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FORMS OF PHILOSOPHICAL WRITINGWriting Philosophy
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…
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…
Writing Philosophy
November 24, 2023

WRITING IS CENTRAL TO PHILOSOPHY

For the great majority of us, writing is instrumental to thinking. Since it is reasonable to describe philosophy as the application of disciplined thought to a variety of topics, issues,…
Logic
November 15, 2023

QUANTUM LOGIC

Most non-classical logics are motivated by either philosophical considerations, such as the metaphysical status of the future, or technical concerns about the neutrality of the logical connectives or the notion…
History Of Philosophy
November 15, 2023

CLASSICAL PHILOSOPHY

The Classical Period in philosophy was dominated by the teachings of Plato (427–347 BC) and Aristotle (384–322 BC) but gradually fell into a decline following the conquest of the independent…
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…
Modern Branches of PhilosophyPhilosophy Branches
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…
Writing Philosophy
November 22, 2023

THE PHILOSOPHICAL WRITING PROCESS

Writing is work, and for many of us, writing is hard work. Writing philosophy adds to this labor an element of intimidation. Whether you are writing an expository—explanatory and descriptive—essay…
History Of Philosophy
November 15, 2023

THE ELEATIC SCHOOL

Based in the Ionian colony of Elea (modern-day Velia) in southern Italy, and primarily associated with Parmenides (early fifth century BC) and Melissus of Samos (mid fifth century BC), the…
Traditional Branches of PhilosophyPhilosophy Branches
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,…
NON-WESTERN PHILOSOPHICAL TRADITIONSHistory Of Philosophy
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…
History Of Philosophy
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…
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…
FORMS OF PHILOSOPHICAL WRITINGWriting Philosophy
November 19, 2023

THE POSITION PAPER

A position paper may be viewed as a type of argumentative paper in that it states a claim—your position—concerning a topic, issue, or question and presents a justification for that…
STRATEGIC WRITING CHOICESWriting Philosophy
November 18, 2023

STRATEGIC WRITING CHOICES FOR PHILOSOPHY CLASS

Writing philosophy should not be easy, but you cannot allow it to become impossible. Here are five strategic rules of thumb for embarking on a successful writing project for philosophy…

Books

  • Selected Writings (Penguin Classics)

    $16.99
  • Perspectives on Pragmatism: Classical, Recent, and Contemporary

    $46.00
  • The Use and Abuse of History

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  • Three Critiques: Critique of Pure Reason, Critique of Practical Reason, Critique of Judgement

    $29.99
  • Living Your Yoga: Finding the Spiritual in Everyday Life

    $12.80
  • Computing Machinery and Intelligence / Können Maschinen denken?: Englisch/Deutsch. [Great Papers Philosophie]

    $9.62
  • What Does Europe Want?: The Union and Its Discontents (Insurrections: Critical Studies in Religion, Politics, and Culture)

    $15.60
  • Designing the Mind: The Principles of Psychitecture – Gold Edition Hardcover

    $44.99
  • The Aristotle Collection: Nicomachean Ethics, Metaphysics, Poetics, Rhetoric, On Sense and the Sensible, On Memory and Reminiscence, On Sleep and Sleeplessness, On Dreams, On Prophesying by Dreams, On Longevity and Shortness of Life, On Youth and Old Age, & On Life and Death

    $28.99
  • The Autobiography of Satan

    $23.90
  • Le Cantique des oiseaux

    $28.04
  • Buddhism Plain and Simple: The Practice of Being Aware, Right Now, Every Day

    $13.89
  • A Discourse on the Method (Oxford World’s Classics)

    $8.59
  • Beyond Good and Evil

    $3.99
  • System of Transcendental Idealism (1800)

    $23.50
  • A Philosophical Inquiry Into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful

    $31.15

Terms & Concepts

E

Ex contradictione quodlibet

The logical principle that from a contradiction everything follows. Non-classical logics designed to invalidate this principle are known as paraconsistent logics. https://youtube.com/shorts/wF0zrFYUM90?feature=share
C

Contingent truth

A truth dependent on facts. As such, it is neither logically necessary nor logically impossible. In propositional logic, a contingently true statement is true on at least one row of…
T

Tautological consequence

A statement that follows from another statement (or statements) by means of the truth functional connectives; there is no truth table row on which the statement in question is false,while…
L
Li
N
Nihilism
L
Logical consequence
R
Rhetoric
N
Negative right
S
Standard form
A
Atomic sentence
C
Counterexample
G
Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorems
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