Liberalism

By Waldron, Jeremy

Liberal political philosophy explores the foundations of the principles most commonly associated with liberal politics: freedom, toleration, individual rights, constitutional democracy and the rule of law. Liberals hold ...

Liberty

see Freedom and liberty.

Libertins

By MacLean, Ian

The term ‘libertin’ was first used in France in the late sixteenth century as a term of abuse directed against alleged free-thinkers and atheists who were linked with ...

Liber de causis

By Jarka-Sellers, Hannes

The Liber de causis (Book of Causes) is a short treatise on Neoplatonist metaphysics, composed in Arabic by an unknown author probably in the ninth century in Baghdad. ...

Liberalism, Russian

By Hamburg, G.M.

Unlike early English liberalism which stressed individual freedom from state control and from the ‘tyranny of the majority’, Russian liberalism generally emphasized the importance of legality in government, ...

Libertarianism

By Wolff, Jonathan

In political philosophy ’libertarianism’ is a name given to a range of views which take as their central value liberty or freedom. Although occasionally the term is applied ...

Libertarianism

In political philosophy ‘libertarianism’ is a name given to a range of views that take as their central value liberty or freedom. Although occasionally the term is applied ...

Theology of liberation

see Liberation theology.

Freedom and liberty

By Feinberg, Joel

There are at least two basic ideas in the conceptual complex we call ‘freedom’; namely, rightful self-government (autonomy), and the overall ability to do, choose or achieve things, ...

Liberation philosophy

By Cerutti-Guldberg, Horacio

Philosophy of liberation emerged in Argentina early in the 1970s with the explicit intention of proposing a liberating alternative to the diagnosis of structural dependence offered by the ...

Liberation theology

By Haight, Roger

Also known as theology of liberation, liberation theology is simultaneously a social movement within the Christian Church and a school of thought, both of which react against human ...

Hindu philosophy

By Clear, Edeltraud Harzer

Hindu philosophy is the longest surviving philosophical tradition in India. We can recognize several historical stages. The earliest, from around 700 bc, was the proto-philosophical period, when ...

Buddhist philosophy, Japanese

By Maraldo, John C.

Buddhism transformed Japanese culture and in turn was transformed in Japan. Mahāyāna Buddhist thought entered Japan from the East Asian continent as part of a cultural complex that ...

Jaina philosophy

By Soni, Jayandra

The issues in Jaina philosophy developed concurrently with those that emerged in Buddhist and Hindu philosophy. The period from the second century bc to about the tenth ...

Russian philosophy

By Kelly, Aileen

Russian thought is best approached without fixed preconceptions about the nature and proper boundaries of philosophy. Conditions of extreme political oppression and economic backwardness are not conducive to ...

Poland, philosophy in

By Czerkawski, Jan; Stepien, Antoni B.; Wielgus, Stanislaw

Philosophy in Poland has developed largely along the same lines as its Western European counterpart. Yet it also has many aspects which are peculiar to itself. Historically, the ...

Feminist political philosophy

By Mendus, Susan

In all its forms, feminism asserts that social and political structures in society discriminate against women. Feminist political philosophy aims to show how traditional political philosophy is implicated ...

Śaṅkara (early 8th century)

By Fort, Andrew O.

Śaṅkara has been a highly influential figure in Hindu philosophy and religion from his lifetime (early eighth century; traditionally 788–820) to the present day. He is the most ...

Price, Richard (1723–91)

By Darwall, Stephen

Richard Price was a Welsh dissenting minister who contributed widely to philosophy and public life in latter-eighteenth-century Britain. The leading British ethical rationalist of the period, Price did ...

Berlin, Isaiah (1909–97)

By Williams, Bernard

Berlin said that he decided about 1945 to give up philosophy, in which he had worked up to that time, in favour of the history of ideas. Some ...

Taylor, Harriet (1807–58)

By McCabe, Helen

Harriet Taylor (1807–58) was a British philosopher and political reformer, most famous (to posterity) for marrying John Stuart Mill. Her best-known single-authored work is Enfranchisement of Women ...

Hayek, Friedrich August von (1899–1992)

By Kukathas, Chandran

An Austrian-born British economist who turned political philosopher, Hayek was best known for his critique of socialism and the modern welfare state. Writing as an avowed classical liberal ...

Political philosophy

By Miller, David

Political philosophy can be defined as philosophical reflection on how best to arrange our collective life - our political institutions and our social practices, such as our economic ...

Community and communitarianism

By Buchanan, Allen

Reflections on the nature and significance of community have figured prominently in the history of Western ethics and political philosophy, both secular and religious. In ethics and political ...

Mill, John Stuart (1806–73)

By Skorupski, John

John Stuart Mill, Britain’s major philosopher of the nineteenth century, gave formulations of his country’s empiricist and liberal traditions of comparable importance to those of John Locke. He ...