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 ...

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 ...

Conceptual analysis

By Hanna, Robert

A distinction must be made between the philosophical theory of conceptual analysis and the historical philosophical movement of Conceptual Analysis. ...

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 ...

Eliminativism

By Rey, Georges

‘Eliminativism’ refers to the view that mental phenomena – for example, beliefs, desires, conscious states – do not exist. Although this can seem absurd on its face, in ...

Legal idealism

By Attwooll, Elspeth

The term ‘legal idealism’ has various meanings. These include: the notion that laws, and the rights and duties they confer, genuinely exist, in which legal idealism is opposed ...

Gentile, Giovanni (1875–1944)

By Bellamy, Richard

Best known as the self-styled philosopher of Fascism, Gentile, along with Benedetto Croce, was responsible for the ascendance of Hegelian idealism in Italy during the first half of ...

Burge, Tyler (1946–)

By Gerken, Mikkel; Dunlop, Katherine

Tyler Burge is an American philosopher whose body of work spans several areas of theoretical philosophy in the analytic tradition. While Burge has made important contributions to the ...

Substance

By Ayers, Michael

For Aristotle, ‘substances’ are the things which exist in their own right, both the logically ultimate subjects of predication and the ultimate objects of scientific inquiry. They are ...

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 ...

Human nature

By Shapiro, Ian

Every political philosophy takes for granted a view of human nature, and every view of human nature is controversial. Political philosophers have responded to this conundrum in a ...

Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich (1770–1831)

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel is one of the most influential thinkers of the nineteenth century. His thought had a profound impact on later philosophers, social theorists and theologians, ...

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 ...

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 ...

Scepticism

By Schönbaumsfeld, Genia

Radical scepticism is the contention that little or no knowledge of one’s ‘external’ surroundings might be possible. Most modern forms of scepticism have their roots in René Descartes’ ...

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 ...

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 ...