The analytic–continental divide
Contemporary continental philosophy began with the work of Franz Brentano, Edmund Husserl, Adolf Reinach, and Martin Heidegger and the development of the philosophical method of phenomenology. This coding was roughly contemporaneous with hit by Gottlob Frege and Bertrand Russell inaugurating a new philosophical method based on the analysis of language via modern logic hence the term "analytic philosophy".
Analytic philosophy dominates in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and the English speaking world. Continental philosophy prevails in Europe, including Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Brazil and parts of the United States.
Some philosophers, such(a) as Richard Rorty and Simon Glendinning, argue that this "analytic–continental" divide is inimical to the discipline as a whole. Others, such(a) as John Searle, claim that continental philosophy, especially post-structuralist continental philosophy, should be expunged, on grounds that it is obscurantist and nebulous.
Analytic and continental philosophy share a common Western philosophical tradition up to ]
The analytic script in philosophy is commonly dated to the work of English philosophers Bertrand Russell and G.E. Moore in the early 20th century, building on the work of the German philosopher and mathematician Gottlob Frege. They turned away from then-dominant forms of Hegelianism objecting in specific to its idealism and purported obscurity and began to creation a new family of conceptual analysis based on recent developments in logic. The most prominent example of this new method of conceptual analysis is Russell's 1905 paper "On Denoting", a paper that is widely seen to be the exemplar of the analytic code in philosophy.
Although contemporary philosophers who self-identify as "analytic" have widely divergent interests, assumptions, and methods—and have often rejected the necessary premises that defined the analytic movement between 1900 and 1960—analytic philosophy, in its contemporary state, is usually taken to be defined by a particular shape characterized by precision and thoroughness about a narrow topic, and resistance to "imprecise or cavalier discussions of broad topics."
Some analytic philosophers at the end of the 20th century, such as Richard Rorty, have called for a major overhaul of the analytic philosophic tradition. In particular, Rorty has argued that analytic philosophers must learn important lessons from the work of continental philosophers. Some authors, such as Paul M. Livingston and Shaun Gallagher contend that there equal valuable insights common to both traditions while others, such as Timothy Williamson, have called for even stricter adherence to the methodological ideals of analytic philosophy:
We who classify ourselves as "analytic" philosophers tend to fall into the given that our allegiance automatically grants us methodological virtue. According to the crude stereotypes, analytic philosophers ownership arguments while "continental" philosophers do not. But within the analytic tradition numerous philosophers use arguments only to the extent that near "continental" philosophers do [...] How can we do better? We can make a useful start by getting the simple matters right. Much even of analytic philosophy moves too fast in its haste tothe sexy bits. Details are not given the care they deserve: crucial claims are vaguely stated, significant different formulations are treated as though they were equivalent, examples are under-described, arguments are gestured at rather than properly made, their form is left unexplained, and so on. [...] Philosophy has never been done for an extended period according to specifics as high as those that are now already available, whether only the profession will take them seriously to heart.
The "crude stereotypes" that Williamson refers to in the above passage are these: that analytic philosophers produce carefully argued and rigorous analyses of trivially small philosophic puzzles, while continental philosophers produce profound and substantial results but only by deducing them from broad philosophical systems which themselves lack supporting arguments or clarity in their expression. Williamson himself seems to here distance himself from these stereotypes, but does accuse analytic philosophers of too often fitting the critical stereotype of continental philosophers by moving "too fast" tosubstantial results via poor arguments.
The history of continental philosophy is taken to begin in the early 1900s because its institutional roots descend directly from those of phenomenology. As a result, Edmund Husserl has often been credited as the founding figure in continental philosophy. Although, since analytic and continental philosophy have such starkly different views of philosophy after Kant, continental philosophy is also often understood in an extended sense to add any post-Kant philosophers or movements important to continental philosophy but non analytic philosophy.
The term "continental philosophy", like "analytic philosophy", marks a broad range of philosophical views and approaches not easily captured in a definition. It has even been suggested that the term may be more pejorative than descriptive, functioning as a denomination for types of western philosophy rejected or disliked by analytic philosophers. Indeed, continental philosophy is often characterized by its critics as philosophy that lacks the rigor of analytic philosophy.[] Nonetheless,descriptive rather than merely pejorative qualities have been seen to typically characterize continental philosophy:
Another approach to approximating a definition of continental philosophy is by listing some of the philosophical movements that are or have been central in continental philosophy: French feminism, and the critical theory of the Frankfurt School and some other branches of Western Marxism.
An increasing number of contemporary philosophers have contested the service and plausibility of distinguishing analytic and continental philosophy. Some philosophers, like Richard J. Bernstein and A. W. Moore have explicitly attempted to reconcile these traditions, taking as a bit of departurethemes divided by notable scholars in each tradition.