The way the West thinks - it's philosophy

As in all things in philosophy it took long time and me reading 2 books to even understand what was going on. These are wonderful books that gives a summary of philosophical thinking in the West. One should at least should read or listen to one of them, they try to give a brief history from the Greeks to the present day. Philip Stokes's "Philosophy 100 essential thinkers - the ideas that have shaped our world", from ancient times to present, and Nigel Warburton's, "A little history of philosophy". It took me longer than usual to summarize this, as it is philosophy, and after listening to something on someone I had to read it, and later listen to it numerous times. I also read other books and wrote on them and later came back to this, because it required deeper thinking.

I noticed was that a lot of the philosophers did not write things especially the Presocratics, Eleatics and Academics. But because of the fact that their contemporaries made reference to them and their various "school of thoughts" in their own writings, hence their thoughts were not lost to antiquity. Also a lot of them were rather poor, sickly, and somewhat sad individuals, who led lonely lives. But a few let happy fulfilling lives and were rich. Many become appreciated and respected after their deaths, and people then realized that these philosophers were on to something. A lot of them did not favor democracy either, as they knew the deep desires of men, and felt that a ruling elite should rule, Socrates pupil Plato felt so in his Republic. Although Plato wrote a lot and Socrates wrote nothing, all we know of Socrates came from Plato, one can never be sure whether it's Socrates speaking or Plato's spin on it. Another reason Socrates did not write was because of his method, he was not sure of anything, he was coated to had said,  “the only thing I know for sure is that I know nothing at all, for sure”. One of the methods was "reductio ad absurdum" i.e. "argument to absurdity", he would continue asking questions till the person saw the stupidity of their stance he was against dogma and "argumentum ab auctoritate" (appeal to or right by authority) because some in authority has said so.  His method was by asking people who thought that they knew everything and by the end of questioning, it will turn out they did not thought they knew as much as they thought. Others spent a lot a huge amount of time in abstract thought like, what is life and it's meaning. Plato and his theory of forms, being the basis of reality. His student Aristotle, was more practical and did experiments on almost everything. One of Aristotle's students Alexander the Great, ruled most of the known world. Others, thought about God's existence and the role we play in it. Epicurus on God, "Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? St Thomas Aquinas who reconciled Christian doctrine with the philosophy of Aristotle. His Cosmological argument on the existence of God.  St Augustine of Hippo, and the concept of original sin and the notion of man's free will. Then there is Pascal wager, which is sort of hedging your bets on the existence of God. Best summarized as ,"if you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing". While there is William James which brings out the advantages of living a moral Christian life, the positive effect it had on one and not because it is true but the advantages therein and not living a life free of alcoholism, drug infested, disease ridden, guilt, corrupt, etc and the life of honesty, prudence, temperance, meekness, discipline and being conscientious. James was a pragmatic philosopher and believe that philosophy should be removed from abstract thought a more scientific reality, and anything that can not be seen, observed and experimented on was false. This led to a more healthy, stress free life.  Niccolo Machiavelli's Prince, the phase "it is better to be feared that loved, if you cannot have both" for a ruler as the common people would easily betray the person they love but rarely the person they fear. Niccolo had a poor indication of people and regarded as a simple, devious, treacherous and always looking out for themselves. There is no one who the term "the ends justifies the means" is better suited. Rene Descartes on what is reality and "The Matrix". His realization "Cogito ergo sum" - I think therefore, I am. There is emperor Marcus Aurelius's private meditations which seems were not meant for public consumption but for his private reflection. One of his quotes that have come down is "you have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize, this and you will find strength". Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan, Social Contract with the people against the Divine Right of Rules. He famously said "there can be no difference, that doesn't make a difference". John Locke's political theory and state's role in religion. The limitation of government and the right to bear arms. , Immanuel Kant's Categorical Imperative and how we treat one another. 

There are those which we would no defined as philosophers as all, like Karl Max who believed that "Religion was the opium of the people". He grew up in the industrial revolution were the average person was as good as a slave and the rich exploited the poor. He was an egalitarian and saw the class struggle. "From each according to their ability, to each according to their need." Although the nations they produced were "oppressive, inefficient and corrupt" many argue that this was not true communism. Darwin, who contrary to many did believe in God or a higher power and felt that the complexities of life was too much to evolve spontaneously. There was the Nazi's Friedrich Nietzsche who many believe that from his numerous papers his sister cut and pasted from his writings, stuff to make him seem like a German nationalist and anti-Semite which she was. she was alter his papers to reflect this by this time he was debilitated and weak and going insane. Then economist  John Maynard Keynes and Friedrich Hayek. Keynes believe in government intervention to stabilized the markets, but Hayek believed in allowing the markets to stabilized themselves.

 
There were divided into groups with 

The Presocratics: Thales of Miletus, Pythagoras of Samos, Xenophanes of Colophon and  Heraclitus
The Eleatics: Parmenides of Elea, Zeno of Elea 
The Academics: Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle
The Atomists: Democritus, Epicurus
The Cynics: Diogenes of Sinope
The Stoics: Marcus Tullius Cicero, Philo of Alexandria, Lucius Annaeus Seneca and Marcus Aurelius
The Sceptics: Sextus Empiricus
The Neoplatonists: Plotinus
The Christians: St Augustine of Hippo, and Boethius
The Scholastics: St Anselm, St Thomas Aquinas, John Duns Scotus, and William of Occam
The Age of Science: Nicolaus Copernicus, Niccolò Machiavelli, Desiderius Erasmus, Thomas More, Francis Bacon, Galileo Galilei, Thomas Hobbes and Sir Isaac Newton
The Rationalists: René Descartes, Antoine Arnauld, Nicolas Malebranche, Benedict de Spinoza and Gottfried von Leibniz
The Empiricists: John Locke, David Hume, Thomas Reid, Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Denis Diderot
The Idealists:  George Berkeley, Immanuel Kant, Johann Schiller, Frederick Schelling, Georg Hegel, and Arthur Schopenhauer
The Liberals: Adam Smith, Mary Wollstonecraft, Thomas Paine, Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill, and Auguste Comte
The Evolutionists: Charles Darwin, Henri Louis Bergson and A.N. Whitehead
The Pragmatists: Ernst Mach, Charles Peirce, William James and John Dewey 
The Materialists: Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Vladimir Lenin, Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung and John Maynard Keynes
The Existentialists: Søren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre,  Albert Camus, and Simone de Beauvoir
The Linguistic Turn: Gottlob Frege, Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Ferdinand de Saussure, George Edward Moore, Moritz Schlick, Lev Vygotsky, Rudolph Carnap, A.J. Ayer, Alfred Tarski, J.L. Austin, Gilbert Ryle and Noam Chomsky
The Postmodernists: Claude Levi-Strauss, Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida
The New Scientists: Emile Durkheim, Albert Einstein, Karl Popper, Kurt Gödel, Alan Turing, B.F. Skinner, Thomas Kuhn, Paul Feyerabend and W.V.O. Quine

Throughout the western world it seems to be in their DNA and these philosophies although are not generally read out or obviously displayed in public but  are deeply embedded in their institutions and various professions. Apart from the fact that a lot of the learned academicians and politicians are aware of them and will coat them from time to time. Their messages are preached in their public media, you will notice it in films as subtext and seem to direct their daily thinking.