Great Ideas of Philosophy

John Locke (1632–1704): Physician and one of the “fathers” of British empiricism. Locke set out in An EssayConcerning Human Understanding (1690) to defend a naturalistic account of mental life and a reductionisticstrategy for studying and explaining that life. Accordingly, both knowledge and self-knowledge are derived fromexperiences and the memory of them. One’s very personal identity is but that collection of entities in consciousnessentering by way of experience.Martin Luther (1483–1546): Began the Protestant Reformation with his protests against aspects of the CatholicChurch.Ernst Mach (1838–1916): German physicist who formulated a positivist creed in science that John Stuart Millwould develop. Mach said that we recognize our work as science to the extent that it is not metaphysics and thatphysical laws are only systematic descriptions of sense data that need no metaphysical description or underpinning.Karl Marx (1818–1883): Philosopher, social scientist, historian, and revolutionary who developed a socialistsystem that came to be used as the basis for many regimes around the world.John Stuart Mill (1806–1873): Known for his System of Logic, published in 1843, which analyzed inductive proof.Mill provided the empirical sciences with a set of formulas and criteria to serve the same purpose for them as thetimeworn formula of the syllogism had served for arguments that proceeded from general principles. Mill’s work isnot merely a logic in the limited sense of that term, but also a theory of knowledge such as Locke and Humeprovide.Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900): German philosopher who sharply criticized traditional philosophy and religionas both erroneous and harmful for human life, arguing that they enervate and degrade our native capacity forachievement. Best known for developing the concept of the Ubermensch, or “superman,” a rare, superior individualthat can rise above all moral distinctions to achieve a heroic life of truly human worth.Francesco Petrarch (1304–1374): Father of humanism. An Italian scholar and poet who is credited with havinggiven the Renaissance its name.Plato (427–347 B.C.): Greek philosopher and student of Socrates whose writings convey the spirit of his master’steachings on the theory of forms, the problem of knowledge, cosmological speculations, and the treatment ofgovernment.Protagoras (490–420 B.C.): Pre-Socratic Greek philosopher. A leading figure in Sophist thought, he proposed that“Man is the measure of all things.”Pyrrhon of Elis (360–272 B.C.): Greek philosopher known as one of the great fathers of Skeptical thought.Pythagoras (c. 580-500 B.C.): Greek philosopher who maintained that the ultimate reality was abstract andrelational, depending on numbers. His harmonic view of the universe provided one of the foundations for Platonicphilosophy. The first person to demonstrate the theorem that with any right triangle, the sum of the squares of eachof the two sides is equal to the square of the hypotenuse.Thomas Reid (1710–1796): Father of the Scottish Common Sense School. Scottish philosopher who laid thefoundations for a “common sense” psychology based on the natural endowments by which we (and the animals)understand the world and act in it. His influence was broad and deep, reaching the leaders of thought at theAmerican founding. Reid was the leading figure in a group of scholars and scientists at Aberdeen committed to thelarger Newtonian perspective. He also was David Hume’s most successful critic.Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778): Swiss-French philosopher, author, and political theorist whose work largelydecried the harmful effects of modern civilization.Girolamo Savonarola (1452–1498): Italian religious reformer best known for his attempt to reform RenaissanceFlorence society and the Catholic Church from the vices of modern life as he knew them.Friedrich von Schiller (1759–1805): German historian, philosopher, and dramatist; his Letters on the AestheticEducation of Man maintained that it is freedom that creates, determinism that limits and kills. Friend of JohannWolfgang von Goethe.©2004 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership 45