A Quick Tour Through Big Philosophy Ideas

Virtue is the sole good: Only virtue — wisdom, justice, courage, and temperance — is truly good. External factors like wealth, health, reputation, and pleasure are considered "indifferents" and don’t determine genuine happiness.

Control what you can, accept what you can’t: Attempting to control the uncontrollable leads to frustration. Focus on your inner responses to external events.

Negative Visualization: By anticipating adversity, we can better manage our emotional responses when it inevitably occurs. It’s not about being pessimistic, but about building resilience.

Main philosophers: Zeno, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Seneca.

Timeline: founded around 300 BC and prominent during the 1st–2nd centuries AD.

Truth is what Works: Pragmatists view truth as dynamic, constructed through practical consequences and its success in solving problems or guiding action.

Problem-Solving Orientation: Philosophical inquiry is not merely an abstract exercise, but a tool for improving our lives and the world around us.

Focus on Contexts: The meaning and truth of ideas depend on their specific context — the situation, environment, and purpose in which they are applied.

Main philosophers: Charles S. Peirce, William James, John Dewey.

Timeline: emerged in the last quarter of the 19th century (1870s).

Rejection of Objective Morality: Nihilism typically rejects the existence of objective moral values or principles. There’s no inherent right or wrong, good or evil, independent of human opinion or cultural norms.

Rejection of Traditional Metaphysics: This school of thought challenges traditional metaphysical systems that posit a higher power, a cosmic order, or an ultimate purpose.

Meaninglessness of Existence: A central tenet is the belief that life is fundamentally meaningless. This doesn’t necessarily imply that nothing matters, but it suggests that any meaning we find is self-created or imposed rather than inherent.

Main philosophers: F. H. Jacobi, Arthur Schopenhauer, Friedrich Nietzsche.

Timeline: late XVIII – the start of the XIX century.

Historical Materialism: History is driven by material conditions, specifically the means and relations of production (how society produces and distributes goods).

Class Struggle: The central point of Marxist thought is the conflict between different classes within society, particularly the bourgeoisie (owners of the means of production) and the proletariat (workers who sell their labor).

Surplus Value: Capitalists extract surplus value from the labor of the proletariat. Workers produce more value than they receive in wages; This exploitation is the source of class inequality and the engine of capitalist accumulation.

Main philosophers: Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, Antonio Gramsci.

Timeline: mid-XIX century (1840s).

Existence precedes essence: Humans are born into existence first, and only afterward do they define their essence (their nature, purpose, or meaning).

Freedom and Responsibility: The radical freedom to choose their own actions and define their own lives. This freedom, however, comes with a heavy burden of responsibilityto form our own meaning and value.

Subjectivity and Individual Experience: Each individual must create their own meaning and values through their own unique experiences and choices.

Main philosophers: Søren Kierkegaard, Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Simone de Beauvoir.

Timeline: Early to mid-20th century.

Emphasis on Clarity and Precision: Precise definitions and careful argumentation are paramount!

Logical Analysis: They heavily utilize logic and formal methods to analyze philosophical arguments. By translating arguments into a formal language, philosophers can identify hidden assumptions, inconsistencies, and fallacies more easily.

Language research: Language is the very thing that helps identify the structure of thought and achieve a "transparent" correlation of language and reality. A clearer distinction between meaningful and empty expressions, meaningful and meaningless phrases.

Main philosophers: Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, G.E. Moore.

Timeline: the peak of its development is mid-XX century, but key ideas can be traced back to late XIX century.

Focus on Experience: Phenomenology emphasizes the importance of lived experience (Erlebnis) as the primary source of knowledge. Instead of focusing on external objects or abstract theories,

Intentionality of Consciousness: Consciousness is always about something, it’sintentional. Thus, directed toward objects, events, or states of affairs in the world.

Epoche (Bracketing): This is a methodological procedure where the phenomenologist “brackets” or suspends pre-conceived assumptions and beliefs about the world. The goal is to approach experience with an open mind, free from biases that might distort our understanding.

Main philosophers: Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty.

Timeline: the early XX century.