section_path: Western/19th century
section_name: 19th century
paragraph_text: 19th century
  
  The 19th century was a rich and diverse period in philosophy, during which the term "philosophy" acquired the distinctive meaning it holds today: a discipline distinct from the empirical sciences and mathematics. A rough division between two types of philosophical approaches in this period can be drawn. Some philosophers, like those associated with German and British idealism, sought to provide comprehensive and all-encompassing systems. In contrast, other thinkers, such as Bentham, Mill, and the American pragmatists, focused on more specific questions related to particular fields, such as ethics and epistemology.
  
  Among the most influential philosophical schools of this period was German idealism, a tradition inaugurated by Immanuel Kant, who argued that the conceptual activity of the subject is always partially constitutive of experience and knowledge. Subsequent German idealists critiqued what they saw as theoretical problems with Kant's dualisms and the contradictory status of the thing-in-itself. They sought a single unifying principle as the foundation of all reality. Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814) identified this principle as the activity of the subject or transcendental ego, which posits both itself and its opposite. Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling (1775–1854) rejected this focus on the ego, instead proposing a more abstract principle, referred to as the absolute or the world-soul, as the foundation of both consciousness and nature.
  
  The philosophy of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) is often described as the culmination of this tradition. Hegel reconstructed a philosophical history in which the measure of progress is the actualization of freedom. He applied this not only to political life but also to philosophy, which he claimed aims for self-knowledge characterized by the identity of subject and object. His term for this is "the absolute " because such knowledge—achieved through art, religion, and philosophy—is entirely self-conditioned.
  
  Further influential currents of thought in this period included historicism and neo-Kantianism. Historicists such as Johann Gottfried Herder emphasized the validity and unique nature of historical knowledge of individual events, contrasting this with the universal knowledge of eternal truths. Neo-Kantianism was a diverse philosophical movement that revived and reinterpreted Kant's ideas.
  
  British idealism developed later in the 19th century and was strongly influenced by Hegel. For example, Francis Herbert Bradley (1846–1924) argued that reality is an all-inclusive totality of being, identified with absolute spirit. He is also famous for claiming that external relations do not exist.
  
  Karl Marx (1818–1883) was another philosopher inspired by Hegel's ideas. He applied them to the historical development of society based on class struggle. However, he rejected the idealistic outlook in favor of dialectical materialism, which posits that economics rather than spirit is the basic force behind historical development.
  
  Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) proposed that the underlying principle of all reality is the will, which he saw as an irrational and blind force. Influenced by Indian philosophy, he developed a pessimistic outlook, concluding that the expressions of the will ultimately lead to suffering. He had a profound influence on Friedrich Nietzsche, who saw the will to power as a fundamental driving force in nature. Nietzsche used this concept to critique many religious and philosophical ideas, arguing that they were disguised attempts to wield power rather than expressions of pure spiritual achievement.
  
  In the field of ethics, Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) developed the philosophy of utilitarianism. He argued that whether an action is right depends on its utility, i.e., on the pleasure and pain it produces. The goal of actions, according to Bentham, is to maximize happiness or to produce "the greatest good for the greatest number." His student John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) became one of the foremost proponents of utilitarianism, further refining the theory by asserting that what matters is not just the quantity of pleasure and pain, but also their quality.
  
  Toward the end of the 19th century, the philosophy of pragmatism emerged in the United States. Pragmatists evaluate philosophical ideas based on their usefulness and effectiveness in guiding action. Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914) is usually considered the founder of pragmatism. He held that the meaning of ideas and theories lies in their practical and observable consequences. For example, to say that an object is hard means that, on a practical level, it is difficult to break, pierce, or scratch. Peirce argued that a true belief is a stable belief that works, even if it must be revised in the future. His pragmatist philosophy gained wider popularity through his lifelong friend William James (1842–1910), who applied Peirce's ideas to psychology. James argued that the meaning of an idea consists of its experiential consequences and rejected the notion that experiences are isolated events, instead proposing the concept of a stream of consciousness.