This could turn into the mother of all polls, and this is your chance to be a part of a potentially huge event - you will might become intrinsically entwined in all future polling history just by possibly taking less than a minute of your time. It will be (something) like having your name written in the stars for all eternity.
Further details
Epistomology details
Epistemology
First published Wed Dec 14, 2005; substantive revision Sat Oct 26, 2024
The term “epistemology” comes from the Greek words “episteme” and “logos”. “Episteme” can be translated as “knowledge” or “understanding” or “acquaintance”, while “logos” can be translated as “account” or “argument” or “reason”. Just as each of these different translations captures some facet of the meaning of these Greek terms, so too does each translation capture a different facet of epistemology itself. Although the term “epistemology” is no more than a couple of centuries old, the field of epistemology is at least as old as any in philosophy.[1] In different parts of its extensive history, different facets of epistemology have attracted attention. Plato’s epistemology was an attempt to understand what it was to know, and how knowledge (unlike mere true opinion) is good for the knower. Locke’s epistemology was an attempt to understand the operations of human understanding, Kant’s epistemology was an attempt to understand the conditions of the possibility of human understanding, and Russell’s epistemology was an attempt to understand how modern science could be justified by appeal to sensory experience. Much recent work in formal epistemology is an attempt to understand how our degrees of confidence are rationally constrained by our evidence, and much recent work in feminist epistemology is an attempt to understand the ways in which interests affect our evidence, and affect our rational constraints more generally. In all these cases, epistemology seeks to understand one or another kind of cognitive success (or, correspondingly, cognitive failure). This entry surveys the varieties of cognitive success, and some recent efforts to understand some of those varieties.
Epistemology (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Metaphysics details
Metaphysics
First published Mon Sep 10, 2007; substantive revision Thu May 4, 2023
It is not easy to say what metaphysics is. Ancient and Medieval philosophers might have said that metaphysics was, like chemistry or astrology, to be defined by its subject-matter: metaphysics was the “science” that studied “being as such” or “the first causes of things” or “things that do not change”. It is no longer possible to define metaphysics that way, for two reasons. First, a philosopher who denied the existence of those things that had once been seen as constituting the subject-matter of metaphysics—first causes or unchanging things—would now be considered to be making thereby a metaphysical assertion. Second, there are many philosophical problems that are now considered to be metaphysical problems (or at least partly metaphysical problems) that are in no way related to first causes or unchanging things—the problem of free will, for example, or the problem of the mental and the physical.
Metaphysics (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Ontology Details
Ontology and Information Systems
*I couldn’t find a general article for Ontology (on stanford.edu) so I chose one myself*
First published Sat Jan 3, 2026
When two agents communicate they must have some significant body of shared understanding about the meaning of the symbols they use. Humans have attempted to codify some of those shared meanings in dictionaries. In the computer and information sciences we face the challenge of how to enable machines to share at least some of the catalog of the symbols humans use and what they mean. In dealing with machines one must rely on mathematics to state meaning rather than relying on the experience and intuitions of the communicating agents. Ontology (in information systems) is the field that attempts to create shared meanings of symbols. Different practitioners in the field may decide to create different lists of symbols with different definitions.
A motivation for the development of ontology as a discipline has been a common issue in software development, where the use of symbols in computer code by different programmers can change over time, causing unintended performance in a system. This issue motivated efforts to catalog, standardize and reuse concepts, recorded as a set of labels and definitions. Establishing an ontology helps to avoid concept drift (Magne 2017; Lu et al. 2019; Pancha 2016) and supports the interoperability of computer software systems.
Ontology and Information Systems (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Virtue Ethics details
Virtue Ethics
First published Fri Jul 18, 2003; substantive revision Tue Oct 11, 2022
Virtue ethics is currently one of three major approaches in normative ethics. It may, initially, be identified as the one that emphasizes the virtues, or moral character, in contrast to the approach that emphasizes duties or rules (deontology) or that emphasizes the consequences of actions (consequentialism). Suppose it is obvious that someone in need should be helped. A utilitarian will point to the fact that the consequences of doing so will maximize well-being, a deontologist to the fact that, in doing so the agent will be acting in accordance with a moral rule such as “Do unto others as you would be done by” and a virtue ethicist to the fact that helping the person would be charitable or benevolent.
This is not to say that only virtue ethicists attend to virtues, any more than it is to say that only consequentialists attend to consequences or only deontologists to rules. Each of the above-mentioned approaches can make room for virtues, consequences, and rules. Indeed, any plausible normative ethical theory will have something to say about all three. What distinguishes virtue ethics from consequentialism or deontology is the centrality of virtue within the theory (Watson 1990; Kawall 2009). Whereas consequentialists will define virtues as traits that yield good consequences and deontologists will define them as traits possessed by those who reliably fulfil their duties, virtue ethicists will resist the attempt to define virtues in terms of some other concept that is taken to be more fundamental. Rather, virtues and vices will be foundational for virtue ethical theories and other normative notions will be grounded in them.
Virtue Ethics (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Determinism vs. Free Will details
Ancient Theories of Freedom and Determinism
First published Fri Oct 30, 2020; substantive revision Tue Nov 19, 2024
From at least Aristotle onwards, ancient philosophers engaged in systematic reflection on human agency. They asked questions about when people are morally responsible for their actions and what must be the case for people to deliberate and act effectively, and in doing so they confronted arguments that tried to establish that humans are not responsible and effective agents. But if we want to understand these philosophers correctly, we should be careful not to assimilate ancient theories of freedom and determinism too quickly to the problem of free will and determinism in contemporary philosophy, which asks whether causal determinism is compatible with the sort of freedom—or alternatively, with the sort of control over our actions—that is necessary for moral responsibility. (See the entries on free will and causal determinism.) While ancient philosophers did argue about whether causal determinism is compatible with moral responsibility, their concerns ranged more widely. We can divide their discussions into two broad areas.
The first area is effective agency—do humans have the ability to act as they wish to, in order to get what they desire? Aristotle thinks that effective deliberation and action presuppose the openness or contingency of the future—that what is going to happen is not necessary. Aristotle confronts an argument that tries to establish that the future is necessary, and hence that deliberation and action are futile. This argument, however, proceeds not from causal determinism, but from what might be called “logical determinism”—the thesis that, from eternity, statements about the future have had fixed truth values. The Epicureans, Stoics, and academic skeptic Carneades confront the same argument, but they also consider the relationship between “logical determinism” and causal determinism, and whether causal determinism is compatible with effective agency.
The second area is moral responsibility, our ability to be justifiably subject to praise and reward, or blame and punishment for what we do. Aristotle gives an extended analysis of voluntary actions, ones for which a person is responsible. He asserts that humans are the origin of their voluntary actions, and that we have the ability to do otherwise than we do. But the problem of free will and determinism does not obviously arise in Aristotle’s discussion, because he does not consider whether moral responsibility is compatible with causal determinism, as a general thesis. Instead, he considers another threat to our responsibility, which we may dub “psychological determinism”: because our actions are automatically elicited by a combination of our psychological states, such as our desires and character traits, and our perceptual input, we are not really in control of what we do. In response, Aristotle argues that we are in control of our character, because it is a result of our earlier voluntary actions. Epicurus agrees with Aristotle that we are in control of our character, which results in our actions, and he also contends that to argue that people are not responsible for their actions is self-refuting. Finally, Epicurus believes that causal determinism is incompatible with human freedom, and he introduces an indeterministic atomic motion, the “swerve”, to combat this threat—although how it is supposed to do so is unclear. The Stoics, on the other hand, affirm that every single event is causally determined by God in accordance with his providential plan, and they try to show how what we do is under our control in such a world. The later Aristotelian Alexander of Aphrodisias reacts to the Stoics by building an Aristotelian theory on which the ability to do otherwise is required for moral responsibility, and this ability is incompatible with causal determinism. Plotinus, who takes himself to be following Plato, incorporates Stoic elements into his own theory of freedom, but his deep disagreements with Stoic metaphysics lead him to reject much of what they say about fate.
Ancient Theories of Freedom and Determinism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤWhat’s.. this all about?
