You might want to try to rephrase the question so that it reads more from a neutral point of view. Currently it reads more like "is there anything useful in this crap?" rather than "what are the major contributions of continental philosophy?". Also, it's hard to tell what the standards for "genuinely valuable contributions" are from your question, maybe flesh that out a bit more. Before the more conspiratorial members of this community attack: I'm an analytic philosopher who has very little familiarity with continental philosophy.

The formulation here is maybe somewhat less than ideal; as Dennis suggests a more neutral presentation of the concern is likely to elicit significantly more constructive and well supported responses.

I don't think that's the case, @Ricardo; but feel free to bring your concerns to meta and chat if you'd actually like to discuss them (comments are really just for helping to clarify/focus the question, not for airing general worries about the structure of SE...)

@CesarGon That's an improvement. I suppose I would still like some clarification of what a "genuinely valuable contribution" is, but I'm fine with voting to re-open.

@CesarGon I made major revisions to your question. I added more examples and shifted focus to "major contributions" since that seems (to me at least) to be a more tractable and less subjective concept than "genuinely valuable contributions". It seems to call more for a report on the consensus of the practitioners of the discipline rather than individual value judgments (the problem with the original formulation, IMHO, was the "what do you think are the valuable contributions" aspect, which seemed to make it primarily opinion based). Feel free to rollback if you think I've changed too much.

Dennis, great work. --Briefly: I'd prefer not to re-litigate the science wars here if that's at all possible. Keep in mind we -- that is, participants in the SE community -- share an ethos with Wikipedia, so we have to strive for balanced presentations. :)

That said, I'm still a little worried about the framing here; asking for any contributions of an entire family of thinkers seems plainly ironic. --I might mention in passing that, at least as currently formulated, 'continental' is pretty grossly under-specified. I'm tempted to say even pejoratively simplified here. --It just doesn't seem particularly constructive (balanced/proportionate) to frame the concern this way.

So maybe we could try to explore a little bit what sort of answer you might be looking for, perhaps by specifying what kind of technical or theoretical contribution would be most interesting or exciting to learn about for you. --A little bit more about what you understand 'continentalism' to be might help move this into constructive territory as well. Providing a more definite theoretical context, perhaps with citations from the texts you mentioned, might also help maximize the likelihood of getting a great answer :)

@JosephWeissman I think that is fair, but the pejorative simplification is just inherent to the entire analytic/continental dichotomy. Neither group is homogenous enough to warrant the labels (and many "analytic" philosophers share more of an intellectual tradition with "continental" philosophers (and vice-versa)). I think this question could be read simply as "I've heard a lot of bad stuff about continental philosophy from non-practitioners, what do the practitioners think are the best work of their fields."

I think, however, that including specific philosophers OP has heard criticized (as well as short quotations of these criticisms, if possible) will help to narrow the focus a bit more and help mitigate the sense of irony.

@Dennis That's interesting; so maybe the critical concern here is around entrypoints (introductions?) to continental theory? --Certainly agree it would be nice to have some minimum of grounding of the term 'continental' here (SEP/WP might be good resources for this?)

@Dennis just wanted to drag some of this to chat :)

So we're not clogging up the comments any more than we absolutely need

And SEP has a very interesting article, "Continental Feminism," that might be worth a look:

plato.stanford.edu/entries/femapproach-continental

From there:

> Continental feminism denotes a branch of feminist philosophy that draws on theoretical concepts and methods from the continental tradition. Continental feminists adapt three main methodological tools—postmodernism, psychoanalysis, and phenomenology—to unearth sexist commitments in: (1) contemporary social problems and (2) the field of philosophy.

Absolutely, those comments have gotten unwieldy

I looked at the wiki earlier, looking at the SEP now

the problem from the wiki is that even there it is such a wide-ranging blanket term

--I like "postmodernism, psychoanalysis, and phenomenology" :)

the way i've always thought of continental philosophy is somehow starting with hegel

the phenomenology aspect is problematic

Interesting.

because husserl is well respected and fairly well read in analytic circles

there is husserl-frege correspondence, for instance

OP was talking about Frege, I think, right?

it seems that hegel is the dividing line chronologically

but even that is changing

i added that

I mean, I would think post-modernism is the thing Searle (and more vulgarly Sokal et al) are "upset" about, right?

i thought the vague reference to "logical positivism" as genuinely valuable was unhelpful

I'm not trying to reignite that debate, I think most folks have kind of agreed it's unproductive.

yea, but not even with such a broad brush

how would you classify foucault?

because chomsky, for instance, praised foucault's clarity

Sure. Those are some interesting debates to watch, too.

yea

But I think it's Guattari that Sokal and so on really hate. --And Lacan, but they really hate Guattari. Highly symptomatic to my mind...

yea, i think derrida, guttari, lacan...those guys are the ones who get the bulk of the criticism

heidegger too

the problem with even drawing the line at hegel is that hegel is becoming increasingly popular as a subject of study among "analytic" philosophers

But anyway. It's plain to me how informal the label is, how it identifies clumsily and too-simply constellations of filiations and alliances between very complicated (often intensely personal, experimental, 'schizophrenic', etc) projects.

@Dennis Ha! That's pretty interesting :)

yea, very informal label, that's what's sort of problematic with any question referencing either "school"

hence why all of my questions about "continental" philosophy include scare quotes, haha

Right!

That would be an interesting question: the meaning of those quotes around the word.

--So what's the question that should have been asked?

My impulse is to say it's about bridges, entryways or "permeable zones" where you can start to perforate some of the obscurer aspects of the continental materials.

i really don't know...there's a question in there somewhere...i think something like a broad introduction in the form of a survey article of some sort would be good

yea, exactly!

but, i think the op wants more than entryways...i think he wants some sort of critical appraisal of a large area

which i'm not sure exists

Sure. I think that's too broad without a lot more context.

m-phi.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/…

I mean the term definitely loses some of its clumsiness as soon as we can specify it somehow. Giving it some grounding in particular thinkers, texts, reviews, etc.

something like that strikes me as what he is looking for

but that list will change depending on who you ask

hence the worry of "primarily opinion based"

i agree

some further specification of particular thinkers would be nice

From WP: "It is difficult to identify non-trivial claims that would be common to all the preceding philosophical movements"

Their list of movements is interesting.

> "Continental philosophy includes the following movements: German idealism, phenomenology, existentialism (and its antecedents, such as the thought of Kierkegaard and Nietzsche), hermeneutics, structuralism, post-structuralism, French feminism, psychoanalytic theory, and the critical theory of the Frankfurt School and related branches of Western Marxism"

that strikes me as right

with phenomenology being a shared topic

But is it really? :)

though certainly more popular in "continental" circles

That's a lot of singular and different projects with very different itineraries, aims, etc.

agreed

I mean, phenomenology is in there. And psychoanalysis. And all of this stuff gets lumped under "postmodern theory"...

the problem is that oftentimes the criticisms are painted with a broad brush too

Yes, absolutely.

maybe it's best to let the question be a bit broad and have answers point out how criticism with such a broad brush is really not all that useful

and distinguish in the answers

That's valid.

I'd rather the question posit in advance that we're mixing too much together too rapidly when we use continental casually, without theoretical context.

but that might require some guidance

Right.

yea, that's what i was thinking...something like a note at the end of the question acknowledging the overly-broad usage of "continental"

Sure.

I propose some slight adjustment to the framing, along the lines we're drawing here -- bridges into these diverse movements, projects, thinkers, etc.

(Asking for "contributions" seems very much to my ear like "what's the point of the theory?" level of ironic-caustic reduction.)

i think that's fair

Okay, so maybe let's nail down a headline.

hmmm, what would be another--- less caustic ---way to ask for contributions?

"What are some good introductions to continental theory?" is not quite right; but I think that's the other end of the spectrum we need to push towards.

yea, a lot of the point of the question is looking for a response to criticisms

The current end being effectively demanding a list of interesting ideas that "continentals" have come up with (pretty clearly a poll, or at least without a clear and distinct 'answer')

that is very true

--Hmmm, asking after responses to criticisms of "continental" theory is definitely closer, but here I start to worry we might be opening the door to endless science wars debate.

i tried to frame it around consensus of practitioners...in the same way that you might ask "what do scientists think about global warming"...but i'm not sure there will be much consensus for the reasons we've been discussing

yea

that does seem right to me

Well, right. (And opening the floor for vague discussion without context is to be avoided here if we can, I think.)

maybe we need to suggest breaking it into multiple questions?

one for each specific criticism?

Hey, @DanteAlighieri :)

That would at least keep it specific. "What might be a Guattarian response to criticism X [of Sokal, Searle, whoever]?"

But that's not quite optimal, and maybe risks reiterating the whole confused debate, etc.

yea, i worry that it puts a lot of research burden on the OP too

Yeah...

i wish i knew more of what OP meant by "genuinely valuable contribution"...especially given that he cited logical positivism as an example

Maybe an umbrella question: "What are some good entrypoints into continental theory?"

@Dennis --Well, right! It's a whole movement...

not only that, it's a movement most of whose doctrines have been demolished by criticism

verificationism about meaning is often held up as an example of an utterly and completely failed theory

so it can't be about standing up to criticism

but it was historically influential

Well, I think you nailed it; OP's asking for a spirited defense of "continentalism"

Which is impossible without context; and definitely not proportional/balanced/NPOV if parsed through Searle, Sokal

yea

perhaps a discussion of the historical influence of various "continental" thinkers

but even that is a bit broad

Wow, that's pretty good.

I like it.

haha whew! progress!

It's a little misleading, maybe -- because some of the movements are still ongoing, maybe -- but perhaps productively so, because it at least helps establish some critical distance.

yes, focus more on the major forerunners, less on the more contemporary thinkers likely to solicit Sokal-like criticism

--So about "influencers" maybe?

What are the most significant historical influences of continental philosophy?

that sounds good to me

and seems in line with citing logical positivism as a movement with "genuinely valuable contributions to the history of philosophy"

is it better to reign in the "historical influences" to include only influences on philosophy and scholarship?

Converting to past tense.

> 'What were the most significant historical influences of continental philosophy? In particular, which forerunners might be most important in terms of entrypoints or introductions into the variety of movements that constitute "contintental" philosophy?'

Feel like we could quote that long list on WP.

that reads very well to my eyes/ears

maybe a slight modification

'What were the most significant historical influences of continental philosophy? In particular, which forerunners and what ideas might be most important in terms of entrypoints or introductions into the variety of movements that constitute "contintental" philosophy?'

Nice.

I'm trying to work through the logical positivism stuff a bit.

"I have been thinking about logical positivism within analytic philosophy; while it may seem many of their doctrines are considered soundly refuted, the positivists nevertheless produced extremely valuable, if provisional, new concepts and played an important role in the history of philosophy."

that sounds good to me

maybe drop the frege stuff since i added it

unless you think that is good to give a more specific example

but i'm not sure if it is in line with what we're thinking of the question as now

although it undoubtedly had influence, it isn't something that's really criticized, it is more just an innovation

I don't like the implicit allegation that "continentalism" was "soundly refuted" -- I'm wondering if we need to mention logical positivism or Frege at all

@Dennis Yeah, agreed.

Okay, so what else might we need to say?

> "Continental philosophy includes the following movements: German idealism, phenomenology, existentialism (and its antecedents, such as the thought of Kierkegaard and Nietzsche), hermeneutics, structuralism, post-structuralism, French feminism, psychoanalytic theory, and the critical theory of the Frankfurt School and related branches of Western Marxism" ([WP:Continental Philosophy][1])

What were the most significant historical influences of continental philosophy? In particular, which forerunners might be most important in terms of entrypoints or introductions into the variety of movements that constitute "contintental" philosophy?

well, it wouldn't be "continentalism" that was "soundly refuted", perhaps the ideas of specific thinkers

i don't know enough about continental thinkers to know if there is a movement which has the same historical role as logical positivism, though

Right. I'm not sure how to specify the connection...

"I am wondering, for instance, if there are movements within continental philosophy that might today be considered refuted, or perhaps passed-by; or what might be the most important or active areas of research today continued or inspired by earlier work and materials."

--That seems really broad to me, reading it back...

yea, agreed

How can we specify it? --What are the most important and active movements in philosophy today that might be considered allied or aligned with what might be called "continental" interests?

So we'd have the three inter-related questions.

- What were the most significant historical influences of continental philosophy?

- Which forerunners might be most important in terms of entrypoints or introductions into the variety of movements that constitute "contintental" philosophy?

- What are the most important and active movements in philosophy today that might be considered allied or aligned with what might be called "continental" interests?

(Is that too much for one question?)

that's what i was just about to ask

maybe three linked questions?

with links to the other questions included?

That sounds good to me. --I'm thinking I'll go ahead and stub them out and we can work on building them out further if we wish.

that sounds good, hopefully the larger community will have some feedback too

what happens to the original question?

Well, it gets truncated to the first for now and reopened.

that seems like the closest question to OP's

sounds good

hey @Ben

@Ben! Hello! :)

Okay -- so, maybe we could try to narrate or summarize what we've tried to achieve here?

yea, that's what i was just thinking about

1. we took the import of the discussion of logical positivism to be that OP is interested in historical influence of "continental" thinkers

we tried to bring out this concern in a NPOV way

i think a link to this discussion would be fine to include in addition to the TL;DR version we're trying to give now

how long would this chat log last?

A week or so, I think? I'm not actually sure. (But I think we can link to a permanent transcript if we want to, maybe?)

Yeah, so another side of the refactoring was trying to identify movements within contintental philosophy.

Breaking the term down a bit, trying to give it some grounding or theoretical context.

the reason for this being that the term "continental" is overly broad and often pejorative

perhaps we might link to this question

since DBK's answer reinforces the idea that "these are fighting words"

and so inherently not NPOV

I like it.

trying to break it down in something more substantive helps to mitigate this pejorativity

We tried to break the question apart a bit because of the complexity around the term.

Well-factored questions sometimes have to be split apart. :)

So you'll see a couple of related questions start showing up that link back to the 'parent' question.

that's good