On the History of the Divide between Analytic and Continental Philosophies: The Case of Epistemology in France

The article analyzes the conflict between the “analytic” and “continental” approaches in philosophy on the example of the development of historical epistemology, which can be considered as “French style” in the philosophy of science. The French tradition is especially interesting due to the specificity of the reception of analytic philosophy that took place in it, where analytic philosophy did not receive an institutional form. The phrase “analytic philosophy” was problematized in the French academy in the 1950s and indicates the existence of a number of differences between the two types of philosophizing, as well as the absence of any stable connection between the French and Anglo-Saxon philosophical communities. One of the main reasons of this divide is that the philosophers interested in logical positivism and seeking to acquaint the French philosophical public with its ideas have suddenly passed away. The author’s argumentation is based on the material of historical epistemology in France, which was traditionally associated with the philosophy of science much more than epistemology in other countries. The article considers two approaches to defining the difference between analytic and continental philosophy: theoretical approach (distinctions between these traditions that are based on the subject of research, methodological techniques, key ideas, style) and institutional (based on geographical division – a particular philosopher belongs to a country or an academy – or based on the choice of his predecessors by the philosopher himself). The author demonstrates the inconsistency of the theoretical approach to the definition of analytic and continental philosophical traditions.

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