The analytical–Continental divide: Styles of dealing with problems
| Author | Thomas J. Donahue,Paulina Ochoa Espejo |
| Published date | 01 April 2016 |
| Date | 01 April 2016 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/1474885115585324 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
European Journal of Political Theory
2016, Vol. 15(2) 138–154
!The Author(s) 2015
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DOI: 10.1177/1474885115585324
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Article
The analytical–Continental
divide: Styles of dealing
with problems
Thomas J. Donahue and Paulina Ochoa Espejo
Haverford College, USA
Abstract
What today divides analytical from Continental philosophy? This paper argues that
the present divide is not what it once was. Today, the divide concerns the styles in
which philosophers deal with intellectual problems: solving them, pressing them,
resolving them, or dissolving them. Using ‘the boundary problem’, or ‘the democratic
paradox’, as an example, we argue for two theses. First, the difference between most
analytical and most Continental philosophers today is that Continental philosophers
find intelligible two styles of dealing with problems that most analytical philosophers
find unintelligible: pressing them and resolving them. Second, when it comes to a
genuine divide in which not understanding the other side’s basic philosophical pur-
poses combines with disagreement on fundamental questions of doctrine, the only
such divide today is that between those analytical philosophers who tend to solve
problems and those Continental philosophers who tend to press problems (roughly,
the heirs of Derrida). It is among these subgroups that there is a real philosophical
divide today. So the analytical–Continental divide is more a matter of style than of
substance; but as we try to show, differences in style shape differences over
substance.
Keywords
Analytical philosophy, boundary problem, Continental philosophy, methods, problems,
styles
Introduction
What, for political theorists, does the divide between analytical and Continental
philosophy amount to today? On the one hand, it is notorious that many political
theorists and philosophers today identify exclusively with one or the other philo-
sophical family, deem the other fundamentally misguided, and use radically
Corresponding author:
Thomas J. Donahue, Haverford College, 370 Lancaster Avenue, Haverford, PA 19041, USA.
Email: thomas.donahue@haverford.edu
different conceptual toolkits. Where analytical political theorists today use and
debate such technical concepts as ‘the fair value of the political liberties’, ‘exclu-
sionary reasons’, or ‘option luck’, Continental political theorists discuss ‘chains of
equivalences’, ‘desiring-machines’, and ‘ideological dis-identification’. Most mem-
bers of one or other family would be hard put to accurately explain the meaning of
the other’s technical concepts.
On the other hand, it is obvious that the divide between the two philosophical
families has changed since, say, 1975. Then, one could say that analytical philoso-
phers cleaved to a tradition descended from Frege, Russell, Moore, Wittgenstein,
Carnap, Ryle, J. L. Austin, Quine, and Searle; a tradition that put a premium on
arguments, distinctions, definitions, counter-examples, and choice among rival
theories; a tradition that wanted little truck with the ideas of the leading
lights of Continental philosophy. One could also say that, in 1975, Continental
philosophers adhered to a tradition that included Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger,
Sartre, Beauvoir, Merleau-Ponty, Adorno, and Foucault; a tradition that valued
describing and interpreting the forms, limits, and underlying motives of states of
consciousness, whether individual or collective; a tradition that wanted little truck
with the ideas of the leading lights of analytical philosophy.
Today that barrier of separation has been toppled. In most of the subfields of
analytical philosophy, one or more of those Continental leading lights is a central
figure. Nietzsche’s and Sartre’s views are hotly debated in analytical meta-ethics
and moral psychology, Beauvoir is hands-down the central figure in analytical
feminism, Adorno and Heidegger are much discussed in analytical aesthetics,
Merleau-Ponty is central in philosophy of cognitive science, and Husserl
and Foucault have even entered the hallowed halls of analytical metaphysics, epis-
temology, and philosophy of language. Moreover, in contemporary discussions
among theorists of unimpeachable Continental credentials, the ideas of
Wittgenstein, Austin, Quine, Searle, and even Russell are constant references and
sources of insight (cf. Constable, 2014, ch. 1; Livingston, 2009; Mouffe, 2000, ch. 3;
Shapiro, 1981).
So, on the one hand, it seems that there is some sort of divide between ana-
lytical and Continental philosophy today. On the other hand, that divide is not
the traditional one we find retailed in histories of 20th-century philosophy.
Where, then, lies the divide today? And what should political theorists make
of it?
We suggest that today there is little left of the old divide. Continental philosophy
is today a large family of different traditions and schools of thought. So large,
indeed, that it is almost impossible to find a philosophically interesting difference
between almost all contemporary Continental philosophers and almost all contem-
porary analytical philosophers. After all, Continental philosophy must include the
philosophical heirs of Ortega and of Olivecrona, of Buber and of Bobbio, of Kelsen
and of Cassirer. Hence today, none of the criteria for demarcating ‘analytical’ and
‘Continental’ that have been suggested in the past – whether doctrinal, methodo-
logical, political, moral, or even religious – seems to capture any philosophically
Donahue and Ochoa Espejo 139
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