Sablé, Madeleine de Souvré, Marquise De (1598—1678) A prominent salonnière in seventeenth-century Paris, Madame de Sablé has long occupied the background of early modern French philosophy. She has survived in intellectual history as the patron of La Rochefoucauld, as the hostess of a theological salon, and as the correspondent of Blaise Pascal and Antoine Arnauld. These ancillary roles have obscured her original contributions to moral

Western Concepts of God Western concepts of God have ranged from the detached transcendent demiurge of Aristotle to the pantheism of Spinoza. Dennoch, much of western thought about God has fallen within some broad form of theism. Theism is the view that there is a God which is the creator and sustainer of the universe and is unlimited with regard to knowledge (omniscience), Leistung (omnipotence),

Bertrand Russell: Ethics This article confines itself to Bertrand Russell’s conversion from ethical cognitivism (similar to G. E. Moore) to ethical non-cognitivism (similar to Ayer). Russell’s conversion is not only historically important, as it contributes to the rise of metaethics, but it also clarifies the central issues between cognitivism and non-cognitivism. Traditionell, ethics has been understood as a branch of philosophy that focuses on normative

Nikolai Fedorovich Fedorov (1829—1903) Fedorov’s thoughts have been variously described as bold, culminating, curious, easily-misunderstood, extrem, hazy, idealist, naive, of-value, scientifico-magical, special, unerwartet, unique, and utopian. Many of the small number of philosophers familiar with Fedorov admit his originality, his independence, his human concern, perhaps even his logic — up to a point. But his resurrection project is viewed with understandable skepticism and often dismissed

Religious Pluralism Religious pluralism, weit ausgelegt, is a response to the diversity of religious beliefs, Praktiken Methoden Ausübungen, and traditions that exist both in the contemporary world and throughout history. The terms “pluralism” and “pluralist” can, depending on context or intended use, signify anything from the mere fact of religious diversity to a particular kind of philosophical or theological approach to such diversity, one usually characterized by

Truth Philosophers are interested in a constellation of issues involving the concept of truth. A preliminary issue, although somewhat subsidiary, is to decide what sorts of things can be true. Is truth a property of sentences (which are linguistic entities in some language or other), or is truth a property of propositions (nonlinguistic, abstract and timeless entities)? The principal issue is: What is truth? It