That Analyses are not Analytic
by Dennis J. Darland
Started February 7, 2009
Restarted May 23, 2009
Last revised 23.05.2009 17.54 time
Copyright © 2009 Dennis J. Darland


Having read the recent discussions of the nature of analytic philosophy - (see my reading in 2008) in the The Bertrand Russell Society Quarterly. I have been thinking about this nature and in particular G. E. Moore's paradox of analysis. The paradox is how could the analysis of a proposition be both correct and informative?

My thought on the topic is that how a person A understands his own belief (expressed by p) may differ from how another person B understands A's belief. Thus Russell would not be committed to asserting that, in order for a person A to use the word 'the' or the numeral '100', that A understands Russell's theory of definite descriptions or his analysis of natural numbers! The purpose of analysis (on my view) is not to arrive at other statements A would agree (or even understand) were necessarily (analytically) equivalent to p. The purpose is to arrive at statements (for B) about the which would (or could if they were not too complex) serve the same role as p does in practice for A. The goal being to arrive at a way to translate A's beliefs into ones expressed consistently with scientific knowledge, contingent facts and logic. B is a person imagined to have an ideal knowledge of scientific laws, contingent facts and logic. Thus A may believe 'Cicero denounced Cataline'. It may also be a fact that 'Cicero = Tully', but that A believes that this is false. The 'ideal' observer B, can express this using my analysis if belief (see Opacity revisited and naming) in a way which avoids opacity, yet does not deny intensional contexts. The goal of analysis is not to arrive at propositions that everyone would agree to, or even understand. The purpose of analysis is to show how propositions would express a state in a state space of a given metaphysics. Any analysis will necessarily be simplified, actual states in state space being far too complex for full expression. Thus the goal is to see how the truth of statements can be imagined to result from states of what the metaphysic considers to be fundamental. Thus the analysis is informative (especially if it is correct). Thus analysis is not expected to change ordinary means of expression, but rather to see how these expressions are in fact useful as a result of the nature of the world. The analysis serving to explain how the facts of science account for the usefulness of ordinary language. Also, going beyond science to metaphysics, showing how a metaphysic might be true, metaphysics being beyond scientific confirmation of disconfirmation.
Thus the difference between A and B's beliefs may go beyond mere vocabulary of nouns - which is all that is illustrated by the example using 'Cicero' and 'Tully'. They may also vary in other parts of speech - logical terms, for example.

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