Re: what is analytic?

[Robert Charleston <rc3673@student.open.ac.uk>]

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Hi Ralph,

Don't worry - if we had a preference you would have been told!

The phrase was meant to indicate that:

i) we were not limiting the topics of papers to exclude continental 
philosophy (in fact we have a couple of papers on Derrida already 
submitted, and these will be considered with the others)

ii) but we do want the papers to be argued using 'normal' (for want of a 
better word) analytic methods of premises, conditions, conclusion etc 
rather than some of the more esoteric methods of critical theory, for 
example.

BUPS has no agenda to push on this. If we did it would be listed as one of 
our aims. The (hopefully quite light) limits represented in ii) above were 
set for pragmatic reasons -

1. the assessors for the papers have to be university staff, and the 
people we could beg/borrow/bully into being our assessors in the short 
amount of time we had this year all happened to be analytic by training. 
Several have interests in the continental side of things, though, and one 
of the invited respondents at the conference is a continental philosopher 
through and through.

2. Most UK philosophy undergrads (by a wide margin - we checked with most 
of the 53 philosophy departments in the UK) are trained in analytic 
techniques. At a mixed conference, continental topics therefore need to be 
presented in a way that can be understood by the majority of undergrads 
only trained in the analytic tradition. Just to pluck an example out of 
the air, if you are utilising one of the several theoretical stances that 
put aside bivalence, this will need to be explicitly explained as most 
undergrads have been taught that this is something they can take for 
granted. We would like to put on continental events that do not have to 
conform to this pragmatic limit, and need people with the requisite skills 
to get in touch.

We are here to put philosophy undergrads of all creeds in touch with one 
another. If you are a specifically contintental philosopher and would like 
to get involved with the BUPS committee, or can spread the word, or even 
have suggestions for continental-themed philosophy events you'd like to 
see organised, please email me privately.

I hope that helps,

Rab.
---
Chair, BUPS


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