Analytic and Continental Philosophy

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Burning ghost
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Analytic and Continental Philosophy

Post by Burning ghost »

I am curious what people think about the divide in philosophy.

I see "Continental philosophy" as shifting somewhat toward "mysticism" and teetering dangerously close to falling prey to it. That said I do find that Continental philosophers have at least been bold enough to reveal the subjective nature of objectivity. The subjective singular view in light of a broader system of objective thought.

For a brief reference you may find this worth listening to:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nN0V8INJNm0
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Spectrum
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Re: Analytic and Continental Philosophy

Post by Spectrum »

I see "Continental philosophy" as shifting somewhat toward "mysticism" and teetering dangerously close to falling prey to it.
Nah...
wiki wrote:The term "continental philosophy", like "analytic philosophy", lacks clear definition and may mark merely a family resemblance across disparate philosophical views. Simon Glendinning has suggested that the term was originally more pejorative than descriptive, functioning as a label for types of western philosophy rejected or disliked by analytic philosophers.
Note "Analytic Philosophy" do not imply an emphasis on analysis and being highly analytical but rather, note,
wiki wrote:As a historical development, analytical philosophy refers to certain developments in early 20th-century philosophy that were the historical antecedents of the current practice. Central figures in this historical development are Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, G. E. Moore, Gottlob Frege, and the logical positivists. In this more specific sense, analytic philosophy is identified with specific philosophical traits (many of which are rejected by many contemporary analytic philosophers), such as:

The logical-positivist principle that there are not any specifically philosophical facts and that the object of philosophy is the logical clarification of thoughts. This may be contrasted with the traditional foundationalism, which considers philosophy to be a special science (i.e., the discipline of knowledge) that investigates the fundamental reasons and principles of everything.[7]

Consequently, many analytic philosophers have considered their inquiries as continuous with, or subordinate to, those of the natural sciences. This is an attitude that begins with John Locke, who described his work as that of an "underlabourer" to the achievements of natural scientists such as Newton. During the twentieth century, the most influential advocate of the continuity of philosophy with science was Willard Van Orman Quine.

.......
....
Btw, the later Wittgenstein veered toward more of the 'continental' than 'analytic'.

I do not prefer the 'analytic' versus 'continental.' The analytic philosophy as idolized by the logical positivists is not defunct and dead.

The better deliberation would the be Philosophical Realism versus Philosophical anti-Realism where the latter is mostly adopted by the supposedly continental philosophers.
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Prothero
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Re: Analytic and Continental Philosophy

Post by Prothero »

I find analytic philosophy to be rather dry and boring, logic, empirical verification, logical positivism, scientism and all that.

I find continental philosophy to be more interesting and humanistic, experience, values, consciousness, relationships, etc.

We really need both don't we?
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Re: Analytic and Continental Philosophy

Post by Spectrum »

Prothero wrote:I find analytic philosophy to be rather dry and boring, logic, empirical verification, logical positivism, scientism and all that.

I find continental philosophy to be more interesting and humanistic, experience, values, consciousness, relationships, etc.

We really need both don't we?
We need to be VERY analytical in doing philosophy but we don't need Analytic Philosophy.
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Sy Borg
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Re: Analytic and Continental Philosophy

Post by Sy Borg »

Thanks BG, that was informative.

In the 19th century Natural Philosophy encompassed both science and analytic philosophy. Esoteric philosophy continued, of course, to be carried out by the religious but also by secular existentialists. To some extent, with plenty of crossover, one concerns itself with "what happens out there" while the other focuses more on "in here".

I can't take sides - I am interested in both naturalism and existentialism, in solid science, the metaphors (repeating fractals) of life and the general attempt to find out what the hell is actually going on, how much it means and, if it means anything, how much we mean to whatever larger dynamics may be occurring. To that end, all interrogatory tools are welcome to me.
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Re: Analytic and Continental Philosophy

Post by Woodart »

I think in the video they generally conclude that there is a synthesis happening in philosophy. How can we discount one or the other? Of course each individual has an inclination to approach a problem in their own style - and hence we get a label. However, a critical thinker in today's world has to see both ways. The most ardent analytic thinker has to be humbled by the "mystic" and vice versa. Why would we want to eliminate either camp? Life gets richer the more everyone sings.
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TimTimothy
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Re: Analytic and Continental Philosophy

Post by TimTimothy »

Both camps are a mess so far as I can tell. Go read both their Wikipedia entries and the definitions of each camp of thought come off simply as nonsensical. This may be a function of Wikipedia, but I don't think so. I think they simply don't know who or what they are, but feel the need to define themselves.

For example, from Wikipedia:
"Although contemporary philosophers who self-identify as "analytic" have widely divergent interests, assumptions, and methods—and have often rejected the fundamental premises that defined analytic philosophy before 1960—analytic philosophy in its contemporary state is usually considered to be defined by a particular style,[4] characterized by precision and thoroughness about a specific topic, and resistance to "imprecise or cavalier discussions of broad topics".[23]"
and...
"It is difficult to identify non-trivial claims that would be common to all the preceding philosophical movements. The term "continental philosophy", like "analytic philosophy", lacks clear definition and may mark merely a family resemblance across disparate philosophical views. Simon Glendinning has suggested that the term was originally more pejorative than descriptive, functioning as a label for types of western philosophy rejected or disliked by analytic philosophers.[4] Nonetheless, Michael E. Rosen has ventured to identify common themes that typically characterize continental philosophy.[5]"
So, I generally agree with this...
I think in the video they generally conclude that there is a synthesis happening in philosophy. How can we discount one or the other? Of course each individual has an inclination to approach a problem in their own style - and hence we get a label. However, a critical thinker in today's world has to see both ways. The most ardent analytic thinker has to be humbled by the "mystic" and vice versa. Why would we want to eliminate either camp? Life gets richer the more everyone sings.
If the definitions of both camps are "Both A and Not A" then there's a problem. :-)
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Alan Jones
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Re: Analytic and Continental Philosophy

Post by Alan Jones »

The pragmatist tradition is an ignored option. It contains elements of the other traditions but is superior to both. For me, it's superior because looks to encompass recent findings of mind science and a naturalization of cognition. Pragmatists William James and John Dewey were also proponents of American naturalist psychology, a basis of today's embodied cognitive science (where perception and cognition are understood using agent-environment dynamics rather than in terms of computation and representation). Those interested in neurophilosophy might read Anthony Chemero's "Radical Embodied Cognitive Science".
"Beliefs are what divide people. Doubt unites them." - Peter Ustinov "Every great advance in natural knowledge has involved the absolute rejection of authority." - Thomas Huxley
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Consul
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Re: Analytic and Continental Philosophy

Post by Consul »

The below-quoted lists are oddly incomplete, because there is no mentioning of important "continental" thinkers such as Frege and Wittgenstein, Bernard Bolzano, Franz Brentano, Alexius Meinong, and Hans Albert (critical rationalism). Nor is there any mentioning of the Vienna Circle (Neurath, Schlick, Carnap, Hahn, Frank, Feigl) and the Berlin Circle (Reichenbach, Hempel, Grelling, Dubislav) of logical empiricism/positivism. Although Wittgenstein, Carnap, Feigl, Reichenbach, Hempel and other members of the Vienna/Berlin Circle later emigrated to the UK or the USA—more precisely: had to emigrate thanks to the bloody Nazis—, they were all originally continental guys.
"Continental philosophy is the name for a 200-year period in the history of philosophy that begins with the publication of Kant's critical philosophy in the 1780s. This led on to the following key movements:

1. German idealism and romanticism and its aftermath (Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Schlegel and Novalis, Schleiermacher, Schopenhauer)

2. The critique of metaphysics and the ‘masters of suspicion’ (Feuerbach, Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Bergson)

3. Germanophone phenomenology and existential philosophy (Husserl, Max Scheler, Karl Jaspers, Heidegger)

4. French phenomenology, Hegelianism, and anti-Hegelianism (Kojève, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Levinas, Bataille, de Beauvoir)

5. Hermeneutics (Dilthey, Gadamer, Ricoeur)

6. Western Marxism and the Frankfurt School (Lukacs, Benjamin, Horkheimer, Adorno, Marcuse, Habermas)

7. French structuralism (Lévi-Strauss, Lacan, Althusser), poststructuralism (Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze), postmodernism (Lyotard, Baudrillard), and feminism (Irigaray, Kristeva)"

(Critchley, Simon. Continental Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. p. 12)
"01. Kantianism. Major representative: Kant.

02. German Idealism. Major representatives: Fichte, Schelling, Hegel.

03. Hermeneutics. Major representatives: Schleiermacher, Dilthey, Heidegger, Gadamer,
Ricoeur.

04. Philosophy of life. Major representatives: Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Bergson.

05. Young Hegelians. Major representatives: Feuerbach and Marx, but also Bruno Bauer, Edgar Bauer, Moses Hess, Karl Schmidt, Arnold Ruge, Max Stirner.

06. Philosophy of existence. Major representatives: Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Buber, Jaspers, Marcel, Heidegger, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, de Beauvoir, Camus.

07. Phenomenology. Major representatives: Brentano, Husserl, Jaspers, Heidegger, Gadamer,
Sartre, Levinas, Arendt, de Beauvoir, Merleau-Ponty.

08. Marxist political philosophy. Major representatives: Marx, Lukács, Gramsci, and also Friedrich Engels, the Frankfurt School, later Sartre, Althusser.

09. Neo-Kantianism. Major representatives: Hermann Cohen, Heinrich Rickert, Ernst Cassirer, Nicolai Hartmann and also Paul Natorp.

10. Freudian psychoanalytic theory. Major representatives: Sigmund Freud, Jacques Lacan, but also a significant influence on the Frankfurt School and Critical Theory.

11. Structuralism. Major representatives: Saussure, Lacan, Lévi-Strauss, Barthes, Althusser.

12. Frankfurt School and Critical theory. Of those who are typically given the title of major representative in this grouping, some bear it fairly – Horkheimer, Adorno, Habermas – others
rather less fairly – Bloch, Benjamin, Marcuse.

13. Lacanian theory. Major representatives: Lacan, Irigaray, Zizek.

14. Poststructuralism. Major representatives: Deleuze, Foucault, Lyotard, Derrida, French feminism (see below), Badiou.

15. French feminism. Major representatives: Irigaray, Kofman, Kristeva, Le Doeuff."

(Glendinning, Simon. The Idea of Continental Philosophy: A Philosophical Chronicle. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2006. pp. 58-65)
"We may philosophize well or ill, but we must philosophize." – Wilfrid Sellars
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