Cicero: Academic Skepticism Cicero (106 to 43 B.C.E.) adopted the philosophical view of the Academic skeptics as a young man sometime in the 80’s. In 89/8, Philo of Larissa, the head of Plato’s Academy, fled from Athens to Rome for political reasons. While at Rome, Cicero attended Philo’s public lectures and began to study philosophy with him. Cicero also studied with the most prominent representatives

Egoismus in der Philosophie, Egoismus ist die Theorie, dass das eigene Selbst existiert, oder sollte sein, die Motivation und das Ziel des eigenen Handelns. Egoismus hat zwei Varianten, beschreibend oder normativ. Das Beschreibende (oder positiv) Variante versteht Egoismus als eine sachliche Beschreibung menschlicher Angelegenheiten. Das heißt, Menschen werden durch ihre eigenen Interessen und Wünsche motiviert, und sie können nicht anders beschrieben werden. Die normative Variante schlägt vor

Modal Illusions We often talk about how things could have been, given different circumstances, or about how things might be in the future. When we speak this way, we presume that these situations are possible. Aber, sometimes people make mistakes regarding what is possible or regarding what could have been the case. When what seems possible to a person is not really possible, this person

The New Atheists The New Atheists are authors of early twenty-first century books promoting atheism. These authors include Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens. The “New Atheist” label for these critics of religion and religious belief emerged out of journalistic commentary on the contents and impacts of their books. A standard observation is that New Atheist authors exhibit an unusually high level of

Michel Foucault (1926–1984) Michel Foucault was a major figure in two successive waves of 20th century French thought–the structuralist wave of the 1960s and then the poststructuralist wave. By the premature end of his life, Foucault had some claim to be the most prominent living intellectual in France. Foucault’s work is transdisciplinary in nature, ranging across the concerns of the disciplines of history, sociology, Psychologie,