Aristotle Aristotle (c. 384 B.C. to 322 B.C.

) was an Ancient Greek philosopher,

Aristotle founded his own school, the Lyceum, in Athens, where he spent
most of the rest of his life studying, teaching and writing. Some of his most
notable works include Nichomachean Ethics, Politics, Metaphysics, Poetics
and Prior Analytics. Aristotle’s Books Aristotle wrote an estimated 200 works,
most in the form of notes and manuscript drafts touching on reasoning,
rhetoric, politics, ethics, science and psychology. They consist of dialogues,
records of scientific observations and systematic works. His student
Theophrastus reportedly looked after Aristotle’s writings and later passed
them to his own student Neleus, who stored them in a vault to protect them
from moisture until they were taken to Rome and used by scholars there. Of
Aristotle’s estimated 200 works, only 31 are still in circulation. Most date to
Aristotle’s time at the Lyceum. 'Poetics' Poetics is a scientific study of writing
and poetry where Aristotle observes, analyzes and defines mostly tragedy
and epic poetry. Compared to philosophy, which presents ideas, poetry is an
imitative use of language, rhythm and harmony that represents objects and
events in the world, Aristotle posited. His book explores the foundation of
storymaking, including character development, plot and storyline.
'Nicomachean Ethics' and 'Eudemian Ethics' In Nichomachean Ethics, which
is believed to have been named in tribute to Aristotle’s son, Nicomachus,
Aristotle prescribed a moral code of conduct for what he called “good living.”
He asserted that good living to some degree defied the more restrictive laws
of logic, since the real world poses circumstances that can present a conflict
of personal values. That said, it was up to the individual to reason cautiously
while developing his or her own judgment. Eudemian Ethics is another of
Aristotle’s major treatises on the behavior and judgment that constitute “good
living.” On happiness: In his treatises on ethics, Aristotle aimed to discover the
best way to live life and give it meaning — “the supreme good for man,” in his
words — which he determined was the pursuit of happiness. Our happiness is
not a state but but an activity, and it’s determined by our ability to live a life
that enables us to use and develop our reason. While bad luck can affect
happiness, a truly happy person, he believed, learns to cultivate habits and
behaviors that help him (or her) to keep bad luck in perspective. The golden
mean: Aristotle also defined what he called the “golden mean.” Living a moral
life, Aristotle believed, was the ultimate goal. Doing so means approaching
every ethical dilemma by finding a mean between living to excess and living
deficiently, taking into account an individual’s needs and circumstances.
'Metaphysics' In his book Metaphysics, Aristotle clarified the distinction
between matter and form. To Aristotle, matter was the physical substance of
things, while form was the unique nature of a thing that gave it its identity.
'Politics' In Politics, Aristotle examined human behavior in the context of
society and government. Aristotle believed the purpose of government was
make it possible for citizens to achieve virtue and happiness. Intended to help
guide statesmen and rulers, Politics explores, among other themes, how and
why cities come into being; the roles of citizens and politicians; wealth and the
class system; the purpose of the political system; types of governments and
democracies; and the roles of slavery and women in the household and
society. Rhetoric' In Rhetoric, Aristotle observes and analyzes public speaking
with scientific rigor in order to teach readers how to be more effective
speakers. Aristotle believed rhetoric was essential in politics and law and
helped defend truth and justice. Good rhetoric, Aristotle believed, could
educate people and encourage them to consider both sides of a debate.
Aristotle’s work explored how to construct an argument and maximize its
effect, as well as fallacious reasoning to avoid (like generalizing from a single
example). 'Prior Analytics' In Prior Analytics, Aristotle explains the syllogism
as “a discourse in which, certain things having been supposed, something
different from the things supposed results of necessity because these things
are so.” Aristotle defined the main components of reasoning in terms of
inclusive and exclusive relationships. These sorts of relationships were
visually grafted in the future through the use of Venn diagrams. Other Works
on Logic Besides Prior Analytics, Aristotle’s other major writings on logic
include Categories, On Interpretation and Posterior Analytics. In these works,
Aristotle discusses his system for reasoning and for developing sound
arguments. Works on Science Aristotle composed works on astronomy,
including On the Heavens, and earth sciences, including Meteorology. By
meteorology, Aristotle didn’t simply mean the study of nature.

Shortly after his death, Saint Thomas Aquinas's theological and philosophical
writings rose to great public acclaim and reinforced a strong following among
the Dominicans. Universities, seminaries and colleges came to replace
Lombard's Four Books of Sentences with Summa Theologica as the leading
theology textbook. The influence of Saint Thomas Aquinas's writing has been
so great, in fact, that an estimated 6,000 commentaries on his work exist to
date.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.biography.com/.amp/religious-
figure/saint-thomas-aquinas

Immanuel Kant

Immanuel Kant is a philosopher who tried to work out how human beings
could be good and kind – outside of the exhortations and blandishments of
traditional religion.

He was born in 1724 in the Baltic city of Königsberg, which at that time was
part of Prussia, and now belongs to Russia (renamed Kaliningrad).

Kant was writing at a highly interesting period in history we now know as The
Enlightenment. In an essay called What is Enlightenment (published in 1784),
Kant proposed that the identifying feature of his age was its growing
secularism. Intellectually, Kant welcomed the declining belief in Christianity,
but in a practical sense, he was also alarmed by it. He was a pessimist about
human character and believed that we are by nature intensely prone to
corruption.

It was this awareness that led him to what would be his life’s project: the
desire to replace religious authority with the authority of reason; that is,
human intelligence. Kant pursued this grand project in a major series of books
with fearsome titles, including:
The Critique of Pure Reason (1781)

Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics (1783)

The Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785)

The Critique of Practical Reason (1788)

The Critique of Judgment (1793)

In a book on religion titled, Religion within the Bounds of Reason Alone

(1793), Kant argued that although historical religions had all been wrong in
the content of what they had believed, they had latched onto a great need to
promote ethical behaviour, which still remain

It was in this context that Kant came up with the idea for which he is perhaps
still most famous: what he called the Categorical Imperative. This strange
sounding term first appeared in a horrendously named work, Groundwork of
the Metaphysics of Morals. It states:

“Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that
it should become a universal law.”

Kant’s contributions to ethics have been just as substantial, if not more so,
than his work in metaphysics and epistemology. He is the most important
proponent in philosophical history of deontological, or duty based, ethics. In
Kant’s view, the sole feature that gives an action moral worth is not the
outcome that is achieved by the action, but the motive that is behind the
action. And the only motive that can endow an act with moral value, he
argues, is one that arises from universal principles discovered by reason. The
categorical imperative is Kant’s famous statement of this duty: “Act only
according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should
become a universal law.”