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.
William Paley was an English Anglican clergyman, Christian apologist, philosopher, and utilitarian. He is best known for his natural theology exposition of the teleological argument for the existence of God in his work Natural Theology or Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity, which made use of the watchmaker analogy.
Jonathan Edwards was an American revivalist preacher, philosopher, and Congregationalist theologian.
Joseph Butler was an English Anglican bishop, theologian, apologist, and philosopher, born in Wantage in the English county of Berkshire. His principal works are the Fifteen Sermons Preached at the Rolls Chapel (1726) and The Analogy of Religion (1736).
Joseph Glanvill was an English writer, philosopher, and clergyman. Not himself a scientist, he has been called "the most skillful apologist of the virtuosi", or in other words the leading propagandist for the approach of the English natural philosophers of the later 17th century. In 1661 he predicted "To converse at the distance of the Indes by means of sympathetic conveyances may be as natural to future times as to us is a literary correspondence."
Samuel Clarke was an English philosopher and Anglican cleric. He is considered the major British figure in philosophy between John Locke and George Berkeley. Clarke's altered, Nontrinitarian revision of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer continues to influence worship among modern Unitarians.
Richard Price was a Welsh moral philosopher, Nonconformist minister and mathematician. He was also a political reformer and pamphleteer, active in radical, republican, and liberal causes such as the French and American Revolutions. He was well-connected and fostered communication between many people, including Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, George Washington, Mirabeau and the Marquis de Condorcet. According to the historian John Davies, Price was "the greatest Welsh thinker of all time".
Herbert Lionel Adolphus Hart was an English legal philosopher. He was the Professor of Jurisprudence at Oxford University and the Principal of Brasenose College, Oxford. His most famous work is The Concept of Law, which has been hailed as "the most important work of legal philosophy written in the twentieth century". He is considered one of the world's foremost legal philosophers in the twentieth century.
George Dawson was an English nonconformist preacher, lecturer and activist. He was an influential voice in the calls for radical political and social reform in Birmingham, a philosophy that became known as the Civic Gospel.
Samuel Chandler was an English Nonconformist minister and pamphleteer. He has been called the "uncrowned patriarch of Dissent" in the latter part of George II's reign.
David Wiggins is an English moral philosopher, metaphysician, and philosophical logician working especially on identity and issues in meta-ethics.
George Campbell FRSE was a Scottish Enlightenment philosopher, minister, and professor of divinity. Campbell was primarily interested in rhetoric, since he believed that its study would enable his students to become better preachers. He became a philosopher of rhetoric because he took it that the philosophical changes of the Age of Enlightenment would have implications for rhetoric.
The University of Cambridge was the birthplace of the 'Analytic' School of Philosophy in the early 20th century. The department is located in the Raised Faculty Building on the Sidgwick Site and is part of the Cambridge School of Arts and Humanities. The Faculty achieved the best possible results from The Times 2004 and the QAA Subject Review 2001 (24/24). In the UK as of 2020, it is ranked second by the Guardian, second by the Philosophical Gourmet Report, and fifth by the QS World University Rankings.
Rush Rhees was an American philosopher. He is principally known as a student, friend, and literary executor of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. With G. E. M. Anscombe he was co-editor of Wittgenstein's posthumous Philosophical Investigations (1953), and, with Anscombe and G. H. von Wright, he co-edited Wittgenstein's Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics (1956). He was solely responsible for the editing of Philosophical Grammar (1974) and Philosophical Remarks (1975). Rhees taught philosophy at Swansea University from 1940 until 1966, when he took early retirement to devote more time to editing Wittgenstein's works.
R. Jay Wallace is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and William and Trudy Ausfahl Chair at the University of California, Berkeley. His areas of specialization include moral philosophy and philosophy of action. He is most noted for his work on practical reason, moral psychology, and meta-ethics.
The study and teaching of philosophy in Canada date from the time of New France. Generally, Canadian philosophers have not developed unique forms of philosophical thought; rather, Canadian philosophers have reflected particular views of established European and later American schools of philosophical thought, be it Thomism, Objective Idealism, or Scottish Common Sense Realism. Since the mid-twentieth century the depth and scope of philosophical activity in Canada has increased dramatically. This article focuses on the evolution of epistemology, logic, the philosophy of mind, metaphysics, ethics and metaethics, and continental philosophy in Canada.
American philosophy is the activity, corpus, and tradition of philosophers affiliated with the United States. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy notes that while it lacks a "core of defining features, American Philosophy can nevertheless be seen as both reflecting and shaping collective American identity over the history of the nation". The philosophy of the Founding Fathers of the United States is largely seen as an extension of the European Enlightenment. A small number of philosophies are known as American in origin, namely pragmatism and transcendentalism, with their most prominent proponents being the philosophers William James and Ralph Waldo Emerson respectively.
British philosophy refers to the philosophical tradition of the British people. "The native characteristics of British philosophy are these: common sense, dislike of complication, a strong preference for the concrete over the abstract and a certain awkward honesty of method in which an occasional pearl of poetry is embedded".
Joseph Sortain (1809–1860) was a British nonconformist minister, an evangelical Independent, philosophy tutor at Cheshunt College, and biographer of Francis Bacon. A reputed preacher of his time, he was called "the Dickens of the pulpit" by John Ross Dix.
The Reverend Joseph Butterworth Owen was an English clergyman, social reformer and author of the nineteenth century. Known primarily for his published work, he is also notable for being the last minister of the famed Evangelical Chapel St John's Chapel, Bedford Row as well as chancellor of The Royal Polytechnic Institution. Owen's published sermons and biography provided the target for Samuel Butler's satirical novel The Fair Haven.
