199-407: Thomas Hobbes ( / h ɒ b z / HOBZ ; 5 April 1588 – 4 December 1679) was an English philosopher , best known for his 1651 book Leviathan , in which he expounds an influential formulation of social contract theory. He is considered to be one of the founders of modern political philosophy . In his early life, overshadowed by his father's departure following a fight, he was taken under
398-425: A linguistic therapy. According to Ludwig Wittgenstein , for instance, philosophy aims at dispelling misunderstandings to which humans are susceptible due to the confusing structure of ordinary language . Phenomenologists , such as Edmund Husserl , characterize philosophy as a "rigorous science" investigating essences . They practice a radical suspension of theoretical assumptions about reality to get back to
597-528: A "spiritual biography", along these lines: However, about 80% of his plays have been lost, and even the extant plays do not present a fully consistent picture of his 'spiritual' development (for example, Iphigenia in Aulis is dated with the 'despairing' Bacchae , yet it contains elements that became typical of New Comedy). In the Bacchae , he restores the chorus and messenger speech to their traditional role in
796-431: A barbarous act to annihilate a city which produced such men" ( Life of Lysander ). Tragic poets were often mocked by comic poets during the dramatic festivals Dionysia and Lenaia , and Euripides was travestied more than most. Aristophanes scripted him as a character in at least three plays: The Acharnians , Thesmophoriazusae and The Frogs . But Aristophanes also borrowed, rather than merely satirized, some of
995-490: A bewildering variety of labels. He has been described as 'the poet of the Greek enlightenment' and also as 'Euripides the irrationalist'; as a religious sceptic if not an atheist, but on the other hand, as a believer in divine providence and the ultimate justice of divine dispensation. He has been seen as a profound explorer of human psychology and also a rhetorical poet who subordinated consistency of character to verbal effect; as
1194-467: A change in speakers was loosely denoted with a variety of signs, such as equivalents of the modern dash, colon, and full-stop. The absence of modern literary conventions (which aid comprehension), was an early and persistent source of errors, affecting transmission. Errors were also introduced when Athens replaced its old Attic alphabet with the Ionian alphabet, a change sanctioned by law in 403–402 BC, adding
1393-483: A companion to the younger William Cavendish and they both took part in a grand tour of Europe between 1610 and 1615. Hobbes was exposed to European scientific and critical methods during the tour, in contrast to the scholastic philosophy that he had learned in Oxford. In Venice, Hobbes made the acquaintance of Fulgenzio Micanzio , an associate of Paolo Sarpi , a Venetian scholar and statesman. His scholarly efforts at
1592-476: A debate between the shades of Aeschylus and Euripides, the god brings Aeschylus back to life, as more useful to Athens, for his wisdom, rejecting Euripides as merely clever. Such comic 'evidence' suggests that Athenians admired Euripides even while they mistrusted his intellectualism, at least during the long war with Sparta. Aeschylus had written his own epitaph commemorating his life as a warrior fighting for Athens against Persia, without any mention of his success as
1791-485: A difference in outlook between the three—a generation gap probably due to the Sophistic enlightenment in the middle decades of the 5th century: Aeschylus still looked back to the archaic period , Sophocles was in transition between periods, and Euripides was fully imbued with the new spirit of the classical age . When Euripides' plays are sequenced in time, they also reveal that his outlook might have changed, providing
1990-545: A doctor diagnoses a disease based on the observed symptoms. Logic also investigates incorrect forms of reasoning. They are called fallacies and are divided into formal and informal fallacies based on whether the source of the error lies only in the form of the argument or also in its content and context. Metaphysics is the study of the most general features of reality , such as existence, objects and their properties , wholes and their parts , space and time , events , and causation . There are disagreements about
2189-428: A good reputation in philosophic circles and in 1645 was chosen with Descartes, Gilles de Roberval and others to referee the controversy between John Pell and Longomontanus over the problem of squaring the circle . The English Civil War began in 1642, and when the royalist cause began to decline in mid-1644, many royalists came to Paris and were known to Hobbes. This revitalised Hobbes's political interests, and
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#17327662493812388-444: A great variety of methods to arrive at philosophical knowledge. They include conceptual analysis , reliance on common sense and intuitions , use of thought experiments , analysis of ordinary language , description of experience , and critical questioning . Philosophy is related to many other fields, including the sciences, mathematics , business , law , and journalism . It provides an interdisciplinary perspective and studies
2587-532: A joint project with Brigham Young University , using multi-spectral imaging technology to retrieve previously illegible writing (see References). Some of this work employed infrared technology—previously used for satellite imaging—to detect previously unknown material by Euripides, in fragments of the Oxyrhynchus papyri , a collection of ancient manuscripts held by the university. It is from such materials that modern scholars try to piece together copies of
2786-510: A leader of a decadent intellectualism . Both were frequently lampooned by comic poets such as Aristophanes . Socrates was eventually put on trial and executed as a corrupting influence. Ancient biographies hold that Euripides chose a voluntary exile in old age, dying in Macedonia , but recent scholarship casts doubt on these sources. Traditional accounts of the author's life are found in many commentaries, and include details such as these: He
2985-534: A loosely structured, simple, and jovial form of entertainment. But in Cyclops (the only complete satyr-play that survives), Euripides structured the entertainment more like a tragedy and introduced a note of critical irony typical of his other work. His genre-bending inventiveness is shown above all in Alcestis , a blend of tragic and satyric elements. This fourth play in his tetralogy for 438 BC (i.e., it occupied
3184-702: A metaphysical foundation of ethics. The modern period in Chinese philosophy began in the early 20th century and was shaped by the influence of and reactions to Western philosophy. The emergence of Chinese Marxism —which focused on class struggle , socialism , and communism —resulted in a significant transformation of the political landscape. Another development was the emergence of New Confucianism , which aims to modernize and rethink Confucian teachings to explore their compatibility with democratic ideals and modern science. Traditional Japanese philosophy assimilated and synthesized ideas from different traditions, including
3383-433: A misogynist and a feminist; as a realist who brought tragic action down to the level of everyday life and as a romantic poet who chose unusual myths and exotic settings. He wrote plays which have been widely understood as patriotic pieces supporting Athens' war against Sparta and others which many have taken as the work of the anti-war dramatist par excellence, even as attacks on Athenian imperialism. He has been recognized as
3582-506: A new complication to the task of copying. Many more errors came from the tendency of actors to interpolate words and sentences, producing so many corruptions and variations that a law was proposed by Lycurgus of Athens in 330 BC "that the plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides should be written down and preserved in a public office; and that the town clerk should read the text over with the actors; and that all performances which did not comply with this regulation should be illegal." The law
3781-468: A noticeable growth in the number of female philosophers , but they still remained underrepresented. Arabic–Persian philosophy arose in the early 9th century CE as a response to discussions in the Islamic theological tradition . Its classical period lasted until the 12th century CE and was strongly influenced by ancient Greek philosophers. It employed their ideas to elaborate and interpret the teachings of
3980-460: A part of intellectual history , but it also investigates questions not covered by intellectual history such as whether the theories of past philosophers are true and have remained philosophically relevant. The history of philosophy is primarily concerned with theories based on rational inquiry and argumentation; some historians understand it in a looser sense that includes myths , religious teachings , and proverbial lore. Influential traditions in
4179-468: A playwright; and Sophocles was celebrated by his contemporaries for his social gifts, and contributions to public life as a state official; but there are no records of Euripides' public life except as a dramatist—he could well have been "a brooding and bookish recluse". He is presented as such in The Acharnians , where Aristophanes shows him to be living morosely in a precarious house, surrounded by
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#17327662493814378-527: A position in the "ever-changing genre" where he could easily move between tragic, comic, romantic, and political effects. This versatility appears in individual plays and also over the course of his career. Potential for comedy lay in his use of 'contemporary' characters, in his sophisticated tone, his relatively informal Greek (see In Greek below), and in his ingenious use of plots centred on motifs that later became standard in Menander's New Comedy (for example
4577-420: A preoccupation with individual psychology and its irrational aspects is evident....In his hands tragedy for the first time probed the inner recesses of the human soul and let passions spin the plot ." The tension between reason and passion is symbolized by his characters' relationship with the gods: For example, Hecuba's prayer is answered not by Zeus, nor by the law of reason, but by Menelaus, as if speaking for
4776-410: A radical change of direction". Euripides is also known for his use of irony. Many Greek tragedians make use of dramatic irony to bring out the emotion and realism of their characters or plays, but Euripides uses irony to foreshadow events and occasionally amuse his audience. For example, in his play Heracles , Heracles comments that all men love their children and wish to see them grow. The irony here
4975-537: A rationalized cosmos, but the speech is ill-suited to her audience, the unsophisticated listener Menelaus, and is found to not suit the cosmos either (her grandson is murdered by the Greeks). In Hippolytus , speeches appear verbose and ungainly, as if to underscore the limitations of language. Like Euripides, both Aeschylus and Sophocles created comic effects, contrasting the heroic with the mundane, but they employed minor supporting characters for that purpose. Euripides
5174-536: A result, the family was left in the care of Thomas Sr.'s older brother, Francis, a wealthy glove manufacturer with no family of his own. Hobbes was educated at Westport church from age four, went to the Malmesbury school , and then to a private school kept by a young man named Robert Latimer, a graduate of the University of Oxford . Hobbes was a good pupil, and between 1601 and 1602 he went to Magdalen Hall ,
5373-451: A select edition, possibly for use in schools, with some commentaries or scholia recorded in the margins. Similar editions had appeared for Aeschylus and Sophocles—the only plays of theirs that survive today. Euripides, however, was more fortunate than the other tragedians, with a second edition of his work surviving, compiled in alphabetical order as if from a set of his collect works; but without scholia attached. This "Alphabetical" edition
5572-405: A short time as both dancer and torch-bearer at the rites of Apollo Zosterius. His education was not confined to athletics, studying also painting and philosophy under the masters Prodicus and Anaxagoras . He had two disastrous marriages, and both his wives—Melite and Choerine (the latter bearing him three sons)—were unfaithful. He became a recluse, making a home for himself in a cave on Salamis (
5771-427: A sister, Anne. Although Thomas Hobbes's childhood is unknown to a large extent, as is his mother's name, it is known that Hobbes's father, Thomas Sr., was the vicar of both Charlton and Westport. Hobbes's father was uneducated, according to John Aubrey , Hobbes's biographer, and he "disesteemed learning." Thomas Sr. was involved in a fight with the local clergy outside his church, forcing him to leave London . As
5970-443: A skill worth prizes, requiring a long apprenticeship in the chorus. Euripides and other playwrights accordingly composed more and more arias for accomplished actors to sing, and this tendency became more marked in his later plays: tragedy was a "living and ever-changing genre" (cf. previous section, and Chronology ; a list of his plays is below ). The comic poet Aristophanes is the earliest known critic to characterize Euripides as
6169-415: A speech that he seems to have written in defence of himself as an intellectual ahead of his time (spoken by Medea): σκαιοῖσι μὲν γὰρ καινὰ προσφέρων σοφὰ δόξεις ἀχρεῖος κοὐ σοφὸς πεφυκέναι· τῶν δ᾿ αὖ δοκούντων εἰδέναι τι ποικίλον κρείσσων νομισθεὶς ἐν πόλει λυπρὸς φανῇ. ἐγὼ δὲ καὐτὴ τῆσδε κοινωνῶ τύχης [298–302]. If you bring novel wisdom to fools, you will be regarded as useless, not wise; and if
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6368-454: A spokesman for destructive, new ideas associated with declining standards in both society and tragedy (see Reception for more). But fifth-century tragedy was a social gathering for "carrying out quite publicly the maintenance and development of mental infrastructure", and it offered spectators a "platform for an utterly unique form of institutionalized discussion". The dramatist's role was not only to entertain but also educate fellow citizens—he
6567-512: A translation of four books of the Odyssey into "rugged" English rhymes that in 1673 led to a complete translation of both Iliad and Odyssey in 1675. In October 1679 Hobbes suffered a bladder disorder , and then a paralytic stroke , from which he died on 4 December 1679, aged 91, at Hardwick Hall , owned by the Cavendish family. His last words were said to have been "A great leap in
6766-498: A true indication of worth. For example, in Hippolytus , a love-sick queen rationalizes her position and, reflecting on adultery, arrives at this comment on intrinsic merit: ἐκ δὲ γενναίων δόμων τόδ᾿ ἦρξε θηλείαισι γίγνεσθαι κακόν· ὅταν γὰρ αἰσχρὰ τοῖσιν ἐσθλοῖσιν δοκῇ, ἦ κάρτα δόξει τοῖς κακοῖς γ᾿ εἶναι καλά. [...] μόνον δὲ τοῦτό φασ᾿ ἁμιλλᾶσθαι βίῳ, γνώμην δικαίαν κἀγαθὴν ὅτῳ παρῇ [409–427]. This contagion began for
6965-589: A tutor and secretary to both men. The 1st Earl's younger brother, Charles Cavendish, had two sons who were patrons of Hobbes. The elder son, William Cavendish , later 1st Duke of Newcastle , was a leading supporter of Charles I during the Civil War in which he personally financed an army for the king, having been governor to the Prince of Wales , Charles James, Duke of Cornwall. It was to this William Cavendish that Hobbes dedicated his Elements of Law . Hobbes became
7164-612: A variety of arguments. Deductive arguments are mainly studied by formal logic. An argument is deductively valid if the truth of its premises ensures the truth of its conclusion. Deductively valid arguments follow a rule of inference , like modus ponens , which has the following logical form : " p ; if p then q ; therefore q ". An example is the argument "today is Sunday; if today is Sunday then I don't have to go to work today; therefore I don't have to go to work today". The premises of non-deductive arguments also support their conclusion, although this support does not guarantee that
7363-533: A war theme, so that his plays are an extraordinary mix of elements. The Trojan Women , for example, is a powerfully disturbing play on the theme of war's horrors, apparently critical of Athenian imperialism (it was composed in the aftermath of the Melian massacre and during the preparations for the Sicilian Expedition ), yet it features the comic exchange between Menelaus and Hecuba quoted above, and
7562-494: Is a combination of different parts and attempts to identify what those parts are. An influential theory in this area claims that knowledge has three components: it is a belief that is justified and true . This theory is controversial and the difficulties associated with it are known as the Gettier problem . Alternative views state that knowledge requires additional components, like the absence of luck; different components, like
7761-510: Is a common issue in relation to the sources of knowledge and the justification they offer. It is based on the idea that beliefs require some kind of reason or evidence to be justified. The problem is that the source of justification may itself be in need of another source of justification. This leads to an infinite regress or circular reasoning . Foundationalists avoid this conclusion by arguing that some sources can provide justification without requiring justification themselves. Another solution
7960-561: Is a set of essential features shared by all parts of philosophy. Others see only weaker family resemblances or contend that it is merely an empty blanket term. Precise definitions are often only accepted by theorists belonging to a certain philosophical movement and are revisionistic according to Søren Overgaard et al. in that many presumed parts of philosophy would not deserve the title "philosophy" if they were true. Some definitions characterize philosophy in relation to its method, like pure reasoning. Others focus on its topic, for example, as
8159-414: Is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence , reason , knowledge , value , mind , and language . It is a rational and critical inquiry that reflects on its own methods and assumptions. Historically, many of the individual sciences , such as physics and psychology , formed part of philosophy. However, they are considered separate academic disciplines in
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8358-467: Is also concerned with the moral evaluation of character traits and institutions. It explores what the standards of morality are and how to live a good life. Philosophical ethics addresses such basic questions as "Are moral obligations relative?"; "Which has priority: well-being or obligation?"; and "What gives life meaning?" The main branches of ethics are meta-ethics , normative ethics , and applied ethics . Meta-ethics asks abstract questions about
8557-483: Is an expression of the philosopher's love of wisdom and has the aim of improving one's well-being by leading a reflective life. For example, the Stoics saw philosophy as an exercise to train the mind and thereby achieve eudaimonia and flourish in life. As a discipline, the history of philosophy aims to provide a systematic and chronological exposition of philosophical concepts and doctrines. Some theorists see it as
8756-498: Is an issue for many critics, such as Aristotle, who cited Iphigenia in Aulis as an example ( Poetics 1454a32). For others, psychological inconsistency is not a stumbling block to good drama: "Euripides is in pursuit of a larger insight: he aims to set forth the two modes, emotional and rational, with which human beings confront their own mortality." Some think unpredictable behaviour realistic in tragedy: "everywhere in Euripides
8955-451: Is closely related to the disciplines of logic and linguistics. The philosophy of language rose to particular prominence in the early 20th century in analytic philosophy due to the works of Frege and Russell. One of its central topics is to understand how sentences get their meaning. There are two broad theoretical camps: those emphasizing the formal truth conditions of sentences and those investigating circumstances that determine when it
9154-408: Is concerned with meaning , understanding , or the clarification of language. According to one view, philosophy is conceptual analysis , which involves finding the necessary and sufficient conditions for the application of concepts. Another definition characterizes philosophy as thinking about thinking to emphasize its self-critical, reflective nature. A further approach presents philosophy as
9353-410: Is identified with theatrical innovations that have profoundly influenced drama down to modern times, especially in the representation of traditional, mythical heroes as ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. This new approach led him to pioneer developments that later writers adapted to comedy , some of which are characteristic of romance . He also became "the most tragic of poets", focusing on
9552-468: Is impossible". There is no doctrine of separation of powers in Hobbes's discussion. He argues that any division of authority would lead to internal strife, jeopardizing the stability provided by an absolute sovereign. According to Hobbes, the sovereign must control civil, military, judicial and ecclesiastical powers, even the words. In 1654 a small treatise, Of Liberty and Necessity , directed at Hobbes,
9751-460: Is itself a borrowing from the Latin philosophia . The term philosophy acquired the meanings of "advanced study of the speculative subjects ( logic , ethics , physics , and metaphysics )", "deep wisdom consisting of love of truth and virtuous living", "profound learning as transmitted by the ancient writers", and "the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge , reality , and existence , and
9950-445: Is no place for industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving, and removing, such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and
10149-436: Is not to sit beside Socrates and chatter, casting the arts aside and ignoring the best of the tragedian’s craft. To hang around killing time in pretentious conversation and hairsplitting twaddle is the mark of a man who's lost his mind In The Frogs , written when Euripides and Aeschylus were dead, Aristophanes has the god Dionysus venturing down to Hades in search of a good poet to bring back to Athens. After
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#173276624938110348-475: Is presented by coherentists , who state that a belief is justified if it coheres with other beliefs of the person. Many discussions in epistemology touch on the topic of philosophical skepticism , which raises doubts about some or all claims to knowledge. These doubts are often based on the idea that knowledge requires absolute certainty and that humans are unable to acquire it. Ethics, also known as moral philosophy, studies what constitutes right conduct . It
10547-409: Is shown to be flawed, as if Euripides were exploring the problematical nature of language and communication: "For speech points in three different directions at once, to the speaker, to the person addressed, to the features in the world it describes, and each of these directions can be felt as skewed". For example, in the quotation above, Hecuba presents herself as a sophisticated intellectual describing
10746-418: Is sometimes understood as a proper science in its own right. According to some naturalistic philosophers , such as W. V. O. Quine , philosophy is an empirical yet abstract science that is concerned with wide-ranging empirical patterns instead of particular observations. Science-based definitions usually face the problem of explaining why philosophy in its long history has not progressed to the same extent or in
10945-553: Is still widespread disagreement about the exact significance of Hobbes's unusual views on religion. As Martinich has pointed out, in Hobbes's time the term "atheist" was often applied to people who believed in God but not in divine providence , or to people who believed in God but also maintained other beliefs that were considered to be inconsistent with such belief or judged incompatible with orthodox Christianity. He says that this "sort of discrepancy has led to many errors in determining who
11144-411: Is suitable to use a sentence, the latter of which is associated with speech act theory . Euripides Euripides ( c. 480 – c. 406 BC ) was a Greek tragedian of classical Athens . Along with Aeschylus and Sophocles , he is one of the three ancient Greek tragedians for whom any plays have survived in full. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to him, but
11343-472: Is that Heracles will be driven into madness by Hera and will kill his children. Similarly, in Helen , Theoclymenus remarks how happy he is that his sister has the gift of prophecy and will warn him of any plots or tricks against him (the audience already knows that she has betrayed him). In this instance, Euripides uses irony not only for foreshadowing but also for comic effect—which few tragedians did. Likewise, in
11542-439: Is that actions are in tune with those duties and not what consequences they have. Virtue theorists judge actions based on how the moral character of the agent is expressed. According to this view, actions should conform to what an ideally virtuous agent would do by manifesting virtues like generosity and honesty . Logic is the study of correct reasoning . It aims to understand how to distinguish good from bad arguments . It
11741-468: Is the 1687 book Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica by Isaac Newton . This book referred to natural philosophy in its title, but it is today considered a book of physics. The meaning of philosophy changed toward the end of the modern period when it acquired the more narrow meaning common today. In this new sense, the term is mainly associated with philosophical disciplines like metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics. Among other topics, it covers
11940-607: Is the man <who> is roasting a new play for Euripides, and Socrates is laying down the kindling. [...] Euripides bolted together with Socrates Aristophanes alleged that the co-author was a celebrated actor, Cephisophon, who also shared the tragedian's house and his wife, while Socrates taught an entire school of quibblers like Euripides: χαρίεν οὖν μὴ Σωκράτει παρακαθήμενον λαλεῖν ἀποβαλόντα μουσικὴν τά τε μέγιστα παραλιπόντα τῆς τραγῳδικῆς τέχνης. τὸ δ᾿ ἐπὶ σεμνοῖσιν λόγοισι καὶ σκαριφησμοῖσι λήρων διατριβὴν ἀργὸν ποιεῖσθαι, παραφρονοῦντος ἀνδρός So what's stylish
12139-561: Is the study of correct reasoning and explores how good arguments can be distinguished from bad ones. Metaphysics examines the most general features of reality , existence, objects , and properties . Other subfields are aesthetics , philosophy of language , philosophy of mind , philosophy of religion , philosophy of science , philosophy of mathematics , philosophy of history , and political philosophy . Within each branch, there are competing schools of philosophy that promote different principles, theories, or methods. Philosophers use
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#173276624938112338-462: Is truth established?"; and "Can we prove causal relations?" Epistemology is primarily interested in declarative knowledge or knowledge of facts, like knowing that Princess Diana died in 1997. But it also investigates practical knowledge , such as knowing how to ride a bicycle, and knowledge by acquaintance , for example, knowing a celebrity personally. One area in epistemology is the analysis of knowledge . It assumes that declarative knowledge
12537-456: Is usually divided into formal and informal logic . Formal logic uses artificial languages with a precise symbolic representation to investigate arguments. In its search for exact criteria, it examines the structure of arguments to determine whether they are correct or incorrect. Informal logic uses non-formal criteria and standards to assess the correctness of arguments. It relies on additional factors such as content and context. Logic examines
12736-556: Is whether beauty is an objective feature of entities or a subjective aspect of experience. Aesthetic philosophers also investigate the nature of aesthetic experiences and judgments . Further topics include the essence of works of art and the processes involved in creating them. The philosophy of language studies the nature and function of language . It examines the concepts of meaning , reference , and truth. It aims to answer questions such as how words are related to things and how language affects human thought and understanding. It
12935-611: The Suda says it was ninety-two at most. Of these, eighteen or nineteen have survived more or less complete ( Rhesus is suspect). There are many fragments (some substantial) of most of his other plays. More of his plays have survived intact than those of Aeschylus and Sophocles together, partly because his popularity grew as theirs declined —he became, in the Hellenistic Age , a cornerstone of ancient literary education, along with Homer , Demosthenes , and Menander . Euripides
13134-626: The Bacchae , Pentheus's first threat to the god Dionysus is that if Pentheus catches him in his city, he will 'chop off his head', whereas it is Pentheus who is beheaded at the end of the play. The spoken language of the Euripidean plays is not fundamentally different in style from that of Aeschylus or Sophocles—it employs poetic meters , a rarefied vocabulary, fullness of expression, complex syntax, and ornamental figures, all aimed at representing an elevated style. But its rhythms are somewhat freer, and more natural, than that of his predecessors, and
13333-522: The City Dionysia , the famous Athenian dramatic festival, in 455 BC, one year after the death of Aeschylus ; and did not win first prize until 441 BC. His final competition in Athens was in 408 BC. The Bacchae and Iphigenia in Aulis were performed in 405 BC, and first prize was awarded posthumously. He won first prize only five times. His plays, and those of Aeschylus and Sophocles, indicate
13532-586: The Council of State , he was allowed to subside into private life in Fetter Lane . In 1658, Hobbes published the final section of his philosophical system, completing the scheme he had planned more than 19 years before. De Homine consisted for the most part of an elaborate theory of vision. The remainder of the treatise dealt partially with some of the topics more fully treated in the Human Nature and
13731-615: The De Cive was republished and more widely distributed. The printing began in 1646 by Samuel de Sorbiere through the Elsevier press in Amsterdam with a new preface and some new notes in reply to objections. In 1647, Hobbes took up a position as mathematical instructor to the young Charles, Prince of Wales , who had come to Paris from Jersey around July. This engagement lasted until 1648 when Charles went to Holland. The company of
13930-585: The High Court of Commission had been put down, there remained no court of heresy at all to which he was amenable, and that nothing could be heresy except opposing the Nicene Creed , which, he maintained, Leviathan did not do. The only consequence that came of the bill was that Hobbes could never thereafter publish anything in England on subjects relating to human conduct. The 1668 edition of his works
14129-530: The Leviathan . In addition to publishing some controversial writings on mathematics, including disciplines like geometry, Hobbes also continued to produce philosophical works. From the time of the Restoration , he acquired a new prominence; "Hobbism" became a byword for all that respectable society ought to denounce. The young king, Hobbes's former pupil, now Charles II, remembered Hobbes and called him to
14328-527: The Quran . Al-Kindi (801–873 CE) is usually regarded as the first philosopher of this tradition. He translated and interpreted many works of Aristotle and Neoplatonists in his attempt to show that there is a harmony between reason and faith . Avicenna (980–1037 CE) also followed this goal and developed a comprehensive philosophical system to provide a rational understanding of reality encompassing science, religion, and mysticism. Al-Ghazali (1058–1111 CE)
14527-471: The Sicilian expedition led Athenians to trade renditions of Euripides' lyrics to their enemies in return for food and drink ( Life of Nicias 29). Plutarch also provides the story that the victorious Spartan generals, having planned the demolition of Athens and the enslavement of its people, grew merciful after being entertained at a banquet by lyrics from Euripides' play Electra : "they felt that it would be
14726-420: The chorus could dance, a space for actors (three speaking actors in Euripides' time), a backdrop or skene , and some special effects: an ekkyklema (used to bring the skene's "indoors" outdoors) and a mechane (used to lift actors in the air, as in deus ex machina ). With the introduction of the third actor (attributed to Aeschylus by Themistius; to Sophocles by Aristotle), acting also began to be regarded as
14925-406: The squaring of the circle . This all led mathematicians to target him for polemics and sparked John Wallis to become one of his most persistent opponents. From 1655, the publishing date of De Corpore , Hobbes and Wallis continued name-calling and bickering for nearly a quarter of a century, with Hobbes failing to admit his error to the end of his life. After years of debate, the spat over proving
15124-484: The state of nature . In that state, each person would have a right, or license, to everything in the world. This, Hobbes argues, would lead to a "war of all against all" ( bellum omnium contra omnes ). The description contains what has been called one of the best-known passages in English philosophy, which describes the natural state humankind would be in, were it not for political community: In such condition, there
15323-420: The "things themselves", that is, as originally given in experience. They contend that this base-level of experience provides the foundation for higher-order theoretical knowledge, and that one needs to understand the former to understand the latter. An early approach found in ancient Greek and Roman philosophy is that philosophy is the spiritual practice of developing one's rational capacities. This practice
15522-554: The 'recognition scene'). Other tragedians also used recognition scenes, but they were heroic in emphasis, as in Aeschylus's The Libation Bearers , which Euripides parodied in Electra (Euripides was unique among the tragedians in incorporating theatrical criticism in his plays). Traditional myth with its exotic settings, heroic adventures, and epic battles offered potential for romantic melodrama as well as for political comments on
15721-412: The 5th century CE. Its focus was on religious topics and many thinkers used ancient philosophy to explain and further elaborate Christian doctrines . The Renaissance period started in the 14th century and saw a renewed interest in schools of ancient philosophy, in particular Platonism . Humanism also emerged in this period. The modern period started in the 17th century. One of its central concerns
15920-469: The Byzantine period, following a change in script (from uncial to minuscule ), and many were "homophonic" errors—equivalent, in English, to substituting "right" for "write"; except that there were more opportunities for Byzantine scribes to make these errors, because η, ι, οι and ει, were pronounced similarly in the Byzantine period. Around 200 AD, ten of the plays of Euripides began to be circulated in
16119-787: The Cave of Euripides , where a cult of the playwright developed after his death). "There he built an impressive library and pursued daily communion with the sea and sky". The details of his death are uncertain. It was traditionally held that he retired to the "rustic court" of King Archelaus in Macedonia , where he died in 406 BC. Some modern scholars however claim that in reality Euripides may have never visited Macedonia at all, or if he did, he might have been drawn there by King Archelaus with incentives that were also offered to other artists. Such biographical details derive almost entirely from three unreliable sources: The next three sections expand on
16318-520: The Earl of Devonshire, died of the plague , and his widow, the countess Christian , dismissed Hobbes. Hobbes soon (in 1629) found work as a tutor to Gervase Clifton , the son of Sir Gervase Clifton, 1st Baronet , and continued in this role until November 1630. He spent most of this time in Paris. Thereafter, he again found work with the Cavendish family, tutoring William Cavendish, 3rd Earl of Devonshire ,
16517-536: The Hellenistic period (as mentioned in the introduction) and, due to Seneca's adaptation of his work for Roman audiences, "it was Euripides, not Aeschylus or Sophocles, whose tragic muse presided over the rebirth of tragedy in Renaissance Europe." In the seventeenth century, Racine expressed admiration for Sophocles, but was more influenced by Euripides ( Iphigenia in Aulis and Hippolytus were
16716-979: The autonomy of the state in temporal affairs. When he returned to England in 1615, William Cavendish maintained correspondence with Micanzio and Sarpi, and Hobbes translated the latter's letters from Italian, which were circulated among the Duke's circle. Editions compiled by William Molesworth. Pp. 193–210 in Elements , Appendix I. pp. 211–226 in Elements , Appendix II. Pp. 147–228 in Rivista critica di storia della filosofia 18 pp. 10–27 in Hobbes's Thucydides pp. 10–27 in Hobbes's Thucydides pp. 729–738 in Rivista di storia della filosofia 43 Philosopher Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek )
16915-442: The basic limits of human understanding". Before the modern age, the term philosophy was used in a wide sense. It included most forms of rational inquiry, such as the individual sciences , as its subdisciplines. For instance, natural philosophy was a major branch of philosophy. This branch of philosophy encompassed a wide range of fields, including disciplines like physics, chemistry , and biology . An example of this usage
17114-441: The beginning of the 20th century. It discusses topics such as ethnophilosophy , négritude , pan-Africanism , Marxism, postcolonialism , the role of cultural identity, relativism , epistemological dualism , and the critique of Eurocentrism . Philosophical questions can be grouped into several branches. These groupings allow philosophers to focus on a set of similar topics and interact with other thinkers who are interested in
17313-522: The book of Mr. Hobbes called the Leviathan ." Hobbes was terrified at the prospect of being labelled a heretic , and proceeded to burn some of his compromising papers. At the same time, he examined the actual state of the law of heresy. The results of his investigation were first announced in three short Dialogues added as an Appendix to his Latin translation of Leviathan , published in Amsterdam in 1668. In this appendix, Hobbes aimed to show that, since
17512-529: The broad outlines and many of the details of [Hobbes'] own thought." It has been argued that three of the discourses in the 1620 publication known as Horae Subsecivae: Observations and Discourses also represent the work of Hobbes from this period. Although he did associate with literary figures like Ben Jonson and briefly worked as Francis Bacon 's amanuensis , translating several of his Essays into Latin, he did not extend his efforts into philosophy until after 1629. In June 1628, his employer Cavendish, then
17711-657: The care of his wealthy uncle. Hobbes's academic journey began in Westport , leading him to Oxford University, where he was exposed to classical literature and mathematics. He then graduated from the University of Cambridge in 1608. He became a tutor to the Cavendish family , which connected him to intellectual circles and initiated his extensive travels across Europe. These experiences, including meetings with figures like Galileo , shaped his intellectual development. After returning to England from France in 1637, Hobbes witnessed
17910-467: The charge in 1658 with Castigations of Mr Hobbes's Animadversions , and also included a bulky appendix entitled The Catching of Leviathan the Great Whale . Hobbes opposed the existing academic arrangements, and assailed the system of the original universities in Leviathan . He went on to publish De Corpore , which contained not only tendentious views on mathematics but also an erroneous proof of
18109-426: The chorus considers Athens, the "blessed land of Theus", to be a desirable refuge—such complexity and ambiguity are typical both of his "patriotic" and "anti-war" plays. Tragic poets in the fifth century competed against one another at the City Dionysia , each with a tetralogy of three tragedies and a satyr play . The few extant fragments of satyr plays attributed to Aeschylus and Sophocles indicate that these were
18308-402: The city regards you as greater than those with a reputation for cleverness, you will be thought vexatious. I myself am a sharer in this lot. Athenian tragedy in performance during Euripides' lifetime was a public contest between playwrights. The state funded it and awarded prizes. The language was metrical, spoken and sung. The performance area included a circular floor (called orchestra ) where
18507-504: The claims of each of these sources, respectively. Euripides was the youngest in a group of three great tragedians, who were almost contemporaries: his first play was staged thirteen years after Sophocles' debut, and three years after Aeschylus's Oresteia . The identity of the trio is neatly underscored by a patriotic account of their roles during Greece's great victory over Persia at the Battle of Salamis —Aeschylus fought there, Sophocles
18706-560: The color red, can exist at different locations at the same time. This is not the case for particulars including individual persons or specific objects. Other metaphysical questions are whether the past fully determines the present and what implications this would have for the existence of free will . There are many other subfields of philosophy besides its core branches. Some of the most prominent are aesthetics, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, philosophy of religion, philosophy of science, and political philosophy. Aesthetics in
18905-461: The conclusion is true. One form is inductive reasoning . It starts from a set of individual cases and uses generalization to arrive at a universal law governing all cases. An example is the inference that "all ravens are black" based on observations of many individual black ravens. Another form is abductive reasoning . It starts from an observation and concludes that the best explanation of this observation must be true. This happens, for example, when
19104-614: The consequences of the general theories developed by normative ethics in specific situations, for example, in the workplace or for medical treatments. Within contemporary normative ethics, consequentialism, deontology , and virtue ethics are influential schools of thought. Consequentialists judge actions based on their consequences. One such view is utilitarianism , which argues that actions should increase overall happiness while minimizing suffering. Deontologists judge actions based on whether they follow moral duties, such as abstaining from lying or killing. According to them, what matters
19303-490: The coterie around Mersenne and wrote a critique of the Meditations on First Philosophy of René Descartes , which was printed as third among the sets of "Objections" appended, with "Replies" from Descartes, in 1641. A different set of remarks on other works by Descartes succeeded only in ending all correspondence between the two. Hobbes also extended his own works in a way, working on the third section, De Cive , which
19502-458: The court to grant him a pension of £100. The king was important in protecting Hobbes when, in 1666, the House of Commons introduced a bill against atheism and profaneness. That same year, on 17 October 1666, it was ordered that the committee to which the bill was referred "should be empowered to receive information touching such books as tend to atheism, blasphemy and profaneness... in particular...
19701-607: The dark", uttered in his final conscious moments. His body was interred in St John the Baptist's Church, Ault Hucknall , in Derbyshire. Hobbes, influenced by contemporary scientific ideas, had intended for his political theory to be a quasi-geometrical system, in which the conclusions followed inevitably from the premises. The main practical conclusion of Hobbes's political theory is that state or society cannot be secure unless at
19900-620: The democratic order. Thus, for example, Odysseus is represented in Hecuba (lines 131–32) as "agile-minded, sweet-talking, demos-pleasing", i.e. similar to the war-time demagogues that were active in Athens during the Peloponnesian War . Speakers in the plays of Aeschylus and Sophocles sometimes distinguish between slaves who are servile by nature and those servile by circumstance, but Euripides' speakers go further, positing an individual's mental, rather than social or physical, state as
20099-518: The destruction and brutality of the English Civil War from 1642 to 1651 between Parliamentarians and Royalists, which heavily influenced his advocacy for governance by an absolute sovereign in Leviathan , as the solution to human conflict and societal breakdown. Aside from social contract theory, Leviathan also popularized ideas such as the state of nature ( "war of all against all" ) and laws of nature . His other major works include
20298-445: The disposal of an absolute sovereign. From this follows the view that no individual can hold rights of property against the sovereign, and that the sovereign may therefore take the goods of its subjects without their consent. This particular view owes its significance to it being first developed in the 1630s when Charles I had sought to raise revenues without the consent of Parliament, and therefore of his subjects. Hobbes rejected one of
20497-533: The eldest son of his previous pupil. Over the next seven years, as well as tutoring, he expanded his own knowledge of philosophy, awakening in him curiosity over key philosophic debates. He visited Galileo Galilei in Florence while he was under house arrest upon condemnation , in 1636, and was later a regular debater in philosophic groups in Paris, held together by Marin Mersenne . Hobbes's first area of study
20696-400: The emergence and application of formal logic , the focus on the role of language as well as pragmatism , and movements in continental philosophy like phenomenology, existentialism , and post-structuralism . The 20th century saw a rapid expansion of academic philosophy in terms of the number of philosophical publications and philosophers working at academic institutions . There was also
20895-482: The emergence of non-Vedic teachings, like Buddhism and Jainism . Buddhism was founded by Gautama Siddhartha (563–483 BCE), who challenged the Vedic idea of a permanent self and proposed a path to liberate oneself from suffering . Jainism was founded by Mahavira (599–527 BCE), who emphasized non-violence as well as respect toward all forms of life. The subsequent classical period started roughly 200 BCE and
21094-485: The events of the English Civil War had little effect on his contractarian methodology. However, the arguments in Leviathan were modified from The Elements of Law when it came to the necessity of consent in creating political obligation: Hobbes wrote in The Elements of Law that patrimonial kingdoms were not necessarily formed by the consent of the governed , while in Leviathan he argued that they were. This
21293-470: The exiled royalists led Hobbes to produce Leviathan , which set forth his theory of civil government in relation to the political crisis resulting from the war. Hobbes compared the State to a monster ( leviathan ) composed of men, created under pressure of human needs and dissolved by civil strife due to human passions. The work closed with a general "Review and Conclusion", in response to the war, which answered
21492-441: The exploration of the nature of reality and the ways of arriving at knowledge. Chinese philosophy focuses principally on practical issues in relation to right social conduct, government, and self-cultivation . Major branches of philosophy are epistemology , ethics , logic , and metaphysics . Epistemology studies what knowledge is and how to acquire it. Ethics investigates moral principles and what constitutes right conduct. Logic
21691-678: The extent that after the failure of the Sicilian Expedition , many Athenian captives were released, simply for being able to teach their captors whatever fragments they could remember of his work. Less than a hundred years later, Aristotle developed an almost "biological' theory of the development of tragedy in Athens: the art form grew under the influence of Aeschylus, matured in the hands of Sophocles, then began its precipitous decline with Euripides. However, "his plays continued to be applauded even after those of Aeschylus and Sophocles had come to seem remote and irrelevant"; they became school classics in
21890-556: The external order of tragedy but missed its entire meaning". This view influenced Friedrich Nietzsche , who seems, however, not to have known the Euripidean plays well. But literary figures, such as the poet Robert Browning and his wife Elizabeth Barrett Browning , could study and admire the Schlegels, while still appreciating Euripides as "our Euripides the human" ( Wine of Cyprus stanza 12). Classicists such as Arthur Verrall and Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff reacted against
22089-407: The features that all entities have in common. Specific metaphysics is interested in different kinds of being, the features they have, and how they differ from one another. An important area in metaphysics is ontology . Some theorists identify it with general metaphysics. Ontology investigates concepts like being , becoming , and reality. It studies the categories of being and asks what exists on
22288-423: The female sex with the nobility. For when those of noble station resolve on base acts, surely the base-born will regard such acts as good. [...] One thing only, they say, competes in value with life, the possession of a heart blameless and good. Euripides' characters resembled contemporary Athenians rather than heroic figures of myth. For achieving his end Euripides' regular strategy is a very simple one: retaining
22487-468: The final defeat of his city. It is said that he died in Macedonia after being attacked by the Molossian hounds of King Archelaus, and that his cenotaph near Piraeus was struck by lightning—signs of his unique powers, whether for good or ill (according to one modern scholar, his death might have been caused instead by the harsh Macedonian winter). In an account by Plutarch , the catastrophic failure of
22686-408: The foundation of states and legitimate governments and creating an objective science of morality. Much of the book is occupied with demonstrating the necessity of a strong central authority to avoid the evil of discord and civil war. Beginning from a mechanistic understanding of human beings and their passions, Hobbes postulates what life would be like without government, a condition which he calls
22885-539: The history of philosophy include Western , Arabic–Persian , Indian , and Chinese philosophy . Other philosophical traditions are Japanese philosophy , Latin American philosophy , and African philosophy . Western philosophy originated in Ancient Greece in the 6th century BCE with the pre-Socratics . They attempted to provide rational explanations of the cosmos as a whole. The philosophy following them
23084-420: The importance of a strong state and strict laws. Buddhism was introduced to China in the 1st century CE and diversified into new forms of Buddhism . Starting in the 3rd century CE, the school of Xuanxue emerged. It interpreted earlier Daoist works with a specific emphasis on metaphysical explanations. Neo-Confucianism developed in the 11th century CE. It systematized previous Confucian teachings and sought
23283-419: The indigenous Shinto religion and Chinese and Indian thought in the forms of Confucianism and Buddhism, both of which entered Japan in the 6th and 7th centuries. Its practice is characterized by active interaction with reality rather than disengaged examination. Neo-Confucianism became an influential school of thought in the 16th century and the following Edo period and prompted a greater focus on language and
23482-478: The inner lives and motives of his characters in a way previously unknown. He was "the creator of ... that cage which is the theatre of Shakespeare's Othello , Racine's Phèdre , of Ibsen and Strindberg ," in which "imprisoned men and women destroy each other by the intensity of their loves and hates". But he was also the literary ancestor of comic dramatists as diverse as Menander and George Bernard Shaw . His contemporaries associated him with Socrates as
23681-483: The interconnectedness of all things. Latin American philosophy during the colonial period , starting around 1550, was dominated by religious philosophy in the form of scholasticism . Influential topics in the post-colonial period were positivism , the philosophy of liberation , and the exploration of identity and culture. Early African philosophy, like Ubuntu philosophy , was focused on community, morality, and ancestral ideas. Systematic African philosophy emerged at
23880-427: The life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. In such states, people fear death and lack both the things necessary to comfortable living, and the hope of being able to obtain them. So, in order to avoid it, people accede to a social contract and establish a civil society . According to Hobbes, society is a population and a sovereign authority , to whom all individuals in that society cede some right for
24079-504: The literary conventions that modern readers expect: there was still no spacing between words; little or no punctuation; and no stage directions; but abbreviated names denoted changes of speaker; lyrics were broken into "cola" and "strophai", or lines and stanzas; and a system of accentuation was introduced. After this creation of a standard edition, the text was fairly safe from errors, besides slight and gradual corruption introduced with tedious copying. Many of these trivial errors occurred in
24278-427: The lyrics often seem dislocated from the action, but the extent and significance of this is "a matter of scholarly debate". See Chronology for details about his style. Euripides has aroused, and continues to arouse, strong opinions for and against his work: He was a problem to his contemporaries and he is one still; over the course of centuries since his plays were first produced he has been hailed or indicted under
24477-563: The main criterion for success (the system of selecting judges appears to have been flawed), and merely being chosen to compete was a mark of distinction. Moreover, to have been singled out by Aristophanes for so much comic attention is proof of popular interest in his work. Sophocles was appreciative enough of the younger poet to be influenced by him, as is evident in his later plays Philoctetes and Oedipus at Colonus . According to Plutarch, Euripides had been very well received in Sicily, to
24676-551: The manifestation of cognitive virtues instead of justification; or they deny that knowledge can be analyzed in terms of other phenomena. Another area in epistemology asks how people acquire knowledge. Often-discussed sources of knowledge are perception , introspection , memory , inference , and testimony . According to empiricists , all knowledge is based on some form of experience. Rationalists reject this view and hold that some forms of knowledge, like innate knowledge , are not acquired through experience. The regress problem
24875-514: The models for his plays Iphigénie and Phèdre ). Euripides' reputation was to take a beating in the early 19th century, when Friedrich Schlegel and his brother August Wilhelm Schlegel championed Aristotle's 'biological' model of theatre history, identifying Euripides with the moral, political, and artistic degeneration of Athens. August Wilhelm's Vienna lectures on dramatic art and literature went through four editions between 1809 and 1846; and, in them, he opined that Euripides "not only destroyed
25074-496: The modern sense of the term. Influential traditions in the history of philosophy include Western , Arabic–Persian , Indian , and Chinese philosophy . Western philosophy originated in Ancient Greece and covers a wide area of philosophical subfields. A central topic in Arabic–Persian philosophy is the relation between reason and revelation . Indian philosophy combines the spiritual problem of how to reach enlightenment with
25273-446: The most famous theses of Aristotle 's politics, namely that human beings are naturally suited to life in a polis and do not fully realize their natures until they exercise the role of citizen . It is perhaps also important to note that Hobbes extrapolated his mechanistic understanding of nature into the social and political realm, making him a progenitor of the term ' social structure .' In Leviathan , Hobbes set out his doctrine of
25472-596: The most fundamental level. Another subfield of metaphysics is philosophical cosmology . It is interested in the essence of the world as a whole. It asks questions including whether the universe has a beginning and an end and whether it was created by something else. A key topic in metaphysics concerns the question of whether reality only consists of physical things like matter and energy. Alternative suggestions are that mental entities (such as souls and experiences ) and abstract entities (such as numbers) exist apart from physical things. Another topic in metaphysics concerns
25671-404: The most influential philosophers of the subsequent period. The increasing influence of Western thought and institutions in the 19th and 20th centuries gave rise to the intellectual movement of Islamic modernism , which aims to understand the relation between traditional Islamic beliefs and modernity. One of the distinguishing features of Indian philosophy is that it integrates the exploration of
25870-428: The mouths of characters, such as these words of his heroine Medea : [...] ὡς τρὶς ἂν παρ᾿ ἀσπίδα στῆναι θέλοιμ᾿ ἂν μᾶλλον ἢ τεκεῖν ἅπαξ [250–251]. I would rather stand three times with a shield in battle than give birth once. The textual transmission of the plays, from the 5th century BC, when they were first written, until the era of the printing press, was a largely haphazard process. Much of Euripides' work
26069-491: The mythical and heroic setting that it can seem like Euripides aimed at parody. For example, in The Trojan Women , the heroine's rationalized prayer elicits comment from Menelaus: ΕΚΑΒΗ: [...] Ζεύς, εἴτ᾿ ἀνάγκη φύσεος εἴτε νοῦς βροτῶν, προσηυξάμην σε· πάντα γὰρ δι᾿ ἀψόφου βαίνων κελεύθου κατὰ δίκην τὰ θνήτ᾿ ἄγεις. ΜΕΝΕΛΑΟΣ: τί δ᾿ ἔστιν; εὐχὰς ὡς ἐκαίνισας θεῶν [886–889]. Hecuba : [...] Zeus, whether you are
26268-472: The natural and social sciences, religion, and mathematics. Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that studies knowledge. It is also known as theory of knowledge and aims to understand what knowledge is, how it arises, what its limits are, and what value it has. It further examines the nature of truth , belief , justification , and rationality . Some of the questions addressed by epistemologists include "By what method(s) can one acquire knowledge?"; "How
26467-504: The natural world. The Kyoto School emerged in the 20th century and integrated Eastern spirituality with Western philosophy in its exploration of concepts like absolute nothingness ( zettai-mu ), place ( basho ), and the self . Latin American philosophy in the pre-colonial period was practiced by indigenous civilizations and explored questions concerning the nature of reality and the role of humans. It has similarities to indigenous North American philosophy , which covered themes such as
26666-455: The nature and sources of morality. It analyzes the meaning of ethical concepts, like right action and obligation . It also investigates whether ethical theories can be true in an absolute sense and how to acquire knowledge of them. Normative ethics encompasses general theories of how to distinguish between right and wrong conduct. It helps guide moral decisions by examining what moral obligations and rights people have. Applied ethics studies
26865-471: The nature of reality, the ways of arriving at knowledge, and the spiritual question of how to reach enlightenment . It started around 900 BCE when the Vedas were written. They are the foundational scriptures of Hinduism and contemplate issues concerning the relation between the self and ultimate reality as well as the question of how souls are reborn based on their past actions . This period also saw
27064-536: The necessity of nature or the mind of mortal men, I address you in prayer! For proceeding on a silent path you direct all mortal affairs toward justice! Menelaus : What does this mean? How strange your prayer to the gods is! Athenian citizens were familiar with rhetoric in the assembly and law courts, and some scholars believe that Euripides was more interested in his characters as speakers with cases to argue than as characters with lifelike personalities. They are self-conscious about speaking formally, and their rhetoric
27263-428: The old gods. And the perhaps most famous example is in Bacchae where the god Dionysus savages his own converts. When the gods do appear (in eight of the extant plays), they appear "lifeless and mechanical". Sometimes condemned by critics as an unimaginative way to end a story, the spectacle of a "god" making a judgement or announcement from a theatrical crane might actually have been intended to provoke scepticism about
27462-421: The old stories and the great names, as his theatre required, he imagines his people as contemporaries subjected to contemporary kinds of pressures, and examines their motivations, conduct and fate in the light of contemporary problems, usages and ideals. As mouthpieces for contemporary issues, they "all seem to have had at least an elementary course in public speaking". The dialogue often contrasts so strongly with
27661-605: The original plays. Sometimes the picture is almost lost. Thus, for example, two extant plays, The Phoenician Women and Iphigenia in Aulis , are significantly corrupted by interpolations (the latter possibly being completed post mortem by the poet's son); and the very authorship of Rhesus is a matter of dispute. In fact, the very existence of the Alphabet plays, or rather the absence of an equivalent edition for Sophocles and Aeschylus, could distort our notions of distinctive Euripidean qualities—most of his least "tragic" plays are in
27860-436: The philosophical sense is the field that studies the nature and appreciation of beauty and other aesthetic properties, like the sublime . Although it is often treated together with the philosophy of art , aesthetics is a broader category that encompasses other aspects of experience, such as natural beauty. In a more general sense, aesthetics is "critical reflection on art, culture, and nature ". A key question in aesthetics
28059-464: The position conventionally reserved for satyr plays) is a "tragedy", featuring Heracles as a satyric hero in conventional satyr-play scenes: an arrival, a banquet, a victory over an ogre (in this case, death), a happy ending, a feast, and a departure for new adventures. Most of the big innovations in tragedy were made by Aeschylus and Sophocles, but "Euripides made innovations on a smaller scale that have impressed some critics as cumulatively leading to
28258-417: The precise definition of the term and its meaning has changed throughout the ages. Metaphysicians attempt to answer basic questions including " Why is there something rather than nothing? "; "Of what does reality ultimately consist?"; and "Are humans free?" Metaphysics is sometimes divided into general metaphysics and specific or special metaphysics. General metaphysics investigates being as such. It examines
28457-411: The precursor of New Comedy and also what Aristotle called him: 'the most tragic of poets' ( Poetics 1453a30). And not one of these descriptions is entirely false. — Bernard Knox Aeschylus gained thirteen victories as a dramatist; Sophocles at least twenty; Euripides only four in his lifetime; and this has often been taken as indication of the latter's unpopularity. But a first place might not have been
28656-529: The predecessor to Hertford College, Oxford , where he was taught scholastic logic and mathematics. The principal, John Wilkinson, was a Puritan and had some influence on Hobbes. Before going up to Oxford, Hobbes translated Euripides ' Medea from Greek into Latin verse . At university, Thomas Hobbes appears to have followed his own curriculum as he was little attracted by the scholastic learning. Leaving Oxford, Hobbes completed his B.A. degree by incorporation at St John's College, Cambridge , in 1608. He
28855-464: The printing of the greater work proceeded, and finally appeared in mid-1651, titled Leviathan, or the Matter, Forme, and Power of a Common Wealth, Ecclesiastical and Civil . It had a famous title-page engraving depicting a crowned giant above the waist towering above hills overlooking a landscape, holding a sword and a crozier and made up of tiny human figures. The work had immediate impact. Soon, Hobbes
29054-400: The problem of identity . One question is how much an entity can change while still remaining the same entity. According to one view, entities have essential and accidental features . They can change their accidental features but they cease to be the same entity if they lose an essential feature. A central distinction in metaphysics is between particulars and universals . Universals, like
29253-428: The provocative, vexing, and enduring problems central to the human condition. The philosophical pursuit of wisdom involves asking general and fundamental questions. It often does not result in straightforward answers but may help a person to better understand the topic, examine their life, dispel confusion, and overcome prejudices and self-deceptive ideas associated with common sense. For example, Socrates stated that "
29452-446: The question: Does a subject have the right to change allegiance when a former sovereign's power to protect is irrevocably lost? During the years of composing Leviathan , Hobbes remained in or near Paris. In 1647, he suffered a near-fatal illness that disabled him for six months. On recovering, he resumed his literary task and completed it by 1650. Meanwhile, a translation of De Cive was being produced; scholars disagree about whether it
29651-436: The rational study of reality, knowledge, and values. It is distinguished from other disciplines of rational inquiry such as the empirical sciences and mathematics . The practice of philosophy is characterized by several general features: it is a form of rational inquiry, it aims to be systematic, and it tends to critically reflect on its own methods and presuppositions. It requires attentively thinking long and carefully about
29850-457: The religious and heroic dimension of his plays. Similarly, his plays often begin in a banal manner that undermines theatrical illusion. Unlike Sophocles, who established the setting and background of his plays in the introductory dialogue, Euripides used a monologue in which a divinity or human character simply tells the audience all it needs to know to understand what follows. Aeschylus and Sophocles were innovative, but Euripides had arrived at
30049-405: The remainder is derived from elsewhere. P contains all the extant plays of Euripides, L is missing The Trojan Women and latter part of The Bacchae . In addition to L, P, and many other medieval manuscripts, there are fragments of plays on papyrus. These papyrus fragments are often recovered only with modern technology. In June 2005, for example, classicists at the University of Oxford worked on
30248-494: The sake of protection. Power exercised by this authority cannot be resisted, because the protector's sovereign power derives from individuals' surrendering their own sovereign power for protection. The individuals are thereby the authors of all decisions made by the sovereign: "he that complaineth of injury from his sovereign complaineth that whereof he himself is the author, and therefore ought not to accuse any man but himself, no nor himself of injury because to do injury to one's self
30447-422: The sake of rhetorical display"; and one spring to the defence: "His plays are remarkable for their range of tones and the gleeful inventiveness, which morose critics call cynical artificiality, of their construction." Unique among writers of ancient Athens, Euripides demonstrated sympathy towards the underrepresented members of society. His male contemporaries were frequently shocked by the heresies he put into
30646-488: The same questions. Epistemology, ethics, logic, and metaphysics are sometimes listed as the main branches. There are many other subfields besides them and the different divisions are neither exhaustive nor mutually exclusive. For example, political philosophy, ethics, and aesthetics are sometimes linked under the general heading of value theory as they investigate normative or evaluative aspects. Furthermore, philosophical inquiry sometimes overlaps with other disciplines in
30845-643: The same reason that they should accept the commands of their sovereign: in order to avoid war. While in Venice on tour, Hobbes made the acquaintance of Fulgenzio Micanzio, a close associate of Paolo Sarpi, who had written against the pretensions of the papacy to temporal power in response to the Interdict of Pope Paul V against Venice , which refused to recognise papal prerogatives. James I had invited both men to England in 1612. Micanzio and Sarpi had argued that God willed human nature, and that human nature indicated
31044-410: The same way as the sciences. This problem is avoided by seeing philosophy as an immature or provisional science whose subdisciplines cease to be philosophy once they have fully developed. In this sense, philosophy is sometimes described as "the midwife of the sciences". Other definitions focus on the contrast between science and philosophy. A common theme among many such conceptions is that philosophy
31243-508: The scope and fundamental concepts of these fields. It also investigates their methods and ethical implications. The word philosophy comes from the Ancient Greek words φίλος ( philos ) ' love ' and σοφία ( sophia ) ' wisdom ' . Some sources say that the term was coined by the pre-Socratic philosopher Pythagoras , but this is not certain. The word entered the English language primarily from Old French and Anglo-Norman starting around 1175 CE. The French philosophie
31442-518: The separate phenomena of Body, Man, and the State. Hobbes came back home from Paris, in 1637, to a country riven with discontent, which disrupted him from the orderly execution of his philosophic plan. However, by the end of the Short Parliament in 1640, he had written a short treatise called The Elements of Law, Natural and Politic . It was not published and only circulated as a manuscript among his acquaintances. A pirated version, however,
31641-427: The squaring of the circle gained such notoriety that it has become one of the most infamous feuds in mathematical history. The religious opinions of Hobbes remain controversial as many positions have been attributed to him and range from atheism to orthodox Christianity. In The Elements of Law , Hobbes provided a cosmological argument for the existence of God, saying that God is "the first cause of all causes". Hobbes
31840-598: The study of the biggest patterns of the world as a whole or as the attempt to answer the big questions. Such an approach is pursued by Immanuel Kant , who holds that the task of philosophy is united by four questions: "What can I know?"; "What should I do?"; "What may I hope?"; and "What is the human being?" Both approaches have the problem that they are usually either too wide, by including non-philosophical disciplines, or too narrow, by excluding some philosophical sub-disciplines. Many definitions of philosophy emphasize its intimate relation to science. In this sense, philosophy
32039-405: The tattered costumes of his disreputable characters (and yet Agathon , another tragic poet, is discovered in a later play, Thesmophoriazusae , to be living in circumstances almost as bizarre). Euripides' mother was a humble vendor of vegetables, according to the comic tradition, yet his plays indicate that he had a liberal education and hence a privileged background. Euripides first competed in
32238-469: The teachings of Advaita Vedanta to argue that all the different religions are valid paths toward the one divine. Chinese philosophy is particularly interested in practical questions associated with right social conduct, government, and self-cultivation . Many schools of thought emerged in the 6th century BCE in competing attempts to resolve the political turbulence of that period. The most prominent among them were Confucianism and Daoism . Confucianism
32437-524: The time of Euripides, traditional assumptions are constantly under challenge, and audiences therefore have a natural affinity with the Euripidean outlook, which seems nearer to ours, for example, than the Elizabethan. As stated above, however, opinions continue to diverge, so that modern readers might actually "seem to feel a special affinity with Sophocles"; one recent critic might dismiss the debates in Euripides' plays as "self-indulgent digression for
32636-549: The time were aimed at a careful study of classical Greek and Latin authors, the outcome of which was, in 1628, his edition of Thucydides ' History of the Peloponnesian War , the first translation of that work into English directly from a Greek manuscript. Hobbes professed a deep admiration for Thucydides, praising him as "the most politic historiographer that ever writ," and one scholar has suggested that "Hobbes' reading of Thucydides confirmed, or perhaps crystallized,
32835-507: The title of A Defence of the True Liberty of Human Actions from Antecedent or Extrinsic Necessity ). In 1656, Hobbes was ready with The Questions Concerning Liberty, Necessity and Chance , in which he replied "with astonishing force" to the bishop. As perhaps the first clear exposition of the psychological doctrine of determinism, Hobbes's own two pieces were important in the history of the free will controversy. The bishop returned to
33034-487: The tragedian's methods; he was himself ridiculed by Cratinus , another comic poet, as: ὑπολεπτολόγος, γνωμιδιώτης, εὐριπιδαριστοφανίζων a quibbler of words, a maker of maxims, a Euripidaristophaniser According to another comic poet, Teleclides , the plays of Euripides were co-authored by the philosopher Socrates: Μνησίλοχός ἐστ᾿ ἐκεῖνος, <ὃς> φρύγει τι δρᾶμα καινόν Εὐριπίδῃ, καὶ Σωκράτης τὰ φρύγαν᾿ ὑποτίθησιν. [...] Εὐριπίδης σωκρατογόμφους. Mnesilochus
33233-421: The tragic plot, and the play appears to be the culmination of a regressive or archaizing tendency in his later works (for which see Chronology below). Believed to have been composed in the wilds of Macedonia, Bacchae also dramatizes a primitive side to Greek religion, and some modern scholars have interpreted this particular play biographically, therefore, as: One of his earliest extant plays, Medea , includes
33432-501: The trilogy De Cive (1642), De Corpore (1655), and De Homine (1658) as well as the posthumous work Behemoth (1681). Hobbes contributed to a diverse array of fields, including history, jurisprudence , geometry , optics , theology , classical translations, ethics , as well as philosophy in general, marking him as a polymath . Despite controversies and challenges, including accusations of atheism and contentious debates with contemporaries, Hobbes's work profoundly influenced
33631-539: The understanding of political structure and human nature. Thomas Hobbes was born on 5 April 1588 (Old Style), in Westport , now part of Malmesbury in Wiltshire , England. Having been born prematurely when his mother heard of the coming invasion of the Spanish Armada , Hobbes later reported that "my mother gave birth to twins: myself and fear." Hobbes had a brother, Edmund, about two years older, as well as
33830-601: The unexamined life is not worth living " to highlight the role of philosophical inquiry in understanding one's own existence. And according to Bertrand Russell , "the man who has no tincture of philosophy goes through life imprisoned in the prejudices derived from common sense, from the habitual beliefs of his age or his nation, and from convictions which have grown up in his mind without the cooperation or consent of his deliberate reason." Attempts to provide more precise definitions of philosophy are controversial and are studied in metaphilosophy . Some approaches argue that there
34029-518: The views of the Schlegels and Nietzsche, constructing arguments sympathetic to Euripides, which involved Wilamowitz in this restatement of Greek tragedy as a genre: "A [Greek] tragedy does not have to end 'tragically' or be 'tragic'. The only requirement is a serious treatment." In the English-speaking world, the pacifist Gilbert Murray played an important role in popularizing Euripides, influenced perhaps by his anti-war plays. Today, as in
34228-438: The vocabulary has been expanded to allow for intellectual and psychological subtleties. Euripides has been hailed as a great lyric poet. In Medea , for example, he composed for his city, Athens, "the noblest of her songs of praise". His lyrical skills are not just confined to individual poems: "A play of Euripides is a musical whole...one song echoes motifs from the preceding song, while introducing new ones." For some critics,
34427-550: Was Hobbes who translated it. In 1650, a pirated edition of The Elements of Law, Natural and Politic was published. It was divided into two small volumes: Human Nature, or the Fundamental Elements of Policie ; and De corpore politico, or the Elements of Law, Moral and Politick . In 1651, the translation of De Cive was published under the title Philosophical Rudiments concerning Government and Society . Also,
34626-472: Was a strong critic of the idea that reason can arrive at a true understanding of reality and God. He formulated a detailed critique of philosophy and tried to assign philosophy a more limited place besides the teachings of the Quran and mystical insight. Following Al-Ghazali and the end of the classical period, the influence of philosophical inquiry waned. Mulla Sadra (1571–1636 CE) is often regarded as one of
34825-502: Was accused of atheism by several contemporaries; Bramhall accused him of teachings that could lead to atheism. This was an important accusation, and Hobbes himself wrote, in his answer to Bramhall's The Catching of Leviathan , that "atheism, impiety, and the like are words of the greatest defamation possible". Hobbes always defended himself from such accusations. In more recent times also, much has been made of his religious views by scholars such as Richard Tuck and J. G. A. Pocock , but there
35024-781: Was an atheist in the early modern period ". In this extended early modern sense of atheism, Hobbes did take positions that strongly disagreed with church teachings of his time. For example, he argued repeatedly that there are no incorporeal substances, and that all things, including human thoughts, and even God, heaven, and hell are corporeal, matter in motion. He argued that "though Scripture acknowledge spirits, yet doth it nowhere say, that they are incorporeal, meaning thereby without dimensions and quantity". (In this view, Hobbes claimed to be following Tertullian .) Like John Locke , he also stated that true revelation can never disagree with human reason and experience, although he also argued that people should accept revelation and its interpretations for
35223-469: Was an interest in the physical doctrine of motion and physical momentum. Despite his interest in this phenomenon, he disdained experimental work as in physics. He went on to conceive the system of thought to the elaboration of which he would devote his life. His scheme was first to work out, in a separate treatise , a systematic doctrine of body, showing how physical phenomena were universally explicable in terms of motion, at least as motion or mechanical action
35422-417: Was born on Salamis Island around 480 BC, with parents Cleito (mother) and Mnesarchus (father), a retailer from the deme of Phlya . On receiving an oracle that his son was fated to win "crowns of victory", Mnesarchus insisted that the boy should train for a career in athletics. But the boy was destined for a career on the stage (where he was to win only five victories, one of these posthumously). He served for
35621-437: Was characterized by the emergence of the six orthodox schools of Hinduism : Nyāyá , Vaiśeṣika , Sāṃkhya , Yoga , Mīmāṃsā , and Vedanta . The school of Advaita Vedanta developed later in this period. It was systematized by Adi Shankara ( c. 700 –750 CE), who held that everything is one and that the impression of a universe consisting of many distinct entities is an illusion . A slightly different perspective
35820-691: Was combined with the "Select" edition by some unknown Byzantine scholar, bringing together all the nineteen plays that survive today. The "Select" plays are found in many medieval manuscripts, but only two manuscripts preserve the "Alphabetical" plays—often denoted L and P, after the Laurentian Library at Florence, and the Bibliotheca Palatina in the Vatican, where they are stored. It is believed that P derived its Alphabet plays and some Select plays from copies of an ancestor of L, but
36019-660: Was defended by Ramanuja (1017–1137 CE), who founded the school of Vishishtadvaita Vedanta and argued that individual entities are real as aspects or parts of the underlying unity. He also helped to popularize the Bhakti movement , which taught devotion toward the divine as a spiritual path and lasted until the 17th to 18th centuries CE. The modern period began roughly 1800 CE and was shaped by encounters with Western thought. Philosophers tried to formulate comprehensive systems to harmonize diverse philosophical and religious teachings. For example, Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902 CE) used
36218-469: Was expected to have a message. Traditional myth provided the subject matter, but the dramatist was meant to be innovative, which led to novel characterizations of heroic figures and use of the mythical past as a tool for discussing present issues. The difference between Euripides and his older colleagues was one of degree: his characters talked about the present more controversially and pointedly than those of Aeschylus and Sophocles, sometimes even challenging
36417-515: Was finished in November 1641. Although it was initially only circulated privately, it was well received, and included lines of argumentation that were repeated a decade later in Leviathan . He then returned to hard work on the first two sections of his work and published little except a short treatise on optics ( Tractatus opticus ), included in the collection of scientific tracts published by Mersenne as Cogitata physico-mathematica in 1644. He built
36616-423: Was formidable. Hobbes spent the last four or five years of his life with his patron, William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Devonshire , at the family's Chatsworth House estate. He had been a friend of the family since 1608 when he first tutored an earlier William Cavendish. After Hobbes's death, many of his manuscripts would be found at Chatsworth House. His final works were an autobiography in Latin verse in 1672, and
36815-511: Was founded by Confucius (551–479 BCE). It focused on different forms of moral virtues and explored how they lead to harmony in society. Daoism was founded by Laozi (6th century BCE) and examined how humans can live in harmony with nature by following the Dao or the natural order of the universe. Other influential early schools of thought were Mohism , which developed an early form of altruistic consequentialism , and Legalism , which emphasized
37014-512: Was how philosophical and scientific knowledge are created. Specific importance was given to the role of reason and sensory experience . Many of these innovations were used in the Enlightenment movement to challenge traditional authorities. Several attempts to develop comprehensive systems of philosophy were made in the 19th century, for instance, by German idealism and Marxism . Influential developments in 20th-century philosophy were
37213-492: Was just old enough to celebrate the victory in a boys' chorus, and Euripides was born on the very day of the battle. The apocryphal account, that he composed his works in a cave on Salamis island, was a late tradition, probably symbolizing the isolation of an intellectual ahead of his time. Much of his life, and his whole career, coincided with the struggle between Athens and Sparta for hegemony in Greece, but he did not live to see
37412-445: Was lost or corrupted; but the period also included triumphs by scholars and copyists, thanks to whom much was recovered and preserved. Summaries of the transmission are often found in modern editions of the plays, three of which are used as sources for this summary. The plays of Euripides, like those of Aeschylus and Sophocles, circulated in written form. But literary conventions that we take for granted today had not been invented—there
37611-424: Was more insistent, using major characters as well. His comic touches can be thought to intensify the overall tragic effect, and his realism, which often threatens to make his heroes look ridiculous, marks a world of debased heroism: "The loss of intellectual and moral substance becomes a central tragic statement". Psychological reversals are common and sometimes happen so suddenly that inconsistency in characterization
37810-406: Was more lauded and decried than any other thinker of his time. The first effect of its publication was to sever his link with the exiled royalists, who might well have killed him. The secularist spirit of his book greatly angered both Anglicans and French Catholics . Hobbes appealed to the revolutionary English government for protection and fled back to London in winter 1651. After his submission to
38009-413: Was no spacing between words; no consistency in punctuation, nor elisions; no marks for breathings and accents (guides to pronunciation, and word recognition); no convention to denote change of speaker; no stage directions; and verse was written straight across the page, like prose. Possibly, those who bought texts supplied their own interpretative markings. Papyri discoveries have indicated, for example, that
38208-535: Was perhaps a reflection either of Hobbes's thoughts about the engagement controversy or of his reaction to treatises published by Patriarchalists , such as Sir Robert Filmer , between 1640 and 1651. When in November 1640 the Long Parliament succeeded the Short, Hobbes felt that he was in disfavour due to the circulation of his treatise and fled to Paris. He did not return for 11 years. In Paris, he rejoined
38407-686: Was printed in Amsterdam because he could not obtain the censor's licence for its publication in England. Other writings were not made public until after his death, including Behemoth: the History of the Causes of the Civil Wars of England and of the Counsels and Artifices by which they were carried on from the year 1640 to the year 1662 . For some time, Hobbes was not even allowed to respond to any attacks by his enemies. Despite this, his reputation abroad
38606-480: Was published about ten years later. Although it seems that much of The Elements of Law was composed before the sitting of the Short Parliament, there are polemical pieces of the work that clearly mark the influences of the rising political crisis. Nevertheless, many (though not all) elements of Hobbes's political thought were unchanged between The Elements of Law and Leviathan , which demonstrates that
38805-455: Was published by Bishop John Bramhall . Bramhall, a strong Arminian , had met and debated with Hobbes and afterwards wrote down his views and sent them privately to be answered in this form by Hobbes. Hobbes duly replied, but not for publication. However, a French acquaintance took a copy of the reply and published it with "an extravagantly laudatory epistle". Bramhall countered in 1655, when he printed everything that had passed between them (under
39004-431: Was recommended by Sir James Hussey, his master at Magdalen, as tutor to William , the son of William Cavendish , Baron of Hardwick (and later Earl of Devonshire ), and began a lifelong connection with that family. William Cavendish was elevated to the peerage on his father's death in 1626, holding it for two years before his death in 1628. His son, also William, likewise became the 3rd Earl of Devonshire. Hobbes served as
39203-449: Was shaped by Socrates (469–399 BCE), Plato (427–347 BCE), and Aristotle (384–322 BCE). They expanded the range of topics to questions like how people should act , how to arrive at knowledge , and what the nature of reality and mind is. The later part of the ancient period was marked by the emergence of philosophical movements, for example, Epicureanism , Stoicism , Skepticism , and Neoplatonism . The medieval period started in
39402-423: Was soon disregarded, and actors continued to make changes until about 200 BC, after which the habit ceased. It was about then that Aristophanes of Byzantium compiled an edition of all the extant plays of Euripides, collated from pre-Alexandrian texts, furnished with introductions and accompanied by a commentary that was "published" separately. This became the "standard edition" for the future, and it featured some of
39601-514: Was then understood. He then singled out Man from the realm of Nature and plants. Then, in another treatise, he showed what specific bodily motions were involved in the production of the peculiar phenomena of sensation, knowledge, affections and passions whereby Man came into relation with Man. Finally, he considered, in his crowning treatise, how Men were moved to enter into society, and argued how this must be regulated if people were not to fall back into "brutishness and misery". Thus he proposed to unite
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