What are we to do with analytic and continental philosophy, then? Neil Levy makes a great and simple wish when he writes that we “could hope to combine the strengths of each: to forge a kind of philosophy with the historical awareness of continental philosophy and the rigor of analytic philosophy.” (Metaphilosophy, Vol. 34, No.3.) If we are to keep a balance, we must understand that both camps have methods, trajectories, and emphasis that can be honored and incorporated into a synthesis. This is not to mean that we must believe everything. Rather, we should realize that there are correct and incorrect starting points, methods and answers in both analytic and continental philosophy. What a philosopher is dealing with – specifically, what question she’s trying to answer – largely determines what emphasis she will have. Yet philosophy can also be done interchangeably?: there is a way of doing analytic phenomenology, and of doing phenomenological analysis; scientific history and historically-minded science; epistemological ethics and ethical epistemology.
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