Philosophy

For other uses, see Philosophy (disambiguation).

Philosophy (from Greek: φιλοσοφία, philosophia, 'love of wisdom') is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those concerning existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Philosophical methods include questioning, critical discussion, rational argument, and systematic presentation.

Historically, philosophy encompassed all bodies of knowledge and a practitioner was known as a philosopher. Natural philosophy, the origins of which trace back to Ancient Greece, encompasses astronomy, medicine, and physics. In the transition to the modern era, various areas of investigation that were traditionally part of philosophy became separate academic disciplines such as psychology, sociology, linguistics, and economics.

Today, major subfields of academic philosophy include metaphysics, which is concerned with the fundamental nature of existence and reality; epistemology, which studies the nature of knowledge and belief; ethics, which is concerned with moral value; and logic, which studies the rules of inference that allow one to derive conclusions from true premises. The history of philosophy is itself a philosophical undertaking. Other notable subfields include philosophy of religion, philosophy of science, political philosophy, aesthetics, philosophy of language, and philosophy of mind.

Etymology

The word "philosophy" comes from the ancient Greek φίλος, phílos: "love"; and σοφία, sophía: "wisdom". Some sources claim the term was coined by Pythagoras (c. 570 – c. 495 BCE), although this theory is disputed by others. The word entered the English language by way of multiple sources, but primarily from the French philosophie, which is itself a borrowing from the Latin philosophia.

Before the modern age, the term philosophy was used in a very wide sense, which encompassed the individual sciences, like physics or mathematics, as its sub-disciplines, but the contemporary usage is more narrow and brings one into the realm of academic philosophy.

In the oldest surviving history of philosophy, Lives and Opinions of the Eminent Philosophers (3rd century), Diogenes Laërtius presents a three-part division of ancient Greek philosophical inquiry:

• Natural philosophy (i.e., physics, from Greek: ta physika, lit. 'things having to do with physis [nature]') was the study of the constitution and processes of transformation in the physical world.
• Moral philosophy (i.e., ethics, from êthika, 'having to do with character, disposition, manners') was the study of goodness, right and wrong, justice and virtue.
• Metaphysical philosophy (i.e., logic, from logikós, 'of or pertaining to reason or speech') was the study of existence, causation, god, logic, forms, and other abstract objects.

In Against the Logicians, the Pyrrhonist philosopher Sextus Empiricus detailed the variety of ways in which the ancient Greek philosophers had divided philosophy, noting that this three-part division was agreed to by Plato, Aristotle, Xenocrates, and the Stoics. The Academic Skeptic philosopher Cicero also followed this tripartite distinction.

This division is not obsolete. In the 19th century, however, the growth of modern research universities led academic philosophy and other disciplines to professionalize and specialize. For this reason, our vocabulary has changed to reflect the fact that many parts of ancient philosophy are now autonomous sciences in their own right; for example:

• Natural philosophy has split into the various natural sciences, especially physics, astronomy, chemistry, biology, and cosmology.
• Moral philosophy has birthed the social sciences, while still including value theory (e.g., ethics, aesthetics, political philosophy, etc.).
• Metaphysical philosophy has generated formal sciences such as logic, mathematics, and philosophy of science, while still including epistemology, ontology, and so forth.

For instance, Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy (1687) – now classified as a book of physics – uses the term natural philosophy in its own self-description because, at the time, that term still encompassed disciplines such as astronomy, medicine, and physics, which later became associated with the modern sciences.

Conceptions of philosophy

General conception

The practice of philosophy is characterized by various general features: it is a form of rational inquiry, it aims to be systematic, and it tends to critically reflect on its own methods and presuppositions. It requires thinking "as hard and as clearly...about some of the most interesting and enduring problems that human minds have ever encountered"; many of these we cannot avoid, but are unable to answer once and for all.

For instance, according to the 18th-century philosopher Immanuel Kant, the task of philosophy is united by four questions: (1) What can I know?; (2) What should I do?; (3) What may I hope?; and (4) What is the human being? His entire career, as he conceived it, was devoted to systematically addressing these four questions.

Bertrand Russell offers this justification for undertaking the labor of philosophical thought:

The man who has no tincture of philosophy goes through life imprisoned in the prejudices derived from common sense, from the habitual beliefs of his age or his nation, and from convictions which have grown up in his mind without the cooperation or consent of his deliberate reason.

Aristotle, more generously, opens his Metaphysics by explaining the need for philosophy with the claim that "All human beings by nature stretch themselves out toward knowing". In a further passage, he adds, it is "by way of wondering [that] people both now and at first begin to philosophize, wondering first about the strange things near at hand, then going forward little by little in this way and coming to impasses about greater things".

On its way into modern English from c.1175 Old French and Anglo-Norman, "philosophy" has acquired, and to some extent still retains, the meanings of "advanced study of the speculative subjects (logic, ethics, physics, and metaphysics)", "deep wisdom consisting of love of truth and virtuous living", "profound learning as transmitted by the ancient writers", and "the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence, and the basic limits of human understanding".

Academic definitions

Main article: Definitions of philosophy

Attempts to define philosophy in more precise and specific terms are typically controversial. Some approaches argue that there is a set of essential features shared by all parts of philosophy, while others see only weaker family resemblances or contend that it is merely an empty blanket term. Often, they are only accepted by theorists belonging to a certain philosophical movement and are revisionistic in that many presumed parts of philosophy would not deserve the title "philosophy" if they were true.

Some definitions characterize philosophy in relation to its method, like pure reasoning. Others focus more on its topic, for example, as the study of the biggest patterns of the world as a whole or as the attempt to answer the big questions. Both approaches have the problem that they are usually either too wide, by including non-philosophical disciplines, or too narrow, by excluding some philosophical sub-disciplines.

Many definitions of philosophy emphasize its intimate relation to science. In this sense, philosophy is sometimes understood as a proper science in its own right. According to some naturalistic philosophers, like Willard Van Orman Quine, philosophy is an empirical yet very abstract science that is concerned with very wide-ranging empirical patterns instead of particular observations. Science-based definitions usually face the problem of explaining why philosophy in its long history has not made the type of progress as seen in other sciences. This problem is avoided by seeing philosophy as an immature or provisional science whose subdisciplines cease to be philosophy once they have fully developed. In this sense, philosophy is the midwife of the sciences.

Other definitions focus more on the contrast between science and philosophy. A common theme among many such conceptions is that philosophy is concerned with meaning, understanding, or the clarification of language. According to one view, philosophy is conceptual analysis, which involves finding the necessary and sufficient conditions for the application of concepts.

Another presents philosophy as a linguistic therapy. According to Ludwig Wittgenstein, for example, philosophy aims at dispelling misunderstandings to which humans are susceptible due to the confusing structure of natural language.

Some phenomenologists, such as Edmund Husserl and his followers, characterize philosophy as the science of essences.

Many other conceptions of philosophy do not clearly fall into any of the aforementioned categories. An early approach found in ancient Greek and Roman philosophy, that philosophy is the spiritual practice of developing one's rational capacities, has been rehabilitated by philosophers such as Pierre Hadot and Michel Foucault. This practice is an expression of the philosopher's love of wisdom and has the aim of improving one's well-being by leading a reflective life. A closely related approach identifies the development and articulation of worldviews as the principal task of philosophy, i.e., to express how things on the grand scale hang together and which practical stance we should take towards them. Another definition characterizes philosophy as thinking about thinking in order to emphasize its reflective nature.

Historical overview

Main article: History of philosophy

The history of philosophy studies the development of philosophical thought. It aims to provide a systematic and chronological exposition of philosophical concepts and doctrines. Some theorists see it as a part of intellectual history, but it also investigates questions not covered by intellectual history such as whether the theories of past philosophers are true and philosophically relevant today. The history of philosophy is primarily concerned with theories based on rational inquiry and argumentation. However, some historians understand it in a looser sense that includes myths, religious teachings, and proverbial lore. The main traditions in the history of philosophy include Western, Arabic-Persian, Indian, and Chinese philosophy, the latter two of which are often referred to under the broader heading of Eastern philosophy. Other influential philosophical traditions are Japanese philosophy, Latin American philosophy, and African philosophy.

Western

Main article: Western philosophy

Photo of a statue of Aristotle

Statue of Aristotle (384–322 BCE), a major figure of ancient Greek philosophy, in Aristotle's Park, Stagira

Western philosophy covers philosophical thought linked to the geographical region and cultural heritage of the Western world. It originated in Ancient Greece in the 6th century BCE with the Presocratics. They attempted to provide rational explanations of the cosmos as a whole. The philosophy following them was shaped by Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. They expanded the range of topics to questions like how people should act, how to arrive at knowledge, and what the nature of reality and mind is. The later part of the ancient period was marked by the emergence of philosophical movements including like Epicureanism, Stoicism, Skepticism, and Neoplatonism. The medieval period started in the 5th century CE. Its focus was on religious topics and many thinkers used ancient philosophy to explain and further elaborate Christian doctrine.

The Renaissance period started in the 14th century and saw a renewed interest in various schools of Ancient philosophy, in particular Platonism. The idea of humanism also emerged in this period. The following modern period started in the 17th century. One of its central concerns was how philosophical and scientific knowledge are created. Specific importance was given to the role of reason and sensory experience. Many of these innovations were used in the Enlightenment movement to challenge traditional authorities. Various attempts to develop all-inclusive systems of philosophy were made in the later part of the modern period, for example, by German idealism. Influential developments in 20th-century philosophy were the emergence and application of formal logic and the focus on the role of language as well as philosophical movements like phenomenology and pragmatism.

Arabic-Persian

Main article: Islamic philosophy

Arabic-Persian philosophy is the philosophical tradition of Arabic- and Persian-speaking regions. It started in the early 9th century CE and had its peak period during the Islamic Golden Age. It was strongly influenced by Ancient Greek philosophers and employed their ideas to elaborate and interpret the teachings of the Quran.

An Iranian portrait of Avicenna on a Silver Vase. He was one of the most influential philosophers of the Islamic Golden Age.

Al-Kindi is usually regarded as the first philosopher of this tradition. He translated and interpreted many works of Aristotle and Neoplatonists in his attempt to show that there is a harmony between reason and faith. Avicenna also followed this goal and developed a comprehensive philosophical system to provide a rational understanding of reality encompassing science, religion, and mysticism. Al-Ghazali was a strong critic of the idea that reason can arrive at a true understanding of reality and God. He formulated a detailed critique of philosophy and tried to assign philosophy a more limited place beside the teachings of the Quran and mystical insight. Following Al-Ghazali and the end of the Islamic Golden Age, the influence of philosophical inquiry waned. Mulla Sadra is often regarded as one of the most influential philosophers of the subsequent period.

Indian

Main article: Indian philosophy

Indian philosophy covers philosophical thought that originated on the Indian subcontinent. One of its distinguishing features is its integrated exploration of the nature of reality, the ways of arriving at knowledge, and the spiritual question of how to reach enlightenment. It started around 900 BCE when the religious scriptures known as the Vedas were written. They contemplate issues concerning the relation between the self and ultimate reality as well as the question of how souls are reborn based on their past actions. This period also saw the emergence of non-Vedic teachings, like Buddhism and Jainism.

The subsequent classical period started roughly 200 BCE and was characterized by the emergence of the six orthodox schools of Hinduism. They are known as the astikas and are Nyāyá, Vaiśeṣika, Sāṃkhya, Yoga, Mīmāṃsā, and Vedanta. The school of Advaita Vedanta developed later in this period. It claimed that everything is one and that the impression of a universe consisting of many distinct entities is an illusion. The modern period began roughly 1800 CE and was shaped by the encounter with Western thought. Various philosophers tried to formulate comprehensive systems to harmonize diverse philosophical and religious teachings. For example, Swami Vivekananda used the teachings of Advaita Vedanta to argue that all the different religions are valid paths toward the one divine.

Chinese

Main article: Chinese philosophy

Confucius (551–479 BCE) was one of the earliest and most influential Chinese philophers

Chinese philosophy encompasses the philosophical and intellectual heritage of China. Compared to the other main traditions, it placed less emphasis on questions of ultimate reality. It was more interested in practical questions associated with right social conduct and government. It originated in the 6th century BCE when the schools of Confucianism and Daoism emerged. Confucian thought focused on different forms of moral virtues and explored how they lead to harmony in society. Daoism broadened this focus to also include questions about the relation between humans and nature. The introduction of Buddhism to China in the following period resulted in the development of new forms of Buddhism.

The modern period in Chinese philosophy began in the early 20th century and was shaped by the influence of and reactions to Western philosophy. Of particular importance were the ideas of Karl Marx on class struggle, socialism, and communism. They led to the development of Chinese Marxism and resulted in a significant transformation of the political landscape when Mao Zedong worked on their practical implementation in the form of a communist revolution.

Branches of philosophy

See also: Outline of philosophy § Branches of philosophy, and Outline of philosophy § Philosophical schools of thought

Philosophical questions can be grouped into various branches. These groupings allow philosophers to focus on a set of similar topics and interact with other thinkers who are interested in the same questions.

These divisions are neither exhaustive nor mutually exclusive. For example, political philosophy, ethics, and aesthetics are sometimes linked under the general heading of value theory as they involve a normative or evaluative aspect. Furthermore, philosophical inquiry sometimes overlaps with other disciplines in the natural or social sciences, religion, or mathematics.

Aesthetics

Main article: Aesthetics

Aesthetics is the "critical reflection on art, culture, and nature". It addresses the nature of art, beauty, and taste; enjoyment, emotional values, perception; and the creation and appreciation of beauty. It is more precisely defined as the study of sensory or sensory-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste. Its major divisions are art theory, literary theory, film theory and music theory. An example from art theory is to discern the set of principles underlying the work of a particular artist or artistic movement such as the Cubist aesthetic.

Ethics

Main article: Ethics

"The utilitarian doctrine is, that happiness is desirable, and the only thing desirable, as an end; all other things being only desirable as means to that end." — John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism (1863)

Ethics, also known as moral philosophy, studies what constitutes good and bad conduct, right and wrong values, and good and evil. Its primary investigations include exploring how to live a good life and identifying standards of morality. It also includes investigating whether there is a best way to live or a universal moral standard, and if so, how we come to learn about it. The main branches of ethics are normative ethics, meta-ethics, and applied ethics.

The three main views in contemporary philosophical ethics about what constitute moral actions are:

• Consequentialism, which judges actions based on their consequences. One such view is utilitarianism, which judges actions based on the net happiness (or pleasure) and/or lack of suffering (or pain) that they produce.
• Deontology, which judges actions based on whether they are in accordance with one's moral duty. In the standard form defended by Immanuel Kant, deontology is concerned with whether a choice respects the moral agency of other people, regardless of its consequences.
• Virtue ethics, which judges actions based on the moral character of the agent who performs them and whether they conform to what an ideally virtuous agent would do.

Epistemology

Main article: Epistemology

Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that studies knowledge. Epistemologists examine putative sources of knowledge, including perceptual experience, reason, memory, and testimony. They also investigate questions about the nature of truth, belief, justification, and rationality.

Philosophical skepticism, which raises doubts about some or all claims to knowledge, has been a topic of interest throughout the history of philosophy. It arose early in Presocratic philosophy and became formalized with Pyrrho, the founder of the earliest Western school of philosophical skepticism. It features prominently in the works of modern philosophers René Descartes and David Hume and has remained a central topic in contemporary epistemological debates.

One central debate in contemporary epistemology is about the conditions required for a belief to constitute knowledge, which might include truth and justification. This debate was largely the result of attempts to solve the Gettier problem, according to which well justified reasons for a belief turn out to be false. Another common subject of contemporary debates is the regress problem, which occurs when trying to offer proof or justification for any belief, statement, or proposition. The problem is that whatever the source of justification may be, that source must either be without justification (in which case it must be treated as an arbitrary foundation for belief), or it must have some further justification (in which case justification must either be the result of circular reasoning, as in coherentism, or the result of an infinite regress, as in infinitism).

Metaphysics

Main article: Metaphysics

The beginning of Aristotle's Metaphysics in an incunabulum decorated with hand-painted miniatures

Metaphysics is the study of the most general features of reality, such as existence, time, objects and their properties, wholes and their parts, events, processes and causation and the relationship between mind and body. Metaphysics includes cosmology, the study of the world in its entirety and ontology, the study of being, along with the philosophy of space and time.

Metaphysics deals with the topic of identity. Essence is the set of attributes that make an object what it fundamentally is and without which it loses its identity, while accident is a property that the object has, without which the object can still retain its identity. Particulars are objects that are said to exist in space and time, as opposed to abstract objects, such as numbers, and universals, which are properties held by multiple particulars, such as redness or a gender. The type of existence, if any, of universals and abstract objects is an issue of debate.

Logic

Main article: Logic

Logic is the study of reasoning and argument.

Deductive reasoning is when, given certain premises, conclusions are unavoidably implied. Rules of inference are used to infer conclusions such as, modus ponens, where given "A" and "If A then B", then "B" must be concluded.

Because sound reasoning is an essential element of all sciences, social sciences and humanities disciplines, logic became a formal science. Sub-fields include mathematical logic, philosophical logic, modal logic, computational logic, and non-classical logics.

Mind and language

Main articles: Philosophy of language and philosophy of mind

Philosophy of language explores the nature, origins, and use of language. Philosophy of mind explores the nature of the mind and its relationship to the body, as typified by disputes between reductive materialism and dualism. In recent years, this branch has become related to cognitive science.

Philosophy of science

Main article: Philosophy of science

The philosophy of science explores the foundations, methods, history, implications and purpose of science. Many of its subdivisions correspond to specific branches of science. For example, philosophy of biology deals specifically with the metaphysical, epistemological and ethical issues in the biomedical and life sciences.

Political philosophy

Main article: Political philosophy

Thomas Hobbes, best known for his 1651 book Leviathan, which expounded an influential formulation of social contract theory

Political philosophy is the study of government and the relationship of individuals (or families and clans) to communities including the state. It includes questions about justice, law, property and the rights and obligations of the citizen.

Philosophy of religion

Main article: Philosophy of religion

Philosophy of religion deals with questions that involve religion and religious ideas from a philosophically neutral perspective (as opposed to theology which begins from religious convictions). Traditionally, religious questions were not seen as a separate field from philosophy proper, and the idea of a separate field only arose in the 19th century.

Issues include the existence of God, the relationship between reason and faith, questions of religious epistemology, the relationship between religion and science, how to interpret religious experiences, questions about the possibility of an afterlife, the problem of religious language, the existence of souls, and responses to religious pluralism and diversity.

Methods of philosophy

Main article: Philosophical methodology

Methods of philosophy are ways of conducting philosophical inquiry. They include techniques for arriving at philosophical knowledge and justifying philosophical claims as well as principles used for choosing between competing theories.

A great variety of methods has been employed throughout the history of philosophy. Many of them differ significantly from the methods used in the natural sciences in that they do not use experimental data obtained through measuring equipment.

The choice of one's method usually has important implications both for how philosophical theories are constructed and for the arguments cited for or against them. This choice is often guided by epistemological considerations about what constitutes philosophical evidence, how much support it offers, and how to acquire it.

Various disagreements on the level of philosophical theories have their source in methodological disagreements and the discovery of new methods has often had important consequences both for how philosophers conduct their research and for what claims they defend. Some philosophers engage in most of their theorizing using one particular method while others employ a wider range of methods based on which one fits the specific problem investigated best.

Conceptual analysis is a well-known method in analytic philosophy. It aims to clarify the meaning of concepts by analyzing them into their fundamental constituents. Another method often employed in analytic philosophy is based on common sense. It starts with commonly accepted beliefs and tries to draw interesting conclusions from them, which it often employs in a negative sense to criticize philosophical theories that are too far removed from how the average person sees the issue. It is very similar to how ordinary language philosophy tackles philosophical questions by investigating how ordinary language is used.

Various methods in philosophy give particular importance to intuitions, i.e., non-inferential impressions about the correctness of specific claims or general principles. For example, they play an important role in thought experiments, which employ counterfactual thinking to evaluate the possible consequences of an imagined situation. These anticipated consequences can then be used to confirm or refute philosophical theories. The method of reflective equilibrium also employs intuitions. It seeks to form a coherent position on a certain issue by examining all the relevant beliefs and intuitions, some of which often have to be deemphasized or reformulated in order to arrive at a coherent perspective.

Pragmatists stress the significance of concrete practical consequences for assessing whether a philosophical theory is true or false.

Phenomenologists seek knowledge about the realm of appearances. They do so by suspending their judgments about the external world in order to focus on how things appear independent of their underlying reality, a technique known as epoché.

Experimental philosophy is of rather recent origin. Its methods differ from most other methods of philosophy in that it tries to answer philosophical questions by gathering empirical data in ways similar to social psychology and the cognitive sciences.

Outside the academic profession

Hypatia

Some of those who study philosophy become professional philosophers, typically by working as professors who teach, research and write in academic institutions. However, most students of academic philosophy contribute to law, journalism, religion, sciences, politics, business, or various arts. For example, public figures who have degrees in philosophy include comedians Steve Martin and Ricky Gervais, filmmaker Terrence Malick, Pope John Paul II, Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger, technology entrepreneur Peter Thiel, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek, and US vice presidential candidate Carly Fiorina. Curtis White has argued that philosophical tools are essential to humanities, sciences and social sciences.

Recent efforts to avail the general public to the work and relevance of philosophers include the million-dollar Berggruen Prize, first awarded to Charles Taylor in 2016. Some philosophers argue that this professionalization has negatively affected the discipline.

Women in philosophy

Main article: Women in philosophy

Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797) was an English writer and philosopher.

Although men have generally dominated philosophical discourse, women philosophers have engaged in the discipline throughout history. The list of female philosophers throughout history is vast. Ancient examples include Hipparchia of Maroneia (active c. 325 BCE) and Arete of Cyrene (active 5th–4th centuries BCE). Some women philosophers were accepted during the medieval and modern eras, but none became part of the Western canon until the 20th and 21st century, when many suggest that G.E.M. Anscombe, Hannah Arendt, bell hooks, Simone de Beauvoir, Simone Weil, and Susanne Langer entered the canon.

In the early 1800s, some colleges and universities in the UK and the US began admitting women, producing more female academics. Nevertheless, U.S. Department of Education reports from the 1990s indicate that few women ended up in philosophy and that philosophy is one of the least gender-proportionate fields in the humanities, with women making up somewhere between 17% and 30% of philosophy faculty according to some studies.

Prominent 21st century philosophers include Judith Butler, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Martha Nussbaum, Onora O'Neill, and Nancy Fraser.

See also

Main article: Outline of philosophy

• List of important publications in philosophy
• List of years in philosophy
• List of philosophy journals
• List of philosophy awards
• List of unsolved problems in philosophy
• Lists of philosophers

References

Bibliography

• Edwards, Paul, ed. (1967). The Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Macmillan & Free Press.
• Kant, Immanuel (1881). Critique of Pure Reason. Macmillan.
• Baldwin, Thomas, ed. (2003). The Cambridge History of Philosophy 1870–1945. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-59104-1.
• Copenhaver, Brian P.; Schmitt, Charles B. (1992). Renaissance philosophy. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-219203-5.
• Lindberg, David C. (2007). "Science before the Greeks". The beginnings of Western science: the European Scientific tradition in philosophical, religious, and institutional context (Second ed.). Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press. pp. 1–27. ISBN 978-0-226-48205-7.
• Nadler, Steven (2008). A Companion to Early Modern Philosophy. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-0-470-99883-0.
• Rutherford, Donald (2006). The Cambridge Companion to Early Modern Philosophy. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-82242-8.
• Schmitt, C.B.; Skinner, Quentin, eds. (1988). The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-39748-3.
• Kenny, Anthony (2012). A New History of Western Philosophy. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-958988-3.
• Honderich, T., ed. (1995). The Oxford Companion to Philosophy. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-866132-0.
• Bunnin, Nicholas; Tsui-James, Eric, eds. (2008). The Blackwell Companion to Philosophy. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-0-470-99787-1.
• Copleston, Frederick Charles (1953). A history of philosophy: volume III: Ockham to Suárez. Paulist Press. ISBN 978-0-8091-0067-5.
• Leaman, Oliver; Morewedge, Parviz (2000). "Islamic philosophy modern". In Craig, Edward (ed.). Concise Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Psychology Press. ISBN 978-0-415-22364-5.
• Buccellati, Giorgio (1981). "Wisdom and Not: The Case of Mesopotamia". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 101 (1): 35–47. doi:10.2307/602163. JSTOR 602163.
• Philosophy before the Greeks. The Pursuit of Truth in Ancient Babylonia. Princeton University Press. 2015. ISBN 978-0691157184.
• Westerhoff, Jan (2018). The Golden Age of Indian Buddhist Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Further reading

General introduction

• Aristotle (1941). Richard McKeon (ed.). The Basic Works of Aristotle. New York: Random House.
• Blumenau, Ralph. Philosophy and Living. ISBN 978-0-907845-33-1
• Craig, Edward. Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction. ISBN 978-0-19-285421-6
• Harrison-Barbet, Anthony, Mastering Philosophy. ISBN 978-0-333-69343-8
• Russell, Bertrand. The Problems of Philosophy. ISBN 978-0-19-511552-9
• Sinclair, Alistair J. What is Philosophy? An Introduction, 2008, ISBN 978-1-903765-94-4
• Sober, Elliott. (2001). Core Questions in Philosophy: A Text with Readings. Upper Saddle River, Prentice Hall. ISBN 978-0-13-189869-1
• Solomon, Robert C. Big Questions: A Short Introduction to Philosophy. ISBN 978-0-534-16708-0
• Warburton, Nigel. Philosophy: The Basics. ISBN 978-0-415-14694-4
• Nagel, Thomas. What Does It All Mean? A Very Short Introduction to Philosophy. ISBN 978-0-19-505292-3
• Classics of Philosophy (Vols. 1, 2, & 3) by Louis P. Pojman
• Cottingham, John. Western Philosophy: An Anthology. 2nd ed. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub., 2008. Print. Blackwell Philosophy Anthologies.
• Tarnas, Richard. The Passion of the Western Mind: Understanding the Ideas That Have Shaped Our World View. ISBN 978-0-345-36809-6

Topical introductions

African

• Imbo, Samuel Oluoch. An Introduction to African Philosophy. ISBN 978-0-8476-8841-8

Eastern

• A Source Book in Indian Philosophy by Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, Charles A. Moore
• Hamilton, Sue. Indian Philosophy: a Very Short Introduction. ISBN 978-0-19-285374-5
• Kupperman, Joel J. Classic Asian Philosophy: A Guide to the Essential Texts. ISBN 978-0-19-513335-6
• Lee, Joe and Powell, Jim. Eastern Philosophy For Beginners. ISBN 978-0-86316-282-4
• Smart, Ninian. World Philosophies. ISBN 978-0-415-22852-7
• Copleston, Frederick. Philosophy in Russia: From Herzen to Lenin and Berdyaev. ISBN 978-0-268-01569-5

Islamic

• Medieval Islamic Philosophical Writings edited by Muhammad Ali Khalidi
• Leaman, Oliver (14 April 2000). A Brief Introduction to Islamic Philosophy. ISBN 978-0-7456-1960-6.
• Corbin, Henry (23 June 2014) [1993]. History Of Islamic Philosophy. Translated by Sherrard, Liadain; Sherrard, Philip. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-1-135-19888-6.
• Aminrazavi, Mehdi Amin Razavi; Nasr, Seyyed Hossein; Nasr, PH.D., Seyyed Hossein (16 December 2013). The Islamic Intellectual Tradition in Persia. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-136-78105-6.

Historical introductions

General

• Oizerman, Teodor (1988). The Main Trends in Philosophy. A Theoretical Analysis of the History of Philosophy (PDF). translated by H. Campbell Creighton, M.A., Oxon (2nd ed.). Moscow: Progress Publishers. ISBN 978-5-01-000506-1. Archived from the original (DjVu, etc.) on 6 March 2012. Retrieved 20 January 2011. First published in Russian as Главные философские направления.
• Higgins, Kathleen M. and Solomon, Robert C. A Short History of Philosophy. ISBN 978-0-19-510196-6
• Durant, Will, Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the World's Greatest Philosophers, Pocket, 1991, ISBN 978-0-671-73916-4
• Oizerman, Teodor (1973). Problems of the History of Philosophy. translated from Russian by Robert Daglish (1st ed.). Moscow: Progress Publishers. Archived from the original on 6 July 2011. Retrieved 20 January 2011. First published in Russian as Проблемы историко-философской науки.

Ancient

• Knight, Kelvin. Aristotelian Philosophy: Ethics and Politics from Aristotle to MacIntyre. ISBN 978-0-7456-1977-4

Medieval

• The Phenomenology Reader by Dermot Moran, Timothy Mooney
• Kim, J. and Ernest Sosa, Ed. (1999). Metaphysics: An Anthology. Blackwell Philosophy Anthologies. Oxford, Blackwell Publishers Ltd.
• Husserl, Edmund; Welton, Donn (1999). The Essential Husserl: Basic Writings in Transcendental Phenomenology. Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-253-21273-3.

Modern and contemporary

• The English Philosophers from Bacon to Mill by Edwin Arthur
• European Philosophers from Descartes to Nietzsche by Monroe Beardsley
• Existentialism: Basic Writings (Second Edition) by Charles Guignon, Derk Pereboom
• Curley, Edwin, A Spinoza Reader, Princeton, 1994, ISBN 978-0-691-00067-1
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External links

• Indiana Philosophy Ontology Project
• Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• PhilPapers – a comprehensive directory of online philosophical articles and books by academic philosophers
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy