Socratic

The Socratic or Classical period of the Ancient era of philosophy denotes the Greek contemporaries and near
contemporaries of the influential philosopher Socrates.

It includes the following major philosophers:

Socrates (464 - 399 B.C.) Greek

Plato (c. 428 - 348 B.C.) Greek

Diogenes of Sinope (c. 412 - 323 B.C.) Greek

Aristotle (384 - 322 B.C.) Greek

Socrates developed a system of critical reasoning in order to work out how to live properly and to tell the difference
between right and wrong. He and his followers, Plato and Aristotle maintained an unwavering commitment to the truth,
and between them they organized and systematized most of the problems of philosophy.

Socrates (c. 469 - 399 B.C.) was a hugely important Greek philosopher from the Classical period (often known as the
Socratic period in his honour). Unlike most of the Pre-Socratic philosophers who came before him, who were much more
interested in establishing how the world works, Socrates was more concerned with how people should behave, and so
was perhaps the first major philosopher of Ethics.

An enigmatic figure known to us only through other people's accounts (principally the dialogues of his student Plato), he
is credited as one of the founders of Western Philosophy. He is considered by some as the very antithesis of the Sophists
of his day, who claimed to have knowledge which they could transmit to others (often for payment), arguing instead
that knowledge should be pursued for its own sake, even if one could never fully possess it.

He made important and lasting contributions in the fields of Ethics, Epistemology and Logic, and particularly in the
methodology of philosophy (his Socratic Method or "elenchus"). His views were instrumental in the development of
many of the major philosophical movements and schools which came after him, including Platonism (and the Neo-
Platonism and Aristotelianism it gave rise to), Cynicism, Stoicism and Hedonism.

Plato (c. 428 - 348 B.C.) was a hugely important Greek philosopher and mathematician from the Socratic (or Classical)
period.

He is perhaps the best known, most widely studied and most influential philosopher of all time. Together with his
mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, he provided the main opposition to the Materialist view of the world
represented by Democritus and Epicurus, and he helped to lay the foundations of the whole of Western Philosophy.

In his works, especially his many dialogues, he blended Ethics, Political Philosophy, Epistemology, Metaphysics and
moral psychology into an interconnected and systematic philosophy. In addition to the ideas they contained (such as his
doctrine of Platonic Realism, Essentialism, Idealism, his famous theory of Forms and the ideal of "Platonic love"), many
of his writings are also considered superb pieces of literature.

Plato was the founder of the famous Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the western world. The
philosophical school which he developed at the Academy was known as Platonism (and its later off-shoot, Neo-
Platonism).
Medieval

The Medieval period of philosophy represents a renewed flowering of Western philosophical thought after the
intellectual drought of the Dark Ages.

It includes the following major philosophers:

Avicenna (Ibn Sina) (980 - 1037) Persian Anselm, St. (1033 - 1109) Italian Abelard, Peter (1079 - 1142) French

Averroes (Ibn Rushd) (1126 - 1198) Spanish-Arabic Maimonides (1135 - 1204) Spanish-Jewish

Albertus Magnus (c. 1206 - 1280) German Bacon, Roger (c. 1214 - 1294) English

Aquinas, St. Thomas (1225 - 1274) Italian Scotus, John Duns (c. 1266 - 1308) Scottish

Ockham (Occam), William of (c. 1285 - 1348) English

Much of the period is marked by the influence of Christianity and many of the philosophers of the period were greatly
concerned with proving the existence of God and reconciling Christianity with classical philosophy. The early Christian
theologians St. Augustine and Boethius represent a link between the Roman and Medieval periods, and arguably had
more in common with the later Medieval philosophers than with the earlier Romans (where they have been included for
the purposes of this guide).

An important development in the Medieval period was the establishment of the first universities with professional full-
time scholars. It should also be noted that there was also a strong resurgence in Islamic and Jewish philosophy at this
time.

The most influential movements of the period were Scholasticism and its off-shoots Thomism and Scotism, and the
Islamic schools of Averroism, Avicennism and Illuminationism.

Albertus Magnus (AKA St. Albert the Great or Albert of Cologne) (c. 1200 - 1280) was a 13th Century German
philosopher, theologian and scientist of the Medieval period. He is mainly associated with the dominant Medieval
movement of Scholasticism, and his influence on the development of Scholastic philosophy in the 13th Century was
enormous, especially his incorporation of Aristotelianism into the Christian west. He is also known as an early advocate
for the peaceful coexistence of science and religion.

Avicenna (AKA Ibn Sina or Ibn Seena or, in full, Abu Ali al-Hussain Ibn Abdallah Ibn Sina) (980 - 1037) was a Persian
philosopher, physician and polymath in the Medieval period (Islam's Golden Age).

He was one of the most learned men of his time in a wide variety of subjects, and is often considered one of the greatest
thinkers and scholars in history. In particular, he is regarded by many as the father of early modern medicine.

As a philosopher and a devout Muslim, he tried to reconcile the rational philosophy of Aristotelianism and Neo-
Platonism with Islamic theology. He also developed his own system of Logic, known as Avicennian Logic, and founded
the philosophical school of Avicennism, which was highly influential among Muslim and Western European Scholastic
thinkers alike.

Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius (usually known simply as Boethius) (c. 480 - 525) was a 6th Century Roman Christian
philosopher of the late Roman period.He is sometimes called the last of the Roman philosophers and the first of the
Scholastics, and his final work, the "Consolation of Philosophy", assured his legacy in the Middle Ages and beyond. His
Latin translations of some of the works of Aristotle were the only ones available in Europe until the 12th Century.
Modern Philosophy

The Modern period of philosophy generally correspondes to the 19th and 20th Century. More recent developments in
the late 20th Century are sometimes referred to as the Contemporary period.

It includes the following major philosophers:

Bentham, Jeremy (1749 - 1832) English Fichte, Johann Gottlieb (1762 - 1814) German

Hegel, G.W.F. (1770 - 1831) German Friedrich Schelling (1775 - 1854) German

Schopenhauer, Arthur (1788 - 1860) German Comte, Auguste (1798 - 1857) French

Emerson, Ralph Waldo (1803 - 1882) American Mill, John Stuart (1806 - 1873) English

Kierkegaard, Sren (1813 - 1855) Danish Thoreau, Henry David (1817 - 1862) American

Marx, Karl (1818 - 1883) German Peirce, Charles Sanders (1839 - 1914) American

James, William (1842 - 1910) American Nietzsche, Friedrich (1844 - 1900) German

Frege, Gottlob (1848 - 1925) German Dewey, John (1859 - 1952) American

Husserl, Edmund (1859 - 1938) German Whitehead, Alfred North (1861 - 1947) English

Russell, Bertrand (1872 - 1970) English Moore, George Edward (1873 - 1958) English

Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1889 - 1951) Austrian Heidegger, Martin (1889 - 1976) German

Ryle, Gilbert (1900 - 1976) English Sartre, Jean-Paul (1905 - 1980) French

Quine, Willard Van Orman (1908 - 2000) American Ayer, Alfred (1910 - 1989) English

Foucault, Michel (1926 - 1984) French Derrida, Jacques (1930 - 2004) French

Along with significant scientific and political revolutions, the Modern period exploded in a flurry of new philosophical
movements. In addition to further developements in Age of Enlightenment movements such as German Idealism,
Kantianism and Romanticism, the Modern period saw the rise of Continental Philosophy, Hegelianism,
Transcendentalism, Existentialism, Marxism, Modernism, Positivism, Utilitarianism, Pragmatism, Analytic Philosophy,
Logical Positivism, Ordinary Language Philosophy, Logicism, Phenomenology, and the more contemporary Structuralism,
Post-Structuralism, Post-Modernism and Deconstructionism, among others.

Karl Heinrich Marx (1818 - 1883) was a German philosopher, political theorist and revolutionary of the 19th Century.
Both a scholar and a political activist, Marx is often called the father of Communism, and certainly his Marxist theory
provided the intellectual base for various subsequent forms of Communism. Marxism, the philosophical and political
school or tradition his work gave rise to, is a variety of radical or revolutionary Socialism conceived as a reaction against
the rampant Capitalism and Liberalism of 19th Century Europe, with working class self-emancipation as its goal. Among
other things, he is known for his analysis of history (particularly his concept of historical materialism) and the search for
a systemic understanding of socioeconomic change. Although a relatively obscure figure in his own lifetime, his ideas
began to exert a major influence on workers' movements shortly after his death, especially with the Russian Revolution
of 1917. Despite the numerous debates among Marxists (and among political philosophers in general) over how to
interpret Marx's writings and how to apply his concepts to current events and conditions, there are few parts of the
world which have not been significantly touched by Marx's ideas over the course of the 20th Century.
William James (1842 - 1910) was a 20th Century American philosopher and psychologist, and is generally considered
one of the most influential of all American philosophers.

Along with Charles Sanders Peirce and John Dewey, he is recognized as one of the founders of the largely American
philosophical school of Pragmatism. He was also a believer in the philosophical doctrines of Voluntarism, Fideism and
what he called Radical Empiricism. He influenced generations of thinkers in Europe and America, including Edmund
Husserl, Bertrand Russell, John Dewey and Ludwig Wittgenstein.

In addition to his work in philosophy, he wrote influential books on the young science of psychology (especially
educational psychology and the psychology of religious experience and mysticism). He was a strong proponent of the
psychological school of Functionalism, and is often credited with the discovery of the subconscious, long before Sigmund
Freud's seminal work on the unconscious.

He was a founder of the American Society for Psychical Research, as well as a champion of alternative approaches to
healing.

John Stuart Mill (1806 - 1873) was an English philosopher, political economist and Member of Parliament of the early
Modern period.

His philosophical roots were in the British Empiricism of John Locke, George Berkeley and David Hume. But he is best
known for his further development of the Utilitarian theory of his teacher, Jeremy Bentham, which he popularized as a
movement and of which he became the best known exponent and apologist.

He was instrumental in the development of progressive political doctrines such as Socialism, Libertarianism and
Feminism, and he was active in calling for political and social reforms such as the abolition of the slave trade, universal
suffrage, labour unions and farm cooperatives.

He was perhaps the most influential English-speaking philosopher and liberal thinker of the 19th Century, and he made
important contributions to British thought, especially in Ethics and Political Philosophy.

Charles Sanders Peirce (often known as C. S. Peirce) (1839 - 1914) was a 20th Century American philosopher, logician,
mathematician and scientist, and is considered among the greatest of American minds.

He is best known as the founder of the largely American philosophical school of Pragmatism, which was later
popularized by his life-long friend William James and his one-time student John Dewey, although his contributions to the
development of modern Logic were also of the first order.

He was largely ignored during his lifetime (secondary literature was scant until long after World War II), and much of his
huge output is still unpublished.

Gilbert Ryle (1900 - 1976) was a 20th Century British philosopher, mainly associated with the Ordinary Language
Philosophy movement.

He had an enormous influence on the development of 20th Century Analytic Philosophy, particularly in the areas of
Philosophy of Mind and Philosophy of Language.

He was especially well-known for his definitive critique of the Dualism of Descartes (for which he coined the phrase "the
ghost in the machine") and other traditional mind-body theories. His form of Philosophical Behaviourism (the belief that
all mental phenomena can be explained by reference to publicly observable behaviour) became a standard view for
several decades.
Post-Modernism

is a broad movement in late 20th Century philosophy and the arts, marked in general terms by an openness to
meaning and authority from unexpected places, and a willingness to borrow unashamedly from previous movements or
traditions. It is often defined negatively as a reaction or opposition to the equally ill-defined Modernism, although some
claim that it represents a whole new paradigm in intellectual thought.

The term "Post-Modernism" (literally "after Modernism") originated in architecture to denote a reactionary movement
against the perceived blandness and hostility of the Modernist movement, and also against the pretensions of high
Modernism, with its pursuit of an ideal perfection, harmony of form and function, and dismissal of frivolous
ornamentation. It came to be used in art, music and literature (and, by analogy, in philosophy) for any pluralistic or
reactionary style that is often more ornamental than Modernism, and which is not afraid to borrow from previous
artistic styles, often in a playful or ironic fashion. It tends to lack a clear central hierarchy or organizing principle,
although it often embodies extreme complexity, contradiction, ambiguity, diversity and inter-connectedness or inter-
referentiality, and is typically marked by a revival of traditional elements and techniques.

Some see Post-Modernism as just another phase in the continued unfolding of Modernism; some see it as a complete
replacement for, and backlash against, Modernism. The burgeoning anti-establishment movements of the 1960s can be
considered as the constituting event of Post-Modernism in a more general sense. With the current wide availability of
the Internet, mobile phones, interactive television, etc, and the instantaneous, direct, shallow and often superficial
participation in culture they allow, some commentators have even posited that we are now entering the Post-Post-
Modern period.

In Philosophy specifically, Post-Modernism was heavily influenced by Continental Philosophy movements like
Phenomenology, Structuralism and Existentialism, and it is generally skeptical of many of the values and bases of
Analytic Philosophy. It is generally viewed as an openness to meaning and authority from unexpected places, so that the
ultimate source of authority is the actual "play" of the discourse itself. It can be considered a "pick-and-mix" approach,
whereby basic problems are approachable from a wide range of theoretical perspectives.

Post-Modernism is a broad and non-specific movement (if it can be described as a movement at all), and movements
like Deconstructionism and Post-Structuralism (among others) can both be considered Post-Modernist. Post-Modernists
often defend themselves from criticisms of philosophical incompetence and excessive informality by claiming that they
take a "wider" view of what philosophy is, that their use of academic jargon is necessary to communicate their ideas,
and that their critics simply do not understand their work.

Among the best-known Post-Modernist philosophers are Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Jean-Franois Lyotard (1924 -
1998), Richard Rorty (1931 - 2007), Jean Baudrillard (1929 - 2007) and Roland Barthes (1915 - 1980). Lyotard is perhaps
one of the most identifiable Post-Modernists, and he has described Post-Modernism as a condition of the present state
of culture, social structure and self. He is largely concerned with the role of narrative in human culture, and particularly
how that role has changed as we have left modernity and entered a post-industrial or post-modern condition.
Baudrillard has argued that we live in a "hyperreal", post-modern, post-industrial, post-everything sort of a world, and
global reality has become dominated by an internationalized popular culture to such an extent that people have great
difficulty deciding what is real.
Michel Foucault (1926 - 1984) was a French philosopher, historian, critic and sociologist, often associated with the 20th
Century Structuralism, Post-Structuralism and Post-Modernism movements (although he himself always rejected such
labels).

He was no stranger to controversy, and he was notorious for his radical leftist politics. Although not without his critics,
he has however had a profound influence on a diverse range of disciplines.

Jacques Derrida (1930 - 2004) was a 20th Century Algerian-born French philosopher, best known as the founder of the
Deconstructionism movement in the 1960s, and for his profound impact on Continental Philosophy and literary theory in
general. He deliberately distanced himself from the other philosophical movements on the French intellectual scene
(e.g. Phenomenology, Existentialism, Structuralism), and denied that Deconstructionism was a method or school or
doctrine of philosophy of any sort.

He was a prolific author and became one of the most well known philosophers of contemporary times. His work was
always highly cerebral and "difficult", and he has often been accused of pseudophilosophy, sophistry and deliberate
obscurantism.