Some thoughts on the history behind philsosphy

[fidhle]

The recent excellent discussion on the All Things Philosophical on Buffy and Angel discussion board regarding Existentialism, with a side journey to Objectivism, caused me to ponder the historical background behind such philosophies.

For example, Thomas Hobbes, who wrote The Leviathan, lived during the period of the English Civil Wars. As a result of the chaos of that time, he proposed that there be a strong central state, a Leviathan as he put it. Such views are fairly common in societies undergoing similar chaotic conditions.

For Existentialism, those who professed that thought were formed by early to mid 20th Century Europe, especially France. We often forget that the history of Europe in that period was revolutionary in a sense which we in North American cannot imagine. The ideals of the previous age, the Victorian and Edwardian ages, were almost completely destroyed by by the events of the early and mid 20th Century. First, the belief that engineering had conquered the physical world was severely challenged by, for one thing, the sinking of the Titanic in 1912. Then the First World War came and not only largely destroyed a generation of European men, but also ended the major political institutions on the continent. Prior to that war, most of Europe was governed by monarchies. Afterwards, only a few monarchies survived.

Then came the Great Depression and the rise of Fascism in Europe. Proud and educated people succumbed to the lure of the strong man who can solve the problems of the nations in Spain, Italy, and Germany. Fascist movements were also powerful in France and England.

Then came the Second World War, which revealed that even the most cultured and sophisticated people can turn barbaric in a most horrendous way.

For the intellectuals in Europe at the end of that war, life must have seemed sublimely absurd, with a need for each person to define their own meaning, for the meanings supplied by society had been found to be mere illusions. Again, North America didn't suffer the same consequences, but the events in Germany were shocking to those in this continent too. My father was a physician in the Army during WWII, and was in on the liberation of Dachau. For some reason he never talked about his experiences from that time, but when we lived in Germany in the '50's, he made sure we visited Dachau so we could see what had been done there.

Thus, it would seem that those experiences led to the creation of Existentialism.

Some people have compared Existentialism to Objectivism, the philosophy propounded by Ayn Rand which glorifies selfishness as a virtue. Ayn Rand lived through the Russian Revolution. She suffered greatly from the rise of Communism, including the death of members of her family. She, herself, was a refugee from that revolution. Small surprise that she would reject communialism and altruism and embrace people looking out for themselves.

I think that, when we read philosophy, we often forget that philosophers live in particular times and those times affect the thoughts and ideas of those philosophers. In one sense, the job of the philosopher is to explain the times to the people of the times. Of course, they tend to do it in the form of timeless principles, which are really not, in reality, timeless.

Comments

[silmaril.livejournal.com]

Here from dglenn.

Well-put.