- published: 12 Feb 2013
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Albania
Albania (
i/ælˈbeɪniə/ al-BAY-nee-ə, Albanian: Shqipëri/Shqipëria; Gheg Albanian: Shqipnia), officially known as the Republic of Albania (Albanian: Republika e Shqipërisë pronounced Albanian pronunciation: [ɾɛpuˈblika ɛ ʃcipəˈɾiːs]), is a country in Southern Europe. It is bordered by Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, the Republic of Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south and southeast. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea to the west, and on the Ionian Sea to the southwest. It is less than 72 km (45 mi) from Italy, across the Strait of Otranto which links the Adriatic Sea to the Ionian Sea.
Albania is a member of the UN, NATO, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, Council of Europe, World Trade Organisation, Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and one of the founding members of the Union for the Mediterranean. Albania has been a potential candidate for accession to the European Union since January 2003, and it formally applied for EU membership on 28 April 2009.
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Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall (German: Berliner Mauer) was a barrier constructed by the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany) starting on 13 August 1961, that completely cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin. The barrier included guard towers placed along large concrete walls, which circumscribed a wide area (later known as the "death strip") that contained anti-vehicle trenches, "fakir beds" and other defenses. The Eastern Bloc claimed that the wall was erected to protect its population from fascist elements conspiring to prevent the "will of the people" in building a socialist state in East Germany. In practice, the Wall served to prevent the massive emigration and defection that marked Germany and the communist Eastern Bloc during the post-World War II period.
The Berlin Wall was officially referred to as the "Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart" (German: Antifaschistischer Schutzwall) by GDR authorities, implying that neighbouring West Germany had not been fully de-Nazified. The West Berlin city government sometimes referred to it as the "Wall of Shame"—a term coined by mayor Willy Brandt—while condemning the Wall's restriction on freedom of movement. Along with the separate and much longer Inner German border (IGB) that demarcated the border between East and West Germany, both borders came to symbolize the "Iron Curtain" that separated Western Europe and the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War.
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China
China (i/ˈtʃaɪnə/; Chinese: 中国; pinyin: Zhōngguó; see also Names of China), officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is the world's most-populous country, with a population of over 1.3 billion. Covering approximately 9.6 million square kilometres, the East Asian state is the world's second-largest country by land area, and the third- or fourth-largest in total area, depending on the definition of total area.
The People's Republic of China is a single-party state governed by the Communist Party of China. It exercises jurisdiction over 22 provinces, five autonomous regions, four directly controlled municipalities (Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, and Chongqing), and two mostly self-governing special administrative regions (Hong Kong and Macau). Its capital city is Beijing. The PRC also claims Taiwan—which is controlled by the Republic of China (ROC), a separate political entity—as its 23rd province, a claim controversial due to the complex political status of Taiwan and the unresolved Chinese Civil War. The PRC government denies the legitimacy of the ROC.
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Cuba
Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, (i/ˈkjuːbə/; Spanish: República de Cuba, pronounced: [reˈpuβlika ðe ˈkuβa] (
listen)) is an island country in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city. To the north of Cuba lies the United States (140 km or 90 mi away) and the Bahamas, Mexico is to the west, the Cayman Islands and Jamaica are to the south, and Haiti and the Dominican Republic are to the southeast.
In 1492, Christopher Columbus landed on and claimed the island now occupied by Cuba, for the Kingdom of Spain. Cuba remained a territory of Spain until the Spanish–American War ended in 1898, and gained formal independence from the U.S. in 1902. A fragile democracy, increasingly dominated by radical politics eventually evolved, solidified by the Cuban Constitution of 1940, but was definitely quashed in 1952 by former president Fulgencio Batista, and an authoritarian regime was set up, intensifying and catalyzing already rampant corruption, political repression and crippling economic regulations.Batista was ousted in January 1959 by the July 26 movement, and a new administration under Fidel Castro established, which had by 1965 evolved into a single-party state under the revived Communist Party of Cuba, which holds power to date.
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France
France (Englishi/ˈfræns/ FRANSS or /ˈfrɑːns/ FRAHNSS; French: [fʁɑ̃s] ( listen)), officially the French Republic (French: République française [ʁepyblik fʁɑ̃sɛz]), is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean. It is often referred to as l’Hexagone ("The Hexagon") because of the geometric shape of its territory. It is the largest western European country and it possesses the second-largest exclusive economic zone in the world, covering 11,035,000 km2 (4,260,000 sq mi), just behind that of the United States (11,351,000 km2 / 4,383,000 sq mi).
Over the past 500 years, France has been a major power with strong cultural, economic, military and political influence in Europe and around the world. During the 17th and 18th centuries, France colonised great parts of North America and Southeast Asia; during the 19th and early 20th centuries, France built the second largest colonial empire of the time, including large portions of North, West and Central Africa, Southeast Asia, and many Caribbean and Pacific Islands.
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India
India (i/ˈɪndiə/), officially the Republic of India (Bhārat Gaṇarājya), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the south-west, and the Bay of Bengal on the south-east, it shares land borders with Pakistan to the west;China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the north-east; and Burma and Bangladesh to the east. In the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives; in addition, India's Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a maritime border with Thailand and Indonesia.
Home to the ancient Indus Valley Civilisation and a region of historic trade routes and vast empires, the Indian subcontinent was identified with its commercial and cultural wealth for much of its long history. Four of the world's major religions—Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism—originated here, whereas Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Islam arrived in the 1st millennium CE and also helped shape the region's diverse culture. Gradually annexed by and brought under the administration of the British East India Company from the early 18th century and administered directly by the United Kingdom from the mid-19th century, India became an independent nation in 1947 after a struggle for independence that was marked by non-violent resistance led by Mahatma Gandhi.
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North Korea
Coordinates: 40°00′N 127°00′E / 40°N 127°E / 40; 127 The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK; Chosŏn'gŭl: 조선민주주의인민공화국), commonly referred to as "North Korea" (
listen), is a country in East Asia, occupying the northern half of the Korean Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Pyongyang. The Korean Demilitarized Zone serves as the buffer zone between North Korea and South Korea. The Amnok, or Yalu, and the Tumen rivers form the border between North Korea and China. A section of the Tumen River in the far northeast is the border with Russia.
The peninsula was governed by the Korean Empire until it was annexed by Japan after the Russo-Japanese War in 1910. It was divided into Soviet- and American-occupied zones in 1945, after the end of World War II. North Korea refused to participate in a United Nations–supervised election held in the south in 1948, which led to the creation of separate Korean governments for the two occupation zones. North and South Korea each claimed sovereignty over the whole Korean Peninsula, which led to the Korean War of 1950. The Armistice Agreement of 1953 ended the fighting; but the two countries are officially still at war against each other, for a peace treaty was never signed. Both states were accepted into the United Nations in 1991.
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September 11 attacks
The September 11 attacks (also referred to as September 11, September 11th or 9/11) were a series of four suicide attacks that were committed in the United States on September 11, 2001, coordinated to strike the areas of New York City and Washington, D.C. On that Tuesday morning, 19 terrorists from the Islamist militant group al-Qaeda hijacked four passenger jets. The hijackers intentionally piloted two of those planes, American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175, into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center complex in New York City; both towers collapsed within two hours. The hijackers also intentionally crashed American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, and intended to pilot the fourth hijacked jet, United Airlines Flight 93, into a target in Washington, D.C.; however, the plane crashed into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania after its passengers attempted to take control of the jet from the hijackers. Nearly 3,000 people died in the attacks including the 227 civilians and 19 hijackers aboard the four planes, none of whom survived.
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University of Oxford
Coordinates: 51°45′40″N 1°15′12″W / 51.7611°N 1.2534°W / 51.7611; -1.2534
The University of Oxford (informally Oxford University or Oxford) is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096. The University grew rapidly from 1167 when Henry II banned English students from attending the University of Paris. In post-nominals, the University of Oxford was historically abbreviated as Oxon. (from the Latin Oxoniensis), although Oxf is now used in official university publications.
After disputes between students and Oxford townsfolk in 1209, some academics fled north-east to Cambridge, where they established what became the University of Cambridge. The two ancient English universities have many common features and are often jointly referred to as Oxbridge. In addition to their cultural and practical associations, as a historic part of British society, they have a long history of rivalry with each other.
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Alain de Botton
Alain de Botton, FRSL (born Zurich, 20 December 1969) is a Swiss writer, philosopher, television presenter and entrepreneur, resident in the United Kingdom. His books and television programmes discuss various contemporary subjects and themes, emphasizing philosophy's relevance to everyday life. At 23, he published Essays In Love (1993), which went on to sell two million copies. Other bestsellers include How Proust Can Change Your Life (1997), Status Anxiety (2004) and The Architecture Of Happiness (2006). In August 2008, he was a founding member of a new educational establishment in central London called The School of Life. In May 2009, he was a founding member of a new architectural organization called "Living Architecture". In October that year, de Botton was appointed an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects, in recognition of his services to architecture. In 2011, de Botton was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (FRSL).
Born in Zurich, de Botton comes from a Sephardic Jewish family, originating from a small Castilian town of Boton (now vanished) on the Iberian peninsula. His ancestors include Abraham de Boton. His paternal grandmother was Yolande Harmer. His father, Gilbert de Botton, was the co-founder of Global Asset Management. His wealth was estimated by one source to be £234 million in 1999. He has one sister Miel and they received a secular upbringing. De Botton spent the first twelve years of his life in Switzerland where he was brought up to speak French and German.
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Albrecht Ritschl
Albrecht Ritschl (March 25, 1822 – March 20, 1889) was a German theologian.
Starting in 1852, Ritschl lectured on "Systematic Theology". According to this system, faith was understood to be irreducible to other experiences, beyond the scope of reason. Faith, he said, came not from facts but from value judgments. Jesus' divinity, he argued, was best understood as expressing "revelational-value" of Christ for the community that trusts him as God. He held the Christ's message to be committed to a community.
Ritschl was born in Berlin. His father, Georg Karl Benjamin Ritschl (1783–1858), became in 1810 a pastor at the church of St Mary in Berlin, and from 1827 to 1854 was general superintendent and evangelical bishop of Pomerania. Albrecht Ritschl studied at Bonn, Halle, Heidelberg and Tübingen. At Halle he came under Hegelian influences through the teaching of Julius Schaller and Johann Erdmann. In 1845 he became a follower of the Tübingen school, and in his work Das Evangelium Marcions und das kanonische Evangelium des Lukas, published in 1846 and in which he argued that the Gospel of Luke was based on the apocryphal Gospel of Marcion, he appears as a disciple of the Hegelian new testament scholarFerdinand Baur. This did not last long with him, however, for the second edition (1857) of his most important work, on the origin of the Old Catholic Church (Die Entstehung der alt-kathol. Kirche), shows considerable divergence from the first edition (1850), and reveals an entire emancipation from Baur's method.
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Alexander Bard
Alexander Bengt Magnus Bard (born 17 March 1961) is a Swedish artist, music producer and writer.
Bard was born Alexander Bengt Magnus Bard in Medevi, Motala Municipality, Sweden.[citation needed] After he had completed his upper secondary education, Bard studied in the United States and in Amsterdam, Netherlands. While living in Amsterdam, he earned part of his living as a sex worker. Bard returned to Sweden to study at the Stockholm School of Economics from 1984 to 1988. In addition to his studies in Economics, he took a strong interest in Philosophy and Social Theory with the explicit aim of becoming a writer and lecturer.
Bard has written three books on the internet revolution, collectively known as The Futurica Trilogy, together with media theorist Jan Söderqvist. Their first collaboration The Netocrats was originally released in Swedish in 2000, became available in English in 2003, and has since been translated to a further 16 languages with total worldwide sales exceeding 340,000 copies. The second book The Global Empire was originally released in Swedish in 2003, while the third installment of the trilogy The Body Machines was originally published in Swedish in 2009. These latter two works were released in English in 2012, completing The Futurica Trilogy, in which the authors present their philosophical vision for a global and increasingly virtual society, as a consequence of the interactive revolution.
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Alvin Plantinga
Alvin Carl Plantinga (born November 15, 1932) is an American analytic philosopher, the emeritus John A. O'Brien Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame and the inaugural holder of the Jellema Chair in Philosophy at Calvin College.
He is known for his work in philosophy of religion, epistemology, metaphysics and Christian apologetics. Plantinga is the author of a number of books including God and Other Minds (1967), The Nature of Necessity (1974), and the "warrant" series culminating in Warranted Christian Belief (2000). He has delivered the Gifford Lectures three times, and was described by Time magazine as "America's leading orthodox Protestant philosopher of God".
Plantinga was born on November 15, 1932 in Ann Arbor, Michigan to Cornelius A. Plantinga (1908–1994) and Lettie G. Bossenbroek (1908–2007). Plantinga's father was a first generation immigrant, born in the Netherlands. His family is from the Dutch province of Friesland. Plantinga’s father earned a Ph.D. in philosophy from Duke University and a Master's Degree in psychology, and taught several academic subjects at different colleges over the years. One of Plantinga's brothers, Cornelius "Neal" Plantinga, Jr., is a theologian and the former president of Calvin Theological Seminary. Another of his brothers, Leon, is an emeritus professor of musicology at Yale University. His brother Terrell worked for CBS News.
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Amalric of Bena
Amalric of Bena ((French) Amaury de Bène or Amaury de Chartres; (Latin) Almaricus, Amalricus, Amauricus; died c. 1204-1207) was a French theologian, after whom the Amalricians are named.
He was born in the latter part of the 12th century at Bennes, a village between Ollé and Chauffours in the diocese of Chartres.
He taught philosophy and theology at the University of Paris and enjoyed a great reputation as a subtle dialectician; his lectures developing the philosophy of Aristotle attracted a large circle of hearers. In 1204 his doctrines were condemned by the university, and, on a personal appeal to Pope Innocent III, the sentence was ratified, Amalric being ordered to return to Paris and recant his errors.
His death was caused, it is said, by grief at the humiliation to which he had been subjected. In 1209 ten of his followers were burnt before the gates of Paris, and Amalric's own body was exhumed and burnt and the ashes given to the winds. The doctrines of his followers, known as the Amalricians, were formally condemned by the fourth Lateran Council in 1215.
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Anselm of Canterbury
Anselm of Canterbury (Aosta c. 1033 – Canterbury 21 April 1109), also called of Aosta for his birthplace, and of Bec for his home monastery, was a Benedictine monk, a philosopher, and a prelate of the Church who held the office of Archbishop of Canterbury from 1093 to 1109. Called the founder of scholasticism, he is famous as the originator of the ontological argument for the existence of God.
Born into the House of Candia, he entered the Benedictine order at the Abbey of Bec at the age of 27, where he became abbot in 1079. He became Archbishop of Canterbury under William II of England, and was exiled from England from 1097 to 1100, and again from 1105 to 1107 under Henry I of England as a result of the investiture controversy, the most significant conflict between Church and state in Medieval Europe.
Anselm was proclaimed a Doctor of the Church in 1720 by a Papal Bull of Pope Clement XI.
Anselm was born under the name "Anselmus Candiae Genavae" (Italian: Anselmo di Candia Ginevra, French: Anselme de Candie Genève) at or nearAosta in the Kingdom of Arles (currently the capital of the Aosta Valley region in Northern Italy) around 1033. His family was noble (they were related by blood to the ascendant House of Savoy) and owned considerable property. His parents were from a noble lineage and holders of fiefdoms within the Burgundian territories. His father, Gundulf de Candia, was by birth a Lombard of the House of Candia; he seems to have been harsh. His mother, Ermenberga of Geneva, was regarded as prudent and virtuous; she was related to Otto, Count of Savoy.
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Anthony Kenny
Sir Anthony John Patrick Kenny FBA (born 16 March 1931 in Liverpool) is an English philosopher whose interests lie in the philosophy of mind, ancient and scholastic philosophy, the philosophy of Wittgenstein and the philosophy of religion. With Peter Geach, he has made a significant contribution to Analytical Thomism, a movement whose aim is to present the thought of St Thomas Aquinas in the style of modern philosophy by clearing away the trappings and obscurities of traditional Thomism. He is one of the executors of Wittgenstein's literary estate. He is a former President of the British Academy and the Royal Institute of Philosophy.
Kenny initially trained as a Roman Catholic priest at the Venerable English College, Rome, where he received the degree of S.T.L. He was ordained in 1955 and served as Curate in Liverpool 1959-63. Having received his D.Phil. from the University of Oxford (St Benet's Hall) in 1961, he also worked as an Assistant Lecturer in the University of Liverpool (1961–63). However, he questioned the validity of Catholic doctrine and is now an agnostic. He was returned to the lay state in 1963, but according to Canon law his priestly ordination remains valid. He was never dispensed from the obligation of clerical celibacy and was therefore excommunicated on his marriage to Nancy Gayley in 1965.
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Antony Flew
Antony Garrard Newton Flew (11 February 1923 – 8 April 2010) was a British philosopher. Belonging to the analytic and evidentialist schools of thought, he was notable for his works on the philosophy of religion.
Flew was a strong advocate of atheism, arguing that one should presuppose atheism until empirical evidence of a God surfaces. He also criticised the idea of life after death, the free will defence to the problem of evil, and the meaningfulness of the concept of God. However, in 2004 he stated an allegiance to deism, more specifically a belief in the Aristotelian God, stating that in keeping his lifelong commitment to go where the evidence leads, he now believes in the existence of God.
He later wrote the book There is a God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind, with contributions from Roy Abraham Varghese. This book (and Flew's conversion itself) has been the subject of controversy, following an article in the New York Times magazine alleging that Flew had mentally declined, and that Varghese was the primary author. The matter remains contentious, with some commentators including PZ Myers and Richard Carrier supporting the allegations, and others, including Flew himself, opposing them.
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Arthur Golding
Arthur Golding (c. 1536 – c. 1605) was an English translator of more than 30 works from Latin into English. While primarily remembered today for his translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses because of its influence on William Shakespeare's works, in his own time he was most famous for his translation of Caesar's Commentaries, and his translations of the sermons of John Calvin were important in spreading the doctrines of the Protestant Reformation.
Arthur Golding was born in East Anglia, before 25 May 1535/36, the second son of John Golding of Belchamp St Paul and Halstead, Essex, an auditor of the Exchequer, and his second wife, Ursula (d. c. 1564), in a family of eleven children (four from John Golding's first wife, Elizabeth). In the 15th and 16th centuries, the Golding family had prospered in the cloth trade, and by marrying heiresses had become fairly wealthy and respectable by the time of Arthur's birth. When Golding was 11, his father died, leaving his family with considerable funds as they were considered a high class puritan family.[citation needed] In the 15th and 16th centuries, the Golding family had prospered in the cloth trade and by marrying heiresses, and were fairly wealthy and respectable by the time of Arthur's birth, probably in London. In 1548 his half-sister Margery, by John's first wife, became the second wife of John de Vere, 16th Earl of Oxford, one of the richest peers in England, and by 1552 his brother Henry was steward for his brother-in-law's household.
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Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer (22 February 1788 – 21 September 1860) was a German philosopher known for his pessimism and philosophical clarity. At age 25, he published his doctoral dissertation, On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, which examined the four separate manifestations of reason in the phenomenal world.
Schopenhauer's most influential work, The World as Will and Representation, claimed that the world is fundamentally what humans recognize in themselves as their will. His analysis of will led him to the conclusion that emotional, physical, and sexual desires can never be fully satisfied. The corollary of this is an ultimately painful human condition. Consequently, he considered that a lifestyle of negating desires, similar to the ascetic teachings of Vedanta, Buddhism and the Church Fathers of early Christianity, was the only way to attain liberation.
Schopenhauer's metaphysical analysis of will, his views on human motivation and desire, and his aphoristic writing style influenced many well-known thinkers, including Friedrich Nietzsche,Richard Wagner, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Erwin Schrödinger, Albert Einstein,Sigmund Freud, Otto Rank, Carl Jung, Joseph Campbell, Leo Tolstoy, Thomas Mann, and Jorge Luis Borges.
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Augustine of Hippo
Augustine of Hippo ( /ɒˈɡʌstɨn/ or /ˈɔːɡəstɪn/;Latin: Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis; November 13, 354 – August 28, 430), also known as Augustine, St. Augustine, St. Austin,St. Augoustinos, Blessed Augustine, or St. Augustine the Blessed, was Bishop of Hippo Regius (present-day Annaba, Algeria). He was a Latin philosopher and theologian from Roman Africa. His writings were very influential in the development of Western Christianity.
According to his contemporary, Jerome, Augustine "established anew the ancient Faith." In his early years he was heavily influenced by Manichaeism and afterward by the Neo-Platonism of Plotinus. After his conversion to Christianity and baptism in AD 387, Augustine developed his own approach to philosophy and theology, accommodating a variety of methods and different perspectives. He believed that the grace of Christ was indispensable to human freedom, and he framed the concepts of original sin and just war.
When the Western Roman Empire was starting to disintegrate, Augustine developed the concept of the Catholic Church as a spiritual City of God (in a book of the same name), distinct from the material Earthly City. His thoughts profoundly influenced the medieval worldview. Augustine's City of God was closely identified with the Church, the community that worshipped God.
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Averroes
ʾAbū l-Walīd Muḥammad bin ʾAḥmad bin Rušd (Arabic: أبو الوليد محمد بن احمد بن رشد), better known just as Ibn Rushd (Arabic: ابن رشد), and in European literature as Averroes ( /əˈvɛroʊ.iːz/; April 14, 1126 – December 10, 1198), was an Andalusian Muslim polymath; a master of Aristotelian philosophy, Islamic philosophy, Islamic theology, Maliki law and jurisprudence, logic, psychology, politics, Arabic music theory, and the sciences of medicine, astronomy, geography, mathematics, physics and celestial mechanics. He was born in Córdoba, Al Andalus, modern-day Spain, and died in Marrakesh, Morocco. His school of philosophy is known as Averroism.
Ibn Rushd was a defender of Aristotelian philosophy against claims from the influential Islamic theologian Ghazali who attacked philosophy so it would not become an affront to the teachings of Islam.
Averroes' name is also seen as Averroës, Averroès or Averrhoës, indicating that the "o" and the "e" form separate syllables. Averroes is a Latinisation of a Hebrew transcription of the Arab name Ibn Rushd.
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Averroism
Averroism is the term applied to either of two philosophical trends among scholastics in the late 13th century: (a) the Arab philosopher Averroës or Ibn Rushd's interpretations of Aristotle and his reconciliation of Aristotelianism with Islamic faith; and (b) the application of these ideas in the Latin Christian and Jewish intellectual traditions, such as Siger of Brabant, Boetius of Dacia, and Maimonides. The term was originally coined by Ernst Renan.
Averroes at the time of Dante Alighieri was probably the most widely condemned thinker in the medieval Christian world... Averroism became virtually synonymous with atheism in the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance . As an historiographical category it was first developed by Ernest Renan in Averroès et l'averroïsme (1852). Later historians applied the name to significant uses and expressions of elements of Averroes' doctrines and to the exegetical tradition of Aristotle by Jewish and Christian thinkers as it had come down through the Latin and Hebrew traditions. "Averroist" can therefore describe a range of positions, up to and including scholars interested in the historical phenomenon of Averroes' influence[citation needed].
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Avicenna
Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Sīnā (Persian پورسينا Pur Sina [ˈpuːr ˈsiːnɑː] "son of Sina"; c. 980, Afshana near Bukhara– 1037, Hamadan, Iran), commonly known as Ibn Sīnā or by his Latinized name Avicenna, was a Persianpolymath, who wrote almost 450 treatises on a wide range of subjects, of which around 240 have survived. In particular, 150 of his surviving treatises concentrate on philosophy and 40 of them concentrate on medicine.
His most famous works are The Book of Healing, a vast philosophical and scientific encyclopaedia, and The Canon of Medicine, which was a standard medical text at many medieval universities. The Canon of Medicine was used as a text-book in the universities of Montpellier and Leuven as late as 1650. Ibn Sīnā's Canon of Medicine provides a complete system of medicine according to the principles of Galen (and Hippocrates).
His corpus also includes writing on philosophy, astronomy, alchemy, geology, psychology, Islamic theology, logic, mathematics, physics, as well as poetry. He is regarded as the most famous and influential polymath of the Islamic Golden Age.
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Baruch Spinoza
Baruch Spinoza and later Benedict de Spinoza (24 November 1632 – 21 February 1677) was a Dutch philosopher. Revealing considerable scientific aptitude, the breadth and importance of Spinoza's work was not fully realized until years after his death. By laying the groundwork for the 18th century Enlightenment[citation needed] and modern biblical criticism, he came to be considered one of the great rationalists of 17th-century philosophy. His magnum opus, the posthumous Ethics, in which he opposed Descartes's mind–body dualism, has earned him recognition as one of Western philosophy's most important contributors. In the Ethics, "Spinoza wrote the last indisputable Latin masterpiece, and one in which the refined conceptions of medieval philosophy are finally turned against themselves and destroyed entirely." Philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel said of all contemporary philosophers, "You are either a Spinozist or not a philosopher at all."
Spinoza's name in different languages is Hebrew: ברוך שפינוזה Baruch Spinoza, Portuguese: Benedito or Bento de Espinosa and Latin: Benedictus de Spinoza; in all these languages, the given name means "the Blessed". Spinoza was raised in the Portuguese Jewish community in Amsterdam. He developed highly controversial ideas regarding the authenticity of the Hebrew Bible and the nature of the Divine. The Jewish religious authorities issued a cherem (Hebrew: חרם, a kind of ban, shunning, ostracism, expulsion, or excommunication) against him, effectively excluding him from Jewish society at age 23. His books were also later put on the Catholic Church's Index of Forbidden Books.
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Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, and social critic. At various points in his life he considered himself a liberal, a socialist, and a pacifist, but he also admitted that he had never been any of these in any profound sense. He was born in Monmouthshire, into one of the most prominent aristocratic families in Britain.
Russell led the British "revolt against idealism" in the early 20th century. He is considered one of the founders of analytic philosophy along with his predecessor Gottlob Frege and his friend Ludwig Wittgenstein, and is widely held to be one of the 20th century's premier logicians. He co-authored, with A. N. Whitehead, Principia Mathematica, an attempt to ground mathematics on logic. His philosophical essay "On Denoting" has been considered a "paradigm of philosophy." His work has had a considerable influence on logic, mathematics, set theory, linguistics, computer science (see type theory and type system), and philosophy, especially philosophy of language, epistemology, and metaphysics.
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Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascal (French pronunciation: [blɛz paskal]; 19 June 1623 – 19 August 1662), was a French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer and Catholic philosopher. He was a child prodigy who was educated by his father, a tax collector in Rouen. Pascal's earliest work was in the natural and applied sciences where he made important contributions to the study of fluids, and clarified the concepts of pressure and vacuum by generalizing the work of Evangelista Torricelli. Pascal also wrote in defense of the scientific method.
In 1642, while still a teenager, he started some pioneering work on calculating machines, and after three years of effort and 50 prototypes he invented the mechanical calculator. He built twenty of these machines (called the Pascaline) in the following ten years. Pascal was an important mathematician, helping create two major new areas of research: he wrote a significant treatise on the subject of projective geometry at the age of sixteen, and later corresponded with Pierre de Fermat on probability theory, strongly influencing the development of modern economics and social science. Following Galileo and Torricelli, in 1646 he refuted Aristotle's followers who insisted that nature abhors a vacuum. Pascal's results caused many disputes before being accepted.
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Boethius
Anicius Manlius Severinus Boëthius, commonly called Boethius (ca. 480–524 or 525 AD) was a philosopher of the early 6th century. He was born in Rome to an ancient and prominent family which included emperors Petronius Maximus and Olybrius and many consuls. His father, Flavius Manlius Boethius, was consul in 487 after Odoacer deposed the last Western Roman Emperor. Boethius, of the noble Anicia family, entered public life at a young age and was already a senator by the age of 25. Boethius himself was consul in 510 in the kingdom of the Ostrogoths. In 522 he saw his two sons become consuls. Boethius was imprisoned and eventually executed by King Theodoric the Great, who suspected him of conspiring with the Eastern Roman Empire. While jailed, Boethius composed his Consolation of Philosophy, a philosophical treatise on fortune, death, and other issues. The Consolation became one of the most popular and influential works of the Middle Ages. A link between Boethius and a mathematical boardgame Rithmomachia has been made.
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Callimachus
Callimachus (Ancient Greek: Καλλίμαχος, Kallimachos; 310/305–240 BC) was a native of the Greek colony of Cyrene, Libya. He was a noted poet, critic and scholar at the Library of Alexandria and enjoyed the patronage of the Egyptian–Greek Pharaohs Ptolemy II Philadelphus and Ptolemy III Euergetes. Although he was never made chief librarian, he was responsible for producing a bibliographic survey based upon the contents of the Library. This, his Pinakes, 120 volumes long, provided the foundation for later work on the history of Greek literature. As one of the earliest critic-poets, he typifies Hellenistic scholarship.
Callimachus was of Libyan Greek origin. He was born and raised in Cyrene, as member of a distinguished family, his parents being Mesatme (or Mesatma) and Battus, supposed descendant of the first Greek king of Cyrene, Battus I, through whom Callimachus claimed to be a descendant of the Battiad dynasty, the Libyan Greek monarchs that ruled Cyrenaica for eight generations and the first Greek Royal family to have reigned in Africa. He was named after his grandfather, an "elder" Callimachus, who was highly regarded by the Cyrenaean citizens and had served as a general.
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Catiline
Lucius Sergius Catilina (108 BC – 62 BC), known in English as Catiline, was a Roman politician of the 1st century BC who is best known for the Catiline (or Catilinarian) conspiracy, an attempt to overthrow the Roman Republic, and in particular the power of the aristocratic Senate.
Catiline was born in 108 BC to one of the oldest patrician families in Rome, gens Sergia. Although his family was of consular heritage, they were then declining in both social and financial fortunes. Virgil later gave the family an ancestor, Sergestus, who had come with Aeneas to Italy, presumably because they were notably ancient; but they had not been prominent for centuries. The last Sergius to be consul had been Gnaeus Sergius Fidenas Coxo in 380 BC. Later, these factors would dramatically shape Catiline's ambitions and goals as he would desire above all else to restore the political heritage of his family along with its financial power.
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Cato the Younger
Marcus Porcius Cato Uticensis (95 BC, Rome – April 46 BC, Utica), commonly known as Cato the Younger (Cato Minor) to distinguish him from his great-grandfather (Cato the Elder), was a politician and statesman in the late Roman Republic, and a follower of the Stoic philosophy. A noted orator, he is remembered for his stubbornness and tenacity (especially in his lengthy conflict with Julius Caesar), as well as his immunity to bribes, his moral integrity, and his famous distaste for the ubiquitous corruption of the period.
Cato was born in 95 BC in Rome, the son of Marcus Porcius Cato and his wife Livia Drusa. His parents died when he was young, and he was cared for by his maternal uncle Marcus Livius Drusus, who also looked after Quintus Servilius Caepio, Servilia Caepionis Maior, and Servilia Caepionis Minor from Livia's first marriage (though Quintus Servilius Caepio was generally known to be Cato's full brother), as well as Porcia (Cato's full sister), and Marcus Livius Drusus Claudianus (Livius' adopted son). Drusus was murdered when Cato was 4 years old.
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Charles Hartshorne
Charles Hartshorne (June 5, 1897 – October 9, 2000) was a prominent American philosopher who concentrated primarily on the philosophy of religion and metaphysics. He developed the neoclassical idea of God and produced a modal proof of the existence of God that was a development of St. Anselm's Ontological Argument. Hartshorne is also noted for developing Alfred North Whitehead's process philosophy into process theology.
Hartshorne (pronounced harts-horn) was born in Kittanning, Pennsylvania, and was the son of Reverend F.C. Hartshorne. Among his brothers was the prominent geographer Richard Hartshorne. Charles attended Haverford College between 1915–17, but then spent two years as a hospital orderly serving in the US Army. He then studied at Harvard University, where he earned the B.A. (1921), M.A. (1922) and PhD (1923) degrees. His doctoral dissertation was on "The Unity of Being". He obtained all three degrees in only four years, an accomplishment believed unique in Harvard's long history.
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Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Eric Hitchens (13 April 1949 – 15 December 2011) was an English American author and journalist whose career spanned more than four decades. Hitchens, often referred to colloquially as "Hitch", was a columnist and literary critic for New Statesman, The Atlantic, The Nation, The Daily Mirror, The Times Literary Supplement and Vanity Fair. He was an author of twelve books and five collections of essays. As a staple of talk shows and lecture circuits, he was a prominent public intellectual, and his confrontational style of debate made him both a lauded and controversial figure.
Hitchens was known for his admiration of George Orwell, Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson, as well as for his excoriating critiques of various public figures including Mother Teresa, Bill Clinton, Henry Kissinger and Diana, Princess of Wales. Although he supported the Falklands War, his key split from the established political left began in 1989 after what he called the "tepid reaction" of the Western left to the Rushdie Affair. The September 11 attacks strengthened his internationalist embrace of an interventionist foreign policy, and his vociferous criticism of what he called "fascism with an Islamic face." His numerous editorials in support of the Iraq War caused some to label him a neoconservative, although Hitchens insisted he was not "a conservative of any kind", and his friend Ian McEwan describes him as representing the anti-totalitarian left.
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Cicero
Marcus Tullius Cicero ( /ˈsɪsɨroʊ/; Classical Latin: [ˈkɪkɛroː]; January 3, 106 BC – December 7, 43 BC; sometimes anglicized as Tully), was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, orator, political theorist, Roman consul and constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.
He introduced the Romans to the chief schools of Greek philosophy and created a Latin philosophical vocabulary (with neologisms such as humanitas, qualitas, quantitas, and essentia) distinguishing himself as a linguist, translator, and philosopher.
Petrarch's rediscovery of Cicero's letters is often credited for initiating the 14th-century Renaissance. According to Polish historian Tadeusz Zieliński, "Renaissance was above all things a revival of Cicero, and only after him and through him of the rest of Classical antiquity." The peak of Cicero's authority and prestige came during the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, and his impact on leading Enlightenment thinkers such as John Locke, David Hume, and Montesquieu was substantial. His works rank among the most influential in European culture, and today still constitute one of the most important bodies of primary material for the writing and revision of Roman history, especially the last days of the Roman Republic.
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Critias
Critias (Greek Κριτίας Kritias, 460 BC – 403 BC) was an ancient Athenian political figure and author. Born in Athens, Critias was the son of Callaeschrus and an uncle of Plato, and became a leading and violent member of the Thirty Tyrants. He was an associate of Socrates, a fact that did not endear Socrates to the Athenian public.
He was noted in his day for his tragedies, elegies and prose works. Some, like Sextus Empiricus, believe that Critias wrote the Sisyphus fragment; others, however, attribute it to Euripides.
After the fall of Athens to the Spartans, Critias, as one of the Thirty Tyrants, blacklisted many of its citizens. Most of his prisoners were executed and their wealth was confiscated.
Critias was killed in a battle near Piraeus, the port of Athens, between a band of pro-democracy Athenian exiles led by Thrasybulus and members and supporters of the Thirty, aided by the Spartan garrison. In the battle, the exiles put the oligarchic forces to flight, ending the rule of the Thirty.
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Daniel Dennett
Daniel Clement Dennett (born March 28, 1942) is an American philosopher, writer and cognitive scientist whose research centers on the philosophy of mind, philosophy of science and philosophy of biology, particularly as those fields relate to evolutionary biology and cognitive science. He is currently the Co-director of the Center for Cognitive Studies, the Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Philosophy, and a University Professor at Tufts University. Dennett is a firm atheist and secularist, a member of the Secular Coalition for America advisory board, as well as an outspoken supporter of the Brights movement. Dennett is referred to as one of the "Four Horsemen of New Atheism," along with Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and the late Christopher Hitchens.
Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Dennett spent part of his childhood in Lebanon, where, during World War II, his father was a covert counter-intelligence agent with the Office of Strategic Services posing as a cultural attaché to the American Embassy in Beirut. When he was five, his mother took him back to Massachusetts after his father died in an unexplained plane crash. His sister is the investigative journalist Charlotte Dennett.
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David Hume
David Hume (7 May [O.S. 26 April] 1711 – 25 August 1776) was a Scottish philosopher, historian, economist, and essayist, known especially for his philosophical empiricism and scepticism. He was one of the most important figures in the history of Western philosophy and the Scottish Enlightenment. Hume is often grouped with John Locke, George Berkeley, and a handful of others as a British Empiricist.
Beginning with his A Treatise of Human Nature (1739), Hume strove to create a total naturalistic "science of man" that examined the psychological basis of human nature. In stark opposition to the rationalists who preceded him, most notably Descartes, he concluded that desire rather than reason governed human behaviour, saying: "Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions." A prominent figure in the sceptical philosophical tradition and a strong empiricist, he argued against the existence of innate ideas, concluding instead that humans have knowledge only of things they directly experience. Thus he divides perceptions between strong and lively "impressions" or direct sensations and fainter "ideas", which are copied from impressions. He developed the position that mental behaviour is governed by "custom"; our use of induction, for example, is justified only by our idea of the "constant conjunction" of causes and effects. Without direct impressions of a metaphysical "self", he concluded that humans have no actual conception of the self, only of a bundle of sensations associated with the self.
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David of Dinant
David of Dinant (ca. 1160 - ca. 1217) was a pantheistic philosopher. He may have been a member of, or at least been influenced by, a pantheistic sect known as the Amalricians. David was condemned by the Church in 1210 for his writing of the "Quaternuli" (Little Notebooks), which forced him to flee Paris. When and where he died is unknown; all that can be ascertained is that he died after the year 1215, as he was condemned again in the council of 1215.
Since David's works were banned, most of what is known of him is from the writings of his contemporaries and opponents, chiefly Albert the Great and St. Thomas. David's philosophy was that everything could be divided among bodies, minds, and eternal substances. The indivisible substrate or constituent of bodies is matter (yle); of minds or souls, intellect (nous); and of eternal substances, God (Deus). These three, matter, intellect, and God, are actually one and the same. Consequently all things, material, intellectual, and spiritual, have one and the same essence — God.
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David Strauss
David Friedrich Strauss (or Strauß) (January 27, 1808, Ludwigsburg – February 8, 1874, Ludwigsburg) was a German theologian and writer. He scandalized Christian Europe with his portrayal of the "historical Jesus", whose divine nature he denied. His work was connected to the Tübingen School, which revolutionized study of the New Testament, early Christianity, and ancient religions. Strauss was a pioneer in the historical investigation of Jesus.
Strauss was born at Ludwigsburg, near Stuttgart. At twelve he was sent to the Protestant (evangelische Gr.) seminary at Blaubeuren, near Ulm, to be prepared for the study of theology. Amongst the principal masters in the school were Professors Friedrich Heinrich Kern (1790–1842) and Ferdinand Christian Baur (1792–1860), who instilled in their pupils a deep appreciation for the ancient classics and the principles of textual criticism, which could be applied to texts in the sacred tradition as well as to classical ones. In 1825 Strauss entered the University of Tübingen. The professors of philosophy there failed to interest him, but he was strongly attracted by the writings of Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher (1768–1834). In 1830 he became an assistant to a country clergyman, and nine months later accepted the post of professor in the Evangelical Seminaries of Maulbronn and Blaubeuren, where he would teach Latin, history and Hebrew.
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Democritus
Democritus (Greek: Δημόκριτος, Dēmokritos, "chosen of the people") (ca. 460 BC – ca. 370 BC) was an Ancient Greek philosopher born in Abdera, Thrace, Greece. He was an influential pre-Socratic philosopher and pupil of Leucippus, who formulated an atomic theory for the cosmos.
His exact contributions are difficult to disentangle from his mentor Leucippus, as they are often mentioned together in texts. Their speculation on atoms, taken from Leucippus, bears a passing and partial resemblance to the nineteenth-century understanding of atomic structure that has led some to regard Democritus as more of a scientist than other Greek philosophers; however their ideas rested on very different bases. Largely ignored in ancient Athens, Democritus was nevertheless well known to his fellow northern-born philosopher Aristotle. Plato is said to have disliked him so much that he wished all his books burned. Many consider Democritus to be the "father of modern science".
Democritus was born in the city of Abdera in Thrace, an Ionian colony of Teos, although some called him a Milesian. He was born in the 80th Olympiad (460–457 BC) according to Apollodorus of Athens, and although Thrasyllus placed his birth in 470 BC, the later date is probably more likely.John Burnet has argued that the date of 460 is "too early", since according to Diogenes Laërtius ix.41, Democritus said that he was a "young man (neos)" during Anaxagoras' old age (circa 440–428). It was said that Democritus' father was so wealthy that he received Xerxes on his march through Abdera. Democritus spent the inheritance which his father left him on travels into distant countries, to satisfy his thirst for knowledge. He traveled to Asia, and was even said to have reached India and Ethiopia.
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Desiderius Erasmus
Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (October 28, 1466? – July 12, 1536), known as Erasmus of Rotterdam, was a Dutch Renaissance humanist, Catholic priest, social critic, teacher, and theologian.
Erasmus was a classical scholar who wrote in a pure Latin style. He was an early proponent of religious toleration, and enjoyed the sobriquet "Prince of the Humanists"; he has been called "the crowning glory of the Christian humanists." Using humanist techniques for working on texts, he prepared important new Latin and Greek editions of the New Testament. These raised questions that would be influential in the Protestant Reformation and Catholic Counter-Reformation. He also wrote The Praise of Folly, Handbook of a Christian Knight, On Civility in Children, Copia: Foundations of the Abundant Style, Julius Exclusus, and many other works.
Erasmus lived through the Reformation period, but while he was critical of the Church, he did not join the cause of the Reformers. In relation to clerical abuses in the Church, Erasmus remained committed to reforming the Church from within. He also held to Catholic doctrines such as that of free will, which some Reformers rejected in favor of the doctrine of predestination. His middle road approach disappointed and even angered scholars in both camps.
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Diagoras of Melos
Diagoras "the Atheist" of Melos (Διαγόρας ὁ Μήλιος) was a Greek poet and sophist of the 5th century BCE. Throughout antiquity he was regarded as an atheist. With the exception of this one point, there is little information concerning his life and beliefs. He spoke out against the Greek religion, and criticized the Eleusinian Mysteries. The Athenians accused him of impiety, and he was forced to flee the city. He died in Corinth.
Diagoras was the son of Telecleides or Teleclytus, and was born in the island of Melos, one of the Cyclades. According to the Suda, he was a disciple of Democritus after Democritus had paid a very large ransom to free Diagoras from captivity following the cruel subjugation of Melos under Alcibiades (416 BC); however no early sources mention an association with Democritus. The Suda also states that in his youth Diagoras had acquired some reputation as a lyric poet, and this is probably the cause of his being mentioned with the lyric poets Simonides, Pindar, and Bacchylides. Among his encomia is mentioned in particular a eulogy on Arianthes of Argos, who is otherwise unknown, another on Nicodorus, a statesman of Mantineia, and a third upon the Mantineians. Nicodorus was celebrated as a statesman and lawgiver in his native place; Aelian informs us that Diagoras was the lover of Nicodorus, and assisted Nicodorus in his legislation.
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Diodorus Siculus
Diodorus Siculus ([pronunciation?]; Greek: Διόδωρος Σικελιώτης, Diodoros Sikeliotes) was a Greek historian who flourished between 60 and 30 BC. According to Diodorus' own work, he was born at Agyrium in Sicily (now called Agira). With one exception, antiquity affords no further information about Diodorus' life and doings beyond what is to be found in his own work, Bibliotheca historica. Only Jerome, in his Chronicon under the "year of Abraham 1968" (i.e., 49 BC), writes, "Diodorus of Sicily, a writer of Greek history, became illustrious". His English translator, Charles Henry Oldfather, remarks on the "striking coincidence" that one of only two known Greek inscriptions from Agyrium (I.G. XIV, 588) is the tombstone of one "Diodorus, the son of Apollonius".
Diodorus' universal history, which he named Bibliotheca historica ("Historical Library"), consisted of 40 books, of which 1–5 and 11–20 survive, and were divided into three sections. The first six books treat the mythic history of the non-Hellenic and Hellenic tribes to the destruction of Troy and are geographical in theme, and describe the history and culture of Ancient Egypt (book I), of Mesopotamia, India, Scythia, and Arabia (II), of North Africa (III), and of Greece and Europe (IV–VI).
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Emil Brunner
Heinrich Emil Brunner (December 23, 1889, Winterthur – April 6, 1966, Zurich) was a Swiss Protestant (Reformed) theologian. Along with Karl Barth (see Relationship with Karl Barth), he is commonly associated with neo-orthodoxy or the dialectical theology movement.
Emil Brunner was born in Winterthur, near Zurich, Switzerland.
He studied at the universities of Zurich and Berlin, receiving his doctorate in theology from Zurich in 1913, with a dissertation on The Symbolic Element in Religious Knowledge. Brunner served as pastor from 1916 to 1924 in the mountain village of Obstalden in the Swiss Canton of Glarus. In 1919–1920 he spent a year in the United States studying at Union Theological Seminary in New York.
In 1921 Brunner published his Habilitationsschrift (a post-doctoral dissertation traditionally required in many countries in order to attain the position of a fully tenured professor) on Experience, Knowledge and Faith and in 1922 was appointed a Privatdozent at the University of Zurich. Soon after, another book followed: Mysticism and the Word (1924), which was a devastating critique of the liberal theology of Friedrich Schleiermacher. Brunner was rewarded for his literary efforts with his appointment in 1924 as Professor of Systematic and Practical Theology at the University of Zurich, a post which he held until his retirement in 1953. Following this appointment Brunner's reputation as a theologian continued to increase, particularly after the publication of two further important works in 1927, the first being The Philosophy of Religion from the Standpoint of Protestant Theology and second The Mediator.
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Enver Hoxha
Enver Hoxha ( pronunciation (help·info); 16 October 1908 – 11 April 1985) was the leader of Albania from the end of World War II until his death in 1985, as the First Secretary of the Party of Labour of Albania. He also served as Prime Minister of Albania from 1944 to 1954, Minister of Defence, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Chairman of the Democratic Front from 1945 to his death, and as Commander-in-Chief of the Albanian armed forces from 1944 to his death. Hoxha's leadership was characterized by his proclaimed firm adherence to anti-revisionist Marxism–Leninism from the mid-1970s onwards. After his break with Maoism in the 1976–1978 period, numerous Maoist parties declared themselves Hoxhaist. The International Conference of Marxist–Leninist Parties and Organizations (Unity & Struggle) is the most well known collection of these parties today.
Hoxha was born in Gjirokastër, a city in southern Albania (then under the Ottoman Empire) that has been home to many prominent families. He was the son of Halil Hoxha, a BektashiTosk cloth merchant who travelled widely across Europe and the United States of America, and Gjylihan (Gjylo) Hoxha. At age 16 he helped found and became secretary of the Students Society of Gjirokastër, which protested against the monarchist government. After the Society was closed down by the government, he left his hometown and moved to Korçë, continuing his studies in a French secondary school. There he learned French history, literature and philosophy. In this city he read for the first time the Communist Manifesto.
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Epicurus
Epicurus (Ancient Greek: Ἐπίκουρος, Epikouros, "ally, comrade"; 341 BCE – 270 BCE) was an ancient Greek philosopher as well as the founder of the school of philosophy called Epicureanism. Only a few fragments and letters remain of Epicurus's 300 written works. Much of what is known about Epicurean philosophy derives from later followers and commentators.
For Epicurus, the purpose of philosophy was to attain the happy, tranquil life, characterized by ataraxia—peace and freedom from fear—and aponia—the absence of pain—and by living a self-sufficient life surrounded by friends. He taught that pleasure and pain are the measures of what is good and evil, that death is the end of the body and the soul and should therefore not be feared, that the gods do not reward or punish humans, that the universe is infinite and eternal, and that events in the world are ultimately based on the motions and interactions of atoms moving in empty space.
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Ernest Nagel
Ernest Nagel (November 16, 1901 – September 20, 1985) was a Czech-American philosopher of science. Along with Rudolf Carnap, Hans Reichenbach, and Carl Hempel, he is sometimes seen as one of the major figures of the logical positivist movement.
Nagel was born in Nové Mesto nad Váhom (now in Slovakia, then Vágújhely and part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire). His mother, Frida Weiss, was from the nearby town of Vrbove (or Verbo). He emigrated to the United States at the age of 10 with his family, and became a U.S. citizen in 1919. He received a BSc from the City College of New York in 1923, and earned his PhD from Columbia University in 1931, with a dissertation on the concept of measurement. Except for one year (1966-1967) at Rockefeller University, he spent his entire academic career at Columbia, becoming a University Professor in 1967 until his retirement in 1970, after which he continued to teach. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1977.
His work concerned the philosophy of mathematical fields such as geometry and probability, quantum mechanics, and the status of reductive and inductive theories of science. His 1961 masterpiece, The Structure of Science, practically inaugurated the field of analytic philosophy of science. He expounded the different kinds of explanation in different fields, and was sceptical about attempts to unify the nature of scientific laws or explanations. He was the first to propose that by positing analytic equivalencies (or "bridge laws") between the terms of different sciences, one could eliminate all ontological commitments except those required by the most basic science. He also upheld the view that social sciences are scientific, and should adopt the same standards as natural sciences.
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Ernst Cassirer
Ernst Cassirer (German pronunciation: [kaˈsiːʁəʁ]; July 28, 1874 – April 13, 1945) was a German philosopher. Trained within the Neo-Kantian Marburg School, he followed his mentor Hermann Cohen in attempting to supply an idealistic philosophy of science, but after Cohen's death he developed a theory of symbolism, and used it to expand phenomenology of knowledge into a more general philosophy of culture. He is one of the leading C20th advocates of philosophical idealism.
Cassirer was born in Breslau (Wrocław), Silesia, into a Jewish family. He studied literature and philosophy at the University of Berlin. After working for many years as a Privatdozent at the Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin, he was elected in 1919 to the Philosophy chair at the newly-founded University of Hamburg, where he lectured until 1933, supervising amongst others the doctoral thesis of Leo Strauss. Because he was Jewish, he left Germany when the Nazis came to power.
After leaving Germany he taught for a couple of years in Oxford, before becoming a professor at Gothenburg University. When Cassirer considered Sweden too unsafe, he applied for a post at Harvard, but was rejected because thirty years earlier he had rejected a job offer from them. In 1941 he became a visiting professor at Yale University, before moving to Columbia University in New York City, where he lectured from 1943 until his death in 1945.
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Ernst Haeckel
Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel (February 16, 1834 – August 9, 1919), also written von Haeckel, was an eminent German biologist, naturalist, philosopher, physician, professor and artist who discovered, described and named thousands of new species, mapped a genealogical tree relating all life forms, and coined many terms in biology, including anthropogeny, ecology, phylum, phylogeny, stem cell, and the kingdom Protista. Haeckel promoted and popularized Charles Darwin's work in Germany and developed the controversial recapitulation theory ("ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny") claiming that an individual organism's biological development, or ontogeny, parallels and summarizes its species' evolutionary development, or phylogeny.
The published artwork of Haeckel includes over 100 detailed, multi-colour illustrations of animals and sea creatures (see: Kunstformen der Natur, "Art Forms of Nature"). As a philosopher, Ernst Haeckel wrote Die Welträtsel (1895–1899, in English, The Riddle of the Universe, 1901), the genesis for the term "world riddle" (Welträtsel); and Freedom in Science and Teaching to support teaching evolution. In the United States, Mount Haeckel, a 13,418 ft (4,090 m) summit in the Eastern Sierra Nevada, overlooking the Evolution Basin, is named in his honor, as is another Mount Haeckel, a 2,941 m (9,649 ft) summit in New Zealand; and the asteroid 12323 Haeckel. Ernst Haeckel house ("Villa Medusa") in Jena, Germany contains a historic library.
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Ernst Troeltsch
Ernst Troeltsch (17 February 1865 – 1 February 1923) was a German Protestant theologian and writer on philosophy of religion and philosophy of history, and an influential figure in German thought before 1914. His work was a synthesis of a number of strands, drawing on Albrecht Ritschl, Max Weber's conception of sociology, and the Neo-Kantians of the Baden school.
His The Social Teachings of the Christian Church (two volume edition in translation by Harper Row, 1960) is a seminal work in this area.
While religious thinking in the days of the Weimar Republic moved away from his direction, Troeltsch's work in the sociology of religion remains important.
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Euhemerus
Euhemerus (Ancient Greek: Εὐήμερος [Euhēmeros], "happy; prosperous") (late 4th century BC) was a Greek mythographer at the court of Cassander, the king of Macedon. Euhemerus' birthplace is disputed, with Messina in Sicily as the most probable location, while others champion Chios, or Tegea.
Little is known about Euhemerus's life, and his birthplace is disputed. Classical writers such as Diodorus Siculus,Plutarch, and Polybius, maintained that Euhemerus was a Messenian, but did not specify whether he came from the Peloponnesian or the Sicilian Messene, which was an ancient Greek colony. Other ancient testimonies placed his birth at Chios, Tegea (Pseudo-Plutarch, Plac. Phil.), or Agrigentum (Clement of Alexandria, Protrept.; Arnobius, Adv. Gent.). Most modern scholars however generally agree that Euhemerus came from the Sicilian Messene (Messina). Diodorus Siculus is one of the very few sources which provides other details about Euhemerus' life. According to Diodorus, Euhemerus was a personal friend of Cassander, king of Macedonia (c. 305 – 297 BC) and the most prominent mythographer for the Macedonian court. Sometime in the early 3rd century BC Euhemerus wrote his main work Sacred History ("Hiera Anagraphê").
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Financial Times
The Financial Times (FT) is an international business newspaper. It is a morning daily newspaper published in London and printed in 24 cities around the world.
Along with FT.com, it has an average daily readership of 2.1 million people worldwide (PwC audited figures, November 2011). FT.com has 4 million registered users and 250,000 digital subscribers, as well as 585,681 paying users. FT Chinese has more than 1.7 million registered users. The Financial Times in print format has an average daily circulation of three hundred and five thousand copies worldwide (the British edition has a daily circulation of eighty eight thousand and a combined Saturday and Sunday, weekend, circulation of one hundred and thirteen thousand copies), as of April 2012.
Founded in 1888 by James Sheridan and Horatio Bottomley, the Financial Times competed with four other finance-oriented newspapers, in 1945 absorbing the last, the Financial News (founded in 1884). The FT specialises in UK and international business and financial news, and is printed as a broadsheet on light salmon paper.
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Frank Sulloway
Frank J. Sulloway (born 1947) is a visiting Scholar in the Institute of Personality and Social Research at the University of California, Berkeley, and a Visiting Professor in the Department of Psychology.
He graduated from Harvard College summa cum laude, and with a Ph.D. in the history of science. He was a visiting scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
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François Rabelais
François Rabelais (French pronunciation: [fʁɑ̃swa ʁablɛ]) (c. 1494 – 9 April 1553) was a major French Renaissance writer, doctor, Renaissance humanist, monk and Greek scholar. He has historically been regarded as a writer of fantasy, satire, the grotesque, bawdy jokes and songs. His best known work is Gargantua and Pantagruel.
Although the place or date of his birth is not reliably documented, and some scholars put it as early as 1483, it is probable that François Rabelais was born in November 1494 near Chinon, Indre-et-Loire, where his father worked as a lawyer.La Devinière in Seuilly, Indre-et-Loire, is the name of the estate that claims to be the writer's birthplace and houses a Rabelais museum.
Rabelais was first a novice of the Franciscan order, and later a friar at Fontenay-le-Comte, where he studied Greek and Latin, as well as science, philology, and law, already becoming known and respected by the humanists of his era, including Budé. Harassed due to the directions of his studies, Rabelais petitioned Pope Clement VII and was granted permission to leave the Franciscans and enter the Benedictine order at Maillezais, where he was more warmly received.
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Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels (German pronunciation: [ˈfʁiːdʁɪç ˈɛŋəls]; 28 November 1820 – 5 August 1895) was a German-English industrialist, social scientist, author, political theorist, philosopher, and father of Marxist theory, alongside Karl Marx. In 1845 he published The Condition of the Working Class in England, based on personal observations and research. In 1848 he co-authored The Communist Manifesto with Karl Marx, and later he supported Marx financially to do research and write Das Kapital. After Marx's death Engels edited the second and third volumes. Additionally, Engels organized Marx's notes on the "Theories of Surplus Value" and this was later published as the "fourth volume" of Capital.
Friedrich (Frederick) Engels was born on November 28, 1820 in Barmen, Prussia (now Wuppertal, Germany). At the time, Barmen was an expanding industrial metropole and Frederick was the eldest son of a wealthy German cotton manufacturer. As his father, Friederich Sr., was a Methodist. Accordingly, Fredrick was raised Christian Pietist. As he grew up, his relationship with his parents became strained because of his atheist beliefs. Parental disapproval of his revolutionary activities is recorded in an October, 1848 letter from his mother, Elizabeth Engels. In this letter his mother berates him for having "really gone too far" and "begged" him "to proceed no further.". "You have paid more heed to other people, to strangers, and have taken no account of your mother's pleas. God alone knows what I have felt and suffered of late. I was trembling when I picked up the newspaper and saw therein that a warrant was out for my son's arrest." At the point this letter was written Frederick Engels was in hiding in Brussels, Belgium and was soon to make his way to Switzerland and then in 1849 make his way back into Germany to participate in the revolutionary uprising in Baden and Palatinate.
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Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche ( /ˈniːtʃə/;German pronunciation: [ˈfʁiːdʁɪç ˈvɪlhɛlm ˈniːtsʃə]; October 15, 1844 – August 25, 1900) was a German philosopher, poet, cultural critic and classical philologist. He wrote critical texts on religion, morality, contemporary culture, philosophy and science, displaying a fondness for metaphor, irony and aphorism.
Nietzsche's influence remains substantial within and beyond philosophy, notably in existentialism, nihilism and postmodernism. His style and radical questioning of the value and objectivity of truth have resulted in much commentary and interpretation, mostly in the continental tradition. His key ideas include the death of God, the Übermensch, the eternal recurrence, the Apollonian and Dionysian dichotomy, perspectivism and the will to power. Central to his philosophy is the idea of "life-affirmation", which involves an honest questioning of all doctrines that drain life's expansive energies, however socially prevalent and radical those views might be.
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Friedrich Solmsen
Friedrich W. Solmsen (February 4, 1904 – January 30, 1989) was a philologist and professor of classical studies. His edition of Hesiod is considered definitive. He published nearly 150 books, monographs, scholarly articles, and reviews from the 1930s through the 1980s. Solmsen's work is characterized by a prevailing interest in the history of ideas. He was an influential scholar in the areas of Greek tragedy, particularly for his work on Aeschylus, and the philosophy of the physical world and its relation to the soul, especially the systems of Plato and Aristotle.
Friedrich Solmsen, sometimes called "Fritz" by friends and intimates, was born and educated in Germany. He was among the "Graeca" of Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, the Graeca being a group of "young scholars" who met in his home during his last decade of life. In an essay fifty years later, Solmsen recalled those years and the legendary philologist in a biographical sketch that combines politico-historical perspective, sociology of academia, and personal, sometimes wry observations. "I do not recall Wilamowitz ever laughing aloud," he mused in a footnoted aside. "Nor did he ever grin." Solmsen was also a student of Eduard Norden, Otto Regenbogen, and Werner Jaeger, to the three of whom along with Wilamowitz he dedicated the first volume of his collected papers. He was one of the last people to whom the terminally ill Wilamowitz addressed correspondence.
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George Santayana
George Santayana (born Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás in Madrid, December 16, 1863; died September 26, 1952, in Rome) was a philosopher, essayist, poet, and novelist. A lifelong Spanish citizen, Santayana was raised and educated in the United States and identified himself as an American, although he always kept a validated Spanish passport. He wrote in English and is generally considered an American man of letters. At the age of forty-eight, Santayana left his position at Harvard and returned to Europe permanently, never to return to the United States. His last will was to be buried in the Spanish Pantheon of the Cimitero Monumentale del Verano in Rome.
Santayana is known for the sayings, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it", and "[O]nly the dead have seen the end of war." The latter sentence is often (for example, at the start of the film Blackhawk Down) falsely attributed to Plato; the former appears in Reason in Common Sense, the first volume of Santayana's five-volume Life of Reason. (In the 1905 Charles Scribner's Sons edition, it is found on page 284.) Santayana is broadly included among the pragmatists with Harvard University colleagues William James and Josiah Royce. He said that he stood in philosophy "exactly where [he stood] in daily life."
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Georges Bataille
Georges Albert Maurice Victor Bataille (French pronunciation: [ʒɔʁʒ baˈtaj]) (10 September 1897 – 9 July 1962) was a French intellectual and literary figure working in literature, anthropology, philosophy, economy, sociology and history of art. Eroticism, sovereignty, and transgression are at the core of his writings.
Georges Bataille was the son of Joseph-Aristide Bataille (b. 1851), a tax collector, and Antoinette-Aglae Tournarde (b. 1865). Born in Billom in the region of Auvergne, his family moved to Reims in 1898, where he was baptized. He went to school in Reims and then Épernay. Although brought up without religious observance, he "converted" to Catholicism in 1914, and became a devout Catholic for about nine years. He considered entering the priesthood and attended a Catholic seminary briefly. However, he quit, apparently in part in order to pursue an occupation where he could eventually support his mother. He eventually renounced Christianity in the early 1920s.
Bataille attended the École des Chartes in Paris, graduating in February 1922. Though he is often referred to as an archivist and a librarian because of his employment at the Bibliothèque Nationale, his work there was with the medallion collections (he also published scholarly articles on numismatics). His thesis at the École des Chartes was a critical edition of the medieval manuscript L’Ordre de chevalerie which he produced directly by classifying the eight manuscripts from which he reconstructed the poem. After graduating he moved to the School of Advanced Spanish Studies in Madrid. As a young man, he befriended, and was much influenced by, the Russian existentialist, Lev Shestov.
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Graham Oppy
Graham Robert Oppy (born 6 October 1960) is an Australian philosopher whose main area of research is the philosophy of religion. He currently holds the posts of Professor of Philosophy and Associate Dean of Research at Monash University and serves as Associate Editor of the Australasian Journal of Philosophy, and serves on the editorial boards of Philo, Philosopher's Compass, Religious Studies, and Sophia.
Graham Oppy was born in Benalla in 1960 to a Methodist family, but he ceased to be a religious believer as a young teenager. His family moved to Ballarat in 1965 and had his secondary schooling at Wesley College, Melbourne. He attended Melbourne University from 1979, where he completed two degrees: a BS in philosophy and a B.Sc in mathematics. In 1987 he started graduate work at Princeton University under the supervision of Gilbert Harman on questions in the philosophy of language.
He was a lecturer at the University of Wollongong from 1990–1992 and after doing a post-doc at the Australian National University, he came to Monash as a senior lecturer, and was promoted to Professor in 2005. He is currently Associate Dean of Research (since 2004) and Associate Dean of Graduate Studies in the Faculty of Arts at Monash University.
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Harald Høffding
Harald Høffding (11 March 1843 – 2 July 1931) was a Danish philosopher.
Born and educated in Copenhagen, he became a schoolmaster, and ultimately in 1883 a professor at the University of Copenhagen.[citation needed] He was strongly influenced by Søren Kierkegaard in his early development, but later became a positivist, retaining and combining with it the spirit and method of practical psychology and the critical school.[citation needed] The physicist Niels Bohr studied philosophy from and became a friend of Høffding.[citation needed]
Høffding died in Copenhagen.[citation needed]
His best-known work is perhaps his Den nyere Filosofis Historie (1894), translated into English from the German edition (1895) by B.E. Meyer as History of Modern Philosophy (2 vols., 1900), a work intended by him to supplement and correct that of Hans Brøchner, to whom it is dedicated. His Psychology, the Problems of Philosophy (1905) and Philosophy of Religion (1906) also have appeared in English.
Among Høffding's other writings, practically all of which have been translated into German, are: Den engelske Filosofi i vor Tid (1874); Etik (1876); Psychologi i Omrids paa Grundlag af Erfaring (ed. 1892); Psykologiske Undersøgelser (1889); Charles Darwin (1889); Kontinuiteten i Kants filosofiske Udviklingsgang (1893); Det psykologiske Grundlag for logiske Domme (1899); Rousseau und seine Philosophie (1901); Mindre Arbejder (1899).
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Heraclitus
Heraclitus of Ephesus (Ancient Greek: Ἡράκλειτος ὁ Ἐφέσιος—Hērákleitos ho Ephésios; c. 535 – c. 475 BCE) was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, a native of the Greek city Ephesus, Ionia, on the coast of Asia Minor. He was of distinguished parentage. Little is known about his early life and education, but he regarded himself as self-taught and a pioneer of wisdom. From the lonely life he led, and still more from the riddling nature of his philosophy and his contempt for humankind in general, he was called "The Obscure" and the "Weeping Philosopher".
Heraclitus is famous for his insistence on ever-present change in the universe, as stated in the famous saying, "No man ever steps in the same river twice" (see panta rhei, below). He believed in the unity of opposites, stating that "the path up and down are one and the same", all existing entities being characterized by pairs of contrary properties. His cryptic utterance that "all entities come to be in accordance with this Logos" (literally, "word", "reason", or "account") has been the subject of numerous interpretations.
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Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant (German pronunciation: [ɪˈmaːnu̯eːl ˈkant]; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher from Königsberg (today Kaliningrad of Russia), who researched, lectured, and wrote on philosophy and anthropology during the Enlightenment at the end of the 18th century. At the time, there were major successes and advances in the sciences (for example, Isaac Newton, Carl Friedrich Gauss, and Robert Boyle) applying reason and logic.
Kant’s major work, the Critique of Pure Reason (Kritik der reinen Vernunft, 1781), aimed to unite reason with experience to move beyond what he took to be failures of traditional philosophy and metaphysics. He hoped to end an age of speculation where objects outside experience were used to support what he saw as futile theories, while opposing the skepticism of thinkers such as Descartes, Berkeley and Hume.
He stated:
Kant proposed a ‘Copernican Revolution’ in reverse, saying that:
Kant published other important works on ethics, religion, law, aesthetics, astronomy, and history. These included the Critique of Practical Reason (Kritik der praktischen Vernunft, 1788) and the Metaphysics of Morals (Die Metaphysik der Sitten, 1797), which dealt with ethics. And the Critique of Judgment (Kritik der Urteilskraft, 1790), which looks at aesthetics and teleology. He aimed to resolve disputes between empirical and rationalist approaches. The former asserted that all knowledge comes through experience; the latter maintained that reason and innate ideas were prior. Kant argued that experience is purely subjective without first being processed by pure reason. He also said that using reason without applying it to experience only leads to theoretical illusions. The free and proper exercise of reason by the individual was both a theme of the Enlightenment, and of Kant's approaches to the various problems of philosophy.
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Jacques Hébert
Jacques René Hébert (15 November 1757 - 24 March 1794) was a French journalist, and the founder and editor of the extreme radical newspaper Le Père Duchesne during the French Revolution. His followers are usually referred to as the Hébertists or the Hébertistes; he himself is sometimes called Père Duchesne, after his newspaper.
He was born on 15 November 1757 at Alençon, to goldsmith, former trial judge, and deputy consul, Jacques Hébert (died 1766) and Marguerite Beunaiche de Houdrie (1727–1787). Jacques-René Hébert studied law at the College of Alençon and went into practice as a clerk in a solicitor of Alençon, at which time he was ruined by a lawsuit against a Dr. Clouet. Hébert fled first to Rouen and then to Paris. For a while he passed through a difficult financial time and lived through the support of a hairdresser in rue des Noyers. There he found work in a theater, la République, where he wrote plays in his spare time, but these were never produced. He was fired for stealing. He then entered the service of a doctor. It is said he lived through expediency and scams. In 1789 he began his writing with a pamphlet "la Lanterne magique ou le Fléau des Aristocrates" (Magic Lantern, or Scourge of Aristocrats). He published a few booklets. In 1790, he attracted attention through a pamphlet he published, and became a prominent member of the club of the Cordeliers in 1791.
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Jan Hus
Jan Hus (Czech pronunciation: [ˈjan ˈɦus] ( listen); c. 1369 – 6 July 1415), often referred to in English as John Hus or John Huss, was a Czech priest, philosopher, reformer, and master at Charles University in Prague. After John Wycliffe, the theorist of ecclesiastical Reformation, Hus is considered the first Church reformer (living prior to Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli).
He is famed for having been burned at the stake for heresy against the doctrines of the Catholic Church, including those on ecclesiology, the Eucharist, and other theological topics. Hus was a key predecessor to the Protestant movement of the sixteenth century, and his teachings had a strong influence on the states of Europe, most immediately in the approval for the existence of a reformist Bohemian religious denomination, and, more than a century later, on Martin Luther himself.
Between 1420 and 1431, the Hussite forces defeated five consecutive papal crusades against followers of Hus. Their defence and rebellion against Roman Catholics became known as the Hussite Wars. A century later, as many as 90% of inhabitants of the Czech lands were non-Catholic and followed the teachings of Hus and his successors.
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Jan Söderqvist
Jan Söderqvist, born 1961, is an author, lecturer, writer and consultant, and among other things also working as a literary and film critic for the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet. He has written the books Nätokraterna (published in English in 2003 as Netocracy: The New Power Elite & Life After Capitalism, as well as in 14 further languages), a second book titled Det globala imperiet (currently in translation to English as The Global Empire[citation needed]) and a third book titled Kroppsmaskinerna (originally published in 2009, currently in translation to English as The Body Machines[citation needed]) together with Alexander Bard, in which they present a philosophical vision for a global society following the interactive revolution.
Söderqvist is known as a critic of laws about Prostitution in Sweden and is one of the 15 founders of the Liberal Democratic Party of Sweden.
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Jean Meslier
Jean Meslier (15 June 1664 – 17 June 1729) was a French Catholic priest who was discovered, upon his death, to have written a book-length philosophical essay promoting atheism. Described by the author as his "testament" to his parishioners, the text denounces all religion.
Jean Meslier was born in Mazerny in the Ardennes. He began learning Latin from a neighborhood priest in 1678 and eventually joined the seminary; he later claimed, in the Author's Preface to his Testament, this was done to please his parents. At the end of his studies, he took Holy Orders and, on 7 January 1689, became priest at Étrépigny, in Champagne. One public disagreement with a local nobleman aside, Meslier was to all appearances generally unremarkable, and he performed his office without complaint or problem for 40 years. He lived like a pauper, and every penny left over was donated to the poor.
When Meslier died, there were found in his house three copies of a 633-page octavo manuscript in which the village curate denounces organized religion as "but a castle in the air" and theology as "but ignorance of natural causes reduced to a system".
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Jean Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (/ˈsɑːtrə/; French pronunciation: [saʁtʁ]; 21 June 1905 – 15 April 1980) was a French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the key figures in the philosophy of existentialism, and one of the leading figures in 20th century French philosophy and Marxism. His work, in addition to being influential to existentialism and Marxism, has also influenced sociology, critical theory, and literary studies, and continues to influence these disciplines. Sartre has also been noted for his relationship with the prominent feminist theorist Simone de Beauvoir.
He was awarded the 1964 Nobel Prize in Literature but refused it, saying that he always declined official honours and that, "a writer should not allow himself to be turned into an institution."
Jean-Paul Sartre was born in Paris as the only child of Jean-Baptiste Sartre, an officer of the French Navy, and Anne-Marie Schweitzer. His mother was of Alsatian origin and the first cousin of Nobel Prize laureate Albert Schweitzer. (Her father, Charles Schweitzer, was the older brother of Albert Schweitzer's father, Louis Théophile.) When Sartre was only a year old, his father died of a fever. Anne-Marie moved back to her parents' house in Meudon, where she raised Sartre with help from her father, a professor of German, who taught Sartre mathematics and introduced him to classical literature at a very early age. When he was twelve, Satre's mother remarried, and the family moved to La Rochelle, where he was frequently bullied.
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John Calvin
John Calvin (French: Jean Calvin, born Jehan Cauvin: 10 July 1509 – 27 May 1564) was an influential French theologian and pastor during the Protestant Reformation. He was a principal figure in the development of the system of Christian theology later called Calvinism. Originally trained as a humanist lawyer, he broke from the Roman Catholic Church around 1530. After religious tensions provoked a violent uprising against Protestants in France, Calvin fled to Basel, Switzerland, where he published the first edition of his seminal work The Institutes of the Christian Religion in 1536.
In that year, Calvin was recruited by William Farel to help reform the church in Geneva. The city council resisted the implementation of Calvin and Farel's ideas, and both men were expelled. At the invitation of Martin Bucer, Calvin proceeded to Strasbourg, where he became the minister of a church of French refugees. He continued to support the reform movement in Geneva, and was eventually invited back to lead its church.
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John Dewey
John Dewey (October 20, 1859 – June 1, 1952) was an American philosopher, psychologist and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. Dewey was an important early developer of the philosophy of pragmatism and one of the founders of functional psychology. He was a major representative of progressive education and liberalism.
Although Dewey is known best for his publications concerning education, he also wrote about many other topics, including experience, nature, art, logic, inquiry, democracy, and ethics.
In his advocacy of democracy, Dewey considered two fundamental elements—schools and civil society—as being major topics needing attention and reconstruction to encourage experimental intelligence and plurality. Dewey asserted that complete democracy was to be obtained not just by extending voting rights but also by ensuring that there exists a fully formed public opinion, accomplished by effective communication among citizens, experts, and politicians, with the latter being accountable for the policies they adopt.[citation needed]
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John of Mirecourt
John of Mirecourt, also known as Monachus Albus, was a Cistercian scholastic philosopher of the fourteenth century, from Mirecourt, Lorraine. He was a follower of William of Ockham; he was censured by Pope Clement VI.
Very little is known of the life of John of Mirecourt, but it seems that he was born at Mirecourt in Lorraine between 1310-1315. He lectured at the Cistercian College of St. Bernard in Paris, and rose to the height of his philosophical and theological fame around the year 1345. He is credited with writing a commentary on Peter Lombard's Sentences, and two subsequent apologies which were responses to various criticisms of his commentary. He wrote two versions of his commentary; the first of which was attacked by a Benedictine called Johannes Normanus. Mirecourt replied by issuing a Declaratio in which he explained the meanings behind his propositions. Nevertheless, acting upon the recommendation of the faculty of theology at the University of Paris, Robert of Bardis, the University chancellor, condemned 41 propositions that were drawn from Mirecourt's writings on the Sentences. Mirecourt responded to this condemnation by writing a second apology to no avail: he was censured in Paris by Pope Clement VI in 1347. After this censure, nothing further is known of him, including any approximation as to the date of his death. There is some speculation that scholarly jealousy and academic politics made up a portion of the motivation behind Mirecourt's censure; and as Mirecourt was not radical in all of his philosophical views, it is not unsubstantiated that his censure was in part the result of some ill-will from various of the nominalist factions.
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John Wycliffe
John Wycliffe ( /ˈwɪklɪf/; also spelled Wyclif, Wycliff, Wiclef, Wicliffe, or Wickliffe) (c. 1328 – December 31, 1384) was an English Scholastic philosopher, theologian, lay preacher,translator, reformer and university teacher at Oxford in England, who was known as an early dissident in the Roman Catholic Church during the 14th century. His followers were known as Lollards, a somewhat rebellious movement, which preached anticlerical and biblically-centered reforms. The Lollard movement was a precursor to the Protestant Reformation (for this reason, Wycliffe is sometimes called "The Morning Star of the Reformation"). He was one of the earliest opponents of papal authority influencing secular power.
Wycliffe was also an early advocate for translation of the Bible into the common language. He completed his translation directly from the Vulgate into vernacular English in the year 1382, now known as Wycliffe's Bible. It is probable that he personally translated the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; and it is possible he translated the entire New Testament, while his associates translated the Old Testament.Wycliffe's Bible appears to have been completed by 1384, with additional updated versions being done by Wycliffe's assistant John Purvey and others in 1388 and 1395.
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Julian Baggini
Julian Baggini (born 1968, UK) is the author of several books about philosophy written for a general audience. He is the author of The Pig that Wants to be Eaten and 99 other thought experiments (2005) and is co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Philosophers' Magazine. He was awarded his PhD in 1996 from University College London for a thesis on the philosophy of personal identity. He contributes to a variety of newspapers, magazines and BBC radio.
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Julius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar (Classical Latin: [ˈɡaː.i.ʊs ˈjuː.lɪ.ʊs ˈkaj.sar], July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC) was a Roman general and statesman and a distinguished writer of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire.
In 60 BC, Caesar, Crassus and Pompey formed a political alliance that was to dominate Roman politics for several years. Their attempts to amass power through populist tactics were opposed by the conservative elite within the Roman Senate[citation needed], among them Cato the Younger with the frequent support of Cicero. Caesar's conquest of Gaul, completed by 51 BC, extended Rome's territory to the English Channel and the Rhine. Caesar became the first Roman general to cross both when he built a bridge across the Rhine and conducted the first invasion of Britain.
These achievements granted him unmatched military power and threatened to eclipse Pompey's standing. The balance of power was further upset by the death of Crassus in 53 BC. Political realignments in Rome finally led to a standoff between Caesar and Pompey, the latter having taken up the cause of the Senate. Ordered by the Senate to stand trial in Rome for various charges, Caesar marched on Rome with one legion—legio XIII—from Gaul to Italy, crossing the Rubicon in 49 BC. This sparked a civil war from which he emerged as the unrivaled leader of the Roman world.
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Karen Armstrong
Karen Armstrong FRSL (born 14 November 1944), is a British author and commentator who is the author of twelve books on comparative religion. A former Roman Catholic nun, she went from a conservative to a more liberal and mystical faith. Armstrong first rose to prominence in 1993 with her book, A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, an international best seller that is now required reading in many theology courses. Her work focuses on commonalities of the major religions, such as the importance, in many, of compassion or "The Golden Rule".
Armstrong received the $100,000 TED Prize in February 2008. She used that occasion to call for the creation of a Charter for Compassion, which was unveiled the following year.
Armstrong was born at Wildmoor, Worcestershire, into a family of Irish extraction who, after her birth, moved to Bromsgrove and later to Birmingham. In 1962, while still in her teens, she became a nun in the Society of the Holy Child Jesus, a teaching order, in which she remained for seven years. Once she had advanced from postulant and novice to professed nun, she enrolled in St Anne's College, Oxford, to study English. Armstrong left her order in 1969 while still a student at Oxford. After graduating with a Congratulatory First, she embarked on a DPhil on the poet Tennyson. According to Armstrong, she wrote her dissertation on a topic that had been approved by the university committee. Nevertheless it was failed by her external examiner on the grounds that the topic had been unsuitable. Armstrong did not formally protest this verdict, nor did she embark upon a new topic but instead abandoned hope of an academic career. She reports that this period in her life was marked by ill-health stemming from her life-long but, at that time, still undiagnosed temporal epilepsy.
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Karl Barth
Karl Barth ((1886-05-10)May 10, 1886 – December 10, 1968(1968-12-10)) (pronounced "Bart") was a Swiss Reformed theologian whom many scholars hold to be among the most important thinkers of the 20th century; Pope Pius XII described him as the most important theologian since Thomas Aquinas. Beginning with his experience as a pastor, he rejected his training in the predominant liberal theology typical of 19th-century European Protestantism.
Instead he embarked on a new theological path initially called dialectical theology, due to its stress on the paradoxical nature of divine truth (e.g., God's relationship to humanity embodies both grace and judgment). Other critics have referred to Barth as the father of neo-orthodoxy — a term emphatically rejected by Barth himself. The most accurate description of his work might be "a theology of the Word." Barth's theological thought emphasized the sovereignty of God, particularly through his interpretation of the Calvinistic doctrine of election.
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Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx (5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement. He published various books during his lifetime, with the most notable being The Communist Manifesto (1848) and Capital (1867–1894); some of his works were co-written with his friend and fellow German revolutionary socialist, Friedrich Engels.
Born into a wealthy middle class family in Trier, formerly in Prussian Rhineland now called Rhineland-Palatinate, Marx studied at both the University of Bonn and the University of Berlin, where he became interested in the philosophical ideas of the Young Hegelians. In 1836, he became engaged to Jenny von Westphalen, marrying her in 1843. After his studies, he wrote for a radical newspaper in Cologne, and began to work out his theory of dialectical materialism. Moving to Paris in 1843, he began writing for other radical newspapers. He met Engels in Paris, and the two men worked together on a series of books. Exiled to Brussels, he became a leading figure of the Communist League, before moving back to Cologne, where he founded his own newspaper. In 1849 he was exiled again and moved to London together with his wife and children. In London, where the family was reduced to poverty, Marx continued writing and formulating his theories about the nature of society and how he believed it could be improved, and also campaigned for socialism—he became a significant figure in the International Workingmen's Association.
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Lactantius
Lucius Caecilius Firmianus Lactantius was an early Christian author (ca. 240 – ca. 320) who became an advisor to the first Christian Roman emperor, Constantine I, guiding his religious policy as it developed, and tutor to his son.
Lactantius, a Latin-speaking native of North Africa, was a pupil of Arnobius and taught rhetoric in various cities of the Eastern Roman Empire, ending in Constantinople. He wrote apologetic works explaining Christianity in terms that would be palatable to educated people who still practiced the traditional religions of the Empire, while defending Christian beliefs against the criticisms of Hellene philosophers. His Divinae Institutiones ("Divine Institutes") is an early example of a systematic presentation of Christian thought. He was considered somewhat heretical after his death, but Renaissance humanists took a renewed interest in him, more for his elaborately rhetorical Latin style than for his theology.
A translator of the Divine Institutes starts his introduction as follows:
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Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (Italian pronunciation: [leoˈnardo da ˈvintʃi] pronunciation (help·info); April 15, 1452 – May 2, 1519, Old Style) was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist, and writer whose genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal. Leonardo has often been described as the archetype of the Renaissance Man, a man of "unquenchable curiosity" and "feverishly inventive imagination". He is widely considered to be one of the greatest painters of all time and perhaps the most diversely talented person ever to have lived. According to art historian Helen Gardner, the scope and depth of his interests were without precedent and "his mind and personality seem to us superhuman, the man himself mysterious and remote". Marco Rosci points out, however, that while there is much speculation about Leonardo, his vision of the world is essentially logical rather than mysterious, and that the empirical methods he employed were unusual for his time.
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Lev Shestov
Lev Isaakovich Shestov (Russian: Лев Исаа́кович Шесто́в), born Yehuda Leyb Schwarzmann (Russian: Иегуда Лейб Шварцман), was a Ukrainian/Russian existentialist philosopher. Born in Kiev (Russian Empire) on February 13 [O.S. January 31] 1866, he emigrated to France in 1921, fleeing from the aftermath of the October Revolution. He lived in Paris until his death on November 19, 1938.
Shestov was born Lev Isaakovich Schwarzmann in Kiev into a Jewish family. He obtained an education at various places, due to fractious clashes with authority. He went on to study law and mathematics at the Moscow State University but after a clash with the Inspector of Students he was told to return to Kiev, where he completed his studies.
Shestov's dissertation prevented him from becoming a doctor of law, as it was dismissed on account of its revolutionary tendencies. In 1898 he entered a circle of prominent Russian intellectuals and artists which included Nikolai Berdyaev, Sergei Diaghilev, Dmitri Merezhkovsky and Vasily Rozanov. Shestov contributed articles to a journal the circle had established. During this time he completed his first major philosophical work, Good in the Teaching of Tolstoy and Nietzsche: Philosophy and Preaching; both authors mentioned in the title had a profound impact on Shestov's thinking.
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Loyal Rue
Loyal Rue is an American philosopher and writer whose research focuses on naturalistic theories of religion. He is Professor Emeritus in the philosophy and religion departments at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa.
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Lucretius
Titus Lucretius Carus (ca. 99 BC – ca. 55 BC) was a Roman poet and philosopher. His only known work is the epic philosophical poem De rerum natura about the beliefs of Epicureanism, and which is translated into English as On the Nature of Things or "On the Nature of the Universe".
Virtually nothing is known about the life of Lucretius. Jerome tells how he was driven mad by a love potion and wrote his poetry between fits of insanity, eventually committing suicide in middle age; but modern scholarship suggests this account was likely an invention. The De rerum natura was a considerable influence on the Augustan poets, particularly Virgil (in his Aeneid and Georgics, and to a lesser extent in his Eclogues) and Horace. It virtually disappeared during the Middle Ages, but was rediscovered in a monastery in Germany in 1417, by Poggio Bracciolini, and played an important role both in the development of atomism (Lucretius was an important influence on Pierre Gassendi) and the efforts of various figures of the Enlightenment era to construct a new Christian humanism.
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Ludwig Feuerbach
Ludwig Andreas von Feuerbach (July 28, 1804, Landshut, Lower Bavaria – September 13, 1872) was a German philosopher and anthropologist. He was the fourth son of the eminent jurist Paul Johann Anselm Ritter von Feuerbach, brother of mathematician Karl Wilhelm Feuerbach and uncle of painter Anselm Feuerbach. An associate of Left Hegelian circles, Feuerbach was politically liberal, an atheist and a materialist. Many of his philosophical writings offered a critical analysis of Christianity. His thought was influential in the development of dialectical materialism, where he is often recognized as a bridge between Hegel and Marx.
Feuerbach matriculated in the University of Heidelberg with the intention of pursuing a career in the church.[citation needed] Through the influence of Prof. Karl Daub he was led to an interest in the then predominant philosophy of Hegel and, in spite of his father's opposition, enrolled in the University of Berlin in order to study under the master himself. After 22 years, the Hegelian influence began to slacken. Feuerbach became associated with a group known as the Young Hegelians, alternately known as the Left Hegelians, who synthesized a radical offshoot of Hegelian philosophy, interpreting Hegel's dialectic march of spirit through history to mean that existing Western culture and institutional forms—and, in particular, Christianity—would be superseded. "Theology," he wrote to a friend, "I can bring myself to study no more. I long to take nature to my heart, that nature before whose depth the faint-hearted theologian shrinks back; and with nature man, man in his entire quality." These words are a key to Feuerbach's development. He completed his education at Erlangen, at the Friedrich-Alexander-University, Erlangen-Nuremberg with the study of natural science.
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Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein (26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrian-British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. He was professor in philosophy at the University of Cambridge from 1939 until 1947. In his lifetime, he published just one book review, one article, a children's dictionary, and the 75-page Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921). In 1999, his posthumously published Philosophical Investigations (1953) was ranked as the most important book of 20th-century philosophy, standing out as "...the one crossover masterpiece in twentieth-century philosophy, appealing across diverse specializations and philosophical orientations".Bertrand Russell described him as "the most perfect example I have ever known of genius as traditionally conceived, passionate, profound, intense, and dominating".
Born in Vienna into one of Europe's wealthiest families, he gave away his entire inheritance. Three of his brothers committed suicide, with Ludwig contemplating it too. He left academia several times: serving as an officer on the frontline during World War I, where he was decorated a number of times for his courage; teaching in schools in remote Austrian villages, where he encountered controversy for hitting children when they made mistakes in mathematics; and working during World War II as a hospital porter in London, where he told patients not to take the drugs they were prescribed, and where no-one knew he was one of the world's most famous philosophers. He described philosophy, however, as "the only work that gives me real satisfaction."
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Maimonides
Mosheh ben Maimon משה בן מימון, called Moses Maimonides and also known as Mūsā ibn Maymūn (Arabic: موسى بن ميمون), or RaMBaM (רמב"ם – Hebrew acronym for "Rabbi Mosheh Ben Maimon"), was a preeminent medieval Jewish philosopher and one of the most prolific and followed Torah scholars and physicians of the Middle Ages. He was born in Córdoba, Almoravid Empire (present-day Spain) on Passover Eve, 1135, and died in Egypt (or Tiberias) on 20th Tevet, December 12, 1204. He was a rabbi, physician and philosopher in Morocco and Egypt.
Although his writings on Jewish law and ethics were met with acclaim and gratitude from most Jews even as far off as Spain, Iraq and Yemen, and he rose to be the revered head of the Jewish community in Egypt, there were also vociferous critics of some of his rulings and other writings particularly in Spain. Nevertheless, he was posthumously acknowledged to be one of the foremost rabbinical arbiters and philosophers in Jewish history, his copious work a cornerstone of Jewish scholarship. His fourteen-volume Mishneh Torah still carries canonical authority as a codification of Talmudic law. In the Yeshiva world he is known as "haNesher haGadol" (the great eagle) in recognition of his outstanding status as a bona fide exponent of the Oral Torah.
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Manichaeism
Manichaeism ( /ˈmænɨkiːɪzəm/; in Modern Persian آیین مانی Āyin e Māni; Chinese: 摩尼教; pinyin: Móní Jiào) was a major gnostic religion, originating in Sassanid era Babylonia. Although most of the original writings of the founding prophet Mani (in Persian: مانی, Syriac: ܡܐܢܝ, Latin: Manichaeus or Manes) (c. 216–276 CE) have been lost, numerous translations and fragmentary texts have survived.
Manichaeism taught an elaborate cosmology describing the struggle between a good, spiritual world of light, and an evil, material world of darkness. Through an ongoing process which takes place in human history, light is gradually removed from the world of matter and returned to the world of light from which it came. Its beliefs, based on local Mesopotamian gnostic and religious movements, contained elements of Christianity, Zoroastrianism and Buddhism.
Manichaeism thrived between the third and seventh centuries, and at its height was one of the most widespread religions in the world. Manichaean churches and scriptures existed as far east as China and as far west as the Roman Empire. It was widespread among the legions of the Roman Empire, who considered it a soldier's religion, and it was briefly the main rival to Christianity in the competition to replace classical paganism. Manichaeism survived longer in the East than in the West, and it appears to have finally faded away after the 14th century in southern China, contemporary to the decline in China of the Church of the East – see Ming Dynasty.
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Martin Buber
Martin Buber (Hebrew: מרטין בובר; February 8, 1878 – June 13, 1965) was an Austrian-born Jewish philosopher best known for his philosophy of dialogue, a form of religious existentialism centered on the distinction between the I-Thou relationship and the I-It relationship. Born in Vienna, Buber came from a family of observant Jews, but broke with Jewish custom to pursue secular studies in philosophy. In 1902, Buber became the editor of the weekly Die Welt, the central organ of the Zionist movement, although he later withdrew from organizational work in Zionism. In 1923 Buber wrote his famous essay on existence, Ich und Du (later translated into English as I and Thou), and in 1925 he began translating the Hebrew Bible into the German language.
In 1930 Buber became an honorary professor at the University of Frankfurt am Main, and resigned in protest from his professorship immediately after Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933. He then founded the Central Office for Jewish Adult Education, which became an increasingly important body as the German government forbade Jews to attend public education. In 1938, Buber left Germany and settled in Jerusalem, Palestine, receiving a professorship at Hebrew University and lecturing in anthropology and introductory sociology.
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Martin Lings
Martin Lings (also known as Abu Bakr Siraj Ad-Din) (January 24, 1909 – May 12, 2005) was an English Muslim writer and scholar, a student and follower of Frithjof Schuon, and Shakespearean scholar. He is best known as the author of a very popular and positively reviewed biography, Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources, first published in 1983 and still in print.
Lings was born in Burnage, Manchester in 1909 to a Protestant family. The young Lings gained an introduction to travelling at a young age, spending significant time in the United States due to his father's employment. Lings attended Clifton College and went on to Magdalen College, Oxford, where he gained a BA in English Language and Literature. At Magdalen, he was a student and then a close friend of C. S. Lewis. After graduating from Oxford Lings went to Vytautas Magnus University, in Lithuania, where he taught Anglo-Saxon and Middle English.
For Lings himself, however, the most important event whilst at Oxford was his discovery of the writings of the René Guénon, a French metaphysician and Muslim convert, and those of Frithjof Schuon, a German spiritual authority, metaphysician and Perennialist. In 1938, Lings went to Basle to make Schuon's acquaintance and he remained Frithjof Schuon's disciple and expositor for the rest of his life.[citation needed]
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Martin Luther
Martin Luther (help·info) (10 November 1483 – 18 February 1546) was a German monk, priest, professor of theology and iconic figure of the Protestant Reformation. He strongly disputed the claim that freedom from God's punishment for sin could be purchased with money. He confronted indulgence salesman Johann Tetzel with his Ninety-Five Theses in 1517. His refusal to retract all of his writings at the demand of Pope Leo X in 1520 and the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V at the Diet of Worms in 1521 resulted in his excommunication by the pope and condemnation as an outlaw by the Emperor.
Luther taught that salvation is not earned by good deeds but received only as a free gift of God's grace through faith in Jesus Christ as redeemer from sin. His theology challenged the authority of the Pope of the Roman Catholic Church by teaching that the Bible is the only source of divinely revealed knowledge and opposed sacerdotalism by considering all baptized Christians to be a holy priesthood. Those who identify with Luther's teachings are called Lutherans.
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Max Stirner
Johann Kaspar Schmidt (October 25, 1806 – June 26, 1856), better known as Max Stirner was a German philosopher who was one of the forerunners in nihilism, existentialism, post-modernism, and anarchism, especially of individualist anarchism. Stirner's main work is The Ego and Its Own, also known as The Ego and His Own (Der Einzige und sein Eigentum in German, which translates literally as The Unique One and his Property). This work was first published in 1844 in Leipzig, and has since appeared in numerous editions and translations.
Stirner was born in Bayreuth, Bavaria. What little is known of his life is mostly due to the Scottish born German writer John Henry Mackay, who wrote a biography of Stirner (Max Stirner - sein Leben und sein Werk), published in German in 1898 (enlarged 1910, 1914), and translated into English in 2005.
Stirner was the only child of Albert Christian Heinrich Schmidt (1769–1807) and Sophia Elenora Reinlein (1778–1839). His father died of tuberculosis on the April 19, 1807 at the age of 37. In 1809 his mother remarried to Heinrich Ballerstedt, a pharmacist, and settled in West Prussian Kulm (now Chełmno, Poland).
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Mazdak
Mazdak (in Persian مزدک) (died c. 524 or 528) was a proto-socialistPersian reformer and religious activist who gained influence under the reign of the Sassanian Shahanshah Kavadh I. He claimed to be a prophet of God, and instituted communal possessions and social welfare programs.
Mazdak was the chief representative of a religious and philosophical teaching called Mazdakism, which he viewed as a reformed and purified version of Zoroastrianism, although his teaching has been argued to display influences from Manichaeism as well. Zoroastrianism was the dominant religion of Sassanid Persia, and Mazdak himself was a Zoroastrian priest, or mobed, but most of the Zoroastrian clergy regarded his teaching as a heresy. Information about it is scarce and little is known beyond what is listed below; some further details may be inferred from the later doctrine of Khurramism, which has been seen as a continuation of Mazdakism.
Some sources claim that the original founders of this sect lived earlier than Mazdak. These were another mobed named Zardusht (of the same name, but not the same person as the founder of Zoroastrianism) and/or a Zoroastrian philosopher known as Mazdak the Elder, who taught a combination of altruism and hedonism: "he directed his followers to enjoy the pleasures of life and satisfy their appetite in the highest degree with regard to eating and drinking in the spirit of equality,to aim at good deeds; to abstain from shedding blood and inflicting harm on others; and to practice hospitality without reservation". This doctrine was further developed by the best known Mazdak, Mazdak the Younger, son of Bāmdād. At later stages the opposition to Mazdak blamed them for heresy and sharing women etc. which is not true. They are considered to be the first real socialists of human history who emphasized the community work and benefits for all.
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Meredith Hanmer
Meredith Hanmer (1543–1604) was a Welsh clergyman, known as a controversialist, historian, and translator. He was considered embittered, by the Lord-Deputy William Russell, 1st Baron Russell of Thornhaugh; but he appears now as a shrewd observer of the Protestant and nonconformist life of Ireland as founded around Trinity College, Dublin.
The son of Richard ap David ap Howel Goch of Pentre-pant, Selattyn, near Oswestry,, he was born at Porkington in Shropshire in 1543. He was educated at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where he obtained a chaplaincy in 1567, and graduated B.A. 1568, M.A. 1572, and D.D. 1582. On 7 June 1575, by a special dispensation, he was allowed to supplicate for the degree of B.D., as a nobleman's chaplain, while of less than the customary standing; but the degree was not granted till 1581.
He was vicar of St. Leonard's, Shoreditch, from 8 December 1581 till June 1592, and vicar of St Mary's, Islington from 4 November 1583 to 5 September 1590. At Shoreditch he made himself notorious by removing the monumental brasses in the church, which he was believed to have done for his own gain. In 1584, when George Talbot, 6th Earl of Shrewsbury was examined as to the circulation of a libel that he had got Mary, Queen of Scots by child, Hanmer appeared as a witness against the earl, and is described by William Fleetword, recorder of London, who appeared in the case, as 'regarding not' an oath, 'and as a very bad man'. According to the consistorial acts of the diocese of Rochester, Hanmer was charged between 1588 and 1590 with having celebrated a marriage without banns or license.
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Michael Shermer
Michael Brant Shermer, PhD (born September 8, 1954 in Glendale, California, USA) is an American science writer, historian of science, founder of The Skeptics Society, and Editor in Chief of its magazine Skeptic, which is largely devoted to investigating pseudoscientific and supernatural claims. The Skeptics Society currently has over 55,000 members. Shermer also engages in debates on topics pertaining to pseudoscience and religion in which he promulgates the need for scientific skepticism.
Shermer is also the producer and co-host of the 13-hour Fox Family (now ABC Family) television series Exploring the Unknown. Since April 2001, he has been a monthly columnist for Scientific American magazine with his Skeptic column. Shermer states he was once a fundamentalist Christian, but converted from a belief in God during his graduate studies, and has described himself as an agnostic,nontheist,atheist and advocate for humanist philosophy as well as the science of morality. He has expressed reservations about such labels, however, as he sees them being used in the service of "pigeonholing", and prefers to simply be called a skeptic.
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Mikhail Bakunin
Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin (Russian: Михаи́л Алекса́ндрович Баку́нин; IPA: [mʲɪxɐˈil ˌbaˈkunʲin]; 30 May [O.S. 18 May] 1814 – 1 July 1876) was a well-known Russian revolutionary and philosopher, theorist of collectivist anarchism. He has also often been called the father of anarchist theory in general. Bakunin grew up in Premukhino, a family estate near Moscow, where he moved to study philosophy and began to read the French Encyclopedists, leading to enthusiasm for the philosophy of Fichte. From Fichte, Bakunin went on to immerse himself in the works of Hegel, the most influential thinker among German intellectuals at the time. That led to his wholehearted embrace of Hegelianism, as he became bedazzled by Hegel's famous maxim; "Everything that exists is rational". In 1840 Bakunin traveled to St. Petersburg and Berlin, preparing himself for a professorship in philosophy or history at the University of Moscow.
Bakunin moved from Berlin, in 1842, to Dresden. Eventually he arrived in Paris, where he met George Sand, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and Karl Marx. He was eventually deported from France for speaking against Russia's oppression of Poland. In 1849 he was apprehended in Dresden for his participation in the Czech rebellion of 1848. He was turned over to Russia where he was imprisoned in Peter-Paul Fortress in Saint Petersburg. He remained there until 1857, when he was exiled to a work camp in Siberia. Escaping to Japan, the USA and finally ending up in London for a short time, he worked with Herzen on the journal Kolokol ("The Bell"). In 1863, he left to join the insurrection in Poland, but he failed to reach his destination and spent some time in Switzerland and Italy. Despite his criminal status, Bakunin gained great influence with the youth in Russia, and all of Europe. In 1870, he was involved in the insurrection in Lyon, which foreshadowed the Paris Commune.
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Mircea Eliade
Mircea Eliade (Romanian pronunciation: [ˈmirt͡ʃe̯a eliˈade]; March 13 [O.S. February 28] 1907 – April 22, 1986) was a Romanian historian of religion, fiction writer, philosopher, and professor at the University of Chicago. He was a leading interpreter of religious experience, who established paradigms in religious studies that persist to this day. His theory that hierophanies form the basis of religion, splitting the human experience of reality into sacred and profane space and time, has proved influential. One of his most influential contributions to religious studies was his theory of Eternal Return, which holds that myths and rituals do not simply commemorate hierophanies, but, at least to the minds of the religious, actually participate in them.
His literary works belong to the fantasy and autobiographical genres. The best known are the novels Maitreyi ("La Nuit Bengali" or "Bengal Nights"), Noaptea de Sânziene ("The Forbidden Forest"), Isabel şi apele diavolului ("Isabel and the Devil's Waters") and the Novel of the Nearsighted Adolescent, the novellas Domnişoara Christina ("Miss Christina") and Tinereţe fără tinereţe ("Youth Without Youth"), and the short stories Secretul doctorului Honigberger ("The Secret of Dr. Honigberger") and La Ţigănci ("With the Gypsy Girls").
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Niccolò Machiavelli
Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli (Italian pronunciation: [nikkoˌlɔ makjaˈvɛlli], 3 May 1469 – 21 June 1527) was an Italian historian, diplomat, philosopher, humanist and writer based in Florence during the Renaissance. A founder of modern political science, he was a diplomat, political philosopher, playwright, and a civil servant of the Florentine Republic. He also wrote comedies, carnival songs, and poetry. His personal correspondence is renowned in the Italian language. He was Secretary to the Second Chancery of the Republic of Florence from 1498 to 1512, when the Medici were out of power. He wrote his masterpiece, The Prince after the Medici had recovered power and he no longer held a position of responsibility in Florence, and is respectively interpreted by many as a satire of these powers.
Machiavelli was born in Florence, Italy, the first son and third child of attorney, Bernardo di Niccolò Machiavelli, and his wife, Bartolomea di Stefano Nelli. The Machiavelli family are believed to be descended from the old marquesses of Tuscany and to have produced thirteen Florentine Gonfalonieres of Justice, one of the offices of a group of nine citizens selected by drawing lots every two months, who formed the government, or Signoria. Machiavelli, like many people of Florence, was however not a full citizen of Florence, due to the nature of Florentine citizenship in that time, even under the republican regime.
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Nicholas of Cusa
Nicholas of Kues (1401 – August 11, 1464), also referred to as Nicolaus Cusanus and Nicholas of Cusa, was a cardinal of the Catholic Church from Germany (Holy Roman Empire), a philosopher, theologian, jurist, mathematician, and an astronomer. He is widely considered one of the great geniuses and polymaths of the 15th century. He is today recognized for significant spiritual, scientific and political contributions in European history, notable examples of which include his mystical or spiritual writings on 'learned ignorance' (and mathematical ideas expressed in related essays), as well as his participation in power struggles between Rome and the German states of the Holy Roman Empire.
Nicholas of Cusa or Kues (Latinized as "Cusa") was the second of four children of Johan Krebs (or Cryfftz) and Katherina Roemer. His father was "a prosperous boat owner and ferryman." He entered the University of Heidelberg in 1416 as "a cleric of the diocese of Trier" studying the liberal arts. He then received his doctorate in Canon law from the University of Padua in 1423. Afterwards, he entered the University of Cologne in 1425 as "a doctor of canon law" which it appears he both taught and practiced there. Following this brief period in Cologne, he became secretary to Otto of Ziegenhain, the Archbishop of Trier, and represented him in Rome in 1427. After the death of Otto, during the period when the archbishopric of Trier was contested by opposing parties, he attended the Council of Basel (1431–49), representing Ulrich von Manderscheid, one of the claimants.
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Paul Tillich
Paul Johannes Tillich (August 20, 1886 – October 22, 1965) was a German-American theologian and Christian existentialist philosopher. Tillich was one of the most influential Protestant theologians of the 20th century. Among the general public, he is best known for his works The Courage to Be (1952) and Dynamics of Faith (1957), which introduced issues of theology and modern culture to a general readership. Theologically, he is best known for his major three-volume work Systematic Theology (1951–63), in which he developed his "method of correlation": an approach of exploring the symbols of Christian revelation as answers to the problems of human existence raised by contemporary existential philosophical analysis.
Tillich was born on August 20, 1886, in the small village of Starzeddel Silesia which was then part of Germany. He was the oldest of three children, with two sisters: Johanna (b. 1888, d. 1920) and Elisabeth (b. 1893). Tillich’s Prussian father Johannes Tillich was a conservative Lutheran pastor of the Evangelical State Church of Prussia's older Provinces; his mother Mathilde Dürselen was from the Rhineland and was more liberal. When Tillich was four, his father became superintendent of a diocese in Schönfliess, a town of three thousand, where Tillich began elementary school. In 1898, Tillich was sent to Königsberg Chojna to begin gymnasium. At Königsberg, he lived in a boarding house and experienced loneliness that he sought to overcome by reading the Bible. Simultaneously, however, he was exposed to humanistic ideas at school.
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Pavel Florensky
Pavel Alexandrovich Florensky (also P.A. Florenskiĭ, Florenskii, Florenskij, Russian: Па́вел Алекса́ндрович Флоре́нский) (January 21 [O.S. January 9] 1882 - December 1937) was a Russian Orthodox theologian, priest, philosopher, mathematician, physicist, electrical engineer, inventor and Neomartyr.
Pavel Aleksandrovich Florensky was born on January 21, 1882, into the family of a railroad engineer, (Aleksandr Florensky) in the town of Yevlakh in western Azerbaijan. His father came from a family of Russian Orthodox priests while his mother Olga (Salomia) Saparova (Saparyan, Sapharashvili) was of the Tbilisi Armenian nobility. His maternal grandmother Sofia Paatova (Paatashvili) was from Sighnaghi, Georgia. Florensky "always searched for the roots of his Armenian family" and noted that they're coming from Karabakh.
After graduating from Tbilisi gymnasium in 1899, Florensky entered the department of mathematics of Moscow State University and simultaneously studied philosophy. During this period the young Florensky, who had no religious upbringing, began taking an interest in studies beyond "the limitations of physical knowledge..." In 1904 he graduated from Moscow State University and declined a teaching position at the University: instead, he proceeded to study theology at the Ecclesiastical Academy in Sergiyev Posad. During his theological study, he first came into contact with who would become his spiritual father and mentor, Elder Isidore on a visit to Gethsemane Hermitage. Together with fellow students Ern, Svenitsky and Brikhnichev he founded a society, the Christian Struggle Union (Союз Христиaнской Борьбы), with the revolutionary aim of rebuilding Russian society according to the principles of Vladimir Solovyov. Subsequently he was arrested for membership in this society in 1906: however, he later lost his interest in the Radical Christianity movement.
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Peter Geach
Peter Thomas Geach, MA, FBA ( /ˈɡiːtʃ/; born 29 March 1916) is a British philosopher. His areas of interest are the history of philosophy, philosophical logic, and the theory of identity.
Geach was educated at Balliol College, Oxford. He taught at Birmingham University (1951–1966) and from 1966 at the University of Leeds where he was Professor of Logic in the Department of Philosophy. Geach was given the title of Emeritus Professor of Logic on his retirement in 1981.
Geach was elected a Fellow of the British Academy (FBA) in 1965.
He has been awarded the papal cross "Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice" by the Holy See for his philosophical work.
His early work includes the classic texts Mental Acts and Reference and Generality, the latter defending an essentially modern conception of reference against medieval theories of supposition.
His Catholic perspective is integral to his philosophy. He is perhaps the founder of Analytical Thomism (though the current of thought running through his and Elizabeth Anscombe's work to the present day was only ostensibly so named forty years later by John Haldane), the aim of which is to synthesise Thomistic and Analytic approaches. He defends the Thomistic position that human beings are essentially rational animals, each one miraculously created. He dismisses Darwinistic attempts to regard reason as inessential to humanity, as "mere sophistry, laughable, or pitiable." He repudiates any capacity for language in animals as mere "association of manual signs with things or performances."
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Philip Sidney
Sir Philip Sidney (30 November 1554 – 17 October 1586) was an English poet, courtier and soldier, and is remembered as one of the most prominent figures of the Elizabethan Age. His works include Astrophel and Stella, The Defence of Poetry (also known as The Defence of Poesy or An Apology for Poetry), and The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia.
Born at Penshurst Place, Kent, he was the eldest son of Sir Henry Sidney and Lady Mary Dudley. His mother was the eldest daughter of John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland, and the sister of Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester. His younger brother, Robert was a statesman and patron of the arts, and was created Earl of Leicester. His younger sister, Mary, married Henry Herbert, 2nd Earl of Pembroke. Mary Sidney, who upon her marriage became the Countess of Pembroke, was a writer, translator and literary patron. Sidney dedicated his longest work, the Arcadia, to her. After her brother's death, Mary reworked the Arcadia, now known as The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia.
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Philippe de Mornay
Philippe de Mornay (5 November 1549 – 11 November 1623), seigneur du Plessis Marly, usually known as Du-Plessis-Mornay or Mornay Du Plessis, was a French Protestant writer and member of the Monarchomaques ("killer of kings").
He was born in France, now situated in Val-d'Oise. His mother had leanings toward Protestantism, but his father tried to counteract her influence by sending him to the Collège de Lisieux at Paris. On his father's death in 1559, however, the family formally adopted the reformed faith. Mornay studied law and jurisprudence at the University of Heidelberg in 1565 and the following year Hebrew and German at the University of Padua. During the French Wars of Religion in 1567, he joined the army of Louis I de Bourbon, prince de Condé, but a fall from his horse prevented him from taking an active part in the campaign. His career as Huguenot apologist began in 1571 with the work Dissertation sur l'Église visible, and, as a diplomat in 1572, he undertook a confidential mission for Admiral de Coligny to William the Silent, Prince of Orange.
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Plato
Plato ( /ˈpleɪtoʊ/; Greek: Πλάτων, Plátōn, "broad"; 424/423 BC – 348/347 BC) was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the foundations of Western philosophy and science. In the words of A. N. Whitehead:
The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato. I do not mean the systematic scheme of thought which scholars have doubtfully extracted from his writings. I allude to the wealth of general ideas scattered through them.
Plato's sophistication as a writer is evident in his Socratic dialogues; thirty-six dialogues and thirteen letters have been ascribed to him. Plato's writings have been published in several fashions; this has led to several conventions regarding the naming and referencing of Plato's texts. Plato's dialogues have been used to teach a range of subjects, including philosophy, logic, ethics, rhetoric, and mathematics.
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Plutarch
Plutarch (English pronunciation: /'pluːtɑːk/; Greek: Πλούταρχος, Ploútarkhos, Koine Greek: [plŭːtarkʰos]) then named, on his becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus (Μέστριος Πλούταρχος),c. 46 – 120 AD, was a Greek historian, biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonist known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia. He was born to a prominent family in Chaeronea, Boeotia, a town about twenty miles east of Delphi.
Plutarch was born in 46 AD in the small town of Chaeronea, in the Greek region known as Boeotia. His family was wealthy. The name of Plutarch's father has not been preserved, but it was probably Nikarchus (Greek: Nίκαρχoς), from the common habit of Greek families to repeat a name in alternate generations. The name of Plutarch's grandfather was Lamprias, as he attested in Moralia and in his Life of Antony.
His brothers, Timon and Lamprias, are frequently mentioned in his essays and dialogues, where Timon is spoken of in the most affectionate terms. Rualdus, in his 1624 work Life of Plutarchus, recovered the name of Plutarch's wife, Timoxena, from internal evidence afforded by his writings. A letter is still extant, addressed by Plutarch to his wife, bidding her not give way to excessive grief at the death of their two year old daughter, who was named Timoxena after her mother. Interestingly, he hinted at a belief in reincarnation in that letter of consolation.
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Prodicus
Prodicus of Ceos (Greek: Πρόδικος, Pródikos; c. 465 BC – c. 395 BC) was a Greek philosopher, and part of the first generation of Sophists. He came to Athens as ambassador from Ceos, and became known as a speaker and a teacher. Plato treats him with greater respect than the other sophists, and in several of the Platonic dialogues Socrates appears as the friend of Prodicus. Prodicus made linguistics and ethics prominent in his curriculum. The content of one of his speeches is still known, and concerns a fable in which Heracles has to make a choice between Virtue and Vice. He also interpreted religion through the framework of naturalism.
Prodicus was a native of Ioulis on the island of Ceos, the birthplace of Simonides, whom he is described as having imitated. Prodicus came frequently to Athens for the purpose of transacting business on behalf of his native city, and attracted admiration as an orator, although his voice was deep and apt to fall.Plutarch describes him as slender and weak; and Plato also alludes to his weakness, and a degree of effeminacy which thus resulted.Philostratus accuses him of luxury and avarice, but no earlier source mentions this.
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Protagoras
Protagoras ( /ˈproʊtæɡərəs/; Greek: Πρωταγόρας, ca. 490 BC – 420 BC) was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher and is numbered as one of the sophists by Plato. In his dialogue Protagoras, Plato credits him with having invented the role of the professional sophist or teacher of virtue. He is also believed to have created a major controversy during ancient times through his statement that "man is the measure of all things". This idea was revolutionary for the time and contrasted with other philosophical doctrines that claimed the universe was based on something objective, outside the human influence.
Protagoras was born in Abdera, Thrace, in Ancient Greece. According to Aulus Gellius, he originally made his living as a porter, but one day he was seen by the philosopher Democritus carrying a load of small pieces of wood tied with a short cord. Democritus discovered that Protagoras had tied the load himself with such perfect geometric accuracy that it revealed him to be a mathematic prodigy. He immediately took him into his own household and taught him philosophy.
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Ralph Cudworth
Ralph Cudworth (1617 – 26 June 1688) was an English philosopher, the leader of the Cambridge Platonists.
Born at Aller, Somerset, he was educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, gaining his MA and becoming a Fellow of Emmanuel in 1639. In 1645, he became master of Clare Hall and professor of Hebrew. In 1654, he transferred to Christ's College, Cambridge, and was master there until his death. His great work, entitled The True Intellectual System of the Universe, was published in 1678. He was a leading opponent of Thomas Hobbes.
His father Dr. Ralph Cudworth, a Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, was presented to the rectory of Aller, Somerset by his college, which held the advowson, in c.1609 or 1610. On 18 June 1611 at Southwark he married Mary Machell of Hackney (who had been a nurse to Prince Henry the son of James I) and their children were christened at Aller over the following decade.
Dr. Cudworth died in 1624 when young Ralph was about 7, and his mother then married John Stoughton, who succeeded Dr. Cudworth as rector of Aller until 1632 and gave the boy a good home education. Ralph was sent to his father's college, was elected Fellow in 1639 and became a successful tutor. In 1642 he published A Discourse concerning the true Notion of the Lord's Supper and a tract entitled The Union of Christ and the Church. In 1645 he was appointed master of Clare Hall and the same year was elected Regius professor of Hebrew. He was now recognized as a leader among the remarkable group known as the Cambridge Platonists. The whole party was more or less in sympathy with the Commonwealth, and Cudworth was consulted by John Thurloe, Cromwell's secretary to the council of state, in regard to university and government appointments.
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Reign of Terror
The Reign of Terror (5 September 1793 – 28 July 1794) (the latter is date 10 Thermidor, year II of the French Revolutionary Calendar), also known simply as The Terror (French: la Terreur), was a period of violence that occurred after the onset of the French Revolution, incited by conflict between rival political factions, the Girondins and the Jacobins, and marked by mass executions of "enemies of the revolution." The death toll ranged in the tens of thousands, with 16,594 executed by guillotine (2,639 in Paris), and another 25,000 in summary executions across France.
The guillotine (called the "National Razor") became the symbol of the revolutionary cause, strengthened by a string of executions: Marie Antoinette, King Louis XVI, the Girondins, Philippe Égalité (Louis Philippe II, Duke of Orléans) and Madame Roland, as well as many others, such as pioneering chemist Antoine Lavoisier, lost their lives under its blade. During 1794, revolutionary France was beset with conspiracies by internal and foreign enemies. Within France, the revolution was opposed by the French nobility, which had lost its inherited privileges. The Roman Catholic Church was generally against the Revolution, which had turned the clergy into employees of the state and required they take an oath of loyalty to the nation (through the Civil Constitution of the Clergy). In addition, the First French Republic was engaged in a series of wars with neighboring powers intent on crushing the revolution to prevent its spread.
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Reinhold Niebuhr
Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr (/ˈraɪnhoʊld ˈniːbʊər/; June 21st, 1892 – June 1st, 1971) was an American theologian and commentator on public affairs. Starting as a leftist minister in the 1920s indebted to theological liberalism, he shifted to the new Neo-Orthodox theology in the 1930s, explaining how the sin of pride created evil in the world. He attacked utopianism as ineffectual for dealing with reality, writing in The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness (1944):
His realism deepened after 1945 and led him to support United States' efforts to confront Soviet communism around the world. A powerful speaker, he was one of the most influential religious leaders of the 1940s and 1950s in American public affairs.[citation needed] Niebuhr battled with the religious liberals over what he called their naïve views of sin and the optimism of the Social Gospel, and battled with the religious conservatives over what he viewed as their naïve view of Scripture and their narrow definition of "true religion".
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René Descartes
René Descartes (French pronunciation: [ʁəne dekaʁt]; Latinized form: Renatus Cartesius; adjectival form: "Cartesian"; 31 March 1596 – 11 February 1650) was a French philosopher, mathematician, and writer who spent most of his adult life in the Dutch Republic. He has been dubbed the 'Father of Modern Philosophy', and much subsequent Western philosophy is a response to his writings, which are studied closely to this day. In particular, his Meditations on First Philosophy continues to be a standard text at most university philosophy departments. Descartes' influence in mathematics is equally apparent; the Cartesian coordinate system — allowing algebraic equations to be expressed as geometric shapes in a two-dimensional coordinate system — was named after him. He is credited as the father of analytical geometry, the bridge between algebra and geometry, crucial to the discovery of infinitesimal calculus and analysis. Descartes was also one of the key figures in the Scientific Revolution and has been described as an example of genius.
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René Guénon
René Guénon (November 15, 1886 – January 7, 1951), also known as Shaykh `Abd al-Wahid Yahya, was a French author and intellectual who remains an influential figure in the domain of metaphysics, having written on topics ranging from metaphysics, "sacred science" and traditional studies to symbolism and initiation.
In his writings, he proposes either "to expose directly some aspects of Eastern metaphysical doctrines", these doctrines being defined by him as of "universal character", or "to adapt these same doctrines for Western readers while keeping strictly faithful to their spirit"; he only endorsed the act of "handing down" these Eastern doctrines, while reiterating their "non-personal character".
He wrote and published in French and his works have been translated into more than twenty languages.
René Guénon was born in Blois, a city in central France approximately 100 miles (~ 160 km) from Paris. Guénon, like most Frenchmen of the time, was born into a Roman Catholic family. Little is known of his family, although it appears that his father was an architect. By 1904, Guénon was living as a student in Paris, where his studies focused on mathematics and philosophy. He was known as a brilliant student, notably in mathematics, in spite of his poor health.
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Richard Dawkins
Clinton Richard Dawkins, FRS, FRSL (born 26 March 1941), known as Richard Dawkins, is a British ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author. He is an emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford, and was the University of Oxford's Professor for Public Understanding of Science from 1995 until 2008.
Dawkins came to prominence with his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, which popularised the gene-centered view of evolution and introduced the term meme. In 1982 he introduced an influential concept into evolutionary biology, presented in his book The Extended Phenotype, that the phenotypic effects of a gene are not necessarily limited to an organism's body, but can stretch far into the environment, including the bodies of other organisms.
Dawkins is an atheist, a vice president of the British Humanist Association, and a supporter of the Brights movement. He is well known for his criticism of creationism and intelligent design. In his 1986 book The Blind Watchmaker, he argued against the watchmaker analogy, an argument for the existence of a supernatural creator based upon the complexity of living organisms. Instead, he described evolutionary processes as analogous to a blind watchmaker. He has since written several popular science books, and makes regular television and radio appearances, predominantly discussing these topics. In his 2006 book The God Delusion, Dawkins contends that a supernatural creator almost certainly does not exist and that religious faith is a delusion—"a fixed false belief." As of January 2010 the English-language version has sold more than two million copies and had been translated into 31 languages.
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Richard Swinburne
Richard G. Swinburne (born 26 December 1934) is a British philosopher of religion. He is an Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oxford. Over the last 50 years Swinburne has been a very influential proponent of philosophical arguments for the existence of God. His philosophical contributions are primarily in philosophy of religion and philosophy of science. He aroused much discussion with his early work in the philosophy of religion, a trilogy of books consisting of The Coherence of Theism, The Existence of God, and Faith and Reason.
Swinburne received an Open Scholarship to study Classics at Exeter College, Oxford, but in fact graduated with a first class BA in Politics, Philosophy and Economics. Swinburne has held various professorships through his career in academia. From 1972 to 1985 he taught at Keele University. During part of this time, he gave the Gifford lectures at Aberdeen from 1982 to 1984, resulting in the book The Evolution of the Soul. From 1985 until his retirement in 2002 he was Nolloth Professor of the Philosophy of the Christian Religion at the University of Oxford (his successor in this chair is Brian Leftow).
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Rodney Stark
Rodney Stark is an American sociologist of religion. He grew up in Jamestown, North Dakota in a Lutheran family. He spent time in the U.S. Army and worked as a journalist before pursuing graduate studies at The University of California, Berkeley. After teaching at the University of Washington for 32 years, Stark moved to Baylor University in 2004, where he is co-director of the Institute for Studies of Religion. He is an advocate of the application of the Rational choice theory in the sociology of religion, which he calls the theory of religious economy.
During the late 1970s and 1980s, Stark worked with William Sims Bainbridge on the Stark-Bainbridge theory of religion, and co-wrote the books The Future of Religion (1985) and A Theory of Religion (1987) with Bainbridge. Nowadays their theory, which aims to explain religious involvement in terms of rewards and compensators, is seen as a precursor of the more explicit recourse to economic principles in the study of religion as later developed by Laurence Iannaccone and others.
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Roger Finke
Roger Finke is a Professor of Sociology and Religious Studies at The Pennsylvania State University and Director of the Association of Religion Data Archives. He currently serves as the President of the Association for the Sociology of Religion.
Roger Finke earned his doctorate in sociology at the University of Washington in 1984, and held faculty positions at Concordia College in Illinois, Loyola University of Chicago, and Purdue University before joining the faculty at The Pennsylvania State University in 2000.
Professor Finke co-authored two influential books with sociologist of religion Rodney Stark. The Churching of America, 1776-1990: Winners and Losers in Our Religious Economy received the 1993 Distinguished Book Award from the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion. Acts of Faith: Explaining the Human Side of Religion received the 2001 Book Award from the American Sociological Association's Sociology of Religion Section. These books extended what is often called the New Paradigm or the Rational Choice theoretical perspective, conceptualizing denominations as competitors in a religious market. The Churching of America was methodologically noteworthy for demonstrating the utility of quantitative historical data on church membership. Additionally, Finke is the co-author of The Price of Freedom Denied: Religious Persecution and Conflict in the Twenty-first Century and Places of Faith: A Road Trip Across America's Religious Landscape. He is author or co-author of numerous peer-reviewed articles appearing in edited volumes and journals such as American Sociological Review, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Review of Religious Research, Social Science Research, and The Sociological Quarterly.
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Romanian philosophy
Romanian philosophy is a name covering either a) the philosophy done in Romania or by Romanians, or b) an ethnic philosophy, which expresses at a high level the fundamental features of the Romanian spirituality, or which elevates to a philosophical level the Weltanschauung of the Romanian people, as deposited in language and folklore, traditions, architecture and other linguistic and cultural artifacts.
The discussion concerning the existence of a Romanian philosophy has known three stages.
Between the two World Wars, after the emergence of Greater Romania, Romanian national identity went through a crisis. Since it was not centered anymore on immediate political goals (national rights, independence, national unity etc.), the idea now had a more pronounced cultural character. Therefore, discussions of "national specificity" in historiography, literature and philosophy became very common. The first history of Romanian philosophy was published in 1922 by Marin Ştefănescu, proving that philosophical thinking in Romania had reached the level of self-reflexivity; in other words, it had become conscious of itself. The general conclusion of interbellum discussions, which involved almost every notable philosopher, was that there is a Romanian philosophy proper, with a distinct profile among other national philosophies. Constantin Noica, who became one of the most prominent Romanian philosophers, thought early on that Romanian philosophy is characterized by paganism, cosmicism (i.e. no acute separation of the world of the man from, transcendence) and determinism (or rather, "fatalism").
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Rudolf Otto
Rudolf Otto (September 25, 1869–6 March 1937) was an eminent German Lutheran theologian and scholar of comparative religion.
Born in Peine near Hanover, Otto attended the Gymnasium Andreanum in Hildesheim and studied at the universities of Erlangen and Göttingen, where he wrote his dissertation on Martin Luther's understanding of the Holy Spirit, and his habilitation on Kant. By 1906, he held a position as extraordinary professor, and in 1910 he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Giessen. In 1915, he became ordinary professor at the University of Breslau, and in 1917, at the University of Marburg's Divinity School, then one of the most famous Protestant seminaries in the world. Although he received several other calls, he remained in Marburg for the rest of his life. He retired in 1929 and died of pneumonia eight years later, after he had suffered serious injuries falling some 20 m from a tower. His death is held to be the result of a suicide attempt., but many have long believed that he was thrown from the tower by Nazi agents, as the Nazi Party was hostile to his views, especially the radical equality implied in those views (and there is some suspicion that Eliade's Encylopedia entry reflects Eliade's well-known Nazi sympathies more than the truth). He is buried in Marburg cemetery.
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Sergei Bulgakov
Fr. Sergei Nikolaevich Bulgakov (Russian: Серге́й Никола́евич Булга́ков) (28 June [O.S. 16 June] 1871 - July 12, 1944) was a Russian Orthodox Christian theologian, philosopher and economist. Until 1922 he worked in Russia; afterwards in Paris.
Sergei Nicolaevich Bulgakov was born on 16 June 1871 Old Style to the family of an Orthodox priest (Nikolai Bulgakov) in the town of Livny, Oryol guberniya, in Russia.
He studied at Orel seminary, then at Yelets gimnasium. In 1894 he graduated from the Law School of Moscow University, where he had also undertaken a serious study of political economy.
During his study at the seminary Bulgakov became interested in Marxism and took part in the Legal Marxism movement. Studying Marxism, Bulgakov eventually became convinced of the impotence of this theory. Under the influence of works of Russian religious thinkers (Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Vladimir Solovyov, etc.), in the course of his meetings and arguments with Leo Tolstoy he found his religious beliefs again. He wrote a book about his evolution (Sergey Bulgakov, From Marxism to Idealism, 1903). Such an evolution was common for the Russian intelligentsia of the time, and he soon became one of their recognised ideologists. A primary contributor to the books Problems of Idealism (1902), Vekhi, Problems of Religion, About Vladimir Solovyev, About the Religion of Leo Tolstoy, The Religion of Solovyov's Philosophical Society, he participated in the journals New Way (Новый Путь) and Questions of Life (Вопросы Жизни). He was a leader of the publisher Way (Путь, 1911–1917), where he printed many important works of contemporary Orthodox theology.
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Sextus Empiricus
Sextus Empiricus (c. 160-210 AD), was a physician and philosopher, and has been variously reported to have lived in Alexandria, Rome, or Athens. His philosophical work is the most complete surviving account of ancient Greek and Roman skepticism.
In his medical work, tradition maintains that he belonged to the "empiric school", as reflected by his name. However, at least twice in his writings, Sextus seems to place himself closer to the "methodic school", as his philosophical views imply.
Sextus Empiricus's three known works are the Outlines of Pyrrhonism (Πυῤῥώνειοι ὑποτύπωσεις or Pyrrhōneioi hypotypōseis, thus commonly abbreviated PH), and two distinct works preserved under the same title, Against the Mathematicians (Adversus Mathematicos), one of which is probably incomplete.
The first six books of Against the Mathematicians are commonly known as Against the Professors, but each book also has a traditional title (Against the Grammarians (book I), Against the Rhetoricians (book II), Against the Geometricians (book III), Against the Arithmeticians (book IV), Against the Astrologers (book V), Against the Musicians (book VI). It is widely believed, with perhaps the exception of Sextus scholar Richard Bett, that this is Sextus's latest and most mature work.
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Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud (German pronunciation: [ˈziːkmʊnt ˈfʁɔʏt]), born Sigismund Schlomo Freud (6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939), was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis. Freud's family and ancestry were Jewish. Freud always considered himself a Jew even though he rejected Judaism and had a critical view of religion. Freud's parents were poor, but ensured his education. Freud was an outstanding pupil in high school, and graduated the Matura with honors in 1873. Interested in philosophy as a student, Freud later turned away from it and became a neurological researcher into cerebral palsy, Aphasia and microscopic neuroanatomy.
Freud went on to develop theories about the unconscious mind and the mechanism of repression, and established the field of verbal psychotherapy by creating psychoanalysis, a clinical method for treating psychopathology through dialogue between a patient (or "analysand") and a psychoanalyst. Though psychoanalysis has declined as a therapeutic practice, it has helped inspire the development of many other forms of psychotherapy, some diverging from Freud's original ideas and approach. Freud postulated the existence of libido (an energy with which mental process and structures are invested), developed therapeutic techniques such as the use of free association (in which patients report their thoughts without reservation and make no attempt to concentrate while doing so), discovered the transference (the process by which patients displace on to their analysts feelings based on their experience of earlier figures in their lives) and established its central role in the analytic process, and proposed that dreams help to preserve sleep by representing as fulfilled wishes that would otherwise awake the dreamer. He was also a prolific essayist, drawing on psychoanalysis to contribute to the interpretation and critique of culture.
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Slavoj Žižek
Slavoj Žižek (pronounced [ˈslavoj ˈʒiʒɛk]; born 21 March 1949) is a Slovenian philosopher and cultural critic working in the traditions of Hegelianism, Marxism and Lacanian psychoanalysis. He has made contributions to political theory, film theory and theoretical psychoanalysis.
Žižek is a senior researcher at the Institute of Sociology University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, and a professor at the European Graduate School. He has been a visiting professor at, among others, the University of Chicago, Columbia University, London Consortium, Princeton University, New York University, The New School, the University of Minnesota, the University of California, Irvine and the University of Michigan. He is currently the International Director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities at Birkbeck, University of London and president of the Society for Theoretical Psychoanalysis, Ljubljana.
Žižek uses examples from popular culture to explain the theory of Jacques Lacan and uses Lacanian psychoanalysis, Hegelian philosophy and Marxist economic criticism to interpret and speak extensively on immediately current social phenomena, including the current ongoing global financial crisis. In a 2008 interview with Amy Goodman on the New York City radio show Democracy Now! he described himself as a "communist in a qualified sense" and in another appearance on the show in October 2009 he described himself as a "radical leftist".
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Socrates
Socrates ( /ˈsɒkrətiːz/; Greek: Σωκράτης, Ancient Greek pronunciation: [sɔːkrátɛːs], Sōkrátēs; c. 469 BC – 399 BC) was a classical Greek Athenian philosopher. Credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy, he is an enigmatic figure known chiefly through the accounts of later classical writers, especially the writings of his students Plato and Xenophon, and the plays of his contemporary Aristophanes. Many would claim that Plato's dialogues are the most comprehensive accounts of Socrates to survive from antiquity.
Through his portrayal in Plato's dialogues, Socrates has become renowned for his contribution to the field of ethics, and it is this Platonic Socrates who also lends his name to the concepts of Socratic irony and the Socratic method, or elenchus. The latter remains a commonly used tool in a wide range of discussions, and is a type of pedagogy in which a series of questions are asked not only to draw individual answers, but also to encourage fundamental insight into the issue at hand. It is Plato's Socrates that also made important and lasting contributions to the fields of epistemology and logic, and the influence of his ideas and approach remains strong in providing a foundation for much western philosophy that followed.
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Strato of Lampsacus
Strato of Lampsacus (or Straton, Greek: Στράτων; c. 335-c. 269 BC) was a Peripatetic philosopher, and the third director (scholarch) of the Lyceum after the death of Theophrastus. He devoted himself especially to the study of natural science, and increased the naturalistic elements in Aristotle's thought to such an extent, that he denied the need for an active god to construct the universe, preferring to place the government of the universe in the unconscious force of nature alone.
Strato, son of Arcesilaus or Arcesius, was born at Lampsacus between 340 and 330 BC. He might possibly have known Epicurus during his period of teaching in Lampsacus between 310 and 306. He attended Aristotle's school in Athens, after which he went to Egypt as tutor to Ptolemy, where he also taught Aristarchus of Samos. He returned to Athens after the death of Theophrastus (c. 287 BC), succeeding him as head of the Lyceum. He died sometime between 270 and 268 BC,.
Strato devoted himself especially to the study of natural science, whence he obtained, or, as it appears from Cicero, assumed the name of Physicus (Greek: Φυσικός). Cicero, while speaking highly of his talents, blames him for neglecting the most important part of philosophy, that which concerns virtue and morals, and giving himself up to the investigation of nature. In the long list of his works, given by Diogenes Laërtius, several of the titles are upon subjects of moral philosophy, but the great majority belong to the department of physical science. None of his writings survive, his views are known only from the fragmentary reports preserved by later writers.
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Susan Jacoby
Susan Jacoby (born 1946) is an American author. Her 2008 book about American anti-intellectualism, The Age of American Unreason, was a New York Times best seller. She is an atheist and secularist. Jacoby graduated from Michigan State University in 1965. She lives in New York City and is program director of the New York branch of the Center for Inquiry.
Jacoby, who began her career as a reporter for The Washington Post, has been a contributor to a wide variety of national publications, including The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The American Prospect, Mother Jones, The Nation, Glamour, and the AARP Bulletin and AARP Magazine. She is currently a panelist for "On Faith," a Washington Post-Newsweek blog on religion. As a young reporter she lived for two years in the USSR.
Her book Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism was named a notable book of 2004 by The Washington Post and The New York Times. It was also named an Outstanding International Book of the Year by the Times Literary Supplement (London) and The Guardian. Wild Justice: The Evolution of Revenge (1984) was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Jacoby also won an Alicia Patterson Journalism Fellowship in 1974 to research and write about the new Americans: immigration into the U.S.
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Susan Neiman
Susan Neiman (born March 27, 1955) is an American moral philosopher, cultural commentator, and essayist. She has written extensively on the juncture between Enlightenment moral philosophy, metaphysics, and politics, both for scholarly audiences and the general public. She currently lives in Germany, where she is the Director of the Einstein Forum in Potsdam.
Born in Atlanta, Georgia, Neiman left home as a teenager to join the anti-Vietnam War movement. Later she studied philosophy at Harvard University, earning her Ph.D. under the direction of John Rawls and Stanley Cavell. During graduate school, she spent several years of study at the Free University of Berlin. Slow Fire, a memoir about her life as a Jewish woman in 1980s Berlin, appeared in 1992. From 1989 to 1996 she taught philosophy at Yale University, and from 1996 to 2000 she was an associate professor of philosophy at Tel Aviv University. In 2000 she assumed her current position at the Einstein Forum.
Neiman has been a Member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, a Research Fellow at the Rockefeller Foundation Study Center in Bellagio, and a Senior Fellow of the American Council of Learned Societies. She is now a member of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities. Her books have won prizes from PEN, the Association of American Publishers, and the American Academy of Religion. Her shorter pieces have appeared in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Globe and Mail, and Dissent. In Germany, she has written for Die Zeit, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, and Freitag, among other publications.
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Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Aabye Kierkegaard (/ˈsɔrən ˈkɪərkəɡɑrd/ or /ˈkɪərkəɡɔr/; Danish: [ˈsɶːɐn ˈkiɐ̯ɡəɡɒːˀ] ( listen)) (5 May 1813 – 11 November 1855) was a Danish philosopher, theologian and religious author. He was a critic of idealist intellectuals and philosophers of his time, such as Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling and Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel. He was also critical of the state and practice of Christianity, primarily that of the Church of Denmark. He is widely considered to be the first existentialist philosopher.
Much of his philosophical work deals with the issues of how one lives as a "single individual", giving priority to concrete human reality over abstract thinking, and highlighting the importance of personal choice and commitment.
His theological work focuses on Christian ethics, on the institution of the Church, and on the differences between purely objective proofs of Christianity. He wrote of the individual's subjective relationship to Jesus Christ, the God-Man, which came through faith. Much of his work deals with the art of Christian love.
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Theodore Drange
Theodore "Ted" Michael Drange (born 1934) is a philosopher of religion and Professor Emeritus at West Virginia University, where he taught philosophy from 1966 to 2001. He received a B.A. from Brooklyn College in 1955 and a Ph.D. from Cornell University in 1963. He has written two books: one in the philosophy of language, Type Crossings, in 1966; and one in the philosophy of religion, Nonbelief and Evil: Two Arguments for the Nonexistence of God, in 1998. Drange has also written several articles on the philosophy of religion and atheism, particularly for the Internet Infidels organization.
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Theodosius I
Theodosius I (Latin: Flavius Theodosius Augustus; 11 January 347 – 17 January 395), also known as Theodosius the Great, was Roman Emperor from 379 to 395. Theodosius was the last emperor to rule over both the eastern and the western halves of the Roman Empire. During his reign, the Goths secured control of Illyricum after the Gothic War, establishing their homeland south of the Danube within the empire's borders. He also issued decrees that effectively made Christianity the official state religion of the Roman Empire.
He is recognized by the Eastern Orthodox Church as Saint Theodosius. He defeated the usurpers Magnus Maximus and Eugenius and fostered the destruction of some prominent pagan temples: the Serapeum in Alexandria, the Temple of Apollo in Delphi, and the Vestal Virgins in Rome. After his death, Theodosius' sons Arcadius and Honorius inherited the East and West halves respectively, and the Roman Empire was never again re-united.
Theodosius was born in Cauca or Italica, Hispania, to senior military officer Theodosius the Elder. He accompanied his father to Britannia to help quell the Great Conspiracy in 368. He was military commander (dux) of Moesia, a Roman province on the lower Danube, in 374. However, shortly thereafter, and at about the same time as the sudden disgrace and execution of his father, Theodosius retired to Spain. The reason for his retirement, and the relationship (if any) between it and his father's death is unclear. It is possible that he was dismissed from his command by the emperor Valentinian I after the loss of two of Theodosius' legions to the Sarmatians in late 374.
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Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas, O.P. ( /əˈkwaɪnəs/ ə-KWY-nəs; 1225 – 7 March 1274), also Thomas of Aquin or Aquino, was an Italian Dominican priest of the Roman Catholic Church, and an immensely influential philosopher and theologian in the tradition of scholasticism, known as Doctor Angelicus ([the] Angelic Doctor), Doctor Communis, or Doctor Universalis. "Aquinas" is not a surname, but is a Latin demonym for a resident of Aquino, his place of birth. He was the foremost classical proponent of natural theology, and the father of Thomism. His influence on Western thought is considerable, and much of modern philosophy was conceived as a reaction against, or as an agreement with, his ideas, particularly in the areas of ethics, natural law, metaphysics, and political theory.
Thomas is held in the Catholic Church to be the model teacher for those studying for the priesthood. The works for which he is best-known are the Summa Theologica and the Summa Contra Gentiles. As one of the 33 Doctors of the Church, he is considered the Church's greatest theologian and philosopher. Pope Benedict XV declared: "This (Dominican) Order ... acquired new luster when the Church declared the teaching of Thomas to be her own and that Doctor, honored with the special praises of the Pontiffs, the master and patron of Catholic schools."
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Thomas Chubb
Thomas Chubb (September 29, 1679 – February 8, 1747) was an English lay Deist writer, born near Salisbury.
Chubb regarded Christ as a divine teacher, but held reason to be sovereign in matters of religion, questioned religions' morality, yet was on rational grounds a defender of Christianity. He had no learning, but was well up in the religious controversies of the time.
Chubb wrote The True Gospel of Jesus Christ, Asserted wherein he stated that one must distinguish between the teaching of Jesus and that of the Apostles who wrote that the Gospels.
Chubb's views concerning free will and determinism, as expressed in his book A Collection of Tracts on Various Subjects (1730) was the subject of extensive criticism by Jonathan Edwards in his book Freedom of the Will (1754).
He published tracts, one of which, The Previous Question with regard to Religion, went through four editions, three in 1725. They were collected in a quarto volume in 1730, and attracted wider notice. (A second edition, in 2 volumes which appeared in 1754 included 35 tracts.) Chubb was encouraged to write further tracts. A disciple of Samuel Clarke, he gradually diverged from Arianism into a modified deism.
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Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury (5 April 1588 – 4 December 1679), in some older texts Thomas Hobbs of Malmsbury, was an English philosopher, best known today for his work on political philosophy. His 1651 book Leviathan established the foundation for most of Western political philosophy from the perspective of social contract theory.
Hobbes was a champion of absolutism for the sovereign but he also developed some of the fundamentals of European liberal thought: the right of the individual; the natural equality of all men; the artificial character of the political order (which led to the later distinction between civil society and the state); the view that all legitimate political power must be "representative" and based on the consent of the people; and a liberal interpretation of law which leaves people free to do whatever the law does not explicitly forbid.
He was one of the founders of modern political philosophy. His understanding of humans as being matter and motion, obeying the same physical laws as other matter and motion, remains influential; and his account of human nature as self-interested cooperation, and of political communities as being based upon a "social contract" remains one of the major topics of political philosophy.
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Vedic period
The Vedic period (or Vedic age) was a period in history during which the Vedas, the oldest scriptures of Hinduism, were composed. The time span of the period is uncertain. Philological and linguistic evidence indicates that the Rigveda, the oldest of the Vedas, was composed roughly between 1700–1100 BCE, also referred to as the early Vedic period. The end of the period is commonly estimated to have occurred about 500 BCE, and 150 BCE has been suggested as a terminus ante quem for all Vedic Sanskrit literature.
Transmission of texts in the Vedic period was by oral tradition alone, and a literary tradition set in only in post-Vedic times. Despite the difficulties in dating the period, the Vedas can safely be assumed to be several thousands of years old. The associated culture, sometimes referred to as Vedic civilization, was probably centred early on in the northern and northwestern parts of the Indian subcontinent, but has now spread and constitutes the basis of contemporary Indian culture.
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Vergilius Ferm
Vergilius Ture Anselm Ferm ( * 1896; † February 4, 1974 in Wooster, Ohio) was the Compton Professor of Philosophy at the College of Wooster.
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Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet de Voltaire (French pronunciation: [fʁɑ̃.swa ma.ʁi aʁ.wɛ]; 21 November 1694 – 30 May 1778), known by the pen name Voltaire (pronounced: [vɔl.tɛːʁ]), was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion, freedom of expression, free trade and separation of church and state. Voltaire was a prolific writer, producing works in almost every literary form, including plays, poetry, novels, essays, and historical and scientific works. He wrote more than 20,000 letters and more than 2,000 books and pamphlets. He was an outspoken supporter of social reform, despite strict censorship laws with harsh penalties for those who broke them. As a satirical polemicist, he frequently made use of his works to criticize intolerance, religious dogma and the French institutions of his day.
Voltaire was one of several Enlightenment figures (along with Montesquieu, John Locke, Richard Price, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Émilie du Châtelet) whose works and ideas influenced important thinkers of both the American and French Revolutions.
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William Alston
William Payne Alston (November 29, 1921, Shreveport, Louisiana September 13, 2009, Jamesville, New York) was an American philosopher. He made influential contributions to the philosophy of language, epistemology and Christian philosophy. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago and taught at Syracuse University, Rutgers University and the University of Michigan.
His views on foundationalism, internalism versus externalism, speech acts, and the epistemic value of mystical experience, among many other topics, have been very influential. Like most American philosophers, Alston is counted among the analytic philosophers.
Together with Alvin Plantinga, Nicholas Wolterstorff, and Robert Adams, Alston helped to found the journal Faith and Philosophy and the Society of Christian Philosophers. With Plantinga, Wolterstorff, and others, Alston was also responsible for the development of "Reformed epistemology" (a term that Alston, an Episcopalian, never fully endorsed), one of the most important contributions to Christian thought in the twentieth century. Alston was president of the American Philosophical Association in 1979 and was widely recognized as one of the core figures in the late twentieth-century revival of the philosophy of religion. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1990.
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William James
William James (January 11, 1842 – August 26, 1910) was a pioneering American psychologist and philosopher who was trained as a physician. He was the first educator to offer a psychology course in the U.S. He wrote influential books on the young science of psychology, educational psychology, psychology of religious experience and mysticism, and on the philosophy of pragmatism. He was the brother of novelist Henry James and of diarist Alice James. In the summer of 1878, James married Alice Gibbens.
William James was born at the Astor House in New York City. He was the son of Henry James Sr., a noted and independently wealthy Swedenborgian theologian well acquainted with the literary and intellectual elites of his day. The intellectual brilliance of the James family milieu and the remarkable epistolary talents of several of its members have made them a subject of continuing interest to historians, biographers, and critics.
James interacted with a wide array of writers and scholars throughout his life, including his godfather Ralph Waldo Emerson, his godson William James Sidis, as well as Charles Sanders Peirce, Bertrand Russell, Josiah Royce, Ernst Mach, John Dewey, Macedonio Fernández, Walter Lippmann, Mark Twain, Horatio Alger, Jr., Henri Bergson and Sigmund Freud.
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William Lane Craig
William Lane Craig (born August 23, 1949) is an American analytic philosopher, philosophical theologian, and Christian apologist. He is known for his work in the philosophy of religion, philosophy of time, and the defense of Christian theism. One of his most notable contributions to the philosophy of religion is his defense of the Kalām cosmological argument, which is the most widely discussed argument for the existence of God in contemporary Western philosophy. In theology, he has also defended Molinism and the belief that God is, since Creation, subject to time.
Craig has authored or edited over 30 books, including The Kalām Cosmological Argument (1979), The Cosmological Argument from Plato to Leibniz (1980), Theism, Atheism, and Big Bang Cosmology (with Quentin Smith, 1993), Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview (with J.P. Moreland, 2003) and Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics (3d edition, 2008).
Craig received a Bachelor of Arts degree in communications from Wheaton College, Illinois, in 1971 and two summa cum laude master's degrees from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois, in 1975, in philosophy of religion and ecclesiastical history. He earned a Ph.D. in philosophy under John Hick at the University of Birmingham, England in 1977 and a Th.D. under Wolfhart Pannenberg at the University of Munich in 1984.
wn.com/William_Lane_Craig -
William of Ockham
William of Ockham ( /ˈɒkəm/; also Occam, Hockham, or several other spellings; c. 1288 – c. 1348) was an English Franciscan friar and scholastic philosopher, who is believed to have been born in Ockham, a small village in Surrey. He is considered to be one of the major figures of medieval thought and was at the centre of the major intellectual and political controversies of the fourteenth century. Although he is commonly known for Ockham's razor, the methodological principle that bears his name, William of Ockham also produced significant works on logic, physics, and theology. In the Church of England, his day of commemoration is 10 April.
William of Ockham joined the Franciscan order at an early age. It is believed that he studied theology at the University of Oxford from 1309 to 1321, but never completed his master's degree (the usual undergraduate degree in those times). Because of this, he acquired the byname Venerabilis Inceptor, or "Worthy Beginner" (an inceptor was a student formally admitted to the ranks of teachers by the university authorities). He was also known as the Doctor Invincibilis or "Unconquerable Teacher."
wn.com/William_of_Ockham -
William Whewell
William Whewell ( /ˈhjuːəl/ HEW-əl; 24 May 1794 – 6 March 1866) was an English polymath, scientist, Anglican priest, philosopher, theologian, and historian of science. He was Master of Trinity College, Cambridge.
Whewell was born in Lancaster. His father, a carpenter, wished him to follow his trade, but his success in mathematics at Lancaster and Heversham grammar schools won him an exhibition (a type of scholarship) at Trinity College, Cambridge (1812). In 1814 he was awarded the Chancellor's Gold Medal for poetry. He was Second Wrangler in 1816, President of the Cambridge Union Society in 1817, became fellow and tutor of his college, and, in 1841, succeeded Dr Christopher Wordsworth as master. He was professor of mineralogy from 1828 to 1832 and Knightbridge Professor of Philosophy (then called "moral theology and casuistical divinity") from 1838 to 1855.
Whewell died in Cambridge 1866 as a result of a fall from his horse.
Full bibliographical details are given by Isaac Todhunter, W. Whewell: an Account of his Writings (2 vols., 1876). See also Life of W. Whewell, by Mrs Stair Douglas (1881).
wn.com/William_Whewell -
William Wollaston
William Wollaston (26 March 1659 – 29 October 1724) was an English philosophical writer. He is remembered today for one book, which he completed only two years before his death: The Religion of Nature Delineated (1st ed. 1722; 2nd ed. 1724).
He was born at Coton Clanford in Staffordshire, on 26 March 1659. He was born to a family long-established in Staffordshire, and was distantly related to Sir John Wollaston, the Alderman and Lord Mayor of London. At the age of ten, he began school at a Latin school newly opened in Shenstone, Staffordshire, and continued in country free schools until he was admitted to Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, at the age of 15, in June 1674.
After leaving Cambridge in September 1681, he became an assistant master at King Edward's School, Birmingham and took holy orders. At this time, he became Perpetual curate of St Mary's Church, Moseley from 1684 - 1686. In 1688 an uncle left him a fortune and an estate at Shenton Hall, Leicestershire, and in November of the same year he settled in London. On 26 November 1689, he married Catharine Charlton. They had eleven children together, four of whom died within his lifetime. They lived happily together for 30 years, until Catharine's death on 21 July 1720. Wollaston also published anonymously a small book, On the Design of the Book of Ecclesiastes, or the Unreasonableness of Men's Restless Contention for the Present Enjoyments, represented in an English Poem (London, 1691).
wn.com/William_Wollaston -
Yazidi
The Yazidi (also Yezidi, Kurdish: ئێزیدی or Êzidî) are a Kurdish ethnoreligious group with Indo-Iranian roots. They currently live primarily in the Nineveh Province of northern Iraq. Additional communities in Transcaucasia, Armenia, Turkey, and Syria have been in decline since the 1990s, their members having emigrated to Europe, especially to Germany. Their religion, Yazidism, is a branch of Yazdânism, and is seen as a highly syncretic complex of local Kurdish beliefs that contains Zoroastrian elements and Islamic Sufi doctrine introduced to the area by Sheikh Adi ibn Musafir in the 12th century. The Yazidi believe in God as creator of the world, which he placed under the care of seven holy beings or angels, the chief of whom is Melek Taus, the Peacock Angel.
Historically, the Yazidi lived primarily in communities in what are now Iraq, Syria, and Turkey, and also had significant numbers in Armenia and Georgia. However, events since the 20th century have resulted in considerable demographic shift in these areas as well as mass emigration. As a result population estimates are unclear in many regions, and estimates of the size of the total population vary.
wn.com/Yazidi
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The Amazing Atheist Meets William Lane Craig on CNN
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 5:58
- Updated: 16 Feb 2013
CNN News Room, 2-11-2013 The Amazing Atheist, "TJ" Kirk www.youtube.com
http://wn.com/The_Amazing_Atheist_Meets_William_Lane_Craig_on_CNN
CNN News Room, 2-11-2013 The Amazing Atheist, "TJ" Kirk www.youtube.com
Atheists at the Creation Museum
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 13:23
- Updated: 16 Feb 2013
On October 5th, 2012, Seth Andrews joined a group of skeptics for a tour of Kentucky's infamous Creation Museum. These are the Top Ten Lessons he took away from that experience.
http://wn.com/Atheists_at_the_Creation_Museum
On October 5th, 2012, Seth Andrews joined a group of skeptics for a tour of Kentucky's infamous Creation Museum. These are the Top Ten Lessons he took away from that experience.
- published: 21 Oct 2012
- views: 183630
- author: TheThinkingAtheist
Ricky Gervais on religion and atheism (Feb 2012 interview)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:15
- Updated: 16 Feb 2013
Ricky Gervais in February 2012 interview on the Piers Morgan Show Link to lengthier clip from same interview: www.mediaite.com
http://wn.com/Ricky_Gervais_on_religion_and_atheism_Feb_2012_interview
Ricky Gervais in February 2012 interview on the Piers Morgan Show Link to lengthier clip from same interview: www.mediaite.com
- published: 17 Feb 2012
- views: 237931
- author: wimsweden
Atheists On Religion, Science, And Morality (The Point)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 45:25
- Updated: 17 Feb 2013
Can we prove there is no God? Does it make sense to equate religion with science? Do theists have a monopology on morality or is secular morality superior? Was Richard Dawkins right to bring up the religious beliefs of Republican Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney? Cara Santa Maria (Senior Science Correspondent, Huffingtonpost.com) leads this week's panel on 'The Point' to discuss these issues and more with Michael Shermer (Publisher - Skeptic Magazine), Sean Carroll (Theoretical Physicist - Caltech), and Edward Falzon (author of 'Being Gay Is Disgusting'). Special thanks to James Randi (Founder: James Randi Educational Foundation), Paul Zachary "PZ" Myers (Blogger: Pharyngula.org - Professor U Of MN-Morris), and AJ Johnson (Development Director for 'American Atheists') for sending in their points. Subscribe: www.youtube.com Watch More Points: www.youtube.com Cara Santa Maria: www.huffingtonpost.com Michael Shermer: www.skeptic.com Sean Carroll: preposterousuniverse.com Edward Falzon: biblicalmorality.com Point-Maker James Randi: www.randi.org Point-Maker PZ Myers: scienceblogs.com Point-Maker AJ Johnson: www.atheists.org Twitter List To Follow: Moderator Cara Santa Maria: www.twitter.com Panelist Sean Carroll: twitter.com Panelist Michael Shermer: twitter.com Panelist Edward Falzon: twitter.com twitter.com twitter.com twitter.com twitter.com
http://wn.com/Atheists_On_Religion,_Science,_And_Morality_The_Point
Can we prove there is no God? Does it make sense to equate religion with science? Do theists have a monopology on morality or is secular morality superior? Was Richard Dawkins right to bring up the religious beliefs of Republican Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney? Cara Santa Maria (Senior Science Correspondent, Huffingtonpost.com) leads this week's panel on 'The Point' to discuss these issues and more with Michael Shermer (Publisher - Skeptic Magazine), Sean Carroll (Theoretical Physicist - Caltech), and Edward Falzon (author of 'Being Gay Is Disgusting'). Special thanks to James Randi (Founder: James Randi Educational Foundation), Paul Zachary "PZ" Myers (Blogger: Pharyngula.org - Professor U Of MN-Morris), and AJ Johnson (Development Director for 'American Atheists') for sending in their points. Subscribe: www.youtube.com Watch More Points: www.youtube.com Cara Santa Maria: www.huffingtonpost.com Michael Shermer: www.skeptic.com Sean Carroll: preposterousuniverse.com Edward Falzon: biblicalmorality.com Point-Maker James Randi: www.randi.org Point-Maker PZ Myers: scienceblogs.com Point-Maker AJ Johnson: www.atheists.org Twitter List To Follow: Moderator Cara Santa Maria: www.twitter.com Panelist Sean Carroll: twitter.com Panelist Michael Shermer: twitter.com Panelist Edward Falzon: twitter.com twitter.com twitter.com twitter.com twitter.com
- published: 18 Aug 2012
- views: 227675
- author: townsquare
Full Length Talk by Daniel Dennett - 'How To Tell You're An Atheist'
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 44:57
- Updated: 16 Feb 2013
Philosopher Daniel Dennett was one of the stars of the Global Atheist Convention in Melbourne and gave a brilliant and whimsical talk on defining the atheist. He is the uber-philospher of the mind and a great provocateur, though he was speaking to 4000 non believers at this convention. He talks specifically about The Clergy Project in the middle of his talk at 19 min 15 sec. For more info: see clergyproject.org
http://wn.com/Full_Length_Talk_by_Daniel_Dennett_'How_To_Tell_You're_An_Atheist'
Philosopher Daniel Dennett was one of the stars of the Global Atheist Convention in Melbourne and gave a brilliant and whimsical talk on defining the atheist. He is the uber-philospher of the mind and a great provocateur, though he was speaking to 4000 non believers at this convention. He talks specifically about The Clergy Project in the middle of his talk at 19 min 15 sec. For more info: see clergyproject.org
- published: 23 May 2012
- views: 117020
- author: TheClergyProject
Atheist Bitchslap
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 1:16
- Updated: 17 Feb 2013
Pardon the language, but there is no other way to say it. An atheist woman bitchslaps an entire audience of religious people. :) Kate Smurthwaite is a stand-up comic and political activist. Follow her on Twitter twitter.com or her blog www.cruellablog.blogspot.com Kate's Youtube channel - www.youtube.com Slightly longer version of this video here: www.youtube.com Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use. All copyrighted materials contained herein belong to their respective copyright holders, I do not claim ownership over any of these materials. I realize no profit, monetary or otherwise, from the exhibition of these videos.
http://wn.com/Atheist_Bitchslap
Pardon the language, but there is no other way to say it. An atheist woman bitchslaps an entire audience of religious people. :) Kate Smurthwaite is a stand-up comic and political activist. Follow her on Twitter twitter.com or her blog www.cruellablog.blogspot.com Kate's Youtube channel - www.youtube.com Slightly longer version of this video here: www.youtube.com Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use. All copyrighted materials contained herein belong to their respective copyright holders, I do not claim ownership over any of these materials. I realize no profit, monetary or otherwise, from the exhibition of these videos.
- published: 24 Sep 2011
- views: 2036564
- author: bdwilson1000
TTA Podcast 94 - Seth Andrews: Deconverted
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 97:59
- Updated: 16 Feb 2013
Available on iTunes: itunes.apple.com on BlogTalkRadio: www.blogtalkradio.com and Stitcher (search The Thinking Atheist) Did you become DeConverted? How did it happen? How did you feel? Would you ever go back to religion? Seth Andrews shares parts of his own story, and he also shares the stories and perspectives of others who have traveled the path from religion to reason. It's a show about losing faith...and gaining so much more. Your calls and email
http://wn.com/TTA_Podcast_94_Seth_Andrews_Deconverted
Available on iTunes: itunes.apple.com on BlogTalkRadio: www.blogtalkradio.com and Stitcher (search The Thinking Atheist) Did you become DeConverted? How did it happen? How did you feel? Would you ever go back to religion? Seth Andrews shares parts of his own story, and he also shares the stories and perspectives of others who have traveled the path from religion to reason. It's a show about losing faith...and gaining so much more. Your calls and email
- published: 07 Feb 2013
- views: 7789
- author: TheThinkingAtheist
The Stream - New Atheism's most polarising figure?
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 35:10
- Updated: 16 Feb 2013
We speak with influential evolutionary thinker Professor Richard Dawkins.
http://wn.com/The_Stream_New_Atheism's_most_polarising_figure?
We speak with influential evolutionary thinker Professor Richard Dawkins.
- published: 30 Jun 2012
- views: 112007
- author: AlJazeeraEnglish
Atheism: Jonathan Miller's Brief History of Disbelief - Shadows of Doubt (ep1)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 59:04
- Updated: 16 Feb 2013
Part I - Shadows of Doubt Jonathan Miller visits the absent Twin Towers to consider the religious implications of 9/11 and meets Arthur Miller and the philosopher Colin McGinn. He searches for evidence of the first 'unbelievers' in Ancient Greece and examines some of the modern theories around why people have always tended to believe in mythology and magic. --- Uploaded because this needs to be available as a shining light of the historicity of reason midst the depths and oceans of media absurdity and religious propaganda. So few representatives of atheism provide a compelling and earnest account for unbelief, let alone with the lucidity and intellectual vigor of Jonathan Miller. He is sincere and moving in this attempt to explain and understand the origins of the truth of disbelief of religious superstition and faith. --- Should the BBC or the producers find it inappropriate for me to have uploaded this video, I will gladly remove it upon their request. Jonathan Miller, Richard Denton Host: Jonathan Miller Director: Richard Denton Non-existent: God
http://wn.com/Atheism_Jonathan_Miller's_Brief_History_of_Disbelief_Shadows_of_Doubt_ep1
Part I - Shadows of Doubt Jonathan Miller visits the absent Twin Towers to consider the religious implications of 9/11 and meets Arthur Miller and the philosopher Colin McGinn. He searches for evidence of the first 'unbelievers' in Ancient Greece and examines some of the modern theories around why people have always tended to believe in mythology and magic. --- Uploaded because this needs to be available as a shining light of the historicity of reason midst the depths and oceans of media absurdity and religious propaganda. So few representatives of atheism provide a compelling and earnest account for unbelief, let alone with the lucidity and intellectual vigor of Jonathan Miller. He is sincere and moving in this attempt to explain and understand the origins of the truth of disbelief of religious superstition and faith. --- Should the BBC or the producers find it inappropriate for me to have uploaded this video, I will gladly remove it upon their request. Jonathan Miller, Richard Denton Host: Jonathan Miller Director: Richard Denton Non-existent: God
- published: 17 Jun 2012
- views: 20571
- author: nerdfiles
Penn Jillette: An Atheist's Guide to the 2012 Election
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 19:35
- Updated: 17 Feb 2013
bigthink.com Penn Jillette rates the various candidates for the US Presidency from the perspective of an atheist.
http://wn.com/Penn_Jillette_An_Atheist's_Guide_to_the_2012_Election
bigthink.com Penn Jillette rates the various candidates for the US Presidency from the perspective of an atheist.
- published: 02 Dec 2011
- views: 775859
- author: bigthink
Penn Jillette on God, No!, Atheism, Libertarianism, & More
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 16:40
- Updated: 16 Feb 2013
Reason's Nick Gillespie talks with the one-and-only Penn Jillette about his best-selling new book, God, No!: Signs You May Already Be an Atheist and Other Magical Tales, his friendship with Glenn Beck, skepticism versus cynicism, the role of religion in terrorism, why he's a libertarian, and much more in a wide-ranging conversation. Penn Jillette is the larger, louder half of Penn & Teller. For the magical duo's official website, go here: www.pennandteller.com About 17 minutes. Shot by Anthony Fisher, Meredith Bragg, and Jim Epstein; edited by Epstein. Go to http for downloadable versions and subscribe to Reason.tv's YouTube channel to receive automatic notifications when we post new videos.
http://wn.com/Penn_Jillette_on_God,_No!,_Atheism,_Libertarianism,_More
Reason's Nick Gillespie talks with the one-and-only Penn Jillette about his best-selling new book, God, No!: Signs You May Already Be an Atheist and Other Magical Tales, his friendship with Glenn Beck, skepticism versus cynicism, the role of religion in terrorism, why he's a libertarian, and much more in a wide-ranging conversation. Penn Jillette is the larger, louder half of Penn & Teller. For the magical duo's official website, go here: www.pennandteller.com About 17 minutes. Shot by Anthony Fisher, Meredith Bragg, and Jim Epstein; edited by Epstein. Go to http for downloadable versions and subscribe to Reason.tv's YouTube channel to receive automatic notifications when we post new videos.
- published: 20 Sep 2011
- views: 190010
- author: ReasonTV
Atheist Superbowl Commercial - 720p Best Commercial on the PLANET
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 1:04
- Updated: 17 Feb 2013
Free Thought FTW CultofDusty mirror. See his channel here: www.youtube.com
http://wn.com/Atheist_Superbowl_Commercial_720p_Best_Commercial_on_the_PLANET
Free Thought FTW CultofDusty mirror. See his channel here: www.youtube.com
- published: 06 Feb 2013
- views: 52981
- author: meridianfrost
The Atheist Experience #799 Tracie Harris Matt Dillahunty New call with Pastor George!
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 65:57
- Updated: 17 Feb 2013
The Atheist Experience #799 February 3 2013 The Atheist Experience is a weekly, live, call in talk show discussing issues related to Atheism. The show is sponsored by the Atheist Community of Austin, TX. The Atheist Experience TV program is now in its 15th year! For more info visit our websites at: www.atheist-experience.com www.atheist-community.org You can join the ACA at the following link: www.atheist-community.org You can email us at: tv@atheist-community.org WHAT IS THE ATHEIST EXPERIENCE? The Atheist Experience is a weekly cable access television show in Austin, Texas geared at a non-atheist audience. The Atheist Experience is produced by the Atheist Community of Austin. The Atheist Community of Austin is organized as a nonprofit educational corporation to develop and support the atheist community, to provide opportunities for socializing and friendship, to promote secular viewpoints, to encourage positive atheist culture, to defend the first amendment principle of state-church separation, to oppose discrimination against atheists and to work with other organizations in pursuit of common goals. We define atheism as the lack of belief in gods. This definition also encompasses what most people call agnosticism. VISIT THE ACA'S OFFICIAL WEB SITES www.atheist-community.org (The Atheist Community of Austin) http (The Atheist Experience TV Show) More shows and video clips can be found in the archive: www.atheist-experience.com DVDs of the Atheist Experience can be ...
http://wn.com/The_Atheist_Experience_799_Tracie_Harris_Matt_Dillahunty_New_call_with_Pastor_George!
The Atheist Experience #799 February 3 2013 The Atheist Experience is a weekly, live, call in talk show discussing issues related to Atheism. The show is sponsored by the Atheist Community of Austin, TX. The Atheist Experience TV program is now in its 15th year! For more info visit our websites at: www.atheist-experience.com www.atheist-community.org You can join the ACA at the following link: www.atheist-community.org You can email us at: tv@atheist-community.org WHAT IS THE ATHEIST EXPERIENCE? The Atheist Experience is a weekly cable access television show in Austin, Texas geared at a non-atheist audience. The Atheist Experience is produced by the Atheist Community of Austin. The Atheist Community of Austin is organized as a nonprofit educational corporation to develop and support the atheist community, to provide opportunities for socializing and friendship, to promote secular viewpoints, to encourage positive atheist culture, to defend the first amendment principle of state-church separation, to oppose discrimination against atheists and to work with other organizations in pursuit of common goals. We define atheism as the lack of belief in gods. This definition also encompasses what most people call agnosticism. VISIT THE ACA'S OFFICIAL WEB SITES www.atheist-community.org (The Atheist Community of Austin) http (The Atheist Experience TV Show) More shows and video clips can be found in the archive: www.atheist-experience.com DVDs of the Atheist Experience can be ...
- published: 04 Feb 2013
- views: 11407
- author: Steve Mills
The Amazing Atheist on CNN
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 6:14
- Updated: 17 Feb 2013
TJ Kirk (aka The Amazing Atheist) appeared on CNN on February 7th, 2013 to discuss atheism. www.youtube.com www.facebook.com twitter.com amazingatheist.tumblr.com www.youtube.com
http://wn.com/The_Amazing_Atheist_on_CNN
TJ Kirk (aka The Amazing Atheist) appeared on CNN on February 7th, 2013 to discuss atheism. www.youtube.com www.facebook.com twitter.com amazingatheist.tumblr.com www.youtube.com
- published: 12 Feb 2013
- views: 11598
- author: ChrisWorcestershire
Atheist America
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 1:45
- Updated: 17 Feb 2013
CNN, 2-7-2013, CNN's Carol Costello reports on the growing number of Americans who don't believe in God. www.youtube.com www.youtube.com THIS VIDEO IS "FAIR USE" COMMENTARY OF NEWSWORTHY RESEARCH VALUE. IT'S USE FALLS UNDER THE CATEGORY OF NON-COMMERCIAL FREE SPEECH. (In accordance with Title 17 USC Section 107, this material is made available without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)
http://wn.com/Atheist_America
CNN, 2-7-2013, CNN's Carol Costello reports on the growing number of Americans who don't believe in God. www.youtube.com www.youtube.com THIS VIDEO IS "FAIR USE" COMMENTARY OF NEWSWORTHY RESEARCH VALUE. IT'S USE FALLS UNDER THE CATEGORY OF NON-COMMERCIAL FREE SPEECH. (In accordance with Title 17 USC Section 107, this material is made available without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)
- published: 07 Feb 2013
- views: 40937
- author: CRUClEFICTION
Ricky Gervais the Happy Atheist on Lawrence O'Donnell
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 6:32
- Updated: 16 Feb 2013
Lawrence O'donnell on last word discussing pat robertson & bill o'reilly's opinions of atheist, juxtaposed with the gregarious opinions of Ricky Gervais. Links to articles referred to in the video: 1 - blogs.wsj.com 2 - blogs.wsj.com 3- rickygervais.com
http://wn.com/Ricky_Gervais_the_Happy_Atheist_on_Lawrence_O'Donnell
Lawrence O'donnell on last word discussing pat robertson & bill o'reilly's opinions of atheist, juxtaposed with the gregarious opinions of Ricky Gervais. Links to articles referred to in the video: 1 - blogs.wsj.com 2 - blogs.wsj.com 3- rickygervais.com
- published: 27 Nov 2012
- views: 106919
- author: mavireckx
ATHEISM FAILS
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 4:20
- Updated: 17 Feb 2013
A collection of fails... but it being the internet, most wind up being anti-religion, not so much anti-atheism... hilarious :D AWESOMENESS iTunes: itunes.apple.com Shirts: onision.net Viewer Mail: onision.net SOCIAL NETWORKS Tumblr: onision.com Instagram instagram.com Facebook: facebook.com Twitter: twitter.com YOUTUBE CHANNELS: Onision: youtube.com OnisionSpeaks: youtube.com UhOhBro: youtube.com OnisionArchive: youtube.com OnisionEncore: youtube.com
http://wn.com/ATHEISM_FAILS
A collection of fails... but it being the internet, most wind up being anti-religion, not so much anti-atheism... hilarious :D AWESOMENESS iTunes: itunes.apple.com Shirts: onision.net Viewer Mail: onision.net SOCIAL NETWORKS Tumblr: onision.com Instagram instagram.com Facebook: facebook.com Twitter: twitter.com YOUTUBE CHANNELS: Onision: youtube.com OnisionSpeaks: youtube.com UhOhBro: youtube.com OnisionArchive: youtube.com OnisionEncore: youtube.com
- published: 07 Feb 2013
- views: 34629
- author: UhOhBro
New Rule: Atheism is not a religion! Unbaptizes Mitt Romney's Dead Father-In-Law!
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 6:04
- Updated: 16 Feb 2013
The Real Time host brings Mitt Romney's father-in-law back to the realm of the dead atheist. Bill Maher, Unbaptism, Real Time, February 3 2012, 02/3/2012, Baptism, Religion, Atheism, Atheist, Mitt Romney, Christopher Hitchens, Ayn Rand, Jesus, Super Bowl, Mormonism, Mormon, Edward Davies. Atheism is a religion like abstinence is a sex position.
http://wn.com/New_Rule_Atheism_is_not_a_religion!_Unbaptizes_Mitt_Romney's_Dead_Father-In-Law!
The Real Time host brings Mitt Romney's father-in-law back to the realm of the dead atheist. Bill Maher, Unbaptism, Real Time, February 3 2012, 02/3/2012, Baptism, Religion, Atheism, Atheist, Mitt Romney, Christopher Hitchens, Ayn Rand, Jesus, Super Bowl, Mormonism, Mormon, Edward Davies. Atheism is a religion like abstinence is a sex position.
- published: 04 Feb 2012
- views: 209666
- author: BegovicMirza
The 10 Commandments For Atheists?!
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:21
- Updated: 17 Feb 2013
A writer recently proposed ten commandments for atheists. Do you think this is a good thing? Would you add anything? Our Sources: dft.ba More stories at: www.sourcefed.com or check out youtube.com for our 5 daily videos or anything else we've ever done. Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com Follow us on Tumblr: sourcefed.tumblr.com Like us on Facebook: on.fb.me Philly D OFFICIAL APP for instant updates: bit.ly Order your SourceFed Posters here: bit.ly Hosts: @elliottcmorgan Music: @ronaldjenkees @Hagemeister
http://wn.com/The_10_Commandments_For_Atheists?!
A writer recently proposed ten commandments for atheists. Do you think this is a good thing? Would you add anything? Our Sources: dft.ba More stories at: www.sourcefed.com or check out youtube.com for our 5 daily videos or anything else we've ever done. Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com Follow us on Tumblr: sourcefed.tumblr.com Like us on Facebook: on.fb.me Philly D OFFICIAL APP for instant updates: bit.ly Order your SourceFed Posters here: bit.ly Hosts: @elliottcmorgan Music: @ronaldjenkees @Hagemeister
- published: 06 Feb 2013
- views: 187348
- author: SourceFed
Why 'Feminism' is poisoning Atheism
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 10:08
- Updated: 17 Feb 2013
Yeah, 'Feminism' is in quotes there for good reason. Equality is great, but thats not really what this is about. Its about a small bunch of PC whiners who suggest such outrageous things as 'there is an active debate online at the moment as to if women in the secular community should be either eye candy and f*ck toys for the privileged white men, or equal colleagues' (PZ Myers). Well they to create this boogie man as a scare tactic to get 'harassment' policies in place. Now if you had sane, stable and rational people in charge of such things, I wouldn't have a problem, but the thing is the PC whiners who want to be in charge of this basically want policies that echo their fringe feminist beliefs (yknow, things like there being a discussion if women are f*ck toys for privileged white men). They also seem to want this policy to protect them from criticism. That is you shouldnt have the right to say things that might offend people at a conference, because thats almost as bad as physical assault. PZ Myers talks on AtheismTV www.youtube.com
http://wn.com/Why_'Feminism'_is_poisoning_Atheism
Yeah, 'Feminism' is in quotes there for good reason. Equality is great, but thats not really what this is about. Its about a small bunch of PC whiners who suggest such outrageous things as 'there is an active debate online at the moment as to if women in the secular community should be either eye candy and f*ck toys for the privileged white men, or equal colleagues' (PZ Myers). Well they to create this boogie man as a scare tactic to get 'harassment' policies in place. Now if you had sane, stable and rational people in charge of such things, I wouldn't have a problem, but the thing is the PC whiners who want to be in charge of this basically want policies that echo their fringe feminist beliefs (yknow, things like there being a discussion if women are f*ck toys for privileged white men). They also seem to want this policy to protect them from criticism. That is you shouldnt have the right to say things that might offend people at a conference, because thats almost as bad as physical assault. PZ Myers talks on AtheismTV www.youtube.com
- published: 29 Dec 2012
- views: 147800
- author: Thunderf00t
Neil deGrasse Tyson: Atheist or Agnostic?
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:49
- Updated: 16 Feb 2013
Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson claims the title "scientist" above all other "ists." And yet, he says he is "constantly claimed by atheists." So where does he stand? "Neil deGrasse, widely claimed by atheists, is actually an agnostic."
http://wn.com/Neil_deGrasse_Tyson_Atheist_or_Agnostic?
Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson claims the title "scientist" above all other "ists." And yet, he says he is "constantly claimed by atheists." So where does he stand? "Neil deGrasse, widely claimed by atheists, is actually an agnostic."
- published: 25 Apr 2012
- views: 801230
- author: bigthink
Lack of belief in gods
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 10:00
- Updated: 17 Feb 2013
Explaining the concept and addressing misconceptions. Some have commented that the Bible doesn't say "God needs worship". The Bible doesn't have to use those words - it /describes/ a god that needs worship: Yahweh commands us in Deuteronomy to worship and love it, explaining that the penalty for disobedience is destruction*. Biblical authors were writing at a time when people respected displays of raw power. Today we understand that commanding worship under threat of destruction is the negation of love, compassion, wisdom or serenity, and is instead evidence of instability, insecurity and megalomaniacal need. Failure to worship causes no one any conceivable genuine harm - especially to an omnipotent being - and its punishment is morally indefensible. To those who'd claim that Yahweh commands worship "for our own good": if the alternative is destruction, then it is only "for our own good" in the way that that obeying a person with a gun pointed at your head is "for your own good". It amounts to no more than simple self-preservation under extreme duress. *Those who'd object that the punishments in Deuteronomy don't apply to us today clearly refute the notion of eternal values. If people from the past deserved destruction for failing to worship and we don't, that's clear evidence of a shifting morality.
http://wn.com/Lack_of_belief_in_gods
Explaining the concept and addressing misconceptions. Some have commented that the Bible doesn't say "God needs worship". The Bible doesn't have to use those words - it /describes/ a god that needs worship: Yahweh commands us in Deuteronomy to worship and love it, explaining that the penalty for disobedience is destruction*. Biblical authors were writing at a time when people respected displays of raw power. Today we understand that commanding worship under threat of destruction is the negation of love, compassion, wisdom or serenity, and is instead evidence of instability, insecurity and megalomaniacal need. Failure to worship causes no one any conceivable genuine harm - especially to an omnipotent being - and its punishment is morally indefensible. To those who'd claim that Yahweh commands worship "for our own good": if the alternative is destruction, then it is only "for our own good" in the way that that obeying a person with a gun pointed at your head is "for your own good". It amounts to no more than simple self-preservation under extreme duress. *Those who'd object that the punishments in Deuteronomy don't apply to us today clearly refute the notion of eternal values. If people from the past deserved destruction for failing to worship and we don't, that's clear evidence of a shifting morality.
- published: 17 Oct 2010
- views: 420756
- author: QualiaSoup
r/atheism
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 1:20
- Updated: 17 Feb 2013
OH BOY HERE WE GO AGAIN THIS IS NOT DIRECTED TOWARDS ALL ATHEISTS. I'm an atheist myself, though I don't like the term. This video was made in order to poke fun at people who are intolerant of others beliefs. I could have easily made this video from any other perspective. The point is, respect each others beliefs, okay? DON'T ACT LIKE THE PEOPLE IN THIS VIDEO ABOUT ANYTHING. As long as people aren't hurting you with their beliefs, then let them believe what they want. And don't give me any of that "well religion caused 9/11 so we have to hate them" bullshit. That's generalizing entire groups of people based on some extremists. tl;dr: SO NO, THIS VIDEO IS NOT MEANT TO BASH ATHEISTS. IT'S MEANT TO BASH PEOPLE WHO ARE UNWILLING TO RESPECT OTHERS BELIEFS. YOU KNOW THE PART IN THE VIDEO WHERE HE SAYS "THATS COOL THAT YOU'RE BEING AN ASSHOLE TO SOMEONE WHO BELIEVES IN GOD, BECAUSE IT MAKES US ALL LOOK REALLY GOOD"? That's sarcasm. That is a GOOD atheist, talking to a bad one.
http://wn.com/r_atheism
OH BOY HERE WE GO AGAIN THIS IS NOT DIRECTED TOWARDS ALL ATHEISTS. I'm an atheist myself, though I don't like the term. This video was made in order to poke fun at people who are intolerant of others beliefs. I could have easily made this video from any other perspective. The point is, respect each others beliefs, okay? DON'T ACT LIKE THE PEOPLE IN THIS VIDEO ABOUT ANYTHING. As long as people aren't hurting you with their beliefs, then let them believe what they want. And don't give me any of that "well religion caused 9/11 so we have to hate them" bullshit. That's generalizing entire groups of people based on some extremists. tl;dr: SO NO, THIS VIDEO IS NOT MEANT TO BASH ATHEISTS. IT'S MEANT TO BASH PEOPLE WHO ARE UNWILLING TO RESPECT OTHERS BELIEFS. YOU KNOW THE PART IN THE VIDEO WHERE HE SAYS "THATS COOL THAT YOU'RE BEING AN ASSHOLE TO SOMEONE WHO BELIEVES IN GOD, BECAUSE IT MAKES US ALL LOOK REALLY GOOD"? That's sarcasm. That is a GOOD atheist, talking to a bad one.
- published: 27 Jul 2012
- views: 655463
- author: KawaiiPiranha
photo: AP
16 Feb 2013
February 16, 2013 -- Updated 0115 GMT (0915 HKT). Did you see the meteor? Share your images with CNN iReport. Moscow (CNN) -- A meteor streaked through the skies above Russia's Urals region Friday morning before exploding with a flash and boom that shattered glass in buildings and left about 1,000 people hurt, authorities said ... The injured included more than 200 children ... The meteor leaves a white streak through the sky ... HIDE CAPTION ... 1. 2....(size: 14.9Kb)
photo: AP / Nasha gazeta, www.ng.kz
15 Feb 2013
A meteor streaked across the sky above Russia's Ural Mountains today morning, causing sharp explosions and injuring more than 400 people, many of them hurt by broken glass. "There was panic. People had no idea what was happening ... Fragments of the meteor fell in a thinly populated area of the Chelyabinsk region, the Emergency Ministry said in a statement ... ....(size: 1.7Kb)
photo: UN / Mark Garten
16 Feb 2013
The United States has called on North Korea not to take any further provocative actions after report of plans for more nuclear tests. Friday's statement came after the North conducted its third nuclear test on Tuesday, drawing global condemnation ... Meanwhile, North Korea's leader has made his first public appearance since Tuesday's controversial nuclear test. ... Al Jazeera's Harry Fawcett, reporting from Seoul, said ... 479 Source.....(size: 7.5Kb)
photo: AP / Office of the Supreme Leader
17 Feb 2013
TEHRAN — Iran’s supreme leader said Saturday that his country was not seeking nuclear weapons but added that if Iran ever decided to build them, no “global power” could stop it. Related. Nuclear Watchdog Says No Deal Reached With Iran (February 15, 2013). Connect With Us on Twitter. Follow @nytimesworld for international breaking news and headlines. Twitter List. Reporters and Editors ... Mr ... During the same session, Mr....(size: 5.9Kb)
photo: AP
14 Feb 2013
In their hurry to flee last month, al Qaeda fighters left behind a crucial document. Tucked under a pile of papers and trash is a confidential letter, spelling out the terror network's strategy for conquering northern Mali and reflecting internal discord over how to rule the region ... Comparing the relationship of al Qaeda to Mali as that of an adult to an infant, he urges them to be more gentle, like a parent ... Ad Feedback ... - AP. ....(size: 12.4Kb)
The Examiner
17 Feb 2013
Rating for Confessions by St Augustine. 1. If not for its significance as one of the world's first written autobiographies, St. Augustine's Confessions has little to no value as a piece of classical literature. It's depiction of Roman life leaves it a prized historical document, but the current praise given to Augustine's work is incredibly overrated ... Tweet. 0 Email ... Neal Simons, Marquette Atheism Examiner ... SubscribeMarquette Atheism ... ....(size: 5.9Kb)
The Examiner
17 Feb 2013
Tickets for the Richard Dawkins and Katherine Stewart event are on sale at the RDFRS website. Tickets for the Neil deGrasse Tyson event in April go on sale on the 17th at the UCCS ticket counter. Here is your week ahead.. Sunday, February 17. Secular Hikers will hike Sinton Trail. 10.00am ... 2.00pm ... Atheism or Christian Theism". 6.30pm. Monday, February 18 ... 10.00am ... 7.00pm ... Boulder Atheists will have a member's forum on the "Journey to Atheism" ... ....(size: 5.9Kb)
The Examiner
16 Feb 2013
One of the problems with Christianity is that it is a very pessimistic belief system which pretends to be optimistic. It starts with the claim that human beings were created special with a particular purpose, but this quickly morphs into the view that no one is perfect and that we are all evil sinners ...
... It is just our sinful nature ... Please check out the Atheism 101 Series for frequently asked topics ... Staks Rosch, Atheism Examiner ... ....(size: 8.6Kb)
The Examiner
16 Feb 2013
There is a growing trend in the United States and the World to promote Atheism as the only rational and logical conclusion with regards to the age old questions. Where did everything come from and Is there a God? There have been marches on Washington, rallies in Universities and countless magazines, newspapers, television programs and doctoral thesis promoting Atheism and the belief that there is no God ... Section 21. ... Because of this ... Mr....(size: 10.2Kb)
The Examiner
16 Feb 2013
Christians are fond of defending the sanctity of Biblical marriage. One man, one woman, bonded for life, sexually exclusive, and celibate before marriage. The thing is, that's not in the Bible. In order to find that model of marriage, we have to move much farther forward in history ... Polygamy ... and there were yet sons and daughters born to David ... (LINK) ... 5 ... 5-6 ... 8 ... William Hamby, Atlanta Atheism Examiner ... Subscribe@William_HambyAtlanta Atheism ... ....(size: 11.2Kb)
Jakarta Post
16 Feb 2013
Paper Edition . Page. 1 ... Chairman of the House’s special committee deliberating the bill, Abdul Malik Haramain, said the committee had resolved nearly all the contentious issues in the bill and expected to bring it to the House’s plenary session for approval ... ideologies and interests ... Human rights groups feared the bill would target groups accused of spreading ideologies deemed dangerous by the state, such as Marxism and atheism ... 1 ... 2 ... 3 ... 4 ... ....(size: 4.7Kb)
The Examiner
16 Feb 2013
What does astrology have to do with spirituality and religion? A simple question with a complicated answer. First, just as in the general population, astrologers cover the gambit of belief systems. Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, Secular, Pagan and everything in between ... We've all been asked ... Most of those who are of this spiritual bent do not denounce or condemn any belief system...not orthodox religions or even atheism ... Tweet ... ....(size: 11.3Kb)
WorldNetDaily
16 Feb 2013
UNIVERSAL CITY, Calif. – Hollywood celebrated faith and values films at the 21st annual Movieguide Awards Gala held on Friday, Feb ... Dr ... Movieguide Awards honors two categories of films ... Dr ... Get Dr ... Dr ... A ... “Also, they made a ton more money than the worst films, the ones filled with graphic violence, explicit sex and nudity, sexual perversion and false, anti-Christian worldviews, including those that promote atheism and paganism.”....(size: 13.6Kb)
The Examiner
15 Feb 2013
Atheism News. Aaron Klein, the owner of Sweet Cakes by Melissa, just doesn't know when to quit. On Feb. 14, 2013 the man at the center of a civil rights discrimination investigation made inflammatory comments with his Facebook profile in regards to the coverage of his behavior over the past couple of weeks ... Tweet. 0 Email ... Chelsea Hoffman, Las Vegas Atheism Examiner ... Subscribe@TheRealChelseaHChelsea HoffmanChelsea HoffmanLas Vegas Atheism ... ....(size: 6.4Kb)
Deccan Herald
15 Feb 2013
Within minutes of Pope Benedict’s resignation at the age of 85, the global community that is in the know of the working of the papacy remained stunned with disbelief and bewilderment. In the tiny state of Vatican, it must have surprised many ... One is not sure ... Deeply entangled ... Besides the challenge of secularism, atheism, agnosticism, neo-liberalism, the church has to address issues of modernity and post-modernity ... ....(size: 4.9Kb)
The Examiner
15 Feb 2013
The Humanists of Greater Portland is offering a free class on critical thinking for Sunday morning on February 17, 2013 ... http.//tinyurl.com/bfpn4cy ... Basics plus logic equals SAT math successClue® board game is a gift of deductive logic Atheist "Jesus is a myth" banner placed in Illinois town's public parkThe difficulty of coming out as an atheistFree will, atheism, dualism, Massimo Pigliucci, Jerry Coyne and Sam Harris....(size: 5.8Kb)
American Spectator
15 Feb 2013
In that homily, Ratzinger denounced Marxism, liberalism, libertinism, collectivism, radical individualism, atheism, vague religious mysticism, agnosticism, syncretism, and relativism — all by name — and spoke up for what “is often labeled today as fundamentalism.” Liberals inside and outside of the church tended to take his ......(size: 8.5Kb)
WorldNetDaily
15 Feb 2013
UNIVERSAL CITY, Calif ... Sign up now to watch WND’s exclusive livestream coverage of the red carpet event ... The Mysterious Island” and DreamWorks’ “Madagascar 3 ... “Also, they made a ton more money than the worst films, the ones filled with graphic violence, explicit sex and nudity, sexual perversion, and false, anti-Christian worldviews, including those that promote atheism, and paganism.” ... ....(size: 9.0Kb)
"Atheist" redirects here. For other uses, see Atheist (disambiguation).
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Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities.[1] In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities.[2][3] Most inclusively, atheism is simply the absence of belief that any deities exist.[3][4][5] Atheism is contrasted with theism,[6][7] which in its most general form is the belief that at least one deity exists.[7][8]
The term atheism originated from the Greek ἄθεος (atheos), meaning "without god", used as a pejorative term applied to those thought to reject the gods worshipped by the larger society. With the spread of freethought, skeptical inquiry, and subsequent increase in criticism of religion, application of the term narrowed in scope. The first individuals to identify themselves using the word "atheist" lived in the 18th century.[9]
Atheists tend to be skeptical of supernatural claims, citing a lack of empirical evidence for deities.[10] Rationales for not believing in any deity include the problem of evil, the argument from inconsistent revelations, and the argument from nonbelief. Other arguments for atheism range from the philosophical to the social to the historical. Although some atheists have adopted secular philosophies,[11][12] there is no one ideology or set of behaviors to which all atheists adhere.[13] Many atheists hold that atheism is a more parsimonious worldview than theism, and therefore the burden of proof lies not on the atheist to disprove the existence of God, but on the theist to provide a rationale for theism.[14]
Atheism is accepted within some religious and spiritual belief systems, including Jainism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Neopagan movements[15] such as Wicca,[16] and nontheistic religions. Jainism and some forms of Buddhism do not advocate belief in gods,[17] whereas Hinduism holds atheism to be valid, but difficult to follow spiritually.[18]
Since conceptions of atheism vary, determining how many atheists exist in the world today is difficult.[19] According to one estimate, atheists make up about 2.3% of the world's population, while a further 11.9% are nonreligious.[20] According to another, rates of self-reported atheism are among the highest in Western nations, again to varying degrees: United States (4%), Italy (7%), Spain (11%), Great Britain (17%), Germany (20%), and France (32%).[21] According to a 2009 report by the American Religious Identification Survey, people claiming to adhere to "no religion" made up 15% of the population in the US.[22]
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Definitions and distinctions[link]
Writers disagree how best to define and classify atheism,[23] contesting what supernatural entities it applies to, whether it is an assertion in its own right or merely the absence of one, and whether it requires a conscious, explicit rejection. However, it is generally contrasted with agnosticism.[24] A variety of categories have been proposed to try to distinguish the different forms of atheism.
Range[link]
Some of the ambiguity and controversy involved in defining atheism arises from difficulty in reaching a consensus for the definitions of words like deity and god. The plurality of wildly different conceptions of god and deities leads to differing ideas regarding atheism's applicability. The ancient Romans accused Christians of being atheists for not worshiping the pagan deities. Gradually, this view fell into disfavor as theism came to be understood as encompassing belief in any divinity.[25]
With respect to the range of phenomena being rejected, atheism may counter anything from the existence of a deity, to the existence of any spiritual, supernatural, or transcendental concepts, such as those of Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism and Taoism.[26]
Implicit vs. explicit[link]
Main article: Implicit and explicit atheism
Definitions of atheism also vary in the degree of consideration a person must put to the idea of gods to be considered an atheist. Atheism has sometimes been defined to include the simple absence of belief that any deities exist. This broad definition would include newborns and other people who have not been exposed to theistic ideas. As far back as 1772, Baron d'Holbach said that "All children are born Atheists; they have no idea of God."[27] Similarly, George H. Smith (1979) suggested that: "The man who is unacquainted with theism is an atheist because he does not believe in a god. This category would also include the child with the conceptual capacity to grasp the issues involved, but who is still unaware of those issues. The fact that this child does not believe in god qualifies him as an atheist."[28] Smith coined the term implicit atheism to refer to "the absence of theistic belief without a conscious rejection of it" and explicit atheism to refer to the more common definition of conscious disbelief. Ernest Nagel contradicts Smith's definition of atheism as merely "absence of theism", acknowledging only explicit atheism as true "atheism".[29]
Positive vs. negative[link]
Main article: Negative and positive atheism
Philosophers such as Antony Flew[30] and Michael Martin[25] have contrasted positive (strong/hard) atheism with negative (weak/soft) atheism. Positive atheism is the explicit affirmation that gods do not exist. Negative atheism includes all other forms of non-theism. According to this categorization, anyone who is not a theist is either a negative or a positive atheist. The terms weak and strong are relatively recent, while the terms negative and positive atheism are of older origin, having been used (in slightly different ways) in the philosophical literature[30] and in Catholic apologetics.[31] Under this demarcation of atheism, most agnostics qualify as negative atheists.
While Martin, for example, asserts that agnosticism entails negative atheism,[25] most agnostics see their view as distinct from atheism, which they may consider no more justified than theism or requiring an equal conviction.[32] The assertion of unattainability of knowledge for or against the existence of gods is sometimes seen as indication that atheism requires a leap of faith.[33] Common atheist responses to this argument include that unproven religious propositions deserve as much disbelief as all other unproven propositions,[34] and that the unprovability of a god's existence does not imply equal probability of either possibility.[35] Scottish philosopher J. J. C. Smart even argues that "sometimes a person who is really an atheist may describe herself, even passionately, as an agnostic because of unreasonable generalised philosophical skepticism which would preclude us from saying that we know anything whatever, except perhaps the truths of mathematics and formal logic."[36] Consequently, some atheist authors such as Richard Dawkins prefer distinguishing theist, agnostic and atheist positions along a spectrum of theistic probability—the likelihood that each assigns to the statement "God exists".[37]
Definition as impossible or impermanent[link]
Before the 18th century, the existence of God was so universally accepted in the western world that even the possibility of true atheism was questioned. This is called theistic innatism—the notion that all people believe in God from birth; within this view was the connotation that atheists are simply in denial.[38]
There is also a position claiming that atheists are quick to believe in God in times of crisis, that atheists make deathbed conversions, or that "there are no atheists in foxholes."[39] There have however been examples to the contrary, among them examples of literal "atheists in foxholes."[40]
Some atheists have doubted the very need for the term "atheism". In his book Letter to a Christian Nation, Sam Harris wrote:
In fact, "atheism" is a term that should not even exist. No one ever needs to identify himself as a "non-astrologer" or a "non-alchemist." We do not have words for people who doubt that Elvis is still alive or that aliens have traversed the galaxy only to molest ranchers and their cattle. Atheism is nothing more than the noises reasonable people make in the presence of unjustified religious beliefs.[41]
Concepts[link]
The source of man's unhappiness is his ignorance of Nature. The pertinacity with which he clings to blind opinions imbibed in his infancy, which interweave themselves with his existence, the consequent prejudice that warps his mind, that prevents its expansion, that renders him the slave of fiction, appears to doom him to continual error.—d'Holbach, The System of Nature[42]
The broadest demarcation of atheistic rationale is between practical and theoretical atheism.
Practical atheism[link]
Main article: Apatheism
In practical or pragmatic atheism, also known as apatheism, individuals live as if there are no gods and explain natural phenomena without resorting to the divine. The existence of gods is not rejected, but may be designated unnecessary or useless; gods neither provide purpose to life, nor influence everyday life, according to this view.[43] A form of practical atheism with implications for the scientific community is methodological naturalism—the "tacit adoption or assumption of philosophical naturalism within scientific method with or without fully accepting or believing it."[44]
Practical atheism can take various forms:
- Absence of religious motivation—belief in gods does not motivate moral action, religious action, or any other form of action;
- Active exclusion of the problem of gods and religion from intellectual pursuit and practical action;
- Indifference—the absence of any interest in the problems of gods and religion; or
- Unawareness of the concept of a deity.[45]
Theoretical atheism[link]
Ontological arguments[link]
Further information: Agnostic atheism and Theological noncognitivism
Theoretical (or theoric) atheism explicitly posits arguments against the existence of gods, responding to common theistic arguments such as the argument from design or Pascal's Wager. Theoretical atheism is mainly an ontology, precisely a physical ontology.
Epistemological arguments[link]
Further information: Agnostic atheism and Theological noncognitivism
Epistemological atheism argues that people cannot know a God or determine the existence of a God. The foundation of epistemological atheism is agnosticism, which takes a variety of forms. In the philosophy of immanence, divinity is inseparable from the world itself, including a person's mind, and each person's consciousness is locked in the subject. According to this form of agnosticism, this limitation in perspective prevents any objective inference from belief in a god to assertions of its existence. The rationalistic agnosticism of Kant and the Enlightenment only accepts knowledge deduced with human rationality; this form of atheism holds that gods are not discernible as a matter of principle, and therefore cannot be known to exist. Skepticism, based on the ideas of Hume, asserts that certainty about anything is impossible, so one can never know for sure whether or not a god exists. The allocation of agnosticism to atheism is disputed; it can also be regarded as an independent, basic worldview.[43]
Other arguments for atheism that can be classified as epistemological or ontological, including logical positivism and ignosticism, assert the meaninglessness or unintelligibility of basic terms such as "God" and statements such as "God is all-powerful." Theological noncognitivism holds that the statement "God exists" does not express a proposition, but is nonsensical or cognitively meaningless. It has been argued both ways as to whether such individuals can be classified into some form of atheism or agnosticism. Philosophers A. J. Ayer and Theodore M. Drange reject both categories, stating that both camps accept "God exists" as a proposition; they instead place noncognitivism in its own category.[46][47]
Metaphysical arguments[link]
Further information: Monism and Physicalism
One author writes:
"Metaphysical atheism... includes all doctrines that hold to metaphysical monism (the homogeneity of reality). Metaphysical atheism may be either: a) absolute — an explicit denial of God's existence associated with materialistic monism (all materialistic trends, both in ancient and modern times); b) relative — the implicit denial of God in all philosophies that, while they accept the existence of an absolute, conceive of the absolute as not possessing any of the attributes proper to God: transcendence, a personal character or unity. Relative atheism is associated with idealistic monism (pantheism, panentheism, deism)."[48]
Logical arguments[link]
Further information: Deductive arguments against the existence of God, Problem of evil, Divine hiddenness
Logical atheism holds that the various conceptions of gods, such as the personal god of Christianity, are ascribed logically inconsistent qualities. Such atheists present deductive arguments against the existence of God, which assert the incompatibility between certain traits, such as perfection, creator-status, immutability, omniscience, omnipresence, omnipotence, omnibenevolence, transcendence, personhood (a personal being), nonphysicality, justice, and mercy.[10]
Theodicean atheists believe that the world as they experience it cannot be reconciled with the qualities commonly ascribed to God and gods by theologians. They argue that an omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent God is not compatible with a world where there is evil and suffering, and where divine love is hidden from many people.[50] A similar argument is attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, the founder of Buddhism.[51]
Reductionary accounts of religion[link]
Further information: Evolutionary origin of religions, Evolutionary psychology of religion, and Psychology of religion
Philosophers such as Ludwig Feuerbach[52] and Sigmund Freud argued that God and other religious beliefs are human inventions, created to fulfill various psychological and emotional wants or needs. This is also a view of many Buddhists.[53] Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, influenced by the work of Feuerbach, argued that belief in God and religion are social functions, used by those in power to oppress the working class. According to Mikhail Bakunin, "the idea of God implies the abdication of human reason and justice; it is the most decisive negation of human liberty, and necessarily ends in the enslavement of mankind, in theory and practice." He reversed Voltaire's famous aphorism that if God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him, writing instead that "if God really existed, it would be necessary to abolish him."[54]
Atheist philosophies[link]
Further information: Atheist existentialism and Humanism
Axiological, or constructive, atheism rejects the existence of gods in favor of a "higher absolute", such as humanity. This form of atheism favors humanity as the absolute source of ethics and values, and permits individuals to resolve moral problems without resorting to God. Marx and Freud used this argument to convey messages of liberation, full-development, and unfettered happiness.[43] One of the most common criticisms of atheism has been to the contrary—that denying the existence of a god leads to moral relativism, leaving one with no moral or ethical foundation,[55] or renders life meaningless and miserable.[56] Blaise Pascal argued this view in his Pensées.[57]
French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre identified himself as a representative of an "atheist existentialism"[58] concerned less with denying the existence of God than with establishing that "man needs ... to find himself again and to understand that nothing can save him from himself, not even a valid proof of the existence of God."[59] Sartre said a corollary of his atheism was that "if God does not exist, there is at least one being in whom existence precedes essence, a being who exists before he can be defined by any concept, and ... this being is man."[58] The practical consequence of this atheism was described by Sartre as meaning that there are no a priori rules or absolute values that can be invoked to govern human conduct, and that humans are "condemned" to invent these for themselves, making "man" absolutely "responsible for everything he does".[60]
Atheism, religion, and morality[link]
Association with world views and social behaviors[link]
Sociologist Phil Zuckerman analyzed previous social science research on secularity and non-belief, and concluded that societal well-being is positively correlated with irreligion. His findings relating specifically to atheism include:[61][62]
- Compared to religious people, "atheists and secular people" are less nationalistic, prejudiced, antisemitic, racist, dogmatic, ethnocentric, close-minded, and authoritarian.
- In the US, in states with the highest percentages of atheists, the murder rate is lower than average. In the most religious US states, the murder rate is higher than average.
Atheism and irreligion[link]
People who self-identify as atheists are often assumed to be irreligious, but some sects within major religions reject the existence of a personal, creator deity.[63] In recent years, certain religious denominations have accumulated a number of openly atheistic followers, such as atheistic or humanistic Judaism[64][65] and Christian atheists.[66][67][68]
The strictest sense of positive atheism does not entail any specific beliefs outside of disbelief in any deity; as such, atheists can hold any number of spiritual beliefs. For the same reason, atheists can hold a wide variety of ethical beliefs, ranging from the moral universalism of humanism, which holds that a moral code should be applied consistently to all humans, to moral nihilism, which holds that morality is meaningless.[69]
Philosophers such as Georges Bataille, Slavoj Žižek,[70] Alain de Botton,[71] and Alexander Bard and Jan Söderqvist,[72] have all argued that atheists should reclaim religion as an act of defiance against theism, precisely not to leave religion as an unwarranted monopoly to theists.
Divine command vs. ethics[link]
Although it is a philosophical truism, encapsulated in Plato's Euthyphro dilemma, that the role of the gods in determining right from wrong is either unnecessary or arbitrary, the argument that morality must be derived from God and cannot exist without a wise creator has been a persistent feature of political if not so much philosophical debate.[73][74][75] Moral precepts such as "murder is wrong" are seen as divine laws, requiring a divine lawmaker and judge. However, many atheists argue that treating morality legalistically involves a false analogy, and that morality does not depend on a lawmaker in the same way that laws do.[76] Other atheists, such as Friedrich Nietzsche, have disagreed with this view and have stated that morality "has truth only if God is truth—it stands or falls with faith in God."[77][78][79]
There exist normative ethical systems that do not require principles and rules to be given by a deity. Some include virtue ethics, social contract, Kantian ethics, utilitarianism, and Objectivism. Sam Harris has proposed that moral prescription (ethical rule making) is not just an issue to be explored by philosophy, but that we can meaningfully practice a science of morality. Any such scientific system must, nevertheless, respond to the criticism embodied in the naturalistic fallacy.[80]
Philosophers Susan Neiman[81] and Julian Baggini[82] (among others) assert that behaving ethically only because of divine mandate is not true ethical behavior but merely blind obedience. Baggini argues that atheism is a superior basis for ethics, claiming that a moral basis external to religious imperatives is necessary to evaluate the morality of the imperatives themselves—to be able to discern, for example, that "thou shalt steal" is immoral even if one's religion instructs it—and that atheists, therefore, have the advantage of being more inclined to make such evaluations.[83] The contemporary British political philosopher Martin Cohen has offered the more historically telling example of Biblical injunctions in favour of torture and slavery as evidence of how religious injunctions follow political and social customs, rather than vice versa, but also noted that the same tendency seems to be true of supposedly dispassionate and objective philosophers.[84] Cohen extends this argument in more detail in Political Philosophy from Plato to Mao, where he argues that the Qur'an played a role in perpetuating social codes from the early 7th century despite changes in secular society.[85]
Dangers of religions[link]
See also: Criticism of religion
Some prominent atheists—such as Bertrand Russell, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and Richard Dawkins—have criticized religions, citing harmful aspects of religious practices and doctrines.[86] Atheists have often engaged in debate with religious advocates, and the debates sometimes address the issue of whether religions provide a net benefit to individuals and society.
One argument that religions can be harmful, made by atheists such as Sam Harris, is that Western religions' reliance on divine authority lends itself to authoritarianism and dogmatism.[87] Atheists have also cited data showing that there is a correlation between religious fundamentalism and extrinsic religion (when religion is held because it serves ulterior interests)[88] and authoritarianism, dogmatism, and prejudice.[89] These arguments—combined with historical events that are argued to demonstrate the dangers of religion, such as the Crusades, inquisitions, witch trials, and terrorist attacks—have been used in response to claims of beneficial effects of belief in religion.[90] Believers counter-argue that some regimes that espouse atheism, such as in Soviet Russia, have also been guilty of mass murder.[91][92]
Etymology[link]
In early ancient Greek, the adjective atheos (ἄθεος, from the privative ἀ- + θεός "god") meant "godless". It was first used as a term of censure roughly meaning "ungodly" or "impious". In the 5th century BCE, the word began to indicate more deliberate and active godlessness in the sense of "severing relations with the gods" or "denying the gods". The term ἀσεβής (asebēs) then came to be applied against those who impiously denied or disrespected the local gods, even if they believed in other gods. Modern translations of classical texts sometimes render atheos as "atheistic". As an abstract noun, there was also ἀθεότης (atheotēs), "atheism". Cicero transliterated the Greek word into the Latin atheos. The term found frequent use in the debate between early Christians and Hellenists, with each side attributing it, in the pejorative sense, to the other.[94]
The term atheist (from Fr. athée), in the sense of "one who denies or disbelieves the existence of God",[95] predates atheism in English, being first found as early as 1566,[96] and again in 1571.[97] Atheist as a label of practical godlessness was used at least as early as 1577.[98] The term atheism was derived from the French athéisme, and appears in English about 1587.[99] An earlier work, from about 1534, used the term atheonism.[100][101] Related words emerged later: deist in 1621,[102] theist in 1662,[103] deism in 1675,[104] and theism in 1678.[105] At that time "deist" and "deism" already carried their modern meaning. The term theism came to be contrasted with deism.
Karen Armstrong writes that "During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the word 'atheist' was still reserved exclusively for polemic ... The term 'atheist' was an insult. Nobody would have dreamed of calling himself an atheist."[9] In the middle of the seventeenth century it was still assumed that it was impossible not to believe in God;[106] atheist meant not accepting the current conception of the divine.[107]
Atheism was first used to describe a self-avowed belief in late 18th-century Europe, specifically denoting disbelief in the monotheistic Abrahamic god.[108] In the 20th century, globalization contributed to the expansion of the term to refer to disbelief in all deities, though it remains common in Western society to describe atheism as simply "disbelief in God".[25]
History[link]
Main article: History of atheism
Although the term atheism originated in 16th-century France,[99] ideas that would be recognized today as atheistic are documented from the Vedic period and the classical antiquity.
Early Indic religion[link]
Main article: Atheism in Hinduism
Atheistic schools are found in early Indian thought and have existed from the times of the historical Vedic religion.[109] Among the six orthodox schools of Hindu philosophy, Samkhya, the oldest philosophical school of thought, does not accept God, and the early Mimamsa also rejected the notion of God.[110] The early Mimamsa not only did not accept God but asserted that human action itself was enough to create the necessary circumstances for the enjoyment of its fruits.[111] The thoroughly materialistic and anti-theistic philosophical Cārvāka (also called Nastika or Lokaiata) school that originated in India around the 6th century BCE is probably the most explicitly atheistic school of philosophy in India, similar to the Greek Cyrenaic school. This branch of Indian philosophy is classified as heterodox due to its rejection of the authority of Vedas and hence is not considered part of the six orthodox schools of Hinduism, but it is noteworthy as evidence of a materialistic movement within Hinduism.[112] Chatterjee and Datta explain that our understanding of Cārvāka philosophy is fragmentary, based largely on criticism of the ideas by other schools, and that it is not a living tradition:
"Though materialism in some form or other has always been present in India, and occasional references are found in the Vedas, the Buddhistic literature, the Epics, as well as in the later philosophical works we do not find any systematic work on materialism, nor any organized school of followers as the other philosophical schools possess. But almost every work of the other schools states, for refutation, the materialistic views. Our knowledge of Indian materialism is chiefly based on these."[113]
Other Indian philosophies generally regarded as atheistic include Classical Samkhya and Purva Mimamsa. The rejection of a personal creator God is also seen in Jainism and Buddhism in India.[114]
Classical antiquity[link]
Western atheism has its roots in pre-Socratic Greek philosophy, but did not emerge as a distinct world-view until the late Enlightenment.[115] The 5th-century BCE Greek philosopher Diagoras is known as the "first atheist",[116] and is cited as such by Cicero in his De Natura Deorum.[117] Critias viewed religion as a human invention used to frighten people into following moral order.[118] Atomists such as Democritus attempted to explain the world in a purely materialistic way, without reference to the spiritual or mystical. Other pre-Socratic philosophers who probably had atheistic views included Prodicus and Protagoras. In the 3rd-century BCE the Greek philosophers Theodorus Cyrenaicus[117][119] and Strato of Lampsacus[120] also did not believe gods exist.
Socrates (c. 471–399 BCE) was accused of impiety (see Euthyphro dilemma) on the basis that he inspired questioning of the state gods.[121] Although he disputed the accusation that he was a "complete atheist",[122] saying that he could not be an atheist as he believed in spirits,[123] he was ultimately sentenced to death. Socrates also prays to various gods in Plato's dialogue Phaedrus[124] and says "By Zeus" in the dialogue The Republic.[125]
Euhemerus (c. 330–260 BCE) published his view that the gods were only the deified rulers, conquerors and founders of the past, and that their cults and religions were in essence the continuation of vanished kingdoms and earlier political structures.[126] Although not strictly an atheist, Euhemerus was later criticized for having "spread atheism over the whole inhabited earth by obliterating the gods".[127]
Atomic materialist Epicurus (c. 341–270 BCE) disputed many religious doctrines, including the existence of an afterlife or a personal deity; he considered the soul purely material and mortal. While Epicureanism did not rule out the existence of gods, he believed that if they did exist, they were unconcerned with humanity.[128]
The Roman poet Lucretius (c. 99–55 BCE) agreed that, if there were gods, they were unconcerned with humanity and unable to affect the natural world. For this reason, he believed humanity should have no fear of the supernatural. He expounds his Epicurean views of the cosmos, atoms, the soul, mortality, and religion in De rerum natura ("On the nature of things"),[129] which popularized Epicurus' philosophy in Rome.[130]
The Roman philosopher Sextus Empiricus held that one should suspend judgment about virtually all beliefs—a form of skepticism known as Pyrrhonism—that nothing was inherently evil, and that ataraxia ("peace of mind") is attainable by withholding one's judgment. His relatively large volume of surviving works had a lasting influence on later philosophers.[131]
The meaning of "atheist" changed over the course of classical antiquity. The early Christians were labeled atheists by non-Christians because of their disbelief in pagan gods.[132] During the Roman Empire, Christians were executed for their rejection of the Roman gods in general and Emperor-worship in particular. When Christianity became the state religion of Rome under Theodosius I in 381, heresy became a punishable offense.[133]
Early Middle Ages to the Renaissance[link]
The espousal of atheistic views was rare in Europe during the Early Middle Ages and Middle Ages (see Medieval Inquisition); metaphysics, religion and theology were the dominant interests.[134] There were, however, movements within this period that forwarded heterodox conceptions of the Christian God, including differing views of the nature, transcendence, and knowability of God. Individuals and groups such as Johannes Scotus Eriugena, David of Dinant, Amalric of Bena, and the Brethren of the Free Spirit maintained Christian viewpoints with pantheistic tendencies. Nicholas of Cusa held to a form of fideism he called docta ignorantia ("learned ignorance"), asserting that God is beyond human categorization, and our knowledge of God is limited to conjecture. William of Ockham inspired anti-metaphysical tendencies with his nominalistic limitation of human knowledge to singular objects, and asserted that the divine essence could not be intuitively or rationally apprehended by human intellect. Followers of Ockham, such as John of Mirecourt and Nicholas of Autrecourt furthered this view. The resulting division between faith and reason influenced later theologians such as John Wycliffe, Jan Hus, and Martin Luther.[134]
The Renaissance did much to expand the scope of freethought and skeptical inquiry. Individuals such as Leonardo da Vinci sought experimentation as a means of explanation, and opposed arguments from religious authority. Other critics of religion and the Church during this time included Niccolò Machiavelli, Bonaventure des Périers, and François Rabelais.[131]
Early modern period[link]
The Renaissance and Reformation eras witnessed a resurgence in religious fervor, as evidenced by the proliferation of new religious orders, confraternities, and popular devotions in the Catholic world, and the appearance of increasingly austere Protestant sects such as the Calvinists. This era of interconfessional rivalry permitted an even wider scope of theological and philosophical speculation, much of which would later be used to advance a religiously skeptical world-view.
Criticism of Christianity became increasingly frequent in the 17th and 18th centuries, especially in France and England, where there appears to have been a religious malaise, according to contemporary sources. Some Protestant thinkers, such as Thomas Hobbes, espoused a materialist philosophy and skepticism toward supernatural occurrences, while the Jewish-Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza rejected divine providence in favour of a panentheistic naturalism. By the late 17th century, deism came to be openly espoused by intellectuals such as John Toland who coined the term "pantheist".
The first known explicit atheist was the German critic of religion Matthias Knutzen in his three writings of 1674.[135] He was followed a half century later by another explicit atheist writer, the French priest Jean Meslier.[136] Knutzen and Meslier were in turn followed by other openly atheistic thinkers, such as Baron d'Holbach, Jacques-André Naigeon, and other French materialists.[137]
The philosopher David Hume developed a skeptical epistemology grounded in empiricism, and Immanuel Kant's philosophy has strongly questioned the very possibility of a metaphysical knowledge. Both philosophers undermined the metaphysical basis of natural theology and criticized classical arguments for the existence of God. However, they were not atheists themselves.
The French Revolution took atheism and anti-clerical deism outside the salons and into the public sphere. A major goal of the French revolution was a restructuring and subordination of the clergy with respect to the state through the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. Attempts to enforce it led to anti-clerical violence and the expulsion of many clergy from France. The chaotic political events in revolutionary Paris eventually enabled the more radical Jacobins to seize power in 1793, ushering in the Reign of Terror. The Jacobins were deists and introduced the Cult of the Supreme Being as a new French state religion. Some atheists surrounding Jacques Hébert instead sought to establish a Cult of Reason, a form of atheistic pseudo-religion with a goddess personifying reason. Both movements in part contributed to attempts to forcibly de-Christianize France. The Cult of Reason ended after three years when its leadership, including Jacques Hébert, was guillotined by the Jacobins. The anti-clerical persecutions ended with the Thermidorian Reaction.
The Napoleonic era institutionalized the secularization of French society, and exported the revolution to northern Italy, in the hopes of creating pliable republics. In the 19th century, atheists contributed to political and social revolution, facilitating the upheavals of 1848, the Risorgimento in Italy, and the growth of an international socialist movement.
In the latter half of the 19th century, atheism rose to prominence under the influence of rationalistic and freethinking philosophers. Many prominent German philosophers of this era denied the existence of deities and were critical of religion, including Ludwig Feuerbach, Arthur Schopenhauer, Max Stirner, Karl Marx, and Friedrich Nietzsche.[138]
Since 1900[link]
See also: State atheism
Atheism in the 20th century, particularly in the form of practical atheism, advanced in many societies. Atheistic thought found recognition in a wide variety of other, broader philosophies, such as existentialism, objectivism, secular humanism, nihilism, anarchism, logical positivism, Marxism, feminism,[139] and the general scientific and rationalist movement.
Logical positivism and scientism paved the way for neopositivism, analytical philosophy, structuralism, and naturalism. Neopositivism and analytical philosophy discarded classical rationalism and metaphysics in favor of strict empiricism and epistemological nominalism. Proponents such as Bertrand Russell emphatically rejected belief in God. In his early work, Ludwig Wittgenstein attempted to separate metaphysical and supernatural language from rational discourse. A. J. Ayer asserted the unverifiability and meaninglessness of religious statements, citing his adherence to the empirical sciences. Relatedly the applied structuralism of Lévi-Strauss sourced religious language to the human subconscious in denying its transcendental meaning. J. N. Findlay and J. J. C. Smart argued that the existence of God is not logically necessary. Naturalists and materialistic monists such as John Dewey considered the natural world to be the basis of everything, denying the existence of God or immortality.[36][140]
The 20th century also saw the political advancement of atheism, spurred on by interpretation of the works of Marx and Engels. After the Russian Revolution of 1917, religious instruction was banned by the State. While the Soviet Constitution of 1936 guaranteed freedom to hold religious services, the Soviet state under Stalin's policy of state atheism did not consider education a private matter; it outlawed religious instruction and waged campaigns to persuade people, at times violently, to abandon religion.[141][142][143][144][145] Several other communist states also opposed religion and mandated state atheism,[146] including the former governments of Albania,[147][148][149] and currently, China,[150][151] North Korea,[151][152] and Cuba.[151][153]
Other leaders like E. V. Ramasami Naicker (Periyar), a prominent atheist leader of India, fought against Hinduism and Brahmins for discriminating and dividing people in the name of caste and religion.[154] This was highlighted in 1956 when he arranged for the erection of a statue depicting a Hindu god in a humble representation and made antitheistic statements.[155]
In 1966, Time magazine asked "Is God Dead?"[156] in response to the Death of God theological movement, citing the estimation that nearly half of all people in the world lived under an anti-religious power, and millions more in Africa, Asia, and South America seemed to lack knowledge of the one God.[157]
In 1967, the Albanian government under Enver Hoxha announced the closure of all religious institutions in the country, declaring Albania the world's first officially atheist state,[158] although religious practice in Albania was restored in 1991. These regimes enhanced the negative associations of atheism, especially where anti-communist sentiment was strong in the United States, despite the fact that prominent atheists were anti-communist.[159]
Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the number of actively anti-religious regimes has reduced considerably. In 2006, Timothy Shah of the Pew Forum noted "a worldwide trend across all major religious groups, in which God-based and faith-based movements in general are experiencing increasing confidence and influence vis-à-vis secular movements and ideologies."[160] However, Gregory S. Paul and Phil Zuckerman consider this a myth and suggest that the actual situation is much more complex and nuanced.[161]
The religiously motivated terrorist events of 9/11 and the partially successful attempts of the Discovery Institute to change the American science curriculum to include creationist ideas, together with support for those ideas from George W. Bush in 2005, all triggered the noted atheist authors Sam Harris, Daniel C. Dennett, Richard Dawkins, Victor J. Stenger and Christopher Hitchens to publish books that were best sellers in America and worldwide.[162]
A 2010 survey found that those identifying themselves as atheists or agnostics are on average more knowledgeable about religion than followers of major faiths. Nonbelievers scored better on questions about tenets central to Protestant and Catholic faiths. Only Mormon and Jewish faithful scored as well as atheists and agnostics.[163]
New Atheism[link]
Main article: New Atheism
New Atheism is the name given to a movement among some early-21st-century atheist writers who have advocated the view that "religion should not simply be tolerated but should be countered, criticized, and exposed by rational argument wherever its influence arises."[164] The movement is commonly associated with Richard Dawkins, Daniel C. Dennett, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, and Victor J. Stenger.[165][166] Several best-selling books by these authors, published between 2004 and 2007, form the basis for much of the discussion of New Atheism.[167]
Demographics[link]
Main article: Demographics of atheism
It is difficult to quantify the number of atheists in the world. Respondents to religious-belief polls may define "atheism" differently or draw different distinctions between atheism, non-religious beliefs, and non-theistic religious and spiritual beliefs.[169] A Hindu atheist would declare oneself as a Hindu, although also being an atheist at the same time.[170] A 2005 survey published in Encyclopædia Britannica found that the non-religious made up about 11.9% of the world's population, and atheists about 2.3%. This figure did not include those who follow atheistic religions, such as some Buddhists.[20] A broad figure estimates the number of atheists and agnostics on Earth at 1.1 billion.[171]
A November–December 2006 poll published in the Financial Times gives rates for the United States and five European countries. The lowest rates of atheism were in the United States at only 4%, while the rates of atheism in the European countries surveyed were considerably higher: Italy (7%), Spain (11%), Great Britain (17%), Germany (20%), and France (32%).[21][172] The European figures are similar to those of an official European Union survey, which reported that 18% of the EU population do not believe in a god.[173] Other studies have placed the estimated percentage of atheists, agnostics, and other nonbelievers in a personal god as low as single digits in Poland, Romania, Cyprus, and some other European countries,[174] and up to 85% in Sweden, 80% in Denmark, 72% in Norway, and 60% in Finland.[19] According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, 19% of Australians have "no religion", a category that includes atheists.[172] Between 64% and 65% of Japanese are atheists, agnostics, or do not believe in a god.[19]
An international study has reported positive correlations between levels of education and not believing in a deity,[61] and the EU survey finds a positive correlation between leaving school early and believing in a God.[173] A letter published in Nature in 1998 reported a survey suggesting that belief in a personal god or afterlife was at an all-time low among the members of the U.S. National Academy of Science, 7.0% of whom believed in a personal god as compared with more than 85% of the general U.S. population,[175] although this study has been criticized by Rodney Stark and Roger Finke for its definition of belief in God. The definition was "I believe in a God to whom one may pray in the expectation of receiving an answer". [176] An article published by The University of Chicago Chronicle that discussed the above study, stated that 76% of physicians believe in God, more than the 7% of scientists above, but still less than the 85% of the general population.[177] Another study assessing religiosity among scientists who are members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science found that "just over half of scientists (51%) believe in some form of deity or higher power; specifically, 33% of scientists say they believe in God, while 18% believe in a universal spirit or higher power."[178] Frank Sulloway of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Michael Shermer of California State University conducted a study which found in their polling sample of "credentialed" U.S. adults (12% had Ph.Ds and 62% were college graduates) 64% believed in God, and there was a correlation indicating that religious conviction diminished with education level.[179] An inverse correlation between religiosity and intelligence has been found by 39 out of 43 studies carried out between 1927 and 2002, according to an article in Mensa Magazine.[180] These findings broadly agree with a 1958 statistical meta-analysis by Professor Michael Argyle of the University of Oxford. He analyzed seven research studies that had investigated correlation between attitude to religion and measured intelligence among school and college students from the U.S. Although a clear negative correlation was found, the analysis did not identify causality but noted that factors such as authoritarian family background and social class may also have played a part.[181] Sociologist Philip Schwadel found that higher levels of education correlate with greater tolerance for atheists' public opposition to religion, greater skepticism of religious leaders, and a reconsideration of "the role of religion in secular society".[182]
See also[link]
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Book: Atheism |
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Notes[link]
- ^
- Nielsen, Kai (2011). "Atheism". Encyclopædia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/40634/atheism. Retrieved 2011-12-06. "Instead of saying that an atheist is someone who believes that it is false or probably false that there is a God, a more adequate characterization of atheism consists in the more complex claim that to be an atheist is to be someone who rejects belief in God for the following reasons...: for an anthropomorphic God, the atheist rejects belief in God because it is false or probably false that there is a God; for a nonanthropomorphic God... because the concept of such a God is either meaningless, unintelligible, contradictory, incomprehensible, or incoherent; for the God portrayed by some modern or contemporary theologians or philosophers... because the concept of God in question is such that it merely masks an atheistic substance—e.g., "God" is just another name for love, or ... a symbolic term for moral ideals."
- Edwards, Paul (2005) [1967]. "Atheism". In Donald M. Borchert. The Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Vol. 1 (2nd ed.). MacMillan Reference USA (Gale). p. 359. ISBN 978-0-02-865780-6. "On our definition, an 'atheist' is a person who rejects belief in God, regardless of whether or not his reason for the rejection is the claim that 'God exists' expresses a false proposition. People frequently adopt an attitude of rejection toward a position for reasons other than that it is a false proposition. It is common among contemporary philosophers, and indeed it was not uncommon in earlier centuries, to reject positions on the ground that they are meaningless. Sometimes, too, a theory is rejected on such grounds as that it is sterile or redundant or capricious, and there are many other considerations which in certain contexts are generally agreed to constitute good grounds for rejecting an assertion." (page 175 in 1967 edition)
- ^ Rowe, William L. (1998). "Atheism". In Edward Craig. Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-0-415-07310-3. http://books.google.com/?id=lnuwFH_M5o0C&pg=PA530&lpg=PA530&dq=atheism+routledge#v=onepage&q=atheism%20routledge&f=false. Retrieved 2011-04-09. "As commonly understood, atheism is the position that affirms the nonexistence of God. So an atheist is someone who disbelieves in God, whereas a theist is someone who believes in God. Another meaning of "atheism" is simply nonbelief in the existence of God, rather than positive belief in the nonexistence of God. ...an atheist, in the broader sense of the term, is someone who disbelieves in every form of deity, not just the God of traditional Western theology."
- ^ a b Simon Blackburn, ed. (2008). "atheism". The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy (2008 ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. http://www.oxfordreference.com/views/ENTRY.html?subview=Main&entry=t98.e278. Retrieved 2011-12-05. "Either the lack of belief that there exists a god, or the belief that there exists none. Sometimes thought itself to be more dogmatic than mere agnosticism, although atheists retort that everyone is an atheist about most gods, so they merely advance one step further."
- ^ Religioustolerance.org's short article on Definitions of the term "Atheism" suggests that there is no consensus on the definition of the term. Most dictionaries (see the OneLook query for "atheism") first list one of the more narrow definitions.
- Runes, Dagobert D.(editor) (1942 edition). Dictionary of Philosophy. New Jersey: Littlefield, Adams & Co. Philosophical Library. ISBN 0-06-463461-2. http://www.ditext.com/runes/a.html. Retrieved 2011-04-09. "(a) the belief that there is no God; (b) Some philosophers have been called "atheistic" because they have not held to a belief in a personal God. Atheism in this sense means "not theistic". The former meaning of the term is a literal rendering. The latter meaning is a less rigorous use of the term though widely current in the history of thought" – entry by Vergilius Ferm
- ^ "atheism". Oxford Dictionaries. Oxford University Press. http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/atheism. Retrieved 2012-04-09.
- ^ "Definitions: Atheism". Department of Religious Studies, University of Alabama. http://www.as.ua.edu/rel/aboutreldefinitions.html. Retrieved 2011-04-09. [dead link]
- ^ a b Oxford English Dictionary (2nd ed.). 1989. "Belief in a deity, or deities, as opposed to atheism"
- ^ "Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary". http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/theism. Retrieved 2011-04-09. "belief in the existence of a god or gods"
- ^ a b Armstrong, Karen (1999). A History of God. London: Vintage. ISBN 0-09-927367-5.
- ^ a b Various authors. "Logical Arguments for Atheism". Internet Infidels, The Secular Web Library. Retrieved 2007-APR-09.
- ^ Honderich, Ted (Ed.) (1995). "Humanism". The Oxford Companion to Philosophy. Oxford University Press. p 376. ISBN 0-19-866132-0.
- ^ Fales, Evan. "Naturalism and Physicalism", in Martin 2007, pp. 122–131.
- ^ Baggini 2003, pp. 3–4.
- ^ Stenger 2007, pp. 17–18, citing Parsons, Keith M. (1989). God and the Burden of Proof: Plantinga, Swinburne, and the Analytical Defense of Theism. Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books. ISBN 978-0-87975-551-5.
- ^ Carol S. Matthews (19 October 2009). A New Vision A New Heart A Renewed Call - Volume Two. William Carey Library. ISBN 978-0-87808-364-0. http://books.google.com/?id=RfGhUW8RdUIC&pg=PA194&dq=neopaganism+atheism#v=onepage&q&f=false. "Although Neo-Pagans share common commitments to nature and spirit there is a diversity of beliefs and practices. Some are atheists, others are polytheists (several gods exists), some are pantheists (all is God) and others are panentheists (all is in God)."
- ^ Carol S. Matthews (19 October 2009). New Religions. Chelsea House Publishers. ISBN 978-0-7910-8096-2. http://books.google.com/?id=stQQJlV9FT8C&pg=PA115&dq=neopaganism+atheism#v=onepage&q&f=false. "There is no universal worldview that all Neo-Pagans/Wiccans hold. One online information source indicates that depending on how the term God is defined, Neo-Pagans might be classified as monotheists, duotheists (two gods), polytheists, pantheists, or atheists."
- ^ Kedar, Nath Tiwari (1997). Comparative Religion. Motilal Banarsidass. p. 50. ISBN 81-208-0293-4. http://books.google.com.vc/books?id=Jb0rCQD9NcoC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=atheism&f=false.
- ^ Chakravarti, Sitansu (1991). Hinduism, a way of life. Motilal Banarsidass Publ.. p. 71. ISBN 978-81-208-0899-7. http://books.google.com/?id=J_-rASTgw8wC&pg=PA71. Retrieved 2011-04-09. "According to Hinduism, the path of the atheist is very difficult to follow in matters of spirituality, though it is a valid one."
- ^ a b c Zuckerman, Phil (2007). Martin, Michael T. ed. The Cambridge Companion to Atheism. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. p. 56. ISBN 978-0-521-60367-6. OL22379448M. http://books.google.com/books?id=tAeFipOVx4MC&pg=PA56. Retrieved 2011-04-09.
- ^ a b "Worldwide Adherents of All Religions by Six Continental Areas, Mid-2005". Encyclopædia Britannica. 2005. http://search.eb.com/eb/article-9432620. Retrieved 2007-04-15.
- 2.3% Atheists: Persons professing atheism, skepticism, disbelief, or irreligion, including the militantly antireligious (opposed to all religion).
- 11.9% Nonreligious: Persons professing no religion, nonbelievers, agnostics, freethinkers, uninterested, or dereligionized secularists indifferent to all religion but not militantly so.
- ^ a b "Religious Views and Beliefs Vary Greatly by Country, According to the Latest Financial Times/Harris Poll". Financial Times/Harris Interactive. 2006-12-20. http://www.harrisinteractive.com/news/allnewsbydate.asp?NewsID=1131. Retrieved 2011-04-09.
- ^ http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/subjects/a/atheism/index.html
- ^ "Atheism". Encyclopædia Britannica. 1911. http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Atheism. Retrieved 2011-04-09.
- ^
- "Atheism". Encyclopædia Britannica Concise. Merriam Webster. http://www.merriam-webster.com/concise/atheism?show=0&t=1323944845. Retrieved 2011-12-15. "Critique and denial of metaphysical beliefs in God or divine beings. Unlike agnosticism, which leaves open the question of whether there is a God, atheism is a positive denial. It is rooted in an array of philosophical systems."
- Zuckerman, edited by Phil (2010). Atheism and secularity. Santa Barbara, Calif. [u.a.]: Praeger. ISBN 978-0-313-35183-9. "A major source of these biases is the lack of clear definitions. Atheism and secularity are defined in opposition to religion, with atheism (the rejection of theism) often perceived as an extreme form of secularism (the decline of religious influence over society). But atheism is a narrow term referring to a specific belief (that there is no god), whereas secularism has various meanings, including a range of attitudes (such as religious indifference, doubt, agnosticism, and atheism) as as behaviors (such as lack of regular church attendance or disregard for traditional religious morality)."
- Nielsen, Kai (2011). "Atheism". Encyclopædia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/40634/atheism. Retrieved 2011-12-06. "atheism, in general, the critique and denial of metaphysical beliefs in God or spiritual beings. As such, it is usually distinguished from theism, which affirms the reality of the divine and often seeks to demonstrate its existence. Atheism is also distinguished from agnosticism, which leaves open the question whether there is a god or not, professing to find the questions unanswered or unanswerable."
- "Atheism". Encyclopædia Britannica. 1911. http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Atheism. Retrieved 2011-04-09. "But dogmatic atheism is rare compared with the sceptical type, which is identical with agnosticism in so far as it denies the capacity of the mind of man to form any conception of God, but is different from it in so far as the agnostic merely holds his judgment in suspense, though, in practice, agnosticism is apt to result in an attitude towards religion which is hardly distinguishable from a passive and unaggressive atheism."
- ^ a b c d Martin, Michael. The Cambridge Companion to Atheism. Cambridge University Press. 2006. ISBN 0-521-84270-0.
- ^ Britannica (2011). "Atheism as rejection of religious beliefs". Encyclopædia Britannica. 1 (15th ed.). p. 666. 0852294735. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/40634/atheism. Retrieved 2011-04-09.
- ^ d'Holbach, P. H. T. (1772). Good Sense. http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7319. Retrieved 2011-04-07.
- ^ Smith 1979, p. 14.
- ^ Nagel, Ernest (1959). "Philosophical Concepts of Atheism". Basic Beliefs: The Religious Philosophies of Mankind. Sheridan House. "I shall understand by "atheism" a critique and a denial of the major claims of all varieties of theism... atheism is not to be identified with sheer unbelief... Thus, a child who has received no religious instruction and has never heard about God, is not an atheist – for he is not denying any theistic claims. Similarly in the case of an adult who, if he has withdrawn from the faith of his father without reflection or because of frank indifference to any theological issue, is also not an atheist – for such an adult is not challenging theism and not professing any views on the subject."
reprinted in Critiques of God, edited by Peter A. Angeles, Prometheus Books, 1997. - ^ a b Flew, Antony (1976). The Presumption of Atheism, and other Philosophical Essays on God, Freedom, and Immortality. New York: Barnes and Noble. pp. 14ff. "In this interpretation an atheist becomes: not someone who positively asserts the non-existence of God; but someone who is simply not a theist. Let us, for future ready reference, introduce the labels 'positive atheist' for the former and 'negative atheist' for the latter."
- ^ Maritain, Jacques (July 1949). "On the Meaning of Contemporary Atheism". The Review of Politics 11 (3): 267–280. DOI:10.1017/S0034670500044168. http://www.nd.edu/Departments/Maritain/jm3303.htm.
- ^ Kenny, Anthony (2006). "Why I Am Not an Atheist". What I believe. Continuum. ISBN 0-8264-8971-0. "The true default position is neither theism nor atheism, but agnosticism ... a claim to knowledge needs to be substantiated; ignorance need only be confessed."
- ^ "Many atheists I know would be certain of a high place in heaven". Irish Times. 2009-07-07. http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2009/0725/1224251303564.html. Retrieved 2011-04-09.
- ^ Baggini 2003, pp. 30–34. "Who seriously claims we should say 'I neither believe nor disbelieve that the Pope is a robot', or 'As to whether or not eating this piece of chocolate will turn me into an elephant I am completely agnostic'. In the absence of any good reasons to believe these outlandish claims, we rightly disbelieve them, we don't just suspend judgement."
- ^ Baggini 2003, p. 22. "A lack of proof is no grounds for the suspension of belief. This is because when we have a lack of absolute proof we can still have overwhelming evidence or one explanation which is far superior to the alternatives."
- ^ a b Smart, J.C.C. (2004-03-09). "Atheism and Agnosticism". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atheism-agnosticism/. Retrieved 2011-04-09.
- ^ Dawkins, Richard (2006). The God Delusion. Houghton Mifflin Co. p. 50. ISBN 0-618-68000-4.
- ^ Cudworth, Ralph (1678). The True Intellectual System of the Universe: the first part, wherein all the reason and philosophy of atheism is confuted and its impossibility demonstrated.
- ^ See, for instance, "Atheists call for church head to retract slur". 1996-09-03. http://www.lds-mormon.com/atheist.shtml. Retrieved 2011-04-09.
- ^ Lowder, Jeffery Jay (1997). "Atheism and Society". http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/jeff_lowder/society.html. Retrieved 2011-04-09.
- ^ Harris, Sam (2008). Letter to a Christian Nation. Random House, Vintage Books. p. 51. ISBN 978-0-307-27877-7. http://books.google.com/?id=ypyMZlkgHGIC&pg=PA51&dq=In+fact,+%22atheism%22+is+a+term+that+should+not+even+exist.+No+one+ever+needs+to+identify+himself+as+a+%22non-astrologer%22+or+a+%22non-alchemist.%22+We+do+not+have+words+for+people+who+doubt+that+Elvis+is+still+alive+or+that+aliens+have+traversed+the+galaxy+only+to#v=onepage&q=In%20fact%2C%20%22atheism%22%20is%20a%20term%20that%20should%20not%20even%20exist.%20No%20one%20ever%20needs%20to%20identify%20himself%20as%20a%20%22non-astrologer%22%20or%20a%20%22non-alchemist.%22%20We%20do%20not%20have%20words%20for%20people%20who%20doubt%20that%20Elvis%20is%20still%20alive%20or%20that%20aliens%20have%20traversed%20the%20galaxy%20only%20to&f=false. Retrieved 2011-04-09.
- ^ Paul Henri Thiry, Baron d'Holbach, System of Nature; or, the Laws of the Moral and Physical World (London, 1797), Vol. 1, p. 25
- ^ a b c Zdybicka 2005, p. 20.
- ^ Schafersman, Steven D. (February 1997). "Naturalism is an Essential Part of Science and Critical Inquiry". Conference on Naturalism, Theism and the Scientific Enterprise. Department of Philosophy, The University of Texas. http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:NSuw6hjn_w0J:www.tcnj.edu/~scholars/111%2520Evolution%2520FSP/NATURALISM%2520IS%2520AN%2520ESSENTIAL%2520PART%2520OF%2520SCIENCE%2520AND%2520CRITICAL%2520INQUIRY.doc+Naturalism+is+an+Essential+Part+of+Science+and+Critical+Inquiry&hl=en&gl=ca&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESiOoQ0c8zeA-NUM5qRN7EZqXoJs8b3hGUyuOedNRD9OheY2WLJHpdgNCsxwDJ0iJVdxIhSyytGXR-RXodM3cV8JYd6mEmBRuSQhAsvgFyIDPrw2HT3KXZTEoujo4lXsMckPLn-U&sig=AHIEtbS7vrl9TTdgC7ZY94opxblINuXYMw&pli=1. Retrieved 2011-04-07. Revised May 2007
- ^ Zdybicka 2005, p. 21.
- ^ Drange, Theodore M. (1998). "Atheism, Agnosticism, Noncognitivism". Internet Infidels, Secular Web Library. Retrieved 2007-APR-07.
- ^ Ayer, A. J. (1946). Language, Truth and Logic. Dover. pp. 115–116. In a footnote, Ayer attributes this view to "Professor H. H. Price".
- ^ Zdybicka 2005, p. 19.
- ^ David Hume. Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. Project Gutenberg (e-text). http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4583. Retrieved 2011-04-08.
- ^ Drange, Theodore M. (1996). "The Arguments From Evil and Nonbelief". Internet Infidels, Secular Web Library. Retrieved 2007-04-18.
- ^ V.A. Gunasekara, "The Buddhist Attitude to God.". Archived from the original on 2008-01-02. http://web.archive.org/web/20080102053643/http://www.buddhistinformation.com/buddhist_attitude_to_god.htm. In the Bhuridatta Jataka, "The Buddha argues that the three most commonly given attributes of God, viz. omnipotence, omniscience and benevolence towards humanity cannot all be mutually compatible with the existential fact of dukkha."
- ^ Feuerbach, Ludwig (1841) The Essence of Christianity
- ^ Walpola Rahula, What the Buddha Taught. Grove Press, 1974. Pages 51–52.
- ^ Bakunin, Michael (1916). "God and the State". New York: Mother Earth Publishing Association. http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/anarchist_archives/bakunin/godandstate/godandstate_ch1.html. Retrieved 2011-04-09.
- ^ Gleeson, David (August 10, 2006). "Common Misconceptions About Atheists and Atheism". American Chronicle. http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/12346. Retrieved 2011-04-07.
- ^ Smith 1979, p. 275. "Perhaps the most common criticism of atheism is the claim that it leads inevitably to moral bankruptcy."
- ^ Pascal, Blaise (1669). Pensées, II: "The Misery of Man Without God".
- ^ a b Sartre, Jean-Paul (2004). "An existentialist ethics". In Gensler, Harry J.; Spurgin, Earl W.; Swindal, James C.. Ethics: Contemporary Readings. London: Routledge. p. 127. ISBN 0-415-25680-1.
- ^ Sartre, Jean-Paul (2001). "Existentialism and Humanism". In Priest, Stephen. Jean-Paul Sartre: Basic Writings. London: Routledge. p. 45. ISBN 0-415-21367-3.
- ^ Sartre, Jean-Paul (2001). "Existentialism and Humanism". In Priest, Stephen. Jean-Paul Sartre: Basic Writings. London: Routledge. p. 32. ISBN 0-415-21367-3.
- ^ a b Zuckerman, Phil (2009). "Atheism, Secularity, and Well-Being: How the Findings of Social Science Counter Negative Stereotypes and Assumptions". Sociology Compass 3 (6): 949–971. DOI:10.1111/j.1751-9020.2009.00247.x. http://www.pitzer.edu/academics/faculty/zuckerman/Zuckerman_on_Atheism.pdf.
- ^ Societies without God are more benevolent, The Guardian, September 2, 2010
- ^ Winston, Robert (Ed.) (2004). Human. New York: DK Publishing, Inc. p. 299. ISBN 0-7566-1901-7. "Nonbelief has existed for centuries. For example, Buddhism and Jainism have been called atheistic religions because they do not advocate belief in gods."
- ^ "Humanistic Judaism". BBC. 2006-07-20. http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/judaism/subdivisions/humanistic.shtml. Retrieved 2011-04-09.
- ^ Levin, S. (May 1995). "Jewish Atheism". New Humanist 110 (2): 13–15.
- ^ "Christian Atheism". BBC. 2006-05-17. http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/atheism/types/christianatheism.shtml. Retrieved 2011-04-09.
- ^ Altizer, Thomas J. J. (1967). The Gospel of Christian Atheism. London: Collins. pp. 102–103. http://www.religion-online.org/showbook.asp?title=523. Retrieved 2011-04-09.
- ^ Lyas, Colin (January 1970). "On the Coherence of Christian Atheism". Philosophy: the Journal of the Royal Institute of Philosophy 45 (171): 1–19. DOI:10.1017/S0031819100009578.
- ^ Smith 1979, pp. 21–22
- ^ Slavoj Žižek: Less Than Nothing (2012)
- ^ Alain de Botton: Religion for Atheists (2012)
- ^ Alexander Bard and Jan Söderqvist: The Global Empire (2012)
- ^ Smith 1979, p. 275. "Among the many myths associated with religion, none is more widespread -or more disastrous in its effects—than the myth that moral values cannot be divorced from the belief in a god."
- ^ In Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov (Book Eleven: Brother Ivan Fyodorovich, Chapter 4) there is the famous argument that If there is no God, all things are permitted.: "'But what will become of men then?' I asked him, 'without God and immortal life? All things are lawful then, they can do what they like?'"
- ^ For Kant, the presupposition of God, soul, and freedom was a practical concern, for "Morality, by itself, constitutes a system, but happiness does not, unless it is distributed in exact proportion to morality. This, however, is possible in an intelligible world only under a wise author and ruler. Reason compels us to admit such a ruler, together with life in such a world, which we must consider as future life, or else all moral laws are to be considered as idle dreams..." (Critique of Pure Reason, A811).
- ^ Baggini 2003, p. 38
- ^ Human Rights, Virtue, and the Common Good. Rowman & Littlefield. 1996. ISBN 978-0-8476-8279-9. http://books.google.com/?id=19ccmx1W58IC&pg=PA16&dq=has+truth+only+if+God+is+truth%E2%80%93it+stands+or+falls+with+faith+in+God#v=onepage&q=has%20truth%20only%20if%20God%20is%20truth%E2%80%93it%20stands%20or%20falls%20with%20faith%20in%20God&f=false. Retrieved 2011-04-09. "That problem was brought home to us with dazzling clarity by Nietzsche, who had reflected more deeply than any of his contemporaries on the implications of godlessness and come to the conclusion that a fatal contradiction lay at the heart of modern theological enterprise: it thought that Christian morality, which it wished to preserve, was independent of Christian dogma, which it rejected. This, in Nietzsche's mind, was an absurdity. It amounted to nothing less than dismissing the architect while trying to keep the building or getting rid of the lawgiver while claiming the protection of the law."
- ^ The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology. Wiley-Blackwell. 2009-05-11. ISBN 978-1-4051-7657-6. http://books.google.com/?id=g8bHRrVu3SsC&pg=PA392&dq=there+is+no+God+there+is+no+morality+Nietzsche#v=onepage&q=there%20is%20no%20God%20there%20is%20no%20morality%20Nietzsche&f=false. Retrieved 2011-04-09. "Morality "has truth only if God is truth–it stands or falls with faith in God" (Nietzche 1968, p. 70). The moral argument for the existence of God essentially takes Nietzche's assertion as one of its premises: if there is no God, then "there are altogether no moral facts.""
- ^ Victorian Subjects. Duke University Press. 1991. ISBN 978-0-8223-1110-2. http://books.google.com/?id=VgMB9-tMSMoC&pg=PA85&dq=has+truth+only+if+God+is+truth%E2%80%93it+stands+of+falls+with+faith+in+God#v=onepage&q=has%20truth%20only%20if%20God%20is%20truth%E2%80%93it%20stands%20of%20falls%20with%20faith%20in%20God&f=false. Retrieved 2011-04-09. "Like other mid-nineteenth-century writers, George Eliot was not fully aware of the implications of her humanism, and, as Nietzsche saw, attempted the difficult task of upholding the Christian morality of altruism without faith in the Christian God."
- ^ Moore, G. E. (1903). Principia Ethica. http://fair-use.org/g-e-moore/principia-ethica/s.13. Retrieved 2011-04-09.
- ^ Susan Neiman (November 6, 2006). Beyond Belief Session 6 (Conference). Salk Institute, La Jolla, CA: The Science Network.
- ^ Baggini 2003, p. 40
- ^ Baggini 2003, p. 43
- ^ 101 Ethical Dilemmas, 2nd edition, by Cohen, M., Routledge 2007, pp184-5. (Cohen notes particularly that Plato and Aristotle produced arguments in favour of slavery.)
- ^ Political Philosophy from Plato to Mao, by Cohen, M, Second edition 2008
- ^
- Harris, Sam, The end of faith: religion, terror, and the future of reason, W. W. Norton & Company, 2005
- Harris, Sam, Letter to a Christian Nation, Random House, Inc., 2008
- Dawkins, Richard, The God Delusion, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2008
- Hitchens, Christopher, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, Random House, Inc., 2007
- Russell, Bertrand, Why I am not a Christian, and other essays on religion and related subjects, Simon and Schuster, 1957
- ^ Harris, Sam (2006a). "The Myth of Secular Moral Chaos". Free Inquiry. http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=library&page=sharris_26_3. Retrieved 2011-04-09.
- ^ Moreira-almeida, A.; Lotufo Neto, F.; Koenig, H.G. (2006). "Religiousness and mental health: a review". Revista Brasileira de Psiquiatria 28 (3): 242–250. DOI:10.1590/S1516-44462006005000006. PMID 16924349. http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?pid=S1516-44462006000300018&script=sci_arttext. Retrieved 2007-07-12.
- ^ See for example: Kahoe, R.D. (June 1977). "Intrinsic Religion and Authoritarianism: A Differentiated Relationship". Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 16 (2): 179–182. DOI:10.2307/1385749. JSTOR 1385749. Also see: Altemeyer, Bob; Hunsberger, Bruce (1992). "Authoritarianism, Religious Fundamentalism, Quest, and Prejudice". International Journal for the Psychology of Religion 2 (2): 113–133. DOI:10.1207/s15327582ijpr0202_5. http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a785040926~db=all. Retrieved 2011-04-09.
- ^ Harris, Sam (2005). "An Atheist Manifesto". Truthdig. http://www.truthdig.com/dig/print/200512_an_atheist_manifesto. Retrieved 2011-04-09. "In a world riven by ignorance, only the atheist refuses to deny the obvious: Religious faith promotes human violence to an astonishing degree."
- ^ John S. Feinberg, Paul D. Feinberg (2010-11-04). Ethics for a Brave New World. Stand To Reason. ISBN 978-1-58134-712-8. http://books.google.com/?id=Nl-f5SKq9mgC&pg=PA697&dq=Aleksandr+Solzhenitsyn+But+if+I+were+asked+today+to+formulate+as+concisely+as+possible+the+main+cause+of+the+ruinous+revolution+that+swallowed+up+some+60+million+of+our+people,+I+could+not+put+it+more+accurately+than+to+repeat:+'Men+have+forgotten+God;+that's+why#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 2007–10–18. "Over a half century ago, while I was still a child, I recall hearing a number of old people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: 'Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened.' Since then I have spend well-nigh 50 years working on the history of our revolution; in the process I have read hundreds of books, collected hundreds of personal testimonies, and have already contributed eight volumes of my own toward the effort of clearing away the rubble left by that upheaval. But if I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous revolution that swallowed up some 60 million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: 'Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened.'"
- ^ Dinesh D'Souza. "Answering Atheist’s Arguments". Catholic Education Resource Center. http://catholiceducation.org/articles/apologetics/ap0214.htm. Retrieved 2011-04-09.
- ^ The word αθεοι—in any of its forms—appears nowhere else in the Septuagint or the New Testament. Robertson, A.T. (1960) [1932]. "Ephesians: Chapter 2". Word Pictures in the New Testament. Broadman Press. http://www.ccel.org/r/robertson_at/wordpictures/htm/EPH2.RWP.html. Retrieved 2011-04-09. "Old Greek word, not in LXX, only here in N.T. Atheists in the original sense of being without God and also in the sense of hostility to God from failure to worship him. See Paul's words in Ro 1:18–32."
- ^ Drachmann, A. B. (1977 ("an unchanged reprint of the 1922 edition")). Atheism in Pagan Antiquity. Chicago: Ares Publishers. ISBN 0-89005-201-8. http://books.google.com/?id=cguq-yNii_QC&dq=Atheism+in+Pagan+Antiquity&printsec=frontcover&q=. "Atheism and atheist are words formed from Greek roots and with Greek derivative endings. Nevertheless they are not Greek; their formation is not consonant with Greek usage. In Greek they said atheos and atheotēs; to these the English words ungodly and ungodliness correspond rather closely. In exactly the same way as ungodly, atheos was used as an expression of severe censure and moral condemnation; this use is an old one, and the oldest that can be traced. Not till later do we find it employed to denote a certain philosophical creed."
- ^ OED, Atheist
- ^ Martiall, John (1566). A Replie to Mr Calfhills Blasphemous Answer Made Against the Treatise of the Cross. English recusant literature, 1558–1640. 203. Louvain. p. 51. http://books.google.com/books?id=20snAQAAIAAJ&q=%22to%20entre#v=snippet&q=atheist&f=false. Retrieved 2011-04-09.
- ^ Rendered as Atheistes: Golding, Arthur (1571). The Psalmes of David and others, with J. Calvin's commentaries. pp. Ep. Ded. 3. "The Atheistes which say..there is no God." Translated from Latin.
- ^ Hanmer, Meredith (1577). The auncient ecclesiasticall histories of the first six hundred years after Christ, written by Eusebius, Socrates, and Evagrius. London. p. 63. OCLC 55193813. "The opinion which they conceaue of you, to be Atheists, or godlesse men."
- ^ a b Rendered as Athisme: de Mornay, Philippe (1587). A Woorke Concerning the Trewnesse of the Christian Religion: Against Atheists, Epicures, Paynims, Iewes, Mahumetists, and other infidels [De la vérite de la religion chréstienne (1581)]. Translated from French by Arthur Golding & Philip Sidney. London. pp. xx. 310. "Athisme, that is to say, vtter godlesnes."
- ^ Vergil, Polydore (c1534). English history. http://books.google.com/?id=gW-gAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=vergil+english+history#v=onepage&q=Godd%20would%20not&f=false. Retrieved 2011-04-09. "Godd would not longe suffer this impietie, or rather atheonisme."
- ^ The Oxford English Dictionary also records an earlier, irregular formation, atheonism, dated from about 1534. The later and now obsolete words athean and atheal are dated to 1611 and 1612 respectively. prep. by J. A. Simpson ... (1989). The Oxford English Dictionary (Second ed.). Oxford University Press, USA. ISBN 0-19-861186-2.
- ^ Burton, Robert (1621). deist. Part III, section IV. II. i. http://books.google.com/?id=cPgveWnCdRcC&printsec=frontcover&dq=anatomy+of+melancholy#v=onepage&q=deists&f=false. Retrieved 2011-04-09. "Cousin-germans to these men are many of our great Philosophers and Deists"
- ^ Martin, Edward (1662). "Five Letters". His opinion concerning the difference between the Church of England and Geneva [etc.]. London. p. 45. "To have said my office..twice a day..among Rebels, Theists, Atheists, Philologers, Wits, Masters of Reason, Puritanes [etc.]."
- ^ Bailey, Nathan (1675). An universal etymological English dictionary. http://books.google.com/?id=CFBGAAAAYAAJ&pg=PT255&dq=deism#v=onepage&q=deism&f=false. Retrieved 2011-04-09.
- ^ "Secondly, that nothing out of nothing, in the sense of the atheistic objectors, viz. that nothing, which once was not, could by any power whatsoever be brought into being, is absolutely false; and that, if it were true, it would make no more against theism than it does against atheism.." Cudworth, Ralph. The true intellectual system of the universe. 1678. Chapter V Section II p.73
- ^ "17th Century History – Investigating Atheism". Investigatingatheism.info. http://www.investigatingatheism.info/historyseventeenth.html. Retrieved 2011-04-09.
- ^ http://www.foothill.edu/attach/bss/schaefers.ch9.pt2.ppt
- ^ In part because of its wide use in monotheistic Western society, atheism is usually described as "disbelief in God", rather than more generally as "disbelief in deities". A clear distinction is rarely drawn in modern writings between these two definitions, but some archaic uses of atheism encompassed only disbelief in the singular God, not in polytheistic deities. It is on this basis that the obsolete term adevism was coined in the late 19th century to describe an absence of belief in plural deities. Britannica (1911). "Atheonism". Encyclopædia Britannica.
- ^ Pandian (1996). India, that is, sidd. Allied Publishers. p. 64. ISBN 978-81-7023-561-3. http://books.google.com/?id=B90uj14NHjMC&pg=PA64. Retrieved 2011-04-09.
- ^ Dasgupta, Surendranath (1992). A history of Indian philosophy, Volume 1. Motilal Banarsidass Publ.. p. 258. ISBN 978-81-208-0412-8. http://books.google.com/?id=PoaMFmS1_lEC&pg=PA258. Retrieved 2011-04-09.
- ^ Tripathi (2001). Psycho-Religious Studies of Man, Mind and Nature. Global Vision Publishing House. p. 81. ISBN 978-81-87746-04-1. http://books.google.com/?id=zWFM_SaX24AC&pg=PA81. Retrieved 2011-04-09.
- ^ Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan and Charles A. Moore. A Sourcebook in Indian Philosophy. (Princeton University Press: 1957, Twelfth Princeton Paperback printing 1989) pp. 227–249. ISBN 0-691-01958-4.
- ^ Satischandra Chatterjee and Dhirendramohan Datta. An Introduction to Indian Philosophy. Eighth Reprint Edition. (University of Calcutta: 1984). p. 55.
- ^ Joshi, L.R. (1966). "A New Interpretation of Indian Atheism". Philosophy East and West 16 (3/4): 189–206. DOI:10.2307/1397540. JSTOR 1397540.
- ^ Baggini 2003, pp. 73–74. "Atheism had its origins in Ancient Greece but did not emerge as an overt and avowed belief system until late in the Enlightenment."
- ^ Solmsen, Friedrich (1942). Plato's Theology. Cornell University Press. p 25.
- ^ a b ...nullos esse omnino Diagoras et Theodorus Cyrenaicus... Cicero, Marcus Tullius: De natura deorum. Comments and English text by Richard D. McKirahan. Thomas Library, Bryn Mawr College, 1997, page 3. ISBN 0-929524-89-6
- ^ "religion, study of". (2007). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 2007-04-02.
- ^ Diogenes Laërtius, The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, ii
- ^ Cicero, Lucullus, 121. in Reale, G., A History of Ancient Philosophy. SUNY Press. (1985).
- ^ "Atheism". The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. Columbia University Press. 2005. Archived from the original on 2006-11-04. http://web.archive.org/web/20061104032305/http://www.bartleby.com/65/at/atheism.html. Retrieved 2011-04-09.
- ^ Brickhouse, Thomas C.; Nicholas D. Smith (2004). Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Plato and the Trial of Socrates. Routledge. p. 112. ISBN 0-415-15681-5. In particular, he argues that the claim he is a complete atheist contradicts the other part of the indictment, that he introduced "new divinities".
- ^ "Apology". Classics.mit.edu. http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/apology.html. Retrieved 2011-04-09.
- ^ "The Dialogues of Plato, vol. 1". Oll.libertyfund.org. http://oll.libertyfund.org/index.php?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php&title=111. Retrieved 2011-04-09.
- ^ "The Republic". Classics.mit.edu. http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/republic.html. Retrieved 2011-04-09.
- ^ Fragments of Euhemerus' work in Ennius' Latin translation have been preserved in Patristic writings (e.g. by Lactantius and Eusebius of Caesarea), which all rely on earlier fragments in Diodorus 5,41–46 & 6.1. Testimonies, especially in the context of polemical criticism, are found e.g. in Callimachus, Hymn to Zeus 8.
- ^ Plutarch, Moralia—Isis and Osiris 23
- ^ BBC. "Ethics and Religion—Atheism". bbc.co.uk. http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/atheism/. Retrieved 2011-04-09.
- ^
- On the Nature of Things by Lucretius at Project Gutenberg Book I, "Substance is Eternal". Translated by W.E. Leonard. 1997. Retrieved 2007-APR-12.
- ^ Julius Caesar (100–44 BCE), who leaned considerably toward Epicureanism, also rejected the idea of an afterlife, which e.g. lead to his plea against the death sentence during the trial against Catiline, where he spoke out against the Stoicist Cato (cf. Sallust, The War With Catiline, Caesar's speech: 51.29 & Cato's reply: 52.13).
- ^ a b Stein, Gordon (Ed.) (1980). "The History of Freethought and Atheism". An Anthology of Atheism and Rationalism. New York: Prometheus. Retrieved 2007-APR-03.
- ^
"Atheism" in the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia. - ^ Maycock, A. L. and Ronald Knox (2003). Inquisition from Its Establishment to the Great Schism: An Introductory Study. ISBN 0-7661-7290-2.
- ^ a b Zdybicka 2005, p. 4
- ^ Winfried Schröder, in: Matthias Knutzen: Schriften und Materialien (2010), p. 8. See also Rececca Moore, The Heritage of Western Humanism, Scepticism and Freethought (2011), calling Knutzen "the first open advocate of a modern atheist perspective" online here
- ^ "Michel Onfray on Jean Meslier". William Paterson University. http://nova.wpunj.edu/newpolitics/issue40/Onfray40.htm. Retrieved 2011-11-04.
- ^ d'Holbach, P. H. T. (1770). The System of Nature. 2. http://fulltextarchive.com/page/The-System-of-Nature-Vol-21/. Retrieved 2011-04-07.
- ^ Ray, Matthew Alun (2003). Subjectivity and Irreligion: Atheism and Agnosticism in Kant, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.. ISBN 978-0-7546-3456-0. http://books.google.com/?id=BKz2FcDrFy0C&pg=PA1&dq=nietzsche+schopenhauer+marx+feuerbach. Retrieved 2011-04-09.
- ^ Overall, Christine (2007). Feminism and Atheism. ISBN 978-0-521-84270-9. http://books.google.com/?id=tAeFipOVx4MC&pg=PA233&lpg=PA233&dq=%22Feminism+and+Atheism%22&q=%22Feminism%20and%20Atheism%22. Retrieved 2011-04-09. in Martin 2007, pp. 233–246
- ^ Zdybicka 2005, p. 16
- ^ Gerhard Simon (19 October 2009). Church, State, and Opposition in the U.S.S.R.. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-02612-4. http://books.google.com/?id=sTLc8H3b4vUC&pg=PA64. "On the other hand the Communist Party has never made any secret of the fact, either before or after 1917, that it regards 'militant atheism' as an integral part of its ideology and will regard 'religion as by no means a private matter'. It therefore uses 'the means of ideological influence to educate people in the spirit of scientific materialism and to overcome religious prejudices..' Thus it is the goal of the C.P.S.U. and thereby also of the Soviet state, for which it is after all the 'guiding cell', gradually to liquidate the religious communities."
- ^ Dimitry Pospielovsky (19 October 2009). The Orthodox Church in the History of Russia. St Vladimir's Seminary Press. ISBN 978-0-88141-179-9. http://books.google.com/?id=2cP0wc_E6yEC&pg=PA395&dq=liquidation+of+religion+militant+atheism#v=onepage&q=liquidation%20of%20religion%20militant%20atheism&f=false. "It might be expected that as a Christian leader, he would at least declare that a Christian could not vote for a party that preached and practiced genocide, whether racial or class-based , nor for a party whose ideology included a militant atheism aiming at liquidation of religion."
- ^ Simon Richmond (19 October 2009). Russia & Belarus. BBC Worldwide. ISBN 978-1-74104-291-7. http://books.google.com/?id=jcNZUzdd-ukC&pg=PA79&dq=liquidation+of+religion+militant+atheism#v=onepage&q=liquidation%20of%20religion%20militant%20atheism&f=false. "Soviet 'militant atheism' led to the closure and destruction of nearly all the mosques and madrasahs (Muslim religious schools) in Russia, although some remained in the Central Asian states. Under Stalin there were mass deportations and liquidation of the Muslim elite."
- ^ Tʻinatʻin Bočorišvili, William Sweet, Daniel R. Ahern (2005-06-30). Politics, ethics and challenges to democracy in 'new independent states'. Berghahn Books. ISBN 978-1-56518-224-0. http://books.google.com/?id=qzkttrhVe9gC&pg=PA125&dq=soviet+union+state+atheism#v=onepage&q=soviet%20union%20state%20atheism&f=false. Retrieved 2011-03-05. "During the past 150 years in Azerbaijan, Islam has experienced an ascendancy over the official Orthodoxy of the Russian Empire and, then, the state atheism of the Soviet Union."
- ^ Russian postmodernism: new perspectives on post-Soviet culture. Berghahn Books. 1999. ISBN 978-1-57181-028-1. http://books.google.com/?id=8pciFcaGXR0C&pg=PA379&dq=soviet+union+state+atheism#v=onepage&q=soviet%20union%20state%20atheism&f=false. Retrieved 2011-03-05. "The seven decades of Soviet atheism, whether one calls it "mass atheism," "scientific atheism," "state atheism," was unquestionably a new phenomenon in world history."
- ^ Baggini, Julian (Summer 2003). The Perils of Atheism. 118. New Humanist. http://newhumanist.org.uk/627/the-perils-of-atheism. Retrieved 2011-04-07. Extract from his book Atheism: A Very Short Introduction (2003), Oxford University Press
- ^ William B. Simons, Rijksuniversiteit te Leiden (2001). The Constitutions of the Communist World. Springer. ISBN 978-0-8147-2214-5. http://books.google.com/?id=aAtQZ0vjf5gC&pg=PA18&dq=The+State+recognizes+no+religion,+and+supports+and+carries+out+atheistic+propaganda+in+order+to+implant+a+scientific+materialistic+world+outlook+in+people#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 2011-03-05. "Article 37. The State recognizes no religion and supports and carries out atheist propaganda in order to implant a scientific materialist world outlook in people."
- ^ Robert Elsie (2001). A Dictionary of Albanian Religion, Mythology, and Folk culture. New York University Press. ISBN 978-0-8147-2214-5. http://books.google.com/?id=aAtQZ0vjf5gC&pg=PA18&dq=The+State+recognizes+no+religion,+and+supports+and+carries+out+atheistic+propaganda+in+order+to+implant+a+scientific+materialistic+world+outlook+in+people#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 2011-03-05. "Article 37 of the Albanian constitution of 1976 stipulated, "The State recognizes no religion and supports and carries out atheist propaganda in order to implant a scientific materialist world outlook in people.""
- ^ Richard Felix Staar (1982). Communist Regimes in Eastern Europe. The Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, Stanford University. ISBN 978-0-8179-7692-7. http://books.google.com/?id=ugeMgomY7hAC&pg=PA13&dq=The+State+recognizes+no+religion,+and+supports+and+carries+out+atheistic+propaganda+in+order+to+implant+a+scientific+materialistic+world+outlook+in+people#v=onepage&q=The%20State%20recognizes%20no%20religion%2C%20and%20supports%20and%20carries%20out%20atheistic%20propaganda%20in%20order%20to%20implant%20a%20scientific%20materialistic%20world%20outlook%20in%20people&f=false. Retrieved 2011-03-05. "By 1976 all places of worship had been closed. However, the regime has had to admit that religion still maintains a following among Albanians. In order to suppress religious life, the following article has been included in the 1976 constitution: "The state recognizes no religion and supports and carries out atheistic propaganda to implant the scientific materialistic world outlook in people" (Article 37). In its antireligious moves, the regime has gone so far as to order persons to change their names if they are of a religious origin."
- ^ China in the 21st century. Oxford University Press. 2010-04-16. ISBN 978-0-19-539447-4. http://books.google.com/?id=X49uEF5XUX0C&pg=PA108&dq=state+atheism+china#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 2011-03-05. "China is still officially an atheist country, but many religions are growing rapidly, including evangelical Christianity (estimates of how many Chinese have converted to some form of Protestantism range widely, but at least tens of millions have done so) and various hybrid sects that combine elements of traditional creeds and belief systems (Buddhism mixed with local folk cults, for example)."
- ^ a b c The State of Religion Atlas. Simon & Schuster. 1993-12. http://books.google.com/?id=BY4YAQAAMAAJ&q=north+korea+atheist+state&dq=north+korea+atheist+state. Retrieved 2011-03-05. "Atheism continues to be the official position of the governments of China, North Korea and Cuba."
- ^ World and Its Peoples: Eastern and Southern Asia. Marshall Cavendish. 2007-09. ISBN 978-0-7614-7631-3. http://books.google.com/?id=YG2AFyFppJQC&pg=PA933&dq=north+korea+atheist+state#v=onepage&q=north%20korea%20atheist%20state&f=false. Retrieved 2011-03-05. "North Korea is officially an atheist state in which almost the entire population is nonreligious."
- ^ Freeing God's Children: The Unlikely Alliance for Global Human Rights. Rowman & Littlefield. 2006-09. ISBN 978-0-7425-4732-2. http://books.google.com/?id=EkIvbxefBNsC&pg=PA43&dq=cuba+state+atheism#v=onepage&q=cuba%20state%20atheism&f=false. Retrieved 2011-03-05. "Cuba is the only country in the Americas that has attempted to impose state atheism, and since the 1960s onward its jails have been filled with pastors and other believers."
- ^ Michael, S. M. (1999). "Dalit Visions of a Just Society". In S. M. Michael (ed.). Untouchable: Dalits in Modern India. Lynne Rienner Publishers. pp. 31–33. ISBN 1-55587-697-8.
- ^ "He who created god was a fool, he who spreads his name is a scoundrel, and he who worships him is a barbarian." Hiorth, Finngeir (1996). "Atheism in South India". International Humanist and Ethical Union, International Humanist News. Retrieved 2007-05-30
- ^ TIME Magazine cover online. Apr 8, 1966. Retrieved 2007-04-17.
- ^ "Toward a Hidden God". Time Magazine online. Apr 8, 1966. Retrieved 2007-04-17.
- ^ Majeska, George P.; Bociurkiw, Bohdan R.; Strong, John W. (1976). "Religion and Atheism in the U.S.S.R. and Eastern Europe, Review". The Slavic and East European Journal 20 (2): 204–206. DOI:10.2307/305838. JSTOR 305838.
- ^ Rafford, R.L. (1987). "Atheophobia—an introduction". Religious Humanism 21 (1): 32–37.
- ^ "Timothy Samuel Shah Explains 'Why God is Winning'." 2006-07-18. The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. Retrieved 2011-04-07.
- ^ Paul, Gregory; Phil Zuckerman (2007). "Why the Gods Are Not Winning". Edge 209. http://www.edge.org/documents/archive/edge209.html#gp. Retrieved 2011-04-09.
- ^ Vermont Law Review Vol. 33:225 2008, Finding Shared Values in a Diverse Society: Lessons From the Intelligent Design Controversy by Alan E. Garfield (page 231).
- ^ Landsberg, Mitchell (September 28, 2010). "Atheists, agnostics most knowledgeable about religion, survey says". Los Angeles Times. http://articles.latimes.com/2010/sep/28/nation/la-na-religion-survey-20100928. Retrieved 2011-04-08.
- ^ Hooper, Simon. "The rise of the New Atheists". CNN. http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/11/08/atheism.feature/index.html. Retrieved 2010-03-16.
- ^ Gribbin, Alice (December 22, 2011). "Preview: The Four Horsemen of New Atheism reunited". New Statesman. http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2011/12/richard-dawkins-issue-hitchens. Retrieved 2012-02-13.
- ^ Stenger, Victor J. The New Atheism. ISBN 1-59102-751-9.
- ^ Stenger, Victor J. "The New Atheism". Colorado University. http://www.colorado.edu/philosophy/vstenger/battle.html. Retrieved 2009-07-23.
- ^ "ReportDGResearchSocialValuesEN2.PDF" (PDF). http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_225_report_en.pdf. Retrieved 2011-04-09.
- ^ "Major Religions of the World Ranked by Number of Adherents, Section on accuracy of non-Religious Demographic Data". http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.html#Nonreligious. Retrieved 2011-04-09.
- ^ Huxley, Andrew (2002). Religion, Law and Tradition: Comparative Studies in Religious Law. Routledge. p. 120. ISBN 978-0-7007-1689-0. OL7763963M. http://books.google.com/books?id=YsUMTA4MebwC&pg=PA120. Retrieved 2011-04-09.
- ^ Joas, Hans; Wiegandt, Klaus, eds. (2010). Secularization and the World Religions. Liverpool University Press. p. 122 (footnote 1). ISBN 978-1-84631-187-1. OL25285702M. http://books.google.com/books?id=rQTdki1xyK0C&pg=PA122. Retrieved 2012-04-18.
- ^ a b "Characteristics of the Population". Australian Bureau of Statistics. 2006. http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup/1301.0Feature+Article7012009%E2%80%9310. Retrieved 2011-04-09.
- ^ a b (PDF) Social values, Science and Technology. Directorate General Research, European Union. 2005. pp. 7–11. http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_225_report_en.pdf. Retrieved 2011-04-09.
- ^ Zuckerman, Phil (2007). Martin, Michael T. ed. The Cambridge companion to atheism. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. p. 51. ISBN 0-521-84270-0. http://books.google.com/books?id=tAeFipOVx4MC&pg=PA51. Retrieved 2011-04-09.
- ^ Larson, Edward J.; Larry Witham (1998). "Correspondence: Leading scientists still reject God". Nature 394 (6691): 313–4. DOI:10.1038/28478. PMID 9690462. Available at StephenJayGould.org, Stephen Jay Gould archive. Retrieved 2006-12-17
- ^ William H. Swatos; Daniel V. A. Olson, ed. "The Secularization Debate (chapter by Rodney Stark)". Rowman & Littlefield. http://books.google.com/books?id=2P_RJqdUYBAC&pg=PA57&dq=He+wanted+to+show+that+men+of+science+were+irreligious.&hl=en&sa=X&ei=HNeST8PGMcfk6QHZg8GNBA&ved=0CDQQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=He%20wanted%20to%20show%20that%20men%20of%20science%20were%20irreligious.&f=false. Retrieved 2011-08-19. "Recently, quite amazing time series data on the beliefs of scientists were published in Nature. Leuba's standard for belief in God is so stringent it would exclude a substantial portion of "mainline" clergy. It obviously was an intentional ploy on his part. He wanted to show that men of science were irreligious."
- Rodney Stark; Roger Finke. Acts of Faith: Explaining the Human Side of Religion. University of California Press. http://books.google.com/books?id=N4p9eiXV6dMC&pg=PA73&dq=Leuba's+standard+for+belief+in+God+is+so+stringent&hl=en&ei=3QNPTpHhDITKsQK65NzRBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Leuba's%20standard%20for%20belief%20in%20God%20is%20so%20stringent&f=falsel. Retrieved 2011-08-19. "Recently, quite amazing time series data on the beliefs of scientists were published in Nature. Leuba's standard for belief in God is so stringent it would exclude a substantial portion of "mainline" clergy. It obviously was an intentional ploy on his part. He wanted to show that men of science were irreligious."
- ^ "Survey on physicians’ religious beliefs shows majority faithful". The University of Chicago. http://chronicle.uchicago.edu/050714/doctorsfaith.shtml. Retrieved 2011–04-08. "The first study of physician religious beliefs has found that 76 percent of doctors believe in God and 59 percent believe in some sort of afterlife. The survey, performed by researchers at the University and published in the July issue of the Journal of General Internal Medicine, found that 90 percent of doctors in the United States attend religious services at least occasionally compared to 81 percent of all adults."
- ^ "Scientists and Belief". Pew Research Center. http://pewforum.org/Science-and-Bioethics/Scientists-and-Belief.aspx. Retrieved 2011–04-08. "A survey of scientists who are members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press in May and June 2009, finds that members of this group are, on the whole, much less religious than the general public.1 Indeed, the survey shows that scientists are roughly half as likely as the general public to believe in God or a higher power. According to the poll, just over half of scientists (51%) believe in some form of deity or higher power; specifically, 33% of scientists say they believe in God, while 18% believe in a universal spirit or higher power."
- ^ Shermer, Michael (1999). How We Believe: Science, Skepticism, and the Search for God. New York: William H Freeman. pp. pp76–79. ISBN 0-7167-3561-X.
- ^ According to Dawkins (2006), p. 103. Dawkins cites Bell, Paul. "Would you believe it?" Mensa Magazine, UK Edition, Feb. 2002, pp. 12–13. Analyzing 43 studies carried out since 1927, Bell found that all but four reported such a connection, and he concluded that "the higher one's intelligence or education level, the less one is likely to be religious or hold 'beliefs' of any kind."
- ^ Argyle, Michael (1958). Religious Behaviour. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. pp. 93–96. ISBN 0-415-17589-5.
- ^ Schwadel, Philip (2011). "The Effects of Education on Americans’ Religious Practices, Beliefs, and Affiliations". Review of Religious Research 53 (2). DOI:10.1007/s13644-011-0007-4.
References[link]
- Baggini, Julian (2003). Atheism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-280424-3.
- Martin, Michael, ed. (2007). The Cambridge Companion to Atheism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-60367-6. http://books.google.ca/books?id=tAeFipOVx4MC&pg=PA8#v=onepage&q&f=true. Retrieved 2011-04-09.
- Smith, George H. (1979). Atheism: The Case Against God. Buffalo, New York: Prometheus Books. ISBN 0-87975-124-X.
- Stenger, Victor J. (2007). God: The Failed Hypothesis—How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist. Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books. ISBN 978-1-59102-652-5.
- Zdybicka, Zofia J. (2005). "Atheism". In Maryniarczyk, Andrzej. Universal Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 1. Polish Thomas Aquinas Association. http://ptta.pl/pef/haslaen/a/atheism.pdf. Retrieved 2011-04-09
Further reading[link]
- Berman, David (1990). A History of Atheism in Britain: From Hobbes to Russell. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-04727-7. http://books.google.ca/books?id=Li4OAAAAQAAJ&lpg=PP1&dq=A%20History%20of%20Atheism%20in%20Britain%3A%20From%20Hobbes%20to%20Russell&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=true.
- Buckley, M. J. (1990). At the Origins of Modern Atheism. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-04897-1.
- Dawkins, Richard (2006). The God Delusion. Bantam Press. ISBN 0-593-05548-9. http://books.google.ca/books?id=yq1xDpicghkC&lpg=PP1&dq=The%20God%20Delusion&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=true.
- Flew, Antony (2005). God and Philosophy. Prometheus Books. ISBN 1-59102-330-0.
- Tom Flynn, ed. (2007). The New Encyclopedia of Unbelief. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books. ISBN 1-59102-391-2.
- Gaskin, J.C.A., ed. (1989). Varieties of Unbelief: From Epicurus to Sartre. •New York: Macmillan. ISBN 0-02-340681-X.
- Germani, Alan (2008-09-15). "The Mystical Ethics of the New Atheists". The Objective Standard (Glen Allen Press) 3 (3). http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/issues/2008-fall/mystical-ethics-new-atheists.asp. Retrieved 2011-04-09.
- Harbour, Daniel (2003). An Intelligent Person's Guide to Atheism. London: Duckworth. ISBN 0-7156-3229-9.
- Harris, Sam (2006). Letter to a Christian Nation. Knopf. ISBN 978-0-307-26577-7. http://books.google.ca/books?id=RlZATs3xD0gC&lpg=PP1&dq=Letter%20to%20a%20Christian%20Nation&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=true.
- Harris, Sam (October 2, 2007). "The Problem with Atheism". The Washington Post. http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/panelists/sam_harris/2007/10/the_problem_with_atheism.html. Retrieved 2011-04-09.
- Hitchens, Christopher (2007). God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. Twelve. ISBN 978-0-446-57980-3. http://books.google.ca/books?id=sGgoYfGyqSMC&lpg=PP1&dq=God%20Is%20Not%20Great%3A%20How%20Religion%20Poisons%20Everything&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=true.
- Howson, Colin (2011). Objecting to God. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-18665-0
- Jacoby, Susan (2004). Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism. Metropolitan Books. ISBN 978-0-8050-7442-0.
- Krueger, D. E. (1998). What is Atheism?: A Short Introduction. New York: Prometheus. ISBN 1-57392-214-5.
- Le Poidevin, R. (1996). Arguing for Atheism: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-09338-4. http://books.google.ca/books?id=M4YlYZi_cMUC&lpg=PP1&dq=Arguing%20for%20Atheism%3A%20An%20Introduction%20to%20the%20Philosophy%20of%20Religion&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=true.
- Mackie, J. L. (1982). The Miracle of Theism: Arguments For and Against the Existence of God. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-824682-X.
- Maritain, Jacques (1953). The Range of Reason. London: Geoffrey Bles. ISBN B0007DKP00. http://www.nd.edu/Departments/Maritain/etext/range.htm. Retrieved 2011-04-09.
- Martin, Michael (1990). Atheism: A Philosophical Justification. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. ISBN 0-87722-943-0. http://books.google.ca/books?id=MNZqCoor4eoC&lpg=PP1&dq=Atheism%3A%20A%20Philosophical%20Justification&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=true. Retrieved 2011-04-09.
- Michael Martin & Ricki Monnier, ed. (2003). The Impossibility of God. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books. ISBN 1-59102-120-0.
- Michael Martin & Ricki Monnier, ed. (2006). The Improbability of God. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books. ISBN 1-59102-381-5.
- McTaggart, John; McTaggart, Ellis (1930) [1906]. Some Dogmas of Religion (New ed.). London: Edward Arnold & Co.. ISBN 0-548-14955-0.
- Nielsen, Kai (1985). Philosophy and Atheism. New York: Prometheus. ISBN 0-87975-289-0.
- Nielsen, Kai (2001). Naturalism and Religion. New York: Prometheus. ISBN 1-57392-853-4.
- Onfray, Michel (2007). Atheist Manifesto. New York: Arcade Publishing. ISBN 978-1-55970-820-3. http://books.google.ca/books?id=QpEAYMo7pFkC&lpg=PP1&dq=Atheist%20Manifesto&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=true. Retrieved 2011-04-09.
- Oppy, Graham (2006). Arguing about Gods. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-86386-4. http://books.google.ca/books?id=DlVtfUxPD14C&lpg=PP1&dq=Arguing%20about%20Gods&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=true. Retrieved 2011-04-09.
- Robinson, Richard (1964). An Atheist's Values. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN 0-19-824191-7. http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/athval0.htm. Retrieved 2011-04-09.
- Rosenberg, Alex (2011). The Atheist's Guide to Reality: Enjoying Life Without Illusions. New York: W. W. Norton & Co. ISBN 978-0-393-08023-0
- Russell, Paul (October 4, 2005). "Hume on Religion". In Edward N. Zalta. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2008 ed.). Metaphysics Research Lab. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hume-religion/. Retrieved 2011-04-09.
- Sharpe, R.A. (1997). The Moral Case Against Religious Belief. London: SCM Press. ISBN 0-334-02680-6.
- Thrower, James (1971). A Short History of Western Atheism. London: Pemberton. ISBN 0-301-71101-1.
- Walters, Kerry (2010). Atheism: A Guide for the Perplexed. New York: Continuum. ISBN 978-0-8264-2493-8
External links[link]
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- Atheism in The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- The New Atheists in The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- Atheism at the Open Directory Project – Includes links to organizations and websites.
- Positive atheism: Great Historical Writings Historical writing sorted by authors.
- Religion & Ethics—Atheism at bbc.co.uk.
- Secular Web library – Library of both historical and modern writings, a comprehensive online resource for freely available material on atheism.
- The Demand for Religion – A study on the demographics of Atheism by Wolfgang Jagodzinski (University of Cologne) and Andrew Greeley (University of Chicago and University of Arizona).
- Atheism at enotes.com
- Kai Nielsen (July 1963). "Can Faith Validate God-Talk?". Theology Today 20. http://theologytoday.ptsem.edu/jul1963/v20-2-article2.htm. Retrieved 2011-12-05.
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This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism
This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.
This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.
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| Born | (1949-08-23) August 23, 1949 (age 62)[1] East Peoria, Illinois[citation needed] |
|---|---|
| Era | 21st-century philosophy |
| Region | Western philosophy |
| School | Analytic philosophy |
| Main interests | Philosophy of religion, natural theology, philosophy of time, Christian apologetics |
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Influenced by
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Influenced
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| Website | reasonablefaith.org |
William Lane Craig (born August 23, 1949)[1] is an American analytic philosopher, philosophical theologian, and Christian apologist.[2] He is known for his work in the philosophy of religion, philosophy of time, and the defense of Christian theism.[3] One of his most notable contributions to the philosophy of religion is his defense of the Kalām cosmological argument, which is the most widely discussed argument for the existence of God in contemporary Western philosophy.[2][4] In theology, he has also defended Molinism and the belief that God is, since Creation, subject to time.[2][5][6]
Craig has authored or edited over 30 books, including The Kalām Cosmological Argument (1979), The Cosmological Argument from Plato to Leibniz (1980), Theism, Atheism, and Big Bang Cosmology (with Quentin Smith, 1993), Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview (with J.P. Moreland, 2003) and Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics (3d edition, 2008).
Contents |
Academic background[link]
Craig received a Bachelor of Arts degree in communications from Wheaton College, Illinois, in 1971 and two summa cum laude master's degrees from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois, in 1975, in philosophy of religion and ecclesiastical history.[1] He earned a Ph.D. in philosophy under John Hick at the University of Birmingham, England in 1977 and a Th.D. under Wolfhart Pannenberg at the University of Munich in 1984.[7]
From 1980 to 1986 he was an assistant professor of philosophy at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He briefly held the position of associate professor of religious studies at Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California, from 1986 to 1987. From 1987 to 1994 Craig pursued further research at the University of Louvain, Belgium. Since 1996 he has held the position of research professor of philosophy at Talbot School of Theology, Biola University in La Mirada, California.[7]
Work[link]
Philosophy of religion[link]
Craig's primary contribution to philosophy of religion is his revival of the Kalām cosmological argument. In The Kalam Cosmological Argument, he formulates the argument in the following manner:
- Everything that begins to exist has a cause of its existence.
- The universe began to exist.
- Therefore, the universe has a cause of its existence.[8]
He defends the second premise by arguing that actual infinities and the formation of an actual infinite through continual addition are metaphysically impossible. Although he recognizes that axiomatized infinite set theory is logically consistent he maintains that the existence of actual infinities in the real world would lead to absurdities. For example, David Hilbert's famous "Hilbert's Hotel" thought experiment demonstrates how a fully occupied hotel would still be able to accommodate an infinite number of guests. Craig modifies the thought experiment by introducing operations such as subtraction and shows that subtracting identical quantities from identical quantities would have non-identical remainders.[9] Since we have no evidence of such things in the actual world, Craig maintains that actual infinities are, for all intents and purposes, metaphysically impossible. Craig also argues that the thermodynamic properties of the universe and its expansion provide more evidence in support of premise two.[10]
Craig also develops an a posteriori argument against actual infinities which rests on the A-theory of time. He gives Bertrand Russell's example of Tristam Shandy, who writes his autobiography so slowly that it takes him one year to write down the events of one day. A similar temporal sequence would have occurred in an eternal universe. No matter how long it takes, an eternal universe would still not be 'actually infinite' and must have begun to exist.
Craig has also contributed to the problem of divine foreknowledge (the compatibility of God's omniscience with human freedom). He analyzes current discussions of time travel, retrocausality, special relativity, and Newcomb's Paradox and brings them to bear on theological fatalism (most often supported by strongly Augustinian theologies, particularly Calvinism).[11] Rejecting fatalism[12] he defends the middle knowledge view (also known as Molinism).[13] According to this solution, prior to actualizing a possible world, God knows everything that does or will happen as well as how free creatures would act if placed in any particular circumstance. Craig considers that this also provides the answer to the question of how God foreknows future contingents.[14]
Philosophy of time[link]
Craig is a presentist and defends the A-series of time. He rejects J. M. E. McTaggart's famous argument against it, describing it as "an engaging and recalcitrant brain teaser that no one takes seriously," but also argues against hybrid A-B theorists because they are all refuted by McTaggart's paradox.[15] He argues that McTaggart's objection does not succeed as it employs an incoherent combination of a B-theoretical ontology with A-theoretical temporal becoming.[16] According to Craig, if one adopts a neo-Lorentzian interpretation of special relativity, the A-theory can be reconciled with the theory of relativity.[17]
In terms of God's relationship to time, Craig argues that God must exist in time if he is to be regarded as a causal agent. He rejects the view that God could exist timelessly with creation as he did sans creation on the grounds that nothing outside time could have temporal interactions with the world. Critics such as Paul Helm maintain that Craig’s objections against divine timelessness is itself incoherent because "There can be no temporal 'and then' for a timelessly eternal God."[18] Craig responds to this charge by arguing that God's timeless and temporal phases are not related to each other as "earlier" and "later."[19]
Apologetics[link]
Craig has written a number of works of Christian apologetics.[20] Fellow Evangelical apologist Robert M. Bowman, Jr. (writing with Kenneth D. Boa) described his Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics as "one of the best recent textbook introductions to the subject of apologetics."[21] Catholic Cardinal Avery Dulles has described Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview (with J.P. Moreland, 2003) as "monumental," but pointed out that Catholics will not necessarily agree with it.[20]
Craig's work as a New Testament historian focuses on a defense of central Christian doctrines, specifically Jesus' resurrection from the dead.[20] In books such as The Historical Argument for the Resurrection of Jesus, he reviews the historical debate and provides a critical analysis of David Hume's arguments against testimony of miracles, examines New Testament material dealing with the resurrection, and concludes that the resurrection is the most plausible explanation of the historical data.[22][23] Craig uses the Shroud of Turin as part of his case.[20]
Other views[link]
Craig is a critic of metaphysical naturalism[24] and New Atheism[25] as well as a defender of Reformed epistemology.[26] He believes that scripture does not condemn homosexuals per se but does prohibit all homosexual acts, which he considers as “sacrilegious” as well as “self-destructive” to the same degree as heroin addiction or chain smoking whether engaged in by a homosexual or a heterosexual person.[27] Craig maintains that the theory of evolution is compatible with Christianity.[28][page needed] Although he does not fully endorse intelligent design,[29] he thinks it may be a viable alternative to evolution.[30] He is a fellow of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture[31] and a fellow of the International Society for Complexity, Information and Design (ISCID).[32]
Debates[link]
Craig has publicly debated atheists Richard Carrier, Robert M. Price, Sam Harris, Antony Flew,[33][34] A. C. Grayling,[35] Lawrence Krauss,[36][37] Victor Stenger,[38] Peter Atkins,[39] Walter Sinnott-Armstrong,[40] and Christopher Hitchens,[41] as well as liberal theologian Gerd Lüdemann,[42] and prominent Muslims such as Shabir Ally and Jawal Badawi.[43] Prominent atheist Richard Dawkins has refused a rigorous debate with Craig (accusing him of self-promotion and of being an “apologist for genocide"),[44] although Dawkins participated in a six-person discussion which included Craig.[45]
The debates with Antony Flew, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, and Gerd Lüdemann have been published in book form.[40][42][46][47]
Bibliography[link]
- The Kalām Cosmological Argument. London: MacMillan. 1979. ISBN 1-57910-438-X / ISBN 978-1-57910-438-2
- The Cosmological Argument from Plato to Leibniz. London: MacMillan. 1980. ISBN 1-57910-787-7 / ISBN 978-1-57910-787-1
- The Son Rises: Historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. Chicago: Moody Press. 1981. ISBN 978-1-57910-464-1 / ISBN 978-1-57910-464-1
- Apologetics: An Introduction. Chicago: Moody Press. 1984. ISBN 0-8024-0405-7
- The Historical Argument for the Resurrection of Jesus during the Deist Controversy. Toronto: Edwin Mellen. 1985. ISBN 0-88946-811-7
- The Only Wise God: The Compatibility of Divine Foreknowledge and Human Freedom. Grand Rapids: Baker Bookhouse. 1987. ISBN 1-57910-316-2 / ISBN 978-1-57910-316-3
- The Problem of Divine Foreknowledge and Future Contingents from Aristotle to Suarez. Leiden: E.J. Brill. 1988. ISBN 90-04-08516-5 / ISBN 978-90-04-08516-9
- Knowing the Truth About the Resurrection. Ann Arbor: Servant. 1988. ISBN 0-89283-384-X / ISBN 978-0-89283-384-9
- Assessing the New Testament Evidence for the Historicity of the Resurrection of Jesus. Toronto: Edwin Mellen Press. 1989. ISBN 0889466165/ ISBN 978-0-88946-616-6
- Divine Foreknowledge and Human Freedom: The Coherence of Theism I: Omniscience. Leiden: E.J. Brill. 1990. ISBN 90-04-09250-1 / ISBN 978-90-04-09250-1
- No Easy Answers. Chicago: Moody Press. 1990. ISBN 0-8024-2283-7 / ISBN 978-0-8024-2283-5
- Theism, Atheism, and Big Bang Cosmology (with Quentin Smith). Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1993. ISBN 978-0-19-826383-8
- The Tensed Theory of Time: A Critical Examination. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. ISBN 0-7923-6634-4 / ISBN 978-0-7923-6634-8
- Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up? A Debate Between William Lane Craig and John Dominic Crossan. Grand Rapids: Baker Bookhouse. 1998.
- God, Are You There?. Atlanta: RZIM. 1999. ISBN 1-930107-00-5 / ISBN 978-1-930107-00-7
- The Tenseless Theory of Time: A Critical Examination. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. 2000. ISBN 978-0-7923-6635-5 / ISBN 978-0-7923-6635-5
- God, Time and Eternity. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. 2001. ISBN 978-1-58134-241-3 / ISBN 978-1-58134-241-3
- Time and The Metaphysics of Relativity. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. 2001. ISBN 0-7923-6668-9
- Time and Eternity: Exploring God's Relationship to Time. Wheaton: Crossway. 2001. ISBN 978-1-58134-241-3 / ISBN 978-1-58134-241-3
- What Does God Know? Atlanta: RZIM. 2002. ISBN 978-1-930107-05-2
- Hard Questions, Real Answers. Wheaton: Crossway Books. 2003. ISBN 978-1-58134-487-5 / ISBN 978-1-58134-487-5
- God?: A Debate Between a Christian and an Atheist(with Walter Sinnot-Armstrong). New York: Oxford University Press. 2003.
- Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview (with J.P. Moreland). Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press. 2003.
- Creation out of Nothing: A Biblical, Philosophical, and Scientific Exploration (with Paul Copan). Grand Rapids: Baker Bookhouse. 2004. ISBN 0-8010-2733-0
- Reasonable Faith. Wheaton: Crossway. 1994. rev. 3rd ed. 2008. ISBN 0-89107-764-2 / ISBN 978-0-89107-764-0
- Einstein, relativity and absolute simultaneity. London New York: Routledge. 2008. ISBN 0-415-59166-X.
- On Guard: Defending Your Faith with Reason and Precision. Colorado Springs: David C. Cook. 2010. ISBN 1-4347-6488-5 / ISBN 978-1-4347-6488-1
See also[link]
References[link]
- ^ a b c "Curriculum vitae". Reasonable Faith. William Lane Craig. http://www.reasonablefaith.org/william-lane-craig/curriculum-vitae. Retrieved 2012-05-25.
- ^ a b c VanArragon, Raymond J. (2010). Key Terms in Philosophy of Religion. Continuum International Publishing Group. p. 127. ISBN 1-4411-3867-6. http://books.google.com/books?id=JyTohO1AMzwC&pg=PA127.
- ^ "Web Author Profiles: William Lane Craig, PhD". Evangelical Philosophical Society. http://www.epsociety.org/library/authors.asp?mode=profile&pid=34. Retrieved 10/09/2011.
- ^ Smith, Quentin (2007). "Kalam Cosmological Arguments for Atheism". In Martin, Michael. The Cambridge companion to atheism. Cambridge University Press. p. 183. ISBN 978-0-521-84270-9. http://books.google.com/?id=tAeFipOVx4MC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Cambridge+Companion+to+Atheism#v=onepage&q&f=false.
- ^ Keathley, Kenneth (2010). Salvation and Sovereignty: A Molinist Approach. B&H Publishing Group. p. 6. ISBN 0-8054-3198-5. http://books.google.com/books?id=uDsKisgT0f0C&pg=PA6.
- ^ DeWeese, Garrett J. (2004). God and the Nature of Time. Ashgate Publishing. p. 215. ISBN 0-7546-3519-8. http://books.google.com/books?id=DDPk9eGFpS8C&pg=PA215#v=onepage&q&f=false.
- ^ a b "Curriculum Vitae". Talbot School of Theology. http://media1.biola.edu/talbot/faculty/cvs/william_craig.pdf. Retrieved 2011-10-26.
- ^ Craig, William Lane (1979). The Kalam Cosmological Argument. Library of philosophy and religion. Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-333-24809-6. http://books.google.com/?id=kpkIAQAAIAAJ&q=&dq=.
- ^ Oppy, Graham (1995). "Inverse Operations With Transfinite Numbers And The Kalam Cosmological Argument". International Philosophical Quarterly 35 (2): 219–221. http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/graham_oppy/t_finite.html. Retrieved 06/10/2011.
- ^ Reichenbach, Bruce (2010). "Cosmological Argument". In Edward N. Zalta. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cosmological-argument/#4.3. Retrieved 10/09/2011.
- ^ Craig, William Lane (1991). Divine Foreknowledge and Human Freedom: The Coherence of Theism: Omniscience. ISBN 978-90-04-09250-1. http://books.google.com/?id=S7y-H4ByCkIC&printsec=frontcover&dq=#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 2011-10-26.
- ^ Viney, Donald Wayne (Spring 1989). "Does Omniscience Imply Foreknowledge? Craig on Hartshorneby". Process Studies (Center for Process Studies) 18 (1): 30–37. http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=2771. Retrieved 5 October 2011.
- ^ Zagzebski, Linda (Fall 2011). "Foreknowledge and Free Will". In Edward N. Zalta. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/free-will-foreknowledge/#2.4. Retrieved 5 October 2011.
- ^ "Participants: Craig, William Lane". Closer to Truth. http://www.closertotruth.com/participant/William-Lane-Craig/24. Retrieved 5 October 2011.
- ^ Oaklander, L. Nathan (2002). "Presentism, Ontology and Temporal Experience". In Craig Callender. Time, reality & experience. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 73–90. ISBN 978-0-521-52967-9. http://books.google.com/books?id=IxIlqbSWg4gC.
- ^ Craig, William Lane (2000). The tensed theory of time : a critical examination. Springer. ISBN 978-0-7923-6634-8. http://books.google.com/books?id=7XAlUKtSUQ4C.
- ^ Balashov, Yuri; Janssen, Michel (2003). "Presentism and Relativity". British Jnl. for the Philosophy of Sci. (Oxford University Press) 54 (2): 327–346. DOI:10.1093/bjps/54.2.327. http://bjps.oxfordjournals.org/content/54/2/327.short. Retrieved 06/10/2011.
- ^ Helm, Paul (2010). "Eternity". In Edward N. Zalta. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2010/entries/eternity/. Retrieved 2011-10-01.
- ^ Helm, Paul (2011). Eternal God : a study of God without time (2nd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 220ff. ISBN 978-0-19-959038-4. http://books.google.com/books?id=cY-q9YFtFP4C.
- ^ a b c d Dulles, Avery (2005). A History of Apologetics (2nd ed.). Ignatius Press. pp. 360,363. ISBN 0-89870-933-4. http://books.google.com/books?id=Xli4W2pSZpQC&pg=PA360.
- ^ Boa, Kenneth D.; Bowman, Robert M. Jr. (2006). Faith Has Its Reasons: Integrative Approaches to Defending the Christian Faith (2nd ed.). InterVarsity Press. p. 64. ISBN 0-8308-5648-X. http://books.google.com/books?id=U4VqOAuQWagC&pg=PA64.
- ^ Craig, William Lane (1989). Assessing the New Testament Evidence for the Historicity of the Resurrection of Jesus. Studies in the Bible and early Christianity. 16. Edwin Mellen Press. ISBN 978-0-88946-616-6. http://books.google.com/?id=l_nYAAAAMAAJ&dq=.
- ^ Schimmel, Solomon (2008). The Tenacity of Unreasonable Beliefs: Fundamentalism and the Fear of Truth. Oxford University Press. pp. 116-117. ISBN 0195188268. http://books.google.com/books?id=96Yawg-cOO8C&pg=PA116.
- ^ Craig, William Lane; Moreland, James Porter (2000). Naturalism: A Critical Analysis. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-23524-2. http://books.google.com/?id=cNKYXM93e84C&dq=.
- ^ Copan, Paul; Craig, William Lane (2009). Contending with Christianity's Critics: Answering New Atheists & Other Objectors. B&H. ISBN 978-0-8054-4936-5. http://books.google.com/?id=-lZEL9RreS8C&dq=.
- ^ "Religious Epistemology MP3 Audio by William Lane Craig". Apologetics 315. http://apologetics315.blogspot.com/2008/12/religious-epistemology-mp3-audio-by.html. Retrieved 10/09/2011.
- ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvtjwCNCzSA&list=UUlTM23X7Iwfd8u0ayBQG79Q&index=7&feature=plcp
- ^ Stewart, Robert B. (2007). Intelligent Design: William A. Dembski and Michael Ruse in Dialogue (revised ed.). Fortress Press. ISBN 0-8006-6218-0. http://books.google.com/?id=A84nAAAAYAAJ&dq=.
- ^ "William Lane Craig on Evolution and Intelligent Design". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSc92EDm5gU. Retrieved 10/09/2011.
- ^ "William Lane Craig vs. Francisco J. Ayala - Is Intelligent Design Viable?". Apologetics 315. November 5, 2009. http://apologetics315.blogspot.com/2009/11/william-lane-craig-vs-francisco-j-ayala.html. Retrieved 10/09/2011.
- ^ "William Lane Craig". Discovery Institute. http://www.discovery.org/p/85. Retrieved 10/09/2011.
- ^ "Society Fellows". International Society for Complexity, Information and Design. http://www.iscid.org/fellows.php. Retrieved 10/09/2011.
- ^ Flew, Antony; Varghese, Roy Abraham. There Is a God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind. HarperOne. ISBN 978-0-06-133530-3. http://books.google.com/?id=zbL66ePcjpQC&dq=.
- ^ Boa, Kenneth D.; Bowman, Robert M. Jr. (2005). Faith Has Its Reasons: Integrative Approaches to Defending the Christian Faith (2nd ed.). InterVarsity Press. p. 64. ISBN 083085648X. http://books.google.com/books?id=U4VqOAuQWagC&pg=PA64.
- ^ "Unbelievable? - William Lane Craig vs AC Grayling debate on God & Evil". Premier Christian Radio. 5 July 2011. http://www.premierradio.org.uk/listen/ondemand.aspx?mediaid=%7BF618B42A-0AE0-4483-BA6B-440406249B51%7D. Retrieved 5 October 2011.
- ^ Smith, Anika. "William Lane Craig Debates Lawrence Krauss Tonight, Takes on Sam Harris Next Week". Evolution News and Views. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/03/william_lane_craig_debates_law045381.html. Retrieved 10/09/2011.
- ^ "The Great Debate". http://www.thegreatdebatencsu.com/. Retrieved 10/09/2011.
- ^ "Two Philosophers Debate the Existence of God". Oregon State University. http://calendar.oregonstate.edu/event/36938/. Retrieved 5 October 2011.
- ^ "De Deo: The existence of God". Reasonable Faith. http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/PageServer?pagename=rftools_de_deo_1. Retrieved 10/09/2011.
- ^ a b Craig, William Lane; Sinnott-Armstrong, Walter (2004). God?: A Debate Between a Christian and an Atheist. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195165993. http://books.google.com/books?id=FSqGcLUM280C&.
- ^ Jones, Nelson (20 May 2011). "Why Dawkins disappoints". New Statesman. http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2011/05/god-dawkins-atheist-craig. Retrieved 5 October 2011.
- ^ a b Craig, William Lane; Lüdemann, Gerd; Copan, Paul; Tacelli, Ronald Keith (2000). Jesus' Resurrection: Fact Or Figment? : a Debate Between William Lane Craig & Gerd Lüdemann. InterVarsity Press. ISBN 0830815694. http://books.google.com.au/books?id=kPhL1w9-JbEC.
- ^ "William Lane Craig Debates List". http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5725. Retrieved 3/5/12.
- ^ Ross, Tim (14 May 2011). "Richard Dawkins accused of cowardice for refusing to debate existence of God - Telegraph". The Daily Telegraph (London: TMG). ISSN 0307-1235. OCLC 49632006. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/8511931/Richard-Dawkins-accused-of-cowardice-for-refusing-to-debate-existence-of-God.html. Retrieved 15 May 2012.
- ^ Ross, Tim (14 May 2011). "Richard Dawkins accused of cowardice for refusing to debate existence of God - Telegraph". The Daily Telegraph (London: TMG). ISSN 0307-1235. OCLC 49632006. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/8511931/Richard-Dawkins-accused-of-cowardice-for-refusing-to-debate-existence-of-God.html. Retrieved 15 May 2012.
- ^ Craig, William Lane; Flew, Antony; Wallace, Stan W. (2003). Does God Exist?: The Craig-Flew Debate. Ashgate Publishing. ISBN 0754631907. http://books.google.com/books?id=x2r1nT1CRggC.
- ^ Groothuis, Douglas (2011). Christian Apologetics: A Comprehensive Case for Biblical Faith. InterVarsity Press. p. 243. ISBN 0830839356. http://books.google.com/books?id=rQ_SdH1PWyMC&pg=PA243.
External links[link]
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Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: William Lane Craig |
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: William Lane Craig |
- Reasonable Faith William Lane Craig's personal website
- Faculty webpage
- Comprehensive Debate list
- Interviews from the program Closer to Truth
- Works by or about William Lane Craig in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
- Audio files at bethinking.org
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| Persondata | |
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| Name | Craig, William Lane |
| Alternative names | |
| Short description | |
| Date of birth | 1949-08-23 |
| Place of birth | Peoria, Illinois |
| Date of death | |
| Place of death | |
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This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Lane_Craig
This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.
This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.
For other people named William Lane, see William Lane (disambiguation).
William Lane (6 September 1861 – 26 August 1917) was a journalist, advocate of Australian labour politics and a utopian.[1]
Contents |
Early life[link]
Lane was born in Bristol, England, eldest son of James Lane, from Ireland a Protestant Master Gardener, and his English wife Caroline, née Hall.[1] When Lane was born his father was earning a miserable wage, but later his circumstances improved and he became an employer. The boy was educated at Bristol Grammar School and showed ability, but he was sent early to work as an office boy. Lane's mother died when he was 14 years of age, and at age 16 he migrated to Canada, then to the United States, where he worked first as a printer, then as a reporter for the Detroit Free Press (1881), there meeting his future wife Ann MacGuire. In 1885 they migrated to Brisbane, Australia, where Lane immediately got work as a feature writer for the weekly newspaper Queensland Figaro, then as a columnist for the newspapers Brisbane Courier and Evening Telegraph, using a number of pseudonyms ("Lucinda Sharpe", which some consider to be the work of Annie Lane, William Wilcher and "Sketcher").
A life-long abstainer from alcohol, in 1886 he created an Australia-wide sensation by spending a night in the Brisbane lock-up disguised as a drunk, and subsequently reporting the conditions of the cells as "Henry Harris". Lane's father was a drunk who impoverished the family.[1]
With the growth of the 7-2 labour movement, "Sketcher"'s columns, especially his "Labour Notes" in the Evening Telegraph, increasingly promoted labourist philosophy, and Lane himself attended meetings supporting all manner of popular causes, speaking with his "American twang" against repressive laws and practices and Chinese immigrants.
After becoming the de facto editor of the Courier, Lane departed during November 1887 to found the weekly The Boomerang, "a live newspaper, racy, of the soil", in which pro-worker themes and lurid racism were brought to a fever-pitch by both "Sketcher" and "Lucinda Sharpe". He became a powerful supporter of Emma Miller and Women's suffrage. A strong proponent of Henry George's Single Tax Movement, Lane became increasingly committed to a radically alternative society, and ended his relationship with the Boomerang due to its private ownership.
In May 1890 he began the community-funded Brisbane weekly The Worker, the rhetoric of which became increasingly threatening towards the employers, the government, and the British Empire itself. The defeat of the 1891 Australian shearers' strike convinced Lane that there would be no real social change without a completely new society, and The Worker became increasingly devoted to his New Australia utopian idea.
The Workingman's Paradise, an allegorical novel written in sympathy with the shearers involved in the 1891 Shearer's Strike, was published under his pseudonym John Miller in early 1892. In the novel Lane articulated the belief that anarchism is the noblest social philosophy of all. Through the novel's philosopher and main protagonist he relates his belief that society may have to experience a period of State socialism to achieve the ideal of Communist anarchism. Mary Gilmore, later a celebrated Australian writer, said in one of her letters "the whole book is true and of historical value as Lane transcribed our conversations as well as those of others".
New Australia Colony[link]
Main article: New Australia
Contriving a division among Australian labour activists between the permanently disaffected and those who later formed the Australian Labor Party, Lane refused the Queensland Government's offer of a grant of land on which to create a utopian settlement, and began an Australia-wide campaign for the creation of a new society elsewhere on the globe, peopled by rugged and sober Australian bushmen and their proud wives.
Eventually Paraguay was decided upon, and Lane and his family and several hundred acolytes from New South Wales, Queensland and South Australia departed Mort Bay in Sydney in the ship Royal Tar on 1 July 1893.
New Australia soon had its crisis, brought on by the issues of inter-racial relationships (Lane singled out the Guarani as racially taboo) and alcohol. Lane's dictatorial manner soon alienated many in the community, and by the time the second boat-load of utopians arrived from Adelaide a year later, Lane had left with a core of devotees to form a new colony nearby named 7-2.
Eventually Lane became disillusioned with the process, and returned to Australia in 1899.
Later life[link]
Lane then went with his family to New Zealand. After initial melancholia, he soon refound his old verve as a pseudonymous feature-writer from 1900 for the newspaper New Zealand Herald ("Tohunga"), only this time as ultra-conservative and pro-Empire. He had strong racial antipathy toward East Asians, and during World War I he developed extreme anti-German sentiments. He died on 26 August 1917 in Auckland, New Zealand, having been editor of the Herald from 1913 to 1917, much admired, having lost one son Charles at a cricket match in Cosme in Paraguay, and another Donald on the first day of the ANZAC landings (25 April 1915) on the beaches of Gallipoli.
References[link]
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This article cites its sources but does not provide page references. You can help to improve it by introducing citations that are more precise. |
- ^ a b c *Gavin Souter (1983). "Lane, William (1861 - 1917)". Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 9. MUP. pp. 658–659. http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A090663b.htm. Retrieved 27 April 2007.
- Gavin Souter's account of Lane and New Australia in his A Peculiar People
- Peter Bruce's thesis (Univ Sydney) The Journalistic Career of William Lane.
- Larry Petrie (1859-1901) - Australian Revolutionist? by Bob James
- Whitehead, Anne (1997) Paradise Mislaid — in Search of the Australian Tribe of Paraguay University of Queensland Press, St. Lucia
- Serle, Percival (1949). "Lane, William". Dictionary of Australian Biography. Sydney: Angus and Robertson. http://gutenberg.net.au/dictbiog/0-dict-biogL.html#lane1. Retrieved 7 September 2009.
External links[link]
| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| Name | Lane, William |
| Alternative names | |
| Short description | |
| Date of birth | 6 September 1861 |
| Place of birth | |
| Date of death | 26 August 1917 |
| Place of death | |
http://wn.com/William_Lane
Related pages:
http://de.wn.com/William Lane (Utopist)
http://it.wn.com/William Lane
http://pl.wn.com/William Lane
This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Lane
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This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.
| Ricky Gervais | |
|---|---|
 Gervais in October 2010 |
|
| Birth name | Ricky Gervais |
| Born | (1961-06-25) 25 June 1961 (age 51) Reading, Berkshire, England |
| Medium | Stand up, television, film, books, radio |
| Nationality | English |
| Years active | 1982–present |
| Genres | Cringe comedy, insult comedy, observational comedy |
| Influences | Steve Coogan, Chris Langham, Garry Shandling, Jerry Sadowitz, Larry David, Woody Allen, Laurel and Hardy, Christopher Guest, Stewart Lee, Groucho Marx[1] |
| Domestic partner(s) | Jane Fallon (1982–present) |
| Notable works and roles | The Office Extras An Idiot Abroad |
| Website | rickygervais.com |
Ricky Dene Gervais (/dʒərˈveɪz/; born 25 June 1961) is an English comedian, actor, director, producer, musician, writer, and former radio presenter.
Gervais achieved mainstream fame with his television series The Office and the subsequent series Extras, both of which he co-wrote and co-directed with frequent collaborator Stephen Merchant. In addition to writing and directing the shows, Gervais played the lead roles of David Brent in The Office and Andy Millman in Extras. Gervais has also starred in a number of Hollywood films, assuming leading roles in Ghost Town and The Invention of Lying. He has performed on four sell-out stand-up comedy tours, written the best-selling Flanimals book series and starred with Merchant and Karl Pilkington in the most downloaded podcast in the world as of March 2009,[2] The Ricky Gervais Show.
He has won multiple awards and honours, including seven BAFTA Awards, five British Comedy Awards, two Emmy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards and the 2006 Rose d'Or, as well as a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination. In 2007 he was voted the 11th greatest stand-up comic on Channel 4's 100 Greatest Stand-Ups and again in the updated 2010 list as the 3rd greatest stand-up comic.[3] In 2010 he was named on the TIME 100 list of the world's most influential people.[4]
In 2010 Gervais became the first British person to host the Golden Globe Awards in 14 years; he returned to host in 2011 and again in 2012.[5]
Contents |
Early life[link]
Gervais, along with siblings Larry (born 1945), Marsha (born 1948), and Bob (born 1950),[6] was born and raised in Whitley, Berkshire. His father, Lawrence Raymond "Jerry" Gervais (1919–2002), a Franco-Ontarian, emigrated while on foreign duty during the Second World War from London, Ontario, Canada. Jerry Gervais met Eva Sophia House (1925–2000),[7][8] during a blackout,[9] and they settled in Whitley. She died, aged 74, in 2000, of lung cancer.[10]
During Xfm London's The Ricky Gervais Show and in further newspaper interviews with The Independent, Gervais noted that he believes his birth was unplanned due to the age difference between his oldest sibling and himself. During one interview with The Independent, Gervais tells the author that even his mother admitted his birth was unplanned.[11] He has claimed that his father was "drunk when he filled in the birth certificate", leading to the unusual spelling of his middle name.[12] Gervais has stated that his upbringing and childhood were stable and trauma-free, with a high level of honesty and openness between his family members. He claims that his family, "much like The Waltons", made fun of each other regularly.[13]
Gervais attended Whitley Park Infants and Junior Schools and received his secondary education at Ashmead Comprehensive School, before moving on to University College London in 1979.[14] He arrived to study biology but changed to philosophy after only two weeks,[15] and earned an upper second-class honours degree in the subject.[16] During his time at UCL, he met Jane Fallon, with whom he has been in a relationship since 1982.[17]
Music[link]
In 1983, during his final year as a student at UCL (University College London), Gervais and Bill Macrae formed the New Wave pop duo, Seona Dancing. They were signed by London Records, which released two of their singles—"More to Lose" and "Bitter Heart". The singles failed to break the top 40, with "More to Lose" charting at #117 and "Bitter Heart" peaking at #70 on the UK Singles Chart.[18] Despite not being successful in the UK, Seona Dancing did manage to score a hit in the Philippines with "More to Lose". According to the 20 December 2003 broadcast of the Ricky Gervais Show, Gervais later had a band called the Sacred Hearts, which Ian Camfield described as Gervais's Bon Jovi phase.[citation needed]
Radio[link]
Gervais later worked as an assistant events manager for the University of London Union (ULU),[19] where he continued working until he took a similar job as "head of speech" at Xfm London.[20]
Needing an assistant, Gervais interviewed the first person whose curriculum vitae he saw. The CV belonged to Stephen Merchant. During the interview at a local pub, Merchant agreed to do "all the boring stuff" because of his experience in media studies while Gervais "mess[ed] around".[21] In 1998 Gervais was made redundant[citation needed] when the station was taken over by the Capital Radio group.
Gervais was music adviser for the BBC drama This Life, which was being produced by his girlfriend, Jane Fallon. He and Merchant also contributed sketches to BBC Radio 1's The Breezeblock in 1999 and 2000.
After the first series of The Office, Gervais and Merchant returned to Xfm in November 2001 for a Saturday radio show. The show ran intermittently until January 2004 with breaks of 1–3 months between new shows. This was when the pair first worked with Karl Pilkington, who produced the shows and later collaborated with them on their series of podcasts.
Podcast[link]
Main article: The Ricky Gervais Show
See also: List of The Ricky Gervais Show episodes
On 5 December 2005 Guardian Unlimited began offering free weekly podcasts featuring Gervais, Merchant, and Pilkington. Throughout January and February 2006 the podcast was consistently ranked the number-one podcast in the world; it appeared in the 2007 Guinness World Record for the world's most-downloaded podcast, having gained an average of 261,670 downloads per episode during its first month.[2] On 20 February 2006, after the conclusion of the twelve-podcast series, it was announced that all future episodes would be available from Audible.com at a "nominal fee" (later, these had to be called audiobooks in accordance with iTunes policy). Two more series—-each with six podcasts—-were released between February and September 2006.
In late 2006 three more free podcasts were released. Together called "The Podfather Trilogy", they debuted individually at Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. These three were known by Ricky and Steve as "The Fourth season". In October 2007 another free full-length podcast was released through iTunes; this podcast was originally given out for free during a performance of Gervais's Fame tour in London. On 25 November 2007 Gervais, Merchant, and Pilkington released another free full-length podcast, which lasted just over an hour.
In August 2008 Gervais, Merchant, and Pilkington recorded their fifth season of audiobooks, totalling 4 chapters, which were released on 16 September 2008. These audiobooks were described as the 'guide to...' series, covering several topics. As of May 2011, there are 12 "Guides" in total: Medicine, Natural History, Arts, Philosophy, The English, Society, Law & Order, The Future, The Human Body, The Earth, The World Cup 2010 & Comic Relief. The conversations typically begin on topic, but constantly stray away from the topic at hand.
Television[link]
Gervais has contributed to the BAFTA-winning The Sketch Show (ITV), penning several sketches. His mainstream-TV debut came in September 1998 as part of Channel 4's "Comedy Lab" series of pilots. His one-off show Golden Years focused on a David Bowie–obsessed character called Clive Meadows. Gervais then came to much wider national attention with an obnoxious, cutting persona featured in a topical slot that replaced Ali G's segments on the satirical Channel 4 comedy programme The 11 O'Clock Show in early 1999, in which his character used as many expletives as was possible and produced an inordinate amount of politically incorrect statements. Among the other regular featured comedians on the show was Mackenzie Crook, later a co-star of The Office. Two years later, Gervais went on to present his own comedy chat show for Channel 4 called Meet Ricky Gervais; it was poorly received and has since been mocked by Gervais himself. The Independent newspaper has described Gervais as "obsessed by his own celebrity", but adds, "Who wouldn't want to be Peter Lawford in a comedy Rat Pack?" in reference to Ricky Gervais Meets...; the article, however, also describes him as "a very funny man" who "created one of the great sitcoms".[22] The Guardian's Chris Tryhorn explained the "few gripes" he had with Extras, "particularly in the second series". "You can forgive Gervais a certain arrogance after the success of The Office, but..." He remarks on the confused tone of the series, taking in the clash between the broad comedy of characters Barry (Shaun Williamson) and Darren (Stephen Merchant), and the apparent parody of this style with When The Whistle Blows, and "given their total indulgence of Gervais, the BBC is portrayed as interfering, its comedy department run by a rather crudely stereotyped gay couple".[23]
Throughout this time, Gervais also wrote for the BBC sketch show Bruiser and The Jim Tavare Show, and he had a cameo role in Simon Pegg and Jessica Hynes's sitcom, Spaced, as Dave. Pegg later joked that Dave was a younger David Brent and that he and Hynes were the real minds behind The Office. Gervais also appeared in a few of Channel 4's 'Top 100...' list programmes, and he voiced the character of Penguin in Robbie the Reindeer's Legend of the Lost Tribe. His voice was redubbed for the US market.
On 5 January 2006 he interviewed Larry David in a one-off special, Ricky Gervais Meets... Larry David. On 25 and 26 December of the same year Channel 4 aired similar specials in which he interviewed the actor/comedian Christopher Guest and comedian Garry Shandling. There are no plans for further episodes of Meets..., although editions with John Cleese and Matt Groening were recorded in 2006 for broadcast in 2007. A source claimed, "The Shandling experience put him off for good".[24]
Gervais guest-starred in an episode of The Simpsons entitled "Homer Simpson, This Is Your Wife", which aired on 26 March 2006 in the United States, on 23 April 2006 on satellite station Sky One in the United Kingdom (first appearing on terrestrial television in 2010), and on 18 July 2006 in Australia. He is the only British comic to write and star in a Simpsons episode. The episode was the highest rated in Sky One's history, arguably because of its extensive promotion, which revolved around the angle that Gervais was the episode's sole writer (and the first guest star on the show to also receive a writing credit for the episode of his appearance). Gervais clarified the extent of his input in a joint interview (with Christopher Guest) for Dazed and Confused magazine (January 2006): "No, all I did was put down a load of observations on an email and they made it look like a Simpsons script. I'm going to get the credit, but I think everyone in the industry knows it was a joint effort". Asked in a separate interview about how his idea for the episode (in which Homer swaps Marge on a game show) came about, Gervais replied:
I've always been fascinated with reality game shows but I think it was my girlfriend's idea. We watch Celebrity Big Brother at the moment, we watch I'm a Celebrity, Get Me out of Here... we watch all those reality TV shows — The Office came out of those docu-soaps".[25]
Gervais, a longstanding Simpsons fan, presented a segment to mark the show's 20th anniversary on BBC Two's The Culture Show on 16 June 2007. Recently on Gervais's blog it was announced that he will be returning to The Simpsons and will feature him doing a skit based on his recent controversial performance at the 2011 Golden Globes. It is unknown if he will be writing the episode this time around.
Gervais has also guest-starred on Alias (appearing in the third-season episode "Façade") as Daniel Ryan, a former Royal Navy bomb-disposal specialist turned rogue Irish Republican Army bomb-maker. He has said about the appearance, "I did an episode of Alias, and I can't watch it. Me being serious. I can't watch it".
Gervais made a cameo appearance on Saturday Night Live in a Digital Short during which he claims that The Office was adapted from a Japanese programme of the same name (with Steve Carell reprising his role as Michael Scott). The sketch re-creates scenes from the American and British pilot episode with Japanese elements (although in an exaggerated way). "It's funny", Gervais laughs at the end, "because it's racist".
In January 2009, Gervais was interviewed by James Lipton for Season 15 of BravoTV's Inside the Actors Studio.
In January 2010, he hosted the 67th Golden Globe Awards, making him the first master of ceremonies since 1995. He stated:
"I have resisted many other offers like this, but there are just some things you don't turn down."[26]
His performance as host received a mixed response with positive reviews from the New York Daily News and the Associated Press, but also some negative comments from industry bible, and The Hollywood Reporter.[27][28] He returned to host the show again in 2011 and 2012, and his performance was more warmly received by critics.
Gervais was a guest judge on Jerry Seinfeld's NBC show The Marriage Ref alongside Larry David and Madonna.[29] On 1 April 2010, Gervais made his first appearance on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon on NBC.
In June 2010, it was announced that Gervais had been cast in the upcoming Season 8 of Curb Your Enthusiasm playing himself.[30]
As of April 2011, he has made 18 guest appearances on Late Show with David Letterman on the CBS network.
[edit] The Office
Main article: The Office (UK TV series)
In August 1999, while on a BBC production course, Stephen Merchant had to make his own short film. He chose to make a docu-soap parody, set in an office. This sketch later formed the basis of the interview episode.[31] With help from Ash Atalla, Merchant passed this tape on to the BBC's Head of Entertainment Paul Jackson at the Edinburgh Fringe, who then passed it on to Head of Comedy Jon Plowman, who eventually commissioned a full-pilot script from Merchant and Gervais.
The first six-episode series of The Office aired in the UK in July and August 2001 to little fanfare or attention.[32] Word-of-mouth, repeats, and DVDs helped spread the word, building up huge momentum and anticipation for the second series, also comprising six episodes, in September 2002.[33] The second series topped the BBC Two ratings, and the show then switched to BBC One in December 2003 for its final two special episodes.
The Office has since been remade for audiences in Sweden, France, Germany, Quebec, Brazil, and the United States. Gervais and Merchant are producers of the American version, and they also co-wrote the episode "The Convict" for the show's third season. The original UK version is currently airing on Adult Swim on Fridays, and prior to the show's airing, Gervais appears as himself talking about the episode that will air. In one of those segments Gervais claimed the episode "Training" to be his favourite.
[edit] Extras
Main article: Extras
Extras had its debut on the BBC on 21 July 2005; it received its premiere on HBO in the United States in September 2005. Written and directed by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, the sitcom ran for twelve episodes and starred Gervais as Andy Millman, a background artist. Millman is more self-aware and intentionally humorous than Gervais's The Office character David Brent.
Guest stars on the first series of Extras include Ross Kemp, Les Dennis, Patrick Stewart, Vinnie Jones, Samuel L. Jackson, Ben Stiller, Kate Winslet, and Francesca Martinez. A second series began on 14 September 2006 in the UK and featured appearances by Daniel Radcliffe, Dame Diana Rigg, Orlando Bloom, Sir Ian McKellen, Chris Martin, Keith Chegwin, Robert Lindsay, Warwick Davis, Ronnie Corbett, Stephen Fry, Richard Briers, Patricia Potter, Sophia Myles, Moira Stuart, David Bowie, Kate Winslet, Robert De Niro, and Jonathan Ross.
A Christmas special of Extras aired on 27 December 2007 in the UK and on 16 December 2007 in the US, featuring guest appearances by George Michael, Clive Owen, Gordon Ramsay, Jonathan Ross, and David Tennant.
On 10 June 2006, Gervais and Merchant were seen in a specially-filmed promotional sketch for the second series, in the middle of BBC One's World Cup football coverage. This time Gervais did not perform his famous dance. Instead, Merchant did a take-off of the Crouch Dance, recently popularised by England striker Peter Crouch.
Some have suggested that Gervais is influenced by Curb Your Enthusiasm and The Larry Sanders Show in making Extras, particularly in the format of celebrities making fools of themselves or subverting their public personas,[23] and in the Gervais joke of someone making inappropriate remarks in front of a member of a minority. He has interviewed both Larry David and Garry Shandling, creators of these shows, on Ricky Gervais Meets....
Extras was awarded the Golden Globe Award for Best Television Series – Musical or Comedy on 14 January 2008. Gervais also won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series.
In February 2007, British ventriloquist Keith Harris refused an invitation to appear on the second series of Extras, claiming that Gervais "wanted me to be a racist bigot" and describing the script as "pure filth".[34] When asked about Harris's refusal on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross, Gervais claimed that Harris simply "didn't get it".[35] Keith Chegwin, who assumed the role offered to Harris, said "the people who didn't get it probably think Johnny Depp really is a pirate."[36]
[edit] The Ricky Gervais Show (animated series)
Main article: The Ricky Gervais Show (animated series)
The Ricky Gervais Show is an animated TV show that debuted on US cable network HBO on 19 February 2010.[37][38] In the UK, the first season began airing on 23 April 2010 on Channel 4. The show was developed using original podcast recordings from The Ricky Gervais Show starring Gervais, Stephen Merchant, and Karl Pilkington. After receiving a loyal and enthusiastic following in the US, Cable channel HBO recommissioned the show for a second season, which aired in 2011,[39] and a third series which started airing in April 2012.
The original audio show was broadcast in November 2001 on radio station Xfm, and aired in weekly periods for months at a time throughout 2002, 2003, 2004, and mid-2005. In November 2005 Guardian Unlimited offered the show as a podcast series of 12 shows.[40] Throughout January and February 2006 the podcast was consistently ranked the number one podcast in the world; it appeared in the 2007 Guinness World Record for the world's most downloaded podcast, having gained an average of 261,670 downloads per episode during its first month.[41][42] By September 2006, according to the BBC, the podcasts of the series had been downloaded "nearly 8 million" times.[43]
[edit] Life's Too Short
Main article: Life's Too Short
In April 2010, it was announced that Gervais and Stephen Merchant would be writing a new show, an observational sitcom series called Life's Too Short, from an idea by Warwick Davis. It is described by Gervais as being about "the life of a showbiz dwarf" and as "a cross between Extras and Curb Your Enthusiasm and One Foot in the Grave but with a dwarf. That is out and out funny."[44]
The show stars actor Warwick Davis playing a fictionalised version of himself, as well as Gervais and Merchant in cameo roles as themselves.[45][46] The show began airing on BBC Two on 10 November 2011.[47][48] Premium cable channel HBO, who co-produced the series with the BBC, have the US rights and began airing the series on 19 February 2012.[49][50]
[edit] Derek
Main article: Derek (TV series)
In November 2011, Gervais filmed in London a 35-minute pilot episode for a potential comedy-drama series called Derek, which aired on Channel 4 on 12 April 2012.[51][52] The pilot is solely written and directed by Gervais and features him in the title role of Derek Noakes, a 49-year-old retirement home worker, who "loves animals, Rolf Harris, Jesus, Deal or No Deal, Million Pound Drop and Britain's Got Talent - but his main hobby is autograph hunting". The character first appeared as an aspiring comedian who loves animals and still lives with his mother in a 2001 Edinburgh Festival Fringe sketch.[53][54] Gervais says Derek was "an excuse to see the world differently."[55] Gervais's co-host Karl Pilkington makes his acting debut as Derek's friend and caretaker/janitor Dougie who also works in the retirement home. British comedian Kerry Godliman plays Derek's best friend Hannah and David Earl plays Kev. The episode is produced by Charlie Hanson.[56]
Gervais said that the series is about "kindness [being] more important than anything else". He added "It’s about the forgotten — everyone’s forgotten. It’s all these arbitrary people who didn’t know each other, and they’re in there now because they’re in the last years of their life. And it’s about the people who help them, who themselves are losers and have their own problems. It’s about a bunch of people with nothing, but making the most of it, and they’re together."[57] Gervais said he wanted to "do normal people with normal problems again" after exploring fame in his previous series and "get close to real emotion".[55] He chose to set the sitcom in a retirement home after he watched Secret Millionaire - "It was always these people with huge problems who were helping other people. I thought about having Derek help old people because no one cares about old people in this country... I think it's perfect for now."[58]
The pilot caused controversy even before its broadcast as some critics felt that Gervais was mocking disabled people. Gervais responded: "I’ve never thought of him as disabled. He’s not that bright but neither are Kev or Dougie. He’s cleverer than Baldrick and Father Dougal and he certainly hasn’t got as big a problem as Mr. Bean. When portraying someone with disabilities I usually get someone with that disability to play them."[55] On 9 May 2012, Channel 4 announced that it had commissioned a full series of Derek to air in early 2013.[59]
Stand-up comedy[link]
Gervais made some attempts at stand-up in the late 1990s, but his first successful show took place at the Cafe Royal, as part of the 2001 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Titled Rubbernecker, the show also featured Jimmy Carr, Robin Ince, and Stephen Merchant.
Gervais later toured the UK in 2003 with his stand-up show Animals. The Politics tour followed a year later. Both of these shows were recorded for release on DVD and television broadcast. The third part of the themed live trilogy, Fame, took place in 2007. It started in Glasgow in January and ended in Sheffield in April. Blackpool reported selling out of tickets within 45 minutes of them going on sale.[60] More dates were added.
Newsnight Review's panel saw Animals during its Bloomsbury run and covered it in January 2003. They were not favourable, with Private Eye editor Ian Hislop being the most explicit in his criticism.[61] After this, Gervais closed each show by calling Hislop an "ugly little pug-faced cunt". Further coverage on Newsnight Review has been overwhelmingly favourable, with the panelists playing themselves in promos for the second series of Extras. Panel regulars Germaine Greer, Mark Kermode, and Mark Lawson also appeared as themselves reviewing When The Whistle Blows in a series episode. Critic Mark Lawson is a great admirer of Gervais and Merchant, having interviewed them extensively for television, print Front Row, and the Edinburgh International Television Festival.
Fame was the subject of some controversy in January 2007 when Gervais told a story, ostensibly about how people will do anything to become famous, to a Scottish audience.[62] The story referred to a question asked of Gervais five years earlier by a reporter: what could someone do to become famous like you? To which he replied, "Go out and kill a prostitute". He followed up with the punch line, "I won't do that bit in Ipswich", referring to the December 2006 murders of five prostitutes in Ipswich. The joke drew criticism from the father of victim Tania Nicol: "These days, they want to make a joke out of anything. I feel he's just being uncaring, quite honestly". Gervais defended himself: "I do want people to know that that happened five years ago and is not related to anything now. That is the problem with comedy, a joke that is funny today can be a terrible faux pas tomorrow".
Gervais's fourth show was entitled Science, and commenced with an eleven date tour in August 2009 at the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre in Glasgow.[63] The show opened to little critical praise.[64] Writing for The Independent, Julian Hall gave Science two stars out of five, stating that it was Gervais's "most disappointing" offering yet.[65] The DVD for Science was released on 15 November 2010.[66] In November 2009 he headlined the sixth annual New York Comedy Festival at Carnegie Hall, New York.[67]
Gervais has begun writing his fifth stand-up routine, to be titled Humanity.[68]
[edit] Grand Theft Auto IV
Gervais is one of two featured comedians (the other being Katt Williams) in the video game Grand Theft Auto IV who performs at the Comedy Club and on the television in the game.
DVD releases[link]
| Title | Released | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Animals | 17 November 2003 | Live at the Bloomsbury Theatre, London |
| Politics | 15 November 2004 | Live at the Palace Theatre, London |
| Fame | 12 November 2007 | Live at the HMV Hammersmith Apollo, London |
| Science | 22 November 2010 | Live at the HMV Hammersmith Apollo, London |
Books[link]
[edit] Flanimals
Gervais released a children's book in 2004, Flanimals (illustrated by his Rob Steen), which depicted nonsense animals. After the success of this book, he released its sequel More Flanimals in 2005, with Flanimals of the Deep coming the next year. A new Flanimals book, Flanimals: The Day of the Bletchling, was released in October 2007. Flanimals: Pop Up was also published in 2009.[69]
There is a wide range of Flanimals merchandise available, including dolls and gift cards. A six-part Flanimals TV series has been commissioned by ITV,[70] although Gervais had previously claimed signing a Hollywood movie deal[71] so that a franchise could be developed. "That way it stands a chance of being the next Dr. Seuss or Mr. Men".[72]
Other books[link]
The Office scripts have been released in book form, with Series 1 issued in 2002, and the remaining episodes following in 2003.
In late 2006 the Extras script book was released, as well as The World of Karl Pilkington presented by Gervais and Merchant. These were essentially transcripts of Xfm/podcast routines performed by the three.
Film[link]
Gervais's film career has included small roles as the voice of a pigeon in 2005's Valiant, as a studio executive in 2006's For Your Consideration, as museum director Dr. McPhee in 2006's Night at the Museum and its sequel Night at the Museum 2, and as "Ferdy the Fence" in the 2007 film Stardust. His role in Night at the Museum has proven to be one of Gervais's most popular roles[citation needed], with the movie grossing $570 million worldwide.[73][74]
Gervais starred in Ghost Town, which was released on 19 September 2008, and was in Lowell, Massachusetts during May 2008 filming his next project, The Invention of Lying, starring himself, Jennifer Garner, Rob Lowe, and Louis C.K., with appearances by Tina Fey, Jeffrey Tambor, Jason Bateman, Roz Ryan, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Edward Norton. The comedy, released in 2009, was co-written and co-directed by Gervais and Matt Robinson.[75]
Gervais and co-writer Stephen Merchant made a film called Cemetery Junction, set in 1970s England, about class, love and fulfillment.[76] The film was released in April 2010.
Gervais was the voice of Argonaut in Spy Kids: All the Time in the World, released in 2011. He has also been cast as Mole in the 2012 adaption of The Wind in the Willows, featuring effects by Weta Workshop in New Zealand.[77]
Other appearances[link]
On 2 July 2005 Gervais appeared at the Live 8 event held in Hyde Park, London, where he performed his famous dance. He produced a series of short films for the cause, linked acts from the studio with Jonathan Ross, and also introduced the group R.E.M..
Gervais also has a role in the video game Grand Theft Auto IV, as himself, appearing in his role as a comedian in a comedy club, and as an interviewee on radio station We Know The Truth. For this, a special 3-minute act was written, recorded and fully motion-captured.[78]
Gervais has also hosted the 2010 and 2011 Golden Globe Awards. His 2011 hosting of the awards was controversial for his edgy jokes that were at the expense of many of the nominees, similar to the New York Friars Club roast style jokes.[79] His jibes were described as setting "a corrosive tone" by one critic, though some celebrities were seen crying from laughter, leaving the overall reaction to be 'mixed'.[80][81]
Boxing[link]
In 2002 Gervais took part in a charity boxing match against Grant Bovey — known to the public only due to his relationship with TV personality Anthea Turner. On his Saturday afternoon radio show on Xfm London Gervais and partners Merchant and Pilkington had discussions on both Gervais's attitude towards boxing and training in general, as well as his likelihood of victory against Bovey. Initially, Merchant had questions as to why Gervais was participating in the event, due to his dislike of slight pain and his inexperience with fitness in general.
Gervais was trained for the three-round contest by famous boxing trainer brothers Frank and Eugene Maloney, at their Fight Factory gymnasium. It was the second televised charity boxing match, the first being Bob Mortimer against Les Dennis, for Comic Relief. The fight was televised by the BBC, and Gervais came out on top by a split decision verdict. Gervais later said that the experience was the 'most difficult thing' he had ever done. He donated his £5,000 prize money to the training of a Macmillan nurse.
Concert for Diana and Live Earth[link]
On 1 July 2007 Gervais performed at the Concert for Diana in Wembley Stadium, a music event celebrating the life of the Princess of Wales. Towards the end of the event — after a pre-recorded introduction from Ben Stiller — Gervais appeared along with fellow Office star Mackenzie Crook. They performed Free Love Freeway, a song previously heard in the fourth episode of series one of The Office. Due to a technical problem, Gervais then had to fill time until he was able to re-introduce Elton John to close the show, so he did the David Brent dance again, as well as singing the "Little Fat Man" song as performed by David Bowie in episode two of the second series of Extras.
On 7 July 2007 Gervais appeared at the UK leg of Live Earth at Wembley Stadium, London. Gervais introduced Rob Reiner appearing in the guise of spoof film director Marty Di Bergi, who in turn introduced Spinal Tap.
In July 2007, following Gervais's appearance at the memorial concert for the Princess of Wales, The Guardian ran a column by Daily Mirror television critic Jim Shelley entitled "Call Me Crazy... But Has Ricky Gervais Lost It?", where he described Gervais as a "tiresome embarrassment".[82] The following week, The Guardian noted that Gervais had responded with "an exhilaratingly foul-mouthed tirade" on his website, concluding with the words, "Yes I am resting on my fucking laurels you cunt!" In this video Gervais mocked Jim Shelley typing the words "Resting on his laurels" as Gervais jokingly lashed out by stating he was resting on his laurels and that he was not going to make another show for television, quipping "What's the point? What is there to beat?"[83]
On 18 October 2011, Gervais attracted criticism for his repeated use of the word "mong" (short for "mongoloid"), a historically derogatory term for mentally disabled people, most commonly used against those with Downs syndrome.[84] Gervais claimed the word no longer represented this meaning.[85]
Although other comedians and support groups for the disabled pointed out that verbal and physical abuse of the disabled was on the increase,[86] Gervais initially remained defiant over his use of the word.[87] He later apologised, saying that he found it hard to believe that "idiots" still used the word to refer to people with Down Syndrome.[88]
Personal life[link]
Gervais currently lives in Hampstead,[89] having moved from Bloomsbury, with his girlfriend of 30 years, producer and screenwriter Jane Fallon. He says they chose not to marry because "there's no point in us having an actual ceremony before the eyes of God because there is no God" or have children because they "didn't fancy dedicating 16 years of our lives. And there are too many children, of course".[90] In August 2008, they bought a second home on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City.[91]
Gervais is a fervent supporter of animal rights, and has been a fan of wildlife documentaries since he was a child.[92] He has spoken out against fox hunting and bullfighting, and wrote to Gordon Brown urging him to stop the use of black bear fur as caps for the Foot Guards.[93][94]
He told Kirsty Young that he is an atheist during a 2007 interview for Desert Island Discs,[95][96] later stating he lost his faith at the age of eight,[97] and in June 2008 he became an Honorary Associate of the National Secular Society. In December 2010 he wrote an editorial for The Wall Street Journal defending his lack of faith.[98]
Accolades and awards[link]
Gervais has received many awards for his work on The Office, most notably two Golden Globes (one for acting, one for the show itself), as well as numerous British Academy Television Awards and British Comedy Awards, amongst others.
Gervais received an honorary award at the annual Rose d'Or ceremony in Switzerland on 29 April 2006. The award is given to "an individual who has made an exceptional contribution to the global entertainment business".[99]
On 16 September 2007, Gervais won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series for his role of Andy Millman on Extras.[100]
| Awarding Body/Event | Awarded |
|---|---|
| BAFTA Awards |
|
| British Comedy Award |
|
| Broadcasting Press Guild Awards |
|
| Emmy Awards |
|
| Golden Globe |
|
| Peabody Awards |
|
| Rose d'Or |
|
| Royal Television Society |
|
| Satellite Awards |
|
| Television Critics Association |
|
| Writers Guild of America |
|
Filmography[link]
Film[link]
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2001 | Dog Eat Dog | Bouncer | |
| 2005 | Valiant | Bugsy | Voice only |
| 2006 | For Your Consideration | Martin Gibb | |
| Night at the Museum | Dr. McPhee | ||
| 2007 | Stardust | Ferdy the Fence | |
| 2008 | Ghost Town | Dr. Bertram Pincus | Satellite Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture |
| 2009 | Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian | Dr. McPhee | |
| The Invention of Lying | Mark Bellison | Writer, director, producer[75] | |
| 2010 | Cemetery Junction | Len Taylor | Writer, director, executive producer (with Stephen Merchant) |
| 2011 | Spy Kids: All the Time in the World | Argonaut | Voice only |
| The Muppets | Cameo | ||
| 2012 | The Wind in the Willows | Mole | Voice only Pre-production |
Television[link]
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1998 | The 11 O'Clock Show | Various | Unknown episodes |
| 1999 | The Jim Tavaré Show | Various | 7 episodes Writer - 12 episodes |
| Comedy Lab | Clive Meadows | Episode: "Golden Years" (Also writer) | |
| 2000 | Bruiser | Recurring | 6 episodes |
| Meet Ricky Gervais | Himself | ||
| 2001 | The Sketch Show | Various | Unknown episodes |
| Spaced | Dave | 1 episode | |
| 2001–2003 | The Office (UK) | David Brent | 14 episodes including 2 Christmas specials Writer, director |
| 2002 | Robbie the Reindeer in Legend of the Lost Tribe | Penguin | Voice |
| 2004 | Alias | Daniel Ryan | Episode: "Façade" |
| 2005 | Kelsey Grammer Presents: The Sketch Show | Various | Unknown episodes |
| 2005–2007 | Extras | Andy Millman | 13 episodes Writer, director, executive producer |
| 2006 | The Simpsons | Charles Heathbar | Writer Episode: "Homer Simpson, This Is Your Wife" |
| 2008 | Ricky Gervais: Out of England – The Stand-Up Special | Himself | |
| 2009 | Sesame Street | 3 episodes | |
| 2010 | The Ricky Gervais Show | With Karl Pilkington and Stephen Merchant[101] | |
| An Idiot Abroad | With Karl Pilkington and Stephen Merchant | ||
| Louie | Dr. Ben | 2 episodes | |
| 2011 | Life's Too Short | Himself | With Stephen Merchant and Warwick Davis |
| The Office (US) | David Brent | Episodes: "The Seminar" and "Search Committee" | |
| The Simpsons | Himself | Episode: "Angry Dad: The Movie" | |
| Curb Your Enthusiasm | Episode: "The Hero" | ||
| Talking Funny | With Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock, and Louis C.K. | ||
| An Idiot Abroad 2: The Bucket List | With Karl Pilkington and Stephen Merchant | ||
| 2012 | Afterlife | God | With Clyde Phillips |
| Family Guy | Billy Finn | Episode: "Be Careful What You Fish For" | |
| Derek | Derek Noakes | Channel 4 pilot Writer, director and executive producer. |
Video games[link]
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2008 | Grand Theft Auto IV | Himself |
References[link]
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- ^ "The joke's on Ricky Gervais as he reveals his father 'may have been drunk' when he filled in his birth certificate. Gervais recently admitted in an interview that he had "a very honest family" and the only lie his mother ever told him was that God existed. – Mail Online". Daily Mail (UK). 27 January 2009. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1129313/The-jokes-Ricky-Gervais-reveals-father-drunk-filled-birth-certificate.html. Retrieved 25 March 2009.
- ^ The Independent (2005). – "The youngest, by some way, of four brothers, his childhood was trauma-free. Like The Waltons, he says, "If the Waltons took the piss out of each other. You had to be able to answer back." The first time he did, he got a laugh and, his family reasoned, "He'll be alright.""
- ^ Heatley 2006
- ^ Heatley 2006
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- ^ The Observer (2005) "'Not at all,' he says. 'When I was working at ULU I never thought, "This is shit" or "The money is bad." I thought: "This is quite a good job." I suppose if all this had not come along I might now have been a 43-year-old entertainments manager. But that never worried me at the time."
- ^ The Observer (2005) "Instead of a stand-up career, Gervais moved from ULU to a job as head of speech at the alternative radio station Xfm."
- ^ The Observer (2006). "Merchant was his deputy. Instead of worrying too much about being heads of speech, they mostly worked on little routines. Merchant was sometimes obliged to wheel his boss around the office in his executive chair. 'I remember going out for a drink with Steve early on,' Gervais says. 'I said to him, "You've done media studies, you can do all the boring stuff, all the filing, I'll mess around." He said: "OK." And that was that."
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- ^ "Friday Night with Jonathan Ross". 8 September 2009. BBC One.
- ^ Shennan, Paddy (15 September 2006). "Cheggers: I'm not really that foul-mouthed bigot". Liverpool Echo. http://icliverpool.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0100regionalnews/tm_objectid=17753518&method=full&siteid=50061&headline=cheggers--i-m-not-really-that-foul-mouthed-bigot-name_page.html. Retrieved 11 September 2009.
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- ^ Green, Graeme. (2007)., – "Green: After having your own Simpsons episode and working with Robert De Niro, are there any other big ambitions left to fulfil? ... [Gervais:] I get offered 50 diversions a day. I could be the guest on every panel show or the butler in loads of films. But when The Simpsons calls or Robert De Niro calls, you say ‘yes’ to them and ‘no’ to the other 49."
- ^ a b Michael Fleming (12 September 2007). "Ricky Gervais to star in 'Truth'". Variety. http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117971879.html?categoryid=13&cs=1. Retrieved 13 September 2007.
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- ^ "''Ricky Gervais digs himself into big trouble''". London: Daily Telegraph – Telegraph.co.uk. 6 April 2007. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1547788/Ricky-Gervais-digs-himself-into-big-trouble.html. Retrieved 3 July 2011.
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- ^ Green, Graeme (30 January 2007). "60 SECONDS: Ricky Gervais, Metro.co.uk". Metro.co.uk. http://www.metro.co.uk/fame/interviews/article.html?in_article_id=35340&in_page_id=11. Retrieved 21 November 2009.
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- ^ Gervais: I had to say sorry to vicar for joking at my mother's funeral by James Tapper, Daily Mail (UK). 25 June 2007
- ^ "BBC Radio 4 – Factual — Desert Island Discs — Ricky Gervais". http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/desertislanddiscs_20070624.shtml.
- ^ Appleyard, Bryan (22 February 2009). "Will Hollywood wipe the smile off Ricky Gervais's face?". The Sunday Times (UK). http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/stage/comedy/article5760063.ece. Retrieved 22 February 2009.
- ^ Gervais, Ricky. (2010-12-19) Ricky Gervais: Why I’m an Atheist. Blogs.wsj.com. Retrieved on 13 December 2011.
- ^ "Entertainment, Rose d'Or honour for TV's Gervais". BBC News. 15 March 2006. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/4809312.stm. Retrieved 21 November 2009.
- ^ "2007 Emmy Winners". BBC News Online. 17 September 2007. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6994527.stm. Retrieved 17 September 2007.
- ^ "The Ricky Gervais Show – Channel 4". www.channel4.com. http://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-ricky-gervais-show. Retrieved 28 April 2010.
Bibliography[link]
- Heatley, Michael (2006). Ricky Gervais — The Story So Far.... Michael O'Mara Books. ISBN 1-84317-219-4.
Interviews[link]
- Time Magazine (2008). Renaissance Man: Ricky Gervais by Joel Stein
- The Independent, et al. (2005). Ricky Gervais: My life as a pure superstar Electronic Version Independent News Media: United Kingdom
- The Guardian Newspaper, et al. (2005). "Second Coming" Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007: United Kingdom
External links[link]
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Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: The Ricky Gervais Show |
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Ricky Gervais |
- Official website
- Ricky Gervais on Twitter
- Ricky Gervais at the Internet Movie Database
- Ricky Gervais on Charlie Rose
- Ricky Gervais at the Oxonian Society video
- Behind the scenes of The Office on BBC
- Ricky Gervais's video interview on Big Think
- Video interview & acceptance speech of Ricky Gervais winning Sir Peter Ustinov Award for Comedy @ Banff World TV Festival 2010
- Ricky Gervais collected news and commentary at The Guardian
- Ricky Gervais collected news and commentary at The New York Times
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| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| Name | Gervais, Ricky |
| Alternative names | |
| Short description | English actor, comedian, author, director, producer |
| Date of birth | 25 June 1961 |
| Place of birth | Reading, England |
| Date of death | |
| Place of death | |
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| Born | (1942-03-28) March 28, 1942 (age 70) Boston, Massachusetts |
|---|---|
| Era | 20th / 21st-century philosophy |
| Region | Western Philosophy |
| School | Analytic philosophy |
| Main interests | Philosophy of mind Philosophy of biology Philosophy of science Cognitive science |
| Notable ideas | Heterophenomenology Intentional stance Intuition pump Multiple Drafts Model Greedy reductionism Deepity |
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Daniel Clement Dennett (born March 28, 1942)[1][2] is an American philosopher, writer and cognitive scientist whose research centers on the philosophy of mind, philosophy of science and philosophy of biology, particularly as those fields relate to evolutionary biology and cognitive science.[3] He is currently the Co-director of the Center for Cognitive Studies, the Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Philosophy, and a University Professor at Tufts University. Dennett is a firm atheist and secularist, a member of the Secular Coalition for America advisory board,[4] as well as an outspoken supporter of the Brights movement. Dennett is referred to as one of the "Four Horsemen of New Atheism," along with Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and the late Christopher Hitchens.[5]
Contents |
Early life and education[link]
Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Dennett spent part of his childhood in Lebanon, where, during World War II, his father was a covert counter-intelligence agent with the Office of Strategic Services posing as a cultural attaché to the American Embassy in Beirut.[6] When he was five, his mother took him back to Massachusetts after his father died in an unexplained plane crash.[7] His sister is the investigative journalist Charlotte Dennett.[6]
He attended Phillips Exeter Academy and spent one year at Wesleyan University before receiving his Bachelor of Arts in philosophy from Harvard University in 1963, where he was a student of W. V. Quine. In 1965, he received his Doctor of Philosophy in philosophy from the University of Oxford, where he studied under Gilbert Ryle and was a member of Hertford College.
Academic career[link]
As of January 2012, Dennett is the Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Philosophy, University Professor, and Co-Director of the Center for Cognitive Studies (with Ray Jackendoff) at Tufts University.[8]
Dennett describes himself as "an autodidact — or, more properly, the beneficiary of hundreds of hours of informal tutorials on all the fields that interest me, from some of the world's leading scientists."[9]
He is the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship, two Guggenheim Fellowships, and a Fellowship at the Center for Advanced Studies in Behavioral Science.[10] He is a Fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and a Humanist Laureate of the International Academy of Humanism.[11] He was named 2004 Humanist of the Year by the American Humanist Association.[12]
In February 2010 he was named to the Freedom From Religion Foundation's Honorary Board of distinguished achievers.[13]
In 2012 he was awarded the Erasmus Prize, an annual award for a person who has made an exceptional contribution to European culture, society or social science, "for his ability to translate the cultural significance of science and technology to a broad audience."[14]
Free will[link]
While he is a confirmed compatibilist on free will, in "On Giving Libertarians What They Say They Want" — Chapter 15 of his 1978 book Brainstorms,[15] Dennett articulated the case for a two-stage model of decision making in contrast to libertarian views.
The model of decision making I am proposing has the following feature: when we are faced with an important decision, a consideration-generator whose output is to some degree undetermined produces a series of considerations, some of which may of course be immediately rejected as irrelevant by the agent (consciously or unconsciously). Those considerations that are selected by the agent as having a more than negligible bearing on the decision then figure in a reasoning process, and if the agent is in the main reasonable, those considerations ultimately serve as predictors and explicators of the agent's final decision.[16]
While other philosophers have developed two-stage models, including William James, Henri Poincaré, Arthur Holly Compton, and Henry Margenau, Dennett defends this model for the following reasons:
- First...The intelligent selection, rejection, and weighing of the considerations that do occur to the subject is a matter of intelligence making the difference.
- Second, I think it installs indeterminism in the right place for the libertarian, if there is a right place at all.
- Third...from the point of view of biological engineering, it is just more efficient and in the end more rational that decision making should occur in this way.
- A fourth observation in favor of the model is that it permits moral education to make a difference, without making all of the difference.
- Fifth — and I think this is perhaps the most important thing to be said in favor of this model — it provides some account of our important intuition that we are the authors of our moral decisions.
- Finally, the model I propose points to the multiplicity of decisions that encircle our moral decisions and suggests that in many cases our ultimate decision as to which way to act is less important phenomenologically as a contributor to our sense of free will than the prior decisions affecting our deliberation process itself: the decision, for instance, not to consider any further, to terminate deliberation; or the decision to ignore certain lines of inquiry.
These prior and subsidiary decisions contribute, I think, to our sense of ourselves as responsible free agents, roughly in the following way: I am faced with an important decision to make, and after a certain amount of deliberation, I say to myself: "That's enough. I've considered this matter enough and now I'm going to act," in the full knowledge that I could have considered further, in the full knowledge that the eventualities may prove that I decided in error, but with the acceptance of responsibility in any case.[17]
Leading libertarian philosophers such as Robert Kane have rejected Dennett's model, specifically that random chance is directly involved in a decision, on the basis that they believe this eliminates the agent's motives and reasons, character and values, and feelings and desires. They claim that, if chance is the primary cause of decisions, then agents cannot be liable for resultant actions. Kane says:
[As Dennett admits,] a causal indeterminist view of this deliberative kind does not give us everything libertarians have wanted from free will. For [the agent] does not have complete control over what chance images and other thoughts enter his mind or influence his deliberation. They simply come as they please. [The agent] does have some control after the chance considerations have occurred.
But then there is no more chance involved. What happens from then on, how he reacts, is determined by desires and beliefs he already has. So it appears that he does not have control in the libertarian sense of what happens after the chance considerations occur as well. Libertarians require more than this for full responsibility and free will.[18]
Other philosophical views[link]
Dennett has remarked in several places (such as "Self-portrait", in Brainchildren) that his overall philosophical project has remained largely the same since his time at Oxford. He is primarily concerned with providing a philosophy of mind that is grounded in empirical research. In his original dissertation, Content and Consciousness, he broke up the problem of explaining the mind into the need for a theory of content and for a theory of consciousness. His approach to this project has also stayed true to this distinction. Just as Content and Consciousness has a bipartite structure, he similarly divided Brainstorms into two sections. He would later collect several essays on content in The Intentional stance and synthesize his views on consciousness into a unified theory in Consciousness Explained. These volumes respectively form the most extensive development of his views.[19]
In Consciousness Explained, Dennett's interest in the ability of evolution to explain some of the content-producing features of consciousness is already apparent, and this has since become an integral part of his program. He defends a theory known by some as Neural Darwinism. He also presents an argument against qualia; he argues that the concept is so confused that it cannot be put to any use or understood in any non-contradictory way, and therefore does not constitute a valid refutation of physicalism. His strategy mirrors his teacher Ryle's approach of redefining first person phenomena in third person terms, and denying the coherence of the concepts which this approach struggles with. Much of Dennett's work since the 1990s has been concerned with fleshing out his previous ideas by addressing the same topics from an evolutionary standpoint, from what distinguishes human minds from animal minds (Kinds of Minds), to how free will is compatible with a naturalist view of the world (Freedom Evolves). In his 2006 book, Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon, Dennett attempts to subject religious belief to the same treatment, explaining possible evolutionary reasons for the phenomenon of religious adherence.
Dennett self-identifies with a few terms:
[Others] note that my 'avoidance of the standard philosophical terminology for discussing such matters' often creates problems for me; philosophers have a hard time figuring out what I am saying and what I am denying. My refusal to play ball with my colleagues is deliberate, of course, since I view the standard philosophical terminology as worse than useless — a major obstacle to progress since it consists of so many errors.
— Daniel Dennett, The Message is: There is no Medium
Yet, in Consciousness Explained, he admits "I am a sort of 'teleofunctionalist', of course, perhaps the original teleofunctionalist'". He goes on to say, "I am ready to come out of the closet as some sort of verificationist". In Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon he admits to being "a bright", and defends the term.
In Darwin's Dangerous Idea, Dennett writes that evolution can account for the origin of morality. He rejects the idea of the naturalistic fallacy as the idea that ethics is in some free-floating realm, writing that the fallacy is to rush from facts to values.
Role in evolutionary debate[link]
Dennett sees evolution by natural selection as an algorithmic process (though he spells out that algorithms as simple as long division often incorporate a significant degree of randomness).[20] This idea is in conflict with the evolutionary philosophy of paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould, who preferred to stress the "pluralism" of evolution (i.e. its dependence on many crucial factors, of which natural selection is only one).
Dennett's views on evolution are identified as being strongly adaptationist, in line with his theory of the intentional stance, and the evolutionary views of biologist Richard Dawkins. In Darwin's Dangerous Idea, Dennett showed himself even more willing than Dawkins to defend adaptationism in print, devoting an entire chapter to a criticism of the ideas of Gould. This stems from Gould's long-running public debate with E. O. Wilson and other evolutionary biologists over human sociobiology and its descendant evolutionary psychology, which Gould and Richard Lewontin opposed, but which Dennett advocated, together with Dawkins and Steven Pinker.[21] Strong disagreements have been launched against Dennett from Gould and his supporters, who allege that Dennett overstated his claims and misrepresented Gould's to reinforce what Gould describes as Dennett's "Darwinian fundamentalism".[22]
Dennett's theories have had a significant influence on the work of evolutionary psychologist Geoffrey Miller. He has also written about and advocated the notion of memetics as a philosophically useful tool, most recently in his "Brains, Computers, and Minds," a three part presentation through Harvard's MBB 2009 Distinguished Lecture Series.
He has recently been doing research into clerics who are secretly atheists and how they rationalize their works. He found what he called a "Don't ask, don't tell" conspiracy because believers did not want to hear of loss of faith. That made unbelieving preachers feel isolated but they did not want to lose their jobs and sometimes their church-supplied lodgings and generally consoled themselves that they were doing good in their pastoral roles by providing comfort and required ritual.[23] The research, with Linda LaScola, was further extended to include other denominations and non-Christian clerics.[24]
Personal life[link]
Dennett lives with his wife in North Andover, Massachusetts, and has a daughter, a son, and three grandchildren.[25] He is also an avid sailor.
In October 2006, Dennett was hospitalized due to an aortic dissection. After a nine-hour surgery, he was given a new aorta. In an essay posted on the Edge website, Dennett gives his firsthand account of his health problems, his consequent feelings of gratitude towards the scientists, cardiologist, surgeons, EMT's, phlebotomists, orderlies, housekeepers, physician assistants, X-ray technicians, meal-bringers, launderers, physical therapists, perfusionist, neurologist, and nurses whose hard work made his recovery possible, and his complete lack of a "deathbed conversion".
To whom, then, do I owe a debt of gratitude? To the cardiologist who has kept me alive and ticking for years, and who swiftly and confidently rejected the original diagnosis of nothing worse than pneumonia. To the surgeons, neurologists, anesthesiologists, and the perfusionist, who kept my systems going for many hours under daunting circumstances. To the dozen or so physician assistants, and to nurses and physical therapists and x-ray technicians and a small army of phlebotomists so deft that you hardly know they are drawing your blood, and the people who brought the meals, kept my room clean, did the mountains of laundry generated by such a messy case, wheel-chaired me to x-ray, and so forth. These people came from Uganda, Kenya, Liberia, Haiti, the Philippines, Croatia, Russia, China, Korea, India—and the United States, of course—and I have never seen more impressive mutual respect, as they helped each other out and checked each other's work. But for all their teamwork, this local gang could not have done their jobs without the huge background of contributions from others. I remember with gratitude my late friend and Tufts colleague, physicist Allan Cormack, who shared the Nobel Prize for his invention of the c-t scanner. Allan—you have posthumously saved yet another life, but who's counting? The world is better for the work you did. Thank goodness. Then there is the whole system of medicine, both the science and the technology, without which the best-intentioned efforts of individuals would be roughly useless. So I am grateful to the editorial boards and referees, past and present, of Science, Nature, Journal of the American Medical Association, Lancet, and all the other institutions of science and medicine that keep churning out improvements, detecting and correcting flaws.
— Daniel C. Dennett, Thank Goodness!
By his account, upon having been told by friends and relatives that they had prayed for him, he resisted the urge to ask them, "Did you also sacrifice a goat?"[26][27]
Selected books[link]
- Brainstorms: Philosophical Essays on Mind and Psychology (MIT Press 1981) (ISBN 0-262-54037-1)
- Elbow Room: The Varieties of Free Will Worth Wanting (MIT Press 1984) — on free will and determinism (ISBN 0-262-04077-8)
- The Mind's I (Bantam, Reissue edition 1985, with Douglas Hofstadter) (ISBN 0-553-34584-2)
- Content and Consciousness (Routledge & Kegan Paul Books Ltd; 2nd ed. January 1986) (ISBN 0-7102-0846-4)
- The Intentional Stance (6th printing), Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1996, ISBN 0-262-54053-3 (First published 1987)
- Consciousness Explained (Back Bay Books 1992) (ISBN 0-316-18066-1)
- Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life (Simon & Schuster; reprint edition 1996) (ISBN 0-684-82471-X)
- Kinds of Minds: Towards an Understanding of Consciousness (Basic Books 1997) (ISBN 0-465-07351-4)
- Brainchildren: Essays on Designing Minds (Representation and Mind) (MIT Press 1998) (ISBN 0-262-04166-9) — A Collection of Essays 1984–1996
- Freedom Evolves (Viking Press 2003) (ISBN 0-670-03186-0)
- Sweet Dreams: Philosophical Obstacles to a Science of Consciousness (MIT Press 2005) (ISBN 0-262-04225-8)
- Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon (Penguin Group 2006) (ISBN 0-670-03472-X).
- Neuroscience and Philosophy: Brain, Mind, and Language (Columbia University Press 2007) (ISBN 978-0-231-14044-7), co-authored with Maxwell Bennett, Peter Hacker, and John Searle
- Science and Religion (Oxford University Press 2010) (ISBN 0-199-73842-4), co-authored with Alvin Plantinga
See also[link]
- The Atheism Tapes
- Cartesian materialism
- Conscious Robots
- Evolutionary psychology of religion
- Greedy reductionism
- Geoffrey Miller
- Heterophenomenology
- Intentional stance
- List of Jean Nicod Prize laureates
- Memetics
- Multiple drafts theory of consciousness
- Philosophy of Religion
- American philosophy
- List of American philosophers
Further reading[link]
- John Brockman (1995). The Third Culture. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-684-80359-3 (Discusses Dennett and others).
- Daniel C. Dennett (1997), "Chapter 3. True Believers: The Intentional Strategy and Why it Works", in John Haugeland, Mind Design II: Philosophy, Psychology, Artificial Intelligence. Massachusetts: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. ISBN 0-262-08259-4 (reprint of 1981 publication).[a]
- Andrew Brook and Don Ross (editors) (2000). Daniel Dennett. New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-00864-6
- Don Ross, Andrew Brook and David Thompson (editors) (2000) Dennett's Philosophy: A Comprehensive Assessment Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-18200-9
- John Symons (2000) On Dennett. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Company. ISBN 0-534-57632-X
- Matthew Elton (2003). Dennett: Reconciling Science and Our Self-Conception. Cambridge, U.K: Polity Press. ISBN 0-7456-2117-1
- P.M.S. Hacker and M.R. Bennett (2003) Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience. Oxford, and Malden, Mass: Blackwell ISBN 1-4051-0855-X (Has an appendix devoted to a strong critique of Dennett's philosophy of mind)
Notes[link]
a. ^ "True Believers: The Intentional Strategy and Why it Works" is a reprint of a paper first published in 1981 in Scientific Explanation, edited by A.F. Heath (Oxford: Oxford University Press). The paper was originally presented as a Herbert Spencer lecture at Oxford in November 1979. It was also published as chapter 2 in Dennett's book The Intentional Stance (see further reading above).
References[link]
- ^ Autobiography
- ^ About the Author
- ^ Beardsley, T. (1996) Profile: Daniel C. Dennett – Dennett's Dangerous Idea, Scientific American 274(2), 34-35.
- ^ Secular Coalition for America Advisory Board Biography
- ^ [1]
- ^ a b Feuer, Alan (2007-10-23), "A Dead Spy, a Daughter’s Questions and the C.I.A.", New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/23/nyregion/23spydad.html, retrieved 2008-09-16
- ^ Brown, Andrew (2004-04-17). "The semantic engineer". The Guardian. http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/politicsphilosophyandsociety/story/0,6000,1193371,00.html. Retrieved 2010-02-01.
- ^ Center for Cognitive Studies
- ^ Dennett, Daniel C. (2005-09-13) [2004], "What I Want to Be When I Grow Up", in John Brockman, Curious Minds: How a Child Becomes a Scientist, New York: Vintage Books, ISBN 1-4000-7686-2, http://www.edge.org/books/curious_index.html
- ^ American Scientist
- ^ Secular Humanism Laureate
- ^ Humanist of the Year
- ^ "Honorary FFRF Board Announced". http://ffrf.org/news/releases/honorary-ffrf-board-announced/. Retrieved 2008-08-20.
- ^ "Erasmus Prize 2012 Awarded to Daniel C. Dennett". http://www.prnewswire.co.uk/cgi/news/release?id=346065. Retrieved 2012-01-25.
- ^ Brainstorms: Philosophical Essays on Mind and Psychology, MIT Press (1978), pp.286-299
- ^ Brainstorms, p.295
- ^ Brainstorms, pp.295-97
- ^ Robert Kane, A Contemporary Introduction to Free Will, Oxford (2005) p.64-5
- ^ Guttenplan, Samuel (1994), A companion to the philosophy of mind, Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 642, ISBN 0-631-19996-9
- ^ p. 52-60, Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life (Simon & Schuster; reprint edition 1996) (ISBN 0-684-82471-X)
- ^ Although Dennett has expressed criticism of human sociobiology, calling it a form of "greedy reductionism", he is generally sympathetic towards the explanations proposed by evolutionary psychology. Gould also is not one sided, and writes: "Sociobiologists have broadened their range of selective stories by invoking concepts of inclusive fitness and kin selection to solve (successfully I think) the vexatious problem of altruism—previously the greatest stumbling block to a Darwinian theory of social behavior. . . . Here sociobiology has had and will continue to have success. And here I wish it well. For it represents an extension of basic Darwinism to a realm where it should apply." Gould, 1980. "Sociobiology and the Theory of Natural Selection" In G. W. Barlow and J. Silverberg, eds., Sociobiology: Beyond Nature/Nurture? Boulder CO: Westview Press, pp. 257-269.
- ^ 'Evolution: The pleasures of Pluralism' — Stephen Jay Gould's review of Darwin's Dangerous Idea, June 26, 1997
- ^ Preachers who are not Believers (PDF), Evolutionary Psychology, Vol. 8, Issue 1, March, 2010, pp. 122-50, (ISSN 1474-7049).
- ^ Podcast: interview with Daniel Dennett. Further developments of the research: pastors, priests, and an Imam who are closet atheists.
- ^ Daniel C. Dennett's Home Page
- ^ Richard Dawkins: 'The Genius of Charles Darwin' (2008.).
- ^ 'Thank Goodness!', edge 195, Nov. 3, 2006
External links[link]
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This article's use of external links may not follow Wikipedia's policies or guidelines. Please improve this article by removing excessive or inappropriate external links, and converting useful links where appropriate into footnote references. (October 2011) |
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Wikisource has original works written by or about: |
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Daniel Dennett |
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Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Daniel Dennett |
- Inside Jokes Using Humor to Reverse-Engineer the Mind Matthew M. Hurley, Daniel C. Dennett and Reginald B. Adams, Jr at The MIT Press
- Faculty webpage
- Daniel C. Dennett at Internet Movie Database
- Scientific American Frontiers Profile: Daniel Dennett 2000-12-19
- Searchable bibliography of Dennett's works
- Daniel Dennett on Information Philosopher
- Media
- Edge/Third Culture: Daniel C. Dennett
- Daniel Dennett multimedia files
- Profile at TED several videos on dangerous memes, consciousness, others
- Radio interview on Philosophy Talk 2009-12-06
- The Nature of Knowledge Lecture at the University of Edinburgh 2006-03-14
- On Preaching and Teaching The Science Network interview with Daniel Dennett 2007-11-02
- The Moscow Center for Consciousness Studies video interview with Daniel Dennett 2010-03-05 (with transcript)
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| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| Name | Dennett, Daniel |
| Alternative names | Dennett, Dan |
| Short description | American philosopher |
| Date of birth | (1942-03-28) March 28, 1942 (age 70) |
| Place of birth | Boston, Massachusetts |
| Date of death | |
| Place of death | |
http://wn.com/Daniel_Dennett
Related pages:
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http://ru.wn.com/Деннет, Дэниел
http://nl.wn.com/Daniel Dennett
http://pt.wn.com/Daniel Dennett
http://pl.wn.com/Daniel Dennett
http://fr.wn.com/Daniel Dennett
http://de.wn.com/Daniel Dennett
This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Dennett
This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.
This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.
