Outline of philosophy
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
(Redirected from List of philosophy topics)
"Nothing is more usual than for philosophers to encroach on the province of grammarians, and to engage in disputes of words, while they imagine they are handling controversies of the deepest importance and concern." - David Hume |

Friedrich Nietzsche (c. 1875)

Plato (left) and Aristotle (right), a detail of The School of Athens, a fresco by Raphael. Aristotle gestures to the earth, representing his belief in knowledge through empirical observation and experience, while holding a copy of his Nicomachean Ethics in his hand. Plato holds his Timaeus and gestures to the heavens, representing his belief in The Forms

By virtue of his magnum opus, the posthumous Ethics, Spinoza is considered one of Western philosophy's definitive ethicists.

The heart has its reasons, of which reason knows nothing (c.1887) by Odilon Redon, a phrase from the Pensées (1669) by Blaise Pascal
Related e |
Featured: ![]() Kunstformen der Natur (1904) by Ernst Haeckel |
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to philosophy:
Philosophy – study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. It is distinguished from other ways of addressing fundamental questions (such as mysticism, myth, or the arts) by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational argument. The word "Philosophy" comes from the Greek philosophia (φιλοσοφία), which literally means "love of wisdom".
Contents |
[edit]
Core areas of philosophy
The core areas of philosophy are:
- Aesthetics – The study of the nature of beauty, art, and taste, and the creation of personal kinds of truth.
- Epistemology – The study of the nature and scope of knowledge and belief.
- Ethics – The study of the right, the good, and the valuable. Includes study of applied ethics.
- Logic – The study of good reasoning, by examining the validity of arguments and documenting their fallacies.
- Metaphysics – The study of the state of being and the nature of reality.
- Social philosophy – The study of questions about social behavior.
- Political philosophy – The study of the ideas that become political values.
[edit]
Major fields of philosophy
Other than the core areas, there are several fields of study formally within philosophy. They are:
- Philosophy of Government
- Philosophy of language
- Philosophy of law
- Philosophy of mind
- Philosophy of religion
- Philosophy of science
- Applied Ethics
- Bioethics
- Environmental ethics
- Mathematical logic
- Philosophical logic
- Meta-ethics
- Applied philosophy
- Meta-philosophy
- Philosophy of artificial intelligence
- Philosophy of biology
- Philosophy of chemistry
- Philosophy of education
- Philosophy of engineering
- Philosophy of history
- Philosophy of mathematics
- Philosophy of music
- Philosophy of perception
- Philosophy of physics
- Philosophy of psychology
- Philosophy of social science
- Philosophy of space and time
- Teleology
[edit]
History of philosophy
[edit]
Ancient philosophy
[edit]
Western philosophy
[edit]
Eastern philosophy
[edit]
Contemporary philosophy
[edit]
Philosophical theories
[edit]
Major traditions in philosophy
- Anarchism (see also: Outline of anarchism)
[edit]
Philosophical movements
[edit]
Ancient
- Confucianism
- Platonic realism
- Aristotelianism
- Pythagoreanism
- Pyrrhonian skepticism
- Epicureanism (hedonism)
- Stoicism
- Cynicism
[edit]
Medieval
[edit]
Modern
- Empiricism
- Existentialism
- German idealism
- Logicism
- Logical Positivism
- Modernism
- Phenomenology
- Pragmatism
- Rationalism
- Utilitarianism
[edit]
Contemporary
- Deconstructionism (see also deconstructivism)
- Emotivism
- Postmodernism
- Poststructuralism
- Structuralism
- Objectivism
[edit]
Philosophies by branch
[edit]
Aesthetics
[edit]
Epistemology
- Coherentism
- Constructivist epistemology
- Contextualism
- Determinism
- Embodied cognition
- Empiricism
- Fallibilism
- Foundationalism
- Holism
- Infinitism
- Innatism
- Internalism and externalism
- Naïve realism
- Naturalized epistemology
- Objectivist epistemology
- Phenomenalism
- Positivism
- Reductionism
- Reliabilism
- Representative realism
- Rationalism
- Situated cognition
- Skepticism
- Theory of Forms
- Transcendental idealism
- Uniformitarianism
[edit]
Ethics
[edit]
Logic
[edit]
Metaphysics
- Anti-realism
- Cartesian dualism
- Free will
- Liberty
- Materialism
- Meaning of life
- Idealism
- Existentialism
- Essentialism
- Libertarianism
- Determinism
- Naturalism
- Monism
- Platonic idealism
- Hindu idealism
- Phenomenalism
- Nihilism
- Realism
- Physicalism
- MOQ
- Relativism
- Scientific realism
- Solipsism
- Subjectivism
- Substance theory
- Type theory
[edit]
Social and political philosophy
- Anarchism
- Authoritarianism
- Conservatism
- Liberalism
- Libertarianism
- National liberalism
- Socialism
- Utilitarianism
- Conflict theory
- Consensus theory
[edit]
Philosophy of language
- Causal theory of reference
- Contrast theory of meaning
- Contrastivism
- Conventionalism
- Cratylism
- Deconstruction
- Descriptivist theory of names
- Direct reference theory
- Dramatism
- Expressivism
- Linguistic determinism
- Logical atomism
- Logical positivism
- Mediated reference theory
- Nominalism
- Non-cognitivism
- Phallogocentrism
- Quietism
- Relevance theory
- Semantic externalism
- Semantic holism
- Structuralism
- Supposition theory
- Symbiosism
- Theological noncognitivism
- Theory of descriptions
- Verification theory
[edit]
Philosophy of law
- Analytical jurisprudence
- Deontological ethics
- Legal moralism
- Legal positivism
- Legal realism
- Libertarian theories of law
- Maternalism
- Natural law
- Paternalism
- Utilitarianism
- Virtue jurisprudence
[edit]
Philosophy of mind
- Behaviourism
- Biological naturalism
- Dualism
- Eliminative materialism
- Emergent materialism
- Enactivism
- Epiphenomenalism
- Functionalism
- Identity theory
- Interactionism
- Materialism
- Mind-body problem
- Monism
- Naïve realism
- Neutral monism
- Phenomenalism
- Phenomenology (Existential phenomenology)
- Physicalism
- Pragmatism
- Property dualism
- Representational theory of mind
- Solipsism
- Substance dualism
[edit]
Philosophy of religion
- Theories of religion
- Acosmism
- Agnosticism
- Animism
- Antireligion
- Atheism
- Dharmism
- Deism
- Divine command theory
- Dualism
- Esotericism
- Exclusivism
- Existentialism
- Feminist theology
- Fundamentalism
- Gnosticism
- Henotheism
- Humanism
- Inclusivism
- Monism
- Monotheism
- Mysticism
- Naturalism
- New Age
- Nondualism
- Nontheism
- Pandeism
- Pantheism
- Perennialism
- Polytheism
- Process theology
- Spiritualism
- Shamanism
- Taoic
- Theism
- Transcendentalism
- more...
[edit]
Metatheory of science
- Confirmation holism
- Coherentism
- Contextualism
- Conventionalism
- Deductive-nomological model
- Determinism
- Empiricism
- Fallibilism
- Foundationalism
- Hypothetico-deductive model
- Infinitism
- Instrumentalism
- Positivism
- Pragmatism
- Rationalism
- Received view of theories
- Reductionism
- Semantic view of theories
- Scientific realism
- Scientism
- Scientific anti-realism
- Skepticism
- Uniformitarianism
- Vitalism
[edit]
Philosophical concepts
[edit]
Philosophical literature
- Blackwell Companion to Philosophy
- A History of Western Philosophy, by Bertrand Russell
- A History of Philosophy, by Frederick Copleston
[edit]
Philosophers
[edit]
See also
- List of important publications in philosophy
- Lists of philosophy topics (index)
- Index of philosophy of science articles
- Unsolved problems in philosophy
Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Outline of philosophy" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on original research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.