Continental Vs Analytic Philosophy - Gentleman Thinker

Is this even a useful distinction to make in philosophy?

[tegetcrno]

Analytic Philosophy was also developed on continental europe

Frege was German.

And so was Wittgenstein, and Kurt Gödel(okay, Austrians, Germans)...

Vienna Circle, Berlin Circle

The distinction was never clear, at least not geographically. Even Carnap was German, Imre Lakatos Hungerian, Jules Vuillemin
French.

[crookedkid]

I'm lucky enough to attend a university where both analytic and "continental" philosophy is taught (though unfortunately, rarely in the same class). I think your distinction of analytic = logic and continental = wooly romanticism is a bit unfair. For example, I've just finished a course in Hegel's Phenomenology and I found as much logical rigor in it as I did when reading Kant.

You've described the divide from an analytic perspective, so I'd like to balance the scales and offer my "continental" description: the main difference I've observed is that, in continental philosophy, there is a big focus on its own history and the historical, social, and cultural context of the arguments one is making. This probably comes from Hegel, who believed that one could not simply jump straight to the "correct" answer, but had to work through the problems of philosophy to find their inner contradictions. "Overcoming" a philosophical problem or position is not finding it to be false and throwing it away, but finding what is true in it and also where it falls short, and then coming up with a new position that captures the truth while discarding the error. (Of course not all continentals think like this, which is why it's such an arbitrary division, but there is generally an awareness of operating within an intellectual history).

Analytic philosophy, in my experience of it, approaches problems by isolating them. It attempts to define a particular problem clearly and consider all the possible solutions to the problem, knowing that one is the correct solution regardless of historical context, which it views as contingent (i.e. either dualism is and has always been the case or it is false and has always been false, there is no middle ground).

Both approaches are important while both overlook important aspects of philosophy. Analytic philosophy typically overlooks the importance of history, cultural context, and translation (I also think the analytic view of language is overly simplistic, but that's my own personal gripe) while continental philosophy is dense (sometimes on purpose), open to interpretation (within reason), and harder to get into (one must familiarize themself with the whole historical tradition). While I think both traditions have a lot to learn from each other, I'm positive the divide cannot be overcome by simply "logic-ing up" continental philosophy.

[jakerapp]

The reason we may have trouble with the continental-analytic divide is that 'continental' seems to refer to a geographic region where philosophical is done and 'analytic' references a method for doing philosophical work. That problem is highlighted by all the hazy border problems you raised at the end of the video. I'd say it's better to make a divide between the analytic tradition and the existential-phenoneological tradition. That should disperse with problems relating to Kant and Plato; those figures wrote prior to the emergence of analytic and existential-phenomenological schools and so they don't go in either.

[lolkiaha]

Analytic-Continental schizma is another instance where the brits see themselves as unique, even though there are a bunch of movements in continetal Europe of analyticism, i.e. Warsaw-lviv school

in conclusion the bri'ish 😫

[ALOKSINGH-jrvy]

Lol, concepts explained in brief "IN A POSH ENGLISH ACCENT" is the USP of the channel. It's funny yet a good selling point XDXD

[MyDenis]

i really hate the obscure language of continental philosophy. There sure must be some easier way around it.

[slhpproductions]

I wish I knew that before...see I started a bachelor's in philosophy just a few weeks ago, and I found it to be so dry, methodical and emotionless that nearly clawed my eyes out. So I went to my professor and I told him how I felt and he said, "well it seems you're more interested in continental philosophy. Here we focus almost exclusively on analytical philosophy" and he explained the difference to me and I almost cried. I don't know what to do next, but I do know I absolutely hate Aristotle now...

[alipaf]

I went on a University website to read the difference between two, I was more confused after read their answer.

[ahmsab]

The way analytical philosophy is developing should perhaps earn it a name change into the "analytical method" since it has applied use in philosophy rather than being a philosophy in itself (aside from it's basic assumptions). But I think most of continental philosophy still doesn't use this "method", so perhaps the distinction does really exist.

[xxEllenMx]

This video was such an eye-opener! I am Dutch but I really want to study philosophy in the UK. My teacher warned me about how the course in the UK would probably focus more on analytic philosophy, which consequently made me wonder if I even wanted to take the course in the UK (I consider myself as more of a continental philosopher). Now that I know that the distinction is relatively blurry, I don't have to worry about whether I would prefer to stay in The Netherlands anymore. I want to go to the UK! :) 

[hammeringhank]

I'm a Kantian Utilitarian Transcendentalist Materialist Communist Libertarian Existentialist Essentialist Jungian Freudian Pragmatist Rationalist Empiricist Determinist Compatibalist. But if there's two Philosophers I think understood the absolute truth about human nature it would be Russo and Hobbes.

[noticias]

If anyone could equat this to 90's rap "East vs. West" coast scene who would you equate Tupac and The Notorious .B.I.G. too?.

Me Tupac-Ferdinand de Saussure  and the Notorious .B.I.G.-Bertrand Russell xD . Jacque Derrida might be equated to a trend-breaker like Eminem, deconstructing things xD.

Richard Rorty has Philosophy tube's back in saying that the divide is meaningless.

I've never seen meta-ethics as a separate entry and was expecting logic (or reasoning) to be the category there instead (Analytic school is the kingpin there?).

[dekippiesip]

I do think that the continental approach works best when talking about issues without a strict truthvalue that can have multiple interpretations. In ethics you could say A is right and I could say it is wrong, but there is no objective way to determine definitively what is good or bad. As long as we both have good arguments for our positions, we are both kind of right.

 When it comes to questions concerning the existance of god, what happens after death, the nature of reality, etc the analytical approach seems better suited. Here we clearly are talking about statements about the nature of reality. As a beta person I prefer the analytical approach way more than the continental one, I think it's very important to make precise statements and use logic to deduce implications from assumptions. As a result I tend to be a lot more interested in philosophical questions of the second type mentioned, as things as morals or eastethics just seem to be way too subjective. You may think this colour is beautiful and I may think that colour is, now im fine with that and we might as well leave it there instead of arguing about 'why' it is beautiful.

[jokefrost]

Whats the name of the background music?

[danksamosa]

I'm sad, Wittgenstein wasn't mentioned

[mellowandjello]

although I've only taken a few philosophy courses, I was fortunate enough to take one analytic oriented course, and one continental oriented course. other than that, I took three moral/ethics courses and I plan on taking a couple more. However, after more research and reading, I find myself favouring continental philosophy, is moral/ethical philosophy concerned with either of these traditions? because moral/ethic philosophy is considered to be it's own major branch, but im just wondering if it's concerned with one tradition over another.

[AbhijeetBorkar]

And how are Non-European philosophies classified?

[sadabetas]

Can you do a video that talks about Heidegger? I've tried to get into his ontological works but always get thrown off when he introduces new vocabulary from the german like "dasain" a video that includes this terminology would be great as most University lectures online assume you have their text book and glossarys!

[random]

"Wooly" is the British version of "fuzzy" as in the concept of Fuzzy Logic.

[martinkryer]

I would characterize myself as a continental philosopher, mainly because I read philosophers who are usually associated with that term - Foucault, Hegel, Zizek, Derrida and so on :) here in Denmark there's a strong analytic branch. I think continental philosophers are much more scattered around the whole country, but I could be wrong.