Dummett’s dialectics

We have passed this stage for good, hopefully, but one of the most salient features of analytic philosophy, during its first century, was its negligence of history. By this I do not mean that analytic philosophers disregarded important historical figures or that they believed the history of philosophy had no relevance to their own efforts, for that was not the case. The anti-historical approach was manifested rather in a total denial of a dialectical approach towards metaphysics. Both these terms, “dialectic” and “metaphysics,” when contemplated at all, were not thought of, by early analytic philosophers, in connection with the notion of time. Engaged in “analysis,” they conceived their dependence on the time-factor only in terms of their having better tools-in particular, a more sophisticated logical organon-than their predecessors did, in order to solve age-old philosophical problems.