Chapter 26 Modernist Thinkers

Excluding artists, authors, musicians

Jean Paul Satre

“Existence precedes essence”

“man is condemned to be free”

Henri Bergson

Rejected the idea of fixed rational certainties

Emphasized intuition, creativity, and experience

Friedrich Nietzsche

Critical of Enlightenment progress and reason

Restricted human potential

Übermensch

Challenge to traditional Christian morality, not just democracy: morality was a human construct holding back individual greatness.

Ludwig Wittgenstein

“Logical Posivitism”

only empirically (through observation) verifiable statements are meaningful

Sigmund Freud

Emphasized the irrational unconscious over the rational conscious mind

Ego, Superego, ID

Heisenberg

Uncertainty Principle in physics

One cannot simultaneously know both the position and momentum of a particle with precision

Wittgenstein

If something can’t be logically or empirically verified, it’s meaningless in philosophical terms.

George Sorel

Founder of fascism

Syndicalism