Portal:Philosophy

The Philosophy Portal

A portal for Wikipedia's philosophy resources • 17,589 articles in English

Left to right: Plato, Kant, Nietzsche, Buddha, Confucius, Averroes

Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, value, mind, and language. It is a rational and critical inquiry that reflects on its methods and assumptions.

Historically, many of the individual sciences, such as physics and psychology, formed part of philosophy. However, they are considered separate academic disciplines in the modern sense of the term. Influential traditions in the history of philosophy include Western, Arabic–Persian, Indian, and Chinese philosophy. Western philosophy originated in Ancient Greece and covers a wide area of philosophical subfields. A central topic in Arabic–Persian philosophy is the relation between reason and revelation. Indian philosophy combines the spiritual problem of how to reach enlightenment with the exploration of the nature of reality and the ways of arriving at knowledge. Chinese philosophy focuses principally on practical issues about right social conduct, government, and self-cultivation.

Major branches of philosophy are epistemology, ethics, logic, and metaphysics. Epistemology studies what knowledge is and how to acquire it. Ethics investigates moral principles and what constitutes right conduct. Logic is the study of correct reasoning and explores how good arguments can be distinguished from bad ones. Metaphysics examines the most general features of reality, existence, objects, and properties. Other subfields are aesthetics, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, philosophy of religion, philosophy of science, philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of history, and political philosophy. Within each branch, there are competing schools of philosophy that promote different principles, theories, or methods.

Philosophers use a great variety of methods to arrive at philosophical knowledge. They include conceptual analysis, reliance on common sense and intuitions, use of thought experiments, analysis of ordinary language, description of experience, and critical questioning. Philosophy is related to many other fields, including the sciences, mathematics, business, law, and journalism. It provides an interdisciplinary perspective and studies the scope and fundamental concepts of these fields. It also investigates their methods and ethical implications. (Full article...)

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Featured articles are displayed here, which represent some of the best content on English Wikipedia.

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Why Marx Was Right is a 2011 non-fiction book by the British academic Terry Eagleton about the 19th-century philosopher Karl Marx and the schools of thought, collectively known as Marxism, that arose from his work. Written for laypeople, Why Marx Was Right outlines ten objections to Marxism that they may hold and aims to refute each one in turn. These include arguments that Marxism is irrelevant owing to changing social classes in the modern world, that it is deterministic and utopian, and that Marxists oppose all reforms and believe in an authoritarian state.

In his counterarguments, Eagleton explains how class struggle is central to Marxism, and that history is seen as a progression of modes of production, like feudalism and capitalism, involving the materials, technology and social relations required to produce goods and services within the society. Under a capitalist economy, the working class, known as the proletariat, are those lacking significant autonomy over their labour conditions, and have no control over the means of production. Eagleton describes how revolutions could lead to a new mode of production—socialism—in which the working class have control, and an eventual communist society could make the state obsolete. He explores the failures of the Soviet Union and other Marxist–Leninist countries. (Full article...)
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Bohr in 1922

Niels Henrik David Bohr (US: /boʊr/, UK: /bɔː/; Danish: [ˈne̝ls ˈpoɐ̯ˀ]; 7 October 1885 – 18 November 1962) was a Danish theoretical physicist who made foundational contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum theory, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922. Bohr was also a philosopher and a promoter of scientific research.

Bohr developed the Bohr model of the atom, in which he proposed that energy levels of electrons are discrete and that the electrons revolve in stable orbits around the atomic nucleus but can jump from one energy level (or orbit) to another. Although the Bohr model has been supplanted by other models, its underlying principles remain valid. He conceived the principle of complementarity: that items could be separately analysed in terms of contradictory properties, like behaving as a wave or a stream of particles. The notion of complementarity dominated Bohr's thinking in both science and philosophy. (Full article...)
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The tree of life as depicted by Ernst Haeckel in The Evolution of Man (1879) illustrates the 19th-century view of evolution as a progressive process leading towards man.

Evolutionary thought, the recognition that species change over time and the perceived understanding of how such processes work, has roots in antiquity. With the beginnings of modern biological taxonomy in the late 17th century, two opposed ideas influenced Western biological thinking: essentialism, the belief that every species has essential characteristics that are unalterable, a concept which had developed from medieval Aristotelian metaphysics, and that fit well with natural theology; and the development of the new anti-Aristotelian approach to science. Naturalists began to focus on the variability of species; the emergence of palaeontology with the concept of extinction further undermined static views of nature. In the early 19th century prior to Darwinism, Jean-Baptiste Lamarck proposed his theory of the transmutation of species, the first fully formed theory of evolution.

In 1858 Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace published a new evolutionary theory, explained in detail in Darwin's On the Origin of Species (1859). Darwin's theory, originally called descent with modification is known contemporarily as Darwinism or Darwinian theory. Unlike Lamarck, Darwin proposed common descent and a branching tree of life, meaning that two very different species could share a common ancestor. Darwin based his theory on the idea of natural selection: it synthesized a broad range of evidence from animal husbandry, biogeography, geology, morphology, and embryology. Debate over Darwin's work led to the rapid acceptance of the general concept of evolution, but the specific mechanism he proposed, natural selection, was not widely accepted until it was revived by developments in biology that occurred during the 1920s through the 1940s. Before that time most biologists regarded other factors as responsible for evolution. Alternatives to natural selection suggested during "the eclipse of Darwinism" (c. 1880 to 1920) included inheritance of acquired characteristics (neo-Lamarckism), an innate drive for change (orthogenesis), and sudden large mutations (saltationism). Mendelian genetics, a series of 19th-century experiments with pea plant variations rediscovered in 1900, was integrated with natural selection by Ronald Fisher, J. B. S. Haldane, and Sewall Wright during the 1910s to 1930s, and resulted in the founding of the new discipline of population genetics. During the 1930s and 1940s population genetics became integrated with other biological fields, resulting in a widely applicable theory of evolution that encompassed much of biology—the modern synthesis. (Full article...)
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The title-page of the 1759 edition published by Cramer in Geneva, which reads, "Candide, or Optimism, translated from the German of Dr. Ralph."

Candide, ou l'Optimisme (/kɒnˈdiːd/ kon-DEED, French: [kɑ̃did] ) is a French satire written by Voltaire, a philosopher of the Age of Enlightenment, first published in 1759. The novella has been widely translated, with English versions titled Candide: or, All for the Best (1759); Candide: or, The Optimist (1762); and Candide: Optimism (1947). A young man, Candide, lives a sheltered life in an Edenic paradise, being indoctrinated with Leibnizian optimism by his mentor, Professor Pangloss. This lifestyle is abruptly ended, followed by Candide's slow and painful disillusionment as he witnesses and experiences great hardships in the world. Voltaire concludes Candide with, if not rejecting Leibnizian optimism outright, advocating a deeply practical precept, "we must cultivate our garden", in lieu of the Leibnizian mantra of Pangloss, "all is for the best" in the "best of all possible worlds".

Candide is characterized by its tone as well as its erratic, fantastical, and fast-moving plot. A picaresque novel with a story akin to a serious bildungsroman, it parodies many adventure and romance clichés, in a tone that is bitter and matter-of-fact. The events discussed are often based on historical happenings. As philosophers of Voltaire's day contended with the problem of evil, so does Candide, albeit more directly and humorously. Voltaire ridicules religion, theologians, governments, armies, philosophies, and philosophers. Through Candide, he assaults Leibniz and his optimism. (Full article...)
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Title page from the first English edition of Part I

The Age of Reason; Being an Investigation of True and Fabulous Theology is a work by English and American political activist Thomas Paine, arguing for the philosophical position of deism. It follows in the tradition of 18th-century British deism, and challenges institutionalized religion and the legitimacy of the Bible. It was published in three parts in 1794, 1795, and 1807.

It was a best-seller in the United States, where it caused a deistic revival. British audiences, fearing increased political radicalism as a result of the French Revolution, received it with more hostility. The Age of Reason presents common deistic arguments; for example, it highlights what Paine saw as corruption of the Christian Church and criticizes its efforts to acquire political power. Paine advocates reason in the place of revelation, leading him to reject miracles and to view the Bible as an ordinary piece of literature, rather than a divinely-inspired text. In The Age of Reason, he promotes natural religion and argues for the existence of a creator god. (Full article...)
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Augustine of Hippo (AD 354–430) as painted by Sandro Botticelli (c. 1445–1510). Augustine is credited with developing the first form of the theodicy now named for him.

The Augustinian theodicy, named for the 4th- and 5th-century theologian and philosopher Augustine of Hippo, is a type of Christian theodicy that developed in response to the evidential problem of evil. As such, it attempts to explain the probability of an omnipotent (all-powerful) and omnibenevolent (all-loving) God amid evidence of evil in the world. A number of variations of this kind of theodicy have been proposed throughout history; their similarities were first described by the 20th-century philosopher John Hick, who classified them as "Augustinian". They typically assert that God is perfectly (ideally) good, that he created the world out of nothing, and that evil is the result of humanity's original sin. The entry of evil into the world is generally explained as consequence of original sin and its continued presence due to humans' misuse of free will and concupiscence. God's goodness and benevolence, according to the Augustinian theodicy, remain perfect and without responsibility for evil or suffering.

Augustine of Hippo was the first to develop the theodicy. He rejected the idea that evil exists in itself, instead regarding it as a corruption of goodness, caused by humanity's abuse of free will. Augustine believed in the existence of a physical Hell as a punishment for sin, but argued that those who choose to accept the salvation of Jesus Christ will go to Heaven. In the 13th century, Thomas Aquinas – influenced by Augustine – proposed a similar theodicy based on the view that God is goodness and that there can be no evil in him. He believed that the existence of goodness allows evil to exist, through the fault of humans. Augustine also influenced John Calvin, who supported Augustine's view that evil is the result of free will and argued that sin corrupts humans, requiring God's grace to give moral guidance. (Full article...)
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Archimedes Thoughtful by Fetti (1620)

Archimedes of Syracuse (/ˌɑːrkɪˈmiːdiːz/ AR-kih-MEE-deez; c. 287 – c. 212 BC) was an Ancient Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer, astronomer, and inventor from the ancient city of Syracuse in Sicily. Although few details of his life are known, based on his surviving work, he is considered one of the leading scientists in classical antiquity, and one of the greatest mathematicians of all time. Archimedes anticipated modern calculus and analysis by applying the concept of the infinitesimals and the method of exhaustion to derive and rigorously prove many geometrical theorems, including the area of a circle, the surface area and volume of a sphere, the area of an ellipse, the area under a parabola, the volume of a segment of a paraboloid of revolution, the volume of a segment of a hyperboloid of revolution, and the area of a spiral.

Archimedes' other mathematical achievements include deriving an approximation of pi ( $π$ ), defining and investigating the Archimedean spiral, and devising a system using exponentiation for expressing very large numbers. He was also one of the first to apply mathematics to physical phenomena, working on statics and hydrostatics. Archimedes' achievements in this area include a proof of the law of the lever, the widespread use of the concept of center of gravity, and the enunciation of the law of buoyancy known as Archimedes' principle. In astronomy, he made measurements of the apparent diameter of the Sun and the size of the universe. He is also said to have built a planetarium device that demonstrated the movements of the known celestial bodies, and may have been a precursor to the Antikythera mechanism. He is also credited with designing innovative machines, such as his screw pump, compound pulleys, and defensive war machines to protect his native Syracuse from invasion. (Full article...)
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"Lisa the Skeptic" is the eighth episode of the ninth season of the American animated television series The Simpsons. It first aired on Fox in the United States on November 23, 1997. On an archaeological dig with her class, Lisa discovers a skeleton that resembles an angel. All of the townspeople believe that the skeleton actually came from an angel, but skeptical Lisa attempts to persuade them that there must be a rational scientific explanation. The episode's writer, David X. Cohen, developed the idea after visiting the American Museum of Natural History, and decided to loosely parallel themes from the Scopes Monkey Trial. The episode also makes allusions to actual hoaxes, such as the Cardiff Giant.

It has been discussed in the context of ontology, existentialism, and skepticism; it has also been used in Christian religious education classes to initiate discussion about angels, science, and faith. (Full article...)
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1897 illustration of La Peau de chagrin, drawn by Adrien Moreau and published by George Barrie & Son

La Peau de chagrin (French pronunciation: [la po də ʃaɡʁɛ̃], The Skin of Shagreen), known in English as The Magic Skin and The Wild Ass's Skin, is an 1831 novel by French novelist and playwright Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850). Set in early 19th-century Paris, it tells the story of a young man who finds a magic piece of shagreen (untanned skin from a wild ass) that fulfills his every desire. For each wish granted, however, the skin shrinks and consumes a portion of his physical energy. La Peau de chagrin belongs to the Études philosophiques group of Balzac's sequence of novels, La Comédie humaine.

Before the book was completed, Balzac created excitement about it by publishing a series of articles and story fragments in several Parisian journals. Although he was five months late in delivering the manuscript, he succeeded in generating sufficient interest that the novel sold out instantly upon its publication. A second edition, which included a series of twelve other "philosophical tales", was released one month later. (Full article...)
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Cantor, c. 1910

Georg Ferdinand Ludwig Philipp Cantor (/ˈkæntɔːr/ KAN-tor; German: [ˈɡeːɔʁk ˈfɛʁdinant ˈluːtvɪç ˈfiːlɪp ˈkantoːɐ̯]; 3 March [O.S. 19 February] 1845 – 6 January 1918) was a mathematician who played a pivotal role in the creation of set theory, which has become a fundamental theory in mathematics. Cantor established the importance of one-to-one correspondence between the members of two sets, defined infinite and well-ordered sets, and proved that the real numbers are more numerous than the natural numbers. Cantor's method of proof of this theorem implies the existence of an infinity of infinities. He defined the cardinal and ordinal numbers and their arithmetic. Cantor's work is of great philosophical interest, a fact he was well aware of.

Originally, Cantor's theory of transfinite numbers was regarded as counter-intuitive – even shocking. This caused it to encounter resistance from mathematical contemporaries such as Leopold Kronecker and Henri Poincaré and later from Hermann Weyl and L. E. J. Brouwer, while Ludwig Wittgenstein raised philosophical objections; see Controversy over Cantor's theory. Cantor, a devout Lutheran Christian, believed the theory had been communicated to him by God. Some Christian theologians (particularly neo-Scholastics) saw Cantor's work as a challenge to the uniqueness of the absolute infinity in the nature of God – on one occasion equating the theory of transfinite numbers with pantheism – a proposition that Cantor vigorously rejected. Not all theologians were against Cantor's theory; prominent neo-scholastic philosopher Konstantin Gutberlet [de; it] was in favor of it and Cardinal Johann Baptist Franzelin accepted it as a valid theory (after Cantor made some important clarifications). (Full article...)
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Anekāntavāda (Sanskrit: अनेकान्तवाद, "many-sidedness") is the Jain doctrine about metaphysical truths that emerged in ancient India. It states that the ultimate truth and reality is complex and has multiple aspects and viewpoints.

According to Jainism, no single, specific statement can describe the nature of existence and the absolute truth. This knowledge (Kevala Jnana), it adds, is comprehended only by the Arihants. Other beings and their statements about absolute truth are incomplete, and at best a partial truth. All knowledge claims, according to the anekāntavāda doctrine must be qualified in many ways, including being affirmed and denied. Anekāntavāda is a fundamental doctrine of Jainism. (Full article...)
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Intelligent design (ID) is a pseudoscientific argument for the existence of God, presented by its proponents as "an evidence-based scientific theory about life's origins". Proponents claim that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection." ID is a form of creationism that lacks empirical support and offers no testable or tenable hypotheses, and is therefore not science. The leading proponents of ID are associated with the Discovery Institute, a Christian, politically conservative think tank based in the United States.

Although the phrase intelligent design had featured previously in theological discussions of the argument from design, its first publication in its present use as an alternative term for creationism was in Of Pandas and People, a 1989 creationist textbook intended for high school biology classes. The term was substituted into drafts of the book, directly replacing references to creation science and creationism, after the 1987 Supreme Court's Edwards v. Aguillard decision barred the teaching of creation science in public schools on constitutional grounds. From the mid-1990s, the intelligent design movement (IDM), supported by the Discovery Institute, advocated inclusion of intelligent design in public school biology curricula. This led to the 2005 Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District trial, which found that intelligent design was not science, that it "cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents", and that the public school district's promotion of it therefore violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. (Full article...)
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Wallace in 1895

Alfred Russel Wallace (8 January 1823 – 7 November 1913) was an English naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist, biologist and illustrator. He independently conceived the theory of evolution through natural selection; his 1858 paper on the subject was published that year alongside extracts from Charles Darwin's earlier writings on the topic. It spurred Darwin to set aside the "big species book" he was drafting and to quickly write an abstract of it, which was published in 1859 as On the Origin of Species.

Wallace did extensive fieldwork, starting in the Amazon River basin. He then did fieldwork in the Malay Archipelago, where he identified the faunal divide now termed the Wallace Line, which separates the Indonesian archipelago into two distinct parts: a western portion in which the animals are largely of Asian origin, and an eastern portion where the fauna reflect Australasia. He was considered the 19th century's leading expert on the geographical distribution of animal species, and is sometimes called the "father of biogeography", or more specifically of zoogeography. (Full article...)
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Confirmation bias (also confirmatory bias, myside bias, or congeniality bias) is the tendency to search for, interpret, favor and recall information in a way that confirms or supports one's prior beliefs or values. People display this bias when they select information that supports their views, ignoring contrary information or when they interpret ambiguous evidence as supporting their existing attitudes. The effect is strongest for desired outcomes, for emotionally charged issues and for deeply entrenched beliefs.

Biased search for information, biased interpretation of this information and biased memory recall, have been invoked to explain four specific effects:
1. attitude polarization (when a disagreement becomes more extreme even though the different parties are exposed to the same evidence)
2. belief perseverance (when beliefs persist after the evidence for them is shown to be false)
3. the irrational primacy effect (a greater reliance on information encountered early in a series)
4. illusory correlation (when people falsely perceive an association between two events or situations).
(Full article...)
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Title page, 1798

Maria: or, The Wrongs of Woman is Mary Wollstonecraft's unfinished novelistic sequel to her revolutionary political treatise A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792). The Wrongs of Woman was published posthumously in 1798 by her husband, William Godwin, and is often considered her most radical feminist work.

Wollstonecraft's philosophical and gothic novel revolves around the story of a woman imprisoned in an insane asylum by her husband. It focuses on the societal rather than the individual "wrongs of woman" and criticizes what Wollstonecraft viewed as the patriarchal institution of marriage in eighteenth-century Britain and the legal system that protected it. However, the heroine's inability to relinquish her romantic fantasies also reveals women's collusion in their oppression through false and damaging sentimentalism. The novel pioneered the celebration of female sexuality and cross-class identification between women. Such themes, coupled with the publication of Godwin's scandalous Memoirs of Wollstonecraft's life, made the novel unpopular at the time it was published. (Full article...)

Did you know (auto-generated) - load new batch

... that in his book How to Be Perfect, Michael Schur sought to "wade into some deeply confusing and painful applications of moral philosophy ... but in a fun way"?
... that by popular demand, philosopher Anton Charles Pegis continued to teach graduate classes for three years after becoming an emeritus professor?
... that Porphyry describes a moral obligation to extend justice to animals in his 3rd-century treatise on vegetarianism?
... that diverse fields study the mind, including psychology, neuroscience, cognitive science, and philosophy?
... that although the philosophical study of well-being dates back millennia, empirical research has intensified since the second half of the 20th century?
... that the history of philosophy in India is characterized by its combined interest in the nature of reality, the ways of arriving at knowledge, and the spiritual question of how to reach enlightenment?
... that the barracks at the Xifeng concentration camp were named for Confucian tenets such as righteousness and filial piety?
... that one reviewer for Women Philosophers in the Long Nineteenth Century was let down by the book's lack of poetry?

Selected philosopher of the week

Michael Ruse (born June 21, 1940 in Birmingham, England) is a philosopher of science, working on the philosophy of the biology, and is well known for his work on the argument between creationism and evolutionary biology. He was born in England, took his undergraduate degree at the University of Bristol (1962), his master's degree at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario (1964), and Ph.D. at the University of Bristol (1970). Ruse taught at the University of Guelph Canada for 35 years. Since his retirement from Guelph, he has taught at Florida State University and is, since 2000, the Lucyle T. Werkmeister Professor of Philosophy. In 1986, he was elected as a Fellow of both the Royal Society of Canada and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He has received honorary doctorates from the University of Bergen, Norway (1990) and the McMaster University, Ontario, Canada (2003).

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Selected article of the week

Decision theory is an interdisciplinary area of study, related to and of interest to practitioners in mathematics, statistics, economics, philosophy, management and psychology. It is concerned with how real decision-makers make decisions, and with how optimal decisions can be reached.

Most of decision theory is normative or prescriptive, i.e. it is concerned with identifying the best decision to take, assuming an ideal decision taker who is fully informed, able to compute with perfect accuracy, and fully rational. The practical application of this prescriptive approach (how people should make decisions) is called decision analysis, and aimed at finding tools, methodologies and software to help people make better decisions. The most systematic and comprehensive software tools developed in this way are called decision support systems.

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These are Good articles, which meet a core set of high editorial standards.

$Image 1 "The Gherkin", 30 St Mary Axe, London, completed 2003, is a parametrically designed solid of revolution. Mathematics and architecture are related, since architecture, like some other arts, uses mathematics for several reasons. Apart from the mathematics needed when engineering buildings, architects use geometry: to define the spatial form of a building; from the Pythagoreans of the sixth century BC onwards, to create architectural forms considered harmonious, and thus to lay out buildings and their surroundings according to mathematical, aesthetic and sometimes religious principles; to decorate buildings with mathematical objects such as tessellations; and to meet environmental goals, such as to minimise wind speeds around the bases of tall buildings. In ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, India, and the Islamic world, buildings including pyramids, temples, mosques, palaces and mausoleums were laid out with specific proportions for religious reasons. In Islamic architecture, geometric shapes and geometric tiling patterns are used to decorate buildings, both inside and outside. Some Hindu temples have a fractal-like structure where parts resemble the whole, conveying a message about the infinite in Hindu cosmology. In Chinese architecture, the tulou of Fujian province are circular, communal defensive structures. In the twenty-first century, mathematical ornamentation is again being used to cover public buildings. (Full article...)$

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"The Gherkin", 30 St Mary Axe, London, completed 2003, is a parametrically designed solid of revolution.

Mathematics and architecture are related, since architecture, like some other arts, uses mathematics for several reasons. Apart from the mathematics needed when engineering buildings, architects use geometry: to define the spatial form of a building; from the Pythagoreans of the sixth century BC onwards, to create architectural forms considered harmonious, and thus to lay out buildings and their surroundings according to mathematical, aesthetic and sometimes religious principles; to decorate buildings with mathematical objects such as tessellations; and to meet environmental goals, such as to minimise wind speeds around the bases of tall buildings.

In ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, India, and the Islamic world, buildings including pyramids, temples, mosques, palaces and mausoleums were laid out with specific proportions for religious reasons. In Islamic architecture, geometric shapes and geometric tiling patterns are used to decorate buildings, both inside and outside. Some Hindu temples have a fractal-like structure where parts resemble the whole, conveying a message about the infinite in Hindu cosmology. In Chinese architecture, the tulou of Fujian province are circular, communal defensive structures. In the twenty-first century, mathematical ornamentation is again being used to cover public buildings. (Full article...)
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Title page of first edition; 1889

Siddhantasara (pronounced [sɪd'ðantsar]; transl. The Gist of Principles) is a 1889 Gujarati book on the history of philosophy by Indian writer and philosopher Manilal Dwivedi. It is a historical critique of the world's religious philosophies. The book deals with the evolution of religious sentiment and attempts to establish the superiority of the Advaita philosophy over other religious philosophies.

Siddhantasara received positive reviews and became a landmark in the history of Gujarati literature but was also criticised because of the logical lapses and inconsistencies in the author's arguments. Manishankar Bhatt (known as Kavi Kant) published his review as a book titled Siddhantasaranu Avalokan (Analysis of Siddhantasara). Siddhantasara is considered by critics to be Manilal's most important work, and has been seen as a response to the cultural agenda and reform activities of colonial India at the time. (Full article...)
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Vivekananda in Chicago, September 1893. In note on the left Vivekananda wrote: "One infinite pure and holy – beyond thought beyond qualities I bow down to thee".

Swami Vivekananda (/ˈswɑːmi ˌvɪveɪˈkɑːnəndə/) (12 January 1863 – 4 July 1902), born Narendranath Datta, was an Indian Hindu monk, philosopher, author, religious teacher, and the chief disciple of the Indian mystic Ramakrishna. Vivekananda was a major figure in the introduction of Vedanta and Yoga to the Western world, and is credited with raising interfaith awareness and elevating Hinduism to the status of a major world religion.

Born into an aristocratic Bengali Kayastha family in Calcutta (now Kolkata), Vivekananda showed an early inclination towards religion and spirituality. At the age of 18, he met Ramakrishna and became his devoted disciple, and later took up the vows of a sannyasin (renunciate). Following Ramakrishna’s death, Vivekananda travelled extensively across the Indian subcontinent as a wandering monk, gaining first-hand knowledge of the often harsh living conditions endured by the Indian masses under then British India, he sought a way to alleviate their suffering by establishing social services but lacked capital. In 1893, he travelled to the United States to participate in the Parliament of the World's Religions in Chicago, where he delivered a landmark speech beginning with the words "Sisters and brothers of America...". His powerful message introduced Hindu spiritual thought and advocated for both religious tolerance and universal acceptance. The speech made a profound impression; an American newspaper described him as "an orator by divine right and undoubtedly the greatest figure at the Parliament". (Full article...)
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In the philosophy of religion, an ontological argument is a deductive philosophical argument, made from an ontological basis, that is advanced in support of the existence of God. Such arguments tend to refer to the state of being or existing. More specifically, ontological arguments are commonly conceived a priori in regard to the organization of the universe, whereby, if such organizational structure is true, God must exist.

The first ontological argument in Western Christian tradition was proposed by Saint Anselm of Canterbury in his 1078 work, Proslogion (Latin: Proslogium, lit. 'Discourse [on the Existence of God]'), in which he defines God as "a being than which no greater can be conceived," and argues that such a being must exist in the mind, even in that of the person who denies the existence of God. From this, he suggests that if the greatest possible being exists in the mind, it must also exist in reality, because if it existed only in the mind, then an even greater being must be possible – one who exists both in mind and in reality. Therefore, this greatest possible being must exist in reality. Similarly, in the East, Avicenna's Proof of the Truthful argued, albeit for very different reasons, that there must be a "necessary existent". (Full article...)
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Nishidhi, a 14th-century memorial stone depicting the observance of the vow of Sallekhana with old Kannada inscription. Found at Tavanandi forest, Karnataka, India.

Sallekhana (IAST: sallekhanā), also known as samlehna, santhara, samadhi-marana or sanyasana-marana, is a supplementary vow to the ethical code of conduct of Jainism. It is the religious practice of voluntarily fasting to death by gradually reducing the intake of food and liquids. It is viewed in Jainism as the thinning of human passions and the body, and another means of destroying rebirth-influencing karma by withdrawing all physical and mental activities. It is not considered a suicide by Jain scholars because it is not an act of passion, nor does it employ poisons or weapons. After the sallekhana vow, the ritual preparation and practice can extend into years.
Sallekhana is a vow available to both Jain ascetics and householders. Historic evidence such as nishidhi engravings suggest sallekhana was observed by both men and women, including queens, in Jain history. However, in the modern era, death through sallekhana has been a relatively uncommon event. (Full article...)
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Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism holds the position that modern societies are patriarchal—they prioritize the male point of view—and that women are treated unjustly in these societies. Efforts to change this include fighting against gender stereotypes and improving educational, professional, and interpersonal opportunities and outcomes for women.

Originating in late 18th-century Europe, feminist movements have campaigned and continue to campaign for women's rights, including the right to vote, run for public office, work, earn equal pay, own property, receive education, enter into contracts, have equal rights within marriage, and maternity leave. Feminists have also worked to ensure access to contraception, legal abortions, and social integration; and to protect women and girls from sexual assault, sexual harassment, and domestic violence. Changes in female dress standards and acceptable physical activities for women have also been part of feminist movements. (Full article...)
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J. Hunter Guthrie in 1949

Joseph Hunter Guthrie (January 8, 1901 – November 11, 1974) was an American academic philosopher, writer, Jesuit, and Catholic priest. Born in New York City, he entered the Society of Jesus in 1917, and began his studies at Woodstock College. Following his undergraduate and graduate work there, he taught at Jesuit institutions in the Philippines until 1927. Following his ordination in 1930, he received doctorates in theology and philosophy from the Pontifical Gregorian University and the University of Paris, respectively. He then returned to the United States, where he became a professor of philosophy at Woodstock College and Fordham University.

In 1943, Guthrie became the chairman of graduate philosophy at Georgetown University and dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. In this role, he admitted the first women to the school on equal terms as men. For twenty years, he promoted the belief that intellectuals must play a central role in combatting the ideologies that led to World War II. To that end, he was a member of the drafting committee of the UNESCO charter, was a co-founder of an American academy of Catholic intellectuals, and travelled the world with the U.S. State Department, for which he received honors from several countries and organizations. (Full article...)
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David Émile Durkheim (/ˈdɜːrkhaɪm/; French: [emil dyʁkɛm] or [dyʁkajm]; 15 April 1858 – 15 November 1917) was a French sociologist. Durkheim formally established the academic discipline of sociology and is commonly cited as one of the principal architects of modern social science, along with both Karl Marx and Max Weber.

Much of Durkheim's work was concerned with how societies can maintain their integrity and coherence in modernity, an era in which traditional social and religious ties are much less universal, and in which new social institutions have come into being. Durkheim's conception of the scientific study of society laid the groundwork for modern sociology, and he used such scientific tools as statistics, surveys, and historical observation in his analysis of suicides in Roman Catholic and Protestant groups. (Full article...)
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Einstein in 1947

Albert Einstein (14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist who is best known for developing the theory of relativity. Einstein also made important contributions to quantum mechanics. His mass–energy equivalence formula $E = mc 2$ , which arises from special relativity, has been called "the world's most famous equation". He received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics for his services to theoretical physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect.

Born in the German Empire, Einstein moved to Switzerland in 1895, forsaking his German citizenship (as a subject of the Kingdom of Württemberg) the following year. In 1897, at the age of seventeen, he enrolled in the mathematics and physics teaching diploma program at the Swiss federal polytechnic school in Zurich, graduating in 1900. He acquired Swiss citizenship a year later, which he kept for the rest of his life, and afterwards secured a permanent position at the Swiss Patent Office in Bern. In 1905, he submitted a successful PhD dissertation to the University of Zurich. In 1914, he moved to Berlin to join the Prussian Academy of Sciences and the Humboldt University of Berlin, becoming director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics in 1917; he also became a German citizen again, this time as a subject of the Kingdom of Prussia. In 1933, while Einstein was visiting the United States, Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany. Horrified by the Nazi persecution of his fellow Jews, he decided to remain in the US, and was granted American citizenship in 1940. On the eve of World War II, he endorsed a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt alerting him to the potential German nuclear weapons program and recommending that the US begin similar research. (Full article...)
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Chernyi, c. 1923

Pavel Dmitrievich Turchaninov (Russian: Па́вел Дми́триевич Турчани́нов, IPA: [ˈpavʲɪl ˈdmʲitrʲɪjɪvʲɪtɕ tʊrtɕɪˈnʲinəf]; 1878–1921), commonly known by his pseudonym Lev Chernyi (Russian: Лев Чёрный, IPA: [ˈlʲef ˈtɕɵrnɨj] ), was a Russian individualist anarchist. Having joined the anarchist movement during the Russian Revolution of 1905, during which he developed his individualist theory of "associational anarchism", Chernyi was arrested and exiled to Siberia for his revolutionary activities. After several escape attempts, one of which resulted in mutinous exiles capturing Turukhansk, he managed to flee to Paris, where he stayed until the Russian Revolution of 1917. After returning to Russia, he acted as secretary for the Moscow Federation of Anarchist Groups and organised the Black Guards, the federation's armed wing. As political repression against anarchists intensified after the Bolsheviks took power, Chernyi joined an underground anarchist group, which bombed a Russian Communist Party meeting. In 1921, Chernyi and Fanya Baron were arrested on charges of counterfeiting and were executed by shooting by the Cheka. (Full article...)
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Portrait of Newton, 1689

Sir Isaac Newton (4 January [O.S. 25 December] 1643 – 31 March [O.S. 20 March] 1727) was an English polymath active as a mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author. Newton was a key figure in the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment that followed. His book Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy), first published in 1687, achieved the first great unification in physics and established classical mechanics. Newton also made seminal contributions to optics, and shares credit with German mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz for formulating infinitesimal calculus, though he developed calculus years before Leibniz. Newton contributed to and refined the scientific method, and his work is considered the most influential in bringing forth modern science.

In the Principia, Newton formulated the laws of motion and universal gravitation that formed the dominant scientific viewpoint for centuries until it was superseded by the theory of relativity. He used his mathematical description of gravity to derive Kepler's laws of planetary motion, account for tides, the trajectories of comets, the precession of the equinoxes and other phenomena, eradicating doubt about the Solar System's heliocentricity. Newton solved the two-body problem, and introduced the three-body problem. He demonstrated that the motion of objects on Earth and celestial bodies could be accounted for by the same principles. Newton's inference that the Earth is an oblate spheroid was later confirmed by the geodetic measurements of Alexis Clairaut, Charles Marie de La Condamine, and others, convincing most European scientists of the superiority of Newtonian mechanics over earlier systems. He was also the first to calculate the age of Earth by experiment, and described a precursor to the modern wind tunnel. (Full article...)
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Pre-Socratic philosophy, also known as early Greek philosophy, is ancient Greek philosophy before Socrates. Pre-Socratic philosophers were mostly interested in cosmology, the beginning and the substance of the universe, but the inquiries of these early philosophers spanned the workings of the natural world as well as human society, ethics, and religion. They sought explanations based on natural law rather than the actions of gods. Their work and writing has been almost entirely lost. Knowledge of their views comes from testimonia, i.e. later authors' discussions of the work of pre-Socratics. Philosophy found fertile ground in the ancient Greek world because of the close ties with neighboring civilizations and the rise of autonomous civil entities, poleis.

Pre-Socratic philosophy began in the 6th century BC with the three Milesians: Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes. They all attributed the arche (a word that could take the meaning of "origin", "substance" or "principle") of the world to, respectively, water, apeiron (the unlimited), and air. Another three pre-Socratic philosophers came from nearby Ionian towns: Xenophanes, Heraclitus, and Pythagoras. Xenophanes is known for his critique of the anthropomorphism of gods. Heraclitus, who was notoriously difficult to understand, is known for his maxim on impermanence, ta panta rhei, and for attributing fire to be the arche of the world. Pythagoras created a cult-like following that advocated that the universe was made up of numbers. The Eleatic school (Parmenides, Zeno of Elea, and Melissus) followed in the 5th century BC. Parmenides claimed that only one thing exists and nothing can change. Zeno and Melissus mainly defended Parmenides' opinion. Anaxagoras and Empedocles offered a pluralistic account of how the universe was created. Leucippus and Democritus are known for their atomism, and their views that only void and matter exist. The Sophists advanced philosophical relativism. The Pre-Socratics have had significant impact on several concepts of Western philosophy, such as naturalism and rationalism, and paved the way for scientific methodology. (Full article...)
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1799 portrait

Georg Philipp Friedrich Freiherr von Hardenberg (2 May 1772 – 25 March 1801), pen name Novalis (/noʊˈvɑːlɪs/; German: [noˈvaːlɪs]), was a German aristocrat and polymath, who was a poet, novelist, philosopher and mystic. He is regarded as an influential figure of Jena Romanticism.

Novalis was born into a minor aristocratic family in Electoral Saxony. He was the second of eleven children; his early household observed a strict Pietist faith. He studied law at the University of Jena, the University of Leipzig, and the University of Wittenberg. While at Jena, he published his first poem and befriended the playwright and fellow poet Friedrich Schiller. In Leipzig, he then met Friedrich Schlegel, becoming lifelong friends. Novalis completed his law degree in 1794 at the age of 22. He then worked as a legal assistant in Tennstedt immediately after graduating. There, he met Sophie von Kühn. The following year Novalis and Sophie became secretly engaged. Sophie became severely ill soon after the engagement and died just after her 15th birthday. Sophie's early death had a life-long impact on Novalis and his writing. (Full article...)
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Aurobindo, c. 1900

Sri Aurobindo (born Aurobindo Ghose; 15 August 1872 – 5 December 1950) was an Indian yogi, maharishi, and Indian nationalist. He also edited the newspaper Bande Mataram.

Aurobindo studied for the Indian Civil Service at King's College, in Cambridge, England. After returning to India, he took up various civil service works under the Maharaja of the princely state of Baroda. He became increasingly involved in nationalist politics in the Indian National Congress and the nascent revolutionary movement in Bengal with the Anushilan Samiti. He was arrested in the aftermath of a number of bombings linked to his organization in a public trial where he faced charges of treason for Alipore Conspiracy and then released, after which he moved to Pondicherry and developed a spiritual practice he called Integral Yoga. He wrote The Life Divine, which deals with the philosophical aspect of Integral Yoga and Synthesis of Yoga, which deals with the principles and methods of Integral Yoga. In 1926, he and Mira Alfassa founded Sri Aurobindo Ashram. (Full article...)
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Philosophy of science is the branch of philosophy concerned with the foundations, methods, and implications of science. Amongst its central questions are the difference between science and non-science, the reliability of scientific theories, and the ultimate purpose and meaning of science as a human endeavour. Philosophy of science focuses on metaphysical, epistemic and semantic aspects of scientific practice, and overlaps with metaphysics, ontology, logic, and epistemology, for example, when it explores the relationship between science and the concept of truth. Philosophy of science is both a theoretical and empirical discipline, relying on philosophical theorising as well as meta-studies of scientific practice. Ethical issues such as bioethics and scientific misconduct are often considered ethics or science studies rather than the philosophy of science.

Many of the central problems concerned with the philosophy of science lack contemporary consensus, including whether science can infer truth about unobservable entities and whether inductive reasoning can be justified as yielding definite scientific knowledge. Philosophers of science also consider philosophical problems within particular sciences (such as biology, physics and social sciences such as economics and psychology). Some philosophers of science also use contemporary results in science to reach conclusions about philosophy itself. (Full article...)

General images - load new batch

The following are images from various philosophy-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Ionia, source of early Greek philosophy, in western Asia Minor (from Western philosophy)
Image 2Portrait of John Locke, by Sir Godfrey Kneller, 1697 (from Western philosophy)
Image 3Patricia Churchland, 2005 (from Western philosophy)
Image 4Adi Shankara (8th century CE) the main exponent of Advaita Vedānta (from Eastern philosophy)
Image 5Hu Shih and DT Suzuki during his visit to China in 1934 (from Eastern philosophy)
Image 6Ferdinand de Saussure (from Western philosophy)
Image 7Portrait of René Descartes, after Frans Hals, second half of 17th century (from Western philosophy)
Image 8Confucius (from Eastern philosophy)
Image 9Pyrrho of Elis, marble head, Roman copy, Archaeological Museum of Corfu (from Western philosophy)
Image 10The Buddhist Nalanda university and monastery was a major center of learning in India from the 5th century CE to c. 1200. (from Eastern philosophy)
Image 11Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, 1695 (from Western philosophy)
Image 12Søren Kierkegaard, sketch by Niels Christian Kierkegaard, c. 1840 (from Western philosophy)
Image 13Sigmund Freud by Max Halberstadt, c. 1921 (from Western philosophy)
Image 14Aristotle in The School of Athens, by Raphael (from Western philosophy)
Image 15Friedrich Nietzsche, photograph by Friedrich Hartmann, c. 1875 (from Western philosophy)
Image 16Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, steel engraving, after 1828 (from Western philosophy)
Image 17From left to right: Virchand Gandhi, Anagarika Dharmapala, Swami Vivekananda, G. Bonet Maury. Parliament of World Religions, 1893 (from Eastern philosophy)
Image 18Bronze statue of Giordano Bruno by Ettore Ferrari, Campo de' Fiori, Rome (from Western philosophy)
Image 19Map of Alexander the Great's empire and the route he and Pyrrho of Elis took to India (from Western philosophy)
Image 20Avicenna (from Medieval philosophy)
Image 21Erasmus is Credited as the Prince of the Humanists (from Western philosophy)
Image 22Valluvar, the Tamil philosopher of the post-Sangam era (from Eastern philosophy)
Image 23Xiong Shili circa 1960 (from Eastern philosophy)
Image 24Bust of Socrates, Roman copy after a Greek original from the 4th century BCE (from Western philosophy)
Image 25Edmund Husserl, in the 1910s (from Western philosophy)
Image 26Bertrand Russell (from Western philosophy)
Image 27Four Greek philosophers: Socrates, Antisthenes, Chrysippos, Epicurus; British Museum (from Ancient Greek philosophy)
Image 28The Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove, embroidery, 1860–1880 (from Eastern philosophy)
Image 29Martin Heidegger (from Western philosophy)
Image 30William James in 1906 (from Western philosophy)
Image 31Fukuzawa Yukichi (1862) a key civil rights activist and liberal thinker (from Eastern philosophy)
Image 32Portrait of Immanuel Kant, c. 1790 (from Western philosophy)
Image 33Portrait of David Hume, by Allan Ramsay, 1754 (from Western philosophy)
Image 34Gottlob Frege, c. 1905 (from Western philosophy)
Image 35Abbo of Fleury (from Medieval philosophy)
Image 36The philosopher Pyrrho of Elis, in an anecdote taken from Sextus Empiricus' Outlines of Pyrrhonism
(upper)PIRRHO • HELIENSIS •
PLISTARCHI • FILIVS
translation (from Latin): Pyrrho • Greek • Son of Plistarchus

(middle)OPORTERE • SAPIENTEM
HANC ILLIVS IMITARI
SECVRITATEMtranslation (from Latin): It is right wisdom then that all imitate this security (Pyrrho pointing at a peaceful pig munching his food)

(lower)Whoever wants to apply the real wisdom, shall not mind trepidation and misery
(from Ancient Greek philosophy)
Image 37St. Anselm of Canterbury is credited as the founder of scholasticism. (from Western philosophy)
Image 38Saint Augustine. (from Western philosophy)
Image 39Portrait by Philippe de Champaigne, 17th century (from Medieval philosophy)

Selected pictures

Image 1Philosophy, an 1896 mural by Robert Lewis Reid in the North Corridor on the Second Floor of the Library of Congress Thomas Jefferson Building, Washington, D.C.. The caption underneath reads: "HOW CHARMING IS DIVINE PHILOSOPHY."
Image 2Painting of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz by Christoph Bernhard Francke, Braunschweig, Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, 1700.
Image 3The House Builders (Portraits of Sir W.E. & The Hon. Lady Welby-Gregory), an 1880 painting by Frank Dicksee
Image 4Niels Bohr (1885–1962) was a Danish physicist who made foundational contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum theory, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922. Bohr was also a philosopher and a promoter of scientific research.
Image 5Leo Tolstoy in 1897. Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy was a Russian writer who is regarded as one of the greatest authors of all time.
Image 6A statue of peripatetic philosopher and botanist Theophrastus at the Palermo Botanical Gardens.
Image 7Lady Dorothy Browne and Sir Thomas Browne is an oil on panel painting attributed to the English artist Joan Carlile, and probably completed between 1641 and 1650. The painting depicts English physician Thomas Browne and his wife Dorothy.
Image 8Voltairine de Cleyre (1866–1912) was an American anarchist known for being a prolific writer and speaker who opposed state power, the capitalism she saw as interconnected with it, and marriage, and the domination of religion over sexuality and women's lives. She is often characterized as a major early feminist because of her views.
Image 9Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805) was a German poet, philosopher, physician, historian and playwright.
Image 10Carl von Linné, Alexander Roslin, 1775 (oil on canvas, Gripsholm Castle). Linnaeus was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming organisms. He is known as the "father of modern taxonomy".
Image 11Oscar Wilde reclining with Poems, by Napoleon Sarony, in New York in 1882. Wilde often liked to appear idle, though in fact he worked hard; by the late 1880s he was a father, an editor, and a writer.
Image 12The statue of Immanuel Kant in front of the Immanuel Kant State University of Russia in Kaliningrad. The statue was made by notable sculptor Christian Daniel Rauch and unveiled in 1864. The statue was destroyed in 1945, but was remoulded in 1992 on the initiative of Marion Dönhoff.
Image 13Plato (left) and Aristotle (right), a detail of The School of Athens, a fresco by Raphael. Aristotle gestures to the earth, representing his belief in knowledge through empirical observation and experience, while holding a copy of his Nicomachean Ethics in his hand, whilst Plato gestures to the heavens, representing his belief in The Forms.
Image 14Umberto Eco (1932–2016) was an Italian novelist, literary critic, philosopher, semiotician, and university professor. He is widely known for his 1980 novel Il nome della rosa (The Name of the Rose), a historical mystery combining semiotics in fiction with biblical analysis, medieval studies, and literary theory.
Image 15Adam Smith (baptised 16 June 1723 – died 17 July 1790 [OS: 5 June 1723 – 17 July 1790]) was a Scottish moral philosopher and a pioneer of political economics. One of the key figures of the Scottish Enlightenment, Smith is the author of The Theory of Moral Sentiments and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. The latter, usually abbreviated as The Wealth of Nations, is considered his magnum opus and the first modern work of economics. Smith is widely cited as the father of modern economics.
Image 16Jane Addams (1860–1935) was an American settlement activist, reformer, social worker, sociologist, public administrator and author. She was a notable figure in the history of social work and women's suffrage in the United States and an advocate for world peace.
Image 17The center third of Education (1890), a stained glass window by Louis Comfort Tiffany and Tiffany Studios, located in Linsly-Chittenden Hall at Yale University. It depicts Science (personified by Devotion, Labor, Truth, Research and Intuition) and Religion (personified by Purity, Faith, Hope, Reverence and Inspiration) in harmony, presided over by the central personification of "Light·Love·Life".

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Academic Branches of Philosophy

Philosophy ponders the most fundamental questions humankind has been able to ask. These are increasingly numerous and over time they have been arranged into the overlapping branches of the philosophy tree:

Aesthetics: What is art? What is beauty? Is there a standard of taste? Is art meaningful? If so, what does it mean? What is good art? Is art for the purpose of an end, or is "art for art's sake?" What connects us to art? How does art affect us? Is some art unethical? Can art corrupt or elevate societies?
Epistemology: What are the nature and limits of knowledge? What is more fundamental to human existence, knowing (epistemology) or being (ontology)? How do we come to know what we know? What are the limits and scope of knowledge? How can we know that there are other minds (if we can)? How can we know that there is an external world (if we can)? How can we prove our answers? What is a true statement?
Ethics: Is there a difference between ethically right and wrong actions (or values, or institutions)? If so, what is that difference? Which actions are right, and which wrong? Do divine commands make right acts right, or is their rightness based on something else? Are there standards of rightness that are absolute, or are all such standards relative to particular cultures? How should I live? What is happiness?
Logic: What makes a good argument? How can I think critically about complicated arguments? What makes for good thinking? When can I say that something just does not make sense? Where is the origin of logic?
Metaphysics: What sorts of things exist? What is the nature of those things? Do some things exist independently of our perception? What is the nature of space and time? What is the relationship of the mind to the body? What is it to be a person? What is it to be conscious? Do gods exist?
Political philosophy: Are political institutions and their exercise of power justified? What is justice? Is there a 'proper' role and scope of government? Is democracy the best form of governance? Is governance ethically justifiable? Should a state be allowed? Should a state be able to promote the norms and values of a certain moral or religious doctrine? Are states allowed to go to war? Do states have duties against inhabitants of other states?