13 schools
Schools of thought
Traditions of thinking that outlived their founders. Each is a whole way of answering the big questions at once.
- I.PlatonismThe tradition, begun by Plato, that holds the deepest reality is not the changing world of the senses but unchanging truths grasped by reason.From the 4th century BCE
- II.Virtue ethicsThe approach to ethics that asks not 'what should I do?' but 'what kind of person should I be?'From the 4th century BCE; revived in the 20th century
- III.SkepticismThe tradition of doubting claims to knowledge, from ancient philosophers seeking calm to modern arguments about dreams and demons.From the 4th century BCE
- IV.EpicureanismThe school of the Garden, which taught that a simple life among friends, free from fear of death and the gods, is the happiest one.From c. 307 BCE
- V.StoicismThe school that taught virtue is the only true good and that freedom lies in mastering our judgements, not our circumstances.From c. 300 BCE
- VI.RationalismThe view that reason, not the senses, is our main route to knowledge, and can reveal truths about reality that experience never could.17th and 18th centuries
- VII.EmpiricismThe view that all our ideas and knowledge of the world come from experience.17th and 18th centuries onward
- VIII.Kantian ethicsThe ethics of duty and respect for persons, built on the idea that morality is what any rational being could will as a universal law.From 1785
- IX.UtilitarianismThe theory that the right action is the one that produces the most wellbeing, counting everyone equally.From the late 18th century
- X.ExistentialismThe movement that holds we are thrown into existence without a given nature or purpose, and must make ourselves through our choices.19th and 20th centuries
- XI.PragmatismThe American tradition that judges ideas by their practical consequences, and treats truth as what works in the long run of inquiry.From the 1870s
- XII.Logical positivismThe movement that tried to make philosophy scientific by declaring that any statement which cannot be verified is literally meaningless.1920s to 1950s
- XIII.AbsurdismCamus' philosophy of facing a meaningless universe with open eyes, refusing both despair and false comfort.From the 1940s