Philosophy Paper Essay

One of the nearly heated debates that troubled the church in the Middle Ages was the question of universals. This question goes back as far as Platos Forms. It has to do with the likenessship betwixt the abstr make believe and oecumenic concepts that we go in our minds (what is the sexual relationship between Chair with a capitol C and guide with a sm tout ensemble c? ). And from this, deuce radical fancypoints emerged, strongists and the nominalists. The realists followed Plato in insistency that each universal is an entity in its own indemnify, and exists independently of the individual things that get h former(a) to bulgeicipate in it.An extreme form of realism flourished in the church from the ninth to the twelfth centuries. Among its advocates were John Scotus, Erigena, Anselm and William of Champeaux. On the opposite face were the nominalists and they held that universals were exactly names, and therefore, be in possession of no verifiable status apart from th at which is fabricated in the mind. Nominalists, such as Gabriel Biel and William of Occam (see O section), said that the individual is the just now real substance. Unfortunately, their treatment of nominalism removed religion almost entirely from the argona of movement and made it a matter of faith beyond the comprehension of reason.1 And here lies the signifi corporationce of the French theologian Peter Abelard (1079-1142). Between the two extremes, Peter Abelard proposed a more than check into form of nominalism. Though dinky of the idea of the separate existence of universals, he nevertheless believed that resemblances among particular things confirm the use of universals for establishing go to sleepledge. More proper(postnominal) exclusivelyy, Abelard proposed that we ground the similarities among individual things without reifying their universal features, by predicating general terms in conformity with concepts abstracted from experience.This resolution (which wou ld later let to be know as conceptualism) of the usageal difficulty of universals gained wide credenza for several centuries, until doubts active the objectivity and reality of such mental entities as concepts came under serious question. Thomas doubting Thomas favored a moderate realism which rejected the view that universals exist apart from individual entities in favor of the view that they do indeed exist, nevertheless hardly in actual entities. 2 Anaximander (Milesian civilise) Anaximander (610-547/6 B. C.) was peerless of the 1-third key figures that comprised the Milesian School (the three prominent figures associated with the Milesian School is Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes). Together, they worked on problems concerning the reputation of matter and the temper of convert, and they each proposed a antithetical poppycock as the special main(prenominal). 3 Anaximander seemed to be quite young in his view of reality. He believed that the earth was cylind rical alike a drum, and that the earth rested on nonhing. He also invented an undefined non-substance, c wholeed the apeiron, a neutral, indeterminate throw that was infinite in amount.Anaximenes (Milesian School) Anaximenes (546 B. C. ), the otherwise member of the Milesian School, returned back to the idea that everything derives from a single substance, solely suggested that substance was air. Though it is likely his choice was motivated by wanting(p) to maintain a balance between the two views of his predecessors, Anaximenes did provide warm grounds for his choosing scratch line, air, has the advantage of non being restricted to a specific and defined nature as water, and therefore more capable of transforming itself into the bully mixture of objects around us.Second, air is a more likely book of facts of this variety than Anaximanders apeiron which seems too empty and vacuous a stuff to be capable of giving rise to such a variety and profusion. 4 Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury In (452 A. D. ), twenty-two old age after Augustines death, capital of Italy fell, hireing on a period of conquest and chaos, and degree of hallow was last-ditchly realized finished the emergence of feudalism. The church, which had managed to survive the social and governing bodyal upheaval, gradually assumed responsibilities that forwardly had been relegated to the civil government.This involvement in government led in turn to the temporalization of the church. Bishops became ministers of the res publica, and church dignitaries became warriors. In the ten percent and eleventh centuries, umpteen within the church were so involved with the blasphemous world that a movement led to the emergence of the monastic sojournliness as a force within the church. Those who wanted to escape the temptations of the secular world and pursue holiness were graphicly drawn to the monasteries and among those who followed was Anselm (1033-1109), the archbishop of Canterbury . The superior Christian thinker between Augustine and Thomas Aquinas was Anselm (1033-1109).He was born to a wealthy family in northern Italy, whom, to their disappointment, left home in (1056) to amply dedicate his livelihood to perfection. Following a period of travel, he arrived at the Norman Abbey at Bec, where he took his monastic vows in (1060). Within a fewer years, he became prior of the abbey, abbot in (1078), and so archbishop in (1093), which he held until his death. His belles-lettres range from treatises on logic to an explanation of the ecclesiastic inner logic of the at sensationment in Cur deus homo. Anselm stood in the tradition of Augustine and Platonic realism. 5Following the tradition of Augustine, he held that faith precedes and imparts to collar, and, like many other medieval thinkers he drew no shrewdly distinction between doctrine and divinity. In his famous onto sensible sway for the existence of paragon, Anselm presents a defense based on the fact that it is at odds(p) to deny that there exists a massive possible being. 6 He cl repels that the more universality, the more reality. And from here it follows that if perfection is the most universal being, he is also the most real if He is the absolutely universal being, he is also the absolutely real being, ens realissimum.He has, therefore, according to the conception of Him, non scarce the comparatively greatest reality, nevertheless also the absolute reality. A reality in which no greater cease be thought. 7 Aquinas, Thomas By common consent the greatest philosophical theologian of the Middle Ages was Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274). Everything or so him was big. In his later years his voluminous writings, capacious in scope, won him the title of the Angelic Doctor. His life was dedicated to the capable defense and propagation of the faith, as he unsounded it.It was during his teaching career (1252) in Paris that Aquinas, being drawn into the decisive debates of h is day, graduati aned battling the objections posed against Aristotelianism and its place in the university. By this time, Plato was known only through the imperfect translations of the Timaeus, the Phaedo, and the Meno. Islamic Jewish thinkers were much intermit acquaint with Aristotle, and for nearly two centuries they had been wrestling with questions posed by Aristotelianism to sacred faith. For Aquinas and his Christian contemporaries the issue was doubly acute. On the one hand, there were questions posed by Aristotles way of idea.On the other hand, there were the answers already given by Islamic and Jewish scholars which were precisely acceptable to a Christian thinker. Aquinas decided to face the problem head on. He made his own study of Aristotle, on whom he wrote extensively. He also made his own study of non-Christian thinkers. He subjected all ideas to rigorous scrutiny, giving due recognition to the truth of ideas, wherever they came from, but giving his own evalua tion of every issue, point by point. In all, Aquinas produced about a hundred antithetic writings. His work ranged from philosophical commentaries to hymns.8 Aquinas main works are two massive Summae or compends of theology and philosophy. The Summa contra Gentiles was designed as a textbook for missionaries, and the Summa Theologiae has been set forth as the highest achievement of medieval theological systematization and is still the trustworthy basis of modern Re organise theology. In Aquinas proofs (what later came to be known as the Cosmological and Teleological arguments), certain facts about nature are compelling evidences of beau ideals existence. He argues, accordingly, that nothing can adequately account for the fact of motion or change.Rejecting the idea that change or motion is scarcely an net, mysterious fact of nature uncomplete requiring nor permitting any explanation except matinee idol, its Unmoved Prime Mover. Furthermore, in his tailfin arguments, Aquinas suggests that the Christian belief in God is completely unvarying with the world as we know it. Aquinas arguments, known also as the Five Ways are sometimes referred to as the proofs of the existence of God. barely this is not necessarily correct because Aquinas did not try to upraise the existence of God by rational argument, but to provide a rational defense for an already existing faith in God.His primary reason for believing in the existence in God is Gods revelation of Himself. Aquinas expects his readers to share the same faith. He does not expect that he will welcome to prove anything to them initiative. This point is primary(prenominal) because many connoisseurs accuse believers of grounding their faith in outdated arguments, such as Thomas Aquinas. It is proper, therefore, to respond to such criticisms by pointing out that they are based on a superficial reading and on a serious misunderstanding of how individuals come to faith.9 The elementary header point Aquina s throughout the Five Proofs is the principal of analogy, which holds the world as we know it mirrors God, its creator. The structure of each of Aquinas proofs is quite similar. Each depends on ghost a casual sequence back to its ultimate origin and identifying this ultimate origin with God. The branch begins with the observation that things in the world are in motion or change. Second is the concept of causation. The third concerns the existence of point beings.The fourth deals with mankind values, and lastly, is the teleological argument, in which Aquinas explains how the world shows light(a) traces of intelligent design. Natural processes and objects seem to be adapted with certain explicit objectives in mind. They seem to deport purpose. They seem to have been designed. Arguing from this observation, Aquinas concludes that it is rational to believe in God. 10 Aristotle Aristotles thought, like his learn Plato, embodied the concept of arete, which taught that charitable excellence in all things was an meaning(a) goal that should direct human purposes.For Aristotle, that excellence ideally exemplified the defining eccentric of human nature, the pursuit of reason. Attracted by science and believing that the foundation could be explained, Aristotle greatly valued the work of Thales of Miletus, and accepted his concept that the physical universe operated rationally and in a way that was knowable to human beings. From Anaximander, Aristotle took the view that a balance of force existed in nature that made things what they were. Aristotle was also knowledgeable about the atomic surmisal of Parmenides andwas intrigued by the question of what was lasting and what was changing. Indeed, these Greek scientists had a significant mold on Aristotles intellectual search to examine and explain reality. 11 For Aristotle, the world in which we live is the world that we experience through our senses. Unlike those who followed Plato, Aristotle believed that we l ive in an objective order of reality, a world of objects that exist external to us and our subtile of them. Through our senses and our reason, human beings can come to know these objects and develop generalizations about their structure and function.Truth is a correspondence between the intellectfulnesss mind and external reality. Theoretical knowledge based on human observation is the best guide to human behavior. And, while human beings have various careers, they all share the most important factor, the exercise of rationality. primer coat gives human beings the potentiality of leading lives that are self-determined. Congruent with his metaphysical and epistemological perspective, Aristotles honorable theory portrays the level-headed life as that of bliss (eudaimonia).He believed that the ultimate good for the human being was happiness, activity in accordance to virtue. The virtuous life is one in which sues are part of a consciously formulated plan that takes a mean, a w armness ground course, avoiding extremes. 12 For example, true courage would be the choice that avoids the extremes of cowardliness and rashness. And what decides the right course to take is the virtue of diplomacy (phronesis). Good is the aim of every action but, given the fact that goods can be logical in relation to one another, there must be a highest good to which practical wisdom directs us.And if the possession of any good is what makes us happy to some extent, the possession of the highest good is the highest happiness, the ultimate goal of all our actions. 13 At this point, it is difficult to resist the thought that Aristotles whim of the intellectual life being the gateway to happiness and virtue is not an shallow one. But, though there are some elements in his demo that are unclear, this much is clear that this happiness, which is the possession of the good, is ultimately an act of observation, or ofbeholding, the good. But to contemplate the good is to enter into un ion with it.Therefore, if contemplating on matinee idol meat entering into union with the life of the gods, this is the highest activity of man and his ultimate happiness. The conclusion of the Ethics is one with the Metaphysics, in which the divine element in a man coincides with the possession of god by an act of thought, called contemplation, which is the most pleasant and best we can perform.In Eudemian Ethics, Aristotle says, What choice, then, or possession of the natural goods whether bodily goods, wealth, friends, or other things will most produce the contemplation of God, that choice or possession is best this is the noblest standard, but any that through deficiency or excess hinders one from the contemplation and service of God is bad this man possess in his soul, and this is the best standard for the soul. 14 With statements like this one cant help but interrogate what Aristotles response would have been if he would have had the opportunity to advert the one true G od, who is worthy of such adoration and praise.Whats more, Aristotle categorised virtues as either moral or intellectual. Moral virtue, though not easy to define, is a habit by which the individual exercises a careful choice, one that a rational person would make. Moral virtues lead to moderation, dropping between excess and inhibition. They focus on the concrete actions a person performs and the measured sense he has regarding them to feel them at the right times, with generator to the right objects, towards the right people, with the right motive, and in the right way. A good action thus exhibits due proportion, neither excessive nor defective, but halfway between them. This is Aristotles tenet of the mean. Peculiarly, a virtuous action is one that lies between too much and too little. To give another example, in regard to the feeling of shame, modesty is the mean between bashfulness and shamelessness. not every virtue, however, is a mean, and so not every action is to be me asured in this way. Nonetheless, every action should and can at least be measured in its goodness by the virtue of prudence or, in a larger sense, by practical wisdom. 15.Furthermore, one of Aristotles most significant contributions to the Western world is his Poetics. His earlier works, Physics and Metaphysics tick important statements about art and nature, and Rhetoric, written after Poetics, distinguishes rhetoric as a practical art and has had a strong influence on literary criticism. His Poetics, nonetheless, is particularly important because Aristotle is make senseressing Platos doctrines on ideas and forms he came to differ with. In Poetics, it was Aristotles intention to classify and categorize systematically the kinds of literary art, beginning with epic and tragic drama.Unfortunately, not all of the poetics survived, and it generates transfer ahead the discussion of comedy. Nonetheless, our sense of Aristotles method is established. He is the first critic to attempt a systematic discourse of literary genres. 16 Augustine (Saint), of river horse One of the greatest thinkers of not only the early church, but of all time is Augustine of Hippo (354-430 A. D. ). His writings laid the foundation not only for Western theology but for later philosophy as well.His three books On Free Will (388-395), set out a doctrine of creation, evil and the human will which was a superior alternative to the oddball of thinking that had attracted so many to Gnosticism and Manichaean dualism. His response to the Donatist schism in the church set the pattern for the Western doctrine of the church. His writings on the subject of Pelagianism clarified, as no one onward him and few after him, the crucial issues in the question of grace and free will. His study theological writings include On the Trinity (399-419), which presented better models for thinking about the Trinity than those of the Greek forefathers.Augustines book On the metropolis of God (413-416) was a r eply to those who blame the church for the fall of Rome, in which it gave twain a panoramic view of history and a theology of history in terms of the basic conflict between the divine society and the earthly society. 17 Interestingly, Augustine put forth a theory of time that Bertrand Russell would later pronounce superior to earlier views and much better than the subjective theory of Kant. Augustines account of how we can learn linguistic communication provided Wittgensteins starting point for his Philosophical Investigations.In answering uncertainty Augustine put forth an argument which anticipated Descartes cognito ergo sum without falling into the pitfalls commonly associated with the argument. Furthermore, Augustine believed that philosophical admonition may correct mistaken notions, lead to a grasp of truth, and serve to clarify belief. But rational reflection is not a substitute for the beatific vision of God. For it is the apprehension of God alone which transforms hum an life and alone satisfies our deepest needs. Though Augustine was deeply influenced by Platonism and Neoplatonism, he never was simply a Platonist.His view of the soul stands in the Platonic tradition, but he repudiated the doctrines of pre-existence and transmigration. Augustines view of the exceptional spiritual reality might also be said to have affinities with Plato, but Augustines approach was not an attempt to erect an construction of Christian theology on either Platonic or Neoplatonic foundations. Rather, it was to state the Christian worldview in a theological and philosophical system that cohered as a unified whole. 18 (B) (back to top) Bentham, Jeremy In nineteenth century dainty England two contrasting systems were developed by Jeremy Bentham and Herbert Spencer.Utilitarians Bentham and John Stuart Mill employ naturalistic presuppositions in their worldview. Herbert Spencer applied the concept of evolution. And Ernest Mach prepared the way for logical positivism in his strongly anti-metaphysical scientific approach. The antithesis of the Kantian ideal is utileism, an ethical theory founded by Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832). Bentham was a hedonist. Taking the good to be pleasure, Bentham proposed a brand- newborn model for morality in his principal of utility, which holds that Actions are right in proportion to the amount of happiness it brings wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness.19 Utilitarianism is a form of consequentialism. The ends justify the means since actions are judged on the results they bring, not on the persons intentions or motives. For Kant, the end result was not important in determining the rightness of an action, rather, it was motive. 20 In its simplest form utilitarianism teaches that the right action is the one that promotes the greatest happiness. Modern utilitarianism dates from Thomas Hobbes in the seventeenth century, but its antecedents date as far back as (341-270 B. C. ) to the philosophy of Epicuru s of Samos.The theory of utilitarianism actually held little influence until John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) who popularized the term and produced the classical Victorian description of the doctrine. Mill used the principal of utility to critique all social, political, and religious institutions. Anything that did not promote the greatest happiness of the greatest enactment was to be challenged and reformed. For this reason social and religious institutions that curtail individual liberty should be reformed. This is necessary, argued Mill, in order for freedom of belief, association and expression to be safeguarded. 21. unalike conceptions of happiness separated Mills version Better a Socrates dissatisfied than a pig satisfied, which recognized qualitative differences between different kinds of pleasure, from Benthams forthright attempt to reduce all questions of happiness to the continent presence of pleasure or pain. Benthams version aims to render the basic concepts of ethics sus ceptible of comparison and measurement, but this was not the goal in Mills presentation of the system. 22 A hedonistic utilitarian like Bentham would say that the sole consideration is the quantity of pleasure that an action produces.A problem with this approach, however, (as if it wasnt obvious) is that it draws no distinction in principal between an evening spent at the bars or one spent having quality time with your spouse. It all depends upon the tastes of the person. Berkley, George George Berkeley (Irish, 1685-1753) was one of the three greatest British empiricists of the eighteenth century (Locke and Hume being the other two). Though his father was an Englishman, Berkley always considered himself Irish. He was an early subjectivist idealist philosopher, who argued that all qualities of objects exist only in the mind of the descryr.His famous theory is often summarized, esse est percipi, to be is to be perceived, and is still important to modern apologetics (due to the method he used in demonstrating the necessity of an eternal Perceiver). Berkleys argument was that the phenomena of visual sensation can all be explained without presupposing the reality of the external material substances. Interestingly, Berkley was also a bishop of an Anglican church, and was the only important philosopher to visit America before 1900. He came hoping to start a missionary training college for evangelizing to the Indian tribes of New England.23 Berkley disagreed with Locke in that there is a material substance lying nookie and supporting perceptions. He also disagreed with his treatment of the representative theory of perception, that material objects are perceived mediately by means of ideas, and the mind does not perceive the material object directly, but only through the medium of the ideas formed by the senses and reflection on them. If we know only our ideas, reasoned Berkeley then we can never be sure whether any of them are real like the material qualities of ob jects, since we can never compare the ideas with them. For that reason, he denied the ultimate existence of material substance believing that the Spirit is the only metaphysical reality. 24 (D) (back to top) Derrida, Jacques Jacques Derrida (1930-2004) was a French literary critic and founder of the give lessons called deconstructionism. His (1966) lecture Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences delivered at Johns Hopkins University, play a significant role in ushering American critics into the era of poststructuralism. special(prenominal) influences on his thought include Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Freud.He wrote prolifically, and had a great influence on not only literary criticism but in sociology, linguistics, and psychology as well. Derrida regarded philosophical and literary texts as already containing the seeds of their own deconstruction. This means that in any work the author unwittingly includes contradictions, art spots, and unjustified assumpti ons. The main purpose and task of the deconstructionist, according to Derrida, is to simply bring these contradictions to the surface. 25 Beginning in the Victorian Age, a paradigm transport slowly spread throughout Europe that set the groundwork for modern theory.Unlike the revolutionary movements of the Renaissance and Romanticism, which were in part reactionary, this paradigm slip that pronounced a radical break from the past had little precedent. Nonetheless, it marked a rejection of long-held metaphysical and aesthetic beliefs that most theorists from Plato to Coleridge took for granted. Until the modern period, most of the great Western philosophers have been logocentric in their thinking, and Derrida is one of the ones responsible for this definite break from the past, bringing forth the notion that meaning is never fixed.Dr. Louis Markos, a Christian Professor at Houston Baptist University, made some interesting comments on Derrida in one of his lectures on deconstructioni sm. He said that Derrida reads the history of Western metaphysics as a continual search for a logos or pilot light presence. This logos is sought because it promises to give meaning and purpose to all things, to act as a universal center. Behind this search is a believe for a higher reality (or full presence).Western philosophy since Plato has simply renamed this presence and shifted this center without breaking from its centering impulse. Even Saussures structuralism sought a center, and though he broke from the old metaphysic, he still used its terminology and binaries. Furthermore, Derrida deconstructs all attempts to posit a center or to establish a system of binaries. Instead, he puts in their place a full free play of meaning. 26 Democritus (see Leucippus) Descartes, Rene The first great continental rationalist27 was Rene Descartes (Frenchman, 1596-1650).For it was he who defined the terms and laid checkmate the agenda for the continental rationalist school of thought. But in a sense, the world that Descartes produced, by the exercise of pure reason, was a fairly honest forward affair Descartes does preserve the self in a recognizable form, as well as both God (even though it is not a terribly human sort of God) and the material world in a broadly speaking recognizable form (even though it might be a material world deprived of some of its more vivid and colorful attributes).Nevertheless, the worlds created by the application of the procedure of rationalism start from some self-evident propositions (like Euclids geometry) and then carry out processes of absolute, forthwith forward deduction from these self-evident propositions and what that led to in the case of de de Spinoza and Leibniz is something very far removed in both of them from the ordinary understanding of the world. To some extant, Descartes, by comparison with them, is in the business of saving the appearances. Whereas both Spinoza and Leibniz say that what the world is really like is very different from what it appears to the ordinary person to be.Nonetheless, there is still in both cases (Descartes and Spinoza and Leibniz) an underlying reality that philosophy can tell us something about reality even if common observation cannot. 28 His two question philosophical works were Discourse on Method (1637) and his Meditations (1641). His ideal and method were modeled on mathematics. He is sometimes portrayed as the first modern philosopher due to his break with the traditional Scholastic-Aristotelian philosophy and for introducing a new mechanistic science. 29 In refurbishing the medieval proofs for the existence of God he was drawing upon the legacy of the Middle Ages.Like the Medieval philosophers, he was evoke in metaphysics, and to the end of his life, Descartes remained a nominal Catholic. But there is a sense in which Descartes represents a new departure. Descartes (so it seems) was interested in God not for his own sake, but the worlds. God is invoked as a k ind of dues ex machine to guarantee the validity of our thoughts about the world. 30 Nonetheless, Descartes takes his place as a Christian thinker by resting cognitive truth on the personal truth of God, and laying the blame for misapprehension not on God but on the exercise of the human will.Descartes successors eventually lost their reliance for truth. George Berkeley retains it by tracing directly to God all the ideas we receive from outside the mind and Leibniz by making each mind mirror eternal truths in the mind of God. But many Enlightenment thinkers, and many empiricists today who share some of Descartes rational ideals or the correspondence theory of truth, talk to truth independently of God as if it were a self-sustaining ideal and as if human reason were a purely objective and impersonal activity.Descartes failure was not in the relation he saw of truth to God, but in the lack of relation he saw between mans rational talent for knowing truth and his personality as a who le. 31 (F) (back to top) Fibonacci His real name was Leonardo Pisano (Italian, 1170-1250) but he is better known by his nickname Fibonacci (filius Bonacci), which means son of Bonacci. A striking example of Fibonaccis genius is his observation that the classification of irrationals given by Euclid in sustain X of the Elements did not include all irrationals. Fibonacci is probably best known for his rabbit problem. Leonardo Fibonacci began the study of this sequence by posing the adjacent problem in his book, Liber Abaci, How many pairs of rabbits will be produced in a year, beginning with a single pair? 32 The analogy that starts with one pair of rabbits who give birth to a new pair from the first month on, and every succeeding pair gives birth to a new pair in the second month after their birth. Fibonacci shows that this leads to the sequences 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377, and so on. As one can see, each term is the sum of the two previous terms.For exampl e, 2 + 3 = 5 and 3 + 5 = 8, and the farther and farther you go to the right of this sequence, the ratio of a term to the one before it will get closer and closer to the opulent Ratio. Additionally, this same principal also applies to that of the well-to-do rectangle. The connection between the Golden Ratio and the Fibonacci serial is fascinating, and is very simple to understand. If you take a Golden Rectangle, and cut off a square with side lengths equal to the length shorter to the rectangle side, then what dust is another Golden Rectangle. This could go on forever.You can just follow cutting off these big squares and getting smaller and smaller Golden Rectangles. Consequently, the idea with the Fibonacci series is to do the same thing in reverse. You start with a square (1 by 1), find the longer side, and then add a square of that size to the whole thing to form a new rectangle. Therefore, when we start with a (1 by 1) square the longest side is one, so we add another squar e to it. As a result, we have accumulated a (2 by 1) rectangle. Then the longest side is 2, so we connect a (2 by 2) square to our (2 by 1) rectangle to get a (3 by 2) rectangle.As this continues, the sides of the rectangle will always be a serial Fibonacci number, and eventually the rectangle will be very close to a Golden Rectangle. To translate in more illustrative terms, the ratio of two ensuant be in the Fibonacci series, as aforementioned, if divided by each number before it, will result in the following series of numbers 1/1 = 1, 2/1 = 2, 3/2 = 1. 5, 5/3 = 1. 666, 8/5 = 1. 6, 13/8 = 1. 625, 21/13 = 1. 61538. The ratio that is settling down to a particular value is the palmy ratio or the golden number, which has a value of approximately 1.618034. 33 Fichte, Johann Gottlieb Johann Gottlieb Fichte (German, 1762-1814) was one of the major figures in German philosophy in between Kant and Hegel. He was regarded as one of Kants most talented philosophers, but later developed a s ystem of his own transcendental philosophy called the Wissenschaftslehre. Fichte had immense influence on his contemporaries, especially during his professorship at the University of Jenna, a position he held for five years (1794-1799) before taking up a profes.