Transcendence

By Westphal, Merold

The concept of transcendence has its primary home in philosophical theology. Drawing on symbols of height that are widespread in prereflective religious life, it suggests that God or ...

Transcendental arguments

By Harrison, Ross

Transcendental arguments seek to answer scepticism by showing that the things doubted by a sceptic are in fact preconditions for the scepticism to make sense. Hence the scepticism ...

Phenomenological movement

By Embree, Lester

The phenomenological movement is a century-old international movement in philosophy that has penetrated most of the cultural disciplines, especially psychiatry and sociology. It began in Germany with the ...

Nineteenth-century philosophy

By Stern, Robert

In the first part of the nineteenth century, the reigning philosophical outlook was idealist in one form or another, as the attempt was made to complete the intellectual ...

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 ...

Czech Republic, philosophy in

By Zumr, Josef
Translated by Burša, G.R.F.

The foundation of the University of Prague in 1348 contributed significantly to establishing Bohemia as a centre of philosophical thought. The main philosophers and theologians from the University ...

Japanese philosophy

By Kasulis, Thomas P.

The most distinctive characteristic of Japanese philosophy is how it has assimilated and adapted foreign philosophies to its native worldview. As an isolated island nation, Japan successfully resisted ...

Jaspers, Karl (1883–1969)

By Salamun, Kurt

Karl Jaspers is generally known as an existentialist, but he also developed interesting conceptions in other fields of philosophy: in philosophy of religion, the concepts of Transcendence, cipher ...

Thoreau, Henry David (1817–62)

By Gould, Timothy

Thoreau was one of the founders of the new literature that emerged within the fledgling culture of the United States in the middle decades of the nineteenth century. ...

Lorenzen, Paul (1915–95)

By Roberts, Julian

Paul Lorenzen, German philosopher of mathematics and sciences, programmatically set about implementing mathematical constructivism in wider philosophical contexts. Trained as a mathematician, he spent the greater part of ...

Rahner, Karl (1904–84)

By Bonsor, Jack A.

Rahner sought to offer an account of the Christian faith that would be credible to the modern mind. His early philosophical works lay the foundation for this theological ...

Kant, Immanuel (1724–1804)

By Guyer, Paul

Immanuel Kant was the paradigmatic philosopher of the European Enlightenment. He eradicated the last traces of the medieval worldview from modern philosophy, joined the key ideas of earlier ...

Feminist theology

By Suchocki, Marjorie

Feminist theology began as a reaction to the exclusion of women and women’s concerns from traditional Christian theology, but it soon incorporated constructive as well as critical elements. ...

Husserl, Edmund (1859–1938)

By Follesdal, Dagfinn

Through his creation of phenomenology, Edmund Husserl was one of the most influential philosophers of our century. He was decisive for most of contemporary continental philosophy, and he ...

Tetens, Johann Nicolaus (1736–1807)

By Zoller, Gunter

Tetens was a German philosopher, mathematician and physicist, with a second career as a Danish government official, who was active in Northern Germany and Denmark during the second ...

Kant, Immanuel (1724–1804)

Immanuel Kant was the paradigmatic philosopher of the European Enlightenment. He eradicated the last traces of the medieval worldview from modern philosophy, joined the key ideas of earlier ...

Pantheism

By Yandell, Keith E.

Pantheism contrasts with monotheism (there is one God), polytheism (there are many gods), deism (God created the world in such a way that it is capable of existing ...

Strawson, Peter Frederick (1919–2006)

By Snowdon, Paul F.

Strawson taught at the University of Oxford from 1947, becoming Waynflete Professor of Metaphysical Philosophy in 1968, and retiring in 1987. A sequence of influential books and articles ...

Taylor, Charles (1931–)

Among the most influential of twentieth-century philosophers, Taylor writes on human agency, identity and the self; language; epistemology; interpretation and explanation in social science; ethics; multiculturalism, and democratic ...

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor (1772–1834)

By Milnes, Timothy

In addition to being one of the finest poets of the Romantic generation, Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) was a philosopher, theologian, and literary theorist whose work exerted a ...

Bible, Hebrew

By Cohn-Sherbok, Dan

Although the Bible is not a work of systematic philosophy, it none the less contains a wide variety of philosophical and theological ideas which have served as the ...

Nifo, Agostino (c.1470–1538)

By Mahoney, Edward P.

Agostino Nifo was a university teacher, medical doctor and extremely prolific writer. His books included many commentaries on Aristotle’s logic, natural philosophy and metaphysics, as well as original ...

Proclus (c. AD 411–85)

By Siorvanes, Lucas

The Greek Neoplatonist Proclus aimed to find a logical and metaphysical structure in which unity embraces but does not stifle diversity. He assumed the underlying unity of reality ...

Neo-Kantianism

The term ‘neo-Kantianism’ indicates various attempts at a renewal of Kant’s philosophy in the modern context. It began with the rehabilitation of Kant to overcome the speculative turn ...

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 ...