A House Divided: Comparing Analytic and Continental Philosophy (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: A House Divided: Comparing Analytic and Continental Philosophy Michael Lackey A House Divided: Comparing Analytic and Continental Philosophy. Edited by C.G. Prado . Amherst: Humanity Books, 2003. 329 pp. $35.00 pbk., 1-59102-105-7. The much-needed essays in A House Divided, while calculated to clarify the fundamental differences and similarities between analytic and Continental philosophy, will certainly provoke impassioned responses rather than serve as a manual for distinguishing the two traditions. Useful, fascinating, illuminating, these essays offer genuine insight into the evolution and history of the split in philosophy, but as valuable as these essays may be, there are still some problems [End Page 276] with this volume. First and foremost is the selection of philosophers. Not Alvin Goldman, Roderick Chisolm, Ernest Sosa, or Alvin Plantinga, but Carnap, Quine, Strawson, and Davidson represent the analytic tradition in this book. This latter group of philosophers—which holds that metaphysics is no more true than poetry (Carnap: see Allen, 48), that concepts are cultural constructions instead of prediscursive givens (Quine: see Matthews, 159), that "metaphysics is subordinated to experience" (Strawson: see Stocker, 284), and that truth is a concept that needs to be "reinvented" in relation to its cultural context (Davidson: see Sandbothe, 253)—is certainly much more amenable to the Continental approach than the former group. Put simply, the essays in this volume are primarily Continental or anti-analytic, which is not necessarily a problem. But because the volume subtitle suggests a comparison of the two traditions, and not a clear endorsement of one over the other, unsuspecting readers may be a bit surprised when they discover that many of the essays seek to expose "the intellectual limitations . . . of the whole 'analytic' movement" (Allen, 55) or to demonstrate that "the analytic tradition is intentionally bankrupt" (Babich, 92). For instance, Richard Rorty, who is more anti-analytic than Continental, claims that analytic philosophers treat the Concept like an immutable Idea, an ahistorical precept "which philosophical analysis can hope to pin down." By contrast, conversational (instead of Continental) philosophers treat the concept like a person, "never quite the same twice, always developing, always maturing" (21). Since Rorty rejects the existence of "an overarching ahistorical framework" (27), he sees philosophy, not in terms of accurately signifying or representing metaphysical concepts, but in terms of the conversation that philosophers can and do have with one another (28). And for Rorty, only when we abandon the "barren scholasticism" (29) of the analytic tradition will this conversational style of philosophy be possible. Barry Allen and Babette E. Babich follow Rorty's lead by also casting analytic philosophy in an unflattering light. For Allen, analytic philosophers have deluded themselves. Given their valorization of science and logic, they naively assume that "the logical syntax of science" (52) is philosophically trustworthy. But were analytic philosophers able to understand that knowledge is poiesis (55), a provisional and experimental conception of the world, they would realize that behind science is a "rationalist will-to-order" (54), a "Platonic-Christian subordination of thought to a 'duty to truth'" (55). To make knowledge dynamic and liberating, therefore, it is necessary to reject the analytic philosopher's "totalitarianism of 'order'" (51) and to embrace the Continental philosopher's idea of knowledge as creative experiment. Babich pens perhaps the most relentless and fascinating critique of the analytic tradition. Analytic philosophers pride themselves on being logical, rigorous, and clear, which is their not-so-subtle way of denouncing Continental philosophers as illogical, sloppy, and incoherent. For Babich, however, the analytic [End Page 277] philosopher's virtues would be serious vices for the Continental philosopher. Humans and life are profoundly ambiguous, and since Continental philosophers seek to articulate the messy conditions of human living, "unclarity belongs to the essence of what it is that Continental philosophers do" (92). In other words, analytic philosophers may be rigorous and clear, but they have thereby "renounced contact with the world" (74), while Continental philosophers may reject systematic clarity, but they have thereby established a more intimate connection with everyday living. Certainly not all of the essays are as anti-analytic as Rorty's, Allen's, or Babich's. Many compare and contrast the two traditions, but...