The Philo-Practice Agora

HENRY BERGSON Henri Bergson (1859-1941) was an important French philosopher, extremely influential at the beginning of the 20th century, and a Nobel Prize winner in literature. He was born near Paris to a Jewish family, but as a teenager he lost his faith. He did his PhD in philosophy at the University of Paris, and his doctoral thesis was “Time and Free Will,” which became his first major book. His works on time, memory, biology, and other topics had a considerable...

HANNAH ARENDT Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) was born in Germany to a Jewish family and studied philosophy at several universities. She was a student of Heidegger at Marburg University and of Husserl at Freiburg University, and wrote her doctoral dissertation at Heidelberg University under the guidance of Jaspers. Since she was Jewish, she escaped Germany in 1933, and then escaped occupied France in 1940, and ended up in the USA, where she taught at several universities until her death. She wrote on...

JEREMY BENTHAM Right actions bring happiness Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), an English philosopher and social reformer, was one of the main thinkers in the history of modern ethics. He was the first to formulate the principles of Utilitarianism, according to which actions are right or wrong depending only on the happiness (“utility”) or unhappiness which they produce. This idea was later developed by his student, the philosopher John Stuart Mill, so that philosophers nowadays often quote Mill more than Bentham.       Bentham was...

FRIEDRICH EDUARD BENEKE Morality expresses the ideal human essenceFriedrich Eduard Beneke (1798-1854) was a German philosopher who struggled against the philosophical norms of his time, and throughout his life was persecuted for his views by academic and political authorities. He studied philosophy at the University of Berlin with the feeling that his mission was to open a new path for philosophy. In his dissertation, the 24-year old Beneke passionately attacked Kantian philosophy, arguing against Kant’s idea of apriori knowledge. Instead, he...

ARISTOTLE Happiness as a rational, virtous activityAristotle (384 – 322 BC) was one of the most important philosophers in the history of Western philosophy. He was born in Macedonia, was a pupil of Plato, and later was a tutor of Alexander the Great. His writings are systematic, covering most aspects of reality and life. They exerted a tremendous influence on the history of philosophy.      The following passages are adapted from Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, an important treatise on the principles of...

GEORGES BATAILLE   Sexuality as death Georges Bataille (1897-1962) was a French intellectual who wrote many essays in philosophy and other fields. He studied at École Nationale des Chartes in Paris, and then worked occasionally as a librarian. He published extensively, founded several journals and literary groups, and at different stages was interested in different approaches to philosophy and art. He often wrote essays, novels, and poems on socially “inappropriate” topics such as torture, pornography, and bodily fluids. He died at the...

G.E.M. ANSCOMBE How Wittgenstein cured meElizabeth Anscombe (1919-2001) (usually called G.E.M. Anscombe), was an important British philosopher in the analytic tradition. She was born in England, and at the age of 14 converted to Catholicism, to which she remained devout all her life. She married a fellow philosopher, Peter Geach, while studying classics and philosophy at Oxford. She then studied at Cambridge University and took classes with Wittgenstein, who influenced deeply her way of philosophizing. She later became a Professor of...

HERACLITUS Heraclitus lived around the year 500 BC, in the Greek city of Ephesus in Asia Minor. Little is known about his life, but later ancient historians wrote that he was from an influential family; that he was a snob and wrote in a difficult language so that only few would understand him (hence the name “Heraclitus the obscure”); and that he was a pessimist (hence the name “the weeping philosopher”). He died of some illness at the age of 60....

RENÉ DESCARTES (1596-1650) I am a thing which thinks René Descartes (1596-1650), an important French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist, is considered the father of modern philosophy. Under his influence, philosophy became centered on epistemology (the study of knowledge) for three centuries. The question “What do I really know?” became a starting point for many philosophies after him. Especially influential were his idea that knowledge of the self is the foundation of all other knowledge, the search for the foundation of knowledge...

John DeweyTHEMES ON THIS PAGE: 1. EXPERIENCE 2. PLAYFULNESS VERSUS WORK 3. MORAL WISDOM 4. VIRTUES John Dewey was an American thinker known for his “pragmatist” approach to philosophy in general, and especially to philosophy of education. He grew up in Vermont, USA, and later received his doctorate at John Hopkins University (Baltimore, Maryland). He taught philosophy at the University of Michigan, University of Chicago, Columbia University, and elsewhere. He published hundreds of articles and dozens of books on a variety...

JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT Music and unity John Sullivan Dwight (1813-1893) was an American thinker, an influential music critic, and a member of the American Transcendentalist movement of the 19th century (which also included Emerson and Thoreau). As a young man he studied at Harvard and was ordained a Unitarian minister, but quickly decided to leave the ministry. He joined the Transcendentalist community at Brook Farm, and later became a music critic. In 1950 Dwight started his own journal of music, which...

JOHANN GOTTLIEB FICHTE THE VOICE OF CONSCIENCE Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814) was a major German philosopher, considered to be the founder of German idealism, a philosophical movement of the 18th-19th centuries that revised ideas from Kant’s philosophy. Fichte wrote about a variety of topics, including knowledge, the self, consciousness, religion and morality. For several years he was very influential among German philosophers, but later in his life his popularity declined, eclipsed by Hegel’s influence. Fichte was born to a simple family,...

MARSILIO FICINO Beauty is the harmony which love desires Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499) was a major Italian Neo-Platonist philosopher of the Renaissance. He was born near Florence, spent most of his career under the patronage of the Medici family, and was also the tutor of Lorenzo the Magnificent. For Ficino, the task of the philosopher is to interpret and develop historical treasures of wisdom, since wisdom gradually manifests itself through history. He saw himself as a Platonist, although he went far beyond...

MARTIN FOSS Death as a sacrifice for a higher life Martin Foss (1889-1968) was a German-born philosopher who is now often neglected. He was born in Berlin, and studied philosophy and law in Europe. Being Jewish, he left Germany after the rise of Hitler to power, and for four years traveled secretly between Paris and Berlin, working against the Nazis. He then moved with his family to the USA, with the help of the Quaker community, and taught philosophy at Harvard...

ON BEING AUTHENTIC What does it mean to be true to myself?   July's issue for reflectionWHAT DOES IT MEANTO BE TRUE TO MYSELF? “This man is so authentic!”  “That girl is fake, a phony!”  “I will not listen to them – I must be true to myself!” What does it mean to be authentic, or true to myself? Who should I be true to? Who do I betray when I am inauthentic, or fake? Who is my true “I”? When...