Critical realism

By Collier, Andrew

Critical realism is a movement in philosophy and the human sciences starting from Roy Bhaskar’s writings. It claims that causal laws state the tendencies of things grounded in ...

Sellars, Wilfrid Stalker (1912–89)

Wilfrid Sellars was an original, systematic philosopher in post-Second World War America. At a time when many thought of philosophy as piecemeal puzzle-solving, Sellars sought to develop a ...

Social sciences, philosophy of

By Ruben, David-Hillel

Although some of the topics and issues treated in the philosophy of social science are as old as philosophy itself (for example, the contrast between nature and convention ...

Neo-Kantianism, Russian

By Nemeth, Thomas

A rather amorphous movement, Russian Neo-Kantianism, in the first decades of the twentieth century, found its most visible and enduring representatives in A. Vvedenskii and his student/disciple I. ...

Lonergan, Bernard Joseph Francis (1904–84)

By Meynell, Hugo

The Canadian philosopher and theologian Bernard Lonergan approached the problems of philosophy by inviting his readers to attend to the mental acts in which they engage when they ...

Naturalism in social science

By Benton, Ted

Naturalism is a term used in several ways. The more specific meanings of ‘naturalism’ in the philosophy of social sciences rest on the great popular authority acquired by ...

Dharmakīrti (c.600–60)

By Steinkellner, Ernst

Dharmakīrti represents the philosophical apex of the Buddhist contribution to Indian thought of the post-systematic period. On the basis of Dignāga’s late works he developed a system of ...

Maritain, Jacques (1882–1973)

By McInerny, Ralph

Maritain was one of the most influential twentieth-century interpreters of the thought of Thomas Aquinas. His interests spanned many aspects of philosophy, including aesthetics, political theory, philosophy of ...

Santayana, George (1863–1952)

By Lachs, John

George Santayana was a philosopher, essayist, novelist and poet. Born in Spain, he moved to America as a child and attended Harvard, studying under William James and Josiah ...

Scientific realism and social science

By Keat, Russell

A central issue in the philosophy of the social sciences is the possibility of naturalism: whether disciplines such as sociology, anthropology, economics and psychology can be ‘scientific’ in ...

Structuralism in social science

By Schatzki, Theodore R.

Any school of thought in the social sciences that stresses the priority of order over action is ‘structural’. In the twentieth century, however, ‘structuralism’ has been used to ...

Critical Legal Studies

By Norrie, Alan

Critical Legal Studies first developed in the USA in the latter half of the 1970s. Drawing on the political inspiration of the contemporary New Left, it was an ...

Dignāga (c.480–c.540)

By Hayes, Richard P.

A logician and epistemologist, Dignāga is traditionally regarded as the founder of a Buddhist school that sought to avoid divisive controversies over which Buddhist writings were authentic by ...

Buddhism, Yogācāra school of

By Lusthaus, Dan

Yogācāra is one of the two schools of Indian Mahāyāna Buddhism. Its founding is ascribed to two brothers, Asaṅga and Vasubandhu, but its basic tenets and doctrines were ...

Ontotheology

By Halteman, Matthew C.

‘Ontotheology’ has two main meanings, one arising from its usage by Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) and a second from its usage by Martin Heidegger (1889-1976). Though Kant’s influence on ...

Theological realism

By Moore, Andrew

Theological realism typically involves three claims: that God exists independently of human beings (an ontological claim); that God can be known (an epistemological claim); and that God may ...

De Sanctis, Francesco (1817–83)

By Henry, Barbara

Francesco De Sanctis was a literary critic and historian of Italian literature. He is best remembered for his major work, Storia della letteratura italiana (History of Italian Literature), ...