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The distinction between continental and analytic philosophy is relatively recent, probably dating from the early twentieth century. In terms of a break in the philosophical tradition, however, its roots can be traced back to Immanuel KantImmanuel Kant ( April 22, 1724 February 12, 1804) was a Prussian philosopher, generally regarded as the last major philosopher of the Enlightenment, having a major impact on the Romantic and Idealist philosophies of the 19th century, and as one of history – analytic philosophy is generally not interested in the German philosophers of the nineteenth century who followed Kant, such as Hegel, Schopenhauer, MarxKarl Heinrich Marx ( May 5, 1818 March 14, 1883) was an influential German economist, philosopher, social and political theorist. Although Marx addressed many issues in his career as a journalist and philosopher, he is most famous for his analysis of hist, and Nietzsche. What came to be called "continental philosophy" is largely descended from the tradition of these thinkers, as well as earlier thinkers like Kant who are also important to analytic philosophy.
In the early-to-mid twentieth century, GermanyThe Federal Republic of Germany ( German: Bundesrepublik Deutschland is one of the world's leading industrialized countries, located in the middle of the European Union. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark and the Baltic Sea, to the east continued to have the most vital philosophical scene in Europe, until the rise of Hitler. This had the initial effect that many of Germany's most eminent philosophers, who were largely Jewish or left-wing, had to flee abroad, particularly to America, as in the case with the members of the Frankfurt School. The remaining philosophers, particularly Martin Heidegger, the most eminent German philosopher of the time, remained due to their affiliation with Nazism. After the fall of Nazism, they often found themselves banned from teaching, and their philosophies fell out of favour.
After World War II there was an explosion of interest in German philosophy in neighbouring France. On the one hand, the role of the French Communist Party in liberating France meant that it became for a brief period the largest political movement in the country. The attendant interest in communism translated into an interest in Marx and Hegel, who were both now studied extensively for the first time in the conservative French university system. On the other hand, there was a major trend towards the ideas of the phenomenologist Edmund Husserl, and toward his former disciple Martin Heidegger. Most important in this popularisation of phenomenology was the author and philosophy teacher Jean-Paul Sartre (by then a noted intellectual), who called his philosophy existentialism.