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A review by lupetuple
Philosophical Analysis: An Introduction to Its Language and Techniques 2nd Edition by Samuel Gorovitz
2.0
Because I'm petty, I took off a star because the bibliography quite unabashedly includes works only within the "current Anglo-American philosophical tradition”—tells you how dated this book is, but of course, such Western chauvinism has not improved even after all this time.
Aside from that, this is a real introduction to philosophical analysis—with all the focus on technicalities, ambiguities, and subtleties of language you can ask for, to the detriment of clarity and accessibility. Perhaps this is the true mark of one’s plunge into seriously writing and reading philosophy—you have to sit dumbfounded with the text and attempt to wrap your head around it all in several sessions.
It is basic, but at least in my case, it instilled a thrill and eagerness to analyze texts, not strictly those of a philosophical nature, more deeply and deliberately, using some of the techniques introduced here. It was most lacking in making the analytic-synthetic and a priori/a posteriori designations easily intelligible, toward the end. It seems that a few symbols are out of popular usage, as well; this is the interesting yet frustrating part about buying second-hand philosophy books. (On a side note, I hope that whoever owned this book previously received my reply to one of their questions that they wrote on the margins.)
Aside from that, this is a real introduction to philosophical analysis—with all the focus on technicalities, ambiguities, and subtleties of language you can ask for, to the detriment of clarity and accessibility. Perhaps this is the true mark of one’s plunge into seriously writing and reading philosophy—you have to sit dumbfounded with the text and attempt to wrap your head around it all in several sessions.
It is basic, but at least in my case, it instilled a thrill and eagerness to analyze texts, not strictly those of a philosophical nature, more deeply and deliberately, using some of the techniques introduced here. It was most lacking in making the analytic-synthetic and a priori/a posteriori designations easily intelligible, toward the end. It seems that a few symbols are out of popular usage, as well; this is the interesting yet frustrating part about buying second-hand philosophy books. (On a side note, I hope that whoever owned this book previously received my reply to one of their questions that they wrote on the margins.)