PHILOSOPHY

 

 

Ancient

            Confucius (551-479 BCE)--A teacher; Stressed personal and governmental morality (did not emphasize the spiritual)

 

            Heraclitus (535-475 BCE)--We both step and do not step in the same river

 

Socrates (469-399 BCE)--asked the questions; stressed simplicity; that which is unseen is more important than that which is seen (accused of corrupting the youth)

 

            Plato (427-347 BCE)--more substance ("Diogenes [a Cynic, 400-325 BCE] was Socrates run mad"); only ideas are real--all other things are reflections of ideas (idealism); a dualist; only the philosopher can say what is good

 

            Aristotle (384-322 BCE)--logic; syllogism (Galileo refuted Aristotle's claims on proportionality and free fall at Pisa); metaphysics; tutored Alexander the Great

 

            Epicurus (341-270 BCE)--pleasure (hedonism)

 

            Stoic (320 BCE; determinism)--Seneca (Nero's Philosopher), Epictetus (1st cent. CE)

 

            Philo (20 BCE-50 CE)--attempted to reconcile Platonism and Judaism (Judaism is the sum total of human wisdom)

 

            Augustine (354-430 CE)

 

Medieval

            Anselm (1033-1109)--The ontological argument

 

            Scholasticism (Thomas Aquinas--1224-1274)

 

            Humanism (Erasmus—1466-1536)

 

Modern

            Francis Bacon (1561-1626)--father of deductive method

 

            Rationalism (Descartes, a dualist--1596-1650; separation of thought and matter)

 

            Biblical Criticism (Baruch Spinoza--1632-1677; first radical critic of biblical and ecclesiastical tradition)

 

            Enlightenment (John Locke--1632-1704; experience is the source of all certainty; differentiated reason from faith; philosophy of education) (Voltaire, 1694-1778, "If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.") (Blaise Pascal, 1632-62, fire insurance)

 

            Empiricism (Hume--1711-1776; religious tenets are but a collection of superstitions; philosophical criticism of theism; reason is the slave of our passion)

 

            Kant (1724-1804) (categories; philosopher of religion; separate the physical desire—self interest—from rationality for proper ethics)

 

            Utilitarianism (William Paley--1743-1805; the watchmaker)

 

            Hegel (1770-1831)--inventor of modern dialectic

 

            Kierkegaard (1813-1855)—Existentialism

 

            Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)--Skepticism

 

            Karl Popper (1902-94)--Logical Positivism