Wednesday, September 9, 2009

analytic vs continental/postmodernist philosophy

regarding why postmodernist philosophy is inadmissible to the analytic domain (i'm actually using continental, of which postmodernist is an extension of), it's pretty much self-evident from the wikipedia page:

1) analytic supports scientism as the best platform for metaphysics and experience; continental/postmodernist rejects it. accordingly, analytic attempts, using logic, to model itself after the natural science, whereas continental maintains the tradition the philosophy is considered to be in the humanities.

2) in place of scientism, continental/postmodernism uses cultural, social, and historical experiences

3) continental/postmodernist philosophy believes that human agency can changes these conditions of experience.

4) One of the large differences between analytic sources and continental/postmodern sources is that the analytic tradition by and large guards at least some of the tenets of liberalism, while many continental sources flirt with, or completely immerse themselves in, Marxism.


my conclusion that choices are ultimately ethical and not moral proves that i am actually a mix of both approaches, although virtually all of my reading has been in the analytic realm. however, since ultimately i have reduced ethics to metaphysics, and the mind-body problem is an issue that is only seriously addressed by analytic philosophy, this, along with a few other reasons, are why i choose analytic over continental/postmodernist. the three points establish the differences between the two schools regarding the mind-body problem: the metaphysical premises from which to engage intellectual discourse is completely different as analytic chooses science as the basis of experience, and continental/postmodernist chooses culture (in and of itself a construct of consciousness, which further confuses addressing the mind-body problem), society, and history among other things. then, their conclusions regarding how to deal with the mind-body problem are totally different. analytic ultimately tries to be objective by treating philosophy and science in more traditional senses, and does not offer a reason for pursuing the mind-body problem even though that is one of the fields most predominant issues. so, i find this to be unsatisfactory. but continental/postmodernist is even worse because it claims to have already found the answer by saying that human agency can change the conditions of experience. by doing so, it implies an element of free will (analytic does not necessarily), thus claiming to have "solved" the mind-body problem by claiming a meaningful conclusion without justifying how it arrived there from its initial set of metaphysical premises. if continental/postmodernist did not imply free will, then i would say that it merely put aside the mind-body problem, but it does not do this. this is why i've always been suspicious about continental/postmodernist philosophy: it does not address the mind-body problem, to which i believe almost every philosophical issue can be reduced to, and then it has the arrogance to claim it has an answer to the problem (a partial answer anyway regarding free will -- it has yet to fit make this general implication compatible with a functional framework, seeing as how continental/postmodernist never establish possible frameworks for the mind-body problem in the first place) without demonstrating proof by creating its own metaphysical vocabulary and premises which are not generally not falsifiable, and furthermore claims to, through artificial constructs, hold power over the entire domain of human issues, from science to art.

about the only areas where the two fields have overlap is in 1) philosophy of science and 2) marxism (analytical marxism is an area applying analytical approaches to marxism), and 3) ethics. outside of these areas, the two fields, depending on how the situation, either cover entirely different subject matter or employ entirely different approaches so as to render engagement between the two fields as compatible as two people speaking two different languages to each other. in my opinion, this could be rectified if both fields were to reduce much of their subject matter to the mind-body problem; at this juncture, i believe much of the obscurantism (continental) and unproven assumptions (analytic) could be addressed and perhaps a new philosophical framework and vocabulary could be built from the ground up and branch off to cover other areas of interest. within the areas of overlap i listed earlier, i'd imagine that the continental/postmodernist school's rejection of scientism is a huge point of contention that neither side can come to a satisfactory agreement on to establish a level playing field of sorts. thus, all of the above is why continental/postmodernist philosophy is inadmissible in the domain of analytic philosophy and vice-versa. and it is also why anyone arguing in the other person's domain is going to lose regardless of how intelligent and clever the person's argument is; when you play by the other person's set of rules, you always lose.

there's a reason why most philosophy departments in the country -- from ivy league to the uc's -- consider themselves analytic: because it most closely falls in line with the rigors of the history of the discipline of philosophy, not necessarily the original goals of the discipline. as a result, continental/postmodernist philosophy has mostly been banished to the social sciences and humanities under the guise of "theory". what this amounts to is that theorists claim more than they can substantiate, whereas real philosophers try at all costs to avoid such pitfalls. however, i understand the practical necessity for the existence of "theory", so i try not to belittle it. i do however, take issue with the notion that continental/postmodernist philosophers could defeat analytics; if this were the case, then most philosophy departments in the country would adopt the continental/analytic approach and no longer would there be "theory" courses taught in other departments.

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