David Hume: Religion David Hume (1711-1776) was called “Saint David” and “The Good David” by his friends, but his adversaries knew him as “The Great Infidel.” His contributions to religion have had a lasting impact and contemporary significance. Taken individually, Hume gives novel insights into many aspects of revealed and natural theology. When taken together, however, they provide his attempt at a systematic undermining of

Adolf Lindenbaum photo by permission of the Archives of the University of Warsaw Adolf Lindenbaum was a Polish mathematician and logician who worked in topology, set theory, metalogic, general metamathematics and the foundations of mathematics. He represented an attitude typical of the Polish Mathematical School, consisting of using all admissible methods, independently of whether they were finitary. For example, the axiom of choice was freely

Philosophy of Technology Like many domain-specific subfields of philosophy, such as philosophy of physics or philosophy of biology, philosophy of technology is a comparatively young field of investigation. It is generally thought to have emerged as a recognizable philosophical specialization in the second half of the 19th century, its origins often being located with the publication of Ernst Kapp’s book, Grundlinien einer Philosophie der Technik

Intentionality If I think about a piano, something in my thought picks out a piano. If I talk about cigars, something in my speech refers to cigars. This feature of thoughts and words, whereby they pick out, refer to, or are about things, is intentionality. In a word, intentionality is aboutness. Many mental states exhibit intentionality. If I believe that the weather is rainy today,

Religious Language The term “religious language” refers to statements or claims made about God or gods. Here is a typical philosophical problem of religious language. If God is infinite, then words used to describe finite creatures might not adequately describe God. For example, is God good in the same sense that Secretary-General of the United Nations Kofi Annan is good? This difficulty challenges us to articulate

Egoism In philosophy, egoism is the theory that one’s self is, or should be, the motivation and the goal of one’s own action. Egoism has two variants, descriptive or normative. The descriptive (or positive) variant conceives egoism as a factual description of human affairs. That is, people are motivated by their own interests and desires, and they cannot be described otherwise. The normative variant proposes