19th Century Transformations: Revolutions, Ideologies, and Social Change
1848 Abdication and the Second French Republic
The 1848 abdication of Louis Philippe I proclaimed the Second French Republic. With the selection of new governing bodies, power shifted, marking the demise of the old regime and the rise of new ideals: liberty, equality, and fraternity.
Nationalist Movements
Nationalist resistance to the Napoleonic invasion spurred nationalist movements across Europe, fostering the need to build nation-states proclaiming national sovereignty. The latter half of the 19th century witnessed a conservative, fundamentalist revolution, marked by the oppression of minorities, disdain for foreigners, and expansionist imperial politics.
Conservative Revolution
Conservative Revolution: Resistance to progress led to a conservative revolution, with thinkers nostalgic for traditional principles. They advocated for monarchies, opposed universal suffrage, defended private property, and promoted alliances between throne and altar, asserting historical rights and the legitimacy of monarchs and conservative theories of state and society.
Liberal Revolution
Liberal Revolution: The Constitution of 1812 embodied liberal ideals: freedom, division of powers, individual property rights, legal equality before the law, separation of powers, constitutionalism, and economic circulation in the production of goods.
Workers’ Revolution
Workers’ Revolution: The Industrial Revolution saw organized workers defending their rights and opposing slavery, envisioning a new society. The proletariat took the initiative, migrating from rural areas to industrial cities, leading to socialism, communism, anarchism, trade union movements, and cooperativism.
Industrial Revolution
Industrial Revolution: Society shifted from agrarian to industrial, with new production methods, iron and carbon production, steam engines, textile mechanization, protectionism, and economic shifts. Industrial cities emerged as population centers, impacting agriculture.
Scientific Revolution
Scientific Revolution: Liberalism promoted observation and experimentation, advancing physical sciences and applying the results.
Literary Revolution
Literary Revolution: Novelists like Charles Dickens depicted revolutionary changes, reflecting the harsh realities and tenderness of urban life in England. Dostoevsky explored the depths of human sin and motivations in his novels.
The second half of the nineteenth century was marked by the rise of nationalism and the triumph of the liberal bourgeoisie. Nationalist ideals spread rapidly. Nietzsche, reacting against this nationalist fervor, rejected it. Social movements, particularly socialist and anarchist, fought for improved living conditions, social rights, justice, and equality. Nietzsche also opposed these movements, viewing them as extensions of a slave morality.
The cultural world saw the rise of science and positivism. Scientific knowledge became applicable to everyday life, leading to immense trust in science and technology by the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Darwin’s theory of evolution challenged established science and influenced philosophy, including Nietzsche’s. Realism prevailed in literature and the arts.
From the mid-nineteenth to the early twentieth century, vitalism emerged as a philosophical approach focusing on the complexity of life. It reacted against rationalism and positivism, which reduced laws to the interests of the majority and relied solely on scientific data. Vitalism also opposed Hegel’s absolute knowledge and rationalist concepts. It emphasized philosophical knowledge based on universal understanding, prioritizing rationalism but not forgetting the particular, concrete, historical, and experiential aspects of human life. Vitalists were creative and intuitive, recovering forgotten elements of Western tradition, drawing from Greek and Oriental cultures. They valued experience and reflection as expressions of life. Vitalism also reacted against positivism’s simplification of reality, acknowledging elements beyond measurement and subjective experience. It aimed to encompass human life in its full complexity, broadening the concept of reason to include vital reason, full reason, sentient reason, and historical reason.