Agnosticism

By Rowe, William L.

In the popular sense, an agnostic is someone who neither believes nor disbelieves in God, whereas an atheist disbelieves in God. In the strict sense, however, agnosticism is ...

Materialism

By Stack, George J.

Materialism is a set of related theories which hold that all entities and processes are composed of – or are reducible to – matter, material forces or physical ...

Chernyshevskii, Nikolai Gavrilovich (1828–89)

By Walicki, Andrzej

Nikolai Chernyshevskii was the main theorist of the Russian democratic radicalism of ‘the 1860s’ or, more precisely, of the period of political ‘thaw’ and liberal reforms which followed ...

Protagoras (c.490–c.420 BC)

By Kahn, Charles H.

Protagoras was the first and most eminent of the Greek Sophists. Active in Athens, he pioneered the role of professional educator, training ambitious young men for a public ...

Religion, philosophy of

Philosophy of religion comprises philosophical reflection on a wide range of religious and religiously significant phenomena: religious belief, doctrine and practice in general; the phenomenology and cognitive significance ...

Religion, philosophy of

By Stump, Eleonore

Philosophy of religion is philosophical reflection on religion. It is as old as philosophy itself and has been a standard part of Western philosophy in every period (see ...

Negative theology

By Braine, David

The term ‘negative theology’ refers to theologies which regard negative statements as primary in expressing our knowledge of God, contrasted with ‘positive theologies’ giving primary emphasis to positive ...

Political philosophy, history of

By Hampsher-Monk, Iain

The history of political philosophy attempts to yield a connected account of past speculation on the character of human association at its most inclusive level. ‘History’ or ‘philosophy’ ...

Eternity

By Stump, Eleonore; Kretzmann, Norman

The distinctive, philosophically interesting concept of eternity arose very early in the history of philosophy as the concept of a mode of existence that was not only beginningless ...

Fictionalism in metaphysics

By Caddick Bourne, Emily

Fictionalism proposes that a certain discourse – such as talk about possible worlds, or mathematical talk – is useful, perhaps even indispensable for theoretical purposes, but should not ...

Lichtenberg, Georg Christoph (1742–99)

By Zoller, Gunter

Lichtenberg was a German mathematician, physicist and astronomer, a highly successful university teacher in the field of experimental physics and a prolific writer of essays on scientific and ...

Motion

By Huggett, Nick

Motion is a kind of change, so it is worth beginning with change generally. Change is puzzling because it requires something both to remain the same (so one ...

Atheism

By Rowe, William L.

Atheism is the position that affirms the nonexistence of God. It proposes positive disbelief rather than mere suspension of belief. Since many different gods have been objects of ...

Immortality in ancient philosophy

By Brennan, Tad

In Greco-Roman philosophy immortality is discussed in two contexts: as an uncontroversial attribute of the gods and as a highly controversial attribute of human souls. Subdividing this latter ...

Nineteenth-century philosophy

By Stern, Robert

In the first part of the nineteenth century, the reigning philosophical outlook was idealist in one form or another, as the attempt was made to complete the intellectual ...

Smith, Adam (1723–90)

By Haakonssen, Knud

Despite his reputation as the founder of political economy, Adam Smith was a philosopher who constructed a general system of morals in which political economy was but one ...

Hanson, Norwood Russell (1924–67)

By MacKinnon, Edward

Hanson was a philosopher of science who introduced novel ways of relating logical, historical and linguistic analyses. His best-known book, Patterns of Discovery, stressed the theory-ladeness of observational ...

Hess, Moses (1812–75)

By Avineri, Shlomo

Hess was a socialist philosopher, closely connected with the Young Hegelians, who influenced the initial philosophical development of Karl Marx, and later articulated, in the context of a ...

Religion and epistemology

By Plantinga, Alvin

Epistemology is theory of knowledge; one would therefore expect epistemological discussions of religion to concentrate on the question as to whether one could have knowledge of religious beliefs. ...

Garrigou-Lagrange, Réginald (1887–1964)

By McInerny, Ralph

Garrigou-Lagrange was a French Dominican who for decades adorned the Angelicum in Rome, where in his courses he commented closely on the Summa theologiae. The spiritual life was ...

God, arguments for the existence of

By Plantinga, Alvin

Arguments for the existence of God go back at least to Aristotle, who argued that there must be a first mover, itself unmoved. All the great medieval philosophers ...

Natural theology

By MacDonald, Scott

Natural theology aims at establishing truths or acquiring knowledge about God (or divine matters generally) using only our natural cognitive resources. The phrase ‘our natural cognitive resources’ identifies ...

Religion and epistemology

Epistemology is theory of knowledge; one would therefore expect epistemological discussions of religion to concentrate on the question as to whether one could have knowledge of religious beliefs. ...

Rosmini-Serbati, Antonio (1797–1855)

By Verucci, Guido
Translated by Cox, Virginia

In the reactionary, anti-Enlightenment, spiritualistic climate of Italy and Europe in the first decades of the nineteenth century, the Italian philosopher Rosmini set out to elaborate a Christian, ...

Huxley, Thomas Henry (1825–95)

By Gregorio, Mario A. Di

Huxley, an English zoologist with strong philosophical interests, originally influenced by K.E. von Baer’s embryological typology, became an authority first in invertebrate zoology and then in vertebrate palaeontology. ...