Structuralism. Social structure. Language as a system of signs. Structural anthropology
The direction in the humanities, which in a later classification received the designation of structuralism, appeared at the beginning of the 20th century and was associated primarily with the concept of structural linguistics of the Swiss linguist and philosopher Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913). This concept significantly influenced the anthropological research of Claude Levi- Strauss (1908-), the only one who called himself a structuralist, the psychoanalytic theory of J. Lacan (see the chapter “Psychoanalysis”), the epistemological concept of knowledge of Michel Foucault (1926-1984), the literary criticism of Roland Barthes (1915-1980) and many others.
Postpositivism. Science is the servant of power. Conventionalism
This term is commonly used to designate the works of several philosophers of the mid-20th century, thematically united around questions of scientific methodology and subjecting the concepts of classical rationality to rethinking. Among the most famous representatives of postpositivism are K. Popper, T. Kuhn, I. Lakatos, P. Feyerabend, M. Polanyi, K. Hübner. In fact, M. Foucault is not far from this movement of thought. Late postpositivism gave rise to the sociology of science.
Neopositivism. Vienna circle. Syntax of scientific knowledge. Criteria for scientific meaningfulness of knowledge
The activities of the Vienna Circle opened a special stage in the development of philosophical positivism – neopositivism. Evolving, the Vienna Circle largely determined the problems of various trends in modern thought – from logical positivism in the versions of B. Russell and A. Ayer and the post-positivism of K. Popper, formed as a critic of the Vienna Circle, to the latest analytical philosophy. Initially, the term “logical positivism” was directly related to the Vienna Circle and denoted a critical attitude to traditional (metaphysical) philosophy and the use of logical methods of language analysis as a universal method for constructing empirical science. It is unlikely that the influence of these ideas on science can be considered fundamental, but in philosophy, the ideas of the Viennese had a noticeable impact.
Wittgenstein. Thinking is inseparable from language. Limits to Human Knowledge
Wittgenstein’s life, as in the case of Kierkegaard, does not seem to be something secondary in relation to his philosophical work. Wittgenstein sought himself in life in the same way as he sought himself in philosophy, and therefore his biography and philosophical works complement each other. Wittgenstein was born in 1889 in Vienna to the family of steel magnate Karl Wittgenstein. He studied at school in Linz, then at the Higher Technical School in Manchester, England. At first, Wittgenstein worked for some time with Frege. Then, on Frege’s advice, in 1911 he went to Cambridge to Russell, whose teaching seriously interested him and with whom he managed (at least for some time) to establish the most friendly relations. 1913 was the year of the death of Wittgenstein’s father, when it turned out that the young philosopher had inherited a large fortune. Wittgenstein donated a significant portion of his inheritance to Austrian cultural figures (including Rainer Maria Rilke and Georg Trakl), and renounced the remainder of his inheritance in favor of his sisters and brothers.
Bertrand Russell. Logical atomism. Natural scientific approach to ideological problems
Bertrand Russell was born in 1872 into an old British aristocratic family. The grandson of British Prime Minister John Russell, Mill’s godson, he graduated from Cambridge with honors, had the title of Lord, and lived for almost a hundred years – he died in 1970 – taking part in the most acute philosophical battles of the 20th century: on the problems of mathematics and logic, on the questions of the methodology of scientific knowledge and the language of science, on the problems of atheism and modern freethinking, on the engagement of intellectuals in political life (he was last imprisoned at the age of 89 for participating in a rally for nuclear disarmament), and finally, on the modern interpretation of the history of philosophy.
Jean-Paul Sartre. Existentialism is humanism. Being and Nothing
Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) was born in Paris to a naval officer, Jean-Baptiste Sartre (who died when his son was only two years old), and Anne-Marie Schweitzer. The future writer and philosopher grew up in the family of his grandfather, Charles Schweitzer (the famous humanist thinker Albert Schweitzer was his nephew), an academic teacher and author of textbooks in the spirit of Voltairean freethinking and hatred of any tyranny. His grandfather’s huge library nourished his grandson’s young mind and predisposed him to a variety of interests. The family lived in “bourgeois prosperity,” and the child was protected from all sorts of life’s hardships, being a “good boy,” confident in the well-being of the entire world, which he comprehended through books: “I began my life, as, in all likelihood, I will end it — among books” (4: 381). Since he did not believe in God, he found in the book “his religion” and “his temple” (4: 390, 479). This childish godlessness (“Childhood decides everything,” Sartre believed) resulted in the conscious atheism of the future philosopher, and the “Leibnizian optimism” of a happy child — when confronted with a harsh and painful reality — transformed into a sharp rejection of it, rebellion and cynicism.
Martin Heidegger. Own and improper existence. Caring for the world and the people in it is the meaning of existence
Martin Heidegger was born in 1889 in the town of Messkirch in southern Germany, and studied at the Jesuit college in Constance and at the gymnasium in Freiburg im Breisgau, from which he graduated in 1909. There he entered the university, where he studied theology for the first two years, then philosophy, the humanities and the natural sciences. After completing his course in 1913, he defended his dissertation on the topic of “The Doctrine of Judgment in Psychologism”, then began teaching at the same university. In 1915, for his work “Duns Scotus’s Doctrine of Categories and Meanings”, he was promoted to associate professor. In the same year, he was drafted into the army (until 1918), but did not end up at the front. In 1923, he transferred to the position of extraordinary professor in Marburg (until 1928). In 1927, Heidegger’s main work, Being and Time, was published. In 1928, he was invited to Freiburg to head the department that became vacant after Husserl’s resignation.
Karl Jaspers. Modes of existence. All life is a borderline situation
Karl Jaspers was born in 1883. In 1901, after graduating from a classical gymnasium, he entered the Heidelberg University Faculty of Law, but after a year and a half he transferred to the medical faculty. His interest in medicine was due, among other reasons, to a severe congenital bronchial disease that caused attacks of heart failure. Such a disease usually kills no later than 30 years of age, but a conscious attitude to this “borderline situation” allowed Jaspers to live a full life and, in a sense, “defeat death”. In 1908, Jaspers graduated from the university, receiving the profession of a psychiatrist, in 1909 he became a doctor of medicine and went to work in the psychiatric and neurological clinic at Heidelberg University. In 1910, he married Gertrud Mayer, who became his friend and companion for life. She was seriously interested in philosophy, as was her brother, Ernst Mayer, a close friend of Jaspers. Largely under their influence, Jaspers moved from medicine as a natural science discipline first to psychology, and then to philosophy. The stages of this path are marked by his major works: 1913 – “General Psychopathology”; 1919 – “Psychology of Worldviews”. From this time on, his friendship with Heidegger begins.
Edmund Husserl. Phenomenology. Philosophy of arithmetic
Edmund Husserl was born in 1859 in Prossnitz (Moravia). During his studies – from 1876 at the University of Leipzig, from 1878 in Berlin, from 1881 in Vienna – he was primarily interested in mathematics, physics and astronomy. Among his university mentors were the famous mathematicians Leopold Kronecker and Karl Weierstrass. In 1882, Husserl defended his dissertation on “Some Problems in the Theory of the Calculus of Variations”. After receiving his degree, he worked for some time as Weierstrass’s private assistant.
Psychoanalysis. Sigmund Freud, Carl Gustav Jung, Alfred Adler, Erich Fromm. Concept of the unconscious
Psychoanalysis, founded by Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), emerged in 1895 as a project for scientific psychology that would provide a complete picture of inner spiritual life based on objective observation and analysis of individual phenomena. Psychoanalysis, in all its variations, has from the very beginning claimed to be the central theory of individual human mental life and human culture as a whole.