# I hate analytical philosophy **URL:** \ **Category:** General Philosophy\ **Created:** [October 24, 2026, 10:45am UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/i-hate-analytical-philosophy/3748 "2026-10-24T10:45:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Frank](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/frank/32/216_2.png) [@Frank](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2026, 4:57pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/i-hate-analytical-philosophy/3748/64 "2026-10-25T16:57:19Z")
We were talking about how AP is associated with liberalism, and I think this might be related. Pundits say that investors are happy that the US government is about to be strait jacketed by the Democratic takeover of the House. In other words, they like it when the government isn’t likely to do anything. AP likes for philosophers to restrain themselves, so there’s no rambunctious political statements being made. Although Chomsky was an outspoken social critic, it wasn’t part of the philosophy he’s known for. Investors like for philosophers to keep their eyes on the nature of possible worlds rather than the nature of this one. ---
**Author:** ![Ciceronianus](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/ciceronianus/32/1622_2.png) [@Ciceronianus](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Ciceronianus)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2026, 5:06pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/i-hate-analytical-philosophy/3748/65 "2026-10-25T17:06:58Z")
Perhaps a flair for indignation, then? ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/frank/32/216_2.png) [@Frank](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2026, 5:11pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/i-hate-analytical-philosophy/3748/66 "2026-10-25T17:11:51Z")
It’s not universal, but it’s definitely there. 😀 ---
**Author:** ![Wayfarer](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/wayfarer/32/123_2.png) [@Wayfarer](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Wayfarer)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2026, 7:58pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/i-hate-analytical-philosophy/3748/67 "2026-10-25T19:58:21Z")
From the [LA Review of Books](https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-politics-of-apoliticism/) on Christopher Schuringa’s Social History of Analytic Philosophy: > Analytic philosophy was constructed retroactively, in the 1950s, by American philosophers drawing on three distinct sources: Cambridge University’s holy trinity of Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and G. E. Moore, devoted to the logical analysis of facts, in more or less technical forms; the logical positivists in Vienna, for whom science was the arbiter of truth and philosophy its sidekick; and the “ordinary language” school in Oxford, represented in different ways by Gilbert Ryle and J. L. Austin. (The later Wittgenstein, always a misfit, doesn’t quite belong to any of these camps.) The idea of a shared analytic method or vision was always a myth, but mythmaking flourished. In the 1970s, Oxford philosopher Michael Dummett would retell the history of analytic philosophy as unified by a “linguistic turn” indebted to the German logician Gottlob Frege (1848–1925), which gave priority to language over metaphysics. > > …What unified Cambridge, Vienna, and Oxford, and thus analytic philosophy, was little more than style—a focus on defining terms and making arguments explicit, sometimes using technical tools from logic—a shared hostility to “Continental philosophy” or post-Kantian thought in Germany and France, and control of the major institutions of the discipline, from elite university departments to prestige journals. Seems like quite an accurate depiction to me. ---
**Author:** ![Banno](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/banno/32/55_2.png) [@Banno](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Banno)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2026, 9:03pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/i-hate-analytical-philosophy/3748/68 "2026-10-25T21:03:20Z")
Historicist explanations are disingenuous. @Jamal mentioned the genetic fallacy; its application here is trite. There’s more. More damning perhaps is explaining away a body of argument in order not to have to deal with it. @Hanover talks of this, as a form of laziness implicit in the OP. Dismissing Camus’ body of work because he was just using talk to get laid is unwarranted, even if it’s true. Dismissing Quine because he had funding from RAND is no better. Addressing Quine’s funding is far easier than understanding and addressing his critique of the analytic/synthetic distinction. There’s also the difficulty of circularity - if all critique is to be explained by its being embedded in the historical milieu, then so is social critique. The Historicist cannot claim a privileged position. C. S. Lewis called this _[Bulverism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulverism)_, the combination of the genetic fallacy, circularity, and _Ad Hominem_ in order to _distract_ from what is being argued rather than address it. It has become standard practice with the advent of social media. Better, by far, to drop the rather immature divide between analytic and continental, and look instead at the _detail_ in the arguments found in actual texts. But that requires effort. ---
**Author:** ![questioner](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/questioner/32/50_2.png) [@questioner](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/questioner)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2026, 12:44am UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/i-hate-analytical-philosophy/3748/69 "2026-10-26T00:44:25Z")
> [@Banno](#): > > In the _Tractatus_ music is treated as signal processing: > > > 4.014 A gramophone record, the musical idea, the written notes, and the sound-waves, all stand to one another in the same internal relation of depicting that holds between language and the world. They are all constructed according to a common logical pattern. (Like the two youths in the fairy-tale, their two horses, and their lilies. They are all in a certain sense one.) > > > > 4.0141 There is a general rule by means of which the musician can obtain the symphony from the score, and which makes it possible to derive the symphony from the groove on the gramophone record, and, using the first rule, to derive the score again. That is what constitutes the inner similarity between these things which seem to be constructed in such entirely different ways. And that rule is the law of projection which projects the symphony into the language of musical notatio > > With the _Investigations_ it had become an embodied participation in a shared activity: > > > 5 27. Understanding a sentence is much more akin to understanding a theme in music than one may think. What I mean is that understanding a sentence lies nearer than one thinks to what is ordinarily called understanding a musical theme. Why is just _this_ the pattern of variation in loudness and tempo? One would like to say “Because I know what it’s all about.” But what is it all about? I should not be able to say. In order to ‘explain’ I could only compare it with something else which has the same rhythm (I mean the same pattern). (One says “Don’t you see, this is as if a conclusion were being drawn” or “This is as it were a parenthesis”, etc. How does one justify such comparisons?—There are very different kinds of justification here. Thanks for that, I appreciate your finding it. Obviously, I have identified myself as a formal-philosophy neophyte, and perhaps I have the idealism of a poet. I’ll share my thoughts about this philosophical take on music - To me, it seems surgical - a surgical representation My original comment was the need for a philosophy that takes into account the effect of music on humans I can’t say this passage does that. Looking for the logic in music seems wholly against the purpose of music - which is feeling. And - some more thoughts I have had about analytical philosophy - it appears to be an attempt to take the complex chaos that is our existence, and make some sense of it - make it manageable - and in that way master or control it. ---
**Author:** ![Banno](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/banno/32/55_2.png) [@Banno](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Banno)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2026, 1:07am UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/i-hate-analytical-philosophy/3748/70 "2026-10-26T01:07:39Z")
Your comment stated that analytic philosophy “does not take into account the effect of music on humans”. The quotes show, from a central source, that they do. See also > **[Wittgenstein’s Aesthetics (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wittgenstein-aesthetics/)** > **[The Concept of the Aesthetic (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aesthetic-concept/)** > **[Collingwood’s Aesthetics (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/collingwood-aesthetics/)** It would be jejune to criticise analytic philosophers for taking an analytic approach to aesthetics. ---
**Author:** ![questioner](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/questioner/32/50_2.png) [@questioner](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/questioner)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2026, 1:27am UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/i-hate-analytical-philosophy/3748/71 "2026-10-26T01:27:02Z")
> [@Banno](#): > > It would be jejune to criticise analytic philosophers for taking an analytic approach to aesthetics. No, they do what they do - and I am sure they do it very well - but to me - imho - they suck the juice out of it that way This weekend, I began reading a book on African philosophy - _[Existence and Consolation: Reinventing Ontology, Gnosis, and Values in African Philosophy](https://www.amazon.ca/Existence-Consolation-Reinventing-Ontology-Philosophy/dp/1557789142)_ The African worldview strikes a chord with me. From the preface to the book, it > regards the Universe as the rational expression of a basic _emotional_ impulse … (humanity is) defined first by emotion, which is fundamental, and secondly by reason… And I am still trying to come to terms with Wittgenstein saying this - > What can be said at all can be said clearly; and whereof one cannot speak thereof one must be silent. ---
**Author:** ![Banno](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/banno/32/55_2.png) [@Banno](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Banno)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2026, 1:37am UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/i-hate-analytical-philosophy/3748/72 "2026-10-26T01:37:26Z")
> [@questioner](#): > > …they suck the juice out of it that way I suspect that in this you are finding what you hope to see; a mild case of the Bulverism diagnosed previously. At the least, have a read of the [conclusion](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wittgenstein-aesthetics/#N5Conc)to Wittgenstein on Aesthetics. ---
**Author:** ![questioner](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/questioner/32/50_2.png) [@questioner](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/questioner)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2026, 1:42am UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/i-hate-analytical-philosophy/3748/73 "2026-10-26T01:42:52Z")
> [@Banno](#): > > Bulverism Oh dear no, I am not saying that whatever Wittgenstein proposes is false - it is just not how I approach music or poetry, or indeed the human condition. > [@Banno](#): > > At the least, have a read of the [conclusion](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wittgenstein-aesthetics/#N5Conc)to Wittgenstein on Aesthetics. I will, thanks, going to read it right now. ---
**Author:** ![Banno](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/banno/32/55_2.png) [@Banno](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Banno)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2026, 3:11am UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/i-hate-analytical-philosophy/3748/74 "2026-10-26T03:11:38Z")
> [@questioner](#): > > …it is just not how I approach music or poetry… It is _not_ music or poetry. Perhaps you might also take a look at my own musings: > [@An approach to aesthetics](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/an-approach-to-aesthetics/337): > > No sooner is a definition of Art given than some artist will seek to undermine it, in the name of art. Obvious examples include Marcel Duchamp’s “Fountain” and Flarf poetry. It’s a commonplace that art defies definition, quite literally - it openly refuses to comply with the insistence of the philosopher. Must we accept that any definition of art may be immediately undermined? Is there a definition for which this might not be so? Talk of art is talk of some individual, some item, be it a pot… It’s a straight up analytic extension of Wittgenstein’s family resemblance to the topic of aesthetics, with a dash of Popper thrown in just for fun. If it’s missing the “flair” you expect, see **[Ciceronianus](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/ciceronianus)** ---
**Author:** ![Michael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4bbf92/32.png) [@Michael](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Michael)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2026, 10:17am UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/i-hate-analytical-philosophy/3748/75 "2026-10-26T10:17:34Z")
I’m reminded of the [Sokal Affair](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair) and [Communications From Elsewhere](https://www.elsewhere.org/journal/pomo/). ---
**Author:** ![Thrifclyfe](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/thrifclyfe/32/1132_2.png) [@Thrifclyfe](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Thrifclyfe)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2026, 2:53pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/i-hate-analytical-philosophy/3748/76 "2026-10-26T14:53:14Z")
Sorry to hear your opinion of analytic philosophy, but as been said elsewhere, your position makes a strawman of it. I started out by memorizing the PhilPapers index (an analytic index) to get a grasp of the theoretical issues in science. There need be no Venn diagrms. ---
**Author:** ![Ciceronianus](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/ciceronianus/32/1622_2.png) [@Ciceronianus](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Ciceronianus)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2026, 4:49pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/i-hate-analytical-philosophy/3748/77 "2026-10-26T16:49:52Z")
I think you should be thankful that philosophy _isn’t_ music or poetry. I tremble when I imagine philosophers playing at being poets or composers of music. Think of the ponderous horrors which would result from their solemn efforts at art. ---
**Author:** ![questioner](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/questioner/32/50_2.png) [@questioner](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/questioner)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2026, 9:24pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/i-hate-analytical-philosophy/3748/78 "2026-10-26T21:24:53Z")
> [@Banno](#): > > It is _not_ music or poetry. > [@Ciceronianus](#): > > I think you should be thankful that philosophy _isn’t_ music or poetry I think there has been some misunderstanding – I did not mean to imply that philosophy _should be_ in the form of music or poetry – that’s just silly. Although, it could be. Maybe my proposition is this - Life is not defined by logic and reason, but by joy and sadness. > [@Banno](#): > > If it’s missing the “flair” you expect, I’m not looking for “flair” but ultimate causes. And … it is worth noting that, in a journal entry of 1934, Wittgenstein wrote - > _I think I summed up my position vis-à-vis philosophy when I said: philosophy should really be written only as one would write poetry._ And it should be read slowly, as he writes in _Culture and Value_ - > _Sometimes a sentence can be understood only if it is read at the right tempo._ > > _My sentences are all to be read slowly. (CV 65)_ > > _Thoughts rise to the surface slowly, like bubbles. (CV 72)_ How one should read poetry. He wanted to produce certainty where there was uncertainty. Wittgenstein’s “Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough (1936), begins, _“One must start out with error and convert it into truth,”_ and then contains the isolated lyric line, _“I must plunge into the water of doubt again and again…”_ For Wittgenstein, a command of the structural – i.e. words – how they are used - provided a kind of certainty. He wrote things like _“Every word in the language signifies something”_ and _“the meaning of a word is its use in the language.”_ In several journal entries, over a period of months, he muses about the meaning of the word “happiness” – yet comes to no conclusion. Instead, he terms the word “happiness” transcendent, which is to say, indefinable. _“What cannot be said, can be not said.”_ Maybe poets can’t define happiness, neither. Anyway, he really struggled with happiness. All of this sent me to do some digging into Wittgenstein the man, and I found out that although he belonged to one of the richest families in Austria, his childhood was unhappy. Three of his older brothers committed suicide by 1918. That called to mind something I wrote in an earlier post – > _about analytical philosophy - it appears to be an attempt to take the complex chaos that is our existence, and make some sense of it - make it manageable - and in that way master or control it._ And I imagined the young man, serious, intellectual, and moody - desperate to make sense of his brothers’ deaths, and his own internal struggles – bring some logic to it – even though the chase for logic appears to have driven him half-mad - but ultimately finding some consolation in logical – ordered p’s and q’s - answers. (If only life could be so meticulously ordered.) As he said in a 1930 Lecture, “Philosophy is the attempt to be rid of a particular kind of puzzlement.” Anyway, in the last few months of his life, he wrote, “My life consists in that there are certain things I am content to accept.” [**Writing Philosophy as Poetry: Wittgenstein’s Literary Syntax**](https://wab.uib.no/agora-ontos/article/viewFile/2154/2419) ---
**Author:** ![Banno](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/banno/32/55_2.png) [@Banno](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Banno)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2026, 9:30pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/i-hate-analytical-philosophy/3748/79 "2026-10-26T21:30:23Z")
> [@questioner](#): > > Life is not defined by logic and reason, but by joy and sadness. What’s odd is that you seem to think that those philosophers associated with the term “analytic” might disagree with this. But then you go on to show that Wittgenstein agreed with you. Well, yes. > [@questioner](#): > > I’m not looking for “flair” but ultimate causes. Why might you suppose there _are_ ultimate causes? What is a _cause_? What would it be for a cause to count as being _ultimate_? _Now_ we are doing philosophy. Philosophy is concerned with conceptual analysis, rather than causes. ---
**Author:** ![questioner](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/questioner/32/50_2.png) [@questioner](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/questioner)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2026, 9:56pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/i-hate-analytical-philosophy/3748/80 "2026-10-26T21:56:42Z")
> [@Banno](#): > > What’s odd is that you seem to think that those philosophers associated with the term “analytic” might disagree with this. No, the opposite. I knew that behind every dry piece of writing, lived a real human being. > [@Banno](#): > > But then you go on to show that Wittgenstein agreed with you. Well, yes. What a fascinating character. The haunted look in his eyes in this photograph taken in 1929 struck me. ![Ludwig_Wittgenstein_1929 resized](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/uploads/thephilosophyforum/original/2X/3/37e2cf600e29faa8e905284043f02f1f92decf11.jpeg) I’ve just downloaded a biography of him that is advertised this way - _‘This biography transforms Wittgenstein into a human being.’_ _[Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius](https://www.amazon.ca/Ludwig-Wittgenstein-Genius-Ray-Monk-ebook/dp/B007FUMRMC/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0)_ > [@Banno](#): > > Why might you suppose there _are_ ultimate causes? What is a _cause_? What would it be for a cause to count as being _ultimate_? Well, the first thing I think of is the way Wittgenstein keeps referring to “context.” All is to be understood in context. Even with matters of art appreciation, [he says](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wittgenstein-aesthetics/) the “the expression (of art) itself has almost a negligible place” but that it becomes functionally aesthetic depending “on the enormously complicated situation in which the aesthetic expression has a place” (To me, this reads as a statement that the meaning of art belongs to the receiver of the art) Anyway – what is the primary context of a social animal like us? What instincts drive us more than anything else? > [@Banno](#): > > Philosophy is concerned with conceptual analysis, rather than causes. How do you analyze a concept without reference to its causes? ---
**Author:** ![Banno](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/banno/32/55_2.png) [@Banno](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Banno)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2026, 10:07pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/i-hate-analytical-philosophy/3748/81 "2026-10-26T22:07:49Z")
The questions where rhetorical, examples of the sort of thing philosophy does. Perhaps it is _psychology_ that concerns the causal stuff, to do with motivation. Are you in the wrong place? Monk’s book is excellent, however it doesn’t go as far into exegesis as I’d have preferred. What is a cause? ---
**Author:** ![questioner](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/questioner/32/50_2.png) [@questioner](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/questioner)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2026, 10:15pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/i-hate-analytical-philosophy/3748/82 "2026-10-26T22:15:58Z")
> [@Banno](#): > > Perhaps it is _psychology_ that concerns the causal stuff, to do with motivation. No, I’m not just talking about human motivation, but trying to understand the entire enchilada. I’m just as interested as the next philosopher in the question, “What is it all about?” > [@Banno](#): > > Are you in the wrong place? That’s cheeky. > [@Banno](#): > > What is a cause? The stimulus for an effect ---
**Author:** ![Banno](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/banno/32/55_2.png) [@Banno](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Banno)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2026, 10:22pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/i-hate-analytical-philosophy/3748/83 "2026-10-26T22:22:38Z")
> [@questioner](#): > > The stimulus for an effect What does that mean? I understand that hitting the ball with the bat cause it to fly out to square leg. Saying the bat stimulated the effect of flying out to square leg doesn’t seem to add anything. See what I did there? That’s conceptual analysis. [Previous page](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/i-hate-analytical-philosophy/3748.md?page=3) [Next page](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/i-hate-analytical-philosophy/3748.md?page=5)