Just in time: Toward a new American philosophy

Abstract

In spite of rhetorical disavowals, the Analytic/Continental Split has hardened and widened in recent years, and continues to be the dominant trait of American philosophy. It is also a crippling trait: philosophers on either side who do good work are doing it in spite of the traditions to which they have been assigned. The Split has previously been interpreted in terms of a contrast between Analytical rigor and Continental relevance; but this view, I argue, misses the point entirely. Seeing it rather as a split between those (Analysts) who seek a timeless version of truth by reducing their topics and methods to a set of invariant structures, and those (Continentals) who view everything as radically temporal, points the way to a rejuvenated American philosophy. Such philosophy takes us not merely beyond the Analytic/ Continental Split, but beyond Analytic and Continental philosophy altogether.