Benoît de Spinoza: Political Philosophy The body of Benedict de Spinoza’s writings on political philosophy in the 17th century should be seen as a paradigmatic species of European Enlightenment Philosophy. Spinoza rejected the teleological account of human nature and its implications to political societies in favor of rational, scientific understanding with its contractual implications. Donc, political societies to Spinoza are not natural organisms but artificial

The Golden Rule The most familiar version of the Golden Rule says, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Moral philosophy has barely taken notice of the golden rule in its own terms despite the rule’s prominence in commonsense ethics. This article approaches the rule, donc, through the rubric of building its philosophy, or clearing a path for such construction. Le

Defeaters in Epistemology The concept of epistemic defeat or defeasibility has come to occupy an important place in contemporary epistemology, especially in relation to the closely allied concepts of justified belief, warrant, and knowledge. These allied concepts signify positive epistemic appraisal or positive epistemic status. As a first approximation, defeasibility refers to a belief’s liability to lose some positive epistemic status, or to having this

La réduction phénoménologique Il existe une expérience dans laquelle il nous est possible de venir au monde sans connaissances ni idées préconçues en main.; c'est l'expérience de l'étonnement. Le « savoir » que nous avons dans cette expérience contraste fortement avec le « savoir » que nous avons dans notre vie quotidienne., où nous venons au monde avec la théorie et la « connaissance » en main, notre

Kant: Philosophy of Mind Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) was one of the most important philosophers of the Enlightenment Period (c. 1650-1800) in Western European history. This encyclopedia article focuses on Kant’s views in the philosophy of mind, which undergird much of his epistemology and metaphysics. En particulier, it focuses on metaphysical and epistemological doctrines forming the core of Kant’s mature philosophy, as presented in the Critique

Conceptual Role Semantics In the philosophy of language, conceptual role semantics (hereafter CRS) is a theory of what constitutes the meanings possessed by expressions of natural languages, or the propositions expressed by their utterance. In the philosophy of mind, it is a theory of what constitutes the contents of psychological attitudes, such as beliefs or desires. CRS comes in a variety of forms, not always