20th Century Philosophy

Philosophy is not just the intellectual activity that people engage in, but it is a subject matter worth studying. The word philosophy comes from two words; philein which means love and soph wisdom, having this in mind, philosophy can be defined as the love of wisdom. Philosophy is not a single subject which is unified but it can be subdivided into small fields that include logic, ethics, political, aesthetics, epistemology and metaphysics and other small groupings. Philosophy has continued to change over the years and this paper will intelligently discuss various changes that have happened in different subfields of philosophy. The paper will also document the implications that these changes has brought in the field of philosophy.

The beginnings of the counseling profession can be traced back as far as the Greeks with the emergence of psychology. Psychology did not develop into a legitimate profession until the late 1800s. As time went on it spawned numerous other profession, Counseling Psychology being one of them (Landrum). Some of the most prominent Psychologist in the field such as Freud, Erikson, and Witmer, utilized techniques, most notably ”Talk Therapy”, which lead to the formation of the counseling profession ("The history of counselling and psychotherapy").

***New Technologies improve urban living and a modern mass culture emerges. Reforms in Public education raise literacy rates; African Americans work to end legal discrimination. Advances in science and technology help solve Urban problems, including overcrowding, unsanitary conditions, and death***

The beginning of the twentieth century brought with it relative peace and growth of economies throughout the world. New technological developments such as airplanes, radio, cinema, and automobiles were created during this time frame. Europe’s powerful countries consolidated in their colonial conquests from earlier decades that balanced their alliances. However, after only a few decades into the twentieth century multiple tensions between the great powers surfaced. These tensions caused the great powers to separate into different alliances and eventually lead to the Great War.

Throughout my journey I am discovering the epistemological tradition that best fits my own perspective. There are many ways in which a person learns; learning can be defined as a change in behavior due to past experiences. As well, there are different approaches to learning such as; behaviorism, cognitivism, connectivism and constructivism. Many aspects of my life have formed my epistemological assumptions such as family, friends, community, education and my own experiences. Epistemology is defined as the theory of knowledge, with respect to its methods, validity, and scope; it is the inquiry of what discerns acceptable belief from opinion (Bates, 2015, section 2.2.1, para 1). I feel that I connect best with experiential cognitivism since I prefer to experience information before internalizing and relating it with what I know to be true. I will draw upon my past experiences to illustrate my position as I have come to understand myself as an experiential cognitivist, which situates within the epistemology of pragmatism. Pragmatism is defined as a practical approach to problems or matters. As William James states in his book Pragmatism, A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking “He (pragmatism) turns towards concreteness and adequacy, towards facts, towards action, and towards power” (para 12, Lecture II What Pragmatism Means).

Identify the letter of the choice that best completes the statement or answers the question.

The 20th century was a time of considerable transition for the United States. Going from the countries lowest point in history, to becoming the strongest nation in the world, left Americans and their leaders confronted with many difficult decisions. The decade of depression that had preceded World War II had produced enormous changes in US politics and the American political and economic systems. Beyond politics, Americans also faced challenges in their day to day lives as American culture and society was also going through transitions. The ways in which these questions and problems were attempted to be answered, the balances of power that resulted, and the significance of wartime government were

The universal consensus within twentieth century historiography regarding the cruelty and inhumane nature of New World slavery and the Atlantic slave trade encouraged many late century historians to focus on sub-topics containing more substantive academic debate. This led to scholarship which emphasized African slave’s efforts to resist their new status and to maintain their cultural identity. However, in the last few years, some historians have tried to reverse this trend. They view these diversions towards slave resistance as a minimization on the obvious atrocities they believe should be the center of scholarship on New World slavery. Greg Grandin’s The Empire of Necessity: Slavery, Freedom, and Deception in the New World attempts to refocus the reader’s attention on the sheer violence and human suffering that was the Atlantic slave trade in the early-nineteenth century. The framework of The Empire of Necessity follows three related, and sometimes connected, story lines. Grandin centers the book around the captain of a seal hunting ship from Massachusetts, a French privateer, and the crew of a rebellious slave ship as they all try and navigate the waters off of South America in the hopes of securing personal gain. While a truly engaging and emotional work of popular history, filled with thrilling tales of pirate battles, rebellions, and intimate details on the relentless inhumanity of the slave trade, when judged strictly on academic standards Grandin falls short. He

While discontent increased during the 1900s three major philosophies were established. The three major philosophies that were established were socialism, communism, and fascism. Socialism was never officially promoted, but the Bolsheviks, the elite group when Lenin was in power in Russia, thought socialism could be achieved by moderate reforms such as higher wages, increased suffrage, and social welfare. Communism was promoted by Lenin, his successor, and Stalin. Lenin developed the New Economic Policy, or NEP. Lenin just saw the New Economic Policy as a temporary retreat from communism. His successor put the Soviet Union back on the road to “pure” communism. Stalin developed Five-Year Plans while the Soviet Union developed a command

1. When dealing with economic growth due to transportation from 1860 to 1900 there isn't just one form of transportation you can put as the reason for success. There were many contributions from railroads, canals, other waterways, and roads that boosted the economy upward. The growth of railroads and roads were growing at an incredible rate at the time. The production of these things provided jobs, created a bigger market for the railroad and car industries, and caused the travel of people and transportation of goods to enhance.

Pragmatism is described in the book as a method for settling philosophical disputes. It is based on the pragmatic theory of truth. This theory says that a 'proposition p is true if and only if the belief that 'p is true' works'; (Voices of Wisdom, 346). In order

Currently, three prominent ideologies dominate the governing style of the world today: socialism, liberalism and conservatism. Many political groups and leaders often follow or claim to follow a specific ideology. On the other side of the spectrum for those who follow one ideology specific, there are some individuals that knowingly or unknowingly that follow none and focus on practicality of ideas. Those individuals are referred to as pragmatist. According to Encyclopædia Britannica, pragmatism is based on the principle that emphasis on the usefulness, workability, and practicality of ideas, policies, and proposals (“Pragmatism”, n.d). Basically, a pragmatist would focus on the actions and/or the consequences rather than the doctrine. Even

George Santayana described Pragmatism this way, “American pragmatism connects the American experimental and inventive attitude with older philosophical ideas” (Stumpf 397).

It states that even though philosophy doesn’t give us a certainty of true answers, it suggests many possibilities which enlarge our thoughts and free them from tyranny of custom. He also supports the idea that philosophy is beneficial because it “enriches intellectual imagination”. The essay brings up the points of the practical man, and why they are at a loss of intellectual imagination because they don’t explore the unknown by viewing life as simple. As evidence, he uses an example of mass disease and poverty of a society. The theory is that in those conditions, there would still be much to be improved to produce a valuable society. Even if the society has the proper food supplies, they need the ‘goods of the mind’ (knowledge) to build a well-governed society. He believes practical men undermine that aspect, thereby explaining their lack of intellectual imagination. The next argument is that philosophy saves us from convictions, prejudices, and cultural beliefs. The affect that that has on a person is to open up a fresh prospective with very little bias. He believed for this to be beneficial to people socially, by developing empathy which helps you understand others points of view. That theory goes hand-in-hand and gives a fine segway to his fourth and final argument of “the freedom and equity learned from philosophical contemplation reflecting in your personality (action and emotion). The

Often considered to be, perhaps the foundational text of the Frankfurt school, Dialectic of Enlightenment co-authored by Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno is certainly a strange book. First published in 1947, it is largely made up from the notes taken by Adorno’s wife during discussions between Horkheimer and him. Attempting to conceptualize the self-destructing process of Enlightenment, the transcendent theme brought forth by the authors related to the disintegration of reason. More specifically, they expressed that the dissolution of enlightenment thought, and the manifestation of complete domination in cultural production, are both symptoms of the current prevailing mode of rationality. Glancing over this 70 year old theoretical book, one may interpret the pessimistic world views held in Dialectic of Enlightenment as outdated. However, this paper will argue the opposite. Granted, our world has gone through unbelievable change since Horkheimer and Adorno’s time. Nevertheless, their work undoubtedly remains relevant.