Continental/Analytic Philosophy

[Ned]

I would have thought trying to do aesthetics without a solid background in continental philosophy would be difficult...

There is an analytic aesthetic tradition too you know. What's ridiculous is when the two traditions tackle the same question (e.g. 'Are an author's intentions relevant to the interpretation of a literary work?') at the same time but refuse to listen to each other.

For me the main distinction between the two is that analytic philosophy ultimately aims at truths about the universe whereas continental philosophy aims at truth about human beings and society - and naturally the latter invites a different style of reasoning from the former. Whether you prefer one or the other will depend on what you think the purpose of philosophy is.

 

[dHarry]

At the risk of committing a cardinal sin of pseudo-CP (name-dropping ), take Deleuze as a CP case in point: his pre-Guattari history of philosophy work has a concatenating effect where each work builds on the insights of the previous. This can be disorienting in itself when reading these head-spinning works in isolation, but by the time of Capitalism and Schizophrenia with Guattari he feels finally free enough of the burden of philosophical history to go a little crazy. If this is where most people come in to his work and don't have the same resources (20+ years worth of reading, teaching and writing on Hume, Kant, Leibniz, Hegel, Bergson, Nietzche...) to draw on, their appreciation of the issues will inevitably be more shallow.

On the other hand D&G did intend CaS to be a punk-style rupture with the past, so in a sense this may not matter - they stress doing/making over meaning/interpretation anyhow. So just as post-punk diverged between the avant-garde and reductive three-chord thrash, so D&G-influenced stuff varies between name-dropping pseudo-theory and serious philosophy, with many points in between.

D&G's thesis in What Is Philosophy? is that philosophy is the creation of concepts and a fundamental creative activity of human thought - the other two being science and art. To expect philosophy approach the condition of science, maths or logic is therefore simply misguided (and they have some fun mocking the limited range of logic's subject matter e.g. "some cows are brown" etc!).

A more general point is that like AP, CP tends to question the foundations of thought, knowledge, the self etc but unlike AP, not in the name of pre-supposed ideals like truth or humanism, but to also investigate what shapes and guides these pre-suppositions. And CP also tends to see the self-questioning and development of a concept or theory as a valid process, rather than submitting a thesis to a rigorous interrogation with a true/false judgement as the goal. Their point tends to be that thought is an adventure and a creative constructivism and must account for its internal inconsistencies and aporias, the non-thought in thought (just as music grapples with disharmony, noise, silence, and found sound as well as "pure" melody and form, or physics investigates the outer and inner limits of space-time, sub-atomic matter, anti-matter etc).

I'd be interested in hearing Louise's AP-motivated questions that she couldn't get answered adequately, to see if some folks around here might attempt to do so.

 

[Slothrop]

A more general point is that like AP, CP tends to question the foundations of thought, knowledge, the self etc but unlike AP, not in the name of pre-supposed ideals like truth or humanism, but to also investigate what shapes and guides these pre-suppositions. And CP also tends to see the self-questioning and development of a concept or theory as a valid process, rather than submitting a thesis to a rigorous interrogation with a true/false judgement as the goal. Their point tends to be that thought is an adventure and a creative constructivism and must account for its internal inconsistencies and aporias, the non-thought in thought

How does this square with the fact that CP tends to have concrete political / cultural implications?

 

[IdleRich]

"At the risk of committing a cardinal sin of pseudo-CP (name-dropping)"

I don't mind someone saying a name as an example if they are using it to expand an argument or explain something rather than to shut down a debate and make themselves look clever.
I guess that this is part of the issue really, everyone would have a problem with such pseudo-continental philosophy (apart from the pseuds themselves). The problem is that this is so prevalent that some people have begun to wonder if there is anything there other than pseudo-philosophy.

"I'd be interested in hearing Louise's AP-motivated questions that she couldn't get answered adequately, to see if some folks around here might attempt to do so."

I will have to ask her for that. I believe (but could be wrong) that they were questions to do with her dissertation so they may be quite specific to that and irrelevant here...or they may not.

"To expect philosophy approach the condition of science, maths or logic is therefore simply misguided"

Seems like that's the disagreement in a nutshell. Where you stand on that is going to be which one you go for in the end. The problem is that if you say logic doesn't matter at all then you are allowing people to say pretty much anything. And if everything is equally valid then it's equally meaningless isn't it? Or is that argument flawed because it depends on logic?
Someone earlier in the thread (Slothop?) said something about how if theories are applicable to reality (and it seems to be a big theme that CP is) then they ought to be testable, falsifiable etc I would have also thought that you would want them to follow some kind of logic.

 

[johneffay]

For me the main distinction between the two is that analytic philosophy ultimately aims at truths about the universe whereas continental philosophy aims at truth about human beings and society - and naturally the latter invites a different style of reasoning from the former. Whether you prefer one or the other will depend on what you think the purpose of philosophy is.

I think this is far too hasty. Not all AP aims at truths separate from human beings and society (e.g. certain branches of philosophy of language), and there are huge tracts of CP which are concerned with philosophical questions which are claimed to be much more fundamental than human beings and society (insert your favourite philosophy of nature here).

Consequently, I don't think this is why you find a different style of reasoning between the two; rather I believe that it is more about a fundamental difference in how the two camps approach the same material. The best way to see this is by reading AP and CP accounts of key philosophical texts (Plato and Kant are particularly good examples): the entire idea of what it is to read a text properly is different. If I can be allowed a far too hasty move of my own, I would suggest that AP strip-mines texts in order to extract and test the core of the argument, whereas CP lays as much value on the way in which the text is written and how the argument is itself constructed.

How does this square with the fact that CP tends to have concrete political / cultural implications?

Oddly, I seem to find myself in the role of defender of AP, but I feel it only fair to point out that you will not find a single analytic philosopher (and not many continental philosophers) who does not think that AP has profound concrete political/cultural implications.

 

[D7_bohs]

Oddly, I seem to find myself in the role of defender of AP, but I feel it only fair to point out that you will not find a single analytic philosopher (and not many continental philosophers) who does not think that AP has profound concrete political/cultural implications.

its a point Simon Critchley is fond of making - AP actually has a much sturdier tradition of leftist political engagement than CP, and I can't - off- hand - think of any AP philosophers for whom their commentators are continually called upon to apologise for in the manner of Heideggerians. The likes of Hilary Putnam - whose voice and manner are reputedly the model for Prof. Frink in the Simpsons - is as austerely analytic as they come but also a long standing Trotskyite activist; Carnap and all of the Vienna Circle, Russell and even, in his own way, Wittgenstein were all lefties; whereas, though it often assumed that CP is on the side of the angels, leaving aside Heidegger, it's notable how few of the big names were ever active politically (exceptions would be Foucault, Lyotard and Badiou)

 

[D84]

When I did my undergraduate BA degree the philosophy department at that university was actually split in two (probably the only one in the world so split) into this very demarcation.

According to the various stories I heard from more clued up students the split was purely ideological in the 60s or 70s. The Continental school was headed by an American lecturer who apparently moved to Sydney, Australia because of the (deserved) opprobium he garnered when dobbing in fellow academics as being communists was no longer regarded honourable.

He lectured my 1st year course in Continental Philosophy which was hardly edifying as he'd invariably end up hectoring the lecture hall, spitting and frothing etc. So I stuck with the other school for the another year (Spinoza and Epistemology - I wanted to know more about the "universe" by metyaphysics... very undergrad motives but fascinating enlightening courses nonetheless).

I did a web search on his name and it seems he's involved in some school of "management philosophy"...

So it probably makes sense if you want to cut down on student activism in one of the country's supposedly top unis you make sure the "French" stuff is taught by someone with that kind of a background.

Once I finally joined the "work-force" and discovered what my colleagues denoted as "The Horror" I remembered the scraps I picked up then and wish I had paid more attention. Having done "analytic" philosphy though hasn't hurt in getting to grips with it now albeit in what might perhaps be a half-arsed way.

 

[Ned]

its a point Simon Critchley is fond of making - AP actually has a much sturdier tradition of leftist political engagement than CP, and I can't - off- hand - think of any AP philosophers for whom their commentators are continually called upon to apologise for in the manner of Heideggerians. The likes of Hilary Putnam - whose voice and manner are reputedly the model for Prof. Frink in the Simpsons - is as austerely analytic as they come but also a long standing Trotskyite activist; Carnap and all of the Vienna Circle, Russell and even, in his own way, Wittgenstein were all lefties; whereas, though it often assumed that CP is on the side of the angels, leaving aside Heidegger, it's notable how few of the big names were ever active politically (exceptions would be Foucault, Lyotard and Badiou)

Yeah but there's a difference between being political engaged while also being a philosopher, and being politically engaged as a result of your philosophy. Surely the latter is much more common in CP than in AP. None of e.g. Frege's important work had anything to do with politics, even though in his private life he might have had strong political beliefs.

 

[Eric]

When I did my undergraduate BA degree the philosophy department at that university was actually split in two (probably the only one in the world so split) into this very demarcation.

Hahaha!! I like this. I assume you're joking about it being the only one in the world right ... ?

He lectured my 1st year course in Continental Philosophy which was hardly edifying as he'd invariably end up hectoring the lecture hall, spitting and frothing etc.

I have more sympathy for people like this than I used to. I spent the day today trying to explain to undergraduates how to define entailment in terms of sets of possible worlds ... (analytic analytic) To paraphrase Ol Dirty Bastard: 'Enough to make a lecturer go CRAAAAAAAZY!!!'

 

[Eric]

But somewhat more seriously I wonder if there isn't so much a *hostile* split as it just being a matter of each group being rather uninterested in the other's work. I know a lot of analytic philosophers and few of them have any respect for e.g. Bourdieu (who comes up as an exemplar; I haven't heard of most of the other people the *theoreticalists* here mention, perhaps because I'm not a philosopher myself). My feeling is that people are stuck reading the classics in CP in their graduate work not many analytic people bother to keep going afterward. (Much like the split between formal and 'informal' linguistics perhaps.) Do continental types bother to read analytic work either?

 

[johneffay]

But somewhat more seriously I wonder if there isn't so much a *hostile* split as it just being a matter of each group being rather uninterested in the other's work.

I'm not sure which paper they were taken form, but these letters give a fair indication of the level of hostility in evidence in quite large parts of UK academia.

Do continental types bother to read analytic work either?

Some do; most don't. However, even when they do, they tend to read AP in a different way to analytic philosophers. The same is true the other way round, of course.

 

[Eric]

OK fair enough. I hear lots of statements like this or like some of this. But it's not clear to me that it indicates a hostile split *among philosophers* just among people who think that 'engagement' with people like Derrida is causing the standard of work in their disciplines to go down the drain. These could be construed as fighting words, but its not clear to me that they really are; isn't it the case that we're talking in many cases about people who 'engage' at a superficial level as discussed earlier in the thread?

I can see how in many cases more shall we say empirically minded historians would have problems with people who were more interested in deconstruction. The same doesnt hold true for people in English departments though, it seems to me.

 

[glueboot]

To be honest, anyone who thinks that the situation isn't hostile is pretty ignorant of the current climate in UK philosophy. It's not only hostile but it's often malicious, I've seen phd positions threatened, jobs undermined, and attempts to get rid of entire programs purely because they don't fit in with the standard of what the hegemony think philosophy should be. And alot of it is incredibly underhand and devious. More and more continental philosophers are moving out of philosophy departments just because the climate is so poisonous. Which is a bit of a problem since the number of philosophy undergrads has increased so much and they're being taught incredibly dry philosophy which doesn't answer any of the questions with which they approached their degree.

johneffay, they're taken from the guardian I think. Also, have you really finished your blog? It's very sad.

 

[D7_bohs]

To be honest, anyone who thinks that the situation isn't hostile is pretty ignorant of the current climate in UK philosophy. It's not only hostile but it's often malicious, I've seen phd positions threatened, jobs undermined, and attempts to get rid of entire programs purely because they don't fit in with the standard of what the hegemony think philosophy should be. And alot of it is incredibly underhand and devious. More and more continental philosophers are moving out of philosophy departments just because the climate is so poisonous. Which is a bit of a problem since the number of philosophy undergrads has increased so much and they're being taught incredibly dry philosophy which doesn't answer any of the questions with which they approached their degree.

johneffay, they're taken from the guardian I think. Also, have you really finished your blog? It's very sad.

Yeah, I've heard stuff about certain depts. that backs this up.

Perhaps a model that would explain the difference between the two appraoches to the discipline would be something like this; old- time jazzers had great difficulty seeing anything in Rock n' Roll beyond cretinous repetition and ham- fisted 'blues' theft; those who grew up with rock in any or all its forms have difficulty seeing anything in jazz beyond affectless noodling.

Each works with very similar basic musical material, but differ decisively in terms of what is valued; Jazz goes for invention, harmonic sophistication and technical virtuosity and so on; what it doesn't value particularly are things like lyrical invention or frank emotional appeal; irony and distance are built into jazz. Rock on the other hand while not necessarily uninventive or unsophisticated can do its job with an immediacy and an apparent unsophistication that would appear as clumsy and naive from a jazz viewpoint.

Ap and CP similarly appear to work with the same basic raw material - the same set of philosophical FAQs; the good, the true and the beautiful - but, like competing artistic genres, internal schematic demands shape the treatment of these questions, such that the results can seem mutually incomprehensible and antagonistic.

I would hold that each, in the end, needs the other ; while the extremes - the Warwick 'consciousness gang' v. the D and G fan club - may have little to say to each other, at numerous places, already detailed in this thread - the approach to Hegel in Mc Dowell and Brandom, the Dreyfus Heidegger, and from the other side, Jay Bernstein reading of Adorno informed by 'Analytic' epistemology and ethics - profitable and necessary interaction can take place. Each, without the other, tends to a pole from outside the discipline; AP becomes a branch of cognitive science, or, as ethics, a minor managerial disciplne; CP moves towards - not very good - literature.

 

[D84]

Hahaha!! I like this. I assume you're joking about it being the only one in the world right ... ?

Hm, goes to show how much I know about this stuff... Maybe it was the only one in Australia?

My memory is a bit sketchy to be honest. But I'm pretty certain that there was a general vibe of mild embarrassment among most staff and students that university politics had split the school, which has since reunited, into this arbitrary demarcation.

Philosophers have been talking about social issues since Socrates if not earlier.

Do European universities split their philosophy departments?

Would it be true to guess that calling it "Continental" philosophy implies that this is an English if not British fad?

Interesting quotes, Glueboot. I guess the obsession with things French in these Anglo-American schools, when much other "continental" philosophy is German, as those letter writers point out, indicates - at least to my mind which hasn't been in a philosphy classroom for about a decade - to the fear of French-style student activism among university powers that be.

I am back at uni now finishing a different degree and it is amazing how much influence the corporate world has in uni life once you step outside the Arts faculty...

I have more sympathy for people like this than I used to. I spent the day today trying to explain to undergraduates how to define entailment in terms of sets of possible worlds ... (analytic analytic) To paraphrase Ol Dirty Bastard: 'Enough to make a lecturer go CRAAAAAAAZY!!!'

Yeah fair point: there were 18-19 year olds having conversations etc while he was trying to lecture. On the other hand, other lecturers managed to hold students' attentions without resorting to such extreme measures.

 

[Eric]

Hm, goes to show how much I know about this stuff... Maybe it was the only one in Australia?

My memory is a bit sketchy to be honest. But I'm pretty certain that there was a general vibe of mild embarrassment among most staff and students that university politics had split the school, which has since reunited, into this arbitrary demarcation.

Actually it seems to be me that doesn't know what's happening in the field, or at least in Australia. I thought you meant an informal split, not one actually implemented in administration. That is extreme for sure and I would suppose atypical in any country. (?)

Yeah fair point: there were 18-19 year olds having conversations etc while he was trying to lecture. On the other hand, other lecturers managed to hold students' attentions without resorting to such extreme measures.

I guess that would be the dividing line between good teaching and lunacy Hopefully I still fall on the side where one would like to be.

 

[johneffay]

I guess the obsession with things French in these Anglo-American schools, when much other "continental" philosophy is German, as those letter writers point out, indicates - at least to my mind which hasn't been in a philosphy classroom for about a decade - to the fear of French-style student activism among university powers that be.

That would be great if it was true; unfortunately the reality is rather more prosaic. The French obsession is fuelled by the fact that it was French thinkers who were reading the major German thinkers and producing interesting work on them. This is especially true in the case of Heidegger and Hegel, who Anglo-American philosophers would only mention in order to slag off.

Of course, the AP/CP split isn't all that old: Due to the teachings of people such as McTaggart and Bradley, Hegelianism was massively in vogue at Oxbridge at the beginning of the Twentieth Century. Bergson also enjoyed a period of great popularity over here. In fact, it could be be argued that AP was actually initiated by Russell and co. as a reaction against what we would now recognise as CP strains in philosophy departments...

 

[D7_bohs]

T

Of course, the AP/CP split isn't all that old: Due to the teachings of people such as McTaggart and Bradley, Hegelianism was massively in vogue at Oxbridge at the beginning of the Twentieth Century. Bergson also enjoyed a period of great popularity over here. In fact, it could be be argued that AP was actually initiated by Russell and co. as a reaction against what we would now recognise as CP strains in philosophy departments...

good point - think it's fair to say too that 19th/ early 20th c american philosophy was a great deal more 'German' than in later incarnations

 

[Ned]

I should just point out that you can still study Nietzsche, Hegel and (until last year) Heidegger at Cambridge, which has probably the most narrow-mindedly analytic philosophy faculty in the world. Obviously you're expected to handle them with the intellectual equivalent of long iron tongs, but it could be worse.

 

[foret]

I should just point out that you can still study Nietzsche, Hegel and (until last year) Heidegger at Cambridge, which has probably the most narrow-mindedly analytic philosophy faculty in the world. Obviously you're expected to handle them with the intellectual equivalent of long iron tongs, but it could be worse.

are you at cambridge? i was thinking of studying philosophy there, it looks interesting even if the preponderance of dry anglo-analytic philosophers is a little discouraging. are there any philosopher who no longer align themselves as 'continental' and 'analytic'. it seems an absurd rupture in some respects.