FORMS OF PHILOSOPHICAL WRITINGWriting PhilosophyOTHER CATEGORIZATIONS OF PHILOSOPHICAL WRITING
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OTHER CATEGORIZATIONS OF PHILOSOPHICAL WRITING

There are other ways of classifying the forms of philosophic writing you may be asked to produce. The most prominent of these are: The Expository Paper The Argumentative Paper The…
Philosophy BranchesBRANCHES OF PHILOSOPHY
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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…
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LogicMANY-VALUE LOGICS
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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 PhilosophyPOLITICAL PHILOSOPHY
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POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

Political philosophy is at least as old as Plato (428/227 or 424/423-348/347 BC) and is concerned with the nature of the state and, more broadly, with coercive institutions, and their…
Philosophy BranchesTraditional Branches of PhilosophyETHICS
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…
LogicPREDICATE CALCULUS (PREDICATE LOGIC)
November 15, 2023

PREDICATE CALCULUS (PREDICATE LOGIC)

The next development of the propositional calculus is the predicate calculus. This considers the logical relationships that hold between predicate expressions, along with the quantifiers ∃x (“there is at least…
Philosophy BranchesTraditional Branches of PhilosophyMETAPHYSICS
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 WRITINGWriting PhilosophyTHE ESSAY OF REFUTATION
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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 PhilosophyTHE ELEATIC SCHOOL
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…
PHILOSOPHICAL BOOKS AND TEXTINTRODUCTORY LOGIC TEXTS
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There are some fairly firm distinctions between critical thinking and formal (symbolic) logic texts. Whereas critical thinking focuses broadly on argumentation, formal logic is the study of the principles of…
THE EARLY MODERN PERIODHistory Of PhilosophyLIBERALISM
November 15, 2023

LIBERALISM

A political philosophy whose central claim is that a government’s authority is justified only insofar as it secures the liberty of its subjects, Liberalism is generally traced to John Locke…
FORMS OF PHILOSOPHICAL WRITINGTHE PERSONAL ESSAY
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 PhilosophyWHAT PHILOSOPHY PROFESSORS WANT FROM STUDENT WRITERS
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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…
ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHYHistory Of PhilosophyANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
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…

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Terms & Concepts

A

a posteriori (always with lowercase a)

Literally, “after experience.” It is often intended in that way or as generally meaning that which is empirical, or with experience. (See Empirical.) https://youtube.com/shorts/SZUO-NscaA4?feature=share
L

Logic

The systematic study of correct reasoning, including the valid rules of inference. https://youtube.com/shorts/0k2pgzR_upE?feature=share
E

Equality

A social, political, governing, and philosophical principal that bars religion, race,sex, physical or mental abilities, wealth, social status, and so forth from being used as basesfor discrimination. https://youtube.com/shorts/YVZi0E0tf50?feature=share
N
Necessary and sufficient condition
A
Asceticism
M
Monad
E
Ex contradictione quodlibet
T
Tautological equivalence
D
Difference principle
E
Existential import
A
Atman
Z
Zoroastrianism
View All