Philosophy (φιλοσοφία, 'love of wisdom', in
Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like
existence,
reason,
knowledge,
value,
mind, and
language. It is a rational and critical inquiry that reflects on its own methods and assumptions.
Historically, many of the individual
sciences, such as
physics and
psychology, formed part of philosophy. However, they are considered separate academic disciplines in the modern sense of the term. Influential traditions in the
history of philosophy include
Western,
Arabic–Persian,
Indian, and
Chinese philosophy. Western philosophy originated in
Ancient Greece and covers a wide area of philosophical subfields. A central topic in Arabic–Persian philosophy is the relation between reason and
revelation. Indian philosophy combines the
spiritual problem of how to reach
enlightenment with the exploration of the nature of reality and the ways of arriving at knowledge. Chinese philosophy focuses principally on practical issues in relation to right social conduct, government, and
self-cultivation.
A member of marginalized religious groups throughout his life and a proponent of what was called "rational Dissent," Priestley advocated
religious toleration and equal rights for
Dissenters. He argued for extensive civil rights in works such as the important Essay on the First Principles of Government, believing that individuals could bring about progress and eventually the
Millennium; he was the foremost British expounder of
providentialism. Priestley also made significant contributions to education, publishing, among other things, The Rudiments of English Grammar, a seminal work on
English grammar. In his most lasting contributions to education, he argued for the benefits of a
liberal arts education and of the value of the study of
modern history. In his metaphysical works, Priestley "attempt[ed] to combine theism, materialism, and determinism," a project that has been called "audacious and original." (Full article...)
In his early life, Maximus was a civil servant, and an aide to the
Byzantine EmperorHeraclius. He gave up this life in the political sphere to enter the monastic life. Maximus had studied diverse schools of philosophy, and certainly what was common for his time, the Platonic dialogues, the works of Aristotle, and numerous later Platonic commentators on Aristotle and Plato, like
Plotinus,
Porphyry,
Iamblichus, and
Proclus. When one of his friends began espousing the
Christological position known as
Monothelitism, Maximus was drawn into the controversy, in which he supported an interpretation of the
Chalcedonian formula on the basis of which it was asserted that
Jesus had both a human and a divine
will. Maximus is
venerated in both the
Catholic and
Eastern Orthodox Churches. He was eventually persecuted for his Christological positions; following a trial, his tongue and right hand were mutilated. (Full article...)
Image 3
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: with Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects (1792), written by British philosopher and women's rights advocate
Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797), is one of the earliest works of
feminist philosophy. In it, Wollstonecraft responds to those educational and political theorists of the eighteenth century who did not believe women should receive a rational education. She argues that women ought to have an education commensurate with their position in society, claiming that women are essential to the nation because they educate its children and because they could be "companions" to their husbands, rather than mere wives. Instead of viewing women as ornaments to society or property to be traded in marriage, Wollstonecraft maintains that they are human beings deserving of the same fundamental rights as men.
Wollstonecraft was prompted to write the Rights of Woman after reading
Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord's 1791 report to the French
National Assembly, which stated that women should only receive domestic education. From her reaction to this specific event, she launched a broad attack against double standards, indicting men for encouraging women to indulge in excessive emotion. Wollstonecraft hurried to complete the work in direct response to ongoing events; she intended to write a more thoughtful second volume but died before completing it. (Full article...)
Image 4
Goldman,
c. 1911
Emma Goldman (June 27, 1869 – May 14, 1940) was a Lithuanian-born
anarchistrevolutionary, political activist, and writer. She played a pivotal role in the development of
anarchist political philosophy in North America and Europe in the first half of the 20th century.
Born in
Kaunas,
Lithuania (then within the
Russian Empire), to an
OrthodoxLithuanian Jewish family, Goldman emigrated to the United States in 1885. Attracted to anarchism after the Chicago
Haymarket affair, Goldman became a writer and a renowned lecturer on anarchist philosophy,
women's rights, and
social issues, attracting crowds of thousands. She and anarchist writer
Alexander Berkman, her lover and lifelong friend, planned to assassinate industrialist and financier
Henry Clay Frick as an act of
propaganda of the deed. Frick survived the attempt on his life in 1892, and Berkman was sentenced to 22 years in prison. Goldman was imprisoned several times in the years that followed, for "inciting to riot" and illegally distributing information about
birth control. In 1906, Goldman founded the anarchist journal Mother Earth. (Full article...)
Kepler was a mathematics teacher at a
seminary school in
Graz, where he became an associate of
Prince Hans Ulrich von Eggenberg. Later he became an assistant to the astronomer
Tycho Brahe in
Prague, and eventually the imperial mathematician to
Emperor Rudolf II and his two successors
Matthias and
Ferdinand II. He also taught mathematics in
Linz, and was an adviser to
General Wallenstein. Additionally, he did fundamental work in the field of
optics, being named the father of modern optics, in particular for his Astronomiae pars optica. He also invented an improved version of the
refracting telescope, the Keplerian telescope, which became the foundation of the modern refracting telescope, while also improving on the telescope design by
Galileo Galilei, who mentioned Kepler's discoveries in his work. (Full article...)
In his Dream Pool Essays or Dream Torrent Essays (夢溪筆談; Mengxi Bitan) of 1088, Shen was the first to describe the magnetic needle
compass, which would be used for navigation (first described in Europe by
Alexander Neckam in 1187). Shen discovered the concept of
true north in terms of
magnetic declination towards the
north pole, with experimentation of suspended magnetic needles and "the improved
meridian determined by Shen's [astronomical] measurement of the distance between the
pole star and true north". This was the decisive step in human history to make compasses more useful for navigation, and may have been a concept unknown in Europe
for another four hundred years (evidence of German sundials made circa 1450 show markings similar to Chinese geomancers' compasses in regard to declination). (Full article...)
Image 7
Some Thoughts Concerning Education is a 1693 treatise on the education of gentlemen written by the English philosopher
John Locke. For over a century, it was the most important philosophical work on
education in England. It was translated into almost all of the major written European languages during the eighteenth century, and nearly every European writer on education after Locke, including
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, acknowledged its influence.
In his Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690), Locke outlined a new
theory of mind, contending that the mind is originally a tabula rasa or "blank slate"; that is, it did not contain any
innate ideas at birth. Some Thoughts Concerning Education explains how to educate that mind using three distinct methods: the development of a healthy body; the formation of a virtuous character; and the choice of an appropriate academic curriculum. (Full article...)
Image 8
1897 illustration of La Peau de chagrin, drawn by
Adrien Moreau and published by George Barrie & Son
La Peau de chagrin (French pronunciation:[lapodəʃaɡʁɛ̃], The Skin of Shagreen), known in English as The Magic Skin and The Wild Ass's Skin, is an
1831novel by
French novelist and playwright
Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850). Set in early 19th-century
Paris, it tells the story of a young man who finds a magic piece of
shagreen (untanned skin from a
wild ass) that fulfills his every desire. For each wish granted, however, the skin shrinks and consumes a portion of his physical energy. La Peau de chagrin belongs to the Études philosophiques group of Balzac's
sequence of novels, La Comédie humaine.
Before the book was completed, Balzac created excitement about it by publishing a series of articles and story fragments in several Parisian journals. Although he was five months late in delivering the manuscript, he succeeded in generating sufficient interest that the novel sold out instantly upon its publication. A second edition, which included a series of twelve other "philosophical tales", was released one month later. (Full article...)
Image 9
In
political philosophy, a throffer is a proposal (also called an intervention) that mixes an offer with a threat which will be carried out if the offer is not accepted. The term was first used in print by political philosopher
Hillel Steiner; while other writers followed, it has not been universally adopted and it is sometimes considered synonymous with carrot and stick. Though the threatening aspect of a throffer need not be obvious, or even articulated at all, an overt example is: "Kill this man and receive £100; fail to kill him and I'll kill you."
Steiner differentiated offers, threats and throffers based on the preferability of compliance and noncompliance for the subject when compared to the normal course of events that would have come about were no intervention made. Steiner's account was criticised by philosopher Robert Stevens, who instead suggested that what was important in differentiating the kinds of intervention was whether performing or not performing the requested action was more or less preferable than it would have been were no intervention made. Throffers form part of the wider moral and political considerations of
coercion, and form part of the question of the possibility of
coercive offers. Contrary to received wisdom that only threats can be coercive, throffers lacking explicit threats have been cited as an example of coercive offers, while some writers argue that offers, threats and throffers may all be coercive if certain conditions are met. For others, by contrast, if a throffer is coercive, it is explicitly the threat aspect that makes it so, and not all throffers can be considered coercive. (Full article...)
Image 10
Intelligent design (ID) is a
pseudoscientific argument for the
existence of God, presented by its proponents as "an evidence-based
scientific theory about life's origins". Proponents claim that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as
natural selection." ID is a form of
creationism that lacks empirical support and offers no testable or tenable hypotheses, and is therefore not science. The leading proponents of ID are associated with the
Discovery Institute, a Christian, politically conservative
think tank based in the United States.
The problem of religious language considers whether it is possible to talk about
God meaningfully if the traditional conceptions of God as being incorporeal, infinite, and timeless, are accepted. Because these traditional conceptions of God make it difficult to describe God, religious language has the potential to be meaningless. Theories of religious language either attempt to demonstrate that such language is meaningless, or attempt to show how religious language can still be meaningful.
Traditionally, religious language has been explained as
via negativa, analogy, symbolism, or myth, each of which describes a way of talking about God in human terms. The via negativa is a way of referring to God according to what God is not; analogy uses human qualities as standards against which to compare divine qualities; symbolism is used non-literally to describe otherwise
ineffable experiences; and a mythological interpretation of religion attempts to reveal fundamental truths behind religious stories. Alternative explanations of religious language cast it as having political, performative, or imperative functions. (Full article...)
Born in
Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Du Bois grew up in a relatively tolerant and
integrated community. After completing graduate work at the
Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin and
Harvard University, where he was its first African American to earn a doctorate, Du Bois rose to national prominence as a leader of the
Niagara Movement, a group of black civil rights activists seeking equal rights. Du Bois and his supporters opposed the
Atlanta Compromise. Instead, Du Bois insisted on full civil rights and increased political representation, which he believed would be brought about by the African-American intellectual elite. He referred to this group as the
Talented Tenth, a concept under the umbrella of
racial uplift, and believed that African Americans needed the chances for advanced education to develop its leadership. (Full article...)
Image 14
Wollstonecraft
c. 1797
Mary Wollstonecraft (/ˈwʊlstənkræft/, also
UK: /-krɑːft/; 27 April 1759 – 10 September 1797) was a British writer, philosopher, and advocate of
women's rights. Until the late 20th century, Wollstonecraft's life, which encompassed several unconventional personal relationships at the time, received more attention than her writing. Today Wollstonecraft is regarded as one of the founding
feminist philosophers, and feminists often cite both her life and her works as important influences.
During her brief career she wrote novels, treatises, a
travel narrative, a history of the
French Revolution, a
conduct book, and a children's book. Wollstonecraft is best known for A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), in which she argues that women are not naturally inferior to men but appear to be only because they lack education. She suggests that both men and women should be treated as rational beings and imagines a
social order founded on reason. (Full article...)
Image 15
The Augustinian theodicy, named for the 4th- and 5th-century theologian and philosopher
Augustine of Hippo, is a type of
Christiantheodicy that developed in response to the
evidential problem of evil. As such, it attempts to explain the probability of an
omnipotent (all-powerful) and
omnibenevolent (all-loving)
God amid evidence of evil in the world. A number of variations of this kind of theodicy have been proposed throughout history; their similarities were first described by the 20th-century philosopher
John Hick, who classified them as "Augustinian". They typically assert that God is perfectly (ideally)
good, that he created the world
out of nothing, and that evil is the result of humanity's
original sin. The entry of evil into the world is generally explained as consequence of original sin and its continued presence due to humans' misuse of
free will and
concupiscence. God's goodness and benevolence, according to the Augustinian theodicy, remain perfect and without responsibility for evil or suffering.
Augustine of Hippo was the first to develop the theodicy. He rejected the idea that evil exists in itself, instead regarding it as a corruption of goodness, caused by humanity's abuse of free will. Augustine believed in the existence of a physical
Hell as a punishment for sin, but argued that those who choose to accept the
salvation of
Jesus Christ will go to
Heaven. In the 13th century,
Thomas Aquinas – influenced by Augustine – proposed a similar theodicy based on the view that God is goodness and that there can be no evil in him. He believed that the existence of goodness allows evil to exist, through the fault of humans. Augustine also influenced
John Calvin, who supported Augustine's view that evil is the result of free will and argued that sin corrupts humans, requiring God's
grace to give moral guidance. (Full article...)
Zhuangzi (莊子, 庄子, Zhuāng Zǐ, Chuang Tzŭ, Chuang Tsu, Zhuang Tze, or Chuang Tse) was a
skeptical and
mysticalChinese philosopher who lived around the
4th century BCE during the
Warring States period. The
Taoist text Zhuangzi is speculated to be partly authored by him and is the source of many anecdotes and
idioms. He argued that life and knowledge are limited, and denied the need for government. His points on the limitations of language and the importance of being spontaneous were strongly influential in the development of
Chinese Buddhism, especially
Chan (Zen).
Described by his mentor and colleague
Bertrand Russell as "the most perfect example I have ever known of genius as traditionally conceived, passionate, profound, intense, and dominating," Wittgenstein is considered by many to be the greatest philosopher of the 20th century. Instrumental in inspiring two of the century's principal philosophical movements,
logical positivism and
ordinary language philosophy, he is considered one of the most important figures in
analytic philosophy. According to an end of the century poll, professional philosophers rank both his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921) and Philosophical Investigations (1953) among the top five most important books in twentieth-century philosophy, the latter standing out as "the one crossover masterpiece in twentieth-century philosophy, appealing across diverse specializations and philosophical orientations." Wittgenstein's influence has been felt in nearly every field of the
humanities and
social sciences, yet there are widely diverging interpretations of his thought.
These are
Good articles, which meet a core set of high editorial standards.
Image 1
Carl Linnaeus (23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after
ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné, was a Swedish
biologist and
physician who formalised
binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming organisms. He is known as the "father of modern
taxonomy". Many of his writings were in Latin; his name is rendered in Latin as Carolus Linnæus and, after his 1761
ennoblement, as Carolus a Linné.
Linnaeus was the son of a
curate and he was born in
Råshult, the countryside of
Småland, in southern Sweden. He received most of his higher education at
Uppsala University and began giving lectures in botany there in 1730. He lived abroad between 1735 and 1738, where he studied and also published the first edition of his Systema Naturae in the Netherlands. He then returned to Sweden where he became professor of medicine and botany at Uppsala. In the 1740s, he was sent on several journeys through Sweden to find and classify plants and animals. In the 1750s and 1760s, he continued to collect and classify animals, plants, and minerals, while publishing several volumes. By the time of his death in 1778, he was one of the most acclaimed scientists in Europe. (Full article...)
According to different scholars, the history of anarchism either goes back to ancient and prehistoric
ideologies and
social structures, or begins in the 19th century as a formal movement. As scholars and anarchist philosophers have held a range of views on
what anarchism means, it is difficult to outline its history unambiguously. Some feel anarchism is a distinct, well-defined movement stemming from 19th-century
class conflict, while others identify anarchist traits long before the earliest civilisations existed.
Prehistoric society existed without formal
hierarchies, which some anthropologists have described as similar to
anarchism. The first traces of formal anarchist thought can be found in
ancient Greece and
China, where numerous philosophers questioned the necessity of the
state and declared the moral right of the individual to live free from coercion. During the
Middle Ages, some
religious sects espoused libertarian thought, and the
Age of Enlightenment, and the attendant rise of
rationalism and
science, signalled the birth of the modern anarchist movement. (Full article...)
Image 4
Header of the first Russian edition, published August 11, 1917
Golos Truda (
Russian: Голос Труда,
lit. 'The Voice of Labour') was a
Russian-languageanarchist newspaper. Founded by working-class Russian expatriates in
New York City in 1911, Golos Truda shifted to
Petrograd during the
Russian Revolution in 1917, when its editors took advantage of the general amnesty and right of return for political dissidents. There, the paper integrated itself into the anarchist labour movement, pronounced the necessity of a
social revolution of and by the workers, and situated itself in opposition to the myriad of other left-wing movements.
The rise to power of the
Bolsheviks marked the turning point for the newspaper however, as the new government enacted increasingly repressive measures against the publication of dissident literature and against
anarchist agitation in general, and after a few years of low-profile publishing, the Golos Trudacollective was finally expunged by the
Stalinist regime in 1929. (Full article...)
Image 5
Natural selection is the differential survival and reproduction of individuals due to differences in
phenotype. It is a key mechanism of
evolution, the change in the
heritabletraits characteristic of a
population over generations.
Charles Darwin popularised the term "natural selection", contrasting it with
artificial selection, which is intentional, whereas natural selection is not.
Variation of traits, both
genotypic and
phenotypic, exists within all populations of
organisms. However, some traits are more likely to facilitate
survival and
reproductive success. Thus, these traits are passed onto the next generation. These traits can also become more
common within a population if the environment that favours these traits remain fixed. If new traits become more favored due to changes in a specific
niche,
microevolution occurs. If new traits become more favored due to changes in the broader environment,
macroevolution occurs. Sometimes,
new species can arise especially if these new traits are radically different from the traits possessed by their predecessors. (Full article...)
Image 6
The
Song dynasty (960–1279 AD) was a culturally rich and sophisticated age for
China. It saw great advancements in the visual arts, music, literature, and philosophy. Officials of the ruling bureaucracy, who underwent a strict and extensive examination process, reached new heights of education in Chinese society, while general Chinese culture was enhanced by widespread printing, growing literacy, and various arts.
Appreciation of art among the
gentry class flourished during the Song dynasty, especially in regard to paintings, which is an art practiced by many. Trends in painting styles amongst the gentry notably shifted from the Northern (960–1127) to Southern Song (1127–1279) periods, influenced in part by the gradual embrace of the
Neo-Confucian political ideology at court. (Full article...)
Su Song was the engineer for a
hydro-mechanicalastronomicalclock tower in medieval
Kaifeng, which employed an early
escapement mechanism. The escapement mechanism of Su's clock tower had been invented by Tang dynasty
BuddhistmonkYi Xing and government official Liang Lingzan in 725 AD to operate a water-powered
armillary sphere, although Su's armillary sphere was the first to be provided with a mechanical clock drive. Su's clock tower also featured the oldest known endless power-transmitting
chain drive, called the tian ti (天梯), or "celestial ladder", as depicted in his horological treatise. The clock tower had 133 different
clock jacks to indicate and
sound the hours. Su Song's treatise about the clock tower, Xinyi Xiangfayao (新儀象法要), has survived since its written form in 1092 and official printed publication in 1094. The book has been analyzed by many historians, such as the British biochemist, historian, and sinologist
Joseph Needham. The clock itself, however, was dismantled by the
invadingJurchen army in 1127 AD, and although attempts were made to reassemble it, the tower was never successfully reinstated. (Full article...)
Image 8
Crime and Punishment (
pre-reform Russian: Преступленіе и наказаніе; post-reform Russian: Преступление и наказание,
tr.Prestupleniye i nakazaniye, IPA:[prʲɪstʊˈplʲenʲɪjeɪnəkɐˈzanʲɪje]) is a
novel by the Russian author
Fyodor Dostoevsky. It was first published in the literary journal The Russian Messenger in twelve monthly installments during 1866. It was later published in a single volume. It is the second of Dostoevsky's full-length novels following his return from ten years of
exile in Siberia. Crime and Punishment is considered the first great novel of his mature period of writing and is often cited as one of the greatest works of
world literature.
Crime and Punishment follows the mental anguish and moral dilemmas of
Rodion Raskolnikov, an impoverished ex-student in
Saint Petersburg who plans to kill an unscrupulous pawnbroker, an old woman who stores money and valuable objects in her flat. He theorises that with the money he could liberate himself from poverty and go on to perform great deeds, and seeks to convince himself that certain crimes are justifiable if they are committed in order to remove obstacles to the higher goals of 'extraordinary' men. Once the deed is done, however, he finds himself wracked with confusion, paranoia, and disgust. His theoretical justifications lose all their power as he struggles with guilt and horror and is confronted with both internal and external consequences of his deed. (Full article...)
In 1943, Guthrie became the chairman of graduate philosophy at
Georgetown University and
dean of the
Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. In this role, he admitted the first women to the school on equal terms as men. For twenty years, he promoted the belief that intellectuals must play a central role in combatting the ideologies that led to
World War II. To that end, he was a member of the drafting committee of the
UNESCO charter, was a co-founder of an American academy of Catholic intellectuals, and travelled the world with the
U.S. State Department, for which he received honors from several countries and organizations. (Full article...)
Generally seen as a pioneering work of
zoology, Aristotle frames his text by explaining that he is investigating the what (the existing facts about animals) prior to establishing the why (the causes of these characteristics). The book is thus an attempt to apply philosophy to part of the
natural world. Throughout the work, Aristotle seeks to identify differences, both between individuals and between groups. A group is established when it is seen that all members have the same set of distinguishing features; for example, that all
birds have
feathers, wings, and beaks. This relationship between the birds and their features is recognized as a
universal. (Full article...)
His best-known work is the Visuddhimagga ("Path of Purification"), a comprehensive summary of older
Sinhala commentaries on
Theravada teachings and practices. According to Sarah Shaw, in Theravada this systematic work is "the principal text on the subject of
meditation." The interpretations provided by Buddhaghosa have generally constituted the orthodox understanding of Theravada scriptures since at least the 12th century CE. (Full article...)
Maitreyi appears in ancient Indian texts, such as in a dialogue where she explores the Hindu concept of
Atman (soul or self) in a dialogue with Yajnavalkya in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. According to this dialogue, love is driven by a person's soul, and Maitreyi discusses the nature of Atman and Brahman and their
unity, the core of
Advaita philosophy. This Maitreyi-Yajnavalkya dialogue is the topic of
Sureshvara's varttika, a commentary. (Full article...)
Robert John HenleSJ (September 12, 1909 – January 20, 2000) was an American
Catholic priest,
Jesuit, and
philosopher who was the president of
Georgetown University from 1969 to 1976. Born in
Iowa, Henle entered the
Society of Jesus in 1927. He taught high school
classics and published a series of instructional books on
Latin, one of which became widely used. He then became a professor at
Saint Louis University and was known as one of the leaders of the revival of
Thomistic philosophy and
theology. He also served as a dean and vice president for nearly 20 years. In this latter capacity, he oversaw Saint Louis University's growing independence from, but continuing affiliation with, the Jesuit order.
In 1969, Henle was named the
president of Georgetown University. He presided over an era of rapid growth and a diversifying student body. The student population grew and Henle stabilized the university's finances. Women were admitted for the first time to
Georgetown College, the last all-male school at the university, while the number of
black students increased. He also hired
John Thompson, one of the first black coaches of a major collegiate basketball team, who later led the team to an
NCAA championship in 1984. (Full article...)
Image 20The Buddhist
Nalanda university and monastery was a major center of learning in India from the 5th century CE to c. 1200. (from Eastern philosophy)
Image 24The philosopher
Pyrrho of
Elis, in an anecdote taken from
Sextus Empiricus' Outlines of Pyrrhonism
(upper)PIRRHO • HELIENSIS • PLISTARCHI • FILIVS translation (from Latin): Pyrrho • Greek • Son of Plistarchus
(middle)OPORTERE • SAPIENTEM HANC ILLIVS IMITARI SECVRITATEMtranslation (from Latin): It is right wisdom then that all imitate this security (Pyrrho pointing at a peaceful pig munching his food)
(lower)Whoever wants to apply the real wisdom, shall not mind
trepidation and misery
Image 3Oscar Wilde reclining with Poems, by
Napoleon Sarony, in New York in 1882. Wilde often liked to appear idle, though in fact he worked hard; by the late 1880s he was a father, an editor, and a writer.
Image 4Leo Tolstoy in 1897. Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy was a Russian writer who is regarded as one of the greatest authors of all time.
Image 10The center third of Education (1890), a stained glass window by
Louis Comfort Tiffany and Tiffany Studios, located in Linsly-Chittenden Hall at
Yale University. It depicts
Science (personified by Devotion, Labor, Truth, Research and Intuition) and
Religion (personified by Purity, Faith, Hope, Reverence and Inspiration) in harmony, presided over by the central personification of "Light·Love·Life".
Philosophy ponders the most fundamental questions humankind has been able to ask. These are increasingly numerous and over time they have been arranged into the overlapping branches of the philosophy tree:
Aesthetics: What is art? What is beauty? Is there a standard of taste? Is art meaningful? If so, what does it mean? What is good art? Is art for the purpose of an end, or is "art for art's sake?" What connects us to art? How does art affect us? Is some art unethical? Can art corrupt or elevate societies?
Epistemology: What are the nature and limits of knowledge? What is more fundamental to human existence, knowing (epistemology) or being (ontology)? How do we come to know what we know? What are the limits and scope of knowledge? How can we know that there are other minds (if we can)? How can we know that there is an external world (if we can)? How can we prove our answers? What is a true statement?
Ethics: Is there a difference between ethically right and wrong actions (or values, or institutions)? If so, what is that difference? Which actions are right, and which wrong? Do divine commands make right acts right, or is their rightness based on something else? Are there standards of rightness that are absolute, or are all such standards relative to particular cultures? How should I live? What is happiness?
Logic: What makes a good argument? How can I think critically about complicated arguments? What makes for good thinking? When can I say that something just does not make sense? Where is the origin of logic?
Metaphysics: What sorts of things exist? What is the nature of those things? Do some things exist independently of our perception? What is the nature of space and time? What is the relationship of the mind to the body? What is it to be a person? What is it to be conscious? Do gods exist?
Political philosophy: Are political institutions and their exercise of power justified? What is justice? Is there a 'proper' role and scope of government? Is democracy the best form of governance? Is governance ethically justifiable? Should a state be allowed? Should a state be able to promote the norms and values of a certain moral or religious doctrine? Are states allowed to go to war? Do states have duties against inhabitants of other states?