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American philosophical realism developed in two forms: "new" and "critical" realism. While the new realists sought to 'emancipate' ontology from epistemology and defended a direct theory of perception, the critical realists promoted a representationalist account of perception and thus argued for an epistemological dualism. Bertrand Russell's early philosophical writings figured prominently in both of these American realist camps. However, while the new realists quite enthusiastically embraced the Russellian analytic style of reasoning (and Russell himself appreciated the American new realists as anti-idealist allies), the critical realists were significantly more reserved toward Russell's point of view. In the present paper, I identify the reasons for this difference in reception. In particular, I will show that the critical realists' reservations pertained primarily to a more traditionalist—'continental'—account of philosophy, whereas the neo-realists proved instrumental in setting the stage for later full-blown analytic philosophy in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a commentary on Christian Smith's 'The Conceptual Incoherence of 'Culture' in American Cultural Sociology.' This paper accepts Smith's finding of conceptual incoherence at the disciplinary level and argues that it is a symptom of empiricism in American sociology. The paper suggests we employ conceptual analysis as practiced by analytical philosophy and proceeds to show how the use of that methodology can resolve the problem regarding the meaning of culture. In the end, the paper defends a conception of culture along the lines of Archer's (1996) intelligibilia, interpreted as action and its products bearing social reasoning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between American pragmatism and American critical realism needs to be reconsidered. The two currents shared many aspects, but there were also significant differences. One of these differences pertains to the object of perception or, more precisely, to the question of what we talk about when we talk about this, for example, being blue. By re-addressing that question, some light can be shed on the historical development of analytic philosophy in the United States during the first half of the twentieth century. My case in point is the respective positions of C. I. Lewis and R. W. Sellars. I shall point out that Sellars's view has more to recommend it because it provides a more compelling framework for a comprehensive explanation of perception. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines a series of debates about civil disobedience, conscription, and the justice of war that took place among American liberal philosophers, lawyers, and activists during the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War. It argues that these debates fundamentally reshaped American political philosophy, by shifting the focus from the welfare state to the realm of international politics. In order to chart this transition from the domestic to the international, this article focuses on the writings of two influential political theorists, John Rawls and Michael Walzer. The turn to international politics in American political philosophy has its origins, in part, in their arguments about domestic citizenship. In tracing these origins, this article situates academic philosophical arguments alongside debates among the American public at large. It offers a first account of the history of analytical political philosophy during the 1960s and 1970s, and argues that the role played by the Vietnam War in this history, though underappreciated, is significant. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Histories of analytic philosophy in the United States have typically focused on the reception of logical positivism, and especially on responses to the work of the Vienna Circle. Such accounts often call attention to the purportedly positivist-inspired marginalization of normative concerns in American philosophy: according to this story, the overweening positivist concern for logic and physics as paradigms of knowledge displaced questions of value and social relations. This article argues that the reception framework encourages us to mistake the real sources of the analytic revolution in post-war philosophy. These are to be found in debates about intentional action and practical reasoning – debates in which ‘normative’ questions of value and social action were in fact central. Discussion of these topics took place within a transatlantic community of Wittgensteinians, ordinary languages philosophers, logical empiricists, and decision theorists. These different strands of ‘analytical’ thinking were bound together into a new philosophical mainstream not by a positivist alliance with logic and physics, but by the rapid development of the mathematical and behavioural sciences during the Second World War and its immediate aftermath. An illustrative application of this new framework for interpreting the analytic revolution is found in the early career and writings of Donald Davidson. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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Many business ethicists assume that if a type of conduct is illegal, then it is also unethical. This article scrutinizes that assumption, using the rideshare company Uber's illegal operation in the city of Philadelphia as a case study. I argue that Uber's unlawful conduct was permissible. I also argue that this position is not an extreme one: it is consistent with a variety of theoretical commitments in the analytic philosophical tradition regarding political obligation (i.e. the moral duty to obey the law because it is the law). I conclude by showing why business ethicists would have a better rejoinder to the "dominant view" of business ethics associated with Milton Friedman if they dispensed with the assumption that illegal implies unethical. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Richard Rorty advocated that his confréres kick the 'philosophy habit'-that is, adopt a post-positivist, post-metaphysical style of interpretation. Philosophers largely ignored Rorty's clarion call. Unburdened by the kind of Selbstverständnis of scholarly mission held by most analytics, members of departments of literature instead became the most important advocates for reading literature philosophically during the last two decades of the twentieth century. Though the academic Left, especially practitioners of 'theory', largely celebrated and encouraged this development, Rorty, in the late 1990s, came to view it as harmfully elevating 'cultural politics' above 'real politics', which would ultimately lead to the abandonment of civic responsibilities. While heavy-handed and partial, Rorty's critique of the uses of philosophy by literary critics was not only perceptive, but can be helpful for understanding how the contemporary academic Left might move forward as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hohfeld is one of the best-known analytical philosophers to have written in the area of private law in western, common law legal systems in the twentieth century, but it is sometimes suggested that his scheme has had little impact on the law. One hundred years after his death, this article assesses the man and the impact of his work, noting a resurgence of interest in him amongst both commentators and courts. It suggests that there are two good reasons why his analytical philosophy is more relevant and useful today than ever – its potential to discipline and rationalise an increasingly insistent and ubiquitous rhetoric of rights; and the assistance it can provide in unpicking the complexity of the relationship between private law and the modern administrative state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

“French Theory” may be an American construction but it was reasonable to group together heterogeneous thinkers whose work was related to structuralism and filled a void left by American analytical philosophy. Local conditions—the hermeneutical orientation of literary studies and the assumed opposition between literature and science—affected the reception of French thought and led to the reconceiving it as “post-structuralist.” Though influenced by French theorists, American work in Gender Studies took new forms and can influence French thought in turn, as French Theory carries on in America, China, and elsewhere. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article offers the author's insights regarding the epistemology of analytic philosophy involving the naturalism, postmodernism, and physicalism in the U.S. It featured several American philosophers including W. V. Quine, Donald Davidson, and Paul M. Churchland, along with the highlights of their philosophical beliefs. It discusses the arguments between realism and antirealism.