Philosophies

Deconstructionism

(aesthetics) A late twentieth-century theory of literature that concentrates on finding "ruptures" or inconsistencies in a text, thus enabling the critic to break down or "deconstruct" it. Such deconstruction consists of asserting a personally or communally relative interpretation (usually focused on power relations or class conflict in society) without claiming that any text or interpretation has objective truth or meaning. Deconstructionism is a specific kind of postmodernism, and leans heavily toward subjectivism or even nihilism.

Expressionism

(aesthetics) A school of modernism holding that the essential function of art is to provide a vehicle for the subjective experience or emotional expressions of the artist. Expressionist art could be either representational (as in Edvard Munch's painting "The Scream") or abstract (as in the work of painters such as Jackson Pollock and in critical theories such as those of Clement Greenberg).

Classicism

(aesthetics) In common usage, classicism describes an emphasis or over-emphasis on past (especially Greek and Latin) practice, examples, and rules, mainly in the making of art. In aesthetics, classicism is usually contrasted historically and philosophically with romanticism.

Conservatism

(approach) Any approach to philosophy or a related discipline that seeks to preserve established practices or that resists change (one example might be classicism in the arts).

Experimentalism

(epistemology) A form of empiricism that considers knowledge gained through scientific experiments to be especially reliable (or to be the only reliable form of knowledge).

Conventionalism

(epistemology) A form of social subjectivism or relativism holding that truth, good, and beauty are merely a matter of arbitrary or artificial social convention and are not objective or naturalistic in any way.

Constructivism

(epistemology) A radical kind of subjectivism positing that reality does not exist outside of human conceptions, and that human beings form or construct reality through the activity of their minds.

Associationalism

(epistemology) A theory of knowledge holding that all concepts are formed through the customary or even arbitrary connection of an image or mental idea with an object (based on similarity, closeness in space or time, etc.). The principle of association was first expressed by John Locke (1632-1704) and extended by David Hume (1711-1776). In various forms, associationalism dominated Anglo-American thinking about epistemology for hundreds of years: it was formalized into a thoroughgoing theory of knowledge in the 19th century (in tandem with sensationalism), and replacing philosophical "concepts" with psychological "stimulus-response interactions" yielded behaviorism in the 20th century.

Emotionalism

(ethics) Any ethical theory that is based on feeling as opposed to reason; the term often has connotations of nihilism or irrationalism.

Environmentalism

(ethics) The view that the health of the biosphere or of planet Earth is more important than technological advancement, economic progress, or the success of humanity.

Empiricism

(epistemology) A theory of knowledge holding that experience is the most reliable source of knowledge. In general, empiricism emphasizes induction over deduction and reality over theory (as, for instance, in the essays of 16th century philosopher Francis Bacon). More specifically, the school of empiricism in the 17th and 18th centuries reacted against the excesses of medieval scholasticism and rationalism by formulating a more systematic grounding for empirical knowledge. The founder of that school was John Locke (1632-1704), whose epistemology tended towards representationalism rather than realism, leading eventually to the skepticism of David Hume (1711-1776). By empiricism is sometimes meant more narrowly a focus on scientific experiment; however, a more appropriate term for that view is scientism or experimentalism.

Fideism

(epistemology) Any religious doctrine that emphasizes faith over (even to the exclusion of) reason.

Agnosticism

(epistemology) The idea that one cannot know whether or not gods exist. Agnosticism adopts a "wait-and-see" attitude toward the existence of gods (similar in this regard to skepticism) and therefore is different from atheism, which positively asserts that gods do not exist.

Apriorism

(epistemology) The view (opposed to empiricism) that some or all knowledge can be gained without reference to experience.

Instrumentalism

(epistemology) The view (similar to pragmatism) that concepts are merely useful instruments, properly evaluated not as true or false but as effective or ineffective.

Coherentism

(epistemology) The view that a statement is true because of its relationship to or coherence with other statements in a consistent network or system of statements.

Fallibilism

(epistemology) The view that all human beings are liable to error. Although there is a kinship between fallibilism and skepticism, the term fallibilism usually refers only to the doctrine in some forms of Christianity that human beings cannot know the mind of God.

Inductivism

(epistemology) The view that all knowledge is derived through processes of induction from experience; another term for empiricism or experientialism.

Conceptualism

(epistemology) The view that conceptual knowledge consists of non-arbitrary abstractions from perceptual knowledge, but that concepts do not have an independent existence. Conceptualism thus opposes both nominalism and realism. The main conceptualist in philosophical history was Peter Abailard (1079-1142). However, Aristotelianism is also sometimes considered to be a form of conceptualism.

Functionalism

(epistemology) The view, developed (and then renounced) by Hilary Putnam (1926-) that the mind can be studied in terms of its cognitive operations independently of the brain and body, and that those operations can be adequately modeled by the manipulation of exclusively formal symbols (such as the symbols of symbolic logic or computer programming).

Falsificationism

(epistemology) The view, first expounded by Karl Popper, that a statement or theory has the potential to be true only if it is falsifiable, i.e., only if it describes the types of evidence that could show it to be false. According to falsificationalism, any other statement or theory is outside the realm of scientific investigation and therefore is meaningless.

Humanism

(ethics) A focus on human concerns as opposed to the interests of the gods (theism) or the technical issues of philosophy (logicism). Examples include Aristotelianism and Epicureanism in ancient Greece, Confucianism and Taoism in China, Renaissance humanism in Europe, and some forms of transcendentalism and pragmatism in America. Although humanism is often closely associated with secularism and individualism, these connections are not necessary; in fact, humanism is sometimes thought of as a 'religion of humanity' that takes altruism and action for the sake of all humanity as its guiding principle (as in the positivism of August Comte).

Epicureanism

(ethics) A school and theory of ethics that advocated enlightened hedonism. Epicurus held that true pleasure consists in the absence of all bodily pains and mental disturbances, a condition he claimed could be easily achieved through moderation, friendship, and philosophical study. While Epicureanism was much more individualistic than the competing school of Stoicism, its view of happiness was less activist than that of Aristotelianism and can even be compared to some Eastern views like Taoism. Epicurus founded his school in an Athenian garden in the generation after the death of Aristotle and it flourished throughout the Mediterranean for over 500 years.

Emotivism

(ethics) A theory and movement of the early twentieth century that held value-judgments to be nothing more than expressions of emotion (e.g., 'Hitler is evil' really means 'Boo Hitler!'); an extreme form of subjectivism.

Formalism

(ethics) A theory that emphasizes adherence to formal rules, usually in preference to the benefits or consequences of human action; an example is deontologism. (aesthetics) A theory that emphasizes the importance of artistic form, often in preference to artistic content; examples include some varieities of classicism and modernism.

Gnosticism

(ethics) An ancient Christian/pagan movement whose metaphysics was a kind of dualism and pessimism but whose ethics was a kind of individualism and optimism since it stressed the potential divinity of each person.

Immoralism

(ethics) An idea or intellectual stance (similar to nihilism or skepticism) that rejects conventional morality, systematic approaches to ethics, or even of ethics as such. Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) is the most prominent thinker who sometimes claimed to be an immoralist.

Existentialism

(ethics) An influential movement in 20th-century ethics holding that values are not universal but instead that each person must create his own values as a result of living life. Its guiding phrase, formulated by, Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980), was "existence precedes essence". Although existentialism was a form of individualism, it was also very much a kind of pessimism and opposed to any attempt at ethical naturalism since it held that there is no stable human nature and therefore that there are no common human values. Some existentialists reveled in the unplanned, haphazard character of experience and therefore could be characterized as proponents of irrationalism or even nihilism. Existentialists were also opponents of eudaimonism, since they thought that the quest for happiness is a bourgeois pursuit showing "bad faith".

Individualism

(ethics) Any theory holding that the individual, not any sort of collective entity, is the proper beneficiary of action; thus individualism is essentially the same as egoism and is opposed to altruism or ethical collectivism. Most kinds of ethical individualism are forms of eudaimonism, but this is not true of, for example, existentialism or Stoicism. (epistemology) The view that only individual minds (not groups) can come to have knowledge. (metaphysics) The view that only particular, individual things exist; another word for concretism or particularism.

Eudiamonism

(ethics) Any theory that puts personal happiness and the complete life of the individual at the center of ethical concern. Although the term could potentially be used to refer views that value the flourishing of humanity as a whole (such as humanism and anthropocentrism), in practice it is nearly synonymous with individualism and philosophical egoism. Aristotelianism is perhaps the prototypical form of eudaimonism since it provides a well-rounded account of human flourishing and its ethical centrality. By contrast, existentialism rejects happiness as a bourgeois fantasy, and even Stoicism and Epicureanism advocate not individual fulfillment but only the lack of pain or harmful emotions.

Confucianism

(ethics) Confucianism is the main stream of Chinese philosophy, just as Western philosophy is mostly in the Socratic tradition. Although the views of Confucius have been interpreted in various ways throughout history, no one denies that they are a powerful variety of humanism (Herbert Fingarette's book on Confucius is subtitled "The Secular as Sacred"). Confucius held that the most important, indeed sacred, aspect of life is one's dealings with other people, and he put great emphasis on virtues such as honesty, justice, and integrity. Although Confucianism has often been fairly conservative (similar in this respect to Aristotelianism), often when people talk about Confucianism they are referring not so much to the actual views of Confucius as to the way his writings were used by later interpreters to justify reactionary political practices such as a large bureaucracy and the stratification of society.

Deontologism

(ethics) Emphasis on universal imperatives such moral laws, duties, obligations, prohibitions, or imperatives (thus sometimes also called imperativism). Kantianism is the prime example of a deontological theory. Deontologism is usually contrasted with teleologism (an emphasis on goals) and consequentialism (an emphasis on results), but sometimes is also contrasted with egoism and eudaimonism (an emphasis on personal happiness or fulfillment as opposed to conformance with moral imperatives). In practice, deontologism is often closely allied with ethical intuitionism.

Asceticism

(ethics) Originally, an ascetic was one who practiced the mode of life of a hermit or monk, characterized by solitude, meditation, prayer, toil, fasting, and celibacy. Implicit in this lifestyle of self-discipline and self-denial is the idea that the pleasures of this world should be renounced in favor of a 'higher' purpose such as intellectual discipline or mystical insight. Often asceticism is connected to either spiritualism or rationalism. For the opposite view, see sensualism.

Altruism

(ethics) Regard for the welfare of other people (as opposed to one's own welfare) as the highest principle of action. While one could, in theory, describe altruism as a form of eudaimonism since it seeks to maximize happiness, eudaimonism is always taken to be a kind of individualism or egoism (and therefore in opposition to altruism). Strictly speaking, Kantianism and other forms of deontologism are not variants of altruism since they emphasize conformance with duty or moral law rather than concern for other people. In general, altruism emphasizes either the intent to benefit others (see intentionalism) or the practical result that one's actions do indeed benefit others (see consequentialism). Often altruistic doctrines are universalized, as in utilitarianism (which holds that the highest ethical principle is "the greatest good for the greatest number"). The popular meaning of altruism is loosely connected to the philosophical meaning, and usually refers to an attitude of benevolence toward other people.

Cynicism

(ethics) The ancient Greek school of Cynic philosophers, founded by Antisthenes (a student of Socrates), held that pure virtue is the only good and cultivated an asceticism more rigorous than that of Epicureanism or Stoicism. Because of their disdain for worldly concerns, the Cynics were critical of conventional morality and the rest of society, almost to the point of misanthropy. The most famous Cynic was Diogenes (412-323 BCE), who so faithfully put his ideas into practice that, according to legend, he took to living in a bathtub (it is said that when Alexander the Great came to visit him in search of wisdom and inquired if there was anything the great leader could do for him, Diogenes replied that, yes, there was: Alexander could move aside and stop blocking his sunshine!). In popular usage, cynicism refers a combination of skepticism and pessimism.

Anthropocentrism

(ethics) The doctrine that humanity is the central fact of existence and that all ethical matters are to be gauged by how they affect human interests.

Antinomianism

(ethics) The doctrine that moral laws are not obligatory; see immoralism. (ethics) The doctrine that moral laws do not apply those who have been graced with the favor of god.

Ethnocentrism

(ethics) The doctrine that nations or races of people are the primary social reality and that ethical matters are to be gauged by how they affect the interests of a nation or race; opposed to metaphysical and ethical individualism.

Hedonism

(ethics) The principle that the fundamental standard of ethical judgment should be pleasure. Although the term has connotations of sensualism and emotionalism, philosophical hedonists (such as those in the tradition of Epicureanism) advocate an enlightened hedonism that is often a kind of naturalism. Although hedonism is usually a species of individualism, a theory such as utilitarianism calls for "the greatest pleasure for the greatest number" and thus could be construed as a kind of universalized hedonism.

Consequentialism

(ethics) The view that ethical decisions are best or properly be made on the basis of the expected outcome or consequences of the action. Both pragmatism and utilitarianism are forms of consequentialism. Because consequentialism tends to focus on the impact of an action on persons other than the actor, in general it is a variety of altruism rather than egoism.

Descriptivism

(ethics) The view that ethics merely represents or describes how human beings act in real life and that ethics cannot prescribe normative human values. English philosopher David Hume (1711-1776) and Italian political theorist Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527) are often characterized as descriptivists. The opposing view is prescriptivism.

Egoism

(ethics) The view that the self is the proper beneficiary of a person's actions, as opposed to the view that other people are the proper beneficiaries (i.e., altruism). Essentially, another word for individualism. The term 'egoism' is used more frequently in philosophy than 'egotism', which in common usage implies an utter disinterest in or disregard for other people.

Dogmatism

(general) An approach to ideas that emphasizes rigid adherence to doctrine over rational and enlightened inquiry. The opposite approach is probably best characterized as rationalism (in the sense of devotion to clear reasoning and independent thinking) or, perhaps, eclecticism.

Foundationalism

(general) An approach to philosophical inquiry that places first priority on defining the underlying principles of a discipline; essentially a kind of reductionism within philosophy.

Eclecticism

(general) An approach to philosophy that does not respect the boundaries of existing schools or systems, but instead selects ideas from each. The term is often applied in a negative way, implying a lack of philosophical consistency or of any interest in systematic thinking.

Dualism

(metaphysics) A doctrine in metaphysics or cosmology positing that there are only two fundamental things, substances, or aspects of reality in the universe at large or in human psychology. The first influential dualist theory in Western philosophy was Platonism, since Plato claimed that there are two different realities: the physical world of appearances and the higher world of intelligible forms, ideas, or essences, with a similar separation in the human person between mind and body. These ideas were assimilated by Stoicism and, later, by Christianity. While dualism was influential throughout the Christian era, it received renewed impetus from Descartes, who held that reality is made up exclusively of spirit and matter, and that these two substances can never meet or interact -- except in the human soul (which gives rise to the modern mind-body dichotomy). Aristotelianism, by contrast, generally holds that mind and body are not two distinct substances but two aspects of a complete human person (cf. holism). Even though dualism is a kind of metaphysical pluralism and is opposed by monism, practically speaking dualists often emphasize the 'higher', more spiritual reality, so that they are often construed as adherents of idealism or transcendentalism.

Immaterialism

(metaphysics) A radical form of idealism holding that material things exist only as the ideas or perceptions of a mind.

Atomism

(metaphysics) Any metaphysical or cosmological idea that reality is fundamentally made up only of extremely small, indivisible particles. This view was widespread among ancient Greek philosophers such as Democritus (460?-362? BCE) as well as in the school of Epicureanism, and was revived in modern times by scientists and philosophers such as the 17th-century Epicurean Pierre Gassendi.

Indeterminism

(metaphysics) Any view (opposed to determinism and similar to accidentalism) holding that at least some events or human actions are not determined by outside causes; the idea of the "atomic swerve" in Epicureanism is one example.

Atheism

(metaphysics) Atheism is an active disbelief in the existence of gods, deities, and supernatural powers; in this respect it is similar to secularism and opposed to any variety of theism. Atheism is to be contrasted with agnosticism, which takes a skeptical attitude toward the existence of gods but does not proclaim disbelief. Popularly, atheism is often taken to imply a lack of any ideals or values whatsoever (nearly equivalent to immoralism), but this connotation rests on an assumption that religion is the only foundation for values (thus ignoring the possibility of naturalism).

Henotheism

(metaphysics) Belief in a particular god without denying the existence of other gods. Henotheism is often considered to be a transitional belief between polytheism and monotheism, since monotheists think that henotheism's tolerance of more than one god is primitive and misguided.

Cartesianism

(metaphysics) Descartes is often considered the founder of modern philosophy (although his ideas owed much to medieval thinkers such as Avicenna). The signature ideas of Cartesianism are dualism, rationalism, and the mind-body dichotomy (i.e., a combination of idealism in the spiritual realm and of mechanism in the physical realm).

Idealism

(metaphysics) In the original, Platonic sense, a theory claiming that the primary reality consists of eternal, unchanging, non-physical archetypes, of which the particular entities perceived by the senses are imperfect copies. The most signficant forms of idealism after Platonism are the monadology of Leibniz (a kind of panpsychism) and Hegelianism. Although spiritualism is similar to idealism, it usually refers more to religious, supernatural conceptions of reality than to philosophical theories. The opposite of idealism is materialism. (epistemology) Any theory holding that valid human knowledge is a matter of mentally grasping non-physical archetypes rather than in perceiving (or abstracting concepts from) physical entities.

Determinism

(metaphysics) The belief that all physical events and human actions are fixed or ordained by external forces before they happen. Determinists deny the existence of freely chosen human activity ("free will"), and the more consistent determinists even deny any personal responsibility for human actions. Determinists are usually adherents of materialism, although some social or economic determinists are more influenced by Marxism than by the advance of physics, chemistry, and biology. In popular usage, determinism has connotations of fatalism. In more technical discussions, determinism is sometimes called necessitarianism, in opposition to metaphysical libertarianism.

Immortalism

(metaphysics) The belief that human beings (or, more precisely, their souls) survive after death. This idea is sometimes called athanatism (from the Greek word for immortal), the opposite of which is thanatism.

Emanationism

(metaphysics) The doctrine (especially in neo-Platonism) that the physical world issued forth from God or some other divinity.

Creationism

(metaphysics) The doctrine (opposed to eternalism) that the universe was created by a god (usually the Christian god) out of nothingness. (religion) The doctrine (opposed to Darwinism) that living things, and especially human beings, were created by a god in the recent historical past and did not evolve from earlier life forms.

Epiphenomenalism

(metaphysics) The doctrine that consciousness is merely a secondary symptom of the underlying processes of the physical brain. An analogy is that consciousness is like a panel of multi-colored lights on a science-fiction computer: it's attractive, but it does not affect the operation of the machine. Unlike some radical forms of behaviorism, epiphenomenalism does not deny the subjective experience of consciousness, although it does deny that consciousness has causal efficacy.

Abstractionism

(metaphysics) The doctrine that ideas or abstractions actually exist; see idealism and Platonism. (epistemology) The view that knowledge is gained only through abstraction from particulars; more commonly called conceptualism. (aesthetics) The doctrine that artistic abstraction is more valuable or important than representation, especially in the visual arts; see modernism and expressionism.

Behaviorism

(metaphysics) The doctrine that only a person's or animal's externally observed ways of acting provide legitimate data for the study of psychology. As originally formulated by John D. Watson in 1913, behaviorism was a methodological principle defined in order to pursue scientific objectivity in psychology. However, the behaviorist movement (pushed forward by prominent psychologists such as B.F. Skinner and influenced by scientific operationalism) soon came to dismiss any internal states, mental phenomena, or higher-order emergent properties of living beings. The result was a kind of reductionism, materialism, or even automatism applied to animal and human activity, which in its more radical forms did not even seek to reduce consciousness to stimulus-response interactions, but simply ignored mental phenomena altogether. From the 1960s onwards, behaviorism was supplanted by psychological cognitivism and more recently by evolutionary psychology.

Automatism

(metaphysics) The doctrine that the actions of animals are mechanistically determined. In particular, this doctrine is one constituent of Cartesianism, since Descartes (1596-1650) advocated a strict determinism in biology. Although automatism has little basis in biological fact, its core beliefs have persisted into recent times under different names (e.g., see behaviorism).

Acosmism

(metaphysics) The doctrine that the universe does not exist; see solipsism and nihilism. (metaphysics) The doctrine that the universe is not separate from god; see pantheism.

Holism

(metaphysics) The idea that all things in the universe are inseparably connected. Holism is opposed to dualism but respects particularism and therefore is also generally opposed to monism (interconnection does not imply unity).

Illusionism

(metaphysics) The idea that the external world is merely an illusion; a radical kind of phenomenalism associated with certain forms of pessimism, first posited by Artur Schopenhauer (1788-1860).

Antropomorphism

(metaphysics) The idea that the gods have essentially human features; the term is often used to describe ancient Greek and Old Testament conceptions of the divine.

Dynamism

(metaphysics) The idea that the universe fundamentally consists of changeable forces or energies rather than stable entities. Dynamism is often augmented by the notion that much of the stability we perceive is illusory and that everything is constantly changing or in flux (sometimes called a Heraclitean view of the universe, after the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus). The most famous dynamists of recent times were Alfred North Whitehead and Henri Bergson, who are sometimes called "process philosophers" because they focused on processes rather than entities.

Deism

(metaphysics) The idea, formulated during the Enlightenment of the 1600s and 1700s, that God created the universe but then left it alone to operate on its own principles -- principles that human reason and scientific inquiry can discover. According to deism, God is not involved in the day-to-day workings of the universe and there are no miracles. Deism was a kind of way station between the theism of the Middle Ages and the agnosticism or outright atheism of modern times.

Accidentalism

(metaphysics) The idea, similar to indeterminism, that some events simply happen; this idea is one aspect of some defenses of freedom of the will (see libertarianism).

Intentionalism

(metaphysics) The principle, common to many varieties of epistemological realism, that consciousness is always consciousness of a physical entity or some aspect of reality (and thus that "pure consciousness" does not exist).

Darwinism

(metaphysics) The theory (strictly speaking biological rather than philosophical) that all living things have descended from earlier common ancestors through processes of biological evolution such as natural selection; opposed by creationism.

Eternalism

(metaphysics) The view (opposed to creationism) that the universe is eternal.

Externalism

(metaphysics) The view (opposed to internalism) that there are external or objective reasons for human actions, apart from desires or intentions; a form of objectivism.

Compatibilism

(metaphysics) The view that a full physical description of the brain would be compatible with the subjective experience of volition; contrast with incompatibilism, libertarianism, and determinism.

Imcompatibilism

(metaphysics) The view that a full physical description of the brain would be incompatible with the subjective experience of volition; contrast with compatibilism, determinism, and metaphysical libertarianism.

Contextualism

(metaphysics) The view that all entities are connected together; another word for holism. (epistemology) The view that an entity cannot be known without understanding the full context of its connections to other entities. (ethics) The view that ethical value is not absolute but dependent on a specific personal, historical, or societal context. (aesthetics) The view that a work of art can be interpreted only in the light of its historical context.

Hylozoism

(metaphysics) The view that all matter is endowed with life (similar to animism, pantheism, or the monadology of Leibniz). (metaphysics) The view that all life is a property of matter (similar to materialism).

Essentialism

(metaphysics) The view that concepts have real existence; another term for Platonic idealism. (epistemology) The view that all entities have intrinsic properties that can be discerned by reason (sometimes attributed to Aristotelianism).

Ascriptivism

(metaphysics) The view that human beings are to be held responsible for their actions even if determinism is true.

Cognitivism

(metaphysics) The view that knowledge is a major, even primary, determinant of human behavior; developed in reaction to behaviorism as a result of the "cognitive revolution" in psychology.

Fatalism

(metaphysics) The view that the fortunes of human beings are pre-determined; it differs from determinism in stressing the negative or tragic nature of that pre-determined fate (similar to pessimism).

Cosmism

(metaphysics) The view that the universe is self-contained and uncreated, so that knowledge can be gained only through scientific investigation and not through spiritual insight; another word for secularism.

Concretism

(metaphysics) The view that, fundamentally, the only existents are concrete entities or material things (i.e., that there are no actual universals or non-material existents); similar to materialism and particularism.

Aristotelianism

(philosophy) Aristotle was the first philosopher to create a more-or-less complete system of thought. In particular, he originated or gave renewed force to individualism, eudaimonism, optimism, realism, humanism, naturalism, and even to a certain extent political liberalism (in that he defended the importance of voluntary institutions and the rule of law). Unfortunately, because of the history of Aristotle's writings in the West (they disappeared for centuries only to be rediscovered again around 1200 CE at the height of the logicism of the Middle Ages), Aristotle often is blamed for the mistakes and views of his interpreters. Thus the popular conception of Aristotelianism is sometimes closer to neo-Platonism or especially scholasticism than anything Aristotle argued for in his writings. In addition to his work in philosophy, Aristotle founded the science of logic and performed significant research in biology, political science, rhetoric, literary theory, and many other disciplines.

Hegelianism

(philosophy) The philosophical system of Hegel or the philosophical tradition that began with him. In metaphysics, Hegel advocated a kind of historically-minded absolute idealism, in which the universe would realize its spiritual potential through the development of human society. Hegel's absolute idealism is often contrasted with the subjective or transcendental idealism of Kantianism, on whose innovations -- in addition to the metaphysical absolutism of Spinoza (1632-1677) -- Hegel based much of his philosophy. In political theory, Hegel advocated an organic theory of the state positing that individuals are merely parts of the whole (a form of collectivism often also attributed to Platonism). Hegel was probably the first philosopher to think of history as a dialectical process, which inspired the dialectical materialism of Marxism.

Collectivism

(politics) A doctrine in political philosophy (and sometimes ethics) holding that the individual's actions should benefit not the individual but some kind of collective organization (such as a tribe, community, profession, or state). Collectivism in political theory depends on altruism in ethics. There are many forms of collectivism in political reality, such as tribalism, communism, socialism, fascism, certain forms of trade unionism, authoritarianism, totalitarianism, and communalism. The term is most often associated with totalitarian governments of the twentieth century, but is uncommon in everyday language.

Anarcho-Capitalism

(politics) A form of anarchism that considers market relations and private property to be consistent with (indeed a prerequisite for) a fully free society.

Anarcho-Syndicalism

(politics) A form of anarchism that opposes markets and property as a form of exploitation, instead advocating ownership of the means of production by groups ("syndicates") of workers.

Feminism

(politics) A movement of 20-century politics holding that the rights of women are equal to those of men. Feminism is sometimes extended to assert that women are superior to men in ethics (e.g., more sensitive or altruistic) or even in epistemology (e.g., more wise or insightful).

Fascism

(politics) A theory and practice of nationalistic authoritarianism that developed originally in Italy and spread throughout other parts of the world. Although fascism was ostensibly opposed to communism because it allowed private property (albeit under tight government control), it did not differ in essentials from other forms of 20th-century collectivism (in fact fascism was a form of national socialism, in contrast to the international socialism of communism.

Anarchism

(politics) Anarchism is inspired by the moral-political ideal of a society untouched by relations of power and domination among human beings. This ideal has most often expressed itself in a doctrine advocating the total absence of government as the only firm basis for individual liberty and societal progress -- a doctrine that some argue animates even Marxism (since Marx believed that eventually the state would wither away). Anarchism differs from political libertarianism in upholding a lack of government rather than limited government. There are several variants of anarchism, usually categorized by whether the variant is collectivistic (e.g., anarcho-syndicalism) or individualistic (e.g., anarcho-capitalism) in orientation. In popular usage, the term is often colored by the sometimes-violent anarchist political movement that was especially active in the years around 1900.

Communalism

(politics) Communalism is collectivism or communism on a smaller scale or on a voluntary basis. Political communalists sometimes posit that communes or local communities should have virtual autonomy within the context of a larger state or society (this is similar to Robert Nozick's concept of meta-utopia). Nonpolitical communalists simply pursue such autonomy by building voluntary, ideal communes or communities (see utopianism).

Communitarianism

(politics) In the nineteenth century, the word "communitarian" was used to refer to members of voluntary communities formed to put socialist or communist ideas into practice (close to the more recent usage of the term communalism). After the fall of the Iron Curtain (and the demise of true socialism), a movement of intellectuals resuscitated the term to describe a philosophical and political challenge to the seeming triumph of market liberalism, stressing the importance of fellowship and community over economic relations and market interactions.

Dialectical Materialism

(politics) The doctrine or theory of history espoused by Marxism. The dialetical aspect derives from Hegelianism, which holds that history proceeds in something like the stages of a conversation, with each stage overcoming the previous stages and therefore coming closer to finally attained unity or truth. The materialist aspect replaced Hegel's emphasis on spiritual improvement and the collective unconscious with a focus on economic classes and the economic-technological basis for social relations. Thus dialectical materialism posits that history progresses in stages that are based solely on ownership of the means of production: i.e., feudalism replaced aristocracy, capitalism replaced feudalism, and true socialism or communism will replace capitalism -- all according to inexorable, immutable laws. Thus dialetical materialism is a form of historical determinism.

Historical Determinism

(politics) The doctrine that the course of history is determined by material or spiritual forces that are not open to human volition or change. Examples include the spiritualized historicism of Hegelianism and the dialectical materialism of Marxism.

Authoritarianism

(politics) The idea that a leader or government possesses moral or legal supremacy and the right to command others without their consent. Although authoritarianism is sometimes considered to involve a less egregious violation of human rights than totalitarianism, it is still actively opposed to any form of democratic liberalism or libertarianism.

Historicism

(politics) The idea that inexorable laws determine all historical events; the term is essentially equivalent to historical determinism, although without the overtones of Marxism.

Communism

(politics) The political theory that the individual's actions should benefit the community or the state rather than the individual himself. It is the most radical kind of political collectivism, and depends on an equally radical collectivism or altruism in ethics. In practice, communism has always been a form of authoritarianism or totalitarianism. When referring to actual political systems, communism is sometimes called Marxism-Leninism because of communism's link with the revolutionary doctrines of Marxism and with countries inspired by the example of Lenin's revolution in Russia (and Mao's revolution in China).

Egalitarianism

(politics) The view that equality is the most important societal (and even ethical) value. Egalitarians emphasize equality of results, rather than equality of opportunity or equality before the law (ideas usually associated with classical liberalism or political libertarianism). In practice, egalitarian policies attempt to bring about the equal distribution of wealth, sometimes verging on socialism.

Freudianism

(psychology) The theories of Sigmund Freud or the tradition of psychological thought and psychoanalytic practice spawned by his theories. The philosophical importance and influence of Freudianism derives from its view of human nature, which emphasizes the importance of unconscious forces in determining the beliefs and actions of human beings.

Buddhism

(religion) In ancient India, a buddha was a person who had achieved deep or even divine enlightenment. The historical Buddha of Buddhist thought was Gautama Siddhartha (c. 563-483 BCE), who lived a life of detachment from worldly affairs, distrust of perceptual appearance and social conventions, inner-directed reflection and meditation, and suppression of pain, sorrow, and desire. Traditionally, Buddhism has stressed self-denial (similar to Stoicism but sometimes bordering on asceticism), the unity of all things (see holism), and a kind of spiritualized individualism. Although Buddhists consider Gautama to be divine, Buddhism is not a form of theism in the Western sense. Through the centuries, several major schools of Buddhist thought emerged (most prominently Mahayana and Theravada) and Buddhist ideas were combined with traditional Chinese beliefs like Taoism, resulting in Ch'an (or Zen) Buddhism. In fact, Buddhism is quite similar to Taoism in many ways, although Buddhism is closer to transcendentalism since it puts a greater value on ultimate detachment and eternal enlightenment, a state known as nirvana.

Animism

(religion) The idea that living spirits inhabit every existing thing (similar to but distinct from pantheism).

Absolutism

(religion) Within some forms of Christianity (esp. Calvinism), the doctrine that one's salvation is predestined and determined solely by the will of God, uninfluenced by reasons such as one's deeds or intentions; more commonly called the doctrine of predestination.