bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Logical atomism
Authors: Oliver Alex
Published: September 2018

The name ‘logical atomism’ refers to a network of theses about the parts and structure of the world and the means by which language represents the world. Wittgenstein, in his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, expounds a version of logical atomism developed by him around the time of the First World War, as does Russell in works published contemporaneously. It is no accident that their work on logical atomism shares a common surface description since it resulted from their mutual influence at Cambridge. The common theme is that the meaning of our sentences is rooted in a primitive relation between simple expressions and their simple worldly bearers, the logical atoms. In a logically perfect language, atomic sentences describe configurations of these atoms, and complex sentences are combinations of the atomic sentences. But sentences of ordinary language may have a misleading surface form which is revealed as such by analysis. The common theme masks considerable differences of doctrine. In particular, there are differences in the nature of logical atoms and in the arguments for the existence of these atoms.
Monism
Authors: Craig Edward
Published: September 2018

‘Monism’ is a very broad term, applicable to any doctrine which maintains either that there is ultimately only one thing, or only one kind of thing; it has also been used of the view that there is only one set of true beliefs. In these senses it is opposed to the equally broad term ‘pluralism’. But it is also often contrasted with ‘dualism’, since so much philosophical debate has focused on the question whether there are two different kinds of thing, mind and matter, or only one.
Neutral monism
Authors: Griffin Nicholas
Published: September 2018

Neutral monism is a theory of the relation of mind and matter. It holds that both are complex constructions out of more primitive elements that are ‘neutral’ in the sense that they are neither mental nor material. Mind and matter, therefore, do not differ in the intrinsic nature of their constituents but in the manner in which the constituents are organized. The theory is monist only in claiming that all the basic elements of the world are of the same fundamental type (in contrast to mind–body dualism); it is, however, pluralist in that it admits a plurality of such elements (in contrast to metaphysical monism).
Nihilism
Authors: Crosby Donald A.
Published: September 2018

As its name implies (from Latin nihil, ‘nothing’), philosophical nihilism is a philosophy of negation, rejection, or denial of some or all aspects of thought or life. Moral nihilism, for example, rejects any possibility of justifying or criticizing moral judgments, on grounds such as that morality is a cloak for egoistic self-seeking, and therefore a sham; that only descriptive claims can be rationally adjudicated and that moral (prescriptive) claims cannot be logically derived from descriptive ones; or that moral principles are nothing more than expressions of subjective choices, preferences or feelings of people who endorse them.

Similarly, epistemological nihilism denies the possibility of justifying or criticizing claims to knowledge, because it assumes that a foundation of infallible, universal truths would be required for such assessments, and no such thing is available; because it views all claims to knowledge as entirely relative to historical epochs, cultural contexts or the vagaries of individual thought and experience, and therefore as ultimately arbitrary and incommensurable; because it sees all attempts at justification or criticism as useless, given centuries of unresolved disagreement about disputed basic beliefs even among the most intelligent thinkers; or because it notes that numerous widely accepted, unquestioned beliefs of the past are dismissed out of hand today and expects a similar fate in the future for many, if not all, of the most confident present beliefs.

Political nihilism calls for the complete destruction of existing political institutions, along with their supporting outlooks and social structures, but has no positive message of what should be put in their place. Cosmic nihilism regards nature as either wholly unintelligible and starkly indifferent to basic human concerns, or as knowable only in the sense of being amenable to scientific description and explanation. In either case, the cosmos is seen as giving no support to distinctively human aims or values, and it may even be regarded as actively hostile to human beings. Existential nihilism negates the meaning of human life, judging it to be irremediably pointless, futile and absurd. Cosmic and existential nihilism are the focus of this entry.
Pluralism
Authors: Craig Edward
Published: September 2018

‘Pluralism’ is a broad term, applicable to any doctrine which maintains that there are ultimately many things, or many kinds of thing; in both these senses it is opposed to ‘monism’. Its commonest use in late twentieth-century philosophy is to describe views which recognize many sets of equally correct beliefs or evaluative standards; and in this sense it is akin to ‘relativism’. Societies are sometimes called ‘pluralistic’, meaning that they incorporate a variety of ways of life, moral standards and religions; one who sees this not as undesirable confusion but a proper state of things, espouses pluralism.
Postmodernism
Authors: Ermarth Elizabeth Deeds
Published: September 2018

The term ‘postmodernism’ appears in a range of contexts, from academic essays to clothing advertisements in the New York Times. Its meaning differs with context to such an extent that it seems to function like Lévi-Strauss’ ‘floating signifier’(Derrida 1982: 290): not so much to express a value as to hold open a space for that which exceeds expression. This broad capacity of the term ‘postmodernism’ testifies to the scope of the cultural changes it attempts to compass.

Across a wide range of cultural activity there has been a sustained and multivalent challenge to various founding assumptions of Western European culture since at least the fifteenth century and in some cases since the fifth century bc: assumptions about structure and identity, about transcendence and particularity, about the nature of time and space. From physics to philosophy, from politics to art, the description of the world has changed in ways that upset some basic beliefs of modernity. For example, phenomenology seeks to collapse the dualistic distinction between subject and object; relativity physics shifts descriptive emphasis from reality to measurement; the arts move away from realism; and consensus politics confronts totalitarianism and genocide. These and related cultural events belong to seismic changes in the way we register the world and communicate with each other.

To grasp what is at stake in postmodernism it is necessary to think historically and broadly, in the kind of complex terms that inevitably involve multidisciplinary effort. This multilingual impetus, this bringing together of methods and ideas long segregated both in academic disciplines and in practical life, particularly characterizes postmodernism and largely accounts for such resistance as it generates.

Although diverse and eclectic, postmodernism can be recognized by two key assumptions. First, the assumption that there is no common denominator – in ‘nature’ or ‘truth’ or ‘God’ or ‘the future’ – that guarantees either the One-ness of the world or the possibility of neutral or objective thought. Second, the assumption that all human systems operate like language, being self-reflexive rather than referential systems – systems of differential function which are powerful but finite, and which construct and maintain meaning and value.
Pragmatism
Authors: Rorty Richard
Published: September 2018

Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition founded by three American philosophers: Charles Sanders Peirce, William James and John Dewey. Starting from Alexander Bain’s definition of belief as a rule or habit of action, Peirce argued that the function of inquiry is not to represent reality, but rather to enable us to act more effectively. He was critical of the ‘copy theory’ of knowledge which had dominated philosophy since the time of Descartes, and especially of the idea of immediate, intuitive self-knowledge. He was also a prophet of the linguistic turn, one of the first philosophers to say that the ability to use signs is essential to thought.

Peirce’s use of Bain was extended by James, whose The Principles of Psychology (1890) broke with the associationism of Locke and Hume. James went on, in Pragmatism (1907) to scandalize philosophers by saying that ‘"The true"... is only the expedient in our way of thinking’. James and Dewey both wanted to reconcile philosophy with Darwin by making human beings’ pursuit of the true and the good continuous with the activities of the lower animals - cultural evolution with biological evolution. Dewey criticized the Cartesian notion of the self as a substance which existed prior to language and acculturation, and substituted an account of the self as a product of social practices (an account developed further by George Herbert Mead).

Dewey, whose primary interests were in cultural, educational and political reform rather than in specifically philosophical problems (problems which he thought usually needed to be dissolved rather than solved), developed the implications of pragmatism for ethics and social philosophy. His ideas were central to American intellectual life throughout the first half of the twentieth century.

All three of the founding pragmatists combined a naturalistic, Darwinian view of human beings with a deep distrust of the problems which philosophy had inherited from Descartes, Hume and Kant. They hoped to save philosophy from metaphysical idealism, but also to save moral and religious ideals from empiricist or positivist scepticism. Their naturalism has been combined with an anti-foundationalist, holist account of meaning by Willard van Orman Quine, Hilary Putnam and Donald Davidson - philosophers of language who are often seen as belonging to the pragmatist tradition. That tradition also has affinities with the work of Thomas Kuhn and the later work of Ludwig Wittgenstein.
Processes
Authors: Emmet Dorothy
Published: September 2018

A process is a course of change with a direction and internal order, where one stage leads on to the next. Processes can be physical (such as atomic decay), biological (such as the growth of living things), artificial (such as building a house) and social (such as carrying out a criminal investigation). Much of what is said about processes can be said about sequences of events. The concept of event, however, suggests a separate occurrence, whereas that of a process suggests something which is ongoing. There are matters, such as development in organisms, where to see what is happening as part of a process has an advantage over thinking of it as an event. Causes are generally spoken of as events, but the more dynamic concept of causal processes may get nearer to expressing the transition between cause and effect. Moreover, to explain something as a stage in a process can take account not only of what has happened in the past, but of what might happen in the future. This may (but need not) involve purpose; with organisms it involves development through functionally interrelated activities. In some social processes there can be a practical, moral significance in seeing a situation as a stage in a process, since this can encourage us to look to a further stage where something constructive might be brought out of what could otherwise be seen as simply an untoward event or an unhappy situation.
Projectivism
Authors: Blackburn Simon
Published: September 2018

‘Projectivism’ is used of philosophies that agree with Hume that ‘the mind has a great propensity to spread itself on the world’, that what is in fact an aspect of our own experience or of our own mental organization is treated as a feature of the objective order of things. Such philosophies distinguish between nature as it really is, and nature as we experience it as being. The way we experience it as being is thought of as partly a reflection or projection of our own natures. The projectivist might take as a motto the saying that beauty lies in the eye of the beholder, and seeks to develop the idea and explore its implications.

The theme is a constant in the arguments of the Greek sceptics, and becomes almost orthodox in the modern era. In Hume it is not only beauty that lies in the eye (or mind) of the beholder, but also virtue, and causation. In Kant the entire spatio-temporal order is not read from nature, but read into it as a reflection of the organization of our minds. In the twentieth century it has been especially non-cognitive and expressivist theories of ethics that have adopted the metaphor, it being fairly easy to see how we might externalize or project various sentiments and attitudes onto their objects. But causation, probability, necessity, the stances we take towards each other as persons, even the temporal order of events and the simplicity of scientific theory have also been candidates for projective treatment.
Realism and antirealism
Authors: Craig Edward
Published: September 2018

The basic idea of realism is that the kinds of thing which exist, and what they are like, are independent of us and the way in which we find out about them; antirealism denies this. Most people find it natural to be realists with respect to physical facts: how many planets there are in the solar system does not depend on how many we think there are, or would like there to be, or how we investigate them; likewise, whether electrons exist or not depends on the facts, not on which theory we favour. However, it seems natural to be antirealist about humour: something’s being funny is very much a matter of whether we find it funny, and the idea that something might really be funny even though nobody ever felt any inclination to laugh at it seems barely comprehensible. The saying that ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder’ is a popular expression of antirealism in aesthetics. An obviously controversial example is that of moral values; some maintain that they are real (or ‘objective’), others that they have no existence apart from human feelings and attitudes.

This traditional form of the distinction between realism and its opposite underwent changes during the 1970s and 1980s, largely due to Michael Dummett’s proposal that realism and antirealism (the latter term being his own coinage) were more productively understood in terms of two opposed theories of meaning. Thus, a realist is one who would have us understand the meanings of sentences in terms of their truth-conditions (the situations that must obtain if they are to be true); an antirealist holds that those meanings are to be understood by reference to assertability-conditions (the circumstances under which we would be justified in asserting them).
Scandinavia, philosophy in
Authors: Follesdal Dagfinn
Published: September 2018

The three countries of Scandinavia – Sweden, Denmark and Norway – share much of their history and culture with Finland and Iceland, and it is natural to treat all five Nordic countries together in any philosophical survey. The first universities in this region were founded more than 500 years ago, in Sweden at Uppsala in 1477, and in Copenhagen, the Danish capital, two years later. Over the years, the main trends of philosophical thought, from Descartes and Locke to Hegelianism, existentialism and logical positivism have all impinged upon philosophy in these countries. A unique feature of philosophy in Norway and Iceland, and until 1971 also in Denmark, is that all university students, including students in law, medicine and dentistry, spend all or most of their first semester preparing for a compulsory exam in philosophy which comprises some philosophy of science and philosophy of language, and some history of philosophy and history of science. This requirement has meant much for recruiting and employment opportunities for philosophers. Thus, for example, the University of Oslo has sixty-five tenured philosophers, while Denmark has suffered a dramatic reduction in the number of philosophical positions since the requirement was abolished. In Sweden philosophy is a compulsory subject in some branches of study in secondary schools.

That philosophers from the Nordic countries have gained a reputation for broad interests and familiarity with several philosophical traditions may largely be due to two factors: small countries increase the likelihood that they will get involved in popularization and public affairs, and small language communities induce the learning of other languages, notably English, German and French, which makes developments in other countries more accessible.
Spain, philosophy in
Authors: Abellán José Luis
Published: September 2018

Historians have argued about precisely when to date the commencement of Spanish history proper, rendering dubious any reference to Spain as such in the period prior to the official constitution of nationality. If this is the case, one can not really speak of philosophy in Spain before 1474, although it remains a fact that philosophy had been practised on the Iberian Peninsula from the earliest times. During the period of the Roman Empire, distinguished philosophical figures included Lucius Annqeus Seneca; under Visigothic rule, Saint Isidore of Seville came to the fore; and the Islamic Empire featured some of the most eminent philosophers of the Arabic and Judaic traditions, such as Ibn Hazm, Averroes, Ibn Gabirol, Yehuda Ha-Levi and Maimonides. There is no doubt that the centre of philosophical activity within the peninsula during the Middle Ages was the so-called School of Translators of Toledo, where numerous thinkers from many countries gathered. Together with Spanish scholars such as Domingo Gundisalvo and Juan Hispano, they collaborated in making Greek philosophy available to the countries of Europe; instrumental in this process were Gerard of Cremona, Daniel of Morlay, Alexander Neckham and Michael Scot.

After Spanish nationality was constituted under the Catholic Monarchs (1474–1516) on the basis of a single, unified faith, philosophy was destined to become closely linked with religion. During the sixteenth century, this gave rise to a burgeoning of philosophy of the very highest order, which followed two separate paths: that of the Erasmian-style Renaissance, featuring Luis Vives, which developed in line with the vanguard of the European Renaissance; and that of Spanish Scholasticism, which was fuelled by the thrust of the Counter-Reformation on the one hand, and by the discovery of America on the other. After the reigns of Charles I and Philip II (the chief protagonists in the creation of the empire ‘in which the sun never set’), the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries witnessed a relentless decline which, towards the beginning of the twentieth, seemed to come to an end. The Generation of 1898, with its revolutionary secular theories, provided the catalyst for a philosophical recovery whose greatest protagonists were Miguel de Unamuno, José Ortega y Gasset and Xavier Zubir. These thinkers were succeeded by the philosophers who went into exile after the Civil War of 1936–9: José Ferrater Mora, José Gaos, María Zambrano, Joaquín Xirau, and Juan David García Bacca.
Supervenience
Authors: Blackburn Simon
Published: September 2018

Supervenience is used of the relationship between two kinds of properties that things may have. It refers to the way in which one kind of property may only be present in virtue of the presence of some other kind: a thing can only possess a property of the first, supervening kind because it has properties of the underlying kind, but once the underlying kind is fixed, then the properties of the first kind are fixed as well. The supervening features exist only because of the underlying, or ‘subjacent’ properties, and these are sufficient to determine how the supervening features come out. For example, a person can only be good in virtue of being kind, or generous, or possessing some other personal qualities, and an animal can only be alive in virtue of possessing some kind of advanced physical organization. Equally, a painting can only represent a subject in virtue of the geometrical arrangement of light-reflecting surfaces, and its representational powers supervene on this arrangement. A melody supervenes on a sequence of notes, and the dispositions and powers of a thing may supervene on its physical constitution.

Although the word supervenience first appears in twentieth-century philosophy, the concept had previously appeared in discussion of the ‘emergence’ of life from underlying physical complexity. The central philosophical problem lies in understanding the relationship between the two levels. We do not want the relationship to be entirely mysterious, as if it is just a metaphysical accident that properties of the upper level arise when things are suitably organized at the lower level. On the other hand, if the relationship becomes too close so that, for instance, it is a logical truth that once the lower-level properties are in place the upper-level ones emerge, the idea that there are two genuinely distinct levels becomes problematic: perhaps the upper-level properties are really nothing but lower-level ones differently described.

If this problem is dealt with, there may still remain difficulties in thinking about the upper-level properties. For example, can they be said to cause things, or explain things, or must these notions be reserved for the lower-level properties? Supposing that only lower-level properties really do any work leads to epiphenomenalism – the idea that the upper-level properties really play no role in determining the course of events. This seems to clash with common-sense belief in the causal powers of various properties that undoubtedly supervene on others, and also leads to a difficult search for some conception of the final, basic or lowest level of fact on which all else supervenes.
Transcendental arguments
Authors: Harrison Ross
Published: September 2018

Transcendental arguments seek to answer scepticism by showing that the things doubted by a sceptic are in fact preconditions for the scepticism to make sense. Hence the scepticism is either meaningless or false. A transcendental argument works by finding the preconditions of meaningful thought or judgment. For example, scepticism about other minds suggests that only the thinker themselves might have sensations. A transcendental argument which answered this scepticism would show that a precondition for thinking oneself to have sensations is that others do so as well. Expressing the scepticism involves thinking oneself to have sensations; and the argument shows that if this thought is expressible, then it is also false.

Arguments with such powerful consequences have, unsurprisingly, been much criticized. One criticism is that it is not possible to discover the necessary conditions of judgment. Another is that transcendental arguments can only show us how we have to think, whereas defeating scepticism involves showing instead how things really are.
Truth, pragmatic theory of
Authors: Kirkham Richard L.
Published: September 2018

Two distinctly different kinds of theories parade under the banner of the ‘pragmatic theory of truth’. First, there is the consensus theory of C.S. Peirce, according to which a true proposition is one which would be endorsed unanimously by all persons who had had sufficient relevant experiences to judge it. Second, there is the instrumentalist theory associated with William James, John Dewey, and F.C.S. Schiller, according to which a proposition counts as true if and only if behaviour based on a belief in the proposition leads, in the long run and all things considered, to beneficial results for the believers. (Peirce renamed his theory ‘pragmaticism’ when his original term ‘pragmatism’ was appropriated by the instrumentalists.) Unless they are married to some form of ontological anti-realism, which they usually are, both theories imply that the facts of the matter are not relevant to the truth-value of the proposition.
Truth, coherence theory of
Authors: Kirkham Richard L.
Published: September 2018

The term ‘coherence’ in the phrase ‘coherence theory of truth’ has never been very precisely defined. The most we can say by way of a general definition is that a set of two or more beliefs are said to cohere if they ‘fit’ together or ‘agree’ with one another. Typically, then, a coherence theory of truth would claim that the beliefs of a given individual are true to the extent that the set of all their beliefs is coherent. Such theories, thus, make truth a matter of a truth bearer’s relations to other truth bearers rather than its relations to reality. This latter implication is the chief hindrance to plausibility faced by coherence theories, and most coherence theorists try to escape the problem by denying that there is any extra-mental reality.
Truth, correspondence theory of
Authors: Kirkham Richard L.
Published: September 2018

The two oldest theories of truth in Western philosophy, those of Plato and Aristotle, are both correspondence theories. And if the non-philosopher can be said to subscribe to a theory of truth, it would most likely be to a correspondence theory; so called because such theories are often summed up with the slogans ‘truth is correspondence with the facts’ or ‘truth is agreement with reality’. Aristotle puts it thus: ‘to say that [either] that which is is not or that which is not is, is a falsehood; and to say that that which is is and that which is not is not, is true’. In epistemology, such theories offer an analysis of that at which, supposedly, investigation aims: truth. But correspondence theories are also now thought to play important roles in philosophical semantics and in the physicalist programme, which is the task of reducing all non-physical concepts to the concepts of logic, mathematics, and physics.
Universals
Authors: Bigelow John C.
Published: September 2018

In metaphysics, the term ‘universals’ is applied to things of two sorts: properties (such as redness or roundness), and relations (such as kinship relations like sisterhood, or the causal relation, or spatial and temporal relations). Universals are to be understood by contrast with particulars. Few universals, if any, are truly ‘universal’ in the sense that they are shared by all individuals – a universal is characteristically the sort of thing which some individuals may have in common, and others may lack.

Universals have been conceived to be things which enable us intellectually to grasp a permanent, underlying order behind the changing flux of experience. Some of the gods of ancient mythologies correspond roughly to various important underlying universals – social relations for instance, as for example if Hera is said to be the goddess of Marriage and Ares (or Mars) is said to be the god of War. Many traditions, East and West, have dealt with the underlying problem which generates theories of universals; nevertheless the term ‘universals’ is closely tied to the Western tradition, and the agenda has been set largely by the work of Plato and Aristotle.

The term often used in connection with Plato is not ‘universals’ but ‘Forms’ (or ‘Ideas’, used in the sense of ideals rather than of thoughts), the term ‘universals’ echoing Aristotle more than Plato. Other terms cognate with universals include not only properties and relations, but also qualities, attributes, characteristics, essences and accidents (in the sense of qualities which a thing has not of necessity but only by accident), species and genus, and natural kinds.

Various arguments have been advanced to establish the existence of universals, the most memorable of which is the ‘one over many’ argument. There are also various arguments against the existence of universals. There are, for instance, various vicious regress arguments which derive from Aristotle’s so-called ‘third man argument’ against Plato. Another family of arguments trades on what is called Ockham’s razor: it is argued that we can say anything we need to say, and explain everything we need to explain, without appeal to universals; and if we can, and if we are rational, then we should. Those who believe in universals are called Realists, those who do not are called Nominalists.
Value, ontological status of
Authors: Oliver Alex
Published: September 2018

We evaluate persons, characters, mental states, actions, inanimate objects and situations using very abstract terms such as ‘good’, ‘unjust’ and ‘beautiful’, and more concrete terms, such as ‘courageous’, ‘cruel’ and ‘crass’, drawn from fields such as aesthetics, ethics, politics and religion. Do these evaluations ascribe value properties to the entities evaluated? If so, what are these properties like? If not, what are we doing when we evaluate?
Rhetoric
Authors: Garver Eugene
Published: September 2018

Rhetoric is the power to persuade, especially about political or public affairs. Sometimes philosophy has defined itself in opposition to rhetoric – Plato invented the term ‘rhetoric’ so that philosophy could define itself by contrast, and distinctions like that between persuasion and knowledge have been popular ever since. Sometimes philosophy has used rhetorical techniques or materials to advance its own projects. Some of its techniques, especially topics of invention, the classification of issues, and tropes or figures of speech, are occasionally employed by philosophers. The philosophical question is whether these techniques have any interest beyond efficacy. What is the relation between techniques effective in persuading others and methods for making up one’s own mind? Is there any connection between the most persuasive case and the best decision? Is there a relation between the judgments of appropriateness and decorum exercised by the rhetorician, and the judgments of appropriateness exercised by the person of practical wisdom? Do judgments about probability, ambiguity and uncertainty, and judgments under constraints of time or the need for decision, aspire to the ideal of perfect rationality, to which they are doomed to fall short, or do these kinds of judgment have an integrity of their own?Apart from supplying useful techniques, an art of persuasion also raises philosophic questions concerning the relation between rhetoric and logic, rhetoric and ethics, and rhetoric and poetics.
Masaryk, Tomáš Garrigue (1850–1937)
Authors: Zumr Josef
Published: September 2018

Masaryk was a philosopher, sociologist, politician and first president of the Czechoslovak Republic (1918–35). Initially he aimed to change the Habsburg monarchy into a democratic federal state, but during the First World War he began to favour the abolition of the monarchy and, with the help of the Allied powers and the Czechoslovakian foreign armed forces, won independence for his nation. Masaryk’s philosophy of history posited democracy achieving victory over theocracy as a stage in world evolution. He regarded democracy as both a political system and a humanistic world outlook.
Patočka, Jan (1907–77)
Authors: Zumr Josef
Published: September 2018

Patočka was a Czech philosopher, one of the last pupils of Husserl. From the mid 1930s he developed his own approach to philosophical problems of the life-world (Lebenswelt), its structures and human activities in it. After 1945 he expanded this theme to incorporate other phenomenological problems (movement, freedom, aesthetics). He also paid much attention to the history of philosophy since antiquity, particularly to Comenius. After 1972, when the Communist system deprived him of his academic position, he elaborated his philosophical concept of History in his ‘Heretical Essays’. He was one of the authors of the political manifesto of the Czechoslovak political opposition, Charter 77, and his name became a symbol of moral resistance against totalitarian power.
Feminism and psychoanalysis
Authors: Whitford Margaret
Published: September 2018

Broadly speaking, there have been two main types of philosophical response to psychoanalysis. The first sets out to assess the scientific status of Freud’s hypotheses; the second uses the insights of psychoanalytic theory to re-evaluate the status and foundations of philosophy. Feminists in philosophy have overwhelmingly adopted the second stance, which in practice turns the first on its head, since the epistemological basis of science itself becomes a problem from the vantage point of psychoanalytic accounts.

Although in the popular imagination feminism and psychoanalysis are sworn enemies, and many feminists continue to be hostile to Freud, serious feminist engagement with psychoanalysis began with post-1970 feminism in the work of Juliet Mitchell, Luce Irigaray, Dorothy Dinnerstein and Nancy Chodorow. Feminists in philosophy turned to psychoanalysis in an attempt to understand what they perceived as the masculinism of philosophy and its attempt to exclude the feminine. Since psychoanalysis is specifically concerned with issues such as the formation of masculine and feminine identity at the level of the unconscious, it provides a framework for arguing that rationality and knowledge are always unconsciously gendered, thus challenging the self-proclaimed neutrality and universality of philosophy, a claim which feminists had come to see as increasingly suspect.
Horkheimer, Max (1895–1973)
Authors: Bernstein J.M.
Published: September 2018

One of the initiators and founders of the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt, Germany, Max Horkheimer’s philosophical importance derives from his programmatic essays of the 1930s in which he conceptualized the Institute’s project of interdisciplinary research, and his later collaboration with Theodor W. Adorno in writing Dialectic of Enlightenment (1947). Horkheimer’s vision of a ’critical theory’ of society was intended as a reformulation of Marxist theory in which empirical research would be combined with philosophical reflection.
Objectivity
Authors: Miller Alexander
Published: September 2018

Objectivity is one of the central concepts of metaphysics. Philosophers distinguish between objectivity and agreement: ‘Ice-cream tastes nice’ is not objective merely because there is widespread agreement that it is true. But if objectivity is not mere agreement, what is it? We often think that some sorts of claim are less objective than others, so that a different metaphysical account is required of each. For example, ethical claims are often held to be less objective than claims about the shapes of middle-sized physical objects: ‘Murder is wrong’ is held to be less objective than ‘The table is square’. Philosophers disagree about how to capture intuitive differences in objectivity. Those known as non-cognitivists say that ethical claims are not, strictly speaking, even apt to be true or false; they do not record facts but, rather, express some desire or inclination on the part of the speaker. Others, dubbed subjectivists, say that ethical statements are in some sense about human desires or inclinations. Unlike the non-cognitivist, the subjectivist views ethical claims as truth-apt, but as being true in virtue of facts about human desires or inclinations. Some philosophers, referred to as anti-realists, disagree with both non-cognitivism and subjectivism, and attempt to find different ways of denying objectivity. Quietists, on the other hand, think that there are no interesting ways of distinguishing discourses in point of objective status.
Objectivity
Authors: Miller Alexander
Published: September 2018

Objectivity is one of the central concepts of metaphysics. Philosophers distinguish between objectivity and agreement: ‘Ice-cream tastes nice’ is not objective merely because there is widespread agreement that ice-cream tastes nice. But if objectivity is not mere agreement, what is it? We often think that some sorts of claim are less objective than others, so that a different metaphysical account is required of each. For example, ethical claims are often held to be less objective than claims about the shapes of middle-sized physical objects: ‘Murder is wrong’ is held to be less objective than ‘The table is square’. Philosophers disagree about how to capture intuitive differences in objectivity. Those known as expressivists say that ethical claims are not, strictly speaking, even apt to be true or false; they do not aim to record facts but, rather, express some desire or inclination on the part of the speaker. Others, dubbed subjectivists, say that ethical statements are in some sense about human desires or inclinations. Unlike the expressivist, the subjectivist views ethical claims as truth-apt, but as being true (when they are true) in virtue of facts about human desires or inclinations. Error-theorists and fictionalists argue that (atomic, positive) ethical claims are systematically and uniformly false, but that they may be regarded as trading in ‘useful fictions’. Some philosophers, referred to as antirealists, disagree with expressivism, subjectivism, error-theories and fictionalism, and attempt to find different ways of denying objectivity. Quietists, on the other hand, think that there are no interesting ways of distinguishing discourses in point of objective status and that philosophical debate about differences in objective status is in some sense misguided.
Infinity
Authors: Moore A.W.
Published: September 2018

The infinite is standardly conceived as that which is endless, unlimited, immeasurable. It also has theological connotations of absoluteness and perfection. From the dawn of civilization, it has held a special fascination: people have been captivated by the boundlessness of space and time, by the mystery of numbers going on forever, by the paradoxes of endless divisibility, and by the riddles of divine perfection.

The infinite is of profound importance to mathematics. Nevertheless, the relationship between the two has been a curiously ambivalent one. It is clear that mathematics in some sense presupposes the infinite, for instance in the fact that there is no largest integer. But the idea that the infinite should itself be an object of mathematical study has time and again been subjected to ridicule. The mathematical orthodoxy has been that there can be no formal theory of the infinite. In the nineteenth century this orthodoxy was challenged, with the advent of ‘transfinite arithmetic’. Many, however, have remained sceptical, believing that the infinite is inherently beyond our grasp.

Perhaps their scepticism should be trained on the infinite itself: perhaps the concept is ultimately incoherent. It is certainly riddled with paradoxes. Yet we cannot simply jettison it. This is why the paradoxes are so acute. The roots of these paradoxes lie in our own finitude: it is self-conscious awareness of that finitude which gives us our initial sense of a contrasting infinite, and, at the same time, makes us despair of knowing anything about it, or having any kind of grasp of it. This creates a tension. We feel pressure to acknowledge the infinite, and we feel pressure not to. In trying to come to terms with the infinite, we are trying to come to terms with a basic conflict in ourselves.
Content, non-conceptual
Authors: Crane Tim
Published: September 2018

To say that a mental state has intentional content is to say that it represents features of the world. The intentional content of a belief can be characterized in terms of concepts: the content of the belief that fish swim is characterized by the concepts ‘fish’ and ‘swimming’. The contents of beliefs are, for this reason, often described as conceptual. One way to explain this idea is to say that to have a belief, one has to possess the concepts which characterize the belief’s content. However, some philosophers believe that certain mental states have non-conceptual contents: these states represent the world without the subject having to possess the concepts which characterize their contents. The main examples of these putative states are conscious perceptual experiences and the non-conscious states of cognitive information-processing systems (such as the visual system).
Content, non-conceptual
Authors: Crane Tim
Published: September 2018

A mental state has intentional content when it represents features of the world. The intentional content of a belief can be characterized in terms of concepts: the content of the belief that fish swim is characterized by the concept of fish and the concept of swimming. The contents of beliefs are, for this reason, often described as conceptual. One way to explain this idea is to say that to have a belief, one has to possess the concepts which characterize the belief’s content. Another way to explain it is to say that the propositional content of the belief is made up of concepts. Some philosophers believe that certain mental states have non conceptual contents: either in the sense that these states represent the world without the subject having to possess the relevant concepts, or in the sense that their propositional contents are not made up of concepts. The main examples of these putative mental states with nonconceptual contents are conscious perceptual experiences and the nonconscious states of cognitive information-processing systems (such as the visual system).
Praxeology
Authors: Molander Bengt
Published: September 2018

Praxeology belongs to the pragmatic tradition and thus emphasizes that concepts - and the world - must be understood through and elucidated in terms of human activities and practices. Praxeology is not a school but rather a movement, originating in Denmark and Norway in the 1960s and 1970s, with internal debates and disagreements. Praxeologists stress that good conceptual and ontological analyses proceed by (and are presented in the form of) careful analyses of particular examples or cases. They emphasize the situatedness of the philosopher in the world. The inspiration comes primarily from the early Heidegger and the later Wittgenstein.
Possible worlds
Authors: Melia Joseph
Published: September 2018

The concept of Possible worlds arises most naturally in the study of possibility and necessity. It is relatively uncontroversial that grass might have been red, or (to put the point another way) that there is a possible world in which grass is red. Though we do not normally take such talk of possible worlds literally, doing so has a surprisingly large number of benefits. Possible worlds enable us to analyse and help us understand a wide range of problematic and difficult concepts. Modality and modal logic, counterfactuals, propositions and properties are just some of the concepts illuminated by possible worlds.

Yet, for all this, possible worlds may raise more problems than they solve. What kinds of things are possible worlds? Are they merely our creations or do they exist independently of us? Are they concrete objects, like the actual world, containing flesh and blood people living in alternative realities, or are they abstract objects, like numbers, unlocated in space and time and with no causal powers? Indeed, since possible worlds are not the kind of thing we can ever visit, how could we even know that such things exist? These are but some of the difficult questions which must be faced by anyone who wishes to use possible worlds.
Zoroastrianism
Authors: Williams Alan
Published: September 2018

Zarathushtra, better known to the Classical and modern world in the Greek form of his name ‘Zoroaster’, revealed his vision of truth, wisdom and justice in the verse texts known as the Gāthās (c.1200–1000 bc) and is revered by Zoroastrians as their holy prophet. The religion is correctly described as mazdāyasna, ‘the worship of Ahura (‘Lord’) Mazdā, creator of the world and source of all goodness. Since the Avestan word mazdā means ‘wise, wisdom’, Zoroastrians see their prophet as the original philosophos, ‘lover of wisdom’. Zarathushtra’s message is primarily ethical and rationalistic. Zoroastrianism teaches a life based on (1) the avoidance of evil, through rigorous discrimination between good and evil, and (2) the service of wisdom through the cherishing of seven ideals. These latter are personified as seven immortal, beneficent spirits: Ahura Mazdāhimself, conceived as the creative ‘holy’ spirit; Sublime Truth; Virtuous Power; Good Purpose/Mind; Beneficent Piety; Wholeness/Health and, finally, Immortality. Evil originates neither from God nor from his creatures, but from a wholly other source, personified as Angra Mainyu, the ‘Hostile Spirit’, whose existence is ritually and doctrinally rejected as being pretended and parasitic. Real existence is solely the domain of Ahura Mazdāand his creation; Angra Mainyu and his demons are actually states of negativity, denial or, as the religion puts it, ‘the Lie’. Thus the charge that the religion is ontologically dualistic is no more true than it is of other systems which conceive of good and evil as being in fundamental opposition. Equally, the allegation that its theology is ditheistic or polytheistic is a misunderstanding of the Zoroastrian theological and ritual tradition. The influence which this religion has exerted on classical philosophy and the thought and practice of Judaism, Christianity and Islam is being reappraised by scholars in modern times.
Solipsism
Authors: Craig Edward
Published: September 2018

‘Solipsism’ (from the Latin solus ipse – oneself alone) is the doctrine that only oneself exists. This formulation covers two doctrines, each of which has been called solipsism, namely (1) that one is the only self, the only centre of consciousness, and, more radically, (2) that nothing at all exists apart from one’s own mind and mental states. These are not always distinguished from corresponding epistemic forms: for all we know, (1) or (2) might be true.

A more recent coinage is ‘methodological solipsism’, which has a quite different meaning: that the content of an individual’s thoughts is fully determined by facts about them, and is independent of facts about their environment.
Natural kinds
Authors: Daly Chris
Published: September 2018

Objects belonging to a natural kind form a group of objects which have some theoretically important property in common. For example, rabbits form a natural kind, all samples of gold form another, and so on. Natural kinds are contrasted with arbitrary groups of objects such as the contents of dustbins, or collections of jewels. The latter have no theoretically important property in common: they have no unifying feature. Natural kinds provide a system for classifying objects. Scientists can then use this system to predict and explain the behaviour of those objects. For these reasons, the topic of natural kinds is of special interest to metaphysics and to the philosophy of science.
Toland, John (1670–1722)
Authors: Champion J.A.I.
Published: September 2018

Deist, freethinker and political republican, the Irishman John Toland’s reputation is closely associated with the radical attack on Christian metaphysics and institutions in the Augustan period. His philosophical achievement was to turn the more erudite thinking of Spinoza, Hobbes and Locke into a popular polemic against the shibboleths of orthodox religious belief. In Christianity Not Mysterious (1696), burnt in Dublin by Parliamentary command in 1697, he exploited and extended the epistemology of Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding into a revision of Christian descriptions of the relationship between faith and knowledge, and a consequent defence of liberty of thought and belief.