A House Divided: Comparing Analytic and Continental Philosophy [Paperback]

C. G. Prado (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 2003

For more than seven decades there has been a broad gap between how philosophy is conceived and practised. Two ill-defined but well-recognised traditions have developed - the "analytic" and "Continental" schools of philosophy. The aim of this collection is to reconsider the often facile characterisation of major thinkers as belonging to either one or the other philosophical tradition. The contributors - philosophers from both sides of the divide working in different countries and contexts - all question the problematic conception that the two traditions are incommensurable. Each of their articles compares individual philosophers who have had a major influence on the analytic and Continental traditions with a view to clarifying their similarities and dissimilarities of approach.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...essays discuss particular pairs of thinkers in a knowledgeable, fair, and interesting way." -- Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, June 12, 2004

"This unique volume is important for what it accomplishes...Analytic and Continental philosophers alike will find much of interest" -- Symposium, Fall 2003

About the Author

C.G. Prado is professor emeritus of philosophy at Queen's University and the author of STARTING WITH FOUCAULT: AN INTRODUCTION TO GENEALOGY; DESCARTES AND FOUCAULT; THE LIMITS OF PRAGMATISM; and many other books and articles.

Product Details

• Paperback: 330 pages
• Publisher: Humanity Books (June 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1591021057
• ISBN-13: 978-1591021056
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,646,658 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Crossing the Divide, August 18, 2003

By 

Lawrie McFarlane (Victoria,, British Columbia Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A House Divided: Comparing Analytic and Continental Philosophy (Paperback)

One of the widest gulfs in contemporary western philosophy is the dividing line separating English analytical philosophy, exemplified by writers like John Searle or Willard Quine, from Continental philosophy, represented by thinkers such as Jean-Paul Sartre or Michel Foucault.

If you were trained in one of these traditions, you probably did not read works by the other. There certainly are huge stylistic differences: the analytical camp favours spare, dry prose with a minimum of flourish, while Continental writers more often employ emotionally freighted language.

Between them, these two disciplines encompass Western society's best thinking and writing of the last 150 years, yet they are widely believed to be, for all purposes, mutually exclusive. In "A House Divided", Carlos Prado sets out to correct this impression.

The book comprises a series of articles by some of contemporary philosophy's biggest hitters, like Richard Rorty, Barry Allen and Prado himself. Philosophers whose styles and methodologies might seem miles apart, like Quine and Heidegger, or Carnap and Davidson, turn out to have similarities of purpose previously
un-noticed.

This is an excellent book for readers who want to see points of contact between two different schools of thought. The essays are easy to read, and require no previous background in philosophy.
Buy it! You'll enjoy it.