Analytic Philosophism

Analytic Philosophy is one of the two major traditions in modern philosophy, founded around the early 1900s. It is characterized by trying to solve philosophical questions by clearly defining our terms, focusing on narrow and specialized topics, the use of symbolic logic, and a trust in the findings of the natural sciences and mathematics. It is the dominate school of philosophy within the English speaking first world.

History
In the early 20th century, Gottlob Frege developed a new form of predicate logic which allowed for more ideas then had been previously thought to be represented in formal logic. Indeed, Frege even went so far as to say that all mathematics could be derived logic.

This system inspired to further build upon Frege's discoveries as he tried to argue that the problems in philosophy could be solved by reducing the sentences being used into symbolic logic. So for example, instead of saying "If Socrates is a man, then Socrates is mortal" you would say "If A is B, then A is C" where A stands for "Socrates", B stands for "a man" and C stands for "Mortal." Russel also rejected the Hegelian Idealism popular at the time in favor of what he saw as empiricism and common sense, inspired by his teacher.

Russel's own student,  originally largely agreeing with Russel. At first, he thought that language (like first order logic) could be used to point to the totality of states of affairs as they existed. However, he latter changed his mind, claiming that language never points directly to things as they are in and of themselves, but that instead individual words can only be understood in terms of there social context and the way they are used alongside other words.

This lead to an increased emphasis in later analytic philosophy of focusing on using the language of ordinary people, as opposed to trying to merely relying on specialized technical terminology.

Friends:

 * [[File:Scientocracy Small.png]] - Science is good.
 * [[File:Steinval.png]] - A more recent pupal of mine.
 * [[File:Chom.png]] - One of the most important modern linguists.

Frenemies:

 * [[File:Positivism.png]] Positivism - I like the empiricism, but you're ideas are rejected universally by modern analytic philosophers.
 * [[File:Neomarx.png]] - Analytic Marxism is okay I guess, but stop hanging out with those [[File:Postmodernicon.png]] Continentals!

Enemies:

 * [[File:Postmodernicon.png]] Post-Modernism - Speak clearly you damn obscurantist!