Philosophy BranchesTraditional Branches of PhilosophyMETAPHYSICS
December 12, 2023

METAPHYSICS

Metaphysics is the philosophical investigation of reality, including the nature of the world and the entities it contains. While such an investigation inevitably overlaps with natural philosophy—the sciences, especially physics…
LogicQUANTUM LOGIC
November 15, 2023

QUANTUM LOGIC

Most non-classical logics are motivated by either philosophical considerations, such as the metaphysical status of the future, or technical concerns about the neutrality of the logical connectives or the notion…
WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY?PHILOSOPHICAL FILMS AND TV SHOWS
November 24, 2023

PHILOSOPHICAL FILMS AND TV SHOWS

Note: Some of these titles may be difficult to find, either in DVD format or streaming. Film Animation Animal Farm (1954)Based on George Orwell’s novel of the same name, farm…
Modern Branches of PhilosophyPhilosophy BranchesBIOETHICS
November 14, 2023

BIOETHICS

A branch of ethics concerned with the moral and political issues raised by medical science, and with advances in medical technology, bioethics has now become a largely autonomous area of…
CONTINENTAL PHILOSOPHYHistory Of PhilosophyTHE FRANKFURT SCHOOL
November 15, 2023

THE FRANKFURT SCHOOL

A group of philosophers, cultural critics, and social scientists based around the Frankfurt (Germany) Institute for Social Research were primarily concerned with integrating philosophical analysis with then-recent results in the…
Philosophy BranchesBRANCHES OF PHILOSOPHY
December 12, 2023

BRANCHES OF PHILOSOPHY

Philosophy embraces the most ambitious field of inquiry—the universe, including the self and everything both physical and metaphysical. It is impossible to list all the branches of philosophy, which are…
THE EARLY MODERN PERIODWHAT IS PHILOSOPHY?EMPIRICISM
November 15, 2023

EMPIRICISM

Empiricism covers a range of views prioritizing experience as the primary source of knowledge. During the Early Modern Period, this view was expounded by the so-called British Empiricists—Locke, Berkeley, and…
Philosophy BranchesTraditional Branches of PhilosophyPHILOSOPHY OF LAW
December 12, 2023

PHILOSOPHY OF LAW

The philosophy of law is concerned with all aspects of theoretical reflection on laws and legal systems and therefore encompasses historical and sociological studies in addition to the philosophical questions…
FORMS OF PHILOSOPHICAL WRITINGWriting PhilosophyTHE POSITION PAPER
November 19, 2023

THE POSITION PAPER

A position paper may be viewed as a type of argumentative paper in that it states a claim—your position—concerning a topic, issue, or question and presents a justification for that…
LogicMODAL LOGIC
November 15, 2023

MODAL LOGIC

A common extension to the standard formal languages outlined above is to introduce the technical machinery required to evaluate natural language arguments containing modal terminology (that is, talk of possibility…
CLASSICAL PHILOSOPHYHistory Of PhilosophySKEPTICISM (PYRRHONISM)
November 15, 2023

SKEPTICISM (PYRRHONISM)

Pyrrhonian Skepticism was founded by Pyrrho of Elis (c. 360–275 BC), who argued that knowledge is impossible. The Skeptics proposed various arguments for their conclusions, including Platonic doubts about the…
Traditional Branches of PhilosophyPhilosophy BranchesAESTHETICS
December 12, 2023

AESTHETICS

Aesthetics is concerned with the nature of art (whether visual, literary, dramatic, or in some other medium) and the way in which art is experienced. Two principal related issues, therefore,…
NON-WESTERN PHILOSOPHICAL TRADITIONSHistory Of PhilosophyPHILOSOPHIES OF EAST ASIA
November 15, 2023

PHILOSOPHIES OF EAST ASIA

The dominant philosophical traditions in this part of the world began in Ancient China from the sixth century to 221 BC, which saw the development of China’s great philosophical movements…
MEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHYHistory Of PhilosophyMEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHY
November 15, 2023

MEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHY

The Medieval Period is usually dated between the fall of the Western Roman Empire (476)and the beginning of the Renaissance (c. 1300). In terms of philosophy, the period begins inthe…
PHILOSOPHICAL BOOKS AND TEXTBOOKS TO GUIDE NOVICE PHILOSOPHY STUDENTS
November 27, 2023

BOOKS TO GUIDE NOVICE PHILOSOPHY STUDENTS

This list is aimed at curating those texts that will both challenge a novice researcher, and continually reward repeated encounters as you develop your philosophical interests.

Books

  • The Art of War

    $4.60
  • Who Will Cry When You Die?

    $15.78
  • The Sane Society

    $15.59
  • 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos

    $20.00
  • How to Think Like a Woman: Four Women Philosophers Who Taught Me How to Love the Life of the Mind

    $15.49
  • Medieval Cosmology: Theories of Infinity, Place, Time, Void, and the Plurality of Worlds

    $46.90
  • Theory of Form: Gerhard Richter and Art in the Pragmatist Age

    $30.00
  • Unfashionable Observations (COMPLETE WORKS OF FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE)

    $98.88
  • The Persuaders: At the Front Lines of the Fight for Hearts, Minds, and Democracy

    $17.19
  • Galileo’s Error: Foundations for a New Science of Consciousness

    $15.01
  • Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (Routledge Classics)

    $23.96
  • Introduction to Metaphysics, 2nd Edition

    $25.00
  • What We Owe the Future

    $18.59
  • The Complete Essays of Montaigne

    $32.00
  • Meditations

    $6.99
  • Self-Reliance and Other Essays

    $3.95

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Terms & Concepts

I

Inference rule

In a formal system of logic, a principle whereby one statement is inferred from another or others; the logical rules by which validity is defined. https://youtube.com/shorts/IcuiD9lPVFg?feature=share
C

Compatibilism

The view that free will (in some sense) and determinism are compatible https://youtube.com/shorts/aKgNq8htPXk?feature=share
P

Principle of charity

The principle whereby the utterances of a speaker (usually of an unknown language) are interpreted so as to maximize the overall truth of what they say; contrasted with the more…
T
Tautological consequence
S
Syllogism
L
Law of contradiction
F
First-order contradiction
P
Prime Mover
V
Verisimilitude
I
Idea
I
Indeterminacy of translation
O
Ockham’s (Occam’s) Razor
View All