William Mitchell (1861—1962) Sir William Mitchell was the first major philosopher to live in South Australia. He worked at Adelaide University from 1895 to 1940 primarily in the area of what is now known as cognitive science. His major work: Structure and Growth of the Mind is a treatise on philosophical psychology. Mitchell anticipated the claims of Nagel, McGinn, and Chalmers and their emphasis on

Benedict de Spinoza: Metaphysics Baruch (or, in Latin, Benedict) de Spinoza (1632-1677) was one of the most important rationalist philosophers in the early modern period, along with Descartes, Leibniz, and Malebranche. Spinoza is also the most influential “atheist” in Europe during this period. “Atheist” at the time meant someone who rejects the traditional Biblical views concerning God and his relation to nature. In his most

Consequentialism Consequentialism is the view that morality is all about producing the right kinds of overall consequences. Here the phrase “overall consequences” of an action means everything the action brings about, including the action itself. For example, if you think that the whole point of morality is (a) to spread happiness and relieve suffering, or (b) to create as much freedom as possible in the

Former Staff Thank you to: Area Editors Joseph Agassi (Philosophy of Science) James R. Beebe (Epistemology) David Boersema (American Philosophy) Curtis Bowman (19th Century Philosophy) Douglas Burnham (19th Century European) Jon Cogburn (Philosophy of Mind) Roy Cook (Mathematics) Joel Dittmer (Value Theory) James Dunson (19th Century German) Shawn Floyd (Medieval Philosophy) Valentin Goranko (Logic) John-Stewart Gordon (Ethics and Bioethics) Peter Gratton (Indigenous World Philosophy) Jeff

Deshoulières, Antoinette du Ligier de la Garde (1638—1694) A major poet during the reign of Louis XIV in France, Madame Deshoulières used her writings to defend philosophical naturalism. Like her intellectual model Lucretius, she employed verse to argue that natural causes can adequately explain such apparently spiritual phenomena as thought, volition, and love. In metaphysics, Deshoulières argues that the real is comprised of variations of

Ethical Criticism of Art Traditionally, there were two opposing philosophical positions taken with respect to the legitimacy of the ethical evaluation of art: ‘moralism’ and ‘autonomism’, where moralism is the view that the aesthetic value of art should be determined by, or reduced to, its moral value, while autonomism holds that it is inappropriate to apply moral categories to art; they should be evaluated by