A Brief History and Criticism of Analytical PhilosophyAlthough brief, analytical philosophy did to philosophy what Copernicus did to science. At a time when philosophy seemed to be stagnating and much of the world was looking to science to answer life's big questions, a revolution needed to occur within philosophy for the practice to remain relevant. For philosophy, this revolution occurred at the turn of the 20th century, when British idealism governed philosophical studies. Known today as analytic philosophy, this practice and its major contributors challenged the thinking of the classical British empiricists and developed a new wave of philosophy focused on the logic and structure of language. My goal for this article is to provide an overview and history of analytic philosophy through the views of Bertrand Russell and Ludwig Van Wittgenstein and to briefly discuss their theories. Finally, I will offer my own critique of analytic philosophy because I believe that the study of analytic philosophy plays a vital role in the development of new philosophy and language. The study of analytic philosophy began at the turn of the 20th century with Bertrand Russell. an aristocrat, an anti-war activist, a prolific writer and a brilliant philosopher and mathematician. Like many analytical philosophers, his work began in response to the dominant philosophy of the time: British empiricism. Russell opposed British empiricism, claiming that the main fault of empiricism was its vagueness and lack of clarity. Russell's main focus was the development of symbolic language, which gave rise to his greatest contribution to the study of analytical philosophy: Principia Mathematica. In Principia Mathematica, Russell and Alfred North Whitehead founded and ...... middle of article ...... reached a point in human evolution where philosophy needs a new renovation. For thousands of years, philosophers and scientists have tried tirelessly, over and over again, to understand who we are, where we came from, and what our exact purpose on this earth is. Perhaps we have reached a point in philosophy where these life questions seem “meaningless,” but perhaps that is the problem. Maybe life has no meaning, but I found beauty in it. If there's one thing I've learned from this class and the philosophers we studied, it's that life is meaningless...that doesn't mean we can't make sense of it . Works Cited Schwartz, Stephen P. A Brief History of Analytic Philosophy: From Russell to Rawls. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012. Print. Klement, Kevin. "Russell's Logical Atomism." Stanford University. Stanford University, October 24, 2005. Web. May 4 2014.