MODERN PHILOSOPHY: CHARACTERISTICS, STAGES AND REPRESENTATIVES - PHILOSOPHY - 2025

The modern philosophy is the current of thought that represented a change in the notion that religion belonged to the center of the lives of individuals. That is, man became more interested in humanistic and natural themes, which implied the displacement of ideas and beliefs that the Church had imposed.

In that sense, this manifestation stated that beings were rational subjects with the ability to develop their knowledge and establish their own opinions about the reality that surrounded them.

Thomas Hobbes was one of the representatives of modern philosophy. Source: John Michael Wright

This was an aspect of great relevance, since previously it was considered that the truth was only possessed by kings and the ecclesiastical institution, who had a direct relationship with God.

One of the questions that generated a certain rejection of the ideology that dominated at the time was why God would communicate only with kings or priests and not with all men equally.

Likewise, this question represented the reason why the idea arose that the reasoning carried out up to that moment had no scientific basis, which is why an analysis from scratch was sought.

However, in this period the existence of God was not questioned, only the role played by the Church and the State (governed by a monarchy) to benefit through his image was repudiated. The relevance of modern philosophy was to proclaim man as an entity capable of renewing the world through his subjective vision.

History

Philosophy (a term derived from Greek and meaning "love of wisdom") can be conceptualized as a doctrine whose object of study is to search for a possible veracity of the events and ideas that revolve around the individual.

In this way, modern philosophy is identified by the diversity of arguments that are born from a single truth.

However, modern thought did not unfold from one moment to another, but through various movements that developed throughout history.

Among these movements were the scholasticism, which had its peak from the 11th to the 15th century; and the first Renaissance manifestations, which were located around the 15th and 16th centuries.

The influence of scholasticism - specifically of two of its disciplines: nominalism and voluntarism - was essential to understand the link that existed between faith and reason; On the other hand, with the Renaissance expressions, a new way of guiding man's reflection and judgment was forged. Hence come the first expressions of modern philosophy.

These manifestations were characterized because the beings no longer justified their ideas to convince, but to show the causal relationship between actions and decisions. Therefore, it was necessary to strip the thoughts of the prejudices that medieval knowledge transmitted.

Background

Beginning in the 15th century, the European continent reflected a new lifestyle driven by the desire for freedom. A freedom that did not have a material but a mental purpose, since knowledge and truth were sought; This is why a plurality of approaches arose. This fact generated the breakdown of the unity that prevailed in the Middle Ages.

This rupture was carried out mainly due to the separation of dogma and reason, since hypotheses that only focused on faith were rejected because they had no logical basis or physical evidence. This would not have happened if the university method had not been changed.

The purpose of this change was that the reasoning be systematized, or in other words, that each argument be consigned in an essay or treatise, which constituted the scientific value of the ideas.

At the same time, this study technique caused that the work Suma theológica (1265) of Saint Thomas Aquinas was not revised again as the text that had all the answers to the questions of the apprentices.

On the other hand, not only the clergy taught the subjects, since from the seventeenth century, professors who were politicians, diplomats and even lay people were incorporated into the universities. Such transformation in the structural realm was associated with scientific discovery and with the Protestant movements.

The religious crisis

The ecclesiastical institution had been in conflict since the schism of 1378. Even so, it had managed to preserve unity, until in the course of the 16th century a restorative ideology emerged in Germany that was called the Protestant Reformation.

This movement, inaugurated by Martin Luther (1483-1546), had the purpose of transmitting that the salvation of the soul was possible if the being moved away from the mercantilist spirit and from centralized organisms. The aspiration of this Catholic-Augustinian friar was to show man that his supposed self-sufficiency was only an illusion.

For Luther, beings were minimal in the presence of a higher entity. In order to prove it, he translated the Bible, so that it would be accessible and all citizens could interpret it following their consciences.

Therefore, the agency of individuals was limited by the will of God, since divine goodness exceeded human forces.

Like Luther, John Calvin (1509-1564) stated that salvation was achieved through faith and not through acts. However, for Calvin freedom of conscience did not exist because man was already predestined: his future was already written beyond his choice.

In this way it can be appreciated that both doctrines were fundamental for the development of modern thought, because in a certain way they proclaimed the free knowledge of the individual.

Renaissance (XIV-XIX centuries)

Florence in the Renaissance

Modern thought was not only forged through religious changes but also through state organization, as the first states were formed; These projected a close social, political and economic union. Likewise, in France, Spain and Germany the nationalities were configured.

Those nationalities were identified with a total absolutism, reason for which time later the struggles to conquer freedom began. Such struggles were a source for the development of philosophical approaches that, in the end, led to the growth of revolutionary ideals.

At this time trade also increased. Merchants gained more influence and power because they transported goods that were not found in some countries: there were small regions that had more resources than the old nations. For this reason the discovery of America had a primary role.

Another elementary fact was the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg (1400-1468), which made possible the diffusion of culture and the intellectual progress of the university elites. All the manifestations mentioned had a radical role because they were participants and instruments for the evolution of modern philosophy.

characteristics

Modern philosophy was characterized because its representatives oriented their ideas and studies in three areas: physical nature (or the world), God and man; the latter were not understood as real objects, but as images of reason.

The figure of man was given a preponderant character, which originated the displacement of a medieval theocentric belief to a nascent anthropocentric one. That is, the individual was conceived as the creator and guide of reality, even in the face of the reflection of God, who was only responsible for transmitting the truth.

The reason was the first of this current of reflection, since it was exposed as an element that contained all certainty. In this way, during modernity, rational thought acquired a reflexive dynamic in which it was not so necessary to know the facts, but to know oneself.

The link between the individual and nature was highlighted, which went from a quiet contemplation to an active domain. In this sense, the world was the medium that was used to originate an experimental science.

Another vision

Modern philosophy was also determined by blurring the object of contemplation: nature was no longer synonymous with beauty and perfection, it was only appreciated as the medium in which man acted.

Similarly, this discipline promoted the belief that there should only be one science that encompasses all fields of human knowledge, which is why a method was established.

The latter did not have to function as a way to achieve knowledge, but as a tool that would decipher the key to reveal the structure of thought and reality.

Finally, the ideal of this philosophical movement was to build itself as the only science that focused on reason and the senses, distancing itself from authority and tradition.

Stages of modern philosophy

The history of modern philosophy is closely related to the exposition of a different definition of truth, which was specified as certainty. This was the full compression of the contents that should not cause any doubt.

These terms were understood in various ways in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, according to the stages that formed this current. There were three edges that ran through the philosophical doctrine: rationalism, empiricism and idealism.

Rationalism

Under the designation of rationalism an epistemological theory arose whose principle was knowledge.

That theory referred only to knowledge that was developed mentally and not through the senses, since the latter was of a lower category. René Descartes stood out among his philosophers.

Empiricism

If ideas were paramount for rationalism, for empiricism what was relevant was experience -whether sensible or factual- to obtain true knowledge.

In empiricism, certainty was considered to be when understanding was limited to impressions. One of the representatives who stood out the most was Thomas Hobbes.

Idealism

Instead, idealism was the expression in which it was manifested that ideas were the principle of knowing and being.

He also faced materialism because, according to his theory, objects could not exist if they were not imagined by a mind that was aware of their tangibility. Among his precursors in modernity was Immanuel Kant.

Main managers

Some of the most prominent modern philosophers are:

Rationalism: René Descartes (France, 1596 - Sweden, 1650)

4 Inventions of René Descartes

In a time of scientific transformations and new physical laws, René Descartes chose to doubt both God and society in order to recreate reality through his knowledge, since it was the only thing that ensured true understanding. Hence his rule known as methodical doubt arose.

When creating this method, the philosopher explained that you could only know if you thought and thinking meant existing, but this existence was not physical but rational.

The basis of rationalism was a thinking subject. For this reason, Descartes' thought emphasized the world of ideas, which could be external, imaginary and innate, but which sought to build knowledge.

Empiricism: Thomas Hobbes (England, 1588 - 1679)

Thomas Hobbes was one of the representatives of modern philosophy. Source: John Michael Wright

Thomas Hobbes spent much of his life surrounded by noble families, which is why he learned to function in the courts. In addition, he developed a philosophy about political ideas through which he rejected that democracy was an ineffective system, an approach on which absolutism was based.

Apart from the political argument, Hobbes established that there was only one substantial reality and that was the body, since it could be observed as a container that absorbed the sensible, the experimental, the divisible and the compound. So, the body was the engine of knowledge.

The importance of his thought lay in the fact that he stated that the greatest quality of man was selfishness, since he always sought power and pleasure. Likewise, he established a kind of materialism when he stated that the ontological was reduced to the corporeal.

Idealism: Immanuel Kant (Prussia, 1724 - 1804)

Immanuel Kant, a man of scrupulous character, had the objective of forging a theory through which he explained the value of ethics, aesthetics and metaphysics. Although he focused most of his studies on science, he made a treatise in which he tried to show that all the elements of the world were complementary.

In his judgment - apart from separating ethics from the study of man - he turned the idea that the nature of knowledge was to be a synthesis. That is, the foundation of all research was the subject with his intellect, logic and sensitivity.

References

1. Lamana, EP (2010). History of modern philosophy: From Descartes to Kant. Retrieved on April 12, 2019 from Academia de la historia: atmb.mil.ve
2. Papp, D (2005). The century of enlightenment. Retrieved on April 13, 2019 from Mielli: books.org
3. Severino, E. (1986). Modern philosophy. Retrieved on April 12, 2019 from Ariel philosophy: documents.ariel.es
4. Toro, M. (2007). History of modern philosophy. Retrieved on April 14, 2019 from History of philosophy: compilacionesmodernas.com
5. Villacañas, J. (1988). The bankruptcy of enlightened reason: idealism and romanticism. Editorial Chisel. Spain.