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>Continental (French/German) philosophy seems to just lean into it and can be nearly unreadable; some of this is translation issues, some people say this is bec

by imbnwa 4y ago

>Continental (French/German) philosophy seems to just lean into it and can be nearly unreadable; some of this is translation issues, some people say this is because their points are so deep they can't be expressed in clear language, and some people say this is because French people don't respect philosophers unless they don't understand what they're talking about. Considering much of continental philosophy is a response to Kant and/or Hegel, I don't know how you're able to convince yourself of this rather reductionist take on the history of that conversation (because this isn't even close to fair) unless you've never read Kant or Hegel, and don't understand why it would follow that the way one writes is implicated by the conclusions of Kant/Hegel. This goes as far back as Nietzsche, who never stops talking about why form/content divide is completely misleading and a historical artifact itself, some examples off the top of my head, paraphrased, like "The Greeks thought Socrates was refuted by his ugliness"; "Spinoza purposely writes in a style to make you think his argument is mathematically irrefutable, as if it were dipped in bronze", "naming things is the first form of political power", etc, etc. This theme carries threw from his first book to his last. There's more to this story when you get to the likes of Heiddeger, Derrida, Foucault, etc so I'm condensing for brevity, but its just strange to me that you approach continental philosophy as some arbitrary veering off course when there's a well-vetted history as to why it takes such form over time. You're not actually making some argument from first principles (the conduction of philosophical discourse looks like this...") nor are you demonstrating an exhaustive accounting of European philosophy, you're merely demonstrating you've already made a certain philosophical commitment, and that's that.

elefanten 4y ago
I read gp as referring to the writing style / presentation of philosophical arguments. Continental certainly doesn't optimize for clarity or precision. This is evident in how often the works are misread and misinterpreted. To your point, it requires understanding a colossal tradition of other works (and attendant history) to really get much (of the real message) out of continental philosophy. Conversely (per gp), analytic tries too hard to be clear and precise, at the expense of possibly missing some difficult to express subtleties (or, perhaps continentals might say, missing the point entirely). But it's no surprise that continental is always gonna get trashed when people who aren't pre-committed to the canon want to discuss philosophical topics. And I agree with the takes that say (as I understand gp to be implying) that philosophy needs other styles to be accessible and to effectively cross-pollinate with other disciplines.
astrange 4y ago
To be clear, I didn't mean to insult any of Kant/Hegel/Nietzsche. "Continental philosophy" is a term used to describe 20th century philosophers, and to be more specific it was most likely invented as a perjorative by the analytic philosophers to describe the people they didn't like. (eg, Carnap and Popper thought that Heidegger and Hegel were writing nonsense and were fascists.) I understand the modern analytics now consider their own approach to have not worked that well and been more of a writing style than a field of study, but that may just be the ones I know. (http://sootyempiric.blogspot.com/2021/05/the-end-of-analytic-philosophy.html http://sootyempiric.blogspot.com/2021/05/the-end-of-analytic...) I don't think I know any authentic continentals to know what they think about themselves; in America you tend to just run into people who've misread them (political activists who go around calling everything "social constructs").

by imbnwa 4y ago

elefanten 4y ago

I read gp as referring to the writing style / presentation of philosophical arguments. Continental certainly doesn't optimize for clarity or precision. This is evident in how often the works are misread and misinterpreted. To your point, it requires understanding a colossal tradition of other works (and attendant history) to really get much (of the real message) out of continental philosophy. Conversely (per gp), analytic tries too hard to be clear and precise, at the expense of possibly missing some difficult to express subtleties (or, perhaps continentals might say, missing the point entirely). But it's no surprise that continental is always gonna get trashed when people who aren't pre-committed to the canon want to discuss philosophical topics. And I agree with the takes that say (as I understand gp to be implying) that philosophy needs other styles to be accessible and to effectively cross-pollinate with other disciplines.

astrange 4y ago

To be clear, I didn't mean to insult any of Kant/Hegel/Nietzsche. "Continental philosophy" is a term used to describe 20th century philosophers, and to be more specific it was most likely invented as a perjorative by the analytic philosophers to describe the people they didn't like. (eg, Carnap and Popper thought that Heidegger and Hegel were writing nonsense and were fascists.) I understand the modern analytics now consider their own approach to have not worked that well and been more of a writing style than a field of study, but that may just be the ones I know. (http://sootyempiric.blogspot.com/2021/05/the-end-of-analytic-philosophy.html http://sootyempiric.blogspot.com/2021/05/the-end-of-analytic...) I don't think I know any authentic continentals to know what they think about themselves; in America you tend to just run into people who've misread them (political activists who go around calling everything "social constructs").