More than two thousand years ago, the great Greek philosopher Socrates was condemned to death for making seditious comments against the city state of Athens.
His followers and disciples were legion. Ranging from Xenophon, the mercenary warrior and historian of the Peloponnesian War to the scholarly Plato, Socrates was described as the conscience-keeper of the nation, or the “gadfly” who would not let the massive machinery of the state rest in complacence.
The Apology of Socrates by Plato was thought to have been written following Socrates trial and death in 399 BC. It is one of many such accounts of this infamous trial. It is only through the Apology t...
Platon (427 v. Chr.–348 v. Chr.) läßt Sokrates sein Leben darstellen und beurteilen sowie seine Einstellung zum Tod. Übersetzung durch Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher (1768-1834) von 1805.
Taking issue with Hegel’s sense that God, as Logos, is somehow central to all that is, Feuerbach explores his own notion that Christianity, as religion, grew quite naturally from ordinary human observation. Only upon deeper, systematic reflection did people postulate a divine source–God. Religious teaching which loses sight of its own essential rootedness in human experience runs the risk becoming overly abstract, disconnected even, from realities which shape humanity and which impart meaning and dignity to life. Fuerbach illustrates this not only on the example of the doctrine of God, but also with respect to creation, prayer, miracles, Trinitarianism, sacramentalism, and other dogmas...
John Stuart Mill’s book Utilitarianism is one of the most influential and widely-read philosophical defenses of utilitarianism in ethics. The essay first appeared as a series of three articles published in Fraser’s Magazine in 1861; the articles were collected and reprinted as a single book in 1863. It went through four editions during Mill’s lifetime with minor additions and revisions.
Although Mill includes discussions of utilitarian ethical principles in other works such as On Liberty and The Subjection of Women, Utilitarianism contains Mill’s only major discussion of the fundamental grounds for utilitarian ethical theory.
The foundations of modern skepticism and objective thinking are thought to be rooted in the philosophy of Rene Descartes, the French mathematician, philosopher and writer. This great sixteenth century thinker also gave us theories on mind-body dualism and the concept of ethics as the highest form of science. He is considered the Father of Modern Western Philosophy.
His theories also led to the emancipation of humanity from the doctrine that the Church is the sole authority over Man and led to a more autonomous idea of the human condition. He also wrote extensively on subjects as diverse as music, the search for truth, geometry, discourse as a method of scientific investigatio...