continental philosophy

[kon-tn-en-tl fi-los-uh-fee]

noun

1. a general term for related philosophical traditions that originated in 20th-century continental Europe, including critical theory, deconstruction, existentialism, hermeneutics, phenomenology, and structuralism (analytic philosophy ).

Example Sentences

At the University of Essex, in Britain, Bakewell started studying literature, then drifted to philosophy, spurred by the school’s unusual mandatory curriculum for all first-year students, which was grounded in Continental philosophy, rather than the analytic, language-focused variety dominant in most Anglo-American universities.

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It was a culturally and politically vibrant place; he met the American singer, actor and left-wing activist Paul Robeson, who was there on tour, and he began his first encounters with Marxism and continental philosophy.

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Louis has a way of making all conversation feel like a late-night cram session for a final exam on 20th-century Continental philosophy; a heady excitement lurks in everything he says, often culminating in a considered appraisal of how a certain theory explains a particular emotion or behavior.

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Scholarly readers — or those with access to the Wikipedia page for Continental philosophy — will find that in-jokes abound.

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Kristeva had moved thirty years before to Paris, where she became internationally celebrated as a literary theorist and psychoanalyst, shaping Continental philosophy alongside Derrida, Lacan, and Foucault.

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