Collective term for the many distinct philospohical traditions, methods, and styles that predominated on the European continent (particularly in France and Germany) from the time of Immanuel Kant .
It is usually understood in contrast with analytic philosophy , also called Anglo-American philosophy. In the 20th century it encompassed schools such as phenomenology , existentialism , structuralism, and deconstruction and thinkers such as Martin Heidegger , Jean-Paul Sartre , Maurice Merleau-Ponty , Michel Foucault , and Jacques Derrida . See also structuralism ; poststructuralism .