academician

Posted by Margaret Graver

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epictetus/

[Revised entry by Margaret Graver on July 16, 2025.
Changes to: Main text, Bibliography]
A Greek philosopher of 1st and early 2nd centuries C.E., and an exponent of Stoic ethics notable for the consistency and power of his ethical thought and for effective methods of teaching. Epictetus's chief concerns are with integrity, self-management, and personal freedom, which he advocates by demanding of his students a thorough examination of two central ideas, the capacity he terms 'volition' (prohairesis) and the correct use of impressions (chrēsis tōn...

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epictetus/

Posted by Alessandro Salice

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/phenomenology-mg/

[Revised entry by Alessandro Salice on July 16, 2025.
Changes to: Main text, Bibliography]
In the first decades of the twentieth century, members of the so-called "Munich and Gottingen circles" of phenomenology made important contributions to various areas of philosophical research, including philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, philosophy of action, epistemology, social philosophy, axiology, and ontology. Some of the most prominent members of these circles are Alfred Brunswig, Theodor Conrad, Hedwig Conrad-Martius, Johannes Daubert, August Gallinger, Moritz Geiger, Roman Ingarden,...

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/phenomenology-mg/

Posted by William FitzPatrick

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/morality-biology/

[Revised entry by William FitzPatrick on July 15, 2025.
Changes to: Main text, Bibliography, evolution-altruism.html, notes.html]
An article in The Economist (21 February 2008, "Moral thinking"), sporting the provocative subtitle "Biology Invades a Field Philosophers Thought was Safely Theirs," begins by asking: Whence morality? That is a question which has troubled philosophers since their subject was invented. Two and a half millennia of debate...

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/morality-biology/

Posted by Sean Valles and Yael Friedman

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/biomedicine/

[Revised entry by Sean Valles and Yael Friedman on July 15, 2025.
Changes to: Main text, Bibliography]
Despite the simple name, biomedicine is not simply the area of overlap between biology and medicine. It is a framework, a set of philosophical commitments, a global institution woven into Western culture and its power dynamics, and more. Biomedicine is the umbrella theoretical framework for most health science and health technology work done in academic and government settings. Western medical practices and the surrounding healthcare infrastructure are principally biomedical. Health-related corporations are predominantly...

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/biomedicine/

Posted by Mark Schroeder

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/value-theory/

[Revised entry by Mark Schroeder on July 14, 2025.
Changes to: Main text, Bibliography]
The term "value theory" is used in at least three different ways in philosophy. In its broadest sense, "value theory" is a catch-all label used to encompass all branches of moral philosophy, social and political philosophy, aesthetics, and sometimes feminist philosophy and the philosophy of religion - whatever areas of philosophy are deemed to encompass some "evaluative" aspect. In its narrowest sense, "value theory" is used for a relatively narrow area of normative...

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/value-theory/

Posted by Eric Mandelbaum and Raphaël Millière

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/associationist-thought/

[Revised entry by Eric Mandelbaum and Raphaël Millière on July 13, 2025.
Changes to: Main text, Bibliography, notes.html]
Associationism is one of the oldest, and, in some form or another, most widely held theories of thought. Associationism has been the engine behind empiricism for centuries, from the British Empiricists through the Behaviorists and modern day Connectionists. Nevertheless, "associationism" does not refer to one particular theory of cognition per se, but rather a constellation of related though separable theses. What ties these theses together is a commitment to a certain arationality of thought: a creature's...

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/associationist-thought/

Posted by Elizabeth A. Buchanan and Michael Zimmer

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-internet-research/

[Revised entry by Elizabeth A. Buchanan and Michael Zimmer on July 13, 2025.
Changes to: Main text, Bibliography, notes.html]
There is little research that is not impacted in some way on or through the Internet. The Internet, as a field, a tool, and a venue, has specific and far-reaching ethical issues. Internet research ethics is a subdiscipline that fits across many disciplines, ranging from social sciences, arts and humanities, medical/biomedical, and natural sciences. Extant ethical frameworks, including consequentialism, deontology,...

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-internet-research/

Posted by Erik Curiel, Manus Visser, and Juliusz Doboszewski

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/spacetime-singularities/

[Revised entry by Erik Curiel, Manus Visser, and Juliusz Doboszewski on July 13, 2025.
Changes to: Main text, Bibliography, holes-in-spacetime.html, non-standard-singularities.html, notes.html]
A spacetime singularity is a breakdown in spacetime, either in its geometry or in some other basic physical structure. It is a topic of ongoing physical and philosophical research to clarify both the nature and significance of such pathologies. When it is the fundamental geometry that breaks down, spacetime singularities are often viewed as an end, or "edge", of spacetime itself. Numerous difficulties, however, arise when one tries to make this notion more precise. Breakdowns in other physical structures pose other problems,...

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/spacetime-singularities/

Posted by Larry M. Jorgensen

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consciousness-17th/

[Revised entry by Larry M. Jorgensen on July 12, 2025.
Changes to: Main text, Bibliography]
In the seventeenth century, "consciousness" began to take on a uniquely modern sense. This transition was sparked by new theories of mind and ideas, and it connected with other important issues of debate during the seventeenth century, including debates over the transparency of the mental, animal consciousness, and innate ideas. Additionally, consciousness was tied closely to moral identity, with both French and Latin lacking even a linguistic distinction between consciousness and conscience (i.e., a moral sensibility). This...

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consciousness-17th/

Posted by Maarten Hoenen

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/marsilius-inghen/

[Revised entry by Maarten Hoenen on July 9, 2025.
Changes to: Main text, Bibliography, notes.html]
Marsilius of Inghen, master at the Universities of Paris (1362 - 1378) and Heidelberg (1386 - 1396), wrote a number of treatises on logic, natural philosophy and theology popular at many late medieval and early modern universities. He adopted the logico-semantic approach of William of Ockham and John Buridan while at the same time defending the traditional views of Thomas Aquinas and Bonaventure. His thinking sheds light on the discussion between nominalists and realists and allows insight into the changing...

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/marsilius-inghen/

Posted by Guillermo Hurtado and Robert Eli Sanchez, Jr.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/philosophy-mexico/

[Revised entry by Guillermo Hurtado and Robert Eli Sanchez, Jr. on July 9, 2025.
Changes to: Main text, Bibliography]
Mexican philosophy has been influenced by a variety of traditions of thought, which have been combined and transformed to meet the specific demands and circumstances of Mexican life. The result has been a rich, coherent, and original tradition that is more than 500 years old and that, together with Peruvian philosophy, is the oldest of the Americas....

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/philosophy-mexico/

Posted by Philip Robbins and Zoe Drayson

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/modularity-mind/

[Revised entry by Philip Robbins and Zoe Drayson on July 8, 2025.
Changes to: Main text, Bibliography]
The concept of modularity has loomed large in philosophy of psychology since the early 1980s, following the publication of Fodor's landmark book The Modularity of Mind (1983). In the decades since the term 'module' and its cognates first entered the lexicon of cognitive science, the conceptual and theoretical landscape in this area has changed dramatically. Especially noteworthy in this respect has been the development of evolutionary psychology, whose proponents adopt a less stringent conception of modularity than the...

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/modularity-mind/

Posted by Fiona Woollard, Frances Howard-Snyder, and Charlotte Unruh

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/doing-allowing/

[Revised entry by Fiona Woollard, Frances Howard-Snyder, and Charlotte Unruh on July 8, 2025.
Changes to: Main text, Bibliography, notes.html]
Is there a moral difference between doing harm and merely[1] allowing harm? If not, there should be no moral objection to active euthanasia in circumstances where passive euthanasia is permissible; and there should be no objection to bombing innocent civilians where doing so will minimize the overall number of deaths in war. There should, however, be an objection - indeed, an outcry - at our failure to prevent the deaths of millions of children in the third...

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/doing-allowing/

Posted by Max A. Freund and Richard E. Grandy

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sortals/

[Revised entry by Max A. Freund and Richard E. Grandy on July 7, 2025.
Changes to: Main text, Bibliography]
Sortals have played an instrumental role in resolving various theoretical challenges. They have helped tackle significant problems in multiple areas of philosophy, including metaphysics, philosophy of language, and philosophy of mind. Beyond philosophy, sortal concepts have proven relevant in psychological fields, especially in theories related to infant cognitive development and human perception. Moreover, they have been applied in computer science, notably in artificial intelligence and knowledge representation....

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sortals/

Posted by Garrett Cullity

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/free-rider/

[New Entry by Garrett Cullity on July 4, 2025.]
[Editor's Note: The following new entry by Garrett Cullity replaces the former entry on this topic by the previous author.] In many contexts, the efficient production of a good by a group is...

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/free-rider/

Posted by Jennifer Saul, Esa Diaz-Leon, and Samia Hesni

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-language/

[Revised entry by Jennifer Saul, Esa Diaz-Leon, and Samia Hesni on July 4, 2025.
Changes to: Main text, Bibliography]
Feminist philosophy of language has come a long way in a very short time period. Initially, most work in the area was critical, calling for changes either to language itself or to philosophy of language. More recently, however, the dynamic has changed, with the advent of several major positive research programmes within philosophy of language. In this entry, we first discuss the critiques that constitute the first phase of feminist work in this area, before moving onto the positive research programmes that have recently come...

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-language/

Posted by Bakinaz Abdalla

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/albalag/

[Revised entry by Bakinaz Abdalla on July 2, 2025.
Changes to: Main text, Bibliography, notes.html]
Isaac Albalag stands out as one of the most rigorous representatives of the Jewish Averroism school which flourished in Western Europe in the thirteenth century and continued until the Renaissance. This school contained notable figures such as Ibn Kaspi, Shem Tov Ibn Falaquera, Moses Narboni, Isaac Polqar, Gersonides, and Elijah Delmedigo who regarded Averroes' philosophical writings, particularly his commentaries on Aristotle, as the primary sources for studying science and philosophy. Averroes' influence on these...

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/albalag/

Epictetus

The Phenomenology of the Munich and Göttingen Circles

Morality and Evolutionary Biology

Philosophy of Biomedicine

Value Theory

Associationist Theories of Thought

Internet Research Ethics

Singularities and Black Holes

Seventeenth-Century Theories of Consciousness

Marsilius of Inghen

Philosophy in Mexico

Modularity of Mind

Doing vs. Allowing Harm

Sortals

The Free Rider Problem

Feminist Philosophy of Language

Isaac Albalag

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