Thoughts on this Continental Philosophy debunk?

I very recently found a humble paper titled; "Being Sensible And Nothing More: A Treatise Concerning The Epistemic Worth of Continental Philosophy"

Link:(https://library2.smu.ca/bitstream/handle/01/33205/MacQuarrie\_Samuel\_MASTERS\_2026.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y)

Which is in fact very young, march 27 2026. As the title reads, it is an analysis on continental philosophy, specifically Husserl, Heidegger, Derrida, Sartre, and Foucault, and whether they deserve their veneration as great thinkers, or are just wrong and mumblers of trivialities.

The Author first begins by stablishing his epistemology that seems to be empathetic towards logical positivism (by the account of my quick and unfocused reading), while being critical as he believes it leads to solipsism, atleast that of Ayer's. He then moves to make some commentary on Husserl, but he mostly spends most of the 235 (yes) pages on Heidegger, Derrida, Sartre and Foucault.

I have a passive interest in philosophy, for both sides in general, but I have enough knowledge to know that a lot of the attacks against Continental philosophy or postmodernism have been largely ideological, simplistic, and because of a lack of engagement by the "critics". This time tho, seemingly, the author has spent significant time with secondary literature, and attacking phrase by phrase large passages by these authors. Some comments seem proper to me, but given my lack of knowledge, and through a certain intuition, they also seem childish and petty for the sake of writing them, the type that goes like:

"What do you mean knowledge is dependent on power relations? I can know things without doing that!"

If you are curious on only some specific authors, there is a detailed table of content, and the 235 pages seem to me inflated because of the specific format of the paper. I know it's time consuming, but I hope I can agitate some sneering, whatever the direction.

Posted Jun 4, 2026, 12:59 AM UTC

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