Ontology

By Craig, Edward

The word ‘ontology’ is used to refer to philosophical investigation of existence, or being. Such investigation may be directed towards the concept of being, asking what ‘being’ means, ...

Ontological Argument

see God, arguments for the existence of.

Art works, ontology of

By Currie, Gregory

In trying to decide what kinds of thing art works are, the most natural starting point is the hypothesis that they are physical objects. This is plausible only ...

Art works, ontology of

In trying to decide what kinds of thing art works are, a natural starting point is the hypothesis that they are physical objects. This is plausible for certain ...

Ontological commitment

By Jubien, Michael

A person may believe in the existence of God, or numbers or ghosts. Such beliefs may be asserted, perhaps in a theory. Assertions of the existence of specific ...

Value, ontological status of

By Oliver, Alex

We evaluate persons, characters, mental states, actions, inanimate objects and situations using very abstract terms such as ‘good’, ‘unjust’ and ‘beautiful’, and more concrete terms, such as ‘courageous’, ...

Ontology in Indian philosophy

By Ambuel, David

All Indian philosophical traditions are deeply engaged with ontology, the study of being, since clarity about the nature of reality is at the heart of three intimately connected ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

Leśniewski, Stanisław (1886–1939)

By Wolenski, Jan

Leśniewski was one of the most distinguished members of the Warsaw School of Logic. His scientific development can be divided into two periods. In the first ‘philosophical’ period ...

Butler, Judith (1956–)

By Murphy, Ann

Judith Butler (1956–) is an American philosopher working in feminist and queer theory, psychoanalysis and continental philosophy. She is known for her work on gender, sexuality, power, vulnerability ...

Noica, Constantin (1909–1987)

By Pamfil, Laura; Sorin, Lavric
Translated by Brown, James Christian; Schidu, Luana

Although Constantin Noica is one of the most representative Romanian philosophers, he is little known in the West. His most important writings have not yet been translated. In ...

Categories

By Westerhoff, Jan

Even though categories play an important role in philosophy (especially in ontology and metaphysics), it is clear that not all categories play such a role. Philosophers are ...

Meta-metaphysics

By Tahko, Tuomas E.

Meta-metaphysics concerns the nature and methodology of metaphysics and metaphysical inquiry. The emergence of meta-metaphysics as a systematic area of study is relatively recent, going back to the ...

Tillich, Paul (1886–1965)

By Hammond, Guyton B.

Tillich was one of the most influential Christian theologians of the twentieth century. Notable for his effort to translate the language of the Western religious tradition into terms ...

Searle, John (1932–)

John Rogers Searle (born July 31, 1932) is the Slusser Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. This analytic philosopher has made major contributions to the ...

Merleau-Ponty, Maurice (1908–61)

Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908–61) was a key figure in twentieth-century French philosophy and one of the principal proponents of existential phenomenology. Through his subtle and wide-ranging descriptions of lived ...

Necessary being

By Leftow, Brian

Many think that God is perfect, or free from defect, and that being able not to exist is a defect. These infer that God is not able not ...

Gaṅgeśa (fl. c.1325)

By Phillips, Stephen H.

Gaṅgeśa launched and solidified advances in logic and epistemology within the classical Indian school of Logic, Nyāya. He is traditionally taken to have inaugurated the ‘New’ school, Navya-Nyāya. ...

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 ...

Buddhism, Yogācāra school of

By Lusthaus, Dan

Yogācāra is one of the two schools of Indian Mahāyāna Buddhism. Its founding is ascribed to two brothers, Asaṅga and Vasubandhu, but its basic tenets and doctrines were ...

Ingarden, Roman Witold (1893–1970)

By Stepien, Antoni B.
Translated by Gutowski, Piotr

Ingarden was a leading exponent of phenomenology and one of the most outstanding Polish philosophers. Representing an objectivist approach within phenomenology he stressed that phenomenology employs a variety ...