Ιστορία Κοινωνικών Επιστημών

Plato was one of the world’s earliest and possibly greatest philosophers. He matters because of his devotion to making humanity more fulfilled.

Rene Descartes is perhaps the world’s best known-philosopher, in large part because of his pithy statement, ‘I think therefore I am.’ He stands out as an example of what intellectual self-confidence can bring us.

Throughout the history of mankind, the subject of identity has sent poets to the blank page, philosophers to the agora and seekers to the oracles. These murky waters of abstract thinking are tricky to navigate, so it’s probably fitting that to demonstrate the complexity, the Greek historian Plutarch used the story of a ship. Amy

Arthur Schopenhauer was deeply influenced by Buddhist thought and is in many ways the West’s answer to it: he too tells us to reign in our desires and adopt a consolingly pessimistic attitude to our struggles.

Michel Foucault was a philosophical historian who questioned many of our assumptions about how much better the world is today compared with the past. When he looked at the treatment of the mad, at the medical profession and at sexuality, he didn’t see the progress that’s routinely assumed.

Aristotle was the master of virtues.

Sigmund Freud, the inventor of psychoanalysis, appreciated the many ways in which our minds are troubled and anxious. It isn’t us in particular: it’s the human condition

Immanuel Kant was acutely aware of living in an age when philosophy would need to supplant the role once played by religion. This helped him to arrive at his most famous concept: the ‘categorical imperative.’

The German philosopher Hegel believed that strange and alien bits of history have much to teach us. He believed story and civilisation do not move in a straight line, so important ideas and attitudes get left behind.