Differences, associations and integration between continental European and Anglo-American philosophical traditions

Continental philosophy refers to a number of related philosophical traditions originating from continental Europe, in contrast to Anglo-American analytic philosophy. Continental philosophy includes phenomenology, existentialism, hermeneutics, structuralism, post-structuralism, postmodernism, deconstruction, French feminism, as well as critical theories such as the Frankfurt School, psychoanalysis, Nietzsche, and the vast majority of Marxism and Marxian philosophical schools (and so-called analytic Marxian philosophy).

The distinction between continental and analytic philosophy is fairly recent, dating roughly from the early twentieth century. However, as a differentiation of philosophical traditions, its origins can be traced as far back as Kant. Analytic philosophy, though significantly influenced by Kant, has been less interested in the main ideas of the so-called "continental philosophy" of nineteenth-century German philosophers after him, such as Hegel, Schopenhauer, Marx, and Nietzsche.

In the first half of the twentieth century, Germany remained the most dynamic philosophical center in Europe, and this scene remained until Hitler came to power. After Hitler came to power, a large number of the best German philosophers - most of them Jews or left-wing scholars - fled abroad (especially to the United States), resulting in a growing silence in German philosophy. The same thing happened to the Frankfurt School at the same time. During the same period, there were some philosophers, notably Heidegger - the most prominent German philosopher of the time - who stayed behind out of a belief in National Socialism, i.e., Nazism. When the Nazis lost power, these men found that not only were they banned from teaching, but even they themselves, along with their philosophies, were all but abandoned by the world.

After World War II, German philosophy sparked a wave of research in neighboring France. The reason for this is mainly twofold, one is the role of the French ****productivist party in the liberation movement in France makes the French **** in a short period of time jumped into the largest political party in France, the general translation of ****productivist doctrines of the enthusiasm and further stimulate the interest in the philosophy of Marx and Hegel's philosophy, under the influence of this tide of thought, the two people's doctrine for the first time began to in the conservative French University System The second, meanwhile, was the focus of attention of another dominant stream of thought on the doctrines of the phenomenologist Husserl and his pupil Heidegger, and in the movement that gave impetus to this trend Sartre played a very important role, not only as a well-known writer and professor of philosophy at the time, but also as a very influential public ****intellectual, who referred to his own doctrine as existentialism.

The divergences between the various schools of "continental philosophy" are so great that the term "continental philosophy" itself is not very descriptive. In the United States and the United Kingdom, a great deal has been taught and written about "continental philosophy" since the 1980s. (Note: Some French- and German-speaking European philosophers, such as Gottlob Frege and the Viennese Circle, have made important contributions to analytic philosophy, but these are not generally regarded as "continental philosophers").

Continental Europe and the English-speaking world view "continental philosophy" differently. In Germany and France, "Continental Philosophy" is the centerpiece of university teaching in philosophy departments; in English-speaking countries, however, analytic philosophy is generally taught in philosophy departments, and "Continental Philosophy" is taught in other disciplines, such as the humanities and social sciences. ("Continental philosophy" is often presented as literary or critical theory in the humanities, in fields such as literature, film, architecture, and art history, and is sometimes viewed as social or critical social theory in the social sciences, in fields such as sociology, anthropology, and social psychology.)

While the division between analytic and continental philosophy is not absolute, the two do differ significantly in emphasis and style. Opposition to a priori skepticism is a keynote of continental philosophy, the view that ideas cannot exist independently of natural or material premises, but that philosophers must contend with this impossibility. For Hegel, for example, thought cannot be divorced from history; for Marx, class struggle is inseparable from all human ideologies; Nietzsche argues that the will derives from the desire for power; Heidegger and Sartre assert that thought must deal with the problem of "being" in all its forms; and Derrida reminds us that, in identifying philosophies and ideas, we must not forget the episodic nature of history. Derrida reminds us that in analyzing philosophies and ideas, we must not forget the episodic nature of history and the interdependence of the various linguistic texts we use.

What do continental philosophers think of analytic philosophy? Continental philosophers usually see analytic philosophers as a class of scholars who believe in methodology and think that, given the proper methodology, all ideas and their interrelationships can be categorized and analyzed without question, and that, although sometimes analytic philosophers may offer as the fruit of their analysis a skepticism similar to the view of Continental philosophers, they do not regard this skepticism as a methodological assumption.

In addition, analytic philosophy is usually organized around a few timeless topics of debate to which generations of philosophers have contributed all their minds, whereas continental philosophy tends to focus its studies on a few key thinkers, discussing their philosophies and their interrelationships. In describing the differences between analytic and continental philosophy, Harvard professor Stanley Cavell puts it this way:

Related Books: Interpreting Continental Philosophy (English) Critchley