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Philosophy Terms Glossary Flashcards

All glossary terms from "Philosophy The Power Of Ideas"

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358764205"Absolutethe","That which is unconditioned and uncaused by anything else; it is frequently thought of as God, a perfect and solitary, self-caused eternal being that is the source or essence of all that exists but that is itself beyond the possibility of conceptualization or definition",1
358764206Absolute IdealismThe early nineteenth-century school of philosophy that maintained that being is the transcendental unfolding or expression of thought or reason,2
358764207AcademicsPhilosophers of the third and second centuries B.C.E. in what had been Plato's Academy; they had the reputation of maintaining that all things are inapprehensible,3
358764208Act-utilitarianismA form of utilitarianism (subscribed to by Bentham) in which the rightness of an act is determined by its effect on the general happiness,4
358764209AestheticsThe philosophical study of art and of value judgments about art and of beauty in general,5
358764210Alterity"The condition of being ""Other"" to the center of power and authority",6
358764211Analytic philosophyThe predominant twentieth-century philosophical tradition in English-speaking countries; analytic philosophy has its roots in British empiricism and holds that analysis is the proper method of philosophy,7
358764212Analytic statement(Quine): A statement that holds come what may,8
358764213AnarchismA utopian political theory that seeks to eliminate all authority and state rule in favor of a society based on voluntary cooperation and free association of individuals and groups,9
358764214AntirepresentationalismA philosophy that denies that the mind or language contains or is a representation of reality,10
358764215Appeal to emotionTrying to establish a position by playing on someone's emotions,11
358764216Applied ethics"Moral theory applied to specific contemporary moral issues, such as abortion, affirmative action, pornography, capital punishment, and so on",12
358764217A priori/a posteriori pair"In the philosophy of Saul Kripke, an a priori truth is a statement known to be true independently of any experience, and its opposite, an a posteriori truth, is a statement known to be true through experience",13
358764218A priori principleA proposition whose truth we do not need to know through sensory experience and that no conceivable experience could serve to refute,14
358764219ArgumentA reason for accepting a position,15
358764220Argument by analogy"As in an argument for the existence of God: the idea that the world is analogous to a human contrivance and therefore, just as the human contrivance has a creator, the world must also have a creator",16
358764221Argument from designA proof for the existence of God based on the idea that the universe and its parts give evidence of purpose or design and therefore require a divine designer,17
358764222Argumentum ad hominemThe mistaken idea that you can successfully challenge any view by criticizing the person whose view it is,18
358764223AtaraxiaThe goal of unperturbedness and tranquility of mind that was considered the highest good by ancient thinkers such as the Skeptics,19
358764224Atomism"The ancient Greek philosophy that holds that all things are composed of simple, indivisible minute particles",20
358764225Authenticity"In Sartre's philosophy, a way of understanding the essential nature of the human being by seeing it as a totality",21
358764226Bad Faith"In the philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre, essentially self-deception or lying to oneself, especially when this takes the form of blaming circumstances for one's fate and not seizing the freedom to realize oneself in action",22
358764227Begging the questionThe fallacy of assuming as a premise the very conclusion of the argument is intended to prove,23
358764228Behaviorism"The methodological principle in psychology according to which meaningful psychological inquiry confines itself to psychological phenomena that can be behaviorally defined; the theory in philosophy that when we talk about a person's mental states, we are referring in fact to the person's disposition to behave in certain ways",24
358764229Buddhism"A philosophical tradition, founded by Gautama Siddhartha Buddha in the fifth century B.C.E., that took on various forms as a religion and spread throughout Asia; Buddhism attempts to help the individual conquer the suffering and mutability of human existence through the elimination of desire and ego and attainment of the state of nirvana",25
358764230Bushido"The way or ethic of the samurai warrior, based on service and demanding rigorous training, usually both in the military and literary arts",26
358764231Capabilities approach"In the philosophy of Martha Nussbaum, the principle that all nations and governments should provide for the core ingredients of human dignity",27
358764232CapitalismAn economic system in which ownership of the means of production and distribution is maintained mostly by private individuals and corporations,28
358764233Categorical imperative"Immanuel Kant's formulation of a moral law that holds unconditionally, that is, categorically; in its most common formulation, states that you are to act in such a way that you could desire the principle on which you act to be a universal law",29
358764234Clear and distinct criterion"René Descartes' criterion of truth, according to which that, and only that, which is perceived as clearly and distinctly as the fact of one's own existence is certain",30
358764235Code PinkA third wave women's grassroots peace and justice movement that opposes any kind of military force,31
358764236Communism"(capital ""c"") The ideology of the Communist Party; (lowercase ""c"") an economic system",32
358764237Communitarian"One who holds that there is a common good defined by one's society, the attainment of which has priority over individual liberty",33
358764238ConceptualismThe theory that universals are concepts and exist only in the mind,34
358764239ConfucianismA philosophical tradition that began with Confucius in the sixth century B.C.E. and continues to the present day; Confucianism is a practical philosophy that hopes to establish a better world order by means of moral perfection of the individual,35
358764240ConsequentialismEthical theories that evaluate actions by their consequences,36
358764241ConservatismA political philosophy based on respect for established institutions and traditions and that favors preservation of the status quo over social experimentation,37
358764242Continental philosophy"The philosophical traditions of continental Europe; includes phenomenology, existentialism, hermeneutics, deconstruction, and critical theory",38
358764243Contractarian theory"The political theory according to which a legitimate state exists only by virtue of an agreement or ""contract"" among the subjects of the state",39
358764244ContractualismEthical theories according to which right and wrong are established by a societal agreement or social contract,40
358764245Copernican revolution in philosophy"A new perspective in epistemology, introduced by Immanuel Kant, according to which the objects of experience must conform in certain respects to our knowledge of them",41
358764246Cosmological argumentAn argument for the existence of God according to which the universe and its parts can be neither accidental nor self-caused and must ultimately have been brought into existence by God,42
358764247CounterargumentAn argument that counters the given argument,43
358764248Critical theoryA philosophical method that seeks to provide a radical critique of knowledge by taking into account the situation and interests involved,44
358764249Cultural relativismThe theory that what is right (and wrong) is what your culture believes is right (and wrong),45
358764250CyberfeminismThe idea that women can resist the patriarchy through their communication links in computer technology,46
358764251Cynicism"A school of philosophy founded around the fifth century B.C.E., probably by Antisthenes of Diogenes; the Cynics sought to lead lives of total simplicity and naturalness by rejecting all comforts and conveniences of society",47
358764252CyrenaicismThe philosophy of Aristippus and others who lived in Cyrene about Plato's time; it emphasized seeking a life of as many intense pleasures as possible,48
358764253Deontological ethicsEthical theories according to which what I ought to do is whatever it is my moral duty to do,49
358764254Descriptive egoismThe doctrine that maintains that in conscious action a person always seeks self-interest above all else,50
358764255Descriptive relativismThe doctrine that the moral standards people subscribe to differ from culture to culture and from society to society,51
358764256DeterminismThe doctrine that a person could not have acted otherwise than as she or he did act,52
358764257Ding-an-sich"German for ""thing-in-itself"": a thing as it is independent of any consciousness of it",53
358764258Divine-command ethicsEthical theory according to which what is morally right and good is determined by divine command,54
358764259Divine law"In the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas, God's gift to humankind, apprehended through revelation, that directs us to our supernatural goal, eternal happiness",55
358764260Double aspect theory"The idea that whatever exists is both mental and physical; that is that the mental and physical are just different ways of looking at the same things, Spinoza, Benedictus de",56
358764261Dualism"Two-ism; the doctrine that existing things belong to one or another but not both, of two distinct categories of things, usually deemed to be physical and nonphysical or spiritual",57
358764262EcofeminismA branch of feminist philosophy that opposes any form of oppression that endangers nature,58
358764263Écriture féminine"A ""feminine"" form of writing primarily invented by Cixous and Kristeva that is neither prose nor poetry, uses metaphor to elide boundaries between theory and fiction, and disrupts masculinist discourse",59
358764264EgoismThe doctrine that in conscious action one seeks (or ought to seek) self-interest above all else,60
358764265Egoistic ethical hedonismThe theory that one ought to seek one's own pleasure above all else,61
358764266Eightfold Path"The way or practice recommended in Buddhism that includes: Right View, Right Aim, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Living, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, and Right Contemplation",62
358764267Emotivism"The theory that moral (and other) value judgments are expressions of emotions, attitudes, and feelings",63
358764268EmpiricismThe philosophy that all knowledge originates in sensory experience,64
358764269Epicureanism"(capital ""e"") The philosophy of followers of Epicurus, who believed that personal pleasure is the highest good but advocated renouncing momentary pleasures in favor of more lasting ones",65
358764270Epistemological detourThe attempt to utilize epistemological inquiry to arrive at metaphysical truths,66
358764271Epistemology"The branch of philosophy concerned primarily with the criteria, nature, and possibility of knowledge",67
358764272EpocheSuspension of judgment concerning the truth of falsity of a proposition,68
358764273Equivalence ThesisThe idea that letting people die of starvation is as bad as killing them,69
358764274Esse est percipi"Latin for ""to be is to be perceived,"" a doctrine that George Berkeley made the basis of his philosophy. Only that which is perceived exists; Berkeley held, however, that the minds that do the perceiving also exist",70
358764275Essentialism"The belief that there are natural, innate differences between women and men, a rejection of the idea that gender is a social construction",71
358764276Eternal law"In the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas, the divine reason of God that rules over all things at all times",72
358764277Ethical hedonismThe doctrine that you ought to seek pleasure over all else,73
358764278Ethical naturalismThe belief that moral value judgments are really judgments of the natural world,74
358764279Ethical relativismThe theory that there are no absolute and universally valid moral standards and values and that therefore the moral standards and values that apply to you are merely those that are accepted by your society,75
358764280Ethical skepticismThe doctrine that moral knowledge is not possible,76
358764281Ethics"The branch of philosophy that considers the nature, criteria, sources, logic, and validity of moral value judgments",77
358764282Ethnophilosophy"A systematically descriptive method of investigating the philosophical concepts that are important in a culture, especially a culture that is primarily transmitted through unwritten stories, rituals, and statements of belief",78
358764283Evil demon conjecture"The conjecture used by Descartes that states: For all I know, an all-powerful ""god"" or demon has manipulated me so that all I take as true is in fact false",79
358764284Existence precedes essence (Sartre)"Sartre's way of saying, you are what you make of yourself",80
358764285Existentialism"A tradition of twentieth-century philosophy having its roots in the nineteenth century but coming to flower in Europe after World War II; of central concern is the question of how the individual is to find an authentic existence in this world, in which there is no ultimate reason why things happen one way and not another",81
358764286Ex nihilo"Latin for ""out of nothing""",82
358764287Extension"A property by which a thing occupies space; according to Descartes, the essential attribute of matter",83
358764288FallacyA mistake in reasoning,84
358764289False dilemmaOffering only two options when in fact more than two options exist,85
358764290Fascism"The totalitarian political philosophy of the Mussolini government in Italy, which stressed the primacy of the state and leadership by an elite who embody the will and intelligence of the people; the term is sometimes more generally used for any totalitarian movement",86
358764291FeminismMovement in support of the view that men and women should have equal social value and status,87
358764292First mover"God, in St.Thomas's first proof of God's existence",88
358764293Five WaysSt.Thomas Aquinas's five proofs of God's existence,89
358764294Form"Aristotle’s theory of forms; in Plato’s philosophy that which is denoted by a general word, a word (such as “good”) that applies to more than a single thing",90
358764295FoundationalismThe doctrine that a belief qualifies as knowledge only if it logically follows from propositions that are incorrigible (incapable of being false if you believe that they are true),91
358764296Four Noble Truths"Buddha's answer to the central problem of life: (1) There is suffering; (2) suffering has specific and identifiable causes; (3) suffering can be ended; (4) the way to end suffering is through enlightened living, as expressed in the Eightfold Path",92
358764297Free-market economy"An economic system built around the belief that supply and demand, competition, and a free play of market forces best serve the interests of society and the common good",93
358764298Functionalism"The doctrine that what a thing is must be understood and analyzed not by what it is made of but by its function; for example, anything that functions as a mousetrap is a mousetrap, regardless of what it is made of or how it looks or is assembled",94
358764299Gender"A person's biological sex as constructed, understood, interpreted, and institutionalized by society",95
358764300General will"In the philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the will of a politically united people, the will of a state",96
358764301Genushow a thing is similar to other things,97
358764302HedonismThe pursuit of pleasure,98
358764303Hellenistic ageThe period of Macedonian domination of the Greek-speaking world from around 335 B.C.E. to about 30 B.C.E.,99
358764304HermeneuticsInterpretive understanding that seeks systematically to access the essence of things,100
358764305HinduismThe Western word for the religious beliefs and practices of the majority of the people of India,101
358764306Human law"In the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas, the laws and statutes of society that are derived from our understanding of natural law",102
358764307Hypothetical imperativeAn imperative that states what you ought to do if a certain end is desired,103
358764308Id"In Sigmund Freud's theory, the part of the psyche that is the unconscious source of instinctive impulses and drives",104
358764309Idealism"The doctrine that only what is mental (thought, consciousness, perception) exists and that so-called physical things are manifestations of mind or thought",105
358764310"Identityproblem of",What are the criteria of the sameness of an entity?,106
358764311Identity theoryThe theory that mental states and events are brain states and events,107
358764312IncorrigibleThe property of a proposition that cannot be false if you believe it to be true,108
358764313Indeterminacy of translation"In the philosophy of W. V. O. Quine, the idea that alternative incompatible translations of any language are compatible with the linguistic behavior of its speakers",109
358764314Individual relativismThe theory that what is right (and wrong) is what you believe is right (and wrong),110
358764315Inscrutability of reference"In the philosophy of W. V. O. Quine, the idea that alternative conceptions of what objects a theory refers to are equally compatible with the totality of physical facts",111
358764316Instrumental end"Something desirable as a means to an end, but not desirable for its own sake",112
358764317Instrumentalism"A theory held by John Dewey, among others, that ideas, judgments, and propositions are not merely true or false; rather, they are tools to understand experience and solve problems",113
358764318Intelligent design or evolutionThe idea that the universe cannot be explained except on the supposition that it is the creation of an intelligent designer,114
358764319Interactionist dualismThe theory that the physical body and the nonphysical mind interact with each other,115
358764320Intrinsic endSomething that is desirable for its own sake and not merely as a means to an end,116
358764321Invisible-hand explanationAn explanation of a phenomenon as an unforeseen indirect consequence of action taken for some other purpose,117
358764322KarmaThe idea that your point of departure in life is determined by your decisions and deeds in earlier lives,118
358764323Language game"The context in which an utterance is made, which determines the purposes served by the utterance and hence its meaning; Wittgenstein believed that philosophical problems are due to ignoring the ""game"" in which certain concepts are used",119
358764324Law of the Father"In Lacan's theory, a system that contains encoded patriarchal values in language",120
358764325Lawrence v.TexasA 2003 ruling by the United States Supreme Court that a Texas law prohibiting homosexual sodomy was unconstitutional,121
358764326Leviathan"The coiled snake or dragon in the Book of Job in the Bible; in the philosophy of Thomas Hobbes, ""that mortal God, to which we owe our peace and defense""; that is, the state (or its sovereign) created by social contract",122
358764327LiberalismA political philosophy whose basic tenet is that each individual should have the maximum freedom consistent with the freedom of others,123
358764328Libertarian"Someone who believes in free will; alternatively, someone who upholds the principles of liberty of thought and action",124
358764329LogicThe study of correct inference,125
358764330Logical atomism"The metaphysical theory that the world does not consist of things but of facts, that is, things having certain properties and standing in certain relationship to one another. The ultimate facts are atomic in that they are logically independent of one another and are unresolvable into simpler facts; likewise, an empirically correct description of the world will consist ultimately of logically independent and unanalyzable atomic propositions that correspond to the atomic facts",126
358764331Logical positivism"The philosophy of the Vienna Circle, according to which an purported statement of fact, if not a verbal truism, is meaningless unless certain conceivable observations would serve to confirm or deny it",127
358764332LogicismThe thesis that the concepts of mathematics can be defined in terms of concepts of logic and that all mathematical truths can be proved from principles of formal logic,128
358764333Logocentrism"A term coined by Derrida that refers to the traditional Western ways of thinking about truth, consciousness, and reason in language",129
358764334Marxism"The socialist philosophy of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and their followers that postulates the labor theory of value, the dialectical interplay of social institutions, class struggle, and dictatorship of the proletariat leading to a classless society",130
358764335MaterialismThe theory that only physical entities exist and that so-called mental things are manifestations of an underlying physical reality,131
358764336Means (forces) of productionIn Marxism the means of producing the satisfaction of needs,132
358764337Metaethics"The philosophical investigation of the sources, criteria, meaning, verification, validation, and logical interrelationships of moral value",133
358764338MetaphysicsThe branch of philosophy that studies the nature and fundamental features of being,134
358764339Mirror stage"In Lacanian theory, the stage of development when the child identifies itself with its own image, separate from its mother",135
358764340Modified skepticA skeptic who does not doubt that at least some things are known but denies or suspends judgment on the possibility of knowledge about some particular subject,136
358764341Monad"From the Greek word meaning ""unit.'"" Pythagoras used the word to denote the first number of a series, and Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz used the word to denote the unextended, simple, soul-like basic elements of the universe",137
358764342Moral argument for the existence of God"The argument that maintains that morality, to be more than merely relative and contingent, must come from and be guaranteed by a supreme being, God",138
358764343Moral imperative"Distinguished by Kant from a hypothetical imperative, which holds conditionally (e.g., ""If you desire health, then eat well!""), a moral imperative holds unconditionally (e.g., ""Do your duty!"")",139
358764344Morality of intentIt is not what you do that matters morally but the state of mind with which you do it,140
358764345Moral judgment"A value judgment about what is morally right or wrong, good or bad, proper or improper",141
358764346Naturalist fallacyThinking that a moral value judgment is entailed by a descriptive statement. Perhaps not really a fallacy,142
358764347Naturalized epistemologyThe view that the important epistemological problems are those that can be resolved by psychological investigation of the processes involved in acquiring and revising beliefs,143
358764348Natural law"in Hobbes's philosophy, a value-neutral principle, discovered by reason, of how best to preserve one's life; in the Stoic philosophy, a principle of rationality that infuses the universe, to which human behavior ought to conform; in Thomas Aquinas's philosophy, God's eternal law as it applies to humans on earth and dictates the fundamental principles of morality",144
358764349Natural law political theory"The view that questions of political ethics are to be answered by natural law, which alone determines what is right, good, just, and proper (and their alternatives)",145
358764350Natural rightA right thought to belong by nature to all human beings at all times and in all circumstances,146
358764351Necessary beingA being whose nonexistence is impossible,147
358764352Necessary/contingent pair"In the philosophy of Saul Kripke, a necessary truth is a statement that could not possibly be false. A contingent truth is a statement that is true but could have been false",148
358764353Neoplatonism"A further development of Platonic philosophy under the influence of Aristotelian and Pythagorean philosophy and Christian mysticism; it flourished between the third and sixth centuries, stressing a mystical intuition of the highest One or God, a transcendent source of all being",149
358764354Nihil in intellectu quod prius non fuerit in sensuNothing is in the intellect that was not first in the senses; an epistemological principle formulated by Thomas Aquinas as an extrapolation of Aristotle's thinking,150
358764355NihilismThe rejection of values and beliefs,151
358764356Nirvana"In Buddhism, the highest good; the extinction of will and of the accompanying ego, greed, anger, delusion, and clinging to existence. Achievement of nirvana means being freed from all future rebirths",152
358764357NominalismThe theory that only individual things are real,153
358764358Normative ethicsA system of moral value judgments together with their justifications,154
358764359Normative questionsQuestions about the value of something. Norms are standards,155
358764360Noumena"In the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, things as they are in themselves independent of all possible experience of them",156
358764361Nous"A Greek word variously translated as ""thinking,"" ""mind,"" ""spirit,"" and ""intellect""",157
358764362OccasionalismA variant of parallelism according to which an act of willing your body to do something is the occasion for God to cause your body to do it,158
358764363Ontological argumentThe argument that God's existence is entailed by the definition or concept of God,159
358764364OntologyThe branch of metaphysics that deals with the study of existence or being,160
358764365Original positionJohn Rawls' name for a hypothetical condition in which rational and unbiased individuals select the principles of social justice that govern a well-ordered society,161
358764366Pan-African philosophyA cultural categorization of philosophical activity that includes the work of African thinkers and thinkers of African descent wherever they are located,162
358764367Paradox of hedonism"Henry Sidgwick's term for the fact that the desire for pleasure, if it is too strong, defeats its own aim",163
358764368Parallelism"The doctrine that there are two parallel and coordinated series of events, one mental and the other physical, and that apparent causal interaction between the mind and the body is to be explained as a manifestation of the correlation between the two series",164
358764369PatriarchySecond wave feminist term representing the set of institutions that legitimized universal male power,165
358764370Perception"A modern word for what Thomas Hobbes called ""sense,"" the basic mental activity from which all other mental phenomena are derived",166
358764371"Personal identityproblem of",What are the criteria of sameness of person?,167
358764372PerspectivismThe idea that all perception and conceptualization takes place from a particular perspective,168
358764373PhallocentrismA Lacanian term that describes the symbolic order in which the phallus is privileged,169
358764374PhallusA symbolic representation of the penis,170
358764375Phenomena"In Kant's philosophy, objects as experienced and hence as organized and unified by the categories of the understanding and the forms of space and time; things as they appear to us or, alternatively, the appearances themselves",171
358764376Phenomenalism"The theory that we only know phenomena; in analytic philosophy, the theory that propositions referring to physical objects can, in principle, be expressed in propositions referring only to sense-data",172
358764377Phenomenological reductionA method of putting aside the ordinary attitude toward the world and its objects in order to see the objects of pure consciousness through intuition,173
358764378PhenomenologyThe objective philosophical investigation of essences or meanings developed by the philosopher Edmund Husserl (1859â€"1938),174
358764379Philosophy of mind"That area of analytic philosophy concerned with the nature of consciousness, mental states, the mind, and the proper analysis of everyday psychological vocabulary",175
358764380Political philosophy"The philosophical study of the state, its justification, and its ethically proper organization",176
358764381PostmodernismThe period of twentieth-century Western culture following modernism that challenges traditional cultural values in a variety of ways,177
358764382Pragmatic theory of truth"In Dewey's and William James's philosophies, a theory of justification according to which (roughly) a belief may be accepted as true if it ""works,""; in Peirce's philosophy, a species of correspondence theory",178
358764383PragmatismPhilosophies that hold that the meaning of concepts lies in the difference they make to conduct and that the function of thought is to guide action,179
358764384Prescriptive egoismThe doctrine that in all conscious action you ought to seek your self-interest above all else,180
358764385Prescriptive judgmentA statement that assigns a value to a thing; a value judgment,181
358764386Pre-Socratic philosophers"Greek philosophers who lived before Socrates - Anaxagoras; Anaximander; Anaximenes; Atomists, the; Democritus; Empedocles; Heraclitus; Leucippus; Parmenides; Pythagoras; Thales; Zeno of Elea",182
358764387Principle of noncontradictionThe principle that a proposition and its contradictory cannot both be true and one or the other must be true,183
358764388Principle of reasonSee A priori principle,184
358764389Principle of sufficient reasonThe principle that there is a sufficient reason why things are exactly as they are and are not otherwise,185
358764390Principle of the identity of indiscernibles"The principle according to which if entity X and entity Y have exactly the same set of properties, then X = Y",186
358764391Private language"In the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein, a language that can be understood by only a single individual",187
358764392Productive relations"In Marxism, social institutions and practices",188
358764393PsychoanalysisA psychological theory and therapeutic method developed by Sigmund Freud,189
358764394PsycholinguisticsA branch of linguistics that studies psychological aspects of language,190
358764395Psychological hedonismThe theory that pleasure is the object of a person's desire,191
358764396PyrrhonistsMembers of a school of philosophical skepticism in the Hellenistic and Roman periods who attempted to suspend judgment on all knowledge claims,192
358764397Pythagoreans"Pythagoras and his followers, whose doctrineâ€"a combination of mathematics and philosophyâ€"gave birth to the concept in metaphysics that fundamental reality is eternal, unchanging, and accessible only to reason",193
358764398Queer theoryA theory that deconstructs binary oppositions/sexual boundaries,194
358764399Rationalism"The epistemological theory that reason is either the sole or primary source of knowledge; in practice, most rationalists maintain merely that at least some truths are not known solely on the basis of sensory experience",195
358764400RealismThe theory that the real world is independent of the mind; the theory that universals exist outside the mind,196
358764401Red herringThe fallacy of addressing a point other than the one actually at issue,197
358764402Reductio ad absurdumProving a proposition by showing that its nonacceptance would involve an absurdity,198
358764403ReductionismThe idea that every meaningful statement reduces to the experience that would confirm or disconfirm it; See also Translatability thesis,199
358764404RepresentationalismThe doctrine that true beliefs are accurate representations of the state of affairs they are about,200
358764405Representative realism"The theory that we perceive objects indirectly by means of representations (ideas, perceptions) of them",201
358764406Rule-utilitarianismA form of utilitarianism (subscribed to by John Stuart Mill) in which the rightness of an act is determined by the impact on the general happiness of the rule or principle the action exemplifies,202
358764407SamuraiThe warrior aristocracy of Japan,203
358764408SemioticThe pre-Oedipal stage when the child does not distinguish between itself and its mother,204
358764409Sense-dataThat which you are immediately aware of in sensory experience; the contents of awareness,205
358764410SkepticOne who questions or suspends judgment on the possibility of knowledge,206
358764411Skepticism"(capital ""s"") A school of philosophy that emerged in the Hellenistic and Roman periods after Plato; included the Academics and the Pyrrhonists; (lowercase ""s"") the doctrine that true knowledge is uncertain or impossible",207
358764412Social contractAn agreement among individuals forming an organized society or between the community and the ruler that defines the rights and duties of each,208
358764413Socialism"The theory that communal ownership of land, capital, and the means of production is the best way of serving the common good",209
358764414Social philosophyThe philosophical study of society and its institutions; concerned especially with determining the features of the ideal or best society. See also Political philosophy,210
358764415SophistsAncient Greek rhetoricians who taught debating skills for a fee,211
358764416Specific differenceHow a thing is specifically different from other things in the same genus,212
358764417Stoicism"(capital ""s"") The ethical philosophy of the ancient Greek Stoics, who emphasized the serene or untroubled life as the highest good and thought it best reached through acceptance of the natural order of things; (lowercase ""s"") the practice of a stoic, one who is indifferent to pleasure and pain",213
358764418Straw manThe fallacy of trying to refute someone's view by misrepresenting it,214
358764419Subjectivism"In ethics, the doctrine that what is right is determined by what people believe is right; elsewhere, the theory that limits knowledge of conscious states",215
358764420Superego"In Sigmund Freud's theory, that part of the psyche that functions as conscience",216
358764421Switching the burden of proofTrying to prove a position by asking an opponent to disprove it,217
358764422Synthetic truth (Quine)"A true statement that is not such that it holds ""come what may""",218
358764423Tabula rasa"Latin for ""blank tablet""; also, John Locke's metaphor for the condition of the mind prior to the imprint of sensory experience",219
358764424Tacit consent"An implied rather than explicitly consent, as, for example, when you consent to the laws of your state by continuing to live in it",220
358764425Tao"In Chinese philosophy, the Way: the ultimate and eternal principle of unity, meaning, and harmony in the universe; See also Taoism",221
358764426Taoism"One of the great philosophical traditions in China, according to which the individual will find peace and tranquility through quietly following the Tao",222
358764427Teleological explanation"An explanation of a thing in terms of its ends, goals, purposes, or functions",223
358764428Ten TropesA collection of ten arguments by the Skeptic against the possibility of knowledge,224
358764429TheodicyA defense of God's goodness and omnipotence in view of apparent evil,225
358764430Theoretical positsEntities whose existence we hypothesize to explain our sensory experience,226
358764431Theory of FormsPlato's central metaphysical concept. See also Form,227
358764432Thesis-antithesis-synthesis"In the philosophy of Hegel, to each thesis there is an antithesis (opposite), and the two are a unity in a higher synthesis",228
358764433Thing-in-itselfEnglish for Ding-an-sich: a thing as it is independent of any consciousness of it,229
358764434Third Man argument"Aristotle's criticism of Plato's Theory of Forms, according to which there must be a third thing that ties together a Form with the particular things that exemplify it",230
358764435Thought"According to Descartes, the essential attribute of mind",231
358764436Thought experimentImagining a situation in order to extract a lesson of philosophical importance,232
358764437Total skeptic"One who maintains nothing can be known or, alternatively, suspends judgment in all matters",233
358764438Transcendental phenomenologyAn epistemological method that seeks the certainty of a pure of consciousness of objects in the transcendental ego,234
358764439Translatability thesis"The idea that, in theory, statements about the world could all be translated into statements that refer to immediate sensory experience",235
358764440Übermensch"In the philosophy of Nietzsche, the ""Superman"" who escapes the triviality of society by embracing the will to power and rejecting the slave mentality that permeates society and dominates religion",236
358764441Universal"That which is denoted by a general word, a word (such as ""chair"") that applies to more than a single thing",237
358764442Universalistic ethical hedonism"The doctrine that one ought to seek, over everything else, the greatest pleasure for the greatest number of people; See also Utilitarianism",238
358764443Universal phenomenology of consciousnessAttempts made by Hegel and Husserl to devise a pure science of knowing,239
358764444UtilitarianismThe doctrine that the rightness of an action is identical with the happiness it produces as its consequence,240
358764445Value judgmentA proposition that explicitly or implicitly assigns a value to something,241
358764446Veil of ignorance"In Indian philosophy, the perspective from which the world is viewed as a multiplicity of things; in John Rawls's philosophy, the metaphor for the conditions under which rational individuals are to select the principles of justice that govern the well-ordered society",242
358764447Verifiability criterion (theory) of meaningThe dictum that a sentence must express something verifiable if it is to express an empirically meaningful statement,243
358764448Vienna CircleA group of philosophers and scientists centered at the University of Vienna in the 1920s and 1930s who espoused logical positivism,244
358764449Virtue ethics"Ethical theories according to which what I ought to do is what the virtuous person would do; for virtue ethics, the primary question is, What kind of person ought I to be?",245
358764450Zen Buddhism"A form of Buddhism that reached its zenith in China and later developed in Japan, Korea, and the West; its name (Chinese Ch'an Japanese Zen) derives from Sanskrit Dhyana (meditation). In early China the central tenet of Zen Buddhism was meditation rather than adherence to a particular scripture",246

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