Abstract

Analytic philosophy in the United States emerged parallel to the demise of idealism. During the second half of the nineteenth century, Josiah Royce had contributed importantly to the predominance of idealist systems and corresponding academic groups. With the rise of pragmatism and new realism, the situation changed dramatically: the idealist movement lost momentum and realism began to dominate the discourse. The present paper argues that the critiques of idealism put forward by the realists during the first two decades of the twentieth century were instrumental to the emergence of analytic philosophy in the United States. As I will explain, Ralph Barton Perry (1876–1957) was the key figure in the underinvestigated genesis of this movement.