Voices From Continental Philosophy
Hermeneutics, Critical Realism, and The Post-modern Critique of Scientism
?
Analytic vs. Continental Philosophy
Analytic Philosophy Continental Philosophy
A Set of Overlapping Traditions Reject the view that the natural
whose main sources of sciences are the most accurate
authority are way of understanding
logic, mathematics, and science phenomena
Understands their analysis as Science is dependent upon a
continuous with, in service “pre-theoretical substrate of
to, or subordinate to those of experience.” (Kant)
the natural sciences
Tends toward historicism;
Treats philosophy as discrete grapples with how space and
problems, capable of being time, language, culture and
analyzed apart from their history shape experience and
historical origin knowledge.
Analytic vs. Continental Philosophy
(continued)
Analytic Philosophy Continental Philosophy
Has its origins and develops out Holds that conscious human
of Great Britain and North agency can change the
America conditions of possible
experience
Fathers are
Wittgenstein, Russell, Moore, F Fathers include
rege Hegel, Nietzche, Heidegger, Ga
damer, Marx
Includes ideas from
Existentialism, Phenomenology,
Marxism, Structuralism, Post-
Structuralism, Critical
Theory, and post-modernism
Kant’s Noumenon and Phenomenon
Phenomenon: The
thing as we perceive it
What shapes how
we perceive the
world?
Culture, language,
social structures?
Noumenon: The Can we ever come
Thing itself outside to know the
of our perception of Noumenon except
it the lens of our
Phenomenon?
Order of Articles—Ideas—Thinkers
Author Ideas Thinkers
Richard Rorty Hermeneutics Nietzche/Gadamer
Pragmatism Dewey
Mills Post-Modernism Foucault
Post-Structuralism
Lewis Critical Realism Bhaskar, Harre,
Richard Rorty, “Hermeneutics, General
Studies and Teaching”
1) Links Dewey’s American Pragmatism with the French-
German Hermeneutic tradition
2) Traces similarity of each tradition
3) Touches on various Deweyan notions and the
controversies they sparked (including a comparison to
vulgar relativism)
4) Links Dewey’s pragmatism with Gadamer’s
hermeneutics
5) Argues that both thinkers replace Plato’s emphasis on
reason (truth as correlation) with
tradition, community, and human solidarity
Nietzche’s Criticism of Plato
Platonic Emphasis on Reason and truth
Hermeneutics: the science and study of
interpretation; claim is that truth is contextual
Nietzche’s assault on Absolute truth—no
transcendent goal of inquiry; ought not claim there
is an objective truth
Truth is problematic if it is based on language
(Gadamer); it is not universal but textual and
tradition bound.
Gadamer and Dewey –
Shared Critique on Objective Claims to truth?
Plato and Locke: Words are simply tools to help us
express truth which is non-linguistic.
Gadamer: Language shapes understandings; truth is
contextual and tradition bound
Vulgar Relativism Contextual Truth: Truth Platonic
with Limits that emerge Absolutism
from communities of
tradition
Hermeneutics and Social Constructivism
If truth emerges and is dependent upon
language, then culture, history, and the structures
out of which and in which the individual operates
conditions, constructs and confines our
understanding of the world
Strengths and Challenges of Hermeneutics
Strengths Weaknesses
Emphasizes local truths; can help build up Argument from perceptual
a sense of human community confrontation
Emphasizes processes of dialogue and
communication through which truth Argument from moral evil
emerges
Openness to vulgar relativism
Careful not to impose/colonize truths on
other communities and traditions (think
science) Vulnerability to dialogue
between traditions turning
Emphasizes multiple interpretations vicious
Acknowledgement of interpreter relativity Difficulty of finding consensus on
and bias truth across
communities/traditions
Mills on Foucault’s “Power/Knowledge”
