Tomanor, Jasmin M.

MMEM-1

A Philosophical movement is the appearance of (or the increased popularity of) a specific school of
philosophy, an identifiable tradition of philosophy, or a marked change in philosophical thought on a
particular subject. A school is a group of people, especially philosophers, artists, or writers, whose
thought, work, or style demonstrates a common origin or influence or unifying belief. These are the
famous “-isms” of philosophy.

A movement or school may represent the broad views of many individual philosophers, even if they may
not agree entirely in all respects, so it is more a diffusely organized or heterogeneous group of
philosophers tending toward or favoring a generalized common goal. It may also consist of intellectual
thought by several individuals on several related ideas or doctrines, and the distinction between schools
or movements, and doctrines or theories is sometimes blurred. The major movements and schools can
be classified under three main sub-headings:

RENAISSANCE PERIOD

The Renaissance, that is, the period that extends roughly from the middle of the fourteenth century to
the beginning of the seventeen century, was a time of intense, all-encompassing, and, in many ways,
distinctive philosophical activity. A fundamental assumption of the Renaissance movement was that the
remains of classical antiquity constituted an invaluable source of excellence to which debased and
decadent modern times could turn in order to repair the damage brought about since the fall of the
Roman Empire. It was often assumed that God had given a single unified truth to humanity and that the
works of ancient philosophers had preserved part of this original deposit of divine wisdom. This idea not
only laid the foundation for a scholarly culture that was centered on ancient texts and their
interpretation, but also fostered an approach to textual interpretation that strove to harmonize and
reconcile divergent philosophical accounts. Stimulated by newly available texts, one of the most
important hallmarks of Renaissance philosophy is the increased interest in primary sources of Greek and
Roman thought, which were previously unknown or little read. The renewed study of Neoplatonism,
Stoicism, Epicureanism, and Skepticism eroded faith in the universal truth of Aristotelian philosophy and
widened the philosophical horizon, providing a rich seedbed from which modern science and modern
philosophy gradually emerged.

1. Aristotelianism

Improved access to a great deal of previously unknown literature from ancient Greece and Rome was an
important aspect of Renaissance philosophy. The renewed study of Aristotle, however, was not so much
because of the rediscovery of unknown texts, but because of a renewed interest in texts long translated
into Latin but little studied, such as the Poetics, and especially because of novel approaches to well-
known texts. From the early fifteenth century onwards, humanists devoted considerable time and
energy to making Aristotelian texts clearer and more precise. In order to rediscover the meaning of
Aristotle’s thought, they updated the Scholastic translations of his works, read them in the original
Greek, and analyzed them with philological techniques. The availability of these new interpretative tools
had a great impact on the philosophical debate. Moreover, in the four decades after 1490, the
Aristotelian interpretations of Alexander of Aphrodisias, Themistius, Ammonius, Philoponus, Simplicius,
and other Greek commentators were added to the views of Arabic and medieval commentators,
stimulating new solutions to Aristotelian problems and leading to a wide variety of interpretations of
Aristotle in the Renaissance period.

2. Humanism

The humanist movement did not eliminate older approaches to philosophy, but contributed to change
them in important ways, providing new information and new methods to the field. Humanists called for
a radical change of philosophy and uncovered older texts that multiplied and hardened current
philosophical discord. Some of the most salient features of humanist reform are the accurate study of
texts in the original languages, the preference for ancient authors and commentators over medieval
ones, and the avoidance of technical language in the interest of moral suasion and accessibility.
Humanists stressed moral philosophy as the branch of philosophical studies that best met their needs.
They addressed a general audience in an accessible manner and aimed to bring about an increase in
public and private virtue. Regarding philosophy as a discipline allied to history, rhetoric, and philology,
they expressed little interest in metaphysical or epistemological questions. Logic was subordinated to
rhetoric and reshaped to serve the purposes of persuasion.

Humanism also supported Christian reform. The most important Christian humanist was the Dutch
scholar Desiderius Erasmus (c.1466–1536). He was hostile to Scholasticism, which he did not consider a
proper basis for Christian life, and put his erudition at the service of religion by promoting learned piety
(docta pietas). In 1503, he published Enchiridion militis christiani (Handbook of the Christian Soldier), a
guide to the Christian life addressed to laymen in need of spiritual guidance, in which he developed the
concept of a philosophia Christi. His most famous work is Moriae encomium (The Praise of Folly), a
satirical monologue first published in 1511 that touches upon a variety of social, political, intellectual,
and religious issues. In 1524, he published De libero arbitrio (On Free Will), an open attack a one central
doctrine of Martin Luther’s theology: that the human will is enslaved by sin. Erasmus’s analysis hinges
on the interpretation of relevant biblical and patristic passages and reaches the conclusion that the
human will is extremely weak, but able, with the help of divine grace, to choose the path of salvation.

Humanism also had an impact of overwhelming importance on the development of political thought.
With Institutio principis christiani (The Education of a Christian Prince, 1516), Erasmus contributed to
the popular genre of humanist advice books for princes. These manuals dealt with the proper ends of
government and how best to attain them. Among humanists of the fourteenth century, the most usual
proposal was that a strong monarchy should be the best form of government. Petrarca, in his account of
princely government that was written in 1373 and took the form of a letter to Francesco da Carrara,
argued that cities ought to be governed by princes who accept their office reluctantly and who pursue
glory through virtuous actions. His views were repeated in quite a few of the numerous “mirror for
princes” (speculum principis) composed during the course of the fifteenth century, such as Giovanni
Pontano’s De principe (On the Prince, 1468) and Bartolomeo Sacchi’s De principe (On the Prince, 1471).

3. Platonism

During the Renaissance, it gradually became possible to take a broader view of philosophy than the
traditional Peripatetic framework permitted. No ancient revival had more impact on the history of
philosophy than the recovery of Platonism. The rich doctrinal content and formal elegance of Platonism
made it a plausible competitor of the Peripatetic tradition. Renaissance Platonism was a product of
humanism and marked a sharper break with medieval philosophy. Many Christians found Platonic
philosophy safer and more attractive than Aristotelianism. The Neoplatonic conception of philosophy as
a way toward union with God supplied many Renaissance Platonists with some of their richest
inspiration. The Platonic dialogues were not seen as profane texts to be understood literally, but as
sacred mysteries to be deciphered.

4. Hellenistic Philosophies

Stoicism, Epicureanism, and Skepticism underwent a revival over the course of the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries as part of the ongoing recovery of ancient literature and thought. The revival of
Stoicism began with Petrarca, whose renewal of Stoicism moved along two paths. The first one was
inspired by Seneca and consisted in the presentation, in works such as De vita solitaria (The Life of
Solitude) and De otio religioso (On Religious Leisure), of a way of life in which the cultivation of the
scholarly work and ethical perfection are one. The second was his elaboration of Stoic therapy against
emotional distress in De secreto conflictu curarum mearum (On the Secret Conflict of My Worries), an
inner dialogue of the sort prescribed by Cicero and Seneca, and in De remediis utriusque fortunae
(Remedies for Good and Bad Fortune, 1366), a huge compendium based on a short apocryphal tract
attributed at the time to Seneca.

5. New Philosophies of Nature

In 1543, Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543) published De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the
Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres), which proposed a new calculus of planetary motion based on
several new hypotheses, such as heliocentrism and the motion of the earth. The first generation of
readers underestimated the revolutionary character of the work and regarded the hypotheses of the
work only as useful mathematical fictions. The result was that astronomers appreciated and adopted
some of Copernicus’s mathematical models but rejected his cosmology. Yet, the Aristotelian
representation of the universe did not remain unchallenged and new visions of nature, its principles,
and its mode of operation started to emerge.

MEDIEVAL PERIOD

Neo-Confucianism could have been an attempt to create a more rationalist and secular form of
Confucianism by rejecting superstitious and mystical elements of Taoism and Buddhism that had
influenced Confucianism during and after the Han Dynasty. Although the neo-Confucianists were critical
of Taoism and Buddhism, the two did have an influence on the philosophy, and the neo-Confucianists
borrowed terms and concepts. However, unlike the Buddhists and Taoists, who saw metaphysics as a
catalyst for spiritual development, religious enlightenment, and immortality, the neo-Confucanists used
metaphysics as a guide for developing a rationalist ethical philosophy. Neo-Confucianism is a social and
ethical philosophy using metaphysical ideas, some borrowed from Taoism, as its framework. The
philosophy can be characterized as humanistic and rationalistic, with the belief that the universe could
be understood through human reason, and that it was up to humanity to create a harmonious
relationship between the universe and the individual.

The rationalism of neo-Confucianism is in contrast to the mysticism of the previously dominant Chan
Buddhism. Unlike the Buddhists, the neo-Confucians believed that reality existed, and could be
understood by humankind, even if the interpretations of reality were slightly different depending on the
school of neo-Confucianism.
Neoplatonism is a modern term.[note 1] The term neoplatonism has a double function as a historical
category. On the one hand, it differentiates the philosophical doctrines of Plotinus and his successors
from those of the historical Plato. On the other, the term makes an assumption about the novelty of
Plotinus's interpretation of Plato. In the nearly six centuries from Plato's time to Plotinus', there had
been an uninterrupted tradition of interpreting Plato which had begun with Aristotle and with the
immediate successors of Plato's academy and continued on through a period of Platonism which is now
referred to as Middle Platonism. The term neoplatonism implies that Plotinus' interpretation of Plato
was so distinct from those of his predecessors that it should be thought to introduce a new period in the
history of Platonism. Some contemporary scholars, however, have taken issue with this assumption and
have doubted that neoplatonism constitutes a useful label. They claim that merely marginal differences
separate Plotinus' teachings from those of his immediate predecessors.

Whether neoplatonism is a meaningful or useful historical category is itself a central question

concerning the history of the interpretation of Plato. For much of the history of Platonism, it was
commonly accepted that the doctrines of the neoplatonists were essentially the same as those of Plato.
The Renaissance Platonist Marsilio Ficino, for instance, thought that the neoplatonic interpretation of
Plato was an authentic and accurate representation of Plato's philosophy.[7] Although it is unclear
precisely when scholars began to disassociate the philosophy of the historical Plato from the philosophy
of his neoplatonic interpreters, they had clearly begun to do so at least as early as the first decade of the
nineteenth century. Contemporary scholars often identify the German theologian Friedrich
Schleiermacher as an early thinker who took Plato's philosophy to be separate from that of his
neoplatonic interpreters. However, others have argued that the differentiation of Plato from
neoplatonism was the result of a protracted historical development that preceded Schleiermacher's
scholarly work on Plato.

Scholasticism is a method of critical thought which dominated teaching by the academics ("scholastics",
or "schoolmen") of medieval universities in Europe from about 1100 to 1700, and a program of
employing that method in articulating and defending dogma in an increasingly pluralistic context. It
originated as an outgrowth of and a departure from Christian theology within the monastic schools at
the earliest European universities. The rise of scholasticism was closely associated with the rise of the
12th and 13th century schools that developed into the earliest modern universities, including those in
Italy, France, Spain and England.

Scholasticism is not so much a philosophy or a theology as a method of learning, as it places a strong

emphasis on dialectical reasoning to extend knowledge by inference and to resolve contradictions. This
had been the way of Talmudic (Jewish, well after the Old-Testament period) Study all along, since the
Pharisee movement started BC. Scholastic thought is also known for rigorous conceptual analysis and
the careful drawing of distinctions. In the classroom and in writing, it often takes the form of explicit
disputation; a topic drawn from the tradition is broached in the form of a question, opponents'
responses are given, a counterproposal is argued and opponents' arguments rebutted. Because of its
emphasis on rigorous dialectical method, scholasticism was eventually applied to many other fields of
study.

As a program, scholasticism began as an attempt at harmonization on the part of medieval Christian

thinkers, to harmonize the various authorities of their own tradition, and to reconcile Christian theology
with classical and late antiquity philosophy, especially that of Aristotle but also of Neoplatonism.
Scotism developed out of the Old Franciscan School, which dominated theology during the Middle Ages.
This school of thought initially followed Augustinism which dominated theology at the time.

Scotus found the ground already cleared for the conflict with the followers of Aquinas. He made very
free use of Aristotelianism, but in its employment exercised sharp criticism, and in important points
adhered to the teaching of the Older Franciscan School – especially with regard to the plurality of forms
or of souls, the spiritual matter of the angels and of souls, etc., wherein he energetically combatted
Aquinas. Scotism, or what is known as the Later Franciscan School, is thus only a continuation or further
development of the older school, with a much wider, although not exclusive acceptance of Peripatetic
ideas. The difference between Thomism and Scotism could be expressed by saying that, while both
derive from Arabic Neoplatonized Aristotelianism, Thomism is closer to the orthodox Aristotelianism of
Maimonides, Averroes and Avicenna, while Scotism reflects the Platonizing tendency going back through
Avicebron, the Brethren of Purity, the Liber de Causis and Proclus to Plotinus.

Concerning the relation of these schools to each other, or the relation of Scotus to Alexander of Hales
and St. Bonaventure, consult the work of the Flemish Recollect, Mathias Hauzeur. It is notable that,
while Thomism became the official philosophy of the Church, Scotist influence prevailed on a number of
important points, not least the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception.

Thomism is the philosophical school that arose as a legacy of the work and thought of Thomas Aquinas
(1225–1274), philosopher, theologian, and Doctor of the Church. In philosophy, Aquinas' disputed
questions and commentaries on Aristotle are perhaps his most well-known works. In theology, his
Summa Theologica is one of the most influential documents in medieval theology and continues to be
the central point of reference for the philosophy and theology of the Catholic Church.

MODERN PERIOD

* Analytic Philosophy (or sometimes Analytical Philosophy) is a 20th Century movement in philosophy
which holds that philosophy should apply logical techniques in order to attain conceptual clarity, and
that philosophy should be consistent with the success of modern science. For many Analytic
Philosophers, language is the principal (perhaps the only) tool, and philosophy consists in clarifying how
language can be used.
* Empiricism is the idea that the origin of all knowledge is sense experience. It emphasizes the role of
experience and evidence, especially sensory perception, in the formation of ideas, while discounting the
notion of innate ideas, and argues that the only knowledge humans can have is a posteriori (i.e. based
on experience). It relies on induction or inductive reasoning (making generalizations based on individual
instances) in order to build a more complex body of knowledge from these direct observations. Modern
science, and the scientific method, is considered to be methodologically empirical in nature, relying as it
does on an inductive methodology for scientific inquiry.
*Continental Philosophy refers to a set of traditions of 19th and 20th Century philosophy in mainland
Europe. It is a general term for those philosophical schools and movements not included under the label
Analytic Philosophy, which was the other, largely Anglophone, main philosophical tradition of the
period. As a movement, Continental Philosophy lacks clear definition, and may mark merely a family
resemblance across disparate philosophical views, its main purpose being to distinguish itself from
Analytic Philosophy, although the term was used as early as 1840 by John Stuart Mill to distinguish
European Kant-influenced thought from the more British-based movements such as British Empiricism
and Utilitarianism.
*Deconstructionism (or sometimes just Deconstruction) is a 20th Century school in philosophy initiated
by Jacques Derrida in the 1960s. It is a theory of literary criticism that questions traditional assumptions
about certainty, identity, and truth; asserts that words can only refer to other words; and attempts to
demonstrate how statements about any text subvert their own meanings.
*Existentialism is a movement in philosophy and literature that emphasizes individual existence,
freedom and choice. It began in the mid-to-late 19th Century, but reached its peak in mid-20th Century
France. It is based on the view that humans define their own meaning in life, and try to make rational
decisions despite existing in an irrational universe. It focuses on the question of human existence, and
the feeling that there is no purpose or explanation at the core of existence. It holds that, as there is no
God or any other transcendent force, the only way to counter this nothingness (and hence to find
meaning in life) is by embracing existence.
*German Idealism is a philosophical movement centered in Germany during the Age of Enlightenment
of the late 18th and early 19th Century. It developed out of the work of Immanuel Kant and is closely
linked with the Romanticism movement. It is sometimes referred to as Kantianism (although that more
correctly also involves acceptance of Kant's ethical and epistemological views).
*Modernism is both a philosophical movement and an art movement that, along with cultural trends
and changes, arose from wide-scale and far-reaching transformations in Western society during the late
19th and early 20th centuries. Among the factors that shaped modernism were the development of
modern industrial societies and the rapid growth of cities, followed then by reactions of horror to World
War I. Modernism also rejected the certainty of Enlightenment thinking, and many modernists rejected
religious belief.
*Objectivism is a philosophical system developed by Russian-American writer Ayn Rand. Rand first
expressed Objectivism in her fiction, most notably The Fountainhead (1943) and Atlas Shrugged (1957),
and later in non-fiction essays and books. Leonard Peikoff, a professional philosopher and Rand's
designated intellectual heir,later gave it a more formal structure. Rand described Objectivism as "the
concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with
productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute". Peikoff characterizes
Objectivism as a "closed system" that is not subject to change.
*Phenomenology (from Greek phainómenon "that which appears" and lógos "study") is the
philosophical study of the structures of experience and consciousness. As a philosophical movement it
was founded in the early years of the 20th century by Edmund Husserl and was later expanded upon by
a circle of his followers at the universities of Göttingen and Munich in Germany. It then spread to
France, the United States, and elsewhere, often in contexts far removed from Husserl's early work.
*Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition that began in the United States around 1870. Its origins are
often attributed to the philosophers Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, and John Dewey. Peirce
later described it in his pragmatic maxim: "Consider the practical effects of the objects of your
conception. Then, your conception of those effects is the whole of your conception of the object."
*Rationalism is the epistemological view that "regards reason as the chief source and test of
knowledge"or "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification". More formally,
rationalism is defined as a methodology or a theory "in which the criterion of the truth is not sensory
but intellectual and deductive".
*Utilitarianism is a family of consequentialist ethical theories that promotes actions that maximize
happiness and well-being for the majority of a population. Although different varieties of utilitarianism
admit different characterizations, the basic idea behind all of them is to in some sense maximize utility,
which is often defined in terms of well-being or related concepts. For instance, Jeremy Bentham, the
founder of utilitarianism, described utility as that property in any object, whereby it tends to produce
benefit, advantage, pleasure, good, or happiness...[or] to prevent the happening of mischief, pain, evil,
or unhappiness to the party whose interest is considered.