the External World, in 1914.
(2) Because of this, Volume 8 of Russell’s collected papers—the one focusing on logical atomism—begins with his published works of 1914.
(3) The background for the development of Russell’s and Wittgenstein’s logical atomisms was Wittgenstein’s time as a student of Russell’s, which lasted through 1912 and 1913.
(4) Wittgenstein’s notebooks that contain the beginning of his work, which would eventually become the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus—his major exposition of logical atomism, begin in 1914. Cf. “The fruits of his seven years’ labour were presented in his first masterpiece, the Tractatus (1921)” (Hacker 1996, 22).
Yet again, there is not much controversy about placing the heyday of logical empiricism as our next stage. Soames (2003a) follows up part 3 on Wittgenstein’s Tractatus with part 4 on logical positivism. Schwartz (2012) follows up a discussion of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus with sections dedicated to “The Vienna Circle and their Allies” and “The Elimination of Metaphysics and the Logical Positivist Program.” Coffa (1991) completes part I with a chapter on the Tractatus and then moves to part II on “Vienna, 1925–1935.” Ayer (1982), too, has a section on logical empiricists—Schlick, Neurath, and Carnap—immediately after his section on the Tractatus.
What is likely more controversial is adding the Cambridge analysts to this time period. That said, it is not without some prominent backing. After introducing logical empiricism, Glock’s historical development discusses Frank Ramsey, Susan Stebbing, and John Wisdom, saying “[m]eanwhile in Cambridge there emerged a new generation of logical analysts” (Glock 2008, 39). Hacker, too, has a separate chapter from the one on the influence of the Tractatus on the logical empiricists of the Vienna Circle. This subsequent chapter is on the Tractatus’ influence on “the younger generation of Cambridge philosophers” where “its influence was very different in Britain, merging, as it did, with the Cambridge styles of analysis, in contrast with the Machian heritage of the philosophers of the Vienna Circle” (Hacker 1996, 67). While these Cambridge analysts are certainly not discussed today as much as the logical empiricists, I agree with Glock and Hacker that we do a disservice to the history if we leave them out. While Stebbing’s influence will be discussed much more in chapters 3 and 5, we can now point out that she served on the board of the International Encyclopedia of Unified Science, introduced logical empiricism to the English-speaking world, and gave the first clear account of the relationships between the views of the logical empiricists and Cambridge analysts.
Furthermore, evidence of the significance of 1926 as a completion point for Stage 2 of logical atomism and the beginning of Stage 3 of logical empiricism and Cambridge analysis also comes in multiple forms:
(1) Though the Schlick-led incarnation of the Vienna Circle had been meeting for several years by this point, it was in 1926 that Rudolf Carnap—the intellectual figurehead of logical empiricism and its influence on the larger history of analytic philosophy—joined.
(2) The Vienna Circle read the Tractatus together page by page through much of the whole calendar year of 1926.
(3) This was also the year that Schlick would convince Wittgenstein to start scheduling meetings with a subset of the Vienna Circle including Waismann, Carnap, Herbert Feigl, and Maria Kasper-Feigl, which would last in some form from 1927 until 1935.
(4) Russell’s work also took a different direction by this point, as indicated by Volume 9 of Russell’s collected papers applying his logical atomism to matters on language, mind, and matter ending in 1926 and the next volume being entitled A Fresh Look at Empiricism.
(5) After not publishing more than five papers in any particular year prior to that, Stebbing’s career took a significant turn with at least a dozen publications in 1926 (Chapman 2013, 202–3).
(6) Ramsey was appointed university lecturer in mathematics at King’s College, Cambridge in 1926.
(7) Braithwaite earned his highest degree, an MA, from King’s College in 1926.
Hence, while it can certainly be challenged, there is at least prima facie reason to treat 1926 as a time of transition for the analytic movement.
Going back to more of a consensus picture, there is little controversial about placing ordinary language philosophy at the center of the analytic movement following logical empiricism. Soames (2003b) follows up his discussion of logical positivism and Quinean reactions to it from Soames (2003a) with a part on Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations and three parts on ordinary language philosophy (including its demise under Grice). Schwartz (2012), too, goes to chapters on “Oxford Ordinary Language Philosophy and Later Wittgenstein” and “Responses to Ordinary Language Philosophy” after chapters on logical positivism and responses to it. Hence, we need only say a bit about the choice of 1940 and 1960 as the transition points from logical empiricism/Cambridge analysis to ordinary language philosophy and from ordinary language philosophy to the decade of debate, fragmentation, and turmoil.
(1) Many members of the Vienna Circle had been forced to leave the European continent by 1940 as a result of Nazi activities—Neurath and Reidemeister fled to England in 1940, Kurt Godel reached the United States in 1940, Rose Rand emigrated to London in 1939, Phillip Frank made it to the United States in 1938, Friedrich Waismann to England in 1937, and Rudolf Carnap to the United States in 1935, among others (Uebel 2016).
(2) As a result, the last congresses on scientific philosophy were held in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1939 and Chicago in 1941.
(3) Stebbing’s major works, Thinking to Some Purpose and Ideals and Illusions, were published in 1939 and 1941, respectively.
(4) Wittgenstein was elected to Moore’s chair in philosophy in 1939.
(5) J. L. Austin’s first publication to focus on meanings and words comes out in 1939 in a symposium on “Are There A Priori Concepts?”
As for the choice of 1960 as the transition point between the fourth stage led by ordinary language philosophy and a fifth stage where there was no single story, school, or set of problems clearly leading the analytic movement, this is much more arbitrary. That said, this is partly a result of the fragmentation of this era itself. Rather than a group like the Vienna Circle setting the institutional tone, as was done in earlier stages, this fifth stage saw a number of distinct and significant threads. There was a revival in traditional ethical theorizing from G. E. M. Anscombe, Philippa Foot, and R. M. Hare, which would ultimately lead to the applied ethics of thinkers like James Rachels, Peter Singer, and Judith Jarvis Thomson. During this time, the significance of modal and intensional logics was intensely investigated by Saul Kripke, Ruth Barcan Marcus, Richard Montague, and A. N. Prior. Finally, as the center of analytic philosophy shifted to the United States the traditions of pragmatism and naturalism were explored, and used to criticize some common themes of stages 3 and 4, in the works of W. V. O. Quine, Donald Davidson, Hilary Putnam, Nicholas Rescher, Susan Haack, Cornel West, and Cheryl Misak. Thus, given this complication, I will have to leave full discussion of the choice of 1960 to chapter 7 on Stage 5.
§0.4 Preliminary Sketch of the Book
With my understandings of the meanings of “analytic philosophy” and of the outline of the history of early analytic philosophy sketched, we are now in a position to sketch the main argument of this book. As was mentioned at the beginning of this introduction, my primary thesis is that there is much to be gained by bringing together inquiry into critical theories of race and gender and inquiry into, as well as the use of, analytic philosophy. That is, because of the entrenched nature of a belief in a disconnect between analytic philosophy and matters of necessity to “moral and spiritual
