 Does
the Center Hold? : An Introduction to Western Philosophy by
Donald Palmer.
Does the Center Hold ? is, I believe,
one of the best and funniest introductory books about philosophy
(such a serious subject !) ever written. The drawings in the
book make you understand the sometimes very difficult
philosophical concepts much better than ordinary philosophy
books. I can really advise everyone who wants to 'dive into'
philosophy to buy this book! -- anonymous review
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here to learn more about this book
Click
here for more Introduction to Philosophy Books
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here for more Philosophy Books
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From the Dictionary of the Philosophy of
Mind: A class of theories according to which behavior is the proper subject
matter of psychology and/or the denotation of meaningful psychological vocabulary.
Behaviorists typically repudiate inner mental states on methodological, ontological, or
semantic grounds. Excerpt from an essay by Jesse
Prinz:
Historically, behaviorism had two mains forms:
Psychological behaviorists claim that the proper domain of psychology is the study of
behavior. Appeals to unobservable inner states are both methodologically intractable
(e.g. the inconsistent first person reports of introspectionists) and unnecessary
(we can control and predict behavior by appeal to external variables that systematically
induce behavioral responses as a consequence of conditioning or reinforcement)...
In its strongest form, philosophical behaviorism (also called `analytic behaviorism'
and `logical behaviorism') is the view that psychological terms can be translated without
loss of meaning into behavioral terms...
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From the Computer Supported Collaborative
Learning website: Based on the thought process behind the behavior. Changes in
behavior are observed, but only as an indicator to what is going on in the learner's head.
Site Includes:
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In the Constructivism verses Instructivism debate. Articles
include:
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From the Darwin and Darwinism website. Site Includes:
Archives of Charles Darwin:
Archives of Alfred Russel Wallace:
Thomas Henry Huxley
Andrew Dickson White
William James
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This website is by the World Union of Deists.
Site
includes:
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From the Dictionary of the Philosophy of
Mind: Most generally, the view that reality consists of two disparate parts. In
philosophy of mind, the belief that the mental and physical are deeply different in kind:
thus the mental is at least not identical with the physical. See occasionalism, doctrine of
preestablished harmony, substance dualism,
property dualism,
Cartesian
interactionist dualism, mind-body problem, monism. There's a short
essay on Dualism at this site by Chris
Eliasmith. |
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From the Dictionary of the Philosophy of
Mind: In its strong form, the thesis that there is no reality behind appearances.
Thus, it is the job of science to catalog the formal relations which hold between
appearances without claims of describing reality. See phenomenalism. A
weaker form of empricism admits of the existence of a reality which is, however,
trans-empirical. The transcendent nature of reality determines that we can have no
knowledge of it and thus must simply catalog the formal relations between appearances.
Empricism is very much like phenomenalism.
However, empiricism is a term more commonly used in philosophy of science than philosophy of
mind. In either case, these positions are most commonly contrasted with realism.
By Chris Eliasmith
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British Empiricism on the PRB.
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This web page introduces Epicureanism to both the serious
student of philosophy and to anyone seeking useful and inspiring ideas. Epicurus helped
lay the intellectual foundations for modern science and for secular individualism, with
many aspects of his system still highly relevant some twenty-three centuries after they
were first taught to Epicurus's students in the Garden at Athens. Follow the links below
to learn more about Epicurus and his philosophy! Site Includes:
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Part of the Philosophy Research Base. Includes:
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The Hedonistic Imperative: Site by David Pearce, BLTC Research.
Excerpt:
The Hedonistic Imperative outlines how genetic engineering and
nanotechnology will abolish suffering in all sentient life.
This project is ambitious but technically feasible. It
is also instrumentally rational and ethically mandatory. The metabolic pathways of pain
and malaise evolved only because they once served the fitness of our genes. They will be
replaced by a different sort of neural architecture. States of sublime well-being are
destined to become the genetically pre-programmed norm of mental health. The world's last
aversive experience will be a precisely dateable event.
Site Includes:
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From the Dictionary of the Philosophy of
Mind: A brand of monism,
first forwarded by Berkeley, in which everything is mental, as contrast to materialism. See also
phenomenalism.
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In the debate between Construtivism and
Instructivism. Artiles
on Instructivism:
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From the Philosophy Research Base. Page includes:
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Philosophical Materialism, essay by Richard C.
Vitzthum. Excerpt:
Materialism is the oldest philosophical tradition in Western civilization. Originated
by a series of pre-Socratic Greek philosophers in the 6th and 5th centuries before the
Christian era, it reached its full classical form in the atomism of Democritus and
Epicurus in the 4th century BCE. Epicurus argued that
ultimate reality consisted of invisible and indivisible bits of free-falling matter called
atoms randomly colliding in the void. It was on this atomic hypothesis that the Roman poet
Lucretius wrote the first masterpiece of materialist literature around 50 BCE, the
7400-line philosophical poem De Rerum Natura, or, as it's usually translated, The Nature of Things.
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From the Dictionary of the Philosophy of
Mind: The thesis that all of reality is of one kind. In philosophy of mind,
monism is usually contrasted with the dualist position that
mind and matter are deeply different. Thus, monism is the claim that mind and matter
essentially the same. However, this 'sameness' has come in a number of different and
contradictory varieties. For example, Hobbes felt that the mental is merely and epiphenomena of
the physical, thus the physical is the one real substance (Contemporary materialism
is also a form of physicalistic monism (see Churchland, 1996). In direct contrast,
Berkeley postulated that the physical is just a collection of ideas (hence, idealism) and thus the
mental is the only thing that really exists. Finally, there are a number of
positions similar to Spinoza's property dualism,
often referred to as dual-aspect
theory. Spinoza held a position in which the mental and the physical are simply two
modes of a more basic substance (it should be noted that strictly speaking, Spinoza was
not a property dualist as he held that the mental and the physical were two of a possible
infinite number of modes of the basic substance, nevertheless he is typically labelled as
one). For Spinoza, this basic substance was God. Thus the only real thing is God,
who is neither physical nor mental. Spinoza's position is similar to that of Russell's neutral monism,
however the latter is not committed to the belief that a supreme being is the more basic
substance. See materialism, idealism, neutral monism, dualism. |
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