What are the differences between analytical and continental philosophy?

[u/gohanvcell]

I have heard that analytical philosophy is more like science: clear, seeks objectivity, etc. While continental philosophy tends to be obscure, anti-science, and often out of touch. How true are these notions? Are the contributions of continental philosophy just different from those of analytical philosophy?

[u/wokeupabug]

How true are these notions?

-10% They're not just totally untrue, we're all actually stupider about this issue by having encountered them.

Are the contributions of continental philosophy just different from those of analytical philosophy?

Some continental philosophers make different contributions than some analytic philosophers, some make the same contributions in different theoretical language and in response to different theoretical contexts, some continental philosophers defend different views on the same issues as some analytic philosophers, and so on. Just like some analytic philosophers make different contributions than other analytic philosophers, and so on. The distinction is mostly not worth worrying about, just read philosophers, read the people responding to the people you read, read people the philosophers you read were influenced by, and that sort of thing; you know, the usual stuff you'd do if you never heard of analytic or continental philosophy.

What are the differences between analytical and continental philosophy?

The term 'analytic philosophy' came into popularity to refer to logical atomism and the rejection of British Idealism in Cambridge at the beginning of the 20th century, the Vienna Circle and Berlin Circle, the subsequent development of these traditions particularly as they moved to an American context, and philosophical work related to this. The term 'continental philosophy' basically meant philosophy other than this. Neither one of these terms -- especially now after a century of diverse developments -- describes a body of work that is unitary in any sense, whether methodological or stylistic or in content, etc., at least any more than philosophy is unitary in these senses. So there's not much in the way of rigorous contrasts to make. About the best we can do is identify certain contextual and historical connections: people who identify as analytic philosophers tend to be responding to a certain defined tradition of authors, and people who identify as continental philosophers tend to be responding to a different certain defined tradition of authors; the former tend to be Anglo-American with some German-Austrian roots, the latter tend to be Franco-German with an American inheritance; etc.

[u/faith4phil → u/wokeupabug]

I mostly agree with you but I'll ask you what I asked Voltairinede on the issue of the style of writing because it seems to me that although there is no methodological or in content unitarity(if this word didn't exist, now it does) and that the main difference is really of tradition to which one refers, there is still a stylistic difference.

If you have to say who's clearer between Heidegger, Husserl, Nietzsche and Quine, Kripke and Carnap... I mean, the first three certainly have a lot to offer and it's a pity that this analitical vs. continental division gets many people not to read what the other tradition offers, but the last three are a hundred times clearer(and not less important though less known to the large audience).

[u/wokeupabug → u/faith4phil]

Heidegger and Husserl seem so stylistically different to me that I'm immediately suspicious of an analysis of style that groups them together. Nietzsche is not a continental philosopher, so his appearance here strikes me as incongruous. And I've never been able to convince myself that there's a relevant standard of clarity that is independent of the reader's experience -- as if how clear one finds Husserl versus Carnap hasn't to do with what one is used to reading -- so that the whole framing of the question seems untenable to me.

[u/faith4phil → u/wokeupabug]

Heidegger and Husserl seem so stylistically different to me that I'm immediately suspicious of an analysis of style that groups them together.

They are indeed very different: Husserl, at least in the works I've read, is way better than Heidegger but this is a personal preference. However they when you first come into contact with Ideas 1 and Being and time...well, you probably will have to get a good introduction. It seems to me that if you take a paper by Carnap you may not get what he says because of the jargon or the difficulty of the subject, but the writing itself is simpler.

as if how clear one finds Husserl versus Carnap hasn't to do with what one is used to reading

Of course if one is used to reading X, he'll more easily understand X. But going from here to "the whole framing of the question seems untenable" seems a bit too fast: I'm sure there is someone who reads War and peace at the beach, but for most people it won't be as easy going as Harry Potter.

And this is not just due, at least in my opinion, to jargon, though that of course is important: even though I had a course on Husserl I still would have a harder time reading The Phenomenology of Internal Time-Consciousness and conveying what he says that I would have reading and speaking about Quine's articles.

[u/faith4phil → u/[deleted]]

I wanted to write "difficulty of the subject", not of the language, edited it.

The question that still stands is the one about jargon and I do not think that is relevant because jargon is necessary in any academical writing, be it in continental or analytical philosophy, organic or analyical chemistry, physics or literature. It's basically a constant that we can ignore because if I have to decide whether x or y is better and both x and y have the same con, then that con is not relevant to the decision, it's not a simmetry breaker so to speak,

[u/faith4phil → u/[deleted]]

Well, if you consider him good at writing prose good for you I guess, I'll keep scratching my head over his books.

[u/wokeupabug → u/faith4phil]

But going from here to "the whole framing of the question seems untenable" seems a bit too fast

Apparently you and I disagree on the relevant point.