19th Century Cultural & Philosophical Context: Rise of Nationalism, Liberalism, and Industrial Revolution
Cultural and Philosophical Context of the 19th Century
Cultural History (1859)
Europe in 1859 inherited a political landscape shaped by the Restoration. Throughout the 19th century, this legacy faced challenges from rising nationalism and liberalism. Nationalism, fueled by the Vienna Congress’s land management, spurred unification processes in Germany and Italy, culminating in the German Empire’s proclamation and Rome becoming Italy’s capital. Liberalism, meanwhile, challenged the restored absolute monarchies, leading to revolutionary waves in 1820, 1830, and 1848. These uprisings, starting in Spain and France, highlighted tensions between the bourgeoisie and the burgeoning labor movement.
The labor movement originated in Great Britain as a response to the mechanization of labor, exemplified by the Luddite revolts. Mutual aid societies evolved into unions advocating for improved working conditions. In 1838, the Chartist movement in Britain marked a shift from labor-focused demands to political ones, notably universal suffrage. In 1864, Marx founded the First International in London, influencing political parties like the German Social Democrats and the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (1879).
The rise of both the liberal bourgeoisie and the proletariat stemmed from the Industrial Revolution, which began in 18th-century Great Britain. Several factors contributed to this revolution: changes in agricultural production, new farming systems leading to population growth (due to lower mortality rates), expansion of domestic and international trade, and technological innovations that revolutionized textiles, steel production, and railway transport. This revolution spread unevenly across the continent.
Following Marx’s death, the Second Industrial Revolution emerged, characterized by advancements in electricity and increased state involvement in colonialism. European countries experienced population and urban growth during this period.
Scientifically, this era saw the development of Lamarck and Darwin’s theories of evolution. Artistically, the period transitioned from Romanticism to Realism.
Philosophical Context
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It is distinguished by one side flows to which it will remain outside: positivism and the Lifestream and irrationalism. In the style typical positivist philosopher is Comte. The idea of positivism is that the only valid mode of knowledge is scientific knowledge.
Then there is the philosophical in which Marx is fixed, the philosophies that have to Hegel as a reference. On the death of Hegel opened two interpretations of his philosophy, from positions other theistic and atheistic conservative with liberal ideology.
God created man in His image and likeness, or image of what human beings want to be. This criticism of religion is both a critique of Hegel’s philosophy, which philosophy would still be a religion in disguise.
It should be mentioned for his influence on Marx:
- Authors within the utopian socialism as Owen, Fourier. They are attempts to reform from above and want to solve problems through communities. For Marx and Engels these features on one side will oppose this utopian socialism, but also theorists of anarchism. The main difference is the role that Marx allowed the seizure of state power by the proletariat, a state that wants to settle anarchism.
- English economists, in 1776 he published the Wealth of Nations Smith. David Ricardo, Malthus, Mill These authors make the classical school of economics.
Critics Niestche Plato, Socrates, Kant.
Plato complains that no two world (Platonic dualism) but a single world in constant evolution.
The world here on Earth, which is degraded, which is corrupted, although platter say no, Niestche says no further, and demand a world, a yes to this life with all its pain and suffering but with joy and beauty. For there is no world Niestche this, so Dionysus, god of wine and yes to life, embodies the ideal of life Niestche.
Nietzsche is opposed to dualism ontological reflection of the Platonic dualism:
_This world, sensible and imperfect
– The other world, supersensible and perfect foundation for that.
For Nietzsche there is no apparent world and real world but the constant evolution be creating and destroying the world.
Socrates, to identify the virtue in reason and reason with wisdom, to understand the concepts of universal and valid for everyone.
Kant: his conception of the categorical imperative as an obligation, to separate the phenomenon and the thing itself
Defend Heraclitus: This author stressed his intention to stay with the sensible and changing and cyclical conception of the future.
- The three transformations of Nietzsche (camel, lion, child).
Camel symbolizes who is content to follow blindly. They kneel, receive the load borne by social obligations to obey the values and beliefs are
Lion is the great denier. It symbolizes the nihilist who rejects all the traditional values
Child: It is the one who lives free of prejudice and create a new table of values. The man had converted to Christianity in a trapped animal, the man had tamed.
- What is the will to power?
Moral claims to be the new Superman service, serving the recovery of the vital instincts of man, transforming man become mean, mediocre, prudent, servile, indifferent, docile, forget their very existence. It is the Dionysian, unconscious life force that is at the bottom of reality.
- What is the eternal return?
The will to power is at its highest level the eternal return. “Love the way you want life to live again, because everything is repeated forever. Loving life that man will ever be exceeded.
- Critique Nietzschel to science and language.
In the language says that every grammatical structure limits the field of interpretation, the possibilities about the world. The language can deceive us.
A science tells us that this nuance does not help us to know things but only to establish a quantitative relationship. Does not attack the science itself, but a methodology to determine the mechanism and positivism of his age. Science investigates the course of nature, but can never give an order to man. It is far from being able to make value judgments about life.
- What is nihilism?
It is a peculiar movement of culture studies occidental.se the supersensible world in relation to the essence of man.
Nihilism is twofold:
Negative, doubt, disorientation and loss of sense radical. Destructive criticism of the Western tradition.
Positive reflection on this distance Platonic-Christian tradition.
God is dead means that we are left without direction, without meaning to give to this life.
- The four errors about traditional metaphysics.
- Grounding of the world is looking to base their reality. Need to survive in becoming.
- The categories of being true are signs of us being out of nothing.
- If you invent a world beyond this express distrust of life.
- Dividing the world real and apparent, as Plato and Kant. are signs of decline.