Guide to Popular Philosophers

by Madison Jones 

SOCRATES (470-399 BC)

• Ancient Greek philosopher
• Developed the foundation for the Western philosophical tradition
• Most famous student: Plato
• Dialectic method of inquiry (known as the Socratic Method) was used to force students to question their beliefs and problems and develop their own solutions
•  Influenced the development of the modern Scientific Method

PLATO (427-347 BC)

• Student of Socrates
• In his earliest literary efforts, Plato conveyed the spirit of Socrates' teaching by presenting reports of the master's conversational interactions, providing us with our only accounts of Socrates' thought.
• Plato's most famous work remains the Republic
• Here, Plato tries to construct the perfect city, based upon justice and successful in teaching the virtues to its citizens
• Plato concludes that such a perfect city exists only in speech

ARISTOTLE (384-322 BC)

• Student of Plato
• Although the surviving works of Aristotle probably represent only a fragment of the whole, they include his investigations of an amazing range of subjects, from logic, philosophy, and ethics to physics, biology, psychology, politics, and rhetoric.
• Argued that oral conduct contributes to the good life for humans, most famously in his Ethics.
• Here, he discusses the natural desire to achieve happiness, describes the operation of human volition and moral deliberation, develops a theory of each virtue as the mean between radical extremes, discusses the value of three distinct kinds of friendship, and defends his conception of an ideal life of intellectual pursuit.
• In his Politics, Aristotle contends that the lives of individual human beings are invariably linked together in a social context and attempts to find the best state.
• Argues that politics is important for men but not the highest science-only if men were the highest beings would politics be the highest science. Instead, metaphysics is, for Aristotle, most important.
• Rejects Plato's claims in the Republic and argues that monarchy is the best system of government.

AUGUSTINE (354-430 AD)

• Born as the Roman Empire was crumbling.
• Converted to Christianity after studying with Ambrose.
• Argues against the Skeptic group of philosophers that genuine human knowledge can be established with certainty by saying, "If I am mistaken, I exist."
• In De Civitate Dei (The City of God), Augustine distinguishes religion and morality from politics.
• Tries to establish the proper relations among them and argued for the church's strict independence from (if not its outright superiority to) the state.

AQUINAS (1224-1274)

• Joined the Dominican order while studying philosophy and theology at Naples.
• Wrote extensive commentaries on Aristotle's works.
• Summa Theologica represents the most complete summation of his thought.
• Encompasses thousands of pages of tightly-reasoned responses to a wide range of questions about church theology and doctrine.
• Attempts to prove that theology is superior to philosophy as theology concerns itself with knowledge that has been revealed by God and that man must accept on faith, while philosophy is concerned with only the knowledge that man acquires through sensory experience and the use of the natural light of reason.
• Aquinas holds that people naturally seek knowledge of that which is their true goal and happiness, that is, the vision of God.

MACHIAVELLI (1469-1527)

• Began as a politician in Florence.
• Wrote The Prince in order to gain favor with the Medicis, the ruling family of Florence at the time.
• The Prince is an intensely practical guide to the exercise of raw political power over a Renaissance principality.
• Focuses on practical success by any means, even at the expense of traditional morals and values.
• Argues that it is primarily the skill of the individual leader, rather than his character, that determines the success of any state.

LOCKE (1632-1704)

• Adopted an empiricist approach by arguing that all of our ideas-simple or complex-are ultimately derived from experience.

• Believed that proper application of our cognitive capacities is enough to guide man's action in the practical conduct of life.

• His Second Treatise of Government offers a systematic account of the foundations of political obligation.

• Contends that all rights begin in the individual property interest created by an investment of labor.
• The social structure or commonwealth depends on the express consent of those who are governed by its political powers for its formation and maintenance.
• Majority rule is the cornerstone of all political order.
• Dissatisfied citizens reserve a lasting right to revolution.

HOBBES (1588-1679)

• Devoted much of his life to the development and expression of a comprehensive philosophical vision of the mechanistic operation of nature.
• Wrote the Leviathan as the most complete expression of his philosophy.

• Begins with a materialistic account of human nature and knowledge, a deterministic account of human volition, and a pessimistic vision of the consequently natural state of human beings in perpetual struggle against each other that results in a life that is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."

ROUSSEAU (1712-1778)

• Decried the effects of modern civilization because he believed that the pursuit of the arts and sciences promoted idleness and that the resulting political inequality encouraged alienation.
• Maintained that every variety of injustice found in human society is an artificial result of the control exercised by defective political and intellectual influences over the healthy natural impulses of otherwise noble savages.
• Explicated an alternative in On the Social Contract as a civil society voluntarily formed by its citizens and wholly governed by the general will expressed in their unanimous consent to authority.

KANT (1724-1804)

• Developed the most comprehensive and influential philosophical program of the modern era.
• His central thesis-that the possibility of human knowledge presupposes the active participation of the human mind-is deceptively simple, but the details of its application are quite complex.
• The categorical imperative is the central philosophical concept of the moral philosophy of Kant, and of modern deontological ethics.
• Morality can be summed up in one, ultimate commandment of reason, or imperative, from which all duties and obligations derive called the categorical imperative
• Describes the categorical imperative as an absolute, unconditional requirement that exerts its authority in all circumstances.
• Best known in its first formulation: "Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law."

MARX (1818-1833)

• Above all else, Marx believed that philosophy ought to be employed in practice to change the world.
• Argued that the conditions of modern industrial societies invariably result in the estrangement of workers from their own labor.
• Partnered with Friedrich Engels to write the Communist Manifesto with the hope of precipitating social revolution.
• Describes the class struggle between proletariat and bourgeoisie, distinguishes communism from other socialist movements, proposes a list of specific social reforms, and urges all workers to unite in revolution against existing regimes.

NIETZSCHE (1844-1900)

• Wrote critiques of religion, morality, contemporary culture, philosophy, and science.
• Famously put forward the idea that "God is dead", and this death may result in radical perspectivism or may lead one to confront the fact that humans have always regarded truth perspectivally.
• Also distinguished between master and slave moralities, the former arising from a celebration of life, the latter the result of ressentiment at those capable of the former. This distinction becomes in summary the difference between "good and bad" on the one hand, and "good and evil" on the other; importantly, the "good" man of the master morality equates to the "evil" man of the slave morality.
• Advocated the "will to power" and eternal recurrence theories, in which living things are not just driven by the mere need to stay alive, but in fact by a greater need to wield and use power, to grow, to expend their strength, and, possibly, to subsume other "wills" in the process.

Madison is a senior at Georgetown University majoring in Philosophy and Government.