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A Must Have Book For Every Philosophy Student
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…
Modern Branches of PhilosophyPhilosophy Branches
November 14, 2023

PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

Many of the topics within the philosophy of science overlap with topics in metaphysics, epistemology, and the philosophy of language insofar as they apply within our scientific practice. Metaphysical issues,…
Writing Philosophy
November 24, 2023

WHAT PHILOSOPHY PROFESSORS WANT FROM STUDENT WRITERS

Some 2,300 years ago, Aristotle introduced the syllogism into the intellectual world. A threeelement formula, it is the elementary building block of syllogistic logic and deductive reasoning. The syllogism combines…
Philosophy Branches
December 12, 2023

BRANCHES OF PHILOSOPHY

Philosophy embraces the most ambitious field of inquiry—the universe, including the self and everything both physical and metaphysical. It is impossible to list all the branches of philosophy, which are…
Writing Philosophy
November 24, 2023

WRITING PHILOSOPHY

How Do You Do Philosophy? Writing Is Central To Philosophy What Philosophy Professors Want From Student Writers What Is Good Writing? What Is Good Philosophical Writing? Grading Criteria for Philosophy…
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,…
History Of PhilosophyNON-WESTERN PHILOSOPHICAL TRADITIONS
November 15, 2023

MIDDLE EASTERN TRADITIONS

As the Middle East is often called the cradle of civilization, it is also the source of some of the earliest philosophical literature. Much of it is devoted to what…
History Of PhilosophyTHE EARLY MODERN PERIOD
November 15, 2023

TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALISM

The philosophical system developed by Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), Transcendental Idealism sought to overcome the epistemological problems of Empiricism while providing a rational justification for Liberalism.
Philosophy BranchesTraditional Branches of Philosophy
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,…
History Of PhilosophyNON-WESTERN PHILOSOPHICAL TRADITIONS
November 15, 2023

AFRICAN PHILOSOPHY

The earliest indigenous African philosophy to produce written documents emerged during the seventeenth century, especially in Ethiopia. Zera Yacob (1599–1692), whose Hatata (1667) has been compared to René Descartes’ Discourse…
CONTINENTAL PHILOSOPHYHistory Of Philosophy
November 15, 2023

CONTINENTAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

While the focus of western philosophy has primarily been on the analysis and understanding of our most basic concepts, another important theme has been the preparation and education of man…
WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY?
November 12, 2023

PHILOSOPHY AS METHOD

Our digital age suggests a useful analogy to further explain the role of philosophy in intellectual life. Philosophy is analogous to an operating system (OS), a software platform that enables…
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…
History Of PhilosophyNON-WESTERN PHILOSOPHICAL TRADITIONS
November 15, 2023

PHILOSOPHIES OF EAST ASIA

The dominant philosophical traditions in this part of the world began in Ancient China from the sixth century to 221 BC, which saw the development of China’s great philosophical movements…
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…

Books

  • Meditations: 150th Anniversary Collection Edition (Marcus Aurelius Classics)

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  • Hellenistic Astrology: The Study of Fate and Fortune

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  • Five Dialogues: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Meno, Phaedo

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  • The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World

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  • A Short History of Philosophy: From Ancient Greece to the Post-Modernist Era

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  • The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World

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  • The Middle Way: The Emergence of Modern-Religious Trends in Nineteenth-Century Judaism Responses to Modernity in the Philosophy of Z. H. Chajes, S. R. … Vol. 2 (Studies in Orthodox Judaism)

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  • Bhagavad Gita: Chapter 5: the Global Dharma for the Third Millennium (Volume 5)

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  • History UFO’s and The Search for Alien Life

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  • The 17th Suitcase: Vignettes from a South African Family

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  • Sleeper, Awake: 40 days of companionship for the deconstruction process (The Path of Unlearning)

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Terms & Concepts

D

DeMorgan’s Laws

Named after the British mathematician and logician Augustus deMorgan (2806-1871), two sets of statements are truth-functionally equivalent: ¬ (P ^ Q) :: ¬ P ∨ ¬ Q and ¬ (P…
I

Identity theory

The thesis that the mind and brain are ontologically one and the same or, more accurately,that mental states and events are in fact certain brain and nervous system processes. The…
D

Disjunction

One of the basic Boolean connectives that corresponds to the following English words and phrases: “Or,” “Either…or.” A statement governed by a disjunction is true if at least one of…
R
Reliabilism
L
Logical equivalence (logically equivalent statements)
Q
Quantity
T
Tabula Rasa
R
Realism
P
Positive right
P
Possible world
E
Enlightenment
T
Teleological argument
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