Lecture on Analytic Philosophy and Identity

Overview of Philosophy

Analytic Philosophy as a reaction to earlier philosophical views, particularly the idea that everything is mental.
Questioning the nature of reality, knowledge, and ethics.
Early definitions often tied to specific philosophies, mostly abandoned by 1950.

Not tied to a specific philosophical thesis.
Concerned with core philosophical questions: metaphysics, epistemology, ethics.
Often misunderstood as anti-philosophy; instead, it's a philosophical methodology.
Involves empiricism, linguistic analysis, and clarity.

Empiricism: Attention to empirical methods, not necessarily the full story.
Language: Focus on linguistic structure; some believe all philosophical questions are linguistic questions.
Clarity: A supreme virtue; contrasts with the more literary and opaque style of Continental Philosophy.
Analysis: Breaking down complex wholes into parts. Rooted in Descartes' analytic method.
- Understanding wholes in terms of parts, constructing models (logical, mathematical) to explain concepts.

Aristotle: Empirical investigation, logical analysis, clarity, analyzing wholes in terms of parts.
Social Contract Theorists: Hobbes, Locke; breaking down complex ideas into simpler components.
Empiricists: Hume, Locke; analyzing complex ideas into simpler ones.
Rationalists: Descartes, Leibniz; breaking down wholes into parts.
Modern Influences: Frege, Russell; development of first-order logic, logical language.

Born in 1848, died 1925; German mathematician, logician, philosopher.
Known for work in mathematical logic, particularly first-order logic.
Published Begriffsschrift (Concept Writing), foundation for modern first-order logic.
Developed new logical language, revolutionizing philosophical questions.

Distinction between statements of the form A = A (analytic, a priori, uninformed) and A = B (informative, not necessarily a priori).
Identity as a relation between objects or between names/signs of objects.
Examples:
- Bruce Wayne is Batman: Highly informative.
- Water is H2O: Conveys significant scientific information.

-Frege's Solution: Introducing the concept of 'sense' to distinguish it from 'reference.'

Sense: Mode of presentation, explaining how informative identity statements are possible despite having the same referent.
Reference: The actual object or concept being referred to by a name or term.
Examples:
- Morning Star = Evening Star: Different senses, same reference (Venus).
- Bruce Wayne = Batman: Different senses, same reference.
- Water = H2O: Different senses, same reference.

Aristotle, Aquinas, Locke's View: Words as signs of ideas, ideas as likenesses of things.
Triangle Example: Word 'triangle' signifies the concept of a triangle, which refers to the object itself.
Tone: Emotional associations with words, separate from the concept.
Subjectivity: Concepts can vary from person to person, even if the reference remains the same.

Frege's Contribution: Distinguishing between sense (shared, external) and concepts (individual, internal) to resolve issues of informativeness in identity statements.
Next steps involve deeper exploration of Frege's sense and reference distinction and its implications.