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Postanalytic philosophy describes a detachment from the mainstream philosophical movement of
analytic philosophy Analytic philosophy is a broad movement within Western philosophy, especially English-speaking world, anglophone philosophy, focused on analysis as a philosophical method; clarity of prose; rigor in arguments; and making use of formal logic, mat ...
, which is the predominant school of thought in
English-speaking countries The English-speaking world comprises the 88 countries and territories in which English is an official, administrative, or cultural language. In the early 2000s, between one and two billion people spoke English, making it the largest language ...
. The ''
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy The ''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' (''IEP'') is a scholarly online encyclopedia with around 900 articles about philosophy, philosophers, and related topics. The IEP publishes only peer review, peer-reviewed and blind-refereed original p ...
'' defines the movement as denoting "philosophers who owe much to Analytic philosophy but who think that they have made some significant departure from it." The movement cannot be unified into a single positive project as it is defined in terms of what it stands against, although it has generally been seen as bridging the gap between analytic and
continental philosophy Continental philosophy is a group of philosophies prominent in 20th-century continental Europe that derive from a broadly Kantianism, Kantian tradition.Continental philosophers usually identify such conditions with the transcendental subject or ...
.


Overview

Postanalytic philosophy derives mainly from contemporary American thought, especially from the works of philosophers Richard Rorty, Donald Davidson,
Hilary Putnam Hilary Whitehall Putnam (; July 31, 1926 – March 13, 2016) was an American philosopher, mathematician, computer scientist, and figure in analytic philosophy in the second half of the 20th century. He contributed to the studies of philosophy of ...
, Thomas Nagel, and
Stanley Cavell Stanley Louis Cavell (; September 1, 1926 – June 19, 2018) was an American philosopher. He was the Walter M. Cabot Professor of Aesthetics and the General Theory of Value at Harvard University. He worked in the fields of ethics, aesthetics, ...
. The term is closely associated with the much broader movement of contemporary American pragmatism, which advocates a detachment from the context-invariant variety of 'objective truth' promulgated by early modern philosophers such as Descartes. All or almost all philosophers associated with this detachment from analytic philosophy have been in some way influenced by the thought of the later Wittgenstein, who is often seen as pre-emptively dissolving the analytical approach from within. Postanalytic philosophers emphasize the contingency of human thought, convention,
utility In economics, utility is a measure of a certain person's satisfaction from a certain state of the world. Over time, the term has been used with at least two meanings. * In a normative context, utility refers to a goal or objective that we wish ...
, social progress, and are generally hesitant to develop and defend positive theses. A relatively recent resurgence of interest in ordinary language philosophy, particularly due to the literature and teachings of Cavell, has also become a mainstay of postanalytic philosophy. Seeking to avoid the increasingly metaphysical and abstruse language found in mainstream analytic philosophy,
posthumanism Posthumanism or post-humanism (meaning "after humanism" or "beyond humanism") is an idea in continental philosophy and critical theory responding to the presence of anthropocentrism in 21st-century thought. Posthumanization comprises "those pro ...
, and
post-structuralism Post-structuralism is a philosophical movement that questions the objectivity or stability of the various interpretive structures that are posited by structuralism and considers them to be constituted by broader systems of Power (social and poli ...
, a number of feminist philosophers have adopted the methods of ordinary language philosophy. Many of these philosophers were students or colleagues of Cavell. This approach may be compared and contrasted with neopragmatism, a tradition which owes much to Rorty, although W. V. O. Quine and
Wilfrid Sellars Wilfrid Stalker Sellars (; May 20, 1912 – July 2, 1989) was an American philosopher and prominent developer of critical realism who "revolutionized both the content and the method of philosophy in the United States". His work has had a profou ...
may be thought of as precursors of this development.


As post-philosophy

The term "postanalytic philosophy" itself has been used in a vaguely descriptive sense and not in the sense of a concrete philosophical movement. Many postanalytic philosophers write along an analytic vein and on traditionally analytic topics. Richard Rorty said: "I think that analytic philosophy can keep its highly professional methods, the insistence on detail and mechanics, and just drop its transcendental project. I'm not out to criticize analytic philosophy as a style. It's a good style. I think the years of superprofessionalism were beneficial." Rorty says the goal of postanalytic philosophy is not to oppose analytic philosophy or its methods, but to dispute its hope to make philosophy the penultimate form of knowledge from which every other knowledge claim must be derived. Postanalytic philosophy may also be known as post-philosophy,Christopher J. Voparil, Richard J. Bernstein, ''The Rorty Reader'', John Wiley & Sons, 2010, p. 493. a term used by Rorty, to emphasize the notion that the project of philosophy as conceived by Enlightenment philosophers no longer serves the role it used to in society and that this role has been replaced by other media.


See also

* Post-analytic phenomenology * Post-Continental philosophy


Notes


Further reading

* John Rajchman &
Cornel West Cornel Ronald West (born June 2, 1953) is an American philosopher, theologian, political activist, politician, social critic, and public intellectual. West was an independent candidate in the 2024 United States presidential election and is an ou ...
, ''Post-Analytic Philosophy'', Columbia University Press, 1985. *
Bernard Williams Sir Bernard Arthur Owen Williams (21 September 1929 – 10 June 2003) was an English Ethics, moral philosopher. His publications include ''Problems of the Self'' (1973), ''Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy'' (1985), ''Shame and Necessit ...
, 'What Might Philosophy Become?', in ''Philosophy as a Humanistic Discipline'', Princeton University Press, 2006. {{Authority control Analytic philosophy Philosophical theories