Historical Development of Continental Philosophy’s Existentialism

Historical tuition of Continental school of thoughts existentialist philosophy and phenomenology as a retort to Hegelian idealism Absolute Idealism odd distinct marks on numerous facets of Western culture. True, science was indifferent to it, and park understanding was perhaps stupefied by it, but the greatest political consummation of the 19th and ordinal centuries Marxismwas to a important degree an outgrowth of Absolute Idealism. (Bertrand Russell remarked someplace that Marx was nothing to a greater extent than Hegel mixed with British economic theory. Nineteenth- and twentieth-century literature, theology, and even art felt an influence. The Romantic composers of the nineteenth century, for example, with their fondness for spread out form, vast orchestras, complex scores and lift melodies, searched for the all-encompassing musical statement. In doing so, they mirror the efforts of the metaphysicians whose vast and imposing systems were sources of inspiration to m whatsoever a(prenominal) artists and composers. As we have said, much of what happened in philosophy after Hegel was in response to Hegel.This response took different forms in communicative countries and on the European continentso different that philosophy in the twentieth century was split into dickens usances or, as we might say nowadays, two conversations. alleged(prenominal) analytic philosophy and its offshoots became the predominant tradition of philosophy in England and eventually in the United States. The response to Hegelian idealism on the European continent was kind of different however and is known (at least(prenominal) in English-speaking countries) as Continental philosophy.Mean while, the United States developed its own stain of philosophycalled pragmatismbut lastly analytic philosophy became firmly fix in the United States as well up. deep down Continental philosophy may be found various identifiable schools of philosophical estimation existentialism, phenomenology, hermeneutics, deconstruction, and critical theory. Two influential schools were existentialism and phenomenology, and we will begin this chapter with them.Both existentialism and phenomenology have their roots in the nineteenth century, and some(prenominal) of their themes go off be traced bear to Socrates and even to the pre- Socratics. Each school of thought has influenced the other to such an extent that two of the roughly famous and influential Continental philosophers of this century, Martin Heidegger (18891976) and Jean-Paul Sartre (1905 1980), be important figures in two movements, although Heidegger is primarily a phenomenologist and Sartre primarily an existentialist.Some of the principal(prenominal) themes of existentialism are traditional and academician philosophy is sterile and remote from the concerns of true life. Philosophy must focus on the individual in her or his oppositeness with the adult male. The world is irrational (or, in any event , beyond total comprehending or dead on target conceptualizing through philosophy). The world is absurd, in the sense that no ultimate explanation can be given for why it is the centering it is. Senselessness, emptiness, triviality, separation, and inability to communicate pervade clement existence.Giving birth to anxiety, dread, self-doubt, and despair as well as the individual confronts as the most important fact of mankind existence, the urgency to choose how he or she is to live on within this absurd and irrational world. Now, many of these themes had already been introduced by those brooding thinkers of the nineteenth century, Arthur Schopenhauer (see previous chapter), Soren Kierkegaard, and Friedrich Nietzsche. All three had a strong distaste for the optimistic idealism of Hegeland for metaphysical systems in general. Such philosophy, they thought, disregard the human predicament.For all three the universe, including its human inhabitants, is seldom rational, and philo sophical systems that seek to assimilate everything seem rational are reasonable futile attempts to overcome pessimism and despair. This impressive-sounding word denotes the philosophy that grew out of the work of Edmund Husserl (18591938). In brief, phenomenology interests itself in the essential structures found within the be adrift of conscious experiencethe stream of phenomenaas these structures manifest themselves independently of the assumptions and presuppositions of science.Phenomenology, much more than existentialism, has been a product of philosophers rather than of artists and writers. entirely like existentialism, phenomenology has had enormous impact outback(a) philosophical circles. It has been especially influential in theology, the social and political sciences, and psychology and psychoanalysis. Phenomenology is a movement of thinkers who have a mannikin of interests and points of view phenomenology itself finds its antecedents in Kant and Hegel (though the mo vement regarded itself as anything but Hegelian).Kant, in the Critique of utter(a) Reason, argued that all objective knowledge is establish on phenomena, the data received in sensory experience. In Hegels Phenomenology of Mind, beings are treated as phenomena or objects for a consciousness. The world beyond experience, the real world assumed by natural science, is a world concerning which much is unknown and doubtful. except the world-in-experience, the world of pure phenomena, can be explored without the same limitations or uncertainties.