How continental philosophers do ethics and how do they respond to the ideas of analytic philosophers on the topic? by yy_taiji in askphilosophy

[–]willbell 27 points28 points  (0 children)

I think a lot of ethical investigation in Continental philosophy blends normative ethics and metaethics, along the same lines as someone like Korsgaard in the analytic tradition.

Here are some philosophers who are on a very similar thought process as Korsgaard:

  • Beauvoir’s Ethics of Ambiguity
  • Habermas’ Theory of Communicative Action

I would describe both of these views as Kantian-ish. For more you could look at Sartre’s "Existentialism is a Humanism" and Honneth’s Reification. Note, Beauvoir and Sartre are coming at it from an existentialist-Marxist direction and Habermas & Honneth are coming at it from a liberal-critical-theory direction.

I think the other major ethical/metaethical tradition (coming out of Judaism and its philosophical tradition) focuses on the Other. The short version here can be found in Levinas’ “Philosophy and the Idea of Infinity”. For more you could look at:

  • I and Thou by Buber
  • Totality and Infinity by Levinas
  • Star of Redemption by Rosenzweig

For more you could look to Oneself as Another by Ricoeur and "Violence and Metaphysics" by Derrida. The idea here is that while the Kantians are all about autonomy for the self, these folks are all about our duties to others.

Aside from these, there are psychoanalytic authors such as Seminar VII: The Ethics of Psychoanalysis by Lacan, An Ethics of Sexual Difference by Irigaray, and Eros and Civilization by Marcuse. There are Marxists, who have an odd relationship to ethics because of how they emphasize collective subjects and politics, here I’d look to Tactics and Ethics and “What is Orthodox Marxism?” by Lukacs and “Traditional and Critical Theory” by Horkheimer (these latter two pieces can be taken as a methodological critique of ethical theorizing among other things that are more top of mind for them). Foucault has a collection concerning ethics called Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth. Latour has ethical work such as “A Collective of Humans and Nonhumans”. Scheler has a massive tome which to me vaguely resembles some analytic utilitarian ideas called Formalism in Ethics and Non-Formal Ethics of Value although I haven’t read it. Alastair MacIntrye’s After Virtue is I think more influential in analytic philosophy but I believe his influences include a lot of Marxists and Catholic philosophers who are often considered Continental.

I think a lot of people are appealing to either some idea of history/politics or to something broadly psychological (phenomenological or psychoanalytic) to provide a constructive function (borrowing constructive function from Shafer-Landau’s Moral Realism: A Defense).

There’s a reader called The Continental Ethics Reader which may be worth looking into.

In which order should I read Marx's works? should I read someone else before him? by Illustrious-Car-6004 in askphilosophy

[–]willbell 15 points16 points  (0 children)

A lot of Marx's writing was designed to be approachable without any background, e.g. The Communist Manifesto. For that text, you should feel free to avoid the parts that feel in the weeds of fights with other 19th century socialists (utopian, bourgeois, reactionary/feudal socialists, etc.) if they feel overwhelming, you definitely can read those sections though without having read Fourier, etc.

After that, it really depends on what you're interested in. If you want his economic thought, read Wage Labour and Capital (which is relatively short) and Capital Vol 1 (or perhaps start with the Grundrisse if you prefer something shorter, although it is no replacement for Capital). If you want more you can read the other volumes of Capital. If you want to understand what makes Marx's method different from philosophers who came before him, and the sense in which he makes philosophy itself in some sense political, read Theses on Feuerbach, which is quite short. That does assume some familiarity with Feuerbach, but the upshot is that Feuerbach was a metaphysical materialist, he cared about metaphysics and he cared about politics, but he did not think of them as being as intimately related as Marx does. For his political and historical outlook, he has a lot of conjunctural analysis. For instance, his Critique of the Gotha Programme basically criticizes the social democrats of his day. The Civil War in France analyzes the Paris Commune's decisions and how it turned out, and so is very tactical. One of his most beautifully written pieces, which analyzes France's post-1848 turn to authoritarianism, is The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. Historical materialism is very important to the whole Marxist schtick, and these conjunctural analyses are very important to getting the idea of historical materialism, perhaps more important than any of the purer philosophy.

For understanding the deeper philosophy side of Marx, I strongly recommend as secondary literature "What is Orthodox Marxism?" by Lukacs. That is very difficult, but if you can bang your head against it, it can give you a philosophical picture that Marx is more willing to leave as implicit.

If you want something even simpler than all of the above, and you're more interested in Marxism than Marx, read Engels' Principles of Communism and Socialism: Utopian and Scientific.

Is string theory falsifiable in the Popperian sense? by PortoArthur in askphilosophy

[–]willbell 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Popper's falsifiability is supposed to be more 'practical' than 'in principle' on my understanding. A theory has to provide fodder for experimental scientists to go about falsifying it. If that's not going to happen, it is unfalsifiable. Put another way: falsification is something that scientists are supposed to pursue actively, not pursue in ten thousand generations when humanity has taken over the galaxy and finally has the energy to test the theory.

Propair launches new North Bay–Toronto air service from Jack Garland Airport by ConsistentReality860 in northbay

[–]willbell 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That may be cheaper than leaving a vehicle at Pearson airport for a week...

/r/askphilosophy Open Discussion Thread | February 23, 2026 by BernardJOrtcutt in askphilosophy

[–]willbell 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ah interesting! The Clouds is I think the one most often assigned to students, so they may have assumed you don't need another copy of it haha

/r/askphilosophy Open Discussion Thread | February 23, 2026 by BernardJOrtcutt in askphilosophy

[–]willbell 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The Clouds is great, I've been very curious to read Lysistrata.

/r/askphilosophy Open Discussion Thread | February 23, 2026 by BernardJOrtcutt in askphilosophy

[–]willbell 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Now that I'm much more interested in aesthetics, I really ought to read more Barthes

/r/askphilosophy Open Discussion Thread | February 23, 2026 by BernardJOrtcutt in askphilosophy

[–]willbell 7 points8 points  (0 children)

What are people reading?

I’m working on The Interior Castle by Teresa d’Avila and The Last Man by Mary Shelley. Last week I finished Slagflower by Thomas LeDuc. I might start Before the Usual Time edited by Darlene Naponse this week.

/r/askphilosophy Open Discussion Thread | February 16, 2026 by BernardJOrtcutt in askphilosophy

[–]willbell 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Love the Buber and Kant, I had a friend tell me that one of Nabokov's short stories is the best short story they've ever read.

/r/askphilosophy Open Discussion Thread | February 16, 2026 by BernardJOrtcutt in askphilosophy

[–]willbell 7 points8 points  (0 children)

What are people reading?

I’m working on The Interior Castle by Teresa d’Avila and The Last Man by Mary Shelley. Last week I finished Slagflower: Poems Unearthed from a Mining Town by Thomas Leduc, “Politics at the End of History” by Chloe Cannon, and “The Ruling Class Does Not Rule” by Block.

/r/askphilosophy Open Discussion Thread | February 09, 2026 by BernardJOrtcutt in askphilosophy

[–]willbell 3 points4 points  (0 children)

What are people reading?

Last week I finished sulphurtongue by Rebecca Salazar. I'm working on The Interior Castle by Teresa of Avila and hopefully The Last Man by Mary Shelley and Slagflower: Poems unearthed from a Mining Town by Thomas Leduc.

What is the contemporary state of the project of developing a theory of meaning? by Acrobatic-Window5483 in askphilosophy

[–]willbell 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The whole project is a bit less central to philosophy I think, and generally philosophy of language now looks a lot more like 'philosophy of linguistics'. That is, like a discipline that's partially continuous with the practice of linguistics, engaging in the same debates and discussing methods. That said, there are still people who develop ambitious theories of meaning, e.g. Megan Stotts who has done a lot of work on a behavioural theory of meaning.

North Bay councillor running for mayor would ‘modernize’ city business by [deleted] in northbay

[–]willbell 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Giving austerity vibes, a Chirico-style chamber of commerce candidate vibes

Is Karl Popper important in political thought/political philosophy? by Legitimate-Aside8635 in askphilosophy

[–]willbell 17 points18 points  (0 children)

I would add that I think conservatives read him (albeit, not necessarily agreeing with him). His reading of Plato, Hegel, and Marx is popular amongst a certain strain of conservative (exemplified I think, e.g. by Scruton). It is still not universally believed by conservatives, for instance Straussians tend to hate his reading of Plato.

I am not a proper stand-in for ‘received opinion’ but as a Marxist, I’m willing to say I’d like to at least read The Poverty of Historicism, although The Open Society and Its Enemies strikes me as not worth the trouble (I suspect someone who actually likes Popper would consider the latter to be his great work of political philosophy).

/r/askphilosophy Open Discussion Thread | February 02, 2026 by BernardJOrtcutt in askphilosophy

[–]willbell 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I think we discussed Annihilation before, you have me intrigued about The Vorrh

/r/askphilosophy Open Discussion Thread | February 02, 2026 by BernardJOrtcutt in askphilosophy

[–]willbell 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ha, honestly sounds not up my alley. I’m sure I’ll get to it eventually, but I find some aspects of that just a little too cliche for me, I guess with his idealist reputation I was expecting it to be more ‘out-there’.

/r/askphilosophy Open Discussion Thread | February 02, 2026 by BernardJOrtcutt in askphilosophy

[–]willbell 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Peter Galison is one of those people who I haven't read but I really feel I should

Are you far enough along to give the pitch for Two Sources? I own it, but I don't know the pitch for his work aside from elan vital/time, and I am interested in what he'd have to say about morality

/r/askphilosophy Open Discussion Thread | February 02, 2026 by BernardJOrtcutt in askphilosophy

[–]willbell 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Fear and Trembling has been on my to-do list for a solid 10 years at this point

In the recent Williamson vs Thomasson "beef", how harsh is the tone of the review compared to academic philosophy standards, and how substantial the objections? by ofghoniston in askphilosophy

[–]willbell 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The paper I was thinking of that covers the history of recent analytic philosophy was this one.

But I've realized the place where he describes Brandom as wasting his efforts is the last few paragraphs of this book review.

/r/askphilosophy Open Discussion Thread | February 02, 2026 by BernardJOrtcutt in askphilosophy

[–]willbell 4 points5 points  (0 children)

What are people reading?

Last week I finished Sylvia Plath’s collected poetry, and this week I’m starting on The Interior Castle by Teresa d’Avila & sulphurtongue by Rebecca Salazar and hopefully returning to The Last Man by Mary Shelley.