GetWiki (getwiki.net): Metaphysics to Metadata

M.R.M. Parrott

2012-10-03T01:38:44Z

Mark Ray Martin Parrott (born 12 Oct 1966) is an American philosopher, writer, musician, photographer, designer, and programmer, known for his early adoption of independent, small press Publishing, and as developer of GetWiki, a wiki/blog website focusing on Philosophy and other subjects. M.R.M. Parrott's books include the "Timeless" Trilogy of novels, "Driving Home" Travelogue, the "Dynamism" Series of Philosophy and Science treatises, and a number of chapbooks of poems and short stories. Also a Philosophy professor, M.R.M...

Dynamism (M.R.M. Parrott)

2011-07-02T17:56:13Z

Dynamism (see Dynamism for encyclopedic information) is a series of treatises in Philosophy by M.R.M. Parrott, addressing subjects from Science, to Religion, and everything in between, such as a Theory of Life, Subjectivity, Ethics, and more. Volume I: Force (Web)Quantum Physics and OntologyISBN 0-9746106-1-5, February 2005KindleOn the experimental findings establishing Quantum Physics, including Quantum Mechanics, Quantum Harominics and Spin Networks, as the correct view of Reality. Metaphysical influences are the context of a new view of Ontology, or a Metaphysics of Being and...

Metaphysics

2011-04-28T15:50:44Z

Metaphysics is a difficult branch of Philosophy, but is rather easy to define: It is the study of the most fundamental concepts and beliefs about them. Examples of metaphysical concepts are Being, Existence, Purpose, Universals, Property, Relation, Causality, Space, Time, Event, and many others. They are fundamental, because all other concepts and beliefs rest on them. All Knowledge and Value is based upon the definitions of these concepts. Metaphysical Origins: Of course, it would be easy to think that Metaphysics has changed since it first received its name by Aristotle's editors...

Immanuel Kant

2010-03-03T20:03:39Z

Immanuel Kant (22 Apr 1724 - 12 Feb 1804) was a Prussian (German) philosopher, generally regarded as the most major figure in Modern Philosophy, put alongside Plato and Aristotle from Ancient Philosophy. This makes Kant one of history's most influential thinkers. Known for his highly articulated "Transcendental Idealism", Kant's theory of Epistemology states that Reason applies "innate" Forms and Concepts to our Experience, inputs from the world coming through our Senses. Thus, the world would be unknowable without either experience or concepts, each working to project knowledge gained into future possible experiences. This is Kant's...

Pseudopedia

2010-01-03T13:47:03Z

How many students have relied on false information from Wikipedia? Is the fact that it's a Wiki relevant to the question? "Pseudopedia", "The Wikipedia", is an open-content information website, whose co-founder claims is the "sum of all human knowledge", or at least, that it should become that sum. Since 2003, The Wikipedia has immensely popularized the concepts of "Wiki" and free information in the public imagination. With countless pages on the widest range of topics, the website has become a popular, easily-linked source. However, this same Wikipedia is also a collection of biased opinions, inaccurate information, and cyber-bullying. In cases...

Gottfried Leibniz

2009-12-18T01:41:28Z

Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz (1 Jul 1646 - 14 Nov 1716) was a German philosopher and mathematician, writing primarily in Latin and French, who, independently of Newton, invented Calculus, invented the Binary Number System, and was a contributor to a vast array of subjects, including Philosophy, Physics, Technology, Politics, Law, Ethics, Theology, History and Philology. He is grouped along with René Descartes and Baruch Spinoza as one of the three great 17th Century "rationalists". Leibniz's works are scattered in journals and in tens of thousands of letters and unpublished manuscripts. Life and...

Baruch Spinoza

2009-12-12T18:28:24Z

Baruch Benedict de Spinoza (24 Nov 1632 - 21 Feb 1677) was a Dutch philosopher of a Portuguese Jewish family, whose controversial metaphysical ideas led to cherem (removal) against him from Jewish Society, and his works were banned by the Vatican. Despite his considerable scientific aptitude, the breadth and importance of Spinoza's work was not fully realized until years after his death, if even today, although considered one of the great 17th Century philosophers. Spinoza, with Bacon, Descartes, Leibniz and Locke laid the groundwork for the 18th Century Enlightenment and fully Modern Philosophy...

John Locke

2009-12-12T16:03:52Z

John Locke (29 Aug 1632 - 28 Oct 1704) was an English physician and philosopher and a key Enlightenment influence. After Francis Bacon and Thomas Hobbes, Locke developed Empiricism as a strong response to Cartesian Dualism and Rationalism, and a new Contract Theory in response to the Machiavellian Prince and Hobbsian Leviathan. Locke's theory of Mind based on Experience is, with Descartes' focus on Innate Ideas, part of the origin of modern conceptions of Identity and Self, figuring prominently in the work of David Hume, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Immanuel...

David Hume

2009-12-12T14:28:17Z

David Hume (7 May 1711 - 25 Aug 1776) was a Scottish philosopher, a key essayist in the Enlightenment, and most known for his subtle argument against "causality" using "induction". Hume's six-volume History of England (1754 - 1762) was very popular well into the nineteenth century. Influenced by the "empiricism" of John Locke, the "material idealism" of George Berkeley, along with Pierre Bayle, Isaac Newton, Samuel Clarke, Hume saught to "put the science of man on a new footing." Hume's Liberalism has continued to influence Political Philosophy and Economics, and he is still read as an early innovator in essay writing. Life and Works: Originally David Home, son of Joseph Home...

Max Weber

2009-10-12T16:53:17Z

Max Weber (21 Apr 1864 - 14 Jun 1920) was a German thinker who developed a "Hermeneutic" tradition in Sociology and Economics. Weber based many of his economic studies on early twentieth-century Germany, and became well-known for his study of the "bureaucratization" of society. Life and Works: Born in Erfurt, Germany, and the eldest of seven children of Max Weber and Helene, young Max, along with Vilfredo Pareto and Emile Durkheim, became one of the founders of modern Sociology. Instead of following Auguste Comte, who worked in a "positivist" tradition, Weber worked in an idealist, hermeneutic tradition, and developed the notion of "ideal-type". Weber posited a view of the State so pivotal to Western...

Charles Sanders Peirce

2009-10-12T16:30:32Z

Charles Sanders Peirce (10 Sep 1839 - 19 Apr 1914, and pronounced: "Purse") was an American philosopher, logician, mathematician, and developer of Semiotics, for which he is largely appreciated today. Peirce considered himself a logician first and foremost, and made major contributions to the development of Formal Logic still read in studies of Knowledge, Language, and Science. Life and Works: Charles Sanders Peirce was the son of Sarah Hunt Mills and Benjamin Peirce, a professor of Astronomy and Mathematics at Harvard University, an early research mathematician in America. At 12, Charles read Richard Whately's Elements of...

George Berkeley

2009-10-12T14:57:22Z

George Berkeley (12 Mar 1685 - 14 Jan 1753, and pronounced: "Barkly") was an Anglo-Irish philosopher who advanced a theory of "Immaterialism" and was known as the good "Bishop Berkeley". Seen as a poweful "subjective idealism", Berkeley argued we can directly know only our own Sensation and Idea of an Object. The notion of "matter", for example, is an idea dependent upon being perceived by the Mind, which Berkeley described as "esse est percipi", or "to be is to be percieved." His development in The Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge (1710) and Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous (1713), where Philonous and Hylas represented Berkeley and John Locke, as well as his...

John Rawls

2009-10-09T11:01:30Z

John Bordley Rawls (21 Feb 1921 - 24 Nov 2002), a Harvard University professor, was a leading American figure in Moral Philosophy. Rawls' A Theory of Justice (1971) is considered a primary text in political and ethical reasoning, and he earned a Schock Prize for Logic and Philosophy, and a National Humanities Medal presented by U.S. President Bill Clinton in 1999, recognizing how Rawls "helped a whole generation of learned Americans revive their faith in Democracy itself." A Theory of Justice, with its "Liberalist" idea of "Justice as Fairness", the idea of liberty and fair equality of opportunity working with the real differences brought about by the "Original Position", helped revive study of Philosophy in...

Philosophy

2009-10-07T22:04:37Z

What is Philosophy? This question is as "philosophical" and profound as any of the big questions philosophers ask. The diverse, cultural activity of Philosophy is the historical study of the meaning and justification of beliefs about the most general and universal aspects of all things. It is a study carried out, not only by experimentation and careful observation, but also by formulating problems carefully, or logically. By composing arguments and offering solutions and counter-arguments to those arguments, philosophers engage in a conversation about the greatest ideas. It's the critical, speculative, analytical study of "The Big...

New Philosophy

2009-09-29T19:30:58Z

Philosophy in the 21st Century is reacting to two major forces affecting its way of life. The first, a dismantling or destructive force, comes primarily from Academia, while the second, a rebuilding or constructive force, comes mainly from the diversity of voices and media through which philosophers can now communicate and share ideas. The last generations of academic philosophers who are situated under Contemporary Philosophy are now either nearing the end of their careers or are no longer with us. Theirs were philosophically powerful generations of "Post-Structuralism" and "Deconstruction", with new...

GetWiki:PhilosophyTabs

2009-09-29T18:43:57Z

Philosophy � Philosophical Method Western | Middle Eastern | African | Eastern | New Trends

Plato

2009-09-29T10:06:27Z

Plato (428-27 - 348-47 BC) was a major Greek thinker in Ancient Philosophy, a student of Socrates, founder of the first Academy, and with his student Aristotle and the most important modern philosopher Kant, is still considered one of the singularly important thinkers of all time. Some thirty-five "Socratic" dialogues and thirteen letters have been ascribed to Plato, and like Aristotle's own dialogues which were lost, Plato's treatises, if any, were lost as well. As a result, the pedagogical use of his dialogues in the Academy he founded is still unclear. Plato emerged among a group of Greek,...

Aristotle

2009-09-29T09:52:48Z

Aristotle (384-322 BC) was a major Greek thinker in Ancient Philosophy, a student of Plato (who was student of Socrates) and a teacher of Alexander the Great. Aristotle was the first to treat many of the subjects we know separately, from Metaphysics, Logic and Physics to Ethics, Poetics, Politics and more. Alongside Plato and Kant, Aristotle is a most important figure in Western Philosophy, the first to create a comprehensive system of thought encompassing the nature of reality, science, morality, politics and beauty. Unfortunately, though Aristotle wrote many elegant treatises and dialogues, described by Cicero as...

Ren� Descartes

2009-09-29T09:38:03Z

René Descartes (31 Mar 1596 - 11 Feb 1650), also known as Renatus Cartesius and dubbed "Father of Modern Philosophy", was a French philosopher crucial to Western Philosophy in the fields of Metaphysics and Philosophy of Mind, and he was a key figure, with Francis Bacon and others, in the Scientific Revolution. Descartes' Meditations on First Philosophy (1642) has become a standard text in many Philosophy courses, and in Mathematics, he established Analytic Geometry, and the Cartesian Coördinate System, Coördinate Algebra, which allows geometric shapes to be expressed in algebraic equations. Descartes is often cited as a "Continental Rationalist" in American schools, apart from the "British...

Thomas Hobbes

2009-09-29T09:33:06Z

Thomas Hobbes (5 Apr 1588 - 4 Dec 1679) was an English political philosopher, most famous for his book Leviathan (1651), and his view of a "state of nature" to avoid, a life "brutish, nasty and short". His view of the necessity of a powerful central Government, where some may be stronger or more intelligent than others, but none are beyond fear of another doing harm to them. Thus, society enters into a "social contract". This view was very influential on Jean-Jacques Rousseau and others in the Enlightenment. For Hobbes, society needs an authority to whom all members surrender enough of their natural liberty to be able to ensure internal peace and a common defense. This benevolent sovereign, whether monarch...