Ideas and Philosophers in History

Key Philosophical Concepts and Thinkers

Orphic Mysteries

The Orphic mysteries have specific beliefs influenced by Greek philosophy. Named after Orpheus, they introduced a new perspective into Greek civilization regarding beliefs and the interpretation of human existence. They proclaim the immortality of the soul and the concept of the human soul-body.

Orphic beliefs include:

• A core (blame) falls upon a body.
• An immortal soul resides in the body until it is freed from its guilt.
• Only the Orphic can end the cycle of reincarnation.
• For the purified, there will be a prize.

Myth vs. Logos

Myth: A collection of traditional stories and teachings of poets (especially Homer). Myths attempt to explain reality in its entirety. Everything happens arbitrarily by the will of the gods. It is the opposite of logos.

Logos: Rational explanation. Logos begins when the idea of the arbitrary is supplanted by the idea of permanence and constancy.

Essence (Eidos)

Essence (eidos) is the underpinning of the unity of things despite the multiplicity of their states and appearances.

Characteristics of Philosophy

• Love of knowledge (Zambrano and Russell)
• Universality and radicality (Unamuno and Jaspers)
• Sorter (Wittgenstein and Zambrano)
• Critical function (Russell)
• Systematic function (Unamuno)
• Rational reflection (Russell)

Key Philosophers

Socrates

Socrates is considered the discoverer of human interiority, awareness, reflection, and doing right at the center of human life. He suggested a model in which life was essential to know our soul by examining ourselves and others, and improved by following the law of logos or reason. For Socrates, the ignorant man is the first known as vicious. His concept of the soul is intellectualism. He understands the soul as the seat of our thinking process and ethics. Thanks to this thinking, the moral and intellectual tradition in which Plato always lived was shaped.

Plato

Student of Socrates, Plato established the separation between body and soul (dualism). He believed man is a being with an immortal soul, which is the instrument of true knowledge. Reason, with the help of the will, must govern the body's impulses or insatiable instinctive demands.

Aristotle

Aristotle noted that while rational capacity distinguishes man, it is necessary to note that this capacity enables language and communication, and this characteristic differentiates man from any other living being. In contact with others, sociability makes us human.

Marx

In the 19th century, Marx pointed out that man is his own agent. He was one of the first to highlight that a man's consciousness is a reflection of his social environment and the conditions that shape his existence. He opened the way for the consideration of human beings as a reality whose nature lies in what makes them material and spiritual selves.

Gehlen

Anthropologist Arnold Gehlen notes that the human being is presented with a deficiency, being indeterminate and open to the world.