Philosophy is often divided into two traditions: analytic and continental philosophy. Characterizing the analytic-continental divide, however, is no easy task. Some philosophers explain the divide in terms of the place of argument in these traditions. This raises the following questions: Is analytic philosophy rife with arguments while continental philosophy is devoid of arguments? Or can different types of arguments be found in analytic and continental philosophy? This paper presents the results (...) of an empirical study of a large corpus of philosophical texts mined from the JSTOR database (n = 53,260) designed to find patterns of argumentation by type. Overall, the results suggest that there are no significant differences between the types of arguments advanced in analytic and continental philosophy journal articles. The findings, therefore, provide no empirical support to the hypothesis that the divide between analytic and continental philosophy has to do with the place of argument in these traditions. (shrink)

What today divides analytical from Continental philosophy? This paper argues that the present divide is not what it once was. Today, the divide concerns the styles in which philosophers deal with intellectual problems: solving them, pressing them, resolving them, or dissolving them. Using ‘the boundary problem’, or ‘the democratic paradox’, as an example, we argue for two theses. First, the difference between most analytical and most Continental philosophers today is that Continental philosophers find intelligible two (...) styles of dealing with problems that most analytical philosophers find unintelligible: pressing them and resolving them. Second, when it comes to a genuine divide in which not understanding the other side’s basic philosophical purposes combines with disagreement on fundamental questions of doctrine, the only such divide today is that between those analytical philosophers who tend to solve problems and those Continental philosophers who tend to press problems. It is among these subgroups that there is a real philosophical divide today. So the analytical–Continental divide is more a matter of style than of substance; but as we try to show, differences in style shape differences over substance. (shrink)

In the late 1980s, the American economist Jeremy Rifkin claimed that “a battle is brewing over the politics of time” because he felt that the pivotal issue of the twenty first century would be the question of time and who controlled it. I argue in this chapter that a battle over the politics of time (and the metaphysics of time) is also a major part of what is at stake in the differences between analytic and continental philosophy. Very (...) different philosophies of time, and associated methodological techniques, serve to define representatives of each of these groups and also to guard against their potential interlocutors. To begin to illustrate this, I offer a patchy history of philosophy of time in the early twentieth century, the period in which the idea of a ‘divide’ between two ways of doing philosophy began to be entrenched. (shrink)

The history of the writing of philosophy could be seen as divided between two tendencies. One tendency involves a constant reconfiguration of the literary and stylistic elements involved in the way philosophy is written. Examples include most texts in the philosophical canon, from Plato's dialogues, or Aristotle's lecture notes, to Marcus Aurelius's diary, Augustine's confessions, the pseudepigrapha of the Areopagite, Anselm's prayer, Montaigne's essays, Descartes's meditations, Kierkegaard's play with pseudonymy, or Wittgenstein's "remarks."1 In such texts, we find a self-reflective attitude (...) toward the writing of philosophy, where the medium and the message become intriguingly interconnected. On the other hand, a... (shrink)

On the political nature of the analytic - continental distinction in professional philosophy and the general tendency to discredit continental philosophy while redesignating the rubric as analytically conceived.

Contemporary philosophy is often divided into two approaches or orientations: analytic philosophy and continental philosophy. The relation between these two philosophical approaches is often presented as oppositional and exclusionary. This chapter illuminates the distinction between analytic and continental philosophy and to clarify the position of hermeneutics within the field of philosophy. It argues that rather than being philosophical or empirical in nature, the analytic–continental distinction operates rhetorically and serves regulative functions. The origin of the (...) division between analytic and continental philosophy is usually traced back to the difference between the new philosophies that Husserl and Frege developed in parallel at the turn of the twentieth century. In the phenomenological‐hermeneutical tradition, we can find some dismissive comments about logical positivism and logical empiricism. This chapter indicates that the roots of the opposition between analytic philosophy and continental philosophy are in the cultural‐political antagonism of postwar Europe. (shrink)

In this volume edited by Tiziana Andina and the contributors addresses some of the most compelling philosophical questions today, offering an exhaustive companion to Western philosophy through the past fifty years that bridges the Analytical Continental divide.

This forward-thinking collection presents new work that looks beyond the division between the analytic and continental philosophical traditions—one that has long caused dissension, mutual distrust, and institutional barriers to the development of common concerns and problems. Rather than rehearsing the causes of the divide, contributors draw upon the problems, methods, and results of both traditions to show what post-divide philosophical work looks like in practice. Ranging from metaphysics and philosophy of mind to political philosophy and ethics, (...) the papers gathered here bring into mutual dialogue a wide range of recent and contemporary thinkers, and confront leading problems common to both traditions, including methodology, ontology, meaning, truth, values, and personhood. Collectively, these essays show that it is already possible to foresee a future for philosophical thought and practice no longer determined neither as "analytic" nor as "continental," but, instead, as a pluralistic synthesis of what is best in both traditions. The new work assembled here shows how the problems, projects, and ambitions of twentieth-century philosophy are already being taken up and productively transformed to produce new insights, questions, and methods for philosophy today. (shrink)

This forward-thinking collection presents new work that looks beyond the division between the analytic and continental philosophical traditions—one that has long caused dissension, mutual distrust, and institutional barriers to the development of common concerns and problems. Rather than rehearsing the causes of the divide, contributors draw upon the problems, methods, and results of both traditions to show what post-divide philosophical work looks like in practice. Ranging from metaphysics and philosophy of mind to political philosophy and ethics, (...) the papers gathered here bring into mutual dialogue a wide range of recent and contemporary thinkers, and confront leading problems common to both traditions, including methodology, ontology, meaning, truth, values, and personhood. Collectively, these essays show that it is already possible to foresee a future for philosophical thought and practice no longer determined neither as "analytic" nor as "continental," but, instead, as a pluralistic synthesis of what is best in both traditions. The new work assembled here shows how the problems, projects, and ambitions of twentieth-century philosophy are already being taken up and productively transformed to produce new insights, questions, and methods for philosophy today. (shrink)

Though logical positivism is part of Kant's complex legacy, positivists rejected both Kant's theory of intuition and his classification of mathematical knowledge as synthetic a priori. This paper considers some lingering defenses of intuition in mathematics during the early part of the twentieth century, as logical positivism was born. In particular, it focuses on the difficult and changing views of Hermann Weyl about the proper role of intuition in mathematics. I argue that it was not intuition in general, but his (...) commitment to twodifferent types of intuition, which explains his rather unusual and tormented philosophy of the mathematical continuum. I would like to thank Geoff Gorham, David McCarty, and Rosamond Rodman for reading an earlier draft of this work. I should also thank those who provided helpful comments on several distant ancestors of this paper: Emily Carson, Ulrich Majer, Erhard Scholz, John Schuerman, Stewart Shapiro, and Richard Tieszen. I am indebted to two anonymous referees for pointing out some problems and for pointing me to work on Weyl I did not previously know about. In particular, the recent articles in [Feist, 2004a] turned out to be (somewhat uncomfortably) relevant to the focus of this paper. In this last revision I have tried to show where I agree and disagree with the authors of those papers; I apologize for whatever repetition still exists, but it was tere before I read those papers. This paper has a long history, and comes out of several talks I gave some years ago. Audiences at the Center for Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh (colloquium 1995), St Andrews University Philosophy of Mathematics Workshop (1996), the British Society for the History of Mathematics meeting (1996), the University of Mainz Mathematics Department (colloquium 1996), the Canadian Philosophical Association (1997 and 1999), and the University of British Columbia (colloquium 1998) should be thanked for their helpful comments. I also thank Neil Tennant for encouraging me to resurrect this work. CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

Abstract – In this paper I reconstruct the nature, origins and survivals of the divide between ‘analytic’ and ‘continental’ tradition—the famous dualism which affected the development of philosophy in the second half of the XX century. I also present a theory of it, stressing that its intra-philosophical causes are to be found in the mutual resistance between critical (transcendental) and semantic (logical) approaches in philosophy. I conclude by noting that good philosophers (more or less knowingly) are and (...) have always been sensitive to the transcendental and logical aspects of the philosophical work. (shrink)

My discussion addresses the differences between analytic and continental philosophy concerning the use of logic and exact reasoning in philosophical practice. These differences are mainly examined in the light of the controversial dominance of Hegel's concept of logic (and theory of concept) in twentieth-century continental philosophy. The inquiry is developed in two parts. In the first (Sections 1-2), I indicate some aspects of the analytic-continental divide, pointing to the role that the topic 'logic and (...) philosophy' plays in it. In the second part (Sections 3-6), I give a short account of the views of logic which are typical of the three main trends of continental philosophy (see Table 1). I also suggest how, with the aid of some typical analytical devices, some continental 'anti-logical' attitudes may be corrected, on their own terms. (shrink)

This essay compares the state of Anglophone and Continental philosophy at the time Mill wrote and the so‐called Analytic/Continental divide as it exists now. How did Mill regard the divide as it was then, and how would he fit it now? Mill's Schillerian idea of self‐realisation, together with the criticism of society and culture that he based on it, effectively put him in what he called the “German‐Coleridgean” camp; but he rejected the metaphysics of German (...) idealism. I suggest that a similar critical stance towards contemporary society, based on a similar philosophical standpoint, would still have distinctive force. (shrink)

My discussion addresses the differences between analytic and continental philosophy concerning the use of logic and exact reasoning in philosophical practice. These differences are mainly examined in the light of the controversial dominance of Hegel's concept of logic in twentieth-century continental philosophy. The inquiry is developed in two parts. In the first, I indicate some aspects of the analytic -continental divide, pointing to the role that the topic 'logic and philosophy' plays in it. In (...) the second part, I give a short account of the views of logic which are typical of the three main trends of continental philosophy. I also suggest how, with the aid of some typical analytical devices, some continental 'anti-logical' attitudes may be corrected, on their own terms. (shrink)

In this chapter, I discuss some lesser-known aspects of Husserl’s concept of the phenomenological reduction in relation to his use of the notion of reflection, and indicate how these topics connect to concerns in contemporary philosophy after the analytic-continental divide. Empathy, collective intentionality, non-representationalism, non-cognitivism, and the focus on the lived body as a source of sense-making and knowing-how are all domains in which Husserl’s conception of the reduction anticipates recent philosophical trends after the analytic-continental (...) divide. They are also interconnected parts of a unified conception of philosophy that arises from the phenomenological reduction when we reflect radically on experience in its full breadth as an embodied phenomenon that is both historical and communal. (shrink)

Questions of style are often deemed of marginal importance in philosophy, as well as in metaphilosophical debates concerning the analytic/Continental divide. I take issue with this common tendency by showing how style – suitably conceived not merely as a way of writing, but as a form of expression intimately linked to a form of life – occupies a central role in philosophy. After providing an analysis of the concept of style, I take a fresh look at the (...) analytic/Continental division by examining the various stylistic differences between philosophers on each side. Despite these differences, I argue, both sides of the divide suffer from a common stylistic deficiency, and if this deficiency were rectified the gulf separating the two traditions may not appear as insurmountable as it presently does. To show this, I draw principally from the philosophy of religion, a field that has recently experienced a renewal in both the analytic and Continental traditions. (shrink)

Several debates of the last years within the research field of contemporary realism – known under titles such as "New Realism," "Continental Realism," or "Speculative Materialism" – have shown that science is not systematically the ultimate measure of truth and reality. This does not mean that we should abandon the notions of truth or objectivity all together, as has been posited repeatedly within certain currents of twentieth century philosophy. However, within the research field of contemporary realism, the concept of (...) objectivity itself has not been adequately refined. What is objective is supposed to be true outside a subject’s biases, interpretations and opinions, having truth conditions that are met by the way the world is. The volume combines articles of internationally outstanding authors who have published on either Idealism, Epistemic Relativism, or Realism and often locate themselves within one of these divergent schools of thought. As such, the volume focuses on these traditions with the aim of clarifying what the concept objectivity nowadays stands for within contemporary ontology and epistemology beyond the analytic-continental divide. With articles from: Jocelyn Benoist, Ray Brassier, G. Anthony Bruno, Dominik Finkelde, Markus Gabriel, Deborah Goldgaber, Iain Hamilton Grant, Graham Harman, Johannes Hübner, Andrea Kern, Anton F. Koch, Martin Kusch, Paul M. Livingston, Paul Redding, Sebastian Rödl, Dieter Sturma. (shrink)

In spite of the widespread belief that there is (or at least there was) a clearcut and deep opposition between two forms of philosophizing vaguely characterized as 'continental' and 'analytic', it is not easy to find actual examples of debates between philosophers that clearly belong to the opposed camps. Perhaps the reason is that, on the assumption that the alleged 'divide' is so deep, each side feels that there is no point in arguing against the other, for (...) argumentation would quickly be replaced by invective. In this paper I analyse one of the few recent examples of an across-divide debate -the Searle -Derrida polemic. Using a threefold typology of debates, I try to show that, in spite of the violent and sarcastic tone employed by both contenders, there is enough common ground, questioning of not-argued-for assumptions, and serious argumentation (on both sides) to consider this debate more than just an irrational dispute. (shrink)

The history of what the title of Baghramian and Marchetti’s book refers to as the ‘Great Divide’ between Analytic and Continental philosophy has been the subject of much debate and controversy in r...

The author examines the history of pragmatism and maintains that a thematic continuity runs through the classical pragmatists, neopragmatitsts and contemporary pragmatists. This continuity can be vaguely characterized as an integration of theory and practice, but experience gives theory its content such that action is always guiding the formation of knowledge. There are four implications of this continuity. Pragmatists are centrally concerned with the human relationship to a process-oriented and evolving conception of nature. For pragmatists, our beliefs are regarded not (...) as propositions that map onto a separate and fixed reality, but instead their truth emerges out of the habits beliefs generate. Pragmatism emphasizes an openness to possibility since our access to the world of experience is mediated by a variety of selective interests, intellectual histories, varying linguistic and discursive practices. Pragmatists are deeply concerned with the social and political problems that confront us on a daily basis. The author also examines the manner in which James understands the term “metaphysics” given that pragmatism is a method for settling “metaphysical disputes.” Jamesian existential pluralism implies to maximize all possibilities that can satisfy everyone as much as possible without impeding and harming another's capacity to experience a rich and novel world. The author analyzes Todd May’s approach to the analytic-continental divide and concludes that if settlement embraces James’s thick conception of experience, then the resulting ontological pluralism is the best settlement possible, and this commitment to pluralism requires dissolving the exclusionary practices the analytic-continental divide suggests philosophically. (shrink)

In a recent Metaphilosophy article, Moti Mizrahi and Michael Dickinson argue against characterizing the divide between analytical and continental philosophy as a divide in the use of arguments. This hypothesis is rejected on the basis of a text‐mining approach. The present paper argues that the results they extracted do not answer the questions they set out to answer as well as would have been possible. This is due to Mizrahi and Dickinson's choice to disregard duplicate occurrences of (...) argument word pairs, their main indicator for the occurrence of arguments in articles. This paper reconstructs their method by now also counting duplicates. A small corpus (n = 436) of recent (2015–2021) analytical and continental articles is used to rerun the experiment; the results oppose Mizrahi and Dickinson's and suggest that arguments (as operationalized by Mizrahi and Dickinson) occur more in analytical articles. The paper argues that part of the discrepancy derives from the specific methodological choices they made. (shrink)

Philosophy in the 20th century witnessed a schism between so called ‘analytic’ and ‘continental’ schools of philosophy. One of the aims of the IJPS from its inception was to provide a space for articles attempting to overcome, or at least foreshorten, that divide. This paper critically examines the various understandings of the divide and takes a quick glance at some of the attempts to bridge it.

In the context of discussing the purported divide between ‘analytic’ and ‘continental’ political philosophy, Chin and Thomassen diagnose a tendency to unreflectively take the divide’s existe...

This article makes four claims. First, that the analytic/Continental split in political theory stems from an unarticulated disagreement about human nature, with analytics believing we have an innate set of mostly compatible moral and political inclinations, and Continentals seeing such things as alterable products of historical contingency. Second, that we would do better to talk of Continental-political-theory versus Rawlsian-political-philosophy, given that the former avoids arguments over principles, whilst the latter leaves genuine analytic philosophy behind. Third, that (...) Continentals suffer from a lack of such arguments, even by their own lights, whilst Rawlsians suffer from inconsistencies within the thought-patterns on which their principles depend. Fourth, that there is an alternative method – ‘normative behaviourism’ – that at least tries to move beyond the problems of both approaches, whilst sharing an idea of ‘praxis’ with the first, and an idea of deriving-principles-from-existing-judgements with the second. (shrink)

This collection maintains a dialogue between the analytic and continental traditions, while aspiring to situate itself beyond the analytic-continental divide. It divides into four parts, Methodologies, Truth and Meaning, Metaphysics and Ontology, and Values, Personhood and Agency, though there is considerable overlap among the categories. History and temporality are recurrent themes, but there is a lot of metaphysics generally, with some philosophy of language, philosophy of social science, ethics, political philosophy and epistemology. Less prominent is (...) a pragmatic, deflationary attitude, and at a number of points I argue for the virtues of such an approach. (shrink)

In philosophy and political theory, divisions come and go, but some persist despite being obviously problematic. The analytic and Continental divide is one such division. In political philosophy and political theory, the division has been particularly pronounced. Analytic and Continental thinkers are divided not only over substantial issues but also over the very nature of political theorising. In spite of this fundamental nature, theorists often seem to assume that, as a division, the analytic/Continental (...) divide requires no explanation. We suggest that, as a central division within political theory, and despite being acknowledged as problematic for quite some time, it has persisted because it has not been adequately examined. Once examined, the division turns out to be operationally weaker than it once was. In recent years, there has been a growing interest in engaging thinkers from the other side. This has been accompanied by a corresponding tendency, among both analytic and Continental philosophers and political thinkers, to reflect on the nature of their own tradition and ‘philosophy’. Both traditions have entered a self-conscious period of meta-reflection. Such questioning indicates the possibility of transformation within both groups, in the absence of settled frameworks and divisions. However, it is also clear that such signs are the beginning of the possibility of a new relation rather than a sign of the eclipse of the division. The continued institutional separation and the space between their respective philosophical vocabularies suggest that, while the time is ripe for work here, there is still much to be done. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Continental Divide: Heidegger, Cassirer, DavosSebastian LuftPeter E. Gordon. Continental Divide: Heidegger, Cassirer, Davos. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010. Pp. 448. Cloth, $39.95.Much ink has been spilled on the dispute between Ernst Cassirer and Martin Heidegger that took place in the Swiss resort town Davos in 1929—famous since Thomas Mann staged his Magic Mountain there—and which has since been referred to as the “Davos (...) Dispute.” While the debate itself and accounts accompanying it have been widely known to historians [End Page 508] of philosophy, Harvard historian Peter E. Gordon shows in this marvelous new book how memory has shaped the event into something much larger than anyone could have foreseen. It is, Gordon claims, the silent work of memory that has made this debate, rather innocuous at the time, into what can be retrospectively be considered the truly earth-shattering philosophical event of the twentieth century.In hindsight, the symbolism of the debate between a German who became a leading Nazi philosopher in 1933 and a Jew who, in the same year, was dismissed from his professorship and forced to flee Germany, could not be greater. It only grows if one connects the historic events with their respective philosophies: on the one side the liberal modern Cassirer, whose philosophy allegedly glorified the Weimar stalemate, and on the other side the radical Heidegger, whose call for “authentic existence” took on a bone-chilling reality as he embraced Hitler in 1933 as the führer to lead Germany back to its authentic roots.Two volumes—the 1999 collection, 70 Jahre Davoser Disputation, edited by E. Rudolph and D. Kaegi, and, in 2000, A Parting of the Ways by Michael Friedman—were the first to delve into the debate’s symbolic meaning. It was Friedman’s thesis that the fateful “parting of the ways” between Continental and Analytic philosophy could be traced to this meeting, which was also attended by Rudolf Carnap. Despite these studies, there has until now not been a comprehensive treatment that pulls together all threads into one narrative, covering the entire intellectual, historical, cultural, and philosophical landscape of the time. Gordon’s book achieves just that and will be, for years to come, the landmark work on this encounter.The book begins from the background in post-World War I philosophy in Germany, which was perceived, along with culture, as being in crisis (ch. 1), to “set the stage” on the “Magic Mountain” (ch. 2). It proceeds to summarize the individual lectures by Cassirer and Heidegger, giving a detailed interpretation of the protocol prepared by students of the interlocutors (chs. 3–4). The author then takes a deep breath in chapter 5 to place the debate in the larger context of Cassirer’s and Heidegger’s philosophies. But the story does not end there, as chapter 6 examines the relation between both thinkers after the debate. Finally, in chapter 7, Gordon assesses the newer debates concerning this dispute up to the debate between Bourdieu and Habermas concerning Heidegger’s Nazi involvement, though it does not re-engage with Friedman’s thesis, as might have been desired.Regarding his interpretation, Gordon juxtaposes Cassirer’s and Heidegger’s philosophies along the Kantian distinction between spontaneity and receptivity, where both paradigms make different claims on the “normative image of humanity” (5 ff.). Whether humanity is interpreted as spontaneous and world-creating, in optimistic Enlightenment terms (Cassirer), or as receptive and open to the world, i.e. as the “shepherd” rather than the “lord of being” (Heidegger), both are answering the fourth of Kant’s questions, “What is man?” While this distinction is useful for understanding the basic relation between them, it is also—as the author would concede—somewhat too coarse to do justice to their mutual differences and commonalities. Were one to assert a systematic critique, Gordon does not really make up his mind as to the true significance of these paradigms: are they mutually exclusive oppositions or, as he implies elsewhere, two alternative versions of philosophical modernism with a common ground? There is evidence for both readings. This question, however, is for the philosopher to answer—the philosopher who wants to push... (shrink)

"Arguing that debates over legitimacy, political violence, freedom, and justice would benefit greatly from cross-tradition theorizing, this book shows how putting analytic and continental political theory in conversation would help us to overcome these intractable problems"--.

Language was at the heart of philosophical inquiry for Plato and Aristotle, and in contemporary discussion it is no less central. In addition to the history of philosophy’s extensive investigations of language, analytic and continental philosophy too have focused intensively on the matter. But since most inquiries into language remain enclosed in their own methodology, terminology, and tradition, the multiplicity of approaches is often accompanied by their mutual isolation. This book shows, however, that these traditions can speak meaningfully (...) to each other on language: rather than preventing dialogue, their differences provide opportunities for fruitful inquiry. -/- The essays in this volume each treat a central topic in the contemporary study of language. Part One addresses how expression determines thought according to Humboldt, the use of paraphrase in Quine’s semantic ascent, and the non-ambiguity of the Frege-Russell senses of ‘is.’ Part Two includes treatments of the possibility and impossibility of promising in Nietzsche, and Derrida’s re-working of Saussure’s distinction between language and world. Topics in Part Three include the origin and end of language for Heidegger and Foucault, and the mutual sharpening of logic and ordinary speech in Anselm. -/- This book fills a gap in current scholarship by bringing together nine essays that, through rejecting the debilitating yet often unquestioned divisions between disciplines, are able to illuminate the fundamental nature of language. -/- Contributors: Jaakko Hintikka, Jo-Jo Koo, Geoffrey Bennington, Sarah Hansen, JohnChristopher Adorno Keller, Vernon Cisney, Alina Beary, Jeffrey Golub, Eileen Sweeney -/- In each part of this thought-provoking volume on the nature of language, there are essays that demonstrate the immense intellectual potential of writing that refuses to see any decisive distinction between the present of philosophy and its history, or between the ways in which Kant’s work has been inherited in Anglo-American and Franco-German traditions. —Stephen Mulhall, New College, Oxford University -/- With its robust range of complementary topics, each subjected to penetrating examination, this collection of essays makes a welcome contribution to the philosophy of language, past and present. —Daniel Dahlstrom, Boston University -/- The contributions to this impressive volume ignore traditional divides between “analytic” and “continental,” historical and systematic philosophy. This enables the authors to put a number of key issues in the philosophy of language into a striking new light…. Fully accessible to the advanced undergraduate in philosophy, the book also contains many provocative ideas for the specialist. —Martin Kusch, University of Cambridge -/- TABLE OF CONTENTS | INTRODUCTION -/- On Speech and Language, Mark Sentesy, Boston College -/- Structure and Overview of This Volume, Jon Burmeister, Boston College -/- PART ONE: HOW DO WE THINK WHAT WE ARE SAYING? -/- The Expressivist Conception of Language and World: Humboldt and the Charge of Linguistic Idealism and Relativism, Jo-Jo Koo, University of Pittsburgh -/- What Can We Learn About Language From Thinking About Philosophy? JohnChristopher Adorno Keller, University of Notre Dame -/- It All Depends On What ‘Is’ Is: A Brief History (And Theory) Of Being, Jaakko Hintikka, Boston University -/- PART TWO: HOW DOES LANGUAGE WORK IN THE WORLD? -/- The Ironic Stance and the Limitations of Philosophy, Jeffrey A. Golub, New School for Social Research -/- Nietzsche’s Scandalous Body and the Promise of Metaphor, Sarah Hansen, Vanderbilt University -/- The Limits of My Language, Geoffrey Bennington, Emory University -/- PART THREE: CAN WE SPEAK ABOUT EVERYTHING? -/- Gathering and Contestation: The Place of Silence in Heidegger and Foucault, Vernon Cisney, Purdue University -/- Religious Language in Jacques Derrida, Alina Beary, Criswell College -/- The Asymmetry Between Language and Being: The Case of Anselm, Eileen Sweeney, Boston College . (shrink)

In this article I argue that new light can be shed on the analytic/Continental divide by looking at the controversy on the nature of philosophy in late 19th-century/early-20th-century Germany. The controversy is between those thinkers who understand philosophy primarily as a worldview [Weltanschauung] and those who insist that it should be understood as a science [Wissenschaft]. The positions of the two main representatives of the two camps, Wilhelm Dilthey and Heinrich Rickert, are presented and assessed. Their mutual (...) disagreement on what philosophy ought to be reflects in a striking way some of the major tensions existing between the analytic and the Continental camps today. At the end of the article I formulate a historical hypothesis about how the Wissenschaft/Weltanschauung controversy petrified into the analytic/Continental divide. (shrink)

For more than seven decades there has been a broad gap between how philosophy is conceived and practiced. Two ill-defined but well-recognized traditions have developed—the "analytic" and "Continental" schools of philosophy. The former traces its roots to philosophers like Frege, Russell, Moore, Wittgenstein, and the logical positivists. The latter has been heavily influenced by Nietzsche, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Foucault, and Derrida, among others. The aim of this collection is to reconsider the often facile characterization of major thinkers as belonging (...) to either one or the other philosophical tradition. The contributors—philosophers from both sides of the divide working in different countries and contexts—all question the problematic conception that the two traditions are incommensurable. Each of their articles compares individual philosophers who have had a major influence on the analytic and Continental traditions with a view to clarifying their similarities and dissimilarities of approach. What this collection of thoughtful articles clearly demonstrates is that regardless of approach and precedents, analytic and Continental philosophers are all doing philosophy, and there are many important points of contact between them. The contributors are: Richard Rorty, whose thoughtful overview highlights the salient points in both traditions; Barry Allen ; Babette E. Babich ; David Cerbone ; Sharyn Clough ; Jonathan Kaplan ; Richard Matthews ; Carlos G. Prado ; Bjorn Torgrim Ramberg ; Mike Sandbothe ; Barry Stocker ; and Ed Witherspoon. (shrink)

In his recent article, titled ‘Royaumont Revisited’, Overgaard challenges Dummett's view that one needs to go as far back as the late nineteenth century in order to discover examples of genuine dialogue between ‘analytic’ and ‘continental’ philosophy. Instead, Overgaard argues that in the 1958 Royaumont colloquium, generally judged as a failed attempt at communication between the two camps, one can find some elements which may be utilized towards re-establishing a dialogue between these two sides. Yet, emphasising this image (...) of Royaumont as a kind of battleground between ‘analytic’ and ‘continental’ philosophy obscures the plurality of philosophical approaches involved. Royaumont was the meeting point of more than two philosophical traditions, as can be shown by the divergent interests of its participants. Thus, though the potential for rapprochement between Oxford ‘linguistic philosophy’ and a certain strand of phenomenological thought may indeed be found among the discussions that took place during the colloquium, one should keep in mind that such rapprochement took place in the context of a meeting between, among others: continental ‘analytics’, Anglophone non-‘analytics’, French historians of philosophy, ‘analytic’ opponents of Oxford philosophy, Franciscan phenomenologists, and Oxonians who called their work ‘phenomenology’. (shrink)

Roholt’s discussion of the methodological divide between analytic and continental philosophy of music is undertaken with the hope of bringing about the divide’s dissolution. Roholt limits the scope of the discussion to methodological debates in the philosophy of music, without referring to the ongoing debate about the divide at large. This begs the question of how methodological differences in the philosophy of music correlate with differences between analytic and continental philosophy. Upon closer inspection, (...) there is nothing that is essentially analytic or continental about the opposed methodological preferences discussed by Roholt. This acknowledgement is in part what Roholt aimed at: it erects no strict communicative barrier between two methodologically opposed sides. There is however, as I point out, a further unresolved problem with Roholt’s talk of ‘tendencies’ (or the parallel metaphilosophical employment of family resemblances to understand the divide), which if unresolved may allow for a regression to stereotypical conceptions of the divide. (shrink)

Twentieth-century philosophy has often been pictured as divided into two camps, analytic and continental. This study challenges this depiction by examining encounters between some of the leading representatives of either side. Starting with Husserl and Frege's fin-de-siècle turn against psychologism, it turns to Carnap's 1931 attack on Heidegger's metaphysics (together with its background in the Cassirer-Heidegger dispute of 1929), moving on to Ayer's 1951 meeting with Bataille and Merleau-Ponty at a Parisian bar, followed by the 'dialogue of the (...) deaf' between Oxford linguistic philosophers and phenomenologists at the 1951 Royaumont colloquium, leading up to the Derrida-Searle controversy. Careful study shows that it is implausible to assume the existence of a century-old 'gulf' between two sides of philosophy. Vrahimis argues that miscommunication and ignorance over the exact content of the above encounters must to a large extent be held accountable for any perceived gap. (shrink)

In 1911, Bergson visited Britain for a number of lectures which led to his increasing popularity. Russell personally encountered Bergson during his lecture at University College London on the 28th of October, and on the 30th of October Bergson attended one of Russell’s lectures. Russell went on to write a number of critical articles on Bergson, contributing to the hundreds of publications on Bergson which ensued following these lectures. Russell’s critical writings have been seen as part of a history of (...) controversies between so-called ‘Continental’ and ‘Analytic’ philosophers in the twentieth century. Yet Russell’s engagement with Bergson’s thought comes as a response to a particular British form of Bergsonism and is involved with the wider phenomenon of the British import of Bergsonism (by figures connected in different ways to Russell, such as Hulme, Wildon Carr or Eliot). Though this may challenge the view of Russell and Bergson as enacting an early version of the ‘Analytic’-‘Continental’ divide, there are however some particular characterisations of Bergson by Russell which contribute to the subsequent formation of the ‘rotten scene’ (Glendinning 2006: 69) of the divide in the second half of the twentieth century. (shrink)

This is a broad survey of the chronology of the rift between continental and analytic philosophy, starting in 1899. Whereas at that time there was no discernible divide, as the twentieth century progresses we can see a gradual parting of the ways in which philosophy was done, culminating in a period of maximum separation in 1945-68, followed by some convergence. There is one substantial historical thesis proposed, and facts are adduced from the chronology to back it up: (...) that the divide was never absolute, never purely geographical, and above all that it was not inevitable, but was largely the product of accidental historical circumstances, of which the most crucial was the flourishing of totalitarianism in Europe and the disruption caused by two world wars. (shrink)

On offer here is a tradition-neutral way of understanding the distinction between analytic and continental philosophy of music. The distinction is drawn in terms of methodology, rather than content, by identifying contrasting methodological tendencies of each tradition—initial maneuvers that frame an investigation, which are related to one another insofar as they involve, or do not involve, two kinds of methodological detachment. These maneuvers are extracted through a consideration of contrasting pairs of examples. The pairs consist of an (...) class='Hi'>analytic and a continental account of a core issue in the philosophy of music. The issues considered are musical experience, musical ontology, and the relationship between music and the emotions. The philosophers considered are Roger Scruton and Pierre Bourdieu, Jerrold Levinson and Lydia Goehr, Peter Kivy, and Andrew Bowie. (shrink)

In the division between analytic and continental thought, pragmatism has often been cast as a middle way. Fundamentally critical of each, it also shares resonances with both of these traditions. However, while this observation is common, remarkably little has been done to examine its truth in contemporary political thought. Drawing on recent trends in political theory, including ‘New Realism’, critical genealogical methods and a surge in pragmatic approaches, this article identifies an emerging situated turn in political thought. Emerging (...) from several major traditions in contemporary political thinking, this trend has pragmatic themes at its centre. Having identified this as a fertile opportunity for inter-methodological work across the analytic/continental divide, it then turns to the late work of Richard Rorty in order to expose his productive framework for such cross-border exchanges. Arguing for its fundamentally democratic and pluralistic nature, this analysis also exposes this framework’s weaknesses before illustrating how recent methodological exchanges between genealogy and pragmatism rectify these deficiencies while providing a viable model for future work across traditional philosophical boundaries. (shrink)

This is a broad survey of the chronology of the rift between continental and analytic philosophy, starting in 1899. Whereas at that time there was no discernible divide, as the twentieth century progresses we can see a gradual parting of the ways in which philosophy was done, culminating in a period of maximum separation in 1945-68, followed by some convergence. There is one substantial historical thesis proposed, and facts are adduced from the chronology to back it up: (...) that the divide was never absolute, never purely geographical, and above all that it was not inevitable, but was largely the product of accidental historical circumstances, of which the most crucial was the flourishing of totalitarianism in Europe and the disruption caused by two world wars. (shrink)