Philosopher Tim Crane on “analytic” philosophy:

If analytic philosophers were to reflect in a more disinterested, less defensive way about their tradition, it could help them understand why philosophers of other traditions find it so obscure, and why those outside philosophy can find it so pointless. The truth is that the point of philosophical questions can only be understood once you know which texts philosophers are reading, which texts those authors were responding to, which texts their teachers thought were most significant, and how these teachers told them to read the texts. And of course you must also understand something of the intellectual, institutional, scientific, religious, and social context behind these questions. If they were to do this, analytic philosophers should come to realize two things: that analytic philosophy has no special right to its menu of problems as constituting what is really philosophy; but also that this does not mean that its questions are not real, nor that they do not matter.

To convey to those on the outside why these questions matter, though, is no easy task. Analytic philosophers would need to develop both a historical sense and a better way of talking to those whom they see as “non-professionals.” And the non-professionals would also need to make a serious attempt to understand the historical story of why philosophy is where it is today. Many are not prepared to make this effort, so we never reach real communication. But part of the responsibility for this must lie with analytic philosophers, who have not done a good job of explaining to their critics the importance or interest of the particular problems that preoccupy them. It would be a first step in improving this situation if they could first explain these things to themselves.

(As an aside, I’ll note that I agree with Crane that self-identified “Continental” philosophers read figures like Nietzsche differently than so-called “analytic” philosophers, but it is not the case that both readings are equally good: but to know that, you’d have to be a scholar of Nietzsche!)