Aristotle Aristotle's views on physical science profoundly shaped medieval scholarship. Their influence extended into the Renaissance and were not replaced systematically until the Enlightenment and theories such as classical mechanics. Some of Aristotle's zoological observations, such as on the hectocotyl (reproductive) arm of the octopus, were not confirmed or refuted until the 19th century. His ethics, though always influential, gained renewed interest with the modern advent of virtue ethics. The sum of his work's influence often ranks him among the world's top personalities of all time with the greatest influence, along with his teacher Plato, and his pupil Alexander the Great.[9][10] Life At about the age of eighteen, Aristotle moved to Athens to continue his education at Plato's Academy. Aristotle then accompanied Xenocrates to the court of his friend Hermias of Atarneus in Asia Minor. Aristotle was appointed as the head of the royal academy of Macedon. Thought Logic History
Amniote The first amniotes (referred to as "basal amniotes") resembled small lizards and evolved from the amphibian reptiliomorphs about 312 million years ago,[2] in the Carboniferous geologic period. Their eggs could survive out of the water, allowing amniotes to branch out into drier environments. The eggs could also "breathe" and cope with wastes, allowing the eggs and the amniotes themselves to evolve into larger forms. The amniotic egg represents a critical divergence within the vertebrates, one enabled to reproduce on dry land—free of the need to return to water for reproduction as required of the amphibians. Very early in the evolutionary history of amniotes, basal amniotes diverged into two main lines, the synapsids and the sauropsids, both of which persist into the modern era. Description[edit] Anatomy of an amniotic egg 1. Adaptions for a terrestrial life[edit] The egg membranes[edit] In fish and amphibians there is only one inner membrane, the embryonic membrane. Amniote traits[edit]
Spinozism Spinozism (also spelled Spinoza-ism or Spinozaism) is the monist philosophical system of Baruch Spinoza which defines "God" as a singular self-subsistent substance, with both matter and thought being attributes of such. History[edit] French philosopher Martial Guéroult suggested the term "Panentheism", rather than "Pantheism" to describe Spinoza’s view of the relation between God and the world. Pantheism controversy[edit] In 1785, Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi published a condemnation of Spinoza's pantheism, after Lessing was thought to have confessed on his deathbed to being a "Spinozist", which was the equivalent in his time of being called a heretic. The attraction of Spinoza's philosophy to late eighteenth-century Europeans was that it provided an alternative to materialism, atheism, and deism. the unity of all that exists;the regularity of all that happens; andthe identity of spirit and nature. Comparison to Eastern philosophies[edit] Core doctrine[edit] Substance[edit] Attributes[edit]
Gorgias Gorgias (/ˈɡɔrdʒiəs/; Greek: Γοργίας, Ancient Greek: [ɡorɡías]; c. 485 – c. 380 BC),[1] called "the Nihilist," was a Greek sophist, Italiote, pre-Socratic philosopher and rhetorician who was a native of Leontini in Sicily. Along with Protagoras, he forms the first generation of Sophists. Several doxographers report that he was a pupil of Empedocles, although he would only have been a few years younger. "Like other Sophists he was an itinerant, practicing in various cities and giving public exhibitions of his skill at the great pan-Hellenic centers of Olympia and Delphi, and charged fees for his instruction and performances. A special feature of his displays was to invite miscellaneous questions from the audience and give impromptu replies. His chief claim to recognition resides in the fact that he transplanted rhetoric from his native Sicily to Attica, and contributed to the diffusion of the Attic dialect as the language of literary prose. Life[edit] Gorgias: the Nihilist[edit]
Carboniferous Subdivisions[edit] Late Pennsylvanian: Gzhelian (most recent) Noginskian / Virgilian (part) Late Pennsylvanian: Kasimovian KlazminskianDorogomilovksian / Virgilian (part)Chamovnicheskian / Cantabrian / MissourianKrevyakinskian / Cantabrian / Missourian Middle Pennsylvanian: Moscovian Myachkovskian / Bolsovian / DesmoinesianPodolskian / DesmoinesianKashirskian / AtokanVereiskian / Bolsovian / Atokan Early Pennsylvanian: Bashkirian / Morrowan Melekesskian / DuckmantianCheremshanskian / LangsettianYeadonianMarsdenianKinderscoutian Late Mississippian: Serpukhovian AlportianChokierian / Chesterian / ElvirianArnsbergian / ElvirianPendleian Middle Mississippian: Visean Brigantian / St Genevieve / Gasperian / ChesterianAsbian / MeramecianHolkerian / SalemArundian / Warsaw / MeramecianChadian / Keokuk / Osagean (part) / Osage (part) Early Mississippian: Tournaisian (oldest) Ivorian / (part) / Osage (part)Hastarian / Kinderhookian / Chouteau Paleogeography[edit] Climate and weather[edit] Rocks and coal[edit]
Environmental Ethics 1. Introduction: The Challenge of Environmental Ethics Suppose putting out natural fires, culling feral animals or destroying some individual members of overpopulated indigenous species is necessary for the protection of the integrity of a certain ecosystem. Will these actions be morally permissible or even required? Is it morally acceptable for farmers in non-industrial countries to practise slash and burn techniques to clear areas for agriculture? Consider a mining company which has performed open pit mining in some previously unspoiled area. In the literature on environmental ethics the distinction between instrumental value and intrinsic value (in the sense of “non-instrumental value”) has been of considerable importance. When environmental ethics emerged as a new sub-discipline of philosophy in the early 1970s, it did so by posing a challenge to traditional anthropocentrism. 2. The new field emerged almost simultaneously in three countries—the United States, Australia, and Norway.
Heraclitus Heraclitus of Ephesus (/ˌhɛrəˈklaɪtəs/;[1] Greek: Ἡράκλειτος ὁ Ἐφέσιος, Hērákleitos ho Ephésios; c. 535 – c. 475 BCE) was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, a native of the Greek city Ephesus, Ionia, on the coast of Asia Minor. He was of distinguished parentage. Little is known about his early life and education, but he regarded himself as self-taught and a pioneer of wisdom. Heraclitus is famous for his insistence on ever-present change in the universe, as stated in the famous saying, "No man ever steps in the same river twice"[2] (see panta rhei, below). Life[edit] The main source for the life of Heraclitus is Diogenes Laërtius, although some have questioned the validity of his account as "a tissue of Hellenistic anecdotes, most of them obviously fabricated on the basis of statements in the preserved fragments Ephesus on the coast of Asia Minor, birthplace of Heraclitus Heraclitus was born to an aristocratic family in Ephesus, Anatolia, in what is now called present-day Efes, Turkey.
Tabula rasa The term also is used as the name of an epistemological theory that individuals are born without built-in mental content and that all of their knowledge comes from experience and perception. Generally, proponents of the tabula rasa thesis favour the "nurture" side of the nature versus nurture debate, when it comes to aspects of one's personality, social and emotional behaviour, and intelligence. History[edit] In Western philosophy, traces of the concept that became called tabula rasa appear as early as the writings of Aristotle. Aristotle writes of the unscribed tablet in what is probably one of many textbooks of psychology in the Western canon, his treatise "Περί Ψυχῆς" (De Anima or On the Soul, Book III, chapter 4). Regardless of some arguments by the Stoics and Peripatetics, however, the notion of the mind as a blank slate went largely unnoticed for more than 1,000 years. In the thirteenth century, St. Tabula rasa also features in Sigmund Freud's psychoanalysis. Science[edit]
Arne Næss Arne Næss kampanjar för det norska gröna partiet Miljøpartiet 2003. Arne Dekke Eide Næss, född 27 januari 1912 i Oslo[1], död 12 januari 2009, var en norsk filosof och grundare av ekosofin, även kallad djupekologin. Enligt Næss har allt liv på jorden rätt till självutveckling och självförverkligande. Næss har varit motståndsman, miljöaktivist och bergsklättrare. 1950 och 1964 ledde Næss klätterexpeditioner till Tirich Mir i Pakistan. Han använde gärna uttrycket possibilism. 1936 försvarade Arne Næss sin doktorsavhandling Erkenntnis und wissenschaftliches Verhalten. Næss språkfilosofiska huvudverk är Tolkning og presisering (1953) vars tolknings- och preciseringslära i den populariserade utgåvan En del elementære logiske emner (på svenska 1981 med titeln Empirisk semantik) i åratal var obligatoriskt kursmaterial för studenter vid de förberedande kurserna till examen philosophicum vid norska universitet. Naess avled den 12 januari 2009. Empirisk semantik, Esselte studium, Uppsala 1981.
Jean-François Lyotard Biography[edit] Early life, educational background, and family[edit] Jean François Lyotard was born on August 10, 1924 in Versailles, France to Jean-Pierre Lyotard, a sales representative, and Madeleine Cavalli. He went to primary school at the Paris lycée Buffon and Louis-le-Grand, and later studied philosophy at the Sorbonne in the late 1940's. Political life[edit] In 1954, Lyotard became a member of Socialisme ou Barbarie, a French political organisation formed in 1948 around the inadequacy of the Trotskyist analysis to explain the new forms of domination in the Soviet Union. Academic career[edit] Lyotard taught in Lycée de Constantine in Algeria from 1950 to 1952. Theory[edit] Lyotard's work is characterised by a persistent opposition to universals, meta-narratives, and generality. The Postmodern Condition[edit] Lyotard is a skeptic for modern cultural thought. The collapse of the "Grand Narrative" and "Language Games"[edit] The Differend[edit] The sublime[edit]
Empiricism John Locke, a leading philosopher of British empiricism Empiricism is a theory which states that knowledge comes only or primarily from sensory experience.[1] One of several views of epistemology, the study of human knowledge, along with rationalism and skepticism, empiricism emphasizes the role of experience and evidence, especially sensory experience, in the formation of ideas, over the notion of innate ideas or traditions;[2] empiricists may argue however that traditions (or customs) arise due to relations of previous sense experiences.[3] Empiricism, often used by natural scientists, asserts that "knowledge is based on experience" and that "knowledge is tentative and probabilistic, subject to continued revision and falsification Etymology[edit] The English term "empirical" derives from the Greek word ἐμπειρία, which is cognate with and translates to the Latin experientia, from which we derive the word "experience" and the related "experiment". History[edit] Background[edit]