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Definition
| Where one feels certain that p. |
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| Epistemological Certainty |
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| If a belief or claim that p is epistemologically certain, there must be overwhelming evidence that p, and no possibility of evidence that not p. |
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| A belief or claim p is deductively certain when not p is contradictory. |
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| Epistemological Rationalism: |
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| The view that much of human knowledge is innate. Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz. |
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| The view that all knowledge is based upon experience, there is no innate knowledge. Locke, Berkeley, and Hume. |
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| A string of meaningful symbols in a natural language |
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| The standard meaning of a sentence in a natural language. |
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| The use of a sentence by a speaker to make a claim |
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| A sentence in which the meaning of its predicate term is contained in the meaning of its subject term -- 'Triangles are three-sided figures.' Their denials are contradictions. A synonym for tautology. |
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| A sentence in which the meaning of the predicate term is not contained in the meaning of its subject term. A synonym for contingency. |
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| Any claim the truth of which is independent of sense experience. |
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| Any claim the truth of which can only be determined via sense experience. |
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| A priori Synthetic Statement |
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Definition
| Any statement the meaning of whose predicate term is not contained in the meaning of its subject term, but whose truth is not determined via sense experience. Kant's example: "Every event has a cause" |
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| Epistemological Idealism: |
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| The thesis that only minds and their ideas can be known. There is no basis for the belief in material substances, or independently existing material things. |
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| Philosophical Skepticism: |
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| Any instantiation of the Y in the following principle: No human could ever know anything about the existence or characteristics of anything of kind Y. |
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| Classical Philosophical Skepticism |
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Definition
| The instantiation of the above principle for physical objects, Gods, the past, the future, the self, and other persons, or the claim that "with the exception of tautologies and sense data statements no human could ever know anything with certainty. |
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| Possible for/ Possible that distinction: |
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| While it is possible for any governor to commute any prisoner's sentence, it may not be possible that a particular governor will commute a particular prisoner's sentence. For it to be possible that he will do so there must be evidence that he will do so. |
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| That branch of philosophy concerned with the nature and justification of values. It consists of ethics and aesthetics. |
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| That branch of philosophy which is concerned with the nature and justification of moral practices and the determination of moral character. |
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| The description of the moral practices or morality of some individual or group. As a discipline it is part of the social sciences. |
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| Ethically or Morally Permitted: |
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Definition
| An action x is ethically or morally permitted if it is not wrong to do x. |
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| Ethically or morally obligatory: |
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Definition
| An action x is ethically or morally obligatory if it is wrong NOT to do X. |
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| Deontological ethical Theories |
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Definition
| Theories which define ethical obligation in terms of duty as opposed to achievement of desirably consequences or qualities of character. Consequences and good character are said to be irrelevant to the determination of ethical or moral obligation. |
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| Hedonistic Ethical theories |
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Definition
| Theories which define good and bad consequences in terms of pleasure and pain. |
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| Non-hedonistic ethical theories |
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Definition
| Theories which define good and bad consequences in terms of anything other than pleasure and pain. |
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| Supernaturalism in ethics |
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Definition
| It is the view or theory that moral obligation is fiated by God or is an expression of God's will. Also known as divine command theory. |
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Term
| Kant's Categorical Imperative |
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Definition
| a) 1st formulation: "I ought never to act except in such a way that I can also will that my maxim should become a universal law," or alternately, "Do not do x if the universal doing of x would make it impossible for you to do x. (b) 2nd formulation: "Treat every person as an end and never simply as a means". |
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