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 ...

Jefferson, Thomas (1743–1826)

By Murphey, Murray G.

Thomas Jefferson came from a privileged background, began his public career as a lawyer, and rose to hold the governorship of his home state of Virginia and to ...

General relativity, philosophical responses to

By Ryckman, T.A.

Much of the early philosophical attention given Einstein’s theory of gravitation was not uncontaminated by a grim post-war atmosphere conducive to public diversions, hysteria and national chauvinism. Most ...

Brown, Thomas (1778–1820)

By Bryant, Christopher

Thomas Brown was the last prominent figure in the Scottish philosophical tradition deriving from David Hume and Thomas Reid. Like Reid, he took the mind’s knowledge about itself ...

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 ...

Causation, in modern philosophy

By Boehm, Miren; Palatnik, Nataliya

The new science of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries sparked intense reflection and theorizing on the nature of causation. Philosophers attempted to account for the nature of causation ...

Enlightenment, Russian

By Jones, W. Gareth

When Russia embraced secular European ways of thought under Peter the Great, its educated elite came into contact first with the German Enlightenment, which combined the rationalism of ...

Galen (AD 129–c.210)

By Hankinson, R.J.

Galen was the most influential doctor of late Greco-Roman antiquity. But he was also a notable philosopher, who desired to effect a synthesis of what was best in ...

Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika

By Franco, Eli; Preisendanz, Karin

The Nyāya school of philosophy developed out of the ancient Indian tradition of debate; its name, often translated as ‘logic’, relates to its original and primary concern with ...

Thomasius (Thomas), Christian (1655–1728)

By Haakonssen, Knud

Christian Thomasius’ stature as the ‘founder’ of the German Enlightenment has been the source of much debate. His many essays dealing with issues in moral enlightenment and law ...

Henry of Ghent (early 13th century–1293)

By Marrone, Steven P.

Perhaps the most influential theologian between Thomas Aquinas and Bonaventure in the third quarter of the thirteenth century and John Duns Scotus at the beginning of the fourteenth ...

D’Alembert, Jean Le Rond (1717–83)

By Johnson, Paul F.

Mathematician, scientist and man of letters, Jean D’Alembert is a central figure of the French Enlightenment. As a young man he made significant contributions to the refinement of ...

Sartre, Jean-Paul (1905–80)

By Richmond, Sarah

Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–80) is one of the best-known philosophers of the twentieth century. He was also a novelist, literary critic, playwright, essayist, biographer, autobiographer, journalist, and political theorist. ...

Australia, philosophy in

By Coady, C.A.J.

Australian academic philosophy has made an international impact disproportionate to the country’s small population, though its beginnings contain little that might have suggested such influence. The first Philosophy ...

Address and the politics of aesthetics

By Roelofs, Monique

Major accounts of the aesthetic field and its relation to politics employ the notion of address in an implicit or explicit manner. This essay explores the central functions ...

Berdiaev, Nikolai Aleksandrovich (1874–1948)

By Scanlan, James P.

Nikolai Berdiaev, Russian religious idealist, was one of many non-Marxist thinkers expelled from Russia by communist authorities in 1922. Although attracted to Marxism in his youth, even then ...

Medieval philosophy

By MacDonald, Scott; Kretzmann, Norman

Medieval philosophy is the philosophy of Western Europe from about ad 400–1400, roughly the period between the fall of Rome and the Renaissance. Medieval philosophers are the ...

Pragmatism in ethics

By Tiles, J.E.

Two components of the pragmatist outlook shape its ethical philosophy. It rejects certainty as a legitimate intellectual goal; this generates a nondogmatic attitude to moral precepts and principles. ...

Dai Zhen (1724–77)

By Ying-Shih, Yü

Dai Zhen, a neo-Confucian philosopher, argues against the received neo-Confucian view of dao as a metaphysical entity. On the contrary, dao is immanent in the world ...

Cleanthes (331–232 BC)

By Sedley, David

The Greek philosopher Cleanthes of Assos played a leading role in the formation of Stoicism. He was at once the most physicalist and the most religious of the ...

Peirce, Charles Sanders (1839–1914)

By Hookway, Christopher

Peirce was an American philosopher, probably best known as the founder of pragmatism and for his influence upon later pragmatists such as William James and John Dewey. Personal ...

Wittgenstein, Ludwig Josef Johann (1889–1951)

By Heal, Jane

Ludwig Wittgenstein was born in Vienna on 26 April 1889 and died in Cambridge on 29 April 1951. He spent his childhood and youth in Austria and Germany, ...

Wittgenstein, Ludwig Josef Johann (1889–1951)

Ludwig Wittgenstein was born in Vienna on 26 April 1889 and died in Cambridge on 29 April 1951. He spent his childhood and youth in Austria and Germany, ...

Dialectical school

By Sedley, David

An offshoot of the Megarian school, and active c.350–250 bc, the Dialectical school was an important precursor of Stoic logic. Its leading members were Diodorus Cronus ...

South Africa, philosophy in

By Duvenage, Pieter

Although it is incorrect to refer to an independent South African philosophical tradition, South Africa is nevertheless the location of an interesting history of philosophical institutionalization. This institutionalization ...