2500 years ago, Athens was a well-known city in ancient Greece where a sloven person stopped people on the way to ask them strange and psychedelic questions. He used to ask people what is truth? What is morality? He not only used to ask questions but also used to incite people to ask questions. He thought people die after living a purposeless and meaningless life besides one-sided thinking. Do you know who this person was? This person was such a brilliant mind who laid down the foundation of philosophy in the West. This person was called Socrates. What a heart-shattering event happened with Socrates? You will find it later in this post. You should have heard about the names of some great philosophers like Plato, Aristotle, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Marcus Aurelius, and the list is endless. But when we talk about their philosophies, people become afraid as they think it is difficult to understand them. People can't understand such deep and abstract conversations. Thus, people lose their courage, but you don't need to be afraid. Today, we will take you on a journey of knowledge, wisdom, and intellect that will blow your mind. There is so much learning in the post that you will enjoy. Today, we are going to meet the greatest philosophers in history. It will be a joy ride.

1. The History of Philosophy - A
Journey of Learning and Wisdom
By Dear Teacher
2500 years ago, Athens was a well-known city in ancient Greece where a
sloven person stopped people on the way to ask them strange and
psychedelic questions. He used to ask people what is truth? What is
morality? He not only used to ask questions but also used to incite people
to ask questions. He thought people die after living a purposeless and
meaningless life besides one-sided thinking. Do you know who this person
was? This person was such a brilliant mind who laid down the foundation of
philosophy in the West. This person was called Socrates.
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https://dearteacher4u.blogspot.com

2. What a heart-shattering event happened with Socrates? You will find it later
in this post. You should have heard about the names of some great
philosophers like Plato, Aristotle, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Marcus
Aurelius, and the list is endless. But when we talk about their philosophies,
people become afraid as they think it is difficult to understand them. People
can't understand such deep and abstract conversations. Thus, people lose
their courage, but you don't need to be afraid. Today, we will take you on a
journey of knowledge, wisdom, and intellect that will blow your mind. There
is so much learning in the post that you will enjoy. Today, we are going to
meet the greatest philosophers in history. It will be a joy ride.
What is Philosophy?
Unfortunately, there is no universal definition of philosophy. Therefore, we
will have to understand the concept of philosophy indirectly. Human is a
finite entity in the language of philosophy. It means he is imprisoned in
space and time. It is a fact and humans know that one day they will die and
their life will be finished. This thought of death compels humans to think
about how this short period of life must be spent. This thought of death also
creates fear in humans. He fears he will lose his dear ones. He also fears
what will happen in the future. All these fears stop us from living a happy
life. Therefore, to avoid this fear, human has always sought the support of
two things i.e. religion and philosophy but the modus operandi of both
things is entirely different. Religion especially Christianity and Islam
prevent humans from the fear of death with the power of faith. Both these
great religions teach us if we had faith in God, He will get us together again

3. with our dear ones forever in Paradise. Philosophy tries to save us with the
help of logic and reason and it compels us to raise questions so that we
can find answers to the questions of life that make us worry and can reduce
our anxiety.
Philosophy has basically three stages:-
1. Theory: With the help of theory we try to know what is the real nature of
the truth.
2. Ethics: With ethics, we can know how to live life in a society.
3. Wisdom or Salvation: Wisdom or salvation helps us to give meaning or a
purpose to life.
It has been divided into five stages in the history of Western thought. It
started with the ancient Greek philosophy and the first philosophy that
utilized these three stages for the first time is Stoicism. It is one of the
most effective ancient Greek philosophies adopted by Zeno of Citium in

4. the 3rd century BC. According to the Stoics, this universe was like an
animal and its every part was like an organ that help the universe in its
movement. The consequence of this was the perfect natural order. A
system in which every piece was compatible with each other to create the
perfect balance which Stoic named Cosmos. It is example is our body and
the environment in which we live. According to him, the design of our body
and environment is so perfect that we can get anything with it. With the
help of our eyes, we can see the world, with feet we can walk and with our
intelligence, we can make it easy to solve our biggest problems. Since the
natural order of this universe is perfect, therefore the ultimate goal of any
human being is to find its place in the natural order.
According to Stoic ethics, anything that is opposite of this perfect order is
wrong and anything that is in harmony with it is right. If you want to become
an ethical human being, then you will have to do your duties according to
this natural order. Of course, according to the modern mind, this philosophy
creates many social and political problems. For example, Stoic Philosophy
says if you have been born a slave, you should accept it as your real

5. position in the natural order is the position of a slave and you can't change
it. Stoics had a strange thought about salvation. He said if you are in
harmony with the natural order, then the death-like thing doesn't exist for
you. According to him, when we die, in reality, we transform from one
condition into another condition in this natural order and this natural order is
eternal. Therefore, death is just a journey in our Cosmos. It is just a path for
a journey.
The second largest stage in Western Philosophy was Christianity. Though
Christianity is not a philosophy, it took the place of ancient Greek
Philosophy. But how Christianity challenged Greek Philosophy? To
understand this, we will use the three stages of philosophy i.e. theory,
ethics, and salvation.
For the first time, Christian theory changed the concept of reason and logic
(Logos). People believed that reason and logic were hidden inside the
universe but Christianity rejected it and declared Juesis Crest as Logos.
This was a big change. Suddenly people started believing that structure like
the universe is meaningless and that the whole wisdom and logic is owned

6. by a single person. The people said not to raise this question. Never talk
about wisdom, just use the power of faith. Faith is everything. On one side,
Christianity rejected the natural hierarchy concept of the Greeks. According
to the Greeks, nature gifts us unequally in the shape of beauty, strength,
height, intelligence, wisdom, etc. The Greeks believed that the unequal
distribution was a gift from God which was proof that some people are born
to lead and others to follow. But Christianity declared this inequality
insignificant and useless. Every person has the freedom to better his life.
The concept of freedom in Western Ethics was a very innovative idea at
that time. The internal spiritual world of human beings is more important
than the physical world was the second innovative idea of Christianity. This
is the reason why people became happy to be martyred in the initial years
of Christianity. People prayed for their martyrdom because the relationship
of humans with God was more important. The third innovative idea of
Christianity was humanity. It means to place humans at the top. To place
humans in the center of the universe. According to Christian Faith, all are
equal in front of God. Therefore, the human race is equal. The Christian
Salvation Doctrine was also innovative at that time. Christianity promised
its followers when they would die, they would be resurrected to live eternal
life. It will last till eternity. They will get again its individual personality in this
eternal life and will live with dear ones again. But the old concepts of
human reality were shattered by humans with the emergence of Science in
the 16th century that told the Christian Church that not Earth but the Sun is
the center of the universe. This was the era when Galileo was born, and

7. Issac Newton was born. The people realized that the whole universe
works according to the laws of physics.
Humanism
Humans came to know that the universe is infinite at the time. Therefore,
humans realized that they need a new thought, a new philosophy, and a
new ethical order then. So that they could search for their identity and
position in this vast universe and could get their salvation. This was the
start of 3rd stage of Western Thought which is called Humanism.
The story of humanism starts with the French Philosopher Rene
Descartes. You might have listened to the famous saying of Descartes, "I
think, therefore, I am" as my thought assures me of the being of me. My
thought is the identity of my existence. Descartes had a critical spirit in him
with the help of which he rejected all the old beliefs and began a fresh
inquiry about reality. In the same era, another great philosopher
Jean-Jacques Rousseau called the founder of modern humanism
declared humans as the center of the universe and began an inquiry into
humans. He said, "We can understand the universe if we understand
ourselves". Rousseau said, "Human is entirely different from animal and the
thing that separates human from an animal is perfectibility". He said,
"Animals are preprogrammed and their behavior is predictable. Cat never
eats grass and giraffe never eats meat but on the other hand, humans have
full independence to make themselves better. We can eat anything. We can
become scientists, astronauts, architects, or artists. We can do absolutely

8. anything". However, humanism also needs salvation. For getting this
salvation, some people took the support of earthly religions. These were
such religions in which humanity has importance instead of God like
Communism, Scientism, and Patriotism. Rousseau had a unique and
new concept about human freedom, and it raised a very important
question. How will ethical guidelines and freedom go hand in hand? A great
German Philosopher Immanuel Kant answered this question. He
presented a theory of ethics that became the basis of modern humanism.
According to Kant, a behavior is unethical if it is driven by any selfish
motive. Actually, Kant says that we should not do it because of sympathy or
pity. There shouldn't be any selfish motive behind it. According to him, our
actions are moral when we approve of the universal maxims they embody.
Let me explain. On many occasions, we rely on lies, and that lie goes in our
favor. For example, you don't want to go office and you tell your boss that
you are not feeling well. Now how you will judge this act. According to Kant,
if the whole world starts behaving like that. Will it be ethical? According to
Kant, our deeds should be based on the universal common good. It means
good for the whole of humanity, not for a family or nation. Kant named it the
Categorical Imperative which means unquestionable commandments and it
is obligatory to follow. All these ideas made the foundations of humanism
stronger but Kant didn't know that there was a great and earth-shattering
philosopher Fedrick Nietzsche who would destroy all these foundations.
His life was very difficult and often remained ill but his thoughts and
philosophy were Nihilism. Nihilism is a philosophy according to which the
whole world and this life are meaningless. It has no purpose. Nietzsche

9. was against Christianity, Humanism, and Socialism. According to him, all
these doctrines stop the flight of human thoughts. According to him, the
meaning of life is life itself.
Nietzsche believes this world is the combination of two forces i.e. active
and active and these forces always remain in conflict with each other.
Reactive is the negative force while active is the positive force. According
to Nietzsche, we should balance these two forces which he named "will to
power". Nietzsche challenged the old philosophy and gave a new angle of
thought. Therefore, he is called the founder of Post Modernism Thinking
which is the fourth stage of Western thought. But a time came when the
ideas of this great philosopher were challenged from where started the fifth
stage of Western Thought called Contemporary Philosophy. This
philosophy rejects the earthly religions but it also rejects Nietzsche's idea of
only the real world of experience exists. According to Contemporary
Philosophy, something is beyond reality which be can assumed only but
can't be understood completely.

10. The Western World evolved its thoughts slowly and made humans think
due to which it went ahead in the race from the whole world. The main
thing is thought. Remember, thought is the biggest weapon.
Socrates incited the youth of Athens to think. Therefore, the elders of
Athens thought that Socrates was corrupting their youth and discarding the
old thoughts and giving them a new angle of thoughts to our youth. They
decide that Socrates was not acceptable. Therefore, he was given two
options i.e. he should leave Athens and go into exile or he should drink
poison. Socrates told them that he was doing nothing wrong. Therefore, he
rejected the notion of exile. He said that he would drink the cup of poison
but would never change his thoughts. Athenians thought that they had
buried his thoughts with him, but even after 2500 thousand years, we still
remember him and the whole world studies his thought. This is called the
power of thought. Therefore, we should develop a modern progressive
thought. We should advance with the passage of time. we should ask
questions to clear our doubts. Remember, doubt is the first step of wisdom.