Heidegger

In a message dated 4/21/2008 3:42:45 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
crifasian at gmail.com writes:

Someone on another discussion list is looking for the earliest
references to the division between “analytic philosophy” and
“continental philosophy” (those specific phrases). Does anyone here
know? So far, the following two are the earliest I’ve found:
1.
Author(s): E. N.
Reviewed work(s): Language, Truth and Logic by Alfred J. Ayer
Source: The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 33, No. 12 (Jun. 4, 1936), pp.
328-330
Publisher: Journal of Philosophy, Inc.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2016260
Nagel critiques Ayer’s brand of “analytic philosophy” (phrase occurs on
p. 329), and then on the next page compliments Ayer for having “stated in
clear language the outcome of the logico-analytic method, freed from the
disturbing overtones of the continental schools…”That’s the only
reference to “continental” in the review.
2. Philosophic Thought in France and the United States
Author(s): Herbert W. Schneider
Source: Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 11, No. 3 (Mar.,
1951), pp. 376-385
Publisher: International Phenomenological Society
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2103542

The phrase “continental philosophies” occurs on p. 380, where the author
describes it as having been revolutionized by Husserl and as dominated by the
phenomenological method. The phrase “analytic philosophy” occurs
on p. 383 in the context of American thought, and is characterized by
the author as distinctly “objective,” “scientific,” and “conceptual” in
its methodology, in that even subjective phenomena are described
“objectively,” as in the “facts” of subjectivity. The author opposes this (in the same
paragraph) to the French call to “pass beyond all conceptualizations.”
Anyone know of any earlier ones?
Dear Crifasian
“Analytic philosophy” is a euphemism for the trend in American philosophy
better known as “pragmatism” and which is a further euphemism for
“utilitarianism” that best suited the American intellectual mood. “Continental Philosophy” on
the other hand refers distinctively to German Speculative Idealism and to
some extent to Franco Cartesanism. William James, for example, and his
pragmaticism had the worst to say about Hegel and his dialectics.
“Pragmatism,” notes Wikipedia, “is a philosophic school generally considered
to have originated in the late nineteenth century with _Charles Peirce_
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Pei…) , who first stated the _pragmatic
maxim_  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pragmatic_m…) . It came to fruition in the
early twentieth-century philosophies of _William James_
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Jam…) and _John Dewey_
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dewey) . Most of the thinkers who describe themselves as pragmatists consider
practical consequences or real effects to be vital components of both meaning
and _truth_  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth) . Other important aspects of
pragmatism include _anti-Cartesianism_
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embodied_ph…) , _radical empiricism_
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_emp…) , _instrumentalism_  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumenta…) ,
_anti-realism_  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-realis…) , _verificationism_
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verificatio…) , _conceptual relativity_
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conceptuali…) , a denial of the _fact-value
distinction_  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fact-value_…) , a high regard for
science, and _fallibilism_  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallibilism) .
Pragmatism began enjoying renewed attention from the 1950s on, because of a new
school of philosophers who put forth a revised pragmatism that criticized the
_logical positivism_  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_pos…) that had
dominated philosophy in the United States and Britain since the 1930s, notably
in the work of analytic philosophers like _W. V. O. Quine_
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willard_Van…) and _Wilfrid Sellars_
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilfrid_Sel…) . Their _naturalized epistemology_
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalized…) was further developed and widely
publicized by _Richard Rorty_  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Ror…) , whose
later work grew closer to _continental philosophy_
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental…) and is often considered _relativistic_
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativism) . Contemporary pragmatism is still divided
between those thinkers who work strictly within the analytic tradition, a more
relativistic strand in the wake of Rorty and lastly neoclassical pragmatists
like _Susan Haack_  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Haack) who stay closer to
the work of Peirce, James and Dewey.”
In addition to this, it must be added, the *faux* socialism of Pres.
Roosevelt’s 12 year dictatorship of His “New Deal” was simply an Americanization (qua
a social pragmatism) of Marxism and its residual Hegelianism. This marxoid
*cum* pragmatism as the credo of American academia evolved to the present day
reign of post modern relativism and all of which are too narrow-minded for
“Continental Philosophy.” Accordingly, it may be noted that the American “analytical
philosophy” qua pragmatic/utilitarian praxis was not only drawn from the
necessity to tame and cultivate a virgin territory but the traditional American
hostility to the Divine Royals of England and the Continent as wll as to the
European Renaissance and the Papal hegemony not to mention the Elizabethan world
view which served to chase the Pilgrims and their fundamentalist religion to
the new world. This was further emphasized in the Masonry of the American
presidential forefathers and their applied Deism shorn of all qualia. The
contradiction here was the rich and archaic ritual and symbolism of the Masons but
which was maintained as secret and banned to the public, allowed only to those
initiated into the cult. In this way it did not directly effect the American
“Analytic” trend. On the other hand the analytic as euphemism is subliminally
appropriate insofar as its modus of logic is tautological or self-predicating.
So, it may be said, the American Manifest Doctrine is grounded in
self-predication.
Sincerely,
Bernard

Posted on Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008 at 10:10 am
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