LICEO DE LUISIANA

S.Y 2019-2020

PHILOSOPHY

ARVIE LEAL
GRADE 12 ST.FAUSTINA OF KOWALSKA
 ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY
Arose in the 6th century BC and continued throughout the Hellenistic period and the period in
which Greece and most Greek-inhabited lands were part of the Roman Empire.
Is philosophy in antiquity, or before the end of the Roman Empire. It usually refers to
ancient Greek philosophy. It can also encompass various other intellectual traditions, such
as Chinese philosophy, Indian philosophy, and Iranian philosophy. Ancient philosophies are
generally deeply rooted in religious traditions. Accordingly, ancient philosophies have a
comprehensive outlook as opposed to modern or contemporary philosophies, which tend to
have more narrow methodologies and areas of focus.
(Reference: https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Ancient_Philosophy)

3 ANCIENT GREEK PHILOSOPHERS

SOCRATES (c. 469-399 BCE)

(“Strong minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, weak minds discuss people.”)
Born circa 469 BCE in Athens, Greece. One of the greatest Greek philosophers. He did not
propose any specific knowledge or policy. He showed how argument, debate,
and discussion could help men to understand difficult issues. Most of the issues he dealt with
were only political on the surface. Underneath, they were moral questions about how life
should be lived. Such is the influence of Socrates that philosophers before him are called
the Presocratic philosophers.
Before Socrates's execution, friends offered to bribe the guards and rescue him so he could
flee into exile. He declined, stating he wasn't afraid of death, felt he would be no better off if in
exile and said he was still a loyal citizen of Athens, willing to abide by its laws, even the ones
that condemned him to death. Plato described Socrates' execution in his Phaedo dialogue:
Socrates drank the hemlock mixture without hesitation. Numbness slowly crept into his body
until it reached his heart. Shortly before his final breath, Socrates described his death as a
release of the soul from the body.(Reference: https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socrates)

SOCRATIC METHOD
For Socrates, Athens was a classroom and he went about asking questions of the elite and
common man alike, seeking to arrive at political and ethical truths. Socrates didn’t lecture
about what he knew. In fact, he claimed to be ignorant because he had no ideas, but wise
because he recognized his own ignorance. He asked questions of his fellow Athenians in a
dialectic method - the Socratic Method - which compelled the audience to think through a
problem to a logical conclusion. Sometimes the answer seemed so obvious, it made Socrates's
opponents look foolish. For this, his Socratic Method was admired by some and vilified by
others. During Socrates's life, Athens was going through a dramatic transition from hegemony
in the classical world to its decline after a humiliating defeat by Sparta in the Peloponnesian
War. Athenians entered a period of instability and doubt about their identity and place in the
world. As a result, they clung to past glories, notions of wealth, and a fixation with physical
beauty. Socrates attacked these values with his insistent emphasis on the greater importance of
the mind. While many Athenians admired Socrates's challenges to Greek conventional wisdom
and the humorous way he went about it, an equal number grew angry and felt he threatened
their way of life and uncertain future. (Reference: https://www.biography.com/scholar/socrates)
PLATO  (c. 428-348 BCE)

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(“We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of
the light.”)
Born circa 428 B.C.E., ancient Greek philosopher Plato was a student of Socrates and a
teacher of Aristotle. His writings explored justice, beauty and equality, and also contained
discussions in aethetics, political philosophy, theology, cosmology, epistemology and the
philosophy of language. Plato founded the Academy in Athens, one of the first institutions of
higher learning in the Western world. He died in Athens circa 348 B.C.E. After Socrates's death,
Plato traveled for 12 years throughout the Mediterranean region, studying mathematics with
the Pythagoreans in Italy, and geometry, geology, astronomy and religion in Egypt. During this
time, or soon after, he began his extensive writing. There is some debate among scholars on the
order of these writings, but most believe they fall into three distinct periods.
(Reference: https://www.biography.com/scholar/plato)

PHILOSOPHY OF PLATO
Plato is perhaps the first philosopher whose complete works are still available to us. He
wrote no systematic treatises giving his views, but rather he wrote a number (about 35,
although the authenticity of at least some of these remains in doubt) of superb dialogues,
written in the form of conversations, a form which permitted him to develop the Socratic
method of question and answer. In his dialogues, Plato discussed every kind of philosophical
idea, including Ethics (with discussion of the nature of virtue), Metaphysics (where topics include
immortality, man, mind, and Realism), Political Philosophy (where topics such as censorship and
the ideal state are discussed), Philosophy of Religion (considering topics such
as Atheism, Dualism and Pantheism), Epistemology (where he looked at ideas such as a priori
knowledge and Rationalism), the Philosophy of Mathematics and the Theory of Art (especially
dance, music, poetry, architecture and drama).
(Reference: https://www.philosophybasics.com/philosophers_plato.html )

DEMOCRITUS (Born c. 460 BCE—Died c. 370)
Ancient Greek philosopher, a central figure in the development of philosophical atomism and
of the atomic theory of the universe. Knowledge of Democritus’s life is largely limited to
untrustworthy tradition. It seems that he was a wealthy citizen of Abdera, in Thrace; that he
traveled widely in the East; and that he lived to an advanced age. According to Diogenes
Laërtius (flourished 3rd century CE), his works numbered 73; only a few hundred fragments
have survived, mostly from his treatises on ethics.
(Reference: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Democritus)

PHILOSOPICAL ATOMISM ( DEMOCRITUS )

In philosophical atomism, which is as old as Greek philosophy, attention was focused not on
the detailed explanation of all kinds of concrete phenomena but on some basic general aspects
of these phenomena and on the general lines according to which a rational explanation of these
aspects was possible. These basic aspects were the existence in nature of a manifold of
different forms and of continuous change. In what way could these features be explained?
Philosophical atomism offered a general answer to that question. It did not, however, strictly
confine itself to the general problem of explaining the possibility of change and multiplicity—
not even in ancient Greek atomism, for in Greek thought philosophy and science still formed a

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unity. Consequently, atomists also tried to give more detailed explanations of concrete
phenomena, such as evaporation, though these explanations were meant more to endorse the
general doctrine of atomism than to establish a physical theory in the modern sense of the
word. Such a theory was not yet possible, because a physical theory must be based upon
indirect or direct information about the concrete properties of the atoms involved, and such
information was not then available. (Reference: https://www.britannica.com/topic/atomism#ref561390)

MEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHY
Medieval philosophy is a term used to refer to the philosophy that existed through
the Middle Ages, the period roughly extending from the fall of the Western Roman Empire in
the 5th century to the Renaissance in the 15th century. Medieval philosophy, understood as a
project of independent philosophical inquiry, began in Baghdad, in the middle of the 8th
century, and in France, in the itinerant court of Charlemagne, in the last quarter of the 8th
century. It is defined partly by the process of rediscovering the ancient culture developed
in Greece and Rome during the Classical period, and partly by the need to address theological
problems and to integrate sacred doctrine with secular learning.The history of medieval
philosophy is traditionally divided into two main periods: the period in the Latin West following
the Early Middle Ages until the 12th century, when the works
of Aristotle and Plato were rediscovered, translated, and studied upon, and the "golden age" of
the 12th, 13th and 14th centuries in the Latin West, which witnessed the culmination of the
recovery of ancient philosophy, along with the reception of its Arabic commentators, and
significant developments in the fields of philosophy of religion, logic, and metaphysics.
The Medieval Era was disparagingly treated by the Renaissance humanists, who saw it as a
barbaric "middle period" between the Classical age of Greek and Roman culture, and
the rebirth or renaissance of Classical culture. Modern historians consider the medieval era to
be one of philosophical development, heavily influenced by Christian theology. One of the most
notable thinkers of the era, Thomas of Aquinas, never considered himself a philosopher, and
criticized philosophers for always "falling short of the true and proper wisdom". ]The problems
discussed throughout this period are the relation of faith to reason,
the existence and simplicity of God, the purpose of theology and metaphysics, and
the problems of knowledge, of universals, and of individuation.
(Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_philosophy )

3 MEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHER
AUGUSTINE: CHRISTIAN PLATONISM ( 13 November 354 AD- 28 August 430 AD )
St. Augustine is a fourth century philosopher whose groundbreaking philosophy infused
Christian doctrine with Neoplatonism.   He is famous for being an inimitable Catholic theologian
and for his agnostic contributions to Western philosophy. He argues that skeptics have no basis
for claiming to know that there is no knowledge.  In a proof for existence similar to one later
made famous by René Descartes, Augustine says, “[Even] If I am mistaken, I am.” He is the first
Western philosopher to promote what has come to be called "the argument by analogy"
against solipsism: there are bodies external to mine that behave as I behave and that appear to

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be nourished as mine is nourished; so, by analogy, I am justified in believing that these bodies
have a similar mental life to mine. Augustine believes reason to be a uniquely human cognitive
capacity that comprehends deductive truths and logical necessity. Additionally, Augustine
adopts a subjective view of time and says that time is nothing in reality but exists only in the
human mind’s apprehension of reality. He believes that time is not infinite because God“
created” it.
Augustine tries to reconcile his beliefs about freewill, especially the belief that humans
are morally responsible for their actions, with his belief that one’s life is predestined. Though
initially optimistic about the ability of humans to behave morally, at the end he is pessimistic,
and thinks that original sin makes human moral behavior nearly impossible: if it were not for
the rare appearance of an accidental and undeserved Grace of God, humans could not be
moral. Augustine’s theological discussion of freewill is relevant to a non-religious discussion
regardless of the religious-specific language he uses; one can switch Augustine’s “omnipotent
being” and “original sin” explanation of predestination for the present day “biology”
explanation of predestination; the latter tendency is apparent in modern slogans such as
“biology is destiny.”
(Reference: https://www.iep.utm.edu/augustin/)

HUMAN LIFE ( AUGUSTINE )

Although Augustine was significantly influenced by the moral philosophy of Cicero, he
generally argued that the Stoics were excessively optimistic in their assessment of human
nature. One of Augustine's central contributions to the development of Christian theology was
his heavy emphasis on the reality of human evil. Each one of us, he believed, is sinful by nature,
and the account of his own life provided in the early portions of the Confessions makes it clear
that he did not suppose himself to be an exception.If, as Augustine certainly believed, the world
and everything in it is the creation of a perfectly good god, then how can the human beings
who constitute so prominent a part of that creation be inherently evil? Like Plato and Plotinus,
but unlike the Manichaeans, Augustine now argued that evil is not anything real, but rather is
merely the absence of good. Creation of human beings who have the freedom to decide how to
act on their own, he maintained, is so vital a part of the divine plan for the cosmos that it
outweighs the obvious consequence that we nearly always choose badly. But if human beings
begin with original sin and are therefore inherently evil, what is the point of morality?
Augustine held that the classical attempts to achieve virtue by discipline, training, and reason
are all boud to fail. Thus, the redemptive action of god's grace alone offers hope. Again using
his own life as an example, Augustine maintained that we can do nothing but wait for god to
work with us in the production of a worthwhile life. (Our happiness never enters into the
picture.)
(Reference: http://www.philosophypages.com/hy/3b.htm)

BOETHIUS ( c. AD 477 )
Saint Anicius Manlius Severinus Boëthius, commonly called Boethius (/boʊˈiːθiəs/;
also Boetius /-ʃəs/; c. 477–524 AD), was a Roman senator, consul, magister officiorum,
and philosopher of the early 6th century. He was born about a year after Odoacer deposed the
last Roman Emperor and declared himself King of Italy. Boethius entered public service
under Ostrogothic King Theodoric the Great, who later imprisoned and executed him in 524 on

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charges of conspiracy to overthrow him. While jailed, Boethius composed his Consolation of
Philosophy, a philosophical treatise on fortune, death, and other issues, which became one of
the most popular and influential works of the Middle Ages. As the author of
numerous handbooks and translator of Aristotle, he became the main intermediary
between Classical antiquity and following centuries.
(Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boethius)

THE CONSOLATION OF PHILOSOPHY ( BOETHIUS )

The Consolation of Philosophy was written in AD 523 during a one-year imprisonment
Boethius served while awaiting trial – and eventual execution – for the alleged crime
of treason under the Ostrogothic King Theodoric the Great. Boethius was at the very heights of
power in Rome, holding the prestigious office of magister officiorum, and was brought down by
treachery. This experience inspired the text, which reflects on how evil can exist in a world
governed by God (the problem of theodicy), and how happiness is still attainable amidst fickle
fortune, while also considering the nature of happiness and God. It has been described as "by
far the most interesting example of prison literature the world has ever seen." A link to
Christianity is often assumed, yet there is no reference made to Jesus Christ or Christianity or
any other specific religion other than a few oblique references to Pauline scripture, such as the
symmetry between the opening lines of Book 4 Chapter 3 and 1 Corinthians 9:24. God is
however represented not only as an eternal and all-knowing being, but as the source of all
Good. Boethius writes the book as a conversation between himself and Lady Philosophy. Lady
Philosophy consoles Boethius by discussing the transitory nature of fame and wealth ("no man
can ever truly be secure until he has been forsaken by Fortune"), and the ultimate superiority of
things of the mind, which she calls the "one true good". She contends that happiness comes
from within, and that virtue is all that one truly has, because it is not imperilled by the
vicissitudes of fortune. Boethius engages questions such as the nature
of predestination and free will, why evil men often prosper and good men fall into ruin, human
nature, virtue, and justice. He speaks about the nature of free will and determinism when he
asks if God knows and sees all, or does man have free will. On human nature, Boethius says that
humans are essentially good and only when they give in to “wickedness” do they “sink to the
level of being an animal.” On justice, he says criminals are not to be abused, rather treated with
sympathy and respect, using the analogy of doctor and patient to illustrate the ideal
relationship between prosecutor and criminal.
In the Consolation, Boethius answered religious questions without reference to Christianity,
relying solely on natural philosophy and the Classical Greek tradition. He believed in the
correspondence between faith and reason. The truths found in Christianity would be no
different from the truths found in philosophy. In the words of Henry Chadwick, "If
the Consolation contains nothing distinctively Christian, it is also relevant that it contains
nothing specifically pagan either...[it] is a work written by a Platonist who is also a
Christian."[6]Boethius repeats the Macrobius' model of the Earth in the center of a spherical
cosmos.
(Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Consolation_of_Philosophy )

Saint Anselm of Canterbury (Born 1033/34)

Died April 21, 1109, possibly at Canterbury, Kent, England, feast day April 21), Italian-born
theologian and philosopher, known as the father of Scholasticism, a philosophical school of
thought that dominated the Middle Ages. He was recognized in modern times as the originator
of the ontological argument for the existence of God (based on the idea of an absolutely perfect
being, the fact of the idea being in itself a demonstration of existence) and the satisfaction
theory of the atonement or redemption (based on the feudal theory of making satisfaction or
recompense according to the status of a person against whom an offense has been committed,
the infinite God being the offended party and humanity the offender). There is incomplete
evidence that he was canonized in 1163, though some scholars contend that he was canonized
by Pope Alexander VI in 1494. (Reference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proslogion)

PROSLOGION (ANSELM)
The Proslogion is the source for Anselm's famous and highly controversial ontological
arguments for the existence of God. Anselm's first and most famous argument is found at the
end of chapter 2 of the Proslogion; whereas, his second argument is found shortly afterward.
While opinions concerning Anselm's twin ontological arguments differ widely (and have been
from the moment the Proslogion was written), it is generally agreed that the argument is most
convincing to Anselm's intended audience: that is, Christian believers seeking a rational basis
for their belief in God.
The excitement this argument has inspired over the last thousand years is emphasized by the
simple fact that nobody has ever given a well formed and generally accepted refutation of the
argument. Immanuel Kant gave his own objection, though it was not aimed specifically at
Anselm's argument, but all ontological arguments. In facts it's actually unclear as to whether
Kant had Anselm in mind at all. Kant's objection is famously put 'existence is not a predicate'. If
Kant were considering Anselm's work in his analysis, he certainly leaves it up to the reader to
grasp the applicability of the objection. One possible interpretation is to say that, because
existence is not a predicate, a being that exists could not be said to be greater than one that
does not exist, they would be equal. Kant's objection is not commonly accepted however,
possibly because, despite existence possibly being not a predicate or maybe a unique one
anyhow, it is very easy to see how an existent God would be greater than a non-existent one.
(Reference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proslogion)

MODERN PHILOSOPHY
Modern philosophy is philosophy developed in the modern era and associated
with modernity. It is not a specific doctrine or school (and thus should not be confused
with Modernism), although there are certain assumptions common to much of it, which helps
to distinguish it from earlier philosophy. The 17th and early 20th centuries roughly mark the
beginning and the end of modern philosophy. How much of the Renaissance should be included
is a matter for dispute; likewise modernity may or may not have ended in the twentieth century
and been replaced by postmodernity. How one decides these questions will determine the
scope of one's use of "modern philosophy."
(Reference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_philosophy)

RATIONALIST IN MODERN PHILOSOPHY

RENE DESCARTES (31 March 1596 – 11 February 1650)

A French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist. A native of the Kingdom of France, he
spent about 20 years (1629–1649) of his life in the Dutch Republic after serving for a while in
the Dutch States Army of Maurice of Nassau, Prince of Orange and the Stadtholder of
the United Provinces. One of the most notable intellectual figures of the Dutch Golden Age,
[18]
 Descartes is also widely regarded as one of the founders of modern philosophy.
(Reference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Descartes)

PRINCIPLES OF PHILOSOPHY (RENE DESCARTES)

Principles of Philosophy (Latin: Principia Philosophiæ) is a book by René Descartes. In 6
essence it is a synthesis of the Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy[1] It
was written in Latin, published in 1644 and dedicated to Elisabeth of Bohemia, with whom
Descartes had a long-standing friendship. A French version (Les Principes de la Philosophie)
followed in 1647. It set forth the principles of nature—the Laws of Physics—as Descartes
viewed them. Most notably, it set forth the principle that in the absence of external forces, an
object's motion will be uniform and in a straight line. Newton borrowed this principle from
Descartes and included it in his own Principia; to this day, it is still generally referred to
as Newton's First Law of Motion.[2] The book was primarily intended to replace
the Aristotelian curriculum then used in French and British universities. The work provides a
systematic statement of his metaphysics and natural philosophy, and represents the first truly
comprehensive, mechanistic account of the universe.
(Reference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Descartes)

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1 July 1646 )

Was a prominent German polymath and philosopher in the history of mathematics and
the history of philosophy. His most notable accomplishment was conceiving the ideas
of differential and integral calculus, independently of Isaac Newton's contemporaneous
developments.[16] Mathematical works have generally favored Leibniz's notation as the
conventional expression of calculus. It was only in the 20th century that Leibniz's law of
continuity and transcendental law of homogeneity found mathematical implementation (by
means of non-standard analysis). He became one of the most prolific inventors in the field
of mechanical calculators. While working on adding automatic multiplication and division
to Pascal's calculator, he was the first to describe a pinwheel calculator in 1685[17] and invented
the Leibniz wheel, used in the arithmometer, the first mass-produced mechanical calculator. He
also refined the binary number system, which is the foundation of all digital computers.
(Reference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gottfried_Wilhelm_Leibniz#Philosopher)

PRINCIPLE OF SUFFICIENT REASON

The principle of sufficient reason states that everything must have a reason or a cause. The
modern[1] formulation of the principle is usually attributed to Gottfried Leibniz,[2] although the
idea was conceived of and utilized by various philosophers who preceded him,
including Anaximander,[3] Parmenides, Archimedes,[4] Plato and Aristotle,[5] Cicero,[5] Avicenna,[6] 
Thomas Aquinas, and Spinoza.[7]Some philosophers have associated the principle of sufficient
reason with "ex nihilo nihil fit".[8][9] Hamilton identified the laws of inference modus ponens with
the "law of Sufficient Reason, or of Reason and Consequent" and modus tollens with
its contrapositive expression.
(Reference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_sufficient_reason)
 EMPIRICIST IN MODERN PHILOSOPHY

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JOHN LOCKE (1632—1704)
Was an English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential
of Enlightenment thinkers and commonly known as the "Father of Liberalism". Considered one
of the first of the British empiricists, following the tradition of Sir Francis Bacon, he is equally
important to social contract theory. His work greatly affected the development
of epistemology and political philosophy. His writings influenced Voltaire and Jean-Jacques
Rousseau, many Scottish Enlightenment thinkers, as well as the American revolutionaries. His
contributions to classical republicanism and liberal theory are reflected in the United States
Declaration of Independence.
(Referencehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Locke#Philosophy_From_Religion)
Locke’s Political Philosophy
John Locke (1632–1704) is among the most influential political philosophers of the modern
period. In the Two Treatises of Government, he defended the claim that men are by nature free
and equal against claims that God had made all people naturally subject to a monarch. He
argued that people have rights, such as the right to life, liberty, and property, that have a
foundation independent of the laws of any particular society. Locke used the claim that men
are naturally free and equal as part of the justification for understanding legitimate political
government as the result of a social contract where people in the state of nature conditionally
transfer some of their rights to the government in order to better ensure the stable,
comfortable enjoyment of their lives, liberty, and property. Since governments exist by the
consent of the people in order to protect the rights of the people and promote the public good,
governments that fail to do so can be resisted and replaced with new governments. Locke is
thus also important for his defense of the right of revolution. Locke also defends the principle
of majority rule and the separation of legislative and executive powers. In the Letter Concerning
Toleration, Locke denied that coercion should be used to bring people to (what the ruler
believes is) the true religion and also denied that churches should have any coercive power
over their members. Locke elaborated on these themes in his later political writings, such as
the Second Letter on Toleration and Third Letter on Toleration.
(Reference https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/locke-political/ )

GEORGE BERKELY ( 1685-1753 )

Was an Irish philosopher whose primary achievement was the advancement of a theory he
called "immaterialism" (later referred to as "subjective idealism" by others). This theory denies
the existence of material substance and instead contends that familiar objects like tables and
chairs are only ideas in the minds of perceivers and, as a result, cannot exist without being
perceived. Berkeley is also known for his critique of abstraction, an important premise in his
argument for immaterialism. Berkeley was the namesake of the city of Berkeley, California,
which is most famous as the home of the University of California, Berkeley.
(Reference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Berkeley )

CARTESIANIST THEORY (GEORGE BERKELY)

Berkeley was not just attacking Locke, but Descartes and Malebranche too. In Malebranche,
we could find the view that there is no interaction and that God produces the appropriate
sensations in us on the occasion of the presence of material objects (= occasionalism). This
theory was attractive to Berkeley in that it brought God to the centre of things while a more
orthodox materialist system tended to push him to the background. However, to the problem
of justifying belief in external objects it added the further problem of explaining why God
should needed to create objects which played no causal role. In Berkeley’s philosophical
system, a new meaning is given to Malebranche’s rather obscure doctrine that we see all things
in God, God emerging as the sole possible cause of our sense experiences and as the
omnipresent perceiver in whose mind sensible objects can be said to exist even when no finite
spirit perceives them.
(Reference https://www.the-philosophy.com/george-berkeley-philosophy)

CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHY
Contemporary philosophy is the present period in the history of Western
philosophy beginning at the early 20th century with the increasing professionalization of the
discipline and the rise of analytic and continental philosophy. The phrase "contemporary
philosophy" is a piece of technical terminology in philosophy that refers to a specific period in
the history of Western philosophy(namely the philosophy of the 20th and 21st
centuries). However, the phrase is often confused with modern philosophy (which refers to an
earlier period in Western philosophy), postmodern philosophy (which refers to continental
philosophers' criticisms of modern philosophy), and with a non-technical use of the phrase
referring to any recent philosophic work.(Reference https://www.the-philosophy.com/george-
berkeley-philosophy)

3 CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHER
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (1942)
Is an Indian scholar, literary theorist, and feminist critics. She is a University Professor at
the Columbia University and a founding member of the establishment's Institute for
Comparative Literature and Society. Considered one of the most
influential postcolonial intellectuals, Spivak is best known for her essay "Can the Subaltern
Speak?" and for her translation of and introduction to Jacques Derrida's De la
grammatologie. She also translated such works of Mahasweta Devi as Imaginary
Maps and Breast Stories into English and with separate critical appreciation on the texts and
Devi's life and writing style in general. Spivak was awarded the 2012 Kyoto Prize in Arts and
Philosophy for being "a critical theorist and educator speaking for the humanities against
intellectual colonialism in relation to the globalized world. In 2013, she received the Padma
Bhushan, the third highest civilian award given by the Republic of India.(Reference
https://theculturetrip.com/europe/united-kingdom/articles/top-10-living-philosophers/)

Strategic essentialism (Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak)

A major concept in postcolonial theory, was introduced in the 1980s by the Indian literary
critic and theorist Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak.  It refers to a political tactic in which minority
groups, nationalities, or ethnic groups mobilize on the basis of shared gendered, cultural, or
political identity to represent themselves. While strong differences may exist between
members of these groups, and amongst themselves they engage in continuous debates, it is
sometimes advantageous for them to temporarily "essentialize" themselves and to bring
forward their group identity in a simplified way to achieve certain goals, such as equal
rights or antiglobalization. Spivak's understanding of the term was first introduced in the
context of cultural negotiations, never as an anthropological category. In her 2008 book Other
Asia, Spivak disavowed the term, indicating her dissatisfaction with how the term has been
deployed in nationalist enterprises to promote (non-strategic) essentialism. The concept also
comes up reguarly in queer theory, feminist theory, deaf studies,[6] and specifically in the work
of Luce Irigaray, who refers to it as mimesis(Reference
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_essentialism)

CORNEL WEST (1953)

Is an American philosopher, political activist, social critic, author, and public intellectual. The
son of a Baptist minister, West focuses on the role of race, gender, and class in American
society and the means by which people act and react to their "radical conditionedness".
A radical democrat and democratic socialist, West draws intellectual contributions from
multiple traditions, including Christianity, the black church, Marxism, neopragmatism,
and transcendentalism. Among his most influential books are Race Matters (1994)
and Democracy Matters(2004). (Reference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornel_West)

BLACK CHURCH (WEST CORNER)

The term black church or African-American church refers to Protestant churches that
currently or historically have ministered to predominantly black congregations in the United
States. While some black churches belong to predominantly African-American denominations,
such as the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME), many black churches are members of
predominantly white denominations, such as the United Church of Christ (which developed
from the Congregational Church of New England) Most of the first black congregations and
churches formed before 1800 were founded by free blacks – for example, in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania; Springfield Baptist Church (Augusta, Georgia); Petersburg, Virginia;
and Savannah, Georgia. The oldest black Baptist church in Kentucky, and third oldest in the
United States, was founded about 1790 by the slave Peter Durrett.
After slavery was abolished, segregationist attitudes in both the North and the South
discouraged and even prevented African Americans from worshiping in the same churches as
whites. Freed blacks most often established congregations and church facilities separate from
their white neighbors, who were often their former masters. These new churches created
communities and worship practices that were culturally distinct from other churches, including
forms of Christianity that derived from African spiritual traditions. (Reference
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_church) 10

Martha Craven Nussbaum (1947)

is an American philosopher and the current Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of
Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago, where she is jointly appointed in the law school and
the philosophy department. She has a particular interest in ancient Greek and Roman
philosophy, political philosophy, feminism, and ethics, including animal rights. She also holds
associate appointments in classics, divinity, and political science, is a member of the Committee
on Southern Asian Studies, and a board member of the Human Rights Program. She previously
taught at Harvard and Brown. . (Reference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha_Nussbaum)

The Fragility of Goodness (Martha Craven Nussbaum)

Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy ]confronts the ethical dilemma that
individuals strongly committed to justice are nevertheless vulnerable to external factors that
may deeply compromise or even negate their human flourishing. Discussing literary as well as
philosophical texts, Nussbaum seeks to determine the extent to which reason may enable self-
sufficiency. She eventually rejects the Platonic notion that human goodness can fully protect
against peril, siding with the tragic playwrights and Aristotle in treating the acknowledgment of
vulnerability as a key to realizing the human good. Her interpretation of Plato's Symposium in
particular drew considerable attention. Under Nussbaum's consciousness of vulnerability, the
re-entrance of Alcibiades at the end of the dialogue undermines Diotima's account of the
ladder of love in its ascent to the non-physical realm of the forms. Alcibiades's presence
deflects attention back to physical beauty, sexual passions, and bodily limitations, hence
highlighting human fragility. Fragility brought attention to Nussbaum throughout the
humanities. It garnered wide praise in academic reviews, and even drew acclaim in the popular
media. Camille Paglia credited Fragility with matching "the highest academic standards" of the
twentieth century, and The Times Higher Education called it "a supremely scholarly
work". Nussbaum's reputation extended her influence beyond print and into television
programs like PBS's Bill Moyers. (Reference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha_Nussbaum)
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