Philosophers of the 1800's turned to various aspects of human experience.    The human being became the center of philosophical attention.

• Immanuel Kant 1724-1804, a German idealist philosopher who argued that reason is the means by which the phenomena of experience are translated into understanding.    His classic works include Critique of Pure Reason (1781) and Critique of Practical Reason (1788), in which he put forward his system of ethics based on the categorical imperative.    He detested Hume's conclusions that we can know only what we experience.    He stressed that the mind can rationalize and make judgments without prior experience.    This philosophy was one of the most influential in the history of the world on the intellectual front.
• Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel 1770-1831, a German philosopher who proposed that truth is reached by a continuing dialectic.    His major works include Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences (1817) and The Philosophy of Right (1821).    He considered reason as the absolute that directs the world.    This philosophy was the basis of the communistic political and economic ideas of Karl Marx and the National Socialism of Adolph Hitler.    Hegel glorified the state.    The Hegelian thought led to everything being relative.    There were no absolutes, only terms of relativity, which literally altered the future course of the world.    Relativity is based upon changeableness.
• Karl Marx 1818-1883, a German philosopher, economist, and revolutionary, who was raised with scholars and rabbis.    His father became a Protestant.    With the help and support of Friedrich Engels, (1820-1895) (German socialist theorist), he wrote The Communist Manifesto (1848) and Das Kapital (1867-1894).    These works explain historical development in terms of the interaction of contradictory economic forces, form the basis of all communist theory, and have had a profound influence on the social sciences.    The art of reasoning or Dialectical materialism is the Marxian interpretation of reality that views matter as the sole subject of change and all change as the product of a constant conflict between opposites arising from the internal contradictions inherent in all events, ideas, and movements.    Marx's themes centered around economics instead of reason, a classless society instead of God, and revolution instead of logic.    His intellectual quest was to remake the world, which was partially fulfilled generations after his death.    Marxism will employ every weapon; 'The end justifies the means.'    This eventually developed into the Godless philosophy of modern Communism, which is a religion.
• Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche 1844-1900, a German philosopher who reasoned that Christianity's emphasis on the afterlife makes its believers less able to cope with earthly life.    He argued that the ideal human being, the Ubermensch, would be able to channel passions creatively instead of suppressing them.    His written works include Beyond Good and Evil (1886) and Thus Spake Zarathustra (1883-1892).    Zoroaster or Zarathustra was a sixth century B.C., Persian prophet who founded Zoroastrianism.    Little is known about his life.     Zoroastrianism the religious system founded in Persia by Zoroaster and set forth in the Zend-Avesta (the entire body of sacred writings of the Zoroastrian religion), teaching the worship of Ormazd in the context of a universal struggle between the forces of light and of darkness.    Ormazd also Ormuzd the chief deity of Zoroastrianism, the creator of the world, the source of light, and the embodiment of good.    [Persian Ormazd, from Old Persian Auramazda, from Avestan AHURA MAZDA.]    Ahura Mazda Ormazd.    [Avestan, the Wise Lord.]    He rejected the approach of Hegel and Marx.
• Søren Aaby Kierkegaard 1813-1855, a Danish religious philosopher.    A precursor of modern existentialism, he insisted on the need for individual decision and leaps of faith in the search for religious truth, thereby contradicting Protestant dogma and Hegelianism.    His works include Either/Or and Fear and Trembling (both 1843).
      Existentialism is a philosophy that emphasizes the uniqueness and isolation of the individual experience in a hostile or indifferent universe, regards human existence as unexplainable, and stresses freedom of choice and responsibility for the consequences of one's acts.    The goal of all human experience is the knowledge of God.    His writings are a denial of the basic tenets of the Christian faith and his philosophy would not accept biblical truths.    He introduced the tenets of Kant and Hegel into the theology of the Christian faith.
• Karl Barth 1886-1968, a Swiss Protestant theologian who advocated a return to the principles of the Reformation (Martin Luther and John Calvin) and the teachings of the Bible.    His published works include Church Dogmatics (1932).    He was deeply committed to liberal theology.    He attacked the impractical idealism of the Social Gospel.    Some believe that he developed a new theology called 'Neo-Orthodoxy,' which was an existential, relative thinking theology that spread throughout the Christian church.