Western Philosophy Family Tree Breakdown

Since the course started with Plato, he is the head of this family tree. Aristotle’s writings dealt directly with Plato’s philosophy, so he is Plato’s descendant, and Augustine Christianizes Aristotle, so he is Aristotle’s descendent. So far so good. Maimonides dealt with some of the same ideas as Augustine and the classical philosophers, but he had his own, less declarative take on it all. He married into the western philosophy family tree. Both Sidney and Hume descend from Augustine, as Sidney continued to explore the power of symbolism and Hume embodied the rationalist, empirical systems used by Augustine and previously by Aristotle. Christine de Pizan wrote around the same time as Sidney and also dealt with Renaissance subject matter, but her ideas are more focused on education and the abilities of the individual (woman). She married into the Renaissance philosophy branch of the family tree. Kant and Schleiermacher are descended from Hume because they appropriate rationalism into their own hybrid rationalistic romanticism. Wollstonecraft is descended from de Pizan; she expanded the idea that women should be educated and paved the way for feminist critics. Hegel and Nietzsche are both descended from Kant. Hegel expands Kant’s German romanticism, and Nietzsche explores the subjective. A combination of Nietzsche’s understanding of the subjective nature of information and Wollstonecraft’s defense of the underdog resulted in Marx’s and Engels’ renunciation of socio-economic structure. Nietzsche and Wollstonecraft also opened the door for Freud, who interpreted Wollstonecraft’s feminism as penis envy, and Freud’s will to power as an Oedipus complex. Lacan is descended from Freud, but that branch of the family tree dead-ends out of sheer boredom. Marx and Engels however, give rise to Horkheimer, Adorno, and Althusser, who interpret society as the all-encompassing controller of everything. Meanwhile, Hegel’s romanticism is taken and run away with by his descendants, the English romantics and the American transcendentalists. They had fun for a while. Eliot is descended from Emerson, attempting to transform his forebears’ romanticism into a more objective understanding of art. He has some ideas in common with Wimsatt and Beardsley, the fathers of New Cristicism, because they read his poetry as an independent, aesthetic text. They in turn, pave the way for Barthes and de Saussure, who dig even deeper into the idea that the text is all there is.