Hello, everyone. I'm Stephen West. This is philosophize this.

Thank you to everyone that supports the show on Patreon. I could never do this without you.

Today's episode is trying to get to the bottom of why there's so many thinkers at the beginning of

the 20th century that have such a problem with reason. I hope you love the show today.

So this disagreement that defines the state of the philosophical landscape in the early 20th century,

we'd call it a lot of different things on this show. Nature versus culture,

modernity versus post-modernity, objectivity versus intersubjectivity.

Well, one thing about this debate, if it's not entirely obvious by this point on the show,

is that understanding the perspectives that are positioned on either side of this debate

is absolutely crucial, not only for understanding 20th century political philosophy,

but even for understanding the world you're living in today. For understanding the smallest

things, the philosophical underpinnings for many of the arguments you might see when you turn on the

news. We've talked about bits and pieces of this debate for a long time on this show,

and it's high time there's an episode you can point people to that goes into a bit of detail

about this aspect of modern discourse. Something that talks about why the climate of the early 20th

century was filled with philosophers that had such a strong level of dissatisfaction with the

legacy of the Enlightenment. That is rationality, individualism, and the scientific method is the

primary way of arriving at truth about things. Because this whole state of affairs can start to seem

kind of confusing to reasonable people. I mean, how could any serious person ever be anti-science?

Look at the understanding of the natural world sciences produced. Look at how it's let us

manipulate and wield the otherwise chaos of the natural world to the benefit of human beings.

Look at all the different ways every day that you use the great things sciences produced,

...