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Chih-i

(Encyclopedia)Chih-i chēˈ-ē [key], 538–97, Chinese Buddhist scholar and founder of the T'ien-t'ai (in Japan, called Tendai, or Lotus) school of Buddhism. Chih-i produced a conceptual framework that integrated ...

Dessoir, Max

(Encyclopedia)Dessoir, Max mäx dĕswär,ˈ [key], 1867–1947, German philosopher. He earned doctorates from the universities of Berlin (philosophy, 1889) and Würtzburg (medicine, 1892). He was a professor at Ber...

Farabi, al-

(Encyclopedia)Farabi, al- äl-färäˈbē [key], d. 950, Islamic philosopher. He studied in Baghdad and later flourished in Aleppo as a sufi mystic (see Sufism). He died in Damascus. Al-Farabi was the author of an ...

FitzGerald, Edward

(Encyclopedia)FitzGerald, Edward, 1809–83, English man of letters. A dilettante and scholar, FitzGerald spent most of his life living in seclusion in Suffolk. His masterpiece, a translation of The Rubaiyat of Oma...

altruism

(Encyclopedia)altruism ălˈtro͞oĭzˈəm [key], concept in philosophy and psychology that holds that the interests of others, rather than of the self, can motivate an individual. The term was invented in the 19th...

universals

(Encyclopedia)universals, in philosophy, term applied to general or abstract objects such as concepts, qualities, relations, and numbers, as opposed to particular objects. The exact nature of a universal deeply con...

Poincaré, Jules Henri

(Encyclopedia)Poincaré, Jules Henri zhül äNrēˈ pwăNkärāˈ [key], 1854–1912, French mathematician, physicist, and author. He was from 1881 connected with the faculty of sciences at the Univ. of Paris. One ...

Ayer, Sir Alfred Jules

(Encyclopedia)Ayer, Sir Alfred Jules āˈər, âr [key], 1910–89, British philosopher, b. London, grad. Oxford, 1932. From 1933 to 1944 he was lecturer and research fellow at Oxford's Christ Church College and th...

Parra, Nicanor

(Encyclopedia)Parra, Nicanor nēkänōrˈ päˈrä [key], 1914–2018, Chilean poet, grad. Univ. of Chile (1938), studied at Brown, Oxford. A poet who was also a mathematician and physicist and a professor of theor...

Fludd, Robert

(Encyclopedia)Fludd or Flud, Robert, 1574–1637, English mystic philosopher. Educated at Oxford and on the Continent, he became a London physician. Strongly influenced by the mystical doctrines of Paracelsus, he a...