Early Analytic Philosophy

The past few decades have seen considerable interest in the history of analytic philosophy. As this field has developed, complex and provocative questions have emerged about the very nature of analytic philosophy, challenging longstanding assumptions and spawning new research paradigms. In this outstanding collection, an international team of contributors examine these questions and contribute to these debates, exploring the idea of analysis, the essence and status of logic, the nature of the proposition and its linguistic expression, the logical act of judgment, the distinction between external and internal relations, the possibility of category mistakes, and the demarcation of sense from nonsense. Several of the chapters shed light on the interconnections between Wittgenstein and other figures within that tradition, including Frege, Russell, Ramsey, and Ryle. Other chapters examine the interaction between analytic philosophers and members of other philosophical traditions, including Frege and Weierstrass, Wittgenstein and Schopenhauer, Wittgenstein and Bradley, Russell and the North American Pragmatists, Russell and the Neo-Kantians, Wittgenstein and Heidegger, and Heidegger and Ryle. Among the specific topics explored are Russell's conception of the judging subject, Wittgenstein's discussion of rule-following, Frege's conception of the logical categories, and Wittgenstein's conception of nonsense. The volume also includes a book review by Gilbert Ryle - collected and published non-anonymously here for the first time - which sheds important light on the reception of Frege's philosophy in the analytic tradition. Early Analytic Philosophy: Origins and Transformations will be of great interest to those studying and researching the history of twentieth-century philosophy, contemporary analytic philosophy, and the philosophy of language and logic.

James F. Conant is Chester D. Tripp Professor of Humanities, Professor of Philosophy, and Professor in the College at the University of Chicago, USA. Gilad Nir is a Lecturer at the University of Potsdam, Germany.

Editors' Introduction James Conant and Gilad Nir Part I: Fregean Themes 1. Frege's Conception of the Absoluteness of the Logical Category Distinctions Wim Vanrie 2. Why Worry about Weierstrass? Frege on the Paradox of Analysis Martin Gustafsson 3. Fregean Logicism and Quinean Explication Joan Weiner Part II: Russellian Themes 4. The Doctrine of Internal Relations: Russell's 1897 Rejection Tyke Nunez 5. Moorean Propositions and Russellian Confusion Peter Hylton 6. Russell on Judgement and the Judging Subject Maria Van der Schaar 7. "My Pragmatism Is Derived from Mr. Russell" Cheryl Misak Part III: Tractarian Themes 8. "The World Is My World": Wittgenstein's Tractatus and Schopenhauer's World as Will and Representation Eli Friedlander 9. Death and the Variable: A Logico-Existential Commentary Jonathan Soen 10. The Tractatus and the Debate on the Nature of Relations Jonathan Gombin 11. Thought, Language, and Expression in Wittgenstein's Tractatus Silver Bronzo Part IV: Later Developments 12. Gilbert Ryle's Fregean Inheritance Michael Kremer 13. Wittgenstein on Heidegger on the Nothing Maria Balaska 14. Nonsense: A Riddle without Solutions Gilad Nir 15. Some Thoughts about Wittgenstein on Rules Cora Diamond Appendices Appendix 1. Review of Geach's and Black's Translations from the Philosophical Writings of Frege Gilbert Ryle Appendix 2. Did Gilbert Ryle Meet Martin Heidegger? Michael Kremer Index