Topic outline of philosophy

Philosophy is an ongoing discussion about "knowledge"; it is a broad field of inquiry in which the definition of knowledge itself is one of the subjects investigated. Philosophy is the pursuit of wisdom, spans the nature of the universe and human nature (of the mind and the body), the relationships between these, and between people. It explores what and how people come to know, including existence itself, and how that knowledge is reliably and usefully represented, and communicated between and among humans, whether in thought, by language, or with mathematics. Philosophy is the predecessor and complement of science, and its foundation. It develops notions about the issues which underly science, and ponders the nature of thought itself. In science, the scientific method, which involves repeated observations of the results of controlled experiments, is an available and highly successful philosophical methodology. Within fields of study that are concerned directly with humans (economics, psychology, sociology and so forth), in which experimental methodologies are not generally available, subdisciplines of philosophy may be developed to provide a rational basis of study in the respective fields.

The following topic outline is provided as an overview of and introduction to the extensive field of philosophy.

Essence of philosophy

: "Main article: Philosophy"

* Inquiry
* Knowledge
* Meaning of life
* Reasoning
* Truth
* Wisdom

Subdivisions of philosophy

Branches of philosophy

* Aesthetics - the study of beauty, judgments of sentiment, or taste. Aesthetics is closely associated with the philosophy of art.
* Epistemology - studies the nature and scope of knowledge and belief.
* Ethics - study of the right, the good, and the valuable. Includes study of applied ethics.
* Logic - is the study of good reasoning, by examining the validity of arguments and documenting their fallacies.
* Metaphysics - studies the state of being and the nature of reality.

Areas or subdisciplines of philosophy

* Ethics
** Applied ethics
** Bioethics
** Business ethics
** Environmental ethics
** More...
* Philosophy of language
* Philosophy of mind
* Philosophy of philosophy (meta-philosophy)
* Philosophy of religion
* Philosophy of science
** Philosophy of mathematics
** Philosophy of physics
** Philosophy of biology
** Philosophy of psychology
* Social philosophy
** Ethnophilosophy
** Philosophy of education
** Philosophy of history
** Philosophy of social sciences
** Political philosophy
*** Philosophy of law

Philosophical movements

Philosophical movements of the ancient world

* Platonic realism
* Aristotelianism
* Pythagoreanism
* Pyrrhonian skepticism
* Epicureanism (hedonism)
* Stoicism
* Cynicism
* Neoplatonism

Philosophical movements of the modern world

* Analytic Philosophy
* Continental Philosophy
* Deconstructionism (See also deconstructivism).
* Empiricism
* Existentialism
* German idealism
* Logicism
* Logical Positivism
* Marxism
* Modernism (more a movement in the arts, but worth noting for its connection with postmodernism)
* Objectivism
* Phenomenology
* Postmodernism
* Poststructuralism
* Pragmatism
* Rationalism
* Structuralism
* Utilitarianism
* Post Philosophy

Major doctrines, principles, and theories of philosophy

Metaphysics:atheism:atomism:determinism:essentialism:existentialism:externalism:fideism:foundationalism:idealism:materialism:mysticism:naturalism:nihilism:monism:monotheism:objectivism (metaphysics):panentheism:pantheism:physicalism:polytheism:realism:reductionism:relativism:solipsism:subjectivism:taoism:theism:theology:transcendentalism

Epistemology, logic, & philosophy of mind:absolute knowledge:agnosticism:functionalism (philosophy of mind):formalism:dualism:dogmatism:empiricism:conceptualism:constructivism:deconstructionism:intuitionism:internalism:instrumentalism:logical positivism:logicism:mentalism:nominalism:non-cognitivism:perspectivism:phenomenalism:pluralism:positivism (related: logical empiricism; logical positivism):pragmatism:probability:psychologism:rationalism:representationalism:scholasticism:scientism:skepticism:vitalism:voluntarism

Ethics, social & political philosophy:altruism:anarchism:anthropomorphism:asceticism:behaviorism:Buddhism:capitalism:communitarianism:Confucianism:consequentialism:deontology:dialectical materialism:egalitarianism:egoism:emotivism:ethical relativism:eudaimonia:evolutionary theory:expression theory of art:feminist theory:historicism:holism:humanism:individualism:intellectualism:legal positivism:liberalism:libertarianism:modernism:moral absolutism:moral relativism:moral universalism:post modernism:sophism:stoicism:totalitarianism:utilitarianism:Zoroastrianism

Philosophy by region/era

* African philosophy
* African American philosophy
* Eastern philosophy
** Buddhist philosophy
** Chinese philosophy
** Confucian philosophy
** Hindu philosophy
** Indian philosophy
** Indonesian philosophy
** Iranian philosophy
** Islamic philosophy
** Japanese philosophy
** Jain philosophy
** Taoist philosophy
* Western philosophy
** Analytic philosophy
** Christian philosophy
** Continental philosophy
** Critical theory
** Czech philosophy
** Danish philosophy
** French philosophy
** German philosophy
** Greek philosophy
** Jewish philosophy
** Medieval philosophy
** Polish philosophy
** Postmodern philosophy
** Roman philosophy
** Romanian philosophy
** Russian philosophy

History of philosophy

: "Main article: History of philosophy"

* Ancient philosophy
** Greek philosophy
* Medieval philosophy
* Renaissance philosophy
* Age of Reason
* Age of Enlightenment
* 19th-century philosophy ("Modern")
* Contemporary philosophy
* History of eastern philosophy
* History of logic
* History of political philosophy
* History of western philosophy
* Timeline of philosophers

Fundamental philosophical questions

* What is the meaning of life?
* Do we even exist?
* Does God exist?
* Do we have free will?
* Do we have a soul?
* How can we know when something is true?
* How is a priori knowledge possible?
* The problem of universals.
* What is beauty?
* What is consciousness?
* What is freedom?
* What is good? What is evil?
* What is just?
* What is real?
* What is valuable?
* What are time and space?

"See also: Unsolved problems in philosophy"

Basic philosophical concepts

: "Below are basic terms of philosophy which are not covered above:"

Western philosophical concepts

General

deconstruction –
dialectic –
freethought –
know thyself –
life stance –
meaning of life –
perennial philosophy –
philosopher –
philosophy and literature –
pragmatics –
rationality –
reason (practical, speculative, and theoretical) –
semantics –
semiotics –"The Republic (Plato)" –
rhetoric –
Thus Spoke Zarathustra –
universals (problem of) –
The Urantia Book –
Vienna Circle –
Weltanschauung –
wisdom –
women in philosophy –
world view –
Young Hegelians –
Zeitgeist

Aesthetics

Epistemology

A priori –
A posteriori –
belief –
certainty –
Five Ws –
hypothesis –
internalism and externalism –
justification –
justified true belief
knowledge –
prejudice –
scientific method –
truth –
uncertainty –
verification

Ethics

action –
action theory –
bioethics –
business ethics –
eudaimonia –
evil –
descriptive ethics –
freedom of religion –
genethics –
good –
happiness –the "Happy Human" –
environmental ethics –
human flourishing –
euthanasia –
freedom –
human rights –
intolerance –
justice –
justification of human rights –
medical ethics –
morality
norm –
normative ethics –
original position
personal value –
quality of life –
social contract –
suffering –
Symposium (by Plato) –
tolerance –
Universal Declaration of Human Rights –
value theory –
values –
veil of ignorance –
vice –
violence –
virtue –
virtue ethics –
virtue theory –
voluntary euthanasia –
war and philosophy –
weakness of will –
Welfare –
welfare economics –
well-being –
wrong

Logic

abduction –
ambiguity –
analogy –
argument –
argument, logical –
axiom –
deduction –
fallacy –
induction –
inference –
non-contradiction, law of –
reason –
validity –
Venn diagram –
voting paradox –
well-formed formula

Fallacies

* formal fallacy, examples:
** affirming a disjunct
** false dilemma

* informal fallacy, examples:
** begging the question
** false analogy

Metaphysics

awareness –
being –
categories of the understanding –
causality –
Cogito, ergo sum –
consciousness –
cosmology –
cosmogony –
Creation myth -
Dasein –
essence –
evolution –
existence –
free will
human nature –
irreligion –
I think, therefore I am –
nature –
noumenon –
object–
ontology –
creation myths –
perception –
perception, philosophy of –
rational choice theory -
reality –
religion –
self –
sense data –
spirituality –
subject–
substance –
tabula rasa –
thing in itself –
understanding, categories of the –
universal –
veil of perception –
volition –
will –
will to power –
Zeno's paradoxes

Eastern philosophical concepts

Wheel of life –
yang –
yin –
yin and yang –
Yoga –
zen

Philosophers

* Timeline of Western philosophers
* Timeline of Eastern philosophers

Analytics

* A.J. Ayer
* Avrum Stroll
* Bertrand Russell
* C.D. Broad
* Carl Hempel
* George Edward Moore
* Gilbert Ryle
* Gottlob Frege
* H.P. Grice
* J.L. Austin
* John Wisdom
* Ludwig Wittgenstein
* P.F. Strawson
* Rudolf Carnap
* W. V. O. Quine

Classical philosophers

* Aristotle
* Plato
* Socrates

Deconstructionists

* Jacques Derrida

Eastern philosophers

* Confucius
* Laozi

Empiricists

* Aristotle
* Thomas Aquinas
* Roger Bacon
* Francis Bacon
* George Berkeley
* Thomas Hobbes
* David Hume
* John Locke
* John Stuart Mill

Existentialists

* Albert Camus
* Fyodor Dostoevsky
* Martin Heidegger
* Soren Kierkegaard
* Friedrich Nietzsche
* Jean-Paul Sartre

German idealists

* Kant
* Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Logical positivists

* Rudolf Carnap
* Berlin Circle
* Vienna Circle
* Carl Hempel
* Ernest Nagel
* Hans Reichenbach
* Moritz Schlick

Pessimists

* Arthur Schopenhauer

Phenomenologists

* Martin Heidegger
* Edmund Husserl

Joesph Niedymeyer

Political philosophers

* Thomas Hobbes
* Karl Marx
* Jean-Jacques Rousseau
* Voltaire

Pragmatists

* John Dewey
* William James
* George Herbert Mead
* Charles Sanders Peirce
* W.V.O. Quine

Rationalists

* René Descartes
* Gottfried Leibniz
* Nicolas Malebranche
* Benedictus de Spinoza

Structuralists

* Michel Foucault

Utilitarians

* Jeremy Bentham
* Henry Sidgwick
* John Stuart Mill

Philosophy lists

: "Main lists: Lists of philosophy topics and List of philosophy topics (index)"

* Glossary of philosophical isms
* List of belief systems
* List of ethics topics
* List of topics in logic
* List of topics in aesthetics
* List of topics in social and political philosophy
* List of topics in epistemology
* List of topics in anarchism
* List of topics in Ancient philosophy
* List of philosophy journals
* List of philosophies
* Lists of philosophers

See also

* Irreligion
* Life stance
* Religion
* Science
* World view

Books

Following are some introductory works about major philosophical issues:
* Blackwell Companion to Philosophy
* A History of Western Philosophy, by Bertrand Russell
* A History of Philosophy, by Frederick Copleston

External links

* [http://www.philosophypages.com/dy/index.htm Dictionary of Philosophical Terms and Names]
* [http://www.epistemelinks.org/ EpistemeLinks: Philosophy Resources on the Internet]
* [http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/gpi/index.htm Guide to Philosophy on the Internet]
* [http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/ The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]
* [http://www.ismbook.com/ The Ism Book]
* [http://www.galilean-library.org/philosophy.html Introducing Philosophy Series. By Paul Newall (for beginners)]
* [http://www.db.dk/jni/lifeboat/Concepts/Position.htm Philosophical positions] (philosophy, movement, school, theory, etc.)
* The Problems of Philosophy, by Bertrand Russell (links provided to full text)
* [http://plato.stanford.edu/ Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]