94 events with tag "philosophy"
551 BC
ID: 4699
Birth of Confucius in Qufu - will become China's most influential philosopher
ID: 4699
500 BC
ID: 261
Laozi writes Tao Te Ching (traditional date) - way of nature, wu wei (non-action), yin-yang
ID: 261
479 BC
ID: 234
Death of Confucius - leaves behind ethical system based on ren (humaneness) and li (ritual propriety)
ID: 234
460 BC
ID: 239
Democritus develops atomic theory - 'Nothing exists except atoms and empty space'
ID: 239
450 BC
ID: 242
Protagoras teaches in Athens - 'Man is the measure of all things,' charges fees for wisdom
ID: 242
450 BC
ID: 270
Pythagorean theorem widely known - mathematics as key to understanding cosmos
ID: 270
444 BC
ID: 265
Empedocles teaches four elements and two forces - earth, air, fire, water moved by Love and Strife
ID: 265
440 BC
ID: 5909
Oracle declares Socrates wisest - Chaerephon asks if anyone wiser than Socrates, oracle says no, launches Socrates' philosophical mission
ID: 5909
434 BC
ID: 245
Anaxagoras expelled from Athens for impiety - taught sun was hot stone, not god, Mind (Nous) orders cosmos
ID: 245
420 BC
ID: 250
Socrates at height of influence - questioning youth in agora, 'unexamined life not worth living'
ID: 250
399 BC
ID: 260
Trial and execution of Socrates - charged with impiety and corrupting youth, drinks hemlock
ID: 260
387 BC
ID: 275
Plato founds the Academy in Athens - first institution of higher learning in Western world, lasts 900 years
ID: 275
385 BC
ID: 5417
Plato's Symposium - philosophical dialogue at drinking party, wine enables truth but requires moderation
ID: 5417
380 BC
ID: 277
Plato writes Republic - ideal state ruled by philosopher-kings, allegory of the cave, theory of Forms
ID: 277
380 BC
ID: 280
Diogenes arrives in Athens - lives in barrel, mocks conventions, searches with lantern for honest man
ID: 280
372 BC
ID: 305
Mencius born - develops Confucianism, human nature inherently good, mandate of heaven
ID: 305
350 BC
ID: 306
Zhuangzi writes on Taoism - butterfly dream, relativism, spontaneity, humor in philosophy
ID: 306
335 BC
ID: 284
Aristotle founds Lyceum in Athens - systematic study of logic, biology, ethics, politics, poetics
ID: 284
329 BC
ID: 296
Alexander meets Diogenes - 'Stand out of my sunlight,' Alexander: 'If I weren't Alexander, I'd be Diogenes'
ID: 296
323 BC
ID: 299
Death of Diogenes - same day as Alexander (tradition), throws himself out 'like true Cynic'
ID: 299
322 BC
ID: 301
Death of Aristotle - flees Athens after Alexander dies, 'lest Athens sin twice against philosophy'
ID: 301
310 BC
ID: 312
Pyrrho develops skepticism - suspension of judgment, nothing can be known for certain
ID: 312
306 BC
ID: 307
Epicurus founds Garden school - pleasure as absence of pain, atoms and void, death is nothing
ID: 307
301 BC
ID: 308
Zeno founds Stoicism in Athens - virtue only good, cosmic determinism, live according to nature
ID: 308
100
ID: 4823
Justin Martyr born in Flavia Neapolis - future philosopher and apologist, defender of Old Testament as Christian scripture
ID: 4823
130
ID: 4825
Justin Martyr converts to Christianity - after studying Stoicism, Aristotelianism, Pythagoreanism, and Platonism
ID: 4825
150
ID: 4137
St. Justin opens philosophy school in Rome - first Christian philosophy school, synthesizes faith with Platonic thought
ID: 4137
150
ID: 4841
Justin opens Christian philosophy school in Rome - First to systematically harmonize Greek philosophy with Christian faith
ID: 4841
165
ID: 3805
St. Justin Martyr beheaded - philosopher convert, first to harmonize faith and reason, wrote First and Second Apology
ID: 3805
170
ID: 5435
Marcus Aurelius drinks only water - Stoic emperor rejects wine as weakness, sets ascetic example
ID: 5435
175
ID: 4142
Athenagoras writes Plea for Christians - philosophical defense addressed to Marcus Aurelius, refutes charges of atheism and immorality
ID: 4142
178
ID: 4143
Celsus writes True Discourse - first systematic pagan attack on Christianity, later refuted by Origen
ID: 4143
178
ID: 4842
Celsus writes True Discourse - Pagan philosopher attacks Christianity using Jewish arguments about scripture
ID: 4842
190
ID: 3807
Clement of Alexandria heads Catechetical School - synthesizes Greek philosophy with Christianity
ID: 3807
222
ID: 4883
Hippolytus writes Refutation of All Heresies - Traces heresies to pagan philosophy, describes 33 Gnostic groups
ID: 4883
413
ID: 3831
St. Augustine begins City of God - response to fall of Rome, Christian philosophy of history, takes 13 years
ID: 3831
529
ID: 4686
Academy of Athens refugees arrive - Justinian closes Academy, philosophers flee to Persia
ID: 4686
928
ID: 4866
Saadia Gaon leads Sura - Fights Karaites, translates Bible to Arabic, writes philosophy
ID: 4866
1109
ID: 179
Anselm of Canterbury completes 'Cur Deus Homo' - Why God Became Man, satisfaction theory of atonement
ID: 179
1125
ID: 185
Toledo translation movement accelerates - Arabic works of Aristotle, medicine, mathematics pour into Latin West
ID: 185
1190
ID: 201
Maimonides completes 'Guide for the Perplexed' - reconciling Aristotle with Judaism
ID: 201
1198
ID: 209
Death of Averroes (Ibn Rushd) - last great Muslim Aristotelian philosopher, influences Aquinas
ID: 209
1245
ID: 11
Aquinas begins studying under Albert the Great - called 'Dumb Ox' by fellow students
ID: 11
1260
ID: 13
Aquinas writes Summa Contra Gentiles - proving God's existence through reason alone
ID: 13
1277
ID: 18
Bishop Tempier condemns 219 propositions at Paris, unintentionally destroying Thomistic synthesis
ID: 18
1285
ID: 19
William of Ockham born - future proponent of nominalism
ID: 19
1290
ID: 20
Ockham develops nominalist philosophy - 'Entities should not be multiplied without necessity'
ID: 20
1417
ID: 29
Poggio Bracciolini discovers Lucretius's 'De Rerum Natura' - Epicurean materialism recovered
ID: 29
1459
ID: 5132
Cosimo founds Platonic Academy in Florence - Marsilio Ficino leads revival of Platonism in West
ID: 5132
1469
ID: 5164
Ficino completes Latin translation of Plato's complete works - first in West, transforms European philosophy
ID: 5164
1486
ID: 30
Pico della Mirandola's 'Oration on Dignity of Man' - man as self-creator
ID: 30
1486
ID: 5137
Pico della Mirandola writes 'Oration on the Dignity of Man' - Renaissance manifesto on human potential, protected by Lorenzo
ID: 5137
1513
ID: 5147
Machiavelli writes The Prince in exile - dedicates to Lorenzo de' Medici (Duke of Urbino), hopes for return
ID: 5147
1515
ID: 3525
St. Thomas More writing Utopia - attempting to show reason can grasp natural law - Two years before Luther - defending Aquinas's synthesis - 'The times are never so bad but that a good man can live in them'
ID: 3525
1530
ID: 5475
Paracelsus writes 'Paragranum' in Strasbourg, outlining his medical philosophy based on four pillars: philosophy, astronomy, alchemy, and virtue
ID: 5475
1534
ID: 3539
Beginning of English Reformation creates philosophical crisis - Henry VIII's break with Rome shatters unified Christian worldview - Sets stage for individual reason as new authority
ID: 3539
1632
ID: 3479
Spinoza born (1632-1677) - Future philosopher of God-Nature equation
ID: 3479
1651
ID: 3416
Thomas Hobbes's 'Leviathan' - 'Words are wise men's counters... but they are the money of fools' - No essences, only names we impose - 'The universe is corporeal; all that is real is material' - Man in nature: 'solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short'
ID: 3416
1670
ID: 3422
Pascal's 'Pensées' Published Posthumously - Last major defense of Christianity using reason - 'The heart has reasons that reason knows not' - Famous wager: Bet on God existing
ID: 3422
1670
ID: 3423
Spinoza's 'Theological-Political Treatise' - 'I have made a ceaseless effort not to ridicule, not to bewail, not to scorn human actions, but to understand them' - 'Nature has no end set before it' - Purpose is human projection
ID: 3423
1677
ID: 3429
Spinoza's 'Ethics' Published Posthumously - 'Deus sive Natura' - God or Nature (same thing) - 'Men believe themselves free because they are conscious of their volitions...but ignorant of the causes' - No transcendence, pure immanence
ID: 3429
1689
ID: 3434
John Locke's 'Essay Concerning Human Understanding' - mind as blank slate - 'No innate principles in the mind' - 'Nihil est in intellectu quod non prius fuerit in sensu'
ID: 3434
1690
ID: 3435
Locke's 'Two Treatises of Government' - natural rights, social contract - Creates template for revolution
ID: 3435
1690
ID: 3437
Baron de Lahontan's Dialogues with 'Adario' (1690s-1700s) - Fictional native critiques European society - 'We are born free and united brothers' - Real indigenous voice replaced by European ventriloquism
ID: 3437
1710
ID: 456
Bishop Berkeley publishes idealist philosophy - 'To be is to be perceived' - attempting to save God by denying matter
ID: 456
1712
ID: 476
June 28, 1712
Jean-Jacques Rousseau born in Geneva; mother dies in childbirth, father abandons him at age 10
ID: 476
1734
ID: 502
George Berkeley publishes The Analyst criticizing calculus: 'ghosts of departed quantities'
ID: 502
1739
ID: 510
David Hume's 'Treatise of Human Nature' destroys rational foundation: 'Reason is slave of passions'
ID: 510
1748
ID: 530
La Mettrie's 'Man a Machine' - pure materialism: 'The soul is but an empty word'
ID: 530
1748
ID: 531
Hume's 'Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding' - miracles impossible, 'commit it to the flames'
ID: 531
1759
ID: 556
Voltaire's Candide: 'If this is best of all possible worlds, what are others?' - mocks philosophical optimism
ID: 556
1767
ID: 571
Franklin's first Paris visit as colonial agent - cultivates 'Philosopher from the Woods' image
ID: 571
1768
ID: 572
Diderot's 'Supplement to Bougainville's Voyage' portrays sexual freedom of 'natural' Tahitian society
ID: 572
1770
ID: 576
D'Holbach's 'System of Nature' - pure mechanistic atheism: 'universe presents only matter and motion'
ID: 576
1778
ID: 600
Franklin meets Voltaire at Academy of Sciences - theatrical embrace as 'Solon and Sophocles'
ID: 600
1781
ID: 609
Kant's Critique of Pure Reason: 'deny knowledge to make room for faith' - phenomena vs noumena
ID: 609
1788
ID: 630
Kant's Critique of Practical Reason - categorical imperative creates secular ethics
ID: 630
1807
ID: 691
Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit - dialectical process creates template for totalitarian ideologies
ID: 691
1818
ID: 727
Schopenhauer's World as Will and Representation - blind irrational Will drives everything, pessimism only honest
ID: 727
1821
ID: 740
Hegel appointed to University of Berlin - philosophical system profoundly influences European thought
ID: 740
1832
ID: 5578
Carl von Clausewitz's 'On War' published posthumously - revolutionizes military theory with concepts of friction, fog of war, and war as politics
ID: 5578
1841
ID: 829
Ludwig Feuerbach publishes Essence of Christianity - Theology is anthropology
ID: 829
1843
ID: 838
Kierkegaard's Either/Or - radical individual choice, leap of faith beyond reason
ID: 838
1844
ID: 851
Stirner's The Ego and Its Own - pure nominalist egoism, I am the creative nothing
ID: 851
1859
ID: 921
Darwin's Origin of Species - man descended from animals, no purpose, mind from matter
ID: 921
1859
ID: 922
Mill's On Liberty - individual freedom supreme but no transcendent foundation for rights
ID: 922
1861
ID: 930
Mill's Utilitarianism - greatest happiness for greatest number, ethics becomes calculation
ID: 930
1872
ID: 989
Nietzsche's Birth of Tragedy - Apollonian vs Dionysian, life justified only as aesthetic phenomenon
ID: 989
1882
ID: 1043
Nietzsche's Gay Science - God is dead, no facts only interpretations, truth is mobile army of metaphors
ID: 1043
1883
ID: 1049
Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra - Ubermensch as goal, will to power, transvaluation of values
ID: 1049
1886
ID: 1076
Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil - master vs slave morality, Christianity as slave revolt
ID: 1076
1960
ID: 4491
Eugene Wigner writes 'The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences'
ID: 4491
1998
ID: 3027
September 14, 1998
Pope John Paul II issues 'Fides et Ratio' on faith and reason - 'Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth'
ID: 3027
2007
ID: 3137
Pope Benedict XVI states: 'Marx's fundamental error was materialism; he forgot that man always remains man'
ID: 3137