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Continental Philosophy With The Objective Essay

Nietzsche's ideas center on the will-to-power to escape the triviality of the society. Nietzsche argued against the "slave mentality" that permeates society causing the people to live lives devoid of joy and grandeur (ibid). Phenomenology

Phenomenology, on the other hand, focuses on the "essential structures found within the stream of conscious experience -- the stream of phenomena -- as these structures manifest themselves independently of the assumptions and presuppositions of science" (faxed material, date, p. 174).

Edmund Husserl, who is considered as the first great phenomenologist, developed transcendental phenomenology which very purpose is to investigate the phenomena of the world without making assumptions. This requires the exclusion of one's presupposition about the existence of the external, physical, and objective world. Phenomenology's end is to be able to describe the conscious experiences of human's "lifeworld" (ibid).

Heidegger, having heard Husserl's call for a need to develop a philosophical system which understands the essences of the lifeworld, maintained that humans are only open to the things that are within their horizons, consequently the meaning of human relationships are poorly understood. This lack of insight results to living inauthentic lives. The little effort exerted by human beings to extend their comprehension leads to what Heidegger terms us everydayness. This everydayness leads to the failure of human's real potentials. Heidegger also argued against the superiority of ideas over...

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Continental philosophy then grew as a response to these Hegelian premises and ideas. Two of the many strands of continental philosophy were discussed in this work.
We can see from this article that specific theories are product of distinct socio-historical specificities, German idealism (which Hegel's theories are very much a part of) as Germany's response to the period of Enlightenment and continental philosophy as a response to the dominance of the German idealist thoughts.

References

Faxed material author. (date). Title of the book. Location: Publisher.

Microsoft Encarta Online Encyclopedia (2008a). Idealism. Retrieved from http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761575556/Idealism.html on April 4, 2009

Microsoft Encarta Online Encyclopedia (2008b). Dialectic. Retrieved from http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761551873/Dialectic.html on April 4, 2009

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2006). Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Retrieved from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hegel / on April 4, 2009.

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References

Faxed material author. (date). Title of the book. Location: Publisher.

Microsoft Encarta Online Encyclopedia (2008a). Idealism. Retrieved from http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761575556/Idealism.html on April 4, 2009

Microsoft Encarta Online Encyclopedia (2008b). Dialectic. Retrieved from http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761551873/Dialectic.html on April 4, 2009

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2006). Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Retrieved from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hegel / on April 4, 2009.
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