The 20 most important philosophical currents: what they are and main representatives

A philosophical current It is a grouping that includes different thinkers, who share the same ideas, tendencies or thoughts. All of them have in common a way of thinking or doing philosophy, through which they try to give answers to questions about man, the world that surrounds him and his own life.

How did the world come about? Does it have a beginning and an end? How do we know reality? Is there really what we see? What determines our behavior?

Some of these questions are shared by different thinkers throughout history. But, there are two figures that constitute the pillars of Western philosophy, Plato and Aristotle. His thought is decisive in some later philosophers and philosophical schools, and still continues to this day.

Let's get to know, next, the 20 most important philosophical currents also serving its main representatives.

1. Idealism

The idealism It is a set of philosophical currents that have been present throughout the history of philosophy. Its origin can be traced to Plato, but its development covers a good part of the 19th century.

Idealistic philosophers hold that the basis of reality is thought and that matter is a production of it. Or, what is the same, objects do not exist without a mind that makes them possible. What I perceive are ideas of my mind, if I do not perceive it, it does not exist.

Idealism has had different bifurcations that are known as: objective idealism, subjective idealism, itranscendental dealism and german idealism.

Representatives: Plato (objective), Hegel (objective), Descartes (subjective), Hegel (subjective), Kant (transcendental), Scchelling (German).

2. Realism

The current of philosophical realism it could be considered the antithesis of idealism. This movement defends the existence of objects independently of the consciousness that observes them. Things subsist regardless of whether or not the human being perceives them through the senses. Although it attends to the thought of philosophers such as Plato or Aristotle, it is in the Middle Ages when it develops.

Representatives: Aristotle and Saint Thomas Aquinas.

3. Skepticism

This current is based on doubt. In order to skeptical thinkers reason and the senses lack reliability so there is nothing that can be firmly affirmed or denied. So these thinkers doubt everything: the validity of judgments, human capacity or external values. Skepticism has three stages, the first arises in antiquity.

Representatives: Pirrón, Timón the Silógrapher and Sixth Empiricist.

4. Dogmatism

This current takes place in the centuries VII and VI a. from. C. and it is opposed to idealism and skepticism. The dogmatism it is based on the possibility of human reason to know the whole truth and interpret reality. To do this, it is based on the acceptance of dogmas, without accepting questions about them. A dogmatist blindly trusts reason without admitting its limits.

Representatives: Thales of Miletus, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Heraclitus, Pythagoras and Parmenides.

5. Relativism

This philosophical movement began in ancient Greece at the hand of the Sophists. The relativism denies the existence of absolute and independent truths of man. The truth, just as subjectivism defends, depends on the individual who experiences it and also on the different external factors that influence knowledge.

Relativism considers that all ways of knowing the world have the same validity.

Representatives: Protagoras and Pythagoras.

6. Subjectivism

This philosophical doctrine arises in antiquity and takes as its starting point the individual as a knowing subject. The subjectivism understands that knowledge depends on each individual, therefore the truth or falsity of the judgments depend on the subject that he knows and judges. Without assuming absolute or universal truths.

Representatives: Protagoras, Georgias de Leontinos (ancient times) and Nietzsche (contemporary).

7. Empiricism

This philosophical movement arises parallel to Rationalism. The empiricism it is based on experience as the origin of all knowledge. For empiricists the limits of knowledge are in the experience itself, whether external or internal, outside of it there is only speculation.

Empiricism can be traced to the Sophists and Epicureans, however it develops in modernity.

Representatives: Locke and Hume.

8. Rationalism

This philosophical doctrine is based on the fact that reason is the origin of knowledge, not experience, as defended by its contemporary trend, empiricism. That is, we can only consider as true what starts from our own understanding. The rationalism arises in the seventeenth century from the hand of Descartes, who tried to find a true knowledge drawn from reason.

Representatives: Descartes, Leibniz and Spinoza.

9. Criticism

This current is started by Emmanuel Kant with his work Critique of Pure Reason and part, to a large extent, to solve the dichotomy that arose between rationalism and empiricism (reason and experience).

With it, the philosopher tries to set the limits of knowledge. This doctrine seeks to demonstrate that knowledge starts from experience but that it needs reason to be able to be completed, hence the phrase: “without sensitivity no object would be given to us and, without understanding, none would be thought-out".

In this sense, criticism gives special importance to the subject in the act of knowing in front of the object, as if rationalism and empiricism do. For criticism it is the subject who creates the object (reality).

Representative: Emmanuel Kant.

10. Pragmatism

Philosophical current that takes place in the United States and England and arises from the hand of Sanders Peirc. This movement tries to relate the meaning of things with the evidence. To do this, he limits himself to sensible experience and leaves metaphysics aside.

Pragmatic thinkers understand that there are no absolute truths and that knowledge comes from experience. Pragmatism defends as true what is useful. That is, the criterion for judging the truth is based on practical effects.

Representatives: Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, and John Dewe.

11. Historicism

It is an intellectual current that arises from the hand of the thinker Wilhelm Dilthey according to which history has a fundamental role in understanding human nature and society. History is the starting point to understand any social, cultural or political phenomenon.

Representatives: Wilhelm Dilthey and Edmundo O'Gorman.

12. Phenomenology

The phenomenology covers different disciplines. In the 20th century it emerged as a philosophical current and its method was based on the assumption of nothing. That is, it intends to describe objects or phenomena in a conscious way, without adhering to presuppositions or preconceptions.

Representatives: Edmund Husserl, Jan Patocka and Martin Heidegger.

13. Existentialism

It is one of the most outstanding philosophical currents of the 20th century. One of the basic principles that sustain existentialist philosophers is that "existence precedes essence" and they focus primarily on the analysis of the human condition.

The human being does not have a firm condition, that is, there is no nature that leads him to be one way or another, the starting point is his existence. As he does not have an established nature, he has the freedom to make himself, he can decide at any time, thus he builds his essence. It is our actions that determine who we are and the meaning of our lives.

Representatives: Soren Kierkegaard, Martin Heidegger, Karl Jaspers, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Henri Bergson.

You may also like: Existentialism: characteristics, authors and works

14. Positivism

The positivism It is a philosophical current that arises to respond to the new changes that occurred with the Industrial Revolution and its greatest representative was Comte.

This doctrine is based on facts, experience and not abstract ideas. For this reason he defends the role of natural sciences, whose method can be transferred to the study of society.

Positivist philosophers attend exclusively to facts that can be scientifically proven and to the results of experience. They put aside abstract and metaphysical claims.

Representatives: Auguste Comte, John Stuart Mill, Richard Avenarius, and Heribert Spencer.

15. Structuralism

It is one of the most influential theoretical movements of the 20th century and emerged in France in the 1960s.

The structuralism It has had a great impact in different fields of knowledge, including philosophy. It proposes a method of analysis based on the study of the independence and integration of the parts within a whole. It consists of the study of the minimum units that constitute the structure of the phenomena and the relationships that exist between them.

Representatives: Roland Barthes and Jean Baudrilland

16. Scholasticism

This current arises and develops in Western Europe between the eleventh and fifteenth centuries. The scholastic thinkers they tried to reconcile reason and faith, keeping the latter always above the former. With this they tried to demonstrate that there is no incompatibility between theology and philosophy.

This philosophy was taught in universities during the Middle Ages and different positions emerged from it:

• Dialectics: faith must be demonstrated and analyzed by reason.
• Anti-dialectic: faith is the only source of wisdom.
• Intermediate position: faith and reason are different but both converge in the truth.

Representatives: Saint Anselm of Canterbury, Saint Thomas Aquinas and Juan Duns Scotus.

17. Cynicism

This philosophy was founded by Antisthenes around 400 BC. It is characterized by its ascetic character and seeks to find happiness outside of ephemeral things such as luxury or power. For cynical thinkers, true happiness is found outside of fortuitous things. This is achieved through virtue, leading a simple life away from social conventions.

Representatives: Antisthenes and Diogenes.

18. Epicureanism

It is a philosophical current started by Epicurus of Samos (341-270 BC. C.) who considers that wisdom consists in learning to master the pleasures well in order not to be dominated by them.

In this sense, the objective of people resides in achieving well-being through the body and mind, in order to achieve the “absence of confusion” (ataraxia).

Representatives: Horacio, Lucrecio Caro, Metrodoro de Lapsaco (the young man) and Zenón de Sidón.

19. Stoicism

This current focuses on the ideal of the human being, trusts in an autarkic being. Wisdom lies in the ability of being to achieve happiness without needing anything or anyone. He who achieves this in a self-sufficient way, without needing material goods, will be wiser.

Stoicism has as its founder Zeno de Citio, however, it encompasses three different stages that can be divided into: ancient (IV-II centuries BC. C.), middle (II a. C.) and new (during the Roman Empire).

Representatives: Zeno of Citio, Posidonio and Seneca.

20. Humanism

Humanism is an intellectual movement that occurs in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries during the Renaissance. The humanistic philosophy It occurs in a transitional period between the Middle Ages and Modernity. For humanists, the human being is the center of nature, so they try to understand how he acts, his thoughts and capacities to give a rational meaning to life. This movement rescues and studies the Greek and Latin classics and takes them as a reference.

Representatives: Leonardo Bruni, Marsilio Ficino and Erasmos de Rotterdam.

It may interest you: Literary trends

Philosophical currents timeline

Philosophical currents have emerged throughout great periods in which universal history: Antiquity, Middle Ages, Modern Age, Contemporary Age.

In this timeline, read from left to right, the philosophical currents explained above appear in chronological order.

References

• Hirschberger Johannes: History of Philosophy (YOU: Antiquity, Middle Ages, Renaissance): Barcelona: Herder, 2011.
• Hirschberger Johannes: History of Philosophy (TII: Antiquity, Middle Ages, Renaissance): Barcelona: Herder, 2011.
• Hirschberger Johannes: History of Philosophy (TIII: Philosophy of the 20th century): Barcelona: Herder, 2011.

• Muñoz, Jacobo: Espasa Philosophy Dictionary: Titivillus digital publishing house: 2003.