What's the use of philosophical analysis?

I will use Plato and the later Wittgenstein as exemplars of different attitudes towards philosophy here. Very roughly, Plato represents essentialism and Wittgenstein anti-essentialism. (All this will be pretty rough.)

Plato argues that (1) we can have knowledge qua classification – i.e., we can correctly identify some object O as falling within a category F – and (2) the only way that this is possible is if we know the rule by which we do so, i.e., if we grasp the form corresponding to F in which O participates, and accurately map it to O. This enables not just knowledge but interpersonal communication and intrapersonal communication and continuity of thought. Otherwise, there would just be a flux of particulars (sense impressions of particular objects), with no guarantee that two groups of particulars P1 and P2 associated with two different concepts are in fact the same group. Ergo, (3) we can grasp forms (that therefore exist to be grasped).

Wittgenstein, in contrast, argues that what we share is something like an imaginative pattern. There need be nothing in common – the form, the rule – which we (or myself at different times) each grasp which holds in every single case. - And in fact there isn't.

He wants to replace analysis with description, which is a much more down to earth undertaking (one which brings us "back to the rough ground" of the everyday). I do not pretend to fully understand this descriptive project. But it appears distinct from analysis in that it does not presuppose any essence – or reification/metaphysicalisation of terminology associated with reference theories of meaning – and hence doesn’t strive after necessary and sufficient conditions. 'Descriptive philosophy' looks at all words as equally “humble” – their content is as fully transparent and everyday as ‘table’ and ‘biscuit’. The only task is to observe how they are used. There is such a thing as incorrect use, so we cannot be uncritical in their endeavour. But the point is that there is no special explanation for how we use words. There is no hidden theory for the philosopher to uncover to explain why, for instance, we use the word ‘myself’ to describe the person in the photograph, me yesterday and me today. No theory of personal identity, just a description of the fact that we use personal-identity terms in various characteristic ways. Something like that.

If Wittgenstein is right, is there any value in philosophy as analysis as opposed to description? If so, what is it?

For my part, I think that the search for unity – the one in the many, if you like – and the explicit statement of this unity (e.g., an analysis in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions) is still valuable. It seems like even if there is no finish line, a race predicated on there being such a thing still strengthens those who run it. I can only say some sketchy things to illuminate what this value consists in, however.


(1) Intellectual exercise and fun. (I hope we can do better than that, pace Peter Unger).
(2) Self-understanding. Helping us realise more fully what we mean when we describe things in certain ways, or see things in certain ways using certain concepts. We usually operate with conceptual schemes we inherit unthinkingly from those around us, and analysis can give us greater awareness of what it is we are 'doing' in thought and how we might 'do' otherwise.
(3) Improvement of communication. Reductionistic theories and ‘stipulative’ definitions (which are often carving out a fuzzy subset of use – it is not as though we are playing Humpty Dumpty and making up a new use) can facilitate communication. When I talk to someone who has thought a lot about what they mean in a systematic way, they tend to be clearer.
(4) Productive of intellectual insight. The very attempt to come up with analyses can make you see things you didn't notice before. I've spent years now reading about philosophical theories. I think there is interesting stuff there, and a lot of this is premised on the idea that there are true theories to be discovered. E.g., that 'left' in politics has a particular meaning that we can explain in terms of a general political theory, or 'rational' or 'good' and so on.
(5) Avoidance of conceptual errors. We are not infallible in our use of words and concepts. We can know words in a ready-to-hand way, but due to a lack of any explicit formulation of what they mean, we can make mistakes in their application, leading to false judgements (or at least, those we would retract were we to reflect).

I think the attempt to model and define phenomena is a huge part of philosophy, and, in some form, we do it all the time. It is about sense-making. Most people ('layfolk') quite reasonably find it frustrating and exhausting, if they ever try it. Probably because there are always more problems. When they do call on philosophy, it is when things break down – when the Heideggerian 'everyday' dissolves, our habits or concepts don’t work or bring about results different to those we anticipated, our environments change, the future loses clarity, our sense of self is compromised or threatened, our understanding fails, etc. Personal and societal crisis can thus inspire revivals of philosophy. (Perhaps we are seeing this now). In these circumstances, we feel the need to ask serious questions about things we took for granted before, including concepts themselves. All those concepts we deployed without reflection because we got away with it suddenly call out for attention, whether that takes the form of conceptual analysis or conceptual re-engineering (something I haven’t talked about but is related – it seems at home in the Platonic approach rather than the Wittgensteinian descriptive approach). Some of this work and the benefits (1)-(5) listed above may be achieved through descriptive philosophy, but my hunch is that not all of it can...

Edit: Maybe my reaction is essentially a kind of incredulous stare: how can all of analytic philosophy and all the stuff I've been thinking and reading about be junk? But then perhaps the reply is that the accusation was never really that it was junk or useless. It was merely that it was premised on something false or confused (a false picture of language in particular). The dialectic is then advanced: well, what should we do? Should we go on as before, but with increased humility, or with a fundamentally different self-conception, or should we change our project slightly? Or should we abandon it in favour of description only? What should philosophy after Wittgenstein look like?