August 14, 2006
Theodore Schatzki states the divide between analytic and continental philosophy quite well in his review of Stephen H. Daniel (ed.), Current Continental Theory and Modern Philosophy, Northwestern University Press, 2005:
One portentous historical dividing line between so-called analytic and continental philosophy has been their divergent attitudes toward history and the different views this divergence implies on the distinction between writing history and addressing systematic issues. Whereas "continental" philosophers often pursue philosophical issues by working with and through the ideas of past thinkers, "analytic" philosophers infrequently do this, instead viewing history as a distinct subfield with little to contribute on current issues in epistemology, philosophy of language, or philosophy of mind.
The text being reviewed by Schatzki does this by exploring the relationships between French theorists and the canonical modern philosophers. Their interpretations of the canonical modern philosophers are generally seen to unearth overlooked aspects of modern thought, and to present or pursue new ways to study modern philosophy.
One of the essays by Boundas explores this relationship in terms of Deleuze's distinction between the history of philosophy and the becoming of philosophy. According to Deleuze, official history of philosophy oppresses thought by instructing philosophers to present the ideas of predecessors instead of thinking. paraphrassing Boundas's argument Schatzki says that according to Deleuze:
To think, to do philosophy, means to "free life out of the space where it was imprisoned, one writes in order to trace lines of flight" (...these are Deleuze's words). The philosopher who thinks does not flee past philosophers. Rather, he or she works through their texts to free concepts, assumptions, and the unsaid so that these elements can coalesce, with elements from other philosophies, as new concepts appearing in new assemblages of thought that are dedicated to questions and problems different from those animating past philosophers' texts. In proceeding thus, as does Deleuze when writing about past philosophers, the thinker participates in the becoming of philosophy. "Don't . . . interpret; experiment!" (... again, Deleuze's words).
The canonical modern texts are ones with and through whom the French philosophers think. Does that capture the relationship between the two?
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