Solipsism is the philosophical idea that only one's mind is sure to exist. As an epistemological position, solipsism holds that knowledge of anything outside one's own mind is unsure; the external world and other minds cannot be known and might not exist outside the mind.
In the philosophy of mind, the explanatory gap is the difficulty that physicalist philosophies have in explaining how physical properties give rise to the way things feel subjectively when they are experienced. It is a term introduced by philosopher Joseph Levine. In the 1983 paper in which he first used the term, he used as an example the sentence, "Pain is the firing of C fibers", pointing out that while it might be valid in a physiological sense, it does not help us to understand how pain feels.
Crispin James Garth Wright is a British philosopher, who has written on neo-Fregean (neo-logicist) philosophy of mathematics, Wittgenstein's later philosophy, and on issues related to truth, realism, cognitivism, skepticism, knowledge, and objectivity. He is Professor of Philosophical Research at the University of Stirling, and taught previously at the University of St Andrews, University of Aberdeen, New York University, Princeton University and University of Michigan.
Jerome Borges Schneewind was an American scholar of the history of philosophy. Latterly he was a Professor of Philosophy at Johns Hopkins University.
Philosophical realism – usually not treated as a position of its own but as a stance towards other subject matters – is the view that a certain kind of thing has mind-independent existence, i.e. that it exists even in the absence of any mind perceiving it or that its existence is not just a mere appearance in the eye of the beholder. This includes a number of positions within epistemology and metaphysics which express that a given thing instead exists independently of knowledge, thought, or understanding. This can apply to items such as the physical world, the past and future, other minds, and the self, though may also apply less directly to things such as universals, mathematical truths, moral truths, and thought itself. However, realism may also include various positions which instead reject metaphysical treatments of reality entirely.
Frank Cameron JacksonFBA is an Australian analytic philosopher and Emeritus Professor in the School of Philosophy at Australian National University (ANU) where he had spent most of the latter part of his career. His primary research interests include epistemology, metaphysics, meta-ethics and the philosophy of mind. In the latter field he is best known for the "Mary's room" knowledge argument, a thought experiment that is one of the most discussed challenges to physicalism.
Bimal Krishna Matilal was an eminent philosopher whose writings presented the Indian philosophical tradition as a comprehensive system of logic incorporating most issues addressed by themes in Western philosophy. Born in Calcutta, he lived and worked in Calcutta, Harvard, Toronto and Oxford. From 1977 to 1991, he served as the Spalding Professor of Eastern Religion and Ethics at the University of Oxford.
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. It is distinguished from other ways of addressing fundamental questions by being critical and generally systematic and by its reliance on rational argument. It involves logical analysis of language and clarification of the meaning of words and concepts.
Robert Culp Stalnaker is an American philosopher who is Laurance S. Rockefeller Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy.
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.
Michael Cannon Rea is an American analytic philosopher and, since 2017, John A. O'Brien Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. He delivered the 2017 Gifford Lecture on divine hiddenness.
Alice Crary is an American philosopher who currently holds the positions of University Distinguished Professor at the Graduate Faculty, The New School for Social Research in New York City and Visiting Fellow at Regent's Park College, University of Oxford, U.K..
Gabriel Wagner was a radical German philosopher and materialist who wrote under the nom-de-plume Realis de Vienna. A follower of Spinoza and acquaintance of Leibniz, Wagner did not believe that the universe or bible were divine creations, and sought to extricate philosophy and science from the influence of theology. Wagner also held radical political views critical of the nobility and monarchy. After failing to establish lasting careers in cities throughout German-speaking Europe, Wagner died in or shortly after 1717.
Michael Huemer is a professor of philosophy at the University of Colorado, Boulder. He has defended ethical intuitionism, direct realism, libertarianism, phenomenal conservatism, substance dualism, reincarnation, the repugnant conclusion, and philosophical anarchism.
Susanna Siegel is an American philosopher. She is the Edgar Pierce Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University and well known for her work in the philosophy of mind and epistemology, especially on perception.
Maria Rosa Antognazza was an Italian-British philosopher, who was professor of philosophy at King's College London.
Joan Weiner is an American philosopher and professor emerita of philosophy at Indiana University Bloomington, known for her books on Gottlob Frege.
Donald Paul Rutherford is a Canadian philosopher and an emeritus professor of philosophy at the University of California, San Diego. He is known for his research on early modern philosophy. Rutherford is a former president of Leibniz Society of North America (2010-14) and a winner of its Essay Prize (1992). He is an editor of Oxford Studies in Early Modern Philosophy.
Glenn A. Hartz is an American philosopher and Professor of Philosophy at the Ohio State University. He is known for his works on Leibniz's metaphysics and is the editor of The Leibniz Review.
Sun-Joo Shin is a Korean-American philosopher known for her work on diagrammatic reasoning in mathematical logic, including the validity of reasoning using Venn diagrams, the existential graphs of Charles Sanders Peirce, and the philosophical distinction between diagrammatic and symbolic reasoning. She is a professor of philosophy at Yale University.
