Universals such as humanity, redness, and mass are general entities instantiated by particulars. For example, Trudeau and Obama are particulars that instantiate the universal humanity ...
Indian philosophers postulated universals for two principal reasons: to serve as the ‘eternal’ meanings of words, upon which the eternality of language – in particular, the Hindu scriptures, ...
Speakers ‘use’ the expressions they utter and ‘mention’ the individuals they talk about. Connected with the roles of used expressions and mentioned individuals is a way of uniting ...
Utilitarianism is a theory about rightness, according to which the only good thing is welfare (wellbeing or ‘utility’). Welfare should, in some way, be maximized, and agents are ...
REVISED
Utilitarianism is a theory about rightness, according to which the only good thing is welfare (well-being or ‘utility’). Welfare should, in some way, be maximized, and agents are ...
Utopianism is the general label for a number of different ways of dreaming or thinking about, describing or attempting to create a better society. Utopianism is derived from ...
It seems obvious that there are vague ways of speaking and vague ways of thinking – saying that the weather is hot, for example. Common sense also has ...
In ordinary conversation, we describe all sorts of different things as vague: you can have vague plans, vague ideas and vague aches and pains. In philosophy of language, ...
Leading theorists in the social sciences have insisted that value judgments should be strictly separated from scientific judgments, which should be value-free. Yet these same thinkers recognize that ...
We evaluate persons, characters, mental states, actions, inanimate objects and situations using very abstract terms such as ‘good’, ‘unjust’ and ‘beautiful’, and more concrete terms, such as ‘courageous’, ...
The theory of value has three main traditions: subjectivism, which holds that the only valuable goods are subjective states of sentient beings; objectivism, which claims that while values ...
Indian philosophical speculation burgeoned in texts called Upaniṣads (from 800 bc), where views about a true Self (ātman) in relation to Brahman, the supreme reality, the Absolute ...
The Vienna Circle was a group of about three dozen thinkers drawn from the natural and social sciences, logic and mathematics who met regularly in Vienna between the ...
Violence is a central concept for much discussion of moral and political life, but lots of debate employing the concept is confused by the lack of clarity about ...
‘Virtue epistemology’ is the name of a class of theories that analyse fundamental epistemic concepts such as justification or knowledge in terms of properties of persons rather than ...
REVISED
‘Virtue epistemology’ is the name of a class of theories that focus epistemic evaluation on good epistemic properties of persons rather than on properties of beliefs. The former ...
Virtue ethics has its origin in the ancient world, particularly in the writings of Plato and Aristotle. It has been revived following an article by G.E.M. Anscombe critical ...
REVISED
Virtue ethics has its origin in the ancient world, particularly in the writings of Plato and Aristotle. It has been revived following an article by G. E. M. ...
The concept of a virtue can make an important contribution to a philosophical account of ethics, but virtue theory should not be seen as parallel to other ‘ethical ...
The concepts of virtue and vice identify a distinctive set of goods and evils, ones that are aspects of human excellence unlike, say, the values of feeling pleasure ...
Vision is the most studied sense. It is our richest source of information about the external world, providing us with knowledge of the shape, size, distance, colour and ...
REVISED
Vision is the most studied sense. It is our richest source of information about the external world, providing us with knowledge of the shape, size, distance, colour and ...
REVISED
Why do things look to us as they do? This question, formulated by psychologist Kurt Koffka, identifies the main problematic of vision science. Consider looking at a black ...
Vitalists hold that living organisms are fundamentally different from non-living entities because they contain some non-physical element or are governed by different principles than are inanimate things. In ...
Voluntarism is a theory of action. It traces our actions less to our intellects and natural inclinations than to simple will or free choice. Applied to thinking about ...