John Locke (1632-1704)
Biography and commentary on Locke's works and philosophy, from the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
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René Descartes
Excerpt from the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
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Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889- 1951) Table of Contents (Clicking on the links below will take you to that part of this article) Life Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus Ethics and Religion Conception of Philosophy Meaning Rules and Private Language Realism and Anti-Realism Certainty Continuity Wittgenstein in History Annotated Bibliography Life Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein, born on April 26th 1889 in ...
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Epicurus (342-270 BCE.)
Biographical information on Epicurus in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
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George Berkeley
George Berkeley (1685-1753) Table of Contents (Clicking on the links below will take you to that part of this article) Life and Writings Early Views The Principles and The Three Dialogues. Existence of Self, Other Minds, and God Later Idealism: Siris. Ethics Sources Life and Writings Berkeley was born at Dysert Castle, near Thomastown, Ireland, on March 12, 1685. He studied at Trinity College ...
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Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) Table of Contents (Clicking on the links below will take you to that part of this article) Life Writings The Summa Part I: God The Summa Part II: Ethics The Summa Part III: Christ The Sacraments Life The birth-year of Thomas Aquinas is commonly given as 1227, but he was probably born early in 1225 at his father's castle of Roccasecea (75 m. e.s.e. of Rome) in ...
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John Dewey (1859-1952)
Biography by Richard Field in The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. This lengthy entry contains sections on Dewey's life and works, theory of knowledge, metaphysics, ethical and social theory, aesthetics, critical reception and influence, and bibliography.
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Epictetus
Epictetus (c.55 - c.135 C.E.) Epictetus (pronounced Epic-TEE-tus) was an exponent of Stoicism who flourished in the early second century C.E. about four hundred years after the Stoic school of Zeno of Citium was established in Athens. He lived and worked, first as a student in Rome, and then as a teacher with his own school in Nicopolis in Greece. Our knowledge of his philosophy and his method ...
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Edmund Husserl
Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) Edmund Husserl, a leader of the German phenomenological movement, taught at G ttingen from 1901 until 1916, and then at Freiburg im Breisgau from 1916 to 1928. This article presents (A) his biography; (B) various strategies for interpreting his phenomenology; and (c) a survey of his major works. Table of Contents (Clicking on the links below will take you to that part ...
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Stoicism
Stoicism Table of Contents (Clicking on the links below will take you to that part of this article) General Description Stoic Logic Stoic Physics Stoic Ethics General Description The term Stoicism derives from the Greek word stoa, referring to a colonnade, such as those built outside or inside temples, around dwelling-houses, gymnasia, and market-places. They were also set up separately as ...
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Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) Sigmund Freud, physiologist, medical doctor, psychologist and father of psychoanalysis, is generally recognised as one of the most influential and authoritative thinkers of the twentieth century. Working initially in close collaboration with Joseph Breuer, Freud elaborated the theory that the mind is a complex energy-system, the structural investigation of which is ...
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Chinese Room Argument
The Chinese Room Argument The Chinese room argument - John Searle's (1980a) thought experiment and associated (1984) derivation - is one of the best known and widely credited counters to claims of artificial intelligence (AI), i.e., to claims that computers do or at least can (someday might) think. According to Searle's original presentation, the argument is based on two truths: brains cause ...
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Ethics
Ethics The field of ethics, also called moral philosophy, involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior. Philosophers today usually divide ethical theories into three general subject areas: metaethics, normative ethics, and applied ethics. Metaethics investigates where our ethical principles come from, and what they mean. Are they merely social ...
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Jeremy Bentham
Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) Table of Contents (Clicking on the links below will take you to that part of this article) Life Method Human Nature Moral Philosophy Political Philosophy Bibliography of Bentham's Work Life A leading theorist in Anglo-American philosophy of law and one of the 'founders' of utilitarianism, Jeremy Bentham was born in Houndsditch, in London, on 15 February 1748. He was ...
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Benedict (Baruch) Spinoza
Benedict (Baruch) Spinoza (1632- 1677) Table of Contents (Clicking on the links below will take you to that part of this article) Life Spinoza's Pantheism and Method in the Ethics God is the Only Substance God does not Willfully direct the Course of Nature Life Benedict (Baruch) Spinoza (1632-1677) was the son of a Jewish merchant from Amsterdam. His father and grandfather were originally ...
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German Idealism
German Idealism The Movement Characterized. The term German Idealism refers to a phase of intellectual life that had its origin in the Enlightenment as modified by German conditions. English and French representatives of the Enlightenment, giving precedence to sensation, had become empiricists and skeptics. They viewed the world as a great machine, adopted hedonism as their ethics, and ...
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Anaximander
Anaximander (c. 610-546 BCE). Anaximander was the author of the first surviving lines of western philosophy. He speculated and argued about 'the Boundless' as the origin of all that is. He also worked on the fields of what we now call geography and biology. Moreover, Anaximander was the first speculative astronomer. He originated the world-picture of the open universe, which replaced the closed ...
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Augustine
Augustine (354-430) Table of Contents (Clicking on the links below will take you to that part of this article) Early Years Manichean and Neoplatonist Period Conversion and Ordination Later Years Anti-Manicheanism and Pelagian Writings Activity Against Donatism Development of His Views Miscellaneous Works Early Years Augustine is the first ecclesiastical author the whole course of whose ...
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Lucretius
Lucretius (c. 99 - c. 55 BCE) Lucretius (Titus Lucretius Carus) was a Roman poet and the author of the philosophical epic De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of the Universe), a comprehensive exposition of the Epicurean world-view. Very little is known of the poet s life, though a sense of his character and personality emerges vividly from his poem. The stress and tumult of his times stands in the ...
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Bakhtin Circle
The Bakhtin Circle Table of Contents (Clicking on the links below will take you to that part of this article) Introduction The Early Works: 1919-1927 The Concluding Works of the Bakhtin Circle: 1928-1929 Bakhtin and the Theory of the Novel: 1933-1941 Carnival, History And Popular Culture: Rabelais, Goethe And Dostoevskii As Philosophers Bakhtin's Last Works Conclusion Introduction The Bakhtin ...
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Greek Philosophy
Greek Philosophy Table of Contents (Clicking on the links below will take you to that part of this article) Presocratics Socrates and his Followers Plato Aristotle Stoicism Epicureanism Skepticism Neoplatonism Presocratics Our western philosophical tradition began in ancient Greece in the 6th century BCE. The first philosophers are called Presocratics which designates that they came before ...
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Ancient Greek Skepticism
Ancient Greek Skepticism Although all skeptics in some way cast doubt on our ability to gain knowledge of the world, the term 'skeptic' actually covers a wide range of attitudes and positions. There are skeptical elements in the views of many Greek philosophers, but the term 'ancient skeptic' is generally applied either to a member of Plato's Academy during its skeptical period (c. 273 B.C.E to ...
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Democritus
Democritus (460-370 BCE.) Democritus was born at Abdera, about 460 BCE, although according to some 490. His father was from a noble family and of great wealth, and contributed largely towards the entertainment of the army of Xerxes on his return to Asia. As a reward for this service the Persian monarch gave and other Abderites presents and left among them several Magi. Democritus, according to ...
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Parmenides
Parmenides (b. 510 BCE.) Parmenides was a Greek philosopher and poet, born of an illustrious family about BCE. 510, at Elea in Lower Italy, and is is the chief representative of the Eleatic philosophy. He was held in high esteem by his fellow-citizens for his excellent legislation, to which they ascribed the prosperity and wealth of the town. He was also admired for his exemplary life. A ...
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Origen
Origen (182-251) Table of Contents (Clicking on the links below will take you to that part of this article) Life Writings Philosophical Views Nature of God The Logos and Cosmology Christology Eschatology Life Origen, one of the most distinguished of the Fathers of the early Church, was born, probably at Alexandria, about 182; and died at Caesarea not later than 251. His full name was apparently ...
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English Deism
English Deism Table of Contents (Clicking on the links below will take you to that part of this article) Lord Herbert of Cherbury Hobbes and Others Charles Blount John Locke Toland, Collins, and Others Matthew Tindal Morgan, Annet, and Middleton Shaftesbury, Mandeville, Dodwell, Bolingbroke Hume's Influence Lord Herbert of Cherbury The beginnings of English Deism appear in the seventeenth ...
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Sophists
Sophists The growing demand for education in 5th century BCE. Greece called into existence a class of teachers known as sophists. They were a professional class rather than a school, and as such they were scattered over Greece and exhibited professional rivalries. The educational demand was partly for genuine knowledge, but mostly reflected a desire for spurious learning that would lead to ...
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Rudolf Carnap
Rudolf Carnap (1891-1970) Table of Contents (Clicking on the links below will take you to that part of this article) Life The Structure of Scientific Theories The Language of Scientific Theories Analytic and Synthetic Meaning and Verifiability Probability and Inductive Logic Modal Logic and the Philosophy of Language Philosophy of Physics Carnap's Heritage References and Sources Life Carnap ...
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Neo-Platonism
Neo-Platonism Neo-Platonism is a modern term used to designate the period of Platonic philosophy beginning with the work of Plotinus and ending with the closing of the Platonic Academy by the Emperor Justinian in 529 CE. This brand of Platonism, which is often described as 'mystical' or religious in nature, developed outside the mainstream of Academic Platonism. The origins of Neo-Platonism can ...
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Time
Philosophy of time ...
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Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot (1713-1784) Denis Diderot was the most prominent of the French Encyclopedists. He was educated by the Jesuits, and, refusing to enter one of the learned professions, was turned adrift by his father and came to Paris, where he lived from hand to mouth for a time. Gradually, however, he became recognized as one of the most powerful writers of the day. His first independent work was ...
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William of Ockham
William of Ockham (d. 1347) Table of Contents (Clicking on the links below will take you to that part of this article) Life Writings Nominalism Nature of God Reason and Authority Christology Church and State Life William of Ockham, the Franciscan school man, nominalist, and doctor invincibilis, was born at Ockham in 1280 and died in Munich on April 10, 1349. Of his early life, little is known.
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French Deism
French Deism With other English influences Deism entered France, where, however, only its materialistic and revolutionary phases were seized upon, to the exclusion of that religiosity which had never been lost in England. French Deism stood outside of theology. The English writers who came to exercise the greatest influence were Hobbes, Locke, Shaftesbury, Pope, Bolingbroke, and Hume. Of the ...
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Natural Law
Natural Law The term 'natural law' is ambiguous. It refers to a type of moral theory, as well as to a type of legal theory, despite the fact that the core claims of the two kinds of theory are logically independent. According to natural law ethical theory, the moral standards that govern human behavior are, in some sense, objectively derived from the nature of human beings. According to natural ...
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Empedocles
Empedocles (fl. 450 BCE.) Table of Contents (Clicking on the links below will take you to that part of this article) Life Philosophy Life Empedocles was a citizen of Agrigentum in Sicily. His date is roughly fixed for us by the well-attested fact that he went to Thourioi shortly after its foundation in 444/3 BCE. He was, therefore, contemporary with the meridian splendor of the Periclean age at ...
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Protagoras
Protagoras (c. 490 - c. 420 BCE) Protagoras of Abdera was one of several fifth century Greek thinkers (including also Gorgias, Hippias, and Prodicus) collectively known as the Older Sophists, a group of traveling teachers or intellectuals who were experts in rhetoric (the science of oratory) and related subjects. Protagoras is known primarily for three claims (1) that man is the measure of all ...
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Just War Theory
Just War Theory Table of Contents (Clicking on the links below will take you to that part of this article) Introduction The Jus Ad Bellem Convention The Principles Of Jus In Bello Introduction Just war theory deals with the justification of how and why wars are fought. The justification can be either theoretical or historical. The theoretical aspect is concerned with ethically justifying war and ...
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Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon (1561-1626) Table of Contents (Clicking on the links below will take you to that part of this article) Life Novum Organum Life Francis Bacon was born in London on January 22, 1561, at York House off the Strand. He was the younger of two sons of Sir Nicholas Bacon, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal under Queen Elizabeth I. Bacon had a virtual dualistic upbringing. His mother was a ...
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Zeno of Elea
Zeno of Elea Paradoxes of Multiplicity and Motion Kant's, Hume's, and Hegel's Solutions to Zeno's Paradoxes. The Contemporary Solution to Zeno's Paradoxes. Zeno was an Eleatic philosopher, a native of Elea (Velia) in Italy, son of Teleutagoras, and the favorite disciple of Parmenides. He was born about 488 BCE., and at the age of forty accompanied Parmenides to Athens. He appears to have resided ...
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Anaximenes
Anaximenes (d. 528 BCE) Anaximenes was the third Greek philosopher in canonical lists of successions, and like his predecessors Thales and Anaximander, an inhabitant of Miletus. According to the very meager sources on his life he flourished in the mid 6th century BCE and died around 528. He was said to be the student of Anaximander, and like him he sought to give a quasi-scientific explanation ...
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Thales of Miletus
Thales of Miletus (62 -546 BCE) There is considerable agreement that Thales was born in Miletus in Greek Ionia in the mid 620s BCE and died in about 546 BCE, but even those dates are indefinite. Aristotle, the major source for Thales's philosophy and science, identified Thales as the first person to investigate the basic principles, the question of the originating substances of matter and, ...
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Diogenes of Sinope
Excerpt from the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Diogenes of Sinope (4th cen. BCE). Diogenes the Cynic.
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Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762-1814)
Entry in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, by Curtis Bowman, with suggested readings and links to related Internet resources.
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Anaxagoras
Anaxagoras (500-428 BCE.) Anaxagoras was a Greek philosopher of Clazomenae in Asia Minor, born about 500 BCE. Aristotle describes him to have been older than Empedocles, but to come 'after him in his works'. It is not clear whether this means that he wrote later than Empedocles or that he was inferior to him in his achievements. From a noble family, but wishing to devote himself entirely to ...
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Antisthenes
Antisthenes Antisthenes was an Athenian philosopher and founder of the Cynic sect. Antisthenes was born in Athens about 440 BCE. of a Phrygian or Thracian mother, and thus was only a half citizen. In his youth he was engaged in military exploits, and acquired fame by the valor which he displayed in the battle of Tanagra. His first studies were under the direction of the sophist Gorgias, who ...
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Hans Reichenbach
Hans Reichenbach (1891-1953) Table of Contents (Clicking on the links below will take you to that part of this article) Life The Philosophy of Space and Time and the Philosophical Meaning of the Theory of Relativity Space Time The Special Theory of Relativity The General Theory of Relativity The Reality of Space and Time Quantum Mechanics Interpretation of Quantum Physics: Part I Mathematical ...
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Capital Punishment
Capital Punishment The applied ethics issue of capital punishment involves determining whether the execution of criminals is ever justified, and, if so under what circumstances it is permissible. Philosophical defenses of capital punishment typically draw from more general discussions of punishment. The issue of corrective justice in legal philosophy distinguishes between two principal theories ...
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Gorgias
Gorgias (483-378) Table of Contents (Clicking on the links below will take you to that part of this article) Life Philosophy Life A Greek sophist and rhetorician, known as the Nihilist, a native of Leontini in Sicily. In BCE. 427, when already advanced in years, he came to Athens on an embassy from his native city, to implore aid against the Syracusans. The finished style of his speaking excited ...
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Hippias
Hippias (5th cn. BCE.) A Greek sophist of Elis and a contemporary of Socrates. He taught in the towns of Greece, especially at Athens. He had the advantage of a prodigious memory, and was deeply versed in all the learning of his day. He attempted literature in every form which was then extant. He also made the first attempt in the composition of dialogues. In the two Platonic dialogues named ...
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The Academy
The Academy Philosophical institution founded by Plato, which advocated skepticism in succeeding generations. The Academy (Academia was originally a public garden or grove in the suburbs of Athens, about six stadia from the city, named from Academus or Hecademus, who left it to the citizens for gymnastics (Paus. i. 29). It was surrounded with a wall by Hipparchus, adorned with statues, temples, ...
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Cleanthes
Cleanthes (331-232 BCE.) Cleanthes was a Stoic philosopher of Assus in Lydia, and a disciple of Zeno of Citium. After the death of Zeno he presided over his school. He was originally a wrestler, and in this capacity he visited Athens, where he became acquainted with philosophy. Although he possessed no more than four drachma, he was determined to put himself under the an eminent philosopher. His ...
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Donald Davidson
Donald Davidson (b. 1917) Table of Contents (Clicking on the links below will take you to that part of this article) Life and Influences Anomalism of the Mental Causal Explanation of Action Life and Influences Donald Davidson, one of the most significant philosophers of the XX century, was born 6 March, 1917 in Springfield, Massachusetts. He studied English, Comparative Literature and Classics ...
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Meister Eckhart
Meister Eckhart (1260-1328) Table of Contents (Clicking on the links below will take you to that part of this article) Life Works View of God Trinitarian Process God in Creation Relation of the Soul to God Sin and Redemption Place of Christ Ethics Life The long controverted question concerning the locality of Eckhart's origin has been settled by Denifle, who states that he was born at Hochheim, ...
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Diogenes Laertius
Diogenes Laertius (3rd cn. CE.) Diogenes Laertius, native of Laerte in Cilicia, was a biographer of ancient Greek philosophers. His Lives of the Philosophers (Philosophoi Biol), in ten books, is still extant and is an important source of information on the development of Greek philosophy. The period when he lived is not exactly known, but it is supposed to have been during the reigns of ...
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Jules Henri Poincare
Jules Henri Poincare (1854-1912) Jules Henri Poincare was a mathematician, physicist, and philosopher of science. He is best known to philosophers for his forceful development of the philosophical doctrine of conventionalism. Table of Contents (Clicking on the links below will take you to that part of this article) Life Chaos and the Solar System Arithmetic, Intuition and Logic Conventionalism ...
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Xenophon
Xenophon Table of Contents (Clicking on the links below will take you to that part of this article) Life Writings Xenophon's Account of Socrates Life An Athenian, the son of Gryllus, Xenophon was born about 444 BCE. In his early life he was a pupil of Socrates; but the turning point in his career came when he decided to serve in the Greek contingent raised by Cyrus against Artaxerxes in 401.
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Chrysippus
Chrysippus (c. 280-207) Chrysippus was a Stoic philosopher of Soli in Cilicia Campestris. He moved to Athens, and became a disciple of Cleanthes, the successor of Zeno. He was equally distinguished for his natural abilities and industry and rarely went a day without writing 500 lines. He wrote several hundred volumes, of which three hundred were on logical subjects, borrowing largely from others.
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Renaissance
Renaissance Renaissance is the name of the great intellectual and cultural movement of the revival of interest in classical culture that occurred in the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries -- a period which saw the transition from the Middle Ages to modern times. The inpenetration of Greek and Latin culture that occurred as a result of the formation of extensive Latin dominions in the ...
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Solipsism and the Problem of Other Minds
Solipsism and the Problem of Other Minds Solipsism is sometimes expressed as the view that 'I am the only mind which exists', or 'My mental states are the only mental states'. However, the sole survivor of a nuclear holocaust might truly come to believe in either of these propositions without thereby being a solipsist. Solipsism is therefore more properly regarded as the doctrine that, in ...
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Eclecticism
Eclecticism Eclecticism is a name given to a group of ancient philosophers who, from the existing philosophical beliefs, tried to select the doctrines that seemed to them most reasonable, and out of these constructed a new system (see Diogenes Laertius, 21). The name was first generally used in the first century BCE. Stoicism and Epicureanism had made the search for pure truth subordinate to the ...
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Evolution
Evolution Table of Contents (Clicking on the links below will take you to that part of this article) Ancient Greek Views Medieval Views In Modern Philosopy In German Idealism Darwin's View Spencer's View Ancient Greek Views Evolution is not so much a modern discovery as some of its advocates would have us believe. It made its appearance early in Greek philosophy, and maintained its position more ...
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Pyrrho
Pyrrho (c. 360-c.270 BCE.) Pyrrho was a Greek philosopher from Elea, and founder of the Greek school of skepticism. In his youth he practiced the art of painting, but passed over this for philosophy. He studied the writings of Democritus, became a disciple of Bryson, the son of Stilpo, and later a disciple of Anaxarchus. He took part in the Indian expedition of Alexander the Great, and met with ...
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Virtue Theory
Virtue Theory Virtue theory is the view that the foundation of morality is the development of good character traits, or virtues. A person is good, then, if he has virtues and lacks vices. Typical virtues include courage, temperance, justice, prudence, fortitude, liberality, and truthfulness. Some virtue theorists mention as many as 100 virtuous character traits which contribute to making someone ...
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Carl Gustav Hempel
Carl Gustav Hempel (1905 - 1997) Table of Contents (Clicking on the links below will take you to that part of this article) Life Scientific Explanation Paradoxes of Confirmation Concept Formation in Empirical Science The Late Hempel Sources Life One of the leading member of logical positivism, he was born in Orianenburg, Germany, in 1905. Between March 17 and 24, 1982, Hempel gave an interview ...
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Peripatetics
Peripatetics The Peripatetic doctrines were introduced into Rome along with other Greek philosophies by the embassy of Critolaus, Carneades, and Diogenes, but were little known until the tie of Sylla. Tyrannion the grammarian and Andronicus of Rhodes were the first who brought the writings of Aristotle and Theophrastus into notice. The obscurity of Aristotle's works hindered the success of his ...
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Cesare Beccaria
Cesare Beccaria (1738-1794) Table of Contents (Clicking on the links below will take you to that part of this article) Life On Crimes and Punishment Against Capital Punishment Life Cesare Beccaria (1738-1794) was born the eldest son in an aristocratic family and educated at a Jesuit school. In his mid twenties Beccaria became close friends with Pietro and Alessandro Verri, two brothers who ...
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Vienna Circle
Vienna Circle Group of philosophers who gathered round Moritz Schlick, after his coming in Vienna in 1922. They organized a philosophical association, named Verein Ernst Mach (Ernst Mach Association). However, meetings on philosophy of science and epistemology began as early as 1907, promoted by Frank, Hahn and Neurath, who later arranged to bring Schlick at the University of Vienna. Among ...
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Xenophanes
Xenophanes (570-475 BCE.) Founder of the Eleatic school of philosophy, Xenophanes was a native of Colophon, and born about 570 BCE. It is difficult to determine the dates of his life with any accuracy and the facts of his life are also obscure. Xenophanes early left his own country and took refuge in Sicily, where he supported himself by reciting, at the court of Hiero, elegiac and iambic ...
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William Paley
William Paley (1743-1805) English theologian; born at Peterborough (37 m. n.e. of Northampton) July, 1743; died at Lincoln May 25, 1805. His mother was a keen, thrifty woman of much intelligence, and his father was a minor canon at Peterborough and a pedagogue. In 1758 Paley entered, as sizar, Christ College, Cambridge. He had been a fair scholar at his father's school, especially interested in ...
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Humanism
Humanism The exact point in time when the term Humanism was first adopted is unknown. It is, however, certain that Italy and the re-adopting of Latin letters as the staple of human culture were responsible for the name of Humanists. Literoe humaniores was an expression coined in reference to the classic literature of Rome and the imitation and reproduction of its literary forms in the new ...
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Joseph Butler
Joseph Butler (1692-1752) Table of Contents (Clicking on the links below will take you to that part of this article) Life Human Nature as Made for Virtue Human Life as in the Presence of God This Life as a Prelude to a Future Life The World as a Moral Order The Christian Scriptures as a Revelation Public Institutions as Moral Agents Butler's Influence Bibliography Life Joseph Butler was born ...
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Prodicus
Prodicus (fl. 5th Cn. BCE.) Prodicus was a sophist and rhetorician from Iulis on the island of Ceos. He was contemporary with Democritus and Gorgias, and was a disciple of Protagoras. He flourished in the 86th Olympiad, and it is reported that his disciples included Socrates, Euripides, Theramenes, and Isocrates. His countrymen, after giving him several public jobs, sent him as ambassador to ...
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Ralph Cudworth
Ralph Cudworth (1617-1688) Member of seventeenth century school of philosophers known as the Cambridge Platonists ; b. at Aller, in Somersetshire (12 m. s.w. of. Wells), 1617; d. at Cambridge June 26, 1688. He entered Emmanuel College, Cambridge, in 1632, and, after taking his M.A. degree in 1639, became fellow and tutor of the college. In 1642 he entered the lists against the Catholic party ...
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Egoism
Egoism In ethics egoism entails that the individual self is either the motivating moral force and is, or should, be the end of moral action. Egoism divides into both a positive and normative ethic. The positive ethic views egoism as a factual description of human affairs, that is people are motivated by their own interests and desires. The normative ethic is that they should be so motivated.
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Earl of Shaftesbury
Earl of Shaftesbury, Anthony Ashley Cooper (1671- 1713) Anthony Ashley Cooper was the grandson of the first Earl of Shaftesbury. He was Locke's patron, and was himself educated under Locke's supervision. His weak health prevented him from following an active political career, and his life was mainly devoted to intellectual interests. After two or three unhappy years of school life at Winchester, ...
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Vladimir Solovyov
Vladimir Solovyov (1853-1900) Table of Contents (Clicking on the links below will take you to that part of this article) Life Interpretations of Solovyov's Philosophical Writings. The Crisis of Western Philosophy Philosophical Principles of Integral Knowledge Critique of Abstract Principles The Justification of the Good Theoretical Philosophy Concluding Remarks Bibliography Life Solovyov was ...
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Claude Adrien Helvetius
Claude Adrien Helvetius (1715-1771) French philosopher; born in Paris January, 1715; died there Dec. 26, 1771. He studied at the College Louis-le Grand, and in 1738 received the lucrative post of farmer-general, which, however, he soon exchanged for the position of chamberlain to the queen. Tiring of the idle and dissipated life of the court, he married in 1751, and retired to a small estate at ...
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Contemporary Skepticism
Contemporary Skepticism Philosophical views are typically classed as skeptical when they involve advancing some degree of doubt regarding claims that are elsewhere taken for granted. Varieties of skepticism can be distinguished in two main ways, depending upon the focus and the extent of the doubt. As regards the former, skeptical views typically have an epistemological form, in that they are ...
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Edward Caird
Edward Caird (1835-1908) Scottish philosopher of the latter half of the nineteenth century, Edward Caird was one of the key figures of the idealist movement that dominated British philosophy from 1870 until the mid 1920s. Best known for his studies of Kant and Hegel, Caird exercised a strong influence on the 'second generation' of idealists, such as John Watson and Bernard Bosanquet. During his ...
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Identity Theory
Identity Theory A family of views on the relationship between mind and body, Type Identity theories hold that at least some types (or kinds, or classes) of mental states are, as a matter of contingent fact, literally identical with some types (or kinds, or classes) of brain states. The earliest advocates of Type Identity--U.T. Place, Herbert Feigl, and J.J.C. Smart, respectively--each proposed ...
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Menippus
Menippus (fl. 250 BCE.) Greek philosopher of Gadara in Syria, who flourished about 250 BCE. Menippus, an adherent of the Cynic School of philosophy, was born at Sinope in Asia Minor, but his family was originally from Gadara, in Palestine. According to Diogenes Laertius, he was at first a slave, but afterward obtained his freedom by purchase, and eventually succeeded, by dint of money, in ...
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Natural Theology
Natural Theology Natural Theology is the favorite term in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries designating the knowledge of God drawn from nature in distinction from the knowledge of God contained in revelation. This division of theology into natural and revealed had its roots in the scholastic distinction between the two truths, one derived from nature by the use of the Aristotelian logic, ...
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Theophrastus
Theophrastus (d. 287 BCE) Theophrastus was a Greek philosopher of the Peripatetic school, and immediate successor of Aristotle in leadership of the Lyceum. He was a native of Eresus in Lesbos, and studied philosophy at Athens, first under Plato and afterwards under Aristotle. He became the favorite pupil of Aristotle, who named Theophrastus his successor, and bequeathed to him his library and ...
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Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi
Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi (1743-1819) German philosopher; born at Dusseldorf January. 25, 1743; died at Munich March. 10, 1819. He studied at Frankfort and Geneva, and in 1764 became the head of his father's business in Dusseldorf. After his appointment to the council for the duchies of Julich and Berg in 1772 he devoted himself entirely to literature and philosophy. His house at Pempelfort, near ...
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Aenesidemus
Aenesidemus (1st Cn. CE.) Aenesidemus was the founder of Pyrrhonian Skepticism. He was born at Gnossus in Crete, but lived at Alexandria and flourished shortly after Cicero. Aenesidemus originally was a member of Plato's Academy. From the time of Arcesilaus through Carneades, at least, the Academy was skeptical. By the time of Aenesidemus, however, the Academy had splintered into several ...
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Euclides
Euclides (c. 430-360 BCE.) Euclides was a native of Megara, and founder of the Megarian or Eristic sect. He applied himself early to the study of philosophy, and learned from the writings of Parmenides the art of disputation. Hearing of the fame of Socrates, Euclides moved to Athens and became a devoted student for many years. Because of an enmity between Athenians and Megarians, a decree was ...
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Peter Lombard
Peter Lombard (1095-1160) Table of Contents (Clicking on the links below will take you to that part of this article) Life The Sentences Analysis of the Sentences Life Peter Lombard, a scholastic theologian of the twelfth century, was commonly known as the Lombard after his birthplace which actually was probably Novara. It is expected that he then moved to Lombardy approximately after his birth ...
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Rudolf Hermann Lotze
Rudolf Hermann Lotze (1817-1881) German philosopher; born at Bautzen (31 m. e.n.e. of Dresden), Saxony, May 21, 1817; died at Berlin July 1, 1881. He studied philosophy and medicine at the University of Leipsic, taking degrees in both subjects, and became extraordinary professor of philosophy there in 1842. He was called to Gottingenin 1844, and to Berlin in 1881, but here he was able to lecture ...
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Timon
Timon (fl. 279 BCE.) Timon was a disciple of Pyrrho and philosopher of the sect of the Skeptics, who flourished in the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus, about 279 BCE. and onwards. The son of Timarchus of Phlius, Timon first studied philosophy at Megara, under Stilpo, and then returned home and married. He next went to Elis with his wife, and heard Pyrrho, whose tenets he adopted. Driven from Elis ...
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William Hamilton
William Hamilton (1788-1856) Table of Contents (Clicking on the links below will take you to that part of this article) Life and Writings Philosophy Views Life and Writings Scottish philosopher, born at Glasgow March 8, 1788, died. at Edinburgh May 6, 1856. He studied first in Glasgow University, where his father had been professor of anatomy and botany; took a course in medicine at the ...
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Emanation
Emanation Table of Contents (Clicking on the links below will take you to that part of this article) Definition and Distinctions Hindu, Zoroastrian, and Greek Phases Philo and Early Christian Doctrine Pseudo Dionysius, Scholastic, and Mystic Doctrine Definition and Distinctions The concept of emanation is that all derived or secondary things proceed or flow from the more primary. It is ...
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Roman Philosophy
Roman Philosophy Roman philosophy is thoroughly grounded in the traditions of Greek philosophy. Interest in the subject was first excited at Rome in 155 BCE. by an Athenian embassy, consisting of the Academic Carneades, the Stoic Diogenes, and the Peripatetic Critolaus. Of more permanent influence was the work of the Stoic Panaetius, the friend of the younger Scipio and of Laelius; but a ...
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Anaxarchus
Anaxarchus (4th cn. BCE.) Anaxarchus was a philosopher of Abdera, from the school of Democritus, who flourished about the 110th Olympiad. He is remembered for having lived with Alexander and enjoyed his confidence. When Alexander was torn with regret for having killed his faithful Clitus, Anaxarchus said, kings, like the gods, could do no wrong. Anaxarchus was addicted to pleasure. It was ...
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Leslie Stephen
Leslie Stephen (1832-1904) Leslie Stephen was a 19th century British philosopher, man of letters, and first editor of the Dictionary of National Biography. The portion of his writings which bear upon philosophy is small only in relation to his total literary output. He was born in Kensington Gore on November 28, 1832. In 1842 Stephen's parents moved to Brighton for the sake of his health. He ...
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Moral Luck
Moral Luck Moral Luck: A case of moral luck occurs whenever luck makes a moral difference. The problem of moral luck arises from a clash between the apparently widely held intuition that cases of moral luck should not occur with the fact that it is arguably impossible to prevent such cases from arising. The literature on moral luck began in earnest in the wake of papers by Thomas Nagel and ...
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St. Louis Hegelians
St. Louis Hegelians The common name given to a group of amateur philosophers founded and led by William Torrey Harris (1835-1909) and Henry Conrad Brokmeyer (1828-1906). Harris, a New Englander born in Connecticut and educated at Yale, first became acquainted with idealism through the Transcendentalists, mainly from his attendance in 1857 at the Orphic Seer's Conversations of Amos Bronson Alcott ...
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Thomas Henry Huxley
Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1895) Thomas Henry Huxley, the distinguished zoologist and advocate of Darwinism, madeseveral incursions into philosophy. From his youth he had studied its problems unsystematically; |
