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Editorial

Mental Continental

by Rick Lewis

This issue has a theme of Continental philosophy. Yet some people say there is no such thing as Continental philosophy. If so, how can we have a themed issue about it? Well, we’ve had themed issues about God, who existence is also doubted, so why not?

First the premise. It is widely believed that for the last century or so there has been a split within Western philosophy. Philosophical discourse in the English-speaking nations (and Austria, for some reason) is dominated by a style of philosophy known as Analytical Philosophy, which has a particular focus on clarity about the language used to express and tackle the deep eternal questions. Meanwhile in mainland Europe a different style of philosophy prevails – called Continental Philosophy – with different priorities and different methods, influenced by a line of past thinkers including Hegel and Heidegger.

Now the doubt. Anja Steinbauer argued in her editorial for Philosophy Now Issue 127 (Aug/Sept 2018) that Continental Philosophy is not a very useful label. She wrote: “Continental climate, continental drift, continental breakfast, all of these make sense. But what is continental philosophy ?” She argued that the meaning of the term is unclear in a number of ways. Some people and organisations these days find ‘European philosophy’ a less confusing label than ‘Continental philosophy’. There are other continents, after all. Continental seems to be a category in opposition to analytic philosophy – in other words it is whatever analytic philosophy isn’t. But this doesn’t help much, because the meaning of the term ‘analytic philosophy’ itself seems to have shifted profoundly over time, as you can read in Alexander Jeuk’s article in this issue. In any case, Continental philosophy, as the term is generally used, covers a wide range of approaches and tendencies and currents which don’t necessarily have a whole lot to do with one another. Phenomenology, existentialism, post-structuralism, hermeneutics, critical theory… each with different assumptions and priorities and methods. Some share with analytic philosophy a focus on language and meaning, others are much more to do with society or value. Maybe a better term would be not Continental but ‘Continentals’ – so that is what we have printed at the top of each page in our themed section.

So, if we aren’t certain whether the term Continental philosophy is useful or not, what do we know? We know that we have a collection of articles here by a very varied group of interesting twentieth century thinkers. What they mostly have in common, it turns out, is that they are all in their different ways interested in dissecting the nature of modern society and the place of the individual human within it. Theodor Adorno certainly thought that was his aim: he was a founding member of the Frankfurt School of critical theory, whose entire mission was to analyse society. Michel Foucault, too, did a lot of digging into the nature of society, in The Archaeology of Knowledge, The Birth of the Clinic and other works. It’s a mark of a serious thinker that their ideas about the specifics of their society connect with the universal in ways that make them relevant in other times and places; according to Daneyal Afaqui, Adorno’s ideas can tell us a lot about the ‘hustle culture’ of our frenetic modern world. And Muzainy Shahiefisally tries to show that Foucault’s delving into the historical roots of modern institutions and ideologies were not merely driven by the scientific passions of an archaeologist but by a burning commitment to individual liberty, one should make him appreciated, or perhaps even revered, by classical liberals. The rights (sometimes, the competing rights) of different groups of humans are right at the centre of contemporary politics, but Simone Weil was decades ahead of her time in thinking seriously about the rights of non-human entities and in particular about how this relates to animal suffering. Michela Dianetti and Chiara Li Mandri say that Weil’s ideas have recently gained even greater relevance as the rights of non-human entities of all kind start to be taken seriously by courts and legal systems. Weil’s analysis of the nature of rights in modern society still seems particularly modern despite all the changes since her tragic death from heart failure in 1943 while she was working in London for the Free French.

And then a completely different figure. Ernst Jünger was neither a democrat nor a liberal, but in the 1930s he rebuffed insistent Nazi attempts to recruit him to their cause. He dissected the nature of the Nazi regime under which he lived – one of the most horrifying embodiments of 20th century modernity – and developed for himself two ways to survive while keeping his personal integrity more or less intact. You can read about these two ways – the Anarch and the Forest Rebel – in T.S. Carney’s article.

Anglo-American critics of the Continentals often pan them for deliberate obscurity. Usually this is unfair, but in the case of Deleuze and Guattari, and their famously co-authored books, perhaps it is fair. D.E. Tarkington is not appalled but fascinated by this. He sees D&G as a beguiling puzzle, and wishes to share his enjoyment with you in his essay here.

What can we conclude from our Continentals-themed section? Only that just as there is more than one way to skin a cat, so there is also more than one way to dissect modernity. Monty Python once did a sketch about a man being prosecuted for selling a box of assorted chocolates with surprising and worrying fillings. In this spirit, we offer you this provoking collection of essays. ‘Crunchy Frog’, anyone?