The contemporary European tradition in Australian philosophy

Maurita Harney

pp. 125-151

in: Jan Srzednicki, David Wood (eds), Essays on philosophy in Australia, Berlin, Springer, 1992

Abstract

Titles like "Contemporary European Philosophy" or "Continental Philosophy" (I use the two interchangeably) can suggest that the tradition they designate is a coherent, unified, neatly circumscribed body of thought. In fact it is not. I take such titles to refer to a cluster of shared sympathies about what philosophy is or should be — about the kinds of approach, perspectives and questions that can properly and fruitfully lay claim to being "philosophical", and about the kinds of themes and issues that should provide a significant focus for philosophers. The "isms" it encompasses exemplify these various approaches and concerns. These include phenomenology, existentialism, hermeneutics (both the German and the French varieties) structuralism and post-structuralism. To these we might add Hegel studies, critical theory, Althusserian marxism, psychoanalytic theory, semiotics, deconstruction and post-modernism. Many of these are distinct domains which have their own traditions.

Cited authors

Hegel Georg Wilhelm Friedrich