Philosophy in the 1900s

A special issue of Humanities (ISSN 2076-0787).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 December 2017) | Viewed by 3466

Special Issue Editor

School of Social Sciences and Humanities, University of Tampere, Kalevantie 4, Tampere, Finland
Interests: epistemology; metaphysics; philosophical logic; twentieth century philosophy

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The twentieth century in Western philosophy is usually seen as the century of two strong traditions. There were logical empiricism and analytic philosophy, on the one hand, and the Continental tradition, that is, phenomenology, existentialism and hermeneutics, on the other. Surprisingly, one tradition has received its name from its method, while the other carries a geographic name. Pragmatism can be considered a separate tradition, although it has influenced, and been influenced by, both analytic and Continental philosophy. For most of the twentieth century, Marxism with its various schools was regarded as a separate tradition. If Marxism is given a place in the twofold division, it is taken to be part of the Continental tradition. In the last decades of the twentieth century the two main traditions started to dissolve. New philosophical trends appeared, such as postmodernism and postanalytic philosophy; hermeneutics found its connections with parts of analytic philosophy, and bridges were built between antinaturalistic phenomenology and the cognitive sciences. Still, the analytic-Continental divide lives and seems to be well in contemporary philosophy. Kant was a common background for the traditions, but we may also find the origins of the division in eighteenth and nineteenth century philosophy; for example, in the differences between the Enlightenment and Romanticism. There are various ways of making the distinction between the analytic and the Continental tradition. Differences can be found in their attitudes towards the history of philosophy, towards their own history, and towards science and the humanities; they also seem to disagree on the tasks and the methods of philosophy. However, the hypotheses concerning the defining features of the traditions tend to fail; what can be found are differing emphases or styles in practicing philosophy.

The Special Issue of Humanities focuses on two perspectives on philosophy in the 1900s. First, it encourages to compare individual philosophers who are usually seen as representatives of opposing traditions and thus to challenge the fixed borders between the traditions. Second, the issue seeks to study twentieth century philosophers in context: what role did various cultural, social, and political factors play in the formation and the transformation of the traditions? We invite contributions that discuss philosophy in the 1900s from the following, but not exclusive, perspectives:

  • the possibility of dialogue between individual thinkers of opposing traditions
  • the tasks and the methods of philosophy in the twentieth century
  • the World Wars and philosophy
  • philosophical traditions in the humanities in the 1900s
  • the formal sciences and philosophy in the 1900s
  • local philosophical cultures in the 1900s

As of 2018, the Article Processing Charges for papers published in the journal will be covered via the Knowledge Unlatched crowd-funding mechanism. For more details, please see:
https://www.mdpi.com/journal/humanities/announcements/1023

Leila Haaparanta
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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Keywords

  • logical empiricism
  • analytic philosophy
  • Continental tradition
  • pragmatism
  • phenomenology
  • existentialism
  • hermeneutics
  • Marxism
  • humanities
  • formal sciences
  • society
  • history

Published Papers (1 paper)

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237 KiB  
Article
Comparing Three Twentieth-Century Philosophical Antitheodicies
by Sami Pihlström
Humanities 2017, 6(4), 98; https://doi.org/10.3390/h6040098 - 12 Dec 2017
Viewed by 2691
Abstract
This paper compares three twentieth-century examples of antitheodicist thought in the philosophy of religion (and, more generally, ethics): William James’s pragmatism, D.Z. Phillips’s Wittgensteinianism, and Emmanuel Levinas’s post-Holocaust ethical reflection on suffering. It is argued that all three—despite their enormous differences, given that [...] Read more.
This paper compares three twentieth-century examples of antitheodicist thought in the philosophy of religion (and, more generally, ethics): William James’s pragmatism, D.Z. Phillips’s Wittgensteinianism, and Emmanuel Levinas’s post-Holocaust ethical reflection on suffering. It is argued that all three—despite their enormous differences, given that the three thinkers discussed come from distinct philosophical traditions—share the fundamental antitheodicist argument according to which theodicies seeking to justify God’s reasons for allowing the world to contain horrible evil and suffering amount to morally problematic, or even immoral, failures to acknowledge other human beings and their meaningless suffering. Furthermore, it is suggested that this antitheodicist line of thought shared by all three is based on a Kantian transcendental analysis of the necessary conditions for the possibility of occupying a moral perspective on the world. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Philosophy in the 1900s)
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