Philosophy from an analytical point of view. Russell's analytical philosophy One of the branches of analytical philosophy

Vadim Rudnev

Analytical philosophy is a philosophical tradition that unites various philosophical directions (logical positivism, philosophy of linguistic analysis, theory of speech acts). The emergence of analytical philosophy at the beginning of the twentieth century. connected with the crisis of metaphysical philosophy and the development of the ideas of “second positivism” by Ernst Mach and Richard Avenarius. The founders of analytical philosophy are Bertrand Russell and George Edward Moore. The first one was co-authored with A. N. Whitehead built the philosophical foundations of mathematical logic and proposed the doctrine of logical atomism, developed by Wittgenstein; the second criticized traditional ethics and idealistic metaphysics. The true inspirer of analytical philosophy is Ludwig Wittgenstein and his main work, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.

Analytical philosophy is characterized by three main features: linguistic reductionism, that is, the reduction of all philosophical problems to problems of language; “semantic emphasis” - focusing on the problem of meaning; “methodological bias” is the opposition of the method of analysis to all other forms of philosophical reflection, in particular the refusal to build a system of philosophy in the spirit of classical philosophical constructions of the 19th century.

Analytical philosophy is, first of all, a philosophy of language: the world is seen through the prism of language, the old traditional philosophy, analysts say, arose due to the imperfection of language, the polysemy of its words and expressions, “speech that confuses thoughts,” in the words of Wittgenstein; The task of philosophy is to construct such an ideal language that, due to its unambiguity, would automatically remove traditional philosophical “pseudo-problems” (being and consciousness, free will and ethics). Therefore, analytical philosophy is primarily (at an early stage) a logical-philosophical doctrine that strives to formalize language, to bring it to the perfection of the language of logical symbols. This problem was solved by Wittgenstein’s students, members of the Vienna Logical Circle: Moritz Schlick, Otto Neurath and, above all, Rudolf Carnap. The Vienna Circle put forward the doctrine of verificationism, that is, the idea that the truth or falsity of a statement (the main object of analysis of analysts) and a scientific theory can only be supported or refuted if all sentences are reduced to statements about sense data, or “protocol statements” that can be subjected to direct empirical verification.

It must be said that the idea of ​​​​building an ideal logical language quickly exhausted itself. Such a language is necessary and possible only for auxiliary scientific and philosophical purposes, and this is the language of mathematical logic, but speaking, writing poetry and performing many other speech acts or language games in such a language is impossible, “just as it is impossible to walk on perfectly smooth ice,” in the words of the late Wittgenstein.

A turning point in analytical philosophy occurred between the world wars. In the 1930s, when Wittgenstein returned to Cambridge from a self-imposed six-year exile (he worked as a primary school teacher in mountainous Alpine villages from 1921 to 1926), a circle of young students began to form around him, who lectured at Trinity College, and absorbed him. new ideas that found their final embodiment in Wittgenstein's book Philosophical Investigations, on which he worked until his death.

The linguistic turn in this remarkable book was even more intensified in comparison with the earlier Treatise Logico-Philosophicus, but otherwise ideas developed that were completely opposite to those that were the basis of the doctrine of the Treatise.

In the Treatise, language was understood too narrowly. In fact, only sentences in the indicative mood were considered there (“The situation is such and such”). Now Wittgenstein draws attention to the fact that the bulk of the sentences of a language are not reducible to the indicative mood, and therefore, in principle, cannot be subject to verification. For how can one verify such sentences as “Come here”, “Get away!”, “How nice, how fresh the roses were!”, “Would you like a beer now!”, “What time is it?”, that is, exclamations, questions, expressions of desires, requests, prayers, orders, threats, oaths. It was precisely these and similar statements that Wittgenstein called language games and believed that they were the forms of life. In fact, the entire book is devoted to the analysis of language games. “Language,” wrote Wittgenstein, “is like a large modern city, where, along with straight streets, avenues and squares, there are crooked alleys, dilapidated houses, as well as new areas, similar to each other like two drops of water.” The task of the philosopher, as Wittgenstein now understands it, is to try to help a person understand ordinary language, its ambiguity and confusion (“to help the fly get out of the bottle”).

Developing the position put forward in the “Treatise” about the meaning of a word, which takes place only in the context of a sentence, Wittgenstein deepens this position in the famous maxim: “Meaning is use.” Here he develops a theory of meaning, which he calls the family resemblance theory. Just as all relatives have something similar among themselves - one in one case, another in another - while, however, it is impossible to identify one thing, a single invariant meaning that would be present in all family members - so the meanings of words only intersect each other with a friend - there are no absolute synonyms or homonyms. For example, the word “old man” can mean “a very old person” in one context, and in another context the word can also mean a young person, for example, in the slang address of two students to each other: “Hello, old man!” The word “Tuesday,” depending on the context, can mean “December 17, 1996,” or it can mean “December 24 of the same year.” One of Wittgenstein's indirect students, the brilliant modern analyst Saul Kripke, called such words "non-rigid designators": their meanings change when moving from one situation to another (from one possible world to another - see the semantics of possible worlds). In contrast to such words, for example, Surnames and patronymics or numbers do not change their meaning when moving from one possible world to another, which is why Kripke called them rigid designators. That is, for example, expressions such as “the current US President Bill Clinton” or “the number 8” are rigid designators.

In his Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein wittily proved that language is, in principle, a social phenomenon; it is impossible to have an individual language that only the speaker can understand. The problem of consciousness, in particular “other mind”, was generally of great interest to later analysts (not only Wittgenstein; Gilbert Ryle wrote an entire book on this subject, “The Concept of Consciousness” - it was an alternative analytical philosophy in relation to the dominant Wittgensteinian one). How to penetrate someone else's consciousness? Either through observations of the individual's behavior or by trusting his testimony. But the evidence may be false and the behavior may be feigned.

The ideas of Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations were enthusiastically accepted by the Anglo-Saxon philosophical community. All analytical philosophy of the 50s - 60s. XX century One way or another I found myself under the influence of this stimulating work. On its basis, the Oxford analytical philosopher John Austin, and after him John Searle from Berkeley (California), build a theory of speech acts, the teaching of how to perform actions using words alone, for example, using expressions such as “I salute you!” or “I declare the meeting open!” (here the utterance, under certain conditions, coincides with the action; the word and the deed coincide). John Wisdom develops the theory of linguistic therapy, the doctrine according to which language heals the speaker and the listener (here, for the first time, analytical philosophy and psychoanalysis explicitly crossed paths). James Hudson develops linguistic apologetics, the doctrine that man's relationship with God is a kind of language game. Finally, an analytical philosophy of fiction appears, arguing that if Sherlock Holmes did not exist, “he could have existed under different circumstances” (Saul Kripke’s formulation).

Modern analytical philosophy is a huge “factory of thought” with a large number of intellectual workshops. Gradually, lines are drawn to phenomenology (Karl Apel) and even to philosophical postmodernism (Richard Rorty). Answer our basic question: “Where does language end and reality begin?” - analytical philosophy, perhaps, could not, but in the process of answering so many interesting things were done that we can say with confidence that this language game was worth the candle.

Bibliography

WittgensteinL. Philosophical works. Part 1. - M., 1994.

MooreJ. E. Principles of ethics. - M., 1984.

RussellB. Human knowledge: its scope and boundaries. - M., 1956.

Analytical Philosophy: An Anthology / Ed. Gryaznova A.F. - M., 1993.

GryunovA. F. Analytical philosophy // Modern Western philosophy: Dictionary. - M., 1991 />

To prepare this work, materials from the site lib.ru/ were used

Introduction

3. Logical analysis

Conclusion

Introduction

Analytical philosophy inherits the tradition of studying the foundations of knowledge - both in its sensual, empirical, and in its rational, theoretical form. Her predecessors are considered to be T. Hobbes, J. Locke, J. Berkeley, D. Hume, J.S. Mill, E. Mach, as well as Aristotle and medieval scholasticism, R. Descartes, G.V. Leibniz, I. Kant and others. Ideas and methods for analyzing human experience developed in previous centuries are developed in it in close connection with the study of the language in which this experience is expressed and comprehended.

The term "logical analysis" was coined by J. Moore and B. Russell. At first, he characterized the research method, but subsequently determined the name of the philosophical movement that practiced this method. The circle of philosophers of the “analytical” wave is somewhat blurred: they are united not so much by the topic or type of philosophical concepts as by the style of their work. Its common characteristic feature is a detailed study of language (taking into account the latest achievements of logic and linguistics) with the aim of solving philosophical problems. The main goals of the philosophy of analysis are to identify the structure of thought, clarify everything that is vague and inarticulate, achieve a “transparent” correlation between language and reality, and clearly distinguish between meaningful and empty expressions, meaningful and meaningless phrases.

Within analytical philosophy, there are two directions: the philosophy of logical analysis and the philosophy of linguistic analysis (or linguistic philosophy). Adherents of the first are mainly interested in the philosophy and logic of science. Supporters of the second consider such an orientation to be artificial and too narrow, excessively limiting the philosophical horizon. From their point of view, philosophy is rooted in real human understanding, in life situations, in the mechanisms of natural language.

analytical philosophy russell logical

The philosophy of logical analysis was based on the ideas of G. Frege and B. Russell, as well as the concept of L. Wittgenstein’s “Logical-Philosophical Treatise,” which played an important role in the formation of the principles of all analytical philosophy. The origins of linguistic philosophy are associated with the activities of J. Moore. The mature concept of this direction was also developed by Wittgenstein - in the second period of his work.

The purpose of this work is to consider the features of the development of analytical philosophy of the 20th century and its main directions

The goal was achieved by solving the following main tasks:

1. To uncover -emergence of analytical philosophy

2. Explore -neorealism and linguistic analysis

3. Consider -from the "Logical-Philosophical Treatise" to the "Philosophical Investigations".

1. The emergence of analytical philosophy

The initial problems and concepts of analytical philosophy were formulated in the article by G. Frege “On Sense and Meaning” (1892). At that time, a philosophy of a completely different type had a stronger position. The influence of the broad international movement of neo-Hegelianism grew. One of its forms - absolute idealism - dominated in England. This school gained strength in the 70s of the 19th century, relegating to the background the philosophy of “common sense” and positivism, which dominated minds here in the first half of the 19th century.

Supporters of absolute idealism borrowed the main idea of ​​their philosophy - the idea of ​​the Absolute - from Hegel, understanding the Absolute as the highest, perfect reality, conceived as an interconnected spiritual integrity. Reality was identified with rational, “absolute,” ultimately divine “experience.” Ordinary, human experience was declared an appearance. The philosophy of absolute idealism contradicted the sense of reality, which is very important for people’s world orientation. This makes it clear to criticize idealism from the standpoint of realism - the philosophical mindset of the 20th century (neorealism, critical realism, scientific realism and others), emphasizing the independence of the subject of knowledge from consciousness and human cognitive acts (not to be confused with medieval “realism”).

A characteristic feature of absolute idealism was the emphasis on the “integrity” (unity, completeness) of the Absolute, the unconditional supremacy of the whole over individual, finite phenomena. In socio-political terms, this presupposed the absorption of the individual by the state, and in the theory of knowledge - the omnipotence of synthesis over analysis. The name of this position is holism. It weakens the basis of analytical thinking - the logical division of reality in one way or another.

The beginning of the philosophical reorientation known as the analytic turn dates back to 1898. At this time, Moore and Russell opposed absolute idealism, opposing it to the principles of philosophical realism and analysis.

Moore began the “breakthrough” from idealism to realism, followed by Russell on this path. They criticized the positions and arguments of neo-Hegelianism, which they themselves had previously been heavily influenced by. The doctrine of the Absolute with its principle of integrity was opposed to pluralism and atomism. Both philosophers paid great attention to the traditional problems of the theory of knowledge, solved in the spirit of realism: recognition of the independence of the object of knowledge from its perception, a fact - from judgment about it. If we keep in mind research methods, then both Moore and Russell acted as analysts, giving impetus to the analytical movement in philosophy. Russell's attention focused on the analytical capabilities of symbolic logic and the study of the foundations of mathematics. Here he relied on the works of G. Frege. Moore was interested in analyzing philosophical concepts and problems using ordinary language and common sense.

2. Neorealism and linguistic analysis

George Edward Moore (1873-1958) - English philosopher, one of the founders of Anglo-American neorealism and the linguistic branch of analytical philosophy.

Moore declared himself as a philosopher in 1903, when two of his works were published: the article “Refutation of Idealism” and the book “Principles of Ethics.” They testified to Moore's interests that had been defined by this time: he was most attracted to two areas: the theory of knowledge and moral philosophy. The article “Refutation of Idealism” became the starting point of the realistic movement in England, which was the opposite of the mentality of absolute idealism. Debunking philosophical idealism, Moore defended common sense - with his inherent confidence in the existence of an objective world, independent of the subject (our Self, the consciousness of people), and its knowability. In solving problems of the theory of knowledge, he acted as a convinced realist, and in terms of research methods - as an analyst. The criticism of idealism, the defense of common sense and the application of the analytical method to the question of sense data are the problems that occupied the most important place in his work.

Moore directed his criticism primarily against the idealistic identification of “experience” and “reality.” At the same time, he proceeded from the principle of a strict distinction between the act of consciousness, on the one hand, and the object, on the other, and constantly emphasized the reliability of our knowledge about objects. Thus, in “Refutation of Idealism” the idealistic principle “to exist is to be perceived” (Latin esse percipi), as if implying: non-perceptible properties do not exist, is debunked.

Moore considers the argument about the identity of perception and perceived to be erroneous. The object in this case is represented only by the “content” of consciousness, the property of the object is mixed with the perception of this property, etc. Meanwhile, Moore explains, we are never closed within the framework of our own consciousness, isolated from the outside world and other people. Our knowledge covers all these three points. Moore later softened his arguments somewhat. He noted, in particular, that people are very likely to believe at least that sensory objects that are not currently observable would be observed if they were in a position to observe them. For him it is indisputable: the instinctive belief in the existence of objects even outside of perception cannot be rejected.

Moore also analyzes the characteristic idealist claim that physical facts depend causally or logically on facts of consciousness, and seeks to justify the natural belief of people that no fact of consciousness could change the arrangement of objects in a room or undo the long existence of the Earth.

Moore emphasized that the truth of the most general propositions - about the existence of physical objects, other people - is implicit in the general way of our thinking, in the confidence inherent in us in many cases: we know this. Even the denial of such provisions already implicitly implies the existence of the one (or those) who denies them. It establishes a close semantic (analytical) connection between the concepts of “being external to consciousness”, “meeting in space” and others. At the limit of these justifications, obvious facts are discovered that are no longer amenable to criticism and do not need protection. A person does not know how he knows many simple and indisputable truths, he simply knows them obviously. And this knowledge cannot be shaken. All common sense and even language itself oppose the denial of the obvious, plunging us into contradictions, becoming inarticulate and confusing.

The philosopher attached great importance to the analysis of sensations and other forms of sensory experience for solving the problems that worried him.

Moore paid a lot of attention to the question of the relationship between sensory data and physical objects. He understands that the analysis of sensations provides the key to distinguishing between “sensory experience” and “reality.” With the help of such an analysis, tracing and comparing variations in sensations, he was able to identify, as it were, a “gap” between sensation and what is felt, their discrepancy. For example, the same object, depending on the accompanying circumstances, is perceived either as cold or as warm. The same color is perceived differently by the naked eye than under a microscope. An object as a whole may be perceived as one color, even if its elements are multicolored. With the help of such differences, Moore believed, what he calls an object is captured and indirectly declares itself, and thanks to which the cognitive relationship between subject and object appears as “awareness” and not a dream.

At the same time, Moore understood that the analysis of sensory data is applicable only within certain limits and cannot be a universal method for solving philosophical problems. Indeed, in addition to sensory data, the process of cognition of objects includes something else, thanks to which at some point (memory prompts this) the “miracle” of the transition from a given image to the confidence that this image refers to something occurs. Not limiting himself to the analysis of sensory data, Moore also developed procedures for clarifying philosophical concepts, theses, and paradoxes, attaching increasing importance to the semantic analysis of language.

Analysis, according to Moore, involves the use of language with its inherent distinction between words and concepts, sentences and statements. This makes possible a kind of “translation”, the replacement of some expressions with others that are identical in meaning. The essence of analysis is the clarification of concepts and statements, and not the discovery of new facts about the world. The philosopher indicated some conditions for correct analysis, in particular the requirement of identity of the analyzed and analyzing concepts, although such a requirement leads to a paradox of analysis and makes its strict definition difficult.

Attaching great importance to analysis, Moore still saw in it only one of the tasks of philosophy, not at all considering that the latter can be reduced to analysis. He clearly distinguished between the philosophical statement of the truths of common sense and the philosophical analysis of these truths, the process of proving philosophical statements and the analysis of the premises and conclusions of this proof. In other words, the value of philosophy itself was not questioned, but its most important task was the desire to describe the universe as a whole.

Moore's influence on the development of philosophical thought in England in the first half of the 20th century is generally recognized. And most importantly, he had a very noticeable influence on the style of philosophizing itself. His students note: “Philosophy after Moore can never be what it was before Moore, because of the standards of precision and sophistication that he brought to philosophizing, and, more importantly, because of the direction that he gave to philosophical research." Not only the arguments presented in the texts (there are not so many of them), but also Moore’s constant communication with colleagues and students, his lectures, and participation in discussions contributed to strengthening the position of philosophical realism. Moore revived the original English philosophical tradition of empiricism and common sense, giving it a renewed appearance, marked by close attention to language. This became the origin of analytical philosophy. Moore gave impetus to the analytic movement in philosophy. Following him, B. Russell took this path, making a decisive contribution to the formation of the philosophy of logical analysis.

3. Logical analysis

Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) - world famous English scientist, philosopher, public figure. At sixteen he read the Autobiography of his godfather J.S. Mill, who made a great impression on him. Mill also wrote the first theoretical work on philosophy, read by Russell at the age of eighteen. This work ("System of Logic") had a significant influence on Russell's future philosophical positions.

There are three periods in Russell's work. The first, devoted to the development of mathematics and philosophy, lasted - along with studies - about ten years (1890-1900). The next, most fruitful period (1900-1910) was devoted to the logical study of the foundations of mathematics. At this time, Russell wrote the book “Principles of Mathematics” (1903), the article “On Notation” (1905) and co-authored with A.N. Whitehead - the fundamental work "Principia Mathematica" ("Principles of Mathematics"). The last work, completed by 1910, brought the authors worldwide fame. Forty-year-old Russell entered the third period, the main content of which was the development of a wide range of philosophical topics and the publication of popular works, which Russell himself valued much more than research for a narrow circle of specialists.

Having lived for almost a hundred years, Russell created many works covering the theory of knowledge and the history of philosophy, problems of religion and morality, pedagogy and politics. He very fully illuminated and critically analyzed his own creativity and the evolution of his views in his “Autobiography,” the article “My Intellectual Development” and the book “My Philosophical Development.” The author's general philosophical reasoning was at times eclectic; he often fell under different influences and developed slightly different concepts. His most serious and enduring philosophical interests were associated with mathematics and symbolic logic. He made fundamental contributions to these areas of knowledge that determined the development of analytical philosophy.

Russell's close attention to the study of the nature of knowledge also remained unchanged. This did not mean that philosophical problems were narrowed down for him to the theory of knowledge: the question “what is the world in which we live” was considered as more important. But this question could only be answered by understanding whether human beings could know anything, and if they could, what and how. Following the tradition of Hume and Kant, Russell distinguishes two fundamentally different approaches to knowledge: naturalistic, based on common sense, and a much deeper philosophical one, based on a critical attitude to the results of knowledge. A characteristic feature of the first is naive realism, the confidence that things are as they are perceived. In the course of philosophical research, it is realized that in place of the seemingly obvious, simple, complex structures actually exist, and doubt arises about the reliability of “simple” situations that previously seemed undoubted. As a result, firm confidence is replaced by methodical caution. Mature scientific knowledge (and such for Russell and most philosophers of science in general, as a rule, were physics and mathematics) recognizes the existence of a significant distance between knowledge and its object, takes into account the complexity of ways to recreate objects in the course of scientific research.

Russell characterized his positions as scientific common sense. He proceeded from the fact that the world in its usual understanding is a world of people and things, that beyond the horizon of our “small” world there is a “big” world - the Universe. Its components are events that exist in the form of colored spots of a certain shade and shape, tangible properties, sounds of a certain height, duration, and others. Each such element is called a unit. It is considered indisputable that we have known only an infinitesimal part of the Universe, that “countless centuries have passed during which there has been no knowledge at all,” and perhaps “countless centuries will again come during which there will be no knowledge.” It is also not questioned that when speaking of “cognition,” they usually assume a difference between the knower and the known. Common sense does not sharply contrast science and everyday knowledge, knowledge and beliefs, since it recognizes: science basically tells the truth, we move towards knowledge through opinion (belief), the difference between the two is not so fundamental and is determined only by the degree of plausibility .

The largest of Russell's philosophical works on the theory of knowledge are “Analysis of Consciousness” (1921) and the work “Human Knowledge, Its Sphere and Limits” (1948), which summed up many years of reflection. In his general philosophical discussions about knowledge, Russell generally repeats much of what is known from the works of D. Hume, I. Kant, J.S. Mill, E. Mach and others. What was new was the task that captivated him and was successfully solved: to give the empiricism of the past, which was usually based on psychology, an effective logical apparatus. In the ideas and methods of mathematical (or symbolic) logic, which was successfully developing at that time, he discovered powerful reinforcement of the tradition of empiricism, nominalism and atomism in the theory of knowledge.

A real achievement was the new ideas he put forward in the field of logical analysis of knowledge, which turned out to be very effective for solving problems traditionally considered philosophical. This led Russell to believe that logic, even in its modern formalized form, was deeply connected with philosophy. A distinctive feature of analytical philosophy, first of all, was the unprecedented convergence of logic and the theory of knowledge.

A significant role here was played by Russell and A. Whitehead's study of the foundations of mathematics, which, after 10 years of hard work, culminated in the three-volume work "Principia Mathematica" ("Principles of Mathematics"). The authors sought to implement the program of logicism formulated by G. Frege (to prove that pure mathematics is a branch of logic). The task was successfully completed. For many problems in the foundation of mathematics, which had previously been studied rather speculatively, rigorous solutions were found using logical-mathematical methods. The work "Principles of Mathematics" was perceived by contemporaries as a mathematical, logical and philosophical triumph. Mathematical problems were closely intertwined in him with logical and philosophical problems, the solution of which fell to Russell.

Having adopted the program of logicism, he was imbued with the conviction that not a single concept, not a single axiom should be taken on faith. It was assumed that logic and mathematics are in principle homogeneous, that both the simplest laws of logic and complex theorems of mathematics can be derived from a small set of elementary ideas, that mathematics is essentially the same logic, only more mature and developed. This idea had already been expressed by Frege by that time. A special role in his program of logicism was assigned to the solution of complex logical problems, primarily the elimination of paradoxes. But his philosophical views (Platonism) prevented him from realizing his ideas of logical analysis of language and the development of analytical philosophy. Russell managed to do this, largely thanks to a fundamentally different philosophical platform that corresponded to the technology itself and the procedures of logical analysis.

Russell's most important logical discoveries are the theory of descriptions and the theory of logical types. The main subject of the theory of descriptions is denoting expressions that ensure the informativeness of messages and the connection of language with reality. Russell's attention was drawn to the characteristic difficulties of their use, generated by our tendency to see behind every grammatically correct denoting expression a corresponding object. For example, we say: “I met a person,” although it is impossible to meet a person at all. The difficulties hidden in generalizing expressions have long been known: they are thought of as designations of certain abstract entities (universals), which leads to “realism” of the Platonic type.

The analysis of language revealed more and more new logical puzzles and accompanying philosophical difficulties, which in principle had been known for a long time and were most characteristic of abstract levels of reasoning. This was most acutely manifested in the paradoxes of the foundations of mathematics, which is what Russell encountered. Common sense and the lessons of philosophical criticism told him that the reality of the matter is not as language sometimes suggests to us.

The basis of Russell's analysis of denoting phrases (the theory of descriptions) was the idea that the meaning of a denoting expression can be learned either through direct acquaintance with the corresponding denoted object, or through its description. Familiarity is a direct indication of the named object, its visual, sensory presentation. Description is a verbal description of an object according to its characteristics. To avoid confusion, Russell proposed a strict distinction between names and descriptions as two different types of relation of signs to an object. In addition, he noted that the description can be definite - referring to an individual specific object ("the capital of England" and others) and indefinite - relating to a class of objects. Russell's new important clarification was the distinction between proper names and definite descriptions. He emphasized that even a definite (individualized) description still does not directly indicate the corresponding object, since it takes the sign in abstraction from its bearer. As a result, one can, for example, understand the expression “the man who discovered the elliptical shape of planetary orbits,” but not know that this man was Kepler. Finally, in the theory of descriptions, a new, clarifying interpretation of sentences including denoting phrases was proposed. Russell came to the conclusion that difficulties in understanding denoting phrases arise from an incorrect analysis of the sentences in which they form. An essential role in adequate analysis is played by understanding the statement as a whole as a variable, the meaning of which depends on the expressions included in it.

Russell's concept of logic, which grew out of the philosophy of mathematics, was characterized by extreme nominalism. Logic was identified with syntax, with the rules for the meaningful arrangement of words. Any symbol that goes beyond the simple naming of a single object was interpreted as not really corresponding to anything. In other words, any somewhat general concept (for example, a class of objects) was thought of simply as a word, a “symbolic fiction,” and operations on these concepts were purely verbal.

Along with the theory of descriptions, to overcome logical difficulties and paradoxes, Russell put forward the theory of types, according to which “that which includes the totality of something must not include itself.” In other words, Russell proposed to clearly distinguish classes of concepts according to the degree of their generality. A clear separation of logical types (categories) and the establishment of linguistic prohibitions on their mixing was intended to get rid of “illegal universalities” and eliminate the paradoxes that arise, according to Russell, due to unlimited operation with the concept “everything”.

From Russell's theory it followed that when logical types (categories) are mixed, sentences arise that are devoid of meaning and cannot be characterized as either true or false. Such errors lead to logically dead-end situations, which type theory is designed to prevent. Without pretending to explain, much less change the actual practice of using language, it brought categorical clarity to its work. This conclusion influenced all subsequent development of analytical philosophy.

So, as a result of these studies, logical analysis is developed. Its task is not to examine objects, not to obtain new truths about the world (this is a matter of science), but to clarify, clarify the meaning of words and sentences that make up knowledge. This is achieved through translation, reformulation of less clear provisions into clearer ones. Russell put forward a detailed theory of logical analysis as a method of translating knowledge into a more precise language. The doctrine of analysis was a logical concept that Russell arrived at through the philosophy of mathematics. Logical analysis was primarily concerned with problems of language.

“Our investigation,” wrote Russell, “must begin with a test of words, and then of syntax.” But at the same time, it is believed that clarifying language turns out to be a means of clearer information about objects, since it clarifies the meaning, the substantive content of statements.

Russell did not limit himself to applying this method to mathematics; the method of logical analysis was also given a philosophical interpretation and application, which gave rise to a wide movement of so-called analytical philosophy.

As Russell noted, his logical doctrine led him in turn to a certain type of philosophy that seemed to justify the process of analysis. Russell directly bases his philosophy on his logic: “My logic is atomistic. Hence my metaphysics is atomistic. Therefore, I prefer to call my philosophy “logical atomism.” Having put forward the thesis that logic is the essence of philosophy, Russell comes to the following conclusion: “I believe that logic is fundamental to philosophy, and schools should be characterized by their logic rather than by their metaphysics." So, in contrast to the previous idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthe philosophical neutrality of formal logic, Russell defends the position of its active and even fundamental role, developing the idea of ​​​​a logical method of construction and justification philosophy.

4. From the "Logical-Philosophical Treatise" to the "Philosophical Investigations"

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) is one of the most original and influential thinkers of the 20th century, whose work combined the ideas of analytical philosophy that originated in England and continental, primarily German, thought (I. Kant, A. Schopenhauer and others). In Wittgenstein's works, the influence of ancient classics (Plato, sophists), philosophy of life (F. Nietzsche), pragmatism (W. James) and other movements is noticeable. At the same time, he is an original thinker who organically combined two characteristic features of 20th-century philosophy: interest in language and the search for meaning, the essence of philosophizing. In analytical philosophy he was destined to occupy a special place, to become a central figure, without whom it is difficult to imagine the general panorama of this movement and even the modern appearance of the world philosophical process as a whole.

In Wittgenstein's philosophical work, two periods are distinguished - early (1912 - 1918) and late (1929-1951), associated with the creation of two antipodal concepts. The first of them is presented in the Logico-Philosophical Treatise (1921), the second is most fully developed in Philosophical Studies (1953).

The philosopher’s texts are unusual in form: they are composed of short, numbered thought fragments. In the "Treatise" this is a strictly thought-out series of aphorisms, in contrast to the "Studies", executed in a completely different vein - as a collection of "sketch" notes, not subject to a clear logical sequence.

Created at different times, from different positions, Wittgenstein’s two concepts are “polar” and at the same time not alien to each other. Both reveal the fundamental connection between philosophical problems and deep mechanisms and patterns of language. Developing the first approach, Wittgenstein continued the work of Frege and Russell. The second, alternative program was more reminiscent of the late Moore. Wittgenstein’s “early” and “late” concepts are, as it were, “ultimate” versions of a single philosophical search that lasted his entire life. What was the philosopher looking for? If you try to answer in one word, you can say: clarity. The motto of the author of the Logico-Philosophical Treatise: “What can be said at all can be said clearly, but what cannot be said should be kept silent.” The search for clarity presupposed the ability to expose thought, to remove the “masks” of language from it, to bypass confusing linguistic traps, to get out of them, and once we got into one of them, then the ability to get out of it. From this point of view, his two concepts are aimed at solving a single problem - the formation of methods, skills, techniques for the correct (clarified) correlation of two “worlds” - verbal and real, verbal (speech) understanding and the realities of the world (events, things and forms of life, actions of people). The two approaches differ in their methods of clarification. In one case, these are artificially strict procedures of logical analysis, in the other - sophisticated techniques of linguistic analysis - “highlighting” the ways of using language, as it is, in various situations, contexts of its action.

The main work of the early Wittgenstein - "Tractatus logico-philosophicus" (Latin name - "Tractatus logico-philosophicus") - was inspired, according to the author, by the works of Frege and Russell. The general guidelines for Wittgenstein were Russell's thought “logic is the essence of philosophy” and the thesis that explains it: philosophy is the doctrine of the logical form of cognitive statements (sentences). The leitmotif of the "Treatise" is the search for an extremely clear logical model of knowledge-language and the general form of a sentence. In it, according to Wittgenstein, the essence of any statement (a meaningful statement about a particular situation) should be clearly revealed. And thereby the form of comprehension of the fact, this basis of the foundations of genuine knowledge about the world, must also be revealed. The concept of the essay was based on three principles: the interpretation of language terms as names of objects, the analysis of elementary statements - as logical pictures of the simplest situations (configurations of objects) and complex statements - as logical combinations of elementary sentences with which facts are correlated. As a result, the totality of true statements was thought of as a picture of the world.

"Logical-Philosophical Treatise" is a unique translation of the ideas of logical analysis into philosophical language. The basis was taken from the scheme of the relationship of elements of knowledge in the “Elements of Mathematics” by B. Russell and A. Whitehead. Its basis is elementary (atomic) statements. From them, with the help of logical connections (conjunction, disjunction, implication, negation), complex (molecular) statements are composed. They are interpreted as truth functions of primes. In other words, their truth or falsity is determined only by the truth values ​​of the elementary sentences included in them - regardless of their content. This makes possible the logical process of “statemental calculus” according to purely formal rules. Wittgenstein gave this logical scheme a philosophical status, interpreting it as a universal model of knowledge (language), mirroring the logical structure of the world. Thus logic was indeed presented as the “essence of philosophy.”

At the beginning of the "Logical-Philosophical Treatise" the concepts of "world", "facts", and "objects" are introduced. And it is explained that the world consists of facts (and not things), that facts can be complex (composite) and simple (already indivisible into more fractional facts). These (elementary) facts - or events - consist of objects in one or another of their connections, configurations. Objects are postulated to be simple and permanent. This is something that remains the same across different groups. Therefore, they are singled out as the substance of the world (stable, persistent) - in contrast to events. Events as possible configurations of objects are moving, changing. In other words, the Treatise begins with a certain picture of the world (ontology). But in actual research, Wittgenstein proceeded from logic. And only then he completed it (or derived from it) the ontology corresponding to it. Russell liked this concept, which successfully supplemented his new atomistic logic with its corresponding ontology and theory of knowledge, and he gave it the name “logical atomism.” Wittgenstein did not object to this name. After all, the scheme of the relationship between logic and reality that he invented is, in fact, nothing more than a logical version of atomism - in contrast to the psychological version of J. Locke, D. Hume, J.S. Mill, for whom all forms of knowledge acted as combinations of sensory “atoms” (sensations, perceptions, etc.).

The close connection between logic and the theory of knowledge (epistemology) was determined by Wittgenstein by the fact that logical atoms - elementary statements narrate events. Logical combinations of elementary statements (in Russell's terminology, molecular sentences) correspond to situations of a complex type, or facts. The “world” is made up of “facts”. The totality of true sentences gives a “picture of the world.” Pictures of the world can be different, since the “vision of the world” is given by language, and different languages ​​(say, different “mechanics”) can be used to describe the same reality. The most important step from a logical scheme to a philosophical picture of knowledge about the world and the world itself was the interpretation of elementary statements as logical “pictures” of facts of the simplest type (events). As a result, everything expressed appeared as a factual, that is, specific, or generalized (laws of science) narrative about the facts and events of the world.

The "Logical-Philosophical Treatise" presented a carefully thought-out logical model of "language - logic - reality", which, according to the author, clarifies the boundaries of the possibilities of comprehending the world, determined by the structure and boundaries of language. Statements that go beyond these boundaries turn out to be meaningless, according to Wittgenstein. The theme of the meaningful and the meaningless dominates the Logical-Philosophical Treatise. The main idea of ​​the work, as the author explained, was to draw “the boundary of thinking, or, rather, not of thinking, but of the expression of thought.” Wittgenstein considered it impossible to draw the boundary of thinking as such: “After all, to draw the boundary of thinking we would have to have the ability to think on both sides of this boundary (that is, to be able to think the unthinkable). Such a boundary can therefore only be drawn in language, and the fact that lies behind it, turns out to be simply nonsense." The entire body of meaningful statements, according to Wittgenstein, consists of informative narratives about facts and events in the world, covering the entire content of knowledge. As for logical sentences, they provide a formal analytical apparatus (“scaffolding”) of knowledge; they do not inform about anything, do not narrate, and thus turn out to be meaningless. But meaningless does not mean nonsense, because logical sentences, although they do not have meaningful (factual) information about the world, constitute a formal apparatus of knowledge.

Carefully exploring the field of knowledge as something that can be expressed, Wittgenstein also tried to reveal how important the role in the philosophical understanding of the world is played by the unsayable - that which can only be shown, clearly demonstrated. Drawing a line (in the spirit of Kant) separating knowledge (expressed) from that “about which it is impossible to speak” and should be kept “silent”, the philosopher led the reader to the thought: it is here, in the special sphere of the human spirit (which is given the names “mystical” , “inexpressible”) are born, live, are solved in one way or another in an extra-scientific way, so that later they arise again, in a different guise, the most important and therefore most interesting problems for a philosopher. The philosopher classifies everything sublime as something that is impossible to talk about: religious experience, the ethical, comprehension of the meaning of life. All this, in his opinion, is beyond the power of words and can only be revealed in action, in life.

Conclusion

Russell's logical and philosophical ideas became the basis for the development of the concepts of logical positivism (or logical empiricism). Russell admitted that among the followers of D. Hume in the 20th century, he most sympathized with this direction. For their part, the theorists of the Vienna Circle, who were actively developing problems of logical analysis of science, highly valued Russell's work and relied on them. The reference book for them was Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.

Russell's motto about logic as the essence of philosophy was taken very seriously in the Vienna Circle and its branches. This was unequivocally expressed by R. Carnap, who put forward the credo: “The logic of science is taking the place of the intractable complex of problems that was usually called philosophy.” Theorists of logical positivism (R. Carnap, H. Reichenbach, K. G. Hempel and others) productively studied the logic of science. Philosophy was not the main thing for them; it served only as a general justification for their special scientific developments in the field of logical syntax, semantics of scientific language and other problems. Analysis was used mainly as a means of solving problems of substantiating science and synthesizing (unifying) scientific knowledge. Over time, research in line with logical positivism took on an increasingly specialized character, yielding valuable scientific results (in the field of logical syntax, logical semantics, probabilistic logic and others). Logical and methodological studies of cognition in the works of W. Quine, G.N. Goodman, N. Rescher (USA) and others - also not so much philosophical as general scientific: the main guideline and value in them is science, which to a large extent takes the results obtained beyond the scope of philosophy itself.

Based on the works of the late Wittgenstein, the philosophy of linguistic analysis, or analysis of ordinary language, was formed in Great Britain in the 1930s and 1940s. During these years, Wittgenstein verbally presented his new concept to his students. Recordings of his lectures - "Blue and Brown Books" - were in circulation. This was the original version of his Philosophical Investigations. Since the 30s, here in the works of G. Ryle, J. Wisdom, J. Austin and others, ideas consonant with the thoughts of Wittgenstein have been developed. As for the latter, the main subject of their interest is philosophy itself. They have a good sense of the specifics of philosophical problems, their close connection with the mechanisms of actually working natural language, and clearly understand their fundamental difference from the problems of science. Much attention in their works is paid to the theme of the disorienting influence of language on human thinking, deeply explored by Wittgenstein.

If good works on modern logic were created on the basis of logical positivism, then a research program of theoretical linguistics was formed on the basis of linguistic philosophy. This revealed one of the important functions of philosophy - the formulation and initial study of new problems with their subsequent transfer to science. But in the analytical philosophy of the 20th century we also find important philosophical achievements: understanding the close connection of human experience with speech communication, language patterns, a new understanding on this basis of the specifics of philosophical thought and philosophical problems. The ideas of L. Wittgenstein were of primary importance for the development of these ideas. Most of the philosopher's works were published in the 1950s-1970s, and this work has not yet been completed. The development of his unusual texts, their commentary and discussion continues. Perhaps the growing influence of the ideas and methods of analytical philosophy is connected with this circumstance.

The ideas of analytical philosophy have influenced modern philosophical thought in many countries. Gradually, this direction has turned into a broad international movement, the positions of which are currently strongest in the English-speaking regions of the world.

List of sources used

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The tremendous successes of science, especially logic, linguistics, mathematics and physics, could not help but change the content of philosophizing. Moreover, these changes were impressive.

Analytical philosophy- this is philosophizing through a detailed analysis of the logic and language used. Logic and language are brought to the fore. The reason for this was, firstly, the difficulties that mathematicians had at the beginning of the twentieth century (as well as at its end). In science, mathematics has always been considered a model of rigor. But quite unexpectedly, mathematicians began to encounter various kinds of paradoxes and contradictions. It was not possible to cope with these difficulties by simple means. Because of this, the conviction grew that the roots of the difficulties are hidden in the foundations of mathematics, which includes logic, and some artificial language, as well as philosophy. Deep experts in the field of mathematics and logic, such as the German Gottlob Frege and the Englishman Bertrand Russell, came to the conclusion that the old philosophy was outdated, it was no less confusing than mathematics.

Secondly, analyticism arose as a reaction to the dominance of idealism in English universities at the beginning of the twentieth century. It was recognized that idealism is untenable; it clouds the clear state of affairs. In philosophy, we must take as a basis not abstract impressions and words that are necessary to reflect all this. Thus, the clarity of philosophy was associated, first of all, with language, and not with what was going on in the head, which was purely individual and unverifiable. Unlike thoughts and feelings, everyone can be convinced of the truth of linguistic descriptions of facts external to a person. This means that clear philosophy must be reduced to statements about facts external to man.

Englishman John Moore and the Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein were the first to place natural language, rather than the artificial languages ​​of mathematics and logic, at the center of philosophical analysis.

Thus, analyticism in philosophy did not arise by chance, but for very specific reasons.

The German mathematician Gottlob Frege was one of the many researchers who sought to use logic to improve mathematics, especially mathematical proof, which was replete with various kinds of paradoxes and contradictions. But Frege’s approach had one most important feature: according to his intuition, it was necessary to significantly develop logic itself, to create a formalized language that would serve as a worthy replacement for natural language with its many shortcomings. According to Frege, formal logic and natural language of that time suffered from the same flaw - the assumption that all sentences have a subject-predicate form. In complex sentences, the division into subject and predicate was difficult. Frege saw a way out of the situation in distinguishing argument and function and also introduces second-order functional expressions: “all”, “nobody”, “some”, which require the introduction of variables into logic. Frege's inventions literally transformed logic, which gained access not only to mathematics and various kinds of formalized languages, but also to natural language, and therefore to philosophy. Philosophers of the 20th century.-M., 1999.- P.431..

The English logician and mathematician Bertrand Russell was convinced that the new logic would make it possible to more adequately find final philosophical truths than previously, to discover the nature of the basic elements of reality, which cannot be reduced to the fictions of idealists (Leibniz, Hegel, Bradley).

Russell was guided by three ideas. First, sound philosophy is logic, for it begins with the explanation of propositions of what can be true or false, and this is the task of logic. Secondly, knowledge is most reliably given to us directly, primarily in sensory data. Reduction to the ultimate elements of reality allows us to avoid false ideas. Thirdly, he used his own version of the technique, which he called “Occam’s razor”: the objective content should be reduced to primordial essences that are indefinable in terms of anything else. For Russell, philosophy coincides with science, which has nothing in common with the old stupefying metaphysics.

The culmination of the first stage of the development of analytical philosophy was the book of the Cambridge philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, “Treatise Logico-Philosophical,” where the author focuses his attention on language even more persistently than Russell.

The main provisions of this first anthology of analytical philosophy are as follows:

Thought is expressed in language, which means that language is the boundary of thinking.

There is only one world - the world of facts, events (coexistence of facts), which are described by the totality of natural sciences.

A sentence is a picture of the world; it has the same logical form with the latter (if the world were illogical, then it could not be represented in the form of a sentence).

The meaning of the sentence expresses the event.

Complex sentences consist of elementary sentences that relate directly to facts.

The highest is inexpressible (meaning that the proposals of ethics, aesthetics, religion cannot be substantiated by facts.

What can be said at all can be said clearly. It is better to remain silent about everything else, for example, the mystical.

Philosophy cannot consist of scientific propositions, because philosophical propositions cannot be tested for truth and falsity; they are meaningless.

The goal of philosophy is not special philosophical proposals, but logical clarifications of language. Therefore, philosophy is not a special teaching, but an activity to clarify the language. Analytical philosophy: Selected texts.-M., 1993.-P.113..

The development of philosophical thought led to the improvement of speech. Linguists from European countries (also some American representatives) delved into the study of linguistic expressions. Analytical philosophy has made metalanguage a tool of universal use, accessible and understandable to everyone who wants to learn science, regardless of education. It is impossible to determine exactly when such a general cultural revolution occurred, since the process spanned many decades of the 20th century. The beginning of the Second World War was a decisive factor in the transition of the current to a new level. From the crises and innovations of the direction, the history of a full-fledged language array has emerged.

Analytics philosophy, early stage, representatives

Speaking about analytical philosophy, it is first of all necessary to understand its essence. It represents the leading direction in the philosophy of English-speaking intellectual communities of the 19th – 20th centuries, which dominates over other linguistic movements, unites them, and teaches them to use accuracy, rigor, and common sense in solving assigned problems.

Representatives of the movement are distinguished by their restraint towards abstraction, generalization, and secularization of concepts. The main trump card of philosophers is reasonable argumentation. Language serves for them not only as an auxiliary means of study, but is itself a subject of research.

The desire of analysts to eliminate from linguistic expressions forms that lead to erroneous philosophical conclusions and confusion of reasoning has acquired enormous significance. By comparing the logic and grammar of sentences and syntactic accuracy, adherents achieved the desired result.

Thanks to its scale, analytical philosophy, which unites scientific diversity under its leadership, began to lay claim to the methodology of all research knowledge.

Analysis in philosophy has acquired the role of an influential tool. He refracted the intellectual consciousness of society, directed humanity towards the path of scientific and technological progress, and carried out a revolution in philosophical thinking. At the same time, adherents of linguistic and logical types of analysis, reflecting the mood of minds, deny the primacy of any of the sciences and rely on everyday language and a natural approach to life.

Analytical philosophy takes its roots into antiquity. Aristotle reflected the initial ideas of modern analysts. Later philosophizing also contained the makings of an analytical approach. All subsequent analytical philosophers became the predecessors of the movement: Leibniz, Hume, Descartes, Berkeley, Locke, Hobbes, Brentano.

Heidegger was the ideologist of language improvement. The philosopher believed that the purpose of philosophical science is to approach the maximum adequacy of the transmission of thought through language.

The first prominent representatives were Russell, Ramsey, Frege, and Wittgenstein. They delved into detailed linguistic analysis and became the founders of knowledge for related sciences.

A proponent of the metaethical approach was the Georgian philosopher Mamardashvili, who proposed making ethical judgments based solely on life experience.

Members of the “Vienna Circle” are also considered adherents of analytical philosophizing. Despite the difference of opinions, they pursued a single principle - philosophical analysis of scientific language, critical perception of existing knowledge. The essence of the principle was to understand existing knowledge as a community of human sensations. To confirm this formulation, adherents proposed reducing knowledge to sensations.

Analytical ethics or metaethics

With the development of society, sooner or later the ethical question of philosophy, raised by Aristotle and Kant, again had to be on the agenda. If earlier ethics looked abstract and did not have clear definitions and rules, then analytical philosophers looked at it with their inherent logical view.

The moral and ethical problem, long ignored by proponents, has taken a central place in analytical philosophy. It is thanks to her that the direction is called metaethics. Husserl believes that the European social crisis is associated precisely with the removal of man from ethical values.

Metaethics, which analyzes everyday language, has two approaches to the perception of moral and ethical phrases: cognitive (cognitive), non-cognitive (subjective-emotional). The cognitive approach is more widespread and in demand. The ethics of values ​​and justice were the key ideas of the representatives of the movement. But over time, metaethics moved away from it, transformed into a vast movement, only vaguely reminiscent of the original source in its concepts. Modern metaethics is similar to the primordial one only in the analytical manner of the way of thinking: the absence of vagueness, abstractness of presentation; clear definition of key phrases; the desire for purity of logical conclusions.

The political side of philosophy

Analytical philosophers were adherents of various political opinions. Being adherents of philosophical knowledge, they did not hesitate to combine their scientific beliefs with a political position, put into practice the acquired research and analytical knowledge in order to eliminate political rivals, and criticized historically formed government systems.

This general process can be called the massive use of logical analysis for selfish purposes. This “phenomenal ubiquity of politics in philosophy” abolishes the very concept of “political philosophy.”

Religion through the eyes of analytical philosophers

In short, many of them were rabid atheists. Using methodological analysis in every possible way in politics, philosophers actively transferred it to religious beliefs. Challenging, criticizing, ridiculing church dogmas, they sought to prove the unviability of faith as such. Although they themselves were also believers, their only deity was science. Some proponents of analytic philosophy considered religion to be the worst offspring of metaphysics. Others designated it as a body of mystical knowledge that lends itself to linguistic research.

Such a diverse use of analytical philosophizing indicates its wide applicability in any sphere of life.

Metaphysics as a subject of controversy

Initially, metaphysics was a subject of denial for analytical philosophers: they did not understand its principles, had a negative attitude towards its purpose, and considered its conclusions and discoveries absurd. Metaphysical logic was not compared with analytical thinking, since it was poorly provable. It, as representatives of the movement believed, was based on inventions of learned minds, meaningless, absurd conclusions. Analyst Quine later discovered that accusations of the absurdity of metaphysics were based only on specific atomic quotations. From which it follows that it is unreasonable to judge science as a whole based on individual passages.

Analytical philosophers have come to the conclusion that without some intellectual hypotheses, universals, it is impossible to compose linguistic terms. Therefore, the complete denial of metaphysical theories makes philosophy itself problematic, and science must leave free space for assumptions, approximations, which over time will find natural proof or become confirmation of other laws.

Thanks to the adherents of analytical philosophy, the uniqueness of metaphysics, the same doctrine of atoms, was proven, its discoveries received research approval from the scientific community. After this, a synthesis of precision and approximation occurred. But analysts prefer to refrain from loud statements about postmodern metaphysics and not to combine it with classical teaching. Analytical philosophers refer to the assumption of the parallelism of worlds, their multiplicity, and the uniqueness of the model of our world as atomic theories.

Analytical methods of philosophy, influence on them Carnap

The echo of philosophers who supported metaphysics was picked up by the analyst Carnap.

The assertion of the only true mathematical accuracy and logic seemed to him erroneous, practically impossible. But the use of humanitarian literary language to formulate physical and mathematical concepts also showed its ineffectiveness.

The research space needed a radically new approach. Carnap proposed the mass use of the basic scientific language, structured according to established rules. The philosopher suggested: “if any dogma contains the concept of the essence of something, you need to recognize it as true and build further logical conclusions.” This approach was a type of semantic approach, which had two directions - general, academic. The first assumed that the use of terms comes down to simple dictionary convenience of communication between people, and clashes occur as a result of elementary linguistic understatement. The second (Carnap was his supporter) assumed the existence of a world ideological agreement, a “vocabulary framework”, thanks to which scientists around the world could communicate without problems.

Wittgenstein - representative of analytical philosophy

The Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein supported the technique of language analysis. To do this, he used deductive, logical, and mathematical techniques.

Wittgenstein finds the connection between judgments and facts precisely in linguistic space. A thorough, mathematically provable study of language is required, namely the separation of meaningless and reasonable conclusions that will show whether the saying coincides with reality. To simplify the analysis, it is necessary to isolate individual important statements from the total mass, then compare them with the fact.

Due to the use of literary generalized language, terms are confused, thereby creating philosophical pseudo-problems.

Therefore, the main task of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s method is to divide complex sentences into atomic ones and then relate them to facts. The analyst's followers developed a procedure for analyzing theoretical explanations and basic statements. Basic statements were based on sensations and research results. From which it follows that science must be guided by logical, mathematical truths, and not by empirical guesses.

Philosophy sets itself a more global goal - language improvement, establishing prohibitions on certain topics.

Confrontation between metaphysics and philosophy

The concept of "analytic philosophy" was born from the methodology of Rudolf Russell. He considered the world to be a collection of facts supported by statements. A single fact creates an idea of ​​a secondary one, and so on ad infinitum. The logical essences of facts, like atomic statements, contain all scientific significance.

According to Russell, the relationship between a fact and a statement proves the definition of the statement itself as a real fact.

Plato, with his “universal ideas,” influenced Russell’s construction of his own analytical method. His theory of “logical atoms” demonstrated the relationship between philosophy and science.

Russell's brainchild, analytical philosophy, discovered the true meaning of sayings, their hidden meaning. Russell believed that clarity of knowledge, as the main goal of philosophy, can be achieved not by the discovery of new terms, but by the reconstruction of already known scientific dogmas based on proven facts. Any metaphysical principle that does not correspond to a known factual essence is absurd, a play on words.

ANALYTICAL PHILOSOPHY, the dominant direction in English-language philosophy of the 20th century. In a broad sense, it defines a style of philosophical thinking, characterized by such qualities as rigor, accuracy of the terminology used, and a cautious attitude towards philosophical generalizations and speculative reasoning. For philosophers of an analytical orientation, the process of argumentation itself and its structure are no less important than the result achieved with their help; many of them rely on formal (mathematical) logic, empiricist epistemology and scientific data. Language is considered not only as an important means of presenting philosophical ideas, but also as an independent object of research. Analytical philosophy does not represent a holistic school, guided by a uniformly formulated set of principles, so, rather, we can talk about the analytical movement in philosophy (by analogy, for example, with the phenomenological movement), in line with which the prevailing paradigm of philosophical rationality of the 20th century was formed.

Historical roots. The features of the analytical-rationalistic style of philosophizing are found in Socratic induction, Platonic dialectics, in Aristotle's Analysts, in the semantic ideas of the Sophists and Stoics.

Medieval scholastic treatises and debates are a striking example of evidence, analyticity and conceptual rigor. Particularly noteworthy are the logical-semantic ideas of the British scholastics Duns Scotus and W. Ockham.

In modern times, predominantly attention to the linguistic and epistemological side of philosophical activity has become a distinctive feature of English philosophy. In the critical epistemology of F. Bacon, the “idols of the market (square),” which prevent the knowledge of the truth, arise as a result of disordered speech communication. The classification of linguistic signs by T. Hobbes underlies his analytical-synthetic methodology for the study of natural and artificial bodies (including the state). The principle of psychological atomism put forward by J. Locke (thought appears as a combination of the initial elements of sensibility - “simple ideas”) was developed by J. Berkeley, who considered all things and phenomena as combinations of ideas-sensations, the source of which is the Supreme Being (real causal connection was replaced by Berkeley sign relations between groups of sensations). In the more consistent phenomenalist doctrine of D. Hume, the only type of reality - the sphere of perceptual experience - is presented as a complex associative combination of “impressions” and their copies - ideas. The line of Hume and other British empiricist analysts was continued in the 19th century by J. S. Mill, who improved the logical-inductive procedures of philosophy and methodology of science.

An important contribution to the formation of the analytical style of philosophizing was made by such representatives of “continental” European philosophy as R. Descartes, who developed a new model of consciousness (analytic philosophers consider him the founder of the philosophy of consciousness in the modern sense), G. V. Leibniz, who created the logical theory of relations, I. Kant, whose transcendental argumentation became one of the favorite methods of reasoning and proof for analytic philosophers, F. Brentano with his idea of ​​the intentionality of consciousness.

Logical atomism 1910-20s. The origins of analytical philosophy were the German logician and philosopher G. Frege (“On Sense and Meaning,” 1892) and the English philosophers J. E. Moore and B. Russell, who in 1898 sharply criticized British absolute idealism, the monistic concept of which they They contrasted pluralism, and the principle of holism (integrity) with atomism. According to Russell (lectures “The Philosophy of Logical Atomism”, 1918, and article “Logical Atomism”, 1924), the Universe consists of individual elements (“atoms”) that are logical in nature and are further indecomposable, in contrast to complex objects (“logical fictions”) ") are absolutely simple and enter into external (functional) relationships with each other. “Atoms” are designated in language using “logical proper names”, indicating objects in the world that are given in direct “knowledge-acquaintance”. The limit of logical analysis is elementary statements (“atomic sentences”) that fix elementary facts (possession of a single thing, some property, or the presence of some relation). With the help of logical connectives, atomic sentences are combined into molecular ones, which in themselves do not exist (for nothing in the world corresponds to the words “and”, “or”, “if”) and are the truth functions of the atomic sentences included in them.

In L. Wittgenstein’s period of his “Logical-Philosophical Treatise” (1921), the elements of language (“names”) also correspond to the elements of reality (“objects”) as their semantic meanings. The combination of “objects” gives elementary facts (“states of affairs”), denoted by elementary sentences, which, like elementary facts, are absolutely independent of each other. The ability of a language to designate “facts” is determined by its internal logical structure. In this sense, the boundaries of language coincide with the boundaries of the “world”, and everything that is outside the “world of facts” and is formulated in the form of metaphysical, religious, ethical, aesthetic proposals is characterized in the “Logical-Philosophical Treatise” as “mystical” and “ unspeakable." The program setting of B. Russell and Wittgenstein assumed the construction of a logically perfect language that reveals the logical form of scientific statements.

Logical positivism 1930-40s. Boundless confidence in the capabilities of the new method of analysis, which was based on the achievements of mathematical logic, received even more vivid expression in the 1930s in the works of philosophers and scientists who were members of the Vienna Circle (M. Schlick, R. Carnap, O. Neurath, F. . Weissman, K. Gödel, etc.), in Great Britain - in the works of A. Ayer. This stage in the development of analytical philosophy was called logical positivism in connection with the refusal of its representatives from traditional ontology and philosophical theory in general in favor of logical-semiotic activity to clarify the terms and sentences of the language of science. The ideas of logical positivism were close to many representatives of the Lviv-Warsaw school (J. Lukasiewicz, A. Tarski, K. Aidukevich, etc.), as well as the Berlin Society of Empirical Philosophy associated with the Vienna Circle (H. Reichenbach, etc.).

The Vienna Circle program was based on the doctrine of verificationism, according to which the meaning of a sentence, phrase or individual term is determined by the method of its experimental verification. At first, direct verification of scientific statements was assumed in the direct sensory experience of the subject, recorded using the so-called protocol sentences. The difficulties that arose in this case (for example, the impossibility of verifying universal scientific laws or statements about past events, etc.) subsequently led to the abandonment of the requirement of direct verification and its replacement by fundamental verifiability, which establishes the scientific meaningfulness of propositions (i.e., their ability to be either true , or false). All other proposals were classified as unreasonable, including the statements of traditional philosophy (“metaphysics”), which was interpreted as an inadequate expression of the irrational “feeling of life” (R. Carnap). Sharply dividing logical-mathematical knowledge, which was considered as analytical and a priori, and empirical knowledge (synthetic, factual), logical positivists rejected the Kantian concept of a priori synthetic knowledge. Initially giving preference to the logical-syntactic analysis of the language of science, later representatives of logical positivism shifted their emphasis to logical-semantic analysis. The desire to create a unified system of various fields of knowledge led Carnap and O. Neurath in the late 30s and early 40s to put forward a physicalist program that involved describing data from various sciences in the intersubjective language of physics, which was supposed to contribute to the unification of scientific knowledge. Before World War II, many representatives of logical positivism emigrated from continental Europe to the USA and Great Britain, helping to spread their teaching there.

At the end of the 1950s, the doctrine of logical positivism was criticized within the framework of analytical philosophy itself by American philosophers W. Quine, G. N. Goodman, W. Sellars and others from the standpoint of pragmatism. Of decisive importance was Quine's refutation of the distinction between so-called analytic sentences (that is, sentences of logic and mathematics that depend only on the meaning of their constituent terms) and synthetic (empirical) sentences based on facts. Quine also rejected the principle of verifiability of meaning, which requires the confirmation or denial of each individual statement, since he believed it was erroneous to consider isolated sentences, abstracting from their role in the context of a linguistic system or theory. He contrasted this approach with a holistic approach: a system of interconnected proposals of a theory, and not individual proposals or hypotheses, is subject to testing in science.

The philosophy of linguistic analysis became widespread in Great Britain and the USA in the 1930s-60s. It is associated with the philosophical analysis of natural language, the method of which was first developed by J. E. Moore for the purpose of translating (or paraphrasing) obscure, misleading expressions into other, clearer expressions of natural language. At the same time, the translated expressions had to remain synonymous. Another important source for the emergence of linguistic philosophy was the teaching of the late L. Wittgenstein, who, since the late 1920s, abandoned the identification of the a priori structure of language and the understanding of meaning as an object denoted by a word. According to the new concept he put forward, words acquire meaning only in the process of their use in a certain context (the so-called language games, which represent the interweaving of various forms of human activity and act for a person as his “life form”) and in accordance with accepted in “ linguistic community" rules. From the point of view of Wittgenstein and his followers at the University of Cambridge, philosophical misconceptions are eliminated by clarifying and detailing the natural ways of using words and expressions, incorporating them into their inherent contexts of human communication. Developing a “therapeutic” understanding of the tasks of analysis to eliminate “metaphysical” misconceptions rooted in unconscious motives and aspirations, representatives of the Cambridge school (J. Wisdom, M. Lazerowitz, E. Ambrose) brought philosophical and linguistic analysis closer to psychoanalysis in this regard.

Since the late 1940s, representatives of the so-called Oxford school of philosophy of “ordinary language” (G. Ryle, J. Austin, P. Strawson, R. Hear) have gained great influence, who introduced a new categorical apparatus for the analysis of linguistic communication. The theory of “speech acts” put forward by Austin, a unique synthesis of philosophy and linguistics (“linguistic phenomenology”), was developed in the so-called illocutionary logic of the American analyst J. Searle, who interprets speech acts as intentional actions of the speaker. G. Ryle saw the task of analysis as the elimination of “categorical errors” arising from the unjustified confusion of external forms of linguistic expressions with their logical (categorical) structure. Thus, in the description of acts of consciousness with the help of nouns, Ryle saw the source of an erroneous understanding of consciousness as a special spiritual substance, and not as a function fixed in the form of logical constructions of observed behavioral reactions (“logical behaviorism”). In general, proponents of the philosophy of linguistic analysis, with their close attention to the subtle nuances of the use of linguistic expressions, unlike the logical positivists, did not call for the “improvement” of natural language on the model of formalized logical languages ​​or the languages ​​of science.

Analytical philosophy in the 2nd half of the 20th century. By the early 1960s, analytical philosophy had overcome its initial negative-critical attitude towards traditional philosophical issues (the program of “descriptive metaphysics” by P. Strawson and others), insisting only on strict logical-conceptual analysis and increased attention to methods and means of philosophical justification . Analytical philosophy increasingly claimed the role of a metaphilosophical doctrine, capable of assimilating the ideas of other philosophical movements and being a universal language of philosophical discussion. The conceptual core of analytical philosophy continued to consist of scientific programs developed in the philosophy of language, which retained a predominantly interest in the problem of meaning. Changing priorities in language research (the transition from the construction of special formalized languages ​​to the analysis of natural languages, an emphasis on the communicative rather than descriptive function of language, etc.) determined an intensive search for new approaches to solving this problem (D. Davidson, M. Dummett, S. Kripke, H. Putnam, P. Grice, etc.). Epistemological research, focused mainly on the analysis of the problem of knowledge, its structure and methods of justification (A. Ayer, E. Gettier, etc.), retained an important position in analytical philosophy. Philosophy of science in the 1960-70s was the main arena of philosophical discussions around the problem of the development of scientific knowledge (K. Popper and others). At the same time, such analytical disciplines as philosophy of consciousness (a component of the more general “philosophy of psychology”), philosophy of action, moral philosophy, philosophy of logic, political philosophy, etc., became increasingly important. In the last decades of the 20th century, philosophy of consciousness became a real epicenter of philosophical research, featuring a rich range of approaches to explaining consciousness - from the materialistic “theory of psychophysical identity” (D. Armstrong, J. Smart, Davidson, etc.) and functionalism (Putnam, D. Lewis, J. Fodor, etc.) to the theory of “ non-eliminable subjectivity” (J. Searle) and dualism of physical and mental properties (Strawson, “two-aspect theory” by T. Nagel, etc.). In the 1970s, interest in moral and political issues sharply increased in connection with the discussion of the philosophical foundations of liberalism (J. Rawls, R. Nozick, etc.) and the emergence of “applied ethics” (bioethics, medical ethics, business ethics, etc.) .

At the same time, the number of adherents of analytical philosophy grew rapidly. Strengthening and expanding its position in the Anglo-Saxon world (Great Britain, USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand), analytical philosophy also established itself as a leading philosophical direction in the Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands; its influence was felt even in countries with a different strong national philosophical tradition (Germany, France, India, etc.).

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