An afterthought... kind've

Here are some quotes that a friend emailed me a while ago that I thought are quite interesting and relevant:

In the Oxford Companion to Philosophy under "Continental Philosophy;"

"But all [types of continental philosophy], in varying degrees, rely on dramatic, even melodramatic, utterance rather than sustained rational argument."

whilst

".. Derrida's deconstructionism, for which everything is text, freely, endlessly interpretable, seemed to analytic philosophers a reductio ad adsurdum of philosophy since it allowed for no standards of truth, evidence, or logical consistency. It made philosophy not only a game, but a game without rules."

In the Collins Dictionary of Philosophy we can read:

Under 'Heidegger':

"Heidegger himself disowned the title of existentialist, though admitting that he was vitally concerned with the nature of 'being'. However, his account of it, while purporting to be a logical enquiry, is more an anthropological study, concerned with various essentially human situations... He was fond of vertiginous plays on words which make Hegel seem child's play. In this way, he reifies nothingness (makes nothingness into a thing), inventing a verb (by analogy with other cases) that is supposed to describe what nothingness 'does'. His scattered insights into important psychological aspects of human existence are of interest, but his philosophical import is slight."

Under 'Bergson':

"... his philosophical views were on the whole received with reservations, not least because the original concepts central to his position were left so vague."

Under 'Derrida':

"This is perhaps a philosophical form of literary criticism rather than a concern with traditional problems of philosophy... On this view we must approach the work of writers without preconceived theoretical views and are therefore compelled to accept a text as a given, unalterable fact, with a kind of scriptural reverence To deconstruct is to dismantle; next, we take a look at the pieces, and then put them together again, after which the whole cycle may recur, for we cannot take things to bits without some prior notions. This procedure often throws interesting light in unexpected directions, but neither can nor seeks to be systematic."


Of course, Deleuze does not feature in this.

Along with this he sent a happier quote from Marcuse's critique of 'positive thought' in 'One Dimensional Man:'

"Analytic philosophy often spreads the atmosphere of denunciation and investigation by committee. The intellectual is called on the carpet. What do you mean when you say....? Don't you conceal something? You talk a language that is suspect. You don't talk like the rest of us, like the man on the street, but rather like a foreigner who does not belong here. We have to cut you down to size, expose your tricks, purge you. We shall teach you to say what you have in mind, to "come clear", to "put your cards on the table." Of course, we do not impose on you and your freedom of thought and speech; you may think as you like. But once you speak, you have to communicate your thoughts to us- in our language or in yours. Certainly, you may speak your own language, but it must be translatable, and it will be translated. You may speak poetry- that is all right. We love poetry. But we want to understand your poetry, and we will do so only if we can interpret your symbols, metaphors, and images in terms of ordinary language."

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