[xmca] Romantic Science and Family Trees

[Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com>]

Mike,
I want to share a passage from Simon Critchley's short book introducing
Continental Philosophy. In this passage I heard intuitions of your
exploration of *romantic science*

"I have made two historical claims for Continental Philosophy. It is a
professional self-description and it is a cultural feature. As a
self-description, Continental philosophy is a necessary - but perhaps
transitory - evil of the professionalization of the discipline. As a
cultural feature, Continental philosophy goes back at least to the time of
Mill, and what can be learned from his views is that the division between
philosophical traditions is the expression of a conflict (and moreover a
sectarian conflict) that is internal to 'Englishness' and not a
geographical opposition between the English-speaking world and the
Continent. As such, the gulf between analytic and Continental Philosophy is
the expression of a deep cultural divide between differing and opposed
habits of thought - let's call them Benthamite and Coleridgean, or
empirical-scientific and hermeneutic-romantic. Mill's deeper point is that
the philosophical and cultural truth of matters, whatever that might be, is
not to be found by choosing sides,and therby mistaking a part for the
whole. Rather, in Hegel's words, the truth is the whole, and the whole has
to be understood in its systematic movement and historical development.
This book is hopefully a contribution to such understanding."
[Simon Critchley  Continental Philosophy, A Very Short Introduction]
{this book is under $10 on Kindle and is an easy introduction to this
fascinating topic}
Larry
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