A scientific instrument is an instrument used in science to acquire data, from nanoscale to macroscopic scales. These are mostly measuring instruments (spectrometer for example) or observation (polarizing microscope for example) or, more and more, both at once. Characterizations An … Read More
(Is there a spirit in the machine?) The mind-body problem raises the question of the relationship between the human body, the brain in particular, and the mind. Although this problem has existed almost since the beginning of philosophy (see Plato), … Read More
(Representation of a helium-4 atom with, appearing pink in the center, the atomic nucleus and, in gradient of gray all around, the electronic cloud. The helium-4 nucleus, enlarged on the right, is formed of two protons and two neutrons.) An … Read More
(Sebastian Loscher: Allegory of Justice (1536)) Civil disobedience is the public and accepted refusal to submit to a law, regulation, organization or power deemed unfair by those who challenge it, while making this refusal a peaceful weapon of combat. The … Read More
(Phylogenetic trees have the shape of dendrograms, each node of the dendrogram corresponds to a clade. ) Taxonomy (from the Greek: ταξις, taxis, ordering and νομος, nomos, norm or rule) is, in its most general sense, the discipline of classification. … Read More
(Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (German: Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten; 1785; also known as the Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, Grounding of the Metaphysics of Morals and the Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals), by Immanuel Kant … Read More
(Aristotle, by Francesco Hayez) Aristotelianism is the name given to the doctrine derived from the works of Aristotle, from the Persian philosopher Avicenna and the Andalusian philosopher Averroes in particular, then gradually adopted in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries by … Read More
This article, perhaps more than others, is rather an exercise of linguistic logics. Roderick Chisholm, in “The Logical Form of Action Sentences, criticized an earlier article of Davidson, “The Logical Form of Action Sentences,” proposing a different theory. Davidson analyzes … Read More
Natural philosophy, known in Latin as philosophia naturalis, is an expression that applied to the objective study of nature and the physical universe that reigned before the development of modern science. Traditionally allied with natural theology, it used to designate … Read More
(The tram dilemma is a thought experiment that can serve to illustrate and test different ethical theories.) Normative ethics is the branch of ethics that studies the possible moral criteria to determine when an action is right and when it is not. It looks for general principles that … Read More
(Lightning causing a flash of light over Oradea in Romania.) Electrostatics is the branch of physics that studies the phenomena created by static electric charges for the observer. The obtained laws can be generalized to variable (quasi-electrostatic) systems provided that … Read More
