1.
Dialect
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That happens, for example, across large parts of India or the Maghreb. Historically, it happened in various parts of Europe such as between Portugal, southern Belgium and southern Italy, and between Flanders and Austria. Leonard Bloomfield used the dialect area. It is analogous to a species in evolutionary biology. Dialect continua typically occur in long-settled agrarian populations, as innovations spread from their various points of origin as waves, in this situation, hierarchical classifications of varieties are impractical. Instead, dialectologists map variation of language features across a dialect continuum. The influential Atlas linguistique de la France pioneered the use of a trained fieldworker and these atlases typically consist of display maps, each showing local forms of a particular item at the survey locations. Secondary studies may include maps, showing the areal distribution of various variants. A common tool in these maps is an isogloss, a line separating areas where different variants of a particular feature predominate, in a dialect continuum, isoglosses for different features are typically spread out, reflecting the gradual transition between varieties. A bundle of coinciding isoglosses indicate a stronger dialect boundary, as might occur at geographical obstacles or long-standing political boundaries, in other cases, intersecting isoglosses and more complex patterns are found. Standard varieties may be developed and codified from one or more locations in a continuum, in such cases the local variety is said to be dependent on, or heteronomous with respect to, the standard variety. The Scandinavian languages, Danish, Norwegian and Swedish, are cited as examples. Conversely, a defined in this way may include local varieties that are mutually unintelligible. The choice of standard is determined by a political boundary. As a results, speakers on either side of the boundary may use almost identical varieties, but treat them as dependent on different standards, the choice may be a matter of national, regional or religious identity, and may be controversial. In the Yugoslav republic of Macedonia, a standard was developed from local varieties within a continuum with Serbia to the north, the standard was deliberately based on varieties from the west of the republic that were most different from standard Bulgarian. Now known as Macedonian, it is the standard of the independent Republic of Macedonia. Europe provides several examples of dialect continua, the largest of which involve the Germanic, Romance and Slavic branches of the Indo-European language family
2.
Dielectric
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A dielectric material is an electrical insulator that can be polarized by an applied electric field. Because of dielectric polarization, positive charges are displaced toward the field and this creates an internal electric field that reduces the overall field within the dielectric itself. If a dielectric is composed of weakly bonded molecules, those molecules not only become polarized, the study of dielectric properties concerns storage and dissipation of electric and magnetic energy in materials. Dielectrics are important for explaining various phenomena in electronics, optics, solid-state physics, while the term insulator implies low electrical conduction, dielectric typically means materials with a high polarizability. The latter is expressed by a called the relative permittivity. The term insulator is generally used to indicate electrical obstruction while the term dielectric is used to indicate the energy storing capacity of the material, a common example of a dielectric is the electrically insulating material between the metallic plates of a capacitor. The polarization of the dielectric by the electric field increases the capacitors surface charge for the given electric field strength. The term dielectric was coined by William Whewell in response to a request from Michael Faraday, a perfect dielectric is a material with zero electrical conductivity, thus exhibiting only a displacement current, therefore it stores and returns electrical energy as if it were an ideal capacitor. The electric susceptibility χe of a material is a measure of how easily it polarizes in response to an electric field. This, in turn, determines the electric permittivity of the material and thus many other phenomena in that medium. The susceptibility of a medium is related to its relative permittivity εr by χ e = ε r −1, so in the case of a vacuum, χ e =0. The electric displacement D is related to the polarization density P by D = ε0 E + P = ε0 E = ε r ε0 E, in general, a material cannot polarize instantaneously in response to an applied field. The more general formulation as a function of time is P = ε0 ∫ − ∞ t χ e E d t ′ and that is, the polarization is a convolution of the electric field at previous times with time-dependent susceptibility given by χe. The upper limit of this integral can be extended to infinity as well if one defines χe =0 for Δt <0, an instantaneous response corresponds to Dirac delta function susceptibility χe = χeδ. It is more convenient in a system to take the Fourier transform. Due to the theorem, the integral becomes a simple product. Note the simple frequency dependence of the susceptibility, or equivalently the permittivity, the shape of the susceptibility with respect to frequency characterizes the dispersion properties of the material. In the classical approach to the model, a material is made up of atoms
3.
Greek language
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Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece and other parts of the Eastern Mediterranean. It has the longest documented history of any living language, spanning 34 centuries of written records and its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the major part of its history, other systems, such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary, were used previously. The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin, Cyrillic, Armenian, Coptic, Gothic and many other writing systems. Together with the Latin texts and traditions of the Roman world, during antiquity, Greek was a widely spoken lingua franca in the Mediterranean world and many places beyond. It would eventually become the official parlance of the Byzantine Empire, the language is spoken by at least 13.2 million people today in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Albania, Turkey, and the Greek diaspora. Greek roots are used to coin new words for other languages, Greek. Greek has been spoken in the Balkan peninsula since around the 3rd millennium BC, the earliest written evidence is a Linear B clay tablet found in Messenia that dates to between 1450 and 1350 BC, making Greek the worlds oldest recorded living language. Among the Indo-European languages, its date of earliest written attestation is matched only by the now extinct Anatolian languages, the Greek language is conventionally divided into the following periods, Proto-Greek, the unrecorded but assumed last ancestor of all known varieties of Greek. The unity of Proto-Greek would have ended as Hellenic migrants entered the Greek peninsula sometime in the Neolithic era or the Bronze Age, Mycenaean Greek, the language of the Mycenaean civilisation. It is recorded in the Linear B script on tablets dating from the 15th century BC onwards, Ancient Greek, in its various dialects, the language of the Archaic and Classical periods of the ancient Greek civilisation. It was widely known throughout the Roman Empire, after the Roman conquest of Greece, an unofficial bilingualism of Greek and Latin was established in the city of Rome and Koine Greek became a first or second language in the Roman Empire. The origin of Christianity can also be traced through Koine Greek, Medieval Greek, also known as Byzantine Greek, the continuation of Koine Greek in Byzantine Greece, up to the demise of the Byzantine Empire in the 15th century. Much of the written Greek that was used as the language of the Byzantine Empire was an eclectic middle-ground variety based on the tradition of written Koine. Modern Greek, Stemming from Medieval Greek, Modern Greek usages can be traced in the Byzantine period and it is the language used by the modern Greeks, and, apart from Standard Modern Greek, there are several dialects of it. In the modern era, the Greek language entered a state of diglossia, the historical unity and continuing identity between the various stages of the Greek language is often emphasised. Greek speakers today still tend to regard literary works of ancient Greek as part of their own rather than a foreign language and it is also often stated that the historical changes have been relatively slight compared with some other languages. According to one estimation, Homeric Greek is probably closer to demotic than 12-century Middle English is to modern spoken English, Greek is spoken by about 13 million people, mainly in Greece, Albania and Cyprus, but also worldwide by the large Greek diaspora. Greek is the language of Greece, where it is spoken by almost the entire population
4.
Dialogue
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Dialogue is a written or spoken conversational exchange between two or more people, and a literary and theatrical form that depicts such an exchange. In the 20th century, philosophical treatments of dialogue emerged from thinkers including Mikhail Bakhtin, Paulo Freire, Martin Buber, although diverging in many details, these thinkers have articulated a holistic concept of dialogue as a multi-dimensional, dynamic and context-dependent process of creating meaning. Educators such as Freire and Ramón Flecha have also developed a body of theory, the term dialogue stems from the Greek διάλογος, its roots are διά and λόγος. The first extant author who uses the term is Plato, in whose works it is associated with the art of dialectic. Latin took over the word as dialogus, in the West, Plato has commonly been credited with the systematic use of dialogue as an independent literary form. Ancient sources indicate, however, that the Platonic dialogue had its foundations in the mime and these works, admired and imitated by Plato, have not survived and we have only the vaguest idea of how they may have been performed. The Mimes of Herodas, which were found in a papyrus in 1891, Plato further simplified the form and reduced it to pure argumentative conversation, while leaving intact the amusing element of character-drawing. By about 400 BC he had perfected the Socratic dialogue, all his extant writings, except the Apology and Epistles, use this form. Following Plato, the became a major literary genre in antiquity. Soon after Plato, Xenophon wrote his own Symposium, also, Two French writers of eminence borrowed the title of Lucian’s most famous collection, both Fontenelle and Fénelon prepared Dialogues des morts. Contemporaneously, in 1688, the French philosopher Nicolas Malebranche published his Dialogues on Metaphysics and Religion, in English non-dramatic literature the dialogue did not see extensive use until Berkeley employed it, in 1713, for his treatise, Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous. His contemporary, the Scottish philosopher David Hume wrote Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, a prominent 19th-century example of literary dialogue was Landor’s Imaginary Conversations. In Germany, Wieland adopted this form for several important satirical works published between 1780 and 1799, in Spanish literature, the Dialogues of Valdés and those on Painting by Vincenzo Carducci are celebrated. Italian writers of collections of dialogues, following Platos model, include Torquato Tasso, Galileo, Galiani, Leopardi, in the 19th century, the French returned to the original application of dialogue. English writers including Anstey Guthrie also adopted the form, but these seem to have found less of a popular following among the English than their counterparts written by French authors. Authors who have employed it include George Santayana, in his eminent Dialogues in Limbo. Also Edith Stein and Iris Murdoch used the dialogue form, Stein imagined a dialogue between Edmund Husserl and Thomas Aquinas. Murdoch included not only Socrates and Alcibiades as interlocutors in her work Acastos, Two Platonic Dialogues, more recently Timothy Williamson wrote Tetralogue, a philosophical exchange on a train between four people with radically different epistemological views
5.
Discourse
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Discourse denotes written and spoken communications, In semantics and discourse analysis, Discourse is a conceptual generalization of conversation within each modality and context of communication. The totality of codified language used in a field of intellectual enquiry and of social practice, such as legal discourse, medical discourse, religious discourse. In the work of Michel Foucault, and that of the social theoreticians he inspired, discourse describes an entity of sequences, of signs, therefore, a discourse is composed of semiotic sequences between and among objects, subjects, and statements. The term discursive formation conceptually describes the regular communications that produce such discourses, as a philosopher, Michel Foucault applied the discursive formation in the analyses of large bodies of knowledge, such as political economy and natural history. In the first sense-usage, the discourse is studied in corpus linguistics. In the second sense and in the sense, the analysis of a discourse examines and determines the connections among language and structure. Discourse affects the persons perspective, it is impossible to avoid discourse, for example, two notably distinct discourses can be used about various guerrilla movements describing them either as freedom fighters or terrorists. In other words, the chosen discourse provides the vocabulary, expressions, discourses are embedded in different rhetorical genres and metagenres that constrain and enable them. Discourse is closely linked to different theories of power and state and this conception of discourse is largely derived from the work of French philosopher Michel Foucault. Modernist theorists were preoccupied with obtaining the truth and reality and sought to develop theories which contained certainty and predictability, modernist theorists therefore viewed discourse as being relative to talking or way of talking and understood discourse to be functional. Discourse and language transformations are ascribed to progress or the need to develop new or more words to describe new discoveries, understandings. In modern times, language and discourse are dissociated from power and ideology, in other words, it is the structure itself that determines the significance, meaning and function of the individual elements of a system. Structuralism has made an important contribution to our understanding of language, saussures theory of language highlights the decisive role of meaning and signification in structuring human life more generally. Following the perceived limitations of the era, emerged postmodern theory. Postmodern theorists rejected modernist claims that there was one approach that explained all aspects of society. Rather, postmodernist theorists were interested in examining the variety of experience of individuals and groups and emphasized differences over similarities, in contrast to modern theory, postmodern theory is more fluid and allows for individual differences as it rejected the notion of social laws. Postmodern theorists shifted away from truth seeking and instead sought answers for how truths are produced and sustained, postmodernists contended that truth and knowledge is plural, contextual, and historically produced through discourses. Postmodern researchers therefore embarked on analyzing discourses such as texts, language, French social theorist Michel Foucault developed a notion of discourse in his early work, especially the Archaeology of knowledge
6.
Opinion
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In general, an opinion is a judgment, viewpoint, or statement that is not conclusive. It may deal with matters in which there is no conclusive finding. What distinguishes fact from opinion is that facts are more likely to be verifiable, an example is, United States of America was involved in the Vietnam War versus United States of America was right to get involved in the Vietnam War. An opinion may be supported by facts and principles, in case it becomes an argument. Different people may draw opposing conclusions even if they agree on the set of facts. Opinions rarely change without new arguments being presented and it can be reasoned that one opinion is better supported by the facts than another by analyzing the supporting arguments. In casual use, the opinion may be the result of a persons perspective, understanding, particular feelings, beliefs. It may refer to unsubstantiated information, in contrast to knowledge, collective or professional opinions are defined as meeting a higher standard to substantiate the opinion. Historically, the distinction of demonstrated knowledge and opinion was articulated by Ancient Greek philosophers, today, Platos analogy of the divided line is a well-known illustration of the distinction between knowledge and opinion, or knowledge and belief, in customary terminology of contemporary philosophy. Opinions can be persuasive, but only the assertions they are based on can be said to be true or false, typically, because the process of gathering opinions from all individuals are difficult, expensive, or impossible to obtain, public opinion is estimated using survey sampling. In these situations, researchers are interested in questions related to social choice, conformity. Science may often, however, be partial, temporally contingent, conflicting, in other circumstances, a particular scientific opinion may be at odds with consensus. Scientific literacy, also called public understanding of science, is an educational goal concerned with providing the public with the tools to benefit from scientific opinion. A legal opinion or closing opinion is a type of professional opinion, usually contained in a formal legal-opinion letter, most legal opinions are given in connection with business transactions. The opinion expresses the attorneys professional judgment regarding the legal matters addressed, the opinion can be clean or reasoned. A legal opinion is not a guarantee that a court will reach any particular result, judicial opinions are discussed further in the articles on common law and precedent. An editorial opinion is the evaluation of a topic by a newspaper as conveyed on its editorial page, doxa Editorial Epistemology Justified true belief Opinion poll Perspective Soapbox Speakers Corner Truthiness
7.
Truth
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Truth is most often used to mean being in accord with fact or reality, or fidelity to an original or standard. Truth may also often be used in modern contexts to refer to an idea of truth to self, the commonly understood opposite of truth is falsehood, which, correspondingly, can also take on a logical, factual, or ethical meaning. The concept of truth is discussed and debated in several contexts, including philosophy, art, Some philosophers view the concept of truth as basic, and unable to be explained in any terms that are more easily understood than the concept of truth itself. Commonly, truth is viewed as the correspondence of language or thought to an independent reality, other philosophers take this common meaning to be secondary and derivative. On this view, the conception of truth as correctness is a derivation from the concepts original essence. Various theories and views of truth continue to be debated among scholars, philosophers, language and words are a means by which humans convey information to one another and the method used to determine what is a truth is termed a criterion of truth. The English word truth is derived from Old English tríewþ, tréowþ, trýwþ, Middle English trewþe, cognate to Old High German triuwida, like troth, it is a -th nominalisation of the adjective true. Old Norse trú, faith, word of honour, religious faith, thus, truth involves both the quality of faithfulness, fidelity, loyalty, sincerity, veracity, and that of agreement with fact or reality, in Anglo-Saxon expressed by sōþ. All Germanic languages besides English have introduced a distinction between truth fidelity and truth factuality. To express factuality, North Germanic opted for nouns derived from sanna to assert, affirm, while continental West Germanic opted for continuations of wâra faith, trust, pact. Romance languages use terms following the Latin veritas, while the Greek aletheia, Russian pravda, each presents perspectives that are widely shared by published scholars. However, the theories are not universally accepted. More recently developed deflationary or minimalist theories of truth have emerged as competitors to the substantive theories. Minimalist reasoning centres around the notion that the application of a term like true to a statement does not assert anything significant about it, for instance, anything about its nature. Minimalist reasoning realises truth as a label utilised in general discourse to express agreement, to stress claims, correspondence theories emphasise that true beliefs and true statements correspond to the actual state of affairs. This type of theory stresses a relationship between thoughts or statements on one hand, and things or objects on the other and it is a traditional model tracing its origins to ancient Greek philosophers such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. This class of theories holds that the truth or the falsity of a representation is determined in principle entirely by how it relates to things, Aquinas also restated the theory as, A judgment is said to be true when it conforms to the external reality. Many modern theorists have stated that this ideal cannot be achieved without analysing additional factors, for example, language plays a role in that all languages have words to represent concepts that are virtually undefined in other languages
8.
Debate
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Debate is a method of formally presenting an argument in a structured manner. The outcome of a debate may depend upon consensus or some way of reaching a resolution. In a formal debating contest, there are rules for participants to discuss and decide on differences, Debating is carried out in debating chambers and assemblies of various types to discuss matters and to make resolutions about action to be taken, often by voting. Deliberative bodies such as parliaments, legislative assemblies, and meetings of all sorts engage in debates, in particular, in parliamentary democracies a legislature debates and decides on new laws. Formal debates between candidates for elected office, such as the debates that are sometimes held in democracies. Debating is also carried out for educational and recreational purposes, usually associated with educational establishments, the major goal of the study of debate as a method or art is to develop the ability to debate rationally from either position with equal ease. The outcome of a contest may be decided by vote, by judges. Debating teams are often helpful to high school students in teaching the writing process, Debating societies emerged in London in the early eighteenth century, and soon became a prominent fixture of national life. The origins of these societies are not certain in many cases however, by the mid-18th century, john Henley, a clergyman, founded an Oratory in 1726 with the principal purpose of reforming the manner in which such public presentations should be performed. He made extensive use of the print industry to advertise the events of his Oratory and these changes were further implemented when Henley moved his enterprise to Lincolns Inn Fields. The public was now willing to pay to be entertained, by the 1770s, debating societies were firmly established in London society. The year 1785 was pivotal, The Morning Chronicle announced on March 27, giles, Clare-Market, Hockley in the Hole, Whitechapel, Rag-Fair, Dukes Place, Billingsgate, and the Back of the Borough. In 1780,35 differently named societies advertised and hosted debates for anywhere between 650 and 1200 people, the question for debate was introduced by a president or moderator who proceeded to regulate the discussion. Speakers were given set amounts of time to argue their point of view, and, at the end of the debate, a vote was taken to determine a decision or adjourn the question for further debate. Speakers were not permitted to slander or insult other speakers, or diverge from the topic at hand, the first of the post-revolutionary debating societies, the Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies, were formed at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1795 and are still active. The first student debating society in Great Britain was the St Andrews Debating Society, the Cambridge Union Society was founded in 1815, and claims to be the oldest continually operating debating society in the World. Over the next few decades, similar societies emerged at other prominent universities. Examples include the Oxford Union and the Yale Political Union, in parliaments and other legislatures, members debate proposals regarding legislation, before voting on resolutions which become laws
9.
Rhetoric
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Rhetoric is the art of discourse, wherein a writer or speaker strives to inform, persuade or motivate particular audiences in specific situations. As a subject of study and a productive civic practice. Its best known definition comes from Aristotle, who considers it a counterpart of both logic and politics, and calls it the faculty of observing in any case the available means of persuasion. The five canons of rhetoric, which trace the traditional tasks in designing a persuasive speech, were first codified in classical Rome, invention, arrangement, style, memory, along with grammar and logic, rhetoric is one of the three ancient arts of discourse. From Ancient Greece to the late 19th century, it was a part of Western education. Scholars have debated the scope of rhetoric since ancient times, although some have limited rhetoric to the specific realm of political discourse, many modern scholars liberate it to encompass every aspect of culture. Contemporary studies of rhetoric address a diverse range of domains than was the case in ancient times. Many contemporary approaches treat rhetoric as human communication that includes purposeful, Public relations, lobbying, law, marketing, professional and technical writing, and advertising are modern professions that employ rhetorical practitioners. Because the ancient Greeks highly valued public political participation, rhetoric emerged as a tool to influence politics. Consequently, rhetoric remains associated with its political origins, however, even the original instructors of Western speech—the Sophists—disputed this limited view of rhetoric. According to the Sophists, such as Gorgias, a successful rhetorician could speak convincingly on any topic and this method suggested rhetoric could be a means of communicating any expertise, not just politics. In his Encomium to Helen, Gorgias even applied rhetoric to fiction by seeking for his own pleasure to prove the blamelessness of the mythical Helen of Troy in starting the Trojan War. Looking to another key rhetorical theorist, Plato defined the scope of rhetoric according to his opinions of the art. He criticized the Sophists for using rhetoric as a means of deceit instead of discovering truth, in Gorgias, one of his Socratic Dialogues, Plato defines rhetoric as the persuasion of ignorant masses within the courts and assemblies. Rhetoric, in Platos opinion, is merely a form of flattery and functions similarly to cookery, thus, Plato considered any speech of lengthy prose aimed at flattery as within the scope of rhetoric. Aristotle both redeemed rhetoric from his teacher and narrowed its focus by defining three genres of rhetoric—deliberative, forensic or judicial, and epideictic, when one considers that rhetoric included torture, it is clear that rhetoric cannot be viewed only in academic terms. However, the enthymeme based upon logic was viewed as the basis of rhetoric, however, since the time of Aristotle, logic has changed. For example, Modal logic has undergone a major development that also modifies rhetoric, yet, Aristotle also outlined generic constraints that focused the rhetorical art squarely within the domain of public political practice
10.
Logic
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Logic, originally meaning the word or what is spoken, is generally held to consist of the systematic study of the form of arguments. A valid argument is one where there is a relation of logical support between the assumptions of the argument and its conclusion. Historically, logic has been studied in philosophy and mathematics, and recently logic has been studied in science, linguistics, psychology. The concept of form is central to logic. The validity of an argument is determined by its logical form, traditional Aristotelian syllogistic logic and modern symbolic logic are examples of formal logic. Informal logic is the study of natural language arguments, the study of fallacies is an important branch of informal logic. Since much informal argument is not strictly speaking deductive, on some conceptions of logic, formal logic is the study of inference with purely formal content. An inference possesses a purely formal content if it can be expressed as an application of a wholly abstract rule, that is. The works of Aristotle contain the earliest known study of logic. Modern formal logic follows and expands on Aristotle, in many definitions of logic, logical inference and inference with purely formal content are the same. This does not render the notion of informal logic vacuous, because no formal logic captures all of the nuances of natural language, Symbolic logic is the study of symbolic abstractions that capture the formal features of logical inference. Symbolic logic is divided into two main branches, propositional logic and predicate logic. Mathematical logic is an extension of logic into other areas, in particular to the study of model theory, proof theory, set theory. Logic is generally considered formal when it analyzes and represents the form of any valid argument type, the form of an argument is displayed by representing its sentences in the formal grammar and symbolism of a logical language to make its content usable in formal inference. Simply put, formalising simply means translating English sentences into the language of logic and this is called showing the logical form of the argument. It is necessary because indicative sentences of ordinary language show a variety of form. Second, certain parts of the sentence must be replaced with schematic letters, thus, for example, the expression all Ps are Qs shows the logical form common to the sentences all men are mortals, all cats are carnivores, all Greeks are philosophers, and so on. The schema can further be condensed into the formula A, where the letter A indicates the judgement all - are -, the importance of form was recognised from ancient times
11.
Hegelianism
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Hegelianism is the philosophy of G. W. F. Hegel which can be summed up by the dictum that the rational alone is real, which means that all reality is capable of being expressed in rational categories. His goal was to reality to a more synthetic unity within the system of absolute idealism. Hegels method in philosophy consists of the development in each concept. Thus, he hopes, philosophy will not contradict experience, but will give data of experience to the philosophical, which is the ultimately true explanation. Next, we find that the savage has given up this freedom in exchange for its opposite, the restraint, or, as he considers it, the tyranny, of civilization and law. In this triadic process, the stage is the direct opposite. The third stage is the first returned to itself in a higher, truer, richer, the three stages are, therefore, styled, in itself out of itself in and for itself. In logic – which, according to Hegel, is really metaphysic – we have to deal with the process of development applied to reality in its most abstract form. According to Hegel, in logic, we deal in concepts robbed of their content, in logic we are discussing the process in vacuo. Thus, at the beginning of Hegels study of reality. Now, being is not a static concept according to Hegel and it is essentially dynamic, because it tends by its very nature to pass over into nothing, and then to return to itself in the higher concept, becoming. For Aristotle, there was nothing more certain than that being equaled being, or, in words, that being is identical with itself. Hegel does not deny this, but, he adds, it is certain that being tends to become its opposite, nothing. For instance, the truth about this table, for Aristotle, is that it is a table, for Hegel, the equally important truth is that it was a tree, and it will be ashes. The whole truth, for Hegel, is that the tree became a table, thus, becoming, not being, is the highest expression of reality. But one cannot help asking what is it that develops or is developed and its name, Hegel answers, is different in each stage. In the lowest form it is being, higher up it is life, the only thing always present is the process. We may, however, call the process by the name of spirit or idea and we may even call it God, because at least in the third term of every triadic development the process is God
12.
Contradiction
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In classical logic, a contradiction consists of a logical incompatibility between two or more propositions. It occurs when the propositions, taken together, yield two conclusions which form the logical, usually opposite inversions of each other. Illustrating a general tendency in applied logic, Aristotles law of noncontradiction states that One cannot say of something that it is, by extension, outside of classical logic, one can speak of contradictions between actions when one presumes that their motives contradict each other. By creation of a paradox, Platos Euthydemus dialogue demonstrates the need for the notion of contradiction, in the ensuing dialogue Dionysodorus denies the existence of contradiction, all the while that Socrates is contradicting him. I in my astonishment said, What do you mean Dionysodorus, the dictum is that there is no such thing as a falsehood, a man must either say what is true or say nothing. Indeed, Dionysodorus agrees that there is no such thing as false opinion, there is no such thing as ignorance and demands of Socrates to Refute me. Socrates responds But how can I refute you, if, as you say, note, The symbol ⊥ represents an arbitrary contradiction, with the dual tee symbol ⊤ used to denote an arbitrary tautology. Contradiction is sometimes symbolized by Opq, and tautology by Vpq, the turnstile symbol, ⊢ is often read as yields or proves. In classical logic, particularly in propositional and first-order logic, a proposition φ is a contradiction if, since for contradictory φ it is true that ⊢ φ → ψ for all ψ, one may prove any proposition from a set of axioms which contains contradictions. This is called the principle of explosion or ex falso quodlibet, in a complete logic, a formula is contradictory if and only if it is unsatisfiable. Therefore, a proof that ¬ φ ⊢ ⊥ also proves that φ is true, the use of this fact constitutes the technique of the proof by contradiction, which mathematicians use extensively. This applies only in a logic using the excluded middle A ∨ ¬ A as an axiom, in mathematics, the symbol used to represent a contradiction within a proof varies. A consistency proof requires an axiomatic system a demonstration that it is not the case both the formula p and its negation ~p can be derived in the system. Posts solution to the problem is described in the demonstration An Example of a Successful Absolute Proof of Consistency offered by Ernest Nagel and they too observe a problem with respect to the notion of contradiction with its usual truth values of truth and falsity. They observe that, The property of being a tautology has been defined in notions of truth, yet these notions obviously involve a reference to something outside the formula calculus. Therefore, the mentioned in the text in effect offers an interpretation of the calculus. This being so, the authors have not done what they promised, namely, proofs of consistency which are based on models, and which argue from the truth of axioms to their consistency, merely shift the problem. Given some primitive formulas such as PMs primitives S1 V S2, so what will be the definition of tautologous
13.
Karl Marx
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Karl Marx was a Prussian-born philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. Born in Trier to a family, he later studied political economy. His work has influenced subsequent intellectual, economic, and political history. These economic critiques were set out in works such as the three volumes, published between 1867 and 1894, that comprise Das Kapital. According to Marx, states are run in the interests of the class but are nonetheless represented as being in favor of the common interest of all. He predicted that, like previous socioeconomic systems, capitalism produced internal tensions which would lead to its self-destruction and replacement by a new system, socialism. Marx actively fought for its implementation, arguing that the class should carry out organised revolutionary action to topple capitalism. Marx has been described as one of the most influential figures in human history and his work in economics laid the basis for much of the current understanding of labour and its relation to capital, and subsequent economic thought. Many intellectuals, labour unions, artists and political parties worldwide have been influenced by Marxs work, Marx is typically cited as one of the principal architects of modern sociology and social science. Karl Marx was born on 5 May 1818 to Heinrich Marx and he was born at Brückengasse 664 in Trier, a town then part of the Kingdom of Prussias Province of the Lower Rhine. Marx was ancestrally Jewish, his grandfather was a Dutch rabbi, while his paternal line had supplied Triers rabbis since 1723. Marx was also a cousin once removed of German Romantic poet Heinrich Heine, also born to a German Jewish family in the Rhineland. Largely non-religious, Heinrich was a man of the Enlightenment, interested in the ideas of the philosophers Immanuel Kant, a classical liberal, he took part in agitation for a constitution and reforms in Prussia, then governed by an absolute monarchy. In 1815 Heinrich Marx began work as an attorney, in 1819 moving his family to a property near the Porta Nigra. Her sister Sophie Pressburg, was Marxs aunt and was married to Lion Philips Marxs uncle through this marriage, Lion Philips was a wealthy Dutch tobacco manufacturer and industrialist, upon whom Karl and Jenny Marx would later often come to rely for loans while they were exiled in London. Little is known of Karl Marxs childhood, the third of nine children, he became the oldest son when his brother Moritz died in 1819. Young Karl was baptised into the Lutheran Church in August 1824 along with his siblings, Sophie, Hermann, Henriette, Louise, Emilie. Young Karl was privately educated, by Heinrich Marx, until 1830, by employing many liberal humanists as teachers, Wyttenbach incurred the anger of the local conservative government
14.
Friedrich Engels
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Friedrich Engels was a German philosopher, social scientist, journalist, and businessman. He founded Marxist theory together with Karl Marx, in 1845, he published The Condition of the Working Class in England, based on personal observations and research in Manchester. In 1848, he co-authored The Communist Manifesto with Marx, though he also authored and co-authored many other works, after Marxs death, Engels edited the second and third volumes. Additionally, Engels organised Marxs notes on the Theories of Surplus Value and he also made contributions to family economics. Friedrich Engels was born on 28 November 1820 in Barmen, Province of Jülich-Cleves-Berg, Barmen was an expanding industrial metropolis, and Friedrich was the eldest son of a wealthy German cotton textile manufacturer. His father, Friedrich, Sr. was a Pietistic Protestant, as he grew up, however, he developed atheistic beliefs and his relationship with his parents became strained. His mother wrote to him of her concerns, She said that he had gone too far. She continued, You have paid more heed to other people, to strangers, God alone knows what I have felt and suffered of late. I was trembling when I picked up the newspaper and saw therein that a warrant was out for my sons arrest, when his mother wrote, Engels was in hiding in Brussels, Belgium, soon to make his way to Switzerland. In 1849, he returned to the Kingdom of Bavaria for the Baden, at 17, Friedrich had dropped out of high school due to family circumstances. He spent a year in Barmen, in 1838, his father sent the young man to work as a nonsalaried office clerk at a commercial house in Bremen. His parents expected that he would follow his father into a career in business and it would be some years before he joined the family firm. Whilst at Bremen, Engels began reading the philosophy of Hegel, in September 1838, he published his first work, a poem entitled The Bedouin, in the Bremisches Conversationsblatt No.40. He also engaged in literary and journalistic work. Also while at Bremen, Engels began writing newspaper articles critiquing the societal ills of industrialisation and he wrote under a pseudonym, Friedrich Oswald, to avoid connecting his life in a Pietist industrialist family with his provocative writings. In 1841, Engels joined the Prussian Army as a member of the Household Artillery and he was assigned to Berlin, where he attended university lectures at the University of Berlin and began to associate with groups of Young Hegelians. He anonymously published articles in the Rheinische Zeitung, exposing the poor employment, the editor of the Rheinische Zeitung was Karl Marx. Engels did not meet Marx until late November 1842, Engels acknowledged the influence of German philosophy on his intellectual development throughout his life
15.
Materialism
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Materialism is closely related to physicalism, the view that all that exists is ultimately physical. Thus the term physicalism is preferred over materialism by some, while others use the terms as if they are synonymous, philosophies contradictory to materialism or physicalism include idealism, pluralism, dualism, and other forms of monism. Materialism belongs to the class of monist ontology, as such, it is different from ontological theories based on dualism or pluralism. For singular explanations of the reality, materialism would be in contrast to idealism, neutral monism. To idealists, spirit or mind or the objects of mind are primary, to materialists, matter is primary, and mind or spirit or ideas are secondary, the product of matter acting upon matter. The materialist view is perhaps best understood in its opposition to the doctrines of immaterial substance applied to the mind historically, famously by René Descartes, however, by itself materialism says nothing about how material substance should be characterized. In practice, it is assimilated to one variety of physicalism or another. Jerry Fodor influentially argues this view, according to which empirical laws, a lot of vigorous literature has grown up around the relation between these views. Modern philosophical materialists extend the definition of other scientifically observable entities such as energy, forces, however philosophers such as Mary Midgley suggest that the concept of matter is elusive and poorly defined. Materialism typically contrasts with dualism, phenomenalism, idealism, vitalism and its materiality can, in some ways, be linked to the concept of determinism, as espoused by Enlightenment thinkers. Later Marxists, such as Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky developed the notion of dialectical materialism which characterized later Marxist philosophy, Materialism developed, possibly independently, in several geographically separated regions of Eurasia during what Karl Jaspers termed the Axial Age. In Ancient Indian philosophy, materialism developed around 600 BC with the works of Ajita Kesakambali, Payasi, Kanada, Kanada became one of the early proponents of atomism. The Nyaya–Vaisesika school developed one of the earliest forms of atomism, though their proofs of God, buddhist atomism and the Jaina school continued the atomic tradition. Xunzi developed a Confucian doctrine centered on realism and materialism in Ancient China, Ancient Greek philosophers like Thales, Anaxagoras, Epicurus and Democritus prefigure later materialists. The Latin poem De Rerum Natura by Lucretius reflects the philosophy of Democritus and Epicurus. According to this view, all that exists is matter and void, De Rerum Natura provides mechanistic explanations for phenomena such as erosion, evaporation, wind, and sound. Famous principles like nothing can touch body but body first appeared in the works of Lucretius, chinese thinkers of the early common era said to be materialists include Yang Xiong and Wang Chong. Later Indian materialist Jayaraashi Bhatta in his work Tattvopaplavasimha refuted the Nyaya Sutra epistemology, the materialistic Cārvāka philosophy appears to have died out some time after 1400
16.
Formal logic
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Logic, originally meaning the word or what is spoken, is generally held to consist of the systematic study of the form of arguments. A valid argument is one where there is a relation of logical support between the assumptions of the argument and its conclusion. Historically, logic has been studied in philosophy and mathematics, and recently logic has been studied in science, linguistics, psychology. The concept of form is central to logic. The validity of an argument is determined by its logical form, traditional Aristotelian syllogistic logic and modern symbolic logic are examples of formal logic. Informal logic is the study of natural language arguments, the study of fallacies is an important branch of informal logic. Since much informal argument is not strictly speaking deductive, on some conceptions of logic, formal logic is the study of inference with purely formal content. An inference possesses a purely formal content if it can be expressed as an application of a wholly abstract rule, that is. The works of Aristotle contain the earliest known study of logic. Modern formal logic follows and expands on Aristotle, in many definitions of logic, logical inference and inference with purely formal content are the same. This does not render the notion of informal logic vacuous, because no formal logic captures all of the nuances of natural language, Symbolic logic is the study of symbolic abstractions that capture the formal features of logical inference. Symbolic logic is divided into two main branches, propositional logic and predicate logic. Mathematical logic is an extension of logic into other areas, in particular to the study of model theory, proof theory, set theory. Logic is generally considered formal when it analyzes and represents the form of any valid argument type, the form of an argument is displayed by representing its sentences in the formal grammar and symbolism of a logical language to make its content usable in formal inference. Simply put, formalising simply means translating English sentences into the language of logic and this is called showing the logical form of the argument. It is necessary because indicative sentences of ordinary language show a variety of form. Second, certain parts of the sentence must be replaced with schematic letters, thus, for example, the expression all Ps are Qs shows the logical form common to the sentences all men are mortals, all cats are carnivores, all Greeks are philosophers, and so on. The schema can further be condensed into the formula A, where the letter A indicates the judgement all - are -, the importance of form was recognised from ancient times
17.
Classical Greece
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Classical Greece was a period of around 200 years in Greek culture. This Classical period saw the annexation of much of modern-day Greece by the Persian Empire, Classical Greece had a powerful influence on the Roman Empire and on the foundations of western civilization. Much of modern Western politics, artistic thought, scientific thought, theatre, literature, in the context of the art, architecture, and culture of Ancient Greece, the Classical period, sometimes called the Hellenic period, corresponds to most of the 5th and 4th centuries BC. The Classical period in this sense follows the Archaic period and is in turn succeeded by the Hellenistic period and this century is essentially studied from the Athenian outlook because Athens has left us more narratives, plays, and other written works than the other ancient Greek states. From the perspective of Athenian culture in Classical Greece, the period referred to as the 5th century BC extends slightly into the 4th century BC. In this context, one might consider that the first significant event of this occurs in 508 BC, with the fall of the last Athenian tyrant. However, a view of the whole Greek world might place its beginning at the Ionian Revolt of 500 BC. The Persians were defeated in 490 BC, the Delian League then formed, under Athenian hegemony and as Athens instrument. Athens excesses caused several revolts among the cities, all of which were put down by force. After both forces were spent, a brief peace came about, then the war resumed to Spartas advantage, Athens was definitively defeated in 404 BC, and internal Athenian agitations mark the end of the 5th century BC in Greece. Since its beginning, Sparta had been ruled by a diarchy and this meant that Sparta had two kings ruling concurrently throughout its entire history. The two kingships were both hereditary, vested in the Agiad dynasty and the Eurypontid dynasty, according to legend, the respective hereditary lines of these two dynasties sprang from Eurysthenes and Procles, twin descendants of Hercules. They were said to have conquered Sparta two generations after the Trojan War, in 510 BC, Spartan troops helped the Athenians overthrow their king, the tyrant Hippias, son of Peisistratos. Cleomenes I, king of Sparta, put in place a pro-Spartan oligarchy headed by Isagoras, but his rival Cleisthenes, with the support of the middle class and aided by democrats, took over. Cleomenes intervened in 508 and 506 BC, but could not stop Cleisthenes, through his reforms, the people endowed their city with isonomic institutions — i. e. with equal rights for all —and established ostracism. The isonomic and isegoric democracy was first organized into about 130 demes, the 10,000 citizens exercised their power as members of the assembly, headed by a council of 500 citizens chosen at random. The territory of the city was divided into thirty trittyes as follows, ten trittyes in the coastal region ten trittyes in the ἄστυ. A tribe consisted of three trittyes, selected at random, one each of the three groups
18.
Philosophy
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Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. The term was coined by Pythagoras. Philosophical methods include questioning, critical discussion, rational argument and systematic presentation, classic philosophical questions include, Is it possible to know anything and to prove it. However, philosophers might also pose more practical and concrete questions such as, is it better to be just or unjust. Historically, philosophy encompassed any body of knowledge, from the time of Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle to the 19th century, natural philosophy encompassed astronomy, medicine and physics. For example, Newtons 1687 Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy later became classified as a book of physics, in the 19th century, the growth of modern research universities led academic philosophy and other disciplines to professionalize and specialize. In the modern era, some investigations that were part of philosophy became separate academic disciplines, including psychology, sociology. Other investigations closely related to art, science, politics, or other pursuits remained part of philosophy, for example, is beauty objective or subjective. Are there many scientific methods or just one, is political utopia a hopeful dream or hopeless fantasy. Major sub-fields of academic philosophy include metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, aesthetics, political philosophy, logic, philosophy of science, since the 20th century, professional philosophers contribute to society primarily as professors, researchers and writers. Traditionally, the term referred to any body of knowledge. In this sense, philosophy is related to religion, mathematics, natural science, education. This division is not obsolete but has changed, Natural philosophy has split into the various natural sciences, especially astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology and cosmology. Moral philosophy has birthed the social sciences, but still includes value theory, metaphysical philosophy has birthed formal sciences such as logic, mathematics and philosophy of science, but still includes epistemology, cosmology and others. Many philosophical debates that began in ancient times are still debated today, colin McGinn and others claim that no philosophical progress has occurred during that interval. Chalmers and others, by contrast, see progress in philosophy similar to that in science, in one general sense, philosophy is associated with wisdom, intellectual culture and a search for knowledge. In that sense, all cultures and literate societies ask philosophical questions such as how are we to live, a broad and impartial conception of philosophy then, finds a reasoned inquiry into such matters as reality, morality and life in all world civilizations. Socrates was an influential philosopher, who insisted that he possessed no wisdom but was a pursuer of wisdom
19.
Socrates
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Socrates was a classical Greek philosopher credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy. He is a figure known chiefly through the accounts of classical writers, especially the writings of his students Plato and Xenophon. Platos dialogues are among the most comprehensive accounts of Socrates to survive from antiquity, though it is unclear the degree to which Socrates himself is hidden behind his best disciple, nothing written by Socrates remains extant. As a result, information about him and his philosophies depends upon secondary sources, furthermore, close comparison between the contents of these sources reveals contradictions, thus creating concerns about the possibility of knowing in-depth the real Socrates. This issue is known as the Socratic problem, or the Socratic question, to understand Socrates and his thought, one must turn primarily to the works of Plato, whose dialogues are thought the most informative source about Socrates life and philosophy, and also Xenophon. These writings are the Sokratikoi logoi, or Socratic dialogues, which consist of reports of conversations apparently involving Socrates, as for discovering the real-life Socrates, the difficulty is that ancient sources are mostly philosophical or dramatic texts, apart from Xenophon. There are no straightforward histories, contemporary with Socrates, that dealt with his own time, a corollary of this is that sources that do mention Socrates do not necessarily claim to be historically accurate, and are often partisan. For instance, those who prosecuted and convicted Socrates have left no testament, historians therefore face the challenge of reconciling the various evidence from the extant texts in order to attempt an accurate and consistent account of Socrates life and work. The result of such an effort is not necessarily realistic, even if consistent, amid all the disagreement resulting from differences within sources, two factors emerge from all sources pertaining to Socrates. It would seem, therefore, that he was ugly, also, Xenophon, being an historian, is a more reliable witness to the historical Socrates. It is a matter of debate over which Socrates it is whom Plato is describing at any given point—the historical figure. As British philosopher Martin Cohen has put it, Plato, the idealist, offers an idol, a Saint, a prophet of the Sun-God, a teacher condemned for his teachings as a heretic. It is also clear from other writings and historical artefacts, that Socrates was not simply a character, nor an invention, the testimony of Xenophon and Aristotle, alongside some of Aristophanes work, is useful in fleshing out a perception of Socrates beyond Platos work. The problem with discerning Socrates philosophical views stems from the perception of contradictions in statements made by the Socrates in the different dialogues of Plato and these contradictions produce doubt as to the actual philosophical doctrines of Socrates, within his milieu and as recorded by other individuals. Aristotle, in his Magna Moralia, refers to Socrates in words which make it patent that the virtue is knowledge was held by Socrates. Within the Metaphysics, he states Socrates was occupied with the search for moral virtues, however, in The Clouds, Aristophanes portrays Socrates as accepting payment for teaching and running a sophist school with Chaerephon. Also, in Platos Apology and Symposium, as well as in Xenophons accounts, more specifically, in the Apology, Socrates cites his poverty as proof that he is not a teacher. Two fragments are extant of the writings by Timon of Phlius pertaining to Socrates, although Timon is known to have written to ridicule, details about the life of Socrates can be derived from three contemporary sources, the dialogues of Plato and Xenophon, and the plays of Aristophanes
20.
Plato
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Plato was a philosopher in Classical Greece and the founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. He is widely considered the most pivotal figure in the development of philosophy, unlike nearly all of his philosophical contemporaries, Platos entire work is believed to have survived intact for over 2,400 years. Along with his teacher, Socrates, and his most famous student, Aristotle, Plato laid the foundations of Western philosophy. Alfred North Whitehead once noted, the safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato. In addition to being a figure for Western science, philosophy. Friedrich Nietzsche, amongst other scholars, called Christianity, Platonism for the people, Plato was the innovator of the written dialogue and dialectic forms in philosophy, which originate with him. He was not the first thinker or writer to whom the word “philosopher” should be applied, few other authors in the history of Western philosophy approximate him in depth and range, perhaps only Aristotle, Aquinas and Kant would be generally agreed to be of the same rank. Due to a lack of surviving accounts, little is known about Platos early life, the philosopher came from one of the wealthiest and most politically active families in Athens. Ancient sources describe him as a bright though modest boy who excelled in his studies, the exact time and place of Platos birth are unknown, but it is certain that he belonged to an aristocratic and influential family. Based on ancient sources, most modern scholars believe that he was born in Athens or Aegina between 429 and 423 BCE. According to a tradition, reported by Diogenes Laertius, Ariston traced his descent from the king of Athens, Codrus. Platos mother was Perictione, whose family boasted of a relationship with the famous Athenian lawmaker, besides Plato himself, Ariston and Perictione had three other children, these were two sons, Adeimantus and Glaucon, and a daughter Potone, the mother of Speusippus. The brothers Adeimantus and Glaucon are mentioned in the Republic as sons of Ariston, and presumably brothers of Plato, but in a scenario in the Memorabilia, Xenophon confused the issue by presenting a Glaucon much younger than Plato. Then, at twenty-eight, Hermodorus says, went to Euclides in Megara, as Debra Nails argues, The text itself gives no reason to infer that Plato left immediately for Megara and implies the very opposite. Thus, Nails dates Platos birth to 424/423, another legend related that, when Plato was an infant, bees settled on his lips while he was sleeping, an augury of the sweetness of style in which he would discourse about philosophy. Ariston appears to have died in Platos childhood, although the dating of his death is difficult. Perictione then married Pyrilampes, her mothers brother, who had served many times as an ambassador to the Persian court and was a friend of Pericles, Pyrilampes had a son from a previous marriage, Demus, who was famous for his beauty. Perictione gave birth to Pyrilampes second son, Antiphon, the half-brother of Plato and these and other references suggest a considerable amount of family pride and enable us to reconstruct Platos family tree
21.
Aristotle
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Aristotle was an ancient Greek philosopher and scientist born in the city of Stagira, Chalkidice, on the northern periphery of Classical Greece. His father, Nicomachus, died when Aristotle was a child, at seventeen or eighteen years of age, he joined Platos Academy in Athens and remained there until the age of thirty-seven. Shortly after Plato died, Aristotle left Athens and, at the request of Philip II of Macedon, teaching Alexander the Great gave Aristotle many opportunities and an abundance of supplies. He established a library in the Lyceum which aided in the production of many of his hundreds of books and he believed all peoples concepts and all of their knowledge was ultimately based on perception. Aristotles views on natural sciences represent the groundwork underlying many of his works, Aristotles views on physical science profoundly shaped medieval scholarship. Their influence extended from Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages into the Renaissance, some of Aristotles zoological observations, such as on the hectocotyl arm of the octopus, were not confirmed or refuted until the 19th century. His works contain the earliest known study of logic, which was incorporated in the late 19th century into modern formal logic. Aristotle was well known among medieval Muslim intellectuals and revered as The First Teacher and his ethics, though always influential, gained renewed interest with the modern advent of virtue ethics. All aspects of Aristotles philosophy continue to be the object of academic study today. Though Aristotle wrote many elegant treatises and dialogues – Cicero described his style as a river of gold – it is thought that only around a third of his original output has survived. Aristotle, whose means the best purpose, was born in 384 BC in Stagira, Chalcidice. His father Nicomachus was the physician to King Amyntas of Macedon. Aristotle was orphaned at a young age, although there is little information on Aristotles childhood, he probably spent some time within the Macedonian palace, making his first connections with the Macedonian monarchy. At the age of seventeen or eighteen, Aristotle moved to Athens to continue his education at Platos Academy and he remained there for nearly twenty years before leaving Athens in 348/47 BC. Aristotle then accompanied Xenocrates to the court of his friend Hermias of Atarneus in Asia Minor, there, he traveled with Theophrastus to the island of Lesbos, where together they researched the botany and zoology of the island. Aristotle married Pythias, either Hermiass adoptive daughter or niece and she bore him a daughter, whom they also named Pythias. Soon after Hermias death, Aristotle was invited by Philip II of Macedon to become the tutor to his son Alexander in 343 BC, Aristotle was appointed as the head of the royal academy of Macedon. During that time he gave not only to Alexander
22.
Zeno of Elea
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Zeno of Elea was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher of Magna Graecia and a member of the Eleatic School founded by Parmenides. Aristotle called him the inventor of the dialectic and he is best known for his paradoxes, which Bertrand Russell has described as immeasurably subtle and profound. Little is known for certain about Zenos life, although written nearly a century after Zenos death, the primary source of biographical information about Zeno is Platos Parmenides and he is also mentioned in Aristotles Physics. In the dialogue of Parmenides, Plato describes a visit to Athens by Zeno and Parmenides, at a time when Parmenides is about 65, Zeno is nearly 40 and Socrates is a very young man. Assuming an age for Socrates of around 20, and taking the date of Socrates birth as 469 BC gives a date of birth for Zeno of 490 BC. Plato says that Zeno was tall and fair to look upon and was in the days of his youth … reported to have been beloved by Parmenides, according to Diogenes Laertius, Zeno conspired to overthrow Nearchus the tyrant. Eventually, Zeno was arrested and tortured, when Nearchus leaned in to listen to the secret, Zeno bit his ear. He did not let go until he lost his life and the tyrant lost that part of his body, within Men of the Same Name, Demetrius said it was the nose that was bit off instead. Zeno may have interacted with other tyrants. According to Laertius, Heraclides Lembus, within his Satyrus, said these events occurred against Diomedon instead of Nearchus, valerius Maximus recounts a conspiracy against the tyrant Phalaris, but this would be impossible as Phalaris had died before Zeno was even born. According to Plutarch, Zeno attempted to kill the tyrant Demylus, after failing, he had, with his own teeth bit off his tongue, he spit it in the tyrant’s face. Although many ancient writers refer to the writings of Zeno, none of his works survive intact, the main sources on the nature of Zenos arguments on motion, in fact, come from the writings of Aristotle and Simplicius of Cilicia. Plato says that Zenos writings were brought to Athens for the first time on the occasion of the visit of Zeno and Parmenides. Plato also has Zeno say that work, meant to protect the arguments of Parmenides, was written in Zenos youth, stolen. According to Proclus in his Commentary on Platos Parmenides, Zeno produced not less than forty arguments revealing contradictions, Zenos arguments are perhaps the first examples of a method of proof called reductio ad absurdum, literally meaning to reduce to the absurd. Parmenides is said to be the first individual to implement this style of argument and this form of argument soon became known as the epicheirema. In Book VII of his Topics, Aristotle says that an epicheirema is a dialectical syllogism and it is a connected piece of reasoning which an opponent has put forward as true. The disputant sets out to break down the dialectical syllogism, Zeno is also regarded as the first philosopher who dealt with the earliest attestable accounts of mathematical infinity
23.
Immanuel Kant
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Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher who is considered a central figure in modern philosophy. Kant took himself to have effected a Copernican revolution in philosophy and his beliefs continue to have a major influence on contemporary philosophy, especially the fields of metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, political theory, and aesthetics. Politically, Kant was one of the earliest exponents of the idea that peace could be secured through universal democracy. He believed that this will be the outcome of universal history. Kant wanted to put an end to an era of futile and speculative theories of human experience, Kant argued that our experiences are structured by necessary features of our minds. In his view, the shapes and structures experience so that, on an abstract level. Among other things, Kant believed that the concepts of space and time are integral to all human experience, as are our concepts of cause, Kant published other important works on ethics, religion, law, aesthetics, astronomy, and history. These included the Critique of Practical Reason, the Metaphysics of Morals, which dealt with ethics, and the Critique of Judgment, Immanuel Kant was born in 1724 in Königsberg, Prussia. His mother, Anna Regina Reuter, was born in Königsberg to a father from Nuremberg. His father, Johann Georg Kant, was a German harness maker from Memel, Immanuel Kant believed that his paternal grandfather Hans Kant was of Scottish origin. Kant was the fourth of nine children, baptized Emanuel, he changed his name to Immanuel after learning Hebrew. Young Kant was a solid, albeit unspectacular, student and he was brought up in a Pietist household that stressed religious devotion, humility, and a literal interpretation of the Bible. His education was strict, punitive and disciplinary, and focused on Latin and religious instruction over mathematics, despite his religious upbringing and maintaining a belief in God, Kant was skeptical of religion in later life, various commentators have labelled him agnostic. Common myths about Kants personal mannerisms are listed, explained, and refuted in Goldthwaits introduction to his translation of Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime. It is often held that Kant lived a strict and disciplined life. He never married, but seemed to have a social life — he was a popular teacher. He had a circle of friends whom he met, among them Joseph Green. A common myth is that Kant never traveled more than 16 kilometres from Königsberg his whole life, in fact, between 1750 and 1754 he worked as a tutor in Judtschen and in Groß-Arnsdorf
24.
Socratic method
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The Socratic method is a method of hypothesis elimination, in that better hypotheses are found by steadily identifying and eliminating those that lead to contradictions. The Socratic method searches for general, commonly held truths that shape beliefs, Socrates promoted an alternative method of teaching which came to be called the Socratic method. Socrates saw this as a paradox, and began using the Socratic method to answer his conundrum, diogenes Laërtius, however, wrote that Protagoras invented the “Socratic” method. But in his dialogues, such as Theaetetus or Sophist, Plato had a different method to philosophical discussions. Elenchus is the technique of the Socratic method. The Latin form elenchus is used in English as the philosophical term. The most common form in English is elenctic, elenchic and elenchtic are also current. In Platos early dialogues, the elenchus is the technique Socrates uses to investigate, for example, according to Vlastos, it has the following steps, Socrates interlocutor asserts a thesis, for example Courage is endurance of the soul, which Socrates considers false and targets for refutation. Socrates secures his interlocutors agreement to further premises, for example Courage is a fine thing and Ignorant endurance is not a fine thing. Socrates then argues, and the interlocutor agrees, that these further premises imply the contrary of the thesis, in this case, it leads to. Socrates then claims that he has shown that his interlocutors thesis is false, one elenctic examination can lead to a new, more refined, examination of the concept being considered, in this case it invites an examination of the claim, Courage is wise endurance of the soul. Most Socratic inquiries consist of a series of elenchi and typically end in puzzlement known as aporia, frede points out that Vlastos conclusion in step #4 above makes nonsense of the aporetic nature of the early dialogues. Having shown that a proposed thesis is false is insufficient to conclude that some other competing thesis must be true, rather, the interlocutors have reached aporia, an improved state of still not knowing what to say about the subject under discussion. W. K. C. Guthrie in The Greek Philosophers sees it as an error to regard the Socratic method as a means by which one seeks the answer to a problem, Guthrie claims that the Socratic method actually aims to demonstrate ones ignorance. Socrates, unlike the Sophists, did believe that knowledge was possible, the essence of the Socratic method is to convince the interlocutor that whereas he thought he knew something, in fact he does not. Such an examination challenged the moral beliefs of the interlocutors, bringing out inadequacies and inconsistencies in their beliefs. In view of such inadequacies, Socrates himself professed his ignorance, Socrates believed that his awareness of his ignorance made him wiser than those who, though ignorant, still claimed knowledge. While this belief seems paradoxical at first glance, it in fact allowed Socrates to discover his own errors where others might assume they were correct and this claim was known by the anecdote of the Delphic oracular pronouncement that Socrates was the wisest of all men
25.
Enthymemes
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An enthymeme is a rhetorical syllogism used in oratorical practice. Originally theorized by Aristotle, there are four types of enthymeme, Aristotle referred to the enthymeme as the body of proof, the strongest of rhetorical proofs. a kind of syllogism. He considered it to be one of two kinds of proof, the other of which was the paradeigma, maxims, Aristotle thought to be a derivative of enthymemes. The first type of enthymeme is a truncated syllogism, or a syllogism with an unstated premise, here is an example of an enthymeme derived from a syllogism through truncation of the syllogism, Socrates is mortal because hes human. The complete formal syllogism would be the classic, All humans are mortal, while syllogisms lay out all of their premises and conclusion explicitly, these kinds of enthymemes keep at least one of the premises or conclusion unstated. In the Art of Rhetoric, Aristotle argues that some enthymemes are derived from syllogisms that are based on signs instead of absolute facts, in this context, signs are things are so closely related that the presence or absence of one indicates the presence or absence of the other. He is ill, since he has a cough, since she has a child, she has given birth. In the examples, having a cough and having a child are signs of illness, in both cases the enthymeme is only probably true because there are other sources of coughs and children. The third kind of enthymeme consists of a syllogism with a premise that is supplied by the audience as an unstated assumption. In the words of rhetorician William Benoit, the premise is, assumed by rhetor when inventing. An example of this kind of enthymeme is as follows, Candide is a typical French novel, in this case, the missing term of the syllogism is French novels are vulgar and might be an assumption held by an audience that would make sense of the enthymematic argument. Such unstated premises can also rise to the level of maxims, the final kind of enthymeme is the visual enthymeme. Scholars have argued that words are not the form of expression that can be understood to form enthymematic arguments. Pictures can also function as enthymemes because they require the audience to construct their meaning. Some scholars argue that our understanding of the enthymeme has evolved over time and is no representative of the enthymeme as originally conceived by Aristotle. This is obviously true of the visual enthymeme, only conceived in the early twenty-first century, carol Poster argues that this later interpretation of the enthymeme was invented by British rhetoricians (such as Richard Whately in the eighteenth century
26.
Euthyphro
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Euthyphro, by Plato, is a dialogue whose events occur in the weeks before the trial of Socrates, for which Socrates and Euthyphro attempt to establish a definitive meaning for the word piety. Euthyphro has come to present charges of manslaughter against his father, the dead worker, earlier had killed a slave from the family estate on Naxos Island. As Euthyphros father awaited to hear from the exegetes about how to proceed, Euthyphro misses the astonishment of Socrates, which confirms his overconfidence in his own critical judgement of matters religious and ethical. In an example of Socratic irony, Socrates says that Euthyphro obviously has an understanding of what is pious and impious. Because he is facing a charge of impiety, Socrates expresses the hope to learn from Euthyphro. After claiming to know and be able to tell more astonishing divine stories, Euthyphro spends little time and effort defending the conventional, Greek view of the gods. To that end, Socrates concludes the dialogue with Socratic irony, Since Euthyphro was unable to define “piety”, therefore, from his dialogue with Euthyphro, Socrates received nothing helpful to his defense against a formal charge of impiety. The argument of the Euthyphro dialogue is based on “definition by division”, Socrates goads Euthyphro to offer definitions of “piety”. The purpose of establishing a clear definition is to provide a basis for Euthyphro to teach Socrates the answer to the question, “What is piety. ”Ostensibly, the purpose of the dialogue is to provide Socrates with a definitive meaning of “piety”, with which he can defend against the charge of impiety in the pending trial. Socrates seeks a definition of “piety” that is a universal, against which all actions can be measured to determine whether or not the actions are pious. That, to be universal, the definition of “piety” must express the essence of the defined, and be defined in terms of genus, species. Hence, the Euthyphro dialogue is important for the dialectics of theology, ethics, epistemology. Ostensibly in order to defend himself in an upcoming trial for being an impious citizen of Athens, Socrates asks Euthyphro for a clear definition of piety. Euthyphros first definition of “piety” is what he is doing now, Socrates rejects Euthyphros action, because it is not a definition of “piety, and is only an example of piety, and does not provide the essential characteristic that makes pious actions pious. Euthyphros second definition, “Piety” is what is pleasing to the gods, Socrates applauds this definition, because it is expressed in a general form, but criticizes it saying that the gods disagree among themselves as to what is “pleasing”. This means that an action, disputed by the gods. Euthyphro argues against Socrates criticism, by noting that not even the gods would disagree, among themselves, to overcome Socrates objection to his second definition of “piety”, Euthyphro amends his definition. Euthyphros third definition of “piety” is, “What all the love is pious
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Euthyphro (prophet)
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Euthyphro of Prospalta was an ancient Athenian religious prophet best known for his role in his eponymous dialogue written by the philosopher Plato. The debate between Euthyphro and Socrates therein influenced generations of theologians and gave rise to the question of the relationship between God and morality known as the Euthyphro dilemma. Euthyphros biography can be reconstructed only through the details revealed by Plato in the Euthyphro and Cratylus and he was an Athenian citizen of the Prospalta deme old enough to have appeared multiple times before the Athenian assembly in 399, placing his birth somewhere in the mid-5th century. Euthyphro had evidently farmed on Naxos, probably as part of the established by Pericles in 447 to which his father may have belonged. If in fact historical, the trial he instigated against his father depicted in the Euthyphro may have begun as early as 404, Euthyphros status as a mantic seer is supported by both texts. Although Socrates seems to treat this faculty with ironic disdain, he never criticizes it openly, while little remains of Euthyphros life, his depiction in Plato sparked interest in many generations of scholars and commentators. Diogenes Laërtius depicts him as being swayed away from the prosecution of his following the aporia demonstrated in his eponymous dialogue. List of speakers in Platos dialogues
28.
Medieval university
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A medieval university is a corporation organized during the High Middle Ages for the purposes of higher learning. The university is regarded as a formal institution that has its origin in the Medieval Christian setting. With the increasing growth and urbanization of European society during the 12th and 13th centuries, learning became essential to advancing in the ecclesiastical hierarchy, and teachers also gained prestige. Demand quickly outstripped the capacity of cathedral schools, each of which was run by one teacher. In addition, tensions rose between the students of schools and burghers in smaller towns. As a result, cathedral schools migrated to cities, like Bologna, Rome. Without any express authorisation of King, Pope, Prince or Prelate, in many cases universities petitioned secular power for privileges and this became a model. Emperor Frederick I in Authentica Habita gave the first privileges to students in Bologna, Hastings Rashdall considered that the integrity of a university was only preserved in such an internally regulated corporation, which protected the scholars from external intervention. The University of Paris was formally recognized when Pope Gregory IX issued the bull Parens scientiarum and this was a revolutionary step, studium generale and universitas existed even before, but after the issuing of the bull, they attained autonomy. By the year 1292, even the two oldest universities, Bologna and Paris, felt the need to seek similar bulls from Pope Nicholas IV. By the 13th century, almost half of the highest offices in the Church were occupied by degreed masters, in addition, some of the greatest theologians of the High Middle Ages, Thomas Aquinas and Robert Grosseteste, were products of the medieval university. The development of the medieval university coincided with the reintroduction of Aristotle from Byzantine. As he puts it Copernicus, Galileo, Tycho Brahe, Kepler, sociological and historical accounts of the role of the university as an institutional locus for science and as an incubator of scientific thought and arguments have been vastly understated. Initially medieval universities did not have facilities such as the campus of a modern university. Classes were taught wherever space was available, such as churches and homes, a university was not a physical space but a collection of individuals banded together as a universitas. Soon, however, universities began to rent, buy or construct buildings specifically for the purposes of teaching, Universities were generally structured along three types, depending on who paid the teachers. The first type was in Bologna, where students hired and paid for the teachers, the second type was in Paris, where teachers were paid by the church. These structural differences created other characteristics, at the Bologna university the students ran everything—a fact that often put teachers under great pressure and disadvantage
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Trivium (education)
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The Trivium is the lower division of the seven liberal arts and comprises grammar, logic, and rhetoric. Grammar, logic, and rhetoric were essential to a classical education, the three subjects together were denoted by the word trivium during the Middle Ages, but the tradition was established in ancient Greece of first learning those three subjects. Contemporary iterations have taken various forms, including those found in certain British and American universities, educationally, the trivium and the quadrivium imparted to the student the seven liberal arts of classical antiquity. Grammar teaches the mechanics of language to the student and this is the step where the student comes to terms, defining the objects and information perceived by the five senses. Hence, the Law of Identity, a tree is a tree, rhetoric is the application of language in order to instruct and to persuade the listener and the reader. It is the knowledge now understood and being transmitted outwards as wisdom, grammar is concerned with the thing as-it-is-symbolized. Logic is concerned with the thing as-it-is-known, rhetoric is concerned with the thing as-it-is-communicated. John Ayto writes in the Dictionary of Word Origins that study of the trivium was requisite preparation for study of the quadrivium. For the medieval student, the trivium was the beginning of the acquisition of the seven liberal arts, as such. The word trivial arose from the contrast between the simpler trivium and the difficult quadrivium, quadrivium The three Rs Classical education movement McLuhan, Marshall The Classical Trivium, The Place of Thomas Nashe in the Learning of His Time, Gingko Press ISBN 1-58423-067-3. Trivium 21c, Preparing Young People for the Future with Lessons From the Past London, the Lost Tools of Learning, an essay presented at Oxford University. The Culture of Classicism, Ancient Greece and Rome in American Intellectual Life, 1780–1910 Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press
30.
Boethius
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Anicius Manlius Severinus Boëthius, commonly called Boethius, was a Roman senator, consul, magister officiorum, and philosopher of the early 6th century. Boethius was born in Rome to a family around 480 AD. His family, the Anicii, included emperors Petronius Maximus and Olybrius and his father, Manlius Boethius, who was appointed consul in 487, died while Boethius was young. Another patrician, Quintus Aurelius Memmius Symmachus, adopted and raised Boethius, instilling in him a love for literature and philosophy. Both Memmius Symmachus and Boethius were fluent in Greek, a rare skill at the time in the Western Empire, for this reason. The French scholar Pierre Courcelle has argued that Boethius studied at Alexandria with the Neo-Platonist philosopher Ammonius Hermiae, on account of his erudition, Boethius entered the service of Theodoric the Great at a young age and was already a senator by the age of 25. Boethius married his foster-fathers daughter, Rusticiana, their children included two boys, Symmachus and Boethius. In 522, the year his two sons were appointed joint consuls, Boethius accepted the appointment to the position of magister officiorum. This may have set in place a course of events that would lead to loss of royal favour, five hundred years later, this continuing disagreement led to the East-West Schism in 1054, in which communion between the Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodox Church was broken. In 523 Boethius fell from power, after a period of imprisonment in Pavia for what was deemed a treasonable offence, he was executed in 524. The primary sources are in agreement over the facts of what happened. At a meeting of the Royal Council in Verona, the referandarius Cyprianus accused the ex-consul Caecina Decius Faustus Albinus of treasonous correspondence with Justin I. Boethius leapt to his defense, crying, The charge of Cyprianus is false, but if Albinus did that, so also have I, Cyprianus then also accused Boethius of the same crime, and produced three men who claimed they had witnessed the crime. First the pair were detained in the baptistery of a church, then Boethius was exiled to the Ager Calventianus, a distant country estate, the basic facts in the case are not in dispute, writes Jeffrey Richards. What is disputed about this sequence of events is the interpretation that should be put on them, Boethius claims his crime was seeking the safety of the Senate. He describes the three witnesses against him as dishonorable, Basilius had been dismissed from Royal service for his debts, while Venantius Opilio, however, other sources depict these men in a far more positive light. For example, Cassiodorus describes Cyprianus and Opilio as utterly scrupulous, just and loyal and mentions they are brothers, Theodoric was feeling threatened by international events. The Acacian Schism had been resolved, and the Nicene Christian aristocrats of his kingdom were seeking to renew their ties with Constantinople, the Catholic Hilderic had become king of the Vandals and had put Theodorics sister Amalafrida to death, and Arians in the East were being persecuted
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Peter Abelard
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Peter Abelard was a medieval French scholastic philosopher, theologian and preeminent logician. His love for, and affair with, Héloïse dArgenteuil have become legendary, the Chambers Biographical Dictionary describes him as the keenest thinker and boldest theologian of the 12th Century. Abelard, originally called Pierre le Pallet, was born c. 1079 in Le Pallet, about 10 miles east of Nantes, in Brittany, as a boy, he learned quickly. Instead of entering a career, as his father had done. During his early academic pursuits, Abelard wandered throughout France, debating and learning and he first studied in the Loire area, where the nominalist Roscellinus of Compiègne, who had been accused of heresy by Anselm, was his teacher during this period. Around 1100, Abelards travels finally brought him to Paris, in the great cathedral school of Notre-Dame de Paris, he was taught for a while by William of Champeaux, the disciple of Anselm of Laon, a leading proponent of Realism. During this time he changed his surname to Abelard, sometimes written Abailard or Abaelardus, and William thought Abelard was too arrogant. It was during this time that Abelard would provoke quarrels with both William and Roscellinus and his teaching was notably successful, though for a time he had to give it up and spend time in Brittany, the strain proving too great for his constitution. Abelard was once more victorious, and Abelard was almost able to hold the position of master at Notre Dame, for a short time, however, William was able to prevent Abelard from lecturing in Paris. Abelard accordingly was forced to resume his school at Melun, which he was able to move, from c. 1110-12, to Paris itself, on the heights of Montagne Sainte-Geneviève. From his success in dialectic, he turned to theology and in 1113 moved to Laon to attend the lectures of Anselm on biblical exegesis. Unimpressed by Anselms teaching, Abelard began to offer his own lectures on the Book of Ezekiel, Anselm forbade him to continue this teaching, and Abelard returned to Paris where, in around 1115, he became master of Notre Dame and a canon of Sens. Distinguished in figure and manners, Abelard was seen surrounded by crowds – it is thousands of students – drawn from all countries by the fame of his teaching. Enriched by the offerings of his pupils, and entertained with universal admiration, he came, as he says, but a change in his fortunes was at hand. In his devotion to science, he had lived a very regular life, enlivened only by philosophical debate, now, at the height of his fame. Héloïse dArgenteuil lived within the precincts of Notre-Dame, under the care of her uncle and she was remarkable for her knowledge of classical letters, which extended beyond Latin to Greek and Hebrew. Abelard sought a place in Fulberts house and, in 1115 or 1116, the affair interfered with his career, and Abelard himself boasted of his conquest. Once Fulbert found out, he separated them, but they continued to meet in secret, Héloïse became pregnant and was sent by Abelard to be looked after by his family in Brittany, where she gave birth to a son whom she named Astrolabe after the scientific instrument
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Walter Burley
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Walter Burley was a medieval English scholastic philosopher and logician with at least 50 works attributed to him. He received his Master of Arts degree in 1301, and was a fellow of Merton College Oxford until about 1310 and he then spent sixteen years in Paris, becoming a fellow of the Sorbonne by 1324, before spending 17 years as a clerical courtier in England and Avignon. Burley disagreed with William of Ockham on a number of points concerning logic, Burley was born in 1274 or 1275, possibly in Burley-in-Wharfedale, Yorkshire, or in Burley near Leeds. Little is known of his early life and he was made rector of Welbury in Yorkshire in 1309, probably through the influence of Sir John de Lisle, a friend of William Greenfield. Burleys commentary on the Sentences has not survived, Burley became a courtier during the political events that followed the deposition of Edward II of England in 1327. Burley was sent to the court at Avignon to appeal directly to Pope John XXII. By coincidence, William of Ockham was also staying at Avignon, Burleys associates were all closely involved in these attempts at canonisation. One was Richard de Bury, a bibliophile and patron of the arts and sciences, Burley had become a master of theology by 1324. In May 1327 he became canon of Chichester by the provision of the pope, but exchanged the position in 1332 to become canon at Wells, where de Bury was dean. Bury had been involved in the coup détat of 1330 that resulted in the execution of Mortimer, in 1333 de Bury was consecrated Bishop of Durham by the king, over-ruling the choice of the monks, who had elected and actually installed their sub-prior, Robert de Graynes. In February 1334 de Bury was made Lord Treasurer, an appointment he exchanged later in the year for that of Lord Chancellor and he gathered together a group of intellectuals including Thomas Fitzralph, Richard de Kilvington, Robert Holcott, Thomas Bradwardine and Burley himself. He was also known for his commentaries on Aristotles Physics, which include the quodlibet De Primo et ultimo instanti and this book is known to have been written after Ockhams Summa Logicae, possibly partly in response to it. Walter Burley, Commentarium in Aristotelis De Anima L. III Critical Edition and Palaeography transcription by Mario Tonelotto
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William of Ockham
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William of Ockham was an English Franciscan friar and scholastic philosopher and theologian, who is believed to have been born in Ockham, a small village in Surrey. He is considered to be one of the figures of medieval thought and was at the centre of the major intellectual and political controversies of the fourteenth century. He is commonly known for Occams razor, the principle that bears his name, and also produced significant works on logic, physics. In the Church of England, his day of commemoration is 10 April, William of Ockham was born in Ockham, Surrey in 1285 and joined the Franciscan order at an early age. It is believed that he studied theology at the University of Oxford from 1309 to 1321, because of this, he acquired the honorific title Venerabilis Inceptor, or Venerable Beginner. During the Middle Ages, theologian Peter Lombards Sentences had become a work of theology. William of Ockham was among these scholarly commentators, however, Ockhams commentary was not well received by his colleagues, or by the Church authorities. In 1324, his commentary was condemned as unorthodox by a synod of bishops and it is generally believed that these charges were levied by Oxford chancellor John Lutterell. The Franciscan Minister General, Michael of Cesena, had summoned to Avignon. A theological commission had been asked to review his Commentary on the Sentences, Michael of Cesena had asked Ockham to review arguments surrounding Apostolic poverty. The Franciscans believed that Jesus and his apostles owned no property either individually or in common, and this brought them into conflict with Pope John XXII. After studying the works of John XXII and previous papal statements, in return for protection and patronage Ockham wrote treatises that argued for emperor Louis to have supreme control over church and state in the Holy Roman Empire. However it should be noted that Ockhams philosophy was never officially condemned as heretical and he spent much of the remainder of his life writing about political issues, including the relative authority and rights of the spiritual and temporal powers. After Michael of Cesenas death in 1342, William became the leader of the band of Franciscan dissidents living in exile with Louis IV. Ockham died on 9 April 1347 and he was officially rehabilitated by Innocent VI in 1359. William of Ockham believed only faith gives us access to theological truths, Ockhams theism was based solely on private revelation and faith. He believed that science was a matter of discovery and saw God as the ontological necessity. His importance is as a theologian with a strongly developed interest in logical method, in scholasticism, Ockham advocated reform in both method and content, the aim of which was simplification
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Thomas Aquinas
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Saint Thomas Aquinas O. P. was an Italian Dominican friar, Catholic priest, and Doctor of the Church. He was an influential philosopher, theologian, and jurist in the tradition of scholasticism, within which he is also known as the Doctor Angelicus. The name Aquinas identifies his ancestral origins in the county of Aquino in present-day Lazio and he was the foremost classical proponent of natural theology and the father of Thomism, of which he argued that reason is found in God. His influence on Western thought is considerable, and much of modern philosophy developed or opposed his ideas, particularly in the areas of ethics, natural law, metaphysics, the works for which he is best known are the Summa Theologiae and the Summa contra Gentiles. His commentaries on Scripture and on Aristotle form an important part of his body of work, furthermore, Thomas is distinguished for his eucharistic hymns, which form a part of the Churchs liturgy. Thomas Aquinas is considered one of the Catholic Churchs greatest theologians, Pope Benedict XV declared, This Order. Acquired new luster when the Church declared the teaching of Thomas to be her own and that Doctor, honored with the praises of the Pontiffs. The English philosopher Anthony Kenny considers Aquinas to be one of the dozen greatest philosophers of the western world, Thomas was most probably born in the castle of Roccasecca, located in Aquino, old county of the Kingdom of Sicily, c.1225. According to some authors, he was born in the castle of his father, though he did not belong to the most powerful branch of the family, Landulf of Aquino was a man of means. As a knight in the service of King Roger II, he held the title miles, Thomass mother, Theodora, belonged to the Rossi branch of the Neapolitan Caracciolo family. Landulfs brother Sinibald was abbot of the first Benedictine monastery at Monte Cassino and it was here that Thomas was probably introduced to Aristotle, Averroes and Maimonides, all of whom would influence his theological philosophy. There his teacher in arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music was Petrus de Ibernia, at the age of nineteen Thomas resolved to join the recently founded Dominican Order. Thomass change of heart did not please his family, in an attempt to prevent Theodoras interference in Thomass choice, the Dominicans arranged to move Thomas to Rome, and from Rome, to Paris. Political concerns prevented the Pope from ordering Thomass release, which had the effect of extending Thomass detention, Thomas passed this time of trial tutoring his sisters and communicating with members of the Dominican Order. Family members became desperate to dissuade Thomas, who remained determined to join the Dominicans, at one point, two of his brothers resorted to the measure of hiring a prostitute to seduce him. According to legend Thomas drove her away wielding a fire iron and that night two angels appeared to him as he slept and strengthened his determination to remain celibate. By 1244, seeing all of her attempts to dissuade Thomas had failed, Theodora sought to save the familys dignity. In her mind, an escape from detention was less damaging than an open surrender to the Dominicans
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Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
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Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was a German philosopher and an important figure of German idealism. He achieved wide renown in his day and, while primarily influential within the tradition of philosophy, has become increasingly influential in the analytic tradition as well. Although he remains a figure, his canonical stature within Western philosophy is universally recognized. His philosophy of spirit conceptually integrates psychology, the state, history, art, religion and his account of the master–slave dialectic has been highly influential, especially in 20th-century France. Hegel has been seen in the 20th century as the originator of the thesis, antithesis, synthesis triad, however, as an explicit phrase, Hegel has influenced many thinkers and writers whose own positions vary widely. Hegel was born on August 27,1770 in Stuttgart, in the Duchy of Württemberg in southwestern Germany, christened Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, he was known as Wilhelm to his close family. His father, Georg Ludwig, was Rentkammersekretär at the court of Karl Eugen, Hegels mother, Maria Magdalena Louisa, was the daughter of a lawyer at the High Court of Justice at the Württemberg court. She died of a fever when Hegel was thirteen. Hegel and his father caught the disease but narrowly survived. Hegel had a sister, Christiane Luise, and a brother, Georg Ludwig, at the age of three Hegel went to the German School. When he entered the Latin School two years later, he knew the first declension, having been taught it by his mother. In 1776, Hegel entered Stuttgarts gymnasium illustre, during his adolescence Hegel read voraciously, copying lengthy extracts in his diary. Authors he read include the poet Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock and writers associated with the Enlightenment, such as Christian Garve, Hegels studies at the Gymnasium were concluded with his Abiturrede entitled The abortive state of art and scholarship in Turkey. At the age of eighteen Hegel entered the Tübinger Stift, where he had as roommates the poet Friedrich Hölderlin, sharing a dislike for what they regarded as the restrictive environment of the Seminary, the three became close friends and mutually influenced each others ideas. All greatly admired Hellenic civilization, and Hegel additionally steeped himself in Jean-Jacques Rousseau and they watched the unfolding of the French Revolution with shared enthusiasm. Schelling and Hölderlin immersed themselves in theoretical debates on Kantian philosophy, Hegel at this time envisaged his future as that of a Popularphilosoph, i. e. Having received his certificate from the Tübingen Seminary, Hegel became Hofmeister to an aristocratic family in Bern. During this period he composed the text which has known as the Life of Jesus
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Johann Gottlieb Fichte
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Recently, philosophers and scholars have begun to appreciate Fichte as an important philosopher in his own right due to his original insights into the nature of self-consciousness or self-awareness. Fichte was also the originator of thesis–antithesis–synthesis, an idea that is often attributed to Hegel. Like Descartes and Kant before him, Fichte was motivated by the problem of subjectivity, Fichte also wrote works of political philosophy, he has a reputation as one of the fathers of German nationalism. Fichte was born in Rammenau, Upper Lusatia, the son of a ribbon weaver, he came of peasant stock which had lived in the region for many generations. The family was noted in the neighborhood for its probity and piety, christian Fichte, Johann Gottliebs father, married somewhat above his station. It has been suggested that a certain impatience which Fichte himself displayed throughout his life was an inheritance from his mother, young Fichte received the rudiments of his education from his father. He early showed remarkable ability, and it was owing to his reputation among the villagers that he gained the opportunity for an education than he otherwise would have received. The story runs that the Freiherr von Militz, a country landowner and he was, however, informed that a lad in the neighborhood would be able to repeat the sermon practically verbatim. As a result, the baron took the lad into his protection, Fichte was placed in the family of Pastor Krebel at Niederau near Meissen and there received thorough grounding in the classics. From this time onward, Fichte saw little of his parents, in October 1774, he was attending the celebrated foundation-school at Pforta near Naumburg. This school is associated with the names of Novalis, August Wilhelm Schlegel, Friedrich Schlegel, perhaps his education strengthened a tendency toward introspection and independence, characteristics which appear strongly in his doctrines and writings. In 1780, he study at the theology seminary of University of Jena. He was transferred a year later to study at the Leipzig University, Fichte seems to have supported himself at this period of bitter poverty and hard struggle. Freiherr von Militz continued to him, but when he died in 1784, Fichte had to end his studies prematurely. During the years 1784 to 1788, he supported himself in a way as tutor in various Saxon families. In early 1788, he returned to Leipzig in the hope of finding a better employment and he lived in Zurich for the next two years, which was a time of great contentment for him. There he met his wife, Johanna Rahn, and Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi. There he also became in 1793 a member of the Freemasonry lodge Modestia cum Libertate with which Johann Wolfgang Goethe was also connected, in the spring of 1790, he became engaged to Johanna
