Knowra Theoretical philosophy Theoretical philosophy The branch of philosophy that investigates knowledge, reality, existence, and the fundamental structure of the world, rather than questions about how to act.
Epistemology : The philosophical study of knowledge, justification, and rational belief. It examines what can be known and what makes belief justified.
Thought experiment : An imagined scenario used to test concepts, principles, or theories through reasoning. Philosophers use imagined cases to expose consequences their theories must explain.
Practical philosophy : The branch of philosophy concerned with action, values, and how people ought to live. It addresses normative questions rather than theoretical questions about knowledge and reality.
Pre-Socratic philosophy : Early Greek philosophy that sought rational accounts of nature and the underlying principles of reality. Its thinkers made questions about the world's basic constituents central to philosophy.
The hard problem of consciousness : The problem of explaining why physical processes are accompanied by subjective experience. It asks whether a physical account of the world can explain first-person experience.
Metaphysics : The philosophical study of reality, existence, identity, and fundamental structure. It investigates what exists and how reality is organized.
Gettier problem : A challenge to the idea that knowledge is justified true belief, based on cases of accidental truth. It shows how a carefully constructed case can unsettle a definition of knowledge.
Ethics : The philosophical study of right and wrong conduct, good character, and moral value. Its central concern is how actions ought to be judged.
Plato : An ancient Greek philosopher whose dialogues shaped metaphysics, epistemology, and political thought. His Forms and account of knowledge became lasting models of theoretical inquiry.
Problem of induction : The problem of justifying inferences from observed cases to unobserved cases or future events. It challenges the rational basis for projecting patterns beyond observed evidence.
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