The Enlightenment: Key Concepts and Philosophers
Origin of Name: Refers to the light it throws, the reason mysterious to address issues.
Authors: Montesquieu, Voltaire, Rousseau, Kant.
Key Features of the Enlightenment
- Unshakable faith in human reason.
- The Enlightenment philosophers considered it their mission to build a base for morality, religion, and ethics in accordance with reason.
- Some were defenders of nature, considering it nearly the same as reason.
- They believed that evil resides in society, but that man is naturally good.
Encyclopedia: (1751-
Read MoreNietzsche’s Philosophy: Historical Context and Nihilism
Nietzsche’s Historical Context
Economy
During the Second Industrial Revolution, large cities saw the rise of big factories, fueled by railway development, electricity, and the chemical industry. This led to significant lifestyle changes.
Society
A new class, the “proletariat,” emerged, living on minimal earnings. This class existed alongside the bourgeoisie. These two classes challenged the old aristocracy.
Politics
Nineteenth-century liberalism aimed to dismantle the privileges of the nobility and establish
Read MoreFrom Myth to Logos: Origins and Characteristics of Philosophy
From Myth to Logos: The Dawn of Reason
The myth is a sacred and symbolic narrative recounting significant social events and natural phenomena. The primary objective of myths is to provide a comprehensive explanation of the universe and the individual’s place within it. In Greece, around the 6th century BC, mythological narratives gradually ceased to serve as the sole explanatory model. They depended on whimsical, capricious, unpredictable, arbitrary, and contingent forces. The pre-Socratics gradually
Read MoreUnderstanding Knowledge: Types, Sources, and Scientific Methods
Knowledge is a grasp of reality fixed in a subject, expressed, communicated to other subjects, incorporated, systematized, and part of a tradition.
Sources of Knowledge
Sensitivity provides basic experience, but this data is always within a theoretical context that makes it intelligible. Reason produces different forms of knowledge, generally linked to experience: some immediate, like intuition, others mediated through deduction.
Ways of Knowing
- Common or Ordinary Knowledge: Based on everyday experience,
Hellenistic Period: Polis Decline and Philosophical Shifts
Hellenistic Period: Decline of the Polis
The Hellenistic period marks the decline of the polis as a political form. This decline stemmed from the policies of Alexander the Great (a student of Aristotle), who initiated a campaign to conquer the Greek world and parts of Asia. This context highlights the weakness of the polis for two primary reasons:
- The poleis were too small to adapt to new political and economic requirements, leading to a loss of their main characteristics (self-sufficiency and autonomy)
Western Ethics: Philosophies of Happiness and Morality
Homeric Poems: It is said that Western ethics was born in Greece, and the Homeric poems are a literary form that reflects a moral philosophy. This moral world is based on three elements:
- The Good: Consists of doing something useful for oneself and the community.
- Virtue: The ability to excel, which gives power. A virtuous person tries to excel and provide the best services to the community.
The Socratic Influence
Socrates is considered the creator of Western ethics because he raised fundamental questions.
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