Top 9 famous philosophers of the 1900s

Thinkers in the nineteenth century recognized that the value of something unique, individual, and spontaneous was far greater than that of something that adhered to a particular standard of taste. They sought hidden meanings in things and cultivated them into a system of thoughts. Keep reading to learn about some of the most famous philosophers of the 1900s.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Birthdate- October 15, 1844

Sun sign- Libra

Birthplace- Röcken, Lützen, Germany

Died- August 25, 1900

Friedrich Nietzsche, a German philosopher, cultural critic, composer, and poet, significantly impacted modern intellectual history. He was the University of Basel’s Chair of Classical Philology. His works included philosophical polemics, poetry, cultural criticism, and fiction. He had numerous health issues from a young age and died at 55.

Immanuel Kant

Birthdate- April 22, 1724

Sun sign- Taurus

Birthplace- Königsberg, Germany

Died- February 12, 1804

Another German philosopher was Kant. He contended that the mind creates the structure of human experience. Kant also claimed that human morality is the result of reason, that asceticism results from a faculty of disinterested judgment, and that space and time are forms of our sensibility. He also believed that how the world is is unrelated to how we perceive it. Kant believed that we could achieve everlasting peace through democracy and international cooperation.

Bertrand Russell

Birthdate- May 18, 1872.

Sun sign- Taurus

Birthplace- Trellech, Monmouthshire, Wales

Died- February 2, 1970

Bertrand Russell was a Nobel laureate and British polymath. His work has significantly impacted philosophy, cognitive science, artificial intelligence, mathematics, linguistics, and logic, among other fields. Russell is also regarded as one of the founders of analytic philosophy, and many credit him for leading the revolt against idealism in Britain.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Birthdate- May 25, 1803

Sun sign- Gemini

Birthplace- Boston, Massachusetts, United States

Died- April 27, 1882

Ralph Waldo Emerson was an American philosopher who led the transcendentalist movement in the 1820s and 1830s in the eastern United States. Many people credit his numerous lectures and essays with popularising individualism. Emerson influenced many subsequent thinkers and writers, including Henry David Thoreau, who became a leading transcendentalist.

Soren Kierkegaard

Birthdate- May 5, 1813

Sun sign- Taurus

Birthplace- Copenhagen, Denmark

Died- November 11, 1855

Soren Kierkegaard was an existentialist philosopher who may have been the first to do so. Kierkegaard’s ideas include the knight of faith, the present age, the Absurd, angst, authenticity, existential despair, and existential philosophy. A knight of faith is someone who has complete confidence in both himself and God. 

It enables him to act independently of the outside world. The Absurd refers to the conflict between man’s constant search for meaning and inherent value in life and his inability to find any. Kierkegaard was unquestionably one of the most influential philosophers of the nineteenth century.

Arthur Schopenhauer

Birthdate- February 22, 1788

Sun sign- Pisces

Birthplace- Gdańsk, Poland

Died- September 21, 1860

Another great German philosopher was Schopenhauer. The phenomenal world, according to Schopenhauer, is the result of a blind and insatiable metaphysical will. Schopenhauer was one of the first philosophers to assert that the world was not rational. His most famous concepts included the fourfold root of reason, the hedgehog’s dilemma, will, and philosophical pessimism. 

The hedgehog’s dilemma is as follows- a group of hedgehogs wants to huddle up close together to stay warm during the winter. They can’t get too close, though, because their spikes will hurt each other. They all want to be close but can’t do so because of an unchangeable reality. Schopenhauer thought the analogy also applied to human relationships.

Karl Marx

Birthdate- May 5, 1818

Sun sign- Taurus

Birthplace- Trier, Germany

Died- March 14, 1883

Karl Marx was one of the most influential philosophers of the nineteenth century. He is the founder of communism and socialism and one of the few people in history to have started a movement with such a large number of followers and far-reaching consequences. The idea of communism is that the people should own the means of production and that money, social classes, and the state should not exist. Socialism is the belief that people should own the means of production, distribution, and exchange.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Birthdate- August 27, 1770

Sun sign- Virgo

Birthplace- Stuttgart, Germany

Died- November 14, 1831

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, a German philosopher, developed ideas such as absolute idealism, the philosophy of spirit, or Geist, and the master-slave dialectic. Later thinkers and intellectuals, such as Karl Popper and Karl Marx, were influenced by Hegel’s views on civil society.

John Stuart Mill

Birthdate- May 20, 1806

Sun sign- Taurus

Birthplace: Pentonville, London, England

Died- May 7, 1873

John Stuart Mill, a nineteenth-century philosopher, is best known for his work On Liberty, which discussed personal freedom and the ‘harm principle.’ His ‘The Subjection of Women’ was among the first works by a male author to advocate for women’s rights. He agreed with Jeremy Bentham’s ethical utilitarianism. He was an English political economist and civil servant who significantly contributed to social theory, political theory, and political economy.

Key takeaways

• Karl Marx is the first name that comes to mind when discussing some of the most significant 19th-century philosophers. Marx, a German philosopher, developed theories about society, economics, and politics, now known as Marxism.
• Jon Stuart Mill was an English political economist and civil servant who was widely influential in the history of liberalism and made significant contributions to social theory, political theory, and political economy.
• Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher whose works in aesthetics and metaphysics established him as a significant and influential figure in Western philosophy.

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FAQs

Q1. What were the three popular philosophies of the 19th century?

Answer-  Many philosophical schools were present, and they competed in a series of distinct and powerful oppositions: pragmatism versus idealism, positivism versus irrationalism, and Marxism versus liberalism.

Q2. Who is the Father of philosophy?

Answer- Socrates of Athens is one of the most well-known figures in history for his contributions to the development of ancient Greek philosophy, which served as the foundation for all Western philosophy.

Q3. Who is the greatest philosopher in history?

Answer- Aristotle, the third member of the great triumvirate of ancient Greek philosophers after Socrates and Plato, is arguably the most important thinker who ever lived.