Archive for the continental philosophy category

Bergson, apostle of reactionary irrationalism

Posted on November 29th, 2010 in French philosophy, Georges Politzer, Henri Bergson, Julien Benda, Paul Nizan, continental philosophy, irrationalism, postmodernism.

A draft from March 5, 2009. I don’t recall what I planned to write, but here are the references: Nizan, Paul. “The End of a Philosophic Parry: Bergsonism,” Les Revues, 1929, reprinted in Paul Nizan, Intellectuel Communiste Maspero (Paris, 1967). Nizan exposes Bergson’s empty pseudoconcreteness, which reminds me of Adorno’s later evisceration of Heidegger. My [...]

The Institution of Philosophy (4)

Posted on August 14th, 2008 in Carnap, Heidegger, Joseph Margolis, Marcelo Dascal, Quine, academia, analytical philosophy, continental philosophy, historicism, historiography of philosophy, intellectual life, naturalism, philosophers, positivism, postmodernism.

Cohen, Avner; Dascal, Marcelo; eds. The Institution of Philosophy: A Discipline in Crisis? La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1989. Joseph Margolis, “Radical Philosophy and Radical History,” pp. 249-270. Wittgenstein, Heidegger, and Derrida may have wanted to put an end to traditional philosophy, but at most they provided self-corrective measures, not the therapies they though they [...]

The Institution of Philosophy (3)

Posted on August 14th, 2008 in American Philosophy, Marcelo Dascal, Richard Rorty, academia, analytical philosophy, continental philosophy, historiography of philosophy, intellectual life, philosophers, postmodernism, semantics.

Cohen, Avner; Dascal, Marcelo; eds. The Institution of Philosophy: A Discipline in Crisis? La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1989. Hilary Putnam, “Why Is a Philosopher?”, pp. 61-75. Putnam expresses his distemper with positivism and postmodernism, discusses the problem of language and the beloved philosopher’s problem of the brain-in-a-vat, and proposes his philosophy of internal realism. [...]

The Institution of Philosophy (2)

Posted on August 13th, 2008 in American Philosophy, Chaim Perelman, Marcelo Dascal, academia, analytical philosophy, continental philosophy, intellectual life, philosophers, postmodernism.

Cohen, Avner; Dascal, Marcelo; eds. The Institution of Philosophy: A Discipline in Crisis? La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1989. Much of this book is a portrait of bankruptcy, permeated by the stench of Richard Rorty. Here are a few stool specimens. Hector-Neri Castaneda, “Philosophy as a Science and as a Worldview,” pp. 35-60. Castaneda is [...]

The Institution of Philosophy (1)

Posted on August 10th, 2008 in Collingwood, Descartes, Donald Davidson, Heidegger, Jacques Derrida, Marcelo Dascal, Quentin Skinner, Quine, Richard Rorty, academia, analytical philosophy, continental philosophy, historiography of philosophy, intellectual life, irrationalism, modernity, philosophers, positivism, postmodernism, progress.

Cohen, Avner; Dascal, Marcelo; eds. The Institution of Philosophy: A Discipline in Crisis? La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1989. When I first surveyed this anthology four years ago, the name Marcelo Dascal, whose work is currently under review, was unknown to me. My assessment of this book was . . . er . . . [...]

Dascal on disputation & the analytical-continental divide

Posted on August 6th, 2008 in Carnap, French philosophy, Habermas, Heidegger, J. L. Austin, Jacques Derrida, John Searle, Kant, Karl Popper, Marcelo Dascal, Richard Rorty, Thomas Kuhn, Yehoshua Bar-Hillel, analytical philosophy, argumentation, continental philosophy, historiography of philosophy, intellectual life, irrationalism, philosophers, philosophical style, positivism, postmodernism, progress.

Dascal, Marcello. How rational can a polemic across the analytic-continental ‘divide’ be?, International Journal of Philosophical Studies 9(3): 313-339, 2001. In order to specify controversy’s position within the large family of polemical dialogues, I propose to distinguish between three members of the subfamily to which controversies belong. I will call them ‘discussion’, ‘dispute’, and ‘controversy’. [...]