Thomas Aquinas

Thomas Aquinas

Who Is Thomas Aquinas? Saint Thomas Aquinas OP (Tommaso d’Aquino, lit. “Thomas of Aquino”; 1225 – 7 March 1274) was an Italian Dominican friar, Catholic priest, and Doctor of the Church. He is an immensely influential philosopher, theologian, and jurist in the tradition of scholasticism, within which he is also known as the Doctor Angelicus and the Doctor Communis. The name Aquinas...

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Veganism

Veganism Veganism is the practice of abstaining from the use of animal products, particularly in diet, and an associated philosophy that rejects the commodity status of animals. A follower of the diet or the philosophy is known as a vegan. Distinctions may be made between several categories of veganism. Dietary vegans...

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Omega Point

What Is Omega Point? The Omega Point is a spiritual belief and a scientific speculation that everything in the universe is fated to spiral towards a final point of divine unification. The term was coined by the French Jesuit Catholic priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881–1955). Teilhard argued that the Omega Point resembles the Christian Logos, namely Christ, who...

Chinese philosopher Mozi (c. 470 BC – c. 391 BC)

Mohism

What is Mohism? Mohism or Moism (墨家; Mòjiā; literally: ‘School of Mo’) was an ancient Chinese philosophy of logic, rational thought and science developed by the academic scholars who studied under the ancient Chinese philosopher Mozi (c. 470 BC – c. 391 BC) and embodied in an eponymous book: the Mozi. It evolved at...

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Causality

What Is Causality? Causality (also referred to as causation, or cause and effect) is what connects one process (the cause) with another process or state (the effect), where the first is partly responsible for the second, and the second is partly dependent on the first. In general, a process has many causes, which are said to be...

A 1962 mural by Pakistani painter Sadequain, celebrating famous Muslim scientists and philosophers | Courtesy Dawn.com

Logic In Islamic Philosophy

Logic In Islamic Philosophy This article covers Logic In Islamic Philosophy. Early Islamic law placed importance on formulating standards of argument, which gave rise to a “novel approach to logic” (منطق manṭiq “speech, eloquence”) in Kalam (Islamic scholasticism) However, with the rise of the Mu’tazili philosophers, who highly valued Aristotle’s Organon, this approach was...

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Self-efficacy

What Is Self-efficacy? Self-efficacy is an individual’s belief in their innate ability to achieve goals. Albert Bandura defines it as a personal judgement of “how well one can execute courses of action required to deal with prospective situations”. Expectations of self-efficacy determine whether an individual will be able to exhibit coping behavior and...

Islam And Modern Western Philosophies

Islam And Modern Western Philosophies

Islam And Modern Western Philosophies What Is The Islamic Viewpoint of The Modern Western Philosophies of History? I wonder whether it is a skepticism to see a political purpose behind some philosophies produced in the West during the last few centuries. Whether they might label me as unscientific or a...

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Mind–body Dualism

Mind–Body Dualism The Mind–body dualism, or mind–body duality, is a view in the philosophy of mind that mental phenomena are, in some respects, non-physical, or that the mind and body are distinct and separable. Thus, it encompasses a set of views about the relationship between mind and matter, and between subject and object, and is contrasted with other positions,...

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Mind–body Problem

Mind–body Problem The mind–body problem is a philosophical problem concerning the relationship between thought and consciousness in the human mind and the brain as part of the physical body. It is distinct from the question of how mind and body function chemically and physiologically since that question presupposes an interactionist...

Jean-Paul Sartre

Jean-Paul Sartre

Who Is Jean-Paul Sartre? Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (21 June 1905 – 15 April 1980) was a French philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the key figures in the philosophy of existentialism and phenomenology, and one of the leading figures in 20th-century...

John Dewey

John Dewey

Who Is John Dewey? John Dewey (October 20, 1859 – June 1, 1952) was an American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. He is regarded as one of the most prominent American scholars in the first half of the twentieth century....

Bust of Ibn Khaldoun in the entrance of the Kasbah of Bejaia, Algeria

Ibn Khaldun

Who Is Ibn Khaldun? Ibn Khaldun (أبو زيد عبد الرحمن بن محمد بن خلدون الحضرمي‎, Abū Zayd ‘Abd ar-Raḥmān ibn Muḥammad ibn Khaldūn al-Ḥaḍramī; 27 May 1332 – 17 March 1406) was a leading Arab historiographer and historian. He is widely considered as a forerunner of the modern disciplines of historiography,...

Album folio fragment with scholar in a garden. Attributed to Muhammad Ali 1610-15. Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Ibn Tufail

Who Is Ibn Tufail? Ibn Tufail (c. 1105 – 1185) (أبو بكر محمد بن عبد الملك بن محمد بن طفيل القيسي الأندلسي, Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Abd al-Malik ibn Muhammad ibn Tufail al-Qaisi al-Andalusi; Abubacer Aben Tofail; Abubekar or Abu Jaafar Ebn Tophail) was an Arab Andalusian Muslim polymath: a writer, novelist, Islamic philosopher,...

Illustration of the story of Hippocrates refusing the presents of the Achaemenid Emperor Artaxerxes, who was asking for his services. Painted by Girodet.

Hippocrates

Who Is Hippocrates? Hippocrates of Kos (Hippokrátēs ho Kṓos; c. 460 – c. 370 BC), also known as Hippocrates II, was a Greek physician of the Age of Pericles (Classical Greece), who is considered one of the most outstanding figures in the history of medicine. He is often referred to as the “Father...

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Materialism

Materialism Materialism is a form of philosophical monism which holds that matter is the fundamental substance in nature, and that all things, including mental aspects and consciousness, are results of material interactions. In Idealism, mind and consciousness are first-order realities to which matter is subject and secondary. In philosophical materialism the converse is true....

The law of love and the law of violence – By Lev Tolstoy

Tolstoy On The Law Of Love

Tolstoy On The Law Of Love This article covers Tolstoy On The Law Of Love. A Christian does not quarrel with any one, does not attack any one, nor use violence against one; on the contrary, he himself without murmuring bears violence; but by this very relation to violence he...

Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy

Leo Tolstoy

Who Is Leo Tolstoy? Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy (Лев Николаевич Толстой, tr. Lev Nikoláyevich Tolstóy; 9 September 1828 – 20 November 1910), usually referred to in English as Leo Tolstoy, was a Russian writer who is regarded as one of the greatest authors of all time. He received multiple nominations for Nobel Prize in Literature...

Photo by Elliott & Fry, c.1860s

Thomas Carlyle

Who Is Thomas Carlyle? Thomas Carlyle (4 December 1795 – 5 February 1881) was a Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, translator, historian, mathematician, and teacher. Considered one of the most important social commentators of his time, he presented many lectures during his lifetime with certain acclaim in the Victorian era. One...

Zarathushtra or Zoroaster

Zarathushtra, Mani, And The Cathars

Zarathushtra, Mani, And The Cathars This article covers philosophers Zarathushtra, Mani, and The Cathars. The word that wounds is this: When a man speaks a word for the sake of the killing of a man or the killing of beasts or the killing of trees and the “Cross of Light,”...