Traditional Branches of PhilosophyPhilosophy BranchesAESTHETICS
December 12, 2023

AESTHETICS

Aesthetics is concerned with the nature of art (whether visual, literary, dramatic, or in some other medium) and the way in which art is experienced. Two principal related issues, therefore,…
CONTINENTAL PHILOSOPHYHistory Of PhilosophyPHENOMENOLOGY
November 15, 2023

PHENOMENOLOGY

As originally developed by Edmund Husserl (1859–1938), phenomenology seeks to provide a detailed description of the way in which things are presented to us—that is to say, phenomena —in an…
LogicMANY-VALUE LOGICS
November 15, 2023

MANY-VALUE LOGICS

In the classical logics already discussed, the logical connectives are taken to be bivalent—that is, they allow of only two different truth values: true and false. One natural extension to…
Philosophy BranchesTraditional Branches of PhilosophyNATURAL PHILOSOPHY
December 12, 2023

NATURAL PHILOSOPHY

An important historical branch designation rather than a current one, natural philosophy was the study of nature and the physical universe by philosophical (that is, largely empirical reason-based) methods.
Philosophy BranchesTraditional Branches of PhilosophyPHILOSOPHY OF LAW
December 12, 2023

PHILOSOPHY OF LAW

The philosophy of law is concerned with all aspects of theoretical reflection on laws and legal systems and therefore encompasses historical and sociological studies in addition to the philosophical questions…
History Of PhilosophyTHE PRE-SOCRATICS
November 15, 2023

THE PRE-SOCRATICS

The origins of Western philosophy are usually attributed to Thales of Miletus (fl. sixth century BC), who taught that “everything was made of water” and thus that the universe, all…
FORMS OF PHILOSOPHICAL WRITINGWriting PhilosophyTHE ESSAY OF REFUTATION
November 20, 2023

THE ESSAY OF REFUTATION

The essay of refutation takes the position “I disagree.” Its objective is to persuade the reader that the argument of another is false, flawed, unlikely, implausible, or in some other…
History Of PhilosophyANALYTIC PHILOSOPHYORDINARY LANGUAGE PHILOSOPHY
November 15, 2023

ORDINARY LANGUAGE PHILOSOPHY

Between the 1940s and the 1960s, analytic philosophy shifted away from investigating the (supposed) underlying logical structure of language. While it was still primarily concerned with conceptual analysis, this was…
Writing PhilosophyGRADING CRITERIA FOR PHILOSOPHY ESSAYS
November 24, 2023

GRADING CRITERIA FOR PHILOSOPHY ESSAYS

The eight skills just listed are so central to philosophical writing that we may count them among the criteria most instructors use in grading essay assignments. Keep these eight skills…
Modern Branches of PhilosophyPhilosophy BranchesPHILOSOPHY OF MATHEMATICS
November 14, 2023

PHILOSOPHY OF MATHEMATICS

The philosophy of mathematics is traditionally concerned with the ontological and epistemological foundations of mathematics. The two questions, of ontology and epistemology, are intimately related, as a satisfactory account of…
LogicBASIC LOGICAL SYMBOLS
November 15, 2023

BASIC LOGICAL SYMBOLS

¬ one-place logical connective read as “not” or as “is not the case” ~ alternative notation for “not” & two-place logical connective read as “and” ˄ and
History Of PhilosophyTHE SOPHISTS
November 15, 2023

THE SOPHISTS

The Sophists were not a single school but a professional grouping of largely itinerant teachers of rhetoric, philosophy, and legal argumentation. Their importance lies not in any specific doctrines but…
POST-KANTIAN PHILOSOPHYHistory Of PhilosophyPRAGMATISM
November 15, 2023

PRAGMATISM

Pragmatism was a philosophical movement in the United States concerned with the relationship between abstract theory and practical activity, and with the value of philosophical reflection.
FORMS OF PHILOSOPHICAL WRITINGWriting PhilosophyTHE EXPOSITORY PAPER
November 19, 2023

THE EXPOSITORY PAPER

We have already touched on the expository paper, but let’s discuss it briefly here. Look at the adjective expository. It is derived from the noun exposition, which is the noun…
NON-WESTERN PHILOSOPHICAL TRADITIONSNON-WESTERN PHILOSOPHICAL TRADITIONS
November 15, 2023

NON-WESTERN PHILOSOPHICAL TRADITIONS

As explained at the beginning of this chapter, this book is intended primarily for philosophy students, especially new philosophy students, whose focus is mainly or even exclusively on Western philosophical…

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Terms & Concepts

F

Free-Rider Problem

A “free rider” benefits from a social arrangement without bearing the costs; for example, herides the bus without buying a ticket. Without some mechanism to disincentivize free riders(such as punishment),…
I

Indeterminacy of translation

Thesis of Willard Van Orman Quine (1908-2000) stating that, in the context of radical translation (that is, translation based purely on observable behavior), it is possible to construct multiple translation…
B

Boolean connectives (Boolean operators)

Named after mathematician and logician George Boole, these are the three fundamental truth functional building blocks of compound sentences. They are negation, conjunction, and disjunction. The ordinary language words for…
A
Analytic statement
M
Monotheism
S
Sophists
P
Principle of equality
D
Deconstruction
I
Indeterminism
B
Bound variable
E
Extension
A
Altruism
View All