Wikipedia:Philosophy basic topics

These should be the most basic topics in philosophy--topics about which we'd like to have articles soon. Please see the most basic encyclopedia article topics for general instructions on constructing this list.

Please, before you write on any of these topics, use the search engine below to see whether others have already written on the topic under a slightly different title or as part of another article.

(Sources for ideas, so far: The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy; try the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

A priori and a posteriori knowledge -- A. N. Whitehead (or Alfred North Whitehead) -- Abduction -- Abortion -- Absolute[?] -- Abstract -- Academic Freedom[?] -- Better: academic freedom[?] (l. c.) -- Accident -- Account[?] (as a philosophical term, akin to "definition") -- Act -- Action (philosophy)[?] -- Active[?] (vs. "passive," a technical term) -- Adam Smith -- Aesthetics -- Affirmative action -- Affirming the consequent -- Age of Enlightenment -- Agency[?] -- Agnosticism -- Albert Camus -- Alliance -- Altruism -- Ambiguity -- American Philosophical Association[?] -- anthropomorphism -- Aristotle -- atheism -- axiom --

Benedict Spinoza or Baruch Spinoza or Baruch de Spinoza etc. -- Bertrand Russell -- Blaise Pascal -- Madame Blavatsky-- Buddhist philosophy --

casuistry -- Charles, Baron de Montesquieu (now located at Montesquieu) -- Cicero -- Cogito, ergo sum[?] -- consensus reality --

David Hume -- deduction -- deism -- determinism -- dualism --

Eastern philosophy -- epistemic justification -- epistemology -- ethical relativism[?] -- ethics -- existentialism --

fatalism[?] -- Friedrich Nietzsche -- free will --

G. W. F. Hegel[?] -- greatest happiness principle[?] --

hedonism -- humanism -- humanist -- humanities --

I think, therefore I am -- idealism -- Immanuel Kant -- Indian philosophy[?] -- induction -- inference[?] --

Jean-Jacques Rousseau -- John Locke -- John Stuart Mill -- justification --

law of non-contradiction -- liberal arts -- logic -- Ludwig Wittgenstein --

Man is the measure of all things[?] -- Marxism -- materialism -- metaphysics -- Michel de Montaigne -- monism -- monotheism -- moral absolutism -- mysticism --

natural law -- naturalism -- nihilism -- noumenon --

On Liberty[?] (by Mill) --

pantheism -- Pascal's Wager -- perfectability of man[?] -- phenomenon (a la Kant) -- philosopher -- philosopher-king[?] -- philosophes[?] -- philosophy -- physicalism -- Plato -- Plato's Academy[?] -- Plato's Republic or The Republic of Plato[?] -- Platonism -- pluralism -- polytheism -- positivism (also: logical empiricism; logical positivism) -- postulate -- pragmatism -- Principia Mathematica -- Protagoras --

realism -- reality enforcement -- relativism -- Rene Descartes -- Republic --

Soren Kierkegaard -- scholasticism -- semantics -- skepticism (or scepticism) -- social contract -- social contract theory[?] -- solipsism -- sophist -- stoic -- stoicism -- Summa Theologica[?] -- superman or overman[?] or uebermensch -- Symposium (by Plato) --

tabula rasa -- Thales -- The Prince (by Machiavelli) -- The Social Contract[?] (by Rousseau) -- Theosophy (HPB) thing in itself[?] or thing-in-itself[?] -- Thomas Aquinas -- Thomas Hobbes -- Thomism[?] -- Thus Spake Zarathustra[?] --

utilitarianism -- Utopia (by More) --

Voltaire

Western philosophy -- William of Ockham --

Zeno's Paradoxes