continental philosophy

Continental philosophy is a term that originated among English-speaking philosophers to describe various philosophical traditions strongly influenced by certain 19th and 20th century philosophers from mainland Europe.^[1] The term is typically used in contrast with analytic philosophy. The traditions comprising continental philosophy include German idealism, phenomenology, existentialism and its antecedents, hermeneutics, structuralism, post-structuralism, French feminism, and the critical theory of the Frankfurt School and some other branches of western Marxism.^[2]

It is difficult to identify non-trivial claims that would be common to all the preceding philosophical movements. The term "continental philosophy", like "analytic philosophy", lacks clear definition and may mark merely a family resemblance across disparate philosophical views. Some scholars have suggested the term may be more pejorative than descriptive, functioning as a label for types of western philosophy rejected or disliked by analytic philosophers.^[3] Nonetheless, some scholars have ventured to identify common themes that typically characterize continental philosophy.^[4]

First, continental philosophers generally reject scientism, the view that the natural sciences are the best or most accurate way of understanding all phenomena. Continental philosophers often argue that science depends upon a "pre-theoretical substrate of experience", a form of the Kantian conditions of possible experience, and that scientific methods are inadequate to understand such conditions of intelligibility.^[5]

Second, continental philosophy usually considers these conditions of possible experience as variable: determined at least partly by factors such as context, space and time, language, culture, or history. Thus continental philosophy tends toward historicism. Where analytic philosophy tends to treat philosophy in terms of discrete problems, capable of being analyzed apart from their historical origins (much as scientists consider the history of science inessential to scientific inquiry), continental philosophy typically suggests that "philosophical argument cannot be divorced from the textual and contextual conditions of its historical emergence".^[6]

Third, continental philosophy typically holds that conscious human agency can change these conditions of possible experience: "if human experience is a contingent creation, then it can be recreated in other ways".^[7] Thus continental philosophers tend to take a strong interest in the unity of theory and practice, and tend to see their philosophical inquiries as closely related to personal, moral, or political transformation. This tendency is very clear in the Marxist tradition ("philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point, however, is to change it"), but is also central in existentialism and post-structuralism.

A final characteristic trait of continental philosophy is an emphasis on metaphilosophy. In the wake of the development and success of the natural sciences, continental philosophers have often sought to redefine the method and nature of philosophy. In some cases (such as German idealism or phenomenology), this manifests as a renovation of the traditional view that philosophy is the first, foundational, a priori science. In other cases (such as hermeneutics, critical theory, or structuralism), it is held that philosophy investigates a domain of knowledge that is irreducibly cultural or practical. And in some cases, continental philosophers (such as Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, the later Heidegger, or Derrida) harbor grave doubts about the coherence of any conceptions of philosophy.

Ultimately, the foregoing distinctive traits derive from a broadly Kantian thesis that the nature of knowledge and experience is bound by conditions that are not directly accessible to empirical inquiry.^[8]

History

The term "continental philosophy" was first widely used to describe university courses in the 1970s, emerging as a collective name for the philosophies then widespread in France and Germany, such as phenomenology, existentialism, structuralism, and post-structuralism.^[9] It thus came to be adopted by English-speaking philosophers influenced by such schools.

However, there is considerable evidence that the distinction existed well before the 1970s. Some scholars trace the distinction to the late 19th century, when Brentano, Husserl, and Reinach proposed a new philosophical method of phenomenology, a development roughly contemporaneous with work by Gottlob Frege and Bertrand Russell inaugurating a new philosophical method based on the analysis of language via modern logic (thus the term "analytic philosophy").^[10] Other scholars,^[11] however, date the break a century earlier, in the reception of the work of Immanuel Kant, the most recent philosopher considered canonical in both traditions. This dating of the split—to the start of the 19th century—is supported by the dismissive attitude adopted by Russell and G.E. Moore toward post-Kantian idealist philosophers such as Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel,^[12] and John Stuart Mill's 1840 essay on Coleridge, where Mill contrasts the Kantian-influenced thought of "Continental philosophy" and "Continental philosophers" with the English empiricism of Bentham and the 18th century generally.^[13]

20th century

As the institutional roots of "continental philosophy" in many cases directly descend from those of phenomenology,^[14] Edmund Husserl has always been a canonical figure in continental philosophy. Nonetheless, Husserl is also a respected subject of study in the analytic tradition.^[15] Husserl's notion of a noema (a non-psychological content of thought), his correspondence with Gottlob Frege, and his investigations into the nature of logic continue to generate interest among analytic philosophers.

A particularly polemical illustration of some differences between "analytic" and "continental" styles of philosophy can be found in Rudolf Carnap's "Elimination of Metaphysics through Logical Analysis of Language", which argues that Heidegger's lecture "What Is Metaphysics?" violates logical syntax to create nonsensical pseudo-statements.^[16] With the rise of Hitler, many of Germany's philosophers, especially those of Jewish descent or leftist political sympathies (such as many in the Vienna Circle and the Frankfurt School), fled to England, America or the USSR. Those philosophers who remained—if they remained in academia at all—had to reconcile themselves to Nazi control of the universities. Others, such as Martin Heidegger, among the most prominent German philosophers to stay in Germany, enthusiastically embraced Nazism when it came to power.

Both before and after World War II there was a growth of interest in German philosophy in France. 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. Additionally, there was a major trend towards the ideas of Husserl, and toward his former assistant Heidegger. Most important in this popularization of phenomenology was the author and philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, who called his philosophy existentialism. (See Twentieth-Century French Philosophy)

Continental philosophy in English-speaking countries

From the early 20th century until the 1960s, continental philosophers were intermittently discussed in British and American universities. The few mentions of continental philosophy were generally dismissive and hostile. However, due to student demand, philosophy departments began offering courses in continental philosophy in the late 1960s and 1970s. During this time, there also arose increased communication between the "analytic" and "continental" disciplines, although these meetings were often antagonistic in nature. After rise of post-modernism in the 1980s, however, analytic philosophers became more overtly opposed to the methods and conclusions of continental philosophers. Derrida, in particular, was the target of much criticism and hostility.

At the present time, while American and British universities continue to offer a number of courses devoted to continental philosophers, the divide between analytic and continental philosophy is perhaps wider than it was prior to the 1960s. The majority of academic periodicals in philosophy today, which are analytic journals, only accept papers "written in a broadly analytic style". And the differentiating terms, "continental" and "analytic", appear with increasing frequency in book titles. Meanwhile, university departments in literature, the fine arts, film, sociology, political theory, and psychology have increasingly incorporated ideas and arguments from continental philosophers into their curricula and research.

The term "continental philosophy" is not co-extensive with all philosophy from the continent of Europe. Many major European philosophers are not considered "continental philosophers", such as Gottlob Frege and Ludwig Wittgenstein. Likewise, self-described "continental philosophers" can be found in philosophy departments in the United Kingdom, North America, and Australia.^[17] "Continental philosophy" is thus defined above in terms of a family of philosophical traditions and influences, rather than a false geographic distinction.

References

Further reading

• Simon Critchley, Continental Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press (2001) ISBN 0-19-285359-7
• Andrew Cutrofello, Continental Philosophy: A Contemporary Introduction. Routledge (2005)

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