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Analysis has always been at the heart of philosophical method, but it has been understood and practised in many different ways. Perhaps, in its broadest sense, it might be defined as a process of isolating or working back to what is more fundamental by means of which something, initially taken as given, can be explained or reconstructed. The explanation or reconstruction is often then exhibited in a corresponding process of synthesis. This allows great variation in specific method, however. The aim may be to get back to basics, but there may be all sorts of ways of doing this, each of which might be called ‘analysis’. The dominance of ‘analytic’ philosophy in the English-speaking world, and increasingly now in the rest of the world, might suggest that a consensus has formed concerning the role and importance of analysis. This assumes, though, that there is agreement on what ‘analysis’ means, and this is far from clear. On the other hand, Wittgenstein's later critique of analysis in the early (logical atomist) period of analytic philosophy, and Quine's attack on the analytic-synthetic distinction, for example, have led some to claim that we are now in a ‘post-analytic’ age. Such criticisms, however, are only directed at particular conceptions of analysis. If we look at the history of philosophy, and even if we just look at the history of analytic philosophy, we find a rich and extensive repertoire of conceptions of analysis which philosophers have continually drawn upon and reconfigured in different ways. Analytic philosophy is alive and well precisely because of the range of conceptions of analysis that it involves. It may have fragmented into various interlocking subtraditions, but those subtraditions are held together by both their shared history and their methodological interconnections. It is the aim of this article to indicate something of the range of conceptions of analysis in the history of philosophy and their interconnections, and to provide a bibliographical resource for those wishing to explore analytic methodologies and the philosophical issues that they raise.

1.1 Characterizations of Analysis

1.2 guide to this entry.

  • Supplementary Document: Definitions and Descriptions of Analysis
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Ancient Greek Geometry
  • 4. Aristotle
  • 1. Medieval Philosophy
  • 2. Renaissance Philosophy
  • 2. Descartes and Analytic Geometry
  • 3. British Empiricism

5. Modern Conceptions of Analysis, outside Analytic Philosophy

  • 5. Wittgenstein
  • 6. The Cambridge School of Analysis
  • 7. Carnap and Logical Positivism
  • 8. Oxford Linguistic Philosophy
  • 9. Contemporary Analytic Philosophy

7. Conclusion

Other internet resources, related entries, 1. general introduction.

This section provides a preliminary description of analysis—or the range of different conceptions of analysis—and a guide to this article as a whole.

If asked what ‘analysis’ means, most people today immediately think of breaking something down into its components; and this is how analysis tends to be officially characterized. In the Concise Oxford Dictionary , for example, ‘analysis’ is defined as the “resolution into simpler elements by analysing (opp. synthesis )”, the only other uses mentioned being the mathematical and the psychological [ Quotation ]. And in the Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy , ‘analysis’ is defined as “the process of breaking a concept down into more simple parts, so that its logical structure is displayed” [ Quotation ]. The restriction to concepts and the reference to displaying ‘logical structure’ are important qualifications, but the core conception remains that of breaking something down.

This conception may be called the decompositional conception of analysis (see Section 4 ). But it is not the only conception, and indeed is arguably neither the dominant conception in the pre-modern period nor the conception that is characteristic of at least one major strand in ‘analytic’ philosophy. In ancient Greek thought, ‘analysis’ referred primarily to the process of working back to first principles by means of which something could then be demonstrated. This conception may be called the regressive conception of analysis (see Section 2 ). In the work of Frege and Russell, on the other hand, before the process of decomposition could take place, the statements to be analyzed had first to be translated into their ‘correct’ logical form (see Section 6 ). This suggests that analysis also involves a transformative or interpretive dimension. This too, however, has its roots in earlier thought (see especially the supplementary sections on Ancient Greek Geometry and Medieval Philosophy ).

These three conceptions should not be seen as competing. In actual practices of analysis, which are invariably richer than the accounts that are offered of them, all three conceptions are typically reflected, though to differing degrees and in differing forms. To analyze something, we may first have to interpret it in some way, translating an initial statement, say, into the privileged language of logic, mathematics or science, before articulating the relevant elements and structures, and all in the service of identifying fundamental principles by means of which to explain it. The complexities that this schematic description suggests can only be appreciated by considering particular types of analysis.

Understanding conceptions of analysis is not simply a matter of attending to the use of the word ‘analysis’ and its cognates—or obvious equivalents in languages other than English, such as ‘ analusis ’ in Greek or ‘ Analyse ’ in German. Socratic definition is arguably a form of conceptual analysis, yet the term ‘ analusis ’ does not occur anywhere in Plato's dialogues (see Section 2 below). Nor, indeed, do we find it in Euclid's Elements , which is the classic text for understanding ancient Greek geometry: Euclid presupposed what came to be known as the method of analysis in presenting his proofs ‘synthetically’. In Latin, ‘ resolutio ’ was used to render the Greek word ‘ analusis ’, and although ‘resolution’ has a different range of meanings, it is often used synonymously with ‘analysis’ (see the supplementary section on Renaissance Philosophy ). In Aristotelian syllogistic theory, and especially from the time of Descartes, forms of analysis have also involved ‘reduction’; and in early analytic philosophy it was ‘reduction’ that was seen as the goal of philosophical analysis (see especially the supplementary section on The Cambridge School of Analysis ).

Further details of characterizations of analysis that have been offered in the history of philosophy, including all the classic passages and remarks (to which occurrences of ‘[ Quotation ]’ throughout this entry refer), can be found in the supplementary document on

Definitions and Descriptions of Analysis .

A list of key reference works, monographs and collections can be found in the

Annotated Bibliography, §1 .

This entry comprises three sets of documents:

  • The present document
  • Six supplementary documents (one of which is not yet available)
  • An annotated bibliography on analysis, divided into six documents

The present document provides an overview, with introductions to the various conceptions of analysis in the history of philosophy. It also contains links to the supplementary documents, the documents in the bibliography, and other internet resources. The supplementary documents expand on certain topics under each of the six main sections. The annotated bibliography contains a list of key readings on each topic, and is also divided according to the sections of this entry.

2. Ancient Conceptions of Analysis and the Emergence of the Regressive Conception

The word ‘analysis’ derives from the ancient Greek term ‘ analusis ’. The prefix ‘ ana ’ means ‘up’, and ‘ lusis ’ means ‘loosing’, ‘release’ or ‘separation’, so that ‘ analusis ’ means ‘loosening up’ or ‘dissolution’. The term was readily extended to the solving or dissolving of a problem, and it was in this sense that it was employed in ancient Greek geometry and philosophy. The method of analysis that was developed in ancient Greek geometry had an influence on both Plato and Aristotle. Also important, however, was the influence of Socrates's concern with definition, in which the roots of modern conceptual analysis can be found. What we have in ancient Greek thought, then, is a complex web of methodologies, of which the most important are Socratic definition, which Plato elaborated into his method of division, his related method of hypothesis, which drew on geometrical analysis, and the method(s) that Aristotle developed in his Analytics . Far from a consensus having established itself over the last two millennia, the relationships between these methodologies are the subject of increasing debate today. At the heart of all of them, too, lie the philosophical problems raised by Meno's paradox, which anticipates what we now know as the paradox of analysis, concerning how an analysis can be both correct and informative (see the supplementary section on Moore ), and Plato's attempt to solve it through the theory of recollection, which has spawned a vast literature on its own.

‘Analysis’ was first used in a methodological sense in ancient Greek geometry, and the model that Euclidean geometry provided has been an inspiration ever since. Although Euclid's Elements dates from around 300 BC, and hence after both Plato and Aristotle, it is clear that it draws on the work of many previous geometers, most notably, Theaetetus and Eudoxus, who worked closely with Plato and Aristotle. Plato is even credited by Diogenes Laertius ( LEP , I, 299) with inventing the method of analysis, but whatever the truth of this may be, the influence of geometry starts to show in his middle dialogues, and he certainly encouraged work on geometry in his Academy.

The classic source for our understanding of ancient Greek geometrical analysis is a passage in Pappus's Mathematical Collection , which was composed around 300 AD, and hence drew on a further six centuries of work in geometry from the time of Euclid's Elements :

Now analysis is the way from what is sought—as if it were admitted—through its concomitants ( akolouthôn ) in order[,] to something admitted in synthesis. For in analysis we suppose that which is sought to be already done, and we inquire from what it results, and again what is the antecedent of the latter, until we on our backward way light upon something already known and being first in order. And we call such a method analysis, as being a solution backwards ( anapalin lysin ). In synthesis, on the other hand, we suppose that which was reached last in analysis to be already done, and arranging in their natural order as consequents ( epomena ) the former antecedents and linking them one with another, we in the end arrive at the construction of the thing sought. And this we call synthesis. [ Full Quotation ]

Analysis is clearly being understood here in the regressive sense—as involving the working back from ‘what is sought’, taken as assumed, to something more fundamental by means of which it can then be established, through its converse, synthesis. For example, to demonstrate Pythagoras's theorem—that the square on the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle is equal to the sum of the squares on the other two sides—we may assume as ‘given’ a right-angled triangle with the three squares drawn on its sides. In investigating the properties of this complex figure we may draw further (auxiliary) lines between particular points and find that there are a number of congruent triangles, from which we can begin to work out the relationship between the relevant areas. Pythagoras's theorem thus depends on theorems about congruent triangles, and once these—and other—theorems have been identified (and themselves proved), Pythagoras's theorem can be proved. (The theorem is demonstrated in Proposition 47 of Book I of Euclid's Elements .)

The basic idea here provides the core of the conception of analysis that one can find reflected, in its different ways, in the work of Plato and Aristotle (see the supplementary sections on Plato and Aristotle ). Although detailed examination of actual practices of analysis reveals more than just regression to first causes, principles or theorems, but decomposition and transformation as well (see especially the supplementary section on Ancient Greek Geometry ), the regressive conception dominated views of analysis until well into the early modern period.

Ancient Greek geometry was not the only source of later conceptions of analysis, however. Plato may not have used the term ‘analysis’ himself, but concern with definition was central to his dialogues, and definitions have often been seen as what ‘conceptual analysis’ should yield. The definition of ‘knowledge’ as ‘justified true belief’ (or ‘true belief with an account’, in more Platonic terms) is perhaps the classic example. Plato's concern may have been with real rather than nominal definitions, with ‘essences’ rather than mental or linguistic contents (see the supplementary section on Plato ), but conceptual analysis, too, has frequently been given a ‘realist’ construal. Certainly, the roots of conceptual analysis can be traced back to Plato's search for definitions, as we shall see in Section 4 below.

Further discussion can be found in the supplementary document on

Ancient Conceptions of Analysis .

Further reading can be found in the

Annotated Bibliography, §2 .

3. Medieval and Renaissance Conceptions of Analysis

Conceptions of analysis in the medieval and renaissance periods were largely influenced by ancient Greek conceptions. But knowledge of these conceptions was often second-hand, filtered through a variety of commentaries and texts that were not always reliable. Medieval and renaissance methodologies tended to be uneasy mixtures of Platonic, Aristotelian, Stoic, Galenic and neo-Platonic elements, many of them claiming to have some root in the geometrical conception of analysis and synthesis. However, in the late medieval period, clearer and more original forms of analysis started to take shape. In the literature on so-called ‘syncategoremata’ and ‘exponibilia’, for example, we can trace the development of a conception of interpretive analysis. Sentences involving more than one quantifier such as ‘Some donkey every man sees’, for example, were recognized as ambiguous, requiring ‘exposition’ to clarify.

In John Buridan's masterpiece of the mid-fourteenth century, the Summulae de Dialectica , we can find all three of the conceptions outlined in Section 1.1 above. He distinguishes explicitly between divisions, definitions and demonstrations, corresponding to decompositional, interpretive and regressive analysis, respectively. Here, in particular, we have anticipations of modern analytic philosophy as much as reworkings of ancient philosophy. Unfortunately, however, these clearer forms of analysis became overshadowed during the Renaissance, despite—or perhaps because of—the growing interest in the original Greek sources. As far as understanding analytic methodologies was concerned, the humanist repudiation of scholastic logic muddied the waters.

Medieval and Renaissance Conceptions of Analysis .
Annotated Bibliography, §3 .

4. Early Modern Conceptions of Analysis and the Development of the Decompositional Conception

The scientific revolution in the seventeenth century brought with it new forms of analysis. The newest of these emerged through the development of more sophisticated mathematical techniques, but even these still had their roots in earlier conceptions of analysis. By the end of the early modern period, decompositional analysis had become dominant (as outlined in what follows), but this, too, took different forms, and the relationships between the various conceptions of analysis were often far from clear.

In common with the Renaissance, the early modern period was marked by a great concern with methodology. This might seem unsurprising in such a revolutionary period, when new techniques for understanding the world were being developed and that understanding itself was being transformed. But what characterizes many of the treatises and remarks on methodology that appeared in the seventeenth century is their appeal, frequently self-conscious, to ancient methods (despite, or perhaps—for diplomatic reasons—because of, the critique of the content of traditional thought), although new wine was generally poured into the old bottles. The model of geometrical analysis was a particular inspiration here, albeit filtered through the Aristotelian tradition, which had assimilated the regressive process of going from theorems to axioms with that of moving from effects to causes (see the supplementary section on Aristotle ). Analysis came to be seen as a method of discovery, working back from what is ordinarily known to the underlying reasons (demonstrating ‘the fact’), and synthesis as a method of proof, working forwards again from what is discovered to what needed explanation (demonstrating ‘the reason why’). Analysis and synthesis were thus taken as complementary, although there remained disagreement over their respective merits.

There is a manuscript by Galileo, dating from around 1589, an appropriated commentary on Aristotle's Posterior Analytics , which shows his concern with methodology, and regressive analysis, in particular (see Wallace 1992a and 1992b). Hobbes wrote a chapter on method in the first part of De Corpore , published in 1655, which offers his own interpretation of the method of analysis and synthesis, where decompositional forms of analysis are articulated alongside regressive forms [ Quotations ]. But perhaps the most influential account of methodology, from the middle of the seventeenth century until well into the nineteenth century, was the fourth part of the Port-Royal Logic , the first edition of which appeared in 1662 and the final revised edition in 1683. Chapter 2 (which was the first chapter in the first edition) opens as follows:

The art of arranging a series of thoughts properly, either for discovering the truth when we do not know it, or for proving to others what we already know, can generally be called method. Hence there are two kinds of method, one for discovering the truth, which is known as analysis , or the method of resolution , and which can also be called the method of discovery . The other is for making the truth understood by others once it is found. This is known as synthesis , or the method of composition , and can also be called the method of instruction . [ Fuller Quotations ]

That a number of different methods might be assimilated here is not noted, although the text does go on to distinguish four main types of ‘issues concerning things’: seeking causes by their effects, seeking effects by their causes, finding the whole from the parts, and looking for another part from the whole and a given part ( ibid ., 234). While the first two involve regressive analysis and synthesis, the third and fourth involve decompositional analysis and synthesis.

As the authors of the Logic make clear, this particular part of their text derives from Descartes's Rules for the Direction of the Mind , written around 1627, but only published posthumously in 1684. The specification of the four types was most likely offered in elaborating Descartes's Rule Thirteen, which states: “If we perfectly understand a problem we must abstract it from every superfluous conception, reduce it to its simplest terms and, by means of an enumeration, divide it up into the smallest possible parts.” ( PW , I, 51. Cf. the editorial comments in PW , I, 54, 77.) The decompositional conception of analysis is explicit here, and if we follow this up into the later Discourse on Method , published in 1637, the focus has clearly shifted from the regressive to the decompositional conception of analysis. All the rules offered in the earlier work have now been reduced to just four. This is how Descartes reports the rules he says he adopted in his scientific and philosophical work:

The first was never to accept anything as true if I did not have evident knowledge of its truth: that is, carefully to avoid precipitate conclusions and preconceptions, and to include nothing more in my judgements than what presented itself to my mind so clearly and so distinctly that I had no occasion to doubt it. The second, to divide each of the difficulties I examined into as many parts as possible and as may be required in order to resolve them better. The third, to direct my thoughts in an orderly manner, by beginning with the simplest and most easily known objects in the order to ascend little by little, step by step, to knowledge of the most complex, and by supposing some order even among objects that have no natural order of precedence. And the last, throughout to make enumerations so complete, and reviews so comprehensive, that I could be sure of leaving nothing out. ( PW , I, 120.)

The first two are rules of analysis and the second two rules of synthesis. But although the analysis/synthesis structure remains, what is involved here is decomposition/composition rather than regression/progression. Nevertheless, Descartes insisted that it was geometry that influenced him here: “Those long chains composed of very simple and easy reasonings, which geometers customarily use to arrive at their most difficult demonstrations, had given me occasion to suppose that all the things which can fall under human knowledge are interconnected in the same way.” ( Ibid . [ Further Quotations ])

Descartes's geometry did indeed involve the breaking down of complex problems into simpler ones. More significant, however, was his use of algebra in developing ‘analytic’ geometry as it came to be called, which allowed geometrical problems to be transformed into arithmetical ones and more easily solved. In representing the ‘unknown’ to be found by ‘ x ’, we can see the central role played in analysis by the idea of taking something as ‘given’ and working back from that, which made it seem appropriate to regard algebra as an ‘art of analysis’, alluding to the regressive conception of the ancients. Illustrated in analytic geometry in its developed form, then, we can see all three of the conceptions of analysis outlined in Section 1.1 above, despite Descartes's own emphasis on the decompositional conception. For further discussion of this, see the supplementary section on Descartes and Analytic Geometry .

Descartes's emphasis on decompositional analysis was not without precedents, however. Not only was it already involved in ancient Greek geometry, but it was also implicit in Plato's method of collection and division. We might explain the shift from regressive to decompositional (conceptual) analysis, as well as the connection between the two, in the following way. Consider a simple example, as represented in the diagram below, ‘collecting’ all animals and ‘dividing’ them into rational and non-rational , in order to define human beings as rational animals.

On this model, in seeking to define anything, we work back up the appropriate classificatory hierarchy to find the higher (i.e., more basic or more general) ‘Forms’, by means of which we can lay down the definition. Although Plato did not himself use the term ‘analysis’—the word for ‘division’ was ‘ dihairesis ’—the finding of the appropriate ‘Forms’ is essentially analysis. As an elaboration of the Socratic search for definitions, we clearly have in this the origins of conceptual analysis. There is little disagreement that ‘Human beings are rational animals’ is the kind of definition we are seeking, defining one concept, the concept human being , in terms of other concepts, the concepts rational and animal . But the construals that have been offered of this have been more problematic. Understanding a classificatory hierarchy extensionally , that is, in terms of the classes of things denoted, the classes higher up are clearly the larger, ‘containing’ the classes lower down as subclasses (e.g., the class of animals includes the class of human beings as one of its subclasses). Intensionally , however, the relationship of ‘containment’ has been seen as holding in the opposite direction. If someone understands the concept human being , at least in the strong sense of knowing its definition, then they must understand the concepts animal and rational ; and it has often then seemed natural to talk of the concept human being as ‘containing’ the concepts rational and animal . Working back up the hierarchy in ‘analysis’ (in the regressive sense) could then come to be identified with ‘unpacking’ or ‘decomposing’ a concept into its ‘constituent’ concepts (‘analysis’ in the decompositional sense). Of course, talking of ‘decomposing’ a concept into its ‘constituents’ is, strictly speaking, only a metaphor (as Quine was famously to remark in §1 of ‘Two Dogmas of Empiricism’), but in the early modern period, this began to be taken more literally.

For further discussion, see the supplementary document on

Early Modern Conceptions of Analysis ,

which contains sections on Descartes and Analytic Geometry, British Empiricism, Leibniz, and Kant.

For further reading, see the

Annotated Bibliography, §4 .

As suggested in the supplementary document on Kant , the decompositional conception of analysis found its classic statement in the work of Kant at the end of the eighteenth century. But Kant was only expressing a conception widespread at the time. The conception can be found in a very blatant form, for example, in the writings of Moses Mendelssohn, for whom, unlike Kant, it was applicable even in the case of geometry [ Quotation ]. Typified in Kant's and Mendelssohn's view of concepts, it was also reflected in scientific practice. Indeed, its popularity was fostered by the chemical revolution inaugurated by Lavoisier in the late eighteenth century, the comparison between philosophical analysis and chemical analysis being frequently drawn. As Lichtenberg put it, “Whichever way you look at it, philosophy is always analytical chemistry” [ Quotation ].

This decompositional conception of analysis set the methodological agenda for philosophical approaches and debates in the (late) modern period (nineteenth and twentieth centuries). Responses and developments, very broadly, can be divided into two. On the one hand, an essentially decompositional conception of analysis was accepted, but a critical attitude was adopted towards it. If analysis simply involved breaking something down, then it appeared destructive and life-diminishing, and the critique of analysis that this view engendered was a common theme in idealism and romanticism in all its main varieties—from German, British and French to North American. One finds it reflected, for example, in remarks about the negating and soul-destroying power of analytical thinking by Schiller [ Quotation ], Hegel [ Quotation ] and de Chardin [ Quotation ], in Bradley's doctrine that analysis is falsification [ Quotation ], and in the emphasis placed by Bergson on ‘intuition’ [ Quotation ].

On the other hand, analysis was seen more positively, but the Kantian conception underwent a certain degree of modification and development. In the nineteenth century, this was exemplified, in particular, by Bolzano and the neo-Kantians. Bolzano's most important innovation was the method of variation, which involves considering what happens to the truth-value of a sentence when a constituent term is substituted by another. This formed the basis for his reconstruction of the analytic/synthetic distinction, Kant's account of which he found defective. The neo-Kantians emphasized the role of structure in conceptualized experience and had a greater appreciation of forms of analysis in mathematics and science. In many ways, their work attempts to do justice to philosophical and scientific practice while recognizing the central idealist claim that analysis is a kind of abstraction that inevitably involves falsification or distortion. On the neo-Kantian view, the complexity of experience is a complexity of form and content rather than of separable constituents, requiring analysis into ‘moments’ or ‘aspects’ rather than ‘elements’ or ‘parts’. In the 1910s, the idea was articulated with great subtlety by Ernst Cassirer [ Quotation ], and became familiar in Gestalt psychology.

In the twentieth century, both analytic philosophy and phenomenology can be seen as developing far more sophisticated conceptions of analysis, which draw on but go beyond mere decompositional analysis. The following Section offers an account of analysis in analytic philosophy, illustrating the range and richness of the conceptions and practices that arose. But it is important to see these in the wider context of twentieth-century methodological practices and debates, for it is not just in ‘analytic’ philosophy—despite its name—that analytic methods are accorded a central role. Phenomenology, in particular, contains its own distinctive set of analytic methods, with similarities and differences to those of analytic philosophy. Phenomenological analysis has frequently been compared to conceptual clarification in the ordinary language tradition, for example, and the method of ‘phenomenological reduction’ that Husserl invented in 1905 offers a striking parallel to the reductive project opened up by Russell's theory of descriptions, which also made its appearance in 1905.

Just like Frege and Russell, Husserl's initial concern was with the foundations of mathematics, and in this shared concern we can see the continued influence of the regressive conception of analysis. According to Husserl, the aim of ‘eidetic reduction’, as he called it, was to isolate the ‘essences’ that underlie our various forms of thinking, and to apprehend them by ‘essential intuition’ (‘ Wesenserschauung ’). The terminology may be different, but this resembles Russell's early project to identify the ‘indefinables’ of philosophical logic, as he described it, and to apprehend them by ‘acquaintance’ (cf. POM , xx). Furthermore, in Husserl's later discussion of ‘explication’ (cf. EJ , §§ 22-4 [ Quotations ]), we find appreciation of the ‘transformative’ dimension of analysis, which can be fruitfully compared with Carnap's account of explication (see the supplementary section on Carnap and Logical Positivism ). Carnap himself describes Husserl's idea here as one of “the synthesis of identification between a confused, nonarticulated sense and a subsequently intended distinct, articulated sense” (1950, 3 [ Quotation ]).

Phenomenology is not the only source of analytic methodologies outside those of the analytic tradition. Mention might be made here, too, of R. G. Collingwood, working within the tradition of British idealism, which was still a powerful force prior to the Second World War. In his Essay on Philosophical Method (1933), for example, he criticizes Moorean philosophy, and develops his own response to what is essentially the paradox of analysis (concerning how an analysis can be both correct and informative), which he recognizes as having its root in Meno's paradox. In his Essay on Metaphysics (1940), he puts forward his own conception of metaphysical analysis, in direct response to what he perceived as the mistaken repudiation of metaphysics by the logical positivists. Metaphysical analysis is characterized here as the detection of ‘absolute presuppositions’, which are taken as underlying and shaping the various conceptual practices that can be identified in the history of philosophy and science. Even among those explicitly critical of central strands in analytic philosophy, then, analysis in one form or another can still be seen as alive and well.

Annotated Bibliography, §5 .

6. Conceptions of Analysis in Analytic Philosophy and the Introduction of the Logical (Transformative) Conception

If anything characterizes ‘analytic’ philosophy, then it is presumably the emphasis placed on analysis. But as the foregoing sections have shown, there is a wide range of conceptions of analysis, so such a characterization says nothing that would distinguish analytic philosophy from much of what has either preceded or developed alongside it. Given that the decompositional conception is usually offered as the main conception today, it might be thought that it is this that characterizes analytic philosophy. But this conception was prevalent in the early modern period, shared by both the British Empiricists and Leibniz, for example. Given that Kant denied the importance of decompositional analysis, however, it might be suggested that what characterizes analytic philosophy is the value it places on such analysis. This might be true of Moore's early work, and of one strand within analytic philosophy; but it is not generally true. What characterizes analytic philosophy as it was founded by Frege and Russell is the role played by logical analysis , which depended on the development of modern logic. Although other and subsequent forms of analysis, such as linguistic analysis, were less wedded to systems of formal logic, the central insight motivating logical analysis remained.

Pappus's account of method in ancient Greek geometry suggests that the regressive conception of analysis was dominant at the time—however much other conceptions may also have been implicitly involved (see the supplementary section on Ancient Greek Geometry ). In the early modern period, the decompositional conception became widespread (see Section 4 ). What characterizes analytic philosophy—or at least that central strand that originates in the work of Frege and Russell—is the recognition of what was called earlier the transformative or interpretive dimension of analysis (see Section 1.1 ). Any analysis presupposes a particular framework of interpretation, and work is done in interpreting what we are seeking to analyze as part of the process of regression and decomposition. This may involve transforming it in some way, in order for the resources of a given theory or conceptual framework to be brought to bear. Euclidean geometry provides a good illustration of this. But it is even more obvious in the case of analytic geometry, where the geometrical problem is first ‘translated’ into the language of algebra and arithmetic in order to solve it more easily (see the supplementary section on Descartes and Analytic Geometry ). What Descartes and Fermat did for analytic geometry, Frege and Russell did for analytic philosophy. Analytic philosophy is ‘analytic’ much more in the sense that analytic geometry is ‘analytic’ than in the crude decompositional sense that Kant understood it.

The interpretive dimension of modern philosophical analysis can also be seen as anticipated in medieval scholasticism (see the supplementary section on Medieval Philosophy ), and it is remarkable just how much of modern concerns with propositions, meaning, reference, and so on, can be found in the medieval literature. Interpretive analysis is also illustrated in the nineteenth century by Bentham's conception of paraphrasis , which he characterized as “that sort of exposition which may be afforded by transmuting into a proposition, having for its subject some real entity, a proposition which has not for its subject any other than a fictitious entity” [ Full Quotation ]. He applied the idea in ‘analyzing away’ talk of ‘obligations’, and the anticipation that we can see here of Russell's theory of descriptions has been noted by, among others, Wisdom (1931) and Quine in ‘Five Milestones of Empiricism’ [ Quotation ].

What was crucial in the emergence of twentieth-century analytic philosophy, however, was the development of quantificational theory, which provided a far more powerful interpretive system than anything that had hitherto been available. In the case of Frege and Russell, the system into which statements were ‘translated’ was predicate logic, and the divergence that was thereby opened up between grammatical and logical form meant that the process of translation itself became an issue of philosophical concern. This induced greater self-consciousness about our use of language and its potential to mislead us, and inevitably raised semantic, epistemological and metaphysical questions about the relationships between language, logic, thought and reality which have been at the core of analytic philosophy ever since.

Both Frege and Russell (after the latter's initial flirtation with idealism) were concerned to show, against Kant, that arithmetic is a system of analytic and not synthetic truths. In the Grundlagen , Frege had offered a revised conception of analyticity, which arguably endorses and generalizes Kant's logical as opposed to phenomenological criterion, i.e., (AN L ) rather than (AN O ) (see the supplementary section on Kant ):

(AN) A truth is analytic if its proof depends only on general logical laws and definitions.

The question of whether arithmetical truths are analytic then comes down to the question of whether they can be derived purely logically. (Here we already have ‘transformation’, at the theoretical level—involving a reinterpretation of the concept of analyticity.) To demonstrate this, Frege realized that he needed to develop logical theory in order to formalize mathematical statements, which typically involve multiple generality (e.g., ‘Every natural number has a successor’, i.e. ‘For every natural number x there is another natural number y that is the successor of x ’). This development, by extending the use of function-argument analysis in mathematics to logic and providing a notation for quantification, was essentially the achievement of his first book, the Begriffsschrift (1879), where he not only created the first system of predicate logic but also, using it, succeeded in giving a logical analysis of mathematical induction (see Frege FR , 47-78).

In his second book, Die Grundlagen der Arithmetik (1884), Frege went on to provide a logical analysis of number statements. His central idea was that a number statement contains an assertion about a concept. A statement such as ‘Jupiter has four moons’ is to be understood not as predicating of Jupiter the property of having four moons, but as predicating of the concept moon of Jupiter the second-level property has four instances , which can be logically defined. The significance of this construal can be brought out by considering negative existential statements (which are equivalent to number statements involving the number 0). Take the following negative existential statement:

(0a) Unicorns do not exist.

If we attempt to analyze this decompositionally , taking its grammatical form to mirror its logical form, then we find ourselves asking what these unicorns are that have the property of non-existence. We may then be forced to posit the subsistence —as opposed to existence —of unicorns, just as Meinong and the early Russell did, in order for there to be something that is the subject of our statement. On the Fregean account, however, to deny that something exists is to say that the relevant concept has no instances: there is no need to posit any mysterious object . The Fregean analysis of (0a) consists in rephrasing it into (0b), which can then be readily formalized in the new logic as (0c):

(0b) The concept unicorn is not instantiated. (0c) ~(∃ x ) Fx .

Similarly, to say that God exists is to say that the concept God is (uniquely) instantiated, i.e., to deny that the concept has 0 instances (or 2 or more instances). On this view, existence is no longer seen as a (first-level) predicate, but instead, existential statements are analyzed in terms of the (second-level) predicate is instantiated , represented by means of the existential quantifier. As Frege notes, this offers a neat diagnosis of what is wrong with the ontological argument, at least in its traditional form ( GL , §53). All the problems that arise if we try to apply decompositional analysis (at least straight off) simply drop away, although an account is still needed, of course, of concepts and quantifiers.

The possibilities that this strategy of ‘translating’ into a logical language opens up are enormous: we are no longer forced to treat the surface grammatical form of a statement as a guide to its ‘real’ form, and are provided with a means of representing that form. This is the value of logical analysis: it allows us to ‘analyze away’ problematic linguistic expressions and explain what it is ‘really’ going on. This strategy was employed, most famously, in Russell's theory of descriptions, which was a major motivation behind the ideas of Wittgenstein's Tractatus (see the supplementary sections on Russell and Wittgenstein ). Although subsequent philosophers were to question the assumption that there could ever be a definitive logical analysis of a given statement, the idea that ordinary language may be systematically misleading has remained.

To illustrate this, consider the following examples from Ryle's classic 1932 paper, ‘Systematically Misleading Expressions’:

(Ua) Unpunctuality is reprehensible. (Ta) Jones hates the thought of going to hospital.

In each case, we might be tempted to make unnecessary reifications, taking ‘unpunctuality’ and ‘the thought of going to hospital’ as referring to objects. It is because of this that Ryle describes such expressions as ‘systematically misleading’. (Ua) and (Ta) must therefore be rephrased:

(Ub) Whoever is unpunctual deserves that other people should reprove him for being unpunctual. (Tb) Jones feels distressed when he thinks of what he will undergo if he goes to hospital.

In these formulations, there is no overt talk at all of ‘unpunctuality’ or ‘thoughts’, and hence nothing to tempt us to posit the existence of any corresponding entities. The problems that otherwise arise have thus been ‘analyzed away’.

At the time that Ryle wrote ‘Systematically Misleading Expressions’, he, too, assumed that every statement had an underlying logical form that was to be exhibited in its ‘correct’ formulation [ Quotations ]. But when he gave up this assumption (for reasons indicated in the supplementary section on The Cambridge School of Analysis ), he did not give up the motivating idea of logical analysis—to show what is wrong with misleading expressions. In The Concept of Mind (1949), for example, he sought to explain what he called the ‘category-mistake’ involved in talk of the mind as a kind of ‘Ghost in the Machine’. His aim, he wrote, was to “rectify the logical geography of the knowledge which we already possess” (1949, 9), an idea that was to lead to the articulation of connective rather than reductive conceptions of analysis, the emphasis being placed on elucidating the relationships between concepts without assuming that there is a privileged set of intrinsically basic concepts (see the supplementary section on Oxford Linguistic Philosophy ).

What these various forms of logical analysis suggest, then, is that what characterizes analysis in analytic philosophy is something far richer than the mere ‘decomposition’ of a concept into its ‘constituents’. But this is not to say that the decompositional conception of analysis plays no role at all. It can be found in the early work of Moore, for example (see the supplementary section on Moore ). It might also be seen as reflected in the approach to the analysis of concepts that seeks to specify the necessary and sufficient conditions for their correct employment. Conceptual analysis in this sense goes back to the Socrates of Plato's early dialogues (see the supplementary section on Plato ). But it arguably reached its heyday in the 1950s and 1960s. As mentioned in Section 2 above, the definition of ‘knowledge’ as ‘justified true belief’ is perhaps the most famous example; and this definition was criticised in Gettier's classic paper of 1963. (For details of this, see the entry in this Encyclopedia on The Analysis of Knowledge .) The specification of necessary and sufficient conditions may no longer be seen as the primary aim of conceptual analysis, especially in the case of philosophical concepts such as ‘knowledge’, which are fiercely contested; but consideration of such conditions remains a useful tool in the analytic philosopher's toolbag.

For a more detailed account of the these and related conceptions of analysis, see the supplementary document on

Conceptions of Analysis in Analytic Philosophy .
Annotated Bibliography, §6 .

The history of philosophy reveals a rich source of conceptions of analysis. Their origin may lie in ancient Greek geometry, and to this extent the history of analytic methodologies might be seen as a series of footnotes to Euclid. But analysis developed in different though related ways in the two traditions stemming from Plato and Aristotle, the former based on the search for definitions and the latter on the idea of regression to first causes. The two poles represented in these traditions defined methodological space until well into the early modern period, and in some sense is still reflected today. The creation of analytic geometry in the seventeenth century introduced a more reductive form of analysis, and an analogous and even more powerful form was introduced around the turn of the twentieth century in the logical work of Frege and Russell. Although conceptual analysis, construed decompositionally from the time of Leibniz and Kant, and mediated by the work of Moore, is often viewed as characteristic of analytic philosophy, logical analysis, taken as involving translation into a logical system, is what inaugurated the analytic tradition. Analysis has also frequently been seen as reductive, but connective forms of analysis are no less important. Connective analysis, historically inflected, would seem to be particularly appropriate, for example, in understanding analysis itself.

What follows here is a selection of thirty classic and recent works published over the last half-century that together cover the range of different conceptions of analysis in the history of philosophy. A fuller bibliography, which includes all references cited, is provided as a set of supplementary documents, divided to correspond to the sections of this entry:

Annotated Bibliography on Analysis
  • Baker, Gordon, 2004, Wittgenstein's Method , Oxford: Blackwell, especially essays 1, 3, 4, 10, 12
  • Baldwin, Thomas, 1990, G.E. Moore , London: Routledge, ch. 7
  • Beaney, Michael, 2004, ‘Carnap's Conception of Explication: From Frege to Husserl?’, in S. Awodey and C. Klein, (eds.), Carnap Brought Home: The View from Jena , Chicago: Open Court, pp. 117-50
  • –––, 2005, ‘Collingwood's Conception of Presuppositional Analysis’, Collingwood and British Idealism Studies 11, no. 2, 41-114
  • –––, (ed.), 2007, The Analytic Turn: Analysis in Early Analytic Philosophy and Phenomenology , London: Routledge [includes papers on Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein, C.I. Lewis, Bolzano, Husserl]
  • Byrne, Patrick H., 1997, Analysis and Science in Aristotle , Albany: State University of New York Press
  • Cohen, L. Jonathan, 1986, The Dialogue of Reason: An Analysis of Analytical Philosophy , Oxford: Oxford University Press, chs. 1-2
  • Dummett, Michael, 1991, Frege: Philosophy of Mathematics , London: Duckworth, chs. 3-4, 9-16
  • Engfer, Hans-Jürgen, 1982, Philosophie als Analysis , Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog [Descartes, Leibniz, Wolff, Kant]
  • Garrett, Aaron V., 2003, Meaning in Spinoza's Method , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ch. 4
  • Gaukroger, Stephen, 1989, Cartesian Logic , Oxford: Oxford University Press, ch. 3
  • Gentzler, Jyl, (ed.), 1998, Method in Ancient Philosophy , Oxford: Oxford University Press [includes papers on Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, mathematics and medicine]
  • Gilbert, Neal W., 1960, Renaissance Concepts of Method , New York: Columbia University Press
  • Hacker, P.M.S., 1996, Wittgenstein's Place in Twentieth-Century Analytic Philosophy , Oxford: Blackwell
  • Hintikka, Jaakko and Remes, Unto, 1974, The Method of Analysis , Dordrecht: D. Reidel [ancient Greek geometrical analysis]
  • Hylton, Peter, 2005, Propositions, Functions, Analysis: Selected Essays on Russell's Philosophy , Oxford: Oxford University Press
  • –––, 2007, Quine , London: Routledge, ch. 9
  • Jackson, Frank, 1998, From Metaphysics to Ethics: A Defence of Conceptual Analysis , Oxford: Oxford University Press, chs. 2-3
  • Kretzmann, Norman, 1982, ‘Syncategoremata, exponibilia, sophistimata’, in N. Kretzmann et al. , (eds.), The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 211-45
  • Menn, Stephen, 2002, ‘Plato and the Method of Analysis’, Phronesis 47, 193-223
  • Otte, Michael and Panza, Marco, (eds.), 1997, Analysis and Synthesis in Mathematics , Dordrecht: Kluwer
  • Rorty, Richard, (ed.), 1967, The Linguistic Turn , Chicago: University of Chicago Press [includes papers on analytic methodology]
  • Rosen, Stanley, 1980, The Limits of Analysis , New York: Basic Books, repr. Indiana: St. Augustine's Press, 2000 [critique of analytic philosophy from a ‘continental’ perspective]
  • Sayre, Kenneth M., 1969, Plato's Analytic Method , Chicago: University of Chicago Press
  • –––, 2006, Metaphysics and Method in Plato's Statesman , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Part I
  • Soames, Scott, 2003, Philosophical Analysis in the Twentieth Century , Volume 1: The Dawn of Analysis , Volume 2: The Age of Meaning , New Jersey: Princeton University Press [includes chapters on Moore, Russell, Wittgenstein, logical positivism, Quine, ordinary language philosophy, Davidson, Kripke]
  • Strawson, P.F., 1992, Analysis and Metaphysics: An Introduction to Philosophy , Oxford: Oxford University Press, chs. 1-2
  • Sweeney, Eileen C., 1994, ‘Three Notions of Resolutio and the Structure of Reasoning in Aquinas’, The Thomist 58, 197-243
  • Timmermans, Benoît, 1995, La résolution des problèmes de Descartes à Kant , Paris: Presses Universitaires de France
  • Urmson, J.O., 1956, Philosophical Analysis: Its Development between the Two World Wars , Oxford: Oxford University Press
How to cite this entry . Preview the PDF version of this entry at the Friends of the SEP Society . Look up topics and thinkers related to this entry at the Internet Philosophy Ontology Project (InPhO). Enhanced bibliography for this entry at PhilPapers , with links to its database.
  • Analysis , a journal in philosophy.
  • Bertrand Russell Archives
  • Leibniz-Archiv
  • Wittgenstein Archives at the University of Bergen

abstract objects | analytic/synthetic distinction | Aristotle | Bolzano, Bernard | Buridan, John [Jean] | Descartes, René | descriptions | Frege, Gottlob | Kant, Immanuel | knowledge: analysis of | Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm | logical constructions | logical form | Moore, George Edward | necessary and sufficient conditions | Ockham [Occam], William | Plato | Russell, Bertrand | Wittgenstein, Ludwig

Acknowledgments

In first composing this entry (in 2002-3) and then revising the main entry and bibliography (in 2007), I have drawn on a number of my published writings (especially Beaney 1996, 2000, 2002, 2007b, 2007c; see Annotated Bibliography §6.1 , §6.2 ). I am grateful to the respective publishers for permission to use this material. Research on conceptions of analysis in the history of philosophy was initially undertaken while a Research Fellow at the Institut für Philosophie of the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg during 1999-2000, and further work was carried out while a Research Fellow at the Institut für Philosophie of the University of Jena during 2006-7, in both cases funded by the Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung. In the former case, the account was written up while at the Open University (UK), and in the latter case, I had additional research leave from the University of York. I acknowledge the generous support given to me by all five institutions. I am also grateful to the editors of this Encyclopedia, and to Gideon Rosen and Edward N. Zalta, in particular, for comments and suggestions on the content and organisation of this entry in both its initial and revised form. I would like to thank John Ongley, too, for reviewing the first version of this entry, which has helped me to improve it (see Annotated Bibliography §1.3 ). In updating the bibliography (in 2007), I am indebted to various people who have notified me of relevant works, and especially, Gyula Klima (regarding §2.1), Anna-Sophie Heinemann (regarding §§ 4.2 and 4.4), and Jan Wolenski (regarding §5.3). I invite anyone who has further suggestions of items to be included or comments on the article itself to email me at the address given below.

Copyright © 2014 by Michael Beaney < michael . beaney @ hu-berlin . de >

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Definition of analyse verb from the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary

  • analyse something The job involves collecting and analysing data .
  • Researchers have analysed the results in detail using specialist software.
  • Learn to step back and critically analyse situations.
  • He tried to analyse his feelings.
  • The first step is to define and analyse the problem.
  • analyse something for something The water samples will be analysed for the presence of polluting chemicals.
  • analyse what, how, etc… We need to analyse what went wrong.
  • These ideas will be examined in more detail in Chapter 10.
  • The job involves gathering and analysing data.
  • The government will review the situation later in the year.
  • We will study the report carefully before making a decision.
  • This topic will be discussed at greater length in the next chapter.
  • to examine/​analyse/​review/​study/​discuss what/​how/​whether…
  • to examine/​analyse/​review/​study/​discuss the situation/​evidence
  • to examine/​analyse/​review/​study/​discuss something carefully/​critically/​systematically/​briefly
  • be difficult to

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Analysis vs. Analyses: What is the Plural of Analysis?

Home » Analysis vs. Analyses: What is the Plural of Analysis?

Analysis is a commonly used word in college writing. If you are doing quantitative research in any of the STEM fields, you will likely use analysis in all of your written reports and throughout your college career.

The problem is, some students—especially ESL students—aren’t sure how to make analysis plural.

No worries; we are here to help.

What is the Plural Form of Analysis?

Most nouns are made plural simply by adding the letter s to the end of the word.

  • More than one car = cars.
  • More than one tree = trees.
  • More than one book = books.
  • More than one shirt = shirts.

The word analysis is a bit different. The plural form of analysis is analyses .

  • Singular = Analysis
  • Plural = Analyses

To make analysis plural, you change the letter “i” into an “e.” This then signals a change in pronunciation, see below.

When to Use Analysis

analyses or analysis meaning

  • A new analysis of data from a large national study has found that carrying fat around the middle of the body greatly raises the risk for heart disease and death, even for those of normal weight. – The New York Times
  • The Citizens Budget Commission analysis found that 25 percent of tenants in the city’s largest borough pay at least half their income to the landlord. – New York Post

How do you pronounce analysis? The singular analysis is pronounced uh-nal-ih-sis. The technical diacritic spelling is ə-năl’ ĭ-sĭs.

When to Use Analyses

how to make analysis form plural

  • They have driven down their valuation to an average of only about 60 percent of real market value, according to separate analyses by the Houston Chronicle and the Texas Association of Appraisal Districts. – Houston Chronicle
  • People really loved Grantland, given its mix of super-in-depth movie reviews and 3,000-word analyses of individual NBA teams’ zone defenses. – The Wall Street Journal

How do you pronounce analyses? The plural analyses is pronounced uh-nal-ih-seez. The technical diacritic spelling is ə-năl’ ĭ-sēz’.

Trick to Remember the Difference

Not sure you will be able to remember when to use analysis or analyses? If you can remember this simple trick, you will be all set.

Analysis is singular. If you look at the word analysis , it ends in the same few letters that the word singular begins with. Analy si s is si ngular. Both words have an “s-i” in them.

Analyses is the plural form of analysis, which means there are more than one. In other words, there are se veral analy se s. Both words have an “s-e” in them.

The difference between analysis vs. analyses is the difference between singular vs. plural.

Analysis is the singular form.

Analyses is the plural of analysis.

If you need additional help with any other English words, visit our main confusing words page . We have hundreds of the most commonly confused English words with detailed explanations, examples, and quizzes.

You can also visit our online grammar dictionary for help with grammar and literary terms.

Analyses vs. analysis?

The word analysis is a singular noun. The plural form of analysis is analyses .

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What is the difference between analyses and analysis ?

If you’re conducting a highly detailed examination of something, you’re completing an analysis . The word analysis is a singular noun, so if you’re running more than one analysis , the correct plural form is analyses . 

The noun’s tricky singular and plural forms are made more confusing by British and American spelling variants. In the United States, English speakers use the verb “ analyze ,” while British English speakers spell the word as “ analyse .” 

Analyses and analyse are nearly indistinguishable in spelling, but it’s important to remember that they have different grammatical functions. Again, “ analyse ” is a verb, while “ analyses ” is a plural noun. 

How to pronounce analysis , analyses , and analyse ?

English speakers pronounce the nouns analysis as “ an-al-lye-sis ,” analyses as “ an-al-lye-seez ” (four syllables each). In contrast, we pronounce the verb analyse or analyze as “ an-al-lyez ” (three syllables). 

What does analysis mean?

The noun analysis derives from the verb analyze (or analyse in British English), which the New American Oxford Dictionary defines as: 

  • To examine methodically and in detail the constitution or structure of something.
  • To discover or reveal through examination.
  • To psychoanalyze someone.
  • To identify and measure the chemical composition of a sample. 

The noun analysis simply references the product or state of analyzing . For example, 

  • “A new analysis substantiates the link to the city’s lights — with worrying implications for the grasshoppers.” — The New York Times
  • “A 2019 meta- analysis of information retrieval algorithms used in search engines concluded the ‘high-water mark … was actually set in 2009.’” — Science Magazine
  • “Changing the flight paths of just a few aircraft could slash the contribution of contrails to global warming by three-fifths, according to a new analysis .” — Anthropocene Magazine

Anatomizing, anatomy, assay, assessment, breakdown, case study, categorization, classification, diagnosis, deconstruction, dissection, evaluation, examination, exposition, inspection, investigation, scrutiny, study, testing.

Etymology of analysis

According to The American Heritage Dictionary , the noun analysis stems from medieval Latin via Greek analusis ( ‘a dissolving’ ), from analuein ( ‘to undo’ ). 

How to use analysis vs. analyses in a sentence?

The noun analysis is singular, so the plural form is written as analyses .  Let’s compare the two forms in the following examples: 

  • “ We conducted a detailed analysis . ” (singular form) 
  • “ We conducted detailed analyses .” (plural form)
  • “Scientists studied specimens in a separate analysis .” (singular form)
  • “Scientists studied specimens in separate analyses .” (plural form)
  • “ Students are required to submit their analysis by midnight .” (singular form)
  • “ Students are required to submit their analyses by midnight .” (plural form)

Additional reading

If you enjoy learning the differences between American and British English, check out the following lessons by The Word Counter : 

  • Ageing vs. aging?
  • Aluminum vs. aluminium?
  • Catalog vs. catalogue?
  • Dreamed vs. dreamt?
  • Supper vs. dinner?

FAQ: Related to analysis vs. analyses

What’s the difference between analysis and analyzation .

According to Garner’s Modern English Usage , the word analysis is standard over analyzation , which is, technically, not a word at all (Garner 48)

What about analyzer vs. analyzist ?

Using the same source, we find that analyzer is a newly coined term for software that examines data patterns and relationships. The word analyzist is a “needless variant” of analyzer (48). 

Test Yourself!

Test how well you understand the difference between analysis vs analyses with the following multiple-choice questions. 

  • True or false?: A single study is an analysis.  a. True b. False
  • The English word ___________ is standard for American English? a. Analyzist b. Analyzation c. Analyze d. Analyse
  • The verb analyze involves the act of ___________. a. Methodical examination b. Discovery c. Psychoanalysis d. All of the above
  • Which of the following is a singular noun? a. Analyse b. Analyze c. Analysis d. Analyses
  • Choose the correct word: “Separate ___________ from the company revealed leaked toxic chemicals in the city’s water system.”  a. Analysis b. Analyzes c. Analyse d. Analyses
  • “ Analysis .” The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language , 5th ed., Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 2021. 
  • “Analyze.” The New Oxford American Dictionary , 3rd ed., Oxford University Press, 2010, p. 56.
  • DeWeerdt, S. “ One simple trick could cut the climate impact of flying .” Anthropocene Magazine , 18 Feb 2020. 
  • Garner, B. “Analyst; analyzer; analyzist.” Garner’s Modern American Usage , 3rd ed., Oxford University Press, 2009, p. 48. 
  • Sokol, J. “ That Night 46 Million Grasshoppers Went to Vegas .” The New York Times , 30 Mar 2021.
  • Hutson, M. “ Eye-catching advances in some AI fields are not real .” Science Magazine , 27 May 2020.

Alanna Madden

Alanna Madden is a freelance writer and editor from Portland, Oregon. Alanna specializes in data and news reporting and enjoys writing about art, culture, and STEM-related topics. I can be found on Linkedin .

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What Is Customer Segmentation? Definition & Strategy 2024

Feb 13, 2024

9 min. read

Have you ever seen an ad or received an offer that felt like it was made just for you? That’s not by accident — that’s what happens when a company gets customer segmentation right.

Understanding your customer journey is essential for your success. It’s how you anticipate their needs, know their unique preferences, and meet them where they are. These are the things that make a brand memorable and give customers a reason to choose you over a competitor.

Let’s explore the power of customer segmentation and how to create a customer segmentation strategy that gets results.

What Is Customer Segmentation? (Customer Segmentation Definition)

What are the different types of customer segmentation, why is customer segmentation important, how to do a customer segmentation analysis, how to create a customer segmentation strategy, supporting your customer segmentation strategy with data.

Image of a magnifying glass hovering over customer icons as an image for the customer segmentation definition

Customer Segmentation Definition: The act of dividing customers into distinct groups based on shared characteristics, such as demographics, buying behaviors, and communication preferences.

Customer segmentation allows businesses to tailor their marketing efforts to better meet the needs of each segment. By doing so, companies ultimately improve customer satisfaction and retention.

This strategic approach comes with multiple benefits:

  • Better use of resources
  • Personalized experiences
  • Stronger customer connections
  • Improved marketing campaign outcomes

From a marketing perspective, customer segmentation trades the one-size-fits-all approach in favor of personalization. Understanding your audience on a deeper level allows brands to create highly targeted messaging, new products and services, and effective campaigns. It creates opportunities to reflect their needs, wants, and values and align with their lifestyles and preferences.

When businesses get customer segmentation right, they have an easier time breaking through the noise and attracting the right people at the right time.

Brands can segment customers in different ways. Let’s review three options:

  • Demographic Segmentation
  • Geographic location
  • Household size
  • Psychographic Segmentation
  • Personalities
  • Behavioral Segmentation
  • Product usage

Tip: Learn more about the different types of customers there are.

Demographic segmentation

One method for customer segmentation is to separate customers based on basic demographic details , such as age ranges, geographic locations, job titles, income levels, or household sizes.

For example, a wealth management firm might run a marketing campaign targeting people living in a particular upscale neighborhood.

By analyzing demographics, businesses can effectively target their marketing efforts, develop personalized messaging, and create offers that resonate with their audience.

Psychographic segmentation

Psychographic segmentation takes into account your customers’ personalities, values, and interests . Businesses can tap into the psychological and emotional aspects of how your audience makes decisions. This is an ideal option if you offer multiple products or services.

Imagine a car manufacturer who wants to target environmentally conscious customers for their new electric vehicle. With psychographic segmentation, the company can target prospects who are passionate about reducing their carbon footprint and living a sustainable lifestyle .

Behavioral segmentation

Behavioral segmentation refers to grouping customers based on past actions or behaviors , such as items they’ve bought in the past or marketing campaigns they’ve responded to.

For example, you might market to customers who haven’t bought from you recently to try to win back their business. Or you might create targeted campaigns when your audience has shown interest in a specific product.

This option works well when you can track customer data. Analyze past purchases, website buyer journeys , and marketing funnels to find specific segments (e.g., bargain hunters, high spenders, occasional shoppers) and build campaigns around those groups.

Tip: Learn more about customer data management (CDM) , how to use a customer data platform , and how to do customer profiling .

the importance of customer segmentation

Segmenting customers serves several purposes, including:

  • It helps you create tailored marketing messages that resonate with customers’ needs and interests.
  • It informs new products and services based on what matters to your buyers.
  • It lets you personalize communications to improve outcomes.
  • It helps you deliver the best customer service because you “get” your customers.

Your customers experience your brand in different ways. They choose you to fulfill different needs. And they have unique values and interests. That’s why promoting the same messaging across the board isn’t always the most effective solution.

Instead, successful companies use customer segmentation to meet their customers where they are. They uncover pain points and aspirations so they can cater to different needs.

By learning what these “segments” are, you can have more productive interactions with your audience based on what they need.

To leverage the benefits of customer segmentation, brands first need to identify the various segments within their audience. That’s the purpose of a customer segmentation analysis. 

Here’s how to do it.

1. Collect and analyze customer data

team analyzing team data

Your customer data holds valuable information about how, when, what, and where your customers buy. Accessing and reviewing this data can help you find patterns and common denominators, giving you new ways to segment your customers.

You can find a treasure trove of data from your CRM , social media pages, purchasing history, loyalty programs , and customer intelligence data from third-party customer intelligence platforms like the Meltwater consumer intelligence suite .

2. Identify key customer attributes

This next step requires brands to dig deeper into the customer data to uncover patterns. 

Here are some examples of what you might look for.

  • Average buying cycle for a particular item (e.g., every two months, every three weeks)
  • Specific pain points
  • Brand-specific shoppers
  • Buying triggers (e.g., price, quality)
  • Geographic areas
  • Shared values or interests

Utilizing customer intelligence analytics by using a customer intelligence tool like Meltwater can help you review large volumes of data at scale and help you find patterns that might otherwise go overlooked. You can find more ways to segment your customers than you initially thought.

3. Create customer personas

Once you’ve identified distinct groups and shared connections, you can build customer personas around these aspects. These personas represent fictional characters that embody the characteristics of each segment.

Customer persona description

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Typically, businesses use customer personas to develop marketing campaigns that speak directly to those customers. Customer segmentation adds a layer of reality and tangibility to personas, allowing you to speak to representations of real people.

These personas can be as detailed as you like. Ideally, they’ll reveal as much unique information as possible so you can tailor your messaging effectively.

Tip: Take a look at our guide to market segmentation and personas , and learn more about customer profiling , and persona mapping .

Customer segmentation isn’t a one-and-done activity. As your business evolves and customer preferences and buying habits change, you'll need to make customer segmentation an ongoing activity to ensure you continue speaking to the right audience.

Let’s review some customer segmentation best practices to prioritize segmentation in your marketing strategy .

Continuously monitor and update customer segments

Implementing your customer segments is only half the battle. The real challenge lies in continuously monitoring and updating these segments .

Customer behavior is dynamic, and their preferences can change rapidly. With ongoing monitoring, businesses can stay ahead of these shifts and ensure their segments remain relevant.

Ongoing monitoring also allows for the opportunity to identify new segments or niche markets that may have been overlooked. This might warrant the need to develop new products or services, pursue new markets, or position your brand in new ways.

Did you know? The Meltwater Suite allows you to monitor your customer segments in real-time. Get a free tour of our platform today!

Integrate customer segmentation with other marketing strategies

Customer segmentation isn’t meant to be a standalone activity . Think of it as a smaller slice of the much larger marketing pie — it’s more filling when you combine it with other initiatives.

For starters, segmentation forms the basis of personalized marketing experiences . After identifying your segments, you can tailor messages and campaigns to the segments you want to pursue, which can lead to higher engagement rates, conversions, ROI, and profits.

Take email marketing , for example. Rather than blasting your entire customer list, you can s egment your messaging based on a specific attribute, such as customers who opted in to your lead magnet but have not yet made a purchase. Customer segmentation can increase open rates and click-throughs because it speaks directly to those customers’ needs and circumstances.

The same idea applies to social media advertising . With Facebook, for instance, you can narrow your focus by a variety of filters, such as demographics and behaviors. If you’ve developed your customer personas, choosing these filters should be easy — just align them with your persona characteristics.

You can also rely on your customer segments to choose your marketing channels . Decide where your target audience spends the most time so you have the best chance of connecting with them.

Leverage customer segmentation for improved customer experiences

The value of customer segmentation isn’t relegated to marketing ; segments might also inform your customer service and product development.

Let’s say you surface new pain points in your customer intelligence analysis . You could pass those pain points along to development teams, who can implement new features that address those challenges.

If you’ve segmented customers who have churned, you can continue marketing to that segment to flex your customer service muscles and reignite the relationships.

Tip: Learn more about social media customer service best practices and take a look at social media customer service examples .

Ultimately, customer segmentation is about understanding your customers as much as possible so you can deliver on their expectations. When they see that you get them in ways your competitors don’t, they’ll have one more reason to keep coming back to you.

Meltwater Consumer Intelligence Dashboard

Accurate, effective customer segmentation starts with having the right data. Meltwater’s consumer intelligence platform puts comprehensive data in your hands, helping you get inside the minds of your customers. Learn their preferences, interests, and what drives their decisions, with data translated into context and action steps.

Learn more when you request a demo by filling out the form below:

Continue Reading

Illustration of a customer profile under a magnifying glass. Customer profiling guide blog post.

How To Do Customer Profiling | Guide

A podium with three different shapes set atop: a sphere, a cone and a square. The different shapes represent the different types of customers explained in this blog.

The 6 Most Common Types of Customers & How To Approach Them

3D Illustration of customer feedback for our blog about customer experience

What is Customer Experience? Definition, Challenges, Importance

3D Illustration of blue cubes with headphones showcasing customer intelligence

What Is Customer Intelligence? Definition and Examples

EU AI Act: first regulation on artificial intelligence

The use of artificial intelligence in the EU will be regulated by the AI Act, the world’s first comprehensive AI law. Find out how it will protect you.

A man faces a computer generated figure with programming language in the background

As part of its digital strategy , the EU wants to regulate artificial intelligence (AI) to ensure better conditions for the development and use of this innovative technology. AI can create many benefits , such as better healthcare; safer and cleaner transport; more efficient manufacturing; and cheaper and more sustainable energy.

In April 2021, the European Commission proposed the first EU regulatory framework for AI. It says that AI systems that can be used in different applications are analysed and classified according to the risk they pose to users. The different risk levels will mean more or less regulation. Once approved, these will be the world’s first rules on AI.

Learn more about what artificial intelligence is and how it is used

What Parliament wants in AI legislation

Parliament’s priority is to make sure that AI systems used in the EU are safe, transparent, traceable, non-discriminatory and environmentally friendly. AI systems should be overseen by people, rather than by automation, to prevent harmful outcomes.

Parliament also wants to establish a technology-neutral, uniform definition for AI that could be applied to future AI systems.

Learn more about Parliament’s work on AI and its vision for AI’s future

AI Act: different rules for different risk levels

The new rules establish obligations for providers and users depending on the level of risk from artificial intelligence. While many AI systems pose minimal risk, they need to be assessed.

Unacceptable risk

Unacceptable risk AI systems are systems considered a threat to people and will be banned. They include:

  • Cognitive behavioural manipulation of people or specific vulnerable groups: for example voice-activated toys that encourage dangerous behaviour in children
  • Social scoring: classifying people based on behaviour, socio-economic status or personal characteristics
  • Biometric identification and categorisation of people
  • Real-time and remote biometric identification systems, such as facial recognition

Some exceptions may be allowed for law enforcement purposes. “Real-time” remote biometric identification systems will be allowed in a limited number of serious cases, while “post” remote biometric identification systems, where identification occurs after a significant delay, will be allowed to prosecute serious crimes and only after court approval.

AI systems that negatively affect safety or fundamental rights will be considered high risk and will be divided into two categories:

1) AI systems that are used in products falling under the EU’s product safety legislation . This includes toys, aviation, cars, medical devices and lifts.

2) AI systems falling into specific areas that will have to be registered in an EU database:

  • Management and operation of critical infrastructure
  • Education and vocational training
  • Employment, worker management and access to self-employment
  • Access to and enjoyment of essential private services and public services and benefits
  • Law enforcement
  • Migration, asylum and border control management
  • Assistance in legal interpretation and application of the law.

All high-risk AI systems will be assessed before being put on the market and also throughout their lifecycle.

General purpose and generative AI

Generative AI, like ChatGPT, would have to comply with transparency requirements:

  • Disclosing that the content was generated by AI
  • Designing the model to prevent it from generating illegal content
  • Publishing summaries of copyrighted data used for training

High-impact general-purpose AI models that might pose systemic risk, such as the more advanced AI model GPT-4, would have to undergo thorough evaluations and any serious incidents would have to be reported to the European Commission.

Limited risk

Limited risk AI systems should comply with minimal transparency requirements that would allow users to make informed decisions. After interacting with the applications, the user can then decide whether they want to continue using it. Users should be made aware when they are interacting with AI. This includes AI systems that generate or manipulate image, audio or video content, for example deepfakes.

On December 9 2023, Parliament reached a provisional agreement with the Council on the AI act . The agreed text will now have to be formally adopted by both Parliament and Council to become EU law. Before all MEPs have their say on the agreement, Parliament’s internal market and civil liberties committees will vote on it.

More on the EU’s digital measures

  • Cryptocurrency dangers and the benefits of EU legislation
  • Fighting cybercrime: new EU cybersecurity laws explained
  • Boosting data sharing in the EU: what are the benefits?
  • EU Digital Markets Act and Digital Services Act
  • Five ways the European Parliament wants to protect online gamers
  • Artificial Intelligence Act

Related articles

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This section features overview and background articles for the general public. Press releases and materials for news media are available in the news section .

IMAGES

  1. DEFINITION OF ANALYSIS

    the analysis's definition

  2. 7 Types of Statistical Analysis: Definition and Explanation

    the analysis's definition

  3. What Is The Definition Of Analysis?

    the analysis's definition

  4. Data Analytics: What It Is, How It's Used, and 4 Basic Techniques

    the analysis's definition

  5. Analysis: Definition & Examples

    the analysis's definition

  6. PPT

    the analysis's definition

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  1. Consistency in Writing

  2. Fourier Analysis (Stein)lec01 Definition and properties of Fourier coefficient/series

  3. Set Definition Real Analysis

  4. Ratio

  5. Fourier Analysis (Stein)Lec02 Convolution: Definition & basic properties

  6. Analysis & Interpretation

COMMENTS

  1. Analysis Definition & Meaning

    : a detailed examination of anything complex in order to understand its nature or to determine its essential features : a thorough study doing a careful analysis of the problem b : a statement of such an examination 2 : separation of a whole into its component parts 3 a : the identification or separation of ingredients of a substance

  2. ANALYSIS

    the act of studying or examining something in detail, in order to discover or understand more about it, or your opinion and judgment after doing this: Our financial experts conducted an independent analysis of the investment plan's performance. I was interested in Clare's analysis of the situation. Some of these arguments need further analysis.

  3. ANALYSIS Definition & Usage Examples

    a philosophical method of exhibiting complex concepts or propositions as compounds or functions of more basic ones. Mathematics. an investigation based on the properties of numbers. the discussion of a problem by algebra, as opposed to geometry. the branch of mathematics consisting of calculus and its higher developments.

  4. ANALYSIS definition and meaning

    Analysis is the process of considering something carefully or using statistical methods in order to understand it or explain it. Her criteria defy analysis. We did an analysis of the way that government money has been spent in the past. [ + of] Synonyms: study, reasoning, opinion, judgment More Synonyms of analysis 2. variable noun

  5. Analysis

    noun a form of literary criticism in which the structure of a piece of writing is analyzed see more noun a set of techniques for exploring underlying motives and a method of treating various mental disorders; based on the theories of Sigmund Freud synonyms: depth psychology, psychoanalysis see more noun

  6. Analysis Definition & Meaning

    ANALYSIS meaning: 1 : a careful study of something to learn about its parts, what they do, and how they are related to each other; 2 : an explanation of the nature and meaning of something

  7. analysis noun

    ) [uncountable, countable] the detailed study or examination of something in order to understand more about it; the result of the study statistical analysis The book is an analysis of poverty and its causes. At the meeting they presented a detailed analysis of twelve schools in a Manhattan borough. Take your English to the next level

  8. analysis noun

    Definition of analysis noun from the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary analysis noun OPAL W OPAL S /əˈnæləsɪs/ /əˈnæləsɪs/ (plural analyses /əˈnæləsiːz/ /əˈnæləsiːz/ ) Idioms [uncountable, countable] the detailed study or examination of something in order to understand more about it; the result of the study statistical/data analysis

  9. analysis

    analysis meaning, definition, what is analysis: a careful examination of something in or...: Learn more.

  10. Definitions and Descriptions of Analysis

    Analysis > Definitions and Descriptions of Analysis (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) Supplement to Analysis Definitions and Descriptions of Analysis The older a word, the deeper it reaches. (Wittgenstein NB, 40) { §6.5 }

  11. ANALYSE

    to study or examine something in detail, in order to discover more about it: Researchers analysed the purchases of 6300 households. analyse data/results/information Management requires enthusiasm and intuition rather than merely an ability to analyze data and invent strategies.

  12. Analysis

    Analysis ( pl.: analyses) is the process of breaking a complex topic or substance into smaller parts in order to gain a better understanding of it. The technique has been applied in the study of mathematics and logic since before Aristotle (384-322 B.C. ), though analysis as a formal concept is a relatively recent development. [1]

  13. Analysis

    Analysis. First published Mon Apr 7, 2003; substantive revision Wed Mar 19, 2014. Analysis has always been at the heart of philosophical method, but it has been understood and practised in many different ways. Perhaps, in its broadest sense, it might be defined as a process of isolating or working back to what is more fundamental by means of ...

  14. Analyze Definition & Meaning

    : to study or determine the nature and relationship of the parts of (something) by analysis 2 : to subject to scientific or grammatical analysis chemically analyze a specimen analyze a sentence 3 : psychoanalyze analyzability ˌa-nə-ˌlī-zə-ˈbi-lə-tē noun analyzable ˈa-nə-ˌlī-zə-bəl adjective analyzer ˈa-nə-ˌlī-zər noun Synonyms anatomize assay

  15. Analysis Definition & Meaning

    A spoken or written presentation of such study. Published an analysis of poetic meter. American Heritage More Noun Definitions (18) Synonyms: depth psychology psychoanalysis dream analysis depth psychiatry psychotherapy titration test synopsis

  16. analyse verb

    Synonyms examine examine analyse review study discuss These words all mean to think about, study or describe somebody/ something carefully, especially in order to understand them, form an opinion of them or make a decision about them. examine to think about, study or describe an idea, subject or piece of work very carefully:. These ideas will be examined in more detail in Chapter 10.

  17. Analysis

    Define analysis. analysis synonyms, analysis pronunciation, analysis translation, English dictionary definition of analysis. n. pl. a·nal·y·ses 1. a. The separation of an intellectual or material whole into its constituent parts for individual study. b. The study of such...

  18. Analysis

    Analysis, a branch of mathematics that deals with continuous change and with certain general types of processes that have emerged from the study of continuous change, such as limits, differentiation, and integration. Since the discovery of the differential and integral calculus by Isaac Newton and.

  19. ANALYSES Definition & Usage Examples

    Analyses definition: . See examples of ANALYSES used in a sentence.

  20. ANALYSIS Synonyms: 55 Similar and Opposite Words

    noun Definition of analysis 1 as in investigation the separation and identification of the parts of a whole investigators took the mysterious powder to the lab for analysis Synonyms & Similar Words Relevance investigation inspection assessment examination evaluation dissection breakdown deconstruction anatomy assay diagnosis anatomizing

  21. Analysis vs. Analyses: What is the Plural of Analysis?

    Analysis is the singular form of the word, meaning it refers to a single study, report, examination, etc. A new analysis of data from a large national study has found that carrying fat around the middle of the body greatly raises the risk for heart disease and death, even for those of normal weight. - The New York Times

  22. Analyses vs analysis: What's the difference?

    To discover or reveal through examination. To psychoanalyze someone. To identify and measure the chemical composition of a sample. The noun analysis simply references the product or state of analyzing. For example, "A new analysis substantiates the link to the city's lights — with worrying implications for the grasshoppers." — The New York Times

  23. ANALYSIS definition in American English

    Analysis is the process of considering something carefully or using statistical methods in order to understand it or explain it. Sporting greatness defies analysis - but we know it when we see it. Synonyms: study, reasoning, opinion, judgment More Synonyms of analysis 2. variable noun

  24. What Is Customer Segmentation? Definition & Strategy 2024

    Customer Segmentation Definition: The act of dividing customers into distinct groups based on shared characteristics, such as demographics, buying behaviors, and communication preferences. Customer segmentation allows businesses to tailor their marketing efforts to better meet the needs of each segment.

  25. Statistics for Finance

    Statistical analysis provides a systematic approach to collecting and analyzing financial data, which is crucial for informed decision-making and managing uncertainty. There are various statistical concepts financial professionals should master, including time series analysis, probability distributions, and regression analysis.

  26. What Is Analysis?

    A literary analysis is a careful examination of the mechanism of a literary work and a discussion of how that mechanism functions to reveal meaning. To make an interpretation effectively, you must base it on a set of facts. Here's a simple interpretation. You have nine dogs. Five are white, and four are black.

  27. EU AI Act: first regulation on artificial intelligence

    As part of its digital strategy, the EU wants to regulate artificial intelligence (AI) to ensure better conditions for the development and use of this innovative technology. AI can create many benefits, such as better healthcare; safer and cleaner transport; more efficient manufacturing; and cheaper and more sustainable energy.. In April 2021, the European Commission proposed the first EU ...