(DRAFT) for Poli, R. and Seibt, J. (eds.)Theories and Applications of Ontology. (Forthcoming)
Part 1: Introduction
The analytic tradition is sometimes criticized as being narrowly focused on language, logic or conceptual analysis to the detriment of deeper investigations into ontological, metaphysical or moral questions. More specifically, analytic philosophy has been associated with an obsequiously deferential relationship to mathematics and the natural sciences. While this line of criticism obscures the historical reality and contemporary diversity of the analytic tradition, it is true that analytic philosophers have generated some of the severest criticisms of traditional metaphysics. Many early analytic philosophers, in particular those who were part of or influenced by the Vienna Circle, tended to identify metaphysics with obscurantist cultural tendencies. Philosophers like Carnap, Neurath, and Schlick were motivated by the ideal of a philosophical practice which was guided by the kinds of intellectual virtues which they thought were exemplified by the natural sciences. Science seemed to offer a more appealing and progressive example of intellectual activity than the kinds of traditional philosophy with which they were familiar. The sciences, they thought, offer a model of clarity, openness and internationalism which stood in stark contrast to, for example, the ontological rumblings that members of the Vienna circle heard coming from Heidegger’s hut. Heideggerian forms of ontology, were anathema to the refugees from fascism who helped to shape philosophy in the second half of the twentieth century.