Continental Philosophy Is Indeed Rigorous!

Unless one reads widely, the analytic and Continental divide gives license for both sides to ignore the other. In doing so, judgments about the rigor and clarity of analytic philosophy pervade without challenge since analytic philosophical training is the most common form of philosophy in the English‐speaking world. This paper is addressed to the analytic philosophical community. To meet that challenge, it has formulated what is rigorous about the various methods of Continental philosophy and problematizes the analytic biases about rigor often held against Continental philosophy. It argues that the various methods of Continental philosophy provide an academic rigor that exceeds and is better than analytic philosophy. These are: phenomenological rigor, existential rigor, hermeneutic rigor, and genealogical or deconstructionist rigor. In following these methods, it can be argued that Continental philosophy is indeed rigorous!