Xenophon (430—354 B.C.E.) Xenophon was a Greek philosopher, soldier, historian, memoirist, and the author of numerous practical treatises on subjects ranging from horsemanship to taxation. While best known in the contemporary philosophical world as the author of a series of sketches of Socrates in conversation, known by their Latin title Memorabilia, Xenophon also wrote a Symposium and an Apology which present a set of vivid

Epistemic Circularity An epistemically circular argument defends the reliability of a source of belief by relying on premises that are themselves based on the source. It is a widely shared intuition that there is something wrong with epistemically circular arguments. William Alston, who first used the term in this sense, argues plausibly that there is no way to know or to be justified in believing

Thomas Hobbes: Methodik Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) ist einer der einflussreichsten politischen Philosophen Englands. Nach eigener Einschätzung, er war wahrscheinlich der bedeutendste Philosoph seiner Zeit, wenn nicht der Geschichte, denn er glaubte, der Erste zu sein, der eine echte „Wissenschaft der Politik“ entdeckt habe. Nach dem Vorbild der todsicheren Methode der Geometrie, Seine Politikwissenschaft sollte politische Wahrheiten aufzeigen

Social and Political Recognition Acts of recognition infuse many aspects of our lives such as receiving a round of applause from a rapt audience, being spotted in a crowded street by a long-forgotten friend, having an application for a job rejected because of your criminal record, enjoying some words of praise by a respected philosophy professor, getting pulled over by the police because you are

Kripke’s Wittgenstein Saul Kripke, in his celebrated book Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language (1982), offers a novel reading of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s main remarks in his later works, especially in Philosophical Investigations (1953) und, bis zu einem gewissen Grad, in Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics (1956). Kripke presents Wittgenstein as proposing a skeptical argument against a certain conception of meaning and linguistic understanding, as well as

Wang Bi (226–249 n. Chr.) Wang Bi (Wang Pi), gestylter Gürtel, gilt als einer der bedeutendsten Interpreten der klassischen chinesischen Texte, die als Daodejing bekannt sind (Tao Te Ching) und das Yijing (Ich Ching). Er lebte und arbeitete in der Zeit nach dem Zusammenbruch der Han-Dynastie im Jahr 220 n. Chr., eine Ära, in der das Interesse der Elite begann, sich vom Konfuzianismus abzuwenden