Ray Brassier on Sellars (hat tip Leon Niemoczynski)

In the discussion yesterday either of this post or this one, I noted that no less than three sessions at SPEP that I went to last year involved non-trivial discussion of Sellars and McDowell.  I also linked to this cool talk about Sellars by Ray Brassier.  

Ray Brassier - Nominalism, Naturalism, and Materialism from The Matter of Contradiction on Vimeo.

I should have noted that Graham Priest, David Lewis, Bertrand Russell, and Kurt Goedel were discussed in other sessions that I attended.

Though the topic yesterday was Zabala's penchant for making weird essentialist claims about analytic philosophy, one should realize that what he's doing is just the flip side of making weird essentialist claims about continental philosophy. If Zabala's dismissal of analytic philosophy were widely held by continental philosophers, then Brian Leiter's incessant polemic about "SPEP style continental philosophy" would have at least some point other than justifying the selection of rankers for the PGR.*

As an analytic philosopher who went to my first SPEP last year (and who will be going this year), here are my impressions about the differences  between what tends to happen at SPEP and what tends to happen at SEP (the Society for Exact Philosophy, also an excellent conference):

1. Philosophers at SPEP are far more likely to have decent background knowledge in German idealism/19th century, phenomenology, and the soixante-huitards, 
2. Philosophers at SPEP are more likely to be suspicious of various uses of the scheme-content distinction and to take problems related to this distinction to be central to philosophical inquiry (this, of course is connected to (1), as Maimon's worries about the schematism were one third to one half the engine of German idealism), and 
3. The organizers at SPEP are going to make sure that some contemporary European philosophers speak in the regular sessions and as plenary speakers.

As far as I can tell, these three are it. I'd be interested if I'm missing anything, or if these are mistaken in some way. I think they might genetically necessary in the sense that Brandom and Lance often successfully employ. That is, you couldn't have continental philosophy as a practice if you didn't have some critical mass of the above three tendencies. But they do not provide necessary conditions in the sense of Zabala. English language continental philosophy is autonomous enough as an object that one can take part in it merely in virtue of being in deep enough dialogue with English language continental philosophers.**

In any case, I hope that Brassier and Johnston, among other things, help set to rest the idea either that either tradition can be defined or that the kind of geneticly necessary conditions I've gestured at preclude fruitful conversation.

[Notes:

*I am not disputing the possibility for rational, informed people of good will to have strong negative reactions about certain philosophers. Derrida, Quine, and Fodor's writing styles make me physically ill. But I have found that a good rule of thumb is that if you really hate a philosopher's writing it is helpful to try to find expositors of that philosopher whose work doesn't manifest what you hate. So, for example, if Derrida reads to you like an unending series of painfully written false dichotomies, it would be helpful to read, for example, Lee Braver, Martin Hagglund, Richard Rorty, and Samuel Wheeler. Quine and Fodor have analogous figures.

**This is not meant to refer to myself,  just a student of this tradition. And I should say that I think this is quite common at least with respect to interesting objects such as social groups: there are Brandom/Lance style genetically necessary conditions for the object as it is currently constituted, but no necessary conditions in the traditional sense. Consider humor. Sadly, a world without cruelty would probably have no humor. But this does not mean that every or even most successful instances of humor must be cruel.]