Analytic Philosophy: What, Whence, and Whither?

Analytic philosophy is a movement, and not a theory, or methodology or school of thought. Analytic philosophy, the main rival of the continental philosophy, has been the prevalent philosophical movement in the 20th Century. This writing is the first part of Hacker's article "Analytic Philosophy: What, Whence, and Whither?". In the first part of his article, he presents analytic explication as a means to describe analytic philosophy. To describe analytic philosophy, firstly its distinction from other philosophical movements and schools and secondly unifying root of its branches should be explained. For analytic explication of analytic philosophy, he provides special parameters. Then, he argues that none of them by itself or a combination of them or otherwise considering the concept of analytic philosophy as a concept of family resemblance is the most successful method to describe analytic philosophy. In the second part of his article, Hacker regards the historical methodology as the most suitable one to describe analytic philosophy.