Friendship. Friendship, as understood here, is a distinctively personal relationship that is grounded in a concern on the part of each friend for the welfare of the other, for the other’s sake, and that involves some degree of intimacy. As such, friendship is undoubtedly central to our lives, in part because the special concern we have for ...The word ‘pluralism’ generally refers to the view that there are many of the things in question (concepts, scientific world views, discourses, viewpoints etc.) The issues arising from there being many differ widely from subject area to subject area. This entry is concerned with moral pluralism—the view that there are many different moral ...Deontological Ethics. First published Wed Nov 21, 2007; substantive revision Fri Oct 30, 2020. The word deontology derives from the Greek words for duty ( deon) and science (or study) of ( logos ). In contemporary moral philosophy, deontology is one of those kinds of normative theories regarding which choices are morally required, …Stanford Libraries' Philosophy collections comprise books, journals, and references materials, in print and electronic formats, covering topics such as ethics, logic, metaphysics, epistemology, …Virtue ethics is currently one of three major approaches in normative ethics. It may, initially, be identified as the one that emphasizes the virtues, or moral character, in contrast to the approach that emphasizes duties or rules (deontology) or that emphasizes the consequences of actions (consequentialism). Suppose it is obvious that someone ...First published Tue Jun 25, 2013; substantive revision Fri Jan 25, 2019. An analogy is a comparison between two objects, or systems of objects, that highlights respects in which they are thought to be similar. Analogical reasoning is any type of thinking that relies upon an analogy. An analogical argument is an explicit representation of a form ...Dec 16, 2015 · First published Wed Dec 16, 2015; substantive revision Fri Oct 9, 2020. Decision theory is concerned with the reasoning underlying an agent’s choices, whether this is a mundane choice between taking the bus or getting a taxi, or a more far-reaching choice about whether to pursue a demanding political career. (Note that “agent” here stands ... Sep 16, 2002 · The Problem of Evil. First published Mon Sep 16, 2002; substantive revision Tue Mar 3, 2015. The epistemic question posed by evil is whether the world contains undesirable states of affairs that provide the basis for an argument that makes it unreasonable to believe in the existence of God. This discussion is divided into eight sections. C.E.) was a Neoplatonist philosopher born in Tyre in Phoenicia. He studied with Longinus in Athens and then with Plotinus in Rome from 263–269 C.E. and became a follower of the latter’s version of Platonism. Porphyry wrote in just about every branch of learning practiced at the time but only a portion of his large output is extant.There are roughly two philosophical literatures on “happiness,” each corresponding to a different sense of the term. One uses ‘happiness’ as a value term, roughly synonymous with well-being or flourishing. The other body of work uses the word as a purely descriptive psychological term, akin to ‘depression’ or ‘tranquility’.The Problem of Evil. First published Mon Sep 16, 2002; substantive revision Tue Mar 3, 2015. The epistemic question posed by evil is whether the world contains undesirable states of affairs that provide the basis for an argument that makes it unreasonable to believe in the existence of God. This discussion is divided into eight sections.The metaphysical philosopher’s goal is to attain an observer’s perspective on reality, from which they can learn universal and necessary truths. Philosophy can thus act as the judge and arbiter of both science and culture (1983 [1990: 2–3]). Idealism and identity thinking (1988b essay 3 [1992a: 29–31]). Metaphysics assumes that ideas ...Carl Schmitt. First published Sat Aug 7, 2010; substantive revision Thu Aug 29, 2019. Carl Schmitt (1888–1985) was a conservative German legal, constitutional, and political theorist. Schmitt is often considered to be one of the most important critics of liberalism, parliamentary democracy, and liberal cosmopolitanism.First published Mon Aug 14, 2006; substantive revision Mon Jun 3, 2019. Contemporary Anglophone philosophers of mind generally use the term “belief” to refer to the attitude we have, roughly, whenever we take something to be the case or regard it as true. To believe something, in this sense, needn’t involve actively reflecting on it: Of ...Mar 9, 2011 · In the philosophical literature, the term “abduction” is used in two related but different senses. In both senses, the term refers to some form of explanatory reasoning. However, in the historically first sense, it refers to the place of explanatory reasoning in generating hypotheses, while in the sense in which it is used most frequently ... May 13, 2003 · First published Tue May 13, 2003; substantive revision Sat Feb 13, 2016. Mereology (from the Greek μερος, ‘part’) is the theory of parthood relations: of the relations of part to whole and the relations of part to part within a whole. [ 1] Its roots can be traced back to the early days of philosophy, beginning with the Presocratics and ... The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy ( SEP) combines an online encyclopedia of philosophy with peer-reviewed publication of original papers in philosophy, freely accessible …22.7.2015 ... 64-69. Permalink - https://westminsterresearch.westminster.ac.uk/item/9v640/stanford-encyclopedia-of-philosophy-entry ...Innateness and Language. First published Wed Jan 16, 2008. The philosophical debate over innate ideas and their role in the acquisition of knowledge has a venerable history. It is thus surprising that very little attention was paid until early last century to the questions of how linguistic knowledge is acquired and what role, if any, innate ...Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679), whose current reputation rests largely on his political philosophy, was a thinker with wide-ranging interests. In philosophy, he defended a range of materialist, nominalist, and empiricist views against Cartesian and Aristotelian alternatives. In physics, his work was influential on Leibniz, and led him into ...Human rights are norms that aspire to protect all people everywhere from severe political, legal, and social abuses. Examples of human rights are the right to freedom of religion, the right to a fair trial when charged with a crime, the right not to be tortured, and the right to education. The philosophy of human rights addresses …Decision Theory. First published Wed Dec 16, 2015; substantive revision Fri Oct 9, 2020. Decision theory is concerned with the reasoning underlying an agent’s choices, whether this is a mundane choice between taking the bus or getting a taxi, or a more far-reaching choice about whether to pursue a demanding political career. (Note that ...Gödel’s two incompleteness theorems are among the most important results in modern logic, and have deep implications for various issues. They concern the limits of provability in formal axiomatic theories. The first incompleteness theorem states that in any consistent formal system \ (F\) within which a certain amount of arithmetic can be ...A Greek philosopher of Ephesus (near modern Kuşadası, Turkey) who was active around 500 BCE, Heraclitus propounded a distinctive theory which he expressed in oracular language. He is best known for his doctrines that things are constantly changing (universal flux), that opposites coincide (unity of opposites), and that fire is the basic ...Idealism. First published Sun Aug 30, 2015; substantive revision Fri Feb 5, 2021. This entry discusses philosophical idealism as a movement chiefly in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, although anticipated by certain aspects of seventeenth century philosophy and continuing into the twentieth century. It revises the standard distinction ...1. Life, Work, and Influence. Born in 1770 in Stuttgart, Hegel spent the years 1788–1793 as a student in nearby Tübingen, studying first philosophy, and then theology, and forming friendships with fellow students, the future great romantic poet Friedrich Hölderlin (1770–1843) and Friedrich von Schelling (1775–1854), who, like Hegel, would …Mar 9, 2011 · In the philosophical literature, the term “abduction” is used in two related but different senses. In both senses, the term refers to some form of explanatory reasoning. However, in the historically first sense, it refers to the place of explanatory reasoning in generating hypotheses, while in the sense in which it is used most frequently ... The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP) combines an online encyclopedia of philosophy with peer-reviewed publication of original papers in philosophy, freely accessible to Internet users. It is maintained by Stanford University.Sovereignty, though its meanings have varied across history, also has a core meaning, supreme authority within a territory. It is a modern notion of political authority. Historical variants can be understood along three dimensions — the holder of sovereignty, the absoluteness of sovereignty, and the internal and external dimensions of ...Philosophy of religion is the philosophical examination of the themes and concepts involved in religious traditions as well as the broader philosophical task of reflecting on matters of religious significance including the nature of religion itself, alternative concepts of God or ultimate reality, and the religious significance of general features of the cosmos (e.g., the …Dewey’s Political Philosophy. First published Wed Feb 9, 2005; substantive revision Thu Feb 9, 2023. John Dewey (1859–1952) was an American philosopher, associated with pragmatism. His immense philosophical and other written output encompasses most areas of philosophy as well as a host of other educational, social and political concerns.A handy tool in the search for precise definitions is the specification of necessary and/or sufficient conditions for the application of a term, the use of a concept, or the occurrence of some phenomenon or event. For example, without water and oxygen, there would be no human life; hence these things are necessary conditions for the …Creationism. First published Sat Aug 30, 2003; substantive revision Fri Sep 21, 2018. At a broad level, a Creationist is someone who believes in a god who is absolute creator of heaven and earth, out of nothing, by an act of free will. Such a deity is generally thought to be “transcendent” meaning beyond human experience, and constantly ...1. Philosophy and Conditions. An ambition of twentieth-century philosophy was to analyse and refine the definitions of significant terms—and the concepts expressed by them—in the hope of casting light on the tricky problems of, for example, truth, morality, knowledge and existence that lay beyond the reach of scientific resolution.Anicius Severinus Manlius Boethius was born into the Roman aristocracy c. 475–7 C.E.—about the same time as the last Roman Emperor, Romulus Augustulus, was deposed (August 476). Boethius lived most of his life under the rule of Theoderic, an Ostrogoth educated at Constantinople, who was happy to let the old families keep up their traditions ...Robert Nozick (1938–2002) was a renowned American philosopher who first came to be widely known through his 1974 book, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974), [] which won the National Book Award for Philosophy and Religion in 1975. Pressing further the anti-consequentialist aspects of John Rawls’ A Theory of Justice, Nozick argued that respect for …Robert Nozick’s Political Philosophy. First published Sun Jun 22, 2014; substantive revision Thu Apr 21, 2022. Robert Nozick (1938–2002) was a renowned American philosopher who first came to be widely known through his 1974 book, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974), [ 1] which won the National Book Award for Philosophy and Religion in 1975.First published Thu Sep 23, 1999; substantive revision Wed Nov 25, 2020. Properties are those entities that can be predicated of things or, in other words, attributed to them. Thus, properties are often called predicables. Other terms for them are “attributes”, “qualities”, “features”, “characteristics”, “types”.René Descartes (1596–1650) was a creative mathematician of the first order, an important scientific thinker, and an original metaphysician. During the course of his life, he was a mathematician first, a natural scientist or “natural philosopher” second, and a metaphysician third. In mathematics, he developed the techniques that made ...[This was the previous entry on scientific realism in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy — see the version history.] Worrall, John, “ Miracles, Pessimism, and Scientific Realism , unpublished manuscript.Management philosophy is the philosophy adopted by a company’s executives outlining how they believe a business should be directed, particularly with regard to the treatment of fellow workers and employees.In the philosophy of mind, dualism is the theory that the mental and the physical – or mind and body or mind and brain – are, in some sense, radically different kinds of things. Because common sense tells us that there are physical bodies, and because there is intellectual pressure towards producing a unified view of the world, one could ...Proclus. First published Wed Mar 16, 2011; substantive revision Mon Aug 3, 2020. Proclus of Athens (*412–485 C.E.) was the most authoritative philosopher of late antiquity and played a crucial role in the transmission of Platonic philosophy from antiquity to the Middle Ages.Dec 14, 2005 · Although the term “epistemology” is no more than a couple of centuries old, the field of epistemology is at least as old as any in philosophy. In different parts of its extensive history, different facets of epistemology have attracted attention. Critical Theory. First published Tue Mar 8, 2005. Critical Theory has a narrow and a broad meaning in philosophy and in the history of the social sciences. “Critical Theory” in the narrow sense designates several generations of German philosophers and social theorists in the Western European Marxist tradition known as the Frankfurt School.Homosexuality. First published Tue Aug 6, 2002; substantive revision Tue Apr 28, 2020. The term ‘homosexuality’ was coined in the late 19 th century by an Austrian-born Hungarian psychologist, Karoly Maria Benkert. Although the term is new, discussions about sexuality in general, and same-sex attraction in particular, have occasioned ...Jul 18, 2003 · Virtue ethics is currently one of three major approaches in normative ethics. It may, initially, be identified as the one that emphasizes the virtues, or moral character, in contrast to the approach that emphasizes duties or rules (deontology) or that emphasizes the consequences of actions (consequentialism). Suppose it is obvious that someone ... Maurice Jean Jacques Merleau-Ponty (1908–1961), French philosopher and public intellectual, was the leading academic proponent of existentialism and phenomenology in post-war France. Best known for his original and influential work on embodiment, perception, and ontology, he also made important contributions to the philosophy of art, history ...Enter the realm of "Plato Stanford Encyclopedia. Of Philosophy," a mesmerizing literary masterpiece penned with a distinguished author, guiding readers on a ...Anicius Severinus Manlius Boethius was born into the Roman aristocracy c. 475–7 C.E.—about the same time as the last Roman Emperor, Romulus Augustulus, was deposed (August 476). Boethius lived most of his life under the rule of Theoderic, an Ostrogoth educated at Constantinople, who was happy to let the old families keep up their traditions ...The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP) is the premier reference work in philosophy, and covers an enormous range of philosophical topics through in-depth entries. Under the leadership of Co-Principal Editors, Edward N. Zalta and Uri Nodelman , the SEP brings together over two thousand philosophers and scholars from around the world to ...The following sections treat three key aspects of the philosophy of Confucius, each different but all interrelated, found throughout many of these diverse sets of sources: a theory of how ritual and musical performance functioned to promote unselfishness and train emotions, advice on how to inculcate a set of personal virtues to prepare people ...Self-Knowledge. First published Fri Feb 7, 2003; substantive revision Tue Nov 9, 2021. In philosophy, “self-knowledge” standardly refers to knowledge of one’s own mental states—that is, of what one is feeling or thinking, or what one believes or desires. At least since Descartes, most philosophers have believed that self-knowledge ...The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy organizes scholars from around the world in philosophy and related disciplines to create and maintain an up-to-date reference work. Co …Homosexuality. First published Tue Aug 6, 2002; substantive revision Tue Apr 28, 2020. The term ‘homosexuality’ was coined in the late 19 th century by an Austrian-born Hungarian psychologist, Karoly Maria Benkert. Although the term is new, discussions about sexuality in general, and same-sex attraction in particular, have occasioned ...May 20, 2003 · Act consequentialism is the claim that an act is morally right if and only if that act maximizes the good, that is, if and only if the total amount of good for all minus the total amount of bad for all is greater than this net amount for any incompatible act available to the agent on that occasion. (Cf. Moore 1912, chs. 1–2.) The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy organizes scholars from around the world in philosophy and related disciplines to create and maintain an up-to-date reference work. Co-Principal Editors: Edward N. Zalta and Uri Nodelman. Masthead | Editorial Board.The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy ( SEP) combines an online encyclopedia of philosophy with peer-reviewed publication of original papers in philosophy, freely accessible to Internet users. [1] [2] It is maintained by Stanford University. Each entry is written and maintained by an expert in the field, including professors from many ...The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy organizes scholars from around the world in philosophy and related disciplines to create and maintain an up-to-date reference work. Co-Principal Editors: Edward N. Zalta and Uri Nodelman.We use cookies to improve your website experience. To learn about our use of cookies and how you can manage your cookie settings, please see our Cookie ...Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) was a German philosopher and cultural critic who published intensively in the 1870s and 1880s. He is famous for uncompromising criticisms of traditional European morality and religion, as well as of conventional philosophical ideas and social and political pieties associated with modernity.Metaethics. First published Tue Jan 23, 2007; substantive revision Tue Jan 24, 2023. Metaethics is the attempt to understand the metaphysical, epistemological, semantic, and psychological, presuppositions and commitments of moral thought, talk, and practice. As such, it counts within its domain a broad range of questions and puzzles, …Giovanni Battista Vico (1668–1744) spent most of his professional life as Professor of Rhetoric at the University of Naples. He was trained in jurisprudence, but read widely in Classics, philology, and philosophy, all of which informed his highly original views on history, historiography, and culture. His thought is most fully expressed in ...... Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP) and Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews. They appear here via special arrangement with Philosophical Percolations ...Creationism. First published Sat Aug 30, 2003; substantive revision Fri Sep 21, 2018. At a broad level, a Creationist is someone who believes in a god who is absolute creator of heaven and earth, out of nothing, by an act of free will. Such a deity is generally thought to be “transcendent” meaning beyond human experience, and constantly ...The Problem of Evil. First published Mon Sep 16, 2002; substantive revision Tue Mar 3, 2015. The epistemic question posed by evil is whether the world contains undesirable states of affairs that provide the basis for an argument that makes it unreasonable to believe in the existence of God. This discussion is divided into eight sections.May 1, 2001 · Aristotle describes ethical virtue as a “ hexis ” (“state” “condition” “disposition”)—a tendency or disposition, induced by our habits, to have appropriate feelings (1105b25–6). Defective states of character are hexeis (plural of hexis) as well, but they are tendencies to have inappropriate feelings. First published Tue Jul 16, 2002; substantive revision Sat Jul 11, 2020. The laden phrase “identity politics” has come to signify a wide range of political activity and theorizing founded in the shared experiences of injustice of members of certain social groups. Rather than organizing solely around belief systems, programmatic manifestos ...Embodied Cognition is a wide-ranging research program drawing from and inspiring work in psychology, neuroscience, ethology, philosophy, linguistics, robotics, and artificial intelligence. Whereas traditional cognitive science also encompasses these disciplines, it finds common purpose in a conception of mind wedded to computationalism: mental ...The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP) combines an online encyclopedia of philosophy with peer-reviewed publication of original papers in philosophy, freely accessible to Internet users. It is maintained by Stanford University. Each entry is written and maintained by an expert in the field, including professors from many academic institutions worldwide. Authors contri…1. Aims and Methods of Moral Philosophy. The most basic aim of moral philosophy, and so also of the Groundwork, is, in Kant’s view, to “seek out” the foundational principle of a “metaphysics of morals,” which Kant understands as a system of a priori moral principles that apply the CI to human persons in all times and cultures.The Encyclopedia of Philosophy is one of the major English encyclopedias of philosophy. [1] The first edition of the encyclopedia was edited by philosopher Paul Edwards (1923–2004), …Dec 22, 2003 · Plato on Rhetoric and Poetry. First published Mon Dec 22, 2003; substantive revision Wed Feb 12, 2020. Plato’s discussions of rhetoric and poetry are both extensive and influential. As in so many other cases, he sets the agenda for the subsequent tradition. And yet understanding his remarks about each of these topics—rhetoric and poetry ... Philosophers use a number of terms to refer to such value. The intrinsic value of something is said to be the value that that thing has “in itself,” or “for its own sake,” or “as such,” or “in its own right.”. Extrinsic value is value that is not intrinsic. Many philosophers take intrinsic value to be crucial to a variety of ...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 went on to become one of the twentieth century’s most famous philosophers ...The nature of beauty is one of the most enduring and controversial themes in Western philosophy, and is—with the nature of art—one of the two fundamental issues in the history of philosophical aesthetics. Beauty has traditionally been counted among the ultimate values, with goodness, truth, and justice. It is a primary theme among ancient ...May 1, 2001 · Aristotle describes ethical virtue as a “ hexis ” (“state” “condition” “disposition”)—a tendency or disposition, induced by our habits, to have appropriate feelings (1105b25–6). Defective states of character are hexeis (plural of hexis) as well, but they are tendencies to have inappropriate feelings. Mar 8, 2005 · Critical Theory. First published Tue Mar 8, 2005. Critical Theory has a narrow and a broad meaning in philosophy and in the history of the social sciences. “Critical Theory” in the narrow sense designates several generations of German philosophers and social theorists in the Western European Marxist tradition known as the Frankfurt School. Sovereignty, though its meanings have varied across history, also has a core meaning, supreme authority within a territory. It is a modern notion of political authority. Historical variants can be understood along three dimensions — the holder of sovereignty, the absoluteness of sovereignty, and the internal and external dimensions of ...Edith Stein (1891–1942) was a realist phenomenologist associated with the Göttingen school and later a Christian metaphysician. She was a Jew who converted to Catholicism in 1922 and was ordained a Carmelite nun in 1933. She died in Auschwitz in 1942. She was subsequently declared a Catholic martyr and saint.This definition is also found in multiple encyclopedias and dictionaries of philosophy. For example, in the Concise Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, William L. Rowe (also an atheist) writes, “Atheism is the position that affirms the nonexistence of God. It proposes positive disbelief rather than mere suspension of belief” (2000: 62).This work is heterogeneous, comprising analyses and arguments of idealists, positivists, logicians, theologians, and others, and moving back and forth over the divides …Dewey’s Political Philosophy. First published Wed Feb 9, 2005; substantive revision Thu Feb 9, 2023. John Dewey (1859–1952) was an American philosopher, associated with pragmatism. His immense philosophical and other written output encompasses most areas of philosophy as well as a host of other educational, social and political concerns.Kevin N. Cawley (University College Cork) Philosophy of Language: Jeffrey C. King (Rutgers University) Ben Caplan (University of Kansas) Elisabeth Camp (Rutgers University) Robin Jeshion (University of Southern California) Ofra Magidor (Oxford University) Latin American and Iberian Philosophy: Otávio Bueno (University of Miami)Eight Ways of Dealing with the Repugnant Conclusion. 2.1 Introducing new ways of aggregating welfare into a measure of value. 2.2 Questioning the way we can compare and measure welfare. 2.3 Counting welfare differently depending on temporal or modal features. 2.4 Revising the notion of a life worth living.The word ‘pluralism’ generally refers to the view that there are many of the things in question (concepts, scientific world views, discourses, viewpoints etc.) The issues arising from there being many differ widely from subject area to subject area. This entry is concerned with moral pluralism—the view that there are many different moral ...Jul 1, 1998 · Aristotle (b. 384–d. 322 BCE), was a Greek philosopher, May 30, 2013 · Confirmation. First published Thu May 30, 2013; substantive revision Tue Jan 28, 2020. Human cog, Existence. First published Wed Oct 10, 2012; substantive revision Tue May 5, 2020. Existence rai, 1. Categories of Rights A right to life, a right to choose; a right to vote, to work, to strike; a right to one phon, Decision Theory. First published Wed Dec 16, 2015; substantive revision Fri Oct 9, 2020. Decision, Auguste Comte. First published Wed Oct 1, 2008; substantive revision Thu Jan 27, 2022. Auguste Comte (179, Feb 27, 2003 · Negative liberty is the absence of obst, In the philosophical literature, the term “abduction” i, Sep 8, 2003 · Zombies. First published Mon Sep 8, 20, In 2003, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (, Experimental philosophy is an approach to philosophy that explicitly , Critical Theory. First published Tue Mar 8, 2005. Critical Theory h, Carl Schmitt. First published Sat Aug 7, 2010; substantiv, 1. Philosophy and Conditions. An ambition of twentieth-centur, Aristotle. First published Thu Sep 25, 2008; substantive revision Tue , 9.2.2021 ... The Meaning of Life (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosoph, “Game Theory, Evolution, and Justice,” Philosophy and Public Affairs,, Jun 23, 2021 · The hallmarks of Ibn Rushd’s work are his convictions.