Continental philosophy

Continental philosophy is a term used in philosophy to designate one of two major "traditions" of modern Western philosophy. It is so named to distinguish it from analytic philosophy, because, at the time the distinction was first noted (in the mid-twentieth century), continental philosophy was the dominant style of philosophy in continental Europe, while analytical philosophy was the predominant style in the English-speaking world and in Scandinavia. Continental philosophy is generally agreed to include phenomenology, existentialism, hermeneutics, structuralism, post-structuralism and post-modernism, deconstruction, French feminism, critical theory such as that of the Frankfurt School, psychoanalysis, the works of Friedrich Nietzsche and Søren Kierkegaard, and most branches of Marxism and Marxist philosophy (though there also exists a self-described Analytical Marxism, which self-consciously places itself in the analytical tradition).

However, this distinction was and is largely rooted in socio-cultural differences between continental Europe, especially in France and Germany, as compared to Anglophone countries, like Britain, rather than differences in philosophical tradition. This is clearly seen by the fact that many of the influential philosophers of the Analytic tradition were indeed German speaking and continental European philosophers. These included leading proponents, such as Ludwig Wittgenstein, Rudolf Carnap, Kurt Gödel, Karl Popper, Hans Reichenbach, Herbert Feigl, Otto Neurath, and Carl Hempel who came from Continental Europe. They are today known as German analytical tradition of Philosophy which was very influential on Logical positivism, linguistic analysis and the philosophy of science.

Historical background

The distinction between continental and analytic philosophy is relatively recent, probably dating from the early twentieth century.C. Prado. A House Divided: Comparing Analytic and Continental Philosophy. Prometheus/Humanity Books (2003) ISBN 1-59102-105-7 The break in the philosophical tradition which it identifies, however, dates back a century earlier to Immanuel Kant, the most recent major philosopher to be indisputably significant to both traditions. Analytic philosophy has traditionally been less interested in the German philosophers of the nineteenth century who followed Kant.

German Idealism

In the late 18th century, continental Europe struggled to come to terms with the works of Immanuel Kant. German idealism is arguably one of the first schools to respond to Kant and a school that was formed while Kant was still alive. One of the first German idealists was Johann Gottlieb Fichte, who in 1792 published his work Critique of All Revelation, to which Kant responded, praising the work. Other German idealists included Friedrich Schelling, Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi, Karl Leonhard Reinhold, Friedrich Schleiermacher, and perhaps most importantly, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel.

Responses to German Idealism

Some of the most influential critics of German idealism, and German philosophy in general, were Arthur Schopenhauer, Søren Kierkegaard, and Friedrich Nietzsche. Schopenhauer rejected Hegel and, in his work The World as Will and Representation, argued that Kant's transcendental idealism is the only possible response to philosophical argument. Kierkegaard rebelled against the building of grand philosophical systems, such as Hegel's System, and argued that individual existence is the sole ground of all legitimate thinking. Nietzsche challenged the foundations of morality in any philosophical system and advocated a philosophy of "life-affirmation". Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels "turned Hegel on his head" and used the dialectic to analyze history from a materialist perspective.

British idealism

In Britain, the dominant form of academic philosophy in the late nineteenth century was British idealism. This was, in a sense, an extension of the German idealist movement. They responded to Kant and Hegel's works and adopted some Hegelian terminology. Of the British idealists, F.H. Bradley and J.M.E. McTaggart were two of the more prominent philosophers of the movement. However, the rebellion and rejection of British idealism in the early 20th century, by philosophers such as Bertrand Russell and G.E. Moore, heralded a sudden and decisive demise of idealism and the rise of analytic philosophy in Anglophone countries, leaving little visible trace of the influence of idealist thought.

20th century

At the turn of the century, Edmund Husserl was perhaps one of the last philosophers equally respected in both traditions.Kenny, Anthony (ed). The Oxford Illustrated History of Western Philosophy. ISBN 0192854402 Husserl's early work in mathematics, his correspondence with Gottlob Frege, and his influence on early analytic philosophers are of interest to philosophers in the analytic tradition.

One of the earliest awareness of the deep differences of "analytic" and "continental" philosophy could be traced to the works of Edmund Husserl's two pupils: Martin Heidegger and Rudolph Carnap. In 1929, Heidegger wrote Was ist Metaphysik? (English: What is Metaphysics?) which was a treatise about analyzing the concept of "Nothing".Heidegger: Being-There (or Nothing) Carnap criticized Heidegger's treatise in his Elimination of Metaphysics through the Logical Analysis of Language (sometimes Overcoming of Metaphysics). Carnap argued that several passages in Heidegger's work were examples of pseudo-statements where "the violation of logical syntax is especially obvious" Gregory, Wanda T. Heidegger, Carnap and Quine at the Crossroads of Language. Carnap accused Heidegger of using historico-grammatical syntax, and that, Carnap claims, allows metaphysical nonsense, whereas logical syntax does notAbraham D. Stone. Heidegger and Carnap on the Overcoming of Metaphysics. Heidegger's use of syntax is derived in part from Hegelian historicism, whereas Carnap's use of syntax is derived in part from Fregeian logic and semantics. This fundamental difference in approaching philosophical problems, ("discussing experience" vs. "discussing language"), is one of the major causes of the divide.Rorty, Richard. Analytic Philosophy and Transformative Philosophy.

In the early-to-mid twentieth century, Germany continued to have the most vital philosophical scene in continental Europe, until the rise of Hitler. This had the initial effect that many of Germany's most eminent philosophers, who were largely Jewish or left-wing, had to flee abroad, particularly to America, as in the case of the members of the Frankfurt School. The remaining philosophers, particularly Heidegger, the most eminent German philosopher of the time, remained due to their affiliation with Nazism. After the fall of Nazism, Heidegger found himself banned from teaching, his reputation as a philosopher tarnished until after his death.

After World War II there was an explosion of interest in German philosophy in neighbouring France. On the one hand, the role of the French Communist Party in liberating France meant that it became, for a brief period, the largest political movement in the country. The attendant interest in communism translated into an interest in Marx and Hegel, who were both now studied extensively for the first time in the conservative French university system. On the other hand, there was a major trend towards the ideas of the phenomenologist Edmund Husserl, and toward his former disciple Martin Heidegger. Most important in this popularization of phenomenology was the author and philosophy teacher Jean-Paul Sartre (by then a noted intellectual), who called his philosophy existentialism.

Phenomenology

Phenomenology was developed by Edmund Husserl. Philosophers in this movement include Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Husserl's student Martin Heidegger.

Existentialism

Existentialism was developed most famously by Jean-Paul Sartre and Martin Heidegger. Philosophers in this movement include Karl Jaspers, Simone de Beauvoir, Gabriel Marcel, and Albert Camus. The movement also considers Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche to be important predecessors.

Frankfurt School

The Frankfurt School of social thought includes Theodor Adorno and Herbert Marcuse. The school developed Marxist lines of thought.

Psychoanalysis and Structuralism

Psychoanalysis and structuralism, in linguistics and anthropology, took on the important roles in continental philosophy that they did not have in analytic philosophy. Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Alfred Adler and, perhaps principally, Jacques Lacan are usually associated with this field.

Continental philosophy in English-speaking countries

While it derives from the philosophical traditions of non-Anglophone Europe, much "continental" philosophy at least since the 1980s has been taught and written in the United States and the United Kingdom. Continental philosophy has a central place in university philosophy departments in Germany and France. In the English-speaking world, analytic philosophy -- and German Idealism, when it is taught at all -- are generally taught in philosophy departments, while some movements in continental philosophy are taught in various other departments within the humanities and social sciences. Movements most commonly taught include post-structuralism, feminism, more recent Marxism, and relevant parts of phenomenology and psychoanalysis. In the humanities, the continental influence is often referred to as literary theory or critical theory); departments taking particular interest in continental approaches include literature, film, architecture, and art history. In the social sciences (where it is sometimes known as social theory or critical social theory), those departments or subfields include sociology, social anthropology, and social psychology, as well as certain perspectives within qualitative research methodology.

There has been significant interaction between the continental and analytic traditions. The impact of 19th continental philosophy on 20th century ethicists who are often labelled "analytic" has been particularly important. To name only two examples, Bernard Williams, perhaps the greatest British moral philosopher of the 20th century, was decisively influenced by Nietzsche, while John Rawls was seriously engaged with the study of Hegel's moral philosophy. Moreover, several continental figures, namely Jacques Derrida and Jürgen Habermas have engaged with analytical philosophy of language, particularly the work of John Searle and J. L. Austin.

Differences from analytic philosophy

There are such large differences among the various "continental" schools of thought that the term can appear to lack descriptive value. Nevertheless it denotes certain general differences from analytic philosophy in emphasis and style. Analytic philosophy generally places primary importance on investigating and explaining questions in a rigorous logical framework, whereas continental philosophy tends to reject or minimize the importance of formal logic as a tool for philosophical inquiry.

One common theme of continental philosophy might be a certain kind of what analytic philosophy calls "skepticism". This particular type of mild skepticism holds that thought cannot be abstracted away from some natural or material preconditions, and also that the philosopher must struggle with this impossibility. For example, in Hegel, thoughts can't be abstracted away from history; for Marx, they can't be abstracted away from the class struggle; for Nietzsche, from illusion, chaos, and the will to power; for Kierkegaard, from faith; for Heidegger from the question of being and, for Sartre, thought would always have to arise from a determinate manner of "being" and 'nothingness"; and for Derrida, the contingent histories and interdependencies of words themselves cannot be transcended. Analytic philosophers of course believe that these things matter, often quite crucially, but prefer to examine their influence primarily in terms of how they are manifested in one's ideas and arguments. In contrast, continental philosophers often see analytic philosophers as believing methodologically that they can work unproblematically with abstract ideas and their relationships. Though sometimes analytic philosophers might derive similar skepticism as a result, this skepticism is not viewed as a methodological presumption.

Moreover, while analytic philosophy centers on certain problems about the world and what to believe about it, contemporary continental philosophy centers instead on key thinkers and their individual themes, such as personal questions of life and the body.

The simplest way of putting the difference may be this: most of our contemporaries in the continental tradition care first and foremost about texts and interpretations of them; most of our contemporaries in the analytic tradition care first and foremost about theses and the reasons for and against accepting them. Most of our contemporaries in continental philosophy are interested in what somebody else said, and in interpreting it. Most of our contemporaries in analytic philosophy are interested in theses, and why we should or should not believe them.

Analytic philosophers tend to look down on one form of continental philosophy--postmodern philosophy. They see it as being logically invalid (esp. through inconsistency and circularity), intentionally obscure (so as to avoid the threat of refutation), unclear (i.e., unwilling to define key terms), needlessly prolix (unwilling to state its main points concisely), and muddled. Of course, the best continental philosophers, like Merleau-Ponty, avoid all these weaknesses.

Many continental philosophers, such as Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Marx, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, and Habermas are widely read and taught by analytic philosophers, and analytic philosophers usually recognize them as important thinkers, even if they do not often agree with their theses.

See also: http://www.philosophicalgourmet.com/analytic.htm

References and further reading

Simon Critchley, Continental Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press (2001) ISBN 0-19285359-7
A. Cutrofello, Continental Philosophy: A Contemporary Introduction. Routledge (2005)

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