Philosophy in Summary

Overview of the Pre-Socratics and Sophists: from Thales to Protagoras, the birth of Greek rational thought, the arché and the physis vs. nomos debate.

Overview of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle: the Socratic method, the Theory of Forms, Aristotelian metaphysics and the apex of classical philosophy.

Overview of Hellenistic philosophy: Stoicism, Epicureanism, Skepticism and Neoplatonism — from the pursuit of individual happiness to Plotinus' One.

Overview of Medieval philosophy: Patristics, Scholasticism, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas — the fusion of Greek philosophy with Christian, Islamic and Hebrew theology.

Overview of Humanism, Renaissance and Reformation: from Petrarch to Luther, human dignity, the rediscovery of the classics and the religious rupture.

Overview of the Scientific Revolution: Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler and Newton — the new cosmology, the experimental method and the birth of classical physics.

Overview of Rationalism and Empiricism: Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz vs. Locke, Berkeley, Hume — reason and experience as the foundations of knowledge.

Overview of Contractualism, Enlightenment and Kant: Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Voltaire and the Kantian critique — the philosophical foundations of the modern State.

Overview of German Idealism: Fichte, Schelling and Hegel — overcoming the Kantian thing-in-itself and thought as the totality of reality.

Overview of 19th-century philosophy: Marx, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Comte and Mill — materialism, nihilism, existentialism and positivism.

Overview of 20th-century philosophy: phenomenology, existentialism, analytic philosophy, Frankfurt School, post-structuralism and political philosophy.

Synthesis of Analytic Philosophy: Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein, Vienna Circle, Quine — logic, language, and the analytic method.

Synthesis of Philosophy of Mind: dualism, behaviourism, functionalism, qualia, the hard problem of consciousness — from Descartes to Chalmers.

Synthesis of Hermeneutics and Phenomenology: Schleiermacher, Dilthey, Husserl, Heidegger, Gadamer, Ricoeur — understanding, existence, and interpretation.

Synthesis of Eastern Philosophy: Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism (Nāgārjuna), Vedanta, and points of contact with Western thought.

Synthesis of Latin American Philosophy: identity, liberation, pedagogy of the oppressed, decolonial thought, and the foundational debate over the authenticity of a philosophy of our own.

Synthesis of African Philosophy: ancient traditions (Egypt/Maat), Islamic philosophy in Timbuktu, ethnophilosophy, philosophy of liberation, Ubuntu, and contemporary decolonial thought.