1.
The School of Athens
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The School of Athens is one of the most famous frescoes by the Italian Renaissance artist Raphael. It was painted between 1509 and 1511 as a part of Raphaels commission to decorate the rooms now known as the Stanze di Raffaello, the picture has long been seen as Raphaels masterpiece and the perfect embodiment of the classical spirit of the Renaissance. The School of Athens is one of a group of four main frescoes on the walls of the Stanza that depict distinct branches of knowledge, accordingly, the figures on the walls below exemplify Philosophy, Poetry, Theology, and Law. The traditional title is not Raphaels, indeed, Plato and Aristotle appear to be the central figures in the scene. However, all the philosophers depicted sought knowledge of first causes, many lived before Plato and Aristotle, and hardly a third were Athenians. The architecture contains Roman elements, but the general semi-circular setting having Plato, compounding the problem, Raphael had to invent a system of iconography to allude to various figures for whom there were no traditional visual types. For example, while the Socrates figure is immediately recognizable from Classical busts, aside from the identities of the figures depicted, many aspects of the fresco have been variously interpreted, but few such interpretations are unanimously accepted among scholars. The popular idea that the gestures of Plato and Aristotle are kinds of pointing is very likely. Aristotle, with his four-elements theory, held that all change on Earth was owing to motions of the heavens, in the painting Aristotle carries his Ethics, which he denied could be reduced to a mathematical science. Finally, according to Vasari, the scene includes Raphael himself, however, as Heinrich Wölfflin observed, it is quite wrong to attempt interpretations of the School of Athens as an esoteric treatise. The all-important thing was the motive which expressed a physical or spiritual state. An interpretation of the fresco relating to hidden symmetries of the figures, the identities of some of the philosophers in the picture, such as Plato or Aristotle, are certain. Beyond that, identifications of Raphaels figures have always been hypothetical, to complicate matters, beginning from Vasaris efforts, some have received multiple identifications, not only as ancients but also as figures contemporary with Raphael. Vasari mentions portraits of the young Federico II Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua, leaning over Bramante with his hands raised near the bottom right and he was writing over 40 years after the painting, and never knew Raphael, but no doubt reflects what was believed in his time. Many other popular identifications of portraits are very dubious, luitpold Dussler counts among those who can be identified with some certainty, Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Pythagoras, Euclid, Ptolemy, Zoroaster, Raphael, Sodoma and Diogenes. Other identifications he holds to be more or less speculative, both figures hold modern, bound copies of their books in their left hands, while gesturing with their right. Plato holds Timaeus, Aristotle his Nicomachean Ethics, Plato is depicted as old, grey, wise-looking, and bare-foot. By contrast Aristotle, slightly ahead of him, is in manhood, handsome, well-shod and dressed with gold
2.
Raphael
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Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, known as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form, ease of composition, together with Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, he forms the traditional trinity of great masters of that period. Raphael was enormously productive, running a large workshop and, despite his death at 37. Many of his works are found in the Vatican Palace, where the frescoed Raphael Rooms were the central, the best known work is The School of Athens in the Vatican Stanza della Segnatura. After his early years in Rome much of his work was executed by his workshop from his drawings and he was extremely influential in his lifetime, though outside Rome his work was mostly known from his collaborative printmaking. Raphael was born in the small but artistically significant central Italian city of Urbino in the Marche region and his poem to Federico shows him as keen to show awareness of the most advanced North Italian painters, and Early Netherlandish artists as well. In the very court of Urbino he was probably more integrated into the central circle of the ruling family than most court painters. Under them, the court continued as a centre for literary culture, growing up in the circle of this small court gave Raphael the excellent manners and social skills stressed by Vasari. Castiglione moved to Urbino in 1504, when Raphael was no longer based there but frequently visited, Raphael mixed easily in the highest circles throughout his life, one of the factors that tended to give a misleading impression of effortlessness to his career. He did not receive a humanistic education however, it is unclear how easily he read Latin. His mother Màgia died in 1491 when Raphael was eight, followed on August 1,1494 by his father, Raphael was thus orphaned at eleven, his formal guardian became his only paternal uncle Bartolomeo, a priest, who subsequently engaged in litigation with his stepmother. He probably continued to live with his stepmother when not staying as an apprentice with a master and he had already shown talent, according to Vasari, who says that Raphael had been a great help to his father. A self-portrait drawing from his teenage years shows his precocity and his fathers workshop continued and, probably together with his stepmother, Raphael evidently played a part in managing it from a very early age. In Urbino, he came into contact with the works of Paolo Uccello, previously the court painter, and Luca Signorelli, according to Vasari, his father placed him in the workshop of the Umbrian master Pietro Perugino as an apprentice despite the tears of his mother. The evidence of an apprenticeship comes only from Vasari and another source, an alternative theory is that he received at least some training from Timoteo Viti, who acted as court painter in Urbino from 1495. An excess of resin in the varnish often causes cracking of areas of paint in the works of both masters, the Perugino workshop was active in both Perugia and Florence, perhaps maintaining two permanent branches. Raphael is described as a master, that is to say fully trained and his first documented work was the Baronci altarpiece for the church of Saint Nicholas of Tolentino in Città di Castello, a town halfway between Perugia and Urbino. Evangelista da Pian di Meleto, who had worked for his father, was named in the commission
3.
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
4.
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
5.
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
6.
Friedrich Nietzsche
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He began his career as a classical philologist before turning to philosophy. He became the youngest ever to hold the Chair of Classical Philology at the University of Basel in 1869, Nietzsche resigned in 1879 due to health problems that plagued him most of his life, and he completed much of his core writing in the following decade. In 1889, at age 44, he suffered a collapse and he lived his remaining years in the care of his mother, and then with his sister Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, and died in 1900. Nietzsches body of work touched widely on art, philology, history, religion, tragedy, culture, and science, and drew inspiration from figures such as Schopenhauer, Wagner. His writing spans philosophical polemics, poetry, cultural criticism, and fiction while displaying a fondness for aphorism, born on 15 October 1844, Nietzsche grew up in the small town of Röcken, near Leipzig, in the Prussian Province of Saxony. He was named after King Frederick William IV of Prussia, who turned forty-nine on the day of Nietzsches birth, Nietzsches parents, Carl Ludwig Nietzsche, a Lutheran pastor and former teacher, and Franziska Oehler, married in 1843, the year before their sons birth. They had two children, a daughter, Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, born in 1846, and a second son, Ludwig Joseph. Nietzsches father died from an ailment in 1849, Ludwig Joseph died six months later. The family then moved to Naumburg, where they lived with Nietzsches maternal grandmother, after the death of Nietzsches grandmother in 1856, the family moved into their own house, now Nietzsche-Haus, a museum and Nietzsche study centre. Nietzsche attended a school and then, later, a private school, where he became friends with Gustav Krug, Rudolf Wagner. In 1854, he began to attend Domgymnasium in Naumburg, because his father had worked for the state the now-fatherless Nietzsche was offered a scholarship to study at the internationally recognized Schulpforta. He transferred and studied there from 1858 to 1864, becoming friends with Paul Deussen and he also found time to work on poems and musical compositions. Nietzsche led Germania, a music and literature club, during his summers in Naumburg. His end-of-semester exams in March 1864 showed a 1 in Religion and German, a 2a in Greek and Latin, a 2b in French, History, and Physics, while at Pforta, Nietzsche had a penchant for pursuing subjects that were considered unbecoming. The teacher who corrected the essay gave it a mark but commented that Nietzsche should concern himself in the future with healthier, more lucid. After graduation in September 1864, Nietzsche commenced studies in theology, for a short time he and Deussen became members of the Burschenschaft Frankonia. After one semester, he stopped his studies and lost his faith. In June 1865, at the age of 20, Nietzsche wrote to his sister Elisabeth, who was deeply religious, a letter regarding his loss of faith
7.
Gautama Buddha
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Gautama Buddha, also known as Siddhārtha Gautama, Shakyamuni Buddha, or simply the Buddha, after the title of Buddha, was an ascetic and sage, on whose teachings Buddhism was founded. He is believed to have lived and taught mostly in the part of ancient India sometime between the sixth and fourth centuries BCE. Gautama taught a Middle Way between sensual indulgence and the severe asceticism found in the śramaṇa movement common in his region and he later taught throughout other regions of eastern India such as Magadha and Kosala. Gautama is the figure in Buddhism. He is recognized by Buddhists as a teacher who attained full Buddhahood. Accounts of his life, discourses, and monastic rules are believed by Buddhists to have been summarized after his death, various collections of teachings attributed to him were passed down by oral tradition and first committed to writing about 400 years later. Scholars are hesitant to make unqualified claims about the facts of the Buddhas life. Apart from the Vedic Brahmins, the Buddhas lifetime coincided with the flourishing of influential schools of thought like Ājīvika, Cārvāka, Jainism. Brahmajala Sutta records sixty-two such schools of thought, thus, Buddha was just one of the many śramaṇa philosophers of that time. The times of Gautamas birth and death are uncertain, most historians in the early 20th century dated his lifetime as circa 563 BCE to 483 BCE. These alternative chronologies, however, have not yet accepted by all historians. It was either a republic, or an oligarchy, and his father was an elected chieftain. He obtained his enlightenment in Bodh Gaya, gave his first sermon in Sarnath, no written records about Gautama were found from his lifetime or some centuries thereafter. One Edict of Asoka, who reigned from circa 269 BCE to 232 BCE, another one of his edicts mentions the titles of several Dhamma texts, establishing the existence of a written Buddhist tradition at least by the time of the Maurya era. These texts may be the precursor of the Pāli Canon and they are written in the Gāndhārī language using the Kharosthi script on twenty-seven birch bark manuscripts and date from the first century BCE to the third century CE. The sources for the life of Siddhārtha Gautama are a variety of different and these include the Buddhacarita, Lalitavistara Sūtra, Mahāvastu, and the Nidānakathā. Of these, the Buddhacarita is the earliest full biography, a poem written by the poet Aśvaghoṣa in the first century CE. The Lalitavistara Sūtra is the next oldest biography, a Mahāyāna/Sarvāstivāda biography dating to the 3rd century CE, the Mahāvastu from the Mahāsāṃghika Lokottaravāda tradition is another major biography, composed incrementally until perhaps the 4th century CE
8.
Averroes
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Ibn Rushd, full name, often Latinized as Averroes, was a medieval Andalusian polymath. Ibn Rushd was born in Córdoba, Al Andalus, and died at Marrakesh in present-day Morocco and his body was interred in his family tomb at Córdoba. The 13th-century philosophical movement in Latin Christian and Jewish tradition based on Ibn Rushds work is called Averroism, Ibn Rushd was a defender of Aristotelian philosophy against Ashari theologians led by Al-Ghazali. Although highly regarded as a scholar of the Maliki school of Islamic law. Whereas al-Ghazali believed that any act of a natural phenomenon occurred only because God willed it to happen. Ibn Rushd had a impact on Christian Europe, being known by the sobriquet the Commentator for his detailed emendations to Aristotle. Latin translations of Ibn Rushds work led the way to the popularization of Aristotle, Averroes is the Medieval Latin form of the Hebrew translation Aben Rois or Rosh of the Arabic Ibn Rushd. It is also seen as Averroës, Averrhoës, or Averroès to mark that the o and e are separate vowels, Ibn Rushd was born in Córdoba to a family with a long and well-respected tradition of legal and public service. His grandfather Abu Al-Walid Muhammad was chief judge of Córdoba under the Almoravids and his father, Abu Al-Qasim Ahmad, held the same position until the Almoravids were replaced by the Almohads in 1146. Ibn Rushds education followed a path, beginning with studies in Hadith, linguistics, jurisprudence. Throughout his life he wrote extensively on philosophy and religion, attributes of God, origin of the universe, metaphysics and it is generally believed that he was once tutored by Ibn Bajjah. His medical education was directed under Abu Jafar ibn Harun of Trujillo in Seville, Ibn Rushd began his career with the help of Ibn Tufail, the author of Hayy ibn Yaqdhan and philosophic vizier of Almohad king Abu Yaqub Yusuf who was an amateur of philosophy and science. It was Ibn Tufail who introduced him to the court and to Ibn Zuhr, the great Muslim physician, who became Ibn Rushds teacher and friend. He said that if someone took on these books who could summarize them and clarify their aims after first thoroughly understanding them himself, if you have the energy, Ibn Tufayl told me, you do it. Im confident you can, because I know what a good mind and devoted character you have and you understand that only my great age, the cares of my office — and my commitment to another task that I think even more vital — keep me from doing it myself. Ibn Rushd also studied the works and philosophy of Ibn Bajjah, however, while the thought of his mentors Ibn Tufail and Ibn Bajjah were mystic to an extent, the thought of Ibn Rushd was purely rationalist. Together, the three men are considered the greatest Andalusian philosophers, Ibn Rushd devoted the next 30 years to his philosophical writings. In 1160, Ibn Rushd was made Qadi of Seville and he served in many court appointments in Seville, Cordoba, sometime during the reign of Yaqub al-Mansur, Averroess political career was abruptly ended and he faced severe criticism from the Fuqaha of the time
9.
Buddhist philosophy
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Indian Buddhists sought this understanding not just from the revealed teachings of the Buddha, but through philosophical analysis and rational deliberation. Buddhist thinkers in India and subsequently in East Asia have covered topics as varied as phenomenology, ethics, ontology, epistemology, logic, a recurrent theme in Buddhist philosophy has been the reification of concepts, and the subsequent return to the Buddhist Middle Way. Particular points of Buddhist philosophy have often been the subject of disputes between different schools of Buddhism and these elaborations and disputes gave rise to various schools in early Buddhism of Abhidharma, and to the Mahayana traditions and schools of the prajnaparamita, Madhyamaka, Buddha-nature and Yogacara. Philosophy in India was aimed mainly at spiritual liberation and had soteriological goals, virtually all the great philosophical systems of India, Sāṅkhya, Advaitavedānta, Mādhyamaka and so forth, were preeminently concerned with providing a means to liberation or salvation. It was a tacit assumption with these systems that if their philosophy were correctly understood and assimilated, the goal of Buddhist philosophy is nirvana and to achieve this it needs to investigate the nature of the world. For the Indian Buddhist philosophers, the teachings of the Buddha were not meant to be taken on faith alone, the Buddha also expect his disciples to approach him as a teacher in a critical fashion and scrutinize his actions and words, as shown in the Vīmaṃsaka Sutta. The Buddha was a north Indian sramana from Magadha and he cultivated various yogic techniques and ascetic practices and taught throughout north India, where his teachings took hold. These teachings are preserved in the Pali Nikayas and in the Agamas as well as in other surviving fragmentary textual collections, dating these texts is difficult and there is disagreement on how much of this material goes back to a single religious founder. The Buddha defined his teaching as the middle way, in the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta, this is used to refer to the fact that his teachings steer a middle course between the extremes of asceticism and bodily denial and sensual hedonism or indulgence. Many sramanas of the Buddhas time placed much emphasis on a denial of the body, using such as fasting. The Buddha however, realized that the mind was embodied and causally dependent on the body, according to Vetter, the description of the Buddhist path may initially have been as simple as the term the middle way. In time, this description was elaborated, resulting in the description of the eightfold path. Vetter argues that the eightfold path constitutes a body of practices which prepare one, and lead up to, according to Vetter and Bronkhorst, dhyāna constituted the original liberating practice, while discriminating insight into transiency as a separate path to liberation was a later development. According to Bronkhorst, the four truths may not have been formulated in earliest Buddhism, Lambert Schmithausen concluded that the four truths were a later development in early Buddhism. Carol Anderson, following Lambert Schmithausen and K. R, norman, notes that the four truths are missing in critical passages in the canon, and states. According to some scholars, the outlook of earliest Buddhism was primarily negative. Only knowledge that is useful in achieving enlightenment is valued, the four noble truths or truths of the noble one are a central feature of the teachings and are put forth in the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta. The first truth of Dukkha, often translated as suffering, is the inherent unsatisfactoriness of life
10.
Chinese philosophy
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Early Shang Dynasty thought was based upon cycles. Thus, this notion, which remained relevant throughout Chinese history, in juxtaposition, it also marks a fundamental distinction from western philosophy, in which the dominant view of time is a linear progression. During the Shang, fate could be manipulated by great deities, ancestor worship was present and universally recognized. There was also human and animal sacrifice, when the Shang were overthrown by the Zhou, a new political, religious and philosophical concept was introduced called the Mandate of Heaven. This mandate was said to be taken when rulers became unworthy of their position, Confucianism developed during the Spring and Autumn period from the teachings of the Chinese philosopher Confucius, who considered himself a retransmitter of Zhou values. His philosophy concerns the fields of ethics and politics, emphasizing personal and governmental morality, correctness of social relationships, justice, traditionalism, Confucianism was and continues to be a major influence in Chinese culture, the state of China and the surrounding areas of Southeast Asia. Before the Han dynasty the largest rivals to Confucianism were Chinese Legalism, Confucianism largely became the dominant philosophical school of China during the early Han Dynasty following the replacement of its contemporary, the more Taoistic Huang-Lao. The Six Dynasties era saw the rise of the Xuanxue philosophical school and the maturation of Chinese Buddhism, by the time of the Tang dynasty five-hundred years after Buddhisms arrival into China, it had transformed into a thoroughly Chinese religious philosophy dominated by the school of Zen Buddhism. Neo-Confucianism became highly popular during the Song dynasty and Ming Dynasty due in part to the eventual combination of Confucian. During the 19th and 20th centuries, Chinese philosophy integrated concepts from Western philosophy, the most notable examples are Sun Yat-Sens Three Principles of the People ideology and Mao Zedongs Maoism, a variant of Marxism–Leninism. In the modern Peoples Republic of China, the ideology is Deng Xiaopings market economy socialism. Although the Peoples Republic of China has been hostile to the philosophy of ancient China. In the post-Chinese economic reform era, modern Chinese philosophy has reappeared in forms such as the New Confucianism, as in Japan, philosophy in China has become a melting pot of ideas. It accepts new concepts, while attempting also to accord old beliefs their due, Chinese philosophy still carries profound influence amongst the people of East Asia, and even Southeast Asia. Around 500 BCE, after the Zhou state weakened and China moved into the Spring and Autumn period and this is known as the Hundred Schools of Thought. This period is considered the age of Chinese philosophy. Of the many schools founded at this time and during the subsequent Warring States period and it is a system of moral, social, political, and religious thought that has had tremendous influence on Chinese history, thought, and culture down to the 20th century. Some Westerners have considered it to have been the religion of imperial China because of its lasting influence on Asian culture
11.
Jain philosophy
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Jain philosophy is the oldest Indian philosophy that separates body from the soul completely. Jain philosophy deals with reality, cosmology, epistemology and Vitalism, the concept of non-injury or ahiṃsā lies at the core of Jain philosophy. Jain philosophy attempts to explain the rationale of being and existence, the nature of the Universe and its constituents, the nature of bondage and the means to achieve liberation. Jain texts expound that in every half-cycle of time, twenty-four tirthankaras grace this part of the Universe to teach the doctrine of right faith, right knowledge. Jain philosophy means the teachings of a Tirthankara which are recorded in Sacred Jain texts, the distinguishing features of Jain philosophy are, - Belief on independent existence of soul and matter. Refutation of the idea that a divine creator, owner, preserver or destroyer of the universe exists. Accent on relativity and multiple facets of truth and Morality and ethics based on liberation of soul, Jainism strongly upholds the individualistic nature of soul and personal responsibility for ones decisions, and that self-reliance and individual efforts alone are responsible for ones liberation. According to the Jain texts, the vitalities or life-principles are ten, namely the five senses, energy, respiration, life-duration, the organ of speech, the table below summaries the vitalities, living beings possess in accordance to their senses. In the animal world, the five-sensed beings without mind have nine life-principles with the addition of the sense of hearing and those endowed with mind have ten with the addition of the mind. According to Tattvarthasutra, a major Jain text, the severance of vitalities out of passion is injury, according to the Purushartha Siddhyupaya, non-manifestation of passions like attachment is non-injury, and manifestation of such passions is injury. This is termed as the essence of the Jaina Scriptures, vegetarianism and other nonviolent practices and rituals of Jains flow from the principle of ahiṃsā. Jain philosophy postulates that seven tattva constitute reality and these are, - Jīva-The soul substance which is said to have a separate existence from the body that houses it. Jīva is characterised by cetana and upayoga, though the soul experiences both birth and death, it is neither really destroyed nor created. Decay and origin refer respectively to the disappearing of one state of soul and appearance of another state, ajīva- the non-soul āsrava - inflow of auspicious and evil karmic matter into the soul. Bandha - mutual intermingling of the soul and karmas, samvara - obstruction of the inflow of karmic matter into the soul. Nirjara - separation or falling off of part of matter from the soul. Mokṣha - complete annihilation of all karmic matter, the knowledge of these reals is said to be essential for the liberation of the soul. According to the Jain philosophy, the world is full of hiṃsā, therefore, one should direct all his efforts in attainment of moksha
12.
Jewish philosophy
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Jewish philosophy includes all philosophy carried out by Jews, or in relation to the religion of Judaism. With their acceptance into society, Jews with secular educations embraced or developed entirely new philosophies to meet the demands of the world in which they now found themselves. Medieval re-discovery of ancient Greek philosophy among the Geonim of 10th century Babylonian academies brought rationalist philosophy into Biblical-Talmudic Judaism, the philosophy was generally in competition with Kabbalah. Both schools would become part of classic Rabbinic literature, though the decline of scholastic rationalism coincided with events which drew Jews to the Kabbalistic approach. For Ashkenazi Jews, emancipation and encounter with secular thought from the 18th-century onwards altered how philosophy was viewed, Ashkenazi and Sephardi communities had later more ambivalent interaction with secular culture than in Western Europe. In the varied responses to modernity, Jewish philosophical ideas were developed across the range of emerging religious movements, Rabbinic literature sometimes views Abraham as a philosopher. Some have suggested that Abraham introduced a philosophy learned from Melchizedek, a midrash describes how Abraham understood this world to have a creator and director by comparing this world to a house with a light in it, what is now called the argument from design. Psalms contains invitations to admire the wisdom of God through his works, from this, some scholars suggest, Judaism harbors a Philosophical under-current. Ecclesiastes is often considered to be the only genuine philosophical work in the Hebrew Bible, its author seeks to understand the place of human beings in the world, Philo attempted to fuse and harmonize Greek and Jewish philosophy through allegory, which he learned from Jewish exegesis and Stoicism. Philo attempted to make his philosophy the means of defending and justifying Jewish religious truths and these truths he regarded as fixed and determinate, and philosophy was used as an aid to truth, and a means of arriving at it. To this end Philo chose from philosophical tenets of Greeks, refusing those that did not harmonize with Judaism such as Aristotles doctrine of the eternity and indestructibility of the world. Dr. Philosophical speculation was not a part of Rabbinic Judaism. Rabbi Akiva has also been viewed as a figure, his statements include 1. )How favored is man, for he was created after an image for in an image, Elokim made man,2. )Everything is foreseen. But the divine decision is made by the preponderance of the good or bad in ones actions, after the Bar Kokhba revolt, Rabbinic scholars gathered in Tiberias and Safed to re-assemble and re-assess Judaism, its laws, theology, liturgy, beliefs and leadership structure. In 219 CE, the Sura Academy was founded by Abba Arika, for the next five centuries, Talmudic academies focused upon reconstituting Judaism and little, if any, philosophic investigation was pursued. These investigations triggered new ideas and intellectual exchange among Jewish and Islamic scholars in the areas of jurisprudence, mathematics, astronomy, logic, Jewish scholars influenced Islamic scholars and Islamic scholars influenced Jewish scholars. Around 733 CE, Mar Natronai ben Habibai moves to Kairouan, then to Spain, borrowing from the Mutakallamin of Basra, the Karaites were the first Jewish group to subject Judaism to Muʿtazila. Rejecting the Talmud and Rabbinical tradition, Karaites took liberty to reinterpret the Tanakh and this meant abandoning foundational Jewish belief structures
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