1.
Vitruvian Man
–
The Vitruvian Man, or simply LUomo Vitruviano, is a drawing by Leonardo da Vinci around 1490. It is accompanied by notes based on the work of the architect Vitruvius, the drawing, which is in pen and ink on paper, depicts a man in two superimposed positions with his arms and legs apart and inscribed in a circle and square. The drawing and text are called the Canon of Proportions or, less often. It is kept in the Gabinetto dei disegni e stampe of the Gallerie dellAccademia, in Venice, Italy, like most works on paper, it is displayed to the public only occasionally. The drawing is based on the correlations of ideal human proportions with geometry described by the ancient Roman architect Vitruvius in Book III of his treatise De architectura, Vitruvius described the human figure as being the principal source of proportion among the classical orders of architecture. Vitruvius determined that the body should be eight heads high. Leonardos drawing is traditionally named in honor of the architect and this image demonstrates the blend of mathematics and art during the Renaissance and demonstrates Leonardos deep understanding of proportion. In addition, this represents a cornerstone of Leonardos attempts to relate man to nature. He believed the workings of the body to be an analogy for the workings of the universe. According to Leonardos preview in the text, written in mirror writing. The text is in two parts, above and below the image, the maximum width of the shoulders is a quarter of the height of a man. From the breasts to the top of the head is a quarter of the height of a man, the distance from the elbow to the tip of the hand is a quarter of the height of a man. The distance from the elbow to the armpit is one-eighth of the height of a man, the length of the hand is one-tenth of the height of a man. The root of the penis is at half the height of a man, the foot is one-seventh of the height of a man. From below the foot to below the knee is a quarter of the height of a man, from below the knee to the root of the penis is a quarter of the height of a man. The distances from below the chin to the nose and the eyebrows, the points determining these proportions are marked with lines on the drawing. Leonardo is clearly illustrating Vitruvius De architectura 3.1, the length of the foot is one sixth of the height of the body, of the forearm, one fourth, and the breadth of the breast is also one fourth. The other members, too, have their own symmetrical proportions, similarly, in the members of a temple there ought to be the greatest harmony in the symmetrical relations of the different parts to the general magnitude of the whole
Vitruvian Man
–
Vitruvian Man
Vitruvian Man
–
Figures from Francesco di Giorgio's treatise
Vitruvian Man
–
Forms
2.
Leonardo da Vinci
–
He has been variously called the father of palaeontology, ichnology, and architecture, and is widely considered one of the greatest painters of all time. Sometimes credited with the inventions of the parachute, helicopter and tank, many historians and scholars regard Leonardo as the prime exemplar of the Universal Genius or Renaissance Man, an individual of unquenchable curiosity and feverishly inventive imagination. Much of his working life was spent in the service of Ludovico il Moro in Milan. He later worked in Rome, Bologna and Venice, and he spent his last years in France at the home awarded to him by Francis I of France, Leonardo was, and is, renowned primarily as a painter. Among his works, the Mona Lisa is the most famous and most parodied portrait, Leonardos drawing of the Vitruvian Man is also regarded as a cultural icon, being reproduced on items as varied as the euro coin, textbooks, and T-shirts. Perhaps fifteen of his paintings have survived, Leonardo is revered for his technological ingenuity. He conceptualised flying machines, a type of armoured fighting vehicle, concentrated power, an adding machine. Some of his inventions, however, such as an automated bobbin winder. A number of Leonardos most practical inventions are nowadays displayed as working models at the Museum of Vinci. He made substantial discoveries in anatomy, civil engineering, geology, optics, and hydrodynamics, today, Leonardo is widely considered one of the most diversely talented individuals ever to have lived. Leonardo was born on 15 April 1452 at the hour of the night in the Tuscan hill town of Vinci. He was the son of the wealthy Messer Piero Fruosino di Antonio da Vinci, a Florentine legal notary, and Caterina. Leonardo had no surname in the modern sense – da Vinci simply meaning of Vinci, his birth name was Lionardo di ser Piero da Vinci, meaning Leonardo. The inclusion of the title ser indicated that Leonardos father was a gentleman, little is known about Leonardos early life. He spent his first five years in the hamlet of Anchiano in the home of his mother and his father had married a sixteen-year-old girl named Albiera Amadori, who loved Leonardo but died young in 1465 without children. When Leonardo was sixteen, his father married again to twenty-year-old Francesca Lanfredini, pieros legitimate heirs were born from his third wife Margherita di Guglielmo and his fourth and final wife, Lucrezia Cortigiani. Leonardo received an education in Latin, geometry and mathematics. In later life, Leonardo recorded only two childhood incidents, one, which he regarded as an omen, was when a kite dropped from the sky and hovered over his cradle, its tail feathers brushing his face
Leonardo da Vinci
–
Portrait of Leonardo
Leonardo da Vinci
–
Leonardo's childhood home in
Anchiano
Leonardo da Vinci
–
Leonardo's earliest known drawing, the Arno Valley (1473),
Uffizi
Leonardo da Vinci
–
The Baptism of Christ (1472–75)—
Uffizi, by Verrocchio and Leonardo
3.
Metaphysics
–
Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy exploring the fundamental nature of reality. In this vein, metaphysics seeks to answer two questions, Ultimately, what is there. Topics of metaphysical investigation include existence, objects and their properties, space and time, cause and effect, a central branch of metaphysics is ontology, the investigation into the basic categories of being and how they relate to one another. Another branch is metaphysical cosmology, which seeks to understand the origin, there are two broad conceptions about what world is studied by metaphysics. The strong, classical view assumes that the objects studied by metaphysics exist independently of any observer, the weaker, more modern view assumes that the objects studied by metaphysics exist inside the mind of an observer, so the subject becomes a form of introspection and conceptual analysis. Some philosophers, notably Kant, discuss both of these worlds and what can be inferred about each one, some philosophers and scientists, such as the logical positivists, reject the entire subject of metaphysics as meaningless, while others disagree and think that it is legitimate. Ontology deals with the determination whether categories of being are fundamental and it is the inquiry into being in so much as it is being, or into beings insofar as they exist—and not insofar as particular facts may be obtained about them or particular properties belong to them. Most ontologies assume or assert the existence of categories including objects, properties, space, immediate questions arising from this include the nature of objects. Only properties can be observed directly, so what does it mean for an object to exist, how can we be sure that such objects exist at all. The word is has two uses in English, separated out in ontology. It can denote existence as in there is an elephant in the room, some philosophers also include sub-classing as a third form of is-ness or being, as in the elephant is a mammal. Some philosophers, notably of the Platonic school, contend that all refer to existent entities. Other philosophers contend that nouns do not always name entities, between these poles of realism and nominalism, stand a variety of other positions. An ontology may give an account of which refer to entities, which do not, why. Other controversial categories of objects and properties which may be argued to exist or not include aesthetic and moral properties, stances about the status of such things may form the foundation for other branches of philosophy such as aesthetics, ethics and political philosophy. Identity is a fundamental metaphysical issue, metaphysicians investigating identity are tasked with the question of what, exactly, it means for something to be identical to itself. Other issues of identity arise in the context of time, what does it mean for something to be itself across two moments in time, how do we account for this. Another question of identity arises when we ask what our criteria ought to be for determining identity, and how does the reality of identity interface with linguistic expressions
Metaphysics
–
Plato –
Kant –
Nietzsche
4.
Christian anthropology
–
In the context of Christian theology, Christian anthropology refers to the study of the human as it relates to God. It differs from the science of anthropology, which primarily deals with the comparative study of the physical and social characteristics of humanity across times and places. One aspect studies the nature or constitution of the human. It is concerned with the relationship between such as body, soul and spirit which together form a person, based on their descriptions in the Bible. There are three views of the human constitution – trichotomism, dichotomism and monism. The reference source for Gregorys anthropology is his treatise De opificio hominis and his concept of man is founded on the ontological distinction between the created and uncreated. Man is a creation, and thus limited, but infinite in that his immortal soul has an indefinite capacity to grow closer to the divine. Gregory believed that the soul is created simultaneous to the creation of the body, to Gregory, the human being is exceptional being created in the image of God. Humanity is theomorphic both in having self-awareness and free will, the latter which gives each individual existential power, because to Gregory, in disregarding God one negates ones own existence. Gregory, in stark contrast to most thinkers of his age, saw beauty in the Fall. Augustine of Hippo was one of the first Christian ancient Latin authors with very clear anthropological vision and he saw the human being as a perfect unity of two substances, soul and body. He was much closer in this view to Aristotle than to Plato. Initially, the two elements were in perfect harmony, after the fall of humanity they are now experiencing dramatic combat between one another. They are two different things. The body is an object composed of the four elements. Soul is a kind of substance, participating in reason, fit for ruling the body, Augustine was not preoccupied, as Plato and Descartes were, with going too much into details in efforts to explain the metaphysics of the soul-body union. It sufficed for him to admit that they were metaphysically distinct, to be a human is to be a composite of soul and body, and that the soul is superior to the body. The latter statement is grounded in his classification of things into those that merely exist, those that exist and live, and those that exist, live
Christian anthropology
–
The Creation of Adam prior to the
restoration of the Sistine Chapel frescoes
5.
Augustine of Hippo
–
Augustine of Hippo was an early Christian theologian and philosopher whose writings influenced the development of Western Christianity and Western philosophy. He was the bishop of Hippo Regius, located in Numidia, Augustine is viewed as one of the most important Church Fathers in Western Christianity for his writings in the Patristic Era. Among his most important works are The City of God and Confessions, according to his contemporary, Jerome, Augustine established anew the ancient Faith. In his early years, he was influenced by Manichaeism. After his baptism and conversion to Christianity in 386, Augustine developed his own approach to philosophy and theology, accommodating a variety of methods and perspectives. Believing that the grace of Christ was indispensable to human freedom, he helped formulate the doctrine of original sin, when the Western Roman Empire began to disintegrate, Augustine developed the concept of the Church as a spiritual City of God, distinct from the material Earthly City. His thoughts profoundly influenced the medieval worldview, the segment of the Church that adhered to the concept of the Trinity as defined by the Council of Nicaea and the Council of Constantinople closely identified with Augustines On the Trinity. Augustine is recognized as a saint in the Catholic Church, the Eastern Christian Church, and he is also the patron of the Augustinians. His memorial is celebrated on 28 August, the day of his death, Augustine is the patron saint of brewers, printers, theologians, the alleviation of sore eyes, and a number of cities and dioceses. Many Protestants, especially Calvinists and Lutherans, consider him to be one of the fathers of the Protestant Reformation due to his teachings on salvation. Lutherans, and Martin Luther in particular, have held Augustine in preeminence, Luther himself was a member of the Order of the Augustinian Eremites. In the East, some of his teachings are disputed and have in the 20th century in particular come under attack by such theologians as John Romanides, but other theologians and figures of the Eastern Orthodox Church have shown significant appropriation of his writings, chiefly Georges Florovsky. The most controversial doctrine surrounding his name is the filioque, which has been rejected by the Orthodox Church, other disputed teachings include his views on original sin, the doctrine of grace, and predestination. Nevertheless, though considered to be mistaken on some points, he is considered a saint. In the Orthodox Church his feast day is celebrated on 28 August and he was an early Christian theologian and philosopher whose writings influenced the development of Western Christianity and Western philosophy. Augustine was the bishop of Hippo Regius, located in Numidia and he is viewed as one of the most important Church Fathers in Western Christianity for his writings in the Patristic Era. Among his most important works are The City of God and Confessions, Augustine was born in the year 354 AD in the municipium of Thagaste in Roman Africa. His mother, Monica or Monnica, was a devout Christian, in his writings, Augustine leaves some information as to the consciousness of his African heritage
Augustine of Hippo
–
Saint Augustine from a 19th-century engraving
Augustine of Hippo
–
The Saint Augustine Taken to School by Saint Monica. by
Niccolò di Pietro 1413-15
Augustine of Hippo
–
The earliest known portrait of Saint Augustine in a 6th-century fresco, Lateran, Rome.
Augustine of Hippo
–
Angelico, Fra. "The Conversion of St. Augustine" (painting).
6.
Late Latin
–
Late Latin is the scholarly name for the written Latin of Late Antiquity. The English dictionary definition of Late Latin dates this period from the 3rd to the 6th centuries AD and this somewhat ambiguously defined period fits between Classical Latin and Medieval Latin. Although there is no consensus about exactly when Classical Latin should end, nor exactly when Medieval Latin should begin. Being a written language, Late Latin is not identical with Vulgar Latin, the latter during those centuries served as proto-Romance, a reconstructed ancestor of the Romance languages. Although Late Latin reflects an upsurge of the use of Vulgar Latin vocabulary and constructs, it remains to a large extent classical in overall features, some are more literary and classical, some more inclined to the vernacular. Nor is Late Latin identical to Christian or patristic Latin, the writings of the early Christian fathers. While Christian writings are considered a subset of Late Latin, pagans wrote much Late Latin, serving as some sort of lingua franca to a large empire, Latin tended to become simpler, to keep above all what it had of the ordinary. Neither Late Latin nor Late Antiquity are modern terms or concepts, instances of English vernacular use of the term may also be found from the 18th century. The term Late Antiquity meaning post-classical and pre-medieval had currency in English well before then, Imperial Latin went on into English literature, Fowlers History of Roman Literature mentions it in 1903. There are, however, insoluble problems with the beginning and end of Imperial Latin, politically the excluded Augustan Period is the paradigm of imperiality, and yet the style cannot be bundled with either the Silver Age or with Late Latin. Moreover, in 6th century Italy, the Roman Empire no longer existed, subsequently the term Imperial Latin was dropped by historians of Latin literature, although it may be seen in marginal works. The Silver Age was extended a century and the four centuries represent Late Latin. Low Latin is a vague and often pejorative term that might refer to any post-classical Latin from Late Latin through Renaissance Latin depending on the author. Its origins are obscure but the Latin expression media et infima Latinitas sprang into public notice in 1678 in the title of a Glossary by Charles du Fresne, the multi-volume set had many editions and expansions by other authors subsequently. The title varies somewhat, most commonly used was Glossarium Mediae et Infimae Latinitatis and it has been translated by expressions of widely different meanings. The uncertainty is understanding what media, middle, and infima, low, the media is securely connected to Medieval Latin by Canges own terminology expounded in the Praefatio, such as scriptores mediae aetatis, writers of the middle age. Canges Glossary takes words from authors ranging from the Christian period to the Renaissance, in the former case the infimae appears extraneous, it recognizes the corruptio of the corrupta Latinitas Cange said his Glossary covered. The two-period case postulates a second unity of style, infima Latinitas, Cange in the glossarial part of his Glossary identifies some words as being used by purioris Latinitatis scriptores, such as Cicero
Late Latin
–
Augustine of Hippo (354 – 430), Late Latin author
Late Latin
–
The Late-Latin speaking world, 271 AD
Late Latin
–
St.
Gildas, one of a number of Late Latin writers to promulgate an excidium or ruina Britanniae because of moral turpitude.
Late Latin
–
Edward Gibbon, English historian who espoused the concept of a decline of the Roman Empire resulting in its fall.
7.
Max Scheler
–
Max Ferdinand Scheler was a German philosopher known for his work in phenomenology, ethics, and philosophical anthropology. Scheler developed further the method of the founder of phenomenology, Edmund Husserl. In 1954, Karol Wojtyła, later Pope John Paul II, Max Scheler was born in Munich, Germany on 22 August 1874 to a Lutheran father and an Orthodox Jewish mother. As an adolescent, he turned to Catholicism although he became increasingly non-committal around 1921, after 1921 he disassociated himself in public from Catholicism and the Judeo-Christian God, committing himself to philosophical anthropology. Scheler studied medicine at the University of Munich and he also studied philosophy and sociology under Wilhelm Dilthey, Carl Stumpf and Georg Simmel at the University of Berlin. He received his doctorate in 1897 at Munich with a thesis entitled Beiträge zur Feststellung der Beziehungen zwischen den logischen und ethischen Prinzipien, throughout his life, Scheler entertained a strong interest in the philosophy of American pragmatism. He taught at Jena from 1900 to 1906, from 1907 to 1910, he taught at the University of Munich, where his study of Edmund Husserls phenomenology deepened. Scheler had first met Husserl at Halle in 1902, at Munich, Husserls own teacher Franz Brentano was still lecturing, and Scheler joined the Phenomenological Circle in Munich, centred around M. Beck, Th. Conrad, J. Daubert, M. Geiger, Dietrich von Hildebrand, Theodor Lipps, Scheler was never a student of Husserls and overall, their relationship remained strained. Scheler, in years, was rather critical of the masters Logical Investigations and Ideas I. Due to personal matters he was caught up in the conflict between the predominantly Catholic university and the local socialist media, which led to the loss of his Munich teaching position in 1910, edith Stein was one of his students, impressed by him way beyond philosophy. Thereafter, he moved to Berlin as a writer and grew close to Walther Rathenau. Scheler has exercised an influence on Catholic circles to this day, including his student Stein and Pope John Paul II who wrote his Habilitation. Along with other Munich phenomenologists such as Reinach, Pfänder and Geiger, he co-founded in 1912 the famous Jahrbuch für Philosophie und phänomenologische Forschung, with Husserl as main editor. While his first marriage, to Amalie von Dewitz, had ended in divorce, Scheler married Märit Furtwängler in 1912, during World War I, Scheler was initially drafted but later discharged because of astigmia of the eyes. He was passionately devoted to the defence of war and Germanys cause during the conflict. His conversion to Catholicism dates to this period, in 1919 he became professor of philosophy and sociology at the University of Cologne. Early that year, he accepted a new position at the University of Frankfurt and he looked forward to meeting here Ernst Cassirer, Karl Mannheim, Rudolph Otto and Richard Wilhelm, sometimes referred to in his writings
Max Scheler
–
Max Scheler
8.
Husserl
–
Edmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl was a German philosopher who established the school of phenomenology. In his early work, he elaborated critiques of historicism and of psychologism in logic based on analyses of intentionality, in his mature work, he sought to develop a systematic foundational science based on the so-called phenomenological reduction. Arguing that transcendental consciousness sets the limits of all possible knowledge, Husserls thought profoundly influenced the landscape of twentieth-century philosophy, and he remains a notable figure in contemporary philosophy and beyond. Husserl studied mathematics under Karl Weierstrass and Leo Königsberger, and philosophy under Franz Brentano, following an illness, he died at Freiburg in 1938. Husserl was born in 1859 in Proßnitz, a town in the Margraviate of Moravia, which was then in the Austrian Empire, and he was born into a Jewish family, the second of four children. His childhood was spent in Proßnitz, where he attended the elementary school, then Husserl traveled to Vienna to study at the Realgymnasium there, followed next by the Staatsgymnasium in Olomouc. At the University of Leipzig from 1876 to 1878, Husserl studied mathematics, physics, at Leipzig he was inspired by philosophy lectures given by Wilhelm Wundt, one of the founders of modern psychology. Then he moved to the Frederick William University of Berlin in 1878 where he continued his study of mathematics under Leopold Kronecker, in Berlin he found a mentor in Thomas Masaryk, then a former philosophy student of Franz Brentano and later the first president of Czechoslovakia. There Husserl also attended Friedrich Paulsens philosophy lectures, in 1881 he left for the University of Vienna to complete his mathematics studies under the supervision of Leo Königsberger. At Vienna in 1883 he obtained his PhD with the work Beiträge zur Variationsrechnung, evidently as a result of his becoming familiar with the New Testament during his twenties, he asked to be baptized into the Lutheran Church in 1886. Husserls father Adolf had died in 1884, at times Husserl saw his goal as one of moral renewal. Following his PhD in mathematics, he returned to Berlin to work as the assistant to Karl Weierstrass, yet already Husserl had felt the desire to pursue philosophy. Then professor Weierstrass became very ill, Husserl became free to return to Vienna where, after serving a short military duty, he devoted his attention to philosophy. In 1884 at the University of Vienna he attended the lectures of Franz Brentano on philosophy, Brentano introduced him to the writings of Bernard Bolzano, Hermann Lotze, J. Stuart Mill, and David Hume. There, under Stumpfs supervision, he wrote Über den Begriff der Zahl in 1887, in 1887 he married Malvine Steinschneider, a union that would last over fifty years. In 1892 their daughter Elizabeth was born, in 1893 their son Gerhart, Elizabeth would marry in 1922, and Gerhart in 1923, Wolfgang, however, became a casualty of the First World War. Gerhart would become a philosopher of law, contributing to the subject of law, teaching in the USA. Following his marriage Husserl began his teaching career in philosophy
Husserl
–
Husserl c. 1910s
Husserl
–
Edmund Husserl c. 1900
Husserl
–
The
Kiepenheuer Institute for Solar Physics in Freiburg, Husserl's home 1916 -1937
Husserl
–
Husserl's gravestone at
Freiburg Günterstal
9.
Heidegger
–
Martin Heidegger was a German philosopher and a seminal thinker in the Continental tradition and philosophical hermeneutics. According to the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, he is acknowledged to be one of the most original. His first and best known book, Being and Time, though unfinished, is one of the philosophical works of the 20th century. Heidegger approached the question through an inquiry into the being that has an understanding of Being, and asks the question about it, namely, Human being, for Heidegger thinking is thinking about things originally discovered in our everyday practical engagements. The consequence of this is that our capacity to think cannot be the most central quality of our being because thinking is a reflecting upon this more original way of discovering the world. Heideggers later work includes criticisms of technologys instrumentalist understanding in the Western tradition as enframing, treating all of Nature as a reserve on call for human purposes. Heidegger was born in rural Meßkirch, Germany, the son of Johanna, raised a Roman Catholic, he was the son of the sexton of the village church that adhered to the First Vatican Council of 1870, which was observed mainly by the poorer class of Meßkirch. Heidegger was short and sinewy, with piercing eyes. He enjoyed outdoor pursuits, being proficient at skiing. In the two following, he worked first as an unsalaried Privatdozent. He served as a soldier during the year of World War I, working behind a desk. During the 1930s, critics of Heideggers espousal of a Nazi-style rhetoric of martial manliness noted the unheroic nature of his service in WWI, in 1923, Heidegger was elected to an extraordinary Professorship in Philosophy at the University of Marburg. His colleagues there included Rudolf Bultmann, Nicolai Hartmann, and Paul Natorp, Heideggers students at Marburg included Hans-Georg Gadamer, Hannah Arendt, Karl Löwith, Gerhard Krüger, Leo Strauss, Jacob Klein, Gunther Anders, and Hans Jonas. Following on from Aristotle, he began to develop in his lectures the main theme of his philosophy, the question of the sense of being. He extended the concept of subject to the dimension of history and concrete existence, which he found prefigured in such Christian thinkers as Saint Paul, Augustine of Hippo, Luther and he also read the works of Dilthey, Husserl, and Max Scheler. In 1927, Heidegger published his main work Sein und Zeit, when Husserl retired as Professor of Philosophy in 1928, Heidegger accepted Freiburgs election to be his successor, in spite of a counter-offer by Marburg. Heidegger remained at Freiburg im Breisgau for the rest of his life, declining a number of later offers and his students at Freiburg included Arendt, Günther Anders, Hans Jonas, Karl Löwith, Charles Malik, Herbert Marcuse and Ernst Nolte. Emmanuel Levinas attended his lecture courses during his stay in Freiburg in 1928, Heidegger was elected rector of the University on 21 April 1933, and joined the National Socialist German Workers Party on 1 May
Heidegger
–
Martin Heidegger
Heidegger
–
The Mesnerhaus in
Meßkirch, where Heidegger grew up
Heidegger
–
Heidegger's stone-and-tile chalet clustered among others at Todtnauberg
Heidegger
–
Heidegger's grave in Meßkirch
10.
Aristotle
–
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
Aristotle
–
Roman copy in marble of a Greek bronze bust of Aristotle by
Lysippus,
c. 330 BC. The
alabaster mantle is modern.
Aristotle
–
Aristotelianism
Aristotle
–
School of Aristotle in
Mieza,
Macedonia, Greece
Aristotle
–
"Aristotle" by
Francesco Hayez (1791–1882)
11.
Plato
–
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
Plato
–
Plato: copy of portrait bust by
Silanion
Plato
–
Plato from
The School of Athens by
Raphael, 1509
Plato
–
Plato and
Socrates in a medieval depiction
Plato
–
Plato (left) and Aristotle (right), a detail of
The School of Athens, a fresco by
Raphael. Aristotle gestures to the earth, representing his belief in knowledge through empirical observation and experience, while holding a copy of his
Nicomachean Ethics in his hand. Plato holds his
Timaeus and gestures to the heavens, representing his belief in
The Forms
12.
Descartes
–
René Descartes was a French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist. Dubbed the father of western philosophy, much of subsequent Western philosophy is a response to his writings. A native of the Kingdom of France, he spent about 20 years of his life in the Dutch Republic, descartess Meditations on First Philosophy continues to be a standard text at most university philosophy departments. He is credited as the father of geometry, the bridge between algebra and geometry, used in the discovery of infinitesimal calculus and analysis. Descartes was also one of the key figures in the scientific revolution, Descartes refused to accept the authority of previous philosophers. He frequently set his views apart from those of his predecessors and his best known philosophical statement is Cogito ergo sum, found in part IV of Discourse on the Method and §7 of part I of Principles of Philosophy. Many elements of his philosophy have precedents in late Aristotelianism, the revived Stoicism of the 16th century, in his theology, he insists on the absolute freedom of Gods act of creation. Leibniz, Spinoza and Descartes were all well-versed in mathematics as well as philosophy, Descartes was born in La Haye en Touraine, France, on 31 March 1596. When he was one old, his mother Jeanne Brochard died after trying to give birth to another child who also died. His father Joachim was a member of the Parlement of Brittany at Rennes, rené lived with his grandmother and with his great-uncle. Although the Descartes family was Roman Catholic, the Poitou region was controlled by the Protestant Huguenots, in 1607, late because of his fragile health, he entered the Jesuit Collège Royal Henry-Le-Grand at La Flèche where he was introduced to mathematics and physics, including Galileos work. From there he moved to Paris, in his book Discourse on the Method, Descartes recalls, I entirely abandoned the study of letters. Descartes, therefore, received encouragement in Breda to advance his knowledge of mathematics. In this way, he acquainted with Isaac Beeckman, principal of a Dordrecht school. Together they worked on free fall, catenary, conic section, both believed that it was necessary to create a method that thoroughly linked mathematics and physics. While in the service of Duke Maximilian of Bavaria since 1619, Descartes was present at the Battle of the White Mountain outside Prague and he visited the labs of Tycho Brahe in Prague and Johannes Kepler in Regensburg. According to Adrien Baillet, on the night of 10–11 November 1619, while stationed in Neuburg an der Donau, while within, he had three visions and believed that a divine spirit revealed to him a new philosophy. Upon exiting, he had formulated analytical geometry and the idea of applying the method to philosophy
Descartes
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Portrait after
Frans Hals, 1648
Descartes
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The house where he was born in
La Haye en Touraine
Descartes
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Graduation registry for Descartes at the
Collège Royal Henry-Le-Grand,
La Flèche, 1616
13.
Medieval
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In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or Medieval Period lasted from the 5th to the 15th century. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and merged into the Renaissance, the Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history, classical antiquity, the medieval period, and the modern period. The medieval period is subdivided into the Early, High. Population decline, counterurbanisation, invasion, and movement of peoples, the large-scale movements of the Migration Period, including various Germanic peoples, formed new kingdoms in what remained of the Western Roman Empire. In the seventh century, North Africa and the Middle East—once part of the Byzantine Empire—came under the rule of the Umayyad Caliphate, although there were substantial changes in society and political structures, the break with classical antiquity was not complete. The still-sizeable Byzantine Empire survived in the east and remained a major power, the empires law code, the Corpus Juris Civilis or Code of Justinian, was rediscovered in Northern Italy in 1070 and became widely admired later in the Middle Ages. In the West, most kingdoms incorporated the few extant Roman institutions, monasteries were founded as campaigns to Christianise pagan Europe continued. The Franks, under the Carolingian dynasty, briefly established the Carolingian Empire during the later 8th, the Crusades, first preached in 1095, were military attempts by Western European Christians to regain control of the Holy Land from Muslims. Kings became the heads of centralised nation states, reducing crime and violence, intellectual life was marked by scholasticism, a philosophy that emphasised joining faith to reason, and by the founding of universities. Controversy, heresy, and the Western Schism within the Catholic Church paralleled the conflict, civil strife. Cultural and technological developments transformed European society, concluding the Late Middle Ages, the Middle Ages is one of the three major periods in the most enduring scheme for analysing European history, classical civilisation, or Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Modern Period. Medieval writers divided history into periods such as the Six Ages or the Four Empires, when referring to their own times, they spoke of them as being modern. In the 1330s, the humanist and poet Petrarch referred to pre-Christian times as antiqua, leonardo Bruni was the first historian to use tripartite periodisation in his History of the Florentine People. Bruni and later argued that Italy had recovered since Petrarchs time. The Middle Ages first appears in Latin in 1469 as media tempestas or middle season, in early usage, there were many variants, including medium aevum, or middle age, first recorded in 1604, and media saecula, or middle ages, first recorded in 1625. The alternative term medieval derives from medium aevum, tripartite periodisation became standard after the German 17th-century historian Christoph Cellarius divided history into three periods, Ancient, Medieval, and Modern. The most commonly given starting point for the Middle Ages is 476, for Europe as a whole,1500 is often considered to be the end of the Middle Ages, but there is no universally agreed upon end date. English historians often use the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 to mark the end of the period
Medieval
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The
Cross of Mathilde, a
crux gemmata made for
Mathilde, Abbess of Essen (973–1011), who is shown kneeling before the Virgin and Child in the
enamel plaque. The body of Christ is slightly later. Probably made in
Cologne or
Essen, the cross demonstrates several medieval techniques:
cast figurative sculpture,
filigree, enamelling, gem polishing and setting, and the reuse of Classical
cameos and
engraved gems.
Medieval
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A late Roman statue
depicting the four Tetrarchs, now in
Venice
Medieval
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Coin of
Theodoric
Medieval
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Mosaic showing
Justinian with
the bishop of
Ravenna, bodyguards, and courtiers
14.
Christian religion
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Christianity is a Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, who serves as the focal point for the religion. It is the worlds largest religion, with over 2.4 billion followers, or 33% of the global population, Christians believe that Jesus is the Son of God and the savior of humanity whose coming as the Messiah was prophesied in the Old Testament. Christian theology is summarized in creeds such as the Apostles Creed and his incarnation, earthly ministry, crucifixion, and resurrection are often referred to as the gospel, meaning good news. The term gospel also refers to accounts of Jesuss life and teaching, four of which—Matthew, Mark, Luke. Christianity is an Abrahamic religion that began as a Second Temple Judaic sect in the mid-1st century, following the Age of Discovery, Christianity spread to the Americas, Australasia, sub-Saharan Africa, and the rest of the world through missionary work and colonization. Christianity has played a prominent role in the shaping of Western civilization, throughout its history, Christianity has weathered schisms and theological disputes that have resulted in many distinct churches and denominations. Worldwide, the three largest branches of Christianity are the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, and the denominations of Protestantism. There are many important differences of interpretation and opinion of the Bible, concise doctrinal statements or confessions of religious beliefs are known as creeds. They began as baptismal formulae and were expanded during the Christological controversies of the 4th and 5th centuries to become statements of faith. Many evangelical Protestants reject creeds as definitive statements of faith, even agreeing with some or all of the substance of the creeds. The Baptists have been non-creedal in that they have not sought to establish binding authoritative confessions of faith on one another. Also rejecting creeds are groups with roots in the Restoration Movement, such as the Christian Church, the Evangelical Christian Church in Canada, the Apostles Creed is the most widely accepted statement of the articles of Christian faith. It is also used by Presbyterians, Methodists, and Congregationalists and this particular creed was developed between the 2nd and 9th centuries. Its central doctrines are those of the Trinity and God the Creator, each of the doctrines found in this creed can be traced to statements current in the apostolic period. The creed was used as a summary of Christian doctrine for baptismal candidates in the churches of Rome. Most Christians accept the use of creeds, and subscribe to at least one of the mentioned above. The central tenet of Christianity is the belief in Jesus as the Son of God, Christians believe that Jesus, as the Messiah, was anointed by God as savior of humanity, and hold that Jesus coming was the fulfillment of messianic prophecies of the Old Testament. The Christian concept of the Messiah differs significantly from the contemporary Jewish concept, Jesus, having become fully human, suffered the pains and temptations of a mortal man, but did not sin
Christian religion
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An
Eastern Christian icon depicting
Emperor Constantine and the Fathers of the
First Council of Nicaea (325) as holding the Niceno–Constantinopolitan Creed of 381
Christian religion
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Various
depictions of Jesus
Christian religion
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Crucifixion, representing the death of
Jesus on the
Cross, painting by
Diego Velázquez, 17th century
15.
Modernity
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Some writers have suggested there is more than one possible modernity, given the unsettled nature of the term and of history itself. It also encompasses the social relations associated with the rise of capitalism, the term modern dates from the 5th century, originally distinguishing the Christian era from the Pagan era. In the 6th century AD, Cassiodorus appears to have been the first writer to use modern regularly to refer to his own age, in these usages, modernity denoted the renunciation of the recent past, favouring a new beginning, and a re-interpretation of historical origin. The distinction between modernity and modern did not arise until the 19th century, Modernity has been associated with cultural and intellectual movements of 1436–1789 and extending to the 1970s or later. There was a shift into modernization in the name of industrial capitalism. Some authors, such as Lyotard and Baudrillard, believe that modernity ended in the mid- or late 20th century and thus have defined a period subsequent to modernity, namely Postmodernity. He also proposed that an aim of politics is to ones own chance or fortune. Machiavellis recommendations were sometimes influential upon kings and princes, but eventually came to be seen as favoring free republics over monarchies, machiavelli in turn influenced Francis Bacon, Marchamont Needham, James Harrington, John Milton, David Hume, and many others. Both these principles are enshrined within the constitutions of most modern democracies, starting with Thomas Hobbes, attempts were made to use the methods of the new modern physical sciences, as proposed by Bacon and Descartes, applied to humanity and politics. Notable attempts to improve upon the approach of Hobbes include those of John Locke, Spinoza, Giambattista Vico. David Hume made what he considered to be the first proper attempt at trying to apply Bacons scientific method to political subjects, modernist republicanism openly influenced the foundation of republics during the Dutch Revolt, English Civil War, American Revolution, the French Revolution, and the Haitian revolution. By this logic, what makes a political system or a good man is completely dependent upon the chance path a whole people has taken over history. This thought influenced the thinking of Immanuel Kant, Edmund Burke and others. On the conservative side, Burke argued that this understanding encouraged caution, on the other hand, the notion modernity has been contested also due to its Euro-centric underpinnings. This is further aggravated by the re-emergence of non-Western powers, yet, the contestations about modernity are also linked with our notions of democracy, social discipline, and development. In the most basic terms, Anthony Giddens describes modernity as. a shorthand term for modern society, largely as a result of these characteristics, modernity is vastly more dynamic than any previous type of social order. It is a society—more technically, a complex of institutions—which, unlike any preceding culture, lives in the future, other writers have criticized such definitions as just being a listing of factors. They argue that modernity, contingently understood as marked by a formation in dominance
Modernity
–
Cover of the original German edition of
Max Weber 's
The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
16.
Meditations on First Philosophy
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Meditations on First Philosophy is a philosophical treatise by René Descartes first published in 1641. The French translation was published in 1647 as Méditations Métaphysiques, the original Latin title is Meditationes de prima philosophia, in qua Dei existentia et animæ immortalitas demonstratur. The title may contain a misreading by the printer, mistaking animae immortalitas for animae immaterialitas, as suspected already by A. Baillet. The book is made up of six meditations, in which Descartes first discards all belief in things that are not absolutely certain, Descartes metaphysical thought is also found in the Principles of Philosophy, which the author intended to be a philosophy guidebook. He further indicates how the very Scriptures say that the mind of man is sufficient to discover God and his aim is to apply a method to demonstrate these two truths, in a so clear and evident manner that result to be evident. This method he has developed for the Sciences, Preface to the reader Descartes explains how he made a mention of the two questions, the existence of God, and the soul, in his Discourse on Method. Following this, he received objections, and two of them he considers are of importance, the first is how he concludes that the essence of the soul is a thing that thinks, excluding all other nature. To this he says that he has a clear perception that he is a thing, and has no other clear perception. The second is that from the idea I have of something that is more perfect than myself, in the treatise we will see that in fact from the idea that there is something more perfect than myself, it follows that this exists. He says that we have to consider God as incomprehensible and infinite, finally says that the treatise was submitted to some men of learning to know their difficulties and objections, and are answered at the end of it. He has resolved to sweep away all he thinks he knows and to start again from the foundations and he has seated himself alone, by the fire, free of all worries so that he can demolish his former opinions with care. The Meditator reasons that he need only find some reason to doubt his present opinions in order to him to seek sturdier foundations for knowledge. Rather than doubt every one of his opinions individually, he reasons that he might cast them all into doubt if he can doubt the foundations, everything that the Meditator has accepted as most true he has come to learn from or through his senses. He acknowledges that sometimes the senses can deceive, but only with respect to objects that are small or far away. The Meditator acknowledges that people might be more deceived, but that he is clearly not one of them. However, the Meditator realizes that he is convinced when he is dreaming that he is sensing real objects. He feels certain that he is awake and sitting by the fire, though his present sensations may be dream images, he suggests that even dream images are drawn from waking experience, much like paintings in that respect. Even when a painter creates a creature, like a mermaid
Meditations on First Philosophy
–
The title page of the Meditations.
17.
Immanuel Kant
–
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
Immanuel Kant
–
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
–
Immanuel Kant by
Carle Vernet (1758-1836)
18.
Ludwig Feuerbach
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An associate of Left Hegelian circles, Feuerbach advocated liberalism, atheism, and materialism. Many of his philosophical writings offered an analysis of religion. His thought was influential in the development of historical materialism, where he is recognized as a bridge between Hegel and Marx. Feuerbach was the son of the eminent jurist Paul Johann Anselm Ritter von Feuerbach, brother of mathematician Karl Wilhelm Feuerbach. After 2 years, the Hegelian influence began to slacken, theology, he wrote to a friend, I can bring myself to study no more. I long to take nature to my heart, that nature before whose depth the faint-hearted theologian shrinks back and these words are a key to Feuerbachs development. He completed his education at Erlangen, at the University of Erlangen with the study of natural science and he earned his habilitation from Erlangen on 25 July 1828 with his thesis De ratione una, universali, infinita. His first book, published anonymously, Gedanken über Tod und Unsterblichkeit, contains an attack on personal immortality and these principles, combined with his embarrassed manner of public speaking, debarred him from academic advancement. His most important work, Das Wesen des Christentums, was translated by Mary Ann Evans into English as The Essence of Christianity. Feuerbachs theme was a derivation of Hegels speculative theology in which the Creation remains a part of the Creator, when the student Feuerbach presented his own theory to professor Hegel, Hegel refused to reply positively to it. In part I of his book Feuerbach developed what he calls the true or anthropological essence of religion, treating of God in his various aspects as a being of the understanding, as a moral being or law, as love and so on. Feuerbach talks of how humankind is equally a conscious being, more so than God because humans have placed upon God the ability of understanding, humans contemplate many things and in doing so they become acquainted with themselves. Feuerbach shows that in every aspect God corresponds to some feature or need of human nature, as he states, In the consciousness of the infinite, the conscious subject has for his object the infinity of his own nature. Instead, Feuerbach concludes, If man is to find contentment in God, he claims, thus God is nothing else than human, he is, so to speak, the outward projection of a humans inward nature. This projection is dubbed as a chimera by Feuerbach, that God and the idea of a higher being is dependent upon the aspect of benevolence. Feuerbach states that, “a God who is not benevolent, not just, not wise, is no God, ” and continues to say that qualities are not suddenly denoted as divine because of their godly association. The force of attraction to religion though, giving divinity to a figure like God, is explained by Feuerbach as God is a being that acts throughout humans in all forms. God, “is the principle of salvation, of good dispositions and actions, consequently own good principle and nature
Ludwig Feuerbach
–
Ludwig Feuerbach
19.
German idealist
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German idealism was a speculative philosophical movement that emerged in Germany in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It began as a reaction to Immanuel Kants Critique of Pure Reason and was linked with both Romanticism and the revolutionary politics of the Enlightenment. The word idealism has more than one meaning, the question of what properties a thing might have independently of the mind is thus unknowable and a moot point within the idealist tradition. Kants solution was to propose that while we can know, via sensory experience, particular facts about the world and that is, we cannot know what objects we will encounter, but we can know how we will encounter them. Kant called his mode of philosophising critical philosophy, in that it was less concerned with setting out positive doctrine than with critiquing the limits to the theories we can set out. The conclusion he presented, as above, he called transcendental idealism, Kant said that there are things-in-themselves, noumena, that is, things that exist other than being merely sensations and ideas in our minds. Kant held in the Critique of Pure Reason that the world of appearances is empirically real, the mind plays a central role in influencing the way that the world is experienced, we perceive phenomena through time, space and the categories of the understanding. It is this notion that was taken to heart by Kants philosophical successors, arthur Schopenhauer considered himself to be a transcendental idealist. In his major work The World as Will and Representation he discusses his indebtedness to Kant, the Young Hegelians, a number of philosophers who developed Hegels work in various directions, were in some cases idealists. On the other hand, Karl Marx, who was numbered among them, had professed himself to be a materialist, Kants transcendental idealism consisted of taking a point of view outside of and above oneself and understanding that the mind directly knows only phenomena or ideas. Whatever exists other than mental phenomena, or ideas that appear to the mind, is a thing-in-itself and he wanted to restrict reasoning, judging, and speaking only to objects of possible experience. The main German Idealists, who had been students, reacted against Kant’s stringent limits. In 1787, Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi addressed, in his book On Faith, or Idealism and Realism, Jacobi agreed that the objective thing-in-itself cannot be directly known. However, he stated, it must be taken on belief, a subject must believe that there is a real object in the external world that is related to the representation or mental idea that is directly known. This belief is a result of revelation or immediately known, but logically unproved, the real existence of a thing-in-itself is revealed or disclosed to the observing subject. In this way, the subject directly knows the ideal, subjective representations that appear in the mind, by presenting the external world as an object of belief, Jacobi legitimized belief. …y reducing the world to a matter of faith, he wanted merely to open a little door for faith in general…. Karl Leonhard Reinhold published two volumes of Letters Concerning the Kantian Philosophy in 1790 and 1792 and they provided a clear explication of Kants thoughts, which were previously inaccessible due to Kants use of complex or technical language
German idealist
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Philosophers of German idealism. Kant (upper left), Fichte (upper right), Schelling (lower left), Hegel (lower right)
20.
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
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
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Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
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Tombs of Johann Gottlieb Fichte and his wife Johanna Marie, Dorotheenstaedtischer Friedhof (cemetery), Berlin
21.
Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling
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Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, later von Schelling, was a German philosopher. Interpreting Schellings philosophy is regarded as difficult because of its apparently ever-changing nature, Schellings thought in the large has been neglected, especially in the English-speaking world, as has been his later work on mythology and revelation, much of which remains untranslated. An important factor was the ascendancy of Hegel, whose works portray Schelling as a mere footnote in the development of idealism. Schellings Naturphilosophie also has been attacked by scientists for its analogizing tendency, however, some later philosophers such as Martin Heidegger and Slavoj Žižek have shown interest in re-examining Schellings body of work. Schelling was born in the town of Leonberg in the Duchy of Württemberg and he attended the monastic school at Bebenhausen, near Tübingen, where his father was chaplain and an Orientalist professor. From 1783 to 1784 Schelling attended a Latin school in Nürtingen and knew Friedrich Hölderlin, on 18 October 1790, at the age of 15, he then was granted permission to enroll at the Tübinger Stift, despite not having yet reached the normal enrollment age of 20. At the Stift, he shared a room with Hegel as well as Hölderlin, Schelling studied the Church fathers and ancient Greek philosophers. His interest gradually shifted from Lutheran theology to philosophy, in 1792 he graduated with his masters thesis, titled Antiquissimi de prima malorum humanorum origine philosophematis Genes. Explicandi tentamen criticum et philosophicum, and in 1795 he finished his doctoral thesis, meanwhile, he had begun to study Kant and Fichte, who greatly influenced him. At this time he also visited Dresden, where he saw collections of the Elector of Saxony, to which he referred later in his thinking on art. On a personal level, this Dresden visit of six weeks from August 1797 saw Schelling meet the brothers August Wilhelm Schlegel and Karl Friedrich Schlegel and his future wife Caroline, and Novalis. After two years tutoring, in October 1798, at the age of only 23, Schelling was called to University of Jena as a professor of philosophy. His time at Jena put Schelling at the center of the ferment of Romanticism. He was on terms with Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who appreciated the poetic quality of the Naturphilosophie. As the prime minister of the Duchy of Saxe-Weimar, Goethe invited Schelling to Jena, on the other hand, Schelling was unsympathetic to the ethical idealism that animated the work of Friedrich Schiller, the other pillar of Weimar Classicism. Later, in Schellings Vorlesung über die Philosophie der Kunst, Schillers theory on the sublime was closely reviewed, in Jena, Schelling was on good terms with Fichte at first, but their different conceptions, about nature in particular, led to increasing divergence in their thought. Fichte advised him to focus on philosophy in its original meaning, but Schelling, who was becoming the acknowledged leader of the Romantic school, had begun to reject Fichtes thought as cold and abstract. Schelling was especially close to August Wilhelm Schlegel and his wife, a marriage between Schelling and Carolines young daughter, Auguste Böhmer, was contemplated by both
Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling
–
Schelling by
Joseph Karl Stieler, 1835
22.
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
Hegel
–
Portrait by
Jakob Schlesinger dated 1831, the year of Hegel's death.
Hegel
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The birthplace of Hegel in
Stuttgart, which now houses the Hegel Museum
Hegel
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Hegel sees the "world soul on horseback," Napoleon.
Hegel
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Hegel with his Berlin students Sketch by Franz Kugler
23.
Friedrich Nietzsche
–
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
Friedrich Nietzsche
–
Nietzsche in Basel, c. 1875
Friedrich Nietzsche
–
Nietzsche in 1861
Friedrich Nietzsche
–
Schopenhauer 's philosophy strongly influenced Nietzsche's earliest philosophical thought.
Friedrich Nietzsche
–
Mid-October 1871. From left:
Erwin Rohde, Karl von Gersdorff, Nietzsche.
24.
John Dewey
–
John Dewey was an American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. Dewey is one of the figures associated with the philosophy of pragmatism and is considered one of the fathers of functional psychology. A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Dewey as the 93rd most cited psychologist of the 20th century, a well-known public intellectual, he was also a major voice of progressive education and liberalism. Although Dewey is known best for his publications about education, he wrote about many other topics, including epistemology, metaphysics, aesthetics, art, logic, social theory. He was an educational reformer for the 20th century. The overriding theme of Deweys works was his belief in democracy, be it in politics, education or communication. As Dewey himself stated in 1888, while still at the University of Michigan, Democracy, John Dewey was born in Burlington, Vermont, to a family of modest means. Dewey was one of four born to Archibald Sprague Dewey. The second born son and first John born to Archibald and Lucina died in an accident on January 17,1859. On October 20,1859 John Dewey was born, forty weeks after the death of his older brother. Like his older, surviving brother, Davis Rich Dewey, he attended the University of Vermont, where he was initiated into Delta Psi, and graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1879. A significant professor of Deweys at the University of Vermont was Henry A. P. Torrey, Dewey studied privately with Torrey between his graduation from Vermont and his enrollment at Johns Hopkins University. After studying with George Sylvester Morris, Charles Sanders Peirce, Herbert Baxter Adams, in 1884, he accepted a faculty position at the University of Michigan with the help of George Sylvester Morris. His unpublished and now lost dissertation was titled The Psychology of Kant, in 1894 Dewey joined the newly founded University of Chicago where he developed his belief in Rational Empiricism, becoming associated with the newly emerging Pragmatic philosophy. Disagreements with the administration ultimately caused his resignation from the University, in 1899, Dewey was elected president of the American Psychological Association. From 1904 until his retirement in 1930 he was professor of philosophy at both Columbia University and Columbia Universitys Teachers College, in 1905 he became president of the American Philosophical Association. He was a member of the American Federation of Teachers. Along with the historians Charles A, beard and James Harvey Robinson, and the economist Thorstein Veblen, Dewey is one of the founders of The New School
John Dewey
–
John Dewey
John Dewey
–
Photograph of John Dewey and Hu Shih, from 1938-1942.
John Dewey
–
John Dewey's USA Stamp
John Dewey
–
Grave of Dewey and his wife in an alcove on the north side of the
Ira Allen Chapel in
Burlington, Vermont. The only grave on the
University of Vermont campus
25.
Rudolf Steiner
–
Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner was an Austrian philosopher, social reformer, architect and esotericist. Steiner gained initial recognition at the end of the century as a literary critic. In the first, more philosophically oriented phase of this movement, Steiner advocated a form of ethical individualism, to which he later brought a more explicitly spiritual approach. He based his epistemology on Johann Wolfgang Goethes world view, in which Thinking… is no more, just as the eye perceives colours and the ear sounds, so thinking perceives ideas. A consistent thread that runs from his earliest philosophical phase through his later spiritual orientation is the goal of demonstrating that there are no limits to human knowledge. Johann became an operator on the Southern Austrian Railway. Steiner entered the school, following a disagreement between his father and the schoolmaster, he was briefly educated at home. In 1869, when Steiner was eight years old, the moved to the village of Neudörfl. Before attending the Vienna Institute of Technology, Steiner had studied Kant, Fichte, Steiner later related that as a child he felt that one must carry the knowledge of the spiritual world within oneself after the fashion of geometry. One is permitted to know something which the mind alone, through its own power, in this feeling I found the justification for the spiritual world that I experienced. I confirmed for myself by means of geometry the feeling that I must speak of a world which is not seen. Steiner believed that at the age of 15 he had gained an understanding of the concept of time. At 21, on the train between his village and Vienna, Steiner met a herb gatherer, Felix Kogutzki, who spoke about the spiritual world as one who had his own experience therein. Kogutzki conveyed to Steiner a knowledge of nature that was non-academic, in 1888, as a result of his work for the Kürschner edition of Goethes works, Steiner was invited to work as an editor at the Goethe archives in Weimar. Steiner remained with the archive until 1896, during this time he also collaborated in complete editions of the works of Arthur Schopenhauer and the writer Jean Paul and wrote numerous articles for various journals. Steiners dissertation was published in expanded form as Truth and Knowledge, Prelude to a Philosophy of Freedom. Two years later, he published Die Philosophie der Freiheit, an exploration of epistemology, Steiner later spoke of this book as containing implicitly, in philosophical form, the entire content of what he later developed explicitly as anthroposophy. In 1896, Steiner declined an offer from Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche to help organize the Nietzsche archive in Naumburg and her brother by that time was non compos mentis
Rudolf Steiner
–
Rudolf Steiner
Rudolf Steiner
–
The house where Rudolf Steiner was born, in present-day
Croatia
Rudolf Steiner
–
Rudolf Steiner as 21-year-old student (1882)
Rudolf Steiner
–
Rudolf Steiner around 1891/92, etching by Otto Fröhlich
26.
Weimar culture
–
1920s Berlin was at the hectic center of the Weimar culture. Although not part of the Weimar Republic, some also include the German-speaking Austria. Germany, and Berlin in particular, was ground for intellectuals, artists. The social environment was chaotic, and politics were passionate, German university faculties became universally open to Jewish scholars in 1918. Nine German citizens were awarded Nobel prizes during the Weimar Republic, five of whom were Jewish scientists, Jewish intellectuals and creative professionals were among the prominent figures in many areas of Weimar culture. The intellectuals associated with the Institute for Social Research fled to the United States, the culture of the Weimar year was later reprised by the left-wing intellectuals of the 1960s, especially in France. Deleuze, Guattari and Foucault reprised Wilhelm Reich, Derrida reprised Husserl and Heidegger, Guy Debord, by 1919, an influx of labor had migrated to Berlin turning it into one of the most fertile grounds for the modern arts and sciences in history. This caused a boom in trade, communications and construction, even before the War, this change significantly turned over the ways of the royalty. People used their backyards and basements to run small shops, restaurants, workshops and this led to the establishment of bigger and better commerce in Berlin, including its first department stores, prior to World War I. An urban petty bourgeoisie along with the middle class colonized and flourished the wholesale commerce, retail trade, factories, types of employment were becoming more modern, shifting gradually, but noticeably, towards industry and services. Before World War I, in 1907,54. 9% of German workers were manual labourers and this dropped to 50. 1% by 1925. Office workers, managers, and bureaucrats increased their share of the market from 10. 3% to 17% over the same period. Germany was slowly becoming more urban and middle class, still, by 1925, only a third of Germans lived in large cities, the other two-thirds of the population lived in the smaller towns or in rural areas. The total population of Germany rose from 62.4 million in 1920 to 65.2 million in 1933, the most prominent philosophers with which the so-called Frankfurt School is associated were Erich Fromm, Herbert Marcuse, Theodor Adorno, Walter Benjamin, Jürgen Habermas and Max Horkheimer. Among the prominent philosophers not associated with the Frankfurt School were Martin Heidegger, the German philosophical anthropology movement also emerged at this time. Many foundational contributions to quantum mechanics were made in Weimar Germany or by German scientists during the Weimar period, Göttingen was the center of research in aero- and fluid-dynamics in the early 20th century. Mathematical aerodynamics was founded by Ludwig Prandtl before World War I, and it was there that compressability drag and its reduction in aircraft was first understood. A striking example of this is the Messerschmitt Me 262, which was designed in 1939, albert Einstein rose to public prominence during his years in Berlin, being awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1921
Weimar culture
–
Bauhaus Dessau, built from 1925 to 1926 to a design by
Walter Gropius who founded
modern architecture.
Weimar culture
–
The Europahaus, one of hundreds of cabarets in Weimar Berlin, 1931
Weimar culture
–
Children being fed by a soup kitchen, 1924.
Weimar culture
–
A man reads a sign advertising "Attention, Unemployed, Haircut 40 pfennigs, Shave 15 pfennigs", 1927.
27.
Epistemology
–
Epistemology is the branch of philosophy concerned with the theory of knowledge. Epistemology studies the nature of knowledge, justification, and the rationality of belief, the term Epistemology was first used by Scottish philosopher James Frederick Ferrier in 1854. However, according to Brett Warren, King James VI of Scotland had previously personified this philosophical concept as the character Epistemon in 1591 and this philosophical approach signified a Philomath seeking to obtain greater knowledge through epistemology with the use of theology. The dialogue was used by King James to educate society on various concepts including the history, the word epistemology is derived from the ancient Greek epistēmē meaning knowledge and the suffix -logy, meaning a logical discourse to. J. F. Ferrier coined epistemology on the model of ontology, to designate that branch of philosophy which aims to discover the meaning of knowledge, and called it the true beginning of philosophy. The word is equivalent to the concept Wissenschaftslehre, which was used by German philosophers Johann Fichte, French philosophers then gave the term épistémologie a narrower meaning as theory of knowledge. Émile Meyerson opened his Identity and Reality, written in 1908, in mathematics, it is known that 2 +2 =4, but there is also knowing how to add two numbers, and knowing a person, place, thing, or activity. Some philosophers think there is an important distinction between knowing that, knowing how, and acquaintance-knowledge, with epistemology being primarily concerned with the first of these, while these distinctions are not explicit in English, they are defined explicitly in other languages. In French, Portuguese, Spanish and Dutch to know is translated using connaître, conhecer, conocer, modern Greek has the verbs γνωρίζω and ξέρω. Italian has the verbs conoscere and sapere and the nouns for knowledge are conoscenza and sapienza, German has the verbs wissen and kennen. The verb itself implies a process, you have to go from one state to another and this verb seems to be the most appropriate in terms of describing the episteme in one of the modern European languages, hence the German name Erkenntnistheorie. The theoretical interpretation and significance of linguistic issues remains controversial. In his paper On Denoting and his later book Problems of Philosophy Bertrand Russell stressed the distinction between knowledge by description and knowledge by acquaintance, gilbert Ryle is also credited with stressing the distinction between knowing how and knowing that in The Concept of Mind. This position is essentially Ryles, who argued that a failure to acknowledge the distinction between knowledge that and knowledge how leads to infinite regress and this includes the truth, and everything else we accept as true for ourselves from a cognitive point of view. Whether someones belief is true is not a prerequisite for belief, on the other hand, if something is actually known, then it categorically cannot be false. It would not be accurate to say that he knew that the bridge was safe, because plainly it was not. By contrast, if the bridge actually supported his weight, then he might say that he had believed that the bridge was safe, whereas now, after proving it to himself, epistemologists argue over whether belief is the proper truth-bearer. Some would rather describe knowledge as a system of justified true propositions, plato, in his Gorgias, argues that belief is the most commonly invoked truth-bearer
Epistemology
–
Plato –
Kant –
Nietzsche
28.
Aesthetics
–
Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy that explores the nature of art, beauty, and taste, with the creation and appreciation of beauty. It is more defined as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgements of sentiment. More broadly, scholars in the field define aesthetics as critical reflection on art, in modern English, the term aesthetic can also refer to a set of principles underlying the works of a particular art movement or theory, one speaks, for example, of the Cubist aesthetic. The word aesthetic is derived from the Greek αἰσθητικός, which in turn was derived from αἰσθάνομαι, for some, aesthetics is considered a synonym for the philosophy of art since Hegel, while others insist that there is a significant distinction between these closely related fields. In practice, aesthetic judgement refers to the sensory contemplation or appreciation of an object, philosophical aesthetics has not only to speak about art and to produce judgments about art works, but has also to give a definition of what art is. Art is an entity for philosophy, because art deals with the senses. Hence, there are two different conceptions of art in aesthetics, art as knowledge or art as action, any aesthetic doctrines that guided the production and interpretation of prehistoric art are mostly unknown. Western aesthetics usually refers to Greek philosophers as the earliest source of aesthetic considerations. Plato believed in beauty as a form in which beautiful objects partake and he felt that beautiful objects incorporated proportion, harmony, and unity among their parts. Similarly, in the Metaphysics, Aristotle found that the elements of beauty were order, symmetry. From the late 17th to the early 20th century Western aesthetics underwent a revolution into what is often called modernism. German and British thinkers emphasized beauty as the key component of art and of the aesthetic experience, and saw art as necessarily aiming at absolute beauty. For Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten aesthetics is the science of the experiences, a younger sister of logic. For Immanuel Kant the aesthetic experience of beauty is a judgment of a subjective but similar human truth, however, beauty cannot be reduced to any more basic set of features. For Friedrich Schiller aesthetic appreciation of beauty is the most perfect reconciliation of the sensual and rational parts of human nature, for Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, the philosophy of art is the organon of philosophy concerning the relation between man and nature. So aesthetics began now to be the name for the philosophy of art, Friedrich von Schlegel, August Wilhelm Schlegel, Friedrich Schleiermacher and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel also gave lectures on aesthetics as philosophy of art after 1800. For Hegel, all culture is a matter of absolute spirit coming to be manifest to itself, stage by stage, Art is the first stage in which the absolute spirit is manifest immediately to sense-perception, and is thus an objective rather than subjective revelation of beauty. It is thus for Schopenhauer one way to fight the suffering, the British were largely divided into intuitionist and analytic camps
Aesthetics
–
Bronze sculpture, thought to be either
Poseidon or
Zeus,
National Archaeological Museum of Athens
Aesthetics
–
Cubist painting by
Georges Braque, Violin and Candlestick (1910)
Aesthetics
–
William Hogarth, self-portrait, 1745
Aesthetics
–
Example of the
Dada aesthetic,
Marcel Duchamp 's Fountain 1917
29.
Value (personal and cultural)
–
It may be described as treating actions themselves as abstract objects, putting value to them. What makes an action valuable may in turn depend on the values of the objects it increases, decreases or alters. An object with ethic value may be termed an ethic or philosophic good, values can be defined as broad preferences concerning appropriate courses of action or outcomes. As such, values reflect a sense of right and wrong or what ought to be. Equal rights for all, Excellence deserves admiration, and People should be treated with respect, values tend to influence attitudes and behavior. Types of values include ethical/moral values, doctrinal/ideological values, social values, ethical value may be regarded as a study under ethics, which, in turn, may be grouped as philosophy. Similar to that ethics may be regarded as a subfield of philosophy, ethical value denotes somethings degree importance, with the aim of determining what action or life is best to do, or at least attempt to describe the value of different actions. It may be described as treating actions themselves as abstract objects, the study of ethical value is also included in value theory. Ethical value is used synonymously with goodness. However, goodness has many meanings as well, and may be regarded as more ambiguous. Personal values exist in relation to values, either in agreement with or divergence from prevailing norms. A culture is a system that shares a set of common values, in which such values permit social expectations and collective understandings of the good, beautiful. Without normative personal values, there would be no cultural reference against which to measure the virtue of individual values, personal values provide an internal reference for what is good, beneficial, important, useful, beautiful, desirable and constructive. Values generate behaviour and influence the choices made by an individual, moral, religious, and personal values, when held rigidly, may also give rise to conflicts that result from a clash between differing world views. Over time the expression of personal values that groups of people find important in their day-to-day lives, lay the foundations of law, custom. Recent research has thereby stressed the nature of value communication. Individual cultures emphasize values which their members broadly share, one can often identify the values of a society by noting which people receive honor or respect. In the United States of America, for example, professional athletes at the top levels in some sports receive more honor than university professors
Value (personal and cultural)
–
The
Inglehart–Welzel cultural map of the world, constructed by sociopolitical scientists
Ronald Inglehart and
Christian Welzel based on the
World Values Survey.
30.
History of philosophy
–
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
History of philosophy
–
Ionia, source of early Greek philosophy, in western
Asia Minor
History of philosophy
–
David Hume
