Analysis (philosophy)

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Analysis ( Greek analysis ) means in general and in philosophy the breaking up of a whole into its parts, its counter-concept is synthesis . The method of analysis has been understood and applied differently in the history of philosophy as a whole and even in analytic philosophy . Accordingly, the term is also ambiguous.

Concept history

An outline of the conceptual history is given below.

Antiquity

A first method called analysis was developed in Greek geometry. This influenced not only Socrates, at least as he is represented by Plato , but also Aristotle . However, the analytical method of Greek geometry found its classical form only later in the elements of Euclid . In the classical formulation, the analytical method is formulated in the Mathematical Collection of Pappos .

In Plato and Aristotle, the analysis can relate to concepts, judgments and conclusions. Plato developed dissection ( Dihairesis ) as a conceptual analytical method . Aristotle methodically and systematically applied the method of analysis in the First and Second Analytics.

Middle Ages and Renaissance

The early Middle Ages are characterized by an eclectic reception of Greek antiquity with poor sources. In the later medieval philosophy there were independent conceptions, some of which anticipated basic concepts of analytic philosophy. Johannes Buridan can be cited as an example , who distinguished between divisio , definitio and demonstratio (conceptual breakdown, conceptual definition, proof), which corresponds to a dissecting, interpretive and regressive analysis.

In the Renaissance , however, there was a break with the tradition of scholasticism in favor of new or explicitly referring to ancient sources. There is initially no further reception.

Early modern age

In the 16./17. In the 19th century, the analysis experienced an appreciation. Galileo Galilei is based on the geometric method . Thomas Hobbes applies them to society and to people. For British empiricists, the human mind is a whole made up of simple components. René Descartes , inspired by contemporary geometrical-mathematical analysis, tried to find absolute certainties with the help of philosophical analysis. In the Discours de la méthode he developed a general analytical method and suggests the systematic breakdown of concepts and problems into their smallest components. The Descartes- inspired logic of Port-Royal became school-building.

Early modern

Immanuel Kant stands for a specific analytics . His transcendental analytics is an analysis of concepts. He seeks the elements of the understanding which are given a priori for him and which he calls categories . It is about the "division of our entire a priori knowledge into the elements of pure intellectual knowledge". Kant transfers the transcendental analytics to ethics (analysis of practical reason), aesthetics (analysis of the beautiful and sublime) and teleology (analysis of teleological judgment).

In German idealism and romanticism , analytical thinking was encountered critically because it was life and soul destructive. In early modernism as a whole, critical u. a .: Friedrich Schiller ; Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel , Pierre Teilhard de Chardin ; Francis Herbert Bradley and Henri Bergson .

The analytical method was further developed and modified by the neo-Kantians , especially by Ernst Cassirer , and by phenomenological analysis .

Analysis in analytic philosophy

In analytic philosophy analysis takes on a new importance. Method and goal differ greatly between representatives of the philosophy of natural language and those of formal language approaches. While the latter want to free the language from internal contradictions, meaningless expressions and deceptions through logical errors and emotional connotations through logical analysis, others want to test the language in the language for its actual conviction content. The logic of the analysis is fundamentally criticized by the late Wittgenstein ; Willard Van Orman Quine's attacks on the concept of analytical judgments, countered by Peter Strawson among others , also called into question the objectivity of possible analyzes.

It will u. a. the paradox of analysis is raised: Either that to be analyzed ( analysandum ) and that to be analyzed ( analysans ) are synonymous : then the analysis is uninformative. Or there is no synonymy: Then the analysis is inadequate. Is suggested u. a. solve the paradox by not requiring strict synonymy and distinguishing between implicit and explicit knowledge of the meaning of the expressions.

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g Michael Beany:  Analysis. In: Edward N. Zalta (Ed.): Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy . (Summer 2009 Edition).
  2. ^ Structure based on Michael Beany:  Analysis. In: Edward N. Zalta (Ed.): Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy . (Summer 2009 Edition).
  3. ↑ After Herzgsell, Johannes: Analysis. In: Brugger / Schöndorf (ed.): Philosophical dictionary. Alber: Freiburg, Br .; Munich 2010 as the first.
  4. ↑ a b c See E. Kanterian, Analytical Philosophy , Frankfurt a. M., 2004, p. 13 f.
  5. ↑ a b c Gessmann, Martin: Philosophical dictionary. 23rd edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 2009: Analysis.
  6. ↑ Kant: Critique of Pure Reason. B 89
  7. ^ According to Regenbogen / Meyer (ed.): Dictionary of Philosophical Terms. Meiner, Hamburg 2005: Analytics.