Wikipedia:Philosophy basic topics

These should be the most basic topics in philosophy--topics about which we'd like to have articles soon. Please see the most basic encyclopedia article topics for general instructions on constructing this list, and consult complete list of encyclopedia topics.

Please, before you write on any of these topics, use the search engine below to see whether others have already written on the topic under a slightly different title or as part of another article.

(Sources for ideas, so far: Complete list of encyclopedia topics/A; The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy; try the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

A priori and a posteriori knowledge --

A. N. Whitehead (or Alfred North Whitehead) --

Abduction --

Abortion --

Absolute --

Absolutism --

Abstract --

Academic Freedom --

Better: academic freedom (l. c.) --

Accident --

Account (as a philosophical term, akin to "definition") --

Act --

Action --

Active (vs. "passive," a technical term) --

Adam Smith --

Aesthetics --

Affirmative action --

Affirming the consequent --

Age of Enlightenment --

Agency --

Agnosticism --

Albert Camus --

Alliance --

Altruism --

Ambiguity --

American Philosophical Association

anthropomorphism --

Aristotle --

atheism --

axiom --

Benedict Spinoza or Baruch Spinoza or Baruch de Spinoza etc. --

Bertrand Russell --

Blaise Pascal --

Buddhist philosophy --

casuistry --

Charles, Baron de Montesquieu --

Cicero --

Cogito, ergo sum --

David Hume --

deduction --

deism --

determinism --

dualism --

Eastern philosophy --

epistemic justification --

epistemology --

ethical relativism --

ethics --

existentialism --

fatalism --

Friedrich Nietzsche --

free will --

G. W. F. Hegel --

greatest happiness principle --

hedonism --

humanism --

humanist --

humanities --

I think, therefore I am --

idealism --

Immanuel Kant --

Indian philosophy --

induction --

inference --

Jean-Jacques Rousseau --

John Locke --

John Stuart Mill --

justification --

law of noncontradiction --

liberal arts --

logic --

Ludwig Wittgenstein --

Man is the measure of all things --

Marxism --

materialism --

metaphysics --

Michel de Montaigne --

monism --

monotheism --

mysticism --

natural law --

naturalism --

nihilism --

noumenon --

On Liberty (by Mill) --

pantheism --

Pascal's Wager --

perfectability of man --

phenomenon (a la Kant) --

philosopher --

philosopher-king --

philosophes --

philosophy --

physicalism --

Plato --

Plato's Academy --

Plato's Republic or The Republic of Plato --

Platonism --

pluralism --

polytheism --

positivism (also: logical empiricism; logical positivism) --

postulate --

pragmatism --

Principia Mathematica --

Protagoras --

realism --

relativism --

Rene Descartes --

Republic --

Soren Kierkegaard --

scholasticism --

semantics --

skepticism (or scepticism) --

social contract --

social contract theory --

solipsism --

sophist --

stoic --

stoicism --

Summa Theologica --

superman or overman or uebermensch --

Symposium (by Plato) --

tabula rasa --

Thales --

The Prince (by Machiavelli) --

The Social Contract (by Rousseau) --

thing in itself or thing-in-itself --

Thomas Aquinas --

Thomas Hobbes --

Thomism --

Thus Spake Zarathustra --

utilitarianism --

Utopia (by More) --

Voltaire

Western philosophy --

William of Ockham --

Zeno's Paradox