the shorter routledge encyclopedia of...

AdministratorFile Attachment2000c419coverv05b.jpg

the shorter

routledge

encyclopedia of

philosophy

the shorter

routledge

encyclopedia of

philosophy

edited by

edward craig

First published 2005by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canadaby Routledge

270 Madison Ave., New York, NY 10016

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group

# 2005 Routledge

Introduction # Edward Craig 2005

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproducedor utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means,now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording,or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in

writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication DataA catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication DataA catalogue record for this book has been requested

ISBN 0–415–32495–5

T&F informa

Taylor & Francis Group is the Academic Division of T&F Informa plc.

&&&

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.

“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’scollection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”

ISBN 0-203-08671-6 Master e-book ISBN

(Print Edition)

Contents

Introduction

vii

List of entries and contributors

ix

Entries A–Z

1–1077

Introduction

The Shorter REP has emerged out of our experiencewith Concise REP, the first one-volume distillation ofthe original ten-volume Routledge Encyclopedia ofPhilosophy published in 1998. Concise REP, appearingin 2000, was composed of the initial, introductory orsummary sections of each of the 2,054 entriescontained in the parent work, which it thereforematched everywhere for breadth, but hardly any-where for depth. By virtue of its sheer range ConciseREP fulfilled a need, but we have heard from usersand reviewers who would evidently have preferredmore depth – and would have been willing, we mustpresume, to sacrifice some breadth to get it. Thinkingabout this valuable feedback quickly led to a differentconception of a single-volume reduction of theencyclopedia, that now embodied in The ShorterREP. By excising much of the more reconditematerial we have made it possible for a considerablenumber of entries on the more central and sought-after topics to be included in their entirety, eventhough in some cases that meant as much as 15,000words or more.

The Shorter REP accordingly contains just 957entries, but of these 119 are republished here in theirfull original length, and marked out by bold type-face in the headwords at the top of the page. Thereader will find substantial essays on all the majorfigures of the Western philosophical tradition, like-wise on all major topics and those we judged to be ofmost help to a student readership. Further, we havereprinted in full all the ‘Signpost’ entries, in whichmembers of the original team of specialist subjecteditors surveyed in brief, usually in about 2,000words, their specialist field. There are twenty-four ofthese, instantly recognisable from their light-greybackground; taken together they offer the reader ahighly informative outline sketch of pretty much thewhole of philosophy, Latin American, African,Jewish, Arabic, Russian, Indian and East-Asianthought all included. The Shorter REP is unashamedly‘Western’ in its emphasis, being designed to suit theneeds of undergraduate philosophy students and thecourses they are most likely to encounter. But so faras the stringencies of a single volume allow it retains

the spirit of inclusivity and comprehensiveness thatwas such a feature of its ten-volume ancestor.Nowhere is the ‘Signpost’ the only entry allotted toits area – in every case there are at least two others.

The inclusion of so many complete entries hashad another welcome effect, that of allowing us to doa little more justice to at least some of theencyclopedia’s most eminent authors: RichardRorty, Bernard Williams, Dagfinn Føllesdal, TimScanlon, Philip Kitcher, Timothy Williamson,Onora O’Neill, Gary Gutting, Anthony Appiah,Frank Jackson, Michael Friedman, Dan Garber,Malcolm Budd, Terry Irwin and the list runs on,though I have to stop, apologetically, somewhere.Entries by all these and many others appear in theiroriginal shape, unabridged.

The Shorter REP is not just a selective rearrange-ment of the old material. Admittedly hardly anythinghas been rewritten specifically for The Shorter REP,just two very short entries in fact, but it neverthelesscontains a good deal that is new when comparedwith the original 1998 publication. Any slightsuggestion of paradox is easily dispelled: sinceOctober 2000 the Routledge Encyclopedia has beenavailable on the Internet as REP Online, in whichform it has seen additions (at present towards 100new entries) and a number (now approaching thirty)of updates and revisions, concentrating on entriesnear the top of our list of user-statistics. Some of therevised entries embody only minor changes, perhapsthe mention of a recent book or article, others differmuch more from their first versions, as for instanceWittgenstein (by Jane Heal), which as well as varioussmaller adjustments now has a whole new section onrecent interpretative controversy about Wittgen-stein’s Tractatus. In one absolutely central case, ofobvious prime interest to students, we have acompletely rewritten replacement entry: this is DavidHume, by Don Garrett. All this new material for REPOnline was available to us as we made our selectionsfor The Shorter REP, and a good deal of it is now tobe found here. Some further examples of revisionsnow in full in The Shorter REP as well as REP Onlineare Plato (Malcolm Schofield), Socrates (John

vi i

Cooper), Stoicism and Epicureanism (both DavidSedley), Hobbes (Tom Sorrell), Justice (Brian Barryand Matt Matravers), Kant (Paul Guyer), Foucault(Gary Gutting), Heidegger (Thomas Sheehan), Quine(Alex Orenstein), Feminism (Susan James), Existenti-alism (Charles Guignon), Infinity (Adrian Moore),and Democracy (Ross Harrison). In addition, as manyas nineteen of the new entries, hitherto available onlyon the Internet in REP Online, are to be found herein their shorter form: Innateness in ancient philosophy;Prolēpsis; Technē; Telos; Magic; More, Thomas; Eclecti-cism; Fourier, Charles; de Maistre, Joseph; Novalis; Apel,Karl-Otto; Cloning; Normativity; Globalization; Sus-tainability; Beccaria; Causation in the law; Justice,corrective; and Simulation theory. Besides this, twonew entries are printed here in full. One is Painting,aesthetics of (Robert Hopkins); the other is a new‘Signpost’ entry: Nineteenth-century philosophy byRobert Stern. I hope that as General Editor I maybe allowed to attach, to the second of these inparticular, my personal recommendation. The nine-teenth century seems to me too little studied andunderstood in English-speaking philosophical circles.Too few of us could give a coherent sketch of itscurrents and tensions, its emergence from theeighteenth century and its legacy to the twentieth.Stern can, so this new Signpost entry, together withour substantial coverage of nineteenth centuryphilosophers, will help – if readers want it to.

In a work of this kind bibliographical informationcan be very costly in terms of space and has to bekept to a minimum. Nevertheless, our treatment ofthe bibliographies, or ‘Further reading’, also allowsscope for revision or updating. We invited theauthors of the 119 main entries (i.e. those whichappear in full) to provide titles and authors of just two

or three works likely to be helpful to the reader, notof course necessarily drawn from their originallisting. Any especially suitable works published sincethe middle of 1997 – when the ten volume REPfinally had to raise its drawbridge against any furthertext – thus had at least the chance to be consideredfor inclusion. The response was superb – we aredelighted to be able to include over 80 revisedFurther reading sections.

So much for inclusion; what of the less happymatter of exclusion? Such an enterprise is bound toleave some regrets on this score in the minds of theeditorial team, some disappointment amongstauthors and some unfulfilled expectations amongstreaders. One volume, if it is to have a readable print-size and paper thick enough not to be transparent,can be crammed so full and no fuller. Complete REPentries are on average nine times as long as their shortversions, so every one had to be felt to justify itsstatus. The thought that by printing one of thebiggest entries in full we were committing spacesufficient for perhaps thirty or forty short onesfocussed the mind; the regrettable fact that, forexample, Schopenhauer, and Peirce appear only in theirshortened forms has a lot to do with that considera-tion. But the thinking behind such decisions oftenhad a positive aspect as well. Entries were incompetition for space not just with other topics,but also with their own shorter versions; and wherethis was especially well written and rich in informa-tion it on several occasions prevailed, even when thesubject, in itself, might well have suggested full-length treatment. Leaving nine-tenths of an author’swork out does seem a backhanded way of showinggratitude, but grateful we are, and we hope thatfuture readers have cause to be so too.

vi i i

INTRODUCTION

List of entries and contributors

Below is a complete list of entries and contributors in the order in which they appear in The Shorter RoutledgeEncyclopedia of Philosophy.

A posterioriPaul K. Moser

A prioriPaul K. Moser

Abelard, PeterMartin M. Tweedale

Absolute, theT.L.S. Sprigge

AbsolutismAnthony Pagden

Abstract objectsBob Hale

ActionJennifer Hornsby

Adorno, Theodor WiesengrundJ.M. Bernstein

Aesthetic attitudeMalcolm Budd

Aesthetic conceptsMarcia Eaton

AestheticsMalcolm Budd

Aesthetics and ethicsMichael Tanner

Affirmative actionBernard Boxill

African philosophyK. Anthony Appiah

African philosophy, AnglophoneKwasi Wiredu

African philosophy, FrancophoneF. Abiola Irele

AgnosticismWilliam L. Rowe

Agrippa von Nettesheim,Henricus CorneliusMichael H. Keefer

AkrasiaHelen Steward

Albert the GreatAlain De Libera

AlchemyMichela Pereira

AlienationAllen W. Wood

Alighieri, DanteDominik Perler

Alterity and identity, postmodern theories ofPeter Fenves

Althusser, Louis PierreAlex Callinicos

AmbiguityKent Bach

Analysis, philosophical issues inI. Grattan-Guinness

Analytical philosophyThomas Baldwin

AnalyticityGeorge Bealer

AnaphoraNicholas Asher

AnarchismGeorge Crowder

AnaximanderRichard McKirahan

AnaximenesRichard McKirahan

Ancient philosophyDavid Sedley

Animal language and thoughtDale Jamieson

Animals and ethicsJames Rachels

Anomalous monismBrian P. McLaughlin

Anscombe, Gertrude Elizabeth MargaretMichael Thompson

Anselm of CanterburyJasper Hopkins

ix

Anthropology, philosophy ofMerrilee H. Salmon

Anti-SemitismOliver LeamanClive Nyman

Apel, Karl-OttoMatthias Kettner

Applied ethicsBrenda Almond

Aquinas, ThomasNorman KretzmannEleonore Stump

ArchēRichard McKirahan

Architecture, aesthetics ofJohn J. Haldane

Arendt, HannahB. Parekh

AretēDavid Sedley

AristotleT.H. Irwin

Arithmetic, philosophical issues inMichael Potter

Arnauld, AntoineSteven Nadler

Art, abstractJohn H. Brown

Art and moralityMichael Tanner

Art and truthPaul Taylor

Art criticismColin Lyas

Art, definition ofStephen Davies

Art, understanding ofColin Lyas

Art, value ofMalcolm Budd

Art works, ontology ofGregory Currie

Artificial intelligenceMargaret A. Boden

Artistic expressionStephen Davies

Artist’s intentionPaul Taylor

AsceticismPhilip L. Quinn

AtheismWilliam L. Rowe

Atomism, ancientDavid Sedley

AugustineGareth B. Matthews

Austin, JohnRobert N. Moles

Austin, John LangshawJ.O. Urmson

AuthorityLeslie Green

Autonomy, ethicalAndrews Reath

Ayer, Alfred JulesGraham Macdonald

Bachelard, GastonMary Tiles

Bacon, FrancisJ.R. Milton

Bacon, RogerGeorgette Sinkler

Bakhtin, Mikhail MikhailovichGary Saul Morson

Bakunin, Mikhail AleksandrovichAileen Kelly

Barthes, RolandJames Risser

Baumgarten, Alexander GottliebDabney Townsend

Bayle, PierreCharles Larmore

Beattie, JamesPaul Wood

BeautyJohn H. Brown

Beauvoir, Simone deEva Lundgren-Gothlin

Beccaria, Cesare BonesanaRichard Bellamy

Behaviourism, analyticDavid Braddon-Mitchell

Behaviourism, methodological andscientificC.R. Gallistel

BeingMark Okrent

BeliefDavid Braddon-MitchellFrank Jackson

Belinskii, Vissarion GrigorievichVictor Terras

Bell’s theoremArthur Fine

Benjamin, WalterJulian Roberts

Bentham, JeremyRoss Harrison

Berdiaev, Nikolai AleksandrovichJames P. Scanlan

Bergson, Henri-LouisA.R. Lacey

LIST OF ENTRIES AND CONTRIBUTORS

x

Berkeley, GeorgeIan Tipton

Berlin, IsaiahBernard Williams

BioethicsR.G. Frey

Blackstone, WilliamN.E. Simmonds

Bloch, Ernst SimonVincent Geoghegan

Bobbio, NorbertoPatrizia Borsellino

Bodin, JeanJulian H. Franklin

Boehme, JakobJean-Loup Seban

Boethius, Anicius Manlius SeverinusHenry Chadwick

Bohr, NielsMara Beller

Bolzano, BernardWolfgang Künne

BonaventureBonnie Kent

Boolean algebraJ.L. Bell

Bosanquet, BernardPeter P. Nicholson

Boyle, RobertRose-Mary Sargent

Bradley, Francis HerbertStewart Candlish

BrahmanStephen H. Phillips

Brentano, Franz ClemensRoderick M. ChisholmPeter Simons

Bruno, GiordanoE.J. Ashworth

Buber, MartinTamra Wright

Buddhist philosophy, ChineseDan Lusthaus

Buddhist philosophy, IndianRichard P. Hayes

Buddhist philosophy, JapaneseJohn C. Maraldo

Buddhist philosophy, KoreanSungtaek Cho

Buridan, JohnJack Zupko

Burke, EdmundIain Hampsher-Monk

Business ethicsTom Sorell

Butler, JosephR.G. Frey

Calvin, JohnRonald J. Feenstra

Cambridge PlatonismFrederick Beiser

Campanella, TommasoJohn M. Headley

Campbell, Norman RobertD.H. Mellor

Camus, AlbertDavid A. Sprintzen

Cantor, GeorgUlrich Majer

Cantor’s theoremMary Tiles

Carnap, RudolfRichard Creath

CarneadesJonathan Barnes

Cassirer, ErnstDonald Phillip Verene

CategoriesRobert Wardy

CausationNancy Cartwright

Causation in the lawRichard W. Wright

Causation, Indian theories ofRoy W. Perrett

Cavell, StanleyStephen Mulhall

Cavendish, Margaret LucasEileen O’Neill

ChangeRobin Le Poidevin

Chaos theoryStephen H. Kellert

Charity, principle ofRichard Feldman

Chinese philosophyDavid L. HallRoger T. Ames

Chinese room argumentRobert Van Gulick

Chisholm, Roderick MiltonDavid Benfield

Chomsky, NoamNorbert Hornstein

Christine de PizanCharity Cannon Willard

Church’s theorem and the decision problemRohit Parikh

Church’s thesisStewart Shapiro

Cicero, Marcus TulliusStephen A. White

CitizenshipWill Kymlicka


xi

Civil disobedienceKent Greenawalt

Clarke, SamuelStephen Gaukroger

CloningJohn HarrisSimona Giordano

CoercionJoel Feinberg

Cohen, HermannMichael Zank

Collingwood, Robin GeorgeSimon Blackburn

Colour and qualiaJoseph Levine

Colour, theories ofDavid R. Hilbert

ComedyJohn Morreall

Common Sense SchoolEdward H. Madden

CommonsensismRoderick M. Chisholm

Communication and intentionSimon Blackburn

Communicative rationalityPeter Dews

CommunismLyman Tower Sargent

Community and communitarianismAllen Buchanan

CompositionalityMark Richard

Computability theoryDaniele MundiciWilfried Sieg

Computer scienceJohn Winnie

Comte, Isidore-Auguste-Marie-François-XavierAngèle Kremer-Marietti

ConceptsGeorges Rey

Condillac, Etienne Bonnot dePaul F. Johnson

Condorcet, Marie-Jean-Antoine-NicolasCaritat deDavid Williams

Confirmation theoryTheo A.F. Kuipers

Confucian philosophy, ChineseA.S. Cua

ConfuciusD.C. LauRoger T. Ames

ConnectionismBrian P. McLaughlin

ConsciousnessEric Lormand

ConsentA. John Simmons

ConsequentialismDavid McNaughton

ConservatismAnthony O’Hear

ConstitutionalismUlrich K. Preuß

ConstructivismStephen M. Downes

Content, non-conceptualTim Crane

Content: wide and narrowKent Bach

Contextualism, epistemologicalBruce W. Brower

ContinuantsRobin Le Poidevin

Continuum hypothesisMary Tiles

ContractarianismSamuel Freeman

ConventionalismPaul Horwich

Conway, AnneSarah Hutton

Copernicus, NicolausErnan McMullin

CosmologyErnan McMullin

Counterfactual conditionalsFrank Döring

Cousin, VictorDavid Leopold

Crime and punishmentR.A. Duff

CriteriaMarie Mcginn

Critical realismAndrew Collier

Critical theoryRaymond Geuss

Croce, BenedettoRichard Bellamy

Crucial experimentsPeter Achinstein

Cudworth, RalphSarah Hutton

CultureAnthony O’Hear

Daoist philosophyDavid L. HallRoger T. Ames


xi i

Darwin, Charles RobertPeter J. Bowler

Davidson, DonaldErnie Lepore

De re/de dictoAndré Gallois

DeathFred Feldman

Decision and game theoryCristina Bicchieri

DeconstructionChristopher Norris

Dedekind, Julius Wilhelm RichardHoward Stein

Deductive closure principleAnthony Brueckner

DefinitionG. Aldo Antonelli

DeismWilliam L. Rowe

Deleuze, GillesDorothea E. Olkowski

Demarcation problemPeter Achinstein

DemocracyRoss Harrison

DemocritusC.C.W. Taylor

Demonstratives and indexicalsHarry Deutsch

Dennett, Daniel ClementWilliam G. Lycan

Deontic logicMarvin Belzer

Deontological ethicsDavid McNaughton

DepictionR.D. Hopkins

Derrida, JacquesAndrew Cutrofello

Descartes, RenéDaniel Garber

DescriptionsStephen Neale

DesirePhilip Pettit

Determinism and indeterminismJeremy Butterfield

Dewey, JohnJames Gouinlock

Dialectical materialismAllen W. Wood

Diderot, DenisRobert Wokler

Dilthey, WilhelmRudolf A. Makkreel

Diogenes LaertiusDavid T. Runia

Diogenes of SinopeR. Bracht Branham

Discovery, logic ofThomas Nickles

DiscriminationJames W. Nickel

Dodgson, Charles Lutwidge (Lewis Carroll)Peter Heath

DōgenThomas P. Kasulis

Dostoevskii, Fëdor MikhailovichGary Saul Morson

Double effect, principle ofSuzanne Uniacke

DoubtMichael Williams

DreamingRoberto Casati

DualismDavid M. Rosenthal

Duhem, Pierre Maurice MarieDon Howard

Dummett, Michael Anthony EardleyBarry Taylor

Duns Scotus, JohnStephen D. Dumont

Duty and virtue, Indian conceptions ofJohn A. Taber

Dworkin, RonaldEmilios A. Christodoulidis

East Asian philosophyRoger T. Ames

EclecticismChris McClellan

Ecological philosophyFreya Mathews

Economics and ethicsDaniel HausmanMichael S. McPherson

Education, philosophy ofRandall R. Curren

Edwards, JonathanWilliam J. Wainwright

Egoism and altruismRichard Kraut

Einstein, AlbertArthur FineDon HowardJohn D. Norton

EliminativismGeorges Rey

Emerson, Ralph WaldoRussell B. Goodman


xi i i

Emotion in response to artJerrold Levinson

Emotions, nature ofRobert C. Solomon

Emotions, philosophy ofRobert C. Solomon

Emotive meaningDavid Phillips

EmotivismMichael Smith

EmpedoclesMalcolm Schofield

EmpiricismWilliam P. Alston

Engels, FriedrichTerrell Carver

Enlightenment, ContinentalRobert Wokler

Enlightenment, ScottishChristopher J. Berry

Environmental ethicsAndrew Brennan

EpicureanismDavid Sedley

EpiphenomenalismKeith CampbellNicholas J.J. Smith

EpistemologyPeter D. Klein

Epistemology and ethicsRichard Feldman

Epistemology, history ofGeorge S. Pappas

Epistemology, Indian schools ofStephen H. Phillips

EqualityAlbert Weale

Erasmus, DesideriusErika Rummel

Eriugena, Johannes ScottusDermot Moran

EssentialismStephen Yablo

EternityEleonore StumpNorman Kretzmann

EthicsRoger Crisp

EudaimoniaC.C.W. Taylor

EventsD.H. Mellor

Evil, problem ofMarilyn McCord Adams

Evolution and ethicsElliott Sober

Evolution, theory ofElisabeth A. Lloyd

ExistencePenelope Mackie

ExistentialismCharles B. Guignon

ExperimentMargaret C. Morrison

ExplanationPhilip Kitcher

Explanation in history and social scienceDavid-Hillel Ruben

FactsAlex Oliver

Fact/value distinctionRoger Crisp

FaithNicholas P. Wolterstorff

FallibilismNicholas Rescher

Family, ethics and theWilliam Ruddick

al-Farabi, Abu NasrIan Richard Netton

FascismRoger Eatwell

FatalismEdward Craig

Fechner, Gustav TheodorDaniel N. Robinson

Federalism and confederalismWayne Norman

FeminismSusan James

Feminist epistemologyLorraine Code

Feminist political philosophySusan Mendus

Feuerbach, Ludwig AndreasHans-Martin Sass

Feyerabend, Paul KarlMichael Williams

Fichte, Johann GottliebDaniel Breazeale

Ficino, MarsilioJames Hankins

Fictional entitiesPeter Lamarque

Film, aesthetics ofGregory Currie

Filmer, Sir RobertJohann P. Sommerville

Fodor, Jerry AlanPeter Godfrey-Smith


xiv

Folk psychologyStephen P. StichGeorges Rey

Formalism in artMalcolm Budd

Forms, PlatonicTad Brennan

Foucault, MichelGary Gutting

FoundationalismErnest Sosa

Fourier, CharlesDavid Leopold

Frankfurt SchoolAxel Honneth

Free logicsErmanno Bencivenga

Free willGalen Strawson

Freedom and libertyJoel Feinberg

Freedom, divineWilliam L. Rowe

Freedom of speechPeter Jones

Frege, GottlobAlexander GeorgeRichard Heck

Freud, SigmundJames Hopkins

FriendshipNeera K. Badhwar

Functional explanationRichard N. Manning

FunctionalismDavid Papineau

Future generations, obligations toAvner De-Shalit

Fuzzy logicCharles G. Morgan

Gadamer, Hans-GeorgKathleen Wright

Galilei, GalileoErnan McMullin

Gassendi, PierreMargaret J. Osler

GenealogyR. Kevin Hill

General willPeter P. Nicholson

Genetic modificationMark TesterEdward Craig

GeneticsLindley Darden

Genetics and ethicsRuth Chadwick

Gentile, GiovanniRichard Bellamy

German idealismPaul Franks

Gestalt psychologyBarry Smith

Gettier problemEdward Craig

al-Ghazali, Abu HamidKojiro Nakamura

GlobalizationJan Aart Scholte

GnosticismChristopher Stead

God, arguments for the existence ofAlvin Plantinga

God, concepts ofBrian Leftow

Gödel’s theoremsMichael Detlefsen

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang vonNicholas Boyle

Good, theories of theChristine M. Korsgaard

GorgiasCharles H. Kahn

Green political philosophyTerence Ball

Green, Thomas HillRichard Bellamy

Grice, Herbert PaulJudith Baker

Grosseteste, RobertScott MacDonald

Grotius, HugoJ.D. Ford

Gurney, EdmundJerrold Levinson

Habermas, JürgenKenneth Baynes

Haeckel, Ernst HeinrichPaul Weindling

HalakhahNoam J. Zohar

Hanslick, EduardPeter Kivy

HappinessJ.P. Griffin

Hart, Herbert Lionel AdolphusNeil MacCormick

HasidismRachel Elior

HeavenLinda Zagzebski


xv

HedonismJustin Gosling

Hegel, Georg Wilhelm FriedrichRolf-Peter Horstmann

HegelianismRobert SternNicholas Walker

Heidegger, MartinThomas Sheehan

HellMarilyn McCord Adams

Helmont, Franciscus Mercurius vanStuart Brown

HeraclitusA.A. Long

Herder, Johann GottfriedFrederick Beiser

HermeneuticsMichael Inwood

HermetismJohn Procopé

Herzen, Aleksandr IvanovichAileen Kelly

Hilbert’s programme and formalismMichael Detlefsen

Hildegard of BingenClaudia Eisen Murphy

Hindu philosophyEdeltraud Harzer Clear

HistoricismChristopher Thornhill

History, philosophy ofGordon Graham

Hobbes, ThomasTom Sorell

Hohfeld, Wesley NewcombNeil MacCormick

Holism and individualism in history andsocial scienceRajeev Bhargava

Holism: mental and semanticNed Block

Holocaust, theSteven T. Katz

Hooker, RichardA.S. McGrade

Human natureIan Shapiro

Humanism, RenaissanceJohn Monfasani

Humboldt, Wilhelm vonFrederick Beiser

Hume, DavidDon Garrett

HumourJerrold Levinson

Hus, JanCurtis V. Bostick

Husserl, EdmundDagfinn Føllesdal

Hutcheson, FrancisDavid Fate Norton

HypatiaLucas Siorvanes

Ibn Rushd, Abu’l Walid MuhammadOliver Leaman

Ibn Sina, Abu ‘Ali al-HusaynSalim Kemal

IdealismT.L.S. Sprigge

IdealizationsRonald Laymon

IdealsConnie S. Rosati

IdentityTimothy Williamson

Identity of indiscerniblesPeter Simons

IdeologyMichael Freeden

ImaginationJ. O’Leary-Hawthorne

ImpartialityJohn Cottingham

ImplicatureWayne A. Davis

IncommensurabilityDudley Shapere

Indian and Tibetan philosophyRichard P. Hayes

Indicative conditionalsFrank Jackson

Indirect discourseGabriel Segal

Induction, epistemic issues inMark Kaplan

Inductive inferencePatrick Maher

Inference to the best explanationJonathan Vogel

Infinitary logicsBernd Buldt

InfinityA.W. Moore

Information theoryKenneth M. Sayre

Ingarden, Roman WitoldAntoni B. Stępień

InnatenessEdward Craig

Innateness in ancient philosophyDominic Scott


xvi

Intensional entitiesGeorge Bealer

Intensional logicsJames W. Garson

IntensionalitySimon Christmas

IntentionRobert Dunn

IntentionalityTim Crane

Internalism and externalism inepistemologyWilliam P. Alston

International relations, philosophy ofCharles R. Beitz

IntuitionismDavid Charles McCarty

Intuitionism in ethicsRobert L. Frazier

Intuitionistic logic and antirealismPeter Pagin

Irigaray, LuceTina Chanter

Islamic philosophyOliver Leaman

Jaina philosophyJayandra Soni

James, WilliamRuth Anna Putnam

Japanese philosophyThomas P. Kasulis

Jaspers, KarlKurt Salamun

Jewish philosophyL.E. Goodman

John of St ThomasJohn P. Doyle

Johnson, SamuelCharles J. McCracken

Journalism, ethics ofAndrew Belsey

Jung, Carl GustavGeorge B. Hogenson

JusticeBrian BarryMatt Matravers

Justice, correctiveErnest J. Weinrib

Justification, epistemicRichard Foley

KabbalahOliver Leaman

Kant, ImmanuelPaul Guyer

Kantian ethicsOnora O’Neill

KatharsisGlenn W. Most

Kelsen, HansZenon Bańkowski

Kepler, JohannesErnan McMullin

Kierkegaard, Søren AabyePatrick Gardiner

Knowledge and justification, coherencetheory ofLaurence Bonjour

Knowledge, concept ofPeter D. Klein

Knowledge, tacitC.F. Delaney

Kotarbiński, TadeuszB. Stanosz

Kripke, Saul AaronMichael Jubien

Kristeva, JuliaTina Chanter

Kuhn, Thomas SamuelPaul Hoyningen-Huene

KūkaiThomas P. Kasulis

La Mettrie, Julien Offroy deKathleen Wellman

Labriola, AntonioGeoffrey Hunt

Lacan, JacquesThomas Brockelman

Lakatos, ImreJohn Worrall

Lange, Friedrich AlbertGeorge J. Stack

Langer, Susanne Katherina KnauthPeg Brand

Language, innateness ofFiona Cowie

Language of thoughtGeorges Rey

Language, philosophy ofMark Crimmins

Latin America, philosophy inAmy A. Oliver

Law and moralityN.E. Simmonds

Law, philosophy ofBeverley BrownNeil MacCormick

Laws, naturalC.A. Hooker

LebensphilosophieJason Gaiger


xvi i

Legal positivismMario Jori

Legal realismNeil Duxbury

LegitimacyDavid Beetham

Leibniz, Gottfried WilhelmDaniel Garber

Lessing, Gotthold EphraimDabney Townsend

LeucippusC.C.W. Taylor

Levinas, EmmanuelRobert Bernasconi

Lewis, Clarence IrvingSandra B. Rosenthal

Lewis, David KelloggPeter Van Inwagen

Liber de causisHannes Jarka-Sellers

LiberalismJeremy Waldron

Liberation philosophyHoracio Cerutti-Guldberg

LibertarianismJonathan Wolff

Life and deathJohn Harris

Life, meaning ofSusan Wolf

Life, origin ofLenny Moss

LimboLinda Zagzebski

Llull, RamonMark D. Johnston

Locke, JohnMichael Ayers

Logic, philosophy ofGraeme Forbes

Logical atomismAlex Oliver

Logical constantsTimothy McCarthy

Logical positivismMichael Friedman

LogicismHoward Stein

LogosChristopher Stead

Lombard, PeterMarcia L. Colish

Lotze, Rudolph HermannDavid Sullivan

LoveMartha C. Nussbaum

Löwenheim–Skolem theorems andnonstandard modelsW.D. Hart

LucretiusMichael Erler

Lukács, GeorgAlex Callinicos

Łukasiewicz, JanJan Woleński

Luther, MartinM.A. Higton

Lyotard, Jean-FrançoisDavid Carroll

Mach, ErnstAndy Hamilton

Machiavelli, NiccolòMary G. Dietz

MacIntyre, AlasdairAlan Thomas

McTaggart, John McTaggart EllisThomas Baldwin

MagicLauren Kassell

Maimonides, MosesL.E. Goodman

Maistre, Joseph deRichard A. Lebrun

Malebranche, NicolasSteven Nadler

Mandeville, BernardM.M. Goldsmith

ManicheismChristopher Kirwan

Many-valued logicsCharles G. Morgan

Many-valued logics, philosophical issues inLloyd Humberstone

Marcuse, HerbertAlex Callinicos

MarginalityAmy A. Oliver

Market, ethics of theDavid Miller

Marx, KarlMichael Rosen

Marxism, WesternJohn Torrance

Marxist philosophy, Russian and SovietDavid Bakhurst

Mass termsJeffry Pelletier

MaterialismGeorge J. Stack

Materialism in the philosophy of mindHoward Robinson


xvi i i

Materialism, Indian school ofEli FrancoKarin Preisendanz

Mathematics, foundations ofMichael Detlefsen

MatterDudley Shapere

Maxwell, James ClerkC.W.F. Everitt

Mead, George HerbertHans Joas

Meaning and rule-followingBarry C. Smith

Meaning and truthStephen G. Williams

Meaning and verificationW.D. Hart

Measurement, theory ofPatrick Suppes

Medical ethicsDaniel Wikler

Medieval philosophyScott MacdonaldNorman Kretzmann

Meinong, AlexiusPeter Simons

Meister EckhartJan A. Aertsen

Melanchthon, PhilippPeter Mack

Memory, epistemology ofEarl Conee

MenciusBryan W. Van Norden

Mendelssohn, MosesAllan Arkush

Mental causationBarry Loewer

Mental illness, concept ofKaren Neander

MereologyPeter Forrest

Merleau-Ponty, MauriceThomas Baldwin

MetaphorA.P. Martinich

MetaphysicsEdward Craig

Methodological individualismGabriel Segal

Mill, John StuartJohn Skorupski

Mı̄māsāJohn A. Taber

MimēsisGlenn W. Most

Mind, bundle theory ofStewart Candlish

Mind, computational theories ofNed BlockGeorges Rey

Mind, identity theory ofFrank Jackson

Mind, philosophy ofFrank JacksonGeorges Rey

MiraclesDavid Basinger

Modal logicSteven T. Kuhn

ModelsElisabeth A. Lloyd

Modularity of mindZenon W. Pylyshyn

Mohist philosophyPhilip J. Ivanhoe

Molina, Luis deAlfred J. Freddoso

Molyneux problemMenno Lievers

Momentariness, Buddhist doctrine ofAlexander Von Rospatt

MonismEdward Craig

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem deRichard H. Popkin

Montesquieu, Charles Louis de SecondatMark Hulliung

Moore, George EdwardThomas Baldwin

Moral agentsVinit Haksar

Moral judgmentGarrett Cullity

Moral justificationT.M. Scanlon

Moral knowledgeGeoffrey Sayre-McCord

Moral luckDaniel Statman

Moral motivationR. Jay Wallace

Moral particularismRoger Crisp

Moral psychologyMichael Slote

Moral realismJonathan Dancy

Moral relativismDavid B. Wong

Moral scepticismMark T. Nelson


xix

Moral sense theoriesJacqueline Taylor

Moral sentimentsR. Jay Wallace

Morality and emotionsMartha C. Nussbaum

Morality and ethicsJohn Skorupski

More, ThomasClare M. Murphy

Motoori NorinagaThomas P. Kasulis

MoziRobin D.S. Yates

MulticulturalismArthur Ripstein

Murdoch, IrisThomas Norgaard

Music, aesthetics ofJerrold Levinson

Næss, ArneIngemund Gullvåg

Nagel, ErnestIsaac Levi

Nagel, ThomasSonia Sedivy

NarrativeGregory Currie

Nation and nationalismDavid Miller

NativismJerry Samet

Natural deduction, tableau and sequentsystemsA.M. Ungar

Natural kindsChris Daly

Natural lawJohn Finnis

Natural theologyScott MacDonald

Naturalism in ethicsNicholas L. Sturgeon

Naturalism in social scienceTed Benton

Naturalized epistemologySteven Luper

Nature and conventionKate Soper

Nature, aesthetic appreciation ofAllen Carlson

NaturphilosophieMichael Heidelberger

Necessary truth and conventionAlan Sidelle

Negative theologyDavid Braine

Neo-KantianismHans-Ludwig Ollig

NeoplatonismLucas Siorvanes

Neutral monismNicholas Griffin

Neutrality, politicalJeremy Waldron

Newton, IsaacWilliam L. HarperGeorge E. Smith

Nicholas of CusaJasper Hopkins

Nietzsche, FriedrichMaudemarie Clark

NihilismDonald A. Crosby

Nineteenth-century philosophyRobert Stern

Nishida KitarōJohn C. Maraldo

NominalismMichael J. Loux

Non-monotonic logicAndré Fuhrmann

NormativityStephen Darwall

NousA.A. Long

Novalis (Georg Philipp Friedrich vonHardenberg)Andrew Bowie

Nozick, RobertJonathan WolffSimon Blackburn

Nyāya-VaiśeçcsikaEli FrancoKarin Preisendanz

ObjectivityAlexander Miller

Obligation, politicalA. John Simmons

ObservationPeter Kosso

OccasionalismWilliam Hasker

OmnipotenceJoshua HoffmanGary Rosenkrantz

OmnipresenceBrian Leftow

OmniscienceThomas P. Flint


xx

Ontological commitmentMichael Jubien

OntologyEdward Craig

Opera, aesthetics ofMichael Tanner

OperationalismFrederick Suppe

Ordinal logicsSolomon Feferman

Ordinary language philosophy, school ofGeoffrey Warnock

OrigenJeffrey Hause

Ortega y Gasset, JoséNelson R. Orringer

Other mindsAlec Hyslop

Oxford CalculatorsEdith Dudley Sylla

Paine, ThomasBruce Kuklick

Painting, aesthetics ofRobert Hopkins

Paley, WilliamCharlotte R. Brown

PanpsychismT.L.S. Sprigge

PantheismKeith E. Yandell

Paracelsus (Philippus AureolusTheophrastus Bombastus vonHohenheim)E.J. Ashworth

Paraconsistent logicGraham Priest

Paradoxes, epistemicJonathan L. Kvanvig

Paradoxes of set and propertyGregory H. Moore

Pareto principleDavid Miller

ParmenidesDavid Sedley

Pascal, BlaiseIan MacLean

Passmore, John ArthurFrank Jackson

PaternalismRichard Arneson

Patristic philosophyJohn Peter Kenney

Peirce, Charles SandersChristopher Hookway

PelagianismChristopher Kirwan

PerceptionM.G.F. Martin

PerformativesKent Bach

Personal identityBrian Garrett

PersonalismKeith E. Yandell

PersonsBrian Garrett

PhenomenalismRichard Fumerton

Phenomenological movementLester Embree

Phenomenology, epistemic issues inJane Howarth

Philo of AlexandriaDavid T. Runia

PhiloponusChristian Wildberg

Photography, aesthetics ofGregory Currie

Piaget, JeanAlison Gopnik

Pico della Mirandola, GiovanniJames Hankins

PlatoMalcolm Schofield

Platonism, RenaissanceJames Hankins

PleasureGraeme Marshall

Plekhanov, Georgii ValentinovichJames D. White

PlotinusEyjólfur Kjalar Emilsson

PluralismEdward Craig

PneumaChristopher Stead

PoetryRichard M. Shusterman

Poincaré, Jules HenriDavid J. Stump

Polanyi, MichaelR.T. Allen

Political philosophyDavid Miller

Political philosophy, history ofIain Hampsher-Monk

Pomponazzi, PietroMartin L. Pine

Popper, Karl RaimundIan C. Jarvie

Population and ethicsDavid Heyd


xxi

PornographySusan Mendus

PorphyryLucas Siorvanes

Positivism in the social sciencesHarold Kincaid

Possible worldsJoseph Melia

PostcolonialismAto Quayson

PostmodernismElizabeth Deeds Ermarth

Post-structuralismGary Gutting

Practical reason and ethicsOnora O’Neill

PragmaticsFrançois Recanati

PragmatismRichard Rorty

PredestinationGeorge I. Mavrodes

Predicate calculusTimothy Smiley

PrescriptivismR.M. Hare

Presocratic philosophyDavid Sedley

PresuppositionIan Rumfitt

Primary–secondary distinctionA.D. Smith

Prior, Arthur NormanC.J.F. Williams

PrivacyFrances Olsen

Private language argumentStewart Candlish

Private states and languageEdward Craig

Probability, interpretations ofPaul Humphreys

Process philosophyDavid Ray Griffin

Process theismDavid Basinger

ProcessesDorothy Emmet

Professional ethicsRuth Chadwick

ProjectivismSimon Blackburn

ProlēpsisDominic Scott

PromisingT.M. Scanlon

Proof theoryWilfried Sieg

Proper namesGraeme Forbes

PropertyStephen R. Munzer

Propositional attitudesGraham Oppy

Proudhon, Pierre-JosephRichard Vernon

PsychēA.A. Long

Psychoanalysis, methodological issues inPatricia Kitcher

Psychoanalysis, post-FreudianJames Hopkins

Pufendorf, SamuelJ.D. Ford

PurgatoryLinda Zagzebski

Putnam, HilaryYemima Ben-Menahem

PyrrhonismR.J. Hankinson

PythagorasHermann S. Schibli

PythagoreanismHermann S. Schibli

QualiaJanet Levin

QuantifiersJaakko HintikkaGabriel Sandu

Quantifiers, generalizedDag Westerståhi

Quantifiers, substitutional and objectualMark Richard

Quantum logicPeter Forrest

Quantum measurement problemJeffrey Bub

Quantum mechanics, interpretation ofAllen Stairs

Quine, Willard Van OrmanAlex Orenstein

Radical translation and radicalinterpretationRoger F. Gibson

Ramsey, Frank PlumptonD.H. Mellor

Ramus, PetrusPeter Mack

RandomnessWilliam A. Dembski


xxi i

Rational choice theoryRussell Hardin

RationalismPeter J. Markie

Rationality and cultural relativismLawrence H. Simon

Rationality, practicalJean Hampton

Rawls, JohnSamuel Freeman

Realism and antirealismEdward Craig

Reasons and causesMichael Smith

Reduction, problems ofJaegwon Kim

Reductionism in the philosophy of mindKim Sterelny

ReferenceMichael Devitt

Reichenbach, HansWesley C. Salmon

Reid, ThomasRoger Gallie

Reinhold, Karl LeonhardGeorge Di Giovanni

RelativismEdward Craig

Relativity theory, philosophicalsignificance ofMichael Redhead

Relevance logic and entailmentStephen Read

Religion and moralityRichard J. Mouw

Religion and scienceNancey Murphy

Religion, philosophy ofEleonore Stump

Renaissance philosophyE.J. Ashworth

Renouvier, Charles BernardLaurent Fedi

Representation, politicalAndrew Reeve

Reproduction and ethicsRosalind Hursthouse

RepublicanismRussell L. Hanson

ResponsibilityR.A. Duff

RevelationRichard Swinburne

RevolutionPeter A. Schouls

RhetoricEugene Garver

Ricoeur, PaulJohn B. Thompson

Right and goodCharles Larmore

RightsRex Martin

Risk assessmentKristin Shrader-Frechette

Roman lawP.B.H. Birks

Rorty, Richard McKayMichael David Rohr

Rosmini-Serbati, AntonioGuido Verucci

Ross, William DavidDavid McNaughton

Rousseau, Jean-JacquesNicholas Dent

Royce, JosiahRobert W. Burch

Rule of lawT.R.S. Allan

Russell, Bertrand Arthur WilliamNicholas Griffin

Russian philosophyAileen Kelly

Ryle, GilbertWilliam Lyons

Saint-Simon, Claude-Henri de Rouvroy,Comte deDavid Leopold

Sanches, FranciscoRichard H. Popkin

SāṅkhyaDan Lusthaus

Santayana, GeorgeJohn Lachs

Sapir-Whorf hypothesisJohn A. Lucy

Sartre, Jean-PaulChristina Howells

Saussure, Ferdinand deDavid Holdcroft

ScepticismStewart Cohen

Scheler, Max FerdinandFrancis Dunlop

Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph vonAndrew Bowie

Schiller, Johann Christoph FriedrichT.J. Reed

Schlegel, Friedrich vonFrederick Beiser

Schleiermacher, Friedrich Daniel ErnstGünter Meckenstock


xxi i i

Schlick, Friedrich Albert MoritzThomas Oberdan

Schopenhauer, ArthurChristopher Janaway

Science, philosophy ofJohn Worrall

Scientific methodGary Hatfield

Scientific realism and antirealismArthur Fine

ScopeMark Richard

Searle, JohnErnie Lepore

Second-order logic, philosophical issues inStewart Shapiro

Self-deception, ethics ofMike W. Martin

Sellars, Wilfrid StalkerJay F. Rosenberg

SemanticsMark Crimmins

Semantics, conceptual roleNed Block

Semantics, game-theoreticMichael Hand

Semantics, possible worldsJohn R. Perry

Semantics, situationJohn R. Perry

SemioticsW.C. Watt

Sense and referenceGenoveva Martı́

Sense perception, Indian views ofStephen H. Phillips

Sense-dataAndré Gallois

Set theoryJohn P. Burgess

Sextus EmpiricusR.J. Hankinson

Sexuality, philosophy ofAlan Soble

ShintōPaul Varley

Sidgwick, HenryBart Schultz

Simmel, GeorgDavid Frisby

SimplicityElliott Sober

Simulation theoryMartin DaviesTony Stone

SinPhilip L. Quinn

Situation ethicsGene Outka

SlaveryStephen L. EsquithNicholas D. Smith

Smith, AdamKnud Haakonssen

Social choiceAlan Hamlin

Social democracyDavid Miller

Social epistemologyFrederick F. Schmitt

Social relativismAlan Musgrave

Social science, contemporary philosophy ofDavid Braybrooke

Social science, methodology ofAlex Rosenberg

Social sciences, philosophy ofDavid-Hillel Ruben

Social theory and lawRoger Cotterrell

SocialismRussell KeatJohn O’Neill

Society, concept ofAngus Ross

SocinianismJohn Marshall

SociobiologyAlex Rosenberg

Sociology of knowledgeDavid Bloor

SocratesJohn M. Cooper

SolidarityAndrew Mason

SolipsismEdward Craig

Solovëv, Vladimir SergeevichAndrzej Walicki

SophistsCharles H. Kahn

Sorel, GeorgesJeremy Jennings

Soul, nature and immortality of theRichard Swinburne

SovereigntyJ.D. Ford

SpaceRoberto Torretti

SpacetimeRoberto Torretti

SpeciesKim Sterelny


xxiv

Speech actsKent Bach

Spencer, HerbertTim S. Gray

Spinoza, Benedict deHenry E. Allison

State, thePeter P. Nicholson

StatisticsJames Woodward

Statistics and social sciencePeter Spirtes

Stewart, DugaldEdward H. Madden

Stirner, MaxDavid Leopold

StoicismDavid Sedley

Strawson, Peter FrederickPaul F. Snowdon

StructuralismJonathan Culler

Structuralism in linguisticsDavid Holdcroft

Structuralism in social scienceTheodore R. Schatzki

Suárez, FranciscoJohn P. Doyle

Sublime, thePaul Crowther

SubstanceMichael Ayers

Suicide, ethics ofPaul Edwards

SupererogationGregory Velazco y Trianosky

SupervenienceSimon Blackburn

SustainabilityAlan Holland

SyntaxStephen Neale

Tanabe HajimeHimi Kiyoshi

Tarski, AlfredRoman Murawski

TaxonomyDavid L. Hull

Taylor, CharlesCraig Calhoun

TechnēTad Brennan

Technology and ethicsCarl MitchamHelen Nissenbaum

Technology, philosophy ofPeter Kroes

Teleological ethicsChristine M. Korsgaard

TeleologyAndrew Woodfield

TelosTad Brennan

Tense and temporal logicQuentin Smith

Tertullian, Quintus Septimus FlorensJohn Peter Kenney

TestimonyC.A.J. Coady

Testimony in Indian philosophyPurushottama Bilimoria

ThalesRichard McKirahan

Theoretical (epistemic) virtuesWilliam G. Lycan

Theories, scientificFrederick Suppe

Theory of typesNino B. Cocchiarella

ThermodynamicsLawrence Sklar

ThomismJohn J. Haldane

Thoreau, Henry DavidTimothy Gould

Thought experimentsDavid C. Gooding

TimeLawrence Sklar

Time travelPaul Horwich

TolerationJohn Horton

Tolstoi, Count Lev NikolaevichGary Saul Morson

TotalitarianismMargaret Canovan

Tradition and traditionalismAnthony O’Hear

TragedySusan L. Feagin

Transcendental argumentsRoss Harrison

TrinityPeter Van Inwagen

TrustKaren Jones

Truth, coherence theory ofRichard L. Kirkham

Truth, correspondence theory ofRichard L. Kirkham


xxv

Truth, deflationary theories ofRichard L. Kirkham

Truth, pragmatic theory ofRichard L. Kirkham

TruthfulnessSissela Bok

Turing, Alan MathisonJames H. Moor

Turing machinesGuglielmo Tamburrini

Type/token distinctionLinda Wetzel

Unconscious mental statesGeorges Rey

UnderdeterminationLarry Laudan

Unity of scienceJordi Cat

Universalism in ethicsOnora O’Neill

UniversalsJohn C. Bigelow

Use/mention distinction and quotationCorey Washington

UtilitarianismRoger CrispTim Chappell

UtopianismLyman Tower Sargent

VaguenessMichael Tye

Vaihinger, HansChristopher Adair-Toteff

VedāntaStephen H. Phillips

Vico, GiambattistaLeon Pompa

Vienna CircleFriedrich Stadler

ViolenceC.A.J. Coady

Virtue epistemologyLinda Zagzebski

Virtue ethicsRoger Crisp

Virtues and vicesBernard Williams

VisionFrances Egan

VitalismWilliam BechtelRobert C. Richardson

Vitoria, Francisco deAnthony Pagden

Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet)David Williams

VoluntarismBrian Leftow

Von Wright, Georg HenrikIlkka Niiniluoto

Wang YangmingShun Kwong-Loi

War and peace, philosophy ofTerry Nardin

Weber, MaxStephen P. TurnerRegis A. Factor

Weil, SimoneRowan Williams

WelfareAlbert Weale

Whewell, WilliamMenachem Fisch

Whitehead, Alfred NorthJames Bradley

Will, theThomas Pink

William of OckhamClaude Panaccio

Williams, Bernard Arthur OwenRoss Harrison

Wittgenstein, Ludwig Josef JohannJane Heal

Wolff, ChristianCharles A. Corr

Wollstonecraft, MarySusan Khin Zaw

Work, philosophy ofRichard Arneson

Wundt, WilhelmJens Brockmeier

Wyclif, JohnJeremy Catto

XunziA.S. Cua

Yin-YangRoger T. Ames

Zeno of CitiumDavid Sedley

Zeno of EleaStephen Makin

ZoroastrianismAlan Williams


xxvi

A

A POSTERIORI

A prominent term in theory of knowledge since theseventeenth century, ‘a posteriori’ signifies a kind ofknowledge or justification that depends on evi-dence, or warrant, from sensory experience. Aposteriori truth is truth that cannot be known orjustified independently of evidence from sensoryexperience, and a posteriori concepts are conceptsthat cannot be understood independently ofreference to sensory experience. A posteriori knowl-edge contrasts with a priori knowledge, knowledgethat does not require evidence from sensoryexperience. A posteriori knowledge is empirical,experience-based knowledge, whereas a prioriknowledge is non-empirical knowledge. Standardexamples of a posteriori truths are the truths ofordinary perceptual experience and the naturalsciences; standard examples of a priori truths arethe truths of logic and mathematics. The commonunderstanding of the distinction between a posterioriand a priori knowledge as the distinction betweenempirical and non-empirical knowledge comesfrom Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason (1781/1787).See also: A priori; Empiricism; Justification,epistemic; Knowledge, concept of

PAUL K. MOSER

A PRIORI

An important term in epistemology since theseventeenth century, ‘a priori’ typically connotes akind of knowledge or justification that does notdepend on evidence, or warrant, from sensoryexperience. Talk of a priori truth is ordinarilyshorthand for talk of truth knowable or justifiableindependently of evidence from sensory experience;and talk of a priori concepts is usually talk ofconcepts that can be understood independently ofreference to sensory experience. A priori knowl-edge contrasts with a posteriori knowledge, knowl-edge requiring evidence from sensory experience.Broadly characterized, a posteriori knowledge isempirical, experience-based knowledge, and apriori knowledge is non-empirical knowledge.

Standard examples of a priori truths are the truths ofmathematics, whereas standard examples of a poster-iori truths are the truths of the natural sciences.See also: A posteriori; Justification, epistemic;Knowledge, concept of; Rationalism

PAUL K. MOSER

ABDUCTION

See: Discovery, logic of; Inference to the bestexplanation; Peirce, Charles Sanders

ABELARD, PETER (1079–1142)

Among the many scholars who promoted therevival of learning in Western Europe in the earlytwelfth century, Abelard stands out as a consummatelogician, a formidable polemicist and a champion ofthe value of ancient pagan wisdom for Christianthought. Although he worked within the Aristot-elian tradition, his logic deviates significantly fromthat of Aristotle, particularly in its emphasis onpropositions and what propositions say. Accordingto Abelard, the subject matter of logic, includinguniversals such as genera and species, consists oflinguistic expressions, not of the things theseexpressions talk about. However, the objectivegrounds for logical relationships lie in what theseexpressions signify, even though they cannot be saidto signify any things. Abelard is, then, one of anumber of medieval thinkers, often referred to inlater times as ‘nominalists’, who argued againstturning logic and semantics into some sort ofscience of the ‘real’, a kind of metaphysics. It wasAbelard’s view that logic was, along with grammarand rhetoric, one of the sciences of language.

In ethics, Abelard defended a view in whichmoral merit and moral sin depend entirely onwhether one’s intentions express respect for thegood or contempt for it, and not at all on one’sdesires, whether the deed is actually carried out, oreven whether the deed is in fact something thatought or ought not to be done.

Abelard did not believe that the doctrines ofChristian faith could be proved by logically

1

compelling arguments, but rational argumentation,he thought, could be used both to refute attacks onChristian doctrine and to provide arguments thatwould appeal to those who were attracted to highmoral ideals. With arguments of this latter sort, hedefended the rationalist positions that nothingoccurs without a reason and that God cannot doanything other than what he does do.See also: Nominalism

MARTIN M. TWEEDALE

ABORTION

See Life and death (§5); Reproduction andethics

ABSOLUTE, THE

The expression ‘the Absolute’ stands for that(supposed) unconditioned reality which is eitherthe spiritual ground of all being or the whole ofthings considered as a spiritual unity. This usederives especially from F.W.J. Schelling and G.W.F.Hegel, prefigured by J.G. Fichte’s talk of an absoluteself which lives its life through all finite persons. InEnglish-language philosophy it is associated withthe monistic idealism of such thinkers as F.H.Bradley and Josiah Royce, the first distinguishingthe Absolute from God, the second identifyingthem.See also: Idealism; Kant, I.

T.L.S. SPRIGGE

ABSOLUTISM

The term ‘absolutism’ describes a form of govern-ment in which the authority of the ruler is subjectto no theoretical or legal constraints. In thelanguage of Roman law – which played a centralrole in all theories of absolutism – the ruler waslegibus solutus, or ‘unfettered legislator’. Absolutismis generally, although not exclusively, used todescribe the European monarchies, and in particularthose of France, Spain, Russia and Prussia, betweenthe middle of the sixteenth century and the end ofthe eighteenth. But some form of absolutism existedin nearly every European state until the lateeighteenth century. There have also been recogniz-able forms of absolute rule in both China and Japan.

As a theory absolutism emerged in Europe, andin particular in France, in the late sixteenth andearly seventeenth centuries, in response to the longCivil Wars between the Crown and the nobilityknown as the Wars of Religion. In the lateeighteenth century, as the reform movementassociated with the Enlightenment began to influ-ence most European rulers, a form of so-called‘enlightened absolutism’ (or sometimes ‘enlighteneddespotism’) emerged. In this the absolute authority

of the ruler was directed not towards enhancing thepower of the state, but was employed instead foradvancing the welfare of the subjects.See also: Filmer, Sir Robert

ANTHONY PAGDEN

ABSTRACT OBJECTS

The central philosophical question about abstractobjects is: Are there any? An affirmative answer –given by Platonists or Realists – draws support fromthe fact that while much of our talk and thoughtconcerns concrete (roughly, spatiotemporallyextended) objects, significant parts of it appear tobe about objects which lie outside space and time,and are therefore incapable of figuring in causalrelationships. The suggestion that there really aresuch further non-spatial, atemporal and acausalobjects as numbers and sets often strikes Nominalistopponents as contrary to common sense. Butprecisely because our apparent talk and thought ofabstracta encompasses much – including virtuallythe whole of mathematics – that seems indispen-sable to our best attempts to make scientific sense ofthe world, it cannot be simply dismissed as confusedgibberish. For this reason Nominalists have com-monly adopted a programme of reductive para-phrase, aimed at eliminating all apparent referenceto and quantification over abstract objects. In spiteof impressively ingenious efforts, the programmeappears to run into insuperable obstacles.

The simplicity of our initial question is decep-tive. Understanding and progress are unlikelywithout further clarification of the relationsbetween ontological questions and questions aboutthe logical analysis of language, and of the keydistinction between abstract and concrete objects.There are both affinities and, more importantly,contrasts between traditional approaches to ontolo-gical questions and more recent discussions shapedby ground-breaking work in the philosophy oflanguage initiated by Frege. The importance ofFrege’s work lies principally in two insights: first,that questions about what kinds of entity there arecannot sensibly be tackled independently of thelogical analysis of language; and second, that thequestion whether or not certain expressions shouldbe taken to have reference cannot properly beseparated from the question whether completesentences in which those expressions occur aretrue or false.See also: Nominalism; Ontology; Realism andantirealism; Universals

BOB HALE

ACRASIA

See Akrasia

ABSOLUTE, THE

2

ACTION

Philosophical study of human action owes itsimportance to concerns of two sorts. There areconcerns addressed in metaphysics and philosophyof mind about the status of reasoning beings whomake their impact in the natural causal world, andconcerns addressed in ethics and legal philosophyabout human freedom and responsibility. ‘Actiontheory’ springs from concerns of both sorts; but inthe first instance it attempts only to provide adetailed account that may help with answering themetaphysical questions.

Action theorists usually start by asking ‘How areactions distinguished from other events?’. For thereto be an action, a person has to do something. Butthe ordinary ‘do something’ does not capture justthe actions, since we can say (for instance) thatbreathing is something that everyone does, althoughwe don’t think that breathing in the ordinary way isan action. It seems that purposiveness has to beintroduced – that someone’s intentionally doingsomething is required.

People often do the things they intentionally doby moving bits of their bodies. This has led to theidea that ‘actions are bodily movements’. The forceof the idea may be appreciated by thinking aboutwhat is involved in doing one thing by doinganother. A man piloting a plane might have shutdown the engines by depressing a lever, forexample; and there is only one action here if thedepressing of the lever was (identical with) theshutting down of the engines. It is when identitiesof this sort are accepted that an action may be seenas an event of a person’s moving their body: thepilot’s depressing of the lever was (also) his movingof his arm, because he depressed the lever bymoving his arm.

But how do bodies’ movings – such events nowas his arm’s moving – relate to actions? According toone traditional empiricist account, these are causedby volitions when there are actions, and a volitionand a body’s moving are alike parts of the action.But there are many rival accounts of the causes andparts of actions and of movements. And volitionalnotions feature not only in a general account of theevents surrounding actions, but also in accounts thataim to accommodate the experience that is char-acteristic of agency.See also: Rationality, practical

JENNIFER HORNSBY

ADORNO, THEODORWIESENGRUND (1903–69)

Philosopher, musicologist and social theorist,Theodor Adorno was the philosophical architectof the first generation of Critical Theory emanatingfrom the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt,

Germany. Departing from the perspective of moreorthodox Marxists, Adorno believed the twindilemmas of modernity – injustice and nihilism –derived from the abstractive character of Enlight-enment rationality. In consequence, he argued thatthe critique of political economy must give way to acritique of Enlightenment, instrumental reason.

Identity thinking, as Adorno termed instrumen-tal rationality, abstracts from the sensory, linguisticand social mediations which connect knowingsubjects to objects known. In so doing, it represseswhat is contingent, sensuous and particular inpersons and nature. Adorno’s method of negativedialectics was designed to rescue these elementsfrom the claims of instrumental reason. Adornoconceded, however, that all this method coulddemonstrate was that an abstract concept did notexhaust its object. For a model of an alternativegrammar of reason and cognition Adorno turned tothe accomplishments of artistic modernism. There,where each new work tests and transforms the veryidea of something being a work of art, Adorno saw amodel for the kind of dynamic interdependencebetween mind and its objects that was required for arenewed conception of knowing and acting.See also: Enlightenment, Continental

J.M. BERNSTEIN

AESTHETIC ATTITUDE

It is undeniable that there are aesthetic and non-aesthetic attitudes. But is there such a thing as theaesthetic attitude? What is meant by the aestheticattitude is the particular way in which we regardsomething when and only when we take anaesthetic interest in it. This assumes that on alloccasions of aesthetic interest the object attended tois regarded in an identical fashion, unique to suchoccasions; and this assumption is problematic. If anattitude’s identity is determined by the features it isdirected towards; if an aesthetic interest in an objectis (by definition) an interest in its aesthetic qualities;and if the notion of aesthetic qualities can beexplained in a uniform manner; then there is aunitary aesthetic attitude, namely an interest in anitem’s aesthetic qualities. But this conception of theaesthetic attitude would be unsuitable for achievingthe main aim of those who have posited theaesthetic attitude. This aim is to provide a definitionof the aesthetic, but the aesthetic attitude, under-stood as any attitude focused upon an object’saesthetic qualities, presupposes the idea of theaesthetic, and cannot be used to analyse it. So thequestion is whether there is a characterization of theaesthetic attitude that describes its nature withoutexplicitly or implicitly relying on the concept of theaesthetic. There is no good reason to suppose so.

AESTHETIC ATTITUDE

3

Accordingly, there is no such thing as the aestheticattitude, if this is an attitude that is both necessaryand sufficient for aesthetic interest and that can becharacterized independently of the aesthetic.See also: Aesthetic concepts

MALCOLM BUDD

AESTHETIC CONCEPTS

Aesthetic concepts are the concepts associated withthe terms that pick out aesthetic properties referredto in descriptions and evaluations of experiencesinvolving artistic and aesthetic objects and events.The questions (epistemological, psychological, logi-cal and metaphysical) that have been raised aboutthese properties are analogous to those raised aboutthe concepts.

In the eighteenth century, philosophers such asEdmund Burke and David Hume attempted toexplain aesthetic concepts such as beauty empiri-cally, by connecting them with physical andpsychological responses that typify individuals’experiences of different kinds of objects and events.Thus they sought a basis for an objectivity ofpersonal reactions. Immanuel Kant insisted thataesthetic concepts are essentially subjective (rootedin personal feelings of pleasure and pain), but arguedthat they have a kind of objectivity on the groundsthat, at the purely aesthetic level, feelings of pleasureand pain are universal responses.

In the twentieth century, philosophers havesometimes returned to a Humean analysis ofaesthetic concepts via the human faculty of taste,and have extended this psychological account to tryto establish an epistemological or logical uniquenessfor aesthetic concepts. Many have argued thatalthough there are no aesthetic laws (for example,‘All roses are beautiful,’ or ‘If a symphony has fourmovements and is constructed according to rules ofBaroque harmony, it will be pleasing’) aestheticconcepts none the less play a meaningful role indiscussion and disputation. Others have argued thataesthetic concepts are not essentially distinguishablefrom other types of concepts.

Recently theorists have been interested in waysthat aesthetic concepts are context-dependent –constructed out of social mores and practices, forexample. Their theories often deny that aestheticconcepts can be universal. For example, not only isthere no guarantee that the term ‘harmony’ willhave the same meaning in different cultures: it maynot be used at all.See also: Aesthetic attitude; Art criticism; Art,definition of; Baumgarten, A.G.; Beauty;Sublime, the

MARCIA EATON

AESTHETICS

Introduction

Aesthetics owes its name to Alexander Baum-garten who derived it from the Greek aisthanomai,which means perception by means of the senses. Asthe subject is now understood, it consists of twoparts: the philosophy of art, and the philosophy ofthe aesthetic experience and character of objects orphenomena that are not art. Non-art items includeboth artefacts that possess aspects susceptible ofaesthetic appreciation, and phenomena that lack anytraces of human design in virtue of being productsof nature, not humanity. How are the two sides ofthe subject related: is one part of aesthetics morefundamental than the other? There are two obviouspossibilities. The first is that the philosophy of art isbasic, since the aesthetic appreciation of anything thatis not art is the appreciation of it as if it were art. Thesecond is that there is a unitary notion of the aestheticthat applies to both art and non-art; this notiondefines the idea of aesthetic appreciation as disinter-ested delight in the immediately perceptible proper-ties of an object for their own sake; and artisticappreciation is simply aesthetic appreciation of worksof art. But neither of these possibilities is plausible.

The first represents the aesthetic appreciation ofnature as essentially informed by ideas intrinsic tothe appreciation of art, such as style, reference andthe expression of psychological states. But in orderfor that curious feeling, the experience of thesublime – invoked, perhaps, by the immensity of theuniverse as disclosed by the magnitude of starsvisible in the night sky (see Sublime, the) – to beaesthetic, or for you to delight in the beauty of aflower, it is unnecessary for you to imagine thesenatural objects as being works of art. In fact, yourappreciation of them is determined by their lack offeatures specific to works of art, and perhaps also bytheir possession of features available only to aspects ofnature (see Nature, aesthetic appreciation of).

The second fails to do justice to the significancefor artistic appreciation of various features of worksof art that are not immediately perceptible, such as awork’s provenance and its position in the artist’s oeuvre.A more accurate view represents the two parts ofthe subject as being related to each other in a looserfashion than either of these positions recognizes,each part exhibiting variety in itself, the two beingunited by a number of common issues or counter-part problems, but nevertheless manifesting con-siderable differences in virtue of the topics that arespecific to them. In fact, although some issues arecommon to the two parts, many are specific to thephilosophy of art and a few specific to the aesthetics

AESTHETIC CONCEPTS

4

of non-art objects. Moreover, not every object ofaesthetic appreciation falls neatly on one side or theother of the art–non-art distinction, so thatappreciation sometimes involves an element ofboth of artistic and non-artistic appreciation (seeEnvironmental aesthetics).

Both works of art and other objects can possessspecifically aesthetic properties, such as beauty andgracefulness. If they do possess properties of thissort, they will also possess properties that are notspecifically aesthetic, such as size and shape. Andthey will be susceptible of aesthetic and non-aesthetic appreciation, and subject to aesthetic andnon-aesthetic judgments.What distinguishes an item’saesthetic from its non-aesthetic properties and whatfaculties are essential to detecting aesthetic properties(see Aesthetic concepts)? What is the nature ofaesthetic appreciation? It has often been thought thatthere is a particular attitude that is distinctive ofaesthetic appreciation: you must adopt this attitudein order for the item’s aesthetic properties to bemanifest to you, and if you are in this attitude youare in a state of aesthetic contemplation (seeAestheticattitude). This suppositious attitude has often beenthought of as one of disinterested contemplationfocused on an item’s intrinsic, non-relational, immedi-ately perceptible properties. But perhaps this view ofaesthetic interest as disinterested attention is the productofmasculinebias, involving the assumptionof a positionof power over the observed object, a reflection ofmasculine privilege, an expression of the ‘male gaze’.Another idea is that awareness of an object’s aestheticproperties is the product of a particular species ofperception, an idea which stands in opposition to theclaim that this awareness is nothing but the projection ofthe observer’s response onto the object.

An object’s beauty would appear to be arelational, mind-dependent property – a propertyit possesses in virtue of its capacity to affect observersin a certain manner. But which observers and whatmanner? And can attributions of beauty, whichoften aspire to universal interpersonal validity, everattain that status (see Beauty)? The great Germanphilosopher Immanuel Kant presented a conceptionof an aesthetic judgment as a judgment that must befounded on a feeling of pleasure or displeasure; heinsisted that a pure aesthetic judgment about an objectis one that is unaffected by any concepts under whichthe object might be seen; and he tried to show thatthe implicit claim of such a judgment to be valid foreveryone is justified. But how acceptable is hisconception of an aesthetic judgment and howsuccessful is his attempted justification of the claimsof pure aesthetic judgments (see Kant, I. §12)?

1 Aesthetics of art

2 Aesthetics and the arts

1 Aesthetics of art

Those questions that are specific to the philosophyof art are of three kinds: ones that arise only withina particular art form or set of related arts (perhapsarts addressed to the same sense), ones that ariseacross a number of arts of heterogeneous natures,and ones that are entirely general, necessarilyapplying to anything falling under the mantle of art.

Here are some of the most salient facts about art.Not everything is art. Artists create works of art,which reflect the skills, knowledge and personalitiesof their makers, and succeed or fail in realizing theiraims. Works of art can be interpreted in differentways, understood, misunderstood or baffle the mind,subjected to analysis, and praised or criticized.Although there are many kinds of value that worksof art may possess, their distinctive value is theirvalue as art. The character of a work of art endows itwith a greater or lesser degree of this distinctive value.

Accordingly, the most fundamental generalquestion about art would seem to be: what is art?Is it possible to distinguish art from non-art bymeans of an account that it is definitive of the natureof art, or are the arts too loosely related to oneanother for them to possess an essence that can becaptured in a definition (see Art, definition of)?Whatever the answer to this question may be,another entirely general issue follows hard on itsheels. It concerns the ontology of art, the kind ofthing a work of art is. Do some works of art fall intoone ontological category (particulars) and some intoanother (types) or do they all fall within the samecategory (see Art works, ontology of)? And anumber of other important general questionsquickly arise. What is a work’s artistic value andwhich aspects of a work are relevant to or determinethis value? Is the value of a work of art, consideredas art, an intrinsic or an extrinsic feature of it? Is itdetermined solely by the work’s form or by certainaspects of its content – its truth or its moralsensitivity, for example? Can judgments about awork’s artistic value justifiably lay claim to universalagreement or are they merely expressions ofsubjective preferences? And how is a work’s artisticvalue related to, and how important is it incomparison with, other kinds of value it maypossess (see Art, value of; Formalism in art;Art and truth; Art and morality; Schiller,J.C.F.)? What is required to detect the criticallyrelevant properties of artworks, over and abovenormal perceptual and intellectual powers, and howcan judgments that attribute such properties besupported (see Art criticism)? What kinds ofunderstanding are involved in artistic appreciation,and must an acceptable interpretation of a work becompatible with any other acceptable interpretation

AESTHETICS

5

(see Art, understanding of)? In what way, ifany, does the artist’s intention determine themeaning or their work (see Artist’s intention)?What is an artist’s style and what is its significance inthe appreciation of the artist’s work?

2 Aesthetics and the arts

One question that arises only for a small set of artforms concerns the nature of depiction. It might bethought that the analysis of the nature of depictionhas no special importance within the philosophy ofart, for pictorial representation is just as frequentoutside as inside art. But this overlooks the fact thatreal clarity about the ways in which pictures canacquire value as art must be founded on asophisticated understanding of what a picture isand the psychological resources needed to graspwhat it depicts. So what is it for a surface to be orcontain a picture of an object or state of affairs?Must the design on the surface be such as to elicit acertain species of visual experience, and must thefunction of the means by which the pattern wasproduced, or the intention of the person whocreated it, be to replicate features of the visibleworld? Or is a picture a member of a distinctivekind of symbol system, which can be definedwithout making use of any specifically visualconcepts (see Depiction)? Another question thathas a limited application concerns the distinctivenature and value of a particular artistic genre, theresponse it encourages from us, and the insight intohuman life it displays and imparts. For example,whereas a comedy exploits our capacity to findsomething funny, a tragedy engages our capacity tobe moved by the fate of other individuals, and eroticart aims to evoke a sexual reaction; and thisdifference in the emotional responses at the heartsof the genres goes hand in hand with the differentaspects of human life they illuminate (see Comedy;Emotion in response toart; Humour; Tragedy).

Questions about the individual natures andpossibilities of the various arts include some thatare specific to the particular art and some that applyalso to other arts. On the one hand, relatively fewart forms (architecture and pottery, for example) aredirected to the production of works that areintended to perform non-artistic functions, or areof a kind standardly used for utilitarian purposes,and, accordingly, the issue of the relevance to itsartistic value of a work’s performing, or presentingthe appearance of performing, its intended non-artistic function satisfactorily is confined to such arts(see Architecture, aesthetics of). Again, onlyin some arts does a spectator witness a performanceof a work, so that issues about a performer’scontribution to the interpretation of a work or

about the evaluation of different performances ofthe same work are limited to such arts. And sinceonly some works of art (novels, plays and films, forexample) tell a story, and only some refer to fictionalpersons or events, questions about the means bywhich a story is told or how references to fictionalobjects should be understood have a restrictedapplication within the arts (see Narrative;Fictional entities). On the other hand, most,if not all, arts allow of works within their domainbeing correctly perceived as being expressive ofpsychological states, and, accordingly, give rise tothe question of what it is for a work to be expressiveof such a condition (see Artistic expression).But the means available within the different arts forthe expression of psychological states are various:poetry consists of words, dance exploits the humanbody, and instrumental music uses nothing otherthan sounds. And these different artistic mediaimpose different limits on the kinds of state that canbe expressed by works of art, the specificity of thestates, and the significance within an art of theexpressive aspects of its products (see Gurney, E.).Furthermore, it is a general truth about the variousarts, rather than one special to expression, that whatcan be achieved within an art is determined by thenature of the medium on which the art is based.Accordingly, an adequate philosophy of art mustinvestigate the variety of such media and elucidatethe peculiar advantages they offer and the limita-tions they impose (see Film, aesthetics of;Hanslick, E.; Langer, S.K.K.; Lessing, G.E.;Music, aesthetics of; Opera, aesthetics of;Painting, aesthetics of; Photography, aes-thetics of; Poetry).See also: Aesthetics and ethics; Belinskii, V.G.;Metaphor; Rhetoric; Tolstoi, L.N.

References and further reading

Hegel, G. (1835) Aesthetics: Lectures on Fine Art,trans. T.M. Knox, Oxford: Clarendon Press,1975. (Hegel’s lectures on aesthetics, deliveredin Berlin in the 1820s, are a classic introduction tothe subject.)

Kant, I. (1790) Critique of Aesthetic Judgement, trans.W.S. Pluhar, Indianapolis, IN and Cambridge:Hackett Publishing Company, 1987.

MALCOLM BUDD

AESTHETICS AND ETHICS

The contrast between ethical and aesthetic judg-ments, which has provided a good deal of thesubject-matter of aesthetics, stems largely fromImmanuel Kant’s idiosyncratic view of morality as

AESTHETICS AND ETHICS

6

a series of imperatives issued in accordance with thedictates of practical reason, while for him judgmentsof taste are based on no principles. This has led evennon-Kantians to argue that aesthetic judgments areprimarily concerned, as is art itself, with unique-ness, while morality has mainly to do withrepeatable actions. This tends to separate art fromother human activities, a separation which wasencouraged by the collection of useless items by‘connoisseurs’, who took over as their vocabulary ofappreciation the traditional language of religiouscontemplation. This viewpoint has been attackedpassionately by idealist aestheticians, who claim thatart is a heightening of the common human activityof expressing emotions, to the point where they areexperienced and rendered lucidly, as they rarely arein everyday life. Marxist aestheticians, whose rootslie in the same tradition as idealists, argue that art isinherently political, and that the realm of ‘pureaesthetic experience’ is chimerical. Meanwhile theanalytic tradition in aesthetics has spent much effortamplifying Kant-style positions, without taking intoaccount their historical conditioning. There is atendency to contrast the activities of the moralist,prescribing courses of action, with that of the critic,whose only job can be to point to the unrepeatablefeatures which constitute a work of art.See also: Art and morality; Art, value of;Ethics; Kant, I §12

MICHAEL TANNER

AFFIRMATIVE ACTION

The term ‘affirmative action’ originated in the USAunder President Kennedy. Originally it wasdesigned to ensure that employees and applicantsfor jobs with government contractors did not sufferdiscrimination. Within a year, however, ‘affirmativeaction’ was used to refer to policies aimed atcompensating African-Americans for unjust racialdiscrimination, and at improving their opportunitiesto gain employment. An important implication ofthis shift was that affirmative action came to meanpreferential treatment.

Preferential treatment was later extended toinclude women as well as other disadvantaged racialand ethnic groups. The arguments in favour ofpreferential treatment can be usefully classified asbackward-looking and forward-looking. Backward-looking arguments rely on the claim that prefer-ential treatment of women and disadvantaged racialminorities compensates these groups or the mem-bers for the discrimination and injustices they havesuffered. Forward-looking arguments rely on theirclaim that preferential treatment of women and

disadvantaged racial minorities will help to bringabout a better society.

There has been much criticism of both types ofargument. The most common accusation is thatpreferential treatment is reverse discrimination.Other criticisms are based around who exactlyshould be compensated, by what means and to whatextent, and at whose cost. Finally, there is the fear ofthe unknown consequences of such action. Argu-ments have been forwarded to try and solve suchdifficulties, but the future of preferential treatmentseems to lie in a combination of the two arguments.See also: Justice

BERNARD BOXILL

AFRICAN PHILOSOPHY

Introduction

In order to indicate the range of some of the kindsof material that must be included in a discussion ofphilosophy in Africa, it is as well to begin byrecalling some of the history of Western philosophy.It is something of an irony that Socrates, the firstmajor philosopher in the Western tradition, isknown to us entirely for oral arguments imputed tohim by his student Plato. For the Western philo-sophical tradition is, above all else, a tradition oftexts. While there are some important ancientphilosophers, like Socrates, who are largely knownto us through the reports of others, the tradition hasdeveloped increasingly as one which pays carefulattention to written arguments. However, many ofthose arguments – in ethics and politics, metaphysicsand epistemology, aesthetics and the whole host ofother major subdivisions of the subject – concernquestions about which many people in manycultures have talked and many, albeit substantiallyfewer, have written about outside the broadtradition of Western philosophy. The result is thatwhile those methods of philosophy that havedeveloped in the West through thoughtful analysisof texts are not found everywhere, we are likely tofind in every human culture opinions about some ofthe major questions of Western philosophy. Onthese important questions there have been discus-sions in most cultures since the earliest humansocieties. These constitute what has sometimes beencalled a ‘folk-philosophy’. It is hard to say muchabout those opinions and discussions in placeswhere they have not been written down. However,we are able to find some evidence of the characterof these views in such areas as parts of sub-SaharanAfrica where writing was introduced into oralcultures over the last few centuries.

AFRICAN PHILOSOPHY

7

As a result, discussions of African philosophyshould include both material on some oral culturesand rather more on the philosophical work that hasbeen done in literate traditions on the Africancontinent, including those that have developedsince the introduction of Western philosophicaltraining there.

1 Oral cultures

2 Older literate traditions

3 Recent philosophy

1 Oral cultures

Two areas of folk-philosophy have been the objectof extended scholarly investigation in the latetwentieth century: the philosophical psychology ofpeople who speak the Akan languages of the westAfrican littoral (now Ghana) and the epistemologi-cal thought of Yoruba-speaking people of westernNigeria. In both cases the folk ideas of the traditionhave been addressed by contemporary speakers ofthe language with Western philosophical training.This is probably the most philosophically sophisti-cated work that has been carried out in the generalfield of the philosophical study of folk-philosophyin Africa. It also offers some insight into ways ofthinking about both the mind and human cognitionthat are different from those that are most familiarwithin the Western tradition.

One can also learn a great deal by looking moregenerally at ethical and aesthetic thought, since in allparts of the continent, philosophical issues con-cerning evaluation were discussed and views devel-oped before the advent of writing. Philosophicalwork on ethics is more developed than in aestheticsand some of the most interesting recent work inAfrican aesthetics also focuses on Yoruba conceptswhich have been explored in some detail byWestern philosophers. The discussion of the statusof such work has largely proceeded under the rubricof the debate about ethnophilosophy, a termintended to cover philosophical work that aims toexplore folk philosophies in a systematic manner.Finally, there has also been an important philo-sophical debate about the character of traditionalreligious thought in Africa.

2 Older literate traditions

Although these oral traditions represent old forms ofthought, the actual traditions under discussion arenot as old as the remaining African literatetraditions. The earliest of these is in the writingsassociated with the ancient civilizations of Egypt,which substantially predate the pre-Socratic philo-sophers who inhabit the earliest official history of

Western philosophy. The relationship between theseEgyptian traditions and the beginnings of Westernphilosophy have been in some dispute and there ismuch recent scholarship on the influence of Egypton classical Greek thought.

Later African philosophy looks more familiar tothose who have studied the conventional history ofWestern philosophy: the literate traditions ofEthiopia, for example, which can be seen in thecontext of a long (if modest) tradition of philo-sophical writing in the horn of Africa. The highpoint of such writing has been the work of theseventeenth-century philosopher, Zar’a Ya’ecob.Whose work has been compared to that of Descartes.

It is also worth observing that many of thetraditions of Islamic philosophy were either theproduct of, or were subject to the influence of,scholars born or working in the African continentin centres of learning such as Cairo and Timbuktu(see Islamic philosophy). Similarly, the work ofsome of the most important philosophers amongthe Christian Church Fathers was the product ofscholars born in Africa, like St Augustine, andsome was written in the African provinces of Rome.

In considering African-born philosophers, thereis Anton Wilhelm Amo, who was born in what isnow Ghana and received, as the result of anextraordinary sequence of events, philosophicaltraining during the period of German Enlight-enment, before returning to the Guinea coast to diein the place he was born. Amo’s considerableintellectual achievements played an important partin eighteenth- and nineteenth-century polemicsrelating to the ‘capacity of the negro’. Unfortu-nately, only a portion of his work has survived.

3 Recent philosophy

Most twentieth-century work in African philo-sophy has been carried out by African intellectuals(often interacting with scholars outside Africa)under the influence of philosophical traditionsfrom the European countries that colonized Africaand created her modern system of education. As thecolonial systems of education were different, it ishelpful to think of this work as belonging to twobroadly differentiated traditions, one Francophoneand the other Anglophone. While it is true thatphilosophers in the areas influenced by French (andFrancophone Belgian) colonization developed sepa-rately from those areas under British colonialcontrol, a comparison of their work reveals thatthere has been a substantial cross-flow betweenthem (as there generally has been between philo-sophy in the French- and English-speaking worlds).The other important colonial power in Africa wasPortugal, whose commitment to colonial education

AFRICAN PHILOSOPHY

8

was less developed. The sole Portuguese-speakingAfrican intellectual who made a significant philo-sophical contribution is Amı́lcar Cabral, whoseleadership in the independence movement ofGuinea Bissau and the Cape Verde islands wasguided by philosophical training influenced byPortuguese Marxism. Cabral’s influence has notbeen as great as that of Frantz Fanon, who was bornin the French Antilles, but later became an Algerian.He was a very important figure in the developmentof political philosophy in Africa (and much of theThird World).

Among the most important political thinkersinfluenced by philosophy are Kwame Nkrumah,Kenneth Kaunda and Julius Nyerere (see Africanphilosophy, Anglophone). Out of all the intel-lectual movements in Africa in the twentieth-century,the two most important ones of philosophicalinterest have been négritude and pan-Africanism(see African philosophy, Fran

the shorter routledge encyclopedia of...

Documents