Abstract

Efforts to understand the division between analytic and continental philosophy in strictly philosophical terms seem slated to disappointment. Nevertheless, the worldwide dominance of these two models and their numerous subvarieties is the most salient feature of the passage of philosophy through the twentieth century. This paper explores this dominance and offers an assessment of developments that point toward a change from the model of two models. Specific attention is paid to Jacques Derrida's work on philosophical nationalism, which suggests that this change reflects the growing extension of the English language across the world and, hence, belongs to a profoundly ambiguous development. According to Derrida, on the one hand, this development holds out the chance for something radically nonparochial: “the universal penetration of the philosophical and of philosophical communication,” while on the other hand, it raises the threat that certain forms of “dogmatism and authority” that are linked to particularities of nation and history will impose “an axiomatic of philosophical discourse without any possible discussion.”1 The future of continental philosophy is assessed in light of this ambiguous development