In the second half of the 19th century there was a gradual departure from the classics and a smooth transition to non-classical philosophy, the period of the change of patterns and principles of philosophical thinking began. The philosophy of the 20th century characterized the classical trend as a kind of total tendency or style of thinking, which is characteristic of about a three-hundred-year-old era of the development of Western thought. At this time, the thinking structure of the classical direction was thoroughly permeated with a sense of the natural order of things and rationally comprehensible in the theory of knowledge. Adherents of the classical movement believed that the mind is the main and most perfect tool for transformation in human life. The decisive forces that allow us to hope for a solution to the urgent problems of humanity, proclaimed knowledge as such and rational knowledge.
In the XX century. due to a number of sociocultural changes, such as progress in scientific knowledge and technological advances, the class confrontation did not become as fierce as it was in the 19th century. Western European philosophy of the 20th century experienced a surge in theoretical natural science, which led to the fact that materialistic and idealistic systems found themselves inconsistent in explaining the changes that took place in science and society. In the philosophical schools of the 20th century, the confrontation between idealistic and materialistic theories no longer occupied the former dominant place, giving way to new trends.
The philosophy of the 20th century was determined, first of all, by the fact that the classical constructions no longer satisfied many representatives of philosophical movements due to the fact that the concept of man as such was lost in them. The diversity and specificity of the subjective manifestations of man, as some thinkers of that time believed, cannot be "grasped" by the methods of science. In contrast to rationalism, philosophers began to put non-classical philosophy, where the primary reality was the life and existence of man.
Western philosophy of the 20th century questioned the desire of classical philosophy to present society as an objective entity that is similar to natural objects. The 20th century passed under the banner of a certain “anthropological boom” that occurred in philosophy. The image of the so-called social reality, characteristic of the philosophy of that time, was directly related to such a concept as “intersubjectivity”. As the philosophers of that time believed, this direction was designed to overcome the division into subject and object, which was so characteristic of social classical philosophy. Intersubjective direction in philosophy was based on the idea of a special kind of reality that develops in the relationship of people.
The methods developed and applied by the philosophy of the 20th century are more complex and even somewhat sophisticated, compared with the classical philosophy of the 19th century. In particular, this was manifested in the increasing role of philosophical work on the form and structure of human culture (symbolic formations, meanings, texts). The philosophy of the 20th century is also characterized by its multidisciplinary nature. This is expressed in the diversity of its areas and schools. All new spheres that previously remained unknown were included in the orbit of philosophical and scientific understanding in the 20th century.
With the beginning of a new era, the tonality and general mood of philosophical works changed; they lost the confident optimism that is characteristic of classical philosophy. The philosophy of the 20th century has come very close to creating an entirely new paradigm of world perception, world size and world outlook, of a person, which is directly related to the ever-increasing needs for a radically new type of rationality.
