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A House Divided: Comparing Analytic and Continental Philosophy

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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.