Chapter I Socrates and Plato
	Chapter II Corpus Aristotelicum
	Chapter III Weeping and Laughing Philosophers
	Chapter IV Stoicism and Skepticism
	Chapter V Scholastic Epistemology
	Chapter VI Roger and Francis Bacons
	Chapter VII Cosmology and Epistemology
	Chapter VIII Classic Protagonists of Epistemology
	Chapter IX The Sociologists
	Chapter X Galactic Stage of Cosmological Argument
	Chapter XI Logical Positivism and Beyond ...
	Chapter XII Visual Statistics in Search of Meaning

Aristotle

Corpus Aristotelicum The collected works of Aristotle (384-322), Corpus Aristotelicum, are divided into logic, physics, and metaphysics. The metaphysics consists of teleology, epistemology, cosmology, ontology, and ethics. Aristotle thought that every entity in the universe moves toward a goal, teleos, inherent in its nature. The principle subjects of teleology thus are development and change. Materialists understood these as mutually interconnected causal chains of events. The idealists think that these chains of events have been initiated and guided by a spiritual, supernatural being. From these deliberations, philosophy developed along two parallel lines. One is realistic and secular, the other is idealistic and religious. The realistic tradition maintains that the concept of supernatural original cause is redundant, unnecessary to understand our world and the meaning of our existence. The idealistic tradition maintains that in order to understand the world and the meaning of our existence, the concept of God is necessary. The next question then is, does God exist? This used to be the central question of epistemology, the Greek episteme meaning 'to know.'

Aristotle's Diagrams   Aristotle viewed the Universe as a series of concentric spheres.

    Geosphere (Earth at the center of the Universe)
    Hydrosphere (Earth's oceans)
    Atmosphere (Air surrounding the Earth)
    Pyrosphere (Sphere generating lightning)
    Stellarsphere (Stars above the Earth)

with the prime mover (the first cause) initiating their spinning motion. Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) replaced the Aristotle's pyrosphere with his concept of noosphere. He reasoned that while evolution diversified the living forms, humankind reversed this divergent process into a convergent one. While many species are on the verge of extinction, the diverse human cultures are converging toward the omega point. Teilhard de Chardin predicted that after reaching the omega point, humankind will cover the Earth's surface with collective human consciousness, the noosphere (from Greek noos, mind), superimposed on the already-existing biosphere. He elaborated these concepts in a series of manuscripts (published after his death in books The Phenomenon of Man (1955), The Divine Milieu (1957), The Future of Man (1959), and Hymn of the Universe (1964)). When these manuscripts were discovered in his study, Professor's Chardin was fired from his teaching post and left for China. Pierre de Chardin did not live long enough to witness the emergence of the Internet, which some believe holds the promise to become his noosphere.

Aristotle's Logic  An abstraction of Aristotle's writings on this subject follows.