Deep Thoughts

The Most Important Intellectual Contributions of Modern European History

The Italian Renaissance

The Forest

Under Construction

Petrarch

(1304-1374)

The Father of Humanism

Major Works

Sonnets

Core Ideas & Significance

- Wrote sonnets in the Italian vernacular to express his love for Laura

- Regarded Middle Ages as a time of ignorance and barbarity -- Criticized medieval scholasticism and argued that the purpose of philosophy was to promote "virtuous living"

- Obsessed with civilization of Ancient Rome and the revival of classical Latin texts

- Most important early figure in the promotion of Renaissance humanism

Quotes

"Christ is my God; Cicero is the prince of the language."

Lorenzo Valla

(1405-1457)

Major Works

On the False Donation of Constantine (1444)

Core Ideas & Significance

- Leading humanist scholar and pioneer of textual analysis of ancient texts

- Demonstrated that the Donation of Constantine, a document wherein the Roman emperor had supposedly granted the pope control over much of Western Europe, was a forgery as it had been written four centuries after the reign of Constantine -- His work undermined papal claims to temporal authority and encouraged later religious reformers to question and challenge the Catholic Church

Quotes

Niccolò Machiavelli

(1469 -1527 )

Major Works

The Prince (1513)

Core Ideas & Significance

- A Florentine diplomat, he is considered the father of modern political science 

- Dismayed by the inability of the feuding city-states of Italy to fend off foreign invaders like France, he looked to Ancient Rome for models of proper leadership and institutions 

- In The Prince he explained how rulers could obtain and maintain power, and he sought to demonstrate how the skillful use of power could restore stability to Italy

- A realist, he was concerned not with how people should behave, but how they actually did behave -- He believed that human nature was essentially selfish, that man is driven by the desire to protect his own interests, and that rulers needed to take this into account

- Argued that rulers should do whatever was necessary to protect the interests of the state, regardless of moral considerations

- Emphasized that effective leaders must have virtù, meaning manliness or ability instead of traditional morality -- Through this virtù he might achieve peace, stability, and prosperity 

Quotes

"Since love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved."

"[A ruler] should do what is right if he can; but he must be prepared to do wrong if necessary"

"[A ruler] must therefore be a fox to recognize traps, and a lion to frighten wolves."

Major Works

The Book of the Courtier (1518)

Core Ideas & Significance

- A writer on good manners and proper conduct, Castiglione in The Courtier described the characteristics of the ideal nobleman

- Argued that noblemen should possess a wide range of skills and virtues, including military and athletic prowess, musical, dancing, and artistic talents, proper conversation and dress, and good character and conduct

Quotes

"He who lacks wisdom or knowledge will have nothing to say or do."

"The aim of the perfect Courtier ... is so to win for himself ... the favor and mind of the prince whom he serves."

Major Works

Oration on the Dignity of Man

Core Ideas & Significance

- A Florentine writer, Pico argued that God had created man as being of indeterminate nature, and that man had virtually unlimited potential

- Through his choices, man has the ability to make himself in whatever he chooses, anything from a brutish beast to a state that approaches the divine

Quotes

"O highest and most marvelous felicity of man!  To him it is granted to have whatever he chooses, to be whatever he wills."

The Northern Renaissance

Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536)

The Prince of Humanism

Major Works

Adages (1500)

Colloquies (1523)

Praise of Folly (1512)

Core Ideas & Significance

- Most important of the Christian humanists, he sought to reconcile Christian teachings and classical works -- Regarded education as the only path to the reform of individuals and society

- In his "philosophy of Christ," he argued that the primary purpose of Christianity was to guide men to live virtuous daily lives rather than focus on details of doctrine and ceremony -- True virtues were charity, modesty, and poverty

- Believed Bible and other early Christian sources should be available in their original, corrected form to facilitate understanding (published new Greek and Latin versions of New Testament)

- In Praise of Folly, satirized the corruption of his society, esp. behavior of clergy

- Condemned Pope Julius II, "the warrior-pope," for leading armies into battle

- Hoped only to reform Catholic Church from within, but he "laid the egg that Luther hatched" during the Reformation

Quotes

"He who allows oppression shares the crime"

"Women, can't live with them, can't live without them"

Thomas More

(1478-1535)

Major Works

Utopia (1516)

Core Ideas & Significance

- Most important of English humanists -- Friend and advisor of Henry VIII

- Utopia (literally "nowhere") describes an imaginary, ideal society in which life is governed by reason and cooperation (no private property, equal work, encouragement of moral living) -- Makes point that society's institutions largely shape men's lives and behavior

- Close friend and confidant of Henry VIII, serving as his Lord Chancellor -- Executed for his opposition to Henry VIII's English Reformation

Quotes

"This hath not offended the king" [As he drew his beard aside while placing his head on the block]

Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592)

Major Works

Essays (1580)

Core Ideas & Significance

- Disturbed by the seemingly senseless violence of the French Wars of Religion, he withdrew from public life to his country estate

- The father of skepticism, Montaigne doubted that one could ever know absolute truth about matters of Christian doctrine, and therefore urged moderation over fanaticism and toleration of religious differences

Quotes

"What do I know?"

"I will follow the right side even to the fire, but excluding the fire if I can"

"It is taking one's conjectures rather seriously to roast someone alive for them."

17th Century Scientific Thought

Francis Bacon

(1561-1626)

Major Works

The Proficience and Advancement of Learning (1605)

Novum Organum (1620)

The New Atlantis (1626)

- Rejected man's unquestioning reliance upon the ideas of the ancients and the conviction that the world was beyond man's comprehension

- Proposed the inductive method of knowledge acquisition, using careful observation and experimentation to collect data and arrive at general principles (empiricism)

- Believed that scientific knowledge should be used to subdue nature and create devices that benefitted mankind

Quotes

"Knowledge is power"

René Descartes (1596-1650)

Major Works

Discourse on Method (1637)

Core Ideas & Significance

- Doubted reliability of his own senses and empiricism

- Resolved to question and doubt everything he had learned and rediscover truth USING ONLY HIS REASON (rationalism), beginning with the one fact which seemed certain, his own existence ("Cogito, ergo sum")

- Determined that universe was composed of two basic substances, mind (the thinking, spiritual world) and matter (the physical world, which could be understand using reason) -- Cartesian Dualism

- Articulated deductive method of arriving at truth, beginning with known truths and logically proceeding to other truths with mathematical precision

- God's existence (which Descartes could prove deductively) guaranteed the reliability of man's reason

Quotes

"Cogito, ergo sum" ("I think, therefore I am")

Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)

Major Works

Pensées (The Thoughts)

Core Ideas & Significance

- A French scientist and mathematician who sought to reconcile science and Christianity and demonstrate that Christianity was not contrary to scientific reason

- Argued that reason applied only to matters of science, not religion, and that a "leap of faith" was necessary for men to believe in God

- In a famous "wager," he argued that it was wiser to believe in God than not to, for if he exists one wins salvation, and if he does not one has lost nothing

Quotes

"We arrive at the truth, not by the reason only, but also by the heart."

"The heart has its reasons which reason knows not."

Benedict de Spinoza (1632-1677)

Major Works

Ethics Demonstrated in the Geometrical Manner

Core Ideas & Significance

- Rejected organized religion, which he believed was created to explain those things man could not understand

- Challenged Cartesian Dualism, arguing that all matter is a part of God -- God did not just create the universe; he was the universe (pantheism)

- Believed everything had a rational explanation which humans could determine using reason

Quotes

"Do not weep.  Do not wax indignant.  Understand."

17th Century Political Thought

Thomas Hobbes

(1588-1679)

Major Works

Leviathan (1651)

Core Ideas & Significance

- Lived and wrote during the upheaval of the English Civil War

- Argued that men are naturally selfish and concerned only with fulfilling own needs & desires

- Believed that the state of nature, prior to the formation of government,  was essentially lawless -- There was no right or wrong, just or unjust

- People willingly gave up freedom in a social contract w/ each other -- Power was given to absolute sovereign who was to maintain order & protect people from the chaotic state of nature

- People have no right to question the authority of the monarch or rebel against him -- This would only lead back to chaos

Quotes

The state of nature is the "war of every man against every man," -- Life in the state of nature is therefore "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short"

Bishop Jacques Bossuet

(1627-1704)

Major Works

Politics Drawn from the Very Words of Holy Scripture (1709)

Core Ideas & Significance

- A supporter of absolute monarchy (esp. that of his sovereign, Louis XIV)

- Believed in the divine right of kings, arguing that because God established kings and endowed them with power, they were responsible to no one and could not be challenged

Quotes

"Ah!  The perfidious English!"

John Locke

(1632-1704)

Major Works

Essay on Human Understanding (1690)

Two Treatises of Government (1690)

Core Ideas & Significance

- Men are by nature reasonable and good -- they are born unformed (tabula rasa - "blank slate") and are shaped primarily by their environments and societies -- Human knowledge results from experience (empiricism)

- State of nature is not completely lawless -- It is governed by natural law (reason), and men have the natural rights to life, liberty, and property

- People choose to enter a social contract to form a  government which establishes and enforces laws to protect man's natural rights from possible infringement by others

- If govt. fails to protect rights, people have right (as a last resort) to form a new government (revolution!)

- Locke's ideas became basis for constitutional government and the idea of rulers ruling only with the consent of the governed

Quotes

"The actions of men are the best interpreters of their thoughts"

Philosophes of the Enlightenment

Montesquieu (1689-1755)

Major Works

Spirit of the Laws (1748)

Core Ideas & Significance

- Sought to discover the "natural laws" that shaped political and social relationships

- Believed that a country's form of government was dependent upon its particular conditions, circumstances, and history -- No single political system was best for all peoples

- Praised England's government for separating power among three branches (executive, legislative, and judicial) and providing a system of checks & balances

- For France, preferred a monarchy limited by a strong aristocracy

Quotes

"Liberty is the right of doing whatever the laws permit"

Voltaire (1694-1778)

Major Works

Candide (1759)

Treatise on Toleration (1763)

Core Ideas & Significance

- Prolific author of novels, plays, histories, letters, & pamphlets

- Deeply admired English institutions, freedoms, and toleration

- A vociferous critic of organized religion and religious intolerance -- He advocated deism, according to which God created the world and the natural laws by which it operated, but no longer had direct involvement with it

Quotes

"Crush the infamous thing"

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"

Diderot (1713-1784)

Major Works

The Encyclopedia (1751-1765) [editor]

Core Ideas & Significance

- Compiled ideas of the leading philosophes on a wide array of topics in his 17-volume Encyclopedia, which was invaluable for spreading the ideas of the Enlightenment (religious toleration, political reform, primacy of reason) -- Based on idea 

Quotes

"A thing is not proved just because no one has ever questioned it"

"The destiny of mankind is not to turn towards Heaven, but to progress on this earth and for this earth, by means of intelligence and reason"

Physiocrats

[led by François Quesnay (1694-1774)]

Major Works

Economic Table (1758)

Core Ideas & Significance

- Sought to discover the natural laws that governed economics

- Argued that land was the only source of wealth and agriculture and mining the only means of increasing wealth -- Rejected the mercantilist idea that gold and silver were the main determinants of wealth

- Attempted to end traditional limits on use of land imposed by nobles and peasant communities

- Argued that society prospered most when individuals were left to pursue their economic self-interest (laissez-faire) -- The government should not strictly regulate the economy as under mercantilism

Quotes

"Laissez faire, laissez passer" ("Let it be, let it pass")

Adam Smith

 (1723-1793)

Major Works

The Wealth of Nations (1776)

Core Ideas & Significance

- Adopted and expanded upon the ideas of the physiocrats

- Advocated free trade, with no tariff barriers between countries -- Rejected mercantilism!

- Argued that the labor of workers was the true source of a nation's wealth (labor theory of value)

- Believed that government should not interfere in the operation of a country's economy -- Prosperity would be achieved by "the invisible hand" when each person was free to do what was in his/her best interests economically

Quotes

"It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest."

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

 (1712-1778)

Major Works

The Social Contract (1762)

Emile (1762)

Core Ideas & Significance

- Believed that human beings had been most free and happy in the state of nature, and had been corrupted by civilization -- Society had to be reformed to give free reign to man's natural instincts and feelings

- Government is necessary, but should only exist to protect the common good (the general will - that which each citizen would want if he was fully informed and concerned about the good of all rather than merely focused on his narrow, selfish interests) -- Advocated direct democracy

- Argued that education promote a child's natural instincts

- Believed that women should focus on being wives and mothers and defer to men on all other matters

- Emphasis on emotion and the natural made him an important forerunner of romanticism

Quotes

"Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains"

Mary Wollstonecraft

 (1759-1797)

Major Works

Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792)

Core Ideas & Significance

- Regarded as founder of European feminist movement

- Argued that the subordination of women to men was the equivalent of an absolute monarch's tyranny over his subjects

- Asserted that women possessed the same reason as men and were therefore entitled to the same rights and education

Quotes

Cesare Beccaria

 (1738-1794)

Major Works

On Crimes and Punishments (1764)

Core Ideas & Significance

- Was concerned with problem of how to make penal system more effective 

- Argued that punishment of criminals should be designed only to deter crime, not inflict brutality

- Favored speedy trials with certain penalties

- Opposed capital punishment and torture

Quotes

"The greatest happiness of the greatest number"

Thinkers of the Romantic Era

Edmund Burke

 (1729-1797)

Major Works

Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

Core Ideas & Significance

- First to express the ideas of 19th-century conservatism

- Observing the French Revolution, he condemned the sudden, violent overthrow of the monarchy and the attacks on the Catholic Church -- Argued that French commoners lacked the necessary skills and experience to govern

- Argued that the social contract between the government and the governed could not be broken for trivial reasons, and that each generation has an obligation to preserve and transmit the political system to the next generation

- Change should be gradual rather than sudden and violent

Quotes

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

Immanuel Kant

 (1724-1804)

Major Works

The Critique of Pure Reason (1781)

The Critique of Practical Reason (1788)

Core Ideas & Significance

- Sought to reconcile Enlightenment reason w/ the existence of God

- Argued that knowledge was subjective, because each human being organizes that which he acquires via his senses into unique "categories of understanding" -- This contradicted Locke & others who argued that knowledge resulted solely from one's sensory experiences

- Divided world into two realms:

     - The Phenomenal World: World of sensory experiences to which "pure" reason applied

     - The Noumenal World: World of aesthetics and morality, to which "practical" reason applied

- Believed every person had inner impulse to act in any situation as he would like others to act in the same situation (categorical imperative) -- Argued that this innate moral sense was proof of God's existence

Quotes

"Dare to know!"

G.W.F. Hegel

 (1770-1831)

Major Works

The Phenomenology of the Mind (1806)

Lectures on the Philosophy of History (1822-1831)

Core Ideas & Significance

- New ideas result from recurring conflict  between the dominant ideas of a given era (the thesis) and a conflicting set of ideas (the antithesis) -- Out of this emerges a new set of ideas (the synthesis) that eventually becomes the new thesis -- The belief in this cyclical process is dialectical idealism

- A period of history is shaped by the set of thoughts predominating at the time (the thesis)

- Marx would draw upon Hegel in developing his own theory on history (dialectical materialism)

Quotes

"The history of the world is none other than the progress of the consciousness of freedom."

Auguste Comte

 (1798-1857)

Major Works

The Positive Philosophy (1830-1842)

Core Ideas & Significance

- Regarded as the father of sociology for he argued that one could discover laws governing man's interactions with man just as one could discover the laws of the physical world

- Identified three stages of human thought

     - Theological:  Physical world explained as result of action of spirits or dieties

     - Metaphysical:  Nature is believed to be guided by abstract principles

     - Positive:  Nature is explained only by observable physical phenomena 

- Comte argued that man was in the third, positive stage of knowledge that provided basis for modern science

Quotes

"All good intellects have repeated, since Bacon's time, that there can be no real knowledge but which is based on observed facts."

19th Century Responses to Industrialization

Thomas Malthus

 (1766-1834)

Major Works

Essay on the Principle of Population (1798)

Core Ideas & Significance

- Argued that while population is able to increase geometrically, food supply only increases arithmetically -- The only way to avoid starvation and suffering was through later marriages, abstinence, or contraception

- Argued against raising workers' wages, because they would only have more children who would consume more food

- Seemed to conclude that the poverty and suffering of the working classes was an inevitable aspect of industrialization

David Ricardo

 (1772-1823)

Major Works

Principles of Political Economy (1817)

Core Ideas & Significance

- Drawing upon Malthus, argued against raising wages because this would lead to more children who would enter the labor market and push wages down

- Iron Law of Wages: Wages tend to remain at a subsistence level, because higher wages lead to more workers which leads to lower wages and fewer children (until the cycle begins anew)

- Like Malthus, seemed to defend  the status quo and justify the employers efforts to keep wages low

Jeremy Bentham

 (1748-1832)

Major Works

Fragment on Government (1776)

Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789)

Core Ideas & Significance

- Believed that laws should be judged by their utility, that is their ability to produce the greatest good for the greatest number of people

- Ideas provided justification for government intervention to assist the lower classes, even if this seemed to violate tradition and free market doctrine 

"The greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation"

John Stuart Mill

 (1806-1873)

Major Works

Principles of Political Economy (1848)

On Liberty (1859)

The Subjection of Women (1869)

Core Ideas & Significance

- An eloquent advocate of individual freedom and supporter of laissez-faire economics, but believed that society had obligation to correct social injustices and redistribute some wealth to assist the poor

- Supported labor unions, child labor laws, an income tax, and universal manhood suffrage

- Believed in the free and open exchange of ideas

- Early advocate of women's rights, including educational opportunities and the right to vote

Quotes

"The despotism of custom is everywhere the standard hindrance to human advancement"

"Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives"

Utopian Socialists

Robert Owen (1771-1858)

Henri de Saint-Simon (1760-1825)

Charles Fourier (1772-1837)

Louis Blanc (1813-1882)

Major Works

The Organization of Work [Blanc]

Core Ideas & Significance

- Dismayed by the working and living conditions of the working classes, they sought to replace capitalism, competition, and private property with new systems for organizing society

- Presented various plans for communities organized on the cooperative principle, in which all would work and share the wealth that they produced

     Owen:  Established cooperative, self-contained mill at New Lanark, Scotland

     Saint-Simon:  Argued that society should be run by a coalition of the intellectual elite and industrial managers, and that further government would be unnecessary 

     Fourier:  Proposed creation of communities of 1,620 people called phalansteries

     Blanc:  Believed state should finance workshops owned and operated by workers

- Often advocated a more equal role for women

Quotes

"Man is the creature of circumstances" [Owen]

"The extension of the privileges of women is the fundamental cause of all social progress." [Fourier]

Karl Marx (1818-1883)

&

Friedrich Engels (1820-1895)

Major Works

The Communist Manifesto (1848) [Marx & Engels]

Das Kapital (1867) [Marx]

Core Ideas & Significance

- Set out economic theories that became basis for 20th-century communist regimes in the USSR, China, and elsewhere

- Argued that history is a series of struggles between the "haves" and the "have-nots" -- those who control the "means of production" (land/factories) and those who do not

- Society's institutions are all designed to support the interests of the dominant class (government, laws, religion, education, philosophy)

- Drawing upon Hegel, Marx argued that historical progress has been the result of conflict between opposing economic systems ("dialectical materialism") -- The French Revolution, for example, had been a clash between the victory of capitalism over feudalism

- Marx believed that the next conflict would be between the bourgeoisie (capitalist factory owners) and the proletariat (factory workers), and would result in a violent revolution establishing a classless society in which all shared the fruits of their labor

Quotes

"Workers of the world unite.  You have nothing to lose but your chains."

"Religion is the opium of the people."

"From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs"

Anarchists

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809-1865)

Mikhail Bakunin (1814-1876)

Prince Petr Kropotkin (1842-1921)

Major Works

What is Property? (1840) [Proudhon]

Core Ideas & Significance

- No single anarchist doctrine, but all rejected participation in democratic government and capitalist institutions -- They hoped to establish a more free and just society

- Many advocated the use of violence to achieve goals (esp. Bakunin)

- Anarchism had most appeal in the less-developed countries of southern Europe (Italy, Spain, southern France)

- Syndicalists:  Artisans, esp. in France, who combined the organization of trade unions with the principles of the anarchists

Quotes

"Property is theft" [Proudhon]

The Fabian Society

Sidney Webb (1859-1947)

Beatrice Webb (1858-1943)

Major Works

 Labor on the Threshold (1923)

Core Ideas & Significance

- Group of British socialists who rejected Marxist class struggle and revolution, instead believing that socialist goals could be achieved gradually & peacefully using the democratic process

- Named after Roman general Quintus Fabius Maximus who avoided direct battle with Carthaginian general Hannibal

- Eventually joined with trade unionists to create the Labour Party

Quotes

"The inevitability of gradualness"

"Nature still obstinately refuses to cooperate by making the rich people innately superior to the poor people"

Eduard Bernstein

 (1850-1932)

Major Works

Evolutionary Socialism (1899)

Core Ideas & Significance

- Inspired by Fabians in Great Britain, Bernstein argued that socialist reforms could also be achieved gradually in Germany now that the working classes had the right to vote (revisionism)

- He pointed out that many of Marx's predictions about the intensifying exploitation of the proletariat and downfall of capitalism had failed to materialize 

Quotes

"In my judgment a greater security for lasting success [for the proletariat] lies in a steady advance than in the possibilities offered by a catastrophic crash"

V.I. Lenin

 (1870-1924)

Major Works

What is to be Done? (1902)

Two Tactics of Social Democracy in the Bourgeois-Democratic Revolution (1905)

Core Ideas & Significance

- Rejected revisionism and any compromise with capitalist society

- Argued that proletariat revolution would not be achieved unless a small, elite group of professional revolutionaries organized workers and instilled them with class consciousness

- Sought an alliance between Russian workers and peasantry that would achieve a dual revolution

- Believed that is was possible to skill the mature, bourgeois, capitalist stage of development described by Marx and lead Russia directly into the proletariat stage

Quotes

"The goal of socialism is communism"

"One man with a gun can control one hundred without one"

Late 19th Century

Charles Darwin

 (1809-1882)

Major Works

On the Origin of Species (1859)

The Descent of Man (1871)

Core Ideas & Significance

- Rejected idea of creationism, arguing instead that animals gradually evolved in response to the demands of their environment

- Drawing upon Thomas Malthus, he argued that there was always a struggle for survival within species for limited resources

- Genetic "variations" gave some organisms a better chance of survival than others -- Their characteristics are passed on to their offspring (natural selection) -- Over time, once enough variation had occurred, a new species emerged

- Darwin's theories disturbed many, for they suggested that man was just another animal (rather than a unique being), that man had evolved from primates, and that life was simply about survival rather than the fulfillment of some higher purpose

Quotes

"In the struggle for survival, the fittest win out at the expense of their rivals because they succeed in adapting themselves best to their environment"

Herbert Spencer

 (1820-1903)

Major Works

Core Ideas & Significance

- Applied Darwin's ideas on the evolution of species to human societies, arguing that the stronger, more advanced countries, peoples, races, and individuals would thrive and endure while the weaker ones would not -- This process was desirable, because it results in a better humanity

- Ideas were used to justify the imperialist ventures and conquests of the late 19th century and the neglect of the poor at home

Quotes

"The survival of the fittest"

Friedrich Nietzsche

 (1844-1900)

Major Works

Thus Spake Zarathustra (1891)

Core Ideas & Significance

- Condemned the decadence of Western civilization and its elevation of reason above emotion and instinct

- Blamed Christianity and its "slave morality" for subduing the will of man and encouraging him to be submissive and weak -- Christian practices and doctrine were no longer relevant

- Purpose of society was to make it possible for superior members of society (supermen) to achieve their highest potential by creating their own value systems and imposing them upon the masses (will to power)

Quotes

"God is dead"

"It is necessary for higher men to declare war upon the masses"

Sigmund Freud

 (1856-1939)

Major Works

The Interpretation of Dreams (1900)

The Ego and the Id (1923)

Core Ideas & Significance

- Father of "psychoanalysis", which he described as a "new science of the mind" for treating mental illness

- Human beings are driven from birth to acquire and enhance their bodily pleasure (The Pleasure Principle)

- Normal childhood development is a series of conflicts –If these conflicts are not resolved successfully, one might develop neuroses in adulthood

- Freud identified three structural elements within the mind:

     - The Id: Instinctual, unconscious pleasure-seeking drives which require satisfaction

     - The Super-ego: The conscience, a socially-derived, control mechanism that limits the id

     - The Ego: Conscious self resulting from reconciling of tensions between id and super-ego 

- Defense-mechanisms of the mind (such as repression) prevent conflicts between its 3 parts from becoming too intense

- Dreams provide systematic evidence of the unconscious, and result from the repressed desires of the Id

Quotes

"All dreams represent the fulfillment of wishes"

"Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar"

Carl Jung

 (1856-1961)

Major Works

Modern Man in Search of a Soul (1933)

Core Ideas & Significance

- At one time a disciple of Freud, Jung broke with him on the meaning of dreams and the importance of sexual drive in shaping personality

- One's dreams, when combined, compose a larger pattern which only becomes apparent after long-term study

- Dreams reveal the process by which a person's psyche grows and matures (individuation)

- The unconscious actually has two components:

     - Personal unconscious: Based on experiences unique to each individual

     - Collective unconscious: Memories shared by all human beings, consisting of archetypes -- forms and symbols common to all cultures, emerge during dreams, and appear in myths, religion, and philosophies worldwide

Quotes

Theodor Herzl

 (1860-1904)

Major Works

The Jewish State (1896)

Core Ideas & Significance

- Dismayed by the Dreyfus affair in France, he sought to understand why such strong anti-Semitism persisted in Europe and to arrive at a solution to "the Jewish problem"

- Concluded that Jews would receive full acceptance and equality in Europe

- Became one of founders of Zionism when he called for creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine (part of Ottoman Empire)

Quotes

"The Jews who wish it will have their state"

Max Weber

 (1864-1920)

Major Works

"The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism" (1905)

Core Ideas & Significance

- Argued that the most important development of the modern world was bureaucratization, in which each individual played a small role in large organizations -- One's self-worth derived from one's position within these organizations

- Believed that the values of capitalism arose from the Puritans, who sought to accumulate wealth as a sign that they were among God's "elect"

Quotes

"The Jews who wish it will have their state"

The New Physics

Albert Einstein

 (1879-1955)

Major Works

"The Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies" (1905)

Core Ideas & Significance

- According to his special theory of relativity, time and space are not absolute values, but are relative to the observer and have no existence apart from the observer

- Matter is just another form of energy (E=mc²), an idea that led to atomic weapons and power

- Ideas threatened long-held theories of Isaac Newton

Quotes

"E=mc²"

"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."

The 20th Century

John Maynard Keynes

(1883-1946)

Major Works

General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money (1936)

Core Ideas & Significance

- British economist who challenged the traditional view that governments should not intervene during depressions, but rather let market forces restore prosperity

- Argued that governments should act to stimulate consumer demand for goods by financing public works projects, if necessary using deficit spending -- British leaders rejected his ideas during the 1930s

Quotes

"Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone."

"In the long run, we're all dead"

The Existentialists

 Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980)

Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986)

Albert Camus

(1913-1960)

Major Works

Sartre: Nausea (1938) & Being and Nothingness (1943)

Camus: The Stranger (1942) & The Plague (1947)

Core Ideas & Significance

- Early influences were 19th-century philosophers Kierkegaard & Nietzsche 

- Reflected disillusionment and uncertainty of Europeans following WWI & WWII

- Works focused on death, fear, & anxiety

- Questioned the primacy of reason and science as a means of understanding and improving the human condition -- They only seemed to lead to death, war, & genocide

- Argued that universe was essentially meaningless & absurd -- Humans must establish their own meaning without relying upon religion, reason, or tradition

- Man is free to make choices and form his own ethics and values

Quotes

"Existence precedes and rules essence" [Sartre]

"We do not know what we want and yet we are responsible for what we are - that is the fact" [Sartre]

"Do not wait for the last judgment.  It takes place every day." [Camus]

"It is in the knowledge of the general conditions of our lives that we must draw our strength to live and our reasons for living" [de Beauvoir]

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