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Sensualism
In epistemology, sensualism is a doctrine whereby sensations and perception are the basic and most important form of true cognition. It may oppose abstract ideas. This ideogenetic question was long ago put forward in Greek philosophy (Stoicism, Epicureanism) and further developed to the full by the British Sensualists (John Locke, David Hume) and the British Associationists ( Thomas Brown, David Hartley, Joseph Priestley). In the 19th century, it was very much taken up by the Positivists (Auguste Comte, Herbert Spencer, Hippolyte Taine, Émile Littré) See also * Empiricism * Positivism * Solipsism * Spiritualism Spiritualism may refer to: * Spiritual church movement, a group of Spiritualist churches and denominations historically based in the African-American community * Spiritualism (beliefs), a metaphysical belief that the world is made up of at leas ... Footnotes Epistemological theories Empiricism {{epistemology-stub ...
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Epistemology
Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that examines the nature, origin, and limits of knowledge. Also called "the theory of knowledge", it explores different types of knowledge, such as propositional knowledge about facts, practical knowledge in the form of skills, and knowledge by acquaintance as a familiarity through experience. Epistemologists study the concepts of belief, truth, and justification to understand the nature of knowledge. To discover how knowledge arises, they investigate sources of justification, such as perception, introspection, memory, reason, and testimony. The school of skepticism questions the human ability to attain knowledge while fallibilism says that knowledge is never certain. Empiricists hold that all knowledge comes from sense experience, whereas rationalists believe that some knowledge does not depend on it. Coherentists argue that a belief is justified if it coheres with other beliefs. Foundationalists, by contrast, maintain th ...
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Auguste Comte
Isidore Auguste Marie François Xavier Comte (; ; 19 January 1798 – 5 September 1857) was a French philosopher, mathematician and writer who formulated the doctrine of positivism. He is often regarded as the first philosopher of science in the modern sense of the term. Comte's ideas were also fundamental to the development of sociology, with him inventing the very term and treating the discipline as the crowning achievement of the sciences. Influenced by Henri de Saint-Simon, Comte's work attempted to remedy the social disorder caused by the French Revolution, which he believed indicated an imminent transition to a new form of society. He sought to establish a new social doctrine based on science, which he labeled ''positivism''. He had a major impact on 19th-century thought, influencing the work of social thinkers such as John Stuart Mill and George Eliot. His concept of ''Sociology'' and social evolutionism set the tone for early social theorists and anthropologists s ...
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Spiritualism (philosophy)
In philosophy, spiritualism is the concept, shared by a wide variety of systems of thought, that there is an immaterial reality that cannot be perceived by the senses.''Encyclopædia Britannica''"Spiritualism (in philosophy)" britannica.com This includes philosophies that postulate a personal God, the immortality of the soul, or the immortality of the intellect or will, as well as any systems of thought that assume a universal mind or cosmic forces lying beyond the reach of purely materialistic interpretations. Generally, any philosophical position, be it dualism, monism, atheism, theism, pantheism, idealism or any other, is compatible with spiritualism as long as it allows for a reality beyond matter. Theism is an example of a dualist spiritualist philosophy, while pantheism is an example of monist spiritualism. Notable spiritualist thinkers *Aristotle *Henri Bergson * Maine de Biran * F. H. Bradley * Émile Boutroux * Victor Cousin *René Descartes *Giovanni Gentile * ...
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Solipsism
Solipsism ( ; ) is the philosophical idea that only one's mind is sure to exist. As an epistemological position, solipsism holds that knowledge of anything outside one's own mind is unsure; the external world and other minds cannot be known and might not exist outside the mind. Varieties There are varying degrees of solipsism that parallel the varying degrees of skepticism: Metaphysical Metaphysical solipsism is a variety of solipsism based on a philosophy of subjective idealism. Metaphysical solipsists maintain that the self is the only existing reality and that all other realities, including the external world and other persons, are representations of that self, having no independent existence. There are several versions of metaphysical solipsism, such as Caspar Hare's egocentric presentism (or perspectival realism), in which other people are conscious, but their experiences are simply not ''present''. Epistemological Epistemological solipsism is the variety of id ...
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Empiricism
In philosophy, empiricism is an epistemological view which holds that true knowledge or justification comes only or primarily from sensory experience and empirical evidence. It is one of several competing views within epistemology, along with rationalism and skepticism. Empiricists argue that empiricism is a more reliable method of finding the truth than purely using logical reasoning, because humans have cognitive biases and limitations which lead to errors of judgement. Empiricism emphasizes the central role of empirical evidence in the formation of ideas, rather than innate ideas or traditions. Empiricists may argue that traditions (or customs) arise due to relations of previous sensory experiences. Historically, empiricism was associated with the " blank slate" concept (''tabula rasa''), according to which the human mind is "blank" at birth and develops its thoughts only through later experience. Empiricism in the philosophy of science emphasizes evidence, especi ...
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Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas ( ; ; – 7 March 1274) was an Italian Dominican Order, Dominican friar and Catholic priest, priest, the foremost Scholasticism, Scholastic thinker, as well as one of the most influential philosophers and theologians in the Western tradition. A Doctor of the Church, he was from the county of Aquino, Italy, Aquino in the Kingdom of Sicily. Thomas was a proponent of natural theology and the father of a school of thought (encompassing both theology and philosophy) known as Thomism. Central to his thought was the doctrine of natural law, which he argued was accessible to Reason, human reason and grounded in the very nature of human beings, providing a basis for understanding individual rights and Moral duty, moral duties. He argued that God is the source of the light of natural reason and the light of faith. He embraced several ideas put forward by Aristotle and attempted to synthesize Aristotelianism, Aristotelian philosophy with the principles of Christianity. A ...
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Augustine Of Hippo
Augustine of Hippo ( , ; ; 13 November 354 – 28 August 430) was a theologian and philosopher of Berber origin and the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia, Roman North Africa. His writings deeply influenced the development of Western philosophy and Western Christianity, and he is viewed as one of the most important Church Fathers of the Latin Church in the Patristic Period. His many important works include '' The City of God'', '' On Christian Doctrine'', and '' Confessions''. According to his contemporary, Jerome of Stridon, Augustine "established anew the ancient Faith". In his youth he was drawn to the Manichaean faith, and later to the Hellenistic philosophy of Neoplatonism. After his conversion to Christianity and baptism in 386, Augustine developed his own approach to philosophy and theology, accommodating a variety of methods and perspectives. Believing the grace of Christ was indispensable to human freedom, he helped formulate the doctrine of original sin and m ...
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Cicero
Marcus Tullius Cicero ( ; ; 3 January 106 BC â€“ 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, orator, writer and Academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises that led to the establishment of the Roman Empire. His extensive writings include treatises on rhetoric, philosophy and politics. He is considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists and the innovator of what became known as "Ciceronian rhetoric". Cicero was educated in Rome and in Greece. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the Roman equestrian order, and served as consul in 63 BC. He greatly influenced both ancient and modern reception of the Latin language. A substantial part of his work has survived, and he was admired by both ancient and modern authors alike. Cicero adapted the arguments of the chief schools of Hellenistic philosophy in Latin and coined a large portion of Latin philosophical vocabulary via ...
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The World As Will And Representation
''The World as Will and Representation'' (''WWR''; , ''WWV''), sometimes translated as ''The World as Will and Idea'', is the central work of the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. The first edition was published in late 1818, with the date 1819 on the title page. A second, two-volume edition appeared in 1844: volume one was an edited version of the 1818 edition, while volume two consisted of commentary on the ideas expounded in volume one. A third expanded edition was published in 1859, the year before Schopenhauer's death. In 1948, an abridged version was edited by Thomas Mann. In the summer of 1813, Schopenhauer submitted his doctoral dissertation—''On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason''—and was awarded a doctorate from the University of Jena. After spending the following winter in Weimar, he lived in Dresden and published his treatise '' On Vision and Colours'' in 1816. Schopenhauer spent the next several years working on his chief work, ''The ...
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Aristotle
Aristotle (; 384–322 BC) was an Ancient Greek philosophy, Ancient Greek philosopher and polymath. His writings cover a broad range of subjects spanning the natural sciences, philosophy, linguistics, economics, politics, psychology, and the arts. As the founder of the Peripatetic school of philosophy in the Lyceum (classical), Lyceum in Athens, he began the wider Aristotelianism, Aristotelian tradition that followed, which set the groundwork for the development of modern science. Little is known about Aristotle's life. He was born in the city of Stagira (ancient city), Stagira in northern Greece during the Classical Greece, Classical period. His father, Nicomachus (father of Aristotle), Nicomachus, died when Aristotle was a child, and he was brought up by a guardian. At around eighteen years old, he joined Plato's Platonic Academy, Academy in Athens and remained there until the age of thirty seven (). Shortly after Plato died, Aristotle left Athens and, at the request ...
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Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer ( ; ; 22 February 1788 â€“ 21 September 1860) was a German philosopher. He is known for his 1818 work ''The World as Will and Representation'' (expanded in 1844), which characterizes the Phenomenon, phenomenal world as the manifestation of a blind and irrational noumenon, noumenal Will (philosophy), will. Building on the transcendental idealism of Immanuel Kant, Schopenhauer developed an atheistic metaphysical and ethical system that rejected the contemporaneous ideas of German idealism. Schopenhauer was among the first philosophers in the Western philosophy, Western tradition to share and affirm significant tenets of Indian philosophy, such as asceticism, denial of the self (philosophy), self, and the notion of the Maya (religion), world-as-appearance. His work has been described as an exemplary manifestation of philosophical pessimism. Though his work failed to garner substantial attention during his lifetime, he had a posthumous impact across various ...
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Émile Littré
Émile Maximilien Paul Littré (; 1 February 18012 June 1881) was a French lexicographer, freemason and philosopher, best known for his , commonly called . Biography Littré was born in Paris. His father, Michel-François Littré, had been a gunner and, later, a sergeant-major of marine artillery in the French navy who was deeply imbued with revolutionary ideas of the day. Settling down as a tax collector, he married Sophie Johannot, a freethought, free-thinker like himself, and devoted himself to the education of his son Émile. The boy was sent to the Lycée Louis-le-Grand, where Louis Christophe François Hachette, Louis Hachette and Eugène Burnouf became his friends. After he completed his studies at the lycée, he was undecided as to what career he should adopt; however, he devoted himself to mastering the English and German languages, classical and Sanskrit literature, and philology. He finally decided to become a student of medicine in 1822. He passed all his examination ...
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