The turn of the century, from the nineteenth to the twentieth, marked a significant change in how philosophy was done. There was the desire to bring about, even if not for the first time, a radical fresh start in philosophy, one that included a proper definition of the philosophical enterprise. There was the hope of pulling free from what many philosophers saw as the quagmire of philosophical ideas bequeathed by the nineteenth century. There was indeed the expectation that philosophy would at last definitively get off on the right foot, and, through the harnessing of new tools and methods, solve or eliminate philosophical problems that had been intractable for millennia.

Various notable factors in both the background and foreground contributed to the complex nature of philosophy in the early twentieth century. Foremost was the history of philosophy itself and major new developments within it. Before turning to this, it is perhaps enlightening to consider the cultural milieu external to the subject of philosophy that formed a background to changes within it, and that may, more or less directly, have influenced those changes. The opening of the twentieth century brought with it a slackening of social and personal bonds. There were increasing demands for complete political emancipation, as well as calls for the introduction of more state welfare. The nature of personal fulfilment and of how one may attain it, breaking free of social templates that would preordain one's life, was a central subject of writers and other thinkers.