Philosophy Atlas
Claims this atlas currently marks as unsettled or as tested and found false. A debated fact is one scholars hold competing positions on; a debunked one has been checked against the record and found not to hold. Both are kept in view rather than quietly smoothed over, with the reasoning that put each one where it stands.
180 statements marked Debated.
Nagarjuna, Death Year250
Natural Law Theory, Start Year-350
Natural Law Theory, Schools of Philosophy
Standing
Concerns Start Year
Currently States -350
Natural law theory has no single founding date or founder; its own cited SEP entry traces the tradition to its earliest and most foundational texts, Plato's Gorgias, Republic and Laws and Aristotle's Politics, all from the fourth century BCE, without naming one founding moment. -350 approximates that period rather than marking a discrete founding event.
Source Natural Law Theories (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Natural Law Theory, Founded Date1265-01-01
Natural Law Theory, Schools of Philosophy
Standing
Concerns Founded Date
Currently States 1265-01-01
The DATE column cannot hold the -350 BCE start-year already on record for Plato and Aristotle's foundational texts (this entity's own cited SEP Natural Law Theories, Section 1.2). This instead reuses thomism's own founded-date citation: Aquinas, the classic natural law theorist SEP names by name, began his systematic natural-law treatment in the Summa Theologiae at the Santa Sabina studium in 1265.
Source Thomas Aquinas (Wikipedia)
Negritude, Start Year1935
Negritude, Schools of Philosophy
Standing
Concerns Start Year
Currently States 1935
the term and its associated circle coalesced through the Paris student journals of the early to mid-1930s; the exact founding moment is not agreed on.
Source Negritude (Wikipedia)
Negritude, End Year1970
Negritude, Schools of Philosophy
Standing
Concerns End Year
Currently States 1970
Negritude's influence as an organized literary-political movement is generally described as waning from the late 1960s as newer currents of postcolonial and pan-African thought superseded it, though its ideas continued to circulate.
Negritude, Founded Date1935-01-01
Negritude, Schools of Philosophy
Standing
Concerns Founded Date
Currently States 1935-01-01
The Negritude circle coalesced through Paris student journals of the early to mid-1930s; the exact founding moment is not agreed on, matching this entity's own start-year note. 1935 approximates that period rather than marking a discrete founding event.
Source Negritude (Wikipedia)
Neo-Confucianism, Start Year1017
Neo-Confucianism, Schools of Philosophy
Standing
Concerns Start Year
Currently States 1017
dated to Zhou Dunyi's early work, though the tradition is usually treated as coalescing over the following two centuries through Zhu Xi's systematization.
Source Song-Ming Confucianism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Neo-Confucianism, Founded Date1017-01-01
Neo-Confucianism, Schools of Philosophy
Standing
Concerns Founded Date
Currently States 1017-01-01
Zhou Dunyi (1017-1073) is the philosopher usually treated as neo-Confucianism's founding figure; 1017 is his birth year, matching this entity's existing start-year fact, though the tradition is understood to have coalesced over the following two centuries through Zhu Xi's later systematization.
Source Song-Ming Confucianism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Neo-Confucianism, Start Year618
Neo-Confucianism, Schools of Philosophy
Standing
Concerns Start Year
Currently States 618
The Stanford Encyclopedia gives a broadest-sense start at the Tang dynasty (618-907 CE), three centuries before the 1017 value already on record for Zhou Dunyi's own generation. Kept alongside rather than replacing the existing value.
Source Song-Ming Confucianism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Neo-Confucianism, Founded Date0618-01-01
Neo-Confucianism, Schools of Philosophy
Standing
Concerns Founded Date
Currently States 0618-01-01
The Stanford Encyclopedia gives a broadest-sense start at the Tang dynasty (618-907 CE), three centuries before the 1017-01-01 value already on record for Zhou Dunyi's own generation. Kept alongside rather than replacing the existing value.
Source Song-Ming Confucianism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Parmenides, Birth Year-540
Parmenides, Philosophers
Standing
Concerns Birth Year
Currently States -540
A rival tradition, based on Plato's dialogue Parmenides (his visit to Athens at 65, taken as historical), implies a birth around 515 BC instead; both are recorded in the Chronology section.
Source Parmenides (Wikipedia)
Peripatetic School, End Year200
Peripatetic School, Schools of Philosophy
Standing
Concerns End Year
Currently States 200
the school's distinct institutional life waned centuries earlier; the later date marks the flourishing of its commentary tradition through figures like Alexander of Aphrodisias rather than an organized school's endpoint.
Philosophy of Archaeology, Key DebateWhether a distinct philosophy of archaeology exists, or even can exist, as its own field of inquiry separate from general philosophy of science and from the interpretive theory archaeologists themselves call theory.
Philosophy of Archaeology, Branches of Philosophy
Standing
Concerns Key Debate
Currently States Whether a distinct philosophy of archaeology exists, or even can exist, as its own field of inquiry separate from general philosophy of science and from the interpretive theory archaeologists themselves call theory.
Source Philosophy of Archaeology (Wikipedia)
Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence, Key DebateStrong AI versus weak AI: whether a machine could ever possess genuine mental powers, including phenomenal consciousness, or whether artificial intelligence can only ever appear to have the full mental repertoire of a human person.
Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence, Branches of Philosophy
Standing
Concerns Key Debate
Currently States Strong AI versus weak AI: whether a machine could ever possess genuine mental powers, including phenomenal consciousness, or whether artificial intelligence can only ever appear to have the full mental repertoire of a human person.
Source Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Philosophy of Biology, Key DebateUnits of selection: whether natural selection acts primarily on genes, as Richard Dawkins's selfish gene view holds, on individual organisms, or on groups, a dispute over which level biological explanation of adaptation is properly pitched at.
Philosophy of Biology, Branches of Philosophy
Standing
Concerns Key Debate
Currently States Units of selection: whether natural selection acts primarily on genes, as Richard Dawkins's selfish gene view holds, on individual organisms, or on groups, a dispute over which level biological explanation of adaptation is properly pitched at.
Richard Dawkins's The Selfish Gene popularized gene selectionism against a longer tradition of organism level and, more recently, revived group level explanations of natural selection.
Source Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Philosophy of Education, Key DebateWhether education should be primarily child centered, following the learner's own developing interests as John Dewey and progressive educators urged, or content centered, transmitting a structured body of shared knowledge as E.D. Hirsch and cultural-literacy advocates urge.
Philosophy of Education, Branches of Philosophy
Standing
Concerns Key Debate
Currently States Whether education should be primarily child centered, following the learner's own developing interests as John Dewey and progressive educators urged, or content centered, transmitting a structured body of shared knowledge as E.D. Hirsch and cultural-literacy advocates urge.
John Dewey's progressive education and E.D. Hirsch's cultural-literacy movement remain the two poles education policy debates keep returning to.
Source Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Philosophy of Film, Key DebateWhether film can actually do philosophy or only dramatize it: Stanley Cavell and those who follow him argue that film can produce philosophical insight in its own right, while others hold that a fiction film's narrative character limits it to at most a heuristic or pedagogic role.
Philosophy of Film, Branches of Philosophy
Standing
Concerns Key Debate
Currently States Whether film can actually do philosophy or only dramatize it: Stanley Cavell and those who follow him argue that film can produce philosophical insight in its own right, while others hold that a fiction film's narrative character limits it to at most a heuristic or pedagogic role.
Source Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Philosophy of Film, Key DebateThe transparency thesis: Kendall Walton argued that photographs, and by extension film, differ fundamentally from a painting because they let a viewer genuinely see the depicted objects themselves rather than merely a likeness of them; critics who hold that a film image is representational in the same sense a painting is, mediated by the image rather than a direct seeing of its subject, have disputed the claim ever since.
Philosophy of Film, Branches of Philosophy
Standing
Concerns Key Debate
Currently States The transparency thesis: Kendall Walton argued that photographs, and by extension film, differ fundamentally from a painting because they let a viewer genuinely see the depicted objects themselves rather than merely a likeness of them; critics who hold that a film image is representational in the same sense a painting is, mediated by the image rather than a direct seeing of its subject, have disputed the claim ever since.
Source Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Philosophy of Geography, Key DebateMethodological issues concerning geographical knowledge have themselves been debated for centuries, from Hartshorne's chorology tradition through to later spatial-science and humanist reactions against it.
Philosophy of Geography, Branches of Philosophy
Standing
Concerns Key Debate
Currently States Methodological issues concerning geographical knowledge have themselves been debated for centuries, from Hartshorne's chorology tradition through to later spatial-science and humanist reactions against it.
Source Philosophy of Geography (Wikipedia)
Philosophy of History, Key DebateWhether history exhibits any overall pattern or direction: philosophers of history from Hegel and Marx to Fukuyama have proposed universal historical patterns, while critics from Karl Popper onward hold that no law-governed pattern of historical development can be established and that such historicism mistakes a narrative for a law.
Philosophy of History, Branches of Philosophy
Standing
Concerns Key Debate
Currently States Whether history exhibits any overall pattern or direction: philosophers of history from Hegel and Marx to Fukuyama have proposed universal historical patterns, while critics from Karl Popper onward hold that no law-governed pattern of historical development can be established and that such historicism mistakes a narrative for a law.
Karl Popper's The Poverty of Historicism named and attacked the very idea of a law-governed pattern of history that Hegel, Marx and later Fukuyama each proposed in different forms.
Source Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy