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Peritrope
''Peritrope'' () is Socrates' argument against Protagoras' view of subjective truth, as presented in Plato's book known as '' Theaetetus'' (169–171e). This formed part of the former's eighth objection, the "table-turning" argument that maintained Protagoras' doctrine was self-refuting. ''Peritrope'' – as the basic objection – has also been used by Greek philosophical commentators as well as modern philosophers. Overview The term itself came from an ancient Greek word that means "a turning back on one" and likened to the image of a snake devouring its own tail. Socrates' peritrope described Protagoras' view as a theory that no longer requires criticism because it already devours itself. Sextus Empiricus is thought to have given the name in a comment on Protagoras' view in ''Against the Logicians'' written around 200 CE. The name has been in continuous use ever since, as Socrates' argument provides the foundation for classical propositional logic and hence much of traditional ...
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Self-refuting Idea
A self-refuting idea or self-defeating idea is an idea or statement whose falsehood is a logical consequence of the act or situation of holding them to be true. Many ideas are called self-refuting by their detractors, and such accusations are therefore almost always controversial, with defenders stating that the idea is being misunderstood or that the argument is invalid. For these reasons, none of the ideas below are unambiguously or incontrovertibly self-refuting. These ideas are often used as axioms, which are definitions taken to be true ( tautological assumptions), and cannot be used to test themselves, for doing so would lead to only two consequences: consistency (circular reasoning) or exception (self- contradiction). Variations Directly self-denying statements Directly self-denying statements are characterised by being necessarily (or inherently) false. The Epimenides paradox is a statement of the form "this statement is false". Such statements troubled philosophers, es ...
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Socrates
Socrates (; ; – 399 BC) was a Ancient Greek philosophy, Greek philosopher from Classical Athens, Athens who is credited as the founder of Western philosophy and as among the first moral philosophers of the Ethics, ethical tradition of thought. An enigmatic figure, Socrates authored no texts and is known mainly through the posthumous accounts of classical writers, particularly his students Plato and Xenophon. These accounts are written as dialogues, in which Socrates and his interlocutors examine a subject in the style of question and answer; they gave rise to the Socratic dialogue literary genre. Contradictory accounts of Socrates make a reconstruction of his philosophy nearly impossible, a situation known as the Socratic problem. Socrates was a polarizing figure in Athenian society. In 399 BC, he was accused of Asebeia, impiety and corrupting the youth. After Trial of Socrates, a trial that lasted a day, he was sentenced to death. He spent his last day in prison ...
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Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas ( ; ; – 7 March 1274) was an Italian Dominican Order, Dominican friar and Catholic priest, priest, the foremost Scholasticism, Scholastic thinker, as well as one of the most influential philosophers and theologians in the Western tradition. A Doctor of the Church, he was from the county of Aquino, Italy, Aquino in the Kingdom of Sicily. Thomas was a proponent of natural theology and the father of a school of thought (encompassing both theology and philosophy) known as Thomism. Central to his thought was the doctrine of natural law, which he argued was accessible to Reason, human reason and grounded in the very nature of human beings, providing a basis for understanding individual rights and Moral duty, moral duties. He argued that God is the source of the light of natural reason and the light of faith. He embraced several ideas put forward by Aristotle and attempted to synthesize Aristotelianism, Aristotelian philosophy with the principles of Christianity. A ...
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Skepticism
Skepticism ( US) or scepticism ( UK) 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. More informally, skepticism as an expression of questioning or doubt can be applied to any topic, such as politics, religion, or pseudoscience. It is often applied within restricted domains, such as morality (moral skepticism), atheism (skepticism about the existence of God), or the supernatural. Some theorists distinguish "good" or mode ...
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John Anderson (philosopher)
John Anderson (1 November 1893 – 6 July 1962) was a Scottish philosopher who occupied the post of Challis Professor of Philosophy at Sydney University from 1927 to 1958. He founded the empirical brand of philosophy known as Australian realism. Anderson's promotion of 'freethought' in all subjects, including politics and morality, was controversial and brought him into constant conflict with the august senate of the university. However, he is credited with educating a generation of influential 'Andersonian' thinkers and activists—some of whom helped to place Sydney in the forefront of the 'sexual revolution' of the 1950s and 1960s. To Anderson, an acceptable philosophy must have significant 'sweep' and be capable of challenging and moulding ideas in every aspect of intellect and society. Early life Anderson was born in Stonehouse, Lanarkshire, Scotland and educated at the former Hamilton Academy from which school he won a bursary to attend the University of Glasgow in th ...
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Edmund Husserl
Edmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl (; 8 April 1859 – 27 April 1938) was an Austrian-German philosopher and mathematician who established the school of Phenomenology (philosophy), phenomenology. In his early work, he elaborated critiques of historicism and of psychologism in logic based on analyses of intentionality. In his mature work, he sought to develop a systematic foundational science based on the so-called Bracketing (phenomenology), phenomenological reduction. Arguing that Transcendence (philosophy), transcendental consciousness sets the limits of all possible knowledge, Husserl redefined phenomenology as a Transcendental idealism, transcendental-idealist philosophy. Husserl's thought profoundly influenced 20th-century philosophy, and he remains a notable figure in contemporary philosophy and beyond. Husserl studied mathematics, taught by Karl Weierstrass and Leo Königsberger, and philosophy taught by Franz Brentano and Carl Stumpf. He taught philosophy as a ''Privatdozent' ...
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Myles Burnyeat
Myles Fredric Burnyeat (; 1 January 1939 – 20 September 2019) was an English scholar of ancient philosophy. Early life and education Myles Burnyeat was born on 1 January 1939 to Peter James Anthony Burnyeat and Cynthia Cherry Warburg. He received his secondary school education at Bryanston School. He completed his National Service (1957–1959) in the Royal Navy, during which time he qualified as a Russian interpreter. The training for this he completed at the Joint Services School for Linguists at Crail. From 1959 to 1963, Burnyeat undertook undergraduate studies in Classics and Philosophy at King's College, Cambridge, where he earned a double first. Subsequently, between 1963 and 1964, he was a graduate student at University College London. There he was a student under the supervision of Bernard Williams. Career He became an assistant lecturer in philosophy at University College London in 1964, and a lecturer in 1965. In 1978, he was appointed a lecturer in classics at ...
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Roger Scruton
Sir Roger Vernon Scruton, (; 27 February 194412 January 2020) was an English philosopher, writer, and social critic who specialised in aesthetics and political philosophy, particularly in the furtherance of Conservatism in the United Kingdom, conservative views. The founding-editor of ''The Salisbury Review'', a conservative political journal, Scruton wrote over Roger Scruton bibliography, 50 books on architecture, art, philosophy, politics, religion, among other topics. Scruton was also Chairman of the Premiership of Boris Johnson, Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission for the Government of the United Kingdom, United Kingdom's government, from 2019 to 2020. His views on classical architecture and beauty are still promoted via his foundation; while his political stances remain influential. His publications include ''The Meaning of Conservatism'' (1980), ''Sexual Desire'' (1986), ''The Aesthetics of Music'' (1997), and ''How to Be a Conservative'' (2014). He was a regula ...
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Avicenna
Ibn Sina ( – 22 June 1037), commonly known in the West as Avicenna ( ), was a preeminent philosopher and physician of the Muslim world, flourishing during the Islamic Golden Age, serving in the courts of various Iranian peoples, Iranian rulers. He is often described as the father of early modern medicine. His philosophy was of the Peripatetic school derived from Aristotelianism. His most famous works are ''The Book of Healing'', a philosophical and scientific encyclopedia, and ''The Canon of Medicine'', a medical encyclopedia which became a standard medical text at many medieval European University, universities and remained in use as late as 1650. Besides philosophy and medicine, Avicenna's corpus includes writings on Astronomy in medieval Islam, astronomy, Alchemy and chemistry in medieval Islam, alchemy, Geography and cartography in medieval Islam, geography and geology, Psychology in medieval Islam, psychology, Islamic theology, Logic in Islamic philosophy, logic, Mat ...
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Protagoras
Protagoras ( ; ; )Guthrie, p. 262–263. was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher and rhetorical theorist. He is numbered as one of the sophists by Plato. In his dialogue '' Protagoras'', Plato credits him with inventing the role of the professional sophist. Protagoras is also believed to have created a major controversy during ancient times through his statement that "Of all things the measure is Man, of the things that are, that they are, and of the things that are not, that they are not" which was usually rendered simply as "Man is the measure of all things," interpreted (possibly wrongly, since he disagreed) by Plato to mean that there is no objective truth; Protagoras seems to have meant that each person's own personal history, experiences and expectations, developed over their lifetime, determine their judgments, opinions, and statements regarding "truth" (which is the title of the book in which Protagoras made this statement). When a person makes a judgment about a certain thin ...
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Analytic Philosophy
Analytic philosophy is a broad movement within Western philosophy, especially English-speaking world, anglophone philosophy, focused on analysis as a philosophical method; clarity of prose; rigor in arguments; and making use of formal logic, mathematics, and to a lesser degree the natural sciences.Mautner, Thomas (editor) (2005) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy'', entry for "Analytic philosophy", pp. 22–23 It is further characterized by an interest in language, semantics and Meaning (philosophy), meaning, known as the linguistic turn. It has developed several new branches of philosophy and logic, notably philosophy of language, philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of science, modern predicate logic and mathematical logic. The proliferation of analysis in philosophy began around the turn of the 20th century and has been dominant since the latter half of the 20th century. Central figures in its historical development are Gottlob Frege, Bertrand Russell, G. E. Moore, and L ...
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Propositional Logic
The propositional calculus is a branch of logic. It is also called propositional logic, statement logic, sentential calculus, sentential logic, or sometimes zeroth-order logic. Sometimes, it is called ''first-order'' propositional logic to contrast it with System F, but it should not be confused with first-order logic. It deals with propositions (which can be true or false) and relations between propositions, including the construction of arguments based on them. Compound propositions are formed by connecting propositions by logical connectives representing the truth functions of conjunction, disjunction, implication, biconditional, and negation. Some sources include other connectives, as in the table below. Unlike first-order logic, propositional logic does not deal with non-logical objects, predicates about them, or quantifiers. However, all the machinery of propositional logic is included in first-order logic and higher-order logics. In this sense, propositional logi ...
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