Philosophical theory - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Philosophical theory
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In the general sense, a philosophical position[1] is a position that explains or accounts for a
general philosophy or specific branch of philosophy.The use of the term theory here is a
statement of colloquial English and not reflective of the term theory. [2] While any sort of
thesis or opinion may be termed a position, in analytic philosophy it is thought best to reserve
the word "theory" for systematic, comprehensive attempts to solve problems.[3]

The elementary theorems that comprise a philosophical position consist of statements which
are believed to be true by the thinkers who accept them, and which may or may not be
empirical. The sciences have a very clear idea of what a theory is; however in the arts such as
philosophy, the definition is more hazy.[1] Philosophical positions are not necessarily scientific
theories, although they may consist of both empirical and non-empirical statements.

In essence, the collective statements of all philosophical movements, schools of thought, and
belief systems consist of philosophical positions. Also included among philosophical positions
are many principles, hypotheses, rules, paradoxes, laws, as well as 'ologies, 'isms, 'sis's, and
effects.[1]

Some examples of philosophical positions include:

Metatheory; positions about the formation and content of theorems, such as Kurt Gödel's
incompleteness theorem.
Political theory; positions that underlie a political philosophy, such as John Rawls' theory
of justice.
Ethical theory and meta-ethics; positions about the nature and purpose of ethical
statements,[4] such as the ethical theory of Immanuel Kant.
Critical theory; in its narrow sense, a Western European body of Frankfurt School Marxist
thought that aims at criticizing and transforming, rather than merely explaining, social
structures.[5] In a broader sense, "critical theory" relates to a wide variety of political,
literary, and philosophical positions that take at least some of their inspiration from the
Frankfurt School and its dialectic, and that typically contest the possibility of objectivity
or aloofness from political positions and privileges.[6]

Philosophical positions may also take the form of a life stance, religion, world view, or ideology.

See also
Glossary of philosophical isms
List of philosophical theories
Metaphilosophy
Philosophy

References

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Philosophical theory - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

1. Dictionary of Theories, Jennifer Bothamley

2. Lacey, A.R. (1976). A Dictionary of Philosophy (second ed.). London and New York:
Routledge. p. 122. ISBN 0-415-05872-4.
3. Sparkes, A.W. (1991). Talking Philosophy: a wordbook. New York, New York: Routledge.
p. 114. ISBN 0-415-04222-4.
4. Richard T. Garner and Bernard Rosen, Moral Philosophy: A Systematic Introduction to
Normative Ethics and Meta-ethics. (Macmillan, 1967)
5. See generally, Max Horkheimer, Traditional and Critical Theory (1937)
6. "Critical theory (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/critical-theory/)" at the Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy

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