philopeople

In Bernard Bolzano’s theory of mathematical knowledge, properties such as analyticity and logical consequence are defined on the basis of a substitutional procedure that comes with a conception of logical form that prefigured contemporary treatments such as those of Quine and Tarski. Three results are particularly interesting: the elaboration of a calculus of probability, the definition of (narrow and

Markus Gabriel one of the founders of New Realism, talks to Anja Steinbauer about why the world does not exist, and other curious metaphysical topics. I’m talking with Markus Gabriel, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Bonn, in particular about his new book Why The World Does Not Exist. But first tell us a

Manuel Carta interviews Maurizio Ferraris’s translator into English. Your education was mainly focused on literature. How did you discover philosophy? To be honest, my training in philosophy dates back to high school. I also did a module in Aesthetics – Descartes, Kant and Husserl – during my BA, but that was it at university. I

Bishop Joseph Butler is a well-known religious philosopher of the eighteenth century. He is still read and discussed among contemporary philosophers, especially for arguments against some major figures in the history of philosophy, such as Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. In his Fifteen Sermons Preached at the Rolls Chapel (1729), Butler argues against Hobbes’s egoism, and in the Analogy of Religion (1736), he

Jürgen Habermas produced a large body of work over more than five decades. His early work was devoted to the public sphere, to modernization, and to critiques of trends in philosophy and politics. He then slowly began to articulate theories of rationality, meaning, and truth. His two-volume Theory of Communicative Action in 1981 revised and systematized many

Robert Boyle was one of the most prolific figures in the scientific revolution and the leading scientist of his day. He was a proponent of the mechanical philosophy which sought to explain natural phenomena in terms of matter and motion, rather than appealing to Aristotelian substantial forms and qualities. He was a champion of experimental

Ge Hong was an eclectic philosopher who dedicated his life to searching for physical immortality, which he thought was attainable through alchemy. He lived during China’s tumultuous Period of Disunity (220-589 C.E.), a time in which alien conqueror regimes ruled northern China, the cradle of Chinese civilization, while a series of weak, transplanted Chinese states