Analytic versus Continental Philosophy (2009) | Hacker News Reader

Analytic versus Continental Philosophy (2009)

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33 pointsbluetomcat16 comments

I think it can be better summarised as "Anglo-French rationalism versus post-Kantian German idealism". The first view asserts that we can accumulate knowledge by reason alone, whereas the second view asserts that our mind constructs representations of the real-world objects by ideas alone. It's an intellectual lineage that has given birth to most political ideologies and grand narratives.

This is how I've always understood it as well. It's probably not quite this simple, but for a couple of sentences, I can't imagine having a much clearer picture.

Part of me wants to replace "post-Kantian" with some sort of Hegelian descriptor, but I suppose the difference in meaning would be somewhat negligible. I've just always felt like every continental philosophy since Hegel has essentially been a response to him less than Kant, but Kant certainly provided the foundation for what was to come.

I'm rather a dilettante on this, so perhaps a question will help me clarify it.

I'm a bit surprised that you call it "Anglo-French" rationalism. I'd always associated the French with the continental tradition; the main names I know associated with continental philosophy are French. I'd thought it was called "continental" in explicit contrast with the British (and Anglophones in general).

Is there a large French "analytic" tradition that's getting swept under the carpet here?

I gather that the entire argument about the distinction is rather moot here. But I think I may also be missing your point entirely, and I'm curious if you could elaborate.

> Is there a large French "analytic" tradition that's getting swept under the carpet here?

Rene Descartes is considered to be the father of rationalism, meaning that knowledge can be obtained through reason and logic alone. The British tradition is more deeply rooted in empiricism with regards to observing natural phenomena, but it is not at odds with rationalism.

Ah, thank you. That's the context I needed.

I am reminded of the recent experiment confirming quantum mechanics: reality does not exist until it is measured, but once measured it is a shared reality among the observers[0]. And what is measurement? The assigning of names such that the name can be shared among observers - and once the names are assigned, you can manipulate the names in a more (mathematic) or less (poetic) rigorous fashion (there are, of course, gradations in rigor). So: Anglo-French rationalism is true, at least for pure mathematics which explicitly disclaims application to any specific real-world object - but once we start discussing experience, perception (an accumulation of measurements, again, more or less rigorous) must occur so that reason can be applied. Until each of us has multiple universe-size supercomputers available, mathematical rigor cannot be applied to to the most important aspects of life, such as love (and even then, only if it escapes a Goedel-like undecidability).

[0] https://www.science.org/content/article/reality-doesn-t-exis...

> reality does not exist until it is measured

It's a weird way to explain the result of the experiment. The experiment is some variant of the ERP paradox and the result is that the polarization of a pair of entangled photons is not defined until it's measured, that is well known since many years. They use two properties of the photons (for some strange game for technical reasons?), but the result is not more surprising that the usual Bell inequality experiment.

It just means that polarization of a pair of entangled photons is not defined until it's measured, not that reality exists or not.

I think this is not quite right and/or you’re not using the word “rationalism” the way philosophers use it. The analytic tradition contains both rationalists and empiricists, as well as a lot of philosophers who don’t have an obvious position on the matter. That said, on balance, I think there are more empiricists—logical positivism is basically a modern form of empiricism.

This article is not entirely bad, but I think it still overstates the distinction.

It is true that there's something of a divergence, where analytic philosophers are much more likely to read Russell, Wittgenstein, Quine and Lewis, while continental philosophers are more likely to read Heidegger or Derrida. There are accompanying differences in style and "feel". But it is extremely hard to generate robust generalizations about differences. For any high level philosophical position, you can find authors on both sides arguing for or against it.

Additionally, while early in the 20th century, you could try to argue that analytic philosophy had a core of logical analysis (in the sense of Russell/early Wittgenstein, Logical Positivism, Carnap) and ordinary language, starting in the 1960s, the field increasingly fragments, and becomes more varied in the topics it studies, the approaches it takes, and so on. By the present day, we have "analytic philosophers" like Kieran Setiya writing a book on Mid-Life Crises, or Laurie Paul writing about whether one can anticipate the experience of parenthood (https://lapaul.org/papers/whatCantExpect.pdf).

All in all, it's true that there are two relatively independent traditions, it's hard to say much more about them than "people tend to read different books, and that has some influence on how they approach matters."

> Analytic philosophy should be able to enter into phenomenology, existentialism, literature, and politics with the same enthusiasm as continental philosophy

It is able and very good at that, and way better then what continental philosophers have produced.

A few examples: Colin McGinn for Literature: Ethics, Evil, and Fiction, David Benatar for "Existentialism": The Human Predicament, Peter Singer for Politics: The Darwinian Left.

Analytic philosophers (I am one of them) have produced excellent work that engages deeply with the phenomenological tradition. Dan Zahavi or Tony Chemero come to mind. But "continental" philosophers (Merleau-Ponty, Sartre, Heidegger) have produced extremely deep, much more influential work. That's because they are the phenomenological tradition.

The summary is a bit outdated (as can be seen by the year). I don't know any articles about recent intersections between analytic and continental philosophies (and the split between them seems irrelevant nowadays), but you could check various philosophers, like Robert Brandom, Quentin Meillassoux, Reza Negarestani or Ray Brassier.

It is interesting that the split does seem irrelevant these days.

Reflecting back, it seems to me like a lot of the wind spilled from continental sails after Derrida died with no clear intellectual inheritor.

Anyway, this is an interesting insight, thanks.

Recovering former philosopher (well, grad student) here, can one of you say more about why "the split does seem irrelevant these days"?

While there is much more cross-talk these days, and relying on the A-C distinction is (at least in the analytic camp) frowned upon, rumors of its demise have been greatly exaggerated.

They should have started with this Cicero quote instead:

“There is nothing so absurd that it has not been said by some philosopher.”

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