1. The Idealist and the Empiricist
Philosophy Of Life
By: Jennifer Lynn Perez

2. The Idealist
According to The Basics of Philosophy, “Idealism is he metaphysical and epistemological doctrine that ideas or thoughts make up fundamental reality.” What this philosophy argues, based on The Basics of Philosophy, “ that the only thing actually knowable is consciousness,” (Mastin, 2008). The philosophers of idealism say that you can never be sure about what is in this world actually really even exists. The only sure thing can be what is mental and the actual physical things are what you only see them to be and perceive them. They can actually not exist as we see them.(Mastin, 2008)

3. George Berkeley
According to the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, George Berkeley was one of the three most famous British Empiricists. Berkeley’s empirical theory of vision challenged the then-standard account of distance vision, an account which requires tacit geometrical calculations.  His alternative account focuses on visual and tactual objects.  Berkeley argues that the visual perception of distance is explained by the correlation of ideas of sight and touch.  This associative approach does away with appeals to geometrical calculation while explaining monocular vision and the moon illusion, anomalies that had plagued the geometric account.(Flage)

4. Quote
We have first raised a dust and then complain we cannot see.(BrainyQuote)
- George Berkeley

5. Immanuel Kant
According to the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Immanuel Kant is one of the most influential philosophers in the history of Western philosophy. His contribution to the branches of philosophy had a profound impact on the philosophy’s that followed him. (McCormick)

6. Quote
Metaphysics is a dark ocean without shores or lighthouse, strewn with many a philosophic wreck (BrainyQuote)
– Immanuel Kant

7. Johann Schiller
According to Encyclopedia Briticanna, Schiller decided to devote his time to studying the philosophy of Immanuel Kant As he proceeded to assimilate Kant’s views, he soon felt the urge to formulate his own. The encounter with Kant’s philosophy thus produced between 1793 and 1801 a series of essays in which Schiller sought to define the character of aesthetic activity, its function in society, and its relation to moral experience: the essays on moral grace and dignity.(Witte)

8. Quote
Lose not yourself in a far off time, seize the moment that is thine. (BrainyQuote)
- Johann Schiller

9. Fredrick Schelling
According to the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Fredrick Shelling is one of the great German Philosophers of the 18th and 19th century. While initiating the Post-Kantian Idealism of the Subject, Schelling went on to exhibit in his later works the limit and dissolution of such a systemic metaphysics of the Subject. Therefore, the convenient label of Schelling as one German Idealist amongst others ignores the singularity of Schelling’s philosophy and the complex relationship he had with the movement of German Idealism. (Brata Das)

10. Quote
“To achieve great things we must be self-confined...mastery is revealed in limitation.” (BrainyQuote) ― Friedrich Schelling

11. George Hegel
According to Biography.com, Building on Immanuel Kant's transcendental idealism and Rousseau's politics, Hegel developed an elaborate system of philosophy incorporating history, ethics, government and religion, and began publishing his philosophical treatises, while working as an unpaid university lecturer along with his old college friends. Hegel's philosophy rejected Kant's and other popular theories as too restrictive. He developed what is called dialectical thinking.(Biography.com Editors)

12. Quote
The learner always begins by finding fault, but the scholar sees the positive merit in everything. (BrainyQuote)
- George Hegel

13. Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer was one of the very first philosophers to say that the universe is not a rational place. According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy,  Inspired by Plato and Kant, both of whom regarded the world as being more amenable to reason, Schopenhauer developed their philosophies into an instinct-recognizing and ultimately ascetic outlook, emphasizing that in the face of a world filled with endless strife, we ought to minimize our natural desires for the sake of achieving a more tranquil frame of mind and a disposition towards universal beneficence. (Wicks)

14. Quote
All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self- evident. (BrainyQuote)
- Arthur Schopenhauer

15. The Empiricists
According to the Encyclopedia Briticanna, Empiricism, in philosophy, the view that all concepts originate in experience, that all concepts are about or applicable to things that can be experienced, or that all rationally acceptable beliefs or propositions are justifiable or knowable only through experience. Some definitions of empiricism typically involve an implicit theory of meaning, according to which words are meaningful only insofar as they convey concepts. Some empiricists have held that all concepts are either mental “copies” of items that are directly experienced or complex combinations of concepts that are themselves copies of items that are directly experienced. This view is closely linked to the notion that the conditions of application of a concept must always be specified in experiential terms.(Duignan)

16. John Locke
In accordance to Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, John Locke is among the most influential political philosophers of the modern period. He defends the claim that men are by nature free and equal against claims that God had made all people naturally subject to a monarch. He argued that people have rights, such as the right to life, liberty, and property, that have a foundation independent of the laws of any particular society. Locke used the claim that men are naturally free and equal as part of the justification for understanding legitimate political government as the result of a social contract where people in the state of nature conditionally transfer some of their rights to the government in order to better ensure the stable, comfortable enjoyment of their lives, liberty, and property.(Tuckness)

17. Quote.
All mankind... being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions.(BrainyQuote) - John Locke

18. David Hume
 Hume’s fame and importance owes to his boldly skeptical approach to a range of philosophical subjects. In epistemology, he questioned common notions of personal identity, and argued that there is no permanent “self” that continues over time. He dismissed standard accounts of causality and argued that our conceptions of cause-effect relations are grounded in habits of thinking, rather than in the perception of causal forces in the external world itself. He defended the skeptical position that human reason is inherently contradictory, and it is only through naturally-instilled beliefs that we can navigate our way through common life. In the philosophy of religion, he argued that it is unreasonable to believe testimonies of alleged miraculous events, and he hints, accordingly, that we should reject religions that are founded on miracle testimonies.(Fieser)

19. quote
“Beauty is no quality in things themselves: It exists merely in the mind which contemplates them; and each mind perceives a different beauty.” (GoodReads)
-David Hume

20. Thomas Reid
Thomas Reid is a Scottish philosopher best known for his philosophical method, his theory of perception and its wide implications on epistemology, and as the developer and defender of an agent-causal theory of free will. In these and other areas he offers perceptive and important criticisms of the philosophy of Locke, Berkeley and especially Hume. He is also well known for his criticisms of Locke's view of personal identity and Hume's view of causation. Reid also made influential contributions to philosophical topics including ethics, aesthetics and the philosophy of mind. The legacy of Thomas Reid's philosophical work is found in contemporary theories of perception, free will, philosophy of religion, and widely in epistemology.(Nichols)

21. Quote
Every indication of wisdom, taken from the effect, is equally an indication of power to execute what wisdom planned. (BrainyQuote)
-Thomas Reid

22. Voltaire
According to The Basics of Philosophy, Voltaire was a French philosopher and writer of the Age of Enlightenment His intelligence, wit and style made him one of France's greatest writers and philosophers, despite the controversy he attracted. He was an outspoken supporter of social reform (including the defense of civil liberties, freedom of religion and free trade), despite the strict censorship laws and harsh penalties of the period, and made use of his satirical works to criticize Catholic dogma and the French institutions of his day. His works and ideas influenced important thinkers of both the American and French Revolutions(Mastin)

23. Man is free at the moment he wishes to be.(BrainyQuote)
-Voltaire

24. Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was one of the most influential thinkers during the Enlightenment in eighteenth century Europe. His first major philosophical work, A Discourse on the Sciences and Arts, was the winning response to an essay contest conducted by the Academy of Dijon in In this work, Rousseau argues that the progression of the sciences and arts has caused the corruption of virtue and morality. This discourse won Rousseau fame and recognition.  The central claim of the work is that human beings are basically good by nature, but were corrupted by the complex historical events that resulted in present day civil society. (Delaney)

25. Quote Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains.(BrainyQuote)
-Jean-Jacques Rousseau

26. Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot was the most prominent of the French Encyclopedists. He was educated by the Jesuits, and, refusing to enter one of the learned professions, was turned adrift by his father and came to Paris, where he lived from hand to mouth for a time. Gradually, however, he became recognized as one of the most powerful writers of the day. In the circle of the leaders of the Enlightenment, Diderot's name became known especially by his Lettre sur les aveugles (London, 1749), which supported Locke's theory of knowledge. He attacked the conventional morality of the day, with the result (to which possibly an allusion to the mistress of a minister contributed) that he was imprisoned at Vincennes for three months. He was released by the influence of Voltaire's friend Mme. du Chatelet, and thenceforth was in close relation with the leaders of revolutionary thought.(Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

27. Quote
There are things I can't force. I must adjust. There are times when the greatest change needed is a change of my viewpoint.(BrainyQuote)
-Denis Diderot

28. Work Cited
Mastin, Luke. "Idealism." The Basics Of Philosophy Web. 28 Jan <
Flage, Daniel E. "George Berkeley (1685—1753)." Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy Web. 28 Jan <
"Berkeley Quotes." Brainy Quote Web. 28 Jan <
McCormick, Matt. "Immanuel Kant: Metaphysics." Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy Web. 28 Jan <
"Immanuel Kant Quotes." Brainy Quote Web. 28 Jan <
Witte, William. "Friedrich Schiller." Encyclopedia Britannica Web. 28 Jan <
"Friedrich Schiller Quotes." Brainy Quote Web. 28 Jan <

29. Work Cited
"Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel." Biography Web. 28 Jan < wilhelm-friedrich-hegel >.
"Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel Quotes." Brainy Quote Web. 28 Jan <
Wicks, Robert. "Arthur Schopenhauer." Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 19 Nov Web. 28 Jan <