METAPHYSICS NOTES Back to Top

Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature of existence, being and the world. Arguably, metaphysics is the foundation of philosophy: Aristo-
tle calls it "first philosophy" (or sometimes just "wisdom"), and says it is the subject that deals with "first causes and the principles of things".
It asks questions like: "What is the nature of reality?", "How does the world exist, and what is its origin or source of creation?", "Does the world exist outside the mind?",
"How can the incorporeal mind affect the physical body?", "If things exist, what is their objective nature?", "Is there a God (or many gods, or no god at all)?"
Originally, the Greek word "metaphysika" (literally "after physics") merely indicated that part of Aristotle's oeuvre which came, in its sequence, after those chapters which
dealt with physics. Later, it was misinterpreted by Medieval commentators on the classical texts as that which is above or beyond the physical, and so over time metaphysics
has effectively become the study of that which transcends physics.
Aristotle originally split his metaphysics into three main sections and these remain the main branches of metaphysics:
 Ontology (the study of being and existence, including the definition and classification of entities, physical or mental, the nature of their properties, and the nature
of change)
 Natural Theology (the study of God, including the nature of religion and the world, existence of the divine, questions about the creation, and the various other reli-
gious or spiritual issues)
 Universal Science (the study of first principles of logic and reasoning, such as the law of noncontradiction)
Metaphysics has been attacked, at different times in history, as being futile and overly vague, particularly by David Hume, Immanuel Kant and A.J. Ayer. It may be more
useful to say that a metaphysical statement usually implies an idea about the world or the universe, which may seem reasonable but is ultimately not empirically verifia-
ble, testable or provable.
Existence and Consciousness Back to Top
Existence (the fact or state of continued being) is axiomatic (meaning that it does not rest upon anything in order to be valid, and it cannot be proven by any "more
basic" premises) because it is necessary for all knowledge and it cannot be denied without conceding its truth (a denial of something is only possible if existence exists).
"Existence exists" is therefore an axiom which states that there is something, as opposed to nothing.
Consciousness is the faculty which perceives and identifies things that exist. In his famous formulation "Cogito ergo sum" ("I think therefore I am"), René Descartes ar-
gued that consciousness is axiomatic, because you cannot logically deny your mind's existence at the same time as using your mind to do the denying.
However, what Descartes did not make clear is that consciousness is the faculty that perceives that which exists, so it requires something outside of itself in order to func-
tion: it requires, and is dependent upon, existence. The primacy of existence states that existence is primary and consciousness is secondary, because there can be no con-
sciousness without something existing to perceive. Existence is independent of, makes possible, and is a prerequisite of consciousness. Consciousness is not responsible
for creating reality: it is completely dependent upon reality.
Mind and Matter Back to Top
Early debates on the nature of matter centered on identifying a single underlying principle (Monism): water was claimed by Thales, air by Anaximenes, Apeiron (mean-
ing "the undefined infinite") by Anaximander, and fire by Heraclitus. Democritus conceived an atomic theory (Atomism) many centuries before it was accepted by modern
science.
The nature of the mind and its relation to the body has also exercised the best brains for millennia. There is a large overlap here with Philosophy of Mind, which is the
branch of philosophy that studies the nature of the mind, mental events, mental functions, mental properties and consciousness, and their relationship to the physical
body.
In the 17th Century, Descartes proposed a Dualist solution called Substance Dualism (or Cartesian Dualism) whereby the mind and body are totally separate and differ-
ent: the mental does not have extension in space, and the material cannot think.
Idealists, like Bishop George Berkeley and the German Idealist school, claim that material objects do not exist unless perceived (Idealism is essentially a Monist, rather
than Dualist, theory in that there is a single universal substance or principle).
Baruch Spinoza and Bertrand Russell both adopted, in different ways, a dual-aspect theory called Neutral Monism, which claims that existence consists of a single sub-
stance which in itself is neither mental nor physical, but is capable of mental and physical aspects or attributes.
In the last century, science (particularly atomic theory, evolution, computer technology and neuroscience) has demonstrated many ways in which mind and brain interact
in a physical way, but the exact nature of the relationship is still open to debate. The dominant metaphysics in the 20th Century has therefore been various versions of Physi-
calism (or Materialism), a Monist solution which explains matter and mind as mere aspects of each other, or derivatives of a neutral substance.
Objects and their Properties Back to Top
The world contains many individual things (objects or particulars), both physical and abstract, and what these things have in common with each other are called univer-
sals or properties. Metaphysicians are interested in the nature of objects and their properties, and the relationship between the two (see the sections on Realism and Nomi-
nalism).
The problem of universals arises when people start to consider in what sense it is possible for a property to exist in more than one place at the same time (e.g. a red car and
a red rose). It seems clear that there are many red things, for example, but is there an existing property of 'redness'? And if there is such a thing as 'redness', what kind of
thing is it? See the section on Realism for a further discussion of this.
Any object or entity is the sum of its parts (see Holism). The identity of an entity composed of other entities can be explained by reference to the identity of the building
blocks, and how they are interacting. A house can be explained by reference to the wood, metal, and glass that are combined in that particular way to form the house; or it
could be explained in terms of the atoms that form it (see the sections on Atomism and Reductionism).
Identity and Change Back to Top
Identity is whatever makes an entity definable and recognizable, in terms of possessing a set of qualities or characteristics that distinguish it from entities of a different type
(effectively, whatever makes something the same or different). Thus, according to Leibniz, if some object x is identical to some object y, then any property that x has, y will
have as well, and vice versa (otherwise, by definition, they would not be identical).
Aristotle's Law of Identity (or the Axiom of Identity) states that to exist, an existent (i.e. an entity that exists) must have a particular identity. A thing cannot exist without
existing as something, otherwise it would be nothing and it would not exist. Also, to have an identity means to have a single identity: an object cannot have two identities at
the same time or in the same respect. The concept of identity is important because it makes explicit that reality has a definite nature, which makes it knowable and, since it
exists in a particular way, it has no contradictions (when two ideas each make the other impossible).
Change is the alteration of identities, whether it be a stone falling to earth or a log burning to ash. For something to change (which is an effect), it needs to be acted
on (caused) by a previous action. Causality is the law that states that each cause has a specific effect, and that this effect is dependent on the initial identities of the agents
involved.
We are intuitively aware of change occurring over time (e.g. a tree loses a leaf). The Ancient Greeks took some extreme positions on the nature of change: Parmenides de-
nied that change occurs at all, while Heraclitus thought change was ubiquitous.
Currently there are three main theories which deal with the problem of change:
 Mereological Essentialism assumes that an object's parts are essential to it, and therefore that an object cannot persist through any change of its parts.
 Perdurantism holds that objects are effectively 4-dimensional entities made up of a series of temporal parts like the frames of a movie (it treats the tree, then, as a
series of tree-stages).
 Endurantism, on the other hand, holds that a whole object - and the same object - exists at each moment of its history, (so that the same tree persists regardless of how
many leaves it loses).
Space and Time Back to Top
A traditional Realist position is that time and space have existence independent from the human mind. Idealists, however, claim that space and time are mental con-
structs used to organize perceptions, or are otherwise unreal.
Descartes and Leibniz believed that, without physical objects, "space" would be meaningless because space is the framework upon which we understand how physical ob-
jects are related to each other. Sir Isaac Newton, on the other hand, argued for an absolute space ("container space"), which can continue to exist in the absence of matter.
With the work of Sir Albert Einstein, the pendulum swung back to relational space in which space is composed of relations between objects, with the implication that
it cannot exist in the absence of matter.
Although Parmenides denied the flow of time completely in ancient times, echoed more recently by the British Idealist J.M.E. McTaggart (1866 - 1925), much debate in
both philosophy and physics has centered on the direction of time ("time's arrow"), and whether it is reversible or symmetrical. As for whether objects persist over time,
then the endurantism / perdurantism dichotomy described above applies.
Religion and Spirituality Back to Top
Theology is the study of God and the nature of the Divine. This is sometimes considered a whole separate branch of philosophy, the Philosophy of Religion (see that sec-
tion for more detail). It asks questions like:
 Does the Divine intervene directly in the world (Theism), or is its sole function to be the first cause of the universe (Deism)?
 Is there one God (Monotheism), many gods (Polytheism) or no gods (Atheism or Humanism), or is it impossible to know (Agnosticism)?
 Are God and the universe identical (Pantheism, Monism) or are they different (Panentheism, Dualism)?
 Does religious belief depend on faith and revelation (Fideism), or on reason (Deism)?
Within Western Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion, and theology in general, reached its peak with Medieval Christian schools of thought like Scholasticism.
Necessity and Possibility Back to Top
A necessary fact is true across all possible worlds (that is, we could not imagine it to be otherwise). A possible fact is one that is true in some possible world, even if not in
the actual world. This idea of possible worlds was first introduced by Gottfried Leibniz, although others have dealt with it in much more detail since, notably the American
analytic philosopher David Lewis (1941 - 2001) in his theory of Modal Realism.
The concept of necessity and contingency (another term used in philosophy to describe the possibility of something happening or not happening) is also central to some of
the arguments used to justify the existence or non-existence of God, notably the Cosmological Argument from Contingency (see the section on Philosophy of Religion for
more details).
Abstract Objects and Mathematics Back to Top
Some philosophers hold that there are abstract objects (such as numbers, mathematical objects and fictional entities) and universals (properties that can be possessed by
multiple objects, such as "redness" or "squareness"), both of which are outside of space and time and/or are causally inert.
Realism, best exemplified by Plato and his Platonic Forms, teaches that universals really exist, independently and somehow prior to the world.
On the other hand, Nominalism holds that there is really no such thing as abstract objects, which really exist only as names, because a single object cannot exist in multiple
places simultaneously.
Moderate Realism, as espoused by Aristotle among others, tries to find some middle ground between Nominalism and Realism, and holds that there is no realm as such in
which universals exist, but rather they are located in space and time wherever they happen to be manifest. Conceptualism, the doctrine that universals exist only within the
mind and have no external or substantial reality, is also an intermediate solution.
Other positions such as Formalism and Fictionalism do not attribute any existence to mathematical entities, and are anti-Realist.
The Philosophy of Mathematics overlaps with metaphysics in this area.
Determinism and Free Will Back to Top
Determinism is the philosophical proposition that every event, including human cognition, decision and action, is causally determined by an unbroken chain of prior occur-
rences. Thus, there is at any instant only one physically possible future, and no random, spontaneous, mysterious or miraculous events ever occur.
This posits that there is no such thing as Free Will, where rational agents can exercise control over their own actions and decisions. Incompatibilists (or Hard Determin-
ists) like Baruch Spinoza, view determinism and free will as mutually exclusive. Others, labeled Compatibilists (or Soft Determinists), like Thomas Hobbes, believe that
the two ideas can be coherently reconciled.
It should be noted that Determinism does not necessarily mean that humanity or individual humans have no influence on the future (that is known as Fatalism), just that
the level to which human beings have influence over their future is itself dependent on present and past.
Cosmology and Cosmogony Back to Top
Cosmology is the branch of metaphysics that deals with the world as the totality of all phenomena in space and time. Historically, it was often founded in religion; in mod-
ern use it addresses questions about the world and the universe which are beyond the scope of physical science. Cosmogony deals specifically with the origin of the uni-
verse, but the two concepts are closely related.

Pantheists, such as Spinoza, believe that God and the universe are one and the same. Panentheists, such as Plotinus, believe that the entire universe is part of God, but that
God is greater than the universe. Deists, such as Voltaire, believe that God created the universe, set everything in motion, and then had nothing more to do with it. See the
section on Philosophy of Religion for more details.

major concept:
Agnosticism is the belief that the nature and existence of gods is unknown and inherently unknowable due to the nature of subjective experience. Technically, this position
is strong agnosticism: in popular usage, an agnostic may just be someone who takes no position, pro or con, on the existence of gods, or who has not yet been able to
decide, or who suspends judgment due to lack of evidence one way or the other (weak agnosticism).
Agnosticism maintains that the nature and attributes of God are beyond the grasp of man's finite and limited mind. Agnostics generally claim either that it is not possible to
have absolute or certain knowledge of the existence or non-existence of God or gods, or that, while individual certainty may be possible, they personally have no
knowledge. In both cases this involves some form of skepticism.
The earliest professed agnostic was Protagoras, although the term itself (from the Greek "agnosis" meaning "without knowledge") was not coined in English until the 1880s
by T. H. Huxley.
Types of Agnosticism Back to Top
 Strong Agnosticism:
This is the view (also called hard agnosticism, closed agnosticism, strict agnosticism, absolute agnosticism or epistemological agnosticism) that the question of the
 existence or non-existence of God or gods is unknowable by reason of our natural inability to verify any experience with anything but another subjective experience.
 Mild Agnosticism:
This is the view (also called weak agnosticism, soft agnosticism, open agnosticism, empirical agnosticism, or temporal agnosticism) that the existence or non-exist-
ence of God or gods is currently unknown but is not necessarily unknowable, therefore one will withhold judgment until more evidence becomes available.
 Pragmatic Agnosticism:
This is the view that there is no proof of either the existence or non-existence of God or gods.
 Apathetic Agnosticism:
This is the view that there is no proof of either the existence or non-existence of God or gods, but since any God or gods that may exist appear unconcerned for the
universe or the welfare of its inhabitants, the question is largely academic anyway.
 Agnostic Theism:
This is the view (also called religious agnosticism) of those who do not claim to know of the existence of God or gods, but still believe in such an existence.
 Agnostic Atheism:
This is the view of those who claim not to know of the existence or non-existence of God or gods, but do not believe in them.
 Ignosticism:
This is the view that a coherent definition of "God" must be put forward before the question of the existence or non-existence of God can even be meaningfully dis-
cussed. If the chosen definition is not coherent, the ignostic holds the Non-Cognitivist view that the existence of God is meaningless or empirically untestable. A. J.
Ayer, Theodore Drange and other philosophers see both atheism and agnosticism as incompatible with ignosticism on the grounds that atheism and agnosticism ac-
cept "God exists" as a meaningful proposition which can be argued for or against.
Support for Agnosticism Back to Top
Some of the most important agnostic philosophers are Protagoras, T. H. Huxley, Robert Ingersoll and Bertrand Russell, but many more public figures have been self-
confessed agnostics, including Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein, Milton Friedman, Carl Sagan and Mark Twain.
The Greek Sophist Protagoras was probably the earliest agnostic. He professed that the existence of the gods was unknowable in the 5th Century B.C.
Huxley was responsible for creating the terms "agnostic" and "agnosticism" to sum up his own position on Metaphysics. His agnosticism was a response to the clerical intol-
erance of the 1860's as it tried to suppress scientific discoveries which appeared to clash with scripture.
Ingersoll, known as "The Great Agnostic", was an influential American politician in the late 19th Century, and a strong supporter of Freethought (the philosophical view-
point that holds that beliefs should be formed on the basis of science and logic and not be influenced by emotion, authority, tradition or dogma). He popularized and justi-
fied the agnostic position, which he summed up in his 1986 lecture "Why I Am An Agnostic".
Russell's "Why I Am Not a Christian" and "Am I An Atheist Or An Agnostic?" are considered classic statements of agnosticism. He was careful to distinguish between
his atheism as regards certain types of god concepts, and his agnosticism as regards some other types of superhuman intelligence. Though he generally considered himself
an agnostic in a purely philosophical context, he said that the label "atheist" conveyed a more accurate understanding of his views in a popular context.
Introduction Back to Top
Atheism (or non-theism) is the belief that gods do not exist, or a complete rejection of Theism or any belief in a personal god or gods (the latter also known as antitheism).
It can cover a range of both religious and nonreligious attitudes. Many atheists tend toward secular philosophies such as Humanism and Naturalism.
The term "atheism" (from the Greek "godless") originated as an insult applied to any person or belief in conflict with established religion, the first English usage dating
back to the 16th Century. In common use, it merely indicates a disbelief in God, rather than an active denial of the existence of any gods. With the spread of freethought,
scientific skepticism and criticism of religion, the term began to gather a more specific meaning and was first used to describe a self-avowed belief in late 18th Century
Europe, and is now increasingly used as a self-description by atheists.
Several religions, including Confucianism, Taoism, Jainism and some varieties of Buddhism, either do not include belief in a personal god as a tenet of the religion, or
actively teach non-theism.
History of Atheism Back to Top
In Ancient Greece, the 5th Century B.C. philosopher Diagoras is often credited as the "first atheist" and strongly criticized all religion and mysticism. Atomists such
as Democritus attempted to explain the world in a purely materialistic way, without reference to the spiritual or mystical. Epicurus disputed many religious doctrines, includ-
ing the existence of an afterlife or a personal deity and, while he did not rule out the existence of gods, he believed that if they did exist they were unconcerned with hu-
manity. Skeptics like Pyrrho and Sextus Empiricus held that one should suspend judgment about virtually all beliefs.
During the Middle Ages, Scholasticism and orthodoxy in religious thought was at its height, and Atheism was a very uncommon, even dangerous, doctrine, although Wil-
liam of Ockham went so far as to assert that the divine essence could not be intuitively or rationally apprehended by human intellect. By the time of the Renaissance (15th -
16th Centuries), more skeptical inquiry was beginning and Niccolò Machiavelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Bonaventure des Périers and François Rabelais all criticized reli-
gion and the Church during this time.
In 17th and 18th Century Europe, Deism increased in popularity and criticism of Christianity became increasingly frequent, but it was only towards the end of the 18th
Century that Atheism began to be openly espoused by individuals such as Jean Meslier and Baron d'Holbach, and the Empiricist David Hume began to undermine the
metaphysical basis of natural theology.
By the mid-19th Century, many prominent German philosophers (including Ludwig Feuerbach, Arthur Schopenhauer, Karl Marx and Friedrich Nietzsche) were denying
the existence of deities and were strongly critical of religion.
In the 20th Century, atheistic thought found recognition in a wide variety of other broader philosophies, such as Existentialism, Objectivism, Humanism, Nihilism, Logical
Positivism and Marxism, as well as the Analytic Philosophy, Structuralism, Naturalism and Nominalism movements they gave rise to. Bertrand Russell emphatically re-
jected belief in God, and Ludwig Wittgenstein and A. J. Ayer, in their different ways, asserted the unverifiability and meaninglessness of religious statements.
New Atheism is a social and political movement that began in the early 2000s in favor of atheism and secularism. It has been largely promoted by a handful of popular
radical atheist writers, including the so-called "Four Horsemen of the Non-Apocalypse": Richard Dawkins (1941 - ), Christopher Hitchens (1949 - 2011), Sam Har-
ris (1967 - ) and Daniel Dennett (1942 - ). The movement advocates the view that "religion should not simply be tolerated but should be countered, criticized and ex-
posed by rational argument wherever its influence arises".
Types of Atheism Back to Top
Implicit Atheism is the absence of belief in one or more gods, without a conscious rejection of it. This may apply to someone who has never thought about belief in gods,
or never been exposed to theistic ideas, or, some would argue, also to newborn children. Explicit Atheism, on the other hand, is where someone makes a positive assertion,
either weak or strong, regarding their lack of belief in gods.
Another distinction is sometimes made between strong (or positive) atheism and weak (or negative) atheism. Strong atheism is a term generally used to describe atheists
who accept as true the proposition "gods do not exist". Weak atheism refers to any type of non-theism which falls short of this standard, and which can therefore be consid-
ered to also include Agnosticism.
A third distinction can be made between practical (or pragmatic) atheism, and theoretical (or contemplative) atheism. In practical atheism (also known as apatheism),
individuals live as if there are no gods and explain natural phenomena without resorting to the divine. This may be from an absence of religious motivation; an active exclu-
sion of the problem of gods and religion from intellectual pursuit and practical action; indifference and lack of interest in the problems of gods and religion; or just igno-
rance or a lack of any idea about gods. Theoretical atheism, on the other hand, explicitly posits arguments against the existence of gods, and actively responds to the com-
mon theistic arguments (see the section on Philosophy of Religion).
Arguments for Atheism Back to Top
Some atheists argue a lack of empirical evidence for the existence of deities and are skeptical of all supernatural beings, while others argue for Atheism on philosophi-
cal, social or historical grounds.
Among the arguments for atheism are:
 Epistemological arguments:
Various arguments claim that people cannot know God or determine the existence of God (arguably equivalent to Agnosticism). The rationalistic agnosticism
of Kant only accepts knowledge deduced with human rationality, and holds that gods are not discernible as a matter of principle, and therefore cannot be known to
exist. Skepticism asserts that certainty about anything is impossible, so one can never know the existence of God. Logical Positivism asserts the meaninglessness or un-
intelligibility of basic terms such as "God" and statements such as "God is all-powerful". Non-cognitivism holds that the statement "God exists" does not express a prop-
osition and is therefore nonsensical or cognitively meaningless.
 Metaphysical arguments:
Absolute metaphysical atheists subscribe to some form of Physicalism, which explicitly denies the existence of non-physical beings. Relative metaphysical athe-
ists maintain an implicit denial of a particular concept of God based on the incongruity between their individual philosophies and attributes commonly applied to God,
such as transcendence, personal aspect, unity, etc.
 Psychological, sociological and economical arguments:
Some thinkers, including the anthropologist Ludwig Feuerbach and the psychologist Sigmund Freud, have argued that God and other religious beliefs are human
inventions, created to fulfill various psychological and emotional wants or needs. Marxists like Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels and the Russian anarchist and revolu-
tionary Mikhail Bakunin have argued that belief in God and religion are social functions, used by those in power to oppress and enslave the working classes.
 Logical and evidential arguments:
Logical atheism holds that the various conceptions of gods, such as the personal god of Christianity, are ascribed logically inconsistent qualities(such as perfection,
 omniscience, omnipotence, omnibenevolence, transcendence, personhood, etc). Epicurus is credited with first expounding the problem of evil (the problem of reconcil-
ing the existence of evil or suffering in the world with the existence of a god - see the section in Philosophy of Religion), although a similar argument is also attributed
to Siddhartha Gautama, the founder of Buddhism.
 Anthropocentric arguments:
Axiological (or constructive) atheism favors humanity as the absolute source of ethics and values, and permits individuals to resolve moral problems without resorting
to God. Marx, Nietzsche, Sartre and Freud all used this argument to some extent to convey messages of liberation, full-development, and unfettered happiness.
Introduction Back to Top
Atomism is the theory that all of reality and all the objects in the universe are composed of very small, indivisible and indestructible building blocks known as at-
oms (from the Greek "atomos", meaning "uncuttable"). This leads logically to the position that only atoms exist, and there are no composite objects (objects with parts),
which would mean that human bodies, clouds, planets, etc, all do not exist.
Traditional Atomism asserts that all physical objects consist of different arrangements of eternal atoms and the infinite void in which they form different combinations and
shapes. There is no room in this theory for the concept of a God, and essentially it is a type of Materialism or Physicalism.
Ancient Indian Atomism Back to Top
The Hindu Nyaya-Vaisesika school developed one of the earliest forms of Atomism in India between the 6th century B.C. and 1st Century B.C., with elaborate theories of
how the four elemental atom types (with 24 different possible qualities), combine. These atoms were considered to have general (intensive and extensive) properties and
specific (intensive) properties, and to combine in pairs (dyads), and then group into trios of pairs (triads), which are the smallest visible units of matter.
There was a doctrine of Buddhist Atomism, which began developing in India before the 4th Century B.C., in which there was also four kinds of atoms, corresponding to
the standard elements. Each of these elements has a specific property, such as solidity or motion, and performs a specific function in mixtures, such as providing support or
causing growth. The movement had a second phase during the 7th Century A.D., led by Dharmakirti, which considered atoms to be point-sized, durationless and made
of energy.
Then Jain religion in India had also developed an atomic theory by the 1st Century B.C. The Jains envisioned the world as consisting wholly of atoms, except for souls.
Each atom, according to Jaina philosophy, has one kind of taste, one smell, one color, and two kinds of touch, and can exist in one of two states, "subtle" (in which case
they can fit in infinitesimally small spaces) and "gross" (in which case they have extension and occupy a finite space). Atoms can combine based on their eternal properties
to produce any of six “aggregates” (earth, water, shadow, sense objects, karmic matter and unfit matter), similar to the Greek concept of elements.
History of Western Atomism Back to Top
In Western Philosophy, Atomism is usually associated with the Greek Pre-Socratic philosopher Democritus, although in reality Democritus's teacher Leucippus (5th Cen-
tury B.C.) was certainly co-founder of the doctrine, and quite possibly fully responsible for it. Aristotle explicitly credited Leucippus with the invention of Atomism, alt-
hough no fragments of his writings survive, and we have only a few fragments of the writing of Democritus (and most of that second-hand).
Democritus and Leucippus taught that the hidden substance in all physical objects consists of different arrangements of atoms and void. Both atoms and the void
were never created, and they will be never ending. The void is infinite and provides the space in which the atoms can pack or scatter differently. The different possi-
ble packings and scatterings within the void make up the shifting outlines and bulk of the objects that we feel, see, eat, hear, smell, and taste. While we may feel hot or cold,
"hot" and "cold" actually have no real existence, but are simply sensations produced in us by the different packings and scatterings of the atoms in the void that compose the
object.
Plato objected to the mechanistic purposelessness of the Atomism of Democritus, arguing that atoms just crashing into other atoms could never produce
the beauty and form of the world. For Plato, the four simple bodies (fire, air, water and earth) were geometric solids, the faces of which were, in turn, made up of triangles.
Since the simple bodies could be decomposed into triangles, the triangles could be reassembled into atoms of different elements and substances.
Aristotle asserted that the elements of fire, air, earth, and water were not made of atoms, but were continuous. He considered the existence of a void, which was required by
atomic theories, to violate physical principles, and speculated that change took place not by the rearrangement of atoms to make new structures, but by transformation of
matter from what it was in potential to a new actuality. Aristotle represented the first important movement away from Atomism.
Epicurus was a follower of Democritus's Atomism, although he questioned how specific natural phenomena (such as earthquakes, lightning, comets or the phases of the
Moon) could be explained by this theory. Other Epicurean students, particularly Lucretius (99 - 55 B.C.), fleshed out Atomism, and described how the universe began its
current stage (after collisions that shatter large objects into smaller objects, the resulting dust, still composed of the same eternal atoms as the prior configurations of the
universe, falls into a whirling motion that draws the dust into larger objects again to begin another cycle).
Aristotelian philosophy eclipsed the importance of the Atomists, and there was little interest expressed in the idea throughout the whole of the medieval period until its res-
urrection in the 16th and 17th Century, although the Islamic Ash'arite school of philosophy, notably al-Ghazali (1058 - 1111), propounded a type of hybrid Atomism where
atoms are the only perpetual, material things in existence, and all else in the world is “accidental” (lasting for only an instant), and contingent events are the direct result
of God’s constant intervention.
Much of the renewed interest in Atomism in the 16th and 17th Century was precipitated by scientific advances, particularly those of Nicolaus Copernicus (1473 - 1543)
and Galileo Galilei (1564 - 1642), who himself converted to Atomism when he found that his corpuscular theory of matter and his experiments with falling bodies and in-
clined planes contradicted the mainstream Aristotelian theories. The English philosophers Sir Francis Bacon and Thomas Hobbes were both confirmed Atomists for a time,
as was Giordano Bruno (1548 - 1600) in Italy.
However, the main figures in the rebirth of Atomism were the French philosophers René Descartes and Pierre Gassendi (1592 - 1655), and the Irish philosopher and scien-
tist Robert Boyle (1627 - 1691).
Descartes’ mechanical philosophy of corpuscularism (that everything physical in the universe is made of tiny “corpuscles” of matter, and that sensations, such as taste or
temperature, are caused by the shape and size of tiny pieces of matter) had much in common with Atomism, and may be considered in some sense another version of it,
although for Descartes there could be no void, and all matter was constantly swirling to prevent a void as corpuscles moved through other matter. Descartes was also firm on
the concept of mind/body duality, which allowed for an independent realm of existence for thought, soul and, most importantly, God.
Pierre Gassendi was a French priest and natural philosopher, who set out to “purify” Atomism from its heretical and atheistic philosophical conclusions. He formulated his
atomistic conception of mechanical philosophy partly in response to Descartes, particularly opposing Descartes’ reductionist view that only purely mechanical explanations
of physics are valid.
Robert Boyle's form of Atomism, which came to be accepted by most English scientists, was essentially an amalgamation of the two French systems. He arrived at it after
encountering problems reconciling Aristotelian physics with his chemistry experimentation.
Roger Boscovich (1711 - 1787) provided the first general mathematical theory of Atomism, utilizing principles of Newtonian mechanics. Then, in the early 19th Cen-
tury, John Dalton (1766 - 1844) developed his atomic theory in which he first proposed that each chemical element is composed of atoms of a single, unique type, which
can combine to form more complex structures (chemical compounds).
Although philosophical Atomism led to the development of early scientific atomic theory, modern science has shown that atoms in the chemical sense are actually composed
of smaller particles (electrons, neutrons and protons), and that these in turn are composed of even more fundamental particles called quarks. Although the principle can
still theoretically apply, there are few, if any, modern-day atomists.
Types of Atomism Back to Top

 Social Atomism is the belief that society should be viewed in terms of the individual's importance, and that society is artificially constructed. It holds that all proper-
ties of institutions and values merely accumulate from the striving of the individual.

 Logical Atomism was developed by Bertrand Russell (out of earlier work by Ludwig Wittgenstein) in an attempt to identify the "atoms of thought", the pieces of
thought that cannot be divided into smaller pieces of thought.
Simples Theory is a doctrine of contemporary mereology (the theory of parts and their respective wholes), where a "simple" is any thing that has no proper
parts (similar to the philosophical concept of an atom), and is contrasted to "gunk" which is any whole whose parts all have further proper parts.
Introduction Back to Top
Deism is a form of Monotheism in which it is believed that one God exists, but that this God does not intervene in the world, or interfere with human life and the laws of the
universe. It posits a non-interventionist creator who permits the universe to run itself according to natural laws.
Deism derives the existence and nature of God from reason and personal experience, rather than relying on revelation in sacred scriptures (which deists see as interpreta-
tions made by other humans and not as an authoritative source) or on the testimony of others. This is in direct contrast to Fideism (the view that religious belief depends
on faith or revelation, rather than reason). It can maybe best be described as a basic belief rather than as a religion in itself, and there are currently no established deistic
religions.
Deists typically reject supernatural events (e.g. prophecy, miracles, the divinity of Jesus, the Christian concept of the Trinity), and they regard their faith as a natural reli-
gion as contrasted with one that is revealed by a God or which is artificially created by humans. They do not view God as an entity in human form; they believe that one
cannot access God through any organized religion or set of rituals, sacraments or other practices; they do not believe that God has selected a chosen people (e.g. Jews or
Christians) to be the recipients of any special revelation or gifts; and, given that they view God as having left his creation behind, prayer makes no sense to them, except
perhaps to express their appreciation to God for his works.
History of Deism Back to Top
The roots of Deism lie with Heraclitus and Plato, but it gained popularity with the natural theologists of 17th Century England and France, who rejected any special or
supposedly supernatural revelation of God. Isaac Newton's discovery of universal gravitation explained the behavior both of objects here on earth and of objects in the
heavens and promoted a world view in which the natural universe is controlled by laws of nature. This, in turn, suggested a theology in which God created the universe, set
it in motion controlled by natural laws, and then retired from the scene.
The first use of the term "deism" in English dates back to the early 17th Century (earlier in France). Lord Herbert of Cherbury (1583 - 1648) is generally considered the
"father of English deism" and his book "De Veritate" (1624) the first major statement of deism. Deism flourished in England between 1690 and 1740, and then spread to
France, notably via the work of Voltaire, to Germany and to America. Although not himself a deist, John Locke's "An Essay Concerning Human Understanding" (1690)
marks a major turning point in the history of deism, and a theory of knowledge based on experience replaced the earlier one of innate ideas, culminating in Matthew Tin-
dal's "Deist Bible" (1730).
During the 18th Century, Deism's converts included Voltaire, Michel de Montaigne (1533 - 1592), Rousseau and Maximilien Robespierre (1758 - 1794) in France, and
several of the founding fathers of the United States of America. With the critical the writings of David Hume and Immanuel Kant though, Deism's influence started to wane
as the 18th Century progressed.
Variants of Deism Back to Top

 Pandeism is the belief that God preceded the universe and created it, but is now equivalent to it - a composite of Deism and Pantheism. Pandeism holds that God was
a conscious and sentient force or entity that designed and created the universe, which operates by mechanisms set forth as part of the creation. God thus became an un-
conscious and non-responsive being by becoming the universe.
 Panendeism is a composite of Deism and Panentheism. It holds that the universe is part of God, but not all of God, and that it operates according to natural mecha-
nisms without the need for the intervention of a traditional God, somewhat similar to the Native American concept of the all- pervading Great Spirit.
Polydeism is the belief that multiple gods exist, but do not intervene with the universe - a composite of Deism and Polytheism.
Introduction Back to Top
Determinism is the philosophical proposition that every event, decision and action is causally determined by an unbroken chain of prior occurrences. This does not neces-
sarily mean that humans have no influence on the future and its events (a position more correctly known as Fatalism), but that the level to which humans have influence
over their future is itself dependent on present and past. Taken to its logical extreme, Determinism would argue that the initial Big Bang triggered every single action, and
possibly mental thought, through a system of cause and effect.
Thus, a Materialist or Physicalist view of the universe almost always involves some degree of Determinism. However, if the minds or souls of conscious beings are consid-
ered as separate entities (see the section on Philosophy of Mind), the position on Determinism becomes more complex. For instance, the immaterial souls may be considered
part of a deterministic framework; or they could exert a non-deterministic causal influence on bodies and the world; or they could exert no causal influence, either free or
determined.
Another variation arises from the idea of Deism, which holds that the universe has been deterministic since Creation, but ascribes the Creation itself to a metaphysical God
or first cause outside of the chain of determinism.
Some hold that if Determinism were true, it would negate human morals and ethics. Some, however, argue that, through an extended period of social development, a conflu-
ence of events could have formed to generate the very idea of morals and ethics in our minds (a sort of chicken and egg situation).
Interpretation of Determinism Back to Top
Determinism can be interpreted in two main way:
 Incompatibilism is the belief that Free Will and Determinism are logically incompatible categories and therefore mutually exclusive. This could include believing that
Determinism is the reality, and therefore Free Will is an illusion (known as Hard Determinism); or that Free Will is true, and therefore Determinism is not (known
as Libertarianism); or even that neither Determinism nor Free Will is true (known as Pessimistic Incompatibilism).
 Compatibilism is the belief that Free Will and Determinism can be compatible ideas, and that it is possible to believe both without being logically inconsistent. By this
definition, Free Will is not the ability to choose as an agent independent of prior cause, but as an agent who is not forced to make a certain choice. This leads to the
position of Soft Determinism, proposed by the American Pragmatist William James on the grounds that thorough-going, or Hard, Determinism leads either to a
bleak pessimism or to a degenerate subjectivism in moral judgment
History of Determinism Back to Top
In Buddhism, there is a theory called Dependent Origination (or Dependent Arising), which is similar to the Western concept of Determinism. Roughly speaking, it states
that phenomena arise together in a mutually interdependent web of cause and effect, and that every phenomenon is conditioned by, and depends on, every other phenom-
ena.
According to the ancient Chinese "Yi Jing" (or "I Ching", the "Book of Changes"), a kind of divine will sets the fundamental rules for the working out of the probabili-
ties on which the universe operates, although human wills are also a factor in the ways in which we can deal with the real world situations we encounter.
In the West, the Ancient Greek atomists Leucippus and Democritus were the first to anticipate Determinism when they theorized that all processes in the world were due to
the mechanical interplay of atoms.
With the advent of Newtonian physics, in the 17th Century, which depicts the physical matter of the universe as operating according to a set of fixed, knowable laws, it
began to appear that, once the initial conditions of the universe have been established, then the rest of the history of the universe follows inevitably, (rather like billiard balls
moving and striking each other in predictable ways to produce predictable results). Any uncertainty was always a term that applied to the accuracy of human
knowledge about causes and effects, and not to the causes and effects themselves.
Since the beginning of the 20th Century, quantum mechanics has revealed previously concealed aspects of events, and Newtonian physics has been shown to be merely
an approximation to the reality of quantum mechanics. At atomic scales, for instance, the paths of objects can only be predicted in a probabilistic way. Some argue that
quantum mechanics is still essentially deterministic; some argue that it just has the appearance of being deterministic; some that quantum mechanics negates completely the
determinism of classical Newtonian mechanics.
Types of Determinism Back to Top
 Causal Determinism (or Nomological Determinism) is the belief that future events are necessitated by past and present events combined with the laws of nature.
Thus, all events have a cause and effect and the precise combination of events at a particular time results in a particular outcome.
 Logical Determinism is the notion that all propositions (i.e. assertions or declarative sentences), whether about the past, present or future, are either true or false. The
question then arises as to how choices can be free, given that what one does in the future is already determined as true or false in the present.
 Environmental Determinism (or Climatic or Geographical Determinism) is the view that the physical environment, rather than social conditions, determines cul-
ture.
 Biological Determinism is the idea that all behavior, belief and desire is fixed by our genetic endowment and make-up and cannot be changed.
 Theological Determinism is the belief that there is a God who determines all that humans will do, either by knowing their actions in advance (via some form of omnis-
cience) or by decreeing their actions in advance.
Emergentism (or Generativism) argues that free will does not exist, although an illusion of Free Will is experienced due to the generation of apparently infinite varia-
tions in behavior from the interaction of a finite (and deterministic) set of rules and parameters. Thus the unpredictability of the emerging behavior which we see in
daily life actually stems from complex, but entirely deterministic, processes.
Introduction Back to Top
Dualism in Metaphysics is the belief that there are two kinds of reality: material (physical) and immaterial (spiritual). In Philosophy of Mind, Dualism is the position that
mind and body are in some categorical way separate from each other, and that mental phenomena are, in some respects, non-physical in nature.
It can be contrasted (both as a metaphysical concept and as regards Philosophy of Mind) with various kinds of Monism (including Physicalism and Idealism), and with Plu-
ralism, which holds that ultimately there are many kinds of substance, rather than just two.
Dualism appeals to the common-sense intuition of the vast majority of non-philosophically-trained people, and the mental and the physical do seem to most people to have
quite different, and perhaps irreconcilable, properties. Mental events have a certain subjective quality to them (known as qualia or "the ways things seem to us"), whereas
physical events do not. Critics of dualism have often asked how something totally immaterial can affect something totally material (the problem of causal interaction).
With the knowledge gained from modern science, few, if any, neuroscientists would consider taking a dualist position, and Monistic beliefs like Physicalism are now much
more common within the field of philosophy.
History of Dualism Back to Top
Dualism can be traced back to Plato and Aristotle, and also to the early Sankhya and Yoga schools of Hindu philosophy.
Plato first formulated his famous Theory of Forms, distinct and immaterial substances of which the objects and other phenomena that we perceive in the world are nothing
more than mere shadows. He argued that for the intellect to have access to these universal concepts or ideas, the mind must itself be a non-physical, immaterial entity.
Aristotle argued that if the intellect were a specific material organ (or part of one) then it would be restricted to receiving only certain kinds of information (in the same
way as the eye is restricted to receiving visual data). Since the intellect is capable of receiving and reflecting on all forms of data, then it must not be a physical organ and so
must be immaterial.
Neo-Platonic Christians identified Plato's Forms with souls and believed that the soul was the substance of each individual human being, while the body was just a shadow
or copy of these eternal phenomena. For St. Thomas Aquinas, the soul was still the substance of the human being but, similar to Aristotle's proposal, it was only through its
manifestation inside the human body that a person could be said to be a person.
However, Dualism was most precisely formulated by René Descartes in the 17th Century. Descartes was the first to formulate the mind-body problem in the form in which
it exists today, and the first to clearly identify the mind with consciousness and self-awareness, and to distinguish this from the brain, which was the physical seat of intelli-
gence. He realized that he could doubt whether he had a body (it could be that he was dreaming of it or that it was an illusion created by an evil demon), but he could not
doubt whether he had a mind, which suggested to him that the mind and body must be different things. However, the immaterial mind and the material body, while being on-
tologically distinct substances, causally interact in some unspecified way through the pineal gland.
Types of Dualism Back to Top
 Substance Dualism (or Cartesian Dualism) argues that the mind is an independently existing substance - the mental does not have extension in space, and the mate-
rial cannot think. This is the type of Dualism most famously defended by Descartes, and it is compatible with most theologies which claim that immortal souls occupy an
independent "realm" of existence distinct from that of the physical world.
 Property Dualism (also sometimes known as Token Physicalism) maintains that the mind is a group of independent properties that emerge from the brain, but that it
is not a distinct substance. Thus, when matter is organized in the appropriate way (i.e. in the way that living human bodies are organized), mental properties emerge.
There are three main types of Property Dualism:
 Interactionism, which allows that mental causes (such as beliefs and desires) can produce material effects, and vice-versa. Descartes believed that this interaction
physically occurred in the pineal gland.
 Occasionalism, asserts that a material basis of interaction between the material and immaterial is impossible, and that the interactions were really caused by the in-
tervention of God on each individual occasion. Nicholas Malebranche was the major proponent of this view.
 Parallelism (or Psychophysical Parallelism), holds that mental causes only have mental effects, and physical causes only have physical effects, but that God has
created a pre-established harmony so that it seems as if physical and mental events (which are really monads, completely independent of each other) cause, and
are caused by, one another. This unusual view was most prominently advocated by Gottfried Leibniz.
 Epiphenomenalism, which asserts that mental events are causally inert (i.e. have no physical consequences). Physical events can cause other physical events, and
physical events can cause mental events, but mental events cannot cause anything, since they are just causally inert by-products of physical events which occur in
the brain (i.e. epiphenomena) of the physical world. This doctrine was first formulated by Thomas Henry Huxley in the 19th Century, although based on Thomas
Hobbes' much earlier Materialism theories.

 Predicate Dualism argues that more than one predicate (how we describe the subject of a proposition) is required to make sense of the world, and that the psychologi-
cal experiences we go through cannot be redescribed in terms of (or reduced to) physical predicates of natural languages.
Epistemological Dualism (also known as Representationalism or Indirect Realism) is the view in Epistemology that the world we see in conscious experience is not
the real world itself, but merely a miniature virtual-reality replica of that world in an internal representation.
Introduction Back to Top
Essentialism, at its simplest, is the view that things have essences (the attribute, or set of attributes, that make an object or substance what it fundamentally is). Thus, for
any specific kind of entity, there is a set of characteristics (or properties or traits), all of which any entity of that kind must have. A member of a specific kind of entity
may possess other characteristics but these neither establish nor preclude its membership.
It is contrasted with Non-Essentialism (which states that there are no specific traits which any given kind of entity must have), and with Nominalism (which states that ab-
stract concepts, general terms or universals have no independent existence but exist only as names).
An essence characterizes a permanent, unalterable and eternal substance, or a form (in the sense of the Forms or Ideas in Platonic Realism). Plato was therefore one of the
first essentialists, believing in the concept of ideal forms, an abstract entity of which individual objects are mere facsimiles. Classical Humanism has an essentialist concep-
tion of the human being, which means that it believes in an eternal and unchangeable human nature.
Types of Essentialism Back to Top
 Mereological Essentialism is the view that objects have their parts essentially. Therefore, if an object loses or gains a part, it would effectively cease to exist in that it
would not be the same object anymore.
 Ethical Essentialism (or Moral Absolutism) is the claim that some things are wrong in an essential or absolute sense, breaking a universal, objective and natural moral
law and not merely an adventitious, socially or ethically constructed one.
 Epistemological Essentialism is the view that all entities have intrinsic properties that can be discerned by reason (sometimes attributed to Aristotle).
 Sociological Essentialism is a sociological (as opposed to philosophical) theory which states that positions on gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity or other group charac-
teristics are fixed traits, not allowing for variations among individuals or over time. It has been used, at different times, as a convenient doctrine by both national-
ist and liberationist movements, and for simplifying the task of colonization and imperialism.
Educational Essentialism is an educational (as opposed to philosophical) theory that states that children should learn the traditional basic subjects and that these
should be learned thoroughly and rigorously. An essentialist program normally teaches children progressively, from less complex skills to more complex.
Introduction Back to Top
Existentialism is a philosophy that emphasizes individual existence, freedom and choice. It is the view that humans define their own meaning in
life, and try to make rational decisions despite existing in an irrational universe. It focuses on the question of human existence, and the feeling that
there is no purpose or explanation at the core of existence. It holds that, as there is no God or any other transcendent force, the only way to coun-
ter this nothingness (and hence to find meaning in life) is by embracing existence.
Thus, Existentialism believes that individuals are entirely free and must take personal responsibility for themselves (although with this responsibility
comes angst, a profound anguish or dread). It therefore emphasizes action, freedom and decision as fundamental, and holds that the only way to rise
above the essentially absurd condition of humanity (which is characterized by suffering and inevitable death) is by exercising our personal freedom
and choice (a complete rejection of Determinism).

Often, Existentialism as a movement is used to describe those who refuse to belong to any school of thought, repudiating of the adequacy of any body of
beliefs or systems, claiming them to be superficial, academic and remote from life. Although it has much in common with Nihilism, Existentialism is more
a reaction against traditional philosophies, such as Rationalism, Empiricism and Positivism, that seek to discover an ultimate order and universal mean-
ing in metaphysical principles or in the structure of the observed world. It asserts that people actually make decisions based on what has meaning to them,
rather than what is rational.
Existentialism originated with the 19th Century philosophers Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche, although neither used the term in their work. In
the 1940s and 1950s, French existentialists such as Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus (1913 - 1960), and Simone de Beauvoir (1908 - 1986) wrote scholarly
and fictional works that popularized existential themes, such as dread, boredom, alienation, the absurd, freedom, commitment and nothingness.
Main Beliefs Back to Top
Unlike René Descartes, who believed in the primacy of consciousness, Existentialists assert that a human being is "thrown into" into a concrete, inveter-
ate universe that cannot be "thought away", and therefore existence ("being in the world") precedes consciousness, and is the ultimate reality. Exist-
ence, then, is prior to essence (essence is the meaning that may be ascribed to life), contrary to traditional philosophical views dating back to the ancient
Greeks. As Sartre put it: "At first [Man] is nothing. Only afterward will he be something, and he himself will have made what he will be."
Kierkegaard saw rationality as a mechanism humans use to counter their existential anxiety, their fear of being in the world. Sartre saw rationality as a
form of "bad faith", an attempt by the self to impose structure on a fundamentally irrational and random world of phenomena ("the other"). This bad
faith hinders us from finding meaning in freedom, and confines us within everyday experience.
Kierkegaard also stressed that individuals must choose their own way without the aid of universal, objective standards. Friedrich Nietzsche further
contended that the individual must decide which situations are to count as moral situations. Thus, most Existentialists believe that personal experi-
ence and acting on one's own convictions are essential in arriving at the truth, and that the understanding of a situation by someone involved in that
situation is superior to that of a detached, objective observer (similar to the concept of Subjectivism).
According to Camus, when an individual's longing for order collides with the real world's lack of order, the result is absurdity. Human beings are there-
fore subjects in an indifferent, ambiguous and absurd universe, in which meaning is not provided by the natural order, but rather can be created (how-
ever provisionally and unstable) by human actions and interpretations.
Existentialism can be atheistic, theological (or theistic) or agnostic. Some Existentialists, like Nietzsche, proclaimed that "God is dead" and that the concept of
God is obsolete. Others, like Kierkegaard, were intensely religious, even if they did not feel able to justify it. The important factor for Existentialists is
the freedom of choice to believe or not to believe.
History of Existentialism Back to Top
Existentialist-type themes appear in early Buddhist and Christian writings (including those of St. Augustine and St.Thomas Aquinas). In the 17th Cen-
tury, Blaise Pascal suggested that, without a God, life would be meaningless, boring and miserable, much as later Existentialists believed, although, unlike
them, Pascal saw this as a reason for the existence of a God. His near-contemporary, John Locke, advocated individual autonomy and self-determina-
tion, but in the positive pursuit of Liberalism and Individualism rather than in response to an Existentialist experience.
Existentialism in its currently recognizable form was inspired by the 19th Century Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, the German philosophers Frie-
drich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger, Karl Jaspers (1883 - 1969) and Edmund Husserl, and writers like the Russian Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821 - 1881) and
the Czech Franz Kafka (1883 - 1924). It can be argued that Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Arthur Schopenhauer were also important influences on
the development of Existentialism, because the philosophies of Kierkegaard and Nietzsche were written in response or in opposition to them.
Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, like Pascal before them, were interested in people's concealment of the meaninglessness of life and their use of diversion to
escape from boredom. However, unlike Pascal, they considered the role of making free choices on fundamental values and beliefs to be essential in the
attempt to change the nature and identity of the chooser. In Kierkegaard's case, this results in the "knight of faith", who puts complete faith in himself
and in God, as described in his 1843 work "Fear and Trembling". In Nietzsche's case, the much-maligned "Übermensch" (or "Superman") attains su-
periority and transcendence without resorting to the "other-worldliness" of Christianity, in his books "Thus Spake Zarathustra" (1885) and "Be-
yond Good and Evil" (1887).
Martin Heidegger was an important early philosopher in the movement, particularly his influential 1927 work "Being and Time", although he himself vehe-
mently denied being an existentialist in the Sartrean sense. His discussion of ontology is rooted in an analysis of the mode of existence of individual hu-
man beings, and his analysis of authenticity and anxiety in modern culture make him very much an Existentialist in the usual modern usage.
Existentialism came of age in the mid-20th Century, largely through the scholarly and fictional works of the French existentialists, Jean-Paul Sartre, Al-
bert Camus (1913 - 1960) and Simone de Beauvoir (1908 - 1986). Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908 - 1961) is another influential and often overlooked
French Existentialist of the period.
Sartre is perhaps the most well-known, as well as one of the few to have actually accepted being called an "existentialist". "Being and Nothing-
ness" (1943) is his most important work, and his novels and plays, including "Nausea" (1938) and "No Exit (1944), helped to popularize the movement.
In "The Myth of Sisyphus" (1942), Albert Camus uses the analogy of the Greek myth of Sisyphus (who is condemned for eternity to roll a rock up a hill,
only to have it roll to the bottom again each time) to exemplify the pointlessness of existence, but shows that Sisyphus ultimately finds meaning and pur-
pose in his task, simply by continually applying himself to it.
Simone de Beauvoir, an important existentialist who spent much of her life alongside Sartre, wrote about feminist and existential ethics in her works, in-
cluding "The Second Sex" (1949) and "The Ethics of Ambiguity" (1947).
Although Sartre is considered by most to be the pre-eminent Existentialist, and by many to be an important and innovative philosopher in his own right,
others are much less impressed by his contributions. Heidegger himself thought that Sartre had merely taken his own work and regressed it back to
the subject-object orientated philosophy of Descartes and Husserl, which is exactly what Heidegger had been trying to free philosophy from. Some
see Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908 - 1961) as a better Existentialist philosopher, particular for his incorporation of the body as our way of being in the
world, and for his more complete analysis of perception (two areas in which Heidegger's work is often seen as deficient).
Criticisms of Existentialism Back to Top
Herbert Marcuse (1898 - 1979) has criticized Existentialism, especially Sartre's "Being and Nothingness", for projecting some features of living in a mod-
ern oppressive society (features such as anxiety and meaninglessness) onto the nature of existence itself.
Roger Scruton (1944 - ) has claimed that both Heidegger's concept of inauthenticity and Sartre's concept of bad faith are both self-inconsistent, in
that they deny any universal moral creed, yet speak of these concepts as if everyone is bound to abide by them.
Logical Positivists, such as A. J. Ayer and Rudolf Carnap (1891 - 1970), claim that existentialists frequently become confused over the verb "to be" (which
is meaningless if used without a predicate) and by the word "nothing" (which is the negation of existence and therefore cannot be assumed to refer
to something).
Marxists, especially in post-War France, found Existentialism to run counter to their emphasis on the solidarity of human beings and their theory of eco-
nomic determinism. They further argued that Existentialism's emphasis on individual choice leads to contemplation rather than to action, and that
only the bourgeoisie has the luxury to make themselves what they are through their choices, so they considered Existentialism to be a bourgeois philoso-
phy.
Christian critics complain that Existentialism portrays humanity in the worst possible light, overlooking the dignity and grace that comes from being
made in the image of God. Also, according to Christian critics, Existentialists are unable to account for the moral dimension of human life, and have
no basis for an ethical theory if they deny that humans are bound by the commands of God. On the other hand, some commentators have objected to Kier-
kegaard's continued espousal of Christianity, despite his inability to effectively justify it.
In more general terms, the common use of pseudonymous characters in existentialist writing can make it seem like the authors are unwilling
to own their insights, and are confusing philosophy with literature.
Introduction Back to Top
Fideism (from the Latin "fides" or "faith") is the view that religious belief depends on faith or revelation, rather than reason, intellect or natural
theology. In this respect it is in direct opposition to the doctrine of Deism. More accurately it objects to evidentialism, the notion that no belief should be
held unless it is supported by evidence. As a result, it holds that theology may include logical contradictions without apology. It may or may not also
involve active disparagement of the claims of reason.
Fideism teaches that rational or scientific arguments for the existence of God (see the section on Philosophy of Religion) are fallacious and irrelevant,
and have nothing to do with the truth of Christian theology because Christian theology teaches that people are saved by faith in the Christian God (i.e. trust
in the empirically unprovable) and if the Christian God's existence can be proven, either empirically or logically, then to that extent faith be-
comes unnecessary or irrelevant. Therefore, if Christian theology is true, no immediate proof of the Christian God's existence is possible.
Support for Fideism Back to Top
Support for fideism is most commonly associated, inter alia, with four major philosophers: Blaise Pascal, Søren Kierkegaard, William James, and Ludwig
Wittgenstein:
Tertullian (160 - 235), a Roman early Christian, is often credited with early fideist tendencies by virtue of his statement "the Son of God died; it is by all
means to be believed, because it is absurd", although it is likely that he was engaging in ironic overstatement here, and his main point was that if a
person in whom you have trust tells you about a miraculous event he witnessed, you can allow yourself to consider that he may be saying the truth
despite the fact that the event is very unlikely.
Pascal's formulation commonly known as Pascal's Wager is a type of fideism in which he invites atheists to see faith in God as a cost-free choice that
carries a potential reward. It can be stated as follows: If we believe in God, then if he exists we will receive an infinite reward in heaven, while if he
does not then we have lost little or nothing. Conversely, if we do not believe in God, then if he exists we will receive an infinite punishment in hell,
while if he does not then we will have gained little or nothing. "Either receiving an infinite reward in heaven or losing little or nothing" is clearly prefer-
able to "either receiving an infinite punishment in hell or gaining little or nothing", so it is rational to believe in God, even if there is no evidence that
he exists.
Johann Georg Hamann (1730 - 1788), considered to be the father of modern irrationalism, built on the work of David Hume to argue that every-
thing people do is ultimately based on faith. He maintained that without faith in the existence of an external world (for it can never be proven), hu-
man affairs could not continue, so all reasoning actually comes from this faith and it is fundamental to the human condition.
Kierkegaard's Christian Existentialism probed into the problem of faith in general, particularly focusing on the story of Abraham's willingness to sacri-
fice Isaac, and the incarnation of Christ. He ultimately affirmed that to believe in God made flesh was to believe in the "absolute paradox", since it
implies that an eternal, perfect being would become a simple human. Reason cannot possibly comprehend such a phenomenon, so one can only believe
in it by taking a "leap of faith".
James established a set of conditions under which, he argued, it is reasonable to believe in the absence of proof. He termed this a "genuine op-
tion", which he concluded must be "live", "forced" and "momentous". Unlike Pascal, James claimed that religious belief may not be more rational
than Atheism or Agnosticism, but it is at least not less rational. He further argued that when it comes to religion we cannot avoid taking sides and
incurring risks, and it is not enough to just avoid error.
Wittgenstein formulated his own Wittgensteinian Fideism which holds that religion is a self-contained, and primarily expressive, enterprise,
governed by its own internal logic or “grammar”. He pointed out that religion is logically cut off from other aspects of life; that religious discourse is
essentially self-referential and does not allow us to talk about reality; that religious beliefs can be understood only by religious believers; and that
religion cannot be criticized.
Presuppositional Apologists hold that all human thought must begin with the proposition that the revelation contained in the Bible is axio-
matic (self-evident and not to be proved or demonstrated) or one would not be able to make sense of any human experience. They further claim that all
people actually believe in God, whether they admit or deny it.
Criticism of Fideism Back to Top
Fideism has received criticism not just from atheists, but also from theologians who argue that fideism is not a proper way to worship God.
As sin:
The French Scholastic Peter Abelard, the Medieval Muslim philosopher Al-Ghazali and the Deist Lord Herbert of Cherbury have all argued that if
one does not attempt to understand what one believes, one is not really believing: “blind faith” is not true faith at all.
As dangerous:
Individuals who unquestioningly obey irrational personal beliefs can be dangerous, and destructive or disruptive belief systems (e.g. cults, violent
religious extremism) may result.
As relativism:
Relativism is the situation where two opposing positions are both true. If faith is the only way to know the truth of God, how are we to know which
God to have faith in? Thus, the major monotheistic religions become on par with obscure fringe religions, as neither can be advocated or disputed.
As unreasonable:
We have effectively used reason in our daily lives to solve problems and to progressively increase our knowledge, and there is no evidence that a
religious faith that rejects reason would also serve us while seeking truth. In addition, fideism does not help in situations in which our reason is not
 sufficient to find the truth (e.g. when trying to answer a particularly difficult mathematical question).

Introduction Back to Top

Idealism is the metaphysical and epistemological doctrine that ideas or thoughts make up fundamental reality. Essentially, it is any philosophy which
argues that the only thing actually knowable is consciousness (or the contents of consciousness), whereas we never can be sure that matter or anything in
the outside world really exists. Thus, the only real things are mental entities, not physical things (which exist only in the sense that they are per-
ceived).
Idealism is a form of Monism (as opposed to Dualism or Pluralism), and stands in direct contrast to other Monist beliefs such as Physicalism and Material-
ism (which hold that the only thing that can be truly proven to exist is physical matter). It is also contrasted with Realism (which holds that things have
an absolute existence prior to, and independent of, our knowledge or perceptions).
A broad enough definition of Idealism could include many religious viewpoints, although an Idealistic viewpoint need not necessarily include God,
supernatural beings, or an existence after death. It is a major tenet in the early Yogacara school of Buddhism, which developed into the mainstream Ma-
hayana school. Some Hindu denominations are idealistic in outlook, although some have favored a form of Dualism, as with Christianity.
In general parlance, "idealism" is also used to describe a person's high ideals (principles or values actively pursued as a goal), sometimes with the conno-
tation that those ideals are unrealizable or impractical. The word "ideal" is also commonly used as an adjective to designate qualities of perfection, de-
sirability and excellence, which is totally foreign to the epistemological use of the word "idealism", which pertains to internal mental representations.
Idealism is a label which covers a number of philosophical positions with quite different tendencies and implications, including Subjective Idealism, Ob-
jective Idealism, Transcendental Idealism and Absolute Idealism, as well as several more minor variants or related concepts (see the section on Other
Types of Idealism below). Other labels which are essentially equivalent to Idealism include Mentalism and Immaterialism.
History of Idealism Back to Top
Plato is one of the first philosophers to discuss what might be termed Idealism, although his Platonic Idealism is, confusingly, usually referred to as Pla-
tonic Realism. This is because, although his doctrine described Forms or universals (which are certainly non-material "ideals" in a broad
sense), Plato maintained that these Forms had their own independent existence, which is not an idealist stance, but a realist one. However, it has been
argued that Plato believed that "full reality" (as distinct from mere existence) is achieved only through thought, and so he could be described as a non-
subjective, "transcendental" idealist, somewhat like Kant.
The Neo-Platonist Plotinus came close to an early exposition of Idealism in the contentions in his "Enneads" that "the only space or place of the world is
the soul", and that "time must not be assumed to exist outside the soul". However, his doctrine was not fully-realized, and he made no attempt to dis-
cover how we can get beyond our ideas in order to know external objects.
René Descartes was one of the first to claim that all we really know is what is in our own consciousnesses, and that the whole external world is merely
an idea or picture in our minds. Therefore, he claimed, it is possible to doubt the reality of the external world as consisting of real objects, and “I think,
therefore I am” is the only assertion that cannot be doubted. Thus, Descartes can be considered an early epistemological idealist.
Descartes' student, Nicolas Malebranche, refined this theory to state that we only directly know internally the ideas in our mind; anything external is the
result of God's operations, and all activity only appears to occur in the external world. This kind of Idealism led to the Pantheism of Spinoza.
Gottfried Leibniz expressed a form of Idealism known as Panpsychism. He believed that the true atoms of the universe are monads, (individual, non-
interacting "substantial forms of being", having perception). For Leibniz, the external world is ideal in that it is a spiritual phenomenon whose motion is
the result of a dynamic force dependent on these simple and immaterial monads. God, the "central monad", created a pre-established harmony be-
tween the internal world in the minds of the alert monads, and the external world of real objects, so that the resulting world is essentially an idea of
the monads’ perception.
Bishop George Berkeley is sometimes known as the "Father of Idealism", and he formulated one of the purest forms of Idealism in the early 18th Cen-
tury. He argued that our knowledge must be based on our perceptions and that there was indeed no "real" knowable object behind one's perception (in
effect, that what was "real" was the perception itself). He explained how it is that each of us apparently has much the same sort of perceptions of an ob-
ject, by bringing in God as the immediate cause of all of our perceptions. Berkeley's version of Idealism is usually referred to as Subjective Idealism or Dog-
matic Idealism (see the section below).
Arthur Collier (1680 - 1732), a near-contemporary and compatriot of Berkeley, published some very similar claims at around the same time (or even ear-
lier), although the two were apparently not acquainted with, or influenced by, each other's work.
Immanuel Kant, the earliest and most influential member of the school of German Idealism, also started from the position of Berkeley's British Empiri-
cism (that all we can know is the mental impressions or phenomena that an outside world creates in our minds). But he argued that the
mind shapes the world as we perceive it to take the form of space-and-time. According to Kant, the mind is not a blank slate (or tabula rasa) as John
Locke believed, but rather comes equipped with categories for organizing our sense impressions, even if we cannot actually approach the nou-
mena (the "things-in-themselves") which emit or generate the phenomena (the "things-as-they-appear-to-us") that we perceive. Kant's Idealism is known
as Transcendental Idealism (see the section below).
Johann Gottlieb Fichte denied Kant's concept of noumenon, arguing that the recognition of an external of any kind would be the same as admitting a real
material thing. Instead, Fichte claimed that consciousness makes its own foundation, and does not have any grounding in a so-called "real world"
(indeed, it is not grounded in anything outside of itself). He was the first to posit a theory of knowledge where absolutely nothing outside of thinking
itself would be assumed to exist.
Friedrich Schelling also built on Berkeley and Kant's work and, along with Hegel, he developed Objective Idealism and the concept of the "The Absolute",
which Hegel later developed further as Absolute Idealism.
G. W. F. Hegel was another of the famous German Idealists, and he argued that any doctrine (such as Materialism, for example) that asserts that finite qual-
ities (or merely natural objects) are fully real is mistaken, because finite qualities depend on other finite qualities to determine them. Hegel called his
philosophy Absolute Idealism (see the section below), in contrast to the Subjective Idealism of Berkeley and the Transcendental Idealism of Kant and Fichte,
both of which doctrines he criticized. Although he took some of Kant's ideas seriously, Hegel based his doctrine more on Plato's belief that self-determina-
tion through the exercise of reason achieves a higher kind of reality than physical objects.
Another German Idealist, Arthur Schopenhauer, built on Kant's division of the universe into the phenomenal and the noumenal, suggesting that noume-
nal reality was singular whereas phenomenal experience involves multiplicity, and effectively argued that everything (however unlikely) is ultimately
an act of will.
In the latter part of the 19th Century, British Idealism, led by F. H. Bradley (1846 - 1924), T. H. Green (1836 - 1882) and Bernard Bosanquet (1848 -
1923), continued to advocate Idealism in the face of strong opposition from the dominant Physicalist doctrines.
Subjective Idealism Back to Top
Subjective Idealism (or Solipsism or Subjectivism or Dogmatic Idealism or Immaterialism) is the doctrine that the mind and ideas are the only
things that can be definitely known to exist or have any reality, and that knowledge of anything outside the mind is unjustified. Thus, objects exist by
virtue of our perception of them, as ideas residing in our awareness and in the consciousness of the Divine Being, or God.
Its main proponent was the 18th Century Irish philosopher Bishop George Berkeley and he developed it out of the foundations of Empiricism which he shared
with other British philosophers like John Locke and David Hume. Empiricism emphasizes the role of experience and sensory perception in the formation
of ideas, while discounting the notion of innate ideas.
Berkeley believed that existence was tied to experience, and that objects exist only as perception and not as matter separate from perception. He claimed
that "Esse est aut percipi aut percipere" or "To be is to be perceived or to perceive". Thus, the external world has only a relative and temporary reality. He
argued that if he or another person saw a table, for example, then that table existed; however, if no one saw the table, then it could only continue to ex-
ist if it was in the mind of God. Berkeley further argued that it is God who causes us to experience physical objects by directly willing us to experience
matter (thus avoiding the extra, unnecessary step of creating that matter).
Transcendental Idealism Back to Top
Transcendental Idealism (or Critical Idealism) is the view that our experience of things is about how they appear to us (representations), not about
those things as they are in and of themselves. Transcendental Idealism, generally speaking, does not deny that an objective world external to us exists,
but argues that there is a supra-sensible reality beyond the categories of human reason which he called noumenon, roughly translated as the "thing-in-
itself". However, we can know nothing of these "things-in-themselves" except that they can have no independent existence outside of our thoughts,
although they must exist in order to ground the representations.
The doctrine was first introduced by Immanuel Kant (in his "Critique of Pure Reason") and was also espoused by Johann Gottlieb Fichte and Friedrich
Schelling, and later resurrected in the 20th Century by Edmund Husserl.
This type of Idealism is considered "transcendental" in that we are in some respects forced into it by considering that our knowledge has necessary
limitations, and that we can never know things as they really are, totally independent of us. The name may, however, be considered counter-intui-
tive and confusing, and Kant himself preferred the label Critical Idealism.
Objective Idealism Back to Top
Objective Idealism is the view that the world "out there" is in fact Mind communicating with our human minds. It postulates that there is only one
perceiver, and that this perceiver is one with that which is perceived. It accepts common sense Realism (the view that independent material objects ex-
ist), but rejects Naturalism (the view that the mind and spiritual values have emerged from material things).
Plato is regarded as one of the earliest representatives of Objective Idealism (although it can be argued that Plato's worldview was actually dualistic and not
truly Idealistic). The definitive formulation of the doctrine came from the German Idealist Friedrich Schelling, and later adapted by G. W. F. Hegel in his Ab-
solute Idealism theory. More recent advocates have included C. S. Peirce and Josiah Royce (1855 - 1916).
Schelling's Objective Idealism agrees with Berkeley that there is no such thing as matter in the materialist sense, and that spirit is the essence and whole
of reality. However, he argued that there is a perfect parallel between the world of nature and the structure of our awareness of it. Although, this can-
not be true of an individual ego, it can be true of an absolute consciousness. He also objected to the idea that God is separate from the world, arguing
that reality is a single, absolute, all-inclusive mind, which he (and Hegel) referred to as "The Absolute Spirit" (or simply "The Absolute").
According to Objective Idealism, the Absolute is all of reality: no time, space, relation or event ever exists or occurs outside of it. As the Absolute also con-
tains all possibilities in itself, it is not static, but constantly changing and progressing. Human beings, planets and even galaxies are not separate
beings, but part of something larger, similar to the relation of cells or organs to the whole body.
A general objection to Idealism is that it is implausible and against common sense to think that there can be an analytic reduction of the physical to the
mental. Hegel's system of Objective Idealism has also come under fire for merely substituting the Absolute for God, which does not make any-
thing clearer in the end.
Absolute Idealism Back to Top
Absolute Idealism is the view, initially formulated by G. W. F. Hegel, that in order for human reason to be able to know the world at all, there must be,
in some sense, an identity of thought and being; otherwise, we would never have any means of access to the world, and we would have no certainty about
any of our knowledge. Like Plato many centuries before him, Hegel argued that the exercise of reason enables the reasoner to achieve a kind of real-
ity (namely self-determination, or "reality as oneself") that mere physical objects like rocks can never achieve.
Hegel started from Kant's position that the mind can not know "things-in-themselves", and asserted that what becomes the real is "Geist" (mind, spirit or
soul), which he sees as developing through history, each period having a "Zeitgeist" (spirit of the age). He also held that each person's individual con-
sciousness or mind is really part of the Absolute Mind (even if the individual does not realize this), and he argued that if we understood that we were part
of a greater consciousness we would not be so concerned with our individual freedom, and we would agree with to act rationally in a way that did not
follow our individual caprice, thereby achieving self-fulfillment.
For Hegel, the interaction of opposites (or dialectics) generates all of the concepts we use in order to understand the world. This occurs both in the in-
dividual mind as well as through history. Thus, the absolute ground of being is essentially a dynamic, increasingly complex historical process of neces-
sity that unfolds by itself, ultimately giving rise to all the diversity in the world and in the concepts with which we think and make sense of the world.
Hegel's doctine was later championed by F. H. Bradley (1846 - 1924) and the British Idealist movement, as well as Josiah Royce (1855 - 1916) in the
USA.
Proponents of Analytic Philosophy, which has been the dominant form of Anglo-American philosophy for most of the 20th Century, have criticised Hegel's
work as hopelessly obscure. Pragmatists like William James and F. C. S. Schiller have attacked Absolute Idealism for being too disconnected from
our practical lives. G. E. Moore used common sense and logical analysis against the radically counter-intuitive conclusions of Absolute Idealism
(e.g. that time is unreal, change is unreal, separateness is unreal, imperfection is unreal, etc).
Existentialists have also criticised Hegel for ultimately choosing an essentialistic whole over the particularity of existence. Schopenhauer objected that The
Absolute is just a non-personal substitute for the concept of God. Another perennial problem of Hegel's metaphysics is the question of how spirit exter-
nalizes itself and how the concepts it generates can say anything true about nature; otherwise his system becomes just an intricate game involving vacuous
concepts.
Other Types of Idealism Back to Top
In addition to the main types of Idealism mentioned above, there are other types of Idealism:
Epistemological Idealism asserts that minds are aware of, or perceive, only their own ideas (representations or mental images), and not external
objects, and therefore we cannot directly know things in themselves, or things as they really are. All we can ever have knowledge about is the world
of phenomenal human experience, and there is no reason to suspect that reality actually mirrors our perceptions and thoughts. This is very similar
to the doctrine of Phenomenalism.
Actual Idealism is a form of Idealism developed by the Italian philosopher Giovanni Gentile (1875 - 1944) that contrasted the Transcendental
 Idealism of Kant and the Absolute Idealism of Hegel. His system saw thought as all-embracing, and claimed that no-one could actually leave their
sphere of thinking, or exceed their own thought. His ideas were key to helping the Fascist party consolidate power in Italy, and gave Fascism much of
its philosophical base.
Buddhist Idealism (also known as "consciousness-only" or "mind-only") is the concept in Buddhist thought that all existence is nothing but
consciousness, and therefore there is nothing that lies outside of the mind. It is a major tenet in the early Yogacara school of Buddhism, which
developed into the mainstream Mahayana school.
Panpsychism holds that all parts of matter involve mind or, alternatively, that the whole universe is an organism that possesses a mind. There-
fore, according to Panpsychism, all objects of experience are also subjects (i.e. plants and minerals have subjective experiences, albeit very different
from the consciousness of humans). Gottfried Leibniz subscribed to a view of this kind of Idealism.
Practical Idealism is a political philosophy which holds it to be an ethical imperative to implement ideals of virtue or good (it is therefore unre-
lated to Idealism in its other senses). Its earliest recorded use was by Mahatma Gandhi (1869 - 1948), although it is now often used in foreign policy
and international relations, where it purports to be a pragmatic compromise between political realism (which stresses the promotion of a state's nar-
row and amoral self-interest), and political idealism (which aims to use the state's influence and power to promote higher liberal ide-
als like peace, justice and co-operation between nations).
Introduction Back to Top
Intellectualism is the view that regards the intellect as superior to the will, and that the intellect is the basic factor, both in the universe and in human
conduct.
It is usually contrasted with Voluntarism, the view that regards the will as superior to the intellect and to emotion). Intellectualism is also similar in
many respects to Rationalism, which views reason as the main source of knowledge or justification.
In non-specific common usage, "intellectualism" is often used to describe an attitude of devotion or high regard for intellectual pursuits (sometimes with
the connotation of excessive regard, or of an absence of emotion or emotional coldness).
Metaphysical Intellectualism Back to Top
In Metaphysics, Voluntarism is the theory, mainly developed in Medieval times, that the faculty of the intellect is seen to take precedence, or to have supe-
riority, over the faculty of will, or which gives primacy to God's reason. According to Intellectualism, the will itself is determined by the intellect, and
the choices of the will result from those which the intellect recognizes as good. Intellectualists believe that theology should be an essentially specula-
tive science, rather than a practical one, and that heaven is a state of blissful contemplation (similar to Aristotle's view).
Among the more important Medieval intellectualists were Averroes, St. Thomas Aquinas and the German theologian Meister Eckhart (c. 1260 - 1328).
In the modern period, Spinoza advocated Intellectualism insofar as he believed that desire is an indication of imperfection, and the passions are a source
of human bondage. When all things are seen purely in intellectual and rational relations, then desire is stilled and the mind is freed from the passions,
and we experience the intellectual love of God, which is the ideal happiness.
Ethical Intellectualism Back to Top
Ethical Intellectualism (or Socratic Intellectualism) is the ethical view that people will do what is right or best just as soon as they truly under-
stand what is right or best. This is based on Socrates' view that virtue is a purely intellectual matter, also a key doctrine of the Stoic school of philoso-
phy.
Introduction Back to Top
Materialism holds that the only thing that can be truly proven to exist is matter. Thus, according to Materialism, all things are composed of material and
all phenomena are the result of material interactions, with no accounting of spirit or consciousness. As well as a general concept in Metaphysics, it is
more specifically applied to the mind-body problem in Philosophy of Mind.
In common use, the word "materialist" refers to a person for whom collecting material goods is an important priority, or who primarily pur-
sues wealth and luxury or otherwise displays conspicuous consumption. This can be more accurately termed Economic Materialism.
With its insistence on a single basic substance, it is a type of Monism (as opposed to Dualism or Pluralism), and it can also be considered a variety of Natu-
ralism (the belief that nature is all exists, and that all things supernatural therefore do not exist). It stands (like the related concept of Physicalism) in contrast
to Idealism (also known as Immaterialism) and Solipsism. Physicalism, however, has evolved with the physical sciences to incorporate far more so-
phisticated notions of physicality than just matter, for example wave/particle relationships and non-material forces produced by particles.
History of Materialism Back to Top
The Carvaka school of Ancient Indian philosophy developed a theory of Materialism and Atomism as early as 600 B.C.
Ancient Greek philosophers like Thales, Parmenides, Anaxagoras, Democritus, and then, later, Epicurus and Lucretius (99 - 55 B.C.) all prefigure later
materialists, and contributed towards the classic formulation of Materialism. Lucretius wrote "De Rerum Natura" ("The Nature of Things"), the first
masterpiece of materialist literature, around 50 B.C.
During the long reign of Christianity, denial of spirit as the basic reality was condemned by the Church, and it was not until the 17th Century that inter-
est in Materialism was revived by the scientist Pierre Gassendi (1592 - 1655) and the political philosopher Thomas Hobbes, as well as other French En-
lightenment thinkers including Denis Diderot (1713 - 1784).
The second masterpiece of materialist literature was Baron Paul d'Holbach's anonymously published "La Systeme de la Nature" ("The System of
Nature"), which appeared in France in 1770, although the Dualism of Descartes remained more popular, largely owing to its compatibility with Christi-
anity. The German philosopher Ludwig Buechner's influential "Kraft und Stoff" ("Force and Matter") followed in 1884.
With the triumphs of science in the 19th and 20th Century, (not least Charles Darwin's works on evolution and advances in atomic theory, neuro-
science and computer technology), a majority of philosophers today would probably identify themselves as materialists of one kind or another.
Types of Materialism Back to Top
The various types of reductive and non-reductive Physicalism are discussed in that section, but there are some other related concepts which can be
mentioned briefly here:

Dialectical Materialism is the philosophical basis of Marxism and Communism. The term, which was never actually used by Marx himself, refers to
the notion of a synthesis of Georg Hegel's theory of Dialectics (the concept that any idea or event - the thesis - generates its opposite - the antithesis -
eventually leading to a reconciliation of opposites - a new, more advanced synthesis) and Materialism (in the respect that Dialectics could also be
applied to material matters like economics).
The application of the principle of Dialectical Materialism to history and sociology, the main context in which Marx used it, is known as Historical
Materialism (see below).

Historical Materialism (or the "materialist conception of history") is the Marxist methodological approach to the study of society, econom-
ics and history which was first articulated by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (1820 - 1895), and has been expanded and refined by many academic
studies since. It is essentially the application of the principle of Dialectical Materialism (see above) to history and sociology.
According to Marx, for human beings to survive, they need to produce and reproduce the material requirements of life, and this production is carried
out through a division of labor based on very definite production relations between people. These relations form the economic base of society,
and are themselves determined by the mode of production which is in force (e.g. tribal society, ancient society, feudalism, capitalism, socialism), and
societies, and their cultural and institutional superstructures, naturally move from stage to stage when the dominant class is displaced by a new
emerging class in a social and political upheaval.
Although Marx himself said that he was only proposing a guideline for historical research, by the 20th Century the concept of Historical Materialism
had become a keystone of modern Communist doctrine.

Introduction Back to Top

Monism is the metaphysical and theological view that all is one, that there are no fundamental divisions, and that a unified set of laws underlie all of
nature. The universe, at the deepest level of analysis, is then one thing or composed of one fundamental kind of stuff. It sets itself in contrast to Dual-
ism, which holds that ultimately there are two kinds of substance, and from Pluralism, which holds that ultimately there are many kinds of substance.
It is based on the concept of the monad (derived from the Greek "monos" meaning "single" and "without division"). Various Pre-Socratic Philosophers de-
scribed reality as being monistic, and devised a variety of explanations for the basis of this reality: Thales: Water; Anaximander: Apeiron (meaning "the
undefined infinite"); Anaximenes: Air; Heraclitus: Fire; Parmenides: One (an unmoving perfect sphere, unchanging and undivided).
Monism is used in a variety of contexts, (within Metaphysics, Epistemology, Ethics, Philosophy of Mind, etc), but the underlying concept is always that
of "oneness". Wherever Dualism distinguishes between body and soul, matter and spirit, object and subject, matter and force, Monism denies such a
distinction or merges both in a higher unity.
The term "monism" itself is relatively recent, first used by the 18th Century German philosopher Christian von Wolff (1679 - 1754) to designate types of
philosophical thought in which the attempt was made to eliminate the dichotomy of body and mind (see the section on Philosophy of Mind for more details).
Types of Monism Back to Top
Monism is sometimes split into three or more basic types:
 Idealistic Monism: (also see the section on Idealism)
This doctrine (also called Mentalistic Monism) holds that the mind is all that exists (i.e. the only existing substance is mental), and that the external
world is either mental itself, or an illusion created by the mind. Thus, there is but one reality, immutable and eternal, which some (including the an-
cient Hindu philosophers) have termed God (Idealistic-Spiritual Monism), while others, such as the Pre-Socratic philosophers like Parmenides, were
content to label as Being or "the One". This type of Idealistic Monism has recurred throughout history, from the Neoplatonists, to Gottfried Leib-
niz and George Berkeley, to the German Idealism of G. W. F. Hegel.
Materialistic Monism (also see the sections on Materialism and Physicalism):
This doctrine holds that there is but one reality, matter, whether it be an agglomerate of atoms, a primitive, world-forming substance, or the so-
called cosmic nebula out of which the world evolved. It holds that only the physical is real, and that the mental can be reduced to the physical. Mem-
bers of this camp include Thomas Hobbes and Bertrand Russell, and it has been the dominant doctrine in the 20th Century.
There are two main types:
Reductive Physicalism, which asserts that all mental states and properties will eventually be explained by scientific accounts of physiological
processes and states, has been the most popular form during the 20th Century. There are three main types:

Behaviourism, which holds that mental states are just descriptions of observable behavior.
Type Identity Theory, which holds that specific mental states are identical to specific physical internal states of the brain.
Functionalism, which holds that mental states can be characterized in terms of non-mental functional properties.

Non-Reductive Physicalism, which argues that, although the brain is all there is to the mind, the predicates and vocabulary used in mental de-
scriptions and explanations cannot be reduced to the language and lower-level explanations of physical science. Thus, mental states super-
vene (depend) on physical states, and there can be no change in the mental without some change in the physical, but they are not reducible to
them.
There are three main types:

Anomalous Monism, which states that mental events are identical with physical events, but that the mental is anomalous i.e. these mental
events are perfectly real, and identical with (some) physical matter, but not regulated by strict physical laws. Therefore, all mental things are
physical, but not all physical things are necessarily mental. This doctrine was first proposed by Donald Davidson in the 1970s.
Emergentism, which involves a layered view of nature, with the layers arranged in terms of increasing complexity, each corresponding to its
own special science.
Eliminativism (or Eliminative Materialism), which holds that people's common-sense understanding of the mind ("folk psychology") is
hopelessly flawed, and will eventually be replaced (eliminated) by an alternative, usually taken to be neuroscience.

Neutral Monism:
This dual-aspect theory maintains that existence consists of one kind of primal substance (hence monism), which in itself is neither mental nor
physical, but is capable of mental and physical aspects or attributes. Thus, there is some other, neutral substance (variously labeled as Substance,
Nature or God), and that both matter and mind are properties of this other unknown substance. Such a position was adopted by Baruch Spinoza and also
by Bertrand Russell for a time.
Reflexive Monism:
This is a dual-aspect theory (in the tradition of Spinoza) which argues that the one basic stuff of which the universe is composed has the potential to
manifest both physically and as conscious experience (such as human beings) which can then have a view of both the rest of the universe and them-
selves (hence "reflexive"). It is a contemporary take on a concept which has been present in human thought for millennia, such as in later Vedic writ-
ings like the "Upanishads" and some beliefs from ancient Egypt.
Substantial Monism ("one thing"):
This is the view that there is only one substance and that all diversity is ultimately unreal. This is essentially the view maintained by Spinoza.
Attributive Monism ("one category"):
This is the view that there is one kind of thing but many different individual things in this category, and thus reality is ultimately composed of many things rather than one.
Materialistic Monism and Idealistic Monism are therefore different forms of Attributive Monism.
Absolute Monism ("one being"):
This is the view that there is holds that there is only one substance and only one being, as in the ancient Hindu philosophy of Advaita Vedanta.

Introduction Back to Top

Monotheism is the belief in the existence of one deity, or in the oneness or uniqueness of God. It is a type of Theism, and is usually contrasted with Poly-
theism (the belief in multiple gods) and Atheism ( the absence of any belief in gods). The Abrahamic faiths (Judaism, Christianity and Islam), as well
as Plato's concept of God, all affirm monotheism, and this is the usual conception debated within Western Philosophy of Religion.
The word "monotheism" is derived from the Greek ("monos" meaning "one" and "theos" meaning "god"), and the English term was first used by the Eng-
lish philosopher Henry More (1614 - 1687).
History of Monotheism Back to Top
The earliest monotheistic religions can be traced back to the Aten cult in ancient Egypt, the Nasadiya Sukta from the Vedic period of India, and Ahura
Mazda, the one uncreated Creator of Zoroastrianism. There are also monotheistic denominations within Hinduism, including Vedanta, Vaishnavism,
Shaivism, Shaktism, and Smartism.
The Torah (or Hebrew Bible), which was created between the 13th Century and 4th Century B.C., is the source of Judaism, and in turn provided the basis
for the Christian and Islamic religions (these three together being known as the Abrahamic faiths). Jews, Christians and Muslims would probably all
agree that God is an eternally existent being that exists apart from space and time, who is the creator of the universe, and is omnipotent (all-power-
ful), omniscient (all-knowing), omnibenevolent (all-good or all-loving) and possibly omnipresent (all-present). The religions, however, differ in the
details: Christians, for example, would further affirm that there are three aspects to God (the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit).
More recently, Sikhism is a distinctly monotheistic faith that arose in northern India during the 16th and 17th Centuries, and the Baha'i faith, a reli-
gion founded in 19th Century Persia, has as its core teaching the one supernatural being, God, who created all existence.
Philosophical monotheism, and the associated concept of absolute good and evil, emerged in classical Greece, notably with Plato and the subse-
quent Neo-Platonists (who developed a kind of theistic monism in which the absolute is identified with the divine, either as an impersonal or a personal
God).
Types of Monotheism Back to Top
Exclusive Monotheism:
The belief that there is only one deity, and that all other claimed deities are distinct from it and false. The Abrahamic religions, and the Hindu de-
nomination of Vaishnavism (which regards the worship of anyone other than Vishnu as incorrect) are examples of Exclusive Monotheism.
Inclusive monotheism:
The belief that there is only one deity, and that all other claimed deities are just different names for it. The Hindu denomination of Smartism is an
example of Inclusive Monotheism.
Substance Monotheism:
The belief (found in some indigenous African religions) that the many gods are just different forms of a single underlying substance.
Pantheism:
The belief in one God who is equivalent to Nature or the physical universe, or that everything is of an all-encompassing immanent abstract God.
Panentheism:
The belief (also known as Monistic Monotheism), similar to Pantheism, that the physical universe is joined to, or an integral part of, God, but stressing
that God is greater than (rather than equivalent to) the universe.
Deism:
A form of monotheism in which it is believed that one God exists, but that this God does not intervene in the world, or interfere with human life and
the laws of the universe. It posits a non-interventionist creator who permits the universe to run itself according to natural laws.
Henotheism:
The devotion to a single god while accepting the existence of other gods, and without denying that others can with equal truth worship different
gods. It has been called "monotheism in principle and polytheism in fact".
Monolatrism (or Monolatry):
The belief in the existence of many gods, but with the consistent worship of only one deity. Unlike Henotheism, Monolatrism asserts that there is
only one god who is worthy of worship, though other gods are known to exist. This is really more Polytheism than Monotheism.
Misotheism:
 The belief that a God exists, but is actually evil. The English word was coined by Thomas de Quincey in 1846. Strictly speaking, the term connotes an
attitude of hatred towards God, rather than making a statement about His nature.
Dystheism:
The belief that a God exists, but is not wholly good, or possibly even evil (as opposed to eutheism, the belief that God exists and is wholly good). There
are various examples of arguable dystheism in the Bible

Introduction Back to Top

Naturalism is the belief that nature is all that exists, and that all things supernatural (including gods, spirits, souls and non-natural values) therefore
do not exist. It is often called Metaphysical Naturalism or Philosophical Naturalism or Ontological Naturalism to distinguish it from Methodo-
logical Naturalism (see the section on Types of Naturalism below).
It holds that any mental properties that exist (and hence any mental powers or beings) are causally derived from, and ontologically dependent on,
systems of non-mental properties, powers or things (i.e. all minds, and all the contents and powers and effects of minds, are entirely constructed from or
caused by natural phenomena). Some naturalistic beliefs claim that what is commonly called supernatural is, in fact, part of the natural world.
There are different varieties of Metaphysical Naturalism, but they are usually separated into two general categories:
Physicalism (or Materialism):
The belief that everything which exists is no more extensive than its physical properties, and that the only existing substance is physical. Thus, every-
thing that has ever been observed is in actual fact the product of fundamentally mindless arrangements or interactions of matter-energy in space-
time, and it is unreasonable to believe anything else exists.
Pluralism:
The belief that reality consists of many different substances (including abstract objects and universals) in addition to those fundamentally mind-
less arrangements or interactions of matter-energy in space-time.
Naturalism is inconsistent with any kind of Theism and compatible with Atheism. The direct opposite of Naturalism is Supernaturalism, which accepts
the existence of such things as supernatural beings, magical objects, Platonic forms or the existence of love (for example) as a cosmic force.
History of Naturalism Back to Top
The earliest Pre-Socratic philosophers, such as Thales, Anaxagoras and especially Democritus, were labeled "natural philosophers" because they sought
to explain everything by reference to natural causes alone, often explicitly excluding any role for gods, spirits or magic in the creation or operation of the
world.
This eventually led to fully-developed systems such as Epicureanism, which sought to explain everything that exists as the product of atoms moving in a
void (Atomism), or the advanced Aristotelianism of Strato of Lampsacus (c. 335 - 269 B.C.), who sought to explain everything that exists as the inevitable
outcome of uncreated natural forces or tendencies.
Metaphysical Naturalism is most notably a Western phenomenon, although one tradition within Confucian philosophy (dating back at least to Wang
Chong in the 1st Century, if not earlier) embraced a view that could be called Naturalism.
With the rise and dominance of Christianity and the decline of secular philosophy in the West during the Middle Ages, Metaphysical Naturalism be-
came heretical and eventually illegal. It was only when the political advances of the Age of Enlightenment made genuine free speech possible again that
a few intellectuals (like Baron d'Holbach in the 18th Century) publicly renewed the case for Metaphysical Naturalism, under the label of Materialism. Later,
with scientific advances in quantum physics, this developed into the more far-reaching doctrine of Physicalism.
Certain political philosophies, notably Marxism in the 19th Century and Objectivism in the 20th Century, have embraced Naturalism for their causes, as have
the more moderate political ideals of Secular Humanism. Currently, Metaphysical Naturalism is more widely embraced than ever before, especially (but
not exclusively) in the scientific community, even if the vast majority of the population of the world remains firmly committed to supernaturalist
worldviews.
Arguments For Naturalism Back to Top
Argument from Precedent: For over three hundred years, empirical methods have consistently discovered only natural things and causes, even
underlying many things once thought to be supernatural. Hence, we should presume that any unexplained fact has a natural explanation until we
have empirically proven otherwise.
Argument from Best Explanation: Sound naturalist hypotheses about scientifically unexplained facts still out-perform all other hypotheses in
explanatory scope and power, and have to resort to fewer ad hoc assumptions than any supernatural alternatives.
Argument from Absence: If the supernatural does exist (whether as gods, powers or spirits), it is so silent and inert that its effects are almost never
 observed, despite extensive searching.
Argument from Physical Minds: Scientists have accumulated vast evidence that the human mind is a product of a functioning brain, which is en-
tirely constructed from different interacting physical systems that evolved over time through the animal kingdom.
Cosmological Argument: The formation of intelligent life via natural processes is very unlikely unless the universe were immensely old and big,
but that is exactly what we have found to be the case, and supernaturalism has not given us any insights into a more likely alternative universe.
Argument from the Implausibility of Alternatives: In the absence of any reasonable argument to believe anything supernatural exists (or ex-
plains anything), and in the presence of some reasonable arguments to believe the natural world exists (and explains everything), then Naturalism
should be accepted until disproved (see Ockham's Razor).
Arguments Against Naturalism Back to Top
The arguments against Naturalism are, to a large extent, arguments for a God, or for some kind of intelligent design (also see the section on Philosophy of
Religion):
Argument from Despair: Naturalism leads to human despair because it allows for no cosmic meaning of life and the elimination of free
will (and therefore of hope and moral responsibility).
Argument from Religious Experience: Many people claim to have seen, felt or talked to God or any number of other spirits, and claim that these
religious experiences refute naturalism.
Argument from Miracles: Often, some miracle is offered as evidence refuting naturalism, including alleged cases of supernatural healing, ful-
filled prophetic or psychic predictions, or the supposed impossibility of composing some book (like the Bible or the Koran) without divine aid.
Argument from Necessity of God: It is in some sense impossible for the universe to exist, and to achieve the apparently impossible feat of life as we
know it, unless it is caused or cohabited by a supernatural person.
Argument from Cosmological Design: The fundamental constants of physics and the laws of nature appear so finely-tuned to permit life that only
a supernatural engineer can explain it.
Argument from Improbability of Life: The origin of life was too improbable (with a probability tending to zero) to have occurred without su-
pernatural intervention and therefore naturalism fails to explain the appearance of life.
Argument from Biological Design: Certain structures in evolved organisms (e.g. the eye) are too complex ("irreducible complexity") to have
evolved by natural selection and can only be explained as the result of intelligent design.
Argument from Consciousness: Some argue that conscious experience (or qualia) has not been, and cannot be, scientifically explained.
Argument from Reason: Certain features of human reason (e.g. intentionality, mental causation, abstract objects, the existence of logical laws) can-
not be explained by naturalism.
Argument from Physical Law: The mathematical nature of physical laws entails a supernatural mind behind them, and naturalism can provide
no ontological foundation for such physical laws.
Argument from Incoherence: Because naturalism assumes that everything is physical, using physical data in support of it would constitute circu-
lar reasoning.
Moral Argument: Naturalism cannot explain the existence of moral facts.
Evolutionary Argument: Maintaining the truth of both naturalism and evolution is irrational and self-defeating because the probability that
unguided evolution would have produced reliable cognitive faculties is either low or inscrutable, and so asserting that naturalistic evolution is
true also asserts that one has a low or unknown probability of being right.
Typical Beliefs of Naturalism Back to Top
Naturalism typically leads to the following beliefs:
The universe has either always existed or had a purely natural origin, being neither created nor designed.
Life is an unplanned product of blind natural processes and luck.
Slow and imperfect evolution by natural selection is the explanation for the rise and diversity of life on earth.
Human beings have no independent soul or spirit, but only a material brain which operates to produce a conscious mind.
Mental contents (such as ideas, theories, emotions, moral and personal values, beauty, etc) exist solely as the computational constructions of our
brains, and not as things that exist independently of us.
All humans are mortal since the death or destruction of our brain cannot be survived.
Humans developed (and are now dependent on) culture and civilization, because we evolved as social animals.
All conduct and behavior should be directed towards the pursuit of human happiness, that being the greatest value possible for humans.
Types of Naturalism Back to Top
Metaphysical Naturalism is the belief (as described in detail above) that nature is all that exists, and that all things supernatural (including gods,
spirits, souls and non-natural values) therefore do not exist.
Methodological Naturalism is the assumption that observable events in nature are explained only by natural causes, without assuming either
the existence or non-existence of the supernatural, and so considers supernatural explanations for such events to be outside science. It holds that
the scientific method (hypothesize, predict, test, repeat) is the only effective way to investigate reality, and that such empirical methods will only
ascertain natural facts, whether supernatural facts exist or not.

Absolute Methodological Naturalism is the view that it is in some sense impossible for any empirical method to discover supernatural
facts, even if there are some.
Contingent Methodological Naturalism is the view that, from past experience, empirical methods are far more likely to uncover natural facts
than supernatural ones, so that it is generally an ill-advised waste of resources to pursue supernatural hypotheses, but it would not be impossi-
ble to confirm them empirically if any were found.

Humanistic Naturalism holds that human beings are best able to control and understand the world through use of the scientific method, be-
cause concepts of spirituality, intuition and metaphysics can never progress beyond personal opinion. Everything is regarded as a result of explainable
processes within nature, with nothing lying outside of it.
Ethical Naturalism (or Moral Naturalism) is the meta-ethical theory that ethical terms can be defined without the use of ethical terms (such as
"good", "right", etc), and moreover that these non-ethical terms refer to natural properties (as opposed to relating the ethical terms in some way to
the will of God).
Sociological Naturalism is the sociological theory that the natural world and the social world are roughly identical and governed by similar prin-
ciples. It is closely connected to Positivism, which advocates use of the scientific method of the natural sciences in studying social sciences.
In addition, Naturalism is also an artistic style (referring to the depiction of realistic objects in a natural setting), and a literary, cine-
matic and theatrical style (referring to the attempt to replicate a believable everyday reality, as opposed to a symbolic, idealistic or even supernatural
treatment).
Introduction Back to Top
Nihilism is the philosophical position which argues that Being, especially past and current human existence, is without objective meaning, purpose,
comprehensible truth, or essential value. It asserts that there is no reasonable proof of the existence of a higher ruler or creator, that a "true moral-
ity" does not exist, and that objective secular ethics are impossible. Therefore life has, in a sense, no truth and no action is objectively preferable to any
other.
The term "nihilism" was first popularized by the novelist Ivan Turgenev (1818 - 1883). Art movements such as Dada and Futurism, and philosophical
movements like Existentialism, Post-Modernism, Post-Structuralism and Deconstructionism have all been identified by commentators as "nihilistic" at vari-
ous times in various contexts. Nihilism differs from Skepticism in that Skepticism does not reject claims to truth outright, it only rejects these claims if
there is insufficient empirical evidence to support them.

Nihilism is most often associated with the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, although he never actually advocated Nihilism as a practical mode of
living and was typically quite critical of it. He was, however, one of the first philosophers to study nihilism extensively. Nietzsche's criticism of nihilism was
mainly on that grounds that it can become a false belief, and lead individuals to discard any hope of meaning in the world and thus to invent some com-
pensatory alternative measure of significance. He also asserts that Nihilism is a result of valuing "higher", "divine" or "meta-physical" things (such as
God), that do not in turn value "base", "human" or "earthly" things, and that any form of Idealism, after being rejected by the idealist, leads to Nihilism.
According to Nietzsche, it is only once nihilism is overcome that a culture can have a true foundation upon which to thrive.
Similarly, Jacques Derrida, whose Deconstructionism movement is commonly labeled nihilistic, did not himself make the claims often attributed to him. In
fact, Deconstructionism can be seen not as a denial of truth, but as a denial of our ability to know truth (i.e. it makes an epistemological claim as op-
posed to Nihilism's ontological or metaphysical claim).
Nihilism is one of the few branches of philosophy that allows for the possibility of absolute nothingness. By making three apparently plausible assump-
tions - that there are a finite number of objects in the world; that each of these objects are contingent (i.e. that although they exist, they might not have
existed); and that the objects are independent (i.e. the non-existence of one thing does not necessitate the existence of anything else - then the "subtrac-
tion argument" runs that each contingent object can be subtracted from the world, one by one, until absolutely nothing is left. However, it is not clear that
the independence assumption is justifiable, and in practice (whether it be in an imaginative thought experiment, or in the hard scientific world of parti-
cle physics) subtracting an object from a particular scenario actually does have repercussions, however small, for the world as a whole. Rather, nothingness
appears to be a limit or asymptote that can be approached but never quite reached.
Types of Nihilism Back to Top
Metaphysical Nihilism (or Blob Theory):
This is the theory that there are no objects or that objects do not exist, and therefore empirical reality is an illusion, or, more commonly, the theory
that there might have been no objects at all (i.e. that there is a possible world in which there are no objects at all). An object, here, is a thing, an en-
tity or a being that can have properties and bear relations to other objects. This position has been variously attributed to philosophers such as Par-
menides, Buddha, Hindu Advaita Vedantins and Immanuel Kant.
Mereological Nihilism (or Compositional Nihilism):
This is the position that objects with proper parts do not exist, (and, by corollary, objects existing in time do not have any temporal parts), and
only basic building blocks (e.g. electrons, quarks) exist. (Mereology is the theory of the relations of part to whole, and the relations of part to part
within a whole). These smallest building blocks are individual and separate items that do not ever unify or come together into being non-individual. If
the building blocks of reality never compose any whole items, then all of reality does not involve any whole items, even though we may think it does.
Thus, the world we see and experience, which appears to be full of objects with parts, is a product of human misperception. One philosopher who has
argued for something close to pure mereological nihilism is Peter Unger (1942 - ), in his papers "There Are No Ordinary Things" and "I Do
Not Exist".
Partial Nihilism:
Some philosophers argue that only objects of a certain kind have parts. One such position is Organicism, the view that living beings are compo-
sites (i.e. objects that have parts) and therefore exist, but there are no other objects with parts, and all other objects that we believe to be composite
(e.g. chairs, planets, etc) therefore do not exist. However, Organicists such as Peter van Inwagen (1942 - ) assert that, even if there is no such things
as a table, there are simples (basic building blocks) "arranged table-wise".
Moral Nihilism is the meta-ethical view that ethical claims are generally false. It holds that there are no objective moral facts or true propositions -
that nothing is morally good, bad, wrong, right, etc - because there are no moral truths (e.g. a moral nihilist would say that murder is not wrong, but
neither is it right). The philosophy of Niccolo Machiavelli is sometimes presented as a model of Moral Nihilism, but that is highly questionable as he
was largely silent on moral matters and, if anything, he presented an alternative to the ethical theories of his day, rather than an all-out rejection of all
morality.

Introduction Back to Top

Objectivism is the view that there is a reality, or realm of objects and facts, which exists wholly independent of the mind. Thus, Objectivism holds that
there is only one correct description of reality, whether we have any knowledge of it or not. Therefore, existence takes primacy over consciousness, in that
existence exists independently of consciousness, and the essential function of consciousness is the grasp of existence, and the underlying objective reality
can be perceived in different ways.
In broader terms, objectivity is the strict adherence to truth-conducive methods in one's thinking, particularly taking into account all available infor-
mation, and avoiding any form of prejudice, bias or wishful thinking. The term "objective" can be applied to methods used in this process, or re-
sults produced by it.
An objective fact means a truth that remains true always and everywhere, independently of human thought or feelings (e.g. it is true always and every-
where that '2 and 2 make 4'). A subjective fact, on the other hand, is a truth that is only true in certain times or places, or for certain people (e.g. 'That
painting is good' may be true for someone who likes it, but it is not necessarily true that it is a good painting pure and simple, and would remain so always,
no matter what people thought of it).
It is a metaphysical and ontological doctrine in that it deals with the existence of things rather than the truth or falsity of things (objects in them-
selves cannot be said to be "true" or "false", although references or statements about objects may be). It is a matter of dispute among philosophers to
what degree objectivity can be applied to Aesthetics, Ethics and Epistemology.
Plato's Realism, for example, is a form of metaphysical objectivism, holding that Ideas or Forms exist objectively and independently. Berkeley's Idealism, on
the other hand, could be called Subjectivism in that it holds that things only exist to the extent that they are perceived.
Objectivism as it is known today that finds its origins in the early 19th Century epistemological and metaphysical work of Gottlob Frege. The doctrine is,
however, most closely identified with the 20th Century philosopher Ayn Rand (1905 - 1982) and her overarching (and sometimes controversial) con-
cept of Objectivism, expressed through her novels as well as non-fiction works, encompasses positions on Metaphysics, Epistemology, Ethics, Poli-
tics and Epistemology. Rand describes her formulation of Objectivism as a "philosophy for living", and it has spawned multiple organizations that pro-
mote the philosophy, as well as academic journals, conferences, societies, online forums, websites, books and lectures. It has also generated much criticism,
partly due to Rand's forceful denunciations of other philosophers and doctrines, partly due to its unpalatable political overtones, and partly due to
its "popular" and somewhat unrigorous approach.
Key Tenets of Objectivism Back to Top
Rand's objectivist metaphysics rests on three key tenets, which are held to be axiomatic (self-evident and undeniable):
The Primacy of Existence (that reality exists independently of human consciousness).
The Law of Identity (that anything that exists has a fixed, specific and finite nature or identity), and its corollary the Law of Causality (that things
act in accordance with their nature).
The Axiom of Consciousness (that consciousness is irreducible and cannot be analyzed in terms of other concepts).
Types of Objectivism Back to Top
Metaphysical Objectivism is the view (as described above) that there is a reality, or realm of objects and facts, which exists wholly independent of
the mind.
Ethical Objectivism (or Moral Objectivism) holds that the truth or falsity of moral judgments does not depend upon the beliefs or feelings of
any person or group of persons, and that they describe (or fail to describe) a mind-independent reality. Therefore, certain acts are objec-
tively right or wrong, independent of human opinion. A related, but slightly stronger, position is that of Moral Absolutism, and the opposite position is
that of Moral Subjectivism or Moral Relativism.
Neo-Objectivism covers a large family of philosophical viewpoints and cultural values derived from, but not necessarily in agreement with, the Objec-
tivist philosophies of Ayn Rand.

Introduction Back to Top

Panentheism, (also known as Monistic Monotheism), is the belief, similar to Pantheism, that the physical universe is joined to God, but stressing that
God is greater than (rather than equivalent to) the universe. Thus, the one God is synonymous with the material universe and interpenetrates every
part of nature (as in Pantheism), but timelessly extends beyond as well. The universe is part of God, but not all of God.
The Neoplatonism of Plotinus (in which the world itself is a God) is to some extent panentheistic with polytheistic tendencies, and philosophical treatises
have been written on it in the context of Hinduism for millennia (notably in the "Bhagavad Gita" and the "Shri Rudram"). Many North Ameri-
can and South American Native religions are panentheistic in nature, and some elements of panentheism arise in Hasidic Judaism and Kabbalah,
some Sufi orders of Islam, and Eastern and Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox Christianity.
However, the word "panentheism" (which can be translated as "all in God") was not coined until 1828, by the German philosopher Karl Christian Frie-
drich Krause (1781–1832), in an attempt to reconcile Monotheism and Pantheism, and this conception of God influenced New England Transcendental-
ists such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, and was popularized by Charles Hartshorne (1897 - 2000) in his development of process theology in the 20th Cen-
tury, and has also been adopted by proponents of various New Thought beliefs.
Types of Panentheism Back to Top
Strong Panentheism:
This refers to the complete identity of God and the cosmos, as opposed to just God's presence in it, and therefore comes very close to Pantheism. The
laws of nature, then, are not something essentially autonomous, which God must sometimes manipulate in order to make his will effective, but are
part of his will.
Weak Panentheism:
This refers only to the presence of God in the cosmos, as opposed to some identity between them. The laws of nature, therefore, have an autono-
mous status that makes them equivalent to something that is outside of God.
Panendeism:
This is a composite of Deism and Panentheism. It holds that, while the universe is part of God, it operates according to natural mechanisms without
 the need for the intervention of a traditional God, somewhat similar to the Native American concept of the all-pervading Great Spirit.
Introduction Back to Top
Pantheism is the view that God is equivalent to Nature or the physical universe - that they are essentially the same thing - or that everything is of an
all-encompassing immanent abstract God. Thus, each individual human, being part of the universe or nature, is part of God. The term "pantheism" was
coined by the Irish writer John Toland in 1705.
Some pantheists accept the idea of free will (arguing that individuals have some choices between right and wrong, even if they likely have little conception
of the greater being of which they are a part), although Determinism is also widespread (particularly among naturalistic pantheists - see below). Some
pantheists also posit a common purpose for nature and man, while others reject the idea of purpose and view existence as existing "for its own sake".
Although Schopenhauer claimed that pantheism has no ethics, pantheists maintain that pantheism is the most ethical viewpoint, pointing out that any
harm done to another is doing harm to oneself, because what harms one harms all.
The concept has been discussed as far back as the time of the "Upanishads" of Vedic Hinduism, and the philosophers of Ancient Greece (includ-
ing Thales, Parmenides and Heraclitus) as well as in Kabbalistic Judaism. The Biblical equation of God to acts of nature, and the definition of God
within the New Testament itself, has led to the establishment of some Christian pantheistic movements, from early Quakers to later Unitarians. In the
17th Century, there was something of a resurgence, and Spinoza in particular is credited with belief in a kind of naturalistic pantheism.
Types of Pantheism Back to Top
Classical Pantheism:
This is the form of pantheism that equates existence with God without attempting to redefine or to minimize either term. It believes in a per-
sonal, conscious and omniscient God, and sees this God as uniting all true religions. In many ways, classical pantheism is similar to Monism, in
that it views all things, from energy to matter to thought to time, as being aspects of an all-embracing personal god. It is distinguished primarily be-
cause of its simplicity and its compatibility and inclusive attitude towards other world faiths. Classical Pantheism is represented by many religious
traditions including Hinduism and Kabbalistic Judaism.
Biblical Pantheism:
This form of pantheism (vehemently condemned by many traditional Christians) argues that some pantheistic aspects are expressed in the writings of
the Bible. The Biblical equation of God to acts of nature, and the definition of God within the New Testament itself, all provide the basis of appeal to
this belief system.
Naturalistic Pantheism:
This is a form of pantheism that holds that the universe, although unconscious and non-sentient as a whole, is nevertheless a meaningful focus
for mystical fulfillment. Thus Nature is seen as being God only in a non-traditional, impersonal sense. Critics have alleged that this constitutes an
intentional misuse of terminology, and an attempt to justify Atheism (or some kind of spiritual naturalism) by mis-labeling it as pantheism. Natu-
ralistic pantheism is based on the relatively recent views of Baruch Spinoza (who may have been influenced by Biblical Pantheism) and John Toland,
as well as contemporary influences.
Cosmotheism:
This is a small and controversial movement started in the late 18th Century to express the feeling was that God is something created by man and did
not exist before man, and is perhaps even an end state of human evolution, through social planning, eugenics and other forms of genetic engi-
neering. Among others, H. G. Wells subscribed to a form of Cosmotheism.
Pandeism:
This is a kind of naturalistic pantheism, holding that the universe is an unconscious and non-sentient God, but also that God was previously a con-
scious and sentient force or entity that designed and created the universe. Thus, according to pandeism, God only became an unconscious and non-
sentient God by becoming the universe. This is a sort of synthesis of pantheism and Deism.
Panentheism:
This belief has features in common with pantheism, such as the idea that the universe is a part of God, although Panentheism argues that God
is greater than nature alone and so the physical universe is just a part of His nature.
Introduction Back to Top
Phenomenology is a broad discipline and method of inquiry in philosophy, developed largely by the German philosophers Edmund Husserl and Martin
Heidegger, which is based on the premise that reality consists of objects and events ("phenomena") as they are perceived or understood in the human
consciousness, and not of anything independent of human consciousness.
It can be considered a branch of Metaphysics and of Philosophy of Mind, although many of its proponents claim that it is related to, but distinct from, the
other key disciplines in philosophy (Metaphysics, Epistemology, Logic and Ethics), and that it represents more a distinct way of looking at philosophy
which has repercussions on all of these other fields. It has been argued that it differs from other branches of philosophy in that it tends to be more descrip-
tive than prescriptive. It is only distantly related to the epistemological doctrine of Phenomenalism (the theory that physical objects do not exist as
things in themselves but only as perceptual phenomena or bundles of sense-data situated in time and in space).
Phenomenology is the study of experience and how we experience. It studies structures of conscious experience as experienced from a subjec-
tive or first-person point of view, along with its "intentionality" (the way an experience is directed toward a certain object in the world). It then leads to
analyses of conditions of the possibility of intentionality, conditions involving motor skills and habits, background social practices and, often, lan-
guage.
Experience, in a phenomenological sense, includes not only the relatively passive experiences of sensory perception, but also imagina-
tion, thought, emotion, desire, volition and action. In short, it includes everything that we live through or perform. Thus, we may observe and en-
gage with other things in the world, but we do not actually experience them in a first-person manner. What makes an experience conscious is a cer-
tain awareness one has of the experience while living through or performing it. However, as Heidegger has pointed out, we are often not explicitly con-
scious of our habitual patterns of action, and the domain of Phenomenology may spread out into semi-conscious and even unconscious mental activity.
Many Analytic Philosophers, including Daniel Dennett (1942 - ), have criticized Phenomenology on the basis that its explicitly first-person approach is
incompatible with the scientific third-person approach, although Phenomenologists would counter-argue that natural science can make sense only as
a human activity which presupposes the fundamental structures of the first-person perspective. John Searle has criticized what he calls the "Phenom-
enological Illusion" of assuming that what is not phenomenologically present is not real, and that what is phenomenologically present is in fact an ade-
quate description of how things really are.
History of Phenomenology Back to Top
The term "phenomenology" is derived from the Greek "phainomenon", meaning "appearance". Hence it is the study of appearances as opposed to reality,
and as such has its roots back in Plato's Allegory of the Cave and his theory of Platonic Idealism (or Platonic Realism), or arguably even further back
in Hindu and Buddhist philosophy. To differing extents, the methodological skepticism of René Descartes, the British Empiri-
cism of Locke, Hume, Berkeley and Mill, and the Idealism of Immanuel Kant and the German Idealists all had a hand in the early development of the the-
ory.
The term was first officially introduced by Johann Heinrich Lambert (1728 - 1777) in the 18th Century, and was subsequently used by Immanuel
Kant and Johann Gottlieb Fichte, and especially by G. W. F. Hegel in his "Phenomenology of Spirit" of 1807.
Phenomenology, as it is known today, however, is essentially the vision of one man, Edmund Husserl, which he launched in his "Logical Investiga-
tions" of 1901, although credit should also be given to the pioneering work on intentionality (the notion that consciousness is always intentional or di-
rected) by Husserl's teacher, the German philosopher and psychologist Franz Brentano (1838 - 1917) and his colleague, Carl Stumpf (1848 - 1936).
Husserl formulated his classical Phenomenology first as a kind of "descriptive psychology" (sometimes referred to as Realist Phenomenology) and
later as a transcendental and eidetic science of consciousness (Transcendental Phenomenology). In his "Ideas" of 1913, he established the key
distinction between the act of consciousness ("noesis") and the phenomena at which it is directed (the "noemata"). In his later transcendental pe-
riod, Husserl concentrated more on the ideal, essential structures of consciousness, and introduced the method of phenomenological reduction spe-
cifically to eliminate any hypothesis on the existence of external objects.
Martin Heidegger criticized and expanded Husserl's phenomenological inquiry (particularly in his "Being and Time" of 1927) to encompass our under-
standing and experience of Being itself, and developed his original theory of "Dasein" (the non-dualistic human being, engaged in the world). According
to Heidegger, philosophy is not at all a scientific discipline, but is more fundamental than science itself (which to him is just one way among many of
knowing the world, with no specialized access to truth). Heidegger, then, took Phenomenology as a metaphysical ontology rather than as the foundational
discipline Husserl believed it to be. Husserl charged Heidegger with raising the question of ontology but failing to answer it, but Heidegger's development
of Existential Phenomenology greatly influenced the subsequent French Existentialism movement.
Other than Husserl and Heidegger, the most famous of the classical Phenomenologists were Jean-Paul Sartre, Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908 - 1961), Max
Scheler (1874 - 1928), Edith Stein (1891 - 1942), Dietrich von Hildebrand (1889 - 1977), Alfred Schutz (1899 - 1959), Hannah Arendt (1906 - 1975)
and Emmanuel Levinas (1906 - 1995).
Types of Phenomenology Back to Top
There are three main types of Phenomenology:
Realist Phenomenology (or Realistic Phenomenology): Husserl's early formulation, based on the first edition of his "Logical Investigations",
 which had as its goal the analysis of the intentional structures of mental acts as they are directed at both real and ideal objects. This was the pre-
ferred version of the Munich Group at the University of Munich in the early 20th Century, led by Johanes Daubert (1877 - 1947) and Adolf Rein-
ach (1883 -1917), as well as Alexander Pfänder (1871 - 1941), Max Scheler (1874 - 1928), Roman Ingarden (1893 - 1970), Nicolai Hart-
mann (1882 - 1950) and Hans Köchler (1948 - ).
Transcendental Phenomenology (or Constitutive Phenomenology): Husserl's later formulation, following from his 1913 "Ideas", which takes
the intuitive experience of phenomena as its starting point, and tries to extract from it the generalized essential features of experiences and the es-
sence of what we experience, setting aside questions of any relation to the natural world around us. Transcendental Phenomenologists include Oskar
Becker (1889 - 1964), Aron Gurwitsch (1901 - 1973) and Alfred Schutz (1899 - 1959).
Existential Phenomenology: Heidegger's expanded formulation, as expounded in his "Being and Time" of 1927, which takes as read that the ob-
server cannot separate himself from the world (and so cannot have the detached viewpoint Husserl insisted on). It is therefore a combination of
the phenomenological method with the importance of understanding man in his existential world. Existential Phenomenologists include Jean-Paul
Sartre, Hannah Arendt (1906 - 1975), Emmanuel Levinas (1906 - 1995), Gabriel Marcel (1889 - 1973), Paul Ricoeur (1913 - 2005) and Maurice
Merleau-Ponty (1908 - 1961).

Introduction Back to Top

Physicalism (also known as Materialistic Monism - see the sections on Materialism and Monism) is the philosophical position that everything which
exists is no more extensive than its physical properties, and that the only existing substance is physical. Therefore, it argues, the mind is a purely physi-
cal construct, and will eventually be explained entirely by physical theory, as it continues to evolve. With the huge strides in science in the 20th Century
(especially in atomic theory, evolution, neuroscience and computer technology), Physicalism of various types (see below) has become the dominant doc-
trine in the Mind/Body argument (see the section on Philosophy of Mind).
The term "physicalism" was first coined by the Austrian philosopher Otto Neurath (1882 - 1945) in the early 20th Century. In some ways, the term "physi-
calism" is a preferable one to the closely related concept of Materialism because it has evolved with the physical sciences to incorporate far more sophis-
ticated notions of physicality than just matter, for example wave/particle relationships and non-material forces produced by particles. Physicalism can
also be considered a variety of Naturalism (the belief that nature is all that exists, and that all things supernatural therefore do not exist).
An important concept within Physicalism is that of supervenience, which is the idea that higher levels of existence are dependent on lower levels, such
that there can only be a change in the higher level if there is also a change in the lower level (the higher level is said to supervene on the lower level).
Objections to Physicalism point out the apparent contradiction of the existence of qualia (properties of sensory experiences, or "the way things seem to us")
in an entirely physical world (also known as the knowledge argument). Hempel's Dilemma (propounded by the German philosopher Carl Hempel)
attacks how Physicalism is defined: if, for instance, one defines Physicalism as the belief that the universe is composed of everything known by physics,
one can point out that physics cannot describe how the mind functions; if Physicalism is defined as anything which may be described by physics in the fu-
ture, then one is really saying nothing. Against this, it can be argued that many examples of previously dualistic concepts are being eroded by continuous sci-
entific progress, and that the complete physical basis of the mind will almost certainly be known sometime in the future.
Types of Physicalism Back to Top
There are two main categories of Physicalism, Reductive and Non-Reductive:

Reductive Physicalism, which asserts that all mental states and properties can be, or will eventually be, explained by scientific accounts of physio-
logical processes and states, has been the most popular form during the 20th Century.
There are four main types:
Behaviourism, which holds that mental states are just descriptions of observable behavior and that such behaviors can be described scientifi-
cally without recourse either to internal physiological events or to hypothetical constructs such as the mind.
Type Identity Theory (also known as Type Physicalism), which holds that various kinds of mental states are identical to certain kinds, or
types, of physical states of the brain.
Token Identity Theory, which holds that particular instances of mental states are identical to particular instances of physical states of the
brain.
Functionalism, which holds that mental states (beliefs, desires, being in pain, etc.) are constituted solely by their functional role (the causal
 relations of mental states to other mental states, sensory inputs, and behavioral outputs), and can be characterized in terms of non-mental func-
tional properties. It further asserts that mental states are multiply realizable, meaning that they can be sufficiently explained without taking
into account the underlying physical medium (e.g. the brain, neurons, etc.) so that they can be realized in multiple ways, including, theoretically at
least, within non-biological systems such as computers.

Non-Reductive Physicalism, which argues that, although the brain is all there is to the mind, the predicates and vocabulary used in mental descrip-
tions and explanations cannot be reduced to the language and lower-level explanations of physical science. Thus, mental states supervene (de-
pend) on physical states, and there can be no change in the mental without some change in the physical, but they are not reducible to them.
There are three main types:
Anomalous Monism, which states that mental events are identical with physical events, but that the mental is anomalous i.e. these mental
events are perfectly real, and identical with (some) physical matter, but not regulated by strict physical laws. Therefore, all mental things are physi-
cal, but not all physical things are necessarily mental. This doctrine was first proposed by Donald Davidson in the 1970s.
Emergentism, which involves a layered view of nature, with the layers arranged in terms of increasing complexity, each corresponding to its
own special science.
Eliminativism (or Eliminative Materialism), which holds that people's common-sense understanding of the mind ("folk psychology") is
hopelessly flawed, and will eventually be replaced (eliminated) by an alternative, usually taken to be neuroscience.
Introduction Back to Top
Pluralism, appropriate to its name, is a concept used in many different ways in Philosophy (see below). But, in general terms, it is the theory that there
is more than one basic substance or principle.
It is contrasted to Monism, which holds that ultimately there is just one kind of substance, and to Dualism, which holds that ultimately there are two kinds of
substance in the universe (or, in Philosophy of Mind, that the mind and matter are two separate substances). Arguably, Dualism is a specific case of Plural-
ism.
Pluralism is also the name of a largely unrelated ancient Greek Pre-Socratic school of philosophy, which includes Anaxagoras, Archelaus (5th Century B.C.)
and Empedocles (see the section on the school of Pluralism).
Types of Pluralism Back to Top
In Metaphysics:
Pluralism is the belief that reality consists of many different substances.
In Philosophy of Mind:
Pluralism is the belief that there is a plurality of basic substances making up the minds and bodies of humans.
In Epistemology:
Pluralism is the claim that there are several conflicting but still true descriptions of the world, and that no single explanatory system or view of reality
can account for all the phenomena of life.
In Ethics:
Pluralism is the supposition that there are many independent sources of value and that there is no single truth, even in moral matters.
In Political Philosophy:
Pluralism is the acceptance of a multiplicity of groups with competing interests. This is closest to the concept most commonly in general conversa-
tional usage.
Introduction Back to Top
Polytheism is the belief in, or worship of, multiple gods (usually assembled in a pantheon). These gods are usually distinct and separate beings, and are
often seen as similar to humans (anthropomorphic) in their personality traits, but with additional individual powers, abilities, knowledge or percep-
tions. Common deities found in polytheistic beliefs include a Sky god, Death deity, Mother goddess, Love goddess, Creator deity, Trickster deity, Life-death-
rebirth deity and Culture hero.
Animism, Shamanism and Ancestor Worship do not necessarily contrast with polytheism, but are other perspectives on ethnic or traditional religious
customs compatible (and typically co-occurring) with polytheism.
The term "polytheism" (from the Greek "polus" meaning "many" and "theos" meaning "god"), is attested in English from the 17th Century (later than "athe-
ism" but earlier than "theism").
Types of Polytheism Back to Top
Hard Polytheism:
The belief, prevalent in mythology, in many gods and goddesses which appear as distinct and independent beings, often in conflict with one another.
Examples are the ancient Sumerian, Egyptian, Greek and Roman mythologies, as well as Norse, Aztec and Yoruba mythologies. Another example of hard
polytheism is Euhemerism, the postulate that all gods are in fact historical humans.
Soft Polytheism:
The belief (similar to inclusive monotheism) in many gods and goddesses which are considered to be manifestations or "aspects" of a single God,
rather than completely distinct entities. This view sees the gods as being subsumed into a greater whole, as in most forms of Hinduism and some New
Age currents of Neo-Paganism.
Henotheism:
The devotion to a single god while accepting the existence of other gods, and without denying that others can with equal truth worship different
gods. It has been called "monotheism in principle and polytheism in fact".
Monolatrism (or Monolatry):
The belief in the existence of many gods, but with the consistent worship of only one deity. Unlike Henotheism, Monolatrism asserts that there is
only one god who is worthy of worship, though other gods are known to exist.
Kathenotheism:
The belief that there are many gods, but only one deity at a time should be worshipped, each being supreme in turn.
Ditheism (or Duotheism):
The belief in two equally powerful gods, often, but not always, with complementary properties and in constant opposition, such as God and God-
dess in Wicca, or Good and Evil in Zoroastrianism and Manichaeism. The early mystical religion Gnosticism is another example of a ditheistic
belief of sorts, due to their claim that the thing worshipped as God in this world is actually an evil impostor, but that a true benevolent deity worthy of
being called "God" exists beyond this world.
Misotheism:
The belief that gods exist, but that they are actually evil. The English word was coined by Thomas de Quincey in 1846. Strictly speaking, the term con-
notes an attitude of hatred towards the god or gods, rather than making a statement about their nature.
Dystheism:
The belief that gods exist, but that they are not wholly good, or possibly even evil (as opposed to eutheism, the belief that God exists and is wholly
good). Trickster gods found in polytheistic belief systems often have a dystheistic nature, and there are various examples of arguable dysthei sm in
the Bible.
Introduction Back to Top
Realism, at it simplest and most general, is the view that entities of a certain type have an objective reality, a reality that is completely ontologically
independent of our conceptual schemes, linguistic practices, beliefs, etc. Thus, entities (including abstract concepts and universals as well as
more concrete objects) have an existence independent of the act of perception, and independent of their names.
The doctrine had its beginnings with Pre-Socratic philosophers like Thales, Heraclitus and Parmenides, but its definitive formulation was that of Plato and
his theory of Forms (see the section on Platonic Realism below).
Later philosophers (especially Christians) amended and adapted the doctrine to suit their needs:
St. Augustine modified Plato's realism by holding that universals existed before the material universe in God's creative mind, and that humanity as a
universal preceded individual men (thus explaining away problematical theological concepts such as the transmission of original sin in the human
race, and the oneness of the Trinity).
St. Anselm believed that he could derive truth about what actually exists from consideration of an ideal or universal, and argued that because God is
the greatest of beings, he must exist in reality as well as in thought (for if he existed in thought only, a greater being could be conceived of).
St. Thomas Aquinas built on Aristotle's watered down Realism (see the section on Moderate Realism below) to argue that human reason could not
totally grasp God's being, but that one could use reason in theology whenever it was concerned with the connection between universals and individual
objects.
It is a concept which has repercussions throughout philosophy - in Metaphysics, Epistemology, Ethics, Aesthetics, Politics, Philosophy of Perception, Sci-
ence, Mathematics, Religion, Law, etc - and it is as contentious today as it was for the Ancient Greeks.
Realism is contrasted with Anti-Realism (any position denying the objective reality of entities) and with Nominalism (the position that abstract concepts,
general terms or universals have no independent existence, but exist only as names) and with Idealism (the position that the mind is all that exists, and
that the external world is an illusion created by the mind).
There are many different types and degrees of Realism, some of which are described in detail in the sections below, and other which are touched on in brief
in the Other Types of Realism section below.
Platonic Realism Back to Top
Platonic Realism is the view, articulated by the ancient Greek philosopher Plato, that universals exist. A universal is a property of an object, which can
exist in more than one place at the same time (e.g. the quality of "redness"). As universals were considered by Plato to be ideal forms, this stance is con-
fusingly also called Platonic Idealism.
The problem of universals is an ancient problem (introduced by Pre-Socratic philosophers like Thales, Heraclitus and Parmenides) about what is signi-
fied by common nouns and adjectives, such as "man", "tree", "white", etc. What is the logical and existential status of the "thing" that these words refer
to? Is it in fact a thing, or a concept? Is it something existing in reality, external to the mind, or not? If so, then is it something physical or something ab-
stract? Is it separate from material objects, or a part of them in some way? How can one thing in general be many things in particular?
Plato's solution is that universals do indeed exist, although not in the same way that ordinary physical objects exist, but in a sort of ghostly mode of
existence, outside of space and time, but not at any spatial or temporal distance from people's bodies. Thus, people cannot see or otherwise come into sen-
sory contact with universals, and it is meaningless to apply the categories of space and time to them, but they can nevertheless be conceived of and exist.
One type of universal defined by Plato is the Form, which is not a mental entity at all, but rather an idea or archetype or original model of which particu-
lar objects, properties and relations are copies. The "forms" (small "f") or appearances that we see, according to Plato, are not real, but literally mimic the real
"Forms" (capital "F"). Forms are capable of being instantiated by one or many different particulars, which are essentially material copies of the Forms -
the particulars are said to "participate" in the Forms, and the Forms are said to "inhere" in the particulars.
According to Plato, Platonic Forms possess the highest and most fundamental kind of reality. They are perfect because they are unchanging. The world
of Forms is separate from our own world (the world of substances) and is the true basis of reality. Removed from matter, Forms are the most pure of all
things. True knowledge or intelligence is the ability to grasp the world of Forms with one's mind.
Plato's main evidence for the existence of Forms is intuitive only, arguing from human perception (a generalization which applies equally to objects
which are clearly different e.g. blue sky and blue cloth), and from perfection (a perfect model for various imperfect copies, which are different but recog-
nizably copies of the same thing e.g. flawed circles must be imperfect copies of the same thing).
Plato himself was well aware of the limitations of his theory, and in particular concocted the "Third Man Argument" against his own theory: if a Form
and a particular are alike, then there must be another (third) thing by possession of which they are alike, leading to an infinite regression. In a later
(rather unsatisfactory) version of the theory, he tried to circumvent this objection by positing that particulars do not actually exist as such:
they "mime" the Forms, merely appearing to be particulars.
Aristotle points out that proof of Forms and universals rests on prior knowledge: if we did not know what universals were in the first place, we would have
no idea of what we were trying to prove, and so could not be trying to prove it. He also asserted that universals and particulars imply each other: one is
logically prior or posterior to the other and, if they are to be regarded as distinct, then they cannot be "universal" and "particulars".
Other critics have argued that Forms, not being spatial, cannot have a shape, so it cannot be that a particular of, say, an apple is the same shape as the
Form of an apple. They have also questioned how one can have the concept of a Form existing in some special realm of the universe, apart from space and
time, since such a concept cannot come from sense-perception.
Moderate Realism Back to Top
Moderate Realism is the view that there is no separate realm where universals (or universal concepts) exist, but that they are located in space and
time wherever they happen to be manifest. Moderate realism represents a middle ground between Platonic Realism or Extreme Realism (see sec-
tion above) and the opposite extreme, Nominalism (the position that abstract concepts, general terms or universals have no independent existence, but
exist only as names).
It distinguishes between the thing itself with the way it exists: a thing exists in the mind as a universal, and in reality it exists as an individual. Thus,
what our ideas present to us in a universal does not exist outside the mind as a universal, but as an individual. Moderate Realism therefore recognizes
both sense knowledge, which presents things in their individuality, and intellectual conceptual knowledge, which presents things in their more ab-
stract nature.
A similar attempt to bridge the gap between Realism and Nominalism is known as Conceptualism, the doctrine (initiated by Peter Abelard) that universals
exist only within the mind and have no external or substantial reality. Modern Conceptualism, as represented by Immanuel Kant, holds that universals
have no connection with external things because they are exclusively produced by our a priori mental structures and functions.
Aristotle espoused a form of Moderate Realism, as did St. Thomas Aquinas, and even some modern philosophers such as the Frenchmen Jacques Mari-
tain (1882 - 1973) and Étienne Gilson (1884 - 1978).
Modal Realism Back to Top
Modal Realism is the view, notably propounded by David Lewis (1941 - 2001), that possible worlds are just as real as the actual world we live in, and
not just abstract possibilities. The term goes back to Gottfried Leibniz's theory of possible worlds, which he used to analyze modal notions of neces-
sity and possibility.
Lewis claimed that:
Possible worlds exist: they are just as real as our world.
Possible worlds are the same sort of things as our world: they differ in content, not in kind.
Possible worlds cannot be reduced to something more basic: they are irreducible entities in their own right.
When we talk of our "actual" world, the term "actual" is indexical (merely indicating some particular state of affairs): it does not mean that our world
is any more real than any other.
Possible worlds are spatio-temporally isolated from each other: they do not exist in the same space or time.
Possible worlds are causally isolated from each other: they do not interact with each other.
Lewis himself raises several lines of argument against the theory, and then proceeds to counter them, and it has proven to be remarkably resilient, de-
spite its apparent affront to common sense.
Moral Realism Back to Top
Moral Realism (or Moral Objectivism) is the meta-ethical view (see the section on Ethics) that there are objective moral values which are inde-
pendent of our perception of them or our stance towards them. Therefore, moral judgments describe moral facts. It is a cognitivist view (cognitivism
being the view that ethical sentences express propositions and are therefore "truth-apt" i.e. they are able to be true or false), and it contrasts with ex-
pressivist or non-cognitivist theories of moral judgment, error theories, fictionalist theories and constructivist or relativist theories.
Plato and (arguably) Immanuel Kant and Karl Marx were moral realists, as well as more contemporary philosophers such as G. E. Moore and Ayn
Rand (1905 - 1982).
Moral Realism purportedly allows the ordinary rules of logic to be applied straightforwardly to moral statements. It also allows for the resolution of
moral disagreements, because if two moral beliefs contradict one another, Moral Realism (unlike some other meta-ethical systems) says that they cannot
both be right and so there should be some way of resolving the situation.
Critics have argued that, while Moral Realism may be able to explain how to resolve moral conflicts, it cannot explain how these conflicts arose in the first
place. Others have argued Moral Realism posits a kind of "moral fact" which is non-material and unobservable and therefore not accessible to the scien-
tific method.
Other Types of Realism Back to Top
Other than the more widely known types of Realism described in the sections above, there are many others disciplines which are related to Realism, in-
cluding:
In Metaphysics:
Transcendental Realism is the theory, described (although not subscribed to) by Immanuel Kant, that implies individuals have a perfect under-
standing of the limitations of their own minds. Kant himself was a Transcendental Idealist in that he believed that our experience of things is
about how they appear to us, and he did not believe one could ever understand the world as it actually exists.
Organic Realism (or Philosophy of Organism, now known as Process Philosophy) is the metaphysical philosophy of Alfred North White-
head, in which subjective forms complement Plato's eternal objects or Forms. The theory identifies metaphysical reality with change and dyna-
mism, and holds that change is not illusory or purely accidental to the substance, but rather the very cornerstone of reality or Being.

In Epistemology:
Epistemological Realism is the view (considered a subcategory of Objectivism) that what you know about an object exists independently of
your mind. It is directly related to the correspondence theory of truth (that the truth or falsity of a statement is determined only by how it re-
lates to the world, and whether it accurately describes, or corresponds with, that world).
 Indirect Realism is the view (also known as Representationalism or Epistemological Dualism) that the world we see in conscious experi-
ence is not the real world itself, but merely a miniature virtual-reality replica of that world in an internal representation.
New Realism is a 20th Century theory which rejected of the epistemological Dualism of John Locke and the older forms of Realism, on the grounds
that, when one is conscious of an object, it is an error to say that there are two distinct facts: knowledge of the object in a mind, and an extra-
mental object in itself.

In Ethics:
Moral Realism is the meta-ethical view that there are objective moral values which are independent of our perception of them or our stance
towards them. Therefore, moral judgments describe moral facts. It purportedly allows the ordinary rules of logic to be applied straightforwardly
to moral statements. It also allows for the resolution of moral disagreements, because if two moral beliefs contradict one another, Moral Real-
ism (unlike some other meta-ethical systems) says that they cannot both be right and so there should be some way of resolving the situa-
tion. Plato and (arguably) Immanuel Kant and Karl Marx were moral realists, as well as more contemporary philosophers such as G. E.
Moore and Ayn Rand (1905 - 82).
Quasi-Realism is the meta-ethical theory that, although our moral claims are projectivist (attributing or projecting qualities to an object as if
those qualities actually belong to it), we understand them in realist terms as part of our ethical experience of the world. The theory was developed
by Simon Blackburn (1944 - ), who challenged philosophers to explain how two situations can demand different ethical responses without re-
ferring to a difference in the situations themselves, and argued that, as this challenge is effectively unmeetable, there must be a realist compo-
nent in our notions of ethics. However, Blackburn admitted that ethics cannot be entirely realist either, for this would not allow for phenomena
such as the gradual development of ethical positions over time.

In Aesthetics:
Aesthetic Realism is the view that reality, or the world, has a structure that is beautiful, and that unifies opposites like a great work of art
should, and can therefore can be liked honestly, as one would a work of art. The theory was developed by the American poet and critic Eli Siegel in
1941, and became something of a cult as its proponents claimed the one true answer to universal happiness, on the grounds that everyone's deep-
est desire to like the world on an honest or accurate basis.

In Political Philosophy:
Political Realism (or Power Politics) is the theory in Political Philosophy that the primary motivation of states is the desire for military and
economic power or security, rather than ideals or ethics. It views mankind from the Hobbesian perspective that it is not inherently benevolent,
but rather self-centered and competitive, as well as being inherently aggressive and/or obsessed with security. Historically, such a view can be
traced back to Sun Tzu and Han Feizi in ancient China, Thucydides in ancient Greece and Chanakya in ancient India, through the political phi-
losophers Niccolò Machiavelli and Thomas Hobbes, to more modern day politicians and theorists like Otto von Bismarck (1815 - 98), Carl von
Clausewitz (1780 - 1831), Charles de Gaulle (1890 - 1970) and Joseph Stalin (1878 - 1953).
Liberal Realism (also known as the English School of international relations theory) is the theory in Political Philosophy that there exists a soci-
ety of states at the international level, despite the lack of a ruler or world state. It supports a Rationalist or Grotian tradition, seeking a middle
way between the power politics of Political Realism and the utopianism of revolutionary theories. Liberal Realism holds that, while the interna-
tional system is anarchical, order can be promoted through diplomacy, international law and society.
Neorealism (or Structural Realism) is the theory that international structures act as a constraint on state behavior, so that only states
whose outcomes fall within an expected range can be expected to survive.

In Philosophy of Religion:
Christian Realism is a 20th Century philosophy, advocated by Reinhold Niebuhr (1892 - 1971), which holds that the kingdom of heaven can
not be realized on Earth because of the innately corrupt tendencies of society. Due to the natural injustices that arise on Earth, a person is
therefore forced to compromise the reality of the kingdom of heaven on Earth.
Mystical Realism is the view, originating with the Russian philosopher Nikolai Alexandrovich Berdyaev (1974 - 1948), that divine entities
are real, even if they do not exist in terms of the normal definition of existence (i.e. occupying space, having matter, existing in time, and being
 affected by causation).

In Philosophy of Perception:
Critical Realism is the theory which maintains that there exists an objectively knowable, mind-independent reality, and that some of our sense-
data accurately represent these external objects, properties and events, while others do not. The theory is a modern take on the ideas
of Locke and Descartes that the sense-data of secondary qualities (such as color, taste, texture, smell and sound) do not represent anything in the
external world, even if they are caused by primary qualities (such as shape, size, distance, hardness and volume).
Naïve Realism (also known as Direct Realism or Common Sense Realism) is a common sense theory of perception, holding that the world is
pretty much as our common sense would have it (all objects are composed of matter, they occupy space, and have properties such as size,
shape, texture, smell, taste and color, all of which are usually perceived correctly). Opponents of the theory (like Bertrand Russell) have attacked it
as not accounting for the phenomenon that the same object may appear differently to different people, or to the same person at different times.
This theory can be contrasted to Scientific Realism (see below).
Representative Realism, (also known as Indirect Realism, Epistemological Dualism and The Veil of Perception), is the theory that we
do not (and cannot) perceive the external world directly. Thus, a barrier or a veil of perception (between the mind and the existing world) pre-
vents first-hand knowledge of anything beyond it. Instead, we know only our ideas or interpretations of objects in the world (Representational-
ism), although it maintains (unlike Idealism) that those ideas come from sense-data of a real, material, external world. The theory was subscribed to
at various levels by Aristotle, Baruch Spinoza, René Descartes, John Locke and Bertrand Russell.
Hyper-Realism (or Hyper-Reality) is the view in semiotics and Post-Modernist philosophy that consciousness is unable to distinguish real-
ity from fantasy, especially in technologically advanced post-modern cultures. In this way, consciousness defines what is actually "real" in a world
where a multitude of media can radically shape and filter the original event or experience being depicted.

In Philosophy of Science:
Scientific Realism is the view that the world described by science is the real world, independent of what we might take it to be, and that unob-
servable things talked about by science are little different from ordinary observable things. Its proponents point out that scientific knowledge
is progressive in nature, and that it is able to predict phenomena remarkably successfully. An example of a Scientific Realist is John Locke, who
held the world only contains the primary qualities (such as shape, size, distance, hardness and volume), and that o ther properties were entirely sub-
jective, depending for their existence upon some perceiver who can observe the objects. However, although it is related to much older philosophical
positions including Rationalism and Realism, it is essentially a 20th Century thesis, developed largely as a reaction to Logical Positivism.
Entity Realism is a theory within Scientific Realism which claims that the theoretical entities that feature in scientific theories (e.g. 'electrons')
should be regarded as real only if they refer to phenomena that can be manipulated and investigated independently. Entity Realism does not
commit itself to judgments concerning the truth of scientific theories, but posits "manipulative success" as the criterion by which to judge the
reality of (typically unobservable) scientific entities.
Constructive Realism is the view in Philosophy of Science that the theory of Constructivism (that humans construct meaning from current
knowledge structures, and that knowledge is contingent on convention, human perception, and social experience) be applied to science. It
utilizes a strategy called strangification, which means taking a scientific proposition system out of its context and putting it in another context.

In Philosophy of Mathematics:
Mathematical Realism is the view that mathematical truths are objective, and that mathematical entities exist independently of the human
mind, and therefore are to be discovered rather than invented. There are various types of Mathematical Realism depending on what sort of ex-
istence one takes mathematical entities to have. The view effectively echoes the ancient doctrine of Platonic Realism (see section above).

In Philosophy of Law:
Legal Realism is the theory that all law is made by human beings and is therefore subject to human foibles, frailties and imperfections. The
theory was developed in the first half of the 20th Century, principally by Oliver Wendell Holmes in the United States and Axel Hägerström in Scan-
dinavia. Many legal realists believe that the law in the books (statutes, cases, etc) does not necessarily determine the results of legal disputes (the in-
determinacy of law); many believe that interdisciplinary (e.g. sociological and anthropological) approaches to law are important; many also
 believe in legal instrumentalism, the view that the law should be used as a tool to achieve social purposes and to balance competing societal
interests.

There are also several Realism movements within the arts (visual arts, theatre, literature, film, etc), which generally attempt to depict subjects as they
appear in everyday life, as well as many Realism-related movements like Hyperrealism, Fantastic Realism, Magical Realism, Photoreal-
ism, Poetic Realism, Social Realism, Socialist Realism, etc.
Introduction Back to Top
Reductionism is an approach to understanding the nature of complex things by reducing them to the interactions of their parts, or to simpler or
more fundamental things. It can also be described as the philosophical position that a complex system is nothing but the sum of its parts, and that an
account of it can be reduced to accounts of individual constituents. Thus, it is the belief that everything that exists is made from a small number of basic
substances that behave in regular ways, and is therefore in some respects comparable to Atomism.
By contrast, opposing views are represented by:
Holism, which claims that complex systems are inherently irreducible, and more than the sum of their parts, and that a holistic approach is needed
to understand them.
Emergentism (or Emergence), which claims that complex systems and patterns arise (emerge) out of a multiplicity of relatively simple interac-
tions.
Vitalism, which claims that the processes of life are not explicable by the laws of physics and chemistry alone and that life is in some part self-
determining and due to a vital principle distinct from physico-chemical forces. The concept of "élan vital" was coined by French philosopher Henri
Bergson (1859 - 1941) in his 1907 book "Creative Evolution", and he set it in stark opposition to inert matter in the dynamic dualist philosophy he
developed in the early 20th Century as a rejection of the then dominant idea that science was the main source of knowledge.
The idea of Reductionism was first introduced by Descartes in Part V of his "Discourses" of 1637, where he argued the world was like a machine, its pieces
like clockwork mechanisms, and that the machine could be understood by taking its pieces apart, studying them, and then putting them back to-
gether to see the larger picture.
Reductionist thinking and methods are the basis for many of the well-developed areas of modern science, including much of physics, chemistry and cell
biology. However, while it is commonly accepted that, for example, most aspects of chemistry are based on physics, it is less clear that sociology or eco-
nomics is based on psychology, as some reductionists would claim.
In linguistics, Reductionism is the idea that everything can be described in a language with a limited number of core concepts, and combinations of
those concepts.
Types of Reductionism Back to Top
Token Ontological Reductionism is the idea that every item that exists is a sum item, and that every perceivable item is a sum of items at a lower
level of complexity. Token ontological reduction of biological things to chemical things, for example, is generally accepted.

Type Ontological Reductionism is the idea that every type of item is a sum type of item, and that every perceivable type of item is a sum of types
of items at a lower level of complexity. Type ontological reduction of biological things to chemical things, for example, is often rejected.

Epistemological Reductionism is the theory that a complex system can be explained by reduction to its fundamental parts. It holds that all phe-
nomena can be completely understood in terms of the behavior of micro-physical entities.
Introduction Back to Top
Relativism is the idea that some element or aspect of experience or culture is relative to (or dependent on) some other element or aspect. Therefore,
as Aristotle expressed it, things are what they are only relative to other things, and nothing is what it is simply in virtue of itself.
It is not a single doctrine, but a family of views whose common theme is that some central aspect of experience, thought, evaluation, or even reality, is
somehow relative to something else. Thus, as well as Metaphysics, Relativism is relevant to Epistemology, Ethics, even Aesthetics.
Protagoras and the other Sophists, as early as the 5th Century B.C., are considered the founding fathers of Relativism in the western world, although their
beliefs are mainly known through the writings of their opponents, Plato and Socrates. Relativism was also discussed by early Hindu, Jain and Sikh philos-
ophers in India.
Metaphysical Relativism Back to Top
Metaphysical Relativism is the position that objects, and reality in general, only exist relative to other objects, and have no meaning in isolation.
Metaphysical Relativism presupposes Realism in that there are actual objective things in the world that are relative to other real things. The idea that there
is no reality "out there" independent of our minds is similar to the concept of metaphysical Subjectivism, and opposed to Objectivism.
Epistemological Relativism Back to Top
Epistemological Relativism (or Cognitive Relativism) is the idea that our knowledge of the real world must be assisted by our mental constructs,
and that the truth or falsity of a statement is relative to a social group or individual.
It argues that there is cognitive bias, notational bias and culture bias, all of which prevent us from observing something objectively with our own
senses, and which we cannot eliminate. It is therefore an anti-dogmatic position that asserts that the truth of a proposition depends on who inter-
prets it because no moral or cultural consensus can or will be reached.
Perspectivism is a type of Epistemological Relativism developed by Friedrich Nietzsche which holds that all ideations (the creation of new ideas) take
place from a particular perspective. This means that there are many possible perspectives which determine any possible judgment of truth or value that we
may make. Therefore, no way of seeing the world can be taken as definitively "true", but it does not necessarily mean that all perspectives are equally
valid.
Other Types of Relativism Back to Top
Moral Relativism is the position that moral or ethical propositions do not reflect objective and/or universal moral truths, but instead make
claims relative to social, cultural, historical or personal circumstances.
Aesthetic Relativism is the philosophical view that the judgment of beauty is relative to individuals, cultures, time periods and contexts, and that
there are no universal criteria of beauty.
Anthropological Relativism (or Methodological Relativism) refers to a methodological stance in which a researcher suspends his or her
own cultural biases so as to avoid ethnocentrism in an attempt to understand beliefs and behaviors in their local contexts. In general, anthropolo-
gists engage in descriptive relativism, as opposed to the normative relativism of philosophy.

Introduction Back to Top

Solipsism is the position in Metaphysics and Epistemology that the mind is the only thing that can be known to exist and that knowledge of anything out-
side the mind is unjustified. It is a skeptical hypothesis, and leads to the belief that the whole of reality and the external world and other peo-
ple are merely representations of the individual self, having no independent existence of their own, and might in fact not even exist. It is not, however,
the same as Skepticism (the epistemological position that one should refrain from even making truth claims).
Solipsism is therefore a pure variety of Idealism (more specifically Subjective Idealism or Subjectivism), and is opposed to concepts such as Material-
ism, Physicalism and Objectivism which hold that the only thing that can be truly proven to exist is matter.
The central assertion of Solipsism rests on the lack of a solid proof of the existence of the external world, and Strong Solipsism (as opposed to Weak
Solipsism) asserts that no such proof can be made.
It is often considered a bankrupt philosophy, or at best bizarre and unlikely. Critics have argued that the very idea of communicating philosophical
ideas would be entirely pointless to a true solipsist as, according to them, there is no other mind with whom they would communicate their beliefs. It
also goes against the commonly observed tendency for sane adult humans in the western world to interpret the world as external and existing inde-
pendently of themselves.
History of Solipsism Back to Top
Positions somewhat similar to Solipsism are present in much of Eastern Philosophy, particularly in Taoism, several interpretations of Buddhism (espe-
cially Zen), and some Hindu models of reality.
The origins of Solipsism in Western Philosophy lie with the Greek Pre-Socratic Sophist Gorgias who claimed that: 1) nothing exists; 2) even if something
exists, nothing can be known about it; and 3) even if something could be known about it, knowledge about it cannot be communicated to others. While to
some extent merely an ironic refutation and parody of the position of Parmenides and the Eleatic philosophers (that all being is one), Gorgias never-
theless captured at least the spirit of Solipsism.
Solipsism also lies at the heart of Descartes' view that the individual understands all psychological concepts (thinking, willing, perceiving, etc) by anal-
ogy with his or her own mental states (i.e. by abstraction from inner experience). Descartes' method of Cartesian Skepticism led him to doubt the
existence of the world he perceived, and in his famous formulation "Cogito Ergo Sum" ("I think therefore I am") he retreated to the only thing he
could not doubt, his own conscious self.
The Idealist philosopher George Berkeley argued that physical objects do not exist independently of the mind that perceives them, and that an item
truly exists only so long as it is observed (otherwise it is not only meaningless but simply non-existent). Berkeley, however, further argued that there
must also be an all-encompassing Mind (or God), so his position is not one of pure Solipsism.
Types of Solipsism Back to Top
Metaphysical Solipsism is a type of Idealism which maintains that the individual self of an individual is the whole of reality, and that the external
world and other persons are representations of that self and have no independent existence.
Epistemological Solipsism is a type of Idealism according to which only the directly accessible mental contents of an individual can be known. The
existence of an external world is regarded as an unresolvable question or an unnecessary hypothesis, rather than actually false.
Methodological Solipsism is the epistemological thesis that the individual self and its mental states are the sole possible or proper starting
point for philosophical construction. Therefore, all other truths must be founded on indisputable facts about an individual's own consciousness,
and someone's beliefs about, say, water have absolutely nothing to do with the substance water in the outside world, but are determined internally.

Introduction Back to Top

Subjectivism is the theory that perception (or consciousness) is reality, and that there is no underlying, true reality that exists independent of percep-
tion. It does not, however, claim that "all is illusion" or that "there is no such thing as reality", merely that the nature of reality is dependent on the con-
sciousness of the individual. In an extreme form, it may hold that the nature and existence of every object depends solely on someone's subjective
awareness of it.
Subjectivism has its philosophical basis in the writings of René Descartes ("Cogito Ergo Sum"), and the Empiricism and Idealism of George Berkeley is
a more extreme form of it.
It is very similar to the doctrine of Solipsism and is related in some ways to metaphysical Relativism. The antithesis of Subjectivism is Objectivism, which
holds that reality exists wholly independent of the mind. Another concept related to Subjectivism is that of Panpsychism, the view that all parts of mat-
ter involve mind, that everything is sentient and that there are either many separate minds, or one single mind that unites everything that is.
Types of Subjectivism Back to Top
Metaphysical Subjectivism is the idea (as described above) there is no underlying, true reality that exists independent of perception or conscious-
ness.
Ethical Subjectivism (or Moral Subjectivism) is the meta-ethical belief that ethical sentences reduce to factual statements about the atti-
tudes and/or conventions of individual people, or that any ethical sentence implies an attitude held by someone. It is therefore a form of Moral Rela-
tivism in which the truth of moral claims is relative to the attitudes of individuals. The opposite position is that of Moral Objectivism or the more
extreme Moral Absolutism.
Introduction Back to Top
Theism is the belief in the existence of one or more divinities or deities (gods), which are both immanent (i.e. they exist within the universe) and
yet transcendent (i.e. they surpass, or are independent of, physical existence). These gods also in some way interact with the universe (unlike in Deism),
and are often considered to be omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent.
The word "theism" was first coined in English in the 17th Century to contrast with the earlier term Atheism. "Deism" and "theism" changed meanings
slightly around 1700, due to the increasing influence of Atheism: "deism" was originally used as a synonym for today's "theism", but came to denote a sepa-
rate philosophical doctrine (see Deism).
Theism incorporates Monotheism (belief in one God), Polytheism (belief in many gods) and Deism (belief in one or more gods who do not intervene in
the world), as well as Pantheism (belief that God and the universe are the same thing), Panentheism (belief that God is everywhere in the universe but
still greater and above the universe) and many other variants (see the section on Philosophy of Religion). What it does not include is Atheism (belief that
there are no gods) and Agnosticism (belief that it is unknown whether gods exist or not).
The Abrahamic faiths (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) as well as Hinduism, Sikhism, Baha'i and Zoroastrianism, are all theistic religions.
Types of Theism Back to Top
Classical Theism refers to traditional ideas of the major Monotheistic religions such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam which hold that God is an ab-
solute, eternal, all-knowing (omniscient), all-powerful (omnipotent) and perfect being who is related to the world as its cause, but is unaffected by the
world (immutable), as well as being transcendent over it.
The doctrines of Classical Theism are based on the writings of Holy Scripture such as the Tanakh, the Bible or the Qu'ran, although there is also a debt
to Platonic and Neo-Platonic philosophy, and thus synthesizes Christian thought and Greek philosophy. To a large extent it was developed during the 3rd
Century by St. Augustine (heavily influenced by Plotinus), who drew on Platonic Idealism to interpret Christianity, and was extended by St. Thomas Aqui-
nas in the 13th Century after the rediscovery of the works of Aristotle.
 Open Theism, also known as Free Will Theism, is a recent theological movement which attempts to explain the practical relationship between
the free will of man and the sovereignty of God, contrary to Classical Theism which holds that God fully determines the future. It argues, among
other things, that the concepts of omnipresence and immutability do not stem from the Bible, but from the subsequent fusion of Judeo-Christian
thought with the Greek philosophy of Platonism and Stoicism, which posited an infinite God and a deterministic view of history
practical over the pure reason". He argues that, intellectually, humans are incapable of knowing ultimate reality, but this need not (and, Kant argues, must not) inter-
fere with the duty of acting as though the spiritual character of this reality were certain.
Following Kant, two distinct lines of Voluntarism proceeded:
Rational Voluntarism was originated by Gottlieb Fichte, who argued that the world and all its activity is only to be understood as material for the
activity of the practical reason, which is the means through which the will achieves complete freedom and complete moral realization.
Irrational Voluntarism was developed by Arthur Schopenhauer, who believed that the will is an irrational, unconscious urge, in relation to which
the intellect represents a secondary phenomenon. He asserted that all activity is blind insofar as the individual agent is concerned, although the power
and existence of the will are continually asserted.
Epistemological Voluntarism Back to Top
In Epistemology, Voluntarism is the view that belief is a matter of the will rather than one of simply registering one's cognitive attitude or degree of psy-
chological certainty with respect to a stated proposition. Thus, it is possible to simultaneously feel very certain about a particular proposition, and yet
assign it a very low subjective probability.