Positivism
In the post Philosophical Schools - Part 1, we deal with the following schools: stoicism, cynicism, skepticism, hedonism, epicureanism, idealism, nihilism, existentialism, relativism, humanism, marxism and rationalism. We are now continuing with the other schools.
Philosophical current initiated in France in the early 19th century and strongly associated with empiricism and rationalism. Auguste Comte (1798 – 1857) first theorized Positivism and developed into a modern philosophy favored by scientists and technocrats. It defends the idea that scientific knowledge would be the only form of true knowledge.
Order, rigor, and commitment to organization are fundamental characteristics for the positivist doctrine. Hence the motto order and progress stamped on the Brazilian flag, designed during the beginning of the republican era in Brazil.
Comte understood that the history of human thought proceeded in stages. In his Philosophy of History, he elaborated the law of the three states, in which he stated that thought and the human spirit developed through three distinct phases: the theological, the metaphysical and the positive.
Famous members of the movement included Bertrand Russell (1872 – 1970), Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889 – 1951) and the Vienna Circle.
Objectivism
Philosophy developed by Ayn Rand (1905 – 1982) that encompasses positions on metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, politics, and aesthetics. Objectivism holds that there is a mind-independent reality; that individual people are in touch with this reality through sensory perception; that human beings gain objective knowledge of perception by measurement and form valid concepts based on such perceptions.
It also affirms that the meaning of life is the pursuit of one's own happiness or "rational self-interest", and that the only social system consistent with this morality is the full respect for individual rights, embodied in pure and consensual laissez-faire capitalism, an expression in French meaning let it be, or libertarianism.
Subjectivism
Philosophical doctrine of antiquity that states that the truth is the individual lie. Each subject would have their truth because knowledge depends on everyone, therefore the veracity or falsity of judgments depends on the subject who knows and judges. If everyone has their own truth and not absolute or universal truths, it will be impossible to have understanding.
While in objectivism there is a focus on structure, in subjectivism the focus is on the subject. Despite the apparent dichotomy between the concepts, the authors postulate the dialogue between the individual and the other, as their choice is shared with other discursive subjects.
Representatives: Protagoras (490 – 415 BC), Gorgias of Leontini (485 - 380) and Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 - 1900).
Realism
School of Philosophy with origins in the work of Aristotle (384 – 322 BC). Realists emphasize that “reality, knowledge, and value exist independently of the human mind” and advocate the use of the senses and scientific investigation to discover truth. Applying the scientific method also allows individuals to classify things into diverse groups based on their essential differences.
Aristotle is known as the father of realism and the scientific method. His pragmatic approach to understanding an object, by understanding its form, is an example of how he investigated matter. He believed that everything had a purpose or function. For example, a fish's purpose is to swim. A bird's purpose is to fly. The purpose of human beings is to think. If we are not thinking, or thinking without intelligence, we are defeating our purpose.
John Locke (1632-1704) believed in the tabula rasa; the writing instrument used in Rome. Made with wax, it was used with a stylus. When people wanted to erase what they had written, they had to scrape off or melt the wax. When it was unwritten, the object was called a tabula rasa. The human being, like the blank slate, is born without any knowledge and little by little the experiences (or inscriptions) fill it.
Pragmatism
Philosophical current initiated by Charles Sanders Peirce (1839 – 1914). He introduced the pragmatic method in which students are given a procedure for constructing and clarifying meanings. This movement tries to relate the meaning of things to the evidence. To do so, it limits itself to sensory experience and leaves metaphysics aside.
Pragmatic thinkers understand that there are no absolute and immutable truths. Truth is what works. Knowledge is given by experience and considers as true what is useful. The criterion for judging the truth is based on practical effects. According to them, the learner is constantly talking and being changed by the environment with which he is interacting. Based on what is learned at any given point and time, the learner, or the world in which he is interacting can be changed.
John Dewey (1859-1952) linked Pragmatism to evolution when he explained that “human beings are creatures that need to adapt to each other and to their environment”. He also believed that the application of the "scientific method" could solve a few problems because ideas were tools for problem solving.
For William James (1842 - 1910), considered the main figure of Pragmatism, emotions are not the product of feelings, but provoked by the awareness of organic reactions.
Determinism
Philosophical theory that every event, including human cognition and behavior, decision, and action, is determined by an unbroken chain of prior occurrences. Determinists believe in only one probable future, while denying that humans lack free will. It can take many forms, from theological determinism, which suggests that one's future is predetermined by a god or gods, to environmental Determinism, which suggests that all human and cultural development is determined by the environment, climate, and geography.
Utilitarianism
Ethical doctrine that the moral worth of an action is determined solely by its contribution to general utility. The adaptation of decisions to their consequences in the reality for which they are destined, with flexibility of the technological understanding of the norms, in the search for a transcendent justice.
This means that the moral worth of an action is determined by its result.
Jeremy Bentham (1748 – 1832), first theorized Utilitarianism, when he declared that 'good' was what brought the greatest happiness to the greatest number of people. However, Philosophy is most associated with John Stuart Mill (1806 - 1873) and his book Utilitarianism (1863).
Empiricism
Philosophical theory that argues that all human knowledge must be acquired from sensory experiences, whether external or internal, outside of which there is only speculation. The term empiricism comes from the Greek word empeiria, which means experience. That is, from their experiences, and not from instincts or innate knowledge, individuals acquire knowledge, awareness, and learning. The deeper the lived experiences, the greater the formation of that individual's cognitive structure.
Aristotle (384 – 322) already widely spread Empiricism, but the modern doctrine, as we know it today, was developed by the British John Locke (1632-1704), creator of the concept of tabula rasa.
Representatives: John Locke (1632-1704) and David Hume (1711-1776).
Absurdism
Philosophy based on the assertion that humanity's efforts to find meaning in the universe will fail because such meaning does not exist, at least in relation to humanity. Absurdity asserts that while such a meaning may exist, the search for it is not essential. It is distinguished from Nihilism by its subjective view of humanity, theology, and meaning. It is best thought of as the 'agnostic' stage between Existentialism and Nihilism.
Soren Kierkegaard (1813 – 1855) wrote extensively about Absurdism in the mid-19th century, but philosophy is most associated with Albert Camus (1913-1960) and his novels The Stranger and The Myth of Sisyphus.
Secular humanism
Atheistic philosophy that sustains reason, ethics, and justice as the principles of life. As the concept of a supernatural creator is rejected, the meaning of life must be found purely in human terms. There is no absolute truth or absolute morality; truth, meaning, and morality are unique to each person. Thinkers associated with secular Humanism include Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 - 1900), Bertrand Russell (1872 - 1970), and Richard Dawkins (1941).
Philosophical critique
Doctrine that seeks to demonstrate that knowledge is based on experience, but that it needs reason to complete it, hence the phrase: “without sensitivity, no object would be given to us, and without understanding, none would be thought.”
The Critique of Pure Reason, by Immanuel Kant (1724 -1804) is the main work of the theory of knowledge. In it, Kant separates the domains of science and action.
Knowledge is constructed from the phenomenon that combines sensitive intuition with the concept of the intellect. Thus, it is the logical categories that constitute objects, allowing them to be known in a universal and necessary way. For Kant, reason is the faculty that provides us with the principles of a priori knowledge. Therefore, pure reason is that which contains the principles for knowing something a priori.
Phenomenology
Phenomenology emerged in the 20th century as a philosophical current founded by Edmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl (1859 - 1938), a German philosopher and mathematician. His method started from the assumption of nothing. That is, it intends to describe objects or phenomena consciously, without relying on presuppositions or prejudices. The term phenomenology means the study of phenomena, of what appears to consciousness, seeking to explore it.
Representatives: Edmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl (1859 - 1938); Jan Patočka (1907 - 1977) and Martin Heidegger (1889 - 1976).
Structuralism
Originating in psychology, this analysis mechanism influenced other areas such as Sociology, Linguistics, Philosophy, and Anthropology. It is a current of thought that seeks to identify the structures that sustain all things. According to the theory, the phenomena of life can be identified through their interrelationships. That is, through the analysis of parts, a whole is evaluated. Based on this assumption, Structuralism was applied to understand the human intellect, its ideas, its language, and the general structure of society.
The great diffusers of structuralism were French intellectuals such as Roland Barthes (1915 - 1980) and Jean Baudrillard (1929 - 2007) who expanded the idea at the end of the 19th century and in the first half of the 20th century.
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