Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha)

• Born into Southern Nepal Royal Family — promised to be Great Leader or Great Religious leader

• Story

  • Locked into the palace as he grew up

  • Chariot rides around kingdom

    • Old Person, Sick Person, Dead Person

    • Encounter with an Ascetic (religious)

  • Joined group of ascetics

    • Did not find his answers

  • Set off towards Bodhi tree: meditated for sic days

    • Developed middle path between extreme poverty and extreme indulgence

• Philosophy

  • Reincarnation of suffering (samsara)

  • 4 noble truths: suffering due to attachment (care, desire)

    • Eightfold Path

Martin Luther

• German

• Man of many talents and job titles

• Lived in times of greed, corruption of church, ignorance

• Pivoted to a monk lifestyle

  • Why?

• Impact

  • 95 Theses: criticism of church indulgences

  • Vernacular bible — amplified by printing press

  • Protestant Reformation - focus on faith over good works

• Ethics

  • Spiritual over physical

  • Salvation from faith and grace alone

  • Scripture had highest authority

Thomas Robert Malthus

• Ideas of population growth and resource scarcity

  • Population growth = geometric growth (exoponential)

  • Agriculture growth = arithmetic growth (linear)

• Top English economist

• Impacted democracy and social policy

• Population undermines social progress

• No regulation of reproduction → bad

• Supply/demand

• Value, rent, population

• Related to climate change, poverty rate

Nicolaus Copernicus

• Rich Polish family background (merchants)

• Good education

• Major in liberal arts, astronomy, and astrology

• Heliocentric theory

  • Refuted geocentric (Earth center)

  • Problem: planets moved backward

  • More accurate way to tell time

  • Basis for Gregorian calendar

• Ethics

  • Challenged existing beliefs and authority structures

  • Evidence-based reasoning

  • Renaissance era: pursuit of truth

David Hume (me)

Catherine of Siena

• Visions

• Stigmata → Markings of Christ

• Physical Suffering

• Ended Avignon Papacy

  • Convinced people to return to prayer

• Philosophy

  • Humility, Love, Obedience to God, United through prayer, Active service

• Many writings offering guidance and advice, pursuit of morality

• The Dialogue - conversations of Catherine and God

  • Shaped feminine spirituality

• Canonized a saint

Confucius

• Notable Chinese philosopher

• Five Classics important to Confucianism

  • Book of Changes - divination text

  • Book of Documents - rhetorical proses

  • Classic of Poetry - collection of ancient Chinese poetry

  • Book of Rites - traditions of Zhou dynasty

  • Spring and Autumn Annals - chronicle of state of Liu

• Commoner school → six arts

• Golden rule

• Main philosophies

  • Benevolence, Propriety (Etiquette), Filial piety (respect elders), Faithfulness, Righteousness (integrity)

Niccoló Machiavelli

• Born to prominent wealthy family in Florence

• Placed in charge of republic’s foreign affairs - diplomatic missions

• Wrongly suspected of assassination attempt against Medicis

• Condemned the government and clergy

• Disapproved of the Medici regime

• Advised for Pope to revive republic

• The Prince

  • Pragmatic guide for new princes

  • Bad rep for violence and tyranny

  • Based on Roman and Greek philosophical ideas

• “Ends always justify the means” → Machiavellian

  • “Amoral opprtunist” - Shakespeare

• Better feared than loved

• Strive to appear virtuous if possible

Aristotle

• Born in Greece

• Studied at Plato’s Academy

• Traveled to Asia Minor after Plato death

• Lyceum and libraries

• Tutor of Alexander the Great

• Eudaimonia

  • Well-being or happiness

  • Social relationships and community should partner to pursue common good

• Nicomachean Ethics (extended teachings of Socrates and Plato)

• Docusesn on nature of human action and ethics

• Golden mean

• Cirtue ethics

• Basis of Western philosophical thought

Cicero

• Born in Latium, Italy to wealthy family

• Military service

• Lawyer

• Quaetor (financial institution)

• Invited to join first triumvirate, rejected

• Faced brief exile due to exile

• Key ideas

  • Politicians had no virtue

  • Translated Greek to Latin

  • Skepticism and Stoicism

  • Question of how much value does virtue have

  • No skeptic to politics

  • Gods existed and loved humans

  • Human decorum

  • Reason

  • Following natural law (arises from reason)

Jeremy Bentham

• Philosophist

• Utilitarianism — specific actions are right because they give happiness to max people

• British

• Frustrated with English law

• At confliction with status quo of society

• Focuses on principle of utility

• Good → happiness

• Punishment creates more evil

• Welfare economics

• Wrote pamphlets

• Colonialism = detrimental

• Gender/sexual equality

• Animals should not suffer unless it benefits society

John Locke

• Puritans

• British (?)

• Admitted to Christ Church for college

• Two Treatises of Government argued against general monarchy

• Fled to Netherlands (suspected of Rye House Plot)

• Studied philosophy in Netherlands

• Returned to England after glorious revolution

• Religious tolerance

• More religions actually keep order instead disrupting it (except catholics and atheists)

  • Contrary to Hobbes

• Natural Rights and Social Contract

  • Right to life, liberty, property

• The Human Mind: conscious thinking is sensible

• “All men are created equal”

St. Thomas Aquinas (a-kwEYE-nus)

• Combined Theology and Philosophy

• Taught in Paris, Naples, Rome

• Fiercely defended unknowns explained by philosophical principles (logic)

• Defended Catholicism

• Wrote in textbook style with a twist

• Socratic method

Hypatia of Alexandria

• From Egypt

• Earliest female mathematician

• Number theory, conics, arithmetic

• Neoplatonist and seen as pagan

• Power in Society

  • Connection with city council

  • Influenced many with her involvement in ethical and political life

• Beliefs

  • Holistic view of ethics, spirituality, science

  • Metaphysical views (rationality and spirituality)

• Her knowledge of opposition and anti censorship led to her death

René Descartes

• “I think therefore I am”

• French

• Parents = farmers

• Grew up Catholic in a mostly protestant community

• Enrolled at Jesuit College

• Studied many topics, most importantly Aristotle

• Law degree at Poitiers in 1616

• Went to netherlands to study math and architecture

• Later adulthood

  • Invented analytic geometry and deductive reasoning in Bohemia

  • Esoteric knowledge

  • Wrote treatises in Paris

• Works

  • Rules for the Direction of the Mind (deductive reasoning)

    • Accept nothing as true, divide problems to simple parts, Work small to large, check

  • The World

    • Heliocentric model

  • Discourse on the Method

    • Written in vernacular

    • 4 moral laws

    • Knowledge as a tree

  • Meditations on First Philosophy

    • Methodic doubt, question everything

Thomas Hobbes

• Born in England

• Father abandoned him

• Worked for a rich family after earning degree at Oxford

• Connected with the king and parliament

• Acquainted with Parisian scientists and philosophers

• Pioneered theories in ethics

• The Elements of Law

  • Text starting a pattern of discussion on mind and knowledge

• De Cive: Liberty, Empire, Religion, Argues Aristotle (humans are unsuited to political life)

• De Corpore: Logic, language, method, metaphysics, math, physics

• De Mine: physiology, optics

• Leviathan (leh-v-EYE-ah-thun): civil obligations of Christian believers

  • Believers do not endanger their faith by obeying a sovereign

  • Influenced future of political philosophy (church/state symbiosis)

• Empiricist

• AP Euro supplement:

  • Anti-enlightened assumptions

  • English Civil War displayed chaos, disorder, and danger

    • Beheading of a king

    • People massacring each other

    • Hobbes lived through this, impacted his views

    • Lenses are different; varying views

  • Humans: dominated by passion, appetites, and physical needs (mechanistic)

  • Satisfy needs at expense of other men (selfish/individualistic)

  • State of nature = constant warfare

    • Selfish needs drive war

  • Solution: social contract giving up power to an absolute ruler

    • Why give democracy to people when people are selfish

  • Absolute ruler wants power and wealth

    • Needs to be careful, be good to the people to continue his rule

    • Interests of the ruler aligns with the people to prevent overthrow

  • State of nature is worse than tyranny

Lady Anne Conway

• Enlightenment era

• Professor at Cambridge

• Monistic metaphysics (everything is from one)

• Converted to Quakerism

• Continuum of being

• Strive towards perfection

Mary Wollstonecraft

• English philosopher, author, women rights activist

• Relationships damaged her reputation

• Feminist and Philosopher: Vindication of the Rights of Woman

• Gender equity is necessary

  • Basic human rights

  • Equality in understanding society

  • Moral reasoning and decision making

  • Helps society as a whole

    • Better parenting

    • Advancements with equal education