The Continental-Analytic Split

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Continental-Analytic split in Western philosophy. Around the beginning of the last century, philosophy began to go down two separate paths, as thinkers from Continental Europe explored the legacy of figures including Friedrich Nietzsche and Martin Heidegger, while those educated in the English-speaking world tended to look to more analytically-inclined philosophers like Bertrand Russell and Gottlob Frege. But the divide between these two schools of thought is not clear cut, and many philosophers even question whether the term ‘Continental’ is accurate or useful.The Analytic school favours a logical, scientific approach, in contrast to the Continental emphasis on the importance of time and place. But what are the origins of this split and is it possible that contemporary philosophers can bridge the gap between the two?

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Guests

• Stephen Mulhall 8 episodes
  Professor of Philosophy at New College, University of Oxford
• Beatrice Han-Pile 4 episodes
  Professor of Philosophy at the University of Essex
• Hans Johann-Glock No other episodes
  Professor of Philosophy at the University of Zurich

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Programme ID: b016x2jp

Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/b016x2jp

Auto-category: 190 (Modern Western philosophy)

Hello (First sentence from this episode)

Hello. About 100 years ago, the discipline of philosophy seemed split into two main camps.