Cicero famously said that Socrates brought Philosophy down from the heavens and settled it in our cities and homes. Although such distinctions are never wholly accurate, it is useful to consider the philosophers that came before Socrates as a group...
In the first half of the fourth century, Plato adapted the most fruitful ideas of his predecessors into a comprehensive metaphysical scheme. The philosopher Alfred North Whitehead famously commented that the whole of Western philosophy consists of a series of footnotes to Plato...
After Alexander’s conquests a new pessimism descended upon Greek thinkers. Alienated from the centre of government and no longer in control of their own political destiny, they turned inward and developed what Bertrand Russell has called a ‘philosophy of retreat’...
The medieval period traditionally dates from the end of the classical period (that is, the the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the fifth century) and continues to the beginning of the Renaissance in the fourteenth century. Philosophy during this time was...
The Early Middle Ages in Europe – the period of around 600 years after the fall of Rome – are often referred to as the ‘Dark Ages’. Philosophy during these centuries is scarce. A brief revival of learning occurred in the Latin West under Charlemagne...
Three major developments conspired to change the philosophical landscape in the thirteenth century. The end result was a specialised and academic form of philosophy known as Scholasticism, marked by the use of dialectical reasoning to extend knowledge...
The Renaissance is the period from around 1350 to 1650 – from the end of the Middle Ages to the early modern philosophy of Descartes. It was largely a response to the recovery of classical learning from Latin manuscripts unearthed in monasteries...
Atheism — the denial of God, or the gods — may feel like a modern phenomenon, a relatively recent addition to our intellectual toolbox. However, atheism actually has a long and interesting history. I hope to outline that history today...