ABSTRACT
Since the second half of the twentieth century, Anglo-American philosophers have drawn a distinction between analytic and Continental philosophy. The distinction does not delineate two unified and methodologically distinct branches of philosophy; instead, one branch is defined in terms of methodology, the other in terms of place (Williams 2002). Classification by location is, of course, problematic in that some Continental philosophers hail from the United States or Britain, and some analytic philosophers from Europe. Unfortunately, the distinction often results in the impression that Continental philosophers are methodologically unified, whereas they are far from it; there is no unified Continental philosophical tradition (Critchley 1997, 2001).
