From a Philosophical Point of View
Selected Studies
Chapter One
PROLOGUE TO A PHILOSOPHY OF CULTURE (2002)
I BEGAN MY serious philosophical thinking under the influence of several
major currents of thought, among them the pragmatism of John Dewey and the
analytic philosophy of G. E. Moore. I found Moore a persuasive advocate of
the view that the philosopher should analyze extralinguistic concepts,
attributes, or propositions, and arrive at truths that are analytic and
not dependent on experience for their support; but I soon discovered that
Moore was unsure about the notion of analysis that underlay his main
philosophical efforts, because he had developed serious doubts about the
idea of an analytic statement. At about the same time, I came to know
Nelson Goodman and W. V. Quine, who, in reaction to their mentors-C. I.
Lewis in Goodman's case and Carnap in Quine's-did not seek analyses of
intensional entities such as concepts, attributes, and propositions,
because they thought that reference to such entities was obscure and
because they had no clear notion of how ... read full excerpt from From a Philosophical Point of View: Selected Studies ebook
