Festschrift in Honor of Barry Smith on the occasion of his 65th Birthday. Published as issue 4:4 of the journal Cosmos + Taxis: Studies in Emergent Order and Organization. Includes contributions by Wolfgang Grassl, Nicola Guarino, John T. Kearns, Rudolf Lüthe, Luc Schneider, Peter Simons, Wojciech Żełaniec, and Jan Woleński.

Why have Polish philosophers fared so badly as concerns their admission into the pantheon of Continental Philosophers? Why, for example, should Heidegger and Derrida be included in this pantheon, but not Ingarden or Tarski? Why, to put the question from another side, should there be so close an association in Poland between philosophy and logic, and between philosophy and science? We distinguish a series of answers to this question, which are dealt with under the following headings: (a) the role of (...) socialism; (b) the disciplinary association between philosophy and mathematics; (c) the influence of Austrian philosophy in general and of Brentanian philosophy in particular; (d) the serendipitous role of Twardowski; (e) the role of Catholicism. The conclusion of the paper is that there is no such thing as 'Polish philosophy' because philosophy in Poland is philosophy per se; it is part and parcel of the mainstream of world philosophy simply because, in contrast to French or German philosophy, it meets international standards of training, rigour, professionalism and specialization. (shrink)

The term ‘Continental philosophy’ designates not philosophy on the continent of Europe as a whole, but rather a selective slice of Franco-German philosophy. Through a critical analysis of the arguments advanced by Otto Neurath, the paper addresses the issue of why Austrian philosophers in particular are not counted in the pantheon of Continental philosophers. Austrian philosophy is marked by the predominance of philosophical analysis and of the philosophy of science. The paper concludes that it is not Austria which is the (...) special case when seen against the background of contemporary mainstream philosophy, but rather Germany and France. (shrink)