Exotic Journeys: A Tourist's Guide to Philosophy
brought to you by Ron Yezzi
Emeritus Professor of Philosophy
Minnesota State University, Mankato
© Copyright 2001, 2015 by Ron Yezzi
Twentieth Century Philosophy:
Introduction
Topics
20th Century Background
The Status of Philosophical Systems
Major Philosophical Movements
Limited Coverage
A. 20th Century Philosophy
The 20th century has brought about an explosion in the number of professional philosophers as the number of students pursuing higher education has increased. Accordingly, there is an increase in the number of books and articles published. But there is a strange irony here: A hundred years from now, about 95-99% of the work of presently living philosophers (contemporary philosophy) will be wholly ignored while 95-99% of the work in the history of philosophy (past philosophy through the nineteenth century that is covered in history of philosophy courses) will still be studied.
1. So there is a sense in which the history of philosophy always is and always will be contemporary, whereas the vast majority of what people "consider" to be contemporary philosophy is destined for oblivion.
2. It does not follow though that recent philosophy is largely a waste of time compared with study of the history of philosophy—because it is unclear now precisely what portions of recent philosophy will be discarded.
3. Moreover, present-day philosophy has the perennial task of providing philosophical interpretation of new advances in human knowledge and actions.
B. The Status of Philosophical Systems
1. Traditionally, philosophers have produced philosophical systems--that is, a relatively well-organized set of solutions to all the major perennial problems of philosophy as well as a distinctive method of approach to philosophical problems.
a. Classic Examples: Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Descartes, Locke, Spinoza, Hume, Kant, Hegel
2. Twentieth century philosophers have been less friendly toward the construction of grand systems. Some philosophical movements have tended to be anti-systemic (pragmatism for the most part, existentialism, postmodernism, feminism, social constructivism), while others tend to be non-systemic (logical positivism and analytic philosophy.)
a. Pragmatists reacted strongly against the absolutism often characteristic of systems.
b. Logical Positivists cut off whole areas of traditional philosophy as being meaningless.
c. Analytic philosophers became so narrowly specialized on the analysis of language that systems fell outside the range of interest.
1) They often tended to proceed "piecemeal," with the writing of journal articles and subsequent books that were mainly collections of journal articles.
C. Major Philosophical Movements
1. Pragmatism
2. Process Philosophy
3. Logical Positivism
4. Analytic Philosophy
5. Existentialism (Phenomenology)
6. Postmodernism
7. Feminism
D. Limited Coverage - The coverage of 20th century philosophy here is highly selective. I cover Logical Positivism, Daniel Dennett, Richard Rorty, Postmodernism (Michel Foucault), and Three Feminist Thinkers (Nel Noddings, Catherine Mackinnon, and Sandra Harding). Some others--John Dewey, G. E. Moore, W.D. Ross, C. A. Campbell, John Hospers, Henry Nelson Wieman, A. J. Ayer, Jean Paul Sartre, R. M. Hare, B. F. Skinner, Edward O. Wilson, Gerald Dworkin, John Rawls, and Robert Nozick--can be found elsewhere on the Thinking Tours website.