Continental Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions)

Rating:
Summary: An essay rather than introduction.
Review: As someone who does not know much about Kant or the German Idealists, this book was difficult to follow. I actually had to look up Kant in other books in order to understand somewhat Critchley's description of his work.

Critchley then started talking about the German Idealists, and he does not define what an Idealist is. He assumes the reader knows already.

Even a beginner can learn from this book, but it is not an introductory text. It is a discussion of a relatively arcane professional dispute among philosophers, and about the generally different focus of philosophy in Continental Europe as opposed to the English-speaking world.

The sections on Heidegger were incomprehensible to me. Towards the end Critchley talks about Popper and positivism and it was like a breath of fresh air. Finally a simple subject that seemed comprehensible and meaningful!

I will read other books by this author, but if I were to approach this book again I would first read more about Kant, the Idealists and even that Nazi Heidegger (Critchley is quite upfront about this aspect of Heidegger.)

Here is a question: If Heidegger does not claim to be presenting scientific truth then why should I want to learn about his ideas? Heidegger the man was a lowlife and a Nazi. Whatever benefits one might get from his philosophy, it is not likely to make one a better person.

Carnap on the other hand was great and opposed the Nazis.

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Summary: Yet Another Good Example from the VSI Series
Review: In "Continental Philosophy", the author, Simon Critchely, briefly reviews the two competing/antagonistic main streams - so-called "analytic" and "Continental" -- of Anglo-European-American philosophy of the last 250+ years. This slim volume (like all of the VSI volumes I've read -- about 7-8) is a good, clear and well written introduction to a very interesting topic, but, in this case, just not exactly the one intimated in the title. One needs to already know a bit about each stream of thought in order to get the full value of the book, and so a better title might be "Introduction to the Analytic/Continental Philosophical Dispute". But this is a quibble.

The story begins with Kant (or, more accurately, Kant's response to Hume's sceptism). Kant, a pivotal figure in Western philosophy, sought to demonstrate the limits of 'pure' reason as a basis for our scientific knowledge about the world (which, he argued, depends on pre-analytic categories such as time and space). Kant later attempted to provide a rational basis for other areas of philosophical concern - previously and primarily justified on the basis of religion -- e.g., ethics, morality, aesthetics.

After Kant (or because of him, some might say), particularly as 'Science' began to explain more and more about the world that had previously been the purview of philosophy (and religion), Western philosophical thought split into two main streams:

--"analytic", using "Science" as a model, and which focused on logic and reason as the primary tools of philosophical inquiry and defined the areas of legitimate philosophical investigation as ridding language (and thought) of ambiguities (philosophy becomes the "handmaiden" of science); and

--"Continental", which focused on a number of areas dealing with ethics, morality, "meaning of life" types of isssues.

Kant's grounding (now seen as a unsuccessful) of morality in reason nevertheless removed an important traditional structural support for morality, etc., that had permeated much of Western thought (religion, in particular Christianity). With this started the thread of "anxiety" in Western European/American religious/philosophical thinking concerned with finding a replacement for religious faith as the basis for morality, meaning of life, etc. Kant, in Nietzsche's view, comes to be viewed as the thinker who exposed 'nihilism' as a problem, and much of Continental thinking, especially since Nietzsche, has been an attempt to deal with the 'anxiety' caused by 'nihilism'.

There is much in Critchley's book about the battles that have, since Kant, raged on this topic, with "analytic" philosophers (many of whom in fact were, geographically anyway, "continental", e.g., Frege, the founder of the 'analytic' movement, and the Vienna Circle, the best known 'analytic' school) claiming that Continental philosophers wrote (and thought) gibberish, while Continental philosophers claiming that analytic philosophers were caught in an ever-shrinking space of fruitful inquiry. The distinctions, obviously, aren't crystal clear, and some notable thinkers have either been in both schools at different times in their lives (e.g., Wittgenstein) or have sought to provide a synthesis (usually grounded in some form or "pragmatism") of the two ways of thinking (e.g., Cavell and Rorty).

Critchely, a Reader in Philosophy at the University of Exeter and Directeur de Programme at the College International de Philosophie (in Paris) has an unusually good professional perch from which to survey the (oftentimes contentious) debates that have plagued the two competing schools (each of which, at least on the "Continental" side has numerous 'sub-schools'), certainly for the past 100 or so years. Critchley's perspective on the debate is quite even-handed and conciliatory. He points out the places where 'analytic' philosophers have made mistakes (e.g., arguing against metaphysics through the "verificationist principle" of meaning, with the foundation of that principle itself ultimately being shown to be metaphysical) and where Continental philosophers have been at best -- one suspects intentionaly -- obscure and in the case of some (notably Heidegger) positively harmful -- as apologists for totalitarianism.

He ends the last two chapters in the book pointing out the respective dangers of each side ("scientism" by the 'analytics' and "obscurantism" by the 'Continentals') and proposing a "third way" that reconciles the 'analytic' and 'Continental' streams, suggesting that a "careful" phenomenology can show that many of the questions about man's "primary and most significant access to the world" are not resolvable by 'analytic' methods, but are not helpfully elucidated either by many of the cryptic, aphoristic, metaphoric writings of the principal adherents of the 'Continental school.

This is a great, condensed review of a very important debate within Western thought over the past 250 years, which continues today. Well worth reading.

Rating:
Summary: A short discourse
Review: Part of a series by Oxford University Press, this book, 'Continental Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction', follows the same format as other texts in the Very Short Introduction series -- it has fewer than 150 pages, is well indexed, accessible and interesting narrative, and captures the essence in a very short space the major points of its topic. There are probably nearing 100 volumes in this Very Short Introduction series (making it, ironically, not a Very Short series), but among those that I have read, this text stands out as being one of the best.

Simon Critchley is Reader in Philosophy at the University of Essex and Directeur de Programme at the College International de Philosophie, Paris. He is well versed in Continental Philosophy, particularly as it diverges from British and North American developments in philosophy. The text here begins (more or less) with Kant, and goes forward to the twentieth century, dominated also by German and French thinkers.

Critchley argues, in fact, there is no unified, systematic body of work one should call 'Continental Philosophy', but rather that it consists of eclectic and divergent voices bound sometimes by little more than geographic proximity. That having been said, Critchley does work through some major strands and commonalities of approach, or at the very least some vision of the progress of philosophy from one to the other, influences and reactions.

In all, this text is a good read, but given its presupposition about the state of philosophical knowledge on the part of the reader, this should not be assumed to be a first text (in the more traditional sense that 'introduction' seems to imply). It helps here if one already knows the major positions of the major philosophers (and wouldn't hurt if one already knew what thinkers like Derrida also thought of them).

Like other books in this Very Short series, there are occasional graphics and pictures, and suggestions for further reading, should the Very Short introduction not prove sufficient (and for many, this sample will leave the reader wanting more). I cannot speak too highly of this series. This particular volume, however, is to a certain extent what it says it is, too precisely -- it is not an introduction (however long) to philosophy, but rather presupposes some familiarity with philosophy, and looks at the advent or introduction of what turned out to be the major themes in Continental Philosophy.

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Summary: I busted a gut laughing at the guile of this.
Review: Remarkably, this is not an introduction to continental philosophy. It is closer to a sustained, if general, argument on where Anglo-American and continental philosophy diverged and what can be done to reacquaint them. While an analytic philosopher might find Critchley's syncretizing helpful, because this is not a true introduction, a puzzled comp lit student looking for some continental basics won't get much out of it. Having said this, the book is interesting and its position novel.

Rating:
Summary: Well-written, well-argued but...
Review: The VSI books from Oxford University Press are great; you get an enjoyably short but informative romp through the basics of a subject. This book is no exception. Critchley writes and argues well, and one of the books greatest strengths is that it targets readers who wonder why there is such a divide between 'Continental' (Critchley doesn't like this term, and I don't either) and 'Analytic' philosophers. Critchley makes a commendable effort to explain this divide in the hope that a future reconciliation will be made. Unfortunately, it doesn't live up to that high ideal.

I currently study analytic philosophy so I understand where it's coming from and why it relies on the methodology it does. I cannot say the same for continental philosophy, and I was hoping this book would change that. It didn't. I found that I do understand the work of Heidegger better, and there are some great anecdotes concerning the inability of Rudolf Carnap and Heidegger to comprehend each other. Nevertheless, I still don't quite understand why continental philosophers resist the strategy of writing clear, concise prose to explain their ideas. This is not to condemn them; no doubt they have many good ideas that are worth hearing, but I can't understand them. Maybe I'm just missing the point; that's certainly very possible, but Critchley's little book was not able to show what it was that I was missing. In any case, if you're completely new to the subject, this is a nice little introduction that will increase your desire to read more.

Rating:
Summary: An essay rather than introduction.
Review: There are very many 'introductions to...' but this really isn't one of them - thank god! The very fact that philosophers such as Stanley Cavell, Stephen Toulmin, Richard Bernstein and Pascal Engel sing its praises already gives us an idea that this is no 'philosophy for dummies' or 'philosophy for beginners' book. And bravo to Critchley - a rising British talent - for not taking the money and running. This is also a book full of gracious humour and personal anecdote.

In laying out the history of the confrontation between so-called analytical philosophy and so-called continental philosophy it is interesting to see how they both go astary, in scientism and obscuratism respectively. The rise of cognitive science seems typical of the new overtaking of philosophy in the first case (especailly the recent proliferation of evolutionary psychology)and literature and mere literay criticism in the second. Yet it is most interesting to see Critchely, a Derrida and Levinas expert, suggest as candidates for obscuratanism the drives of Freud, the real in Lacan, power in Foucault, différance in Derrida, the trace of God in Levinas and, of course (right out there at the top!) the epochal withdrawl of being in and as history in Heidegger. No wonder Critchley has elsewhere staunchly argued that Levinas is not a Jewish philosopher - despite the latter's mass of writings from that stand point - but simply a philoopsher - Period. But cracks are obviously evident. But there is also another bridge between the 2 schools not mentioned by Critchely, especially evident in Heidegger scholarship, with, for instance, the writings of Hubert Dreyfus and John Haugelund, not authors that Derrida would refer to.

But how might Critchely himself be accused of obscuratism? Perhaps in making something of 'wisdom' versus knowledge - the main stay between the two attitudes he is discussing. The average cognitive scientist might describe wisdom in terms of a feed-back loop. I guess the bottom line is, that cognitive science may show us that there is no such thing as the subject (jiggle about with a person's brain and his/her subjectivity changes), but at any time we act 'as if' we were subjects, and that is good enough for us.

One of the best bits of the book is the parts on Nietzsche and nihilism, which must surely emerge as THE key factor in 'agenda' of continental philosophy. But it would have been nice to extend that argument to include ideas from Deleuze and Guattari, who seemed to have taken up Niezsche's mantle with gusto, but yet leave us with the disparaging avenue of pragmatism: the road seems to lead from Paris to the USA... via Essex, UK, perhaps. Where are you Habermas when the world needs you?