Philosophical Dictionary

Philosophical Dictionary
Nicolas de Largillière · CC0 · source
Title	Philosophical Dictionary
Subject	Philosophy
Genre	Reference work
Media type	Print
Pages	~716 words

Philosophical Dictionary is a concise encyclopedic work that provides alphabetically arranged articles on philosophers, philosophical movements, and key historical debates. It serves as a reference for readers seeking synoptic entries linking individuals and institutions such as Plato, Aristotle, Immanuel Kant, René Descartes, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, David Hume, John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, John Stuart Mill, Søren Kierkegaard, Michel Foucault, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Bertrand Russell, Alasdair MacIntyre, Simone de Beauvoir, Hannah Arendt, Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, Auguste Comte, Arthur Schopenhauer, G. E. Moore, Isaiah Berlin, Jürgen Habermas, John Rawls, Noam Chomsky, Thomas Nagel, Peter Singer, Willard Van Orman Quine, Donald Davidson, Hilary Putnam, Saul Kripke, G. A. Cohen, Rene Girard, Slavoj Žižek, Jacques Derrida, Alain Badiou, Gilles Deleuze, Cornel West, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Martha Nussbaum, Judith Butler, Richard Rorty, Charles Taylor, John Dewey, William James, Franz Brentano, Bernard Williams, Derek Parfit, Herbert Marcuse, Antonio Gramsci, Max Weber, Émile Durkheim, Pierre Bourdieu, Georges Bataille, Søren Aabye Kierkegaard, A. J. Ayer, R. G. Collingwood, C. S. Peirce, Henri Bergson, Alexandre Kojève, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Emmanuel Levinas, Leo Strauss, Isaac Newton, Galileo Galilei, Niccolò Machiavelli, Thomas Aquinas, Augustine of Hippo, John Calvin, Baruch Spinoza, Blaise Pascal, Pythagoras, Anaximander, Heraclitus, Parmenides, Zeno of Elea, Epicurus, Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Plotinus, Proclus, Philo of Alexandria, Maimonides, Avicenna, Al-Ghazali, Jalal al-Din Rumi, Wang Yangming, Confucius, Laozi, Zhuangzi, Nagarjuna, Buddha, Adi Shankara, Ramanuja, Srinivasa Ramanujan }}

Overview

The work compiles concise articles on figures such as Plato, Aristotle, Immanuel Kant, David Hume, John Locke and institutions like University of Oxford and Sorbonne while mapping connections to events including the French Revolution, Industrial Revolution, Reformation, Enlightenment, and Cold War. Entries cross-reference movements represented by Scholasticism, Rationalism, Empiricism, Existentialism, Phenomenology, Analytic philosophy, Continental philosophy, Marxism, Pragmatism, and Structuralism, situating thinkers alongside legal landmarks such as the Magna Carta and scientific milestones like Principia Mathematica and On the Origin of Species. The diction balances brevity and scholarly citation of primary authors including Immanuel Kant's critiques and Karl Marx's manuscripts while noting institutional affiliations to libraries such as the British Library and academies like the Académie Française.

History and Editions

The dictionary's editions often trace editorial lineages linked to presses and universities such as Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, Harvard University Press, Princeton University Press, Routledge, Penguin Books, Bloomsbury Publishing, and Springer. Early modern antecedents evoke collections assembled in the milieu of the Enlightenment and salons associated with figures like Voltaire and Diderot, and later revisions respond to intellectual currents after events including World War I, World War II, and the 1968 protests. Contributors and editors have included scholars affiliated with institutions such as University of Cambridge, Harvard University, University of Chicago, Columbia University, Yale University, Stanford University, London School of Economics, University of Berlin, University of Paris, and Princeton University. Special editions have commemorated anniversaries tied to thinkers like Plato's Academy, Socrates' trial, and centenaries of works like Critique of Pure Reason and Being and Time.

Scope and Methodology

Coverage spans classical antiquity through contemporary debates, treating authors including Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, William of Ockham, Maimonides, Avicenna, Al-Ghazali, Confucius, Laozi, Zhuangzi, Nagarjuna, and modern contributors such as Ludwig Wittgenstein and Bertrand Russell. Methodologically, the dictionary employs historiographical practices found in periodicals like Mind, The Journal of Philosophy, Philosophical Review, and Synthese and follows citation conventions used by academies such as the Royal Society and American Philosophical Society. Entries summarize doctrines tied to canonical works including Nicomachean Ethics, Meditations on First Philosophy, Critique of Pure Reason, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Being and Time, and A Theory of Justice, while cross-referencing jurisprudential and political texts like Leviathan and The Social Contract.

Notable Entries and Themes

Prominent entries treat metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, political philosophy, aesthetics, philosophy of language, and philosophy of mind through landmark figures such as Plato, Aristotle, René Descartes, John Locke, George Berkeley, Gottfried Leibniz, David Hume, Immanuel Kant, G. W. F. Hegel, Karl Marx, John Stuart Mill, Friedrich Nietzsche, Søren Kierkegaard, William James, Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Bertrand Russell, Saul Kripke, Willard Quine, Noam Chomsky, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, and Judith Butler. Thematic clusters connect to scientific figures and texts such as Isaac Newton, Galileo Galilei, Charles Darwin, Sigmund Freud, Albert Einstein, and Niels Bohr, and to political movements represented by Soviet Union, Paris Commune, American Revolution, Russian Revolution, and Civil Rights Movement.

Reception and Influence

Scholars and reviewers from journals and institutions including The Times Literary Supplement, New York Review of Books, The Guardian, The Economist, Harvard University, Princeton University, University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, Yale University, and Stanford University have debated its editorial choices, coverage of non-Western traditions such as Buddhism and Confucianism, and inclusion of marginal figures like Epicurus, Stoicism proponents (Marcus Aurelius, Seneca), Plotinus, and medieval scholars. Critiques invoked comparative studies with reference works like Encyclopædia Britannica, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, and library collections of the British Library and Library of Congress. Its influence extends to curricula at departments in Philosophy faculties across universities and to public intellectuals associated with forums like TED and media outlets such as BBC and The New Yorker.

Translations and Cultural Impact

Translations and adaptations have appeared in publishing markets tied to languages and cultural institutions including Académie française, Deutscher Verlag, Cambridge University Press international divisions, and publishers in Japan, China, India, Brazil, Russia, Spain, Germany, and France. The dictionary has been cited in works by authors linked to institutions such as Columbia University, University of Tokyo, Peking University, University of São Paulo, and Moscow State University and featured in exhibitions at museums and libraries like the British Library and Bibliothèque nationale de France. Its entries inform public debates involving courts and commissions that reference intellectual traditions shaped by events like the Nuremberg Trials, Geneva Conventions, and policy discussions in legislative bodies such as the United States Congress and European Parliament.

Category:Philosophy reference works