In the 20th century there were high-quality changes in field of knowledge of the person about the nature and society. Scientific achievements demanded reconsideration of philosophical fundamentals of science. Then top trends of modern philosophy which allowed to integrate knowledge accumulated in separate disciplines into a uniform picture of the world were outlined.
Analytical philosophy
The analytical philosophy became reaction to the idealistic views dominating in science at the end of XIX and the beginning of the XX century. Her followers saw in philosophical sciences not just naked theory, but a peculiar method of the analysis which could be shifted to language of the scientific knowledge accumulated by then. Natural sciences and a strict experiment which could be subjected to the impartial analysis became criterion of the new philosophical trend arising then.
Ideal of analytical philosophy – the extreme accuracy of the provisions which are put forward by natural sciences and an opportunity to recheck the obtained actual data. Indistinct formulations, traditional for former philosophy, gradually began to be replaced with accurate logic and accuracy of concepts. Metaphysical views of philosophers of old school began to be replaced with tools of the dialectic logic based on adoption of the principle of continuous development of the world. Ludwig Wittgenstein whose peak of scientific activity fell on the middle of the last century became the prominent representative of analytical philosophy.
Philosophical existentialism
In modern philosophy the trend, connected and with development of existentialism remains. This philosophical direction which arose in the 19th century became the answer to extreme practicality and rationalism of bourgeois society. In the center of existentialism there are questions of existence of the person in the modern world. Blossoming of this direction fell on the middle of the last century, but also today those philosophers who think of features of human life in promptly changing world look narrowly at existentialism more and more fixedly. Philosophers existentialists make a start in the researches from the concepts developed by Sartre, Jaspers and Camus.
Modern hermeneutics
One of the most current trends in modern philosophy consists in the appeal to problems of hermeneutics as which traditionally understand art of scientific interpretation of texts. Having arisen as a method of interpretation of biblical scenes, the hermeneutics turns more and more today into the popular industry of philosophical knowledge which task was an interpretation of objects of modern culture. Hans-Georg Gadamer was one of the most prominent scientists who were engaged in philosophical hermeneutics at the end of the last century. In the researches it was based on the data which are saved up in linguistics, art and history. Gadamer and his followers showed all limitation of direct application of a concept of objectivity without the appeal to a problem of sense and understanding. Knowledge accumulated in hermeneutics has important applied value in modern information society.