A Parting of the Ways: Carnap, Cassirer, and Heidegger [Paperback]

Michael Friedman (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0812694252 | ISBN-13: 978-0812694253 | Publication Date: November 30, 2000 | Edition: First Edition

Since the 1930s, philosophy has been divided into two camps:the analytic tradition which prevails in the Anglophone world and the continental tradition which holds sway over the European continent. A Parting of the Ways looks at the origins of this split through the lens of one defining episode: the disputation in Davos, Switerzland, in 1929, between the two most eminent German philosophers, Ernst Cassirer and Martin Heidegger. This watershed debate was attended by Rudolf Carnap, a representative of the Vienna Circle of logical positivists. Michael Friedman shows how philosophical differences interacted with political events. Both Carnap and Heidegger viewed their philosophical efforts as tied to their radical social outlooks, with Carnap on the left and Heidegger on the right, while Cassirer was in the conciliatory classical tradition of liberal republicanism. The rise of Hitler led to the emigration from Europpe of most leading philosophers, including Carnap and Cassirer, leaving Heidegger alone on the continent.

Editorial Reviews

Review

...illuminates the shared problems and diverging analytic and continental traditions in philosophy as exemplified by Carnap, Cassirer, and Heidegger. -- Richard Creath, Arizona State University

A Parting of the Ways is a breakthrough in the historiography of twentieth-century philosophy. -- Richard Rorty, Stanford University

A Parting of the Ways is important, scholarly, and potentially more influential than say, Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions... -- Patrick Heelan, Georgetown University

Friedman's book...may bring the parties closer to his target...it will enhance the great and unconditional value of debate. -- The Jerusalem Philosophical Quarterly, July, 2005

Michael Friedman builds on his superb work on Kant's philosophy of mathematics and science and on logical positivism... -- Charles Parsons, Harvard University

About the Author

Michael Friedman holds joint professorships in Arts and Humanities, History and Philosophy of Science, and Philosophy at Indiana University. His books include Kant and the Exact Sciences (1992) and Reconsidering Logical Positivism (1999).

Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Open Court; First Edition edition (November 30, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0812694252
• ISBN-13: 978-0812694253
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #778,609 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Changing social dynamics and ways of thought, October 11, 2002

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Parting of the Ways: Carnap, Cassirer, and Heidegger (Paperback)

A Parting Of The Ways: Carnap, Cassirer, And Heidegger by Michael Friedman (Ruth N. Halls Professor of Arts and Humanities, Professor of the History and Philosophy of Science, and Professor of Philosophy, Indiana University) is a informative, scholarly study in the division of philosophy into the analytic tradition (held widely in the Anglophone world), and the continental philosophic tradition of Europe. Examining how this split took place just before and during the 1930's, A Parting Of The Ways focuses upon a pivotal 1929 debate between two respected German philosophers, Ernst Cassirer and Martin Heidegger. Rudolf Carnap, who represented the Vienna Circle of logical positivists. A Parting Of The Ways is an intrinsically fascinating study of changing social dynamics and ways of thought, and the negative impact that the rise of Hitler had on philosophy schools as a whole and German philosophers in particular. A Parting Of The Ways is an invaluable contribution to Philosophy Studies academic reference collections and supplemental reading lists.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A much needed contribution, October 29, 2006

By 

Aaron Boyden (Providence, Rhode Island) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Parting of the Ways: Carnap, Cassirer, and Heidegger (Hardcover)

The history of early 20th century philosophy is woefully little known these days, even by philosophers. Friedman provides an extremely detailed and well-documented account of the early evolutions of the views of probably the two most influential German philosophers of the century, Carnap and Heidegger. He pays attention to the connections both philosophers saw between their philosophies and both politics and everyday life, connections of which most admirers of Carnap are unaware, and connections which most admirers of Heidegger would prefer to ignore. Cassirer is of course not as influential a figure as either Carnap or Heidegger, but reconciliation projects are generally viewed as less exciting, and Friedman makes a plausible case that Cassirer's position sought to navigate a middle ground between the then rising Positivist and Existentialist movements.

Cassirer is also important to the overall picture because he is the most avowedly Kantian of the three philosophers Friedman examines, though another valuable contribution of this work is to highlight the heavy influence of the early 20th century German neo-Kantian schools on both Carnap and Heidegger (the Kantian influence on Carnap is also discussed in Friedman's book on Logical Positivism).

Friedman himself seems to hope to encourage more modern dialogue between the analytic and the continental traditions which are the heirs of Carnap and Heidegger respectively. This is of course no easy task, but while as an analytic partisan myself my response to the discussion of Heidegger's views tended to be along the lines of "so that's why the continentals have gone so horribly wrong," (not because of Friedman's presentation, I think; he presents all three philosophers he discusses quite favorably), greater mutual understanding is surely a necessary beginning, even if prospects for any kind of agreement are far off.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Informative yet inaccessible, June 9, 2010

By 

R. Haecker (Texas) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Parting of the Ways: Carnap, Cassirer, and Heidegger (Paperback)

Micheal Friedan's "A Parting of the Ways: Carnap, Cassirer, and Heidegger"(2000) is a helpful overview of the early twentieth-century Neo-Kantian disputes on logical validity and phenomenological universality which, in the philosophies of Rudolf Carnap and Martin Heidegger, would famously diverge into the "analytic-continental" divide. Friedman's book aims to discuss the intellectual relationship between three broad representatives of twentieth-century Kantianism: the logical positivist Rudolf Carnap, the strict neo-kantian Ernst Cassirer, and the existential-phenomenologist Martin Heidegger. The book occasionally digresses into what may seem to be needless biographical and historical discussions, which would be more appropriate to a book of intellectual history than history of philosophy. Although this book patiently summarizes and thoroughly examines their distinctive interpretation of Kant's philosophy with prolific references to other philosophers, it nonetheless seems to ultimately present merely the relevant fragments of each writer's epistemological conception. As such, this book cannot be expected to serve as a general introduction to either logical positivism or phenomenology, while it does a more admirable service of discussing Neo-Kantianism. Friedan's book is not easily accessible, and seems intended for intermediate and advanced student-scholars of Kantian and German philosophy. Apart from the numerous post-Kantian and Neo-Kantian philosophers which are occasionally referenced, the reader must possess a working knowledge of the "transcendental aesthetic" and "transcendental analytic" from Kant's first Critique of Pure Reason, as many of the disputes concerning logic, perception and validity arise from this section of the first Critique. If the reader is unfamiliar the inner workings of Kant's epistemology, I would suggest T.K. Seung's short book, "Kant: A Guide for the Perplexed". The most informative chapter in this book is the ninth and final chapter, which summarizes the disputes within their historical context. I would recommend reading this chapter first to familiarize oneself with the topics of dispute.