In opposition to modern philosophy, contemporary philosophy proposes overcoming radical rationalism, on one hand, and transcendental idealism, on the other. As a proposal, it offers to delve into the human condition and the problem of existence, and is characterized by great dynamism in terms of ideas and currents.
What is contemporary philosophy?
As with the historical discipline, philosophy divides its theoretical development by eras, from the pre-Socratic period to medieval, modern, and contemporary philosophy. Contemporary philosophy is the most recent stage of Western philosophy and encompasses the period from the late 19th century to the present.
Contemporary philosophy is characterized, as we will see below, by being a transitional stage from modernity, a cultural paradigm based on the scientific revolution and the Enlightenment, to postmodernity, a critical current of current philosophy.
Since the 20th century was a tumultuous stage in history full of wars, conflicts, and traumatic phenomena, philosophy has experienced, on one hand, a professionalization as a discipline called to offer answers to existential anguish and the crisis of civilization, and on the other hand, the development of thematic exploration around man and society.
Characteristics of contemporary philosophy
All the eras into which the history of philosophy is divided contain particular features that usually mark a rupture. The characteristics of contemporary philosophy are based on the reaction to modernity.
1. Great diversity of currents
After Hegel's death, philosophy experienced one of the great crises of the discipline, perceived in the questioning of the philosophical foundations of modernity and the emergence of a great diversity of currents that differentiate and oppose each other.
The major currents that will appear in the first phase of contemporary philosophy are a reaction to Hegel's idealism, such as Marxism and positivism. This will lead to an acceleration of philosophical activity and the multiplication of currents as the 20th century progresses. Philosophy mixes in this period with other disciplines.
2. Crisis of reason
Modern philosophy had been characterized by the Enlightenment idea that Reason was the new God of men. However, contemporary philosophy is characterized by the increasingly consolidated idea that reason is no longer sovereign because it can't solve the great concerns of the human soul.
On the contrary, it is considered that philosophical thought is subject to the subjectivity of each author. The great diversity of currents opposes each other without there being a supreme god, Reason, to decide who has the correct solution. This is the basis for the development of postmodernity.
3. Rejection of the transcendent and spiritual
Another characteristic of contemporary philosophy in its theoretical content is the rejection of the transcendent and spiritual, which had marked modern philosophy from Kant to Hegel. This had a mystical and religious dimension for which new authors lose interest and relegate to a secondary plane.
Marxism and nihilism, especially the systems proposed by Marx and Nietzsche, eliminate transcendental beliefs and introduce materialism as a new paradigm.
4. Professionalization of philosophy
It is the only point of continuity with modern philosophy, although the professionalization of the philosophical discipline acquires a more accelerated and academic pace in the contemporary era. During this period, philosophy is considered on the same level as other major disciplines, and it is given academic status and legal regulation.
Currents of contemporary philosophy
Marxism, vitalism, quietism, naturalism, positivism, neopositivism, historicism, and pragmatism are just some of the numerous currents emanating from the enormous dynamism of contemporary philosophy.
All can be grouped into five major groups that we summarize below.
1. Analytical philosophy
This is one of the major philosophical currents of the contemporary period and is based on the emphasis on language through formal logic. It develops mainly in the Anglo-Saxon world and has as its fathers Bertrand Russell and George Edward Moore. As a system of thought, it emphasizes the following issues:
The study of language and the logical analysis of concepts.
Skeptical position regarding metaphysics: metaphysical statements are meaningless when subjected to logical analysis.
Connection with empiricism in its spirit, style, and focus.
Affinity toward scientific research as a method of understanding the real.
Opposition to continental philosophy (especially French and German) which placed more emphasis on history and speculation.
2. Existentialism
Within continental philosophy, existentialism is one of the major currents and is based on the analysis of the human condition, freedom, and individual responsibility. From the late 19th century to the mid-20th century, several authors organized around a heterogeneous movement divided into Christian, atheist, and agnostic existentialism.
All these themes, however, shared a series of concerns.
Subjectivism: existentialism is a reaction to Hegelian idealism. The Christian current represented by Kierkegaard claims existence against the absolute in the relationship of man with God.
Individual responsibility: Atheist existentialism insisted on the rejection of the transcendental or mystical dimension and confronts man with the anguish of death and the responsibility of existence without possible salvation.
Freedom is a concept shared by atheist, Christian, and agnostic existentialists and is the principle around which other themes revolve. Anguish is redeemed by absolute freedom.
Anguish and nothingness: Anguish was a theme conceptualized by Kierkegaard and consolidated by Sartre as "nausea." Nothingness was a very important idea in French existentialism of the thirties and forties.
3. Structuralism
Structuralism is one of the most complex currents of contemporary philosophy. It proposes the search for structures through which meaning is produced within a culture, that is, practices, phenomena, and activities as systems of meaning.
Authors like Claude Lévi-Strauss, Louis Althusser, and Michel Foucault led this current and proposed the following themes:
The key function of language in the development of human activity.
Multidisciplinary work and convergence of philosophy, sociology, and anthropology.
The structures of a given sociocultural system as determinants of what happens in that system.
Emphasis on the preeminence of order over action.
Study of structures as symbols through which we create meaning.
4. Phenomenology
Edmund Husserl is the philosopher who at the end of the 19th century recovered and theoretically developed the traditional concept of phenomenology. Until then, it appealed to intuitive experience to solve philosophical questions, but Husserl and his followers give it a transcendental character by fixing as the central theme the meaning of the world for the individual.
Transcendental phenomenology will later influence structuralism and existentialism, and focuses mainly on the following themes:
The idea of intentionality as an essential concept of human existence.
The importance of the method, consisting of comparing several intentional objects to define a common essence.
The question of intentional meaning is answered from perceptual experiences.
The reality of a subject as an objective part of the world: making the rational subject compatible with their experience of the world.
5. Critical theory
The current of contemporary philosophy known as critical theory is a system proposed from 1929 in the so-called Frankfurt School by philosophers like Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer. It is very important because it opens a line of thought for Marxist political dissent critical of Stalinism and dogmatism.
The themes that most interest critical theory philosophers are:
Industrialization and economic modernization as a challenge for the socialist man.
The adaptation of the original socialist doctrine to the historical reality of interwar Europe.
Knowledge as understanding of reality, and not as reproduction of concepts.
Antidogmatism and intellectual dissent as the engine of knowledge.
Rejection of the separation between subject and reality: there is no pure theory that remains intact over time.
Dialectics as an essential method for the construction of knowledge.
Authors of contemporary philosophy
Here are the great thinkers and philosophers of our time, champions of the theories we have exposed.
1. Martin Heidegger
This is one of the most controversial philosophers of contemporary philosophy. Creator of the concept of "Dasein" (Being), he is the father of philosophical existentialism and, through his work Being and Time (1927), he asked about what exactly characterizes existence. This way, he recovers ontology, a discipline forgotten since the classical period.
According to Heidegger, human existence is a being-in-the-world (Dasein) on which death acts as a structuring element because it delimits it on a space-time axis. In other words: breaking with modern philosophy and Descartes's concept of being as a thinking entity isolated from the world, he proposes the interaction between being and the world as the backbone of its essence.
In summary, what is novel about Heidegger is that he changes the notion of being as thinking to the idea of being as existing. The important thing about being is not thinking, but existing.
2. Friedrich Nietzsche
One of the most well-known contemporary philosophers and also one of the most controversial (many hold him responsible for the misfortunes of the 20th century), Nietzsche is an author difficult to classify in a current. His thought, at the end of the 19th century, was based on the idea of the "death of God" as a symbolic element that recognizes the individual as the only sovereign.
Nietzsche's philosophy is a critique of traditional morality, which in his opinion enslaved man, and a critique of Western culture which, according to him, is perverted from its origin for having deified reason. Understanding that European culture has reached its decadence, he proposes nihilism as a solution.
Nihilism is the transition from Western culture and traditional morality toward the destruction of the highest values and principles, and the justification of means by the importance of the end. Under this prism, Nietzsche constructs the model of the "superman," who surpasses the intermediate, unfinished stage that the current man represents, and grants him "will to power."
3. Jean-Paul Sartre
Undoubtedly an iconic philosopher of contemporary thought, Jean-Paul Sartre revolutionized 20th-century philosophy by presenting, in 1943, Being and Nothingness, an ontological treatise where he reduced being, as an individual, to nothingness, freeing it from the weight of transcendence and granting it responsibility and, consequently, freedom.
The pessimistic sense of Sartre's atheist existentialism, based on the concept of anguish, which he metabolized as "nausea," evolved toward an optimism based on the idea of freedom as the ultimate goal. He did so, in part, thanks to the experience of World War II and the triumph over fascism.
From that period, Existentialism is a Humanism stands out. Therefore, in its entirety, Jean-Paul Sartre's existentialist theory, and that of his companion Albert Camus, evolve toward a particular current called humanism.
4. Jürgen Habermas
Jürgen Habermas is one of the most influential philosophers of the second half of the 20th century. His theory is framed in critical theory, although belonging to the second generation of the Frankfurt School, he focuses more on issues such as linguistics and communication. In fact, his great contribution is the theory of communicative action.
According to Habermas, social interaction ceases to be conditioned by rites and sacred ideas and becomes determined by language. Communicative action is oriented toward the search for an agreement that favors social interaction and cultural reproduction, and ultimately, shapes the formation of one's personality.
What is relevant about Habermas, and what makes his thought one of the most attractive of our time, is that he turns philosophy into a tool of social critique. Therefore, he doesn't create abstract ideas but plausible methods. For example, he is the creator of the idea of deliberative democracy as an ideal of collective political and social organization.
5. Slavoj Žižek
But if a philosopher has true vigor in the current philosophical debate, it is Slavoj Žižek. Irreverent and controversial, overflowing and brilliant, current and pragmatic, his ideas leave no one indifferent and accommodate his vast theoretical capacity with current debates.
For this reason, he has become one of the main gurus of a part of the radical left and one of the most influential minds in general.
His philosophy is an update of materialism based on Lacan's psychoanalytic structuralism and Hegel's idealism. His main ideas are that the current man must recognize, endure, and filter reality within his own fiction. For this reason, he recovers the idea of the transcendental subject, to build a bridge from Hegel to today.
Žižek's philosophy is a radical critique of postmodernity and its idea of relativism. His proposal aims to recover the idea of the absolute and an effective ontology that manages to explain oppression, violence, or exclusion far from radical historicism.
Bibliographic references
Berlanga, J. L. V. (1997). Historia de la filosofía contemporánea(Vol. 6). Ediciones AKAL.
Bochenski, I. M. (1951). La filosofía actual (No. 1). Fondo de Cultura Económica,.
de Azúa, J. B. R. (1992). De Heidegger a Habermas: Hermenéutica y fundamentación última en la filosofía contemporánea (Vol. 195). Herder.
Quintanilla, M. Á. (1976). Diccionario de filosofía contemporánea.