Philosophers/Economists Flashcards
Adam Smith
1723-1790 Scottish philosopher and economics pioneer - The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759); An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776) - Father of modern economics - Free market theory
Alan Watts
1915-1973 British philosopher, writer, y speaker - Best known as a populariser of Eastern philosophy y Zen Buddhism for a Western audience - Wrote The Way of Zen (1957); Psychotherapy East and West (1961); Nature, Man and Woman (1958) - Lived in houseboat in Sausalito CA
Albert Camus
1913-1960 French-Algerian philosopher y author - Contributed to the rise of the philosophy known as Absurdism - The Stranger (1942); The Fall (56); The Myth of Sisyphus (42); The Rebel (51) - Claimed not to be an existentialist
Alexis de Tocqueville
1805-1859 French political scientist y historian - Best known for his works Democracy in America (1835-1840 - describing his travels in USA) y The Old Regime and the Revolution (1856), both of which analyzed the improved living standards y social conditions y are considered early works of sociology - Active in French Politics during the July Monarchy (1830–48) y the Second Republic (1849–51)
Aristotle
9616-9678 HE - Greek philosopher from Macedonia - Student of Plato - Studied at The Academy for 20 years - Tutored Alexander the Great - Established his own school, the Lyceum - Theories lasted until The Enlightenment
Arthur Schopenhauer
1788-1860 German philosopher - Best known for his work The World as Will and Representation (1818), which characterizes the phenomenal world as the product of a blind, insatiable, y malignant metaphysical will - Exemplified philosophical pessimism
Baruch Spinoza
1632-1677 Dutch-Jewish philosopher from Amsterdam - Wrote Ethics, Demonstrated in Geometrical Order (1677-opposing Descartes-aka just “Ethics”) - Expelled from the Jewish community at age 23
Bertrand Russell
1872-1970 British philosopher y mathematician - Came from a prominent aristocratic family - Wrote Principia Mathematica (1910) on the foundations of maths - Prominent anti-war activist, imprisoned during WW1 for pacifism, later protested nuclear weapons y Vietnam
Carl Jung
1875-1961 Swiss psychiatrist y psychotherapist - Founded analytical psychology - Created some of the best known psychological concepts, incl. individuation, Jungian archetypes, the collective unconscious, the psychological complex, extraversion y introversion - Friends y colleagues with Freud
Cicero (Marcus Tulius Cicero)
106-43 BCE Roman philosopher y lawyer - Aka “Tully” - Considered one of Rome’s greatest orators y prose stylists, with huge influence on Latin Language - Served as consul (highest elected political office of the Roman Republic) in 63 BCE - Came into political conflict with Mark Antony, y was executed while attempting to flee Italy
David Hume
1711-1776 Scottish philosopher from Edinburgh - Known for his system of philosophical empiricism y skepticism - Wrote A Treatise of Human Nature (1739); An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748); An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (1751) - Argued that inductive reasoning, and belief in causality, cannot ultimately be justified rationally - Held that ethics are based on emotion or sentiment rather than abstract moral principle
David Ricardo
1772-1823 British political economist - One of the most influential of the classical economists - Wrote On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (1817) - Known for his labor theory of value, which states that the value of a good can be measured by the number of labor hours required to produce it
Denis Diderot
1713-1784 French atheist philosopher y art critic - Co-founder, chief editor, y contributor to the Encyclopédie (first published 1751) - Wrote The Skeptic’s Walk (1747); The Indiscreet Jewels (1748); Rameau’s Nephew (1761)
Diogenes
412-323 BCE - Aka “Diogenes the Cynic” or Diogenes of Sinope - Greek philosopher - Founder of cynicism - Wandered with a lantern in daylight “looking for an honest man” - Lived in a tub - Mocked Alexander the Great
(Desiderius) Erasmus
1466-1536 Dutch Catholic priest, Renaissance humanist, y Christian philosopher - Known for supporting a middle way (“Via Media”) during the Reformation - Wrote The Praise of Folly (1509-essay satirizing superstitions); On Free Will (1524); Handbook of a Christian Knight (1501) - Called the “Prince of the Humanists”
Francis Bacon
1561-1626 English philosopher, statesman, scientist - Developed the scientific method - “Knowledge is power” - Served as Attorney General - Suspected of writing Shakespeare’s works - Died of pneumonia studying how to freeze food
Friedrich Engels
1820-95 German socialist philosopher - Published The Condition of the Working Class in England (1845) - Co-authored The Communist Manifesto (1848) with Karl Marx - His stated personal motto was “take it easy”
Friedrich Nietzsche
1844-1900 German philosopher - Wrote Beyond Good y Evil (1886); Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883) - Known for ideas like “God is Dead”, the “Superman/Übermensch”, “Master/Slave morality”
Henry George
1839-1897 American philosopher y economist - Famous for popularizing the idea that land/resource rents be captured for public use or shared, in lieu of harmful taxes on labor and productive investment (Single-Tax) - Inspired the Georgism econ philosophy - Wrote Progress and Poverty (1879), which sold millions
Immanuel Kant
1724-1804 German philosopher from Konigsberg - Central figure of modern philosophy, esp. metaphysics - Wrote Critique of Pure Reason (1781), which attempted to explain the relationship between reason y human experience and move beyond the failures of traditional philosophy - Argued that fundamental concepts of the human mind structure human experience, that reason is the source of morality, y that the world as it is “in-itself” is unknowable
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
1712-1778 Francophone-Swiss philosopher from Geneva - Wrote Emile, or On Education (1760); Julie, or the New Heloise (1761); The Social Contract (1762); Confessions (1782-autobio); Reveries of a Solitary Walker (1782-autobio) - Influenced the Enlightenment in France, y aspects of French Revolution - Known for popular sovereignty, general will, y child-centered learning
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John Locke
1632-1704 English empiricist y philosopher - Wrote An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690); Two Treatises of Government (1689) - “Tabula Rasa” theory of the mind born as a blank slate - Said “wherever law ends, tyranny begins”
John Maynard Keynes
1883-1946 British economist - Founder of modern macroeconomics - Advocated government intervention y policy to avoid cycles of unemployment y recession - Wrote The Economic Consequences of the Peace (1919); The End of Laissez-Faire (1926) - His recommendations adopted by all major Western economies after WWII - Served as director of Bank of England
John Stuart Mill
1806-73 British philosopher y political economist - Called “the most influential English-speaking philosopher of the nineteenth century” - Contributed widely to social theory, political theory, y political economy - Member of Parliament (1865-68), y the 1st to call for women’s suffrage - Wrote A System of Logic (1843); On Liberty (1859) - Son of Scottish historian y economist James Mill (1773-1836)
Karl Marx
1818-1883 German philosopher y socialist economist - Wrote pamphlet The Communist Manifesto (1848) with Fred Engels; Capital: Critique of Political Economy (aka Das Kapital-3 volumes-1867-1883) - Spent much of life exiled in London with wife Jenny y daughters - Developed ideas of surplus value, alienation of workers, class struggle
Laozi (老子)
Lived approx. 600-530 BCE (Zhou Dynasty) - Ancient Chinese philospher - Considered founder of Daoism, y writer of Dao De Jing - Considered a deity in religious Daoism y Chinese Folk Religion
Ludwig (Josef Johann) Wittgenstein
1889-1951 Austrian-British philosopher from Vienna - Worked primarily on the philosophy of language, logic, y the philosophy of mathematics - Wrote only one book during his lifetime, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921) - His memoirs were published posthumously as Philosophical Investigations (1953), and is considered the most important book of 20th-century philosophy - Served as an officer on the front line during WWI, y as a hospital porter during WWII
Maimonides
1135-1204 Sephardic Jewish philosopher from Spain - Aka Rabbi Moses ben Maimon, or Rambam - One of the most prolific y influential Torah scholars of the Middle Ages - Worked in Morocco y Egypt - Wrote Guide for the Perplexed (1190); Commentary on the Mishna; Treatise on Logic
Martin Heidegger
1889-1976 German philosopher - Wrote Being and Time (1927) - Worked on study of being (“Sein”) and human existence (“Dasein”) - Involved with Nazi political movement
Milton Friedman
1912-2006 American economist from NYC - Supporter of free market system with minimal intervention - Advisor to Reagan y Thatcher - Wrote Capitalism and Freedom (1962); Free to Choose (1980); A Monetary History of the United States - Nobel Prize in Economics 1979 - Part of the Chicago School of Economics
Niccolò Machiavelli
1469-1527 Italian Renaissance philosopher y writer from Florence - Called the “father of modern political science” - Wrote The Prince (Il Principe) in 1513 - “Machiavellianism” is a widely used negative term to characterize unscrupulous politicians of the sort Machiavelli described most famously in The Prince
(Avram) Noam Chomsky
American linguist, philosopher, y cognitive scientist from PA - Major figure in analytic philosophy, y called “the father of modern linguistics” - Wrote Syntactic Structures (1957), which remodeled the scientific study of language - Noted anarcho-syndicalist, y anti-imperialist
Nostradamus (Michel de Nostredame)
1503-66 French seer y physician - Known for his work Les Propheties (1555), a collection of poems y quatrians (four line poems) allegedly predicting future events - Accuracy attributed to poor translation or vagueness of prophecies - Worked as an apothecary y doctor treating plague outbreaks
Plato
428-348 BCE - Greek philosopher from Athens - Student of Socrates, teacher of Aristotle - Founded The Academy, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world - Widely considered the most pivotal figure in the development of Western philosophy - Wrote Republic; Apology; Symposium; Phaedo - Known for his Theory of Forms, an argument that non-physical forms (or ideas) represent the most accurate reality - “Plato” was a nickname meaning “wide”; his real name is thought to be Aristocles
Pythagoras (of Samos)
570-495 BCE Ionian Greek philosopher y mathematician from Samos - Known for the Pythagorean theorem of right triangles y the Music of the Spheres (Musica universalis) concept - Very little actually known about his life or teachings, but supposedly had many followers
René Descartes
1596-1650 French philosopher y mathematician - Wrote treatise Discourse on the Method (1637-“I think therefore I am”); Meditations on First Philosophy (1641) - Lived in Dutch Republic - Founded analytic geometry
Roger Bacon
1220-1292 English philosopher y Franciscan friar - One of the earliest advocates of early Scientific Method, y placed considerable emphasis on study of nature through empirical methods - Wrote the Opus Majus (1267) about topics like science, grammar, y mathematics - 1st European to record formula for gunpowder - During the Early Modern Era (1500-1800), he was considered a wizard who used a mechanical talking head
Satoshi Nakamoto
Pseudonym used by the anonymous creator(s) of Bitcoin, the 1st decentralized digital currency - Authored the paper Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System in 2008, y mined the starting block of the blockchain, known as the genesis block, in January 2009 - Gave control to the Bitcoin Foundation in 2010, y not heard from since - Their many bitcoins remain unspent, making them possibly one of the richest people in the world
Simone de Beauvoir
1908-1986 French writer, philosopher, y feminist - Had significant influence on both feminist existentialism y feminist theory - Wrote The Second Sex (1949); She Came to Stay (1943); The Mandarins (1954) - Had lifelong relationship with Sartre, but also several underage female student lovers
Socrates
9530-9601 HE - Greek philosopher from Athens - Teacher of Plato y Xenophon - Most info known about him is from Plato’s Dialogues - Sentenced to drink hemlock for corrupting youth
Søren Kierkegaard
1813-1855 Danish philosopher - 1st Existentialist - Focused on Christian ethics y the Church - Surname means “churchyard” - Wrote Fear and Trembling (1843); Repetition (1843)
Thomas Carlyle
1795-1881 Scottish philosoper y historian - Wrote On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History (1840); The French Revolution: A History (1837); Sartor Resartus (1836) - Coined the term “the dismal science” for economics, y proposed the “great man” theory of history
Thomas Hobbes
1588-1679 English political philosopher - Wrote Leviathan (1651) about role of ideal sovereign government - Developed Social Contract theory (people give up absolute freedom to their government in order to protect remaining rights) - Said that life in the state of nature is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short”
Thomas More
1478-1535 - English humanist, author, statesman - Wrote Utopia (1516) - Councilor to Henry VIII, beheaded for not supporting his marriage to Anne Boleyn - Sainted in 1935 - Subject of 1960 play A Man for All Seasons
Thomas Robert Malthus
1766-1834 English economist y philosopher - Wrote An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798) - Known for the theory that an increase in food supply will lead to a larger increase in population, resulting in no benefit (called the Malthusian Trap) - Influenced Charles Darwin’s theories
Zeno of Elea
490-430 BCE pre-Socratic Greek philosopher from Magna Graecia (southern Italy) - Inventor of the dialectic (discourse between 2 people holding different points of view but wishing to establish the truth thru reason) - Known for his paradoxes, incl. The Arrow; Achilles and the Tortoise; The Dichotomy; The Moving Rows
