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HISTORY The distinction between continental and analytic philosophy is relatively recent, probably dating from the early Twentieth Century . The break in the philosophical tradition which it identifies, however, dates back a century earlier to Immanuel Kant , the most recent major philosopher to be indisputably significant to both traditions. Analytic philosophy has traditionally been less interested in the German philosophers of the nineteenth century who followed Kant. These included foremost the German Idealists , such as Schelling and Hegel , and those whose work developed in response to them, such as Arthur Schopenhauer , the Dane Søren Kierkegaard , Marx , and Friedrich Nietzsche . Many other thinkers (such as Sigmund Freud , the founder of Psychoanalysis ), despite not having developed as directly out of this tradition, are still considered "continental" due to sharing similar methods and thematic elements. However, a few important philosophers from continental Europe are not continental philosophers. Gottlob Frege is considered one of the foundational figures in analytic philosophy, if not ''the'' foundational figure. Significantly, his background was largely mathematical, and he responds more to John Stuart Mill than to Hegel . The Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein , who studied in Britain, is also considered an analytic philosopher. Other philosophers such as the Vienna Circle and the founders of Logical Positivism also originated in continental Europe, but are figures in analytic philosophy. In addition, it there has latterly been a significant interaction between the two traditions. The impact of 19th continental philosophy on 20th century ethicists who are often labelled "analytic" has been particularly important. To name only two examples, Bernard Williams , perhaps the greatest British moral philosopher of the 20th century, was decisively influenced by Nietzsche , while John Rawls was seriously engaged with the study of Hegel 's Moral Philosophy . Moreover, several continental figures, namely Jacques Derrida and Jürgen Habermas have engaged seriously with analytical Philosophy Of Language , particularly the work of John Searle and J. L. Austin . In the twentieth century, Continental philosophy includes:
In the early-to-mid Twentieth Century , Germany continued to have the most vital philosophical scene in continental Europe, until the rise of Hitler . This had the initial effect that many of Germany's most eminent philosophers, who were largely Jew ish or Left-wing , had to flee abroad, particularly to America, as in the case of the members of the Frankfurt School . The remaining philosophers, particularly Martin Heidegger , the most eminent German philosopher of the time, remained due to their affiliation with Nazism . After the fall of Nazism, Heidegger found himself banned from teaching, his reputation as a philosopher tarnished until after his death. After World War II there was an explosion of interest in German philosophy in neighbouring France . On the one hand, the role of the French Communist Party in liberating France meant that it became, for a brief period, the largest political movement in the country. The attendant interest in communism translated into an interest in Marx and Hegel, who were both now studied extensively for the first time in the conservative French University system. On the other hand, there was a major trend towards the ideas of the Phenomenologist Edmund Husserl , and toward his former disciple Martin Heidegger . Most important in this popularisation of phenomenology was the author and philosophy teacher Jean-Paul Sartre (by then a noted intellectual), who called his philosophy Existentialism . CONTINENTAL PHILOSOPHY IN ENGLISH-SPEAKING COUNTRIES While it derives from the philosophical traditions of non-Anglophone Europe, much "continental" philosophy at least since the 1980s has been taught and written in the United States and the United Kingdom . While continental philosophy has a central place in university philosophy departments in Germany and France, in the English-speaking world analytic philosophy is generally taught in philosophy departments while some movements in continental philosophy are taught in various other departments, including Literature , Film , Architecture , Art History among the Humanities (where it is often known as Literary Theory or Critical Theory ), and Sociology , Social Anthropology , and Social Psychology among the social sciences (where it is sometimes known as social theory or Critical Social Theory ). These include primarily post-structuralism, feminism, more recent Marxism, and the parts of phenomenology and psychoanalysis most relevant to them. German Idealism , on the other hand, where it is studied at all is more likely to be found in philosophy departments. DIFFERENCES FROM ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY There are such large differences among the various "continental" schools of thought that the term can appear (regarded from an analytic point of view) to lack descriptive value (and analytic philosophy notoriously defines descriptive value on its terms). Nevertheless it denotes certain general differences from Analytic Philosophy in emphasis and style. One common theme of continental philosophy might be a certain kind of what analytic philosophy might name "anti-transcendent skepticism," which holds that thought can not be abstracted away from some natural or material preconditions, and also that the philosopher must struggle with this impossibility. For example, in Hegel , thoughts can't be abstracted away from history; for Marx , they can't be abstracted away from the Class Struggle ; for Nietzsche , from illusion, chaos, and the will to power; for Kierkegaard , from faith; for Heidegger from the question of being and, for Sartre , thought would always have to arise from a determinate manner of "being" and 'nothingness"; and for Derrida , the contingent histories and interdependencies of words themselves cannot be transcended. In contrast, continental philosophers often see Analytic philosophers as believing methodologically that they can work unproblematically with abstract ideas and their relationships. Though sometimes analytic philosophers might derive similar skepticism as a ''result'', this skepticism is not viewed as a methodological presumption. The point indeed for analytic philosophy is to to eliminate or resolve the traditional questions of philosophy. Moreover, while analytic philosophy is generally carried on around certain topics of ''dispute'', as designated by "important" or "key" thinkers and the terms they use (like "naturalism" or "materialism"), continental philosophy has a tendency to center instead on key ''thinkers'' and their themes, such as the questions of life and the body, and to discuss their philosophies in relation to each other. Because analytic philosophers contend that continental philosophy is not a specific school or doctrine, they increasingly appropriate the topics and thinkers of continental thought for themselves. 19th Century philosophers, such as Hegel , Schopenhauer , Marx , Kierkegaard , and Nietzsche , are widely read and taught by Anglo-American philosophers, and they are usually recognized as important thinkers, even if they are not as widely agreed with. REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING
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