Early Analytic Philosophy: The history of an illusion

In Early Analytic Philosophy, I argue that scientism and the scientistic worldview played a much more substantial role in the origination and early development of Analytic Philosophy than is usually acknowledged. By focusing on the drive toward scientism as the principal motive underlying the origination and development of Analytic Philosophy, we can see how the various figures and factions which are usually counted as the main contributors to the origination and early development of Analytic Philosophy might be seen as one united confluence, and how they complemented each other in bringing about the supposed "revolution in philosophy" with which Analytic Philosophy is commonly associated. Arguably, Analytic Philosophy owes its position of dominance in Anglo-American philosophical culture to the fact that it was once taken to be a revolutionary philosophical movement and it was taken to be such in virtue of its novel linguistic metaphilosophy. Analytic Philosophy's position of dominance has recently been threatened by questions about its nature and legitimacy. Since it abandoned its linguistic character, it seems that there has been no good answer to the question What is Analytic Philosophy? I argue that Analytic Philosophy has never been a unified philosophical movement, and that the popular view that it is and/or once was such a movement is an illusion created by a scientistically-biased misreading of figures central to the Analytic tradition.