A Sort Of Abyss
George Bataille on that Continental/Analytic split.
It so happened that I met A.J. Ayer last night, and our reciprocal interest kept us talking until about three in the morning. Merleau-Ponty and Ambrosino also took part. . . We finally fell to discussing the following very strange question. Ayer had uttered the very simple proposition: there was a sun before men existed. And he saw no reason to doubt it. Merleau-Ponty, Ambrosino, and I disagreed with this proposition, and Ambrosino said that the sun had certainly not existed before the world. I, for my part, do not see how one can say so. This proposition is such as to indicate the total meaninglessness that can be taken on by a rational statement. . . I should say that yesterday’s conversation produced an effect of shock. There exists between French and English philosophers a sort of abyss which we do not find between French and German philosophers.
Georges Bataille, “Un-knowing and Its Consequences,” October 36 (1986): 80.
More Correlationism anyone?
You can totally see why Bataille would think this. Having come to Foucault and the continental via (and because of) Wittgenstein and the analytic, I very often think that the divide is one of quote marks: it is tempting to say that Ayer here was talking about the sun, whilst Bataille et al were talking about “the sun”.
The result of this is that analytic philosophers want to be very smug: the continentals don’t get basic philosophical distinctions, modern logic is to Aristotelian logic what modern chemistry is to alchemy, etc.
Whereas continentals get very cynical: you analytics think you can solve a really complex problem with punctuation, whereas there are a whole range of political, economic and philosophical implications put into place when you go from reality to concept.
In the twentieth century, much of this was (and still is) played out in the arena of the history of science. Which is why Foucault’s work is pivotal.