Analytic Philosophy, Its Contexts and Tendencies: A Conversation with Mohammad Mehdi Mojahedi

Note:

Sajjad Sedaghat: The story of the interview for Farhikhtegan’s dossier on analytic philosophy began in Iran and ended in the Netherlands. While we had intended to interview a professor inside the country for this dossier, he declined, objecting to dragging philosophical discussions into the pages of newspapers. Simultaneously, and with less hope, I sent the questions to Dr. Mohammad Mehdi Mojahedi. Dr. Mojahedi, with great magnanimity and unparalleled humility, kept his promise despite being intensely occupied with travel and several back-to-back lectures. You will now read his responses below. The particular understanding of this “Guest Professor of Political Philosophy at Leiden University in the Netherlands” is so evident in this conversation that the field of analytic philosophy, with all its complexities, can be understood in simpler language. Do not miss Farhikhtegan’s conversation with Dr. Mojahedi.

As a branch of the discipline of philosophy, what is the relationship of analytic philosophy to philosophy? What is its general definition, and can its emergence be assessed in distinction from continental philosophy?

Allow me to say by way of introduction that if we look closely, we will not find the binary division of currents of philosophical thought in the West into analytic (or Anglo-American) philosophies versus continental philosophies to be a very valid or useful division. By usefulness, I mean possessing epistemological value; both epistemic value and pedagogical value. Of course, this is not merely my personal opinion. As you are aware, some prominent philosophers and the editors of some reputable philosophical encyclopedias and dictionaries have also, for some time now, based on this same assessment, preferred, contrary to the past, not to dedicate independent entries to the two terms “analytic philosophy” and “continental philosophy.” Philosophy education programs in some reputable Western universities have also abandoned their former emphasis on this division. If an opportunity arises during this interview, I will briefly explain the reasons for the invalidity and lack of usefulness of this division.

But insofar as it relates to the present question, the answer to this question depends, in the first instance, entirely on the meaning and what we intend by the description “analytic.” This description clearly refers to philosophical analysis. “Philosophical analysis” has been used in at least five main and distinct senses in the history of Western philosophy. Although these five senses are distinct from one another, if there is time, I will explain later in the conversation that they are not necessarily all independent of or opposed to one another. Let me note in passing that examining these five senses also has a side benefit, as it provides a very interesting example of the interaction between non-philosophical disciplines and philosophy (and here, particularly the influence of the empirical sciences and mathematics on philosophical thought).

1- The first sense of analysis is influenced by the concept of “dissection” in the medical sciences. Analysis in this sense means “unraveling a complex concept joint by joint” or the “process” during which a complex concept is unraveled joint by joint. The work of analysis is also to reveal the “logical structure.” This sense of analysis has a clear affinity with the technique of “dissection” in the world of medical sciences for discovering and understanding the anatomy of animals and is the result of a metaphorical understanding of it. Analysis in this sense can, for this reason, be called “decompositional analysis” or “dissective” analysis. Therefore, decomposition, dissection, or explaining piece by piece means the analysis (or the process of analysis) of the body of complex concepts into the simpler organs and components that constitute them, for the purpose of discovering their anatomy or internal logical structure. It is as if concepts, like animals, have a body composed of organs. According to this metaphorical understanding, just as understanding how animals live depends (among other things) on understanding their anatomy, which is obtained through the dissection of their body and organs, understanding the meaning of concepts also depends on the “analysis” of complex concepts into their constituent concepts and the discovery of the logical structure that connects these constituent parts to one another and creates a complex concept. This sense of analysis is perhaps the most tangible and the first sense that comes to mind from this term, but it is, of course, neither the exclusive sense of analysis nor its most precise sense, but rather perhaps the most elementary sense of analysis in the history of philosophy. Note that in this sense, the unit of philosophical analysis is concepts, and the goal of analysis is the dissection of the internal logical structure of a complex concept, or its anatomy.

2. The second meaning of philosophical analysis is influenced by a metaphor from classical geometry, namely regressive analysis. For the sages of ancient Greece, regressive analysis was originally a way of solving or dissolving geometrical problems. This way of examining problems passed from the realm of geometry into the domain of their philosophical thought. For them, regressive analysis was a method of returning or referring every problem to a set of basic principles (such as geometrical postulates and axioms), on the basis of which that problem could be understood and then solved or dissolved. The Socratic method of determining the meaning of key terms and defining basic concepts, Plato's hypothetical method, and Aristotle's method in the Analytics are all influenced by this same method of analysis. The Socratic method of analysis is one of the most important sources of inspiration for conceptual analysis. In the modern era, this method has been as prevalent in certain tendencies of philosophies described as analytic as it has been in some branches of so-called continental philosophies. For example, if you look at Heidegger's Being and Time, you clearly see a prominent mark of Heidegger's commitment to this method of analysis in parts of it.

3. Yet another meaning of philosophical analysis is again influenced by a geometrical metaphor, but this time by Cartesian analytic geometry. In this meaning, the main emphasis is on the reductive-translational aspect of analysis. This meaning of philosophical analysis was first introduced by logicians and mathematician-philosophers such as Gottlob Frege and Bertrand Russell, as well as George Edward Moore, in the second half of the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century. In their views, analysis means logical translation, that is, the reduction and translation of any proposition into a proposition in predicate logic, stripped of literary devices and complexities and material and formal ambiguities. In this analytic approach, the logical formulation of propositions takes a meaningful distance from the ordinary understanding of propositions merely according to grammar and syntax. It is this very distance that distinguishes logical reduction and translation from a purely linguistic-literary inquiry and brings it closer to, or transforms it into, a philosophical inquiry. The root of the reductive-translational understanding of philosophical analysis goes back to analytic geometry, particularly in the works and views of Descartes. In Cartesian analytic geometry, geometrical problems and theorems are first translated and reduced to problems and theorems of algebra and arithmetic, which are formal. What was later called analytic philosophy initially referred mostly (if not solely and entirely) to this reductive-translational school.

4. The fourth meaning can be found in a school of Neo-Kantians and phenomenologists of the second half of the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century. Gestalt psychology is also influenced by this same meaning of philosophical analysis. Ernst Cassirer was also influenced by this meaning of analysis. One of the first to propose this understanding of philosophical analysis was Bernard Bolzano, a logician, priest, theology teacher, and mathematician of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Bolzano was a prominent logician who, a hundred years before Tarski and Carnap, raised and examined the concept and problem of "logical truth." Using his innovative method for analyzing propositions, known as the method of idea-variation, he demonstrated a logical flaw in the validity and adequacy of the established Kantian distinction between synthetic and analytic propositions and sought to reconstruct it anew based on this very innovative method of his own. For Bolzano and some nineteenth-century Neo-Kantians, philosophical analysis served to untie the complexities that find their way into the conceptual formulations of our experiences. In their view, these complexities are neither related to the elements and components constituting concepts and propositions (to be resolved by decomposing and dissecting a composite whole), nor, like geometrical problems, are they "analytic" (to be resolved by the method of regressive analysis or by the method of reduction and translation). These complexities pertain to the changing and transient moments of a phenomenon and its transforming aspects and dimensions. Therefore, in their view, analysis in the three aforementioned senses was nothing but the exclusion and rejection of these complexities. For this reason, since these three types of analysis did not recognize the problem, they eliminated the very statement of the problem and had no possibility of resolving it.

5- The fifth meaning I wish to mention here, like the fourth, does not belong to a unified intellectual current, but its most important branch is influenced by nineteenth- and twentieth-century analytical chemistry. R. G. Collingwood, one of the English idealist philosophers, in his critique of the logical positivists (especially for their rejection of metaphysics), offers a new meaning of philosophical analysis. In the meaning he proposes for philosophical analysis, metaphysical analysis is a search for the discovery of absolute presuppositions. According to him, these presuppositions are in fact the permanent foundations of every kind of intellectual activity in the history of scientific and philosophical thought.

Opposing these five tendencies toward philosophical analysis are other philosophers and philosophical schools that are in principle critical of, or fundamentally deny, analysis in all the aforementioned senses as a method for philosophizing. Almost all branches of idealism and romanticism fall among these opponents.

As noted, among the five aforementioned meanings of philosophical analysis, the currents that have more or less adopted the third meaning of analysis and employed it with some modifications are recognized as the main branches of philosophy described as analytic (as opposed to so-called continental philosophy). Yet this entails reducing the multiple varieties of philosophical analysis to its third meaning. Moreover, even when engaging in philosophical analysis in the third sense, one must also draw upon philosophical analysis in the first and second senses. Furthermore, if one examines the fourth and fifth meanings of philosophical analysis carefully, it is clear that these two, while adopting an analytical approach to philosophy, stand among the opponents and critics of the first three traditions. In other words, some philosophical currents that are usually classified as belonging to so-called continental philosophy are analytical. The reverse is also true. English idealism and romanticism, although they grew and developed within the Anglo-American philosophical tradition, do not belong to the family of so-called analytic philosophies, and according to the continental-analytic division, they must presumably be considered continental. In addition to all this, it is unclear what this continental-analytic division can do with philosophers such as Quine and Sellars on the one hand, and Popper and other critical rationalists on the other.

The division of philosophical currents into analytic and continental, besides all these problems, also suffers from more obvious difficulties. For instance, it is not exactly clear what the basis of this division is. Or it is unclear why one category has been designated with a geographical adjective—that is, continental philosophy—and the other with a methodological or content-based description—that is, analytic philosophy. If, instead of continental and analytic, the division were expressed as continental and Anglo-American, this problem would be resolved to some extent, but a greater problem would arise. The greater problem is that this new nomenclature seems to harbor a national-ethnic presupposition about philosophical thought; that is, as if philosophical thought is a function of language or geography, and one can, by pointing to the geography of the genesis of ideas, inform about their content and their difference from ideas cultivated in another geography. Not to mention that some of the renowned figures of each of these two philosophical schools must, based on the geography of language, birth, and life, be placed in the opposing camp.

Some experts believe that in analytic philosophy, the degree of reasoning and justification is higher than in other philosophies. On the other hand, they address the issue that in the domain of analytic philosophy, analysis and the avoidance of an oratorical and rhetorical mode are among its characteristics. With these interpretations, how does analytic philosophy differ from science, and how does it differ from the philosophy of science?

Although the connection between the preamble of your question and the question itself is not clear to me, it should be mentioned that I consider the view of critical rationalist philosophers regarding philosophical argument to be correct, and I believe the task of philosophy is not "justification" but critique, and the difference between the two is like the difference between ideology and science. But if we set aside the preamble of your question, regarding the main point of your question, I will briefly mention two points. The difference between philosophy (not just analytic philosophy) and the philosophy of science lies in their order. The philosophy of science is a type of second-order philosophical knowledge, whereas philosophical knowledge is not necessarily second-order. Second-order knowledge is knowledge whose object of inquiry is itself a form of knowledge. Philosophical knowledge is knowledge obtained through the method of philosophical inquiry; whether its subject is science or other general concepts. Therefore, the philosophy of science is defined by two characteristics: its philosophical method and its subject, which is the states and affairs of empirical science. Philosophy, however, is defined by one characteristic, and that is the method of philosophical inquiry. Hence, the scope of the philosophy of science is narrower than the scope of philosophy. Thus, the relation of philosophy to the philosophy of science is that of absolute generality and specificity, meaning the scope of inquiry of the latter is entirely contained within the scope of inquiry of the former.

The relationship between science and philosophy must also be understood by considering the difference in their methods. In philosophical inquiries, the research method is logical and conceptual analysis, whereas the method in empirical science involves various types of empirical tests.

Is analytic philosophy a kind of philosophical school or a kind of research method that can be applied to any subject of inquiry, whether in science or in philosophy?

According to the explanation given in response to the first question, analytic philosophy, which formed around the third concept of philosophical analysis, was a research program that is less commonly pursued in the same form today. However, philosophical analysis in its four other senses is sometimes a technique and method, and sometimes a methodological approach.

In your view, how far back can the roots of analytic philosophy be traced? Should the roots of analytic thought be sought in Kant's philosophy (given that he was the first to divide propositions into analytic and synthetic)? Or should these roots be traced further back, to the thoughts of Leibniz and Descartes, or even further to Plato and Aristotle?

The answer to this question becomes clear in light of what I have presented under the first question. The root of analytic philosophy in the specific sense referring to the third meaning of philosophical analysis goes back to Leibniz and Descartes. But analytic philosophies in a general sense have deeper roots that can be traced back to the thoughts of some ancient Greek philosophers such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.

Some commentators divide contemporary intellectual currents into two main streams: one, Anglo-Saxon philosophy, and the other, Continental European philosophy. Some, like Hans Glock, consider this division incorrect. Do you accept this division, and if this division is incorrect, in your view, what is the distinguishing feature that separates analytic philosophy from European philosophy? Is there a relationship between opposition to idealism and romanticism and agreement with analytic philosophy?

I have answered this question under the first question. But what I would like to add here is that there seems to be a more useful division (both epistemologically and pedagogically) for the typology of philosophical thought. In this division, philosophical thoughts should be distinguished from one another by the composite criterion of "rationalism and being critical" versus "irrationalism and being non-critical." A criterion derived from the conjunctive combination of being critical and rationalism guarantees the benefits that exist in the analytic-continental division. In addition, it encompasses other benefits and, conversely, is free from the problems that the analytic-continental division has. By this composite criterion, I mean an enhanced form of critical rationalism, particularly as expressed in the views of David Miller, a student of Karl Popper and current professor at the University of Warwick in England.

What is the position of analytic philosophy in Iran's scientific and philosophical community, and can we name an analytic philosopher in Iran?

If I were to answer this question in light of the response I gave to your previous one, I would have to say yes, fortunately, analytic philosophy, particularly in the sense that critical rationalists intend by philosophical analysis, has gained considerable popularity in our country. But at the same time, anti-analytic philosophies (romantic and idealist) and non-critical or non-realist analytic philosophies are also widely promoted in our country. Before the revolution, analytic philosophy and critical rationality were almost neglected and unknown in Iran. After the Islamic Revolution, Dr. Soroush played an important role in introducing and promoting analytic philosophy and critical rationality within Iran's academic community. Compared to three or four decades ago, a relatively large number of instructors, professors, and translators today show an interest in analytic philosophy and critical rationalism. Among them, I can mention here Dr. Ali Paya, who has played a significant role in introducing analytic philosophy and the critical rationalist approach in recent years.

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Analytic Philosophy, Its Contexts and Tendencies: A Conversation with Mohammad Mehdi Mojahedi

The Vocation of Philosophy Is Not Justification, but Critique

Farhikhtegan, Tuesday, 16 September 2013

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