Beginning in Europe, the response to Hegelian idealism spread out across the European continent but also into the United States where it became known as Continental philosophy. Analytic philosophy was the preferred tradition in England. At the same time in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, pragmatism was being developed in the United States. It seems there are many schools of thought concerning pragmatism which include: existentialism, phenomenology, hermeneutics, deconstruction, and critical theory.

Both existentialism and phenomenology have their roots in the nineteenth century, and many of their themes can be traced back to Socrates and even to the pre-Socratics. Each school of thought has influenced the other to such an extent that two of the most famous and influential Continental philosophers of this century, Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) and Jean-Paul Sartre (1905 -1980), are important figures in both, although Heidegger is primarily a phenomenologist and Sartre primarily an existentialist (The Continental Tradition, Axia College, 2005). (solid introductory paragraph)

Søren Kierkegaard (1813 -1855) scorned Hegel’s system, in which the individual dissolves into a kind of abstract unreality. By contrast, Kierkegaard emphasized the individual and especially the individual’s will and need to make important choices. Where Hegel was abstract to a degree rarely found outside, say, mathematics, Kierkegaard was almost entirely concerned with how and what the individual actually chooses in the face of doubt and uncertainty.

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 -1900) read Arthur Schopenhauer (1788 -1860) and became convinced that the world is driven by cosmic will, not by reason. Nietzsche rejected Hegel’s idealism and all similar rationalist metaphysics. However, he disagreed with Schopenhauer as to the nature of the cosmic will (The Continental Tradition, Axia College, 2005). Read the rest of this entry »

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