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Titles like "Contemporary European Philosophy" or "Continental Philosophy" (I use the two interchangeably) can suggest that the tradition they designate is a coherent, unified, neatly circumscribed body of thought. In fact it is not. I take such titles to refer to a cluster of shared sympathies about what philosophy is or should be — about the kinds of approach, perspectives and questions that can properly and fruitfully lay claim to being "philosophical", and about the kinds of themes and issues that should provide a significant focus for philosophers. The "isms" it encompasses exemplify these various approaches and concerns. These include phenomenology, existentialism, hermeneutics (both the German and the French varieties) structuralism and post-structuralism. To these we might add Hegel studies, critical theory, Althusserian marxism, psychoanalytic theory, semiotics, deconstruction and post-modernism. Many of these are distinct domains which have their own traditions.

DOI: 10.1007/978-94-015-8006-9_7

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