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> biased towards analytic philosophers. I swear I've looked up the difference between analytic vs. continental multiple times and never understand the differen

> biased towards analytic philosophers. I swear I've looked up the difference between analytic vs. continental multiple times and never understand the difference.

philwelch 9y ago
Analytic philosophy was largely a reaction to the idea that philosophy was developing into a mass of meaningless, incoherent, poetic mumbo-jumbo. For example, Bertrand Russell said: > Hitherto the people attracted to philosophy have been mostly those who loved the big generalizations, which were all wrong, so that few people with exact minds have taken up the subject. Analytic philosophy is the tradition that grew out of this reaction, and focuses on precision in language and logic, with a particular focus on the philosophy of language because it turns out it's hard to map natural language to the kinds of rigorous logical propositions that analytic philosophers prefer. Continental philosophy is the tradition that rejected this critique and burrowed even deeper down the path they were going, eventually inventing postmodernism and poststructuralism and other new and exciting forms of what analytic philosophers would consider mumbo-jumbo.
- pmoriarty 9y ago
  You've basically described all of Continental philosophy as "a mass of meaningless, incoherent, poetic mumbo-jumbo". First, that's really not a particularly charitable way of describing it. Second, it bespeaks an Analytic approach to things they don't understand -- that is, to assume they're meaningless and not important (or at best some trivial little puzzle to solve). Third, it really doesn't help to understand what Continental philosophy is actually about. Now, if you'd described Continental philosophy as difficult or incoherent to you, then that would be more reasonable. But it should be pointed out that plenty of analytic philosophy that is also difficult and incomprehensible to some (though I would grant that for the most part Analytics at least try to be clear in their language -- something that can't be said of most Continentals).
  - kome 9y ago
    > "a mass of meaningless, incoherent, poetic mumbo-jumbo". Also: are new developments of analytic philosophy really that "clear" in their language? Usually, no. For example, is Saul Kripke really that "meaningful, coherent and logical" or he is just developing his own jargon? In my opinion, analytic philosophy often tries to be rigorous with concepts that just are not rigorous to begin with. And they just end up by creating an "ordinate mess".
    - philwelch 9y ago
      I haven’t read a ton of Kripke, but the fender and more jargon-filled analytic philosophy is still in a different style. I think the best oversimplification is that analytic philosophers are more like mathematicians and continental philosophers are more like artists and poets. (And, fittingly, many of the foundational analytic philosophers were also mathematicians, and the continentals, poets and playwrights.)
  - philwelch 9y ago
    > You've basically described all of Continental philosophy as "a mass of meaningless, incoherent, poetic mumbo-jumbo". No, I’m saying that’s the perception that motivated analytic philosophy. I didn’t really try and break down what the continentals were up to after the schism because I don’t really know or care. If you view the history of philosophy as an eternal, wide-ranging discussion, the analytics just kind of stopped talking to the continentals at one point and that’s probably the most fair thing you can say about it.
  - tenaciousDaniel 9y ago
    You misread him. He didn't describe it that way. He said that's how it is viewed from the perspective of analytic philosophers.
  - euyyn 9y ago
    I think his description complements coldtea's pretty well.
- wsy 9y ago
  That last sentence could not be less true. To give just a few counterexamples: Postmodernism is represented on the analytic side, too, e.g., Feyerabend: Against Method (unfortunately not on the list). The late Wittgenstein (#1 on the list) can not be clearly labeled analytic or continental. As final example, reading Foucaults (#12) insights about power structures in society and how they shape our view of reality, and considering that mumbo-jumbo, seems pretty unphilosophical to me.
coldtea 9y ago
Analytical philosophy: we don't care about morals, what it means to be human, and meaning. Let's constrain philosophy to an axiomatic system based on formal logic and math. We shall think and express only whatever meagre results our systems allow. Continental philosophy: we care about unexpressed human experience, morality, insight and meaning (or its lack thereof). We can be as poetic as we think suits the subject matter in inquiring for those things.
- pmoriarty 9y ago
  I wouldn't agree with this characterization. There are no subjects that are off-limits to Continentals or Analytics. As they've come to dominate university philosophy departments, the Analytics especially have started to branch out in to all sorts of fields they refused to touch in the past -- even going so far as to start reading and discussing Continental philosophers themselves (while mostly missing the point, in my opinion). Their difference today is mostly one of approach or writing style, how they understand philosophers of the past, and which of them they consider important. Analytics also seem to be generally more scientistic[1] than Continentals. It's hard to summarize the difference any better in words that are comprehensible to people who haven't studied philosophy. You really should just read some representative philosophers from each tradition yourself. It's glaringly obvious if you do. [1] - Note: That's "scientistic" -- not to be confused with "scientific". For a good introduction to the difference avoid Wikipedia (which is pretty awful at philosophy), or the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (which is much better, but is very heavily slanted towards the Analytic perspective) and see: Tom Sorell's "Scientism": https://www.amazon.com/Scientism-Philosophy-Infatuation-Science-International/dp/0415107717/ https://www.amazon.com/Scientism-Philosophy-Infatuation-Scie...
  - msla 9y ago
    The term "scientism" is pretty well self-refuting, given how often it's misused. It's special pleading raised to a new level of condescension.
- woodruffw 9y ago
  > Analytical philosophy: we don't care about morals, what it means to be human, and meaning. This is a strange claim, given that Rawls, Anscombe, Nozick, and Williams (all on the list) are analyticists explicitly concerned with morality. Anscombe and Rawls were more or less single-handedly responsible for reviving virtue and deontological ethics, respectively. You might be thinking of the positivists, who were an early (and important) influence on the analytic tradition.
mcguire 9y ago
"Analytic philosophy" is based on the question, "Can person B really understand a statement by person A?", answered with "No", and logically refined, distilled, and fractionated into a set of rather meaningless notes on the nature of language suitable for the modern academic enterprise. "Continental philosophy" is a continuation of the other 99.9% of philosophy as it existed before 1880.
woodandsteel 9y ago
Well, it's complicated, but analytic philosophy tends to affirm modern science, whereas continental philosophy tends to be responding to Hegel's idea that our view of reality is ultimately determined by our culture. Also analytic philosophy tends to affirm liberalism, whereas continental philosophy tends to reject it for either socialism or traditionalism.
- cmrdporcupine 9y ago
  I think to be clear you need to make it known that by 'liberalism' here you mean classical liberalism -- the meaning of the word as Europeans understand it, not liberalism as Americans understand it. To Americans 'liberal' is a bag into which they shove almost everything .. from quasi-Marxists to Clinton neo-liberals, despite those folks having almost nothing in common.
  - woodandsteel 9y ago
    By "liberalism" I meant the broad sense of democracy plus the free market. You are right, I should have made that clear.
wsy 9y ago
Analytic started with the observation that some philosophical problems can be solved (or rather, be made obsolete) by carefully analyzing the language in which these problems are stated. So this school of philosophers is very careful in ensuring what they state is clear and unambiguous. Obviously, this limits analytic philosophers to a subset of our language when they express their thoughts. Continental philosophers are harder to characterize in a few words (at least for me), because in a sense they use more diverse methods when seeking insights. Many of their works are at the same time philosophical and sociological. For example, Habermas states that truth is a social construct, and explains how society constructs their truths. I'd say both schools contribute useful insights to philosophy. Read analytics to deepen your understanding of language and scientific method, and to refine your 'fallacy detector'. Read continentals to deepen your understanding of human behavior and social structures. And this is of course a huge simplification, because a) the distinction between these schools is purely artificial, and b) philosophers of both schools have contributed significantly to all areas of philosophy.
woodruffw 9y ago
The short and sweet version: Analytic philosophy comes from the British empiricists (think Hume) and idealists (think McTaggart), and values precision of language and relation of ideas to concrete particulars (e.g., logic). Continental philosophy comes from the phenomenology of the German idealists (think Kant, then Hegel) and values accounts that accord closely with human experience (contributing to the common complaint that continental prose is pointlessly obscure). The analytic tradition is dominant in American and British philosophy departments, while the continental tradition remains somewhat popular in Germany and enjoys some traction in American liberal arts as a whole. To make things slightly confusing, philosophers are frequently exchanged between the traditions: Kant has experienced a resurgence in interest among analyticists following Rawls' work, and research in moral psychology has been worked into contemporary critical theory.

> biased towards analytic philosophers. I swear I've looked up the difference between analytic vs. continental multiple times and never understand the difference.

philwelch 9y ago

Analytic philosophy was largely a reaction to the idea that philosophy was developing into a mass of meaningless, incoherent, poetic mumbo-jumbo. For example, Bertrand Russell said: > Hitherto the people attracted to philosophy have been mostly those who loved the big generalizations, which were all wrong, so that few people with exact minds have taken up the subject. Analytic philosophy is the tradition that grew out of this reaction, and focuses on precision in language and logic, with a particular focus on the philosophy of language because it turns out it's hard to map natural language to the kinds of rigorous logical propositions that analytic philosophers prefer. Continental philosophy is the tradition that rejected this critique and burrowed even deeper down the path they were going, eventually inventing postmodernism and poststructuralism and other new and exciting forms of what analytic philosophers would consider mumbo-jumbo.

pmoriarty 9y ago
You've basically described all of Continental philosophy as "a mass of meaningless, incoherent, poetic mumbo-jumbo". First, that's really not a particularly charitable way of describing it. Second, it bespeaks an Analytic approach to things they don't understand -- that is, to assume they're meaningless and not important (or at best some trivial little puzzle to solve). Third, it really doesn't help to understand what Continental philosophy is actually about. Now, if you'd described Continental philosophy as difficult or incoherent to you, then that would be more reasonable. But it should be pointed out that plenty of analytic philosophy that is also difficult and incomprehensible to some (though I would grant that for the most part Analytics at least try to be clear in their language -- something that can't be said of most Continentals).
- kome 9y ago
  > "a mass of meaningless, incoherent, poetic mumbo-jumbo". Also: are new developments of analytic philosophy really that "clear" in their language? Usually, no. For example, is Saul Kripke really that "meaningful, coherent and logical" or he is just developing his own jargon? In my opinion, analytic philosophy often tries to be rigorous with concepts that just are not rigorous to begin with. And they just end up by creating an "ordinate mess".
  - philwelch 9y ago
    I haven’t read a ton of Kripke, but the fender and more jargon-filled analytic philosophy is still in a different style. I think the best oversimplification is that analytic philosophers are more like mathematicians and continental philosophers are more like artists and poets. (And, fittingly, many of the foundational analytic philosophers were also mathematicians, and the continentals, poets and playwrights.)
- philwelch 9y ago
  > You've basically described all of Continental philosophy as "a mass of meaningless, incoherent, poetic mumbo-jumbo". No, I’m saying that’s the perception that motivated analytic philosophy. I didn’t really try and break down what the continentals were up to after the schism because I don’t really know or care. If you view the history of philosophy as an eternal, wide-ranging discussion, the analytics just kind of stopped talking to the continentals at one point and that’s probably the most fair thing you can say about it.
- tenaciousDaniel 9y ago
  You misread him. He didn't describe it that way. He said that's how it is viewed from the perspective of analytic philosophers.
- euyyn 9y ago
  I think his description complements coldtea's pretty well.
wsy 9y ago
That last sentence could not be less true. To give just a few counterexamples: Postmodernism is represented on the analytic side, too, e.g., Feyerabend: Against Method (unfortunately not on the list). The late Wittgenstein (#1 on the list) can not be clearly labeled analytic or continental. As final example, reading Foucaults (#12) insights about power structures in society and how they shape our view of reality, and considering that mumbo-jumbo, seems pretty unphilosophical to me.

coldtea 9y ago

Analytical philosophy: we don't care about morals, what it means to be human, and meaning. Let's constrain philosophy to an axiomatic system based on formal logic and math. We shall think and express only whatever meagre results our systems allow. Continental philosophy: we care about unexpressed human experience, morality, insight and meaning (or its lack thereof). We can be as poetic as we think suits the subject matter in inquiring for those things.

pmoriarty 9y ago
I wouldn't agree with this characterization. There are no subjects that are off-limits to Continentals or Analytics. As they've come to dominate university philosophy departments, the Analytics especially have started to branch out in to all sorts of fields they refused to touch in the past -- even going so far as to start reading and discussing Continental philosophers themselves (while mostly missing the point, in my opinion). Their difference today is mostly one of approach or writing style, how they understand philosophers of the past, and which of them they consider important. Analytics also seem to be generally more scientistic[1] than Continentals. It's hard to summarize the difference any better in words that are comprehensible to people who haven't studied philosophy. You really should just read some representative philosophers from each tradition yourself. It's glaringly obvious if you do. [1] - Note: That's "scientistic" -- not to be confused with "scientific". For a good introduction to the difference avoid Wikipedia (which is pretty awful at philosophy), or the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (which is much better, but is very heavily slanted towards the Analytic perspective) and see: Tom Sorell's "Scientism": https://www.amazon.com/Scientism-Philosophy-Infatuation-Science-International/dp/0415107717/ https://www.amazon.com/Scientism-Philosophy-Infatuation-Scie...
- msla 9y ago
  The term "scientism" is pretty well self-refuting, given how often it's misused. It's special pleading raised to a new level of condescension.
woodruffw 9y ago
> Analytical philosophy: we don't care about morals, what it means to be human, and meaning. This is a strange claim, given that Rawls, Anscombe, Nozick, and Williams (all on the list) are analyticists explicitly concerned with morality. Anscombe and Rawls were more or less single-handedly responsible for reviving virtue and deontological ethics, respectively. You might be thinking of the positivists, who were an early (and important) influence on the analytic tradition.

mcguire 9y ago

"Analytic philosophy" is based on the question, "Can person B really understand a statement by person A?", answered with "No", and logically refined, distilled, and fractionated into a set of rather meaningless notes on the nature of language suitable for the modern academic enterprise. "Continental philosophy" is a continuation of the other 99.9% of philosophy as it existed before 1880.

woodandsteel 9y ago

Well, it's complicated, but analytic philosophy tends to affirm modern science, whereas continental philosophy tends to be responding to Hegel's idea that our view of reality is ultimately determined by our culture. Also analytic philosophy tends to affirm liberalism, whereas continental philosophy tends to reject it for either socialism or traditionalism.

cmrdporcupine 9y ago
I think to be clear you need to make it known that by 'liberalism' here you mean classical liberalism -- the meaning of the word as Europeans understand it, not liberalism as Americans understand it. To Americans 'liberal' is a bag into which they shove almost everything .. from quasi-Marxists to Clinton neo-liberals, despite those folks having almost nothing in common.
- woodandsteel 9y ago
  By "liberalism" I meant the broad sense of democracy plus the free market. You are right, I should have made that clear.

wsy 9y ago

Analytic started with the observation that some philosophical problems can be solved (or rather, be made obsolete) by carefully analyzing the language in which these problems are stated. So this school of philosophers is very careful in ensuring what they state is clear and unambiguous. Obviously, this limits analytic philosophers to a subset of our language when they express their thoughts. Continental philosophers are harder to characterize in a few words (at least for me), because in a sense they use more diverse methods when seeking insights. Many of their works are at the same time philosophical and sociological. For example, Habermas states that truth is a social construct, and explains how society constructs their truths. I'd say both schools contribute useful insights to philosophy. Read analytics to deepen your understanding of language and scientific method, and to refine your 'fallacy detector'. Read continentals to deepen your understanding of human behavior and social structures. And this is of course a huge simplification, because a) the distinction between these schools is purely artificial, and b) philosophers of both schools have contributed significantly to all areas of philosophy.

woodruffw 9y ago

The short and sweet version: Analytic philosophy comes from the British empiricists (think Hume) and idealists (think McTaggart), and values precision of language and relation of ideas to concrete particulars (e.g., logic). Continental philosophy comes from the phenomenology of the German idealists (think Kant, then Hegel) and values accounts that accord closely with human experience (contributing to the common complaint that continental prose is pointlessly obscure). The analytic tradition is dominant in American and British philosophy departments, while the continental tradition remains somewhat popular in Germany and enjoys some traction in American liberal arts as a whole. To make things slightly confusing, philosophers are frequently exchanged between the traditions: Kant has experienced a resurgence in interest among analyticists following Rawls' work, and research in moral psychology has been worked into contemporary critical theory.