A Short Chronology of Works in Analytic Philosophy

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By Dr. Safaruk Chowdhury

This section includes some of the major works that were published in the field of analytic philosophy. The list – arranged chronologically – is highly selective and is only for presenting a glimpse of the philosophical output. A short description of most of the titles can be found in the curated bibliography page. The chronological entry is by first the date in bold followed by the author surname and then title of the book, essay or article. Any seminars, conferences and lectures have been omitted to maintain brevity.

1837 Bolzano’s Wissenschaftslehre (‘Theory of Science’) is published.

1879 Frege publishes his seminal work Begriffsschrift, eine der arithmetischen nachgebildete Formelsprache des reinen Denkens (‘Concept Script, a Formal Language of Pure Thought Modelled upon that of Arithmetic’).

1884 Frege publishes his Die Grundlagen der Arithmetick: eine logisch-mathematische Untersuchung über den Begriff der Zahl (‘The Foundations of Arithmetic: A logico-mathematical Enquiry into the Concept of Number).

1892 Frege writes “Über Sinn und Bedeutung” (‘On Sense and Reference’).

1893 Frege publishes Grundgestze der Arithmetik (‘The Basic Laws of Arithmetic’).

1899 Moore writes “The Nature of Judgement.”

1903 The following are published: Russell’s The Principles of Mathematics; Moore’s Principia Ethica and “The Refutation of Idealism.”

1905 Russell’s “On Denoting” is published in the journal Mind.

1910–13 Russell and Whitehead publish the monumental work Principia Mathematica.

1912 Russell writes The Problems of Philosophy.

1918–19 Moore writes “Internal and External Relations.”

1921 Wittgenstein publishes Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.

1922 Moore publishes Philosophical Studies.

1921 Russell’s The Analysis of Mind is written.

1923 Broad writes Scientific Thought.

1925 Broad writes his The Mind and its Place in Nature; Moore pens “A Defense of Common Sense.”

1928 Carnap composes The Logical Structure of the World and Pseudoproblems in Philosophy.

1931 Gödel’s “Über formal unentscheidbare Sätze der Principia Mathematica und verwandter Systeme, I” (‘On Formally Undecidable Propositions of Principia Mathematica and Related Systems’); Ramsey’s The Foundations of Mathematics and Other Logical Essays; Ryle writes “Systematically Misleading Expressions.”

1934 Popper’s Logik der Forschung (‘The Logic of Scientific Discovery’) is written.

1936 Ayer’s book Language, Truth and Logic.

1939 Moore’s essay “Proof of an External World.”

1944 Tarski’s “The Semantic Conception of Truth and the Foundations of Semantics” is published.

1945 Popper writes The Open Society and its Enemies.

1947 Carnap’s Meaning and Necessity: A Study in Semantics and Modal Logic is published.

1948 Russell’s writes Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits; Quine writes “On What There Is.”

1949 Ryle publishes The Concept of Mind; Feigl and Sellars’ both collaborate to publish Readings in Philosophical Analysis.

1951 Quine’s “Two Dogmas of Empiricism” and Goodman’s The Structure of Appearance appear in print.

1951 Goodman’s Fact, Fiction and Forecast is printed.

1952 Hare’s The Language of Morals gets published.

1953 Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations is [posthumously published and Quine’s From a Logical Point of View appears in print.

1956 Sellars’ “Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind.”

1956–7 Austin writes “Plea for Excuses” and “Ifs and Cans.”

1957 Chomsky writes Syntactic Structures; Anscombe pens “Intention” and Grice composes “Meaning.”

1958 Anscombe’s “Modern Moral Philosophy” is published.

1959 Strawson’s Individuals; and Malcom’s Dreaming are published.

1960 Quine’s Word and Object is released.

1961 Hart’s The Concept of Law.

1962 Austin’s How To Do Things With Words and Kuhn The Structure of Scientific Revolutions both appear in print.

1963 the following are printed: Sellars’ Science, Perception and Reality; Shoemaker’s Self-Knowledge and Self-Identity; Popper’s Conjectures and Refutations and Gettier’s “Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?”

1965 Hempel’s Aspects of Scientific Explanation is published.

1966 Strawson’s The Bounds of Sense.

1967 Rorty’s book The Linguistic Turn and Davidson’s article “Truth and Meaning.”

1968 Armstrong’s A Materialist Theory of the Mind; Goodman’s Languages of Art and Grice’s “Utterer’s Meaning, Sentence Meaning and Word-Meaning”.

1969 Searle writes Speech Acts.

1970 Sen’s “Collective Choice and Social Welfare”.

1971 Rawls writes his A Theory of Justice and Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.”

1971–2 Kripke’s articles “Identity and Necessity” and “Naming and Necessity” are written.

1973 Dummett’s Frege: Philosophy of Language and Williams’ Problems of the Self are published.

1974 Nozick’s Anarchy, State and Utopia; Plantinga’s The Nature of Necessity; Sklar’s Space, Time and Spacetime.

1975 Putnam’s Philosophical Papers I and II and his “The Meaning of ‘Meaning’”; Fodor’s The Language of Thought; Grice’s “Logic and Conversation”; Singer’s Animal Liberation.

1976 Lewis’ Counterfactuals.

1978 Dummett’s Truth and Other Enigmas and Foot’s Virtues and Vices are printed.

1979 Nagel’s Mortal Questions and Burge’s “Individualism and the Mental.”

1980 Rorty publishes his Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature; also published is Davidson’s Essays on Action and Events, Wiggins’ Sameness and Substance and van Fraassen’s The Scientific Image.

1981 Putnam’s Reason, Truth and History and Anscombe’s Collected Papers I, II and III are published.

1982 Evans’ The Varieties of Reference and Kripke’s Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language.

1984 Parfit’s Reasons and Persons is published as well as Davidson’s Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation and Shoemaker’s Identity, Cause and Mind: Philosophical Essays.

1985 Williams’ Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy.

1986 David Lewis’ seminal work On the Plurality of Worlds is published.

1990 Walton’s Mimesis as Make-Believe: On the Foundations of the Representational Arts; Gibbard’s Wise Choices, Apt Feelings; van Inwagen’s Material Beings.

1991 Dennett releases Consciousness Explained.

1992 Searle’s The Rediscovery of the Mind is printed.

1993 Rawls’ writes Political Liberalism.

1994 McDowell’s Mind and World; Williamson’s Vagueness and Brandom’s Making it Explicit

1996 Chalmers’ publication of The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory.

1998 Scanlon’s What We Owe to Each Other.

2001 Sider’s Four-Dimensionalism is published.

2011 Publication of Parfit’s On What Matters.