Harvard University Department Of Philosophy
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Harvard University Department Of Philosophy
The Department of Philosophy at Harvard University is a philosophy department in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States that is associated with the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Housed at Emerson Hall, the department offers bachelor's, master's and doctorate degrees in philosophy. Both undergraduate and graduate students can complete programs with other Harvard departments. Students publish and edit '' The Harvard Review of Philosophy'', an annual peer-reviewed journal on philosophy. The department consistently ranks among the top ten philosophical faculties in the United States and the world and specializes in a wide range of philosophical topics, including moral and political philosophy, aesthetics, metaphysics, analytical philosophy, history of philosophy, epistemology, philosophy of science and philosophy of language, mind, and logic. Historically, philosophy at Harvard has transitioned from conservative religious traditions to more liberal and progressi ...
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Harvard Faculty Of Arts And Sciences
The Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) is the largest of the ten faculties that constitute Harvard University. Headquartered principally in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and centered in the historic Harvard Yard, FAS is the only faculty responsible for both undergraduate and graduate education. FAS administers the courses offered at Harvard College, the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, The John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), and the Harvard Division of Continuing Education. It is headed by Dean Claudine Gay. As of Fall 2019, FAS comprised 1221 total faculty, including 719 tenured and tenure-track professors as well as 502 other professors, lecturers, preceptors, and visiting faculty in some 30 academic departments in the arts and humanities, the social sciences, the natural sciences, and the engineering and applied sciences. There are approximately 6,800 undergraduates (Harvard College) and 4,500 graduate students ( Harvard Graduat ...
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Philosophy Of Mind
Philosophy of mind is a branch of philosophy that studies the ontology and nature of the mind and its relationship with the body. The mind–body problem is a paradigmatic issue in philosophy of mind, although a number of other issues are addressed, such as the hard problem of consciousness and the nature of particular mental states.Siegel, S.: ''The Contents of Visual Experience''. New York: Oxford University Press. 2010.Macpherson, F. & Haddock, A., editors, ''Disjunctivism: Perception, Action, Knowledge'', Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. Aspects of the mind that are studied include mental events, mental functions, mental property, mental properties, consciousness and neural correlates of consciousness, its neural correlates, the ontology of the mind, the nature of cognition and of thought, and the relationship of the mind to the body. Dualism (philosophy of mind), Dualism and monism are the two central schools of thought on the mind–body problem, although nuanced vie ...
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George Santayana
Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás, known in English as George Santayana (; December 16, 1863 – September 26, 1952), was a Spanish and US-American philosopher, essayist, poet, and novelist. Born in Spain, Santayana was raised and educated in the US from the age of eight and identified himself as an American, although he always retained a valid Spanish passport. At the age of 48, Santayana left his position at Harvard University, Harvard and returned to Europe permanently. Santayana is popularly known for aphorisms, such as "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it", "Only the dead have seen the end of war", and the definition of beauty as "pleasure objectified". Although an atheist, he treasured the Spanish Catholic values, practices, and worldview in which he was raised. Santayana was a broad-ranging cultural critic spanning many disciplines. He was profoundly influenced by Baruch Spinoza, Spinoza's life and thought; and, in many respects, ...
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William James
William James (January 11, 1842 – August 26, 1910) was an American philosopher, historian, and psychologist, and the first educator to offer a psychology course in the United States. James is considered to be a leading thinker of the late 19th century, one of the most influential philosophers of the United States, and the "Father of American psychology". Along with Charles Sanders Peirce, James established the philosophical school known as pragmatism, and is also cited as one of the founders of functional psychology. A ''Review of General Psychology'' analysis, published in 2002, ranked James as the 14th most eminent psychologist of the 20th century. A survey published in ''American Psychologist'' in 1991 ranked James's reputation in second place, after Wilhelm Wundt, who is widely regarded as the founder of experimental psychology.
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Pragmatism
Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition that considers words and thought as tools and instruments for prediction, problem solving, and action, and rejects the idea that the function of thought is to describe, represent, or mirror reality. Pragmatists contend that most philosophical topics—such as the nature of knowledge, language, concepts, meaning, belief, and science—are all best viewed in terms of their practical uses and successes. Pragmatism began in the United States in the 1870s. Its origins are often attributed to the philosophers Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, and John Dewey. In 1878, Peirce described it in his pragmatic maxim: "Consider the practical effects of the objects of your conception. Then, your conception of those effects is the whole of your conception of the object."Peirce, C.S. (1878), " How to Make Our Ideas Clear", ''Popular Science Monthly'', v. 12, 286–302. Reprinted often, including ''Collected Papers'' v. 5, paragraphs 388–410 an ...
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Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau (July 12, 1817May 6, 1862) was an American naturalist, essayist, poet, and philosopher. A leading Transcendentalism, transcendentalist, he is best known for his book ''Walden'', a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay "Civil Disobedience (Thoreau), Civil Disobedience" (originally published as "Resistance to Civil Government"), an argument for disobedience to an unjust state. Thoreau's books, articles, essays, journals, and poetry amount to more than 20 volumes. Among his lasting contributions are his nature writing, writings on natural history and philosophy, in which he anticipated the methods and findings of ecology and environmental history, two sources of modern-day environmentalism. His literary language, literary style interweaves close observation of nature, personal experience, pointed rhetoric, symbolic meanings, and historical lore, while displaying a poetic sensibility, philosophical Asceticism, austerity, and attent ...
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Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803April 27, 1882), who went by his middle name Waldo, was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, abolitionist, and poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champion of individualism and a prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of society, and his ideology was disseminated through dozens of published essays and more than 1,500 public lectures across the United States. Emerson gradually moved away from the religious and social beliefs of his contemporaries, formulating and expressing the philosophy of transcendentalism in his 1836 essay "Nature". Following this work, he gave a speech entitled "The American Scholar" in 1837, which Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. considered to be America's "intellectual Declaration of Independence."Richardson, p. 263. Emerson wrote most of his important essays as lectures first and then revised them for print. His first two collections of essays, '' Essays: Firs ...
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Transcendentalism
Transcendentalism is a philosophical movement that developed in the late 1820s and 1830s in New England. "Transcendentalism is an American literary, political, and philosophical movement of the early nineteenth century, centered around Ralph Waldo Emerson." A core belief is in the inherent goodness of people and nature, and while society and its institutions have corrupted the purity of the individual, people are at their best when truly "self-reliant" and independent. Transcendentalists saw divine experience inherent in the everyday, rather than believing in a distant heaven. Transcendentalists saw physical and spiritual phenomena as part of dynamic processes rather than discrete entities. Transcendentalism is one of the first philosophical currents that emerged in the United States;Coviello, Peter. "Transcendentalism" ''The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Literature''. Oxford University Press, 2004. ''Oxford Reference Online''. Web. 23 Oct. 2011 it is therefore a key early point ...
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Unitarianism
Unitarianism (from Latin ''unitas'' "unity, oneness", from ''unus'' "one") is a nontrinitarian branch of Christian theology. Most other branches of Christianity and the major Churches accept the doctrine of the Trinity which states that there is one God who exists in three coequal, coeternal, consubstantial divine persons: God the Father, God the Son (Jesus in Christianity, Jesus Christ) and Holy Spirit in Christianity, God the Holy Spirit. Unitarian Christians believe that Jesus was Divine_inspiration, inspired by God in his moral teachings and that he is a Redeemer (Christianity), savior, but not God himself. Unitarianism was established in order to restore "History of Christianity#Early Christianity (c. 31/33–324), primitive Christianity before [what Unitarians saw as] later corruptions setting in"; Unitarians generally reject the doctrine of original sin. The churchmanship of Unitarianism may include liberal denominations or Unitarian Christian denominations that are mo ...
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Theology
Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the supernatural, but also deals with religious epistemology, asks and seeks to answer the question of revelation. Revelation pertains to the acceptance of God, gods, or deities, as not only transcendent or above the natural world, but also willing and able to interact with the natural world and, in particular, to reveal themselves to humankind. While theology has turned into a secular field , religious adherents still consider theology to be a discipline that helps them live and understand concepts such as life and love and that helps them lead lives of obedience to the deities they follow or worship. Theologians use various forms of analysis and argument ( experiential, philosophical, ethnographic, historical, and others) to help understa ...
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Ethics
Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concerns matters of value; these fields comprise the branch of philosophy called axiology. Ethics seeks to resolve questions of human morality by defining concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime. As a field of intellectual inquiry, moral philosophy is related to the fields of moral psychology, descriptive ethics, and value theory. Three major areas of study within ethics recognized today are: # Meta-ethics, concerning the theoretical meaning and reference of moral propositions, and how their truth values (if any) can be determined; # Normative ethics, concerning the practical means of determining a moral course of action; # Applied ethics, concerning what a person is obligated (or permitted) to do ...
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Logic
Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or of logical truths. It is a formal science investigating how conclusions follow from premises in a topic-neutral way. When used as a countable noun, the term "a logic" refers to a logical formal system that articulates a proof system. Formal logic contrasts with informal logic, which is associated with informal fallacies, critical thinking, and argumentation theory. While there is no general agreement on how formal and informal logic are to be distinguished, one prominent approach associates their difference with whether the studied arguments are expressed in formal or informal languages. Logic plays a central role in multiple fields, such as philosophy, mathematics, computer science, and linguistics. Logic studies arguments, which consist of a set of premises together with a conclusion. Premises and conclusions are usually un ...
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