Philosophical Changes

Philosophy

In Europe, West Asia, and East Asia from the 600s BCE to 1450, many philosophical thoughts developed. As time passed, some philosophies remained the same while others changed or completely disappeared. In Europe, Greek influence was evident among all forms of philosophy while in South Asia there were Chinese influences and in West Asia Arab influences.

Philosophy was first developed around 600 BCE in Ionia. The Ionians were deeply interested in the ways of being and reality and how things were born, grew, and died (Copleston 17). These thoughts, referred to as pre-Socratic beliefs, focused on finding out how nature worked and the forces that were involved in it (Stamatellos). The main philosophers of the time in Greece were Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Aristotle is known for deducing that all knowledge is valuable and affects mankind and that "the unexamined life is not worth living" (Sahakian and Sahakian 32). Aristotle's teachings later translated into Latin and Arabic and other philosophers based their thoughts on his (Ellis). Another philosophy that arose at the time was Confucianism in China. It was a philosophy that dealt with making the present world and the world after death a pleasant place for all (Weiming). All these philosophies at this time period however, only dealt with spiritual and natural existences, not with technical or intellectual bases. This caused people to concentrate more on intellectual foundations in the next centuries.

In East Asia, Europe, and East Asia, new philosophies began to take shape. In China, Daoism started off as a school of thinking, then a way of rule in the Chinese empires, and finally changed into a religion (Robinson). In west Asia, Ibn Sina, more commonly known as Avicenna in the west, came to influence more philosophical thoughts. Avicenna "maintains[ed] that God's creative action is similar to the actions of natural things" (Acar). In this way, he changed the ways of thinking in western Asia. In Europe, Scholasticism came about which dealt with the use of reason to answer any questions about philosophy (Kemerling). These new philosophies, though still dealing with spirituality, mostly focused towards intellectual bases.

The later time periods involved more of the same things as the previous time period, though still a bit altered. Ibn Rushd in West Asia studied the writings of Aristotle, and just like Ibn Sina, made many discoveries of other medicines, their treatments, and cures (Marvin). The Humanism dealt with the intellectual revival of the Greek arts, literature, and culture (Sahakian and Sahakian 152). This revival in the end led to the Renaissance movement, which ultimately changed all ways of thinking in Europe afterwards.

Philosophy has gone through major changes since its beginning in the 600s. Although aspects such as spirituality are still included in even the most recent philosophies, it wasn't until the early 1000s that other things like intellectuality started being incorporated. Later philosophers included Socratic beliefs in all of their thoughts, which had become a turning point for all other philosophies that were later to come.

Works Cited

Acar, Rahim. Avicenna's Position Concerning the Basis of the DivineCreative Action. Muslism World, Jan 2004.

This article deeply examines the studies of Avicenna and the connection of philosophy with God.

Copleston,