The Philosophy of Life

The philosophy of life emerged in Germany in the early 19th century. For 150 years, it has become a true philosophical movement, and in a certain period, the theoretical basis of the national ideology of the German-speaking world. The philosophy of life is a kind of continuation of the traditions and the spiritual atmosphere of enlightenment. The high stage of enlightenment is the 18th century - the century of enlightened absolutism. In the eighteenth century, the new bourgeois civilization finally took hold of feudalism. Natural sciences are experiencing extremely rapid development. The basics of physics, chemistry and biology have been completed. The boundaries of social sciences are outlined. And finally, within the framework of philosophy, the 200 years of controversy between empiricism and rationalism has come to an end. The German philosopher Emanuel Kant (Critical Realism) makes a great effort to combine the advantages of these two traditional lines in philosophy. After Kant, German classical philosophy was formed as the final stage of classicism. The philosophers following Kant - Schelling, Fichte, and Hegel, ignore the synthesis of empiricism and rationalism carried out by Kant and create an ultimate rationalist philosophy that naturally excites the reverse reaction of its experience as a conceptual monopoly.

Arthur Schopenhauer is the author and first creator of the philosophy of life known as the philosophy of life. The beginning of this philosophy is the work of Schopenhauer - "The World as Voile and Presented" (1815). It opposes the affects and the subconscious of the extreme optimism of the rationalist direction in philosophy. Man can’t be considered out of nature. The living nature of the lowest organisms to man has one common ground, which is the will. Consequently, the will is the basis of a certain reality. No matter, nor spirit, but will is the absolute foundation of living nature. But the will can’t be pure and pointless. Will is a powerful drive to achieve a particular goal, that is to say "will for ..." And Schopenhauer determines what the will is - life. The will to live is what exists in every living being, from the most basic to the most complex. Schopenhauer's views at first were initially accepted, mostly negative. 45 years after the first edition of his masterpiece, Schopenhauer suddenly gained immense popularity. But as usual, this is in the year of his death. He quickly finds his followers, the first of which is Edward von Hartmann, who introduces the most general category of intuitivism - the unconscious. The second strand, inspired by Schopenhauer's philosophy, is the cultural philosophy of life. According to this theory, the driving forces of the society of civilization are not hidden in society itself, but in the human biological structure. Emotions are the ones that determine the motives and behavior of man. The unconscious in man is out of control of reason. Rationale can only interpret, give a logical interpretation of human instincts, of the subconscious, and in this was the great mistake of the culture of the past that it rationalized the creative process in man. The basis of this rationalization is logic, and where logic works, living reality is killed. By reason, we know a deadly, immovable, unreal world. True philosophy should seek to show the course of unconscious processes in man.

The philosophy of life goes beyond the borders of Germany, finding its most prominent representative in the face of French philosopher Henri Bergson. He perceives ideas of the determining meaning of instincts, reflexes, wills, and so on. It spreads the idea of the unity of all living beings, the basic concept of all philosophy is the life impulse. He shares the views of the cultural strand in the philosophy of life by adopting the biological motifs of driving forces guiding the social processes and personal behavior of each person. In the second half of the 20th century, the most prominent representative of the philosophy of life was Friedrich Nietzsche. As a follower of Schopenhauer, he accepts his thesis that the will of the living prophet lies, but Nietzsche does not agree with Schopenhauer that this will is simply about life. It can exist but is subject to a stronger will. The will to power. Life, according to Nietzsche, is a fierce struggle, not for survival, but for imposing the will on others.

The second half of the 19th century is the time when the philosophy of life is a powerful impetus for gaining great popularity from an epochal discovery. In 1852, Charles Darwin published his book on the Origin of Species. Some of the concepts used by Darwin, like natural selection, are immediately adopted by the philosophy of life, with which the cultural line in this philosophy is called the Social Darwinism. Quite naturally, in the context of the late 19th century, the philosophy of life has a decisive influence on the ultimate influence of psychology as a science. This influence is manifested in two directions. One is social psychology. And the second is the psychology of the personality. The second direction is Sigmund Freud. The unifying proposition of these two strands is expressed in the belief that the basis of the social processes of civilization and personal behavior are biologically motivated factors. Massive teachings on the biological teachings of civilization and culture in general give Osthell Spenge. At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, a whole philosophical and psychological trend emerged, examining both social psychology (Gustav Lyubon) and the racist direction in the English and French spiritual environments. The philosophy of life is the philosophical direction that has the greatest impact on the final design of psychology as a science. The philosophy of life also has a powerful influence on the direction of literature - a psychological novel. The general thing that connects psychology and literary literature is the idea of subjugated will of reason that comes from the philosophy of life. Reason plays a subordinate role in the life of the individual and society.