Venting Thread

[MVSCZAR]

12 minutes ago, kantbook said:

What makes you say that? I feel like analytics are oblivious to the divide, continentals hyper-aware of it. Probably has to do with power dynamics  

I think you're right. There's no reason for analytic philosophers to think about the divide because all the top ranked and well known institutions are analytic, at least in the English speaking world. So it's easy to just see analytic Phil as philosophy proper. But I've seen more push back from analytic philosophers in maintaining the divide philosophically, saying that X, y, z aren't really doing philosophy, or something. So, I think that continental philosophers are more willing to acknowledge a political divide while analytic philosophers are more willing to acknowledge a philosophical one. 

[MentalEngineer]

1 minute ago, MVSCZAR said:

So, I think that continental philosophers are more willing to acknowledge a political divide while analytic philosophers are more willing to acknowledge a philosophical one.

I thought these were the same thing?  *waves hands and mutters about power*

I think this gets at something though - a lot of people agree that there's a difference but not about what the difference is. If you think the distinction's philosophical, then your methodology is fine and you don't need to do anything different. If you think it's political, well, politics is about effecting change. My uncharitable suspicion is that a lot of the analytic defense of the present structure of the discipline is just the philosopher's ability to hyper-rationalize one's own laziness turned up to eleven because the people in question feel attacked or something.

[dgswaim]

1 hour ago, MentalEngineer said:

I thought these were the same thing?  *waves hands and mutters about power*

I think this gets at something though - a lot of people agree that there's a difference but not about what the difference is. If you think the distinction's philosophical, then your methodology is fine and you don't need to do anything different. If you think it's political, well, politics is about effecting change. My uncharitable suspicion is that a lot of the analytic defense of the present structure of the discipline is just the philosopher's ability to hyper-rationalize one's own laziness turned up to eleven because the people in question feel attacked or something.

I'm just not smart enough to understand continental philosophy, so I do analytic philosophy. 

[psm1580b]

12 minutes ago, dgswaim said:

I'm just not smart enough to understand continental philosophy, so I do analytic philosophy. 

Haha! Same here 

[502845824]

7 hours ago, Abendstern said:

I would think Pitt and Yale should be enough.

Didn't say they weren't. 

[bechkafish]

Q: Did BU pity-waitlist me?

A: *denial la la la la who's BU what are you even talking about*

 

I'm so ready for this season to be over.

[MVSCZAR]

5 hours ago, dgswaim said:

I'm just not smart enough to understand continental philosophy, so I do analytic philosophy. 

Bah! Everyone is smart enough to do continental philosophy! It's just a matter of being courageous and vulnerable. 

[Calyspo06]

20 minutes ago, MVSCZAR said:

Bah! Everyone is smart enough to do continental philosophy! It's just a matter of being courageous and vulnerable. 

I did my MA at Boston College MANY years ago, which as you all probably know is about as Continental as you can get, in that SPEPy kind of way.    I ended up in that program accidentally, after transferring out the pol-sci dept because I realized I would way rather do philosophy.  Whoa, was that continental thing weird, but it was the only philosophy I really knew.  As an ancients person, I was fairly insulated from the most intense aspects of the continental language game, I guess, however.  Anyway, after my MA there, I went to a PhD program at a school that, at the time, dubbed itself as "pluralist."   I wanted a program that would be less continental but where I would still understand what was going on.   Well, I actually felt like I was in kindergarten my first year in that program.  The continental people and even the ancients people did philosophy in a totally "analytic" (which is actually a misnomer) way.  I really struggled.  It was liking learning a whole different language, immersion style.  After my first year, my department underwent a radical shift towards becoming more solidly analytic.  Of course the grad students who had come there to do continental phil were not happy about this shift.  At any rate, I ended up being trained up in what, as I have come to understand, is a kind of middle-ground analytic style.  We are not uber-analytic like the way you might find things at a place like UCLA.  But we are analytic enough to be taken seriously by the Leiter cabal.  

I am glad I was trained in both styles.   I have learned a lot from both "sides."  I think each side will never fully appreciate the other side unless they give the other side's methodologies and respective language games a real try, experiencing it from the inside.   Ultimately, I think I am more suited to the analytic style because it suits my personality and style of asking questions better.   But I have met some absolutely brilliant people in my department who do some crazy amazing stuff in the continental vein who I have tremendous respect for and who I am convinced I will see great writing from in the future, particularly after Leiter and his generation of people who are intent on drawing such a rigid line between these two styles retire/die off.  Really, Leiter contrived this whole divide and then created the analytic hegemony as a kind of self-serving and institution.   I know a lot of younger so called "analytic" philosophers who would themselves just as well do away with the distinction and and the whole Leiter crusade to keep the division going.   I really believe younger philosophers-- your own generation, surely-- will outgrow this distinction and cast it off within the next 10 years or so and start creating your own paths.   This distinction has already gone stale.  

[kantbook]

8 hours ago, MVSCZAR said:

I think you're right. There's no reason for analytic philosophers to think about the divide because all the top ranked and well known institutions are analytic, at least in the English speaking world. So it's easy to just see analytic Phil as philosophy proper. But I've seen more push back from analytic philosophers in maintaining the divide philosophically, saying that X, y, z aren't really doing philosophy, or something. So, I think that continental philosophers are more willing to acknowledge a political divide while analytic philosophers are more willing to acknowledge a philosophical one. 

It's true that a lot of the debate centers on what counts as 'philosophy'... If you come to Toronto you'll realize that continental philosophy is relegated to the centre for comparative literature. We have a bunch of continental profs at the philosophy department but their real home tends to be comp lit/German/classics. 

[dgswaim]

1 hour ago, MVSCZAR said:

Bah! Everyone is smart enough to do continental philosophy! It's just a matter of being courageous and vulnerable. 

Hmmm... I don't do vulnerable well.

As I think about it, I don't really know to what degree most of what I do really "counts" as analytic philosophy. I mean, I do lots of logic, but I'm not a logic expert. I'm sort of an advanced dilettante in that area. History and philosophy of evolutionary biology is the only area in which I've done real research. This isn't really what one typically thinks of when one thinks of analytic philosophy... though I'm certainly closer to the analytics, stylistically. I wanted to do stuff on Husserl and Gadamer when I was an undergraduate... but the texts are just so damn hard. 

[thatsjustsemantics]

I think the one text belonging to the continental camp that has impacted my worldview the most is 'Simulacrum and Simulation' by Baudrillard. The very notion of a simulacrum gave me a 'clearing' with which to understand the manipulation of simulacra (X is a simulacrum just in case there is a Y such that Y is represented by X, the representation of Y by X deceives societies by masking or perverting realistic interpretations of Y). For example, let Y be 'love' and let 'X' be a Nicholas Sparks film. Let Y be 'friendship' and let X be 'facebook,' where someone thinks you hate them because you defriended them on facebook.

Anyways, the point is that there's some really good stuff in the continental camp, but the camp also suffers from a lot of convoluted, pretentious writing. At the analytic arena, on the other hand, you've got a lot of people making minor points concerning smaller debates over a special topic of interest under a sub-topic of philosophy (is the point taken yet?). With that being said, the continentals could use some PR work. Is there anything of comparable importance in continental philosophy in the later 20th century to Rawls' A Theory of Justice? Where's the continental correlative to Naming and Necessity? I'm not calling continental philosophy out; I'm just ignorant of what happened after Foucault or Deleuze, who weren't exactly 'mavericks' like Hegel, Husserl, or Heidegger.

Edited March 3, 2016 by thatsjustsemantics

[dgswaim]

7 minutes ago, thatsjustsemantics said:

I think the one text belonging to the continental camp that has impacted my worldview the most is 'Simulacrum and Simulation' by Baudrillard. The very notion of a simulacrum gave me a 'clearing' with which to understand the manipulation of simulacra (X is a simulacrum just in case there is a Y such that Y is represented by X, the representation of Y by X deceives societies by masking or perverting realistic interpretations of Y). For example, let Y be 'love' and let 'X' be a Nicholas Sparks film. Let Y be 'friendship' and let X be 'facebook,' where someone thinks you hate them because you defriended them on facebook.

Anyways, the point is that there's some really good stuff in the continental camp, but the camp also suffers from a lot of convoluted, pretentious writing. At the analytic arena, on the other hand, you've got a lot of people making minor points concerning smaller debates over a special topic of interest under a sub-topic of philosophy (is the point taken yet?). With that being said, the continentals could use some PR work. Is there any comparable in continental philosophy to Rawls' A Theory of Justice? Where's the continental correlative to Naming and Necessity? I'm not calling continental philosophy out; I'm just ignorant of what happened after Foucault or Deleuze, who weren't exactly 'mavericks' like Hegel, Husserl, or Heidegger.

Seems to me that the main "impact" of continental work is best glimpsed by how much it's influenced other parts of the academy (the humanities, anyway). 

[502845824]

1 hour ago, Calyspo06 said:

I did my MA at Boston College MANY years ago, which as you all probably know is about as Continental as you can get, in that SPEPy kind of way.    I ended up in that program accidentally, after transferring out the pol-sci dept because I realized I would way rather do philosophy.  Whoa, was that continental thing weird, but it was the only philosophy I really knew.  As an ancients person, I was fairly insulated from the most intense aspects of the continental language game, I guess, however.  Anyway, after my MA there, I went to a PhD program at a school that, at the time, dubbed itself as "pluralist."   I wanted a program that would be less continental but where I would still understand what was going on.   Well, I actually felt like I was in kindergarten my first year in that program.  The continental people and even the ancients people did philosophy in a totally "analytic" (which is actually a misnomer) way.  I really struggled.  It was liking learning a whole different language, immersion style.  After my first year, my department underwent a radical shift towards becoming more solidly analytic.  Of course the grad students who had come there to do continental phil were not happy about this shift.  At any rate, I ended up being trained up in what, as I have come to understand, is a kind of middle-ground analytic style.  We are not uber-analytic like the way you might find things at a place like UCLA.  But we are analytic enough to be taken seriously by the Leiter cabal.  

I am glad I was trained in both styles.   I have learned a lot from both "sides."  I think each side will never fully appreciate the other side unless they give the other side's methodologies and respective language games a real try, experiencing it from the inside.   Ultimately, I think I am more suited to the analytic style because it suits my personality and style of asking questions better.   But I have met some absolutely brilliant people in my department who do some crazy amazing stuff in the continental vein who I have tremendous respect for and who I am convinced I will see great writing from in the future, particularly after Leiter and his generation of people who are intent on drawing such a rigid line between these two styles retire/die off.  Really, Leiter contrived this whole divide and then created the analytic hegemony as a kind of self-serving and institution.   I know a lot of younger so called "analytic" philosophers who would themselves just as well do away with the distinction and and the whole Leiter crusade to keep the division going.   I really believe younger philosophers-- your own generation, surely-- will outgrow this distinction and cast it off within the next 10 years or so and start creating your own paths.   This distinction has already gone stale.  

That's an interesting take on the history. I think the distinction itself goes back beyond Leiter, but it seems that he did play some role in 'institutionalizing' the distinction, which sucks.

 

One thing that's weird is, in my experience, 'continental' types have cared far more about the distinction than 'analytic types.' There are two continental types at my undergrad, and they both rail against analytic philosophy for 'Seinsvergessenheit,' 'forgetting the big questions,' 'playing language games,' mere ' logic chopping,' 'scientism,' 'positivism,' you name it. On the other hand, many of the analytic types could talk lucidly about Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Husserl, and others, and all of them seemed totally open to learning about Heidegger. The only real resistance I saw was my thesis adviser (who is a VERY analytic guy) dismissing Hegel out of hand as "nonsense." But that kind of attitude was much more common among the two continental types. Maybe it had to do with age (they're both north of 70)?

Edited March 3, 2016 by oldhatnewtricks

[MVSCZAR]

1 hour ago, kantbook said:

It's true that a lot of the debate centers on what counts as 'philosophy'... If you come to Toronto you'll realize that continental philosophy is relegated to the centre for comparative literature. We have a bunch of continental profs at the philosophy department but their real home tends to be comp lit/German/classics. 

Right now I'm at a real crossroads-- do I want to devote myself to Ancient Phil or Continental Phil for (at least) the next 5 years of my life? I might be playing it up a little in my head, but that's what I'm seeing it as at the moment. It's a real shame, because (in agreement with the poster above) I think the distinction is largely synthetic. I hope that we'll be able to overcome it when the old generation dies off.

[Calyspo06]

10 minutes ago, oldhatnewtricks said:

One thing that's weird is, in my experience, 'continental' types have cared far more about the distinction than 'analytic types.' There are two continental types at my undergrad, and they both rail against analytic philosophy for 'Seinsvergessenheit,' 'forgetting the big questions,' 'playing language games,' mere ' logic chopping,' 'scientism,' 'positivism,' you name it. On the other hand, many of the analytic types could talk lucidly about Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Husserl, and others, and all of them seemed totally open to learning about Heidegger. The only real resistance I saw was my thesis adviser (who is a VERY analytic guy) dismissing Hegel out of hand as "nonsense." But that kind of attitude was much more common among the two continental types. Maybe it had to do with age (they're both north of 70)?

 Agreed.   LOL.   This brings back such memories of my days at Boston College.   And I also do think the railing against analytic types by continental people, in my experience, comes from profs over 65 (who were that age at least 15 years ago).   For anyone reading this, I should say that half the faculty at BC that I knew has retired or died since I was there, so I have no idea what it is like now in terms of its faculty's attitudes about the "great divide."   Indeed, I feel like since I moved to a different department, I have moved to a completely different ball game.   And that's another thing I should mention.   Regardless of whether you're continental or analytic, moving from one department to another, even supposedly within the same 'style,' can still often feel like you've moved to a completely different ball game.   The culture can be so different.   I also attended classes at BU while I was in Boston.   It was very different from BC, which again was very different from where I have been recently.  You'll find there is a learning curve wherever you end up, just to get up to speed on how things are done in the new philosophical culture you find yourself in.

[MVSCZAR]

34 minutes ago, thatsjustsemantics said:

Anyways, the point is that there's some really good stuff in the continental camp, but the camp also suffers from a lot of convoluted, pretentious writing. At the analytic arena, on the other hand, you've got a lot of people making minor points concerning smaller debates over a special topic of interest under a sub-topic of philosophy (is the point taken yet?). With that being said, the continentals could use some PR work. Is there anything of comparable importance in continental philosophy in the later 20th century to Rawls' A Theory of Justice? Where's the continental correlative to Naming and Necessity? I'm not calling continental philosophy out; I'm just ignorant of what happened after Foucault or Deleuze, who weren't exactly 'mavericks' like Hegel, Husserl, or Heidegger.

It's definitely true that continental philosophy suffers from obscurantist writing, for sure. But some of the best writing also comes from the continental camp, too, so there's that. 

As far as the bad writing is concerned, I'll give the apologist's response which I feel only applies to select writers, though not all. There was a huge push to become more performative in one's philosophizing, so that, when reading the author, one would be introduced into a forceful dialogue, rather than a monologue. Philosophy is, after all, a dialectic. That doesn't mean it's all good, but I can see where they're coming from. 

I think Deleuze gets too muck flak because the wrong people have gotten hold of him. I do hope that changes soon. He's actually not that bad and is, in fact, quite sharp. And, besides how frustrating it is to read Anti-Oedipus, it's actually a pretty good book. 

There are some works in the late 20th century which I find super cool: Habermas' Theory of Communicative Action is the first that comes to mind. Ricoeur was writing into the 2000s, Gadamer's Truth and Method is pretty cool, but it's not that late into the 20th century. Hannah Arendt wrote some good political philosophy books as well. That's not even getting into feminism and philosophy of race and stuff. 

I think it's true, though. Continental philosophy really needs to start producing original works that are accessible to everyone, especially since we pretend to speak about those things which are immediately relevant to everyone. That was a project that has slowed down quite a bit, and I suspect might be linked with philosophy's retreat into academic journals. I'm into journals and all, but at some point we have to go back down into the cave with good news, but I haven't heard anyone propose anything recently. 

[SamStone]

2 hours ago, thatsjustsemantics said:

Where's the continental correlative to Naming and Necessity? I'm not calling continental philosophy out; I'm just ignorant of what happened after Foucault or Deleuze, who weren't exactly 'mavericks' like Hegel, Husserl, or Heidegger.

I'm not exactly sure what you're saying here. Foucault and Deleuze are extremely important for the continental tradition—at least on equal footing as Kripke is for hardcore analytics. Also, didn't Theory of Justice come out in '71? A Thousand Plateaus came out in '80, and has had at least as far reaching of an influence (...if not more). And about 'mavericks': what about Butler, Agamben, Laurelle, Anidjar, or Asad? Moreover, why must there be a correlative to something that happened in analytic style philosophy in the continental world?

Edited March 3, 2016 by SamStone

[thatsjustsemantics]

8 hours ago, SamStone said:

I'm not exactly sure what you're saying here. Foucault and Deleuze are extremely important for the continental tradition—at least on equal footing as Kripke is for hardcore analytics. Also, didn't Theory of Justice come out in '71? A Thousand Plateaus came out in '80, and has had at least as far reaching of an influence (...if not more). And about 'mavericks': what about Butler, Agamben, Laurelle, Anidjar, or Asad? Moreover, why must there be a correlative to something that happened in analytic style philosophy in the continental world?

I'll respond to your last question: there does not have to be a correlative. I don't even know how you could dare an extrapolation like that from my post. A correlative was suggested so as to ground my understanding of thinkers in the continental tradition. It would have served the same purpose as an analogy, right?

Anyways, I'll be clear: the point of my post is that some analytic philosophers are ignorant of the advancement of theories in the continental tradition (including myself). I stopped at the introduction and complication of phenomenology. My introduction to Foucault and Deleuze was merely cursory, but I took very little away from it. I took a lot away from Rawls and Kripke (especially Rawls). I could see quite clearly how Rawls was advancing political philosophy, likewise Kripke with modality and language.

If I were to read Butler and her stuff on performative acts, or Agamben and his stuff on Homo Sacer, (I don't know anything about Laurelle, Anidjar, or Asad), could you explain how they depart from or improve the ideas of previous thinkers or theories? I'm not asking you to explain now, it's just a question I want you to pose.

Indeed, one of the things I absolutely love about analytic philosophy is this sense that people are responding to each others theories, trying to find common denominators from all the fractions of knowledge that people previously produced in the form of publications. You can take a course on a particular subject (the philosophy of time) and start from Newton or Leibniz, make your way to Mach and Einstein, to the British Idealists (McTaggart being the prime example), and then make your way up to philosophers like David Lewis, Ted Sider, Ned Markosian, and Ross P. Cameron.

Edited March 3, 2016 by thatsjustsemantics

[manchesterano]

Can we please not let this turn into an analytic-vs-continental argument....

[SamStone]

1 hour ago, thatsjustsemantics said:

If I were to read Butler and her stuff on performative acts, or Agamben and his stuff on Homo Sacer, (I don't know anything about Laurelle, Anidjar, or Asad), could you explain how they depart from or improve the ideas of previous thinkers or theories? I'm not asking you to explain now, it's just a question I want you to pose.

Indeed, one of the things I absolutely love about analytic philosophy is this sense that people are responding to each others theories, trying to find common denominators from all the fractions of knowledge that people previously produced in the form of publications. You can take a course on a particular subject (the philosophy of time) and start from Newton or Leibniz, make your way to Mach and Einstein, to the British Idealists (McTaggart being the prime example), and then make your way up to philosophers like David Lewis, Ted Sider, Ned Markosian, and Ross P. Cameron.

OHH now I see what you were suggesting. My apologies that my response was hasty. I definitely think that you could trace similar lineages for, e.g., Butler and Agamben, on broader topics in philosophy like you've outlined with philosophy of time (and, I also agree that doing so here isn't really the place). But on a sort of broader view, isn't that part of what makes a tradition a tradition? 

[thatsjustsemantics]

3 minutes ago, SamStone said:

OHH now I see what you were suggesting. My apologies that my response was hasty. I definitely think that you could trace similar lineages for, e.g., Butler and Agamben, on broader topics in philosophy like you've outlined with philosophy of time (and, I also agree that doing so here isn't really the place). But on a sort of broader view, isn't that part of what makes a tradition a tradition? 

I have no idea what makes a tradition a tradition, now that I think about it. History of philosophy is tough, and I can only imagine that the philosophy of history is even harder (or at least theories about what conception of history we should endorse).

In any case, there's no analytic vs. continental argument going on here. The distinction is superficial on many levels, and only really serves to alienate or polarize certain theorists. Not here! n.n

Edited March 3, 2016 by thatsjustsemantics

[manchesterano]

23 minutes ago, thatsjustsemantics said:

I have no idea what makes a tradition a tradition, now that I think about it. History of philosophy is tough, and I can only imagine that the philosophy of history is even harder (or at least theories about what conception of history we should endorse).

In any case, there's no analytic vs. continental argument going on here. The distinction is superficial on many levels, and only really serves to alienate or polarize certain theorists. Not here! n.n

Fair enough!

[dgswaim]

Why did I apply to be rejected at Princeton? Woulda been sweet to work with Halvorson on category theoretic interpretations of theory structure in science... but phil bio is my real wheelhouse. The allure of prestige is a powerful thing...

[AmandaEvans]

Stanford needs to just reject me already so I can focus on what I have and stop unjustifiably hoping....

[Siegfried42]

Just now, AmandaEvans said:

Stanford needs to just reject me already so I can focus on what I have and stop unjustifiably hoping....

Same... Though: I'd rather they just accept me