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A 'home-made' thumb-nail biography of philosophical people to aid my revision. Please do not see these as definitive. |
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| Aristotle | 382-322BC | Plato's pupil, teacher of Alexander The Great. | |
| Augustine | 354-430AD | Christian convert. 'God make me good, but not yet!'. | |
| Ayer, Sir Alfred Jules | 1910-89 | Wrote 'Language, Truth and Logic' (1936) at the age of 26. Logical positivist influenced by the 'Vienna Circle'. | |
| Bacon,Francis | 1561-1626 | English philosopher, not the painter. Tried to break the chains of Aristotlean mediaeval thinking. Rather than being a platonist, more humanist, in that he believed man by his own experimentation could hold dominion over nature by understanding it. Baron Verulam,Viscount of St Albans. Died after stuffing ice into a chicken, and catching pneumonia from the exercise. No mention if the chicken was alive at the time.Novum Organum(1620) | |
| Brentano, Franz | 1838-1917 | Characterised states of mind as 'aboutness' or Intentionality. Intentionality distinguishes the mental from the physical according to Brentano. This would include thoughts of non-existent objects and misrepresentations such as false beliefs. | |
| Descartes, Rene | 1596-1650 | Born near Tours and educated by the Jesuits at
La Fleche. The education was mainly Aristotelean in nature. The father of modern Western Philosophy? Certainly left a legacy of mind-body dualism. He was a great mathematician as well, discover/inventing Cartesian coordinate geometry. Works: 'Principles of Philosophy' (1644), 'Discourse on Method' (1637). 'Cogito, ergo sum' is the famous quote. Starting with doubt (scepticism) he established 'a priori' a point beyond which scepticism could not go. |
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| Freud, Sigmund | 1856-1939 | Austrian-Jewish founder of psychoanalysis. His work has had a huge influence on how people understand themselves. This has had consequence on the philosophy of the mind and self. | |
| Hegel, G.W.F | 1770-1831 | Author of 'Phenomenology of Spirit' (1807). Influenced Karl Marx. | |
| Heidegger, Martin | 1899-1976 | German founder of existentialism. Main work: 'Being and Time' ('Sein und Seit').(1927). | |
| Hume,David | 1711-76 | Scottish philosopher. What is cause? Hume would say it is a belief that two occurrences are conjoined. That one accepts that one occurrence occurs after another. But there is no reason that it will do so in the future. Very much an empiricist, following Locke and Berkeley. | |
| Kant, Immanuel | 1724-1804 | Native of Konigsburg.Main work: 'Critique of Pure Reason'. | |
| Leibnitz, G.W. | 1646-1716 | Great German mathematician and philosopher. Is thought to have invented or discovered integral calculus at the same time as Newton. A monist, propounder of the identity thesis. | |
| Nagel, Thomas | 1937- | Professor of philosophy and law at NYU. 'What is it like to be a bat?' and 'The View From Nowhere' popularised philosophy. Questions the explanative power of pure objectivity. Subjectivity has its place. The difficulty is incorporating the two views. | |
| Pascal | 1623-62 | French mathematician and philosopher. Known for 'Pascal's Wager' for the existence of God. | |
| Plato | 428?-348BC | Pupil of Socrates. Known for his 'forms'. | |
| Russell, Bertrand | 1872-1970 | British Philosopher. His Godfather was John Stuart Mill. His main work was the 'Principia Mathematica' with A.N Whitehead (1913). A pacifist (jailed 1918), atheist (rejected for a Chair) and activist (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament) | |
| Sartre, Jean-Paul | 1905-80 | French philosopher and novelist. Best known for existentialism, he later believed that Marxist philosophy was more powerful. | |
| Socrates | 470?399BC | Athenian philosopher, the son of a mid-wife, whose saying were written up as dialogues by Plato. Had to drink hemlock for 'impiety and corrupting the youth of Athens'. The alternative to hemlock would have been much worse. | |
| Spinoza, Benedict Baruch to his friends |
1632-77 | Dutch-Jewish philosopher. A dissenter against both Christian and Jewish orthodoxy. Made a living from grinding lenses - which eventually killed him. | |
| Wittgenstein, Ludwig | 1889-1951 | Austrian-Jewish philosopher. Along with Heidegger, probably the most influential 20th Century philosopher.Language games and lifeforms for the relevance of religious knowledge. | |
| Last updated: July 2001. | |||