A list of philosophic schools

Question

I want to learn more about philosophy, but I don't know much about the different philosophic schools yet and I don't want to waste my time, so I want to know if there is an exhaustive list of philosophic schools with a sort description of its fundamentals.

Answer 1

To be perfectly honest, your question's a little offensive. I could equally well ask you: where can I find an exhaustive list of the different sciences that exist? How would such a question be reasonably answered? Not to mention that "schools of thought" are so varied that its unclear what you really mean by it. To be charitable, I'll assume that you're looking for the branches of philosophy, which is answerable.

All that said, it's still useful to know what the broad strokes of philosophy are, and for that there's a recent, decent book by Simon Blackburn you could read through in few hours. In it, he teases out eight major branches of philosophy which cover most of the spectrum. I've rewritten his chapter titles to be more specific.

Epistemology

What do we know, and how can we know it? What is the nature of knowledge? What's the difference between true statements such as "3 + 2 = 5" and "The Statue of Liberty stands on Liberty Island"?

Consciousness

What is the phenomenon of being awake and aware? How is it different or similar to dreaming? What is pain? Is it possible to be certain that anyone else suffers the same phenomena I do?

Freedom

If the ability exists for all actions to be predicted, what does it mean to say that I am the agent responsible for my own actions? Is it meaningful at all, or just a hallucination?

Identity

Are you the same person you were yesterday? Will you be the same person fifty years from now? If I take some other object, and replace its parts one at a time, at what point does it ever cease to be the same object?

Ontology

Is there a Creator? If not, how did the the world (i.e., the universe) come to exist in the first place? Is causality a real relationship between events or just one we impose on the universe to make it sensible? Where do our beliefs about these things come from?

Logic

What is the difference between a good and a bad argument? What series of rules will always produce correct results? How can we describe the things we say or write in a way that allows them to be evaluated by these rules? What beliefs can we evaluate in this way?

Perception

Are the qualities of objects in the world produced by those objects, or are they imposed on those objects by our mind? By what means can we judge the things we see, hear, smell, etc., to be facts about the world and not imaginative hallucinations or clever illusions?

Ethics

Are beliefs sufficient to motivate certain actions? What are those qualities of an event, object, or person which makes it good?

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There's more, of course. Blackburn leaves out much about Aesthetics and other value judgement theories. For instance, Rational Choice theory - which belongs under Ethics, but drifts into discussions of economics and ultimately game theory. Emotions are a topic unto themselves, but bridge Consciousness, Epistemology, and Perception. Metaphysics is an entirely other topic, with ties to epistemology and ontology, but asks questions like "must possible worlds exist?".

Blackburn's book will at least help introduce the eight topics above in a way that lets you distinguish what areas you actually might have an interest in, and whether to branch into any of these others I've just mentioned.

If however this all leaves you dissatisfied, I can only direct you to the table of contents at PhilPapers which has a nice list of topics and the number of papers their database holds on each. The length, I hope, will demonstrate why an explicit list isn't really something you're going to find - unless you write one yourself. Here's a snapshot (number of papers in parentheses):

Metaphysics and Epistemology (87,829) Epistemology (12,856) Metaphilosophy (1,684) Metaphysics (12,849) Philosophy of Action (8,325) Philosophy of Language (16,190) Philosophy of Mind (23,776) Philosophy of Religion (12,088) M&E, Misc (55)

Value Theory (129,559) Aesthetics (16,341) Applied Ethics (46,701) Meta-Ethics (4,440) Normative Ethics (8,927) Philosophy of Gender, Race, and Sexuality (6,109) Philosophy of Law (4,738) Social and Political Philosophy (30,376) Value Theory, Miscellaneous (2,038)

Science, Logic, and Mathematics (82,415) Logic and Philosophy of Logic (13,726) Philosophy of Biology (8,802) Philosophy of Cognitive Science (18,426) Philosophy of Computing and Information (981) Philosophy of Mathematics (3,080) Philosophy of Physical Science (5,346) Philosophy of Social Science (12,170) Philosophy of Probability (1,892) General Philosophy of Science (5,776) Philosophy of Science, Misc (945)

History of Western Philosophy (97,540) Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophy (30,155) Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy (6,386) 17th/18th Century Philosophy (19,733) 19th Century Philosophy (11,737) 20th Century Philosophy (25,892) History of Western Philosophy, Misc (112)

Philosophical Traditions (21,011) African/Africana Philosophy (671) Asian Philosophy (9,105) Continental Philosophy (3,419) European Philosophy (3,681) Philosophy of the Americas (1,988) Philosophical Traditions, Miscellaneous (937)

Philosophy, Misc (1,116) Philosophy, Introductions and Anthologies (28) Philosophy, General Works (837) Philosophy, Miscellaneous (213)

Other Academic Areas (21,285) Natural Sciences (88) Social Sciences (371) Cognitive Sciences (458) Formal Sciences (406) Arts and Humanities (19,595) Professional Areas (147) Other Academic Areas, Misc (60)