HOBBES (1588-1679)
Thomas Hobbes was an English philosopher. Known for his political philosophy, social contract theory and thoughts on human nature, Hobbes developed a naturalistic, mechanical understanding of nature. Bodies are divided into three: natural bodies, human bodies and political bodies, namely the state. Motion covers all three. Sensations are the motion of the bodies in the brain.
Science is based entirely on phenomena. Phenomena are translated into images, images into words. Science is realized through the relations of words. The starting point of scientific inference is definition propositions. A definition is a proposition that analyzes the subject of the predicate. There can be no thought or image of the immaterial. There is no place for universal concepts.
The basis of all human passions lies in the motion in the mind. The values of good and bad are according to the person's emotional state. Happiness should be sought without harming the natural rights and freedoms of others. Man is a wolf to man, but it is not in anyone's interest to continue this situation and people come together and organize under the roof of a common power, the state. This organization is a result of the social contract between them. Monarchy, aristocracy and democracy can be good or bad depending on the sovereign.
LOCKE (1632-1704)
English John Locke is the founder of Empiricism, philosopher and politician. His method of thought was empirical observation and inductive reasoning, knowledge must agree with observations.
The human mind is initially a blank sheet of paper (tabula rasa), there is no idea or principle that is inherently possessed. All ideas come through experience. An idea is something that is the subject or object of the thinking process. The qualities of the body that create the simple idea are divided into primary (the space-occupancy of things, weight, shape, movement and number) and secondary (color, sound, taste). The idea of substance is the idea that carries these qualities. The formation of compound ideas from simple ideas is done through combination, comparison and abstraction.
Knowledge arises from the relations between ideas and is divided into three degrees; intuitive (related to identity, existence), demonstrative (reached through reasoning activity) and sensory (coming entirely from sensations).
The idea of God is a compound idea, the result of the union of the idea of infinity and the simple ideas provided by internal sensation. The cosmological evidence for the existence of God is the necessity of being an eternal and infinitely powerful creator of the beings in the universe. The teleological argument is the necessity of being responsible for the order in the universe. The necessity of man being a creator also constitutes the anthropological evidence.
There are three types of laws: 1. Divine law, 2. Civil law, 3. Moral law. The natural state of man is a state of freedom, but there is a natural law that governs this state; man is equal and independent, he has natural rights such as the right to protect himself and defend his life, the right to be free and the right to property, which he has by birth. A safer environment is established with the social contract. He is an advocate of constitutional monarchy.
BERKELEY (1685-1753)
George Berkeley is an Irish theologian philosopher. He rejected Locke's distinction between primary and secondary qualities and argued that there are only secondary qualities. According to him, an object is not an objective thing independent of our perceptual equipment, to exist is to be perceived. He rejects the substance of matter. While we do not perceive them, objects continue to exist through the mental agency of God, an external mind. The ideas in our minds are the ideas that God has revealed to us, reality is not material, but spiritual.
HUME (1711-1776)
David Hume is a Scottish philosopher, historian and economist. Our mental content consists of the senses and perceptions obtained through experience, and these are in two forms: impressions and ideas. Impressions, which are the raw material of thoughts, are vivid, while the less vivid idea is a mere copy of it. An association mechanism operates between ideas, and this has three forms; similarity, temporal-spatial contiguity and cause-effect relation. Of these, the causal relation is not based on a necessary relation between objects, but on a habit of experience. Thus, the principle of causality, which is the basis of sciences, is denied. Hume rejects the concept of substance. He also argues that the evidence for the existence of God is insufficient.
Moral judgments are regulated by sympathy and empathy. Empathy, which means the public interest, is the source of moral approval. In order to act responsibly, we must direct our emotions toward understanding the state of others. The principle of utility operates in all political affairs.
HUTCHESON (1694-1746)
Francis Hutcheson is a Scottish philosopher and ethical theorist. He is known for his works on moral philosophy and aesthetics. He says that in addition to our five senses, we have various internal senses such as beauty, morality, honor, etc. People understand the difference between good and bad through emotions. People naturally tend to do good actions.
REID (1710-1796)
Thomas Reid is the founder of the Scottish school of common sense. According to Reid, when something is perceived, it is not a set of ideas and impressions, but the thing itself that is directly perceived. All of these constitute what is called the common sense of humanity. They are self-evident, they are the basis of all sciences.
SMITH (1723-1790)
Adam Smith is known as a Scottish economist and philosopher. He is one of the founders of modern economics. Arguing that people's social behaviors are shaped by empathy and emotional ties, Smith examines the concepts of free market, division of labor and productivity in economics.
Moral judgments affect the social relations of individuals. He puts forward a four-stage theory of social development. In the first stage, there is an egalitarian social order of people who live by hunting. The second period is the age of agriculture and farming, land ownership and inequalities occur in this age. The third period is the dominance of large landowners. The fourth period is the commercial society. Politics should ensure the protection and development of the market.