Continental Philosophy: An Introduction

Citation

West, D. (2010). Continental Philosophy: An Introduction (2nd ed.). Polity Press.

Chapter Summary

The second edition is a fully updated and expanded version of West's An Introduction to Continental Philosophy (1996). It has prefaces to both editions, eight chapters, notes, a bibliography and an index, and runs to roughly 350–375 pages depending on the catalogue. The publisher describes it as an account of continental philosophy since the Enlightenment that places each thinker within one overall narrative. William R. Schroeder, in a comment quoted by the publisher, describes West's reading of the tradition as a reaction to Enlightenment rationalism and a potential foundation for emancipatory politics.

Chapter 1: Introduction: What is Continental Philosophy?

The opening chapter asks what the label means. The publisher's contents give it no subsections; it comes before the historical chapters.

Chapter 2: Modernity, Enlightenment and their Continental Critics

Four sections: "From Modernity to Enlightenment", "The Critical Philosophy of Immanuel Kant", "Continental Critics of Enlightenment" and "The Hegelian Synthesis". This chapter supplies the starting point for the rest, and Kant and Hegel each have a named section.

Chapter 3: Dialectics of Emancipation: Marx, the Frankfurt School and Habermas

"Feuerbach, Marx and Marxism", "The Critical Theory of the Frankfurt School" and "Habermas and the Renewal of Critical Theory". The chapter follows a line of emancipatory thought from Feuerbach and Marx to Habermas.

Chapter 4: Historicism, Hermeneutics and Phenomenology

Dilthey's philosophy of life and hermeneutics, Husserl and phenomenology, Heidegger's phenomenology of being, Gadamer and the universality of hermeneutics, and Hannah Arendt's phenomenology of political action.

Chapter 5: Beyond Theory: Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Existentialism

Three sections, on Søren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Jean-Paul Sartre and French existentialism. The publisher's description adds de Beauvoir to the thinkers discussed at length.

Chapter 6: Beyond the Subject: Structuralism and Poststructuralism

"Decentring the Subject", "The Break with Humanism", "Foucault's Genealogy of the Subject" and "Derrida's Deconstruction of Western Metaphysics".

Chapter 7: Postmodernism

"Varieties of Postmodernism", the philosophical critique of Enlightenment and modernity together with postmodernity as a stage of Western society, and "Politics of Difference and Ethics of the Other". Lyotard is named in the publisher's description among the thinkers discussed at length.

Chapter 8: Radical Departures

The chapter added in this edition: "After the End of History", "The Return of the Political" (Agamben, Nancy, Lacoue-Labarthe), Žižek on the fractious subject of ideology, and "In the Event of Alain Badiou". It carries the story into the twenty-first century.

Key Concepts

Chapters 1–3: Modernity, Enlightenment and critical theory

• Modernity and Enlightenment: the starting frame, with sections on Kant's critical philosophy, the continental critics of Enlightenment and the Hegelian synthesis.
• Critical theory: the line from Marx through the Frankfurt School to Habermas's renewal of it.

Chapters 4–5: Interpretation, phenomenology and existence

• Hermeneutics: interpretation as a philosophical method, from Dilthey to Gadamer.
• Phenomenology: Husserl's project and Heidegger's phenomenology of being.
• Existentialism: the line from Kierkegaard and Nietzsche to Sartre.

Chapters 6–8: Structure, difference and the contemporary

• Decentring the subject: the questioning of the subject in structuralism and poststructuralism, covered in the sections "Decentring the Subject" and "The Break with Humanism".
• Politics of difference and ethics of the other: themes the chapter on postmodernism names in its section titles.
• The return of the political: the heading under which Agamben, Nancy and Lacoue-Labarthe are discussed in Chapter 8.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• A single narrative. The publisher's description stresses that the book places each thinker within one account of continental philosophy since the Enlightenment, and the chapter order (Kant and Hegel, Marx, hermeneutics and phenomenology, existentialism, structuralism, postmodernism) follows it. Students get a map before they meet the primary texts.
• Wide cast with named sections. The contents give each major thinker a named section: Kant, Marx, Dilthey, Husserl, Heidegger, Gadamer, Arendt, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Sartre, Foucault and Derrida among them. The reader can see which part of the book to consult.
• Readability. The Sociological Review praises West's ability as a storyteller and calls the book an exemplary introduction, the International Philosophical Quarterly finds it a lucid guide to dense literature, and Teaching Philosophy calls it well written and thoroughly researched (reviews quoted on the publisher's page).
• Coverage up to the present. The new final chapter takes the survey to recent work, with sections on Agamben, Nancy and Lacoue-Labarthe, Žižek and Badiou.

Limitations

• A survey, not a close reading. Most thinkers receive a section, not a chapter, in a book of fewer than 400 pages. It frames primary texts rather than replacing them.
• A guiding thesis. Schroeder describes West's reading as treating the tradition as a reaction to Enlightenment rationalism and as a basis for emancipatory politics, and notes a critique of recent figures in the last chapter. A reader who wants a neutral catalogue should treat the book as one interpretation.
• No chapter on the analytic divide. The contents list nothing on the split between continental and analytic philosophy; Simon Critchley's book in this course is built around that question.
• Catalogue details differ. Wiley gives 376 pages and January 2011 for the paperback, the Library of Congress record gives 354 pages and 2010, so check the copy in hand before assigning page numbers.

Where It Fits in the Course

West is the historical survey in this course. Simon Critchley's Continental Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction is much shorter and argues for a view of what continental philosophy is and why it was set against analytic philosophy, so it works as a first read or a companion that West's longer narrative then fills in. Sarah Bakewell's At the Existentialist Café is a narrative history of phenomenology and existentialism that combines biography with explanation, and it covers part of the ground of West's Chapters 4 and 5 in a more personal register.

The primary texts in the course are what West's chapters prepare for: Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil (Chapter 5), Heidegger's Being and Time (Chapter 4) and Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit (compare the Hegel section of Chapter 2). Read West's chapter first to place the thinker, then the primary text, then West again to see how his account fits what you found.

How to Use This Book

The publisher presents the book as an introductory text for courses in continental philosophy and for courses in the humanities and social sciences that deal with major figures within the tradition. No previous study of continental philosophy is assumed; a general course in philosophy or the history of ideas helps.

A practical plan:

• Core: Chapters 1 and 2 for orientation, then the chapter that matches the thinker or movement you are reading.
• For a philosophy course: read Chapters 2, 4 and 5 before Hegel, Heidegger or Nietzsche, and Chapter 6 before Foucault or Derrida.
• For social science students: Chapters 3, 6 and 7, and the last chapter on political thinkers.
• Optional: Chapter 8, the newest chapter, and the notes and bibliography for further reading.

Use each section as a briefing before a primary text and return to it afterwards. Keep a running note of how each thinker answers or criticises the Enlightenment, since the book's narrative is built on that relation. When the interpretations in a chapter strike you as contestable, check them against the primary text and against a second introduction.