Authors

Jesse Singcayawon, Ph.d

Chair, History Department

Adventist University of the Philippines

Roxie V,.Pido, MTH (In progress), LlB

instructor, Bible and Social Science Subjects

PREFACE

This book was written as a textbook for an introductory course in philosophy.

Since philosophy has evolved dramatically through times, events and places,
juxtapose many brand of philosophers produced, the authors decided to take
note of their contributions covering, if not all, perhaps, most of them, to provide a
touch of pride and a sense of justice to a student whose interest in finding
wisdom is as strong as those original lovers of wisdom herein described.

The subject matter has been shelved into different significant compartment of
issues so that the discussion of the same may be presented with ease and order.
Thus, questions are propounded at the beginning of every chapter which the
same are enhanced by brief historical background and explanations in order for
the reader to have an easy grasp of the different implications of the subject
matter to his day-to-day experience.

In order for a student to appreciate better his world-view, this book provides
exercises in different forms at the end of every chapter. Under the reflection’s
section, the authors carefully crafted questions that may lead a student not only
to a better reflection of his self but an introspection of his essence in the world he
lives.

It is hoped that this book could humbly provide an ever transcending benefits to
students in Philosophy, otherwise this book is nothing but vanity.

Jess Songcayawon
Roxie V. Pido
 CONTENTS

Preface

Introduction

Allegory of the Cave

Divisions of Philosophy

History of Philosophy

Reflection

Part 1

The Issue of Reality

Where does the term “metaphysics” come from?

Metaphysics and the Supernatural

Essence and Existence

Does freewill exist?

Reflection

Part II

The Issue of Knowledge

A short history of philosophy of knowledge

Heraclitus
Parmenides
The Sophists
Plato
Aristotle
Skepticism
Critique of Skepticism

What is Knowledge?

Problems of beliefs

Criteria of truth

The validity of human knowledge

Reflection

Part III

The Issue of Morality

Authoritarian Ethics

Rationalistic Ethics

Pragmatic Ethics

Applied Ethics

Marxist Ethics

Euthyphro

Reflection

Part IV

The Issue of Human Nature

Traditional View

Judeo-Christian View of Human nature

David Hume
Immanuel Kant

Oriental View

Buddha
Lao Tzu
Confucious
Islam

Part V

The Issue of Human Society

I. Idealist Point of View

Plato
Thomas Aquinas
John Locke

II. Materialist Point of View

Origin of human society

III. Socio-Economic Developments

Primitive communal society

Primitive slave society
Feudal Society
Capitalist society
Socialist society
Reflection

Part VI

The Issue of God’s Existence

The School of Agnosticism

The School of Atheism

Age of Enlightenment

The School of Theism

Introduction

What is Philosophy?

It is said that Philosophy begins when one starts to wonder. We wonder

who we really are. We sometimes ask the most important questions and
issues of life that everybody faces such as, Why am I here? Does this world
have a purpose? Does God exist? Is there life after death? What is the basis
for right and wrong? Why does evil exist? What makes a war a “just” war?
If you have ever wondered about the above topics or other issues like these
then you have already engaged in philosophy. In fact, these questions are
only part of the countless questions that drive man to fulfill his rationality in
his quest to find meaningful answers to his sense of purpose in life.

The innate behavior of man being inquisitive and at times confused are important
pieces that when put up together make up philosophy. Even small babies look at
us in wonder and awe when they behold our faces in smiles. And when children
start to talk, their expressions are full of questions like “Where is mommy or
daddy?” “How did daddy and mommy conceive me?” “Where does God reside?”
So man, in essence, is a “questioning” being. Is this philosophy?

The general attitude of questioning in man is the beginning of philosophy,

indeed. Because we cannot traverse the road to seeking answers or truth to
our questions in the absence of being confused or wondered, thus,
becoming confused and wondered are the beginning of philosophy. They
are the means to achieve the end of philosophy. The ancient Greek
philosopher Socrates declared, “Life without philosophy is inconceivable.”

What is philosophy? The word “philosophy” was first used by the Greek
thinker Pythagoras around 600 B.C. It comes from two Greek terms: Phileo
means “love” and Sophia means “wisdom.” Hence, Philosophy is, “love of
wisdom.” The word “love” in this definition is an active verb and not
passive. The object of love is wisdom. Since “love” is active, then a
particular effort must be exerted in order for one to go beyond the
standard of simply finding answers to our questions. Because wisdom is
never easy to find, particularly if one loses the drive of right attitude to
discover or find it. It is like searching for lost Nemo (finding Nemo) – the
famous tiny fish in an animated movie.

But others have said that philosophy is merely “thinking about thinking.” A
more formal definition is this – “Philosophy is the attempt to think
rationally and critically about the most important matters.” In the
eighteenth century A.D., Immanuel Kant stated that philosophy addresses
three main questions: What can I Know? What should I do? What may I
hope?

Why is philosophy so important? By and large, many of our religious, political, and
moral beliefs are beliefs that have entered into our system since childhood long
before we could question them or understand the reasons behind them. With
that definition of philosophy, philosophy examines these beliefs - whether there
are good reasons to retain or reject them and to avoid being conditioned by
others to believe them. So view the study of philosophy as a way to sharpen your
own thinking skills.
To understand better our quest for wisdom, here's a little story from Plato's most
famous book, The Republic. 

The Allegory of the Cave

The allegory of the cave presents a very powerful discussion between Socrates
and his young follower named Glaucon about a fable that Socrates brought into
to illustrate what it's like to be a philosopher -- a lover of wisdom.This fable claims
that most people, including ourselves, live in a world of relative ignorance with
ease and comfort, because it is all we know.  When we first start facing truth, the
process may be frightening, and many people run back to their old lives.  But if
you continue to seek truth, you will eventually be able to handle it better.  In fact,
you want more!  It's true that many people around you now may think you are
weird or even a danger to society, but you don't care.  Once you've tasted the
truth, you won't ever want to go back to being ignorant!

[Socrates is speaking with Glaucon]

[Socrates:]  And now, I said, let me show in a figure how far our nature is
enlightened or unenlightened: --Behold! human beings living in a underground
den, which has a mouth open towards the light and reaching all along the den;
here they have been from their childhood, and have their legs and necks chained
so that they cannot move, and can only see before them, being prevented by the
chains from turning round their heads. Above and behind them a fire is blazing at
a distance, and between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised way; and you
will see, if you look, a low wall built along the way, like the screen which
marionette players have in front of them, over which they show the puppets.

[Glaucon:]  I see.
And do you see, I said, men passing along the wall carrying all sorts of vessels, and
statues and figures of animals made of wood and stone and various materials,
which appear over the wall? Some of them are talking, others silent.

You have shown me a strange image, and they are strange prisoners.

Like ourselves, I replied; and they see only their own shadows, or the shadows of
one another, which the fire throws on the opposite wall of the cave?

True, he said; how could they see anything but the shadows if they were never
allowed to move their heads?

And of the objects which are being carried in like manner they would only see the
shadows?

Yes, he said.

And if they were able to converse with one another, would they not suppose that
they were naming what was actually before them?

Very true.
And suppose further that the prison had an echo which came from the other side,
would they not be sure to fancy when one of the passers-by spoke that the voice
which they heard came from the passing shadow?

No question, he replied.

To them, I said, the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the
images.

That is certain.

And now look again, and see what will naturally follow if the prisoners are
released and disabused of their error. At first, when any of them is liberated and
compelled suddenly to stand up and turn his neck round and walk and look
towards the light, he will suffer sharp pains; the glare will distress him, and he will
be unable to see the realities of which in his former state he had seen the
shadows; and then conceive someone saying to him, that what he saw before was
an illusion, but that now, when he is approaching nearer to being and his eye is
turned towards more real existence, he has a clearer vision, -what will be his
reply? And you may further imagine that his instructor is pointing to the objects
as they pass and requiring him to name them, -- will he not be perplexed? Will he
not fancy that the shadows which he formerly saw are truer than the objects
which are now shown to him?

Far truer.

And if he is compelled to look straight at the light, will he not have a pain in his
eyes which will make him turn away to take and take in the objects of vision
which he can see, and which he will conceive to be in reality clearer than the
things which are now being shown to him?

True, he said.

And suppose once more, that he is reluctantly dragged up a steep and rugged
ascent, and held fast until he's forced into the presence of the sun himself, is he
not likely to be pained and irritated? When he approaches the light his eyes will
be dazzled, and he will not be able to see anything at all of what are now called
realities.
Not all in a moment, he said.

He will require to grow accustomed to the sight of the upper world. And first he
will see the shadows best, next the reflections of men and other objects in the
water, and then the objects themselves; then he will gaze upon the light of the
moon and the stars and the spangled heaven; and he will see the sky and the
stars by night better than the sun or the light of the sun by day?

Certainly.

Last of he will be able to see the sun, and not mere reflections of him in the
water, but he will see him in his own proper place, and not in another; and he will
contemplate him as he is.

Certainly.

He will then proceed to argue that this is he who gives the season and the years,
and is the guardian of all that is in the visible world, and in a certain way the cause
of all things which he and his fellows have been accustomed to behold?

Clearly, he said, he would first see the sun and then reason about him.

And when he remembered his old habitation, and the wisdom of the den and his
fellow-prisoners, do you not suppose that he would felicitate himself on the
change, and pity them?

Certainly, he would.

And if they were in the habit of conferring honours among themselves on those
who were quickest to observe the passing shadows and to remark which of them
went before, and which followed after, and which were together; and who were
therefore best able to draw conclusions as to the future, do you think that he
would care for such honours and glories, or envy the possessors of them? Would
he not say with Homer,

Better to be the poor servant of a poor master, and to endure anything, rather
than think as they do and live after their manner?
Yes, he said, I think that he would rather suffer anything than entertain these
false notions and live in this miserable manner.

Imagine once more, I said, such an one coming suddenly out of the sun to be
replaced in his old situation; would he not be certain to have his eyes full of
darkness?

To be sure, he said.

And if there were a contest, and he had to compete in measuring the shadows
with the prisoners who had never moved out of the den, while his sight was still
weak, and before his eyes had become steady (and the time which would be
needed to acquire this new habit of sight might be very considerable) would he
not be ridiculous? Men would say of him that up he went and down he came
without his eyes; and that it was better not even to think of ascending; and if any
one tried to loose another and lead him up to the light, let them only catch the
offender, and they would put him to death.

No question, he said.

This entire allegory, I said, you may now append, dear Glaucon, to the previous
argument; the prison-house is the world of sight, the light of the fire is the sun,
and you will not misapprehend me if you interpret the journey upwards to be the
ascent of the soul into the intellectual world according to my poor belief, which,
at your desire, I have expressed whether rightly or wrongly God knows. But,
whether true or false, my opinion is that in the world of knowledge the idea of
good appears last of all, and is seen only with an effort; and, when seen, is also
inferred to be the universal author of all things beautiful and right, parent of light
and of the lord of light in this visible world, and the immediate source of reason
and truth in the intellectual; and that this is the power upon which he who would
act rationally, either in public or private life must have his eye fixed.

IMPLICATIONS

The persons depicted in this parable are called prisoners because they are
constrained by their cultural chains that prohibit them from seeing the true reality
or being in genuine communication with their fellow prisoners. They cannot
expand their vision of reality because their life-long cultural and mental chains
prevent them from seeing beyond set limits. To the prisoners, the shadows that
are being cast on the wall is identified as reality. In real life drama, “reality” in
this instance refers to ideas or truth to the prisoners for that matter, that are
constantly manipulated or ruined by mind-control experts, propagandists who
show them only shadow of things and force them to believe that they are reality.
But since they are not aware of their manipulation of reality, the reality of
shadows control their minds. The prisoners cannot communicate with each other,
except to confirm each others’ beliefs that the “shadows” are indeed real.

If on one hand, the prisoners are being unchained from his beliefs, he would find
it first a very painful experience. Bu if the prisoners, on the other hand, is shown a
“brighter” and “higher” side of reality, the unchained prisoner would still insist
that the shadows cast on the wall are more real than actual reality.

Expectedly, the prisoner would not dare move toward the “light” but rather wait
for others to offer it to him because this is the way he was brought up to or
conditioned by his mere beliefs. If the “light” of truth comes to him he would
completely be in a state of great despair and at times irritable because none of his
old realities are available to him.

As more of true reality revealed to him, things similar to the “shadows” of his old
reality will first be more apparent. Less “radiant” aspects of genuine reality will be
most easily discerned by him.

Only gradually will the true light of reality which is the “sun” become visible to
him. He will see that the “sun” is the cause of all discernment, inside and outside
the cave. When he realizes the truth about reality, he will pity for those still in the
cave of ignorance and delusion.

If the freed man return to the cave, he would be insignificant among the “shadow
people” in comprehending their shadow images. They would say of him that his
ascent to what he calls “truth” has ruined his discernment; that the fantasy of
trying to ascend to what is called “truth” is dangerous, to be avoided at all costs.
This parable, though written more than two thousand years ago, still carries a lot
of weight in explaining much about philosophy. Philosophy is a journey moving
upward from the cave of disillusionment to the light outside.

As the parable suggests, this journey may not be easy because it questions the
fundamental beliefs about ourselves and the universe. It is an ultimate search for
an understanding of ourselves, our place in the universe and our relationship to
the divine. Thus, our way of thinking must be critical, consistent and careful to
sustain the right activity of philosophy.

DIVISIONS OF PHILOSOPHY

It is true that many subjects that once belonged to philosophy--such as

psychology, physics, chemistry--have been rooted out to become independent
disciplines. This has not, however, left philosophy with nothing to work on. There
are certain basic issues that have belonged to philosophy from the beginning and
that are still its major concerns. These include the nature of the universe, the
problem of knowledge, the correct use of reason, the standards of good life, and
the qualities of beauty. These problems are the subject matter of the five
branches of philosophy--metaphysics, epistemology, logic, ethics, and aesthetics.

1. Metaphysics

Metaphysics is a word coined almost accidentally. It is the title given to a book

written by Aristotle after he had completed his 'Physics', and it was placed
immediately afterward in the body of his writings. Whereas 'Physics' deals with
the observable world and its laws, 'Metaphysics' is concerned with the principles,
structures, and meanings that underlie all observable reality. It is the
investigation, by means of pure speculation, of the nature of being--of the cause,
substance, and purpose of everything. Metaphysics asks: What is a thing and how
does it differ from an idea? Are humans free to decide their fate? Is there a first
cause, or God, that has made everything in motion?

Answers to such questions cannot be arrived at by observation, experience, or

experiment. Hence, they must be products of the reasoning mind. Such matters
are very close, in fact, to the province of religion; and in Asia, the answers to
these questions are normally put in a strictly religious framework. In much 20th-
century Western philosophy, metaphysics has been dismissed as pointless
speculation that can never achieve positive results. Nevertheless, metaphysics has
many defenders who still explore notions put forward by Plato and Aristotle.

2. Epistemology

Epistemology means "theory of knowledge." It is derived from the Greek

episteme, meaning "knowledge," and logos, which has several meanings,
including "theory." While metaphysics is concerned with the underlying nature of
reality, epistemology deals with the possibilities and limits of human knowledge.
Basically it tries to arrive at a knowledge of knowledge itself. It is also a
speculative branch of philosophy and tries to answer such questions as: Is the
world as people perceive it the basic reality, or do people perceive only
appearances (or phenomena) that conceal basic reality? What are the boundaries
between reason and knowledge, on the one hand, and what some thinkers call
the illusions deriving from metaphysics? What is the validity of knowledge? Is it
observation, experience, intuition, or inspiration? Or is there some other basis?

Knowledge may be regarded as having two parts. There is, first of all, sense-
perception. It is about what one sees, hears, touches, tastes, and smells. Next
there is how these perceptions are organized by the mind to form ideas or
concepts. The problem of epistemology is based on how philosophers have
understood the relationship of the mind to the world of reality.

For the average person, common sense says that there is a real world of
perceivable objects. These objects can be analyzed and understood with a high
degree of accuracy. Philosophers have not been able to let the matter rest there.

Plato taught that the real world consisted of universal ideas. The world that
people actually see is given form by these ideas and is thus less real because it is
always changing, but the ideas are eternal and unchangeable.

Opponents of Plato have claimed that the ideas were nothing more than names
people have attached to the objects they perceive. Names of individual objects
and of classes of objects are merely ways of organizing perceptions into
knowledge. Thus people see one animal they decide to call "dog." All similar
animals are called "dogs," and a whole category of animals is thereby named
without any reference to eternal ideas or forms.

Some 18th-century British philosophers, the empiricists, made a sharp division

between the mind and everything else. The most radical of these teachers, David
Hume, carried this division to its logical conclusion and declared that it was
impossible to prove the existence of a real world. Everything known, he said,
depends on perception, but perception can never get any evidence outside itself
to verify anything. Real knowledge, in his eyes, became completely impossible to
achieve.

Immanuel Kant met the challenge posed by Hume by saying there was a real
world. Its underlying nature cannot be known--only the appearances of
everything (which he called phenomena) can be perceived. Humans, however,
impose a form of reality on the world by the way they organize their thoughts
about it. They thus impose an order on their world through categories created by
the mind.

From Plato to Kant and beyond, these are some of the ways that the complex
issue of epistemology has been addressed. When the conclusions of nuclear
physicists are taken into account--especially their studies on atomic particles--the
problem of the reality of the material world and how much can be known about it
is confronted with new challenges.

3. Ethics

Ethics is the branch of philosophy concerned with the standards of human

behavior - morality, and responsibilities of people to each other and to society.
Because ethics plays such a large part in the way people live, it has always been a
subject of great interest. Some thinkers have asserted that there are definite,
knowable standards for human behavior. Others deny this and say that decisions
should be based mostly on the situation in which one finds oneself. They are
relativists--they say ethical decisions are related to specific circumstances.

This branch of philosophy is very close to religion. A large part of the Bible, for
instance, is made up of wisdom literature, which is chiefly practical philosophy
with a religious foundation. On the basis of ethics, Aristotle developed his
'Politics'. He explained that individuals having a good life would likewise result to
having a good society.

4. Aesthetics

Aesthetics is the branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty, the
arts, and taste (or appreciation). The term is derived from the Greek word
meaning "sense perception." The basic question for aesthetics is: How do humans
judge what is beautiful? Is it a reasoned assessment, or is it merely an emotional
preference? Is beauty depends on the eye of the beholder?

Furthermore, do aesthetic judgments have any relationship to moral or scientific

judgments? In conclusion then, aesthetics seeks to lay foundations for criticism in
the arts, or it tries to show that such foundations are impossible.

Other approaches. Approaches to philosophy other than dividing it into five areas
may be taken. It is possible to divide philosophy into two types: speculative and
practical. Speculative is from the Latin verb meaning "to look at." Basically it
means to ponder a subject and arrive at conclusions.

Metaphysics, epistemology, and aesthetics are speculative approaches to

philosophy. Their conclusions can never be verified. Logic is an attempt to guide
thinking, and as such it is a tool of speculative philosophy. Ethics, however, is
often called practical philosophy. It attempts to arrive at guidelines for behavior
based on what is the best outcome for individuals or for society. It seeks to
present a workable approach to conduct and mutual obligations. It also seeks to
answer the questions, What is happiness and What is a good life?

If ethics is practical philosophy, it is reasonable to assume that politics and

economics fall into the same category. It is possible to form idealistic theories
about both, but they are so closely identified with human behavior that their
practical nature is always in the foreground. What really works becomes more
significant than what someone says should work.

There is still another way to look at the work of philosophers. Some have been
system builders. They have sought to analyze everything and fit all their ideas into
one comprehensive way of understanding the world. They want answers to every
question. Examples of such thinkers include Thomas Aquinas, Georg Wilhelm
Friedrich Hegel, and Karl Marx. They created essentially closed systems of
thought.

Other philosophers have taken the opposite approach, analyzing every separate
piece of evidence and trying to explain it on its own terms. This was the direction
taken by Aristotle, David Hume, and Bertrand Russell, among others.

HISTORY

Western philosophy is divided into ancient, medieval, and modern eras. The
ancient era showcases the work of Greek and Roman thinkers, wherein, most of
whom were influenced by ideas developed much earlier in Egypt and
Mesopotamia. But during this era, Greek philosophy was the most creative than
Roman. Roman philosophy was mostly influenced by Greek thinkers and thereby
derived most of their thought from it and built upon it, but they did not add much
that was new. The period of Greek philosophy is divided into three parts: the pre-
Socratics; the work of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle; and the schools that followed
these three giants.

Medieval philosophy was characterized much of Plato and Aristotle’s thoughts

because of the heavy influenced by Christianity. Christianity found their thoughts
closer to their dogmas. It began about the 4th century with St. Augustine and
ended in the 15th century.

Modern philosophy represents a departure from most of the thoughts dominated

by Christianity. This fact, coupled with the great increase in scientific
investigation, has led to the breakup of philosophy into the many different
disciplines that are taught in schools today. The Renaissance, the rise of
humanism, and the Enlightenment laid the foundation for the way philosophy has
developed since 1500.

Ancient

This was during the 6th century BC. There were no telescopes, no microscopes, no
laboratory equipment at all. In the absence of these modern advantages, Greeks
from Asia Minor and other areas attempted to explain the nature of the universe
and life on Earth. These men were basically metaphysicians - they were looking
for the reality behind all appearances.
The story begins with Thales of Miletus, a shrewd and intelligent mathematician
who lived in the late 7th and early 6th centuries BC. This was the time when
superstition was the norm of the day. Disappointed by their way of life, he
attempted to give an explanation of the world that does not depend on gods or
mythology--but only on natural causes. He postulated that everything originated
in water, on the basis of finding sea fossils inland far from the Mediterranean Sea.
Water, therefore, is the fundamental building block of matter.

ANAXIMANDER. Thales was succeeded in the 6th century BC by his pupil

Anaximander and Anaximenes, a pupil of Anaximander, of Miletus. Anaximander
explained the world as originating in conflicts between contraries, such as hot and
cold and wet and dry. The cold partly dried up, leaving the Earth and its water.
The hot turned some water into mist and air, while the remainder ascended to
form fiery rings in the heavens. Holes in the rings are the sun, moon, and stars.

Anaximenes declared that air is the source of all matter. His major contribution,
however, was that nothing can be created from nothing. Matter, force, and
energy are indestructible. These ideas later reappeared in physics in the laws of
the conservation of matter and energy.

PYTHAGORAS. Pythagoras, another pupil of Anaximander, also of the 6th century

BC, thought that number is the basis of reality because the forms and relations of
things can all be explained numerically. Heracletus (late 6th century BC) argued
that the basic characteristic of the universe is change. Permanence is only an
appearance. Parmenides (5th century) said permanence is real and change only
an illusion.

All of the above-named early philosophers sought to explain everything in terms

of one basic quality. They were called monists, from the Greek word for "one."
Later philosophers sought explanations in plurality. Empedocles, mid-5th century
BC, believed that there are four basic elements: earth, air, fire, and water.
Anaxagoras (also 5th century BC) taught that everything is made of infinitely small
particles. Democritus and Leucippus carried this idea further by teaching that all
matter is made up of atoms--not the atoms of today's physicists but similar tiny,
indivisible units. The ideas of Democritus and Leucippus were of critical
significance for the later development of physics, though they were generally
discarded at the time. The Roman philosopher Lucretius based his work on them
in 'On the Nature of Things'.
THE SOPHISTS. But late in the 5th century BC a group of teachers called Sophists
appeared. They were teachers of practical wisdom who taught their skills for a
price. The first was Protagoras (died 410 BC). His statement, "Man is the measure
of all things," indicates the Sophist view that the real world is the one people live
in and see. The earlier "real worlds" of metaphysicians are, he said, pointless
speculation. The Sophists were the first skeptics. They cast doubt on the merits of
speculation and said learning to live and succeed in the real world is the point of
philosophy. But some of their teachings – questioning the existence and the
traditional roles of deities and investigating into the nature of the heavens and
the earth had prompted a popular reaction against them.

Protagoras is generally regarded as the first of the sophists. Others include

Gorgias, Prodicus, Hippias, Thrasymachus, Lycophron, Callicles, Antiphon, and
Cratylus.

SOCRATES. The classical period of Greek philosophy lasted from about 430 to 320
BC. The first great philosopher was Socrates. He challenged the Sophists by saying
it is possible to learn absolute virtue and attain truth. Unlike the Sophists,
Socrates accepted no fee, instead professed a self-effacing posture. But his
attitude towards the Sophists was by no means oppositional. He sought universal
principles by pursuing the clear, common meaning of terms, and he raised some
of the basic questions of knowledge and ethics. He did this by question-and-
answer conversations, now called the Socratic method. The teaching of Socrates
rested on two basic assumptions: a person is never to do wrong, either directly or
indirectly, and no one who knows what is right will act contrary to it.

PLATO. Plato was Socrates' foremost (brightest) pupil and recorder of many of his
conversations. His 'Dialogues', even in translation, are some of the most
interesting reading in Western literature. He developed a many-sided philosophy
that includes a theory of knowledge, a theory of human conduct, a theory of the
state, and a theory of the universe. He said there is a world of sense experience
that is always changing. There is also a world of unchanging ideas, which is the
only true reality. His world of ideas resembles a blueprint after which the objects
of the physical world are fashioned. So profound has the influence of Plato been
on human thought that the 20th-century philosopher Alfred North Whitehead
said that all philosophy is "but a footnote to Plato."
ARISTOTLE. Aristotle was Plato's most famous pupil, though he departed from his
master's teaching on many areas. His writings on nature make him the world's
first real scientist, though his conclusions have long been superceded. His
contributions are so great that he stands alongside with Plato as one of the
greatest thinkers of the ancient world. He said, in contrast to Plato, that the
material world is real and not a creation of eternal forms. He taught that
individual things combine form and matter in ways that determine how they grow
and change. Aristotle was also the founder of formal logic.

EPICURUS. Philosophy after Aristotle to about AD 100 was concerned mainly with
ethics. Epicurus regarded reality as a random arrangement of atoms and decreed
that pleasure is the chief goal of life.

ZENO. The Stoics, led by Zeno, believed that the universe is ordered and rational.
The meat of Zeno's thought is to live in accordance with nature. His ideas were on
the teachings of Socrates. Humans, he said, must discipline themselves to accept
their place in the world. There is a great deal of fatalism in the Stoic position. In
fact, the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius was a leading Stoic, who explained the
philosophy clearly in his 'Meditations'. Another well-known Stoic was Epictetus.
He left no writings, but his teachings were recorded and passed down in
'Discourses' by his pupil Arrian.

Another notable school of thought that appeared in the late 4th and early 3rd
centuries BC is skepticism. Founded by Pyrrho of Elis, it asserts that humans
cannot know anything for certain. No one can ever be sure that what is perceived
by the senses is real or only an illusion. The skeptical view did not make much
headway at the time, but it endured to reach new heights in the work of David
Hume in the 18th century. It is one of the most radical positions taken in
epistemology.

The Roman statesman Cicero introduced Greek philosophy to Rome, but his
works show little that was new except in his political books. The so-called pagan
philosophy based in Athens came to an end when the schools of Athens were
closed by the emperor Justinian in AD 529. Its teachers survived for a while
elsewhere, but diminished its influence later on.

During the early Christian era there were a number of philosophers called
Neoplatonists because their basic ideas were derived from Plato. Their point of
view also includes ideas derived from Aristotle and the Stoics. The most
prominent Neoplatonist was Plotinus, who used his teachings to combat
Christianity. He published nothing, but his notes were published as 'Enneads' by
his disciple Porphyry. He taught that the highest reality is the good (or God) and
the lowest level of reality is the material world. By his time the influence of
Aristotle had almost disappeared, not to be revived for centuries. Plato's thought
became dominant, even among Christian writers.

Medieval

Mediaval period was dominated by Christianity as a religion of the Roman Empire

early in the 4th century. For the next 1,000 years it dominated philosophy as well,
but tolerated little opposition. The chief philosophers were churchmen, especially
teachers of theology. Platonism and some elements of Neoplatonism were
absorbed and used by Christian teachers and blended with Biblical doctrines.
Early Christian philosophy begins with Augustine of Hippo and includes Boethius,
the church fathers, Anselm of Canterbury, Bernard of Clairvaux, and Peter
Abelard. With the rediscovery of Aristotle, largely through the writings of Muslim
philosophers in the 12th century, his influence became dominant for a time in
Western Europe and reached its pinnacle in the teachings of Thomas Aquinas.

Augustine identified the eternal ideas of Plato with truths that come from God.
This divine world of truth is encountered by turning the mind toward God's
revelation. Augustine taught that the immortality of the human soul can be
proved by its possession of eternal truths.

Boethius was a major channel of Platonist philosophy to the Middle Ages. In 'The
Consolation of Philosophy,' he teaches that the eternal ideas are inborn ideas that
people remember from the previous existence of the soul.

Between Augustine and Aquinas the pivotal character in philosophy was Anselm.
He used both faith and reason to arrive at truth. He is most remembered for his
proofs of the existence of God, derived from Neoplatonist philosophy. Bernard of
Clairvaux was suspicious of building faith on philosophical concepts. He
developed a doctrine of mystical love as the path to truth. Abelard constructed a
question-and-answer method for teaching theology, published in his book 'Sic et
Non' (Yes and No). His main interest was in logic. He taught that the material
world is real. Universal ideas, in contrast to Plato, are only names or mental
concepts. This position, called nominalism, had great influence in sidetracking
Platonism from its dominant position in philosophy.

During the 12th century a revolution took place that completely changed the
course of Western philosophy. The writings of Aristotle were translated into Latin
and were studied by churchmen for the first time. They gave teachers access to
his scientific works and to his logical method of argument. Many of these Latin
translations are based on earlier Arabic translations and commentaries by such
Muslim writers as Avicenna and Averroes. The 'Metaphysics' of Aristotle was
especially influential in turning philosophers away from Plato. The scientific
writings prompted research into the natural world by such men as Roger Bacon.

Medieval theologians who sought to reconcile the doctrines of Christianity with

the rational explanations of the world given by Aristotle were called Schoolmen,
or Scholastics, because they were university teachers. Their philosophy is called
Scholasticism. This merging of Aristotle with doctrine culminated in the writings of
Thomas Aquinas, one of the great system builders in the history of philosophy. His
major work is 'Summa Theologica' (Summary of Doctrine), a question-and-answer
approach to teaching that has never been equaled. He posed questions, stated
objections, then presented replies to every objection. Aquinas attempted to settle
the conflict between faith and reason by showing that reason should deal with
the facts of nature, but that supernatural truths of revelation must be accepted
by faith. He said that some truths, such as the existence of God, are both revealed
and provable by reason. Opposition to his teachings came from John Duns Scotus,
William of Ockham, and others.

Opposition to Aquinas was condemned by the Roman Catholic church, but it

persisted. By the 14th century there was a revival of Platonism and Neoplatonism
in many writers such as Meister Eckehart and Nicholas of Cusa. Aristotelianism
lost its vitality, but its impact had been made. While theology persisted with
Platonic ideas, the natural sciences and other research continued the path
Aristotle had pioneered. Soon even it was overtaken by a period of invention and
discovery that pushed medieval philosophy and other studies aside.

Modern Philosophy

From 1500, philosophy took so many twists and turns that it could not be defined
by any one approach or method. The ideas of Plato, Aristotle, and others, for
instance, still had to be dealt with but mostly for their relation to practical
thinking. Metaphysics still had its advocates or followers, as it does today, but
many schools of thought denied its validity. After 1500 philosophy found itself
into a world characterized by the unprecedented growth of cities, the appearance
of new inventions and discoveries, the denial and refusal of God’s existence or the
supernatural as explanations to understanding reality, the invention of printing
materials to spread ideas, the emergence of a new economic system called
capitalism, the voyages to the New World, the Reformation that split Western
Christendom, and a great fascination with the natural world and human abilities
to exploit and understand it.

During the Renaissance, mathematics and natural science had blossomed and
endured for two centuries. In the Enlightenment era of the 17th and 18th
centuries, attention shifted to the nature of the human mind and its abilities to
master the natural world. The two main philosophical points of view were
rationalism and empiricism. Then, at the end of the Enlightenment, appeared the
work of Immanuel Kant, who tried to bridge the gap between rationalism and
empiricism. With him, the Enlightenment ended and the 19th century began.

The decades of the 19th century were dominated by many diversed flows of
thought. The discovery of the irrational as an antidote to pure reason manifested
itself in the discipline of Romanticism. New ideas appeared in political thought all
over the world: liberalism demanded democratization of the political process,
while socialism demanded economic justice.

Early in the modern period Francis Bacon was an ardent advocate of the age of
new learning. He held that no knowledge must be based on accepted authorities,
instead must begin with experience and thereafter proceed by induction to
general principles. He helped lay the foundation for British empiricism, one of the
main schools of modern philosophy.

Modern rationalism originated in the work of the Frenchman Rene Descartes.

From the statement, "I think, therefore I am," Descartes proceeded deductively to
build a system in which God and mind belong to one order of reality and nature to
another. He saw nature as a mechanism that can be explained mathematically,
while God is pure spirit. The reconciliation of these two orders of reality in a new
metaphysics occupied many other philosophers, including Nicolas de
Malebranche, Baruch Spinoza, and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz.
While rationalism was taking hold on the Continent, empiricism underwent new
developments in the British Isles. The leading empiricists were Thomas Hobbes,
John Locke, George Berkeley, and David Hume--all of whom made distinctive
contributions to epistemology. They were mainly concerned with how the mind
can know.

Locke, for example, stated that the senses are the ultimate source of ideas. Thus,
all mental operations result from combining perceptions into concepts. Hume
carried empiricism to its ultimate conclusion in his radical skepticism, contending
that there is no justification for assuming the reality of either a material or
spiritual world. No reality beyond perception can ever be proved.

It was Hume's uncompromising skepticism that awoke Immanuel Kant in Germany

from his "philosophical slumbers" and led him to launch a brilliant, but in the long
run unsuccessful, attack on it in his 'Critique of Pure Reason'. In it he deals with
reason and its potential and limits. In 'Critique of Practical Reason' he examines
ethics, and in 'Critique of Judgment' he explores the mind's role in aesthetics.
Kant is another of the giants of Western thought, and his influence endured in the
work of the German idealists--Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Friedrich Schelling, and
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel.

Hegel was the giant of 19th-century thought and the first great system builder
since Thomas Aquinas. His ideas, and the powerful reactions to them, still carry
great weight in philosophical circles. He formulated a logic that he believed
accounts for evolution in nature, history, and human thought. Prominent German
philosophers after Hegel were Johann Friedrich Hebart, Arthur Schopenhauer,
Ludwig Feuerbach, Karl Marx, and Friedrich Nietzsche.

An attack on Hegel soon appeared from the north that was to influence all
philosophy. In Denmark, Soren Kierkegaard held that reality cannot be fully
comprehended by reason because human existence is always involved in choices
that are absurd from a rational viewpoint. He conceived of each person as a
unique human being and that all people are responsible for their own
development and free to direct their own lives.

This implies that one's existence creates one's essence, not vice versa--thereby
turning upside down the whole history of metaphysics. People become what they
will be; they are not determined from birth by a nature that determines it for
them. The name of the movement that Kierkegaard inspired is called
existentialism. His concepts were developed in the 20th century by Martin
Heidegger, Karl Jaspers, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Gabriel Marcel.

In France meanwhile, Auguste Comte founded the philosophy called positivism.

Positivism rejects pure speculation as a form of self-indulgence. It says that
assertions must be subject to verification. Comte attempted to apply the methods
of the natural sciences to the discovery of social laws. The English philosophers
John Stuart Mill and Herbert Spencer were influenced by positivism, though
Spencer relied a good deal on Charles Darwin's insights on evolution. He believed
that the notion of "survival of the fittest" applies to society as well as to the
biological world.

In the late 19th century some English philosophers absorbed German idealism
(the name given to the work of Kant and his followers) and became critics of
empiricism. Hegel's influence was especially strong in the writings of Thomas Hill
Green and Francis Herbert Bradley. In the United States Josiah Royce advanced
similar views. Earlier American thinkers tended to follow the lead of their British
contemporaries. Thus Jonathan Edwards was strongly influenced by the empiricist
views of Locke, while Ralph Waldo Emerson was an ardent admirer of Thomas
Carlyle. The empiricist tradition in England was carried on by John Stuart Mill.

The principal contribution to American philosophy in the 19th century was

pragmatism, first formulated by Charles Sanders Peirce. William James extended
pragmatism to include a theory of truth: a proposition is true if it fulfills its
purpose. John Dewey was the leading 20th-century exponent of pragmatism.