One of the youngest philosophy professors in Germany, Markus Gabriel teaches in 16 languages, dreads metaphysics and thinks that the philosophy of mind needs to tighten up, and understand the problem with focusing on the English-specific term 'mind'  (in German, 'geist' has no connection to the brain). Author of ‘I Am Not A Brain’ and ‘Why The World Does Not Exist’, in the interview below, Gabriel discusses the link between Brexit, breakfast and the analytic/continental split, and how the language we speak shapes and limits our answer to what he considers philosophy's key question – what it means to be human. 

You mentioned in an interview that you find the distinction between analytic and continental philosophy ridiculous. Could you elaborate on that? 

Being from the so-called continent I was never able to understand what continental philosophy is. It always looked to me, when travelling to the US or the UK, like continental breakfast – something that you shouldn’t try, or a weird confusion of all sorts of things. It didn’t look like it was in good shape. 

The very classification is of course problematic – it includes the kind of philosophy practised in Germany and France, maybe including parts of Italy. And then some of this philosophy got translated into English and this now counts as continental philosophy. 

Analytic philosophy prides itself on being scientific.You’d hear things like, continentals give you names, we give you arguments. But if you look at so-called continental philosophers, say Hegel or Spinoza, or Deleuze, they only give you arguments. So the distinction cannot be between those who love arguments and those who do something else, like writing poetry or making up stories. You’ll never be able to classify people according to these categories.  

So given that it’s not a helpful distinction, why stick to it? On the other hand, who ever said what analytic philosophy is? If anyone should be considered an analytic philosopher, that’s Timothy Williamson and he, in The Philosophy of Philosophy, rejects the label saying there’s no specific meaning to the term.  

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"‘Continental philosophy’ is in as good conceptual shape as the word ‘European Union’ when used by Boris Johnson."

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Would you say that analytic philosophy is an identity that North Atlantic philosophy academics have taken to distinguish themselves from what other Western philosophers do?