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In Philosophy 103, "The Nineteenth Century," we usually read works by Kant, Hegel, Mill, Nietzsche, Marx, James, and others. I like to conclude the course with a small selection from Sigmund Freud. The contrast between Kant and Freud is indicative of the profound movement of thinking in the 19th Century --- a time that begins at the height of the Enlightenment, in full possession of reason, and ends in the rise of both collective- and self-doubting, with considerable skepticism about actual human capacities. For Freud, what we reason out may be mere pretense organized, as it were, by subconscious features of personality. What we believe has become confused with what we want to believe; and what we want cannot be simply and directly observed and explored --- certainly not in the methodical, clear-headed way that Kant thought possible, in the 1780s. Nietzsche, James, and Freud were all "psychologists" nor were they alone in that thinking, in the late 19th Century.
It is appropriate, then, to begin Philosophy 104, "The Contemporary Era," where we left off, with Freud, in particular, with Freud's dramatic statement regarding the discontents of living a civilized life. When Freud wrote this book, the West had already suffered its first World War and its second World War was clearly destined. Western Civilization, the pride of Enlightenment, seemed to be tearing itself apart. Modern science, the most promising symbol of Enlightenment, seemed to be simply facilitating the destruction. In the next twenty years, the West began the second half of the century with little change. The Second World War had been suffered and science had succeeded in creating the most destructive weapons ever conceived by the human mind. The Cold War had begun and was destined to produce the most spectacular amassing of armaments ever witnessed in world history.
All of this has certainly called upon us to ask why it is that Western society seems to be possessed by its own self-destruction. Ironically, at the century's end, while world war and mass destruction seem less likely, the possibility of self-destruction "by suffocation" seems more likely than ever. That is, without the distractions of fearing for our lives in present times, we have begun to recognize a wide variety of ways in which our economic habits are destined to spell environmental disaster to future generations. We are literally eating and building ourselves out of house-and-home (the world).
In the 20th Century, philosophical thinking became even more diverse than it had become in the 19th Century. It also tended to become more academic and technical. The continuing development of science maintained philosophical interest in scientific methodology; but the philosophy of science was severely split apart into at least three groups --- a relatively small group faithful to Kant, a somewhat larger group of scientists who were "mechanical materialists", and a large group following French Positivism. As the century turned and Einstein's Relativity was seriously discussed along with Quantum Mechanics, philosophers of science were thrown into crisis. Meanwhile, a small group of philosophers in England and, later, on the Continent reacted to Hegelian Idealism, especially its impact on English moralists, and pressed onward under the model of science, reason, and logic, to develop a philosophy of Realism. Moore and Russell felt almost giddy with the sense of impending revolution; and they had an enormous impact on English philosophy for the next fifty years. Ludwig Wittgenstein was a student with them and returned, later, to teach with them.
Under the double inspiration of Russell and Whitehead's Principia Mathematica and Wittgenstein's early work Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Logical Positivism developed in Vienna, in the 1920s, and spread into domination throughout the North Atlantic countries, in the late 1930s, effecting a virtual reign of terror on any "soft philosophizing" until it died of its own dreadful weight in the late 1970s. In its fear of political propaganda and activism, Positivism took the "high road" of logical reasoning and scientific observation and dug its collective heads into the closet where political and moral outrages could not be seen or discussed. The only genuine issue, in effect, was Kant's old question "How is science possible?" and the Logical Positivists were adamant that the answer was just around the corner.
At the same time, though on the other side of the fence, John Dewey continued the development of Pragmatism, after Peirce and James. While Pragmatism was conceived as a scientific and experimental approach to philosophy, it was devoted to consideration of traditional human and social issues rather than to methodological detail. Dewey's long-term interests in education, psychology, and democracy directed his attention to contemporary problems and tendencies. In Germany, Martin Heidegger continued the development of Nietzsche's attack against metaphysics. But Heidegger was also profoundly affected by the rapid advances of technology and was witness to the ways technology was impacting human life and culture. A student of Heidegger, Herbert Marcuse combined Marx, Freud, and Heidegger into an extensive contemporary critique of society and politics. All of these philosophers stared directly into the soul of their times and struggled with real problems.
In the end, it is my opinion that Logical Positivism will be mostly forgotten, along with its precursor, 19th Century Positivism. When people look back upon the 20th Century, they will be mostly interested in those authors who continued the genuine traditions of philosophy, that is, who continued to stage, refine, and challenge conversations about their world, especially the human social world. These are the people that Richard Rorty discusses in our last book; and they are, for the most part, the people we will read throughout this course.
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