The Naturalism Debate and the Development of European Philosophy

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The division between scientifically-- minded Anglo-American analytic philosophy and more literature-oriented Continental philosophy dominated twentieth century thought. These movements have a common origin, however. In order to trace them to their sources, we need not even go back to the Kantian idea of transcendental philosophy that unites them;1 we may simply travel to the early decades of the twentieth century to get a glimpse of the disagreement between Rudolf Carnap and Martin Heidegger concerning the proper philosophical method and the problems such a method may address. Such an historical approach is sketched by Michael Friedman in his recent book, A Parting of the Ways.2 …