Philosophical Evolution: From Idealism to Postmodernism

Posted on Dec 23, 2024 in Philosophy and ethics

The Dawn of Modern Philosophy

German Idealism, as a first step of optimism and confidence in the game, in their freedom and their reason, offers the ideal reflection of the optimism that the emerging bourgeois society felt for their main values: freedom, from the French Revolution, and reason, from the 18th-century Enlightenment. It has, as its central theme, the expression in the world of infinite reason. In the central part of the 19th century, the problems and injustices within the proletariat were realized. This is reflected in revolutionary philosophies, such as that of Marx, who wanted to end capitalism and establish communism, or reformist philosophies, such as the positivism of Comte, who proposed to leave the religious behind and establish scientific organizations in society, or the liberal utilitarianism of Mill, who sought to achieve the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of people possible, with education for workers and voting rights for women. Although these movements did improve aspects of the social, political, and economic conditions of the masses, at the end of the century, Nietzsche appeared in court and questioned everything: religion, science, politics, and so on. The 20th century is very complex. It begins with the continuation of 19th-century trends: economic and political liberalism, and the dislocation of workers to expand political and economic rights. Analytical philosophy was characterized by its admiration and respect for the natural sciences, defending empiricism and analysis aimed at language. However, the two world wars involved a crisis in the consciousness of Western people. Existentialism attempted to answer this feeling of living a meaningless life. Against totalitarian empires and the lives that were treated as if they had no value, provoking many deaths, existentialism protested against the destruction of man, against forgetting the value of each individual. Compared to that experience, there was another response as well: the so-called Frankfurt School, a group of German Marxist philosophers who wanted to analyze what was wrong with society in order to change it, but that did not happen. Habermas is from another generation but is considered the successor of the Frankfurt School, and he developed critical theory, but with the idea that there could be rationality in dialogue, a dialogue in equality about our problems. In the third part of the 20th century, our world is characterized by the globalization of the market and economic crises, the expansion of technology, the proliferation of immigration, and resistance movements (feminism, gay rights, etc.). The philosophy of postmodernism is a response to this world: a critique of the belief that you can make sense of everything from the right. Its gaze is that of contingency, plurality, difference, and so on. On Spanish philosophy, in the last third of the 19th century, physical contact with European philosophies was revitalized, and it produced its fruit in the early 20th century. Unamuno and Ortega stand out, for whom the central themes are existence, life, and history. From the 1960s onward, there is another revitalization, and Spanish philosophy opens up to European trends.

Nietzsche: A Critique of Western Culture

Born in Germany in 1844, Nietzsche received an outstanding education in the humanities at the Pforta school, developing an early liking for music. In 1864, he began studies in theology and classical philology, and in 1865, he moved to Leipzig to pursue classical philology. In 1868, he met Wagner, who deeply marked his intellectual course. In 1869, he obtained a professorship in classical philology at the University of Basel.

The Genealogy of Language

Nietzsche criticizes our culture and attempts to demonstrate that certainties on which our culture is based are useful but do not reflect reality.

Language, Reality, and “Truth”: Language is the only human way to approach reality. Whoever knows reality is in the “truth.” Language has its origin in the momentum by which individuals express their life experience, an experience linked to nerve sensations. This experience is changing and perplexing, so not all are willing to surrender to the original experience. Language is metaphorical. Only by forgetting and repressing the human being as a constructor of metaphors can we assume that metaphorical concepts are real and achieve reality. Most make the concept static, and it becomes compliance, and then the truth appears. This truth becomes a set of generalizations.
Logic: Our thinking is based on operations that do not correspond to reality. Logic subjects the individual to the universal and avoids contradiction. It invents order when reality is chaos. It is not objective. It is not essential; it is a product invented by intelligent animals for their dislocated existence.
From Metaphor to Concept: The family tree of language can be explained as the process of the formation of the concept. It runs through the following steps:
- From feeling-image, it passes through metaphors.
- The experience of sensation makes the individual assign the same metaphor to all these sensations: the word is born.
- Finally, a compact generalization of the use of certain words appears, and the concept emerges.
Gregarious Pact: The truth of language is just a pragmatic agreement between a group of people to express their willingness: the values of life. The pact is the result of an immediate reaction of a gregarious spirit that tries to avoid the threat. By reason, logic, and grammatical language, the world reduces its complexity and becomes quieter. To be truly called such, one must accept using the terms according to the criteria set by the convention.
The Lie: When a given group chooses certain metaphors as policy, the rest of the metaphors become dangerous to the established covenant, are discredited, or are relegated to the subjective level. Whoever does not speak respecting the fundamental form will be considered “out of the norm.”
Perspectivism: The genealogy of language leads us to the truth of perspectivism. There is no world of metaphysical truths; if we establish different interpretations, there is pluralism, and all interpretations are valid. The world is just interpretable, and outside of each individual interpretation, words have always been invented by the upper classes and require an interpretation.
From the Genealogy of Language to the Genealogy of Morality: If truth has nothing to do with knowledge of reality, then we ask what is good and what is evil. But this is already a moral question, so the genealogy of language must give way to the genealogy of morals.

Marx: A Critique of Hegel and Feuerbach

Critique of Hegel

Hegel is a philosopher of the Modern Age, and in part, he represents the culmination of the modern world and a type of philosophy that is Christian-bourgeois. They say that Hegel closed an epoch, but he himself is an author who laid the foundations for a new philosophy. “Whatever is rational is real, and whatever is real is rational” means that:

If all of reality adapts to reason, historical conditions also fit reason.
The rational nature of reality is such that ideas are the essence of reality.
Reason determines reality.
Objectivity prevails over subjectivity.

For Marx, these arguments have the following negative consequences: “Human nature is to think, to be rational…” History is governed by reason, which for Hegel justifies the social and political order of his time. In Hegel, the state, power, and religion are conceived as spiritual essences, but not as real. Philosophy in Hegel is mere theory. Marx believes that praxis is needed.

Marx also finds a positive impact in Hegel:

“The momentum is revolutionary, something positive, to think otherwise, and it resides in dialectics.” This is to understand the world as a set of processes; each thing becomes what it is in relation to others, so reality is a totality. Reality exists in a continuous change that occurs as a consequence of the opposition between contraries.

The flaw that Marx finds in Hegel’s dialectic is that it is given on a theoretical level, that is, it moves only at the level of ideas. Marx’s dialectic brings Hegel’s ideas down from heaven to reality. Hegel gave importance to work in his work; he said it was a key factor in man, although he only saw the positive aspect of it and not the negative. Hegel’s philosophy is an absolute idealism; it conceives of reality as a set of ideas, and man is a theoretical being. But Marx’s philosophy is a dynamic materialism, where man is conceived as a natural, conditioned, and limited being. Marx says, “One has to be, and if their nature were not a natural being, a being that has no object outside of itself is not an objective being; a being that is not itself subject to a non-being is not an objective being.”

Critique of Feuerbach

Feuerbach’s philosophy is materialism, that is, his theory says that reality is reduced to matter. But materialism is static, fixed. Here is where Marx pours his criticism. As he conceives of reality as something static, he does not realize that reality is in process. He lacks a dynamic way of conceiving matter. Marx also criticizes Feuerbach for interpreting man as a contemplative being and saying that human behavior is theoretical, as opposed to practical. In terms of religion, Feuerbach gives an explanation of its origin in a book called *The Essence of Christianity*. He implies that religion is based on a doubling of the world: on the one hand, the sensible world (the world of man), and on the other, the religious world (the world of God). He adds a new idea: God becomes the one who has a number, and these are attributes of human nature. The process by which attributes are made in God occurs as follows: 1. Among the attributes of the individual man, 2. the maximum degree is taken, 3. and they are placed in a stranger: God. “God is created by man in his image and likeness.” The conclusion Feuerbach reaches is to explain the essence of religion through human nature, but he does not deny religion; he explains it through human nature. He says we are religious beings by nature.

With respect to the above, Marx makes the following criticisms:

He criticizes the splitting of the world. Marx takes that split as a split into social classes, and according to him, this duplication is not necessary.
Marx says that religion is a social product because it is an ideology that is related to the epoch. Feuerbach takes religion in the abstract, but for Marx, it is a social product. “Feuerbach does not realize that splitting is due to the existence of social classes or groups.”