Francisco Suárez (1548—1617) Sometimes called the “Eminent Doctor” after Paul V’s designation of him as doctor eximius et pius, Francisco Suárez was the leading theological and philosophical light of Spain’s Golden Age, alongside such cultural…
Browsing CategoryWiki Philosophy
Pascal’s Wager about God
Pascal’s Wager about God Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) offers a pragmatic reason for believing in God: even under the assumption that God’s existence is unlikely, the potential benefits of believing are so vast as to make betting…
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) The American author Henry David Thoreau is best known for his magnum opus Walden, or Life in the Woods (1854); second to this in popularity is his essay, “Resistance to Civil…
Veṅkaṭanātha (Vedānta Deśika) (c. 1269—c. 1370)
Veṅkaṭanātha (Vedānta Deśika) (c. 1269—c. 1370) Veṅkaṭanātha (also known as Vedānta Deśika “teacher of Vedānta”) was an Indian polymath who wrote philosophical as well as religious and poetical works in several languages, including Sanskrit, Maṇipravāḷa—a…
Knowledge Norms
Knowledge Norms Epistemology has seen a surge of interest in the idea that knowledge provides a normative constraint or rule governing certain actions or mental states. Such interest is generated in part by noticing that…
Gettier Problems
Gettier Problems Gettier problems or cases are named in honor of the American philosopher Edmund Gettier, who discovered them in 1963. They function as challenges to the philosophical tradition of defining knowledge of a proposition…
Moral Relativism
Moral Relativism Moral relativism is the view that moral judgments are true or false only relative to some particular standpoint (for instance, that of a culture or a historical period) and that no standpoint is…
Divine Simplicity
Divine Simplicity Divine simplicity is central to the classical Western concept of God. Simplicity denies any physical or metaphysical composition in the divine being. This means God is the divine nature itself and has no accidents…
Psychological Egoism
Psychological Egoism Psychological egoism is the thesis that we are always deep down motivated by what we perceive to be in our own self-interest.Psychological altruism, on the other hand, is the view that sometimes we…
Self-Consciousness
Self-Consciousness Philosophical work on self-consciousness has mostly focused on the identification and articulation of specific epistemic and semantic peculiarities of self-consciousness, peculiarities which distinguish it from consciousness of things other than oneself. After drawing certain…