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THE STONE

Bridging the Analytic-Continental DivideBy Gary Gutting February 19, 2012 5:00 pm

The Stone is a forum for contemporary philosophers and other thinkers on issuesboth timely and timeless.

Many philosophers at leading American departments are specialists in metaphysics: the study

of the most general aspects of reality such as being and time. The major work of one of the

most prominent philosophers of the 20th century, Martin Heidegger, is “Being and Time,” a

profound study of these two topics. Nonetheless, hardly any of these American

metaphysicians have paid serious attention to Heidegger’s book.

The standard explanation for this oddity is that the metaphysicians areanalytic philosophers, whereas Heidegger is a continental philosopher. Although the two sorts of philosophers seldom read one another’s work, whenthey do, the results can be ugly. A famous debate between Jacques Derrida(continental) and John Searle (analytic) ended with Searle denouncing Derrida’s“obscurantism” and Derrida mocking Searle’s “superficiality.”

The distinction between analytic and continental philosophers seems odd, firstof all, because it contrasts a geographical characterization (philosophy done onthe European continent, particularly Germany and France) with amethodological one (philosophy done by analyzing concepts). It’s like, asBernard Williams pointed out, dividing cars into four-wheel-drive and made-in-Japan. It becomes even odder when we realize that some of the founders ofanalytic philosophy (like Frege and Carnap) were Europeans, that many of theleading centers of “continental” philosophy are at American universities, andthat many “analytic” philosophers have no interest in analyzing concepts.

Some attention to history helps make sense of the distinction. In the early20th century, philosophers in England (Russell, Moore, Wittgenstein) and in

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Germany and Austria (Carnap, Reichenbach, Hempel — all of whom, with therise of the Nazis, emigrated to the United States) developed what they saw as aradically new approach to philosophy, based on the new techniques of symboliclogic developed by Frege and Russell.

The basic idea was that philosophical problems could be solved (ordissolved) by logically analyzing key terms, concepts or propositions. (Russell’sanalysis of definite descriptions of what does not exist — e.g., “The present Kingof France” — remains a model of such an approach.) Over the years, there werevarious forms of logical, linguistic and conceptual analysis, all directed towardresolving confusions in previous philosophical thought and presented asexamples of analytic philosophy. Eventually, some philosophers, especiallyQuine, questioned the very idea of “analysis” as a distinctive philosophicalmethod. But the goals of clarity, precision, and logical rigor remained, andcontinue to define the standards for a type of philosophy that calls itself analyticand is dominant in English-speaking countries.

At roughly the same time that analytic philosophy was emerging, EdmundHusserl was developing his “phenomenological” approach to philosophy. Hetoo emphasized high standards of clarity and precision, and had some fruitfulengagements with analytic philosophers such as Frege. Husserl, however,sought clarity and precision more in the rigorous description of our immediateexperience (the phenomena) than in the logical analysis of concepts orlanguage. He saw his phenomenology as operating at the fundamental level ofknowledge on which any truths of conceptual or linguistic analysis would haveto be based. In “Being and Time” Husserl’s student, Heidegger, turnedphenomenology toward “existential” questions about freedom, anguish anddeath. Later, French thinkers influenced by Husserl and Heidegger, especiallySartre and Merleau-Ponty, developed their own versions of phenomenologicallybased existentialism.

The term “continental philosophy” was, as Simon Critchley and SimonGlendinning have emphasized, to an important extent the invention of analyticphilosophers of the mid-20th century who wanted to distinguish themselvesfrom the phenomenologists and existentialists of continental Europe. Theseanalytic philosophers (Gilbert Ryle was a leading figure) regarded the

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continental appeal to immediate experience as a source of subjectivity andobscurity that was counter to their own ideals of logical objectivity and clarity. The analytic-continental division was institutionalized in 1962, when Americanproponents of continental philosophy set up their own professionalorganization, The Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy(SPEP), as an alternative to the predominantly (but by no means exclusively)analytic American Philosophical Association (APA).

Over the last 50 years, the term “continental philosophy” has been extendedto many other European movements, such as Hegelian idealism, Marxism,hermeneutics and, especially, poststructuralism and deconstruction. These areoften in opposition to phenomenology and existentialism, but analyticphilosophers still see them as falling far short of standards or clarity and rigor. As a result, as Brian Leiter has emphasized, “continental philosophy” todaydesignates “a series of partly overlapping traditions in philosophy, some ofwhose figures have almost nothing in common with [each] other.”

The scope of “analytic philosophy” has likewise broadened over the years. In the 1950s, it typically took the form of either logical positivism or ordinary-language philosophy, each of which involved commitment to a specific mode ofanalysis (roughly, following either Carnap or Wittgenstein) as well assubstantive philosophical views. These views involved a rejection of muchtraditional philosophy (especially metaphysics and ethics) as essentiallymeaningless. There was, in particular, no room for religious belief or objectiveethical norms. Today, analytic philosophers use a much wider range of methods(including quasi-scientific inference to the best explanation and their ownversions of phenomenological description). Also, there are analytic cases beingmade for the full range of traditional philosophical positions, including theexistence of God, mind-body dualism, and objective ethical norms.

Various forms of empiricism and naturalism are still majority views, butany philosophical position can be profitably developed using the tools ofanalytic philosophy. There are Thomists and Hegelians who are analyticphilosophers, and there is even a significant literature devoted to expositions ofmajor continental philosophers in analytic terms. The claim that working in theanalytic mode restricts the range of our philosophical inquiry no longer has any

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basis.

This development refutes the claim that analytic philosophers, as SantiagoZabala recently put it, do not discuss “the fundamental questions that havetroubled philosophers for millennia.” This was true in the days of positivism,but no more. Zabala’s claim that analytic philosophers have not produced “deephistorical research” is similarly outdated. It was true back when the popularityof Russell’s “A History of Western Philosophy” signaled the analytic disdain forserious history. Now, however, even though many analytic philosophers stillhave little interest in history, many of the best current historians of philosophyemploy the conceptual and argumentative methods of analytic philosophy.

Because of such developments, Leiter has argued that there are no longersubstantive philosophical differences between analytic and continentalphilosophy, although there are sometimes important differences of “style.” Hehas also suggested that the only gap in principle between the two camps issociological, that (these are my examples) philosophers in one camp discountthe work of those in the other simply because of their personal distaste forsymbolic logic or for elaborate literary and historical discussions.

I agree with much of what Leiter says, but think there are still importantgeneral philosophical differences between analytic philosophy and continentalphilosophy, in all their current varieties. These differences concern theirconceptions of experience and of reason as standards of evaluation. Typically,analytic philosophy appeals to experience understood as common-senseintuitions (as well as their developments and transformations by science) and toreason understood as the standard rules of logical inference. A number ofcontinental approaches claim to access a privileged domain of experience thatpenetrates beneath the veneer of common sense and science experience. Forexample, phenomenologists, such as Husserl, the early Heidegger, Sartre andMerleau-Ponty try to describe the concretely lived experience from whichcommon-sense/scientific experience is a pale and distorted abstraction, like themathematical frequencies that optics substitutes for the colors we perceive inthe world. Similarly, various versions of neo-Kantianism and idealism point to a“transcendental” or “absolute” consciousness that provides the fullersignificance of our ordinary experiences.

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Other versions of continental thought regard the essential activity of reasonnot as the logical regimentation of thought but as the creative exercise ofintellectual imagination. This view is characteristic of most important Frenchphilosophers since the 1960s, beginning with Foucault, Derrida and Deleuze. They maintain that the standard logic analytic philosophers use can merelyexplicate what is implicit in the concepts with which we happen to begin; suchlogic is useless for the essential philosophical task, which they maintain islearning to think beyond these concepts.

Continental philosophies of experience try to probe beneath the concepts ofeveryday experience to discover the meanings that underlie them, to think theconditions for the possibility of our concepts. By contrast, continentalphilosophies of imagination try to think beyond those concepts, to, in somesense, think what is impossible.

Philosophies of experience and philosophies of imagination are in tension,since the intuitive certainties of experience work as limits to creative intellectualimagination, which in turn challenges those alleged limits. Michel Foucaultnicely expressed the tension when he spoke of the competing philosophicalprojects of critique in the sense of “knowing what limits knowledge has torenounce transgressing” and of “a practical critique that takes the form of apossible transgression.” However, a number of recent French philosophers(e.g., Levinas, Ricoeur, Badiou and Marion) can be understood as developingphilosophies that try to reconcile phenomenological experience anddeconstructive creativity.

In view of their substantive philosophical differences, it’s obvious thatanalytic and continental philosophers would profit by greater familiarity withone another’s work, and discussions across the divide would make for a betterphilosophical world. Here, however, there is a serious lack of symmetrybetween analytic and continental thought. This is due to the relative clarity ofmost analytic writing in contrast to the obscurity of much continental work.

Because of its commitment to clarity, analytic philosophy functions as aneffective lingua franca for any philosophical ideas. (Even the most difficultwriters, such as Sellars and Davidson, find disciples who write clarifying

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commentaries.) There is, moreover, a continuing demand for analyticexpositions of major continental figures. It’s obvious why there is nocorresponding market for, say, expositions of Quine, Rawls or Kripke in theidioms of Heidegger, Derrida or Deleuze. With all due appreciation for thelimits of what cannot be said with full clarity, training in analytic philosophywould greatly improve the writing of most continental philosophers.

Of course, analytic philosophers could often profit from exposure tocontinental ideas. Epistemologists, for example, could learn a great deal fromthe phenomenological analyses of Husserl and Merleau-Ponty, andmetaphysicians could profit from the historical reflections of Heidegger andDerrida. But in view of the unnecessary difficulty of much continental writing,most analytic philosophers will do better to rely on a second-hand acquaintancethrough reliable and much more accessible secondary sources.

It may be that the most strikingly obscure continental writing (e.g., of thelater Heidegger and of most major French philosophers since the 1960s) is aform of literary expression, producing a kind of abstract poetry from its creativetransformations of philosophical concepts. This would explain the move ofacademic interest in such work toward English and other languagedepartments. But it is hard to see that there is much of serious philosophicalvalue lost in the clarity of analytic commentaries on Heidegger, Derrida, et al.

There are some encouraging recent signs of philosophers followingphilosophical problems wherever they are interestingly discussed, regardless ofthe author’s methodology, orientation or style. But the primary texts of leadingcontinental philosophers are still unnecessary challenges to anyone trying tocome to terms with them. The continental-analytic gap will begin to be bridgedonly when seminal thinkers of the Continent begin to write more clearly.

Gary Gutting is a professor of philosophy at the University of Notre Dame,and an editor of Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews. He is the author of, mostrecently, “Thinking the Impossible: French Philosophy since 1960,” and writesregularly for The Stone.

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