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The Latin cogito, ergo sum, usually translated into English as "I think, therefore I am", [a] is the "first principle" of René Descartes's philosophy. He originally published it in French as je pense, donc je suis in his 1637 Discourse on the Method, so as to reach a wider audience than Latin would have allowed. [1]
In philosophy—more specifically, in its sub-fields semantics, semiotics, philosophy of language, metaphysics, and metasemantics—meaning "is a relationship between two sorts of things: signs and the kinds of things they intend, express, or signify". [1] The types of meanings vary according to the types of the thing that is being represented.
In Kantian philosophy, the thing-in-itself (German: Ding an sich) is the status of objects as they are, independent of representation and observation. The concept of the thing-in-itself was introduced by the German philosopher Immanuel Kant, and over the following centuries was met with controversy among later philosophers. [1]
The earliest pre-Socratic philosophers, especially the Milesians (Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes) and the atomists (Leucippus and Democritus), were labeled by their peers and successors "the physikoi" (from the Greek φυσικός or physikos, meaning "natural philosopher" borrowing on the word φύσις or physis, meaning "nature ...
Also called humanocentrism. The practice, conscious or otherwise, of regarding the existence and concerns of human beings as the central fact of the universe. This is similar, but not identical, to the practice of relating all that happens in the universe to the human experience. To clarify, the first position concludes that the fact of human existence is the point of universal existence; the ...
Existential nihilism is the philosophical theory that life has no objective meaning or purpose. [1] The inherent meaninglessness of life is largely explored in the philosophical school of existentialism, where one can potentially create their own subjective "meaning" or "purpose".
Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that examines the nature, origin, and limits of knowledge.Also called theory of knowledge, it explores different types of knowledge, such as propositional knowledge about facts, practical knowledge in the form of skills, and knowledge by acquaintance as a familiarity through experience.
A materialist of this variety might believe that a concept like "belief" has no basis in fact (e.g. the way folk science speaks of demon-caused illnesses). With reductive materialism at one end of a continuum (our theories will reduce to facts) and eliminative materialism at the other (certain theories will need to be eliminated in light of new ...