Philosophy of Language and Mind

1950-1990

Bibliographic Data

ID10692545
AuthorsTyler Burge (0000-0002-5875-365X, corresponding author)
Year1992
Volume101
Issue1
Pages3
Publication date1992-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Philosophical Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0031-8108 • E-ISSN: 1558-1470
PublisherJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/2185043
OpenAlexW2323336893
LanguageEN
Citations received17

The last forty years in philosophy of language and philosophy of mind have seen, I hazard to say, some of the most intense and intellectually powerful discussion in any academic field during the period.' Yet the achievements in these areas have not been widely appreciated by the general intellectual public. This is partly because they are abstract and difficult. But it is partly a reflection of the lamentably weak lines of communication between philosophy and the rest of culture, especially in America. In my view, this situation developed during the professionalization of philosophy in the positivist period. Indeed, positivism's harsh judgment of the cognitive value of most of nonscientific culture should probably be given much of the blame. Logical positivism casts a long shadow. Its overthrow in the early 1950s is the central event at the outset of the period that I shall discuss. Elements from this movement motivated and colored much that followed. Philosophy's challenge has been to maintain the movement's clarity and respect for argument, while loosening its restrictions on method and subject matter. Logical positivism aimed to make philosophy scientific-to end the succession of philosophical systems that seemed to promise no analogue of scientific progress. To support this aim, the movement presented an account of why philosophy had failed to be scientific

Analytic philosophy · Contemporary philosophy · Epistemology · General interest · Classical Philosophy and Thought · Philosophy · Psychology

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