Dummett on the Origins of Analytical Philosophy

Abstract

This paper offers a critical reading of Michael Dummett’s claim that ‘the fundamental
axiom of analytical philosophy [is] that the only route to the analysis of thought
goes through the analysis of language’ (1993, 128). Dummett’s characterization, it is
argued, has some validity when supplemented by recognition of the role of logical
analysis in ‘the semantic tradition’. Even when Dummett’s thesis is clarified in this
way, however, it remains inadequate as a way of characterizing analytical philosophy
and its relation to ‘other schools’.