Contemporary philosophy is very difficult to periodize.

Where begins contemporary philosophy is

already a matter of controversy within contemporary philosophy itself, as it is not where ancient
philosophy, philosophy or medieval, or modern philosophy begins. It is more conventional or
resolved to a more conventional manner in these three cases in the case of contemporary
philosophy.
On the other hand there is an obvious ambiguity in the contemporary word, what is it
contemporary? It is present in some sense. We are not talking philosophy of the century this or
that. So we have a "contemporary" name that has an ambiguity because it refers both to the
present and to a period in time it is very difficult to determine. This is because of the controversy
of contemporary philosophy is where it begins. Is inevitably philosophical historical reasons,
systematic reasons, should be combined in some way, which makes the decision to build in one
way or another course of contemporary philosophy is very conditioned, very dependent on this set
of issues that we just
expose. Therefore, every year or every two years we change the emphasis within a more or less
comprehensive understanding of contemporary thought. However, any decision about the
beginning is required. That is not the historical point of view, or periodization is offside. I can not
begin a course of contemporary philosophy with Plato, although the issue today in philosophy is
itself a problem because what is current in philosophy? In any case it is a new way to examine
what not current, and is an out of date way of intervening in the actual. This means that there is a
kind of complex traversal timeline in philosophical thought which enables Plato is a contemporary
of us, and maybe someone who does philosophy today not what is for some reason the story of It
determines philosophy. So we have to find are the questions that our philosophical thinking we
are in force in the philosophical contemporaneity. That is, the question of where begins the
contemporary philosophy and if you order in relation to the current is very difficult to answer
because it could have ended and seating us at a time that does not yet have a name, and perhaps
follows that contemporary call. We could even consider this possibility. So I say that now the
question is no longer where it begins and ends contemporary philosophy, but what are the
significant issues for our way of intervening in the philosophical debate called contemporary,
where contemporary are is the current time, ie which contains us philosophizing ourselves as
subjects. Therefore, a course of contemporary philosophy requires this kind of commitment, ie
respond with their own commitment to this adventure thinking of practicing philosophy.
In this case, we turn to choose a question that we consider closed at all, which is how the question
has been settling humanism / anti-humanism at different times of philosophy in the twentieth
century, especially in the second half of the twentieth century. For this we have made a selection
of authors, and within these authors also we made a cut in their ways of development of the
above issues, which have to do with the shaft or controversial humanism / anti-humanism. On the
effective date of this question it seems to me that do not fit too controversial, as it remains a
permanent question of philosophizing demands understanding of the human situation itself
whatever the notion of the human to be put into play. And in this effort to understand the human

requires that all aspects related to philosophy (ontological, cognitive, and everything that we
usually labeled in a way one quick, convenient and problematic both as a practical philosophy:
ethics, aesthetics, politics) come into play in this determination, clarification or understanding of
the concept of the human. The human gets there immediately as a concept at stake in a
constellation of concepts. This always happens in the development of philosophy, because it is
itself the concept: divided, included or excluded. This means that there is a whole dialectic, a
movement of concepts to each other which makes it philosophy, and immediately certain
fundamental dichotomies arise when we asked about the condition of the human. For example, it
is a continuity with the human being as a whole, and there are positive continuities that will in any
way be any way to be? Here the question with nature appears, is the human a continuum with the
natural, or is there a break, discontinuity philosophical thought must enshrine when interrogated
by the human condition? We have here then a natural-unnatural pair. Or maybe, in the unnatural
turn different branches, such as history, society, culture, language, etc. Then, the link between the
natural and the unnatural is an element that must be developed when one wants to deal with this
dispute or complaint humanism / anti-humanism that has occurred in certain times of the
twentieth century.
But any deepening of the same distinction of the natural-unnatural and will be part of the
development of the problem. You can not take quick steps as if any of them is not in itself
problematic. Therefore, it is more complex not only on the side that when one puts "no" to a word
like "unnatural" expression, openness is greater, because there are many ways to determine the
"no" of something. For example "I am not now in a lot of sides and these in one." So say where I
am seems much more limited than say where I am not. If I put where I am, instead of where I am
not, it is clear that within the class where I am there is a huge amount of things to say, potentially
infinite. While where I am I am one.
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So natural natural-does not contain the same question, determine the unnatural as another of
nature, while I simplifies the enunciation of it, but leave it open enormously everything that
conceptual spectrum allows some of the things that we just to see in the course within
unnaturalness. However, natural is something a little more complex than say I'm in the classroom
250 of the faculty. A second dichotomy is between the individual and the collective, to what
extent what we call the human or condition of the human can be determined within the sphere of
something called individual existence ?, or the human condition and is always and originally
collective? Where the collective we will refer in part to history but partly also leads us to
community, a link, a relationship between individuals or the relationship between the individual
and wholes wider-encompassing, determinations encompassing and that somehow They
characterize it without deleting it. Therefore oppositions that are taking place in this other sphere
(the individual and the collective) also have their complexity. I'm not saying now simply the
individual and not individual. Here instead of what not individual we can talk about what exactly
can be seen as pre-individual (which is some kind of manifestation of being that is pre-individual,
who is not yet individualized, but nevertheless is acting for the individual), or supra-individual.
Let's call in either case "collective", being together, being with the other. That determination to be

together, to be with the other, be concomitant of the human, or something added and removed,
something not necessarily address ?, can represent the human in the form of the detached,
secluded, than self-sufficient, independent of what ?, or human is always worked, crossed by
being together, by forces, devices, determinations question its autonomy, that threaten its
sovereignty? Individual can also become replaceable to some extent by the ego, the subject, selfconsciousness, of subjectivity as a point of view or subjectivation processes; but in any case an
instance that does not seem completely homogeneous or reduced again to that other than the
covers and contains.
That one that embraces and contains in a particular configuration of this stage of the philosophy of
the twentieth century we pass through has been called
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structure. During this stage the rise of structuralism takes place, determining not only in this
discussion between humanism / anti-humanism, but also in relation to its continuation in the
history of philosophy, because some of what we usually understand by contemporary philosophy
in some contexts it is called post-modernity, and in others it is called late-modernity, and other
post-structuralism. Therefore, if there is a determination of contemporary thinking under the label
of post-structuralism, it must inevitably be the question of what is or consisted structuralism. It is
where we find that the structure presented within this "movement structuralism" as the asubjective instance, as that instance perhaps unconscious, collective not inter-individual but in any
case prior to or outside the determinant individuation towards it especially when this
individuation is conceived in terms of self-consciousness. And there we find the debate between
who was a hero of the philosophy of consciousness as was Sartre and who was the exclusive
reference of structuralism was Levi-Strauss. These two authors went grouping different debates,
different referents and was installed one of the stages of this discussion humanism / antihumanism. Student: Postmodernism is not identified with post-structuralism? Teacher: For now I
delved into that, just say that sometimes this period of philosophy that we try to identify and
which we call it one way and sometimes another. The question about whether or not the same
post-modernism and post-structuralism would not take it as a question that is worth being
analyzed in those terms. First we must clarify what is what before comparing. I meant only that
sometimes these tags are used interchangeably to speak in this philosophizing time when we are,
that is fallen pillars of the so-called modernity, the crisis of the modern subject.
Structuralism name is not just found in the thinking of humanity the importance of the
consideration of the structure, but the structure is put as the