Cynics Cynicism originates in the philosophical schools of ancient Greece that claim a Socratic lineage. To call the Cynics a “school” though, immediately raises a difficulty for so unconventional and anti-theoretical a group. Their primary interests are ethical, but they conceive of ethics more as a way of living than as a doctrine in need of explication. As such askēsis—a Greek word meaning a kind

John Langshaw Austin (1911—1960) J. L. Austin was one of the more influential British philosophers of his time, due to his rigorous thought, extraordinary personality, and innovative philosophical method. According to John Searle, he was both passionately loved and hated by his contemporaries. Like Socrates, he seemed to destroy all philosophical orthodoxy without presenting an alternative, equally comforting, orthodoxy. Austin is best known for two

Nicholas Rescher (1928—) Nicholas Rescher (1928- ) is a prominent representative of contemporary pragmatism, Aber, unlike most analytic thinkers, he managed to establish himself as a systematic philosopher. Besonders, he built a system of “pragmatic idealism” that combines elements of the European continental idealism with American pragmatism. One of the most salient features of Rescher¹s work is the breadth of topics with which he

Higher-Order Theories of Consciousness The most fundamental and commonly used notion of the term ‘conscious’ in philosophical circles is captured by Thomas Nagel’s famous “what it is like” sense (Nagel 1974). When I am in a conscious mental state, there is “something it is like” for me to be in that state from the subjective or first-person point of view. When I smell a rose

Aristoteles (384 v. u. Z. – 322 v. u. Z.) Aristotle is a towering figure in ancient Greek philosophy, who made important contributions to logic, criticism, Rhetorik, Physik, Biologie, Psychologie, mathematics, Metaphysik, Ethik, und Politik. He was a student of Plato for twenty years but is famous for rejecting Plato’s theory of forms. He was more empirically minded than both Plato and Plato’s teacher, Sokrates. A prolific writer, lecturer, and polymath, Aristotle radically