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Single Idea 7069

[filed under theme 1. Philosophy / H. Continental Philosophy / 1. Continental Philosophy ]

Full Idea

French philosophy since the 1930s might be described as a series of returns: to Hegel (in Kojčve and early Sartre), to Nietzsche (in Foucault and Deleuze), or to Marx (in Althusser).

Gist of Idea

The French keep returning, to Hegel or Nietzsche or Marx

Source

Simon Critchley (Continental Philosophy - V. Short Intro [2001], Ch.2)

Book Ref

Critchley,Simon: 'Continental Philosophy - Very Short Intro' [OUP 2001], p.16


A Reaction

An interesting map. The question might be why they return to those three, rather than (say) Hume or Leibniz. If the choice of which one you return to a matter of 'taste' (as Nietzsche would have it)?


The 19 ideas with the same theme [key shared characteristics of continental modern philosophy]:

We must break up the rigidity that our understanding has imposed [Hegel]
Truth does not appear by asserting reasons and then counter-reasons [Hegel]
Modern philosophy begins with Descartes' abstraction from sensation and matter [Feuerbach]
Empiricism is right about ideas, but forgets man himself as one of our objects [Feuerbach]
We must create new words, and treat them as normal, and as if designating real things. [Deleuze]
'Difference' refers to that which eludes capture [Deleuze, by May]
Philosophy and politics are fundamentally linked [Foucault]
Some continental philosophers are relativists - Baudrillard, for example [Baudrillard, by Critchley]
The plague of philosophy is those who criticise without creating, and defend dead concepts [Deleuze/Guattari]
Two marxist ideas have dominated in France: base and superstructure, and ideology [Scruton]
To meet the division in our life, try the Subject, Nature, Spirit, Will, Power, Praxis, Unconscious, or Being [Critchley]
The French keep returning, to Hegel or Nietzsche or Marx [Critchley]
German idealism aimed to find a unifying principle for Kant's various dualisms [Critchley]
Since Hegel, continental philosophy has been linked with social and historical enquiry. [Critchley]
Continental philosophy fights the threatened nihilism in the critique of reason [Critchley]
Continental philosophy is based on critique, praxis and emancipation [Critchley]
Continental philosophy has a bad tendency to offer 'one big thing' to explain everything [Critchley]
Analytic philosophy has much higher standards of thinking than continental philosophy [Williamson]
Deleuze relies on Spinoza (immanence), Bergson (duration), and difference (Nietzsche) [May]