Best Philosophical Novels
Literature and philosophy These two areas of thought go hand in hand and can form a continuum: certain authors publishing essays (Balzac, Wilde), as…
Encyclopedia
Find out our Encyclopedia of Philosophy, which a list of the most common philosophy concepts, ideas and theories, such as God, subjectivity, mankind, …
Memory: Philosophical Meaning & Definitions
Memory, in philosophy, designates the persistence of the past. The past can persist in the form of simple habits; but memory more properly refers…
Kant & Unsocial Sociability
In Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose, Kant gives an explanation of his theory of the unsocial sociability of men. In this, Kant affirms that man…
Dreadful, anguish, anxiety: Existentialist concepts defined
An existentialist concept Anxiety is a flagship concept of existentialist philosophy: vertigo of freedom in Kierkegaard refusal of responsibility in Sartre existential anxiety of…
What is a Lapsus? Freud’s Definition
Freudian definition of Lapsus Lapsus is a verbal or written or memory error that appears as an unconscious manifestation. Freud coined this term and…
Leibniz, Monads & the theory of Pre-established Harmony
In his Monadology, the philosopher Leibniz proposes a theory of pre-established harmony (sometimes called the concomitance hypothesis) in order to understand how things are…
The Other in Philosophy (Quotes, Concepts, Authors)
Others in philosophy Others, in philosophy, is a recent concept. Until Hegel, the question of otherness had no right of city, solipsism (only the…
Freedom in Philosophy: Quotes, Concepts, Authors
Freedom is a key concept in philosophy. It is defined, negatively, as the absence of constraint; positively like the state of the one who…
Opinion: Philosophical definitions
Elements of definitions In the current language, to give one’s opinion is to give one’s “way of thinking”, in other words, assume the very…
Cause & Causality in Philosophy
General definition The cause, according to many philosophers, means a force that produces an effect. The search for causes is natural to the human mind,…
The No-Ownership Theory in Strawson
The no-ownership theory is a metaphysical doctrine of the self, labelled by Strawson. It arises from cartesian mind-body dualism (see mind body problem) and…
Emotion: Philosophical Definitions
What is an emotion? Basically, Emotion can be defined as a manifestation of the emotional life, usually accompanied by a pleasurable or painful state of consciousness….
Myth of Er (Plato, Republic)
The Myth of Er is the concluding parable in Plato’s Republic (book X), concerning the fate of souls after death and the choices available…
Logical Atomism – Definition
Wittgenstein, in his Tractatus Logico Philosophicus, a expressed the logical atomism philosophy. It is the belief that analysis of the conditions necessary to give…
Proust and Madeleine
Marcel Proust delivered in Search of Lost Time a brilliant analysis on time, through the famous “Madeleine” (a french cookie) The Proustian Madeleine crystallizes the…
Behaviourism – Definition
The behaviourist theory has been first propounded by the psychologist J.B. Watson in Behaviourism (1925). This branch asserts that psychological functionning is definable in terms…
The Philosophical Materialism
Materialism is one the most spread philosophical schools, represented by Epicurus, Marx or Hobbes. It is opposed to idealistic philosophy. Definition As most commonly…
Empiricism : Definition and Theory
Basics and Meaning : Usually defined as the thesis that all knowledge or at least all knowledge of matters of fact as disctinct from…
Dialectical Materialism in Marx
Marxist definition The dialectical materialism is a metahysical doctrine held by many marxists. It asserts that matter is primary or fundamental, and states general…
Structuralism – Definition
Structuralism is a method of approach, and not a philosophy in itself, that has application in both linguistics and the social sciences : –…