h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Clive,

First, I want to wish you the best of luck! Philosophy is a subject in which it's difficult to be brief and general.

One way you might begin, would be to address the idea of metaphysics (not the crystal-gazing, astrological metaphysics, but the Aristotelian, inquiry into the first causes of things,metaphysics) and freewill.
The Presocratics felt that their gods were necessary, i.e. compelled to be as they were. Aristotle broke from that, by calling his "unmoved movers" necessary, but only because they could not be otherwise, not because they were compelled. Saint Thomas Aquinas attempted to "baptize" Aristotle, paving the way for David Hume and Immanuel Kant to bring into question not only God but also the existance of the self. They ended up banishing the idea of metaphysics and the possibility of inquiry into God and causes from philosphy, into the realm of superstition, in order to avoid conflicts of interest (i.e. the contemporary and previous religious arguments).

I do apologize, because I realize this is a bit fuzzy...basically I was just thinking about the progression of philosophy through these thinkers. I'm not sure if this will help you in starting out, but I hope it does.

In bocca al lupo!
~The Voice of Lucidity

P.S. Let me know if I can be of any help.

Thanks for the post, the answer is YES!

I would welcome any ideas you have - you seem to know a bit about metaphysics (at least more than I do, at any rate!) Please come and help out. (lucidity is a good quality to have in this line of work, I guess.)

I said in a reply to another forum for this project about creating brief (not biographies, but), without wanting to labour the point, INTRODUCTIONS to some philosophical views and the philosophers who held them and then in particular what they thought themselves Also I might use the words "Brief" and "General" but I don't mean to imply that the project should be flippant on seek to not be comprehensive. It should I think at least draw the reader into the subject. We cannot set out all the problems of philosophy and then solve them then and there. What the Intro should do, is pick out certain philosophical problems and ideas, which then in turn lead to guide entries on those people, issues and problems with a footnote or two at the end to say, along the lines off, "well, if this has stoked your interest for over a two thousand years of applied human thought, here's where you can learn a bit more about...Whatever."

See you around.

Clive

Just to let you know, I have now updated the original synopsis of the project to put across a more reasoned and balanced view of what the final article should be.

Clive