Saturday, January 31, 2009

Final thoughts on Critchley

Having finished "A Very Short Introduction to Continental Philosophy" I finally feel like I can explain the difference between Analytic and Continental Philosophy. It's not as cut and dry as I first thought, and, interestingly, it appears that most philosophical debates take place within each school, rather than interscholastic debates (e.g. Heidegger debated with Sartre, but only ever references Carnap once, even though the differences in Carnap and Heidegger's philosophies was far greater than the difference between Sartre and Heidegger). My understanding of Continental Philosophy is that it believes that Kant has proven that all values and things in the world can be un-, de-, and re- constructed, thus creating nihilism, and that most Continental Philosophers make use of these "tools of construction" to fight nihilism itself. Perhaps this is why Continental Philosophy is more conscious of it's own history - because it uses history to critique and reevaluate the present.

Thursday, January 29, 2009

"the foreign, the exotic, and the strange"

I too feel that I am beginning to understand (or at least better understand) what Continental philosophy is. Critchley made it most clear (again, not saying I truly get it) to me when he discussed the difference between Coleridge and Bentham in their different ways of thought. He states that where a Bentham(in?) would ask "Is it true?" (knowledge), in relation to a text or idea, a Coleridge(ean?) would instead ask "What is the meaning of it?" (wisdom).

He further explains this by differentiating that Continental philosophy is concerned with meaning, and the other, analytic, is concerned with truth (42). Although he says these views are in opposition to each other, he also illustrates the importance and use of combining both views. These views cannot be separated completely from each other for fear that they will turn dogmatic. Through a mutual criticism of the beliefs held by the opposing views we can make more accessible the many presentations that lead to a complete sense of truth and wisdom. That is why they must work together, rather than unify, since such an opposition is necessary.

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.

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

A continuing search for the definition of Continental Philosophy

Chapters 3 & 4 basically continue to outline the history of the split in philosophy in order to demonstrate the differences between Continental and Analytic philosophies. The difference lies in the way that the philosophies are described professionally. On page 38, he talks about the way the two are different is the way that certain philosophers will ally themselves with certain viewpoints. Something that I found really interesting was the fact that he said "Revealingly and significantly, the reception of Continental thought in the English-speaking world has, for the most part, taken place outside of philosophy departments" (41). This point shows what we talked about in class with the two philosophies not being necessarily different, and that their differences might lie more in the method of approach and not in the philosophic views themselves.

Continental Cont.

"For Gadamer, 'history' seems to mean the humanist cultural tradition of the educated European elite engaged in the endless process of reinterpreting great texts from the past." - Robert M. Burns -

I think we could replace Gadamer here with continental philosophers and history with philosophy. I think it would be an appropriate overgeneralized definition for continental philosophy. While there may be a plethora of "continental philosophers" outside the geographical region, the historical seat of this school of philosophy has its roots planted firmly on european soil. This is why I think I tend towards an analytical type of philosophy over that of the continental sort. That's not to say that the continental projects are a bust in my eyes. There were several compelling issues that continental philosophy deals with that I see as not only interesting but fundamental to us as philosophers.

For instance, Husserl talks about the disconnect between science and life-world. He says that science is dependent upon and yet ignorant of (or maybe blind to) this life-world which is characterized by "a determinate social and historical context (71)." The job of philosophy for Husserl is to point out that we are looking at the world through this lens of science and treating all objects (even humanity) as though they were same. This is the "crisis" for Husserl and the critical problem that philosophy needs to resolve. Our particular society and present (and/or historical) context needs to play a bigger part in our definition of ourselves.

Another aspect that I like about continental philosophy is that it allows us to be speculative or formative in the shaping of our own destinies. With the end of ends, so to speak, we become our own masters. There is certainly a very enticing idea in this concept and something that I, as a philosopher, would like to participate in.

However, my continued criticism of continental thought is that it still seems to me to be a reinterpretation of texts that have come before us. While I can appreciate that it's important to understand the context we live in and that from whence we came, there needs to be a disconnect there, too. We have to stop looking backwards sometimes so that we might look forward. If we project onto the infinite future (whether that exists or not) the trappings and finitude of the past through the very methods that we intend to free us, we restrict our opportunities to make new insights that lay beyond the existing texts. This sounds very much like one of the canned criticisms of continental thought made by the Analytical school. I'm not yet finding any reason to reject it.

Continental philosophy is starting to look a little more familiar today

This section of reading was much easier for me to follow with the lack of tangents running through every explanation. So now that Kant has brought about the split and the continental philosophers are left with what to do with nihilism and the death of reason there starts to be reforming of what to do in philosophy as far as continental philosophers are concerned. A tradition beings where philosophy is a reaction to the crisis's of the present and a critique of current events and structures, even of the current view of time . It seems the chapter is claiming that at least for a little while philosophy becomes trademarked by the theme of reaction to the present. This examination of history and reaction to the present coupled with the nihilism Kant left philosophy with leads to an outbreak of philosophy which very concerned with the human experience including place and time. The nihilism they are confronted with leaves them only with the ability to understand the human experience because it is all they have the ability to know anything about and still only in a subjective way as a human. If I understood this chapter correctly then I know feel much less confused with how we went from worrying about nihilism to doing the type of continental philosophy that I have read in previous classes. This had earlier confused me because I felt that much of what I had read in previous classes had not really addressed the issue of nihilism directly, or in some cases at all in my opinion. Now I am feeling a little better...that is if I do understand what this chapter is talking about.

Continental & Analytical

The most intriguing part of chapter two was how philosophers on each side of the divide believe themselves to be right and that they do not need the other side. While some neutral philosophers say that it is possible to philosophize one without the other they will never know what the whole of both could do. Because humans are concerned with both knowledge and wisdom and philosophy requires critical and logical thinking. The truth will not be found in accepting one and denying the other to be wrong. But that perhaps both are right just in different aspects of it and they cannot be compared to one another such apples to apples.

Chapter four asks, can philosophy change the world? Judging by history the answer I think most certainly is yes. For the better? That would be impossible to say. Rorty claims that analytic philosophy deals with problems (original thinking), while continental deals with commentary on others works. Is claim true? Do continental philosophers just base their work off of an “analysis” of someone else’s?

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

What are the janitors cleaning?

I too, found the metaphor of the philosopher being a janitor to science interesting and in some aspects correct. Science does many things for us, but it does not ask "why?". Instead that role is left to the philosopher. I did have some issues with the idea of naturalistic ontology which says that science "proides us with a truer, better account of the way things are". I recently took a philosophy of science course where we read Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. From my understanding of Kuhn, Kuhn argues that science does not bring us any closer to Truth. Rather we shift our paradigms of understanding nature. For example imagine you and a friend are shown the same picture of a series of lines. You claim it is a dog while your friend claims it is a duck. Which one of you is right if either one of you are? This example shows that when we experience reality, we automatically filter what we sense through our own pre-concieved notions. another example that Kuhn uses was the history of optics and the corpuscular theory of light. What that example shows is that what we claim as truth has (and likely will continue to be) changed. The main issue is trying to understand the nature of science. Does science bring us ever closer to objective truth, or does science simply make our lives more comfortable?

I also think that Jacobi's "stark choice: either to embrace the rational atheism of Enlightenment, or to reject it through an irrational leap of faith" interesting. I wonder what others might think about this choice. Is this choice as clear cut as it appears? If not, why? What other alternatives could there be?
Critchley was exceptional in explaining the difference between the Analytical and Cntinental; at least for myself, although I know my grasp on the subtleties is not absolute. The first chapter helped to illuminate the gap between the two islands; Analytical tends to adopt scientism and Continental adopts obscurantism. Slightly confused on what obscurantism means, my best leap would be to say that Continental philosophy relies on and offers reasoning that is unable to be pinned to one location so that scientists may probe at it with their methods. Or that it never completely answers a question (according to Analytical). This sort of gap has created two sides of the same class room with literary intellects on the right side and scientists on the left side leaving an awkward expanse of empty space between. I was supprised to find out is that at least one university, Sydney, had seperated the two branches of philosophy.

Chapter 2 was pretty awesome

I really enjoyed the section in the book that talks about the rise of the Metakritik starting on page 19. If reason can criticize any of our beliefs, the book explains the possibility of a critique of those critiques, in a sense a meta-critique. It goes beyond this, by stating that nothing can be a good critique without allowing it's critique to be further criticized. If reason can critique itself then there must be a meta-critique of that critique. And a meta-meta-critique of that meta-critique, and so forth, in order for that criticism to be truly valid. Certainly then, nothing can be without a criticism. It makes sense for if something wishes to establish itself as something that is (without criticism) then it would no doubt be subjecting itself to right suspicion that it most likely isn't. (I know that sentence may not make as much sense as I thought it would when I wrote it, feel free to criticize.)

This section reminded me a lot of Descartes, and how he works to prove that everything can be doubted other than doubt itself. They seem to be working in different directions in order to establish found truth. Descartes works on basic principles, while Kant worked toward the most perfect form of criticism. If I can begin with the fact that everything can be doubted then I am already thinking critically about everything. And, if one thing can be criticized then that criticism can also be criticized in order that we use our reason to the best of our ability.

The part on "I am nothing" in page 28 seemed to establish this even further. It states that you are nothing, not in the sense that you are empty but in the fact that you are a "creative nothing". We live our lives crafting the world around us and the book states this feature makes us reach a level of godliness. The world is ours to create, not in the sense we can change the physical reality, but we can change our world through the process of living. Being a creative nothing, it is no wonder we can think rationally to try and establish truth. I think this leads to nihilism....but I will stop for now.

Critique of Kant as a way of Understanding Continental Philosophy

The way in which Kant is critiqued sets up the way that Critchley will go about teaching the reader about what Continental Philosophy is. The way that he starts is by demonstrating through a critique of Kant what it is not. Critchley appears to believe that Kant's use of reason is more in sync with the way analytical philosophy works as opposed to the way that Continental philosophy should be talked about and thought about.

Monday, January 26, 2009

Religion?

In chapter two he attempts to define continental philosophy. And from my understanding Kant is the beginning of this two hundred year period. Kant attempts to construct a bridge between understanding and reason through judgment and the plausibility of pure and practical reason; continental philosophy has followed this ever since as stated by Critchley. From a Christian point-of-view this is where faith comes in. But as the chapter goes on it brings into question about reason and the place for religion. Can religion exist alongside reason? As Hamann puts it reason must criticize all things, and reason itself must be criticized by a meta-critique. If reason is questioned then essentially you begin to doubt the existence of everything, even religion and the place for God. Because faith can’t be explained through reason. If one is a Christian and believes that Jesus was incarnate you can’t prove that he was through simple reasoning. One just possesses faith that he was and that the scripture “Bible” is the living word of God. As the book goes on to state that reason leads to the collapse of and basis for religious belief or moral life.

Jacobi says that by denying God we risk turning human beings into gods and losing the immortality of the soul leads to suicide. I would counter his argument about losing the immortality of the soul leads to suicide based on the fact that if he is referring to Christianity immortality of the soul is only most recent since Jesus came. In the times of Abraham and Moses there was no looking beyond the life they were to live, when they died, they were dead. They did not believe that part of their very being was immortal. Yet we hold today many of the same fundamental moral values that they hold. And yet suicide might have been a way out for some it was not a way of life for many; because by ending their life was ending their journey period. If we look at everything and criticize everything and anything that cannot be explained or proved than where does that leave us? You begin to doubt anything and everything and how things ought to be. By doing this and believing this is the only way, is their room for religion? And if so where? How?

Critiquing Kant

The distinction between Continental and Analytic philosophy is certainly grounded in Kant. Critchley makes this distinction appear to boil down to this: Continental Philosophers engrossed themselves in the problems and existential woes that Kant's system invoked; Analytic Philosophers overlooked these woes and continued to do philosophy branching off from Kant, without stopping to address the problems of nihilism, radical skepticism, and the other problems induced by Kant. Husserl appears to be the only Philosopher who was able to both criticize Kant, address the problems his philosophy presents, and at the same time present a positive development of that philosophy. Thus, the divide between analytic and Continental philosophy is not one that can be "reconciled", it appears that these two ways of philosophy stem from two different ways of thinking - those who feel that Kant's philosophy (and it's implications) are liberating, and those who believe that it is frightening. It would appear that we have very little control over how we think in this regard - we are either humbled or despaired by his revelations, and how we preform philosophy will innately be affected by this attitude.

Continential philosophy chapters 1&2

I like the comparison, a philosopher is a janitor in the crystal palace of the sciences. Because of the void between knowledge and wisdom. Sciences technologies in highly developed societies have lengthened the void gradually over time and now seems greater than ever. And that all philosophizing should attempt to bridge the gap. Even between analytic and continental.

And I'm a little confused by the author saying that there was a slipping a way from, I don't know what kind of philosophy; reasoning maybe. And to get back to it to understand continental it we need to go back to Kant, where this certain type of philosophy started.

Continental Philosophy

This was positively a great read. While I would never assume that I understand the distinction between the Analytical (A's) and the Continental (C's) entirely, I feel much more confidently that I can express some of the differences between the two schools of thought and the history that caused the distinction.

For me the most interesting section of the reading was how Kant and the criticism of Kant (or the criticism of criticism) annihilated both reason and faith. Amongst the rubble are the torn philosophers looking for some kind of shelter in which to lick their wounds and go about getting something for all the effort they went trhough. The two schools went about resurrecting what they deemed to be the essential tool for answering questions that they held philosophy to be responsible for. The A's looked to truth and the C's looked to meaning, according to Critchley.

Mill is the one to first recognize and write down these distinctions for the world to see. I also appreciated C.P. Snow's accounting for a two culture system in which there are scientists (A's) on one side and literary intellectuals (C's) on the other(49).

For me, pragmatism appears to be answering these problems. Starting with Peirce (obviously falling on the A's side of things) and moving through James and on to Dewey we see that instrumentalism provides the philosophical apparatus to bind the two together. Faith and reason are both features of the human landscape. To trumpet one as taking precedence over the other is to ignore the diversity of the problems that we face as human beings. Both faith and reason have a place in this world. To shun one merely restricts aspects of humanity to those who would do so.

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Idealistic Enlightenment

Kant's arguments for the enlightenment of humanity appears to be heavily idealized in that he foresees a time in which all of humanity will become enlightened through the process that he describes in these writings. The formation of this end society reminds me of the transition from The One to the many. The process occurs because it has no other option. If there were an option, that, too, would have to be fulfilled in some capacity (I think). However, for Kant, there is only one path or method and through our agency we are able to facilitate the process by becoming enlightened ourselves (i.e. start thinking about things and applying our thought to our actions). I like the idea of motivating people to think about things, but doing this through governance seems contradictory to any real world governmental model (even ours).

Kant's ideas are too narrow for my taste. While I can appreciate his opinion, he is too bold in his assertions. Call me a product of a post-modern society, I guess. The teleological talk just sends me spinning; it rigidly dictates the nature of humanity in such a way that is too constraining for the advancement of new ideas and opportunities that we may happen upon. Again, I'm reading this from my day and my time. I find it very hard to fuse my horizon with a world that is just coming to view reason as critical to advancement (or even advancement as something possible).

While I'm highly critical of Howard Bloom in many ways (e.g. I'm certainly no subscriber to the ideas of strict sociobiology), he does make a few good points in his book The Lucifer Principle. One of these (from memory) is that studies of ant colonies show that even these societies have lethargic and lazy ants that don't seem to accomplish very much while others are dramatically engaged and active in doing the work of the colony. The interesting thing is that when the engaged ants disappear, the "lazy" ants become engaged and the whole colony reforms with a portion being engaged and another portion becoming lazy. To me, this represents a parallel to any social or communal society. Is this because we are driven by our DNA to act in this fashion? Are there psychological issues going on that determine this kind of behavior? Or, is it possible that the very communities that we live in instill this kind of behavior in some epiphenomenal way? I dunno, but it's certainly interesting.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

What is Enlightenment

This essay of Kant's presents an interesting idea about enlightenment and its role. He argues that the masses are unthinking masses bound by guardians that they at some point willingly put in charge so that they could be lazy. These guardians kept taking more and more authority and power over the unthinking masses and then the unthinking masses pretty much just stopped being able to do anything. These bindings that people have willingly put on themselves is what prevents humans from progressing as nature intended and breaks the human ability to work towards perfect civic unions. But Kant argues that every now and then someone breaks out and on a rare occasion actually manages to try and free others from the guardians. Sometimes it works and sometimes the Guardians stop it from really taking hold. Kant argues that this lack of free thinking and reasoning and of course arguing is the biggest problem humans face from becoming enlightened. I don's really see how it would ever be possible to have a period of real enlightenment where everyone began truly thinking for themselves without also bringing about a complete collapse of society. Which seems odd considering society's progression is what we would ultimately be freeing ourselves to achieve.

On Hidden Enlightenment

On Hidden Enlightenment

In his assessment on “Enlightenment”, Kant appears to have trouble saying exactly what enlightenment is and what it entails. This becomes very problematic for the student of Kant, because in two different essays he presents various ways of interpreting Enlightenment and his vision of a civic, cosmopolitan society. In “What is Enlightenment” he writes:

One age cannot enter into an alliance on oath to put the next age in a position where it would be impossible for it to extend and correct its knowledge, particularly on such important matters, or to make any progress whatsoever in enlightenment. This would be a crime against human nature, whose original destiny lies precisely in such progress. (4)

This makes it seem as though Enlightenment is something that it transgresses from one epoch to another; just as unenlightened people have trouble obtaining enlightenment, one could reasonable assume from Kant’s essay that it would be just as hard for an enlightened person to become unenlightened; one could say the same for countries and periods of history as well. The problem is that Kant states that an individual must make the choices to become enlightened, and that this will have an effect on others who will follow, etc. First, this is a grand assumption that, other than a few comments on reason and human nature, is largely hypothetical. But the relationship to the state is even more problematic – the Enlightened can influence government, but in order to become enlightened, one must be willing to turn their back on the government and openly oppose such policies which are not enlightened. However, he declares that Fredrick is an enlightened monarch and that this historical period is a period of enlightenment. The problem, then is this – that which is giveth, can be taketh. Should a monarch support enlightened policies, Kant appears to believe that more will follow, and that there will be a sort of snowball effect whereby the legislator(s) must give in to adopting enlightened policies.

History here poses a problem for Kant. Indeed, governments have become more democratic, transparent, and civil over the course of the last 200 years. However, this is not, especially according to Kant’s criteria, enlightenment. In order to be enlightened, people must become “mature”. People are less mature, if anything, than they were in Kant’s time. Laziness, which he names as the apex of immaturity, is at an all time high. Guardians, those willing to do the work that others don’t care for or refuse to do, are everywhere – the United States economic ideology is a circle that Kant would find appalling – people are encourage and praised for profiting off the laziness of others; these men are called entrepreneurs, innovators, and exemplars. At the same time, laziness is encouraged, often by these “Guardians” – through advertising and marketing, using technology and invention not for the betterment of mankind, but for pleasure, or even simply to stay chic and trendy. It is a circle not of enlightenment, but of unenlightenment.

So how did we fall from enlightenment? If once we were in an age of enlightenment, as Kant has claimed, how are we now in an age of unenlightenment? In other words, where once enlightenment was lucid and present, it now is hidden from us. Where and how is enlightenment hiding from us, and whence and where will find it?

Friday, January 16, 2009

Finding first reading for class

Our first reading for this course is Kant's "What is Enlightenment" which can be found at e-text.org and also Kant's "Idea for a Universal History"

Welcome

Well, this semester I'm trying class blogs for all of my classes instead of either BlackBoard posts or individual blogs (which I tried last semester). This will be a place for all of us to post our on-going thoughts on the reading and discussion for this course. I'll be sending out an incomplete version of the syllabus in the near future, but I wanted to get this set up for all of us.

The syllabus is incomplete primarily because Scult and I are team-teaching this course but not team teaching each meeting. Essentially, I'll be taking the first part of the semester (Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard & Nietzsche) and Scult will take the latter part (with Heidegger & Gadamer). We figured that this will be less schizophrenic for your all although, obviously, not entirely without its schizophrenic qualities.

Posting here is part of the requirements for the course and I expect everyone to post on a regular basis (typically twice a week).

I hope that your break is going well and that your looking forward to this class. I know that I'm looking forward to our conversations.