My post yesterday on Analytic Philosophy critiques of
Continental Philosophy generated a fair bit of traffic. Since it
already was a tad long, I thought I'd make a few other comments in
a new post rather than in comments to yesterday's post. First let
me suggest an other entry by the Will to Believe blog that might be
relevant. At the end of August he suggested what to me seemed like
a rather insightful critique of
Analytic Philosophy. Analytic Philosophy, for the most part,
adopts a style where they take some intuition and then analyze both
the intuition as well as its implications. Those intuitions might
well be of our sense of responsibility, our sense of what it is to
be free, or so forth. The problem is that while Analytic
philosophers have been doing this for decades, they haven't
empirically determined whether what they say are our intuitions
really are.
Analyzing whether our intuitions really match up with what Analytic philosophers say they are is one of the tasks that Experimental Philosophy is doing. It is long overdue and I started linking to a blog on the topic a month ago precisely because of this. However the obvious problem that remains, beyond the empirical one, is why we should trust our intuitions at all.
The first horn of that kind of attack is the recognition that there appears to be a fair bit of diversity among intuitions in the world. Put simply, a person in China may well have very different intuitions regarding various notions than a philosopher in the United States. Why should we trust one above the other? Those of you familiar with the literature will quickly recognize that this critique pops up in Continental Philosophy a lot. However it also pops up in both American pragmatism as well as certain strains of neo-Kantianism. (Thomas Kuhn's critiques of positivism probably being one example)
The second horn though, is to me, even more devastating. Even if we could reconcile cultural differences, why should we trust our intuitions? My background is in physics, and I can testify that one of the big problems with teaching lower division students is in helping them overcome their intuitions. Most of the time their intuitions about how objects behave physically are completely wrong. One famous survey found that the majority of even physics students intuitively drew the incorrect trajectory of falling objects. (Alas, I couldn't find the reference to this study, otherwise I'd have linked to it) Once one gets into advanced physics, such as quantum mechanics or general relativity, then one finds an even greater divide between ones intuitions and the action phenomena in question. So the obvious question appears to be, what is the utility of our intuitions?
I think the most interesting Continental perspective on all this is in the issue of transcendence. This issue of transcendence goes back to Husserl and where, I think, Continental and Analytic thought started to diverge. One of the comments to my post of yesterday pointed out the parallels between Russell and Husserl. There's a great illustration in the Cambridge Companion to Husserl that I often break out to show this parallel.
What Husserl realized was that to avoid what he saw as the flaws of naturalism, there needed to be some part of the phenomena in our consciousness. He ended up coming up with what he called transcendental idealism to explain this. This was roughly a variety of Platonism wherein there was some real form of the phenomena in our consciousness. Yet this immanent idea was also universal. A lot of what Husserl did was to meditate and try and get at these ideas. When Heidegger came on the scene with Being and Time he in effect critiqued the possibility of making a "reduction" so that one could get at these ideas. Derrida, who was very influenced by Husserl, in effect critiques Husserl for the necessity of there being a present idea.
In effect Husserl brings in the all too common view of 19th and
18th century German interpretations of Platonism where the idea is
both complete and present. Put an other way it is definite.
The break with Husserl in Heidegger, as I see it, is not just with
the possibility of a reduction to "intuit" these ideas. Nor is it
a break with the presumed ontology of these entities. Rather it is
the transformation from definite determinable ideas to open,
unfinished, indeterminate ones. An other way of seeing this is
inverting the priority of the actual over the possible. Heidegger
comes up with a way of envisioning universals as "for-the-sake-of."
This for-the-sake-of isn't something that is ever finished, ever
fully conceived, nor ever made actual. This becomes a radical
break thus not only with Husserl, but with the whole approach in
the Analytic tradition which sees the possibility of analyzing
ideas in a "clear and definite" way. Further it makes the possible
"more real" than the actual in a way that I don't think many in the
Analytical tradition can accept.
If one looks at Heidegger's break with Husserl's transcendent ideas as also a break with the empiricist basis of grounding ones concepts in sense-data or even the possibility of grounding ones ideas in any kind of intuition at all, one sees that there is a huge divide between the two traditions. This divide ends up being over how one views transcendence (or even if transcendence makes sense) Because this difference is a subtle one, and one frequently not even known about in the Analytic tradition, it is very common for both sides to talk past one an other. That talking past one an other ends up leading to the unfortunate stereotypes we find among Analytic philosophers.
To understand what Derrida and others are doing, I think we have to keep in mind not only this notion of transcendence, but also that old Husserlean attempt to make the reduction and "find" the ideas. This becomes transformed in Derrida to deconstruction. Most of Derrida's later writings, in my opinion, become a kind of meditation on some universal by analyzing various texts and phenomena. In a very real sense, I believe Derrida is doing what Husserl tried to do with various ideas, only from this new Heideggarian view of the for-the-sake-of. Since he is doing phenomenology, how he engages in this will be radically different than we find in Analytic Philosophy. After all the Analytic Philosopher will assume that the intuition is present-at-hand. That is, it is before ones self in a determinate and definite fashion. One need only seek through ones thoughts so as to arrive at the the linguistic definition. Derrida, in contrast, denies this is ever possible, so for his analysis one must look for what is not present. This thus leads to oblique approaches to the idea and a final aporia where one must confess that ones ideas fall short of the thing one thinks about.
To use the example of Justice, a common universal meditated upon by Derrida, we come to see Law as the defining and writing of Justice. Yet he arrives at the notion that Justice is always outside the grasp of the Law. The Law always falls short. It never is Justice. Thus Justice, being this for-the-sake of, can not be deconstructed. It is the transcendent idea of the Heideggarian transformation of Husserl. But to come to appreciate this for-the-sake of entails that few of the techniques of Analytic Philosophy will work. Thus the various rhetorical strategies of Derrida that cause such consternation for his Analytic critics.
For a slightly different take on the difference between Analytic and Continental Philosophy, check out the Philosophical Gourmet Report from Blackwell.
I think you're a little hard on analytic philosophy, Clark. Science is the model of empirical inquiry, and mathematics is the classic example of a rational deductive system. The methods and problems of analytic philosophy are closely related to those two flagship fields. That alone gives analytic philosophy a lot of credibility.
The linked article critiques humanistic fields, which have become "the repository for all the world's bad philosophy, bad social science, and bad history." That's a bit harsh, but touches on the seemingly different signal to noise ratio in the two branches.
Hopefully we don't have to choose between rigor (analytic) and relevance (Continental), but if such were the choice, IMHO rigor is closer to the heart of philosophy and its quest than is relevance.
Clark's 'hardness' on Analytic philosophy is well-deserved. The Analytics have been arrogantly beating up on the Continentals for decades. The best Continental departments rarely get ranked in the top 50 because of prejudice. I am an analytic philosopher but the analytic process, while fruitful is limited. It's time for the two sides to reconcile.
Just to give you an idea of how extreme the derision has been:
Here's a funny story (or sad): I'm in an antagonistically analytic department in New York. The rumor is that Derrida came and offered to teach a class at my school. We suppose he was interested in a dialogue with the analytic folks. But the department turned him down! This is the Graduate School, it's not like we're NYU and can afford to snub someone of his importance.
By the way, the epistemologists and Mind people are starting to sneak peeks at phenomenology. Some continental ideas are seeping into some recent work. Perhaps they fear their well is running dry?
Dave, I'm not really against Analytic philosophy. Although I think you err when you say it is like science. That was rather the point of my comments about intuitions. If there is anything that makes it different from science it is that reliance and trust of intuition. Intuitions are simply derided in science except as a heuristic to point to towards a hypothesis. The fact that until recently Analytic philosophy didn't even ground intuitions empirically ought to tell you something.
But my point really is that we shouldn't have a divide between Analytic and Continental philosophy. I think it is a silly division. I read many philosophers in both traditions. Further, my point about Russell and Husserl was to point out that there really aren't huge differences. A few months back I had a post on the similarity between Derrida and Quine for instance. I've often mentioned parallels between pragmatists and Continental philosophy as well. Derrida, while not really engaging with him enough, definitely uses Peirce in On Grammatology.
My other point was simply to suggest that the Continental position is based upon a firm philosophical argument. That's why I brought up Husserl, Heidegger, and Derrida. There are a set of assumptions about the "ground" of existence that underlies Analytic philosophy. If we simply believe in that ground, that's fine. But it seems to me that this whole foundation is frequently ignored and not defended. Analytic Philosophy certainly isn't in the position of the positivists early in the 20th century.
There simply are aspects of the philosophy that some see as problematic. Further these assumptions end up affecting how one does philosophy. Given that Analytic criticisms of Continental work often hinge upon the style I think understanding why the style is used is important. Much like I think anyone reading Plato who doesn't inquire into why he writes in Dialogs is missing something important. The style, especially in works like the Timaeus, is important.
In effect the ridicule some (not all) in Analytic Philosophy heap on Continental Philosophy is akin to as if Libertarians attacked with scorn philosophers who were Compatibilists. Each side simply views a somewhat indeterminate position differently. Why get so bothered over it?
But don't take my comments as an attack on Analytic Philosophy as such. Indeed some of my favorite philosophers (Davidson, Grice, Sellars, Quine, Putnam, Williamson) are in the Analytic, not Continental tradition. Further I primarily consider myself a pragmatist which is an American tradition much more in line with Analytical Philosophy than Continental Philosophy. (Although pragmatism is also the area I think both traditions are closest in content)
Clark, first let me say that I had never read this blog before today, but I've been impressed with the posts. Keep up the good work.
I agree that analytic philosophers tend to be too harsh on continental philosophers. In my experience, it's because they don't really read continental philosophy, which is a point I think you've already made. The whole Sokal affair is particularly indicative of this. Sokal, in both his famous article, and in his book, seemed to go out of his way to take quotes from people like Derrida and Lyotard out of context, and analytic philosophers who obviously haven't read the quotes in context often seem to take Sokal's presentation as accurate and damning.
A second reason is that "postmodernism," which, at least among analytic philosophers, seems to have become synonymous with continental philosophy, is so poorly practiced by non-philosophers. I think you mentioned English departments, but you also find this in Anthropology, various cultural studies and X-studies departments, where X is some particular race or culture, sociology, and even psychology. The "postmodernists" in these departments often seem to have read a little Derrida, maybe some Lyotard and Baudrillard, and they run with it without ever having read Husserl or Heidegger, much less Kant, Hegel, or even Plato. This sort of thing is offensive to any philosopher (or at least it should be), but analytic philosophers seem to take these sorts of "postmodernists" to be representative of continental philosophy as a whole.
Finally, I think there's another reason, perhaps the most important, which is closely related with the history of the split. Starting with Frege (or perhaps earlier, but most prominently with Frege), some philosophers began to treat philosophy as at least analogous to mathematics or the empirical sciences. This trend got worse and worse among the positivists, and then worse still in the post-positivists. Quine, for instance, explicitly stated that philosophy's job was to clarify the concepts of science. Today in areas such as philosophy of mind, it's hard to tell where the science ends and the philosophy begins (Thomas Nagel, in his latest book, called Daniel Dennet "Gilbert Ryle crossed with Scientific American."
Husserl seems to be the last continental philosopher to have thought this way. Since his work, continental philosophers have tended to be at least tacitly, and often explicitly hostile towards the scientism that dominates analytic philosophy. Criticizing science, and even mathematics, which are at least the models, if not the sole object of philosophy, for so many analytic philosophers is bound to make analytic philosophers defensive.
Finally, when Dave says, "Hopefully we don't have to choose between rigor (analytic) and relevance (Continental), but if such were the choice, IMHO rigor is closer to the heart of philosophy and its quest than is relevance," I'm reminded of what Nelson Goodman said in Fact, Fiction, and Forecast. To paraphrase, he said there are some people who like big problems with low degrees of certainty, and some people who like little problems with high degrees of certainty. Continental philosophers tend to be of the former ilk, and analytic philosophers of the latter. For that reason, there is a fundamental clash of personality types between the two divisions, and that makes for plenty of animosity. Fortunately, it appears that in both analtytic philosophy and phenomenology, there is a movement toward approaches that combine both "rigor" and "relevance." Dreyfus is a good example of this, as is Alva Noe, and in a strange way, Hilary Putnam.
Oh, and even though I've written way too much already, I just wanted to note that another philosopher who talks about Quine and Derrida in the same vein is Richard Rorty (e.g., in The Consequences of Pragmatism).
At one time I enjoyed Rorty, but I think he's become a bit of a self-characature. Perhaps somewhat unfair, but I don't think that unfair. I see Rorty more as the classic Greek school of the skeptics. Of course I do tend to think that, to the degree Analytic Philosophy does hinge upon folk notions, that his critiques within that whole vein are accurate. (i.e. if our ground is our folk traditions, how on earth can we transcend that ground the way some Analytic Philosophers seem to present in their conclusions)
Having said all that though, I confess that not only do I not see the Continental/Analytic divide helpful, I don't see the science/philosophy divide helpful. Give me back the old pre-Newtonian days where it was all just natural philosophy. In that regard I tend to find Quine's comments rather helpful. (Although I should add, that I think those perspectives have precedence in C. S. Peirce at the end of the 19th century) Probably it is no coincidence that my favorite Analytic philosophers (Quine, Davidson, Putnam) are often as not heirs to the pragmatic tradition. (In ways that I think Rorty's "neo-pragmatism" isn't -- although Rorty was always more of a Dewey disciple than Peirce)
I should add that one of the reasons I don't find the science/philosophy divide helpful is because there are so many grey areas. For instance most work in theoretic physics is largely ungrounded empirically. Superstring theory, Quantum Loop Theory, Linde multiverses, and most else on the cutting edge really has much more to do with philosophy than science then. Yet the theorists use careful logic and mathematics that puts most philosophers to shame. Further, the divide often means that physicists and philosophers don't talk to each other the way they ought. I think the whole debate about substantial spacetime and four dimensionalism is an example of this. There is a gap depending upon whether one is primarily a physicist or primarily a philosophy. Of course there are a lot of interdisciplinary writings. But sadly it is a much smaller group doing interdisciplinary work. Philosophers tend to think physicists naive about philosophy and physicists tend to see philosophers as caught in a black hole of idle, ungrounded speculation.
When you bring up philosophy of mind, I think you suggest the same thing. Certainly there is a group who do great interdisciplinary work in cognitive science, neuropsychology, linguistics, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of language. Yet sadly there are those in the sciences ignorant of this work as well as far too many philosophers ignorant of the science. I think this sad since I'm convinced that neuropsychology, when more mature, will have a revolutionary impact on many branches of philosophy as well as disciplines like economics or social science. But in a certain sense, the discipline is neither science nor Analytic Philosophy but that old tradition of natural philosophy. We need more Renaissance Men like Newton, Leibniz, Boyle, or others. And all those figures were doing the equivalent of Continental Philosophy as well...
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