Western Philosophers: Timeline, History, and Movements
Philosophy is the rational, abstract, and methodical consideration of reality and the fundamental dimensions of human existence and experience. The questions that form the subject matter of philosophy at a given time do not have definitive answers. As history shows, when such questions are finally resolved, they cease to be philosophical, often becoming the subject matter of science, psychology, or mathematics. Isaac Newton’s theory of gravity, for example, was originally a major development within the field of “natural philosophy.” The primary value of philosophy, therefore, lies in the contemplation of its profound questions, which affords a deeper understanding of reality and humanity while greatly energizing the human intellect.
Major questions
- Is there a God? The ontological argument claims that God, as the greatest conceivable being, must exist, because an existent being is greater than a nonexistent being, other things being equal; whereas the problem of evil contends that the existence of evil entails that there cannot be a being who is at the same time omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent.
- What is morally right or wrong? Consequentialism claims that right actions are those with the best feasible consequences; deontological ethics holds that right actions conform to moral duties or values; and ethical relativism contends that no actions are absolutely right or wrong.
- What is truth? The correspondence theory claims that true statements or beliefs accurately depict facts about reality; the coherence theory holds that true statements or beliefs cohere with internally consistent belief systems; and pragmatism contends that true statements or beliefs are part of or follow from belief systems that are practically useful.
- Where does knowledge of reality come from? Rationalism claims that knowledge of reality is ultimately obtained through innate ideas and reason; empiricism holds that all substantive knowledge is derived from experience; and skepticism contends that some, if not all, aspects of reality are unknowable.
- Do humans have free will? Determinism claims that human actions are causally necessary; compatibilism holds that human actions are dependent on human decisions or desires, even if those are causally necessary themselves; and metaphysical libertarianism contends that human actions are not causally necessary—that is, humans do have free will.
- What makes a human the same person over time? Some overlapping theories make one or more of the following claims: (1) personal identity depends on appropriate physical or psychological continuity; (2) a human would be the same person in a different body through a brain transplant; (3) the transfer to more than one body of a human’s comprehensive neurological state or dual brain hemispheres would enable the human to survive in at least two different bodies, but not as the same person. Survival thus differs from identity.
- What is the nature of thought and intelligence? The British mathematician and philosopher Alan Turing demonstrated a functional understanding of intelligence through the “Turing test,” under which a machine is classified as genuinely intelligent if human interrogators cannot reliably determine whether anonymous answers to their questions came from a machine or a human being. In response, the American philosopher John Searle offered a refutation of Turing’s theory in the “Chinese room argument,” in which Searle himself, who knows nothing of the Chinese language, is able to provide anonymous replies to questions or messages by Chinese speakers simply by matching a set of Chinese characters provided by speakers with another set designated as an appropriate answer or response. Searle thus provides intelligent answers without knowing the meanings of the characters he manipulates. Real thought and intelligence, therefore, is not merely a matter of correct symbol manipulation, as it has been conceived by Turing and, more recently, by some proponents of artificial intelligence (AI).
Famous figures
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Puzzles and paradoxes
Western philosophy is filled with problems like these, which are more complicated than they might appear.
- “I am lying.” True or false? If “I am lying” is true, then what I am saying is not true, in which case “I am lying” is false. If “I am lying” is false, then what I am saying is not false, in which case “I am lying” is true.
- Zeno’s plurality paradox Suppose that reality is plural (there is more than one thing). Then: (a) because the number of things there are is neither more nor less than the number of things there are, the number of things there are is finite; and (b) because there are at least two distinct things, there must be a third thing between them—even it is only air—and a fourth thing between the third thing and the first or second thing, and so on to infinity. It follows that reality is both finite and infinite.
- The lottery paradox: For each ticket sold in a legitimate lottery, you are justified in believing that it will not win. Therefore, you are justified in believing that no lottery ticket will win.
- Meno’s paradox: If you don’t know the correct answer to “What is X?” then you won’t be able to recognize the correct answer to “What is X?” It follows that you will never know what X is.
- Moore’s paradox: Suppose that it’s raining but you don’t believe it is. Then it’s true that it’s raining but you don’t believe it is. So what prevents you from correctly claiming, “It’s raining, but I don’t believe it is”?
Philosophers of the past and present
Western philosophers have explored nearly every aspect of reality or object of experience, activity, and belief. From about the 6th century bce the cosmologists of ancient Greece developed nonmythological explanations of the origin and fundamental substances of the world. The intellectual giants of Classical Athens—Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle—conducted foundational investigations of reality, human nature, knowledge, morality, and justice. Medieval and scholastic philosophers merged Platonic philosophy with Christianity, reconciled Christian theology with the rediscovered works of Aristotle, and developed their own arguments for the existence of God. Renaissance and early modern philosophers returned to ancient questions and took up foundational questions of their own, including how to know one exists. And late modern and contemporary philosophers have headed in new directions, including in the philosophy of language, ontology (the study of being), and the examination of the human self.
Ancient and medieval philosophers
Renaissance and early modern philosophers
Modern philosophers
Major branches of philosophy
The British philosopher Bertrand Russell—a cofounder of analytic philosophy, a major figure in the philosophy of mathematics and logic, a social reformer, and the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1950—once claimed that “the point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it.” His statement is more serious than it may sound.
- Aesthetics: The study of beauty
- Epistemology: The study of the nature, origin, and limits of human knowledge.
- Ethics: The study of what it means to be morally good or bad, right or wrong.
- Metaphysics: The study of the fundamental character and content of reality.
- Logic: The study of the elements and ultimate limits of proper reasoning.
- Philosophy of language: The study of the conceptual nature of language and communication and the relation between language users and the world.
- Philosophy of law: The study of the nature of law in its relation to human values, attitudes, practices, and communities.
- Philosophy of mathematics: The study of whether numbers and other abstract objects actually exist, as well as the meanings of mathematical sentences.
- Philosophy of mind: The study of the nature of thought and other mental phenomena and their relation to the body or the physical world.
- Philosophy of religion: The study and appraisal of human religious attitudes and their real or imaginary objects, including God or the gods.
- Philosophy of science: The study of metaphysical, epistemological, and ethical questions related to scientific methodologies, hypotheses, theories, and laws.
- Political philosophy: The study of the fundamental concepts and arguments involved in political perspectives and theories.
