Various Ethical Philosophers and their respective Major Ethical Philosophies

JEAN-FRANÇOIS LYOTARD (1924–1998)

1924 BCE

“Scientific knowledge is a kind of discourse.” Jean-François Lyotard was a French philosopher whose best known work often to his chagrin was his 1979 The Postmodern Condition. From his early work on phenomenology through Discourse, Figure, Libidinal Economy, and The Postmodern Condition, Lyotard argued that events occur always in the face of what is not presentable to a phenomenology, discourse, language game, or phrase regimen.

GEORG WILHELM FRIEDRICH HEGEL (1770–1831)

1770 BCE

“Too fair to worship, too divine to love.” Hegel was a German philosopher and the most important figure in German idealism. Essentially, Hegel sees human societies evolving in the same way that an argument might evolve. Additionally, He believed that we do not perceive the world or anything in it directly and that all our minds have access to is ideas of the world—images, perceptions, concepts.

IMMANUEL KANT (1724–1804)

1724 BCE

“Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.” Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers. He argues that the human understanding is the source of the general laws of nature that structure all our experience; and that human reason gives itself the morallaw, which is our basis for belief in God, freedom, and immortality. Kant's comprehensive and systematic works have made him one of the most influential figures in modern Western philosophy.

THOMAS HOBBES (1588–1679)

1588 BCE

“Words are the money of fools.” Hobbes is best known for his political thought, and deservedly so. His main concern is the problem of social and political order: how human beings can live together in peace and avoid the danger and fear of civil conflict. From a positivist view, laws are valid not because they are created in natural law, but because they are enacted by legal authority and are accepted by society as such.

THALES OF MILETUS (620 BC–546 BC)

620 BCE

“The past is certain, the future obscure.” Thales of Miletus was an influential pre-Socratic and Ancient Greek Philosopher. Historically, He was renowned as one of the legendary Seven Wise Men, or Sophoi, of antiquity. He is remembered primarily for his cosmology based on water as the essence of all matter, with Earth a flat disk floating on a vast sea. Thales’ hypotheses were new & bold, and in freeing phenomena from godly intervention, he paved the way towards scientific endeavor.

SOCRATES (469 BC–399 BC)

469 BCE

“An unexamined life is not worth living.” Socrates was a classical Greek (Athenian) philosopher held to be the founder of Western Philosophy. He's best known through Plato’s dialogues, which has a great contribution to the fields of ethics and education. He believed that virtue could be known, though he himself did not profess to know it and that people who act badly, therefore, do so only because of their ignorance or mistake to understand the real nature of virtue.

PLATO (428 BC–348 BC)

428 BCE

“Never discourage anyone who continually makes progress, no matter how slow.” Plato was a philosopher in classical Greece and founder of the Academy in Athens which considered the first university in the Western world. Plato's philosophy regarding virtue and human fulfillment concerns the way people trying to achieve happy living. For Plato, the wise person uses the mind to understand moral reality and then apply it to her daily life.

ARISTOTLE (384 BC–322 BC)

384 BCE

“The law is reason, free from passion.” Aristotle was considered as one of the most influential philosophers who made a big contribution to logic, mathematics, ethics, etc. Aristotle argued that virtues are good habits we acquire, which regulate our emotions. In his philosophy, he did not consider virtues to be simple knowledge as Plato did. He explained it as something that should be done by acting in accordance with nature and with moderation.