I list my areas of specialization as
- The Philosophy of Language,
- Epistemology,
- Metaphysics, and
- The Philosophy of Mind.
To be sure, this is a common list for anyone receiving a Ph.D. from an analytically inclined program like the University of Massachusetts-Amherst; yet it is all so broad as verge on uninformative.
Analytic philosophy is usually contrasted with so-called “Continental” philosophy. The former is rooted in the works of Frege, Russell, Moore, and Wittgenstein, while the latter is grounded in Nietzsche, Hegel, Habermas, and Sartre, among many others. For better or worse depending on one's expectations of philosophical inquiry, analytic philosophy has come to dominate philosophy programs in English-speaking countries and is sometimes confusingly called Anglo-American philosophy.
Analytic philosophy is neither a system of philosophy in the grand tradition as such nor a set of doctrines in philosophy. Rather, it is an approach to philosophical inquiry which emphasizes precision and clarity of statement and rigor of argument. Analytic philosophers tend not to seek comprehensive philosophical theories so much as solutions to often small, yet exactly describable, problems and puzzles.
As Scott Soames describes it in the first of his two-volume “Philosophical Analysis in the Twentieth Century”,
In general, philosophy done in the analytic tradition aims at truth and knowledge, as opposed to moral or spiritual improvement... Throughout its history, analytic philosophy has been criticized by outsiders for being overly concerned with technical questions and matters of detail, while neglecting the perennial big questions of philosophy and giving up on the ideal of developing comprehensive philosophical systems. ...[T]his criticism is largely inaccurate; analytic philosophy is no stranger to grand, encompassing systems, or to grandiose philosophical ambitions. However, it is true that philosophy in the analytic tradition also welcomes and accommodates a more piecemeal approach. There is, I think, a widespread presumption within the tradition that it is often possible to make philosophical progress by intensively investigating a small, circumscribed range of philosophical issues while holding broader, systematic questions in abeyance. What distinguishes twentieth century analytical philosophy from at least some philosophy in other traditions, or at other times, is not a categorical rejection of philosophical systems, but rather the acceptance of a wealth of smaller, more thorough and more rigorous, investigations that need not be tied to any overarching philosophical view. (p. xv)
My approach and style is very much in the tradition Soames describes. (Although teaching courses like Ancient Philosophy, Genocide, and Philosophy of Love and Sex particularly have convinced me that philosophy done well has surprisingly few boundaries.) Specifically, I assume that
- Philosophy is importantly like mathematics in that it insists on rigorous argumentation and is continuous with, and fundamental to, science;
- Philosophy should inform and be informed by science, mathematics, and engineering; and,
- Philosophical inquiry into a topic should be guided whenever possible by the engineering obligato, “you don't understand it if you don't know how to build it.”
These are, of course, strong claims, and not every philosopher, or even every analytically-trained philosopher, would agree. Nevertheless, they are foundational for me.
Apologia (from the Ancient Greek, ἀπολογία) aside,