Philosophical Thoughts

1. Niccolo Machiavelli - He is best known today for two main works, the well-known "The
Prince" (a treatise on political realism and a guide on how a ruler can retain control over his
subjects), and the "Discourses on Livy" (the most important work on republicanism in the early
modern period). Although he is sometimes presented as a model of Moral Nihilism, that is
actually highly questionable as he was largely silent on moral matters and, if anything, he
presented an alternative to the ethical theories of his day, rather than an all-out rejection of all
morality. He was also accused of Atheism, again with little justification.

2. Aristotle - (384 - 322 B.C.) was an important Greek philosopher from the Socratic (or
Classical) period, mainly based in Athens. He is one of the most important founding figures in
Western Philosophy, and the first to create a comprehensive system of philosophy,
encompassing Ethics, Aesthetics, Politics, Metaphysics, Logic and science. His own school of
philosophy, known as Aristotelianism or the Peripatetic School, influenced almost all later
philosophical thinking, particularly the Medieval movements such as Scholasticism, Averroism
and Avicennism.

3. Plato - He is perhaps the best known, most widely studied and most influential philosopher of
all time. Together with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, he provided the main
opposition to the Materialist view of the world represented by Democritus and Epicurus, and he
helped to lay the foundations of the whole of Western Philosophy. In his works, especially his
many dialogues, he blended Ethics, Political Philosophy, Epistemology, Metaphysics and moral
psychology into an interconnected and systematic philosophy. In addition to the ideas they
contained (such as his doctrine of Platonic Realism, Essentialism, Idealism, his famous theory of
Forms and the ideal of "Platonic love"), many of his writings are also considered superb pieces
of literature.

4. David Hume - David Hume (1711 - 1776) was a Scottish philosopher, economist and historian
of the Age of Enlightenment. He was an important figure in the Scottish Enlightenment and,
along with John Locke and Bishop George Berkeley, one of the three main figureheads of the
influential British Empiricism movement. He was a fierce opponent of the Rationalism of
Descartes, Leibniz and Spinoza, as well as an atheist and a skeptic. He has come to be
considered as one of the most important British philosophers of all time, and he was a huge
influence on later philosophers, from Immanuel Kant and Arthur Schopenhauer to the Logical
Positivists and Analytic Philosophers of the 20th Century, as well as on intellectuals in other
fields (including Albert Einstein, who claimed to have been inspired by Hume's skepticism of
the established order)

5. St. Thomas Aquinas - (AKA Thomas of Aquin or Aquino) (c. 1225 - 1274) was an Italian
philosopher and theologian of the Medieval period. He was the foremost classical proponent of
natural theology at the the peak of Scholasticism in Europe, and the founder of the Thomistic
school of philosophy and theology. The philosophy of Aquinas has exerted enormous influence
on subsequent Christian theology, especially that of the Roman Catholic Church, but also
Western philosophy in general. His most important and enduring works are the "Summa
 Theologica", in which he expounds his systematic theology of the "quinquae viae" (the five
proofs of the existence of God), and the "Summa Contra Gentiles".

6. John Locke - (1632 - 1704) was an English philosopher of the Age of Reason and early Age of
Enlightenment. His ideas had enormous influence on the development of Epistemology and
Political Philosophy, and he is widely regarded as one of the most influential early
Enlightenment thinkers. He is usually considered the first of the British Empiricists, the
movement which included George Berkeley and David Hume, and which provided the main
opposition to the 17th Century Continental Rationalists. He argued that all of our ideas are
ultimately derived from experience, and the knowledge of which we are capable is therefore
severely limited in its scope and certainty. His Philosophy of Mind is often cited as the origin for
modern conceptions of identity and "the self". He also postulated, contrary to Cartesian and
Christian philosophy, that the mind was a "tabula rasa" (or "blank slate") and that people are
born without innate ideas.

7. Karl Heinrich Marx (1818 - 1883) was a German philosopher, political theorist and
revolutionary of the 19th Century. Both a scholar and a political activist, Marx is often called the
father of Communism, and certainly his Marxist theory provided the intellectual base for various
subsequent forms of Communism. Marxism, the philosophical and political school or tradition
his work gave rise to, is a variety of radical or revolutionary Socialism conceived as a reaction
against the rampant Capitalism and Liberalism of 19th Century Europe, with working class self-
emancipation as its goal. Among other things, he is known for his analysis of history
(particularly his concept of historical materialism) and the search for a systemic understanding
of socioeconomic change.

8. St. Augustine of Hippo - (A.D. 354 - 430) was an Algerian-Roman philosopher and theologian
of the late Roman / early Medieval period. He is one of the most important early figures in the
development of Western Christianity, and was a major figure in bringing Christianity to
dominance in the previously pagan Roman Empire. He is often considered the father of
orthodox theology and the greatest of the four great fathers of the Latin Church (along with St.
Ambrose, St. Jerome and St. Gregory).

9. Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712 - 1778) - was a French philosopher and writer of the Age of
Enlightenment. His Political Philosophy, particularly his formulation of social contract theory
(or Contractarianism), strongly influenced the French Revolution and the development of
Liberal, Conservative and Socialist theory. A brilliant, undisciplined and unconventional thinker
throughout his colourful life, his views on Philosophy of Education and on religion were equally
controversial but nevertheless influential.

10. Johanna "Hannah" Arendt (14 October 1906 4 December 1975) was a German-born
Jewish American political theorist. Though often described as a philosopher, she rejected that
label on the grounds that philosophy is concerned with "man in the singular" and instead
described herself as a political theorist because her work centers on the fact that "men, not Man,
live on the earth and inhabit the world." She escaped Europe during the Holocaust, becoming an
American citizen. Her works deal with the nature of power and the subjects of politics, direct
democracy, authority, and totalitarianism. The Hannah Arendt Prize is named in her honor.