Political Philosophy, Political Theory, and the Analytic-Continental Divide

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. See e.g. Levy (2003); Donahue and Ochoa Espejo (2015).

2. See e.g. Levy (2003).

3. Arnold briefly acknowledges this in the summary claim that ‘the term analytic is also problematic, as it is anachronistic and masks the diversity of philosophy in the English-speaking world’ (3). Unfortunately, Arnold neither further explicates, nor provides further evidence for, this claim.

4. As Arnold (3) points out, the ‘linguistic turn’ has also been seen as taken up within continental philosophy; he argues that this could be a way of seeing ‘the more creative philosophers in both traditions [as] converging’ (3).

5. But see Vrahimis (2011, 2018).

6. Arnold (185–186) briefly acknowledges that there are debates over the definition of both ‘analytic’ and ‘continental’ philosophy, but does not further discuss this question. He does briefly address some of the abovementioned scholarship on the divide, e.g. Friedman (2000); Glock (2008), and also Glendinning’s (1999) and Akehurst’s (2008) views (but not the more extensive accounts in Glendinning (2006) and Akehurst (2010)).

7. See also Vrahimis (2013, 110–159, forthcoming).

8. See Marion (2014).

9. Arnold (3) proposes that both Heidegger and Carnap subscribed to forms of modernism; Wittgenstein’s response to Heidegger also involves various complexities concerning modernism (see Vrahimis 2021).

10. Arnold fails to mention the recent debate as to whether Royaumont should be understood as the locus classicus of the analytic-continental divide, in which this view is challenged; see Glendinning (2006, 70–74); Overgaard (2010); Vrahimis (2013b); Marion (2018).

11. Arnold does not consider Glendinning’s (2006, 69–84) later extensive analysis of the gulf-forging activities of multiple Oxford philosophers during the 1950s and 1960s.

12. The details of this history have been thoroughly examined in H. J. Dahms (1994) Positivismusstreit, and later explored e.g. in O’Neill and Uebel (2004). Chase and Reynolds’ (2011, 31–34) summary links this dispute to the overall history of the divide.

13. As Uebel (e.g. 2019) shows, the stereotypical association of the Vienna Circle’s figures with behaviourism is a caricature. The development of behaviourism was nonetheless certainly closely associated with figures from the analytic tradition such as Quine (see e.g. Verhaegh 2019).

14. See Vrahimis (2020a).

15. See Vrahimis (2022).

16. See also e.g. Uebel (2019).

17. See e.g. O’Neill and Uebel (2004); Vrahimis (2020a).

18. See Dahms (1994, 95; 122–123).

19. See Vrahimis (2020a).

20. Something similar might be said about the use of ‘continental’ philosophy outside philosophy departments, in sub-disciplines within the arts, humanities, and social sciences (that often include the word ‘theory’ in their name).

21. On Neurath’s and Lauwerys’ influence on subsequent controversies, see Soulez (2019). On the general significance of analytic philosophers’ attribution of fascist tendencies to ‘continental’ figures, see Picardi (2001); Akehurst (2010).

22. See e.g. Wolff (2013).

23. Chin and Thomassen (2016, 134) summarise similar claims made in previous scholarship.

24. Arnold is also forced to weaken his initial strong identification of ‘analytic’ political philosophy with justificatory projects, e.g. by admitting that ‘not all analytic philosophers seek, in their justificatory practices, necessary and sufficient conditions’ (10).

25. E.g. Celikates, Haslanger, and Stanley (2019).

26. E.g. Srinivasan (2019); Dutilh Novaes (2020).