Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-c9gpj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-12T09:16:45.908Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

4 - Ryle on Sensation and the Origin of the Identity Theory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 July 2009

Paul M. Livingston
Affiliation:
Villanova University, Pennsylvania
Get access

Summary

By 1950, the theory and practice of linguistic analysis had grown, from its beginnings in the philosophical projects of Frege, Russell, and Wittgenstein, to a position of unquestioned dominance within the English-speaking philosophical world. The period from 1930 to 1950 witnessed a rapid growth of interest in the Vienna Circle's logical empiricism, and the emigration to the United States during this period of key members of the Circle, and others sympathetic to its project, ensured the quick inheritance and large-scale acceptance of “scientific philosophy” and the method of logical analysis in America. There, logical empiricism found common cause with native forms of pragmatism and logical inquiry, and a new generation of philosophers began to absorb the practice of logical analysis, while also subjecting it to decisive modifications. A. J. Ayer's powerful Language, Truth, and Logic, published in 1936, put the programmatic commitments of logical empiricism in a clear and canonical form, contributing greatly to the spread of logical empiricist views and methods both in Britain and in America. Meanwhile, at Cambridge and at Oxford, a somewhat distinct tradition of analysis, tracing ultimately to Russell and Moore's decisive rejection of absolute idealism at the turn of the century, was developing throughout this period. It would culminate in the analytic practice of “ordinary language” philosophers such as Austin, Ryle, and Strawson, philosophers who, while eschewing the formal and symbolic methods characteristic of the Vienna Circle and its descendents, brought the methods of linguistic analysis to a new level of insight and capability in their application of it to the various traditional problems of philosophy.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2004

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×