Contemporary philosophy is the present period in the history of Western philosophy beginning in the early 20th century with the increasing professionalization of the discipline and the rise of analytic and continental philosophy.[a][2] The phrase is often confused with modern philosophy (which refers to an earlier period in Western philosophy), postmodern philosophy (which refers to some philosophers' criticisms of modern philosophy), and with a non-technical use of the phrase referring to any recent philosophic work.
Germany was the first country to professionalize philosophy.[5] At the end of 1817, Hegel was the first philosopher to be appointed professor by the State, namely by the Prussian Minister of Education, as an effect of Napoleonic reform in Prussia. In the United States, the professionalisation grew out of reforms to the American higher-education system largely based on the German model.[6] James Campbell describes the professionalisation of philosophy in America as follows:
The list of specific changes [during the late 19th-century professionalization of philosophy] is fairly brief, but the resultant shift is almost total.... No longer could the [philosophy] professor function as a defender of the faith or an expounder of Truth. The new philosopher had to be a leader of inquiries and a publicizer of results. This shift was made obvious when certified (often German-certified) philosophy Ph.D.'s replaced theology graduates and ministers in the philosophy classroom. The period between the time when almost no one had a Ph.D. to when almost everyone did was very brief.... The doctorate, moreover, was more than a license to teach: it was a certificate that the prospective philosophy instructor was well, if narrowly, trained and ready to undertake independent work in the now specializing and restricted field of academic philosophy. These new philosophers functioned in independent departments of philosophy.... They were making real gains in their research, creating a body of philosophic work that remains central to our study even now. These new philosophers also set their own standards for success, publishing in the recognized organs of philosophy that were being founded at the time: The Monist (1890), The International Journal of Ethics (1890), The Philosophical Review (1892), and The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific Methods (1904). And, of course, these philosophers were banding together into societies – the American Psychological Association (1892), the Western Philosophical Association (1900), and the American Philosophical Association (1900) – to consolidate their academic positions and advance their philosophic work.[7]
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