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Philosophical Analysis in the Twentieth Century, Volume 1: The Dawn of Analysis

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This is the first of Scott Soames's two-volume history of analytic philosophy. Together these volumes illuminate the most important developments in metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of language and ethics from 1900 until 1975. In this volume the contributions of Moore, Russell, Wittgenstein and Quine, among others, are covered. The second volume covers more of the contributions of Wittgenstein and Quine, and the contributions of Ryle, Grice, Davidson and Kripke, among others.
Soames carefully explains the theories of these philosophers, and clearly sets forth their arguments. He critically evaluates their arguments, showing their successes and their failures. The volumes are also very well organised, with each chapter including a nice outline and each part concluding with suggestions for further reading. What emerges is a work that is comprehensive and detailed, insightful and original.
As Soames explains, some important philosophers are not covered and some material from the philosophers that are covered is not discussed. These volumes are also controversial for not engaging with the secondary literature and for some of the interpretations offered; some of the debate can be followed online.
The intended audience of these volumes is primarily upper-level undergraduates, graduates and professional philosophers. While Soames would also like others to gain from these volumes, I think that those who have not had some exposure to analytic philosophy will find them difficult. As a graduate student in philosophy, these volumes have been of great help to me, filling in some major gaps in my education.
I think that Soames's volumes will illuminate the classics of analytic philosophy for generations of philosophers and philosophy students, and may become classics themselves. I highly recommend both volumes.

I wish I'd had a book like this to read when I was an undergraduate in philosophy. It would have put so much more of the material I was studying at the time in context. Soames has selected the essential figures of the first half of the 20th century, together with their essential arguments, and explained their significance. His explanations are at once accessible to the layman, but also satisfying to the professional interested in the details of important arguments.

Of particular interest, I believe, is Soames recounting of the most basic points behind Russell's axiomatization of arithmetic, and explaining its philosophical significance in its era. Other introductory texts assert that this was done; few give us just enough of the axioms themselves, together with simple examples of their use in proving arithmetical propositions, together with their reduction to logic and set theory.

I do have minor gripes about the text, but they are small in comparison to the above. First, I would like to have seen a chapter on Frege. Soames' skills as an expositor would be well-suited to this task. When other philosophers (like Michael Dummett) have gone so far as to say that Frege was the fountainhead of the analytic movement, I would like too see how other philosophers with historical expertise approach the question.

Also one or two minor gripes about interpretation. On pages 402-404, Soames seems to say that Quine is some kind of phenomenalist, who thinks observation sentences report private sense experiences. Surely the bulk of evidence concerning Quine's views about observation sentences contradicts this. While Quine does think that impacts on our nerve endings help constitute the "stimulus meaning" of observation sentences, he does not think that these sentences are understood as referring to sense data. Observation sentences are about physical objects, like "Rabbit!"

But this aside, I've already purchased Volume II, and I'm looking forward to the learning experience.

Philosophical Analysis in the Twentieth Century: The Dawn of Analysis is the first of Scott Soames' two volume series on 20th century analytic philosophy.

This is the best overview of analytic philosophy that I have come across. In Vol. 1 Soames discusses Moore, Russell, Early-Wittgenstein, Ross and Quine. He provides insight regarding the context within which these thinkers wrote, as well as an overview and assessment of their key works/ideas. With regard to this latter point, I general found his focus appropriate and his commentary to be clear and even-handed. A particular strength was the discussion of Russell. Russell can at times seem arcane - Soames handles his work especially well. I agree with an earlier reader that the inclusion of Frege would have been helpful.

I recommend Philosophical Analysis in the Twentieth Century: The Dawn of Analysis highly to all readers of analytic philosophy. I found it very helpful when recently re-reading Moore and Wittgenstein. Although the text can be classified as an overview/introduction, some background in philosophy is probably required to maximize its' value.

This is good chronological account of the development of primarily early Anglo-American philosophy in last century. If you already have a background in the area, I doubt it will add anything new to your understanding. This isn't a negative, it is merely my opinion that the book's rigid adherence to chronology precludes a decent provocative synthesis of the work of the period. The last section covers Quine's contributions and, apart from berating Grice and Strawson's attempted rebuttal of Quine's positions on language, is a little bit too uncritical. For a final year undergraduate or a aspirng postgraduate, this book (and its companion volume) is very useful. However, there are other histories of philosophy around that covere the same period with more panache. It is a personal opinion at the end of the day.

The book was in excellent condition, and came about as fast as the seller predicted.