Lectures on “Analytic Philosophy: A Survey of Topics” by Mahmoud Khatami

Analytic philosophy is one of the important and dynamic currents in Western philosophy. From its inception to the present day, this philosophical school has passed through various stages and developments. There are several ways to review a philosophical school, one of which is to examine its key issues and topics. In the upcoming lecture series, a review of the analytic philosophical school is conducted based on three central themes: meaning, truth, and justification, and under each theme, important theories within this philosophical school are mentioned. Throughout the discussions, many comparative examinations between analytic philosophy and other philosophies are also presented.

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Session One

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Topics covered:

1- Three central problems of analytic philosophy 2- The background of analytic philosophy and factors influencing its emergence 1. Medieval Nominalism: 2. The rise of modern empirical science: 3. The ideas of Hobbes: 4. Seventeenth-century empiricism: 5. Kant's epistemological foundation: 3- Characteristics of analytic philosophy: 1. Being critical and critique-oriented: 2. Being methodological: 3. The fragmentation of philosophy:

In analytic philosophy, philosophy becomes divided into parts and pieces; there is no longer any trace of the grand visions of Heidegger or Mulla Sadra, and you can be a specialist in one area while having little or no knowledge of other areas. As Lyotard says in The Postmodern Condition, science in our time has become so specialized that ignorance emerges from within it. The same can be said of analytic philosophy, and it seems that the human and ethical issues that were always central to philosophy have been lost. It is in line with this ideal that Kant's certainty is scientific certainty. He seeks to make metaphysics scientific. Or Hume wants to formulate ethics like Newtonian physics. The certainty of modernity is fundamentally scientific. If the rival of philosophy in the Middle Ages was religion, in modernity it is science.

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Session Two

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Topics covered:

Theories of Meaning Referential theory: 1- The issue of propositions 1. The theory of Frege and Russell 2. The theory of the early Wittgenstein 3. Three concluding points on the early Wittgenstein 1. Kant and Wittgenstein: 2. The relationship between the power of judgment and logical empiricism: 3. The difference between belief and knowledge: 4. The centrality of language in the two periods of Wittgenstein's theory:

The early Wittgenstein is the Kant of the twentieth century, in two respects: 1- The way his discussion is critical and has delineated the limits of theoretical reason, practical reason, understanding, and cognitive faculties. 2- Like Kant, by determining the limits of knowledge, he considers what lies beyond it as the realm of mystery. This is similar to Kant's noumenal world and includes ethical, artistic, religious, etc. propositions.

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Session Three

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Topics covered:

1- Theory of Reference 1. Wittgenstein and Logical Positivism 2. The Theory of Reference concerning Proper Names 2- Theory of Use The Application of the Theory of Use in the Humanities 3- Theory of the Indeterminacy of Meaning 1. Principles of Quine's Theory 2. Quine's Theory of Meaning

Excerpt from the session In his later period, Wittgenstein becomes a pluralist and does not accept a single structure of rationality and language. And anyone can play in different language games. It is the same in cultural scenes, and some have also proposed this theory in the history of cultures. And based on it, they have genealogized cultural interaction and plurality. Religious rituals can also be explained according to this theory. Postmodernists are very interested in Wittgenstein's language games; for example, Deleuze and Lyotard, who are non-Heideggerians, adore the later Wittgenstein. Or, for instance, Winch, influenced by this theory, raises discussions about culture, language, and the social sciences. Wittgenstein himself, in his later period, intensely hated the classical view of culture and language.

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Session Four

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Topics covered:

1- Theory of the Indeterminacy of Meaning 1. The Position of the Radical Translator 2. Semantic Holism 2- Semantic Theory 1. The Distinction between Formal and Natural Language 2. The Denial of Meaning Excerpt from the session According to proponents of the semantic theory, there is no such thing as meaning, and what is called meaning is truth conditions. The fulfillment of conditions in a proposition constitutes its meaningfulness. In other words, meaning is truth; if a proposition is meaningful, at the moment of its utterance, you have acknowledged its truth. That is, because it is true, it is meaningful, not that because it is meaningful, it is true. This statement also pertains to the distinction made regarding language. Proponents of the semantic theory hold that because formal language is implicit in natural language, it causes confusion, and some characteristics of formal language, such as meaning, truth, and falsehood, are mistakenly attributed to natural language. Meaningfulness, as previously stated, relates to truth conditions.

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Session Five

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Theories of Truth 1- Correspondence Theory 1. The Difference between Traditional and Modern Correspondence 2. Types of Correspondence 3. A Major Objection to Complete Correspondence and Responses to It 2- Coherentism 1. Components of Coherentism 2. Types of Coherentism

A major objection to the complete correspondence theory is this: when you say a proposition corresponds completely to reality, how have you ascertained that what was in your mind is exactly what is in the external world? There are two possibilities: either you must adopt the stance of an omniscient God and declare that correspondence holds, or you must provide a reason and evidence for the correspondence, which itself takes the form of a proposition, thereby reintroducing the question of correspondence and leading to an infinite regress. Naturally, appealing to intellectual intuition is not acceptable to this theory, and there is no escape: one must either believe in intellectual intuition, knowledge by presence, and so on, or resort to God and the prophet, as Descartes articulated.

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Session Six

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Continuation of the discussion on theories of truth 1- Pragmatism 2- Conventionalism Theories of Justification 1- Epistemological Issues 1. The Gettier Problem 2. Responses to the Gettier Problem 2- Classifications of Theories of Justification 1. Internalism and Externalism: 2. According to the Criterion of Justification: 1- The Causal Theory: 2- Comprehensive Reasons: Defeasibility: Evidentialism:

The theory of pragmatism, aside from being a criterion for truth, is, on a larger scale, an American philosophical school and the main current of American culture and education. In pragmatism, the criterion for truth is that the practical result of that knowledge is beneficial and effective. This is a common idea among all pragmatists, who consider utility and benefit as the regulators of propositions. In this theory, since there is no reality-in-itself, every true proposition is, depending on circumstances, open and subject to change.

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Session Seven

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Topics discussed: Coherentism and Foundationalism 1- Foundationalism and its Problems 1. Criteria for a Belief Being Basic 2. The Nature of Basic Belief 3. The Relation between Basic and Non-Basic Beliefs 1. Generative and Non-Generative 2. Inferential and Non-Inferential 3. The Meaning of the Causal Condition 4. Two Accounts: Epistemic and Moderate 5. Objections to the Epistemic Approach 6. The Difference between the Epistemic and Moderate Approaches

Regarding the nature of basic belief, two major theories have been proposed: 1- Logical nature, 2- Psychological nature. If we hold that being basic is established by a criterion, we have adopted the logical aspect, and if we hold that being basic has no specific objective criterion but rather a psychological and internal aspect, like Descartes, we have adopted the second theory. In this context, moderate foundationalism, however, does not consider basic beliefs to be indubitable and adopts more liberal criteria for being basic.

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Session Eight

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1- The problem of other minds in epistemology 2- Descartes' answer to the problem of other minds and its critique 3- Wittgenstein's critique of the reasoning of those who believe in the existence of other minds 4- Two major problems with the non-provability of other minds 5- Wittgenstein's approach to answering the aforementioned problems

Overcoming skepticism requires accepting other minds, meaning there are knowledges that are justifiable for everyone, and this requires that the mechanisms of minds be identical to one another. Contemporary epistemology is fundamentally based on the purpose that the human mind has a single logical structure that can logically reach a single conclusion from shared beliefs. In other words, foundationalism accepts the possibility of knowledge and seeks to make knowledge a belief accessible to everyone. The danger of solipsism is also that, in this case, the human being becomes like a Leibnizian monad. Enclosed within itself, only reasoning by analogy occurs, and one remains a Cartesian personal self and a Leibnizian monad. I see everything from my own perspective.

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Session Nine

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Topics covered:

1- Coherentism in justification 2- Components of coherentism in justification 3- The basis of justification in coherentism 4- Two versions of coherentism 5- Some merits of coherentism 6- Problems with coherentism and responses to them

From the coherentist perspective, the human mind has a coherentist structure, and they say all philosophers throughout history are coherentists. But the historical reality is that philosophers throughout history have been foundationalists. Coherentists also view foundationalism in a coherentist manner and consider the noumenon within a set of foundationalist propositions. In other words, in coherentism, by considering the noumenon as a coherentist component, the element of disclosure in epistemic theories will no longer exist, and the concept of error also becomes different. And error is the consideration of one set of coherent theories based on another set of coherent theories. We are merely faced with equivalent sets among which we must make a choice.

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Session Ten

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1- Two points 1. The criterion of consistency in coherentism: 2. The distinction between the ontological and epistemological aspects: 2- Continuation of problems with coherentism 1. Subject-centeredness and opposition to realism 2. The coherentists' response to the problem of subject-centeredness and opposition to realism 3. The problem of infinite regress and the coherentists' response

The criterion of consistency in coherentism is based on general agreement. Since coherentists are philosophers of modernity, in the domain of epistemology they hold that there is a single structure for the human mind, a point Descartes explicitly affirms. In other words, coherentism does not mean that everyone has their own epistemic system, and knowledge is not at all individual; rather, knowledge has meaning within the interrelation of human persons. Otherwise, it does not leave the realm of belief. When you say you have scientific knowledge, it means your belief is within a consistent set that others also accept as consistent within this set. In fact, intersubjectivity is taken into account in coherentism, and justification essentially becomes necessary in response to the demands of others.

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Session Eleven

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Topics covered:

1- Components of coherentism 2- The relation between justification and truth 3- Examination and critique of the theory of deconstructionism 4- Critique and examination of the method of analytic philosophy

Epistemology is fundamentally a critical stance and has a Kantian basis. After Kant, some, such as Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Gadamer, essentially moved beyond epistemology, and especially an epistemology detached from ontology, while others committed themselves to a non-critical epistemology, of whom Polanyi is one. In Polanyi's non-critical approach, knowledge pertains to practical aspects, and with the existential character of this theory, this process of reconstruction, insofar as it is part of our cognitive faculties, is considered involuntary. In his philosophy, Polanyi adopted a specific theory in epistemology, which is the idea of epistemic reconstruction. This theory, with borrowings from Heideggerian phenomenology, considers cognitive structures to be subordinate to existential transformations. And it holds that our cognitive apparatus is constantly, in an existential manner, reconstructing our knowledge.

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Lectures on “Analytic Philosophy: A Survey of Topics”

Dr. Mahmoud Khatami | University of Tehran | 2004

Mahmoud Khatami's Telegram Channel

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