In: Diego Bubbio and Jeff Malpas, eds., Why Philosophy?

(Berlin: de Gruyter, 2019)

Babette Babich
Good for Nothing: On Philosophy and its
Discontents
Abstract: In addition to the long-standing divide between so-called ‘analytic’
and so-called ‘continental’ philosophy, philosophy is challenged in the political
realm and concerns about public spending for philosophy increase. This is
matched with a growing effort to popularize philosophy, bringing it into the pub-
lic sphere. The effort to secure support for philosophy highlights the ambiguity of
philosophical demarcation tactics, especially in a post-truth era which tends to
underline science and technology education contra philosophy. But as with a
concern for the history of science, philosophy’s past may yet prove useful in
the future. Looking at both hermeneutics and history, inviting more than
the usual cast of favorite authors into our intellectual network, it may
be possible to bring philosophy into more global and pluralist expressions.

1 After the analytic/continental divide

There are nominally two ways of doing philosophy. The first enjoys near-univer-
sal dominance and is typically called “analytic philosophy.” There can be ambi-
guity, inasmuch as, having dominion as it does, this approach is sometimes sim-
ply called “philosophy” quite as if it were all there was. The second way of doing
philosophy, associated with the “continental” tradition as it, in turn, was once
associated with a hermeneutic attention to historical context and language, is in-
creasingly moribund (for reasons of institutional hires), and arguably already ex-
tinct (or soon to be so).¹ To this extent, there is only one way of doing philoso-
phy, including analytically-styled versions of ‘continental’ philosophy. Thus, self-
declared versions of ‘new’ continental philosophy often feature conventionally
analytic emphases on (and working definitions of) “ontology” and “methodolo-
gy.” To compound matters, the distinction is, as has been frequently empha-

 See for a reflective discussion with the author, initiated by the gaming designer and philos-
opher, Chris Bateman for his blog Only a Game, “Babich and Bateman: Last of the Continental
Philosophers,” http://onlyagame.typepad.com/only_a_game/2016/11/babich-and-bateman-1.html.
Accessed: 8 August 2018.

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110650990-011