If anyone starts talking to you about human nature/Ignore them, it means they’re
as dumb as their parents were/Our nature is to change our nature
(King Face 1987, “Anyone”)
One of the notable virtues of the analytical tradition in philosophy lies in its
specific combination of intellectual modesty and conceptual rigour. Grand metaphysical systems, as they were typical of post-Kantian idealist philosophies
of several stripes, and as they dominated much of modern European philosophy, now came to be viewed with due suspicion, for their very combination
of intellectual haughtiness and conceptual obscurity. Instead, it was hoped,
logical analysis might help not to solve but to actually dissolve some of the
seemingly great philosophical questions, in proving their meaninglessness, as
Rudolf Carnap did in his aptly titled “The Elimination of Metaphysics through
Logical Analysis of Language” (1959) – which was originally published in
German with a title that, more subtly, suggests metaphysics to be “overcome”
rather than “eliminated” (Carnap 1931). Alternatively, as Ludwig Wittgenstein
preferred to do in his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1933), one might use
logical means to show the meaninglessness of the seeming great questions in
philosophy.
Taking the liberty of expressing my appraisal of this endeavour and its virtues by playing on the famous phrasing in the last sentence of Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species (1859, 490), there is grandeur in this view of
philosophy – if not in every detail of content then in spirit. I will build my
concluding remarks both on my appraisal and on some of the difficulties of
the analytic view of philosophy, carving out a domain within my arguments
in which conceptual analysis may be appropriate – while ultimately adopting
a naturalist perspective in my effort to overcome metaphysics. For the most
part adopting a broader, bolder, more free-form and, at times, more polemic
stance than in the preceding nine chapters, I will tentatively probe for some
of the possible wider philosophical implications of my project, and develop
an idea of what sort of project it actually is in the wider context of the history
and methods of philosophy.
10 Afterthoughts on conceptual
analysis and human nature
as dumb as their parents were/Our nature is to change our nature
(King Face 1987, “Anyone”)
One of the notable virtues of the analytical tradition in philosophy lies in its
specific combination of intellectual modesty and conceptual rigour. Grand metaphysical systems, as they were typical of post-Kantian idealist philosophies
of several stripes, and as they dominated much of modern European philosophy, now came to be viewed with due suspicion, for their very combination
of intellectual haughtiness and conceptual obscurity. Instead, it was hoped,
logical analysis might help not to solve but to actually dissolve some of the
seemingly great philosophical questions, in proving their meaninglessness, as
Rudolf Carnap did in his aptly titled “The Elimination of Metaphysics through
Logical Analysis of Language” (1959) – which was originally published in
German with a title that, more subtly, suggests metaphysics to be “overcome”
rather than “eliminated” (Carnap 1931). Alternatively, as Ludwig Wittgenstein
preferred to do in his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1933), one might use
logical means to show the meaninglessness of the seeming great questions in
philosophy.
Taking the liberty of expressing my appraisal of this endeavour and its virtues by playing on the famous phrasing in the last sentence of Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species (1859, 490), there is grandeur in this view of
philosophy – if not in every detail of content then in spirit. I will build my
concluding remarks both on my appraisal and on some of the difficulties of
the analytic view of philosophy, carving out a domain within my arguments
in which conceptual analysis may be appropriate – while ultimately adopting
a naturalist perspective in my effort to overcome metaphysics. For the most
part adopting a broader, bolder, more free-form and, at times, more polemic
stance than in the preceding nine chapters, I will tentatively probe for some
of the possible wider philosophical implications of my project, and develop
an idea of what sort of project it actually is in the wider context of the history
and methods of philosophy.
10 Afterthoughts on conceptual
analysis and human nature