The Problem of Induction This article discusses the problem of induction, including its conceptual and historical perspectives from Hume to Reichenbach. Given the prominence of induction in everyday life as well as in science, we should be able to tell whether inductive inference amounts to sound reasoning or not, or at least we should be able to identify the circumstances under which it ought to

Willard Van Orman Quine: Philosophy of Science W. V. O. Quine (1908-2000) did not conceive of philosophy as an activity separate from the general province of empirical science. His interest in science is not best described as a philosophy of science but as a set of reflections on the nature of science that is pursued with the same empirical spirit that animates scientific inquiry. Quine’s

The Phenomenological Reduction There is an experience in which it is possible for us to come to the world with no knowledge or preconceptions in hand; it is the experience of astonishment. The “knowing” we have in this experience stands in stark contrast to the “knowing” we have in our everyday lives, where we come to the world with theory and “knowledge” in hand, our

Metaphilosophy What is philosophy? What is philosophy for? How should philosophy be done? These are metaphilosophical questions, metaphilosophy being the study of the nature of philosophy. Contemporary metaphilosophies within the Western philosophical tradition can be divided, rather roughly, according to whether they are associated with (1) Analytic philosophy, (2) Pragmatist philosophy, o (3) Continental philosophy. The pioneers of the Analytic movement held that philosophy should begin with

D'Aquino: Metafisica La metafisica è considerata da Tommaso d'Aquino come lo studio dell'essere in quanto essere, questo è, uno studio degli aspetti più fondamentali dell'essere che costituiscono un essere e senza i quali non potrebbe esistere. Il pensiero metafisico dell’Aquinate segue una visione aristotelica modificata ma generale. Principalmente, per Tommaso d'Aquino, una cosa non può essere se non possiede un atto di essere, e la cosa

Harold Henry Joachim (1868—1938) Harold Henry Joachim (1868-1938) was a minor idealist philosopher working in the neo-Hegelian tradition that dominated British philosophy at the end of the nineteenth century. At the time, this tradition was divided into two main camps: personal idealism and absolute idealism. Joachim was affiliated with the latter camp, whose most prominent representative was F. H. Bradley. Although Joachim has frequently been