See also:

• Reference: Encyclopedias: Subject Encyclopedias  (2,092)

The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy -  .

- Free online encyclopedia. Edited by James Fieser, hosted by the University of Tennessee at Martin.

Academy - - Description of the philosophical institution founded by Plato, which advocated skepticism in succeeding generations.

Active Powers - - The capacities of impulse and desire which lead to or determine human action, as described by 18th and 19th century Scottish common sense philosophy.

Aenesidemus - - Biography of the 1st century philosopher who defended the ten tropes of skepticism.

Anaxagoras - - Greek philosopher born about 500 BCE, responsible for giving philosophy a home at Athens and the first philosopher to introduce a spiritual principle which gives matter life and form.

Anaxarchus - - 4th century BCE philosopher of Abdera, from the school of Democritus.

Anaximander - - Greek philosopher of Miletus, born 611 BCE who thought it unnecessary to fix upon air, water, or fire as the original and primary form of body.

Anaximenes - - 5th century BCE Greek philosopher of Miletus who regarded 'air' as the primary form of body.

Animals and Ethics - - Consideration of moral status of non-human animals.

Anselm - - 11th century English prelate who developed views of atonement and satisfaction which are still held by orthodox theologians.

Antisthenes - - Athenian philosopher and founder of the Cynic sect who was born around 440 BCE.

Aquinas, Thomas - - The life and work of the major figure in scholastic philosophy.

Aristippus - - Description of the life and teachings of the philosopher Aristippus, founder of the Cyrenaic school of philosophy.

Aristotle - - The life and work of the 4th century BCE Greek philosopher.

Augustine - - Extensive article on the life and work of the 4th century ecclesiastical author.

Bacon, Francis - - 16th century philosopher and politician.

Bakhtin Circle - - School of Russian thought centered on the work of Bakhtin which focused on questions of signification in artistic creation.

Beccaria, Cesare - - 18th century aristocrat whose work 'On Crimes and Punishments (1764)' inspired reform in the Italian criminal justice system.

Behaviorism - - Theory in philosophy of mind which maintains that talk of mental events should be translated into talk about observable behavior.

Bentham, Jeremy - - Extensive article on the 18th century 'founder' of utilitarianism.

Berkeley, George - - Influential 18th century Irish philosopher.

Berlin Circle - - Group of academics who gathered round Hans Reichenbach in late 1920s and later joined up with the Vienna Circle.

Bolingbroke, Henry St. John - - 18th century Tory disciple of Locke.

Butler, Joseph - - 18th century icon of a highly intellectualized theology.

Caird, Edward - - Nineteenth century Scottish philosopher who was one of the key figures of the idealist movement that dominated British philosophy from 1870 until the mid 1920s.

Capital Punishment - - The issue of capital punishment involves determining whether the execution of criminals is ever justified.

Carnap, Rudolf - - Extensive article about his life and work, by Mauro Murzi.

Chinese Room Argument - - John Searle's thought experiment is one of the best known counters to claims of artificial intelligence.

Chrysippus - - Prolific stoic of Soli, and disciple of Cleanthes.

Cicero, Marcus Tullius - - 1st century BCE Roman orator and philosopher of the New Academy.

Cleanthes - - Stoic philosopher of Assus in Lydia, disciple of Zeno of Citium.

Cudworth, Ralph - - 17th century 'Cambridge Platonist' who fought for preservation of religious ideals, including divine illumination.

Cumberland, Richard - - 17th century critic of Hobbes and the neo-Platonists.

Cyrenaics - - Description of the Cyrenaic school of philosophy, which flourished from the 5th-3rd centuries BCE. The Cyrenaics were skeptics and hedonists.

Damon - - 5th century BCE Pythagorean philosopher of Syracuse.

Davidson, Donald - - Introduction to one of the most significant philosophers concerned with philosophy of mind and action of the 20th/21st century.

Deism, English - - Explores the deism of Hobbes, Locke, Tindal, and the influence of Hume.

Deism, French - - The deism of Voltaire and Rousseau.

Democritus - - 4th century BCE philosopher of Abdera who expanded the atomic theory of Leucippus.

Demonax - - Philosopher of the second century CE. who tried to revive the philosophy of the Cynic School.

Descartes, René - - Early modern philosopher who rejected religious authority in the quest for scientific and philosophical knowledge.

Dewey, John - - Leading light of the 20th century American school of thought known as pragmatism.

Diderot, Denis - - The most prominent of the French Encyclopedists and one of the leaders of the Enlightenment.

Diogenes Laertius - - 3rd century biographer of ancient Greek philosophers.

Diogenes of Apollonia - - Pupil of Anaximenes and contemporary of Anaxagoras in the 6th cn. BCE.

Diogenes of Sinope - - 4th cn. BCE cynic philosopher of Sinope.

Eckhart, Meister - - 13th century Dominican mystic who was almost forgotten until Franz von Baader revived his memory in the nineteenth century.

Eclecticism - - Group of ancient philosophers who sought to reach by selection the highest degree of probability in the search for truth.

Egoism, Psychological and Ethical - - Maintains that the individual self is the motivating moral force and the end of moral action.

Emanation - - The theory that all derived or secondary things flow from the primary.

Empedocles - - 5th century BCE philosopher who combined medical study with Orphic mysticism.

Epictetus - - Eminent Stoic philosopher, born as a slave at Hieropolis in Phyrgia in 55 CE.

Epicurus - - 4th century BCE materialist, empiricist, and hedonist. One of the major philosophers of the Hellenistic period.

Euclides - - 4th century BCE native of Megara, and founder of the Megarian or Eristic sect.

Evolution - - Introduces evolution through the ages, from the ancient Greeks, through Leibniz and Descartes to Darwin and Spencer.

Ferrier, James Frederick - - The earliest absolute idealist in English philosophy.

Fichte, Immanuel Hermann - - Aimed to secure a philosophical basis for the personality of God.

Fichte, Johann Gottlieb - - One of the major figures in German philosophy in the period between Kant and Hegel.

Freud, Sigmund - - Lenghty article on the father of psychoanalysis who is generally recognised as one of the most influential and authoritative thinkers of the twentieth century.

German Idealism - - The German reaction to empiricism, including related theories of Kant, Fichte, Hegel and others.

God, Western Concepts of - - Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on God from Socrates to Nietzsche.

Gorgias - - Greek sophist and rhetorician, known as "the Nihilist," born in 483 BCE.

Greek Philosophy - - The philosophical currents of Ancient Greek philosophy are introduced, from the Presocratic philosophers through to Proclus.

Hamilton, William - - 19th century exponent of the Scottish common-sense philosophy.

Hartmann, Karl Robert Eduard Von - - 19th century German philosopher who attempted to combine the idea of Hegel with the will of Schopenhauer in 'spiritual monism..

Hegelians, St. Louis - - 19th century group of amateur American philosophers founded and led by William Torrey Harris.

Helvetius, Claude Adrien - - One of the 18th century Encyclopedists who held the skeptical and materialistic views common to that school of philosophy.

Hempel, Carl Gustav - - A leading member of logical positivism, the German philosopher died in 1997.

Heraclitus - - 5th century BCE. Presocratic Greek philosopher.

Herbert of Cherbury, Edward - - 17th century historian, poet (brother of George), and philosopher. Sought to determine the nature and standard of truth, and conditions of knowledge. Precursor of the philosophy of Common Sense.

Hippias - - Hippias was a sophist, a contemporary of Socrates, and an enthusiast for universality.

Hobbes, Thomas - - 17th century British philosopher. Author of Leviathan (1651).

Hodgson, Shadworth - - Follower of Kant, founder of the Aristotelian Society.

Humanism - - Brief article on Erasmus and the Italian humanist movement.

Hume, David - - Enormously influential 18th century Scottish philosopher. Author of Treatise of Human Nature (1739-1740).

Husserl, Edmund - - Leader of the German phenomenological movement.

Huxley, Thomas Henry - - 19th century zoologist and advocate of Darwinism.

Identity Theory - - Form of monistic materialism which maintains that mental states and brain activities are identical.

Interventionism - - Examines the nature and justifications of interfering with another polity or choices made by individuals.

Jacobi, Friedrich Heinrich - - 18th century German philosopher, famous for effective criticism of Kant.

Just War Theory - - Some of those who have attempted to justify war include Aquinas, Grotius, and Pufendorf.

Leucippus - - 5th century BCE founder of atomism.

Locke, John - - Article on the life and work of the influential philosopher.

Lombard, Peter - - French scholastic theologian of the 12th century, influenced by Abelard.

Lotze, Rudolf Hermann - - 19th century German philosopher who criticised the pantheism of Hegel.

Lucretius - - Roman poet and advocate of Epicurean philosophy.

Menippus - - Third century BCE Greek philosopher and satirist.

Mill, John Stuart - - 19th leader and prophet of utilitarianism, heir to the Hume-Bentham line, and influential force in modern political theory. Author of On Liberty (1859), and Utilitarianism (1863).

Moral Luck - - Andrew Latus, St. Francis Xavier University, summarizes the discussion between Thomas Nagel and Bernard Williams on the question: Can luck ever make a moral difference.

Moral Philosophy - - Introduction to ethics, with links to other articles at the IEP.

Natural Law - - Standards that govern human behavior objectively derived from the nature of human beings.

Natural Theology - - Used in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to describe knowledge of God drawn from nature.

Neoplatonism - - The revival of Greek philosophy in 3rd century BCE, led by Plotinus and his disciple, Porphyry. Influenced by both Pythagoras and Plato.

Ockham, William of - - Detailed biography of the 14th century Franciscan.

Origen - - Father of the early Church, born around 182.

Paley, William - - 18th century British theologian.

Parmenides - - Greek philosopher and poet.

Peripatetics - - Brief history of the Peripatetic doctrines.

Plato - - Biography and description of the philosophy of Plato.

Plotinus - - 3rd century CE founder of Neo-Platonism.

Poincaré, Jules Henri - - 19th century French philosopher of science.

Positivism, Legal - - Theory that law is manufactured according to certain social conventions.

Prodicus - - 5th century BCE sophist, possibly a mentor of Socrate.

Protagoras - - Early Greek sophist.

Pyrrho - - 4th century BCE founder of the Greek school of skepticism.

Pythagoras - - The 6th century BCE philosopher.

Reichenbach, Hans - - Leading German philosopher of science, and logical positivist.

Renaissance - - Brief article on the transition between middle ages and modernity.

Rights, Human - - A treatment of the origins and development of the theory of human rights, with philosophical analysis, justifications, and criticisms.

Roman Philosophy - - Short introduction to Roman philosophy from the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Russell's Paradox - - Examines self-referential linguistics used to describe properties and sets.

Shaftesbury, Earl of - - Patron of John Lock.

Shpet, Gustav - - Leading proponent of Russian transcendental phenomenology.

Skepticism, Ancient Greek - - A description of skepticism in Ancient Greece, led by Pyrrho.

Skepticism, Contemporary - - Introduction to the current discussion of skepticism.

Social Contract Theory - - View that morality is based on social agreements that serve the interests of those who make the agreement.

Solipsism - - The doctrine of the solipsist is that existence means my existence and that of my mental states.

Solovyov, Vladimir - - 19th century Russian philosopher.

Sophists - - Teachers of philosophy in Ancient Greece, including Protagoras, Gorgias, Prodicus and Hippias.

Spinoza, Benedict - - 17th century pantheist, critic of Descartes.

Stephen, Leslie - - 19th century British academic.

Stilpo - - 4th century BCE member of the Megarean school.

Stirling, James Hutchison - - 19th century British Idealist, Hegelian academic.

Stoicism - - Description of the system of ethics, popular in Ancient Greece, which has physics as its foundation.

Symposium - - Drinking-parties in Ancient Greece where the guests reclined on couches, and were crowned with garlands of flowers.

Synderesis - - Scholastic philosophy describes this as the principle in moral consciousness which directs an agent to good.

Thales - - Detailed biographical essay on the Ancient Greek philosopher.

Theophrastus - - Philosopher of the Peripatetic school, successor to Aristotle at the Lyceum.

Time - - Long article about questions of time discussed throughout the history of philosophy.

Timon - - 3rd century BCE disciple of Pyrrho.

Truth - - Philosophical theories on the nature of truth, by Bradley Dowden and Norman Swartz.

Vienna Circle - - Organised the development of logical postivism in the 1920s. Included Carnap, Feigl, Frank, Gödel, Hahn, Kraft, Neurath, Waismann. Popper and Wittgenstein also had association with the Vienna Circle.

Virtue Theory - - View that morality is the development of or virtues.

Voluntarism - - Theory that God or the ultimate nature of reality is conceived as some form of will.

Warburton, William - - 18th century Church of England bishop, and critic of the Deists.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig - - Detailed essay on the life and work of the 20th century philosopher.

Xenophanes - - Eleatic school, powerful 6th century BCE critic of polytheism.

Xenophon - - Pupil of Socrates, who contributed to the record of his life.

Zeno of Elea - - 5th century BCE Eleatic philosopher.