Analytic and Contemporary Philosophy: Overcoming the Distinction
Twentieth-century philosophy has been characterized by a seemingly unsurpassable divide: that of analytic and continental philosophy (AP and CP). One may argue that this division traces back to Husserl and Frege, but it was with the famous Carnap-Heidegger quarrel that it reached its zenith. This debate has not only shaped the way we look at twentieth-century philosophy, it has also given us the very frame by which we judge these categories of “analytic” and “continental”. On the one hand, we have a clear, argument oriented and rigorous way of doing philosophy; on the other hand, a more “obscure”, literary and historical approach to the discipline.
The great virtue of Levy’s (2003) article, Analytic and Continental Philosophy: Explaining the Differences, is its attempt to avoid the mischaracterizations and confusions that these easy definitions usually perpetuate. In fact, Levy seems to think that all those characterizations focus on accidental properties of each tradition, not on their actual substance. Merely geographical, stylistic, political or thematic characterizations seem to miss the point, as Levy shows in the first part of his article. Thus, instead of looking at these accidental features of each tradition (accidental in the sense that one can easily find a counter-example for each one of them; for example, the “founding fathers” of the analytic tradition — Frege and Wittegenstein — where from the “continent”), Levy tries to frame all these characteristics within Kuhn’s conception of “normal” and “pre-paradigmatic” science.
According to Kuhn (1970), the main feature of pre-paradigmatic science is its diversity and decentralization. As it lacks a commonly agreed foundation that can serve as a basis for organized research, there is no sense of progress within pre-paradigmatic science. Because of that, this type of investigation is characterized by a constant debate over fundamentals that undermines the unity necessary for the formation of a “research program”. On the other hand, normal science is characterized by its stability and unity. Normal science is paradigmatic science, that is, a research project established on firm foundational thesis that serve as a guideline and frame for legitimate work within a discipline. As solution to new puzzles are faced and overcome, progress is made within the discipline. This, however, comes with a price. Paradigmatic science is more rigid and inflexible than previous forms of research. Because of that, every puzzle or problem that can’t be solved within the paradigm is treated as an anomaly that should not really be taken into consideration.
Levy believes that we can build a strong analogy between the analytic-continental divide and the Kuhnian pre-paradigmatic and normal science distinction. According to Levy, while AP formed a “research program” and became a form of “normal science”, CP never really formed a “school” (Levy 2003: 290).This is the substantial explanation for the accidental characteristics of each tradition.
AP became a “self-reproducing” discipline (Ibid.: 291) with more and more specialized subdisciplines that found its unity in a shared paradigm: that of modern science. On the other hand, CP never adopted a specific set of problems to solve. There is no common body of belief that unifies the tradition. Instead, we end up with a fragmented and non-specialized type of investigation that deeply resembles pre-paradigm science.
Levy actually further carries this analogy to another division that dominated the modern imagination: that of the arts and the sciences. In the same way AP frames itself within the natural sciences and tries to solve well-delineated problems, one can look at CP as an avant-garde artist that gives us news perspectives on problems and shakes the assumed foundations of a determined paradigm.
The landscape painted by Levy both explains and justifies the work that is done within each tradition. However, this seemingly exact and unproblematic portrait of the problem fails exactly because of its simplicity. Levy gets trapped in his own conceptualizations. In order to make his thesis work, Levy has to neglect all the thinkers that don’t exactly fit in his characterization of AP and CP. However, by willingly ignoring philosophers like Charles Taylor and Alasdair MacIntyre as marginal cases, Levy is begging his own question from the beginning. It is easy to conclude, as Levy does, that AP and CP are irreconcilable traditions if we set aside the very real attempts of reconciliation that are happening right now. And they are not limited to Taylor or MacIntyre: one can as easily mention Hubert Dreyfus, Vincent Descombes, Beatrice Longuenesse, Robert Brandom, Richard Rorty, John McDowell or the thomists and neo-aristotelians in contemporary AP as counter-examples to Levy’s conclusion.
Actually, if we accept Levy’s analogy between AP and normal science as accurate (which I do), it seems to me that the analytical research program is running out of steam. Let’s just look at one example: the Aristotelian revival in AP. Levy finishes his article by pointing to the analytical revival of Aristotelian virtue ethics as a possible sign of a growing “historical consciousness among analytic philosophers” (Ibid.: 303). However, there is a lot more going on here. The Aristotelian revival is not limited to virtue ethics. One can also see a strong return to Aristotle in contemporary metaphysics, philosophy of action, philosophy of science, logic, etc. Analytic philosophers are actually revitalizing their own paradigm by looking at a pre-modern one.
That seems to be one of the driving forces of the work of thinkers like McIntyre and Taylor: trying to get a full perspective on “modernity” in order to question its paradigm. That’s why these authors don’t fit perfectly in either the AP or CP traditions: they are looking at them from above. These thinkers might give us the way to bridge the gap between the two traditions because they are trying to understand the very context in which they emerged. As Levy cleverly pointed out, we can think of AP and CP as the sciences and arts that characterize the two basic impulses of modernity. However, if we look at modernity itself instead of staring at its byproducts, we might be able to achieve a new and more complete synthesis. That seems to be the key for a real reconciliation between the traditions and one that does not look as far-fetched as before.
References
Levy, N. (2003). “Analytic and Continental Philosophy: Explaining the Differences”. Metaphilosophy, 34(3), 284–304
Kuhn, Thomas S. (1970). “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions”. Second edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
