Great Ideas of Philosophy

progress in one of its most summoning forms. The mind has progressed from murky superstition and timiditytoward the light of reason in stages, each stage requiring the abandonment of ancestral ignorance. The advent of thescientific worldview now abets this progress.Confucius (551–479 B.C.): Chinese philosopher who maintained that adherence to traditional values of virtue isnecessary to achieve a state of orderliness and peace.Charles Darwin (1809–1882): British naturalist who developed the theory of evolutionary selection, which holdsthat variation within species occurs randomly and that the survival or extinction of each organism is determined bythat organism’s ability to adapt to its environment.Democritus (460–370 B.C.): Pre-Socratic Greek philosopher who taught an atomic theory of reality, that all thingsare made of atoms and void.René Descartes (1596–1650): Discovered analytical geometry, was an important contributor to the physicalsciences, and was, perhaps, the most important figure in that branch of philosophy called philosophy of mind.Known for his proof of existence: “I think, therefore I am.”Denis Diderot (1713–1784): Most prominent of the French Encyclopedists. In the circle of the leaders of theEnlightenment, Diderot’s name became known especially by his Lettre sur les aveugles (London, 1749), whichsupported Locke’s theory of knowledge.Diogenes (4 th century B.C.): Leading philosopher of the pre-Socratic school of Cynicism. Diogenes practiced selfcontroland a rigid abstinence, exposing himself to extremes of heat and cold and living on the simplest diet.Erasmus (1469–1536): Fifteenth-century humanist. His best known work is Praise of Folly, a pamphlet mainlydirected against the behavior of ruling classes and church dignitaries while exposing the irony of mankind’svanities.Euripides (480–406 B.C.): Greek playwright best known for the tragedy Medea.Pierre Flourens (1794–1867): French physiologist who—along with François Magendie and Xavier Bichat—surgically destroyed selective regions of animals’ brains and observed the behavior of the survivors. Through thistechnique, Flourens discovered that the areas of the brain that Franz Joseph Gall had identified with certain specificfunctions were not connected with those specific functions.Sigmund Freud (1856–1938): The father of psychoanalysis. Freud, in collaboration with Joseph Breuer, articulatedand refined the concepts of the unconscious, infantile sexuality, and repression and proposed a tripartite account ofthe mind’s structure, all as part of a then–radically new conceptual and therapeutic frame of reference for theunderstanding of human psychological development and the treatment of abnormal mental conditions.Franz Joseph Gall (1758–1828): Leading neuroanatomist of his time; propounded the “science” of phrenology, atheory that brain structures are related to brain functions, which became dominant in the scientific thinking of the19 th century and thereafter.Francis Galton (1822–1911): Cousin of Charles Darwin. Published his studies of hereditary genius in 1869, statingthat natural selection yields a very few exceptional human types, but general human flourishing disproportionatelydepends on their merits.Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832): Eighteenth-century writer best known for Faust.Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831): German philosopher who merged and synthesized many of thestrongest tendencies in Romantic thought. First is the idea of progressive and evolving reality—not the staidmechanical repetitiousness of mere causality, but an active principle at work in the natural world. Second, there isthe criticism of science as not being up to the task of comprehending this world, tied as it is to reductive schemes.Hermann von Helmholtz (1821–1894): Nineteenth-century physicist and physiologist; one of Sigmund Freud’steachers. In a November 1862 lecture at Heidelberg, Helmholtz tried to clarify why leading scientists visiblyshunned philosophers, when previously, the natural philosopher was the natural scientist.©2004 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership 43