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'Constant revolutionizing of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainity and agitation distinquish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones ... All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned.' Marx

divided schools « Previous | |Next »
April 15, 2004

In this paper Tom Rockmore charts the structure of twentieth century philosophy. It is part of a conference concerned with the Rapprochement of the Anglo-American and Continental Philosophical Traditions

Rockmore starts by stating the obvious:


"If we limit the question for the moment to roughly the last hundred years, we know that towards the beginning of the twentieth century, at a time when other philosophical tendencies were in the ascendant, three important movements emerged independently, movements which for different reasons rapidly came to dominate the debate: American pragmatism, so-called continental philosophy, and Anglo-American analytic philosophy.

These three tendencies are very different, independent, and cannot be reduced to each other. Much of the discussion over the ensuing century takes the form of a contest for hegemony between them fought out in the philosophical space."


Fine. But what have the debates been about? How are the differences understood?

Rockmore goes back to Kant to anwer this. Again fair enough. because Kant is the philosophical crossroads in modernity.

But he come up with a conservative response when he says that the problem of knowledge is the key. He says:


"With respect to this theme, progress in philosophy concerns progress in formulating an acceptable theory of knowledge. Kant is a turning point since he points out clearly that theories of knowledge based on metaphysical realism must fail since no coherent account can be given of the relation of representations to objects. He shows that the most promising modern alternative, if epistemological scepticism is to be avoided, lies in working out some form of constructivist approach to knowledge on the basis of empirical realism.

If this is the criterion, then philosophy in the twentieth century has mainly been making time in different ways. Though some philosophical tendencies have diverged from the problems of knowledge, others have continued to repeat the concerns of the past without learning from the results of the prior discussion. All too often philosophers in the last century have restated interest in forms of metaphysical realism for ontological (Heidegger) or epistemological purposes (Husserl, Davidson, Rorty, Carnap, the early Wittgenstein). It has often failed to draw the lessons of the critical philosophy in trying to build on the results of the debate in carrying forward the most important insights of the modern debate."


A lot of continental philosophy displaced the problem of knowledge as understood by natural science and endeavoured to develop a philosophy that was not beholden to, or a part of science.

The key text here is Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. That really does open new ground, even if it is largely an unread text these days. That text historicized philosophy, lead to the rejection of the God's eye view and introduced movement or becoming.

| Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 11:47 PM | | Comments (5)
Comments

Comments

I didn't have a chance to look over Rockemore's essay, but I am familiar with his work and with various currents in Anglo-American Philosophy (contemporary ethics and political philosophy), Pragmatism, and Continental philosophy. My knee-jerk reaction is that I don't think this debate has really taken place, but if it does I hope that methodology is one of the main focus points.

"I believe that in depicting the discussion of the last century in terms of the fundamental role of logic, Friedman casts too narrow a net."

I'm seeing a narrow net with Rockmore himself.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that Rockmore does not extend his discussion beyond the epistemological question, in other words, his reading of the divide is exclusively analytical, so not very interesting. I've always had the impression that anglo-american Kant readings tend to be overly restricted to his epistemology, without much historical regard for his practical philosophy. This seems to make a proper appreciation of German idealism slightly problematic, since its wider social and political relevance for the 20th/21st centuries is certainly grounded in the historical and political modalities between Hegel and Nietzsche (cf. say, Löwith's analysis of the revolutionary 19th century break). After all, the either conservative or revolutionary interpretation of the preface of Hegel's Philosophy of Right, seems to me a cornerstone in understanding European culture.

Rockmore also seems to equate/restrict continental thought with/to phenomenology, which is not surprising considering its "apolitical" nature (apart from the humanist question maybe - which highlights the problematic of an existentialist ethics in both Sartre and Heidegger. So...). And then there's also the Husserlian base that seems to fit the anglosaxon notion of philosophy - Husserl as the last true epistemologist, as Adorno would say.

Maybe this debate also reflects the fact that most anglosaxons have been educated from Plato to Descartes to Kant to Russell to Wittgenstein, with very little continental input after Kant, somehow reducing philosophy to scientific theory. All philosophy that springs from hegelmarxist thought was not even considered. In the same way, Rockmore seems to ignore both post-structuralists and western marxists.

In any case, my humble first impression is that this debate, as Rockmore presents it, lacks the centrally important sociopolitical and historical twist. In my view, differing approaches in different cultural settings cannot be comparatively reduced to epistemic categories, rather they ought to be read against a backdrop of political and social struggle. For example: in the face of anti-communism, is it really suprising that western marxism is/was academically non-extistent in anglosaxon universities? So I think there's more to the debate than what Rockmore presents. In fact, it now seems completely positivist and unreflective to me. I almost feel like I must be missing something.

I think Chris' point about method is very good. To me, this is where the epistemic content becomes politicized (eg. positivist debate), some critical reflection might occur here. After all, it's not only a matter of "science" - there's also the question of how Man feels, when science looks upon him.

On the continent, universities tend to divide philosophy into theoretical and practical departments, a Kantian heritage I suppose. This roughly corresponds to the anglosaxon-continental divide.

I didn't quite clarify why Hegel's Philosophy of Right seems important to me, with regards to the anglosaxon reading of Kant. The Hegelian response to Kant's practical philosophy seems central to understanding left and right Hegelians, which in turn is central to understanding most any strand of continental thought (apart from phenomenology, possibly), and in my view even central for any reflective analysis of the current world order. It is this dimension of German idealism, that analytical philosophy seems to disregard. Hence I intuitively suspect this to be due to a narrow Kant reading by the anglosaxon camp.

Chris,
your kneejerk response coincides with mine. The debate between the analytic and continental schools has not taken place.

There have been some splutterings and pot shots around rigid dualities but no genuine engagement.

Mike,
As you can see I completed the post. I concur with you. Rockmore gives it all a heavy epistemological twist. Hence he misses the wider cultural (aesthetic) social and political strands. It is these strands that arise out of, or emerge from, Hegel, who displaced a foundational epistemology for metaphysics.

Hegel is the key figure not Kant. He had, and continues to exert, an enormous influence on continental philosophy even on thsoe who reject him. The analytic school recoiled in horror from Hegel. They smelt a real philosophical enemy, even if they lacked the scholarship to put a finger on the issues that divided them.

Though the Hegelian-marxist strand down to the Frankfurt School is crucial and very important, it is not the only strand.

We also have the Hegel-Nietzsche-Heidegger strand that cannot be reduced to existentialism.

We have different schools within continental philosophy, even within the social-political turn.