Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Continental Philosophy Criticized

  • Is Reason a White Male Euro-Christian Construct?

    I read John D.Caputo years ago, in the late '70s, in connection with work I was doing on Heidegger. I read a couple of his early Heidegger articles and a couple of his books.  One of them, The Mystical Element in Heidegger's Thought, is in my library.  Caputo seemed worth reading at the time.  But…

  • Carnap and Clarity

    This entry is installment #2 in a Carnap versus Heidegger series.  Here is the first in the series.  It couldn't hurt to at least skim through it. Part of what I am up to is an exploration of the origin and nature of the analytic-Continental split. To quote from the first installment: If I were…

  • Against Historical Relativism: Adorno on What is No Longer Believable After Auschwitz

    Theodor Wiesengrund Adorno is exasperating but exciting. Although as sloppy as one expects Continental thinkers to be, he is nonetheless a force to be reckoned with, a serious man who is seriously grappling with ultimates at the outer limits of intelligibility. Derrida I dismiss as a bullshitter; indeed, to cop a line from John Searle,…

  • The Unlimited Obfuscation of Some Continental Writers

    I hesitate to call them philosophers.  David Gordon serves up for our delectation and instruction the following tidbit of Continental balderdash (I quote the whole of Gordon's entry and then add a comment of my own): The philosophy of Roy Bhaskar, who died November 19, would ordinarily hold little interest for readers of the Mises…

  • Is This a Joke?

    "Principles of Non-Philosophy is a treatise on the method, axioms and objectives of non-philosophy and represents François Laruelle's mature philosophy."  That sounds like a joke.  Maybe it is.  With Continental bullshitters you never know. Here.  Via Andrew Sullivan.  HT: Dave Lull.   I am surprised that NDPR published a review of this book, and an uncritical…

  • Deconstructing God: Gutting Interviews Caputo

    Another in the NYT Opiniator series.  This one is particularly bad and illustrates what is wrong with later Continental philosophy.  Earlier Continental philosophy is good: Brentano, Meinong, Husserl, early Heidegger, early Sartre, and a whole host of lesser lights including Stumpf, Twardowski, Ingarden, Scheler, von Hildebrand, Edith Stein, et al.  The later movement, however, peters…

  • Analytic versus Continental Joke

    I found it here: There is an old joke that goes "the Anglo-Saxon philosopher will accuse the continental of being insufficiently clear, while the continental philosopher accuses the Anglo-Saxon of being insufficiently."

  • Another Specimen of Bad Continental Philosophy: Slavoj Zizek on Christian Universalism

    Over lunch a while back, a young friend asked me what I thought of Zizek.  "Not much," was my reply.  Here is a bit of justification, an old post (20 September 2004) from my first weblog.  …………….. Slavoj Zizek in On Belief (Routledge, 2001, pp. 143-144) has this to say: What is perceived here as…

  • On Throwing Latin, and a Jab at the ‘Analysts’

    If you are going to throw Latin, then you ought to try to get it right.  One of my correspondents sent me an offprint of a paper of his which had been published in American Philosophical Quarterly, a very good philosophical journal.  The title read, Creation Ex Deus. The author's purpose was to develop a…

  • Nausea at Existence: A Continental Thick Theory

    A reader wants me to comment on the analytic-Continental split.  Perhaps I will do so in general terms later, but in this post I will consider one particular aspect of the divide that shows up in different approaches to existence.  Roughly, Continental philosophers espouse the thick theory, while analytic philosophers advocate the thin theory.  Of course there…

  • Blanshard on Santayana’s Prose Style

    Brand Blanshard, On Philosophical Style (Indiana University Press, 1967), pp. 49-50. Originally appeared in 1954. Emphasis added.   The most distinguished recent example of imaginative prose in  philosophy is certainly George Santayana. Santayana was no man's copy, either in thought or in style. He consistently refused toadopt the prosaic medium in which most of his colleagues were writing. To…

  • A Note on Analytic Style

    The precise, explicitly argued, analytic style of exposition with numbered premises and conclusions promotes the meticulous scrutiny of the ideas under discussion. That is why I sometimes write this way. I know it offends some. There are creatures of darkness and murk who seem allergic to any intellectual hygiene. These types are often found on the…

  • Continental Philosophy Criticized: Levinas

    Another example of Continental obscurity in my ongoing series comes from a philosopher I mainly respect, Emmanuel Levinas. The following passage is from Ethics and Infinity: Conversations with Philippe Nemo, tr. Richard A. Cohen (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1985, p. 106). It first appeared in French in 1982. It goes without saying that the numerals…

  • More on Texts and Translations

    A regular reader responds to  On Reading Philosophical Texts in Their Original Languages:    Nice piece on the necessity of studying texts in their original languages. The very question puzzles me. Why would someone assume he knows what Kant said and meant by reading Kemp Smith? I don't know what shape the Kant MSS are in—are there…

  • The Trouble with Continental Philosophy: Tillich

    Today’s example of Continental muddle-headedness is not from a philosopher, strictly speaking, but from a theologian who was influenced by a philosopher, Heidegger, and who has had a great deal of influence on philosophers. Paul Tillich (1886-1965) writes: Atheism can only mean the attempt to remove any ultimate concern – to remain unconcerned about the…