Philosophy today

Abstract

The first and most general point to make about the state of philosophy today is that the kind of philosophical investigation that flourishes in the English-speaking world (analytic philosophy) is quite different from the way philosophy is taught in non-English-speaking countries. Generally speaking I think one is entitled to say that the classic division of philosophy after Descartes into two main streams, British Empiricism and Continental Rationalism, seems to have been further emphasised after Kant and Hegel. And if we move rapidly into the twentieth century, what we find is an even more radical polarization. It is not just the subject-matter or thematic content that is different. There are also important divergence in style corresponding to the different fields of interest. So that although there is a great variety of movements in twentieth century Continental philosophy and a great deal of vigorous disagreement between adherents to the different groups, still, by and large, the philosophers of non-English-speaking Western European countries are perhaps recognisable, as Alan Montefiore puts it, "as belonging to one and the same general family community of quarrelling philosophers", as distinct from the English-speaking group with whom they do not quarrel because their points of departure are different. [excerpt]