Apologists
The name given to the Christian writers who (c.120–220 first addressed themselves to the task of making a reasoned defence and recommendation of their faith to outsiders. They include Aristides, ...
atomism
A philosophical doctrine at least as old as Democritus, and plausibly viewed as an attempt to combine an a priori conviction of the unchangeable and immutable nature of the world with the variety and ...
Carneades
(c.214–129 bc)The most prominent member of the later Academy after Arcesilaus. Carneades was a distinguished sceptic, famous (especially through the report by Cicero) for impressive speeches at Rome ...
Charles Bradlaugh
(1833–91)British social reformer. A republican and keen supporter of reform movements, he was tried, with Annie Besant, in 1877–78 for printing a pamphlet on birth control. The charge failed and ...
deism
Belief in a god who created the universe but does not govern worldly events, does not answer prayers, and has no direct involvement in human affairs. deist n. One who espouses deism. Compare ...
Diagoras
Of Melos, lyric poet active in Athens in the last decades of the 5th cent. bc (Hermippus fr. 43 K–A; Aristophanes Aves 1071ff., Nubes 828ff.). Renowned for his ‘atheism’ (Cicero ...
Euhemerus
Of Messene, perhaps wrote while in the service of Cassander (311–298bc), but was perhaps active as late as 280 bc. He wrote a novel of travel which was influential in the Hellenistic world. The ...
Friedrich Engels
(1820–95)German socialist and political philosopher, resident chiefly in England from 1842. The founder of modern communism with Karl Marx, he collaborated with him in the writing of the Communist ...
Hippon
Natural philosopher of the Periclean age (5th cent. bc), probably came from Samos. He treated water or the moist as the principle of all things, reasoning chiefly from observation on ...
humanism
[De]A philosophy or ethical system that centres on the concept of the dignity, freedom, and value of human beings. The belief that there is an essential human condition that emerges regardless of ...
intolerance, intellectual and religious
Sir K. Popper famously praised 5th cent. bc Athens as an ‘open society’, but the tolerance of that society had limits. There is some evidence for literary censorship, though of a haphazard and ...
Prodicus
(fl. late 5th c. bc)A sophist from the island of Ceos, mentioned by Plato and Xenophon. He is supposed to have offered a natural explanation of Greek theological belief, thus qualifying as an ...
William Paley
(1743–1805)English theologian and moral philosopher. Paley is remembered for two contributions to natural theology. The first is the sustained defence of the argument to design for the existence of ...
