Perception, epistemic issues in

By McLaughlin, Brian P.

We learn about the world through our five senses: by seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and feeling. Sense perception is a primary means by which we acquire knowledge of ...

Perception

By Logue, Heather

If you want to get to grips with philosophy of perception, the best place to start is M.G.F. Martin’s entry on (you guessed it) perception! ...

Process philosophy

By Griffin, David Ray

In the broad sense, the term ‘process philosophy’ refers to all worldviews holding that process or becoming is more fundamental than unchanging being. For example, an anthology titled ...

Epistemology

Epistemology has been traditionally concerned with questions about the nature, value, and scope of knowledge, together with other questions that arise in relation to these. Hence, another name ...

Disjunctivism

By Fish, William

The disjunctivist claims that the mental states involved in a case of successful – “veridical” – perception of an object differ from those involved in a hallucinatory experience ...

Memory, epistemology of

By Conee, Earl

Memory appears to preserve knowledge, but there are epistemic questions about how this could be. Memory is fallible, and empirical research has identified various ways in which people ...

Buridan, John (c.1300–after 1358)

By Zupko, Jack

Unlike most other important philosophers of the scholastic period, John Buridan never entered the theology faculty but spent his entire career as an arts master at the University ...

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 ...

Memory

Memory is central to every way in which we deal with things. One might subsume memory under the category of intellect, since it is our capacity to retain ...

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 ...

Epistemology

By Klein, Peter D.

Epistemology is one of the core areas of philosophy. It is concerned with the nature, sources and limits of knowledge (see Knowledge, concept of). There is a vast ...

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, ...

Epistemology, history of

By Pappas, George S.

Epistemology has always been concerned with issues such as the nature, extent, sources and legitimacy of knowledge. Over the course of western philosophy, philosophers have concentrated sometimes on ...

Sellars, Wilfrid Stalker (1912–89)

Wilfrid Sellars was an original, systematic philosopher in post-Second World War America. At a time when many thought of philosophy as piecemeal puzzle-solving, Sellars sought to develop a ...

Information theory and epistemology

By Dretske, Fred

The mathematical theory of information (also called communication theory) defines a quantity called mutual information that exists between a source, s, and receiver, r. Mutual information is ...

Phenomenalism

By Fumerton, Richard

On its most common interpretation, phenomenalism maintains that statements asserting the existence of physical objects are equivalent in meaning to statements describing sensations. More specifically, the phenomenalist claims ...

Sense-data

By Gallois, Andre

A philosophical theory of perception must accommodate this obvious fact: when someone perceives, or seems to perceive something, how things appear may differ from how they are. A ...

Scepticism

By Cohen, Stewart

Simply put, scepticism is the view that we fail to know anything. More generally, the term ‘scepticism’ refers to a family of views, each of which denies that ...

Xunzi (fl. 298–238 BC)

By Cua, A.S.

Xunzi is one of the most brilliant Confucian thinkers of ancient China. His works display wide-ranging interest in such topics as the relation between morality and human nature, ...

Modularity of mind

By Pylyshyn, Zenon W.

A common view in recent philosophy of science is that there is no principled distinction between theoretical and observational claims, since perception itself is thoroughly contaminated by the ...

Error and illusion, Indian conceptions of

By Phillips, Stephen H.

From the earliest Indian speculation, illusion has been key in the exposition of Indian mysticism. In classical philosophy proper, all schools take positions concerning illusion (sometimes called error) ...

Sellars, Wilfrid Stalker (1912–89)

By Rosenberg, Jay F.

Wilfrid Sellars was among the most systematic and innovative of post-war American philosophers. His critical destruction of the ‘Myth of the Given’ established him as a leading voice ...

McDowell, John Henry (1942–)

By Smith, Nicholas H.

McDowell taught philosophy at Oxford from 1967 to 1986, where he established himself as a key figure in analytic philosophy, mounting forceful arguments in favour of a realist ...

South Slavs, philosophy of

By Lazovic, Zivan; Pavkovic, Aleksandar

Philosophy as a distinct intellectual activity emerged in the coastal towns of the Adriatic during the Renaissance. Philosophers from this area wrote in Latin and taught philosophy in ...

Phenomenology, epistemic issues in

By Howarth, Jane

Phenomenology is not a unified doctrine. Its main proponents – Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre and Merleau-Ponty – interpret it differently. However, it is possible to present a broad characterization ...