Philosophical Dictionary: Whately-Wollstonecraft (original) (raw)
Whately, Richard (1787-1863)
English logician and theologian. Considered largely responsible for the revival of the study oflogic in England in the early part of the nineteenth century, Whately was the author of two standard texts—Elements of Rhetoric (1828) and Elements of Logic (1826). His logic was largelyAristotelian, but explicitly followedLocke in many respects. Whately was also the author of numerous books, essays, and pamphlets in politics, economics, and religion. He admired the work ofWilliam Paley and, in his most famous work, the Historic Doubts relative to Napoleon Buonaparte (1819), argued that, if one were to adoptHume's criteria for judging the reliability of testimony, one could deny that Napoleon had ever existed. [Contributed by Will Sweet.]
Recommended Reading: Craig Parton, Richard Whately: A Man For All Seasons (Canadian, 1997) and Erkki Patokorpi, Rhetoric, Argumentative and Divine: Richard Whately and His Discursive Project of the 1820s (Peter Lang, 1996).
Also see EB.
Whewell, William (1794-1866)
British philosopher of science. In the Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, Founded upon Their History (1840) andThe Plurality of Worlds (1858) Whewell defended a hypothetico-deductive model ofBaconian natural science, emphasizing the role of intellectual creativity in theory-formation and defending a strict scientificrealism in opposition to the strictly empiricist views of Mill. Thus, he held that Newton mechanics for celestial and terrestrial motion provides necessary truths about the structure of the universe. Whewell considered the implications of this view for ethics inThe Elements of Morality (1856).
| | Recommended Reading:Collected Works of William Whewell, ed. by Richard Yeo (Thoemmes, 2001); William Whewell, Mathematical Exposition of Some Doctrines of Political Economy (Augustus Kelley, 1971);William Whewell: Theory of Scientific Method, ed. by Robert E. Butts (Hackett, 1989);William Whewell: A Composite Portrait, ed. by Menachem Fisch and Simon Schaffer (Oxford, 1991); and Richard Yeo, Defining Science: William Whewell, Natural Knowledge, and Public Debate in Early Victorian Britain (Cambridge, 1993); Laura J. Snyder, The Philosophical Breakfast Club: Four Remarkable Friends Who Transformed Science and Changed the World (Broadway, 2011) . | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
Also see SEP,Soshichi Uchii, andEB.
Whitehead, Alfred North (1861-1947)
English mathematician and philosopher who collaborated with Russell on Principia Mathematica (1910-13). After a long career in mathematics at Cambridge and London, Whitehead accepted a position in philosophy at Harvard in 1924. In Process and Reality (1929) he developed an abstract methodology through which to propose a comprehensivemetaphysical view according to which events and processes, rather than independentsubstances constitute reality. This view points toward the progressive development of conscious organic beings mutually involved in prehensive relations to each other.
| | Recommended Reading: Alfred North Whitehead, Science and the Modern World (Free Press, 1997);A Key to Whitehead's 'Process and Reality', ed. by Donald W. Sherburne (Chicago, 1981); Nathaniel Lawrence, Alfred North Whitehead: A Primer of His Philosophy (Elliot's, 1974); Leemon B. McHenry, Whitehead and Bradley: A Comparative Analysis (SUNY, 1992); and Judith A. Jones, Intensity: An Essay in Whiteheadian Ontology (Vanderbilt, 1998). | | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
Also see SEP onWhitehead,Principia Mathematica, andprocess philosophy, EB,MMT, andELC.
Wiener Kreis
Group of Austrian analytical philosophers known (in English) as theVienna Circle.
will
The faculty of deciding, choosing, or acting.
Recommended Reading: Gary Watson, Free Will (Oxford, 1983) and Robert Kane, The Significance of Free Will (Oxford, 1998).
Wilson, Edward Osborne (1929- )
American biologist; author ofSociobiology: The New Synthesis (1975) andOn Human Nature (1978). Extrapolating from his zoological studies, Wilson promotes the discipline of "sociobiology," offering explanations of human social behavior in strictly biological terms. In Biophilia (1986) Wilson proposes that human appreciation of the natural world is an innate expression of a vital biological aspect of our evolutionary development.
| | Recommended Reading: Edward O. Wilson, The Diversity of Life (Norton, 1999); Edward O. Wilson, Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge (Random House, 1999); Edward O. Wilson, The Future of Life (Vintage, 2003); and Ullica Segerstrale, Defenders of the Truth: The Battle for Science in the Sociobiology Debate and Beyond (Oxford, 2000). | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
Also see EB.
Wilson, John Cook (1849-1915)
English logician and philosopher. Although he had studied with Green, Cook Wilson rejected idealism in favor of a realistic epistemology. His classroom teaching and posthumously-collected papers, Statement and Inference were influential on a generation of Oxford philosophers.
Also see SEP.
Wirklichkeit
German term for reality.
Wirkung
German term for effect.
wisdom {Gk. σοφια [sophía]; Lat. sapientia}
Good judgment with respect to abstract truth or theoretical matters (in contrast to prudence in concrete, practical affairs). For Plato, wisdom is thevirtue appropriate to therational soul, and forAristotle, it is the highestintellectual virtue.
Also see SEP.
Wisdom, John (1904-1993)
British philosopher whose Other Minds (1952) and Philosophy and Psychoanalysis (1953) applied theanalytic methods ofMoore and the laterWittgenstein tosignificant issues in the philosophy of mind.
Recommended Reading: John Wisdom, Paradox and Discovery (California, 1987); John Wisdom, Philosophy and Its Place in Our Culture (Gordon & Breach, 1975); andPhilosophy and Life: Essays on John Wisdom, ed. by Ilham Dilman (Martinus Nijhoff, 1984).
Wissen
German term for knowledge.
Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1889-1951)
Austrian philosopher whose brilliant, aphoristic, and controversial writings (in two distinct stages) provided the impetus for bothlogical positivism and linguistic analysis.
For a discussion of his life and works, see Wittgenstein.
Wolff, Christian (1679-1754)
German philosopher who wrote in both Latin and German, developing an extensive philosophical nomenclature for his native tongue and introducing a style that insisted upon thorough treatment of every issue. Wolff developed a philosophical system similar to that of Leibniz in his Philosophia Prima sive Ontologia (First Philosophy, or Ontology) (1721). Although his rationalistic metaphysical doctrines were condemned for their fatalistic implications in ethics, they remained influential until subjected to Kant's critique.
Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)
English political writer. In A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) Wollstonecraft argued that the natural development of human capacities has been significantly curtailed because of the domination of women by men.
For a discussion of her life and works, see Wollstonecraft.