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Dictionary

The RYI Dictionary of Philosophy is an open, free, and collaborative project between the Rational Youth Initiative (RYI) and the community that accepts entries relating to philosophical concepts. We welcome community submissions regarding possible entries to feature on our dictionary, as well as submissions to continuously further the quality of content that appears. If you see an entry that needs editing or if the definition is unclear, we encourage anyone to submit a form that both alerts us of the issue and helps the veracity of the entries. To fill out this document, please submit the form that appears on our Get Involved page. Thank you, and enjoy!

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Idealism

Key Figures: Immanuel Kant, George Berkeley, G.W.F. Hegel, Johann Fichte, F.W.J von Schelling, Arthur Schopenhauer, etc.

Intuitionism (in Mathematics)

Key Figures: L.E.J. Brouwer, David Hilbert, Kurt Gödel, George Cantor, Arend Heyting, Michael Dummett, Leopold Kronecker, etc.

Just War Theory

Key Figures: Michael Walzer, Michael Dockrill, Jeff McMahan, Richard Norman, Seth Lazar, etc.

Logic

Key Figures: Gottlob Frege, Bertrand Russel, Aristotle, W.V.O. Quine, Charles Sanders Peirce, etc.

Logical Positivism

Key Figures: A.J. Ayer, Bertrand Russel, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Rudolph Carnap, Otto Neurath, Karl Popper (influential in his critiques), etc.

Materialism

Key Figures: David Hume, Rudolf Carnap, J.J.C. Smart, Democritus, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, Karl Marx, Baron d'Holbach, etc.

Metaphysics

Key Figures: Aristotle, Immanuel Kant, Plato, G.W.F. Hegel, George Berkeley, Thomas Aquinas, and most philosophers in general.

Monism

Key Figures: Baruch Spinoza, Plato, Parmenides, Plotinus, F.H. Bradley, Josiah Royce, etc.

Natural Law

Key Figures: Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, John Austin, Thomas Hobbes, John Finnis, Lon L. Fuller, Ronald Dworkin, etc.

Natural Rights

Key Philosophers: Hugo Grotius, Thomas Aquinas, John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, John Stuart Mill, Mary Wollstonecraft, etc.

Nihilism

Key Figures: Friedrich Nietzsche, Soren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Heinrich Jacob, Ivan Turgenev, Martin Heidegger, etc.

Nominalism

Key Figures: John Locke, George Berkeley, Goodman, Quine, Ockham, Abelard, Buridan, etc.

Noumena

Key Figures: Immanuel Kant, and many other metaphysicians such as Plato who discussed a world of ‘truth’ beyond our mistaken one, etc.

Occasionalism

Key Figures: Nicolas Malebranche, al-Ghazali, Louis de la Forge, Géraud de Cordemoy, Johannes Clauberg, Arnold Geulincx, etc.

Ontology

Key Figures: Plato, Thales, Rudolph Carnap, W.V.O. Quine, Aristotle, Christian Wolff, Alfred North Whitehead, etc.

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