Philosophers Educational Posters & Prints, “F...-”
individuals who made contributions to the study of knowledge itself.

Ludwig Feuerbach
Johann Gottlieb Fichte

Marsilio Ficino
Charles Fourier

Ludwig Feuerbach, Giclee Print

Ludwig Feuerbach
b. 7-28-1804; Landshut, Lower Bavaria, Holy Roman Empire
d. 9-13-1872; Rechenberg near Nuremberg

Philosopher and anthropologist Ludwig Feuerbach offered a critical analysis of Christianity and was influential in the development of dialectical materialism, bridging the thought between Hegel and Marx.

Ludwig Feuerbach quotes ~
• “Religion is the dream of the human mind. But even in dreams we do not find ourselves in emptiness or in heaven, but on earth, in the realm of reality; we only see real things in the entrancing splendor of imagination and caprice, instead of in the simple daylight of reality and necessity.”
• “My only wish is…to transform friends of God into friends of man, believers into thinkers, devotees of prayer into devotees of work, candidates for the hereafter into students of the world, Christians who, by their own procession and admission, are “half animal, half angel” into persons, into whole persons.”

• Ludwig Feuerbach at Amazon

Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Giclee Print

Johann Gottlieb Fichte
b. 5-19-1762; Rammenau, Saxony
d. 1-27-1814; Berlin

Johann Gottlieb Fichte was one of the founder of the philosophical school known as German idealism, a movement that developed from the theoretical and ethical writings of Immanuel Kant. He is also considered one of the fathers of German nationalism.

Johann Gottlieb Fichte quotes ~
• “Upon the progress of knowledge the whole progress of the human race is immediately dependent: he who retards that, hinders this also.”
• “Humanity may endure the loss of everything: all its possessions may be torn away without infringing its true dignity; — all but the possibility of improvement.”

• Johann Gottlieb Fichte at Amazon

Marsilio Ficino, Giclee Print

Marsilio Ficino
b. 10-19-1433; Figline Valdarno, Tuscany, Italy
d. 10-1-1488; Careggi

Marsilio Ficino, one of the most influential humanist philosophers of the early Italian Renaissance, was in touch with every major academic thinker and writer of his day.

Ficino was the first translator of Plato's complete extant works into Latin, and his Florentine Academy, established by his patron Cosimo de' Medici, an attempt to revive Plato's school. Ficino and the school had enormous influence on the direction and tone of the Italian Renaissance and the development of European philosophy.

He was also an astrologer (which got him accused of magic), a vegetarian, and a priest, as well as a teacher to Lorenzo de' Medici, Pico della Mirandola, and John Dee.

Marsilio Ficino quotes ~
• “Artists in each of the arts seek after and care for nothing but love.”
• “The abstractionist and the materialist thus mutually exasperating each other, and the scoffer expressing the worst of materialism, there arises a third party to occupy the middle ground between these two, the skeptic, namely. He finds both wrong by being in extremes. He labors to plant his feet, to be the beam of the balance.”
• “Books that distribute things... with as daring a freedom as we use in dreams, put us on our feet again.”
• “The civilized man has built a coach, but has lost the use of his feet.”

• Marsilio Ficino at Amazon

Charles Fourier
b. 4-7-1772; Besancon, France
d. 10-10-1837; Paris

Charles Fourier was a utopian philosopher and socialist who is credited with coining the word féminisme (feminism), arguing that “the liberty of women was the general principle of all social progress” and “to elevate the status of manual labor, to rescue it from a long-standing tradition of degradation and denigration”.

Fourier's ideas were inspiration for several utopian community experiments: La Reunion near present day Dallas, TX, North American Phalanx in New Jersey, and Community Place in New York State.

• Charles Fourier at Amazon

Michel Foucault
b. 10-15-1926; Poitiers, France
d. 6-25-1984; Paris

Historian, philosopher and sociologist Michel Foucault was also a professor. Foucault is best remembered for his studies of social institutions and science.

The 2007 Times Higher Education Guide listed Foucault as the most cited intellectual.

Michel Foucault quotes ~
• “Freedom of conscience entails more dangers than authority and despotism.”
• “Prison continues, on those who are entrusted to it, a work begun elsewhere, which the whole of society pursues on each individual through innumerable mechanisms of discipline.”
• “What strikes me is the fact that in our society, art has become something which is only related to objects, and not to individuals, or to life.”
• “As the archeology of our thought easily shows, man is an invention of recent date. And one perhaps nearing its end.”
• “The strategic adversary is fascism ... the fascism in us all, in our heads and in our everyday behavior, the fascism that causes us to love power, to desire the very thing that dominates and exploits us.

Benjamin Franklin
b. 1-17-1706; Boston, MA
d. 4-17-1790; Philadelphia, PA

Benjamin Franklin, one of the leaders of the American Revolution and a Founding Father, was an author, publisher, journalist, public servant, librarian, statesman/diplomat, scientist/inventor, philanthropist, abolitionist, philosopher and early environmentalist.

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