In addition to being not much of a fan of social science that tries to hard to mimic the mathematical exactitude of the physical sciences, I am not much of a fan of the mode of analytic philosophy that dominates the Anglo-American scene. Give me that old-fashioned Continental metaphysics, please! (Even if it is badly messed up by abstruse French theorists.)

It is not unusual today to see analytic philosophers extending themselves to employing mathematical notation to make their propositions appear more “scientific.” And when not going that far, there is often an obsession with dense linguistics. Which means no regular human being can read it, or derive much edification from it.

William Barrett put his finger on the matter in his terrific 1958 book on existentialism (now there’s a term that’s fallen into almost total disuse), Irrational Man:

Modern science was made possible by the social organization of knowledge. The philosopher today is therefore pressed, and simply by reason of his objective role in the community, into an imitation of the scientist: he too seeks to perfect the weapons of his knowledge through specialization. Hence the extraordinary preoccupation with technique among modern philosophers, with logical and linguistic analysis, syntax and semantics; and in general with the refining away of all content for the sake of formal subtlety. The movement known as Logical Positivism, in this country (the atmosphere of humanism is probably more dominant in the European universities than here in the United States), actually trafficked upon the guilt philosophers felt at not being scientists; that is, at not being researchers producing reliable knowledge in the mode of science. The natural insecurity of philosophers, which in any case lies at the core of their whole uncertain enterprise, was here aggravated beyond measure by the insistence that they transform themselves into scientists.

This mode of philosophy strikes me as highly anti-philosophic. Your mileage may vary.

NB: Leo Strauss, in a lecture on Nietzsche in 1959, said that Barrett’s Irrational Man was “the best English introduction to the subject [of existentialism].”