Modern Philosophy

"Modern" in philosophy really means something that has happened in the most recent several hundred years. In fact, so subtle are the influences of philosophers on society that it often takes at least one hundred years--sometimes much more--to determine whether or not a philosopher has been important enough to have an effect.
The modern period in Western philosophy began, perhaps, with the Enlightenment, that period in which people began questioning and seeking in new ways in a number of fields.
In the 1600s, physician William Harvey began opening up cadavers to see what was inside--and the reality was very different from what Aristotle and his philosophy of human science had said was inside people.
Similar revolutions occurred elsewhere as Galileo and Copernicus developed proofs that that the sun did not revolve around the earth, Reformation-minded Protestant and Catholic theologians changed the map of Christian practice and belief, and ancient and modern writings became more accessible to everyone through the invention of mass-produced books.
The Enlightenment brought to philosophy a renewed interest in the philosophies of other parts of the world and in the Greek philosophers who came before Plato and Aristotle.
Philosophers began to ask once again, as had many of the early Greeks, such questions as "What is God?", "How do I know that I exist?", and "What is reality?" In scholasticism, these questions all had been answerable by some form of religious or Platonic doctrine. Gradually philosophers began to ask any question once again.

Much of Western philosophy began to concern itself in the West with issues the Greeks had discussed and Hindu philosophers had analyzed for a thousand years.
Rene Descartes, 1596-1650, suggested that all philosophy starts, not with scripture, God, or old philosophies, but rather with this principle: "I think, therefore I am." There were some people who felt Descartes should be put to death for such a radical belief.
However, the belief in a human-centered view of philosophy continued to grow. Roger Bacon (1561-1626), Baruch de Spinoza (1632-1677), and Voltaire (1694-1778) all proposed philosophies that made reason important; Spinoza, a Jewish philosopher, and Voltaire both were considered dangerous radicals.
A movement called Romanticism also arose, which declared that human instinct and feeling are more important place than reason; Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-78) provided a philosophical basis for this.
In Great Britain, a powerful trio of philosophers argued about how people know that their perceptions of reality are true. John Locke (1632-1704) suggested that the mind is like photographic film, which takes an exact picture of reality around it, Bishop George Berkeley (1685-1753) argued that individuals' minds create reality, and David Hume (1711-1776) said that mind and matter interact to create what people think is reality.
If these three were asked a famous philosophical question, "If a tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?", Locke would have said "Yes," Berkeley would have said "No," and Hume would have said, "Something would happen, but that something would not be 'sound' without a human being to hear it."
The towering figure of this period of philosophy, however, was Immanuel Kant, 1724-1804. Kant, a quiet little professor at a college in his own hometown, created a revolution in thinking that has affected every person now alive.
Kant combined most important Western strains of philosophy into one system. It is Platonic scholasticism, Enlightenment reasoning, Romanticism, British perceptual philosophy, and Christian theology.
Kant argued, basically, that the mind is neither a complete blank at birth, nor does it create reality: both mind and matter are real and have their own real qualities.
All minds automatically understand, from birth, twelve basic qualities or "categories" such as how to count, to know differences, and to see relatedness.
These qualities are close to the Being that people call God; however, people's minds and sense organs are limited because they cannot see matter as it exists in its rawest, most basic forms.
Kant's thinking( radical at the time), has become the present day understanding of the nature of matter, human knowledge, and God.
Kant made it possible for many philosophers and theologians to agree--or at least to argue together using the same language.
It is sometimes said, in fact, that present-day philosophers can argue for Kant or against him, but they can't argue without him.
Some of Kant's speculations also were developed by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, 1770-1831, who in turn was a major influence on Karl Marx, 1818-1883, the political philosopher who helped start communism.
Since Kant, the most important single movement in Western philosophy has been that loosely termed as "existentialism."
Existentialists are a group of primarily 20th-century philosophers concerned with how humans should think and act in a world where all these people can perceive is raw existence and, often, suffering that appears to be everywhere.

Some existentialists have been Christian; others have been agnostic or atheist. Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), Soren Kierkegaard (1813-55), and Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) were early influences who discussed the nature of freedom, will, choice and suffering in human life. In the 20th century, Jean-Paul Sartre dominated existentialism with his logical critique of reasoning and perception.
Important existentialist theologians included Christians Paul Tillich, Karl Barth, and Reinhold Niebuhr and Israel's Jewish theologian Martin Buber.
Other existentialist philosophers have included Martin Heidegger, Karl Jaspers, and Jose Ortega y Gasset. Some philosophers argue that French vitalist Henri Bergson and German phenomenologist Edmund Husserl also may be placed under the broad umbrella of existentialism.
Other strains of Western 20th century philosophy have included linguistic analysis, especially in the work of Ludwig Wittgenstein, the mystical theology of Teilhard de Chardin, and the speculative metaphysics of Alfred North Whitehead.
Many American philosophers consider Whitehead, with his interest in the processes of reality and God, as the most important philosopher of the 20th century.
Philosophers in Judaism and Islam have continued to discuss issues brought to them by other cultures and religions. Much of 20th century Jewish and Muslim philosophy has been political as both cultural groups have gained more power in the world.
Some of the issues are concerned with how to deal with other cultures (for example, how should Israel deal with surrounding Arab countries), and some of the issues have to do with whether traditional or liberal ethics and practices are best (for example, should Arab countries separate or combine religious laws with civil laws).
In China, modern philosophy has been concerned mostly with understanding the pragmatic and material worlds, and most recently, in the 20th century, with dialectical materialism--the communist philosophy of Karl Marx. The best known proponent of this philosophy was Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-tung), leader of the Chinese communist revolution, whose writings and leadership made Marxist-Leninist political philosophy an everyday Chinese system of practice.
Though greatly modified in present-day China, many communal and ethical parts of his system still are practiced.
In Japan, modern-day Shintoism and Buddhism have continued to coexist philosophically and in most people's regular religious practices.
The modern period in Indian philosophy has been marked by the development of systems incorporating Western thinking into Indian philosophy through such philosophers as Aurobindo and Vivekananda.
In addition, a system arose of political ethics that has influenced much of the world in the 20th century: the passive resistance philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi (Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi), 1969-1948, who led India to freedom and was then assassinated.
Gandhi's philosophy was further developed by the African-American Martin Luther King who also was assassinated for his beliefs.
This political philosophy has been joined by another and very potent one in the African American community, that of the Islam-based political philosophy of Malcolm X. In his Autobiography he espoused active nonviolent resistance, a return to cultural roots, and the development of Islam among African Americans.
Each of these ideas continues to grow, along with King's political philosophy, in today's African American communities.
In other countries and cultures, and among other cultural groups--for example, American Indians, Latin Americans, Africans, African Americans, and women in many dominant cultures--political and cultural speculations also have developed with second-class citizenship and resistance as dominant themes.
These political philosophies sometimes have been related to Marxist philosophy and sometimes to democratic philosophies; however, each has acquired its own cultural approach, emphasizing that the people of its culture have a right and obligation not only to be free and have equal choice, but also to explore their own ethnic, emotional, and historical roots.