Re: [xmca] Romantic Science and Family Trees

[Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>]

Thanks for that Larry. This "divide" is a constantly intriguing and 
frustrating one. In that context, I appreciated Robert Brandom, who says:

   "I am putting forward a view that is opposed to many ... of the
   large theoretical, explanatory, and strategic commitments that have
   shaped and motivated Anglo-American philosophy in the twentieth
   century: empiricism, naturalism, representationalism, semantic
   atomism, formalism about logic, and instrumentalism about the norms
   of practical rationality, [but] I take my expository and
   argumentative structure and the criteria of adequacy for having made
   a claim with a clear content, argued for it, and responsibly
   followed out its consequences resolutely from the Anglo-American
   tradition."

I take it that the unnamed protagonist is "continental" philosophy. 
Actually, Marxism and even Hegel-studies seem to have been split along 
the same vague lines, and kind of occupy a third position. Even though I 
take Hegel and the positivist reaction to Hegel, to be the origin of the 
split, about contemporaneous with the amazingly erudite J S Mill.

But interestingly, despite his trenchent critique of "Anglo-Amaerican 
philosophy," Brandom retains not only its "responsibility, etc," but 
also many of its weaknesses. ... in my opinion.

Andy


Larry Purss wrote:
> 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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>   

--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Andy Blunden*
Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/
Book: http://www.brill.nl/concepts
http://ucsd.academia.edu/AndyBlunden

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