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Wikipedia / Outline of philosophy

Philosophy is the 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) by being critical and generally systematic and by its reliance on rational argument. It involves logical analysis of language and clarification of the meaning of words and concepts.

The word "philosophy" comes from the Greek philosophia (φιλοσοφία), which literally means "love of wisdom".

Branches of philosophy

The branches of philosophy and their sub-branches that are used in contemporary philosophy are as follows.

Aesthetics

Aesthetics is study of the nature of beauty, art, and taste, and the creation of personal kinds of truth.

Epistemology

Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that studies the source, nature and validity of knowledge.

Ethics

Ethics study of value and morality.

Applied ethics philosophical examination, from a moral standpoint, of particular issues in private and public life that are matters of moral judgment. It is thus the attempts to use philosophical methods to identify the morally correct course of action in various fields of human life.

  • Bioethics analysis of controversial ethical issues emerging from advances in medicine.

  • Environmental ethics studies ethical issues concerning the non-human world. It exerts influence on a large range of disciplines including environmental law, environmental sociology, ecotheology, ecological economics, ecology and environmental geography.

  • Medical ethics – studies ethical issues concerning medicine and medical research.

  • Professional ethics ethics to improve professionalism.

  • Discourse ethics – discovery of ethical principles through the study of language.

  • Normative ethics study of ethical theories that prescribe how people ought to act.

  • Metaethics branch of ethics that seeks to understand the nature of ethical properties, statements, attitudes, and judgments.

Logic

Logic the systematic study of the form of valid inference and reasoning.

Also regarded as the separate formal science.

Classical logic

Non-classical logic

Modal logic

Metaphysics

Metaphysics concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world that encompasses it.

Ontology philosophical study of the nature of being, becoming, existence, or reality, as well as the basic categories of being and their relations.

Other

Philosophy of computer science

Philosophy of physics

Philosophy of social science

Philosophic traditions by region

Regional variations of philosophy.

African philosophy

Eastern philosophy

Middle Eastern philosophy

Indigenous American philosophy

Western philosophy

History of philosophy

The history of philosophy in specific contexts of time and space.

Timeline of philosophy

Ancient and classical philosophy

Philosophies during ancient history.

Ancient Greek and Roman philosophy

Pre-Socratic philosophy

Classical Greek philosophy

Socratic schools

Hellenistic philosophy

Academic skepticism

Ancient Roman philosophy

Classical Chinese philosophy

Hundred Schools of Thought

Classical Indian philosophy

Orthodox schools

Heterodox schools

Medieval and post-classical philosophy

Philosophies during post-classical history.

Christian philosophy

Islamic philosophy

Jewish philosophy

Post-classical Chinese philosophy

Modern and contemporary philosophy

Philosophies during the modern era.

Renaissance philosophy

Early modern philosophy

Contemporary philosophy

Analytic philosophy

Continental philosophy

Contemporary Asian philosophy

Contemporary Islamic philosophy

Philosophical schools of thought

Philosophical schools of thought not tied to particular historic contexts.

Aesthetical movements

Epistemological stances

Ethical theories

Logical systems

Metaphysical stances

Political philosophies

Philosophy of language theories and stances

Philosophy of mind

Philosophy of religion stances

Existentialism

Humanism

Naturalism

Philosophy of science theories and stances

Philosophical literature

Reference works

  • Encyclopedia of Philosophy one of the major English encyclopedias of philosophy. The second edition, edited by Donald M. Borchert, was published in ten volumes in 2006 by Thomson Gale. Volumes 1–9 contain alphabetically ordered articles.

  • Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy a free online encyclopedia on philosophical topics and philosophers founded by James Fieser in 1995. The current general editors are James Fieser (Professor of Philosophy at the University of Tennessee at Martin) and Bradley Dowden (Professor of Philosophy at California State University, Sacramento). The staff also includes numerous area editors as well as volunteers.

  • Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy encyclopedia of philosophy edited by Edward Craig that was first published by Routledge in 1998 (). Originally published in both 10 volumes of print and as a CD-ROM, in 2002 it was made available online on a subscription basis. The online version is regularly updated with new articles and revisions to existing articles. It has 1,300 contributors providing over 2,000 scholarly articles.

  • Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy combines an online encyclopedia of philosophy with peer reviewed publication of original papers in philosophy, freely-accessible to internet users. Each entry is written and maintained by an expert in the field, including professors from many academic institutions worldwide.

  • The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy by Robert Audi

  • ; in 1996, a ninth supplemental volume appeared that updated the classic 1967 encyclopedia.

  • International Directory of Philosophy and Philosophers. Charlottesville, Philosophy Documentation Center.

  • Directory of American Philosophers. Charlottesville, Philosophy Documentation Center.

  • Routledge History of Philosophy (10 vols.) edited by John Marenbon

  • History of Philosophy (9 vols.) by Frederick Copleston

  • A History of Western Philosophy (5 vols.) by W.T. Jones

  • History of Italian Philosophy (2 vols.) by Eugenio Garin. Translated from Italian and Edited by Giorgio Pinton. Introduction by Leon Pompa.

  • Encyclopaedia of Indian Philosophies (8 vols.), edited by Karl H. Potter et al. (first 6 volumes out of print)

  • Indian Philosophy (2 vols.) by Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan

  • A History of Indian Philosophy (5 vols.) by Surendranath Dasgupta

  • History of Chinese Philosophy (2 vols.) by Fung Yu-lan, Derk Bodde

  • Instructions for Practical Living and Other Neo-Confucian Writings by Wang Yang-ming by Chan, Wing-tsit

  • Encyclopedia of Chinese Philosophy edited by Antonio S. Cua

  • Encyclopedia of Eastern Philosophy and Religion by Ingrid Fischer-Schreiber, Franz-Karl Ehrhard, Kurt Friedrichs

  • Companion Encyclopedia of Asian Philosophy by Brian Carr, Indira Mahalingam

  • A Concise Dictionary of Indian Philosophy: Sanskrit Terms Defined in English by John A. Grimes

  • History of Islamic Philosophy edited by Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Oliver Leaman

  • History of Jewish Philosophy edited by Daniel H. Frank, Oliver Leaman

  • A History of Russian Philosophy: From the Tenth to the Twentieth Centuries by Valerii Aleksandrovich Kuvakin

  • Ayer, A.J. et al., Ed. (1994) A Dictionary of Philosophical Quotations. Blackwell Reference Oxford. Oxford, Basil Blackwell Ltd.

  • Blackburn, S., Ed. (1996)The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy. Oxford, Oxford University Press.

  • Mautner, T., Ed. The Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy. London, Penguin Books.

  • Angeles, P.A., Ed. (1992). The HarperCollins Dictionary of Philosophy. New York, Harper Perennial.

  • Hoffman, Eric, Ed. (1997) Guidebook for Publishing Philosophy. Charlottesville, Philosophy Documentation Center.

  • Popkin, R.H. (1999). The Columbia History of Western Philosophy. New York, Columbia University Press.

  • Bullock, Alan, and Oliver Stallybrass, jt. eds. The Harper Dictionary of Modern Thought. New York: Harper & Row, 1977. xix, 684 p. N.B.: First published in England under the title, "The Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought".

  • Reese, W.L. Dictionary of Philosophy and Religion: Eastern and Western Thought. Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press, 1980. iv, 644 p.

General introduction

  • Blumenau, Ralph. Philosophy and Living.

  • Craig, Edward. Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction.

  • Harrison-Barbet, Anthony, Mastering Philosophy.

  • Russell, Bertrand. The Problems of Philosophy.

  • Sinclair, Alistair J. What is Philosophy? An Introduction, 2008,

  • Sober, Elliott. (2001). Core Questions in Philosophy: A Text with Readings. Upper Saddle River, Prentice Hall.

  • Solomon, Robert C. Big Questions: A Short Introduction to Philosophy.

  • Warburton, Nigel. Philosophy: The Basics.

  • Nagel, Thomas. What Does It All Mean? A Very Short Introduction to Philosophy.

  • Classics of Philosophy (Vols. 1, 2, & 3) by Louis P. Pojman

  • Cottingham, John. Western Philosophy: An Anthology. 2nd ed. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub., 2008. Print. Blackwell Philosophy Anthologies.

  • Tarnas, Richard. The Passion of the Western Mind: Understanding the Ideas That Have Shaped Our World View.

Topical introductions

African

  • Imbo, Samuel Oluoch. An Introduction to African Philosophy.

Eastern

  • A Source Book in Indian Philosophy by Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, Charles A. Moore

  • Hamilton, Sue. Indian Philosophy: a Very Short Introduction.

  • Kupperman, Joel J. Classic Asian Philosophy: A Guide to the Essential Texts.

  • Lee, Joe and Powell, Jim. Eastern Philosophy For Beginners.

  • Smart, Ninian. World Philosophies.

  • Copleston, Frederick. Philosophy in Russia: From Herzen to Lenin and Berdyaev.

Islamic

  • Medieval Islamic Philosophical Writings edited by Muhammad Ali Khalidi

Historical introductions

General

  • File not found 2026-10-23. First published in Russian as .

  • Higgins, Kathleen M. and Solomon, Robert C. A Short History of Philosophy.

  • Durant, Will, Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the World's Greatest Philosophers, Pocket, 1991,

  • First published in Russian as .

Ancient

  • Knight, Kelvin. Aristotelian Philosophy: Ethics and Politics from Aristotle to MacIntyre.

Medieval

  • The Phenomenology Reader by Dermot Moran, Timothy Mooney

  • Kim, J. and Ernest Sosa, Ed. (1999). Metaphysics: An Anthology. Blackwell Philosophy Anthologies. Oxford, Blackwell Publishers Ltd.

Modern and contemporary

  • The English Philosophers from Bacon to Mill by Edwin Arthur

  • European Philosophers from Descartes to Nietzsche by Monroe Beardsley

  • Existentialism: Basic Writings (Second Edition) by Charles Guignon, Derk Pereboom

  • Curley, Edwin, A Spinoza Reader, Princeton, 1994,

  • Bullock, Alan, R.B. Woodings, and John Cumming, eds. The Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thinkers, in series, Fontana Original[s]. Hammersmith, Eng.: Fontana Press, 1992 [1983]. xxv, 867 p.

  • Scruton, Roger. A Short History of Modern Philosophy.

  • Contemporary Analytic Philosophy: Core Readings by James Baillie

  • Appiah, Kwame Anthony. Thinking it Through– An Introduction to Contemporary Philosophy, 2003,

  • Critchley, Simon. Continental Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction.

Lists

See also

References