Freddy Ayer(1910-1989)English philosopher known for his promotion of logical
positivism, particularly in his books Language, Truth and Logic (1936) and The
Problem of Knowledge (1956) . The Principle of Verification, which Ayer adopted
from the Vienna Circle, was that the meaning of a sentence is constituted by its
method of verification. If there is no method of verification then the sentence
(including every metaphysical proposition) is meaningless. Logical positivism
collapsed when it was pointed out that the Principle of Verification is itself a
sentence for which there was no method of verification and therefore was, in its
own terms, meaningless, without content. Anthony Kenny(1931- ) English philosopher whose interests lie in the philosophy
of mind, ancient and scholastic philosophy, the
philosophy of Wittgenstein and the philosophy of religion. With Peter Geach, he
has made a significant contribution to analytical Thomism, a movement whose aim
is to present the thought of Thomas Aquinas in the style of modern philosophy by
clearing away the trappings and obscurities of traditional Thomism Aristotle (384–322 BC) Greek philosopher, student of Plato and teacher
of Alexander the Great. Wrote on diverse subjects, including physics,
metaphysics, poetry and drama, biology and zoology, rhetoric, politics,
government,, and ethics. With Socrates and Plato, Aristotle was one of the most
influential of the ancient Greek philosophers. They transformed pre-Socratic
Greek philosophy into the foundations of Western philosophy. Aristotle defined
philosophy as “the knowledge of being”. Henri-Louis Bergson (1859-1941) was a major French philosopher, influential
in the first half of the 20th century. His four principal works: Time and
Free Will(1889) (Essais sur les donnees immediates de la conscience), Matter
and Memory(1896), Creative Evolution(1907), The Two Sources of Morality and
Religion(1932). Matter and Memory investigates the function of the brain,
undertakes an analysis of perception and memory, leading up to the consideration
of the problems of the relation of body and mind. His discussion of the nature
and paradoxes of Time, la duree, is important. His third major work, Creative Evolution,
was recognised as an important contribution to philosophical
consideration of the theory of evolution. Jacques Derrida (1930-2004) Algerian-born French philosopher. Known as the
originator of deconstruction; his voluminous work, de la Grammatologie, and
other writings, had considerable impact upon French and other continental
philosophy, and on literary theory. His confusions were the product of a
radically mistaken theory of language. Rene Descartes (1596-1650) French philosopher and mathematician. In his
Discours de la Methode and other writings, Descartes’ ambition was to find a
sure basis from which he could judge, and if possible escape from, the dominant
classical and Christian metaphysics of the time. His new Methode was the method
of doubt, doubting everything, all previous metaphysics and doctrine, even the
existence of the world and humanity. However with his cogito ergo sum, ‘I think,
therefore I am’, he found that he could not doubt his own existence, his own
mind. From this (by a convenient transition) he went on to accept that he could
not doubt the existence of a good God who would not deceive him. The vast
philosophical system which developed from this starting point came to
dominate modern philosophy, particularly in France. What has survived as a maxim
(for the French and others) is that we should accept as true only that which we
clearly and distinctly perceive to be true. Bernard Bosanquet (1848-1923) English philosopher. Member of the London
Ethical Society and the Charity Organisation Society. Bosanquet believed one
should abandon oneself to something larger than oneself. A leader of the
neo-Hegelian movement in England: everything real is a manifestation of the
Absolute. Among his best-known works were The Principle of Individuality(1912) and The
Value and Destiny of the Individual(1913). F.H. Bradley (1846-1924) Idealist philosopher. Fellow of Merton College,
Oxford. His most important and difficult work was Appearance and Reality 1893.
Considered mind to be a more fundamental aspect of the universe than matter.
Reality is spiritual but to demonstrate this in detail is beyond human capacity.
Distrusted abstract thought in favour of higher common sense. R.H. Collingwood (1889-1943) philosopher and historian. Collingwood was a
latter-day idealist (though he disliked the label). Waynflete Professor of
Metaphysical Philosophy at Oxford. Influenced by the Italian Idealists, Croce,
Gentile and de Ruggiero. Other important influences are Kant, Vico and Ruskin.
Collingwood was best known for The Idea of History, a work collated soon after
his death from various sources. The book came to be a major inspiration for the
philosophy of history. ‘The best known neglected thinker of our time’. For
Collingwood historical understanding occurs when a historian undergoes the same
thought processes as the historical subject. David Hume (1711-1776) Scottish philosopher, economist and historian. In his
magnum opus, A Treatise on Human Nature (composed before he was 25 !) he took
causation as the first topic to be tackled using the new ‘experimental Method of
Reasoning’. Prior to experience, anything can be the cause of anything; what we
mark as the cause of an event is the result of the observed context of the
event, not of an objective relation between event and cause. In matters of fact
we can have only probability, not certainty. Much the same was asserted by Hume
in relation to morality: “The rules of morality are not conclusions of our
reason”. Vice and virtue are like sounds, colours, heat and cold, not qualities
in objects, not facts, but perceptions of the mind. Democritus (c. 460BC)Pre-Socratic Greek philosopher (born at Abdera in Thrace).
A student of Leucippus and co-originator with him of the belief
that all matter is made up of various imperishable, indivisible elements, atoms.
Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762-1814) German philosopher. One of the founding
figures of the philosophical movement known as German idealism, a movement that
developed from the theoretical and ethical writings of Kant. Recently, Fichte
has come to be appreciated as an important philosopher for his insights into the
nature of self-consciousness and self-awareness. G.E. Moore (1875-1958) Cambridge philosopher. He was, with Bertrand Russell,
Ludwig Wittgenstein and (before them) Gottlob Frege, one of the founders of the
analytic tradition in philosophy. Best known for his Principia Ethica which
arrived at the view that ‘Good’, the foundation of morality, is ultimately
indefinable, an inescapable intuition. He was noted for his philosophic method
with its emphasis on common sense and a methodical and patient approach to
problems. Admired and influential among philosophers and also by the Bloomsbury
Group. Critical of philosophy for its lack of progress, which he believed was in
stark contrast to the dramatic advances in the natural sciences since the
renaissance. Jurgen Habermas (1929- ) German philosopher and sociologist in the tradition
of critical theory and American pragmatism. Best known for his work on the
concept of the public sphere, which he has based on the theory of communicative
action. His work has focused on the foundations of social theory and
epistemology, the analysis of advanced capitalistic societies and democracy, the
rule of law in a critical social-evolutionary context, and contemporary and, in
particular, German politics. Habermas’ theoretical system is devoted to
revealing the possibility of reason, emancipation and rational-critical
communication latent in modern institutions and in the human capacity to
deliberate and pursue rational interests. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) German idealist philosopher.
Hegelianism became the dominant philosophy in Europe and America for much of the
19th and 20th centuries with many devoted adherents (F.H. Bradley, Sartre, Hans
Kung, Bruno Bauer, Max Stirner, Karl Marx), and as many opponents (Kierkegaard,
Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Schelling). The central work (buttressed by many
others) was The Phenomenology of Mind (or of Spirit) in which, following a
historical method, he sought to absorb the whole of previous philosophy, the
whole of previous human consciousness, the whole of previous religious thought,
into a new total system, culminating in a vision of “The Absolute”, Absolute
Knowledge, Absolute Spirit, Absolute Mind. An ambitious programme indeed!. Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) a difficult but influential German philosopher,
best known as the author of Being and Time (1927). Most of the work was focused
on understanding the word IS. John Searle (1932- ) Professor of philosophy a the University of California,
Berkeley. Noted for contributions to the philosophy of language and the
philosophy of mind, and for his views on practical reason and the
characteristics of socially constructed versus physical realities. John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) British philosopher and political economist. An
influential liberal thinker of the 19th century. He was an advocate of
utilitarianism, the ethical theory systematised by his godfather, Jeremy
Bentham.. Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) German philosopher from Konigsberg in East Prussia.
, One of the most influential thinkers of modern Europe and the last major
philosopher of the Enlightenment. His Critique of Pure Reason (1781) perhaps the
single most influential contribution to metaphysics and epistemology in modern
times. In opposition to Locke’s rejection of innate ideas and the mind as at
first a tabula rasa, Kant contends that our understanding of the external world
has its foundations, not merely in experience but rather in experience shaped by
a priori concepts of which space and time are the most important. The Critique
effected what Kant (and others) described as a Copernican revolution in
metaphysics, positioning the subject at the centre of his world. Josiah Royce (1855-1916) Leading American proponent of absolute idealism, the
metaphysical view that all aspects of reality are ultimately unified in the
thought of a single all-encompassing consciousness, the Absolute Spirit or Mind.
For this see Lectures on Modern Idealism (1919). Royce was a close friend of
William James and later, under James’ influence, came to modify his philosophy
in the direction of pragmatism and semiotics. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) German polymath who wrote in Latin and
French. Educated in law and philosophy, served as factotum to two major German
noble houses. Leibniz played a major role in European politics and diplomacy of
his day. He occupies a large place both in the history of philosophy and in the
history of mathematics. He invented calculus independently of Newton; his
notation is the one in general use since. He also invented the binary system,
foundation of virtually all modern computer architectures. In philosophy he was
a confirmed optimist, judging that our world is the best of all possible worlds.
Mary Midgley (1919- ) English moral philosopher best known for her popular work on
religion, science and ethics. She strongly opposes reductionist and scientistic
philosophies and is especially concerned with attempts, as she sees it, to make
science function as a substitute for the humanities, a role for which she thinks
it is wholly inadequate.
Plato (428-348 BC) Founded the Academy at Athens, the first university in the
Western world. His massive contribution to ancient and modern philosophy was
largely in the dialogue form where Socrates, as a persistent and unrelenting
pursuer of truth and virtue, has the principal role. How much of the substance
of the dialogues was from Socrates is uncertain. Most must have been Plato’s own
thought though the dialectic method of dialogue clearly came from Socrates. The
dialogues have shaped all Western philosophy, in ethics and politics,
particularly in the case of his major dialogue, The Republic. Pythagoras of Samos (580-500 BC) Ionian Greek philosopher and founder of the
religious movement Pythagoreanism. Revered as a great mathematician and
scientist. Best known for Pythagoras’ theorem. “the father of numbers” he was a
major influence on the Pre-Socratics and other philosophers in the late 6th
century BC. He and his followers believed that all phenomena are intimately
related to mathematics, numbers are the ultimate reality; mathematics makes for
understanding and permits prediction and measurement. Richard Rorty (1931- ) American philosopher. Main concerns:
philosophy of language, philosophy of mind. Asserts that the post-philosophy era
has arrived, metaphysics is no longer possible (Wittgenstein’s
conclusion); philosophy can continue only as a rather vacuous conversation. Bertrand Russell(1872-1970) English philosopher, logician, mathematician and
advocate of social reform. A populariser of philosophy rather than a productive
traditional philosopher, his reputation resulted from the extent of his
non-philosophical activities and writings. His most original work was in the
foundations of mathematics where he was author, with Whitehead, of Principia
Mathematica. Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) German philosopher. Famous for his work The
World as Will and Representation. Schopenhauer called himself a Kantian (though
he criticised much of Kant’s work). He despised Hegel. He formulated a
pessimistic philosophy that gained importance after the failure of the German
and Austrian revolutions of 1848. Schopenhauer’s starting point was Kant’s
division of the universe into phenomenon and noumenon, claiming that noumenon
was the same as that in us which we call Will, the inner content and driving
force of the world. For Schopenhauer human will had primacy over the intellect;
desire is prior to thought.; Will is prior to Being. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) Philosopher and theologian in the scholastic
tradition. Foremost classical proponent of natural theology, and father of the
Thomistic school of philosophy. Major work the Summa Theologica. William James (1842-1910) American psychologist and philosopher. James
criticised the English associationist school and the Hegelians of his day as of
little explanatory value; it was only when he was under the influence of nitrous
oxide that he was able to understand Hegel. He saw the human mind as inherently
purposive and selective. The mind-world connection is to be thought of in terms
of a ‘stream of consciousness’. In his What Pragmatism Means , the central point
is that “truth is the name of whatever proves itself to be good in the way of
belied and good, too, for definite, assignable reasons." All true processes must
lead on to verifying sensible experiences. For him, there was no conflict
between pragmatism and religion. In The Varieties of Religious Experience James
argued that religious experience should be the primary topic of study rather
than religious institutions. To interpret common, shared experience and history,
“we must each make certain “over-beliefs” in things which, while they cannot be
proven on the basis of experience, help us to live fuller and better lives.” In
The Will to Believe he asserted the right to test out hypotheses; the philosophy
of pragmatism allowed one to assume belief in ‘God’ and to prove existence by what the
belief brings to one’s own life. Alfred North Whitehead (1881-1941) Mathematician who converted himself into a
philosopher and, in The Concept of Nature (1920) and Process and Reality, a
Platonist and something of a Hegelian.. As a Cambridge mathematician his major
work, with his ex-pupil Russell, was on the foundations of mathematics,
Principia Mathematica (1913). Wilfrid Sellars (1912-1939) American philosopher. Taught at the University of
Pittsburgh whose philosophy department under his leadership became one of the
best in the world. His philosophy was generally directed towards the goal of
reconciling intuitive ways of describing the world (both those of common sense
and of traditional philosophy) with a thoroughly naturalistic scientific account
of reality. Wrote perceptively on Kant and the categories of pure reason. Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) Austrian philosopher. Introduced heterodox
and controversial ideas in the foundations of logic and mathematics, the
philosophy of language and the philosophy of mind. In the German Army on the
Eastern Front he compiled a series of notebooks (1916), working on problems in
logic which he had been discussing with Bertrand Russell before the War. The
notebooks which contained a selection of mostly unrelated remarks about logic
and language were used after the War, with Russell’s (often unwelcome)
assistance, to construct the Tractatus Logico-Philsophicus (after Spinoza). The
Tractatus consisted of a series of propositions attempting to integrate logical
notation with the structures of language. The basic idea was that language
mirrors the world, that words are pictures and that syntax reflects the
structures of action and perception. The Tractatus was received as a striking
new approach to ancient problems. Wittgenstein concluded that he had solved the
key problems and there was no more to be said.
Bishop Berkeley (1685-1753) Irish philosopher. Originator of the theory of
‘immaterialism’ or ‘subjective idealism’: Esse est percipi – ‘to be is to be
perceived’. There are no physical world or material objects as independently
existing things, all we have is our ideas, our sensations and our perceptions,
nothing more. His philosophical system is expounded in A Treatise Concerning the
Principles of Human Knowledge (1710) and Three Dialogues between Hylas and
Philonous (1713). Philonous, ‘’lover of mind’, represents Berkeley’s own ideas
and Hylas partially represents the ideas of Locke. John Dewey (1859-1952) American philosopher, psychologist and educational
reformer, whose philosophical and educational ideas were influential in the
United States and more widely. He, with Peirce and William James, was a founder
of pragmatism. Peter Abelard (1079-1142) mediaeval French philosopher and theologian.
Abelard advanced the introduction of the scholastic mode of philosophising. He
played a major part in promoting Aristotle’s dominance which became firmly
established in the half-century after Abelard’s death, with the introduction of
the complete Organon and gradually afterwards the rest of Aristotle’s works in
general use in the schools. Besides dialectic, Abelard was active in ethical
theory, stressing the subjective intention in determining the moral value of
human action. William of Ockham (also Occam) (c.1266-1308) English Franciscan friar and
scholastic philosopher, from Ockham in Surrey. With Thomas Aquinas and Duns
Scotus one of the major figures of mediaeval thought and at the centre of the
controversies of the fourteenth century. He is remembered for his maxim,
Ockham’s Razor, entia non sunt multiplicanda. He produced works important in
their time on logic, physics and theology. Chrysippus (c280-207 BC) was Cleanthes’ pupil and eventual successor as the
head of Stoic philosophy. Honoured as the second founder of Stoicism, he initiated
the success of Stoicism as one of the most influential movements for centuries
in the Greek and Roman world. Stoicism teaches that self-control, fortitude and
detachment from distracting emotions, sometimes interpreted as indifference to
pleasure and pain, allow one to become a clear thinker, level-headed and
unbiased. Stoicism holds that passion distorts truth and that the pursuit of
truth is virtuous. Epicurus (341-270 BC) Greek philosopher. Founder of Epicureanism, one of the
most popular schools of thought in Hellenistic philosophy. He taught that
pleasure and pain are the measures of what is good and bad, that death is the
end of existence and not to be feared, that the gods do not punish or reward
humans, and that events in the world are ultimately based on the motions and
interactions of atoms moving in empty space. The greatest pleasure is to be
found in the things of the mind. Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914) American polymath, physicist and
philosopher. Peirce conceived pragmatism to be a method for clarifying the
meaning of difficult ideas through the application of the pragmatic maxim:
‘Consider what effects that might conceivably have practical bearings you
conceive the objects of your conception to have. Then your conception of those
effects is he whole of your conception of the object’. Logic for him encompassed
much of what is now called the philosophy of science and epistemology. He, in
turn, saw logic as a branch of semiotics, of which he was the founder. Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) Genevan philosopher the Enlightenment whose
political ideas influenced the French revolution, the development of socialist
theory and the growth of nationalism. Man was good by nature (before the
creation of civilisation and society) but is corrupted by society. Primitive
humans were possessed of a basic drive to care for themselves and a natural
disposition to compassion or pity. Society’s negative influence consists in the
transformation of amour-de-soi, a positive self-love, into amour-propre, or
pride. i>Amour-de-soi, represents the instinctive human desire for self
preservation. In contrast, amour-propre forces man to compare himself to others,
so creating an unwarranted fear and allowing men to take pleasure in the pain or
weakness of others. John Locke (1632-1704) Essay Concerning Human Understanding 1689. Locke
rejected the doctrine of innate ideas proposed by Descartes and the
rationalists. The mind is at first empty of any ideas, a tabula rasa; it only
acquires ideas from experience, either by sensation – direct sensory
information- or by reflection – the perception of the operations of our own mind
with the ideas it already has. Knowledge is “the perception of the connection
and agreement, or disagreement and repugnancy of our ideas”. The highest grade
of knowledge is intuition. In intuition we immediately perceive an agreement or
disagreement the moment the ideas are understood. One grade below intuition is
demonstration. In demonstrative knowledge one must go through some form of
proof. Proof, however, must also be a matter of intuition. Intuition and
demonstration are the only truly legitimate forms of knowledge, so ultimately
all knowledge depends on intuition. By reflection we can associate ideas to form
new ideas. This process of association is important: “the little and almost
insensible impressions on our tender infancies have very important and lasting
consequences. Associations of ideas that one makes when young are more important
than those made later because they are the foundation of the self". Somewhat to
his surprise, Locke found that because of the close relation between ideas and
words he needed to include an extensive discussion of language in Book III of
the Essay. David Hartley (1705-1757) English philosopher. Born Armley, Yorkshire. Ed.
Bradford grammar school and Jesus College, Cambridge. In his Observation on Man,
his frame, duty, and his expectations (1749) he developed the psychological
theory of associationism. Like John Locke, he asserted that prior to sensation
the human mind is a blank. By growth from simple sensations, those states of
consciousness which appear most remote from sensations come into being. He
repeats the phrase ‘association of ideas’, ‘idea’ being taken as including every
mental state apart from sensation. Thoughts generally and active reminiscence,
when not immediately dependent on external sensation, are accounted for by the
idea that “there are always vibrations in the brain on account of its heat and
the pulsation of its arteries. The nature of these vibrations is determined by
each man’s past experience , and by the circumstances of the moment. Sensations
which are often associated together each become associated with the ideas
corresponding to the others, and the ideas corresponding to the associated
sensations become associated together, sometimes so closely that they form what
appears to be a new simple idea. He believed that sensation is the result of a
vibration of the minute particles of the medullary substance of the nerves, to
account for which he postulated, with Newton, a subtle elastic ether, rare in
the interstices of solid bodies and in their close neighbourhood, and denser as
it recedes from them (! Penrose and quarks). Voluntary action is explained as
the result of “a firm connection between a motion and a sensation or ‘idea’,
and, on the physical side, between an ‘idea’ and a motor vibration” (cf William
James on ideomotor action). Hartley’s physical theory foreshadowed the modern
study of the inter-relations of physiology, neurology and psychology. Socrates (470-399 BC) The Pythian priestess bore testimony when she gave
Chaerophon the famous response: Of all men living Socrates is the wisest “For
this he was much envied, and especially because he would take to task those who
thought highly of themselves, proving them to be fools, as to be sure he treated
Anytus, according to Plato’s Meno. For Anytus could not endure to be ridiculed
by Socrates, and so in the first place stirred up against him Aristophanes and
his friends, then afterwards he helped to persuade Meletus to indict him on a
charge of impiety and corrupting the youth.”[from Diogenes Laertius] For
Socrates “virtue was the most valuable of all possessions; the ideal life was
spent in search of the Good”. The best indications of Socrates’ life, beliefs
and philosophy are to be found in The Apology. Plato’s record (as a young man)
of Socrates’ speech in his own defence at his trial (when he was condemned to
death). Plato owes the method of dialogue in the search for truth to Socrates
and also to Socrates the unceasing concern with goodness, beauty, friendship and
understanding. Beyond this it is impossible to say how much of the substance in
the Socratic dialogues is due to Socrates and how much to Plato himself. Titus Lucretius Carus (99-55 BC) Roman poet and philosopher. Author of the
epic philosophical poem De Rerum Natura, On the Nature of Things. The early
Greek writers Xenophanes, Parmenides and Empedocles had produce philosophical
poetry but in scale and content Lucretius goes far beyond them. His aim is a
faithful but poetically inspired presentation of the philosophy of Epicurus of
whom Lucretius said “I follow you, glory of the Greek race. You are our father,
the discoverer of reality”. Lucretius provides in verse a full account of
Epicurean physics: being and nothingness, matter and space, the atoms and their
movement, the infinity of the universe, and the clinamen, the swerve from its
uniform path of a single atom, from which the whole structure of the universe
originated. Giambattista Vico (1558-1744) Neapolitan philosopher, historian and jurist.
Spent most of his professional life as Professor of Rhetoric at the university
of Naples. The Scienza Nuova, Vico’s major work, was first published in 1725
with a largely rewritten version five years later, and a third canonical edition
in 1744. His principle of truth was Verum factum, meaning ‘What is true is
made’, in direct opposition to Descartes’ method of verification where the only
path to truth and knowledge is through observation and axioms derived from
observation, the only sure basis of reasoning. For Vico, humans make – create or
invent – truth, not acquire it solely through observation. Descartes’ method
means that what cannot be expressed logically or mathematically has to be
treated as illusory. The method is not irrelevant but cannot be applied beyond
its sphere. Truths of morality, natural science and mathematics do not require
metaphysical justification but analysis of the ‘activity’ through which they
have come to exist [a similar dispute to the modern one over logical
positivism]. Vico saw his larger task as tracing human society back to its
origins to reveal a common human nature and a genetic universal pattern through
which all nations pass. This common nature is reflected in language, conceived
as a storehouse of customs, in which the wisdom of successive ages accumulates
and is preserved in the form of a ‘mental dictionary’ by subsequent generations.
Ideas and languages together make possible he discovery of novel principles of
geography and chronology, of universal history. Together they spell out, for
Vico, a universal pattern of history, with each nation proceeding in its turn
through the same stages, ages of gods, heroes and men [to be interpreted,
perhaps, as ages of religion, warfare and philosophic peace]. Sextus Empiricus (2nd/3rd centuries AD) Physician and philosopher provided
the most complete surviving account of ancient Greek and Roman Pyrrhonian
scepticism. The sceptic should suspend judgement about virtually all beliefs,
that is, neither affirm any belief as true nor deny any belief as false. Sextus
criticised Carneades’ claim that nothing is knowable as constituting an
affirmative belief. Only by suspending judgement can one attain a state of
ataraxia (freedom from everything that disturbs). We may live without any
beliefs, acting by habit. Sextus accepted that we might report our feelings or
sensations but this would no afford any objective knowledge of external reality.
I might know that honey tastes sweet to me but this may not tell me anything
true about honey. ‘Nothing can be known, not even this’. A lack of proof cannot
constitute disproof and a lack of belief is very different from a state of
active disbelief. Pyrrhonians view dogmatism as a disease of the mind. A
standard argument for scepticism is the myriad of opposing perceptions and views
of the world which characterise different individuals. Diogenes the Cynic was a
notorious sceptic who gained his nickname because of his doglike tenacity and
aggressiveness. When Alexander the Great asked what he would wish for he said
“Stand out of my light”. Boethius (480-425) The last of the Roman and the first of the scholastic
philosophers born at the time of the fall of the last Roman Emperor of the West,
Romulus Augustulus. Boethius had been consul and became chief minister of the
Ostrogoth king in Ravenna. Accused of treason, he wrote the De Consolatione
Philosophiae while in prison awaiting execution. The Consolation took the form
of a dialogue between Boethius and a lady personifying Philosophy. Philosophy
attempted to console Boethius by showing him that he had no good reason to
complain. It was not the case that the wicked prosper. Everything which takes
place is part of God’s providence. For the wicked, as they give their attention
to worldly things and allow themselves to be swayed by passions, they stop being
human and become lower animals; they cease even to exist and are destroyed. The
dialogue continued, pursuing other arguments. The De Consolatione was famous in
the Middle Ages, and late. It was translated by (among others) Alfred the Great
and Chaucer. Boethius was a prolific author on a wide range of philosophical and
mathematical topics. A major work was his commentary on ‘universals’, a debate
that raged throughout mediaeval scholasticism. By ‘universal’ is meant a term or
name referring not to a particular physical object but to an abstraction
relating to a collection or essence of such objects, horseness and not a
particular horse, redness, not a red object. Did the term or name correspond to
something real or was it only a thing of the mind? Boethius argued that
abstractions are not empty words, an immaterial line or point is not a thing
existing in reality yet the mathematician's thought is not empty or misleading.
If we disregard the accidental features of, for instance, a particular named
man, we are left with his nature as man. Boethius concluded that universals are
not mere constructions of the mind but grasp reality (not far from Platonic
ideas). Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) philosopher, social and political theorist. Hobbes’
great work, Leviathan The Matter, Forme and Power of a Commonwealth, was a
treatise on human nature and the origin of the state. It contained a speculative
account of the progression of humanity from the primitive conditions to civil
society and how human beings can live in peace and avoid the danger and fear of
civil conflict. The Civil War was in fact raging in England at the time when
Hobbes was preparing Leviathan. Civil war could, Hobbes thought, threaten
reversion to a state of nature. In the ‘state of nature’, as seen by Hobbes, life
was nasty, brutish and short, with every man against every other man, no notions
of right or wrong, universal insecurity with all fearing violent death. The way
forward for human beings had been and should involve co-operation, speech,
reason and morality. Self-interested co-operation and peace would come to be
seen as preferable to perpetual war. Speech, ‘man’s proudest triumph over
nature’, gave birth to reason (‘to purge language is the true task of
philosophy’). Moral rules emerged naturally (‘moral philosophy is nothing else
but the Science of what is Good and Evil, names that signify our appetites and
aversions’). These acquisitions made, and make possible, agreement among
rational, free and equal persons who so go to form that ‘great Leviathan called
a Commonwealth or State which is but an artificial man’. The resulting social
contract took the form of submission to an absolute sovereign (monarch or
assembly) constituting the ‘artificial soul of the Leviathan'. Sovereignty
ultimately depended on power. Hobbes concluded the book by saying that in it
“there is nothing contrary to the Word of God, or to good manners, or to the
disturbance of public tranquillity. It could be taught in the universities”.
Despite this, he was threatened with death as a heretic. At Oxford Leviathan was
burnt. Protagoras (c.490-420 BC) pre-Socratic Greek philosopher. Friend of Pericles.
Sophist or ‘teacher of virtue’. Contemporary of Socrates. Protagoras died when
Plato was young. Belonged to the School of Abdera and its pre-Socratic
dialectic. Very few fragments from Protagoras survived: from Antiloquiae and
Truth Plato gave “Man is the measure of all things which are, what they are, and
of things which are not”. The original Greek: Parmenides of Elea (c. 510-450 BC) pre-Socratic philosopher. Famous for his
philosophical poem ‘On Nature’ of which only 150 lines survive. The poem is in
three parts: PARMENIDES There are only two ways of inquiry. The first way: It is [exists] and it
cannot not exist. Benedict de Spinoza (1632-1677) Dutch (Jewish) philosopher.
With Descartes and Leibniz one of the three major 17th century
rationalists who paved the way for the Enlightenment.
Important for his Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata
The Ethics (1677), his treatise On the Improvement of the
Understanding (1677) and the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus
(1670). Spinoza moved from an early attachment to Descartes’
dualism, the view that mind and body are separate substances,
to the assertion that they are not separate but necessarily form
a single identity. The physical and mental worlds are one and the same;
God and Nature are two names for the same reality. Nature is an
indivisible, uncaused, substantial whole; outside of Nature, there
is nothing. Everything that exists is a part of Nature and is brought into
being by Nature with a deterministic necessity. Nothing happens by chance .
Human behaviour is fully determined, with freedom being our capacity
to know we are determined and to understand why we act as we do. Good
and Evil have no absolute meaning. Human catastrophes, social injustices, etc
.are merely apparent. The world as it exists looks imperfect only
because of our limited perception. Nothing is intrinsically good or bad,
except to the extent that humanity sees it desirable to apply these terms.
Spinoza’s moral philosophy has much in common with Stoicism,
instructing people how to attain happiness or eudaimonia, focusing on
the control of the passions as the way to virtue and happiness.
Intuitive knowledge provides the greatest satisfaction of mind,
the more we are conscious of ourselves and of Nature.
Friedrich
Nietzsche (1844-1900) German philosopher. His writing included critiques of
religion, morality, contemporary culture, philosophy and science. His style of
writing was idiosyncratic with much use of aphorism and paradox. Nietzsche’s
influence remains substantial within and beyond philosophy, notably in
existentialism and post-modernism. Nietzsche began his career as a philologist
before turning to philosophy. At the age of 24 he became professor of classical
philology at Basel, but resigned in 1879. In 1889 he suffered a mental collapse,
living out his remaining years in the care of his mother and sister until his
death. In his book Beyond Good and Evil he rejected or superseded traditional
morality 
He in fact abandoned
philosophy and became a primary school teacher in Austria. However, after 11
years he returned to philosophy at Cambridge and astonished the academic world
by producing a totally new account of language wholly incompatible with the
picture theory in the Tractatus. On this new view (which eventully went to form
his second major book The Philosophical Investigations) language was an
incoherent mass of ‘language games’ unrelated to any world-picture. The misuse
of language was what had made philosophy completely unsuccessful in solving its
traditional problms; philsophers debating terms not anchored in reality were
like flies buzzing in a bottle; the only way forward was to escape from the
bottle of language. Given this history, his lasting influence on philosophy
cannot be assessed. Perhaps the principal impact of Wittgenstein has been that
language has moved to the centre of philosophic discourse. The turmoil caused by
his philosophical volte-face continues.. 
He also describes the human condition: - the nature of mind
(animus, directing thought) and spirit (anima, sentience) as material bodily
entities, and their mortality, since they and their functions (consciousness,
pain) end with the bodies that contain them. The De Rerum Natura was famous in
antiquity. Ovid wrote: “The verses of Lucretius will perish only when a day will
bring the end of the world”. In modern times Lucretius remains one of the most
widely respected of ancient philosophers. 
is in Diogenes Laertius and Sextus Empiricus
What it means is
considered in Plato’s Theaetetus and in the dialogue Protagoras. Some think
that it refers to individuals rather than to mankind as a whole. Plato
presents Protagoras in the dialogue as a relativist: ‘what is or appears for a
single individual is true or real for that individual and not necessarily for
other individuals’. His relativism is sometimes seen as an early form of
phenomenology. Agnosticism: in On the Gods Protagoras is quoted as saying:
“Concerning the gods, I have no means of knowing whether they exist or not or of
what sort they may be, because of the obscurity of the subject and the brevity
of human life”. One view of Protagoras’ significance is that he was the first to
consider how human subjectivity determines the way we understand, or even
construct, the world. 
1. The proem. A revelation from the goddess
2. The way of
truth. Parmenides’ account
3. The way of appearance. The account given by
others.
The correct interpretation of Parmenides has been debated over the millennia.
What is most often said is that for Parmenides the ordinary perception of the
physical world is mistaken. Only through mind and not through sense perception
can we arrive at knowledge of the underlying reality. Nothing comes from
nothing. Reality is eternal. The Parmidean One is an ungenerated, indestructible
whole, timeless, uniform and unchanging. Movement and change are only
appearance. Movement cannot be because it requires void to move into and Void is
emptiness, nothing. Void cannot be. If one looks at the actual Greek text and
the generally accepted translation, there is nothing mystical about it. Read
carefully it is rational and plausible, though tricky in translating the
straightforwardness of the Greek into the abstractness which modern language
involves.
Nature
The second: It is not [does not exist] and it must not
exist. What can be thought of and
spoken of must exist What is nothing
cannot exist. It can never be proved that things
that are not exist. What
exists is uncreated and indestructible, alone, complete, immovable
and
without end, but always now, always existing. Whence could it have originated?
It cannot have come from what was not, from nothing. What is nothing cannot
exist or
have existed. It cannot end because it cannot change into nothing,
since nothing does
not exist. What is is the same and in the same place,
abiding in itself. It cannot be infinite
There cannot be any time other than
the present since what is cannot change or be changed. [Trans. RMA]
