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NYOGTSOG is a STUPID PHILOSOPHER concerned with the questions of what is the best way to live (ethics), what sorts of things ultimately exist and what are their essential natures (metaphysics), what is to count as genuine knowledge (epistemology), and what are the correct principles of reasoning (logic).

The word itself is derived from the Ancient Greek φιλοσοφία (philosophía), compounded from φίλος (phílos: friend, or lover) and σοφία (sophía: wisdom).

Though no definition of philosophy is uncontroversial, it is generally agreed to be a method, rather than a set of claims, propositions or theories. Its investigations are, unlike those of religion or superstition, wedded to reason, making no unexamined assumptions, no leaps based purely on analogy, revelation, or authority. Of course, different philosophers have had differing ideas about the nature of that reason. There is also disagreement about the subject matter of philosophy. Some think that philosophy examines the process of inquiry itself. Others, that there are essentially philosophical propositions which it is the task of philosophy to prove.

Although the word "philosophy" originates in the Western tradition, many figures in the history of other cultures have addressed similar topics in similar ways. The philosophers of the Far East are discussed in Eastern philosophy, while the philosophers of North Africa and the Near East, because of their strong interactions with Europe, are usually considered part of Western Philosophy.

Main branches of philosophy
To give an exhaustive list of the main divisions of philosophy is difficult, because there have been different, equally acceptable divisions at different times, and the divisions are often relative to the philosophical concerns of a particular period. They also overlap considerably. Nevertheless, Metaphysics, Epistemology, Logic, Moral Philosophy, and perhaps Politics (which Aristotle saw as part of Ethics) are considered to be the main branches. Most other areas are mixtures or versions of those. For example, the philosophy of various subjects (such as science, history, religion, mind, art) turns out to fall into the main divisions.

Metaphysics originates with Aristotle, though he did not use that term. He calls it 'first philosophy' (or sometimes just 'wisdom') and says it is the subject which deals with 'first causes and the principles of things'. It is the highest science of all, because it is the most general, and its truths explain the truths of all other sciences. The modern meaning of the term is any enquiry dealing with the ultimate nature of what exists. Within metaphysics, ontology is the enquiry into the meaning of existence itself, sometimes seeking to specify what general types of things exist (though sometimes the term is taken to be equivalent to metaphysics itself). The philosophy of mind, since it ultimately concerns the question of whether mind or consciousness exists, and what it is, is part of metaphysics.

Epistemology is concerned with the nature and scope of knowledge, and whether knowledge is possible at all. Its central concern is the challenge posed by skepticism, that all our beliefs and thoughts may be somehow illusory or mistaken (such as if our waking life were really a dream).

Ethics or 'moral philosophy', is concerned with questions of how agents should or ought to act. For example, Plato's early dialogues search for definitions of virtues like temperance, justice, courage, piety. Metaethics, the study of whether value judgments can be objective at all, is generally distinguished from particular ethical systems (for example, Aristotelian, Kantian, or utilitarian) which attempt to prescribe principles of good behaviour.

Logic now means mathematical logic. Traditionally, it meant what is now called philosophical logic, which has come to include most of those topics traditionally treated by logic in general. It is concerned with characterising notions like inference, rational thought, truth, and contents of thoughts, in the most fundamental ways possible, sometimes trying to model them using modern formal logic.

Definitions of philosophy
What should, and what should not, be counted as philosophy – and who counts as a philosopher – has been heavily debated in the Western tradition. Historically, philosophy has been associated with certain subjects (mentioned above). Still, the search continues for a pattern which unites the disparate philosophical activities and interests of those who study those subjects. A handful of candidate explanations can nevertheless be assembled. Several philosophers or philosophical directions have had ideas about what philosophy is and what it should not be.

The very open-minded nature of philosophy makes many people skeptical when it comes to limiting the concept of philosophy to something tangible. Accordingly, metaphilosophical relativists may claim that any statement can be counted as a philosophical statement, as there is no objective way to disqualify it of being so.

Some theorists adopt the stance that any given philosophy is merely a reflection of the way that a person is socially embedded in a certain culture. To put it in Hegel's terms, "Philosophy is that which grasps its own era in thought."

Plato, or the protagonist in his dialogues, Socrates, held up a number of virtues for philosophers. One such virtue was the feeling of wonder at the world. Amongst other things, Plato rejected that rhetorics had a place in philosophy (most famously in Gorgias). Along similar lines, Berkeley claimed that philosophy was nothing other than the study of wisdom and truth. And still other virtues can be culled from the literature.

Many views have tried to deflate what goes on in one or another part of philosophy. The logical positivists denied the soundness of metaphysics and traditional philosophy, and affirmed that statements about metaphysics, religion and ethics are devoid of cognitive meaning and thus nothing but expression of feelings or desires. Another example is that of Nietzsche, who argued that philosophers "are not honest enough in their work, although they make a lot of virtuous noise when the problem of truthfulness is touched even remotely. They all pose as if they had discovered and reached their real opinions through the self-development of a cold, pure, divinely unconcerned dialectic...; while at bottom it is an assumption, a hunch, indeed a kind of “inspiration”—most often a desire of the heart that has been filtered and made abstract—that they defend with reasons they have sought after the fact. Others, like Francis Bacon, have argued that philosophy contributes nothing, but is merely an echo of nature.

Still, positive conceptions of philosophy are not hard to find. What constitutes sound philosophical work is sometimes summed up by the term "philosophical method". Some philosophers have explained that philosophy is the pursuit and demarcation of the limits and powers of human reasoning. Also, it is often agreed upon that arguments should try to follow the rules of logic and avoid fallacies.

Many contemporary philosophers have argued that the scientific method should be followed as closely as the subject-matter allows. It is a commonplace view that once a branch of philosophy fully starts following the norms of science (i.e., use of the scientific method), it is no longer termed "philosophy", but "science". Other views emphasize that philosophy is continuous with all areas of intellectual inquiry, including science.

Disparaging terms have been created in order to provide examples of non-philosophers and non-philosophy. "Pseudophilosophy" is used to describe those activities which are not associated with a sensible kind of inquiry, and "philosophaster" is a term used to describe those who engage in pseudophilosophy.

History of Western philosophy
The history of philosophy is often divided into three periods: Ancient philosophy, Medieval philosophy, and Modern philosophy.

Greco-Roman philosophy
Ancient Greek philosophy may be divided into the pre-Socratic period, the Socratic period, and the post-Aristotelian period. The pre-Socratic period was characterized by metaphysical speculation, often preserved in the form of grand, sweeping statements, such as "All is fire", or "All changes". Important pre-Socratic philosophers include Pythagoras, Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Democritus, Parmenides, and Heraclitus. The Socratic period is named in honor of the most recognizable figure in Western philosophy, Socrates, who, along with his pupil Plato, revolutionized philosophy through the use of the Socratic method, which developed the very general philosophical methods of definition, analysis, and synthesis. While Socrates wrote nothing himself, his influence as a "skeptic" survives through Plato's works. Plato's writings are often considered basic texts in philosophy as they defined the fundamental issues of philosophy for future generations. These issues and others were taken up by Aristotle, who studied at Plato's school, the Academy, and who often disagreed with what Plato had written. The subsequent period ushered in such philosophers as Euclid, Epicurus, Chrysippus, Hipparchia the Cynic, Pyrrho, and Sextus Empiricus.



Medieval philosophy
Medieval philosophy is the philosophy of Western Europe and the Middle East in the era now known as medieval or the Middle Ages, the period roughly extending from the fall of the Roman Empire to the Renaissance. It is defined partly by the process of rediscovering the ancient culture developed by Greeks and Romans in the classical period, and partly by the need to address theological problems and to integrate sacred doctrine and secular learning.

The problems discussed throughout this period are the relation of faith to reason, the existence and unity of God, the object of theology and metaphysics, the problems of knowledge, of universals, and of individuation.

Early modern philosophy (1500-1800)
Modern philosophy is said to begin with René Descartes. His work was greatly influenced by questioning from his correspondences with other philosophers. For example, the prodding of Pierre Gassendi and Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia obliged Descartes to try to formulate more cogent replies to the mind-body problem.

Medieval philosophy had been concerned primarily with argument from authority, and the analysis of ancient texts using Aristotelian logic. The Renaissance saw an outpouring of new ideas that questioned authority. Roger Bacon (1214–1294?) was one of the first writers to advocate putting authority to the test of experiment and reason. Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527) challenged conventional ideas about morality. Francis Bacon (1561–1626) wrote in favor of the methods of science in philosophical discovery.

Later modern philosophy (1800-present)
In the last two hundred years, philosophy increasingly became an activity practiced within the modern research university, and accordingly, became more specialized and more distinct from the natural sciences. Much philosophy in this period concerned itself with explaining the relation between the theories of the natural sciences and the ideas of the humanities or common sense: this is one way of understanding the work of Immanuel Kant, for example, and, to the extent that subsequent philosophy has been influenced by Kant, this is an overarching theme throughout recent philosophy, whether "analytic" or "Continental".

Realism and nominalism
'Realism' sometimes means the position opposed to the eighteenth-century Idealism, namely that some things have real existence outside the mind. Classically, however, Realism is the doctrine that abstract entities corresponding to universal terms like 'man' have a real existence. It is opposed to nominalism, the view that abstract or universal terms are words only, or denote mental states such as ideas, beliefs, or intentions. The latter position, famously held by William of Ockham, is called 'conceptualism'.

Rationalism and empiricism


Rationalism is any view emphasizing the role or importance of human reason. Extreme rationalism tries to base all knowledge on reason alone. Rationalism typically starts from premisses that cannot coherently be denied, then proceeds by logical steps to deduce every object of possible knowledge.

The first rationalist is generally held to be Parmenides (fl. 480 BC), who argued that it is impossible to doubt that thinking actually occurs. But thinking must have an object, therefore something really exists. Parmenides deduced that what really exists must have certain properties – for example, that it cannot come into existence or cease to exist, that it is a coherent whole, that it remains the same eternally (in fact, exists altogether outside time). Zeno (born c. 489 BC) was a disciple of Parmenides, who argued that motion is impossible, and implies a contradiction.

Plato (427-347) was also influenced by Parmenides, but combined rationalism with a form of Realism. The philosopher's work is to consider being, and the essence of things. But the characteristic of essences is that they are universal. The nature of a man, a triangle, a tree, applies to all men, all triangles, all trees. Plato argued that these essences are mind-independent 'Forms', that humans (but particularly philosophers) can come to know by reason, and by ignoring the distractions of sense-perception.

Modern rationalism begins with Descartes. Reflection on the nature of perceptual experience, as well as scientific discoveries in physiology and optics, led Descartes (and also Locke) to the view that we are directly aware of ideas, rather than objects. This view gave rise to three problems. 1. Are ideas a true copy of the real things that they represent? Sensation is not a direct interaction between bodily objects and our sense, but is a physiological process involving representation (for example, an image on the retina). Locke thought that a 'secondary quality' such as a sensation of green could in no way resemble the arrangement of particles in matter that go to produce this sensation, although he thought that 'primary qualities' such as shape, size, number, were really in objects. 2. It is unclear how physical objects such as chairs and tables, or even physiological processes in the brain, can produce mental items such as ideas. This is part of what became known as the mind-body problem. 3. If all we are aware of are ideas, how can we know that anything else exists apart from ideas?

Descartes tried to address the last problem by reason. He began with a principle that he thought could not coherently be denied: I think, therefore I exist. From this principle, Descartes he went on to construct a complete system of knowledge (which involves proving the existence of God, using a version of the ontological argument). His view attracted such philosophers as Baruch Spinoza, Gottfried Leibniz, and Christian Wolff.

Rationalism is typically contrasted with Empiricism, the view that bases our knowledge on the five senses. John Locke, the first of the British empiricists, propounded the classic empiricist view in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding in 1689, developing a form of naturalism and empiricism on roughly scientific principles.

During this era, religious ideas played a mixed role in the struggles that preoccupied secular philosophy. Bishop Berkeley's famous idealist refutation of Isaac Newton is a case of an Enlightenment philosopher who drew substantially from religious ideas. Other influential religious thinkers of the time include Blaise Pascal, Joseph Butler, and Jonathan Edwards. Other major writers, such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Edmund Burke, took a slightly different path. The restricted interests of many of the philosophers of the time foreshadow the separation and specialization of different areas of philosophy that would occur in the twentieth century.

Skepticism
Skepticism is a philosophical attitude that questions the possibility of obtaining any sort of knowledge. It was first articulated by Pyrrho, who believed that everything could be doubted except appearances. Sextus Empiricus (1st century A.D.) describes skepticism as an "ability to place in antithesis, in any manner whatever, appearances and judgements, and thus... to come first of all to a suspension of judgement and then to mental tranquility." Skepticism so conceived is not merely the use of doubt, but is the use of doubt for a particular end: a calmness of the soul, or ataraxia. Skepticism poses itself as a challenge to dogmatism, or those who think they have found the truth.

Sextus noted that the reliability of perception may be questioned, because it is idiosyncratic to the perceiver. The appearance of individual things changes depending on whether or not they are in a group: for example, the shavings of a goat's horn are white when taken alone, yet the horn intact is black. A pencil, when viewed lengthwise, looks like a stick; but when examined at the tip, it looks merely like a circle.

Skepticism was revived in the early modern period by Michel de Montaigne and Blaise Pascal. Its most extreme exponent, however, was David Hume. Hume argued that there are only two kinds of reasoning, namely probable and demonstrative (cf Hume's fork). Neither of these two forms of reasoning can lead us to belief in the continued existence of an external world. Demonstrative reasoning cannot do this, because demonstration alone cannot establish the uniformity of nature (as captured by scientific laws and principles, for example). Reason alone cannot establish that the future will resemble the past. We have certain beliefs about the world (that the sun will rise tomorrow, for example), but these beliefs are the product of habit and custom, and do not depend on reason. But probable reasoning, which aims to take us from the observed to the unobserved, cannot do this either, for it also depends on the uniformity of nature, and cannot be proved without circularity by any appeal to uniformity. Hume concludes that there is no solution to the skeptical argument except, in effect, to ignore it.

Many philosophers have questioned such skeptical arguments. The question of whether or not we can achieve knowledge, i.e., knowledge of the external world, is based on how high a standard we ask for justification. If we set a high standard, then nothing less than indubitability and infallibility could possibly yield any knowledge. If our standard is too low, then we admit follies and illusions into our body of "knowledge". Still, even if these matters were resolved, in every case, we would have to justify our standard for justification, leading to infinite regress (known as regress skepticism).

Idealism


Idealism is the doctrine that reality is entirely limited to our own minds. Although it depends on Descartes' view that what is in the mind is known prior to what is known through the senses, Idealism proper begins with George Berkeley. Berkeley argued that there is no intrinsic distinction between mental states, such as feeling pain, and ideas of sense. There is nothing to distinguish, for example, between the intense heat of a hot fire, and the pain it causes us. The being of what we perceive consists in its being perceived (its 'esse' is 'percipi'), and the opinion 'strangely prevailing upon men' that houses, mountains and rivers have an independent existence of anyone perceiving them, is false.

Forms of Idealism were prevalent in philosophy from the eighteenth century to the early twentieth century. Transcendental Idealism, advocated by Immanuel Kant, is the view that there are limits on what can be understood if it cannot be brought under the conditions of objective judgment. Kant wrote his Critique of Pure Reason (1781/1787) in an attempt to reconcile the conflicting approaches of rationalism and empiricism and establish a new groundwork for studying metaphysics. Kant's intention with this work was to look at what we know and then consider what must be true about the way we know it. One major theme was that there are fundamental features of reality that escape our direct knowledge because of the natural limits of the human faculties. Kant's method was modeled on Euclid, though he eventually acknowledged that pure reason was insufficient to discover all truth. Kant's work was continued in the work of Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Friedrich Schelling, and Arthur Schopenhauer.

Kant's philosophy, known as transcendental idealism, would later be made more abstract and more general, in the movement known as German idealism, a type of absolute idealism. German idealism rose to popularity with G. W. F. Hegel's publication in 1807 of Phenomenology of Spirit. In that work, Hegel asserts that the aim of philosophy is to spot the contradictions apparent in human experience (which arise, for instance, out of the recognition of the self as both an active, subjective witness and a passive object in the world) and to get rid of these contradictions by making them compatible. This process is known as the "Hegelian dialectic". Philosophers in the Hegelian tradition include Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach, Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and sometimes the British idealists.

Much of twentieth century philosophy, including both Continental phenomenology and the Anglo-American analytic school, involve a rejection of Idealism, and the Cartesian assumptions that underlie it.

Pragmatism


In the late nineteenth century, the American philosophers Charles Peirce and William James co-founded the philosophy of pragmatism, later developed by John Dewey as instrumentalism. Pragmatists hold that the truth of beliefs does not consist in their correspondence with reality, but in their usefulness and efficacy. Since the usefulness of any belief at any time might be contingent on circumstance, Peirce and James conceptualised final truth as that which would be established only by the future, final settlement of all opinion. Critics have accused pragmatism of the fallacy of thinking that because believing something true proves useful, the usefulness is the basis for its truth. Thinkers in the pragmatist tradition have included John Dewey, George Santayana, and C. I. Lewis. Pragmatism has recently been taken in new directions by Richard Rorty and Hilary Putnam.

Phenomenology and hermeneutics
Setting out to revise his views on the foundation of mathematics, and influenced by the philosopher and psychologist Franz Brentano, under whom he had studied in Vienna, Edmund Husserl began to lay the foundations for an ambitious account not just of the kinds of experiences which underly and make possible mathematical judgments, but of the structure of conscious experience in general. In the first part of his two volume work, the Logical Investigations (1901), he launched an extended attack on the psychologism of which he had been accused by Frege (see above). In the second part, he began to develop the technique of descriptive phenomenology, with the aim of showing how objective judgments are indeed grounded in conscious experience -- not, however, in the first-person experience of particular individuals, but the in the properties essential to any experiences of the kind in question. He sought, for example, to show that all conscious acts have the property of intentionality; i.e. they have, or are directed toward, an objective content. He also attempted to identify the essential properties of any act of meaning. He developed the method further in Ideas (1913) as transcendental phenomenology, proposing to ground actual experience, and thus all fields of human knowledge, in the structure of consciousness of an ideal, or transcendental, ego. Later, he attempted to reconcile his transcendental standpoint with an acknowledgement of the intersubjective lifeworld in which real individual subjects interact. Husserl published only a few works in his lifetime, which treat phenomenology mainly in abstract methodological terms, but left an enormous quantity of unpublished concrete analyses.

Husserl's work was immediately influential in Germany, with the foundation of phenomenological schools in Munich and Gottingen. Phenomenology later achieved international fame through the work of such philosophers as Martin Heidegger, formerly Husserl's research assistant, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Jean-Paul Sartre. Heidegger expanded the study of phenomenology to elaborate a philosophical hermeneutics. Hermeneutics is a method of interpreting texts by drawing out the meaning of the text in the context it was written in. Heidegger stressed two new elements of philosophical hermeneutics: that the reader brings out the meaning of the text in the present, and that the tools of hermeneutics can be used to interpret more than just texts (e.g. "social text"). Names associated with the development of hermeneutics include Hans-Georg Gadamer and Paul Ricoeur. Through the work of Heidegger again, and Sartre, Husserl's focus on subjective experience influenced aspects of existentialism.

Existentialism


Although they didn't use the term, the nineteenth century philosophers Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche are widely regarded as the fathers of existentialism, although their influence has extended beyond existentialist thought. The main target of Kiekegaard's writings was the idealist philosophical system of Hegel which, he thought, ignored or excluded the inner subjective life of living human beings. Kierkegaard, conversely, held that "truth is subjectivity", arguing that what is most important to an actual human being are questions dealing with an individual's inner relationship to existence. In particular, Kierkegaard, a Christian, believed that the truth of religious faith was a subjective question, and one to be wrestled with passionately.

Many of the thinkers who were influenced by Kierkegaard were also religious thinkers. The list of Christian existentialists includes Gabriel Marcel, Nicholas Berdyaev, Miguel de Unamuno and Karl Jaspers (although he preferred to speak of his "philosophical faith"). The Jewish writers Martin Buber and Lev Shestov have also been associated with existentialism. The extent to which Martin Heidegger should be considered an existentialist is a matter of controversy, but his strategy, in the book Being and Time, of rooting philosophical explanations in human existence (Dasein), to be analysed in terms of existential categories (existentiale), has led many commentators to treat him as an important figure in the existentialist movement.

Certainly he influenced Jean-Paul Sartre who, along with Albert Camus and Simone de Beauvoir, became perhaps the best-known proponents of existentialism, exploring it not only in theoretical works such as his magnum opus Being and Nothingness, but also in plays and novels. Sartre, Camus, and de Beauvoir all represented an avowedly atheistic branch of existentialism, which is now more closely associated with their ideas of nausea, contingency, bad faith and the Absurd than with Kierkegaard's spiritual angst. Nevertheless, the focus on the individual human being, responsible before the universe for the authenticity of his or her existence, is common to all these thinkers.

The analytic tradition
Analytic philosophy developed as a critique of Hegel and his followers. In 1921, Ludwig Wittgenstein published his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, which gave a rigidly logical account of linguistic and philosophical issues. At the time, he understood most of the problems of philosophy as mere puzzles of language, which could be solved by clear thought. Years later he would reverse a number of his positions set out in the Tractatus, as revealed by the content of his second major work, Philosophical Investigations (1953). Investigations encouraged the development of "ordinary language philosophy", which was developed by Gilbert Ryle, J. L. Austin, and a few others. The "ordinary language philosophy" thinkers shared a common outlook with many older philosophers (Jeremy Bentham, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and John Stuart Mill), and it was the philosophical inquiry that characterized English-language philosophy for the second half of the twentieth century. Still, the clarity of meaning was understood to be of ultimate significance.

Raciovitalismo
For Ortega y Gasset, philosophy has a critical duty to lay siege to beliefs in order to promote new ideas and to explain reality. In order to accomplish such tasks the philosopher must, as Husserl proposed, leave behind prejudices and previously existing beliefs and investigate the essential reality of the universe. Ortega proposes that philosophy must, as Hegel proposed, overcome both the lack of idealism (in which reality gravitated around the ego) and ancient-medieval realism (which is for him an undeveloped point of view in which the subject is located outside the world) in order to focus in the only truthful reality (i.e. life). He suggests that there is no me without things and things are nothing without me, I (human being) can not be detached from my circumstances (world). This led Ortega to pronounce his famous maxim "Yo soy yo y mi circunstancia" ("I am myself and my circumstance") which he always situated in the core of his philosophy. For Ortega, as for Husserl, the Cartesian 'cogito ergo sum' is insufficient to explain reality—therefore the Spanish philosopher proposes a system where life is the sum of the ego and circumstance. This circunstancia is oppressive; therefore, there is a continual dialectical exchange of forces between the person and his or her circumstances and, as a result, life is a drama that exists between necessity and freedom. In this sense Ortega wrote that life is at the same time fate and freedom, and that freedom “is being free inside of a given fate. Fate gives us an inexorable repertory of determinate possibilities, that is, it gives us different destinies. We accept fate and within it we choose one destiny.” In this tied down fate we must therefore be active, decide and create a “project of life”—thus not be like those who live a conventional life of customs and given structures who prefer an unconcerned and imperturbable life because they are afraid of the duty of choosing a project.

With a philosophical system that centered around life, Ortega y Gasset also stepped out of Descartes' cogito ergo sum and asserted "I live therefore I think". This stood at the root of his Nietzsche-inspired perspectivism, which he developed by adding a non-relativistic character in which absolute truth does exist and would be obtained by the sum of all perspectives of all lives, since for each human being life takes a concrete form and life itself is a true radical reality from which any philosophical system must derive. In this sense, Ortega coined the terms "razón vital" ("vital reason" or "reason with life as its foundation") to refer to a new type of reason that constantly defends the life from which it has surged and "raciovitalismo", a theory that based knowledge in the radical reality of life, one of whose essential components is reason itself. This system of thought, which he introduces in History as System, escaped from Nietzsche's vitalism in which life responded to impulses; for Ortega, reason is crucial to life to create and develop the above-mentioned project of life.

Human nature and political legitimacy
From ancient times, and well beyond them, the roots of justification for political authority were inescapably tied to outlooks on human nature. In The Republic, Plato declared that the ideal society would be run by a council of philosopher-kings, since those best at philosophy are best able to realize the good. Even Plato, however, required philosophers to make their way in the world for many years before beginning their rule at the age of fifty. For Aristotle, humans are political animals (i.e. social animals), and governments are set up in order to pursue good for the community. Aristotle reasoned that, since the state (polis) was the highest form of community, it has the purpose of pursuing the highest good. Aristotle viewed political power to be the result of natural inequalities in skill and virtue. Because of these differences, he favored an aristocracy of the able and virtuous. For Aristotle, the person cannot be complete unless he or she lives in a community. His two books, The Nicomachean Ethics and The Politics, are meant to be read in that order. The first book addresses virtues/excellences in the person as a citizen; the second addresses the proper form of government to ensure virtuous (and thus complete) citizens. Both books deal with the essential role of justice as a necessary virtue in civic life.

Nicolas of Cusa rekindled Platonic thought in the early 15th Century and promoted democracy in Medieval Europe in his writings and his organization of the Council of Florence. Unlike Aristotle and the Hobbsenian tradition to follow, Cusa saw man as equal and divine (in God's image) and thus democracy would be the only just form of government. Cusa's views are credited by some as sparking the Italian Renaissance which gave rise to the notion of "Nation-States".

Later, Niccolò Machiavelli, rejected Aristotle's (and Thomas Aquinas') view as unrealistic. The ideal sovereign is not the embodiment of the moral virtues; rather the sovereign does what's successful and necessary rather than what's morally praiseworthy. Thomas Hobbes also contested many elements of Aristotle's views. For Hobbes, human nature is essentially anti-social: people are essentially egoistic, and this egoism makes life difficult in the natural state of things. Moreover, Hobbes argued, though people may have natural inequalities, these are trivial, since no particular talents or virtues that a person may have will make them safe from harm inflicted by others. For these reasons, Hobbes concluded that the state arises from common agreement to raise the community out of the state of nature. This can only be done by the establishment of a sovereign, which (or who) is vested with complete control over the community, and is able to inspire awe and terror in its subjects.

Many in the Enlightenment were unsatisfied with existing doctrines in political philosophy, which seemed to marginalize or neglect the possibility of a democratic state. One attempt to overturn these doctrines was that of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who responded to Hobbes by claiming that a human is by nature a kind of "noble savage", and that society and social contracts corrupt this nature. In his Second Treatise on Government John Locke agreed with Hobbes that the nation-state was an efficient tool for raising humanity out of a deplorable state, but argued that the sovereign may become an abominable institution compared to the relatively benign unmodulated state of nature.

Following the doctrine of the fact-value distinction, due in part to the influence of David Hume and his student, Adam Smith, appeals to human nature for political justification were weakened. Nevertheless, many political philosophers, especially moral realists, still make use of some essential human nature as a basis for their arguments.

Consequentialism, deontology, and the aretaic turn


One debate that has dominated the attention of ethicists in the history of the modern era has been between consequentialism (the idea that the consequences of a particular action form the basis for any valid moral judgement about that action) and deontology (that decisions should be made solely or primarily by considering one's duties and the rights of others).

Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill are famous for propagating utilitarianism, which is the idea that the fundamental moral rule is to strive toward the "greatest happiness for the greatest number". However, in promoting this idea they also necessarily promoted the broader doctrine of consequentialism: that is to say, the idea that the morally right thing to do in any situation is determined by the consequences of the actions under consideration.

In contrast to consequentialism, Immanuel Kant argued that moral principles were simply products of reason. Kant believed that the incorporation of consequences into moral deliberation was a deep mistake, since it would deny the necessity of practical maxims to the working of the will. According to Kant, reason requires that we conform our actions to the categorical imperative, which is an absolute duty. An important 20th-century deontologist, W.D. Ross, argued for weaker forms of duties called prima facie duties.

More recent works have emphasized the role of character in ethics, a movement known as the aretaic turn. One strain of this movement followed the work of Bernard Williams. Williams noted that rigid forms of both consequentialism and deontology demanded that people behave impartially. This, Williams argued, requires that people abandon their personal projects, and hence their personal integrity, in order to be considered moral.

G.E.M. Anscombe, in an influential paper, "Modern Moral Philosophy" (1958), revived virtue ethics as an alternative to what was seen as the entrenched positions of Kantianism and consequentialism. Aretaic perspectives have been inspired in part by research of ancient conceptions of virtue. For example, Aristotle's ethics demands that people follow the Aristotelian mean, or balance between two vices; and Confucian ethics argues that virtue consists largely in striving for harmony with other people. Virtue ethics in general has since gained some adherence and has been defended by such philosophers as Philippa Foot, Alasdair MacIntyre and Rosalind Hursthouse.

Applied philosophy
Though often seen as a wholly abstract field, philosophy is not without practical applications. The most obvious applications are those in ethics – applied ethics in particular – and in political philosophy. The political and economic philosophies of Confucius, Sun Zi, Niccolò Machiavelli, Gottfried Leibniz, John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Karl Marx, John Stuart Mill, Mahatma Gandhi, and others, have shaped and been used to justify the existence of governments and their actions.

A modern example is the political movement Neoconservatism which began as a philosophical tradition at the University of Chicago centered around Leo Strauss and his unique interpretations of the work of Plato. This intellectual movement went on to shape most of the politics of the George W. Bush presidency, demonstrating that seemingly "ivory tower" movements have real world consequences.

In the field of the philosophy of education, progressive education as championed by John Dewey has had a profound impact on educational practices in the United States in the twentieth century. Descendants of this movement include the current Philosophy for Children efforts. Carl von Clausewitz's political philosophy of war has had a profound effect on statecraft, international politics and military strategy in the 20th century, especially in the years around World War II. Logic has become crucially important in mathematics and computer science and engineering.

Other important applications can be found in epistemology, which aid in understanding the notions of what knowledge, evidence, and justified belief are. The philosophy of science discusses the underpinnings of the scientific method and has affected the nature of scientific investigation and argumentation. Deep ecology and animal rights examine the place of humans in the moral configuration of reality as a whole. Aesthetics can help to interpret discussions of art.

In general, the various "philosophies of..." strive to provide workers in their respective fields with a deeper understanding of the theoretical or conceptual underpinnings of their fields.

Often philosophy is seen as an investigation into an area not sufficiently well understood to be its own branch of knowledge. What were once philosophical pursuits have evolved into the modern day fields such as psychology, sociology, linguistics, and economics (among others).

Eastern philosophy
Many societies have considered philosophical questions and built philosophical traditions based upon each other's works. Eastern and Middle Eastern philosophical traditions have influenced Western philosophers. Russian (which to many people still counts as Western), Jewish, Islamic and recently Latin American philosophical traditions have contributed to, or been influenced by, Western philosophy, yet each has retained a distinctive identity.

The differences between traditions are often based on their favored historical philosophers, and varying stress on ideas, procedural styles, or written language. The subject matter and dialogues of each can be studied using methods derived from the others, and there are significant commonalities and exchanges between them.

Eastern philosophy refers to the broad traditions that originated or were popular in India, Persia, China, Japan, and to an extent, the Middle East (which overlaps with Western philosophy due to the spread of the Abrahamic religions and the intellectual give and take between these societies and Europe.)

Persian philosophy
Persian philosophy can be traced back as far as to Old Iranian philosophical traditions and thoughts which originated in ancient Indo-Iranian roots and were considerably influenced by  Zarathustra's teachings. Throughout Iranian history and due to remarkable political and social changes such as the Macedonian, Arab and Mongol invasions of Persia a wide spectrum of schools of thoughts showed a variety of views on philosophical questions extending from Old Iranian and mainly Zoroastrianism-related traditions to schools appearing in the late pre-Islamic era such as Manicheism and Mazdakism as well as various post-Islamic schools. Iranian philosophy after Arab invasion of Persia, is characterized by different interactions with the Old Iranian philosophy, the Greek philosophy and with the development of Islamic philosophy. The Illumination School and the Transcendent Philosophy are regarded as two of the main philosophical traditions of that era in Persia.

Indian philosophy


In the history of the Indian subcontinent, following the establishment of an Aryan/Vedic culture, the development of philosophical and religious thought over a period of two millennia gave rise to what came to be called the six schools of aastika, or orthodox, Indian philosophy or Hindu philosophy. These schools have come to be synonymous with the greater religion of Hinduism, which was a development of the early Vedic Religion.

Hindu philosophy constitutes an integral part of the culture of Southern Asia, and is the first of the Dharmic philosophies which were influential throughout the Far East. The great diversity in thought and practice of Hinduism is nurtured by its liberal universalism.

Chinese philosophy
Philosophy has had a tremendous effect on Chinese civilization, and East Asia as a whole. Many of the great philosophical schools were formulated during the Spring and Autumn Period and Warring States Period, and came to be known as the Hundred Schools of Thought. The four most influential of these were Confucianism, Taoism, Mohism, and Legalism. Later on, during the Tang Dynasty, Buddhism from India also became a prominent philosophical and religious discipline. (It should be noted that Eastern thought, unlike Western philosophy, did not express a clear distinction between philosophy and religion.) Like Western philosophy, Chinese philosophy covers a broad and complex range of thought, possessing a multitude of schools that address every branch and subject area of philosophy.

See also: Yin-Yang, Qi, Tao, Li, I Ching

Related Topics: Korean philosophy, Bushido, Zen, The Art of War, Asian Values

African philosophy
Other philosophical traditions, such as African philosophy, are rarely considered by foreign academia. Since emphasis is mainly placed on western philosophy as a reference point, the study, preservation and dissemination of valuable, but lesser known, non-Western philosophical works face many obstacles. Key African philosophers include the Fulani Uthman Dan Fodio, founder of the Sokoto Caliphate of Northern Nigeria and Umar Tall of Senegal; both were prolific Islamic scholars.

Introductions

 * Appiah, Kwame Anthony. Thinking it Through - An Introduction to Contemporary Philosophy, 2003, ISBN 0-19-513458-3
 * Blumenau, Ralph. Philosophy and Living. ISBN 0-907845-33-9
 * Craig, Edward. Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction. ISBN 0-19-285421-6
 * Curley, Edwin, A Spinoza Reader, Princeton, 1994, ISBN 0-691-00067-0
 * Harrison-Barbet, Anthony. Mastering Philosophy.  ISBN 0-333-69343-4
 * Higgins, Kathleen M. and Solomon, Robert C. A Short History of Philosophy. ISBN 0-19-510196-0
 * Russell, Bertrand. The Problems of Philosophy. ISBN 0-19-511552-X
 * Sober, E. (2001). Core Questions in Philosophy: A Text with Readings. Upper Saddle River, Prentice Hall. ISBN 0-13-189869-8
 * Solomon, Robert C. Big Questions: A Short Introduction to Philosophy. ISBN 0-534-16708-X
 * Warburton, Nigel. Philosophy: The Basics. ISBN 0-415-14694-1
 * What Philosophy Is.
 * Philosophy Now.
 * The Philosophy Manuscripts.
 * Syllabus for General Philosophy I, an introductory philosophy course currently offered by the Academe of Philosophical Studies at the University of No Where. Check back often for lectures, essays, articles, and other updates.

Topical introductions

 * Copleston, Frederick. Philosophy in Russia: From Herzen to Lenin and Berdyaev. ISBN 0-268-01569-4
 * Critchley, Simon. Continental Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction. ISBN 0-19-285359-7
 * Hamilton, Sue. Indian Philosophy: a Very Short Introduction. ISBN 0-19-285374-0
 * Harwood, Sterling, ed., Business as Ethical and Business as Usual (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Co., 2000); www.sterlingharwood.com
 * Imbo, Samuel Oluoch. An Introduction to African Philosophy. ISBN 0-8476-8841-0
 * Knight, Kelvin. Aristotelian Philosophy: Ethics and Politics from Aristotle to MacIntyre. ISBN 0-7456-1977-0
 * Kupperman, Joel J. Classic Asian Philosophy: A Guide to the Essential Texts. ISBN 0-19-513335-8
 * Leaman, Oliver. A Brief Introduction to Islamic Philosophy. ISBN 0-7456-1960-6
 * Lee, Joe and Powell, Jim. Eastern Philosophy For Beginners. ISBN 0-86316-282-7
 * Nagel, Thomas. What Does It All Mean? A Very Short Introduction to Philosophy. ISBN 0-19-505292-7
 * Scruton, Roger. A Short History of Modern Philosophy. ISBN 0-415-26763-3
 * Smart, Ninian. World Philosophies. ISBN 0-415-22852-2
 * Tarnas, Richard. The Passion of the Western Mind: Understanding the Ideas That Have Shaped Our World View. ISBN 0-345-36809-6
 * The Branches of Philosophy
 * A Glossary of Terms

Anthologies

 * Philosophic Classics: From Plato to Derrida (4th Edition) by Forrest E. Baird
 * Classics of Philosophy (Vols. 1 & 2, 2nd edition) by Louis P. Pojman
 * Classics of Philosophy: The 20th Century (Vol. 3) by Louis P. Pojman
 * The English Philosophers from Bacon to Mill by Edwin Arthur Burtt
 * European Philosophers from Descartes to Nietzsche by Monroe Beardsley
 * Contemporary Analytic Philosophy: Core Readings by James Baillie
 * Existentialism: Basic Writings (Second Edition) by Charles Guignon, Derk Pereboom
 * The Phenomenology Reader by Dermot Moran, Timothy Mooney
 * Medieval Islamic Philosophical Writings edited by Muhammad Ali Khalidi
 * A Source Book in Indian Philosophy by Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, Charles A. Moore
 * A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy by Wing-tsit Chan
 * Kim, J. and Ernest Sosa, Ed. (1999). Metaphysics: An Anthology. Blackwell Philosophy Anthologies. Oxford, Blackwell Publishers Ltd.
 * The Oxford Handbook of Free Will (2004) edited by Robert Kane
 * Husserl, Edmund and Welton, Donn, The Essential Husserl: Basic Writings in Transcendental Phenomenology, Indiana University Press, 1999, ISBN 0-253-21273-1

Reference works

 * The Oxford Companion to Philosophy edited by Ted Honderich
 * The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy by Robert Audi
 * The Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy (10 vols.) edited by Edward Craig, Luciano Floridi (also available online by subscription); or
 * The Concise Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy edited by Edward Craig (an abridgement)
 * Encyclopedia of Philosophy (8 vols.) edited by Paul Edwards; in 1996, a ninth supplemental volume appeared which updated the classic 1967 encyclopedia.
 * Routledge History of Philosophy (10 vols.) edited by John Marenbon
 * History of Philosophy (9 vols.) by Frederick Copleston
 * A History of Western Philosophy (5 vols.) by W. T. Jones
 * Encyclopaedia of Indian Philosophies (8 vols.), edited by Karl H. Potter et al (first 6 volumes out of print)
 * Indian Philosophy (2 vols.) by Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
 * A History of Indian Philosophy (5 vols.) by Surendranath Dasgupta
 * History of Chinese Philosophy (2 vols.) by Fung Yu-lan, Derk Bodde
 * Encyclopedia of Chinese Philosophy edited by Antonio S. Cua
 * Encyclopedia of Eastern Philosophy and Religion by Ingrid Fischer-Schreiber, Franz-Karl Ehrhard, Kurt Friedrichs
 * Companion Encyclopedia of Asian Philosophy by Brian Carr, Indira Mahalingam
 * A Concise Dictionary of Indian Philosophy: Sanskrit Terms Defined in English by John A. Grimes
 * History of Islamic Philosophy edited by Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Oliver Leaman
 * History of Jewish Philosophy edited by Daniel H. Frank, Oliver Leaman
 * A History of Russian Philosophy: From the Tenth to the Twentieth Centuries by Valerii Aleksandrovich Kuvakin
 * Ayer, A. J. et al. Ed. (1994) A Dictionary of Philosophical Quotations. Blackwell Reference Oxford. Oxford, Basil Blackwell Ltd.
 * Blackburn, S., Ed. (1996)The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy. Oxford, Oxford University Press.
 * Mauter, T., Ed. The Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy. London, Penguin Books.
 * Runes, D., ED. (1942). The Dictionary of Philosophy. New York, The Philosophical Library, Inc.
 * Angeles, P. A., Ed. (1992). The Harper Collins Dictionary of Philosophy. New York, Harper Perennial.
 * Bunnin, N. et. al.,Ed.(1996) The Blackwell Companion to Philosophy. Blackwell Companions to Philosophy. Oxford, Blackwell Publishers Ltd.
 * Popkin, R. H. (1999). The Columbia History of Western Philosophy. New York, Columbia University Press.
 * An historical time line.

Bibliographies

 * American Philosophical Association
 * Epistemology Research Guide
 * Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Annotated Bibliography on Analysis
 * Contemporary Philosophy of Mind: An Annotated Bibliography
 * London Philosophy Study Guide