Wisdom

By Smith, Nicholas D.

In ancient times, wisdom was thought of as the type of knowledge needed to discern the good and live the good life. Philosophy takes its name from it ...

Wisdom, Arthur John Terence Dibben (1904–93)

By Lyon, Ardon

John Wisdom worked first at the University of St Andrews and then at Cambridge, where he later held the Professorship of Philosophy. At the beginning of his career ...

East Asian philosophy

By Ames, Roger T.

Sinitic civilization, which includes the Chinese-influenced cultures of Japan and Korea, established an early lead over the rest of the world in the development of its material culture ...

Buddhist philosophy, Korean

By Cho, Sungtaek

Buddhism was transmitted to the Korean peninsula from China in the middle of the fourth century ad. Korea at this time was divided into three kingdoms: Kokuryô, ...

Abstract term

Particulars

By Maurin, Anna-Sofia

As ‘particulars’ we count objects like computers, mountains, bicycles, and scissors, as well as individuals like Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle. These are all reasonably well-understood entities (at least, ...

Potentiality, Indian theories of

By Hayes, Richard P.

Indian philosophers wrote a great deal about potential (śakti) and capacity (sāmarthya); both of these words may also be translated as ‘power’ or ‘force’. The Sanskrit word ...

Zoroastrianism

By Williams, Alan

Zarathushtra, better known to the Classical and modern world in the Greek form of his name ‘Zoroaster’, revealed his vision of truth, wisdom and justice in the verse ...

Comedy

By Morreall, John

In the narrowest sense, comedy is drama that makes us laugh and has a happy ending. In a wider sense it is also humorous narrative literature with a ...

Comedy

In the narrowest sense, comedy is drama that makes us laugh and has a happy ending. In a wider sense it is also humorous narrative literature with a ...

Ethiopia, philosophy in

By Sumner, Claude

Ethiopia is a unique phenomenon in Africa for three reasons. First, because of its historical continuity and political independence; second because of its written language and third because ...

Ibn al-‘Arabi, Muhyi al-Din (1164–1240)

By Robinson, Neal

Ibn al-‘Arabi was a mystic who drew on the writings of Sufis, Islamic theologians and philosophers in order to elaborate a complex theosophical system akin to that of ...

Ibn Tufayl, Abu Bakr Muhammad (before 1110–85)

By Inati, Shams C.

Ibn Tufayl’s thought can be captured in his only extant work, Hayy Ibn Yaqzan (The Living Son of the Vigilant), a philosophical treatise in a charming literary form. ...

Origen (c.185–c.254)

By Hause, Jeffrey

An ascetic Christian, prodigious scholar and dedicated teacher, Origen devoted his life to exploring God’s revelation. Much of his work takes the form of commentaries on Scripture. He ...

Self-cultivation in Chinese philosophy

By Wei-Ming, Tu

Chinese philosophy may be viewed as disciplined reflections on the insights of self-cultivation. Etienne Balazs asserted that all Chinese philosophy is social philosophy and that, even if Chinese ...

Patristic philosophy

By Kenney, John Peter

Early Christian writers used terminology and ideas drawn from Graeco-Roman philosophical literature in their theological writings, and some early Christians also engaged in more formal philosophical reflection. The ...

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 ...

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

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 ...

Augustine (AD 354–430)

By Matthews, Gareth B.

Augustine was the first of the great Christian philosophers. For well over eight centuries following his death, in fact until the ascendancy of Thomas Aquinas at the end ...

Buddhism and sexuality

The study of Buddhism and sexuality increasingly centres questions of power. Rather than viewing sexuality in Buddhism as a monolith, as if there were one story of Buddhism ...

Charron, Pierre (1541–1603)

By Popkin, Richard H.

Pierre Charron was a French Catholic priest of the late sixteenth century who used Montaigne’s sceptical thought, which he presented in didactic form, in order to refute Calvinists, ...

Encyclopedists, medieval

By Barnish, Samuel

The modern encyclopedic genre was unknown in the classical world. In the grammar-based culture of late antiquity, learned compendia, by both pagan and Christian writers, were organized around ...

Vico, Giambattista (1668–1744)

By Pompa, Leon

Vico lived in a period in which the successes of the natural sciences were frequently attributed to the Cartesian method of a priori demonstration. His own first interest, ...

Theosophy

By Wakoff, Michael B.

Etymologically, ‘theosophy’ means wisdom concerning God or divine things, from the Greek ‘theos’ (God) and ‘sophia’ (wisdom). Seventeenth-century philosophers and speculative mystics used ‘theosophy’ to refer to a ...