Quotes & Sayings


We, and creation itself, actualize the possibilities of the God who sustains the world, towards becoming in the world in a fuller, more deeper way. - R.E. Slater

There is urgency in coming to see the world as a web of interrelated processes of which we are integral parts, so that all of our choices and actions have [consequential effects upon] the world around us. - Process Metaphysician Alfred North Whitehead

Kurt Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem says (i) all closed systems are unprovable within themselves and, that (ii) all open systems are rightly understood as incomplete. - R.E. Slater

The most true thing about you is what God has said to you in Christ, "You are My Beloved." - Tripp Fuller

The God among us is the God who refuses to be God without us, so great is God's Love. - Tripp Fuller

According to some Christian outlooks we were made for another world. Perhaps, rather, we were made for this world to recreate, reclaim, redeem, and renew unto God's future aspiration by the power of His Spirit. - R.E. Slater

Our eschatological ethos is to love. To stand with those who are oppressed. To stand against those who are oppressing. It is that simple. Love is our only calling and Christian Hope. - R.E. Slater

Secularization theory has been massively falsified. We don't live in an age of secularity. We live in an age of explosive, pervasive religiosity... an age of religious pluralism. - Peter L. Berger

Exploring the edge of life and faith in a post-everything world. - Todd Littleton

I don't need another reason to believe, your love is all around for me to see. – Anon

Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all. - Khalil Gibran, Prayer XXIII

Be careful what you pretend to be. You become what you pretend to be. - Kurt Vonnegut

Religious beliefs, far from being primary, are often shaped and adjusted by our social goals. - Jim Forest

We become who we are by what we believe and can justify. - R.E. Slater

People, even more than things, need to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone. – Anon

Certainly, God's love has made fools of us all. - R.E. Slater

An apocalyptic Christian faith doesn't wait for Jesus to come, but for Jesus to become in our midst. - R.E. Slater

Christian belief in God begins with the cross and resurrection of Jesus, not with rational apologetics. - Eberhard Jüngel, Jürgen Moltmann

Our knowledge of God is through the 'I-Thou' encounter, not in finding God at the end of a syllogism or argument. There is a grave danger in any Christian treatment of God as an object. The God of Jesus Christ and Scripture is irreducibly subject and never made as an object, a force, a power, or a principle that can be manipulated. - Emil Brunner

“Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh” means "I will be that who I have yet to become." - God (Ex 3.14) or, conversely, “I AM who I AM Becoming.”

Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. - Thomas Merton

The church is God's world-changing social experiment of bringing unlikes and differents to the Eucharist/Communion table to share life with one another as a new kind of family. When this happens, we show to the world what love, justice, peace, reconciliation, and life together is designed by God to be. The church is God's show-and-tell for the world to see how God wants us to live as a blended, global, polypluralistic family united with one will, by one Lord, and baptized by one Spirit. – Anon

The cross that is planted at the heart of the history of the world cannot be uprooted. - Jacques Ellul

The Unity in whose loving presence the universe unfolds is inside each person as a call to welcome the stranger, protect animals and the earth, respect the dignity of each person, think new thoughts, and help bring about ecological civilizations. - John Cobb & Farhan A. Shah

If you board the wrong train it is of no use running along the corridors of the train in the other direction. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

God's justice is restorative rather than punitive; His discipline is merciful rather than punishing; His power is made perfect in weakness; and His grace is sufficient for all. – Anon

Our little [biblical] systems have their day; they have their day and cease to be. They are but broken lights of Thee, and Thou, O God art more than they. - Alfred Lord Tennyson

We can’t control God; God is uncontrollable. God can’t control us; God’s love is uncontrolling! - Thomas Jay Oord

Life in perspective but always in process... as we are relational beings in process to one another, so life events are in process in relation to each event... as God is to Self, is to world, is to us... like Father, like sons and daughters, like events... life in process yet always in perspective. - R.E. Slater

To promote societal transition to sustainable ways of living and a global society founded on a shared ethical framework which includes respect and care for the community of life, ecological integrity, universal human rights, respect for diversity, economic justice, democracy, and a culture of peace. - The Earth Charter Mission Statement

Christian humanism is the belief that human freedom, individual conscience, and unencumbered rational inquiry are compatible with the practice of Christianity or even intrinsic in its doctrine. It represents a philosophical union of Christian faith and classical humanist principles. - Scott Postma

It is never wise to have a self-appointed religious institution determine a nation's moral code. The opportunities for moral compromise and failure are high; the moral codes and creeds assuredly racist, discriminatory, or subjectively and religiously defined; and the pronouncement of inhumanitarian political objectives quite predictable. - R.E. Slater

God's love must both center and define the Christian faith and all religious or human faiths seeking human and ecological balance in worlds of subtraction, harm, tragedy, and evil. - R.E. Slater

In Whitehead’s process ontology, we can think of the experiential ground of reality as an eternal pulse whereby what is objectively public in one moment becomes subjectively prehended in the next, and whereby the subject that emerges from its feelings then perishes into public expression as an object (or “superject”) aiming for novelty. There is a rhythm of Being between object and subject, not an ontological division. This rhythm powers the creative growth of the universe from one occasion of experience to the next. This is the Whiteheadian mantra: “The many become one and are increased by one.” - Matthew Segall

Without Love there is no Truth. And True Truth is always Loving. There is no dichotomy between these terms but only seamless integration. This is the premier centering focus of a Processual Theology of Love. - R.E. Slater

-----

Note: Generally I do not respond to commentary. I may read the comments but wish to reserve my time to write (or write from the comments I read). Instead, I'd like to see our community help one another and in the helping encourage and exhort each of us towards Christian love in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior. - re slater

Saturday, September 2, 2017

Definitions of Continental Philosophy






Continental Philosophy refers to a set of traditions of 19th and 20th Century philosophy in mainland Europe. It is a general term for those philosophical schools and movements not included under the label Analytic Philosophy, which was the other, largely Anglophone, main philosophical tradition of the period.

As a movement, Continental Philosophy lacks clear definition, and may mark merely a family resemblance across disparate philosophical views, its main purpose being to distinguish itself from Analytic Philosophy, although the term was used as early as 1840 by John Stuart Mill to distinguish European Kant-influenced thought from the more British-based movements such as British Empiricism and Utilitarianism.

Continental Philosophy, then, is a catch-all label incorporating such Continental European-based schools as German Idealism, Kantianism, Hegelianism, Romanticism, Phenomenology, Existentialism, Marxism, Deconstructionism, Structuralism, Post-Structuralism, Hermeneutics, French Feminism, and the Critical Theory of the Frankfurt School.

Although many consider that the distinction between Continental and Analytic Philosophy is misleading or even worthless, some common "Continental" themes can be identified:
  • It generally rejects Scientism (the view that the natural sciences are the best or most accurate way of understanding all phenomena).
  • It tends towards Historicism in its view of possible experience as variable, and determined at least partly by factors such as context, space and time, language, culture and history.
  • It typically holds that conscious human agency can change these conditions of possible experience, and tend to see their philosophical inquiries as closely related to personal, moral, or political transformation.
  • It tends to emphasize metaphilosophy (the study of the subject and matter, methods and aims of philosophy itself, or the "philosophy of philosophy").





* * * * * * * * *




Continental philosophy

Continental philosophy is a set of 19th- and 20th-century philosophical traditions from mainland Europe.[1][2] This sense of the term originated among English-speaking philosophers in the second half of the 20th century, who used it to refer to a range of thinkers and traditions outside the analytic movement. Continental philosophy includes the following movements: German idealismphenomenology, existentialism (and its antecedents, such as the thought of Kierkegaard and Nietzsche), hermeneuticsstructuralismpost-structuralismFrench feminismpsychoanalytic theory, and the critical theory of the Frankfurt School and related branches of Western Marxism.[3]

It is difficult to identify non-trivial claims that would be common to all the preceding philosophical movements. The term "continental philosophy", like "analytic philosophy", lacks clear definition and may mark merely a family resemblance across disparate philosophical views. Simon Glendinning has suggested that the term was originally more pejorative than descriptive, functioning as a label for types of western philosophy rejected or disliked by analytic philosophers.[4]Nonetheless, Michael E. Rosen has ventured to identify common themes that typically characterize continental philosophy.[5]

  • First, continental philosophers generally reject the view that the natural sciences are the only or most accurate way of understanding natural phenomena. This contrasts with many analytic philosophers who consider their inquiries as continuous with, or subordinate to, those of the natural sciences. Continental philosophers often argue that science depends upon a "pre-theoretical substrate of experience" (a version of Kantian conditions of possible experience or the phenomenological "lifeworld") and that scientific methods are inadequate to fully understand such conditions of intelligibility.[6]
  • Second, continental philosophy usually considers these conditions of possible experience as variable: determined at least partly by factors such as context, space and time, language, culture, or history. Thus continental philosophy tends toward historicism (or historicity). Where analytic philosophy tends to treat philosophy in terms of discrete problems, capable of being analyzed apart from their historical origins (much as scientists consider the history of science inessential to scientific inquiry), continental philosophy typically suggests that "philosophical argument cannot be divorced from the textual and contextual conditions of its historical emergence".[7]
  • Third, continental philosophy typically holds that human agency can change these conditions of possible experience: "if human experience is a contingent creation, then it can be recreated in other ways".[8] Thus continental philosophers tend to take a strong interest in the unity of theory and practice, and often see their philosophical inquiries as closely related to personal, moral, or political transformation. This tendency is very clear in the Marxist tradition ("philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point, however, is to change it"), but is also central in existentialism and post-structuralism.
  • A final characteristic trait of continental philosophy is an emphasis on metaphilosophy. In the wake of the development and success of the natural sciences, continental philosophers have often sought to redefine the method and nature of philosophy.[9] In some cases (such as German idealism or phenomenology), this manifests as a renovation of the traditional view that philosophy is the first, foundational, a priori science. In other cases (such as hermeneutics, critical theory, or structuralism), it is held that philosophy investigates a domain that is irreducibly cultural or practical. And some continental philosophers (such as Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, the later Heidegger, or Derrida) doubt whether any conception of philosophy can coherently achieve its stated goals.
Ultimately, the foregoing themes derive from a broadly Kantian thesis that knowledge, experience, and reality are bound and shaped by conditions best understood through philosophical reflection rather than exclusively empirical inquiry.[10]

Contents


The term

The term "continental philosophy", in the above sense, was first widely used by English-speaking philosophers to describe university courses in the 1970s, emerging as a collective name for the philosophies then widespread in France and Germany, such as phenomenology, existentialism, structuralism, and post-structuralism.[11]

However, the term (and its approximate sense) can be found at least as early as 1840, in John Stuart Mill's 1840 essay on Coleridge, where Mill contrasts the Kantian-influenced thought of "Continental philosophy" and "Continental philosophers" with the English empiricism of Bentham and the 18th century generally.[12] This notion gained prominence in the early 20th century as figures such as Bertrand Russell and G.E. Moore advanced a vision of philosophy closely allied with natural science, progressing through logical analysis. This tradition, which has come to be known broadly as "analytic philosophy", became dominant in Britain and the United States from roughly 1930 onward. Russell and Moore made a dismissal of Hegelianism and its philosophical relatives a distinctive part of their new movement.[13]Commenting on the history of the distinction in 1945, Russell distinguished "two schools of philosophy, which may be broadly distinguished as the Continental and the British respectively", a division he saw as operative "from the time of Locke".[14]

Since the 1970s, however, many philosophers in the United States and Britain have taken interest in continental philosophers since Kant, and the philosophical traditions in many European countries have similarly incorporated many aspects of the "analytic" movement. Self-described analytic philosophy flourishes in France, including philosophers such as Jules VuilleminVincent DescombesGilles Gaston GrangerFrançois Recanati, and Pascal Engel. Likewise, self-described "continental philosophers" can be found in philosophy departments in the United Kingdom, North America, and Australia,[15] and some well-known analytic philosophers claim to conduct better scholarship on continental philosophy than self-identified programs in continental philosophy, particularly at the level of graduate education.[16]"Continental philosophy" is thus defined in terms of a family of philosophical traditions and influences rather than a geographic distinction.

History

The history of continental philosophy (taken in its narrower sense) is usually thought to begin with German idealism.[17] Led by figures like FichteSchelling, and later Hegel, German idealism developed out of the work of Immanuel Kant in the 1780s and 1790s and was closely linked with romanticism and the revolutionary politics of the Enlightenment. Besides the central figures listed above, important contributors to German idealism also included Friedrich Heinrich JacobiGottlob Ernst SchulzeKarl Leonhard Reinhold, and Friedrich Schleiermacher.

As the institutional roots of "continental philosophy" in many cases directly descend from those of phenomenology,[18] Edmund Husserl has always been a canonical figure in continental philosophy. Nonetheless, Husserl is also a respected subject of study in the analytic tradition.[19] Husserl's notion of a noema, the non-psychological content of thought, his correspondence with Gottlob Frege, and his investigations into the nature of logic continue to generate interest among analytic philosophers.

J. G. Merquior[20] argued that a distinction between analytic and continental philosophies can be first clearly identified with Henri Bergson (1859–1941), whose wariness of science and elevation of intuitionpaved the way for existentialism. Merquior wrote: "the most prestigious philosophizing in France took a very dissimilar path [from the Anglo-Germanic analytic schools]. One might say it all began with Henri Bergson."

An illustration of some important differences between "analytic" and "continental" styles of philosophy can be found in Rudolf Carnap's "Elimination of Metaphysics through Logical Analysis of Language" (Originally published in 1932 as "Überwindung der Metaphysik durch Logische Analyse der Sprache"), a paper some observers[who?] have described as particularly polemical. Carnap's paper argues that Heidegger's lecture "What Is Metaphysics?" violates logical syntax to create nonsensical pseudo-statements.[21] Moreover, Carnap claimed that many German metaphysicians of the era were similar to Heidegger in writing statements that were not merely false, but devoid of any meaning.

With the rise of Nazism, many of Germany's philosophers, especially those of Jewish descent or leftist or liberal political sympathies (such as many in the Vienna Circle and the Frankfurt School), fled to the English-speaking world. Those philosophers who remained—if they remained in academia at all—had to reconcile themselves to Nazi control of the universities. Others, such as Martin Heidegger, among the most prominent German philosophers to stay in Germany, embraced Nazism when it came to power.

Both before and after World War II there was a growth of interest in German philosophy in France. A new interest in communism translated into an interest in Marx and Hegel, who became for the first time studied extensively in the politically conservative French university system of the Third Republic. At the same time the phenomenological philosophy of Husserl and Heidegger became increasingly influential, perhaps owing to its resonances with French philosophies which placed great stock in the first-person perspective (an idea found in divergent forms such as Cartesianism, spiritualism, and Bergsonism). Most important in this popularization of phenomenology was the author and philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, who called his philosophy existentialism. (See 20th-century French philosophy.) Another major strain of continental thought is structuralism/post-structuralism. Influenced by the structural linguistics of Ferdinand de Saussure, French anthropologists such as Claude Lévi-Strauss began to apply the structural paradigm to the humanities. In the 1960s and '70s, post-structuralists developed various critiques of structuralism. Post-structuralist thinkers include Jacques LacanJacques DerridaMichel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze.

Recent Anglo-American developments

From the early 20th century until the 1960s, continental philosophers were only intermittently discussed in British and American universities, despite an influx of continental philosophers, particularly German Jewish students of Nietzsche and Heidegger, to the United States on account of the persecution of the Jews and later World War IIHannah ArendtLeo StraussTheodor W. Adorno, and Walter Kaufmann are probably the most notable of this wave, arriving in the late 1930s and early 1940s. However, philosophy departments began offering courses in continental philosophy in the late 1960s and 1970s. With the rise of postmodernism in the 1970s and 1980s, some British and American philosophers became more vocally opposed to the methods and conclusions of continental philosophers. For example, John Searle[22]criticized Derrida's deconstruction for "obvious and manifest intellectual weaknesses". Later, Barry Smith and assorted signatories protested against the award of an honorary degree to Derrida by Cambridge University.[23]

American university departments in literature, the fine arts, film, sociology, and political theory have increasingly incorporated ideas and arguments from continental philosophers into their curricula and research. Continental Philosophy features prominently in a number of British and Irish Philosophy departments, for instance at the University of Essex, Warwick, Sussex and Dundee, Manchester Metropolitan, Kingston University, Staffordshire University and University College Dublin, and in North American Philosophy departments, including the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa, Boston College, Stony Brook University (SUNY), Vanderbilt University, DePaul University, Villanova University, the University of Guelph, The New School, Pennsylvania State University, University of Oregon, Emory University, Duquesne University, the University of Memphis, University of King's College, and Loyola University Chicago. The most prominent organization for continental philosophy in the United States is the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy (known as SPEP).[24]

The rise of Alfred North Whitehead's process philosophy can be interpreted both as a prophylactic and a therapeutic movement: on the one hand, Whitehead's life and thought show that analytic rigor and speculative imagination can work together; on the other hand, Whiteheadian scholarship has sometimes provided bridges between these fields.[25]

Significant works


·        A Cyborg Manifesto
·        After Theory
·        A Theory of Feelings
·        Being and Event
·        Being and Nothingness
·        Being and Time
·        Blindness and Insight
·        Dialectic of Enlightenment
·        Difference and Repetition
·        Eclipse of Reason
·        Eros and Civilization
·        Gender Trouble
·        Madness and Civilization
·        Minima Moralia
·        Mythologies
·        Negative Dialectics
·        Homo Sacer
·        I and Thou
·        Illuminations
·        Logical Investigations
·        One-Dimensional Man
·        Oneself as Another
·        Of Grammatology
·        Prison Notebooks
·        Phenomenology of Perception
·        The Phenomenology of Spirit
·        Reading Capital
·        Simulacra and Simulation
·        Society of the Spectacle
·        Technics and Time
·        The History of Sexuality
·        The Human Condition
·        The Myth of Sisyphus
·        The Order of Things
·        The Poetics of Space
·        The Postmodern Condition
·        The Second Sex
·        The Third Body
·        Time and Narrative
·        Totality and Infinity
·        Truth and Method
·        Writing and Difference


See also


·        Existential Thomism
·        Non-philosophy
·        Speculative realism



Notes

1.      Leiter 2007, p. 2: "As a first approximation, we might say that philosophy in Continental Europe in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is best understood as a connected weave of traditions, some of which overlap, but no one of which dominates all the others."

2.      Critchley, Simon (1998), "Introduction: what is continental philosophy?", in Critchley, Simon; Schroder, William, A Companion to Continental Philosophy, Blackwell Companions to Philosophy, Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, p. 4.

3.      The above list includes only those movements common to both lists compiled by Critchley 2001, p. 13 and Glendinning 2006, pp. 58–65

4.      Glendinning 2006, p. 12.

5.      The following list of four traits is adapted from Rosen, Michael, "Continental Philosophy from Hegel", in Grayling, A.C., Philosophy 2: Further through the Subject, p. 665

6.      Critchley 2001, p. 115.
7.      Critchley 2001, p. 57.
8.      Critchley 2001, p. 64.

9.      Leiter 2007, p. 4: "While forms of philosophical naturalism have been dominant in Anglophone philosophy, the vast majority of authors within the Continental traditions insist on the distinctiveness of philosophical methods and their priority to those of the natural sciences."

10.  Continental philosophers usually identify such conditions with the transcendental subject or self: Solomon 1988, p. 6, "It is with Kant that philosophical claims about the self attain new and remarkable proportions. The self becomes not just the focus of attention but the entire subject-matter of philosophy. The self is not just another entity in the world, but in an important sense it creates the world, and the reflecting self does not just know itself, but in knowing itself knows all selves, and the structure of any and every possible self."

11.  Critchley 2001, p. 38.

12.  Mill, John Stuart (1950). On Bentham and Coleridge. Harper Torchbooks. New York: Harper & Row. pp. 104, 133, 155.

13.  Russell, Bertrand (1959). My Philosophical Development. London: Allen & Unwin. p. 62. Hegelians had all kinds of arguments to prove this or that was not 'real'. Number, space, time, matter, were all professedly convicted of being self-contradictory. Nothing was real, so we were assured, except the Absolute, which could think only of itself since there was nothing else for it to think of and which thought eternally the sort of things that idealist philosophers thought in their books.

14.  B. Russell, A History of Western Philosophy, (Simon & Schuster, 1945), p. 643 and 641. Russell proposes the following broad points of distinction between Continental and British types of philosophy: (1) in method, deductive system-building vs. piecemeal induction; (2) in metaphysics, rationalist theology vs. metaphysical agnosticism; (3) in ethics, non-naturalist deontology vs. naturalist hedonism; and (4) in politics, authoritarianism vs. liberalism. Ibid., pp. 643-647.

15.  See, e.g., Walter Brogan and James Risser (eds.), American Continental Philosophy: A Reader (Indiana University Press, 2000).

16.  Brian Leiter is most commonly associated with such claims.

17.  Critchley 2001 and Solomon 1988 date the origins of continental philosophy a generation earlier, to the work of Jean-Jacques Rousseau

18.  E.g., the largest academic organization devoted to furthering the study of continental philosophy is the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy.

19.  Kenny, Anthony (ed). The Oxford Illustrated History of Western PhilosophyISBN 0-19-285440-2

20.  Merquior, J.G. (1987). Foucault (Fontana Modern Masters series), University of California Press, ISBN 0-520-06062-8.


22.  Searle, John R. "Word Turned Upside Down." New York Times Review of Books, Volume 30, Number 16 · October 27, 1983.

23.  Barry Smith et al. Open letter against Derrida receiving an honorary doctorate from Cambridge University , The Times(London), Saturday 9 May 1992


25.  See Michel Weber, « Much Ado About Duckspeak », Balkan Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 3, Issue 1, 2011, pp. 135-142; « Whitehead's creative advance from formal to existential ontology », Logique et Analyse, 54/214, juin 2011, Special Issue on Whitehead’s Early Work, pp. 127-133.

References

·        Babich, Babette (2003). "On the Analytic-Continental Divide in Philosophy: Nietzsche’s Lying Truth, Heidegger’s Speaking Language, and Philosophy." In: C. G. Prado, ed., A House Divided: Comparing Analytic and Continental Philosophy. Amherst, NY: Prometheus/Humanity Books. pp. 63–103.

·        Critchley, Simon (2001). Continental Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-285359-7.

·        Cutrofello, Andrew (2005). Continental Philosophy: A Contemporary Introduction. Routledge Contemporary Introductions to Philosophy. New York; Abingdon: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group.

·        Glendinning, Simon (2006). The idea of continental philosophy: a philosophical chronicle. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press Ltd.

·        Leiter, Brian; Rosen, Michael, eds. (2007). The Oxford Handbook of Continental Philosophy. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press.

·        Schrift, Alan D. (2010). The History of Continental Philosophy. Chicago; Illinois: University of Chicago Press Press.

·        Solomon, Robert C. (1988). Continental philosophy since 1750: the rise and fall of the self. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press.

·        Kenny, Anthony (2007). A New History of Western Philosophy, Volume IV: Philosophy in the Modern World. New York: Oxford University Press.


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Continental philosophy


Continental philosophy, as the phrase is used today, refers to a set of traditions of nineteenth and twentieth century philosophy from mainland Europe.[1] Continental philosophy includes the following movements: German idealismphenomenologyexistentialism (and its antecedents, such as the thoughts of Kierkegaard and Nietzsche), hermeneutics, structuralismpost-structuralism, French feminism, and the critical theory of the Frankfurt School and some other branches of western Marxism.[2]

The term continental philosophy originated among English-speaking philosophers in the late twentieth century who found it useful for referring to a range of thinkers and traditions that had been largely ignored or neglected by the analytic movement. Conversely, philosophers in the continental tradition have largely ignored analytic philosophy, developed primarily in English speaking countries such as England and the United States.

Contents


Contemporary Western philosophy, thus, has been broadly divided into two trends, continental philosophy and analytic philosophy, each with fundamentally different philosophical concerns, methodologies, styles, and approaches. Today, although the majority of Western philosophers still stand on either side of the two traditions, there is less of a separation or lack of communication between them.

General Characteristics

It is difficult to identify non-trivial claims that would be common to all the preceding philosophical movements. The term "continental philosophy," like "analytic philosophy," lacks clear definition and may mark merely a "family resemblance"[3] across disparate philosophical views. Some scholars have suggested the term may be more pejorative than descriptive, functioning as a label for types of Western philosophy rejected or disliked by analytic philosophers.[4] Nonetheless, some scholars have ventured to identify common themes that typically characterize continental philosophy.[5]

First, continental philosophers generally reject scientism, the view that the natural sciences are the best or most accurate way of understanding all phenomena. Continental philosophers often argue that science depends upon a "pre-theoretical substrate of experience," a form of the Kantianconditions of possible experience, and that scientific methods are inadequate to understand such conditions of intelligibility.[6]

Second, continental philosophy usually considers these conditions of possible experience as variable: determined at least partly by factors such as context, space and time, language, culture, or history. Where analytic philosophy tends to treat philosophy in terms of discrete problems, capable of being analyzed apart from their historical origins (much as scientists consider the history of science inessential to scientific inquiry), continental philosophy typically suggests that "philosophical argument cannot be divorced from the textual and contextual conditions of its historical emergence".[7]

Third, continental philosophy typically holds that conscious human agency can change these conditions of possible experience: "if human experience is a contingent creation, then it can be recreated in other ways".[8] Thus continental philosophers tend to take a strong interest in the unity of theory and practice, and tend to see their philosophical inquiries as closely related to personal, moral, or political transformation. This tendency is very clear in the Marxist tradition ("philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point, however, is to change it"), but is also central in existentialism and post-structuralism.

A final characteristic trait of continental philosophy is an emphasis on metaphilosophy. In the wake of the development and success of the natural sciences, continental philosophers have often sought to redefine the method and nature of philosophy. In some cases (such as German idealism or phenomenology), this manifests as a renovation of the traditional view that philosophy is the first, foundational, a priori science. In other cases (such as hermeneutics, critical theory, or structuralism), it is held that philosophy investigates a domain that is irreducibly cultural or practical. And in some cases, continental philosophers (such as KierkegaardNietzsche, the later Heidegger, or Derrida) harbor grave doubts about the coherence of any conceptions of philosophy.

Ultimately, the foregoing distinctive traits derive from a broadly Kantian thesis that the nature of knowledge and experience is bound by conditions that are not directly accessible to empirical inquiry.[9]

History

The history of continental philosophy (taken in its narrower sense) is usually thought to begin with German idealism.[10] Led by figures like FichteSchelling, and later Hegel, German idealism developed out of the work of Immanuel Kant in the 1780s and 1790s and was closely linked with both romanticism and the revolutionary politics of the Enlightenment. Besides the central figures listed above, important contributors to German idealism also included Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi, Gottlob Ernst Schulze, Karl Leonhard Reinhold, and Friedrich Schleiermacher.

As the institutional roots of "continental philosophy" in many cases directly descend from those of phenomenology,[11] Edmund Husserlhas always been a canonical figure in continental philosophy. Nonetheless, Husserl is also a respected subject of study in the analytic tradition.[12] Husserl's notion of a noema (a non-psychological content of thought), his correspondence with Gottlob Frege, and his investigations into the nature of logic continue to generate interest among analytic philosophers.

A particularly polemical illustration of some differences between "analytic" and "continental" styles of philosophy can be found in Rudolf Carnap's "Elimination of Metaphysics through Logical Analysis of Language," which argues that Heidegger's lecture "What Is Metaphysics?" violates logical syntax to create nonsensical pseudo-statements.[13]

Both before and after World War II there was a growth of interest in German philosophy in France. The role of the French Communist Party in liberating France meant that it became, for a brief period, the largest political movement in the country. The attendant interest in communism translated into an interest in Marx and Hegel, who were both studied extensively for the first time in the conservative French university system. Additionally, there was a major trend towards the ideas of Husserl, and toward his former assistant Heidegger. Most important in this popularization of phenomenology was the author and philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, who called his philosophy existentialism.

The Term

The term "continental philosophy," in the above sense, was first widely used by English-speaking philosophers to describe university courses in the 1970s, emerging as a collective name for the philosophies then widespread in France and Germany, such as phenomenology, existentialism, structuralism, and post-structuralism.[14]

However, the term (and its approximate sense) can be found at least as early as 1840, in John Stuart Mill's 1840 essay on Coleridge, where Mill contrasts the Kantian-influenced thought of "Continental philosophy" and "Continental philosophers" with the English empiricism of Bentham and the eighteenth century generally.[15] This notion gained prominence in the early 1900s as figures such as Bertrand Russell and G.E. Moore advanced a vision of philosophy closely allied with natural science, progressing through logical analysis. This tradition, which has come to be known broadly as "analytic philosophy," became dominant in Britain and America from roughly 1930 onward.[16] Russell and Moore made a dismissal of Hegelianism and its philosophical relatives a distinctive part of their new movement.[17]

Meanwhile in Europe at the turn of the twentieth century, Franz BrentanoEdmund Husserl, and Reinach were developing a new philosophical method of their own, phenomenologyHeidegger took this phenomenological approach in new directions, and, after World War II, French philosophers led by Jean Paul Sartre developed Heidegger's ideas into a movement known as existentialism. In the 1960s, structuralism became the new vogue in France, followed by poststructuralism.

In general, during the twentieth century, there was relatively limited contact between philosophers working in the Anglophone tradition and philosophers from the European continent working in the traditions of phenomenology, existentialism, and structuralism. Commenting on the history of the distinction in 1945, Russell distinguished "two schools of philosophy, which may be broadly distinguished as the Continental and the British respectively," a division he saw as operative "from the time of Locke".[18]

Since the 1970s, however, many philosophers in America and Britain have taken interest in continental philosophers since Kant, and the philosophical traditions in many European countries have similarly incorporated many aspects of the legacy of the "analytic" movement. Self-described analytic philosophy flourishes in France, including philosophers such as Jules Vuillemin, Vincent Descombes, Gilles Gaston Granger, François Recanati, and Pascal Engel. Likewise, self-described "continental philosophers" can be found in philosophy departments in the United Kingdom, North America, and Australia.[19] "Continental philosophy" is thus defined in terms of a family of philosophical traditions and influences rather than a geographic distinction. It remains relevant that "continental philosophy" is a contested designation, with many analytic philosophers laying claim to offer better "continental philosophy" than traditional continental philosophy, particularly at the level of graduate education.[20]

Continental philosophy in English speaking countries: recent developments

From the early twentieth century until the 1960s, continental philosophers were only intermittently discussed in British and American universities. However, philosophy departments began offering courses in continental philosophy in the late 1960s and 1970s. With post-modernism in the 1970s and 1980s, British and American philosophers became more vocally opposed to the methods and conclusions of continental philosophers. Derrida, for example, was the target of criticism by John Searle and, later, assorted signatories protesting an honorary degree given to Derrida by Cambridge University. Meanwhile, university departments in literature, the fine arts, film, sociology, and political theory have increasingly incorporated ideas and arguments from continental philosophers into their curricula and research. Increasingly, traditionally analytic philosophers are turning to continental themes and figures. The most prominent organization for continental philosophy in the United States is the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy (known as SPEP).

See also

Notes

 "As a first approximation, we might say that philosophy in Continental Europe in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is best understood as a connected weave of traditions, some of which overlap, but no one of which dominates all the others." Brian Leiter and Michael Rosen. The Oxford Handbook of Continental Philosophy. (Oxford University Press, 2007), 2. See also Simon Critchley and William Schroder, (eds.), A Companion to Continental Philosophy. (Blackwell Publishing, 1998), 4.

 The above list includes only those movements common to both lists compiled by Simon Critchley. Continental Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2001), 13 and Simon Glendinning. The Idea of Continental Philosophy.(Edinburgh University Press, 2006), 58-65.

 Wittgenstein's terminology; similarity in a loose sense.

 Glendinning, 12.

 The following list of four traits is adapted from Michael Rosen, "Continental Philosophy from Hegel," in A.C. Grayling, (ed.), Philosophy 2: Further through the Subject. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 665.

 Simon Critchley. Continental Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction. 115.

 Critchley, 57
 Critchley, 64.

 As Robert Solomon notes, continental philosophers usually identify such conditions with the transcendental subject or self: "It is with Kant that philosophical claims about the self attain new and remarkable proportions. The self becomes not just the focus of attention but the entire subject-matter of philosophy. The self is not just another entity in the world, but in an important sense it creates the world, and the reflecting self does not just know itself, but in knowing itself knows all selves, and the structure of any and every possible self." (R. Solomon. Continental Philosophy since 1750: The Rise and Fall of the Self. (Oxford University Press, 1988), 6)

 Critchley, 2001; Solomon, 1988, dates the origins of continental philosophy a generation earlier, to the work of Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

 E.g., the largest academic organization devoted to furthering the study of continental philosophy is the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy.

 Anthony Kenny, (ed). The Oxford Illustrated History of Western Philosophy. ISBN 0192854402


 Critchley. Continental Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction., 38.

 John Stuart Mill. On Bentham and Coleridge. (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1950), 104, 133, and 155.

 See, e.g., Michael Dummett. The Origins of Analytical Philosophy. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994); or C. Prado, (ed.), A House Divided: Comparing Analytic and Continental Philosophy. (New York: Prometheus/Humanity Books, 2003).

 E.g., Russell's comments in My Philosophical Development. (New York: Allen & Unwin, 1959), 62: "Hegelians had all kinds of arguments to prove this or that was not 'real'. Number, space, time, matter, were all professedly convicted of being self-contradictory. Nothing was real, so we were assured, except the Absolute, which could think only of itself since there was nothing else for it to think of and which thought eternally the sort of things that idealist philosophers thought in their books."

 Bertrand Russell. A History of Western Philosophy. (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1945), 643, 641. Russell proposes the following broad points of distinction between Continental and British types of philosophy: (1) in method, deductive system-building vs. piecemeal induction; (2) in metaphysics, rationalist theology vs. metaphysical agnosticism; (3) in ethics, non-naturalist deontology vs. naturalist hedonism; and (4) in politics, authoritarianism vs. liberalism. Russell, 1945, 643-647.

 See, e.g., Walter Brogan and James Risser, (eds.), American Continental Philosophy: A Reader. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000).

 Brian Leiter is most commonly associated with such claims and compiles the “Philosophical Gourmet Report: A Ranking of Graduate Programs in the English-speaking World” published online by Blackwell Publishers. Note the American Philosophical Association's censuring of the "Gourmet Report" and the controversy associated with that censuring. See, for a history of the analytic continental divide in the context of professional philosophy in the United States, Bruce Wilshire. Fashionable Nihilism: A Critique of Analytic Philosophy. (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002), as well as the first chapter by Richard Rorty in Prado, ed., A House Divided.

References

Books and journals

Brogan, Walter, and James Risser. American Continental Philosophy: A Reader. Studies in Continental thought. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000. ISBN 9780253213761

Critchley, Simon, and William Ralph Schroeder. A Companion to Continental Philosophy. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 1998. ISBN 9780631190134

Critchley, Simon. Continental Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction. (Very short introductions), 43. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. ISBN 9780192853592

Cutrofello, Andrew. Continental Philosophy: A Contemporary Introduction. Routledge contemporary introductions to philosophy. New York: Routledge, 2005. ISBN 9780415242097

Dummett, Michael A. E. Origins of Analytical Philosophy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994. ISBN 9780674644724

Glendinning, Simon. The Idea of Continental Philosophy A Philosophical Chronicle. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2006. ISBN 9780748627097

Grayling, A. C. Philosophy 2: Further Through the Subject. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. ISBN 9780198751786

Kenny, Anthony, ed. The Oxford Illustrated History of Western Philosophy. Oxford Univ. Press. ISBN 0192854402

Leiter, Brian,, and Michael Rosen. The Oxford Handbook of Continental Philosophy. Oxford University Press, 2007. ISBN 9780199234097

John Stuart Mill. On Bentham and Coleridge. New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1950.

Prado, C. G. A House Divided: Comparing Analytic and Continental Philosophy. Amherst, NY: Humanity Books, 2003. ISBN 9781591021056

Prado, C. G. A House Divided: Comparing Analytic and Continental Philosophy. Amherst, NY: Humanity Books, 2003. ISBN 1591021057

Richard Rorty in C.G. Prado, ed., A House Divided.

Russell, Bertrand. A History of Western Philosophy. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster, 1972. ISBN 9780671201586

Russell, Bertrand. My Philosophical Development. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1959.

Solomon, Robert C. Continental philosophy since 1750: the rise and fall of the self. Oxford Univ. Press, 1988. ISBN 9780192892027

Wilshire, Bruce W. Fashionable Nihilism: A Critique of Analytic Philosophy. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2002. ISBN 9780791454305

Friday, September 1, 2017

Alfred North Whitehead - Process and Reality: An Introduction


The Process Metaphysics of Alfred North Whitehead (*1861, †1947)


A short introduction to the process philosophy & process theology of Alfred North Whitehead (*1861, †1947),
containing several photos and 4 speakers, describing some core hypotheses of Whitehead's metaphysics.
The speakers are: John B. Cobb, David Ray Griffin, Charles Hartshorne and Rupert Sheldrake.


Alfred North Whitehead - Process and Reality:
An Introduction

I'm just getting started in a FaceBook study group studying Process Thought. If you would like to join with me follow the link below. Plan on about 3-4 months, lots of short videos, and a minimum of 4 process books by process thinkers, theologians, pastors, and pragmatists (I've listed these as well). Process thought is more of a 3rd-way philosophy than it is either a Western or Continental Philosophy. In a way, it acts as a bridge between the two major schools of thought. As a philosophy, it can be adopted into any outlook, religion, or people group. That means there is process thought found in every major religion - including Christianity. It is also pervasive - otherwise it could not be an embraced philosophy found throughout the world.

When it is applied to Christianity it seems to displace Calvinistic thought while emphasizing or highlighting Arminian thought. The former operates out of a closed view of the universe, time, and development. Everything in it's purview is static, impassive, transcendent, and disconnected to creation. Whereas in the latter view can be found just the opposite since a free will creation is emphasized over a deterministic one. Here everything is connected (including the Divine), alive, dynamic, living full or actualized lives in time's present space, is highly relational, and requiring our best efforts in living out love, hope, light, and life.


Process theology is a theology of Being/being when applied to the Christian religion. And a philosophy of attitude/outlook when applied to all religions - even agnosticism and atheism. Because it is a philosophy it can be affective or effectuating upon other philosophies like our Western sense of philosophy or, for Europeans, their Continental sense. The same is true for Middle Eastern, Hispanic, Asian, Indian, and Micronesian cultures. But it can also be affected itself by the other - as it would be when religion is applied to it from a variety of global perspectives.

Mostly, process thought seems to be postmodern process of discovering when embracing the global community of mankind, seeking to instill a respect and dignity across all races, genders, and sexes, and its willingness to accept that humanity is continually living "into" its transformative (social, spiritual, physical) evolution in remarkable ways.... Even when devolving or evolving as social beings in relationship to one another. It questions the past while always seeking to uplift, if not enlighten the past by informing our present humanity towards a future wholeness, order, and healing. Hence, the future may become more hopeful, more abundant in human relations, more loving, and just, when we give a mindfulness to the redemption the God of Creation has provided humanity through Himself, His Life, Death, and Resurrection.


In many ways, Process Philosophical Thought is the master teacher sharing with the world a way of life. Eastern religions operate deeply on this principle. It is something they have understood for centuries. Western civilizations however seem to be less spiritually thoughtful, more willing to disturb and destroy, more fully at liberty to overtake, overthrow, or profoundly change encountered societies to become more like its own. To change the balance of an ecology's abundant thriving across ceaseless eras. To essentially change the balance of any opposing ideologies to itself. This is generally true of both American and European progress. Process Thought cautions us to slow down, to rethink our ways, to resist the forces of "the dark side," and to be willing to change how we relate, not only to ourselves but towards those different from ourselves as we seek the spiritual in the heart of creation.

In sum, Process Philosophy/Theology sees us as beings in process with our Creator, in process with our world, in process with one another, and in process with ourselves. It is not unlike other philosophies of this nature but it superintends itself more holistically across all branches of philosophy and science. Practically, we are incomplete versions of ourselves ever evolving towards completion, renewal, and reaffirmation through rebirth, resurrection, and revival. It is above all a philosophy of peace, abundance, thriving, cooperation, adoration, beauty, healing, and undoing.

R.E. Slater
September 1, 2017


Process Thought Online Classroom with Jay McDaniel
(and a host of other interested students)

What is Process Thought?
A Short Course Introducing Whitehead's Philosophy and Helping
Readers Understand Passages from his book Process and Reality,
Featuring Twenty Short Videos in an online forum.


The Web link may be found here:
http://www.jesusjazzbuddhism.org/what-is-process-thought.html


4 Books to Read in the Study Group:



Process-Relational Philosophy: An Introduction to Alfred North Whitehead 1st Edition,
by C. Robert Mesle (publ date: March 1, 2008)


Mesle Book Blurb
Process thought is the foundation for studies in many areas of contemporary philosophy, theology, political theory, educational theory, and the religion-science dialogue. It is derived from Alfred North Whitehead's philosophy, known as process theology, which lays a groundwork for integrating evolutionary biology, physics, philosophy of mind, theology, environmental ethics, religious pluralism, education, economics, and more.

In Process-Relational Philosophy, C. Robert Mesle breaks down Whitehead's complex writings, providing a simple but accurate introduction to the vision that underlies much of contemporary process philosophy and theology. In doing so, he points to a "way beyond both reductive materialism and the traps of Cartesian dualism by showing reality as a relational process in which minds arise from bodies, in which freedom and creativity are foundational to process, in which the relational power of persuasion is more basic than the unilateral power of coercion."

Because process-relational philosophy addresses the deep intuitions of a relational world basic to environmental and global thinking, it is being incorporated into undergraduate and graduate courses in philosophy, educational theory and practice, environmental ethics, and science and values, among others. Process-Relational Philosophy: A Basic Introduction makes Whitehead's creative vision accessible to all students and general readers.

About Mesle
C. Robert Mesle is a recognized authority on process thought and the author of the acclaimed Process Theology: A Basic Introduction (1993), the most widely read introduction to process theology. A professor and chair of the philosophy and religion department of Graceland University in Lamoni, Iowa, he received his PhD from Northwestern University. He is a board member of the International Process Network and the China Project of the Center for Process Studies and serves on the editorial boards of the American Journal of Theology and Philosophy and Process Studies. He resides in Lamoni, Iowa.



Process and Reality (Gifford Lectures Delivered in the University of Edinburgh During the
Session  1927-28) 2nd Edition, by Alfred North Whitehead (publ date: July 1, 1979)


Book Blurb
One of the major philosophical texts of the 20th century, Process and Reality is based on Alfred North Whitehead’s influential lectures that he delivered at the University of Edinburgh in the 1920s on process philosophy.

Whitehead’s master work in philsophy, Process and Reality propounds a system of speculative philosophy, known as process philosophy, in which the various elements of reality into a consistent relation to each other. It is also an exploration of some of the preeminent thinkers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, such as Descartes, Newton, Locke, and Kant.

The ultimate edition of Whitehead’s magnum opus, Process and Reality is a standard reference for scholars of all backgrounds.

About A.N. Whitehead
An English mathematician and philosopher, Alfred North Whitehead provided the foundation for the shool of thought known as process philosophy. With an academic career that spanned from Cambridge to Harvard, Whitehead wrote extensively on mathematics, metaphysis, and philosophy. He died in Massachusetts in 1947.



by John B Cobb Jr (publ date: November 17, 2015)


Book Blurb
A glossary of the most important terms in Whitehead's Process and Reality, by one of the greatest living authorities on Whitehead's thought. The terms are presented in rational order, making the book a succinct unfolding of Whitehead's thought.

About Cobb
John B. Cobb Jr. is the global leader of process theology and one of the greatest theological minds of the last fifty years. He is professor of theology emeritus at Claremont School of Theology in Claremont, California, and the cofounder of the Center for Process Studies. He is the author of over thirty books, including God and the World.



Paperback, by Bruce G. Epperly (publ date: May 26, 2011)


Book Blurb
This is an introductory guide to Process Theology for undergraduates. As part of Contiuum's 'Guide for the Perplexed' series, this text provides an accessible introduction to process theology, aimed at nurturing the theological imagination of undergraduates, pastors and interested laypersons. It describes the major themes of process theology and relates them to the everyday lives and spiritual commitments of people today. In addition to addressing traditional theological issues, Epperly addresses cutting edge issues in theology and ethics such as pluralism and postmodernism, matters of life and death, science (technology and genetics), and emerging forms of Christianity. This text is designed for seminary and university classes as well as congregational study. It will help readers to overcome the obstacles created by the technical language often employed by process theologians. Continuum's Guides for the Perplexed are clear, concise and accessible introductions to thinkers, writers and subjects that students and readers can find especially challenging - or indeed downright bewildering. Concentrating specifically on what it is that makes the subject difficult to grasp, these books explain and explore key themes and ideas, guiding the reader towards a thorough understanding of demanding material.


* * * * * * * * * * * *



Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947)


References


Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - ANW: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/whitehead/

Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Process Philosophy:

Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Process Theism:



Helpful Introductory Videos


Process Philosophy Explained





A. N. Whitehead - Introduction



Video Author's Note: "My Whitehead article in Philosophy Now magazine:
A Synopsis of A. N. Whitehead’s Metaphysics: https://philosophynow.org/issues/114/... 
Transcript: http://www.philosopher.eu/a-n-whitehe..."



Fundamentals of Process Theology





Friday, August 18, 2017

Jesus and Hitler Are Not the Same: False Equivalence Arguments in A Post-Truth Era


White supremacists march in Charlottsville, VA, August 13, 2017

Love God with All Your Mind or,
This Is Not That
http://www.toddlittleton.net/love-god-with-all-your-mind-or-this-is-not-that
 by 

Dallas Willard contended that Jesus was the smartest human being to ever live. Some quickly respond, “Duh, he was God.”

That is not what Willard had in mind.

Steeped in his Jewish faith, reading the Bible available to him and formed by the regular recitation of the Shema, Jesus, Luke notes, “Increased in wisdom.” Armed with the regular reminder to include the mind with a love for God proved pivotal as Jesus addressed and redressed the fallacies of his day. Tithing of your mint, dill, and cumin to avoid the weightier matters of the law – justice, mercy, and faith – is a false equivalence. Jesus identified it among the Pharisees. (Matthew 23:230
Even if some would claim all things are settled so stop thinking too much, loving God with our minds still requires good thinking. We are helped by noticing logical fallacies as we evaluate arguments. From time to time I have invited my friend Greg to write up a short piece highlighting a specific fallacy. Here is his piece on false equivalence.

Jesus and Hitler: This Is Not That

We might as well start with Hitler, since we’ll get there anyway, and this week, it’s perfectly legitimate to reference Nazis.
Jesus and Hitler both started important movements, so they are the same.
That’s an egregious example of false equivalence, an informal logical fallacy that relies on a similarity between two things. The similarity is then taken to encompass the whole of the comparison, making the two things equivalent in the mind or the argument of the one offering the comparison. It’s easy to see why the example offered breaks down.
Jesus did start a movement, and it was predicated on love and forgiveness. Hitler also started a movement, and you know that’s where the similarities end; to say that they are the same is a clear example of false equivalence. They are not logically equal.
We look for equivalences in order to make judgments, either value judgments or truth judgments: this is good, this is bad, this is happening, this is not happening. There are two basic approaches:
Analogy: A is like B.
Equivalence: A is the same as B in important ways.
The former is far more common than the latter. Take your typical 14-year old as an example.
“Oh my God, mother! Everyone else is going to the party but I’m grounded? You’re just like Hitler!”
This is what we would charitably call a weak analogy. The mother is like Hitler only inasmuch as she is preventing the teenager from doing something the teenager wants to do. As analogs go, that’s incredibly weak. If the mother was killing the teens friends in horrific experiments, the analog is much stronger.
False equivalence typically deals with things happening in the real world, so it’s not usually an abstraction. It’s possible to do it as a thought exercise, but we typically only refer to it to discuss real world things or events. This week provides the perfect example.
The counter-protestors in Charlottesville are just as bad as the Unite the Right protestors because they came armed and looking for violence.
OR
Black Lives Matter and Antifa are the same as the alt-Right protestors. Both sides use violence to achieve their ends. They are both equally bad (wrong, etc.).
First a caveat. Identifying a false equivalence requires a desire to do so. That may seem trite, but it cannot be emphasized enough. We now live in a world where facts are subject to politicization, which is to say, a fact is only a fact if it works for me or my side. Anything that works against me or my side is not a fact. This is a clear example of confirmation bias, a tendency that afflicts all humans irrespective of their political affiliation. What is required is a desire to get at the truth, whatever the truth may be, even—especially—if it conflicts with what I believe. That is supposed to be a hallmark of the Christian tradition, but it seems to be dying a slow death these days.
Are the counter-protestors in Charlottesville the same as the Nazis in Charlottesville? If relying on the comparison that both are willing to use violence, then the claim is barely true, and then only if incredibly important information is ignored. Do the counter-protestors want to set up a government that enslaves other races? Do they want to deport white people “back to their own country?” Do they want to systematically remove the rights of white people? No. No. No. Do the Nazis? Yeah. We are talking about actual Nazis here.
Secondly, were the counter-protestors all Leftists activists or “antifa,” as they have come to be known? Only if clergy from various denominations and faiths with linked arms are Leftist activists. Methodists, Episcopalians, Baptists, Reform Jews, Sunni Muslims, etc., all Leftist activists? No. Were all the protestors on the Right some version of a white supremacist? As far as we know, yes. They were chanting “Death to Jews,” and “blood and soil,” a rallying cry for white supremacists that dates back to the Third Reich.

Whether or not we want to quibble with the methods of the “Left” in this situation, we must first set aside questions of methodology and discuss questions of identity. Were we dealing with actual Nazis? Yes. Is anyone in America today that you can think of as bad as actual Nazis? I hope the answer is no, and if it is, then the two sides are not equivalent.


Anti-Fascist Marchers in Charlottsville, VA, August 13, 2017