Philosophy of law is a branch of philosophy that examines the nature of law and law's relationship to other systems of norms, especially ethics and political philosophy. It asks questions like "What is law?", "What are the criteria for legal validity?", and "What is the relationship between law and morality?" Philosophy of law and jurisprudence are often used interchangeably, though jurisprudence sometimes encompasses forms of reasoning that fit into economics or sociology.
Nicholas Rescher is a German-American philosopher, polymath, and author, teaching at the University of Pittsburgh. He is chairman of the Center for Philosophy of Science and was formerly chairman of the philosophy department.
Bryan Edgar Magee was a British philosopher, broadcaster, politician and author, best known for bringing philosophy to a popular audience.
Robert Merrihew Adams is an American analytic philosopher, specializing in metaphysics, philosophy of religion, ethics, and the history of early modern philosophy.
Judith Jarvis Thomson was an American philosopher who studied and worked on ethics and metaphysics. She is credited with naming, developing, and initiating the extensive literature on the trolley problem first posed by Philippa Foot. She was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2019.
Ágnes Heller was a Hungarian philosopher and lecturer. She was a core member of the Budapest School philosophical forum in the 1960s and later taught political theory for 25 years at the New School for Social Research in New York City. She lived, wrote and lectured in Budapest.
Joseph Raz is an Israeli legal, moral and political philosopher. He is one of the most prominent advocates of legal positivism and is well known for his conception of perfectionist liberalism. Raz spent most of his career as a professor of philosophy of law at the University of Oxford associated with Balliol College, and is now a part-time professor of law at Columbia University Law School and a part-time professor at King's College London. He received the Tang Prize in Rule of Law in 2018.
Simon Critchley is an English philosopher and the Hans Jonas Professor of Philosophy at the New School for Social Research in New York, USA.
Takeshi Umehara was born in Miyagi Prefecture in Tōhoku and graduated from the philosophical faculty of Kyoto University in 1948. He taught philosophy at Ritsumeikan University and was subsequently appointed president of the Kyoto City University of Arts. He is noted for his prolific essays on Japanese culture, in which he has endeavoured to refound the discipline of Japanese studies along more Japanocentric lines, notably in his book Nihongaku kotohajime (日本学事始) written in 1972 in collaboration with Shunpei Ueyama. Aside from his voluminous academic essays on numerous aspects of Japanese culture he has also composed theatrical works on figures as varied as Yamato Takeru and Gilgamesh.
Kenneth Allen Taylor was an American philosopher and co-host of the radio program Philosophy Talk.
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some sources claim the term was coined by Pythagoras ; others dispute this story, arguing that Pythagoreans merely claimed use of a preexisting term. Philosophical methods include questioning, critical discussion, rational argument, and systematic presentation.
Barry Stroud was a Canadian philosopher and professor at the University of California, Berkeley. Known especially for his work on philosophical skepticism, he wrote about David Hume, Ludwig Wittgenstein, the metaphysics of color, and many other topics.
Stephen Yablo is a Canadian-born American philosopher. He is David W. Skinner Professor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and taught previously at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He specializes in the philosophy of logic, philosophy of mind, metaphysics, philosophy of language, and philosophy of mathematics.
Michael Richard Ayers, is a British philosopher and professor emeritus of philosophy at the University of Oxford. He studied at St. John's College of the University of Cambridge, and was a member of Wadham College, Oxford from 1965 until 2002. Among his students are Colin McGinn and William Child.
Lawrence Sklar is an American philosopher. He is the Carl G. Hempel and William K. Frankena Distinguished University Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan.
Theodore "Ted" Sider is an American philosopher specializing in metaphysics and philosophy of language. He is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University and the son of theologian Ronald Sider.
Sally Haslanger is an American philosopher and professor. She is the Ford Professor of Philosophy in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She held the 2015 Spinoza Chair of Philosophy at the University of Amsterdam.
Agnes Callard is associate professor of philosophy at the University of Chicago. Her primary areas of specialization are ancient philosophy and ethics. She is also noted for her popular writings and work on public philosophy.
