1064 TWENTIETH-CENTURYPHILOSOPHY
this narrower meaning. In fact, it is not clear that this is true under any but the widest
meaning distinguished earlier.
Common to those who subscribe to the Analytic approach, whether in the
broadest sense or a narrower one, is the conviction that to some significant
degree, philosophical problems, puzzles, and errors are rooted in language
and can be solved or avoided, as the case may be, by a sound understanding of
language and careful attention to its workings. (Willard Van Orman Quine, for
example, exhibits this strategy in his careful examination of the analytic-synthetic
distinction.) This method has tended to focus much attention on language and on
its close relative, logic, as objects of study for their own sake. (The relationship
between language and logic is itself a question subjected to considerable inquiry
and debate.) Detractors are apt to point to this concern—they might say this
obsession—with language and logic as one aspect of the trivialization of philoso-
phy with which they charge the Analytic movement. Many who are generally
loyal or sympathetic to Analytic philosophy may agree that it tended to draw
philosophy away from “deep” questions. In any case, the past two to three
decades have seen, on the one hand, increased self-searching as to the limitations
of the Analytic approach, and on the other, more efforts to apply it to deeper
questions—about the meaning of life, for instance, or the nature of the moral
life—in a way that takes them seriously.
For secondary works on twentieth-century philosophy, consult the appropriate
works from Frederick Copleston’s series A History of Philosophy, Volumes VIII:
Bentham to Russelland Volume IX: Maine de Brian to Sartre(New York: Image
Doubleday, 1966 and 1974) and Dermont Moran, ed.,The Routledge Companion to
Twentieth-Century Philosophy (Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2008). For histories and
discussions of specific movements in twentieth-century Western philosophy, see
Michael Corrado,The Analytic Tradition in Philosophy: Background and Issues
(Chicago: American Library Association, 1975); Robert C. Solomon,From Hegel
to Existentialism(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987); Richard Kearney, ed.,
Twentieth-Century Continental Philosophy(London: Routledge, 1994); Giovanna
Borradori,The American Philosopher,translated by Rosanna Crocitto (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1994); D.S. Clarke,Philosophy’s Second Revolution:
Early and Recent Analytic Philosophy(La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1997); Simon
Critchley and William Schroeder, eds.,A Companion to Continental Philosophy
(Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1997); Robert D’Amico,Contemporary Continental
Philosophy(Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1998); Robert C. Solomon and David
Sherman, ed.,Blackwell Guide to Continental Philosophy(Oxford: Blackwell,
2003); and Richard Kearney, ed.,Continental Philosophy in the 20th Century
(London: Routledge, 2003). Robert Audi, ed.,The Cambridge Dictionary of
Philosophy(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995); Stuart Brown et al.,
Biographical Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Philosophers(London: Routledge,
1996); and Hans Bynagle,Philosophy: A Guide to the Reference Literature,2nd
edition (Littleton, CO: Libraries Unlimited, 1997) provide helpful reference works.
