The Continental / Analytic Divide

1. The Continental / Analytic Divide

2. The Analytic / Continental Divide What is the distinction between ‘Analytic’ and ‘Continental’ philosophy? Two approaches to the question: 1. Historical 2. Systematic

3. The Analytic / Continental Divide Warning: Category conflation ‘Continental’ - Geography ‘Analytic’ - Method However: ‘Analytic’ & ‘Continental’ are used

4. The Analytic / Continental Divide OVERVIEW: Part 1: History of Distinction Part 2: Systematic Analysis of Distinction CONCLUSIONS:

5. The Analytic / Continental Divide Part 1: History of the distinction “Kant . . . final great figure common to both analytic and Continental traditions” (CCCP, p. 1)

6. The Analytic / Continental Divide

7. The Analytic / Continental Divide The ‘Analytic’/’Continental’ distinction is a product of analytic, not Continental philosophy!

8. The Analytic / Continental Divide Two part characterization: “What distinguishes analytical philosophy, in its diverse manifestations, from other schools is the belief, first, that a philosophical account of thought can be attained through a philosophical account of language, and, secondly, that a comprehensive account can only be so attained” (Dummett, 1993)

9. The Analytic / Continental Divide "Frege was the grandfather of analytical philosophy, Husserl the founder of the phenomenological school, two radically different philosophical movements . . . remarkably close in orientation . . . They may be compared with the Rhine and the Danube, which rise quite close to one another and for a time pursue roughly parallel courses, only to diverge in utterly different directions and flow into different seas„ (Dummett, 1993)

10. The Analytic / Continental Divide Analytic philosophers make notoriously bad historians . . . NOT Frege/Husserl (ca. 1905) BUT Bentham/Coledridge (ca. 1780) Opposition in philosophical task: – Bentham: ask, is it true? – Coleridge: ask, what’s its significance?

11. The Analytic / Continental Divide History ofAnalytic movement: Frege, Russel, Moore, Wittgenstein, Carnap, Putnam, Quine, and Olaf Müller “Analytic philosophy began with the arrival of Wittgenstein in Cambridge in 1912” (OCP, 1995)

12. The Analytic / Continental Divide Origins of Analytic Philosophy: From Frege  through Russell & Wittgenstein  to Vienna & Berlin

13. The Analytic / Continental Divide Two related difficulties: 1) technical nature 2) historical context “”Continuity” had been, a vague word convenient for philosophers like Hegel, who wished to introduce metaphysical muddles into mathematics. . . . . . . . . a great deal of mysticism, such as that of Bergson, was renderd antiquated” (Russell. 1945)

14. The Analytic / Continental Divide From analysis of arithmetic to the philosophy of logical analysis: all significant thought and discourse can be analyzed into elementary propositions that directly picture states of affairs

15. The Analytic / Continental Divide Examples: 1. material objects  sense-data 2. mental states  behavioral dispositions

16. The Analytic / Continental Divide Historical context of the movement Relativity Theory ‘space’ and ‘time’  ‘space-time’ ‘matter’  ‘events’ Psychology mind as ‘mental’  mind as ‘physical’

17. The Analytic / Continental Divide Philosophical problem-solving: e.g. ‘existence’ since Plato’s Theaetetus “The golden mountain does not exist’ = “There is no entity c such that ‘x is golden and mountainous’ is true when x is c, but not otherwise”

18. The Analytic / Continental Divide Philosophical Methods and Results like Science! “Since science in principle can say all that can be said there is no unanswerable question left.” (Schlick, 1918)

19. The Analytic / Continental Divide philosophy of logical analysis  philosophy of language

20. The Analytic / Continental Divide Ordinary Language Philosophy or Linguistic Philosophy (1945-1960, Austin, Ryle) “Philosophy is not one of the natural sciences . . . The result of philosophy is not a number of ‘philosophical propositions’, but to make propositions clear.” (Wittgenstein)

21. The Analytic / Continental Divide Carnap    Quine (Late Wittgenstein) Contemporary Analytic philosophers: “think and write in the analytic spirit, respectful of science, both as a paradigm of reasonable belief and in conformity with its argumentative rigor, its clarity, and its determination to be objective” (OCP, 1995)

22. The Analytic / Continental Divide Who? When? What? Why? & Who cares? Anglo-American philosophers (ca. 1970) Analytic / Continental distinction is a professional self-description Distinguish philosophy from nonsense Study Abroad / Ridicule

23. The Analytic / Continental Divide Part II: Systematic Approach What is the distinction between ‘analytic’ and ‘Continental philosophy?      What does this distinction between analytic and Continental philosophy mean? II.a) What does ‘analytic’ mean? II.b) What does ‘Continental’ mean? II.c) What distinguishes them?

24. The Analytic / Continental Divide Analytic philosophy is philosophical method II.a) What is Analysis? Analysis = decomposition

25. The Analytic / Continental Divide Two experimental methods in chemistry: Chemical Analysis Chemical Synthesis

26. The Analytic / Continental Divide Example of philosophical analysis: What is knowledge? A person P knows that K if and only if 1. P believes that K 2. P is justified in believing that K 3. It is true that K. Knowledge decomposed into belief , justification & truth

27. The Analytic / Continental Divide Multiple forms of philosophical analysis Examples: 1. analysis = explication explication = inexact concept  exact concept by informal explanation & illustrative example Many forms of explication (e.g. Carnap, Kant, Husserl)

28. The Analytic / Continental Divide Multiple forms of philosophical analysis Examples: 2. analysis = definition definition = necessary and sufficient conditions for term’s correct application logical, conceptual, reductive, constructive

29. The Analytic / Continental Divide Two kinds of ‘analytic Philosophy‘ 1. Philosophy of Language Moore Austin & Ryle - philosophy uncovers nonscientific truths 2. Naturalism “the complete science is a true description of reality: there is no other Truth and no other Reality” (Churchland, 1986) Differ in aims and methods

30. The Analytic / Continental Divide Conclusion of II.a) What does ‘analytic’ mean? ‘analytic philosophy’ = family resemblance concept

31. The Analytic / Continental Divide II.b) What does ‘Continental’ mean? Examples: Kant, Fichte, Schleiermacher, Hegel, Schelling, Schopenhaur, Feuerbach, Kierkegaard, Marx, Dilthey, Nietzsche, Brentano, Freud, Saussure, Bergson, Husserl, Cassirer, Jaspers, Bloch, Heidegger, Horkheimer, Gadamer, Lacan, Adorno, Sartre, Arendt, Camus, Fouclaut, Habermas, Derrida . . .

32. The Analytic / Continental Divide II.b) What does ‘Continental’ mean? Continental movements: Kantianism, German Idealism, Hermeneutics, Philosophy of Life, Young Hegelians, Philosophy of Existence, Phenomenology, Marxism, Neo-Kantianism, Freudianism, Structuralism, Critical Theory, Lacanianism, Post-structuralism, French Feminism . . .

33. The Analytic / Continental Divide Conclusions II.b) What does ‘Continental’ mean? Not even family resemblance term Means everything not analytic.

34. The Analytic / Continental Divide III.c) What distinguishes them? Two distinguishing factors: 1. Relations to natural science 2. Relations to history

35. The Analytic / Continental Divide III.c) What distinguishes them? Relations to history Evolutionary biology vs. Chemistry

36. The Analytic / Continental Divide CONCLUSIONS The question: “What is the distinction between ‘Analytic’ and ‘Continental’ philosophy?” is an awful question.

37. The Analytic / Continental Divide