Descriptions

By Neale, Stephen

‘Definite descriptions’ are noun phrases of the form ‘the’ + noun complex (for example, ‘the finest Greek poet’, ‘the cube of five’) or of the form possessive + ...

Definite descriptions

see Descriptions.

Description, knowledge by

see Knowledge by acquaintance and description.

Acquaintance and description, knowledge by

see Knowledge by acquaintance and description.

Knowledge by acquaintance and description

By Fumerton, Richard

The attempt to distinguish knowledge by acquaintance from knowledge by description is most closely associated with Bertrand Russell. The distinction is also crucial to one way of trying ...

Islamic philosophy

By Leaman, Oliver

Islamic philosophy may be defined in a number of different ways, but the perspective taken here is that it represents the style of philosophy produced within the framework ...

Twentieth-century philosophy

By Livingston, Paul M.

Although it is difficult to generalize, twentieth-century philosophy has a number of broadly characteristic and widely shared concerns. These include the ambition to clarify the nature and foundations ...

Phenomenological movement

By Embree, Lester

The phenomenological movement is a century-old international movement in philosophy that has penetrated most of the cultural disciplines, especially psychiatry and sociology. It began in Germany with the ...

Reference

By Devitt, Michael

It is usual to think that referential relations hold between language and thoughts on one hand, and the world on the other. The most striking example of such ...

Events

By Goswick, Dana

Events are happenings, occurrences and changes objects undergo, e.g. Kate’s singing, Jane’s pouring the milk, John’s walking. Events are typically understood in contrast to objects – where events ...

Natural kinds

Objects belonging to a natural kind form a group of objects which have some theoretically important property in common. For example, rabbits form a natural kind, all samples ...

Particulars

By Bigelow, John C.

Particulars are to be understood by contrasting them with universals, that term being used to comprise both properties and relations. Often the term ‘individuals’ is used interchangeably with ...

Russell, Bertrand Arthur William (1872–1970)

By Griffin, Nicholas

Bertrand Russell divided his efforts between philosophy and political advocacy on behalf of a variety of radical causes. He did his most important philosophical work in logic and ...

Anscombe, Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret (1919–2001)

G.E.M. Anscombe (1919–2001) is recognized as one of the most brilliant philosophers of the twentieth century. She is also well known as the translator and editor of Wittgenstein’s ...

Hare, Richard Mervyn (1919–2002)

By Price, A.W.

R.M. Hare was the creator of the ethical theory called ‘prescriptivism’. This holds that moral statements differ from purely factual ones in prescribing conduct; they differ from simple ...

Proper names

By Forbes, Graeme

The Roman general Julius Caesar was assassinated on 14 March 44 bc by conspirators led by Brutus and Cassius. It is a remarkable fact that, in so ...

Strawson, Peter Frederick (1919–2006)

By Snowdon, Paul F.

Strawson taught at the University of Oxford from 1947, becoming Waynflete Professor of Metaphysical Philosophy in 1968, and retiring in 1987. A sequence of influential books and articles ...

Anscombe, Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret (1919–2001)

By Thompson, Michael

Elizabeth Anscombe has contributed to all principal areas of philosophy, most influentially to ethics and the philosophy of mind. She is the founder of contemporary action theory, and ...

Prescriptivism

By Hare, R.M.

Prescriptivism is a theory about moral statements. It claims that such statements contain an element of meaning which serves to prescribe or direct actions. The history of prescriptivism ...

Explanation in history and social science

By Ruben, David-Hillel

Historians and social scientists explain at least two sorts of things: (a) those individual human actions that have historical or social significance, such as Stalin’s decision to hold ...

Cognitive pluralism

Cognitive pluralism refers to the very different ways in which people engage in cognitive activity in general, and reasoning in particular. Cognitive pluralism does not focus upon differences ...

Art, abstract

By Brown, John H.

The use of the term ‘abstract’ as a category of visual art dates from the second decade of the twentieth century, when painters and sculptors had turned away ...

Free logics, philosophical issues in

By Lambert, Karel

The expression ‘free logic’ is a contraction of the more cumbersome ‘logic free of existence assumptions with respect to both its general terms (predicates) and its singular terms’. ...

Slingshot arguments

By Rodriguez-Pereyra, Gonzalo

Slingshot arguments form a family of arguments designed to make theories of facts collapse by showing that there is at most one fact, or that all true propositions ...

Artistic interpretation

By Goldman, Alan H.

Interpretation aims to advance understanding by providing explanations of various kinds. In art, it should aim to maximize our understanding and appreciation of a work, and enable us ...