Modern Philosophy - Philosophical Ages

Modern Philosophy

Modern philosophy in the Western world is defined as themes and projects in philosophy conducted within the last four decades.

Prelude

In the 1950s, academic philosophy throughout the Western world was preoccupied by several philosophical trends and schools, which were, more or less, clearly demarcated. In Europe excluding Britain, process philosophy, existentialism and existential phenomenology were leading philosophical movements.

Main Topics of Contemporary Philosophy

Ethics: The intense mathematical theorizing of the last century has to an extent dissipated into a concern with practical applications, especially in relation to environmental issues, animal rights and the many challenges thrown up by advancing medical science
Metaphysics: Metaphysics remains a fertile area for research, having recovered from the attacks of A.J. Ayer and the logical positivists. And though many were inherited from previous decades, the debate remains fierce.
Epistemology: Owing largely to a seminal paper of Gettier, epistemology has seen a rebirth in the analytic philosophy of the last 50 years. A large portion of current epistemological research aims to resolve the problems that Gettier's examples presented to the traditional justified true belief model of knowledge.

heavily influenced by phenomenology, structuralism and existentialism, including the writings of Søren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Martin Heidegger.

These 4 persons popularized contemporary philosophy the most. From top-left clockwise: Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Kafka, Dostoevsky

Schools of thought

Neopragmatism: Neopragmatism, sometimes called linguistic pragmatism, is a recent (since the 1960s) philosophical term for philosophy that reintroduces many concepts from pragmatism.

Postmodern philosophy: Postmodern philosophy is a new and complex trend of thought.

Beginning as a critique of Continental philosophy, it was

Ethics: The intense mathematical theorizing of the last century has to an extent dissipated into a concern with practical applications, especially in relation to environmental issues, animal rights and the many challenges thrown up by advancing medical science

Metaphysics: Metaphysics remains a fertile area for research, having recovered from the attacks of A.J. Ayer and the logical positivists. And though many were inherited from previous decades, the debate remains fierce.

Schools of thought