Thursday, January 29, 2009

continental/analytical

I can’t stop thinking reading this the types of philosophies enjoyed by Scult and Mc. It’s funny that the book seems to be talking about the two of them. As pointed out in class Mc is analytical and Scult is continental. pg. 56 “…mystifies and infuriates philosophers trained in the analytic tradition, who maintain that Continental philosophers are only doing commentary and not original thinking: rigorous philosophical argumentation.” Goes on to say that this isn’t true but it just makes me think how much we are going to learn in this class from the two of them and their two philosophical thinking’s. And we as students are the ones bridging the gap. As can be seen by them team teaching a class together for us.

3 comments:

  1. I did not fully realize this is what was happening exactly, but now that you've put this idea in my mind that we are intended to bridge the gap (perhaps we are intended to fall into the abyss and they walk over us or maybe they have already bridged the gap as evidenced in the construction of the class itself). While reading it occurred to me that this gap that resides between analytical and continental is an extreme oversight. Critchely mentions multiple times, and even cites Mill as stressing the importance of understanding what the opposition (preferably colleagues are thinking) as an extremely important process in the pursuit of knowledge.

    The diagram on page 45 is a perfect example of this for me, truth and meaning have been separated and I wonder why it has evolved that truth cannot exist with meaning and vice versa. Learning should be an ongoing process, and Crtichley refers to what Hegel calls 'Absolute Knowing' and it appears to me that in order to achieve knowledge that spectacular one interpretation or understanding is not sufficient.

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  2. Aaron, I'm intrigued by your claim that I'm analytic. What I'm still struggling with is whether the difference btwn continental and analytic is merely one of style. I grant that I have a radically different style from Scult but its odd to me to say that the only difference btwn a & c is stylistic. Notice that Critchley identifies the stereotypes of the two but doesn't claim that they are the reality. All this is to say that I'm not sure that I'm doing analytic philosophy so I'm intrigued to hear that others think I am. Is there anything more than style that makes what I do analytic? I ask this honestly and without knowing the answer.

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  3. I'm guessing that the point of the all of this questioning of analytic and continental was just to bring us to the point made on pg.126 “Both Continental and analytic philosophy are, to a great extent, sectarian self-descriptions that are the consequence of professionalization of the discipline, a process that has led to the weakening of philosophy’s critical function…” And that we were looking at it the wrong way, philosophy has more problematic questions to answer than what is the difference between analytical philosophy and continental philosophy?

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