Late Nineteenth Century

Historical and Intellectual Context

The late nineteenth century in philosophy, typically dated from around 1870 to 1900, unfolded against the backdrop of rapid industrialization, the consolidation of nation-states, expanding colonial empires, and revolutionary advances in the natural sciences. The publication of Darwin’s evolutionary theory, developments in thermodynamics and electromagnetism, and the spread of statistical and historical methods challenged older metaphysical and theological frameworks.

In this setting, philosophy was pulled in two broad directions. On one side, scientific naturalism and positivism urged that philosophy align itself with empirical inquiry, often by restricting its scope to the analysis of scientific concepts or observable phenomena. On the other, various critics of scientism emphasized life, history, culture, and value as irreducible dimensions of human existence. The clash and cross-pollination of these tendencies produced a distinctive landscape that would prepare the way for both analytic and continental traditions in the twentieth century.

Major Movements and Figures

Positivism, Empiricism, and Neo-Kantianism

Late nineteenth-century philosophy inherited the positivist impulse from Auguste Comte, but significantly transformed it. In France and Britain, empiricist and scientistic currents sought to extend the methods of the natural sciences to psychology, sociology, and even ethics. Debates about psychologism—the attempt to ground logic and mathematics in psychological processes—were particularly prominent toward the end of the century.

In the German-speaking world, Neo-Kantianism became a dominant academic force. Thinkers such as Hermann Cohen and Wilhelm Windelband revisited Immanuel Kant’s critical philosophy in light of modern science. They emphasized the role of a priori structures, not as metaphysical entities but as conditions of the objectivity of scientific knowledge. Proponents argued that this approach preserved the autonomy of philosophy while integrating scientific advances; critics charged it with excessive abstraction and insufficient engagement with social and historical realities.

Idealism and Its Critics

Though the classic phase of German idealism had peaked earlier in the century, its legacy remained powerful. In Britain, figures like T. H. Green, F. H. Bradley, and Bernard Bosanquet developed a sophisticated British idealism that interpreted reality as an interconnected spiritual or rational whole. This tradition emphasized ethical and social dimensions, often defending the state or community as a locus of moral life.

Simultaneously, a variety of thinkers mounted critiques of idealism’s systematic ambitions. Friedrich Nietzsche attacked the metaphysical and moral underpinnings of both idealism and Christian-Platonic traditions, advancing a genealogical method that traced moral values to contingent historical and psychological origins. While Nietzsche’s major works date from the 1870s to 1880s, their full reception and impact unfolded only later, yet his thought is emblematic of late nineteenth-century disillusionment with inherited systems and moral absolutism.

Marxism and Social Philosophy

The late nineteenth century was crucial for the consolidation and dissemination of Marxism. After Karl Marx’s death in 1883, figures such as Friedrich Engels, Karl Kautsky, and later Eduard Bernstein debated the correct interpretation of historical materialism, class struggle, and the prospects for socialist transformation. Philosophical discussions centered on whether Marxism was a scientific theory akin to the natural sciences or primarily a critical, emancipatory project.

This period also witnessed the development of social philosophy more broadly, including analyses of industrial society, alienation, and urbanization. Proponents of Marxism and related socialist theories argued that philosophy must address structural injustice and economic exploitation; critics contended that such approaches reduced complex cultural and moral questions to economic factors.

Pragmatism in the United States

In the United States, the late nineteenth century saw the birth of pragmatism, often considered the first major indigenous American philosophical movement. Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, and, slightly later, John Dewey proposed that the meaning of ideas lies in their practical consequences and that beliefs should be evaluated by their role in guiding successful action and inquiry.

Peirce developed a sophisticated theory of signs (semiotics) and fallibilistic scientific inquiry, insisting that truth is what inquiry would converge upon in the long run. James extended pragmatism into psychology, religion, and ethics, arguing that the “will to believe” can legitimately play a role where empirical evidence is inconclusive but practical stakes are high. Supporters saw pragmatism as a flexible, experimentally oriented alternative to both rigid metaphysics and reductive positivism; detractors worried that it blurred distinctions between truth and usefulness.

Early Analytic Tendencies: Logic and Language

Although analytic philosophy is usually associated with the early twentieth century, decisive precursors emerged in the late nineteenth century. Gottlob Frege’s work on the foundations of arithmetic and the distinction between sense and reference (Sinn and Bedeutung) in the 1870s and 1880s marked a turning point in logic and the philosophy of language. Frege’s insistence on the logical structure of propositions, independent of psychological states, provided tools that would later be central to analytic philosophy.

Parallel developments occurred in mathematical logic and set theory, with figures such as Georg Cantor, whose work raised foundational questions about infinity and the nature of mathematical objects. Debates over formalism, logicism, and the ontological status of mathematical entities began to crystallize, laying the groundwork for the richer foundational disputes of the early twentieth century.

Life-Philosophy, Historicism, and the Humanities

Many late nineteenth-century thinkers reacted against what they perceived as the mechanization and depersonalization of human life under industrial capitalism and scientific reductionism. Under various labels—Lebensphilosophie (philosophy of life), historicist thought, and cultural philosophy—they emphasized historical context, individual experience, and living processes over abstract systems.

Figures such as Wilhelm Dilthey distinguished between the natural sciences and the human sciences (Geisteswissenschaften), arguing that understanding human life requires interpretive methods rather than purely explanatory, causal models. Proponents held that meaning, value, and culture could not be captured by naturalistic frameworks alone. Critics cautioned that such approaches risked subjectivism or relativism and might undermine the possibility of general theoretical knowledge.

Enduring Themes and Legacy

Across these diverse movements, several recurring themes defined the late nineteenth-century philosophical scene:

• Science and its limits: Debates over whether philosophy should model itself on the natural sciences or assert a distinct domain of inquiry (e.g., values, meaning, consciousness) structured much of the period’s discourse.
• Crisis of religion and morality: Processes of secularization, Biblical criticism, and evolutionary theory raised questions about the foundations of moral and religious belief, prompting both attempts at rational reconstruction and radical critiques.
• History, culture, and relativism: Growing historical consciousness and comparative studies (including anthropology and philology) led philosophers to confront the variability of norms and worldviews, fueling discussions of relativism, tradition, and cultural pluralism.
• Subjectivity and sociality: While some currents focused on individual experience, will, or consciousness, others stressed social structures, class, and communal life, foreshadowing twentieth-century tensions between existential and social-theoretical approaches.

The late nineteenth century thus occupies a pivotal position in the history of philosophy. It simultaneously consolidated nineteenth-century legacies—idealism, positivism, historicism—and generated key concepts, methods, and disputes that became central in the twentieth century, including analytic logic, pragmatist theories of inquiry, Marxist social critique, and various philosophies of life and culture. Rather than forming a unified school, the period is best understood as a dense crossroads at which multiple trajectories of modern thought intersect and diverge.