/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.11837247]

Can someone here please, PLEASE explain to me the difference between analytic and continental philosophy like I'm a dumb low-iq brainlet? I just can't understand it at all!

[Anonymous No.11837250]

analytic = autism
continental = schizophrenia

[Anonymous No.11837256]

analytic = intelligent, logical
continental = crypto-religious bullshit

[Anonymous No.11837259]

analytics come from frege's logic and the science and math fetishisism of the marburg neo-kantians, which became vienna circle logical positivism and scientific empiricism, which then died when people realised that logic, science, and math aren't "objective" because all inquiry begins with presuppositions which are contained in language and culture, and logical positivism underwent a shabby "linguistic turn" to address this, and now analytic philosophers are a confused mishmash of shabby logicians and shabby linguisticians

continental philosophy is sort of the same, except instead of fixating on logic and getting held back by that for 40 years before realising logic exists within language and culture, they had their linguistic/cultural turn in the 1890s and have been doing far superior linguistic philosophy since then, roughly 70 years before the "analytics" figured it out

the division is mostly held together because british philosophers didn't like reading german and french philosophers from after the year 1750, so they called those "continentals." logical positivism was mostly big with brits, and only fizzled momentarily on the continent. britain had major influence over america, and american philosophy drew lots of its professors and intellectual life in general from british philosophy, so america was heavily "anglo-analytic" for a while, but around the analytic linguistic/postpositivist turn, america increasingly opened up to continental ideas. so now not only is analytic shit confined to a dying throwback generation that was already out of date in the 60s, they're mostly all british or commonwealth.

as this generation dies off, analytic philosophy is morphing into the "handmaiden" not of the sciences, as in the old positivist formulation, but of cognitive science, philosophy of engineering/application-oriented math, and related fields. analytic philosophy has been BTFO as bad philosophy for generations and generations, so now instead of finally dying they are consenting to be absorbed into the equally horrible and related philosophies underlying cogsci/AI development, which houses a lot of mechanist/materialist STEMfags who are naive realists and who get annoyed by linguistic/postpositivist philosophy because COME ON, MATTER IS JUST MATTER, IT'S AS SIMPLE AS THAT, STOP HARASSING ME WITH YOUR CONTINENTAL MUMBOJUMBO

analytics are now willing slaves to the endless hordes of asian statisticians who make algorithms so youtube can track your fart porn preferences

[Anonymous No.11837260]

>>11837250
THAT DOESN'T HELP

[Anonymous No.11837261]

analytic = beta neets
continental = patrician chads

[Anonymous No.11837265]

>>11837250
this

also these guys

[Anonymous No.11837271]

analytic = reddit
continental = 4chan

[Anonymous No.11837272]

analytic = blowjob (receiving)
continental = jerking off to anime girls

[Anonymous No.11837273]

>>11837247

analytic:
>dude how do we know 1+1=2?
>do we have to know i mean it works and
>noooo we have to write 5000 page book to prove

continental
>u can't know nothing bro
>but what about math?
>it's all relative lol

[Anonymous No.11837286]

>>11837271
>reddit cares about logic

[Anonymous No.11837303]

[Anonymous No.11837306]

analytic = involuntary celibacy
continental = gay sex

[Anonymous No.11837309]

>>11837306
kek

[Anonymous No.11837321]

Continental mysticism, otherwise known as sophistry or propaganda. Where actuality and pure infantile fantasy meet. I want to say it is an apple, but a continental would call it a grenade, or an elephant.

[Anonymous No.11837325]

>>11837260
Literally the best description in the entire thread. And yes, I'm including this garbled nonsense >>11837259

[Anonymous No.11837349]

>>11837247
Analytic: an attempt to approach philosophical problems with the systematic rigor of the sciences. Basically functions through a principled naivety about and ignorance of the philosophical critiques of language, reason and truth that happened in the 20th century, which essentially showed why the presuppositions of analytic philosophy were fundamentally flawed. Despite building all their castles on sand, the things they build actually have a lot of good, applicable sense about them, and are well put together.

Continental: those who try to approach the perennial questions of philosophy from the other side of the collapse of traditional ideas about truth, language and reason. A small handful of people here have managed to balance the tricky paradox of using a tool they acknowledge to be broken (language) to say “truthful” things about “reality” (an impossible feat by their own admissions) gracefully and intelligently. These people have tip-toed along the very borderline of sense and nonsense, and provided us with illuminating interpretations of fundamental philosophical and existential problems. Aside from this small handful, the vast majority of continental thinkers are absolute charlatans who use the cover of “language is broken” to justify intellectual laziness and a lack of clear, substantive ideas.

[Anonymous No.11837365]

>>11837247
Continental is basically a name given to the major philosophers of 19th to 20th century mainland Europe. They talk about art, politics, history, culture, psychology, and so on. It includes existentialism, phenomenology, deconstructionism, and so on. It’s probably closer to what you or the average person thinks of as philosophy. “What is the purpose of life?” “What is the nature of human perception?” “What is the purpose of art?” “How do we create and assign values to things?” and so on.

Analytic “”””””””philosophy””””””” is a little wart which grew on this, mostly populated by autists who are too rational and soulless to be involved in the passion and wonder of normal philosophy, but not dedicated, rigorous, and practical enough to make serious scientific contributions and research and theories. They’re characterized by an obsession with “Dude logic lmao” “Dude rationality lmao” “Dude mathematics lmao” “Dude empiricism lmao” “Dude positivism lmao” “dude behaviorism lmao” “Dude occasional weak references to the natural sciences lmao” “Dude we need to ground our shit in the REAL WORLD, not that weak abstract mystical contemplating of the Continental tradition.” Basically, it’s mostly too soulless and dry to be interesting philosophy, but still too impractical to have much use for scientists and mathematicians. As >>11837259 points out, it basically has been relegated to a sort of limpwristed addendum to certain facets of science, occasionally adding some contributions to philosophy of mind/cognitive philosophy, linguistics, and so on.

[Anonymous No.11837371]

analytic: useful for academic shit

continental: useful for everyday life, teaches you how to be evil, how women actually are, to adhere to your own authority not that of science or religion, etc.

[Anonymous No.11837373]

Continental is basically a name given to the major philosophers of 19th to 20th century mainland Europe. They talk about art, politics, history, culture, psychology, and so on. It includes existentialism, phenomenology, deconstructionism, and so on. It’s probably closer to what you or the average person thinks of as philosophy. “What is the purpose of life?” “What is the nature of human perception?” “What is the purpose of art?” “How do we create and assign values to things?” and so on. As others have pointed out, they’re often criticized for being too airy-fairy, unsubstantiated, impractical, mystical, obfuscatory. Basically, as >>11837250 says, “schizophrenia” at its worst. At least it’s more interesting to read more of the time and genuinely makes you ponder significant questions, although it also has its share of bullshit.


Analytic “”””””””philosophy””””””” is a little wart which grew on this, mostly populated by autists who are too rational and soulless to be involved in the passion and wonder of normal philosophy, but not dedicated, rigorous, and practical enough to make serious scientific contributions and research and theories. They’re characterized by an obsession with “Dude logic lmao” “Dude rationality lmao” “Dude mathematics lmao” “Dude empiricism lmao” “Dude positivism lmao” “dude behaviorism lmao” “Dude occasional weak references to the natural sciences lmao” “Dude we need to ground our shit in the REAL WORLD, not that weak abstract mystical contemplating of the Continental tradition.” Basically, it’s mostly too soulless and dry to be interesting philosophy, but still too impractical to have much use for scientists and mathematicians. As >>11837259 # points out, it basically has been relegated to a sort of limpwristed addendum to certain facets of science, occasionally adding some contributions to philosophy of mind/cognitive philosophy, linguistics, and so on. As >>11837250 says, autism.

[Anonymous No.11837379]

>>11837349
Good post
>A small handful of people
Name 'em.

[Anonymous No.11837389]

>>11837286
They care about logic in the same limited way that analytics do. They even use a pseudo-academic style of writing.

[Anonymous No.11837390]

>>11837349

who are the good continental thinkers in your view

[Anonymous No.11837394]

>>11837247
Analytic writing is characterized by clarity and thoroughness. Continental writing is characterized by grandiosity and obscurantism.

[Anonymous No.11837423]

>>11837371

[Anonymous No.11837438]

>>11837379
>>11837390
I’ll get a hate on for some of the thinkers I include in here, but nevertheless:

Proto-“continentals”:
Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard

Continental King:
Heidegger (and late Wittgenstein, though he straddles the analytic/continental divide)

Worthy inheritors of the throne:
Derrida, Foucault, Lacan

Half-decent operators:
Zizek, Althusser, Jameson

[Anonymous No.11837445]

>>11837371
>teaches you how to be evil

[Anonymous No.11837518]

>>11837438
>Derrida, Foucault, Lacan
Yikes to the meme trio.

[Anonymous No.11837536]

>>11837438
some better continental philosophers:
Max Scheler
Henri Bergson
Hans-Georg Gadamer
Edmund Husserl
Theodore Adorno
Carl Schmitt (yeah yeah nazi and all that, but so was Heidegger)

[Anonymous No.11837558]

>>11837536
The only people here worth adding to my list are Husserl and Adorno, and maybe an honorable mention to Gadamer, for his work being readable and interesting but essentially inconsequential

[Anonymous No.11837563]

>>11837558
Also probably habermas tho I haven’t read him

[Anonymous No.11837584]

Graham Harman is the new Kant.

[Anonymous No.11837841]

continental: soul
analytic: soulless

[Anonymous No.11837909]

>>11837247
analytic = based
continental = redpilled

[Anonymous No.11838392]

>>11837909
Great post -- analytic and continental.

[Anonymous No.11839721]

>>11837438
Heidegger is just as bad as them. Anyone that builds some barren, soulless system will always be as bad as the autistic analytics. At least Bataille and Nietzsche have their laughter. Heidegger is the equivalent of a dry cough.
Derrida and Foucault are alright for actively shitting on prominent analytics

[Anonymous No.11839809]

>>11837841
/thread

[Anonymous No.11839817]

>>11837841
//thread

[Anonymous No.11839819]

>>11837373
Cringe

[Anonymous No.11839824]

>>11837247

This was useful to me anon! I hope it will help

[Anonymous No.11839865]

>>11837247
The split is primarily over how philosophy ought to be done. Continental thinkers try to build big philosophical systems which try to encompass all aspects of human existence, while analytic philosophers believed it was more productive to focus on very narrow and specific questions and apply scientific-like rigour.


Analytic philosophy was founded by Bertrand Russell and GE Moore as a reaction against the dominance of Hegelian philosophy in British academia. Instead of dealing with topics like ‘human history’ and ‘world spirit’ they wrote about very specific and technical questions within logic, the foundations of mathematics and language.

In the continent the major early philosophers are people like Bergson, Husserl, and Heidegger. Then later Sartre, Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze, and Badiou.


On the analytic side the early people are Russell, Moore, Whitehead, and Wittgenstein. Later is Quine, Putnam, Kripke, and Davidson.

[Anonymous No.11839879]

>>11837909
actually pretty good

[Anonymous No.11839897]

What is with this board's bias towards continental?

[Anonymous No.11839909]

>>11839897
This is /lit/, not /sci/

[Anonymous No.11839917]

>>11837247
https://youtu.be/pGccctERkWU

:50-1:30. if you understand Italian.

[Anonymous No.11839920]

>>11837247
So, there was this guy called Kant who caused a pardigm shift in philosophy with his book Critique of Pure Reason. After this text, both continental European and UK philosophers began to engage with Kant, most notably Hegel and J.S. Mill. These individuals in particular had vastly different readings of Kant, such that two major branches of thought formed off the basis of these interpretations (this is a HUGE generalization, mind you, after all this is a historians game). The Millean tradition clearly leads to Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein, the logical positivists, and so on. The Hegelian tradition gives rise to Schopenhauer (and in turn Nietzsche), Heidegger, and so forth leading up to the post-structuralist thinkers. The former, we call the analytic tradition. It is characterized by formal systems, a centrality of formal logic or any idealized, typically symbolic system to articulate our metaphysical/epistemological/ontological/moral propositions. The latter is the continental tradition. It is characterized by prosaic writing, the blatant creation and working in of coined concepts, and a whole bunch of other stuff because honestly continentalism can refer to someone as batshit as Deleuze and as conservative as Sloterdjik. A notable problem for this rough divide is the placement of Husserl, who focused intently on formal systems but did so from a phenomenological basis. Notable minute features of each tradition would be the linguistic term for the analytics and what I will call the sociological turn for the continentals. I’d argue that contemporary analytic philosophy lives in the metaphysical/epistemic debates between W.V.O. Quine and Saul Kripke, which has led to highly specialized fields including philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, and, of course, epistemology (in a more formal sense). I’d likewise argue that contemporary continental philosophy is living in the shadow of the Frankfurt school who blatantly put Marx back on the table as THE social thinker to wrestle with, as well as the value theory of Nietzsche as retold by Foucault, Deleuze, and Derrida. Please keep in mind these are sweeping generalizations, and one really can dip their toes in both waters, though at the academic level it gets a little tribal. But also this >>11837250 is essentially correct.

[Anonymous No.11839929]

>>11839897
analytic - big-data incarnated in willingly depraved human apes.

[Anonymous No.11839933]

>>11837247
Analytic philosophy is a reaction to the failure of continental philosophy. Science works, what Continentals do doesn't, so why not try to just make everything science?

A doomed project. The West lost its way before it even began

[Anonymous No.11839938]

>>11839897
Continental phil has always been more ‘literary’. ContPhils also often written poetry, novels, or plays, and also spend far more time discussing art, literature, and culture in general.

Heidegger talks about Holderin.
Badiou talks about Mallarmé and Beckett
Adorno talks about Wagner and Beethoven
Deleuze talks about Borges and Burroughs


If you like art, music, and literature, you are going to get far more out of continental thinkers.

[Anonymous No.11839952]

>>11839909
/sci/ doesn’t care about analytic autism either

[Anonymous No.11839981]

>>11839938
>Conts ruin literature with their garbled tedious woo woo shit.

And this is endearing how?

[Anonymous No.11840196]

>>11839981
Yeah, I like it at least

[Anonymous No.11840269]

analytic = imitates math
continental = imitates literature

[Anonymous No.11840282]

>>11837373
>tfw when i enjoy both almost equally

[Anonymous No.11840621]

>>11839920
>The Hegelian tradition gives rise to Schopenhauer