Introduction
The term “continental philosophy” was first widely used to describe university courses in the 1970s, emerging as a collective name for the philosophies then widespread in France and Germany, such as phenomenology, existentialism, structuralism, and post structuralism. It thus came to be adopted by English-speaking philosophers influenced by such schools. Continental philosophy encompasses a distinct set of philosophical traditions and practices, with a compelling range of problems all too often ignored by the analytic tradition.
He discusses the ideas and approaches of philosophers such as Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, Habermas, Foucault, and Derrida, and introduces key concepts such as existentialism, nihilism, and phenomenology by explaining their place in the Continental tradition.They is kind of inter-related. Ancient Greek philosophy gave the early Christians the vocabulary to describe the experience of Christianity; and Christianity gave Philosophy some ideas it hadn’t thought of before. For example, the Christological controversies in the first few centuries (i.e. the arguing about how could Jesus be both God and Man) allowed philosophers to better conceptualize what “having personhood” and “having human nature” meant.
More over, the over whelming majority of educated and uneducated Christians through – out history have been dualists in two senses: they have embraced interactionist dual ism regarding God and the material world, and they have accepted the reality of the souls of men and beasts, as it used to be put. Thus, theologian H. D. Lewis felt free to say with out qualification: “Through out the centuries Christians have believed that each human per son consists in a soul and body; that the soul survived the death of the body; and that its future life will be immortal.”
The rise of Christianity in philosophy
Constantine and the Rise of Christianity
By the second century A.D., Christianity and Hellenism had come into close contact in the eastern Mediterranean. In the early fourth century, the policies of Emperor Constantine the Great institutionalized the connection and lent a lasting Greek influence to the church that emerged. Although Christianity was initially practiced within Semitic populations of the Roman Empire, by the first century A.D. Greeks also had learned of the teachings of Christ. In that period, the epistles of Paul to the Ephesians and the Corinthians and his preaching to the Athenians were all aimed at a Greek audience.
Other early Christian theological writers such as Clement of Alexandria and Origin attempted to fuse Christian belief with Greek philosophy, establishing the Greek world as the home of gentile Christianity.
I personally don’t think that there is much room in ‘organized religion’ of any kind for philosophy, the question is not the rise of Christianity in philosophy but the rise of philosophy in Christianity because the ability to philosophize-to be able to think of any and all possibilities, to think outside the box and more, to be calm and logical, to think for yourself- is not really something that most ‘organized religions’ are able to do well as they believe what they are told is true, and don’t always question it and don’t endorse questioning as you will tell from organized religions history of violence and forcing of beliefs philosophy by its very nature and description can not have any religion ‘rise’ in its views, it would not be philosophy then it would just be another version of organized religion however i see that there are many individuals branching out from their religions and adapting philosophical views as well as their religious ones and this includes Christians, this is where the rise of philosophy is in play in Christianity, more and more people are willing to go out and see and learn for themselves instead of being told and simply believing, more and more people question, its part of human nature to question, to want to learn more and no organized religion in the world is capable of taking that away from people.
Key contributors to Christianity’s impact on philosophy
Vico’s intellectual development
Plato was deeply impressed with the clarity and absolute certainty of the truths of mathematics, so much so that he would allow only men who respected Mathematics to enter his academy. But the application of mathematics to empirical subject-matters did not interest him at all. He considered the study of empirical science, such as, astronomy, merely as a stepping-stone to the study of mathematics.
Hence his (from a modern point of view) peculiar insistence that the proper way of studying astronomy is not to look at the heavens and the positions of the celestial bodies, but to contemplate with the intellectual eye the geometrical forms which astronomical constellations imperfectly embody. But as we have seen in the preceding chapter, the propositions of mathematics have, in so far as they are reducible to tautologies, no special subject-matter consisting of physically unobservable abstract entities.
Scientific knowledge, in the modern sense of the term, begins only when our logical and mathematical tools are applied to descriptive sentences which refer to observable phenomena and hence are empirically testable. All empirical testing involves sense-perception. Hence the analysis of linguistically formulated knowledge, which has stood in the foreground of the attention of analytic philosophers since Descartes (“epistemology,” so-called) leads us to the analysis of sense perception.
Principle Christianized philosophical issues
Christianity has its roots in Judaism which is based on God’s Law as given to Moses. The Mosaic or ceremonial laws were the old system of feasts and sacraments (animal sacrifices) which foreshadowed the coming of Messiah (Jesus). Human philosophy was a product of the Greek empire which had fallen to Roman rule around 330 BC. The teachings and beliefs of both the Greeks and the Romans posed a threat the Judaism belief system. All of Jesus’ teachings were based solely on the Law. During the time of the Roman occupation, tee Christian movement found its way back into Rome and Greece, primarily through Saul of Tarsus (who re-named himself Paul the Apostle). Saul was a Jewish Pharisee who was converted to Christianity by a vision from God.
Reference
- Burke, P. Vico, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1985.
- Lemon.M.C Philosophy of History: A Guide for Students. Contributors Publisher: Routledge. Place of Publication: New York. Publication Year: 2003. Page Number: 168.