Logical atomism

By Oliver, Alex

The name ‘logical atomism’ refers to a network of theses about the parts and structure of the world and the means by which language represents the world. Wittgenstein, ...

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 ...

Facts

By Oliver, Alex

The existence and nature of facts is disputed. In ordinary language we often speak of facts (‘that’s a fact’) but it is hard to take such talk seriously ...

Negative facts

By Oaklander, L. Nathan

If propositions are made true in virtue of corresponding to facts, then what are the truth-makers of true negative propositions such as ‘The apple is not red’? Russell ...

Truthmaking

By Asay, Jamin

Truthmaking is the relationship that holds between truths and the objects in the world in virtue of which those truths are true. Truthmaker theorists deploy the idea of ...

Causation and laws in biology

By Matthen, Mohan

Physicalism appears to undermine the autonomy of ‘special sciences’ such as biology, and to leave little room for proprietary biological laws or causation. Mendel’s ‘Laws’ are so-called because ...

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 ...

Property theory

By Cocchiarella, Nino B.

Traditionally, a property theory is a theory of abstract entities that can be predicated of things. A theory of properties in this sense is a theory of predication ...

Moore, George Edward (1873–1958)

By Baldwin, Thomas

G.E. Moore was one of the most influential British philosophers of the twentieth century. His early writings are renowned for his rejection of idealist metaphysics and his insistence ...

Evans, Gareth (1946–80)

By McDowell, John

Frege’s notion of sense is a conception of content whose application is controlled by the idea of rationality. A Fregean outlook is often taken to imply that singular ...

Wittgenstein, Ludwig Josef Johann (1889–1951)

By Heal, Jane

Ludwig Wittgenstein was born in Vienna on 26 April 1889 and died in Cambridge on 29 April 1951. He spent his childhood and youth in Austria and Germany, ...

Wittgenstein, Ludwig Josef Johann (1889–1951)

Ludwig Wittgenstein was born in Vienna on 26 April 1889 and died in Cambridge on 29 April 1951. He spent his childhood and youth in Austria and Germany, ...

Existence

By Mackie, Penelope

Philosophical problems concerning existence fall under two main headings: ‘What is existence?’ and ‘What things exist?’. Although these questions cannot be entirely separated, this entry will concentrate on ...

Analytical philosophy

By Baldwin, Thomas

Philosophical analysis is a method of inquiry in which one seeks to assess complex systems of thought by ‘analysing’ them into simpler elements whose relationships are thereby brought ...

Metaphysics

By Craig, Edward

Metaphysics is a broad area of philosophy marked out by two types of inquiry. The first aims to be the most general investigation possible into the nature of ...

Negative facts in classical Indian philosophy

By Gillon, Brendan S.

Like their European counterparts, the philosophers of classical India were interested in the problem of negative facts. A negative fact may be thought of, at the outset at ...

Private language argument

By Candlish, Stewart

Ludwig Wittgenstein argued against the possibility of a private language in his 1953 book Philosophical Investigations, where the notion is outlined at §243: ‘The words of this language ...

Propositions, sentences and statements

By Engel, Pascal

A sentence is a string of words formed according to the syntactic rules of a language. But a sentence has semantic as well as syntactic properties: the words ...

Being

By Okrent, Mark

Although ‘being’ has frequently been treated as a name for a property or special sort of entity, it is generally recognized that it is neither. Therefore, questions concerning ...

Vienna Circle

By Stadler, Friedrich
Translated by Piller, C.

The Vienna Circle was a group of about three dozen thinkers drawn from the natural and social sciences, logic and mathematics who met regularly in Vienna between the ...

Fictional entities

By Lamarque, Peter

By ‘fictional entities’, philosophers principally mean those entities originating in and defined by myths, legends, fairy tales, novels, dramas and other works of fiction. In this sense unicorns, ...

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 ...

Substance

By Benovsky, Jiri

To understand the notion of substance in a neo-Aristotelian way, one first needs to understand the notion of a kind since the core idea is that substances ...

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 ...

Fictional entities

By ‘fictional entities’, philosophers principally mean those entities originating in and defined by myths, legends, fairy tales, novels, dramas and other works of fiction. In this sense unicorns, ...