READER: The Philosophy Book PART II

RENAISSANCE AND THE AGE OF REASON – 1500 -1750

The Renaissance - a cultural 'rebirth' of extraordinary creativity in Europe - began in 14th century Florence. It was to spread across Europe, lasting until 17th century, and it is now viewed as the bridge between the medieval and modern periods. Marked by a renewed interest in the whole of Greek and Latin Classical culture - not just the philosophical and mathematical texts assimilated by medieval Scholasticism - it was a movement that viewed humans, not God, at its centre.

This is the second part of the post on the Philosophy - History and its ideas and perspectives. To read the other parts, click below...

PART I - ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL WORLD

PART II - THE AGE OF REASON
PART III - THE AGE OF REVOLUTION

PART IV - THE MODERN WORLD

Time Line

The End Justifies The Means – Niccolo Machiavelli c.1469 – 1527

Niccolo Machiavelli
curtsy Wikipedia

But Machiavelli does not argue that the end justifies the means in all cases (Consist of those that would make the people hate their prince). There are certain means that a wise prince must avoid, for though they might achieve the desired ends, they lay him open to future dangers.

__

16^th Century: Machiavelli’s peers begin to use the adjective ‘Machiavellian’ to describe acts of devious cunning

1928: Italian Dictator Benito Mussolini describes ‘The Prince’ as the statesman’s supreme guide.

Fame And Tranquility Can Never Be Bedfellows – Michel De Montaigne c.1533 -1592

In his essay ‘On Solitude’, (from the first volume of his Essays), Montaigne takes up a theme that has been popular since ancient times: the intellectual and moral dangers of living among other, and the value of solitude. Montaigne is not stressing the importance of physical solitude, but rather of developing the ability to resist the temptation to mindlessly fall in with the opinion and actions of the mob.

__

Late 19^th Century: Nietzsche describes solitude as necessary to the task of self-examination, which he claims can alone free humans from the temptation just to thoughtlessly follow the mob.

Francis Bacon
Curtsy Wikipedia

Knowledge Is Power – Francis bacon c.1561 – 1626

Often credited with being the first in a tradition of thought known as British Empiricism, which is characterized by the view that all knowledge must come ultimately from sensory experience.

__

In 1618, he was appointed Lord Chancellor, but was dismissed two years later, when he was convicted of accepting bribes.

1934: Karl Popper states that falsification, not induction, defines the scientific method.

Man Is Machine – Thomas Hobbes c.1588 – 1679

According to Hobbes, all animals including humans are nothing more than flesh-and-blood machines. For Hobbes, the divine nature of God’s attributes is not something that the human mind is capable of fully understanding; therefore the term ‘incorporeal’ is the only one that recognizes and also honors the unknowable substance of God.

I Think Therefore I am – Rene Descartes 1596 – 1650

René Descarte
Curtsy Wikipedia

We cannot trust our senses, as we have all been ‘deceived’ by them at one time or another, and so we cannot rely on them as a sure footing for knowledge. Even though we believe that God is good, it is possible that he made us in such a way that we are prone to errors in our reasoning, or perhaps there is no God – in which case we are even more likely to be imperfect beings (having arisen only by chance) that are capable of being deceived all the time. It is at this point that Descartes realizes that there is one belief that he surely cannot doubt: his belief in his own existence. Each of us can think or say: ‘I am, I exist’, and while we are thinking or saying it we cannot be wrong about it.

For Descartes, the certainty of his own existence is crucial to his project of enquiry, but it is not the foundation of his epistemology.

__

1781: In his Critique of Pure Reason’, Immanuel Kant argues against Descartes, but adopts the First Certainty – ‘I think, therefore I exist’ – as the heart and starting point of his idealist philosophy.

Imagination Decides Everything – Blaise Pascal 1623 -1662

Blaise Pascal
Curtsy Wikipedia

Pascal’s point is that imagination is the most powerful force in human beings and one of our chief sources of error.As imagination usually leads to error, then the beauty, justice, and happiness it produces will usually be false.

Pascal argues that betting that God does not exist risks losing a great deal (infinite happiness in Heaven) while only gaining a little (a finite sense of independence in this world) – but betting that God exists risks losing little while gaining a great deal. It is more rational, on this basis, to believe in God.

___

1740: In his ‘Treatise of Human nature’, David Hume argues that ‘nothing we imagine is absolutely impossible’.

1787: Kant claims that we synthesize the incoherent messages from our sense into images, and then into concepts, using the imagination.

God Is Cause Of All Things, Which Are In Him – Benedictus Spinoza 1632 – 1677

Spinoza
Curtsy Wikipedia

Spinoza’s position is known as ‘Substance Monism’, which claims that all things are ultimately aspects of a single thing, as opposed to ‘substance dualism’ which claims that there are ultimately two kind of things in the universe, most commonly defined as ‘mind’ and ‘matter’.

God therefore, is not what Spinoza calls a ‘transitive’ cause of the world – something external that brings the world into being. Rather, God is the ‘immanent’ cause of the world. This means that God is in the world, that the world is in God, and that the existence and essence of the world are explained by God’s existence and essence. For Spinoza, to fully appreciate this fact is to attain the highest state of freedom and salvation possible – a state he calls ‘blessedness’.

“The human mind is part of the infinite intellect of God” - Spinoza

__

Late 20^th Century: Philosophers Stuart Hampshire, Donald Davidson, and Thomas Nagel all develop approaches to the philosophy of mind that have similarities to Spinoza’s monist thought.

Time Line

No Man’s Knowledge Can Go Beyond His Experience – John Locke 1632-1704

John Locke was against the idea that human beings possess any kind of innate knowledge. He takes the view

John Locke
Curtsy Wikipedia

that the mind at birth is a tabula rasa – a blank tablet or a new sheet of paper upon which experience writes.

Although Locke may reject the doctrine of innate ideas, he does no reject the concept that human beings have innate capacities. Indeed, the possession of capacities such as perception and reasoning are central to his accounts of the mechanics of human knowledge and understanding.

__

17^th Century, Gottfried Leibniz argues that the mind may seem to be a tabula rasa at birth, but contains innate knowledge, which experience gradually uncovers.

1966: Noam Chomsky, in ‘Cartesian Linguistics, sets out his theory of innate grammer.

There Are Two Kinds Of Truths: Truths Of Reasoning And Truths of Fact: Gottried Leibniz c.1646-1716

His claim which he makes in his most famous work, the ‘Monadology’, is that in principle all knowledge can be accessed by rational reflection. However due to shortcomings in our rational faculties, human beings must also rely on experiences as a means of acquiring knowledge.

__

1600s: Rene Descartes claims that ideas come to us in three ways; they can come be derived from experience, drawn from reason, or known innately (being created in the mind by God)

1927: Alfred North Whitehead postulates ‘actual entities’, similar to Leibniz’s monads, which reflect the whole universe in themselves.

To Be Is To Be Perceived – George Berkeley c.1685 – 1753

George Berkeley
Curtsy Wikipedia

Berkeley’s claims rather that all knowledge must come from experience, and that all we ever have access to are our perceptions. And since these perceptions are simply ‘ideas’ (or mental representations), we have no grounds for believing that anything exists other than ideas and the perceivers of ideas.

___

1781: Kant develops Berkeley’s theory into ‘transcendental idealism’, according to which the world that we experience is only appearance.

1807: George Hegel replaces Kant’s idealism with ‘absolute idealism’ – the theory that absolute reality is Spirit.

_____________________

TEXT AND TIME LINE IMAGES: From "THE PHILOSOPHY BOOK" by the Publishers - DK London of series, 'Big Idea Simply Explained'. 

Hope you have liked the second part of the post on the Philosophy - History and its ideas and perspectives. To read the other parts, click below...

PART I - ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL WORLD

PART II - THE AGE OF REASON
PART III - THE AGE OF REVOLUTION

PART IV - THE MODERN WORLD

__

Shashi 

ॐ नमः शिवाय

Om Namah Shivaya

PREV                                HOME                              NEXT

Philosophy Part II - The Ancient                Philosophy Part III - Age of Reason

READER: The Philosophy Book - PART I

THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 
INTRODUCTION - Ancient and Medieval World

I have been reading various books on Philosophy, trying to get the big picture out of the multitudes of volumes I have had come across. After decades of trying to catch up with Philosophy, now I feel that I have a little idea of what is the history, back ground, ideas of Philosophy and its progress through the history of mankind. So I thought of sharing the same here. But as I sat down to write the relevant information, in the right chronological order, which will make sense to some one with a little bit of interest, it proved to be difficult task. After months of working around the concept, I decided to make my life easier and looked around for some books that has the same idea.  Fortunately I came across "THE PHILOSOPHY BOOK" by the Publishers - DK London, in their series, 'Big Idea Simply Explained'. 

The Philosophy Book

"The Philosophy Book' is probably one of the most simple volume on the subject, which made it easier for me to share the ideas and thoughts of philosophy in coherent way. In the end a write up that makes some sense about the history of Philosophy and it's development over ages. But let me advise you that this four part series of posts provides you only the glimpse of the history of Philosophy. In order to get in-depth knowledge you must read the book.

This series of post on Philosophy is divided in four sections:

1) PART I: Ancient and Medieval World       (Click to Read...)

2) PART II: Renaissance and Age Of Reason (Click to Read...)

3) PART III: Age of Revolution                     (Click to Read...)

4) PART IV: The Modern World                    (Click to Read...)

________________________________

ANCIENT WORLD 700BCE – 250 CE

____________

Every thing is made of water – Thales of Miletus c.624-546 BCE

His true importance lies in the fact that he was the first known thinker to seek naturalistic, rational answer to fundamental questions, rather than to ascribe objects and events to the whims of capricious Gods.

The Dao That can be told is not the eternal Dao – Laozi c6th century BCE

One of the most important ideas to appear at this time came from the Daode Jing (The way and its Power) It was one of the first attempts to propose a theory of just rule, based on de (virtual), which could be found by following Dao (the way), and forms the basis of the philosophy known as Daoism.

HAPPY IS HE WHO HAS OVERCOME HIS EGO – SIDDHARTHA GAUTAMA C.563-483

In his early life, Gautama enjoyed luxury and, we are told, all the sensual pleasures. However, he realised that these were not enough on their own to bring him true happiness.

Buddha at Kushinagar, where he attained Nirvana @ Shashi, 2015

Gautama came to conclusion that there must be a ‘middle way’ between self-indulgence and self-mortification. This middle way, he believed should lead to true happiness, or ‘enlightenment’, and to find it he applied reason to his own experience.

His thoughts also find echoes in the ideas of later Western philosophers such as in Hume’s concept of the self and Schopenhauer’s view of the human condition. But it was not until the 20th century that Buddhism was to have any direct influence on Western thinking. Since then more and more westerners have turned to it for guidance on how to life.

HOLD FAITHFULNESS AND SINCERITY AS FIRST PRINCIPLES – CONFUCIUS c.551 – 479 BCE

Confucius sought constants in a world of change, and for him this meant a search for moral values that could enable rulers to govern justly.

EVERYTHING IS FLUX – HERACLITUS c.535 – 475 BCE

It is the balancing of opposites, such as day and night and hot and cold, which Heraclitus believes leads to the unity of the universe, or the idea that everything is a part of a single fundamental process or substance – the central tenet of monism.

ALL IS ONE – PARMENIDES c.515 – 445 BCE

From the premise that something exists (“It is”), Parmenides deduces that it cannot also not exist (“It is not”), as this would involve a logical contradiction. It follows therefore that a state of nothing existing is impossible – there can be no void. Something cannot then come from nothing, and so must always have existed in some form. This permanent form cannot change, because something that is permanent cannot change into something else without it ceasing to be permanent. Fundamental change is therefore impossible.

MAN IS THE MEASURE OF ALL THINGS – PROTAGORAS c.490 – 420 BCE

The main implication of ‘man is the measure of all things’ is that belief is subjective and relative. Tyco Protagoras, nothing is inherently good in itself. Something is ethical or right, only because a person or society judges it to be so.

WHEN ONE THROWS TO ME A PEACH, I RETURN TO HIM A PLUM – MOZI c.470 -391 BCE

After not liking the emphasis on clan relationship that runs through Confucianism, Mozi set up his own school of thought, advocating universal love or jian ai. By jian ai, Mozi means that we should care for all people equally regardless of their status or their relationship-p to us. He regards this philosophy, which became known as Mohism, which ‘nourishes and sustains all love’, as being fundamentally benevolent and in accordance with the way of heaven.

NOTHING EXISTS EXCEPT ATOMS AND EMPTY SPACE – DEMOCRITUS c. 460 – 371; AND LEUCIPPUS early 5TH CENTURY BCE

They suggested that everything is made up of tiny, indivisible and unchangeable particles, which they called atoms (atmos is Greek for un-cuttable)

THE LIFE WHICH IS UNEXAMINED IS NOT WORTH LIVING – SOCRATES c.469 – 399 BCE

This gaining of knowledge, rather than wealth or high status, is the ultimate goal of life. It is not a matter of entertainment or curiosity- it is the reason why we exist.

EARTHLY KNOWLEDGE IS BUT SHODOW – PLATO c. 427 – 347

Like earlier Greek thinkers, Plato questioned the nature and substance of the cosmos, and explored how the immutable and eternal could exist in a seemingly changing world. However, unlike his predecessors, Plato concluded that the ‘unchanging’ nature is the same as the ‘unchanging’ in morals and society.

TRUTH RESIDES IN THE WORLD AROUND US – ARISTOTLE c. 384 – 322 BCE

WHAT ARISTOTLE PROPOSED TURNED Plato’s theory on its head. Far from mistrusting our senses, Aristotle relied on them for the evidence to back up his theories. His own studies confirmed what he already believed – that we are not born with some innate ability to recognize forms, as Plato maintained.

DEATH IS NOTHING TO US – EPICURUS c. 341 -270 BCE

Epicurus, however, found the seeds of a new school of thought in the quests of earlier philosophers, such as Socrates’ examination of the truth of basic human concepts and values. Central to the philosophy that Epicurus developed is the view that peace of mind, or tranquility, is the goal of life. He argues that pleasure and pain are the roots of good and evil, and qualities such as virtue and justice derive from these roots, as ‘it is impossible to live a pleasant life with living wisely, honorably, and justly, and it is impossible to live wisely, honorably, and justly without living pleasantly’.

_____

1861 John Stuart Mill argues that intellectual and spiritual pleasures have more value than physical pleasures.

HE HAS THE MOST WHO IS MOST CONTENT WITH THE LEAST – DIOGENES OF SINOPE c.404 -323 BCE

(A good life) can be achieved, he states, by being content to live a simple life, governed by reason and natural impulses, rejecting conventions without shame, and renouncing the desire for property and comfort.

Diogenes was the first of a group of thinkers who became known as Cynics, a term taken from the Greek Kunikos, meaning ‘dog-like’.

______

1882 Nietzsche refers to Diogenes and his ideas in ‘The Gay Science’

_____________________________

THE MEDIEVAL WORLD 250 – 1500

_____________

THE GOAL OF LIFE IS LIVING IN AGREEMENT WITH NATURE – ZENO OF CITIUM c.332 -265 BCE

Zeno of Citium
Curtsy Wikipedia

He had little patience with metaphysical speculation and came to believe that the cosmos was governed by natural laws that were ordained by a supreme law giver. Man, he declares, is completely powerless to change this reality and in addition to enjoying its many benefits, man also has to accept its cruelty and injustice.

GOD FORSEES OUR FREE THOUGHTS AND ACTIONS – BOETHIUS c.480 – 525 CE

The Roman philosopher Boethius was famous for his solution to a problem that predates Aristotle: If God already knows what we are doing to do in the future, how can we be said to have free will?

He believed that God knows everything; not only past and present, but also the future. … Boethius solves the problem by arguing that the same things can be known in different ways, depending on the nature of the knower.

___

1250-70: Aquinas agrees with Boethius that God exists outside of time…

1300: John Duns Scotus says that human freedom rests on God’s own freedom to act, and that God knows our future, free actions by knowing his own unchanging – but free – will.

THE SOUL IS DISTINCT FROM THE BODY – AVICENNA c.980 – 1037

Also known as IbnSina, is the most important philosopher in the Arabic Tradition, and one the world’s greatest thinkers. He saw himself as a follower of Aristotle, and his main writings are encyclopedias of Aristotelian philosophy. By contrast, Avicenna is one of the most famous ‘dualist’ in the history of philosophy – he thinks that the body and the mind are two distinct substances.

Both Avicenna and Descartes want to demonstrate that the mind or self exists because it knows it exists; and that is distinct from the human body.

JUST BY THINKING ABOUT GOD WE CAN KNOW HE EXISTS – ST ANSELM c.1033 – 1109

The ontological Argument invented by Anselm – 11th century Italian philosopher who worked on the basis of Aristotelian logic, Platonic thinking, and his own genius – is the most famous of all. The argument rests on an acceptance of two things: first, that God is ‘that than which nothing greater can be thought’, and second, that existence is superior to non-existence.

GOD HAS NO ATTRIBUTES – MOSES MAIMONIDES 1135 -1204

God, Maimonides says, has no attributes. This is because an attribute is either accidental (capable of change) or essential.

___

1840-50s: Soren Kierkegaard claims that it is impossible to provide any form of external description of God.

DON’T GRIEVE. ANYTHING YOU LOSE COMES ROUND IN ANOTHER FORM – JALAL AD-DIN MUHAMMAD RUMI 1207 – 1273

Rumi curtsy Wikipedia

Central to Rumi’s visionary philosophy is the idea that the universe and everything in it is an endless flow of life, in which God is an eternal presence. Man, as part of the universe is also a part of this continuum, and Rumi seeks to explain our place within it.

__

1925: After the founding of a secular Republic of Turkey, the Mawlawi Order is banned in Turkey. It remains illegal until 1954, when it receives the right to perform on certain occasions.

THE UNIVERSE HAS NOT ALWAYS EXISTED – THOMAS AQUINAS 1225 -1274

Like Philoponus and his followers, Aquinas wants to show that the universe had a beginning – but he also wants to show that there is no flaw in Aristotle’s reasoning…  Aquinas set out to prove that in fact Aristotle’s position – that the universe has always existed – could be true; even if it is also true that God created the universe.

__

1991: French Philosopher Jean-Luc Marion explores the theme of God as not a being.

_________________________

Hope you have liked the First part of the post on the Philosophy - History and its ideas and perspectives. To read the other parts, click below...

PART I - ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL WORLD

PART II - THE AGE OF REASON
PART III - THE AGE OF REVOLUTION

PART IV - THE MODERN WORLD

__

Shashi 

ॐ नमः शिवाय

Om Namah Shivaya

PREV                                HOME                              NEXT

THE BOOK OF ZEN KEYS                PHILOSOPHY PART II - Age of Reason