Western Thought

In this section, you see the significant persons who made a contribution to the Western Thought. There are three main sections here named as Classical, Mediaeval and Contemporary Era and each one of them has a time interval. There may be opposing views about either time intervals or the names, but it should be known that here we tried to make a selection from the perspective of Systematization of the Thought and thereby determined the turning points in Western history as the starting and ending dates of the eras. As to the persons, surely it is possible to categorize them. For example, it would be a mistake to equate the significance of Marx or John Stuart Mill in Western thought with that of John of Salisbury or William of Ockham because the first two are among the most important figures of the socialism and liberalism, the ideologies directing the masses in the contemporary era, while the contribution of the second two is limited to the their era's conditions. Some names who are generally known as “scientists” are also added to the list. This is because the “science” has “ideological” and “political” implications in Western thought. In that regard, the names such as Newton, Galileo and Da Vinci are included in the list. What we want to do by the “list” is to cite neatly the names who make a contribution to the Western thought and thus give a humble support to the studies that will be done hereafter for having good knowledge of Western Thought.

Nonetheless, the fact is that studying on the basis of names alone in order to have a good knowledge of a particular thought or civilization is insufficient. Besides, another study on the basis of events, documents and concepts should be made. For example, the religious texts such as Bible or Qoran, the documents such as Magna Carta and Witchcraft Documents, the anonymous texts such as English Bill of Rights and Human Rights of French Revolution or the historical events such as crusades and Siege of Jerusalem are also important in terms of having a good knowledge of Western thought/civilization. Accordingly, it appears that an “overall” study should be done in order to realize the aim of getting full-fledged knowing.[1] And in the final stage of this study, a study concerning the concepts should be made.

The arguments of the persons on the list is to be criticized from the perspective of the Systematization of the Thought and on Islamist grounds. At the present time, there is already a criticism made by modernists/postmodernists to them but what has not been done or what could not be done is that these arguments has not been still criticized on Islamist grounds and by means of an overall study yet. And this is what we try to do in the process of the Systematization of the Thought.