To study culture means to trace the development of the knowledge of the different civilizations of the world. In order to get a better understanding of English literature; ancient Greece is the point to begin. Greece was a group of islands that depended mainly on farming and hunting. People in Greece had their philosophical attitudes to life. During that time, there was no separation between body and soul or between this life and the life after death. Great figures of the classical knowledge appeared in Greece; Plato, Aristotle and Sophocles. There were no quarrels over religion and there were many gods and goddesses in the Greek temples. At the end of the classical period, when their world began to deteriorate, Christianity came with a new period.

A Philosophical attitude that held the pursuit of virtue as the highest good. It developed in Greece in the late fourth century BC. Among its representatives are Emperor Marcus and Seneca. The founder of this philosophical idea is Zeno of Citium. The basic concept of this philosophy is ‘Logos’, a Greek word that means ‘reason’ or ‘reasoned speech’; it signifies the divine power. The Greek word ‘pneuma’ or ‘seed’ plus the word ‘reason’ are believed to be present in each quality of an object. The Stoics believed in a long chain of cause and effect, which was considered fate. The philosophy, also, assumed that there must be an essential similarity between all parts of the universe. These principles led the Stoic to accept divination. Moreover, they connected between natural occurrences, as weather, and the foretelling of the future. The Stoics were fatalists who believed that the freedom of the human will is itself fated.

Mithraism:

The name belongs to ‘Mithra’, a Persian and Indian god associated with the sun, the king, justice, war and friendship. The philosophy developed a belief in immortality. Mithraism flourished in the Roman Empire. It was believed that the immortal soul of man could overcome death, pass through the seven spheres of the planet and return to its source in heaven. Mithraism believed in the immortality of the soul; the existence of a superior being and a divine creator. It involved a communal meal of bread and wine. The philosophy is close to Christianity but it ignored women, which is considered a defect.

Hedonism:

It is a philosophy that puts pleasure as the ultimate good for man. It depends on a psychological theory that pleasure motivated human actions. The only thing that is desirable for itself is a pleasant state of mind, and the only thing undesirable in itself is an unpleasant state of mind. This view has been held by a long list of distinguished philosophers, including Lock, Hobbes and Hume.

Epicureanism:

This philosophy was founded at Athens near the end of the fourth century BC. According to it, nothing exists but atoms moving endlessly in space. Our universe and others are nothing but chains of atoms. In these atomic universes, human thought and action are not determined and not subject to any fate. The gods live in gaps between universes. They are immortal in that the flow of atoms into them exactly balances the outflow. The gods have no power over the universe but they must exist because all men believe in them. According to Epicureans, once men are freed from fears of death and the gods, they can live the good life. The standards of good and bad are pleasure and pain. Pleasure means untroubled peace of mind, and pain is the distress and worry. Man's natural needs are few and simple. The unnecessary and artificial needs are the desire for political power, fame or the acquisition of wealth.

Plato's Theory of Knowledge:

Plato's philosophy could be summarized in the statement “Universal ideas exist before particular things”. He said that we could not know anything for sure through experience alone. We do not know whether something is just or unjust until we first get an idea about the conception of justice. Therefore, it is necessary to formulate certain general conceptions before judging particular things.

Logos:

The word refers to a perfect law that governs all laws. It refers to the power of a super being that controls the world. They did not accept a creator because they would have believed that he created the world. According to Plato, matter and form existed before the creation of the world. This leads to the idea that every object is an imitation of the original form.

Aristotle's Philosophy:

Aristotle's philosophy could be summarized in the statement “Universals exist in particular things”. He was Plato's student, but he faced three problems. The first was to find a relation between that informing spirit in heaven and matter on earth. While, the second was how the soul could affect the body and the third is how to account for the ever-changing form of things. Aristotle solved the first and the second problem. He retains in the existence of an ideal pattern but rejects its superiority. He believed that ideas are here on earth. He believes that matter is dynamic, form and matter are not separable but are eternally together. Man is the matter of which the child is the form. The child is the matter of which the embryo is the form, and so until we reach the indivisible form which is man's spirit. The world of sense and perception is not a shadow or an imitation of the real world. Our knowledge always begins with our perception through the senses and rises from past facts to universal conceptions. Therefore, without experience truth will never be known.

The Stoics affected the classical age. The principle of the Stoic was to accept things as they are. The Stoics taught ‘giving up’ which resulted in irresponsibility. Sometimes they reached the state where they would commit suicide. While, the Epicurean philosophy believed in mental or intellectual pleasure. Remains Hedonism, which believed in physical pleasure; and Mithraism that believed in life after death and the immortality of the soul. A classical man did not bother about heaven or hell. For him, neither heaven nor hell exists. Moreover, the gods were having the quality of human beings.

The middle age was an age of conflict in which new ideas and institutions started. Its interest lies in the idea of a civilization struggling to be born. The state of affairs, throughout the middle ages, was very close to the state of nature. In such condition, there was no place for industry. There was no knowledge of the face of the earth, no account of time, no arts, and continual fear and danger of violent death and the sense of man's life as solitary and short. The Middle Ages developed new ideas and forms of civilization. The medieval view of life was the product of three factors. The large number of Germanic and Scandinavian tribes who founded kingdoms in Britain; after the fall of the Roman Empire. These people developed a type of belief and a way of life of their own. The second factor was the Christian church along with theology. The church had already absorbed much of the ancient tradition and developed with its aid an ordered system of thought and discipline. Finally, the third factor was the co-operation of Greek and Roman culture to form the medieval mind.

The church was regarded as “the Garden of Eden on earth”. As a result, philosophy was important only as it served theology. Philosophy believed that there is no solution for individuals who do not follow the path of God. Priests were responsible for education. There was no reason to search for truth because the church receives truth from God directly. During the age, facts were lacking and science was at a very low level. Works of Math, Astronomy, Medicine, and the writings of Aristotle were beginning to be known through Arabic translations. Arab cultures were being widely read.
 
Thales: (625?-546? BC), Greek philosopher, born in Miletus, Asia Minor. He was the founder of Greek philosophy, and was considered one of the Seven Wise Men of Greece. Thales became famed for his knowledge of astronomy after predicting the eclipse of the sun that occurred on May 585 BC. He is also said to have introduced geometry in Greece. According to Thales, the original principle of all things is water, from which everything proceeds and into which everything is again resolved. Before Thales, explanations of the universe were mythological, and his concentration on the basic physical substance of the world marks the birth of scientific thought. Thales left no writings; knowledge of him is derived from an account in Aristotle's Metaphysics.
 

Anaximander: (circa 611-c. 547 BC), Greek philosopher, mathematician, and astronomer, born in what is now Turkey. He was a friend of the Greek philosopher Thales. Anaximander's outstanding contribution was his authorship of the earliest prose work concerning the cosmos and the origins of life. He conceived of the universe, as a number of concentric cylinders, of which the outermost is the sun, the middle is the moon, and the innermost is the stars. Within these cylinders is the earth. Further, Anaximander held that all things eventually return to the element from which they originated.
 

Anaximenes: (circa 570-500 BC), Greek philosopher of nature, the last member of the Ionian school founded by the philosopher Thales. Born at Miletus, Ionia, in Asia Minor, he held that air is the primary element to which everything else can be reduced. He thought that air becomes warmer and turns to fire when it is rarefied and that it becomes colder and turns solid when it is condensed. His importance lies not in his cosmology but in his attempt to discover the ultimate nature of reality.
 

Heraclitus: (540?-475? BC), Greek philosopher, who believed that fire is the source of matter and that the entire world is in a constant state of change. He was born in Ephesus, an ancient Greek city in Asia Minor, in what is now Turkey. Because of the loneliness of his life and his philosophy, he is also called the dark philosopher or weeping philosopher.
Heraclitus was in a sense one of the founders of Greek metaphysics. He postulated fire as the primal substance or principle that, through condensation and rarefaction, creates the phenomena of the sensible world. Although his thinking was strongly influenced by popular theology, Heraclitus attacked the concepts and ceremonies of the popular religion of his day. Only one work, On Nature, is definitely attributable to Heraclitus.
 

Parmenides: (born about 515 BC), Greek philosopher, considered by many scholars the greatest member of the Eleatic school. Parmenides expounded his philosophy in verse form, his only surviving work being large fragments of a didactic poem, On Nature. This work argued for the existence of Absolute Being, the nonexistence of which Parmenides declared to be inconceivable, but the nature of which he admitted to be equally inconceivable, since Absolute Being is dissociated from every limitation under which human beings think. Parmenides held that reality, True being, is not known to the senses but is to be found only in reason. This belief makes him a precursor of the idealism of Plato. Parmenides' theory that Being cannot arise from Non being, and that Being neither arises nor passes away, was applied to matter by his successors Empedocles and Democritus, who made it the foundation of their materialistic explanations of the universe.

Pythagoras: (582?-500? BC), Greek philosopher and mathematician, whose doctrines strongly influenced Plato.  Pythagoras was instructed in the teachings of the early Ionian philosophers Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes. About 530 BC Pythagoras settled in Crotona, a Greek colony in southern Italy, where he founded a movement with religious, political, and philosophical aims, known as Pythagoreanism. The philosophy of Pythagoras is known only through the work of his disciples.
[Basic Doctrines ]
The Pythagoreans believed in immortality and in the transmigration of souls. Pythagoras himself was said to have claimed that he had been Euphorbus, a warrior in the Trojan War, and that he had been permitted to bring into his earthly life the memory of all his previous existence.
[Theory of Numbers]
Among the extensive mathematical investigations carried on by the Pythagoreans were their studies of odd and even numbers and of prime and square numbers . From this arithmetical standpoint they cultivated the concept of number, which became for them the ultimate principle of all proportion, order, and harmony in the universe.

 Democritus: Greek philosopher, who developed the atomic theory of the universe. Democritus was born in Abdera, Thrace. He wrote extensively, but only fragments of his works remain. According to his exposition of the atomic theory of matter, all things are composed of minute, invisible, indestructible particles of pure matter (atoma, “indivisible”), which move about eternally in infinite empty space (kenon, “the void”). Although atoms are made up of precisely the same matter, they differ in shape, size, weight, sequence, and position. Democritus viewed the creation of worlds as the natural consequence of the motion of atoms in space.

Anaxagoras: Anaxagoras was an early Greek philosopher.  He argued that change in matter does not occur, even though it appears to.  Anaxagoras assumed that all things are made up of an immense number of tiny "seeds" of different kinds of matter.  These seeds never change, but they exist mixed together in different combinations.  Apparent changes in matter are simply recombination of the changeless seeds.  For this recombination to occur, motion is needed.  Anaxagoras believed that a force in the universe called Mind moves the seeds.  He was the first Greek philosopher to use Mind to explain the moving force in the universe.

Protagoras: Born in Abdera, Thrace. About 445 BC he went to Athens and won great fame as a teacher and philosopher. Protagoras was the first thinker to teach for pay, receiving large sums from his pupils. He gave instruction in grammar, rhetoric, and the interpretation of poetry. His chief works, of which only a few fragments have survived, were entitled Truth and On the Gods. The basis of his speculation was the doctrine that nothing is absolutely good or bad, true or false, and that each individual is therefore his or her own final authority; this belief is summed up in his saying: “Man is the measure of all things.” Charged with impiety, Protagoras fled into exile; he drowned on his way to Sicily.

 Plato: One of the most creative and influential thinkers in Western philosophy. Plato was born to an aristocratic family in Athens. He eventually became a disciple of Socrates, accepting his basic philosophy and style of debate. In 387 Plato founded the Academy in Athens, the institution often described as the first European University. Plato's writings were in dialogue form; a conversation or debate involving two or more persons. The dialogues may be divided into early, middle, and later periods of composition. The earliest represent Plato's attempt to communicate the philosophy and dialectical style of Socrates.

The dialogues of the middle and later periods of Plato's life reflect his own philosophical development. At the heart of Plato's philosophy is his theory of Forms, or Ideas. Plato's theory of Forms and his theory of knowledge are so interrelated that they must be discussed together. Influenced by Socrates, Plato was convinced that knowledge is attainable. What is real , for Plato, must be fixed, permanent, and unchanging. One consequence of this view was Plato's rejection of the claim that knowledge is derived from sense experience. He thought that the objects of sense experience are changeable phenomena of the physical world. Hence, objects of sense experience are not proper objects of knowledge. Plato's own theory of knowledge is found in the Republic.

The theory of Forms may best be understood in terms of mathematical entities. A circle, for instance, is defined as a plane figure composed of a series of points, all of which are equidistant from a given point.  What people have actually seen are drawn figures that are more or less close approximations of the ideal circle. In fact, there are logical points. They do not occupy space. For Plato, therefore, the Form “circularity” exists, but not in the physical world of space and time. It exists as a changeless object in the world of Forms or Ideas, which can be known only by reason. Plato's theory of Forms is both a theory of knowledge and a theory of being.

It is the philosophy that developed in the Middle Ages. It has four basic characteristics. Its most important is the interest in the world of God, angels and saints. It can be regarded as an idealistic philosophy. Scholasticism did not care about how the soul acts. This philosophy tries to discover the purpose of man's creation and his relation to God. It is characterized by realism, and through methodology Scholasticism arrived at philosophical truth. Moreover, it was closely related to theology because it developed in a Christian context and it was used to explain theological matters. Through the Middle Ages, Scholasticism can be divided into two major periods; the early (850-1200), and the second (1200-1500). The basic qualities of these two periods were the confusion between the roles of Philosophy and Theology.

Philosophy was generally considered as the search for truth and wisdom. It included natural science and all branches of knowledge. Theology was also considered a valid source of truth. Theology, however, had the upper hand because its truth was based on the divine. Philosophy was considered more certain than truth obtained by reason alone. With the rise of Humanism in the fifteenth century, philosophy and theology became completely separate.

The most significant philosophical question of the early period was the universals. The scholastics were divided into two great parties, the Realists and the Nominalists. Realism is a doctrine (principle) that universals and particular things exist in reality. In opposition, the Nominalists believed that universals are only class names and have no existence apart from the name. A middle party (group) was formed by the Conceptualists who believed that universals are concepts and have an ideal existence as notions in the mind.

The second philosophical question of this period is that of trinity. According to the Realists, God is the universal notion (idea) and has the most complete reality. On the other hand, Nominalists regarded the individual concrete thing as the only real. There were long and many philosophical arguments about the nature and truth of trinity. Many interpretations were given. The interpretation that Christ had two natures, each perfect in itself and each distinct from each other, yet, perfectly unified in one person, who has, at once God and man, was accepted by a congregation (community or group) of priests in the year 451 and became an Orthodox dogma (a strong belief).

The second period of Medieval Scholasticism depended, mainly, on Saint Thomas Aquinas's philosophy. He regarded philosophy as passing from facts to God and theology passes from God to facts. He argued that dogmas like the Trinity, the incarnation (taking a body shape), and the creation of the world, cannot be demonstrated by natural reason. They are not objects of philosophy but matters of faith. In his theory of knowledge, Aquinas believes that all our knowledge takes its origin from sense experience. The higher powers of the mind are, then, able to work upon the information delivered by the sense and form abstract and universal ideas. The human mind comes to knowledge by depending on sense experience, and the first concrete objects that mind knows, are material objects. He believes that we can reach knowledge through indirect reason. We can differentiate between the existence of God and his creation through four steps; first, we know through sense that some things in the world are moved by other things, if that other thing is itself moved it must be moved by another agent. We come at the end to an unmoved mover, or a first mover and all understand that this is God. Second, beings come into existence and perish (die), that shows that they are not necessary or important. Aquinas, then, argues that the degree of perfection requires the existence of the best. The fourth step, argues Aquinas, that we see inorganic objects operating for an end, and this happens always. Inorganic objects are without knowledge and therefore, cannot tend towards an end unless directed by some one who is intelligent and possessed knowledge. Therefore, there exists an intelligent being who directs all natural things to an end.

When Christianity appeared in the classical world, it had to deliver its message by fighting classical philosophers. Thus, the aim of Scholastic philosophy was the rationalization (balance) of faith and reconciliation of Aristotelianism to Christianity. By the fifteenth century, it became clear that Scholastic philosophy had failed to establish the reasonability of Christianity that had always resorted to faith.

There are figures that denoted the beliefs of Scholasticism. For instance, John Duns Scotus believed that matter is not what makes the individual. A particular thing is what it is because of its individuality. Since the particular is the ultimate truth or reality, then it is the only object for scientific study. General concepts or universals are not real at all (in the Scholastic sense), but are only abstractions of the thinking mind. William of Occam is a Scholastic philosopher who started with the problem of reconciling Christian faith with Aristotelian. He refused the Realist's view and adopted that of the Nominalists. In other words, he ignored the reality of universals. According to Occam, reason can only deal with observable facts and that religion is a matter of revolution unreachable by reason.

The word ‘Humanism’ is derived from the word ‘Humanista’ or ‘teacher’ of humanities. The Renaissance literary tradition was to revive the Greek and Roman studies. They approached the classical for their own sake and with no connections to Christianity. The Renaissance humanists declared certain ideals that can be summed up in the words of the Greek philosophers “man is the measure of all things”, which is part of the Greek Roman tradition. This tradition kept flourishing through literature and the humanistic movement until the 12th century. The church had various reactions to the revival of that tradition. It ranged between a complete rejection of classical learning to the selection of certain elements that could be adopted by medieval Christianity.

In the fourth century, Renaissance humanists rebelled against the medieval humanists. They followed Petrarch, the most famous Italian humanist who regarded the new learning as an educational innovation. The Renaissance humanism believed in the efficiency of the study of history, poetry, grammar and ethics to develop the individual character. The new learning, also, involved the search for the long lost works of familiar and popular classical authors who were unknown for medieval humanists. This was a major development because the Greek works were made available, at that time, only for learning.

Humanism started as an educational program but gradually became a literary movement. The Renaissance Humanism had its own created literary productions that were written in Latin. The most famous Italian historian is Nicholai Machiavelli; he stripped history from religion and miraculous elements. He was totally convinced that humans were rational but they are also limited.

Concerning the Humanistic philosophy about religion; Italian humanists agreed about the belief in the power of reason and the freedom of choice combined with the ethical sense but they also recognized the weakness of human beings and the limitations imposed on them by fate. In spite of their agreement about man's powers and limitations, the humanists produced different images of man in order to have the optimistic image as well as the pessimistic. Some of their writers mixed between a strong religious faith and a belief in the moral value of classical education. Italian humanists, who traveled to the north as professors, secretaries, or church councilors, had a great influence on the European countries. Humanists have several famous scholars and theologycians among them the most famous are Sir Thomas Moore, John Colet and Michalle De Montaigne.

In both More’s Utopia and Montaigne’s Cannibals there is the spirit of humanism combined with  classical traditions. They tried to free the society from the authority of the medieval church, and stress on the power of reason. They share similar views. They believe in the immortality of the  human soul. The Utopians believe in a superior divine power that likes to be worshipped in several ways. Consequently, there are different religions. They believe in life after death and they gave the priests a unique position. Priests teach morals and religion, and they are feared and respected by the whole community. If a priest does something wrong, he is left to God. They were against the representation of God so that every one is free in his imagination.

Cannibals believed in the existence of heaven and hell. They, also, gave the priests a special rank. Priests are to live in the mountains and their appearance is rare and is considered a feast. The priest is asked to foretell the future, especially about war, but if he fails, he is condemned to death. War in Montaigne’s view is a practice that does not involve torturing the enemies. It is a noble action done with the courage of simple and primitive people against the use of tricks and science by their enemies. On the other hand, More is against war, and the Utopians believe that human beings are connected to each other by rules of love and kindness, not by peace treaties and war victories.

Montaigne and More have similar beliefs about civilization. They believed in the existence of different civilizations and developed the idea of the “New World”. Both believed that we must not be proud and that we may benefit from other civilizations instead of conquering and degrading them. But, during war, the Utopians use arrows and axes and they are interested in tricking the enemy. Yet, they do not harm an unarmed man. While, Cannibals fight with only sticks and shouts. Cannibals usually bring the heads of their enemies to fix it at the doors of their houses.

The Utopians and the Cannibals believe in the equal distribution of wealth, that is why they bane private property. They do not believe in the worthiness of Gold and Silver. They criticize the feudal system that resulted in poverty and unemployment. More and Montaigne, both believed in social justice and criticize the state of Europe and other feudalist and unjust laws.

Neo-Platonism is a system of thought that began by Philo, the Jew, who flourished around the year 39 A. D. Its most important representatives were Plotinus from the year 205 to 270, and Proclus from the year 410 till 485. Philo adopted the Stoic doctrine of the divine wisdom or Logus. The Logus is a conception between God and the world. The Logus or wisdom of God is thus produced from and by God who is himself describable. The Logus contains the ideas and is the ideal pattern of the created world. It is, also, the ideal power by which the world is produced.

Plotinus developed similar ideas and other ones from Plato and Aristotle into the characteristic form of Neo-Platonism. The ultimate reality from which all things come is described as One Being or Good. The physical world will all be derived by a gradual series of divine revelation from a single principle. This source of all existence is indescribable. This first emanation is Mind. As Plato has declared that the love of the physically beautiful leads us to the love and knowledge of the form of the beautiful. Therefore, the Neo-Platonists teach that love for the Source of existence leads everything back to its ultimate origin. From Mind emanates the World Soul. Individual souls are only parts of the World's Soul, and never loose connection with it. Yet, the ascent back into the World Soul requires love and acquisition of knowledge. The various stages in human knowledge, from sense perceptions of material things through the knowledge of forms, represent an actual retracing of the path by which the human soul has been derived from the One.

Cooper had his own idea about affection and he divided it into three kinds. The first is the natural affection that leads to the public good. The second is the selfish, which is concerned only with one's own benefit. The third is the unnatural affection that is nearly useless and does not help in public or private.

According to Shaftsbury, virtue depends on the proper balance between the first two kinds of affection. Man's mistake is always the result of the predominance of self love over social love. His opinion is that there must be a certain extent of self enjoyment, but this should not destroy the social affection. This idea makes him completely different than the belief of anti-social man.

In order to posses social affection, man must live naturally and simply without the motive of material profit. He should follow natural religion with its justice, simplicity and morality. According to him, the reward of virtue is often enjoyed in this world and it is part of the beautiful order of the universe. Virtue should be an end in itself without expecting any private benefit or development. He insists on the good nature of man and the divine perfection implied in his creation. In his opinion, the world and human beings are created in such a way that helps us to exist in harmony and understanding. The word ‘Nature’ is used by him to represent the whole order of creation. It is a complete system that is controlled and connected. We may not see everything in this order, but what we see is sufficient to convince us that the universe is beautiful and perfected.

Evil appears when we are ignorant and cannot perceive or justify the inter-relations of the whole system. He disapproves the atheist movement that regarded the universe as a center of chaos. He, also, refused the strict religious idea that man is sinful. By this, he is close to the ideas of Romanticism.

Antony Cooper had three main objections. He objected to the idea of man's original sin since man is naturally good. Moreover, he objected to the idea of future rewards only, as he believed that man could be rewarded and punished in the present world. He did not accept miracles, since he depended on man's natural capacity and his ability to distinguish between right and wrong. This is what he calls the moral sense. To reach this sense you must have a dis-interested affection, making you virtuous in all your motives. Through his idea, philosophy moves away from science and comes closer to the romantic view of humanity and the universe.

Descartes, Rene (1596-1650), was a French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist.  He is often called the father of modern philosophy.  Descartes invented analytic geometry and was the first philosopher to describe the physical universe in terms of matter and motion.  He was a pioneer in the attempt to formulate simple, universal laws of motion that govern all physical change.

Descartes wrote three major works.  The first was Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting One's Reason, and Seeking Truth in the Sciences (1637), commonly known as the Discourse on Method.  The other two books were Meditations on First Philosophy (1641), perhaps his most important work, and Principles of Philosophy (1644).  His philosophy became known as Cartesianism.

Descartes was born at La Haye, near Chatellerault, and was educated at a Jesuit college.  He served in the armies of two countries and traveled widely.  Money from an inheritance and from patrons enabled him to devote most of his life to study.  From 1628 to 1649, Descartes led a quiet, scholarly life in the Netherlands and produced most of his philosophical writings.  Late in 1649, he accepted an invitation from Queen Christina to visit Sweden.  He became seriously ill there and died in February 1650.

Concerning philosophy, Descartes is called a dualist because he claimed that the world consists of two sorts of basic substances--matter and spirit.  Matter is the physical universe, of which our bodies are a part.  Spirit is the human mind, which interacts with the body but can, in principle, exist without it.

Descartes believed that matter could be understood through certain simple concepts he borrowed from geometry, together with his laws of motion.  In Descartes's view, the whole world--including its laws and even the truths of mathematics was created by God, on whose power everything depends.  Descartes thought of God as resembling the mind in that both God and the mind think but have no physical being.  But he believed God is unlike the mind in that God is infinite and does not depend for His existence on some other creator.

In Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes first considered the strongest reasons that might be used to show that he could never be certain of anything.  These so-called "skeptical" arguments included the idea that perhaps he might be dreaming, so that nothing he seemed to perceive would be real.  In another argument, Descartes reflected that perhaps God or some evil spirit was constantly tricking his mind, causing him to believe what was false.  Descartes then responded to these arguments.  He began with the observation that even if he were dreaming, or constantly deceived, he could at least be certain that he had thoughts, and therefore existed as a thinking being.  This, he wrote, was a "clear and distinct" perception of the mind.  Nothing could make him doubt it.  In another work, Descartes created the famous Latin phrase cogito, ergo sum, which means I think, therefore I am.

Descartes then argued that he could also clearly and distinctly perceive that an infinitely powerful and good God exists.  This God would not allow Descartes to be deceived in his clearest perceptions.  Through this conception of God, Descartes sought to establish that the physical world exists with the properties the philosopher assumed in his theories of physics.

Bacon had a two sided philosophy, he thought that by applying science alone man cannot succeed, and by depending upon religion alone you may still meet obstacles. In his search for truth, he did not explain what he meant by it. If nothing is true except practical objects, then human emotions cannot be considered true, but people believe in God since they can study nature and observe God's creation.

According to Bacon, science and religion should not be mixed or confused. Religion is something to be believed in it, and should not be applied to scientific facts, both can be made use of and both can be applied to nature. Nature provides religion with evidence of God's creation and at the same time, we can use science to make experiments on natural phenomena.

Bacon's philosophy was considered very courageous, as according to the Middle Ages, the contemplation (study) of nature was considered sinful. Nevertheless, Bacon rejected these ideas. People started to study nature and to admire God's creation until the age of the Romantics; who always found pleasure and relief in nature. Bacon, in his defense of nature, attacked the dry logical discussions, and he believed that religion asserts man's faith, while science applies facts to reveal any false idea. His search for the truth satisfied the conflicts of his age. Bacon's philosophy is best expressed in his book The New Order. According to Bacon, philosophy needed a new method to make it fertile (rich). The mistake of the medieval thinkers was that they spent all their time asking one question, WHY? and not reaching any logical answer. According to Bacon, one should ask the question HOW? This is a scientific question, and by following the scientific steps, one could arrive to the truth. The first step is not to take things for granted, the second step is that one must not have any prejudices or preconceptions, and the third step is to destroy any idol of the mind. That is to say, taking a picture from reality or a mistaken thought that leads to errors.

Bacon wishes to begin by taking nothing for granted, he, then, proceeds to describe the scientific method of inquiring which consists of experimentation and through experiment we may reach the truth. One has to begin with the particular and reach the general; he has to collect many details then examine them, and after that conclude the correct ideas. This is called the method of ‘Deduction’. This method begins by the particular, moves to the general, and is opposed to the method of ‘Induction’, which starts with the general and moves to the particular.

One of his famous works is The New Atlantis, which is considered a Utopia. It reflects a certain social order, which has been perfected through science. He believes that his new Atlantis is a great country where science has achieved progress and where people can enjoy the freedom of study and analysis as well as philosophy under a very understanding co-operative government.

He explains that our observations are employed either concerning external objects or the internal operation of our minds after being perceived or reflected on it. This supplies our understanding with all the materials of thinking. He goes on to discuss the external source of ideas by employing that our senses depend on particular objects that convey to the mind several distinct perceptions. As a result, there are various ways that affects the mind and create what we call sensible qualities, such as color and the sense of touch. The senses convey into the mind, the result of the external objects. The great source of most of our ideas depends upon our senses and is derived from them to the understanding, and this is called ‘Sensation’.

After explaining ‘Sensation’, Locke discusses the internal source of ideas. The second foundation from which experience supplies the understanding with ideas is the perception of the operations of our minds as the various ideas, reflecting and considering within the interior of the mind, supplying the understanding with a set of ideas that could not be obtained from external objects. This type of experience and knowledge depends on reasoning, doubting, believing, willing, and all the different motions of the mind; where every human being is conscious of his reflections and receives them, understanding them as clear ideas. This second source is called ‘Reflection’, depending on the mind and internal thinking.

Locke explained that all our ideas come from one of these two sources, he says ‘Let anyone examines his own thoughts and thoroughly search into his understanding and then let him tell me whether all the original ideas which he has there are any other than the objects of his senses or of the operation of his mind in reflecting upon it’.

He discusses the way by which knowledge is acquired, he states that there are three ways to obtain knowledge. First by means of ‘Intuition’ (perceptive), is the perception of self-evident truths, and it has the highest degree of certainty through ‘Intuition’. We became aware of our own existence as something certain. He agrees that man is made of both body and soul, but he believes that thought is merely one of the activities of the soul. He does not really try to prove the material importance of the soul; he thinks that human mind cannot really examine or analyze the soul. However, man can be sure that the soul is immortal and that it will meet reward or punishment in future life.

The second way of requiring knowledge is ‘Demonstrative’ (showing) knowledge, which is logical reasoning. By demonstration, we know that there are moral laws and that we should obey the rules of religion. By pleasing God, we reach the highest pleasure, but, Locke does not set a foundation for religious beliefs, only demonstration. He maintains that in addition to the light of reason. God has supplied us with many truths and evidences that prove the existence of Him and every experience shows us whether it agrees or disagrees with the common sense.
The third knowledge is attained by means of sensation; all things other than the person's awareness of his own existence and his knowledge of God and the moral laws reach the mind through the sense.

Locke’s philosophy shows that he was interested not only in how ideas are acquired, but also in how they should be expressed. Locke lays great emphasis on the necessity of using words very clearly, so that exact ideas are expressed in exact words, he also had his own view concerning the human society. He thought of the original state of nature as a kind of paradise.

Nature, according to Locke, was a system of divine laws that should not be interfered with. The original state of nature could produce happiness to man, but human beings believe that nature could not secure their property or guarantee a comfortable life, so they turned to a social system and entered into social contact.

John Locke supplied his age with what it was ready to receive, that is rational philosophy which established the dignity and importance of man as a reasonable being as well as the importance of a belief in God and the divine order. This made him very popular and of great authority during his age. He made a confident compromise between traditional beliefs and the new philosophy. This made people regard his ideas with respect and consider his conclusions final.

Luther was given a good education and tended to have his profession within the church. Martin Luther was appointed as a professor in the University of Wittenberg. He felt a bitter spiritual struggle and found peace in the belief that he was so evil that no merit of his own could redeem him. Luther was persuaded by his study of the Bible that God is a loving father who freely forgives sinners.

Luther's name is generally linked with the Reformation. In 1517, Martin Luther directly attacked the Catholic Church in a manifesto called the Ninety Five Theses. It consists of ninety-five paragraphs or discussions. In 1519, Luther was drawn into a public debate in which he challenged the church councils. At that stage of history, it was generally believed that such councils must always arrive at the truth. This attitude of Luther led directly to his excommunication from the church.

In the summer of 1520, he wrote The Address to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation. In this work he laid down one of the principles of the Reformation; mainly that the state had authority over the church. Due to this work and others and despite efforts to reconcile Luther to the Pope, the excommunication was signed in October 1520. After the peasants war which broke out in 1525, Germany was split into two parties; Catholicism and Protestantism. For some time, the Protestants had to struggle for their rights. However, in 1526 a compromise was reached allowing the Protestants to practice there own of worship.

Through Hobbes concepts, we realize that he is an English philosopher who did not believe in the existence of any abstract objects. He did not believe in ghosts or spirits, and he also denied the existence of the soul as separate from the body. He refused the idea of man's spiritual life and insisted that man was constructed like a machine and that the soul itself belongs to the movement of the brain and the influence of the mind on the other parts of the body. According to him, the soul dies with the death of the body. He thought that some objects affects man's feelings and sensations and cause action. Man, in searching for happiness, struggles hard to achieve his purpose, but when he reaches his aim, he is no longer happy. So, there is nothing called absolute happiness. The life of man is like a competition in which everyone is taking part fighting against everyone else for power and success. Man has no consideration for other men, and his only quality is selfishness, he is unsociable and cares only for his own benefit.

The distinction between men and animals lies in the possession of language; even language itself must be used very carefully. He attacked those who depend on flowery style, metaphors and figures of speech that has no significance. He believed that if such words and methods were not avoided, man would fall into various mistakes.

Thomas Hobbes did not deny completely the existence of God, but he believed in him as just a mover (cause) of the world, and this was a very limited and anti religious concept. His philosophy was, mainly, materialistic and political; searching only for personal profit. According to him, the sole and the body, both compose the machine man. When man dies the soul can never be separated alone. Nothing is true except concrete objects. Any abstractions such as passions, emotions, or sensations, are not important since they cannot be materially touched and have no concrete examples.

Concerning Hobbes’s political news and attitude, he was one of the philosophers who believed in the ‘divine right of kings’. He considered the king responsible for all his citizens. He has the right to impose everything and no one should oppose him; he must be obeyed. This concept is not religious as it might have seemed, but it was practical and political. He disliked the church if it turned against the king or encouraged people to revolt against him. His philosophy was mechanical believing that only ‘matter’ is essential. However, later on, with different developments man turned against these ideas and believed in the necessity of the human soul. He was an extremist and his philosophy did not win many followers and lasted only for a short time.

Voltaire was one of the most important French philosophers who affected French beliefs, and caused many changes in the French society. He visited England and stayed there for three years. His stay had a great influence on him especially when he became acquainted with the work of Newton. He accepted Newton's philosophy and wished to apply his method of analysis to all fields of knowledge. He was interested in facts rather than abstract ideas.

He was the one to introduce both Locke and Newton's system into the French philosophy and changed their thoughts. They began to deal with practical matters not only theoretical. This philosophy influenced the culture of the age and among its results was the production of a new encyclopedia. It started in 1751 and was completely finished and produced after a period of twenty years. Voltaire was one of the contributors to this work. He depended on the inspirations that he borrowed from England.

Voltaire was impressed by the British way of irony and satire that was used to attack any public fault or error. His main purpose was to develop French thought in a way that could create a new style and content. He was also against the severe religious laws and he believed in a natural religion and a sense of morality which could be common to all humanity everywhere and at any time. His belief depended on the idea of a personal god.

Voltaire thought that the world was created according to natural laws such as the law of gravity discovered by Newton. He was a philosopher who mixed between tragedy and comedy using his ideas in an unexpected manner, simplifying complex problems and explaining the facts and the truth that is not clear. He believed that the world was a mixture of good and evil, where evil is of three kinds: vice, boredom and need. In order to face them one must learn and work to make life easier. Voltaire suggested that human beings should not remain inactive. They must try to achieve something; to learn, to criticize and to attempt a reform. There should be a progress. Man should get rid of the idea that he is a sinner. He should be more optimistic in order to improve his existence. The world is not at its best but it could be improved.

Together with the other philosophers, Voltaire encouraged the need for a change. This change should not belong to the people only, but it might be the result of the power of  the state and the willing authority. Through knowledge, people can reach great results.