4 Categories
The ninety topics we’ve looked at so far are informative, but they are arguably too detailed to provide a useful big-picture view of what’s happening in philosophy. To do that I divided up the ninety topics into 12 categories. Or, to be more precise I divided eighty of them up into categories, and the other ten were split between two categories. I’ll return in the next chapter to how this division was made, and in particular how the splitting was done. For now, let’s look at the categories and then look at their representation in the literature over time.
| Topic | Subject | Category | Keywords |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Psychology | Philosophy of mind | sensation, psychical, sensations, nervous, motor |
| 2 | Idealism | Idealism | whitehead, reality, bradley, ultimate, idealism |
| 3 | Life and value | Social and political | living, life, human, spiritual, bergson |
| 4 | Other history | History of philosophy | nietzsche, published, students, james, school |
| 5 | Dewey and pragmatism | History of philosophy | dewey, pragmatism, judgment, objectivity, judgments |
| 6 | Definitions | Logic and mathematics | definitions, symbol, symbols, definition, meanings |
| 7 | Propositions and implications | Logic and mathematics | propositions, proposition, entailment, implication, contradictory |
| 8 | Beauty | Aesthetics | artistic, esthetic, art, aesthetics, poetry |
| 9 | Physicalism | Philosophy of mind | physicalism, dualism, sellars, physical, datum |
| 10 | History and culture | Social and political | historian, historians, hegel, historical, cultures |
| 11 | Faith and theism | Philosophy of religion | theism, faith, christian, theological, theology |
| 12 | Self-consciousness | Philosophy of mind | conscious, selves, self, consciousness, inner |
| 13 | Ancient | History of philosophy | aristotle, parmenides, plato, platonic, republic |
| 14 | Universals and particulars | Logic and mathematics | universals, particulars, predication, category, generic |
| 15 | Verification | Logic and mathematics | statements, statement, verification, ayer, factual |
| 16 | Value | Ethics | valuable, goodness, happiness, valuation, value |
| 17 | Deduction | Logic and mathematics | syllogism, premisses, valid, logic, inferences |
| 18 | Mechanisms | Philosophy of science | mechanistic, patterns, behavioral, mechanism, psychologists |
| 19 | Temporal paradoxes | Metaphysics | duration, instant, succession, series, temporal |
| 20 | Classical space and time | Metaphysics | straight, dimensions, spaces, geometrical, dimensional |
| 21 | Early modern | History of philosophy | descartes, spinoza, leibniz, cartesian, substance |
| 22 | Meaning and use | Philosophy of language | wittgenstein, ryle, word, usage, words |
| 23 | Marx | Social and political | marx, economy, economics, labor, economic |
| 24 | Ordinary language | Ethics/philosophy of mind | ask, certainly, really, surely, try |
| 25 | Moral conscience | Ethics | ethical, conscience, morality, moral, morals |
| 26 | Methodology of science | Philosophy of science | scientist, methodology, sciences, science, scientific |
| 27 | Heidegger and Husserl | History of philosophy | heidegger, husserl, sartre, phenomenological, brentano |
| 28 | Emotions | Philosophy of mind | shame, affective, anger, angry, emotions |
| 29 | Ontological argument | Philosophy of religion | anselm, exists, exist, existent, santayana |
| 30 | Chemistry | Philosophy of science | chemistry, energy, atoms, conservation, atom |
| 31 | Social contract theory | History of philosophy | hobbes, reid, rousseau, sovereign, powers |
| 32 | Kant | History of philosophy | kant, kantian, maxim, maxims, intuition |
| 33 | Promises and imperatives | Ethics | motive, imperatives, motives, deontic, acts |
| 34 | Analytic/synthetic | Logic and mathematics | posteriori, analytic, naturalism, naturalist, analyticity |
| 35 | Freedom and free will | Social and political/ethics | freedom, freely, autonomous, free, autonomy |
| 36 | Crime and punishment | Ethics/social and political | forgiveness, crime, criminal, punishment, punish |
| 37 | Sets and grue | Philosophy of science/logic and mathematics | member, sets, classes, axiom, ordered |
| 38 | Origins and purposes | Philosophy of science/metaphysics | animals, cats, dog, teleology, cat |
| 39 | Time | Metaphysics | tensed, remembering, future, past, tense |
| 40 | Color/colour | Philosophy of mind | blue, green, colors, colours, yellow |
| 41 | War | Social and political | military, war, nuclear, rule, voting |
| 42 | Depiction | Aesthetics | metaphorical, metaphors, metaphor, pictorial, imagining |
| 43 | Denoting | Philosophy of language | denoting, frege, russell, meinong, denotation |
| 44 | Chance | Philosophy of science | chances, chance, probability, probabilities, prob |
| 45 | Hume | History of philosophy | hume, sceptic, scepticism, enquiry, coherence |
| 46 | Laws | Philosophy of science | regularity, laws, paribus, ceteris, nomic |
| 47 | Perception | Philosophy of mind | perceiving, phenomenal, perceptual, perceive, experiences |
| 48 | Intention | Philosophy of mind | dream, freud, deception, dreams, intention |
| 49 | Virtues | Ethics | judgements, stevenson, virtuous, judgement, virtues |
| 50 | Space and time | Philosophy of science | inertial, lorentz, relativity, simultaneity, frame |
| 51 | Mathematics | Logic and mathematics | mathematics, arithmetic, numbers, mathematical, proofs |
| 52 | Liberal democracy | Social and political | democracy, democratic, liberalism, liberal, citizens |
| 53 | Duties | Ethics | duties, obligations, obligation, duty, rights |
| 54 | Causation | Metaphysics | causation, causes, causally, causal, causality |
| 55 | Arguments | Philosophy of mind/epistemology | argument, arguments, premise, thesis, conclusion |
| 56 | Theory testing | Philosophy of science | tests, confirmation, testing, hypotheses, hypothesis |
| 57 | Decision theory | Ethics | utilities, mill, utility, decision, choosing |
| 58 | Minds and machines | Philosophy of mind | turing, machines, functionalism, machine, states |
| 59 | Truth | Logic and mathematics | tarski, liar, snow, truth, paradoxes |
| 60 | Radical translation | Philosophy of language | quine, languages, translation, grammar, holism |
| 61 | Explanation | Philosophy of science | explanations, explanatory, explanation, explaining, explained |
| 62 | Personal identity | Metaphysics | sortal, identity, wiggins, identities, identification |
| 63 | Speech acts | Philosophy of language | illocutionary, hearer, utterances, conversation, utterance |
| 64 | Sense and reference | Philosophy of language | quotation, referential, referent, kaplan, referring |
| 65 | Egalitarianism | Social and political | egalitarian, distributive, equality, income, opportunity |
| 66 | Quantum physics | Philosophy of science | quantum, spin, measurement, bell, measurements |
| 67 | Theories and realism | Philosophy of science | theories, kuhn, fraassen, observational, theoretical |
| 68 | Functions | Philosophy of science | functions, function, millikan, string, design |
| 69 | Feminism | Social and political | feminist, pornography, women, gender, marriage |
| 70 | Medical ethics and Freud | Ethics/philosophy of mind | trust, medical, disease, medicine, health |
| 71 | Abortion and self-defence | Ethics | fetus, killing, kill, abortion, killed |
| 72 | Belief ascriptions | Philosophy of language | ralph, tom, hesperus, mary, jane |
| 73 | Thermodynamics | Philosophy of science | entropy, systems, phase, dynamical, system |
| 74 | Knowledge | Epistemology | knowing, knows, skeptic, skeptical, knowledge |
| 75 | Game theory | Philosophy of science | player, players, games, game, chess |
| 76 | Justification | Epistemology | believing, beliefs, epistemically, belief, justification |
| 77 | Frankfurt cases | Ethics/aesthetics | jones, fischer, pretense, smith, blame |
| 78 | Concepts | Philosophy of mind | concepts, concept, conceptual, mcdowell, grasp |
| 79 | Races and DNA | Philosophy of science/social and political | protein, races, dna, racial, race |
| 80 | Modality | Metaphysics | modal, worlds, counterpart, modality, lewis |
| 81 | Reasons | Ethics | desires, motivation, deliberation, motivated, irrational |
| 82 | Evolutionary biology | Philosophy of science | fitness, drift, darwin, selection, evolutionary |
| 83 | Population ethics | Ethics | consequentialism, consequentialist, projects, worse, scanlon |
| 84 | Formal epistemology | Epistemology | credences, subjunctive, dutch, credence, bet |
| 85 | Wide content | Philosophy of mind | twin, burge, contents, content, externalism |
| 86 | Vagueness | Logic and mathematics | vagueness, sorites, truthmaker, realist, realists |
| 87 | Cognitive science | Philosophy of mind | processing, computational, input, cognitive, cognition |
| 88 | Models | Philosophy of science | models, model, woodward, parameters, cartwright |
| 89 | Composition and constitution | Metaphysics | supervenience, properties, property, composition, extrinsic |
| 90 | Norms | Philosophy of language/ethics | norm, norms, commitments, normative, commitment |