Portal:Philosophy
The Philosophy Portal Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, value, mind, and language. It is a rational and critical inquiry that reflects on its own methods and assumptions. Historically, many of the individual sciences, such as physics and psychology, formed part of philosophy. However, they are considered separate academic disciplines in the modern sense of the term. Influential traditions in the history of philosophy include Western, Arabic–Persian, Indian, and Chinese philosophy. Western philosophy originated in Ancient Greece and covers a wide area of philosophical subfields. A central topic in Arabic–Persian philosophy is the relation between reason and revelation. Indian philosophy combines the spiritual problem of how to reach enlightenment with the exploration of the nature of reality and the ways of arriving at knowledge. Chinese philosophy focuses principally on practical issues in relation to right social conduct, government, and self-cultivation. Major branches of philosophy are epistemology, ethics, logic, and metaphysics. Epistemology studies what knowledge is and how to acquire it. Ethics investigates moral principles and what constitutes right conduct. Logic is the study of correct reasoning and explores how good arguments can be distinguished from bad ones. Metaphysics examines the most general features of reality, existence, objects, and properties. Other subfields are aesthetics, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, philosophy of religion, philosophy of science, philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of history, and political philosophy. Within each branch, there are competing schools of philosophy that promote different principles, theories, or methods. Philosophers use a great variety of methods to arrive at philosophical knowledge. They include conceptual analysis, reliance on common sense and intuitions, use of thought experiments, analysis of ordinary language, description of experience, and critical questioning. Philosophy is related to many other fields, including the sciences, mathematics, business, law, and journalism. It provides an interdisciplinary perspective and studies the scope and fundamental concepts of these fields. It also investigates their methods and ethical implications. (Full article...)
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Selected article of the week
The question "what is the meaning of life?" means different things to different people. The vagueness of the query is inherent in the word "meaning", which opens the question to many interpretations, such as: "What is the origin of life?", "What is the nature of life (and of the universe in which we live)?", "What is the significance of life?", "What is valuable in life?", and "What is the purpose of, or in, (one's) life?". These questions have resulted in a wide range of competing answers and arguments, from scientific theories, to philosophical, theological, and spiritual explanations.
The Question "what is the meaning of life?" can also be simplified to say "why is anything alive?" or "what is the point in living". The answers below simply offer a guide to what is the purpose IN life, not what is the purpose OF life. "Life" itself must also be defined. For example, it could refer merely to the state of existing, or, the life-span of an individual or the achievements of an individual. This can also be applied to an entire species, a planet, or even the universe.
Good articles -
These are Good articles, which meet a core set of high editorial standards.
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![Image 1 Lasker in 1929 Emanuel Lasker (German pronunciation: [eˈmaːnuɛl ˈlaskɐ] ⓘ; December 24, 1868 – January 11, 1941) was a German chess player, mathematician, and philosopher. He was the second World Chess Champion, holding the title for 27 years, from 1894 to 1921, the longest reign of any officially recognised World Chess Champion in history. In his prime, Lasker was one of the most dominant champions, and he is still generally regarded as one of the strongest players in history. His contemporaries used to say that Lasker used a "psychological" approach to the game, and even that he sometimes deliberately played inferior moves to confuse opponents. Recent analysis, however, indicates that he was ahead of his time and used a more flexible approach than his contemporaries, which mystified many of them. Lasker knew contemporary analyses of openings well but disagreed with many of them. He published chess magazines and five chess books, but later players and commentators found it difficult to draw lessons from his methods. (Full article...)](//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d2/Blank.png)
Emanuel Lasker (German pronunciation: [eˈmaːnuɛl ˈlaskɐ] ; December 24, 1868 – January 11, 1941) was a German chess player, mathematician, and philosopher. He was the second World Chess Champion, holding the title for 27 years, from 1894 to 1921, the longest reign of any officially recognised World Chess Champion in history. In his prime, Lasker was one of the most dominant champions, and he is still generally regarded as one of the strongest players in history.
His contemporaries used to say that Lasker used a "psychological" approach to the game, and even that he sometimes deliberately played inferior moves to confuse opponents. Recent analysis, however, indicates that he was ahead of his time and used a more flexible approach than his contemporaries, which mystified many of them. Lasker knew contemporary analyses of openings well but disagreed with many of them. He published chess magazines and five chess books, but later players and commentators found it difficult to draw lessons from his methods. (Full article...) -
The Zhuangzi (historically romanized Chuang Tzŭ) is an ancient Chinese text that is one of the foundational texts of Taoism, alongside the Tao Te Ching, Neiye, Wenzi and Liezi. It was written during the late Warring States period (476–221 BC) and is named for its traditional author, Zhuang Zhou, who is customarily known as "Zhuangzi" ("Master Zhuang").
The Zhuangzi consists of stories and maxims that exemplify the nature of the ideal Taoist sage. It contains numerous anecdotes, allegories, parables, and fables, often expressed with irreverence or humor. Recurring themes include embracing spontaneity and achieving freedom from the human world and its conventions. The text aims to illustrate the arbitrariness and ultimate falsity of dichotomies normally embraced by human societies, such as those between good and bad, large and small, life and death, or human and nature. In contrast with the focus on good morals and personal duty expressed by many Chinese philosophers of the period, Zhuang Zhou promoted carefree wandering and following nature, through which one would ultimately become one with the "Way" (Tao). (Full article...) -
Hannah Arendt (/ˈɛərənt, ˈɑːr-/, US also /əˈrɛnt/; German: [ˌhana ˈaːʁənt] ; born Johanna Arendt; 14 October 1906 – 4 December 1975) was a German-American historian and philosopher. She was one of the most influential political theorists of the 20th century.
Her works cover a broad range of topics, but she is best known for those dealing with the nature of wealth, power and evil, as well as politics, direct democracy, authority, tradition and totalitarianism. She is also remembered for the controversy surrounding the trial of Adolf Eichmann, for her attempt to explain how ordinary people become actors in totalitarian systems, which was considered by some an apologia, and for the phrase "the banality of evil." Her name appears in the names of journals, schools, scholarly prizes, humanitarian prizes, think-tanks, and streets; appears on stamps and monuments; and is attached to other cultural and institutional markers that commemorate her thought. (Full article...) -
Jerry Alan Fodor (/ˈfoʊdər/ FOH-dər; April 22, 1935 – November 29, 2017) was an American philosopher and the author of many crucial works in the fields of philosophy of mind and cognitive science. His writings in these fields laid the groundwork for the modularity of mind and the language of thought hypotheses, and he is recognized as having had "an enormous influence on virtually every portion of the philosophy of mind literature since 1960." At the time of his death in 2017, he held the position of State of New Jersey Professor of Philosophy, Emeritus, at Rutgers University, and had taught previously at the City University of New York Graduate Center and MIT. (Full article...) -
John Peckham (c. 1230 – 8 December 1292) was a Franciscan friar and Archbishop of Canterbury in the years 1279–1292.
Peckham studied at the University of Paris under Bonaventure, where he later taught theology and became known as a conservative opponent of Thomas Aquinas, especially regarding the nature of the soul. Peckham also studied optics and astronomy - his studies in those subjects were particularly influenced by Roger Bacon and Alhazen. Around 1270, Peckham returned to England, where he taught at the University of Oxford, and was elected the Franciscans provincial minister of England in 1275. After a brief stint in Rome, he was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury in 1279. His time as archbishop was marked by efforts to improve discipline in the clergy as well as reorganize the estates of his see. He served King Edward I of England in Wales. (Full article...) -
Albert Einstein (14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist who is widely held as one of the most influential scientists. Best known for developing the theory of relativity, Einstein also made important contributions to quantum mechanics. His mass–energy equivalence formula E = mc2, which arises from special relativity, has been called "the world's most famous equation". He received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics "for his services to theoretical physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect", a pivotal step in the development of quantum theory.
Born in the German Empire, Einstein moved to Switzerland in 1895, forsaking his German citizenship (as a subject of the Kingdom of Württemberg) the following year. In 1897, at the age of seventeen, he enrolled in the mathematics and physics teaching diploma program at the Swiss federal polytechnic school in Zürich, graduating in 1900. In 1901, he acquired Swiss citizenship, which he kept for the rest of his life. In 1903, he secured a permanent position at the Swiss Patent Office in Bern. In 1905, he submitted a successful PhD dissertation to the University of Zurich. In 1914, he moved to Berlin in order to join the Prussian Academy of Sciences and the Humboldt University of Berlin. In 1917, he became director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics; he also became a German citizen again, this time as a subject of the Kingdom of Prussia. In 1933, while Einstein was visiting the United States, Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany. Horrified by the Nazi war of extermination against his fellow Jews, Einstein decided to remain in the US, and was granted American citizenship in 1940. On the eve of World War II, he endorsed a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt alerting him to the potential German nuclear weapons program and recommended that the US begin similar research. Einstein supported the Allies but generally viewed the idea of nuclear weapons with great dismay. (Full article...) -
Vincent van Gogh, 1890. Kröller-Müller Museum. The Good Samaritan (after Delacroix).
A conscience is a cognitive process that elicits emotion and rational associations based on an individual's moral philosophy or value system. Conscience stands in contrast to elicited emotion or thought due to associations based on immediate sensory perceptions and reflexive responses, as in sympathetic central nervous system responses. In common terms, conscience is often described as leading to feelings of remorse when a person commits an act that conflicts with their moral values. The extent to which conscience informs moral judgment before an action and whether such moral judgments are or should be based on reason has occasioned debate through much of modern history between theories of basics in ethic of human life in juxtaposition to the theories of romanticism and other reactionary movements after the end of the Middle Ages.
Religious views of conscience usually see it as linked to a morality inherent in all humans, to a beneficent universe and/or to divinity. The diverse ritualistic, mythical, doctrinal, legal, institutional and material features of religion may not necessarily cohere with experiential, emotive, spiritual or contemplative considerations about the origin and operation of conscience. Common secular or scientific views regard the capacity for conscience as probably genetically determined, with its subject probably learned or imprinted as part of a culture. (Full article...) -
John von Neumann (/vɒn ˈnɔɪmən/ von NOY-mən; Hungarian: Neumann János Lajos [ˈnɒjmɒn ˈjaːnoʃ ˈlɒjoʃ]; December 28, 1903 – February 8, 1957) was a Hungarian and American mathematician, physicist, computer scientist and engineer. Von Neumann had perhaps the widest coverage of any mathematician of his time, integrating pure and applied sciences and making major contributions to many fields, including mathematics, physics, economics, computing, and statistics. He was a pioneer in building the mathematical framework of quantum physics, in the development of functional analysis, and in game theory, introducing or codifying concepts including cellular automata, the universal constructor and the digital computer. His analysis of the structure of self-replication preceded the discovery of the structure of DNA.
During World War II, von Neumann worked on the Manhattan Project. He developed the mathematical models behind the explosive lenses used in the implosion-type nuclear weapon. Before and after the war, he consulted for many organizations including the Office of Scientific Research and Development, the Army's Ballistic Research Laboratory, the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. At the peak of his influence in the 1950s, he chaired a number of Defense Department committees including the Strategic Missile Evaluation Committee and the ICBM Scientific Advisory Committee. He was also a member of the influential Atomic Energy Commission in charge of all atomic energy development in the country. He played a key role alongside Bernard Schriever and Trevor Gardner in the design and development of the United States' first ICBM programs. At that time he was considered the nation's foremost expert on nuclear weaponry and the leading defense scientist at the U.S. Department of Defense. (Full article...) -
Ad hominem (Latin for 'to the person'), short for argumentum ad hominem, refers to several types of arguments that are fallacious. Often nowadays this term refers to a rhetorical strategy where the speaker attacks the character, motive, or some other attribute of the person making an argument rather than the substance of the argument itself. This avoids genuine debate by creating a diversion often using a totally irrelevant, but often highly charged attribute of the opponent's character or background. The most common form of this fallacy is "A" makes a claim of "fact", to which "B" asserts that "A" has a personal trait, quality or physical attribute that is repugnant thereby going off-topic, and hence "B" concludes that "A" has their "fact" wrong – without ever addressing the point of the debate. Many contemporary politicians routinely use ad hominem attacks, some of which can be encapsulated to a derogatory nickname for a political opponent used instead of political argumentation. (But modern democracy requires that voters make character judgements of representatives, so opponents may reasonably criticize their character and motives.)
Other uses of the term ad hominem are more traditional, referring to arguments tailored to fit a particular audience, and may be encountered in specialized philosophical usage. These typically refer to the dialectical strategy of using the target's own beliefs and arguments against them, while not agreeing with the validity of those beliefs and arguments. Ad hominem arguments were first studied in ancient Greece; John Locke revived the examination of ad hominem arguments in the 17th century. (Full article...) -
Gary Edward Varner (March 10, 1957 – June 28, 2023) was an American philosopher specializing in environmental ethics, philosophical questions related to animal rights and animal welfare, and R. M. Hare's two-level utilitarianism. At the time of his death, he was an emeritus professor in the department of philosophy at Texas A&M University; he had been based at the university since 1990. He was educated at Arizona State University, the University of Georgia, and the University of Wisconsin–Madison; at Madison, where he was supervised by Jon Morline, he wrote one of the first doctoral theses on environmental ethics. Varner's first monograph was In Nature's Interests?, which was published by Oxford University Press in 1998. In the book, Varner defended a form of biocentric individualism, according to which all living entities have morally considerable interests.
Varner started a research project in 2001 that looked at animals in Hare's two-level utilitarianism. The project's initial monograph, Personhood, Ethics, and Animal Cognition, was released by Oxford in 2012. In the book, Varner moved away from his biocentrism, instead endorsing a developed version of Hare's ethics. Varner draws a distinction between persons, near-persons and merely sentient beings; although all are morally considerable, the lives of persons are of the most significance, and the lives of merely sentient beings are of the least. The practical consequences of this view, though initial comments were offered in Personhood, Ethics, and Animal Cognition, was to be explored in Sustaining Animals, with which Varner at one time had a contract with Oxford. His third book was Defending Biodiversity: Environmental Science and Ethics, co-authored with Jonathan Newman and Stefan Linquist, and published with Cambridge University Press. It was published in 2017. (Full article...) -
Clare Palmer (born 1967) is a British philosopher, theologian and scholar of environmental and religious studies. She is known for her work on environmental and animal ethics. She was appointed as a professor in the Department of Philosophy at Texas A&M University in 2010. She had previously held academic appointments at the Universities of Greenwich, Stirling, and Lancaster in the United Kingdom, and Washington University in St. Louis in the United States, among others.
She has published three sole-authored books: Environmental Ethics (ABC-CLIO, 1997), Environmental Ethics and Process Thinking (Oxford University Press, 1998) and Animal Ethics in Context (Columbia University Press, 2010). She has also published two co-authored books and has edited (or co-edited) seven collections or anthologies. She is a former editor of the religious studies journal Worldviews: Environment, Culture, Religion, and a former president of the International Society for Environmental Ethics. (Full article...) -
Varaha Upanishad (Sanskrit: वराह उपनिषद्, "boar") is a minor Upanishad of Hinduism composed between the 13th and 16th centuries CE. Composed in Sanskrit, it is listed as one of the 32 Krishna Yajurveda Upanishads, and classified as one of 20 Yoga Upanishads.
The text has five chapters, structured primarily as a discussion between Vishnu in his Varaha (boar) avatar and the sage Ribhu. The discussion covers the subjects of Tattvas, the nature and relationship between the individual soul (Self, Atman) and the Ultimate Reality (Brahman), the seven stages of learning, the characteristics of Jivanmukti (inner sense of freedom while living), and the four types of Jivanmuktas (liberated persons). The last chapter of the text is dedicated to Yoga, its goals and methods. (Full article...) -
Letters from an American Farmer is a series of letters written by French American writer J. Hector St. John de Crèvecœur, first published in 1782. The considerably longer title under which it was originally published is Letters from an American Farmer; Describing Certain Provincial Situations, Manners, and Customs not Generally Known; and Conveying Some Idea of the Late and Present Interior Circumstances of the British Colonies in North America. The twelve letters cover a wide range of topics, from the emergence of an American identity to the slave trade.
Crèvecœur wrote Letters during a period of seven years prior to the American Revolutionary War, while farming in the fertile Greycourt, blackdirt region of Chester, NY, a small town in Orange County, New York. It is told from the viewpoint of a fictional narrator in correspondence with an English gentleman, and each letter concerns a different aspect of life or location in the British colonies of America. The work incorporates a number of styles and genres, including documentary, as well as sociological observations. (Full article...) -
Statue of Shiva performing yoga in the lotus position
Yoga (/ˈjoʊɡə/; Sanskrit: योग, Sanskrit pronunciation: [joːɡɐ] , lit. "yoke" or "union") is a group of physical, mental, and spiritual practices or disciplines that originated in ancient India, aimed at controlling body and mind to attain various salvation goals, as practiced in the Hindu, Jain, and Buddhist traditions.
Yoga may have pre-Vedic origins, but is first attested in the early first millennium BCE. It developed as various traditions in the eastern Ganges basin drew from a common body of practices, including Vedic elements. Yoga-like practices are mentioned in the Rigveda and a number of early Upanishads, but systematic yoga concepts emerge during the fifth and sixth centuries BCE in ancient India's ascetic and Śramaṇa movements, including Jainism and Buddhism. The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, the classical text on Hindu yoga, samkhya-based but influenced by Buddhism, dates to the early centuries of the Common Era. Hatha yoga texts began to emerge between the ninth and 11th centuries, originating in tantra. (Full article...) -
Buddhaghosa was a 5th-century Indian Theravada Buddhist commentator, translator and philosopher. He worked in the Great Monastery (Mahāvihāra) at Anurādhapura, Sri Lanka and saw himself as being part of the Vibhajjavāda school and in the lineage of the Sinhalese Mahāvihāra.
His best-known work is the Visuddhimagga ("Path of Purification"), a comprehensive summary of older Sinhala commentaries on Theravada teachings and practices. According to Sarah Shaw, in Theravada this systematic work is "the principal text on the subject of meditation." The interpretations provided by Buddhaghosa have generally constituted the orthodox understanding of Theravada scriptures since at least the 12th century CE. (Full article...)
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The following are images from various philosophy-related articles on Wikipedia.
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The philosopher Pyrrho of Elis, in an anecdote taken from Sextus Empiricus' Outlines of Pyrrhonism(upper)PIRRHO • HELIENSIS •
PLISTARCHI • FILIVS
translation (from Latin): Pyrrho • Greek • Son of Plistarchus(middle)OPORTERE • SAPIENTEM
HANC ILLIVS IMITARI
SECVRITATEMtranslation (from Latin): It is right wisdom then that all imitate this security (Pyrrho pointing at a peaceful pig munching his food)(lower)Whoever wants to apply the real wisdom, shall not mind trepidation and misery(from Ancient Greek philosophy) -
Confucius (from Eastern philosophy) -
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Map of Alexander the Great's empire and the route he and Pyrrho of Elis took to India (from Western philosophy) -
Edmund Husserl, in the 1910s (from Western philosophy) -
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The Buddhist Nalanda university and monastery was a major center of learning in India from the 5th century CE to c. 1200. (from Eastern philosophy) -
Avicenna (from Medieval philosophy) -
Saint Augustine. (from Western philosophy) -
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Xiong Shili circa 1960 (from Eastern philosophy) -
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, 1695 (from Western philosophy) -
Fukuzawa Yukichi (1862) a key civil rights activist and liberal thinker (from Eastern philosophy) -
Bust of Socrates, Roman copy after a Greek original from the 4th century BCE (from Western philosophy) -
Patricia Churchland, 2005 (from Western philosophy) -
Erasmus is Credited as the Prince of the Humanists (from Western philosophy) -
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, steel engraving, after 1828 (from Western philosophy) -
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Sigmund Freud by Max Halberstadt, c. 1921 (from Western philosophy) -
Four Greek philosophers: Socrates, Antisthenes, Chrysippos, Epicurus; British Museum (from Ancient Greek philosophy) -
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William James in 1906 (from Western philosophy) -
From left to right: Virchand Gandhi, Anagarika Dharmapala, Swami Vivekananda, G. Bonet Maury. Parliament of World Religions, 1893 (from Eastern philosophy) -
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The Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove, embroidery, 1860–1880 (from Eastern philosophy) -
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Portrait by Philippe de Champaigne, 17th century (from Medieval philosophy)
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Selected pictures
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Lady Dorothy Browne and Sir Thomas Browne is an oil on panel painting attributed to the English artist Joan Carlile, and probably completed between 1641 and 1650. The painting depicts English physician Thomas Browne and his wife Dorothy. -
The center third of Education (1890), a stained glass window by Louis Comfort Tiffany and Tiffany Studios, located in Linsly-Chittenden Hall at Yale University. It depicts Science (personified by Devotion, Labor, Truth, Research and Intuition) and Religion (personified by Purity, Faith, Hope, Reverence and Inspiration) in harmony, presided over by the central personification of "Light·Love·Life". -
Oscar Wilde reclining with Poems, by Napoleon Sarony, in New York in 1882. Wilde often liked to appear idle, though in fact he worked hard; by the late 1880s he was a father, an editor, and a writer. -
Jane Addams (1860–1935) was an American settlement activist, reformer, social worker, sociologist, public administrator and author. She was a notable figure in the history of social work and women's suffrage in the United States and an advocate for world peace. -
Voltairine de Cleyre (1866–1912) was an American anarchist known for being a prolific writer and speaker who opposed state power, the capitalism she saw as interconnected with it, and marriage, and the domination of religion over sexuality and women's lives. She is often characterized as a major early feminist because of her views. -
Plato (left) and Aristotle (right), a detail of The School of Athens, a fresco by Raphael. Aristotle gestures to the earth, representing his belief in knowledge through empirical observation and experience, while holding a copy of his Nicomachean Ethics in his hand, whilst Plato gestures to the heavens, representing his belief in The Forms. -
![Image 7Adam Smith (baptised 16 June 1723 – died 17 July 1790 [OS: 5 June 1723 – 17 July 1790]) was a Scottish moral philosopher and a pioneer of political economics. One of the key figures of the Scottish Enlightenment, Smith is the author of The Theory of Moral Sentiments and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. The latter, usually abbreviated as The Wealth of Nations, is considered his magnum opus and the first modern work of economics. Smith is widely cited as the father of modern economics.](//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c0/Kirkcaldy_High_Street_Adam_Smith_Plaque.png/92px-Kirkcaldy_High_Street_Adam_Smith_Plaque.png)
Adam Smith (baptised 16 June 1723 – died 17 July 1790 [OS: 5 June 1723 – 17 July 1790]) was a Scottish moral philosopher and a pioneer of political economics. One of the key figures of the Scottish Enlightenment, Smith is the author of The Theory of Moral Sentiments and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. The latter, usually abbreviated as The Wealth of Nations, is considered his magnum opus and the first modern work of economics. Smith is widely cited as the father of modern economics. -
Umberto Eco OMRI (1932–2016) was an Italian novelist, literary critic, philosopher, semiotician, and university professor. He is widely known for his 1980 novel Il nome della rosa (The Name of the Rose), a historical mystery combining semiotics in fiction with biblical analysis, medieval studies, and literary theory. -
The House Builders (Portraits of Sir W.E. & The Hon. Lady Welby-Gregory), an 1880 painting by Frank Dicksee -
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Niels Bohr (1885–1962) was a Danish physicist who made foundational contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum theory, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922. Bohr was also a philosopher and a promoter of scientific research. -
Leo Tolstoy in 1897. Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy was a Russian writer who is regarded as one of the greatest authors of all time. -
The statue of Immanuel Kant in front of the Immanuel Kant State University of Russia in Kaliningrad. The statue was made by notable sculptor Christian Daniel Rauch and unveiled in 1864. The statue was destroyed in 1945, but was remoulded in 1992 on the initiative of Marion Dönhoff. -
Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805) was a German poet, philosopher, physician, historian and playwright. -
Philosophy, an 1896 mural by Robert Lewis Reid in the North Corridor on the Second Floor of the Library of Congress Thomas Jefferson Building, Washington, D.C.. The caption underneath reads: "HOW CHARMING IS DIVINE PHILOSOPHY." -
Carl von Linné, Alexander Roslin, 1775 (oil on canvas, Gripsholm Castle). Linnaeus was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming organisms. He is known as the "father of modern taxonomy". -
Painting of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz by Christoph Bernhard Francke, Braunschweig, Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, 1700.
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![Image 7Adam Smith (baptised 16 June 1723 – died 17 July 1790 [OS: 5 June 1723 – 17 July 1790]) was a Scottish moral philosopher and a pioneer of political economics. One of the key figures of the Scottish Enlightenment, Smith is the author of The Theory of Moral Sentiments and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. The latter, usually abbreviated as The Wealth of Nations, is considered his magnum opus and the first modern work of economics. Smith is widely cited as the father of modern economics.](/wiki/File:Kirkcaldy_High_Street_Adam_Smith_Plaque.png)
Topics
Academic Branches of Philosophy
Philosophy ponders the most fundamental questions humankind has been able to ask. These are increasingly numerous and over time they have been arranged into the overlapping branches of the philosophy tree:
- Aesthetics: What is art? What is beauty? Is there a standard of taste? Is art meaningful? If so, what does it mean? What is good art? Is art for the purpose of an end, or is "art for art's sake?" What connects us to art? How does art affect us? Is some art unethical? Can art corrupt or elevate societies?
- Epistemology: What are the nature and limits of knowledge? What is more fundamental to human existence, knowing (epistemology) or being (ontology)? How do we come to know what we know? What are the limits and scope of knowledge? How can we know that there are other minds (if we can)? How can we know that there is an external world (if we can)? How can we prove our answers? What is a true statement?
- Ethics: Is there a difference between ethically right and wrong actions (or values, or institutions)? If so, what is that difference? Which actions are right, and which wrong? Do divine commands make right acts right, or is their rightness based on something else? Are there standards of rightness that are absolute, or are all such standards relative to particular cultures? How should I live? What is happiness?
- Logic: What makes a good argument? How can I think critically about complicated arguments? What makes for good thinking? When can I say that something just does not make sense? Where is the origin of logic?
- Metaphysics: What sorts of things exist? What is the nature of those things? Do some things exist independently of our perception? What is the nature of space and time? What is the relationship of the mind to the body? What is it to be a person? What is it to be conscious? Do gods exist?
- Political philosophy: Are political institutions and their exercise of power justified? What is justice? Is there a 'proper' role and scope of government? Is democracy the best form of governance? Is governance ethically justifiable? Should a state be allowed? Should a state be able to promote the norms and values of a certain moral or religious doctrine? Are states allowed to go to war? Do states have duties against inhabitants of other states?
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