Reductionism

The Oxford Companion to Philosophy The Oxford Companion to Philosophy (1995; second edition 2005) is a reference work in philosophy edited by Ted Honderich and published by Oxford University Press. The second edition included some 300 new entries. The new edition has over 2,200 entries and 291 contributors. Publication history[edit] Honderich, Ted (ed.). References[edit] Spurrett, David (Nov 1996). External links[edit] The OUP page for the Oxford Companion to Philosophy second edition Phenomenology (philosophy) Phenomenology (from Greek: phainómenon "that which appears" and lógos "study") is the philosophical study of the structures of experience and consciousness. As a philosophical movement it was founded in the early years of the 20th century by Edmund Husserl and was later expanded upon by a circle of his followers at the universities of Göttingen and Munich in Germany. It then spread to France, the United States, and elsewhere, often in contexts far removed from Husserl's early work.[1] Phenomenology, in Husserl's conception, is primarily concerned with the systematic reflection on and study of the structures of consciousness and the phenomena that appear in acts of consciousness. This ontology (study of reality) can be clearly differentiated from the Cartesian method of analysis which sees the world as objects, sets of objects, and objects acting and reacting upon one another. There are several assumptions behind phenomenology that help explain its foundations.

Statement Statement or statements may refer to: Epistemology Philosophical study of knowledge The school of skepticism questions the human ability to attain knowledge while fallibilism says that knowledge is never certain. Empiricists hold that all knowledge comes from sense experience, whereas rationalists believe that some knowledge does not depend on it. Coherentists argue that a belief is justified if it coheres with other beliefs. Foundationalists, by contrast, maintain that the justification of basic beliefs does not depend on other beliefs. Separate branches of epistemology focus on knowledge in specific fields, like scientific, mathematical, moral, and religious knowledge. Early reflections on the nature, sources, and scope of knowledge are found in ancient Greek, Indian, and Chinese philosophy. Epistemology explores how people should acquire beliefs. Knowledge is an awareness, familiarity, understanding, or skill. Knowledge contrasts with ignorance, often simply defined as the absence of knowledge. . Major schools of thought [edit]

Equality From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to navigationJump to search Equality may refer to: Law and Society[edit] Mathematics[edit] Logic[edit] Logical equality Places[edit] See also[edit] Metaphysics Metaphysics is a traditional branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world that encompasses it,[1] although the term is not easily defined.[2] Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:[3] Ultimately, what is there?What is it like? Prior to the modern history of science, scientific questions were addressed as a part of metaphysics known as natural philosophy. Etymology[edit] However, once the name was given, the commentators sought to find intrinsic reasons for its appropriateness. There is a widespread use of the term in current popular literature which replicates this understanding, i.e. that the metaphysical equates to the non-physical: thus, "metaphysical healing" means healing by means of remedies that are not physical.[8] Central questions[edit] Cosmology and cosmogony[edit] Cosmogony deals specifically with the origin of the universe. Determinism and free will[edit] [edit] [edit] [edit]

Ted Honderich Ted Honderich (born 30 January 1933) is a Canadian-born British philosopher, Grote Professor Emeritus of the Philosophy of Mind and Logic, University College London.[1] His work has been mainly about five things: consciousness and mind, including the consciousness–brain relation; right and wrong in the contemporary world particularly with democracy, terrorism and war; advocacy of the Principle of Humanity; determinism and freedom; particular problems in logical analysis and metaphysics; the supposed justification of punishment by the state; the political tradition of conservatism. He has given lectures and talks in British, continental European, Irish, American, Canadian, Asian, Russian, and African universities. Biography[edit] Honderich was born Edgar Dawn Ross Honderich on 30 January 1933 in Baden, Ontario, Canada. His papers in philosophical journals have been published in three volumes by Edinburgh University Press. Consciousness[edit] Determinism and freedom[edit] Punishment[edit]

Emergence In philosophy, systems theory, science, and art, emergence is a process whereby larger entities, patterns, and regularities arise through interactions among smaller or simpler entities that themselves do not exhibit such properties. Emergence is central in theories of integrative levels and of complex systems. For instance, the phenomenon life as studied in biology is commonly perceived as an emergent property of interacting molecules as studied in chemistry, whose phenomena reflect interactions among elementary particles, modeled in particle physics, that at such higher mass—via substantial conglomeration—exhibit motion as modeled in gravitational physics. In philosophy, emergence typically refers to emergentism. In philosophy[edit] Main article: Emergentism In philosophy, emergence is often understood to be a claim about the etiology of a system's properties. Definitions[edit] This idea of emergence has been around since at least the time of Aristotle. Strong and weak emergence[edit]

Symbol A red octagon symbolizes "stop" even without the word. A symbol is an object that represents, stands for, or suggests an idea, visual image, belief, action, or material entity. Symbols take the form of words, sounds, gestures, or visual images and are used to convey ideas and beliefs. For example, a red octagon may be a symbol for "STOP". On a map, a picture of a tent might represent a campsite. Numerals are symbols for numbers. Etymology[edit] The word derives from the Greek symbolon meaning token or watchword. Definitions[edit] In considering the effect of a symbol on the psyche, in his seminal essay The Symbol without Meaning Joseph Campbell proposes the following definition: A symbol is an energy evoking, and directing, agent.[2] Later, expanding on what he means by this definition Campbell says: "a symbol, like everything else, shows a double aspect. Heinrich Zimmer gives a concise overview of the nature, and perennial relevance, of symbols. Symbols and semiotics[edit] Paul Tillich[edit]

Supervenience The upper levels on this chart can be considered to supervene on the lower levels. In philosophy, supervenience is an ontological relation that is used to describe cases where (roughly speaking) the lower-level properties of a system determine its higher level properties. Some philosophers hold that the world is structured in to a kind of hierarchy of properties, where the higher level properties supervene on the lower level properties. It is useful to know both when supervenience does and does not obtain. Though it is intuitively clear what supervenience is, formally specifying what it means involves a complex technical apparatus and a family of related but subtly different definitions. History[edit] Supervenience, which means literally "coming or occurring as something novel, additional, or unexpected",[2] from "super," meaning on, above or, additional, and "venire," meaning to come, shows occurrences in the Oxford English Dictionary dating back to 1644. Definitions[edit]

Determinism Determinism is the philosophical position that for every event, including human action, there exist conditions that could cause no other event. "There are many determinisms, depending upon what pre-conditions are considered to be determinative of an event."[1] Deterministic theories throughout the history of philosophy have sprung from diverse and sometimes overlapping motives and considerations. Some forms of determinism can be empirically tested with ideas from physics and the philosophy of physics. Other debates often concern the scope of determined systems, with some maintaining that the entire universe is a single determinate system and others identifying other more limited determinate systems (or multiverse). Varieties[edit] Below appear some of the more common viewpoints meant by, or confused with "determinism". Many philosophical theories of determinism frame themselves with the idea that reality follows a sort of predetermined path Philosophical connections[edit] History[edit]

Intentionality Intentionality is a philosophical concept defined by the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy as "the power of minds to be about, to represent, or to stand for, things, properties and states of affairs".[1] The term refers to the ability of the mind to form representations and has nothing to do with intention. The term dates from medieval Scholastic philosophy, but was resurrected by Franz Brentano and adopted by Edmund Husserl. The earliest theory of intentionality is associated with St. Intentionality should not be confused with intensionality, a related concept from logic and semantics. Modern overview[edit] The concept of intentionality was reintroduced in 19th-century contemporary philosophy by the philosopher and psychologist Franz Brentano in his work Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint (1874). Brentano coined the expression "intentional inexistence" to indicate the peculiar ontological status of the contents of mental phenomena. Eliminative Materialism, supported by W.V.

Formal language Sequence of words formed by specific rules The field of formal language theory studies primarily the purely syntactic aspects of such languages—that is, their internal structural patterns. Formal language theory sprang out of linguistics, as a way of understanding the syntactic regularities of natural languages. In the 17th century, Gottfried Leibniz imagined and described the characteristica universalis, a universal and formal language which utilised pictographs. Gottlob Frege attempted to realize Leibniz's ideas, through a notational system first outlined in Begriffsschrift (1879) and more fully developed in his 2-volume Grundgesetze der Arithmetik (1893/1903).[3] This described a "formal language of pure language In the first half of the 20th century, several developments were made with relevance to formal languages. In 1907, Leonardo Torres Quevedo introduced a formal language for the description of mechanical drawings (mechanical devices), in Vienna. Words over an alphabet [edit] and

Philosophy of mind A phrenological mapping[1] of the brain – phrenology was among the first attempts to correlate mental functions with specific parts of the brain Philosophy of mind is a branch of philosophy that studies the nature of the mind, mental events, mental functions, mental properties, consciousness, and their relationship to the physical body, particularly the brain. The mind–body problem, i.e. the relationship of the mind to the body, is commonly seen as one key issue in philosophy of mind, although there are other issues concerning the nature of the mind that do not involve its relation to the physical body, such as how consciousness is possible and the nature of particular mental states.[2][3][4] Mind–body problem[edit] Our perceptual experiences depend on stimuli that arrive at our various sensory organs from the external world, and these stimuli cause changes in our mental states, ultimately causing us to feel a sensation, which may be pleasant or unpleasant. Arguments for dualism[edit]