Philosophy Pages
| Dictionary | Study Guide | Logic | F A Q s | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| History | Timeline | Philosophers | Locke | |||
| Philosophy Pages
| Dictionary | Study Guide | Logic | F A Q s | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| History | Timeline | Philosophers | Locke | |||
Jewish philosopher and linguist who translated classic Hebrew literature into Arabic and offered rational arguments in defense of religious doctrine in his Sefer ha-Nivhar ha-Emunot ve-D'eol (The Book of Critically Chosen Beliefs and Convictions) (933). According to Saadiah, the destructive force of pleasure in human life can be overcome only by attention to the Torah.
Recommended Reading: Saadiah Ben Joseph Al-Fayyumi, The Book of Theodicy: Translation and Commentary on the Book of Job, tr. by L. E. Goodman (Yale, 1988) and The Jewish Philosophy Reader, ed. by Daniel H. Frank , Oliver Leaman, and Charles H. Manekin (Routlege, 2000).
French political thinker whose socialism greatly influenced the work of Comte and Marx. Saint-Simon's Du système industriel (On the Industrial System) (1821) acknowledged the functional difference between distinct social classes, decried reliance on a feeble bureaucracy, and suggested that the organized state would wither away once economic benefits have been equitably distributed. Letters from an Inhabitant of Geneva (1803) offers a brief statement of several of these notions. Saint-Simon's criticism of traditional religion may be found in Nouveau christianisme (New Christianity) (1825).
Recommended Reading: Henri Comte De Saint-Simon: Selected Writings, ed. by F.M.H. Markham (Hyperion, 1991); Henri Saint-Simon: Selected Writings on Science, Industry and Social Organization, ed. by Keith Taylor (Holmes & Meier, 1975); and Emmanuel De Witt, Saint-Simon Et Le Systeme Industriel (Frankfort, 1973).
Latin for "saving the truth." If two expressions can be interchanged without changing the truth-value of the statements in which occur, they are said to be substitutable salva veritate.
An extrinsic force that is supposed to motivate moral agents to perform their duties. Positive and negative sanctions commonly include reward and punishment by the state, praise and blame by other people, and the dictates of one's own conscience. The natural consequences of one's actions are not usually regarded as sanctions.
Recommended Reading: Martin Lawrence Friedland, Sanction and Rewards in the Legal System: A Multidisciplinary Approach (Toronto, 1989) and Herbert L. Packer, Limits of the Criminal Sanction (Stanford, 1968).
Also see EB.
Spanish-American philosopher who defended the primacy of aesthetic value in human life. In Scepticism and Animal Faith (1923) Santayana argued that all human knowledge derives from an instinctive urge to believe, even though objective truth necessarily lies beyond our capacity. He also wrote the multivolume works The Life of Reason (1905-6), extolling the unique values of a spiritual appreciation of the universe, and Realms of Being (1927-1940), identifying matter, spirit, essence, and truth as his basic categories.
Recommended Reading: George Santayana, Sense of Beauty: Being the Outline of Aesthetic Theory (Dover, 1985); George Santayana, The Genteel Tradition: Nine Essays, ed. by Douglas L. Wilson and Robert Dawidoff (Nebraska, 1998); George Santayana, Persons and Places (MacMillan, 1981); George Santayana, The Last Puritan: A Memoir in the Form of a Novel, ed. by Herman J., Jr. Saatkamp and William G. Holsberger (MIT, 1995); George Santayana: A Bibliographical Checklist 1880-1980, ed. by Herman J. Saatkamp and John Jones (Phil. Doc. Center, 1982); Timothy L. S. Sprigge, Santayana: An Examination of His Philosophy (Routledge, 1995); Michael P. Hodges and John Lachs, Thinking in the Ruins: Wittgenstein and Santayana on Contingency (Vanderbilt, 2000); and Irving Singer, George Santayana, Literary Philosopher (Yale, 2000). |
French playwright, novelist, and philosopher who proposed an existentialist analysis of the human condition upon which our radical freedom typically produces feelings of anguish, forlorness, and despair.
For a discussion of his life and works, see Sartre.
Sanskrit term (literally, truth-force) used by Gandhi for the practice of non-violence in the face of political oppresion.
Recommended Reading: M. K. Gandhi, Non-Violent Resistance (Dover, 2001); M. K. Gandhi, Satyagraha in South Africa (Greenleaf, 1979); and K. S. Bharathi, Satyagraha of Mahatma Gandhi (South Asia, 1990).
Also see EB.
Swiss linguist. Saussure's emphasis on the communicative value of language in Cours de linguistique générale (Course in General Linguistics) (1916) constituted the foundation of modern structuralism. According to Saussure, each signifying concept is produced in the context of a system of differences, the range of alternative choices that its user might have employed in its stead. Thus, the meaning of a word has less to do with its referent than with its relation to other words. On this view, the structured language of a society is a closed system whose coherence and generality are independent of what it signifies.
Recommended Reading: Jonathan Culler, Ferdinand De Saussure (Cornell, 1986); David Holdcroft, Saussure: Signs, System and Arbitrariness (Cambridge, 1991); Roy Harris, Reading Saussure: A Critical Commentary on the Cours De Linquistique Generale (Open Court, 1987); Paul J. Thibault, Re-Reading Saussure: The Dynamics of Signs in Social Life (Routledge, 1996); and Roy Harris, Language, Saussure, and Wittgenstein: How to Play Games With Words (Routledge, 1990). |
Also see EB and Andy Blunden.
German philosopher whose System des Transzendentalen Idealismus (System of Transcendental Idealism) (1800) introduced Romantic elements into the development of post-Kantian idealism. Arguing that Fichte's idealism put too much emphasis on the merely subjective individual ego, Schelling proposed a notion of objective transcendental consciousness. His identification of nature with intellect in Darstellung meines Systems der Philosophie (Presentation of my System of Philosophy) (1801), and Vorlesungen über die Methode des akademishen Studiums (Lectures on the Method of Academic Study) (1803) provided a basis from which Hegel would derive the fully considered concept of the Absolute.
Recommended Reading: Dale E. Snow, Schelling and the End of Idealism (SUNY, 1996); Andrew Bowie, Schelling and Modern European Philosophy: An Introduction (Routledge, 1994); Schelling: Between Fichte and Hegel, ed. by Christoph Asmuth, Alfred Denker, and Michael Vater (Benjamins, 2001); and Martin Heidegger, Schelling's Treatise on the Essence of Human Freedom (Ohio, 1984). |
Also see SEP, Alfred Weber, WSB, EB, ELC, and Iain Hamilton Grant.
German philosopher and poet who wrote a series of popular "Sturm und Drang" plays, including Die Räber and Wilhelm Tell. Although he criticized Kant's ethical theory in Über Anmuth und Würde (On Grace and Dignity) (1793), Schiller applied Kantian notions to the sensuous appreciation of aesthetic experience in Briefe über die äesthetische Erziehung des Menschen Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man (1795).
Recommended Reading: Frederick Schiller, Aesthetical and Philosophical Essays (Erlbaum, 2001); Friedrich Von Schiller, Wilhelm Tell, tr. by William F. Mainland (Chicago, 1973); Friedrich Schiller, Five Plays, tr. by Robert David MacDonald (Consortium, 1998); and Patricia Ellen Guenther-Gleason, On Schleiermacher and Gender Politics (Trinity, 1997). |
