What is Philosophy?: Relationship of Philosophy to Other Fields of Thought
What is philosophy? How is it related to other fields of thought? How is it different? In response to these questions, nine preeminent scholars create an insightful view of philosophy and the role it plays in contemporary society.
Is Mind Distinct from Body?: Reductionists' Accounts of Mental Activity
Materialists argue that "the mystery of the mind" is an illusion that science will clear up once we understand all of the neurophysiological aspects of how the brain functions. Even in science, this reductionist view point is rare. Such knowledge ma...
Is Mind Distinct from Body?: Renes Descartes, a Solitary Thinker
Philosopher Rene Descartes believed that he functioned best as a solitary thinker. As he wrote in his Meditations it was only when he has no involvements or concerns that he could think philosophy and get it right. In one famous meditation Descartes...
What is Real?: Basic Nature of Reality, The
Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that probes the basic nature of reality, trying to find a simple explanation for that which is complex. It looks at the world from both an onotological and cosmological point of view.
What is Real?: Materialist's View of Reality, The
Materialists maintain that only the physical world is real. This idea which dates back to Democritus, a Greek philosopher who lived in the 5th century B.C, rose to prominence during the Scientific Revolution. Seventeenth century philosopher Thomas H...
Does Science Give Us Truth?: Quantum Mechanics Challenge to Theories of Truth: Einstein and the Realist View
The realist side of the quantum mechanics debate is headed by Albert Einstein, the most eminent scientist of the era. Einstein proposes that if quantum theory breaks down categories such as space and time we should look for a different set of concep...