NAME: DUMAYAS, KHIEL ANSIE A. ASSIGNEMENT no.

1 : EXPERIENCING PHILOSOPHY

GRADE AND SECTION: 11- STEM 1 SUBJECT: INTRODUCTION TO THE PHILOSOPHY OF

HUMAN PERSON

Assignment

Instruction: Give at least 5 prominent Philosophers and their contribution in each period.

Periods Philosopher and their contribution

Ancient/ Classical Aristotle
Aristotle made sure to categorize knowledge into different fields such as Physics, biology,
ethics and math. He was an influential philosopher and excelled greatly in math,
astronomy, biology and philosophy. Aristotle based all his findings on factual data which
were gathered from his real-life experiences. He is also famously known as Plato’s
disciple.
Pythagoras
Pythagoras is an influential philosopher known for his famous theory Pythagoras
Theorem Belonging to the pre-Socrates era, this philosopher established a school where
studies and researches were done to back up philosophy and real life. A huge number of
disciples studied at his school, learning the ways and means of leading lives with
harmony and balance. Pythagoras teachings are still studied as these lay down the
doctrines for leading basic lives.
Parmenides
Parmenides was able to introduce varying new concepts for life and humanity. A
follower of Pythagoras, Parmenides contributed immensely in the field of philosophy.
Historians claim he was a pupil of a philosopher named Xanophanes as most of his
preaching, thoughts and poems are heavily influenced by him. He also belonged to the
pre-Socrates society and was an influential figure in ancient Greece. He wrote a poem
called ‘On Nature’ in which he dealt with a very intriguing question ‘is it or is it not’?
Socrates
Socrates was heavily invested in actions regarding his philosophical ideologies. He took
time to exercise his philosophies in his daily life. As a deep thinker and an answer seeker,
he sometime roamed the cities and markets seeking for answers through open
discussions and meetings.
Plato
One among the greatest philosophers of ancient Greece was Plato, a student of Socrates.
He was able to revolutionize the modern world through his teachings. He was able to
establish an Academy in Athens which is identified as Western society’s first institution
of higher learning. A great contributor on the development of western philosophy still
being studied and governing actions. Plato preached his philosophy that was based on a
threefold approach, namely — ethics, dialects and physics. His work ‘The Republic’ is
considered Plato’s most influential works till today as it offers great insight into different
fields like ethics, politics, and metaphysics.
Medieval Thomas Aquinas (1225 - 1274, Italy)
Theologian, metaphysician and principal representative of scholastic education, was the
one who recovered the Aristotelian writings and the first that saw compatible the
comments of the Greek philosopher with the Catholic faith.
Prolific and influential, Thomas Aquinas had a mystical experience a year before he died
that ended his career as a public figure. Some divine revelations that upset him,
according to the record of his closest confidants, prevented him from continuing to
write.
"Faith is a divine grace that God gives to men who choose and reason also originates in
God; All men are right, but not all have faith,"he said putting an end to the idea of
double reason.
San Agustín (354 - 430, Roman Empire)
Born under the name of Augustine of Hippo, this philosopher had a life linked to Catholic
faith. He was a saint, father and doctor of the Church, and one of the leading thinkers of
Christianity in the first millennium.
He was known as the"Doctor of Grace"and is considered one of the most influential
philosophers of the Middle Ages, not because he lived and analyzed their societies (his
death predated the fall of the Roman Empire) but because he was a source of Inspiration
of a whole generation later.
"God does not send impossible things, but in sending what he says, he invites you to do
what you can, ask for what you can not do and help you so that you can,"was one of his
most remembered sentences.
Anicio Manlio Torcuato Severino Boecio (480-524, Rome)
Roman philosopher, belonging to a family of great importance, who gave three Popes to
the Catholic Church, Boethius covered a wide range of topics such as fate, justice and
faith, but also music, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy And theology.
In his most famous work, The consolation of philosophy , Who wrote in prison, maintains
a fluid dialogue with philosophy, to which he attributes a feminine role.
In it he departs on the nature of human happiness, the problems of evil and good,
providence and freedom of man, destiny and chance.
His thoughts rivaled St. Augustine and Aristotle and had a central importance in Christian
theology. "If there is a God, where do the evils come from? And if it does not exist,
where do goods originate?"Was one of his most remembered phrases.
San Anselmo of Canterbury (1033 - 1109, Italy)
Considered the father of scholasticism, disciple of Lanfranco, based his teaching on
meditation, which according to him justified the existence of God.
His main point of discussion was the relationship between faith and reason, which led to
many of his questions remain unanswered. He thought that not putting faith, it was
presumption; However, do not appeal then to reason was negligence.
"I do not seek, in effect, to understand to believe, but I believe to understand. For I
believe this, because if I did not believe, I would not understand,"was one of his most
remembered sentences.
William of Ockham (1280 - 1349, England)
He dedicated his life and his work to extreme poverty, and was accused of heresy for
studying the relationship between the papacy and the doctrine of poverty, which earned
him numerous enemies.

He accused John Paul XXII of being a heretic, one of the most important metaphysicians
of his time, and was noted for his methodological theory in which he stated:"One must
always opt for an explanation in terms of the least possible number of causes, factors or
 variables ".

It propelled a series of ideas that motivated Western constitutions and liberal

democracies with their formulations on the limited responsibility of power.

Its passage to the posterity has it like protagonist of the detective Guillermo de Ockham
in The name of the rose (1980) by Umberto Eco and in the Spanish videogame The abbey
.

"Man and woman have been born to love each other; But not to live together. Someone
has noted that the famous lovers of history have always lived apart,"was one of his most
controversial sentences.
Modern
Sir Francis Bacon advocated the use of inductive reasoning (as opposed to the deductive
reasoning used by the rationalists of his day) and is hence known as the father of
empiricism. He was also very influential in developing the modern scientific method.

Thomas Hobbes
One of the earliest modern philosophers to hold a materialist worldview, Thomas
Hobbes is primarily remembered for his contributions to political philosophy. He wrote
Leviathan and argued for concepts such as individual freedoms, equality, and
representative government. He also believed that humans are naturally anarchic and
need a sovereign to rule over them.Note: The tiger in the comic Calvin & Hobbes is
named after him.

Rene Descartes is often called the father of modern philosophy. Together with Spinoza
and Leibniz, he is considered one of the three great continental rationalists. He is also
known for espousing a dualism.Descartes made many important contributions to the
field of mathematics but is perhaps most famous for his saying “Cogito ergo sum” (Latin
for “I think, therefore I am“). Basically, he wanted to know whether or not there was
anything in this world that we could really know for sure. He started by doubting
everything, even his own existence. However, he came to the conclusion that if he was
thinking about the question, “Do I exist?” then he must exist, otherwise there wouldn’t
be an “I” to ask the question.

Baruch Spinoza rejected the mind-body dualism of Descartes and is often considered to
have held a more pantheistic worldview, arguing that all things are ultimately one. He
believed in an impersonal God and took a critical approach to the Bible and this led to his
writings being strongly condemned by religious leaders.

John Locke was the first of three great British empiricists (the other two being Berkeley
and Hume). He is most famous for his idea of the “tabula rasa” (Latin for “blank slate”).
Basically, he felt that we are all born with a mind that is like a blank sheet of paper. As
we go through life, we have experiences (all of which come by way of our five senses)
and that everything we know or think of is a product of these experiences. Known as the
father of liberalism, he also advanced social contract theory but disagreed with Hobbes’
support of the absolute monarchy.Note: A character from the TV show Lost is named
after him.
Contemporary Martha Nussbaum (b. 1947)
In a field severely dominated by men, even more so than hardcore sciences, Martha
Nussbaum compensates for this in two ways. Originally hailing from New York, she is
now a professor at the University of Chicago, she is a passionate and fervent advocate of
women’s rights and her views on feminism are elaborate, bold, and always fruitfully
controversial. Her open confrontation with another feminist philosopher of a different
school of thought, Judith Butler, in the later 90s made history and, in the end, promoted
the feminist cause to new heights. Moreover, the sheer volume of her output makes her
one of the most laborious and productive philosophers in ethics and political science,
with significant work on animal rights, emotions, and gay rights.

Cornel West (b. 1952)

West is a heavy hitter in social philosophy, having pioneered the school of
“neopragmatism” with a focus on the condition of race and class in America. West was
the first African-American to receive a Ph.D. in philosophy from Princeton University in
1980. West has penned some massively influential texts, including Race Matters (1994),
in which he uses moral authority to address race and social issues, as well the socio-
political text Democracy Matters (2004). West is also among the most public living
philosophers appearing on several talk shows, including CNN and the Colbert Show, and
has even been parodied on Saturday Night Live. He is currently a Professor of Philosophy
and Christian Practice at the Union Theological Seminary in New York City.

Slavoj Žižek (b. 1949)

Known for his idiosyncratic approach to psychoanalytic philosophy and cultural criticism,
Žižek’s doesn’t spare either the political right or the liberal left in his anti-capitalist and
neo-liberal criticism. Žižek’s career has mostly focused on developing a school of thought
based on authentic experiences, what he calls “The Real”, and his work infamously
bounces from from the high-brow masterpiece The Sublime Object of Ideology (1989) to
the low-brow antithetical work The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology (2012). Because of his
willingness to explore low-cultural tropes, and bring them into philosophic discourse, he
has achieved wide cultural acclaim. Žižek has cited as a “a celebrity philosopher,” the
“Elvis of Cultural Theory” and “the most dangerous philosopher in the West.” He teaches
at New York University.

Gayatri Spivak (b. 1942)

Arguably the most influential contemporary philosopher to hail from the Indian
subcontinent, Spivak has spent her career turning post-colonial theory on its head. With
her influential critique “Can the Subaltern Speak?” she ushered in the concept of the
subaltern, the study of populations who live below normal social and hegemonic power
structures. She is also renowned for her translation of Jacques Derrida’s De la
grammatologie, a text that laid the foundations for Deconstructionism, in which she
contributed an impactful introduction. She is the recipient of the Kyoto Prize in Arts and
Philosophy and India’s Padma Bhushan for her contributions to literary and cultural
theory. Spivak is a founding member of the Institute for Comparative Literature and
Society at Columbia University, where she teaches.Arguably the most influential
contemporary philosopher to hail from the Indian subcontinent, Spivak has spent her
career turning post-colonial theory on its head. With her influential critique “Can the
Subaltern Speak?” she ushered in the concept of the subaltern, the study of populations
who live below normal social and hegemonic power structures recipient of the Kyoto
Prize in Arts and Philosophy and India’s Padma Bhushan for her contributions to literary
Judith Butler (b. 1956)
Butler has had a seminal impact on feminism and gender philosophy since the
publication of her treatises Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity and
Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex. She is widely credited for developing
a theory based around the social construction of gender. Her work is influenced by
philosopher Michel Foucault, to which she has cited in her arguments that the language
of gender has been pushed to necessity from the desire of powers to censor any
deviation from heterosexuality. Along with being a voice for LGBTQ issues, Butler, who is
Jewish, has been a vocal critic of Israeli politics, a stance that led to certain Israeli leaders
to protest her selection for the Theodor Adorno Prize, an award given for outstanding
achievements in philosophy.