--- title: "Analytic philosophy" chunk: 11/18 source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytic_philosophy" category: "reference" tags: "science, encyclopedia" date_saved: "2026-05-05T16:19:43.103246+00:00" instance: "kb-cron" --- Plantinga was once described by Time magazine as "America's leading orthodox Protestant philosopher of God". His seminal work God and Other Minds (1967) argues belief in God is a properly basic belief akin to the belief in other minds. Plantinga also developed a modal ontological argument in The Nature of Necessity (1974). Plantinga, John Mackie, and Antony Flew debated the use of the free will defense as a way to solve the problem of evil. Plantinga further issued a trilogy on epistemology, Warrant: The Current Debate (1993), Warrant and Proper Function (1993), and Warranted Christian Belief (2000). Plantinga's evolutionary argument against naturalism contends there is a problem in asserting both evolution and naturalism. Alston defended divine command theory. Robert Merrihew Adams also defended divine command theory, and the virtue of faith. William Lane Craig defends the Kalam cosmological argument in the book of the same name. === Analytic Thomism === Catholic analytic philosophers—such as Elizabeth Anscombe, her husband Peter Geach, MacIntyre, Anthony Kenny, John Haldane, Eleonore Stump, and others—developed Analytic Thomism. === Orthodoxy === Orthodox convert Richard Swinburne wrote a trilogy of books arguing for God, The Coherence of Theism (1977), The Existence of God (1979), and Faith and Reason (1981). Swinburne is notable for his belief that God's existence is contingent rather than necessary (it is possible God does not exist), but that nonetheless He does exist as a brute fact. === Wittgenstein and religion === The analytic philosophy of religion has been preoccupied with Wittgenstein, as well as his interpretation of Søren Kierkegaard. Wittgenstein fought for the Austrian army in World War I and came upon a copy of Leo Tolstoy's The Gospel in Brief (1896). He subsequently underwent some kind of religious conversion. "Swansea school" philosophers such as Rush Rhees, Peter Winch, and D. Z. Phillips, among others, founded a school of religious thought based on Wittgenstein. The name "contemplative philosophy" was coined by Phillips in Philosophy's Cool Place (1999), after a passage quoted in Wittgenstein's Culture and Value (1980). == Philosophy of science == The weight given to scientific evidence is largely due to philosophers' commitments to scientific realism and naturalism. Some such as Friedrich Hayek in The Counter-Revolution of Science (1952) see using science in philosophy as scientism. Nonetheless, science has had an increasingly significant role in analytic philosophy. The theory of special relativity has had a profound effect on the philosophy of time, and quantum physics is routinely discussed in the free will debate. Ernest Nagel's book The Structure of Science (1961) practically inaugurated the field of philosophy of science. === Theories === Carl Hempel advocated confirmation theory or Bayesian epistemology. He introduced the famous raven's paradox. In reaction to what he considered excesses of logical positivism, Karl Popper, in The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1959), rejects the standard inductivist views on the scientific method in favor of a highly influential theory of falsification, using it to solve the demarcation problem. Quine and French scientist Pierre Duhem seemed to have similar views in certain respects. The Duhem–Quine thesis, or problem of underdetermination, posits that no scientific hypothesis can be understood in isolation, a viewpoint called confirmation holism. Following Quine and Duhem, subsequent theories emphasized theory-ladenness. In reaction to both the logical positivists and Popper, philosophy became dominated by social constructivist and cognitive relativist theories of science. Significant for these discussions is Thomas Kuhn, who in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962) formulated the idea of paradigm shifts and sparked a "revolt against positivism" known as the "historical turn". Paul Feyerabend's book Against Method (1975) advocates epistemological anarchism; that there are no universal rules for scientific inquiry. === Branches === Philosophers like Tim Maudlin focus on the philosophy of physics. Maudlin argues in The Metaphysics Within Physics (2007) that philosophy must reflect on physics, and that scientific laws are sui generis. Recently there has also been work in the philosophy of chemistry, and the philosophy of biology has undergone considerable growth, especially due to the debate over the nature of evolution, particularly natural selection. Daniel Dennett and his book Darwin's Dangerous Idea (1995), which defends Neo-Darwinism, stand at the forefront of this debate. Jerry Fodor criticizes natural selection in What Darwin Got Wrong (2010). The philosophy of social science has also received increased interest. Peter Winch takes a Wittgensteinian perspective in The Idea of a Social Science and its Relation to Philosophy (1958). Searle contributed to social ontology and the theory of social constructs with The Construction of Social Reality (1995). == See also == History of logic Paradox of analysis == Notes == == References == == Works cited == === Articles ===