Lexicon griceianum -- in six volumes, vol. ii.

DEMONSTRATUM. demonstration Logic, epistemology [from Latin de, away, from + monstrare, show; its Greek counterpart is apo, away + deixis, show] For Aristotle, demonstration was the inference of new knowledge from certain previously established knowledge or axioms, in contrast to intuition, which directly apprehends first principles. All syllogism is demonstration, although not all demonstration is syllogism. For Descartes and Locke, demonstration was the discovery of the connections of ideas and the comparison of ideas by reason alone. It amounts to rational justification and contrasts with immediate knowledge. Hume proposes that demonstrative knowledge is indubitable knowledge, in contrast to contingent knowledge about matters of fact. In contemporary philosophy, demonstration amounts to proof, that is, the deduction of a conclusion from one or more accepted premises by means of a set of valid rules of inference. “In the nature of the case the essential elements of demonstration are three: the subject, the attributes, and the basic premises.” Aristotle, Posterior Analytics De Morgan, Augustus, Madura-born philosopher, Professor of Mathematics, University of London. De Morgan sought to codify the principles of logic as an independent system of symbols on the model of mathematics. He contributed to the study of fallacies, logical sums and products, paradoxes, probability and rational partial belief, predication, relations, and unorthodox syllogistic reasoning. His main works include Essay on Probabilities (1838), Formal Logic (1847), On the Syllogism (1864), and Budget of Paradoxes (1872). De Morgan rule Logic A valid rule of inference for conjunction and disjunction which shows how we can move negation signs inside and outside of parentheses. It states that we can proceed from the negation of a conjunctive proposition to the disjunction of the negations of its parts, and conversely that we can proceed from the negation of a disjunctive proposition to the conjunction of the negations of its parts. To symbolize, ~(P∧Q) (not both P and Q) = ~P∨~Q (either not P or not Q); and ~(P∨ Q) (not either P or Q) = ~ P∧~Q (not P and not Q). We must notice that “not both” is not equivalent to “both . . . not,” and that “not either” is not equivalent to “either . . . not.” The rule is named after the nineteenth-century logician Augustus De Morgan, but it occurred earlier in William of Ockham’s work. “De Morgan rule . . . may be summarised as follows: when moving a negation sign inside or outside a set of parentheses, ‘and’ switches to ‘or’, and conversely.” Hurley, A Concise Introduction to Logic Dennett, Daniel (1942– ) American philosopher of mind, Professor at Tufts University. Dennett argues that many problems in the philosophy of mind arise from confusing the “intentional stance” of folk psychology and the “design stance” of a scientific cognitive psychology. Beliefs, desires, and the self are useful abstractions rather than real entities and events. In his examples and doctrines, Dennett ranges beyond philosophy to neurophysiology, artificial intelligence, and evolution. His major works include Content and Consciousness (1969), Brainstorms (1978), The Intentional Stance (1987), and Consciousness Explained (1991). DENOMINATUM -- denominatio extrinseca: A scholastic term used in contrast to denominatio intrinseca. Denominatio intrinseca (intrinsic denomination) means a reference to a thing’s intrinsic property or its inherent properties, while denominatio extrinseca (extrinsic denomination) is a reference to a thing’s accidental properties. More narrowly, an extrinsic denomination is an experiential determination directed at a thing. For instance, being seen or being talked about is an extrinsic denomination of a thing when someone sees or talks about that thing. Thomas Aquinas proposes that of Aristotle’s ten categories, the first four, substance, quality, quantity, and relation, are intrinsic denominations, and all others are extrinsic denominations. But the distinction is controversial, especially with regard to the status of relation. An accepted notion in contemporary philosophy is that if a relation is internal, it is an intrinsic denomination; if it is external, it is an extrinsic denomination. “Extrinsic denominations: denominations which have absolutely no function in the very thing denominated.” Leibniz, Philosophical Essays -- denominatio intrinseca, see denominatio extrinseca DENOTATUM -- denotation Logic, philosophy of language The distinction between denotation and connotation was introduced by J. S. Mill, and corresponds to what other logicians call the distinction between extension and intension, or that between reference and meaning. Denotation is the object designated by a singular term or the class of objects referred to by a general term. Connotation is the attribute of an object, which permits the term to apply correctly to the object. Words with different connotations can have the same denotation. For instance, “the capital of the United Kingdom” and “the largest city in the United Kingdom” denote the same object, although they connote different attributes. A name, such as a proper name, may have a denotation but no connotation. The idea that some terms denote but do not connote and therefore do not have meaning is crucial for Russell’s theory of definite description. “If we know that the proposition ‘a is the so-and-so’ is true, i.e. that a is so-and-so and nothing else is, we call a the denotation of the phrase ‘the so-and-so’.” Russell, Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell, vol. VI -- denoting phrases Logic, philosophy of language Term introduced and analyzed in Russell’s important article “On Denoting.” It refers to definite and indefinite descriptions, including those which may denote one definite object, e.g. “the present King of England,” those which may be denoting phrases but do not denote anything, e.g. “the present King of France,” and those which may denote ambiguously, e.g. “a man,” “some deontology men.” According to Russell, denoting phrases do not have meaning in themselves, but contribute to the meaning of the whole proposition in which they occur. Thus these phrases are also called incomplete symbols. “A denoting phrase is essentially part of a sentence, and does not, like most single words, have any significance on its own account.” Russell, Logic and Knowledge MODUS TOLLENDO TOLLENS. denying mode, another term for modus tollens denying the antecedent Logic A logical fallacy of the form “if p then q, not p, therefore not q.” The categorical premise denies the antecedent of the conditional premises, while the conclusion denies its consequent. For instance, “If he is sick, he does not come to work”; “he is not sick”; therefore, “he comes to work.” The inference is not valid because being sick is a sufficient rather than a necessary condition for not coming to work. Hence it is not sound to deny the consequent on the basis of a denial of the antecedent. The correct form should be from the denial of the consequent of the conditional to the denial of its antecedent; that is, “if p then q; not q; therefore not p.” This is called by the medieval logicians modus tollens, and is also called the denying mode. “The truth of the premises does not require the truth of the conclusion. This means that denying the antecedent is an invalid form of the simple conditional argument.” Adams, The Fundamentals of General Logic OBLIGATUM -- DEONTICS -- deontic concept, another term for deontic modality deontic judgment, another name for judgment of obligation deontic logic Logic, ethics A kind of formal logic, also called the logic of obligation, which concerns the logical relations between propositions containing deontic modalities or concepts such as obliged, permitted, or forbidden. It was motivated by the development of modal logic in the twentieth century, and the observation by logicians that the words obligatory and permissible parallel the roles of necessary and possible in arguments. Deontic logic can be traced to the medieval logicians, and to Leibniz, Bentham, and Ernst Mally, but in contemporary logic it started with G. H. von Wright’s seminal paper “Deontic Logic” (Mind 60, 1951). The most systematic treatment of this logic so far is in the works of von Wright. In a sense, deontic logic is the application of formal logic to ethical notions and tends to codify the rules of practical reasoning. Although the discovery of paradoxes in formal deontic systems has led to proposals for their radical reformulation, many logicians still endorse this part of logic, anticipating the contribution of deontic logic to the development of both ethical and logical theory. “There are several families of concepts, the members of which exhibit in their mutual relations the same formal pattern as the modalities. An example are the deontic or normative notions: obligation, permission, and others. The formal theory of these has become known as deontic logic.” von Wright, Philosophical Logic -- deontic modality Logic, ethics [from Greek deontos, fitting, proper or as it should be] Deontic modalities, also called deontic concepts, are the concepts implying obligation (ought to), permission (may), and forbidding (ought not to). Sentences in which these concepts occur are called deontic sentences. This term was introduced by G. H. von Wright, and he contrasts them with normative concepts such as “right” or “wrong,” and axiological concepts such as “good” or “bad.” The logic that is concerned with the logical relations between propositions containing deontic modalities is deontic logic or the logic of obligation. “The deontic modalities are about the mode or way in which we are permitted or not to perform an act.” von Wright, An Essay in Modal Logic -- deontology Ethics [from Greek to deon, what is proper, what ought to be, or duty] An ethics based on acting according to duty. It concentrates on moral motives and takes obligation or duty as its central notion. Deontology holds that there are certain things that are right or wrong intrinsically. We should do them or not do them simply because of the sorts of things they are, regardless of the consequences of doing them. Hence, deontology is contrasted to teleological or consequentialist ethics (represented by utilitarianism), which claims that the rightness of an action depends on whether it brings about good consequences. To lie is wrong simply because it is a lie, no matter how much happiness it can produce. There is a set of moral principles and rules that a moral agent must observe absolutely. Deontology maintains that consequentialism is wrong because the goodness of the consequences of an action does not guarantee the rightness of an action. But it is difficult for deontology to explain why certain sorts of things are wrong in themselves. Generally deontology attempts to answer this question by appeal to common sense moral intuition or to human rationality, but a satisfactory account of what makes an act wrong is still required. Kant is the most important deontological theorist. Other major deontologists include Samuel Clarke, W. D. Ross, Prichard, Butler, and, in contemporary philosophy, Alan Donagan, C. Fried, and Thomas Nagel. Some theorists have tried to distinguish rule-deontology and act-deontology. The former determines what is right in accordance with a set of universally applied moral rules, while the latter maintains that given changing circumstances we should act in accord with particular moral judgments regarding particular situations. This distinction is not presently in fashion. Deontology and utilitarianism have been the two major trends in modern Western ethics. The term was introduced by Bentham, in a manuscript entitled “Deontology,” to refer to the ethics which has “for its object the learning and showing for the information of each individual, by what means the net amount of his happiness may be made as large as possible.” Bentham’s deontology is equivalent to utilitarianism, but this usage is largely ignored. “Deontological ethics . . . is any system which does not appeal to the consequences of our actions, but which appeals to conformity with certain rules of duty.” Smart and Williams, Utilitarianism: For and Against. dependence thesis, see context principle de re, see de dicto de re belief, another expression for belief de re derivative belief, see primitive knowledge derivative knowledge, see primitive knowledge Derrida, Jacques (1930 – ) Algerian-born French post-structuralist and phenomenologist deconstructionist philosopher, born in Algiers, Professor of Philosophy at the Sorbonne and École Normale Supérieure. Derrida rejects the metaphysics of presence that he claims characterizes Western philosophy since Plato. He applies his method of deconstruction to philosophical and other texts to reveal the indeterminacy and instability of meaning. The implications of his hostility to metaphysics and to foundationalist programs in general are still being explored, and his studies of language, metaphysics, and aesthetics have been influential in cultural and literary criticism. His main works include Speech and Phenomena (1967), Of Grammatology (1967), Writing and Difference (1967), and Margins of Philosophy (1972). H. P. Grice, “Descartes on clear and distinct perception’ -- Descartes, René (1596–1650) French philosopher and mathematician, regarded as the father of modern philosophy, born at La Haye. Descartes rejected the methods and assumptions of scholasticism and sought to set knowledge on a firm basis by demanding certainty in the justification of our beliefs. His philosophical system, based on his method of systematic doubt, accepted nothing as true that could not be clearly and distinctly perceived to be true. He held that for each of us the first indubitable truth is “I am thinking, therefore I exist” (Latin cogito ergo sum). Descartes’s focus on the primacy of epistemology shaped subsequent understanding of the nature of the philosophy. Since doubt is an imperfect state, he inferred the existence of God as a Perfect Being. Cartesian dualism argues that mind and body are distinct substances and that a human being is a union of an extended body and a thinking mind. The relation between mind and body remains a basic question in philosophy of mind. His rationalism, search for certainty and conception of mind have also influenced phenomenology and other movements in modern European philosophy. Descartes’s philosophy is best understood in relation to his contributions to the emerging modern science of his time. His major works include Discourse on the Method (1637), Meditations on First Philosophy (1641), Principles of Philosophy (1644), and The Passions of the Soul (1649). He died in Stockholm while tutoring Queen Christina in philosophy. DESCRIPTUM -- description, attributive use of, see description, referential use of description, referential use of Logic, philosophy of language Donnellan distinguishes between the attributive and the referential use of descriptions. In the attributive use, a speaker makes an assertion about whatever or whoever fits the description, without necessarily having any idea what that thing or person is. In the referential use, a speaker has a definite individual in mind and uses the description to refer to it, thus enabling his audience to pick out or identify what he is talking about. In the referential use, the description is merely a tool for achieving reference, and the reference can succeed even if the thing referred to does not fit the description. This distinction shows that our use of descriptions is complex and that descriptions do not always refer to whatever happens to fit them. Donnellan uses his distinction to criticize the analyses of descriptions offered by Russell and Strawson. Russell ignores the referential use, while Strawson seems to ignore the attributive. “I will call the two uses of definite descriptions I have in mind the attributive use and the referential use. A speaker who uses a definite description attributively in an assertion states something about whoever or whatever is the so-and-so. A speaker who uses a definite description referentially in an assertion, on the other hand, uses the description to enable his audience to pick out whom or what he is talking about and states something about that person or thing.” Donnellan, “Reference and Definite Description,” in Schwarz (ed.), Naming, Necessity and Natural Kinds -- description, theory of: Russell divided description into two kinds: indefinite description, that is, phrases of the form “a so-and-so,” and definite description, that is, phrases of the form “the so-and-so.” He claimed that descriptions are not referring expressions, and they do not need to denote anything in order to be meaningful. A description is an incomplete symbol and is meaningful only in a sentence that contains it (“contextual definition”). Both kinds of description can be analyzed away, and can be replaced by quantifiers and variables. We can replace an indefinite description with an existential quantifier (“There is one thing that is . . . ) and we can replace a definite description with a uniqueness quantifier (“There is exactly one thing such that. . . . ). Russell’s theory of definite descriptions has greatly influenced contemporary epistemology and logic, and has been cited as a model of philosophical analysis. The theory, however, is challenged by Peter Strawson, who argues that descriptions are, at least sometimes, referring expressions that can single out something. Keith Donnellan further argues that both Russell and Strawson are one-sided, for they fail to notice that description can be used either attributively or referentially. “Russell appears to claim for the Theory of Description that it gives an exact account of the working of one class of definite singular terms, viz. singular descriptions, and I am bound to deny this.” Strawson, in Davidson and Hintikka (eds.), Words and Objections -- descriptive ethics Ethics, philosophy of social science The description of the moral views and moral principles held by people at a particular time in a particular community. Descriptive ethics also examines resemblances and differences among these moral views, but does not commit itself to preferring one view to another. It seeks to explain ethical discourse and statements as well. While meta-ethics specifies the proper use of ethical terms and lays down certain rules of ethical discourse, descriptive ethics does not move beyond an account of ethical discourse by placing it within a general cultural background. Descriptive ethics is more properly a branch of -- descriptive fallacy -- anthropology rather than a branch of ethics, and some philosophers believe that one cannot gain insight in descriptive ethics without testing the ethical views and principles philosophically. “I shall call the investigation of the moral code and accompanying ethical conceptions of a person or group descriptive ethics.” Ladd, The Structure of a Moral Code -- descriptive fallacy Philosophy of language, ethics J. L. Austin’s term for the practice in the traditional theory of statements of taking all statements to be descriptive and claiming that to understand the meaning of a sentence is to understand its truth condition. However, Austin argued that there are many sentences, such as those used in performative utterances, whose meanings are not determined by their truthconditions. They are not subjects of truth and falsity, for they do not specify or report features of reality, but are used to do something. To say “I swear . . .” is not to report that one swears, but is the act of swearing itself. This point is well developed by noncognitivism, whose major theme is to distinguish factual statements from ethical statements. “To overlook these possibilities in the way once common is called the ‘descriptive fallacy’.” Austin, How to Do Things with Words -- descriptive meaning Philosophy of language, ethics Some philosophers suggest that we distinguish between two kinds of meaning of expressions. Descriptive meaning contributes to a bare presentation of facts, as in the claim “This strawberry is sweet.” Evaluative meaning functions in a different way by offering an assessment, as in the claim “This strawberry is good.” The descriptive meaning of a statement can be determined by its truth conditions, while the evaluative meaning cannot. This is because the descriptive meaning is constant while the evaluative meaning varies with the reactions of those using the expression. For instance, “war” has a fixed and translatable descriptive meaning, but its emotive associations can give it different evaluative meanings. For some “war” evokes a feeling of terror, and for others it evokes a feeling of heroic courage. The distinction between these two kinds of meaning is crucial for the distinction between ethical -- descriptivism (cognitivism) and non-descriptivism (non-cognitivism). Non-descriptivism, such as emotivism and prescriptivism, holds that ethical judgments have an element of descriptive meaning, but chiefly have evaluative meaning. In contrast, descriptivism holds that the entire meaning of moral judgments is descriptive. Descriptive meaning is also called semantic meaning. “As the descriptive meaning of ‘good’ in ‘good apple’ is different from its meaning in ‘good cactus’; but the evaluative meaning is the same – in both cases we are commending.” Hare, The Language of Morals -- descriptive metaphysics Metaphysics A term introduced by P. F. Strawson in Individuals, in contrast to revisionary metaphysics. Descriptive metaphysics aims to describe the most general features of our conceptual scheme, that is, to describe reality as it manifests itself to the human understanding. Conceptual analysis is its main method. Revisionary metaphysics, on the other hand, attempts to revise our ordinary way of thinking and our ordinary conceptual scheme in order to provide an intellectually and morally preferred picture of the world. Hence, revisionary metaphysicians generally like to establish a well-organized system beyond the world of experience. Strawson claims that the history of metaphysics can be broadly divided into these two kinds of metaphysics. Aristotle and Kant are considered to be the forerunners of descriptive metaphysics, and Strawson’s own Individuals is also subtitled An Essay in Descriptive Metaphysics, while Descartes, Leibniz, and Berkeley are representatives of revisionary metaphysics. This distinction may not cover all metaphysical systems, but it has been greatly influential in reviving work in metaphysics. “Descriptive metaphysics is content to describe the actual structure of our thought about the world, revisionary metaphysics is concerned to produce a better structure.” Strawson, Individuals descriptive psychology Philosophy of mind, modern European philosophy The name that the German philosopher Franz Brentano gave to his psychology, in which he sought to give a pure description of the constituents of human consciousness and their modes of combination, in order to present a general notion of the entirety of human consciousness. According to Brentano, such a psychology enables us to know directly the human mind as it actually is. It is distinguished from genetic psychology because it is not concerned with the physiological genesis of psychological phenomena. However, Brentano considered it to be the basis for genetic psychology. Brentano’s descriptive psychology had great impact on Husserl’s phenomenology and Meinong’s philosophy. It has also played a significant role in the philosophy of mind. -- existence of this kind of belief has raised philosophical questions about the analysis of what is believed and about our knowledge of what is ascribed to ourselves in this way. It contrasts with de re belief, which is about external particulars and about myself when seen as an external object. -- “Descriptive psychology, we said, sets itself the task of an analysing description of our phenomena, i.e., of our immediate experiential facts, or, what is the same, of the objects which we apprehend in our perception.” Brentano, Descriptive Psychology -- descriptivism Philosophy of language, metaphysics Hare calls the division between descriptive and nondescriptive ethical theories a division between cognitive and non-cognitive ethical theories. Descriptivism or cognitivism holds that ethical statements are obtained in the same way as factual statements and accordingly that we understand the meaning of ethical judgments by determining their truth conditions. Both naturalism and intuitionism belong to descriptivism. Non-descriptivism or noncognitivism, on the other hand, argues that ethical judgments are not the same as factual statements and that they generally are neither true nor false. Their meaning contains a descriptive element which may be decided by their truth conditions, but they are chiefly emotive or prescriptive. Emotivism and prescriptivism are both varieties of non-descriptivism. “[T]hat moral judgements are a kind of descriptive judgements, i.e. that their descriptive meaning exhausts their meaning. This is descriptivism.” “Perceptual beliefs of a certain sort – what philosophers call de se belief (e.g. that is moving) – are often silent about what it is they represent, about what topic it is on which they comment, about their reference.” Dretske, Explaining Behavior desert: What a person ought to get or what he deserves to get according to some facts about him, such as his actions, character, or state. Virtuous persons should be rewarded by happiness in proportion to their virtue, and evil persons should be punished in proportion to the degree of evil in their actions. The idea of desert is associated with fairness and justice, but conflicts with egalitarian and utilitarian principles. Legitimate claims to desert do not always entail that others must guarantee that the claimants get their desert. However, by accepting the idea of desert, one is likely to hold that desert is essential for morality. One is also likely to hold that a just political system should promote the provision of just deserts by distributing benefits and harms according to desert. On this basis, desert is an important element in determining how we should treat persons, especially where no explicit moral principles or rules give us guidance. In contemporary political philosophy, meritarianism is the view that advocates the importance of considering deserts. “To ascribe desert to a person is to say that it would be a good thing if he were to receive something (advantageous or disadvantageous) in virtue of some action or effort of his or some result brought about by him.” Barry, Political Argument Hare, Freedom and Reason de se belief: Latin de, of + se, self ] Firstperson belief involving a form of self-attribution in which we recognize properties as belonging to ourselves independent of the grounds on which we ascribe properties to external things or persons, such as under descriptions or through perception. The DESIDERATUM -- desire Ethics, philosophy of mind, philosophy of action [Greek orexis] Aristotle distinguished three forms of desire: (1) boulesis: a wish or rational desire for objects conceived as good; (2) thumos: an emotional or non-rational desire for objects that appear good. Because Aristotle frequently associated it with selfassertive feelings involving pride and anger, thumos can also be translated as “spirit” or “temper”; (3) epithumia: an appetite or irrational desire for an object believed to be pleasant. These desires are associated especially with basic biological needs, such as desires for food or sex. Aristotle’s classification is apparently based on Plato’s tripartite division of the soul, ascribing different desires to different parts of the soul. Desire, in each form, is a motive force leading to movement. In contemporary philosophy, desire includes all kinds of wants and interests that lead one to act in order to satisfy them, in particular the wants related to bodily pleasure or certain dispositions. As a source of motion, desire is a prominent but complicated concept in moral philosophy and theory of action. Desire can be divided into intrinsic desire (a desire of something for its own sake as an end) and extrinsic desire (a desire of something as a means to further ends). This roughly corresponds to the distinction between basic and derivative desires. Desire is a basic psychological state, which is distinguished from belief because a desire never purports to represent the way the world is and because believing something to be true or good need not rationally affect our desires. This raises a matter of dispute, whether a desire is simply a fact that cannot be assessed in terms of truth and falsehood and that is not subject to rational criticism. Desire is usually ascribed to the appetitive part of the soul, but Plato believed that even reason itself has a desire for the Good. Hume argued that desire is neither true nor false, neither rational nor irrational. Another long-standing debate concerns the relationship between desire and reason in the initiation of action. Aristotle believed that both of them are involved. Hume held that reason is motivationally inert and that ethics must be based on desire. Kant argued that reason can itself lead one to act and that moral laws should be independent of contingent desires. “Desire: an animal engaged in pursuing a purpose is said to desire the condition in which it will be in relative equilibrium.” Russell, Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell, vol. IX despair: In ordinary language, despair is the feeling based on the belief that one cannot get what one desires. Kierkegaard took despair as the starting-point of his positive philosophy of existence or his anthropological contemplation. Despair is the sense of emptiness one feels in finding that one can neither ignore nor face up to a spiritual goal. As doubt is a despair of thought, despair is a doubt of personality. It is typically presented in one’s defiance of God. A person feels that he is right against God, but also that he cannot be right against God. In despair, one feels a contradictory or paradoxical existence, involving an interplay of finitude and infinitude, of the divine and the human and of freedom and necessity. It presents a contradiction between certainty that death is the end and belief that life transcends death. The opposite of despair is faith. For Kierkegaard, a person destroyed by despair is superficial. An authentic feeling of despair initiates a process by which one cultivates one’s real self. Despair about one’s life and its foundation is necessary if one is to move from a sensuous life to a higher form of existence. Kierkegaard’s discussion of despair is a direct source of later existentialism. “If there is to be any question of a sickness unto death in the strictest sense, it must be a sickness of which the end is death and death is the end. This is precisely what despair is.” Kierkegaard, Sickness unto Death determinables and determinates Logic A pair of terms introduced in the twentieth century by the British philosopher and logician W. E. Johnson and further specified by A. N. Prior and J. Searle. The relation between determinates and determinables is one between the special and the general. For instance, “red” is a determinate of the determinable “color,” and Plato is a determinate of the determinable “man.” However, the relation is significantly different from the relation between genus and species. While a species is defined by adding an independent property (differentia) to a genus, a determinate cannot be specified by conjoining a differentia with the determinable. A determinate has a distinctively positive content. If it is correct to predicate a determinate of an object, the object must fall under the corresponding determinable term. Only if a thing can be colored, for example, may we predicate red of it. Thus, the determinable is a necessary and sufficient condition of predicability of the determinate. Determinates emanate from determinables as members of determinism, soft and hard mutually exclusive groups, so that all determinates under the same determinable are incompatible. “I propose to call such terms as colour and shape determinables in relation to such terms as red or circular which will be called determinates.” W. E. Johnson, Logic determinant judgment, see Critique of Judgement determinates, see determinables and determinates determination Metaphysics, logic A term for a property or characteristic, such that what is determinate can be clearly and precisely specified, whilst an indeterminate thing can be specified only vaguely and without precision. Determination also refers to relations between objects, including material things, events, ideas, and states of affairs, such that the existence, occurrence, or character of the items that are determined is fixed by the items that determine them. Accordingly, we may infer from knowledge of certain items in such relations to knowledge of certain other items related to them. Some philosophers claim that determination in this sense is identical with causation, for “A causes B” amounts to “A determines B.” Others claim that determination is a relation between mathematically idealized states, while causation involves relations between observable changes of state. Still others argue that causation is only one form of determination. The relationship between determination and causation depends largely on how one understands the notion of “causation.” Some philosophers also propose that there can be a relation of determination between a thing and itself, that is “self-determination.” “As for ‘determination’, I do not mean final discovery of truth, but only enough examination to reach a decision as to whether a given statement or its negate is to be admitted as evidence for the hypothesis in question.” Goodman, Fact, Fiction and Forecast such conditions, some specified thing must happen. There are many versions of determinism in addition to causal determinism. Ethical determinism, which can be found in Plato, Aquinas, and Leibniz, claims that human voluntary actions are determined by the true end or good. Logical determinism claims that a given future event must either occur or not occur. The prediction before the event that whatever happens would happen will turn out to have been correct, as can be shown purely by logical considerations of future contingents. Theological determinism, which can be found in Augustine, Spinoza, and Leibniz, infers from God’s will that the existing world is the only possible world, so we have to accept it and find our own places in it. It also infers from God’s omniscience and omnipotence that everything that happens is inevitable. There are also varieties of causal determinism. Physical determinism, advocated by the Epicureans and especially by Hobbes, holds that all things, including human actions, are determined by eternal and inviolable laws of nature. Psychological determinism, which is elaborated by Hume and others, considers that human behavior is caused by psychological events within the mind of the agent. Each version of determinism has its opponents. The discussion of determinism is as old as philosophy itself and has produced a vast literature. The principal problem concerns the relation between determinism and free will or human choice. If determinism is true, how can we account for freedom and moral responsibility? Soft determinism claims that free action is still possible in a deterministic world, whilst hard determinism regards free will as illusory. “. . . if there is a coherent thesis of determinism, then there must be a sense of ‘determined’ such that, if that thesis is true, then all behaviour whatever is determined in that sense.” Strawson, Freedom and Resentment determinism, hard, see determinism, soft and hard determinism, principle of, another term for causality, principle of determinism Metaphysics The theory that every event has a cause, and that all things in the universe, including human beings, are governed by causal laws and operate in accordance with them. Given such and determinism, soft and hard Metaphysics, philosophy of action A distinction between soft determinism and hard determinism is drawn by William James. By soft determinism, he means all those theories, like those of Hobbes, Hume, and Mill, that affirm that determinism is true, but deny that determinism has the implication that people are not morally responsible. These theories, then, seek somehow to reconcile determinism with morals. By hard determinism, on the other hand, he means those theories holding that people are completely governed by natural laws and are therefore not responsible for what they are or for what they do. On this view, freedom is only an illusion. Representatives of hard determinism are philosophers such as Baron D’Holbach, Schopenhauer, and Hospers. In short, while hard determinism contrasts determinism with free will, soft determinism thinks that they are compatible. Hard determinism belongs to incompatibilism, and soft determinism to compatibilism. Currently most defenders of determinism argue for soft determinism. “Old-fashioned determinism was what we may call hard determinism . . . Nowadays we have a soft determinism which abhors harsh words, and repudiating fatality, necessity, and even predetermination, says that its real name is freedom.” W. James, Essays in Pragmatism deterrence Ethics, political philosophy The threat or warning that retaliation will follow if another party commits a transgression. Its purpose is to prevent harmful and unjust offense. The morality of deterrence is a heatedly debated topic due to its connection with capital punishment and especially with nuclear strategy. The arguments that seek to justify the necessity of capital punishment are chiefly based on its function as a deterrent, that is, on the expected reduction of murders and other violent crimes in a society in which murderers are executed. The major ground for the justification of the possession of nuclear weapons is also its function as a deterrent, that is, the expected consequence of preventing war. However, deterrence itself involves many paradoxes. Should deterrence be sincere, so that retaliation will be carried out if the threat fails, or insincere, so that retaliation will not be carried out if the threat fails? If it is insincere, is it morally ruled out as a form of lying? If it is sincere, would retaliation carry the risk of violating any conception of a just war by punishing innocent people and punishing the offense disproportionately? Should we only threaten what we may morally do? If this is the case, the function of deterrence in maintaining the real goods of peace and stability will be undermined. But if we must threaten to do what is morally wrong, then how can deterrence itself be permissible? Different and conflicting moral principles will lead to different and conflicting answers to these questions about deterrence. “It is doubtful whether threats of punishment have as much deterrent value as it is often supposed.” Brandt, Ethical Theory deus sive natura: Spinoza claimed that there is only one substance in which all attributes and modes inhere, but that this substance has two names: God or nature. This is the first principle of Spinoza’s metaphysical system and the chief characteristic of his pantheism. God might be conceived to be the creator of the world, and nature might be conceived to be that which God created, but God is nature, and nature is God. There is no formal distinction. Spinoza thus denied the contrast between God and the world, a thesis essential for Christianity. Philosophers have discussed the consequences of his position, as well as the methodological basis of his metaphysical arguments. “There can only be one substance, and this Spinoza called ‘God or Nature’ (Deus sive Natura).” N. Smart, Historical Selections in the Philosophy of Religion developmentalism Ancient Greek philosophy Also called the genetic method, Werner Jaeger’s method for dealing with Aristotle’s thought, elaborated in Aristotle: Fundamentals of the History of His Development (1923). Aristotle’s thought is traditionally interpreted as a unified organic system. Jaeger, however, claimed that there was an intellectual development in Aristotle from his early Platonism to the empiricism of his later period. He believed that it was impossible to explain the peculiar state of Aristotle’s extant writings without the supposition that they belonged to different stages in his evolution of thought. His interpretation greatly influenced Aristotelian scholarship in the twentieth century and still offers a major approach to reading Aristotle. Nevertheless, Jaeger’s own developmental picture has been widely criticized, especially by G. E. L. Owen, who argued that Aristotle started by attacking Platonism and later developed a position closer to Platonism. “Despite the number of developmental studies that have been carried out the complex task of reassessing Aristotle has still only just begun. So far other scholars have hardly been much more successful than Jaeger was in gaining acceptance for their interpretations of the way Aristotle’s thought developed.” Lloyd, Aristotle deviant causal chain, another name for wayward causal chain deviant logic Logic A term for a non-classical or non-standard logic. These logic systems establish different sets of theorems or valid inferences from those established by classical or standard logic, and are proposed as rivals to the latter. Some deviant logics, for example, reject the principle of bivalence in classical logic. Deviant logics include many-valued logic, intuitionist logic, quantum logic, and free logic. They contrast with extended logics, which introduce new vocabulary and new theorems to classical logic and hence are extensions rather than rivals to it. Examples of extended logics are modal logic, tense logic, deontic logic, and epistemic logic. “A ‘deviant logic’ is a system which is a deviation of classical logic.” Haack, Philosophy of Logics Dewey, John (1859–1952) American philosopher and a theorist of education, born in Burlington, Vermont, taught at Michigan, Chicago, and Columbia. Dewey was a leading exponent of pragmatism, although he preferred to call his own philosophy “instrumentalism” or “experimentalism.” Rather than building a system or seeking to establish abstract truth, philosophy is a method to solve problems and to guide and transform our experiential situations. The standard of knowledge is “warranted assertibility,” according to which a judgment is warranted if it does the work which it is supposed to do. Any warranted assertion is fallible and must be revised and refined by being subjected to continuous testing in experience. We begin with experience and return to experience. Different ways of understanding the world, such as science, art, and religion, can be seen to be mutually complementary. Dewey’s theory of education sought the individual’s development of problem-solving skills to deal with an ever-changing world. The ideal social structure allows for the maximum selfdevelopment of all individuals. Dewey’s main philosophical works include Experience and Nature (1925), The Quest for Certainty (1929), Art as Experience (1933), and Liberalism and Social Action (1935). H. P. Grice’s “Dialectica Oxoniensis.” dialectic (Hegel) Metaphysics, logic, philosophy of mind Hegel’s conception of dialectic was influenced by Kant’s antinomies and Fichte’s triadic process of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. Hegel claimed that contradictions are universally present and account for all change and movement in both thought and the world. Through dialectic, thought as understanding first holds a category as a concept that is finite and independent of other concepts; secondly, thought as negative reason recognizes that the initial concept depends for its meaning on being contrasted with its negation; and thirdly, thought as positive reason reaches a higher category, which embraces both earlier contradictory categories in a unity of opposites, but also contains a contradiction in itself. This tripartite structure of opposition and subsequent reconciliation keeps repeating until the complete system of concepts is reached. Hegel claimed that dialectic is not merely a process of thinking, but is a development conducted by concepts themselves and by the absolute idea. More important, dialectic also constitutes the autonomous self-development of the world. He claimed that a thing develops by changing into its opposite and then resolves the contradiction into a synthesis. The process continues until it arrives at complete perfection. This tripartite structure is also the architectonic structure of Hegel’s philosophy. Some philosophers seek to retain Hegel’s attempt to understand change and development in thought and the world, but reject the rigidity of his dialectical structure. “It is customary to treat Dialectic as an adventitious art, which for very wantonness introduces confusion and a mere semblance of contradiction into definite notions . . . But by Dialectic is meant the indwelling tendency outwards by which the one-sideness and limitation of the predicates of understanding is seen in its true light, and shown to be the negation of them.” Hegel, Logic dialectic (Kant), see canon, transcendental dialectic dialectical materialism Metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of social science The general name for Marxist philosophy, although it is sometimes distinguished from historical materialism in virtue of its focus on ontology and epistemology. Dialectical materialism provides the fundamental principles of Marxism, with historical materialism showing how these principles are worked out in society and history. Influenced by Hegel’s dialectic and Ludwig Feuerbauch’s materialism, it seeks to provide an organic combination of dialectic and materialism. In opposition to idealism, it holds that matter is the primary being and that mind is subordinate. Matter can exist without mind, but mind cannot exist without matter. Senseexperience reveals the existence of an external and objective world. In contrast to mechanistic materialism, it holds that the material world is not static. Things are full of contradictions or opposites, which drive them into a continuous process of development. This development is progressive through recognizing and reconciling the inherent contradictions. The basic principles of development include the law of the transformation of quantity into quality, the law of the interpenetration of opposites, and the law of negation of the negation. Dialectic materialism is the basis of Marxist theories of social change and revolution and has formed an essential part of communist ideology. The theory was founded by Marx and expounded in detail by Engels in Anti-During (1879) and Ludwig Feuerbach and the Outcome of Classical German Philosophy (1888). It was further developed by Lenin in Materialism and Empiriocriticism (1909). Neither Marx nor Engels used the term “dialectical materialism” to refer to their materialism. Plekhanov first adopted the term to refer to the metaphysical framework of Marxism. “The latest discoveries of natural science – radium, electrons, the transmutation of elements – have remarkably confirmed Marx’s dialectical materialism.” Lenin, “The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism,” Collected Works dianoia: Gr. intelligence, mind, thinking, reasoning, from the verb dianoeisthai] A term used in different related ways. First, dianoia is mind or thinking in general, in contrast to body (soma). Secondly, it is thought or intelligence, divided by Aristotle according to whether it is concerned with study (theoria), with production (techne), and with action (phronesis). Thirdly, it is rational understanding or discursive thinking, in contrast to intuitive thinking (nous or noesis). Fourthly, in Plato’s simile of the line, it is the state of mind that is concerned with mathematical entities, that reasons from hypothesis, and that reaches conclusions with the aid of the sensible objects rather than reasoning from unhypothetical first principles. “When dianoia is concerned with study, not with action or production, its good or bad state consists in being true or false.” Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics dichotomy, paradox of Ancient Greek philosophy, logic Also called the stadium or racetrack paradox, one of Zeno of Elea’s arguments to show that motion is impossible. If somebody wants to move from A to B, he must first reach the halfway point between A and B; but before reaching the halfway point, he must reach the halfway point between A and that halfway point, and so ad infinitum. Thus to move any distance at all, one must cover an infinite number of halfway points, which is impossible in any finite time. Therefore, it is logically impossible for someone to move from A to B. Aristotle’s first diagnosis of this paradox was that a finite time is also infinitely divisible and that will be sufficient for someone to move an infinitely divisible distance. He later decided that that response was not adequate, and claimed instead that the infinite number of halves is only a potential, rather than an actual, infinity. Contemporary philosophers and mathematicians are still inquiring difference principle whether it is really impossible to complete an infinite series of tasks; if it is impossible, whether the impossibility is a logical one or merely a physical one and what the impossibility really consists in. Many answers have been proposed, but none is generally accepted. “For we have many arguments contrary to accepted opinion, such as Zeno’s that motion is impossible and that you cannot traverse the stadium.” Aristotle, Topics dictum de omni et nullo: A principle which some medieval logicians believed to be the principle of the first figure of syllogism, and which others even thought to be a principle underlying all valid syllogistic reasoning. Among its various formulations, one version is that “whatever is affirmed or denied universally of something is also affirmed or denied of anything of which that thing is predicated of.” This is alleged to be derived from Aristotle, Prior Analytics, 24b26. A related version is “what qualifies an attribute qualifies a thing possessing it.” This is claimed to be based on Aristotle’s Categories 1b10. But modern logicians believe that Aristotle never intended such a principle for his syllogism, even for its first figure. Indeed, it is impossible that this principle covers all valid moods of syllogism. “The dictum de omni [et nullo] defines the relation of subject and predicate, so that ‘Any A is B’ is to be understood as meaning ‘To whatever A is applicable, B is applicable’.” Pierce, Collected Papers, vol. II Diderot, Denis (1713– 84) French Enlightenment philosopher and writer, born in Langres. Diderot was a follower of Locke, and advocated an anti-religious, materialist, and scientific world view. He wrote novels, satires, and critical essays on art, science, commerce, religion, and politics. He is best known as the principal editor of the Encyclopédie, or Critical Dictionary of Sciences, Arts and Trades (35 vols., 1751–76), a work that became the centerpiece of the French Enlightenment. His other works include Philosophical Thoughts (1746), An Essay on Blindness (1749), Thoughts on the Interpretation of Nature (1754), and Rameau’s Nephew (1767). differance Modern European philosophy, philosophy of language, metaphysics [French différance] A term introduced by Derrida from the French verb “différer,” meaning both “to differ” (to be other, not to be identical) and “to defer” (to temporize, to take recourse in the temporal mediation of a detour that suspends the fulfillment of desire). Differing, corresponding to the Greek diapherein, is related to spatiality and is the root of all conceptual oppositions. Deferring, on the other hand, is related to temporality and involves the perceptual change in the relationship of determining meaning between the linguistic chain and the extralinguistic world. With this neologism, Derrida tries to suggest that while traditional metaphysics is concentrated on “presence,” the meaning of language is always deferred because linguistic meaning is associated with the use of language and cannot be present in language as structure. In a productive movement, differance is an oscillation between differing and deferring. It is the condition for the possibility of all objects and the condition for the opening of Heidegger’s ontological difference between Being and beings. It is the irreducible difference of all differences. For Derrida, differance indicates the impossibility of achieving a theoretical account of a thing’s inner structure and serves as the condition for the deconstruction of metaphysics. “In a conceptuality adhering to classical strictures, ‘differance’ would be said to designate a constitutive, productive, and originary causality, the process of scission and division which would produce or constitute different things or differences. But because it brings us close to the infinitive and active kernel of differer, differance (with an a) neutralizes what the infinitive denotes as simply active.” Derrida, Margins of Philosophy difference principle Political philosophy Rawls’s second principle of justice includes two parts, the first requiring fair equality of opportunity and the second, called the difference principle, constraining the distribution of social and economic inequalities so that the position of the least advantaged members of society will be as good as it can be. Inequalities in income, wealth, and office can be tolerated so long as they involve a continuous mutual improvement. The operation of this principle does not aim to reduce the advantage of more-favored individuals, but rather to improve the situation of less-favored ones. The principle involves a basic contrast with the utilitarian pursuit of social arrangements that promote the greatest happiness of the greatest number, and sharply conflicts with the social Darwinist suggestion that the unfit should be eliminated for the advantage of society. Commentators have raised problems concerning the relations between the difference principle and the other principles of justice advanced by Rawls. The principle has been vigorously debated by those who seek a more egalitarian principle and by those who argue that it is unjust to enforce Rawlsian constraints on the distribution of goods. In particular, Robert Nozick argues that individuals are entitled to goods that they have legally acquired whatever the pattern of distribution turns out to be. “Then the difference principle is a strongly egalitarian conception in the sense that unless there is a distribution that makes both persons better off (limiting ourselves to the two-person case for simplicity), an equal distribution is to be preferred.” Rawls, A Theory of Justice differentia, see genus, definition dignity Ethics, political philosophy A prominent attribute of human beings, an object of respect that is independent of such factors as race, gender, talent, wealth, or social rank, and is purely rooted in human reason and autonomy. The notion of human dignity was emphasized in the Renaissance, and is fully elaborated in Kant’s ethics. Any agent who is morally authentic has personal dignity. Since human beings have dignity, they must be treated as ends in themselves, rather than merely as a means to other ends. Traditionally, human dignity has been considered to be the basis of moral worth, and human beings have been held to be the only objects of moral consideration. In contemporary ethics, the notion of human dignity is challenged. According to behaviorists and Freud, the noble account of humanity is false, because the majority of human actions are determined by desires and dispositions rather than being guided by reason. Proponents of animal ethics accuse this notion of being the product of speciesism. Utilitarians also believe that human dignity is not supreme and can be overridden to obtain the best consequences. In spite of these challenges, human dignity is widely upheld, in part because it provides intelligible grounds for human rights and self-respect. “That which constitutes the condition under which alone anything can be an end in itself, this has not merely a relative worth, i.e. value, but has an intrinsic worth, that is dignity.” Kant, Critique of Practical Reason dilemma Logic In ordinary language, a dilemma is a situation in which one has to make a choice between two or more conflicting but equally important alternatives. Ryle used the term for theoretical situations in which a thinker is strongly inclined to support different positions and embracing one of these positions would seemingly oblige him to repudiate the others. In logic, a dilemma is a form of argument consisting of two conditionals and one disjunction. They are divided into constructive dilemmas and destructive dilemmas. Each is subdivided into one complex form and one simple form. The simple constructive form is: if p then q; if r then q; p or r; therefore q. The complex constructive form is: if p then q; if r then s; p or r; therefore q or s. The simple destructive form is: if p then q; if p then s; not-q or not-s; therefore not-p. The complex destructive form is: if p then q; if r then s; not-q or not-s; therefore not-p or not-r. “A dilemma is a formal argument containing a premise in which two or more hypotheticals are conjunctly affirmed, and a second premise in which the antecedents of these hypotheticals are alternatively affirmed or their consequences alternatively denied.” Keynes, Formal Logic dilemma of attention Epistemology A problem for the notion of a sense-datum. A sense-datum is generally conceived as being what is directly present in perception and as being incorrigible. However, it is a fact that what is present in perception will be different according to whether one perceives inattentively or carefully. For instance, when we look at a speckled hen, at first glance it is perceived vaguely as being speckled, but a close look will show the color and shape of the speckles and we may also come to know their size and number. The sense-datum theory faces a dilemma in explaining this phenomenon: it is forced either to admit that the sense-data change with the change of attention, or to say that the accuracy of sense-data varies. If it admits the former, we have difficulty in understanding how the change in attention, which is merely a change in the mode of awareness, can affect a change in the object. If it says the latter, then sense-data cannot be incorrigible. While Ayer insists on the incorrigibility of sensedata, and hence admits that sense-data are different in different situations, Price maintains that sensedata are consistent at the expense of their incorrigibility. Since the example of the speckled hen is widely employed to illustrate the problem, this dilemma is also called the problem of the speckled hen. “Apart from the weakness of those arguments [for the existence of sense-data] the final conception of sense-data involves serious difficulties. The first is the dilemma of attention.” Hirst, The Problem of Perception Dilthey, Wilhelm (1833–1911) German philosopher, born at Biebrich, Professor at the University of Berlin 1882–1905. Dilthey’s main work concerned hermeneutics and the philosophy of history. His philosophy of life understood philosophy to be the systematic interpretation of human experience. He sought to answer the question “How is meaningful experience possible?” and took meaning to be a category that is peculiar to life and the historical world. Since the Geisteswissenschaften (human or cultural sciences), with a common subject of man, provide the broadest possible knowledge of the wealth and variety of life, clarifying the nature and methodology of the human sciences became the central theme of Dilthey’s philosophy. He claimed that, in contrast to the natural sciences, human sciences have a distinct methodology, namely Verstehen, the interpretative understanding of the subject’s purposes, values, and meaning. His principal writings include Introduction to the Human Sciences (1883), Experience and Poetry (1905), Formation of the Historical World in the Human Sciences (1910), The Types of World Views (1911). diminished responsibility: Some defendants who satisfy the mens rea criterion can still provide evidence to prove that they committed a crime when their mentality was abnormal. Such mental conditions do not constitute insanity, but substantially impair the defendant’s powers of control, judgment, and reasoning. Hence, the defendant is not fully accountable for his action. If such an excuse is acceptable, the defendant’s responsibility for the crime is also diminished and this can reduce a conviction to a less severe crime, although it does not justify total acquittal. The idea of diminished responsibility was introduced in England by statute in 1957. This partial defense applies mainly in murder cases. If a plea of diminished responsibility is successful, a person accused of murder might be found guilty only of manslaughter. “[T]he doctrine of diminished responsibility . . . provides that a person who kills should not be convicted of murder if he was suffering from such abnormality of mind as ‘substantially impaired his mental responsibility’, but only of manslaughter carrying a maximum penalty of imprisonment for life.” Hart, Punishment and Responsibility Ding an sich, the German term for thing-in-itself Diogenes of Sinope (c.400–c.325 bc) Greek philosopher, born in Sinope, a major figure of the Cynic movement. Diogenes maintained that the true way of life is living according to nature. Because society is artificial, we should reject conventional values and social establishments. He claimed that, rather than being a citizen of any given society, he was a citizen of the universe. He argued that virtue is sufficient for happiness and lies in self-sufficiency and that physical asceticism is a means to attain virtue. Diogenes’ doctrines greatly influenced every aspect of Stoic philosophy. Dionysian/Apollonian Modern European philosophy, aesthetics In the Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche characterized the Dionysian and Apollonian as two natural artistic powers. The Apollonian is associated with dreams and illusions and is the impulse to create harmony and measure and to establish proportionate form amid the flux of change. The Dionysian, in contrast, is associated with intoxication and is the impulse to disrupt and to change established orders and norms. This duality developed in Nietzsche from the basic impulses operative in art into the basic tendencies discernible in human life and in nature. He viewed the two tendencies as different expressions of a single fundamental impulse: the will to power. In his later usage, the Dionysian is no longer opposed to the Apollonian, but becomes a synthesis of both gods. The world itself is described as a Dionysian one, which is eternally self-creating and eternally self-destroying, that is, a world characterized by the process of eternal recurrence. “Much will have been gained for esthetic once we have succeeded in apprehending directly – rather than merely ascertaining – that art owes its continuous evolution to the Apollonian–Dionysiac duality, even as the propagation of the species depends on the duality of the sexes, their constant conflicts and periodic acts of reconciliation.” Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy direct realism Epistemology A type of perceptual realism that claims that the physical world is independent of perceivers and that what we perceive directly is the nature of the physical objects themselves. This position contrasts with anti-realist positions such as phenomenalism, which claims that there is no real physical world outside of experience. It also contrasts with another type of perceptual realism – indirect realism – which argues that the physical world is only perceived indirectly and that sense-data are what we immediately experience. There are two main versions of direct realism. Naive realism believes that all perceptual properties are in the physical objects, while scientific direct realism suggests, on the basis of Locke’s distinction between ideas of primary and secondary qualities, that our ideas of secondary qualities are relative to the existence and sensory capacities of a perceiver. “Direct realism holds that in sense-perception we are directly aware of the existence and nature of the surrounding physical world.” Dancy, Introduction to Contemporary Epistemology direct intention: Bentham distinguished between direct intention and oblique intention. Direct intention is what is directly or strictly aimed at, including both the ends and the means to achieve the ends. These are the agent’s deliberate and voluntary choices, for which he claims direct responsibility. Oblique intention, on the other hand, is the foreseen consequences of the agent’s voluntary actions, which lie outside the range of what is strictly pursued. This distinction is closely related to the problem of double effect, which contrasts the deliberate effects produced by an action and its foreseen but undesired effects. “A consequence, when it is intentional, may either be directly so, or only obliquely. It may be said to be directly or linearly intentional, when the prospect of producing it constituted one of these links in the chain of causes by which the person was determined to do that act.” Bentham, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation dirty hands: a term that was derived from the title of Sartre’s 1948 play Dirty Hands (Les Mains Sales) and which is widely used by contemporary moral and political philosophers in describing political activities that violate the common demands of morality. It is not clear whether dirty hands can be avoided in politics and whether immoral acts considered necessary to govern can be excused. According to ideas developed by Machiavelli, Hobbes, and Max Weber, it is necessary for political rule to be violent, deceitful, and immoral, and a politician would be naive to act on the assumption that others will comply with morality. Furthermore, it is necessary sometimes for a politician to do evil in order to achieve a greater good for the community. Because political reasons must sometimes override moral considerations, the demands of politics are incompatible with private virtue. Aristotle, on the other hand, held that political activity is necessary to achieve the full development of virtue and consequently politics cannot stand outside of ethics. “It is cases where the politician does something morally disagreeable, that I am concerned with: the problem that has been called that of dirty hands. The central question is: how are we to think about the involvement of politicians in such actions, and about the dispositions that such involvement requires?” Williams, in Hampshire (ed.), Public and Private Morality disappearance theory of mind, another name for eliminative materialism discourse Philosophy of language, ethics, political philosophy, modern European philosophy Generally, discourse is a linguistic sequence longer than a single sentence, and containing sentences or statements as its minimal unit. Conversation, dialogue, narrative, and argument are all considered forms of discourse. The study of discourse takes account of speakers and hearers involved in the discourse and the temporal and spatial placement of the discourse. In contemporary continental philosophy, discourse is viewed as the basis on which to defend the legitimacy of social and political practices, in contrast to traditional accounts of such legitimacy based on reason or a theory of human nature. On some views, the aim of discourse is to achieve consensus about those interests that are generalizable. Through showing how sentences are related through various types of relations, discourse analysis seeks to uncover the norms governing our language and institutions. An ethics based on discourse tends to offer a set of norms and practices that are fully acceptable to those subject to them. Discourse ethics aims at a community based not on imposition, but on the agreement of free and equal persons. “The word ‘discourse’ will be used to refer to a string of statements regardless of what type these statements may be. An argument is an example of discourse.” Ladd, The Structure of a Moral Code discourse ethics Ethics, political philosophy, philosophy of language The ethical theory that Habermas attempts to establish in The Theory of Communicative Action. According to the theory, the search for fundamental ethical principles should focus on the structure of practical discourse or on the fundamental norms of rational argumentative speech. Moral practice is fundamentally structured around the imperatives of a species that is dependent upon linguistically coordinated action. Communication has its own rationality and normative content, which will inevitably involve the reciprocal recognition of validity claims. Any claims about what is right can be justified when challenged only through argumentative discourse leading to rationally motivated consensus. This argumentation is understood as a procedure for the exchange and assessment of information and reasons. Discourse is the medium in which the ethical aspects of our idealizing suppositions are most transparent and most easily reflected upon. This character of discourse allows us to transcend strategic action and to act according to obligations based upon mutual understanding. The approach of discourse ethics is deontological, cognitive, and universalistic, and is hence opposed to communitarian moral theory. To some extent, discourse ethics is regarded as a reconstruction of Kantian ethics by shifting the basis from our reflecting moral consciousness to a community of subjects in dialogue. It is also called communicative ethics. “Whereas the communitarians appropriate Hegel’s legacy in the form of an Aristotelian ethics of the good and abandon the universalism of rational natural law, discourse ethics takes its orientation for an intersubjective interpretation of the categorical imperative from Hegel’s theory of recognition but without incurring the cost of a historical dissolution of morality in ethical life.” Habermas, Justification and Application discrimination: L. discrimen, that which separates. To discriminate may simply be to make a distinction. In ethics, it involves distinguishing a group of people from others for unfair and harmful treatment on some unjustified grounds, often on the basis of bias or prejudice. Discrimination conflicts with the principles of justice and equality. Discrimination against women on the grounds of gender is called sexism. Discrimination against black people and other minorities on the grounds of race is called racism. Some groups, like women and minorities, have long been unfairly treated and remain disadvantaged even after beginning to receive equal treatment. In recent years, in Western countries there has been a movement to correct entrenched injustice based on past discrimination and to establish equality of opportunity by deliberately making policies to treat these groups preferentially in such areas as employment and education. However, this approach, sometimes called reverse discrimination, has been subject to bitter dispute and legal challenge. Opponents argue that it violates the principle of equal competition and that the injustices of earlier generations cannot be put right by unjustly punishing members of the present generation. Animal ethics attempts to extend the scope of the ethical community and calls discrimination against animals on the grounds that they are not rational, speciesism. “Impartiality is undoubtedly a requirement of justice, and . . . it is a form of equality as contrasted with the discrimination of equity.” Raphael, Problems of Political Philosophy disembodiment Philosophy of mind, philosophy of religion The existence of a person after bodily death and disintegration. It is one account that has been proposed for the afterlife or life after death. It presupposes that life need not terminate on the death of the body. The conditions for disembodied personal existence include the maintenance of a person’s identity with that of one’s pre-mortem state, and the maintenance of psychological awareness, especially memory, of one’s experience before death. The mental life of a disembodied individual might be extremely austere if embodiment is needed to have new experiences. Re-embodiment occurs if a disembodied soul becomes united with another body. Resurrection is the return to life of a body that has been reunited with its original soul. Some Christian doctrine supports the actuality of disembodied existence, but other Christian accounts require a renewed embodiment with one’s earthly body or with another special body for survival to be possible. Philosophically, the arguments in favor of disembodiment are drawn from Cartesian dualism, which claims that mind and body are independent entities. Some philosophers are also interested in the implications of apparent near-death out-of-body experiences. But many philosophers who accept the logical possibility of disembodied life after death reject it as physically impossible. Nevertheless, some philosophers claim that any suitable theory of mind should allow disembodied existence to be a logical possibility. “The term used to refer to reunion is ‘reembodiment’. The term used to refer to a person or mind capable of disembodiment is ‘soul’.” Graham, Philosophy of Mind disguised description theory Philosophy of language A theory about the meaning of egocentric facts, such as “I am having such and such an experience.” It is based on Russell’s theory of description and holds that the word “I” is an abbreviation for a definite description denoting a particular that is known by description rather than by acquaintance. So the word “I” in each of its occurrences can be replaced by a descriptive phrase of the form “the self having such and such properties.” For instance, the statement “I see an image” is taken to state that a self having the appropriate description sees an image. “According to disguised description theory, the person who knows an ego-centric fact is not prehending any particular as a self and is not using the word ‘I’ as a proper name in the logical sense.” Broad, Examination of McTaggart’s Philosophy disinterest, see aesthetic attitude DISJUNCTUM – Disjunction. Logic Also called an alternation. A complex proposition of the form “p or q,” where p and q are component propositions and are called disjuncts. The connective “or” has an inclusive sense and an exclusive sense. In its inclusive sense, sometimes called inclusive disjunction, “p or q” means “p or q or both.” In propositional calculus, such a disjunction is symbolized as “p ∨ q.” It is true if p is true, if q is true, or if both disjuncts are true; it is false if and only if both disjuncts are false. From the premise p or q and the premise not p, we may infer the conclusion q, and this is called a disjunctive syllogism. In its exclusive sense, sometimes called exclusive disjunction, “p or q” means “either p or q but not both.” In propositional calculus, it is symbolized as “[(p ∨ q) ∧ ~ (p ∧ q)].” It is true if p and q have opposite truth-values and is false if they have the same truth-values. “We may take next disjunction, ‘p or q’. This is a function whose truth-value is truth when p is true and also when q is true, but is falsehood when both p and q are false.” Russell, Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy DISPOSITUM. dispositional property Metaphysics, philosophy of science Properties of material things have, since Locke, been traditionally divided into primary and secondary qualities. Recent philosophers further divide primary qualities into substantial and dispositional properties. A dispositional property is the capacity of an object to affect or to be affected by other things. An active capacity of a thing to affect others is also called a power. For instance, falling down is a dispositional property of a thing that has weight, and being poisonous is a dispositional property of arsenic. Dispositional properties are analyzable into nothing but dispositions, and hence they can be distinguished from substantial properties, which are independent particulars. Substantial properties might provide a basis for dispositional properties, but some philosophers hold that all properties are dispositional. “It is a dispositional property of a paper that it will burn.” Joske, Material Objects dispositions Logic, philosophy of science, philosophy of mind [from Latin dis, away + ponere, place] The tendency, habit, ability, or proneness to act or react in a certain way in certain circumstances. It is not an entity, a state of affairs, or an instance of behavior, but a behavioral pattern. One will display this pattern through a number of instances of behavior. To attribute a disposition to X is to say that X is prone to do Y in circumstance C. Sentences embodying dispositional claims are always hypothetical in form: “If circumstance C occurs, then X will do Y.” The term “disposition” is prominent in Ryle’s philosophy of mind, for his strategy is to replace the Cartesian mental substance and its activities with behavioral dispositions. He claims that the Cartesian concept of mind commits a category mistake, for it takes the mind to be one sort of ontological category, substance, when in fact the mental belongs to the category of disposition. He analyzes the majority of mental states in terms of dispositions. Since Descartes does not think of the mind as a disposition, any dispositional account of the mind is incompatible with Cartesian dualism. However, there are various views about dispositions. For Ryle, a disposition does not involve any hidden internal cause and is simply manifested in the circumstances specified. Armstrong, on the other hand, argues that dispositions are derivative and that their existence requires the prior existence of an underlying state of affairs. He attempts to identify dispositions with their bases. Others think that dispositions have categorical bases, but are not identical with them. “To possess a dispositional property is not to be in a particular state, or to undergo a particular change; it is to be bound or liable to be in a particular state, or to undergo a particular change, when a particular condition is realised. The same is true about specifically human dispositions such as qualities of character.” Ryle, The Concept of Mind disquotational theory of truth Logic, philosophy of language The claim that truth is nothing more than a simplifying linguistic device, with the truth-predicate understood as having a distinctive role according to the principle of disquotation. According to this principle, for any appropriate sentence p, “p” is true if and only if p. The sentences “p” and “ ‘p’ is true” are in some sense equivalent in meaning, and “so and so is true” amounts to “so and so” and no more. The truthpredicate produces a sentence that can be used to say the very same thing and to perform the very same propositional acts as the original sentence. Accordingly, truth is a matter of the linguistic role of an expression rather than an external relation of correspondence with the world or a property. The major problem confronting the disquotational theory is to explain the fact that not all utterances are treated as having truth-values. “Disquotational theory of truth: on this theory, we understand the word ‘true’ not by associating that word with a property, or a correspondence, but by learning such facts as the obvious fact that ‘Snow is white’ is true if and only if snow is white.” Putnam, Realism and Reason distinct, see clear and distinct divided reference, Quine’s term for a sortal distributed Logic A way of characterizing how a term occurs in categorical propositions. A term is distributed if it refers to all members of the class to which it is referring and is explicitly or implicitly prefixed by a universal quantifier. For instance, in “Every man is mortal,” “man” is distributed, for it covers every man. “All” and “none” are called distributive signs. In traditional logic, all subject terms of universal categorical propositions and all predicate terms of negative propositions are said to be distributed. But the predicate terms of affirmative propositions and the subject terms of particular propositions are not distributed. The distribution of terms is important in syllogistic inference. A valid syllogism requires that (a) if a term is distributed in the conclusion, it must be distributed in a premise, and the middle term must be distributed in at least one premise. divine attributes Philosophy of religion Properties attributed to God, which are believed to be essential for God as the creator of the universe and the supreme being and which distinguish him from other kinds of being. These properties include omnipotence (God has maximal power), omniscience (God has unlimited knowledge), eternity (God is not bounded by time), absolute goodness (God is wholly benevolent), infinity (God is free from any limitation), unity (God cannot be divided), simplicity (God is not composite but absolutely simple), incorporeality (God is not material), immutability (God is not subject to change), and impassability (God is not affected). Contemporary discussions of these attributes reveal that many of them imply paradoxes. Some of these have been included in this dictionary as separate entries, such as the paradox of omnipotence, paradox of omniscience, and the problem of evil. Other problems arise from ascribing versions of human attributes, such as reason, intelligence, or perceptual knowledge, to a being that is not embodied and does not exist temporally. “A term is said to be distributed, when it is used in reference to its whole extension, or to all that it can denote; undistributed, when not so used.” Joseph, An Introduction to Logic distributive law Logic Two principles of modern logic concerning the interchange of the connectives “and” and “or”: (1) p ∧ (q ∨ r) ≡ (p ∧ q) ∨ (p ∧ r); (2) p ∨ (q ∧ r) ≡ (p ∨ q) ∧ (p ∨ r). In (1) the operator “and” distributes over the operator “or” and expresses the distributivity of conjunction into disjunction or alternation. In (2) “or” distributes over “and” and expresses the distributivity of disjunction into conjunction. The spirit of these laws is similar to mathematical algebra’s p(q + r) = pq + pr. In opposition to distributive laws are associative laws: (1) p ∨ q ∨ r = (p ∨ q) ∨ r = p ∨ (q ∨ r); (2) p ∧ q ∧ r = (p ∧ q) ∧ r = p ∧ (q ∧ r). These laws plus the communitive law (p ∨ q = q ∨ p, and p ∧ q = q ∧ p) are called the usual formal laws. “By the usual formal laws, we mean the following, . . . (iii) the distributive law: a(b + g) = ab + ag.” Russell, Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy “The main problem in connection with the divine attributes is how to reconcile their multiplicity with the simplicity of God.” Mascall, He Who Is divine command theory Ethics, philosophy of religion Also called theological voluntarism, a position which claims that God’s command is the ultimate source of moral obligation or that God’s will is the basis of moral laws. An action is said to be good because it conforms to divine commands. An action is said to be bad or evil because it is performed even though the agent knows that such an act breaches God’s commands. This position was held by the medieval theologians and philosophers Anselm, Abelard, Duns Scotus, and William of Ockham. It was endorsed by Locke and Berkeley, and in the modern age it has been especially elaborated by Kierkegaard and Barth. It was criticized by Aquinas, who emphasized God’s intellect rather than his will. The theory faces several major problems: How can we gain access to God’s commands? If God is dead, are there any constraints on how we should behave? The theory is also challenged by Plato’s Euthyphro dilemma: Does God command that a thing is good because it is good, or is a thing good because God commands it? If it is the former, God is not the authority and we should be able to determine our morality without reference to God; if it is the latter, we have a tautology: A thing is what God commands because it is what God commands. In neither case do we seem to have explained the nature of goodness. This theory has difficulty in explaining how God’s command can have moral force. If a moral law is justified in terms of God’s will, it is not clear how we can determine that God’s will is good. If we have other grounds for finding out what is morally good, we might determine that God’s will is good, but we do not need his commands to know our moral obligations. “According to a divine command theory of morality, obligations are to be explained in terms of what God wills or commands: we have such obligations because God wills or commands the content of the obligation.” Kvanvig, The Problem of Hell divine illumination Philosophy of religion Augustine, deeply influenced by Plato, believed that the universality, immutability, and necessity of eternal truths cannot be grasped by reference to sense-experience. How then can our mortal and fallible minds know them? Plato answered this question in terms of his theory of reminiscence, which Augustine replaced with his theory of divine illumination. According to this theory, the glimpses that human minds have of eternal truth are illuminated by the divine mind. The notion of illumination comes from Plato’s analogy of the Sun in the Republic. Plato held that by analogy to the Sun as the author of the light illuminating the sensibility of the world, the idea of the Good is the source of intelligibility of the idea of the world. For Augustine, illumination is direct intuition whereby the mind comes to know the truth, analogous to the act by which the eye sees a body. As objects must be made visible by natural light before they can be perceived, so truths must be made intelligible before they can be known. Augustine claimed that God is the source of this spiritual light. Hence, the theory of divine illumination constitutes a proof of God’s existence as well as an explanation of human knowledge. The notion of divine illumination is not only epistemological, but also indicates the dependence of human rationality upon God. However, Augustine did not offer a clear account of the precise nature and operation of divine illumination, and that has given rise to much dispute among commentators. “They [Platonists] have declared that the light which illumines the intellects of men in all things that may be learned is this selfsame God by whom all things were made.” Augustine, City of God division Ancient Greek philosophy [Greek diairesis] Also called dialectic, a method of definition employed by Plato, especially in his later dialogues. It consists of a complete and exact division of a genus into a series of subgenera or species. The classification corresponds to a Form in nature and was compared to dissection according to the joints. Plato used it in an attempt to find an answer to the problem of the one and the many. As an exploration of the relation between genus and species, the method contributed to the formation of Aristotle’s logic. “Unless one is capable of dividing things into their kinds and embrace each individual thing under a single form, he will never become skilled in discussion as is within the limit of human capacity.” Plato, Phaedrus division of linguistic labour: A hypothesis introduced by Putnam in his article “The Meaning of ‘Meaning.’ ” Language is used in a community, and a community is divided into many subsets. A word in a language may have different meanings and extensions, depending on its different references and the occasions on which it is used. The expert speakers may know all facets of the word and be aware of its various distinctions, but this will not be the case for average speakers. Not all of them can know all the distinctions or the exact extension. They use the word in the way that is accepted by the subset of the community to which they belong. By virtue of this principle, Putnam tries to indicate that not every term is a description, and that the extension of each term is at least partly determined socially rather than in the mind of the individual speaker. “Every linguistic community exemplifies the sort of division of linguistic labour just described, that is, possesses at least some terms whose associated ‘criteria’ are known only to a subset of the speakers who acquire the terms, and whose use by the other speakers depends upon a structured cooperation between them and the speakers in the relevant subsets.” Putnam, “The Meaning of ‘Meaning,’ ” in Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol. VII division principle, see agglomeration principle dogma Philosophy of religion, epistemology [from Greek dogma, that which seems to be, later meaning public decree or ordinance] Originally, any peculiar doctrine, but subsequently used as a term of abuse. Historically, a dogma is a religious doctrine proclaimed by scripture or the Church, which requires popular acceptance without rational justification. For its supporters, a dogma is indisputable and unchallengeable. According to skeptical critics, any metaphysical proposition is a dogma because, although there may be a rational argument for it, this argument itself relies on some unproved first principles and is therefore unreliable. Hence, any metaphysical doctrine is allegedly open to the charge of dogmatism. “The concept of ‘dogma’, through historical and especially canonical development, has taken on a heteronomous character. Dogma is the central object of attack for autonomous culture.” Tillich, is the position that knowledge arises from the effect of independent reality on the mind and contrasts with Kantian transcendental idealism. In modern times, dogmatism is the uncritical, partial, and possibly irrational persistence of some opinion. “Those who are properly called dogmatists . . . think that they have discovered the truth.” Sextus Empiricus, Outline of Pyrrhonism domain, see range dominion thesis Ethics The position that human beings should dominate over animals as decided by God in the Bible. After the Creation, God told human beings that they “have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” This was repeated after the Flood. These passages have been understood to indicate that God grants the right of humans to take animal life, and that animals exist to serve the needs or interests of human beings. The thesis, although subjected to various interpretations, has been widely taken to support traditional anthropocentrism or human chauvinism, and is opposed by environmental ethics. “Dominion thesis, the view that the earth and all its nonhuman contents exist and are available for man’s benefit and serve his interests and, hence, that man is entitled to manipulate the world and its systems as he wants, that is, in his interest.” Routley and Routley, “Against the Inevitability of Human Chauvinism,” in Goodpaster and Sayre (eds.), Ethics and Problems of the 21st Century What is Religion? dogmatism Epistemology [from Greek dogma, belief, public decree] Ancient skepticism charged all non-skeptical philosophies with dogmatism, meaning that they were committed to some doctrines which they believed to be indubitably true. This does not entail that all knowledge is false or skepticism would turn out to be a negative form of dogmatism. For ancient skepticism, we should suspend our judgment because knowledge is neither possible nor impossible. For classical German philosophy, dogmatism Donagan, Alan, Melbourne-born philosopher and historian of philosophy, born in Melbourne, Professor of Philosophy, University of Chicago. Donagan derived a natural law conception of a moral system that is binding on all rational agents from Aquinas and Kant. His sophisticated defense of a distinction between event-causation and agent-causation allowed him to explain how free human agents making choices fit into this system. His main works include The Theory of Morality (1977) and Choice: The Essential Element in Human Action (1987). double-aspect theory, see dual-aspect theory double contingency, see social action double effect, doctrine of Ethics In some cases an action will inevitably bring about double effects: the intended good results and the foreseen undesirable effects. Can such an action be permitted? Starting with Thomas Aquinas and developed by Catholic theologians, the principle of double effect was formulated. Under the circumstances of such double effect, an action is permissible if the evil result is not directly intended, the good result is not achieved through the evil result, and the good result outweighs the bad one. But these conditions can themselves come into conflict. Some contemporary moral philosophers have tried to revise the formulation, and others deny this principle on the grounds that it is difficult to distinguish between the intentional and the foreseen and between the directly and indirectly intended consequences. Nevertheless, this principle is widely used to justify responses to many difficult cases in ethics, such as killing in self-defense, killing a fetus in order to save the life of its mother and inflicting civilian causalities during a military action. “By ‘the doctrine of the double affect’ I mean the thesis that it is sometimes permissible to bring about by oblique intention what one may not directly intend.” Foot, Virtues and Vices double language model Philosophy of science A model developed by Carnap and Nagel, among others, to suggest that the language of science can be divided into theoretical and observational languages. They are semiautonomous. Observational language is directly related to sense impressions while theoretical language cannot be analyzed in the standard empirical way. Theoretical terms used by theoretical languages neither are nor should be definable in the observation language. The experiential content of theoretical terms is obtained through correspondence rules, which connect the two languages by sentences containing both theoretical terms and observational terms. This model gives rise to much debate regarding, for example, how an observational term can fix its meaning independent of its relation with theoretical terms, and how to assess the truth of a theoretical sentence. “[The] well-known double language model [consists] of an observational language, Lo and a theoretical language, Lt, the latter containing a postulate system, T. The languages are connected to each other by correspondence rules, i.e. by sentences containing observational terms and theoretical terms.” Feyerabend, “Against Method,” in Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol. III ABDICATUM -- double negation, see negation of a negation double truth theory Philosophy of religion A position ascribed to the medieval philosopher Siger of Brabant and the Averroists, according to which the truth of faith and the truth of philosophy belong to two different domains. While a proposition is true from the philosophical point of view and can be demonstrated by reason, an incompatible proposition, which is therefore false philosophically, can be true by revelation in religion. This theory was an attempt to retain Aristotle’s metaphysical doctrines when they contradicted Christian teaching, but was condemned as heretical in the thirteenth century by the Bishop of Paris. “A double-truth theory, namely that a proposition could at the same time be true in theology and false in philosophy.” Copleston, A History of Medieval Philosophy DUBITATUM -- doubt Epistemology Doubt in its ordinary sense is an uncertain state of mind. It contributes substantially to skepticism, whose purpose is the questioning of knowledge claims and the suspension of belief. Descartes’s method of doubt differs from this sense and also from traditional skepticism. It is a procedure by which he attempted to demolish all prejudices and preconceived opinions for the purpose of establishing a firm and stable metaphysical basis for his system. In other words, Descartes established the method of doubt in order to eliminate doubt and find something indubitable. Doubt is employed in order to lead the mind away from the senses and toward rational truth. It is only a means to an end, and not an end in itself. The method of doubt plays a central role in Descartes’s first philosophy. It comprised a succession of arguments, from the unreliability of the senses, the possibility that one is dreaming, the possible error of mathematical reasoning, and finally to the malicious demon. “Because in this case I wish to give myself entirely to the search after truth, I thought that it was necessary for me to take an apparently opposite course, and to reject as absolutely false everything as to which I could imagine the least ground of doubt, in order to see if afterwards there remained anything in my belief that was entirely certain.” Descartes, Discourse on Method CREDITUM -- doxa, [Greek, usually translated as belief or opinion, from the verb dokein or doxazein, to appear, to believe or to seem] A term used in connection with seeming, the immediate awareness of or direct acquaintance with objects in contrast with episteme (knowledge). For Plato, doxa is not only opinion, but also the faculty or capacity to produce opinion. It is the state of mind of the non-philosopher (the lover of opinion, philo-doxos), and its object is the perceptible world of becoming, which is both to be and not to be, and things that are copies of the Forms. In contrast, episteme is not only knowledge as a consequence of cognition, but also the faculty to produce knowledge. It is a state of mind of the philosopher (the lover of wisdom, philo-sophos), and its object is the world of the Forms itself, which really is. The distinction is discussed in detail in the Republic Book V, and is essential for Plato’s separation of the world of the Forms from the sensible world. It has had a lasting influence on Western metaphysics and epistemology. “We clearly agree that doxa is different from knowledge.” Plato, Republic doxastic theory Epistemology [from Greek doxa, opinion or belief ] A doxastic state refers to one’s belief. Doxastic theory claims that epistemic justification is only a function of such a state. We can determine what to believe on the basis of the overall beliefs we possess, without needing to take into account anything else, including perceptual states. Both foundationalism and coherentism are doxastic theories. This theory is thus opposed to non-doxastic theory, which claims that in order to justify one’s beliefs it is not enough to examine the beliefs themselves. Rather we must refer to the cognitive process of belief-forming and belief-preserving. Non-doxastic theory is divided into internalism, which suggests that justification is a function of one’s internal states, and externalism, which argues that justification must involve factors that are external to one’s consciousness. “Doxastic theories take the justifiability of a belief to be a function exclusively of what else one believes.” Pollock and Cruz, Contemporary Theories of Knowledge doxastic virtue, see epistemic virtue Dray, William (1921– ) Canadian philosopher of history, born in Montreal, Professor of Philosophy, University of Ottawa. Dray challenged the covering law model of scientific explanation as suitable for historical explanation. He argued that we are interested in how historical developments are possible rather than in why they are necessary. He compared understanding rational human action to literary narrative rather than to scientific explanation. His main works include Laws and Explanation in History (1957) and Perspectives on History (1980). dread, see Angst ONEIREIC – SOMNUS -- dreaming, argument: One of the principal arguments against the certainty of perception in Descartes. Dreaming is taken by Descartes to be a kind of experience we have when we sleep, with a content consisting mainly of imagery. In a dream, while I am actually lying undressed in bed, I can think that I am dressed and seated near the fireplace. Now I think that I am awake, and am reading this book with a pen in my hand. But since I have been deceived by similar illusions whilst asleep, I cannot know with certainty that these apparent perceptions do not belong to a dream. There seems to be no logical criterion to distinguish waking experience from dream experience. I have reason to doubt any of my perceptions on the grounds that it could be an illusion from my dreams. We cannot distinguish between deception and non-deceptive perception. Thus my perceptions on any given occasion might not be veridical, and could be merely illusory. Any perceptual beliefs I form on their basis could be false. This argument raises the problem of the external world and has played a great role in modern Western philosophy. “In the dream argument Descartes recognises that conflicts may occur among perceptions of any sort – even among those that bear the sensory marks of perception under the most ideal conditions.” Frankfurt, Demons, Dreamers and Madmen Dretske, Fred (1932– ) American philosopher of mind, epistemologist and philosopher of science, born in Waukegan, Illinois, Professor of Philosophy at Stanford University and Duke University. Dretske distinguishes between simple seeing (without belief ) and epistemic seeing (with belief ) and relates this account to analog and digital modes of encoding information. Digital encodings have prepositional content and allow beliefs and desires to have causal powers. His main works include Knowledge and the Flow of Information (1981) and Explaining Behaviour: Reasons in a World of Causes (1988). dual-aspect theory Philosophy of mind As an alternative to Cartesian dualism of mind and body, this theory holds that mind and body are not two independent things, but two attributes of the same underlying substance; hence they cannot be actually separate, but can only be abstracted from one another in thought. Spinoza’s philosophy of mind, which is often called parallelism, is sometimes said to be more adequately called a dual-aspect or double-aspect theory, for he claims that mind and body are attributes of one and the same substance, and sometimes even says that a mode of thought and a mode of extension are one and the same thing, only being expressed in two ways. The problem for this theory is that it replaces the problems of substance dualism with those of property dualism, for the interaction between these two attributes remains unclear. The best example of dual-aspect theory in modern philosophy of mind is functionalism, as held by Strawson, Hampshire, and Davidson. “The double aspect theory ‘explains’ psychophysical correlations by saying that one and the same event, which in itself is neither mental or physical, may be apprehended introspectively or perceptively; in so far as it is apprehended in the former way it is mental, in so far as it is apprehended in the latter way, it is physical.” Pap, Elements of Analytic Philosophy dualism Metaphysics, philosophy of mind Any metaphysical theory which, in contrast to monism, holds that reality is composed of two kinds of fundamental entities, neither of which can be reduced to the other. Descartes divided the world into extended substance (matter) and thinking substance (mind), and these two have mutually incompatible properties. Accordingly, the soul is entirely distinct from the body. This standard mental–physical dualism is called Cartesian dualism. Aside from the above “substance dualism,” there is also “property dualism,” called dual-aspect theory, which suggests that the mental and the physical are two mutually irreducible types of properties of one and the same thing. Russell holds a kind of “causal dualism,” according to which the dualism is not between two entities or properties, but rather between two fundamental kinds of law: physical causal laws and psychological causal laws. Traditional dualism, implying that the mind or soul is independent of body, has difficulty in accounting for interaction between body and mind and has become the focus of many disputes in contemporary philosophy of mind. Ryle accuses dualism of making the mind a ghost in the machine. Various theories about the relationship between mind and body have been proposed to avoid the problems of dualism. In its wider sense, dualism refers to philosophical systems that are established on some sharp fundamental distinction, such as Plato’s distinction between the sensible world and ideal world or Kant’s distinction between the phenomenal world and the noumenal world. “Dualism: this theory holds that there are both mental and physical particulars. It is the Cartesian view, the view of educated common sense, and the view of Christian theology.” Russell, Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell, vol. IX Ducasse, Curt (1881–1969) French-American analytic philosopher, born in Angouleme, France, Professor of Philosophy, Brown University. Ducasse was a pioneer of analytic philosophy in the United States and wrote on causality, perception, aesthetics, and paranormal phenomena. His dualism allowed minds to enter into causal relations with physical things and with other minds. He argued for an adverbial account of seeing that did not require sensa. His major works include Truth, Knowledge and Causation (1969). duck-rabbit Epistemology, philosophy of mind The psychologist J. Jastrow draws an ambiguous picture in his Fact and Fable in Psychology, which can be viewed either as the head of a duck, or as the head of rabbit, although one cannot perceive the picture as both at the same time. Wittgenstein appeals to this picture in his Philosophical Investigations to illustrate the point that if the same object can be seen as two different things, it shows that perception is not purely sensory and that we must attend to aspects in our account of perception. A report of perception is concept-laden, a combination of experience and thought. “I may, then, have seen the duck-rabbit simply as a picture-rabbit from the first.” Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigation Duhem, Pierre (1861–1916) French physicist and philosopher and historian of science, born in Paris, Professor at University of Bordeaux, member of the Académie des Sciences. Duhem argued for a holistic account of scientific theory, according to which the whole body of theory has empirical consequences rather than a single theory or theoretical claim. This implies that alterations in theory in the face of conflicting observations can be made anywhere in the body of theory and are not restricted to claims that are most closely associated with the observations. His studies of medieval science led Duhem to argue for the fallibility of any system of natural classification. His main works include The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory (1906) and To Save the Phenomena (1908). Duhem–Quine thesis Philosophy of science Also called the Quine– Duhem thesis. The view that any single hypothesis or theoretical sentence is not conclusively refuted when predictions derived from it turn out to be false, that is, when it is apparently incompatible with observation. Predictions may also rest upon other hypotheses, which serve as background knowledge. We can always revise this background knowledge to save the hypothesis in question. Empirical tests can only be applied to the whole system of hypotheses, not to single theoretical sentences. The unit of empirical significance is the whole of science. The confirmation conditions of a single sentence are determined by the sentence’s role in the language or in the theory in which it occurs. This thesis was defended by the French philosopher of science, P. Duhem, and by Quine. This thesis is also called epistemological holism, and is related to Quine’s denial of the distinction between analytic and synthetic propositions. “The Quine/Duhem thesis says that confirmation is holistic; that is, that every statement in a theory partially determines the level of confirmation of every other statement in the theory.” Fodor and Lepore, Holism DUMMETTIANUM IMPLICATUM. Dummett, Michael (1925– ) British philosopher of language and mathematics, born in London, Professor of Logic, University of Oxford. Dummett is a major commentator on the work of Frege and a leading analytic philosopher in his own right. Under the influence of Brouwer’s intuitionism, he has articulated and defended antirealist positions in the philosophy of mathematics and explored the legitimacy of anti-realism in other areas of philosophy. His main works include Frege: Philosophy of Language (1973), Truth and Other Enigmas (1978), The Logical Basis of Metaphysics (1991), and Origins of Analytic Philosophy (1993). Duns Scotus, John (c.1266–1308) Scholastic philosopher and theologian, probably born at Duns in Scotland, lectured in Oxford and Paris, died in Cologne. Duns Scotus used Avicenna, Augustine, and earlier Franciscan thought to engage with medieval Aristotelian philosophy and theology. He asserted the primacy of the will over the intellect and the freedom of the individual will. Faith and reason supplement each other, and theology is practical rather than theoretical. He recognized formal distinctions as well as real distinctions and conceptual distinctions. Distinctions among God’s attributes and the distinction between a particular thing’s common nature and its individuality are instances of formal distinctions. He was a moderate realist about universals and called the individuality of a particular thing its haecceitas (thisness), a notion revived by Chisholm in contemporary metaphysics. His major works include Opus Oxoniense (the Oxford lectures), Quaestiones quodlibetales, On the First Principles, Opus Parisiense (the Paris lectures). duration Metaphysics, philosophy of mind A notion of time, generally meaning the temporal distance between the beginning of an event and its end. Bergson contrasts duration to physical time and places it as a central conception of his philosophy. Physical time (le temps) is our ordinary idea of time, which is conceived as being an unbounded line composed of units or moments. Physical time is spatialized and intellectualized, and it can be measured by some measuring device or tool. This spatialized or mathematical idea of time enables us to fix the occurrence of events, but is itself empty and homogeneous. In contrast, duration (durée) or pure duration is the time of inner experience, a non-spatial stream of consciousness in which before and after interpenetrate one another. Duration is constituted by deep-seated conscious states, applies only to persons and not to external things, and leads to free will. We can only be aware of duration by intuition. It is a series of qualitative changing with no quantitative differentiation. It is heterogeneous and not homogenous. If we take the concept of the self as a succession of states, it is the superficial self as seen from physical time. Duration expresses the nature of the life of the deeper self. Only acts starting from duration are free. The distinction between physical time and duration, according to Bergson, can avoid determinism. His account of duration and physical time influenced the existentialist distinction between authentic and inauthentic existence. 195 Durkheim, Émile (1858–1917) French sociologist and philosopher, born in Épinal, taught at the universities of Bordeaux and Paris, a principal founder of modern sociology. Durkheim’s sociological work is philosophically important through its methodological collectivism or holism. He held that social facts or social phenomena cannot be reduced to facts about individuals, and should be treated as things that are explained solely by reference to other social facts. Society as a whole has its own life and is the proper object of social study. Society is held together by collective representations that exist independent of individual consciousness and can be examined through social facts. He applied this methodology to studies of suicide and religion. His major works include The Rules of Sociological Method (1895), Suicide (1897), and The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1912). De Finetti’s Dutch book: A combination of bets on which a person will suffer a collective loss no matter what happens. Suppose you are betting on a coin toss and accept odds of 3:2 that the coin lands heads and 3:2 that the coin will land tails. On this basis, you will never win and will always lose. Whatever the outcome of the coin toss, your bets will total 4 and you will gain only 3. The notion of the Dutch book was introduced into epistemology by Ramsey and de Finetti to show that it is irrational to put oneself in a no-win situation by accepting beliefs that have an incoherent combination of degrees of belief. Hence, rational degrees of belief must conform to the probability calculus. The validity of this argument is controversial, for what it proves is a prudential rationality rather than an epistemic rationality. “Pure duration is the form which the succession of our conscious states assumes when our ego lets itself live, when it refrains from separating its present state from its former states.” Bergson, Time “The Dutch Book argument . . . entails that if your degrees of belief . . . do not satisfy the probability calculus, then there are positive and negative stakes . . . which you would accept in bets at the odds determined by your degree of belief and which, once accepted, would cause you to lose money come what may.” Howson and Urbach, and Free Will Scientific Reasoning OBLIGATUM. Die Pflicht, or duty. What is owed or due to others or to oneself. In an ordinary sense, duty comprises the requirements, obligations, or assignments ascribed to any occupant of a social position, such as the position of parent, citizen, or jobholder, for which the person occupying that position is responsible. Duty as an ethical conception can be traced to the Stoics, but came to prominence in Kant’s ethics as the central concept of morals. Kant’s ethics is therefore a deontological theory (from Greek deon, duty). For Kant, duty is what ought to be done and thus constrains action. It is distinctive of conscientious conduct and is a concept that must be apprehended a priori. A good will is the basis of morality, and to have a good will is always to act from a sense of duty. Only an action performed out of a sense of duty can have moral worth. Duty is what we are obliged to do out of respect for the universal law. Kant distinguished duties chiefly into duties of justice ( juridical duties) and duties of virtue (ethical duty). A duty of justice is external in the sense that it applies to action that we can be compelled to do by an appropriate legal authority, while a duty of virtue is internal in the sense that its constraint or compulsion regarding action originates from our awareness of the moral law. This distinction roughly corresponds to his earlier distinction between acting in accordance with duty and acting from duty. He also distinguished between positive duty (what one ought to do) and negative duty (what one ought not to do); between perfect duty (which must be fulfilled under any circumstance and which specifies a particular action) and imperfect duty (which may be overridden and for which we have a significant degree of freedom in deciding how to comply). “Duty is the necessity of an action done out of respect for the law.” Kant, Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals Dworkin, Ronald (1931– ) American political and legal philosopher, Professor of Philosophy, New York University and Professor of Jurisprudence, University of Oxford. Dworkin gives priority to rights in his account of law and argues that rights must be respected even if they conflict with general social or political welfare. He argues that the law should not be conceived as a determinate system of rules, but that in making decisions judges must take account of standards regarding rights or welfare that are not rules. This is shown by the existence of hard cases, which can not be settled by the application of rules. His main works include Taking Rights Seriously (1977), A Matter of Principle (1985), and Law’s Empire (1986). dyadic Logic [from Greek dyas, two, a pair] A dyad is a group consisting of two parts. In logic, a dyadic relational predicate, such as “is higher than” or “is better than,” requires two terms to make a complete sentence. A dyadic predicate expresses a relation between two items and is symbolized as Rxy. The order of the letters after the predicate matters, and Rxy cannot in general be equated with Ryx. A dyadic or two-place predicate expresses a two-term relation. In contrast, monadic or one-term predicates do not express relations, and polyadic many-term predicates, such as triadic or three-term predicates and tetradic or four-term predicates, express relations among more than two terms. “Predicative expressions used to form sentences exemplifying simple predicative formulae with more than one individual variable are sometimes called relational predicates, and are distinguished into dyadic (‘two-place’), triadic (‘three-place’), &c. predicates, according to the number of individual expressions they commonly require to form a sentence.” Strawson, Introduction to Logical Theory écart Modern European philosophy [French, splitting off or separation from itself ] For Merleau-Ponty, the primordial action or movement of Being. Being, which is dynamic, possesses itself to some degree and gains some hold, but then is removed from itself (écart), due to its finitude and its insufficiency for ever-renewed attempts to overcome separation. The result of this movement is temporality. Écart implies that Being is at the same time one and many. It is thus consistent with the lapse, flux, or ekstase of Being. Écart, which characterizes Merleau-Ponty’s understanding of Being, is the character of Being that we experience with necessary indeterminacy in all situations. “Look in a completely different direction: the for itself itself is an incontestable, but derived, characteristic: it is the culmination of separation (écart) in differentiation . . . the perceptual separation (écart) as making up the ‘view’ such as it is implicated in the reflex, for example – and enclosing being for itself by means of language as differentiation.” Merleau-Ponty, The Visible and the Invisible ecocentrism Ethics An approach to environmental ethics, proposing that its central concern should be the ecological system or biotic community and its subsystems, rather than the individual members it contains. Ecocentrism is based on the claim that ecology has revealed human beings and the rest of nature to be related both diachronically (through time) and synchronically (at one time) and to be part of the web of life. Proponents argue that we should therefore consider the whole ecosystem rather than its individual members in isolation from the matrix in which the individuals are embedded. Unlike the major modern moral traditions, which focus on the interests or rights of the individual, ecocentrism is a holistic, or even totalitarian, approach. It judges the moral worth of human behavior in terms of its impact on the environment. Hence, while other approaches try to extend traditional Western moral norms to issues concerning animals and the environment, ecocentrism attempts to establish a new ethical paradigm. Land ethics and deep ecology are the most important representative forms of this trend. A fundamental problem facing ecocentrists is how to provide an appropriate place for human individuals within their account of the welfare of the environment. “Those philosophers, among whom I count myself, have been called ‘ecocentrists’ since we have advocated a shift in the locus of intrinsic value from individuals (whether individual human beings or individual higher ‘lower animals’) to terrestrian nature – the ecosystem – as a whole.” Callicott, In Defense of the Land Ethic economic base, see relations of production economic determinism Philosophy of social science The basic thesis of Marx’s historical materialism, that the modes of production determine the legal/political superstructure and ideological superstructure of a society. Although some scholars use the term as a neutral description, many critics employ it pejoratively to accuse the theory of claiming that non-economic phenomena are mechanically determined by the economic structure in a way that is incompatible with the existence of human freedom and moral responsibility. But Marx never claimed that there is a monocausal relation between the economical structure and superstructure. Instead, he emphasized in his later life that superstructure, although fundamentally determined by the economical structure, is not ineffectual, but plays an active role in maintaining the economic base. Engels shared this view. Some commentators are uncertain how well the distinction between base and superstructure survives a more robust role for the superstructure, even if in the last analysis the base is allocated explanatory priority. “It used to be said more often than it is now that Marx was an ‘economic determinist’. Some critics held this against him, while others reckoned it a point in his favour.” Plamenatz, Karl Marx’s Philosophy of Man -- economic structure, see relations of production ecstacy, see temporality effective historical consciousness, see effective history effective history Modern European philosophy epistemology, philosophy of history [German Wirkungsgeschichte] Gadamer claims that history or tradition is not simply the past, but is in a process of realization. History has effects in terms of conditioning our historical understanding. An interpreter is subject to the way in which an object has already been understood in the tradition to which the interpreter belongs. Any understanding is historically situated and is rooted in prejudice. Understanding is thus not the act of a subject, but rather an aspect of effective history. A pure “objective” understanding, free from any special vantage point, does not exist. History limits our knowledge, but also aids our development by means of determining what we can understand. Accordingly, no rejection of the tradition can be as completely radical as claimed by its proponents. The consciousness that is affected by history, through having a pre-history, and will in turn affect history, through having a post-history, is called effective historical consciousness. History is a unity of history with the understanding of it. “The true historical object is not an object at all, but the unity of the one and the other, a relationship in which exist both the reality of history and the reality of historical understanding. A proper hermeneutics would have to demonstrate the effectivity of history within understanding itself. I shall refer to this as ‘effective-history’.” Gadamer, Truth and Method effective procedure Epistemology, philosophy of science, philosophy of mind In contrast to a random procedure, an effective procedure is a mechanical step-by-step process with a finite number of steps before reaching an answer or calculating a solution. An effective procedure can be given as a finite set of instructions that determine what is to be done at each step. The notion of effective procedure is crucial for computer science. A Turing machine employs an effective procedure because in such a machine a computer program effectively specifies the information processing to be carried out by the machine. This mechanical procedure is a type of algorithm. “[An effective procedure] denotes a set of rules (the program) specifying certain processes, which processes can be carried out by a machine processor built in such a way as to accept these rules as instructions determining its operations.” Boden, Artificial Intelligence and Natural Man -- efficiency Political philosophy, philosophy of social science A term for assessing means to achieve ends. In contemporary philosophy, efficiency is mainly used as a welfare criterion to measure the condition of a society. A society is efficient if the institutions within it can work cooperatively to generate the greatest possible welfare. Hobbes claimed that virtually everyone is better off if there is a political-legal order and that a society is more efficient if it has a government than if it lacks one. Under Pareto optimality, a distribution of goods is efficient if any alternative distribution would make some individual better off at the cost of making another individual worse off. The notion of efficiency attracts a widespread interest in contemporary political philosophy, in debates about conflicts between equity and efficiency and between stability, coordination, and efficiency. “An arrangement of the basic structure is efficient when there is no way to change this distribution so as to raise the prospects of some without lowering the prospects of others.” Rawls, A Theory of Justice egalitarianism: Also equalitarianism. The doctrine that all men are equal in the sense that they should receive equal treatment or consideration in moral, political, and even economic life. The position, which is opposed to inegalitarianism, denies that any individual or group should be accorded prior moral concern over others. Each individual is to be counted as one. One aim of liberalism is to respect and advance equality, although different liberal doctrines give different weight to the claims of equality. Strict egalitarianism would insist upon an equal distribution of all primary goods, but many egalitarians allow different rewards to be attached to different positions so long as the positions are open to all on the basis of fair equality of opportunity. “Egalitarianism: . . . the doctrine that all human beings have the right to equal respect and consideration.” Haksar, Equality, Liberty and Perfectionism H. P. Grice’s Dual Principle of Conversational Egoism and Altrusim -- ego (Freud) Philosophy of mind Freud rejected the view that the mind is a unity. Instead, he divides it into three parts: id [German Es, literally, “it”], ego [German Ich, literally, “I”], and superego [German Überich]. For Freud, the id contains bodily appetites and unconscious instincts. It is not subjected to logical processing or to time, and it represents the resistance of human nature and what should be checked. The id replaced what Freud earlier called the unconscious. The superego is a human’s moral faculty and is the agent of conscience. It is the location of ego-ideal, that is, what one desires but cannot have. It represents an individual’s social personality, and acts as a deputy for the culture outside oneself. It is a judge and a censor. The presence of the superego explains how it is possible for us to act in a way that serves something beyond our own self-interest. The ego, the subject of intentional actions and decisions, is the mediator between id and superego, and is the real “I” or genuine self. It has a conscious part and an unconscious part. It tries to measure itself by the ideal set by the superego and to act on the demands of the superego to subdue the unsociable chaos of the id’s desires. The ego also tries to keep its own perceptual responses free from the constraints of morality. The contents of the id can find expression in consciousness only through the ego, through the approval of the ego, or by the ego falling prey to the id’s manipulation. Freud compares the relation between the ego and id to the relation between a rider and horse. In all, the ego represents characteristic human values of prudence and rationality. It is the layer of the id that has been modified by the influence of the external world of reality. Freud’s tripartite picture does not simplify the function of mind into a conflict between rational and irrational. In a sense, it can be traced to Plato’s division of the soul into reason, spirit, and appetite, although Freud locates reason in the area of ego. As with all the major elements of Freudian theory, it is tempting to accept Freud’s account of the ego, id, and superego without suitable scrutiny. “Putting ourselves on the footing of everyday knowledge, we recognise in human beings a mental organisation which is interpolated between their sensory stimuli and the perception of their somatic needs on the one hand and their motor acts on the other, and which mediates between them for a particular purpose. We call this organisation their ‘Ich’ (‘ego’, literally, ‘I’).” Freud, Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, vol. 23 -- egocentric particulars Logic, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind A term introduced by Russell, which he also called emphatic particulars. Items designated by words such as “this,” “I,” “here,” “now,” “past,” “future,” “near,” or “far,” whose denotation is relative to the speaker and his position in space and time and depends on the contexts of their utterances. In a sense, all of them can be defined in terms of an ostensive “this.” These words are neither proper names, nor terms for general concepts, nor descriptions and therefore are not easy to fit into the usual logical and semantic categories. They will affect the truth of the propositions in which they occur, for such propositions cannot have a constant truth-value. They may be said to denote without connoting anything. It therefore becomes a fundamental problem how to avoid egocentric particulars in the formulation of epistemologically basic propositions. Since the use of egocentric terms must involve the selective activity of the mind, the existence of such terms is also supposed to be a criticism of the no-ownership theory of mental states. Other authors call egocentric particulars token-reflexives, indicator terms, or indexicals. “There is also difficulty about ‘egocentric particulars’, i.e. ‘I’, ‘this’, ‘now’, ‘here’.” Russell, An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth -- egocentric perceptual statements Philosophy of language, epistemology Shoemaker’s term for statements that make use of egocentric terms such as “this,” “here,” “near,” “far,” “left,” or “right” to describe events or objects in relation to the speaker. The truth or falsity of these statements is decided with reference to such circumstances as the speaker’s location, orientation, and point of view. “It is just because egocentric perceptual statements can be false, and can be discovered to be false by reference to the speaker’s point of view, that they are informative in the way they are.” Shoemaker, Self-Knowledge and Self-Identity -- egocentric predicament Epistemology The term, coined by the American philosopher R. B. Perry, refers to the situation according to which everyone’s knowledge is limited by his or her own experience and cannot go beyond that experience. This situation has already been expressed in Berkeley’s dictum “to be is to be perceived.” Because of this predicament, we cannot have empirical knowledge of other minds, for we cannot share their experience. We also cannot have empirical knowledge of the mind-independent external world, for any recognition of the world must be formed on the basis of one’s experience. Idealism, although widely criticized in this regard, generally takes this predicament as a strong proof of its truth. “The fallacious argument from the egocentric predicament is to confuse the redundant statement that ‘everything which is known, is known’ with the statement that ‘everything which is, is known’; or to infer the second statement from the first.” Perry, Realms of Value -- conversational self-love, egoism, ethical Ethics Also called normative egoism or rational egoism. An ethical view that holds that satisfying some desire of mine is a necessary and sufficient condition for me to act. This theory places the self at the center of ethical life in relation to other persons. According to this view, people will naturally behave unjustly and reject fundamental moral rules, if they can do so without any negative consequences for themselves. It then follows that we do not have a natural regard for the public interest, and that a rational person will act to maximize selfish satisfactions. For an ethical theory based on this account of human psychology, moral life is the life that maximizes the good-for-me. Psychological egoism provides a theoretical basis for ethical egoism, but the failure of psychological egoism would not entail that ethical egoism is false. It only shows that ethical egoism must find another basis. Egoism stands in contrast to altruism, which claims that morality must be based on our desire to help others. Egoism was explicitly argued for by Thrasymachus in Plato’s Republic and developed by Hobbes. To explain obvious acts of altruism and benevolence in many situations, egoists argue that altruism or the observance of the general moral order is disguised self-seeking, for it will create a stable society, which can preserve us and promote our long-term interests. The main difficulty of egoism is that it takes morality as an external bond, rather than being an internal feature of our moral personality. The prisoner’s dilemma indicates that cooperative action may achieve better results than selfish action and has been offered as a serious basis for rejecting ethical egoism. However, it is also argued that egoism will allow us to act cooperatively as long as this promotes deeply based long-term self-interest. On this view, the prisoner’s dilemma only shows that people should not pursue egoistic ends directly and does not entail the rejection of egoism itself. “There is a theory of how we should act which has been called, confusingly enough, ethical egoism. This claims that each person ought to pursue his or her own self-interest.” B. Williams, Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy eidetic imagery Epistemology [from Greek eidos, the thing to be seen] Persons are capable of having eidetic imagery if they can form an image of something as if that thing were really in front of them, and if they can manipulate that image in some way. Such images are phenomenologically indistinguishable from perceptions, but are not illusory perceptions. Just as we can read off features of our visual phenomena, the person with eidetic images can project them upon physical surfaces and can read off their features. The existence of this kind of phenomenon suggests that we cannot easily dispense with the notion of inner-perception. “In the unusual phenomenon of ‘eidetic imagery’, the subject can read off or count off the details of his memory image.” Dennett, Content and Consciousness -- eidetic intuition, see eidetic reduction eidetic reduction Modern European philosophy Husserl’s term for an intuitive act toward an essence or universal, in contrast to an empirical intuition or perception. He also called this act an essential intuition, eidetic intuition, or eidetic variation. In Greek, eideo means “to see” and what is seen is an eidos (Platonic Form), that is, the common characteristic of a number of entities or regularities in experience. For Plato, eidos means what is seen by the eye of the soul and is identical with essence. Husserl also called this act “ideation,” for ideo is synonymous with eideo and also means “to see” in Greek. Correspondingly, idea is identical to eidos. Eidetic reduction is the stage subsequent to transcendental or phenomemological reduction and is sometimes viewed as the second stage of phenomenological reduction itself. Transcendental reduction lifts us to the transcendental realm, and turns empirical consciousness to transcendental or pure consciousness. For Husserl, eidetic reduction of an act of transcendental consciousness penetrates to essence. It is a procedure for acquiring insight into essence and places us in cognitive contact with general or universal knowledge. The result of this reduction is a clearer and more distinct consciousness of the universal. This reduction or intuition is a rule-governed act, which direct intuition often resists. In eidetic reduction, we do not concentrate on the perceived instance, but the essence that the instance exemplifies. Understanding this reduction, therefore, provides an explanation of how we transcend the contingency of our basic experience and extract what is essential. “If the phenomenological reduction contrived a means of access to the phenomenon of real and also potential inner experience, the method found in it of ‘eidetic reduction’ provides the means of access to the invariant essential structures of the total sphere of pure mental process.” Husserl, Shorter Works eidetic variation, an alternative expression for eidetic reduction Einstein, Albert (1879–1955) German-Swiss-American physicist and philosopher, born in Ulm, Professor at the Institute for Advanced Studies, Princeton. Einstein’s theory of relativity unified and revolutionized our account of the physical world according to a four-dimensional theory of space-time that replaced the Newtonian understanding of phenomena within a fixed three-dimensional spatial system. His theory’s holistic methodological grounds and its implications for science, epistemology, and metaphysics raise central questions in the philosophy of physics, as does his insistence in debates with Born on a realistic interpretation of quantum theory. His major works include The Meaning of Relativity (1921), The Born–Einstein Letters (1971), and Collected Papers, 2 vols. (1987–9). élan vital Philosophy of science [French élan, force or impetus] A central notion of the French philosopher Henri Bergson, introduced in Creative Evolution and translated as “impetus of life” or “vital impetus.” Bergson was influenced by Darwin’s theory of evolution, but claimed that evolution cannot be a process of random natural selection. He argued that the theory fails to explain why biological evolution leads toward greater and greater complexity. He therefore postulated the existence of an élan vital underlying and determining the course of evolution. Élan vital is a force which is not capable of scientific explanation, but which pervades the whole of nature and presents itself in innumerable forms. By pushing nature to evolve into new but unforeseen forms of organic structures, it makes evolution a creative process rather than a mechanistic one. Bergson denied that introducing élan vital as a theoretical entity makes evolution teleological, but claimed that élan vital finds its most complete expression in human intelligence. Accordingly, human reason is at the highest level of evolution. “The impetus of life [élan vital], of which we are speaking, consists in a need of creation. It cannot create absolutely, because it is confronted with matter, that is to say with the movement that is the universe of its own. But it seizes upon this matter, which is necessity itself and strives to introduce to it the largest possible amount of indetermination and liberty.” Bergson, Creative Evolution elementary proposition Logic, philosophy of language, metaphysics In Wittgenstein’s early philosophy, an elementary proposition is the simplest kind of proposition. It is the basis for analyzing other kinds of propositions but cannot itself be analyzed in terms of other propositions. Hence, elementary propositions are where the analysis of propositions terminates. Elementary propositions, which give language the fundamental capacity to picture the world, consist of names. The way in which the names are combined represents the way in which objects hang together in a state of affairs. Elementary propositions are meant to be logically independent of each other and not to contradict or entail one another, although Wittgenstein later recognized overwhelming difficulties with this requirement. What elementary propositions depict are always positive facts. By depicting the totality of possible states of affairs as the world, the totality of elementary propositions forms a complete description of the world. Wittgenstein never gives an example of what such a proposition would be, and elementary propositions lose their importance in his later period. For some logical positivists, an elementary proposition is also called a basic proposition or protocol sentence. “The simplest kind of proposition, an elementary proposition, asserts the existence of a state of affairs.” Wittgenstein, Tractatus elenchus, see Socratic elenchus elimination of metaphysics Epistemology, philosophy of language, metaphysics A slogan of logical positivism, representing the culmination of the anti-metaphysical tradition in the history of Western philosophy. Hume wanted to burn all books whose contents cannot be checked by our experience or by abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number. Kant criticized traditional metaphysics on the grounds of his examination of the nature and limits of knowledge. The attack by logical positivism, on the other hand, was based on a theory of language that was partly inherited from Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. Logical positivists claim that there are only two kinds of meaningful propositions: formal propositions, which are logical and mathematical principles, and factual propositions, which are empirically verifiable. Metaphysical propositions, which are about such things as the absolute, essences, transcendent entities, and fate, are literally nonsensical or meaningless, because they contain pseudo-words or because they are pseudostatements, with an arrangement of words violating the rules of logical syntax, and lack any criteria of application. Thus, metaphysics breaks the rules that any utterance must satisfy if it is to be literally significant. All metaphysical questions and answers are irreconcilable with logic and scientific thinking. The root of the problem is that metaphysics establishes an impossible task for itself, that is, to discover a kind of knowledge that is beyond experience. Yet if something is beyond any possible experience, it could be neither said nor thought nor asked. Hence, according to logical positivists, metaphysics, though it has poetic merit and emotional value, does not contribute to knowledge. If philosophy wants to be a genuine branch of knowledge, it must emancipate itself from metaphysics. This position of the Vienna Circle is itself criticized, in part because its division between two kinds of meaningful propositions is not exhaustive. Furthermore, its attack ignores the detailed analysis of various metaphysical arguments, some of which have every appearance of being meaningful. The elimination of metaphysics is a major theme in the work of Heidegger and Derrida, but these authors have found their successive attempts to exclude metaphysics from their work to have failed. “Logical analysis yields the negative result that the alleged statements in this domain are entirely meaningless. Therewith a radical elimination of metaphysics is attained, which was not yet possible from the earlier anti-metaphysical standpoints.” Carnap, “The Elimination of Metaphysics Through Logical Analysis of Language,” in Ayer (ed.), Logical Positivism eliminative induction, another expression for induction by elimination eliminative materialism Philosophy of mind Also called the disappearance theory of mind, or eliminativism, the view that our standard mental concepts, such as belief and desire, are inappropriate for a serious scientific account of human beings. Our talk about propositional attitudes is misleading and should, or will be, eliminated. The mental phenomena to which these concepts are supposed to refer do not exist. Folk psychology, which employs these mental concepts, does not have the status of a serious theory. Instead, we must use the language of physics and neurophysiology to replace these notions. The leading advocates of this controversial theory include Paul Churchland, Patricia Churchland, Richard Rorty, and Stephen Stich. Eliminative materialism should be distinguished from the identity theory of mind, which believes in the existence of mental phenomena but insists that they are contingently identical with neuro-physical states. -- “[T]he eliminative materialists . . . have said, in effect, that our talk about the propositional attitudes is indeed just talk, but have then gone on to say that it is not only dispensable but should be dispensed with as soon as possible.” Lyons, Approaches to Intentionality -- eliminativism, materialism -- another term for eliminative elite: a group of persons who are pre-eminent according to some ideal of status or performance in a given society. Elites of various kinds occur in society, for example, scholarly elites contain the most learned academics, artistic elites contain the best writers and artists, and moral elites contain the most virtuous. The membership of an elite is generally regarded as providing the paradigm of achievement in a given area. On epistemological grounds, Plato claimed that the moral elite and the political elite are identical. He held that the most learned are also the most just and should be the rulers. Each moral theory generally has an ideal of the hero who best exemplifies its moral principles. For Nietzsche, a member of an elite is someone who best exercises the will of power and overcomes resentment. The word “elite” itself does not imply any special or unjustified privilege, although elites are liable to defend their own position rather than serving the wider society. The existence of elites in various fields is a fact, reflecting individual differences in talent and power. In contemporary liberal moral and political theory, an elite is understood to hold certain powers and privileges that mark it off from the rest of society. Elitism is contrasted to egalitarianism and promotes the role of elites, in some cases with anti-egalitarian consequences for the distribution of goods. “Majoritarian democracy, it is said, is therefore the most effective safeguard against the rule of a hypocritically self-interested elite.” Wolff, In Defense of Anarchism elitism Ethics, Political philosophy The claim that society should train a group of pre-eminent individuals for positions of political leadership. The view was first elaborated by Plato in his Republic. He held that political power should be given to philosopherkings, who would be the wisest and most intelligent members of society. An elite of the best people would make laws and determine policy, but an elitist program faces many difficulties. First, unless there were indeed a special wisdom of political leadership, choosing an elite would be arbitrary. Secondly, if there were such wisdom, it would be necessary to identify those possessing it to receive a suitable education. Thirdly, there would be problems in installing these experts in ruling positions and in protecting their rule against those who see it as illegitimate. Finally, a procedure would be needed for the regular and peaceful replacement of members of the elite. Elitism seems incompatible with democratic liberalism, which promotes equality and liberty and proposes that leadership should be elected from the general citizenry, but many liberal systems have chosen their political leadership from a privileged social and economic elite that has been educated for leadership. The supreme One is perfect, and its perfection is inevitably productive and creative. It spreads its goodness abroad by generating an external image of its internal activity. Thus, there is a necessary and spontaneous downward procession from the One to the Divine Mind, and then in turn to the Soul or Form, and finally to the material universe. This procession is one of emanation, like the radiation of heat from a fire or the diffusion of scent from a flower. It is simply a giving-out, which involves no change or diminution in the higher reality. The lower reality is at first produced as an unformed potentiality, but then turns back to the higher reality in contemplation and is thus informed and filled in content. According to Plotinus, the process of emanation is not temporal, but only indicates the relations of priority and dependence. Plotinus’s poetic vision and his attempt to explain priority have both influenced later philosophers. “To advance an elitist hypothesis today it is not enough merely to argue . . . that an elite always or usually exist and that they are probably of decisive importance. In addition to this, it is now necessary to refute the widely held assumption that values such as equality, liberty, and freedom are universal and objective.” Field and Higley, embodiment Philosophy of mind The existence of states of the mind or soul caused by or identical with states of the body. In contrast, disembodiment is the existence of a person after bodily death. For materialists, a person can exist only in an embodied form. In the philosophy of mind, embodiment raises a problem about how consciousness relates to the brain and to the physical world more generally. If conscious states are causally determined by physical states, it is not clear how these physically caused states are governed. There are other difficulties in explaining why mental states are so different from the physical states that determine them. Another sense of embodiment is associated with the French philosopher Merleau-Ponty, who distinguished between one’s objective body as a physiological entity, and one’s phenomenal body, that is, one’s own body as one experiences it. He considered such experience to be an experience of embodiment. Elitism Elster, Jon (1940– ) Norwegian social and political philosopher, Professor of Social Science, Columbia University. Elster’s interdisciplinary approach to explaining social phenomena, combining philosophy, economics, and the theory of rational choice, has contributed to the development of analytic Marxism and has contributed to wider issues in normative political and social philosophy. His major works include Sour Grapes (1983) and Making Sense of Marx (1985). emanation Metaphysics A term in Plotinus’ Enneads, a metaphorical description of the manner in which a lowerlevel reality is derived from a higher-level reality. “The generation of reality by the One is described by the Neo-platonists in terms of their well-known image of emanation.” Wallis, Neo-platonism “This is the puzzle of how conscious states relate to the physical world, specifically to the body: the problem of embodiment.” McGinn, The Problem of Consciousness emotion embraced desire Philosophy of action, philosophy of mind Actions are the results of human desires and intentions. If these desires and intentions are those that we desire or like ourselves to have, they are called embraced desires. Embraced desires enable us to do what is desired happily and willingly. In contrast are reluctant desires, which are the desires we do not wish to have. Reluctant desires push us to do something we do not really want to do. They emerge especially when we are frustrated or in situations where we are being obstructed. “Reluctant desires and intentions, we can say, are those which operate in situations to which the agent is somehow opposed. Embraced desires and intentions satisfy the condition that they operate in situations which the agent at least accepts.” Honderich, A Theory of Determinism, vol. 2 emergence Philosophy of science, philosophy of social science Based on the assumption that a whole is more than the sum of all its parts, the doctrine of emergence holds that the whole has properties which cannot be explained in terms of the properties of its parts. Such a property is called an emergent property. The enormous complexity of the interactions among parts leads to the generation of a property of the whole that cannot be deduced from the properties of parts. This position, which was held historically by C. L. Morgan and S. Alexander, objects to the reductionist interpretation of organization. One of its contemporary variants is methodological holism, which holds that facts about a society cannot be reduced to facts about individuals. A society or group has some characteristics that cannot be defined or explained by the characteristics of its members. This theory, also called emergentism, is also useful in explaining psychological and biological phenomena. An important version of antiemergentist views is methodological individualism. “The doctrine of emergence is sometimes formulated as a thesis about the hierarchical organisation of things and processes, and the consequent occurrence of properties at ‘higher’ levels of organisation which are not predictable from properties found at ‘lower’ levels.” Nagel, The Structure of Science -- emergent property Philosophy of science, aesthetics Complex systems such as a living organism seem to possess some properties that cannot wholly be reduced to the characteristics of its individual components or be predicted from them. These properties seem not to be the sum of the components of that system, but to be something new and different that emerges from their combination. They are called emergent properties. The thesis that there are such properties is called the doctrine of emergence or emergentism. Aesthetic qualities are often held to be emergent from the combination of other properties of aesthetic objects, such as shape, color, texture, and size. In contrast, additive properties can be reduced to the properties of the components of a system. It is a matter of dispute whether ultimately all properties are additive. “It may seem that we should make a further distinction between two sorts of regional property, which are sometimes called summative (or additive) and emergent . . . We might say that the brightness of a white light made up of two white lights is summative; the colour of a light made up of two different coloured lights is emergent.” Beardsley, Aesthetics -- emergentism, see emergence Emerson, Ralph Waldo (1803–82) American philosopher and essayist, born in Boston, educated at Harvard, the leading figure of New England Transcendentalism. Influenced by German romanticism and absolute idealism, Emerson claimed that nature is a higher spiritual reality. There is a correspondence between the human soul and the universe, and man should live his life in conformity to nature. He rejected contemporary American commercialism and advocated self-reliance and the self-development of the individual. His major books include Nature (1836), Representative Men (1850), The Conduct of Life (1860), Society and Solitude (1870), and Letters and Social Aims (1876). EMOTUM -- emotion Philosophy of mind, philosophy of action, ethics [from Latin e, out + movere, move, agitating motions] Aristotle claimed that emotion, which he called passion [Greek pathos, being acted upon] is a process or motion. Emotions are complex mental states with various degrees of intensity. Unlike moods, they are about some real or imagined objects. They give rise to actions or reactions. In this respect, they are associated with the will, but are distinguished from feeling in general because not all kinds of feeling are action-causing. Emotions are accompanied or expressed by bodily symptoms or external behavior. Typical emotions include love, anger, fear, joy, anxiety, pride, contempt, compassion, and indignation, and can occur alone or in combination. It is difficult to determine both the place and the role of emotions. Plato divided the human soul into three parts and held that emotion, as the state characteristic of the intermediate part, lies between appetite and reason. It can either help reason to control appetite or take the side of appetite to rebel against reason. This ambivalent position led to two contrary attitudes toward emotion in the later development of ethics. Rational ethics considers emotion to be a threat to morality and requires it to be governed by reason, while others, represented by Hume and Nietzsche, believe that emotion rather than reason is the center of moral life. Descartes’s study of the passions initiated important seventeenthcentury discussion of the emotions. William James and Carl G. Lange independently developed a position according to which emotion is a brute fact, a specific feeling caused by characteristic bodily changes in response to external stimuli. This thesis, which is called the “James–Lange view,” initiated the modern discussion of emotion. If emotion is the mental expression of bodily change, is it subject to the assessment of reason? Many traditional philosophers deplore the arationality of emotion, according to which emotion is neither rational nor irrational, but emotivism holds that emotion can cause cognition. Others consider that emotion can lead us to apprehend things in certain ways and is complementary to reason. According to this view, emotion has moral, aesthetic, and religious value. Emotion is associated with both virtues and vices. Some types of emotion, such as jealousy and pride, are vices, while others, such as love and benevolence, are virtues. It is disputed whether emotions are objective or subjective. For example, when we love something, is it because the object is loveable in itself, or because we project a subjective feeling upon it? Freud claimed that emotion is a reaction to something in our unconscious, rather than to something external. Many other modern writers have explored the diversity, complexity, and opacity of the emotions. “Emotions do not form a natural class. After a long history of quite diverse debates about their classification, emotions have come to form a heterogeneous group: various conditions and states have been included in the class for quite different reasons and on different grounds, against the background of shifting contrasts.” Rorty (ed.), Explaining Emotions. -- emotive meaning Ethics, philosophy of language A term introduced by the logical positivists in their discussions of the verifiability criterion. According to that criterion, only statements that can be checked by empirical evidence are meaningful. However, there are many apparently meaningful statements, such as those associated with moral discourse, which cannot be tested by experience. The logical positivists claimed that such statements are not factually or cognitively meaningful, but have emotive meaning, that is, emotive force. A detailed discussion of emotive meaning was developed by C. K. Ogden and I. A. Richards, who distinguish the symbolic (referential) and emotive functions of language. In their symbolic function, statements refer to things; in their emotive function, they express and evoke feelings and attitudes. In his emotivism, C. L. Stevenson distinguished between the descriptive meaning and emotive meaning of expressions. The distinction lies in the kind of states of mind expressed or aroused. If the state of mind is cognitive, the meaning of the term conveys information and is descriptive. If the state of mind is affective or emotional, the meaning of the expression is emotive. Expressions in emotive meanings do not refer to the qualities of things, but prescribe a particular action or course of conduct. According to Stevenson, the meaning of ethical terms is descriptive in a sense, but primarily and chiefly emotive. “The emotive meaning of a word or phrase is a strong and persistent tendency, built up in the course of linguistic history, to give direct expression (quasi-interjectionally) to certain of the speaker’s feelings or emotions or attitudes; and it is also a tendency to evoke (quasi-imperatively) corresponding feelings, emotions, or attitudes in those to whom the speaker’s remarks are addressed.” Stevenson, Facts and Values -- emotivism Ethics, aesthetics, philosophy of language Also called the emotive theory of ethics. An account of the function of evaluative utterances in terms of the expression of the speaker’s emotion and the evoking of the hearer’s emotion, and a theory of evaluative fields such as ethics and aesthetics in terms of this account. The position can be traced to Berkeley, who claimed that evaluative terms such as “good” serve to raise some passion rather than to convey information. The view was developed in the twentieth century by the logical positivists, particularly Ayer, who claimed that ethical judgments are neither statements of non-ethical scientific facts nor statements of non-scientific ethical facts, but are only expressions of emotion that can be neither true nor false. In this way, to say that something is right or wrong amounts to saying “Hoorah!” or “Boo!” Hence, this version of emotivism is nicknamed the “boo-hoorah theory.” A full and sophisticated theory of emotivism is elaborated by C. L. Stevenson in his classical work Ethics and Language (1944). It argues that traditional moral theories generally but mistakenly take moral judgments to be nothing but descriptive expressions. Ethical utterances might be descriptive, but their main or primary meaning is emotive, for they do not refer to qualities in things, but function like interjections (“Alas!”), imperatives (“Do such and such!”), optatives (“Would that this were so”), prescriptions (“You should such and such”), or performatives (“I apologize”). An ethical statement is chiefly used to express (but not to report) one’s attitude and to try to influence the attitudes and conduct of others. Hence any purely descriptive account of evaluative judgments must be deficient. Other major proponents of emotivism include P. H. Nowell-Smith, Paul Edwards, and R. M. Hare. Hare’s theory has been called “prescriptivism” or, by Stevenson himself, “nearemotivism.” Emotivism was a major ethical theory in the twentieth century, but has lost its dominant position in recent decades, partly through changing understanding of the role of language and analysis in philosophy and partly because of its failure to connect morality with reason. “Emotivism is the doctrine that all evaluative judgements and more specifically all moral judgements are nothing but expressions of preference, expressions of attitude or feeling, insofar as they are moral or evaluative in character.” MacIntyre, After Virtue empathy Ethics, aesthetics, philosophy of history [from Greek en, in, into + pathos, feeling or passion, literally being in or into a state of emotion] A term introduced by the psychologist E. B. Titchener (1867–1927). In aesthetics, empathy is the unconscious projection of one’s own inner feelings into an aesthetic object or activity. In ethics, it is a person’s insightful understanding of the inner feelings of another person on the basis of a sympathetic imaginative identification with that person, although the role of empathy in our ethical responses is much debated. Empathy corresponds to the German term Einfühlung, and is used in hermeneutics for a method characteristic of the humanities, involving the re-creation in the mind of the scholar of the thoughts, feeling, and motivations of the objects of his study. “The operations of sympathetic understanding or, as it is often now called, ‘empathy’, have been much discussed in the history of moral philosophy.” B. Williams, Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy Empedocles (c.490–430 bc) Greek natural philosopher, born in Acragas, Sicily. Empedocles wrote two long philosophical poems (On the Nature of Things and Hymns of Purification), but only fragments of them survive. He held that things in the world were formed out of four roots or elements (earth, water, air, and fire). Alongside these elements are two principles, Love and Strife. Love unites the elements, whereas Strife separates them. Love and Strife alternate in periods of domination of the kosmos as a whole. Empedocles used understanding of generation and destruction in terms of the combination and separation of several ultimate constituents to respond to Parmenides’ rejection of the possibility of change. emphatic particulars, another term for egocentric particulars EMPIRICUM -- empiricism: a philosophical approach to knowledge and reality. Its central contentions are that all knowledge or all meaningful discourse about the world is related to sensory experience (including inner sense or introspection), and that the boundaries of possible sense-experience are the boundaries of possible knowledge. Different empiricists have different views about how knowledge is based on sensation. The major interest of empiricism is in the sphere of sense-perception, and it offers detailed examinations of problems concerning perception, the relation between sense-data and material objects, the problem of the external world, and the results and methodology of the sciences. This approach embraces concreteness and particularity, and encourages rigorous standards of clarity and precision. Empiricism claims that the sciences provide our best knowledge of reality. It is suspicious of abstraction and generalization and rejects all irrational and superstitious claims. The major difficulty empiricism faces is to provide a satisfactory account of universals, and of a priori necessary truths in mathematics and logic. Empiricism contrasts with rationalism, taken as an epistemological approach that gives a lesser role to sense-experience and emphasizes the centrality of the faculty of reason itself in knowledge. When rationalism is taken broadly as respect for reason and a rejection of irrationality, empiricism is a type of rationalism. Modern scholarship rejects too sharp a distinction between rationalism and empiricism among some of the great seventeenth-century philosophers. Empiricism as a tradition can be traced to Aristotle, and has been deeply rooted in the British intellectual tradition since the Middle Ages. The classical British empiricists include Hobbes, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume, and in the twentieth century Russell, Ayer, and the Vienna Circle (also called logical empiricists) are its major representatives. “Modern empiricism has been conditioned in large part by two dogmas. One is a belief in some fundamental cleavage between truths which are analytic, or grounded in meanings independently of matter of fact, and truths which are synthetic, or grounded in fact. The other dogma is reductionism: the belief that each meaningful statement is equivalent to some logical construct upon terms which refer to immediate experience.” Quine, From a Logical Point of View -- empirio-criticism Epistemology A rigorously positivist and radically empirical philosophy, established by the German philosopher Richard Avenarius and developed by the Austrian scientist and philosopher Ernst Mach. Developing the thought of Berkeley and Hume, empirio-criticism claims that all we can know is our sensations and that knowledge should be confined to pure experience. Any metaphysical claims, such as the objective existence of the external world or of causation, which transcends experience and cannot be verified by experience, must be rejected as a construct of the mind. Philosophy should be based on scientific principles. This position influenced logical positivism and James’s pragmatism. Lenin severely attacked it in his Materialism and Empirio-Criticism (1908) and even claimed that this type of philosophy represents the interests of capitalism. What he criticized was the espousal of Mach’s views by his fellow Bolsheviks Bogdanov, Bazarov, and others. “I shall refer to those arguments by which materialism is being combated . . . Machians. I shall use this latter term throughout as a synonym for ‘empirio-criticists’. . . .” Lenin, Materialism and Empirio-Criticism empty class, another term for null class vacuous name, or empty name Logic, philosophy of language A name which does not have a bearer or does not refer to any particular. These names are grammatical realities of a type that Russell called logical fictions. Empty names such as “Santa Claus” are intelligible, even when they have no bearer, but the explanation for this is uncertain. Russell rejected Frege’s account in terms of his distinction between sense and reference and gave his own account in terms of names and associated descriptions. enforcement of morals “Philosophers have thought that . . . there can be names without bearers – what have been called ‘empty names’.” C. Williams, Being, Identity and Truth enantiomorphs, another term for incongruent counterparts encompassing Modern European philosophy A basic term of the German existentialist Karl Jaspers. We always think within a horizon, and a horizon itself indicates something that goes beyond it. The Encompassing is the horizon within which every particular horizon is enclosed and from which the closed whole of Being can be reached. The Encompassing transcends the division of subject and object, and its basic structure is the simultaneity of subject-being and object-being. The Encompassing is a philosophical operation, which is directed from totality toward the phenomenological totality of being in all its fullness and richness. With the Encompassing, our consciousness of being is free from any specific knowing. The Encompassing is prior to reason and is the source of all knowing and all being. It has seven modes: Existenz, transcendence, Dasein, consciousness-as-such, spirit, world, and reason. The basic difficulty with Jaspers’s notion is to show how the Encompassing can be conceived while maintaining its special fundamental status. For once we think about the Encompassing, it becomes an object and a special kind of being. “What is neither object nor act of thinking (subject), but contains both within itself, I have called the Encompassing.” Jaspers, The Philosophy of Karl Jaspers end-in-view Philosophy of mind, philosophy of action A term used by Dewey to criticize the mechanistic view of the means–end relationship popular in motivational psychology. Dewey claimed that although there is a fixed actual end, at the moment of deliberation one acts in terms of an end-in-view rather than the actual end. The end-in-view is a plan or a hypothesis that guides present activity and is to be evaluated by its consequences and revised throughout the activity guided by it. Its appraisal springs from the fact that there is something lacking or wanting in the existing situation. Things can be anticipated as ends only in terms of the conditions by which they are brought into existence. Thus, an end-in-view is also a means of organizing actions. The term reflects the reciprocal characters of ends and means. With this term, Dewey attempted to extend the notion of a hypothesis, which is usually limited to science, to the domains of morality, education, and other social theories in order to include all act-guiding ideas. “The end-in-view is formed and projected as that which, if acted on, will supply the existing need or lack and resolve the existing conflict.” Dewey, Theory of Evaluation end of art, another expression for death of art end/means, see means/end endoxa Ancient Greek philosophy, epistemology, philosophical method [Greek, a commonly held opinion or common belief, in this sense a kind of phainomenon] Beliefs that can be the beliefs of ordinary people, but are especially the views of any notable group or wise person worth attending to. In Aristotle’s dialectic procedure, he always began his argument with the opinions of his predecessors or the beliefs held by most people. After stating the conflicts among these beliefs, he tried to clarify what could justifiably be retained from them and then tried to reach an acceptable position reconciling as far as possible the views he considered. “Endoxa are those opinions which are accepted by everyone or by the majority or by the wise – that is, by all, or by the majority, or by the most notable and reputable of them.” Aristotle, Topics enforcement of morals Ethics, political philosophy, philosophy of law A thesis that society should make use of criminal law to solve moral issues such as pornography and homosexuality. It presupposes that the law can justifiably act to shape or restrict private morality. We should not draw a clear-cut distinction between law and morality or between crime and sin. On this view, by softening these distinctions society will promote the development of noble morality and create suitable conditions for human flourishing. Representatives of this position included Sir J. F. Stephen and Lord Devlin. Their claims are based on natural law theory and on the belief that morality is a divine command. The position contrasts with Mill’s harm principle, which suggests that law exists in order to protect one from demonstrable harm at the hands of others, and that the only reason for society to restrict an individual’s liberty in terms of law is that the individual’s action causes harm to others. Supporters of legal positivism maintain that law and morality are independent and that it is therefore wrong to employ the criminal law to uphold morality. Major problems facing the thesis concern which morality the law should enforce in a morally complex society, and how to strike a balance between individual freedom and the integrity of society. “The morals which he [the law-maker] enforces are those ideas about right and wrong which are already accepted by the society for which he is legislating and which are necessary to preserve its integrity.” Devlin, The Enforcement of Morals Theologically, the Enlightenment developed the doctrines of “deism,” which claimed that religious doctrines should meet the standards of reason. Politically, it emphasized natural liberty and human rights and advocated religious toleration. Philosophically, the Enlightenment produced various forms of materialism and determinism. The Encyclopaedia, edited by the French philosophers Diderot and d’Alembert, was the representative document of the Enlightenment. The movement completely rejected the role of tradition and culture. Critics claimed that by overemphasizing the role of reason, it ignored the value of community and commitment. Hence the movement came to be criticized by many schools of counterEnlightenment and post-Enlightenment thinking. “In the most general sense of progressive thought, the Enlightenment has always aimed at liberating men from fear and establishing their sovereignty. Yet the fully enlightened earth radiates disaster triumphant. The program of the Enlightenment was the disenchantment of the world; the dissolution of myths and the substitution of knowledge for fancy.” Adorno and Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment enlightened self-interest, see self-interest Enlightenment Epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, political philosophy, philosophy of religion A broad and powerful intellectual movement in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe, particularly in Britain, France, and Germany, characterized by a rejection of superstition and mystery and an optimism concerning the power of human reason and scientific endeavor. Because of these features, it is also called the Age of Reason. The movement placed secular reason as the ultimate judge of all sorts of dogma or authority and attempted to overcome the control of the Catholic Church over human affairs. According to major Enlightenment thinkers, everyone is equal and has the same status in virtue of his rationality. The movement advocated investigating everything openly and freely in accordance with the methods of natural sciences. Everything that could not sustain rational investigation had to be abandoned. The slogan for this movement was “Have courage to use your reason!” (Latin sapere aude!). enlightenment project Ethics, political philosophy Alasdair MacIntyre’s term for the pattern of thought that underlies the entirety of moral and political philosophy since the Enlightenment. This pattern seeks to provide us with a neutral ground of morality and political principles. It appeals to pure reason and establishes an abstract and ruled-governed ethics that attempts to justify particular actions by applying universal standards. Yet it rejects teleology and denies that the human race has its own telos to fulfill. Consequently, the distinction between what is and what should be is abolished, and the universal standards and principles themselves lose their necessary framework of values and their grounds of evaluation. The enlightenment project, especially in its liberal individualistic form, emphasizes the free choices and rights of the individual, but disregards the social and historical context in which actual individuals are embedded. According to MacIntyre, the enlightenment project has failed to fulfill its promise, and its failure has led to the chaos of moral values in contemporary Western culture. His After Virtue (1981) aims to identify this failure and argues that the remedy is to replace rule-governed ethics with virtue ethics, and to replace asocial individualism with communitarianism. His characterization and criticism of the enlightenment project has stirred wide debates and has in some sense shaped the development of moral and political philosophy in the past decade. “A central thesis of this book is that the breakdown of this [enlightenment] project provided the historical background against which the predicaments of our own culture can become intelligible.” MacIntyre, After Virtue ESSE -- ens ab alio, see ens a se -- ens a se Metaphysics, philosophy of religion [Latin, being from itself and in itself ] A medieval term for a kind of being, which contrasts with being out of itself (ens ex se) and with being that depends upon another thing as the ground of its existence (ens ab alio). In medieval philosophy, ens a se is a thing that is completely self-sufficient and depends on nothing else for its existence, and this description is ascribed solely to God. The idea is derived from the biblical teaching that God is the Creator. God is ens a se by existing independent of anything else, but all created things, including human beings, are ens ex se because they depend on God for their existence. The term aseity (Latin aseitas) was formed from ens a se for the abstract property of being completely independent. Some scholastics used the distinction between ens a se and ens ab alio as the basis of a proof of the existence of God. They argued that since we experience the things in this world as ens ab alio, which depend on another thing for the ground of their existence, there must be something which is ens a se on which they depend. Otherwise, an infinite regress would ensue. An account of God as ens a se, on which we depend for our being, poses the problem of how to reconcile the existence of God with human free will. Spinoza transformed the notion of ens a se into causa sui (self-cause), which he identified with substance, that is, God or nature. He also transformed the notion of ens ab alio into his concept of mode. -- “As well as being a se, I understand God to be ‘metaphysically necessary’. By this I mean that he is the or a cause of every logically contingent ‘fact’, or state of affairs, at any time and at any place.” Padgett, God, Eternity and the Nature of Time -- ens ex se, see ens a se ens irreale, see ens reale ens necessarius Metaphysics, philosophy of religion [Latin, a necessary being] A necessarily existing being, whose essence necessarily and directly implies its existence. It is the only being in which essence and existence coincide. This being is not constrained by reason and is self-sufficient because it is free from both rational motives and external causes. God is claimed to be such a being and moreover to be the only being of this kind. Spinoza argued that his substance is such a being and is identical with God or nature. Some philosophers argue that the notion of a necessary being is philosophically confused because only propositions or sentences can be necessary. Because existence is not a predicate, “X necessarily exists” does not say anything that could be true. Other philosophers reply that there can be de re necessity ascribed to things and that something would exist necessarily if it existed in all possible worlds. “Ens necessarius, i.e. an entity of which the essence is such that it would not be what, qua essence, it is, if it did not also exist.” Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being -- ens rationis Metaphysics, logic, philosophy of mind, philosophy of language A thing which has only rational or mental being (plural, entia rationis). An ens rationis can be thought or said, but does not really exist in the world. For example, abstract entities, universals, possibilities, fictions, and ideal things are entia rationis. They exist as objects of knowledge and as mental constructs. The nature of beings of this kind is a topic of everlasting concern for metaphysicians and logicians. For Kant, an ens rationis was a concept without an object, excluded from the possibilities, but not on those grounds rendered impossible. Brentano, who calls an ens rationis an object-type that is conventionally introduced to express what there is, claims that we can call it being only in a loose and improper sense. Other writers defend a more robust ontological status for some sorts of ens rationis. “Entia rationis, things which somehow exist in the mind.” Brentano, Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint -- ens reale: Brentano divided things into ens reale (plural, entia realia) and ens irreale (plural, entia irrealia). The former is ordinarily translated as “real (or actual) thing” and the latter as “unreal thing.” But this is not precise. Entia realia are not only real things such as dogs, human beings, and tables, but also imaginary things such as unicorns. Hence, Chisholm suggests translating this term as “individuals.” Entia irrealia are such things as privations, possibilities, properties, concepts, and propositions, and Chisholm translates the term as “non-individuals.” An alternative translation renders ens reale as “concretum” and ens irreale as “nonconcretum.” Brentano’s realism holds that entia realia are the only things that exist and are the only things of which we can think. On this view, all statements about entia irrealia can be reduced upon analysis into statements about entia realia. “Brentano’s more general point may be put this way: we can think only of entia realia; and to think of an ens reale is to think of something which, if it existed, would be an individual.” Chisholm, Brentano and Intrinsic Value -- ens successivam Metaphysics [Latin, successive being] An entity which changes one or another of its parts as it endures through time. The term was introduced by Augustine, who claimed that the universe is such an entity, in that it is composed of successively existing parts. For Aquinas, it is a thing with some parts that do not exist at the same time as other of its parts. The term was revived in mereological essentialism, which claims that the parts of an object are essential to its identity and cannot change so long as the object maintains its identity. The succeeding parts of a thing, therefore, are not parts in any real sense. “This is what might be called the ens successivum – the ‘successive table’ that is made up of different parts at different times.” Chisholm, Person and Object entailment Logic The relationship between statements, by which one statement (the conclusion) follows logically from another statement or statements (the premises). Entailment permits the conclusion to be logically, necessarily, or validly deduced from the premises. The traditional and classical criterion of entailment is that S entails Q if and only if to assert S while denying Q would result in inconsistency. Because this criterion involves the paradoxes of strict implication, some logicians have been trying to find a more precise criterion. “ ‘S1 entails S2’ may be defined as ‘S1 and not-S2 is inconsistent’.” Strawson, Introduction to Logical Theory entelechy Ancient Greek philosophy, metaphysics [from Greek enteles, end + echein, having within, having an end within] Aristotle’s term, normally translated as actualization but often merely transliterated as entelechy. It is etymologically associated with the completion or perfect state toward which an action or a process internally leads. Entelechy is the form that becomes the end of motion for each thing or potential matter realized within itself. Aristotle used the term interchangeably with energeia (generally rendered as actuality). Leibniz used this term for the primitive active force in monads. The vitalist Hans Driesh held that all organisms have an entelechy as an inner goal-directed, non-material lifeforce which promotes their development toward becoming perfect adults. “The term ‘actuality’ [energeia] is derived from ‘activity’ [ergon], and points to entelechy [actualization].” Aristotle, Metaphysics enthusiasm Epistemology, philosophy of mind [from Greek enthousiatikos, to be inspired] Plato characterized poets in terms of enthousiatikos because their works proceed from inspiration by God rather than from rational knowledge. Thus they do not have knowledge regarding their works. Later enthusiasm was understood to be emotional zeal or impulse manifested in irrational behavior. It is taken by John Locke as a third source of assent besides faith and reason, but was used pejoratively as a synonym of fanaticism by Leibniz and Kant. “This I take to be properly enthusiasm, which, though founded neither on reason nor divine revelation, but rising from the conceits of a warmed or overweening brain, works yet, where it once gets footing, more powerfully on the persuasions and actions of men than either of those two, or both together, men being most forwardly obedient to the impulse they receive from themselves.” Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding enthymene Logic [Greek, an inference based on a probable or an unstated premise or with an unstated conclusion] In Aristotle’s original use, an inference based on a probable premise, but later a syllogism or other form of inference in which one premise or conclusion is not explicitly stated. The omitted premise or conclusion is in general easily supplied. For example, “Every person is mortal, so Smith is mortal.” This is an enthymene, for the premise “Smith is a person” is not stated. An enthymene can produce a false conclusion if the supplied premise is false or if it does not render the argument valid. “These syllogisms are expressed as enthymenes, i.e. with the omission of one at least of the requisite propositions.” Johnson, Logic entia per alio Metaphysics [singular, ens per alio] A scholastic term for things which, like parasites, derive all their properties from other things. The grounds of existence for them is not in themselves. They cannot persist through time, and they evaporate if the things that sustain them disappear. Entia per alio are in contrast to entia per se, which are entities that have their own independent identities. “An ens per alio never is or has anything on its own. It is what it is in virtue of the nature of something other than itself.” Chisholm, Person and Object ESSE -- entia per se, see entia per alio entia rationis, Latin term for entities of reason entity Metaphysics [from Latin ens, being, thing] A term generally used interchangeably with thing or object. Joseph Owens has proposed that entity should be used to translate the Greek ousia, which is usually translated as substance, because ousia is derived from the Greek copula estin and entity is similarly derived from the Latin copula ens. Hence, this translation would maintain an important etymological relation. However, his suggestion has difficulties. While ousia can be used both independently and as “ousia of . . . ,” in English we cannot say “entity of . . .” “In consequence of this perversion of the word Being, philosophers looking about for something to supply its place, laid their hands upon the word entity, a piece of barbarous Latin, invented by the schoolmen to be used as an abstract name, in which class its grammatical form would seem to place it, but being seized by logicians in distress to stop a leak in their terminology, it has ever since been used as a concrete name.” The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, vol. VII -- entity of reason Metaphysics, epistemology [Latin ens rationis, also called an ideal entity] In Scholastic philosophy, there are things which do not really exist, but which are apprehended by reason, that is, conceptual entities such as relations, orderings, or general notions. A relation does not exist like a substance or accident, but is a conception obtained by abstraction from a consideration of things having certain associations to each other. An entity of reason is not an actual thing, but is an object of knowledge and has its foundations in actual things. “If ‘nothing’ means something imaginary, or what they commonly call an entity of reason [ens rationis], then this is not ‘nothing’ but something real and distinctly conceived. Nevertheless, since it is merely conceived and is not actual, although it can be conceived, it cannot in any way be caused.” Descartes, The Philosophical Writings entrenchment Logic, philosophy of language A term introduced by Goodman, in association with Goodman’s paradox or the new riddle of induction, as a function of the frequency and success of projection in producing true statements. If a predicate has been projected frequently in past generalizations, it is entrenched for future generalizations of the same sort and has high projectibility. For example, all observed emeralds have been both green and grue (green to some future time T and blue thereafter), and any evidence confirming the generalization that all emeralds are green also confirms that all emeralds are grue. Nevertheless, we call them green rather than grue because “green” is better entrenched and more projectible than “grue,” and we will conclude that future emeralds will be green, not grue. Entrenchment is not identical with familiarity, for relatively unfamiliar predicates can also be well entrenched. The entrenchment of a predicate results not only from the actual projection of that predicate alone, but also from the projection of all predicates coextensive with it. Entrenchment is the decisive factor for projectibility, and the degree of entrenchment of a predicate provides us with a criterion for deciding between projectible predicates. A predicate is unprojectible if it is not entrenched. “Entrenchment depends upon frequency of projection rather than upon mere frequency of use.” Goodman, Fact, Fiction and Forecast entropy Philosophy of science In physics, the measure of disorder, which is defined either in terms of the interchange of heat and other forms of energy or as proportional to the statistical probability of the random arrangement of particles in a physical system. According to the second law of thermodynamics, entropy always increases in an isolated system, that is, the system becomes more and more disordered. Entropy is also employed in information theory as a measure of information content, defined by a formal probability function called Shannon entropy. “In a qualitative interpretation the law of entropy asserts that a gas to which no energy is added and from which no energy is subtracted (an ‘isolated system’) will approach a state of uniform density and uniform temperature.” Pap, An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science enumerative induction, another expression for induction by enumeration environmental ethics Ethics An ethics motivated by contemporary environmental crises such as air and water pollution, the degradation of ecosystems, the extinction of species, and soil erosion. The basis of environmental ethics is an opposition to the historical anthropocentrism (also called speciesism or human chauvinism) of traditional ethics, which takes non-human living things and nature as objects of exploitation and as means to human ends, rather than as ends in themselves. Environmental ethics tries to establish human responsibility toward these entities and nature as a whole. It is not simply a branch of applied ethics, but involves establishing a new and distinctive theoretical framework. There are various approaches to environmental ethics. Weak anthropocentrism accepts that human interest is still primary, but argues that human beings should cultivate an attitude of noble obligation toward the environment. Animal-centered ethics, also called the animal liberation movement or zoocentrism, claims that we must extend the scope of ethical consideration from human beings alone to members of all animal species, on the grounds that animals are sentient beings (Peter Singer) or “subjects-of-a-life” (Tom Regan). On this view, rationality is rejected as the criterion for membership of the moral community. Life-centered ethics or biocentrism, represented by K. E. Goodpaster and Paul Taylor, argues that all classes of living beings, including plants as well as animals, should be included in the moral community. Weak anthropocentrism, animal-centered ethics, and lifecentered ethics all hold that traditional human ethical theory is sound and with alterations can be applied to areas other than human society. Other versions of environmental ethics argue against the extension of human ethics to non-human beings and claim that we need a new ethics because human ethics is inescapably anthropocentric. Furthermore, traditional human ethics is individualistic, while an adequate holistic ethics should be concerned with the ecosystem as a whole and with relations amongst entities within the ecosystem. On this view, the integrity, diversity, and stability of the ecosystem should be the primary standard by which the morality of an action is judged. This holistic approach, or ecocentrism, is sometimes accused of being an environmental fascism. Its major schools include land ethics, represented by Aldo Leopold, J. B. Callicott, and H. Rolston III, deep ecology, represented by A. Naess, and ecofeminism, which argues that the subjection of nature to human beings corresponds to the subjection of women to men and sees the liberation of nature and the liberation of women as aspects of the same process. “Environmental ethics is the field of inquiry that addresses the ethical responsibilities of human beings for the natural environment.” Armstrong and Botzler (eds.), Environmental Ethics environmental fascism Ethics Tom Regan’s epithet for the land ethics of Aldo Leopold and others, which proposes an holistic approach to the biotic community and claims that the criterion for the morality of an action is whether it promotes the integrity, diversity, and stability of the biotic community. Regan, who stresses the central position of human individuals in moral considerations, claims that if land ethics faces a conflict between human interests and the interests of the environment, it would require the sacrifice of human interests for the greater biotic good. Since there are too many people and too few trees on this planet, for example, land ethics might demand that we eliminate much of the human population and plant many more trees. But defenders of land ethics have replied that this is by no means an inevitable consequence of this theory. “It is difficult to see how the notion of the rights of the individual could find a home within a view that, emotive connotations to one side, might be fairly dubbed ‘environmental fascism’.” Regan, The Case for Animal Rights envy: a negative feeling that arises from perceiving others as having some good which one desires but lacks or has to a lesser degree. Envy, which can lead to hostile and destructive actions aimed at harming the person one envies, is a major theme in literature. Envy is often due to a threat to one’s self-esteem. Egalitarianism is proposed partly to reduce the phenomenon of envy, but opponents of egalitarianism often claim that its demand for equality is based on envy. Another proposal argues that strengthening the self-esteem of members of society will allow them to accept greater goods held by others without envy, although this outcome might depend on a shared conception of a just distribution of goods. “We may think of envy as the propensity to view with hostility the greater good of others even though their being more fortunate than we does not detract from our advantages.” Rawls, A Theory of Justice Epictetus (c.55–135) Roman Stoic philosopher, born as a slave in Hierapolis. Having been expelled from Rome with all other philosophers by the Emperor Domitian, Epictetus set up a school in Nicopolis in 89. His major works include Discourses and Manual. He held that the aim of philosophy is to cure moral defects. All men have an inherent capacity for virtue. We should regard slavery and freedom with indifference, although freedom is preferable. We need to distinguish between what is in our power and what is beyond our control. Will and inner freedom are within our power and are the basis for our happiness. Freedom consists in having one’s desires fulfilled, and the sage accepts whatever happens as ordained for the best. Good men cannot be harmed, and one should love one’s enemy. Epicureanism Ancient Greek philosophy, epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, philosophy of religion The philosophy founded by Epicurus, who established his Garden school in Athens in 306 bc. Metaphysically, Epicurus endorsed the atomism of Democritus, but revised the theory in accord with Aristotle’s criticisms of it. Epistemologically, Epicurus proposed that all sensations are true. Ethically, he held that internal tranquility and the absence of pain are the chief goods. He opposed the competitive nature of conventional society and advocated absolute egalitarianism, believing that real happiness is having peace of mind and a healthy body. His basic teachings about the guidance of life, presented in a fourfold remedy, include: the gods present no fears, death presents no worries, good is easy to attain, and evil is readily endurable. Other major representatives of Epicureanism include Hermarchus of Mytileme (c.290 bc) and Polystratus (c.275 bc). However, the school was a quasi-religious community and there was little development of his teaching. Most writings of Epicurus were lost, but his doctrines were preserved by Lucretius. Epicureanism itself advocated an austere way of life, but the nature of the theory provoked many polemicists to argue against it, in particular the Stoics. They charged that it led to lives based on unchecked sensual enjoyment, and hence for many centuries Epicureanism carried the connotation of vulgar hedonism or atheism. The original Epicureanism was resuscitated in modern times by Pierre Gassendi and deeply influenced the development of utilitarianism in England. “Like Utilitarianism, Epicureanism reduces all virtue to personal well-being understood hedonistically, but it differs from Utilitarianism in tying the virtue of any given individual not to the pleasure (or freedom of pain) of mankind generally but, in an egoistic manner, to the pleasure of the individual said to be virtuous.” Slote, From Morality to Virtue Epicurus (341–270 bc) Hellenistic atomist philosopher. Of his writings, only about 80 aphorisms, various fragments, and three letters survive, but his philosophy was systematically presented in Lucretius’ epic poem De Rerum Natura. Happiness, our final end, lies in pleasure, but the ultimate good of pleasure comprises peace of mind and tranquility rather than sensual gratification. The greatest disturbance to the peace of mind is the fear of death. To help get rid of the source of this fear, Epicurus developed the atomism of Leucippus and Democritus to demonstrate that all natural processes are the necessary results of atomic movements, with no external interference from God. Furthermore, the soul is not immortal, but is composed of atoms. Epicurus’ hedonism has deeply influenced utilitarianism. Epimenides (6th century bc) Greek logician, possibly author of the liar paradox. epiphenomenalism Philosophy of mind [epiphenomenon, from Greek epi, on or above + phainein, appear, meaning literally a by-product or incidental product of some process which has no effects of its own] Epiphenomenalism is a theory about the relationship between mind and body first defended by Thomas Huxley, and adopted in various versions of mechanistic materialism. On this view, conscious mental states or events are by-products of the brain processes of the central nervous system, as a shadow is to the body of which it is a shadow. Mental states themselves have no causal powers, and can affect neither bodily behavior nor other mental states. The mind is not a thing, but a string of events. Each mental event can be fully explained by some bodily event or events. Mind cannot exist without body. Unlike dualism, epiphenomenalism denies that the mind is a fundamental entity. “The thesis that they [the mental events] are not causal factors is known as epiphenomenalism.” Ayer, Philosophy in the Twentieth Century episteme Ancient Greek philosophy, epistemology [Greek, knowledge] Knowledge, from which the word epistemology is formed. Plato regarded knowledge as a cognitive state of the soul concerned solely with unchanging and necessary objects, the Ideas or Forms. Knowledge contrasts with belief (doxa), the cognitive state concerned with sensible things. For Plato, the contrast between episteme and doxa is essential for establishing the theory of Ideas. Aristotle normally confined knowledge to the demonstrative sciences, which provide necessary and invariant truths about necessary and invariable states of affairs. These sciences start from necessary premises, proceed through syllogistic deduction, and reach necessary conclusions. The necessary premises that form the first principles of these sciences are not grasped by episteme, but by nous (intuition). “Episteme then is by its nature directed to what is, to know it as it is.” Plato, Republic epistemic holism Philosophy of science The core of this position is the Duhem–Quine thesis. According to Duhem, statements about physical things cannot be verified or falsified in isolation from the theory to which they belong. Quine further suggested that what should be tested against experience is not a sentence, not even a theory in isolation, but the whole of science, since all branches of science share logic and mathematics. Epistemic holism is the ground for Quine’s rejection of the distinction between synthetic and analytic statements. It also paves the way for semantic holism which focuses on the essential interconnectedness that exists between thoughts. “The central factor underlying it [epistemic holism] is the potential complex interconnectedness of things, both causally and evidentially.” Heal, in Carruthers and Smith (eds.), Theories of Theories of Mind -- an individual is known to have or not have certain attributes (for instance, “Socrates is known to be poor”). The study of the logical relations between epistemic modalities is the subject of modal epistemic logic, developed mainly by von Wright and Jaakko Hintikka. “The basic epistemic modalities are: verified (known to be true), falsified (known to be false) and undecided (neither known to be true nor known to be false).” von Wright, An Essay in Modal Logic -- epistemic justification: although epistemic justification may concern objective justification regarding what we should believe given what is in fact true, it mainly concerns subjective justification. This seeks to determine what we should believe or should not believe, given what we actually do believe, even though what we do believe may not be correct. If and only if one is justified in believing that a proposition is true, is one justified in believing that proposition. To believe what is true one needs to believe what is justified, and to avoid believing what is false one must not accept what is not justified. Justification of belief requires specification of the norms under which one may hold a belief. Determining what to believe is a fundamental problem for epistemology. “Acceptance,” “being beyond reasonable doubt,” “being evident,” “being certain,” “having some proposition in its favor,” etc. are all different senses of epistemic justification. “Epistemic justification, unlike truth, is capable of degrees of the things that we are justified in believing; some are more justified than others.” Chisholm, The Foundations of Knowing -- epistemic modality Logic, epistemology The mode in which a thing is said to be known to be true (verified), known to be untrue (falsified), or neither known to be true nor false (undecided). G. H. von Wright claimed that these epistemic modalities are related to each other logically as the alethetic modalities (necessary, assertible, and possible). Each of these modal concepts can either be de dicto, when it is about the mode in which a proposition is known to be true or false (for instance “It is known that Socrates taught Plato”), or de re, when it is about the mode in which epistemic value, an alternative expression for cognitive value epistemic virtue Epistemology The personal disposition of character, which tends to lead to the attainment of true knowledge and the avoidance of error, such as the desire to seek the truth, impartiality in scientific activities, and the courage to question orthodox views. It is also the internalized standard of belief-acceptance and belief-rejection. The opposite of epistemic virtue is epistemic vice. Since epistemic virtue is related to personal character, and does not involve empirical data, virtuously formed knowledge is not necessarily justified knowledge. In this context, virtue means simply doing well, a notion of efficiency rather than morality. A person of epistemic virtue is more likely to be successful in his inquiry, but that does not mean that he is a morally good person. The concept is derived from Aristotle’s notion of intellectual virtue. Epistemologists also talk about doxastic virtue, which is the disposition leading to the formation of reliable beliefs. Its content is the same as epistemic virtue. “Such concepts as epistemic character or epistemic virtue seem to have their natural home in the conduct of inquiry project, since they focus on what it is to have the good judgement required by guidelines for going about inquiry.” Haack, Evidence and Inquiry -- epistemics, see epistemology -- epistemological atomism Epistemology Sluga’s term for the view that there is a direct acquaintance with objects and that knowledge is not in the first instance knowing that or a matter of judging, but knowledge of objects and their properties. This term plays a role mainly in the interpretation of Frege’s philosophy and the claim that Frege is committed to such a view, as many interpreters have held. “Sluga connects my saying that, for Frege, the referent of a proper name is its bearer with what he calls ‘epistemological atomism’, which he accuses me of ascribing to Frege.” Dummett, The Interpretation of Frege’s Philosophy -- epistemological dualism Epistemology, metaphysics Any theory of sense-data that maintains that sense-data are distinct from the physical objects that they represent. Physical objects are constant, but different perceivers may have different sense-data regarding the same object. Physical objects are public, while sense-data are private. Furthermore, not all of what we perceive, in particular secondary qualities, are inherent in physical objects. A change of sense-data is not a real physical change. Since sense-data are not identical to physical objects, doubt arises with regard to the reliability of perception as the source of knowledge about the external world. According to this view, we do not really know physical objects themselves, although they are the cause of sense-data. From this position, Berkeley’s immaterialism and phenomenalism are derived by denying the existence of unknown substances. “Epistemological dualism, . . . according to it, the sense-datum, i.e. that which is directly perceived, is always distinct from the physical object, even though it may be exactly similar to it like a faithful mirror image.” Pap, Elements of Analytic Philosophy epistemological necessity Epistemology A necessity that can be deduced from a thinker’s other beliefs, and is generally associated with the “must” of certainty. It is a relation between certain features, showing the dependence of one thing on another. Enquiry establishes such an epistemological necessity between the phenomenon to be explained and its necessary conditions. For instance, we will say, “it must be painful” if we see somebody struck by a stone. -- “When it is shown that certain features are equally essential; when it is shown that certain features are interconnected so that some are necessary for others; when it is shown that certain features are not so closely connected as might be assumed, it is epistemological necessity, closeness, or lack of connection that is being demonstrated.” Harrison, On What There Must Be -- epistemology Epistemology [from Greek episteme, knowledge + logos, theory; literally, theory of knowledge] The adjective “epistemic” pertains to knowledge. Epistemics is sometimes used as equivalent to epistemology or is used to denote a scientific approach to knowledge. Epistemology is also equivalent to gnoseology (from Greek genoskein, to know). Epistemology generally starts with attempts to refute skepticism by justifying the claim that knowledge is possible, and then proceeds to clarify the nature and the scope of knowledge. The standard analysis of knowledge claims that it is justified true belief, a definition initiated essentially by Plato, although it is challenged most recently by Gettier’s problem. Because of this definition, philosophers have been working to analyze the relation between knowledge and belief, between knowledge and truth, and between knowledge and justification. The last issue is especially central. In a sense, epistemology pays more attention to the problem of what it is to be justified in believing than to knowledge per se. Another main task of epistemology concerns the origin of knowledge, that is, to assess the role of sense and reason in the acquisition of knowledge. Philosophers are divided into rationalists and empiricists with respect to this issue. Rationalism, represented by Plato, Descartes, and Leibniz, takes reason to be the source of knowledge, while empiricism, represented by Locke and Hume, argues that experience is the source of truth. Kant attempted to reconcile both by claiming that knowledge is possible only by the combination of our a priori intuitions and concepts of the understanding and appearances. Contemporary epistemology is dominated by Anglo-American philosophy and is largely empirical. Corresponding to the development of the philosophy of language, speech and meaning become important issues. Since epistemology is closely associated with psychology and the philosophy of mind, perception, memory, imagination, other minds, and error are major topics. The discussions of induction and a priori knowledge are also prominent, in part through the association of epistemology with philosophy of science. “Questions such as these, about the nature, origin, and limits of human knowledge, motivated the enterprise of epistemology, past and present.” Moser and Nat, Human Knowledge epithumia, see concupiscence epoche, see suspension of judgment E-proposition, see A-proposition equalitarianism, an alternative expression for egalitarianism equality Political philosophy That all men are equal is a basic democratic principle, but it is not a statement of fact, for people differ in virtually all of their mental and physical capacities. The principle of equality, rather, claims that all persons have a right to equal treatment. For Kant, this equality is based on our human rationality and gives humans the dignity of being moral ends, who are not merely means to the ends of others. Equal treatment entitles all persons to equal consideration and equal opportunity. In a democratic society, all members are equally assured of basic rights to freedom and political participation, regardless of factors such as their race, gender, or religion. The vast gap separating the rich and poor today has led some egalitarian philosophers to extend the notion of equality from the equality of democratic citizenship to the equality of condition. On this latter claim, each person should have the same amount of goods or the same level of social and economic benefit. This simple equality seems to conflict with widely accepted principles of justice and liberty. Attempts at reconciliation have produced a better understanding of the equality of condition. Traditionally, equality has been limited to human being, but some recent environmental philosophers have criticized the alleged anthropocentrism of this restriction and have sought to extend equality of concern to non-human animals or to nature as a whole. “The essential equality is thought to be equality of consideration.” Rawls, A Theory of Justice equity Political philosophy A basic requirement of social justice, involving fairness or fair shares, in contrast to equality or equal shares. Unlike strict equality, which does not take account of relevant difference, equity requires like cases to be treated equally and unlike cases to be treated unequally. The distribution of resources in society must be determined according to the merit, need, and capacity of the recipients. Only persons within the same category, for whom all relevant conditions are the same, should receive the same treatment. Plato and Aristotle distinguished arithmetical equality from proportionate equality. According to arithmetic equality, everybody receives an equal share irrespective of worth. Proportionate equality corresponds to equity and calls for distribution according to morally relevant differences. Equity requires the modification of general rules to meet special situations and seeks to provide just decisions in particular cases. Normally, what is equitable is equivalent to what is just, although some theorists see equity as no more than one aspect of justice. The principle of equity, with its emphasis on merit and worth, can come into conflict with consequentialist moral theories. “The principle of equity is that equals should be treated equally, and unequals unequally.” Barry, Political Argument equivalence Logic, Philosophy of language For words and expressions, equivalence can be divided into extensional and intensional equivalence. Words or expressions that have the same meaning (that is, are synonymous) are intensionally equivalent; words or expressions that have the same reference or extension are extensionally equivalent. Words and expressions may be extensionally equivalent without being intensionally equivalent; but if two terms are intensionally equivalent, then they are extensionally equivalent as well. Two statements or propositions p and q are equivalent if they have the same truth-value (either both true or both false). A distinction can be drawn between material equivalence (p and q have the same truth-value) and logical equivalence (p and q are mutually entailing). The sign for material equivalence is “↔” or “≡”; “p ↔ q” or “p ≡ q” means “if p then q, and if q then p.” That is, p is both a necessary and sufficient condition of q, and q is both a necessary and sufficient condition of p. If p and q are logically equivalent, each entails the other. “ ‘S1 is logically equivalent to S2’ = df ‘S1 entails S2 and S2 entails S1’.” Strawson, Introduction to Logical Theory -- equivalence relation Logic An equivalence relation is transitive (that is, if the relation R exists between a and b and exists between b and c, then it also exists between a and c), symmetric (that is, if a has the relation R to b, then b also has the relation R to a), and reflexive (a bears the relation R to itself ). An equivalence relation holds between equivalent things or between things that are exactly similar in some respect. “Being the same age as” and “having the same length as” are typical equivalence relations. The equivalence relation is essential for establishing certain measurements in mathematical logic. If there is a class of objects within which each member has an equivalence relation to every other member, and does not have this relation with anything in a different class, this class is called the equivalent class of the relation. “Not only does every sameness predicate express an equivalence relation, but every equivalence relation is expressed by some sameness predicate.” Hodges, Logic Erasmus, Desiderius (1466–1536) Dutch humanist and scholar, born in Rotterdam. Erasmus was a leading figure in the revival of the study of Greek texts, including his edition of the New Testament, and in Renaissance hostility to scholasticism. He is best known for his masterpiece of irony, In Praise of Folly (1509), and for his attack on Luther’s rejection of free will in On Free Will (1524). ergon Ancient Greek philosophy, metaphysics, ethics [Greek, work or what we do] A term having various translations, including process of production, product, achievement, action, task, activity, and function. In philosophy, it is mainly used for a characteristic function or activity uniquely ascribed to a thing or kind of thing. Both Plato and Aristotle appeal to such functions to explain the essence of a thing and the good for man. It is thus connected with virtue (arete), “the excellence in performing one’s ergon.” The ergon of a knife is cutting. If it cuts well, it is a good knife and has virtue. Analogously, Aristotle argued, man has an ergon, rational activity, which is the feature distinguishing man from non-human animals and plants. He held that human virtue or human good, therefore, is performing rational activities rightly and well. “. . . that is the ergon of each thing which it only or it better than anything else can perform.” Plato, Republic eristic Ancient Greek philosophy, philosophical method, logic [from Greek eris, fight, conflict] For Plato and Aristotle, the art of dispute which makes use of invalid and fallacious arguments to persuade the audience. It is aimed at winning a debate rather than seeking the truth. According to its basic method, an interlocutor is required to answer yes or no and cannot qualify his reply. The eristic method, which was developed by the sophists and the Megarian school, was popular in the debates of the Athenian court and the assemblage. It is a sort of reasoning, but not genuine. The art is employed for nothing else but victory. The Megarian school called it dialectic, but Aristotle distinguished it from dialectic. Eristic is associated with words, while dialectic is concerned with reality. Eristic refutes everything that is said and is destructive, while dialectic is aimed at the truth and is constructive. In the De Sophistic Elenchis, Aristotle examined various types of eristic argument, and identified many general fallacies that they commit. “When an argument seems to prove a conclusion but does not, which is called an eristic reasoning.” Aristotle, Topics Eriugena, John Scot (c.810–c.877) Irish-born medieval philosopher. Eriugena established a metaphysical system influenced by Neoplatonism, in which God is both nature that is not created and creates and nature that is neither created nor creates. In between God the creator and God to whom all things return are primordial causes and the created world. His dual account of God allows for positive as well as negative theology, with God being ultimately a mystery to himself as well as to his creatures. His major works include De Praedestinatione and De Divisione Naturae. eros [Greek love or erotic love, but not a mere appetite for sexual gratification] Sexual desire is a component of eros, but there are other elements as well. For Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, eros was normally confined to an older man’s pederastic desire for a younger man, as sanctioned by the institutions and fashions of aristocratic circles of many cities in ancient Greece. Eros included intense interest in the beloved and desire for his presence and company. In Phaedrus and Symposium, Plato saw this love for the beauty of a fair young body as only the earthly version of something far higher. It led successively to the love of a fair soul and character, the love of study, the love of a way of life, the love of the social order, and finally ascended to the very presence of the Form of Beauty itself, of which all other kinds of beauty are only imperfect copies. Thus, eros is a way of grasping spiritual truth. Philosophers, poets, and artists are all inspired by the divine power of eros as madness. This is Platonic spiritual love, although platonic love has also come to mean companionship without sexual desire. Hence, eros is distinguished from Christian love (agape) or romantic love. For Aristotle, erotic love was a source of friendship. Freud borrowed the term and claimed that his doctrine of eros was closer to that of Plato. However, while Plato’s eros is a longing for a true version of reality, Freud’s love is the hope of recapturing a sexual bliss allegedly lost in infancy. “If we are to make this gift our own, Eros will help our mortal nature more than all the world.” Plato, Symposium. eros (Freud) Philosophy of mind [Greek eros, love, desire] Freud claimed that there are two classes of ultimate instinct in the id. Our mental world contains eros, which is our life-preserving instinct, and thanatos (from Greek, death), which is our death instinct. Eros, which replaced Freud’s earlier notion of libido, is in the tradition of Plato and Spinoza, a never-satisfied desire and effort. Eros inspires us to strive for individual happiness and forms our wishes to unite with others. It drives living organisms to develop. Thanatos drives us toward a return to the inorganic. According to Freud, these two forces fight each other, and their conflict and interaction determine the development of individual life and culture. This pair of notions, eros and thanatos, can be traced to the cosmology of Empedocles. “The other set of instincts would be those which are better known to us in analysis – the libidinal, sexual or life instincts, which are best comprised under the name of Eros; their purpose would be to form living substance into ever greater unities, so that life may be prolonged and brought to higher development.” Freud, Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, vol. 18 error theory Ethics J. L. Mackie’s term for his position rejecting ethical naturalism. Ethical naturalism claims that all moral judgments refer to some objective moral property, are capable of truth and falsity, and have their truth-value determined by an external objective meaning. According to naturalism, moral judgments are true through reflecting what is the case in nature. Mackie rejects ethical naturalism because he holds that there are no objective values or moral facts to determine the truth-value of moral judgments. Hence, all ethical theories that presuppose the existence of objective moral truth are systematically wrong. Mackie claimed that morality is a matter of free choice, rather than something imposed on us by an objective moral reality. His non-cognitivist position echoes Moore’s naturalistic fallacy and Hume’s is/ought gap. “The denial of objective values will have to be put forward not as the result of an analytic approach, but as an ‘error theory’, a theory that although most people in making moral judgements implicitly claim, among other things, to be pointing to something objectively prescriptive, these claims are all false.” Mackie, Ethics. ersatzism Metaphysics, logic, philosophy of language [from German ersatz, substitute or fake] A theory which is intended to modify the modal realism of David Lewis. The claim of modal realism that there are countless concrete worlds has been criticized as being incompatible with common sense. Ersatzism suggests instead that we have only one concrete world, but that there are countless abstract entities, which represent ways that this world might have been. We talk about what is the case according to these abstract entities, and they form an abstract realm. There are various versions of this theory, but in general the role played by these abstract entities is similar to that played by Lewis’s plurality of concrete worlds. Lewis himself rejects these attempts to retain the benefit of his modal realism while making concessions in favor of common sense. “According to ersatzism, we have a well-established division of all there is into the concrete and the abstract.” D. Lewis, On the Plurality of Worlds eschatology Philosophy of religion [from Greek eschatos, last, final + logos, theory, the theory about what is ultimate and final] A branch of theology that is concerned with the last things for humankind: death, resurrection, and the last judgment of God. It is also concerned with the end of the world and the final moment of history. It aims to make full sense of the contingency of our existence and attempts to grasp the upper reaches of unified experience that we detect in the things around us. Some eschatologians argue that in our present life there are states analogous to states of an afterlife. This kind of belief is called realized eschatology. “The eschatology we have elaborated is a rational and an a priori, not an empirical, eschatology: it bases itself on the philosophical surds of our present existence, and suggests the supplementation necessary to resolve them.” Findlay, Ascent to the Absolute esoteric, see exoteric esse est percipi Epistemology, metaphysics [Latin, to be is to be perceived] The central thesis or a priori ground for the subjective idealism or immaterialism of the Anglo-Irish empiricist, George Berkeley. It claims that the ordinary objects of experience exist if and only if they are perceived. Hence, things cannot be independent of our minds and are what they appear to us to be. The major argument for this proposition is as follows: (1) every corporeal object is a collection or association of sensible qualities; (2) every sensible quality is relative to the percipient and is therefore an idea; (3) an idea cannot exist without our mind or sensation; (4) hence every physical object is an association of ideas and cannot exist in its own right. However, in this argument, premises (1) and (2) are controversial. The problem with (1) is that it denies the traditional distinction between underlying substance and peripheral accidents. Berkeley attempted to refute the notion of substance or substratum, but with uncertain success except against Locke’s minimal account. Moreover, the achievements of physics in his time seemed to prove, contrary to his thesis, that external things have their properties intrinsically and are the basis for the laws of physics. Against this, Berkeley argued that scientific theories are not descriptive but predictive. This insight is surprisingly echoed by many twentieth-century philosophers of science. The problem with (2) is that it denied Locke’s distinction between primary qualities and secondary qualities. There is no strong argument to suggest that primary qualities are relative to perceivers in the way Berkeley suggested. Furthermore, ideas as things perceived must be caused, and should be accounted for by another ground. Berkeley denied that they are caused by external objects and argued that they are caused by God. There are also other arguments (including the master argument) for the thesis essse est percepi, but each faces serious difficulties. In general, this thesis is ill founded, and does not constitute the defense of common sense against skepticism that Berkeley intended it to be. Nevertheless, it is of deep philosophical interest. Berkeley’s direct object is to deny the existence of anything unknowable behind the perceived corporeal world. His sensing should be understood not as my accidental sensing, but as sensing as such. We might be able to think coherently of a table as not seen by this or that man, but difficulties arise if we try to think of it as not seen at all. Modern phenomenalism moves from the actual perceptions of God at the basis of Berkeley’s account to the possible perceptions that eternal recurrence we would have in appropriate circumstances as crucial to our account of objects. “For as to what is said of the absolute existence of unthinking things without any relation to their being perceived, that seems perfectly unintelligible. Their esse is percipi, nor is it possible they should have existence, out of the minds of thinking things which perceive them.” Berkeley, The Principles of Human Knowledge ESSE -- essence [from Latin esse, to be, a translation of Greek ousia or, more properly, to ti en einai, what it was for a thing to be, in an attempt to retain a relation with the term to be] Aristotle introduced the phrase to ti en einai. Instead of using the present tense esti (is), the Greek expression uses the philosophical imperfect en (was), which implies something remaining or eternal, although this implication is interpreted variably. Aristotle’s ontology begins with being and proceeds to what-it-is, to substance (primary being), and finally to essence, which is primary substance identical to form. The expression to ti en einai is derived from the formal structure of a question asking for a definition. Thus, essence is the ontological correlate and primary object of definition. Traditionally essence is taken to be a common nature shared by things of a certain kind, with the function of essence being to identify species membership or to place individuals into a species. But there are also many passages in Aristotle suggesting that essence and form as primary substance is particular. This gives rise to much controversy about how to understand the ontological status of essence. In general, essence is the property of a thing without which the thing could not be what it is. As essential property, it is distinguished from accidental properties. “What, then, you are by your very nature is your essence.” Aristotle, Metaphysics essential occurrence, see vacuous occurrence essential property, see accidental property essentialism Metaphysics, epistemology, logic, philosophy of language The doctrine that among the properties which a thing X possesses, we can distinguish between its essential properties and its accidental properties. According to this view, some of the properties of X form its essence, while the remaining properties are accidental. According to different kinds of essentialism, an essential property makes X the individual it is, the kind of thing it is, or a member of its kind. Essential properties are revealed by a real definition, although it is disputed whether there can be definitions either of individuals or of particular essences. Essentialism originated from Parmenides, Plato, and especially Aristotle, but has been in decline since the criticisms of British empiricism beginning in the seventeenth century. It was revived in the middle of the twentieth century and is represented in particular by Kripke. Contemporary essentialism claims that some properties of an object are essential to it and that so long as it existed the object could not fail to have them. If essence is inherent in things, then there are necessary truths about objects and their properties (necessity de re). Essentialism is focused on the relationship between essence and individual identity, as well as on the relationship between essence and natural kinds. It is closely related to the causal theory of reference and the theory of modality in terms of possible worlds. Various versions of anti-essentialism claim that the notion of essence is trivial or that we are never in a position to specify what properties of a thing are essential or accidental. Popper refers to essentialism as the view that the aim of science is to provide explanations in terms of things and properties that are not themselves susceptible of any further explanation. “Understood Platonistically, essentialism holds, at the very least, that some things have some of their properties essentially.” Slote, Metaphysics and Essence estrangement, see alienation eternal recurrence Modern European philosophy Nietzsche held that the world is cyclical, with everything that has occurred repeated over again in a process that extends to infinity. In eternal recurrence, the simplest forms strive toward the most complex, and then the most complex returns to the simple startingpoint. The world oscillates between these extremes in a never-ending cycle. This idea, which is influenced by Heraclitus and other Greek philosophers, was presented by Nietzsche to be his fundamental conception. He characterized himself as the teacher of eternal recurrence. This position is certainly not merely a cosmological theory. It is intended to banish all teleology from our account of the world and to reject all views that the world develops in a linear manner toward some final and perfect end. Further, it establishes the grounds for the claim that all purposes, aims, and means are only different modes expressing a single principle inherent in the world, that is, the will to power. Rather than being pessimistic, belief in the idea of eternal recurrence shows willingness for life to extend eternally, against the ascetic ideal. On this view, the meaningful is repeated eternally, and life is not consigned to a meaningless eternity. With Nietzsche’s emphasis on striving, the valued life is seen as a process of living rather than as a fixed state. “Behold, we know what you teach: that all things recur eternally, and we ourselves too; and we have already existed an eternal number of times, and all things with us.” Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra -- eternal sentence Logic A sentence whose truth or falsity is fixed once and for all, without regard to the passage of time, the varying of circumstances, and the speaker. If it is true, it is true forever; if it is false, it is false forever. Examples of this sort of sentence include laws of mathematics, of logic, and of nature, as well as reports of passing events. A proposition is said to be the meaning of a sentence, but, strictly speaking, it is the cognitive meaning of an eternal sentence. “By incorporating additional information into the sentence such as dates and the names of persons and places, we can obtain an eternal sentence: one that is fixedly true or false.” Quine, Ontological Relativity and Other Essays. -- eternal Thou Modern European philosophy, philosophy of religion A term for God used by Martin Buber in I and Thou, in contrast to a human and temporal Thou. God, as the eternal Thou, is the grounds of all I–Thou relations, but is not merely an abstract power. According to Buber, we can meet Him in the concrete reality of the divine presence. God is inherent or implicit within the scope of human life. Our relation to God is an extension of the human I–Thou relation. The eternal Thou can never be limited by another Thou, and its nature prevents it from even becoming an it. With this term, Buber hoped to clarify what people mean in using the term “God” and to indicate how God can be reached. “In every sphere in its own way, through each process of becoming that is present to us, we look out toward the eternal Thou, in each we are aware of a breath from the eternal Thou; in each Thou we address the eternal Thou.” Buber, I and Thou -- eternity Metaphysics, philosophy of religion One of the divine attributes, which has been interpreted in two different ways. According to the first, God is eternal by not being bound by time. He exists outside of or beyond time. He is timeless but is the creator of time. Since he is not in time, all events occurring in time are for him simultaneous. While our “now” designates changing time and sempiternity, God’s “now” is abiding, unmoved, and immovable. It makes no sense to ask how long God has existed or to divide up his life into periods of time. Although this understanding of eternity can account for God’s foreknowledge, immutability, and immortality, it creates a paradox. If the Trojan War and my writing this entry are simultaneous for God, these two events must be simultaneous. But how can they be? Further, if our experience is essentially temporal, it does not seem to make sense to take the content of this experience non-temporally. According to the second interpretation, God has temporality, that is, a past, present, and future, but is eternal because he has always existed in the past, exists at present, and will always exist in the future. Eternity amounts to the totality of time. This understanding of eternity cannot account for God’s being the creator of time and his immutability. Many philosophers tend to reserve eternity for existence outside of time and use everlasting for existence throughout time. On either interpretation, God’s eternity implies that he is free from those imperfections that make the passage of time for us a matter of regret. “To say that God is eternal is to say that he is not in time.” Helm, Eternal God ether, see aether Grice’s META-ETHICS. ethical individualism Ethics The position that only individual persons are the subject of moral predicates and values and are the central concern of moral concern. On this view, the choice of moral values is up to the individual, and the individual should be the final authority and arbiter of morality. This position is implied by the suggestion of Hume’s fact–value dichotomy that moral evaluations are not constrained by factual descriptions of the world. Ethical individualism became prominent in the nineteenth century through the criticism of Christianity as a basis for morality in the works of Nietzsche and Kierkegaard. In the twentieth century, it was represented by existentialism, which holds that the individual is the only legislator of his or her morality, and by emotivism and prescriptivism, which claim that morality is nothing more than the expression of personal attitudes. “According to this doctrine [of ethical individualism], the source of morality, of moral values and principles, the creator of the very concern of moral evaluation, is the individual.” Lukes, Individualism ethical knowledge Ethics, epistemology Also called moral knowledge. Knowledge of moral truths or principles from which moral prescriptions can be derived, but it is a matter of dispute whether there is such a kind of knowledge. Ethical relativism, skepticism, and nihilism reject the existence of moral knowledge by denying that there are moral facts or moral truths to be known. Non-objective moral theorists hold that moral language expresses only sentiments, approval or disapproval or other emotional attitudes, without involving truths. They claim that ethical problems are in principle insoluble and that ethical statements are incapable of being true or false. Other philosophers insist on the existence of moral knowledge, but must explain how we can recognize a complete and correct set of rules for human conduct. Some philosophers suggest that general moral rules can be derived from reason, according to Kantian ethical rationalism, or by intuition, according to ethical intuitionism. Other moralists argue that we may start from particular moral facts and move up to wider principles, as in Ross’s intuitive induction and the common sense theory. Another problem is how to justify a moral belief or how to change moral belief into knowledge. Many disputes arise from using both foundationalism and coherentism to justify moral views. The attempts to support the possibility of moral knowledge by showing how we can establish and justify moral truths provide the content of moral epistemology. “In the last decade or two serious doubts about the very possibility of ethical knowledge have become widespread.” Baylis, Ethics ethical life Ethics, political philosophy, philosophy of law [German Sittlichkeit, also called ethical order or ethical principles] For Hegel, the system of recognized ethical norms and principles of a culture and society, which constitutes a communal end for all of its members and which all members recognize and accept. Individuals can guarantee their freedom and happiness by conforming to this system of ethical norms. It is not purely transcendent and is not merely a social substance of which individuals are accidents. Hegel’s paradigm of ethical life in this sense is Greek culture. The concept of ethical life is distinguished from Moralität, which for Hegel is typified by Kantian ethics and concerns the individual and private morality of the modern bourgeoisie, who are alienated from public life. In Sittlichkeit, one’s duty is derived from one’s relations to the concrete social order. It is the morality of a social order whose rational institutions and laws provide the content of conscientious conviction. In ethical life, moral sense and social sense are unified. Hegel claims that in Moralität they are severed, for in this abstract morality one’s duty is derived from one’s own abstract moral reflection and not from relations to a concrete social order. Thus, the distinction between Sittlichkeit and Moralität reflects the difference between Hegel’s ethics and Kant’s ethics. In modern society, ethical life is characterized by civil society. “Ethical life is the idea of freedom in that on the one hand it is the good become alive – the good endowed in self-consciousness with knowing and willing and actualised by self-conscious action – while on the other hand self-consciousness has in the ethical realm its absolute foundation and the end which actuates its effort.” Hegel, Philosophy of Right -- ethical naturalism, see naturalistic ethics -- ethical objectivism: In contrast to ethical subjectivism, skepticism, and relativism, ethical objectivism or objectivistic ethics argues that ethical judgments are not about the speaker or solely about the speaker and holds that at least some ethical judgments are concerned with moral facts and can be rationally justified. They are true or false independent of subjective matters such as the speaker’s own feelings, desires, attitudes, and beliefs. Ethical objectivism has many versions. Ethical logicism claims that the truthvalue of ethical judgments can be determined by logical rules. Ethical intuitionism holds that ethical generalizations are obtained by insight. Moral sense theories hold that we can gain knowledge through the perception of the difference between right and wrong, just as we can gain knowledge through the perception of the difference between red and blue. Theological theories argue that God provides an objective criterion of what is right or wrong. Ethical naturalism holds that ethical judgments can be based on some scientific, empirical investigation of the natural or social world. According to Ideal Observer theories, ethical judgments are about what some ideal being would determine if such a being existed. The common difficulty for all forms of ethical objectivism is to justify the source of objectivity and hence the existence of objective moral values. “To be an (ethical) objectivist is to hold that whether something is or is not morally right is independent of the attitudes or inclinations of any particular speaker or set of speakers.” B. Mitchell, Morality: Religious and Secular -- ethical rationalism Ethics A term describing Kantian moral theory and its claim that moral judgments are purely rational and do not concern the emotions or the development of character. Ethical rationalism is a formal and universalist position. It is related to ethical cognitivism, which believes that morality has cognitive elements instead of being a matter of personal attitude and preference. “By ‘ethical rationalism’, by contrast, I mean a theoretical position which views moral judgements as the core of moral theory, and which neglects that the moral self is not a moral geometrician but is an embodied, finite, suffering and emotive being.” Benhabib, Situating the Self -- ethical relativism: the view that ethical terms and principles are relative to cultures, societies, and even persons. There are different ethical judgments about the same subject, and there is no decisive method of reasoning that can adjudicate between these conflicting judgments. Accordingly, there is no objective ethical truth. Moral principles are not valid universally, and can do no more than follow the conventions of the societies to which we belong. The position can be traced to the ancient Greek philosopher Protagoras and has subsequently had various proponents. Ethical relativism may be used to justify moral toleration, but it has major theoretical difficulties. Its claim that all conflicting moral judgments have equal values is implausible. Furthermore, even if moral values are relative to societies, problems still arise. A given society may lack consistency in its principles. In addition, individuals may belong to different societies or other collective groups, such as families, communities, political parties, or nations, which may adhere to conflicting principles. “A Greek philosopher who lived in the fifth century bc, named Protagoras, seems to have believed two things: first, that moral principles cannot be shown to be valid for everybody; and second, that people ought to follow the conventions of their own group . . . Views roughly similar to those of Protagoras may be classified as forms of ethical relativism.” Brandt, Ethical Theory -- ethical subjectivism: In contrast to ethical objectivism, ethical subjectivism or subjective ethics claims that ethical judgments are about the speaker’s feelings concerning something rather than about independent moral facts. In calling an action right, speakers state that they approve of it. In calling an action wrong, speakers state that they disapprove of it. Consequently, there are no moral truths independent of our feelings. This kind of approach to moral philosophy is explicitly expressed by Hume, who argued that morality is a matter of feeling, not reason. Ethical subjectivism is right in emphasizing the connection in morality between the meaning of “good” and the pro-attitude of the speaker, but it also faces many difficulties. A person’s feelings are changeable, and different persons may have different feelings. Thus, subjectivism makes moral evaluation unstable and also makes moral disagreements insoluble. In the twentieth century, more refined versions of ethical subjectivism were introduced, such as Stevenson’s emotivism, Hare’s prescriptivism, and John Dewey’s theory that moral statements do not express one’s feelings per se, but rather express one’s feelings after thinking things through. In a further refinement, it is claimed that one should think as reasonably and impartially as possible. Subjectivism hence has developed into non-cognitivism or non-descriptivism. “The best course is therefore to retain the term ‘subjectivist’ for those who think that moral judgements state facts about the states of mind etc. of person, and use some new term (‘non-descriptivist’ is the most perspicuous) for those who don’t think that their central function is to state facts at all.” Hare, Essays in Ethical Theory -- ethical theory: used by Williams as a technical term, opposed to the distinction between ethics and metaethics. According to this distinction, ethics concerns what one should do and how one should live, while meta-ethics concerns the status of ethical claims. They are separable and meta-ethics may involve only the analysis of ethical terms without ethical implications. For Williams this distinction is untenable. An ethical theory should combine both parts, which are inherently not separable. The consideration of the subject-matter of ethics will affect the position about what tests for the correctness of basic ethical beliefs and principles are appropriate, and this will in turn affect substantively ethical consequences. Ethical theory can be either positive or negative. A positive one believes that there is a general test for the acceptability of basic ethical principles, while a negative one thinks that holding an ethical position simply consists of choosing one and sticking to it. Williams himself takes a more complicated version of negative ethical theory, which argues that there may be tests in some cultural circumstances and not in others. He claims that his position implies a skepticism, not about ethics, but about what philosophy can do in determining how we should think in ethics. “An ethical theory is a theoretical account of what ethics thought and practice are, which account either implies a general test for the correctness of basic ethical beliefs and principles or else implies that there cannot be such a test.” B. Williams, Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy -- ethical virtue Ancient Greek philosophy, ethics, philosophy of mind, philosophy of action [from Greek ethike arete, also translated as moral virtue or excellence of character] According to Aristotle, the kind of virtue which belongs to the part of the soul that is not rational in itself but which obeys reason. In contrast, intellectual virtue is the virtue of the rational part of the soul. Ethical virtue is concerned with feelings and actions. It is a settled disposition of character willingly to do things admired by society in a regular way, and is acquired through constant practice that creates a habit of action. Aristotle held that ethical virtue is a mean between two opposite vices. The mean is relative to us, that is to say, it is to be determined by practical wisdom. Aristotle tried to bring all ethical virtues under the doctrine of the mean. Practical wisdom is itself an intellectual virtue, but according to Aristotle, it cannot be a full virtue without ethical virtues. He also held that ethical virtues cannot be full virtues without practical wisdom. “[Ethical] virtue is a state that decides, consisting in a mean, the mean relative to us, which is defined by reference to reason, i.e. to the reason by reference to which the person of practical wisdom would define it.” Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics -- ethics, axiological, see axiology -- ethics, emotive theory of: an alternative expression for emotivism. -- ethics, intuitionistic: also called ethical intuitionism. One kind of objective ethical theory that has a long tradition in Britain. Its major proponents have included Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, Bishop Butler, Reid, Sidgwick, Moore, Prichard, and Ross. In a general sense, it is a thesis concerning the epistemological status of moral statements and claims that ethical knowledge is known to be true by immediate awareness or necessary insight. This position is established mainly through the rejection of alternative positions. It argues against moral skepticism, which holds that there is no moral truth. It denies the practice of defining basic ethical terms such as “good” and “right” in terms of natural properties. It claims that the position that ethical generalization is a process of ratiocination involves an infinite regress or a vicious circle. Accordingly, fundamental moral judgments must be neither inductively nor deductively justified, and they must be self-evident. In a narrow sense, ethical intuitionism is the view that we can immediately know that certain actions are morally right or wrong without consideration of their consequences. Ethical intuitionism is also called non-naturalism in the sense that it is opposed to the claim of naturalism, that we know the truth or falsity of ethical statements by experience. However, since both intuitionism and naturalism claim that there is ethical knowledge, both are types of moral cognitivism and are opposed to non-cognitivism. It is sometimes associated with ethical pluralism, which holds that there is more than one non-reducible moral principle. Rawls sees this as allowing unacceptable indeterminacy in ethics, but others embrace the flexibility such pluralism provides. The difficulty of intuitionistic ethics is that there are no criteria for checking the validity of our intuitions, and for solving the conflicts between intuitions. “The intuitional view of ethics consists in the supposition that certain rules, stating that certain actions are always to be done or to be omitted, may be taken as self-evident premises.” G. Moore, Principia Ethica -- ethics, normative Ethics A type of ethics, usually contrasted with meta-ethics. Its central concern is not with moral concepts or moral methods, but with substantive moral questions. Its basic aim is to determine what the moral principles are by which all moral agents ought to be guided for morally right actions, and thus to provide ways of resolving existing ethical disagreements. Normative ethics is usually divided into two parts. One is called consequentialism, which claims that actions are not right or wrong in themselves, but are morally determined by the good or evil consequences they cause. The right action is that which brings about the best possible balance of good over evil consequences. Consequentialist normative ethics includes ethical egoism, contractarianism, ethical altruism, and utilitarianism. It is also called teleological ethics. The other part of normative ethics is called non-consequentialist or non-teleological ethics, for it holds that moral right and wrong are not determined, or at least are not solely determined, by appeal to the consequences of actions. Another name for this view is deontology [from Greek deon, duty], since it takes duty to have prior and independent value. The distinction between normative ethics and meta-ethics appeared in the early to middle part of the twentieth century, but has recently come to be less favored, for a clearcut distinction between these two types of ethics is very difficult to determine. Many ethical questions are both meta-ethical and normative. “We may reasonably ask about ethical statements, ‘Which ethical statements are true or valid?’ and ‘Why?’. A person’s answer to these questions may be called his ‘normative ethical theory’.” Brandt, Ethical Theory -- ethics and morality Ethics Ethics in Greek is êthikos, literally meaning something concerned with êthos (Greek, character), which in turn is connected with ethos (social custom, habit). Cicero employed the Latin moralis to translate the Greek êthikos. Moralis literally means something concerned with mores (Latin, character, manner, custom, and habit). Hence, etymologically ethics and morality mean the same thing. Both ethics and morality can refer to social regulations that are embedded in cultural and historical traditions governing people’s character and behavior. Different societies have different moralities and the same society can have different morality at different times or conflicting moralities at the same time, but the overriding purpose of all moralities is to preserve social harmony. -- ethics of care Both ethics and morality also refer to a branch of philosophy that studies these social regulations, to answer the questions “How should a person live?” or “How should a person act?” In this usage, ethics is also called ethical theory, and morality is called moral philosophy or moral theory. This study can be further divided into meta-ethics, that is, the study of moral language and central moral terms such as right, duty, obligation, virtue, value, and freedom; normative ethics, the establishment of moral principles and rules which people should follow; and applied ethics, the application of moral rules to solve practical issues arising in various social areas. Starting from the middle of the twentieth century, there has been a tendency to distinguish ethics from morality. Morality (and therefore moral theory) is confined to the scope of modern ethical theories such as utilitarianism and deontology, which try not only to incorporate diverse rules into a coherent system, but also to set up certain universal rules applicable to all societies. It is closely associated with the emphasis of duty or obligation, a strict demand of responsibility, and an impartial concern for the non-instrumental goods of others. On the other hand, ethics is used to cover, in addition, the Aristotelian approach of emphasizing the formation of virtues in the agent rather than his actions, and is concerned with the happiness of agents rather than their duty or obligation. Such a distinction between ethics and morality is associated with the rise of contemporary virtue ethics and of the anti-theory movement. The value of the distinction is still in dispute. “From now on, therefore, I shall for the most part use ‘ethical’ as the broad term to stand for what this subject is certainly about, and ‘moral’ and ‘morality’ for the narrower system.” B. Williams, Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy -- ethics of belief Epistemology The study of what we ought to believe, what we have a right to believe, or how we can know that what we believe is certain. As ethics seeks to evaluate ethical behavior, ethics of belief seeks to determine rules for the evaluation of doxastic states. It is called ethics of belief because what we ought to believe is not a private matter, but is a public concern with social consequences, and is hence a matter of morality. Nevertheless, as a part of epistemology, this type of belief formulation is different from the formulation of genuinely moral belief. This part of epistemic activity can be traced to Locke, but the term is introduced by the British philosopher W. K. Clifford, who insisted that what determines belief choice is sufficient evidence. R. M. Chisholm claims that the rule of determination is logical consistency. Alternatively, William James believed that we can appeal to other elements beyond epistemological consideration in order to decide what we should believe. “We can simplify Locke’s rather complicated formulation of his ‘ethics of belief ’ as follows: the degree of our assent to a proposition ought to be proportioned to the strength of the evidence for that proposition.” Price, Belief ethics of care Ethics The feminist ethics that attempts to construct an entire ethical approach on the basis of caring or care. Care has been taken to be a central value and a fundamental ethical phenomenon. Care is not merely a feeling, but also an understanding of another person’s real needs, welfare, and situation. The ethics of care focuses on specific individuals rather than on universal principles. It extends from caring for children to care about the globe. In terms of this approach, feminism labels all modern ethical theories, the ethics of justice. The ethics of justice is characterized as male-biased because it emphasizes rational moral law and ignores the role of feeling and the experience of women. Feminism claims that care ethics is modeled on the family, while the male ethics of justice or rights ethics is modeled on the social contract. Carol Gilligan, in her book In a Different Voice, argues that women speak in a different voice, the voice of care. However, care is generally involved in one-to-one encounters. It is still to be elaborated how the ethics of care can be elevated to a general and public level, and how it can be reconciled with the requirements of justice and rights. Besides, it is also disputed how much we should care, and what is the relation between care and self-interest. It is realized that the voices of justice and of care should be presented as complementary ones. Justice is related to institutions, care to characters. Some argue that we should combine them rather than idealizing an ethic of care at the expense of the ethics of justice. “In advocating an ethic of care these critics, we have seen, come close both to traditional misogynist positions and to ethical relativism. When the ‘voices’ of justice and of care are presented as alternatives between which we must choose, each is viewed as a complete approach to moral issues. However, the two in fact focus on different aspects of life.” Valdes, in Nussbaum and Sen (eds.), The Quality of Life. -- ethics of justice, see ethics of care H. P. Grice’s PHILOSOPHICAL ETHNOLOGY -- ethnocentrism Ethics, epistemology, philosophy of social science [from Greek êthos, custom] The position of using the traditions of one’s own culture or society as a starting-point for judging any practice. In a sense, ethnocentrism is inevitable, because we are deeply shaped by the beliefs and values of the communities in which we are raised. We become people in the abstract by becoming members of such particular concrete groups. If this contingent fact is given too much weight, however, ethnocentrism will collapse into cultural relativism, chauvinistic conservatism, and racism. One can balance ethnocentrism with an attempt to find a universal and more objective point of view. Even if this Enlightenment ideal cannot be achieved, ethnocentrism need not confine our outlook to narrow limits. One must have an open mind to converse with people who have grown up with a different Êthos, and it remains a fallacy to take one’s own Êthos as objectively and universally correct. “Ethnocentrism only involves taking one’s language, beliefs, desires and the interests of one’s community as a starting point.” D. Hall, Richard Rorty -- ethnology Philosophy of social science [from Greek êthnos, nations, people] J. S. Mill’s term for a theory about the laws of the formation of character, including both national and individual character. These laws are hypothetical and affirm tendencies. They are based neither on simple observation nor on the highest generalizations, but constitute a system of corollaries from experimental psychology. This science is supposed to contribute to educational improvements. Mill claimed that it is a deductive science and the “exact science of human nature.” “Ethnology will serve for the ulterior science which determines the kind of character produced in conformity to these general laws, by any set of circumstances, physical and mental.” Mill, “On the Logic of the Moral Sciences,” in Ayer (ed.), A System of Logic, vol. VI -- ethnomethodology Philosophy of social science An approach to sociology initiated by Garfunkel, so called because it emphasizes the study of the methodologies of people (ethnos) in daily life in contrast to scientific method. Empirical sociology claims that sociology can establish firm connections between social facts on the grounds that social life is actually not regulated by rules and that social action has no intrinsic identity. Ethnomethdology rejects this position and claims that any imputation of beliefs and desires is incorrigibly contextual, depends on indexicals, and is marked by uncertainty. Any purported sociological generalizations are based on the analyst’s unexamined assumptions. Social facts should be dealt with by ethnomethodology, the characteristic of which is ad hoc rationality. It does not subject a social action to rigorous definition and does not set criteria for adequacy of its account. Instead, ethnomethodology holds that the properties of social life lie in the mutual dependence of meanings on their context and on the actor’s motives. Rather than being generally endowed with a store of social knowledge that describes their surroundings, people constantly exercise their social knowledge and are forever theorizing about each other’s actions. In a word, people are fundamentally their own sociologists. Ethnomethdology is hence interested in the properties of intersubjectivity as exhibited by social factors in the day-to-day world. “[Ethnomethodology] aims to examine the ordinary, common-sense, mundane world in which members live and do so in a way that remains faithful to the methods, procedures, practices, etc., that members themselves use in constructing and making sense of this social world.” Benson and Hughes, The Perspectives of Ethnomethodology GRICE’S EUDAEMONISM.. eudaimonia ethos, see êthos êthos Ancient Greek philosophy, ethics [Greek, character, disposition, from êthos, habit, custom; the transliteration of its adjective êthikos is ethics and literally means being concerned with character] Êthos is not the same as ethos. Aristotle divided arête (virtue or excellence) into two kinds: intellectual virtues and êthika arête. The latter is generally translated as moral virtues, although excellence of character or virtue of character might be more accurate. According to Aristotle, êthos is a significant element for us to gain êthika arête, but practical reason is also indispensable. “Virtue of character [of êthos] results from habit [ethos], hence its name ethical, slightly varies from ethos.” Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics etiquette Philosophy of social science, ethics The set of manners and hypothetical imperatives governing social behavior, which is inherited through oral tradition rather than written code, and is manifested in virtually every aspect of social life in a community. To know the culture of a society is essentially to know its etiquette. Etiquette helps in establishing communal harmony, although its requirements are not as strict as those of morality. It changes continuously over time and helps to form the cultural tradition of a society. “The rules of governing the least socially important customs are the rules of etiquette for that society.” Feldman, Introductory Ethics Eubulides Ancient Greek logician from Miletus, member of the Megarian school, author of the sorites paradox and possibly author of the liar paradox. eudaemonism Ethics [from Greek eudaimonia, happiness or wellbeing] An ethical stance which claims that happiness is the property by which all intrinsic goods are good and by which all our rational behavior is ultimately justified. Hence we ought to seek happiness as our ultimate end in life and pursue everything else for the sake of happiness. This ethical eudaemonism is related to psychological eudaemonism, but not identical with it. Psychological eudaemonism proposes that all intentional behavior of an agent aims at the agent’s own happiness. Although happiness has been taken in the history of Western ethics to be the ultimate good, there is no agreement about what constitutes happiness. For example, for Aristotle happiness is rational activity, but for the Epicureans and the utilitarians, happiness is a life of greatest pleasure and least pain. Through its concern for ends, eudaemonism is teleological in nature. It was criticized by Kant, but has been revived in contemporary virtue ethics. “It [the moral theory which prevailed in Kant’s time] may be generally described as a system of eudaemonism which, when asked what man’s chief end ought to be, replied Happiness. And by happiness eudaemonism understood the satisfaction of the private appetites, wishes, and wants of the man: thus raising the contingent and particular into a principle for the will and its actualization.” Hegel, Logic -- eudaimonia Ethics, philosophy of mind [Greek, human flourishing, from eu, good + daimon, a divinity or spirit, having a good divinity to look after one] The highest good for humans. Eudaimonia is normally translated as happiness, but this is not precise, because happiness tends to be identified with pleasure or the satisfaction of our sentient nature, and this is only one element in Greek eudaimonia. Another, and philosophically more important, element is the satisfaction of our nature as active beings. In this sense, it is equivalent in Greek to living well or doing well. Because eudaimonia concerns the shape of one’s whole life rather than particular moments or parts of one’s life, it is also translated as well-being. For many Greek philosophers, including Plato, Aristotle, and Epicurus, eudaimonia is the state of life which is most worth living. For Aristotle eudaimonia is the state of life in which man deeply fulfils his nature, and it is the complete end or telos of one’s life. He defined eudaimonia as activity in accordance with virtue, so the genuine pursuit of happiness and the virtuous life are one and the same. In practical life, eudaimonia is generally activity in accordance with moral virtue and practical reason, but ideally it is activity in accordance with the virtue of the theoretical part of the soul, although we take part in this activity not insofar as we are men, but only insofar as there is something divine in us. Attempts to reconcile these claims affect our reading of Aristotle’s ethics. “As far as its name goes, most people virtually agree [about what the good is], since both the many and the cultivated call it happiness (eudaimonia), and suppose that living well and doing well are the same as being happy.” Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics euthanasia Ethics [from Greek eu, good + thanatos, death] The death of B brought about by A for B’s sake, typically to terminate B’s unbearable suffering caused by an incurable and terminal disease, B’s serious paralysis, B’s grotesque disfigurement, B’s irreversible comatose state, and so on. It is also called mercy killing. There are two ways of distinguishing various types of euthanasia. One is to divide it into voluntary, non-voluntary, and involuntary acts. Euthanasia is voluntary if B requests it whilst in a rational state; non-voluntary if B has lost the capacity of choosing death or life, but is killed or allowed to die; and involuntary if B does not consent to end his life but is still killed. The other way is to divide it into active and passive euthanasia. Euthanasia is active if B is deliberately killed by some action and passive if B is not killed but is deliberately allowed to die. Involuntary euthanasia is generally regarded as murder and as being morally wrong. Passive euthanasia is considered by many to be permissible. The debate about the morality of euthanasia usually surrounds active euthanasia. The arguments for it include mainly the principle of mercy (beneficence) and respect for autonomy. The arguments against it mainly concern the sanctity of life, and the slippery slope argument. In many countries, the moral debate about euthanasia has become a legal debate about whether we should legalize euthanasia. “Let us insist, then, that when we talk about euthanasia we are talking about a death understood as a good or happy event for the one who dies.” Foot, Virtues and Vices Euthyphro dilemma Ethics, philosophy of religion Plato’s dialogue Euthyphro is named after a person who engaged in dialogue with Socrates. Euthyphro wanted to sue his father, who had caused a peasant’s death, in the belief that God would punish him if he did not sue. But Socrates found it outrageous that a person should prosecute his own father, and the two of them started to discuss the nature of piety. In response to Euthyphro’s claim that an action is pious because it is loved by the gods, Socrates asks: “Is ‘what is pious’ pious because the gods approve of it, or do they approve of it because it is pious?” This issue, whether a man’s moral code ought to be influenced by beliefs about divine commands, is not solved in the dialogue. This dilemma reveals a structure that lies at the heart of various justifications of moral and other necessary truths by appeal to a divine authority or an ultimate rational authority. If a thing is good because some authority approves of it, then we need a further justification of the worth of the authority’s approval or must accept vacuously that what the authority approves is good. If an authority approves of a thing because it is good, then the approval of authority may be a guide to what is good, but it offers no justification of its goodness. The question raised by the dilemma has been a topic of intensive discussion, especially in theology, ethics, and political theory. “The difficulty here is commonly stated in the form of this dilemma: Given that it is right to do X, and that it is God’s will that we should do X: is X right because God wills it, or does God will it because it is right? The classical statement of this problem is the Euthyphro dilemma in Plato’s dialogue of that name.” Mayo, The Philosophy of Right and Wrong VALIDUM. evaluative meaning Ethics, philosophy of language The force of an expression which conveys the speaker’s positive or negative attitude toward what the expression is describing, and is in contrast to descriptive meaning, which is a bare description of the fact and picks out the range to which the expression applies. Evaluative meaning varies with the reaction of the user of the expression and lacks truth conditions. Evaluative meaning is related to advising and prescribing what should and should not be done. Emotivism and prescriptivism pay particular attention to the evaluative meaning of ethical terms, for they believe that morality is a matter of emotional attitude rather than belief. “A word has evaluative meaning if its use implies a favourable or unfavourable attitude on the part of the speaker.” McNaughton, Moral Vision Evans, Gareth (1946–80) British philosopher of language and philosopher of mind, born in London, taught at University of Oxford. Evans’s subtle discussion of questions of reference and intentionality focused on the conditions under which a thought can be about an object. His own views often sought to reconcile aspects of major rival approaches to issues of thought, reference, and meaning. His main works include The Varieties of Reference (1982) and Collected Papers (1985). event Metaphysics, philosophy of science, philosophy of action [from Latin ex, out + venire, to come] A happening or occurrence that does not persist in the relations of a thing, but occurs in a certain place during a particular interval of time. This is a widely used but very ambiguous conception. No agreement has been achieved with regard to its simple nature, its qualities, or its relations. Scholars are divided whether an event should be classified as an object, a fact, a state of affairs, or simply a change, whether it is universal or particular, and over the criteria to individuate events. They also disagree whether events or objects should be more basic in our ontology. Davidson used to hold a position that two events are identical if their causes and effects are identical, but then are causes and effects themselves events? Quine claims that two events are identical if they happen in the same temporal-spatial location. But then several things could happen in the same temporal-spatial location. Are they one or several events? Because of Davidson’s work, the discussion of events is now closely associated with accounts of action. “An ‘event’ is supposed to occupy some continuous portion of space-time, at the end of which it ceases, and cannot occur.” Russell, Human Knowledge everlasting, see eternity everydayness Modern European philosophy Heidegger’s term, also called averageness, for the ordinary and undifferentiated way in which human beings exist over most of their lifetime, taking everything that comes to them from the world. It is the average manner of human being, in which Dasein is blind to its own possibilities. The first division of Being and Time, entitled “the preparatory fundamental analysis of Dasein,” attempts to reveal the complex and mysterious character of this most familiar way of one’s being. The analysis of Dasein’s everydayness serves as a path for uncovering the essential structure of Dasein. For in our everyday lives we already have some vague and average understanding of Being. Heidegger portrayed our everyday situation in terms of Being-in-the-world. Everydayness is constituted by three modes of fallingness, that is, idle talk (groundless understanding and interpretation), curiosity (a tendency to move from average intelligibility to closing off the understanding in idle talk), and ambiguity (the failure to distinguish what is genuinely known from what is not). “Accordingly, Dasein’s ‘average everydayness’ can be defined as ‘Being-in-the-world which is falling and disclosed, thrown and projecting, and for which its ownmost potentiality-for-Being is an issue, both in its Being alongside the “world” and in its Beingwith-others’.” Heidegger, Being and Time evidence Epistemology, philosophy of law [from Latin e, out + videre, see] Originally meaning evident or obvious, the term has developed into meaning evidence for, rather than self-evident. Evidence is something or some consideration that is used to support or reject some claim, to confer a certain degree of probability upon a proposition, or to decrease its probability. If a piece of evidence is supportive, it is favorable; otherwise it is unfavorable. In the law, evidence is governed by the rules of evidence and includes physical evidence as well as testimony. In epistemology, evidence comprises beliefs or propositions that may be used to justify other beliefs or propositions. If S has adequate evidence for h, it would be unreasonable for S not to accept h. There are many disputes regarding the nature of the beliefs that can provide evidential justification. A theory of epistemic justification, which claims that a belief is justified if and only if it is supported by evidence, is called evidentialism. “ ‘Evidence’ eventually came to mean not just considerations which make a proposition evident or obvious, but any considerations which make it in any degree probable.” Price, Belief evidentialism Epistemology A theory about epistemic justification. It claims that a belief or a doxastic attitude toward proposition P is epistemologically justified for a person S at the time t if and only if this belief fits the evidence S has at t, and the evidence S possesses is certainly well supported epistemologically and is properly arrived at. The position is implicit in the philosophy of Chisholm and is explicitly expressed by Feldman and Conee. The major problem it faces is to provide a satisfactory account of the relations between experience and introspective or perceptual belief. “What we call evidentialism is the view that the epistemic justification of a belief is determined by the quality of the believer’s evidence for the belief.” Feldman and Conee, “Evidentialism,” Philosophical Studies 48 evil Ethics, philosophy of religion Evil is divided into moral evil and natural evil. While natural evil results from unusual natural occurrences such as earthquakes, disease, or famine, moral evil is due to deliberate human action and its origin and nature are the concerns of ethics. Moral evil is the extreme form of moral wrong and causes much suffering and pain. Socrates believed that nobody rationally chooses evil and that evil is the result of ignorance. This raises a question about the relation between reason and evil. Orthodox theologians hold that evil can be intentional, for human beings have a fallen nature. Another major problem regarding evil is the compatibility between the existence of an omnipotent and perfectly good God and the fact that the world is full of evil. For if God knows everything and is all-powerful and benevolent, he can easily do something to prevent evil from happening. This is the so-called problem of evil, which atheism takes as evidence for denying the existence of God. Some theists argue that God deliberately allows some evil to make possible greater goods. Evil results from human free will. If God denies evil, he would have to deny human freedom of will first, but the possession of free will is definitely a greater good. Others argue that the existence of evil is an illusion, or that evil is the privation of goodness proper to something. “Many philosophers believe that the existence of evil constitutes a difficulty for the theist, and many believe that the existence of evil (or at least the amount and kinds of evil we actually find) make belief in God unreasonable or rationally unacceptable.” Plantinga, God, Freedom and Evil evil spirit, see malicious demon evolution Philosophy of science, ethics, epistemology [from Latin evolutio, unrolling, unfolding, developing] A theory that the world and its contents, in particular the organic world, are subject to a developmental process, on some theories of evolution from the simple to the complex. The idea gained popularity in the Enlightenment as an alternative to the Christian theory of creation and design. Philosophically, it also challenged Greek essentialism. But it was not until Darwin published On the Origin of Species (1859) that evolution became a well-established scientific theory. The theory of evolution is hence virtually synonymous with Darwinism. Darwin’s central tenet is that the organic world develops through a process of natural selection, in which the members of a species that are best adapted to the environment are most able to survive and reproduce. The theory has had an enormous impact on subsequent intellectual history. Many philosophers have attempted to use the framework of evolutionary thought to explain social phenomena and to deal with traditional philosophical issues, although many of these uses of the theory are controversial. The contemporary theory of evolution combines Darwin’s insight with the new science of genetics, and there is debate whether the species, the individual, or the gene is the unit of survival in evolution. Two philosophical fields based on the fit theory of evolution, evolutionary epistemology and evolutionary ethics, have attracted support. “By ‘evolution’ I mean the natural unfolding and change of organisms down through the generations from earlier forms, widely different.” Ruse, Taking Darwin Seriously -- evolutionary epistemology Epistemology The analysis of human knowledge and of its development in evolutionary terms. It has two basic approaches. The first considers the growth of knowledge as analogical to the growth of organisms, and holds that the acceptance of knowledge is the result of selection among ideas. The ideas that gain attention and allegiance in the course of struggle will be established until displaced by a challenger. Advocates of this approach include Campbell and Toulmin. Popper claimed that this approach amounts to his theory of falsification. The other approach, represented by Lorenz and Ruse, claims that the human cognitive structure itself is a result of natural selection and, hence, is equipped with innate dispositions incorporating our principles of thought and reasoning. Evolutionary epistemology is part of a broader program of naturalized epistemology. Rather than seeking to secure our knowledge claims against skeptical doubts, it tries to explain major features of our knowledge as necessary or inevitable features of ourselves as natural beings. “[Evolution] has taught us appropriate intellectual responses to various contacts and collisions, by structuring the brain of the mind that responds. This is the central claim of evolutionary epistemology.” Schilcher and Tennant, Philosophy, Evolution and Human Nature -- evolutionary ethics Ethics An ethics established on the basis of biological evolutionary theory. It claims that ethical principles can be derived from understanding the process of evolution. There are two major approaches. The first claims that the evolutionary process itself is morally positive and progressive. The good is whatever is the fittest for survival, that is, whatever can contribute to maintaining and developing the human species. Hence, it is morally wrong to do anything that might hinder the evolutionary process. A crude version of this claim, which is associated with social Darwinism, advocates competition and liberty and rejects equality and the provision of welfare. Social Darwinism has been widely rejected, but other versions of this approach suggest that we should help those who are most fit for life. The second approach is associated with sociobiology, which suggests that organisms within the same species are not necessarily in conflict and that cooperation is sometimes a better biological strategy than conflict. Some sociobiologists claim that altruism is a human evolutionary adaptation and that we are determined to be moral by our genes. Such an approach seems compatible with some versions of social contract theory and might help to explain how naturally selected tendencies can supplement rationality in explaining obligation. However, the empirical study of evolutionary altruism suggests that we tend naturally to cooperate with our closest kin and with those in a position to cooperate. This contrasts with any universal and equal obligation, and its altruism is rather narrow. Evolutionary ethics is also criticized for its attempt to derive ought directly from is. Even if its current evolutionary conjectures were established more firmly, it is unclear that its alleged moral consequences would also become established. “A system of evolutionary ethics is one based on a criterion of value purportedly derived from the evolutionary theory of the origin and proliferation of life on earth.” Schilcher and Tennant, Philosophy, Evolution and Human Nature ex nihilo nihil fit Metaphysics [Latin, nothing can be made or emerge out of nothing] A metaphysical principle that was first employed by Parmenides against the theory of change proposed by earlier natural philosophers. The principle implies that nothing in the world can arise without a cause. Christian theologians defended the doctrine of God’s creation ex nihilo (from nothing) by claiming that this Parmenidean principle can be applied only to natural things and not to the activity of the supreme deity who exists outside nature. “When we apprehend that it is impossible that anything can be formed of nothing, the proposition ex nihilo nihil fit . . . is a common notion or axiom.” Descartes, Principles of Philosophy examination paradox, see surprise examination paradox excellence, an alternative translation of arête (virtue) excellence of character, another expression for ethical virtue excuse Ethics, philosophy of law The condition or reason that can free an agent who commits a wrong from censure or responsibility. Excuse is different from justification, for while an excuse implies that the agent’s action is morally wrong or not permissible, justification is the condition or reason which makes an action not a wrongdoing but positively permissible. Strictly speaking, an excuse should also be distinguished from mitigating circumstance, which can reduce the degree of reprehension or severity of punishment for a wrongdoing agent, but which cannot fully eliminate the blame. For example, an extremely hungry man commits a robbery. His hunger is a mitigating circumstance, but not an excuse for his impermissible action. What conditions or reasons may, then, excuse a wrongdoing? According to Aristotle, if an action is caused by some uncontrollable external force, it is excusable. According to Hume, if an action is not caused by a defect of character, for example by evil motivation at the time of action, it is excusable. Generally, the conditions that may serve as excuses include, among others, ignorance, immaturity, insanity, compulsion, coercion, and accident. “An excuse is a statement, claim or plea, used to mitigate some true charge that tends to discredit a person in some way.” Brandt, Ethical Theory exegesis Philosophy of religion, philosophy of history [from Greek eksêgêsis, explanation, interpretation] Interpretation, particularly biblical interpretation. In the medieval period, exegesis became a subdiscipline of theology, dealing with the interpretation of holy scripture, biblical criticism, and biblical history. Because it presupposed faith and aimed at defending Catholic dogma, it was also called biblical theology. Exegesis tries to interpret a text by clarifying its authorship and earlier sources, by understanding it in its original context, and by bringing out the author’s meaning from the text itself. It contrasts with eisegesis, which reads meaning into a text. Exegesis is a predecessor of hermeneutics. “The systematic understanding of fixed lifeexpressions we shall call Exegesis. Since mental life is capable of being objectively understood only when it is completely and creatively, i.e. verbally, expressed, so is the task of exegesis that of interpreting the written records of human existence.” Dilthey, in Gardiner (ed.), Theories of History ESSE -- existence Metaphysics, logic, philosophy of language [from Latin ex, out of + sistere, cause to stand, meaning something there] Medieval philosophers, influenced by the doctrine that everything is created by God, distinguished between existence (that it is) and essence (what it is). Thomas Aquinas applied this contrast to interpret Aristotle’s doctrine of substance as meaning that a substance is brought to be by conferring existence to an essence. God alone is the unity of essence and existence, while everything else has its existential ground in God. Against this background, later philosophers have continued to discuss the relationship between essence and existence. Existence is the fact that there is a thing, while essence is the nature of that thing and is the necessary ground for the contingent being of the thing. The central theme of existentialism is that for human beings existence precedes essence. Although “being” has three distinct meanings, existence, the copula, and the sign of identity, existence and being are often taken as equivalent. “What exists?” is considered by many to be the central question in philosophy. When traditional metaphysics asks “What is being?,” it asks about being in the sense of existence. We can begin with the claim that things which exist are those that can bring about effects in the behavior of other things and can in turn be affected by them. However, we can also talk about the existence of fictitious entities and abstract entities, and these do not seem to have such powers; philosophers have disputed what “existence” means in these contexts. Also, it is not clear what to say when our minds seem to be affected by things existential import that do not exist, such as by apparent objects in dreams, illusions, or delusions. The modern anti-metaphysical tradition, in attacking the quest for being in traditional metaphysics, focuses on the thesis that existence is not a property. This thesis, initiated by Hume and Kant, has been discussed in great detail in the twentieth century. According to it, the existential propositions share the same grammatical form with attributive propositions but are logically different from them. Existential propositions do not ascribe a property to a subject, and in spite of its grammatical role existence is a not a logical predicate. For Russell, Wittgenstein, and the logical positivists, misunderstanding the nature of existential propositions is the root of traditional metaphysics. Contemporary philosophical logic and philosophy of language offer further intensive discussion of what we mean by saying that existence is a grammatical predicate, but not a logical predicate. Various theories have been advanced concerning our talk about existence and its existential implications and assumptions, such as Russell’s theory of descriptions, Pears’s distinction between referential tautologies and referential contradictions, and Strawson’s criticism of Russell’s theory of descriptions. Quine’s widely influential account of the quantificational apparatus of logic and his formula “to be is to be the value of a bound variable” raises questions about where quantification is possible and about the relations between logic and ontology. “I think an almost unbelievable amount of false philosophy has arisen through not realising what ‘existence’ means.” Russell, Logic and Knowledge existence (Heidegger) Modern European philosophy Etymologically, existence (existere) means “standing out” or “standing outside.” On this basis, Heidegger claimed that not all actual entities can be said to exist. Existence is not, as traditionally conceived, something one simply encounters or comes across in the world (what Heidegger called presence-at-hand). Rather, it is the mode of being of Dasein (human existence), for only Dasein can stand out from its own occurrence in the world and reflect on itself. For Heidegger, existence is Dasein’s awareness that it is. Dasein’s essence lies in its existence because we make ourselves be what we are in the course of living out our possibilities. For Heidegger, existence in this sense is also the ground of presence, that is, the mode of being of the world. “That kind of Being towards which Dasein can comport itself in one way or another, and always does comport itself somehow, we call ‘existence’ [Existenz].” Heidegger, Being and Time existence proposition, another term for existential proposition existential generalization Logic A rule of inference in predicate calculus that introduces existential quantifiers. If a statement fa contains a free variable a, it can be generalized into (∃x)fx. Using an example in ordinary language, we can generalize from “Socrates is mortal” to “Someone is mortal.” Existential generalization is a process that generates an existentially quantified statement from one instance of it. This is valid on the assumption of predicate logic that at least one thing exists in the universe. Existential generalization contrasts with existential instantiation, which generates one instance, say fa, from an existentially quantified statement like (∃x)fx. “Existential generalization . . . carries us from a theorem φ to a theorem (∃x)ψ where φ is like ψ except for containing free occurrences of ‘y’ in all the positions in which ψ contains free occurrences of ‘x’.” Quine, From a Logical Point of View existential import Logic Also called existential presupposition, a sentence, statement, or proposition has existential import if it implies a commitment to the existence of something. In Aristotelian logic, all universal propositions in the form of “all A’s are B’s” have existential import since they imply that there is at least one A that is B, that is, that an A exists. Such propositions imply the existence of at least one object to which the subject-term A applies. However, this implication is not accepted in modern predicate calculus. Universal quantification is formalized as ∀x (fx→gx), “for all x, if x is f, then x is g.” The proposition does not have existential import, because the proposition can be true even if there is no x, unlike propositions containing existential quantification. “An expression ‘a’ may occur in a theory, we saw, with or without purporting to name an object. What clinches matters is rather the quantification (∃x) (x = a). It is the existential quantifier, not the ‘a’ itself, that carries existential import.” Quine, Ontological Relativity existential instantiation Logic A rule of inference in predicate logic that removes the existential quantifier by proceeding from an existentially quantified statement (∃x)fx to fa, which is an existential instantiation of it. Using an example in ordinary language, it is a procedure to infer from “Someone is mortal” to “Socrates is mortal.” Existential instantiation contrasts with existential generalization, which generates an existentially quantified statement from one of its instances. “To substitute ‘This girl is’ for ‘There is a girl’ in ‘There is a girl in father’s chair’ is to produce an existential instantiation of the latter.” C. Williams, What is Existence? “In ordinary language, the words ‘some’, ‘a’, and ‘the’ (in the singular) indicate existence propositions.” Russell, Human Knowledge existential quantifier Logic, metaphysics According to Frege, a particular categorical proposition in traditional logic of the form “Some s are p,” can be analyzed as “There is at least one thing x, such that x is s and x is p.” This can be symbolized as (∃x) (sx ∧ px). (∃x) is called the “existential quantifier,” and means “There is at least one thing x such that . . .” or “Something is . . .” An existential quantifier binds an open sentence into an existential proposition. Along with the universal quantifier, it is one of the two major operators in predicate logic. For Quine, the only satisfactory or intelligible sense of existence involves being an object that is a value of a variable bound by an existential quantifier. His claim raises questions about whether quantification and hence existence are limited to objects in first-order predicate calculus. “The existential quantifier (∃x) may be read “At least one object x is such that . . .” Quine, Theories and Things existential presupposition, another name for existential import existential statement, see existential proposition existential proposition Logic, metaphysics In the traditional syllogism a proposition of the “I” form (Some P is Q) or the “O” form (Some P is not Q), which says that something having a particular property or lacking a particular property exists. Russell analyzes existential propositions by appealing to the notion of a propositional function and saying that such propositions assert or deny the truth of at least one value of a propositional function and that their subject phrases are not referring terms. For instance, “some men are mortal” can be analyzed into “there is at least one x, such that x is a man and x is mortal,” and “some men are not mortal” can be analyzed into “there is at least one x, such that x is a man and x is not mortal.” The subject-term in the original proposition moves to a predicate position in the analysis and thus loses its referring function. Sometimes Russell calls existential propositions negative general propositions, and they are also called existential statements. existentialism: as a type of philosophy, existentialism began with the works of Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, although the term “existentialism” was introduced by the French philosopher Gabriel Marcel at the end of the Second World War. At that time, existentialism became a major philosophical movement in continental Europe. It grew from hostility toward the modern rationalism that characterized the Age of Reason. This rationalism claimed that reason is our highest faculty and that it is capable of solving any problem. It held that the universe is a coherent and intelligible system, which can be comprehended in a deductive conceptual system. The rationalism culminated in Hegel’s Absolute Reason. Existentialism suggests that such belief in reason is itself irrational and rejects all purely abstract thinking. Instead of abstraction, it holds that philosophy should deal with the lives and experiences of individuals and their historical situations. Existentialism draws a fundamental distinction between essence and existence. Rationalist philosophy emphasizes essence as the abstract common nature of things. In contrast, existentialism argues that existence precedes essence and starts its philosophical work from individual and particular existence. This doctrine is the source of its name. Existentialism is characterized by its concern with individuality and concreteness. Existentialism further distinguishes two kinds of existence or being. One is the existence of things in the world that lack free will; the other, which Heidegger called Dasein, is human existence, characterized by reflection upon itself and free choice. Belief in the freedom of human beings is the most fundamental thesis of existentialism, which claims that the possibility of choice is the central fact of human nature. Existentialism takes human freedom as the basic subject-matter of its philosophical analysis. In relation to this freedom, intentionality, emotion, the absurdity of the world, and basic human experiences of anxiety, dread, and death become recurrent themes of existentialism. Major exponents of existentialism include Karl Jaspers, Gabriel Marcel, Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Albert Camus. These authors present different existentialist perspectives. They are even divided into Christian existentialists ( Jaspers and Marcel) and atheistic existentialists (the others mentioned above). Existentialism had important influence in literature and other art forms in Europe. Sometimes, existentialism is called philosophy of existence. “What is at the very heart and centre of existentialism is the absolute character of the free commitment, by which every man realises himself in realising a type of humanity – a commitment always understandable, to no matter whom in no matter what epoch – and its bearing upon the relativity of the cultural pattern which may result from such absolute commitment.” Sartre, Existentialism & Humanism exoteric Ancient Greek philosophy [from Greek exoterikos, outer, external] Aristotle called his polished and published writings, most of which were in the style of Platonic dialogues, his exoteric writings. They were intended to be read by the public and nonspecialists outside his school. In contrast, the Hellenistic Aristotelian commentators introduced the term esoteric (from Greek esoterikos, inner) for Aristotle’s treatises, which were not published except as textbooks within the school and which were accessible only to a small circle of his own disciples. When Andronics edited Aristotle’s completed works in the first century ad, he did not include the exoteric writings. This might be the reason for their loss, and they survive only in a few fragments. Later on, exoteric doctrines and rituals were easily accessible and understood by the public, while esoteric doctrines and rituals were secret and mysterious, and conveyed only to a small inner circle. existentiell-existentiale distincton, see onticoontological distinction “There are external goods and goods of the soul, . . . a distinction which we also draw in exoteric writings.” Aristotle, Eudemian Ethics Existenz: A German term having a different meaning from its English equivalent “existence.” Its specific connotations may be traced to Schelling and Kierkegaard, but it was brought to prominence by Karl Jaspers, who contrasted Existenz and Dasein. Contrary to Heidegger, he characterized Dasein as the empirical nature of a human being and the object of theoretical reflection. On his view, Existenz is authentic being or the genuine self. It is what is just mine. This authentic and unique self is infinitely open to new possibilities and cannot be thought conceptually by means of clear and distinct ideas. It is a self that is experienced and lived. Existenz is internally related to transcendence, on which it is directed, and it is realized through freedom. For Jaspers, Existenz and freedom are always interchangeable. Existenz is the ground for being, for freedom of thought, and for action. “Existenz is what never becomes object, the origin from which issues my thinking and acting, that whereof I speak in ideas which discern nothing.” Jaspers, Philosophie expected utility Ethics, philosophy of action, philosophy of social science The likelihood of the various possible outcomes of an act and their value for the agent. Under many circumstances, an agent may be faced with several possible courses of action. To decide which course of action he should take, the agent, if he is rational, should calculate the expected utility of each act and then perform the available action with the highest expected utility. Expected utility thus serves as a major reason for a rational act. But the calculation of expected utility involves some paradoxes, such as Newcomb’s problem and the St Petersburg paradox. “The expected utility of an act is the sum of all the utilities that might accrue from its performance, each multiplied by the probability that the act will produce that utility.” Ackermann, Belief and Knowledge EMPIRICUM -- experience Epistemology, philosophy of mind [from Greek empirie and Latin experientia] That which contrasts to what is merely thought or to what is accepted on the basis of authority or tradition. In philosophy, experience is generally what we perceive by the senses (sensory experience), what we learn from others, or whatever comes from external sources or from inner reflection. In this sense, experience is associated with observation and experiment. Empiricism stresses that our knowledge must be based on experience, but rationalism claims that experience is a potential source of error and prefers rational certainty to mere empirical generalization. In ordinary usage, for every experience there must be something experienced that is independent of the subject of experience. But in philosophy, the relation between experience as a state of consciousness and independent objects of experience becomes a focus of debate. There must be something given in experience, yet the status of the given is very controversial. Different answers respectively ground positions such as realism, idealism, and skepticism. The different ways of understanding the given also involve different ways of understanding the notion of sense-data. There is also debate about the relation between experience and theory. Starting with Kant, there has been a tendency to deny an account of experience as bare sensation that is unprocessed by thought. In modern philosophy of mind a major theme, which bears on many theoretical issues, concerns the alleged privacy of an experience as an event knowable only to its possessor and the possibility of public access to that experience. “Whence has it all the materials of reason and knowledge? To this I answer, in one word, from experience; in that all our knowledge is founded, and from that it ultimately derives itself.” Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding experiential proposition another term for basic proposition or protocol sentence experimentalism Philosophy of science, epistemology A term for Dewey’s form of pragmatism, which he also called instrumentalism or practicalism. Dewey believed that the pattern and standard for knowledge should be modern science and modern scientific methods, in particular the method of experiment. His thinking focuses on the analysis and evaluation of experiment. He claimed that the task of philosophy is the critical evaluation of belief and that the function of concepts is practical. Problem solving is an experiment in coping with ever new situations. Knowledge can only be understood within its context and must be justified in practical matters. Experimentalism is a theory of knowledge. It places emphasis on direct action and scientific control, and concerns methods and consequences. Dewey’s claims have played an important role in American intellectual culture. His emphasis on experiment corrects an excessive concentration on theory and observation in rival approaches to science. “Since the method of modern science culminates in experimentation, Dewey’s philosophy becomes pre-eminently the philosophy of experiment. It becomes experimentalism.” Werkmeister, A History of Philosophical Ideas in America H. P. GRICE, “THE WHY.” explanandum, see explanation -- explanans, see explanation -- explanation Philosophy of science, epistemology An account characteristically telling us why something exists or happens or must exist or happen. To explain is to increase knowledge, remove perplexity, and explication diminish surprise. All theories have the function of explaining, but the nature of explanation is a philosophical issue. In an explanation, the thing being explained is called the explanandum, and the things used to explain it are called the explanans. An explanation is a general conclusion about the explanandum derived from the explanans. The standard view about the nature of scientific explanation is the covering law model of explanation. This view was proposed by Mill and fully elaborated by Hempel, and it holds that to explain is to put a particular event under a general law. This model is further divided into two types. For deductive-nomological explanation, if a law is deterministic, we may deduce an explanation of an event from the law and the antecedent conditions. For statistical explanation, if a law is probabilistic or statistical, the explanation is probabilistic. One difficulty faced by the covering model is how to explain the highest level of general laws. Various alternative views about explanation have been developed. Some philosophers suggest a causal approach, claiming that to explain is to identify the underlying mechanisms that produce events, states, and regularities. Others believe that to explain is provide a coherent unification of phenomena. Still others argue that explanation needs to be adjusted to the epistemic or practical needs of the audience. There is debate about whether explanation requires necessity (thus ruling out statistical explanation) and about how claims to natural necessity could be justified. There is also debate over Dilthey’s contrast between scientific explanation and historical understanding. Some argue that particularistic historical explanation and narrative explanation differs in kind from explanation in terms of laws. To explain a human action is normally to appeal to the beliefs and desires that provide the agent’s reasons for so acting. Whether this kind of explanation can conform to the covering law model is also a matter of controversy. “An individual fact is said to be explained, by pointing out its cause, that by stating the law or laws of causation, of which its production is an instance.” The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, vol. VII -- explanation sketch: a term introduced by Carl Hempel, who argues that the paradigm of scientific explanation is given by the covering law model. According to this model, we explain a particular event by bringing it under a general covering law. Hempel claims that historical explanation also conforms to this pattern. However, there are rarely general laws in history in the way that there are general natural scientific laws, and normally historians do not explain particular actions by appealing to any universal law. Therefore, there seems to be a limitation to applying a model of scientific explanation to the work of historians. Hempel recognizes this limitation, but maintains that historical explanation and scientific explanation remain the same type in principle. They differ only because scientists seek to offer full explanations, while historians offer explanation sketches, which vaguely and incompletely approximate fully warranted scientific explanations. An explanation sketch is an outline of what a full explanation would be if it could be discovered. The validity of an explanation sketch relies on its capacity to indicate what must be done in order to transform it into a completely satisfactory explanation. In spite of the attractions of a unified account of explanation, many philosophers of history have questioned the adequacy of the explanation sketch model and have explored alternative accounts of historical explanation. “What the explanatory analysis of historical events offers is, then, in most cases not an explanation in one of the meanings developed above, but something that might be called an explanation sketch. Such a sketch consists of a more or less vague indication of the laws and initial conditions considered as relevant, and needs ‘filling out’ in order to turn into a full-fledged explanation.” Hempel, “The Function of General Law in History,” in Gardiner (ed.), Theories of History -- explanation/understanding, see understanding/ explanation explication Philosophy of language, logic A term introduced by Carnap for the modification or replacement of an expression of natural language or a pretheoretic concept by a logically or theoretically more explicit expression or concept. The purpose of explication is to reduce or eliminate vagueness or ambiguity, or to establish the logical relation between an expression and other explicit expressions in a domain. What is to be modified is called the explicandum, and it is replaced by the explicatum. In analytic philosophy, explication, as a synonym for analysis or explanation, has been considered to be the main task of logical analysis. “By the explication of a familiar but vague concept we mean its replacement by a new exact concept.” Carnap, Meaning and Necessity explicit definition Logic, philosophy of language An explicit definition defines a term by means of other terms and states directly and explicitly its intension, the necessary and sufficient conditions for the term’s applicability. An explicit definition is equivalent to the word being defined. As a result, the definiendum and the definiens become interchangeable in any context without a change of meaning. For instance, that “man is a rational animal” is an explicit definition. So, wherever we use the term “man,” we can substitute “rational animal” for it. An explicit definition is what we normally understand a definition to be. It can be contrasted to an implicit definition, which defines a term by stating that it is implied by certain axioms rather than by directly stating its intension. “An explicit definition is a rule legitimising substitution of one symbol for another, and in virtue of such a rule the defined symbol may always be eliminated and replaced by the definiens without change of meaning of the sentence in which it occurs.” Pap, Elements of Analytic Philosophy exportation Logic A principle of inference, which states that a conditional statement having conjunctive antecedents can be replaced by a conditional statement having conditional consequents. From the premise “If p and q, then r” [(p ∧ q) → r], we can conclude “if p, then if q then r” [(p → (if q → r)]. This inference is indeed a strict implication and can therefore be expressed as [(p ∧ q) → r] ↔ [(p → (if q → r)]. The reverse of this inference is also true and is called importation. “If p implies p and q implies q, then if pq implies r, then p implies that q implies r. This is . . . called exportation.” Russell, Principles of Mathematics EXPRESSUM -- expression theory Aesthetics A theory, developed by Croce, Cassirer, Santayana, Dewey, Collingwood, and Ducasse, holding that all works of art are expressions of the emotions and feelings of their artists. The properties of an artwork can be designated by the same words that designate the feelings, emotions, attitudes, and moods of human beings. Artistic creation originates with the highly specific but chaotically indeterminate emotional states of an artist. Such a state drives an artist to endeavor to articulate, clarify, and stabilize this emotion or feeling. An artwork is the intuitionalizing of this feeling and the embodiment of it in some definite and tangible concrete form. Hence, artistic creation is a process of achieving self-expression. Beauty is successful expression. For instance, the meaning of a musical work is its expression of a psychological state or quality, such as fortitude, melancholy, or gaiety. The appreciation of art requires us to retrieve the psychological states undergone by the artist during creation. The expression theory rejects any instrumentalist view of art. It argues that the production of art is not a matter of technique, which is essential only for crafts rather than for art proper. The concrete form of an artwork is merely a vehicle for communicating artistic feeling. This theory is influenced by Hegel’s idealism and a version of it has been associated with Freudian psychological theory. It has been criticized for ignoring the capacity for art to express religious and philosophical ideas as well as the artist’s emotions, and for ignoring the individuality and peculiarities of artworks. Critics also point out that judging a work of art does not require one to recreate the psychological processes involved in its production. “Expression theory, in replacing the beauty theory of art and the concept of art as imitation, whether of a naturalistic reality or a beautiful reality, found the essence of art to lie in the very process of expression itself.” Hofstadter, Truth and Art extended logic, see deviant logic extended substance, see thinking substance extension: In contrast to intension, connotation, or meaning, but sometimes used as a synonym for denotation or reference. The extension of a general term or a predicate expression is the class or the range of entities of which the general term or predicate expression is true or to which this term applies. For example, the extension of the general term “green” is the whole set of things of which it is true to say that they are green. The extension of a proper name is the individual object to which it refers. For instance, England is the extension of the term “England.” Frege held that a proposition is also an extension, namely its truth-value. Something is called extensional if it pertains to extension. “The extension of a term . . . is the set of things to which it is applicable.” Kneale and Kneale, The Development of Logic extension (metaphysics) Metaphysics, philosophy of science For Descartes, geometric extension in length, breadth, and depth is the defining characteristic of matter or corporeal substance, just as thought is of thinking substances. Extension and thought are respectively the principal properties or attributes of the two substances, for they constitute the essence of matter and mind. A body may extend in many ways and this is the grounding of the various properties of matter. But all these are simply modes of extension. This idea is echoed by Spinoza, who also believed that extension and thinking are two attributes of substance. To explain physical phenomena in terms of the modifications of the simple geometrical attributes of extension is to replace the scholastic notion of substantial form. “By ‘extension’ we mean whatever has length, breadth and depth, leaving aside the question whether it is a real body or merely a space.” Descartes, The Philosophical Writings, vol. 1 extensional logic, see intensional logic extensionalism Logic, philosophy of language, philosophy of science An approach in the philosophy of logic and semantics, associated with Frege, Russell, Carnap, and especially Quine, that reduces the intensional to the extensional. Intensional meaning presupposes the existence of meant entities and is definable only in terms of other intensional ideas. In contrast, extensional meaning implies that terms solely designate existent objects and that co-designating terms are interchangeable in any syntactical context without loss of truth-value (salva veritate). Extensionalism argues that the idea of intensional meaning is obscure and a myth and suggests that legitimate scientific theory can only be extensional. It rejects reference to non-existent objects and propositional attitudes expressed in intensional terms. This theory is based on the thesis of extensionality formulated by Carnap, which states that once the obscurities and confusions of ordinary language are revealed and all non-existents are excluded, all sentences made in an intensional language can be translated entirely into an extensional language. Extensionalism has been further developed by Quine, who suggests that an adequate logic should eliminate all intensional contexts, such as propositional attitudes, quotational, and modal contexts because they fail to permit quantification and fail to support the substitution salva veritate of extensionally co-designating terms. “Extensionalism, as we are using this term, is a version of scepticism, about the scientific feasibility of attempting to explicate the concept of meaning. According to the extensionalist position, the logical form of sentences and expressions in natural language can be accounted for on the basis of the concept of extension, without recourse to the concept of meaning.” Katz, Semantic Theory extensionality, axiom of Logic A postulate of set theory formulated by Zermelo, which states that two sets or classes are identical if and only if they have the same members. Any sets A and B that are alike in members are identical. Hence, a set is determined by its members. This axiom is a form of the indiscernibility of identicals or Leibniz’s law, according to which if two things are identical, their properties are the same. “One axiom that we shall certainly want in some form or other is that of extensionality, also known as that of Bestimmtheit or definiteness: classes are the same whose members are the same.” Quine, Set Theory and Its Logic extensionality, thesis of Logic, philosophy of language A thesis introduced by Carnap and providing the basis for extensionalism. It states that once the obscurities and confusions of ordinary language are revealed and all nonexistents are excluded, all sentences formed in an intensional language can be translated entirely into an extensional language. For any non-extensional system there is an extensional system into which it can be translated. In an extensional system, given any statement s that contains a proposition p as a part, we can substitute for p any other proposition which has the same truth-value as p without altering the truth-value of s. Thus, in any statement about a propositional function, any formally equivalent function may be substituted without changing the truth-value of the statement. Accordingly, statements in any language can be translated while keeping the same truth-value. This thesis, however, is not true of propositions asserting propositional attitudes. “We will now formulate the thesis of extensionality in a way which is at the same time more complete and less ambitious, namely, a universal language of science may be extensional; or, more exactly: for every given intensional language S1, an extensional language S2 may be constructed such that S1 can be translated into S2.” Carnap, The Logical Syntax of Language extensive magnitude Metaphysics, philosophy of science For Kant, extensive magnitudes are the spatial-temporal dimensions that can be used to measure things of certain types. In contrast, intensive magnitudes are degrees of intensiveness of a sense experience and are matters of quality rather than quantity. A physical object has extensive magnitude, while beauty has an intensive magnitude. Kant held that the principal feature of the axioms of intuition is that “all intuitions are extensive magnitudes,” and that the principal feature of the anticipations of perception is that “in all appearances, the real that is an object of sensation has intensive magnitude, that is, a degree.” “I entitled a magnitude extensive when the representation of the parts makes possible, and therefore necessarily precedes, the representation of the whole.” Kant, Critique of Pure Reason EXTERNUS -- external perception, see inner perception external point of view, see internal point of view external property, see right (Kant) external questions, see internal questions external relation Logic, metaphysics, epistemology When A stands in relation R to B, if R is not a constitutive element of either A or B, it is an external and unessential relation, for it is a contingent matter for A and B to be related in this way. Otherwise, the relation is an intrinsic or internal relation. The distinction between external and internal relations can be traced to Hume’s distinction between relations of fact and relations of ideas, and became a major argument for the rejection of absolute idealism by Moore and Russell and a point of contention between Royce’s idealism and neo-realism. According to idealism, the existence of things depends on their being experienced, and hence the relation between the things and experience of them is internal. But realism claims that things exist outside of experience and are connected with consciousness by external relations. The contents of things are not made up of their relations to consciousness. The knowledge relation is not constitutive of the objects of knowledge. The nature of reality cannot be inferred merely from the nature of knowledge. For realism, the idealist view of the internal relation between knowing and known involves an egocentric predicament. “A relation is internal, as I shall use the term, when given certain terms with certain natures, the relation must hold between the terms. It holds ‘in every possible world’ that contains those terms and where these terms have these natures. With an external relation there is no such necessity.” D. Armstrong, Universals -- external world Metaphysics, epistemology The external world comprises the system of things and events external to our perceptions. Since perception is relative to one individual, other persons may also be parts of the external world. The central philosophical problem about the external world is as follows. Since perception is the only channel by which we as subjects are connected with the world, how do we know whether perception gives us correct reports about the world? Formulated another way, the problem becomes how to make sense of perceptual statements. Our experience does not seem to be any different when it correctly represents the external world and when it does not. Can we directly perceive the external world, or must there be a medium of sense-data? This is one of the most important philosophical issues, and various major philosophical doctrines, such as realism, phenomenalism, and skepticism, arise from our attempts to solve problems about our knowledge of the external world. “The experient himself has no way of telling, internally to his experience, whether the relationship holds between the immediate content of his experience and what it represents. This makes acute the so-called problem of the external world.” Danto, Analytical Philosophy of Language -- externalism Epistemology, philosophy of language A theory of epistemic justification, which is opposed to internalism. It denies that the justification of a belief requires the believer to be aware of the cognitive process of the given belief. Internalism, which holds that one must have this awareness, has difficulty in explaining the ascription of knowledge to unsophisticated adults or to young children, and in explaining some classical problems, such as induction. Externalism suggests instead that the nature of a belief is at least partly determined by the surrounding objective world, rather than solely subjectively. Therefore, justification requires the consideration of factors external to one’s consciousness. Externalism thus links justification to truth. There are various forms of externalism, and the most influential include reliabilism, which claims that justification depends on the reliability of the cognitive process generating the belief, and probabilism, which claims that justification should be evaluated in terms of probability. In the philosophy of language, externalism claims that to understand a sentence S descriptively is to know under what conditions S is true. -- “The externalist . . . insists that a belief can be justified even though the knower is ignorant of that justification.” Maddy, Realism in Mathematics externalism (ethics) Ethics Ethical externalism (also called motivational externalism) holds that the justification of an action is separate from the motivation, for the former is merely an issue about the degree to which an action conforms to the best moral principles. A person’s belief that he ought to do something is the reason for him to do that thing, regardless of whether he has motivation. To recognize a moral truth is one thing, and to be motivated by it is quite another. Externalism is opposed to internalism (also called motivational internalism), which maintains that we accept a moral truth only if we have at least a prima facie motivation for acting under the guidance of that moral truth. “Externalism holds . . . that the necessary motivation is not supplied by ethical principles and judgements themselves, and that an additional psychological sanction is required to motivate our compliance.” T. Nagel, The Possibility of Altruism extra-human fertilization, another expression for in vitro fertilization extrinsic value Ethics Also called instrumental value or extrinsic good, the value which is pursued not for its own sake, but for the sake of something else, especially for the beneficial consequences it will bring about. It is contrasted with intrinsic value, which is pursued in and for itself. A thing has an extrinsic value because it is a means to the achievement of intrinsic value or because it in some sense contributes to such achievement. For instance, if we exercise for the sake of health, exercise is extrinsically valuable while health is intrinsically valuable. One thing can sometimes be both intrinsically and extrinsically valuable. “The intrinsically valuable is usually described as that which is good in itself or good for its own sake; the extrinsically valuable, as that which has value as instrumental to something else.” C. Lewis, An Analysis of Knowledge and Valuation FACTUM -- fact Metaphysics, logic, philosophy of language [from Latin factum, originally something done, a deed or an action] Starting in the seventeenth century, a fact is described as a set of objects in the objective world, related in certain ways that can be stated by a proposition or judgment. The constituents of facts are things and qualities or relations. While things are named but not asserted, facts are asserted but not named. Facts must be expressed by a sentence rather than by a single term. Facts are objects of propositions and decide their truth or falsity. Wittgenstein claims in his Tractatus that the world is the totality of facts, not of things, and that the ultimate constituents of the world are atomic facts. Facts can be either positive (the s is p) or negative (the s is not p). We can also distinguish between particular facts (the s is p) and universal facts (all s’s are p), and between brute facts (which involve no rules or institutions, such as the fact that I raise my hand) and institutional facts (which depend on rules or institutions, such as the fact that I promise). There is also a distinction between fact (what is) and value (what ought to be). The view that facts are independent of propositions and that the truth and falsity of propositions is determined by whether they are paired with the facts which they state is central to the correspondence theory of truth. -- “We express a fact, for example, when we say that a certain thing has a certain property, or that it has a certain relation to another thing; but the thing which has the property or the relation is not what I call a ‘fact’.” Russell, Logic and Knowledge -- fact/value gap, see is/ought gap facticity Modern European philosophy Heidegger held that facticity comprises the concrete situations and the cultural and historical contexts into which Dasein finds itself thrown a priori, and which constitute the concrete limitations of human possibilities. As one component of care, facticity is a mode of Being of Dasein. In contrast, Heidegger called what are merely material and non-human conditions factuality. Dasein exists not factually, but factically. Its facticity indicates that Dasein cannot transcend its concrete situations as a free-floating spirit, but must have its Being in the world. Facticity is disclosed by one of Dasein’s existentiales, that is, its state of mind. For Sartre, facticity was the set of facts relevant or given to the person, for example his physical characteristics, his parents, and his unique position. It represents the contingency of human existence and belongs to being-in-itself. According to Sartre, this finitude of human existence does not determine our freedom or our fundamental project. Instead, it is the basis faith upon which we make our free choices. An infinite being does not need to exercise choice, and human choice consists precisely in discovering a person’s facticity and seeking to negate or surpass its limitations toward existing as an ideal self-determinating being. the faculties of law, medicine, and theology were considered to be the higher faculties and the faculty of philosophy was considered to belong to the lower faculties because it was only propaedeutic to the above studies. “The concept of ‘facticity’ implies that an entity ‘within-the-world’ has Being-in-the-world in such a way that it can understand itself as bound up in its ‘destiny’ with the Being of those entities which it encounters within its own world.” Heidegger, “It is best, I think, to confine the use of the word ‘faculty’ exclusively to ultimate and irreducible powers of the mind. Used in this way . . . the reference of mental process to faculties, e.g. to faculties of cognition, conation, and feeling, seems unexceptionable.” Campbell, On Selfhood and Goodhood. Being and Time FACTUM factual phenomenalism, see phenomenalism FACULTAS -- faculty Philosophy of mind [from Latin facultas, derived from facilis, easy + facere, make; Greek dunamis] Aristotle gave two definitions for faculty: (1) a power or function of soul to cause something, such as volition, sense, and intellect; and (2) a potentiality which would be actualized by form. Both Aristotelian senses persisted through medieval philosophy to modern philosophy, but faculty has come increasingly to be used in the first sense. Kant distinguished the faculties (German Vermogen) of the soul, which include the faculties of knowledge, feeling of pleasure and displeasure, and desire, and the faculties of cognition, which include the lower faculties of sensibility and the higher faculties of reason, judgment, and understanding. He then established analogies between the faculties of soul and the higher faculties of cognition. The faculty of knowledge is related to that of understanding, and both are applied to the area of nature. The faculty of reason is related to that of desire, and both are applied to the area of freedom. The faculty of judgment is related to the feeling of pleasure and displeasure, and both are applied to the area of art. Modern psychologists have criticized the use of the notion of faculty, but the extent to which this calls for revision in Kantian doctrine is uncertain. An appeal to the notion of faculty in doing philosophy was popular in German idealism, but was attacked by Nietzsche. In an extended sense, since the Middle Ages a faculty has been a part of the structure of a university. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, fairness Political philosophy Equal, proportional, and impartial treatment, constituting a virtue of any institution that involves the distribution of goods and responsibilities. Aristotle distinguished between a general notion of justice, as the obedience to laws and regulations, and a particular notion of justice, as the fair distribution of honors and money. This particular notion of justice connects justice with fairness, a bond that is fully exploited by John Rawls, who claims in his 1958 paper “Justice as Fairness” that the most basic and important idea in the conception of justice is fairness. The contemporary discussion of fairness is directed against utilitarianism, which emphasizes the total amount of utility in a given consequential state of affairs, but ignores the issue of whether that utility is distributed fairly among individuals. In contrast to traditional contractualism which considers consent to be the only basis for political obligation, the notion of fairness also provides an independent source for obligation. For if a person participates in and benefits from a rule-governed, co-operative, and just society, that person has a duty to follow the rules. This is called the principle of fairness, but it is claimed by some critics to lead to tyrannical oppression of individuals. “Now by definition the requirements specified by the principle of fairness are the obligations. All obligations arise in this way.” Rawls, A Theory of Justice faith Philosophy of religion [from Latin fides, also meaning trust or loyalty] Voluntary acceptance of views that are not supported rationally or empirically or that cannot be so supported, especially in association with religious belief. Faith is therefore contrasted with philosophical and scientific knowledge. The term became philosophically prominent with Paul, who took it as a Christian attitude of belief in the words or works of Christ. Paul’s conception of faith as the gift of God was greatly developed by Augustine and Aquinas. How to reconcile the tension between faith and knowledge has been a major philosophical theme since medieval times. For Kant, faith is the acceptance of transcendental ideas, God, freedom, and immortality, which are beyond the realm of experience and are therefore not objects of theoretical knowledge. They nevertheless play a great role in moral affairs. Hegel, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche all dealt extensively with the topic of faith. Faith is also an ethical term for keeping promises. “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God.” Paul, in New Testament, Ephesians 2:8 fallacy Logic [from Latin fallax, deceptive] A term for a seemingly valid but actually erroneous argument or piece of reasoning. An invalid inference which occurs as a result of mistakes in the logical form of an argument gives rise to formal fallacy. Formal fallacies are violations of the formal rules of inference and are dealt with in formal logic. More often, fallacies arise informally. They do not involve a mistake in formal inference, but arise from the misapplication of a contextual method or a tactic to get a conclusion accepted. The investigation of informal fallacies is an important part of logic because we must learn to avoid them if logic can be trusted. Each of the various principal types of informal fallacy receives an entry in this dictionary. “A fallacy is an argument which appears to be conclusive when it is not.” Joseph, An Introduction to Logic SOPHISMA -- fallacy of accent Logic A fallacy originally noticed by Aristotle, in which an argument proceeds to a conclusion by changing the syllabic accent of a word and hence causing its meaning to be changed. Such an argument is, of course, invalid. It is later expanded to cover cases in which one argues by emphasizing different parts of a sentence hence changing its meaning. It is also called the fallacy of emphasis, and usually occurs in spoken language. “The fallacy of accent is committed whenever a statement is accented in such a way as to change its meaning, and is employed in an argument.” Carney and Scheer, Fundamentals of Logic -- fallacy of accident Logic Aristotle claimed that it is a fallacy to take an accidental property to be an essential one. The most often quoted example is: “This dog is yours; this dog is a father; therefore this dog is your father.” A fallacy of accident later came to be considered erroneous reasoning from a general rule to a particular case having accidental circumstances which prevent the general rule from applying to it unless the general rule is qualified in some way. For instance, “It is a virtue to tell the truth; so I should tell John that he has cancer.” In such a characterization, a fallacy of accident is always equated with a fallacy of secundum quid, although the latter covers a wider range. “The fallacy of accident consists in applying a general rule to a particular case whose ‘accidental’ circumstances render the rule inapplicable.” Copi, Introduction to Logic -- fallacy of ambiguity Logic Also called the fallacy of clearness, or for Aristotle a sophism. Aristotle held that this kind of fallacy arises from ambiguity in words or in the sentences that contain ambiguous words. It is a fallacy if during the course of argument the meanings of the ambiguous words shift so that the conclusion is not validly established. The major forms of this kind of fallacy include the fallacy of accent, fallacy of amphiboly, fallacy of equivocation, fallacy of composition, and fallacy of division. To avoid these fallacies, we need to distinguish the meanings of the words carefully. “Fallacies of ambiguity are arguments which are incorrect or invalid because of some ambiguity in the language, for example, because a word, phrase, or statement can be understood in different ways.” Carney and Scheer, Fundamentals of Logic -- fallacy of many questions fallacy of clearness, see fallacy of ambiguity fallacy of the complex question, another name for fallacy of many questions -- For example, “Chinese is difficult. I am a Chinese, therefore I am difficult.” This fallacy is different from the fallacy of accent, for words differently accented are not strictly the same word. “In the simplest case of fallacies dependent on language the ambiguity can be traced to doublemeaning in a single word. This is the Fallacy of Equivocation.” Hamblin, Fallacies -- fallacy of composition Logic An erroneous kind of reasoning that argues that if each part of a whole has a certain property, then the whole has that property. For instance, “If each component of this car is of good quality, the car is of good quality.” The term is also used for arguments from the premise that each individual member of a collection has a certain attribute, to the conclusion that the collection has that attribute. The argument is invalid because it mistakenly assumes that the whole or collection is a simple aggregation of the parts or individual members. The converse is the fallacy of division, which argues that if a whole or collection has a certain property, then each of its parts or members has that property. For example, “The United States is rich, so each citizen of the US is rich.” This fallacy fails to realize that there is not such a transference relationship between a whole and its parts. Both the fallacy of composition and the fallacy of division are examples of the fallacy of ambiguity, for they often involve a confusion between the distributive use and the collective use of a word. -- fallacy of false cause Logic Also called the fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc (Latin, after this, therefore because of this). The argument reasons that of two correlated things A and B, because A is prior to B in time, A is the cause of B. For instance, “I usually drink tea after lunch; therefore, lunch is the cause of my drinking tea.” This is incorrect because it confuses succession and causation. It moves from a merely temporal sequence of events to a causal sequence. The alleged cause is not really responsible for the consequence and is not the cause at all. Hence this fallacy is also called non causa pro causa because it mistakes what is not the cause for a real cause. -- “The fallacy of composition consists in reasoning from what is true only of the parts of some whole to what is true to the whole.” Carney and Scheer, -- fallacy of hasty generation, see fallacy of secundum quid -- “Any argument in which one mistakes what is not the cause of a given effect for its real cause is a false cause fallacy.” Carney and Scheer, Fundamentals of Logic -- Fundamentals of Logic -- fallacy of converse accident, see fallacy of secundum quid fallacy of division, see fallacy of composition fallacy of emphasis, another name for fallacy of accent fallacy of equivocation Logic The simplest form of fallacy of ambiguity. An ambiguous word or statement is used more than once in the same argument, with the meaning shifting implicitly but significantly between uses. It therefore leads to a misleading or mistaken conclusion. -- fallacy of many questions Logic Also called the fallacy of the complex question. A asks B a question and demands a simple yes or no answer. But the question implies some unwarranted presupposition that needs to be answered separately. A simple yes or no answer will make B concede the unwarranted presupposition. For example, “Have you stopped beating your father?” No matter whether B answers yes or no, he concedes that he has beaten his father at some time, but that might not be true at all. “There remains lastly the fallacy of many questions. This consists in putting questions in such a form that any single answer involves more than one admission.” Joseph, An Introduction to Logic -- fallacy of scope, see scope -- fallacy of secundum quid Logic [Latin, derived from Greek para to pe, in a certain aspect] The fallacy of neglecting qualification, which trades on the mistaken idea that what is true with certain qualifications is also true without them. It is always identified with the fallacy of accident, which applies a general principle or rule without regard to the specific aspects of the circumstances of its application. Secundum quid has an additional form, which generalizes a rule from one instance that may be atypical or exceptional. In this form it is the fallacy of hasty generalization or the fallacy of converse accident, because contrary to the fallacy of accident, it moves from the particular to the general. For example, “Smith is British, and he is very cold toward other people; therefore all British people are cold.” “The fallacy of secundum quid . . . consists in using a principle or proposition without regard to the circumstances which modify its applicability in the case or kind of cases before us.” Joseph, An Introduction to Logic -- fallacy of the undistributed middle Logic One basic rule for a valid syllogistic inference is that the term common to the two premises (the middle term) must be distributed in at least one premise, that is, the premise must imply every other premise formed by replacing the original term by other terms with part of its extension. If this rule is violated, the inference commits the fallacy of the undistributed middle, and is invalid. For example, “Smith is intelligent,” and “All philosophers are intelligent,” therefore “Smith is a philosopher.” This syllogism is incorrect, because the middle term “intelligent” in both premises is a predicate of an affirmative proposition and is distributed in neither premise. “Since people may be persuaded that syllogisms with undistributed middle terms are valid when they are not, the term ‘fallacy’ is used.” Carney and Scheer, Fundamentals of Logic of our beliefs can be revised. A false conclusion might be derived from inductive or deductive inferences. An individually held proposition that is considered to be certain might be false in a web of belief. Rightly understood, relinquishing certainty does not open the way to skeptical doubt, but is instead a motivation for further investigation. This attitude is opposed to infallibilism, which is held, for example, by religions that declare that their teachings are absolutely right and are not subject to error. All views that accept the possibility of error or hold that knowledge is in principle indeterminate and modifiable are fallibilist. Hence, Reichenbach, Popper, and Quine are all fallibilists. “For years in the course of this ripening process, I used for myself to collect my ideas under the designation fallibilism; and indeed the first step toward finding out is to acknowledge you do not satisfactorily know already.” Peirce, Collected Papers, vol. I fallingness, see authenticity falsifiability Logic, philosophy of science Popper’s term, also called testability or refutability, for the property of a theory that it is potentially refutable. In opposition to logical positivism, Popper held that science is not about verifying hypotheses or theories, but falsifying them. Falsifiability is the criterion of demarcation between science and pseudo-science. A genuine explanation must have falsifiable consequences. If a statement or a theory is unfalsifiable, it is pseudo-scientific. Any hypothesis or conjecture, once refuted, must be superseded by other hypotheses. This is the logic of scientific discovery. If a conjecture survives refutation, then it is temporarily corroborated, but that does not mean that it is confirmed. The theory of falsifiability expresses Popper’s hostility to justificationism. “Since a low probability means a high probability of being falsified, it follows that a high degree of falsifiability, or refutability, or testability, is one of the aims of science.” Popper, Conjectures and Refutation fallibilism Epistemology, philosophy of science Peirce’s term for the view that none of our beliefs, even the apparently most fundamental, is certain and that any falsification Philosophy of science Popper’s term for the rejection or refutation of a scientific hypothesis or theory fatalism on the basis of its confrontation with counterexamples. Falsifiability, which is opposed to verifiability, is a property of a theory itself. Falsification, which is opposed to verification, is an empirical method for testing the truth of a theory. Popper claimed that it is impossible to verify a theory, that is, to guarantee its truth, by the inductive method. A theory supported by confirming evidence has not been confirmed, but only corroborated. It is still open to countless chances of falsification. Scientific claims need the test of falsification rather than verification. A theory that is unfalsifiable is unscientific. Science develops through falsification. “Thus, there is no induction: we never argue from facts to theories, unless by way of refutation or falsification.” Popper, The Philosophy of Karl Popper falsificationism, see justificationism family resemblance Philosophy of language The term can be traced to Nietzsche, but becomes prominent through the later Wittgenstein’s discussion about the essence of language. Traditional essentialism holds that a general term such as “language” or “game” must have a single common property to connect all entities subsumed under it. But Wittgenstein rejects this view. Items under many general terms are like a family, the different members of which resemble one another in different ways with a whole series of overlapping similarities. These relationships and similarities are called family resemblance. This notion is meant to show that there is no need to depart from actual ordinary languages to search for a sublime underlying structure in which each term would have a uniform essence. Accordingly, we should trace out those relationships needed for any investigation, rather than seeking a definition specifying necessary and sufficient conditions for the application of a term. This account of family resemblance can be applied more generally as an attempted general solution to the traditional problem of universals. “I can think of no better expression to characterise these similarities than ‘family resemblance’.” Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations fascism Political philosophy [from Latin fasces, the bundle of ax and rods carried before Roman consuls as a symbol of authority] A political doctrine, in opposition to liberalism and socialism, which was originally proposed in early twentieth-century Italy by Mussolini and the neo-Hegelian philosopher Giovanni Gentile. The doctrine was deeply influenced by the Hegelian theory of the state and combined extreme nationalism with extreme communitarianism. Fascism rejects individualism by claiming that a nation is an organic entity rather than an aggregate of individuals with basic rights. It propounds irrationality and particularity in contrast to rationality and universality. It supports the role of the government as the upholder of moral integrity and the nation’s collective purpose. It advocates an authoritarian state in which the government controls all aspects of social life. In practice, Mussolini’s fascist government denied freedom of speech to individuals and appealed to violence. The term ‘fascism’ was later used to characterize Hitler’s National Socialism (Nazi) and other European regimes influenced by Hitler and Mussolini. Through Hitler, fascism became associated with genocidal anti-Semitism, but other fascist regimes were militaristic. Since the Second World War, the term has been taken as a symbol of evil, which is applied to any oppressive and totalitarian political regime or action. Some political theorists seek to understand how fascist regimes arose in the context of modernity. “Fascism is a genus of political ideology whose mythic core in its various permutations is a palingenetic form of populist ultranationalism.” Griffin, The Nature of Fascism fatalism Metaphysics, philosophy of action The doctrine that what will happen is predetermined and it will happen whatever attempt we make to intervene. Human action is ineffectual regarding these events. Fatalism might be derived from logical principles, especially about future contingents, from the assumption of perfect divine foreknowledge, or from the principle of causality, which claims that everything is causally determined. Fatalism is distinguished from determinism in the sense that determinism, although it is also based on the principle of causality, still admits that human action may effectively cause one event rather than another, while fatalism characteristically denies any human effect on the future. Stoicism is a typical representative of fatalism. “That the course of events will be what it will be is a logical truism; yet many people are reluctant to admit it, because they think that it commits them to some sort of fatalism.” Ayer, The Problem of Knowledge -- fate Ethics, philosophy of religion [from Latin fatum, what is spoken or decreed] The necessity in things which makes them happen as they do and, in particular, a person’s appointed lot, which is beyond his own control. Fate is usually personified as an agency acting according to its own will and not bound by causation. Fate is cursed or praised according to the bad luck or good fortune it brings to a person. In ancient Greece, Stoics claim that it is idle to speak of free will if a man’s fate is not up to himself. In On Fate, Cicero argues that if there is free will, everything does not happen by fate; if everything does not happen by fate, there is no predetermination; but without predetermination, God has no foreknowledge. Medieval philosophers ask how we can be responsible for the evil we do if God predetermines our fate. “ ‘Fate’: a name given by some people not to the position of the stars but to a chain of causes dependent on God’s will.” Augustine, City of God fear, see anxiety Grice’s Byzantine feeling Philosophy of mind [Greek pathos, feeling, passion, from paschein, to undergo, to be affected, to suffer] What happens to anything that suffers or is affected. As a reaction to external stimuli, pathos is a mode of passivity rather than activity. Feeling or passion is generally taken to be a synonym for emotion, that is, the intense impulses, such as anguish, rage, or love, which directly affect one’s perception and behavior. From Plato onwards, the central tradition of Western philosophy has contrasted passion with reason and has regarded passion with suspicion, as something displaying a lack of discipline, exercising a corruptive power and distorting perception and deliberation. Aristotle usually confined pathos to states of the soul that involve pleasure or pain, including the desires and feelings of the nonrational part of the soul. A virtuous person has feeling but can control it, whereas the young and the incontinent are always controlled by their feeling. Many philosophers believe that a good man should have reason as the master of his passions, and Spinoza especially had subtle and interesting things to say about the use of emotions in the rational management of emotion. Hume claimed that reason has no motivating role in action and is the slave of passion. There is a counter-discourse that positively evaluates the role of passion. This tendency is apparent in the irrationalism of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche and in the work of Heidegger and subsequent existentialists. The American philosopher Martha Nussbaum argues that passion has its own cognitive role, and other philosophers try to distinguish between rational and irrational passion. “I call feeling appetite, anger, fear, confidence, envy, joy, friendliness, hatred, longing, emulation, pity and in general what is accompanied by pleasure or distress.” Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics Feigl, Herbert (1902–88) Austro-Hungarian logical positivist philosopher of science and philosopher of psychology, born in Reicheburg, Professor at the University of Minnesota. Feigl was a major proponent of logical positivism in the Vienna Circle, which he helped to found, and after emigration in the United States. He argued on empirical grounds for the identity of mental states and physical states, but denied the reduction of mental concepts to physical concepts. His major works include “The ‘Mental’ and the ‘Physical’ ” in H. Feigl et al. (eds.), Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol. 2 (1958) and Inquiries and Provocations: Selected Writings 1929–1974 (1981). Feinberg, Joel (1926–2004) American moral, political, and legal philosopher, born in Detroit, Michigan, Professor of Philosophy at University of Arizona. Feinberg’s work focuses on individual liberty and on the justification for state interference with a person’s behavior. He allows criminal sanctions against harm and extreme offense to others, but rejects criminalizing self-harm or immorality. He also argues that the state should not require behavior solely on the grounds that it will feminist epistemology benefit the agent or others. His major works include Doing and Deserving (1970), Rights, Justice and the Bounds of Liberty (1980), and The Moral Limits of the Criminal Law, 4 vols. (1984–8). felicity calculus, see hedonistic calculus feminism Ethics, political philosophy, epistemology A movement based on the belief that the traditional relationship between men and women is one of male domination over women. Feminism has the overall goal of removing all forms of subordination of women to men and obtaining equality between men and women in all fields, especially in terms of political and legal rights. Feminist philosophy seeks to understand the origin and various forms of this domination and to explore its contemporary consequences for women, as a basis for its elimination. It challenges various dualistic ontological dichotomies that associate women with their inferior or negative terms, for example, linking men with logic and rationality and woman with intuition and emotion. It rejects the traditional centrality of rational principles and emphasizes interpersonal relationships, caring, and the role of community. From a perspective of upholding the value of women’s experience and ways of thinking, it reassesses many central notions of Western political philosophy, such as autonomy, equality, liberty, justice, and rights. Feminists generally support a sharp distinction between biologically determined sex and socially constructed gender and the possibility that changing gender roles will emerge. Feminism has influenced recent developments in many areas of philosophy, especially ethics, political and social philosophy, and epistemology. Because a diversity of experiences and preoccupations have led to different theoretical understandings about women’s experience, feminism has never been a unified system but presents versions having significant differences among themselves. Feminist philosophy in France, Britain, and the United States reflects in part the broader philosophical contexts in which they developed. Liberal feminism focuses on equal opportunities in education and employment for women. Marxist feminism argues that women must socialize their family work and join the working class. Radical feminism argues that subordination has its deepest cause in the reproductive and sexual roles of women and argues that women should be autonomous in these regards. Existentialist feminism contends that women must define themselves in terms of the Self, rather than in terms of the Other in relation to men. Some psychoanalytic feminists find the origin of women’s subordination in their early childhood experience, although others look more to Lacan than to Freud for inspiration. Different fields of philosophy have different forms of feminism, such as feminist ethics, feminist epistemology, and eco-feminism. A major challenge to feminism is to determine how it can be systematized theoretically. “Feminism argues that women are oppressed or dominated by men and that the structural arrangements that initiate, support, and legitimate that systematic oppression constitute patriarchy.” Farganis, Situating Feminism - feminist epistemology Epistemology A feminist theory of knowledge which claims that traditional mainstream epistemology is androcentric, and is filled with gender biases. According to this view, the Enlightenment or Kantian conception of rationality considers the epistemic subject as an abstract individual, and authoritative knowledge in Western societies is largely based on the experiences of white males. Women have long been in an epistemic underclass. The conceptual frameworks and methods in all branches of knowledge are virtually androcentric. Feminists argue that the central problem of epistemology should be “Whose knowledge is it?” An adequate epistemology should be free of all prejudices of androcentricity. The acquisition of knowledge must take into account the particularities of the subject, and hence is essentially an historical, social, and political activity. Accordingly, feminist epistemology joins the antiessentialism of postmodernism, and challenges the traditional idea of objectivity. It claims that although feminism is by nature a political movement, it can still find a distinctive place in epistemology by asking questions such as “Who are the subjects of legitimate knowledge?” “Whose experience should be used to test knowledge?” “What is the nature of objectivity?” “How can a researcher be dispassionate?” There are many versions of what a feminist perspective of epistemology should be. Some feminists focus on criticizing the alleged traditional male-dominated nature of epistemology. Others believe that the oppressive position in which women have found themselves might provide a different perspective for examining the central issues of epistemology, and therefore endeavor to analyze women’s experience. But others believe that there is no special female way of knowing. “Feminist epistemology consists rather in attention to epistemological concerns arising out of feminist projects, which prompt reflection on the nature of knowledge and our method for attaining it.” -- ethics is not yet clear, let alone systematic. It has been disputed whether women’s experience is so strikingly different from men’s and whether this difference can be seen as being more basic than the differences of class, race, and culture. “Feminist ethics is born in women’s refusals to endure with grace the arrogance, indifference, hostility, and damage of oppressively sexist environments. It is fuelled by bonds among women, forged in experiments to create better environments now and for the future, and tried by commitments to overcome damage already done.” Card (ed.), Feminist Ethics -- Lennon and Whitford (eds.), Knowing the Difference -- feminist ethics Ethics Feminist ethics contrasts with the allegedly male-biased traditional Western ethics. It argues that traditional ethics ignores women’s issues and interests, fails to recognize feminine values and experience, and identifies human experience with male experience. The traditional lists of virtues are always gender-characterized. Hence, women’s actual subordination is rationalized by traditional ethics, and this must be revealed and criticized for the liberation of women. The criticism of the Western tradition concerning the position of women can be traced to figures such as Wollstonecraft, Mill, Engels, and Simone de Beauvoir. Carol Gilligan’s In a Different Voice (1982) elaborates the different moral development of men and women. She argues that in opposition to the traditional ethic of justice, which emphasizes rights and rules, we should establish an ethic of care, that is, a women-centered ethics, based on women’s experience and a new conceptual framework. It will replace male values with female values and stress responsibility, empathy, and the relationships between people. Motherhood is the paradigm of this ethic. Sometimes the contrast between an ethics of justice and an ethic of care is described as contrasting rationality and emotion. Feminist ethics expands from the general situation of women’s subordination to almost every particular problem faced by women, such as abortion, equality, family planning, militarism, the environment, pornography and all sex-related issues. Its criticism of the traditional bias is remarkable, but the positive delineation of this Ferguson, Adam (1723–1816) Scottish common sense moral and political philosopher, born in Logierait, Professor at University of Edinburgh. Ferguson’s account of the origins of society and of the history of relations between individuals and society offered an empiricist sociological alternative to speculative social contract theories of his time. His major work is Essay on the History of Civil Society (1767). Feuerbach, Ludwig (1804–72) German left Hegelian naturalistic humanist, born in Landshut. Feuerbach used Hegel’s concept of alienation to explain why imperfect humans ascribe perfections belonging to the essence of the human species to an illusory God. His main works include The Essence of Christianity (1841) and Principles of the Philosophy of the Future (1843). Feyerabend, Paul (1924–94) Austrian philosopher and historian of science, born in Vienna, taught in many universities, including University College London, University of California, Berkeley, and Zurich. Feyerabend argued for a historical rather than analytic account of the development of science. He held that scientific observations in different periods were fully theoretical according to radically incommensurable frameworks, and that there is no rational method for moving from one framework to another or for criticizing one framework from the standpoint of another. In place of objectivity, there are different traditions of enquiry that give coherence to fragments of intellectual life. His main works include Against Method (1974), fideism Science in a Free Society (1978), Philosophical Papers, 2 vols. (1981), and Farewell to Reason (1987). Fichte, Johann Gottlieb (1762–1814) German idealist philosopher, born in Rammenku, Saxony, taught at Jena (where he was dismissed in 1799 because of his unorthodox views on freedom and religion), Erlangen, and Berlin. Influenced by Kant, Fichte claimed that the absolute ego and its self-legislating activity are the ultimate subjective reality. Of its two interacting drives, practical and theoretical, the practical is more determining. In positing the non-ego, it makes self-consciousness possible through a dialectical process. Fichte argued that the non-ego is not a thing-in-itself and strongly rejected what he called the dogmatic view that there is an independent external world. For him, the idealist view that conscience alone is the root of all truth is the only doctrine that is compatible with human freedom. Fichte exerted a considerable impact on Hegel’s dialectic. His most important work is Foundation of the Science of Knowledge (1794). Other works include Critique of All Revelation (1792), The Foundation of Natural Rights (1796), The Vocation of Man (1800), and Addresses to the German Nation (1807–8). By identifying the ego with the German nation, this last work played a major role in fostering later German nationalism and totalitarianism. Ficino, Marsilio (1433–99) Italian philosopher, born at Figline, appointed to head the Platonic Academy of Florence by Cosimo de’ Medici. Ficino attempted to reconcile Platonism with Christianity by focusing on the role of love in both systems, and advocated an ascent to God through contemplation. His Latin translations of Plato made Plato accessible to the Latin West. He also translated Neoplatonist and Hermetic writings. His major works include Symposium (1469), Theologia Platonica (1473), and Three Books on Life (1489). He exerted considerable influence upon the Renaissance revival of Platonism. fictional names Logic, metaphysics, philosophy of language Names of invented objects, characters, and places in novels, myths, and other forms of narration. Examples include “Hamlet” and “the Golden Mountain.” These names do not refer to existing things, but they appear to refer to something rather than nothing. The existence of fictional names creates many philosophical puzzles. If a name obtains its meaning from the objects to which it refers, it is difficult to understand how fictional names gain their meaning. Various responses have been proposed. Some claim that fictional names refer to beings of a special kind, which subsist rather than exist. Others attempt to analyze the sentences in which fictional names occur into sentences in which they do not occur. Others suggest that fictional names do not refer, but merely pretend to refer. Others use the apparatus of possible worlds to claim that a fictional name refers to an individual in a possible world, with the unity of that individual given by the narratives in which its name occurs or in terms of a causal theory of reference. Understanding fictional names will help us to understand meaning and reference more generally as well as our response to fictional characters in novels and drama. “For each fictional name in a story, I suggest, a stylised sentence expressing its Story Line will contain a quantifier and a conjunct introducing that name.” Plantinga, The Nature of Necessity fideism Philosophy of religion A position which holds that in establishing and accepting religious convictions, faith is primary and reason is either secondary or entirely dispensable. To avoid placing reason above God, we cannot on this view subject religious beliefs to the assessment of reason. Fideism has two versions. The extreme version claims that faith and reason are contrary, that only faith can grasp the profound mysteries of religion, and that according to rational assessment religious truths are impossible. This position is represented by Tertullian’s dictum: credo quia absurdum (I believe because it is absurd). In modern time this view was developed by Kierkegaard, who claimed that the acceptance of religious truths requires a leap of faith beyond the rational. The moderate version of fideism claims that faith precedes reason in seeking and accepting fundamental religious beliefs, but that reason can play a role in explicating and comprehending these beliefs. This position has been held by the Christian Augustinian tradition and is represented by St Anselm’s fidelity dictum: credo ut intelligam (I believe in order that I may understand). In recent times, some religious philosophers have developed a fideism based on Wittgenstein’s view that some claims have a fundamental role for us in making rational assessment of our ordinary beliefs possible. If religious claims had this special status, there would be no room for reason to justify or reject them. Others respond that there are no grounds for awarding this status to religious beliefs and that we should be suspicious of attempts to shelter them from rational examination. “Fideism, the doctrine that faith alone determines whether a man recognises or fails to recognise the truth of a doctrine which is nevertheless an objectively true doctrine, independently of being believed or recognised to be true.” Bambrough, Reason, Truth and God fidelity Ethics [from Latin fides, faith, literally faithfulness or trustworthiness] The virtue of living up to the commitments or obligations acquired from one’s participation in an institution or by one’s promises or contracts. The former is identical with loyalty, while the latter is identical with honesty, or fairness, and is the traditional focus of fidelity. W. D. Ross considered fidelity to be one of his prima facie duties. Its opposite is infidelity, that is, the breaking of one’s promises or faith. Adultery has been regarded as a paradigm of infidelity. Feminist ethics, due to its emphasis on human relationships, pays a great deal of attention to fidelity. Significant problems surrounding the notion of fidelity include such matters as the relation between the reasonableness of promises and fidelity and how intimate the personal relation should be in order to raise questions of faithfulness. “The principle of fidelity is but a special case of the principle of fairness applied to the social practice of promising.” Rawls, A Theory of Justice “Fido”–fido theory of meaning Philosophy of language My dog Fido is an entity, and is designated by the name “Fido.” On analogy, some theories of meaning claim that every meaningful expression refers to or designates an extralinguistic entity, including abstract entities, and derives its meaning from what it designates. Gibert Ryle applied a derogatory label to this theory of meaning. According to him, this analogy is naive and incorrect. “Fido” stands in the relation of designation to my dog Fido. However, not every meaningful expression is a name that stands for some entity. For all expressions to be meaningful in this way, we would in the first place have to invent whole classes of abstract entities to which expressions that do not function in a designating way could seem to stand in a relation of designation. The expression “red” would, for example, give rise to the expression “redness” to stand for the objective property of redness. But this multiplication of entities would be futile. The central objection here is that having meaning is not identical with standing for. Other philosophers call this theory Platonic realism or hypostatization. “I am still not quite sure why it seems so natural to assume that all words are names, and even that every possible grammatical subject of a sentence, one-worded or many-worded, stands to something as the proper name ‘Fido’ stands for the dog Fido, and what is a further point, that the thing it stands for is what the expression means.” Ryle, Collected Papers, vol. II Field, Hartry (1946– ) American logician and philosopher of mathematics, born in Boston, Professor of Philosophy, New York University. Field has attempted to provide a naturalistic causal account of semantic and intentional concepts like meaning and belief to supplement Tarski’s theory of truth with physicalism regarding the mind. His nominalism in the philosophy of mathematics and philosophy of science dispenses with abstract entities at the cost of denying that mathematics and scientific theories are true. His major works include Science without Numbers: A Defence of Nominalism (1980) and Realism, Mathematics and Modality (1989). fifth element, see aether final cause Metaphysics, philosophy of science [from Latin finis, end or purpose, the equivalent of Greek telos] According to Aristotle’s theory of explanation, a final cause is one of four causes, the others being the material, formal, and efficient causes. His expression for a final cause is to hou heneka (Greek, for the sake of which). By appealing to a final cause, we explain a thing through its goal or end. An explanation based on a final cause is called a teleological explanation (from telos). In Metaphysics, Aristotle argued that form, as primary substance, is the final cause and that as final cause form is actuality. In his physical works, Aristotle made extensive use of final causes in explaining the generation and structure of natural things and their parts. He also claimed that as the unmoved mover, God is the final cause of the world. His teleology deeply influenced the later development of Western philosophy of science, although much modern philosophy of science has been hostile to teleology, either by denying it entirely or by reducing it to standard causal relations. Discussion of teleological or functional explanations remains active in philosophy of biology and philosophy of social science. life, the final good is the direction of his or her life as a whole, that is, that person’s life plan. To answer the fundamental ethical question “How should I live?”, one needs first to deliberate and determine what the final good is for one’s life, which will organize the priorities in life and make life a unity. The notion of final good fell into neglect in modern moral theory because the latter emphasizes the impartiality of moral agents rather than their life as a unity. However, it has been revived in contemporary virtue ethics. “Suppose, then, that there is some end of the things we pursue in our actions which we wish for because of itself, and because of which we wish for the other things; and we do not choose everything because of something else, since if we do, it will go on without limit, making desire empty and futile; then clearly this end will be the good, i.e. the final good.” Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics final end, see final good Finetti, Bruno de (1906 –85) Italian personalist philosopher of mathematics. De Finetti established the foundations of the subjectivist theory of probability, in which an agent can have degrees of belief between full belief and full disbelief, although the degrees of belief of different agents will converge as new evidence is introduced. His main works are Foresight: Its Logical Laws, Its Subjective Sources (1937) and Theory of Probability, 2 vols. (1970). final good Ethics, philosophy of action The notion of a final good is fundamental in ancient ethical systems. Every action is pursued for an end or telos, and this end is good for the agent. Some goods are themselves pursued for other higher goods, and hence there is a hierarchy of goods. To proceed in this way, there must be a single good that is sought for its own sake while all other goods are sought for the sake of it. This single good is the final (or best or highest) good, also called the final end. It should be terminal, comprehensive, and self-sufficient, although this final condition is in dispute. In ancient Greek philosophy, each ethical school agreed that this final good is eudaimonia (well-being or happiness), but differed with regard to what happiness is. Different schools respectively took it to be honor, pleasure, virtue, contemplation, or tranquillity. For an individual’s finite-state grammar Philosophy of language One of three models for the structure of a language (the other two are phrase structure grammar and transformational grammar). It is based on the Turing machine model. Suppose that we have a machine that is in one of a finite number of internal states, and operates by moving from one state to another by producing a symbol, for example a word. After producing a number of symbols, such as a sequence of words, which is called a sentence, the machine ends in a final state. Chomsky calls this machine finite-state grammar, and the language thus produced finite-state language. This model holds that a grammar is a finite set of rules and that an infinite number of sentences are generated in accordance with these rules. A speaker can be conceived of as a machine, producing one sentence, “The final cause is an end, and that sort of end which is not for the sake of something else, but for whose sake everything else is; so that if there is to be a last term of this sort, the process will not be infinite; but if there is no such term there will be no final cause.” Aristotle, Metaphysics finite-state language or even one morpheme, at a time; and a hearer is also a machine that receives one sentence, or even one morpheme, at a time. This model can only be applied to some special cases and is not very useful in practice, for it can describe or specify only a finite number of sentences of finite length, but we must have more powerful internal generative capacities than such a machine to have our ability to use language. “A finite-state grammar is the simplest type of grammar which, with a finite amount of apparatus, can generate an infinite number of sentences.” Chomsky, Syntactic Structures finite-state language, see finite-state grammar Finnis, John (1940– ) British legal and moral philosopher, Professor of Law and Legal Philosophy, University of Oxford. Finnis argues for the normative assessment of the legal institutions of society in terms of natural law. Natural law is grounded in the pursuit among all societies of objective basic goods and can be used to criticize positive law as unjust. He holds that law and morality are both answerable to principles of practical reasonableness. His main works include Natural Laws and Natural Rights (1980), Fundamentals of Ethics (1983), and Moral Absolutes (1991). first cause argument for the existence of God Philosophy of religion One of the classic arguments for the existence of God, a variant of the cosmological argument and the second of Aquinas’ five ways to prove the existence of God. Everything in the world has something else as its cause, and each cause has its own cause. This chain of causation could stretch to infinity. Because this is unintelligible, there must be a cause that is not caused by anything else and this is the first cause. This first cause is God. From the logical point of view, the argument does not show that there is only one first cause rather than many first causes. Also, it does not explain why a first cause is omnipotent or perfectly good. Russell pointed out that the argument starts from a premise that everything is caused by something else, but contradicts this in its conclusion that there is one thing, the first cause, which is not caused by something else. “The first cause argument is itself of no value for the establishment of theism: because no cause is needed for the existence of that which has no beginning.” The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, vol. X first entelechy, another term for substantial form first-level concept Logic, philosophy of mathematics, metaphysics Frege distinguished between first-level concepts and second-level concepts, although he sometimes used the expressions “first-order concepts” and “secondorder concepts” for the same purpose. Since Frege’s distinction between concept and object corresponds to his distinction between predicate and subject, this is also a distinction between first-level predicates and second-level predicates. A first-level concept or predicate is applied to an object to ascribe a property to that object. A second-level concept or predicate is applied not to an object, but to a concept or a predicate. It is a concept of first-level concepts or a predicate of first-level predicates. A first-level concept is also called an nth-level concept, while a second-level concept is called an n+1th-level concept. This doctrine can be traced to Kant’s view that existence is not a real property. Accordingly, existence is a second-level rather than the first-level concept. To say “X exists” means that the concept X is instantiated. Analogously, number is also a secondlevel concept. When we say that X is a number, we do not mean that X is an object that has the property of being a number, but rather that the concept X has numerous instantiations. Frege’s famous doctrine that existence is a second-level concept or predicate is inferred from his doctrine of number. “The ontological proof of God’s existence suffers from the fallacy of treating existence as a first-level concept.” Frege, “Function and Concept,” Philosophical Writings of Gottlob Frege first-level predicate, see first-level concept first-order language, see first-order logic first-order logic Logic, philosophy of mathematics If in a logical language the quantifiers only contain variables ranging over individuals, this language is called a first-order language, and these variables are called first-order variables. The study of the rules of inference in a first-order language is called first-order logic. In this logic, individuals are the only arguments of predicates. If the variables range over properties, relations, functions, and classes of the individuals, they are called second-order variables. A language containing second-order variables is a second-order language, and the logic of this language is second-order logic. The domain of second-order logic is determined by the first-order logic. If the variables range over the domain of properties or the relations of properties, then we have third-order variables, language, and logic. This construction can go on to even higher orders. Any logic that is at least a second-order logic is called higher-order logic. Strictly speaking, first-order logic emerged with Hilbert in 1917. For most mathematicians, it is the proper and natural framework for mathematics. perspective of forming judgments about the states of other minds. The former is the first-person perspective and is associated with Cartesianism, and the latter is called the third-person perspective and is associated with behaviorism. The first-person perspective is private and peculiar to the subject. Its advocates hold that this perspective affords privileged access to the mental states of the subject. The third-person perspective is public and observable. Its advocates believe that our conception of mental states is informed by the behavioral criteria we use to apply mental concepts to others. It is also possible to occupy the middle ground between these two positions. Different perspectives provide different theories about the nature and essence of mental states, and about the mind–body relationship. The dichotomy of the first-person perspective and the third-person perspective corresponds to the contrast between the subjective and the objective, and has been central in modern philosophy. “I have distinguished between a logician’s use of first-order logic (where quantifiers range only over individuals), second-order logic (where quantifiers can also range over sets or relations), w-order logic (essentially the simple theory of types), and various infinitary logics (having formulas of infinite length or rules of inference with infinitely many premises).” G. H. Moore, “The Emergence of First “It was the nature – indeed the very existence – of the allegedly public, physical world that was felt to be dubious, or at least doubtable, from within one’s private movie theatre. This Cartesian firstperson perspective dominated the philosophy of mind, as well as metaphysics and epistemology generally, from the seventeenth century through the first half of our time.” Lycan, Consciousness Order Logic,” in Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol. XI first-order predicate, see predicate first-person perspective Epistemology, philosophy of mind We may ascribe mental concepts either to ourselves (first-person ascriptions through our inner awareness of our mental states) or to others (third-person ascriptions through outer manifestations in behavior and speech). These two kinds of ascription give rise to puzzles about the unitary nature of mental phenomena, for given the special character of the subject, my description of my own mental states could be quite different in nature and content from my description of other minds. We can then ask whether, in order to offer a satisfactory account of mental phenomena, we should proceed from the perspective of the subject with the mental states or from the first philosophy Philosophical method, philosophy of religion, metaphysics, philosophy of science In Aristotle, first philosophy is either the study of the highest type of being (the unmoved mover or God) in theology or the study of being qua being in ontology. Theology is called first philosophy because its object is superior to physical entities, the study of which is second philosophy. Ontology is called first philosophy because it investigates the principles and laws that all other branches of science presuppose and the first causes of the whole world of being. From this latter sense, the general meaning of first philosophy as the foundation of all science is derived. For Francis Bacon, first philosophy is the mother of other sciences. According to Descartes, first philosophy is the science of the principles of knowledge. For Christian Wolff, first philosophy is concerned with the first principles and concepts of thought. For Husserl, first philosophy is the methodological and theoretical foundation of all other philosophical disciplines. Critics disagree whether there is first philosophy within philosophy or first philosophy prior to science. “All attempts at discovering ultimate foundations, in which the intentions of first philosophy live on, have broken down.” Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action, vol. I first principle Philosophical method, epistemology, metaphysics, logic, philosophy of mathematics [Greek arche, beginning, starting-point] A fundamental principle, rule, or law for a systematic enquiry. From first principles other principles, rules, or laws of that system are derived or explained, but first principles themselves cannot be derived or explained from any other principles within that system. Mathematical axioms and logical principles are recognized as having the status of first principles. First principles are regarded as being self-evident, a priori, or capable of being grasped only through intuition. Traditionally, it was thought that a system without first principles could not be coherent or consistent. Some philosophers argue that instead of offering justification to subordinate rules, first principles are themselves justified by their success in organizing or deriving the right set of subordinate rules. They also argue that in some cases, or in principle, we have a choice in deciding the first principles of a system. The study of first principles normally belongs to the domain of metaphysics. Aristotle claimed that a principle is the starting-point from which a thing is or comes to be or is known. “These [first] principles must satisfy two conditions. First, they must be so clear and so evident that the human mind cannot doubt their truth when it attentively concentrates on them; secondly, the knowledge of other things must depend on them, in the sense that the principles must be capable of being known without knowledge of other matters, but not vice versa.” Descartes, The Philosophical Writings of Descartes Firstness Metaphysics The metaphysics of Peirce claims that there are three universal categories of elements among phenomena, respectively Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness. Firstness comprises the qualities of phenomena, such as red, bitter, tedious, and hard. These qualities merge into one another and have no perfect identities. Secondness includes the facts of experience, which we know by their resistance and consequences. They are not the mind’s creation. Thirdness includes laws or thoughts that determine how facts may be. Firstness is an essential element of both Secondness and Thirdness. Secondness is an essential part of Thirdness. Thirdness is the mediation between Secondness and Firstness. Metaphysics deals with phenomena in their Thirdness. These three categories are also three modes of existence: possibility, actuality, and destiny. “A Firstness is exemplified in every quality of a total feeling . . . the word possibility fits it, except that possibility implies a relation which exists, while universal Firstness is the mode of being of itself.” Peirce, Collected Papers, vol. I fittingness Ethics We generally explain our moral actions in terms of moral principles or of long-term selfinterest. However, many cases are not covered by either of these considerations. In these situations, we claim that an action is morally permissible if we assess that it is fitting, suitable, and appropriate to a particular agent in a particular situation. This is the moral consideration of fittingness, a common concern emphasized by Cicero and revived in contemporary virtue ethics. The practice of determining what is fitting requires a good character and consistency. The action of a virtuous person is always regarded as an example to follow, because it is fitting. “We often explain both why we did something and why we intend to do something by saying that it is fitting or appropriate to a situation or that it is in accordance with a moral rule.” NowellSmith, Ethics five ways Philosophy of religion [Latin quinque viae] Aquinas’ five proofs for the existence of God. The five ways employ the different Aristotelian notions of cause or explanation in what can be seen as five formulations of one basic argument. All five ways are a posteriori in the sense that they start with empirical facts about the physical world and then argue to the existence of a transcendent cause to explain them. Thus they are distinct from a priori proofs, which start from the essence or definition of God. The first way argues from the fact that things move or change to the existence of an unmoved mover. The second way argues on the basis of a hierarchy of efficient causes existing in the world that there is an ultimate uncaused cause. The third way proceeds from the contingency of things, that is, their being subject to generation and corruption, to the conclusion that there must be an absolute being. The fourth way, also called the henological argument, moves from our experience of a gradation of perfection in the world to the conclusion that there must be an absolute perfection. The fifth way argues that since every natural body exists for some end, there must be an absolute final cause. The five ways employ the different kinds of Aristotelian cause or explanation to argue for the existence of God. “If these ‘five ways’ are not singly or collectively wholly convincing, and . . . rest on an interpretation of causality which requires very considerable modification in the light of present day knowledge of the working of natural processes, nevertheless, they constitute an impressive rational demonstration of the existence and attributes of God.” E. James, The Concept of Deity flaccid designator Philosophy of language, logic A term that contrasts with Kripke’s rigid designator. While a rigid designator designates the same thing in all possible worlds, a flaccid designator designates different things in different possible worlds. For example, the term “China’s capital” currently designates Beijing, but it used to refer to Nanjing or Xian, and it could have referred to other cities had circumstances been different. The expression “the best seller” is another example of a flaccid designator, for the term refers to different books at different times and could have designated other different books had circumstances been different. “There is no widely accepted name for terms such as these, which refer to different things in different possible worlds; but we might call them flaccid designators (because ‘flaccid’ is the opposite of ‘rigid’).” R. Martin, The Meaning of Language flux Metaphysics [from Greek rhein, to flow] The Greek philosopher Heraclitus claimed that the world is an ever-living fire and is hence in an unceasing process of flux or change. We are and are not at any given moment, and because of constant change “one cannot step into the same river twice.” Plato accepted this view of the sensible world, but argued that if there were nothing more than such a changing world, we would be led to ethical relativism and no account of truth would be possible. He concluded that there must be another eternal world, the intelligible world of really existing forms or ideas, which is the primary source of knowledge. For Plato, the sensible world of flux participates in the world of ideas, and the contrast between these two worlds corresponds to the contrast between genesis and being. “In his youth Plato first became acquainted with Cratylus and the Heraclitean doctrines that all perceptible things were in everlasting flux, and that there is no knowledge of them. He continued to hold these views later.” Aristotle, Metaphysics flying arrow, paradox of Logic One of Zeno’s paradoxes, designed to show the impossibility of motion. On the assumption that time is composed of atomic instants, Zeno inferred that motion is discontinuous. The flying arrow, at any given instant during its flight, occupies a space equal to itself. What occupies a space equal to itself is at rest. Hence, the arrow is at rest at every instant. Since time is composed of instants, if the arrow does not move at any instant, it is at rest throughout its flight. “The third [paradox] is just given above, that the flying arrow is at rest.” Aristotle, Physics focal meaning Metaphysics, philosophy of language [from Greek pros hen legesthai, being said in relation to one point] A term connected with Aristotle’s doctrine of the different senses of being in the different categories. Although being has many senses, these senses are not disconnected or isolated, but are all related to one central point, that is, being in the category of substance. Quality is said to be because it is quality of substance; quantity is said to be because it is quantity of substance, and so on for the other categories. In virtue of this pattern, Aristotle claimed that a universal science of being (the science of being qua being) is possible. Aristotle himself made use of this pattern only to connect substance with other categories. Influenced by Thomas Aquinas, some scholars have extended the account of focal meaning beyond Aristotle’s own use to cover the relation between sensible substances and God, saying that God is the focal meaning of all substances. By these means, they intend to reconcile the tension between the science of being and theology in Aristotle. “There are many senses in which a thing may be said to ‘be’, but all that ‘is’ is related to one focal meaning, one definite kind of thing, and is not said to ‘be’ by a mere ambiguity.” Aristotle, Metaphysics Fodor, Jerry (1935– ) American philosopher of mind and language, born in New York, Professor at Rutgers University. Fodor has attempted to unify philosophy of mind and cognitive science. He is best known for his language of thought hypothesis, arguing for a theory of thought that posits a computational system realized in the neural structure of the brain that captures folk psychological concepts, such as belief, in individual mental states that have semantic and syntactic properties. Causal relations among these states are held to mirror the logical relations within the train of thought that they embody. His main works include The Language of Thought (1975), The Modularity of Mind (1983), Psychosemantics (1987), A Theory of Content and Other Essays (1990), and Holism: A Shopper’s Guide (with Ernest Lapore) (1992). folk psychology Philosophy of mind, philosophy of science Also called common sense psychology, a term for common sense understanding about intentional mental states and overt behavior, using such terms as “belief,” “desire,” “intention,” “fear,” “imagination,” and “hope.” In contrast to scientific or experimental psychology, or academic psychology in general, folk psychology is governed by a putative network of principles, which is taken to underlie our ability to explain and predict human behavior. It is familiar since childhood and is used effortlessly by all of us in everyday life. It is folk psychology in the way that our common sense talk about material objects is called folk physics. Eliminativism in the philosophy of mind, presented in the 1980s by P. M. Churchland, claimed that folk psychology, as an outdated pre-scientific view of the world, should be replaced by a more scientific theory of the mindbrain. These claims provoked a continuing debate about the status and adequacy of folk psychology. In opposition to eliminativism, Fodor and Dennett argue that folk psychology can be vindicated, to a greater or lesser extent, by scientific psychology; others argue that folk psychology is not a theory, for it does not have generalizations about the relations among mental states and about the relations between mental states and behavior. Some philosophers argue about the claim that the central concepts of folk psychology, such as belief and desire, have features, such as intentionality, which exclude them from any scientific psychology. Folk psychology in another sense flourished in Germany and was represented by the work of Wilhelm Wundt. Here the term means cultural psychology, that is, a study of the mentality of a people who share a social practice as that mentality is expressed in culture, myths, and customs. “Briefly, folk psychology is the tag given to ordinary talk about the mind.” Christensen and Turner (eds.), Folk Psychology and the Philosophy of Mind Follesdal, Dagffin, Askim-born philosopher of language and Husserl scholar, born in Askim, Professor of Philosophy at University of Oslo and Stanford University. Follesdal argues for a socially based normative theory of reference to explain how genuine singular terms, later called rigid designators by Kripke, function in modal contexts. He has also provided important links between Husserl’s philosophy, particularly his theory of meaning and conception of justification, and analytic philosophy. His main works include Referential Opacity and Modal Logic (1966). Foot, Philippa (1920– ) English moral philosopher, born in Owston Ferry, Lincs. taught at University of Oxford and University of California at Los Angeles. Foot has argued for naturalism and against prescriptivism in ethics, holding that a system of ethical requirements depends on the desires that we actually have. More recently, her work has led to a revival of interest in virtue ethics. Her major works include Virtues and Vices (1978), Natural Goodness (2001), and Moral Dilemmas (2002). footnotes to Plato Philosophical method In a famous remark, A. N. Whitehead said that the development of Western philosophy is a series of footnotes to Plato. This was not a substantive claim that every subsequent development is nothing more than an expansion or exegesis of what Plato said in his works, but should be considered as a metaphor to indicate how powerfully Plato’s thought has influenced the Western tradition. Various contemporary philosophical achievements are deeply indebted to him. Plato’s works are an inexhaustible mine of suggestion. The remark also points to the reflective nature of philosophy, by which earlier thought remains crucially important for later work. In contrast, science generally supersedes its past. “The safest general characterisation of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.” Whitehead, Process and Reality force/sense, see sense/force foreknowledge Philosophy of religion, epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of action Knowledge about what will happen in the future before it actually happens. This knowledge is ascribed to God as a divine attribute and as a natural aspect of God’s omniscience. God knows what is going to happen, and his knowledge admits no alternatives. God’s foreknowledge implies that there is a fixed or predestined future. If this is the case, then all future human actions and the course of history are predestined rather than free. Humans will have to act in the predetermined way. The resulting conflict between foreknowledge and free will is a perennial problem in both philosophy and theology. To accept the existence of foreknowledge involves the rejection of free will. If we admit free action, then God’s foreknowledge must be modified in some way. Some philosophers argue, for example, that because an omniscient God is unembodied and outside time, he has knowledge of laws and universals, but lacks knowledge of particular things, such as human actions. “There exists in the history of thought a deterministic idea . . . that the course of world-history is determined . . . by the foreknowledge of a supreme being. This being, as it were, ‘sees’ the world states follow one upon another in a linear succession.” von Wright, Causality and Determinism forgery Aesthetics A duplicate of an original work intended to be taken as that work, or a work in the style of an artist intended to be taken as the work of that artist. The problem of determining whether an artwork is genuine has been a troublesome issue for collectors and museums. Philosophers are interested in the issue of forgery because no matter how similar a forgery is to an original work, the forgery is regarded as having less aesthetic value and is sometimes denied having any aesthetic value at all. How can we explain this phenomenon? Some regard this rejection of forged works as merely a matter of snobbishness or financial self-interest of the art market. Some believe that the rejection is a response to the immorality of the forgers and dealers who lie about the identity of the work. Others claim, more reasonably, that the original artwork embodies its historical context and the artist’s originality, which cannot be duplicated. Some believe that forgeries are another sort of artwork in their own right, not the same as their originals. Where, then, is the artistry of forgeries? All these problems raise important questions about the identity of artworks, aesthetic value, and aesthetic enjoyment. Some questions about forgery also arise concerning plagiarism, in which writers present as their own work material copied from others. “The hard-headed question why there is any aesthetic difference between a deceptive forgery and an original work challenges a basic premise on which the very functions of collectors, museum, and art historian depend.” Goodman, Languages of Art forgiveness Ethics, philosophy of religion A trait of character of a morally offended or injured person who overcomes a natural and generally proper resentment directed at the person who commits the offense and refuses to blame the latter. Forgiveness is neither a justification of the wrongdoing, nor an excuse for it. Forgiveness reflects one’s benevolent disposition and is generally regarded as a virtue. It is emphasized in Christian ethics, which holds that the forgiveness of enemies corresponds to God’s forgiveness of us. It is also widely discussed in contemporary virtue ethics, for it is a popular ethical phenomenon to offer forgiveness and to ask to be forgiven. However, forgiveness must have a limit, depending on the degree of remorse of the offender. For proper resentment is not a bad thing, but a manifestation of self-respect and a respect for moral rules. Unlimited and unprincipled forgiveness will turn out to be a kind of moral wickedness and even a manifestation of the vice of servility. “To forgive is to accept the repudiation and to forswear the resentment.” Strawson, Freedom and Resentment and Other Essays for itself, see in itself FORMA. form Metaphysics, ancient Greek philosophy [Greek eidos, derived from the verb idein, to see, literally the sensible shape of a thing; has the same sense as Greek morphe] Plato and Aristotle use eidos to mean the inner structure or intelligible form of a thing, the shape grasped by the eye of the soul, which serves as the object of knowledge or thought. For Plato, forms exist in some way independently of particulars; they are paradigms, while the particulars are imperfect copies of them. He uses form (eidos) synonymously with idea (which is also derived from the verb idein). Hence, Plato’s theory of Ideas is also called the theory of Forms (see idea, Plato). Aristotle sometimes uses eidos in contrast to genus. Eidos in this sense is always translated as species rather than as form. As species, it is a common predicate and a kind of secondary substance in the Categories, but in the Metaphysics Aristotle denies that it is a substance. More often, form contrasts with matter in Aristotle’s philosophy. It denotes the inner structure of a thing, which is expressed in its definition; it is in this sense that form is synonymous with essence (to ti en einai), and is called primary substance. In Aristotle’s doctrine of the four causes, form is designated the formal cause, which is responsible for unifying material elements into an organic thing. In this sense, form is usually identical with the final cause and sometimes also with the efficient cause, and is also identical with actuality. How these claims can be reconciled is a matter of controversy. There are also disputes concerning whether Aristotle asserts the existence of particular form as well as the existence of universal form. A doctrine of particular form is developed in Plotinus, and in medieval philosophy, especially by Aquinas. “By form I mean the essence of each thing and its primary substance.” Aristotle, Metaphysics form of life Philosophy of language For later Wittgenstein, the context of practice or culture in which speaking a language is embedded in the form of language games. Since language is a set of social activities, speaking a language becomes part of a communal activity and a way of living in society. Wittgenstein calls the totality of communal activities, the culture into which language games are embedded, a form of life. A form of life comprises shared natural and linguistic responses, broad agreement in definitions and judgments, and corresponding behavior. Language is connected with our life through our shared playing of language games and is thus interwoven with non-linguistic contexts. To imagine language is to imagine a form of life that in itself can neither be justified nor unjustified. This indicates that grammatical rules are an integral part of human historical practice and are subject to change. Insofar as there are foundations for language for the later Wittgenstein, what must be accepted as given are forms of life. Wittgenstein’s remarks about this term are not always consistent and clear and have consequently led to exegetical controversy. In particular, he sometimes speaks of multiple forms of life as specific patterns with limited scope. “Hence the term ‘language-game’ is meant to bring into prominence the fact that the speaking of language is part of an activity, or of a form of life.” Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations form of proposition: Russell’s term, referring to a formula that contains only variables, from which a class of propositions can be obtained by substituting other constituents for one or more constituents contained by the original proposition. Hence a form of proposition is the common structure which propositions of the same class share. arcane entities of which we could have a special logical experience, but this is not so. Formal concepts are used in relation to a diverse range of related phenomena and cannot be properly expressed by a predicate or general term. No analytical definition is available for a formal concept, and, like a variable, a formal concept must be understood through the signs which are its values. “The form of a proposition is that which is in common between any two propositions of which the one can be obtained from the other by substituting other constituents for the original ones.” “When something falls under a formal concept as one of its objects, this cannot be expressed by means of a proposition. Instead it is shown in the very sign for this object.” Wittgenstein, Tractatus Russell, Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell, vol. VIII form of representation, another term for representational form formal Logic The adjective “formal” is derived from form, that is, the general nature or structure to which a type of thing belongs. In general, formal considerations or approaches have to do with the abstract structure, or pattern, of a subject, rather than with its content or meaning. It is thus opposed to factual or material considerations. Hence formal logic, for example, is concerned not with the content of particular sentences in an argument, but only with the structure of their truth-values. A formal language consists merely of variables and connectives. “A theory, a rule, a definition, or the like, is to be called formal when no reference is made in it either to the meaning of the symbols . . . or to the sense of the expressions . . . but simply and solely the kinds and order of the symbols from which the expressions are constructed.” Carnap, The Logical Syntax of Language formal analysis, see analysis formal concept Logic, philosophy of language, metaphysics Wittgenstein’s term in the Tractatus for a variety of concepts which differ from ordinary concepts. Ordinary concepts reflect things independent of language. If formal concepts, such as thing, color, fact, event, function, object, concept, and number, were like ordinary concepts, they would denote formal distinction Logic, philosophy of language, philosophy of religion A term associated with Duns Scotus. A distinction can be real, between two separate, nonidentical entities, or mental or conceptual, drawn purely by reason and not existing objectively in things. A formal distinction, which is between different formulations of one and the same reality, is intermediate between a real distinction and a merely mental distinction. Form, in this sense, provides an objective basis for a concept, and Scotus used this notion to provide an objective basis for our knowledge of God. Traditionally, God was conceived as simple, and distinctions between his attributes were thought to exist merely from our human point of view rather than in reality. For this reason, our statements about God would have no objectivity. The notion of a formal distinction allowed God’s attributes to be neither real nor merely mental. The notion was also used to explain the Trinity, by claiming that the three persons are formally distinct rather than really distinct. Furthermore, the notion gave insight into the validity of our universal conception of individuality by being intermediate between the species to which an individual belongs and its individual form, what Scotus called haecceitas (haecceity). “In the same real thing there are always formally distinct realities (be they in the same real part or the same real whole).” Scotus, in Duns Scotus: Metaphysician formal fallacy Logic Violations of logical rules of inference that result in invalid inference. They can be detected merely by checking the logical form of argument. Formal fallacies are contrasted with informal fallacies, which can only be found through analysis of the content and context of an argument. Each branch of formal logic has many specific formal fallacies; for example, affirming the consequent and denying the antecedent in propositional logic, the undistributed middle term in syllogism, and the illicit quantifier shift in predicate logic. own consistency. Both results show the limitations of the procedures of any formal system. “A formal fallacy is one that may be identified through mere inspection of the form or structure of an argument.” Hurley, A Concise Introduction formal mode of speech, see material mode of speech to Logic formal semantics: In contrast to general linguistic semantics, formal semantics is characterized by its appeal to the formal logical method in discussing the meaning of linguistic signs. Richard Montague laid down some foundational work in this field. Its main representative is truth-conditional semantics, developed by Tarski and Davidson on the basis of Frege’s logic. This approach ascribes semantic values to the basic symbols of a language, takes these symbols as elements of the structure of the language, and then derives the semantic values of complex expressions from these elements in accordance with formation rules. The meaning of every sentence is determined by the truth-conditions of its component sentences. Generally, a formal semantics proceeds by first setting up a language, and then laying down rules for matching up sentences of that language with propositions or truth-values. Formalization is used as a way of clarifying what the truth conditions are. formal language, another term for logical calculus formal logic Logic The systematic presentation of the valid patterns (forms) of inference and certain implications which hold among propositions, relying heavily on the meaning of structural words such as “all,” “some,” “if,” “not,” “and,” and “or.” It is divided into standard (or classical) logic, non-standard logic, and inductive logic. Standard logic includes traditional logic (Aristotelian syllogism) and modern classical logic, which is an expansion of traditional logic and is composed mainly of the propositional calculus and predicate calculus. Non-standard logics include the extensions of classical logic, sometimes called extended logic, and deviations from classical logic, sometimes called deviant logic. Extended logic includes logics such as modal logic, tense logic, deontic logic, epistemic logic, preference logic, and imperative logic. Deviant logic includes logics such as many-valued logic, intuitionist logic, and quantum logic. We can gain additional insight into the form of some systems of logic by seeing that they can be mapped onto one another. Systems of formal logic can be developed by proof from axioms or through natural deduction, which gives rules of inference from given assumptions. Formal logic contrasts with informal logic, which deals with the relations of implication arising from context-related words. Logical systems seek to attain consistency and completeness, although Gödel showed that for any consistent logical system capable of expressing arithmetic there are true sentences that cannot be proved in the system, thus rendering the system incomplete. He also showed that such systems cannot prove their “The subject-matter of formal logic will be the investigation of those general logical laws which hold in virtue of the meanings of the structural words and the syntax of natural languages.” D. Mitchell, An Introduction to Logic “Formal semantics itself was decided as a means of providing a precise interpretation for formal languages, i.e. the logical and mathematical languages that are opposed to natural languages that are spoken or written as the native languages of human beings.” Cann, Formal Semantics formal universal Philosophy of language One kind of linguistic universal. It is the grammar which expresses the formal conditions that the grammar of every language must meet, such as the sequence of rules for the phonological component of a grammar, the transformational rules that map semantically interpreted deep structures into phonetically interpreted surface structures, and the ways that the rules of a grammar can be interconnected. It seeks abstract formalism (mathematics) universal properties of languages in contrast to another kind of linguistic universal: the substantive universal. “The property of having a grammar meeting a certain abstract condition might be called a formal linguistic universal, if shown to be a general property of natural languages.” Chomsky, Aspects of the Theory of Syntax formalism (aesthetic) Aesthetics A term for all theories of art which claim that the essence of art is given through the formal unity of an artwork, involving such features as structure, balance, harmony, and integrity. Our appreciation of art lies in recognizing these formal qualities and, furthermore, in responding to them. The content of an artwork and its relations with the outside world are subordinate to its formal features. Formalism tends to take a work of art to be a selfsufficient entity and has no concern with its content, meaning, and function. The beauty of a painting consists in the relations of color, line, and mass. In sculpture, beauty consists in the rhythms and symmetries of line and plane. Along with the representational theory and the expression theory, formalism, represented by Kant and Clive Bell (1881–1964), is a major theory of art. Objections to formalism include the claims that the conception of form is ambiguous and that form should be viewed as a vehicle through which an artwork expresses its meaning. “(Formalism) is the theory that all intrinsic value in art belongs to its ‘form’ – using this term to designate the organisation of the sensuous medium or ‘surface’ of the work of art.” Parker, The Principles of Aesthetics -- formalism (ethics) Ethics Ethical formalism holds that to decide whether one is morally obliged to perform or to avoid a certain act, one should not focus on the nature of act itself, but should rather elaborate a set of highly abstract moral principles or laws that can be applied universally, without regard to the particular persons and diverse circumstances in which ethical problems arise. The essence of moral philosophy is to justify abstract moral laws, and moral reasoning is typically rule-governed. The main proponents of formalism include Bishop Joseph Butler, Kant, and W. D. Ross. Sometimes formalism is used interchangeably with deontology. It is thus opposed to other ethical theories such as contextualism, existentialism, intuitionism, feminism, and ethical relativism, which claim that ethical thinking must attend to and judge particular cases. Formalism is the chief target of the contemporary anti-theory movement and virtue ethics, for virtue is generally regarded as being responsive to social and cultural contexts. “It is, for instance, an easy consequence of our principles that moral formalism – i.e. a rigid adherence to the letter, with no appeal to the spirit, of the rules – will tend to be at a maximum in a static and isolated society.” Strawson, Freedom and Resentment and Other Essays -- formalism (legal) Philosophy of law A position in legal philosophy, which claims that law is a logically complete and coherent body of rules and that we can apply these rules universally to solve all particular cases, without need to refer to non-legal considerations, such as those arising from social and moral phenomena. This position flourished in the middle of the nineteenth century, but was bitterly attacked by legal realism or rule skepticism, which argued that legal rules are unimportant and that law is nothing more than the actual decisions of courts or legal officers. Hart agreed that law is a set of rules, but rejected the claim that rules can settle everything, for rules are often vague and indeterminate. In addition, because human knowledge is limited, we cannot formulate rules for all future cases. Formalism is also criticized by Dworkin in his rights thesis. He holds that there are hard cases that cannot be resolved by the simple application of rules. “The vice known to legal theory as formalism or conceptualism consists in an attitude to verbally formulated rules which both seeks to disguise and to minimise the need for such choice, once the general rule has been laid down.” Hart, The Concept of Law -- formalism (mathematics) Philosophy of mathematics As a type of philosophy of mathematics, formalism is the view that mathematical knowledge is a formal system of propositions, that these propositions are meaningless formulae that are operated on by fixed rules, and that mathematics consists in knowing what formulae can be derived from the axioms according to the rules. There is no need to go beyond the symbols and the rules of combination to claim the existence of abstract entities. This theory is initiated in the non-Euclidean geometry of the nineteenth century and in the work of Peano. Its major development is D. Hilbert’s philosophy of mathematics. This position has been attacked, initially by Frege and then by Russell, for failing to analyze mathematical concepts and for failing to account for the practical use of mathematics. “Formalism, associated with the name of Hilbert, echoes intuitionism in deploring the logicist’s unbridled recourse to universals.” Quine, From a Logical Point of View -- formalization Philosophy of language The practice of stipulating a correspondence scheme between ordinary language and a formal language, such as the propositional or predicate calculus, and translating the ordinary language into the formal language. The purpose of formalization is to make the implicit logical structure of ordinary language explicit in order to assess the validity of arguments in ordinary language. For example, consider “If Socrates is a man, he would be dead. Socrates is a man, so he would be dead.” If we let “p” correspond to “Socrates is a man,” and “q” to “He would be dead,” the formalization is (p → q), p; q. Analytic philosophers such as Russell have claimed that most traditional philosophical problems arise from the confusing structure of ordinary language and hence that ordinary language should be replaced by an artificial language. But this remedy was criticized by the later Wittgenstein and by the Oxford ordinary language philosophers. “We stipulate that if a formalization is to be adequate, the associated correspondence scheme should be such that if we replace the P-letters by the corresponding English sentences, and then replace the P-connectives by the corresponding English connectives, the result is a sentence (argument) that says the same as the original English.” Sainsbury, Logical Form formally correct condition, see material adequacy formula, see well-formed formula Foucault, Michel, Poitiers-born philosopher, Professor of the history of systems of thought at the Collège de France from 1970. Usually called a structuralist or post-structuralist, Foucault developed a distinctive approach to intellectual history, focusing on what he called the deep structure that determines the conditions of the possibility of knowledge in a particular period rather than on individual thinkers or human subjects. One of his major concerns was to trace how our present form of knowledge came to be. He held that the notion of the self is historically specific and that the order of words is more important than the order of things for our understanding. He sought to explain changes in systems of discourse by connecting knowledge with power or social control and held that prevailing social attitudes are manipulated by those in power. Foucault’s methodology centered on his “archaeology of knowledge” and later his “genealogy of language.” His major works include Madness and Civilisation (1961), The Order of Things (1966), The Archaeology of Knowledge (1969), Discipline and Punish (1975), History of Sexuality (3 vols., 1976– 84). foundationalism Epistemology The term may be used in the rationalist sense, referring especially to Descartes’s project of constructing a system of knowledge on a foundation of clear and distinct ideas of reason. However, in contemporary philosophy it is a type of theory of epistemic justification in Anglo-American epistemology, which holds that knowledge can be exhibited as a structure, with a foundation and superstructure. Since the senses are our only contacts with the external world, some basic beliefs resulting directly from perception have a privileged epistemic status. They are self-warranting without standing in need of further justification, while all other non-basic beliefs must be justified ultimately by appeal to them. These basic perceptual beliefs provide the ultimate foundation of justification. There are various views among different versions of foundationalism about the nature of the basic, incorrigible perceptual beliefs, and the modes of the derivation of the superstructure from the foundations. In opposition to foundationalism are coherentism and other forms of anti-foundationalism, which deny that any beliefs are incorrigible or basic. The affirmation of foundational beliefs is attacked as “the myth of the given.” “I assume that, for anything H that is evident for us, there is something E which is a basis of H for S. This assumption might be said to characterise ‘foundationalism’.” Chisholm, Person and Object four elements Ancient Greek philosophy, metaphysics In ancient Greek thought, water, air, fire, and earth. While Thales, Anaximenes, and Heraclitus took water, air, and fire respectively as the sole first principle for generating everything else in the cosmos, Empedocles was the first to consider these three plus earth as first principles with equal status and called them the “roots of everything.” He held that the four elements were each ungenerated and indestructible and created all other things, together with the cosmic agents Strife and Love. Plato in the Timaeus made use of the doctrine of four elements, and Aristotle, taking it as a basis for his physics, claimed that the four elements are capable of mutual transformation and that their nature is decided by two pairs of opposites: hot and cold, wet and dry. “Empedocles was the first to speak of four material elements.” Aristotle, Metaphysics four-term fallacy Logic Also called in Latin quaterno terminorum (a quadruplet of term) or fallacy of the ambiguous middle. A normal syllogism carries with it three terms, with the middle term appearing twice in the premises. But sometimes the two appearances of the middle term have different meanings, although the word is the same. As a result, the syllogism has four rather than three terms, and there is no connection between two premises. Such a syllogism is defective and commits a four-term fallacy. For example, “Light is the absence of darkness,” and “A pen is light,” therefore, “A pen is the absence of darkness.” This inference is wrong, because the word “light” has entirely different meanings in the premises. The four-term fallacy is a form of the fallacy of equivocation or ambiguity. “The tag ‘fallacy of four terms’ has usually been applied . . . to arguments involving an ambiguous middle term.” Hamblin, Fallacies Frankena, William (1908–94) American moral philosopher and philosopher of education, born in Montana, Professor of Philosophy, University of Michigan. Frankena’s moral philosophy supports the legitimacy of adopting a moral point of view from which to make normative judgments based on what is good and evil for sentient beings. He has written on the virtues, education, and the environment. His main works include Perspective on Morality (1976) and Thinking About Morality (1980). Frankfurt, Harry (1929–) American Descartes scholar, metaphysician, and philosopher of action, born in Langhorne, Pennsylvania, Professor of Philosophy, Yale University and Princeton University. Frankfurt argues that freedom of the will and responsibility do not depend on our being able to do other than what we do, but rather requires that as persons we have a reflective capacity for second-order desires that some of our first-order desires are effective in action. His main works include Demons, Dreamers and Madmen (1970) and The Importance of What We Care About (1988). Frankfurt school, see critical theory fraternity Ethics, political philosophy A brotherhood or an emotionally intimate political relationship between members of a society or group dedicated to a common aim, and characterized by feelings of affection, mutual help, and looking after the weak. It has been regarded as a virtue, much like friendship, and is modeled on an idealized view of the relation that exists between siblings. As a political ideal, it attempts to subordinate people’s fratricidal impulses through commitment to shared values and positive feelings. Nationalism generally advocates the nurturing of this kind of feeling among fellow-countrymen. Christianity regards fraternity as natural, for human beings are all brothers by nature. Liberty, equality, and fraternity were equally promoted as goals of the French Revolution. Marxism holds that this relationship exists between working classes all over the world. Fraternity is widely thought to be impractical and is ignored in much modern democratic theory. But Rawls argues that fraternity is required by his second principle of justice, which permits economic inequalities in a democratic society only if they benefit the least-favored group in the society. “The principle of fraternity [is] that in spite of all the divisions and distinctions between members of a community, they should treat one another as fellow members and individuals in their own rights.” Lucas, The Principles of Politics free logic Logic The branch of the logic of terms that is free of existential assumptions or presuppositions with respect to both general terms and singular terms. Traditional logic permits inference from Apropositions to I-propositions or from E-propositions to O-propositions. That implies that no general term is empty. Modern predicate logic rejects this point, but still believes that singular terms refer. Free logic proposes that statements containing quantificational phrases have existential import if and only if there is an object g for all general terms G or there is an object s for all singular terms S. Hence free logic is also called “logic without existence assumptions.” Technical study in this area started in the mid-1950s, and various systems have been proposed by Schock, Leonard, Hintikka, Lambert, and Leblanc. “In classical logic, individual constants carry existential commitment . . . In free logic, the constants do not carry this commitment. This is not to say that they may fail to denote, but rather, that their denotata may not be within the range of the ordinary existential quantifier – the denotata may be non-existent objects.” Forbes, Language of Possibility free rider Ethics, political philosophy, philosophy of social science A person who enjoys a benefit provided by a public good but who does not contribute to this good. Some of the free rider’s consumption of the public good does not prevent the same consumption by others, for example the free enjoyment of radio broadcasts, but some will inevitably be at the expense of others, for example getting welfare benefits without paying taxes that support the system of welfare. Either way, if everybody contributes nothing, the public good will not exist. If a public good permits many free riders, it cannot be maintained. An ethical question thus arises about whether a free rider’s consumption is just and about whether the public can be justified in getting rid of free riders or forcing them to contribute. There are difficulties in explaining why the behavior of the free rider is irrational. “A Free-rider obtains a benefit without paying all or part of its cost.” Gauthier, Morals By Agreement free variable Logic A variable occurring in an unquantified sentence, without being prefixed by a quantifier. In contrast, a bound variable falls within the scope of a prefixed quantifier. A sentence containing one or more free variables is called an open sentence. Russell and Whitehead also called bound variables apparent variables, and free variables real variables. “An occurrence of a variable in a sentence is called free in that sentence in which it is unquantified.” Quine, Methods of Logic LIBER ARBITRIUM -- free will, problem of Metaphysics, philosophy of action There are threats to freedom involving the apparent determination of human action by factors independent of our will. These include divine foreknowledge and, in modern philosophy, the possibility that our actions are determined by causal laws. The problem seems to pose a dilemma whether one accepts or denies determinism. If determinism is true, one’s acts are determined by events beyond one’s control, and hence one has no free will. If determinism is false, one’s acts are undetermined and due to chance, which is also beyond one’s control, and hence one has no free will. One way out of the dilemma is to argue that free will is a dispositional causal power, which can exist in a wholly determined world and is thereby compatible with determinism. Another response attempts to show that determinism has weaker implications than any which would prevent it from being compatible with free will. Some philosophers argue that what we value in freedom is not challenged by determinism and is not aided by indeterminism. Rather, free will is constrained by coercion rather than determinism. Some argue further that any account of action, choice, and free will would be incoherent without determinism. Nevertheless, some philosophers still claim that on a proper understanding of freedom and foreknowledge or freedom and causal laws, we cannot have both. These philosophers tend to retain a strong notion of necessity linked to foreknowledge or causality and a distinctive account of agency that does not fall under causal laws. “The problem of the freedom of the will is concerned with the question whether the human will is subordinated to the general principle of causality or whether it escapes from its constraints.” Ajdukiewicz, Problems and Theories of Philosophy -- freedom Philosophy of mind, philosophy of action, ethics, political philosophy A concept concerning thought and action which has two related aspects: negative freedom, or freedom from, is the power to act in the absence of external constraint, coercion, or compulsion; and positive freedom, or freedom to, is the power to choose one’s own goals and course of conduct among alternatives. Under these general determinations, freedom has various forms, of which freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, freedom of the press, freedom of association, and various economic freedoms are historically the most important. If one can claim freedom regarding an interest, then one has a right to pursue that interest. Freedom is used as a synonym of liberty, and J. S. Mill’s On Liberty has had the greatest influence among books on the concept of freedom. For Plato, a man is free if he is governed by reason, but a slave if he is ruled by desires and passions. Kant distinguished the theoretical sense of freedom, that is, the spontaneity of understanding as opposed to receptivity of the sensibility, from the practical sense of freedom, that is, the autonomy of the will as opposed to heteronomy. Fichte and Schelling transformed spontaneity and autonomy respectively into subjective or objective absolutes, a tendency inherited by Sartre but criticized by Hegel, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Adorno. This latter position has claimed that freedom is intrinsically qualified. The liberal tradition generally connects freedom with our concept of humanity. -- “That there is freedom in our will, and that we have power in many cases to give and withhold our assent at will, is so evident that it must be counted among the first and most common notions that are innate in us.” Descartes, The Philosophical Writings, vol. I -- freedom of speech Political philosophy The freedom to express one’s own mind in speech, writing, or some other way without prior restriction, contemporary constraint, or subsequent punishment. The fundamental justifications for freedom of speech are its essential role in the pursuit of truth and in free political life, and its fundamental contribution to our dignity as rational and self-determining beings. Hence, freedom of speech has instrumental value. Freedom of speech has been regarded as one of the basic human rights that governments have a basic requirement to protect. Even those fully committed to maintaining freedom of speech recognize that some speech can rightly be restricted by law. Speech that seriously endangers individuals, groups, or the nation as a whole are often judged to lie outside the protection of freedom of speech. There are various conflicts over the kinds of speech that may be restricted and over the competing rationales for restricting them. While certain kinds of speech are recognized as being harmful, suppressing freedom of speech without rational grounds is seen as a greater evil. The discussion of free speech is related to questions about the rationality of censorship and to the consideration of other basic freedoms. “We may take for granted that a democratic regime presupposes freedom of speech and assembly, and liberty of thought and conscience.” Rawls, A Theory of Justice -- freedom of the will Metaphysics, ethics, philosophy of mind, philosophy of action The doctrine of freedom of the will or free will derives from the natural feeling that we can choose what we do according to the dictates of our own soul, without being compelled, and that in the conditions of our action we could have acted otherwise. Only because our will is free can we speak meaningfully of ethical conceptions such as responsibility, duty, obligation, self-determination, and commitment. The concept of free will is contrasted to the notion of determinism. If everything is causally determined, how can there be a free will? While free will is supported by our everyday consciousness, determinism gains its ground in science. With regard to their relation, philosophers are divided into compatibilists, who claim that there is some way to reconcile determinism and free will, and incompatibilists, who reject the possibility of reconciliation. Some incompatibilists reject determinism, while others claim that free will is illusionary. “The freedom of the will consists in the possibility of knowing actions that still lie in the future.” Wittgenstein, Tractatus Frege, Gottlob (1848–1925) German philosopher, logician, and mathematician, the founder of modern mathematic logic and the philosophy of language, born in Weimar, Professor of mathematic at the University of Jena. In the Begriffsschrift (Concept-Script, 1879), The Foundations of Arithmetic (1884), and Basic Laws of Arithmetic (2 vols., 1893, 1903), Frege developed the logicist program of reducing arithmetic to logic. Although his own version of logicism was undermined by Russell’s paradox, Frege’s philosophical insights greatly influenced Russell, Wittgenstein, and contemporary logic, philosophy of mathematics, and philosophy of language. In logic, Frege’s theory of quantification established the framework for modern logic. In his “Function and Concept” and “On Concept and Object” (1891) Frege analyzed sentences in terms of function and argument, and in “On Sense and Reference” (1892), he drew the distinction between sense (Sinn) and reference (Bedeutung) to show that the sense of an expression and its reference do not always vary together. These classic papers laid the grounds for the subsequent development of analytic philosophy. Frege’s anti-psychologism involved realism regarding concepts and thoughts. Fregean principle, an alternative term for compositionality Freud, Sigmund (1856–1939) Austrian psychologist, the founder of psychoanalysis, born in Freiburg, Moravia, educated in Vienna, and moved to England in 1938. Freud broadened the notion of the psyche to include unconscious as well as conscious states. He held that the unconscious mind and its repressed contents have a dynamic role in determining behavior and forming neurosis. He divided the mind into the “id” (the unconscious mind), the “ego,” and the “super-ego.” His psychoanalysis gave explanatory prominence to sexual instincts and the unconscious Oedipal fantasies of early childhood, and aimed to resolve neurosis through a “talking cure” that brought repressed thoughts to consciousness. He held that phenomena such as dreams, jokes, and slips of the tongue are disguised manifestations of repressed thoughts that can lead through psychoanalysis to uncover their origins with beneficial therapeutic effect. Freud applied his theory of individual psychology to the explanation of religion, morality, politics, and human history. In spite of powerful criticism of his theory, methodology, and therapy, Freud remains a source of inspiration, especially among contemporary European philosophers. His major works include The Interpretation of Dreams (1900), Totem and Tabu (1913), Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis (1915–16), Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1919–20), The Ego and the Id (1923), The Future of an Illusion (1927), Civilisation and Its Discontents (1930), and New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis (1933). ALTER EGO -- friendship Ethics A prominent moral topic in Greek ethics from Socrates to the Stoics. The word is generally used to translate the Greek word philia, although the latter covers a broader area, including all personal relationships motivated by mutual love and the relationships amongst family members. Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics deals with the problem of friendship in detail. He divides friendship into three types: that based on mutual pleasure, that based on utility, and that based on the mutual appreciation of virtuous character. The last type is the real and genuine kind of friendship. Only a virtuous person can be a friend to another virtuous person, and a friend in this relationship is another self, a mirror of one’s character. Aristotle characterizes friendship as involving the pursuit of the goods of one’s friends for their own sake, and involving reciprocity of sentiment. The issue of friendship has fallen into neglect in modern ethics, for it believes that friendship is a private affair, a matter of personal choice, rather than a part of common morality. The topic has been revived with the emergence of contemporary virtue ethics, and especially of feminist ethics, both of which emphasize personal relationships rather than universalistic moral considerations. “Friendship is said to be reciprocated goodwill.” Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics full theory of the good, see thin theory of the good fully generalized proposition Logic Also called a completely general proposition, a quite general proposition, or a logical proposition. A fully generalized proposition contains only variables and truth-functional connectives, and does not mention any particular thing at all. It thus provides a purely logical structure. Russell claims that such a proposition is analytic and a priori. Wittgenstein believes that a fully generalized proposition can also describe the world in virtue of its articulated or composite structure; but this claim has attracted the criticism that such a proposition cannot say anything about the world through its structure alone without saying of anything that it has some character. “We can describe the world completely by means of fully generalised propositions, i.e. without first correlating any name with a particular object.” connecting them. A function is applicable to a certain class of objects. The class to which the function applies is called the domain of the function, and the class of values is called the range of the function. Frege held that concepts are functions that map objects onto truth-values. “A function is, as observed, a relation. But it is a relation of a special sort, having the peculiarity that no two elements bear it to the same element.” Quine, Mathematical Logic function and argument Logic A mathematical function is an operational relation which can apply to a domain. An argument is an object to which a function is applied within this domain. An argument is a variable part within a function, for one argument can always be replaced by another object in the same domain. The output that results from applying a function to an argument is called the value of the function for that argument. For instance, for the function f = 2x and the argument 3, the value is 6. Frege introduced the concepts of function and argument into logic and claimed that a function is analogous to a concept or a predicate expression, while an argument is analogous to an object or a subject expression in a proposition. In applying these concepts to propositions, Frege used the terms truth-function and truth-value in light of the crucial importance of truth and falsity in assessing propositions. Wittgenstein, Tractatus function Logic, philosophy of mathematics In ordinary language, a function roughly means a purpose or role. In logic and mathematics, a function is a particular kind of relation in which given any object or objects (called an argument of the function), another object (called the value of the function for that argument) will be yielded. A function has one or more variables, which can take different arguments. Giving definite values to the variables of a function yields a definite value to the whole function. Truth-functions in propositional logic (also called functional calculus) are special functions in which the truth-value of a compound proposition is determined by the truth-values of its propositional components and by the logical terms “Suppose that a simple or complex symbol occurs in one or more places in an expression (whose content need not be a possible content of judgment). If we imagine this symbol as replaceable by another (the same one each time) at one or more of its occurrences, then the part of the expression that shows itself invariant under such replacement is called the function; and the replaceable part, the argument of the function.” Frege, Begriffsschrift function stroke, see Sheffer function functionalism Philosophy of science, philosophy of mind A term for any theory that takes the notion of function as the first explanatory principle. In the philosophy of mind, it is currently a widely supported theory of the mind–body relationship. This theory was developed as a result of the recognition of the defects of the identity theory of mind. Its chief characteristic is that it asks what makes a mental state a mental state rather than asking about the intrinsic property of a mental state. According to functionalism, a mental state or event should be explained by its functional role, that is, its causal relationship with other mental states, with sensory inputs and the consequential output behavior of a subject. Unlike the identity theory of the mind, it does not claim that mental states are directly per se neural states, but sees mental states in terms of something more abstract, that is, the causal or functional roles some neural states possess. The theory can be traced to the later Wittgenstein and his account of use, and its major representatives include Hilary Putnam and Jerry Fodor. Functionalism is closely associated with cognitive science, artificial intelligence, and the computer model of the mind. There are various versions of functionalism in the philosophy of mind. Ned Block distinguishes between psycho-functionalism and conceptual functionalism. Psycho-functionalism views mental states not from the biological point of view, but from the organizational point of view. Mental states are analogous to the functional states of a computer, and the mind is a program that can be multiply realized, that is, shared by various physiochemical systems. Conceptual functionalism is a development of analytical behaviorism and considers a mental state to be a contribution to a disposition to behave. Another distinction is between machine functionalism, which understands function in terms of the operation of the whole organism, and teleological functionalism, which understands function as what the thing is for. Homuncular functionalism is one version of teleological functionalism. The main objections faced by functionalist accounts of the mind are that it cannot account for qualia, that is, what it is like to feel a sensation, and for intentionality. “According to functionalism, the behaviour of, say, a computing machine is not explained by the physics and chemistry of the computing machine. It is explained by the machine’s program.” Putnam, Mind, Language and Reality fundamental ontology, see being (Heidegger) fundamental project Modern European philosophy Sartre denied the transcendental ego and tried to account for our identity by means of the notion of fundamental project or original choice. A fundamental project is an act that is responsible for the whole mode of life of a person, which makes him recognizable in every particular situation. The project or choice is neither given nor fixed, but is actively constructed. It is manifested in various actions across many years. Because the project is a choice, we are not passively subjected to the external causal world. We always define ourselves by projecting beyond causality. In this way, our life history should be conceived as a coherent, long-term, and selfdetermining process of life experience. The project is fundamental and the choice is original through relation to a person’s being-in-the-world in its entirety. The project is not related to any particular object in the world and is not empirical. We exist with this choice or project and are therefore responsible for our lives. The fundamental project is the expression of our freedom and is the ground of our responsibility. “This fundamental project must not of course refer to any other and should be conceived by itself. It can be concerned neither with death nor life nor any particular characteristic of the human condition; the original project of a foritself can aim only at its being.” Sartre, Being and Nothingness fusion of horizons Modern European philosophy Gadamer follows Husserl and Heidegger in arguing that we live and understand within horizons, which provide a framework for the possibility of meaning. Although a horizon is formed in tradition and culture, there is, in interpreting a historical text, a tension between this horizon of the text and the horizon of the present and of the interpreter. In understanding, we need to acquire the historical horizon, but it is also impossible to eliminate our own criteria and prejudices. We should be aware of the particularities of both horizons and overcome them by establishing a relation that brings them together. Any real future-referring term understanding involves such a fusion of horizons in the course of which tradition acquires new life and our own prejudices are challenged. Since language is crucial to understanding, a fusion of horizons is essentially a fusion of language. “In the process of understanding there takes place a real fusing of horizons, which means that as the historical horizon is projected, it is simultaneously removed.” Gadamer, Truth and Method future contingents Logic, metaphysics The problem of future contingents concerns ascertaining the truth-value of statements about future events. If we adhere to the classical principle of bivalence that every statement must be either true or false, then future contingent statements will be either true or false in advance of the event. This conclusion, which seems to commit us to fatalism, has led some to skepticism regarding the principle of bivalence, although other philosophers argue that a proper understanding of bivalence for future contingent statements does not ensnare us in fatalism. The problem, which originated in Aristotle’s discussion of the sea-battle tomorrow, was much disputed by medieval logicians, because if future contingent statements are neither true nor false, divine foreknowledge would come into question. In the twentieth century Lukasiewicz sought to deal with this problem by introducing three-valued logic, which in turn led to the development of various many-valued logics. “Aristotle dismissed the truth-states of alternatives regarding future-contingent matters, whose occurrence – like that of the sea-battle tomorrow – is not yet determinate by us, and may indeed actually be undetermined.” Rescher, Topics in Philosophic Logic future generations Political philosophy, ethics Since certain actions of the present generation of human beings, such as natural resource depletion, chemical waste, birth control, and the use of nuclear weapons, have inevitable effects upon the life quality, identity, and the size of future generations, we feel we have moral duties and obligations toward the members of future generations. Consequentialists argue that we should promote the interests of future generations as we do those of our own generation, and deontologists claim that we should always act in ways that make people better off or at least not worse off than they would otherwise be. However, each position is open to question, because future generations are created by us and their sizes are determined by us. The major philosophical question concerns the basis of our duty to future generations. Some refer to the rights of the future generation. But how can we talk about the rights and interests of non-existent people? Others refer to intergenerational justice, according to which each generation should obtain its own share. But since the number of people belonging to future generations is uncertain, what is the ground for deciding equal shares? Some moralists object to the view that we have moral responsibility toward future generations, for ethical relations can only be between agents who can benefit or harm each other. The debate about moral issues regarding future generations indicates that important aspects of current moral theory are defective. “It may be irrational to be less concerned about the further future. But we cannot be sure of this while we are undecided on the reason why.” Parfit, Reasons and Persons future-referring term, see past-referring term Gadamer, Hans-Georg (1900–2002) German philosopher, a student of Heidegger, the leading exponent of hermeneutics, born in Marburg, taught at Leipzig, Frankfurt, and Heidelberg. Gadamer developed philosophical hermeneutics to deal with the fundamental conditions that underlie understanding and interpretation. He took understanding to be the basic feature of human existence and held that hermeneutics should be ontological rather than methodological. All understanding and interpretation presupposes prejudices and involves a fusion of the present horizon of the interpreter and the historical horizon of the text. Interpretation is a virtual dialogue and a historical process. Because human studies are caught up in a hermeneutic circle, it is inappropriate to demand objectivity and neutrality in human sciences. Gadamer’s hermeneutics have been applied in law, theology, and literature. His major work is Truth and Method (1960), and the other works include Philosophical Hermeneutics (1976), Klein Schriften, 4 vols. (1972–9), and Reason in the Age of Science (1981). Gaia hypothesis Ethics, philosophy of science [from Greek Gaia, the earth goddess] Lovelock’s hypothesis, which sees the earth as a living self-regulating organism. On this view, the earth is a creature that is not merely the sum of its parts, but is a complex entity with properties extending beyond those of its constituents of biosphere, atmosphere, oceans, and soil. All of these components are related to the complex interactions of organisms. If the system loses its equilibrium, there could be disastrous consequences for life. The hypothesis emphasizes the interdependence between life and ecosphere. It is intended to challenge the view that nature is nothing but an object to be conquered, controlled, and exploited for human ends. Consequently, we should live with nature and shift our traditional bias of human-centrism. The hypothesis captures the spirit of deep ecology and has affected environmental philosophy and the environmental protection movement. It is a matter of dispute whether it is a serious new paradigm for understanding nature and our relation to it or merely a body of evocative and persuasive imagery. “The Gaia hypothesis is for those who like to walk or simply stand and stare, to wonder about the Earth and the life it bears, and to speculate about the consequences of our own presence here.” Lovelock, Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) Italian astronomer, physicist, and philosopher, born in Pisa. Galileo has a profound influence on the replacement of the Aristotelian system with modern science and philosophy through his experimental investigations, his use of mathematics and observation in science, his introduction of the distinction between primary and secondary qualities, and his skeptical scientific methodology. His main works include Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems (1632) and Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences (1638). gambler’s fallacy Logic Also called the Monte Carlo fallacy. Two fallacious ways of reasoning starting from the same premise. The initial premise is that a particular given outcome has occurred many times in succession. From here one person infers that the same outcome will occur again next time; and the other infers that the opposite outcome will occur next time. Both are wrong because the system does not have a memory. A coin will not come up heads or tails because it has come up heads many times in succession. The probability of past outcomes does not affect the probability of a future event. It will neither increase nor decrease, but remains the same on each occasion. “The simplest available explanation of the prevalence of the ‘gambler’s fallacy’ is that it seems from a quite legitimate use of the counterfactualizable conception of probability in contexts where it is not assumed, or not taken as established, that pure chance is operating.” L. Cohen, The Dialogue of Reason game theory Philosophy of action, philosophy of social science, ethics, political philosophy The mathematical theory of game-like human situations in which each rational agent strategically acts so as to maximize preferred utility or outcome. However, the realization of this strategy depends on the actions of other players in the same situations, and on the assumption that each of them is equally rational in his or her choices. Each player must take the strategies of other players into account, since it is impossible for all players to maximize simultaneously their preferred utility. A situation which yields such a consequence that no agent can improve his or her position if such an agent unilaterally withdraws from it, is called the Nash equilibrium. Game theory tries to find what the most rational strategy should be in such situations. It was systematically developed by John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern in the 1940s, and has a wide application in the contemporary discussion of moral and political theory. Game theory is a part of decision theory. “Game theory therefore starts with games where initial choices are to be made without prior communication and where any emergent conventions exist without being enforced by any kind of sanctions.” Hollis, in Bunnin and Tsui-James (eds.), The Blackwell Companion to Philosophy Gassendi, Pierre (1592–1655) French philosopher, born in Champtercier, Provence. Gassendi brought empiricist and skeptical criticism to bear on the philosophy of Descartes. His Objections were among those appended to the publications of Descartes’s Meditations in 1641. In response to Descartes’s replies, he further developed his criticism in Disquisitio Metaphysica (1644). Gassendi wrote extensively on Epicurus, and his major philosophical concern was to reconcile Greek atomism with Christian doctrine in order to provide an interpretation of the new sciences. His position was systematically expounded in Syntagma Philosophicum, published posthumously. Gauthier David (1932– ) Canadian moral and political philosopher, born in Toronto, Professor of Philosophy at University of Toronto and University of Pittsburgh. In work influenced by Kant and Hobbes, Gauthier seeks to understand the agreements that would be reached through practical reason among rational agents as a basis for restraining self-interest through morality and politics. His main works include The Logic of Leviathan (1969) and Morals by Agreement (1986). Geach, P. T. London-born philosopher of logic, metaphysics, mind, religion, and ethics, Professor of Logic, University of Leeds. Geach has used his understanding of Aristotle, Aquinas, and modern formal logic to deal with a wide range of philosophical problems. His account of mental acts as sayings in the heart, his notion of identity as relative to kind terms, his investigation of the virtues, and his philosophical theology have been influential. His main works include Mental Acts (1956), Reference and Generality (1962), and God and the Soul (1969). Geisteswissenschaften Philosophy of history, philosophy of social science [German, human sciences or human studies, but including social sciences as well as humanities] A term particularly associated with Wilhelm Dilthey and contrasted to Naturwissenschaften [German, natural sciences]. Natural sciences offer objective knowledge and can explain phenomena in terms of laws, but these features are lacking in the humanities. Hermeneutics, according to Dilthey, can defend the human sciences as an integrated body of disciplines with their own methods and principles in contrast to those of the natural sciences. Their dependence upon the cognitive capacity of understanding gives them a distinct status as a source of knowledge. The human sciences possess a peculiar relation to human experience. Rather than establishing laws to explain events, they describe historical facts and formulate standards of value and practical imperatives. Some philosophers propose hermeneutics as the methodology that is appropriate to provide objectivity for humanities. This claimed objectivity is challenged by those who wish to free interpretation from the need to have an objective end-point and by the positivist claim that human knowledge must meet the standards for a unified science that are essentially set by the natural sciences. “All the disciplines that have socio-historical reality as their subject-matter are encompassed in this work under the name Geisteswissenschaften [human sciences].” Dilthey, Selected Works, vol. I gender Ethics, political philosophy The distinction between sex and gender is a central feature of recent feminist thought. While sexual distinctions between male and female have been understood as being biologically and anatomically determined, especially with respect to reproductive roles, gender has been understood as a variable social construction, with gender difference determined socially and culturally. Sex has to do with facts, while gender has to do with values. These values, however, are generally those of male domination and masquerade as a factual basis for male social superiority. By distinguishing between sex and gender, feminist theory provides a standpoint from which alleged male superiority can be challenged. Because some feminist theorists have rejected the distinction between sex and gender on the grounds that sex is also socially constructed, the boundaries between the biological and the social remains a matter of dispute in this domain. In addition, some feminists are seeking a new way to base their critique of male-dominated society. While discussion of gender is largely confined to humans, questions about sex, sexual desire, and sexual behavior can also be asked about members of other animal species. Some theorists claim that such investigations can also illuminate our understanding of human sexuality. The relationships between sexual desire and reason and the role of sex in explaining human behavior have been explored by Freud, his successors, and his critics. Non-standard forms of sexual activity, such as homosexuality, have become major topics in applied ethics. Gender is also a grammatical term. While many languages distinguish nouns, pronouns, and adjectives into masculine and feminine gender, some languages, such as Greek, Latin, and German, distinguish these parts of speech into three genders: masculine, feminine, and neutral, with each having different patterns of inflection. “The concept of gender carries in one word both a recognition of the social aspect of the ‘sexual’ dichotomy and the need to treat it as such.” Delphy, Close to Home genealogy Modern European philosophy, philosophy of history An inquiry into origin and descent. Nietzsche defined genealogy as the investigation of the origin of moral prejudices in On the Genealogy of Morals (1887). He traced the root of human morality back to the most naked struggle for power. Foucault took over this term and developed it into a concept of history and a discipline. In contrast to the standard historical approach, which traces a line of inevitability and demonstrates that the present is based on the past, genealogy begins with the present and goes backward in time until a difference is located. It intends to break off the past from the present and undercuts the legitimacy of the present. Genealogy rejects the role of cause or explanation and rejects the claim of a unitary body of theory. It focuses instead on local, discontinuous knowledge, and attempts to reveal the multiplicity of factors behind general will an event and the fragility of historical forms. By demonstrating the foreignness of the past, it exposes the relativity of present phenomena that are taken for granted. Foucault in his Archaeology of Knowledge presents a genealogic approach to intellectual history, in order to account for the transition from one system to another by connecting them to their social, economical, and political backgrounds. “What I would call genealogy . . . is a form of history which can account for the constitution of knowledge, discourses, domains of objects etc., without having to make reference to a subject which is either transcendental in relation to the field of events or runs in its empty sameness throughout the course of history.” Foucault, Power/Knowledge. totality of propositions. This form is implicit in the rules of logical syntax, but Wittgenstein sometimes also claims that the general propositional form indicates how things stand, and that the combination of the symbols for things and relations in this propositional form corresponds to the things having these relations in reality. “It now seems possible to give the most general propositional form: that is, to give a description of the proposition of any sign-language whatsoever in such a way that every possible sense can be expressed by a symbol satisfying the description, and every symbol satisfying the description can express a sense, provided that the meanings of the names are suitably chosen.” Wittgenstein, Tractatus general proposition Logic The “A” (all ps are q) and “E” (all ps are not q) propositions in the traditional syllogism, which assert or deny the truth of all values of a propositional function. They correspond to general facts and are also called universal propositions. General propositions might be tautologies, and they might also obtain through induction or complete enumeration. Russell’s account of general propositions also includes existence propositions, i.e. “I” (some p is q) or “O” (some p is not q) propositions in the traditional syllogism, for I is the denial of E, and O is the denial of A. He therefore names “A” and “E” as positive general propositions and “I” and “O” as negative general propositions. “We will call propositions containing the word ‘some’ negative general propositions, and those containing the word ‘all’ positive general propositions.” Russell, Our Knowledge of the External World general propositional form Logic, metaphysics Although different propositions have different logical forms, they share something in common with one another in virtue of each of them being a proposition. This common form underlying all superficial differences of propositions is what the early Wittgenstein calls the “general propositional form.” It is the essence of being a proposition and is contained in every proposition. It is both the real logical constant and the most general propositional variable, whose range is the general term Logic Quine’s expression, in contrast to a singular term. While a singular term denotes an individual object, a general term denotes a kind or a type of individual thing. General terms include both adjectives such as “wise” and “human” and common nouns such as “man” and “horse.” They can be predicated of more than one object and are also called predicates. For Quine, general terms fill a position in propositions that is not available to quantified variables. Common nouns as general terms can be divided into general sortal nouns, which are countable (for example “dog” and “car”), and general mass terms, which cannot be counted (for example “water” and “sugar”). “The general term is what is predicated, or occupies what grammarians call predicative position; and it can as well have the form of an adjective or verb as that of a substantive.” Quine, Word and Object general will Political philosophy, ethics A term introduced by Jean-Jacques Rousseau for the collective will or the common interest, that is, what we all really and truly want. The general will derives from the sovereign body, which is composed of all the adult members of the state and provides the legitimate authority of the state. We have an obligation to accept the jurisdiction of the state because the authority of the state represents the general will directed to the common good. The general will, which is superior to the individual will, stands in contrast to the will of all. The will of all is the mere aggregate of private and individual wills, although the general will can be worked out from the will of all. Rousseau’s theory of the general will is an alternative to the social contract as justification for the ground of political obligation. In subjecting oneself to the authority of the community, one is subjecting oneself to being directed by the general will. The general will is expressed in laws, which are established on the basis of majority vote by a general assembly composed of all adult men of the community. The notion of the general will was developed by Hegel and by British Hegelians such as Green and Bosanquet. The main objection to this theory is that it assumes that the state has its own will, which overrides the will of its individual members and which justifies ignoring these individual wills. Furthermore, it is not clear why membership in a society would necessarily give insight into its general will or whether the general will would necessarily provide the common good. “The general will alone can direct the forces of the state in accordance with that end which the state has been established to achieve – the common good.” Rousseau, The Social Contract generalization Logic A generalization is usually a universal statement that is true of all particular things of a certain kind. For instance, “all men are mortal,” which can be read “for all x, if x is a man then x is mortal.” Such a statement is made through induction and other logical procedures. A generalization is lawlike if it supports a counterfactual conditional. We say that “all men are mortal” is law-like because “for all x, if x were a man, then x would be mortal.” In predicate calculus, if a well-formed formula X holds for any arbitrary individual, we may infer from X to (∀a)X. This is called the rule of generalization. “We mean by a generalisation a statement that all of a certain definable class of propositions are true.” Keynes, A Treatise on Probability generalization argument Ethics An argument and moral principle, which holds that if the results of everyone’s doing a certain action are undesirable, no one has a right to do that action. Similarly, if the results of no one’s doing a certain action are undesirable, every one ought to do it. The validity and the conditions of application of this argument are fully discussed by Marcus Singer in Generalization in Ethics (1961). According to him, the validity of this argument is established on two premises: one is called the principle of consequences, which states that if X’s doing A has undesirable results, then X does not have a right to do A. The other, called the generalization principle, states that if some persons ought not to do A, then no one who is in a similar situation ought to do A. “The generalization argument has the general form: ‘if everyone were to do x, the consequences would be disastrous (or undesirable); therefore no one ought to do x.” M. Singer, Generalization in Ethics generalization principle Ethics A principle formulated by Marcus Singer, but traceable to Sidgwick, which states that what is right for one person must be right for every relevantly similar persons in relevantly similar circumstances. What is right for one person cannot be wrong for another unless there is some difference with respect to their natures or circumstances. The principle is similar in spirit to the Golden Rule or Kant’s categorical imperative. It is the basis for what Singer calls the “generalization argument,” which infers from “not everyone has the right to . . .” to “no one has the right to . . .” This implies that there are general grounds for an act to be right or wrong. An act must be right or wrong for a class of relevantly similar people. The principle can be challenged because it is unclear how we can decide whether circumstances are similar or not similar. “The principle that what is right (or wrong) for one person must be right (or wrong) for any similar person in similar circumstances. For obvious reasons, I shall refer to this principle as ‘the generalization principle’.” M. Singer, Generalization in Ethics generalized other, see concrete other generative grammar Philosophy of language Chomsky’s term for his own approach to grammar and language. He defines language as consisting of a set of sentences, and grammar as a device for producing or generating grammatical sequences. Generative grammar is the internalized capacity or set of rules that is acquired by a person unconsciously when he learns a language, by means of which he is able to formulate and understand an infinite number of grammatical utterances from finite observational materials. It assigns structural descriptions that indicate the ways of deriving perfectly well-formed sentences in a language. Thus, although a person is exposed to only a limited number of sentences, he can construct and understand many new ones without difficulty. What it is to be generative is not explicitly explained, but has to do with the notions of production, analysis, description, and specification. Chomsky’s linguistics emphasizes especially the speaker or writer rather than the hearer or reader. Generative grammar is contrasted to traditional grammar, which gives only an enumeration of typical structures with common variants and relies on the intelligence and linguistic intuition of the hearer or reader. “By a generative grammar I mean simply a system of rules that in some explicit and well-defined way assigns structural descriptions to sentences.” Chomsky, Aspects of the Theory of Syntax generosity Ethics [from Latin generous, noble, associated with genus, race or family] Generosity means literally noble-mindedness and is identical with the Greek virtue of great-soulness or magnanimity. In this sense, generosity is taken as a crowning virtue by Descartes and others. It is the knowledge that our will is free and responsible for every action and the firm resolution to carry out what we judge to be best. A generous person depends not on external circumstance, but on his own power. In another and probably more popular usage, generosity is taken as a special virtue: the disposition to give freely or let others share what one possesses. It is an overflow of good will. “Generosity is the willingness to expend one’s resources to help others.” Rachels, The Elements of Moral Philosophy genetic epistemology Epistemology, philosophy of science Genetic epistemology was founded as a distinct approach to epistemology on the basis of genetic psychology by J. M. Baldwin (1861–1934) and was fully developed by J. Piaget (1896–1980). In contrast to traditional epistemology, which emphasizes logical relations between belief, justification, and truth, genetic epistemology argues that knowledge is neither a priori nor innate, but results from a constant construction involving the human subject and the external object in a dialectical process of biological and intellectual transformation. It is essentially an evolutionary theory of knowledge, based on a combination of a structural conception of the human subject with an evolutionary theory of mental development. It still needs development as an independent discipline. “In both Great Britain and America philosophers in the main stream of the philosophy of knowledge base themselves not on psychological but on logical and linguistic analysis, whereas genetic epistemology concerns itself with the psychological development of concepts and operations, that is, with psychogenesis.” Piaget, The Principles of Genetic Epistemology genetic fallacy Logic An argument that judges, evaluates, or explains something in terms of its origin or the original context in which it was generated. Since it is very likely that there might be some essential differences between a thing’s origin and its current state, such an argument is always considered as a fallacy, especially when it is used in rejecting an opposing view. That human beings originated from apes does not entail that they are still apes. “The genetical fallacy [is that], according to which the nature of a phenomenon is determined entirely by its origin.” C. Evans, The Subject of Consciousness genetic method, see developmentalism genidentity: an account of objects as sequences of states was initiated by Heraclitus’ maxim that “one cannot step into the same river twice.” This position raises the question of how we determine that different stages at different times belong to the history of the same object. The German philosopher Kurt Lewin introduced the term genidentity in 1922 to characterize this problem. Different philosophers provide different criteria of genidentity. The most influential one, proposed by Reichenbach and Carnap in accordance with modern physics, suggests that genidentity is an equivalence relation established by a continuity of observation. It is a relation between world points, or moments of particles, holding in either temporal direction. “Two world points of the same world line, we call genidentical; likewise, two states of the same thing.” Carnap, The Logical Structure of the World Gentile, Giovanni (1875–1944) Italian Hegelian idealist, born at Castelvetrano, Sicily. In The General Theory of the Spirit as Pure Act (1916), Gentile developed actual idealism or actualism, holding that the act of thinking is the foundation of the world of human experience, and claiming that the task of philosophy is to exhibit the logical structure of actual experience. This theory was further developed in System of Logic as Theory of Knowing (vol. 1, 1917, vol. 2, 1923). His interest in education was expressed in Summary of Education as Philosophical Science (1913–14) and in his reform of the Italian education system as Mussolini’s Minister of Education in the early 1920s. Gentile, who was the main philosophical elaborator of Italian fascism as a political doctrine, was assassinated in 1944. Gentzen, Gerhard (1909–45) German logician. Gentzen introduced the formalization of classical and intuitionistic logic through natural deduction. A system of natural deduction has rules of inference but does not treat any logical truths as axioms. His works appear in Collected Papers (1969). genus Metaphysics, logic, philosophy of science A kind or class of things that share a common nature and can therefore be predicated of each member within the given class. A genus (plural, genera) can be further divided into sub-classes, called species. A genus itself can be a species of a higher genus. The highest genus (Latin genus summum) is the most inclusive and ultimate class that is not a sub-class of any further genus. The division of a genus into species is specified according to a differentia, which distinguishes the defined species from other species within the same genus. Genus plus differentia is the standard Aristotelian definition and is still the most typical form of definition. Genus has both metaphysical and logical senses. Plato used genus synonymously with Idea, and in Sophist he discusses the relationship among the most universal genera, such as being/not being, sameness/difference, and motion/rest. Aristotle not only elaborated the pattern of genus plus differentia definition, but in Categories also took genus and species as secondary substances because both are predicated of, and reveal, the essence of individuals, that is, primary substances. His ten categories are indeed ten ultimate genera of being. The notions of genus and species are widely applied in biology. “In a secondary sense those things are called substances within which, as species, the primary substances are included; also those which, as genera, include the species.” Aristotle, Categories genus summum, see genus Gestalt psychology Epistemology, philosophy of mind [from German Gestalt, form, organized whole or figure] Gestalt psychology is a theory of sensation which suggests that we are primarily aware of organized wholes of our environment and not of the irreducible elements into which these wholes might in theory be analyzed. On this account, we can see nothing simpler than a figure, for it can be shown that we naturally organize a series of lines and dots into a coherent pattern. Thus, Gestalt psychology rejected British empiricism’s prevailing psychological atomism of sensations, according to which sensations are minute elements that we synthesize into patterns or wholes. The Gestalt school of psychology was founded in 1910 by Max Wertheimer, Kurt Koffka, and Wolfgang Kohler. Their work is philosophically important because of the insight it gives to the nature of perception and especially because it undermines the myth of the given. ghost in the machine “The experiments made by gestalt psychologists are adduced to show that Locke . . . was mistaken in supposing either that the mind is actually supplied with unitary impressions or that it is a merely possible receptor.” Ayer, The Problem of Knowledge Gettier, E. philosopher, In a paper, “Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?” Analysis (1963), Gettier raised a variety of counter-examples against the analysis of knowledge as justified true belief, leading to a rich literature trying to supplement the analysis to make it satisfactory, adding additional counter-examples or providing other approaches to knowledge. Gettier’s problem Epistemology Also called Gettier’s paradox or Gettier’s example. Since Plato’s Theaetetus, propositional knowledge has been standardly defined as justified true belief, whose analysis is as follows: A knows P if and only if (1) p is true, (2) A believes P, and (3) A is justified in believing P. This traditional tripartite analysis is challenged by Gettier in a paper entitled “Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?” (Analysis, 1963). Gettier constructs counter-examples to this definition. One of them is as follows. Smith applied for the same job as Jones. He believes that Jones will get the job and also that Jones has ten coins in his pocket. He is thus justified in deducing the belief that the person who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket. As it turns out, Smith himself gets the job and he happens to have ten coins in his pocket. Thus the belief that the person who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket is true, and Smith is justified in believing it. But he does not know it. It shows that the traditional analysis of knowledge is problematic, for A does not know P even though all three conditions are met. Gettier’s problem has caused a long-standing debate about the nature of propositional knowledge and has changed the course of epistemology to a considerable extent. There are many attempts to challenge the validity of Gettier’s counter-examples. There are also many attempts to discard the tripartite analysis of knowledge. More scholars believe that Gettier’s paradox only shows that the traditional analysis is insufficient, and so they attempt to add a further condition. Various proposals have been made, but none has achieved consensus. The problem is still open. “We have learned from Gettier’s paradox that not every sound justification for a true belief is sufficient to entitle the holder of the belief to claim knowledge; the justification must be suitably related to what makes the belief true.” Dummett, The Seas of Language Gewirth, A. Union City, NJ-born philosopher. Gewirth argues for the objectivity of morality on the grounds of a principle of generic consistency, holding that an agent’s need for freedom and well-being ultimately implies that one must act with recognition of the need for freedom and well-being for others as well. His main works include Reason and Morality (1978) and Human Rights (1982). ghost in the machine Philosophy of mind Ryle’s phrase to characterize the Cartesian concept of mind. According to Descartes, the human mind and the human body are independent substances that are ordinarily harnessed together. Human bodies are in space and subject to mechanical laws. Their processes and states can be observed externally. Minds, on the other hand, are not in space, and are not subject to mechanical laws. Their processes and states are private and can be accessed only by their possessors. After the death of the body the mind may continue to exist and function. This dualistic account of human beings is caricatured by Ryle as the dogma of the ghost in the machine. For him the view is mistaken in construing the mind as an extra object situated in a body and controlling it by a set of unwitnessable activities. Ryle’s object in The Concept of Mind is to demolish this dogma. “Such in outline is the official theory. I shall often speak of it, with deliberate abusiveness, as ‘the dogma of the Ghost in the Machine’.” Ryle, The Concept of Mind. Gilson, Étienne, Paris-born philosopher, Gilson was an outstanding historian of philosophy who explored the diversity and sophistication of medieval thought. He is especially known for his discussions of the Augustinian and Aristotelian strands of medieval philosophy, his account of the complex relations between reason and faith, and his exposition of the metaphysics and epistemology of Aquinas. His main works include The Christian Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas (1919), The Unity of Philosophical Experience (1937), and The Philosopher and Theology (1960). Datum – given: That which is presented immediately to consciousness, the direct content of senseexperience. For many empiricist philosophers, sense-data are the given, offering the basis of certainty, the ultimate foundation of knowledge and the material from which we infer the existence of other objects. What is given can be known noninferentially and provides the basis presupposed by other forms of knowledge. It is the ultimate resort for all factual claims about the world. The existence of the given and its epistemic status are at the core of sense-datum theories of various forms. Other philosophers, although admitting an element that is given in our experience, reject the traditional place of the status of the given as “the myth of the given.” “For to say that an object is immediately ‘given’ is to say merely that it is the content of a senseexperience.” Ayer, Language, Truth, and Logic. gnoseology, another name for epistemology. Gnosticism, Greek gnosis, knowledge. A religious and philosophical movement prominent in the early Christian centuries, which drew on the doctrines of Plato’s Timaeus and the Judeo-Christian myth of Genesis. Gnosticism focused on the role of revealed knowledge in salvation. There are two worlds: the good spiritual world, and the evil material world created and ruled by a lower god or demiurge. God is transcendent and unknown. Man in his nature is essentially akin to the divine, with a spark of heavenly light imprisoned in a material body. A spiritual savior, normally Jesus, has come to impart gnosis, that is, revealed knowledge about the divine origin of the soul and about the way of redemption from the world. Gnosis is the redemption of the sinner who is a spiritual man. The human beings who possess this knowledge, called gnostics, will be saved, for by means of that knowledge they awaken to the recognition of their true origin and nature and can hence be liberated from the bondage of the material world. Faith is inferior to gnosis. The dualistic cosmological doctrine of Gnosticism and its belief that salvation is dependent upon knowledge rather than faith are incompatible with orthodox Christianity. Consequently it was banned by the Christian emperors as a heresy. Yet Gnosticism spread into the Middle East and was absorbed into Manichaeism. It also appeared frequently under different names in the Middle Ages. A number of gnostic texts were rediscovered in Nag Hammadi in Egypt in 1945. “This is the first and most important point in defining Gnosticism. It is a religion of saving knowledge, and the knowledge is essentially selfknowledge, recognition of the divine element which constitutes the true self. To this recognition is added a bewildering variety of myths and cultic practices.” Grant, Gnosticism and Early Christianity God Philosophy of religion, metaphysics It is difficult to offer a universal definition of this term, which has such a wide and varied application. In general usage, God is represented as being the ultimate source of all that is, the omnipotent, omniscient, perfectly good and loving creator of the world, who preserves the natural order of the world and sustains its moral order. The concept of God has both religious and metaphysical aspects. While religion proceeds on the assumption that God exists, metaphysics takes great pains to examine rational arguments for the existence of God. The account of God differs greatly according to religion and metaphysical system. Is there one supreme God or many lesser gods? What are the attributes of God, and are some divine attributes more fundamental than others? What are the implications of divine perfection? Is God immanent or transcendent in relation to the world? How can we have knowledge of God? Must God be a personal being Godwin, William in order to be a suitable object of worship? What is the place of faith and revelation in our relation to God? Does evil in the world show that there is no all-powerful, all-knowing, and perfectly good God? Does it matter whether we can prove or disprove God’s existence? Can we explain belief in God in psychological or sociological terms? Various theological and philosophical doctrines have their origin in these and related problems. Privatdocent at University of Vienna and Professor at the Institute for Advanced Studies, Princeton. Gödel is famous for his crucial proofs undermining assumptions about the possibility of proving the completeness and consistency of mathematical systems within the systems themselves. He is also known for his realist account of the philosophy of mathematics. His writings are contained in Collected Works. “By a theist I understand a man who believes that there is a God. By a ‘God’ he understands something like a ‘person’ without a body (i.e. a spirit) who is eternal, free, able to do anything, knows everything, is perfectly good, is the proper object of human worship and obedience, the creator and sustainer of the universe.” Swinburne, The Gödel’s theorems: two fundamental theorems about incompleteness and consistency in formal systems, proved by the Austrian mathematical logician Kurt Gödel in work initiated in his paper “On Formally Undecidable Propositions in Principia Mathematica and Related Systems, I” (1931). According to the first, any formal system which is capable of expressing arithmetic must contain true sentences, which can be formulated in the system but which cannot be proven employing only the system’s own resources, although their construction shows that the sentences are true. According to the second, no formal system is powerful enough to prove its own consistency. By showing that no formal system can prove every truth it can formulate or prove its own consistency, these theorems indicate the limits of purely formal methods in mathematics and undermine Hilbert’s formalist program. Gödel’s theorems have deeply influenced our understanding of consistency, completeness, truth, provability, computable functions, and the relationship between arithmetic and metamathematics. Coherence of Theism God is dead Ethics, metaphysics, philosophy of religion Nietzsche’s formula for the cultural and intellectual crisis in traditional religious and metaphysical thinking, which is characterized by its attempt to explain the world and the meaning of life by appealing to God as an ultimate transcendent reality. Nietzsche’s proclamation marked a rebellion against the interpretation of the world and ourselves in terms of Christian morality and also rejected the superiority of reason. According to Nietzsche, we should eliminate the idea of the existence of God and should destroy both our faith in God and our accustomed ways of thinking based on that faith. He sought to undermine Judeo-Christian morality and values and advocated a revaluation of all values. Through such a revaluation, we would reconsider everything in a manner faithful to the earth and free from any God-hypothesis. Nietzsche claimed that this will provide our greatest relief, but will also cause universal madness. This slogan has had great impact on existentialism and on other intellectual movements of the twentieth century. “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him . . . There has never been a greater dead.” Nietzsche, The Gay Science Gödel, Kurt (1906–78) Austrian-born American mathematical logician and philosopher of mathematics, born in Brunn, “The ‘incompleteness theorem’ of Kurt Gödel showed that no set of logical relations can be established that does not also imply the existence of still other relations with which the set itself cannot cope.” S. Richards, Philosophy and Sociology of Science Godwin, William (1756–1836) British moral and political philosopher, born in Wisbech. Godwin’s radical political philosophy sought to free naturally good and equal human beings from corrupt government in order to establish an anarchist social order functioning according to utilitarian principles and respecting natural rights. His main work is An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793). Golden rule: The rule originates in Western culture with Jesus in Matthew 7:12 in the Bible. Its commonest formulation is: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” It has also a negative formulation, which is: “Do not do unto others as you would not have them do unto you.” The word “golden” in the expression of “Golden Rule” is an early English usage, meaning “of inestimable value.” The same rule had been formulated in the Oriental tradition by the Chinese philosopher Confucius. His version is: “What you do not like when done to yourself, do not do to others.” The Golden Rule has been widely accepted as the first principle of conduct and is embodied in the core of many social and moral codes. However, many philosophers have questioned its nature and value. Both Kant and Sidgwick suggest that it is imprecise in formulation and cannot be a rule guiding action, for it is too formal and too general to be used in either moral or legal circumstances. There are many counter-examples to using it as a moral principle. Other moralists have tried to reformulate the rule in order to address such criticism, but no alternative formulation has won general acceptance. Now it is generally held that the Golden Rule must be used together with other principles of conduct. Another major problem concerns the essence of this rule. Some believe that it teaches impartiality through a role-reversal test; others consider it as a principle of autonomy, by which one judges one’s own conduct by referring to the conduct others. “Ethical altruism . . . says that people ought to act with each other’s interests in mind. That is, of course, a basic statement of morality, best summarized in the so-called Golden rule: ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you’.” Solomon, Introducing Philosophy. Goldman, A., Brooklyn-born philosopher. Goldman responded to the Gettier problem by requiring causal links between beliefs and the facts known for justified true beliefs to constitute knowledge. His causal theory of action accounts for intentional action in terms of causal relations between mental states and behavior. He has argued more generally for the importance of cognitive psychology for epistemology. His main works include A Theory of Human Action (1970), Epistemology and Cognition (1986), and Liaisons: Philosophy Meets the Cognitive and Social Sciences (1992). Good: Many approaches to ethics are centered on achieving what is good, although others are based on doing what is right. Giving priority to one goal need not exclude the other, but might shape its contents or limit how we pursue it. In either case, goodness has a place in moral psychology, motivating our actions and explaining our emotions. However, the notion of the good is extremely complex. Plato, in the Republic, claimed that the good, while being the source of being and knowledge, is beyond conceptual analysis. This position was developed by Plotinus and Aquinas. Aristotle suggested that the good is that to which everything aspires, but argued that the word is used in many ways and belongs to each category. In this respect it is similar to what Wittgenstein calls a family resemblance notion, and a unified definition is difficult to achieve. A good man and a good knife, for example, are good in different senses. Accounts of goodness can be divided into cognitivist and non-cognitivist theories. Cognitivist approaches take goodness to be a real property to which the term “good” applies. Non-cognitivist approaches claim that we construct what is good or use the term to express approval. For some ethical systems, goodness is reduced to one quality, like happiness or pleasure or satisfying desire. But G. E. Moore argued that goodness is a simple non-natural property that cannot be analyzed and is not subject to empirical investigation. It is indefinable and can only be grasped through intuition. Any attempt to define goodness in terms of natural properties is charged by Moore as committing the naturalistic fallacy. In spite of the influence of Moore’s attack, naturalistic ethics has been revived. Rawls’s thin theory of the good provides a basis for his theory of justice by specifying those things that all members of society will want whatever else they desire. His liberalism allows different fully elaborated theories of the good grace to be sought by different members of society so long as they are pursued within constraints established by the theory of justice. Geach drew a distinction between attributive and predicative adjectives. A phrase like “a red house” can be analyzed as “this is a house and it is red,” while a phrase like “a good mother” cannot be analyzed as “she is a mother and she is good.” For she might be good as a mother, but not good in other respects. Hence, the adjective “red” is predicative, while “good” is attributive. In a phrase “a good x,” the meaning of “good” is intimately connected with the meaning of the noun it qualifies, and is at least partly determined by the latter. Geach argues that we should take “a good x” as a whole and understand it differently for different kinds of x. “Every craft and every investigation, and likewise every action and decision, seems to me to aim at some good; hence the good has been well described as that at which everything aims.” Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics. good will, vs. ill-will. Kant’s term for a self-conscious disposition to make morally commendable choices. The acts of a good will are done for the sake of duty or in accordance with the categorical imperative. For Kant, there will always be circumstances under which traditional moral virtues or goods will be misused. Only a good will is good without qualification. A good will is the only thing that can guarantee the correct use of traditional virtues. It is good not because of what it effects or accomplishes. Even if an action that it chooses causes harm, it is still good as a will. A good will constitutes the indispensable condition of our being worthy of happiness. Kant’s notion provided a new foundation for moral philosophy. A good will can be achieved by a human being and is thus contrasted to a holy will, which is a spontaneous and willing acceptance of moral requirements without being disturbed by human sensuous desire. “There is no possibility of thinking of anything at all in the world, or even out of it, which can regard as good without qualification, except a good will.” Kant, Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals. Goodman, N., Somerville, Mass.-born philosophe, Goodman endorsed an austere nominalism that rejects classes in favor of abstract individuals that combine at a time and place to constitute concrete individuals. His account of language is based on denotation of actual individuals rather than on meaning and counterfactual inferences about possible individuals. His new riddle of induction explains the use of predicates in terms of their entrenchment. He compares works of art as symbols to sentences with cognitive structures and allows science and art to be accompanied by many other ways of world-making. His major works are The Structure of Appearance (1951), Fact, Fiction and Forecast (1954), The Languages of Art (1968), and Ways of World-Making (1978). Goodman’s paradox, another name for the new riddle of induction Gorgias (c.483–375 bc) Greek sophist and rhetorician, born in Leontini, Sicily, and settled in Athens in 427 as a teacher of rhetoric. His book On Not-Being was an attempt to discredit Eleatic philosophy. Gorgias used Eleatic dialectical reasoning to establish three propositions that contradicted Eleatic views: (1) nothing is; (2) even if anything is, it is unknowable to man; (3) even if anything is knowable, it is inexpressible and incommunicable to others. Gorgias’s main concern was rhetoric, which he defined as the art of persuasion. He developed a new style of prose writing that gained immense popularity in the early fourth century bc. He was portrayed in Plato’s important dialogue Gorgias. Grace: In theology, God’s free gift by which sinful human beings are saved, for human beings cannot achieve salvation through their own efforts. While human gifts might be motivated by self-interest, God’s grace is disinterested, for God does not need anything from human beings. Grace is given unilaterally, but there ar theological disagreements whether we can act to gain or to deserve grace and whether grace is available for all humans or only for some predestined for salvation. “The grace of God could not be commended in a way more likely to evoke a grateful response, than the way by which the only Son of God . . . clothed himself in humanity and gave to men the spirit of his love by the mediation of a man, so that by this love men might come to him . . .” Augustine, City of God. Grammar: A system of rules that structures a natural language. The traditional study of grammar contains two branches: morphology, which concerns word formation, word class, declensions, and conjunctions; and syntax, which concerns the principles governing sentence formation. A traditional grammar is generally prescriptive, that is, legislating over the correct use of a natural language. The contemporary study of grammar is more descriptive and aims to provide a general theory to account for the actual usage of natural languages. The categories and rules of a universal grammar are applicable to all human languages. Contemporary grammar is dominated by Chomsky’s attempt to determine a universal grammar and his notion of a generative grammar, that is, a system of rules specifying all and only the grammatical sentences of a language, plus a specification of their relevant structural properties. A generative grammar focuses more on linguistic competence than on performance. Richard Montague developed a new approach to grammar that applies the techniques of model theory to natural languages and takes a categorical grammar as its syntactic component. Grammar, as a theory of natural languages, can be contrasted to the logical grammar of Wittgenstein and Carnap. “We use the term ‘grammar’ with a systematic ambiguity. On the one hand, the term refers to the explicit theory constructed by the linguist and proposed as a description of the speaker’s competence. On the other hand, we use the term to refer to his competence itself.” Chomsky and Halle, The Sound Pattern of English. grammatical predicate, see predicate. grammatical proposition: Many propositions, such as “I know I am in pain,” or “Red is a color,” are usually thought to be empirical and to represent what is the case in the world. The meaning of the proposition is determined by the nature of the external world. However, Wittgenstein claims that these seemingly empirical propositions are actually grammatical. They do not represent the world, but merely give rules in accordance with which their constituent words are used. The meaning of a word is determined by the rule. Hence, “I know whether I am in pain” means that “It is meaningless to say that ‘I doubt whether I am in pain.’ ” “Red is a color” means “If something is red, it is colored.” “ ‘An order orders its own execution’. So it knows its execution, then, even before it is there? – But that was a grammatical proposition and it means: If an order runs ‘Do such-and-such’ then executing the order is called ‘doing such-and-such’.” Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations. grammatology Modern European philosophy [from Greek gramma, that which is drawn or written + logos, theory, hence a science of writing] Derrida’s term for a science of writing. Because the Western metaphysical tradition has ranked speech or voice over writing, it is charged by Derrida with phonologism. Derrida argues that we should reverse the priority between speech and writing and establish a science of writing, that is, grammatology. His wide definition of writing includes in general all that gives rise to an inscription, such as cinematography and choreography, as well as pictorial, musical, sculptural “writing.” Grammatology can accommodate what Lévi-Strauss calls general linguistics. According to Derrida, Hegel’s system is the end of the tradition of phonologism, but it is also the beginning of the era of grammatology. The positive details of grammatology need to be developed further before its implications can be assessed. “Science of ‘the arbitrariness of the sign’, science of the immotivation of the trace, science of writing before speech and in speech, grammatology. great year would thus cover a vast field within which linguistics would, by abstraction, delineate its own area.” Derrida, Of Grammatology Gramsci, A., Ales-born philosopher. Gramsci offered a less authoritarian and deterministic account of Marxism, in which the hegemony of ruling elites can be preserved when economic conditions for revolution exist by attracting the working class to the moral and cultural values of the elite. Cultural and moral questions and persuasion, rather than economic conditions, therefore become crucial to the possibility of revolutionary success. His main works include Prison Notebooks (1929–35) and Letters from Prison (1965). Gratus, gratitude, Latin gratus, pleasing, A sentimental and thankful emotion on the part of the recipient of a favor directed at the benefactor and motivating actions that return some good to that person. The favor received must have proceeded from direct intentional good will on the part of the benefactor, rather than as an unintended consequence, or there is no reason to feel gratitude. The return of the favor is not bound to be a proportionate repayment, and the benefactor has no moral right to ask the beneficiary to return it. What counts in gratitude is to reciprocate love with love. It is a natural rather than imposed desire to benefit the benefactor and to do the latter a justice. Different philosophers emphasize respectively the elements of love, beneficence, and justice in the emotion of gratitude. “Gratefulness or gratitude is the desire or zeal for love by which we endeavour to benefit him who has benefited from a similar emotion of love.” Spinoza, Ethics. great chain of being Metaphysics A term introduced by the American philosopher A. O. Lovejoy, according to which all beings in the world are not equal with regard to their metaphysical or ontological status. They are hierarchically ordered, with absolute being or God at the top and things of the slightest existence at the bottom. There are an infinite number of things with different existential grades between them. Absolute being is pure actuality, whilst at the bottom of the hierarchy are pure potentialities. This idea of a great chain of being can be traced to Plato’s division of the world into the Forms, which are full beings, and sensible things, which are imitations of the Forms and are both being and not being. Aristotle’s teleology recognized a perfect being, and he also arranges all animals by a single natural scale according to the degree of perfection of their souls. The idea of the great chain of being was fully developed in Neoplatonism and in the Middle Ages. Dante’s Divine Comedy presents a literary illustration of this hierarchy. The notion is connected with the principle of plenitude, which claims that every possibility is actualized. “The result was the conception of the plan and structure of the world . . . the conception of the universe as a ‘Great Chain of Being’, composed of an immense, or . . . of an infinite number of links ranging in hierarchical order from the meagerest kind of existents (which barely escape non existence), through every possible grade up to the ens perfectissimum.” Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being great year Metaphysics Also called the perfect year. On the basis of observation, the ancient Greeks believed that time is cyclical, and they extended this idea to claim that the universe has a cyclical renewal. One cycle forms a great year, in which the sun, moon, and planets are all destroyed and begin again after returning together to the same positions that they had occupied at a given previous time. On this view, there is an everlasting repetition of history. This notion pervades Greek philosophy; and some philosophers like Empedocles and Plato even made the cycle of the soul’s incarnations parallel the cycle of the great year. Heraclitus claimed that the length of a great year is 10,800 years, but this length varies in different sources. Although rejected by modern astronomy, this idea has been expressed in modern times in the philosophy of Nietzsche and Peirce. “And yet there is no difficulty in seeing that the perfect number of time fulfils the perfect [or great] year when all the eight revolutions . . . are accomplished together and attain their completion at the same time.” Plato, Timaeus. greatest happiness principle: A principle providing the central idea of classical utilitarianism. It is often considered another name for Bentham’s principle of utility, although its well-known formulation was provided by Hutcheson in 1725. According to this principle, an action is moral if it produces the greatest happiness for the greatest numbers of people involved. The greatest happiness involves the maximization of pleasure and the minimization of pain. Classical utilitarianism derives from this principle the meaning of key moral terms, such as good, right, and duty. As it stands, however, the principle needs explanation because of a problem about the distribution of happiness in a population. An action is not necessarily good if it procures the greatest happiness for the greatest numbers by giving immense happiness to a small group and meager happiness to the rest. Furthermore, there are difficulties about how to measure quantities of happiness. “The creed which accepts as the foundation of morals ‘utility’ or the ‘greatest happiness principle’ holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness.” Mill, Utilitarianism, in Robson (ed.), Collected Words, vol. X. magnanimity: great-soulness, from Greek megalo, large, great + psukhia, soul, lso translated as magnanimity, a virtue that Aristotle describes in the Nicomachean Ethics as a virtue concerning greatness. A person who has a great soul, namely, a magnanimous person, is perfectly virtuous and is the best person. He will not be calculating or suspicious, and he is happy to give benefits but shamed to receive them. He is of a distinguished position and is indifferent to the opinions of his inferiors. He is aware that he is worthy of great things and is indeed worthy of them. He takes a suitable attitude toward honor for his virtues, not discarding it or pursuing it indiscriminately. He cannot have his life determined by others. The deficiency of this virtue is pusillanimousness, and its excess is vanity. Usually this virtue is taken to contrast with the Christian virtue of humility. “Great-soulness seems, even going by the name alone, to be concerned with great things.” Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics. Green, Thomas Hill (1836–82) English absolute idealist and political philosopher, born in Birkin, Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford and Professor of Moral Philosophy, University of Oxford. Green was a major expositor and critic of Hume’s empiricism and naturalism from the standpoint of an idealism that gives priority to rationally determined relations rather than senseexperience. His liberal political philosophy allows the state to establish conditions in which each individual has maximum freedom consistent with an equal freedom for all others. His main works include Prologomena to Ethics (1883). Grelling’s paradox: Also called the heterological paradox, formulated by Kurt Grelling in 1908. Some adjectives such as “English” may apply to themselves (for “English” is also an English word), while other adjectives such as “German” do not apply to themselves (for “German” is not a German word). The adjectives in the second group may be called heterological. Then is the adjective “heterological” itself heterological or not? If it is, then according to the definition of heterological it does not apply to itself and is not heterological; if it is not, then according to the definition it does apply to itself and is heterological. Grelling’s paradox is a prime example of the semantic paradoxes. It inspires the distinction between an object language and its metalanguage and thus had great impact on Tarski’s semantic theory of truth. “In view of Grelling’s paradox, we know a set which is determined by no sentence of the object language; namely, the set of all sentences of the object languages that do not satisfy themselves.” Quine, Philosophy of Logic. Grice, H. P., Harborne-born philosopher, e: Clifton, Corpus Christie (under Hardie), Merton, B. A. Lit. Hum, M. A., Lit. Hum., F. B. A., Fellow St. John’s, Oxford. Grice provided an account of meaning and communication that is based on the priority of speaker’s meaning to linguistic meaning and provides a major rival to truth-conditional theories of meaning. His distinction between saying and implying, where implying is governed by guardians conventions of conversational implicature, has wide application, from the interpretation of logical connectives to the philosophy of perception, and has influenced understanding of the boundary between semantics and pragmatics. His main works are included in Studies in the Ways of Words. Grosseteste, Robert (c.1170–1253) English medieval scientist, philosopher, and commentator on Aristotle, born in Suffolk, Chancellor of University of Oxford and Bishop of Lincoln. Grosseteste initiated the serious study of science and the methodology of science in England, commented on newly rediscovered Aristotelian texts, and was influenced by Augustinian Neoplatonism and Jewish and Muslim philosophers. Many of his philosophical views are related to his account of light as the cause of local motion, as the means of the soul acting on the body, and as the source of intelligibility in the universe. His major works include De Luce (On Light), De Motu Corporali et Luce (Corporal Motion and Light), and Hexameron. Grotius, Hugo (1583–1645) Dutch philosopher of law and statesman, born in Delft. Grotius was the founder of modern international law through his theory of just war. He argued that war is just in response to one or more wrongs committed by one state against another. Because there is no international agency to force states to right these wrongs, states can justly take the law into their own hands to rectify them. His major work is On the Law of War and Peace (1625). group mind Philosophy of mind, philosophy of social science [French âme collective] Durkheim’s term for a descriptive property of a society or a group, represented through the statistically average rate of typical social interactions such as birth, marriage, and suicide among its members. Because all individual features are neutralized in such a rate, it cannot be determined by any single individual’s consciousness or behavior. Accordingly, society is not merely a totality of individuals, and the behavior of the group is not determined by the behavior of its members. The group mind is the collective aspect of the beliefs, tendencies, and practices of a group that characterize truly social phenomena. Durkheim held that this collective aspect is a natural consequence of individuals living together. The existence of group mind indicates that society is an organism, and it is a basic condition for sociology to be an independent discipline. It is further inferred that methodological holism should be the proper method for analyzing society. Whether there is such a super entity as a group mind and how it might be characterized have been important matters of dispute. “The average, then, expresses a certain state of the group mind (l’âme collective).” E. Durkheim, The Rules of Sociological Method group responsibility, an alternative expression for collective responsibility grue paradox, another name for the new riddle of induction Grünbaum, Adolf (1923– ) German-born American philosopher of physics and psychoanalysis, born in Cologne, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh. Grünbaum has made significant contributions to the philosophy of space and time and scientific rationality. He criticized Popper’s designation of Freudian theory as unfalsifiable and hence pseudoscience, but argued that the reasoning supporting the claims of psychoanalysis was scientifically flawed and required evidence outside the interaction between analyst and patient. His major works include Philosophical Problems of Space and Time, 2nd ed. (1973) and Foundations of Psychoanalysis: A Philosophical Critique (1984). guardians Ancient Greek philosophy, political philosophy [Greek phulakes] In Plato’s Republic, initially the army or watch-dogs of the Ideal City, but from 412c the older and wiser rulers, as distinguished from the young ruled or auxiliaries. As the top administrators, the guardians were to look after the City as a whole and maintain its operation. Their virtue was wisdom, and they corresponded to the rational element in the soul. Plato’s account of the guardians contained radical features. Women and men could both be guardians and would enjoy equality in education and public duties. In order to secure the unity of the City, the guardians would not have families and would share their spouses and children. The Ideal City could be realized only if it were ruled by philosopher-kings, that is, if philosophers became the rulers or if the present rulers became genuine philosophers. Plato used the term philosopher here in its original sense of a lover of knowledge and not for a professional role. Through their training, the guardians beheld the Form of the Ideal City and possessed real knowledge. As philosophers, they ruled the City not because of their desire for power, wealth, or influence, but out of duty. “Let us now boldly say that those who are our guardians in the most precise sense must be philosophers.” Plato, Republic guilt Ethics, philosophy of law, philosophy of mind Guilt is the state of violating the legal or moral rules through wrongdoing and upon which punishment should be imposed. The absence of guilt is innocence, that is, the condition of moral purity. An innocent person is not culpably responsible for an action. The state of guilt usually arouses the sense of guilt in the agent, although not every guilty person has this feeling. The feeling of guilt results from wrongdoing and leads to the recognition of one’s responsibility and to the state of remorse, which is the desire to expiate the wrong done. A neighboring conception is shame, a state of failing to comply with the basic standard of worth or excellence that is endorsed both by oneself and by the public. Shameful states include the exposure of physical indelicacy and of intellectual and moral weakness. Feelings of shame result from defects of one’s worth, honor, and integrity, arising from the violation of the sentiment of self-respect and the standard of public esteem. Sometimes guilt and shame overlap, for a sense of guilt generally accompanies a sense of shame. However, what is emphasized in guilt is wrongdoing and responsibility, while what is emphasized in shame is shortcoming or defect. “When we go against our sense of justice we explain our feelings of guilt by reference to the principle of justice.” Rawls, A Theory of Justice Gyge’s ring Ethics A story told in Plato’s Republic in order to illustrate the claim that no one is just willingly, but only under compulsion. If a just man could get away without the bad consequences of doing wrong, he would commit unjust acts. Gyges was a shepherd in the service of a king, who found a ring that made him invisible whenever he turned the hoop inwards. Gyges used this invisibility to do many things and eventually usurped the kingdom. Hence, it was claimed that if a just man came into possession of such a ring, he would use it to do exactly what the unjust man does. On this view, what is really valued is not being just, but only seeming to be just. The whole of the Republic is an argument against it, and Plato tried to show that it is not worth being unjust even if one has Gyges’ ring. “We have found that justice in itself is best for the soul itself, and that it must do what is right, whether it has the ring of Gyges or not.” Plato, Republic gynocentrism, see androcentrism Habermas, Jürgen (1929– ) German political and social philosopher, born in Düsseldorf, Professor of the History of Philosophy at University of Frankfurt. Habermas is the leading contemporary inheritor of the critical social philosophy of the Frankfurt School and its concern for human emancipation. His conception of knowledge is based on the rational human pursuit of theoretical, practical, and aesthetic interests, in contrast to a positivist restriction of knowledge to science. Knowledge emerges through dialogue in undistorted speech situations, among speakers with radically different intellectual commitments who nevertheless understand one another and can reach rational consensus through argument. He defends a modernist conception of truth and meaning against postmodernist relativism. His major works include Knowledge and Human Interests (1968), The Theory of Communicative Action, 2 vols. (1981), and The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity (1985). haecceitism, see haecceity haecceity Metaphysics [from Latin haec, this, haecceitas, thisness, individual essence] A term introduced by Duns Scotus, much discussed by Aquinas, and revived in contemporary metaphysics. Originally it was used for an individual essence by which a thing is the individual that it is, and by which one instance of a species is distinguished from other members of the same species. It was claimed to be the necessary property which a thing must possess and which no other thing could possibly have, for example, Socrates’ soul is peculiar to Socrates who possesses it. A theory that claims the existence of haecceity is called haecceitism. According to this theory, individuals within the same species are not merely numerically different, but each has a unique inner essence after abstracting from their shared repeatable properties. A haecceity to an individual corresponds to a quiddity to a kind or a universal. “G is an individual essence (or haecceity) = df G is a property which is such that, for every X, X has G if and only if X is necessarily such that it has G, and it is impossible that there is a Y other than X such that Y has G.” Chisholm, Person and Object hallucination Epistemology An experience that a subject has about something, but the experienced thing does not exist. In a typical example, a drunkard “sees” snakes. Such an experience is private, that is, available only to the subject. Hallucinations are common in acute fevers, in madness, and in many extreme physical and emotional conditions. One major issue in the analysis of hallucinations is whether what we apparently perceive exists in any sense or is nothing at all. Hallucination is different from illusion, where something material is seen but is presented other than it is. The occurrence of hallucination is used by sense-datum theorists, who call what is presented in hallucination wild sense-data, to reject naive realism and to support the existence of sense-data independent of material things. Hallucinations suggest that what we are aware of directly may have no relation to external things and that what we directly perceive are not material things. A possible objection to this argument allows that hallucination is a type of mental imagery, but rejects the claim that it is a form of perceptual consciousness. “I follow the fairly standard practice of using . . . ‘hallucination’ for cases where nothing material is seen.” Jackson, Perception Hampshire, S. N., Healing, Lincs.-born philosopher and philosopher of mind, Professor at University College, London and Princeton University and Warden of Wadham College, Oxford. Hampshire combined humanistic sensibility, analytical power, and systematic ambition in an account of knowledge and morality that recognizes human beings as embodied agents acting in a complex social and physical world. He had a capacity to identify and illuminate real perplexities of moral life. His major works include Spinoza (1951), Thought and Action (1959), Freedom of Mind (1971), and Morality and Conflict (1983). hard cases Philosophy of law Cases where established rules or laws cannot provide conclusive answers and about which informed people can reasonably disagree. If we view law as a body of rules, hard cases constitute indeterminacy in law or legal gaps. Dworkin therefore claims that we must understand law as comprising more than rules. To solve hard cases, judges must be guided by standards that are not rules, and these non-rule standards are either principles that concern the rights of individuals or policies that concern social or collective goals. In contrast to the traditional view, which claims that judges should be guided by appeal to policies in settling hard cases, Dworkin argues that the appropriate technique should involve appeal to principles, that is, to the consideration of the abstract rights of individuals such as liberty, equality, respect, and dignity. According to his rights thesis, judicial reasoning about hard cases takes place against a background of assumptions about rights. “If the case at hand is a hard case, when no settled rule dictates a decision either way, then it might seem that a proper decision could be generated by either policy or principle.” Dworkin, Taking Rights Seriously hard data, see data Hare, R. M. Backwell, Som.-born philosopher, Professor of Moral Philosophy, University of Oxford and Professor, University of Florida at Gainesville. Hare had great influence through his account of rationality of moral judgments as imperatives constrained by Kantian demands of universality and consistency. He supported a sophisticated form of utilitarianism as the moral theory that meets these demands and applied his theoretical position to deal with a wide range of issues in applied ethics. His major works include The Language of Morals (1952), Freedom and Reason (1963), and Moral Thinking (1981). harm Ethics, philosophy of law Plato in the Republic claims that harm is an internal moral defect due to the disharmony of the different elements of the soul. Harm is a mental illness for a person to whom we should give pity. Currently, harm generally refers to the external violation of one’s interests, that is, some adverse effect caused by another person’s wrongdoing. The person who produces harm should be condemned and even punished. To say somebody has been harmed amounts to saying that this person has been wronged or treated unjustly. However, while harm is morally wrong, the justified and deserved punishment of wrongdoing is not regarded as harm. An associate conception is offense, which refers to an uncomfortable and resentful mental state arising from the wrongful conduct of someone else. An offense itself does not directly cause the impairment of one’s interests, although an offense that leads to adverse effects becomes a harm. Sometimes the distinction between harm and offense is challenged on the grounds that the unpleasant state of mind is itself a harm. “Our full paradigm of (wrongful) harm will include a person who acts on a victim, and the act of harming that produces the setback of the victim’s interest.” Feinberg, Harm to Others harm principle Ethics A principle proposed by J. S. Mill in On Liberty, claiming that the individual is sovereign over his mind and body and hence that the only proper ground for limiting his liberty is that his act concerns others and causes harm to others. This principle is considered to be essential for securing individual liberty against the interference of law. Mill denied that society is entitled to use law to uphold conventional moral standards or to restrict a person’s liberty to act in ways that harm no one else. Society often violates the principle on the grounds that the person is not mature enough to realize his own real interests, or that the action, although affecting only himself, is intrinsically wrong. Mill argued that in these cases we may reason with the person or attempt to persuade him, but we have no right to compel him. Mill’s position was criticized by Devlin, who proposed instead the thesis of the enforcement of morals, that is, that law should enforce publicly accepted standards of private morality. “The object of this essay is to assert one very simple principle . . . That principle is, that the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightly exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.” Mill, On Liberty, in Robson (ed.), Collected Works, vol. XVIII Harman, Gilbert (1938– ) American philosopher of mind, ethics, language, and epistemology, born in East Orange, New Jersey, Professor of Philosophy, Princeton University. In accord with his commitment to a scientific account of persons that combines philosophy and cognitive science, Harman’s functionalist account of the mind explains the capacity of mental states to represent a language of thought through their role in a physically based functional system. Moral facts are determined by principles of social cooperation that are justified through providing long-term benefit to agents. His work on changes in systems of beliefs, desires, and intentions develops rules of reasoning that are useful for understanding human and artificial intelligence and are independent of logical rules of inference. His major works include Thought (1973) and Change in View: Principles of Reasoning (1986). harmony Ancient Greek philosophy, metaphysics [from Greek harmonie, derived from the verb harmozein, to fit together, also translated as adjustment or concord] The mutual adjustment of different components according to rational principles to form an organic and coherent whole. It is a key word for the Pythagoreans, who used it to refer to the musical scale, and analogically to refer to the proportional movements on a cosmic scale of the sun, moon, and fixed stars. When they say that number is the first principle, they mean that all physical things are composed of elements harmonized in a certain ratio. This is the Pythagorean mathematics of harmony. Heraclitus also claims that everything is the harmony of the opposites. Ancient Greek medicine took health as a harmony of physical opposites. “It is clear that the theory that the movement of the stars produces a harmony . . . is nevertheless untrue.” Aristotle, De Caelo Hart, H. L. A., Harrogate-born philosopher, Professor of Jurisprudence, University of Oxford. Hart’s influential account of legal positivism, established through criticism of the legal positivism of Austin and Bentham, conceived the law in terms of primary rules of obligation that are formed in a system through secondary rules of recognition, change, and adjudication. His major works include Causation in the Law (with Tony Honoré) (1959), The Concept of Law (1961), and Essays on Bentham: Studies in Jurisprudence and Political Theory (1982). Hartley, David (1705–57) English associationist psychologist, physician, and philosopher, born in Halifax. Under the influence of Newton’s theory of vibration, Hartley proposed an associationist theory of the mind based on speculative physiology. His main philosophical work is Observations on Man, His Frame, His Duty and His Expectations (1749). Hartmann, Eduard von (1842–1906) German pessimistic philosopher and critic of culture, born in Berlin. Hartmann followed Kant and Schopenhauer in his account of the misery of the world and claimed that although this is the best of all possible worlds, it would have been better had the world not existed. In a vitalist and pantheist system, he argues that the unconscious is the grounds of all being and that the world emerges from the unconscious irrational will and the unconscious rational idea. A positive note of pleasure is introduced through the advance of consciousness, but with the full emergence of consciousness the world will cease to exist. Hartmann’s dynamic thus leads to annihilation rather than to Hegelian rational fulfillment. His major work is The Philosophy of the Unconscious (1869). Hartmann, Nicolai (1882–1950) German philosopher of ontology and ethics, born in Riga, Latvia, Professor of Philosophy at Universities of Marburg, Cologne, Berlin, and Göttingen. Hartmann pursued an aporetic method based on the exposition and clarification of antinomies, and argued for the priority of metaphysics over epistemology. His ontology recognizes levels of being, with his account of being concerned with some universal categories as well as with categories that are restricted to a given level. His ethical writings include a phenomenology of the virtues that reflects both Aristotle and Nietzsche. His major works include Ethics, 3 vols. (1926) and New Ways of Ontology (1940). Hartshorne, Charles (1897–2000) American process metaphysician and theologian, born in Kittaning, Pennsylvania, Research Fellow at Harvard University and Professor of Philosophy, University of Texas at Austin. Hartshorne employed Whitehead’s scientific process philosophy to discuss questions in theology. He argued that vital feeling, although concentrated in individuals, permeates the universe in an affective continuum. He saw God as including the world but also transcending it. He offered an account of Anselm’s ontological argument in terms of modal logic. His major works include The Divine Relativity (1947) and Creative Synthesis and Philosophic Method (1970). Hayek, F(riedrich) A(ugust) von (1899–1992) Austrian-born British economist and political philosopher, born in Vienna, Professor at Universities of London, Chicago, and Freiburg. Hayek argued in favor of the social and economic institutions that emerge from the accumulation of individual decisions within a market and against rational social and economic planning in order to defend the scope of liberty in society. His radical liberalism also opposed state interference to establish a redistributivist social justice. His major works include The Road to Serfdom (1944), The Constitution of Liberty (1960), Law, Legislation and Liberty, 3 vols. (1973–9), and Economic Freedom (1991). health care ethics, see bioethics heaven Philosophy of science, philosophy of religion [Greek ouranos] In Hesiod’s theogony, an archaic cosmogonical concept. Aristotle, in his On the Heavens (Greek Peri Ouranow, Latin De Caelo), distinguishes three senses of heaven: (1) the outermost circumference of the universe; (2) the sky or heaven in general; (3) the universe as a whole, a synonym for kosmos. In Christian tradition, heaven is the place reserved for saved sinners after death, in contrast to hell, which is reserved for unrepentant sinners, and purgatory, an intermediate place for sinners to expiate sins before going to heaven. On this view, God is in heaven, which lies beyond the cosmos. “When the Westerner dreams of another world he very often dreams of heaven or purgatory or hell – these are bad dreams.” N. Smart, The Philosophy of Religion hedonism, ethical Ethics [from Greek hedone, pleasure] An ethical position which claims that pleasure or happiness is the highest or most intrinsic good in life, and that hedonistic calculus people should pursue as much pleasure and as little pain as possible. This position was defended by the Greek philosophers Aristippus and Epicurus, Hobbes, the British empiricists Locke and Hume, and the utilitarians. However, there are significant differences among hedonists concerning the meaning of pleasure. Different understandings yield different varieties of hedonism. Pleasure is in general an unfortunate word, for it is commonly associated with carnal desires. But sensual pleasure is not what hedonist philosophers intend. For Epicurus, pleasure was simply the absence of pain. Modern hedonists often include any experience that one enjoys. So thinking, reading, and creation are all included as pleasures. Some hedonists appeal to psychological hedonism in support of their position, for example, Epicurus based his view on the observed phenomenon that all living things are content with pleasure. Other hedonists, such as Locke, argued that hedonism is an analytic truth, for it is the main characteristic of good to be able to cause pleasure. Utilitarianism is the most systematic version of ethical hedonism. The thesis that pleasure and happiness are identical has been criticized since the time of Socrates and Plato. The difficulties of hedonism include the fact that some pleasures, such as pleasure in the suffering of other people, are intrinsically bad; furthermore, some things, such as medical treatment, are intrinsically good, but not positively pleasant. Since the pleasure in question is one’s own pleasure, and pain is one’s own pain, hedonism is usually related to egoism. “Ethical hedonism may be, somewhat roughly, defined by the principle that ‘x is good’ is equivalent to ‘x produces pleasure’.” Pap, Elements of Analytic Philosophy hedonism, paradox of Ethics A paradox showing that egoistic hedonism as a theory has a self-defeating limit. The more you deliberately pursue the maximization of pleasure, the less you can attain. If you go directly to seek pleasure, you tend to get less pleasure than those who seek pleasure indirectly by studying or making other efforts. The most profound pleasures, such as those obtained from child-raising and professional achievement, can only be obtained as a result of undertaking unpleasant tasks. “. . . that a rational method of attaining the end at which it aims requires that we should to some extent put it out of sight and not directly aim at it. I have before spoken of this conclusion as the ‘fundamental paradox of Egoistic Hedonism’.” Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics hedonism, psychological Philosophy of mind A psychological position which claims that human actions are determined by the desire to secure pleasure and to avoid pain. Everyone acts in order to gain the greatest possible personal satisfaction. There are many forms of this view, which respectively assert that a person is motivated to do A rather than B only because he thinks A is more pleasant to B, only because his thought of A is more attractive, or only because his choice of A is causally correlated with his past enjoyment. Psychological hedonism is the theoretical basis of many forms of ethical hedonism. However, the extent the former can support the latter is a matter of dispute, for psychological hedonism only asserts that something is more desirable because it is more pleasant, but never says that people only desire pleasure. In addition to its relation to ethical hedonism, psychological hedonism is also important as a theory of human motivation in psychology. “Psychological hedonism . . . is not a theory concerning the criterion of morality, but concerning the genetic question: what motivates human conduct? The psychological hedonist answers: expectation of pleasure or pains.” Pap, Elements of Analytic Philosophy hedonistic calculus Ethics Also called the utility calculus or felicity calculus, a device for calculating quantities of pleasure and pain, appealed to by Jeremy Bentham. When we need to choose between alternative courses of action, we should calculate the amount of pleasure or pain that each action can produce for all the people affected. The right action in the circumstances is the action that can contribute most to the sum of happiness. The criteria which one needs to consider in calculating the amount of pleasure include intensity, duration, certainty (or uncertainty), propinquity (or remoteness), fecundity (their tendency to promote or lead to more pleasure), purity (not mixed up with or followed by unappealing feelings), and extent (the number of persons who are affected by it). Bentham made it clear that he does not expect this process to be strictly pursued before every moral judgment or judicial operation, but these factors should always be kept in view. Bentham also described the implications of the hedonistic calculus on legal reform. However, this calculus is widely criticized because it is hard to compare different types of pleasure, a problem that has led to a reassessment of the nature of pleasure. “Bentham devised what is called the ‘Hedonistic calculus’ for calculating the amount of pleasure or pain that would occur as a result of one’s actions.” Hospers, Human Conduct Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich (1770–1831) German idealist philosopher, born in Stuttgart, taught at Jena, Heidelberg, and Berlin. Hegel built a speculative system that comprises the whole range of philosophy. The Absolute Spirit or Idea, which he understood as both subject and substance, is a reality underlying the phenomenal world that develops historically through a rationally intelligible succession of forms. In its final phase it reaches absolute knowledge. This development is structured by a triadic dialectical process, at each stage involving the resolution of two opposites (thesis, antithesis) in a higher unity (synthesis). Dialectic constitutes the autonomous self-development of both thought and the world. The world-spirit develops through various historical phases, culminating in the freedom and self-consciousness of humanity. Hegel’s major works include The Phenomenology of Mind (1807), The Science of Logic (1812–16), Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences (1817, expanded editions in 1827, 1830, and 1845), including the Science of Logic, the Philosophy of Nature, and the Philosophy of Spirit and The Philosophy of Right (1821). In addition, numerous volumes of his lectures on aesthetics, the history of philosophy, history, the philosophy of religion, were posthumously edited and published. Hegel’s thinking has deeply influenced Marxism, positivism, neo-Hegelian idealism, and existentialism. His social morality has been revived in contemporary communitarianism. Moore and Russell turned to analytic philosophy through criticism of neo-Hegelianism. Hegelianism Philosophical method, metaphysics, aesthetics, ethics, philosophy of religion, political philosophy A term for the philosophy of Hegel and for the various metaphysical, aesthetic, ethical, religious, and political theories developed by his followers in the spirit of his philosophy. The rich, complex, difficult, and ambivalent nature of Hegel’s doctrines has generated divergent and even contradictory schools of Hegelian thought, each representing and developing one-sided interpretations or partial elements of his whole system. Right-wing “Old Hegelians,” represented by Karl Göschel and Hermann Hinrishs, emphasized the Christian and conservative elements in Hegel’s thought and tried to reconcile them with contemporary political conditions. Left-wing “Young Hegelians” were politically and religiously radical and developed Hegel’s humanistic and historical dimensions. Their major representatives included Ludwig Feuerbach, Bruno Bauer, and David Friedrich Strauss. Among them, Feuerbach made important contributions to the history of philosophy. Marx and Engels were once Young Hegelians. Although Hegel’s philosophy fell into neglect in Germany from the middle of the nineteenth century until its revival at the beginning of the twentieth century, it has since stimulated the development of philosophy in various schools, including neo-Marxism and hermeneutics. In Denmark Hegelian thought was introduced by J. Heinberg and provoked Kierkegaard to oppose Hegel’s doctrines. In Britain, Hegelianism was initiated by J. H. Stirling’s The Secret of Hegel (1865) and developed into absolute idealism, represented by T. H. Green, F. H. Bradley, Bernard Bosanquet, and John McTaggart. These philosophers embraced Hegel to challenge empiricism and utilitarianism in the so-called neo-Hegelian movement. This movement became a target of attack by Russell, Moore, and Popper. In the United States Hegelianism, represented by William Harris and Josiah Royce, had considerable influence on pragmatism. In Italy, Hegelianism, represented in liberal and conservative versions by Benedetto Croce and Giovanni Gentile, became a mainstream of philosophy. In France, Hegelianism was established by Victor Cousin and revived in the twentieth century through the Marxist-existentialist interpretation of Hegel. Currently, the English-speaking world has another Heidegger, Martin wave of interest in Hegel, in part through the development of communitarian ethics and the writings of Alasdair MacIntyre and Charles Taylor. “The appropriation of Hegelianism by members of different historical generations living in different political and cultural environments naturally exacerbated existing tensions and produced new conflicts within the Hegelian school. But Hegelians remained convinced that there was an essential core of Hegelianism that they all shared.” Toews, Hegelianism Hegelians, young Metaphysics, political philosophy, philosophy of religion A Hegelian philosophical movement that flourished in Germany from 1830 to 1848, with the University of Berlin as its central base. It emerged through criticizing what came to be called the “Old Hegelians” or “right-wing Hegelians,” who believed that the absolute idea achieved its actual end in Hegel’s philosophy. Young Hegelians believed in reason as a continually unfolding process and took their task to be its herald. They claimed that philosophization did not end in Hegel and that the reflective spirit in its continuing development transcends any fixed system of thought, including Hegel’s own. They took a critical attitude toward Hegel and believed that they could overcome or sublate Hegel and develop Hegelianism beyond Hegel. Young Hegelians were politically and religiously radical and focused their interest on developing the humanistic and historical dimensions of Hegel’s thought. Active Young Hegelians included David Friedrich Strauss, Ludwig Feuerbach, Bruno Bauer, Arnold Ruge, Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx, Max Stirner, and Karl Schmidt. Marx and Engels quickly developed criticisms of this movement in The German Ideology. The Young Hegelian movement receives special attention at present due to interest in the origins of Marxism. “In sum, the Young Hegelian movement rests upon the belief that Hegelianism did not die with Hegel.” Stepelevich (ed.), The Young Hegelians hegemony Political philosophy [from Greek hegomai, to lead or command] Domination by force and, hence, a kind of domination by one country over another. For Plekhanov and subsequent Western Marxist writers, hegemony is a form of social and political control that is based more on intellectual, moral, and cultural persuasion or consent than on physical coercion. In this way, the proletarian class can amalgamate all sections of the working class into a greater whole, which has a single unified aim. This sense of hegemony is fully developed by the Italian Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci. Gramsci took hegemony [Italian diregere] to be moral and intellectual leadership that allows a leading group to compromise with various allies who are unified into a whole. Political leadership in a democratic revolution should be based on an alliance with other sections that have similar goals. Gramsci used this concept to analyze all forms of class association, including those within a dominant social group. He even used it to explain the capacity of the bourgeoisie to hold power. For Gramsci, the concept of hegemony was central to Marxist philosophy, which he called the philosophy of praxis in his Prison Notebooks in order to escape the attention of the prison censor. “What we can do, for the moment, is to fix two major superstructural ‘levels’: the one that can be called ‘civil society’, that is the ensemble of organisms commonly called ‘private’, and that of ‘political society’, or ‘the state’. These two levels correspond on the one hand to the function of ‘hegemony’ which the dominant group exercises throughout society and on the other hand to that of ‘directed domination’ or command exercised through the state and ‘juridical government’.” Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks Heidegger, Martin (1889–1976) German philosopher, born in Messkirch, Baden, studied under Husserl, taught at Marburg and Freiburg. Heidegger developed Husserl’s phenomenology and was a central figure in the development of existentialism and hermeneutics. In Being and Time (1927), Heidegger sought to understand the meaning of being in general, but addressed this central question through revealing the fundamental features of the being of human beings, which he termed Dasein (“being there”). He held that Dasein is the only kind of being that can raise the question of being and wonder about itself as existing. Instead of being a thing-with-properties, Dasein is being-in-the-world. One is authentic through living in a self-determining way rather than following the crowd. Dasein is historical and temporal, with a life story unfolding between birth and death. Within this context, authenticity, care, dread, finitude, and death become major themes of his philosophy. He intended his philosophical terminology, which he traced to pre-Socratic and German origins, to support a fundamental ontology to replace what he saw as a mistaken metaphysical tradition. Heidegger did not complete his original project. Important works of his later period include Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics (1929), “The Origin of the Work of Art” (1950), An Introduction to Metaphysics (1953), What is Called Thinking? (1954), On the Way to Language (1959) and Nietzsche, 2 vols. (1961). His accounts of poetry and technology have initiated extensive discussions. Heidegger’s brief period as Rector of the University of Freiburg under Hitler and his membership of the Nazi Party raise questions about the relationship between his discredited political allegiance and his philosophical views. He was, nevertheless, one of the most original and influential philosophers of the twentieth century. for the period dating from the death of Alexander the Great in 323 bc to the end of the Roman Republic in 31 bc. Hellenistic philosophy was the development of post-Aristotelian philosophy in a period that ended with the revival of interest in Plato and Aristotle in the first century bc, roughly corresponding to the political period. Its main philosophical trends were Stoicism, founded by Zeno of Citium, Epicureanism, founded by Epicurus, and Skepticism, founded by Pyrrho. Philosophy in this period narrowed its scope to logic, ethics, and philosophy of nature, and Hellenistic philosophy contributed significantly in each of these areas. Traditionally, Hellenistic philosophy has been thought to concentrate on ethics and to lack originality, but much recent scholarship has given a more positive account of its wide-ranging philosophical achievements. hell Philosophy of religion In Christian doctrine, the place a person is sent after death if judged by God to be an unrepentant sinner. There the person will be cut off from the vision of God and will suffer all sorts of physical pain. Hell is described in the imaginative language of fire and brimstone and of weeping and gnashing of teeth. It is in contrast to heaven, which is reserved after death for persons judged by God to be worthy of salvation. The notion of hell warns people to behave well during their lives, but its existence is thought by many to be incompatible with God’s goodness. Hence the problem of hell becomes a version of the problem of evil: how we can explain the evil of hell if God is omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good. Heloise complex Philosophical method The French philosopher and writer Heloise was seduced and later betrayed by her private tutor, the scholastic philosopher Peter Abelard. Nevertheless, Heloise retained a strong passion for Abelard and wrote books and letters addressed to him. According to Michèle Le Doeuff, in the Heloise complex feminists tend to give priority to a male exponent of feminism or to a male philosopher whose ideas have been borrowed to justify feminist claims. As a result, we have, for example, Lacanian feminism or Foucaultian feminism. This tendency generally treats the philosophy of the male master as complete in itself and requiring no more than application to issues concerning women. Le Doeuff claims that the tendency contradicts the spirit of feminism and undermines the independence of feminist thinking about issues concerning women. “According to the standard tradition, being in hell is the worst thing that could ever happen to anyone.” Kvanvig, The Problem of Hell Hellenistic philosophy Ancient Greek philosophy, logic, ethics, philosophy of science Hellenistic is a chronological term “These [Stoicism, Scepticism and Epicureanism] are the movements of thought which define the main line of philosophy in the Hellenistic world, and ‘Hellenistic philosophy’ is the expression I use . . . to refer to them collectively.” A. A. Long, Hellenistic Philosophy “Since the days of antiquity, women have been admitted into the field of philosophy chiefly when they took on the role of the loving admirer: we can call this the ‘Heloise Complex’.” Le Doeuff, Hipparchia’s Choice Helvétius, Claude-Adrien (1715–71) French Enlightenment philosopher, one of the leading encyclopedists, born in Paris. Helvétius argued that all men were originally equal and explained their later differences in terms of education and environment. His hedonist view that the desire to gain pleasure and avoid pain is the ultimate motive of all human actions influenced British utilitarians. His psychology claimed that sensation is the source of all intellectual activity. His views were presented in the De l’esprit; or, Essays on the Mind and its Several Faculties (1759) and developed in the De L’homme (On Man) (1772). Hempel, Carl Gustav (1905– ) German-American philosopher of science, born in Orianenberg, Germany, and moved to the United States in the 1930s. Hempel’s covering law model of explanation, also called the deductive-nomological model, held that a statement is explained if and only if it can be deduced from a law-like generalization. His ravens paradox, also called Hempel’s paradox or the paradox of confirmation, shows the incompatibility of three highly plausible principles of confirmation. His major works include Aspects of Scientific Explanation (1965) and Philosophy of Natural Science (1966). Hempel’s paradox Logic, philosophy of science Also called the ravens paradox or paradox of confirmation, a paradox concerning the nature of confirmation. There are three principles in the background of this paradox. First, Nicod’s criterion, put forward by the French philosopher Jean Nicod (1893–1924), holds that for a generalization “All As are Bs,” an instance of an A being B provides confirming evidence, and instances of something that is neither A nor B are irrelevant to it. Secondly, the equivalence principle holds that if a piece of evidence confirms a generalization G1, it also constitutes confirming evidence for any generalization G2 which is logically equivalent to G1. Thirdly, a principle of deductive logic holds that “All As are Bs” is equivalent to “All non-Bs are non-As.” Hempel discovered that, whilst all these principles are valid separately, a paradox arises if they are taken together. Take the generalization “All ravens are black.” According to the third principle, it is equivalent to the generalization “All non-black things are non-ravens.” Instances of non-black things include such items as white shoes and green leaves. According to Nicod’s principle, white shoes and green leaves are among the confirming instances that provide evidence for the generalization “All non-black things are not-ravens,” but are irrelevant to the generalization “All ravens are black.” But according to the second principle, since these two generalizations are logically equivalent, white shoes and green leaves are paradoxically confirming instances that provide evidence for the generalization “All ravens are black.” There are various attempts to find a solution, but none of them has achieved general approval. “Hempel’s paradoxes of confirmation . . . are generated by the fact that three highly plausible principles of confirmation prove incompatible.” Swinburne, An Introduction to Confirmation Theory henological argument Philosophy of religion [from Greek hen, one] A type of theistic argument for the existence of God with a form resembling the fourth of Aquinas’ five ways. From observations that there are various degrees of goodness, perfection, truth, and reality in the world, the argument infers that there must be one being which represents the highest degree of all these positive attributes as their full realization. This being is the best, most perfect, truest, and most real being and is God. If positive attributes can exist in different degrees without being realized in one being at the highest level or if there is no such highest level, the argument fails. “The henological argument is so called because in it we reason from multiplicity to unity (hen): from goodness, truth, reality in the various forms in which experience makes them known to us, to a Being who is the Good, the True, the Real.” Joyce, Principles of Natural Theology henotheism Philosophy of religion [from Greek hen, one + theos, god] Max Müller’s term for a doctrine that allows many gods to exist, while claiming that one God is their supreme ruler who deserves their loyalty and obedience. It is a compromise between polytheism, the belief that many gods exist, and monotheism, the belief that there is only one God. Some religious philosophers consider henotheism to be an intermediate phase in the development from polytheism to monotheism. “Henotheism is the recognition of one God for purposes of devotion and worship without denying the existence of other Divine beings.” Taliaferro, in Bunnin and Tsui-James (eds.), The Blackwell Companion to Philosophy Heraclitus (c.540–475 bc) Pre-Socratic philosopher, born in Ephesus. Only fragments of his book On Nature survive. Heraclitus claimed that the matter underlying natural phenomena is fire and that because everything is in flux, one cannot step into the same river twice. The changes occurring in fire, however, are not random, and logos is the single unchanging law governing the cosmic process of the changing universe. He held that the apparent unity and stability of the world are based on restless strife and war between opposites. Heraclitus critically examined the limits of sense-perception and attended to the role of language in philosophy. He was called by his contemporaries “the obscure,” probably because of the abstract nature of his thinking. Herder, Johann Gottfried (1744–1803) German philosopher of language and of history, born in Mohrungen, senior church administrator of the Lutheran clergy in Weimar. Herder argued for the inseparability of language and thought and for an historical understanding and assessment of diverse cultures, with their different traditions and customs, as progressive embodiments of humanity. He criticized the rational universalism of the Enlightenment for ignoring the different possibilities of human fulfillment within these diverse cultures. His major works include Treatise upon the Origin of Language (1772) and Outlines of a Philosophy of the History of Man (1784–91). heresy Philosophy of religion [from Greek hairein, taking of something, later the taking or holding of an opinion] In ancient times, any school, whether the Peripatetics, Academics, Epicureans, or Stoics, was considered as a heresy. Hence, heresy was originally not a term of abuse. A heretic was a person who teaches his own view. Christianity at the very beginning also considered itself a heresy, but when it gained dominance, it used the term for any view that does not conform to orthodox Christian teaching or for any sect whose interpretation of the Bible was different from the official interpretation of the Church. The Church determined which beliefs were a heresy and, hence, who should be punished. Many heretics were burned in the Middle Age. Similar patterns of heresy, intolerance, and expulsion can arise in secular fields, especially where authority is more important than reason in resolving disputes about doctrine. “Heresy is a separation made in ecclesiastical communion between men of the same religion, for some opinions no way contained in the rule itself.” Locke, A Letter Concerning Toleration hermeneutic circle Modern European philosophy, philosophical method, philosophy of religion, philosophy of history, philosophy of social science A notion introduced by Schleiermacher, originally referring to the relation of the whole and the part in interpretation. The parts cannot be interpreted without an understanding of the whole, but the whole cannot be understood without an interpretation of the parts. When Heidegger radically reinterpreted “understanding” from a species of human cognition to the primordial mode of Dasein’s being, the hermeneutic circle became the principal method for his fundamental ontology. Starting from our traditional understanding of Being, we assume that the analysis of Dasein serves as a basis for the understanding of Being. Thus, we have a pre-understanding of Being, derived from the practices and language of our culture. This characterization is still incomplete and serves only to guide further investigation. We then proceed to analyze all of Dasein’s characters of Being, the existentialia, and eventually reach a more primordial horizon for the understanding of Being. This investigation moves in a circle, but it is not a vicious one. Through it, philosophy makes explicit something that is implicitly known in life. Fundamental ontology is hence a back-and-forth movement between a pre-understanding of Being and the uncovering of the structural features of Dasein. Because both inquiry and justification are contextualized by a pre-understanding rooted in tradition and culture, the hermeneutic circle becomes a fundamental feature of all human activities. This idea is further developed by Gadamer. For him, the hermeneutic circle for human studies is similar to the ad hoc revision of hypotheses in the natural sciences. Human studies are caught up in this circle, for there are no axioms or self-evident truths upon which we can make linear progress in understanding. In proposing a basic role for the hermeneutic circle, Gadamer resists the application of the hypothetico-deductive method to human studies. “The [hermeneutic] circle, then, is not formal in nature, it is neither subjective nor objective, but describes understanding as the interplay of the movement of tradition and the movement of the interpreter.” Gadamer, Truth and Method hermeneutic phenomenology, see phenomenology hermeneutics Philosophical method, philosophy of religion, philosophy of history, philosophy of social science [from Greek Hermeneia, the god who conveys the messages of Zeus, thus associating hermeneutics with the problem of understanding and interpretation] Hermeneutics started as a methodology of interpretation, based by Schleiermacher on his own experience in studying Plato and the New Testament. Besides grammatical understanding, which concerns the written text, he claimed that we should seek a psychological understanding to uncover the living principles or ideas in the mind of the author of a text. Dilthey further developed hermeneutics as a methodology aiming to recreate an author’s original process of creation and to provide grounds for objectivity in the human sciences, in contrast to the grounds for objectivity in the natural sciences. Traditional hermeneutics in Schleiermacher and Dilthey took understanding to be a subspecies of knowing and took hermeneutics itself to be a technique rather than being philosophy. In contrast, Heidegger considered understanding to be a central mode of human existence, the projection of the possibilities of Dasein tied to the world. For him, hermeneutics should deal with human existence as “text-analogous,” that is, as a meaningful text for which we uncover its underlying meaning. In this way hermeneutics becomes philosophy itself. The hermeneutic circle becomes involved in explaining Dasein’s being rather than in explicating literary texts. Gadamer, on the basis of Heidegger’s notion of understanding, developed a general hermeneutics that he called “philosophical hermeneutics.” He claimed that understanding is not a methodological problem and does not aim to formulate a set of interpretative rules. Rather, understanding is the basic feature of human existence. Hence, hermeneutics is ontological rather than methodological and should seek to reveal the fundamental conditions that underlie the phenomenon of understanding in all its modes. The object of human sciences is part of our heritage. It is part of the effective history to which we already belong and it orients our normal understanding. It is irrelevant to demand objectivity in the human sciences, because all understanding must be prejudiced and is not purely objective. No interpretation can be final. Understanding is a constant play between the interpreters and the text. Other major figures in hermeneutics include Emilio Berti and Paul Ricoeur. The emphasis on the contextuality of human knowing has influenced the work of Ronald Dworkin, Charles Taylor, Alasdair MacIntyre, and Richard Rorty. “The hermeneutics developed here is not, therefore, a methodology of the human sciences, but an attempt to understand what the human sciences truly are, beyond their methodological selfconsciousness, and what connects them with the totality of our experience of world.” Gadamer, Truth and Method Herzen, Alexander (1812–70) Russian social philosopher, emigrated to London. Herzen was a radical Westernizer who opposed Russian autocracy and defended individual liberty, yet combined the demand to see oneself as free with a physiological determinism. His philosophy of history focused on the contingency of human affairs and opposed Hegelian teleological rational interpretation of historical developments. He supported moral relativism and an account of moral judgments as changeable preferences. His major works include From the Other Shore (1850). heterological paradox, another name for Grelling’s paradox. heteronomy Ethics, political philosophy [from Greek hetero, other + nomos, law] Being bound by the legislating of other agents, not of oneself. A mode of action in which reason acts under a law that it has not prescribed. In ethics, a heteronomous will is controlled by an external cause or interest. In contrast, an autonomous will is free and decides actions itself. Kant considered most traditional moral theories to be based on heteronomous moral principles, whose validity depends upon the interests that we hold rather than being imposed by reason. They contain hypothetical imperatives, while Kant’s own principle of autonomy is a categorical imperative. A person is heteronomous if his actions are determined by the passions or inclinations rather than by reason. A will is heteronomous if it follows the guide of desire. “If the will seeks the law that is to determine it anywhere but in the fitness of its maxims for its own legislation of universal laws, and if it thus goes outside of itself and seeks this law in the character of any of its objects, then heteronomy always results.” Kant, Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals heuristic Epistemology, philosophy of science, logic [from Greek heuriskein, to find out, to discover] An experimental process of discovery, which is conducive to an investigation or to understanding without the use of algorithms. A heuristic act requires originality and invention. In this sense, it contrasts with the process of mere routine application of established knowledge or to a teacher demonstrating the established results of the sciences. In modern logic, a heuristic procedure aims at problem solving, but offers no guarantee of providing a proof. In this sense, heuristic contrasts with proof. In education theory, a heuristic method trains students to find problems and solutions for themselves. “Intellectual acts of a heuristic kind make an addition to knowledge and are in this sense irreversible, while the ensuing routine performances operate within an existing framework of knowledge and are to this extent reversible.” Polanyi, Personal Knowledge Hick, John (1922– ) English philosopher of religion, born in Scarborough, Professor, University of Birmingham and Claremont Graduate School. Hick has written on a wide range of issues in the philosophy of religion. He justifies the compatibility of evil and a loving God through the importance of our response to evil for the development of the soul. He accepts religious pluralism in terms of the diversity of human cultural renderings of a single transcendent noumenal reality. His major works include Faith and Knowledge (1957), Evil and the God of Love (1966), Philosophy of Religion (1966), and An Interpretation of Religion (1989). highest good, English translation of summun bonum Hilbert, David (1862–1943) German formalist mathematician, born in Königsberg, Professor at the University of Göttingen. Hilbert proposed a formalist account of mathematics in which the complete and consistent axiomatic development of a mathematical calculus bypassed questions about the existence and nature of mathematical objects that were raised by Platonism and intuitionism. Although Gödel showed that the formalist program to provide a finitist proof of the consistency of an infinite arithmetic calculus is impossible to accomplish, Hilbert’s approach to the metamathematical assessment of mathematical systems remains important. His major works include Foundations of Geometry (1899) and Principles of Mathematical Logic, 3rd ed. (with W. Ackermann) (1949). Hintikka, Jaakko (1929– ) Finnish philosophical logician and epistemologist, born in Vantaa, Professor of Philosophy at University of Helsinki, the Academy of Finland, Florida State University, Stanford University, and Boston University. Hintikka is a principal developer of game theoretical semantics and the interrogative theory of enquiry. He has contributed to studies of the foundations of mathematics and logical theory, historical knowledge including the logic of knowledge and belief. His main works include Knowledge and Belief (1962). historical determinism Philosophy of history, philosophy of social science The position that a fundamental factor is or must be responsible for the happening of all historical events. Events are determined by this factor and are functions of it. Because it is determined in this way, history develops according to objective historical laws and has an inevitable tendency or fixed direction. There are various versions of historical determinism, depending on what is regarded as filling the role of the fundamental factor. Historical determinists use their theory to make factual statements about actual historical events and tend to predict future developments on the basis of what they see as historical laws. For this reason, historical determinism is sometimes regarded as another name for speculative philosophy of history. Philosophers have challenged the claim that there must be an underlying factor and that there can be such a factor. Every proposal for the determining factor in history has attracted critical examination. “The advocates of such a [historical] determinism may fix on geography, climate, race, religion, philosophy, or the material conditions of life and may argue that one such variance is fundamental, that all the other variables of history are functions of it.” White, Foundations of Historical Knowledge historical explanation Philosophy of history The task of historians is to explain what happened in the past. When they claim to provide understanding, what is the form of their explanation and what is its character and nature? Philosophers are generally divided over this issue. Some believe that historical explanation is an application of a paradigm of scientific explanation, especially Carl Hempel’s covering law model or the deductive-nomological model. On this view, to explain a particular event is to bring it under some general causal law as an instance of that law. Accordingly, explaining an historical event is to subsume it under the general regularity to which it belongs. Because well-established causal laws are rarely found in history, Hempel concedes that historical explanations are explanation sketches, that is, vague and incomplete preliminary accounts leading to fully supported explanations like those in science. New insights into the nature of science might lead to altered versions of Hempel’s original argument using different paradigms of scientific explanation. Other philosophers argue that explanations in history and science are distinct on the grounds that they address different subject-matters. While science is concerned with the general and universal in seeking to explain the regularities of the mechanical physical world, history deals with unique, spatiotemporally bounded, particular events. Historical events are made by human beings, and each individual human being has beliefs, desires, motives, and intentions that cannot be generalized. They argue that the covering law model is not applicable in history. As an alternative, R. G. Collingwood and William Dray developed a rational explanation model, according to which historical understanding requires historians to establish the relation between a particular historical event and the reasons for agents to cause that event. Disputes over historical explanation sometimes turn to the examination of concrete examples to explore the strengths and weaknesses of rival approaches. “The term historical explanation is not as clear as one would like, and a brief cautionary note seems called for accordingly. For what I intend to discuss under this heading is only one of the main types of historical explanation, that whereby we explain actions by referring deeds to the ‘thoughts’ of individual agents (to their purposes, situationconceptions, means/ends beliefs, and so on).” R. Martin, Historical Explanation historical knowledge Philosophy of history, epistemology Knowledge about the past, but derived from present evidence. It is often characterized as knowledge giving insight into particular past events, in contrast to scientific knowledge, which is concerned with discovering general laws applicable to the past, present, and future. Many philosophical problems arise concerning historical knowledge. Is there a real past beyond current experience that can determine the truth and falsity of historical statements? Some philosophers hold that there must be, for the existence of a real past is the best explanation of the present, but Russell questioned this claim. Even if there is a real past, many disputes concern the possibility of justifying our claims to have knowledge about it, partly because direct current experience of the past is apparently not available. Also, explanations proposed by historians seem to be inevitably subject to their own principles, beliefs, and sympathies, which can distort their claims. Historical accounts retain value for us even if they are conflicting or are shown to be mistaken, possibly because some aspects of historical knowledge are carried by features other than factual accuracy. Some philosophers are more inclined to characterize the main features of historical knowledge than to discuss skeptical questions about its possibility. “Historical knowledge is the knowledge of what mind has done in the past, and at the same time it is the redoing of this, the perpetuation of past acts in the present.” Dilthey, The Construction of the Historical World in the Human Studies historical materialism Metaphysics, philosophy of history, philosophy of social science The theory about human society and history proposed by Marx and Engels and developed by their followers. It is a model for historical explanation, based on dialectical materialism. A systematic exposition of this theory is not provided by its founders, but a framework is offered by Marx in A Preface to The Critique of Political Economy (1859). The theory holds that social being determines social consciousness. Human history is a developmental process of labor. The forces of production, by which humans obtain the material means of existence, are the real foundation of history. Humans, who enter into the relations of production in labor, are divided into different economical classes according to their place in these relations. The forces of production and the relations of production form the economical structure of a society, which determine the superstructure, including the social and political superstructure and the ideological superstructure. To understand features of the superstructure such as religion, philosophy, literature, or law, we must look to the productive or economic structure of society. When the forces of production develop to a certain extent, they come into conflict with the existing relations of production, and the latter become a fetter constraining the further development of the former. Such conflicts lead to a period of social revolution, and contradictions between the forces and relations of production are solved by class struggle. This struggle will result in a new society, in which the relations of production correspond to the productive forces and the superstructure corresponds to the economical structure. According to orthodox interpretations, the development of human society will go through five phases: primitive, slave, and feudal society, and capitalism and communism. Each new stage is formed by overcoming the internal contradictions between the forces and relations of production in the previous stage. Historical materialism predicts that capitalism will eventually be replaced by an ideal communism, of which socialism is the preliminary stage. Some critics question whether there can be any single explanatory scheme for historical development and others, on theoretical or empirical grounds, question the pattern of explanation offered by historical materialism. Within Marxism, many of the main features of historical materialism have been reassessed. “I hope, even British respectability will not be overshocked if I use, in English as well as in so many other languages, the term, ‘historical materialism’, to designate that view of the course of history which seeks the ultimate cause and the great moving power of all important historic events in the economic development of society, in the consequent division of society into distinct classes, and in the struggles of these classes against one another.” Engels, Socialism: Utopian and Scientific historical objectivism, see historical relativism historical relativism Philosophy of history, epistemology The claim that historical explanation cannot be objective on the model of scientific explanation, which is based on a methodology of theory, observation, and experiment. Some philosophers agree that history does not have scientific objectivity, but claim that history and other subjects have their own appropriate notions of objectivity, while others explore the implications of the claim that historical explanation cannot be objective. Historians draw conclusions from documentation, but historical records may be neither faithful nor complete. In analyzing historical documentation, a historian is not a perfectly neutral investigator, but is equipped with an array of horizons, biases, and prejudices that can limit or distort historical work and also make it possible. For this reason, different historians may reach remarkably different conclusions from the same material. Historical knowledge apparently must be relative to the minds of different historians or to the wider factors that shape their minds. Unless we have reason to believe that some factors are more likely to produce truth than others, we can clarify the patterns of relativity, but we cannot choose among historical interpretations based on them. In contrast to historical relativism, historical objectivism claims that historical knowledge can provide an exact reconstruction of what really happened in the past, and historical skepticism denies the possibility of historical knowledge at all. These different attitudes toward historical knowledge lead to different attitudes toward the reality of the past and the nature of history. For objectivism, the past is what actually happened independent of our minds. For skepticism, we cannot justify the claim that such a past exists. For relativism, the past comprises the often conflicting constructions of historians on the basis of evidence. “Now the fact that every historical work, like any intellectual endeavour, is limited by psychological and sociological conditions (to mention only two) is indisputable. The radical novelty in historical relativism lies in the fact that it claims that the truth of the work, its meaning and validity, can only be grasped by referring its content to these conditions.” Mandelbaum, The Problem of Historical Knowledge historical sentence Philosophy of history, metaphysics, epistemology A sentence that describes what happened in the past. It is the main type of sentence that historians employ in their writing. The subject of a historical sentence can either be an individual historical agent, such as Napoleon or Alexander, or a social entity, such as a class, group, religious organization, social movement, or political party. Why individual human beings and social entities can both be subjects of historical sentences and how they are related to one another are contested matters. They are central to the debate between methodological individualism and methodological collectivism, but they also enter disputes between individualism and holism at epistemological and metaphysical levels. Because historical sentences are based on memory and evidence rather than on current observation, their reliability is a main issue debated by supporters of historical objectivism, historical relativism, and historical skepticism. “By historical sentence I shall mean: a sentence which states some fact about the past.” Danto, Analytical Philosophy of History historical skepticism, see historical relativism historicality, see historicity historicism Philosophy of history, philosophy of social science, metaphysics, philosophical method In one use, the view that the nature of a thing can be understood only by tracing its position and role in the context of historical development. In continental philosophy, the term has metaphysical as well as methodological significance. Historical development is viewed as objectively necessary and governed by its own laws. For Hegel, this objective process is the self-development of the world spirit or absolute self. This view is also shared by Italian philosophers Vico and Croce. For Marx this process is purely objective and independent of human agency. This continental notion of historicism leads to the claim that the historical approach is distinct from the naturalistic approach. It is this notion that Karl Popper has in mind when he attacks historicism in his The Open Society and its Enemies and The Poverty of Historicism. Analytical philosophy of history generally confines historicism to its methodological usage, claiming that an adequate explanation and evaluation must be historical. Many philosophers also believe that historical development can only be assessed relative to our outlooks or conceptual frameworks, and that these are historical in themselves. Consequently, any ahistorical and objective standpoint in evaluating human history is impossible. There is some dispute over how to distinguish historicity in this sense from relativism. This sense is close to what Popper calls “historism,” that is, explaining the differences between various sociological doctrines and schools by referring to their connection with the predilections and interests prevailing in a particular historical period. A further sense of “historicism” refers to the attitude which requires that inquiry concerning historical events must be purely historical, that is, not influenced by our current principles or beliefs. But there is little evidence for the practical possibility of this approach. “In strong opposition to methodological naturalism in the field of sociology, historicism claims that some of the characteristic methods of physics cannot be applied to the social sciences, owing to the profound differences between sociology and physics.” Popper, The Poverty of Historicism historicity Modern European philosophy [German Geschichtlichkeit or Historizität, also translated as historicality, a term in the phenomenological tradition denoting the feature of our human situation by which we are located in specific concrete temporal and historical circumstances] For Dilthey, historicity identifies human beings as unique and concrete historical beings. According to Jaspers, it involves an essential characteristic of everything that is concrete and not universal and represents a synthesis of freedom and necessity. For Heidegger, historicity has two senses. First, Dasein must be understood as contextualized by the stream of concrete events of world history. The second and more fundamental sense is based on Heidegger’s claim that Dasein is not an object, but a life history, a happening, an unfolding between birth and death and a flowing outward into the future and backward into the past. Hence historicity is defined by Heidegger in terms of temporalization or structure of temporality. It denotes Dasein’s way of taking up the possibilities of the past by projecting itself onto its ownmost possibility of being-as-whole. The human past is constitutive of the self and its future possibilities. Heidegger himself saw difficulties in the harmonization of these two senses. “Authentic Being-towards-death – that is to say, the finitude of temporality – is the hidden basis of Dasein’s historicality.” Heidegger, Being and Time historism, see historicism Hobbes, Thomas (1588–1679) English philosopher, political theorist, and classicist, born in Malmesbury, Wiltshire. Hobbes is best known for his theory of human nature and his theory of the social contract. He held that man is ruled by self-interest and that the condition of human existence in the state of nature is, or is liable to become, a “war of every man, against every man.” In order to overcome the dangers of this nasty and brutish state, men contract to surrender the right of aggression to a sovereign, whose overwhelming power allows the establishment and maintenance of peaceful order. Metaphysically, Hobbes held that all reality is corporeal. The world is a mechanistic system, composed ultimately of matter in motion, and all change, including human action, is explicable in mechanical and materialist terms. He was a nominalist in philosophy of language and an empiricist in epistemology. His magnum opus is Leviathan (1651), and other important works include De Cive (completed in 1641, but not published until 1647), Human Nature, or the Fundamental Elements of Policy (1650), De Corpore (1655), Questions Concerning Liberty, Necessity, and Chance (1656), and De Homine (1658). Hocking, William Ernest (1873–1966) American idealist philosopher of religion, born in Cleveland, Ohio, Professor of Philosophy, Harvard University. Hocking drew on pragmatism, idealism, and process philosophy in his philosophy of religion and argued for the importance of religion as the basis of morality and politics. His main works include The Meaning of God in Human Experience (1912) and Human Nature and Its Remaking (1923). Holbach, Paul-Henri D’ (Baron) (1723–89) French materialist philosopher, born in Edesheim, Germany, a major contributor to the Encyclopédie. Holbach’s most influential book, The System of Nature (1770), presents a system of atheistic materialism. He held that the world is a machine governed by fixed laws of motion. All is necessity, and there is no chance in nature. Man is a product of nature, and because there is no mind independent of nature, free will is an illusion. In Christianity Unveiled (1756) and Common Senses (1772), Holbach attacked Christianity as a superstition. “God” is a meaningless term that is fabricated by the priests to dominate the populace. In the Social System (1773), Natural Politics (1774), and Universal Morality (1776), he attacked the state church and absolute monarchy and attempted to show that atheism and a virtuous life are fully compatible. To avoid punishment, his works were initially published in Holland anonymously. holism Metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of science, philosophy of social science, philosophy of language The view that wholes have some metaphysical, epistemic, or explanatory priority over the elements, members, individuals, or parts composing them. A whole cannot be reduced to its parts. A part cannot be understood apart from the whole to which it belongs. Knowledge of the whole is not the simple aggregation of knowledge of its parts. Epistemological holism in the philosophy of science (the Duhem–Quine thesis) and semantic holism in the philosophy of language propose that the meaning and truth of our claims cannot be assessed one by one, but must be assessed as part of theories, bodies of theory, or everything we believe about the world. In the social sciences, methodological holism, in contrast to methodological individualism, claims that individuals can be understood only in terms of the practices or institutions in which they take part. It is a rival to some aspects of individualism, which seek to reduce statements about groups, institutions, and culture to statements about certain of their components. Metaphysical holism claims that wholes are distinct entities, whose existence cannot be reduced to that of the items composing them. On some views these wholes are prior to their parts, but on others they emerge from the interaction between parts. “Holism blurs the supposed contrast between the synthetic sentence, with its empirical content, and the analytic sentence, with its null content.” Quine, Theories and Things holistic property, see anatomic property holy Philosophy of religion, ethics In the broad sense, anything that people worship. The holy is a religious quality that is distinguished from the ordinary by virtue of its mighty power. Human experience of the holy is parallel to the aesthetic experience of the sublime. Before Christianity, gods were not considered to be naturally friendly and hence the holy is associated with supernatural, unpredictable, fearful, or threatening power. The God of Christianity is omnipotent but also morally perfect. Although the holy is still associated with awesomeness, God, as a holy object, is the primary source of beauty, love, and moral reverence. The holy is thus used as a synonym of the sacred. The Bible refers to itself as holy books, and theology calls the Old and New Testaments the Holy Scriptures. The Trinity consists of the Holy Father, the Holy Son, and the Holy Spirit. For Christians, the holy family is Jesus, his mother Mary and St Joseph. On this basis, holy is also used for absolute and complete moral goodness and becomes a moral term as well. For Kant, a will that unconditionally obeys the categorical imperative out of a sense of duty is a holy will. “ ‘Holy’ becomes ‘good’, and ‘good’ from that very fact in turn becomes ‘holy’, ‘sacrosanct’; until there results a thenceforth indissoluble synthesis of the two elements and the final outcome is thus the fuller, more complex sense of ‘holy’, in which it is at once good and sacrosanct.” Otto, The Idea of the Holy holy will, see good will Home, Henry, Lord Kames (1696–1782) Scottish legal theorist and aesthetician, born in Kames, High Court Judge. Kames argued for a naturalist account of art and criticism in terms of the human capacity for pleasure and the nature of human emotions and passions. He held that works of art are agreeable or disagreeable through conforming to the natural course of our ideas or reversing this course. He also sought a naturalist account of the foundations of morality. His major works include Essays on the Principles of Morality and Natural Religion (1751) and Elements of Criticism (1763). homonym Logic, metaphysics For Aristotle two different kinds of things are homonymous if they have the same name, but the name applies to them for different reasons. For example, a man and a picture of a man can both be called animal, but the man is so called because according to Aristotle’s definition of animal it is a living thing that moves itself, and the picture is so called, not because it fits the definition of animal, but because it is a representation of something that is an animal. These meanings are obviously different. In Aristotle’s metaphysics, a finger, in a normal sense, is a finger of a living body. Once it is separated from that body, it is dead and can only be called a finger homonymously. This point is important in his discussion of matter and definition. “Things are said to be named ‘homonymously’ when, though they have a common name, the definition corresponding with the name differs for each.” Aristotle, Categories homosexuality, problem of Ethics, philosophy of law A homosexual relationship is an erotic relationship between persons of the same sex. It has historically been generally regarded as immoral, for it is disapproved of by the majority of social customs and the majority of the population. However, this wide disapproval seems merely a matter of opinion rather than something with a rational foundation. According to rational moralists, there is a distance between a mere opinion and moral truth. Another reason proposed to condemn homosexuality is the claim that it violates natural law and cannot lead to the fulfillment of the reproductive function of genitals. However, there are many ways to consider what a thing’s nature is, and the body has more functions than reproduction. Moreover, progress in biology and psychology has indicated that homosexuality is a natural state rather than a freely chosen sinful condition. “If I am right, then constraints on liberty that can be justified only on the ground that the majority finds homosexuality distasteful, or disapproves of the culture that it generates, are offensive to equality and so incompatible with a theory of representation based on equal concern and respect.” Dworkin, A Matter of Principle homunctionalism Philosophy of mind Also called homuncular functionalism. A theory in the philosophy of mind and cognitive science, associated with W. G. Lycan and D. Dennett. In opposition to reductionism, it explains a mind or intelligent system by considering it to be a system made up of interconnecting departments. Each department can be seen as a homunculus, a small sub-personal agent, with its own function to perform. These homunculi are coordinated with each other to produce the overall behavioral response of a mind or an intelligent system to stimuli. Each department, or each homunculus, can in turn be viewed as a system composed of interconnected sub-departments or sub-homunculi. This process can go down to the neurological level. In this hierarchy, the task performed by lower-level units are simpler and easier than the task of the higher-level unit which they are supposed to explain. “The irreducibility of institutional types makes for a mark in favour of homunctionalism as a philosophical theory of the mental.” Lycan, Consciousness homuncular functionalism, another term for homunctionalism homunculus Philosophy of mind [Latin, small man] Generally used for those fallacious theories in the philosophy of mind which explain mental states and processes in terms of the hypothesis that there is a further human-like agent within us who has the same mental states and processes as ourselves. This kind of theory involves a regress ad infinitum, for we may ask whether there is a further human-like agent within in this entity to whom we must appeal in order to explain our mental states. However, Dennett argues that the homunculus hypothesis can be a useful explanation if there is a hierarchy of homunculi, where each performs a simpler task than the task they are together employed to explain. He subscribes, on this basis, to the position of homuncular functionalism. “Homunculi are bogeymen only if they duplicate entirely the talents they are run in to explain. If one can get a team or committee of relatively human being ignorant, narrow-minded, blind homunculi to produce the intelligent behaviour of the whole this is progress.” Dennett, Brain Storms homunculus fallacy, see homunculus honor Ethics Honor is a state of being esteemed as a result of one’s social position, one’s achievements, or of one’s excellence of any sort. The moral worth of honor and whether it should be morally pursued are matters of dispute. For Aristotle, the magnanimous person should seek honor for otherwise he shows a weakness or defect. In Christian ethics, humility is a chief virtue, and honor should be ascribed to God. Hobbes believed that the pursuit of honor is a basic human drive and is morally neutral. To honor someone is the same as respecting that person. We have a duty to honor others and to honor oneself. “The desire to join others in friendship to himself, with which a man living according to the guidance of reason is possessed, I call ‘honour’.” Spinoza, Ethics horizon Modern European philosophy A term given a special philosophical meaning in the works of Dilthey, Husserl, Heidegger, and other phenomenologist and hermeneutic philosophers. A horizon is a framework or field of vision within which one understands. Everyone as an historical being is conditioned by a tradition and culture and hence dwells in some horizon. A horizon is one’s life-world. An understanding that is purely objective and, hence, free from one’s particular horizon cannot exist. The meaning of a text is determined within some horizon. To achieve historical understanding one must acquire a historical horizon and interpret in terms of historical being itself and of the horizon of the past tradition, rather than in terms of one’s contemporary criteria and prejudices. A horizon itself is always in the process of formation. The phenomenon of horizons is the basis for the hermeneutic circle. It also suggests that since all understanding is achieved against the background of a horizon of intelligibility, no understanding is complete or free from error. The perspectival nature of the notion of horizon is captured by the notion of a point of view, but this more modest notion, for better or worse, leaves out some deeper aspects. “A horizon is not a rigid frontier, but something that moves with one and invites one to advance further.” Gadamer, Truth and Method horizontal stroke, see assertion-sign Horkheimer, Max (1895–1973) German social philosopher and critical theorist, born in Stuttgart, Professor and Director of the Institute of Social Research, University of Frankfurt. At the Frankfurt School, Horkheimer established an interdisciplinary program of critical theory that associated philosophy with the social sciences rather than with metaphysics. He used a conception of reason that extended beyond instrumental reason in his criticism of the social and cultural catastrophes of the twentieth century. His major works include The Eclipse of Reason (1947), The Dialectic of Enlightenment (with Adorno) (1947), and Critique of Instrumental Reason (1967). horseshoe, the logical symbol “⊃”; see material implication hule, Greek term for matter human being Metaphysics, ethics, philosophy of mind [from Latin homo] For Aristotle, a human being is a rational animal. For Descartes, as a consequence of his dualism, a human being is not an organic whole, but the amalgam of two distinct elements, mind and body. In spite of this difference, however, both Aristotle and Descartes took rationality as the essential characteristic of human beings. “Human being” in this sense has been used as a synonym for “person,” viewed as a being that possesses inalienable rights to life and liberty and that is superior to non-human animals. Contemporary moral philosophy tends to distinguish “persons” from “human beings,” holding that the former is a self-conscious being, while the latter is simply a member of the species Homo sapiens. We can use this distinction to ask how notions such as “I,” “the self,” “human being,” “person,” and “individual” differ in their content and application. “If deliberating with a view to action is what human beings who conceive themselves as rational agents take it to be, then anybody who acts deliberately is free either to gratify his instincts and desires or not to gratify them. And this is part of the traditional conception of what it is to be human.” Donagan, The Theory of Morality human chauvinism Ethics A term introduced by Val Routley and Richard Routley, referring to the traditional anthropocentrism existing in Western culture, according to which human beings are the only subjects of moral consideration and are the only objects with intrinsic values. Non-human species are not entitled to membership of the moral community, and they have value only insofar as they are instrumental to human interests or purposes. The ground for supporting this attitude is the belief that the human species has special characteristics, such as reason, which make it superior to other species. Human chauvinism, which is also called speciesism by other authors, is the target of criticism of environmental ethics. On this view, human beings should change their moral consciousness toward animals and include them in the moral community in certain ways. “Western ethics still appears to retain, as its very heart, a fundamental form of chauvinism, namely, human chauvinism. For both popular Western thought and most Western ethical theories assume that both value and morality can ultimately be reduced to matters of interest or concern to the class of humans.” Routley and Routley, “Against the Inevitability of Human Chauvinism,” in Goodpaster and Sayre (eds.), Ethical Problems of the 21st Century human nature Metaphysics, ethics, political philosophy, philosophy of social science Starting with Greek essentialism, the philosophical tradition has generally held that there is a human nature and that it is made up of one or more qualities that determine what it is to be a human being and distinguish human beings from other kinds of animals. Different accounts of what qualities constitute human nature led to different views about how we should live. Greek philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle argued that a human is essentially a rational animal. This standard view has been challenged by such figures as Hume, evolutionary theorists, and Freud, who questioned the primacy of human rationality and in some cases found much continuity between humans and other animals. Some philosophers also reject rationality as the ultimate criterion to distinguish human from other animals because we accept persons lacking important rational capacities as human beings, yet exclude animals displaying significant rationality. The question of rationality in human nature has led to debates over many issues, concerning, for example, human identity, the distinction between the concept of a person and the concept of a human being, the human status of fetuses and infants, the senile, and humans whose rational capacities are radically damaged or diseased. Other issues include whether human nature is benevolent, sinful, or self-interested and the relationship between freedom and rationality. Modern political theory has been closely related to sharply contrasting views of human nature. In addition to offering different accounts of the contents of human nature, some philosophers have challenged the methodology of specifying human nature through finding a distinguishing essence. The rise of anti-essentialism and the sociology of knowledge led to the rejection of human nature as a biologically fixed substratum that determines variable socio-cultural formations. On this view, all our human features are molded by our social environments or socially constructed within them. What seems to be a fixed human nature is a sociocultural variable. “It is from considering the relations which the several appetites and passions in the inward frame have to each other, and, above all, the supremacy of reflection or conscience, that we get the idea of the system or construction of human nature.” Butler, Fifteen Sermons human rights, see rights, human human sciences, see Geisteswissenschaften humanism Ethics, philosophical method In the early Renaissance, the disciplines of grammar, rhetoric, poetry, history, and philosophy were called studia humanitatis, that is, the humanities. A teacher of one of these disciplines was called a “humanist.” At that time the study of these disciplines was stimulated by the newly discovered literature of classical Greece and Rome. These teachers found a human ideal involving features such as a unity between humans and nature, a confidence in the power of human understanding, the ability to enjoy the pleasures of life. They tried in their teaching to develop the human personality in accordance with this model. Petrarch is generally called the father of humanism, and Erasmus is regarded as its most outstanding representative. Hence humanism originally meant the pursuit of a desirable kind of humanity. Since this human ideal was believed to have been lost in medieval times, such an educational program became a movement aiming to liberate thought and was the most pervasive element of Renaissance culture. In another sense, humanism was an American movement of thought in the early twentieth century. It was an attitude that emphasized the dignity of human beings by ascribing a fundamental set of human values to them. There were, however, significant variations among different versions of American humanism. Literary humanism accepted the dualism between humanity and nature and claimed that human value is derived from intuitive glimpses of a reality higher than nature. Scientific humanism argued that modern science can offer value and new meanings and claimed that by means of its knowledge and power we can achieve true enlightenment and progress. The main trend was religious humanism, which denied the distinction between the sacred and the secular. It claimed that man is a part of nature and has emerged as the result of a continuous process of evolution. The universe is not created, and religion consists of those actions, purposes, and experiences which are humanly significant. The British pragmatist and humanist thinker F. C. S. Schiller believed that humanism is a tradition that proceeds from Protagoras’ maxim that man is the measure of all things. “The term ‘humanism’ has been associated with the Renaissance and its classical studies for more than a hundred years, but in recent times it has become the source of much philosophical and historical confusion. In present discourse almost any kind of concern with human value is called ‘humanistic’.” Kristeller, Renaissance Thought and Its Sources humanity Ethics, aesthetics [Latin humanitas] The idea of humanity originated with the Stoics, who referred to the unity of mankind as a whole. The substance and essence of human beings or of the human species determines human beings as human and distinguishes human beings from animals. Humanity, furthermore, involves a set of moral and aesthetic characteristics that are valuable in themselves. Kant’s categorical imperative, which requires that one treat a person as an end and not merely as a means, is an expression of humanity as human dignity. Humanity is the object of respect in moral life. The moral and aesthetic characteristics of humanity are embodied in human expression and behavior. Cicero and Seneca established humanitas as a moralaesthetic ideal or way of life, an idea that was revived in the Renaissance. The subjects that constitute an educational program to cultivate the ideal of humanity are called the humanities. In the twentieth century, Cassirer proposed that humanity should be understood in terms of the activities leading to its historical and cultural achievements. “For the subject we wish to know is not the individual consciousness but the universal subject. If we refer to this subject by the term ‘humanity’, then we must affirm that humanity is not to be explained by man, but man by humanity.” Cassirer, An Essay on Man Humboldt, Wilhelm von (1767–1835) German humanist, statesman, and linguistic scholar, born in Potsdam, founder of the University of Berlin. In questioning the universal rationality of the Enlightenment, Humboldt argued for the importance of historical experience and for an appreciation of the ideas that link the inner being of man to historical events. His philosophy of language claimed a formative role for different languages and their inner forms for diverse cultural responses to the world. His major works include The Limits of State Action (1791) and On the Dual (1828). Hume, David (1711–76) Scottish philosopher and historian, born in Edinburgh. Hume was a dominant figure of British empiricism and the Scottish Enlightenment. Hume sought to understand the nature and limits of our knowledge and to establish the foundation of a genuinely empirical science of human nature. Hume maintained that from our sensory experience we cannot found any knowledge of unperceived objects, such as the external world, innate ideas, God, free will, necessity, and uniformity in the nature, but his arguments can be seen to support either naturalism or skepticism. In his account of causality, Hume claimed that the necessary connection between a given cause and its effect is nothing but a habitual expectation of mind that is based upon repeated experience of the constant conjunction of events of given kinds. Induction is also based on habit, since we cannot prove from experience that the future resembles the past. We should distinguish between propositions regarding the relation of ideas and propositions regarding matters of fact (a distinction now referred to as “Hume’s fork”). The former are demonstrative, but the latter can only be inferred with probability. We must learn to live with probabilities rather than certainties. The mind or the self is nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions, united together by certain relations. Hume emphasized the role of moral sentiment or sympathy in ethics and argued that passion rather than reason alone determined human action. He also argued that we can not legitimately infer “ought” from “is” or evaluation from description (this is also called “Hume’s law”). Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion offer powerful criticism of major arguments for the existence of God, especially the argument from design. Hume’s philosophical views, which are of fundamental importance in their own right, were regarded by Kant as waking him from his “dogmatic slumbers.” Hume’s major philosophical writings include A Treatise of Human Nature (1739– 40), Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748), and Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1799). Hume was more famous in his lifetime for his History of England (6 vols., 1754–62) than for his philosophy, and his economic writings influenced Adam Smith. Hume’s fork Logic, ethics, epistemology, metaphysics A term used in two different senses. In one sense, it is Hume’s distinction between ought and is and his principle that if the premises are factual and do not contain normative elements, then no normative conclusion can be inferred. This follows from the more general principle that there can be nothing in the conclusion of a valid argument that is not already present in the premises. In another sense, Hume’s fork is his claim that there are only two valid kinds of reasoning: demonstrative reasoning concerning relations of ideas and empirical reasoning concerning matters of fact. This distinction provided a major argument against the validity of inductive reasoning in Hume’s Enquiries (Sect. IV, Part 11). Inductive reasoning is not demonstrative reasoning, for demonstrative reasoning is a priori and implies no contradiction, while inductive reasoning admits contradictions. Nor is inductive reasoning empirical reasoning, which is based on experience and infers claims about the future on the assumption that the future will conform to the past. Because this assumption itself presupposes the validity of induction, a circularity is involved if induction is empirical reasoning. Therefore, induction is not a valid form of reasoning. Both arguments based on kinds of Hume’s fork have provoked deep and important philosophical controversy. “The argument, sometimes known as ‘Hume’s fork’, claims that there is a logical gap in any argument which seeks to derive moral conclusions from purely factual descriptive premises.” Plant, Modern Political Thought Hume’s law see is/ought gap humility Ethics Humility is the state of having a low opinion of oneself and of one’s achievements. Humility seems to be a kind of inaccurate assessment of oneself, but it is still widely taken to be a virtue. For Christian ethics, we are from God and are determined by God, and every merit we achieve we owe to God. We should be grateful rather than proud. Accordingly, humility is viewed as a distinctive virtue in dealing with the relationship between God and human beings, and in putting human beings in their proper place. For other ethical theories, humility involves not crediting too much to oneself. As human beings, we are determined by nature, helped by the contributions of others hylomorphism and are subject to various kinds of luck. Humility reflects these facts and is therefore admired. “Humility is pain arising from the fact that man regards his want of power as weakness.” Spinoza, Ethics humor Philosophy of mind Humor is a psychological phenomenon, which has a variety of objects, modes, and institutional settings. Appreciation of humor characteristically involves laughter, although laughter can also express such things as pain, hysteria, or embarrassment. It has been notoriously unclear what makes something funny, amusing, or comical. One theory originated by Thomas Hobbes claims that humor arises if there is an insult to other people. We laugh because we feel a sense of superiority in some way to the object of humor. But this account is narrow and leaves out much that falls within the scope of humor. Another influential theory, developed by Kant and Schopenhauer, claims that humor arises if there is an insult to reason. Humor is a response to incongruities involving such things as logical impossibility, ambiguity, irrelevance, and general inappropriateness. A theory developed by Freud holds that humor provides a release of nervous and psychical energy. Humor is related to such phenomena as wit, sarcasm, and irony. “The capacity to see and feel what is loveable, admirable, in a thing, and what is laughable in it, at the same time, constitutes humour.” The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, vol. XX Husserl, Edmund (1859–1938) German philosopher, the father of phenomenology, born in Prossnitz, taught at Halle, Gottingen, and Freiburg. Husserl held that human mental phenomena are characterized by intentionality. Intentionality has a structure of noesis (the intentional act) and noema (the intended object), with the noema giving noesis its directness and meaning. The phenomena of phenomenology concern the meaning or essence internal to consciousness rather than sensory experience. To discover this essential structure, we need to bracket off the empirical world to discover the transcendental ego that is the unity of the empirical ego’s consciousness. The transcendental ego constituted in time is the starting-point for phenomenological reflection and the source of all intentional acts. In his later works, Husserl distinguished between the lived world and the scientific world and claimed the priority of the former as the basis for the latter. Husserl’s thinking was influenced by Descartes, Kant, Brentano, and Frege, especially regarding anti-psychologism, and has in turn influenced both analytic philosophers and phenomenological and existentialist philosophers, particularly his student, Heidegger. Husserl’s major works include Logical Investigations (1900–1), Ideas: General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology (1913), Formal and Transcendental Logic (1929), Cartesian Meditations (1931), The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology (1936), and Experience and Judgement (1939). Hutcheson, Francis (1694–1746) Scottish moral philosopher, born at Drumalig, Ireland, taught at University of Glasgow, a leading figure of the Scottish Enlightenment. In ethics, Hutcheson developed the moral sense theory originally stated by Shaftesbury. He held that human beings have a moral sense by which we perceive and approve virtue and perceive and condemn vice, and by which we are motivated to be virtuous. Hutcheson modeled the workings of moral sense on Locke’s theory of perception. His view that virtue is that which pleases influenced Bentham’s utilitarianism. Hutcheson’s aesthetic theory resembled his moral theory in claiming that we have an internal reflective sense of beauty. His most important book is the Inquiry into the Origins of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue (1725, significantly revised in 1738). Other works include An Essay on the Nature and Conduct of the Passions and Affections, with Illustrations on the Moral Sense (1726), A System of Moral Philosophy (1755), and Metaphysical Synopsis (1742). hylomorphism Metaphysics, philosophy of mind [from Greek hule, matter + morphe, form, the doctrine of form and matter] Also spelled hylemorphism, a theory first elaborated by Aristotle, who claimed that reality is constituted by form and matter and that each living thing is composed of soul as form and body as matter. But hylomorphism had different senses in Aristotle. In one sense, the generation of a thing is the introduction of form into matter, but the pair of form and matter is not associated with the pair of actuality and potentiality. In the other sense, form is associated with actuality and matter is always understood as being potential. The generation of a thing on this account is the gradual development of potential matter, so that it becomes an individual upon obtaining form or actuality. This latter view of hylomorphism concerns the continuity of substantial change. Hylomorphism underwent further subtle development in medieval philosophy, especially in the metaphysics of Aquinas, and it was also the basis for philosophical anthropology. “Aristotle’s theory of the soul and its relation to the body is sometimes called ‘hylomorphism’, from the word hyle (matter) and morphe (form).” J. Ackrill, Aristotle hylozoism Metaphysics, philosophy of mind [from Greek hule, matter + zoe, life, the whole material world as endowed with life] A term credited to the seventeenthcentury Cambridge Platonist Ralph Cudworth, to account for the relationship between the soul and the body, in contrast to dualism, materialism, and hylomorphism. Hylozoism, which denied any distinction between spirit and matter and between life and body, is generally used interchangeably with panpsychism. Nevertheless, some argue that while hylozoism claims that life is inherent in all matter, panpsychism proposes that there are different degrees of consciousness in all matter. Nowadays, this term is widely employed for the cosmogony of early Greek natural philosophers such as Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes, who believed that the world ultimately originated from living stuff. “Hylozoism, the doctrine that matter as such has the property of life and growth.” Furley, The Greek Cosmologists hypocrisy Ethics [Greek, answer, including the sort of answers actors give each other on the stage] A state in which one’s outward appearance is not a sign of one’s inner state. The outward appearance is in accordance with ethical requirements, while the inner and hidden state is morally blameworthy. Hypocrisy is morally condemnable because it is a kind of deception or pretence, a failure to live up to one’s avowed moral principles. It is therefore associated with lack of trustworthiness, insincerity, and inauthenticity, and has generally undesirable consequences. Hypocrisy can also be directed at oneself, and in that case it is identical with self-deception or bad faith. “The word ‘hypocrisy’ . . . its present meaning is: the assumption of a false appearance of virtue or goodness, with dissimulation of real characters or inclinations.” Bok, Lying hypokeimenon, Greek term for substratum hypostasis Metaphysics [Greek stasis, standing + hupo, under] A key Neoplatonist term for ultimate reality, roughly a synonym of being or substance. Plotinus held that the One, Divine Mind, and Soul are three hypostases, and all other things are manifestations of them. A large part of his philosophy is devoted to explaining the nature of these hypostases and how other things manifest them. The idea influenced the Christian conception of the Trinity, according to which the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three persons. The term should not be confused with hypothesis. “We must affirm that they [One and Good] are the same – not, it is true, as venturing any predication with regard to that Hypostasis but simply as indicating it to ourselves in the best terms we find.” Plotinus, Enneads hypostatization Logic A fallacy of confounding different types or categories of things. It arises as a result of treating abstractions and relations as if they were actually existing objects, as in the claim that ideas have an independent subsistence. Hypostatization is also called abstractionism, substantialization, or reification. This fallacy is severely criticized in Frege’s philosophy. “As I understand it, a hypostatization or substantialization or reification consists in mistaking as things entities which are not things.” Carnap, Meaning and Necessity hypothetico-deductive method hypothesis Epistemology, philosophy of science [from Greek hypo, under + thesis, position, supposition, assumption] A tentative and speculative explanation of a problem or a provisional affirmation before proof. Such an explanation is made because of its explanatory power regarding the phenomenon. A hypothesis is subject to revision or abandonment through observation, experiment, and argument. If it is shown to be acceptable after these further investigations, it may be elevated to the status of a scientific theory or law. The use of hypotheses is essential for the development of science. “An hypothesis is a supposition which we make (either without actual evidence, or on evidence avowedly insufficient) in order to endeavour to deduce from it conclusions in accordance with facts which are known to be real.” The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, vol. VII hypothetical fact Philosophy of language A term used by Ryle in his early discussion about meaning and propositions. What one knows is the meaning of a sentence expressing what one knows. If the sentence is a factual sentence, its meaning is the fact it states. Such a theory must also account for the meanings of beliefs that are not yet known to be true and for false beliefs. Ryle claims that the meaning of these beliefs is a hypothetical fact. Unlike a fact, a hypothetical fact is not a subsisting reality, and indeed is not a fact at all. A hypothetical fact specifies what the world would be like if the statement of one’s belief were true. This is actually a would-be factual statement. Hence, a hypothetical fact is identical with the statement expressing it and is a description. Ryle’s notion can be compared with Kripke’s later account of possible worlds as descriptions of how the world might be, in contrast to Lewis’s realism regarding possible worlds. “By a hypothetical fact I do not of course mean something of which it is a matter of conjecture whether it is a fact or not, but simply a fact the statement of which is of the form ‘if X then Y’.” Ryle, Collected Papers, vol. II hypothetical imperative Ethics For Kant, a form of command issued by the will, in contrast to another form of command, the categorical imperative. In his account of morality, the fundamental role is assigned to categorical imperatives rather than to hypothetical imperatives. While the categorical imperative commands an action as an objective necessity in itself, without regard to any inclination or end, a hypothetical imperative commands an action as the means for satisfying some inclination or purpose. The necessity of action it imposes is conditional or hypothetical on the given end that the agent wills: you must do something if a certain purpose is to be satisfied. Once the end is removed, there is no longer a command. It commands or counsels a man only if he has the desire in question. The dynamic element in obedience to such an imperative is desire or impulse, with a cognitive factor concerning the relation of means to end. Since the hypothetical imperative is concerned with the intended result of action, it is determined heteronomously. Hypothetical imperatives are divided into two kinds: problematic or technical practical principles point to the means of attaining a possible end; and assertoric practical principles point to the means of attaining a given end. “A hypothetical imperative thus says only that an action is good for some purpose, either possible or actual.” Kant, Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals hypothetical induction, an alternative expression for inference to the best explanation hypothetico-deductive method Philosophy of science A model of scientific explanation, abbreviated as the H-D method. It proposes that in creating a scientific theory, we should first formulate a general theory or hypothesis that can immediately explain the results already obtained and from which further particular statements or predictions can be derived. These inferred predictions can be verified and falsified in experimental and observational tests. On this basis we decide whether to accept or to reject the general hypothesis. The hypothetico-deductive method contrasts with the inductive method. In the philosophy of science it has been regarded during the twentieth century hypothetico-deductive method as an ideal scientific method. Karl Popper and his followers have argued that the method is effective in testing a general theory by falsification, and concentrate on the formal relationship between hypothesis and its consequential statements. Some critics claim that this method oversimplifies the actual relation between theory and observation. “As it is frequently characterised, the hypotheticodeductive method consists of (1) setting up a hypothesis, (2) deducing consequences from a hypothesis, and (3) checking by observation to see whether these consequences are true.” Salmon, Logic “Ich denke” -- cogito, “I think,” Metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of mind [German Ich denke] Kant’s account of the “I think,” which accompanies all our representations, originated from Descartes’s cogito. Leibniz turned the cogito into the conscious and self-conscious in general. Kant denied that it is possible to prove the existence of the self in terms of consciousness, but assigned a great role to the “I think” in epistemology as the form of transcendental apperception, the mind of a selfconscious or self-aware being. The “I think” is neither an experience nor a substantial subject of experiences. It is rather a necessary vehicle or accompaniment of experience, which precedes experience and relates experiences to a numerically identical self. It is an original or non-derivative unity of consciousness rather than an object of consciousness. “All the manifold of intuition has, therefore, a necessary relation to the ‘I think’ in the same subject in which this manifold is found.” Kant, Critique of Pure Reason I think, therefore I am, the English translation of Latin cogito ergo sum Ibn Rushd, see Averroes Ibn Sina, see Avicenna icon Philosophy of science, philosophy of history, epistemology, philosophy of mind [from Greek eikon, image, likeness, picture] A sign or symbol that resembles or behaves similarly to the thing or process it represents and is thus an analogue of that thing or process. Scientific experiments can employ iconic models for processes that do not exist under laboratory conditions. A cultural icon is a thing or individual that epitomizes the character of a particular society or period. In psychology, an icon or iconic memory is a visual image that lingers briefly after its physical stimulus is removed. The icon for hearing is called an echo. An icon can be stored briefly in some medium. Before it disappears, it can be read and explained as if the physical stimulus were still present. This transient visual persistence is also called an after-image. “There seems no alternative but to introduce a new term for the transient visual memory in question. I will call it ‘the icon’ or ‘iconic memory’.” Neisser, Cognitive Psychology iconoclasm Philosophy of religion, ethics The demand that images or icons must be destroyed or have their putative power amputated. This position responds to the ascription of a high spiritual, cultural, and moral status to images in a way or to a degree considered inappropriate by the iconoclasts. The use of images as objects of worship is called idolatry, and has been widely condemned in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, for the image is felt to substitute for the real object of worship. Popular devotion to the social, religious, and sensuous power of images has led historically to many iconoclastic movements, especially in periods of social transition. This is unfortunate for art because many of the religious images destroyed by iconoclasts were works of art. Iconoclasm is used more generally to characterize those who would attack the most central features of their culture and society. “You after all have to ask yourself why there has been at various times in history such intense controversy over the making of graven images, why there have been movements of iconoclasm at all.” Danto, The Philosophical Disenfranchisement of Art id, see ego (Freud) idea (Hegel) Metaphysics Hegelian ideas are similar to Platonic ideas, but unlike those of empiricism. For Hegel, an idea is not a mental representation of an object, but is actually present in things as the ground of their existence. An idea is equivalent to truth and exists in a primary sense that does not derive from the existence of things. It is the full realization of a concept and is the unity of concept and object. The identity between concept and object suggests that a concept can provide adequate knowledge of an object. When we know an object, we know its concept and its idea, rather than its material constituent. Hegel claimed that an idea is the nature of an object and that all finite things depend upon ideas for their being. In a sense, his philosophy is a kind of idealism. The idea which is in and for itself is the absolute idea. “The idea is truth in itself and for itself, – the absolute unity of concept and objectivity.” Hegel, Logic idea (Hume) Metaphysics, epistemology While Locke called all objects of mind ideas, Hume thought that this use perverted the original meaning of the word “idea.” Instead, he called all objects of the mind perceptions and divided perceptions into two kinds: impressions and ideas. Impressions are the mental objects involved when we are feeling and experiencing and can be sensations, passions, or emotions. Impressions include Locke’s ideas of sense and of reflection. Ideas, on the other hand, are the mental objects involved in thinking and reasoning. According to Hume, this distinction was based on the difference between thinking and feeling, of which everyone can naturally be aware. Impressions are what we have when we are actually perceiving something, while ideas are what we have when we think about the thing in its absence. Hume held that ideas are formed on the basis of impressions and are exact representations of the latter. Every simple idea is caused by its corresponding simple impression. The difference between impressions and ideas is not essential, but is a matter of the degree of force and liveliness with which perceptions strike upon the mind. Ideas are of two kinds: simple ideas that are derived directly from impressions and complex ideas that are combinations of simple ideas and need not represent the actual relation of impressions. Hume’s view that there is a corresponding relationship between impressions and ideas is controversial. Nevertheless, he distinguished between ideas and impressions in order to defend the basic contention of empiricism that there can be no thoughts or ideas unless there are first some sensations or feelings. “Those perceptions, which enter with most force and violence, we may name impressions; and under this name I comprehend all our sensations, passions and emotions, as they make their first appearance in the soul. By ideas I mean the faint images of these in thinking and reasoning.” Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature idea (Kant) Metaphysics, epistemology In contrast to the categories or pure concepts of the understanding corresponding to the various forms of judgment, there are ideas or pure concepts of reason corresponding to the various kinds of logical inference. There are three kinds of inference in traditional logic: the categorical, hypothetical, and disjunctive. Accordingly there are also three kinds of ideas, namely the idea of the soul as the absolute unity of the thinking subject, the idea of the absolute unity of the sequence of the condition of appearance, and the idea of the absolute unity of the conditions of objects of thought in general. ideal (Kant) While categories can determine objects of experience, there are no corresponding empirical objects for ideas. Hence they are transcendental ideas. Ideas are only regulative and subjective in providing guidance to inquiry. They are orders or advice to the faculty of reason in its logical employment. However, reason has a propensity to take ideas as belonging objectively to things in themselves, hence generating dialectical errors. The three ideas provide spurious subject-matter for three spurious metaphysical disciplines: rational psychology, rational cosmology, and rational theology. “I understand by idea a necessary concept of reason to which no corresponding object can be given in sense-experience. Thus the pure concepts of reason, now under consideration, are transcendental ideas.” Kant, Critique of Pure Reason idea (Locke) Metaphysics, epistemology For Plato an Idea was something objective, an intelligible archetype. The Christian Platonists replaced the archetypes with inborn memories, which they call innate ideas. The possession of these innate ideas and reflection upon them are necessary conditions for obtaining necessary truths. Locke rejected the existence of innate ideas, but accepted the assumption that the mind forms its picture of the world through ideas. He used the word “idea” widely and not very carefully. His various uses of this word in his works are hard to render consistent with one another. Sometimes he identified idea with perception. In this sense, ideas are what we are immediately aware of when we are perceiving things through senses or when in reflection we are introspectively aware of our own feelings and thoughts. Sometimes they are the copies of such sensory or introspective items in understanding. For Locke, ideas are the contents of thought or sensory experience, the thoughts we have about some object. This interchangeable use of idea and thought is also found in Hume. Sometimes ideas are objects, the immediate objects of the mind. Ideas, not physical objects, are what we immediately perceive. Ideas are also said to be the objects of memory and imagination. This account offers a kind of representative theory of perception. Sometimes ideas are even explained as qualities or collections of qualities of which we may have ideas. Locke divided ideas into simple ideas and complex ideas. Simple ideas cannot be broken down any further into component parts. Such ideas include our ideas of red, pain, and point. Complex ideas are ideas built up into combinations out of simple ideas, including abstract ideas, general ideas, universals, and some ideas of reflection. Locke defined knowledge as the perception of the connection and agreement of ideas. “I must here in the entrance beg pardon of my readers for the frequent use of the word idea, which he will find in the following treatise. It being that term which, I think, serves best to stand for whatsoever is the object of the understanding when a man thinks.” Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding idea (Plato) Metaphysics, epistemology [from Greek idea, what a thing looks like, in turn from idein, to see, to look, a declension of eidein, to see, to look, from which comes eidos, form, the synonym of idea] Plato used idea and eidos interchangeably for the non-sensible entities that are unchanging, eternal, and universal absolutes, the objects of knowledge, and the paradigms from which sensible things derive their reality. He held that these supreme entities are the essence or inner structure of things. The transition of idea from outer look or shape to inner structure is by way of a metaphor. If you see with eyes, what you see is outer shape, but if you “see” with the soul – that is, think – what you get is essence or the common characteristic. Platonic ideas are objective, in contrast to ideas as subjective, mental ideas in modern philosophy. To avoid confusion, many modern scholars prefer to call Plato’s doctrine the Theory of Forms rather than the Theory of Ideas. “You remember then that I did not ask you to indicate to me one or two of the many pious actions, but the very Form (eidos) itself by which all pious acts are pious. For you said, I think, that it is by one Idea (idea) that impious things are impious and pious pious.” Plato, Euthyphro ideal (Kant) Philosophy of religion An ideal or transcendental ideal for Kant is a special kind of idea, the subjectmatter of rational theology. When we try to think of the conditions for the complete determination of any individual thing, we are led inevitably to the concept of a supreme being as the pure rational idea of an individual possessing all realities, that is, God, which serves as an archetype for imitation and as a source of being. This is the ideal of pure reason. According to Kant, this ideal is a mere idea of a ground of all possibilities and a subjectively necessary hypothesis for our reason. But once we take it as an objective necessity and conclude the necessary existence of such a being, we commit a dialectical illusion. This occurs in the ontological argument, cosmological proof, and physicotheological proof. and therefore should also be analyzed by appeal to an ideal observer. This involves a regress ad infinitum. “By the ideal I understand the idea, not merely in concreto, but in individuo, that is, as an individual thing, determinable or even determined by the idea alone.” Kant, Critique of Pure Reason ideal type Philosophy of social science According to the sociologist Max Weber, a methodologically indispensable device in theory-construction for the social sciences. An ideal type is a theoretical construct abstracted and summarized from certain characteristic social phenomena of an epoch and presented either as a system of concepts or as a system of statements. It is not a description of social reality and cannot be observed, but is a conceptual pattern or an organizing principle for social scientists to establish certain relationships among social events and phenomena and conceive them as a consistent system. Unlike natural scientists employing natural laws, social scientists do not deduce social phenomena from the notion of ideal type, but apply an ideal type as a heuristic device in the analysis of concrete social events. ideal language, another term for logically perfect language ideal observer theory Ethics A theory originating with Adam Smith in The Theory of Moral Sentiments, although he himself used the term “impartial spectator.” It was fully developed by Roderick Firth in his paper “Ethical Absolutism and the Ideal Observer.” The theory holds that moral judgments should be analyzed by reference to the feelings of an ideal observer. To say “X is right” means that X would be approved of by such an observer,” and to say “Y is wrong” means that Y would be disapproved of by him. This observer, as a hypothetical being, has all the relevant knowledge (he is well-informed), has equal love for all (he is impartial), is totally without passions toward persons and objects, is infallible, and is consistent. In other respects this observer is a “normal” person. This theory can overcome the difficulties of ethical subjectivism by avoiding the problem of fallible agents, and is also different from theological theories because it is not committed to asserting the existence of God but only assumes that an observer could have some god-like attributes, such as full knowledge and equal love. It is a form of ethical naturalism because what a fully informed being would probably approve of is empirically testable. Its problem is that all the characteristics ascribed to the ideal observer are themselves evaluative terms, “Using the term ‘ideal observer’, then, the kind of analysis which I shall examine in this paper is the kind which would construe statements of the form ‘x is P’, in which P is some particular ethical predicate, to be identical in meaning with statements of the form: ‘Any ideal observer would react to x in such and such a way under such and such conditions.’ ” Firth, “Ethical Absolutism and the Ideal Observer,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research (1952) “An ideal type is formed by the one-sided accentuation of one or more points of view and by the synthesis of a great many diffuse, discrete, more or less present and occasionally absent concrete individual phenomena, which are arranged according to those one-sidedly emphasised viewpoints into a unified analytical construct.” Weber, The Methodology of the Social Sciences idealism Metaphysics, epistemology Any philosophical position claiming that ideas are the true objects of knowledge, that ideas are prior to things, and that ideas provide the grounds of being to things. On this view, ideas have priority both metaphysically and epistemologically, and external reality as it idealism, subjective is known to us reflects mental operations. Idealism does not suggest that mind creates matter or the material world in a substantive sense. Nor does this view confuse thought with the object of thought, but rather it claims that the external world can be grasped only by reference to the work of ideas and that all we can say about the external world is mediated by operations of the mind. The world in itself is certainly mind-independent, but the world as conceived by us must be constructed by mind. Idealism is a philosophical position about how the world as we know it can be the case and is not directly related to any political position. Since there are various understandings of the nature of idea, there are also correspondingly many types of idealism. “Values exist, but their existence and their character are both somehow dependent upon us, upon our choices, attitudes, commitments, structures, or whatever. This position might be called philosophical idealism or creationism.” Nozick, Philosophical Explanations idealism, absolute Metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, philosophy of history A modern version of objective idealism, represented by Hegel and his followers. In contrast to the metaphysics and epistemology of empiricism, Hegel claimed that ideas are not formed by a human mind through experiencing objects. On the contrary, he claims that ideas or concepts come first and determine the being of things. Things are what they are in virtue of revealing the concepts or ideas immanent in them. Although ideas or concepts determine the structure of reality, the individual human mind is not the source of ideality. Ideas develop as a means of self-actualization. Their systematic development exhibits the whole structure of an absolute idea, which is also the structure of reality. As a result, the world has an inherent all-embracing rational order and value conforming to the structure of the absolute idea. Hegel’s absolute idealism is an attempt to describe systematically both nature and human social existence. It does not deny the existence of an external and objective world, but explains the world by assuming that there is a purposive intelligence at the heart of nature, which controls nature just as our minds control our bodies. Absolute idealism was popular in Britain from the 1860s to the 1920s, represented by Bradley, Green, Bosanquet, Royce, McTaggart, and the Oxfordtrained American Blanshard. These figures disagreed over details, but all believed the Absolute to be the only true thing, with other things considered as being partial aspects of the Absolute or illusory appearances generated by the Absolute. Absolute idealism depends on the logical claim that all relations are internal. Moore and Russell initially accepted the claims of absolute idealism, but then rejected its account of relations and also other aspects of the position. “Absolute idealism holds that there is only one particular, namely God or the Absolute, and only one kind of fact, namely the kind which attributes a property to the Absolute.” Russell, Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell, vol. IX idealism, critical, another term for transcendental idealism idealism, objective Metaphysics, epistemology, ethics A type of idealism initiated by Plato and holding that the real, which is the object of knowledge, is constituted by the inner immaterial structure or essence of things, which Plato called ideas or forms. Objective idealism rejects the claim that we have knowledge of unstable appearances given as the objects of experience. By holding that the organization or form of the world is independent of our minds, this idealism is objective or absolute, rather than subjective. Platonic ideas provide the basis not only for knowledge, but also for moral principle. Absolute idealism is a variant of objective idealism. When Leibniz first employed the term “idealism,” he was referring to Plato’s theory of ideas. “There are types of objective idealism which describe and explain the world in the same way as realism with only the additional assertion that the whole system is mental or spiritual.” D. Williams, Principles of Empirical Realism idealism, subjective Metaphysics, epistemology A form of idealism associated with Berkeley, although he himself called his own philosophy immaterialism. Locke distinguished primary qualities (such as size and shape) and secondary qualities (such as color and smell) and claimed that secondary qualities are not in material things but are mind-dependent. Berkeley argued that even primary qualities are mind-dependent and that both kinds of qualities as objects of experience are ideas in our mind. Material objects are simply collections of ideas, and do not exist independent of a perceiver. For Berkeley, “to exist” means to be perceived by some mind, thus leading to his dictum: “esse et percipi.” Minds and ideas are the only real things, but this does not mean that the world disappears when I close my eyes and returns when I open them again. Berkeley thought that the natural world would still exist, because it is perceived by God. Some philosophers prefer a phenomenalist rendering of subjective idealism, according to which objects are determined by our actual experiences and by the experiences we would have were certain conditions fulfilled. In either religious or phenomenalist versions, subjective idealism accepts the existence of the ordinary world, but provides special ways of interpreting its existence. Opponents of idealism sometimes argue that subjective idealism collapses into solipsism and the claims that my ideas and I are the only reality. Berkeley’s thought remains highly influential, however, because its arguments reveal in a negative way some of the deep philosophical problems which empiricism has difficulty in avoiding. “It is extremely important to realise that the psychological reflection is a transcending of the given every whit as much as the physical; indeed even more, if anything. It was the failure to notice this which led Berkeley to subjective idealism.” Russell, Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell, vol. I idealism, transcendental Metaphysics, epistemology Kant’s description of his own basic philosophical position, which he also called critical idealism. In developing his position, Kant rejected both rationalism and empiricism, and claimed that it is impossible for us to gain knowledge of the world either by sense experience alone or solely by rational thought, and our knowledge must employ both sensibility and understanding. Knowledge is limited to the phenomenal world and cannot inform us about noumena or things-in-themselves. Nevertheless, the world we experience is real, and Kant linked his transcendental idealism with empirical realism. His metaphysics explores the conditions of the possibility of experience rather than attempting to provide knowledge beyond the limits of our experience. For knowledge of the world to be possible, our sense experience must conform to the a priori intuitions of space and time and the categories of understanding. Space, time, and the categories are not features of things, but constitute the conditions of the possibility of experience. Their origin is not the empirical self, but what he calls the transcendental unity of apperception (“the ‘I think’ which accompanied all my representations”). About this “I” we know nothing except that it is, for it is a formal condition of knowledge rather than an object of knowledge. Objects in the natural world depend on the constitution of our sensibility and understanding. Fichte and Schelling drew on some Kantian texts to extend the metaphysical role of the spontaneity of the “I,” but this was a departure from Kant’s own orientation. Philosophers disagree over the value of transcendental idealism to Kant’s philosophy. Some defend it as ineliminable, whilst others consider it to be incoherent. “By transcendental idealism I mean the doctrine that appearances are to be regarded as being, one and all, representations only, not things in themselves, and the time and space are therefore only sensible forms of our intuition, not determinations given as existing by themselves, nor conditions of objects viewed as things in themselves.” Kant, Critique of Pure Reason ideas of ideas Metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of religion Spinoza’s theory, according to which God has an idea of everything that follows from any of his attributes. Because the ideas in God themselves are among the things following from his attribute of thought, there is necessarily in God an idea of every idea that there is in him. This process can go on ad infinitum. The levels of these ideas are distinct from one another because what they represent is different. Hence, besides mental–physical parallelism (extra-cognitive parallelism), there is infinite mental–mental parallelism (intra-cognitive parallelism). Spinoza intended this account to serve as a identity theory of self-knowledge. But an infinite hierarchy of ideas of ideas is criticized by many commentators as being profligate. “The ideas of the ideas of modifications follow in God and are related to God in the same way as the ideas themselves of modifications.” Spinoza, Ethics object is also used to translate objectum] Originally a scholastic term for something produced by God as a copy of the idea which He himself has. In Spinoza’s philosophy, an ideatum corresponds to an idea and is what an idea is of, that is, the thing which is presented in an idea. “A true idea must correspond with its ideatum, that is what it conceives.” Spinoza, Ethics ideation, see eidetic reduction ideational theory of meaning Philosophy of mind, philosophy of language A theory holding that the meaning of a word is the idea with which it is regularly associated or for which it stands. According to the theory, ideas are private and independent of language. Language is a tool for providing publicly observable indications of private ideas and to convey these ideas to others. A linguistic expression gets its meaning by being used to indicate ideas. The classical version of this theory was elaborated by Locke in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding, I, 2, III. He says: “The use, then, of words is to be sensible marks of ideas; and the ideas they stand for are their proper and immediate signification.” Since the ambiguous word “idea” for Locke refers to mental images, this theory is also called the “image theory of meaning.” The strength of this theory is that it catches the insight that language is an instrument for the communication of thought. However, according to this theory, we do not understand what someone is saying until we get the idea. This is not usually the case. More often, an idea itself is derived from meaning rather than vice versa. Moreover, the theory must answer claims that either language and thought cannot be separated or, if they can, language has priority. Fodor’s language of thought thesis reasserts the thesis that thought is prior on the basis of a theory of thinking for which thought has the same kind of syntactic structure as language. “The ideational theory [of the meaning] would be that two expressions have the same use if and only if they are associated with the same ideas.” Alston, Philosophy of Language ideatum Metaphysics, philosophy of language [Latin, plural, ideata, generally translated as object, although identity Logic, metaphysics [from Latin idem, the same] Identity has been interpreted in two ways: as singleness over time and as sameness amid difference. These two notions are connected, for to identify something as the same over time cannot be separated from distinguishing one thing from others. However, each interpretation introduces its own peculiar problems. Identity as singleness over time amounts to sameness amid change. Common sense suggests that a thing can remain itself in spite of alterations, yet it is difficult to explain how this can be so. Identity over time leads on to questions such as the nature of substance, the relationship of appearance to reality, and the conditions of personal identity. Identity as sameness amid diversity raises questions concerning kind identity, the sameness which is shared by a number of things, and questions concerning individual identity, the identity by which one thing is itself and can be distinguished from other things of the same kind. This latter question is called the problem of individuation. To tell whether two or more things of a given kind are identical, we must specify their identity conditions or criteria of identity. Different kinds of things are determined according to different criteria of identity. In logic, identity is characterized by an equivalence relation and is determined by what is called Leibniz’s law, or the identity of indiscernibles: two things are identical if every property belonging to one belongs to the other. A major dimension of contemporary discussion of identity places the question of identity within the theory of meaning. Identity is considered as a relation rather than as a property and, furthermore, as a relation between names or signs of objects rather than a relation between objects. Many philosophers follow Frege in arguing that an identity sentence would be cognitively insignificant if it were about a relation between objects and that it is meaningful because it is about a relation between signs of objects. Frege made the brilliant but controversial claim that in order to understand how identity statements are meaningful we must distinguish between the sense and the reference of signs. The claim that items can be contingently identical has been vigorously challenged by Kripke, who argues that identities, although open to empirical discovery, are matters of necessity. “Problems concerning identity have been extensively discussed in the history of philosophy at least since Heraclitus worried about how anything could persist through change.” Brody, Identity and Essence identity, law of Logic The law expressed in the formula A = A and stating that everything is what it is, or that if anything is A, then it is A. Something cannot be what it is and fail to be what it is at the same time. Along with the law of contradiction and the law of excluded middle, the law of identity is one of the three traditional laws of thought that are regarded as basic and fundamental to all thought. Aristotle, Topics identity, the paradox of Logic Identity, signified by expressions such as “the same as,” is generally thought to be a relation either between two distinct things, or between one thing and itself. However, if it is the former, then the statement of identity must be false because two distinct things cannot be the same. If it is the latter, the statement of identity is true, but is the most trivial tautology. The paradox, which can be traced to Plato and Aristotle, was explicitly expressed by Wittgenstein: “to say of two things that they are identical is nonsense, and to say of one thing that it is identical with itself is to say nothing at all” (Tractatus, 5.5303). Frege attempted to solve the paradox by saying that a true meaningful identity statement involves expressions with the same reference but different senses. Russell claimed that the paradox is due to the confusion of two levels of predicates, and Wittgenstein denied that identity is a relation. “The law of identity is ‘If and only if p, then p’.” “The paradox of identity similarly proceeds from an assumption – the assumption that a statement of identity asserts a relation.” C. Williams, What is Identity? Prior, Formal Logic identity, numerical Logic, metaphysics Aristotle distinguished three kinds of sameness or identity: (1) specific identity, according to which one thing is identical with another in respect of their species, that is, the two things belong to the same species; (2) generic identity, according to which one thing is identical with another in respect of their genus, that is, the two things belong to the same genus; and (3) numerical identity, according to which one thing is identical with another if the two things share the same space and time and have all their characteristics in common. If two things are numerically identical, they are in an equivalence relation and are actually one and the same thing, except for having different names. Numerical identity is sometimes called particular identity. “We generally apply the term [identity] numerically or specifically or generically – numerically in cases where there is more than one name but only one thing, for example ‘doublet’ and ‘cloak’.” identity criteria Logic, metaphysics The conditions in accordance with which we determine whether items are the same at a given time or whether a given thing is the same over time. This notion can be traced to Frege and was examined by the later Wittgenstein. A criterion of identity is generally understood to provide logically necessary and sufficient conditions for determining the truth or falsity of an identity claim, but some philosophers take the criterial relation as being looser than one which provides necessary and sufficient conditions. Since identity admits of different kinds, there are various kinds of identity criteria. “That in accordance with which we judge whatever identity holds I call a criterion of identity.” Geach, Reference and Generality ideology identity of indiscernibles, see indiscernibility of identicals identity statement Logic A statement in which an expression of identity, such as “is” or “are,” unites two expressions aiming to identify the same thing or kind of thing. All identity statements are symmetric, that is, if “A is B,” then “B is A.” An identity statement is not a kind of subject-predicate statement, for one cannot distinguish subject and predicate roles for the expressions to perform. There are various kinds of identity statements. For meaning identity, a statement presents two general nouns that are synonyms, for example “Motor cars are automobiles.” For referential or name identity, a statement gives two proper names of a subject, for example “Mount Everest is Chomolungma.” For contingent identity, a statement gives two expressions that accidentally and perhaps temporarily pick out the same individual, for example “Beijing is the Capital of the People’s Republic of China.” For necessary identity, a statement gives two expressions that necessarily designate the same individual. The necessity can be explained in terms of the kind of expressions used (rigid designators) or by logical, mathematical, metaphysical, or scientific theoretical considerations. “We may say that identity statements are a distinct class of statements, not to be assimilated to subjectpredicate statements.” Strawson, Individuals identity theory Philosophy of mind A materialist account of the relationship between mental states and events and physical states and events, according to which mental states such as thinking, believing, feeling, and hoping as a matter of fact turn out to be identical to physical states in the brain. Although things could have been otherwise, to have a mind is to have a brain, and to be in a certain mental state is to be in a certain neural state. Mental states and events actually occur in their owners’ central nervous systems. For example, pain is identical with a certain firing of c-fibres. Identity theory is a widely held version of materialism or physicalism. It is sometimes used as a synonym for central-state materialism. It originated in the late 1950s with Herbert Feigl and U. T. Place, and versions of it have been fully defended by J. J. C. Smart, David Armstrong, Hilary Putnam, David Lewis, and Donald Davidson. The identity theory of mind shares the behaviorists’ criticism of dualism, but it also accommodates the inner and the episodic and therefore overcomes important weaknesses of behaviorism. The earlier version of the theory, type-type identity theory, claims that every type of mental event is identical with some type of physical state. However, this turns out to be problematic since, for example, it is reasonable to assume that persons with the same beliefs need not always have similar neural states. This gives rise to the token-token identity theory, according to which there is no necessary correspondence between a given type of mental state and a certain type of bodily state. Instead an instance or token of a mental state is identical with a token physical state of some type or other. Some critics argue that the token-token theory lacks the explanatory power of the type-type theory. The notion of contingent identity employed by identity theory is severely criticized by Kripke and T. Nagel. Functionalism may be seen as a recent successor to the identity theory put forward by those continuing to seek a materialist or physicalist account of the mind. “The so-called ‘identity theory’ may be characterised roughly as the theory that the mind is a brain, or more concretely that mental events, states, and processes are brain events, states and processes.” J. Smart, Essays Metaphysical and Moral ideology Political philosophy, philosophy of religion, philosophy of social science [from Greek idea + logos, literally, the doctrine of ideas, but used both positively and negatively in the social sciences] A term introduced by Destutt de Tracy at the end of the eighteenth century and initially used in the modern critique of religion. His use led to a positive sense of ideology as any world view and body of philosophical thought. In this sense, ideology covers the whole sphere of culture, including science, and can be seen as a necessary intermediary between ourselves and the world. Marx made prominent use of the term, but in a pejorative or negative sense. For Marx, ideology is false consciousness: an interrelated set of value judgments which guide social and political actions, but which have not been subjected to rational scrutiny. These judgments are necessarily deceptive through distorting our understanding of social reality. Ideology, according to Marx, covers religion and all other forms of distorted consciousness. In this sense, ideology is the antithesis of science and functions politically as a specific element of the superstructure of society. The term is still used in both its positive and negative sense. “In this, its origin, the term ideology has a positive connotation. It is the rigorous science of ideas which, by overcoming religions and metaphysical prejudices, may serve as a new basis for public education.” Larrain, The Concept of Ideology Idiolect: from Greek idio, peculiar] A lect is a variety of some basic language. For example, a dialect is a variety of language based in a particular region. An idiolect is a language that is peculiar to an individual, in contrast to a language shared by a community or sociolect. For instance, you and I both speak and write English, but you and I may have different levels of English competence and performance. An idiolect is closely related to one’s intentional states, and hence becomes the common object of study of the philosophy of language and the philosophy of mind. “Idiolect [is] the dialect of a certain speaker at a certain time.” Bar-Hillel, Language and Information human view of nature as the way the nature works in itself. (2) The idols of the cave (idola specus), prejudices caused by the nature of each individual’s mind and the mental habits due, for example, to one’s education. The term is borrowed from Plato’s allegory of cave. (3) The idols of the market-place (idola fori), caused by the daily intercourse of common life and by the influence exerted by one’s language. (4) The idols of the theatre (idola theatri), influences exerted by traditions and authoritative theories or opinions. For Bacon, idols are the antithesis of ideas. Idols stand in the same relation to the true interpretation of nature as fallacies stand to ordinary logic. Roger Bacon had earlier put forward four hindrances to obtaining true knowledge in the beginning of his Opus Maius: the use of insufficient authority, custom, popular opinions, and the concealment of ignorance. Some argue that Francis Bacon derived his theory of idols from Roger Bacon. However, the work of Roger Bacon was not published when Francis Bacon was alive. “The idols and false notions which are now in possession of the human understanding, and have taken deep root therein, not only beset men’s minds that truth can hardly find entrance, but even after entrance obtained, they will again in the very instauration of the sciences meet and trouble us, unless men being fore-warned of the danger fortify themselves as far as may be against their assaults.” Bacon, Novum Organum, in The Philosophical Works idol Epistemology, philosophy of religion, philosophy of science, philosophy of social science [from Latin idolum, image] Anything which powerfully influences the common people but whose existence is really ungrounded. These kinds of idols widely exist in religion, culture, social, and economic life. Idol worship or idolatry has been condemned by orthodox Christianity and in contemporary philosophy by Nietzsche, Marx, Freud, and others. The English philosopher Francis Bacon used the term in its original sense of an illusion or false appearance. He distinguished four idols, that is, four common hindrances to the acquisition of knowledge arising through prejudice or false ways of thinking. (1) The idols of the tribe (idola tribus), the tendency inherent in the human mind to take the idolatry, see iconoclasm iff, abbreviation of if and only if, see bioconditional ignoratio elenchi Logic [Latin, ignorance of refutation] An informal fallacy in traditional logic, in which one argues against something that is not really the position of the opponent. An advocate of such an argument is hence ignorant of what his opponent is trying to refute or prove. It is any fallacy of irrelevance in which one argues for or proves something that is not an issue at hand and is also called an irrelevant conclusion or missing the point. An argument involves this fallacy if it passes from one area of ideas to another. illusion, argument from “To pass in argument from the world of psychology to that of philosophy, or vice versa, or to subordinate either world to the other, cannot fail to involve us on every occasion in ignoratio elenchi.” Oakeshott, Experience and its Modes I–It Metaphysics, modern European philosophy According to Martin Buber, the world is twofold because the human attitude toward it is twofold. This twofold attitude is reflected in the formulations I–It and I–Thou (or I–You). For Buber, they are the two primary relationships between oneself and another. In the I–It relationship, It can be both non-human objects and other persons, covering everything with which the I comes into contact and uses for its own utility. This is a relation between a user and an object of use or between an observer and an object of observation. This is a one-sided relation, within which the I concentrates upon its own purposes and concerns and keeps the It at a distance, where it is measured and studied. Once there is personal engagement and commitment, the I–It relation becomes the I–Thou relation. “It becomes unmistakably clear how the spiritual reality of the basic words emerges from a natural reality: that of the basic word I–you from a natural association, that of the basic word I–It from a natural discreteness.” Buber, I and Thou illicit major Logic A rule for categorical syllogisms states that no term may be distributed in the conclusion which is not distributed in one of the premises. The violation of this rule leads to logical fallacies. If a major term that is undistributed in the premises becomes distributed in the conclusion, the fallacy is called the illicit process of the major term (or the illicit major). For example, “All persons are mortal; no tree is a person; therefore, no tree is mortal.” This inference is erroneous because the major term “mortal” is asserted only partly in the premises but is asserted wholly in the conclusion. If it is the minor term that is undistributed in the premises but distributed in the conclusion, the logical fallacy is called the illicit process of the minor term (or the illicit minor). For example, “All persons are mortal; all persons are two-legged; therefore, all two-legged things are mortal.” This syllogism is incorrect because the conclusion asserts the whole of “twolegged” and hence goes beyond what is implied in the premises. “When a syllogism contains its major term undistributed in the major premise but distributed in the conclusion, the argument is said to commit the fallacy of illicit process of the major term (or, more briefly, the illicit major).” Copi, Introduction to Logic illicit minor, see illicit major illocutionary act Philosophy of language Austin’s term, one of three ways in which saying something is doing something. To perform a locutionary act is to utter a meaningful utterance. But over and above this there is a further act that gives the force of the utterance, the way it is to be taken. An illocutionary act makes clear this aspect of an utterance and is the further act that is performed in performing a locutionary act. Asking or answering a question, giving an assurance or a warning, making an appeal or a criticism are only a few examples of this kind of speech act. The illocutionary force of an utterance is largely dependent on conventions, contexts, or a speaker’s intention, rather than on the truth or falsity of an utterance. Unlike a perlocutionary act, according to Austin, an illocutionary act need not produce any effect on others, but is nevertheless a way of understanding the sentence uttered. Austin’s chief interest lay in analyzing illocutionary acts on the grounds that they represent a dimension of language which is not meaning but which is at least equally important as meaning in understanding an utterance. Although some argue that illocution is still a kind of meaning, Austin’s theory of illocution has exerted great influence on contemporary philosophy. “To determine what illocutionary act is so performed we must determine in what way we are using the locution.” Austin, How to Do Things with Words illusion, argument from Epistemology, metaphysics An argument starting from the fact that our senses sometimes deceive us, for they vary with the physical and psychological condition of the observer and with the nature of the circumstances in which objects appear. From this common premise rationalism and empiricism derive different conclusions. For rationalists such as Plato and Descartes, the deceptive nature of the senses shows that appearances are not real and cannot be the true objects of knowledge. Thus an alternative metaphysical foundation of knowledge must be sought. Empiricists such as Berkeley claim that since sensible appearances are unstable, they cannot characterize material things and are the products of mind. If, however, we know nothing other than such appearances we have no grounds to believe in material things. This view leads to phenomenalism if we take the common objects of experience to comprise actual sensible appearances and the appearances that would exist were we to be in different circumstances. Philosophers object to the different versions of the argument. Although our senses sometimes deceive us, they do not, and perhaps could not, always do so. “All that this argument from illusion proves is that the relationship of a sense-content to the material thing to which it belongs is not that of part to whole.” Ayer, Language, Truth and Logic image Epistemology, philosophy of language [from Latin imago, a representation] A mental picture purportedly representing external objects, with certain visual similarities to the latter. This position is called the picture view and is associated with the notion of introspection. In this century with the rise of behaviorism, the notion of introspection came under attack, and the picture view of imagism became a matter of controversy. A once popular alternative was J. B. Watson’s descriptionalism, according to which an image is a representation in the manner of a linguistic description. Recently, the picture view has been revived based on the data of empirical psychology. The issue of image is related to various modern forms of representationalism. Traditionally, images are thought to have a close relationship with thinking, and understanding the meaning of a word was believed to bring to mind an appropriate image associated with the word. But Frege established a contrast between image and thought and considered an image to be merely psychological, with no place in an account of meaning. Wittgenstein further attacked the supposed role of images in thought. If an image, as a picture of an external thing, can confer meaning on a word, then vividly seeing the external object should be an even better way of conferring meaning. But seeing an object does not settle matters of meaning. If a seeing of a red thing does not explain the meaning of redness, how can a red mental image do so? “If you endeavor to recall the appearance of your mother, there will usually arise in your fancy a definite visual image, or picture, of a familiar face and figure, which can represent only your mother.” McCall, Basic Logic image theory of meaning, another term for ideational theory of meaning imagination Epistemology, philosophy of mind, aesthetics The ability to represent objects or states of affairs that cannot exist, that do not exist, or that do not exist here and now. Imagination is both condemned for its link with falsity and prized for its role in artistic creativity, especially in romantic art. Aristotle suggested that imagination (Greek phantasia) lies in the middle between perception and thought. The British empiricists held an imagist conception of the imagination, according to which to image is to see with the mind’s eye. They held that to image something is to have an image that represents its physical correspondent and that all ideas in the mind are mental images. In Kant’s account, imagination is not so crucial for forming concepts, but performs an indispensable role in perception as an intermediary between our sensibility and understanding that allows us to have knowledge of a unified world. Wittgenstein proposed that we should study how the word “imagination” is used. He also claimed that although mental images exist and are important for imagination, not all kinds of imagination involve them. He characterized imagination in terms of “seeing-as” and seeing under an aspect. His view raises problems about the status of images and the relation between imagination and perception. “Imagination is the reorganization of available memories in the light of a particular goal. It can be called creativity in the sense that every such reorganisation is original with the individual.” Arnold, in Mischel (ed.), Human Action imitation Epistemology, metaphysics, aesthetics [Greek mimesis] (1) Plato used imitation, like participation, to describe the relation between the particulars and Forms. Forms are the originals, analogous to painters’ or sculptors’ models, and the particulars are resemblances or copies of them. It shows that the particulars are inferior to Forms, as in general originals do not depend on copies, while copies must rely on the originals. Forms are not dependent on the particulars, while the latter cannot exist without Forms. (2) Plato also uses this word to describe the nature of art; art is mainly imitation of the particulars which are themselves imitations of Forms, so it is far away from the truth; furthermore, art as imitation has bad effects on the actor’s personality; for these reasons Plato orders the expulsion of all imitative arts from his ideal state. Nevertheless his view that “art is imitation” has lasting influence in the theory of literature. “For imitation is surely a kind of production, though it be only a production of images, as we say, not of originals of every sort.” Plato, Sophist imitation game, see Turing test imitation theory Aesthetics, metaphysics, epistemology The oldest theory of art, whose central claim is that the essence of art is to imitate or display things in the real world. “Imitation” is the translation of the Greek word mimesis (hence the theory is also called “mimetic theory of art”). Mimesis is sometimes translated as “representation” (hence the theory is also called the “representation theory of art”). This theory originated with Plato and Aristotle and was the dominant theory of art until the rise of Romanticism. It has retained a deep metaphysical concern for knowing how things are and argues that art has a cognitive role. However, there has been much debate about the precise meaning of “imitation” and “representation” and about questions relating to the nature of representation. Some writers claim that to imitate is to portray the visible form of nature, while others believe that imitation requires idealization. The basic criticism of the imitation theory is that not all forms of art are imitation or representation. Music, for example, is not essentially representational. Contemporary abstract painting further stands outside the scope of this theory. Nevertheless, the theory still has able defenders. An influential version has been developed by Nelson Goodman, who argues that representation means denotation. On this view, the relation between an artwork and the thing it represents is analogous to the relation between a description and what it describes. “The imitation theory focused on a readily evident relational property of works of art, namely, art’s relation to subject matter.” Dickie, Art and the Aesthetic immaterialism Metaphysics, epistemology Berkeley’s own designation for his philosophy, which is always taken as a synonym for subjective idealism. Berkeley referred to his opponents as materialists. Matter for him was not the corporeal as such, but rather that which is inaccessible by the finite perceiving mind or something whose existence has no bearing to any perceiving mind, such as Descartes’s material substance or Locke’s unknown underlying essence. Berkeley held that to be is to be perceived. The corporeal is exactly as it is perceived to be, and the existence of absolute and independent matter is unintelligible. What is real comprises senseimpressions and ideas. “If there are difficulties attending immaterialism, these are at the same time direct and evident proofs for it. But for the existence of matter, there is not one proof, and far more numerous and insurmountable objections lies against it.” Berkeley, Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous immediate inference Logic Inference must start with one or more premises. If we draw a conclusion simply from one single premise, one proposition from another single proposition, the inference is immediate. It does not use a middle term or any other means for reaching a conclusion. For instance, from the single premise “All humans are mortal,” we can infer validly that “Some humans are mortal.” This contrasts with mediate inference, in which a conclusion is drawn from more than one premise, such as a syllogism and polysyllogism. In the square of opposition of traditional logic, given the truth and falsity of one of the categorical propositions, we may immediately infer the truth or falsity of some or all of the other three categorical propositions. Other major forms of immediate inference include conversion, obversion, and contraposition. “Where a conclusion is drawn from only one premise . . . the inference is said to be immediate.” Copi, Introduction to Logic