The Philosophy Book

by DK Publishing

  See also: Nikolaus von Kues • Gottfried Leibniz

  FRANCISCO SUAREZ

  1548–1617

  Born in Granada, Spain, the Jesuit philosopher Francisco Suárez wrote on many topics, but is best known for his writings on metaphysics. In the controversy over universal forms that dominated so much philosophy of the time, he argued that only particulars exist. Suárez also maintained that between Thomas Aquinas’s two types of divine knowledge—the knowledge of what is actual and the knowledge of what is possible—there exists “middle knowledge” of what would have been the case had things been different. He believed that God has “middle knowledge” of all our actions, without this meaning that God caused them to happen or that they are unavoidable.

  See also: Plato • Aristotle • Thomas Aquinas

  BERNARD MANDEVILLE

  c.1670–1733

  Bernard Mandeville was a Dutch philosopher, satirist, and physician, who made his home in London. His best-known work, The Fable of Bees (1729) concerns a hive of industrious bees which, when suddenly made virtuous, stop working and go and live quietly in a nearby tree. Its central argument is that the only way any society can progress is through vice, and that virtues are lies employed by the ruling elite to subdue the lower classes. Economic growth, stated Mandeville, stems only from the individual’s ability to satisfy his greed. His ideas are often seen as the forerunners to the theories of Adam Smith in the 18th century.

  See also: Adam Smith

  JULIEN OFFRAY DE LA METTRIE

  1709-1751

  Julien Offray de la Mettrie was born in Brittany. He studied medicine and served as an army physician. The atheist sentiments expressed in a thesis he published in 1745, stating that emotions are the result of physical changes in the body, caused outrage, forcing him to flee from France to Holland. In 1747 he published Man a Machine, in which he expanded his materialist ideas and rejected Descartes’ theory that the mind and body are separate. The book’s reception caused him to flee again, this time to Berlin.

  See also: Thomas Hobbes • René Descartes

  NICOLAS DE CONDORCET

  1743–1794

  Nicolas, Marquis de Condorcet, was an early exponent of the French tradition of approaching moral and political issues from a mathematical perspective. His famous formula, known as Condorcet’s Paradox, drew attention to a paradox in the voting system by showing that majority preferences become intransitive when there are more than three candidates. A liberal thinker, he advocated equal rights and free education for all, including women. He played a key role in the French Revolution, but was branded a traitor for opposing the execution of Louis XVI, and died in prison.

  See also: René Descartes • Voltaire • Jean-Jacques Rousseau

  JOSEPH DE MAISTRE

  1753–1821

  Born in the French region of Savoy, which was then part of the Kingdom of Sardinia, Joseph de Maistre was a lawyer and political philosopher. He was a ruling senator when the French revolutionary army invaded Savoy in 1792, and was forced to flee. He became a passionate counter-revolutionary. Mankind was inherently weak and sinful, he declared, and the dual powers of monarch and God were essential to social order. In On the Pope (1819), De Maistre argues that government should be in the hands of a single authority figure, ideally linked to religion, such as the pope.

  See also: Edmund Burke

  FRIEDRICH SCHELLING

  1775–1854

  Friedrich Schelling started out as a theologian but, inspired by the ideas of Immanuel Kant, he turned to philosophy. Born in southern Germany, he studied with Georg Hegel at Tübingen and taught at the universities of Jena, Munich, and Berlin. Schelling coined the term “absolute idealism” for his view of nature as an ongoing, evolutionary process driven by Geist, or spirit. He argued that all of nature, both mind and matter, is involved in one continuous organic process, and that purely mechanistic accounts of reality are inadequate. Human consciousness is nature become conscious, so that in the form of man, nature has arrived at a state of self-awareness.

  See also: Benedictus Spinoza • Immanuel Kant • Johann Gottlieb Fichte • Georg Hegel

  AUGUSTE COMTE

  1798–1857

  The French thinker Auguste Comte is noted for his theory of intellectual and social evolution, which divides human progress into three key stages. The earliest stage, the theological stage, represented by the medieval period in Europe, is characterized by belief in the supernatural. This gave way to the metaphysical stage, in which speculation on the nature of reality developed. Finally, there came the “positivist” age—which Comte saw as emerging at the time he was writing—with a genuinely scientific attitude, based solely on observable regularities. Comte believed this positivism would help to create a new social order, to redress the chaos generated by the French Revolution.

  See also: John Stuart Mill • Karl Marx

  RALPH WALDO EMERSON

  1803–1882

  Born in Boston, the American poet Ralph Waldo Emerson was also a noted philosopher. Inspired by the Romantic movement, he believed in the unity of nature, with every single particle of matter and each individual mind being a microcosm of the entire universe. Emerson was famous for his public lectures, which urged the rejection of social conformity and traditional authority. Emerson advocated personal integrity and self-reliance as the only moral imperatives, stressing that every human being has the power to shape his own destiny.

  See also: Henry David Thoreau • William James • Friedrich Nietzsche

  HENRY SIDGWICK

  1838–1900

  The English moral philosopher Henry Sidgwick was a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. In his key work Methods of Ethics (1874), he explored the problems of free will by examining intuitive principles of conduct. The pursuit of pleasure, he claimed, does not exclude altruism, or the providing of pleasure for others, since providing pleasure for others is itself a pleasure. A liberal philanthropist and a champion of women’s rights to education, Sidgwick was instrumental in setting up Newnham, Cambridge’s first college for female students.

  See also: Jeremy Bentham • John Stuart Mill

  FRANZ BRENTANO

  1838–1917

  Born in Prussia, the philosopher Franz Brentano is best known for establishing psychology as a discipline in its own right. Initially a priest, he was unable to reconcile himself with the concept of papal infallibility, and left the Church in 1873. Brentano believed that mental processes were not passive, but should be seen as intentional acts. His most highly regarded work is Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint. Its publication in 1874 led to him being offered a professorship at the University of Vienna, where he taught and inspired a host of illustrious students, including the founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud.

  See also: Edmund Husserl

  GOTTLOB FREGE

  1848–1925

  A professor of mathematics at Jena University, the German philosopher Gottlob Frege was a pioneer of the the analytic tradition in philosophy. His first major work Begriffsschrift (1879), meaning “conceptual notation”, and The Foundations of Arithmetic (1884) effected a revolution in philosophical logic, allowing the discipline to develop rapidly. In On Sense and Reference (1892) he showed that sentences are meaningful for two reasons—for having a thing that they refer to, and a unique way in which that reference is made.

  See also: Bertrand Russell • Ludwig Wittgenstein • Rudolf Carnap

  ALFRED NORTH WHITEHEAD

  1861–1947

  An English mathematician, Alfred North Whitehead had a significant influence on ethics, metaphysics, and the philosophy of science. With his ex-pupil Bertrand Russell, he wrote the landmark study on mathematical
logic, Principia Mathematica (1910–13). In 1924, at the age of 63, he accepted a chair in philosophy at Harvard. There he developed what became known as process philosophy. This was based on his conviction that traditional philosophical categories were inadequate in dealing with the interactions between matter, space, and time, and that “the living organ or experience is the living body as a whole” and not just the brain.

  See also: Bertrand Russell • Willard Van Orman Quine

  NISHIDA KITARO

  1870–1945

  Japanese philosopher Nishida Kitaro studied Daoism and Confucianism at school and Western philosophy at Tokyo University. He went on to teach at Kyoto University, where he established Western philosophy as an object of serious study in Japan. Key to his thinking is the “logic of place”, designed to overcome traditional Western oppositions between subject and object through the “pure experience” of Zen Buddhism, in which distinctions between knower and thing known, self and world, are lost.

  See also: Laozi • Siddharta Gautama • Confucius • Hajime Tanabe

  ERNST CASSIRER

  1874-1945

  Born in Bresslau, in what is now Poland, the German philosopher Ernst Cassirer lectured at Berlin University and then at Hamburg, where he had access to the vast collection of studies on tribal cultures and myths in the Warburg Library. These were to inform his major work The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms (1923–29), in which he incorporated mythical thinking into a philosophical system similar to Immanuel Kant’s. In 1933, Cassirer fled Europe to escape the rise of Nazism, continuing his work in America, and later Sweden.

  See also: Immanuel Kant • Martin Heidegger

  GASTON BACHELARD

  1884–1962

  The French philosopher Gaston Bachelard studied physics before switching to philosophy. He taught at Dijon University, going on to become the first professor of history and philosophy of the sciences at the Sorbonne in Paris. His study of thought processes encompasses the symbolism of dreams and the phenomenology of imagination. He contested Auguste Comte’s view that scientific advancement was continuous, claiming instead that science often moves through shifts in historical perspective allowing fresh interpretations of old concepts.

  See also: Auguste Comte • Thomas Kuhn • Michel Foucault

  ERNST BLOCH

  c.1885–1977

  A German Marxist philosopher, Ernst Bloch’s work focuses on the possibility of a humanistic utopian world, free of exploitation and oppression. During World War I he took refuge from the conflict in Switzerland, and in 1933 fled the Nazis, ending up in the United States. Here he began his key work, The Principle of Hope (1947). After World War II, Bloch taught in Leipzig—but with the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961, he sought asylum in West Germany. Although he was an atheist, Bloch believed that religion’s mystical vision of heaven on earth is attainable.

  See also: Georg Hegel • Karl Marx

  GILBERT RYLE

  1900–1976

  Born in Brighton on the south coast of England, Gilbert Ryle studied and taught at Oxford University. He believed that many problems in philosophy arise from the abuse of language. He showed that we often assume expressions that function in a similar way grammatically are members of the same logical category. Such “category mistakes”, Ryle stated, are the cause of much philosophical confusion, so careful attention to the underlying function of ordinary language is the way to overcome philosophical problems.

  See also: Thomas Hobbes • Ludwig Wittgenstein • Daniel Dennett

  MICHAEL OAKESHOTT

  1901–1990

  Michael Oakeshott was a British political theorist and philosopher. He taught at Cambridge and Oxford universities, before becoming Professor of Political Science at the London School of Economics. Works such as On Being Conservative (1956) and Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays (1962) cemented his fame as a political theorist. He had an important influence on Conservative party politics in the late 20th century. However, since he frequently revised his opinions, his work defies categorization.

  See also: Edmund Burke • Georg Hegel

  AYN RAND

  1905–1982

  The writer and philosopher Ayn Rand was born in Russia, but moved to the United States in 1926. She was working as a screenwriter when her novel The Fountainhead (1943), the story of an ideal man, made her famous. She is the founder of Objectivism, which challenges the idea that man’s moral duty is to live for others. Reality exists as an objective absolute and man’s reasoning is his manner of perceiving it.

  See also: Aristotle • Adam Smith

  JOHN LANGSHAW AUSTIN

  1911–1960

  Educated at Oxford University, where he also taught, the British philosopher John Langshaw Austin was a leading figure in “ordinary language” or “Oxford” philosophy, which became fashionable in the 1950s. Austin argued that rigorous analysis of how language operates in ordinary everyday usage can lead to the discovery of the subtle linguistic distinctions needed to resolve profound philosophical problems. He is best known from his papers and lectures that were published after his death as How to do Things with Words (1962) and Sense and Sensibilia (1964).

  See also: Bertrand Russell • Gilbert Ryle

  DONALD DAVIDSON

  1917–2003

  The American philosopher Donald Davidson studied at Harvard and went on to a distinguished career teaching at various American universities. He was involved in several areas of philosophy, notably the philosophy of mind. He held a materialist position, stating that each token mental event was also a physical event, although he did not believe that the mental could be entirely reduced to, or explained in terms of, the physical. Davidson also made notable contributions to the philosophy of language, arguing that a language must have a finite number of elements and that its meaning is a product of these elements and rules of combination.

  See also: Ludwig Wittgenstein • Willard Van Orman Quine

  LOUIS ALTHUSSER

  1918–1990

  Born in Algeria, the French Marxist scholar Louis Althusser argued that there is a radical difference between Marx’s early writings and the “scientific” period of Capital (Das Kapital). The early works of Marx reflect the times with their focus on Hegelian concepts such as alienation, whereas in the mature work, history is seen as having its own momentum, independent of the intentions and actions of human agents. Therefore Althusser’s claim that we are determined by the structural conditions of society involves the controversial rejection of human autonomy, denying individual agency a role in history.

  See also: Georg Hegel • Karl Marx • Michel Foucault • Slavoj Žižek

  EDGAR MORIN

  1921–

  The French philosopher Edgar Morin was born in Paris, the son of Jewish immigrants from Greece. His positive view of the progress of Western civilization is tempered by what he perceives as the negative effects of technical and scientific advances. Progress may create wealth but also seems to bring with it a breakdown of responsibility and global awareness. Morin developed what became known as “complex thought” and coined the term “politics of civilization.” His six-volume Method (1977–2004) is a compendium of his thoughts and ideas, offering a broad insight into the nature of human enquiry.

  See also: Theodor Adorno • Jürgen Habermas

  RENE GIRARD

  1923–

  The French philosopher and historian René Girard writes and teaches across a wide range of subjects, from economics to literary criticism. He is best known for his theory of mimetic desire. In Deceit, Desire and the Novel (1961), Girard uses ancient mythology and modern fiction to show that human desire, as distinct from animal appetite, is always aroused by the
desire of another. His study of the origins of violence, Violence and the Sacred (1972), goes further by arguing that this imitated desire leads to conflict and violence. Religion, Girard states, originated with the process of victimization or sacrifice that was used to quell the violence.

  See also: Michel Foucault

  GILLES DELEUZE

  1925–1995

  Gilles Deleuze was born in Paris and spent most of his life there. He saw philosophy as a creative process for constructing concepts, rather than an attempt to discover and reflect reality. Much of his work was in the history of philosophy, yet his readings did not attempt to disclose the “true” Nietzsche, for example. Instead they rework the conceptual mechanisms of a philosopher’s subject to produce new ideas, opening up new avenues of thought. Deleuze is also known for collaborations with psychoanalyst Félix Guattari—Anti-Oedipus (1972) and What is Philosophy (1991)—and for his commentaries on literature, film, and art.