Western

Philosophers
(Modern Period)

A presentation by Group 1
Rene Descartes
(31 March 1596 – 11 February 1650)

a French philosopher, mathematician, and

scientist. Dubbed the father of modern western
philosophy, much of subsequent Western
philosophy is a response to his writings, which
are studied closely to this day.
Early life
René du Perron Descartes was born in
La Haye en Touraine (now Descartes,
Indre-et-Loire), France, on 31 March
1596. His mother, Jeanne Brochard,
died soon after giving birth to him, and
so he was not expected to survive.
Descartes' father, Joachim, was a
member of the Parlement of Brittany at
Rennes. René lived with his
grandmother and with his great-uncle..
Dualism
The theory on the dualism of mind and body is Descartes' signature doctrine
and permeates other theories he advanced. Known as Cartesian dualism, his
theory on the separation between the mind and the body went on to influence
subsequent Western philosophies.
Dualism:
"The intellectual abstraction consists in my turning In Meditations on First
my thought away from one part of the contents of Philosophy, Descartes
attempted to demonstrate the
this richer idea the better to apply it to the other part existence of God and the
distinction between the
with greater attention. Thus, when I consider a shape human soul and the body.
without thinking of the substance or the extension Humans are a union of mind
and body, thus Descartes'
whose shape it is, I make a mental abstraction.” dualism embraced the idea
that mind and body are
distinct but closely joined.
Three Types of Ideas
There are three kinds of ideas, Descartes explained: Fabricated, Innate and
Adventitious. Fabricated ideas are inventions made by the mind. For example, a
person has never eaten moose but assumes it tastes like cow. Adventitious
ideas are ideas that cannot be manipulated or changed
by the mind. For example, a person stands in a cold room,
they can only think of the feeling as cold and nothing else.
Innate ideas are set ideas made by God in a person’s mind.
For example, the features of a shape can be examined and
set aside, but its content can never be manipulated to cause
it not to be a three sided object.
Karl Marx
(5 May 1818 - 14 March 1883)

a philosopher, economist, historian,

political theorist, sociologist,
journalist and revolutionary socialist.
Early life
Marx was born on 5 May 1818 to Heinrich Marx
(1777–1838) and Henriette Pressburg (1788–
1863). He was born at Brückengasse 664 in
Trier, a town then part of the Kingdom of
Prussia's Province of the Lower Rhine. Marx
was ancestrally Jewish as his maternal
grandfather was a Dutch rabbi, while his
paternal line had supplied Trier's rabbis since
1723, a role taken by his grandfather Meier
Halevi Marx. His father, as a child known as
Herschel, was the first in the line to receive a
secular education and he became a lawyer
and lived a relatively wealthy and middle-
class existence, with his family owning a
number of Moselle vineyards.
 Philosophy and social
thought
Marx's polemic with other thinkers often
occurred through critique and thus he has
been called "the first great user of critical
method in social sciences". He criticised
“The history of all speculative philosophy, equating metaphysics
hitherto existing with ideology. By adopting this approach, Marx
society is the history
attempted to separate key findings from
of class struggles.”
ideological biases. This set him apart from
— The Communist many contemporary philosophers.
Manifesto
Martin Heidegger
(26 September 1889 – 26 May 1976)

a German philosopher and a seminal

thinker in the Continental tradition
and philosophical hermeneutics.
Best known for
being...
"widely acknowledged
to be one of the most
original and important
philosophers of the 20th
century"
Early life

Heidegger was born in rural Meßkirch, Baden-

Württemberg, the son of Johanna (Kempf) and Friedrich
Heidegger. Raised a Roman Catholic, he was the son of
the sexton of the village church that adhered to the First
Vatican Council of 1870, which was observed mainly by
Tip
the poorer class of Meßkirch.
Ideally, speak of people
in very different
situations, but where
each could benefit from
your solution.
Existentialism
“Sartre's key proposition about the priority of existentia
over essentia [that is, Sartre's statement that "existence
precedes essence"] does, however, justify using the
name "existentialism" as an appropriate title for a
philosophy of this sort. But the basic tenet of
"existentialism" has nothing at all in common with the
statement from Being and Time [that "the 'essence' of
Dasein lies in its existence"]—apart from the fact that in
Being and Time no statement about the relation of
essentia and existentiacan yet be expressed, since there
it is still a question of preparing something precursory.”

- Letters on Humanism
 Charles Darwin
(12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882)

an English naturalist, geologist and

Fact
biologist, best known for his
Darwin's fame and contributions to the science of
popularity led to his name
being associated with
evolution.
ideas and movements
that, at times, had only an
indirect relation to his
writings, and sometimes
went directly against his
express comments.
Early life
Charles Robert Darwin was born in
Shrewsbury, Shropshire, on 12
February 1809, at his family's home,
The Mount. He was the fifth of six
children of wealthy society doctor and
financier Robert Darwin and Susannah
Darwin (née Wedgwood). He was the
grandson of two prominent
abolitionists: Erasmus Darwin on his
father's side, and Josiah Wedgwood on
his mother's side.
Natural selection
“As many more individuals of each species are born than can possibly
survive; and as, consequently, there is a frequently recurring struggle for
existence, it follows that any being, if it vary however slightly in any
manner profitable to itself, under the complex and sometimes varying
conditions of life, will have a better chance of surviving, and thus be
naturally selected. From the strong principle of inheritance, any selected "Evolutionism" at that time
variety will tend to propagate its new and modified form.” was associated with other
concepts, most commonly
“...There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having with embryological
been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this development, and Darwin
planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so first used the word
simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful evolution in The Descent of
Man in 1871, before adding
have been, and are being, evolved.” it in 1872 to the 6th edition
of The Origin of Species.
- On The Origin of Species
Highlights
"Nature also teaches "Philosopher "Light will
me, by the sensations
s have only
of pain, hunger, thirst
and so on, that I am interpreted "Existentialism be thrown
not merely present in is a on the
my body as a pilot in the world in Humanism.”
his ship, but that I am
very closely joined various ways, origin of
and, as it were,
intermingled with it,
the point is man and
so that I and the body to change it.” his history."
form a unit…”
Karl Marx Martin Heidegger
Rene Descartes Charles Darwin