PART III - INTERPRETATION OF KEY TOPICS
Summary
In Part III of this book, we examine some topical consequences of the traditions' respective methodological preferences. Of course, any comparative project of this kind will be partial, since analytic and continental philosophers do not so much give divergent answers to the same questions as divergent answers to different questions. The standard differentiations between the sub-disciplines of philosophy – that is, epistemology, metaphysics, ethics and so on – are usually not treated in strict separation by continental philosophers; on the other side, connections between them that are taken seriously in analytic philosophy have no continental equivalent. Nonetheless, we think a topic-based approach to difference (and potential interaction and rapprochement) has its merits. For instance, the differing analytic and continental attitudes to representationalism about the mind and the significance of the body come out fairly clearly by considering the way the philosophy of mind and action have developed in the two traditions (as we do in Chapter 18); again, differing attitudes to the epistemological tradition, expressivist manoeuvres, representationalism and folk psychology can be brought out by considering the problem of other minds (as we do in Chapter 20). Again, the differing attitudes of the two traditions to a series of metaphysical and/or semantic issues can be brought out at least in part by considering the subjects of ontology (Chapter 15), truth and objectivity (Chapter 16) and time (Chapter 17). We are thus able to pinpoint some of the key points of methodological and topical difference that have (in the main) hindered dialogue and rapprochement, while also revealing their overarching different conceptions of the importance and value of philosophy itself.
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- Analytic versus ContinentalArguments on the Method and Value of Philosophy, pp. 161 - 162Publisher: Acumen PublishingPrint publication year: 2010