Question

Describe why and how nietzsche, bergson, and sorel began the revolt against the idea of progress and the general faith in the rational human mind. how did wittgenstein add to this belief?

Answer 1

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) rejected the ideas that had been dominant since the Enlightenment and the emphasis on rationality that G.W.F. Hegel had made dominant in 19th century philosophy.  Nietzsche saw these emphases on reason and rationality as denials of the passionate and creative instincts within human beings.  He saw Dionysus (in Greek mythology) as being just as essential to the human spirit as Apollo -- that irrational thinking and chaos characterize us just as much as rationality and order.

Georges Sorel (1847-1922) became a proponent of Marxism, but rejected the traditional Marxist view that communism was "scientific socialism" -- that it was a true account of how history and economy happened in the world.  He saw the value of Marxism in its redemptive promise for the working class, seeing it more in the spirit of a religious belief than as a rational or scientific approach to political economy.

Henri Bergson (1859-1941), like Nietzsche, believed that our experiences and intuition are often a better guide than abstract rationalism.  He said, for instance, that "There is no greater joy than that of feeling oneself a creator. The triumph of life is expressed by creation" -- a sentiment echoing feelings by Nietzsche.  Bergson believed poetry and artistic or even religious expression are more comprehensible to our human minds than are scientific and abstract calculations.

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) sought to take a logical, rational approach to understanding the problems of human language in his first major work, the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.  But by his later life Wittgenstein was approaching language less by logical analysis and more according to the way that language "games" (as he called them) work in our ordinary conversations.  His Philosophical Investigations, published posthumously, remains his more influential philosophical work, less tied to a rationalistic approach.