The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to philosophy:
Philosophy – study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. It is distinguished from other ways of addressing fundamental questions (such as mysticism, myth, or the arts) by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational argument. The word "Philosophy" comes from the Greek philosophia (φιλοσοφία), which literally means "love of wisdom".
The core areas of philosophy are:
Aesthetics – study of the nature of beauty, art, and taste, and the creation of personal kinds of truth
Epistemology – study of the nature and scope of knowledge and belief
Ethics – study of the right, the good, and the valuable. Includes study of applied ethics
Logic – study of good reasoning, by examining the validity of arguments and documenting their fallacies
Metaphysics – study of the state of being and the nature of reality
The branches of philosophy are divided into the many fields of philosophy:
Ethics – study of the right, the good, and the valuable
Applied ethics – philosophical examination, from a moral standpoint, of particular issues in private and public life that are matters of moral judgment. It is thus the attempts to use philosophical methods to identify the morally correct course of action in various fields of human life.
Decision ethics – ethical theories and ethical decision processes
Environmental ethics – studies ethical issues concerning the non-human world. It exerts influence on a large range of disciplines including environmental law, environmental sociology, ecotheology, ecological economics, ecology and environmental geography.
Professional ethics – ethics to improve professionalism
Computer ethics – deals with how computing professionals should make decisions regarding professional and social conduct
Ethics of artificial intelligence – specific to robots and other artificially intelligent beings.
Research ethics – application of fundamental ethical principles to a variety of topics involving research, including scientific research.
Bioethics – study of the typically controversial ethical issues emerging from new situations and possibilities brought about by advances in biology and medicine.
Medical ethics – ethics to improve basic health needs of humans
Business ethics – individual based morals to improve ethics in a business environment
Organizational ethics – ethics among organizations
Social ethics – ethics among nations and as one global unit
Descriptive ethics – study of people's beliefs about morality
Normative ethics – study of ethical theories that prescribe how people ought to act
Metaethics – branch of ethics that seeks to understand the nature of ethical properties, statements, attitudes, and judgments
Metaphysics – traditional branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world that encompasses it. Metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms: "What is ultimately there?" and, "What is it like?"
Ontology – philosophical study of the nature of being, becoming, existence, or reality, as well as the basic categories of being and their relations.
Philosophy of mind – studies the nature of the mind, mental events, mental functions, mental properties, consciousness, and their relationship to the physical body, particularly the brain.
Philosophy of space and time – branch of philosophy concerned with the issues surrounding the ontology, epistemology, and character of space and time.
Philosophy of action – theories about the processes causing willful human bodily movements of a more or less complex kind. This area of thought has attracted the strong interest of philosophers ever since Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics (Third Book).
Logic –
Propositional logic
Predicate logic
Modal logic
Political philosophy
Philosophy of language
Philosophy of religion
Philosophy of science
Meta-philosophy
Philosophy of law
Philosophy of education
Philosophy of history
Philosophy of mathematics
History of philosophy – study of philosophical ideas and concepts through time. Issues specifically related to history of philosophy might include (but are not limited to): How can changes in philosophy be accounted for historically? What drives the development of thought in its historical context? To what degree can philosophical texts from prior historical eras be understood even today?
Sophism
Epicureanism
Stoicism
Axial age
Medieval philosophy (Scholasticism)
Renaissance philosophy
Modern philosophy
Islamic philosophy
Indian philosophy
Chinese philosophy
Analytic philosophy
Continental philosophy
Analytic philosophy
Continental philosophy
Eastern philosophy
Aesthetics
Symbolism
Romanticism
Historicism
Classicism
Modernism
Postmodernism
Psychoanalytic theory
Epistemology
Ethics
Consequentialism
Deontology
Virtue ethics
Moral realism
Moral relativism
Error theory
Non-cognitivism
Ethical egoism
Cultural relativism
Evolutionary ethics
Evolution of morality
Logic
Classical logic
Intermediate logic
Intuitionistic logic
Minimal logic
Relevant logic
Affine logic
Linear logic
Ordered logic
Dialetheism
Metaphysics
Political philosophy
Anarchism
Authoritarianism
Conservatism
Liberalism
Libertarianism
Social democracy
Socialism
Philosophy of language
Philosophy of mind
Philosophy of religion
Buddhist philosophy
Christian philosophy
Hindu philosophy
Islamic philosophy
Jain philosophy
Jewish philosophy
Philosophy of science
Blackwell Companion to Philosophy
A History of Western Philosophy, by Bertrand Russell
A History of Philosophy, by Frederick Copleston
Encyclopedia of Philosophy – one of the major English encyclopedias of philosophy. The second edition, edited by Donald M. Borchert, was published in ten volumes in 2006 by Thomson Gale. Volumes 1–9 contain alphabetically ordered articles.
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy – free online encyclopedia on philosophical topics and philosophers founded by James Fieser in 1995. The current general editors are James Fieser (Professor of Philosophy at the University of Tennessee at Martin) and Bradley Dowden (Professor of Philosophy at California State University, Sacramento). The staff also includes numerous area editors as well as volunteers.
Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy – encyclopedia of philosophy edited by Edward Craig that was first published by Routledge in 1998 (ISBN 978-0415073103). Originally published in both 10 volumes of print and as a CD-ROM, in 2002 it was made available online on a subscription basis. The online version is regularly updated with new articles and revisions to existing articles. It has 1,300 contributors providing over 2,000 scholarly articles.
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy – combines an online encyclopedia of philosophy with peer reviewed publication of original papers in philosophy, freely-accessible to internet users. Each entry is written and maintained by an expert in the field, including professors from many academic institutions worldwide.
Lists of philosophers
Timeline of Western philosophers
Timeline of Eastern philosophers
