D 20th-Century Philosophy

D

20th-Century Philosophy

A diversity of methods, interests, and styles of argumentation marked 20th-century philosophy and proved both fruitful and destructive. This diversity, and the divisions that arose, proved fruitful as new topics arose and new ways developed for discussing these topics philosophically. It proved destructive, however, as philosophers wrote increasingly for a narrow audience and often ignored or derided philosophical styles different from their own.

In the decades following World War II (1939-1945), significant divisions arose between so-called continental philosophers, who worked on the European continent, and philosophers in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Deconstruction and other postmodern theories followed existentialism and phenomenology on the continent, whereas the Americans, Britons, and Australians worked in the analytic tradition. In the final decades of the century, the divisions between continental and analytic philosophy eased as interest moved away from the old disputes, and more and more philosophers became interested in exploring common roots of the two traditions in the history of Western philosophy.

D1

Phenomenology

Edmund Husserl

German philosopher Edmund Husserl is considered the founder of phenomenology. This 20th-century philosophical movement is dedicated to the description of phenomena as they present themselves through perception to the conscious mind.

German philosopher Edmund Husserl founded the 20th-century movement of phenomenology. Husserl said that philosophers must attempt to describe and analyze phenomena as they occur, setting aside such considerations as whether the phenomena are objective or subjective. He emphasized careful observation and interpretation of our conscious perceptions of things. First, we must attend to what we are conscious of, observing our perceptions far more carefully and intensely than we do in everyday life. Second, we must reflect upon these observations and interpret them without preconceptions. Husserl maintained that we arrive at meaning and the key to solving philosophical problems through a logical analysis of the data that emerges from such a “phenomenological study” of the contents of the mind.

French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty and German philosopher Martin Heidegger further developed phenomenology and its emphasis on pure description. For Merleau-Ponty, however, all perceptual experience carries with it a reference to something beyond and independent of our perception of it. Heidegger, too, sought to return to what he claimed had become unfamiliar—Sein (German for “being” or “existence”).

D2

Existentialism

De Beauvoir and Sartre

French philosopher and author Simone de Beauvoir often addressed existential themes such as the necessity of being responsible for oneself. Two of her best-known works were nonfiction: The Second Sex, a study of women in society, published in 1949; and The Coming of Age, a condemnation of society’s attitude toward the aged, published in 1970. She is shown here in a Parisian café with fellow French existentialist and writer Jean-Paul Sartre. He was her close companion for almost 60 years.

Heidegger was also a key figure in the 20th-century movement known as existentialism. Existentialists focused on the personal: on individual existence, subjectivity, and choice. Two central existential doctrines claim that there is no fixed human essence structuring our lives and that our choices are never determined by anything except our own free will. In making choices in life, we determine our individual selves. These doctrines imply that human beings have enormous freedom. Existentialists maintained that the human ability to make free choices is so great that it overwhelms many individuals, who experience a “flight from freedom” by falsely treating religion, science, or other external factors as constraints and limits on individual freedom. In addition to Heidegger the main existentialist thinkers include French feminist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir and her companion, the philosopher, novelist, and playwright Jean-Paul Sartre.

D3

Analytic Philosophy

Bertrand Russell

In the early 20th century British mathematician and philosopher Bertrand Russell, along with British mathematician and philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, attempted to demonstrate that mathematics and numbers can be understood as groups of concepts, or classes. Russell and Whitehead tried to show that mathematics is closely related to logic and, in turn, that ordinary sentences can be logically analyzed using mathematical symbols for words and phrases. This idea resulted in a new symbolic language, used by Russell in a field he termed philosophical logic, in which philosophical propositions were reformulated and examined according to his symbolic logic.

Analytic philosophy rose to prominence in the United Kingdom after the end of World War I (1914-1918). This movement heralded a linguistic shift according to which the philosophical study of language became the central task of philosophy. Many analytic philosophers concluded that a number of issues prominent in the history of philosophy are unimportant or even meaningless because they arose when philosophers misunderstood or misused language. Analytic philosophy is based upon the assumption that the careful analysis of language and concepts can clear up these problems and confusions. The key figures at the beginning of the movement were British philosopher and mathematician Bertrand Russell and Austrian-born British philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein.

Russell, strongly influenced by the precision of mathematics, wished to construct a logical language that would reflect the nature of the world. He argued that what he called the “surface grammar” of everyday language masks a true “logical grammar,” knowledge of which is essential for understanding the true meaning of statements. Russell and many philosophers influenced by him asserted that complex statements can be reduced to simple components; if their logic does not permit such reduction, then the statements are meaningless.

Russell’s view was central to the development of the so-called Vienna Circle, a group of analytic philosophers active from about 1920 to 1950, who were led by Rudolf Carnap and Moritz Schlick. The members of the Vienna Circle were scientists or mathematicians as well as philosophers, and they originated the movement known as logical positivism. They believed that the clarification of meaning is the task of philosophy, and that all meaningful statements are either scientifically verifiable statements about the world or else logical tautologies (self-evident propositions). According to the logical positivists the discovery of new facts belongs to science, and metaphysics—the construction of comprehensive truths about reality—is a pretentious pseudo-science.

Wittgenstein, who studied with Russell at Cambridge University, was perhaps the most important analytic philosopher. Like Russell, he distrusted ordinary language. In his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921) Wittgenstein stated that “philosophy aims at the logical clarification of thoughts.” Philosophy’s function, he believed, is to monitor the use of language by reducing complex statements to their elementary components and by rebuffing all attempts to misuse words in creating the illusion of philosophical depth. “What can be said at all can be said clearly, and what we cannot talk about we must consign to silence.” The Tractatus made important contributions to the philosophy of language, logic, and the philosophy of mathematics. The account of language in Wittgenstein’s later work was much richer and more sophisticated than that in the Tractatus. However, Wittgenstein never abandoned his radical early views on the nature of philosophy.

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Austrian-born philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein was one of the most influential thinkers of the 20th century. With his fundamental work, Tractatus Logico-philosophicus, published in 1921, he became a central figure in the movement known as analytic and linguistic philosophy.

As the analytic movement developed, different ideas emerged about how philosophical analysis should proceed. A group called constructivists was inspired by Russell, the early writings of Wittgenstein, and the logical positivists. The solutions to philosophical problems, the constructivists argued, lie in using tools of logic to create more precise technical vocabularies. Two leading representatives of this movement were the American philosophers Nelson Goodman and W. V. Quine. Quine saw language and logic as themselves embodying theories about reality, rather than consisting of theory-neutral tools of analysis. By contrast, the descriptivists maintained that philosophical analysis should focus on the careful study of the everyday usage of crucial terms. This group was inspired by the 20th-century British philosophers G. E. Moore, Gilbert Ryle, and John Austin.

Rudolf Carnap

German philosopher Rudolf Carnap attempted to introduce the methodology and precision of mathematics into the study of philosophy. This approach is now known as logical positivism or logical empiricism.

Although the radical formulations of analytic philosophy from the first half of the 20th century no longer hold sway, analytic philosophy continues to flourish. Many contemporary philosophers have adopted ideas, methods, or values from the movement, including the Americans Donald Davidson, Hilary Putnam, and Saul Kripke. Analytic philosophy also has widely influenced the training and practices of philosophers today. On the one hand, its influence has led to a renewed commitment to clarity, concision, incisiveness, and depth in philosophical thinking and writing. On the other hand, it has also caused many philosophers to embrace difficult and obscure technical language to such an extent that their ideas are accessible to only a small community of specialists.

D4

Postmodern Philosophy

Michel Foucault

French philosopher Michel Foucault became world famous for his research into the shifting patterns of power in society. In 1970 he was elected to France’s highest academic post, the Collège de France.

Inaccessible ideas and impenetrable prose also characterize many postmodern philosophical texts, although the difficulties in this case are often intentional and reflect specific postmodern claims about the nature of language and meaning. The literal meaning of postmodernism is “after modernism,” and in many ways postmodernism constitutes an attack on modernist claims about the existence of truth and value—claims that stem from the European Enlightenment of the 18th century. In disputing past assumptions postmodernists generally display a preoccupation with the inadequacy of language as a mode of communication. Among the major postmodern theorists are French philosophers Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault, and psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan.

Derrida originated the philosophical method of deconstruction, a system of analysis that assumes a text has no single, fixed meaning, both because of the inadequacy of language to express the author’s original intention and because a reader’s understanding of the text is culturally conditioned—that is, influenced by the culture in which the reader lives. Thus texts have many possible legitimate interpretations brought about by the “play” of language. Derrida stresses the philosophical importance of pun, metaphor, ambiguity, and other playful aspects of language traditionally disregarded in philosophy. His method of deconstruction involves close and careful readings of central texts of Western philosophy that bring to light some of the conflicting forces within the text and that highlight the devices the text uses to claim legitimacy and truth for itself, many of which may lie beyond the intention of its author. Although some of Derrida’s ideas about language resemble views held by the analytic philosophers Wittgenstein, Quine, and Davidson, many philosophers schooled in the analytic tradition have dismissed Derrida’s work as destructive of philosophy.

Jacques Derrida

Algerian-born French philosopher Jacques Derrida challenged established ideas on the analysis of texts during the 1960s and 1970s. His deconstructivist approach to reading a text opens it up to many different interpretations, each of which, he argued, is legitimate within its context.

Foucault created a searing critique of the ideals of the Enlightenment, such as reason and truth. Like Derrida, Foucault used close readings of historical texts to challenge assumptions, demonstrating how ideas about human nature and society, which we assume to be permanent truths, have changed over time. From an array of historical texts Foucault created “philosophical anthropologies” that reveal the evolution of concepts such as reason, madness, responsibility, punishment, and power. By examining the origins of these concepts, he maintained, we see that attitudes and assumptions that today seem natural or even inevitable are historical phenomena dependent upon time and place. He further claimed that the historical development of these ideas demonstrates that seemingly humane and liberal Enlightenment ideals are in reality coercive and destructive.

Lacan agreed with Derrida and Foucault about the need to overturn crucial cultural and philosophical assumptions, but he arrived at this conclusion by a different method altogether. Influenced by Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure and the psychoanalytic theories of Sigmund Freud, Lacan claimed that the unconscious portion of the mind operates with structures and rules analogous to those of a language. He used this claim to criticize both psychoanalytic theory and philosophy. On the one hand, he believed that concepts from linguistics could clarify and correct Freud’s picture of the mind and provide the field of psychoanalysis with greater philosophical depth. On the other hand, he maintained that applying psychoanalytic methods and theories to linguistics would radically revise traditional philosophical views of language and reason.

D5

Feminist Philosophy

Feminist philosophers also challenge basic principles of traditional Western philosophy, investigating how philosophical inquiry would change if women conducted it and if it incorporated women’s experiences as well as their viewpoints. In interpreting the history of Western philosophy, feminists study texts by male philosophers for their depiction of women, masculine values, and biases toward men. Feminist philosophers also write about women’s experiences of subjectivity, their relationship to their bodies, and feminist concepts of language, knowledge, and nature. They explore connections between feminism in philosophy and other emerging feminist disciplines, such as feminist legal theory, feminist theology, and ecological feminism. Central to feminist philosophy is the concept of the oppression of women who live in patriarchal (male-controlled) societies; much of the work of feminist philosophers has gone into understanding patriarchy and developing alternatives to it. Prominent feminist philosophers include French postmodern philosophers Luce Irigaray and Hélène Cixous and American philosopher of law Catharine MacKinnon.

D6

Environmental Philosophy

Environmental philosophy is concerned with issues that arise when human beings interact with the environment. For instance, is a transformation of society necessary for the survival of living organisms and the environment? How is the exploitation of nature related to the subjugation of women and other oppressed humans? How can the philosophical study of the environment guide and inspire effective environmental activism. Most environmental philosophers seek to apply philosophical methods and ideas in collaboration with academics and activists working in the environmental sciences, theology, and feminism.

Two figures who played a prominent role in founding environmental philosophy are Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess and American naturalist, conservationist, and philosopher Aldo Leopold. Naess founded the so-called deep-ecology movement in the 1970s. The movement distinguishes between shallow ecology, which views nature in terms of its value to human beings, and deep ecology, which values nature independently of its usefulness to humanity. Leopold, in his influential book A Sand County Almanac (1949), called for the extension of ethical concern to include all life on Earth, not just human life. Other contemporary environmental philosophers include American ecological theologian Thomas Berry and American ecological feminist Karen Warren.

D7

Contemporary Political Philosophy

Sir Isaiah Berlin

British political philosopher Isaiah Berlin is best known as a proponent of secular liberalism. In his book Four Essays on Liberty, Berlin advocates “negative” liberty—that is, freedom from restrictions on the individual.

Political philosophy dates back to Plato and Aristotle who discussed the nature of the ideal government and the ideal society. It continued in theories on individual liberty and political institutions put forth by Hobbes, Mill, and Rousseau. Political philosophy today features a lively dialogue between defenders of the liberal position and defenders of the communitarian position. The former place the highest value on individual liberties; whereas the latter argue that extreme individual freedom undermines shared community values.

According to liberalism the chief goods (benefits) of government and society are personal and political freedoms, such as freedom of speech, freedom of association, and freedom of conscience (belief). Many liberal theorists view the freedom to make moral choices as the most important freedom; they argue that political and social systems should be organized to allow individuals the freedom to pursue their own ideas about “the good life.” Communitarians respond that granting individuals this extreme freedom of choice ultimately limits human experience by undermining shared communal values. They claim that by ignoring the importance of community, liberalism disregards humanity’s social nature.

Prominent communitarians include Scottish philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre and American philosopher Michael Sandel. Important liberal theorists include British philosopher Isaiah Berlin and American philosophers Ronald Dworkin and John Rawls. Rawls is the author of A Theory of Justice (1971), considered to be the most significant work of political philosophy in the 20th century. In this book, he presents the idea of “justice as fairness,” a principle that promotes the equal distribution of the benefits and burdens of society among individuals. Any advantages that society confers should benefit those who are most disadvantaged, Rawls believes. From this and other principles he has developed theories about political and social relations within liberal democracies and between those democracies and certain illiberal states. Rawls’s ideas remain a major inspiration for much current work in political philosophy.

D8

Applied Ethics

Issues in Medical Ethics

The advent of new medical and reproductive technologies in recent years has complicated how ethical decisions are made in medical research and practice. This slide show highlights some of the most prominent issues in medical ethics: assisted reproductive technologies, human fetal tissue transplantation, cloning, and abortion.

Although most contemporary philosophy is highly technical and inaccessible to nonspecialists, some contemporary philosophers concern themselves with practical questions and strive to influence today’s culture. Practitioners of feminist philosophy, environmental philosophy, and some areas of contemporary political philosophy seek to use the tools of philosophy to resolve current issues directly related to peoples’ lives. Nowhere have philosophers more enthusiastically embraced practical relevance than in contemporary applied ethics, a field that has developed since the 1960s. Most of the questions applied ethicists raise concern the general theme “How should we live and die?”—a question central to ancient Greek philosophy.

Separate areas of specialization, such as biomedical ethics and business ethics, have emerged within applied ethics. Biomedical ethics deals with questions arising from the life sciences and human health care, and has two subspecialties: bioethics and medical ethics. Bioethicists study the ethical implications of advances in genetics and biotechnology, such as genetic testing, genetic privacy, cloning, and new reproductive technologies. For example, they consider the consequences for individuals who learn they have inherited a fatal genetic disease, or the consequences of technology that enables parents to choose the sex of a baby. Bioethicists then offer advice to legislators, researchers, and physicians active in these areas. Specialists in medical ethics offer advice to physicians, other health care personnel, and patients on a wide variety of issues, including abortion, euthanasia, fertility treatments, medical confidentiality, and the allocation of scarce medical resources. Much of the work in medical ethics directly affects the everyday practice of medicine, and most nursing students and medical students now take courses in this field.

Business ethicists bring ethical theories and techniques to bear on moral issues that arise in business. For example, what are the responsibilities of corporations to their employees, their customers, their shareholders, and the environment? Most business students take courses in business ethics, and many large corporations regularly consult with specialists in the field. Business ethicists also address larger topics, such as the ethics of globalization and the moral justification of various economic systems, such as capitalism and socialism.