The History of Philosophy

1. The History of Philosophy An Overview

2. What Is A Historical Overview And What Is Its Benefit? • The main objective of this overview is to have the tools to properly situate a particular philosopher in their corresponding historical framework.

3. Philosophy As Historical • Philosophical thought evolves • The thought of two different eras are so intimately connected that a genuine understanding of any one of them requires an understanding of the other. • What is important for our purposes is simply to be conscious and sensitive to the importance of history and the historical context in our understanding of philosophical texts.

4. Philosophy and Society • Philosophy does not take place in a vacuum, and therefore, the social, scientific, literary, economic and cultural context have a bearing upon the evolution of thought.

5. The History of Philosophy • Ancient • Medieval • Modern • Contemporary

6. Ancient Philosophy600 B.C. - Birth of Christ • Pre-Socratics • The Sophists • 3 main philosophers • Hellenic Philosophy • Stoicism

7. Pre-Socratics • Thales (624-546 B.C) • Anaximander (5th cn. B.C.) • Anaximenes (585-525 B.C.) • Phythagoras (fl. 530 B.C.) • Heraclitus (6th cn B.C.) • Parmenides (b. 510 B.C.) • Zeno (b. 488 B.C.) • Empedocles (490-430) • Anaxagoras (500-428 B.C.) • Leucippus (490-430 B.C.) • Democritus (460-370 B.C.)

8. The Sophists • Protagoras (c. 490-c. 420 B.C.) • Gorgias (483-378 B.C.) • Thrasymachus (c. 459– c. 400 B.C.) • Hippias (5th cn. B.C.) • Prodicus (fl. 5th cn. B.C.)

9. 3 Main Ancient Philosophers • Socrates (470-399 B.C.E) • Plato (428-348 B.C.E) • Aristotle (384-322 B.C.E)

10. Socrates (469-399) • In his use of critical reasoning, by his unwavering commitment to truth, and through the vivid example of his own life, fifth-century Athenian Socrates set the standard for all subsequent Western philosophy.

11. Plato (427-347) • The son of wealthy and influential Athenian parents, Plato began his philosophical career as a student of Socrates. When the master died, Plato travelled to Egypt and Italy, studied with students of Pythagoras, and spent several years advising the ruling family of Syracuse. Eventually, he returned to Athens and established his own school of philosophy at the Academy. • Author of TheDialogues

12. Aristotle (384-322) • Aristotle was born in Stagira in north Greece, the son of Nichomachus, the court physician to the Macedonian royal family. He was trained first in medicine, and then in 367 he was sent to Athens to study philosophy with Plato. He stayed at Plato's Academy until about 347

13. Aristotle and Plato • Raphael's fresco The School of Athens,

14. Hellenic Philosophy • Epicurus (341– 271 B.C.) • Lucretius (c. 99-c. 55 B.C.)

15. Stoicism • Pyrrho (c. 360-c. 270 B.C.) • Cleanthes (331-232 B.C.) • Chrysippus (c.280-207 B.C.) • Cicero (c. 106-143 B.C.) • Epictetus (c.55-c. 135 A.D.) • Marcus Aurelius (121-180 A.D.)

16. Medieval Philosophy100 A.D. – 1600 A.D. • Early Christian • Islamic and Jewish Philosophy • Latin Philosophy XIII Century – Scholasticism • Latin Philosophy XIV Century - Scholasticism

17. Early Christian Philosophers • St. Justin Martyr (b. 100) • Tatian • Athenagoras (177) • Irenaeus • Hyppolitus • Tertullian (b. 160) • Lactatius • Clement of Alexandria (b. 202) • Origen (185-251) • Gregory of Nyssa (b. 335) • St. Ambrose • St Augustine of Hippo (354-430) • John Demascus • Boethius (480-524/5) • Pseudo Dionysis the Areopagite ( • John Scotius Eriugena (810-877) • St. Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109) • Peter Ablelard (1079-142)

18. Islamic and Jewish Philosophy • Avicenna (980-1037) • Algazali (1058–1111) • Averroes (1126-1198) • Moses Maimonides (1135-1204)

19. Latin Philosophy XIII - Scholasticism • St. Bonaventure (1221-1274) • Roger Bacon (1214-1292) • Siger Brabant (c. 1240-1284) • St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1275) • John Duns Scotus (1265 -1308)

20. St. Thomas Aquinas 1224-1275 • The greatest Theologian of the Catholic Church

21. Latin Philosophy XIV Century and the Last Great Philosophy • William Ockham (1280-1349) • John Buridan (1300-1355) • Francisco Suárez (1548-1617)

22. Modern Philosophy1600 – 1900 • Early Modern Philosophy Rationalism Empiricism • Late Modern Philosophy German Idealism • Utilitarianism

23. Early Modern Philosophy • Francis Bacon (1561-1626) • Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) • Rene Descartes (1596-1650) • Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716) • Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) • Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) • John Locke (1632-1704) • George Berkeley (1685-1753) • David Hume (1711-1776) • Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)

24. Rationalist • Rene Descartes (1596-1650) • Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716) • Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677)

25. Descartes (1596-1650) • Rationalist • Cogito ergo sum • Meditations

26. Benedict De Spinoza (1632-1677) • Rationalist • Pantheist

27. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) • Rationalist • Calculus

28. Empiricist • John Locke (1632-1704) • George Berkeley (1685-1753) • David Hume (1711-1776)

29. John Locke (1632-1704) • Empiricist • Sophisticated realism

30. George Berkeley (1685-1753) • Idealist • There are only immaterial things

31. David Hume (1711-1776) • Skepticism • While Hume's influence is evident in the moral philosophy and economic writings of his close friend Adam Smith, he also awakened Immanuel Kant from his "dogmatic slumbers" and "caused the scales to fall" from Jeremy Bentham's eyes. Charles Darwin counted Hume as a central influence.

32. Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) • Kant's most original contribution to philosophy is his "Copernican Revolution," that, as he puts it, it is the representation that makes the object possible rather than the object that makes the representation possible.

33. Late Modern Philosophy - German Idealism • Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762-1814) • Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling (1775-1854) • Immanual Kant (1724-1804) • Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) • G.W.F. Hegel (1770-1830) • Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) • Karl Marx (1818-1883) • Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)

34. Søren Aabye Kierkegaard(1813-1855) • Father of Existential philosophy

35. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel(1770-1831) • German Idealism • Phenomenology of Spirit

36. Karl Marx (1818-1883) • Karl Marx was born and educated in Prussia, where he fell under the influence of Ludwig Feuerbach and other radical Hegelians. Although he shared Hegel's belief in dialectical structure and historical inevitability, Marx held that the foundations of reality lay in the material base of economics rather than in the abstract thought of idealistic philosophy. • CommunistManifesto

37. Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) • Friedrich Nietzsche was a German philosopher of the late 19th century who challenged the foundations of traditional morality and Christianity. He believed in life, creativity, health, and the realities of the world we live in, rather than those situated in a world beyond. Central to Nietzsche's philosophy is the idea of "life-affirmation," which involves an honest questioning of all doctrines which drain life's energies, however socially prevalent those views might be.

38. Utilitarianism • Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) • John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) The right act is that which produces the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of people

39. Contemporary Philosophy1900 - Present • Continental Philosophy • Analytic Philosophy • American Philosophy

40. Continental Philosophy • Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) • Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) • Ortega y Gasset (1883-1955) • Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980)

41. Edmund Husserl ( • Father of phenomenology

42. José Ortega y Gasset (1883-1955) • The Spanish essayist and philosopher was born in Madrid of a patrician family. He was educated at a Jesuit college and the University of Madrid, where he received his doctorate in philosophy in 1904. Ortega spent the next five years at German universities in Berlin and Leipzig and at the University of Marburg.

43. JEAN-PAUL SARTRE (1905-1980) • French novelist, playwright, existentialist philosopher, and literary critic. Sartre was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1964, but he declined the award in protest of the values of bourgeois society.

44. Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986) • French philosopher, novelist, and essayist, who was concerned with safety for factory workers, abortion rights for women, rights of the elderly, and the social status of women.

45. Analytic Philosophy • Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) • Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) • G.E. Moore (1873-1958) • Rudoph Carnap (1981-1970) • W.V.O. Quine (1908 - 1999)

46. Bertrand Arthur William Russell (1872 - 1970) • He was a British philosopher, logician, essayist, and social critic, best known for his work in mathematical logic and analytic philosophy.

47. American Philosophy • Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914) • William James (1842-1910) • John Dewey (1859-1952)

48. William James • William James was an original thinker in and between the disciplines of physiology, psychology and philosophy. His twelve-hundred page masterwork, The Principles of Psychology (1890), is a rich blend of physiology, psychology, philosophy, and personal reflection that has given us such ideas as "the stream of thought" and the baby's impression of the world "as one great blooming, buzzing confusion" (PP 462). It contains seeds of pragmatism and phenomenology, and influenced generations of thinkers in Europe and America, including Edmund Husserl, Bertrand Russell, John Dewey, and Ludwig Wittgenstein.

49. Charles Sanders Peirce1839-1914 • Who is the most original and the most versatile intellect that the Americas have so far produced? The answer "Charles S. Peirce" is uncontested, because any second would be so far behind as not to be worth nominating. Mathematician, astronomer, chemist, geodesist, surveyor, cartographer, metrologist, spectroscopist, engineer, inventor; psychologist, philologist, lexicographer, historian of science, mathematical economist, lifelong student of medicine; book reviewer, dramatist, actor, short story writer; phenomenologist, semiotician, logician, rhetorician and metaphysician.

50. John Dewey (1859-1952) • Dewey has made, arguably, the most significant contribution to the development of educational thinking in the twentieth century. Dewey's philosophical pragmatism, concern with interaction, reflection and experience, and interest in community and democracy, were brought together to form a highly suggestive educative form.