Modern Philosophers: A Deep Dive into 20th-Century Thought
Modern Philosophers
Influences on Society
Socio-Economic Influences
Sales, economics, and other factors have triggered significant cultural changes in our society.
Psychological Influences
Various psychological theories, primarily focused on human nature, have been developed. Psychoanalysis and the discovery of the unconscious have gained importance.
These thinkers are often referred to as “philosophers of suspicion” because they look beyond surface appearances.
Some Philosophers of the Modern Age
Theodor Adorno (1903-1969)
A German philosopher, music critic, and literary critic influential through his philosophical and sociological work. Associated with Neo-Marxism. Key works include Dialectic of Enlightenment, Philosophy of New Music, Notes on Literature, and Aesthetic Theory.
Samuel Alexander (1859-1938)
An Australian philosopher associated with Critical Realism. He developed a scheme of emergent evolution, with categories including matter, space, time, mind, and divinity.
Louis Althusser (1918- )
A French philosopher and structuralist, known for his interpretation of Marxism. Key works include Reading Capital, For Marx, and Lenin and Philosophy.
Alfred Jules Ayer (1910-1989)
A British philosopher associated with Neo-positivism. His book Language, Truth and Logic influenced anti-metaphysical thought. He believed philosophy’s role was to clarify areas not yet addressed by science and to order the world of feeling and ethical values. He was inspired by Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and the British empiricist tradition. Other works include The Foundations of Empirical Knowledge and The Problem of Knowledge.
Henri Bergson (1859-1941)
A French philosopher whose work addressed major themes of contemporary philosophy. His thinking has been described as “spiritually evolved.” Key works include Time and Free Will and Matter and Memory.
Maurice Blondel (1861-1949)
A French philosopher who emphasized the will over reason and developed a philosophy of action. Key works include Action and History and Dogma.
Francis Herbert Bradley (1846-1924)
A British idealist philosopher inspired by Hegel. Key works include Ethical Studies, The Principles of Logic, and Appearance and Reality.
Léon Brunschvicg (1869-1944)
A French philosopher associated with Neo-Kantianism. Key works include The Modality of Judgment.
Rudolf Carnap (1891-1970)
A German philosopher and key figure in the Vienna Circle, known for his positivist and anti-metaphysical stance. His work influenced logical empiricism, mathematical logic, probability theory, philosophy of science, and language analysis. Key works include The Logical Structure of the World, The Logical Syntax of Language, Meaning and Necessity, and Logical Foundations of Probability.
Ernst Cassirer (1874-1945)
A German philosopher associated with Neo-Kantianism. He explored symbolic forms of culture, including mythical thought and language. Key works include Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, Substance and Function, Language and Myth, The Myth of the State, and An Essay on Man.
Hermann Cohen (1842-1918)
A German philosopher and founder of the Marburg School of Neo-Kantianism. His teaching combined Kantian and Platonic ideas. Key works include Kants Theorie der reinen Erfahrung, System der Philosophie, and Logik der reinen Erkenntnis.
John Dewey (1859-1952)
An American pragmatist philosopher who helped found the Chicago School. He taught at the Universities of Michigan, Minnesota, Chicago, and Columbia. His philosophy viewed reason as a means to achieve stability in an uncertain reality. Key works include Studies in Logical Theory, Experience and Nature, The Quest for Certainty, and Logic: The Theory of Inquiry.
Wilhelm Dilthey (1833-1911)
A German historian and philosopher who focused on history, nature, and the methods of the human sciences. He contrasted the natural world with the socio-historical world. Key works include Introduction to the Human Sciences, The Construction of the Historical World in the Human Sciences, and Poetry and Experience.
Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
A German physicist and thinker whose theory of relativity revolutionized physics. He altered the concepts of space, time, and mass. Key works include Relativity: The Special and the General Theory, Investigations on the Theory of Brownian Movement, and “On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies.”
Michel Foucault (1926-1984)
A French philosopher and key figure in structuralism. His work examined the underlying conditions of cultures. Key works include Madness and Civilization, The Birth of the Clinic, The Order of Things, and The Archaeology of Knowledge.
Hans-Georg Gadamer
A German philosopher and key figure in hermeneutics. His work explored how language interpretation overcomes historical and aesthetic barriers. Key work: Truth and Method.
Nelson Goodman (1906-)
An American philosopher who contributed to epistemology, inductive logic, and philosophy of science. Key works include Fact, Fiction, and Forecast, The Structure of Appearance, and Languages of Art.
Jürgen Habermas (1929-)
A German philosopher who influenced the logic of science, sociology of knowledge, communication theory, and action theory. Key works include Knowledge and Human Interests, Theory and Practice, Legitimation Crisis, and Toward a Rational Society.
Octave Hamelin (1856-1907)
A French philosopher associated with Neo-Kantianism. He developed a dialectic of the finite, open to the transcendence of an absolute being. Key work: Essay on the Main Elements of Representation.
Martin Heidegger (1889-1976)
A German philosopher and key figure in existentialism. He developed a doctrine of being based on Husserl’s phenomenology. He criticized traditional metaphysics and focused on existence, transcendence, time, and death. Key works include Being and Time, What is Metaphysics?, and Letter on Humanism.
Edmund Husserl (1859-1938)
A German philosopher and founder of phenomenology. He sought to establish conditions for absolute and universal truth. Key works include Logical Investigations, Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy, and Cartesian Meditations.
William James (1842-1910)
An American philosopher, psychologist, and writer, considered a key figure in pragmatism. He focused on ethical and religious issues. Key works include The Principles of Psychology, The Will to Believe, The Varieties of Religious Experience, Pragmatism, and The Meaning of Truth.
Karl Jaspers (1883-1969)
A German philosopher and psychiatrist who studied the relationship between a philosopher’s personality and their doctrine. Key works include Psychology of Worldviews, Philosophy, and Reason and Existenz.
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