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FORMS OF PHILOSOPHICAL WRITINGWriting Philosophy
November 20, 2023

FORMS OF PHILOSOPHICAL WRITING

The word essay comes from the French infinitive verb essayer, meaning “to try” or “to attempt.” In fact, when the word was first borrowed into the English language, as essay,…
Philosophy BranchesTraditional Branches of Philosophy
December 12, 2023

METAPHYSICS

Metaphysics is the philosophical investigation of reality, including the nature of the world and the entities it contains. While such an investigation inevitably overlaps with natural philosophy—the sciences, especially physics…
FORMS OF PHILOSOPHICAL WRITING
November 20, 2023

THE PERSONAL ESSAY

The personal essay is a self-reflective search for meaning. Unlike most philosophical writing, it is not argumentative. Instead, it is exploratory and speculative, often even somewhat confessional. It is typically…
Writing Philosophy
November 21, 2023

ESSENTIAL WRITING SKILLS

Having just walked through the basic process of writing a philosophy paper, we turn now to the essential skillset you should develop and apply not only to the writing of…
ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHYHistory Of Philosophy
November 15, 2023

ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

The analytic tradition arose partly as a rejection of Hegelian idealism in favor of what George Edward Moore (1873–1958) called a “common sense” view of the world, alongside developments in…
ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHYHistory Of 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…
Philosophy BranchesTraditional Branches of Philosophy
December 12, 2023

ETHICS

Ethics is the study of morality and can be divided into three main areas of inquiry. Descriptive ethics concerns the actual moral beliefs held by specific individuals or societies and…
WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY?
November 24, 2023

PHILOSOPHICAL FILMS AND TV SHOWS

Note: Some of these titles may be difficult to find, either in DVD format or streaming. Film Animation Animal Farm (1954)Based on George Orwell’s novel of the same name, farm…
History Of PhilosophyNON-WESTERN PHILOSOPHICAL TRADITIONS
November 15, 2023

INDIAN PHILOSOPHY

Philosophy on the Indian subcontinent between 1000 BC and the early centuries of the first millennium was comprised of six major schools of Hindu philosophy (Nyaya, Vaisheshika, Samkhya, Yoga, Mimamsa,…
Writing Philosophy
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…
PHILOSOPHICAL BOOKS AND TEXT
November 27, 2023

CRITICAL THINKING AND LOGIC TEXTBOOKS

Textbooks on critical thinking and logic.
Philosophy BranchesTraditional Branches of Philosophy
December 12, 2023

LOGIC

Logic is concerned with studying the inferences we make, and the formal languages developed to systematize those inferences. This includes both the proof-theories and semantics for these languages, as well…
Logic
November 15, 2023

PROPOSITIONAL CALCULUS (PROPOSITIONAL LOGIC)

The simplest formal (logical) language is the propositional calculus. This considers the logical relationships that hold between complete propositions.
CLASSICAL PHILOSOPHYHistory Of Philosophy
November 15, 2023

PLATO

Plato (427–347 BC) was born into a powerful family in Athens but abandoned politics after the execution of his teacher, Socrates; he subsequently traveled, became influenced by the Pythagoreans, and…
History Of Philosophy
November 15, 2023

POST-KANTIAN PHILOSOPHY IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

Kant’s philosophy continued to dominate throughout the nineteenth century, although there were increasing concerns about the overall coherence of his system; in particular, there was doubt as to whether the…

Books

  • Free Will [Deckle Edge]

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  • Why There Is No God: Simple Responses to 20 Common Arguments for the Existence of God

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  • The Beginner’s Guide to Stoicism: Tools for Emotional Resilience & Positivity

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  • Theologico-Political Treatise

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  • The Prince (Hackett Classics)

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  • On Human Nature

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  • Lessons from Tozer for the Christian

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  • Welcoming the Unwelcome: Wholehearted Living in a Brokenhearted World

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  • Rhetoric

    $34.93
  • The Symposium (Penguin Classics)

    $8.99
  • The Expulsion of the Other: Society, Perception and Communication Today

    $14.95
  • On Modern Origins: Essays in Early Modern Philosophy (Applications of Political Theory)

    $53.14
  • Meditations – The Classical Translation by George Long (Reader’s Library Classics)

    $5.66

Terms & Concepts

D

Deism

The belief, popular in the eighteenth century, that God exists in order for the universe to have been created, but we are not justified in believing that God is concerned…
A

Absolute space

The view that space exists independently of (that is, not relative to) objects and events said to be in them. (See also Absolute time.) https://youtube.com/shorts/gKx_4OH4EwY?feature=share
P

Principle of utility

In Utilitarian philosophies of Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) and John Stuart Mill (1806-1873), the principle that morally right actions are those that produce the least pain and greatest pleasure or happiness…
P
Pluralism
S
Stoicism
D
Declarative sentence
A
Argument from design
C
Certainty
C
Cartesian
U
Underdetermination
E
Empirical idealism
I
Intrinsic good
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