Philosophy Now Forum

Mike Fuller attempts to build some bridges.

https://philosophynow.org/issues/7/The_Continental_Rift

I thought that the "floating signifier " (originated by Claude-Levi-Strauss) image is what might harmonise believing Christians on the forums here, and so-called 'atheists' on these forums. Also the work of Gadamer.

Nor is it true that no serious work has been done concerning the possibility of dialogue between ‘incommensurable frameworks’. Within the Analytic tradition, Paul Feyerabend, Alasdair MacIntyre, and Donald Davidson have all tried to address this issue. Within the Continental tradition, the original Structuralist notion of a ‘floating signifier’ and Gadamer’s work on the ‘merging of horizons’ both go some way towards the problem. The whole of Richard Rorty’s work is also concerned with such a project of resolution.

The 'floating signifier' in particular might be the image of an actual banner , or it might be the life of Jesus, or perhaps the spirit of enquiry. I myself have a lot of sympathy with Rorty's project of resolution, and American pragmatism cannot be wrong whatever else might be tempting us from other philosophers. After all, what is the point of philosophy if it is not to be applied to life?

Spinoza's dual aspect idea of mind - body , resolves the mind-body 'problem', and science endorses that it does so. I think that many ideas have dual aspects, and it seems obvious that analytic styles and continental styles don't mutually exclude each other. Perhaps Hume, had he studied modern physics and the vagaries of electrons, would not consign metaphysics to the flames.