Philosophy and Arts Worksheet

INTRODUCTION

The 20th century is a period between January 1st, 1901 and December 31st, 2000. This period is recorded in history as one of the most defining for the human race. Events that took place during this time as well as innovations have gone ahead to be the basis of what we live on today and formed a great part of our culture and belief system. This period is greatly remembered for the world wars, advancement in technology and science, changes in social organization, end of colonization for most African countries, genocides, and awareness in the environmental degradation due to industrialization in the 18th and 19th centuries, digital revolution in terms of communication, transport and use of internet. All these events and innovations were used as the basis for philosophical arguments in the 20th century. For instance, the feminist movement came to being to demand for equal rights for women both in the corporate world and in society as a whole, advancement in science and technology created awareness on the need of data to solve philosophical problems and therefore logical positivism movement began in support of this. Advancements made in this century have gone ahead to change completely how the world operates, thinks and solves its problems today.

Some of the philosophical arguments of the 20th century include:

EXISTENTIALISM

Existentialism is attributed to philosophers Søren Kierkegaard, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir and Albert Camus. This philosophy posits that humans have absolute freedom over their lives and therefore in charge over their existence. It belittles the idea of fate and argues that the only certainty to man is death. It asserts that man lives in a meaningless world that is irrational and that he has absolute free will and total responsibility over his life. It argues out the existence of God and upholds that culture, norms, religion and beliefs all limit the capabilities of man to make choices.

Existentialism is supported by certain principles: freedom of choice, it argues out that man has total free will to make his own decisions and that he is the one who controls his life and all that happens to him. Even the act of not making a choice is regarded as a choice. It upholds that all people are responsible for creating their own essence for existence and are masters of their fate: moral judgment, externalism stipulates that there are no standards for what is good or bad in society and that it is an individual`s responsibility to uphold individual dignity. It views tradition, culture and religion as an opposing factor that limits the extent to which man can exercise his free will by placing standards on him about what is morally right or wrong; individual personality, externalists believe that each individual is unique and that the behavior of man cannot be predicted. The only certain fact is that each man will die but the essence of his life is upon the decisions he makes.

The externalism school of thought was developed after World War II and focused on making man more aware of the freedom he had over his life. This movement focused on giving man absolute freedom. It led to the development of other movements such as atheism and humanism. Many critics argue that this philosophy is pessimistic and only focuses on the bad side of life that man meant to suffer and eventually die.

ANALYTICAL THEORY

Analytic philosophy movement began after the end of World War I (1914-1918). It was developed by British philosophers Bertrand Russell and Ludwig Wittgenstein. Analytical philosophy focused on the linguistic and logical side of philosophy. It stipulates that careful use of language and analysis of concepts is important in philosophy so as to attain clarity of the subject being discussed. It also argues that philosophy should be consistent with the success of modern science. In his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921) Wittgenstein stated that “philosophy aims at the logical clarification of thoughts.”

The main foundational principles of Analytical Philosophy are: philosophy is not based on truths rather it’s subject to a logical clarification. This means that for any problem addressed by philosophy it’s not so much on facts but it should be supported by a logical argument. This is done by analysis of good grammar. In his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921) Wittgenstein suggested that “the world is merely the existence of certain states of affairs which can be expressed in the language of first-order predicate logic, so that a picture of the world can be built up by expressing atomic facts in atomic propositions, and linking those using logical operators”

This argument followed up on the success of science in the 20th century. It focused on providing logical data to solve science and mathematical problems.

PHENOMENOLOGY PHILOSOPY

This branch of philosophy was developed by German philosophers Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger. It studies how humans perceive experiences or events and how we define them. It encompasses various experiences of perception by man, such as emotions, imagination, thoughts and desire. It is therefore the study of life’s experiences and the awareness an individual possesses when living through this experiences.

The key principles of phenomenology are: phenomena must be analyzed and interpreted consciously and this is done individually by the person who is living the event; there must be a reflection of all things that man observes so that he interprets them without misconceptions. Husserl argued that solving philosophical issues was a logical process using data obtained from a phenomenon; intentionality, this means that individuals have to consciously characterize a phenomena so as to fully draw conclusions.

REFERENCES

1. Scott D. Churchill and Frederick J. Wertz (1985) ,"An Introduction to Phenomenological Psychology For Consumer Research: Historical, Conceptual, and Methodological Foundations", in NA - Advances in Consumer Research Volume 12, eds. Elizabeth C. Hirschman and Moris B. Holbrook, Provo, UT : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 550-555.

2. Western philosophy (2008), “20th- century philosophy”.

3. The basics of philosophy (2008)

4. Aaron Preston (2006), “internet encyclopedia of philosophy”

5. Ian Balangatan (2014, July 24th), “philosophy of education; EXISTENTIALISM”