Throughout much of his life, Goethe was in the process of writing Faust. It is therefore understandable that in the work the various artistic and philosophical movements with which Goethe was aligned are apparent. In his lifetime Goethe studied three major philosophies: rationalism, empiricism and the German Enlightenment. The details of each of these are outlined below along with links to Britannica.com for further information.

The ideas behind rationalism originated around the 1620s in France. DesCartes ("I think, therefore I am") and Rousseau were the forerunners of the movement. The basic idea of rationalism is that the world is created through thought. Thought is the only absolute and sensory experiences cannot be trusted to give us understanding of the world.

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Empiricism, beginning around 1690, is the belief that knowledge is produced by our sensory experience of the world. The wolrd exists and it is through our contact with it that we gain knowledge. Noted individuals of the empirical school of thought are Locke and Hobbs.

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The German Enlightenment was an attempt to reconcile the debate between rationalism and empiricism. The seminal work of the movement was Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, published in 1781. The basis was the belief that both rationalism and empiricism were correct to a degree; while we do have empirical, or sensory, experience, one's mind alters those experiences therefore creating knowledge. The German Enlightenment acknowledged the existence of "a priori" knowledge: knowledge that we have that is not understood empirically. This is transcendental knowledge, as opposed to empirical knowledge. It is only through the recognition of both that we obtain a higher understanding of the universe.

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