Ancient Philosophy

Panoramic View of Ancient Philosophy

  • Western philosophy originated in Greece in the 6th century BC.
  • The expression "the passage from myth to logos" is traditionally used to describe the emergence of philosophy as a gradual shift from mythical-religious explanations to rational ones.
  • The initial focus of philosophy was nature, or physis.
  • Early philosophers began to view the natural world as ordered and governed by necessary causal connections, knowable through human reason, rather than functioning arbitrarily based on the whims of gods in ancient myths.

The First Philosophers

  • The earliest philosophers in Western philosophy are those of the Milesian School: Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes.
    • They inquired about the arche, the element or principle from which everything originates and is made.
  • In the 5th century BC, Heraclitus of Ephesus emphasized a view of nature as in constant change, yet governed by a law or reason, termed logos.
  • Parmenides of Elea sharply distinguished between sensory perception (considered false and deceptive) and what is grasped through reason.
    • Sensory experience shows plurality and movement, but this is mere appearance.
    • Reality consists only of "being"; non-being is unthinkable.
    • Characteristics of "being": uncreated, indestructible, unique, indivisible, and immobile.
  • Philosophers after Parmenides (Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Democritus) are termed "pluralists" because they identified the arche with multiple elements.

Anthropological Turn

  • From the second half of the 5th century BC, new research topics emerged, focusing on the human being, education, ethics, and politics.
    • This shift was primarily due to the triumph of democracy in Athens, accompanied by economic and cultural prosperity.
  • The Sophists were educators who charged fees to teach youth.
    • They were foreigners who settled in Athens, offering education to help young people succeed in Athenian public life, particularly in oratory.
    • Oratory was seen as a skill to persuade in public assemblies and win court cases.
    • The Sophists were not a homogeneous group but generally shared a relativistic and sometimes skeptical attitude.
    • They observed diverse laws and customs across different communities, leading them to believe that absolute truths do not exist.
  • Socrates, a contemporary of the Sophists, was an Athenian citizen.
    • He shared their interest in human-related topics but maintained the existence of universal truths, opposing the Sophists' relativism.
    • Socrates believed that individuals possess parts of the truth and need help from others to discover the whole truth, using his method of "irony and maieutics."
    • Socrates did not impart a specific doctrine but facilitated the discovery of common truth.

Plato

  • Plato's philosophy addresses both cosmological problems (related to physis, as studied by early philosophers) and anthropological, ethical, and political issues raised by the Sophists and Socrates.
  • Plato’s philosophy is primarily known through his dialogues.
  • An essential part of Plato's thought is the Theory of Forms, which posits two separate levels of reality: the sensible world (changeable and perceived by the senses) and the intelligible world (eternal and immutable essences grasped through reason).
    • The world of Forms is hierarchically ordered, with the Form of the Good at the top, serving as the supreme principle for both theoretical understanding and practical moral and political order.
  • Plato's philosophical project is fundamentally political, driven by the injustice of Socrates's condemnation and death.
    • He aimed to create an ideal state ruled by philosophers who understand the Form of the Good.

Aristotle

  • Aristotle, Plato's most prominent disciple, critiqued the Theory of Forms, arguing that essences cannot exist separately from things themselves.
    • True reality, or substance, is the concrete individual perceived through the senses.
    • Substance is a composite of matter and form.
    • Form is the essence of a thing, making it what it is.
    • Form is eternal but exists only in matter.
    • Matter is passive, indeterminate, and actualized by form.
  • In ethics and politics, Aristotle posits that humans are social beings who can only achieve fulfillment within a community.
    • The path to happiness is virtue, which involves behaving according to a mean between two vices.
    • External goods are also necessary for a happy life.
    • The most important thing is that human beings can engage in theoretical contemplation and wisdom.

Women Philosophers in Antiquity

  • Women philosophers are often absent from standard histories of philosophy.
    • Women in past centuries lacked the time and opportunities men had to systematically record their thoughts.
    • Female thinkers faced greater social stigma than their male counterparts.
    • Examples of women philosophers from antiquity include:
      • Theano of Croton (Pythagorean philosopher)
      • Aspasia of Miletus (admired by Socrates)
      • Hypatia of Alexandria (Neoplatonist philosopher who was a victim of fanaticism)

Panoramic View of Medieval Philosophy

  • The medieval period (5th-15th centuries) is characterized by the cultural dominance of Christian religion in the West.
    • Early Christian philosophers and theologians initially rejected aspects of Greek philosophy that conflicted with their faith, later adapting theories that were more compatible.
    • Philosophy was used to support religious beliefs.
    • The tension between faith and reason led Christian thinkers to address the relationship between them.

Augustine of Hippo (Saint Augustine, 354-430)

  • This Christian philosopher represents the culmination of Patristics.
  • Augustine attempted to synthesize Christianity with Platonic philosophy.
    • He did not sharply distinguish between reason and faith; he believed that the Christian truth could be better understood with reason.
    • Faith is the basis for arriving at truth.
    • Reason should support faith to clarify.
    • Reason, when used correctly, cannot disagree with faith.
  • The "Medieval Augustinianism" arose from Saint Augustine's thoughts.

The Rise of Scholasticism

  • During the 5th to 8th centuries, European culture declined, but during the Carolingian Renaissance monastic and cathedral schools were founded.
    • These schools and universities developed scholasticism, a philosophical and theological movement.
    • Scholasticism includes diverse approaches.
    • The core reflection is theological: the existence and nature of God and the relationships between philosophy and theology.
    • Philosophy was considered "the handmaiden of theology."
    • The method used was reading and commenting on texts, accepting the authority of the Scriptures.

The Discovery of Aristotle. Averroism (12th-13th Centuries)

  • The rise and spread of Islam from the 7th century was an essential factor in the Middle Ages.
    • Arabs came into contact with Greek philosophy, especially Aristotle's works.
    • Early Arab philosophers adopted a highly Platonized Aristotelianism, with Avicenna as its foremost figure.
    • Later, Averroes commented on Aristotle's works, eliminating Platonic elements and offering a pure Aristotelianism.
    • Averroes was the greatest commentator on Aristotle.
  • The entry of Greek philosophy through the Arabs stimulated the West.
    • The University of Paris was shaken by the arrival of Aristotle's complete works along with Averroes's commentaries.
    • This created an Aristotelian movement known as Latin Averroism.
    • This movement was distinguished by three assertions:
      • The eternity of the world, contradicting the Christian belief in creation by God.
      • The individual soul is not immortal but perishable.
      • The theory of the double truth, suggesting theological truth differs from philosophical truth.
    • The Averroist theory of the double truth was condemned.

Thomas Aquinas (Saint Thomas Aquinas, 1225-1274)

  • The assimilation of Aristotle's philosophy within Christian orthodoxy was carried out by Saint Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas.
  • Aquinas argued against the three Averroist theses:
    • He showed there is no contradiction in the world being both eternal and created.
    • He reinterpreted Aristotle, stating that the immortal intellect is a superior faculty of the human soul.
    • He deemed the double truth unnecessary once the first two assertions were negated.
    • Aquinas believed the Aristotelian system was compatible with Christian faith.

14th Century: The Crisis of Scholasticism

  • The 14th century was a period of crisis in politics and culture, representing a critique and rejection of Christian philosophical systems.
  • William of Ockham (1290-1349) stated that reason and faith have distinct contents.
    • Propositions once considered common to both are deemed rationally undemonstrable.
  • Ockham's separation of reason and faith led to a mystic position in faith and an empiricist doctrine in reason.
  • Ockham was a representative of nominalism, the belief that universal essences common to individuals don't exist.
    • Individuals share similarities, forming the foundation for universals in the mind.
    • Universal concepts of Plato do not exist.

Christian Women Philosophers of the Middle Ages

  • In the 11th century women were recognized enough for their works to endure.
  • Writing was how women could express their thoughts because they shouldn't speak in public.
  • Women were seen as inferior to men by people like Tomas de Aquino and Alberto Magno.
  • Women weren't allowed to address issues that scholasticism addressed.
  • Mysticism was a philosophical belief women thinkers could find their place as a movement opposing scholasticism as mysticism was understood as a philosophy of open soul.
  • Important mystics were Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179), Mechthild von Magdeburg (1207-1282) or Marguerite Porète (1250-1310). They were important figures in mysticism.

Modern Philosophy

  • Modernity brought a new way of seeing the world and a new way of interpreting human aspirations.
    • The new worldview is linked to the development of science.
    • The new way of interpreting human aspirations is associated to the ethical and political demands of the Enlightenment.
    • Modern philosophy is characterized by the autonomy of reason.
      • Reason is the supreme principle for knowledge of the universe, addressing essential questions about humanity, society, and history.
      • Modern thought analyzes reason in its theoretical and practical functions.
  • The period of modern philosophy extends through the 17th and 18th centuries.
    • Politically, this period corresponds to the consolidation of absolute monarchies and the revolutionary process.
      • The American Revolution led to the independence of the United States.
      • The French Revolution unleashed the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.
  • The creation and consolidation of modern states took place during the Renaissance (16th century).

Main Modern Philosophical Currents

  • The crisis of medieval scholasticism and the influence of scientific thinking led philosophy to focus on what we can know and which method to follow.
  • The 17th century was characterized by two conflicting positions: rationalism and empiricism.
1. Rationalism
  • The term "rationalism" designates the philosophical movement of the 17th century initiated by Descartes and including Spinoza, Leibniz, and Malebranche.
  • The current is characterized by adopting the following philosophical positions:
    • Mathematics is the model of knowledge.
    • Three traits of rationalist philosophy:
      • Its ideal of deductive science is the conviction that the knowledge of the world that we possess can be deduced from certain primitive and evident ideas and principles.
      • Its conviction that the scope of knowledge corresponds to that of reality.
      • The conviction that those two dimensions are necessary.
    • The basic problem consists of determining where those ideas and principles come from.
      • Principles, ideas, and definitions that are the base of scientific propositions come from the sensitive experience information that the senses provide.
      • Those basic ideas and principles do not come from sensitive experience but from the understanding itself.
      • The elements of scientific knowledge do not come from experience but from the understanding itself.
      • This is called innatism.
2. Empiricism
  • Empiricism is a characteristically English philosophy and reaction to rationalism.
  • Locke and Hume the most characteristic empiricists philosophers.
  • Empiricism is characterized by rejection of innatism.
    • According to empiricists, there are no innate ideas or principles in the understanding.
    • Before the experience, our understanding is like a blank page that does not have anything written.
    • Empiricism can be defined as the theory that denies the existence of innate knowledge and states that all of our knowledge comes from experience.
    • Our knowledge has its limitations.
    • It proceeds from the experience and does not go further from it.
    • It is a double limitation that our understanding cannot go further from what the experience knows and can only be sure if it's what is in the limits of experience.
    • Since every idea comes from experience, is important to study their genesis (how do they originate from the experience).
    • The method uses analysis that consists of taking our most complex ideas and decompose from where do they start.

The Transcendental Idealism : Kant (18th century)

  • Immanuel Kant's thought represents an attempt to overcome the rationalism and empiricism, synthesizing them.
    • He carries out a criticism of reason to clarify the nature of its powers.
    • In the analysis of human knowledge Kant recognizes two faculties, sensibility and understanding.
      • Sensibility is the capacity to receive impressions; it's a passive point close to empiricism.
      • Understanding is the capacity to think or judge; it's active because it produces concepts such as cause, substance, necessity, approaching rationalism.
      • The originality consists in the Kant´s affirmation that those concepts produced by the understanding are only applied to the experience, it does not pretend to go further like rationalism.
      • Experience constitutes the limit of our knowledge of objects.
      • The Kantian theory of the knowledge is constructivist, the knowing is a result of the synthesis from the sensibility activity.
      • The knowing, result of the synthesis, is called by Kant "Phenomenon".
      • Phenomenon is what appears to the subject, the reality as it seems.
      • Beyond the phenomenon, there is the reality such as it is in itself, Kant calls it a "thing in itself" and also as "noumenon”.
  • Kant also focused on the autonomy of reason in the establishment of moral law, apart from other topics.

The Illustration (18th century)

  • The illustration takes place in Europe that considers the reason the faculty to know, and the only guide in every scope of the human being.
  • The illustrated reason pretends to free man from ignorance, the submission of nature, religious superstitions, and political opression.
  • The illustration separates from the faith and theology being critic to any prejudice.
  • The Illustration has trust in the progress of humanity.
  • This trust is based in the perfectioning of the human being along with the history and the freeing capacity of the reason.
Illustrate Thinkers
  • In the 18th century women were home because there was a strict separation between public life as a space for man and the private. Also in this time the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau described the woman as sensible and pasive and the man as active and intelligent.
  • The happiness of woman is in love and in nowhere else because the woman has an obligation to pleasing the man.
  • Olympe de Gouges wrote a declaration of rights for the woman in the year 1791 because the Paris national asambly had put in power a new costitution from which the woman were excluded.
    • In the 1st article of the Olympe´s declaration formulates that "The woman is born free and is equal to the man in rights".
  • Mary Wollstonecra also wrote in 1792 "A vindication of the rights of the women". And defended the equality in the education and opportunities between sexes expressing that the woman need the opportunities to increase their talents.

Panoramic View of Contemporary Philosophy

  • Contemporary world has complexity, the philosophy analyzes and reflects on all fundamental phenomenon.
  • Thinking on the present is more difficult than thinking on the past.
  • The topics are Marx interpretation, Nielstche vision that have been enforced during eras, individual revitalitation, the importance of the language, progressive tecnification and globalisation.
  • Contemporary philosophy develops since the mid of the 19th century until today.
  • There is a huge disparity of approaches, systems which makes the presentation of the panoramic General difficult. But there is all common to the thought modern of the 17th century.

Social and Political context - 19th century

  • It is an agitated century because of the roots in the old regime and the economic and social transformation that the industrial revolution did.

  • It produces a transformation in Europe the bourgeoisie capitalism and industrial is the is benefited, at side proletariat the slow slowly, between the social classes there are social class.

  • The configuration shows the new social structuring that there are bourgeois neighborhoods and neighborhoods.

  • The impulses are from the liberalism, the democratic movements and the attempt of contentions stand for the traditionalism, the Catholic Church and the bourgeois.

  • At the same time another movement crosses that the continental is the nationalism, that there is the imperialist.

Social and Political Context - 20th century

  • The 20th century was marked by a worldwide face-off in history. La Primera Guerra Mundial (1914-1918) confronted the nations (Alemania y Austria-Hungría) e Italia with France, Russia. This resulted in new borders for Europe.
  • Meanwhile in 1917, the Russian Revolution took place, where private ownership was suppressed. The example of this and the fear of class led to the rise of autoritarisms dictatorships.In 1936 it was a coup d'état against the republic.
  • In Europe, in the 30s, the crisis led the governments to be replaced by the totalitarisms. The Germany was led by Adolf Hitler.
  • In 1939 began the second World War, and in 1945 the creation of international organism where highlights the ONU.
  • Over the last decades, there have been problems that include the conflict between civilisations, the unequals economics between countries and the defence of the human rights.

main moments and autors of the contemporary philosphy

1. The Marxism
  • Against division of the materialism in history Marx sits the basis of the human being, the work constructs the essence.
  • But in the capitalist society, the humans are alienated are not the owner of theselves
  • Against this state of alienation, the revolutionary ideal comes as something possible.
2. the Nietzsche
  • criticising the occident since Socrates, the philosofy in what favour is the effect of a decadent world.
  • The nihilism "nada" lives the Occidental culture.
  • Will conduct to our absence of values and disorientation.
3. The Escuala of frankfort
  • Is a tradition marxist which have an institute of investigation, and analysis the critic from to society.
  • The propose rational clarication about the structure and the consecuences of the humans, and The Illustration has become the opposite the nature and the necessity of the imagaination. Also it has has contributed with The Critic function of a industrialised society
4. The existenualism
  • In the 2 world wars is a expression of the desoritation of changes of the culture.
  • the existenualysim afirms the individual existence