Terms¶
Note
The following content is from Jordan Haddad at Notre Dame Seminary.
The following is a list of basic terms which are fundamental to learning philosophy.
- Philosophy¶
love or pursuit of wisdom; a quest for truth through logical inference to necessary principles rather than factual observation.
- Mythos-Logos¶
represents the birth of philosophy; before Thales, people explained the world through myths, afterward they employed reason.
Branches of Philosophy¶
- Metaphysics¶
study of “being qua being”, of reality behind appearance, or the ultimate principle behind things.
- Epistemology¶
study of theory of knowledge, of what can we know and how we can know it.
- Ontology¶
the theory of being, of what kinds of things exist.
- Logic¶
the theory of proper argumentation. It judges if an argument is valid or faulty. It asks: Do the premises lead to the conclusion? But not: Are the premises right or wrong?
- Ethics¶
discipline that deals with what is morally good or bad, right or wrong in human behavior. Asks: How should a person act?
- Natural Theology¶
our knowledge of God based solely on reason, as opposed to revealed theology, which relies on Scripture; hence, Faith and Reason are the two ways by which we can know truth about many philosophical topics. Related to this are:
Ontological argument: the argument for God’s existence based on the kind of being God is: God is a perfect being, hence He must exist, else He is not Perfect.
Cosmological argument: the argument for God’s existence based on the fact that the existence of the universe is not self-explanatory and so needs to have been created.
Basic Ways to Describe Reality¶
- Materialism¶
theory that affirms that physical matter is the only reality through which all being and processes and phenomena can be explained, ex. Atomism
- Idealism¶
theory that affirms that reality is primarily composed of ideas or minds; ideas are the most real and the material world less real, ex. Plato
- Monism¶
metaphysical view that there is only one kind of substance or ultimate reality; everything that exists is made of variations of one single element or principle, ex. Thales(water)
- Dualism¶
theory that divides the world into two mutually irreducible elements, ex. Plato(world of Forms/material world)
- Pluralism¶
metaphysical theory that the world is composed of many kinds of ultimate reality or elements, ex. Aristotle
- Cosmology¶
philosophical study of the external universe (not of man’s place in the universe)
- Nominalism¶
the belief that universals exist in name alone, thus denying the existence of Forms or natures
- Ockham’s Razor¶
the notion that entities should not be multiplied without necessity, or that the simplest explanation is the best
Epistomology¶
(how we know reality)
- Rationalism¶
the belief that truth or knowledge can be known only through reason, and not through sense experience, ex. Plato
- Empiricism¶
the belief that truth or knowledge can be known only through sense experience; ex. Aristotle
- Relativism¶
theory that there is no objective truth, but just different perceptions and interpretations. Questions of right/wrong or true/false differ according culture and people
- Subjectivism¶
a type of relativism in which truth is determined by each person’s (as opposed to each culture’s) perceptions of the world
- Skepticism¶
the belief that there is no truth or that we cannot know the truth
- Scientism¶
the assummption that the only valid knowledge is derived from the scientific method, that is, the ordered observation of the material world which enables us to control that world
- Innate Ideas¶
these are associated with rationalism, the ideas we can know independently of any experience; also called a priori knowledge
- Tabula Rasa¶
the idea associated with empiricism which states that the human mind begins as a “blank slate” lacking any innate ideas. Ideas come to the mind through experience, either external sense experiences or internal reflective experiences; also called a posteriori knowledge
- The Principle of Non-contradiction¶
the fundamental logical principle behind all reasoning which asserts that nothing can be and not-be simultaneously (or, the same proposition cannot be simultaneously affirmed and denied).
Human Nature and Ethics¶
- Philosophical anthropology¶
the philosophical study of human nature
- Psychology¶
the study of the soul (Greek: psyche) as the principle of life and activity
- Sensible¶
that reality which is known by the senses, i.e., the material, perceivable world
- Intelligible¶
those aspects of reality that are not sensible, but are known by means of the intellectual grasp of higher realities
- Will¶
the faculty or power of humans to move themselves to action, as opposed to reacting on instinct; for Aquinas, this is the “rational appetite”
- Freedom¶
the idea that actions are not caused by an agent other than the one acting
- Determinism¶
the opposite of freedom; the idea that actions are caused or determined by something outside of one’s direct control
- Contingent¶
Any event that did not have to happen
- Necessary¶
that which cannot be otherwise than it is
Plato and Aristotle¶
(founders of philosophy)
- Justice(Plato)¶
Virtue of the whole person through which reason controls the appetites with the help of the spirited part of the soul
- Forms¶
For Plato and Aristotle, the metaphysical principle determining what something is, and the object that is known, since it is behind or apart from the material world of change
- Categories¶
For Aristotle, the ten ways in which Being is said to really exist; the primary division is between substances, the subject of all predication, and the variable accidental categories
- Substance¶
for Aristotle, substance is matter plus form; the basic unit of existence
- Accident¶
qualites of a substance which exist IN a substance and, if changed, do not change the substance itself
- Hylomorphism¶
the idea that all beings are made of two inseparable principles, form (the what) and matter (the stuff)
- Act and Potency¶
Aristotelian manner of explaining possibility for change. Form determines what something is (principle of actuality); potency is what can be, and is associated with matter’s capacity to take on different forms.
- Teleology¶
Aristotle’s principle that all natures act for the sake of an end or goal; hence all reality is goal directed
- Four Causes¶
material cause: stuff from which something is made
formal cause: “shape” of what it is
efficient cause: outside force which brings substance into being
final/end cause: purpose for which something exists