Animal thought, recent work on

By Rey, Georges; Hauser, Marc

In recent years there has been a good deal of experimental work on the question of animal cognition, much of it modelled on recent experiments in infant cognition. ...

Global justice, recent work on

By Caney, Simon

Until recently the prevailing view among many political philosophers was that global justice required that states honour each other’s independence, keep their treaties, and comply with the rules ...

Artificial intelligence, recent work on

By Walmsley, Joel

The two main philosophical questions with which artificial intelligence (AI) has been traditionally concerned are (1) 'Could a machine think?’ and (2) 'Are we (humans) thinking machines?’ (see ...

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 ...

Contextualism, epistemic, recent work on

By Sosa, Ernest

What you know at a given time depends of course on features of your context. You can’t know you see a fire, for example, unless there is a ...

Global Justice

By Tan, Kok-Chor

For introductions to the current debate on global justice, the obvious entries to start with are Simon Caney’s Global Justice, recent work on and Charles Beitz’s International Relations, ...

Mind, philosophy of

By Jackson, Frank; Rey, Georges

‘Philosophy of mind’, and ‘philosophy of psychology’ are two terms for the same general area of philosophical inquiry: the nature of mental phenomena and their connection with behaviour ...

Free will

‘Free will’ is the conventional name of a topic that is best discussed without reference to the will. Its central questions are ‘What is it to act (or ...

Irigaray, Luce (1930–)

By Chanter, Tina

Luce Irigaray holds doctorates in both linguistics and philosophy, and has practised as a psychoanalyst for many years. Author of over twenty books, she has established a reputation ...

Environmental aesthetics

Environmental aesthetics is one of the major new areas of aesthetics that emerged in the last part of the twentieth century. It focuses on philosophical issues concerning appreciation ...

Causation, further themes

By Fernandes, Alison

Recent work in the philosophy of causation has explored a number of issues relating to the objectivity of causation, including the place of causation in metaphysics and science, ...

African philosophy

By Appiah, K. Anthony

In order to indicate the range of some of the kinds of material that must be included in a discussion of philosophy in Africa, it is as well ...

Belinskii, Vissarion Grigorievich (1811–48)

By Terras, Victor

Belinskii was considered by his followers in the nineteenth century, and by the official ideology of the Soviet period, to be not only Russia’s greatest literary critic, but ...

Economics and ethics

By Hausman, Daniel; McPherson, Michael S.

Unlike many other sciences, economics is linked both to ethics and to the theory of rationality. Although many economists regard economics as a ‘positive’ science of one sort ...

Psychoanalysis, post-Freudian

By Hopkins, James

The basic concepts of psychoanalysis are due to Sigmund Freud. After establishing psychoanalysis Freud worked in Vienna until he and other analysts fled the Nazi occupation. Post-Freudian psychoanalysis ...

Terrorism

By Rodin, David

In recent years there has been an upsurge of interest in the philosophical and ethical analysis of terrorism. Despite this, ‘terrorism’ remains a contested and difficult concept. The ...

Epistemology

Epistemology is one of the core areas of philosophy. It is concerned with the nature, sources and limits of knowledge. Epistemology has been primarily concerned with propositional knowledge, ...

Belief

By Jackson, Frank; Braddon-Mitchell, David

We believe that there is coffee over there; we believe the special theory of relativity; we believe the Vice-Chancellor; and some of us believe in God. But plausibly ...

Belief

We believe that there is coffee over there; we believe the special theory of relativity; we believe the surgeon; some of us believe in God. But plausibly what ...

Environmental aesthetics

Environmental aesthetics is one of the major new areas of aesthetics to have emerged in the last part of the twentieth century. It focuses on philosophical issues concerning ...

God, concepts of

Those whose conceptions of God stem from the major Eastern and Western religions think of God as an ultimate reality, the source or ground of all else, perfect ...

Vision

By Egan, Frances

Vision is the most studied sense. It is our richest source of information about the external world, providing us with knowledge of the shape, size, distance, colour and ...

Vision

Vision is the most studied sense. It is our richest source of information about the external world, providing us with knowledge of the shape, size, distance, colour and ...

A posteriori

A prominent term in theory of knowledge since the seventeenth century, ‘a posteriori’ signifies a kind of knowledge or justification that depends on evidence, or justification, from sensory ...

A priori

An important term in epistemology since the seventeenth century, ‘a priori’ typically connotes a kind of knowledge or justification that does not depend on evidence, or justification, from ...