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James Fieser | |
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| Era | Contemporary philosophy |
| Region | American philosophy |
Main interests | Ethics History of philosophy Common Sense Theory of Truth Philosophy of David Hume |
James Fieser is professor of philosophy at the University of Tennessee at Martin. He received his B.A. from Berea College, and his M.A. and Ph.D. in philosophy from Purdue University. [1] He is founder and general editor of the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. [2] He is author, coauthor or editor of more than ten books. [3]
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David Hume was a Scottish philosopher, historian, economist, and essayist who was best known for his highly influential system of empiricism, philosophical skepticism and metaphysical naturalism. Beginning with A Treatise of Human Nature (1739–40), Hume strove to create a naturalistic science of man that examined the psychological basis of human nature. Hume followed John Locke in rejecting the existence of innate ideas, concluding that all human knowledge derives solely from experience. This places him with Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and George Berkeley as an empiricist.
Epistemology is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. It studies the nature, origin, and scope of knowledge, epistemic justification, and various related issues. Debates in contemporary epistemology are generally clustered around four core areas:
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.
Natural theology, once also termed physico-theology, is a type of theology that seeks to provide arguments for theological topics based on reason and the discoveries of science, the project of arguing for the existence of God on the basis of observed natural facts, and through natural phenomena viewed as divine, or complexities of nature seen as evidence of a divine plan or Will of God, which includes nature itself.
Skepticism, also spelled scepticism in British English, is a questioning attitude or doubt toward knowledge claims that are seen as mere belief or dogma. For example, if a person is skeptical about claims made by their government about an ongoing war then the person doubts that these claims are accurate. In such cases, skeptics normally recommend not disbelief but suspension of belief, i.e. maintaining a neutral attitude that neither affirms nor denies the claim. This attitude is often motivated by the impression that the available evidence is insufficient to support the claim. Formally, skepticism is a topic of interest in philosophy, particularly epistemology.
Eastern philosophy includes the various philosophies that originated in East and South Asia, including Chinese philosophy, Japanese philosophy, Korean philosophy, and Vietnamese philosophy; which are dominant in East Asia, and Indian philosophy, which are dominant in South Asia, Southeast Asia, Tibet, and Mongolia.
Divine command theory is a meta-ethical theory which proposes that an action's status as morally good is equivalent to whether it is commanded by God. The theory asserts that what is moral is determined by God's commands and that for a person to be moral he is to follow God's commands. Followers of both monotheistic and polytheistic religions in ancient and modern times have often accepted the importance of God's commands in establishing morality.
Circular reasoning is a logical fallacy in which the reasoner begins with what they are trying to end with. Circular reasoning is not a formal logical fallacy, but a pragmatic defect in an argument whereby the premises are just as much in need of proof or evidence as the conclusion, and as a consequence the argument fails to persuade. Other ways to express this are that there is no reason to accept the premises unless one already believes the conclusion, or that the premises provide no independent ground or evidence for the conclusion. Circular reasoning is closely related to begging the question, and in modern usage the two generally refer to the same thing.
Norman Duncan Kemp Smith, FBA, FRSE was a Scottish philosopher who was Professor of Psychology (1906–1914) and Philosophy (1914–1919) at Princeton University and was Professor of Logic and Metaphysics at the University of Edinburgh (1919–1945).
Laurence BonJour is an American philosopher and Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Washington.
The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (IEP) is a scholarly online encyclopedia with 880 articles about philosophy, philosophers, and related topics. The IEP publishes only peer-reviewed and blind-refereed original papers. Contribution is generally by invitation, and contributors are recognized as leading international specialists within their field.
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.
Louis Paul Pojman was an American philosopher and professor, whose name is most recognized as the author of dozens of philosophy texts and anthologies, which continue to be used widely for educational purposes, and more than one-hundred papers, which he read at some sixty universities around the world. Pojman was known for his work in applied ethics and philosophy of religion.
James Drewry Stewart, was a Canadian mathematician, violinist, and professor emeritus of mathematics at McMaster University. Stewart is best known for his series of calculus textbooks used for high school, college, and university-level courses.
Mylan Engel Jr. is a full professor of philosophy at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb.
Four Dissertations is a collection of four essays by the 18th-century Scottish Enlightenment philosopher David Hume, first published in 1757. The four essays are:
An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (EPM) is a book by Scottish enlightenment philosopher David Hume. In it, Hume argues that the foundations of morals lie with sentiment, not reason.
Moral sense theory is a theory in moral epistemology and meta-ethics concerning the discovery of moral truths. Moral sense theory typically holds that distinctions between morality and immorality are discovered by emotional responses to experience. Some take it to be primarily a view about the nature of moral facts or moral beliefs —this form of the view more often goes by the name "sentimentalism". Others take the view to be primarily about the nature of justifying moral beliefs —this form of the view more often goes by the name "moral sense theory". However, some theorists take the view to be one which claims that both moral facts and how one comes to be justified in believing them are necessarily bound up with human emotions.
Robert John Fogelin was an American philosopher, and advocate and leading scholar of modern Pyrrhonism. He was a professor of philosophy and Sherman Fairchild Professor in the humanities (emeritus) at Dartmouth College where he had taught since 1980. He was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2005.
Paul Theodore Pojman was a philosopher, activist, and gardener whose interdisciplinary work involved fields such as religion, economics, and ecology. He was a professor of philosophy at Towson University in Maryland from 2002 until his death; he lived in Baltimore city at the Baltimore Free Farm in Hampden.
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