Empiricism

Metaphysical naturalism Philosophical worldview rejecting 'supernatural' Metaphysical naturalism (also called ontological naturalism, philosophical naturalism and antisupernaturalism) is a philosophical worldview which holds that there is nothing but natural elements, principles, and relations of the kind studied by the natural sciences. Methodological naturalism is a philosophical basis for science, for which metaphysical naturalism provides only one possible ontological foundation. Broadly, the corresponding theological perspective is religious naturalism or spiritual naturalism. More specifically, metaphysical naturalism rejects the supernatural concepts and explanations that are part of many religions. Definition[edit] Carl Sagan put it succinctly: "The Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be According to Arthur C. Philosopher and theologian Alvin Plantinga, a well-known critic of naturalism in general, comments: "Naturalism is presumably not a religion. Science and naturalism[edit] History[edit] Web

Utilitarianism Utilitarianism is influential in political philosophy. Bentham and Mill believed that a utilitarian government was achievable through democracy. Mill thought that despotism was also justifiable through utilitarianism as a transitional phase towards more democratic forms of governance. As an advocate of liberalism, Mill stressed the relationship between utilitarianism and individualism.[10] Historical background[edit] The importance of happiness as an end for humans has long been recognized. Although utilitarianism is usually thought to start with Jeremy Bentham, there were earlier writers who presented theories that were strikingly similar. Hume says that all determinations of morality, this circumstance of public utility principally important. In the first three editions of the book, Hutcheson included various mathematical algorithms "...to compute the Morality of any Actions." This pursuit of happiness is given a theological basis:[22] …actions are to be estimated by their tendency.

Dissoi logoi Dissoi Logoi (Greek δισσοὶ λόγοι, "contrasting arguments") is a rhetorical exercise of unknown authorship, most likely dating to just after the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC) based on comments within the exercise's text. The exercise is intended to help an individual gain deeper understanding of an issue by forcing them to consider it from the angle of their opponent, which may serve either to strengthen their argument or to help the debaters reach compromise. In ancient Greece, students of rhetoric would be asked to speak and write for both sides of a controversy.[1] All surviving manuscript copies of Dissoi Logoi are appended to manuscripts of the works of the Pyrrhonist philosopher Sextus Empiricus, whose works describe the use of arguments for both sides of a controversy for generating epoche, suggesting a strong connection with Pyrrhonist thought.[2] History[edit] One possible author is the Pyrrhonist philosopher Zeuxis. Interpretation[edit] Related works[edit] Notes[edit] T.

Edward N. Zalta Edward N. Zalta (/ˈzɔːltə/; born March 16, 1952) is a senior research scholar at the Center for the Study of Language and Information. He received his PhD in philosophy from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1980. Zalta has taught courses at Stanford University, Rice University, the University of Salzburg, and the University of Auckland. Zalta is also the Principal Editor of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.[7] Research[edit] Zalta's most notable philosophical position is descended from the position of Alexius Meinong and Ernst Mally, who suggested that there are many non-existent objects. References[edit] Works cited[edit] Anderson, David J.; Zalta, Edward N. (2004). Zalta, Edward N. (1983). External links[edit]

Phenomenalism Phenomenalism is the view that physical objects cannot justifiably be said to exist in themselves, but only as perceptual phenomena or sensory stimuli (e.g. redness, hardness, softness, sweetness, etc.) situated in time and in space. In particular, some forms of phenomenalism reduce talk about physical objects in the external world to talk about bundles of sense-data. History[edit] Phenomenalism is a radical form of empiricism. Its roots as an ontological view of the nature of existence can be traced back to George Berkeley and his subjective idealism, which David Hume further elaborated.[1] John Stuart Mill had a theory of perception which is commonly referred to as classical phenomenalism. This differs from Berkeley's idealism in its account of how objects continue to exist when no one is perceiving them (this view is also known as "local realism"). Kant's "epistemological phenomenalism", as it has been called, is therefore quite distinct from Berkeley's earlier ontological version.

Engaged theory Comprehensive critical theory Engaged theory is a methodological framework for understanding the social complexity of a society, by using social relations as the base category of study, with the social always understood as grounded in the natural, including people as embodied beings.[1] Engaged theory progresses from detailed, empirical analysis of the people, things, and processes of the world[2] to abstract theory about the constitution and social framing of people, things, and processes.[3] Politics of engagement [edit] Engaged theory research is in the world and of the world, whereby a theory somehow affects what occurs in the world, but engaged theory does not always include itself into a theory about the constitution of ideas and practices, which the sociologist Anthony Giddens identifies as a double hermeneutic movement.[7] Engaged theory is explicit about its political standpoint, thus, in Species Matters: Human Advocacy and Cultural Theory, Carol J. Grounding of analysis 1. 2. 3.

Theory of forms Philosophical theory attributed to Plato The theory of Forms or theory of Ideas[1][2][3] is a philosophical theory, fuzzy concept, or world-view, attributed to Plato, that the physical world is not as real or true as timeless, absolute, unchangeable ideas.[4] According to this theory, ideas in this sense, often capitalized and translated as "Ideas" or "Forms",[5] are the non-physical essences of all things, of which objects and matter in the physical world are merely imitations. Plato speaks of these entities only through the characters (primarily Socrates) of his dialogues who sometimes suggests that these Forms are the only objects of study that can provide knowledge.[6] The theory itself is contested from within Plato's dialogues, and it is a general point of controversy in philosophy. Nonetheless, the theory is considered to be a classical solution to the problem of universals.[7] Forms[edit] Plato explains how we are always many steps away from the idea or Form. Perfection[edit] Meno

Pragmatism Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition that began in the United States around 1870.[1] Pragmatism is a rejection of the idea that the function of thought is to describe, represent, or mirror reality[citation needed]. Instead, pragmatists consider thought to be a product of the interaction between organism and environment. Thus, the function of thought is as an instrument or tool for prediction, action, and problem solving. Pragmatists contend that most philosophical topics—such as the nature of knowledge, language, concepts, meaning, belief, and science—are all best viewed in terms of their practical uses and successes. A few of the various but interrelated positions often characteristic of philosophers working from a pragmatist approach include: Charles Sanders Peirce (and his pragmatic maxim) deserves much of the credit for pragmatism,[2] along with later twentieth century contributors, William James and John Dewey.[3] Pragmatism enjoyed renewed attention after W. Origins[edit]

Dialogue Conversation between two or more people Dialogue (sometimes spelled dialog in American English[1]) is a written or spoken conversational exchange between two or more people, and a literary and theatrical form that depicts such an exchange. As a philosophical or didactic device, it is chiefly associated in the West with the Socratic dialogue as developed by Plato, but antecedents are also found in other traditions including Indian literature.[2] Etymology[edit] The term dialogue stems from the Greek διάλογος (dialogos, conversation); its roots are διά (dia: through) and λόγος (logos: speech, reason). As genre[edit] Antiquity[edit] Dialogue as a genre in the Middle East and Asia dates back to ancient works, such as Sumerian disputations preserved in copies from the late third millennium BC,[5] Rigvedic dialogue hymns and the Mahabharata. In the West, Plato (c. 437 BC – c. 347 BC) has commonly been credited with the systematic use of dialogue as an independent literary form. Japan[edit]

Anti-realism Truth of a statement rests on its demonstrability, not its correspondence to an external reality There are many varieties of anti-realism, such as metaphysical, mathematical, semantic, scientific, moral and epistemic. The term was first articulated by British philosopher Michael Dummett in an argument against a form of realism Dummett saw as 'colorless reductionism'.[4] Anti-realism in its most general sense can be understood as being in contrast to a generic realism, which holds that distinctive objects of a subject-matter exist and have properties independent of one's beliefs and conceptual schemes.[5] The ways in which anti-realism rejects these type of claims can vary dramatically. On a more abstract level, model-theoretic anti-realist arguments hold that a given set of symbols in a theory can be mapped onto any number of sets of real-world objects—each set being a "model" of the theory—provided the relationship between the objects is the same (compare with symbol grounding.) [edit]

Instrumentalism In the philosophy of science, instrumentalism is the view that a scientific theory is a useful instrument in understanding the world. A concept or theory should be evaluated by how effectively it explains and predicts phenomena, as opposed to how accurately it describes objective reality. Instrumentalism avoids the debate between anti-realism and philosophical or scientific realism. It may be better characterized as non-realism. Explanation[edit] Historically, science and scientific theories have advanced as more detailed observations and results about the world have been made. Instrumentalism is particularly popular in the field of economics, where researchers postulate fictional economies and actors. On a logical positivist version of instrumentalism, theories about unobservable phenomena are regarded as having no scientific meaning. An instrumentalist position was put forward by Ernst Mach. Critiques and responses[edit] See also[edit] Notes[edit] References[edit] Kuhn, T.S.

Experimental philosophy Field of philosophical inquiry Experimental philosophy is an emerging field of philosophical inquiry[1][2][3][4][5] that makes use of empirical data—often gathered through surveys which probe the intuitions of ordinary people—in order to inform research on philosophical questions.[6][7] This use of empirical data is widely seen as opposed to a philosophical methodology that relies mainly on a priori justification, sometimes called "armchair" philosophy, by experimental philosophers.[8][9][10] Experimental philosophy initially began by focusing on philosophical questions related to intentional action, the putative conflict between free will and determinism, and causal vs. descriptive theories of linguistic reference.[11] However, experimental philosophy has continued to expand to new areas of research. Disagreement about what experimental philosophy can accomplish is widespread. History[edit] First lecture in Experimental Philosophy, London 1748 Areas of research[edit] Consciousness[edit]