In philosophy, empiricism is an epistemological view which holds that true knowledge or justification comes only or primarily from sensory experience and empirical evidence. It is one of several competing views within epistemology, along with rationalism and skepticism. Empiricists argue that empiricism is a more reliable method of finding the truth than purely using logical reasoning, because humans have cognitive biases and limitations which lead to errors of judgement. Empiricism emphasizes the central role of empirical evidence in the formation of ideas, rather than innate ideas or traditions. Empiricists may argue that traditions arise due to relations of previous sensory experiences.
Metaphilosophy, sometimes called the philosophy of philosophy, is "the investigation of the nature of philosophy". Its subject matter includes the aims of philosophy, the boundaries of philosophy, and its methods. Thus, while philosophy characteristically inquires into the nature of being, the reality of objects, the possibility of knowledge, the nature of truth, and so on, metaphilosophy is the self-reflective inquiry into the nature, aims, and methods of the activity that makes these kinds of inquiries, by asking what is philosophy itself, what sorts of questions it should ask, how it might pose and answer them, and what it can achieve in doing so. It is considered by some to be a subject prior and preparatory to philosophy, while others see it as inherently a part of philosophy, or automatically a part of philosophy while others adopt some combination of these views.
Thomas Reid was a religiously trained Scottish philosopher best known for his philosophical method, his theory of perception, and its wide implications on epistemology, and as the developer and defender of an agent-causal theory of free will. He also focused extensively on ethics, theory of action, language and philosophy of mind.
John Langshaw Austin, OBE, FBA was a British philosopher of language and leading proponent of ordinary language philosophy, best known for developing the theory of speech acts.
Donald Herbert Davidson was an American philosopher. He served as Slusser Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley, from 1981 to 2003 after having also held teaching appointments at Stanford University, Rockefeller University, Princeton University, and the University of Chicago. Davidson was known for his charismatic personality and the depth and difficulty of his thought. His work exerted considerable influence in many areas of philosophy from the 1960s onward, particularly in philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, and action theory. While Davidson was an analytic philosopher, and most of his influence lies in that tradition, his work has attracted attention in continental philosophy as well, particularly in literary theory and related areas.
Ruth Barcan Marcus was an American academic philosopher and logician best known for her work in modal and philosophical logic. She developed the first formal systems of quantified modal logic and in so doing introduced the schema or principle known as the Barcan formula. Marcus, who originally published as Ruth C. Barcan, was, as Don Garrett notes "one of the twentieth century's most important and influential philosopher-logicians". Timothy Williamson, in a 2008 celebration of Marcus' long career, states that many of her "main ideas are not just original, and clever, and beautiful, and fascinating, and influential, and way ahead of their time, but actually – I believe – true".
In philosophy of perception and epistemology, naïve realism is the idea that the senses provide us with direct awareness of objects as they really are. When referred to as direct realism, naïve realism is often contrasted with indirect realism.
Hubert Lederer Dreyfus was an American philosopher and a professor of philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. His main interests included phenomenology, existentialism and the philosophy of both psychology and literature, as well as the philosophical implications of artificial intelligence. He was widely known for his exegesis of Martin Heidegger, which critics labeled "Dreydegger".
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding is a work by John Locke concerning the foundation of human knowledge and understanding. It first appeared in 1689 with the printed title An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding. He describes the mind at birth as a blank slate filled later through experience. The essay was one of the principal sources of empiricism in modern philosophy, and influenced many enlightenment philosophers, such as David Hume and George Berkeley.
Robert Merrihew Adams was an American analytic philosopher. He specialized in metaphysics, philosophy of religion, ethics, and the history of early modern philosophy.
Stephen Roy Albert Neale is a British philosopher and specialist in the philosophy of language who has written extensively about meaning, information, interpretation, and communication, and more generally about issues at the intersection of philosophy and linguistics. Neale is a Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Linguistics and holder of the John H. Kornblith Family Chair in the Philosophy of Science and Values at the Graduate Center, City University of New York (CUNY).
Tyler Burge is an American philosopher who is a Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at UCLA. Burge has made contributions to many areas of philosophy, including the philosophy of mind, philosophy of logic, epistemology, philosophy of language, and the history of philosophy.
Howard Robinson is a British philosopher, specialising in various areas of philosophy of mind and metaphysics, best known for his work in the philosophy of perception. His contributions to philosophy include a defense of sense-datum theories of perception and a variety of arguments against physicalism about the mind. He published an alternative version of the popular Knowledge Argument in his book Matter and Sense independently and in the same year as Frank Jackson, but Robinson's thought experiment involves sounds rather than colors. He is Professor of Philosophy at Central European University and recurring visiting professor at Rutgers University.
Philosophy of language investigates the nature of language and the relations between language, language users, and the world. Investigations may include inquiry into the nature of meaning, intentionality, reference, the constitution of sentences, concepts, learning, and thought.
Frank B. Ebersole (1919–2009) was an American philosopher who developed a unique form of ordinary language philosophy.
Oets Kolk Bouwsma was an American analytic philosopher.
Arne Dekke Eide Næss was a Norwegian philosopher who coined the term "deep ecology", an important intellectual and inspirational figure within the environmental movement of the late twentieth century, and a prolific writer on many other philosophical issues. Næss cited Rachel Carson's 1962 book Silent Spring as being a key influence in his vision of deep ecology. Næss combined his ecological vision with Gandhian nonviolence and on several occasions participated in direct action.
Sir Richard Rustom Kharsedji Sorabji, is a British historian of ancient Western philosophy, and Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at King's College London. He is the nephew of Cornelia Sorabji.
Susanne Bobzien is a German-born philosopher whose research interests focus on philosophy of logic and language, determinism and freedom, and ancient philosophy. She currently is senior research fellow at All Souls College, Oxford and professor of philosophy at the University of Oxford.
François Recanati is a French analytic philosopher and research fellow at the College de France, and at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. Many of his works focus on the philosophy of language and mind.
