I’m teaching ‘Recent Continental Philosophy’ this semester, and I’m curious about the origins of the term – ‘continental philosophy’, that is. I’m tempted by the quite feeble joke that all continental philosophy is of very recent origin because the term is of very recent origin, even though it names something that is approximately 200 years old (if you want to start with Kant, as I do.) Or at least 100 years old (if you want to start with Husserl.) I don’t see much evidence of regular usage of ‘continental philosophy’ before the 1980’s. I think I more or less agree with what Simon Critchley says in the following passage from the Blackwell Companion to Continental Philosophy [amazon]:
Although there is no consensus on the precise origin of the concept of Continental philosophy as a professional self-description, it would seem that it does not arise as a description of undergraduate and postgraduate courses in philosophy before the 1970s. It is clear that this happened in the USA before Britain, where the first postgraduate courses in Continental philosophy were offered at the Universities of Essex and Warwick in the early 1980’s, although undergraduate courses in the Continental philosophy were available at Warwick from the mid-1970’s. in the American context, and to a lesser extent in Britain, the term “Continental philosophy” replaced the earlier formulations, “Phenomenology” or “Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy.” These terms are preserved in the names of the professional associations most closely associated with Continental philosophy in the English-speaking world, the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy founded in 1962 and the British Society for Phenomenology founded in 1967. it would seem, then, that in the postwar period, Continental philosophy was broadly synonymous with phenomenology (often in an existential garb), a fact that is also reflected by certain introductory American book titles from the 1960’s: An Invitation to Phenomenology (1965), and Phenomenology in America (1967). It is perhaps indicative that the latter title is both mimicked and transformed in 1983 with the appearance of Continental Philosophy in America. The reason why “Phenomenology” is replaced with “Continental Philosophy” is not absolutely clear, but it would seem that it was introduced to take account of the various so-called poststructuralist Francophone movements of thought that were increasingly distant from and often hostile towards phenomenology: to a lesser extent Lacan, Derrida, and Lyotard, and to a greater extent Deleuze and Foucault.
So, to summarize, Continental philosophy is a professional self-description that overlays a prior and more pernicious cultural opposition between the “British” or “Anglo-American” and the “Continental” and which has been pragmatically refined over the years. (p. 4)
Critchley thinks the perniciousness is the fault of the Anglos, for being close-minded. I am inclined to think that there is probably equal close-mindedness to be found on both sides, if it comes to that. But setting the question of blame aside, does anyone have anything much to add to the above?
{ 65 comments }
Brendan 08.07.06 at 4:03 am
Absolutely nothing except for the (completely unoriginal point) that most of the roots of ‘Anglo-American’ philosophy actually lie on the ‘Continent’: i.e. Frege, Wittgenstein, the Vienna Circle, etc. etc. etc. Likewise you could argue that many of the British ’empiricists’ have more in common with ‘Continental philosophy’ than they do with the logical positivists (Hume especially….Russell thought that Hume’s ‘disproof’ of causality was the beginning of modern ‘irrationalism’). ‘Ordinary language philosophy’ clearly has much in common with ‘Continental philosophy’ (don’t forget the favourable review of ‘Being and Time’ that Ryle wrote). The situation with American philosophy is even more striking. Rorty is not entirely wrong when he draws parallels between American pragmatism and ‘post-modernism’, and ‘Heidegger as pragmatist’ is quickly becoming a cliche (in certain circles). Not to mention the fact that ‘post-modernism’ (as we understand the term) is essentially an Anglo-American idea (few, if any, of the ‘founding French fathers’ of the ‘movement’ described themselves as ‘post-modernists’. Derrida certainly didn’t).
I might also add that there are numerous contemporary French philosophers who are as influenced by the ‘Anglo-American’ tradition as by the ‘Continental’. Moreover, even in the ‘classic’ French tradition, there were schisms: Pierre Bourdieu was always highly sceptical about ‘deconstruction’ and stuff like that for example.
So the whole ‘distinction’ is complete nonsense, essentially. But that is hardly an original point.
Chris Bertram 08.07.06 at 4:18 am
On the “fault on both sides” point, I was surprised when my German teacher lent me a German encyclopedia of philosophy published in the 1960s. There was no entry for Frege.
Phersu 08.07.06 at 4:33 am
if you want to start with Kant, as I do
I don’t see Kant as a “Continental” philosopher. Doesn’t the rift start rather with Post-Kantian German Idealism and Romanticism? In spite of all the “British Idealism” and McTaggart, there is something in Hegel, Schopenhauer , then Marx, Kierkegaard or Nietzsche that does not seem to have lasting effects on Anglo-American(-Polish) philosophy.
OTOH, Kant is deeply influential on Pragmaticism (e.g. C.I. Lewis) and so-called Descriptive Metaphysics.
brendan : Russell thought that Hume’s ‘disproof’ of causality was the beginning of modern ‘irrationalism’
Really? I thought Russell’s Causal Eliminativism (“Causal Republicanism”) was basically Humean (although his ontology of universals is not).
John Holbo 08.07.06 at 4:47 am
phersu, I was just being a bit quick in the post. I mean what you say about ‘post-Kant’.
nja 08.07.06 at 5:29 am
I’m not sure when Alan Watts interviewed Bertrand Russell, I’d guess towards the end of his life so the late sixties. If you listen to the first chunk here, about eight minutes in he talks about “the continental approach” (contrasting it with Oxford / ordinary language philosophy).
Dan Karreman 08.07.06 at 5:47 am
“Analytic” and “continental” are convenient labels that denotes some general differences, perhaps mostly in terms of writing style, prefererred representative anecdotes, and argumentantive conventions. In a deeper sense, they cover more than they reveal.
For example, I disagree with phersu that Nietzsche and Schopenhauer does not resonate with Anglo-American philosophy. Basically, American pragmatism is Nietzschean perspectivism with more focus on (useful) representations and less on will (and power).
Brendan 08.07.06 at 5:56 am
‘OTOH, Kant is deeply influential on Pragmaticism (e.g. C.I. Lewis) and so-called Descriptive Metaphysics.’
But so was Hegel. Cf Hegel’s influence on Dewey, amongst others.
As for the Bertrand Russell reference I remember reading it somewhere but I can’t track down the reference now. Perhaps I’m wrong. But this paper agrees with me (http://www.tau.ac.il/~agass/joseph-papers/SMITH.pdf).
josh 08.07.06 at 7:45 am
In response to phersu: but surely ‘post-Kantian’ German philosophy is shaped by Kant, even when it goes beyond him — and neo-Kantianism continued to have a powerful influence within ‘Continental’ philosophy? I tend to agree that the distinction, while real, is overdrawn, and that being within the ‘Continental’ tradition needn’t exclude one from the ‘Analytic’ one; Kant, it seems to me, is in both.
Also, in addition to the German (or Austrian) influences on Anglo-American philosophy mentioned by Brendan, it’s worth noting the influence of French positivism on British philosophy; it doesn’t seem to have left much of a mark, but it did have some impact on Mill, so that’s something. Indeed, I’m tempted to say that the Continental/Anglo-American dichotomy really only becomes a real and useful distinction (unless one’s using it merely geographically) after WWII, when ‘Continental’ philosophy goes (by and large) very far in one direction, and Anglo-American in the other; before that there are certainly differences which hint at the divergence to come (British empiricism vs. French Rationalism and German Idealism, and all the good old cliches), but nothing quite so hard and fast as what one now tends to see.
Brendan 08.07.06 at 8:32 am
‘Indeed, I’m tempted to say that the Continental/Anglo-American dichotomy really only becomes a real and useful distinction (unless one’s using it merely geographically) after WWII.’
This is probably true, but I think it’s even more true to say that the divergence only becomes tinged with animosity with the development of post-structuralism in the ’60s. ‘Anglo-American’ philosophers didn’t have much time for existentialism, but (based on what I’ve read) they didn’t despise it, or think that it was something other than philosophy. Moreover ‘structuralism’ per se was not particularly disliked by ‘Anglo-American’ thinkers: in fact, thinkers like Levi-Strauss (and the early Barthes) were generally respected. It was only when Derrida (and those who followed him) started to write that the real schism began. (Note: this is basically backed up by the intitial post, which pointed out that the phrase only started to be used, really, in the early ’70s).
Adam Kotsko 08.07.06 at 8:38 am
I suppose that this explains why so many “continental” departments seem to be basically “phenomenological” departments.
Phersu 08.07.06 at 8:43 am
Yes, you are right about Dewey. It is also true that with Peirce and Brandom there are still traces of some elements of Hegel but they are aufgehoben as “holism” or “coherentism”. Dialectics had no direct influence AFAIK (except maybe Australian dialetheism?).
the Continental/Anglo-American dichotomy really only becomes a real and useful distinction after WWII
Or maybe WWI, which exacerbate national traditions. Before the Great War, Bergson, Husserl and Russell still share a kind of intellectual community but this disappears in the 20’s for various reasons like the Heideggerian jargon and the logical formalisations (one major exception would be Cassirer who could read both). Ayer writes somewhere (IIRC) that he cannot ascertain what current phenomenology is about.
T. Gracchus 08.07.06 at 8:54 am
On use of “Continental Philosophy”: that was the general term used when I was an undergraduate in the early 70’s, by the likes of A. Hofstedter and M. Nathanson.
John Emerson 08.07.06 at 8:59 am
When I was young, Wittgenstein and analytic philosophy were just taking over from logical positivism, and the whole Anglo coalition seemed to be taking over philosophy as a whole. The opposition struggled to survive and banded together in an odd defensive coalition: Catholic philosophy, Marxist philosophy, and phenomenology. The first two have faded, and structuralism and postmodernism have been added.
My feeling is that the weirder forms of clown show postmodernism suit analytic philosophers just fine. Deconstruction is sort of like the Washington Generals or Brand X — it always loses.
The real losers after 1950 were the pragmatists and the “world view” philosophers, especially the politically-engaged ones. Following McCumber, Mirowski, and my own evil nature, I choose to think the worst of this transition.
The Man realized that it was going to be difficult to explain the switch from an anti-Fascist ideology allied with Communism to an anti-Commuist ideology allied with Fascism, so they slotted in a non-ideology according to which technicians and adminstrators following rational procedures could be assumed to be right, and social critics using a philosophical vocabulary could be assumed to be talking nonsense.
p. shields 08.07.06 at 9:29 am
When I was an undergraduate in the late 60’s our department offered three courses, Recent and Contemporary Continental, Recent and Contemporary British, and Recent and Contemporary American. These followed the Kant & Hegel course (which was sometimes done as two courses). The Continental course began with Husserl and was mainly phenomenology, the American course was mainly classical pragmatism, and the British course was analytic. Wittgenstein was often done in a separate course.
I think of this as a bibliographical categorization. If I were to make any historical generalization based upon these categories, it would probably be to see more commonality between the analytic and phenomenological traditions than between either and the American tradition.
Adam Kotsko 08.07.06 at 10:18 am
What’s nice about Emerson’s theory is that then analytic philosophy can dismiss that explanation of its own hegemony as un-philosophical. (Doubtless, the words “argument” and “evidence” would appear in such a dismissal, in italics.)
Is metaphysics still not allowed? (I’m a little behind — I get most of my information on analytic philosophy from one particular commenter to my website, who seems to have stopped at Quine.)
Alex Gregory 08.07.06 at 10:22 am
Wikipedia, as always, has some interesting stuff on this. In particular, it references – C. Prado. A House Divided: Comparing Analytic and Continental Philosophy. Prometheus/Humanity Books (2003) – for its assertion that the distinction between continental/analytic dates to the early 20th Century.
John Emerson 08.07.06 at 10:39 am
Quine is Da Man. Quine Roolz. Nancy Droolz.
Anderson 08.07.06 at 10:52 am
There would seem to be a causal link between the shift to a geographic, not topical, description, and the failure to understand what Derrida et al. were talking about.
Phersu 08.07.06 at 11:48 am
@ adam kotsko
On the contrary, I would say metaphysics became more central in the analytic tradition since at least the 1970s (partly because of Philosophy of Mind, partly because of Australian realism and partly because of “semantic” discussions on Essentialism and Modality). Some latter-day Quineans and Wittgensteinians think it is a catastrophe but I gather they are a minority.
ben alpers 08.07.06 at 12:08 pm
For those non-philosophers among us playing along at home, could someone please explain what “Australian realism” refers to? I almost hate to admit that the phrase makes me immediately think of Bruces’ Philosophers Song.
Rob St. Amant 08.07.06 at 12:13 pm
Could any of you knowledgeable folks recommend a good introduction to Heidegger for a non-philosopher? Or is that like asking for an eighth grade reader on quantum physics?
ben alpers 08.07.06 at 12:20 pm
As a total outsider, I found George Steiner’s book on Heidegger to be a very helpful introduction, but those who know this stuff better than I might have a more accurate assessment of it.
Thom Brooks 08.07.06 at 12:22 pm
I must say I quite dislike the term “continental philosophy” as if all philosophy in Europe is the same and/or has greater similarities to one another than it might with Anglo-American philosophy. Both take Plato, Aristotle, Hume, Kant, Hegel, etc. very seriously, etc.
Perhaps it is best to speak of either national traditions or certain schools of thought. For example, there are certainly connections to be had in Idealism (Kant, Hegel, Green, Bradley, perhaps even later Husserl), German philosophy (Kant, Hegel, Adorno, Habermas), French philosophy, phenomenology, and so on. Lumping everyone together as if the way Germans and French “do” philosophy is a bit nuts. Similarly, it is difficult enough speaking of British philosophy as one thing, as it is a combination of many different traditions that include Hobbes and Locke, Hume and Smith, Green and Bradley, Russell and beyond.
Brendan 08.07.06 at 12:31 pm
‘Could any of you knowledgeable folks recommend a good introduction to Heidegger for a non-philosopher?’
I think that Heidegger: a very short introduction (by Michael Inwood) is pretty good (and not written in ‘Heidgger-ese’ which is presumably what you are getting at when you talk about ‘non-philosopher’). ‘Heidegger for Beginners’ is even easier (Lemay, Pitts and Gordon) and even simpler.
The classic ‘students’ guide is by Hubert Dreyfus (‘Being-in-the-World: A Commentary on Heidegger’s Being and Time, Division I.) although his take on Heidegger is controversial (the same goes with the guides above). On the other hand, like the other two, it has the immense advantage of being written in clear, readable, English prose. This is particularly valuable if you are a psychologist or cognitivist scientist and want to know why Heidegger has become so fasionable in this field recently.
There’s also a good biography of him, which deals with the philosophy at some length: ‘Martin Heidegger: Between Good and Evil’ (Safranski).
‘Continental Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction’ (Critchley) is a good intro to the themes of this thread.
engels 08.07.06 at 12:51 pm
Critchley thinks the perniciousness is the fault of the Anglos, for being close-minded. I am inclined to think that there is probably equal close-mindedness to be found on both sides, if it comes to that. But setting the question of blame aside…
But where’s the fun in that?
This exchange between Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Gilbert Ryle, following a paper Ryle delivered in France in 1960, which is quoted by Critchley, is indicative:
Rob St. Amant 08.07.06 at 12:51 pm
Thanks, Ben and Brendan. I’ll give your suggestions a look. The Dreyfus sounds especially interesting, given what I’ve read of his other stuff.
And yes, the Heideggerese has proved to be a stumbling block, in particular because I’m interested in formalization of some of his ideas.
Rachel B. 08.07.06 at 1:26 pm
on a purely philological note, the phrase ‘continental philosophy’ must have originated in England, no? I’ve never heard an American or Canadian speak of Europe as ‘the continent’. For obvious reasons.
Louis Proyect 08.07.06 at 1:54 pm
Hmmm.
I was at the New School studying under Aaron Gurwitsch in 1965-1967. He was probably the leading phenomenologist in the world at the time. I don’t remember hearing the term “continental philosophy” used that much around that time, but I am quite sure if someone used it casually in the course of a conversation, I would connect it with the New School.
Lollius 08.07.06 at 2:24 pm
Why’s it called ‘Continental’?
I don’t know: maybe because it only pretends to be free, leaves you hungry, and used to be the ne plus ultra of chic but has since been co-opted by global corporations as a cost-cutting measure?
(You were fishing for a pun between Continental philosophy and continental breakfasts, weren’t you?)
Phersu 08.07.06 at 2:44 pm
>@ 20. ben alpers
I don’t know if the expression is standard. I was thinking (vaguely) of a cluster of things like Smart‘s scientific realism, David Armstrong‘s moderate realism on Universals and the Canberra Plan.
Patrick Dolan 08.07.06 at 3:09 pm
When I was an undergraduate philosophy major at Michigan from 1971 to 1976 “continental” was used in an invidious way to denote philosophical thought that 1) originated outside a very specific Anglo-American tradition (so Frege and Wittgenstein, et al. could be grandfathered in) and 2) smacked of “metaphysics” in the logical positivist usage of the word.
At that point Michigan had faculty members from Oxford, and others who had been trained by English folks, so the students took it as given that the term originated in England.
When I went back to grad school in literature at Iowa in the early 80s the term was in much wider and less invidious usage.
I don’t know how this works out in print, but that’s how it worked in Angell Hall (UM) and the English-Philosophy Building (UI).
Adam Kotsko 08.07.06 at 4:35 pm
The origin of the term “continental breakfast” seems to me to be a more urgent question at this point.
mkl 08.07.06 at 4:46 pm
@31. Not much change at U of M through 85 when I came out (doubled with Comp Sci, all under Art Burks). Continental ran Husserl – Habermas – Merleau-Ponty – Derrida, all with a “Danger, here be communists” warning.
Adam Kotsko 08.07.06 at 5:21 pm
It’s true that most continental philosophers in the 20th Century were socialists, which is of course completely different from the founders of analytic philosophy. (Or if some of them did happen to be socialists, you could tell they didn’t believe in it, because they spent their whole careers doing completely non-ideological things that have nothing to do with politics.)
josh 08.07.06 at 8:01 pm
There are some surveys of contemporary intellectual and cultural trends that Isaiah Berlin wrote for the Encyclopedia Britannica yearbook(s) in 1950-53, which don’t so far as I recall use the terms ‘Continental’ and ‘Analytic’, but do distinguish between philosophy in the English-speaking/Scandinavian world and Continental Europe, along the same lines as the current divide. Also, when Cassirer came to Oxford in the 1930s the younger philosophers were, at first, somewhat impressed, but became impatient with him — Berlin later said something to the effect of, ‘there were no arguments’. Also, Berlin’s writings from the 1930s are rather dismissive of Nietzsche and I think maybe Schopenhauer (I don’t quite remember), though on the other hand he did take Max Scheler seriously. So that suggests the divergence was underway before WWII, though it may have intensified later.
That’s the Berlin-eye view, anyway; I imagine that other British philosophers of his generation were even less receptive to ‘Continental’ philosophy — Ayer, I believe, rubbished Sartre in the late ’40s/early ’50s.
engels 08.07.06 at 10:32 pm
It’s true that most continental philosophers in the 20th Century were socialists, which is of course completely different from the founders of analytic philosophy. (Or if some of them did happen to be socialists, you could tell they didn’t believe in it, because they spent their whole careers doing completely non-ideological things that have nothing to do with politics.)
Actually that’s very, very unfair on Russell and Ayer, to name just two. And I fear you are going to have to find a hell of lot of commies on your side to compensate for Heidegger.
engels 08.07.06 at 10:36 pm
So my mildly provocative statement about continental philosophers’ contribution to progressive politics goes into the moderation queue. I always knew these Yoorpeans were touchy…
John Holbo 08.07.06 at 11:06 pm
Naw, Heidegger was a card-carrying National Socialist. Problem solved. Adam was right after all.
Jason Stanley 08.07.06 at 11:17 pm
Adam Kotsko writes, in comment 34:
“It’s true that most continental philosophers in the 20th Century were socialists, which is of course completely different from the founders of analytic philosophy. (Or if some of them did happen to be socialists, you could tell they didn’t believe in it, because they spent their whole careers doing completely non-ideological things that have nothing to do with politics.)”
Hmm…Husserl was one of the founders of continental philosophy — my history books about German left-wing politics until 1938 must have carelessly neglected his contributions. And I guess the chapter on socialism in the Logische Untersuchungen must have been dropped by its publishers. Or perhaps his contributions to progressive politics were stifled by the restrictions placed upon Jewish academics at the university by that even more distinguished founder of continental philosophy, Martin Heidegger, who I guess was a socialist, albeit of the national (aryan supremecy) variety.
You write that “the founders of analytic philosophy spent their whole careers doing completely non-ideological things that have nothing to do with politics”. This is the kind of ignorant nonsense that embarrases me about being an academic in the United States. Mr. Kotsko obviously has no clue who Bertrand Russell was. As far as distinguished recent analytic philosophers, Hilary Putnam was a Maoist throughout the 1960s and 1970s; some of his students in the philosophy of science from those years continue as dedicated Marxists (e.g. Richard Boyd, the distinguished philosopher of science at Cornell). Noam Chomsky is surely one of the most, if not the most, prominent philosopher of language and mind over the last 30 years; he certainly has staked out central positions in most debates in these areas since the 1960s, and has been a teacher and colleague of many of us. Last I checked, Noam was somewhat involved in progressive politics. But maybe Mr. Kotsko thinks that Lacan has had more influence on the progressive movement in the Twentieth Century than Russell or Chomsky.
Of course, the depth of a philosophical tradition should scarcely be judged on its influence on the progressive movement. My purpose here is only to correct absurd factual error.
engels 08.07.06 at 11:28 pm
Naw, Heidegger was a card-carrying National Socialist. Problem solved. Adam was right after all.
And that’s exactly the kind of silly linguistic sophistry that passes for “argument” among so-called “continental” philosophers… (continued on page 42)
John Quiggin 08.08.06 at 1:18 am
Talking of Sartre, has he had any lasting influence? I don’t see any evidence of it but I probably wouldn’t, having taken my efforts in reading Being and Nothingness as sufficient excuse not to do anything similar thereafter.
Thom Brooks 08.08.06 at 3:02 am
In terms of a split between Anglo-American “analytic” philosophy from “Continental” philosophy (not to make light of important differences), this surely began to become recognized with the onset of World War I. You find something highly curious during this period. Until this time, journals were swamped with writings by British (and some American) Idealists. You can find issues of the International Journal of Ethics that seem to be nothing more than the writings of John Stuart Mackenzie, with articles + several book reviews by the same author. The dominance is incredible. With the onset of WWI, Idealists were seen as sympathetic with the enemy, namely, the Germans, as most were admirers (to various extents) of Kant and Hegel. This led some Idealists, such as John Henry Muirhead, to write a pamphlet on why defending German philosophy was ok and patriotic (because the Germans were argued to have left their philosophy). Around this time (if my dates are right), Russell had his conversion away from Idealism and the rest is history. Refuting Idealists/metaphysicians became not only a matter of trying to practice good philosophy, but doing your patriotic duty. Idealists like Mackenzie and Muirhead (and others, such as Hetherington) survived until the ’50s and ’60s, etc, but the movement effectively died in prominence with the World Wars. That is, until I repackage it….
Brendan 08.08.06 at 3:40 am
‘And yes, the Heideggerese has proved to be a stumbling block, in particular because I’m interested in formalization of some of his ideas.’
You’ll have your work cut out for you.
Chris Bertram 08.08.06 at 3:45 am
That’s the Berlin-eye view, anyway; I imagine that other British philosophers of his generation were even less receptive to ‘Continental’ philosophy—Ayer, I believe, rubbished Sartre in the late ‘40s/early ‘50s.
I think _Being and Nothingness_ was fairly widely read among British philosophers in the 1960s, especially those interested in ethics. I just did a quick search, and Sartre is mentioned in 37 articles in _Mind_ during the 1960s. There’s even a specifice mention of Ayer’s reaction to Sartre by G.E. Myers, “Motives and Wants” (1964):
bq. I have for some time thought that when A. J. Ayer several years ago admitted to finding Sartre’s L’Etre et Le N6ant, despite its many faults, interesting all the same in some of its psychological hypotheses, that Ayer was probably responding appreciatively to certain of Sartre’s ingenious conceptualizings of people’s experiences.
Chris Bertram 08.08.06 at 3:48 am
Refuting Idealists/metaphysicians became not only a matter of trying to practice good philosophy, but doing your patriotic duty.
Have you any _evidence_ for this Thom? It would surely be ironic to conceive of Russell’s rejection of the idealists as an instance of him performing his patriotic duty in wartime.
David Weman 08.08.06 at 3:58 am
I think you should feel a bit silly for not recognizing that Kotsko’s comment is snark.
josh 08.08.06 at 6:39 am
In response to Chris at comment 45: I think the famous example of this sort of attack-on-Idealism as patriotism is Hobhouse’s Metaphysical Theory of the State — with its line about how the zeppelin bombing of London was the consequence of Hegel’s philosophy. But it should be noted that this was an attack on Idealist political thought, which of course didn’t leave the rest of Idealist thought untouched, but didn’t draw any connection between Idealist logic, say, and the War (as far as I remember); and that Hobhouse, while he had been sympathetic to some aspects of Idealist political thought, had already been something of a critic of Idealism.
And I’m afraid Thom Brooks is a bit off with the dates — Russell’s conversion away from Idealism happened around the turn of the century — which was around the same time as G.E. Moore and John Cook Wilson began their attacks on Idealism. The idea that Idealism in British life suffered a sudden eclipse because of WWI is common, and as Thom Brooks notes, there is some evidence supporting it; but it was actually a gradual, complicated process, with Idealism starting to come under heavy fire from the philosophical avant-garde in the 1890s, and lingering on (at least at Oxford) until WWII, though one gets the sense it was passe by the ’30s. But that was just Idealism; as Chris says, there was some interest in Sartre — Mary Warnock and Iris Murdoch both wrote about him, and Berlin and Stuart Hampshire at least read him.
engels 08.08.06 at 6:44 am
I’ll get my coat.
John Holbo 08.08.06 at 7:26 am
David, Adam knows that I know it was snark. Hence my snarky response. (He and I get along fine.)
Greg 08.08.06 at 8:14 am
Oooopsss, we did it again. Seriously Adam Kotsko, there is a long list (Professor Stanley could have given a longer one if he wanted to) of prominent analytic philosophers with socialist views and ties. But, being that obvious as it is, the following should be pointed out(and maybe its best that its done so by a student in well-known continental department, such as myself): What goes under the rubric of continental philosophy is to say the least very varied, and so are the political views of these philosophers who in one way or another thinks of themselves as continental (it doesnt matter much for my current purpose how we demarcate what is continental philosophy, rather I want to point out one way we should not do it). It is a far stretch from First Generation Frankfurt school (or second or third for that matter of sake) to the contemporary Heideggerian lines that dominate some American schools. To think that we, as continental philosophers, can demarcate us from the establishment, as we often understand analytic philosophy, by thinking of ourselves as the socialists or progressivs (I feel like saying “the truly political”) is not only historically wrong it is also very wrong today. With the increased interest in continental philosophy it will hopefully be clearer to all involved how varied and divergent continental philosophy is. I must admit I am looking forward to the day when its not acceptable to have “continental philosophy” as a specialtization on your cv.
John Emerson 08.08.06 at 9:03 am
The total eclipse of Idealism gives hope to those of us who believe that satanic trinity of Frege, Husserl, and Freud has ruined the philosophy of our time.
Michael Kremer 08.08.06 at 9:12 am
While Russell and Moore moved away from idealism before the end of the 19th century, it is an interesting question when and how their views came into ascendancy in British philosophy. The hypothesis that WWI had something to do with this has some initial plausibility. But, looking at the table of contents of Mind in the period 1900-1920, for example, one sees a more gradual shifting, not an abrupt turn in, say, 1915. Bernard Bosanquet, for instance, published articles in Mind in 1914 (2), 1916, 1917, 1919 (2), and 1920 (2) — a total of 8 articles during, and immediately after, the war. F.H. Bradley, on the other hand, stopped publishing articles in Mind in 1912, well before the war.
On another point, the left-or-right credentials of founding analytic figures, of course several of the members of the Vienna Circle had socialist views.
Adam Kotsko 08.08.06 at 9:54 am
Dude, Jason, calm down.
Matt 08.08.06 at 10:23 am
Interbreeding had a useful series on this topic, some time ago.
Apparently there was also a brief movement in the UK in this direction, but no idea if it survived.
Thom Brooks 08.08.06 at 10:44 am
I take the point: as I noted, I feared my dates with Russell were off and so they were. I should not have suggested that Russell was patriotic at all, but rather that “in the air” it may well have seemed right and proper for British philosophers to turn their knives on Idealism.
Evidence of the rather quick and dramatic death of Idealism in Britian is easier to come by when we look at old issues of Mind and IJE. These journals were most clearly dominated by Idealists (in particular, figures like Mackenzie and Muirhead) until the start of WWI. We then see a dramatic shift. I certainly grant that their opponents were gaining strength since the turn of the century, but the onset of WWI seems to have really helped the cause. Indeed, British Idealists, not least Muirhead, found themselves going to fairly considerable lengths to justify their interest in a way of doing/thinking about philosophy that had strong roots in Germany during WWI (most dramatically true with Muirhead’s aforementioned pamphlet on Germans vs German philosophy that is quite a curious read).
Whilst it is most true that the rise of Moore coincided with the fall of the Idealists, as it were, I would want to state differently the way the movement died. The “death” seemed to be more in the form of its failure to gain new, significant members (with important exceptions, such as Collingwood, Oakeshott, etc) rather than its knights lay on their swords. Figures such as Sir Hector Hetherington, Sir Henry Jones, Mackenzie, etc continued to do great work both in writing (esp Jones and Mackenzie) and in society: Jones and Hetherington, for example, helped create universities in Wales. Muirhead helped pioneer Birmingham University. Indeed, Brum boasts both the Muirhead Tower and Muirhead Library. I once commented to a dear friend, Simon Caney, how wonderful it was to see buildings commemorate Muirhead—yet he’d never heard of him. Of course, Muirhead was a major figure even post-war. His edited series “The Muirhead Library” published any number of important works, such as Bradley’s Knowledge & Appearance, the first translation of Hegel’s PhG, Radhakrishnan’s and Russell’s early work, etc. Post-WWII their numbers depleted as they died off, as it were. Now, thankfully, interest in British Idealism is taking off yet again both with an eye towards understanding its past and developing its future—I’m particularly interested in this second part.
There was time (pre-WWI) when one couldn’t pick up an academic journal that wasn’t dominated by the Idealists. When I went to write papers on both the decline of British Idealism and also on Hetherington, Muirhead, and Mackenzie, I was struck by the fact that about nothing had been written on these persons for at least fifty years. Perhaps we don’t know much about what happened with the split from Idealism because we simply haven’t thought about it much. I certainly share some this blame as well.
John Emerson 08.08.06 at 11:07 am
Mirowski’s and McCumber’s books on the post WWII developments in econ, phil, and elsewhere are really worth reading, even though Mirowski needs an editor and goes on too long. McCumber, and to a lesser degree Mirowski, overemphasize McCarthyism as a motive.
What I see happening was a move away from all ideology in the direction of a sort of technocracy. In various areas formalization and statistics became dominant.
Many of the logical positivists et al were leftists (although Wittgenstein’s socialism, for example, was moderate by European standards). They seem to have been warmly accepted as long as they bracketed out their politics, which most of them did. (Irving Copi, an actual Communist at one point, wrote almost entirely about formal logic.)
In the aftermath of the disaster of WWII it was quite reasonable that a lot of continental thinkers might want to ditch their previous political committments, of course. I’m not really alleging either opportunism or oppression.
Reading Mirowski it’s pretty clear that the post-WWII context was technocratic American liberal imperialism, not any of the forms of American rightism (Christian, nativist, or free-marketer — the American right was pretty lame in 1950).
My beef is that the philosophy produced does not do well on big-idea, world-view type questions, and effectively limits itself to making fine-tuning adjustments within a very narrow ideological framework. I’m aware that there’s a lot of stuff out there, but I find it weak (partly because of aggressively non-populist methodologism). I followed Left2Right’s stuff for awhile, and it seems to me that analytic philosophy just doesn’t work that way; only analytic philosophers could be interested in that.
John Emerson 08.08.06 at 11:32 am
I should add that Mirowski does provide concrete details about the way the American university system was tied into the WWII war effort, and how “operations research” and other paradigms developed within the military came to be influential within postwar civilian intellectual enterprises, often with government and foundation encouragement. It’s not just a “connect the dots” “qui bono” type argument.
David Weman 08.08.06 at 12:31 pm
John, sorry, I was referring to ‘engels’ and ‘John Stanley’. I’m pretty sure they didn’t understand comment 34 was snark.
engels 08.08.06 at 1:21 pm
David, allow me to express embarrassment a second time: it was unpardonable. Would a pound of my flesh provide sufficient recompense?
Ignacio Prado 08.08.06 at 3:02 pm
I would think the most prominent and influential argument by an analytic philosopher that attempted to link the substance and style of Hegelian/Idealist philosophy to authoritarian and irrationalist politics was Popper’s “The Open Society and It Enemies.” How cogent Popper’s own arguments and interpretations were is another matter.
josh 08.08.06 at 3:36 pm
One factor which hasn’t been stressed much thus far is the role of religion in all this. In Britain Idealism seems to have been associated with (some form of) religious belief, while logical positivism (and to a lesser extent other strains of early ‘analytic’ philosophy) tended to be anti-clerical and atheistic. This certainly seems to have been a large part of the self-perception of many of the logical positivists as left-wing (Ayer stood as a Labour candidate somewhere in London, if I remember rightly), and of the Idealists (and some of the more dogmatic Oxford realists) as conservative. So there was a political element to this — with, contra the general perception, the ‘analytics’ representing the more ‘left-wing’ party.
This may seem a bit strange, given both Idealism’s earlier association with social reform, and the later association of ‘continental’ philosophy with radicalism — and the accusation that analytic philosophy is politically quietist, if not conservative (though, as Jason Stanley says [perhaps a bit too robustly], many analytic philosophers have tended, and tend, to be left-wing). But it does just show you how things change, as the forces of revolt become the reigning orthodoxy (I suspect that this had something to do with Idealism’s decline: it was too hegemonically dominant for too long, and had to be swept away by something that seemed new, fresh, challenging — that at least is the impression one gets from the memoirs of those involved in the revolt against it. I suspect that this is why the younger philosophers were attracted to the anti-Idealist camp — which, as Thom Brooks suggests, is really what did for Idealism.
At individual places, personality also seems to haveplayed a role — viz Bradley and to a lesser extent Collingwood’s isolation, in contrast to Ryle’s and Austin’s organisational capacity and Ayer’s crusading, at Oxford — but I don’t see how this can explain the overall trend (especially since, as Thom Brooks says, it predated this period). There may be something to Collingwood’s claim that the Idealists’ rivals tended to neglect politics — and this may have helped them. The impression I get, looking at Oxford before and after WWI, is that the Idealist tutors were very concerned about (and good at) training students who then went into politics and administration (in which Idealist ideas retained an influence to after WWII), while the anti-Idealists focussed much more on training other academics, who eventually took over the universities.
All in all, though, Thom Brooks is right — we really don’t know exactly what happened, and there’s a lot of work to be done on this topic.
Martin James 08.08.06 at 4:01 pm
Curious that the term continental philosophy increased in use at just the time that the forehand tennis grip moved progressively from the continental grip to the western grip.
If John Emerson is correct, The Man may have started this shift with the introduction of the oversized Prince racquet.
John Emerson 08.08.06 at 5:29 pm
In tennis, breakfast, and philosophy, the continentals are under attack. And the Lincoln Continental is not doing too well either, even though the thought of Derrida driving down the road in one is high-fuckin-larious.
John Emerson 08.08.06 at 5:44 pm
The Lincoln Continental has been going downhill since 1980 or before, which fits the general timeline.
Thom Brooks 08.10.06 at 7:42 am
Many thanks to Josh for his interesting post, with just a brief comment or two to add. First, it is true that the British Idealists were religious, many of them Puritans. This did not lead them to embrace the Tories, but, in fact, the Liberal Party: one thing uniting Idealists perhaps more than anything else is their staunch adherence to the Liberals. Few crossed over to the Labour Party and none (as far as I know) went to the Tories—certainly before the end of WWII. In a book I haven’t found too persuasive, Matt Carter (secretary of the Labour Party today) claims a link from TH Green to Tony Blair. The good news would then be that the Idealists views on social reforms are alive. The bad news is that, well, Tony doesn’t do any of them (and, hence, I found the book unpersuasive…not least because Green and friends were not Labour supporters at all).
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