Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Edited by Edward N. Zalta Table of Contents Principal Site: U.S.A. Stanford University Mirror site: Australia University of Sydney Library, Scholarly Electronic Text and Image Service Mirror site: The Netherlands University of Amsterdam, Institute for Logic, Language and Computation Mirror site: United Kingdom University of Leeds, LTSN Philosophical and ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Friedrich Nietzsche. Biography, chronology of works, and comments on Nietzsche's influence, with a few links to other sites.

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Bertrand Russell Bertrand Arthur William Russell (b.1872 - d.1970), British philosopher, logician, essayist, and social critic, best known for his work in mathematical logic and analytic philosophy. His most influential contributions include his defense of ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Karl Popper Karl Popper is generally regarded as one of the greatest philosophers of science of this century. He was also a social and political philosopher of considerable stature, a self-professed critical-rationalist, a dedicated opponent of all forms of ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel Along with J. G. Fichte and F. W. J. von Schelling, Hegel (1770-1831) belongs to the period of German idealism in the decades following Kant. The most systematic of the post-Kantian idealists, Hegel attempted, throughout his ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Saint Thomas Aquinas Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) lived at a critical juncture of western culture when the arrival of the Aristotelian corpus in Latin translation reopened the question of the relation between faith and reason, calling into question the modus ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Alfred North Whitehead Alfred North Whitehead (b.1861 - d.1947), British mathematician, logician and philosopher best known for his work in mathematical logic and who, in collaboration with Bertrand Russell, authored the landmark three-volume Principia ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Liberalism Liberalism can be understood as (1) a political tradition (2) a political philosophy and (3) a general philosophical theory, encompassing a theory of value, a conception of the person and a moral theory as well as a political philosophy. As a ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Pascal's Wager Pascal's Wager is the name given to an argument due to Blaise Pascal for believing, or for at least taking steps to believe, in God. The name is somewhat misleading, for in a single paragraph of his Pensees, Pascal apparently presents at least ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Søren Kierkegaard. Biography includes topics on Kierkegaard's life, rhetoric, aesthetics, ethics, religion, politics, and chronology of works.

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Aristotle's Logic Aristotle's logic, especially his theory of the syllogism, has had an unparalleled influence on the history of Western thought. It did not always hold this position: in the Hellenistic period, Stoic logic, and in particular the work of ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Gottlob Frege. Entry has a biography, chronology, and analysis of Frege's works, chronology of works, bibliography of secondary literature, and links to other sites.

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Russell's Paradox Russell's paradox is the most famous of the logical or set-theoretical paradoxes. The paradox arises within naive set theory by considering the set of all sets that are not members of themselves. Such a set appears to be a member of itself if ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Stoicism Stoicism was one of the new philosophical movements of the Hellenistic period. The name derives from the porch (stoa poikil ) in the Agora at Athens decorated with mural paintings, where the members of the school congregated, and their lectures were ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Ancient Skepticism Used in its most specific sense, the expression ancient skepticism refers to two movements in ancient philosophy. One is Pyrrhonism, which claims Pyrrho of Elis (4th-3rd c. B.C.) as its founder but was especially prominent during and after ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z The Church-Turing Thesis There are various equivalent formulations of the Church-Turing thesis. A common one is that every effective computation can be carried out by a Turing machine. The Church-Turing thesis is often misunderstood, particularly in recent ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Aristotles Political Theory Aristotle (b. 384 - d. 322 BC), was a Greek philosopher, logician, and scientist. Along with his teacher Plato, Aristotle is generally regarded as one of the most influential ancient thinkers in a number of philosophical fields, ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Ontological Arguments Ontological arguments are arguments, for the conclusion that God exists, from premises which are supposed to derive from some source other than observation of the world -- e.g., from reason alone. In other words, ontological arguments are ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Principia Mathematica Principia Mathematica is the landmark work on mathematical logic and the foundations of mathematics written by Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell. It was first published in three volumes, in 1910, 1912 and 1913. Written as a ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Qualia Feelings and experiences vary widely. For example, I run my fingers over sandpaper, smell a skunk, feel a sharp pain in my finger, seem to see bright purple, become extremely angry. In each of these cases, I am the subject of a mental state with a very ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Pantheism Pantheism is a metaphysical and religious position. Broadly defined it is the view that (1) God is everything and everything is God ... the world is either identical with God or in some way a self-expression of his nature (Owen 1971: 74). Similarly, ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Donald Davidson Donald Davidson is one of the most important philosophers of the latter half of the twentieth century. His ideas, presented in a series of essays from the 1960s onwards, have been influential across a range of areas from semantic theory through ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Paul Feyerabend Paul Feyerabend (b.1924, d.1994), having studied science at the University of Vienna, moved into philosophy for his doctoral thesis, made a name for himself both as an expositor and (later) as a critic of Karl Popper's critical rationalism, and ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Connectionism Connectionism is a movement in cognitive science which hopes to explain human intellectual abilities using artificial neural networks (also known as neural networks or neural nets). Neural networks are simplified models of the brain composed of ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Cosmology and Theology Reasoning known as the cosmological argument (Burrill 1967; Craig 1979, 1980; Hepburn 1967) tries to justify belief in God by pointing to the existence of the cosmos, its causal orderliness, and alleged evidence of its being in some ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Experiment in Physics Physics, and natural science in general, is a reasonable enterprise based on valid experimental evidence, criticism, and rational discussion. It provides us with knowledge of the physical world and it is experiment that provides the ...

Excerpt from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. René Descartes' approach to the theory of knowledge plays a prominent role in shaping the agenda of early modern philosophy.

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Leibniz on the Problem of Evil Without question, the problem of evil vexed Leibniz as much as any philosophical problem during his career. This is obvious from the fact that the first and the last book length works that he authored, the Philosopher s ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Frege's Logic, Theorem, and Foundations for Arithmetic Frege formulated two distinguished formal systems and used these systems in his attempt both to express certain basic concepts of mathematics precisely and to derive certain mathematical laws from the laws ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Miracles Aquinas (Summa Contra Gentiles, III) says those things are properly called miracles which are done by divine agency beyond the order commonly observed in nature (praeter ordinem communiter observatum in rebus). A miracle, philosophically speaking, is ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Cognitive Science Cognitive science is the interdisciplinary study of mind and intelligence, embracing philosophy, psychology, artificial intelligence, neuroscience, linguistics, and anthropology. Its intellectual origins are in the mid-1950s when researchers ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Turing Machine A Turing machine is an abstract representation of a computing device. It consists of a read/write head that scans a (possibly infinite) one-dimensional (bi-directional) tape divided into squares, each of which is inscribed with a 0 or 1.

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Peirce's Logic Charles Peirce's contributions to logical theory are numerous and profound. His work on relations building on ideas of De Morgan influenced Schroder, and through Schroder Peano, Russell, Lowenheim and much of contemporary logical theory.

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z The Philosophy of Neuroscience Over the past three decades, philosophy of science has grown increasingly local. Concerns have switched from general features of scientific practice to concepts, issues, and puzzles specific to particular disciplines. Philosophy ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Properties Questions about the nature and existence of properties are nearly as old as philosophy itself. Interest in properties has ebbed and flowed over the centuries, but they are now undergoing a resurgence. The last twenty five years have seen a great ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Category Theory Category theory is a general mathematical theory of structures and sytems of structures. It allows us to see, among other things, how structures of different kinds are related to one another as well as the universal components of a family of ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Feminist Ethics Feminist Ethics is an attempt to revise, reformulate, or rethink those aspects of traditional western ethics that depreciate or devalue women's moral experience. Among others, feminist philosopher Alison Jaggar faults traditional western ethics ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Aristotle's Psychology Aristotle (384-322 BC) was born in what was to become Macedon in northern Greece, but spent most of his adult life in Athens. His life in Athens divides into two periods, first as a member of Plato's Academy (367-347) and later as ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Paraconsistent Logic The development of paraconsistent logic was initiated in order to challenge the logical principle that anything follows from contradictory premises, ex contradictione quodlibet (ECQ). Let be a relation of logical consequence, defined ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Vagueness There is wide agreement that a term is vague to the extent that it has borderline cases. This makes the notion of a borderline case crucial in accounts of vagueness. I shall concentrate on an historical characterization of borderline cases that most ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Saint Anselm Saint Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109) was the outstanding Christian philosopher and theologian of the eleventh century. He is best known for the celebrated ontological argument for the existence of God in chapter two of the Proslogion, but his ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Modal Logic A modal is an expression (like necessarily or possibly) that is used to qualify the truth of a judgement. Modal logic is, strictly speaking, the study of the deductive behavior of the expressions it is necessary that and it is possible that.

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z The Epistemology of Religion Contemporary epistemology of religion may conveniently be treated as a debate over whether Evidentialism applies to the belief-component of religious faith, or whether we should instead adopt a more permissive epistemology. Here by ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Private Language The idea of a private language was made famous in philosophy by Ludwig Wittgenstein, who in section 243 of his book Philosophical Investigations explains it thus: The words of this language are to refer to what can be known only to the ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Actualism To understand the thesis of actualism, consider the following example. Imagine a race of beings -- call them Aliens -- that is very different from any life-form that actually exists anywhere in the universe; different enough, in fact, that no ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Prisoner's Dilemma Tanya and Cinque have been arrested for robbing the Hibernia Savings Bank and placed in separate isolation cells. Both care much more about their personal freedom than about the welfare of their accomplice. A clever prosecutor makes the ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z John Locke John Locke (b. 1632, d. 1704) was a British philosopher, Oxford academic and medical researcher, whose association with Anthony Ashley Cooper (later the First Earl of Shaftesbury) led him to become successively a government official charged with ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Sorites Paradox The sorites paradox is the name given to a class of paradoxical arguments, also known as little-by-little arguments, which arise as a result of the indeterminacy surrounding limits of application of the predicates involved. For example the ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Game Theory Game theory is the study of the ways in which strategic interactions among rational players produce outcomes with respect to the preferences (or utilities) of those players, none of which might have been intended by any of them. The meaning of this ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Temporal Logic The term Temporal Logic has been broadly used to cover all approaches to the representation of temporal information within a logical framework, and also more narrowly to refer specifically to the modal-logic type of approach introduced around ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z The Coherence Theory of Truth A coherence theory of truth states that the truth of any (true) proposition consists in its coherence with some specified set of propositions. The coherence theory differs from its principal competitor, the correspondence theory ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z The Deflationary Theory of Truth According to the deflationary theory of truth, to assert that a statement is true is just to assert the statement itself. For example, to say that snow is white is true, or that it is true that snow is white, is equivalent to ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Intuitionistic Logic Intuitionistic logic encompasses the principles of logical reasoning which were used by L. E. J. Brouwer in developing his intuitionistic mathematics, beginning in . Because these principles also underly Russian recursive analysis and the ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Jacques Maritain Jacques Maritain (1882-1973), French philosopher and political thinker, was one of the principal exponents of Thomism in the twentieth century and an influential interpreter of the thought of St Thomas Aquinas. Life General Background ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Behaviorism It has sometimes been said that behave is what organisms do. Behaviorism is built on this assumption, and its goal is to promote the scientific study of behavior. In this entry I consider different types of behaviorism. I outline reasons for and ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Feminist Perspectives on the Self The topic of the self has long been salient in feminist philosophy, for it is pivotal to questions about personhood, identity, the body, and agency that feminism must address. In some respects, Simone de Beauvoir's trenchant ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Voluntary Euthanasia The entry sets out five individually necessary conditions for anyone to be a candidate for legalised voluntary euthanasia (or, in some usages, physician-assisted suicide), outlines the moral case advanced by those in favour of legalising ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Informal Logic Sometimes informal logic is portrayed as a theoretical alternative to formal logic. While some informal logicians may see the discipline this way, this description places too much emphasis on a rejection of formal methods of analysis -- a ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z The Identity Theory of Mind The identity theory of mind holds that states and processes of the mind are identical to states and processes of the brain. Strictly speaking, it need not hold that the mind is identical to the brain. Idiomatically we do use She has ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Distributive Justice Principles of distributive justice are normative principles designed to allocate goods in limited supply relative to demand. The principles vary in numerous dimensions. They vary in what goods are subject to distribution (income, wealth, ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Time Travel and Modern Physics Time travel has been a staple of science fiction. With the advent of general relativity it has been entertained by serious physicists. But, especially in the philosophy literature, there have been arguments that time travel is ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Original Position The idea of the original position is perhaps the most lasting contribution of John Rawls to our theorizing about social justice. The original position is a hypothetical situation in which rational calculators, acting as agents or trustees for ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Relevance Logic Relevance logics are non-classical logics. Called relevance logics in North America and relevant logics in Britain and Australasia, these systems developed as attempts to avoid the paradoxes of material and strict implication. Among the ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Epiphenomenalism Epiphenomenalism is the view that mental events are caused by physical events in the brain, but have no effects upon any physical events. Behavior is caused by muscles that contract upon receiving neural impulses, and neural impulses are ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z War One apt definition of war is this: war is an actual, intentional and widespread armed conflict between political communities. Thus, a fisticuffs between individual persons does not count as a war, nor does a gang fight, nor does a feud on the order of the ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z The Identity Theory of Truth The simplest and most general statement of the identity theory of truth is that when a truth-bearer (e.g. a proposition) is true, there is a truth-maker (e.g. a fact) with which it is identical and the truth of the former consists ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Mental Representation If a representation is an object with semantic properties, then a mental representation is a mental object with semantic properties. According to the Representational Theory of Mind (RTM), psychological states are to be understood as ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Animal Consciousness There are the many reasons for philosophical interest in nonhuman animal (hereafter animal ) consciousness . First, if philosophy often begins with questions about the place of humans in nature, one way humans have attempted to locate ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Measurement in Quantum Theory From the inception of Quantum Mechanics (QM) the concept of measurement has proved a source of difficulty. The Einstein-Bohr debates, out of which both the Einstein Podolski Rosen paradox and Schr dinger's cat paradox developed, ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Mental Imagery Mental imagery (sometimes colloquially called visualization, or seeing in the mind's eye ) is experience that resembles perceptual experience, but which occurs in the absence of the appropriate stimuli for the relevant perception (cf. Finke, ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Probabilistic Causation Probabilistic Causation designates a group of philosophical theories that aim to characterize the relationship between cause and effect using the tools of probability theory. A primary motivation for the development of such theories is ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Causal Processes Taking their point of departure from what science tells us about the world rather than from our everyday concept of a process, philosophers interested in analysing causal processes have tended to see the chief task to be to distinguish causal ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z (Reproduced by kind permission of Dr T.J. Winnifrith) Francis Herbert Bradley F.H. Bradley (1846-1924) was the most famous, original and philosophically influential of the British Idealists. These philosophers came to prominence in the closing decades of the ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Bernard Bosanquet Bernard Bosanquet (1848-1923), British philosopher, political theorist and social reformer, was one of the principal exponents (with F.H. Bradley ) of late nineteenth and early twentieth century Absolute Idealism . Life General Background ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Nineteenth Century Geometry In the nineteenth century, geometry, like most academic disciplines, went through a period of growth that was near cataclysmic in proportion. During the course of this century, the content of geometry and its internal diversity ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Leibniz's Philosophy of Mind In a more popular view, Leibniz's place in the history of the philosophy of mind is best secured by his pre-established harmony, that is, roughly, by the thesis that there is no mind-body interaction strictly speaking, but only a ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Propositional Attitude Reports A person can be cognitively related to a proposition in many ways. These cognitive relations might be attributed in sentences like the following: Alicia believes that people walked on the Moon. Boris knows that people walked on ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Everett's Relative-State Formulation of Quantum Mechanics Everett's relative-state formulation of quantum mechanics is an attempt to solve the measurement problem by dropping the collapse dynamics from the standard von Neumann-Dirac theory of quantum mechanics.

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Existence Like many philosophically interesting notions, existence is at once familiar and rather elusive. Although we have no more trouble with using the verb exists than with the two-times table, there is more than a little difficulty in saying just what ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z The Identity of Indiscernibles The Identity of Indiscernibles is a principle of analytic ontology first explicitly formulated by Wilhelm Gottfried Leibniz in his Discourse on Metaphysics, Section 9 (Loemker 1969: 308). It states that no two distinct substances ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Arthur Prior Arthur Prior (1914-1969) undertook pioneering work in intensional logic at a time when modality and intensional concepts in general were under attack. He invented tense logic and was principal theoretician of the movement to apply modal syntax to ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Logical Constructions Bertrand Russell referred to several different definitions and philosophical analyses as providing logical constructions of certain entities and expressions. Examples he cited were the Frege/Russell definition of numbers as classes of ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z The Hole Argument What is space What is time Do they exist independently of the things and processes in them Or is their existence parasitic on these things and processes Are they like a canvas onto which an artist paints; they exist whether or not the ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Dialetheism A dialetheia is a true contradiction, a statement, A, such that both it and its negation, A, are true. Hence, dialeth(e)ism is the view that there are true contradictions. Dialetheism opposes the so-called Law of Non-Contradiction (LNC) (sometimes ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Holism and Nonseparability in Physics It has sometimes been suggested that quantum phenomena exhibit a characteristic holism or nonseparability, and that this distinguishes quantum from classical physics. One puzzling quantum phenomenon arises when one ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Identity and Individuality in Quantum Theory What are the metaphysical implications of quantum physics One way of approaching this question is to consider the impact of the theory on our understanding of objects as individuals with well defined identity ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Saint Augustine Aurelius Augustinus (354-430 C.E.): rhetor, Christian Neoplatonist, North African Bishop, Doctor of the Roman Catholic Church. One of the decisive developments in the western philosophical tradition was the eventually widespread merging of the ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z The Traditional Square of Opposition This entry traces the historical development of the Square of Opposition, a collection of logical relationships traditionally embodied in a square diagram. This body of doctrine provided a foundation for work in logic for ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z The Language of Thought Hypothesis The Language of Thought Hypothesis (LOTH) postulates that thought and thinking take place in a mental language. This language consists of a system of representations that is physically realized in the brain of thinkers and ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Multiple Realizability In the philosophy of mind, multiple realizability is the contention that a given mental kind (property, state, event) is realized by distinct physical kinds. The classic example (presented below) is pain: a wide variety of physical ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Singular Propositions Singular propositions (also called Russellian propositions) are propositions that are about a particular object or individual in virtue of having the object or individual as a constituent of the proposition. Alleged examples of singular ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Inconsistent Mathematics Inconsistent mathematics is the study of the mathematical theories that result when classical mathematical axioms are asserted within the framework of a (non-classical) logic which can tolerate the presence of a contradiction without ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Reichenbach's Common Cause Principle Suppose that two geysers, about one mile apart, erupt at irregular intervals, but usually erupt almost exactly at the same time. One would suspect that they come from a common source, or at least that there is a common ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Virtue Epistemology An approach in epistemology that applies the resources of virtue theory to problems in the theory of knowledge. It is argued that by doing so it is possible to give informative accounts of knowledge, evidence, and other important epistemic ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Medieval Theories of Analogy Medieval theories of analogy were a response to problems in three areas: logic, theology, and metaphysics. Logicians were concerned with the use of words having more than one sense, whether completely different, or related in some ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Logical Form Some inferences are impeccable. Consider: (1) John danced if Mary sang, and Mary sang; so John danced. (2) Every politician is deceitful, and every senator is a politician; so every senator is deceitful. (3) The tallest man is in the garden; so ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Divine Illumination Divine illumination is the oldest and most influential alternative to naturalism in the areas of mind and knowledge. The doctrine holds that human beings require a special divine assistance in their ordinary cognitive activities. Although ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z William Godwin William Godwin (1756-1836) was the founder of philosophical anarchism. In his An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793) he argued that government is a corrupting force in society, perpetuating dependence and ignorance, but that it will be ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Folk Psychology as a Theory Many philosophers and cognitive scientists claim that our everyday or folk understanding of mental states constitutes a theory of mind. That theory is widely called folk psychology (sometimes commonsense psychology). The terms in ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Many-Valued Logic Many-valued logics are non-classical logics. They are similar to classical logic because they accept the principle of truth-functionality, namely, that the truth of a compound sentence is determined by the truth values of its component ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Medieval Theories of Modality There are four modal paradigms in ancient philosophy: the statistical or temporal frequency interpretation of modality, the model of possibility as a potency, the model of antecedent necessities and possibilities with respect to a ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Color Colors are of philosophical interest for two kinds of reason. One is that colors comprise such a large and important portion of our social, personal and epistemological lives and so a philosophical account of our concepts of color is highly desirable.

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Wilfrid Sellars Wilfrid Stalker Sellars (b. 1912, d. 1989) was a profoundly creative and synthetic thinker whose work both as a systematic philosopher and as an influential editor helped set and shape the Anglo-American philosophical agenda for over four ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Structured Propositions It is a truism that two speakers can say the same thing by uttering different sentences, whether in the same or different languages. For example, when a German speaker utters the sentence Schnee ist weiss and an English speaker utters ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z The Revision Theory of Truth The revision theory of truth was developed independently by Gupta (1982) and Herzberger (1982) in an attempt to analyze paradoxes such as the liar paradox that appear to show that common-sense beliefs about truth are inconsistent.

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Constructive Mathematics Constructive mathematics is distinguished from its traditional counterpart, classical mathematics, by the strict interpretation of the phrase there exists as we can construct. In order to work constructively, we need to re-interpret ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Indispensability Arguments in the Philosophy of Mathematics One of the most intriguing features of mathematics is its applicability to empirical science. Every branch of science draws upon large and often diverse portions of mathematics, from the use of ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Contemporary Approaches to the Social Contract The idea of the social contract goes back, in a recognizably modern form, to Thomas Hobbes, but is most notably embodied, in our times, in the work of John Rawls. The basic idea is a simple one. What makes some ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Historicist Theories of Rationality Of those philosophers who have attempted to characterize scientific rationality, most have attended in some way to the history of science. Even Karl Popper, who is hardly a historicist by anyone's standards, frequently ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Medieval Theories of Conscience Through conscience and its related notion, synderesis, human beings discern what is right and wrong. While there are many medieval views about the nature of conscience, most views regard human beings as capable of knowing in ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Tropes A trope is an instance or bit (not an exemplification) of a property or a relation; e.g. Clintons eloquence, Sydneys beauty, or Pierres love of Helo se. Clintons eloquence is understood here not as Clintons participating in the universal eloquence, nor ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Infinitary Logic Traditionally, expressions in formal systems have been regarded as signifying finite inscriptions which are--at least in principle--capable of actually being written out in primitive notation. However, the fact that (first-order) formulas may ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Substructural Logics Substructural logics are non-classical logics weaker than classical logic, notable for the absence of structural rules present in classical logic. These logics are motivated by considerations from philosophy (relevant logics), linguistics ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Conventionality of Simultaneity In his first paper on the special theory of relativity, Einstein indicated that the question of whether or not two spatially separated events were simultaneous did not necessarily have a definite answer, but instead depended on ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Folk Psychology as Mental Simulation The simulation (or, mental simulation ) theory maintains that human beings are able to use the resources of their own minds to simulate the psychological causes of the behavior of others, typically by making decisions ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Representational Theories of Consciousness Consciousness is said in many ways. A theory of consciousness can be about practically anything mental; just look through the various current book series and anthologies and journals that feature the word ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Teleological Notions in Biology Teleological terms such as function and design appear frequently in the biological sciences. Examples of teleological claims include: A (biological) function of stotting by antelopes is to communicate to predators that they have ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Holes Holes are an interesting case-study for ontologists and epistemologists. Naive, untutored descriptions of the world and explanations of facts in the world often make essential reference to holes. A hole explains why water flowed out of the reservoir. A ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Artifact An artifact may be defined as an object that has been intentionally made or produced for a certain purpose. Often the word artifact is used in a more restricted sense to refer to simple, hand-made objects (for example, tools) which represent a ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Thought Experiments Thought experiments are devices of the imagination used to investigate nature. We need only list a few of the well-known thought experiments to be reminded of their enormous influence and importance in the sciences: Newtons bucket, Maxwells ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Public Justification The idea of public justification is the key idea in contemporary liberal-democratic political theory. The idea is, roughly, that no regime is legitimate unless it is reasonable from every individual's point of view. (As will be seen, this ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z The St. Petersburg Paradox The St. Petersburg game is played by flipping a fair coin until it comes up tails, and the total number of flips, n, determines the prize, which equals $2n. Thus if the coin comes up tails the first time, the prize is $21 = $2, and ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Contractarianism Contractarianism names both a political theory of the legitimacy of political authority and a moral theory about the origin and/or legitimate content of moral norms. The political theory of authority claims that legitimate authority of ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Peter John Olivi Peter John Olivi must be considered one of the most original and interesting philosophers of the later Middle Ages. Although not as clear and systematic as Thomas Aquinas, and not as brilliantly analytical as John Duns Scotus, Olivi's ideas ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Richard the Sophister Richard the Sophister (Richardus Sophista) was an English philosopher/logician who studied at Oxford most likely sometime during the second quarter of the thirteenth century. Richard's identity is uncertain, but he is known to be the ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Philip the Chancellor Philip the Chancellor was an influential figure in a number of different circles in the first half of the thirteenth century. He enjoyed a long though rather turbulent ecclesiastical career and was famous for his sermons and his lyric ...

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Supertasks Supertasks have posed problems for philosophy since the time of Zeno of Elea. The term supertask is new but it designates an idea already present in the formulation of the old motion paradoxes of Zeno, namely the idea of an infinite number of ...