرٍ مباشرٍ للفلسفة التحليلية على كلسن، وأن التشابه الظاهر بين كلسن والفلسفة التحليلية يُعزَى إلى الثقافة الفلسفية السائدة في القرن العشرين؛ إذ قد يكون كلسن قد وقع تحت تأثير الثقافة العلمية السائدة في عصره التي انعكست بشكل مباشر على نوع ِالمشكلات المطروحة لديه. كما توصلَ الباحثُ إلى أن لكلسن أثرٌ واضحٌ في الفقهاء الوضعيين من بعده؛ إذ أصبح التحليل المنطقي اللغوي سائدًا بين فلاسفة القانون الوضعي إلى يومنا هذا.

Проблема интенциональности в философии сознания Дж. Сёрла

This paper dwells on the understanding of intentionality by J. Searle, who developed the problem of intentionality as the core of the philosophy of mind. The research is relevant since the philosophy of mind occupies a prominent place in analytic philosophy, Searle’s concept of consciousness being central in this context. The purpose of the article is to describe Searle’s view on the problem of intentionality. He had to face the position that mental states (consciousness) do not exist, which was expressed by many representatives of analytic philosophy, including G. Ryle and D. Dennett. They relied on the ideas of behaviourism, with its stimulus-response formula, excluding consciousness as the mediator in this process. The paper demonstrates Searle’s arguments in defence of the existence of mental states. Moreover, Searle pointed out a criterion of the existence of consciousness, namely, intentionality. This criterion made it possible to draw a demarcation line between physical and mental states. Searle attempted to overcome the dualism of consciousness and physical processes, which was important since dualism was the subject of constant criticism from naturalists. The article uses the method of historical and philosophical analysis, comparative method and theoretical reconstruction. The novelty of the study lies in the fact that it demonstrates Searle’s significant contribution both to the problem of consciousness, by showing its specificity, and to the problem of intentionality.

Joyful Learning Model for Javanese Speech Levels Course

As one of Indonesia’s cultural heritages, regional languages, including Javanese, need to be preserved. The cultural richness of Javanese includes the politeness and manners values, as reflected in the so-called unggah-ungguh (speech levels). While it is taught as a course in the country’s 12-year mandatory education, the teaching and learning process still follows the traditional, less appealing model. This research aims to create a Javanese speech levels learning model based on joyful learning. The model was both innovative and entertaining. The research used R&D ADDIE design with the following steps: analysis, designing, development, implementation, and evaluation. The model was developed based on two philosophies: progressivism and analytic philosophy. Syntagmatic, social system, support system, reaction principle, instructional impact, and accompaniment impact served as the model's components. Orientation, presentation of material, explanation of how to play, playing vocabulary, playing sentences, dialogue, assessment, and reflection comprised the syntagmatic model. The principles of joyful learning and the norms of honing, loving, and nurturing are included in the model social system. The model reaction principle included the teacher serving as a facilitator, planner, and assessor. Tools, media, and learning resources are all part of the model support system. Some of the instructional effects were increased Javanese vocabulary, fun learning activities, and some impacts of model accompaniment, including increased emotional sharpness, imagination, and cooperation.

Women in Analytic Philosophy: Past and Present, University of Warsaw, February 12–14, 2024

Women in Analytic Philosophy: Past and Present, University of Warsaw, February 12–14, 2024

Space Analysis in Palaeolithic Cave Art: Towards a Multidisciplinary and Integrated Approach

We present a revision of the concept of space in Palaeolithic cave art. Previous research attempting to approach this notion encounters several gaps, which surface on multiple levels: subjectivity, vagueness, restrictions on its conceptualisation, its illustration (two-dimensional description and representation), among others. We reassess the key elements at play, interpretative attempts, and theoretical concepts to gain a better understanding of the notion of space as applied to cave art. This is achieved by examining the historiography not only in prehistory but also in related disciplines, integrating new theoretical approaches and insights from ethnoarchaeology, linguistics, cognitive science, and analytic philosophy. Following this analysis of the existing research, we propose a new method to address the aforementioned issues. This method relies on digital quantitative tools for spatial analysis and three-dimensional representation, such as geographic information systems (GIS) and 3D visualisation. Through the application of these advanced technological tools, we aim to offer a more comprehensive and precise representation of the spatial aspects in Palaeolithic cave art, enabling researchers to analyse and comprehend the complexities of spatial distribution in a systematic and quantitative manner.

How to do things with “the Fact of Reason”: A new interpretation of a well-known concept in Kant’s philosophy

There have been numerous studies on Kant’s concept of the ‘Fact of Reason’, drawing on various intellectual resources, ranging from metaphysics to psychology, from Aristotle to Mencius, from analytic philosophy to phenomenology, and beyond. How should we evaluate these studies? Is it possible that these studies can contribute both to an understanding of Kantian philosophy and to an understanding of Western philosophy as a whole, as well as shed light on the development of philosophy after Kant and on the philosophical questions of our own era? In order to at least partially clarify the above questions, this article will draw on the work of philosohers such as Karl-Otto Apel, Jürgen Habermas, C.I. Lewis, Jin Yuelin and Feng Qi, and discuss how certain presuppositions of communicative action can be both regulative and constitutive, how the same propositions can be both empirical and a priori, how the same concepts can both describe reality and regulate it, and how the ‘Fact of Reason’ can be understood as the ‘Fact of Learning’, in order to offer a new interpretation of Kant’s concept of the ‘Fact of Reason’.

The Problem of Realism in Vihalemm

The Estonian philosopher Rein Vihalemm (1938–2015) wished to reform realism in the philosophy of science. He was dissatisfied with the mainstream analytic philosophy of science—scientific realism and the various anti-realisms alike. He considered these approaches theory-driven and hence too distanced from actual scientific practice. His alternative, which he called practical realism, was inspired and influenced by Joseph Rouse’s original reading of Thomas Kuhn. Moreover, Vihalemm viewed as important some lessons from Marxism, which was prevalent in Estonian philosophy during the Soviet occupation. For him, Marx himself inaugurated practical realism with his novel notion of practice that does not consider agency distinct from nature. He also mentions Kant, interpreted in a realistic manner, as a significant influence for his thesis that concepts only apply to practice. In this article, I will critically examine practical realism from the standpoint of classical pragmatism. My primary question is: what kind of realism practical realism can possibly be.

‘I don't know my way about’: Mirror reversal as a curiously instructive analogue of philosophical perplexity

AbstractWittgenstein said in the Investigations, ‘A philosophical problem has the form: “I don't know my way about”’ (§ 123). The problem of mirror reversal—specifically the twentieth‐century transatlantic controversy between the psychologist Richard Gregory, the mathematical columnist Martin Gardner, the physicist Richard Feynman and various analytic philosophers, including David Pears, Ned Block and Don Locke—is presented here as an instructive case of our not knowing our way about. ‘Why do mirrors reverse left and right but not up and down?’ We discover that our perplexity disappears as we get clearer about the employment of the familiar oppositions left and right, up and down, back and front, and others. Finding our way about in these logico‐grammatical fells, we see connections with our troubles in more vertiginous landscapes. Our disquietude may not be deep (§ 111) but the ‘battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence’ (§ 109) is surprisingly severe.