The analytic‐continental divide in philosophical practice: An empirical study

The present study examines whether university Education students’ prior knowledge regarding controversial socio-scientific issues (SSIs), epistemic beliefs and socio-scientific topic context can predict the types of arguments about SSIs that students construct, by single persons in personal reasoning. University Education students (elementary or early childhood Education majors) were asked to construct different types of supportive arguments – social, scientific, ethical, economic, ecological – as well as counterarguments and rebuttals after they had read a topic scenario on a health SSI. We used three different health SSI topics to investigate whether the context of the scenarios has an effect on students’ ability to construct different types of arguments. Students’ prior knowledge on the SSI topic and epistemic beliefs were assessed separately. Results showed that students’ prior knowledge and epistemic beliefs predicted the diversity of arguments that students constructed. In particular, students who exhibited relatively high prior knowledge scores and held sophisticated epistemic beliefs about the structure of knowledge, produced more arguments of different types. The context of individual scenarios of health SSIs does not demonstrate significant predictive power for the diversity of arguments by single persons in personal reasoning. Educational implications are discussed.

Many have tackled the question 'What (if anything) is analytic philosophy?' I will not attempt to answer this vexed question. Rather, I address a smaller, more manageable set of interrelated questions: First, when and how did people begin using the label 'analytic philosophy'? Second, how did those who used this label understand it? Third, why did many philosophers we today classify as analytic initially resist being grouped together under the single category of 'analytic philosophy'? Finally, for the first generation who described themselves as analytic philosophersAnalytic philosophers , what was their intended contrast class? Relatedly, when did 'continental philosophyContinental philosophy ' become the standard opposition? Some evidence I present justifies received answers to these questions; other evidence supports surprising and unorthodox answers to these questions.

Abstract: In a 1978 lecture in Tokyo, Foucault drew a comparison between his own philosophical methodology and that of ‘Anglo-Saxon analytic philosophy’, claiming the label ‘analytic philosophy of politics’ for his own approach. This may seem like a somewhat surprising comparison given the gulf between contemporary analytic and continental philosophy, but I argue that it is a very productive one which indeed might help us reconsider this gulf. I proceed through a comparison between Foucault and the speech act theory of J. L. Austin, one of the analytic philosophers Foucault had in mind in his Tokyo lecture. By focusing on the methodological commonalities between Foucault and Austin, this article identifies the core of a philosophical methodology that cuts across the analytic/continental divide in philosophy in general while constituting a powerful alternative to the methods applied by analytic political philosophers specifically. This approach, which I term ‘analytic critique’, is one that starts from a critical analysis of what happens in ordinary lived experience and theorises ‘bottom-up’ in an avowedly politically engaged way – thereby challenging the conceptual and political aloofness of contemporary political philosophy in the liberal-Rawlsian tradition. Foucault’s appropriation of the label ‘analytic philosophy’, it is argued, ought to function as a call to more imaginative methodological-theoretical engagement across the traditional division between continental and analytic approaches.

Courts rely on authoritative judicial precedents by deploying different types of argument. They (a) apply the ratio decidendi of previous cases to the case before them, (b) deploy legal analogies, (c) argue a fortiori, (d) argue a simile, (e) infer more general principles, inter alia. Each different type of argument leaves a distinctive argumentative footprint: they are deployed for different reasons, possess different structures, rely on different assumptions, and offer different support to different types of claims. This chapter sets out to motivate the claim that a satisfactory theory of authoritative judicial precedent should take account of the different ways in which authoritative precedent is used in legal argument. It does so by presenting and contrasting three types of judicial precedent-based argument, namely (i) arguments where a court purports to apply an authoritative precedent, (ii) precedent-based legal analogies, and (iii) precedent-based inferences to the best legal explanation. From the discussion of these argument types, the chapter shows that the authority of precedent is used in judicial decisions in a variety of ways and that a sufficiently sophisticated theory of judicial precedent should pay heed to these different ways in which authority is utilized in legal argument.

This volume settles the debate between analytic and continental philosophy. It turns to art, more specifically popular culture, to demonstrate the validity of continental philosophy. Drawing on the philosophy of Georg Hegel (perhaps the most important of continental philosophers), James Kreines holds that reason in the world metaphysically exists. Reasons of the world are reasons of the Hegelian Absolute. Thus, similar to the fact that gravity is curves in the space-time continuum along which matter moves – reasons are the grooves in the Absolute along which human decision-making occurs. Art allows us to conceptualize, understand, speculate about the grooves (reasons) of the Absolute. Two key points can be drawn from Kreines’s position: first, normative values are embedded in reality. Thus, in complete contradistinction to analytic philosophy, there is no bifurcation between the empirical and the normative – to exist is to have normative value. Secondly, the role of social science is to cogitate, explore, identify the reasons of the world that shape social, political norms. Such an approach would decisively move the social sciences away from an emphasis on statistically significant patterns of human behavior (e.g., voting studies) and toward an approach that seeks to analyze the reasons of the world that motivate/shape social and political decisions. Art (particularly popular culture) becomes an important source in identifying the way that people reason about the world and how they perceive political elites reasoning in the world. To adjudicate between continental and analytic philosophy this book on relies on the broadcast iterations of Star Trek, as well as Nazi cinema. With regard to contemporary American politics, in addition to Star Trek, it draws on the television series Game of Thrones, Veep, House of Cards, and The Man in the High Castle. Popular culture is germane to philosophy and contemporary politics because television/movie creators frequently try to attract viewers by conveying authentic philosophical and political motifs. Conversely, viewers seek out authentic movies and television shows. This is in contrast to opinion surveys (for instance), as the formation of the data begins with the surveyor seeking to directly solicit an opinion – however impromptu or shallow.

This address discusses both the organization of SPEP (the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy) and SPEP as an organization. I take up these issues by describing the foundation of SPEP in terms of a positive insight into a distinctive style of doing philosophy and a subsequent experience of being other. I then suggest that there is an initial and fundamental phase of openness characteristic of SPEP as “eyes wide open” and another narrowing moment of SPEP that runs counter to this as “eyes wide shut.” In a fourth section, I depict a difficulty in which SPEP finds itself today: a “continental drift,” when SPEP becomes identified with continental philosophy. Whereas continental philosophy might find itself in antagonist relations to, for example, “analytic philosophy,” SPEP does not necessarily find itself in this way. It is therefore necessary to understand continental philosophy as a participant in and from SPEP, not SPEP as an allegiance to a discipline or as an organ of continental philosophy. SPEP is an organization that edges beyond itself and, according to its distinctive style, is characterized by openness to the things themselves and their structures in terms of an orientation to problems, experience, context, and critique.

Experience and the Ultimacy of God: In Memoriam John Edwin Smith

The aim of the article is to review the literature devoted to the opposition of analytical and continental philosophy. Despite the existence of various typologies of the philosophy of the 20th century, this opposition is a key characteristic of the current state of affairs in the twentieth century’s philosophy. The article describes various characteristics of the op­position and demonstrates that the establishment of its status stimulated the development of research on the history of opposition and the search for common roots of its sides. The emergence of the opposition is associated with Mill’s criticism of Coleridge’s philosophy and Russell’s criticism of Bergson’s ideas, which meant a certain cultural break between the British and continental philosophical traditions. The article also draws attention to the point of view according to which the opposition of analytical and continental philosophy is a manifestation of the opposition of classical and non-classical philosophical traditions. Certain emblems of the establishment of the opposition were the results of the collo­quium at Royaumont in the 50s of the last century and the written discussion between Derrida and Searle regarding Austin’s ideas in the 70s. At the same time, there are gradu­ally more and more works aimed at a dialogue between the two traditions and at the demonstration the mutual interest of philosophers who belong to different philosophical traditions, to each other’s works. Such a dialogue leads to the study of options for the de­velopment of philosophy in the future – the creation of a “synthetic” philosophy, the pro­posal to replace the opposition with other ones, in particular, “post-analytical/metaconti­nental”. An increasing number of philosophers argue for the connection of this opposition with a different understanding of the very nature of philosophy, which leads to statements about the metaphilosophical nature of the opposition. The review includes works by do­mestic and foreign (mostly English-speaking) authors published, with a few exceptions, in the last two decades; works written in line with both philosophical traditions are presented.

This chapter introduces the project of trying to make sense of the idea of a kind of philosophy called “Continental philosophy”. It explains why this project seems to be one that should be capable of completion, and why, in reality, efforts to do so inevitably prove inadequate and distorting. The claim is not that there are no significant differences between work that is typically identified as “analytic” work typically identified as “Continental”, or that the differences at issue here are often sufficient to ruin every effort to engage in positive discussion. Rather, the claim is that appeals to the idea of division accentuate and do not explain the failures of communication here. In a situation where communication between different parts of our philosophical culture has all but broken down, the thinking about the breakdown that is an appeal to the idea of a division between analytic and Continental philosophy does not so much as capture the scene as it is part of it.

From around the start of the 1970’s many non-analytic philosophers in the English-speaking world began to use the title “Continental Philosophy” to identify their own area of interest and expertise. In this chapter the development of this trend of self-identification is discussed and explained. The basic argument is that in the English-speaking world there were (and still are) a number of professional philosophers with a serious interest in teaching courses and pursuing research on texts by authors whose work was (and largely remains) not at all well regarded by most mainstream analytic philosophers. Prior to the 1970s courses on such work went under a diverse range of titles. However, in the 1970s a growing number of people started to changeover to the Continental title in order to include in their own teaching and writing the new movements that were coming to be known as ‘post-structuralism,’ ‘postmodernism’ and ‘French feminism’. “Continental philosophy”, analytic philosophy’s already-to-hand catch-all category, provided a convenient title for courses and writings covering both the old and the new.

In this paper, the author argues that within the current philosophical debate, pragmatism has a distinct advantage over its rivals—on the one hand, Anglo-American analytic philosophy and, on the other hand, continental philosophy. By refusing to succumb to `naturalizing’ tendencies, pragmatism is able to overcome scientistic tendencies in contemporary analytic philosophy. At the same time, by emphasizing the `natural’, pragmatism provides a helpful correction to metaphysical tendencies in continental philosophy.

In this path-breaking study Christopher Norris proposes a transformed understanding of the much-exaggerated differences between analytic and continental philosophy. While keeping the analytic tradition squarely in view, his book focuses on the work of Jacques Derrida and Alain Badiou, two of the most original and significant figures in the recent history of ideas. Norris argues that these thinkers have decisively reconfigured the terrain of contemporary philosophy and, between them, pointed a way beyond some of those seemingly intractable issues that have polarised debate on both sides of the notional rift between the analytic and continental traditions. In particular his book sets out to show - against the received analytic wisdom - that continental philosophy has its own analytic resources and is capable of bringing some much-needed fresh insight to bear on problems in philosophy of language, logic and mathematics. Norris provides not only a unique comparative account of Derrida's and Badiou's work but also a remarkably wide-ranging assessment of their joint contribution to philosophy's current - if widely resisted - potential for self-transformation.

Critique of Continental Feminism Elaine P. Miller It could be argued that nominally continental feminism emerged as a category of philosophy in 2007 with the founding of philoSOPHIA: A Society for Continental Feminism by Kelly Oliver, even though, of course, philosophers such as Judith Butler, Luce Irigaray, and even Simone de Beauvoir had already been de facto writing in the genre for decades. As part of the initial group of continental feminist philosophers who met and formed the society and the journal, we to a certain degree assumed the self-evidence of our identity: we were all feminists whose work in continental philosophy had already established us to some degree as professional philosophers, and the feminist perspective allowed us to both turn a critical eye toward and bring new meaning out of the classical texts that were most often our subject of research. Today, as that self-evidence is being queried and sometimes critiqued, a demand arises to look more closely into the meaning of the designation "continental feminism." What do we mean when we name this category? In particular, we must ask ourselves if, in aligning ourselves, however non-mindfully, with the "continent" of Europe, we repeat injustices inherent in Western language and systems of thought. In addition, we might inquire into the value of reading canonical texts from the history of European philosophy, and ask if this can be done in a way that exhumes and reinvigorates rather than entombs the ideas within them. I will proceed by looking at the meaning of the word "continent," its terrain and its implications, as does one of my co-discussants in this roundtable, Jami Weinstein. "Continent" comes from the roots continens, or continuous, and terra, or earth. Although, as Andrew Cutrofello notes, the very notion of continental philosophy is in large part a negative, "Anglo-American disciplinary [End Page 149] formation" (Continental Philosophy, 25), continental philosophy has embraced its given name. The continent of Europe, in contradistinction to the island countries that neighbor it, connects many nations to each other, allowing them to share some kind of common identity, one that is continually being negotiated even today. Not coincidentally, questions of earth, territory, and the related concepts of blood, kinship, nation, and race, are concepts that, predominating in Western philosophy as a whole, also mark continental philosophy, although it prides itself in subjecting the history of metaphysics and all its stable categories and concepts to critique. What, then, does it mean to "add" feminism to continental philosophy, and can this new discipline really be considered an addition, an accretion, or is it important, necessary even, that feminism, along with antiracism, anticolonialism, and attention to disability and sexual identity, disrupt the continuity, the disavowed yet omnipresent assumption of totality, foundationalism, and belonging that the word terra evokes? Andrew Cutrofello discusses continental philosophy as a divergent (from that of Anglo-American philosophy) approach to the conclusions of Kant. Both schools of thought wrestled with the clear distinction Kant draws between concept and intuition, seeking to overcome this dichotomy either by sensualizing concepts (British empiricism) or by intellectualizing appearances (German idealism). Continental philosophy in a sense emerges out of the impossible task of attempting to overcome what Kant took to be a necessary and insurmountable division.1 Cutrofello argues that it is Kant's conception of reflective judgment, which Kant introduces in the Critique of Judgment, that is the inspiration for much of continental philosophy's ability to go beyond analyzing the basic building blocks of reality or the conditions under which we may know or should act. Cutrofello allies reflective judgment with the "spontaneous receptivity" of intuition as opposed to the "receptive spontaneity" of the understanding; rather than subsuming an object of intuition under a pre-given concept of the understanding, reflective judgment calls attention to our inability to subsume a form under any concept that we possess (2). Reflective judgment's promise is thus one of possible newness, opening to a universal that is not predetermined. As such it has been associated with aesthetics, just as determinative judgment is associated with science, and, as Cutrofello points out, it is also at the origin of Hegel's and Schelling's...

Translators' PrefaceForeword by Gianni VattimoIntroduction1. Overcoming Husserl: The Metaphysics of Phenomenology2. Correcting Heidegger: Verifying Heidegger's Philosophy from Within3. Semantizing Ontology: After the Metaphysics of Logical Positivism4. Philosophizing Analytically: The Semantic Foundation of PhilosophyEpilogue. The Linguistic Turn as the End of MetaphysicsNotesBibliographyIndex

Religious disagreement is an emerging topic of interest in social epistemology. Little is known about how philosophers react to religious disagreements in a professional context, or how they think one should respond to disagreement. This paper presents results of an empirical study on religious disagreement among philosophers. Results indicate that personal religious beliefs, philosophical training, and recent changes in religious outlook have a significant impact on philosophers' assessments of religious disagreement. They regard peer disagreement about religion as common, and most surveyed participants assume one should accord weight to the other's opinion. Theists and agnostics are less likely to assume they are in a better epistemic position than their interlocutors about religious questions compared with atheists, but this pattern only holds for participants who are not philosophers of religion. Continental philosophers think religious beliefs are more like preferences than analytic philosophers, who regard religious beliefs as fact-like.