Major Ethical Philosophies

Thales of Miletus

620 BCE

The ancient Greek philosopher Thales was born in Miletus in Greek Ionia. Aristotle, the major source for Thales's philosophy and science, identified Thales as the first person to investigate the basic principles, the question of the originating substances of matter and, therefore, as the founder of the school of natural philosophy. Thales was interested in almost everything, investigating almost all areas of knowledge, philosophy, history, science, mathematics, engineering, and many more.

Anaximander

610 BCE

Anaximander was the first Greek to clearly distinguish planets from stars and used his principles to account for various natural phenomena, such as thunder and lightning, rainbows, earthquakes, and so on.

Pythagoras

570 BCE

(born c. 570 BCE, Samos, Ionia [Greece]—died c. 500–490 BCE, Metapontum, Lucanium [Italy]), Greek philosopher, mathematician, and founder of the Pythagorean brotherhood that, although religious in nature, formulated principles that influenced the thought of Plato and Aristotle and contributed to the development of mathematics and Western rational philosophy. (For a fuller treatment of Pythagoras and Pythagorean thought, see Pythagoreanism).

Anaximenes

528 BCE

Anaximenes is best known for his doctrine that air is the source of all things. In this way, he differed with his predecessors like Thales, who held that water is the source of all things, and Anaximander, who thought that all things came from an unspecified boundless stuff.

Plato

428 BCE

He was an extremely important Greek philosopher and mathematician from the Socratic (or classical) period. He is perhaps the most famous, the most studied and the most influential philosopher of all time. Plato advocate believing in the immortality of the soul in many dialogues of the intermediate period. Several dialogues end with long speeches imagining the afterlife. Several dialogues contrast knowledge and opinion, perception and reality, nature and custom, body and soul

Socrates "Greek philosopher and logician"

427 BCE

Socrates was the son of Sophroniscus, an Athenian stone mason and sculptor. He learned his father's craft and apparently practiced it for many years. He participated in the Peloponnesian War (431–04 B.C.E. ) when Athens was crushed by the Spartans, and he distinguished himself for his courage. Details of his early life are scarce, although he appears to have had no more than an ordinary Greek education before devoting his time almost completely to intellectual interests.

Aristotle

384 BCE

Greek Aristoteles, (born 384 BCE, Stagira, Chalcidice, Greece—died 322, Chalcis, Euboea), he is one of the greatest intellectual figures of Western history. He was the author of a philosophical and scientific system that became the framework and vehicle for both Christian Scholasticism and medieval Islamic philosophy. Even after the intellectual revolutions of the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Enlightenment, Aristotelian concepts remained embedded in Western thinking.

Augustine

354 BCE

Augustine
A North African Christian theologian and philosopher, his writings influenced the development of Western Christianity and philosophy. St. Augustine is a fourth-century philosopher whose revolutionary philosophy infused Christian doctrine with Neoplatonism. He is famous for being an inimitable Catholic theologian and for his agnostic contributions to Western philosophy.

Epicurus

341 BCE

Epicurus
He was a Greek philosopher of the Hellenistic period. He was the founder of the old Greek philosophical school of epicureans, whose main purpose was to lead a happy and peaceful life, characterized by the absence of pain and fear, by the culture of friendship, freedom and of an analyzed life.

Zeno de Citium

335 BCE

He went to Athens about 312 BCE and attended lectures by the Cynic philosophers Crates of Thebes and Stilpon of Megara, in addition to lectures at the Academy. Arriving at his own philosophy, he began to teach in the Stoa Poikile (Painted Colonnade), whence the name of his philosophy. Zeno’s philosophical system included logic and theory of knowledge, physics, and ethics—the latter being central. He taught that happiness lay in conforming the will to the divine reason, which governs the universe

Thomas Aquinas

1225

Following the tradition of the period, St. Thomas Aquinas was sent to the Abbey of Monte Cassino to train among Benedictine monks when he was just 5 years old. In Wisdom 8:19, St. Thomas Aquinas is described as "a witty child" who "had received a good soul." At Monte Cassino, the quizzical young boy repeatedly posed the question, "What is God?" to his benefactors. St. Thomas Aquinas remained at the monastery until he was 13 years old, when the political climate forced him to return to Naples.

Immanuel Kant

1724

Immanuel Kant was the fourth of nine children born to Johann Georg Cant, a harness maker, and Anna Regina Cant. Later in his life, Immanuel changed the spelling of his name to Kantto to adhere to German spelling practices. Both parents were devout followers of Pietism, an 18th-century branch of the Lutheran Church. Seeing the potential in the young man, a local pastor arranged for the young Kant's education. While at school, Kant gained a deep appreciation for the Latin classics.

John Rawls

Feb 21, 1921

In A Theory of Justice, Rawls defends a conception of “justice as fairness.” He holds that an adequate account of justice cannot be derived from utilitarianism, because that doctrine is consistent with intuitively undesirable forms of government in which the greater happiness of a majority is achieved by neglecting the rights and interests of a minority. Reviving the notion of a social contract, Rawls argues that justice consists of the basic principles of government.

Jürgen Habermas

Jun 18, 1929

Jürgen Habermas is the most important German philosopher of the second half of the 20th century. A highly influential social and political thinker, Habermas was generally identified with the critical social theory developed from the 1920s by the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, also known as the Frankfurt School.