No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
Dummett Michael, Origins of Analytical Philosophy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 1994. Pp. xi + 199.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2020
Abstract
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.
- Type
- Critical Notice
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Authors 1997
References
1 This book grew out of a set of lectures Dummett delivered in Italy in 1987. The lectures appeared originally in Lingua e Stile 13 (1988) 171-210. They were subsequently translated into German together with a transcript of an interview with the translator, Dr. Joachim Schulte. The present volume is a revised form of the lectures together with a translation of the interview.
2 See Bergmann's essays on Frege, ‘Frege's Hidden Nominalism’ in his Meaning and Existence (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press 1959), and ‘Ontological Alternatives,’ in his Logic and Reality (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press 1964); and the essay ‘The Ontology of Edmund Husserl’ in the latter, as well as his important study Realism (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press 1967). See also Grossmann, 's The Structure of Mind (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press 1965)Google Scholar, and his study Reflections on Frege's Philosophy (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press 1969). See also Grossmann's essay, ‘Frege's Ontology,’ in Allaire, E.B. et al., Essays in Ontology (The Hague: Nijhoff 1963)Google Scholar.
3 See in particular James Ward's article ‘Psychology’ in the 1886 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica.
4 Cf. Moore, G.E. ‘The Nature of Judgment,’ Mind new series 8 (1899)Google Scholar. On Locke, cf. Wilson, F. ‘The Lockean Revolution in the Theory of Science,’ in Tweyman, S. and Moyal, G. eds., Early Modern Philosophy: Epistemology, Metaphysics and Politics (New York: Caravan Press 1986) 65–97Google Scholar. For the connection between Locke and Moore, cf. Wilson, F. ‘Perceptual Ideality and the Ground of lnference: Comments on Ferreira's Defence,’ Bradley Studies 1 (1995) 139–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
5 As Rorty has pointed out, it was Bergmann who first introduced this phrase. See G. Bergmann, Logic and Reality, 177; and Rorty, R. Introduction to his The Linguistic Turn (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1967), 9Google Scholar.
6 Cf. Quine, W.V.O. ‘Soft Impeachment Disowned,’ Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 61 (1980), 450–1CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
7 Dummett, ‘Nominalism,’ Philosophical Review 65 (1956), 504–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar
8 See G. Bergmann, ‘Intentionality,’ in his Meaning and Existence.
9 Frege, G. ‘On Sense and Reference,’ in Translations from the Philosophical Writings of Gottlob Frege 2nd ed. (Oxford: Blackwell 1960), 59Google Scholar
10 The central text is the first German edition of Edmund Husserl, Logical Investigations, 1900. References will be to the translation of J.N. Findlay (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul 1970), 2 vols., and will be to Investigation number, section number, volume of the Findlay translation, and page.
11 Cf. Logical Investigations, V, sec. 13, vol. 2, 563.
12 Cf. Logical Investigations, V, sec. 20, vol. 2, 586ff.
13 Ryle, Gilbert ‘Are There Propositions?’ Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society new series 30 (1930)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 92ff., referred to this argument for propositions as ‘the argument from the intentionality of acts of thinking.'
14 G. E. Moore, Some Main Problems of Philosophy, 258
15 Ibid., 263; Ryle, ‘Are There Propositions?’ 105.
16 Logical Investigations, V, sec. 11, vol. 2, 557ff.
17 Intentionality is not introduced until Investigation V; the third realm is introduced and defended in Investigation II.
18 Husserl, Logical Investigations, II, Intro., vol. I, 339.
19 Ibid., II, sec. 3, vol. I, 343
20 Ibid., II, sec. 4, vol. I, 343f.
21 Cf. R. Grossmann, ‘Conceptualism’ and ‘Sensory Intuition and the Dogma of Localization,’ in E. B. Allaire et al., Essays in Ontology.
22 Ibid., v, sec. 16, sec. 20, vol. 2, 576ff, 586ff.
23 Ibid., V, sec. 17, vol. 2, 578ff.
24 Ibid., VI, ch. 1, vol. 2, 675ff.
25 Ibid., VI, sec. 67, vol. 2, 837
26 Cf. Barry Smith, ‘On the Origins of Analytic Philosophy,’ 163, 169.
27 Some of the story is told in Wilson, F. Psychological Analysis and the Philosophy of John Stuart Mill (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 1990)Google Scholar.
28 Others have made the same mistake of concluding that since their account is behavioral and therefore objective that it is therefore non-psychologistic; cf. Brodbeck, M. ‘Explanation, Prediction, and ‘Imperfect’ Knowledge,’ in her Readings in the Philosophy of the Social Sciences (New York: Macmillan 1968) 363–98.Google Scholar
29 For a brief discussion, see Sellars, W. ‘Notes on Intentionality', in his Philosophical Perspectives (Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas 1967)Google Scholar. See also his ‘Reflections on Language Games,’ in his Science, Perception and Reality (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul 1963); and ‘Language as Theory and Language as Communication,' Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 29 (1969) 506-27. For discussion of some of Sellars's views, see F. Wilson, ‘Marras on Sellars on Thought and Language,' Philosophical Studies 28 (1975) 91-102.
30 The account is essentially behavioristic, as Sellars recognizes; see his ‘Behaviorism, Language and Meaning,’ Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 61 (1980) 3–30. Because thoughts are identified by Dummett with language behavioristically understood, his views can correctly be characterized as materialistic. For some, I suppose, that is a good thing.
31 Sellars, W. ‘Inference and Meaning,’ Mind new series 62 (1953) 313–38Google Scholar
32 See also Sellars, ‘Synthetic A Priori,’ in his Science, Perception and Reality. There are serious objections to this account of meaning, however. See Wilson, F. ‘Acquaintance, Ontology and Knowledge,’ New Scholasticism 54 (1970) 1–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and ‘Perceptual Ideality and the Ground of Inference: Comments on Ferreira's Defence.'
33 Concerning implicit definition, see Wilson, F. ‘Implicit Definition Once Again,' journal of Philosophy 62 (1965) 364–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
34 W. Sellars, ‘Naming and Saying,’ in his Science, Perception and Reality
35 Dummett, M. ‘Wittgenstein's Philosophy of Mathematics,’ Philosophical Review 68 (1959), 348CrossRefGoogle Scholar
36 Sellars, W. Science and Metaphysics: Variations on a Kantian Theme (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul 1968), 132Google Scholar
37 Brentano, F. The True and the Evident, trans. Chisholm, R. (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul 1966), 9Google Scholar
38 Dummett, M. ‘A Remarkable Consensus,’ New Blackfriars 68 (1987), 427CrossRefGoogle Scholar. This essay gave rise to a lively exchange. A list of the contributions can be found at the end of Dummett's final contribution, ‘What Chance for Ecumenism?’ New Blackfriars 69 (1988) 544-55.
39 See W. Sellars,’ Abstract Entities,’ in his Philosophical Perspectives.
40 Cf. Mill, J.S. System of Logic, Eighth Edition (London: Longmans Green, 1872)Google Scholar, Book II, Ch. ii, sec. 3, note. Mill puts the argument that characteristics of things are not perfect particulars in this way. He states Spencer's view thus: he (Spencer) ‘maintains that we ought not to say that Socrates possess the same attributes which are connoted by the word Man, but only that he possesses attributes exactly like them ….' Mill then goes on to object that ‘Mr. Spencer is of the opinion that because Socrates and Alcibiades are not the same man, the attribute which constitutes them men should not be called the same attribute …. If every general conception, instead of being “the One in the Many,” were considered to be as many different conceptions as there are things to which it is applicable, there would be no such thing as general language. A name would have no general meaning if man connoted one thing when predicated of John, and another though closely resembling thing when predicated of William …. The things compared are many, but the something common to all of them must be conceived as one.'
41 Spencer, Herbert Principles of Psychology (New York: Appleton 1902), vol. II, ¶ 294Google Scholar
42 Dummett has expressed this radical nominalism elsewhere as follows: ‘What objects we recognize the world as containing depends upon the structure of our language. Our ability to discriminate, within reality, objects of any particular kind results from our having learned to sue expressions, names, or general terms, with which are associated a criterion of identity which yields segments of reality just that shape: we can, in principle, conceive of a language containing names and general terms with which significantly different criteria of identity were associated, and the speakers of such a language would view the world as falling apart into discrete objects in a different way from ourselves … for Frege, the world does not come to us articulated in any way; it is we who, by the use of our language (or by grasping the thoughts expressed in that language), impose a structure on it’ (Dummett, M. Frege: Philosophy of Language [London: Duckworth 1973), 503–4)Google Scholar. Or again, The picture of reality as an amorphous lump, not yet articulated into discrete objects, thus proves to be a correct one, so long as we make the right use of it…. Such a picture corrects the naïve conceptions … [which) presupposes that the world presents itself to us already dissected into discrete objects, which we know how to recognize when we encounter them again, in advance of our acquiring any grasp of language at all' (Ibid., 577). Fraser Cowley rightly asks, he seems to presume rhetorically, ‘Does he really mean what he seems to mean? Does he really believe it?’ (Metaphysical Delusion [Buffalo: Prometheus Books 1991], 118). But Dummett does seem to hold this view. Conversely, Cowley's point (119) that to correctly re-apply a general term we have to recognize not only that it is the same general term but that it is the same sort of thing to which it is being applied. Like Bergmann, Cowley recognizes that the existence of sorts is perfectly commonsensical and that in that sense realism is unproblematical. Or at least it is so long as we locates kinds or sorts in the real world we know by sense rather than a third realm.
43 Pears, D. ‘Universals,’ Philosophical Quarterly 1 (1950-51) 218–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar
44 Butchvarov, P. Resemblance and Identity (Bloomington, IN: University of Indiana Press 1966)Google Scholar, ch. 1. See also Hochberg, H. ‘Mapping, Meaning, and Metaphysics,’ and 'Sellars and Goodman on Predicates, Properties and Truth,’ both in his Logic, Ontology and Language, 157-84 and 185–95Google Scholar, respectively.
45 Cf. Sellars, ‘Naming and Saying.'
46 This is the principle of localization discussed by R. Grossmann in his ‘Sensory Intuition and the Dogma of Localization.'
47 Cf. the selections from Titchener in Herrnstein, R. and Boring, E.G. A Source Book in the History of Psychology (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 1966), 186Google Scholarf.
48 This is the received opinion, but in the case of Hume it must be somewhat qualified; cf. Wilson, F. ‘Association, Ideas and Images in Hume,’ in Cummins, P. and Zoeller, G. eds., Minds, Ideas and Objects (Atascadero, CA: Ridgeview 1990) 255–74Google Scholar.
49 Cf. Herrnstein and Boring, 193, 197.
50 Humphrey, G. Thinking (New York: Wiley 1963)Google Scholar, chs. 1-4 summarizes excellently the whole discussion. In particular, Würzburg is defended against Titchenerian criticisms in ch. 4, esp. 122ff.
51 This in fact led to the downfall of the research program of classical psychology based on the method of systematic introspective analysis; cf. F. Wilson, Psychological Analysis and the Philosophy of John Stuart Mill, ch. 8.
52 Cf. Brentano, F. Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkt (Hamburg: Felix Meiner 1955), vol. 1, 190Google Scholarff.
53 Moore, G.E. ‘Are the Characteristics of Things Universal or Particular?’ in his Philosophical Papers (London: Allen and Unwin 1959)Google Scholar
54 Moore, G.E. Some Main Problems of Philosophy, (London: Allen and Unwin 1953), 59Google Scholar
55 See Gustav Bergmann, ‘Intentionality,’ in his Meaning and Existence; and ‘Acts,’ in his Logic and Reality. Sellars criticized Bergmann's views in his ‘Notes on Intentionality.' For other critical comments, see also Wilson, F. ‘Effability, Ontology and Method,’ Philosophy Research Archives 9 (1983) 419–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
56 Dummett ignores Bergmann's as much as he ignores that of Moore and Russell, and, for that matter, just as much as he ignores the work of Sellars. This is unfortunate; he could have learned much from all these thinkers. Among other things, he would have benefited form Bergmann's important essays on Frege and Husserl.