Chinese Philosophy: Overview of History There was no effort to write a comprehensive history of the Chinese Philosophy until the modern period of Western influence on Chinese culture. This is not to say that Chinese thinkers did not engage selectively with philosophers of earlier or contemporary eras. What has come down to us as the final chapter of the Zhuangzi (ch. 33, Tian Xia “Under

Sigmund Freud: Religion This article explores attempts by Sigmund Freud (1850-1939) to provide a naturalistic account of religion enhanced by insights and theoretical constructs derived from the discipline of psychoanalysis which he had pioneered. Freud was an Austrian neurologist and psychologist who is widely regarded as the father of psychoanalysis, which is both a psychological theory and therapeutic system. As a theory, psychoanalysis conceptualizes the

Immortality Immortality is the indefinite continuation of a person’s existence, even after death. In common parlance, immortality is virtually indistinguishable from afterlife, but philosophically speaking, they are not identical. Afterlife is the continuation of existence after death, regardless of whether or not that continuation is indefinite. Immortality implies a never-ending existence, regardless of whether or not the body dies (as a matter of fact, some

Locke: Ethics The major writings of John Locke (1632–1704) are among the most important texts for understanding some of the central currents in epistemology, metaphysics, politics, religion, and pedagogy in the late 17th and early 18th century in Western Europe. His magnum opus, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689) is the undeniable starting point for the study of empiricism in the early modern period. Locke’s

Everettian Interpretations of Quantum Mechanics Between the 1920s and the 1950s, the mathematical results of quantum mechanics were interpreted according to what is often referred to as “the standard interpretation” or the “Copenhagen interpretation.” This interpretation is known as the “collapse interpretation” because it supposes that an observer external to a system causes the system, upon observation, to collapse from a quantum mechanical state to

Johann Christian Friedrich Hölderlin (1770—1843) Although J. C. F. Hölderlin has, since the beginning of the twentieth century, enjoyed the reputation of being one of Germany’s greatest poets, his recognition as an important philosophical figure is more recent. The revival of an interest in German Idealism, and the philosophical developments from Kant’s critical period to Hegel’s mature thought, have ensured that Hölderlin is given his due