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Socrates
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| The
philosopher Socrates remains, as he was in his lifetime (469–399
B.C.E.),[1] an enigma, an inscrutable individual who, despite
having written nothing, is considered one of the handful of
philosophers who forever changed how philosophy itself was to be
conceived. All our information about him is second-hand and most
of it vigorously disputed, but his trial and death at the hands
of the Athenian democracy is nevertheless the founding myth of
the academic discipline of philosophy, and his influence has
been felt far beyond philosophy itself, and in every age. |
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| Plato
(429-347 B.C.E.) is, by any reckoning, one of the most dazzling
writers in the Western literary tradition and one of the most
penetrating, wide-ranging, and influential authors in the
history of philosophy. An Athenian citizen of high status, he
displays in his works his absorption in the political events and
intellectual movements of his time, but the questions he raises
are so profound and the strategies he uses for tackling them so
richly suggestive and provocative that educated readers of
nearly every period have in some way been influenced by him, and
in practically every age there have been philosophers who count
themselves Platonists in some important respects. |
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Plato
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Plotinus
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| Plotinus
(204/5 -- 270 C.E.), is generally regarded as the founder of
Neoplatonism. He is one of the most influential philosophers in
antiquity after Plato and Aristotle. The term ‘Neoplatonism’ is
an invention of early 19th century European scholarship and
indicates the penchant of historians for dividing ‘periods’ in
history. In this case, the term was intended to indicate that
Plotinus initiated a new phase in the development of the
Platonic tradition. What this ‘newness’ amounted to, if
anything, is controversial, largely because one’s assessment of
it depends upon one's assessment of what Platonism is. In fact,
Plotinus (like all his successors) regarded himself simply as a
Platonist, that is, as an expositor and defender of the
philosophical position whose greatest exponent was Plato
himself. |
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| Marsilio
Ficino (Latin name: Marsilius Ficinus; Figline Valdarno, October
19, 1433 -Careggi, October 1, 1499) was one of the most
influential humanist philosophers of the early Italian
Renaissance, an astrologer, a reviver of Neoplatonism who was in
touch with every major academic thinker and writer of his day,
and the first translator of Plato's complete extant works into
Latin. His Florentine Academy, an attempt to revive Plato's
school, had enormous influence on the direction and tenor of the
Italian Renaissance and the development of European philosophy. |
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Marsilio Ficino
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Marsilio Ficino
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| Johann
Wolfgang von Goethe, 1749–1832, German poet, dramatist,
novelist, and scientist, b. Frankfurt. One of the great masters
of world literature, his genius embraced most fields of human
endeavor; his art and thought are epitomized in his great
dramatic poem Faust. It is very difficult to overstate the
importance of Goethe on the 19th century. In many respects, he
was the originator of—or at least the first to cogently
express—many ideas which would later become linguistics. Emerson
regarded Goethe as a giant of his time. |
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| Thomas Taylor (1758 - 1835), known as the English Platonist,
was the first to translate into English the complete works of
Plato and Aristotle. He also translated many of the later
Platonists and also some of the remaining fragments of the
earliest Greek writings, such as the Orphics, and the
Pythagoreans. These translations, together with his original
works, represent the most comprehensive survey of the
philosophical thought of European antiquity.
Emerson learned his Plato from Taylor’s translation,
published in London, in 1803 Samuel Taylor Coleridge (October
21, 1772 – July 25, 1834)
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Thomas Taylor
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Coleridge
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| Poet and
philosopher, Coleridge’s
Aids to Reflection
was important
to the Idealist movement in America, with its definition of
Reason and Understanding and emphasis upon intuitive insight.
Emerson visited Coleridge in London in 1833, a year before the
aged poet died. |
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| William
Wordsworth, (1770 - 1850) was a major English romantic poet who,
with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age
in English literature with their 1798 joint publication, Lyrical
Ballads. Wordsworth's masterpiece is generally considered to be
The Prelude, an autobiographical poem of his early years that
was revised and expanded a number of times. It was never
published during his lifetime, and was only given the title
after his death. Up until this time it was generally known as
the poem "to Coleridge". Wordsworth was England's Poet Laureate
from 1843 until his death in 1850. |
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William Wordsworth
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Thomas Carlyle
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| Thomas
Carlyle ( 1795- 1881) was a Scottish essayist, satirist, and
historian, and friend to Emerson, was hugely influential during
the Victorian era. Coming from a strictly Calvinist family,
Carlyle was expected by his parents to become a preacher.
However, while at the University of Edinburgh, he lost his
Christian faith; nevertheless, Calvinist values remained with
him throughout his life. This combination of a religious
temperament with loss of faith in traditional Christianity made
Carlyle's work appealing to many Victorians who were grappling
with scientific and political changes that threatened the
traditional social order. |
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| When
Ralph Waldo Emerson met Alcott in Boston in the late 1830's, he
was so impressed with his intellect and innovative ideas that he
convinced him to move to Concord and join his circle of friends.
There, Alcott turned to farming, lecturing, and writing to
support his family, but his efforts were limited in their
effectiveness. A few years later, with his English
Transcendental friend, Charles Lane, Bronson founded the
short-lived experimental Utopian community, Fruitlands, in
Harvard, Massachusetts. Following the failure of the Fruitlands
endeavor, Alcott sank briefly into the one interlude of
despondency in his otherwise confidently optimistic life.
Alcott's ideas were instrumental in forming Emerson's thought as
recorded in the transcendental seminal work, Nature. |
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Amos Bronson Alcott
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Margaret Fuller
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| Margaret
Fuller (May 23, 1810-July 19, 1850) "possessed more influence on
the thought of American women than any woman previous to her
time." So wrote Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton in
their 1881 History of Woman Suffrage. Author, editor, and
teacher, Fuller contributed significantly to the American
Renaissance in literature and to mid-nineteenth century reform
movements. A brilliant and highly educated member of the
Transcendentalist group, she challenged Ralph Waldo Emerson both
intellectually and emotionally. She died tragically in a ship
accident off the coast of Long Island, NY in a hurricane. |
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| Henry
David Thoreau (1817-1862) was an American author, naturalist,
transcendentalist, tax resister, and philosopher who is best
known for
Walden,
a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his
essay,
Civil Disobedience,
an argument for individual resistance to civil government in
moral opposition to an unjust state. Thoreau’s books, articles,
essays, journals, and poetry total over 20 volumes. Among his
lasting contributions were his writings on natural history and
philosophy, where he anticipated the methods and findings of
ecology and environmental history, two sources of modern day
environmentalism. He was a close friend of Emerson and lived for
a time in a cabin on Emerson’s land at Walden Pond. |
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Henry David Thoreau
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