Contemporary

Philosophy
• Positivism
• Socialism
XIX
• Vitalism
century • Existentialism
• Existentialism
• Personalism
Twentie • Frankfurt School
• Itthis a theory of knowledge that maintains that the true
source of knowledge is facts, experience and
 Positivism
observation: detailed, continuous, objective,
predictive and causal of these experiential
phenomena, through the application of the steps of
the scientific method (which is considered universal),
guided by analytical reason.
• It is the name given to a philosophical current, whose
primary feature is the ideal of a foundation in scientific
knowledge (without theological or metaphysical
elements), based solely on the hypothetico-deductive
analysis of empirical data from the physical world.
 Positivism
- We only know what allows us to know the sciences,
and the only method of knowledge is that of the
natural sciences.

- The method of natural sciences, discovery of

Characteristic causal laws and the control they exert over facts, is not
only applied to the study of nature but also to the
s study of society.

- For this reason, sociology - understood as the science

of those "natural facts" constituted by human and
social relationships - is a characteristic result of the
positivist philosophical program.
 Positivism
- Science is the only means by which all the human
and social problems that until then had tormented
humanity can be solved over time.

- It is an optimistic current, man advances towards

conditions of general well-being.

- The positivity of science leads the positivist mentality

to combat the idealistic and spiritualist conceptions of
reality, conceptions that the positivists accused of
being metaphysical.
 Positivism
It arises as a result of the attempt to place
science as the basis of a new political-social

Positivism organization.
Main exponents: Claude Henry de Saint-Simon

Social and Augusto Comte.

• It aims to constitute, with a scientific nature, an

overall vision of the universe, based on the
concept of evolution.
Positivism • Main exponent: Herbert Spencer.

Evolutionist - Law of the three stages: The

evolution of humanity follows a
process in three stages:
theological, metaphysical and positive. This law of the 3 stages
 Positivism
is analogous to what happens in the life of each individual:
theologians in their childhood, metaphysicians in their youth
and physicists in their adulthood.

- Classification of sciences : Establishes a tripartite

relationship : priestly-military, legal, industrial-positive. Only 6
fundamental sciences are admitted, which constitutes a very well-structured
hierarchy: mathematics, astronomy, physics, chemistry, physiology,
sociology.
- Role of sociology : Sociology studies the life of human beings
in society. It is divided into static, it is based on the idea of
order, on the analysis of the components of society; and
dynamic , it is based on the idea of progress.
- Study of religion: Proposes a religion with neither God nor the
supernatural. Religion has two functions: to govern each
 Positivism
individual ( morality ), and to unite all individuals ( politics ).
And it has three components: doctrine (heart), worship (mind)
and moral standard (character or discipline).

Contributions - Function of philosophy : For Comte the task of positive

philosophy must be to establish the unitary system of all
sciences, including in it the entire field of knowledge, and,
therefore, sociology. It must have certain characteristics,
including: encyclopedic, systematic, organizational. And it must
have a practical nature.
 Law of the three stages
The explanation of all things is attributed to gods or
Theologi supernatural forces.
• Itcal
is fictitious, provisional and preparatory.

The explanation of all things is attributed to abstract

Metaphysi principles or immutable essences.
• Itcal
is abstract, essentially critical and transitional.

The explanation of all things follows the steps of the

Positive method scientist.
• It is real and it is final.
 Theological Stadium
• The human spirit gives animation to material things, magical and
divine powers, through whose action the changes observed in nature
Fetishism are explained: hurricanes, earthquakes, rains.

• Animation is removed from material things to transfer it to a series of

divinities, it makes natural processes depend on the will of the gods.
Polytheis
m

• The plurality of divinities is replaced by a single God and

omnipotent who governs the entire universe with his laws.
Monotheism
 Metaphysical
Stage
It is an intermediate stage between the theological
state and the positive one. Absolute knowledge
continues to be sought in it. Metaphysics tries to
explain the nature of beings, their essence, their
causes. But to do this they do not resort to
supernatural agents, but to abstract entities that give it
 Positive Stage
its name of ontology.
This state is reached when one no longer aspires to
absolute knowledge that explains the origin of the
universe, when one stops searching for the reason for
all things and man limits himself to observing the facts
of experience to describe them, discover the laws that
govern their behavior, that is, the constant
relationships that exist between the observed
 Positive Stage
phenomena.
 Socialism

• He sought a social model based on solidarity and better

Utopia distribution of wealth.
n •His doctrine indicated that communist society would
inevitably emerge as the conclusion of the economic
struggle of the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, being the
necessary point of arrival of historical dynamism or
Scientist distributive justice of work as the origin of all economic
products. It emerged from of the failure of the projects of
utopian socialism .
 Karl Marx (1818-1883)
- The matter is the primary thing. Man cannot be
determined from the idea or the spirit, but from the man
himself, the real, corporeal man, standing on the earth itself.

- It is not the consciousness of human beings that determines

Philosoph
their being, but rather the social being that determines their
ical ideas
consciousness.

- For dialectical philosophy there is nothing definitive or

absolute. Dialectics is the science of the general laws of
motion of both the external world and human thought.
 Karl Marx (1818-1883)
- The essence of man is work. Only by knowing the real
conditions in which man works, can we know what he really
is.

-By seeking his own existence in the face of the powerful

forces of nature, man acquires a feeling of inferiority. Therefore, man is
Philosoph forced to prolong his power and dominate nature.
ical ideas
- The unity of the world does not consist in its being, if it
does not consist in its materiality, movement is the form of
existence of matter.

1. Class struggle: For Marxism, class struggle is the common

 Karl Marx (1818-1883)
thread of history, which has led to the revolutionary
transformation of society.

2. Historical materialism: Its purpose is to analyze class

struggles and historical contradictions.
Concepts
basic
3. Surplus value: It is the appropriation of the unpaid
worker's work, it is the difference between the goods
produced by the worker and the salary he receives.
4. Alienation: It arises when the person does not know
themselves in the products they create, and they are
enslaved and dehumanized. Economic alienation produces all
Karl Marx (1818-1883)
the others
Karl Marx (1818-1883)

fight Relations of
of Production
Classe
s
 Vitalism

Scientific • It postulates the necessary existence of a vital principle

foreign to matter that explains the complicated
Characte phenomena of living things.

r
• It properly refers to vitalism or philosophy of life .
Philosop
hical
 Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)
- The starting point of his thoughts is the criticism of the
values of European culture (philosophy, religion, morality)

- Human existence is a struggle between two tendencies:

Dionysus (irrational dimension of man) and Apollo
Ideas (logical rational dimension).
philosophical
- He forges a model of an ideal life and an ideal man, which
he calls "Superman."
 Stages of Ideal Life
The Ideal Stage
Aesthetic It is the kind of life of Greek tragedies.
• It is embodied in the man of passions and ambitions, which are represented in the Apollonian and the
Dionysian.

The Ideal Stage

Scientist The human ideal is that of wisdom.
• It is represented in the wise man, the thinker who is capable of facing total reality, free of prejudices, knows all miseries and
despite everything affirms the will to live; that is the true human ideal.

The Ideal Stage of It represents the will to dominate oneself and over others.
Superman. the
rest. goals, or obligations being imposed on him. He is the creator of all value and all
• The superman does not tolerate values,
obligation; He is beyond good and evil and for him God is more than enough. The superman is the will to dominate and self-
affirmation; The superman knows well what he has to do. Everything that superman promotes is good and true.
 Existentialism

Existentialism
• The main exponents are: Heidegger, Jaspers, Pieper and
German Kierkegaard
Existentialism
• The main exponents are Unamuno, Ortega y Gasset.
Italian
 Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855)
- There is no abstract, universal, or necessary truth. There is
no scientific or rational truth.

- The only thing that matters is the authenticity of existence.

Philosophical ideas

- Man's search for himself constitutes a process of three

stages or stages.
 Stages of Human Existence
Aesthetic Stadium Represented by “Don Juan”
• Fun predominates as an invasion of self. The person settles for the pleasure of existence,
which leads to nostalgia and dissatisfaction and therefore despair.

Ethical Stadium Represented by Socrates.

• It is about seeking ethical perfection. Man establishes morality as
the principle of his conduct and as the ultimate goal of his activity and directs his efforts to
fulfill his duty. But this perfection is unattainable and leads man to anguish.

Religious stadium REPRESENTED BY ABRAHAM.

• The person comes to know God through faith through a subjective and authentic
relationship. He loves God and does not want to offend Him.
 Martin Heidegger (1889-1976)
- There are two types of existence: inauthentic, which is
characterized by triviality and forgetting the tragedy of
existence; and authentic, it is characterized by assimilating the
anguish and fragility of existing in the face of death.

- The access route to being is “being-there” or Dasein .

Ideas
philosophical - The very nature of the being consists of its existence and is
apprehended through existentials.

- There are three categories of being's existence: being-in-

the-world, being-for-death, and being-with-the-other.
 Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-
1980)
- There is no human essence to which individuals conform.

- Man is born condemned to be free.

.
Ideas
philosophical - Existence precedes essence. Man defines himself,
determines his own identity.

- There are two types of being: being-in-itself and being-for-

Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-
1980)
itself.
 Phenomenology
Edmund Husserl (1859-1938)

• It consists of refraining from formulating judgments of

Phenomenologi any kind that concern objective reality and that go
cal reduction beyond the limits of pure experience.

• It consists of seeing the subject of knowledge itself not

transcendental as a real, empirical, social and psychophysiological being,
reduction but as a pure transcendental consciousness.
 Personalism
Emmanuel Mournier
• It is a movement of thought and action that affirms the absolute or supreme
value of the person.

• It is the highest degree of being, the personal way of

Person existing. It is a being with values, personality, spiritual
and own and non-transferable qualities.
• It is an indivisible being, which does not have its own
Individua characteristics that define it. It is the being endowed
with life.
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