Spinoza: Moral Philosophy Like many European philosophers in the early modern period, Benedict de Spinoza (1632-1677) developed a moral philosophy that fused the insights of ancient theories of virtue with a modern conception of humans, their place in nature, and their relationship to God. Unlike many other authors in this period, however, Spinoza was strongly … Continue reading Spinoza: Moral Philosophy
Spinoza: Moral Philosophy
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Presocratics
Presocratics Presocratic philosophers are the Western thinkers preceding Socrates (c. 469-c. 399 B.C.E.) but including some thinkers who were roughly contemporary with Socrates, such as Protagoras (c. 490-c. 420 B.C.E.). The application of the term “philosophy” to the Presocratics is somewhat anachronistic, but is certainly different from how many people currently think of philosophy. The … Continue reading Presocratics
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Hartshorne: Biography and Psychology of Sensation
Charles Hartshorne: Biography and Psychology of Sensation Charles Hartshorne is widely regarded as having been an important figure in twentieth century metaphysics and philosophy of religion. His contributions are wide-ranging. He championed the aspirations of metaphysics when it was unfashionable, and the metaphysic he championed helped change some of the fashions of philosophy. He counted … Continue reading Hartshorne: Biography and Psychology of Sensation
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Dunyi, Zhou
Zhou Dunyi (Chou Tun-i, 1017-1073) Zhou Dunyi (sometimes romanized as Chou Tun-i and also known by his posthumous name, Zhou Lianxi) has long been highly esteemed by Chinese thinkers. He is considered one of the first “Neo-Confucians,” a group of thinkers who draw heavily on Buddhist and Daoist metaphysics to articulate a comprehensive, Confucian religious … Continue reading Dunyi, Zhou
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Ancient Ethics
Ancient Ethics Ethical reflection in ancient Greece and Rome starts from all of an agent’s ends or goals and tries to systematize them. Our ends are diverse. We typically want, among other things, material comfort, health, respect from peers and love from friends and family, successful children, healthy emotional lives, and intellectual achievement. We see … Continue reading Ancient Ethics
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Bayle, Pierre
Pierre Bayle (1647–1706) Pierre Bayle was a seventeenth-century French skeptical philosopher and historian. He is best known for his encyclopedic work The Historical and Critical Dictionary (1697, 1st edition; 1702, 2nd edition), a work which was widely influential on eighteenth-century figures such as Voltaire and Thomas Jefferson. Bayle is traditionally described as a skeptic, though … Continue reading Bayle, Pierre
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Rahner, Karl
Karl Rahner (1904─1984) Karl Rahner was one of the most influential Catholic philosophers of the mid to late twentieth century. A member of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) and a Roman Catholic priest, Rahner, as was the custom of the time, studied scholastic philosophy, through which he discovered Thomas Aquinas. From Aquinas’ epistemology and philosophical … Continue reading Rahner, Karl
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Seneca, Lucius Annaeus
Lucius Annaeus Seneca (c. 4 B.C.E.—65 C.E.) The ancient Greek philosopher Seneca was a Stoic who adopted and argued largely from within the framework he inherited from his Stoic predecessors. His Letters to Lucilius have long been widely read Stoic texts. Seneca's texts have many aims: he writes to exhort readers to philosophy, to encourage … Continue reading Seneca, Lucius Annaeus
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Kant: Philosophy of Mind
Kant: Philosophy of Mind Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) was one of the most important philosophers of the Enlightenment Period (c. 1650-1800) in Western European history. This encyclopedia article focuses on Kant’s views in the philosophy of mind, which undergird much of his epistemology and metaphysics. In particular, it focuses on metaphysical and epistemological doctrines forming the … Continue reading Kant: Philosophy of Mind
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Gouges, Olympe de
Olympe de Gouges (1748—1793) “Woman has the right to mount the scaffold; she must equally have the right to mount the rostrum” wrote Olympe de Gouges in 1791 in the best known of her writings The Rights of Woman (often referenced as The Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen), two years … Continue reading Gouges, Olympe de
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Suárez, Francisco
Francisco Suárez (1548—1617) Sometimes called the "Eminent Doctor" after Paul V’s designation of him as doctor eximius et pius, Francisco Suárez was the leading theological and philosophical light of Spain’s Golden Age, alongside such cultural icons as Miguel de Cervantes, Tomás Luis de Victoria, and El Greco. Although initially rejected on grounds of deficient health … Continue reading Suárez, Francisco
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Ernst Cassirer
Ernst Cassirer (1874-1945) Ernst Cassirer was the most prominent, and the last, Neo-Kantian philosopher of the twentieth century. His major philosophical contribution was the transformation of his teacher Hermann Cohen’s mathematical-logical adaptation of Kant’s transcendental idealism into a comprehensive philosophy of symbolic forms intended to address all aspects of human cultural life and creativity. In … Continue reading Ernst Cassirer
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Camus, Albert
Albert Camus (1913—1960) Albert Camus was a French-Algerian journalist, playwright, novelist, philosophical essayist, and Nobel laureate. Though he was neither by advanced training nor profession a philosopher, he nevertheless made important, forceful contributions to a wide range of issues in moral philosophy in his novels, reviews, articles, essays, and speeches—from terrorism and political violence to … Continue reading Camus, Albert
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Žižek, Slavoj
Slavoj Žižek (1949 —) Slavoj Žižek is a Slovenian-born political philosopher and cultural critic. He was described by British literary theorist, Terry Eagleton, as the “most formidably brilliant” recent theorist to have emerged from Continental Europe. Žižek’s work is infamously idiosyncratic. It features striking dialectical reversals of received common sense; a ubiquitous sense of humor; … Continue reading Žižek, Slavoj
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Aesthetics, Ancient
Ancient Aesthetics It could be argued that ‘ancient aesthetics’ is an anachronistic term, since aesthetics as a discipline originated in 18th century Germany. Nevertheless, there is considerable evidence that ancient Greek and Roman philosophers discussed and theorised about the nature and value of aesthetic properties. They also undoubtedly contributed to the development of the later … Continue reading Aesthetics, Ancient
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Veṅkaṭanātha
Veṅkaṭanātha (Vedānta Deśika) (c. 1269—c. 1370) Veṅkaṭanātha (also known as Vedānta Deśika “teacher of Vedānta”) was an Indian polymath who wrote philosophical as well as religious and poetical works in several languages, including Sanskrit, Maṇipravāḷa—a Sanskritised form of literary Tamil—and Tamil. He is traditionally dated to 1269-1370, but as explained by Neevel “the lifespans of … Continue reading Veṅkaṭanātha
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Habermas, Jürgen
Jürgen Habermas (1929—) Jürgen Habermas produced a large body of work over more than five decades. His early work was devoted to the public sphere, to modernization, and to critiques of trends in philosophy and politics. He then slowly began to articulate theories of rationality, meaning, and truth. His two-volume Theory of Communicative Action in … Continue reading Habermas, Jürgen
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Wittgenstein: Epistemology
Wittgenstein: Epistemology Although Ludwig Wittgenstein is generally more known for his works on logic and on the nature of language, but throughout his philosophical journey he reflected extensively also on epistemic notions such as knowledge, belief, doubt, and certainty. This interest is more evident in his final notebook, published posthumously as On Certainty (1969, henceforth … Continue reading Wittgenstein: Epistemology
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Gale, Richard M.
Richard M. Gale (1932—2015) Richard Gale was an American philosopher known for defending the A-theory of time against the B-theory. The A-theory implies, for example, that tensed predicates are not reducible to tenseless predicates. Gale also argued against the claim that negative truths are reducible to positive ones. He created a new modal version of … Continue reading Gale, Richard M.
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Avicenna (Ibn Sina): Logic
Avicenna (Ibn Sina): Logic Avicenna (Ibn Sina) (c. 980-1037 C.E., or 375-428 of Hegira) is one of the most important philosophers and logicians in the Arabic world. His logical works are presented in several treatises. Some of them are commentaries on Aristotle's Organon, and are presented in al-Shifa al-Mantiq, the logical part of … Continue reading Avicenna (Ibn Sina): Logic
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