what is analytic?

["Ralph Jones" <ralph99jones@hotmail.com>]

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Hi,

This is a slightly provocative but wholly serious question about the recent 
call for papers for the BUPS conference.

It states that papers should be "analytic in approach; argumentative rather 
than merely descriptive; clearly written".

Now I want to know what "analytic" means here. There are two immediately 
obvious senses in which this might be taken:

1) analytic rather than synthetic - i.e. taking things apart rather than 
constructing things; analysing problems into their constituent parts rather 
than developing new solutions.

2) analytic rather than continental. I'm guessing that this is the sense in 
which the term is meant. In which case, I'd like to know more about how 
analytic and continental should be understood here. Both terms are usually 
used in a pretty vague sense to group together disparate philosophical 
traditions.

If the term is meant in this second sense, then I'd like to know if this is 
a deliberate policy on behalf of the BUPS to exclude papers that are "not 
analytic in approach" i.e. "continental in approach" (I use this phrase 
without being sure precisely what it would refer to). Does the BUPS have a 
specific philosophical agenda here? I think we should be told.

Ralph

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