Gallery of Distinguished Thinkers - by Emmanuel George Cefai
In this series of articles, the author discusses the philosophy of some of the world's most eminent thinkers. In so doing not only does he refer to the social, political, historical and intellectual background of these men; but he also gives a brief critique of their philosophies as compared with his own "world-view" contained in his work. "The Spirit of Metaphysics". (Extract from the daily news, introduction to the series on 'Gallery of Distinguished Thinkers' 1979)
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C.W. LEIBNIZ
RENAISSANCE philosophy had thrown aside the shackles of medieval Scholasticism. Rene Decartes of France had to set the background for the trend that philosophy especially metaphysics had to take in the centuries which folliowed.
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ALBERT EINSTEIN
EINSTEIN is considered by almost everybody to be the greatest scientist the world has seen since Newton. But that is only half-truth, so to call it, about this great personality. For above all, Albert Einstein was a thinker, perhaps one of the world's leading thiners. And the thought that came into his mind early this century was as great as it was simple.
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ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER
GERMAN idealism, as a philosophical movement from Kent to Hegel is, if anything else, a tribute to reason, human reason. But Aurthur Schopenhauer showed that the universe is not merely 'ratio recta', but is contained something else, which in his philisophy, assumed greater importance. This was the will.
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BENEDICT SPINOZA
LIKE the other great Continental Rational. sts Leibniz and Descartes, Spinoza was a great lover of the mathematical method in philosophy. Not only that. Influenced by Bacon's 'Novum Organon' he set out to write about human beings as though I were concerned with lines and planes and solids. Hence also Spinoza's unicn of mind and body which Descartes had separated' If you write upon and treat a human being on this same level as a triangle it would follow as an inevitable conculsion that you will conclude that mind and body are aline - subtance.
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EMPEDOCLES
A very good solution to the metaphysical problem of conflict between Hercalitan concept of dynamism and the Eleactic notion of the unchangeability and eternity of substance was the one propounded by Empedocies, which albeit not very scientifically exact in its analytical aspects, yet in a very scientifically distinct sense foreshadowed the realtivism of A. Einstein and of our own thinking.
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FRANCIS BACON
All men are inperfect - at least in our present state of evolution - in a physicalist sense (I do not mean this to do anything with physique). And Francis Bacon, one time Lord Chancellor of England and the most eminent philosopher in the word of those days was no exception.
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FRANZ BRENTANO
Franz Brentano is almost universally considered as the founder of the Phenomenological movement. His chief work, "Psycology from an Empirical Standpoint" (1874) does not justify our calling Brentano a 'phenomenologist', and the original ideas contributed by Brentano in his work are not many. The little that there is - as was the case with George Berkerley - is however of great importance.
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FRIEDRICH NEITZSCHE
Perhaps the most original of all writers on ethics is Fredrich Neitzsche, a philosopher who for the first time in the history of philosophy rejected the absolutism of current values and put forth a philosophy calling for a 'revaluation of all values.'
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GEORGE BERKELEY
IRELAND's foremost philosopher proposed a theory according to which the only things that exist are those that can be experienced: those which cannot be experienced do not exist. While the first part of this dictum is akin to our Mentalist concept, the second part is different for while Berkeley opted subsequently for an 'Objective Idealism', we opt for Realism. But the first part of the dictum is especially pregnant and meaningful.
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GORGIAS OF LEONTINI
Perhaps the leading of all Sophists, Gorgias of Leontini was impelled to accept Skepticism by Zeno's arguments. In fact Gorgias is perhaps also the most forceful and known of the early Skeptics. In my philosophy we have solved the paradoxes of Zeno, but Gorgias failing to do this consigned himself to Skepticism. This accordingly became a refuge for those spirits in philosophy who felt insecure and failed to combact that insecurity successfully.
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HENRI BERGSON
BERGSON'S system of Vitalism is an explanation of the Universe on lines other than physical ones. For Bergson who was also a distinguished scientist realised that the laws of life cannot be explained by any set of laws except life itself. As such niether logic nor science holds but "intuition" itself.
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HERACLITUS
The relativism of Heraclitus which is developed into the non-ab solutism of Hume, Bergson and other philosophers is perhaps the greatest conquest of all philosophy. For Heraclitus who considerering the universe to be ever in a state of Becoming, arrived at the all-important conclusion that anything and everything is just empirical momentum having no absolute significance.
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