Continental philosophy

Continental philosophy is a group of philosophies prominent in 20th-century continental Europe that derive from a broadly Kantian tradition.

Continental philosophy includes German idealism, phenomenology, existentialism (and its antecedents, such as the thought of Kierkegaard and Nietzsche), hermeneutics, structuralism, post-structuralism, deconstruction, French feminism, psychoanalytic theory, and the critical theory of the Frankfurt School as well as some Freudian, Hegelian, and Western Marxist views. Continental philosophy is often contrasted with analytic philosophy.

There is no academic consensus on the definition of continental philosophy. Prior to the twentieth century, the term "continental" was used broadly to refer to philosophy from continental Europe. A different use of the term originated among English-speaking philosophers in the second half of the 20th century, who used it to refer to a range of thinkers and traditions outside the analytic movement. The term continental philosophy may mark merely a family resemblance across disparate philosophical views; a similar argument has been made for analytic philosophy.