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Phenomenalist
In metaphysics, phenomenalism is the view that physical objects cannot justifiably be said to exist as " things-in-themselves", but only as perceptual phenomena or sensory stimuli (e.g. redness, hardness, softness, sweetness, etc.) situated in time and in space. In particular, some forms of phenomenalism reduce all talk about physical objects in the external world to talk about ''bundles of sense data''. History Phenomenalism is a radical form of empiricism. Its roots as an ontological view of the nature of existence can be traced back to George Berkeley and his subjective idealism, upon which David Hume further elaborated. John Stuart Mill had a theory of perception which is commonly referred to as classical phenomenalism. This differs from Berkeley's idealism in its account of how objects continue to exist when no one is perceiving them. Berkeley claimed that an omniscient God perceived all objects and that this was what kept them in existence, whereas Mill claimed that perman ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Foster (philosopher)
John Foster (5 May 1941 – 1 January 2009), was a British philosopher and tutorial Fellow of Brasenose College, Oxford, from 1966 to 2005 (and then a Emeritus Fellow until his death in 2009). He authored several books, including ''The Case for Idealism'' (1982) and ''A World for Us: The Case for Phenomenalistic Idealism'' (2008). His ''A. J. Ayer'' (1985) was described by Anthony Quinton as "the only serious monograph" about Ayer's philosophy. Biography Foster was born in North London on 5 May 1941 and grew up in Southgate. He studied at Mercers' School, but had to transfer to the City of London School to do A-levels after Mercers' closure (about which he wrote a letter to ''The Times'' in protest). He started studying classics at Lincoln College, Oxford, but transferred to psychology, philosophy and physiology after discovering a distaste for studying ancient history. Foster stayed a further year at Lincoln, after obtaining a First in 1964, and began a D.Phil. The support of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Empiricism
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 (or customs) arise due to relations of previous sensory experiences. Historically, empiricism was associated with the " blank slate" concept (''tabula rasa''), according to which the human mind is "blank" at birth and develops its thoughts only through later experience. Empiricism in the philosophy of science emphasizes evidence, especi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Truthmaker Theory
Truthmaker theory is "the branch of metaphysics that explores the relationships between what is true and what exists". The basic intuition behind truthmaker theory is that truth depends on being. For example, a perceptual experience of a green tree may be said to be true because there actually is a green tree. But if there were no tree there, it would be false. So the experience by itself does not ensure its truth or falsehood, it depends on something else. Expressed more generally, truthmaker theory is the thesis that "the truth of truthbearers depends on the existence of truthmakers". A perceptual experience is the ''truthbearer'' in the example above. Various representational entities, like beliefs, thoughts or assertions can act as truthbearers. Truthmaker theorists are divided about what type of entity plays the role of ''truthmaker''; popular candidates include states of affairs and tropes. ''Truthmaker maximalism'' is the thesis that every truth has a truthmaker. An alterna ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ernst Mach
Ernst Waldfried Josef Wenzel Mach ( ; ; 18 February 1838 – 19 February 1916) was an Austrian physicist and philosopher, who contributed to the understanding of the physics of shock waves. The ratio of the speed of a flow or object to that of sound is named the Mach number in his honour. As a philosopher of science, he was a major influence on logical positivism and American pragmatism. Through his criticism of Isaac Newton's theories of space and time, he foreshadowed Albert Einstein's theory of relativity. Biography Early life Mach was born in Chrlice (), Moravia, Austrian Empire (now part of Brno in the Czech Republic). His father Jan Nepomuk Mach, who had graduated from Charles-Ferdinand University in Prague, acted as tutor to the noble Brethon family in Zlín in eastern Moravia. His grandfather, Wenzl Lanhaus, an administrator of the Chirlitz estate, was also master builder of the streets there. His activities in that field later influenced Ernst Mach's theoretical ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Johannes Nikolaus Tetens
Johannes Nikolaus Tetens (also Johann; ; 16 September 1736 – 17 August 1807) was a Germany, German-Denmark, Danish philosopher, statistician and scientist. He has been called the "German Locke," on the basis of a comparison of his major work ''Philosophische Versuche über die menschliche Natur und ihre Entwickelung'' (1777) with the work of John Locke. He is considered to have been an influence on Immanuel Kant. Biography Tetens was born 1736 in Tetenbüll, Tetenbüll/Tetenbøl in the Danish Duchy of Schleswig. He studied mathematics and physics at the University of Rostock and the University of Copenhagen. He acquired an MA in 1759 and his PhD in 1760. From 1760 to 1765, he taught philosophy and physics ("natural philosophy" at that time) at the (in Bützow, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania). During this decade, he wrote many treatises on various subjects, ranging from the color of the sky to the existence of God through the origins of languages (see e. g. references in Johann ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Logical Positivism
Logical positivism, also known as logical empiricism or neo-positivism, was a philosophical movement, in the empiricist tradition, that sought to formulate a scientific philosophy in which philosophical discourse would be, in the perception of its proponents, as authoritative and meaningful as empirical science. Logical positivism's central thesis was the verification principle, also known as the "verifiability criterion of meaning", according to which a statement is ''cognitively meaningful'' only if it can be verified through empirical observation or if it is a tautology (true by virtue of its own meaning or its own logical form). The verifiability criterion thus rejected statements of metaphysics, theology, ethics and aesthetics as ''cognitively meaningless'' in terms of truth value or factual content. Despite its ambition to overhaul philosophy by mimicking the structure and process of empirical science, logical positivism became erroneously stereotyped as an agenda t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Noumenon
In philosophy, a noumenon (, ; from ; : noumena) is knowledge posited as an Object (philosophy), object that exists independently of human sense. The term ''noumenon'' is generally used in contrast with, or in relation to, the term ''Phenomena (philosophy), phenomenon'', which refers to any Object (philosophy), object of the senses. Immanuel Kant first developed the notion of the noumenon as part of his transcendental idealism, suggesting that while we know the noumenal world to exist because human sensibility is merely receptive, it is not itself sensible and must therefore remain otherwise Epistemology, unknowable to us. In Kantianism, Kantian philosophy, the noumenon is often associated with the unknowable "thing-in-itself" (). However, the nature of the relationship between the two is not made explicit in Kant's work, and remains a subject of debate among Kant scholars as a result. Etymology The Ancient Greek, Greek word (plural ) is the Ancient Greek grammar#Participles, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roderick Firth
Roderick Firth (January 30, 1917 – December 22, 1987) was an American philosopher. He was Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University from 1953 until his death. Education Firth earned his Ph.D. in philosophy from Harvard in 1943. His thesis was entitled ''Sense-Data and the Principle of Reduction''. Career He taught at Brown University Brown University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. It is the List of colonial colleges, seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the US, founded in 1764 as the ' ... before joining the Harvard faculty in 1953. Firth is noted for his defense of the ideal observer theory in ethics and for his exploration of radical empiricism. Firth also defended a form of semantic holism which he referred to as a "coherence theory of concepts" distinct from both the coherence theory of truth and coherence theory of justification. Firth debated his views on the nature of con ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Logical Consequence
Logical consequence (also entailment or logical implication) is a fundamental concept in logic which describes the relationship between statement (logic), statements that hold true when one statement logically ''follows from'' one or more statements. A Validity (logic), valid logical argument is one in which the Consequent, conclusion is entailed by the premises, because the conclusion is the consequence of the premises. The philosophical analysis of logical consequence involves the questions: In what sense does a conclusion follow from its premises? and What does it mean for a conclusion to be a consequence of premises?Beall, JC and Restall, Greg, Logical Consequence' The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2009 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.). All of philosophical logic is meant to provide accounts of the nature of logical consequence and the nature of logical truth. Logical consequence is logical truth, necessary and Formalism (philosophy of mathematics), formal, by wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sensualism
In epistemology, sensualism is a doctrine whereby sensations and perception are the basic and most important form of true cognition. It may oppose abstract ideas. This ideogenetic question was long ago put forward in Greek philosophy (Stoicism, Epicureanism) and further developed to the full by the British Sensualists (John Locke, David Hume) and the British Associationists ( Thomas Brown, David Hartley, Joseph Priestley). In the 19th century, it was very much taken up by the Positivists (Auguste Comte, Herbert Spencer, Hippolyte Taine, Émile Littré) See also * Empiricism * Positivism * Solipsism * Spiritualism Spiritualism may refer to: * Spiritual church movement, a group of Spiritualist churches and denominations historically based in the African-American community * Spiritualism (beliefs), a metaphysical belief that the world is made up of at leas ... Footnotes Epistemological theories Empiricism {{epistemology-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Empirical Evidence
Empirical evidence is evidence obtained through sense experience or experimental procedure. It is of central importance to the sciences and plays a role in various other fields, like epistemology and law. There is no general agreement on how the terms ''evidence'' and ''empirical'' are to be defined. Often different fields work with quite different conceptions. In epistemology, evidence is what Justification (epistemology), justifies beliefs or what determines whether holding a certain belief is rational. This is only possible if the evidence is possessed by the person, which has prompted various epistemologists to conceive evidence as private mental states like experiences or other beliefs. In philosophy of science, on the other hand, evidence is understood as that which ''Scientific method#Confirmation, confirms'' or ''disconfirms'' Hypothesis#Scientific hypothesis, scientific hypotheses and arbitrates between competing theories. For this role, evidence must be public and uncont ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arthur Danto
Arthur Coleman Danto (January 1, 1924 – October 25, 2013) was an American art critic, philosopher, and professor at Columbia University. He was best known for having been a long-time art critic for ''The Nation'' and for his work in philosophical aesthetics and philosophy of history, though he contributed significantly to a number of fields, including the philosophy of action. His interests included thought, feeling, philosophy of art, theories of representation, philosophical psychology, Hegel's aesthetics, and the philosophers Friedrich Nietzsche and Jean-Paul Sartre. Life and career Danto was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, January 1, 1924, and grew up in Detroit. He was raised in a Reform Jewish home. After spending two years in the Army, Danto studied art and history at Wayne University (now Wayne State University). While an undergraduate he intended to become an artist, and began making prints in the Expressionist style in 1947 (these are now great rarities). He then pu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
