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the shorter
routledge
encyclopedia of
philosophy
the shorter
routledge
encyclopedia of
philosophy
edited by
edward craig
First published 2005by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canadaby Routledge
270 Madison Ave., New York, NY 10016
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
# 2005 Routledge
Introduction # Edward Craig 2005
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproducedor utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means,now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording,or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication DataA catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication DataA catalogue record for this book has been requested
ISBN 0–415–32495–5
T&F informa
Taylor & Francis Group is the Academic Division of T&F Informa plc.
&&&
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.
“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’scollection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”
ISBN 0-203-08671-6 Master e-book ISBN
(Print Edition)
Contents
Introduction
vii
List of entries and contributors
ix
Entries A–Z
1–1077
Introduction
The Shorter REP has emerged out of our experiencewith Concise REP, the first one-volume distillation ofthe original ten-volume Routledge Encyclopedia ofPhilosophy published in 1998. Concise REP, appearingin 2000, was composed of the initial, introductory orsummary sections of each of the 2,054 entriescontained in the parent work, which it thereforematched everywhere for breadth, but hardly any-where for depth. By virtue of its sheer range ConciseREP fulfilled a need, but we have heard from usersand reviewers who would evidently have preferredmore depth – and would have been willing, we mustpresume, to sacrifice some breadth to get it. Thinkingabout this valuable feedback quickly led to a differentconception of a single-volume reduction of theencyclopedia, that now embodied in The ShorterREP. By excising much of the more reconditematerial we have made it possible for a considerablenumber of entries on the more central and sought-after topics to be included in their entirety, eventhough in some cases that meant as much as 15,000words or more.
The Shorter REP accordingly contains just 957entries, but of these 119 are republished here in theirfull original length, and marked out by bold type-face in the headwords at the top of the page. Thereader will find substantial essays on all the majorfigures of the Western philosophical tradition, like-wise on all major topics and those we judged to be ofmost help to a student readership. Further, we havereprinted in full all the ‘Signpost’ entries, in whichmembers of the original team of specialist subjecteditors surveyed in brief, usually in about 2,000words, their specialist field. There are twenty-four ofthese, instantly recognisable from their light-greybackground; taken together they offer the reader ahighly informative outline sketch of pretty much thewhole of philosophy, Latin American, African,Jewish, Arabic, Russian, Indian and East-Asianthought all included. The Shorter REP is unashamedly‘Western’ in its emphasis, being designed to suit theneeds of undergraduate philosophy students and thecourses they are most likely to encounter. But so faras the stringencies of a single volume allow it retains
the spirit of inclusivity and comprehensiveness thatwas such a feature of its ten-volume ancestor.Nowhere is the ‘Signpost’ the only entry allotted toits area – in every case there are at least two others.
The inclusion of so many complete entries hashad another welcome effect, that of allowing us to doa little more justice to at least some of theencyclopedia’s most eminent authors: RichardRorty, Bernard Williams, Dagfinn Føllesdal, TimScanlon, Philip Kitcher, Timothy Williamson,Onora O’Neill, Gary Gutting, Anthony Appiah,Frank Jackson, Michael Friedman, Dan Garber,Malcolm Budd, Terry Irwin and the list runs on,though I have to stop, apologetically, somewhere.Entries by all these and many others appear in theiroriginal shape, unabridged.
The Shorter REP is not just a selective rearrange-ment of the old material. Admittedly hardly anythinghas been rewritten specifically for The Shorter REP,just two very short entries in fact, but it neverthelesscontains a good deal that is new when comparedwith the original 1998 publication. Any slightsuggestion of paradox is easily dispelled: sinceOctober 2000 the Routledge Encyclopedia has beenavailable on the Internet as REP Online, in whichform it has seen additions (at present towards 100new entries) and a number (now approaching thirty)of updates and revisions, concentrating on entriesnear the top of our list of user-statistics. Some of therevised entries embody only minor changes, perhapsthe mention of a recent book or article, others differmuch more from their first versions, as for instanceWittgenstein (by Jane Heal), which as well as varioussmaller adjustments now has a whole new section onrecent interpretative controversy about Wittgen-stein’s Tractatus. In one absolutely central case, ofobvious prime interest to students, we have acompletely rewritten replacement entry: this is DavidHume, by Don Garrett. All this new material for REPOnline was available to us as we made our selectionsfor The Shorter REP, and a good deal of it is now tobe found here. Some further examples of revisionsnow in full in The Shorter REP as well as REP Onlineare Plato (Malcolm Schofield), Socrates (John
vi i
Cooper), Stoicism and Epicureanism (both DavidSedley), Hobbes (Tom Sorrell), Justice (Brian Barryand Matt Matravers), Kant (Paul Guyer), Foucault(Gary Gutting), Heidegger (Thomas Sheehan), Quine(Alex Orenstein), Feminism (Susan James), Existenti-alism (Charles Guignon), Infinity (Adrian Moore),and Democracy (Ross Harrison). In addition, as manyas nineteen of the new entries, hitherto available onlyon the Internet in REP Online, are to be found herein their shorter form: Innateness in ancient philosophy;Prolēpsis; Technē; Telos; Magic; More, Thomas; Eclecti-cism; Fourier, Charles; de Maistre, Joseph; Novalis; Apel,Karl-Otto; Cloning; Normativity; Globalization; Sus-tainability; Beccaria; Causation in the law; Justice,corrective; and Simulation theory. Besides this, twonew entries are printed here in full. One is Painting,aesthetics of (Robert Hopkins); the other is a new‘Signpost’ entry: Nineteenth-century philosophy byRobert Stern. I hope that as General Editor I maybe allowed to attach, to the second of these inparticular, my personal recommendation. The nine-teenth century seems to me too little studied andunderstood in English-speaking philosophical circles.Too few of us could give a coherent sketch of itscurrents and tensions, its emergence from theeighteenth century and its legacy to the twentieth.Stern can, so this new Signpost entry, together withour substantial coverage of nineteenth centuryphilosophers, will help – if readers want it to.
In a work of this kind bibliographical informationcan be very costly in terms of space and has to bekept to a minimum. Nevertheless, our treatment ofthe bibliographies, or ‘Further reading’, also allowsscope for revision or updating. We invited theauthors of the 119 main entries (i.e. those whichappear in full) to provide titles and authors of just two
or three works likely to be helpful to the reader, notof course necessarily drawn from their originallisting. Any especially suitable works published sincethe middle of 1997 – when the ten volume REPfinally had to raise its drawbridge against any furthertext – thus had at least the chance to be consideredfor inclusion. The response was superb – we aredelighted to be able to include over 80 revisedFurther reading sections.
So much for inclusion; what of the less happymatter of exclusion? Such an enterprise is bound toleave some regrets on this score in the minds of theeditorial team, some disappointment amongstauthors and some unfulfilled expectations amongstreaders. One volume, if it is to have a readable print-size and paper thick enough not to be transparent,can be crammed so full and no fuller. Complete REPentries are on average nine times as long as their shortversions, so every one had to be felt to justify itsstatus. The thought that by printing one of thebiggest entries in full we were committing spacesufficient for perhaps thirty or forty short onesfocussed the mind; the regrettable fact that, forexample, Schopenhauer, and Peirce appear only in theirshortened forms has a lot to do with that considera-tion. But the thinking behind such decisions oftenhad a positive aspect as well. Entries were incompetition for space not just with other topics,but also with their own shorter versions; and wherethis was especially well written and rich in informa-tion it on several occasions prevailed, even when thesubject, in itself, might well have suggested full-length treatment. Leaving nine-tenths of an author’swork out does seem a backhanded way of showinggratitude, but grateful we are, and we hope thatfuture readers have cause to be so too.
vi i i
INTRODUCTION
List of entries and contributors
Below is a complete list of entries and contributors in the order in which they appear in The Shorter RoutledgeEncyclopedia of Philosophy.
A posterioriPaul K. Moser
A prioriPaul K. Moser
Abelard, PeterMartin M. Tweedale
Absolute, theT.L.S. Sprigge
AbsolutismAnthony Pagden
Abstract objectsBob Hale
ActionJennifer Hornsby
Adorno, Theodor WiesengrundJ.M. Bernstein
Aesthetic attitudeMalcolm Budd
Aesthetic conceptsMarcia Eaton
AestheticsMalcolm Budd
Aesthetics and ethicsMichael Tanner
Affirmative actionBernard Boxill
African philosophyK. Anthony Appiah
African philosophy, AnglophoneKwasi Wiredu
African philosophy, FrancophoneF. Abiola Irele
AgnosticismWilliam L. Rowe
Agrippa von Nettesheim,Henricus CorneliusMichael H. Keefer
AkrasiaHelen Steward
Albert the GreatAlain De Libera
AlchemyMichela Pereira
AlienationAllen W. Wood
Alighieri, DanteDominik Perler
Alterity and identity, postmodern theories ofPeter Fenves
Althusser, Louis PierreAlex Callinicos
AmbiguityKent Bach
Analysis, philosophical issues inI. Grattan-Guinness
Analytical philosophyThomas Baldwin
AnalyticityGeorge Bealer
AnaphoraNicholas Asher
AnarchismGeorge Crowder
AnaximanderRichard McKirahan
AnaximenesRichard McKirahan
Ancient philosophyDavid Sedley
Animal language and thoughtDale Jamieson
Animals and ethicsJames Rachels
Anomalous monismBrian P. McLaughlin
Anscombe, Gertrude Elizabeth MargaretMichael Thompson
Anselm of CanterburyJasper Hopkins
ix
Anthropology, philosophy ofMerrilee H. Salmon
Anti-SemitismOliver LeamanClive Nyman
Apel, Karl-OttoMatthias Kettner
Applied ethicsBrenda Almond
Aquinas, ThomasNorman KretzmannEleonore Stump
ArchēRichard McKirahan
Architecture, aesthetics ofJohn J. Haldane
Arendt, HannahB. Parekh
AretēDavid Sedley
AristotleT.H. Irwin
Arithmetic, philosophical issues inMichael Potter
Arnauld, AntoineSteven Nadler
Art, abstractJohn H. Brown
Art and moralityMichael Tanner
Art and truthPaul Taylor
Art criticismColin Lyas
Art, definition ofStephen Davies
Art, understanding ofColin Lyas
Art, value ofMalcolm Budd
Art works, ontology ofGregory Currie
Artificial intelligenceMargaret A. Boden
Artistic expressionStephen Davies
Artist’s intentionPaul Taylor
AsceticismPhilip L. Quinn
AtheismWilliam L. Rowe
Atomism, ancientDavid Sedley
AugustineGareth B. Matthews
Austin, JohnRobert N. Moles
Austin, John LangshawJ.O. Urmson
AuthorityLeslie Green
Autonomy, ethicalAndrews Reath
Ayer, Alfred JulesGraham Macdonald
Bachelard, GastonMary Tiles
Bacon, FrancisJ.R. Milton
Bacon, RogerGeorgette Sinkler
Bakhtin, Mikhail MikhailovichGary Saul Morson
Bakunin, Mikhail AleksandrovichAileen Kelly
Barthes, RolandJames Risser
Baumgarten, Alexander GottliebDabney Townsend
Bayle, PierreCharles Larmore
Beattie, JamesPaul Wood
BeautyJohn H. Brown
Beauvoir, Simone deEva Lundgren-Gothlin
Beccaria, Cesare BonesanaRichard Bellamy
Behaviourism, analyticDavid Braddon-Mitchell
Behaviourism, methodological andscientificC.R. Gallistel
BeingMark Okrent
BeliefDavid Braddon-MitchellFrank Jackson
Belinskii, Vissarion GrigorievichVictor Terras
Bell’s theoremArthur Fine
Benjamin, WalterJulian Roberts
Bentham, JeremyRoss Harrison
Berdiaev, Nikolai AleksandrovichJames P. Scanlan
Bergson, Henri-LouisA.R. Lacey
LIST OF ENTRIES AND CONTRIBUTORS
x
Berkeley, GeorgeIan Tipton
Berlin, IsaiahBernard Williams
BioethicsR.G. Frey
Blackstone, WilliamN.E. Simmonds
Bloch, Ernst SimonVincent Geoghegan
Bobbio, NorbertoPatrizia Borsellino
Bodin, JeanJulian H. Franklin
Boehme, JakobJean-Loup Seban
Boethius, Anicius Manlius SeverinusHenry Chadwick
Bohr, NielsMara Beller
Bolzano, BernardWolfgang Künne
BonaventureBonnie Kent
Boolean algebraJ.L. Bell
Bosanquet, BernardPeter P. Nicholson
Boyle, RobertRose-Mary Sargent
Bradley, Francis HerbertStewart Candlish
BrahmanStephen H. Phillips
Brentano, Franz ClemensRoderick M. ChisholmPeter Simons
Bruno, GiordanoE.J. Ashworth
Buber, MartinTamra Wright
Buddhist philosophy, ChineseDan Lusthaus
Buddhist philosophy, IndianRichard P. Hayes
Buddhist philosophy, JapaneseJohn C. Maraldo
Buddhist philosophy, KoreanSungtaek Cho
Buridan, JohnJack Zupko
Burke, EdmundIain Hampsher-Monk
Business ethicsTom Sorell
Butler, JosephR.G. Frey
Calvin, JohnRonald J. Feenstra
Cambridge PlatonismFrederick Beiser
Campanella, TommasoJohn M. Headley
Campbell, Norman RobertD.H. Mellor
Camus, AlbertDavid A. Sprintzen
Cantor, GeorgUlrich Majer
Cantor’s theoremMary Tiles
Carnap, RudolfRichard Creath
CarneadesJonathan Barnes
Cassirer, ErnstDonald Phillip Verene
CategoriesRobert Wardy
CausationNancy Cartwright
Causation in the lawRichard W. Wright
Causation, Indian theories ofRoy W. Perrett
Cavell, StanleyStephen Mulhall
Cavendish, Margaret LucasEileen O’Neill
ChangeRobin Le Poidevin
Chaos theoryStephen H. Kellert
Charity, principle ofRichard Feldman
Chinese philosophyDavid L. HallRoger T. Ames
Chinese room argumentRobert Van Gulick
Chisholm, Roderick MiltonDavid Benfield
Chomsky, NoamNorbert Hornstein
Christine de PizanCharity Cannon Willard
Church’s theorem and the decision problemRohit Parikh
Church’s thesisStewart Shapiro
Cicero, Marcus TulliusStephen A. White
CitizenshipWill Kymlicka
LIST OF ENTRIES AND CONTRIBUTORS
xi
Civil disobedienceKent Greenawalt
Clarke, SamuelStephen Gaukroger
CloningJohn HarrisSimona Giordano
CoercionJoel Feinberg
Cohen, HermannMichael Zank
Collingwood, Robin GeorgeSimon Blackburn
Colour and qualiaJoseph Levine
Colour, theories ofDavid R. Hilbert
ComedyJohn Morreall
Common Sense SchoolEdward H. Madden
CommonsensismRoderick M. Chisholm
Communication and intentionSimon Blackburn
Communicative rationalityPeter Dews
CommunismLyman Tower Sargent
Community and communitarianismAllen Buchanan
CompositionalityMark Richard
Computability theoryDaniele MundiciWilfried Sieg
Computer scienceJohn Winnie
Comte, Isidore-Auguste-Marie-François-XavierAngèle Kremer-Marietti
ConceptsGeorges Rey
Condillac, Etienne Bonnot dePaul F. Johnson
Condorcet, Marie-Jean-Antoine-NicolasCaritat deDavid Williams
Confirmation theoryTheo A.F. Kuipers
Confucian philosophy, ChineseA.S. Cua
ConfuciusD.C. LauRoger T. Ames
ConnectionismBrian P. McLaughlin
ConsciousnessEric Lormand
ConsentA. John Simmons
ConsequentialismDavid McNaughton
ConservatismAnthony O’Hear
ConstitutionalismUlrich K. Preuß
ConstructivismStephen M. Downes
Content, non-conceptualTim Crane
Content: wide and narrowKent Bach
Contextualism, epistemologicalBruce W. Brower
ContinuantsRobin Le Poidevin
Continuum hypothesisMary Tiles
ContractarianismSamuel Freeman
ConventionalismPaul Horwich
Conway, AnneSarah Hutton
Copernicus, NicolausErnan McMullin
CosmologyErnan McMullin
Counterfactual conditionalsFrank Döring
Cousin, VictorDavid Leopold
Crime and punishmentR.A. Duff
CriteriaMarie Mcginn
Critical realismAndrew Collier
Critical theoryRaymond Geuss
Croce, BenedettoRichard Bellamy
Crucial experimentsPeter Achinstein
Cudworth, RalphSarah Hutton
CultureAnthony O’Hear
Daoist philosophyDavid L. HallRoger T. Ames
LIST OF ENTRIES AND CONTRIBUTORS
xi i
Darwin, Charles RobertPeter J. Bowler
Davidson, DonaldErnie Lepore
De re/de dictoAndré Gallois
DeathFred Feldman
Decision and game theoryCristina Bicchieri
DeconstructionChristopher Norris
Dedekind, Julius Wilhelm RichardHoward Stein
Deductive closure principleAnthony Brueckner
DefinitionG. Aldo Antonelli
DeismWilliam L. Rowe
Deleuze, GillesDorothea E. Olkowski
Demarcation problemPeter Achinstein
DemocracyRoss Harrison
DemocritusC.C.W. Taylor
Demonstratives and indexicalsHarry Deutsch
Dennett, Daniel ClementWilliam G. Lycan
Deontic logicMarvin Belzer
Deontological ethicsDavid McNaughton
DepictionR.D. Hopkins
Derrida, JacquesAndrew Cutrofello
Descartes, RenéDaniel Garber
DescriptionsStephen Neale
DesirePhilip Pettit
Determinism and indeterminismJeremy Butterfield
Dewey, JohnJames Gouinlock
Dialectical materialismAllen W. Wood
Diderot, DenisRobert Wokler
Dilthey, WilhelmRudolf A. Makkreel
Diogenes LaertiusDavid T. Runia
Diogenes of SinopeR. Bracht Branham
Discovery, logic ofThomas Nickles
DiscriminationJames W. Nickel
Dodgson, Charles Lutwidge (Lewis Carroll)Peter Heath
DōgenThomas P. Kasulis
Dostoevskii, Fëdor MikhailovichGary Saul Morson
Double effect, principle ofSuzanne Uniacke
DoubtMichael Williams
DreamingRoberto Casati
DualismDavid M. Rosenthal
Duhem, Pierre Maurice MarieDon Howard
Dummett, Michael Anthony EardleyBarry Taylor
Duns Scotus, JohnStephen D. Dumont
Duty and virtue, Indian conceptions ofJohn A. Taber
Dworkin, RonaldEmilios A. Christodoulidis
East Asian philosophyRoger T. Ames
EclecticismChris McClellan
Ecological philosophyFreya Mathews
Economics and ethicsDaniel HausmanMichael S. McPherson
Education, philosophy ofRandall R. Curren
Edwards, JonathanWilliam J. Wainwright
Egoism and altruismRichard Kraut
Einstein, AlbertArthur FineDon HowardJohn D. Norton
EliminativismGeorges Rey
Emerson, Ralph WaldoRussell B. Goodman
LIST OF ENTRIES AND CONTRIBUTORS
xi i i
Emotion in response to artJerrold Levinson
Emotions, nature ofRobert C. Solomon
Emotions, philosophy ofRobert C. Solomon
Emotive meaningDavid Phillips
EmotivismMichael Smith
EmpedoclesMalcolm Schofield
EmpiricismWilliam P. Alston
Engels, FriedrichTerrell Carver
Enlightenment, ContinentalRobert Wokler
Enlightenment, ScottishChristopher J. Berry
Environmental ethicsAndrew Brennan
EpicureanismDavid Sedley
EpiphenomenalismKeith CampbellNicholas J.J. Smith
EpistemologyPeter D. Klein
Epistemology and ethicsRichard Feldman
Epistemology, history ofGeorge S. Pappas
Epistemology, Indian schools ofStephen H. Phillips
EqualityAlbert Weale
Erasmus, DesideriusErika Rummel
Eriugena, Johannes ScottusDermot Moran
EssentialismStephen Yablo
EternityEleonore StumpNorman Kretzmann
EthicsRoger Crisp
EudaimoniaC.C.W. Taylor
EventsD.H. Mellor
Evil, problem ofMarilyn McCord Adams
Evolution and ethicsElliott Sober
Evolution, theory ofElisabeth A. Lloyd
ExistencePenelope Mackie
ExistentialismCharles B. Guignon
ExperimentMargaret C. Morrison
ExplanationPhilip Kitcher
Explanation in history and social scienceDavid-Hillel Ruben
FactsAlex Oliver
Fact/value distinctionRoger Crisp
FaithNicholas P. Wolterstorff
FallibilismNicholas Rescher
Family, ethics and theWilliam Ruddick
al-Farabi, Abu NasrIan Richard Netton
FascismRoger Eatwell
FatalismEdward Craig
Fechner, Gustav TheodorDaniel N. Robinson
Federalism and confederalismWayne Norman
FeminismSusan James
Feminist epistemologyLorraine Code
Feminist political philosophySusan Mendus
Feuerbach, Ludwig AndreasHans-Martin Sass
Feyerabend, Paul KarlMichael Williams
Fichte, Johann GottliebDaniel Breazeale
Ficino, MarsilioJames Hankins
Fictional entitiesPeter Lamarque
Film, aesthetics ofGregory Currie
Filmer, Sir RobertJohann P. Sommerville
Fodor, Jerry AlanPeter Godfrey-Smith
LIST OF ENTRIES AND CONTRIBUTORS
xiv
Folk psychologyStephen P. StichGeorges Rey
Formalism in artMalcolm Budd
Forms, PlatonicTad Brennan
Foucault, MichelGary Gutting
FoundationalismErnest Sosa
Fourier, CharlesDavid Leopold
Frankfurt SchoolAxel Honneth
Free logicsErmanno Bencivenga
Free willGalen Strawson
Freedom and libertyJoel Feinberg
Freedom, divineWilliam L. Rowe
Freedom of speechPeter Jones
Frege, GottlobAlexander GeorgeRichard Heck
Freud, SigmundJames Hopkins
FriendshipNeera K. Badhwar
Functional explanationRichard N. Manning
FunctionalismDavid Papineau
Future generations, obligations toAvner De-Shalit
Fuzzy logicCharles G. Morgan
Gadamer, Hans-GeorgKathleen Wright
Galilei, GalileoErnan McMullin
Gassendi, PierreMargaret J. Osler
GenealogyR. Kevin Hill
General willPeter P. Nicholson
Genetic modificationMark TesterEdward Craig
GeneticsLindley Darden
Genetics and ethicsRuth Chadwick
Gentile, GiovanniRichard Bellamy
German idealismPaul Franks
Gestalt psychologyBarry Smith
Gettier problemEdward Craig
al-Ghazali, Abu HamidKojiro Nakamura
GlobalizationJan Aart Scholte
GnosticismChristopher Stead
God, arguments for the existence ofAlvin Plantinga
God, concepts ofBrian Leftow
Gödel’s theoremsMichael Detlefsen
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang vonNicholas Boyle
Good, theories of theChristine M. Korsgaard
GorgiasCharles H. Kahn
Green political philosophyTerence Ball
Green, Thomas HillRichard Bellamy
Grice, Herbert PaulJudith Baker
Grosseteste, RobertScott MacDonald
Grotius, HugoJ.D. Ford
Gurney, EdmundJerrold Levinson
Habermas, JürgenKenneth Baynes
Haeckel, Ernst HeinrichPaul Weindling
HalakhahNoam J. Zohar
Hanslick, EduardPeter Kivy
HappinessJ.P. Griffin
Hart, Herbert Lionel AdolphusNeil MacCormick
HasidismRachel Elior
HeavenLinda Zagzebski
LIST OF ENTRIES AND CONTRIBUTORS
xv
HedonismJustin Gosling
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm FriedrichRolf-Peter Horstmann
HegelianismRobert SternNicholas Walker
Heidegger, MartinThomas Sheehan
HellMarilyn McCord Adams
Helmont, Franciscus Mercurius vanStuart Brown
HeraclitusA.A. Long
Herder, Johann GottfriedFrederick Beiser
HermeneuticsMichael Inwood
HermetismJohn Procopé
Herzen, Aleksandr IvanovichAileen Kelly
Hilbert’s programme and formalismMichael Detlefsen
Hildegard of BingenClaudia Eisen Murphy
Hindu philosophyEdeltraud Harzer Clear
HistoricismChristopher Thornhill
History, philosophy ofGordon Graham
Hobbes, ThomasTom Sorell
Hohfeld, Wesley NewcombNeil MacCormick
Holism and individualism in history andsocial scienceRajeev Bhargava
Holism: mental and semanticNed Block
Holocaust, theSteven T. Katz
Hooker, RichardA.S. McGrade
Human natureIan Shapiro
Humanism, RenaissanceJohn Monfasani
Humboldt, Wilhelm vonFrederick Beiser
Hume, DavidDon Garrett
HumourJerrold Levinson
Hus, JanCurtis V. Bostick
Husserl, EdmundDagfinn Føllesdal
Hutcheson, FrancisDavid Fate Norton
HypatiaLucas Siorvanes
Ibn Rushd, Abu’l Walid MuhammadOliver Leaman
Ibn Sina, Abu ‘Ali al-HusaynSalim Kemal
IdealismT.L.S. Sprigge
IdealizationsRonald Laymon
IdealsConnie S. Rosati
IdentityTimothy Williamson
Identity of indiscerniblesPeter Simons
IdeologyMichael Freeden
ImaginationJ. O’Leary-Hawthorne
ImpartialityJohn Cottingham
ImplicatureWayne A. Davis
IncommensurabilityDudley Shapere
Indian and Tibetan philosophyRichard P. Hayes
Indicative conditionalsFrank Jackson
Indirect discourseGabriel Segal
Induction, epistemic issues inMark Kaplan
Inductive inferencePatrick Maher
Inference to the best explanationJonathan Vogel
Infinitary logicsBernd Buldt
InfinityA.W. Moore
Information theoryKenneth M. Sayre
Ingarden, Roman WitoldAntoni B. Stępień
InnatenessEdward Craig
Innateness in ancient philosophyDominic Scott
LIST OF ENTRIES AND CONTRIBUTORS
xvi
Intensional entitiesGeorge Bealer
Intensional logicsJames W. Garson
IntensionalitySimon Christmas
IntentionRobert Dunn
IntentionalityTim Crane
Internalism and externalism inepistemologyWilliam P. Alston
International relations, philosophy ofCharles R. Beitz
IntuitionismDavid Charles McCarty
Intuitionism in ethicsRobert L. Frazier
Intuitionistic logic and antirealismPeter Pagin
Irigaray, LuceTina Chanter
Islamic philosophyOliver Leaman
Jaina philosophyJayandra Soni
James, WilliamRuth Anna Putnam
Japanese philosophyThomas P. Kasulis
Jaspers, KarlKurt Salamun
Jewish philosophyL.E. Goodman
John of St ThomasJohn P. Doyle
Johnson, SamuelCharles J. McCracken
Journalism, ethics ofAndrew Belsey
Jung, Carl GustavGeorge B. Hogenson
JusticeBrian BarryMatt Matravers
Justice, correctiveErnest J. Weinrib
Justification, epistemicRichard Foley
KabbalahOliver Leaman
Kant, ImmanuelPaul Guyer
Kantian ethicsOnora O’Neill
KatharsisGlenn W. Most
Kelsen, HansZenon Bańkowski
Kepler, JohannesErnan McMullin
Kierkegaard, Søren AabyePatrick Gardiner
Knowledge and justification, coherencetheory ofLaurence Bonjour
Knowledge, concept ofPeter D. Klein
Knowledge, tacitC.F. Delaney
Kotarbiński, TadeuszB. Stanosz
Kripke, Saul AaronMichael Jubien
Kristeva, JuliaTina Chanter
Kuhn, Thomas SamuelPaul Hoyningen-Huene
KūkaiThomas P. Kasulis
La Mettrie, Julien Offroy deKathleen Wellman
Labriola, AntonioGeoffrey Hunt
Lacan, JacquesThomas Brockelman
Lakatos, ImreJohn Worrall
Lange, Friedrich AlbertGeorge J. Stack
Langer, Susanne Katherina KnauthPeg Brand
Language, innateness ofFiona Cowie
Language of thoughtGeorges Rey
Language, philosophy ofMark Crimmins
Latin America, philosophy inAmy A. Oliver
Law and moralityN.E. Simmonds
Law, philosophy ofBeverley BrownNeil MacCormick
Laws, naturalC.A. Hooker
LebensphilosophieJason Gaiger
LIST OF ENTRIES AND CONTRIBUTORS
xvi i
Legal positivismMario Jori
Legal realismNeil Duxbury
LegitimacyDavid Beetham
Leibniz, Gottfried WilhelmDaniel Garber
Lessing, Gotthold EphraimDabney Townsend
LeucippusC.C.W. Taylor
Levinas, EmmanuelRobert Bernasconi
Lewis, Clarence IrvingSandra B. Rosenthal
Lewis, David KelloggPeter Van Inwagen
Liber de causisHannes Jarka-Sellers
LiberalismJeremy Waldron
Liberation philosophyHoracio Cerutti-Guldberg
LibertarianismJonathan Wolff
Life and deathJohn Harris
Life, meaning ofSusan Wolf
Life, origin ofLenny Moss
LimboLinda Zagzebski
Llull, RamonMark D. Johnston
Locke, JohnMichael Ayers
Logic, philosophy ofGraeme Forbes
Logical atomismAlex Oliver
Logical constantsTimothy McCarthy
Logical positivismMichael Friedman
LogicismHoward Stein
LogosChristopher Stead
Lombard, PeterMarcia L. Colish
Lotze, Rudolph HermannDavid Sullivan
LoveMartha C. Nussbaum
Löwenheim–Skolem theorems andnonstandard modelsW.D. Hart
LucretiusMichael Erler
Lukács, GeorgAlex Callinicos
Łukasiewicz, JanJan Woleński
Luther, MartinM.A. Higton
Lyotard, Jean-FrançoisDavid Carroll
Mach, ErnstAndy Hamilton
Machiavelli, NiccolòMary G. Dietz
MacIntyre, AlasdairAlan Thomas
McTaggart, John McTaggart EllisThomas Baldwin
MagicLauren Kassell
Maimonides, MosesL.E. Goodman
Maistre, Joseph deRichard A. Lebrun
Malebranche, NicolasSteven Nadler
Mandeville, BernardM.M. Goldsmith
ManicheismChristopher Kirwan
Many-valued logicsCharles G. Morgan
Many-valued logics, philosophical issues inLloyd Humberstone
Marcuse, HerbertAlex Callinicos
MarginalityAmy A. Oliver
Market, ethics of theDavid Miller
Marx, KarlMichael Rosen
Marxism, WesternJohn Torrance
Marxist philosophy, Russian and SovietDavid Bakhurst
Mass termsJeffry Pelletier
MaterialismGeorge J. Stack
Materialism in the philosophy of mindHoward Robinson
LIST OF ENTRIES AND CONTRIBUTORS
xvi i i
Materialism, Indian school ofEli FrancoKarin Preisendanz
Mathematics, foundations ofMichael Detlefsen
MatterDudley Shapere
Maxwell, James ClerkC.W.F. Everitt
Mead, George HerbertHans Joas
Meaning and rule-followingBarry C. Smith
Meaning and truthStephen G. Williams
Meaning and verificationW.D. Hart
Measurement, theory ofPatrick Suppes
Medical ethicsDaniel Wikler
Medieval philosophyScott MacdonaldNorman Kretzmann
Meinong, AlexiusPeter Simons
Meister EckhartJan A. Aertsen
Melanchthon, PhilippPeter Mack
Memory, epistemology ofEarl Conee
MenciusBryan W. Van Norden
Mendelssohn, MosesAllan Arkush
Mental causationBarry Loewer
Mental illness, concept ofKaren Neander
MereologyPeter Forrest
Merleau-Ponty, MauriceThomas Baldwin
MetaphorA.P. Martinich
MetaphysicsEdward Craig
Methodological individualismGabriel Segal
Mill, John StuartJohn Skorupski
Mı̄māsāJohn A. Taber
MimēsisGlenn W. Most
Mind, bundle theory ofStewart Candlish
Mind, computational theories ofNed BlockGeorges Rey
Mind, identity theory ofFrank Jackson
Mind, philosophy ofFrank JacksonGeorges Rey
MiraclesDavid Basinger
Modal logicSteven T. Kuhn
ModelsElisabeth A. Lloyd
Modularity of mindZenon W. Pylyshyn
Mohist philosophyPhilip J. Ivanhoe
Molina, Luis deAlfred J. Freddoso
Molyneux problemMenno Lievers
Momentariness, Buddhist doctrine ofAlexander Von Rospatt
MonismEdward Craig
Montaigne, Michel Eyquem deRichard H. Popkin
Montesquieu, Charles Louis de SecondatMark Hulliung
Moore, George EdwardThomas Baldwin
Moral agentsVinit Haksar
Moral judgmentGarrett Cullity
Moral justificationT.M. Scanlon
Moral knowledgeGeoffrey Sayre-McCord
Moral luckDaniel Statman
Moral motivationR. Jay Wallace
Moral particularismRoger Crisp
Moral psychologyMichael Slote
Moral realismJonathan Dancy
Moral relativismDavid B. Wong
Moral scepticismMark T. Nelson
LIST OF ENTRIES AND CONTRIBUTORS
xix
Moral sense theoriesJacqueline Taylor
Moral sentimentsR. Jay Wallace
Morality and emotionsMartha C. Nussbaum
Morality and ethicsJohn Skorupski
More, ThomasClare M. Murphy
Motoori NorinagaThomas P. Kasulis
MoziRobin D.S. Yates
MulticulturalismArthur Ripstein
Murdoch, IrisThomas Norgaard
Music, aesthetics ofJerrold Levinson
Næss, ArneIngemund Gullvåg
Nagel, ErnestIsaac Levi
Nagel, ThomasSonia Sedivy
NarrativeGregory Currie
Nation and nationalismDavid Miller
NativismJerry Samet
Natural deduction, tableau and sequentsystemsA.M. Ungar
Natural kindsChris Daly
Natural lawJohn Finnis
Natural theologyScott MacDonald
Naturalism in ethicsNicholas L. Sturgeon
Naturalism in social scienceTed Benton
Naturalized epistemologySteven Luper
Nature and conventionKate Soper
Nature, aesthetic appreciation ofAllen Carlson
NaturphilosophieMichael Heidelberger
Necessary truth and conventionAlan Sidelle
Negative theologyDavid Braine
Neo-KantianismHans-Ludwig Ollig
NeoplatonismLucas Siorvanes
Neutral monismNicholas Griffin
Neutrality, politicalJeremy Waldron
Newton, IsaacWilliam L. HarperGeorge E. Smith
Nicholas of CusaJasper Hopkins
Nietzsche, FriedrichMaudemarie Clark
NihilismDonald A. Crosby
Nineteenth-century philosophyRobert Stern
Nishida KitarōJohn C. Maraldo
NominalismMichael J. Loux
Non-monotonic logicAndré Fuhrmann
NormativityStephen Darwall
NousA.A. Long
Novalis (Georg Philipp Friedrich vonHardenberg)Andrew Bowie
Nozick, RobertJonathan WolffSimon Blackburn
Nyāya-VaiśeçcsikaEli FrancoKarin Preisendanz
ObjectivityAlexander Miller
Obligation, politicalA. John Simmons
ObservationPeter Kosso
OccasionalismWilliam Hasker
OmnipotenceJoshua HoffmanGary Rosenkrantz
OmnipresenceBrian Leftow
OmniscienceThomas P. Flint
LIST OF ENTRIES AND CONTRIBUTORS
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Ontological commitmentMichael Jubien
OntologyEdward Craig
Opera, aesthetics ofMichael Tanner
OperationalismFrederick Suppe
Ordinal logicsSolomon Feferman
Ordinary language philosophy, school ofGeoffrey Warnock
OrigenJeffrey Hause
Ortega y Gasset, JoséNelson R. Orringer
Other mindsAlec Hyslop
Oxford CalculatorsEdith Dudley Sylla
Paine, ThomasBruce Kuklick
Painting, aesthetics ofRobert Hopkins
Paley, WilliamCharlotte R. Brown
PanpsychismT.L.S. Sprigge
PantheismKeith E. Yandell
Paracelsus (Philippus AureolusTheophrastus Bombastus vonHohenheim)E.J. Ashworth
Paraconsistent logicGraham Priest
Paradoxes, epistemicJonathan L. Kvanvig
Paradoxes of set and propertyGregory H. Moore
Pareto principleDavid Miller
ParmenidesDavid Sedley
Pascal, BlaiseIan MacLean
Passmore, John ArthurFrank Jackson
PaternalismRichard Arneson
Patristic philosophyJohn Peter Kenney
Peirce, Charles SandersChristopher Hookway
PelagianismChristopher Kirwan
PerceptionM.G.F. Martin
PerformativesKent Bach
Personal identityBrian Garrett
PersonalismKeith E. Yandell
PersonsBrian Garrett
PhenomenalismRichard Fumerton
Phenomenological movementLester Embree
Phenomenology, epistemic issues inJane Howarth
Philo of AlexandriaDavid T. Runia
PhiloponusChristian Wildberg
Photography, aesthetics ofGregory Currie
Piaget, JeanAlison Gopnik
Pico della Mirandola, GiovanniJames Hankins
PlatoMalcolm Schofield
Platonism, RenaissanceJames Hankins
PleasureGraeme Marshall
Plekhanov, Georgii ValentinovichJames D. White
PlotinusEyjólfur Kjalar Emilsson
PluralismEdward Craig
PneumaChristopher Stead
PoetryRichard M. Shusterman
Poincaré, Jules HenriDavid J. Stump
Polanyi, MichaelR.T. Allen
Political philosophyDavid Miller
Political philosophy, history ofIain Hampsher-Monk
Pomponazzi, PietroMartin L. Pine
Popper, Karl RaimundIan C. Jarvie
Population and ethicsDavid Heyd
LIST OF ENTRIES AND CONTRIBUTORS
xxi
PornographySusan Mendus
PorphyryLucas Siorvanes
Positivism in the social sciencesHarold Kincaid
Possible worldsJoseph Melia
PostcolonialismAto Quayson
PostmodernismElizabeth Deeds Ermarth
Post-structuralismGary Gutting
Practical reason and ethicsOnora O’Neill
PragmaticsFrançois Recanati
PragmatismRichard Rorty
PredestinationGeorge I. Mavrodes
Predicate calculusTimothy Smiley
PrescriptivismR.M. Hare
Presocratic philosophyDavid Sedley
PresuppositionIan Rumfitt
Primary–secondary distinctionA.D. Smith
Prior, Arthur NormanC.J.F. Williams
PrivacyFrances Olsen
Private language argumentStewart Candlish
Private states and languageEdward Craig
Probability, interpretations ofPaul Humphreys
Process philosophyDavid Ray Griffin
Process theismDavid Basinger
ProcessesDorothy Emmet
Professional ethicsRuth Chadwick
ProjectivismSimon Blackburn
ProlēpsisDominic Scott
PromisingT.M. Scanlon
Proof theoryWilfried Sieg
Proper namesGraeme Forbes
PropertyStephen R. Munzer
Propositional attitudesGraham Oppy
Proudhon, Pierre-JosephRichard Vernon
PsychēA.A. Long
Psychoanalysis, methodological issues inPatricia Kitcher
Psychoanalysis, post-FreudianJames Hopkins
Pufendorf, SamuelJ.D. Ford
PurgatoryLinda Zagzebski
Putnam, HilaryYemima Ben-Menahem
PyrrhonismR.J. Hankinson
PythagorasHermann S. Schibli
PythagoreanismHermann S. Schibli
QualiaJanet Levin
QuantifiersJaakko HintikkaGabriel Sandu
Quantifiers, generalizedDag Westerståhi
Quantifiers, substitutional and objectualMark Richard
Quantum logicPeter Forrest
Quantum measurement problemJeffrey Bub
Quantum mechanics, interpretation ofAllen Stairs
Quine, Willard Van OrmanAlex Orenstein
Radical translation and radicalinterpretationRoger F. Gibson
Ramsey, Frank PlumptonD.H. Mellor
Ramus, PetrusPeter Mack
RandomnessWilliam A. Dembski
LIST OF ENTRIES AND CONTRIBUTORS
xxi i
Rational choice theoryRussell Hardin
RationalismPeter J. Markie
Rationality and cultural relativismLawrence H. Simon
Rationality, practicalJean Hampton
Rawls, JohnSamuel Freeman
Realism and antirealismEdward Craig
Reasons and causesMichael Smith
Reduction, problems ofJaegwon Kim
Reductionism in the philosophy of mindKim Sterelny
ReferenceMichael Devitt
Reichenbach, HansWesley C. Salmon
Reid, ThomasRoger Gallie
Reinhold, Karl LeonhardGeorge Di Giovanni
RelativismEdward Craig
Relativity theory, philosophicalsignificance ofMichael Redhead
Relevance logic and entailmentStephen Read
Religion and moralityRichard J. Mouw
Religion and scienceNancey Murphy
Religion, philosophy ofEleonore Stump
Renaissance philosophyE.J. Ashworth
Renouvier, Charles BernardLaurent Fedi
Representation, politicalAndrew Reeve
Reproduction and ethicsRosalind Hursthouse
RepublicanismRussell L. Hanson
ResponsibilityR.A. Duff
RevelationRichard Swinburne
RevolutionPeter A. Schouls
RhetoricEugene Garver
Ricoeur, PaulJohn B. Thompson
Right and goodCharles Larmore
RightsRex Martin
Risk assessmentKristin Shrader-Frechette
Roman lawP.B.H. Birks
Rorty, Richard McKayMichael David Rohr
Rosmini-Serbati, AntonioGuido Verucci
Ross, William DavidDavid McNaughton
Rousseau, Jean-JacquesNicholas Dent
Royce, JosiahRobert W. Burch
Rule of lawT.R.S. Allan
Russell, Bertrand Arthur WilliamNicholas Griffin
Russian philosophyAileen Kelly
Ryle, GilbertWilliam Lyons
Saint-Simon, Claude-Henri de Rouvroy,Comte deDavid Leopold
Sanches, FranciscoRichard H. Popkin
SāṅkhyaDan Lusthaus
Santayana, GeorgeJohn Lachs
Sapir-Whorf hypothesisJohn A. Lucy
Sartre, Jean-PaulChristina Howells
Saussure, Ferdinand deDavid Holdcroft
ScepticismStewart Cohen
Scheler, Max FerdinandFrancis Dunlop
Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph vonAndrew Bowie
Schiller, Johann Christoph FriedrichT.J. Reed
Schlegel, Friedrich vonFrederick Beiser
Schleiermacher, Friedrich Daniel ErnstGünter Meckenstock
LIST OF ENTRIES AND CONTRIBUTORS
xxi i i
Schlick, Friedrich Albert MoritzThomas Oberdan
Schopenhauer, ArthurChristopher Janaway
Science, philosophy ofJohn Worrall
Scientific methodGary Hatfield
Scientific realism and antirealismArthur Fine
ScopeMark Richard
Searle, JohnErnie Lepore
Second-order logic, philosophical issues inStewart Shapiro
Self-deception, ethics ofMike W. Martin
Sellars, Wilfrid StalkerJay F. Rosenberg
SemanticsMark Crimmins
Semantics, conceptual roleNed Block
Semantics, game-theoreticMichael Hand
Semantics, possible worldsJohn R. Perry
Semantics, situationJohn R. Perry
SemioticsW.C. Watt
Sense and referenceGenoveva Martı́
Sense perception, Indian views ofStephen H. Phillips
Sense-dataAndré Gallois
Set theoryJohn P. Burgess
Sextus EmpiricusR.J. Hankinson
Sexuality, philosophy ofAlan Soble
ShintōPaul Varley
Sidgwick, HenryBart Schultz
Simmel, GeorgDavid Frisby
SimplicityElliott Sober
Simulation theoryMartin DaviesTony Stone
SinPhilip L. Quinn
Situation ethicsGene Outka
SlaveryStephen L. EsquithNicholas D. Smith
Smith, AdamKnud Haakonssen
Social choiceAlan Hamlin
Social democracyDavid Miller
Social epistemologyFrederick F. Schmitt
Social relativismAlan Musgrave
Social science, contemporary philosophy ofDavid Braybrooke
Social science, methodology ofAlex Rosenberg
Social sciences, philosophy ofDavid-Hillel Ruben
Social theory and lawRoger Cotterrell
SocialismRussell KeatJohn O’Neill
Society, concept ofAngus Ross
SocinianismJohn Marshall
SociobiologyAlex Rosenberg
Sociology of knowledgeDavid Bloor
SocratesJohn M. Cooper
SolidarityAndrew Mason
SolipsismEdward Craig
Solovëv, Vladimir SergeevichAndrzej Walicki
SophistsCharles H. Kahn
Sorel, GeorgesJeremy Jennings
Soul, nature and immortality of theRichard Swinburne
SovereigntyJ.D. Ford
SpaceRoberto Torretti
SpacetimeRoberto Torretti
SpeciesKim Sterelny
LIST OF ENTRIES AND CONTRIBUTORS
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Speech actsKent Bach
Spencer, HerbertTim S. Gray
Spinoza, Benedict deHenry E. Allison
State, thePeter P. Nicholson
StatisticsJames Woodward
Statistics and social sciencePeter Spirtes
Stewart, DugaldEdward H. Madden
Stirner, MaxDavid Leopold
StoicismDavid Sedley
Strawson, Peter FrederickPaul F. Snowdon
StructuralismJonathan Culler
Structuralism in linguisticsDavid Holdcroft
Structuralism in social scienceTheodore R. Schatzki
Suárez, FranciscoJohn P. Doyle
Sublime, thePaul Crowther
SubstanceMichael Ayers
Suicide, ethics ofPaul Edwards
SupererogationGregory Velazco y Trianosky
SupervenienceSimon Blackburn
SustainabilityAlan Holland
SyntaxStephen Neale
Tanabe HajimeHimi Kiyoshi
Tarski, AlfredRoman Murawski
TaxonomyDavid L. Hull
Taylor, CharlesCraig Calhoun
TechnēTad Brennan
Technology and ethicsCarl MitchamHelen Nissenbaum
Technology, philosophy ofPeter Kroes
Teleological ethicsChristine M. Korsgaard
TeleologyAndrew Woodfield
TelosTad Brennan
Tense and temporal logicQuentin Smith
Tertullian, Quintus Septimus FlorensJohn Peter Kenney
TestimonyC.A.J. Coady
Testimony in Indian philosophyPurushottama Bilimoria
ThalesRichard McKirahan
Theoretical (epistemic) virtuesWilliam G. Lycan
Theories, scientificFrederick Suppe
Theory of typesNino B. Cocchiarella
ThermodynamicsLawrence Sklar
ThomismJohn J. Haldane
Thoreau, Henry DavidTimothy Gould
Thought experimentsDavid C. Gooding
TimeLawrence Sklar
Time travelPaul Horwich
TolerationJohn Horton
Tolstoi, Count Lev NikolaevichGary Saul Morson
TotalitarianismMargaret Canovan
Tradition and traditionalismAnthony O’Hear
TragedySusan L. Feagin
Transcendental argumentsRoss Harrison
TrinityPeter Van Inwagen
TrustKaren Jones
Truth, coherence theory ofRichard L. Kirkham
Truth, correspondence theory ofRichard L. Kirkham
LIST OF ENTRIES AND CONTRIBUTORS
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Truth, deflationary theories ofRichard L. Kirkham
Truth, pragmatic theory ofRichard L. Kirkham
TruthfulnessSissela Bok
Turing, Alan MathisonJames H. Moor
Turing machinesGuglielmo Tamburrini
Type/token distinctionLinda Wetzel
Unconscious mental statesGeorges Rey
UnderdeterminationLarry Laudan
Unity of scienceJordi Cat
Universalism in ethicsOnora O’Neill
UniversalsJohn C. Bigelow
Use/mention distinction and quotationCorey Washington
UtilitarianismRoger CrispTim Chappell
UtopianismLyman Tower Sargent
VaguenessMichael Tye
Vaihinger, HansChristopher Adair-Toteff
VedāntaStephen H. Phillips
Vico, GiambattistaLeon Pompa
Vienna CircleFriedrich Stadler
ViolenceC.A.J. Coady
Virtue epistemologyLinda Zagzebski
Virtue ethicsRoger Crisp
Virtues and vicesBernard Williams
VisionFrances Egan
VitalismWilliam BechtelRobert C. Richardson
Vitoria, Francisco deAnthony Pagden
Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet)David Williams
VoluntarismBrian Leftow
Von Wright, Georg HenrikIlkka Niiniluoto
Wang YangmingShun Kwong-Loi
War and peace, philosophy ofTerry Nardin
Weber, MaxStephen P. TurnerRegis A. Factor
Weil, SimoneRowan Williams
WelfareAlbert Weale
Whewell, WilliamMenachem Fisch
Whitehead, Alfred NorthJames Bradley
Will, theThomas Pink
William of OckhamClaude Panaccio
Williams, Bernard Arthur OwenRoss Harrison
Wittgenstein, Ludwig Josef JohannJane Heal
Wolff, ChristianCharles A. Corr
Wollstonecraft, MarySusan Khin Zaw
Work, philosophy ofRichard Arneson
Wundt, WilhelmJens Brockmeier
Wyclif, JohnJeremy Catto
XunziA.S. Cua
Yin-YangRoger T. Ames
Zeno of CitiumDavid Sedley
Zeno of EleaStephen Makin
ZoroastrianismAlan Williams
LIST OF ENTRIES AND CONTRIBUTORS
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A
A POSTERIORI
A prominent term in theory of knowledge since theseventeenth century, ‘a posteriori’ signifies a kind ofknowledge or justification that depends on evi-dence, or warrant, from sensory experience. Aposteriori truth is truth that cannot be known orjustified independently of evidence from sensoryexperience, and a posteriori concepts are conceptsthat cannot be understood independently ofreference to sensory experience. A posteriori knowl-edge contrasts with a priori knowledge, knowledgethat does not require evidence from sensoryexperience. A posteriori knowledge is empirical,experience-based knowledge, whereas a prioriknowledge is non-empirical knowledge. Standardexamples of a posteriori truths are the truths ofordinary perceptual experience and the naturalsciences; standard examples of a priori truths arethe truths of logic and mathematics. The commonunderstanding of the distinction between a posterioriand a priori knowledge as the distinction betweenempirical and non-empirical knowledge comesfrom Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason (1781/1787).See also: A priori; Empiricism; Justification,epistemic; Knowledge, concept of
PAUL K. MOSER
A PRIORI
An important term in epistemology since theseventeenth century, ‘a priori’ typically connotes akind of knowledge or justification that does notdepend on evidence, or warrant, from sensoryexperience. Talk of a priori truth is ordinarilyshorthand for talk of truth knowable or justifiableindependently of evidence from sensory experience;and talk of a priori concepts is usually talk ofconcepts that can be understood independently ofreference to sensory experience. A priori knowl-edge contrasts with a posteriori knowledge, knowl-edge requiring evidence from sensory experience.Broadly characterized, a posteriori knowledge isempirical, experience-based knowledge, and apriori knowledge is non-empirical knowledge.
Standard examples of a priori truths are the truths ofmathematics, whereas standard examples of a poster-iori truths are the truths of the natural sciences.See also: A posteriori; Justification, epistemic;Knowledge, concept of; Rationalism
PAUL K. MOSER
ABDUCTION
See: Discovery, logic of; Inference to the bestexplanation; Peirce, Charles Sanders
ABELARD, PETER (1079–1142)
Among the many scholars who promoted therevival of learning in Western Europe in the earlytwelfth century, Abelard stands out as a consummatelogician, a formidable polemicist and a champion ofthe value of ancient pagan wisdom for Christianthought. Although he worked within the Aristot-elian tradition, his logic deviates significantly fromthat of Aristotle, particularly in its emphasis onpropositions and what propositions say. Accordingto Abelard, the subject matter of logic, includinguniversals such as genera and species, consists oflinguistic expressions, not of the things theseexpressions talk about. However, the objectivegrounds for logical relationships lie in what theseexpressions signify, even though they cannot be saidto signify any things. Abelard is, then, one of anumber of medieval thinkers, often referred to inlater times as ‘nominalists’, who argued againstturning logic and semantics into some sort ofscience of the ‘real’, a kind of metaphysics. It wasAbelard’s view that logic was, along with grammarand rhetoric, one of the sciences of language.
In ethics, Abelard defended a view in whichmoral merit and moral sin depend entirely onwhether one’s intentions express respect for thegood or contempt for it, and not at all on one’sdesires, whether the deed is actually carried out, oreven whether the deed is in fact something thatought or ought not to be done.
Abelard did not believe that the doctrines ofChristian faith could be proved by logically
1
compelling arguments, but rational argumentation,he thought, could be used both to refute attacks onChristian doctrine and to provide arguments thatwould appeal to those who were attracted to highmoral ideals. With arguments of this latter sort, hedefended the rationalist positions that nothingoccurs without a reason and that God cannot doanything other than what he does do.See also: Nominalism
MARTIN M. TWEEDALE
ABORTION
See Life and death (§5); Reproduction andethics
ABSOLUTE, THE
The expression ‘the Absolute’ stands for that(supposed) unconditioned reality which is eitherthe spiritual ground of all being or the whole ofthings considered as a spiritual unity. This usederives especially from F.W.J. Schelling and G.W.F.Hegel, prefigured by J.G. Fichte’s talk of an absoluteself which lives its life through all finite persons. InEnglish-language philosophy it is associated withthe monistic idealism of such thinkers as F.H.Bradley and Josiah Royce, the first distinguishingthe Absolute from God, the second identifyingthem.See also: Idealism; Kant, I.
T.L.S. SPRIGGE
ABSOLUTISM
The term ‘absolutism’ describes a form of govern-ment in which the authority of the ruler is subjectto no theoretical or legal constraints. In thelanguage of Roman law – which played a centralrole in all theories of absolutism – the ruler waslegibus solutus, or ‘unfettered legislator’. Absolutismis generally, although not exclusively, used todescribe the European monarchies, and in particularthose of France, Spain, Russia and Prussia, betweenthe middle of the sixteenth century and the end ofthe eighteenth. But some form of absolutism existedin nearly every European state until the lateeighteenth century. There have also been recogniz-able forms of absolute rule in both China and Japan.
As a theory absolutism emerged in Europe, andin particular in France, in the late sixteenth andearly seventeenth centuries, in response to the longCivil Wars between the Crown and the nobilityknown as the Wars of Religion. In the lateeighteenth century, as the reform movementassociated with the Enlightenment began to influ-ence most European rulers, a form of so-called‘enlightened absolutism’ (or sometimes ‘enlighteneddespotism’) emerged. In this the absolute authority
of the ruler was directed not towards enhancing thepower of the state, but was employed instead foradvancing the welfare of the subjects.See also: Filmer, Sir Robert
ANTHONY PAGDEN
ABSTRACT OBJECTS
The central philosophical question about abstractobjects is: Are there any? An affirmative answer –given by Platonists or Realists – draws support fromthe fact that while much of our talk and thoughtconcerns concrete (roughly, spatiotemporallyextended) objects, significant parts of it appear tobe about objects which lie outside space and time,and are therefore incapable of figuring in causalrelationships. The suggestion that there really aresuch further non-spatial, atemporal and acausalobjects as numbers and sets often strikes Nominalistopponents as contrary to common sense. Butprecisely because our apparent talk and thought ofabstracta encompasses much – including virtuallythe whole of mathematics – that seems indispen-sable to our best attempts to make scientific sense ofthe world, it cannot be simply dismissed as confusedgibberish. For this reason Nominalists have com-monly adopted a programme of reductive para-phrase, aimed at eliminating all apparent referenceto and quantification over abstract objects. In spiteof impressively ingenious efforts, the programmeappears to run into insuperable obstacles.
The simplicity of our initial question is decep-tive. Understanding and progress are unlikelywithout further clarification of the relationsbetween ontological questions and questions aboutthe logical analysis of language, and of the keydistinction between abstract and concrete objects.There are both affinities and, more importantly,contrasts between traditional approaches to ontolo-gical questions and more recent discussions shapedby ground-breaking work in the philosophy oflanguage initiated by Frege. The importance ofFrege’s work lies principally in two insights: first,that questions about what kinds of entity there arecannot sensibly be tackled independently of thelogical analysis of language; and second, that thequestion whether or not certain expressions shouldbe taken to have reference cannot properly beseparated from the question whether completesentences in which those expressions occur aretrue or false.See also: Nominalism; Ontology; Realism andantirealism; Universals
BOB HALE
ACRASIA
See Akrasia
ABSOLUTE, THE
2
ACTION
Philosophical study of human action owes itsimportance to concerns of two sorts. There areconcerns addressed in metaphysics and philosophyof mind about the status of reasoning beings whomake their impact in the natural causal world, andconcerns addressed in ethics and legal philosophyabout human freedom and responsibility. ‘Actiontheory’ springs from concerns of both sorts; but inthe first instance it attempts only to provide adetailed account that may help with answering themetaphysical questions.
Action theorists usually start by asking ‘How areactions distinguished from other events?’. For thereto be an action, a person has to do something. Butthe ordinary ‘do something’ does not capture justthe actions, since we can say (for instance) thatbreathing is something that everyone does, althoughwe don’t think that breathing in the ordinary way isan action. It seems that purposiveness has to beintroduced – that someone’s intentionally doingsomething is required.
People often do the things they intentionally doby moving bits of their bodies. This has led to theidea that ‘actions are bodily movements’. The forceof the idea may be appreciated by thinking aboutwhat is involved in doing one thing by doinganother. A man piloting a plane might have shutdown the engines by depressing a lever, forexample; and there is only one action here if thedepressing of the lever was (identical with) theshutting down of the engines. It is when identitiesof this sort are accepted that an action may be seenas an event of a person’s moving their body: thepilot’s depressing of the lever was (also) his movingof his arm, because he depressed the lever bymoving his arm.
But how do bodies’ movings – such events nowas his arm’s moving – relate to actions? According toone traditional empiricist account, these are causedby volitions when there are actions, and a volitionand a body’s moving are alike parts of the action.But there are many rival accounts of the causes andparts of actions and of movements. And volitionalnotions feature not only in a general account of theevents surrounding actions, but also in accounts thataim to accommodate the experience that is char-acteristic of agency.See also: Rationality, practical
JENNIFER HORNSBY
ADORNO, THEODORWIESENGRUND (1903–69)
Philosopher, musicologist and social theorist,Theodor Adorno was the philosophical architectof the first generation of Critical Theory emanatingfrom the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt,
Germany. Departing from the perspective of moreorthodox Marxists, Adorno believed the twindilemmas of modernity – injustice and nihilism –derived from the abstractive character of Enlight-enment rationality. In consequence, he argued thatthe critique of political economy must give way to acritique of Enlightenment, instrumental reason.
Identity thinking, as Adorno termed instrumen-tal rationality, abstracts from the sensory, linguisticand social mediations which connect knowingsubjects to objects known. In so doing, it represseswhat is contingent, sensuous and particular inpersons and nature. Adorno’s method of negativedialectics was designed to rescue these elementsfrom the claims of instrumental reason. Adornoconceded, however, that all this method coulddemonstrate was that an abstract concept did notexhaust its object. For a model of an alternativegrammar of reason and cognition Adorno turned tothe accomplishments of artistic modernism. There,where each new work tests and transforms the veryidea of something being a work of art, Adorno saw amodel for the kind of dynamic interdependencebetween mind and its objects that was required for arenewed conception of knowing and acting.See also: Enlightenment, Continental
J.M. BERNSTEIN
AESTHETIC ATTITUDE
It is undeniable that there are aesthetic and non-aesthetic attitudes. But is there such a thing as theaesthetic attitude? What is meant by the aestheticattitude is the particular way in which we regardsomething when and only when we take anaesthetic interest in it. This assumes that on alloccasions of aesthetic interest the object attended tois regarded in an identical fashion, unique to suchoccasions; and this assumption is problematic. If anattitude’s identity is determined by the features it isdirected towards; if an aesthetic interest in an objectis (by definition) an interest in its aesthetic qualities;and if the notion of aesthetic qualities can beexplained in a uniform manner; then there is aunitary aesthetic attitude, namely an interest in anitem’s aesthetic qualities. But this conception of theaesthetic attitude would be unsuitable for achievingthe main aim of those who have posited theaesthetic attitude. This aim is to provide a definitionof the aesthetic, but the aesthetic attitude, under-stood as any attitude focused upon an object’saesthetic qualities, presupposes the idea of theaesthetic, and cannot be used to analyse it. So thequestion is whether there is a characterization of theaesthetic attitude that describes its nature withoutexplicitly or implicitly relying on the concept of theaesthetic. There is no good reason to suppose so.
AESTHETIC ATTITUDE
3
Accordingly, there is no such thing as the aestheticattitude, if this is an attitude that is both necessaryand sufficient for aesthetic interest and that can becharacterized independently of the aesthetic.See also: Aesthetic concepts
MALCOLM BUDD
AESTHETIC CONCEPTS
Aesthetic concepts are the concepts associated withthe terms that pick out aesthetic properties referredto in descriptions and evaluations of experiencesinvolving artistic and aesthetic objects and events.The questions (epistemological, psychological, logi-cal and metaphysical) that have been raised aboutthese properties are analogous to those raised aboutthe concepts.
In the eighteenth century, philosophers such asEdmund Burke and David Hume attempted toexplain aesthetic concepts such as beauty empiri-cally, by connecting them with physical andpsychological responses that typify individuals’experiences of different kinds of objects and events.Thus they sought a basis for an objectivity ofpersonal reactions. Immanuel Kant insisted thataesthetic concepts are essentially subjective (rootedin personal feelings of pleasure and pain), but arguedthat they have a kind of objectivity on the groundsthat, at the purely aesthetic level, feelings of pleasureand pain are universal responses.
In the twentieth century, philosophers havesometimes returned to a Humean analysis ofaesthetic concepts via the human faculty of taste,and have extended this psychological account to tryto establish an epistemological or logical uniquenessfor aesthetic concepts. Many have argued thatalthough there are no aesthetic laws (for example,‘All roses are beautiful,’ or ‘If a symphony has fourmovements and is constructed according to rules ofBaroque harmony, it will be pleasing’) aestheticconcepts none the less play a meaningful role indiscussion and disputation. Others have argued thataesthetic concepts are not essentially distinguishablefrom other types of concepts.
Recently theorists have been interested in waysthat aesthetic concepts are context-dependent –constructed out of social mores and practices, forexample. Their theories often deny that aestheticconcepts can be universal. For example, not only isthere no guarantee that the term ‘harmony’ willhave the same meaning in different cultures: it maynot be used at all.See also: Aesthetic attitude; Art criticism; Art,definition of; Baumgarten, A.G.; Beauty;Sublime, the
MARCIA EATON
AESTHETICS
Introduction
Aesthetics owes its name to Alexander Baum-garten who derived it from the Greek aisthanomai,which means perception by means of the senses. Asthe subject is now understood, it consists of twoparts: the philosophy of art, and the philosophy ofthe aesthetic experience and character of objects orphenomena that are not art. Non-art items includeboth artefacts that possess aspects susceptible ofaesthetic appreciation, and phenomena that lack anytraces of human design in virtue of being productsof nature, not humanity. How are the two sides ofthe subject related: is one part of aesthetics morefundamental than the other? There are two obviouspossibilities. The first is that the philosophy of art isbasic, since the aesthetic appreciation of anything thatis not art is the appreciation of it as if it were art. Thesecond is that there is a unitary notion of the aestheticthat applies to both art and non-art; this notiondefines the idea of aesthetic appreciation as disinter-ested delight in the immediately perceptible proper-ties of an object for their own sake; and artisticappreciation is simply aesthetic appreciation of worksof art. But neither of these possibilities is plausible.
The first represents the aesthetic appreciation ofnature as essentially informed by ideas intrinsic tothe appreciation of art, such as style, reference andthe expression of psychological states. But in orderfor that curious feeling, the experience of thesublime – invoked, perhaps, by the immensity of theuniverse as disclosed by the magnitude of starsvisible in the night sky (see Sublime, the) – to beaesthetic, or for you to delight in the beauty of aflower, it is unnecessary for you to imagine thesenatural objects as being works of art. In fact, yourappreciation of them is determined by their lack offeatures specific to works of art, and perhaps also bytheir possession of features available only to aspects ofnature (see Nature, aesthetic appreciation of).
The second fails to do justice to the significancefor artistic appreciation of various features of worksof art that are not immediately perceptible, such as awork’s provenance and its position in the artist’s oeuvre.A more accurate view represents the two parts ofthe subject as being related to each other in a looserfashion than either of these positions recognizes,each part exhibiting variety in itself, the two beingunited by a number of common issues or counter-part problems, but nevertheless manifesting con-siderable differences in virtue of the topics that arespecific to them. In fact, although some issues arecommon to the two parts, many are specific to thephilosophy of art and a few specific to the aesthetics
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of non-art objects. Moreover, not every object ofaesthetic appreciation falls neatly on one side or theother of the art–non-art distinction, so thatappreciation sometimes involves an element ofboth of artistic and non-artistic appreciation (seeEnvironmental aesthetics).
Both works of art and other objects can possessspecifically aesthetic properties, such as beauty andgracefulness. If they do possess properties of thissort, they will also possess properties that are notspecifically aesthetic, such as size and shape. Andthey will be susceptible of aesthetic and non-aesthetic appreciation, and subject to aesthetic andnon-aesthetic judgments.What distinguishes an item’saesthetic from its non-aesthetic properties and whatfaculties are essential to detecting aesthetic properties(see Aesthetic concepts)? What is the nature ofaesthetic appreciation? It has often been thought thatthere is a particular attitude that is distinctive ofaesthetic appreciation: you must adopt this attitudein order for the item’s aesthetic properties to bemanifest to you, and if you are in this attitude youare in a state of aesthetic contemplation (seeAestheticattitude). This suppositious attitude has often beenthought of as one of disinterested contemplationfocused on an item’s intrinsic, non-relational, immedi-ately perceptible properties. But perhaps this view ofaesthetic interest as disinterested attention is the productofmasculinebias, involving the assumptionof a positionof power over the observed object, a reflection ofmasculine privilege, an expression of the ‘male gaze’.Another idea is that awareness of an object’s aestheticproperties is the product of a particular species ofperception, an idea which stands in opposition to theclaim that this awareness is nothing but the projection ofthe observer’s response onto the object.
An object’s beauty would appear to be arelational, mind-dependent property – a propertyit possesses in virtue of its capacity to affect observersin a certain manner. But which observers and whatmanner? And can attributions of beauty, whichoften aspire to universal interpersonal validity, everattain that status (see Beauty)? The great Germanphilosopher Immanuel Kant presented a conceptionof an aesthetic judgment as a judgment that must befounded on a feeling of pleasure or displeasure; heinsisted that a pure aesthetic judgment about an objectis one that is unaffected by any concepts under whichthe object might be seen; and he tried to show thatthe implicit claim of such a judgment to be valid foreveryone is justified. But how acceptable is hisconception of an aesthetic judgment and howsuccessful is his attempted justification of the claimsof pure aesthetic judgments (see Kant, I. §12)?
1 Aesthetics of art
2 Aesthetics and the arts
1 Aesthetics of art
Those questions that are specific to the philosophyof art are of three kinds: ones that arise only withina particular art form or set of related arts (perhapsarts addressed to the same sense), ones that ariseacross a number of arts of heterogeneous natures,and ones that are entirely general, necessarilyapplying to anything falling under the mantle of art.
Here are some of the most salient facts about art.Not everything is art. Artists create works of art,which reflect the skills, knowledge and personalitiesof their makers, and succeed or fail in realizing theiraims. Works of art can be interpreted in differentways, understood, misunderstood or baffle the mind,subjected to analysis, and praised or criticized.Although there are many kinds of value that worksof art may possess, their distinctive value is theirvalue as art. The character of a work of art endows itwith a greater or lesser degree of this distinctive value.
Accordingly, the most fundamental generalquestion about art would seem to be: what is art?Is it possible to distinguish art from non-art bymeans of an account that it is definitive of the natureof art, or are the arts too loosely related to oneanother for them to possess an essence that can becaptured in a definition (see Art, definition of)?Whatever the answer to this question may be,another entirely general issue follows hard on itsheels. It concerns the ontology of art, the kind ofthing a work of art is. Do some works of art fall intoone ontological category (particulars) and some intoanother (types) or do they all fall within the samecategory (see Art works, ontology of)? And anumber of other important general questionsquickly arise. What is a work’s artistic value andwhich aspects of a work are relevant to or determinethis value? Is the value of a work of art, consideredas art, an intrinsic or an extrinsic feature of it? Is itdetermined solely by the work’s form or by certainaspects of its content – its truth or its moralsensitivity, for example? Can judgments about awork’s artistic value justifiably lay claim to universalagreement or are they merely expressions ofsubjective preferences? And how is a work’s artisticvalue related to, and how important is it incomparison with, other kinds of value it maypossess (see Art, value of; Formalism in art;Art and truth; Art and morality; Schiller,J.C.F.)? What is required to detect the criticallyrelevant properties of artworks, over and abovenormal perceptual and intellectual powers, and howcan judgments that attribute such properties besupported (see Art criticism)? What kinds ofunderstanding are involved in artistic appreciation,and must an acceptable interpretation of a work becompatible with any other acceptable interpretation
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(see Art, understanding of)? In what way, ifany, does the artist’s intention determine themeaning or their work (see Artist’s intention)?What is an artist’s style and what is its significance inthe appreciation of the artist’s work?
2 Aesthetics and the arts
One question that arises only for a small set of artforms concerns the nature of depiction. It might bethought that the analysis of the nature of depictionhas no special importance within the philosophy ofart, for pictorial representation is just as frequentoutside as inside art. But this overlooks the fact thatreal clarity about the ways in which pictures canacquire value as art must be founded on asophisticated understanding of what a picture isand the psychological resources needed to graspwhat it depicts. So what is it for a surface to be orcontain a picture of an object or state of affairs?Must the design on the surface be such as to elicit acertain species of visual experience, and must thefunction of the means by which the pattern wasproduced, or the intention of the person whocreated it, be to replicate features of the visibleworld? Or is a picture a member of a distinctivekind of symbol system, which can be definedwithout making use of any specifically visualconcepts (see Depiction)? Another question thathas a limited application concerns the distinctivenature and value of a particular artistic genre, theresponse it encourages from us, and the insight intohuman life it displays and imparts. For example,whereas a comedy exploits our capacity to findsomething funny, a tragedy engages our capacity tobe moved by the fate of other individuals, and eroticart aims to evoke a sexual reaction; and thisdifference in the emotional responses at the heartsof the genres goes hand in hand with the differentaspects of human life they illuminate (see Comedy;Emotion in response toart; Humour; Tragedy).
Questions about the individual natures andpossibilities of the various arts include some thatare specific to the particular art and some that applyalso to other arts. On the one hand, relatively fewart forms (architecture and pottery, for example) aredirected to the production of works that areintended to perform non-artistic functions, or areof a kind standardly used for utilitarian purposes,and, accordingly, the issue of the relevance to itsartistic value of a work’s performing, or presentingthe appearance of performing, its intended non-artistic function satisfactorily is confined to such arts(see Architecture, aesthetics of). Again, onlyin some arts does a spectator witness a performanceof a work, so that issues about a performer’scontribution to the interpretation of a work or
about the evaluation of different performances ofthe same work are limited to such arts. And sinceonly some works of art (novels, plays and films, forexample) tell a story, and only some refer to fictionalpersons or events, questions about the means bywhich a story is told or how references to fictionalobjects should be understood have a restrictedapplication within the arts (see Narrative;Fictional entities). On the other hand, most,if not all, arts allow of works within their domainbeing correctly perceived as being expressive ofpsychological states, and, accordingly, give rise tothe question of what it is for a work to be expressiveof such a condition (see Artistic expression).But the means available within the different arts forthe expression of psychological states are various:poetry consists of words, dance exploits the humanbody, and instrumental music uses nothing otherthan sounds. And these different artistic mediaimpose different limits on the kinds of state that canbe expressed by works of art, the specificity of thestates, and the significance within an art of theexpressive aspects of its products (see Gurney, E.).Furthermore, it is a general truth about the variousarts, rather than one special to expression, that whatcan be achieved within an art is determined by thenature of the medium on which the art is based.Accordingly, an adequate philosophy of art mustinvestigate the variety of such media and elucidatethe peculiar advantages they offer and the limita-tions they impose (see Film, aesthetics of;Hanslick, E.; Langer, S.K.K.; Lessing, G.E.;Music, aesthetics of; Opera, aesthetics of;Painting, aesthetics of; Photography, aes-thetics of; Poetry).See also: Aesthetics and ethics; Belinskii, V.G.;Metaphor; Rhetoric; Tolstoi, L.N.
References and further reading
Hegel, G. (1835) Aesthetics: Lectures on Fine Art,trans. T.M. Knox, Oxford: Clarendon Press,1975. (Hegel’s lectures on aesthetics, deliveredin Berlin in the 1820s, are a classic introduction tothe subject.)
Kant, I. (1790) Critique of Aesthetic Judgement, trans.W.S. Pluhar, Indianapolis, IN and Cambridge:Hackett Publishing Company, 1987.
MALCOLM BUDD
AESTHETICS AND ETHICS
The contrast between ethical and aesthetic judg-ments, which has provided a good deal of thesubject-matter of aesthetics, stems largely fromImmanuel Kant’s idiosyncratic view of morality as
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a series of imperatives issued in accordance with thedictates of practical reason, while for him judgmentsof taste are based on no principles. This has led evennon-Kantians to argue that aesthetic judgments areprimarily concerned, as is art itself, with unique-ness, while morality has mainly to do withrepeatable actions. This tends to separate art fromother human activities, a separation which wasencouraged by the collection of useless items by‘connoisseurs’, who took over as their vocabulary ofappreciation the traditional language of religiouscontemplation. This viewpoint has been attackedpassionately by idealist aestheticians, who claim thatart is a heightening of the common human activityof expressing emotions, to the point where they areexperienced and rendered lucidly, as they rarely arein everyday life. Marxist aestheticians, whose rootslie in the same tradition as idealists, argue that art isinherently political, and that the realm of ‘pureaesthetic experience’ is chimerical. Meanwhile theanalytic tradition in aesthetics has spent much effortamplifying Kant-style positions, without taking intoaccount their historical conditioning. There is atendency to contrast the activities of the moralist,prescribing courses of action, with that of the critic,whose only job can be to point to the unrepeatablefeatures which constitute a work of art.See also: Art and morality; Art, value of;Ethics; Kant, I §12
MICHAEL TANNER
AFFIRMATIVE ACTION
The term ‘affirmative action’ originated in the USAunder President Kennedy. Originally it wasdesigned to ensure that employees and applicantsfor jobs with government contractors did not sufferdiscrimination. Within a year, however, ‘affirmativeaction’ was used to refer to policies aimed atcompensating African-Americans for unjust racialdiscrimination, and at improving their opportunitiesto gain employment. An important implication ofthis shift was that affirmative action came to meanpreferential treatment.
Preferential treatment was later extended toinclude women as well as other disadvantaged racialand ethnic groups. The arguments in favour ofpreferential treatment can be usefully classified asbackward-looking and forward-looking. Backward-looking arguments rely on the claim that prefer-ential treatment of women and disadvantaged racialminorities compensates these groups or the mem-bers for the discrimination and injustices they havesuffered. Forward-looking arguments rely on theirclaim that preferential treatment of women and
disadvantaged racial minorities will help to bringabout a better society.
There has been much criticism of both types ofargument. The most common accusation is thatpreferential treatment is reverse discrimination.Other criticisms are based around who exactlyshould be compensated, by what means and to whatextent, and at whose cost. Finally, there is the fear ofthe unknown consequences of such action. Argu-ments have been forwarded to try and solve suchdifficulties, but the future of preferential treatmentseems to lie in a combination of the two arguments.See also: Justice
BERNARD BOXILL
AFRICAN PHILOSOPHY
Introduction
In order to indicate the range of some of the kindsof material that must be included in a discussion ofphilosophy in Africa, it is as well to begin byrecalling some of the history of Western philosophy.It is something of an irony that Socrates, the firstmajor philosopher in the Western tradition, isknown to us entirely for oral arguments imputed tohim by his student Plato. For the Western philo-sophical tradition is, above all else, a tradition oftexts. While there are some important ancientphilosophers, like Socrates, who are largely knownto us through the reports of others, the tradition hasdeveloped increasingly as one which pays carefulattention to written arguments. However, many ofthose arguments – in ethics and politics, metaphysicsand epistemology, aesthetics and the whole host ofother major subdivisions of the subject – concernquestions about which many people in manycultures have talked and many, albeit substantiallyfewer, have written about outside the broadtradition of Western philosophy. The result is thatwhile those methods of philosophy that havedeveloped in the West through thoughtful analysisof texts are not found everywhere, we are likely tofind in every human culture opinions about some ofthe major questions of Western philosophy. Onthese important questions there have been discus-sions in most cultures since the earliest humansocieties. These constitute what has sometimes beencalled a ‘folk-philosophy’. It is hard to say muchabout those opinions and discussions in placeswhere they have not been written down. However,we are able to find some evidence of the characterof these views in such areas as parts of sub-SaharanAfrica where writing was introduced into oralcultures over the last few centuries.
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As a result, discussions of African philosophyshould include both material on some oral culturesand rather more on the philosophical work that hasbeen done in literate traditions on the Africancontinent, including those that have developedsince the introduction of Western philosophicaltraining there.
1 Oral cultures
2 Older literate traditions
3 Recent philosophy
1 Oral cultures
Two areas of folk-philosophy have been the objectof extended scholarly investigation in the latetwentieth century: the philosophical psychology ofpeople who speak the Akan languages of the westAfrican littoral (now Ghana) and the epistemologi-cal thought of Yoruba-speaking people of westernNigeria. In both cases the folk ideas of the traditionhave been addressed by contemporary speakers ofthe language with Western philosophical training.This is probably the most philosophically sophisti-cated work that has been carried out in the generalfield of the philosophical study of folk-philosophyin Africa. It also offers some insight into ways ofthinking about both the mind and human cognitionthat are different from those that are most familiarwithin the Western tradition.
One can also learn a great deal by looking moregenerally at ethical and aesthetic thought, since in allparts of the continent, philosophical issues con-cerning evaluation were discussed and views devel-oped before the advent of writing. Philosophicalwork on ethics is more developed than in aestheticsand some of the most interesting recent work inAfrican aesthetics also focuses on Yoruba conceptswhich have been explored in some detail byWestern philosophers. The discussion of the statusof such work has largely proceeded under the rubricof the debate about ethnophilosophy, a termintended to cover philosophical work that aims toexplore folk philosophies in a systematic manner.Finally, there has also been an important philo-sophical debate about the character of traditionalreligious thought in Africa.
2 Older literate traditions
Although these oral traditions represent old forms ofthought, the actual traditions under discussion arenot as old as the remaining African literatetraditions. The earliest of these is in the writingsassociated with the ancient civilizations of Egypt,which substantially predate the pre-Socratic philo-sophers who inhabit the earliest official history of
Western philosophy. The relationship between theseEgyptian traditions and the beginnings of Westernphilosophy have been in some dispute and there ismuch recent scholarship on the influence of Egypton classical Greek thought.
Later African philosophy looks more familiar tothose who have studied the conventional history ofWestern philosophy: the literate traditions ofEthiopia, for example, which can be seen in thecontext of a long (if modest) tradition of philo-sophical writing in the horn of Africa. The highpoint of such writing has been the work of theseventeenth-century philosopher, Zar’a Ya’ecob.Whose work has been compared to that of Descartes.
It is also worth observing that many of thetraditions of Islamic philosophy were either theproduct of, or were subject to the influence of,scholars born or working in the African continentin centres of learning such as Cairo and Timbuktu(see Islamic philosophy). Similarly, the work ofsome of the most important philosophers amongthe Christian Church Fathers was the product ofscholars born in Africa, like St Augustine, andsome was written in the African provinces of Rome.
In considering African-born philosophers, thereis Anton Wilhelm Amo, who was born in what isnow Ghana and received, as the result of anextraordinary sequence of events, philosophicaltraining during the period of German Enlight-enment, before returning to the Guinea coast to diein the place he was born. Amo’s considerableintellectual achievements played an important partin eighteenth- and nineteenth-century polemicsrelating to the ‘capacity of the negro’. Unfortu-nately, only a portion of his work has survived.
3 Recent philosophy
Most twentieth-century work in African philo-sophy has been carried out by African intellectuals(often interacting with scholars outside Africa)under the influence of philosophical traditionsfrom the European countries that colonized Africaand created her modern system of education. As thecolonial systems of education were different, it ishelpful to think of this work as belonging to twobroadly differentiated traditions, one Francophoneand the other Anglophone. While it is true thatphilosophers in the areas influenced by French (andFrancophone Belgian) colonization developed sepa-rately from those areas under British colonialcontrol, a comparison of their work reveals thatthere has been a substantial cross-flow betweenthem (as there generally has been between philo-sophy in the French- and English-speaking worlds).The other important colonial power in Africa wasPortugal, whose commitment to colonial education
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was less developed. The sole Portuguese-speakingAfrican intellectual who made a significant philo-sophical contribution is Amı́lcar Cabral, whoseleadership in the independence movement ofGuinea Bissau and the Cape Verde islands wasguided by philosophical training influenced byPortuguese Marxism. Cabral’s influence has notbeen as great as that of Frantz Fanon, who was bornin the French Antilles, but later became an Algerian.He was a very important figure in the developmentof political philosophy in Africa (and much of theThird World).
Among the most important political thinkersinfluenced by philosophy are Kwame Nkrumah,Kenneth Kaunda and Julius Nyerere (see Africanphilosophy, Anglophone). Out of all the intel-lectual movements in Africa in the twentieth-century,the two most important ones of philosophicalinterest have been négritude and pan-Africanism(see African philosophy, Fran
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