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24 - Criticism, aesthetics and analytic philosophy

from PHILOSOPHY, AESTHETICS AND LITERARY CRITICISM

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2008

By
Peter Lamarque
Edited by
Christa Knellwolf  and
Christopher Norris
Christa Knellwolf
Affiliation:
Australian National University, Canberra
Christopher Norris
Affiliation:
University of Wales College of Cardiff
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Summary

The input to critical theory from so-called ‘continental’ (principally French and German) philosophy is well known and well documented. A somewhat less well known, less widely acknowledged, philosophical contribution to theoretical accounts of literature and criticism comes from ‘analytic philosophy’. Nevertheless, there is a substantial body of work from the analytic tradition in what has come to be known as ‘philosophy of literature’ and it is by no means confined to the English-speaking world. This essay will map out this contribution and assess its significance.

Analytic philosophy and related movements

The very idea of ‘analytic philosophy’ is contested and resists uncontroversial definition. Philosophers as different as Gottlob Frege and G. E. Moore, Rudolf Carnap and J. L. Austin, W. V. O. Quine and P. F. Strawson, the Wittgenstein of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and the Wittgenstein of the Philosophical Investigations have been called ‘analytic’ and it is hard to speak with confidence of common definitive elements. Nor is the epithet ‘Anglo-American’ (in contrast to ‘continental’) especially apt as leading figures, such as Frege, Wittgenstein, Friedrich Waismann, Moritz Schlick and other members of the Vienna Circle, came from Continental Europe. Other designations are sometimes used interchangeably with ‘analytic philosophy’, notably ‘linguistic philosophy’, ‘ordinary language philosophy’, even ‘philosophy of language’, but again only confusion results from running these together.

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The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism , pp. 323 - 334
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2001

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