A note on the paradox of analysis

1956 ◽  
Vol 7 (6) ◽  
pp. 92-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. K. Feyerabend
Keyword(s):  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey C. King

This article examines the main lines of contemporary thinking about analysis in philosophy. It first considers G. E. Moore’s statement of the paradox of analysis. It then reviews a number of accounts of analysis that address the paradox of analysis, including the account offered by Ernest Sosa 1983 and others by Felicia Ackerman (1981, 1986, 1991); the latter gives an account of analysis on which properties are the objects of analysis. It also discusses Jeffrey C. King’s (1998, 2007) accounts of philosophical analysis, before turning to views of analysis that are not aimed at addressing the paradox of analysis, including those associated with David Lewis, Frank Jackson, and David Chalmers. In particular, it comments on Lewis’s argument that conceptual analysis is simply a means for picking out the physical state that occupies a certain role, where formulating what that role is constitutes a conceptual analysis of the relevant notion.


1995 ◽  
Vol 78 (2) ◽  
pp. 153-162 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gary Kemp
Keyword(s):  

Philosophy ◽  
1982 ◽  
Vol 57 (220) ◽  
pp. 211-221
Author(s):  
David O'Connor

In 1942, replying to a criticism put to him by Langford, G. E. Moore confessed that he was unable to solve the paradox of analysis. But while conceding inability to solve the puzzle Moore offered the following suggestion, which he did not further develop: I think that, in order to explain the fact that, even if ‘To be a brother is the same thing as to be a male sibling’ is true, yet nevertheless this statement is not the same as the statement ‘To be a brother is to be a brother’, one must suppose that both statements are in some sense about the expressions used as well as about the concept of being a brother. But in what sense they are about the expressions used I cannot see clearly; and therefore I cannot give any clear solution to the puzzle.


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