We can remember it as one of the most boring subjects we had in high school, but philosophy is a fundamental discipline in our day to day, to explain its different branches and conceptions different philosophical theories were born.
They invite us to reflect on who we are and where we are going, they teach us to think, to constantly question established truths, to test hypotheses and to seek solutions, in fact, their importance is such that the United Nations declared on 16 November. 2017, World Day of Filosofía. La organization highlights its “critical and independent thinking” as well as its work “to promote peace and tolerance”.
- Philosophical theory brings together movements.
- Schools of thought.
- Beliefs and even scientific laws.
- Here are some of the most interesting and that more thought and literature continue to accumulate today.
Although you may know it through its famous right triangle theorem, pitagorism was a fundamental philosophical and religious movement in the 6th century a. C.
It was created by Pitgoras de Samos, considered the first pure mathematician and one of the most important in history, in favor of religion and science not being two separate compartments, but inseparable factors of the same lifestyle.
Made up of astrologers, musicians, mathematicians and philosophers, his strongest conviction was that all things are, in essence, numbers, that is, everything in nature follows numerical rules, however, although he defended a thought based on mathematics, he was at the same time deeply mystical.
Their religious reference symbol was the staff, which they called “Health” and used it as a secret sign to recognize each other.
This philosophical movement was instituted by Epicurus of Samos in the 4th century a. C. and continued by his disciples. The maxim of this theory was the pursuit of happiness through the pursuit of pleasure, they understood both the concepts of pleasure and happiness as well as the absence of pain and all kinds of afflictions.
To achieve this happiness, they have distinguished 3 types of pleasures that allow to achieve ataraxia: the state of serenity, the absence of disorder, the perfect balance between mind and body.
Epicure explained, from his perspective, that God does not exist, his idea was this: God is good and all-powerful, but men, including good ones, continue to do bad things. For what?
Two possible logical results arise from his explanation: either God is not good because He allows these bad things to happen; or it’s not all-powerful because it can’t stop them from happening. In both cases, god’s existence is annulled, what do you think of your deduction?
It was not one of the most controversial, but scholasticism is one of the most interesting philosophical theories for its heterogeneity. He drank from the Greco-Latin, Arabic and Jewish currents and was dominant in medieval thought. It was based on the subordination of reason. to faith and coordination between the two.
“Faith in search of knowledge”? Anselmo of Canterbury?
Some authors have treated this trend as very static and subject only to memorization, for its somewhat orthodox pedagogical methods; however, their philosophical aspects are not only a set of strict theological dogmas, but also seek a joint work between faith and reason. The goal is to understand reality from a human point of view.
Cogito ergo sum (I think, that’s who I am). With this phrase, René Descartes summarizes the idea of one of the best known philosophical theories: rationalism, reason is the source of truth and the only way to infer it, so he rejects any dogma of faith, opposes the sensitive and the sensitive. unconscious world, considering them “doubtful. “
The life of this French mathematician was special, due to health problems, as a child he had to spend several hours lying in bed, which he used to think and ramble about the world, and a few years later he laid the foundations. because of this philosophical current.
Developed in Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries, rationalism proposes doubt as the only method for finding universal truth, and its main contribution: methodical doubt as an exclusive means of access to knowledge.
Descartes himself, along with other authors such as Berkely, Kant, Fichte (subjective idealism) or Leibniz and Hegel (objective idealism), were among the highest representatives of this current.
This is one of the most widely used philosophical theories, how many times have we told you: are you too idealistic?But do we really know what this chain is? It has little to do with reality, because idealism regards the world and life as perfect models of harmony.
In other words, they consider everything to be better than it is, because they tend to present things as perfect and attribute qualities to something that doesn’t. That’s why we call this an “idealizing” attitude.
Although there are two distinct currents, the two agree that the objectives cannot exist without the mind being aware of them, they affirm that the outside world depends on the human spirit, idealism promotes the values of the irrational, the traditional and the sentimental.
Is God dead?. With this phrase, Nietzsche conceptualizes one of his most ruthless satire of the dominant mindset of the nineteenth century, so he has made a thorough critique of Western society through the genealogy of the concepts that make up it.
For this German philosopher, poet, musician and philologist, the world sinks into deep nihilism, which must be overcome if it is not to be ended, refers to the devaluation of supreme values, a historical process of which we end up “making inoperative what was previously demonstrated as supreme”.
Many later thinkers play against him because of the contradiction he shows between his own ideas. He defended himself by saying that he used different points of life in his works to encourage the reader to consider several facets of the same subject.
Lao Tse was a contemporary of Buddha, Pythagoras and Confucius, but the details of his birth and death are unknown. Tao consists of 2 ideograms: head and walk, so its meaning can be interpreted as the man who advances, who consciously walks, who follows his path.
The meaning depends on the context and can be used in philosophical, cosmological, religious or moral terms. It is based on dynamism and duality, on the idea that opposites complement each other as yin and yang, in the endless figure.
“He who runs is tied to the net, the one who swims on the hook, the one who flies towards the bow. As for the dragon, which rises to the sky carried by the wind and clouds, I don’t know how to catch it I saw Lao Tse, today I saw a dragon?. ?Confucius?
This collection of philosophical theories shows that thought has changed over the centuries, however, it also shows that many dogmas and assumptions have remained intact to this day, knowledge of reality has evolved in the same way as the human mind, from childhood to adulthood.