© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���6 | doi �0.��63/�87 ��636- � �34�3�5 journal of the philosophy of history (�0 �6) �–7 brill.com/jph Introduction to the Forum Philosophy of History in Germany D. Timothy Goering Ruhr-University of Bochum timothygoering@gmail.com Most historians today associate analytic philosophy with logical positivism. It is true that in its development analytic philosophy profited from the strand of logical positivism that came out of the Vienna Circle at the time, with its no-nonsense doctrine of verificationism and its intense loathing of everything metaphysical. But to hold the belief that what most analytic philosophers work on today is still linked to the project of the Vienna Circle of the 1920s is a profound misconception that verges on remarkable ignorance. If one were to survey the vast work produced under the banner of analytic philosophy, one would be struck by the wide range of aims, approaches and methods that far outstrips the common concerns of the Vienna Circle. In addition to the prevalent philosophical disciplines such as philosophy of language, logic, or epistemology, there have been analytic philosophers at work in such diverse disciplines such as analytic Marxism,1 analytic theism,2 or analytic aesthetics.3 For over half a century already, logical positivism has given way to approaches to analytic philosophy that severely undermine the project of the Vienna 1  See e.g. G. A. Cohen, Karl Marx’s Theory of History: A Defence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978); Roemer, A General Theory of Exploitation and Class; Roemer, Analytical Marxism. 2  See e.g. Swinburne, The Coherence of Theism; Swinburne, The Existence of God; Swinburne, Faith and Reason; Alvin Plantinga, God and Other Minds: A Study of the Rational Justification of Belief in God (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Univ. Press, 1990). 3  See e.g. William Elton (ed.), Aesthetics and Language (Oxford: Blackwell, 1954); Monroe Beardsley, Aesthetics: Problems in the Philosophy of Criticism (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1958); Arthur Danto, “The Artworld,” Journal of Philosophy 61, no. 19 (1964), 571–584.