Western philosophy -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia

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Western philosophy, history of Western philosophy from its development among the ancient Greeks to the present.

This article has three basic purposes: (1) to provide an overview of the history of philosophy in the West, (2) to relate philosophical ideas and movements to their historical background and to the cultural history of their time, and (3) to trace the changing conception of the definition, the function, and the task of philosophy.

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early Christian thought (in Christianity: The contemporary social, religious, and intellectual world)
If ancient religion was tolerant, the philosophical schools were seldom so. Platonists, Aristotelians, Stoics, Epicureans, and Skeptics tended to be very critical of one another. By the 1st century bc, an eclecticism emerged; and by the 2nd century ad, there developed a common stock of philosophy shared by most educated people and by some professional philosophers, which derived metaphysics...
Rome (in education: Higher education)
...with unusual vocations. To be sure, the philosophical work of Cicero had the same ambition as his oratorical work and proved by its existence that it was possible to philosophize in Latin, but philosophy found no successors to Cicero as rhetoric did. There was never a Latin school for philosophy. Of course, Rome did not lack philosophers, but many used Greek as their means of expression...

Greece

Athens (in Athens (Greece): Athens at its zenith)
Meanwhile, the philosophy schools flourished. Plato (c. 428–348/347 bc) established himself in the Academy, a gymnasium that had existed since at least the 6th century bc in the great olive grove about a mile west of the city. Plato himself had a house and garden nearby. Aristotle and his Peripatetics occupied the Lyceum, another gymnasium, just outside the city to the east,...
Hellenistic education (in education: Higher education)
Philosophy and rhetoric were subjects of education most highly institutionalized. Although philosophy was taught privately by individual masters-lecturers—who could be either itinerants or residents of one place—these teachers were well organized and, in groups, possessed a kind of institutional character. On the model of Plato’s Academy, the new Athenian schools of...
literature (in Greek literature: Philosophical prose)
Prose as a medium of philosophy was written as early as the 6th century. Practitioners include Anaximander, Anaximenes, Heracleitus, Anaxagoras, and Democritus. Philosophical prose was the greatest literary achievement of the 4th century. It was influenced by Socrates (who himself wrote nothing) and his characteristic method of teaching by question and answer, which led naturally to the...

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The following is a selection of items (artistic styles or groups, constructions, events, fictional characters, organizations, publications) associated with "Western philosophy"