Alfred North Whitehead

Alfred North Whitehead

Who Is Alfred North Whitehead? Alfred North Whitehead (15 February 1861 – 30 December 1947) was an English mathematician and philosopher. He is best known as the defining figure of the philosophical school known as process philosophy, which today has found application to a wide variety of disciplines, including ecology, theology, education, physics,...

John Searle

John Searle

Who Is John Searle? John Rogers Searle (born 31 July 1932) is an American philosopher. He was Willis S. and Marion Slusser Professor Emeritus of the Philosophy of Mind and Language and Professor of the Graduate School at the University of California, Berkeley. Widely noted for his contributions to the...

Gottfried Leibniz coined the term "theodicy" in an attempt to justify God's existence in light of the apparent imperfections of the world.

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Gottfried Wilhelm (von) Leibniz (Leibnitz, Godefroi Guillaume Leibnitz; 1 July 1646 – 14 November 1716) was a prominent German polymath and one of the most important logicians, mathematicians and natural philosophers of the Enlightenment. As a representative of the seventeenth-century tradition of rationalism, Leibniz’s most prominent accomplishment was conceiving...

Portrait of Arius; detail of a Byzantine icon depicting the First Council of Nicaea.

Arianism

What Is Arianism? Arianism is a nontrinitarian Christological doctrine which asserts the belief that Jesus Christ is the Son of God who was begotten by God the Father at a point in time, a creature distinct from the Father and is therefore subordinate to him, but the Son is also God (i.e. God the Son). Arian teachings were...

Xenophanes

Xenophanes

Who Is Xenophanes? Xenophanes of Colophon (c. 570 – c. 475 BC) was a Greek philosopher, theologian, poet, and social and religious critic. Xenophanes lived a life of travel, having left Ionia at the age of 25 and continuing to travel throughout the Greek world for another 67 years. Some scholars say he lived in exile in Sicily....

the Maqama of Hariri manuscript.

Judeo-Islamic Philosophies

Judeo-Islamic Philosophies (800–1400) This article covers Judeo-Islamic Philosophies and the influence of Jewish and Islamic philosophy on each other, focusing especially on the period from 800–1400 CE. Early philosophy A century after the Qur’an was revealed, numerous religious schisms arose in Islam. Skeptics sought to investigate the doctrines of the Qur’an, which...

Continental Philosophy

Continental Philosophy

What Is Continental Philosophy? Continental philosophy is a set of 19th- and 20th-century philosophical traditions from mainland Europe. This sense of the term originated among English-speaking philosophers in the second half of the 20th century, who used it to refer to a range of thinkers and traditions outside the analytic movement. Continental...

George Cruikshank’s British Bee Hive, sketched in 1840, depicts a range of Britain’s professions within a strictly divided pyramid-based social hierarchy. In the 19th century the bee was a popular symbol of industry and co-operation. / British Library, Creative Commons

Social Darwinism

What Is Social Darwinism? Social Darwinism is any of various theories of society which emerged in the United Kingdom, North America, and Western Europe in the 1870s, claiming to apply biological concepts of natural selection and survival of the fittest to sociology and politics. Social Darwinists argue that the strong should see...

Søren Kierkegaard

Søren Kierkegaard

Who Is Søren Kierkegaard? Søren Aabye Kierkegaard (5 May 1813 – 11 November 1855) was a Danish philosopher, theologian, poet, social critic and religious author who is widely considered to be the first existentialist philosopher. He wrote critical texts on organized religion, Christendom, morality, ethics, psychology, and the philosophy of religion, displaying a fondness for...

Unordered Chaos Computational Thinking Brain

From Chaos To Order

From Chaos To Order This article covers how to achieve From Chaos To Order. For several centuries, with respect to our understanding of morality, virtue, science, and knowledge, our society has had the appearance of a wreck. It has been searching for an alternative system of order and thought in...

Portrait de René Descartes, en buste, de 3/4 dirigé à gauche dans une bordure ovale.

René Descartes

Who Is René Descartes? René Descartes (Renatus Cartesius; 31 March 1596 – 11 February 1650) was a French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist. A native of the Kingdom of France, he spent about 20 years (1629–1649) of his life in the Dutch Republic after serving for a while in the Dutch States...

Auguste Comte

Auguste Comte

Who Is Auguste Comte? Isidore Marie Auguste François Xavier Comte (19 January 1798 – 5 September 1857) was a French philosopher and writer who formulated the doctrine of positivism. He is often regarded as the first philosopher of science in the modern sense of the term. Comte is also seen as...

Be Being Presence Here Now Spirit Soul Essence

Nondualism

Nondualism In spirituality, nondualism, also called non-duality, means “not two” or “one undivided without a second”. Nondualism primarily refers to a mature state of consciousness, in which the dichotomy of I-other is “transcended”, and awareness is described as “centerless” and “without dichotomies”. Although this state of consciousness may seem to appear spontaneous,...

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Pandeism

Pandeism Pandeism (or pan-deism) is a theological doctrine first delineated in the 18th century which combines aspects of pantheism with aspects of deism. It holds that the creator deity became the universe (pantheism) and ceased to exist as a separate and conscious entity (deism holding that God does not interfere with the...

Plaque of Maimonides at Rambam Medical Center, Haifa

Maimonides

Maimonides Moses ben Maimon (מֹשֶׁה בֶּן־מַיְמוּן‬, Mōšeh ben-Maymūn; موسى بن ميمون‎, Mūsā bin Maymūn), commonly known as Maimonides (Maïmōnídēs; Moses Maimonides), and also referred to by the acronym Rambam (רמב״ם‬, for Rabbeinu Mōšeh bēn Maimun, “Our Rabbi Moses, son of Maimon”), was a medieval Sephardic Jewish philosopher who became one of the most prolific and...

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Philosophical Skepticism

Philosophical Skepticism Philosophical skepticism or scepticism is a philosophical school of thought that questions the possibility of certainty in knowledge. Skeptic philosophers from different historical periods adopted different principles and arguments, but their ideology can be generalized as either (1) the denial of possibility of all knowledge or (2) the suspension...

Religions

Religious Skepticism

Religious Skepticism Religious skepticism is a type of skepticism relating to religion. Religious skeptics question religious authority and are not necessarily anti-religious but skeptical of specific or all religious beliefs and/or practices. Socrates was one of the most prominent and first religious skeptics of whom there are records; he questioned...

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Skepticism

What Is Skepticism? Skepticism or scepticism is generally a questioning attitude or doubt towards one or more items of putative knowledge or belief or dogma. It is often directed at domains, such as the supernatural, morality (moral skepticism), theism (skepticism about the existence of God), or knowledge (skepticism about the possibility of knowledge,...

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Constructivism

Constructivism (Philosophy of Education) Constructivism in education has roots in Epistemology. The learner has prior knowledge and experiences, which is often determined by their social and cultural environment. Learning is therefore done by students’ “constructing” knowledge out of their experiences. While the Behaviorist school of learning may help understand what...