Empiricism

By Alston, William P.

In all its forms, empiricism stresses the fundamental role of experience. As a doctrine in epistemology it holds that all knowledge is ultimately based on experience. Likewise an ...

British empiricists

see Hume, David. Locke, John.

Sextus Empiricus (fl. c. AD 200)

By Hankinson, R.J.

Sextus Empiricus is our major surviving source for Greek scepticism. Three works of his survive: a general sceptical handbook (Outlines of Pyrrhonism), a partly lost longer treatment of ...

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 ...

Mathematics, foundations of

By Detlefsen, Michael

Conceived of philosophically, the foundations of mathematics concern various metaphysical and epistemological problems raised by mathematical practice, its results and applications. Most of these problems are of ancient ...

Arithmetic, philosophical issues in

By Potter, Michael

The philosophy of arithmetic gains its special character from issues arising out of the status of the principle of mathematical induction. Indeed, it is just at the point ...

Hellenistic medical epistemology

By Hankinson, R.J.

During the Hellenistic period (323–31 bc), there arose, largely in Alexandria, a profound debate in medical methodology. The main participants were the Empiricists, committed to an anti-theoretical, ...

Metaepistemology

By Gerken, Mikkel

Metaepistemology may be partly characterized as the study of the nature, aims, methods and legitimacy of epistemology. Given such a characterization, most epistemological views and theories have an ...

Gender and science

By Harding, Sandra G.

Gender-based analyses of philosophies of science have arisen at the conjunction of two other movements. First, in the 1960s it became increasingly the accepted position that scientific claims ...

Nativism

By Samet, Jerry

Traditional empiricism claims that the mind is initially equipped only with the capacity for experience and the mechanisms that make it possible for us to learn from experience. ...

A priori knowledge and justification, recent work on

By Bonjour, Laurence

The recent discussion of the a priori has involved some controversies about the concept of a priori justification or warrant, but has focused mainly on the central issue ...

Infinity

By Moore, A.W.

The infinite is standardly conceived as that which is endless, unlimited, immeasurable. It also has theological connotations of absoluteness and perfection. From the dawn of civilization, it has ...

Infinity

The infinite is standardly conceived as that which is endless, unlimited, immeasurable. It also has theological connotations of absoluteness and perfection. From the dawn of civilization, it has ...

Rationalism

By Markie, Peter J.

Rationalism is the view that reason, as opposed to, say, sense experience, divine revelation or reliance on institutional authority, plays a dominant role in our attempt to gain ...

Causation

By Cartwright, Nancy

Two opposed viewpoints raise complementary problems about causation. The first is from Hume: watch the child kick the ball. You see the foot touch the ball and the ...

Commonsensism

By Chisholm, Roderick M.

‘Commonsensism’ refers to one of the principal approaches to traditional theory of knowledge where one asks oneself the following Socratic questions: (1) What can I know?; (2) How ...

Nominalism

By Loux, Michael J.

‘Nominalism’ refers to a reductionist approach to problems about the existence and nature of abstract entities; it thus stands opposed to Platonism and realism. Whereas the Platonist defends ...

Feminist epistemology

By Code, Lorraine

The impact of feminism on epistemology has been to move the question ‘Whose knowledge are we talking about?’ to a central place in epistemological inquiry. Hence feminist epistemologists ...

Naturalized epistemology

Epistemology, the theory of knowledge, is one of the central areas of philosophy. The questions addressed by epistemology have historically included what knowledge is, how we can or ...

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 ...

Quine, Willard Van Orman (1908–2000)

By Orenstein, Alex

Quine is the foremost representative of naturalism in the second half of the twentieth century. His naturalism consists of an insistence upon a close connection or alliance between ...

Introspection, psychology of

By Von Eckhardt, Barbara

Introspection is the process of directly examining one’s own conscious mental states and processes. Since the seventeenth century, there has been considerable disagreement on the scope, nature and ...

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 ...

Demarcation problem

By Achinstein, Peter

The problem of demarcation is to distinguish science from nonscientific disciplines that also purport to make true claims about the world. Various criteria have been proposed by philosophers ...

James, William (1842–1910)

By Putnam, Ruth Anna

The American William James was motivated to philosophize by a desire to provide a philosophical ground for moral action. Moral effort presupposes that one has free will, that ...