Analytic and Continental Philosophy

Sonja Rinofner-Kreidl, Harald A. Wiltsche, Sonja Rinofner-Kreidl, Harald A. Wiltsche

• Editore: De Gruyter
• Anno: 2016
• ISBN:
  9783110448870
• Edizione: 1
• Argomento: Philosophy
• Categoria: Philosophy History & Theory

Publications of the series include the official proceedings of the ALWS-conferences and of their special workshops. Theseries is open also for other high-quality publications, especially on the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein and its influence on contemporary systematic philosophy.

Metaphilosophy and Methodology

Dan Zahavi

Analytic and Continental Philosophy: From Duality Through Plurality to (Some Kind of) Unity

Abstract: In the paper, I assess some of the categorical claims that over the years have been made regarding the relation between analytic and Continental philosophy. I will argue that many of these statements involve stupendous oversimplifications and overlook many significant differences. I next compare ideas found in phenomenology with ideas found in analytic philosophy of language and analytic philosophy of mind respectively and ultimately argue that the right way to overcome the analytic-Continental divide is by embracing plurality rather than unity.

1Perplexing hostility

What should we make of the distinction between analytic and Continental philosophy? Although the latter term is a more recent invention, the alleged division has been around for a while. My aim in the following contribution is not to trace and review its historical origin, nor do I intend to examine to what extent debates and disputes between seminal figures like Frege and Husserl, Russell and Bergson or Carnap and Heidegger might have helped to shape and cement the division. My focus will be different and more direct. Is it at all an informative distinction? Does it label a real divide, a divide between what might have become two incommensurable conceptions of philosophy? That this is indeed a view held by some is easy to exemplify.

In Origins of Analytical Philosophy, Dummett refers to the divide which he argues had widened to a point where “[i]t’s no use […] shouting across the gulf” since “it’s as if we’re working in different subjects” (Dummett 1996, p. 193). Now, Dummett regrets the divide and suggests a way of repairing it – primarily by going back to the beginning of the divergence in order to examine the partially overlapping projects of Frege and Husserl, including their shared rejection of psychologism. Others, however, have accepted the existence of the split, but have seen no particular reason to regret or amend it. According to R.M. Hare, for instance, German philosophers have created “monstrous philosophical edifices” and produced ‘verbiage’ disguised as “serious metaphysical inquiry”, and he contrasts the virtues of British philosophy, namely “clarity, relevance and brevity”, with the “ambiguities and evasions and rhetoric” that are the “mark of a philosopher who has not learnt his craft” (Hare 1960). Jack Smart is even more condemning and declares that “I have moments of despair about philosophy when I think of how so much phenomenological and existential philosophy seems such sheer bosh that I cannot even begin to read it” (Smart 1975, p. 61). For a quite recent statement of the same sentiment, consider Quinton’s entry on Continental philosophy in The Oxford Companion to Philosophy. Quinton opines that there is “no perceptible convergence between the two philosophical worlds” since all varieties of Continental philosophy “rely on dramatic, even melodramatic, utterance rather than sustained rational argument”. And, as he then concludes, for analytic philosophers, it can at most be “the object of occasional startled observation, like that of a nasty motor accident viewed from a passing car” (2005, p. 172)

Such dismissive and ridiculing remarks are, however, by no means exclusive to analytic philosophers. In Negative Dialectics, Adorno remarked that without dialectics, arguments deteriorate into a mere technique that “is now spreading academically in the so-called ‘analytical philosophy,’ which robots can learn and copy” (2004, p. 30) and, in a newspaper article from 2013, Zabala & Davis have concluded that

Analytic philosophy is passé because its method is too conservative to transgress the presuppositions on which it is based. This is not only why analytic philosophy is “anal” (in the Freudian anal-retentive sense), but its conservative nature binds it to a method that has already died. (Zabala & Davis 2013)

More examples could be found, but enough has been said to show that many do indeed believe in the existence of a divide, perhaps even an unbridgeable one, between analytic philosophy and Continental philosophy. But what then does the difference amount to? Over the years, a variety of proposals have been made. The most immediate suggestion might be to look for a difference in focus. Analytic philosophy and Continental philosophy differ in virtue of the themes and topics they work on. The moment one sits down to actually list which topics are unique to each of the traditions, it becomes evident, however, that such a listing is doomed from the start. As Overgaard et al aptly put it:

Hardly any feature held to be characteristic of one of the two camps is universally shared by all who belong to the camp in question. And most features…are shared by philosophers from the other side of the divide. (Overgaard et al. 2013, p. 113)

But perhaps we are looking in the wrong direction. Perhaps the relevant difference is not one of topic, but rather one related to method. But, again, a moment’s reflection will show that this proposal is equally problematic. Philosophers usually considered to belong to the Continental camp do not use one specific method (what should unite phenomenologists, critical theorists and poststructuralists?), and most contemporary analytic philosophers are methodological pluralists. They are no longer committed to the ‘linguistic turn’ and would hardly accept the suggestion that a “primary method of philosophy is the examination of the uses of words in order to disentangle conceptual confusions” (Hacker 2007, p. 133).

What else might the difference consist in? As Bernard Williams once remarked, analytical philosophy doesn’t have a distinctive subject matter, but is rather characterized by a certain style (2006, p. viii). Again, it is unclear what exactly this difference should amount to. Is the idea that philosophers belonging to the Continental camp write like novelists, whereas analytic philosophers seek to emulate the style of scientific papers? Or is the idea that the writing of analytic philosophers is distinguished by its clarity, whereas that of Continental philosophers is distinguished by its obscurity? In his book, What is analytic philosophy?, Glock considers and exemplifies the style of various analytic philosophers and eventually concludes: “the speech of many contemporary analytic philosophers is as plain as a baroque church and as clear as mud” (Glock 2008, p. 171). A closer look at the actual writings of many of the leading figures will quickly show that there is no easily determinable stylistic commonality. It is quite unclear what should unite the writing style of Apel, Adorno, Cassirer, Husserl and Derrida. Do Nagel and Peacocke, Dennett and McDowell, Wittgenstein and Searle or Cavell and Tye really write in the same style? The answer is obviously no.

Are there other promising proposals regarding the alleged difference? Let me just mention one more, which, although inane, certainly possesses an elegant simplicity: the difference between analytic philosophy and Continental philosophy is a difference in quality. As Leiter puts it,

It is fair to say that what gets called “analytic” philosophy is the philosophical movement most continuous with the “grand” tradition in philosophy, the tradition of Aristotle and Descartes and Hume and Kant. Only analytic philosophers aspire to the level of argumentative sophistication and philosophical depth that marks the great philosophers. (Leiter 2011)

As was quite clear from the quote by Smart given above, the intensity of such ridicule is often correlated with a lack of familiarity with the target of criticism. Perhaps a more well-informed conclusion to draw is that there really isn’t any philosophical difference to speak of – although nobody would deny the sociological and institutional persistence of the divide. As Putnam writes, “why can we not just be philosophers without an adjective?” (Putnam 1997, p. 203) This is a sympathetic response, but one, I think, that is not only misguided, but also potentially harmful. Our philosophical approach is not ahistorical, but is shaped and formed by the tradition(s) of which we are part and, as critical thinkers, we ought to remain aware of where we come from and of how that background and framework influence the questions we engage with and the conceptual options we consider. Simply thinking of ourselves as philosophers is not going to help us remain mindful of these facts.

Let me get down to my own core proposal. As I see it, the right way to question the divide between analytic philosophy and Continental philosophy is not by denying the difference, but by multiplying it. The main reason we ought to reject any talk of a divide between analytic philosophy and Continental philosophy is that such a division is far too coarse-grained and commits the mistake of regarding both (sets of) traditions as reified monolithic entities. Consider for a moment the following list, which certainly isn’t exhaustive: Philosophy of life, Neo-Kantianism, Phenomenology, Hermeneutics, Existential philosophy, Critical theory, Structuralism, Psychoanalytic theory, Post-structuralism, Deconstruction, Speculative realism. What is the commonality here? (Were one to claim that genealogy – rather than substantial agreement – is enough to constitute the unity of a tradition, we would all be Platonists). Perhaps it could be retorted that, whereas Continental philosophy is indeed a mixed bag of assorted theory formations with no clear unity, matters are different when it comes to analytic philosophy. Consider, for instance, Dummett who first describes Frege as “the fountain-head of analytical philosophy” (1978, p. 440), and who then continues:

Only with Frege was the proper object of philosophy finally established: namely, first, that the goal of philosophy is the analysis of the structure of thought; secondly, that the study of thought is to be sharply distinguished from the study of the psychological process of thinking; and, finally, that the only proper method for analysing thought consists in the analysis of language. […] The acceptance of these three tenets is common to the entire analytical school. (Dummett 1978, p. 458)

More recently, Hacker has taken issue with Dummett’s characterization of Frege’s contribution to the linguistic turn – which he insists is radically mistaken (Hacker 2007, p. 134) – and has argued that we ought to reserve the term ‘analytic philosophy’ as a label for a quite specific period in the history of philosophy (centered around the cities of Cambridge, Vienna and Oxford). On Hacker’s construal, the most influential version of analytic philosophy is found in the work of Oxford philosophers such as Ryle, Austin, and Strawson, who broadly agreed on three issues (Hacker 2007, p. 126–127):

–Philosophical understanding must proceed through an investigation of the use of words;

–Metaphysics understood as a philosophical investigation into the objective, language-independent nature of the world is an illusion;

–Philosophy is not continuous with but altogether distinct from science.

Hacker’s definition of analytic philosophy is fairly precise, but it is also a quite more narrow and circumscribed use of the term, and it certainly doesn’t capture the way the term is used when referring to the current divide between analytic philosophy and Continental philosophy. To put it differently, quite a number of contemporary philosophers who call themselves analytic philosophers would reject the linguistic turn, happily engage in metaphysics, and even argue that philosophy is continuous with science and ought to be thoroughly naturalized.

There is, in short, plenty of diversity. Recognizing this diversity, recognizing that, just as Althusser, Scheler and Deleuze differ, so do Austin, Korsgaard and Churchland, should not only caution us against postulating a unity where there isn’t any, but might also and more importantly allow us to discover unity where we didn’t expect it. We should search for overlaps that are not merely within, but also between the traditions. Depending on the kind of philosophical work one is engaged in, one might turn out to have more in common with people working in “the” other (set of) tradition(s) than with people working in one’s own.

The moment we abandon the attempt to adopt a bird’s eye perspective from which we can compare and contrast analytic and Continental philosophy as a whole and instead start to engage with the actual texts themselves, interesting and unexpected convergences will be revealed. Compare for example Husserl’s early work on intentionality with more recent contributions by Searle, Strawson, Kriegel and Crane. Take Heidegger’s and Merleau-Ponty’s exploration of our being-in-the-world and compare that to the recent debate on 4E cognition found in the work of Clark, Noë, Rowlands, Menary and Hutto. Or consider the analyses of shared affects and we-intentionality found in Scheler, Walther, Stein and Schütz and compare that to contributions to philosophy of action and collective intentionality made by authors such as Bratman, Gilbert and Tuomela. Sure, there are important differences, but to claim that any attempt at dialogue is doomed from the start since people will necessarily be talking at cross purposes due to the end...