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Rationalist Movement (René Descartes)
Conversation with Burman
Conversation with Burman was published by René Descartes in 1648. It is a dialogue about propositions, particularly, regarding the nature of the soul, put forth by Descartes. It marks a period in European history of general optimism with concern to humanities ability to decipher and understand the universe using reason. -
Period: to
Intellectual Movements from 1648 to 1948
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Liberalist Movement (John Locke)
Two Treatises of Government
John Locke publishes Two Treatises of Government. In it, he extrapolates the theoretical underpinnings of a society centered around natural rights and contract theory. Liberalism fueled the Glorious Revolution of 1688, the French Revolution of 1789, the revolutions of 1848, and the democratization of Western Europe in 1945. -
Romanticist Movement (Friedrich von Schlegel)_
German Romanticism in Philosophy
In 1800, Friedrich von Schlegel penned an essay which outlined the philosophical tenet(s) of romanticism. In an almost derisive fashion, he took the concept of deductive reasoning, as used by rationalists, and placed "life" as the major deductive axiom to work from. Thus, he was interested in the readily evident, the emotive, the instinctual - as is romanticism. -
Ethnic Nationalist Movement (Ernst Moritz Arndt)
The German Fatherland
This poem was published in 1813 by Ernst Moritz Arndt. It extrapolates on an ethnic nationalism that ties all Germans by their common history, common land, and common language. This would be a particularly ominous movement. -
Socialist/Marxist Movement (Karl Marx)
Scientific Socialism
Marx posited a theory of historical materialism: history went through stages of economic modes of production, each of which had social consequences. The capitalist mode of production consisted of capitalists, that owned capital, and workers. The latter would seize the capital of the former, leading to a classless utopia. Marxism opposed liberalism. It led to the Bolshevik Revolution and the Soviet Union. -
Existentialist Movement (Albert Camus)
The Myth of Sisyphus
The Myth of Sisyphus was published by Albert Camus in 1943. It is of a man who is cursed to endlessly push a rock up a mountain, only to have it return back to the earth. It is a metaphor for the absurdity of the human condition and its inherent meaninglessness, and of our task of creating meaning. It is a reaction to the two world wars, and an assertion of life in the face of mass death.
