Damascene Philosophy

From ancient Greece to today

Timeline

Twenty-five centuries of arguments, in order. Dates marked c. are approximate.

  1. The ancient world
  2. 585 BCEThales predicts an eclipseTradition dates the beginning of Greek philosophy to Thales of Miletus, who sought a natural explanation of the world, proposing that everything is water.
  3. c. 500 BCEHeraclitus: everything flowsThe world is in constant change, held together by the tension of opposites. The ancestor of every puzzle about identity over time.
  4. c. 480 BCEParmenides denies changeA poem argues from pure logic that what is cannot come from what is not, so change and plurality are illusions.
  5. c. 450 BCEZeno of Elea's paradoxesAchilles, the arrow and the dichotomy are devised to defend Parmenides. See Zeno's paradoxes.
  6. c. 450 BCEThe Buddha teaches not-selfIn northern India, the Buddha teaches that there is no permanent self behind the stream of experience. See the no-self view.
  7. 399 BCEThe trial and death of SocratesConvicted of impiety and corrupting the young, Socrates drinks hemlock rather than give up philosophy or escape.
  8. c. 387 BCEPlato founds the AcademyPlato's school in Athens, home of the theory of forms and later of Aristotle, lasts for centuries.
  9. c. 375 BCEThe RepublicPlato's dialogue on justice gives us the ring of Gyges and the allegory of the cave.
  10. 335 BCEAristotle opens the LyceumLogic, biology, ethics, physics and politics are organised into disciplines. The Nicomachean Ethics founds virtue ethics.
  11. c. 320 BCEZhuangzi dreams he is a butterflyA Daoist sage wakes unsure whether he is a man who dreamed of being a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming of being a man.
  12. c. 320 BCEPyrrho of Elis and the first scepticsSuspend judgement, Pyrrho teaches, and peace of mind will follow. See skepticism.
  13. c. 307 BCEEpicurus opens the GardenEpicurus teaches that pleasure, rightly understood, is the goal of life, and that death is nothing to us.
  14. c. 300 BCEZeno of Citium founds StoicismTeaching in a painted porch in Athens, he begins a school that will last five centuries. See Stoicism.
  15. c. 55 BCEOn the Nature of ThingsLucretius sets out Epicurean physics in Latin verse, including the symmetry argument about death.
  16. 65 CEDeath of SenecaOrdered by Nero to take his own life, the Stoic statesman leaves behind the Letters to Lucilius.
  17. c. 100 CEThe ship of Theseus, written downPlutarch records the Athenians' debate about whether a ship with every plank replaced is the same ship. See the Ship of Theseus.
  18. c. 108 CEThe Discourses of EpictetusA former slave's lectures, recorded by his student Arrian, set out the dichotomy of control.
  19. c. 175 CEMarcus Aurelius writes the MeditationsA Roman emperor's private notebook, written partly on campaign, becomes a classic of Stoic practice.
  20. c. 200 CESextus Empiricus records the scepticsThe Outlines of Pyrrhonism preserves ancient sceptical arguments, including the trilemma behind foundationalism.
  21. Late antiquity and the Middle Ages
  22. c. 400 CEAugustine on timeIn the Confessions, Augustine of Hippo admits he knows what time is until someone asks him. See the nature of time.
  23. c. 1020Ibn Sina's floating manIbn Sina (Avicenna) argues that a person suspended in the air, aware of no body, would still be aware of their own existence. See the mind-body problem.
  24. 1095The Incoherence of the PhilosophersAl-Ghazali argues that we never observe causes producing their effects, only one event following another.
  25. c. 1180The Incoherence of the IncoherenceIbn Rushd (Averroes) replies to al-Ghazali and defends natural causation and the philosophers' method.
  26. c. 1270Aquinas' Summa TheologiaeThomas Aquinas joins Aristotle with Christian theology, and in discussing self-defence states the idea behind the doctrine of double effect.
  27. c. 1340Buridan on the willJean Buridan holds that the will can suspend choice between equal options. His critics invent a starving donkey. See Buridan's donkey.
  28. The early modern period
  29. 1641Descartes' MeditationsRené Descartes doubts everything, imagines an Descartes' evil demon, and finds the cogito. Modern philosophy begins.
  30. 1651Hobbes' LeviathanThomas Hobbes imagines life without government as 'solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short', and argues for a social contract.
  31. 1654Pascal and Fermat found probabilityLetters about a gambling problem lay the foundations of expected value, which Blaise Pascal later applies to belief in God.
  32. 1670Pascal's Pensées publishedNotes found after Pascal's death include the wager, the ancestor of Pascal's mugging.
  33. 1677Spinoza's EthicsPublished after Baruch Spinoza's death: God or Nature, one substance, and a world in which everything happens by necessity.
  34. 1689Locke's EssayJohn Locke argues that the mind begins blank. A later edition (1694) adds the first modern theory of personal identity.
  35. 1710Berkeley: to be is to be perceivedGeorge Berkeley argues that there is no matter, only minds and their ideas.
  36. 1714Leibniz's MonadologyGottfried Wilhelm Leibniz's mill argument and principle of sufficient reason set up the questions behind why there is something rather than nothing.
  37. 1738Bernoulli and the St Petersburg gameDaniel Bernoulli proposes diminishing marginal utility as the answer to a game with infinite expected value. See the St. Petersburg paradox.
  38. 1739Hume's TreatiseDavid Hume questions causation, induction and the self. It 'fell dead-born from the press', he said. See the problem of induction.
  39. 1781Kant's Critique of Pure ReasonImmanuel Kant argues that the mind shapes experience, and that we can know things only as they appear to us.
  40. 1785Kant's GroundworkThe categorical imperative makes respect for persons the core of morality. See Kantian ethics.
  41. 1789Bentham's principle of utilityJeremy Bentham proposes that laws be judged by the happiness they produce, and asks of animals: can they suffer?
  42. The nineteenth century
  43. 1814Laplace's demonPierre-Simon Laplace imagines an intellect that could know the whole future from the present. See Laplace's demon.
  44. 1818Schopenhauer's World as WillArthur Schopenhauer describes reality as a blind, striving will, and life as swinging between pain and boredom.
  45. 1843Kierkegaard's Either/OrSøren Kierkegaard contrasts the aesthetic and ethical lives, beginning the tradition that becomes existentialism.
  46. 1863Mill's UtilitarianismJohn Stuart Mill defends the greatest happiness principle and distinguishes higher from lower pleasures.
  47. 1882God is dead; eternal recurrenceFriedrich Nietzsche's The Gay Science announces the death of God and introduces the eternal recurrence.
  48. 1890James' Principles of PsychologyWilliam James describes the stream of consciousness and helps found both psychology and pragmatism.
  49. The twentieth century
  50. 1901Russell's paradoxBertrand Russell finds a contradiction in the foundations of set theory and writes to Frege, who sees his life's work undermined. See Russell's paradox.
  51. 1905Special relativityEinstein shows that simultaneity depends on the observer, giving new life to the block universe picture of the nature of time.
  52. 1912The Problems of PhilosophyRussell's short introduction includes the chicken whose neck is wrung despite a lifetime of being fed.
  53. 1921Wittgenstein's TractatusLudwig Wittgenstein maps the limits of language. The Vienna Circle takes it up and launches logical positivism.
  54. 1934Popper's falsifiabilityKarl Popper argues that scientific theories can never be proved, only tested and refuted. See science and truth.
  55. 1935Schrödinger's catA thought experiment about a cat in a box dramatises the measurement problem in quantum mechanics.
  56. 1942The Myth of SisyphusAlbert Camus asks whether life is worth living in an indifferent universe, and answers yes. See the myth of Sisyphus.
  57. 1943Being and NothingnessJean-Paul Sartre argues that we are 'condemned to be free'. Two years later he declares that existence precedes essence.
  58. 1949The Second SexSimone de Beauvoir applies existentialism to the situation of women, founding modern feminist philosophy.
  59. 1950The Turing testAlan Turing asks whether machines can think and proposes the imitation game. See machine consciousness.
  60. 1950Fermi asks 'Where is everybody?'Over lunch at Los Alamos, Enrico Fermi wonders why there is no sign of alien life. See the Fermi paradox.
  61. 1957Many worldsHugh Everett proposes that quantum measurement splits reality into branches. See the many-worlds interpretation.
  62. 1962Structure of Scientific RevolutionsThomas Kuhn argues that science advances through revolutions, and coins the paradigm shift.
  63. 1963Gettier's three pagesEdmund Gettier shows that justified true belief is not enough for knowledge. See the Gettier problem.
  64. 1967The trolley problemPhilippa Foot introduces a runaway tram in a paper on abortion and double effect. Judith Jarvis Thomson later adds the footbridge. See the trolley problem.
  65. 1969Frankfurt cases and Newcomb's problemHarry Frankfurt challenges the principle of principle of alternative possibilities, and Robert Nozick publishes Newcomb's problem.
  66. 1971A Theory of JusticeJohn Rawls asks what principles we would choose behind a the veil of ignorance.
  67. 1972The drowning childPeter Singer argues that failing to help distant strangers is like walking past a child drowning in a pond. See the drowning child.
  68. 1974What is it like to be a bat?Thomas Nagel argues that science cannot capture the subjective character of experience. The same year, Nozick describes the experience machine.
  69. 1980The Chinese roomJohn Searle argues that running a program is not enough for understanding. See the Chinese room.
  70. 1982Mary's roomFrank Jackson imagines a colour scientist who has never seen red. See Mary's room.
  71. 1983Libet times the willBenjamin Libet reports brain activity that precedes the felt decision to move. See Libet's experiments.
  72. 1984Reasons and PersonsDerek Parfit argues that personal identity is not what matters. See the teleporter.
  73. 1995The hard problemDavid Chalmers separates the easy problems of consciousness from the hard problem.
  74. The twenty-first century
  75. 2003The simulation argumentNick Bostrom argues that at least one of three claims must be true, one of which is that we live in a simulation. See the simulation argument.
  76. 2008Decisions predicted seconds aheadBrain scans predict a simple choice, at about 60% accuracy, up to several seconds before people report deciding.
  77. 2023A 25-year bet settledNeuroscientist Christof Koch concedes a 1998 bet with Chalmers that the neural basis of consciousness would be clearly identified by 2023.