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Scaliger, Joseph Justus

(Encyclopedia)Scaliger, Joseph Justus skălˈĭjər [key], 1540–1609, French classical scholar. He was the son of Julius Caesar Scaliger, from whom he acquired his early mastery of Latin. He adopted Protestantism...

Darwin, Sir George Howard

(Encyclopedia)Darwin, Sir George Howard, 1845–1912, English astronomer and mathematician; 2d son of Charles Darwin. He was Plumian professor (from 1883) of astronomy and experimental philosophy at Cambridge, and ...

Franzén, Frans Michael

(Encyclopedia)Franzén, Frans Michael fräns mēˈkäĕl fränsānˈ [key], 1772–1847, Swedish poet, a bishop, b. Finland. He became professor of philosophy at Åbo in 1798. His Ode to Gustaf Philip Creutz (1797)...

pragmatism

(Encyclopedia)pragmatism prăgˈmətĭzəm [key], method of philosophy in which the truth of a proposition is measured by its correspondence with experimental results and by its practical outcome. Thought is consid...

Santayana, George

(Encyclopedia)Santayana, George säntäyäˈnä [key], 1863–1952, American philosopher and poet, b. Madrid, Spain. Santayana's philosophic stance has been given the apparently opposite descriptions of materiali...

Leipzig, University of

(Encyclopedia)Leipzig, University of, at Leipzig, Germany; founded 1409 when German scholars withdrew from Charles Univ. It was reorganized in 1946, and in 1953 its name was changed officially to Karl Marx Univ. Si...

belief

(Encyclopedia)belief, in philosophy, commitment to something, involving intellectual assent. Philosophers have disagreed as to whether belief is active or passive; René Descartes held that it is a matter of will, ...

Torricelli, Evangelista

(Encyclopedia)Torricelli, Evangelista āvänjālēˈstä tōr-rēchĕlˈlē [key], 1608–47, Italian physicist and mathematician. He was Galileo's secretary (1641–42) and his successor as professor of philosophy...

innate ideas

(Encyclopedia)innate ideas, in philosophy, concepts present in the mind at birth as opposed to concepts arrived at through experience. The theory has been advanced at various times in the history of philosophy to s...

Hayek, Friedrich August von

(Encyclopedia)Hayek, Friedrich August von frēˈdrĭkh ougo͝ostˈ fôn hīˈək [key], 1899–1992, British economist, b. Vienna. He was raised and educated in Austria and taught at the London School of Economics ...