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By Alphabetical Order:
By Historical Subject Area:
Logical
Positivism
and Analytic PhilosophyLudwig Wittgenstein
I. A. Richards
Moritz Schlick
Rudolf Carnap
Bertrand Russell
G. E. Moore
A. J. Ayer
Charles Stevenson
The
New Look of Astronomy and Physics
1. GENERAL PHYSICS
Thomas Chrowder Chamberlin
Arthur S. Edington
Louis-Victor Duc de Broglie
3.
ATOMIC THEORY
Marie
and Pierre Curie
Guglielmo
Marconi
J.
J. Thomson
Ernest
Rutherford
Arthur
Holly Compton
Enrico
Fermi
4.
RELATIVITY
Albert
Einstein
Georges
Lemaître
5.
QUANTUM MECHANICS
Max
Planck
Niels
Bohr
Max Born
Erwin
Schrödinger
Werner
Heisenberg
Paul
Dirac
Wolfgang
Pauli
Linus
Carl Pauling
6.
PHILOSOPHICAL EVALUATIONS OF MODERN SCIENCE
James
Jeans
Henry
Margenau
Developers
and Cultivators of the New Technology
Psychology
Sociology
and Anthropology
History
of Civilization
Evolution
Theory
Process
Philosophy/Theology
Liberalism
Theosophy
and Religious SyncretismElitismExistentialism
Christianity
Responds3.
CHRISTIAN LIBERALISM
The
Auburn Affirmation
Harry
Emerson Fosdick
Eugene
Carson Blake
4.
EVANGELICALISM
Albert
Schweitzer
G.
K. Chesterton
C. S.
Lewis
Simone
Weil
5.
"NEO-ORTHODOXY"
Karl
Barth
Emil
Brunner
Reinhold
Niebuhr
H.
Richard Niebuhr
Dietrich
Bonhoeffer
6.
CHRISTIAN EXISTENTIALISM
Rudolph
Bultmann
Paul
Tillich
7.
ROMAN CATHOLICISM
Maurice
de Wulf
Pope
Pius XII
Jacques
Maritain
Etienne
Gilson
Judaism
RespondsHistory
of the First Half of the 20th Century: General Sources
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Logical Positivism. This movement was formally launched with the Vienna Circle in the 1920s, though it had influential predecessors among the linguistic analysts Wittgenstein and Richards. It claims that the language of metaphysics and religion is not false--it is merely meaningless. Existentialist philosophy is also meaningless because "experience" cannot be proven or demonstrated as to its truthfulness. Philosophy should limit its focus on that which is immediately demonstrable by empirical logic. Linguistic analysis (the language of logic) is at the heart of the work of Logical Positivism.
Major works or writings of the Vienna Circle:
Wissenschaftliche Weltauffassung. Der Wiener Kreis (A Scientific World-View: The Vienna Circle) (1929)
Schriften zur wissenschaftlichen Weltauffassung (Papers on Scientific World-View) (eds. Schlick and Frank: 1928-1937)Links to other information on the Logical Positivists:
English analytic philosophy and the Vienna Circle
Vienna Circle (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951)
He grew up in Austria, and began study of engineering in Berlin at the age of 14, moving on to study at the University of Manchester in England (1908-1911) and then Cambridge University, where he studied under Bertrand Russell (1912-1913). He left England to join the Austrian army when World War One broke out, was subsequently captured in Italy, and while in prison wrote his his Tractus Logico-Philosophicus (1918) This was published in German in 1921 and, with the help of Bertrand Russell, in English in 1922.
After the War Wittgenstein took up the work of a rural elementary school teacher in Austria (1920-1926). Then from 1926 to 1929 he worked at various hands-on jobs in Austria. But contact with the Vienna Circle convinced him to return to the life of philosophy; he thus returned to Cambridge and philosophical research and lecturing. In 1938 he became a British citizen and the following year a professor at Cambridge.
But when World War Two broke out he again volunteered for war service (with the British). With the War's end in 1945 he returned to his professorship at Cambridge for a couple of years. But then he retreated to Ireland to begin work on his Philosophical Investigations. But in 1951 he died of cancer, and this work was not published until two years after his death.
Initially he had a great influence on the Vienna Circle (most of whom moved to the US in the 1930s) with his Tractus Logico-Philosophicus.
But he broke from the Circle later in life. In his Philosophical Investigations , he was very critical of philosophical systems (such as Logical Positivism). He still felt that the task of philosophy was to focus on an analysis of language-- but drew back from the idea that such analysis could lead to the development of whole intellectual systems.
Tractus Logico-Philosophicus (1922)
Philosophical Investigations(1953)
Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics (1956)
The Blue and Brown Books (1958)
On Certainty (1969)Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Ludwig Wittgenstein Timeline
Wittgenstein and Scientific Knowledge (Mark Alford)
The Wittgenstein Archives (University of Bergen)
Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein (1889-1951) (Ron Turner)
I. A. Richards
English Humean scholar who had a strong influence on the Vienna Circle
The Meaning of Meaning (1920)
Moritz Schlick (1882-1936)
Professor at Vienna (1922-36) and early leader of the Vienna Circle.
We can communicate the content of our personal experiences only through the conventionalized forms of social language: only through the form of language does experience of one person have any meaning for another person.
Raum und Zeit in der gegenwärtigen Physik (1917)
Allgemeine Erkenntnislehre (1918)
Fragen der Ethik (1930)
Rudolf Carnap (1891-1970)
Carnap went well beyond Schlick in attempting to bring a precise order to empirical language by categorizing various kinds of empirical statements into types or "protocol-statements." To Carnap there are various kinds of hierarchies in language--with the precise language of empirical science being potentially the highest form of language.
The Logical Structure of the World (1928)
Philosophy and Logical Syntax (1934)
Testability and Meaning(1936-1937)
Introduction to Semantics (1942)
Meaning and Necessity (1947)
Logical Foundations of Probability (1950)Rudolf Carnap (1891-1970) (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Analytic Philosophy.Analytic philosophy is the British cousin of Austrian/German logical positivism. It too is an early twentieth century reaction to Hegel's philosophical Idealism that for 100 years dominated European academic philosophy. Analytic philosophy tried to build philosophical "reality" on concrete, even mathematical, foundations--rather than on the passionate stirrings of the romantic heart (on which Idealism was accused of resting). Bertrand Russell and G.E. Moore at Trinity College, Cambridge, are recognized as the founders of this British philosophical movement.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)
Cambridge professor of mathematics at Trinity College. He was a mathematician, logician and philosopher--helping to develop, along with G.E. Moore, analytic philosophy. He was also a vehement pacifist--ending up in trouble with civil authorities for his pacifist stance in World War One (six months in prison in 1918) and his anti-nuclear position during the Cold War (imprisoned again in 1961).
He believed in the ability of the learned individual to make the right moral choices, such as might steer history toward a higher course. He opposed superstition (religion) as being the source of so much evil in human history--for to Russell religion had long clouded the thinking of people and had led them to undertake horrible actions in the name of their religious crusades.
He dedicated his work to trying to define the kinds of empirical-logical certainties that would step humans beyond what he saw was mere fancy and bias in our thinking. He tried to build a precise science of learning, of conceptual development, of word usage.
The Principles of Mathematics (1903)
Principia Mathematica (1910-1913) with A.N Whitehead
Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy (1919)
The Analysis of Mind (1921)
The A B C of Relativity (1925)
The Analysis of Matter (1927)
Education and the Social Order (1932)
A History of Western Philosophy (1945)
Human Knowledge, Its Scope and Limits (1948)
Mysticism and Logic (1957)
Why I Am Not a Christian (1967)Russell, Bertrand (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
G. E. Moore (1873-1958)
G. E. (George Edward) Moore was a close associate of Bertrand Russell's; and also in Trinity College at Cambridge, as fellow (1898-1904), lecturer (1911-25) and professor (1925-39)
Moore helped develop Wittgenstein's philosophy at Cambridge--and, with Bertrand Russell, developed analytic philosophy.
He was an empiricist who believed in the reliability of "common sense." He distrusted high abstractions of reality and particularly objected to the high-flown theorizing on the part of the "idealist" philosophers of the German Hegelian mindset. He objected to the splitting of hairs over the meaning of words--for most concepts cannot be exactly defined, such as "yellow." They are merely something that is understood. Where there is no such understanding, no amount of explanation will bring another person to understand them.
Refutation of Idealism in Mind (1903)
Principia Ethica (1903)
A Defense of Common Sense
Ethics (1912)
Philosophical Studies (1922)
A. J. Ayer (1910- )
Language, Truth and Logic (1936)
Charles Stevenson
Ethics and Language (1945)
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1. GENERAL PHYSICS
Thomas Chrowder Chamberlin (1843-1928)
Arthur S. Edington (1882-1944)
Stars and Atoms (1926) (Bibliomania)
The Internal Constitution of the Stars (1926)
The Nature of the Physical World (1928)
New Pathways in Science(1935)
Fundamental Theory(1946)
Science and the Unseen World
Louis-Victor Duc de Broglie (1892-1987)
Recherches sur la théorie des quanta (Researches on the quantum theory)(Thesis, 1924)
Ondes et mouvements (Waves and motions) (1926)
Matter and Light: The New Physics (1939)
The Revolution in Physics (1953)
Physics and Microphysics(1955)
New Perspectives in Physics (1962)
Étude critique des bases de l'interprétation actuelle de la mécanique ondulatoire (The Current Interpretation of Wave Mechanics: A Critical Study) (1963)Louis de Broglie (The Nobel Foundation)2. ASTRONOMY
Harlow Shapley (1885-1972)
Vesto Slipher (1875-1969)
Edwin Hubble (1889-1953)
Karl Jansky (1905-1950)
An American ham operator who discovered cosmic radio waves--of a very long variety (6 feet)--emitted by distant stars within our Milky Way. Grote Reber
3. ELECTROMAGNETIC AND ATOMIC THEORY
Marie and Pierre Curie (Marie: 1867-1934 / Pierre: 1859-1906)
Marie and Pierre Curie (The Nobel Foundation)In 1901 Marconi successfully transmitted radio waves across the Atlantic from England to the United States.
Guglielmo Marconi (1874-1937)
Guglielmo Marconi (The Nobel Foundation)
J. J. (Joseph John) Thomson (1856-1940)
It was the English scientist J.J. Thomson who gave the first satisfying explanation of the inner structure of the atom--at least to the extent of identifying electrons (which Thompson at the time called "corpuscles"). The scientific world was fascinated with the ability of cathode rays to pass through vacuum tubes--with no means of conveyance for "waves" to pass through. Speculation was that these rays were not waves but were particles. It was Thomson who was able to conclusively demonstrate that indeed cathode rays were actually a flow of minute particles--corpuscles (electrons)--given off by atoms. Thomson noted that these particles were very much alike for a variety of materials--and concluded that these particles were themselves quite uniform--their variance, like atoms in elements, a matter of their number and not not any kind of variety among them.
Joseph John Thomson (The Nobel Foundation)
Ernest Rutherford (1871-1937)
Radio-activity (1904)Ernest Rutherford (The Nobel Foundation)
Arthur Holly Compton (1892-1962)
Secondary Radiations Produced by X-rays (1922)
X-Rays and Electrons (1926)
X-Rays in Theory and Experiment (with S. K. Allison, 1935)
The Freedom of Man (1935)
Human Meaning of Science (1940)Arthur Holly Compton (The Nobel Foundation)
Enrico Fermi (1901-1954)
Enrico Fermi (The Nobel Foundation)
4. RELATIVITY
Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
Einstein wanted to unify all branches of physics around a cohesive set of simple laws, ones that described physical behavior in all possible settings.
He was initially troubled by the inherent contradictions between the classic understanding of the relativity of the laws of mechanics (Galileo and Newton) and the newer view of the absolute character of the laws of electromagnetism (Maxwell). With his theory of special relativity (1905) he demonstrated mathematically that electromagnetism functions with the same relativity of classic mechanics--because of the elasticity of space and time! This theory seemed counter-intuitive at the time, though experiments over the next quarter of a century gave clear demonstration of the correctness of his theory.
A major difficulty with his theory of special relativity was that it applied only to "special" situations (thus its name), that is, situations where light was being measured by an observer whose momentum was constant. Einstein knew that situations of perfectly constant momentum (unchanging speed and direction) are rare. Normally our movements are in constant flux, accelerating, decelerating, turning, etc. as we encounter varying forces acting externally upon our movements. Einstein thus set out to define a more comprehensive theory of mechanical and electromagnetic physics, one he called general relativity.
In this quest for a general theory of relativity it was the issue of gravity that received his greatest attention. Through a number of mental "games," he came up with the notion that gravity is not really a separate force but merely a result of the structuring of the movement of objects through what he called spacetime. This too was counter-intuitive, in the sense that he was attempting to describe a dimension of physical existence that had no exact parallels in what we humans have ever been able to perceive directly. As an analogy of this strange world of general relativity Einstein pointed to the type of curve that is always described on the surface of a globe when something attempts to move along the globe's surface in a straight line.
Another analogy was a rubber membrane with a heavy iron ball nestled in the center of it--and the effect this would have if we tried to roll a much smaller ball across the membrane and past the iron ball in an attempt to reach the other side of the membrane. Depending on how close the smaller ball came to the larger ball, it might be led around and past the larger ball by the curvature of the membrane around the ball--or if it came too close, the smaller ball might be drawn in a circular path around the larger ball and finally into collision with it. Einstein asserted that there was no gravitational "force" that drew the the smaller ball into the orbit of the larger ball--only the curvature (of spacetime) around the larger ball. Thus gravity was explained as being (sort of) merely a curve in the flow of spacetime--a curve created by the presence of concentrated matter/energy. And thus we could calculate the effect of gravity without having to resort to the notion of gravity itself, thus eliminating an unnecessary concept in physics and thus further simplifying physics.
Thus with general relativity Einstein saw himself moving the discipline of physics closer to a cohesive body of laws, laws uniformly applicable in a variety of different physical settings. By eliminating gravity as a separate concept he had certainly moved physics closer to that goal.
But with the development of the field of quantum mechanics Einstein felt that the move toward conceptual unity was headed in the opposite direction. For the longest time he debated the quantum theorists (Bohr, for instance)--until he had to admit that their theoretical world worked--though in apparent contradiction to his own world of relativity.
For the rest of his life he tried to close the gap within physics created by the quantum revolution--though seemingly without further success.
Theory of Relativity (Eric Baird)
"What Is Relativity?" (1919) (Eric Baird)
The Principle of Relativity (1923)
"The World As I See It" (1949)
Ideas and Opinions(1954)Albert Einstein (The Nobel Foundation)
Albert Einstein
Alber t Einstein (St. Andrew's: MacTutor)
Albert Einstein Online (American Institute of Physics)
Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
The World as Einstein Saw It (I. M. Oderberg)
Albert Einstein, 1879 - 1955 (Encarta)
Albert Einstein on the Web (Mike Maleki)
The Albert Einstein Archives (The Jewish National & University Library)
Some of Einstein's Writings on Science and Religion (St.CloudStateUniv: Arnold Lesikar)
Georges Lemaître (1894-1966)
A Belgian priest and astronomer/physicist who in 1927 first advanced the "Big Bang" theory of the origins of the universe, based on what he saw as the implications of Einstein's theory of relativity.
5. QUANTUM MECHANICS
Max Planck (1858-1947)
Planck was the German physicist at the University of Berlin (1889-1926) most noted for laying the foundations of quantum physics with his idea of the quantum of small particle action, known as the Planck constant or simply, h. The constant h he developed in his study of black-body radiation--noting that the energy values emited in such radiation were not of a continuous variety or array but instead discontinuous, in the the form of discrete, tiny energy packets: quanta. In other words, Planck demonstrated that the energy given off in radiation did not vary in a continuous spectrum from slight to great, but varied over that spectrum in tiny but quantifiable jumps, which happened to be multiples of h. Thus Planck quantized the energy spectrum.
These quanta of energy (E) were measurable as the product of the frequency of the radiation (
or Greek nu) and Planck's constant h. The resultant energy radiation equation for Planck's constant was thus E=h
H was a very small quantity, approximately 6.626 × 10-34 (h actually works out to be not much more than 0!). Nonetheless, it was significant enough that it called into question the assumption held since the time of Newton that the laws of physics were uniformly applicable under all (rather than just select or discrete) circumstances.
The Theory of Heat Radiation (1914)
Where Is Science Going?(1932)
The Philosophy of Physics (1936)Max Planck (The Nobel Foundation)
Max Planck (1858 - 1947)
Niels Bohr (1885-1962)
Atomic Physics and the Description of Nature (1934)
Atomic Physics and Human Knowledge (1958)Niels Bohr (The Nobel Foundation)
Historical Notes: Bohr, Niels Henrik David
Niels Bohr (Joe Kraus)
Ni els Henrik David Bohr (St. Andrews: MacTutor)
Max Born (1882-1970)
Max Born (The Nobel Foundation)
Max Born
Erwin Schrödinger (1887-1961)
What Is Life?
Mind and Matter
My View of the World
Nature and the Greeks
Science and HumanismErwin Schrödinger (The Nobel Foundation)
Werner Heisenberg (1901-1976)
Theory of Uncertainty: we cannot know something as its exists "in and of itself"--because our very action to observe this thing has a shaping effect on it; it responds to our efforts to observe it--thus making a "neutral" observation impossible.
Physics and Philosophy
Physics and Beyond
Philosophical Problems of Quantum MechanicsWerner Heisenberg (The Nobel Foundation)
Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac (1902-1984)
Quantum Theory of the Electron (1928)
The Principles of Quantum Mechanics (1930)Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac (The Nobel Foundation)
Wolfgang Pauli (1900-1958)
Wolfgang Pauli (The Nobel Foundation)Pauling broadened the reach of quantum theory by bringing it into the world of molecular chemistry, into the realm of crystals and into the domain of medicine.
Linus Carl Pauling (1901-1994)
Linus Carl Pauling (The Nobel Foundation)
6. PHILOSOPHICAL EVALUATIONS OF MODERN SCIENCE
James Hopwood Jeans (1877-1946)
Physics and Philosophy (1943)
The Mysterious UniverseSir James Hopwood Jeans (St. Andrews)
Henry Margenau
The Nature of Physical Reality (1950)
The Miracle of Existence
DEVELOPERS AND CULTIVATORS
OF THE NEW TECHNOLOGY
He was born on a farm near Dearborn, Michigan, and received formal schooling only up to age 15. He loved mechanical objects and was particularly fascinated with the newly developing automobile. He undertook to build cars himself.
Henry Ford (1863-1947)
Always looking for an easier, faster and cheaper way of building these automobiles, in 1913 Ford began the use of the assembly line process. This involved the movement away from custom building of cars to the use of standardized parts and a standardardized assembly process. He also employed the principle of simplifying the production process by also simplifying of the features on the automobile. The basic black Model T was the result. He developed this logic further by eventually coordinating the entire automobile business from the point of acquiring raw materials, to the manufacture of parts, to the assembly of the car, to its final distribution and sales.
This permitted him to lower considerably per-unit costs and to pass price reductions on to the purchaser--and thus increase the demand for his product. This brought the automobile within the economic reach of the middle class. And in turn this transformed American society into a highly mobile nation--with the home and community now spread at further distances from the old town and city centers.
A Short Biography of Henry Ford (Dale Clinton)
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Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
Freud posited an "unconscious" mind which drives human action from deep, unseen centers within ourselves--in strong opposition to the popular view of his day that we are moved in our actions by human reason.
Freud believes that we operate unaware of the influence of these forces within us because we have "repressed" them, or hidden them from conscious view because they arise from base desires (often sexual) that have been overlaid by our social consciousness, which forbids such desires. But our dreams give us away--for dreams involve the surfacing of such repressed thoughts--ones in fact that may reach way all the way back to events in our very early childhood.
Freud developed psychoanalysis to help cure mental illnesses brought on by the kinds of mental conflicts that can arise from such repression. He not only developed a new vocabulary for interpreting dreams--but also for interpreting thoughts brought to the surface through his program of awake-state analysis.
This theory not only was a strong rebuke to the Victorian pretensions of the day to rational self-control of all "civilized" people--but it would later serve as an explanation of the wild irrationality displayed in the mind-boggling destructiveness of World War One. It also would play a small part in underwriting the notion of the "naturalness" of the human "will-to-power" popularized in the Fascist movements of 1930s Europe.
The Interpretation of Dreams (1900)
Psychopathology of Everyday Life (1904)
Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality
Civilization and Its DiscontentsFreud and Freudianism (Victorian Web: Robert Sullivan)
Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961)
"depth" psychologist (Freudian school) "archetypes"--patterns of thought in relation to "reality" which are present, in some cohesive form or another, in all cultures (thus universal)--but which are sufficiently ambiguous that they lend themselves to distinct interpretation by each culture and generation--though guiding that interpretation within precise boundaries.
Memories, Dreams, Reflections
Symbols of Transformation
Synchronicity
Psychology and the East
B. F. Skinner (1904-1990)
Beyond Freedom and Dignity
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James George Frazer (1854-1941)
Scot, educated at the University of Glasgow and Cambridge, becoming a fellow in Trinity College at the latter in 1879--and then a professor at the University of Liverpool in 1907.
The Golden Bough (1890-1915) (13 vols)
Totemism and Exogamy (1910)
Man, God, and Immortality (1927)
Creation and Evolution in Primitive Cosmogonies (1935)
Rudoph Otto (1869-1937)
German professor of comparative religion. Searches for the causes of the sense of the "holy." Religion begins with a sense of the "numinous" (divinity)--lying within the realm of personal religious experience and not easily definable by reason
The Idea of the Holy (1917)
Mysticism East and West (1932)
Bronislaw Malinowski (1884-1942)
Functionalist. Studied religion and magic of Tobriand Islanders. Magic and religion play an integrative function and underpin societal leadership--plus provide psychological support in times of crisis.
Russian-American founder of the Department of Sociology at Harvard University in 1930. Pitirim Alexandrovitch Sorokin (1889-1968)
Social and Cultural Dynamics (4 vol. 1937-1941)
Man and Society in Calamity (1942)
Claude Levi-Strauss (1908- )
Structuralist: Studied the process of thought of a people--in terms of its logical patterns, its intellectual sources, its systematic character as a cosmology or religion
Structural Anthropology (1958)
E.E. Evans-Pritchard
Theories of Primitive Religion
Nuer Religion(1956)
Gerardus van der Leeuw (1890-1950)
He studied religion as power. Power is the source and underlying essence of all religion. The goals of religion are satisfied when power is achieved (however defined by a religion).
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Italian moral/cultural philosopher and historian.
Benedetto Croce (1866-1952)
Born of a noble Italian family, and living out most of his life in Naples, he wrote reflectively on the proper ideals of modern Italian culture and politics--particularly in the journal La Critica which he founded and in which he published numerous works over a period of 41 years.
He was sensitive to the need of the individual to find a way to contribute creatively to the larger culture--and the needs of a culture to be responsive to the genius of its individual members. He was opposed to the cynicism bred by World War One which allowed self-indulgent individualism to run rampant in post-war Italy--and at first was sympathetic to the ideals of Fascism: everyone working together toward the common good. But as Italian fascism demonstrated its true nature, Croce turned against the movement and used his journal to denounce the pretentious tyranny that Fascism was imposing on Italy.
He used his studies of history (European, Italian and local) to demonstrate the vital role that civic virtue played in the greatness of societies--and the dangers to society when such civic virtue was lacking.
After World War Two his voice was deeply respected for its push to rebuild Italian civic virtue.
La Critica [
Estetica come scienza dell'espressione e linguistica generale / Esthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistics [or just simply: Esthetic] (1902)
Logica come scienza del concetto puro / Logic as the Science of Pure Conception (1909)
Filosofia della pratica: economia ed etica / Philosophy of the Practical: Economic and Ethic (1909)
Teoria e storia della storiografia / History: Its Theory and Practice (1917)
La storia come pensiero e come azione / History as Thought and Action (1938)
Filosofia, poesia, storia / Philosophy, Poetry, History (1951)English futurist, novelist and historian. He was born into a humble middle class family and received no formal schooling, training instead as an apprentice to become a draper. He changed jobs several times over the next years. But he loved to read and became self-taught, until at age 18 he won a scholarship to study biology at the Normal Institute in London (T.H. Huxley was one of his teachers). In 1888 he graduated from the University of London and went to work as a science teacher. He loved writing, and in 1893 published a textbook on biology. But he also had a fertile mind for science-fiction and in 1895 published The Time Machine, which became a best seller. H. G. (Herbert George) Wells (1866-1946)
He also had a deep interest in social questions, ones provoked by a world undergoing rapid technological change. In 1903 he became a member of the prestigious The Fabian Society of English social philosophers. But a mounting dispute with George Bernard Shaw and Sidney and Beatrice Webb a few years later over the direction of the organization caused him to withdraw.
Textbook of Biology (1893)
The Time Machine (1895) (Gopher: Gutenberg - Sunsite)
The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896) (Gopher: Gutenberg - Sunsite)
The War of the Worlds (1898) (Gopher: Gutenberg - Sunsite)
The First Men in the Moon (1901)
Mankind in the Making (1903)
A Modern Utopia (1905)
The New Machiavelli (1911)
The World Set Free (1914) (Gopher: Gutenberg - Sunsite)
War and the Future: Italy, France and Britain at War (19) (Gopher: Gutenberg - Sunsite)
Outline of History (1920)
The Shape of Things to Come (1933)
The Invisible Man () (Paradox Cafe)
Oswald Spengler (1880-1936)
The Decline of the WestHe was professor of international history at the University of London and director of Studies at the Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1925 to 1955.
Arnold J. Toynbee (1889-1975)
As an historian he wrote history of civilizations rather than distinct political units. His most famous work was his 12-volume Study of History, which focused on 26 distinct civilizations. He was looking in particular for patterns in their birth, development, maturity, decline and collapse. His overall conclusion was that civilizations decline not because of economic or political failure but because of moral and spiritual or religious failure.
Successful civilizations arise because they possess a vital vision, one which leads them forward through a round a great achievements.
But problems set in as the original vision is completed in this achievement, leaving the civilization at a loss as to where to go next. The very success of the civilization proves its undoing as it loses its original sense of drive, purpose--the source of its original identity as a distinct people. A loss of nerve and energy sets in, a rigid orthodoxy replaces imaginative thinking, and the prime motivation for living becomes defensive rather than expansive. Their pleasure now is in the glorious past--not in the future.
This leaves such civilizations open to dethronement by subject peoples, either from within the civilization or at its margins, or by outsiders. They newly rising groups within the decaying civilization may breathe new life back into the civilization--even as they bring elements of radical change to the program.
The Western Question in Greece and Turkey (1922)
A Study of History (12 vols: 1934-1961)
Civilization on Trial (1948)
Twelve Men of Action in Graeco-Roman History (1952)
An Historian's Approach to Religion (Gifford Lectures, 1952-1953)
East to West: A Journey Round the World (1958)
Hellenism: The History of a Civilization (1959)
Change and Habit: The Challenge of Our Time (1966)
Science in Human Affairs: An Historian's View (1975)Arnold J. Toynbee (Michael J. Watson)
Arnold J. Toynbee, Un essai d'interprétation (en français)
Universal Churches and the Role of Religion in Arnold J. Toynbee’s A Study of History(Phyllis Amenda)Heal ing the Hurts of Nations (Palden Jenkins)
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Julian Huxley (1887-1975)
Religion without Revelation (1959)
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Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947)
Religion in the Making (1926)
Science and the Modern World (1927)
Process and Reality (1929)
Adventures of Ideas (1937)Whitehead, Alfred North (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955)
We actually do not include Pierre Teilhard de Chardin here in this section--because it really was only until after his death in 1955 that his real influence began in the West. For his story go to Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (Theologians of the Second Half of the 20th Century).
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Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841-1935)
John Dewey (1859-1952)
Democracy and Education (Columbia)
Logical Conditions of a Scientific Treatment of MoralityJohn Dewey (1859-1952) (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
The Center for Dewey Studies (S.Ill.U)
Humanist Manifesto (1933)
A declaration drafted in 1933 by Raymond B. Bragg and signed by a number of individuals, including John Dewey--which rejected Christianity and Judaism's claim of a divine origin of the universe. It also included the assertion that we are essentially physical beings (there being no "spiritual" person apart from our bodily existences) and cultural by-products. And it also included the assertion that our purpose in life is to achieve human happiness through both personal and social human self-development.
Hu manist Manifesto
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Annie Besant
An Autobiography (1886)
Why I became a Theosophist (1889)
Esoteric Christianity; or, The Lesser Mysteries (1901)Annie Besant's Shifting Identity and Fin-de-Siècle Culture(Victorian Web: Teresa de Ataìde Malafaia)
The Canon Reconsidered and Annie Besant's Marginality
In Search of an Identity
Besant and Transgression
Identity as Resistance
C. W. Leadbeater
An Outline of Theosophy (1903)
Levi
The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ (1907)
Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925)
Founder of the Anthroposophical Society (1924) and the Waldorf School Movement
Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment
An Outline of Occult Science
The Reappearance of Christ in the Etheric
Edgar Cayce (1877-1945)
American photographer and mystic gifted with psychic powers of medical diagnosis
P. D. Ouspensky
A Key to the Enigmas of the World (1920)
In Search of the Miraculous: Fragments of an Unknown Teaching (1949)
The Fourth Way (1957)
Alice Bailey (1880-1949)
Initiation, Human and Solar (1922)
The Reappearance of the Christ (1948)
The Externalization of the Hierarchy (1957)
The Rays and the Initiation (1960)
Unfinished AutobiographyAlice Bailey(White Mountain)
Aldous Huxley (1894-1963)
The Defeat of Youth (1918)
Limbo (1920)
Crome Yellow (1921)
Antic Hay (1923)
Point Counter Point (1928)
Brave New World (1932)
Eyeless in Gaza (1936)
Grey Eminence (1941)
Time Must Have a Stop (1944)
Ape and Essence (1949)
The Perennial Philosophy (1945)
The Devils of Loudun (1952)
The Doors of Perception (1954)
Heaven and Hell
Island (1962)Aldous Huxley (Erowid Character Vault)
Meeting with Aldous Huxley (Dr. Albert Hoffmann)
Jiddhu Krishnamurti (1895- )The Network of ThoughtJiddhu Krishnamurti (Mystic Fire)
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Georges Sorel
Reflections on Violence (1908)
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870-1924)
He reorganized the more radical wing of the Russian Social Democrats into the faction known as the "Bolsheviks" (1903). He developed the New Economic Policy to revitalize the war-torn/revolution-torn Russian economy. In 1919 he founded the Third (Socialist) International with its headquarters in Russia.
"Materialism and Empirio-Criticism" (1909)
"Marxism and Revisionism" (1908) (Colorado: Marx/Engels Internet Archives - M/EIA)
"The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism" (1913)
"What can be done for public education" (1913)
"The Historical Destiny of the Doctrine of Karl Marx" (1913)
"The Marx-Engels Correspondence" (1913)
"K arl Marx" [Granat Encyclopaedia article] (1913)
"Disruption of Unity Under Cover of Outcries for Unity" (1913)
"Slogan for a United States of Europe" (1913)
"On the Two Lines of the Revolution" (1913)
State and Revolution (1917)
"The Military Programme Of The Proletarian Revolution" (1913)
[Interview with the Manchester Guardian] (1919)
"A Great Beginning: Heroism of the Workers in the Rear" (1919)
Left-Wing Communism -- an Infantile Disorder (1920)
"Draft resolutions of the 10th Congress of the R.C.P." (1921)Lev Davidovich Bronstein. Created the Soviet Red Arm
Leon Trotsky (1879-1940)
