Abstract

In Origins of Analytical Philosophy, Michael Dummett tries to explain the divergence of the analytic school and the phenomenological school. The linguistic turn, characteristic of the former, is deemed necessary to overcome the “ontological mythology” seen in Frege and Husserl. Dummett explains this mythology as the result of the “extrusion of thoughts from the mind”, or in other words, the denial of the subjectivity of thoughts. This leads him to consider the linguistic turn as an alternative to the mythology, in that language is an objective institution external to the individual mind that can embody thoughts. Dummett’s critique of ideal meaning as well as his proposal of the linguistic turn as an alternative to this ontological mythology is more or less compelling. Far less persuasive is his claim that this is precisely what constitutes the fundamental divide in contemporary philosophy. The claim implicit in his argumentation is that Continental philosophy has as its defining characteristic the dogma of a realm of ideal meaning. This claim, however, is untenable. In fact, Heidegger’s position concerning ideal meaning is actually quite close to that which Dummett defends.