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Preface to the Second Edition
It is now eleven years since the first edition of this Dictionary was
pubhshed, and time moves on. When I was writing the original
edition there were few comparable works to help the job of
compilation and selection. In the intervening years, a great many
have appeared, some of admi... |
confidently tells us that over sixty senses of the word 'nature' can
clearly be distinguished. With such dismal examples before us,
brevity may seem impossible, and any attempt at an overview an
insult to the abundant complexities.
No dictionary-sized explanation of these terms can substitute for
the full explorations.... |
have, however, kept the macron for long vowels in Greek words, as
in epoche or arete, since this is a well-established convention in
contemporary philosophical literature. Alphabetization is
surprisingly tricky, and the rule is that where there are
complications, entries are ordered by what occurs before the first
comm... |
Chartres and Paris, and lived as monk and abbot at a succession of
monasteries. He survived an attempt on his life at a Breton
monastery in 1132. A controversial figure, he found his work
condemned in 1121, and his scepticism about the legends of St
Dionysius forced him to leave the
Abbey of St Denis. In 1125 he became... |
characteristics of facts and things on the one hand and of ideas on
the other, the * transcendental idealism of *Kant, and the
emergence of activity and the Vkdll as the main determinants of
history. Other influences include a dynamic conception of nature as
an organic unity tending towards a goal of perfection, a beli... |
weaker notion of absolute space, relative to which there is absolute
acceleration, but for which different inertial motions are all relative.
absolutism In poUtical theory, the view that there are no
restrictions on the rights and powers of the government. In moral
theory, the view that there are inviolable moral stand... |
of Persia threatened Athens, thereby ending the Academy as an
institution. The rehabilitation of dogmatic Platonic themes after
Antiochus of Ascalon (c. 79 bc: see also middle platonism) was not
properly the doing of the Academy, but paved the way for the
emergence of *Neoplatonism.
Academy of Florence Circle gathered ... |
that happen does not of itself permit us to talk of rationaUty and
intention, which are the categories we may apply if we conceive of
them as actions. We think of ourselves not only passively, as
creatures within which things happen, but actively, as creatures that
make things happen. Understanding this distinction giv... |
not by means of bodily movements. Notably these include trying,
wilhng, and perhaps even private thinking. They seem to be things
that do not just happen, perhaps inside our brains, but of which we
are the authors. The problem is to understand what this means. See
also action, volition.
acts/omissions doctrine The doct... |
Conditionals, 1975, p. 3) that the probability of an indicative
conditional of the form 'if p is the case then q is' is a conditional
probability, that is, the probability of 'if p then q should equal the
ratio of the probability of (p & q) to the probability of p.
adaptation In biology, a characteristic of an organism... |
surreptitiously mentioning the patches it is hard to see how we
could give meaning to the complex adverb involved.
adverbs If John swam fast, then it follows that John swam. But how
do we understand this inference? In * first-order logic, the natural
suggestion is that there is an individual, an event which was a
swimm... |
beauty is the highest aim of human life, and especially that the
pursuit of
aesthetic properties
such experience is not constrained by ordinary moral
considerations. Art itself serves no ulterior moral or political
purpose. Tlie 'Aesthetic Movement' was a useful reaction against the
didactic religious and moral art of ... |
jobs, or housing. This may be thought of as rectifying past injustice,
or as instrumental in smoothing out historically entrenched
inequalities. It is controversial since it involves what may appear to
be procedural injustices of its own.
affirmative and negative propositions
Intuitively there may be a difference betwe... |
one ought to do both A and B. If it is accepted, it puts pressure on
the principle that 'ought implies can', since arguably there may arise
occasions on which, for instance, I ought to repay A, and ought to
repay B, but cannot repay both A and B.
agnoiology (Greek ignorance) The study of ignorance. An
increasingly impo... |
University of Vierma.
Albert the Great (Albertus Magnus) (c. 1200-80) The dominant
scholastic of the 13th century, and teacher of 'Aquinas. An
encyclopaedic figure, known as the Doctor Universalis. Albert was
prominent in the attempt to synthesize newly discovered
Aristotelian and Platonic learning with the Christian t... |
recursive, TURING MACHINE.
alienans An adjective that appears to be qualifying a subsequent
description, but in fact ftmctions to deny or leave open the question
of whether the description applies: a fake parrot, an alleged
criminal, a near victory.
alienation A pivotal concept in the philosophical writings of * Hegel,... |
Fakhr Al-Din See razi. al-Sijistani, Abu Sulaiyman Muhammad
Sec SIJISTANI.
als ob (German, as if) See vaihinger.
alter ego A second self; the way in which a friend is to be regarded,
according to Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics 1166''32,1169" 7).
alterity Term used in postmodern vmtings for the 'otherness' of
others, or ... |
'She suffered a bad taxpayer's dream' (dream of a bad taxpayer? Bad
dream of a taxpayer?). In *Kant a transcendental amphiboly is the
confusion of an object of *pure understanding with appearance.
ampliative argument Term used by *Peirce to denote arguments
whose conclusions go beyond their premises (and hence amplify ... |
uncertain in its application, and rather than being an objective
arbiter of philosophical doctrine, will be contested in the Ught of
such doctrines.
analysis, paradox of The paradox that if a philosophical *analysis is
con-ect, then, since it substitutes one term or phrase for another
with the same meaning, it must be ... |
by the use of *bound variables. Cataphora arises when a word is to
be interpreted in terms of what is still to come: forward-looking
anaphora.
anarchism The doctrine associated with *Godwin, *Bakunin,
*Proudhon, and others, j that human communities can and should
flourish without government. Voluntary cooperation shoul... |
primary stuff. The phenomenon that impressed Anaximenes was
that breath can blow warm (when it is rarefied, i.e. the mouth is
open) or cold (when it is compressed, or hissed out). See also
atomism, materia prima.
ancestral relation Intuitively, a relation that stands to another as
'ancestor of stands to 'parent of: an ... |
to the moral community. For *Descartes, animals are mere
machines, and even lack consciousness or feeling. In the ancient
world the rationality of animals is defended with the example of
Chrysippus' dog. This animal, tracking a prey, comes to a crossroads
with three exits, and after sniffing two of them and failing to ... |
when the loss of authority tends to release moral bonds, produce
unlimited desires, and cause increased rates of suicide. Anomie
characterizes social states and is not the same as the fundamentally
psychological notion of * alienation, although Uke that it may be a
relatively permanent condition of fragmented modem soc... |
an element relating possession of the property to the state of some
human observer in some conditions.
anthropomorphism
18
anthropomorphism The representation of Gods, or nature, or non-
human animals, as having human form, or as having human
thoughts and intentions. Sometimes this is avowedly metaphorical,
the problem... |
proposition; a contradiction.
Antiphon (c. 480-411 bc) Athenian orator and
* Sophist. Scholars have disagreed whether there are two Antiphons
or whether, as is now generally beUeved to be the case, the orator is
identical with the Sophist. The oratorical Antiphon had a
distinguished public career, mainly composing spee... |
apodosis The consequent of a *conditional.
Apoilonian/Dionysian Confrast introduced by *Nietzsche in The
Birth of Tragedy (1872) between the spirit of order, rationality, and
intellectual harmony, represented by Apollo, and the spirit of
ecstatic, spontaneous will to life, represented by Dionysius. In later
writings Ap... |
* empiricism to deny that it can. This is often pursued by suggesting
that all a priori propositions must be empty of real content (see
analytic/synthetic). The two great areas in which real a priori
knowledge seems possible are logic and mathematics, so empiricists
have commonly tried to show either that
these are not... |
becomes reanimated by the same form. It is notable that on
Aquinas's account a person has no privileged self-understanding.
We understand ourselves, as we do everything else, by sense
experience and abstraction, and knowing the principles of our own
lives is an achievement, not a given. In the theory of knowledge
Aquin... |
view mythical.
architectonic
22
architectonic Term associated with *Kant. denoting the systematic
structure or architecture of our knowledge. All our knowledge
belongs to a possible system, and a goal of philosophy is to uncover
the nature of the system, including the place in it that is occupied by
philosophical refle... |
verecundiam: appealing to an authority outside its legitimate area;
illicitly trading on reverence and respect, as in celebrity
endorsements.
Although processes of argument fall into these and other errors, it is
difficult to separate improper from proper uses of arguments that
might be described in these ways. For ins... |
Aristotle went to Mytilene on the island of Lesbos. To this period
belong many of his zoological researches. Between 343/2 and 340
he acted as tutor to the young Alexander the Great, at the invitation
of his father Phihp of Macedon. In 335 he returned to Athens, and
on the outskirts of the city in a grove sacred to Apo... |
world view in the 17th century. His reputation declined somewhat
before that period, when the attempts of both warring Protestants
and Catholics to appropriate his thinking led to a general revulsion
from * scholasticism. In the 20th century his reputation has
frequently been refurbished, and he remains a pivotal figur... |
from any possible set of individual orderings of alternatives; (ii) it
must satisfy the *Pareto principle, that if each person prefers x to y
then society must prefer x to y; (iii) for any subset of the
alternatives, only the individuals' preferences over the alternatives
in the subset of alternatives are to count; and... |
antecedents of the act, but rather taking up a stance towards the act
and the agent, such as expressing preparedness to hold the agent to
some kind of account. The view is parallel to varieties of *non-
cognitivism in ethics.
26
ase/ly (Latin, by or of itself) The God-like characteristic of being
absolutely independent... |
individually and socially, if all cooperate. But each fears that the
others may not play their part and is then motivated to defect. In
Rousseau's example, instead of continuing to play a role in the stag
hunt, which requires cooperation, individual hunters allow
themselves to be distracted by the lesser game of a hare... |
atoms were allowed to be subject to change: what is unchanging was
not necessarily corpuscular in nature.
The revival of atomism in the 17th century owed more to the rise of
empirical science.
* Descartes produced the first serious departure from Democritus
and Aristotle, identifying matter and extension, but different... |
responsibility, exaggerate the malevolence of others and so forth.
attributive An attributive adjective is one that logically qualifies a
subsequent adjective, and cannot be separated fi-om it. Thus some
thing may be a large mouse and a small mammal (i.e. large for a
mouse, small for a mammal). If the qualified adjecti... |
breathe the highest * Stoic principles, without any great
philosophical originality but with a particular personal intensity.
Aurobindo Ghose (1872-1950) Indian mystic and spiritual leader.
His philosophical writings attempt to synthesize evolutionary
science with a mystical view of the supreme reality or *Brahman.
Aus... |
The emergence of such norms in human society is a complex
matter, with convention, habit, custom, and tradition playing
different roles. "Social contract theory is one kind of solution to the
problem of the basis of authority, the evident "utility of some rule-
governed systems is another. While it is common to find sc... |
in order to explain the phenomena of cognition. His view was
remembered partly because of the attack on its idealist tendency by
* Lenin, in his Materialism and Empino-Criticism (1908).
Avempace (or Ibn Bajja) (1085/90-1139) Disciple of *A1-Farabi,
bom in Saragosa. He is remembered mainly for his political
philosophy. ... |
Descartes. Avicenna believed that being was an accident of essence,
and that contingent beings require necessary causes sustaining their
existence. This version of the *cosmological argument was the one
accepted by *Aquinas. It is in the theological domain, where he
espouses doctrines of creation as a kind of emanation... |
of the rational mind as one of its discoveries. The philosophic du
non or 'philosophy of negation' in which his conception of scientific
progress is encapsulated bears some affinities with the
*falsificationism of *Popper, at least in so far as on both theories the
scientist stands prepared to dispose of elements of hi... |
philosophy. Shorter works include the Opus Minus ("Lesser Work')
and Opus Tertius ('Third Work'). Bacon's writings show remarkable
prescience, particularly in his use of mathematics, his investigations
into the science of optics, and a stress on correct use of experience
and language, but his work is generally regarded... |
theologian. Balguy is remembered principally for his two-part work
The Foundation of Moral Goodness (1727-8) in which he opposes
the *sentimentalism of *Hutcheson, in favour of a rationalist moral
theory along the lines of *Cudworth and *Clarke. based on the
divinely ordained and rationally discernible fitness of right... |
process in general' (Marx, Preface to A Contribution to the Critique
of Political Economy). The way in which the base determines the
superstructure has been the object of much debate, with writers
from Engels onwards concerned to distance themselves from the
reductionist and mechanistic implications that the metaphor m... |
of hypotheses of statistical significance with no involvement of
prior attitudes. See also personalism.
Bayes's theorem Theorem in probability theory. Thomas Bayes
(1702-61) was an English clergyman, whose An Essay towards
Solving a Problem in the Doctrine of Chances occurs in two
memoirs presented by * Price (Bayes ha... |
temporal) extension is actual; it also forgets that space is
continuous, i.e. its parts touch each other, whereas between any two
elements of an infinite series of the kind proposed there is an
infinite number of other elements. No two elements touch, any
more than any two fractions are 'next to' one another. A modem
m... |
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