The Indispensability Argument in the Philosophy of Mathematics In his seminal 1973 paper, “Mathematical Truth,” Paul Benacerraf presented a problem facing all accounts of mathematical truth and knowledge. Standard readings of mathematical claims entail the existence of mathematical objects. Aber, our best epistemic theories seem to deny that knowledge of mathematical objects is possible. So, the philosopher of mathematics faces a dilemma: either abandon standard

William David Ross (1877—1971) Sir William David Ross was a British philosopher, college administrator, WW I veteran, civil servant, and humanities scholar best known for his important contributions to moral philosophy and the study of classical literature. In the field of classical studies, in addition to shorter works on Plato and Aristotle, his major triumph was his editorship of the Oxford English translations of Aristotle’s

René Descartes: Ethik Dieser Artikel beschreibt die Hauptthemen der Ethik von Descartes anhand der Diskussion wichtiger Primärtexte und entsprechender Interpretationen in der Sekundärliteratur. Obwohl Descartes nie eine Abhandlung geschrieben hat, die sich ausschließlich der Ethik widmete, Kommentatoren haben eine Reihe von Texten entdeckt, die eine umfassende Analyse der Tugend belegen, das gute, Glück, moralisches Urteil, die Leidenschaften, und die systematische Beziehung zwischen Ethik und dem Rest

René Descartes: The Mind-Body Distinction One of the deepest and most lasting legacies of Descartes’ philosophy is his thesis that mind and body are really distinct—a thesis now called “mind-body dualism.” He reaches this conclusion by arguing that the nature of the mind (das ist, a thinking, non-extended thing) is completely different from that of the body (das ist, an extended, non-thinking thing), and therefore it