History of Philosophy

What is philosophy?

Philosophy is what everyone does when they’re not busy dealing with their everyday business and get a change simply to wonder what life and the universe are all about.

Philosophy is not so much about coming up with the answers to fundamental questions as it is about the process of trying to find these answers, using reasoning rather than accepting without question conventional views or traditional authority.

The first ∧ philosophers

Greek and Chinese Unsatisfied with established

explanations provided by religion and custom

documented

Zeus

Hey, girl.

Natural Philosophers

Metaphysics

Farming Technology

Farming Technology

Urbanization

Thales of Miletus – C624-546 BCE

EVERYTHING IS MADE OF WATER

Pythagoras – c.570-495 BCE

Everything in the universe conforms to mathematical rules and ratios

So if we understand number and mathematical relationships…

… we come to understand the structure of the cosmos

Mathematics is the key model for philosophical thought

Number is the ruler of idea.

Of what is the world made?

Metaphysics

Heraclitus

Parmenides

Democritus

Athens – Urban Expansion

Café Rational Justification

Discussion amongst friends

I know a guy who knows a guy…

You interested in some philosophy?

Ways of Knowing

“schools” taught both:

Thesis

methods of analysis

Thinking about Thinking

Debate and dialogue

Existence and knowledge

Morality, art, and politics

Math and Science

Socrates 469 BCE

Questioning methods of questioning

THE LIFE WHICH IS UNEXAMINED IS NOT WORTH LIVING.

Q. So you think that the gods know everything?

A. Yes, because they are gods.

Q. Do some gods disagree with others?

A. Yes, of course they do. They are always fighting.

Q. So gods disagree about what is true and right?

A. I suppose they must do.

Q. So some gods can be wrong sometimes?

A. I suppose that is true.

Therefore the gods cannot know everything!

Plato

EARTHLY KNOWLEDGE IS BUT SHADOW.

Aristotle

TRUTH RESIDES IN THE WORLD AROUND US.

Rise of the Roman Empire

Metaphysics in North Africa

Medieval Philosophy

Theology and Philosophy

Of what is the soul made?

Renaissance & Reformation

Sciences and Christianity

Many philosophical movements

Realism – Machiavelli The end justifies the means.

Humanism – de Montaigne Fame and tranquility can never be

bedfellows

Empiricism – Bacon Knowledge is power.

Physicalism – Hobbes Man is a machine

Rationalism

I THINK THEREFORE I AM.

Rene Descartes

1596-1650 CE

An evil demon may be making me believe thingsthat are false.

There is nothing of which I canbe certain.

But when I say “I am. I exist”, I cannot be wrongabout this.

An evil demon could try tomake me believe this onlyif I really do exist.

I am thinking, therefore I exist.

Rationalism

The belief that knowledge comes from reason alone.

TOK Moment

Language

Reason

Emotion

Sense Perception

Intuition

Imagination

Memory

Faith

DIALECTIC PROCESS

Thesis – Antithesis – Synthesis

Empiricism

All knowledge comes from experience.

John Locke said, “No man’s knowledge here can go beyond his experience.”

Dialectic Process

Rationalism Empiricism

Dialectic Process

Physicalism Idealism

Hobbes said, “Man is a machine.”

Physicalism, sometimes called Materialism, stresses that everything is dependent of physical processes.

Berkeley said, “To be is to be perceived.”

Idealism takes a spiritual interpretation of experience.

The Age of Revolution Scepticism – Voltaire

Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.

Empiricism – Hume Custom is the great guide of human life.

Social Contract Theory – Rousseau Man was born free yet everywhere he is

in chains

Transcendental Idealism – Kant There are two worlds: our bodies and the

external world

The Age of Revolution

Conservatism – Burke Society is indeed a contract.

Feminism – Wollstonecraft Mind has no gender

Idealism – Hegel Reality is a historical process.

Idealism – Schopenhauer Every man takes the limits of his own

field of vision for the limits of the world

Existentialism

Søren Kierkegaard

ANXIETY IS THE DIZZINESS OF FREEDOM.