Are you muddleheaded or simpleminded? On different ways of doing philosophy

Description

I do not think that the difference between analytic and continental philosophy is merely one of style; that analytic philosophy can be characterised as adopting a more ‘scientific writing style’ while continental philosophy prefers a ‘literary style’ of writing. If this was the case then Parmenides, who wrote a poem, and Plato, who wrote dialogues, would be prime examples of continental philosophy. If, however, one understands ‘style’ not as a certain quality of writing, but as a style of thinking (that might express itself in the writing), if one uses the term ‘style’ to refer to ways of doing philosophy, things look different. If ‘style’ is understood as a mode of execution (or a method), then I would agree that analytic and continental philosophy have different styles. Today I will engage with this difference in methodological style in two ways, first conceptually and then descriptively.
First I will argue that the reason for this difference can be found in the respective understanding of the aim of philosophy and the corresponding choice of method. In a second step, I will trace the difference between these styles back to a disagreement between Frege and Husserl. I will end by discussing how the conceptual implications resulting from this disagreement make a dialogue between continental and analytic thinkers very difficult.

Period	22 Mar 2018
Event title	University of Edinburgh Philosophy Society Lecture Series. Analytic vs. Continental Philosophy
Event type	Other
Location	Edinburgh, United Kingdom