I Abbreviated:
British/Analytic
Philosophy vs. Continental Philosophy
British/Analytic Philosophy:
Skeptical-Empirical: “The senses put us into contact with a mind-independent reality. Morality and politics: Morality and politics are legacies of history, and over that history effective and “ethical” methods have emerged to shape and modify governing practices, policies and law. Politics: Rights are natural, self-evident. Constitutional, rule-of-law, equality under the law, common law, democratic-republican structures and checks and balances. Philosophers: Socrates, Plato(?), Aristotle, Locke, Jefferson, Wittgenstein.
Continental Philosophy:
Idealism: “Reality” is a mental construction. Philosophers are the “scientists” of the mind, and therefore philosophers are the scientists of everything. Politics: Power is invested in the sovereign/the state. The state gives people their rights. Authoritarian, relativistic, statist, socialist, police state, corporate. Philosophers: Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Weber, Heidegger, Sartre…
II Summary
in More Detail:
British/Analytic
Philosophy vs. Continental Philosophy
British/Analytic Philosophy:
Method:
Skeptical-Empirical:
“The senses put us into contact with a mind-independent reality. Morality and
politics: Morality and politics are legacies of history, and over that history
effective and “ethical” methods have emerged to shape and modify
governing practices, policies and law. Political
philosophy: Power is invested in “the people.” Rights are natural,
self-evident. Constitutional, rule-of-law, people are equal under the law, common law (magisterial authority of
the commons, “the people”—peer juries, precedent, and elected judges and
sheriffs) democratic-republican structures, and checks and balances. Representative
Teachers: Moses, Socrates, Plato(?), Aristotle, St. Augustine, Thomas
Aquinas, Ockham, Francis Bacon, Locke, Franklin, Jefferson, Wittgenstein. Programs:
Liberal education. Open negotiation. Legislative, legal and utilitarian
regulation of markets, production and distribution; magisterial, legal,
regulating and cultural protections of individuals and property. Real
pluralism. Circumspect individualism—assumption of a fixed human nature,
inviolable, unfolding, and separate from abstract or “authorized” definitions. Cultivated, practiced, sophisticated and tentative
skepticism of authority. Cultivated, practiced, sophisticated and tentative
skepticism of individualism.
Continental Philosophy:
Method:
Idealism:
“Reality” is a mental construction (analysis: reality is a collection of
disparate and/or coherent mental and social constructions—or construction
(singular)). “Culture,” morality, law and political philosophy are
“constructions.” Philosophers are the “scientists” of the mind, and therefore
philosophers (credentialed proxies for corporations) are the scientists of everything.
Political Philosophy: Power is invested in the sovereign/the state. The state gives people their rights. Authoritarian,
relativistic, statist, “socialist”… police state… corporate. Representative Teachers:
Marquis de Sade, Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Weber, Heidegger,
Sartre…. James, Dewey… Confucius… the Prussian Junker class… the Plutocracy… Programs:
postmodernism, deconstruction, intersectionality, identity politics, corporate
language/speech management, globalism, medical autocracy… Cultivation of the
managerial complex. Managed pluralism, no individualism. Education is a
management function. Human nature—the Human Condition—is a managed
construction, is relative to perception, relative to authorized definitions,
like everything else.
