Contemporary Philosophy

History of Western Philosophy
The pages of this section offer a narrative survey of the historical development of Western philosophy. Although some sections are nearly complete, this remains a work in progress; please be patient. For a different approach to the work of individual thinkers, please consult Assembled Philosophers, the Dictionary of Philosophical Terms and Names, or the Philosophy Timeline.

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Ancient and Medieval Philosophy
Speculation and Dispute: The Presocratics ]|[ Socrates
Plato: Soul and Forms ]|[ Society and Virtue ]|[ Education and Justice ]|[ Love
Aristotle: Logic and Physics ]|[ Reality and Knowledge ]|[ Ethics ]|[ Politics
Hellenistic Thought: Cosmos and Morality
Philosophy and Religion: Augustine ]|[ Scholasticism ]|[ Arab and Jewish Thought
Late Scholasticism: Bonaventure and Aquinas ]|[ Scotus and Ockham
Early Modern Philosophy
The Renaissance: Humanism and Science ]|[ Machiavelli ]|[ Hobbes
Descartes: Method ]|[ Doubt and Existence ]|[ Mind and Body ]|[ Cartesianism
Variations: Spinoza and Unity ]|[ Leibniz and Plurality
Locke: Origin of Ideas ]|[ Human Knowledge ]|[ Government
Extensions: Moralists and Bayle ]|[ Berkeley and Immaterialism
Hume: Mitigated Skepticism ]|[ Self and Morality ]|[ Religion
Recent Modern Philosophy
The Enlightenment: British ]|[ Continental
Kant: Synthetic A Priori ]|[ Experience and Reality ]|[ The Moral Law
Absolute Idealism: Fichte and Hegel ]|[ Later Idealists
Social Concerns: Bentham and Mill ]|[ Marx and Engels
Other Reactions: Kierkegaard ]|[ Nietzsche
Pragmatism: Peirce ]|[ James ]|[ Dewey, Mead, & Addams
Contemporary Philosophy
Beginnings: Logic and Mathematics ]|[ Phenomenology
Philosophical Analysis: Moore ]|[ Russell
Alternatives: Realism ]|[ Logical Positivism
Linguistic Analysis: Wittgenstein ]|[ Ryle and Austin ]|[ American Analysis
Existentialism: Heidegger ]|[ Sartre ]|[ de Beauvoir
Postmodernism: Critical Theory ]|[ Deconstruction
Feminism: Theory ]|[ Ethics ]|[ MacKinnon