The Continental-Analytic Split

In Our Time

BBC

History

4.6 • 9.2K Ratings

🗓️ 10 November 2011

⏱️ 43 minutes

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Summary

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Continental-Analytic split in Western philosophy. Around the beginning of the last century, philosophy began to go down two separate paths, as thinkers from Continental Europe explored the legacy of figures including Friedrich Nietzsche and Martin Heidegger, while those educated in the English-speaking world tended to look to more analytically-inclined philosophers like Bertrand Russell and Gottlob Frege. But the divide between these two schools of thought is not clear cut, and many philosophers even question whether the term 'Continental' is accurate or useful.The Analytic school favours a logical, scientific approach, in contrast to the Continental emphasis on the importance of time and place. But what are the origins of this split and is it possible that contemporary philosophers can bridge the gap between the two? With:Stephen MulhallProfessor of Philosophy at New College, University of OxfordBeatrice Han-PileProfessor of Philosophy at the University of EssexHans Johann-Glock Professor of Philosophy at the University of ZurichProducer: Natalia Fernandez.

Transcript

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0:49.0	Hello about a hundred years ago the discipline of philosophy seemed
0:52.3	split into two main camps one is known
0:54.4	today as the analytic school the other as the continental the founders of the
0:58.7	analytic tradition who included Bertrand Russell and Ludwig Wittgenstein
1:02.2	believed it should be as
1:03.5	impersonal and exact as the sciences. For them it was logic and language rather than
1:08.5	human experience that would answer the important questions. Continental
1:12.0	philosophers such as Martin Heidegger
1:13.7	on the other hand rejected this approach and commonly they were not just
1:17.0	using different methods but asking different questions. For much of the last century
1:21.0	philosophers have been categorized as either analytic or continental,
1:24.4	and there have been some bitter exchanges between the two camps. But what are the differences between them?
1:29.1	How deeper divide really exists and could the two traditions ever reunite with me to discuss the
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