Why are we here? Does it even matter?

I don’t know… and I’m not sure.

Luckily for us, many others have taken questions like these a few steps further and given us centuries of ideas and material to contemplate.

So let’s start by trying to define philosophy. At its core it’s the pursuit of wisdom, a search for understanding about existence, and an attempt to make sense of the nature of reality itself.

This journey has taken different paths across many cultures, shaped by history, geography, and worldview.

There have been many great thinkers and ideas from the indigenous peoples of the world and from the great continent of Africa. But for the purpose of today’s post we’ll be sticking to how philosophy has developed across both Eastern and Western traditions.

Let’s discuss.

A Brief History of Philosophy

From the sages of ancient India and China to the thinkers of classical Greece and modern Europe, philosophy has offered us a method for asking (and occasionally answering) life’s biggest questions.

Eastern Philosophy

Ancient India

Philosophy in India dates back over 3,000 years, rooted in the Vedas, those sacred texts exploring cosmic order, the self (Atman), and the universal reality (Brahman).

Over time, this gave rise to several classical schools of Hindu philosophy, including Vedanta, Samkhya, and Yoga.

Buddhism, founded by Siddhartha Gautama (the Buddha) in the 6th century BCE, questioned the permanence of the self and emphasized the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path as a way to end suffering.

Question: Was Siddhartha gautama a real person?

Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha, was a real historical figure. While the details of his life, particularly the miraculous elements, are debated, most scholars agree that he existed as a spiritual teacher who founded Buddhism. Historians agree that he lived in ancient India around the 6th to 5th centuries BCE.

Ancient China

Chinese philosophy began around the same time, concerned with social harmony, ethical living, and the natural order.

Confucius (6th century BCE) emphasized personal virtue, respect, obedience, care for one’s parents and elders, and a well-ordered society. His ideas laid the foundation for Confucianism.

Taoism, associated with Lao-Tzu and the Tao Te Ching, celebrated the mysterious Tao (Way), spontaneity, and harmony with nature. It encouraged letting go of rigid control and embracing flow.

Later, Zen Buddhism (a fusion of Indian Buddhism and Chinese Taoism) emerged in China and spread to Japan, emphasizing meditation and direct insight into reality beyond words.

Western Philosophy

Ancient Greece

Western philosophy began in the 6th century BCE with thinkers like Thales, who sought natural rather than mythological explanations of the world. Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle later laid the foundation for Western thought.

• Socrates (470–399 BCE) focused on ethics and the examined life.  (He is maybe best known for his association with the Socratic method of question and answer, his claim that he was aware of his own absence of knowledge, and his claim that the unexamined life is not worth living, for human beings.)

• Plato (427–347 BCE) emphasized ideal forms and reason. (These forms, such as “beauty” or “justice,” represent the true essence of things and are accessed through intellect, not the senses. The physical world, according to Plato, is merely a collection of imperfect copies or shadows of these ideal forms.)

• Aristotle (384–322 BCE) explored empirical observation and categorized knowledge in logic, biology, ethics, and politics. (He was actually a student of Plato. His theories span various fields, but a few key areas stand out: as mentioned ethics, logic, metaphysics, and natural philosophy. In ethics, he emphasized virtue. His logic is foundational, introducing formal reasoning. Metaphysics explores the fundamental nature of reality, including his theory of substance (matter and form). In natural philosophy, he explored the elements, motion, and the structure of the universe.

Around the same time, other schools of thought emerged to help people navigate life’s uncertainties. One of the most enduring was Stoicism, founded in the early 3rd century BCE.

Later Stoics like Epictetus, Seneca, and Marcus Aurelius taught that virtue is the highest good and that we should focus only on what we can control, accepting fate with calm rationality. Stoicism emphasized reason, self-mastery, and harmony with nature, ideas still very popular today.

Medieval Philosophy

With the rise of Christianity and Islam, philosophy merged with theology.

Thinkers like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas attempted to reconcile faith and reason. In the Islamic world, philosophers like Avicenna and Averroes preserved and built upon Greek thought, influencing European scholasticism.

Modern Philosophy

The 17th century sparked a shift toward reason and individualism. Thinkers like Descartes, Locke, Hume, and Kant questioned how we know what we know. This laid the groundwork for modern science.

Later, movements like existentialism (Sartre, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard), reshaped Western thought in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Philosophy Today

Today, philosophy is a global affair.

Eastern and Western traditions influence each other more than ever. Questions about consciousness, ethics, artificial intelligence, identity, and even climate change draw insights from across traditions.

Philosophy continues to challenge, inspire, and deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world.

Final Thoughts

This has been a very brief history of philosophy, with each discipline deserving of its own upcoming post.

The history of philosophy is basically a history of our collective thought, with each new school of philosophy taking into consideration what others have previously contemplated.

Whatever the reason is that we’re here…and whatever the answer is to if it matters or not, I think we can agree the pursuit of wisdom is a fascinating journey worth taking.

What do you think? Let me know below, and thanks for reading!

Hermeticism: Ancient Wisdom

Exploring Happiness Across Major Religions

Check out the Happy Hub Etsy Shop.

Please visit and follow Happy Hub’s Instagram page.

Check out the Happy Hub YouTube Channel.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by JR (@happyhub.ca)