Period
Late modern
c. 1800 – c. 1900
The nineteenth century, from German idealism after Kant to Marx, Mill, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche.
After Kant, German idealists led by Hegel built ambitious systems in which history and reason were bound together. The century then saw sharp reactions against them, from Kierkegaard’s insistence on the single individual and Marx’s materialism to Nietzsche’s attack on morality and religion, while in Britain John Stuart Mill developed empiricism and utilitarianism into a liberal philosophy of society.
- Traditions
- Western
Philosophers
- G. W. F. Hegel1770–1831
- John Stuart Mill1806–1873
- Søren Kierkegaard1813–1855
- Karl Marx1818–1883
- Friedrich Nietzsche1844–1900
Sources
- Anthony Kenny, A New History of Western Philosophy, vol. 4: Philosophy in the Modern World, Oxford University Press