[l-_l-_l-_lo_ol]

Sometimes I wonder if crit theory had a natural evolution to serve as a foundation for a million PhD theses. Really these people ever should have had this much to say. Also it seems like philosophy birthed via poetry. These people should have just written poetry.

[beaconstudios]

Much of philosophy is poetic. That doesn't mean it isn't pointing at truth - much of classical fiction in general is about getting at the essence of certain aspects of reality.

[l-_l-_l-_lo_ol]

I think analytic departments would disagree with you. Also, what poetry does is defamiliarize language. It's impact is emotional. It isn't philosophy.

[beaconstudios]

They probably would because of the analytic/continental divide, but that's fine. That doesn't mean they're right.

Thousand Plateaus was extremely poetic but its contents can be converted into more straightforward ideas like deterritorialisation and schizoanalysis. Poetry is just the delivery mechanism.

Also Deleuze is an example of a philosopher who has both done poetic and analytic work (including metaphysics, which is a core analytic discipline) but is generally considered a continental philosopher. I don't think the distinction matters - both "sides" just explore different philosophical topics. I enjoy both of them and the divide seems petty.

[l-_l-_l-_lo_ol]

Well continental philosophy is currently turning the western world on its head so I don't think there will be reconciliation any time soon.

[coldtea]

That's just an American misconception - because they don't really have the feel of continental philosophy, and what they do took and practice of it, they imported, understood, and used badly (even since the 70s).

If anything, the places where continental philosophy flourished have less of this "turning the western world upside down" than the excesses in US academia (when they don't criticize them) - and some excesses of it they do share, they import them (due to US pop/social/etc culture pressure), not export them.

[beaconstudios]

Yeah, if I were to take two extreme ends of philosophy in terms of sociological outlook it would be Ralph Waldo Emerson's style of self-reliance versus Critical Theory - and the self-reliance ethic runs deep in American culture, so of course Critical Theory seems like some kind of philosophical anti-matter to all things American.

[beaconstudios]

The analytic/continental divide isn't a conservative/progressive thing.

[coldtea]

>I think analytic departments would disagree with you

Well, according to us continentals, who, if not invented, highly developed the thing for 2500+ years (both philosophy and analytic philosophy, it's west-adopted spinoff), analytic philosophy is not philosophy either.

It's more of a technical than a philosophical field, or, if you wish, it's a specific philosophical application of logic, math, and co. that mistook itself for the essense of philosophy.

>what poetry does is defamiliarize language. It's impact is emotional. It isn't philosophy

That's not some general truth - just an specific school/idea idea about poetry's function.

Aristotle, for example, considered poetry more philosophical than history - because it captures the essential and distills it rather than bundle a development with the non-essential, random, and contingent (as history does).