Contemporary philosophy
Encyclopedia
Contemporary philosophy is the present period in the history of Western philosophy
beginning at the end of the 19th century with the professionalization
of the discipline and the rise of analytic
and continental philosophy
.
The phrase "contemporary philosophy" is a piece of technical terminology
in philosophy that refers to a specific period in the history of Western philosophy. However, the phrase is often confused with modern philosophy
(which refers to an earlier period in Western philosophy), postmodern philosophy
(which refers to continental philosophers' criticisms of modern philosophy), and with a non-technical use of the phrase referring to any recent philosophic work.
of conduct, acceptable qualifications for membership of the profession
, a professional body
or association to oversee the conduct of members of the profession
, and some degree of demarcation of the qualified from unqualified amateurs. Philosophy underwent this process toward the end of the 19th-century and it is one of the key distinguishing features of the contemporary philosophy era in western philosophy.
Germany was the first country to professionalize philosophy. James Campbell describes the professionalization of philosophy in America:
At least in America, this professionalization was largely instigated by the reform of the American higher-education system on the German model. Professionalization in England was similarly tied to developments in higher-education. In his work on T.H. Green, Denys Leighton discusses these changes in British philosophy and Green's claim to the title of Britain's first professional academic philosopher:
The end result of professionalization for philosophy has meant that work being done in the field is now almost exclusively done by university professors holding a doctorate in the field publishing in highly technical, peer-reviewed journals
. While it remains common among the population at large for a person to have a set of religious, political or philosophical views that they consider their “philosophy”, these views are rarely informed or connected to the work being done in professional philosophy today. Furthermore, unlike many of the sciences for which there has come to be a healthy industry of books, magazines, and television shows meant to popularize and communicate the technical results of that scientific field to the general populace, works by professional philosophers directed at an audience outside the profession remains rare. Philosopher Michael Sandel's
book “Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do?” and Harry Frankfurt's
"On Bullshit
” hold the uncommon distinction of having been written by professional philosophers but directed at and ultimately popular among a broader audience of non-philosophers. Both works became New York Times best sellers.
. The Association has three divisions - Pacific, Central and Eastern. Each division organises a large annual conference. The biggest of these is the Eastern Division Meeting, which usually attracts around 2,000 philosophers and takes place in a different east coast city each December. The Eastern Division Meeting is also the USA's largest recruitment event for philosophy jobs, with numerous universities sending teams to interview candidates for academic posts. Among its many other tasks, the association is responsible for administering many of the profession's top honors. For example, the Presidency of a Division of the American Philosophical Association is considered to be a professional honor and the American Philosophical Association Book Prize is one of the oldest prizes in philosophy. The largest academic organization devoted to specifically furthering the study of continental philosophy is the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy
.
Concerning professional journals today, a 2009 survey of mostly professional philosophers asked them to rank the highest quality "general" philosophy journals in English. Listing the survey's top 19 results at least serves to indicate which journals are among the most prominent professional journals in contemporary philosophy today:
The Philosophy Documentation Center
publishes a well-known "Directory of American Philosophers
" which is the standard reference work for information about philosophical activity in the United States and Canada. The directory is published every two years, alternating with its companion volume, the "International Directory of Philosophy and Philosophers
" (the only edited source for extensive information on philosophical activity in Africa, Asia, Australasia, Europe, and Latin America).
began with the work of Franz Brentano
, Edmund Husserl
, Adolf Reinach
and Martin Heidegger
and the development of the philosophical method of phenomenology. This development was roughly contemporaneous with work 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 and continental philosophers often hold a disparaging view of each others respective approach to philosophy and as a result work largely independent of each other. While analytic philosophy is the dominant approach in most philosophy departments found in English-speaking countries (e.g. United Kingdom
, United States
, Canada
, Australia
), as well as Scandinavia
, continental philosophy is prevalent throughout the rest of the world (e.g. France
, Germany
). Some contemporary philosophers argue that this division is harmful to philosophy, and thus attempt a combined approach (e.g. Richard Rorty
).
Analytic and continental philosophy share a common Western philosophical tradition up to Immanuel Kant
. Afterwards, analytic and continental philosophers differ on the importance and influence of subsequent philosophers on their respective traditions. The German idealism school which developed out of the work of Kant in the 1780s and 1790s and culminated in Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
is considered an important development in philosophy's history by many continental philosophers, but was thought to be repudiated by Russell, Moore, and many analytic philosophers.
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 particular to its idealism
and purported obscurity) and began to develop a new sort 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 paradigm of the analytic program in philosophy.
Although contemporary philosophers who self-identify as "analytic" have widely divergent interests, assumptions, and methods—and have often rejected the fundamental 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 style 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. While others, such as Timothy Williamson
, have called for even stricter adherence to the methodological ideals of analytic philosophy:
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" to reach substantial results via poor arguments.
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 include any post-Kant philosophers or movements important to continental philosophy but not 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 label 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, certain descriptive rather than merely pejorative features 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: German idealism
, phenomenology, existentialism
(and its antecedents, such as the thought of Kierkegaard and Nietzsche), hermeneutics, structuralism
, post-structuralism
, French feminism, and the critical theory
of the Frankfurt School
and some other branches of Western Marxism
.
The Analytic / Continental divide
Analytic Philosophy
Continental Philosophy
Western philosophy
Western philosophy is the philosophical thought and work of the Western or Occidental world, as distinct from Eastern or Oriental philosophies and the varieties of indigenous philosophies....
beginning at the end of the 19th century with the professionalization
Professionalization
Professionalization is the social process by which any trade or occupation transforms itself into a true "profession of the highest integrity and competence." This process tends to involve establishing acceptable qualifications, a professional body or association to oversee the conduct of members...
of the discipline and the rise of analytic
Analytic philosophy
Analytic philosophy is a generic term for a style of philosophy that came to dominate English-speaking countries in the 20th century...
and continental philosophy
Continental philosophy
Continental philosophy, in contemporary usage, refers to a set of traditions of 19th and 20th century philosophy from mainland Europe. This sense of the term originated among English-speaking philosophers in the second half of the 20th century, who used it to refer to a range of thinkers and...
.
The phrase "contemporary philosophy" is a piece of technical terminology
Technical terminology
Technical terminology is the specialized vocabulary of any field, not just technical fields. The same is true of the synonyms technical terms, terms of art, shop talk and words of art, which do not necessarily refer to technology or art...
in philosophy that refers to a specific period in the history of Western philosophy. However, the phrase is often confused with modern philosophy
Modern philosophy
Modern philosophy is a type of philosophy that originated in Western Europe in the 17th century, and is now common worldwide. It is not a specific doctrine or school , although there are certain assumptions common to much of it, which helps to distinguish it from earlier philosophy.The 17th and...
(which refers to an earlier period in Western philosophy), postmodern philosophy
Postmodern philosophy
Postmodern philosophy is a philosophical direction which is critical of the foundational assumptions and structures of philosophy. Beginning as a critique of Continental philosophy, it was heavily influenced by phenomenology, structuralism and existentialism, including writings of Georg Wilhelm...
(which refers to continental philosophers' criticisms of modern philosophy), and with a non-technical use of the phrase referring to any recent philosophic work.
The process of professionalization
Professionalization is the social process by which any trade or occupation establishes the group normsNorm (sociology)
Social norms are the accepted behaviors within a society or group. This sociological and social psychological term has been defined as "the rules that a group uses for appropriate and inappropriate values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviors. These rules may be explicit or implicit...
of conduct, acceptable qualifications for membership of the profession
Profession
A profession is a vocation founded upon specialized educational training, the purpose of which is to supply disinterested counsel and service to others, for a direct and definite compensation, wholly apart from expectation of other business gain....
, a professional body
Professional body
A professional association is usually a nonprofit organization seeking to further a particular profession, the interests of individuals engaged in that profession, and the public interest.The roles of these professional associations have been variously defined: "A group of people in a...
or association to oversee the conduct of members of the profession
Profession
A profession is a vocation founded upon specialized educational training, the purpose of which is to supply disinterested counsel and service to others, for a direct and definite compensation, wholly apart from expectation of other business gain....
, and some degree of demarcation of the qualified from unqualified amateurs. Philosophy underwent this process toward the end of the 19th-century and it is one of the key distinguishing features of the contemporary philosophy era in western philosophy.
Germany was the first country to professionalize philosophy. James Campbell describes the professionalization of philosophy in America:
At least in America, this professionalization was largely instigated by the reform of the American higher-education system on the German model. Professionalization in England was similarly tied to developments in higher-education. In his work on T.H. Green, Denys Leighton discusses these changes in British philosophy and Green's claim to the title of Britain's first professional academic philosopher:
The end result of professionalization for philosophy has meant that work being done in the field is now almost exclusively done by university professors holding a doctorate in the field publishing in highly technical, peer-reviewed journals
Academic journal
An academic journal is a peer-reviewed periodical in which scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. Academic journals serve as forums for the introduction and presentation for scrutiny of new research, and the critique of existing research...
. While it remains common among the population at large for a person to have a set of religious, political or philosophical views that they consider their “philosophy”, these views are rarely informed or connected to the work being done in professional philosophy today. Furthermore, unlike many of the sciences for which there has come to be a healthy industry of books, magazines, and television shows meant to popularize and communicate the technical results of that scientific field to the general populace, works by professional philosophers directed at an audience outside the profession remains rare. Philosopher Michael Sandel's
Michael Sandel
Michael J. Sandel is an American political philosopher and a professor at Harvard University. He is best known for the Harvard course 'Justice' which is available to , and for his critique of Rawls' A Theory of Justice in his Liberalism and the Limits of Justice...
book “Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do?” and Harry Frankfurt's
Harry Frankfurt
Harry Gordon Frankfurt is an American philosopher. He is professor emeritus of philosophy at Princeton University and has previously taught at Yale University and Rockefeller University. He obtained his B.A. in 1949 and Ph.D. in 1954 from...
"On Bullshit
On Bullshit
On Bullshit is an essay by philosopher Harry Frankfurt. Originally published in the journal Raritan in 1986, the essay was republished as a separate volume in 2005 and became a nonfiction bestseller, spending twenty-seven weeks on the New York Times Best Seller list.In the essay, Frankfurt defines...
” hold the uncommon distinction of having been written by professional philosophers but directed at and ultimately popular among a broader audience of non-philosophers. Both works became New York Times best sellers.
Professional philosophy today
Not long after their formation, the Western Philosophical Association and portions of the American Psychological Association merged with the American Philosophical Association to create what is today the main professional organization for philosophers in the United States: the American Philosophical AssociationAmerican Philosophical Association
The American Philosophical Association is the main professional organization for philosophers in the United States. Founded in 1900, its mission is to promote the exchange of ideas among philosophers, to encourage creative and scholarly activity in philosophy, to facilitate the professional work...
. The Association has three divisions - Pacific, Central and Eastern. Each division organises a large annual conference. The biggest of these is the Eastern Division Meeting, which usually attracts around 2,000 philosophers and takes place in a different east coast city each December. The Eastern Division Meeting is also the USA's largest recruitment event for philosophy jobs, with numerous universities sending teams to interview candidates for academic posts. Among its many other tasks, the association is responsible for administering many of the profession's top honors. For example, the Presidency of a Division of the American Philosophical Association is considered to be a professional honor and the American Philosophical Association Book Prize is one of the oldest prizes in philosophy. The largest academic organization devoted to specifically furthering the study of continental philosophy is the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy
Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy
Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy is a philosophical society whose purpose is to promote the study of phenomenology and existentialism....
.
Concerning professional journals today, a 2009 survey of mostly professional philosophers asked them to rank the highest quality "general" philosophy journals in English. Listing the survey's top 19 results at least serves to indicate which journals are among the most prominent professional journals in contemporary philosophy today:
| 1. Philosophical Review The Philosophical Review The Philosophical Review is a quarterly journal of philosophy edited by the faculty of the Sage School of Philosophy at Cornell University and published by Duke University Press . The journal publishes original work in all areas of analytic philosophy, but emphasizes material that is of general... |
6. Australasian Journal of Philosophy Australasian Journal of Philosophy The Australasian Journal of Philosophy , founded in Sydney in 1923 as The Australasian Journal of Psychology and Philosophy, is Australasia's oldest and most respected philosophy journal. Sponsored by the Australasian Association of Philosophy, it aims to publish the best work in the analytic... |
11. Philosophers' Imprint Philosophers' Imprint Philosophers' Imprint is a refereed philosophy journal, edited by Stephen Darwall and J. David Velleman. The journal is advised by an international board of editors and published on the Internet by the University of Michigan Digital Library... |
16. Canadian Journal of Philosophy Canadian Journal of Philosophy The Canadian Journal of Philosophy is a philosophy journal, founded in 1971 by John King-Farlow, Kai Nielsen, T.M. Penelhum, and W.W. Rozeboom... |
| 2. Journal of Philosophy Journal of Philosophy The Journal of Philosophy is a monthly peer-reviewed academic journal on philosophy. Its stated purpose is "To publish philosophical articles of current interest and encourage the interchange of ideas, especially the exploration of the borderline between philosophy and other disciplines." The... |
7. Philosophical Studies Philosophical Studies Philosophical Studies is a peer-reviewed academic journal for philosophy in the analytic tradition. The journal is devoted to the publication of papers in exclusively analytic philosophy and welcomes papers applying formal techniques to philosophical problems... |
12. Philosophical Perspectives Philosophical Perspectives Philosophical Perspectives is a journal of philosophy that publishes an annual volume on a specific theme addressing philosophical problems. James E. Tomberlin is the founding editor and edited the series from 1987 to 2002.... |
17. Philosophical Topics |
| 3. Nous | 8. Analysis Analysis (journal) Analysis is a peer-reviewed academic journal of philosophy established in 1933 that is published quarterly by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Analysis Trust. Prior to January 2009, the journal was published by Blackwell Publishing. Electronic access to this journal is available via JSTOR ,... |
13. American Philosophical Quarterly American Philosophical Quarterly The American Philosophical Quarterly is a scholarly journal for the publication of work in philosophy. It was created in 1964 and is published quarterly by University of Illinois Press. Some significant contributors include John Rawls... |
18. European Journal of Philosophy European Journal of Philosophy The European Journal of Philosophy is an academic journal of philosophy published quarterly by Wiley-Blackwell. It was established by Mark Sacks in 1993 and is currently edited by Robert Stern. The journal's mission is to provide a medium for exchanges between researchers in different traditions,... |
| 4. Mind Mind (journal) Mind is a British journal, currently published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Mind Association, which deals with philosophy in the analytic tradition... |
9. Philosophical Quarterly The Philosophical Quarterly The Philosophical Quarterly is a quarterly academic journal of philosophy established in 1950. It is published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the Scots Philosophical Club and the University of St Andrews. The current editor-in-chief is Tim Mulgan. Every year the journal holds an Essay... |
14. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly Pacific Philosophical Quarterly The Pacific Philosophical Quarterly is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal of philosophy published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the School of Philosophy and is edited by the faculty there... |
19. Ratio Ratio (journal) Ratio is a peer-reviewed academic journal of analytic philosophy, edited by John Cottingham and published by Wiley-Blackwell. Although emphasising work predominantly from analytic philosophy, it does not exclusively publish in one tradition and includes a variety of philosophical topics... |
| 5. Philosophy & Phenomenological Research Philosophy and Phenomenological Research Philosophy and Phenomenological Research is a bimonthly philosophy journal founded in 1940. Until 1980, it was edited by Marvin Farber, then by Roderick Chisholm and since 1986 by Ernest Sosa... |
10. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society | 15. The Monist The Monist The Monist: An International Quarterly Journal of General Philosophical Inquiry is an American academic journal in the field of philosophy. It was founded in October 1890 by Edward C. Hegeler, making it one of the longest-established journals in philosophy... |
The Philosophy Documentation Center
Philosophy Documentation Center
The Philosophy Documentation Center is a non-profit publisher and resource center dedicated to providing affordable access to a wide range of materials in applied ethics, classics, philosophy, religious studies, and related disciplines...
publishes a well-known "Directory of American Philosophers
Directory of American Philosophers
The Directory of American Philosophers is a comprehensive guide to philosophical activity in the United States and Canada. It lists edited information on university and college philosophy programs, philosophy faculty, graduate assistantships, research centers, professional societies, philosophical...
" which is the standard reference work for information about philosophical activity in the United States and Canada. The directory is published every two years, alternating with its companion volume, the "International Directory of Philosophy and Philosophers
International Directory of Philosophy and Philosophers
The International Directory of Philosophy and Philosophers is a guide to philosophical activity in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, and Latin America. It lists edited information on university and college philosophy programs, research centers, professional societies, philosophical journals, and...
" (the only edited source for extensive information on philosophical activity in Africa, Asia, Australasia, Europe, and Latin America).
The Analytic/Continental divide arises
Contemporary continental philosophyContinental philosophy
Continental philosophy, in contemporary usage, refers to a set of traditions of 19th and 20th century philosophy from mainland Europe. This sense of the term originated among English-speaking philosophers in the second half of the 20th century, who used it to refer to a range of thinkers and...
began with the work of Franz Brentano
Franz Brentano
Franz Clemens Honoratus Hermann Brentano was an influential German philosopher and psychologist whose influence was felt by other such luminaries as Sigmund Freud, Edmund Husserl, Kazimierz Twardowski and Alexius Meinong, who followed and adapted his views.-Life:Brentano was born at Marienberg am...
, Edmund Husserl
Edmund Husserl
Edmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl was a philosopher and mathematician and the founder of the 20th century philosophical school of phenomenology. He broke with the positivist orientation of the science and philosophy of his day, yet he elaborated critiques of historicism and of psychologism in logic...
, Adolf Reinach
Adolf Reinach
Adolf Bernhard Philipp Reinach , German philosopher, phenomenologist and law theorist.-Life and Works:...
and Martin Heidegger
Martin Heidegger
Martin Heidegger was a German philosopher known for his existential and phenomenological explorations of the "question of Being."...
and the development of the philosophical method of phenomenology. This development was roughly contemporaneous with work by Gottlob Frege
Gottlob Frege
Friedrich Ludwig Gottlob Frege was a German mathematician, logician and philosopher. He is considered to be one of the founders of modern logic, and made major contributions to the foundations of mathematics. He is generally considered to be the father of analytic philosophy, for his writings on...
and Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, and social critic. At various points in his life he considered himself a liberal, a socialist, and a pacifist, but he also admitted that he had never been any of these things...
inaugurating a new philosophical method based on the analysis of language via modern logic (hence the term "analytic philosophy").
Analytic and continental philosophers often hold a disparaging view of each others respective approach to philosophy and as a result work largely independent of each other. While analytic philosophy is the dominant approach in most philosophy departments found in English-speaking countries (e.g. United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
), as well as Scandinavia
Scandinavia
Scandinavia is a cultural, historical and ethno-linguistic region in northern Europe that includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, characterized by their common ethno-cultural heritage and language. Modern Norway and Sweden proper are situated on the Scandinavian Peninsula,...
, continental philosophy is prevalent throughout the rest of the world (e.g. France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
). Some contemporary philosophers argue that this division is harmful to philosophy, and thus attempt a combined approach (e.g. Richard Rorty
Richard Rorty
Richard McKay Rorty was an American philosopher. He had a long and diverse academic career, including positions as Stuart Professor of Philosophy at Princeton, Kenan Professor of Humanities at the University of Virginia, and Professor of Comparative Literature at Stanford University...
).
Analytic and continental philosophy share a common Western philosophical tradition up to Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher from Königsberg , researching, lecturing and writing on philosophy and anthropology at the end of the 18th Century Enlightenment....
. Afterwards, analytic and continental philosophers differ on the importance and influence of subsequent philosophers on their respective traditions. The German idealism school which developed out of the work of Kant in the 1780s and 1790s and culminated in Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was a German philosopher, one of the creators of German Idealism. His historicist and idealist account of reality as a whole revolutionized European philosophy and was an important precursor to Continental philosophy and Marxism.Hegel developed a comprehensive...
is considered an important development in philosophy's history by many continental philosophers, but was thought to be repudiated by Russell, Moore, and many analytic philosophers.
Analytic philosophy
The analytic program in philosophy is ordinarily dated to the work of English philosophers Bertrand RussellBertrand Russell
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, and social critic. At various points in his life he considered himself a liberal, a socialist, and a pacifist, but he also admitted that he had never been any of these things...
and G. E. Moore in the early 20th century, building on the work of the German philosopher and mathematician Gottlob Frege
Gottlob Frege
Friedrich Ludwig Gottlob Frege was a German mathematician, logician and philosopher. He is considered to be one of the founders of modern logic, and made major contributions to the foundations of mathematics. He is generally considered to be the father of analytic philosophy, for his writings on...
. They turned away from then-dominant forms of Hegelianism
Hegelianism
Hegelianism is a collective term for schools of thought following or referring to G. W. F. Hegel's philosophy which can be summed up by the dictum that "the rational alone is real", which means that all reality is capable of being expressed in rational categories...
(objecting in particular to its idealism
Idealism
In philosophy, idealism is the family of views which assert that reality, or reality as we can know it, is fundamentally mental, mentally constructed, or otherwise immaterial. Epistemologically, idealism manifests as a skepticism about the possibility of knowing any mind-independent thing...
and purported obscurity) and began to develop a new sort 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
On Denoting
"On Denoting", written by Bertrand Russell, is one of the most significant and influential philosophical essays of the 20th century. It was published in the philosophy journal Mind in 1905; then reprinted, in both a special 2005 anniversary issue of the same journal and in Russell's Logic and...
", a paper that is widely seen to be the paradigm of the analytic program in philosophy.
Although contemporary philosophers who self-identify as "analytic" have widely divergent interests, assumptions, and methods—and have often rejected the fundamental 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 style 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
Richard Rorty
Richard McKay Rorty was an American philosopher. He had a long and diverse academic career, including positions as Stuart Professor of Philosophy at Princeton, Kenan Professor of Humanities at the University of Virginia, and Professor of Comparative Literature at Stanford University...
, 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. While others, such as Timothy Williamson
Timothy Williamson
Timothy Williamson is a British philosopher whose main research interests are in philosophical logic, philosophy of language, epistemology and metaphysics....
, have called for even stricter adherence to the methodological ideals of analytic philosophy:
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" to reach substantial results via poor arguments.
Continental philosophy
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 HusserlEdmund Husserl
Edmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl was a philosopher and mathematician and the founder of the 20th century philosophical school of phenomenology. He broke with the positivist orientation of the science and philosophy of his day, yet he elaborated critiques of historicism and of psychologism in logic...
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 include any post-Kant philosophers or movements important to continental philosophy but not 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 label 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, certain descriptive rather than merely pejorative features have been seen to typically characterize continental philosophy:
- First, continental philosophers generally reject scientismScientismScientism refers to a belief in the universal applicability of the systematic methods and approach of science, especially the view that empirical science constitutes the most authoritative worldview or most valuable part of human learning to the exclusion of other viewpoints...
, the view that the natural scienceNatural scienceThe natural sciences are branches of science that seek to elucidate the rules that govern the natural world by using empirical and scientific methods...
s are the best or most accurate way of understanding all phenomena.
- Second, continental philosophy usually considers experience as determined at least partly by factors such as context, space and time, language, culture, or history. Thus continental philosophy tends toward historicismHistoricismHistoricism is a mode of thinking that assigns a central and basic significance to a specific context, such as historical period, geographical place and local culture. As such it is in contrast to individualist theories of knowledges such as empiricism and rationalism, which neglect the role of...
, where analytic philosophy tends to treat philosophy in terms of discrete problems, capable of being analyzed apart from their historical origins.
- Third, continental philosophers tend to take a strong interest in the unity of theory and practice, and tend to see their philosophical inquiries as closely related to personal, moral, or political transformation.
- Fourth, continental philosophy has an emphasis on metaphilosophyMetaphilosophyMetaphilosophy, also called philosophy of philosophy, is the study of the nature, aims, and methods of philosophy. The term is derived from Greek word meta μετά and philosophía φιλοσοφία ....
(i.e. the study of the nature, aims, and methods of philosophy). This emphasis can also be found in analytic philosophy, but with starkly different results.
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: German idealism
German idealism
German idealism was a philosophical movement that emerged in Germany in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It developed out of the work of Immanuel Kant in the 1780s and 1790s, and was closely linked both with romanticism and the revolutionary politics of the Enlightenment...
, phenomenology, existentialism
Existentialism
Existentialism is a term applied to a school of 19th- and 20th-century philosophers who, despite profound doctrinal differences, shared the belief that philosophical thinking begins with the human subject—not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual...
(and its antecedents, such as the thought of Kierkegaard and Nietzsche), hermeneutics, structuralism
Structuralism
Structuralism originated in the structural linguistics of Ferdinand de Saussure and the subsequent Prague and Moscow schools of linguistics. Just as structural linguistics was facing serious challenges from the likes of Noam Chomsky and thus fading in importance in linguistics, structuralism...
, post-structuralism
Post-structuralism
Post-structuralism is a label formulated by American academics to denote the heterogeneous works of a series of French intellectuals who came to international prominence in the 1960s and '70s...
, French feminism, and the critical theory
Critical theory
Critical theory is an examination and critique of society and culture, drawing from knowledge across the social sciences and humanities. The term has two different meanings with different origins and histories: one originating in sociology and the other in literary criticism...
of the Frankfurt School
Frankfurt School
The Frankfurt School refers to a school of neo-Marxist interdisciplinary social theory, particularly associated with the Institute for Social Research at the University of Frankfurt am Main...
and some other branches of Western Marxism
Western Marxism
Western Marxism is a term used to describe a wide variety of Marxist theoreticians based in Western and Central Europe, in contrast with philosophy in the Soviet Union...
.
See also
- 20th-century philosophy20th-century philosophy20th-century philosophy saw the development of a number of new philosophical schools including logical positivism, analytic philosophy, phenomenology, existentialism and poststructuralism...
- Analytic philosophyAnalytic philosophyAnalytic philosophy is a generic term for a style of philosophy that came to dominate English-speaking countries in the 20th century...
- Experimental philosophyExperimental philosophyExperimental philosophy is an emerging field of philosophical inquiry that makes use of empirical data—often gathered through surveys which probe the intuitions of ordinary people—in order to inform research on philosophical questions This use of empirical data is widely seen as opposed to a...
– An emerging field of philosophical inquiry that makes use of empirical data—often gathered through surveys which probe the intuitions of ordinary people—in order to inform research on long-standing and unsettled philosophical questions. - Logical positivismLogical positivismLogical positivism is a philosophy that combines empiricism—the idea that observational evidence is indispensable for knowledge—with a version of rationalism incorporating mathematical and logico-linguistic constructs and deductions of epistemology.It may be considered as a type of analytic...
– The first and dominant school in analytic philosophy for the first half of the 20th-century. - NaturalismNaturalism (philosophy)Naturalism commonly refers to the philosophical viewpoint that the natural universe and its natural laws and forces operate in the universe, and that nothing exists beyond the natural universe or, if it does, it does not affect the natural universe that we know...
– The view that the scientific method (hypothesize, predict, test, repeat) is the only effective way to investigate reality. - Ordinary language philosophyOrdinary language philosophyOrdinary language philosophy is a philosophical school that approaches traditional philosophical problems as rooted in misunderstandings philosophers develop by distorting or forgetting what words actually mean in everyday use....
– The dominant school in analytic philosophy in the middle of 20th-century. - QuietismQuietism (philosophy)Quietism in philosophy is an approach to the subject that sees the role of philosophy as broadly therapeutic or remedial. Quietist philosophers believe that philosophy has no positive thesis to contribute, but rather that its value is in defusing confusions in the linguistic and conceptual...
– In metaphilosophy, the view that the role of philosophy is therapeutic or remedial. - Postanalytic philosophyPostanalytic philosophyPost-analytic philosophy describes a detachment from the mainstream philosophical movement of analytic philosophy, which is the predominant school of thought in English-speaking countries. Postanalytic philosophy derives mainly from contemporary American thought, especially from the works of...
– Postanalytic philosophy describes a detachment and challenge to mainstream analytic philosophy by philosophers like Richard Rorty.
- Experimental philosophy
- Continental philosophyContinental philosophyContinental philosophy, in contemporary usage, refers to a set of traditions of 19th and 20th century philosophy from mainland Europe. This sense of the term originated among English-speaking philosophers in the second half of the 20th century, who used it to refer to a range of thinkers and...
- DeconstructionDeconstructionDeconstruction is a term introduced by French philosopher Jacques Derrida in his 1967 book Of Grammatology. Although he carefully avoided defining the term directly, he sought to apply Martin Heidegger's concept of Destruktion or Abbau, to textual reading...
– An approach (whether in philosophy, literary analysis, or in other fields) where one conducts textual readings with a view to demonstrate that the text is not a discrete whole, instead containing several irreconcilable, contradictory meanings. - ExistentialismExistentialismExistentialism is a term applied to a school of 19th- and 20th-century philosophers who, despite profound doctrinal differences, shared the belief that philosophical thinking begins with the human subject—not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual...
– Existential philosophy is the "explicit conceptual manifestation of an existential attitude" that begins with a sense of disorientation and confusion in the face of an apparently meaningless or absurd world. - Phenomenology – Phenomenology is primarily concerned with making the structures of consciousness, and the phenomena which appear in acts of consciousness, objects of systematic reflection and analysis.
- Poststructuralism – StructuralismStructuralismStructuralism originated in the structural linguistics of Ferdinand de Saussure and the subsequent Prague and Moscow schools of linguistics. Just as structural linguistics was facing serious challenges from the likes of Noam Chomsky and thus fading in importance in linguistics, structuralism...
was a fashionable movement in France in the 1950s and 1960s, that studied the underlying structures inherent in cultural products (such as texts), post-structuralism derive from critique of structuralist premises. Specifically, post-structuralism holds that the study of underlying structures is itself culturally conditioned and therefore subject to myriad biases and misinterpretations. - Postmodern philosophyPostmodern philosophyPostmodern philosophy is a philosophical direction which is critical of the foundational assumptions and structures of philosophy. Beginning as a critique of Continental philosophy, it was heavily influenced by phenomenology, structuralism and existentialism, including writings of Georg Wilhelm...
– Postmodern philosophy is skeptical or nihilistic toward many of the values and assumptions of philosophy that derive from modernity, such as humanity having an essence which distinguishes humans from animals, or the assumption that one form of government is demonstrably better than another. - Social constructionismSocial constructionismSocial constructionism and social constructivism are sociological theories of knowledge that consider how social phenomena or objects of consciousness develop in social contexts. A social construction is a concept or practice that is the construct of a particular group...
– A central concept in continental philosophy, a social construction is a concept or practice that is the creation (or artifact) of a particular group. - Critical theoryCritical theoryCritical theory is an examination and critique of society and culture, drawing from knowledge across the social sciences and humanities. The term has two different meanings with different origins and histories: one originating in sociology and the other in literary criticism...
– Critical theory is the examination and critique of society and culture, drawing from knowledge across the social sciences and humanities. - Frankfurt SchoolFrankfurt SchoolThe Frankfurt School refers to a school of neo-Marxist interdisciplinary social theory, particularly associated with the Institute for Social Research at the University of Frankfurt am Main...
– The term "Frankfurt School" is an informal term used to designate the thinkers affiliated with the Institute for Social ResearchInstitute for Social ResearchThe Institute for Social Research is a research organization for sociology and continental philosophy, best known as the institutional home of the Frankfurt School and critical theory....
or who were influenced by it.
- Deconstruction
- Western philosophyWestern philosophyWestern philosophy is the philosophical thought and work of the Western or Occidental world, as distinct from Eastern or Oriental philosophies and the varieties of indigenous philosophies....
Further reading
The professionalization of philosophy- Campbell, James, A Thoughtful Profession: The Early Years of the American Philosophical Association. Open Court Publishing (2006)
The Analytic / Continental divide
- Prado, C. G. A House Divided: Comparing Analytic and Continental Philosophy Humanity Books (2003)
- James Chase & Jack Reynolds, "Analytic versus Continental: Arguments on the Methods and Value of Philosophy" Durham: Acumen (2011)
Analytic Philosophy
- Dummett, MichaelMichael DummettSir Michael Anthony Eardley Dummett FBA D.Litt is a British philosopher. He was, until 1992, Wykeham Professor of Logic at the University of Oxford...
Origins of Analytical Philosophy. Harvard University Press (1996) - Floyd, Juliet Future Pasts: The Analytic Tradition in Twentieth-Century Philosoph Oxford University Press (2001)
- Glock, Hans-Johann What is Analytic Philosophy?. Cambridge University Press (2008)
- Martinich, A. P. Analytic Philosophy: An Anthology (Blackwell Philosophy Anthologies). Wiley-Blackwell (2001)
- Martinich, A. P. A Companion to Analytic Philosophy (Blackwell Companions to Philosophy). Wiley-Blackwell (2005)
- Soames, ScottScott SoamesScott Soames is a professor of philosophy at the University of Southern California. He specializes in the philosophy of language and the history of analytic philosophy...
, Philosophical Analysis in the Twentieth Century, Volume 1: The Dawn of Analysis. Princeton University Press (2005) - Soames, ScottScott SoamesScott Soames is a professor of philosophy at the University of Southern California. He specializes in the philosophy of language and the history of analytic philosophy...
, Philosophical Analysis in the Twentieth Century, Volume 2: The Age of Meaning. Princeton University Press (2005) - Stroll, Avrum Twentieth-Century Analytic Philosophy. Columbia University Press (2001)
- Williamson, TimothyTimothy WilliamsonTimothy Williamson is a British philosopher whose main research interests are in philosophical logic, philosophy of language, epistemology and metaphysics....
The Philosophy of Philosophy (The Blackwell / Brown Lectures in Philosophy). Wiley-Blackwell (2008)
Continental Philosophy
- Cutrofello, Andrew Continental Philosophy: A Contemporary Introduction. Routledge (2005)
- Glendinning, Simon The Idea of Continental Philosophy Edinburgh University Press (2006)
- Simon CritchleySimon CritchleySimon Critchley is an English philosopher currently teaching at The New School. He works in continental philosophy. Critchley argues that philosophy commences in disappointment, either religious or political...
, Continental Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press (2001) ISBN 0-19-285359-7
External links
- Analytic Philosophy; Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- Conceptions of Analysis in Analytic Philosophy; Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- European Society for Analytic Philosophy
- The Gourmet Report (Analytic Graduate Program Rankings)
- The Gourmet Report's Description of “Analytic” and “Continental” Philosophy
- Hartmann Report (Continental Graduate Program Rankings)
- American Philosophical Association
- STFU, Continental Philosophers.