Ideas That Shaped Modern Thought

Today’s debate between methods of attaining knowledge—one divinely revealed, the other gained by rational inquiry—is a significant aspect of Aristotle’s legacy.

Augustine’s influence on the Christian church and on Western society in general is well recognized by scholars and theologians. But in retrospect, his philosophies may not have shed much light.

Was Thomas Aquinas a theologian or a philosopher? By most accounts he was both, and his blending of the two disciplines resulted in a new approach to the Bible and its teachings.

Martin Luther had a profound impact on traditional Christianity. Though he sought only to reform his church, he wound up rejecting it and establishing a new one.

Surprisingly, Charles Darwin may never have intended his idea of natural selection to replace God or religion.

Marx believed that the rules of culture and government in general are formulated primarily to suppress the poorer classes and should be forcibly abandoned.

Looking at his early life, no one could have known the impact Friedrich Nietzsche would have on society. But in his final years he was not at peace.

Sigmund Freud’s message is largely responsible for the unwillingness of so many today to see themselves as accountable for their actions and personal problems.

Carl Gustav Jung founded an approach he named Analytical Psychology, many tenets of which have led some to refer to him as a “founding father of the New Age.”

Author of The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Max Weber had a significant role in shaping 20^th-century political and social concepts.

Albert Einstein is perhaps the most famous scientist of the 20^th century, best known for the Special and General Theories of Relativity.

One of the intellectual  giants of the 20^th century, Bertrand Russell earned the acclaim of a Nobel Prize and the reprimand of two prison sentences.

It’s unusual to find someone who not only retains his or her early views but builds a whole superstructure of philosophical meaning atop them. Ayn Rand was such a person.