On Wed, 27 Oct 2004 05:03:19 -0700 (PDT) andie nachgeborenen
<andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com> writes:
> >
> > --- John Bizwas <bizwas at lycos.com> wrote:
> > 1. I think there is a long-running Anglo-American
> > prejudice against the
> > continental thinkers that we really have to get
> > past.
>
> Probbaly not a problem on this list -- my guess is
> rather the reverse. As the below indicates, most
> hereabouts would far rather spend time with
> Schopenhauer or Hegel or Nietzsche than with Quine,
> Rawls, or Davidson.
>
> > Is it simply
> > something in the water that makes British, American,
> > and Nordic
> > philosophers better philosophers? Or the bad food? I
> > highly doubt it.
>
> As a fairly nonprejudiced result of an analytical
> philosopy training, I'd say the the two styles have
> different virtues. Anglo-American philosophy,
> so-called, prizes (but often fails to attain) clarity,
> precision, thoroughness, exactness, comprehensiveness
> and depth of argument -- the virtues Hegel would
> associate with the Understanding. This can be boring
> unless you get your head into that space. So-called
> continental philosophy aspires to profundity, breadth,
> meaningfulness, vision -- the things that initiallya
> ttract people to philosophy. I guess these are related
> to the virtues Hegel associated with Reason, though he
> wanted that to include rigor and exactitude as well.
> At its best, this kind of philosophy can be poetry or
> literature -- Nietzsche and Kierkegaard. At itsd worse
> it can be just obscurantist.
It's interesting to take a look at the differing views that different leading analytical philosophers have taken towards Nietzsche, for instance. Wittgenstein, for instance, thought quite highly of Nietzsche, and probably even more highly of Schopenhauer. On the other hand there has been a tendency among many analytical philosophers in the UK (i.e. Betrand Russell or A.J. Ayer) to dismiss the importance of Nietzsche as a philosopher. Ayer, for instance, called him wooly- minded, and indeed, there is some truth to that inasmuch as it is often difficult to pin down what Nietzsche meant. On the other hand, it is interesting to note that Rudolf Carnap, who was one of the leading logical positivists, and so, one might think would have had little time for Nietzsche, had a high opinion of him as a philosopher. Thus, in "The Elimination of Metaphysics Through Logical Analysis of Language," Carnap discerned similarities between Nietzsche's critique of metaphysics as found in say *Human, All too Human* and his own. He seems to have regarded Nietzsche as a "metaphyscian" who had the good sense to avoid the errors for which he reproached other metaphysicians. He admired the "empirical content" of Nietzsche's work, including especially its "historical analyses of specific artistic phenomena, or a historical-psychological analysis of morals." And he praised Nietzsche for having chosen the medium of poetry in such works as *Thus Spoke Zarathustra* for presenting his ideas rather attempting to present them in a theoretical treatise. The fact that Carnap found much to praise in the work of Nietzsche is significant since in "The Elimination of Metaphysics Through Logical Analysis of Language," Carnap let loose upon Martin Heidegger, whose metaphysical statements, Carnap dismissed as meaningless.
Apparently for Carnap part of Nietzsche's greatness was the fact that he used poetic means for expressing himself. This fit in with Carnap's view that metaphysics fails because it makes meaningless statements. For Carnap, language had a variety of functions to perform. One of those is the making cognitively meaningful statements. Other functions include the making of what Carnap described as emotive statements. As such language can express Lebensgefühl. Metaphysics attempts to express Lebensgefühl too but fails because it can omly issue meaningless statements. The appropriate means for expressing Lebensgefühl is art rather than metaphysics, and Nietzsche was praised by Carnap for realizing that. For Carnap, Nietzsche was the metaphysician who had the greatest artistic talent.
>
> > ---
> >
> > I don't think there has been a really interesting
> > Anglo-American philosopher since David Hume. Maybe
> > William James. (They're not necessarily _wrong_,
> > just
> > _boring_.)
>
> Interesting to whom? The general public? John Dewey, a
> boring writer, was probaly as widely read as Sartre. I
> mean in America. Rawls is a boring writer, but very
> widely read and also quite influential. Nozick is not
> a boring writer, also widely read, and quite
> influential. Kuhn is bad writerr, though not a boring
> one, and very influential. Feyerabend is a good and
> exciting writer . . . .
>
> Then there is Bernard Williams -- I just got his book
> Shame and Necessity -- just shimmers -- if you find
> him boring, you aren't sentient, IMHO.
>
> A lot of analytical philosophy is boring -- even to
> me, and I include the stuff I write. That is because
> it is tedious work to do the work of the
> Understanding, define your terms, lay out the premises
> explicity, carefully consider the objections. This is
> so no matter how brilliant and exciting the initial
> inspiration.
>
> >
> > 2. I'm not sure Wittgenstin qualifies as a good
> > example of a
> > continental philosopher, since he is largely
> > recognized as one who worked in the
> > Anglo-American-analytic tradition (and this
> > Anglo-analytic tradition,
> > if you are interested in the history of philosophy,
> > also owes a lot to
> > the Vienna Circle and other thinkers out of Austria
> > and Europe).
> > ---
>
> Right, and that is why the term "Anglo-American"
> philosophy is a misnomer. Whom we include -- Hempel,
> Reichenbach, Frank (Berlin), Tarski and Adjukawisz
> (Warsaw), Carnap, Feigl, Schlick, Goedel, Neurath (a
> Marxist), Popper (no Marxist) == all from Vienna? OK,
> we got them here in America courtesy of Hitler and
> Stalin. But they were European philosophers.
Amd we shouldn't forget the Scandinavians such as G H von Wright.
>
> There is a loose "analytical" -"Continental" divide,
> but is more beauracratic than anything. Where do we
> put Merleau-Ponty, who writes exactly like any
> analytical philosopher and had many of the same
> preoccupations. Or Wittgenstein. Or Kuhn. Or Rorty. Or
> Habermas. Etc.
>
> jks
>
>
>
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