Huxley coined the phrase, the ‘modern synthesis’ to refer to the acceptance by a vast majority of biologists in the mid-twentieth century of a ‘synthetic’ view of evolution. ...
As a period in cultural history, modernism usually denotes advanced or avant-garde European and American art and thought, though it has also been used to describe more general ...
The term modernism denotes an explosion of aesthetic innovation in Europe, Britain, Ireland and America from roughly 1880 to 1950. It embraces a hugely diverse group of works ...
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 ...
Mohist philosophy describes the broad-ranging philosophical tradition initiated by Mo Ti or Mozi (Master Mo) in the fifth century bc. Mozi was probably of quite humble origins, ...
Molecular biology is the study of the structure, function and kinetics of biologically important molecules. Historically, molecular biology has often been identified with molecular genetics. Similarly, the chief ...
Molinism, named after Luis de Molina, is a theological system for reconciling human freedom with God’s grace and providence. Presupposing a strongly libertarian account of freedom, Molinists assert ...
The origin of what is known as the Molyneux problem lies in the following question posed by William Molyneux to John Locke: if a man born blind, and ...
The Molyneux problem asks whether a newly sighted person might immediately identify shapes previously known only to touch, like cubes and spheres, by sight alone. Over three centuries ...
The object of the Buddhist doctrine of momentariness is not the nature of time, but existence within time. Rather than atomizing time into moments, it atomizes phenomena temporally ...
Monads serve as the metaphysical foundations of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz’s mature metaphysics. In doing so they play a metaphysical role similar to the metaphysical role of atoms in ...
‘Monism’ is a very broad term, applicable to any doctrine which maintains either that there is ultimately only one thing, or only one kind of thing; it has ...
The basic idea of monism is that reality is, fundamentally, one. This contrasts with any view on which reality is, fundamentally, many, or with any view on which ...
The prominent classical and modern Indian philosophy known as Advaita Vedānta, which insists on the single reality of Brahman (the Absolute), is often identified as Indian monism. But ...
Judaism, Christianity and Islam are usually cited as the major monotheistic religions. These are religions which acknowledge only a single god, and which construe that god as transcendent ...
Moral agents are those agents expected to meet the demands of morality. Not all agents are moral agents. Young children and animals, being capable of performing actions, may ...
The concept of moral development has its roots in Plato’s metaphor of ascent from the dark recesses of the cave to the initially blinding sight of the form ...
A moral dilemma is a situation where an agent’s obligations conflict. Debate in this area focuses on the question of whether genuine moral dilemmas exist. This question involves ...
This entry looks at three contemporary approaches to moral learning and education, all of which have roots in the history of philosophy. The first holds that just as ...
Moral enhancements aim to morally improve a person, for example by increasing the frequency with which an individual does the right thing or acts from the right motives. ...
Epistemology is the study of knowledge and justified belief. So moral epistemology is the study of what would be involved in knowing, or being justified in believing, moral ...
Moral experts are best defined as those who have studied moral questions carefully, know the main theories developed in response to such questions, and (where possible) know and ...
Moral fictionalism is the doctrine that the moral claims we accept should be treated as convenient fictions. One standard kind of moral fictionalism maintains that many of the ...
The term ‘hypocrisy’ is said to derive from the Greek words ‘hupokrasis’ and ‘hupokrinesthai’, the former meaning ‘acting a part’, and the latter meaning ‘to act on a ...
The term ‘moral judgement’ can refer to an activity, a state, a state-content, a capacity or a virtue. The activity of moral judgement is that of thinking about ...