Which of the early philosphers do you think had it most right for thier time?
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Which of the early philosphers do you think had it most right for thier time?
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As far as who had things 'most right' for their time period I think a majority of the philosphers were going somewhere with their ideas even if they weren't correct. Each of them believed what they were studying or creating for a reason, whether that reason was right or wrong is really in the eye of the beholder until someone more advanced is able to come along and prove or disprove their theories.
There are, however, two philosophers that stuck out to me when reading through the timeline and those two were Pythagoras in 550 B.C. and John Locke in the mid to late 1600's. I picked these two men becaue their findings and beliefs are still in use today, up to a point. Obviously we are still using Pythagoras's theory in mid to upper level mathematics classes to solve what I seem to feel are more difficult equations. I'm sure that if I, as well as others, are finding certain mathematics hard in today's world then he must've been some kind of genius to be able to apply it way back then.
As far as Locke goes, he ideal shaped the United States' Declaration, Constituion, and reasons for overthrowing the English government in the American Revolution; which also laid the ground work for many, many other countries to start revolutions of their own.
Thats a tough question. I mean to a certain point they all were correct. No had come along a proved otherwise that what they were saying was wrong or right. The fact that they even took the steps to start researching things made it a lot easier for the next group to come a long and pick up where they had stopped. If I had to pick one, it would be Charles Darwin. I've learned and my teachers have talked about him in my science classes as well as any psychology classes I have taken. I can remember getting into a lot of heated disscussion over his theory because of people with strong religious beliefs. He is still very much talked about which is why I think he was "most" right in his time.
I agree with both above, in that a lot of them had some good points. Pythagoras is still known for his theorem, although I'm sure he had some theories that flopped.
Descartes had a lot of good ideas, in that he focused a lot on environment. I think his ideas that we need to experience things to understand them and know they're real relate a lot still today. There are a lot of people who operate under the idea that 'believing is seeing' which is ultimately the same thing. He even went so far as to create ways to actually measure experience, which is something that has been replicated, on purpose or by accident by Titchner in his structuralism. So I would say for having come first, he had a good handle on what is still important today.