Essential contestability and the claims of analysis

Mario Ricciardi

pp. 39-56

in: Ian Carter, Mario Ricciardi (eds), Freedom, power and political morality, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2001

Abstract

Does analytic philosophy rest on a mistake? Since its beginnings this intellectual movement has been an object of much disagreement regarding its merits (and demerits) among friends and foes alike. Those who regard themselves as belonging to the second group normally do so because they hold that the whole business of clarifying philosophical issues through the analysis of the use of words rests on a misunderstanding of the machinery of language and of the nature of philosophy itself. Analytic philosophy is said to be unware of the historical dimensions of language (given that the meanings of words change over time). Analytic philosophers stand accused of thinking that there is such a thing as the set of necessary conditions for the use of a given word. This is regarded as a theoretical delusion, which produces idle distinctions bearing no relation to the "real life" of a natural language.