This is an old blog posting (2009) on Leiter's Neitzsche Blog about 'Continental Philosophy', While I agree with his expose of the 'Anonymous Blogger' that 'Continental philosophy' should not be wholly interweaved with the post-modernist philosophical agenda (of which I think he wrongly puts Derrida and Foucault into this category), but I cannot agree with him that the 'Continental Tradition' is not a 'tradition' at all. I think Leiter misunderstands the idea of tradition, and I think one can see from the "passing down" of methodological processes such as Dialectics (in Hegel and Marx), Kant's arguments from trancendentals and more contemporaneously, Deconstruction and Geneology, that such a tradition exists.
Thoughts and comments?
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I knew that Leiter had posted a pretty much identical post on his own Nietzsche blog, but I had never heard of Lieter before. His views are eerily similar to Leiter's own. Maybe they are related.
ReplyDeleteNow that someone has made that joke, the discussion con move on to substantive issues.
At the moment I'll just remark on the fact that in the comments at least 2 people from departments that Leiter labeled 'Party Line Continentals' responded that he grossly mis-characterized those departments, which can probably be expanded to the other departments he mentioned. This displays Leiter's own prejudices that he presents as scholarly judgments.
What I find especially ironic is that he mentioned Middlesex University as a PLC school while also hinting at the proposal that these departments should be absorbed into literature programs rather than staying autonomous philosophy units. This is nothing more than a call for these departments to close down because of scholarly impoverishment. However, when Middlesex philosophy was on the verge of shutting down, Leiter was a vocal supporter of their efforts to remain open. But if their philosophy, although Leiter would hesitate to call it that, is of such a poor quality, then why fight to keep the department open? What is most likely is his dislike of university administrative practices being the cause of his support rather than any reversal of his views about the quality of philosophy that the department produces.