Philosophers Articles

Article / Updated 06-06-2023

Much of Western philosophy finds its basis in the thoughts and teachings of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. You can't begin a study of world philosophy without talking about these guys: the Big Three ancient Greek philosophers. Socrates: Athens' street-corner philosopher Socrates was the big-city philosopher in ancient Athens. Accused and convicted of corrupting the youth, his only real crime was embarrassing and irritating a number of important people. His punishment was death. Famous quote: "The unexamined life is not worth living." Socrates didn't write books; he just liked to ask probing and sometimes humiliating questions, which gave rise to the famous Socratic Method of Teaching. This street-corner philosopher made a career of deflating pompous windbags. Plato: The philosopher who would be king An aristocratic man with plenty of money and a superb physique, Plato at one time won two prizes as a championship wrestler. Actually, the man's real (and little known) name was Aristocles; Plato was just a nickname given to him by his friends, whose original connotation made reference to his broad shoulders. Plato became an enthusiastic and talented student of Socrates and wrote famous dialogues featuring his teacher verbally grappling with opponents. Our wrestler believed in the pre-existence and immortality of the soul, holding that life is nothing more than the imprisonment of the soul in a body. In addition to the physical world, there is a heavenly realm of greater reality consisting in Forms, Ideals, or Ideas (such as Equality, Justice, Humanity, and so on). As his crowning achievement: He wrote a famous treatise (The Republic) on the ideal society, in which he expressed the thought that a philosopher, of all people, should be king (big surprise!). Aristotle: A long walk to the Golden Mean Aristotle was Plato's best student. He went on to become the very well-paid tutor —probably the highest paid philosopher in history — of Alexander the Great. Aristotle started his own philosophical school when he was 50 years old. Although he lived only ten more years, he produced nearly a thousand books and pamphlets, only a few of which have survived. This great thinker was called a peripatetic philosopher (peripateo means "to walk around") because he liked to lecture to his students while taking a walk. Another group of philosophers were called stoics because they preferred sitting around on porches (stoa) when they shot the breeze. A key theme in Aristotle's thought is that happiness is the goal of life. Aristotle was a good deal less other-worldly than Plato. He voluntarily went into exile from Athens when conditions became a bit politically dangerous for him, in his words, "lest Athens sin twice against philosophy." The founder of logical theory, Aristotle believed that the greatest human endeavor is the use of reason in theoretical activity. One of his best known ideas was his conception of The Golden Mean — to "avoid extremes," the counsel of moderation in all things.

Article / Updated 12-29-2021

The content you are looking for was recently moved. Don't worry, it's still here; it just has a new address:

Article / Updated 05-12-2021

The words skeptic and skepticism come from an ancient Greek verb that meant "to inquire." Etymologically, then, a skeptic is an inquirer. This should form important background for an understanding of skeptical doubt. Skepticism at its best is not a matter of denial, but of inquiring, seeking, questioning doubt. The first great skeptical philosopher of the ancient world was Pyrrho of Elis (circa 310–270 B.C.). After traveling with Alexander the Great as a court philosopher, Pyrrho returned home to teach great crowds of admirers and seekers. He was known for presenting philosophy as a way of life that aims at a calmness of the spirit and happiness of the heart. Pyrrho believed that people should always be quick to question and slow to believe. He seemed to think that we too easily become convinced of things that trouble our minds and disturb our souls. So he practiced, and preached, withholding judgment as much as possible. Some stories from the ancient world portray Pyrrho as far too calm, and even indifferent, concerning dangers in his daily environment. We are told that his friends were constantly saving his life, pulling him from the paths of speeding carts, from the edges of cliffs, and from other dangers. Commentators ascribe this to Pyrrho's skeptical disinclination to trust appearances, and thus to a philosophical disinclination actually to believe anything that appeared to be going on around him. Appropriately enough, many people are skeptical about such stories. Other stories about Pyrrho seem more credible, and more likely attributable to his skepticism. We are told that he was once attacked by a fierce dog, that he reacted with fear, and that he later apologized to his friends for not acting consistently with his own philosophy. Another story does have him attaining this consistency of withholding judgment and experiencing inner calm as a result. He was on board a ship during a violent storm, but showed no fear. His terrified fellow passengers asked how he remained calm. We are told that, in the midst of the storm, he pointed to a little pig on deck calmly eating his food, and said that this is the unperturbed way a wise man should live in all situations. Another ancient skeptic was the physician Sextus Empiricus. Appropriately enough, we are uncertain of the place and date of his birth, the date of his death, and where he lived. He seems to have lived in the second half of the second century A.D. and into the first quarter of the third century. We think he was Greek because of his facility with the Greek language and apparent knowledge of places in the Greek world. His works have been very influential and are the best sources for the arguments and positions of classic Greek skepticism. Like Pyrrho, Sextus was no dogmatic naysayer about human knowledge. He didn't deny its possibility or actual occurrence. He was just extremely careful about committing belief to anything that went beyond immediate appearances and urged us on to similar caution. Skeptics like Pyrrho and Sextus thought that we should live our daily lives in accordance with appearances, but that we should refrain from drawing any conclusions from those appearances as well as from holding any firm beliefs based on those appearances. The point of this caution was always the goal of unperturbedness of spirit, and ultimately a sort of peaceful happiness of life. This is the ancient heritage of skepticism. But our use of skeptical questioning today is a bit different. We do not aim at the attainment of spiritual calmness but rather at intellectual enlightenment.

Article / Updated 05-12-2021

Immanuel Kant is probably the most famous and complex of German philosophers. Immanuel Kant remains influential (getting through philosophy graduate school without studying him is nearly impossible), although Kant's philosophy is verbose, theoretical, and difficult to comprehend. As a young man and a student, Kant lived a life of poverty and deprivation. He often went hungry, but preserved his health by "breathing only through my nose in the winter and keeping the pneumonia winds out of my chest by refusing to enter into conversation with anyone." Barely 5 feet tall, he was to become one of the giants of philosophy. Reading the works of Scottish philosopher and skeptic David Hume awakened him, he said, from his "dogmatic slumber." His best known book is The Critique of Pure Reason, sometimes described as a nearly unreadable masterpiece of philosophy. Kant himself described it as "dry, obscure, contrary to all ordinary ideas, and on top of that prolix." (Prolix means verbose.) He was right. He once sent the completed manuscript to a friend who was himself an eminent scholar. The man read some of the book but returned it unfinished, explaining, "If I go on to the end, I am afraid I shall go mad." Born in Konigsberg, Prussia, Kant never left town. He took a walk every day with such regularity (at 3:30 in the afternoon) that people could set their clocks by him. In his philosophical work, he tried to restrict reason to make room for faith. He believed that theoretical reason can't reach beyond the world of experience, and so he disliked the traditional "proofs" of the existence of God. He wanted instead to make religious belief a matter of "practical reason." Kant's most famous distinction was his idea of the phenomenal world (things as they appear to us) and the noumenal world (things as they are in themselves). Kant once wrote, "Morality is not properly the doctrine of how we may make ourselves happy, but how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness." His well-known and unduly severe conception of morality: acting on the motive of duty alone. His principle of universalizability in ethics is often alluded to by the common question: "What if everybody did it?"

Article / Updated 03-26-2016

If you’re into philosophy, it’s important to become acquainted with some of the early founding philosophers. This list contains the big names and big thinkers of ancient times: Presocratics: Anaximines, Anaxamander, Anaxagoras. Strange and famous names. Among the earliest philosophers on record. Costarring such luminaries as Thales, who believed that everything is made of water, once almost drowned, and got rich from getting a corner on the olive oil market. The Presocratics did speculative protoscience. Of course, they didn’t know they were Presocratics. But we do. Socrates: Did philosophy using The Socratic Method (duh). Hit the streets in search of wisdom. Executed by popular demand. Taught Plato. Plato: Hung around with Socrates. Wrote dialogues featuring his teacher. Maybe the most famous philosopher of all time. Taught the other contender for this accolade, Aristotle. Aristotle: Student of Plato. Codified logic. Said everyone seeks happiness. Taught Alexander the Great. Plato emphasized the next world; Aristotle concentrated on this one. The Stoics: Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius were the best known of the Roman Stoics. Main advice for handling any difficult thing in life: Put it in perspective and get over it.