Tuesday - Philosophers

This week's topic is Philosophers. I will present three philosophers and their basic ideas in each daily email. One from Antiquity, one from the Middle Ages through the Enlightenment, and one modern. Enjoy!

Ancient

Plato - Plato was a Greek of the 4th century, a student of Socrates, and the founder of the ancient school of philosophy in Athens. A key concept of Plato has been popularly distributed in The Republic. In it and other works, Plato describes two types of reality: the "form," or the true nature of things, and the "perception." Perceptions range along an axis towards the form, however, perception and form can never be equal. This was the metaphor of the cave, wherein observers believed that the shadows they saw were the actual beings, and not a mere reflection of their true selves.

Middle Ages

John Locke - Locke was an English philosopher of the early 17th century, who had a strong influence on the Declaration of Independence - "life, liberty, and the pursuit of property." Property as defined by Locke is the value of one's labor, as manifest by an object of production, and estate, or general wealth. In contrast with contemporary Thomas Hobbes, Locke's idea of a social contract is based on the consensus of the governed and not on the power of the ruling.

Modern

Karl Marx - Marx is a German philosopher of the 19th century. Commonly understood to be the founder of social democracy as it evolved into communism, Marx's focus of thought was on class struggles. Steering away from the more common points of departure for intellectual hijackers, Marx has many an original thought. While many philosophers struggled with the question of "nature vs. nurture" (and Plato was probably the first), Mark concluded that based on man's ability to adapt, nurture dictates behavior. Therefore situations and problems of class and economics are learned, and can be unlearned by planning.