Contemporary Philosophy: Brief Summary

In this lesson from a TEACHER we will do a summary of contemporary philosophy, which is the period in the history of philosophy that begins at the end of the 19th century and continues to this day, and continues to the modern philosophy, ranging from Descartes in the sixteenth century to Hegel in the nineteenth, through the rationalists, empiricists and idealism Kantian. As we will see, contemporary philosophy breaks with its predecessor, although it bears certain similarities.

The central theme of the modern philosophyIt will be the nature and the subject as the center of it and as a starting point for knowledge. Ontology is replaced by gnoseology and it also changes the concept of truth and reality.

The contemporary philosophy represents a true turning point and a break with previous philosophy, and a recognition of the power of reason that analyzes, creates and transforms the world. Arise new currents philosophical, analytical philosophy, hermeneutics, Marxism, vitalism, positivism, structuralism, neopositivism, existentialism, phenomenology, psychoanalysis, etc... This time the central theme is the human being, his essence and the question of language, he begins to acquire relevance.

In order to address this summary of contemporary philosophy, it is important that we know what the main streams of this period. Here we discover the most outstanding ones:

Positivism

Positivism defends that the only valid knowledge is scientific knowledge and its highest representatives are Saint-Simon, J.S. Mill and A. Comte.

The French Revolution, the birth of French utopian socialism and the apogee of science, mark the entire philosophy of this author, who seeks a transformation of the society from a previous ideological transformation, it is necessary to change our ideas in order to change the world. At this point, an idealistic touch can be observed when affirming that ideas are precisely the only ones capable of revolutionizing society.

Existentialism

This philosophical current focuses its attention on the human analysis, his position in the world, as well as the problem of freedom, which is linked to the responsibility of the individual. The main representatives of this current would be Sartre, Kierkeegard, Heidegger, Marcel or Simone de Beauvoir.

Marxism

It is a philosophical current that was developed by Karl Marx, among other great thinkers such as Engels, Roxa Luxemburg, Gramsci or Luckas. Marxism focuses mainly on 4 fundamental themes, namely:

1. 1. The class struggle
2. 2. The critique of capitalism
3. 3. The concept of alienation and surplus value
4. 4. Communism as an overcoming of capitalism

Structuralism

It consists of a method of analysis of society, language or culture, as intrinsic parts of the human being. It could be said that this heterogeneous school of thinkers, born with Ferdinand de Saussure, and what they want is to find the structures that are below the culture, that is, the foundation of it. Culture is understood, then, as a complex set of other smaller subsets, such as the religion, literature or gastronomy, and their relationships between all the parts that make up the framework Social.

Lévi-Strauss, is possibly the most prominent representative of this current, to which they also belonged, Piaget, Althusser and Foucault, although it is true that the latter are not in favor of its inclusion in it.

Poststructuralism

Part of a critique of structuralism, although they share common aspects such as their interest in finding the hidden structures of culture, and is based on the works of Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, also known as masters of suspicion, and Martin Heidegger. Its main representatives are J. Derrida, G. Deleuze, J.Kristeva or M. Foucault.

Phenomenology

Phenomenology is a philosophical current that tries to study phenomena, starting from their manifestation, which is summarized in the phrase "Return to the same things". The method, therefore, would be the scientific one, as part of the sensible experience to study the phenomena. The father of philosophy is AND. Husserl, but they also stand out Hume, Kant, Hegel, Brentano, Heidegger, Merleau Ponty, Sartre or Marion

Feminism

It's a sociopolitical movement that tries to break with inequalities and the abuse of power, which reigns in capitalist and patriarchal society, which presupposes the domination of some classes, men, over others, women, by a simple unfounded discrimination, based on the gender. Its main representatives are Helen Taylor, Harriet Tylor Mill, Simone de Beauvoir, Angela Davis or Shulamith Firestone.

The philosophy of the twentieth century is the daughter of a series of social, economic, political, scientific and philosophical problems, and it moves between affirmation and I reject with all previous thought.

• Philosophyanalytics: Russell, Whitehead, George Edward Moore, Carnap, Neurat, and Wittgenstein
• Existentialism: Sartre, Heiddeger, Simon de Beauvoir, Hannah Arendt, Jaspers and Camus.
• Structuralism: Seassure
• Poststructuralism: Lyotard, Foucault, Deleuze and Derrida.
• Hermeneutics: Gadamer and Ricoeur
• Phenomenology: Merleau –Ponty
• Feminism: Angela Davis, Celia Amorós, Amelia Valcárcel and Shulamith Firestone
• Utilitarianism: Peter Singer
• SchoolfromFrankfurt: W. Adorno, M. Horkheimer, J. Habermas, Walter Benjamin and H. Marcuse
• Objectivism: Ayn Rand
• Generativism: Noam Chomsky