Nonfiction | June 01, 1984
Coming to an Understanding of Understanding
Reed Way Dasenbrock
The full text of this essay is not currently available online.
A few years ago philosophy was widely perceived (by non philosophers, of course) as having become an irredeemably irrelevant intellectual enterprise. No longer a discipline with any semblance of unity, philosophy was conceived of quite differently in English speaking countries and on the continent. The existence of this split led to the circulation of rather unflattering pictures of each philosophical traditon: on the one hand, Anglo-American philosophy was caricatured as a minute inquiry into grammatical subtleties that no one without such an analytical training can see the point of; on the other hand, Continental philosophy was caricatured as an ineffable and incomprehensilbe search to say what cannot be said. The analytical traditon produced trivial clarity; the Continental tradition produced profound nonsense.
If you are a student, faculty member, or staff member at an institution whose library subscribes to Project Muse, you can read this piece and the full archives of the Missouri Review for free. Check this list to see if your library is a Project Muse subscriber.
Want to read more?
Subscribe TodaySEE THE ISSUE
SUGGESTED CONTENT
Nonfiction
Jan 08 2024
Breathe!
Breathe! Marina Hatsopoulos When my husband Walter and I arrived in the Intensive Care Unit, our twenty-five-year-old daughter Zoe was lying, eyes closed, under a nest of tangled… read more
Features
Jan 08 2024
The Shinty Ball
The Shinty Ball Adam Boggon The first person I saw in a psychiatric outpatient clinic had a shinty ball in his hand. His GP believed he was paranoid, perhaps psychotic.… read more
Nonfiction
Dec 18 2023
Accident
Accident Gregory Martin It had rained all day, warm for January in Montana. It was dark now, the temperature dropping, the road turning to black ice. I was driving to… read more