Epicureanism

Philosophy of Epicurus of Samos (342-271 BC) and his followers, notably the Roman poet Titus Lucretius (c.99-c.55 BC). They developed the atomism of Leucippus and Democritus, and like their contemporary rivals the Stoics they were materialists, though their atomism involved the existence of empty space, which the Stoics rejected. Atoms fell downwards through space, but were subject to a

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Epicurus of Samos

Ideas – All sensation is true, sensation is the primary source of knowledge. – The two criteria of knowledge are a clear view and noncontradiction. – The universe is wholly material; it consists of material and void. – Nothing is created out of nothing, and nothing is destroyed: The universe is neither increasing nor

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Epiphenomenalism

Doctrine that some item under investigation is a mere by-product of some process and has no causal influence of its own. In particular, the claim that the mind is not a separate entity from the body, that conscious phenomena are mere by-products of cerebral or neural processes and have no causal effects on those

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Principle of epistemic closure

Principle that, where P and Q are propositions, if we know that P, and know that P logically entails Q, we know that Q. Sometimes said to support skepticism, because if I know that, for example, I am holding a pen, and know that if I am holding a pen I am not merely dreaming

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Erich Fromm

Erich Fromm, an internationally renowned German psychologist and humanistic philosopher, was born in 1900 in Frankfurt, Germany. His father was a business man and, according to Erich, rather moody. His mother was frequently depressed. In other words, like quite a few of the people we’ve looked at, his childhood wasn’t very happy. Like Jung,

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Ernst Mach

Ernst Mach was an Austrian physicist and philosopher. Ernst Mach was born in Chrlice, Czech Republic. He was educated at home until the age of 14, then went briefly to gymnasium before entering the University of Vienna at 17. There he studied mathematics, physics and philosophy, and received a doctorate in physics in 1860.

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Erwin Schrodinger

Ideas – Partial differential equations representing wave phenomena best describe action on the atomic level. – Quantum physics can explain the persistence and the spontaneous mutation of genetic material. – The Hindu philosophy of Vedanta best matches the insights of modern physics. Biography Erwin Schrödinger was born on August 12, 1887, in Vienna, the

Essentialism

Properly speaking, the doctrine that at least some objects have essences; that is, they have some of their properties essentially, not just because they are described in a certain way (a bishop is essentially in holy orders, yet could be defrocked without ceasing to be himself) but because they must have those properties to

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Euclid

Major Ideas – A rigorous, systematic treatment of mathematics requires the statement of all assumptions and the proof of all propositions by means of uniform methodology. – All mathematical quantities can be expressed by geometrical figures, either lines, areas, or solids. – Physical events can be modeled using mathematical expressions. – Space is infinite

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Euclid (350,325-275 BC)

Major Ideas – A rigorous, systematic treatment of mathematics requires the statement of all assumptions and the proof of all propositions by means of uniform methodology. – All mathematical quantities can be expressed by geometrical figures, either lines, areas, or solids. – Physical events can be modeled using mathematical expressions. – Space is infinite

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Law of excluded middle

One of the traditional three laws of thought (along with the laws of identity and contradiction). Every proposition is either true or not true. This is weaker than the law of bivalence (every proposition is true or false), since if there is a third truth value excluded middle can still hold, though bivalence will fail. (However, bivalence is sometimes treated as

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Existentialism

Movement originating with Soren Kierkegaard(1813-1855) and continuing later with Karl Jaspers(1883-1969), Gabriel Marcel (1889-1973), Martin Heidegger (1889-1976), Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980), and various others, though it has had little influence in English-speaking philosophy. Fyodor Dostoevsky (1812-1881) and Friedrich Nietzsche(1844-1900) are sometimes included. The main idea is to distinguish the kind of being possessed by humans – called Dasein (Heidegger) or être-pour-soi (Sartre) – from

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Extensionality thesis

Thesis beloved of logical atomists, logical positivists, and various kinds of nominalists and reductionists. It says that apparent exceptions to Leibniz’s law can be dispensed with; that is, intensions can be reduced to extensions, or roughly, what holds true of objects does not depend on how they are described. For logical atomism in particular the thesis says that

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Externalism

Any view claiming that to analyze a certain phenomenon reference must be made to something outside a certain sphere within which the phenomenon might have been thought to be confined. In particular, externalism appears in certain analyses of mental notions such as belief and knowledge. An externalist view of belief holds, for example, that

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Fact / value distinction

Claim that a sharp distinction can be drawn between factual statements and value judgments, only the former being regarded as stating anything and as being true or false; the latter having meaning by doing something other than stating (for example, expressing attitudes: see speech act theories). The claim underlies emotivist and prescriptivist – as against descriptivist –

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Fallibilism

Doctrine that nothing can be known for certain; that is, there is no infallible knowledge, but there can still be knowledge. We need not have logically conclusive justifications for what we know. This was particularly insisted on by the American pragmatist Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914) in his opposition to foundationalism. Also see: relevant alternatives theory, epistemic closure Usage The

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Falsificationism

Claim associated especially with Austrian philosopher Karl Raimund Popper (1902-1994) that science should aim not to verify or confirm hypotheses – as verificationists and inductivists in general claim – but to falsify them. This is because science is interested (in Popper’s view) in universal affirmative conclusions, of the form ‘All As are Bs’, and if the

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Fatalism

The view – beloved of Greek oracles and their adherents – that the future, or part of it, will be what it will be, irrespective of our desires and actions. If we try to evade what is destined, our actions will always be frustrated and somehow turned so as to bring about the fated

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Fideism

The idea that religious faith stands apart from orthodox reason and can never be reconciled with it. Such religious thinkers as St Augustine (354-430) have argued that reason itself plays a subsidiary role to faith; while others (including Danish philosopher Soren Aaby Kierkegaard (1813-1855)) have maintained that acceptance of various aspects of religious belief requires actual

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Fido-fido theories

Fido-fido theories which explain some concept in terms of a direct relation to an object. The ‘Fido-fido theories of meaning says that the meaning of a word is an object it stands for (the name ‘Fido’ means the dog Fido); the term is thus a nickname for a naming theory of meaning. The ‘Fido’-Fido

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