Western Philosophy forms the 50% part of Paper 1 of Philosophy optional in civil services. Given below are the philosophy articles which will surely help you to get a good grasp of Western Philosophy.
- Plato’s Philosophy
- Aristotle’s Philosophy
Rationalists – Rationalists believe in theory of knowledge with primacy to reason or intellect. They rejects all knowledge derived from sense experience. Rationalism is also called as a-priori theory of knowledge i.e. knowledge is prior or independent to experience. Socrates & Plato were the earliest rationalist philosophers to propagate that ‘true knowledge originates from reason’
- Descartes Philosophy
- Spinoza’s Philosophy
- Leibnitz Philosophy
Empiricists – Empiricists reject rationalism &believe that knowledge is derived from experience. They represents a reaction against rationalism & explains knowledge in terms of sense experience. As contrast with rationalism, empiricism is called a posteriori i.e. knowledge is dependent on experience
- John Locke’ Philosophy
- Berkeley’s Philosophy
- Hume’s Philosophy
Modern Western Philosophy – Modern Western Philosophy is marked by Immanuel Kant who set forth a groundbreaking philosophical system which claimed to bring unity to rationalism and empiricism. Later it came to be dominated by the strands of neo-Hegelian thought, and as a reaction against this, figures such as Bertrand Russell and George Edward Moore began moving in the direction of analytic philosophy
- Kant’s Philosophy
- Hegel’s Philosophy
- Moore’s Refutation of Idealism
- Russell’s Logical Atomism
- Logical Positivism – Rudolph Carnap, A J Ayer
- Quine – Two Dogmas of Empiricism
- Existentialism – Kierkegaard, Sartre, Heidegger
- Strawson’s Concept of Person
- Phenomenology by Husserl
Must you have – History Of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell – https://amzn.to/3HaG9uo
