Editing Philosophy

'''Philosophy''' is a broad range of exercises in thought with the ultimate goal of to unmasking parts of the world. According to [[Karl Marx|Marx]], "It is the immediate ''task of philosophy'', which is in the service of history, to unmask self-estrangement in its ''unholy forms'' once the ''[[Religion|holy form]]'' of human self-estrangement has been unmasked."<ref name=":0">{{Citation|author=Karl Marx|year=1843|title=A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right|chapter=Introduction}}</ref>

[[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel|Hegel]] described philosophy as the [[science]] that "is the unity of [[art]] and religion" and as "cognition of the necessity in the content of the absolute picture-idea."<ref>{{Citation|author=G.W.F. Hegel|year=1971|title=Hegel's encyclopedia of the philosophical sciences translated by William Wallace|chapter=Absolute Mind|section=Philosophy|page=302}}</ref><ref>{{Web citation|author=Hamid Alizadeh|newspaper=Socialist Appeal|title=In Defence of Hegel|date=2020-08-27|url=https://www.socialist.net/in-defence-of-hegel.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221201032314/https://www.socialist.net/in-defence-of-hegel.htm|archive-date=2022-12-01}}</ref>

== Ancient philosophy ==

=== Greek philosophy ===

==== Ionian school ====
[[Thales]] founded Ionian [[materialism]] and believed that water was the basis of all things in nature. His follower [[Anaximander]] predicted the existence of evolution based on the fossil record. Another materialist, [[Anaximenes]], proposed that air was the primary building block of the universe.<ref name=":2">{{Web citation|author=Sean Ledwith|newspaper=Counterfire|title=The birth of dialectics in Ancient Greece|date=2023-08-27|url=https://www.counterfire.org/article/the-birth-of-dialectics-in-ancient-greece/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230828184638/https://www.counterfire.org/article/the-birth-of-dialectics-in-ancient-greece/|archive-date=2023-08-28}}</ref>

==== Heraclitus ====
[[Heraclitus]] was one of the first [[Dialectics|dialectical]] philosophers in history. He created the aphorism that "you cannot step into the same river twice" and rejected the existence of the gods.<ref name=":2" />

==== Epicureanism ====
[[Democritus]] and [[Epicurus]] proposed that all things were made of atoms. Democritus's view was more deterministic, whereas Epicurus believed atoms would "swerve" randomly. Epicurus believed that this attraction and repulsion created the world. Marx wrote his dissertation in 1841 on the differences between Democritean and Epicurean philosophy.<ref>{{Web citation|newspaper=International Communist Current|title=On Marx and Epicurus|date=2018-02-17|url=http://en.internationalism.org/icconline/201802/14902/marx-and-epicurus|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230706023546/http://en.internationalism.org/icconline/201802/14902/marx-and-epicurus|archive-date=2023-07-06}}</ref>

==== Plato ====

==== Stoicism ====

=== Chinese philosophy ===

==== Confucius ====
{{Main article|Confucianism}}

== Classical bourgeois philosophy ==

=== Rationalism ===
The [[Rationalism|rationalists]], led by [[René Descartes]], criticized [[feudalism]] and the [[Catholic Church]]. He coined the phrase "I think therefore I am" and believed everything, including religion, should follow human reason. His ideas were progressive even though they relied on deductive reasoning instead of objective reality.<ref name=":1">{{Web citation|author=Hamid Alizadeh|newspaper=Socialist Appeal|title=In Defence of Hegel|date=2020-08-27|url=https://www.socialist.net/in-defence-of-hegel.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221201032314/https://www.socialist.net/in-defence-of-hegel.htm|archive-date=2022-12-01}}</ref>

=== Empiricism ===
[[David Hume]] and the [[Empiricism|empiricists]] believed experience from the senses was the only source of knowledge. They thought knowledge was merely a collection of facts that could not be generalized or processed.<ref name=":1" />

==== Mechanism ====
[[Mechanism|Mechanists]] rejected internal [[Contradiction|contradictions]] and believed that all motion was caused by outside forces. They were also very [[Determinism|determinist]] and often believed that philosophy was useless due to advances in science. Notable mechanists included [[Lyubov Axelrod]], [[Nikolai Bukharin]] and [[O. Minin]].<ref>{{Web citation|author=[[TheFinnishBolshevik]]|newspaper=ML-Theory|title=HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE USSR: Mechanism VS Dialectics (1920s)|date=2022-10-09|url=https://mltheory.wordpress.com/2022/10/09/history-of-philosophy-in-the-ussr-mechanism-vs-dialectics-1920s/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240316150841/https://mltheory.wordpress.com/2022/10/09/history-of-philosophy-in-the-ussr-mechanism-vs-dialectics-1920s/|archive-date=2024-03-16}}</ref>

=== German idealism ===

==== Dualism ====
[[Immanuel Kant]] tried to unify rationalism and empiricism by claiming that the material and ideal worlds exist separately and independently. He said the material world exists outside of human consciousness.<ref name=":1" />

==== Monism ====
Hegel overcame Kant's dualism and proposed that ideas and material conditions are part of the same world. He believed that an absolute idea developed [[Dialectics|dialectically]] and influenced the material world. His philosophy was a major step forward but was flawed because it prioritized ideas over material reality.<ref name=":1" />

== Proletarian philosophy ==

=== Marx and Engels ===
Marx once stated that "As philosophy finds its material weapon in the [[proletariat]], so the proletariat finds its ''spiritual'' weapon in philosophy."<ref name=":0" /> It was Marx who first brought philosophy from the bourgeois world into the proletarian side, and fashioned it into a weapon for the proletariat.

Of philosophy Marx states that "You cannot abolish philosophy without making it a reality,"<ref name=":0" /> and perhaps more famously that "The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it,"<ref>{{Citation|author=Karl Marx|year=1845|title=Theses On Feuerbach}}</ref> marking the distinction between proletarian and bourgeois philosophy.

=== Lenin ===

=== Mao ===

== Contemporary bourgeois philosophy ==

=== Existentialism ===
Existentialism emerged in the 19th century with conservative thinkers such as [[Søren Kierkegaard|Kierkegaard]] and [[Fyodor Dostoevsky|Dostoevsky]] and generally rejected the possibility of social change. Existentialists believe that individuals are fundamentally in opposition to the world. [[Jean-Paul Sartre]], a 20th-century existentialist, criticized [[capitalism]] but nevertheless believed that revolution was either impossible or would recreate the same problems caused by capitalism.<ref name=":02">{{Web citation|author=Dominic Alexander|newspaper=[[Counterfire]]|title=The Work of Sartre: Search for Freedom and the Challenge of History|date=2012-12-20|url=https://www.counterfire.org/article/the-work-of-sartre-search-for-freedom-and-the-challenge-of-history/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221224202554/https://www.counterfire.org/article/the-work-of-sartre-search-for-freedom-and-the-challenge-of-history/|archive-date=2022-12-24}}</ref>

=== Irrationalism ===
Irrationalism was widespread in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and criticized the [[Enlightenment]] values of materialism, progress, reason, and [[science]]. It rejected dialectics and was deeply reactionary. Major irrationalists include [[Arthur Schopenhauer|Schopenhauer]], [[Friedrich Nietzsche|Nietzsche]], [[Georges Sorel|Sorel]], [[Martin Heidegger|Heidegger]], and [[Carl Schmitt|Schmitt]], the last three of which openly supported [[fascism]]. [[Adolf Hitler|Hitler]] himself stated that, "We stand at the end of the Age of Reason...A new era of the magical explanation of the world is rising, an explanation based on will rather than knowledge. There is no truth, in either the moral or scientific sense."<ref>{{Web citation|author=[[John Bellamy Foster]]|newspaper=[[Monthly Review]]|title=The New Irrationalism|date=2023-02-01|url=https://monthlyreview.org/2023/02/01/the-new-irrationalism/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230806060940/https://monthlyreview.org/2023/02/01/the-new-irrationalism/|archive-date=2023-08-06}}</ref>

=== Objectivism ===
{{Main article|Ayn Rand}}

=== Postmodernism ===
{{Main article|Postmodernism}}

== References ==
<references />
[[Category:Philosophy]]