Arendt and Bogus Science

In reading The Life of the Mind one finds a tremendous anxiety concerning the death of traditional metaphysics. Arendt was a student and lover of Martin Heidegger and his influence is clear in the pages of Arendt's work. In particular Arendt takes up a phenomenological position on the notion of appearance and attempts to reverse the prominence of the ideal and inner over the empirical and outer by citing the work of Swiss biologist Adolf Portmann. Portmann is now a favorite of religious fanatics who are opposed to Darwin's theory of evolution. Arendt follows Portmann in suggesting it is the exterior which appears (intentionally) to us is what differentiates us, but a simple reading of Darwin would show that difference permeates both the invisible and visible. The root of the problem is the deadly simplicity of Heidegger’s notion of concealment.

I bring this up only to point at a serious problem concerning the opposition between the 'analytic' and 'continental' philosophers. Oftentimes I am told that certain individuals only work on 'analytic' philosophy (insert shit eating grimace) or I hear "I only deal with continental philosophy”. The opposition isn’t without grounds. My feeling is that there is still antagonism over the logical positivists all out war on metaphysics which still continues because continental philosophers representing metaphysics show, much like Arendt, an unforgivable and xenophobic ignorance of modern science. Similarly, many ‘analytics’ are woefully condescending about traditional philosophical questions which they appear to have never thought very seriously about. Again commonplace divisions won’t do.

Take a look at this quote from Albert Einstein: “Concepts which have proved useful for ordering things easily assume so great an authority over us, that we forget their terrestrial origin and accept them as unalterable facts. Then they become labeled as ‘conceptual necessities,’ ‘a priori situations,’ etc. The road of scientific progress is frequently blocked for long periods by such errors.”