Main currents of contemporary philosophy

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Contemporary philosophy is that understood from late 19th century to the present day, and it can be said that it begins with Augusto Comte (1798-1857), father of philosophical positivism. Other outstanding currents at this stage would be Marxism, vitalism, phenomenology or existentialism. In this lesson from a TEACHER, we will talk about main currents of contemporary philosophy.

Index

1. Positivism, one of the currents of contemporary philosophy
2. Marxism, another philosophical current
3. Vitalism in contemporary philosophy
4. Phenomenology
5. Existentialism, another of the currents of contemporary philosophy

Positivism is a philosophical current founded by Augusto Comte in the nineteenth century, and defender of the idea that the only source of knowledge is experience, rejecting any idea that is not susceptible of demonstration.

to. Francis Comte's French Positivism

Comte's philosophy is conditioned by 3 historical events, namely: the French Revolution, the birth of French utopian socialism and the heyday of science. All this will mark a philosophy characterized by social commitment and totally scientific thinking. The purpose of Comte's philosophy is to

b. Moral positivism. Utilitarianism of Benthan and Stuart Mill

EE These thinkers seek the scientific bases of morality, capable of a social transformation that would allow a Happy life. And they will find this foundation of morality in pleasure and pain, which constitute the only reality. Therefore, the good and the bad will depend on Utility, that is, what leads to pleasure of the greatest number of people.

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Karl Marx, influenced by utopian socialism, English economists, and German classicism, he builds his own theory, of a humanist nature, starting from an inversion of the Hegelian dialectic: materialism historical. But in reality, it is not correct to speak of Marxism in the strict sense, but rather of margins, since at present it is divided into two aspects: soviet marxism of Lenin, which after his death, splits, giving rise to 3 very different attitudes: Bukkarin's right, Trotsky's left and Stalin's center. On the other hand is the more moderate, and possibly utopian Marxism, that of Berstein, Roxa Luxemburg or Hegelian Western Marxism.

Marx proposes a revolution that achieves the transformation of the state, the elimination of classes and private property, to culminate it, with the suppression of the state, which although failed, it supposes the conquest of some of the social rights that, today, we have almost lost: shorter working hours, insurance, retirement, the right to health or to education…

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We continue with this lesson on the main currents of contemporary philosophy to talk now about vitalism. The highest representative of this current of the contemporary philosophy it isNietzsche, and all his philosophy focuses, on the one hand, on the critique of Western culture and on the other, on the attempt to overcome that culture, which he considers decadent, based on metaphysics, religion and morality, which have inverted the values ​​of life, to transform them into the product of resentment against the same.

Four are the axes of Nietzschean philosophy:

• The death of GodIt also supposes the end of Western metaphysics, the elimination of the intelligible world and of all worlds, because this is the only world that exists. Thus, there is no longer any foundation of morality, than the free and creative will.
• The Superman, constitutes the overcoming of the last man, who is the one who has not assumed the death of God, nor the loss meaning, that is, that which represents the negative and characteristic nihilism of civilization western. But in its positive aspect, nihilism, is what makes the birth of the superman possible, that man capable of accepting the death of God, and therefore of traditional values, and transmuting them. Because only by destroying it can be built.
• The will to powerIt is the very essence of life, a vital force expression of the dynamism of life, of becoming, it is creation and the affirmation of the eternal return of the same.
• The eternal return, supposes the end of all finality, of all transcendence, and implies a harsh criticism against the conception of linear time of the Western tradition, since, for this author, the only thing that exists is the moment, and right there, eternity is shown, timelessness.

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Edmund husserl, is the main representative of this philosophical current, which deals with all phenomena, but from a reduction of them. This brilliant thinker develops a theory, starting from the concept of intentionality, to make a division between physical and psychic phenomena.

In thinking about him, 3 stages can be distinguished:

1. The phase pre-phenomenological, fundamentally psychologist.
2. The phase phenomenological, marked by a pure and transcendental phenomenology.
3. The stage of retirement, in which he is concerned with ethical and social issues.

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To conclude with this lesson on the main currents of contemporary philosophy, we will now speak of existentialism. Although possibly Martin Heidegger would not have wanted it that way, the author's work is circumscribed within the existentialist current.

The author of Being and Time In this work he intends to build an ontology that allows him to recover the sense of being, but to do so, before analyzing the person who poses the question, the entity. In his later works, his thinking changes direction, to focus solely on being, as a self-revelation.

In the first part of Being and Time, the author, analyzes the basic structure of the Dasein or be there, which is divided into be in the world and in be with the others. This leads, for the philosopher, to a distressing situation, because being appears thrown off in an impersonal and inauthentic world. The only authentic existence, Heidegger says, is the voice of conscience, that is, the very being of the Dasein.

The second part is dedicated to analyzing the concept of time, but a time different from physical and linear time, but as the very being of the Dasein, once aware of his finiteness, once he knows the anguish of temporality, begins to live as being for the death.

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