Philosophy : movements & ideas

Major ideas and movements, roughly grouped together in some semblance of curated organization

Ancient, pre-Greek

coming sometime

Greek

Socrates, the Father of Western Philosophy : Know thyself

Ancient Greek fellow who liked to walk around with his friends and talk. He loved the word “why?” He asked a lot of questions. Not be nosy or gossipy, but to simply try and understand why people say what they say and why they do what they do. He liked to think and try and get to the bottom of why something was the way it was.

Plato

Aristotle

Roman

Hypatia, Roman teacher and Philosopher

She was an excellent teacher, perhaps because of a couple big things: number one, she stressed the importance of small steps, and number two, she believed that everyone could learn…but first you had to let go of your knowledge and acknowledge your own ignorance. You start by owning up to ignorance, then move forward by taking little steps at a time. That’s what teachers can do: offer a path forward, one step at a time, and help encourage and organize those steps forward.

Seneca, Roman Stoic philosopher, satirist, and and tutor to Nero

Seneca would probably have some differences of opinion with modern Western culture’s emphasis on optimism. Put on a happy face and get happy if you’re not! He explored the idea of pessimism, and how it can actually lead to greater happiness because when things go better than you expect, then it’s a pleasant happening, versus being let down by expecting things to go as you expect them. In short, the embrace of negativity as…a plus!

Medieval

Michel De Montaigne, French Medieval Statesman, Writer, Philosopher

Montaigne liked to read, but he was also lonely at times, and thought about the ways people fit in with others. Or don’t. He covered a lot of ground with his essays, talking about a lot topics other philosophers had before and after him, but doing so in a witty and fun manner. He wrote a great deal about little things that interested him, and about himself, and in some ways was an early influence on Modernism and its focus on topics outside “the important.” In relevant terms today, he embodied a sort of “long tail” - what he wrote and who he was might not appeal to everyone, or even to most, but it did to at least a small group of people. There’s a relevance in that to all of us today - we might not think of our lives as being overly interesting or how we might connect with others. But there are other individuals and other communities that might understand us better than we assume, once they get to know us. And vice versa.

Renaissance

Coming sometime

Age of Reason

Coming sometime

Age of Enlightenment : mid-1600s Scientific Revolution to late-1700s French Revolution

Coming soon, will be ongoing for quite some time

Rene Descartes, French mathematician, Father of Modern Western Philosophy

He liked to think, like Socrates and Aristotle, but unlike the former, he liked to stay in bed and do so, and unlike the latter, he rejected an inductive approach that focused on final causes. Rather, he developed ideas that focused on finding laws that are empirical and deductive in nature. That’s a very, very short version. He was great at asking good questions, and often ones that jumped to the heart of assumption. He didn’t always answer these questions, but he was caught up in the wonder of how great it was to ask them in the beginning - and then to seek answers not merely based in supernatural assumptions. He pondered ignorance and we can actually be more confident by realizing everyone around us probably don’t know near as much as we think they do.

Immanuel Kant, German philosopher, theorist, massive influence on modern thought

Kant was a huge influence on modern philosophy, as he synthesized ideas of reason, rationalism, and empiricism (experience) into epistemology (the study of knowledge), aesthetics, and ethics. Basically he was really, really good at synthesizing different and diverse ideas and coming up with his own fresh ones from those.

A big idea he pursued, according to Alain de Botton, was the importance of understanding why we do something or make a choice. In other words, the ways that nagging is different from teaching; something that has deep relevance in both teaching and parenting. When people understand why something is important or necessary, they will be much more likely to do so, rather than being forced into it. This fundamental aspect of human nature is a good one for me to be reminded of, again and again.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Swiss philosopher, political theorist, and Revolution-inspirer

Another thinker-walker. Very influential thinker who also loved the idea of childhood and what we can learn from kids, including the wisdom we learn as children and then ditch later on. He inverted the idea of how and who we should be learning from, at least on a regular basis, and encouraged people to pursue work that fit their perception of who they were. Sounds obvious now. But it wasn’t then. He was enormously influential on the Enlightenment in general, on political thought and on reconciling freedom and authority - ideas which helped to articulate principles of liberty that those in the American and French Revolutions took to heart and to action.

Modern

Existentialists : life might be meaningless, and it’s definitely absurd

Samuel Beckett, Irish playwright, novelist, writer

We gotta laugh. We gotta laugh and find something amidst the absurdity and meaningless to bring meaning. Or maybe just laugh for the sake of laughing and nothing more. Maybe that’s the point. We wait (for something or someone). We talk (to someone about something). We laugh (at someone or with someone about someone or something else). Then we die.

Albert Camus, French existentialist

Camus investigated the ways that people find meaning in life - or rather, what meaning there is to life to begin with. He found the idea of existence absurd, and therefore…meaningless? That’s the easy answer to condense his work into, but he also explored the importance, if we accept that life is absurd, to face the despair of meaningless by defiantly facing it by pursuing truth and imagining (at least the illusion of) happiness. Perhaps?

Jean-Paul Sartre, French Existentialist and cafe-Conversationalist

“We are condemned to be free.” Sartre pondered this a lot, often over cakes and pastries in Parisian cafes, as the talked and conversed and thought with others about the role of freedom in human nature. He was suspicious of authoritarianism and believed in both the curse and the gift of human freedom - and the privilege and responsibility that accompanies it.

Simone de Beauvoir, Parisian feminist existentialist and life-long buddy of Sartre

What do we really want, and why is it so hard to figure out? Ms. Beauvoir thought and wrote about this a lot, although it didn’t deter her from also living a rich and full life with many friends; many of whose anecdotes she would include in her writings. She investigated the ideas of how we determine what’s most important to us and what will bring us the greatest enjoyment in life - and why we make it so hard to prioritize such matters.

Other

Ralph Waldo Emerson, American thinker, nature-lover, and generally kind person

Emerson talked about how the the traits we admire or hold up as virtues are not always so. For example, in Big Ideas for Curious Minds (p.86), it talks about how “…if you are very clever you will probably also be lonely because other people won’t understand you,” or “…Cheetahs are the fastest land animals…but the things that make them so quick…make them weak in other ways. A lion, which is much slower…can easily steal a cheetah’s food because it is so much bigger and stronger.This is such a powerful thought that wraps in a lot of things, including our own identity and perception of ourselves in relationship to others. What is perceived as strength may have drawbacks, and what may be considered weakness might actually be a benefit.

Friedrich Nietzsche, German moral Philosopher

Nietzsche was a massive influence on various modern world views. A big idea of his was the notion of the ubermensch, otherwise known as superman; those who would rise to the hero’s call and lead people forward through their strength and superiority. Much of his positions have to do with taking risk, rising up, and facing both life and death with intensity and strength.

Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein, Language-Picture Theorist

Wittgenstein, like Socrates and all philosophers, liked to think. Unlike Socrates, he liked to spend time on his own in the Norwegian countryside. He developed ideas of how we create pictures with words, and that is what allows others to understand us, and in turn, us to understand ourselves. It’s a key idea of relationships and how we communicate; when we can learn to effectively translate our thoughts into words, and our words into pictures that are shareable with other people, then we can connect with others better, be understood better, understand others better, and in general, have better relationships with others and with ourself.