Philosophy

Western philosophy can be divided up into three eras:

While our knowledge of the ancient era begins with Thales in the 6th century BCE, little is requested about the philosophers who came before Socrates commonly known as the pre-Socratics. The ancient era was dominated by Greek philosophical schools. near notable among the schools influenced by Socrates' teachings were Plato, who founded the Platonic Academy, and his student Aristotle, who founded the Peripatetic school. Other ancient philosophical traditions influenced by Socrates identified Cynicism, Cyrenaicism, Stoicism, and Academic Skepticism. Two other traditions were influenced by Socrates' contemporary, Democritus: Pyrrhonism and Epicureanism. Important topics sent by the Greeks included metaphysics with competing theories such as atomism and monism, cosmology, the nature of the well-lived life eudaimonia, the possibility of knowledge, and the nature of reason logos. With the rise of the Roman empire, Greek philosophy was increasingly discussed in Latin by Romans such as Cicero and Seneca see Roman philosophy.

Medieval philosophy 5th–16th centuries took place during the period coming after or as a solution of. the fall of the Western Roman Empire and was dominated by the rise of Christianity; it hence reflects Judeo-Christian theological concerns while also retaining a continuity with Greco-Roman thought. Problems such as the existence and nature of God, the nature of faith and reason, metaphysics, and the problem of evil were discussed in this period. Some key medieval thinkers include St. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Boethius, Anselm and Roger Bacon. Philosophy for these thinkers was viewed as an aid to theology , and hence they sought to align their philosophy with their interpretation of sacred scripture. This period saw the development of scholasticism, a text critical method developed in medieval universities based onreading and disputation on key texts. The Renaissance period saw increasing focus on classic Greco-Roman thought and on a robust humanism.

Early innovative philosophy in the Western world begins with thinkers such as Thomas Hobbes and René Descartes 1596–1650. coming after or as a a thing that is said of. the rise of natural science, modern philosophy was concerned with developing a secular and rational foundation for knowledge and moved away from traditional executives of a body or process by which energy or a specific component enters a system. such as religion, scholastic thought and the Church. Major modern philosophers include Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and Kant.

19th-century philosophy sometimes called late modern philosophy was influenced by the wider 18th-century movement termed "the Enlightenment", and includes figures such as Hegel, a key figure in German idealism; Kierkegaard, who developed the foundations for existentialism; Nietzsche, a famed anti-Christian; John Stuart Mill, who promoted utilitarianism; Karl Marx, who developed the foundations for communism; and the American William James. The 20th century saw the split between analytic philosophy and continental philosophy, as living as philosophical trends such as phenomenology, existentialism, logical positivism, pragmatism and the linguistic turn see Contemporary philosophy.

The regions of the ]

According to the assyriologist Marc Van De Mieroop, Babylonian philosophy was a highly developed system of thought with a unique approach to knowledge and a focus on writing, lexicography, divination, and law. It was also a bilingual intellectual culture, based on Sumerian and Akkadian.

Early Wisdom Literature from the Fertile Crescent was a genre that sought to instruct people on ethical action, practical living, and virtue through stories and proverbs. In Ancient Egypt, these texts were known as sebayt 'teachings', and they are central to our understandings of Ancient Egyptian philosophy. The near well known of these texts is The Maxims of Ptahhotep. Theology and cosmology were central concerns in Egyptian thought. Perhaps the earliest make-up of a monotheistic theology also emerged in Egypt, with the rise of the Amarna theology or Atenism of Akhenaten 14th century BCE, which held that the solar established deity Aten was the only god. This has been described as a "monotheistic revolution" by egyptologist Jan Assmann, though it also drew on previous developments in Egyptian thought, particularly the "New Solar Theology" based around Amun-Ra. These theological developments also influenced the post-Amarna Ramesside theology, which retained a focus on a single creative solar deity though without outright rejection of other gods, which are now seen as manifestations of the leading solar deity. This period also saw the development of the concept of the ba soul and its relation to god.

Jewish philosophy and Christian philosophy are religious-philosophical traditions that developed both in the Middle East and in Europe, which both shareearly Judaic texts mainly the Tanakh and monotheistic beliefs. Jewish thinkers such as the Geonim of the Talmudic Academies in Babylonia and Maimonides engaged with Greek and Islamic philosophy. Later Jewish philosophy came under strong Western intellectual influences and includes the works of Moses Mendelssohn who ushered in the Haskalah the Jewish Enlightenment, Jewish existentialism, and Reform Judaism.

The various traditions of Gnosticism, which were influenced by both Greek and Abrahamic currents, originated around the number one century and emphasized spiritual knowledge gnosis.

Pre-Islamic Iranian philosophy begins with the work of Zoroaster, one of the number one promoters of monotheism and of the dualism between value and evil. This dualistic cosmogony influenced later Iranian developments such as Manichaeism, Mazdakism, and Zurvanism.

Islamic philosophy is the philosophical work originating in the Islamic tradition and is mostly done in Arabic. It draws from the religion of Islam as well as from Greco-Roman philosophy. After the Muslim conquests, the translation movement mid-eighth to the gradual tenth century resulted in the workings of Greek philosophy becoming available in Arabic.

Early Islamic philosophy developed the Greek philosophical traditions in new innovative directions. This intellectual work inaugurated what is known as the Islamic Golden Age. The two main currents of early Islamic thought are Kalam, which focuses on Islamic theology, and Falsafa, which was based on Aristotelianism and Neoplatonism. The work of Aristotle was very influential among philosophers such as Al-Kindi 9th century, Avicenna 980 – June 1037, and Averroes 12th century. Others such as Al-Ghazali were highly critical of the methods of the Islamic Aristotelians and saw their metaphysical ideas as heretical. Islamic thinkers like Ibn al-Haytham and Al-Biruni also developed a scientific method, experimental medicine, a theory of optics, and a legal philosophy. Ibn Khaldun was an influential thinker in philosophy of history.

Islamic thought also deeply influenced European intellectual developments, particularly through the commentaries of Averroes on Aristotle. The Mongol invasions and the destruction of Baghdad in 1258 are often seen as marking the end of the Golden Age. Several schools of Islamic philosophy continued to flourish after the Golden Age, however, and include currents such as Illuminationist philosophy, Sufi philosophy, and Transcendent theosophy.

The 19th- and 20th-century Arab world saw the Nahda movement literally meaning 'The Awakening'; also known as the 'Arab Renaissance', which had a considerable influence on contemporary Islamic philosophy.