Analytic vs Continental Philosophy [Archive]

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heiss93

7th January 2010, 06:40

In academic philosophy the two camps are analytic and continental philosophy. Both claim to be a third way between the traditional divide between idealism and materialism. While neither embraces orthodox Marxism, politically continental philosophy reflects the neo-Marxist strands of "open" Marxism, while Analytic philosophy largely reflects the liberal conservatism of the Anglo-American sphere. There are obviously exceptions on both sides. Certain strands of continental philosophy veer towards fascism, while Singer, Cohen, Chomsky, and MacKinnon are all radicals within the analytic tradition. From a Marxist perspective the most useful work done by the Analytic school would be GA Cohen's vigorous defense of histomat. While Dialectical Materialism and Continental philosophy have common origins in German Idealism, the founders of Phenomenology Husserl and Heidegger have no relation to Marxism, although the Frankfurt School and certain Existentialists interprted it in a Marxist manner. While empirocriticism was initally hostile to materialism, recent development in some strands of analytic philosophy have moved towards physicalism, which is identical with Lenin's definition of matter.

kalu

7th January 2010, 15:38

I have not really studied analytic philosophy (I have no formal training in logic, for example) but from my brief researches via my field, anthropology, I think a lot can be gained from wedding both analytic and continental approaches. Talal Asad for example has combined wittgensteinian and foucauldian approaches, while david scott has uniquely combined the work of quentin skinner, foucault, and alasdair macintyre, to reexamine the concepts of "problem space" (the question and answer of a particular political moment that determines how we reconstruct the past and anticipate the future), political rationalities, and agonistic pluralism, respectively. There are many philosophers on both sides of the divide who have fruitfully combined,for example, set theory and french theory (alain badiou), deconstruction and pragmatism (richard rorty), and other trends (habermas). I myself am interested in learning more about virtue epistemology and the work of alvin plantinga, though I need further grounding in logic.

I anticipate (but hope otherwise) that this thread will unfortunately be the ground for rehashing stereotypes (analytic philosophers are dominated by one conception of "reason," continentals employ obfuscating rhetoric, analytics evacuate the content of the political, continentals violate basic rules of argument and thus produce nonsensical statements, blah blah blah). I just hope we can begin to move in another direction, and query these assumptions and the seemingly rigid categories upon which they depend. I do not deny that a historical division has been formed, but for the purposes of critical debate and radical political thinking, I hope we can reactivate basic concepts and ideas in both traditions in order to revision the debate outside of its current narrow boundaries.

Needless to say, I think this alleged division has satisfied the needs of academic "territorial marking" (ie carnap versus heidegger, searle versus derrida)--unfair assumptions, lack of generosity to other arguments and contexts--rather than provide the point of departure for rigorous and inspiring debate.

which doctor

7th January 2010, 17:14

I'm continental. Logic is overrated and the dialectic is a-ok in my book. That said, I haven't really studied analytic that much, but I find the whole concept off-putting.

Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor

8th January 2010, 01:12

I prefer analytic philosophy by a large margin. If I were making a list of my preferred philosophers, I don't know if a single continental philosopher would make the top 50. Nietzsche is considered continental, but he is a somewhat odd case who is less antagonist to analytic philosophy than most.

Logic is the #1 reason I prefer analytic philosophy. If an argument isn't demonstrable using logical notation, I'm skeptical of how it can have any validity. Much of philosophy is nothing more than interpretation of life. Given that he is tall and fat, and tall people might need to eat to be tall, we can assume tall people eat more and become fat.

Obviously, that's ridiculous. But ignorant people might buy the reason if the world contained a high population of tall, fat people. Most philosophy simple makes a convoluted argument so people have a difficult time finding the problem with it.

At least analytic philosophy, for the most part, attempts to have some sort of logic and rigor.

kalu

8th January 2010, 01:29

JimFar

9th January 2010, 03:14

One of my areas of interest is in the application of the methods of analytical philosophy to topics and issues that were previously mainly the preserve of continental philosophers. heiswss93 has already made mention of the late Jerry Cohen's work, which involved the application of the tools of logical and linguistic analysis to the elucidation and defense of Marx's materialist conception of history. Previous to Cohen, within the academy, it was mainly the continental philosophers who took an interest in Marx. Most of the analytical philosophers seemed indifferent or even hostile towards Marx. Following the publication of Cohen's 1978 book, Karl Marx's Theory of History, a whole school of thought, Analytical Marxism, emerged, which was concerned with applying the latest tools of analytical philosophy and modern social science to the understanding of Marxism.

On this board, Rosa Lichtenstein is noted for her application of Wittgensteinian-type analysis to the understanding of Marxism.

Nietzche has long been considered to be a leading light for the continental philosophers, but ever since Arthur Danto wrote his book on Nietzsche forty-five years ago, a number of analytical philosophers have taken an interest in the German philosopher's work. Alexander Nehamas, and Brian Leiter are just a few of the analytical philosophers who have concerned themselves with Nietzsche.

Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor

9th January 2010, 04:41

Interestingly, Nietzsche is considered a proto-continental philosopher: he has been universally praised, by heidegger, bataille, derrida, deleuze, foucault, etc. What aspects of Nietzsche's thought do you like?

Also, I'm wary of equating "logic" purely and simply with rigor. Symbolic logic and modern logic have existed only for the past hundred or so years (producing what we now define as standard "logical notation") yet people have been making rigorous arguments in philosophy and other fields long before. It would be a mistake to let one conception of "rigor" dominate, especially since "continental philosophy" has its own standards, such as derrida's method of deconstruction after his careful engagement with husserl and de saussure.

Nietzsche's focus on the use of power to enforce views of morality is interesting. He's interpretations of reality are very liberal and allow for a more pragmatic view of logic. The idea that personal traits can be reconceptualized by the individual is also interesting.

I like Nietzsche, but I do find it difficult to sort through his works to find the good parts. That's true for most philosophers, though.

Continental philosophy tends to be particularly obscure and unintelligible. I'm skeptical of anyone who can't or is unwilling to make their arguments accessible to everyone. Even quantum mechanics can be roughly explained to non-physicists. People who have gone on to interpret continental philosophy have made it more accessible, though, and Foucault is better in terms of clarity than most.

I'll be honest, I haven't encountered a lot of continental philosophy. As a philosophy student, the importance of providing clear arguments is drilled into us. This makes me somewhat naturally annoyed by continental philosophy, at least as I've experienced it.

Belisarius

9th January 2010, 10:34

continental philosophers aren't that obscure at all. it just needs some practice. personally i haven't studied philosophy yet (only autodidactic), but i can read heidegger of derrida with almost as much understanding as the news paper. on the other hand i can't understand a word of what some analytic philsophers are saying, because i just haven't really engaged in their vocabulary. the point with some philosophers is just that you need to filter the important stuff from the nonsense (derrida e.g. tends to write nonsense at the end of his texts)

Calmwinds

9th January 2010, 18:38

Continental philosophers have much disdain for Empiricism, so why consider it marxist if Marxism is supposedly closely connected to science[Therefore Empiricism]? Continental philosophy to me generally seems to be for only mystics who wish to be able to say anything they want and seem profound without being able to be wrong. A bunch of garbage, it should be fought on every ground.

Also if your first introduction to philosophy is Derrida, I can only hope for your recovery.

kalu

9th January 2010, 19:49

Science does not equal empiricism. Scientists in certain disciplines may use empirical methods, but that does not make up half the battle over the definition of science. Additionally, philosophical method does not need to conform to the methods of the day in the natural sciences. In fact, philosophy has frequently been used as a deductive apparatus over and above the sciences to extend their insights or examine the metaphysical basis of their claims. Philosophers in both camps recognize the value of this task, that's why we even have logic, which is not reducible to "empirical study" like the study of mental phenomena (even if logicians like carnap wished to "eliminate" metaphysics).

Belisarius

10th January 2010, 09:35

i wouldn't immediately call marxism an empirical science, since almost no marxist succeeded in accurately predicting any future change (Marx said he lived in the last stage of capitalism, Lenin said the same 50 years later and another 50 later Mao said it and it seems they've all been wrong).

and continental philosophy asn't mystical at all, but actually more the opposite: very concrete. you just have to start with those concrete ones and then the more abstract ones will make complete sense. For analytic philosophers the most accessible are Foucault (he hardly uses any difficult vocabulary and gives several examples with everything he says), Husserl (he started phenomenology, which he called "a rigorous science", to "return to the things themselves". this means that he wanted to study consciousness and how things appear to it, a very modest job) and Freud (his analyses of the subconscious are presented in a very understandible language with examples he himself experienced).

after those three i think other continentals like Heidegger and Sartre will start to make more sense and you will see that their difficult alnguage is actually a way of being as concrete as possible. e.g. if Heidegger introduces the term being-in-the-world he means that in a very litteral sense. you are always somewhere in a relation to an outside world. this is so simple that many ignore it.

black magick hustla

11th January 2010, 06:35

Orwell'sLeftEye

11th January 2010, 18:24

Two words:

Gerald Cohen:tt1:

kalu

11th January 2010, 21:49

one of my main reservation about continentals is their hostility to empiricism as a sort of "dogmatic" idea. of course, without an empiricist outlook, you either have to find truth only by the "correct configuration of words" which is ludicrous, and/or, by logical deduction. logic is fine, but by itself it says nothing. it is just the accumulation of rules we take for granted by talking. if someone says all men are mortal, socrates is a man, but he is immortal he is of course, speaking either nonsense or another language. there are some continental gems, which include nietzche, kant, and marx if you consider him a philosopher. the rest is ridden with confusion, and evten the "modern" continentals are just a revampent of things said before much more clearer but with added obfuscation. for example a lot of "postmodern" theory like derrida is just wittgenstein with a bunch of incomprehensible garbage and metaphysics. i like focault though and some of the poetical language of people associated with the frankfurt school and the situs.

analytical philosophy tends sometimes to concern some very stale and boring technicalities that are completely irrelevant outside a tiny tiny tiny minority of logical choppers. there is of course, some gems within the analytics, the most useful, perhaps wittgenstein.

I think Laclau and Mouffe make an illuminating point that indirectly references empiricism:

"We cannot enter here into all the complexities of a theory of discourse as we understand it, but we should at least indicate the following basic points in order to obviate the more common misunderstandings:
(a) The fact that every object is constituted as an object of discourse has nothing to do with whether there is a world external to thought, or with the realism/idealism opposition. An earthquake or the falling of a brick is an event that certainly exists, in the sense that it occurs here and now, independently of my will. But whether their specificity as objects is constructed in terms of 'natural phenomena' or 'expressions of the wrath of God', depends upon the structuring of a discursive field. What is denied is not that such objects exist externally to thought, but the rather different assertion that they could constitute themselves as objects outside any discursive condition of emergence.
(b) At the root of the previous prejudice lies an assumption of the mental character of discourse. Against this, we will affirm the material character of every discursive structure. To argue the opposite is to accept the very classical dichotomy between an objective field constituted outside of any discursive intervention, and a discourse consisting of the pure expression of thought. This is, precisely, the dichotomy which several currents of contemporary thought have tried to break. The theory of speech acts[I] has, for example, underlined their performative character. Language games, in Wittgenstein, include within an indissoluble totality both language and the actions interconnected with it: 'A is building with building-stones: there are blocks, pillars, slabs, and beams. B has to pass the stones, and that in the order in which A needs them. For this purpose they use a language consisting of the words "block", "pillar", "slab", "beam" A calls them out: B brings the stone which he has learnt to bring at such and such a call.' ... The linguistic and non-linguistic elements are not merely juxtaposed, but constitute a differential and structured system of positions -- that is, a discourse." (Hegemony and Socialist Strategy by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, pp 108; bold is my emphasis)

I see no way to argue around what Laclau and Mouffe have written. Additionally, we must recognize that empiricism has been critiqued from both the continental and analytic traditions. It should also be recognized that empiricism has been accepted by different schools and thinkers within the analytic and continental traditions (for example, Deleuze's radical empiricism; Deleuze was a great admirer of Hume). To make the issue more complicated, one of Deleuze's supporters, Foucault, in fact commended Searle's theory of speech acts, and considered his own theory of discourse as a theory of "serious speech acts," although he ended up affirming the "non-discursive character" of institutions (to Laclau and Mouffe's chagrin; for further information, see Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics by Hubert Dreyfus and Paul Rabinow). It seems the categories we rely upon for our generalizations ("analytic", "continental") are a bit fuzzier.

Empiricism essentially ignores the formation of its categories, such as "experience", in a discursive field. Additionally, empiricist theories generally posit a division between "subject" and "object" (consider John Locke's attempt to differentiate between the "primary" and "secondary, or sensible" qualities of an object, the latter of which create "mental impressions"). In continental philosophy, Husserl posited that intentionality, or the structures of consciousness, is directed "toward" an object. Husserl further wrote, however, that the mode of intentionality itself does not require an actual object. Derrida then took this assumption further by positing that there is no sovereign, constituting subject either, that writing as differance (deferal-displacement, exists at the origin of knowledge. The division between subject and object is not a clear "common sense" presupposition, but belies a complex philosophical debate, which nevertheless has [I]radical implications for our conception of politics and Left organizing itself (again, see Laclau and Mouffe).

See [I]How to Do Things with Words by JL Austin (analytic tradition).
[II] Based on an extended engagement with De Saussure's theory of structure. De Saussure was an enormously influential French linguist, who has affected the opinions of, for example, Chomsky.

blake 3:17

12th January 2010, 02:11

Damned literalists!

black magick hustla

12th January 2010, 05:38

I'm continental. Logic is overrated and the dialectic is a-ok in my book. That said, I haven't really studied analytic that much, but I find the whole concept off-putting.

saying logic is overrated is like saying language is overrated. without logic there is no language, because logic are the rules we assume when talking.

which doctor

17th January 2010, 01:21

Continental philosophy tends to be particularly obscure and unintelligible. I'm skeptical of anyone who can't or is unwilling to make their arguments accessible to everyone. Even quantum mechanics can be roughly explained to non-physicists. People who have gone on to better in terms of clarity than most.interpret continental philosophy have made it more accessible, though, and Foucault is better in terms of clarity than most.

I'll be honest, I haven't encountered a lot of continental philosophy. As a philosophy student, the importance of providing clear arguments is drilled into us. This makes me somewhat naturally annoyed by continental philosophy, at least as I've experienced it.

For starters, if you think you understand quantum mechanics and you aren't a physicist or chemist, then you really don't understand quantum mechanics. When explained at the level of the general public, quantum theory really doesn't resemble actual quantum theory much at all, which is why the idea's been hijacked by all sorts of wackos, most notable new ageists. One of the worst examples of this is the movie What the Bleep do we know? which is half new age bull shit and half pop-philosophy, yet they frequently reference quantum theory. Quantum mechanics is an enormously difficult subject and I know enough about it to know that I really don't know anything about it.

You find continental philosophy obscure and unintelligible simply because, as you admitted, your really not familiar with it. No philosophy has ever been something uneducated people can just pick up and instantly understand. All texts even the most basic, assume a certain intelligence on behalf of the reader in order to be understood. Philosophy, for instance, assumes a much higher reading level than do instructions working a coffee maker, because philosophy deals with much more complex ideas than working a coffee maker does. No one makes a fuss when physicists have to invent a name for a new subatomic particle they just discovered, and I don't see why anyone should fuss when philosophers invent words to signify new concepts.

Another problem with continental philosophy is that it nearly always makes its way to anglo audiences via an intermediary, the translator. One of the worst offenders of this is German philosophy because of the peculiarities of the German language which are challenging to translate into English. Take Theodor Adorno as an example, who's widely considered in the Anglo world to be one of the most esoteric and elitist of continental philosophy, was actually a very popular public intellectual in post-war Germany. Much to his chagrin of the culture industry, he gave well over a hundred radio lectures, including many of the essays now considered cryptic and impenetrable by Anglo audiences. And Adorno's collected works, all 20 volumes, are published in mass market paperback versions and still widely sold. I don't think any anglo analytical philosopher can even come close to that.

革命者

17th January 2010, 18:39

I think the difference is whether you see language as a tool of philosophy or an object of philosophical deliberation.

But I don't know whether using geographical location as a way to categorise philosophy is really helpful. Both strands have been influenced by similar developments and some differences are more cultural than philosophical, though one is never free from the other.

Belisarius

17th January 2010, 18:46

革命者

17th January 2010, 19:35

Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor

18th January 2010, 06:12

For starters, if you think you understand quantum mechanics and you aren't a physicist or chemist, then you really don't understand quantum mechanics. When explained at the level of the general public, quantum theory really doesn't resemble actual quantum theory much at all, which is why the idea's been hijacked by all sorts of wackos, most notable new ageists. One of the worst examples of this is the movie What the Bleep do we know? which is half new age bull shit and half pop-philosophy, yet they frequently reference quantum theory. Quantum mechanics is an enormously difficult subject and I know enough about it to know that I really don't know anything about it.

You find continental philosophy obscure and unintelligible simply because, as you admitted, your really not familiar with it. No philosophy has ever been something uneducated people can just pick up and instantly understand. All texts even the most basic, assume a certain intelligence on behalf of the reader in order to be understood. Philosophy, for instance, assumes a much higher reading level than do instructions working a coffee maker, because philosophy deals with much more complex ideas than working a coffee maker does. No one makes a fuss when physicists have to invent a name for a new subatomic particle they just discovered, and I don't see why anyone should fuss when philosophers invent words to signify new concepts.

Another problem with continental philosophy is that it nearly always makes its way to anglo audiences via an intermediary, the translator. One of the worst offenders of this is German philosophy because of the peculiarities of the German language which are challenging to translate into English. Take Theodor Adorno as an example, who's widely considered in the Anglo world to be one of the most esoteric and elitist of continental philosophy, was actually a very popular public intellectual in post-war Germany. Much to his chagrin of the culture industry, he gave well over a hundred radio lectures, including many of the essays now considered cryptic and impenetrable by Anglo audiences. And Adorno's collected works, all 20 volumes, are published in mass market paperback versions and still widely sold. I don't think any anglo analytical philosopher can even come close to that.

I think we have different definitions of what "understanding" quantum theory entails. If a psychologist needs to know about quantum theory, he needs it to be accessible. Given how specialized modern professions are, it's extremely important for them to provide "more simple" explanations that can be utilized by others. Otherwise, the benefits of cross-disciplinary work are lost. Of course, it's still better to have someone study psychology and quantum mechanics. It just isn't always practical.

Plato's Republic, Mill's Utilitarianism, Mill's On Liberty, etc. These are all things someone could pick up and read with little to no knowledge in philosophy. Foucault is an example of a continental philosopher who is fairly accessible.

I agree that philosophers have a right to terminology. However, even analytic philosophers tend to create terms when none are necessary. There is also no overwhelming agreement on what definitions mean in philosophy.

I'll grant that continental philosophy might have more to offer than I've seen. However, I'm very supportive of analytic philosophy as it pertains to forming arguments and presenting them. Continental philosophers do "something" to differentiate themselves. Whatever it is, it breaks from the analytic tradition in some way. I can't explain the difference, but I greatly prefer analytic arguments.

I have to concede, upon thinking, that quantum mechanics and philosophy may be less accessible than I believe. I suspect I may be overestimating the abilities of the average person.

Calmwinds

19th January 2010, 10:39

Shit is weird, you would think Rosa would have already posted in this thread.

REVLEFT'S BIEGGST MATSER TROL

19th January 2010, 15:11

Yeah, I'm awaiting the R-bomb landing on this thread for days now!

I guess she thinks she's covered it elsewhere?

Meridian

19th January 2010, 21:56

I contend against this distinction. Is not Gottlob Frege considered the founder of analytic philosophy? That name sounds distinctively continental to my ears.

I like philosophy that knows its limits, such as the limits of language and what can be known, said and thought, and goes from there. Not the other way around.

革命者

20th January 2010, 00:48

JimFar

20th January 2010, 01:13

The term "continental philosophy" would seem to imply that the differences between continental philosophy and analytical philosophy have a geographic basis, but that would be overly simplistic. Frege was Austrian. The logical positivists like Otto Neurath, Rudolf Carnap etc. were mostly of Austrian and German origins. There was also a closely allied Berlin Circle featuring people like Hans Reichenbach. Those people, were of course, Germans. The Wittgensteinian philosopher George von Wright was a Finn (also an ethnic Swede). And another logical positivist, Louis Rougier, was of course French.

RaÃºl Duke

23rd January 2010, 22:29

Calmwinds

24th January 2010, 08:28

Choose some hard empiricist to scare the shit out of you.

Hit The North

26th January 2010, 21:28

i have a question: what are the best analytic philosophers to start with if you're from a continental background (i've spent the last years studying Heidegger, Lacan, Althusser, Foucault, etc.)? i suppose Kuhn and Feyerabend (from what i know about them), but who else?

You should try John R Searle's The Construction of Social Reality.

He was a right wing scumbag and exploitative landlord in Berkeley, but this book offers a real sociological clarity which is lacking in, say, Foucault.

Rosa Lichtenstein

1st February 2010, 08:15

Apologies for the delay in responding, but I have been away for a while.

heiss 93:

In academic philosophy the two camps are analytic and continental philosophy. Both claim to be a third way between the traditional divide between idealism and materialism. While neither embraces orthodox Marxism, politically continental philosophy reflects the neo-Marxist strands of "open" Marxism, while Analytic philosophy largely reflects the liberal conservatism of the Anglo-American sphere.

This is a very crude an unhelpfull dichotomy-- many analytic philsophers (wrongly in my view) have a high regard for certain 'Continental Philsophers'.

But, even if you were right, it is far from clear that is is true:

while Analytic philosophy largely reflects the liberal conservatism of the Anglo-American sphere

What is your ecvidence for this? In gafct, many leading analytic philosophers were not only socialists (Davidson, Ryle, Ayer, Russell, Carnap, Neurath, Schlick), several were Marxists or sympathetic to Marxism (Neurath, Wittgenstein).

There are obviously exceptions on both sides.

Indeed, but you have still faild to show that analytic philosophy is conservative.

While Dialectical Materialism and Continental philosophy have common origins in German Idealism, the founders of Phenomenology Husserl and Heidegger have no relation to Marxism, although the Frankfurt School and certain Existentialists interprted it in a Marxist manner. While empirocriticism was initally hostile to materialism, recent development in some strands of analytic philosophy have moved towards physicalism, which is identical with Lenin's definition of matter.

In fact, Dialectical Materialsim is conservative; dialecticians not only use the methods of two millennia of traditional philosophy (they even defend these methods here), this 'theory' has not changed in 150 years.

Finally, Lenin's 'definition' (if you can call it a defintion!) of matter is demonstrably idealist, as I have show here many times.

http://www.revleft.com/vb/did-lenin-believe-t70368/index.html

Physicalism bears no relation to it.

Rosa Lichtenstein

1st February 2010, 08:19

BTB, I agree with you about Searle's book; it is the place to start on that topic.

Rosa Lichtenstein

1st February 2010, 08:24

On 'Continental Philosophy', I think Chomsky gets it right:

I've returned from travel-speaking, where I spend most of my life, and found a collection of messages extending the discussion about "theory" and "philosophy," a debate that I find rather curious. A few reactions -- though I concede, from the start, that I may simply not understand what is going on.

As far as I do think I understand it, the debate was initiated by the charge that I, Mike, and maybe others don't have "theories" and therefore fail to give any explanation of why things are proceeding as they do. We must turn to "theory" and "philosophy" and "theoretical constructs" and the like to remedy this deficiency in our efforts to understand and address what is happening in the world. I won't speak for Mike. My response so far has pretty much been to reiterate something I wrote 35 years ago, long before "postmodernism" had erupted in the literary intellectual culture: "if there is a body of theory, well tested and verified, that applies to the conduct of foreign affairs or the resolution of domestic or international conflict, its existence has been kept a well-guarded secret," despite much "pseudo-scientific posturing."

To my knowledge, the statement was accurate 35 years ago, and remains so; furthermore, it extends to the study of human affairs generally, and applies in spades to what has been produced since that time. What has changed in the interim, to my knowledge, is a huge explosion of self- and mutual-admiration among those who propound what they call "theory" and "philosophy," but little that I can detect beyond "pseudo-scientific posturing." That little is, as I wrote, sometimes quite interesting, but lacks consequences for the real world problems that occupy my time and energies (Rawls's important work is the case I mentioned, in response to specific inquiry).

The latter fact has been noticed. One fine philosopher and social theorist (also activist), Alan Graubard, wrote an interesting review years ago of Robert Nozick's "libertarian" response to Rawls, and of the reactions to it. He pointed out that reactions were very enthusiastic. Reviewer after reviewer extolled the power of the arguments, etc., but no one accepted any of the real-world conclusions (unless they had previously reached them). That's correct, as were his observations on what it means.

The proponents of "theory" and "philosophy" have a very easy task if they want to make their case. Simply make known to me what was and remains a "secret" to me: I'll be happy to look. I've asked many times before, and still await an answer, which should be easy to provide: simply give some examples of "a body of theory, well tested and verified, that applies to" the kinds of problems and issues that Mike, I, and many others (in fact, most of the world's population, I think, outside of narrow and remarkably self-contained intellectual circles) are or should be concerned with: the problems and issues we speak and write about, for example, and others like them. To put it differently, show that the principles of the "theory" or "philosophy" that we are told to study and apply lead by valid argument to conclusions that we and others had not already reached on other (and better) grounds; these "others" include people lacking formal education, who typically seem to have no problem reaching these conclusions through mutual interactions that avoid the "theoretical" obscurities entirely, or often on their own.

Again, those are simple requests. I've made them before, and remain in my state of ignorance. I also draw certain conclusions from the fact.

As for the "deconstruction" that is carried out (also mentioned in the debate), I can't comment, because most of it seems to me gibberish. But if this is just another sign of my incapacity to recognize profundities, the course to follow is clear: just restate the results to me in plain words that I can understand, and show why they are different from, or better than, what others had been doing long before and and have continued to do since without three-syllable words, incoherent sentences, inflated rhetoric that (to me, at least) is largely meaningless, etc. That will cure my deficiencies --- of course, if they are curable; maybe they aren't, a possibility to which I'll return.

These are very easy requests to fulfil, if there is any basis to the claims put forth with such fervor and indignation. But instead of trying to provide an answer to this simple requests, the response is cries of anger: to raise these questions shows "elitism," "anti-intellectualism," and other crimes --- though apparently it is not "elitist" to stay within the self- and mutual-admiration societies of intellectuals who talk only to one another and (to my knowledge) don't enter into the kind of world in which I'd prefer to live. As for that world, I can reel off my speaking and writing schedule to illustrate what I mean, though I presume that most people in this discussion know, or can easily find out; and somehow I never find the "theoreticians" there, nor do I go to their conferences and parties. In short, we seem to inhabit quite different worlds, and I find it hard to see why mine is "elitist," not theirs. The opposite seems to be transparently the case, though I won't amplify.

To add another facet, I am absolutely deluged with requests to speak and can't possibly accept a fraction of the invitations I'd like to, so I suggest other people. But oddly, I never suggest those who propound "theories" and "philosophy," nor do I come across them, or for that matter rarely even their names, in my own (fairly extensive) experience with popular and activist groups and organizations, general community, college, church, union, etc., audiences here and abroad, third world women, refugees, etc.; I can easily give examples. Why, I wonder.

The whole debate, then, is an odd one. On one side, angry charges and denunciations, on the other, the request for some evidence and argument to support them, to which the response is more angry charges -- but, strikingly, no evidence or argument. Again, one is led to ask why.

It's entirely possible that I'm simply missing something, or that I just lack the intellectual capacity to understand the profundities that have been unearthed in the past 20 years or so by Paris intellectuals and their followers. I'm perfectly open-minded about it, and have been for years, when similar charges have been made -- but without any answer to my questions. Again, they are simple and should be easy to answer, if there is an answer: if I'm missing something, then show me what it is, in terms I can understand. Of course, if it's all beyond my comprehension, which is possible, then I'm just a lost cause, and will be compelled to keep to things I do seem to be able to understand, and keep to association with the kinds of people who also seem to be interested in them and seem to understand them (which I'm perfectly happy to do, having no interest, now or ever, in the sectors of the intellectual culture that engage in these things, but apparently little else).

Since no one has succeeded in showing me what I'm missing, we're left with the second option: I'm just incapable of understanding. I'm certainly willing to grant that it may be true, though I'm afraid I'll have to remain suspicious, for what seem good reasons. There are lots of things I don't understand -- say, the latest debates over whether neutrinos have mass or the way that Fermat's last theorem was (apparently) proven recently. But from 50 years in this game, I have learned two things: (1) I can ask friends who work in these areas to explain it to me at a level that I can understand, and they can do so, without particular difficulty; (2) if I'm interested, I can proceed to learn more so that I will come to understand it. Now Derrida, Lacan, Lyotard, Kristeva, etc. --- even Foucault, whom I knew and liked, and who was somewhat different from the rest --- write things that I also don't understand, but (1) and (2) don't hold: no one who says they do understand can explain it to me and I haven't a clue as to how to proceed to overcome my failures. That leaves one of two possibilities: (a) some new advance in intellectual life has been made, perhaps some sudden genetic mutation, which has created a form of "theory" that is beyond quantum theory, topology, etc., in depth and profundity; or (b) ... I won't spell it out.

Again, I've lived for 50 years in these worlds, have done a fair amount of work of my own in fields called "philosophy" and "science," as well as intellectual history, and have a fair amount of personal acquaintance with the intellectual culture in the sciences, humanities, social sciences, and the arts. That has left me with my own conclusions about intellectual life, which I won't spell out. But for others, I would simply suggest that you ask those who tell you about the wonders of "theory" and "philosophy" to justify their claims --- to do what people in physics, math, biology, linguistics, and other fields are happy to do when someone asks them, seriously, what are the principles of their theories, on what evidence are they based, what do they explain that wasn't already obvious, etc. These are fair requests for anyone to make. If they can't be met, then I'd suggest recourse to Hume's advice in similar circumstances: to the flames.

Specific comment. Phetland asked who I'm referring to when I speak of "Paris school" and "postmodernist cults": the above is a sample.

He then asks, reasonably, why I am "dismissive" of it. Take, say, Derrida. Let me begin by saying that I dislike making the kind of comments that follow without providing evidence, but I doubt that participants want a close analysis of de Saussure, say, in this forum, and I know that I'm not going to undertake it. I wouldn't say this if I hadn't been explicitly asked for my opinion -- and if asked to back it up, I'm going to respond that I don't think it merits the time to do so.

So take Derrida, one of the grand old men. I thought I ought to at least be able to understand his Grammatology, so tried to read it. I could make out some of it, for example, the critical analysis of classical texts that I knew very well and had written about years before. I found the scholarship appalling, based on pathetic misreading; and the argument, such as it was, failed to come close to the kinds of standards I've been familiar with since virtually childhood. Well, maybe I missed something: could be, but suspicions remain, as noted. Again, sorry to make unsupported comments, but I was asked, and therefore am answering.

Some of the people in these cults (which is what they look like to me) I've met: Foucault (we even have a several-hour discussion, which is in print, and spent quite a few hours in very pleasant conversation, on real issues, and using language that was perfectly comprehensible -- he speaking French, me English); Lacan (who I met several times and considered an amusing and perfectly self-conscious charlatan, though his earlier work, pre-cult, was sensible and I've discussed it in print); Kristeva (who I met only briefly during the period when she was a fervent Maoist); and others. Many of them I haven't met, because I am very remote from from these circles, by choice, preferring quite different and far broader ones --- the kinds where I give talks, have interviews, take part in activities, write dozens of long letters every week, etc. I've dipped into what they write out of curiosity, but not very far, for reasons already mentioned: what I find is extremely pretentious, but on examination, a lot of it is simply illiterate, based on extraordinary misreading of texts that I know well (sometimes, that I have written), argument that is appalling in its casual lack of elementary self-criticism, lots of statements that are trivial (though dressed up in complicated verbiage) or false; and a good deal of plain gibberish. When I proceed as I do in other areas where I do not understand, I run into the problems mentioned in connection with (1) and (2) above. So that's who I'm referring to, and why I don't proceed very far. I can list a lot more names if it's not obvious.

For those interested in a literary depiction that reflects pretty much the same perceptions (but from the inside), I'd suggest David Lodge. Pretty much on target, as far as I can judge.

Phetland also found it "particularly puzzling" that I am so "curtly dismissive" of these intellectual circles while I spend a lot of time "exposing the posturing and obfuscation of the New York Times." So "why not give these guys the same treatment." Fair question. There are also simple answers. What appears in the work I do address (NYT, journals of opinion, much of scholarship, etc.) is simply written in intelligible prose and has a great impact on the world, establishing the doctrinal framework within which thought and expression are supposed to be contained, and largely are, in successful doctrinal systems such as ours. That has a huge impact on what happens to suffering people throughout the world, the ones who concern me, as distinct from those who live in the world that Lodge depicts (accurately, I think). So this work should be dealt with seriously, at least if one cares about ordinary people and their problems. The work to which Phetland refers has none of these characteristics, as far as I'm aware. It certainly has none of the impact, since it is addressed only to other intellectuals in the same circles. Furthermore, there is no effort that I am aware of to make it intelligible to the great mass of the population (say, to the people I'm constantly speaking to, meeting with, and writing letters to, and have in mind when I write, and who seem to understand what I say without any particular difficulty, though they generally seem to have the same cognitive disability I do when facing the postmodern cults). And I'm also aware of no effort to show how it applies to anything in the world in the sense I mentioned earlier: grounding conclusions that weren't already obvious. Since I don't happen to be much interested in the ways that intellectuals inflate their reputations, gain privilege and prestige, and disengage themselves from actual participation in popular struggle, I don't spend any time on it.

Phetland suggests starting with Foucault --- who, as I've written repeatedly, is somewhat apart from the others, for two reasons: I find at least some of what he writes intelligible, though generally not very interesting; second, he was not personally disengaged and did not restrict himself to interactions with others within the same highly privileged elite circles. Phetland then does exactly what I requested: he gives some illustrations of why he thinks Foucault's work is important. That's exactly the right way to proceed, and I think it helps understand why I take such a "dismissive" attitude towards all of this --- in fact, pay no attention to it.

What Phetland describes, accurately I'm sure, seems to me unimportant, because everyone always knew it --- apart from details of social and intellectual history, and about these, I'd suggest caution: some of these are areas I happen to have worked on fairly extensively myself, and I know that Foucault's scholarship is just not trustworthy here, so I don't trust it, without independent investigation, in areas that I don't know -- this comes up a bit in the discussion from 1972 that is in print. I think there is much better scholarship on the 17th and 18th century, and I keep to that, and my own research. But let's put aside the other historical work, and turn to the "theoretical constructs" and the explanations: that there has been "a great change from harsh mechanisms of repression to more subtle mechanisms by which people come to do" what the powerful want, even enthusiastically. That's true enough, in fact, utter truism. If that's a "theory," then all the criticisms of me are wrong: I have a "theory" too, since I've been saying exactly that for years, and also giving the reasons and historical background, but without describing it as a theory (because it merits no such term), and without obfuscatory rhetoric (because it's so simple-minded), and without claiming that it is new (because it's a truism). It's been fully recognized for a long time that as the power to control and coerce has declined, it's more necessary to resort to what practitioners in the PR industry early in this century -- who understood all of this well -- called "controlling the public mind." The reasons, as observed by Hume in the 18th century, are that "the implicit submission with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers" relies ultimately on control of opinion and attitudes. Why these truisms should suddenly become "a theory" or "philosophy," others will have to explain; Hume would have laughed.

Some of Foucault's particular examples (say, about 18th century techniques of punishment) look interesting, and worth investigating as to their accuracy. But the "theory" is merely an extremely complex and inflated restatement of what many others have put very simply, and without any pretense that anything deep is involved. There's nothing in what Phetland describes that I haven't been writing about myself for 35 years, also giving plenty of documentation to show that it was always obvious, and indeed hardly departs from truism. What's interesting about these trivialities is not the principle, which is transparent, but the demonstration of how it works itself out in specific detail to cases that are important to people: like intervention and aggression, exploitation and terror, "free market" scams, and so on. That I don't find in Foucault, though I find plenty of it by people who seem to be able to write sentences I can understand and who aren't placed in the intellectual firmament as "theoreticians."

To make myself clear, Phetland is doing exactly the right thing: presenting what he sees as "important insights and theoretical constructs" that he finds in Foucault. My problem is that the "insights" seem to me familiar and there are no "theoretical constructs," except in that simple and familiar ideas have been dressed up in complicated and pretentious rhetoric. Phetland asks whether I think this is "wrong, useless, or posturing." No. The historical parts look interesting sometimes, though they have to be treated with caution and independent verification is even more worth undertaking than it usually is. The parts that restate what has long been obvious and put in much simpler terms are not "useless," but indeed useful, which is why I and others have always made the very same points. As to "posturing," a lot of it is that, in my opinion, though I don't particularly blame Foucault for it: it's such a deeply rooted part of the corrupt intellectual culture of Paris that he fell into it pretty naturally, though to his credit, he distanced himself from it. As for the "corruption" of this culture particularly since World War II, that's another topic, which I've discussed elsewhere and won't go into here. Frankly, I don't see why people in this forum should be much interested, just as I am not. There are more important things to do, in my opinion, than to inquire into the traits of elite intellectuals engaged in various careerist and other pursuits in their narrow and (to me, at least) pretty unininteresting circles. That's a broad brush, and I stress again that it is unfair to make such comments without proving them: but I've been asked, and have answered the only specific point that I find raised. When asked about my general opinion, I can only give it, or if something more specific is posed, address that. I'm not going to undertake an essay on topics that don't interest me.

Unless someone can answer the simple questions that immediately arise in the mind of any reasonable person when claims about "theory" and "philosophy" are raised, I'll keep to work that seems to me sensible and enlightening, and to people who are interested in understanding and changing the world.

Johnb made the point that "plain language is not enough when the frame of reference is not available to the listener"; correct and important. But the right reaction is not to resort to obscure and needlessly complex verbiage and posturing about non-existent "theories." Rather, it is to ask the listener to question the frame of reference that he/she is accepting, and to suggest alternatives that might be considered, all in plain language. I've never found that a problem when I speak to people lacking much or sometimes any formal education, though it's true that it tends to become harder as you move up the educational ladder, so that indoctrination is much deeper, and the self-selection for obedience that is a good part of elite education has taken its toll. Johnb says that outside of circles like this forum, "to the rest of the country, he's incomprehensible" ("he" being me). That's absolutely counter to my rather ample experience, with all sorts of audiences. Rather, my experience is what I just described. The incomprehensibility roughly corresponds to the educational level. Take, say, talk radio. I'm on a fair amount, and it's usually pretty easy to guess from accents, etc., what kind of audience it is. I've repeatedly found that when the audience is mostly poor and less educated, I can skip lots of the background and "frame of reference" issues because it's already obvious and taken for granted by everyone, and can proceed to matters that occupy all of us. With more educated audiences, that's much harder; it's necessary to disentangle lots of ideological constructions.

It's certainly true that lots of people can't read the books I write. That's not because the ideas or language are complicated --- we have no problems in informal discussion on exactly the same points, and even in the same words. The reasons are different, maybe partly the fault of my writing style, partly the result of the need (which I feel, at least) to present pretty heavy documentation, which makes it tough reading. For these reasons, a number of people have taken pretty much the same material, often the very same words, and put them in pamphlet form and the like. No one seems to have much problem --- though again, reviewers in the Times Literary Supplement or professional academic journals don't have a clue as to what it's about, quite commonly; sometimes it's pretty comical.

A final point, something I've written about elsewhere (e.g., in a discussion in Z papers, and the last chapter of Year 501). There has been a striking change in the behaviour of the intellectual class in recent years. The left intellectuals who 60 years ago would have been teaching in working class schools, writing books like "mathematics for the millions" (which made mathematics intelligible to millions of people), participating in and speaking for popular organizations, etc., are now largely disengaged from such activities, and although quick to tell us that they are far more radical than thou, are not to be found, it seems, when there is such an obvious and growing need and even explicit request for the work they could do out there in the world of people with live problems and concerns. That's not a small problem. This country, right now, is in a very strange and ominous state. People are frightened, angry, disillusioned, sceptical, confused. That's an organizer's dream, as I once heard Mike say. It's also fertile ground for demagogues and fanatics, who can (and in fact already do) rally substantial popular support with messages that are not unfamiliar from their predecessors in somewhat similar circumstances. We know where it has led in the past; it could again. There's a huge gap that once was at least partially filled by left intellectuals willing to engage with the general public and their problems. It has ominous implications, in my opinion.

End of Reply, and (to be frank) of my personal interest in the matter, unless the obvious questions are answered.

http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/chomsky-on-postmodernism.html

cmdrdeathguts

12th February 2010, 02:02

Down-the-line continental. I spent my gap year slouching around in libraries in Toronto, after I picked up the Zizek book on Lenin on a complete whim, having never read either before. It changed everything, and I've been engaged with the continental tradition in most of its guises since. At that point I thought, 'hey, how fortunate that my course is philosophy - who knew I'd actually get into it when I wrote it down not giving a shit?'

So imagine my horror and disappointment when I arrived and I had ten 90 minute lectures on the Meditations (about 50 pages, of which about 10 are at all interesting), formal logic lectures which developed so slowly you could miss three classes and not be lost when you came back, and some moron asking me how I know I'm not a brain in a vat. I had to write an essay on that.:blink: One dull logic class, there was a list of essay questions for English left on the table. The first thing on the page was a Zizek quote. I dropped out the first opportunity, and now I'm back at the same uni, doing the good continental shit. Queer theory this week; that was fun.

black magick hustla

12th February 2010, 06:51

formal logic is important. i am sorry you dont like it.

RHIZOMES

12th February 2010, 07:26

Nietzsche's focus on the use of power to enforce views of morality is interesting. He's interpretations of reality are very liberal and allow for a more pragmatic view of logic. The idea that personal traits can be reconceptualized by the individual is also interesting.

I like Nietzsche, but I do find it difficult to sort through his works to find the good parts. That's true for most philosophers, though.

Continental philosophy tends to be particularly obscure and unintelligible. I'm skeptical of anyone who can't or is unwilling to make their arguments accessible to everyone. Even quantum mechanics can be roughly explained to non-physicists. People who have gone on to interpret continental philosophy have made it more accessible, though, and Foucault is better in terms of clarity than most.

I'll be honest, I haven't encountered a lot of continental philosophy. As a philosophy student, the importance of providing clear arguments is drilled into us. This makes me somewhat naturally annoyed by continental philosophy, at least as I've experienced it.

So you're pro-analytic philosophy because your department is biased towards that direction? You just admitted in this post you aren't even familiar with a lot of continental philosophy. Also in regards to continental philosophy being unreadable, I think you're conflating all continental philosophy as postmodern philosophy, which isn't the case.

black magick hustla

12th February 2010, 07:28

a lot of continental stuff is just literary word gimmicks and analytical stuff is concerned a lot of the times with pedantic details nobody gives a shit about

Derrida

12th February 2010, 07:36

Formal logic is rarely important or interesting.

Derrida

12th February 2010, 07:39

All moomoo are wawa, rakiraki is a moomoo, rakiraki is a wawa. There's some formal logic for ya! xD What use is a logic which (1) tells us nothing that we already didn't know and (2) can have absolutely no basis in reality or be totally abstract from it?

Rosa Lichtenstein

12th February 2010, 08:14

Derrida:

Formal logic is rarely important or interesting.

On the contrary, had logic not been revolutionised in the late 19th century, many advances in mathematics, computing and communication systems would not have been made in the 20th.

All moomoo are wawa, rakiraki is a moomoo, rakiraki is a wawa. There's some formal logic for ya! xD What use is a logic which (1) tells us nothing that we already didn't know and (2) can have absolutely no basis in reality or be totally abstract from it?

(1) is not so; there are plenty of arguments that add to our knowledge (examples can be given on request). (2) is misleading, too, for if logic had nothing practical to offer, the above advances would not have been made.

Rosa Lichtenstein

12th February 2010, 12:25

Dada:

a lot of continental stuff is just literary word gimmicks and analytical stuff is concerned a lot of the times with pedantic details nobody gives a shit about

While I do not wish to defend everything that has been written in the analytic tradition, it is just this attention to detail (or 'pedantry', as you call it) that was missing in traditional philosophy (and now in Continental Philosophy) that allowed its theorists to concoct all their convoluted metaphysical systems.

Anyone who is interested in analytic philosophy does care about it -- and that takes in an awful lot of philosophers. So, this is not true either:

nobody gives a shit about

Some of the very best work done in the analytic tradition pays close attention to detail, and keeps it interesting, too. For example, check out David Lewis's Convention, an example of Analytic Philosophy at its best. -- or Barry Stroud's more recent The Quest For Reality, a modern minor classic.

kalu

12th February 2010, 16:44

Analytic philosophy seems to generally be better at engaging with traditional philosophical problems (I just read Newton Garver's Derrida and Wittgenstein, which gave me some food for thought), but when it comes to social sciences and literature, I find continental philosophy generally much more useful (given continentals overall emphasis on "practice," as Simon Critchley puts it). I just think continental philosophers have been a lot more successful at engaging with disciplines like anthropology (Levi-Strauss' structuralism and parallels with famed anthropologist Edmund Leach; Deleuze and Guattari's impact on theory about neoliberalism, given their concept of "deterritorialization", see James Ferguson and Akhil Gupta; Foucault on governmentality and contemporary development studies, see Tania Li, et al.). The concepts are analytically sufficient for many topics. I mean, just look at Foucault's work, he's basically changed the face of sociology and anthropology. These are not topics that should be neglected, and continental philosophers must certainly be given their due for introducing exciting new frames to re-examine traditional notions of "culture", "politics", "society". Also, the continental critique of History has been devastating. If you can get it, I'd recommend Qadri Ismail's "(Not) at home in (Hindu) India":

The French critique, after which one cannot understand history as an innocent or disinterested account (information) of the past, has treated the cardinal categories of the discipline to a careful, rigorous, and systematic evaluation. After it, and in an interventionary postcolonial spirit, history can be conceptualized as a discipline that authorizes the production of knowledge (truth claims), usually emplotted in narrative form, by a (rational, autonomous, sovereign) subject in the present, of an object termed the past, in which events are caused by and/or happen to (other) subjects. The itinerary of this particular discipline, like others, is deeply accompliced or interwoven with colonialism and cannot be traced back, in any rigorous sense, before the politico-epistemological moment that has taken the name modernity. If such a formulation is persuasive, the discipline cannot be a productive accomplice of postcoloniality, which I understand, deploying the terms of Partha Chatterjee, as putting into question the thematic of Eurocentrism, not just its problematic. (To do only the latter would be anticolonial, not postcolonial.)*

The cardinal texts of this critique are Althusser 1997, Barthes 1986, de Certeau 1988, Foucault 1973, Griemas 1990, Rancière 1994, White 1981. It was arguably inaugurated by Nietzsche's remarkable essay (1995). Nietzsche and White, of course, are not French—at least, not in the essentialist sense.

We should avoid the dominant trope that continental philosophy is simply "not rigorous", though it may occasionally delve into pretensions and trendy word play. At its best though, it offers an exciting critique of disciplinary conventions, and new ways of examining, for example, social phenomena. In sum, the complete antipathy some here seem to show is very much undue.

cmdrdeathguts

12th February 2010, 16:52

formal logic is important. i am sorry you dont like it.

Oh, it turns up in Continental stuff too (especially Lacan, who was never sectarian in his lifting anything and everything). See also Michel Pecheux, Language, Semantics and Ideology, an althusserian intervention in linguistics that deals fairly extensively with Chomsky and the Port-Royal logic. It is important, and actually I still consistently use the jargon I picked up those days, which is just plain good jargon for a lot of stuff. It's just that the glacial pace of logic teaching was painful. It was also that the textbook was £40. Fuck's sake...dropped out a week after I bought it, too.

black magick hustla

12th February 2010, 17:15

While I do not wish to defend everything that has been written in the analytic tradition, it is just this attention to detail (or 'pedantry', as you call it) that was missing in traditional philosophy (and now in Continental Philosophy) that allowed its theorists to concoct all their convoluted metaphysical systems.

Anyone who is interested in analytic philosophy does care about it -- and that takes in an awful lot of philosophers. So, this is not true either:

The point not so much that philosophers care about it but that only philosophers do. One of the advantages continentals have is that they are able to engage people outside philosophy a bit better. Part of the reason is because a lot of continental stuff is grand and pretty sounding, but i also think it has to do with the fact continentals generally are very politicized, analytics deal with analysis that to most people are irrelevant.

black magick hustla

12th February 2010, 17:19

Formal logic is rarely important or interesting.

too bad that whatever that god derrida of yours does, was ripped off from one of the most able logicians, wittgenstein. the only thing derrida did is make it more confused

cmdrdeathguts

12th February 2010, 17:51

too bad that whatever that god derrida of yours does, was ripped off from one of the most able logicians, wittgenstein. the only thing derrida did is make it more confused

Derrida's biggest concealed debt is to Hegel. Which of them is more 'confused' is, to my mind, largely a matter of taste. My own loyalty is divided.

Rosa Lichtenstein

12th February 2010, 18:37

Dada:

The point not so much that philosophers care about it but that only philosophers do. One of the advantages continentals have is that they are able to engage people outside philosophy a bit better. Part of the reason is because a lot of continental stuff is grand and pretty sounding, but i also think it has to do with the fact continentals generally are very politicized, analytics deal with analysis that to most people are irrelevant.

This is not so. Mathematicians, scientists, social scientists and psychologists find analytic philosophy useful.

There are also many examples of politicised analytic philosophers.

Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor

12th February 2010, 18:37

So you're pro-analytic philosophy because your department is biased towards that direction? You just admitted in this post you aren't even familiar with a lot of continental philosophy. Also in regards to continental philosophy being unreadable, I think you're conflating all continental philosophy as postmodern philosophy, which isn't the case.

I've changed my mind, but I still prefer analytic philosophy because I think it presents arguments more efficiently. Telling someone about mathematics works better if you use math. Telling someone about philosophy works better if you integrate logic closely alongside it. That's my view, anyway.

black magick hustla

12th February 2010, 19:23

Derrida's biggest concealed debt is to Hegel. Which of them is more 'confused' is, to my mind, largely a matter of taste. My own loyalty is divided.

Not at all. the arguments used by these "poststructuralists" were already written 20 years before in philosophical investigations and envelope witt's concept of a language game. (W instead of talking about structures, he talks about "language games"."

black magick hustla

12th February 2010, 19:28

Dada:

This is not so. Mathematicians, scientists, social scientists and psychologists find analytic philosophy useful.

There are also many examples of politicised analytic philosophers.

I don't think this is true. I don't think most "hard scientists" care about philosophy at all. One of my math profs said about philosophers: "You see, you physicists do very expensive stuff. We only need paper and a garbage bin. Or look at the philosophers, they do not need a garbage been at all!" Just read through the philosophy threads in Physics and Math forums, and you will see. I think most social scientists use continental philosophy. I also have not met people who are interested in communist politics to use analytical philosophy. Most of them like stuff like zizek or foucault. The only "political" guy I can think about that is analytic and people really care about is Rawls.

Decolonize The Left

12th February 2010, 19:52

Does the entire discussion not betray the very purpose of philosophy? Philosophy, that is, the study of the human condition, is primarily an attempt to communicate. It is an attempt to express one's understanding, theory, development, etc... to another via language and to do so fundamentally within the framework of 'a problematic existence; i.e. the human condition.'

The discussion of analytic vs. continental is merely a discussion of red wine vs. white. They both serve the same purpose, they merely arrive in different forms and different colors. One may read analytic better, relate to continental better, or neither!

The entire discussion is esoteric and pointless. The point is not which is right or wrong, or which explains better or worse, the point is what will you do with the philosophy you read and with which you grapple?

- August

kalu

12th February 2010, 20:00

To diversify this debate, I'd also like to say that there are some criminally neglected continental philosophers (derrida, foucault, and deleuze tend to steal the show):

-Levinas: his conception of ethics is a useful challenge to deontological approaches; he views the Other as transcendent, which imposes an "infinitely demanding" claim as Critchley puts it. This approach is a response to Heideggerian and Hegelian philosophies that subsume everything under "the Same", whether the absolute idea or Being / ontology itself. Interesting implications for radical politics, in my opinion.
-Husserl: really, all of his students seem to have taken all the fame, but he has some interesting writings on apodicticity, critique of psychologism, and other key ideas for twentieth century thought (across the divides of "analytics" and "continentals").
-Fanon: people seem to forget that some of the key anti- and postcolonial thinkers were heavily influenced by continental philosophers, and "continentals" (with all the term's postcolonial implications) in their own right. Fanon's studies of psychological oppression and the structure of colonizer/colonized are basic primers in revolutionary theory. An interesting melange of personal memoir, critical theory, and revolutionary anger, to paraphrase one reviewer.
-Jean-Luc Nancy: I haven't read much of his stuff, but some of it may be critical to postfoundational political theory, particularly his distinction between "common being" and "being-in-common" (heterogeneity).
-Lefebvre: I once read his Production of Space, but I barely remember it. Recently though, I've come across some interesting discussions about his "trialectics", which could sbvert dialectics / deconstruction with the "the third term" of spatiality (don't know enough to really comment, see Soja).

If anyone has any others, that would be worth a shot.

I'm very interested in virtue epistemology ("analytic"), if anyone has any info on that, though again still rough on logic. Also, what about C.S. Peirce? On the continental side, I'm interested in reading Adorno when I get the chance...

JazzRemington

12th February 2010, 20:21

Does the entire discussion not betray the very purpose of philosophy? Philosophy, that is, the study of the human condition, is primarily an attempt to communicate. It is an attempt to express one's understanding, theory, development, etc... to another via language and to do so fundamentally within the framework of 'a problematic existence; i.e. the human condition.'

Depends. I don't know what you mean by "human condition" but philosophy isn't necessary for that. The social sciences developed to explain human behavior and what have you.

The discussion of analytic vs. continental is merely a discussion of red wine vs. white. They both serve the same purpose, they merely arrive in different forms and different colors. One may read analytic better, relate to continental better, or neither!

Analytic philosophy is concerned with ordering and clarification of thoughts and language use. To the extent it does concern with communication and discussion of "the human condition", it is merely used to provide clarity to statements to such an extent. Analytic philosophers don't care about the human condition only because statements to that effect are filled with nonsense and language abuses.

Decolonize The Left

12th February 2010, 20:29

Depends. I don't know what you mean by "human condition" but philosophy isn't necessary for that. The social sciences developed to explain human behavior and what have you.

Social sciences explain the "how." Natural sciences do the same. Philosophy, like religion, attempts to explain the "why."

Analytic philosophy is concerned with ordering and clarification of thoughts and language use. To the extent it does concern with communication and discussion of "the human condition", it is merely used to provide clarity to statements to such an extent. Analytic philosophers don't care about the human condition only because statements to that effect are filled with nonsense and language abuses.

I disagree. I see the human condition as fairly simple and fail to understand how such a phrase abuses language in any sense. In short, the human condition: "What does it mean to be human? To ask that question."

- August

JazzRemington

12th February 2010, 20:56

Social sciences explain the "how." Natural sciences do the same. Philosophy, like religion, attempts to explain the "why."

Depends on what you mean by "how" and "why". In some instances, "why" can mean "how".

I disagree. I see the human condition as fairly simple and fail to understand how such a phrase abuses language in any sense. In short, the human condition: "What does it mean to be human? To ask that question."

Depends on what you mean by "mean". Different sciences conceive of humans in different ways. Thus there are dozens of ways of answering that question, but we have to understand the context of the question first.

Calmwinds

13th February 2010, 02:01

Almost every scientist in the hard sciences is involved in some philosophy of the sort, and I assure you, it isn't postmodernism.

JazzRemington

13th February 2010, 02:29

Almost every scientist in the hard sciences is involved in some philosophy of the sort, and I assure you, it isn't postmodernism.

But WHAT sort of philosophy is it? Most philosophy of science is about practical questions, about how to do science and what not. Plus, who cares if scientists do philosophy?

black magick hustla

13th February 2010, 03:08

Almost every scientist in the hard sciences is involved in some philosophy of the sort, and I assure you, it isn't postmodernism.

i dont think so. maybe hard scientists sometimes make metaphysical statements but i dont think they are proactive about reading up about philosophers

Calmwinds

13th February 2010, 03:53

Does the entire discussion not betray the very purpose of philosophy? I see you gathered a vast amount of philosophers into a convention, and made them take a survey on "What is philosophy" and then concluded from much analysis of the data that indeed philosophy is widely agreed to be, and IS the 'study of the human condition'. Oh wait, that didn't happen.

I disagree. I see the human condition as fairly simple and fail to understand how such a phrase abuses language in any sense. In short, the human condition: "What does it mean to be human? To ask that question."Seems like a lot of existentialism. No, you are only so concerned with 'the human condition' if you are some sort of mystic existentialist. There are few things that could be more useless than sitting around pondering on the 'human condition'. Actually those 2 words border on esoteric mysticism. If philosophers stopped sitting around in their intellectual coffeehouse, and stopped pondering the 'nature of the human condition' and instead became a psychologist, neuroscientist, or a doctor much advances would be made in understanding the nature of the much more real 'condition of human mental illness', and many people would be helped. Also, it is of much importance of which is more true. These things tend to have much ramifications.

The below is not a response to AugustWest, but mostly to dada.
Let me be clear, the most common psychological type in the hard sciences does not require existentialism or any of the emotive philosophies to fulfill their emotional needs. On a very wide basis they are not attracted to it. Neither will they so seek to read Plato and his theory of forms.

When I say philosophers, I mean it in the sense of a few good philosophers. Nobody ever needs to read Aristotle. Who cares. I have and I was amazed as almost all are at first, but as you become modern[1] in philosophy you slowly only have some sort of vague respect for old philosophers like Aristotle, Plato[2], Descartes, Aquinas, Nietzsche, and Spinoza(Save hume/bacon and their ilk). When I say philosophy I don't mean they(the scientists) are focusing on them, although familiarizing themselves to the canon can assist in understanding the context of the jargon and terminology it is entirely an unnecessary endeavor.

Science is a always changing because of philosophy, yet most of the philosophy is done within it, and in some ways this is good as this removes non-empirical assholes from tampering with the attitude there, but in some ways it is bad. (Like Rosa would say when talking about determinism and such). Yet most scientists when hearing the phrases "All things are relative", and "Truth doesn't exist" have enough common sense and philosophy of science instilled through them from either themselves, or the culture of science and science teaching to dismiss that garbage.
So I guess we were talking about different levels of familiarizing and we have different boundaries to what consisted "doing philosophy", this is fine, but I assure you, I am pretty glad that they aren't proactive about reading too much philosophy because largely much of it is utter trash, that is if we use 'philosophy' in the wide use of the term.

JazzRemington has a good approach to this entire situation. Although a scientist might want to update a bit here and there, falsifiability as a criterion for good science(not history of science, nor am I saying falsifiability is the ONLY thing that makes good science) , was an important update.

[1] - I do use the word modern as loosely a synonym for better. Because as history advances things do tend to improve, and philosophy is no different. For some reason I feel that some irrationalist will read this and bitterly nod their head in much disagreement. I have a response to that irrationalist. fuck you

[2] - The ancient sophists are not mentioned here, because we largely have enough sophists and pseudo-intellectual charlatans to deal with in modern times.

Rosa Lichtenstein

13th February 2010, 12:41

Dada:

I don't think most "hard scientists" care about philosophy at all.

In afct, there are specialist journals (like Philosophy of Biology, Philosophy of Science, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, Ambix) that 'hard scientists' read and to which they contribute. Notice, I did not say all such scientists find analytic philosophy interesting and/or useful, only that some do.

black magick hustla

13th February 2010, 20:26

Dada:

In afct, there are specialist journals (like Philosophy of Biology, Philosophy of Science, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, Ambix) that 'hard scientists' read and to which they contribute. Notice, I did not say all such scientists find analytic philosophy interesting and/or useful, only that some do.

Some hard scientists like poetry too. I bet some of them like playing cricket. The point is that scientists who are into philosophy of science are a minuscule group. I like philosophy of science and I study science. I am in a very small minoritty though.

Rosa Lichtenstein

14th February 2010, 01:47

Dada:

Some hard scientists like poetry too. I bet some of them like playing cricket. The point is that scientists who are into philosophy of science are a minuscule group. I like philosophy of science and I study science. I am in a very small minoritty though.

I'd like to see the sociological research that supports this conclusion.

black magick hustla

14th February 2010, 01:59

Dada:

I'd like to see the sociological research that supports this conclusion.

It is anecdotal evidence versus anecdotal evidence then.

black magick hustla

14th February 2010, 02:03

The withdrawal of philosophy into a “professional” shell of its own has had disastrous consequences. The younger generation of physicists, the Feynmans, the Schwingers, etc., may be very bright; they may be more intelligent than their predecessors, than Bohr, Einstein, Schrodinger, Boltzmann, Mach and so on. But they are uncivilized savages, they lack in philosophical depth — and this is the fault of the very same idea of professionalism which you are now defending.

Feyerabend

I dont think these people are uncivilized savages though!

Rosa Lichtenstein

14th February 2010, 02:39

Dada:

It is anecdotal evidence versus anecdotal evidence then.

Well, we can all come up with quotes; here is Lakatos:

"This…bears out my pet thesis that most scientists tend to understand little more about science than fish about hydrodynamics."

And it's not all anecdotal, as I commented earlier:

In fact, there are specialist journals (like Philosophy of Biology, Philosophy of Science, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, Ambix) that 'hard scientists' read and to which they contribute. Notice, I did not say all such scientists find analytic philosophy interesting and/or useful, only that some do.

Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor

14th February 2010, 02:52

It is anecdotal evidence versus anecdotal evidence then.

That kind of makes the negative assumed until proven otherwise, to be fair. How many philosophers spend there spare time studying complex biology. Contrary to popular opinion, philosophy is a discipline. If you hear about a scientist interested in philosophy, it means they've taken the time (hopefully) to establish a legitimate viewpoint. Scientists are busy with other things. And quite frankly, I'm happy that's the case. Even though I'm a philosophy major, I think the discipline is best suited to those with extremely obvious abilities in the area (Wittgenstein, Kripke) and those who are compelled by interest to pursue it (Nietzsche).

Someone also said Aristotle isn't worth reading. Aristotle can be worth reading. There are bits and pieces of him that can be useful. I like the idea of a "telos" in a vague sort of way.

black magick hustla

14th February 2010, 03:04

And it's not all anecdotal, as I commented earlier:

I was already aware of that. But then again, one of my classmates is also an english major. I would imagine physicists with a very deep interest in literature are minuscule though.

black magick hustla

14th February 2010, 03:28

That kind of makes the negative assumed until proven otherwise, to be fair. How many philosophers spend there spare time studying complex biology. Contrary to popular opinion, philosophy is a discipline. If you hear about a scientist interested in philosophy, it means they've taken the time (hopefully) to establish a legitimate viewpoint. Scientists are busy with other things. And quite frankly, I'm happy that's the case. Even though I'm a philosophy major, I think the discipline is best suited to those with extremely obvious abilities in the area (Wittgenstein, Kripke) and those who are compelled by interest to pursue it (Nietzsche).

Someone also said Aristotle isn't worth reading. Aristotle can be worth reading. There are bits and pieces of him that can be useful. I like the idea of a "telos" in a vague sort of way.

I do not want to be offensive, but it seems to me philosophy from a disciplinary point of view is pretty much useless. The power of philosophy relies in its ability to clarify, but it does not bring any new knowledge at all.

Rosa Lichtenstein

14th February 2010, 04:33

Dada:

But then again, one of my classmates is also an english major. I would imagine physicists with a very deep interest in literature are minuscule though.

ER.., I'm not sure what this is supposed to show.

Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor

14th February 2010, 04:46

I do not want to be offensive, but it seems to me philosophy from a disciplinary point of view is pretty much useless. The power of philosophy relies in its ability to clarify, but it does not bring any new knowledge at all.

If "pretty much useless" = the ability to clarify, I don't think you put enough value in clarification. As for the idea that it brings in no new knowledge, I'm not sure that's the case. Science has a methodology where if something is correct, it's fairly obvious. However, people who do science improperly still reach incorrect conclusions. These conclusions are incorrect "by definition" within the rules of the scientific framework.

Part of the reason philosophy establishes no new knowledge is because there is disagreement over what qualifies for a proving something is true, what is knowledge, and all such issues.

Within particular philosophical schools, even, people disagree. However, amongst people who adopt particular sets of positions, "individuals or groups" often establish conclusions that, to them, satisfactorily qualify as "knowledge."

Philosophy provides reasons to be skeptical of prevailing viewpoints as well. Logical methodology and philosophical argument can occasionally give strong reasons to disbelief an ideology. This is arguably a form of clarification, but it is nonetheless useful. And philosophical theories often guide knowledge within a particular discipline. If research can be shown to be misguided from the beginning, everyone wins. An examples is the theory of "logical behaviorism" which was harshly critiqued despite its popularity amongst most scientifically minded philosophers. While I'm not sure if it led to any variations in research methodologies, or that logical behaviorism was even researched at the time, this seems to suggest that philosophy is potentially useful at aiding science in some ways.

Now when we want "hard" data concerning the world, we extrapolate. Physicists, in my vague understanding, often utilize physical and mathematical laws to make non-verifiable conclusions. Or at least, non-verifiable empirically and only mathematically. Philosophical logic seems to be somewhat useful from certain perspectives. And metaphysical creativity can give scientists methods of conceptualizing ideas. It's not inconceivable to suggest many scientific theories, by a sufficiently brilliant mind, could be consistently explained in using other metaphors. Evolution, perhaps, could be considered differently. I'd say that the physical laws and mathematical facts would remain the same, but how we could conceptualize it might vary.

Or perhaps we can't conceptualize things in multiple ways and philosophical clarification aids us in producing the most conceptually adequate or coherent viewpoints? Philosophy has certainly played an interesting role in its critiques of causality. This could arguably be pointed to as a motivation for things like fuzzy logic, advanced probability, and other mathematical pursuits. Would this pursuits have advanced in the same way, or as quickly, or at all, without the revealing of a conceptually inadequate idea? (or perhaps it isn't inadequate, but let's ignore that).

And I wouldn't necessarily place conceptual adequacy or "how something checks with our intuition" over mathematical or empirical evidence. I'd probably say that we should favor evidence in all cases. I think most scientifically minded philosophers also hold similar views.

I can't say I have a definite philosophical proof that does not simply provide a proof by contradiction - proves something false, within reason, so it's true. But that's certainly a methodology of categorically removing falsehoods to reach the truth.

Philosophy also provides individual benefits when it comes to using philosophical or logical methodology to resolve internal disputes and reach conclusions. Given that person X believe 1,2, and 3, how can we convince them that they are a decent person, capable of succeeding, should overthrow capitalism, etc. It's a bit of sophistry, but that's part of what philosophy is, to be honest.

Inconsistency and lack of clarity often frustrates us, or at least the philosophers are often frustrated and fascinated by it. Clarification, I think, has far more value than people might be inclined to think.

There is a point when scientists acquire data and suddenly discover "this data entails a conclusion." That's philosophy. However, philosophers often pull from actual data that exists but is simply complex and difficult to sort through. It's possible to gain conclusions like this. Evolutionary theory might be considered as a possible example. Now Darwin encountered key information, but how long was there evidence for the phenomenon in other areas. Other people simply did not connect the "already existing" evidence in the right sort of way.

You need the data to reach the conclusions. And the conclusions are still uncertain, especially when dealing with induction, but we accept all kinds of scientific concepts that are not verifiable "in a complete sense."

Now if Philosophy is supposed to create knowledge, I don't see how that can be a criticism of the entire field. Philosophy has to use data. That's why some, to the dislike of scientists, call philosophy a pre-science. Although to be honest, I fail to see how the pondering is any more important than the acquiring of the data. This probably comes from Cartesian sympathies regarding how to discover information.

Now Descartes wants you to sit in a room and discover knowledge. You can put theories together in a room using data. The issue is that it's difficult to prove analytic and synthetic facts as it is, and you certainly need to build them up using data. Cartesian doubt can't establish all the facts about the universe sitting in a white room knowing nothing of the world. I don't know if anyone believes this or why.

1. All species have legs.
2. This thing does not have legs.
3. It's not a species.

That's a simplified example of "bad" philosophy that attempts to draw conclusions from constructed meanings, rather than reflective meanings.

1. When a ball is dropped in normal situations, it falls.
2. The ball was dropped, and it did not fall.
3. In all likelihood, the ball was not in a normal situation (where normal is a commonsense and clear definition).

The scientist might discover an amazing new theory about how balls can exist mid-air (they probably can) in normal circumstances, upon investigation. However, it's most likely he won't.

The idea of a puzzle might be useful. A scientist finds out exactly where the pieces go using their methodology. There appears to be a pattern, but we see patterns. There is no reason to believe a pattern exists, let's say. We utilize the pattern, and as more pieces are unveiled, the philosopher's conclusions are more likely to be right. Sometimes, there might not be a pattern and the philosopher is an idiot. However, the scientist will likely pursue similar leads.

Now I'd like to give an amazing discovery that shows that "there is another planet with life in our solar system" through thought alone. But I don't think that's likely to happen because I have to go check. However, the fact that there appears to be order in the universe, to some degree, aids us in making assumptions if every 300 planets one has life, and this has been shown 10,000 times. It's not knowledge, but there isn't even agreement on what that is.

And really, science can be critiqued philosophically as assuming its own truth conditions circularly. Scientific truths can be challenged. This is where I advocate pragmatism. Science is useful, but it's also useful in a higher-order way. I won't throw science away when convenient or anything.

I'm going to quite lengthy efforts to defend my discipline mainly because I get sucked into philosophy by inclination and interest. I don't really seem to be able to avoid it if I want to. I'd like it to be useful in some way, obviously. If it's not, I guess I'll be one of the philosophers who critique the field and make everyone hate them.

Not sure when this came up or by whom:

Philosophy can be useful to some people, perhaps everyone, in its own way. Questions of "why" are confusions that intermingle with the concept of "how." How does a dog have four legs" = biology. "Why does a dog have four legs" is also biology, but in a different way. Questions of "why" refer to functionality and purpose. The purpose of a mouse is to move, so it has a laser. That is why it has a laser. How it has a laser is by the mechanics of lasers and a person or machine placing one in the device.

Questions of "why" are still subsets of "how" questions. "Why did he cross the road to buy ice cream." He was hungry, and he likes ice cream. Now it seems very "common sense" to conceptualize these differently. This stems from, in my view, our tendency to distinguish between ourselves and objects. It's perhaps a useful tendency with some evolutionary or social value, but I'd have to think about that longer to have a solid opinion.

It was hungry, which involves processes X, which causes desires x, which involves processes X, etc. I'm supporting an eliminativist approach, but it's somewhat understandable if I'm taking a scientific slant. We are not sufficiently able to reflect emotions and sensations in scientific terminology. Or if we can't, for some reason, we'll be forced to use loose language like "why" or consider it an "uncertainty" within the framework of deterministic science (not that all science is necessarily deterministic).

A computer computes. It has things X to compute according to our interests, which make computers that compute because of X. Plants perform a function of creating oxygen, growing, etc.

"Why" is a teleological, functionalist, action-oriented, etc, conception of causality that may or may not (it does in my suspicions) be potentially collapsed into "how" statements and/or be considered a legitimate subset of "how" statements or a 3rd inaccessible concept that connects the two ideas in some way.

So our everyday conception of "why" does actually distinguish itself from how through how we utilize the term. It doesn't mean we can't utilize the term "how" to explain questions of why. It just means the focus of is on the "why" or the action/goal.

And rocks have goals and such within this model. Not goals but processes they undergo by virtue of being a rock. The processes are just dull, non-biological, and involve building up over time and degrading. Not particularly exciting.

black magick hustla

14th February 2010, 09:16

i was taking a wittgensteinian view to it. wittgenstein always discouraged people from studying philosophy. i am not that extreme about it. i do think, however, that an isolated philosophy is more or less useless.

black magick hustla

14th February 2010, 09:18

Dada:

ER.., I'm not sure what this is supposed to show.

i meant that it is not a very good argument to say "some scientists do this, i have proof!", like you were implying about philosophy of science journals having real scientists writing for them, because it might not really be a real trend inside science itself.

ill give you the benefit of doubt in the biological sciences though. it always seemed to me biology people tend to be more politicized and dare to say, philosophical. there are more goulds and dakwinses in that field.

JimFar

14th February 2010, 11:35

I do not want to be offensive, but it seems to me philosophy from a disciplinary point of view is pretty much useless. The power of philosophy relies in its ability to clarify, but it does not bring any new knowledge at all.

As Bertrand Russell put it in his The Problems of Philosophy:

"If you ask a mathematician, a mineralogist, a historian, or any other man of learning, what definite body of truths has been ascertained by his science, his answer will last as long as you are willing to listen. But if you put the same question to a philosopher, he will, if he is candid, have to confess that his study has not achieved positive results such as have been achieved by other sciences. It is true that this is partly accounted for by the fact that, as soon as definite knowledge concerning any subject becomes possible, this subject ceases to be called philosophy, and becomes a separate science. The whole study of the heavens, which now belongs to astronomy, was once included in philosophy; Newton's great work was called 'the mathematical principles of natural philosophy'. Similarly, the study of the human mind, which was a part of philosophy, has now been separated from philosophy and has become the science of psychology."

JimFar

14th February 2010, 12:00

Dada:
There are also many examples of politicised analytic philosophers.

Well, I do think that historically, analytical philosophy has had a different relationship with politics and political thought than has continental philosophy. For such continental philosophers like Sartre, Camus, Beauvoir, Foucalt or Althusser, politics was pretty much at the center of their work as philosophers. All these people, for example, focused directly on Marxism, and whether they were for Marxism or against it, the spelling out of the reasons behind their stances was a major part of their philosophizing.

The situation has been different with analytical philosophy. Certainly, Bertrand Russell was one very politicized human being. He was often very active politically, and he certainly wrote a good deal on political topics, but he insisted that when he wrote about politics, he was doing so in his capacity as a citizen, not in his capacity as a philosopher. A.J. Ayer used to say much the same thing too. Through the mid-twentieth century, most analytical philosophers seemed to hold much the same view which they backed up with the non-cognitivist or emotivist understandings of normative judgments. Karl Popper was one of the few philosophers, coming out of the analytic tradition, who was writing about political philosophy. That situation began to change by the 1970s when analytical philosophers like John Rawls, Robert Nozick, and Ronald Dworkin began to publish significant works on political philosophy in which they sought to apply the tools of analytical philosophy to the illumination of topics within political philosophy. And then we also had the emergence of the Analytical Marxists, starting with G.A. Cohen, who in his 1978 book, Karl Marx's Theory of History: A Defence attempted to use the methods of logical and linguistic analysis (as developed by analytical philosophers) to elucidate and defend Marx's materialist conception of history.

Meridian

14th February 2010, 12:41

I study philosophy and my co-students are all very much aware of how incredibly dumb and useless most of the stuff they learn is. The big exception is logic, which the students either 1: think is interesting and understands its implications, or 2: think is boring and doesn't understand.

Rosa Lichtenstein

14th February 2010, 13:06

Jim:

The situation has been different with analytical philosophy. Certainly, Bertrand Russell was one very politicized human being. He was often very active politically, and he certainly wrote a good deal on political topics, but he insisted that when he wrote about politics, he was doing so in his capacity as a citizen, not in his capacity as a philosopher. A.J. Ayer used to say much the same thing too. Through the mid-twentieth century, most analytical philosophers seemed to hold much the same view which they backed up with the non-cognitivist or emotivist understandings of normative judgments. Karl Popper was one of the few philosophers, coming out of the analytic tradition, who was writing about political philosophy. That situation began to change by the 1970s when analytical philosophers like John Rawls, Robert Nozick, and Ronald Dworkin began to publish significant works on political philosophy in which they sought to apply the tools of analytical philosophy to the illumination of topics within political philosophy. And then we also had the emergence of the Analytical Marxists, starting with G.A. Cohen, who in his 1978 book, Karl Marx's Theory of History: A Defence attempted to use the methods of logical and linguistic analysis (as developed by analytical philosophers) to elucidate and defend Marx's materialist conception of history.

There is not much here with which I would want to disagree, or about which I was unaware, but you may recall Wittgenstein admonishing Norman Malcolm that philosophy was useless unless it helped him think more clearly about practical affairs, including politics.

Well, I do think that historically, analytical philosophy has had a different relationship with politics and political thought than has continental philosophy. For such continental philosophers like Sartre, Camus, Beauvoir, Foucalt or Althusser, politics was pretty much at the center of their work as philosophers. All these people, for example, focused directly on Marxism, and whether they were for Marxism or against it, the spelling out of the reasons behind their stances was a major part of their philosophizing.

Well, they certainly might have claimed this, but since their philosophy was wall-to-wall non-sense, I will take some convincing to believe that their work did in fact have any practical implications (other than negative).

Rosa Lichtenstein

14th February 2010, 13:14

Dada:

i meant that it is not a very good argument to say "some scientists do this, i have proof!", like you were implying about philosophy of science journals having real scientists writing for them, because it might not really be a real trend inside science itself.

ill give you the benefit of doubt in the biological sciences though. it always seemed to me biology people tend to be more politicized and dare to say, philosophical. there are more goulds and dakwinses in that field.

Ok, just check-out the papers (well over 2000) at this site to see how 'hard science' impacts on analytic philosophy, and vice versa:

http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/view/subjects/

Philosophy of science (hard and soft) is one of the few areas where Analytic Philosophy has had a real impact.

[Many of the characters who have posted their papers at this site have advanced degrees in physics, mathematics, biology...]

Rosa Lichtenstein

14th February 2010, 13:18

Meridian:

I study philosophy and my co-students are all very much aware of how incredibly dumb and useless most of the stuff they learn is. The big exception is logic, which the students either 1: think is interesting and understands its implications, or 2: think is boring and doesn't understand.

Indeed, I thought that until I wised up. Check out the link in my answer to Dada, above.

Analytical Philosophy (and not just logic) has many practical implications, as you will see if you read only a handful of those papers.

JimFar

14th February 2010, 13:40

Dada:

Ok, just check-out the papers (well over 2000) at this site to see how 'hard science' impacts on analytic philosophy, and vice versa:

http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/view/subjects/

Philosophy of science (hard and soft) is one of the few areas where Analytic Philosophy has had a real impact.

[Many of the characters who have posted their papers at this site have advanced degrees in physics, mathematics, biology...]

Well, the philosophy of science is, at least, a partial exception here. Many of its leading practitioners over the last century or so have been working scientists or at least people with a scientific education. One thinks of people like Ernst Mach, and most of the leading figures in the Vienna and Berlin Circles, who fall into this category. And it is also the case that many of the leading physicists in the 20th century like Einstein, Bohr, and Heisenberg, had philosophical interests and they wrote and published on philosophical topics. But I think that Dada has a point. After the middle of the twentieth century, it seems that scientists and philosophers began to go their separate ways. There were, and still are, lots of professional philosophers who are quite ignorant of developments in the natural sciences and have little interest in finding out. And there are lots of scientists who have little interest in, and are openly disdainful of, philosophy.

I think that to some extent this situation is being alleviated though. Lots of American universities offer combined majors in philosophy and the natural sciences at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. This certainly seems true in the areas of neuroscience and cognitive science, where there is a lot of collaborative work going on between scientists and philosophers.

Rosa Lichtenstein

14th February 2010, 14:06

Well, there are plenty of analytic philosophers who have advanced degrees in the sciences, as I noted.

Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor

14th February 2010, 21:07

I can't remember where I heard this. Perhaps someone can confirm. I think that Germany used to have a requirement for either Masters or Doctorates in any discipline. The requirement essentially consisted of a few years of philosophical education, perhaps even a degree or masters in philosophy. Vague I know, but I remember being told this by a professor and I only remember the general idea.

I think Huxley had some philosophical interests and even writings.

black magick hustla

14th February 2010, 21:22

Well, there are plenty of analytic philosophers who have advanced degrees in the sciences, as I noted.

I was aware of that. They are not scientists though. They are philosophers who know about science. People who actually get paid to do science mostly do not care an iota about philosophy of science.

cmdrdeathguts

15th February 2010, 15:38

Not at all. the arguments used by these "poststructuralists" were already written 20 years before in philosophical investigations and envelope witt's concept of a language game. (W instead of talking about structures, he talks about "language games"."

Derrida is not the thinker who introduced talk of structures to the French intellectual scene; he inherits the terminology from structuralism, which has its own heritage apart from Wittgensteinian philosophy, and in fact antedates it. Derrida's use of the concept of structure is a typical manoeuvre whereby the internal tensions are (allegedly) revealed and the concept transformed. Derrida's philosophy makes more sense without assimilating him to Wittgenstein; he is fairly open about most of his debts, although there is some vacillation over Hegel and Heidegger. Why exactly he would single out Wittgenstein for a snubbing is beyond me, especially after all that stuff on thoroughly analytical Austin.

black magick hustla

15th February 2010, 16:03

Derrida is not the thinker who introduced talk of structures to the French intellectual scene; he inherits the terminology from structuralism, which has its own heritage apart from Wittgensteinian philosophy, and in fact antedates it.

I am well aware of the old french structuralists. The terminology might be french, but the main ideas are thourougly "austrian". That is why it always struck me why people thought of the man as revolutionary because the good things that he said were already said in a much more sensible way. Also it always struck me as odd why some poststructuralists love Witt, when Witt would curse them and would probably say that they are "language gone on a holiday".

Rosa Lichtenstein

15th February 2010, 18:03

Dada:

I was aware of that. They are not scientists though. They are philosophers who know about science. People who actually get paid to do science mostly do not care an iota about philosophy of science.

Who said they (the majority) did? The poi ntis, as the Phil Sci link I posted shows, Philosophy of Science has much to offer scientists; it's their loss if they ignore it.

black magick hustla

15th February 2010, 19:29

Dada:

Who said they (the majority) did? The poi ntis, as the Phil Sci link I posted shows, Philosophy of Science has much to offer scientists; it's their loss if they ignore it.
I think philosophy of science is very interesting. I don't think it can raise the quality or lower the quality of scientific investigation though, even if scientists start reading it. I don't think I am a better scientist because I read Kuhn.

Rosa Lichtenstein

15th February 2010, 19:50

Dada:

I think philosophy of science is very interesting. I don't think it can raise the quality or lower the quality of scientific investigation though, even if scientists start reading it. I don't think I am a better scientist because I read Kuhn.

Kuhn is more a historian of science, and a theorist of scientific change. The papers I linked to, if you checked them, are different, and are genuine additions to our knowledge, which scientists would find helpful and useful.

black magick hustla

16th February 2010, 16:49

Dada:

Kuhn is more a historian of science, and a theorist of scientific change. The papers I linked to, if you checked them, are different, and are genuine additions to our knowledge, which scientists would find helpful and useful.

i shall