Analytic Philosophy

Analytic philosophy, often contrasted with Continental Philosophy, is a school of thought that arose in the early 20th century that places emphasis on analysis. While previous philosophers and thinkers of course placed attention on a form of conceptual and propositional analysis, the rise in ‘Analytic Philosophy’ specifically focused on a form of logical analysis that worked to value the "significance" of breaking down concepts, examining each proposition and its meaning, and going from there. The movement is often considered to have begun from a series of philosophers (listed in the Key Figures section and others) who greatly advanced the field of logic, mathematics, and language. But the analysis performed in this tradition does not comprise of a mere ‘decomposition’ of propositions and concepts, but rather what is termed interpretive analysis. This form saw many early logicians and philosophers begin to interpret, rewrite, or ‘analyze’ propositions in a way that would help their meaning to be better understood. Analytical philosophy is not simply a philosophy of language, despite many problems centering around words and meaning, but focuses more on a logical analysis that does not work to discover what the meaning of basic words are (though that is of course an issue), but rather how those words - or mathematical numbers or symbols of logic, etc. - work together, and what can be deducted from it. Much of the core beliefs that gained popularity from the analytic tradition (logical positivism, etc.) play a crucial role, but each deserves a dedicated entry. Analytic philosophy is precisely a tradition - and not a ‘field’ of research - and so analytic philosophers have not only explored logic and math, but have inspected metaphysical and ontological questions, epistemology, and many other topics. Analytic philosophy is considered the dominant tradition alive today in Western philosophy.