Brief

History Of
Philosophy
Pre-Philosophical Period
Even before the birth of natural philosophy, people had already
attempted to explain the origin of things and events or
occurrences in nature. Such attempts are evident in folklores,
myths, and legends that the ancient peoples—the ancient
Babylonians, Chinese, Hindus, Egyptians, and the Greeks most
notably—believed in. However, these stories are characterized
by religious elements or supernatural powers and not by natural
or rational explanations.
Pre-Socratic Period
• Western philosophy is said to have begun in the Ionic colonies of Asia Minor (present-day Turkey)
around 6th century BC through Thales of Miletus (Turner, 1903; Russel, 1945).
• Thales, known as the first Greek philosopher and the father of philosophy, is regarded as the first
to engage in the inquiry of searching for causes and principles of the natural world and various
phenomena without relying on supernatural explanations and divine components.
• By observing nature, he believed that the Earth floats on water, which was considered as the first
or ultimate substance.
• Another Miletian is the philosopher Anaximander who also wondered about the beginning of the
universe and where it came from. More systematic than Thales, Anaximander claimed that the
universe was formed from the boundless (apeiron) which is both the first principle (arche) and the
substance (stoicheion) of the universe.
• On the other hand, Anaximenes, another Miletian, argued that air was the fundamental element.
Through the process of rarefaction or compression, the air surrounds Earth in a more or less
compressed state.
Heraclitus of Ephesus and Xenophanes of Colophon
• Heraclitus claimed the “unity of opposites” in characterizing the
cosmos and went further to express that to understand these
characterizations is to inquire of the logos (an objective law-like
principle) and be able to speak the language of the logos.
• Xenophanes, on the other hand, claimed that there is a single
god. He did not subscribe to the idea of an anthropomorphic god,
whom many people believed in his time. Xenophanes suggested
that if gods are “human-like,” then horses, oxen, and lions would
have equine, bovine, and leonine gods respectively as well.
Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans
• The Pythagoreans believe that the cosmos is a structured system ordered by
numbers. For them, things become knowable because they are structured the way
they are; the structure can apparently be expressed in a numerical ratio. Hence,
they believe that nature can be quantified.
• The Pre-Socratics and their points of view expressed a tendency toward
observation and analysis. Since these points of view are devoid of any mythical
notions, they are already somewhat “scientific.” Though their main concern is the
nature of phenomena or what constitutes the cosmos, testimonia (reports from
ancient authors about the thinkers’ life and thoughts) and fragments (passages
taken to be direct quotations) reveal that they are also concerned with religious
and ethical thought, the nature of understanding, mathematics, and other areas of
concern.
Socrates and the Socratic schools
• The second period in the history of Greek philosophy is
comparatively short, but it is considered the most
flourishing. This period was dominated by three famous
philosophers—Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. The
philosophers in this period mainly had to answer the
problem of how to save the intellectual and moral life of
the nation, which was threatened by materialism and
skepticism.
Socrates
• Socrates is best known for the elenchus, or the Socratic
method. It is a method of question and answer that
aims to provoke the one being asked to think for
oneself and to clarify one’s conceptions about what is
asked.
• Socrates is also regarded as the one who urged self-
examination and claimed that “the unexamined life is
not worth living.”
Plato
• Plato’s philosophy is a completion and extension of the philosophy of Socrates.
Socrates taught that knowledge through concepts was the only true knowledge—
to which Plato concluded that the concept, or the idea, was the only true reality.
Thus, for Plato, philosophy is the science of the idea, or, as we should say, of the
unconditioned basis of phenomena.
• Plato’s philosophical ideas are found in his Dialogues, which are accounts of
what he is concerned with as influenced by his teacher, Socrates.
• The Republic, one of Plato’s most famous works, discusses his social and
political philosophy and his belief that for the Greek city-states to flourish, they
must be led by philosopher kings, and that justice is best manifested if persons
will do what is suited to each of his or her soul.
• Plato’s works also encourage humanity
to seek what is good, what is true, and
what is beautiful in the intellectual
realm beyond the appearances because
the senses are often deceitful.
• He also urged that humans detach
themselves to what is corporeal
because the soul without the limitation
of the body can better recognize the
eternal form of truth, beauty, and
goodness.
Aristotle
• Aristotle’s philosophy is often described as an opposition to the
Platonic philosophical tradition.
• Aristotle believed that the perceptual and cognitive faculties of
people are dependable; such belief places humans in direct
contact with the world to be studied and therefore engaged in
substantive philosophy.
• For Aristotle, human beings philosophize because they wonder
about the world, and as they do, more things of their
experiences appear puzzling.
• His method focuses on analyzing phenomena or
experience and proving credible opinions about these
experiences to arrive at adequate proof.
• Aristotle believed that the aim of philosophy is truth,
and the endowment of senses will lead a person in
direct contact with the world, and therefore would
allow one to analyze whether what appears upon close
scrutiny and analysis is correct.
• Through the Socratic method and Aristotle’s method of
inquiry (more like a modern scientist), you will realize that
any and every perspective they have about the world is a
result of reflection and analysis. Whether it is based on
physical or material evidence brought about by experience or
redirecting the inquiry toward the real forms (Platonic style),
understanding about the self and the world will be revealed
through painstaking analysis.
Medieval period: scholasticism
• The medieval period in the history of philosophy is described as the confluence of faith and
Reason.
• Philosophers in this period used philosophy as a handmaid of theology.
• Concerned with Proving god’s existence and understanding what is man in relation with god,
scholasticism directed its inquiry on how reason can be used to provide proofs that god exists.
• Scholastics also attempted to reconcile Greek philosophy and Christian theology. Among the
recognized main Philosophers during this period are
 St. Anselm, who is known for his ontological argument for the existence of god in pros
logion;
 St. Augustine, who is known to promote “the argument by Analogy” against solipsism or
the philosophical idea that only one’s own existence is the only thing that is real; and
 St. Thomas Aquinas, who is famous for his influential work summa Theologica, which
explains his views on the creation and government of the universe, the Origin and nature of
man, and human destiny, among others, through catholic theology.
• The medieval philosophers’ attempt to reconcile faith and
reason reveals that reflection and analysis may be used to
clarify thought or provide pieces of evidence as proofs for
a topic important to human like religious beliefs.
• You need to realize as well that philosophy is beyond a
recognized authority because beliefs of the church are
placed under reflection, criticism, and analysis.
Modern Period: Rationalism, Empiricism, and Kant’s Philosophy
Rationalism
• Rationalism as a philosophical view states that the chief source of our
knowledge is reason rather than experience. This means that what provides us as
our source of knowing something is supplied by our mind, which data or
information therein is not acquired through any form of experience.
• For instance, we know some things that do not require experience for us to know
them. We know that there are numbers yet we do not experience them.
• This philosophical view developed by Plato began to emerge and became highly
influential during the time of René Descartes, Baruch Spinoza, and Gottfried
Leibniz. They are considered leading rationalists of modern period (17th–18th
century).
Empiricism
• Empiricists believe that aside from reason, experience is also a source of knowledge.
The five senses connected to the world can be used to determine what can be known.
• Aristotle first developed the idea that senses, though they may not be a wholly reliable
source of knowledge, are significant in forming concepts and knowledge.
• John Locke, for instance, a leading figure of Empiricism argued that without
experience, which is only possible because of our senses, knowledge is impossible.
Imagine the color red. Suppose you are told so many information about color red,
though you have not seen one yet. You somehow have an idea of what it is. But once
you are exposed to a place where colors are, will you be able to identify the color red
from other colors? Somehow, empiricists insist that you cannot because you have no
experience of the color red.
Immanuel Kant and Synthetic a Priori Knowledge
• Immanuel Kant, an 18th century German philosopher, is known to be one of
the greatest thinkers in the history of Western philosophy for various reasons.
One reason is his contribution to the development of modern philosophy, most
especially in epistemology. Contrary to the philosophical views held by
empiricists and rationalists, Kant made a significant breakthrough by
introducing the idea of synthetic a priori knowledge.

• According to him, this form of knowledge is a product of both reason and

experience. It means that to make sense of our experience of something, we
need concepts to describe it while experience supplies the contents of our
concepts necessary in forming judgments about our experiences.
• Kant denied the main claim of rationalism that knowledge is
independent of experience, and of empiricism that knowledge is based
on experience alone. Instead, he insisted that not only through and by
reason nor experience alone that one can acquire knowledge, but
rather one needs both.
• Rationalists, empiricists, and Immanuel Kant provided different
perspectives on one specific concern—the nature of knowledge and
knowledge claims. Each school of thought espouses a conception of
knowledge based on its origin, which gives knowledge seekers a
wider perspective and increased understanding of an important area in
the life of humans.
Contemporary Period: The Analytic and the Continental
Tradition
Analytic Tradition
• This school of thought, which dominated English-speaking countries, is concentrated on
logical analysis of language to solve the problems which beset philosophy.
• The philosophers under this tradition espouse a method of verification that only accepts those
that can be investigated by science as meaningful and true.
• Among the philosophers who propose analysis in philosophy are Bertrand Russell, George
Edward Moore, and Ludwig Wittgenstein. However, their conceptions differ from one another.
• Russell’s conception involves an analysis of meaningfulness of descriptions as opposed to
names that designate or denote a subject.
• For Moore, on the other hand, analysis is decomposing complex concepts into their simple
constituents.
• Meanwhile for Wittgenstein, the task of philosophy is to carefully analyze ordinary language
use, known as linguistic analysis.
Continental Tradition
• This philosophical tradition dominated the non-English-speaking countries outside the
analytic tradition during the 19th and the later 20th centuries.
• German idealism, phenomenology and existentialism, hermeneutics, structuralism,
post-structuralism, and French feminism are some of the movements within this
tradition.
• What is common among these movements is their belief that the scientific method is
insufficient to provide an explanation of the world.
• In the analysis, continental tradition takes into account the conceptions of the past and
the views that any analysis is contextualized in history. Moreover, movements under
the continental tradition focus on the centrality of human action as a constitutive part,
and any analysis under the continental tradition is directed toward metaphilosophy to
seek a reconstruction of what philosophy is and its role in understanding knowledge,
experience, and reality.
Prepared by: Ms. Joyce P. Dela Rama