Term
| The postmodern critique of the correspondence theory of truth |
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Definition
| rejects: metaphysics, favors realism over anti-realism, rejects the correspondence theory of truth all its dichotomous thinking, rejects foundationalism on the ground the certainty isn't possible, rejects authorial discourse interpretation, and rejects metanarratives. |
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Term
| The Phenomenological argument for the correspondence theory of truth |
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Definition
This argument focuses on a careful description and presentation of specific cases to see what can be learned from them about truth. P1 - It is possible to experience that one's thoughts matches or corresponds with an actual state of affairs.
P2: It is possible to experience that one's thought matches or corresponds with an actual state of affairs. |
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Term
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Definition
truth made true by the objective world
absolute truth generally states what is essential rather than superficial - a description of the Ideal (to use Plato's concept) rather than the merely "real" (which Plato sees as a shadow of the Ideal). Among some religious groups this term is used to describe the source of or authority for a given faith or set of beliefs, such as the Bible.Subjective truths are those with which we are most intimately acquainted. That I like broccoli or that I have a pain in my foot are both subjectively true. Metaphysical subjectivism holds that all we have are such truths. That is, that all we can know about are, one way or another, our own subjective experiences. This view does not necessarily reject realism. But at the least it claims that we cannot have direct knowledge of the real world. |
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Definition
| supposed in some way to be independent of our subjective beliefs and tastes. Such truths would subsist not in the mind but in the external object. |
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| The Law of noncontradictions |
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Definition
| Says that P cannot be both true and false in the same sense at the same time. |
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Definition
| Study of the nature of existence itself. Study of the general principles of being, general features that are true of all things whatsoever ('transcendentals'). Categorial analysis in varying degrees of abstraction like substance, property, and relation. |
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Definition
| Has a specific order of topics of special interest like the mind problem, personal identity, and freedom and determination. Also has a second-order clarification & investigation of other fields of study like electrons or social groups. |
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| philosophical worldview and belief system that holds that there is nothing but natural elements, principles, and relations of the kind studied by the natural sciences, i.e., those required to understand our physical environment by mathematical modeling. It is occasionally referred to as philosophical naturalism, or just naturalism. |
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Term
| metaphysical supernaturalism |
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Definition
| that which is not subject to the laws of nature, or more figuratively, that which is said to exist above and beyond nature. With neoplatonic and medieval scholastic origins, the metaphysical considerations can be difficult to approach as an exercise in philosophy or theology because any dependencies on its antithesis, the natural, will ultimately have to be inverted or rejected. |
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Definition
| Used as a source for counterexamples ot metaphysical arguments. In metaphysics, we are primarily interested in what something must be, not in what it merely happens to be by accident. typically presents an imagined scenario with the intention of eliciting an intuitive or reasoned response about the way things are in the thought experiment. (Philosophers might also supplement their thought experiments with theoretical reasoning designed to support the desired intuitive response.) The scenario will typically be designed to target a particular philosophical notion, such as morality, or the nature of the mind or linguistic reference. The response to the imagined scenario is supposed to tell us about the nature of that notion in any scenario, real or imagined. |
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Definition
| are usually used to argue that a certain philosophical position is wrong by showing that it does not apply in certain cases. Unlike mathematicians, philosophers cannot prove their claims beyond any doubt, so other philosophers are free to disagree and try to find counterexamples in response. Of course, now the first philosopher can argue that the alleged counterexample does not really apply. |
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Definition
| A world whose description does not include a logically impossible proposition. It is a world that God could create, it is a world that could have existed even though it may not. |
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Definition
| A world that cannot exist; the conjunction of proposition describing it includes a logically impossible proposition. Such a world is one that God could not create. No conceivable set of circumstances could exist to make such a world a reality. |
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Term
| The Philosophical debate about abstract entities |
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Definition
| Do abstract entities such as properties, relations, numbers, sets, and propositions. The universe is the total spatiotemporal system of matter and impersonal energy. The world is whatever exists. Naturalists believe that abstract entities do not exist. This is done by elimination, reduction, or supervenience. Ontologists believe that abstract entities do exist. |
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Term
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Definition
| Aristotle defined substance as that which possesses attributes but is itself the attribute of nothing. Less precise usage identifies substance with being and essence. The quest of philosophers for the ultimate identity of reality led some to define substance as one (see monism). Frequently the monist has identified substance with God, an absolute existing within itself and creating all other forms (Spinoza). According to dualism there are two kinds of substance. Descartes, for example, held that mind and matter constitute the two kinds of finite substance. Others have defined substance as material (Hobbes) or mental (Lotze), as static (Parmenides) or dynamic (Heraclitus), as knowable (Aristotle) or unknowable (Hume). Kant argued that our cognitive faculties require that we conceive of the world as containing substance, i.e., something that remains constant in the face of continuous change. |
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| Whatever can be described using the language of physics and chemistry |
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| The brain is a physical object that has physical properties and the mind or soul is a mental substance that has mental properties. a type of dualism most famously defended by Descartes, which states that there are two fundamental kinds of substance: mental and material.[6] According to his philosophy, which is specifically called Cartesian dualism, the mental does not have extension in space, and the material cannot think |
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Definition
| There are some physical substances that have only physical properties. asserts that an ontological distinction lies in the differences between properties of mind and matter, and that consciousness is ontologically irreducible to neurobiology and physics. It asserts that when matter is organized in the appropriate way (i.e., in the way that living human bodies are organized), mental properties emerge. |
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| Arguments for substance dualism |
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Definition
| The irreducibly of mental properties to physical properties. One basic awareness of the self, First-person not reducible to third-person, Personal identity through change, Free will, morality, responsibility and punishment,Physicalism and property dualism are self-refuting. |
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| Arguments against substance dualism |
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Definition
| The problem of interaction. Dualism is inconsistent with naturalistic evolutionary theory, dualism is ruled out by Ochkam's razor. |
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Definition
| When matter reaches a certain organizational complexity and structure, as is the case with the human brain, then matter "produces" mental states like fire produces smoke, or the structure of oxygen and hydrogen creates wetness. |
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Definition
| All types of reductive physicalism are grounded in the idea that everything in the world can actually be reduced analytically to its fundamental physical, or material, basis. This is one reason why "physicalism" is often used interchangeably with the word "materialism." Both terms (in these instances) hold that all organic and inorganic processes can be explained by reference to the laws of nature. The general success of physics in explaining a large range of phenomena in terms of a few of these basic natural laws; such as gravity, electricity, composition of mass, has assisted this belief.[2] |
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Term
| non-reductive physicalism |
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Definition
Non-reductive physicalism is the idea that while mental states are caused by physical states they are not reducible to physical properties (i.e. of a different ontological class).
Nonreductive physicalism has been especially popular among philosophers of biology and some biologists, who argue that all biological facts are fixed by physical facts but that biological properties and regularities supervene on so many multiple realizations of macromolecular arrangements that the biological is not reducible to the physical |
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Term
| The Correspondence theory of truth |
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Definition
| states that the truth or falsity of a statement is determined only by how it relates to the world, and whether it accurately describes (i.e., corresponds with) that world. The theory is opposed to the coherence theory of truth which holds that the truth or falsity of a statement is determined by its relations to other statements rather than its relation to the world. |
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Definition
| The Philosophical study of the nature of being or reality and the ultimate categories of kinds of things that are real. |
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Definition
| a philosophical position holding that everything which exists is no more extensive than its physical properties; that is, that there are no kinds of things other than physical things. |
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| The Unity of Science in support of physicalism |
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Definition
| Physicalism is also called "materialism", but the term "physicalism" is preferable because it has evolved with the physical sciences to incorporate far more sophisticated notions of physicality than matter, for example wave/particle relationships and non-material forces produced by particles. The related position of methodological naturalism says that philosophy and science should at least operate under the assumptions of natural sciences (and thus physicalism). |
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Definition
| Mental states are identified with overt bodily behavior or tendencies to certain behaviors, given certain stimulus inputs. philosophy of psychology based on the proposition that all things that organisms do—including acting, thinking and feeling—can and should be regarded as behaviors, and that psychological disorders are best treated by altering behavior patterns or modifying the environment. However, there is a problems with operational definitions of mental terms. Such as a mental state like being in pain cannot be identical to certain bodily behaviors or tendencies to behave because one can be in pain without wincing, and one can exemplify such behavior and fake being in pain even though such a mental state is not present. |
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Term
| The type-type identity theory |
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Definition
| It asserts that mental events can be grouped into types, and can then be correlated with types of physical events in the brain. For example, one type of mental event like "mental pains" will, presumably, turn out to be describing one type of physical event (like C-fiber firings). A type is a general kind of thing that can be in more than one place at the same time or at the same place at different, interrupted times. However there is the problem of multiple realization. Take an alleged mental state like a pain type state. This state cannot be the same in humans, martins, dogs, etc. in type identity theory because the martin and the human could be made up of entirely different compounds. |
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Term
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Definition
| theory of the mind in contemporary philosophy, developed largely as an alternative to both the identity theory of mind and behaviourism. Its core idea is that mental states (beliefs, desires, being in pain, etc.) are constituted solely by their functional role — that is, they are causal relations to other mental states, sensory inputs, and behavioral outputs.[1] Functionalism is a theoretical level between the physical implementation and behavioural output.[2] Therefore, it is different from its predecessors of Cartesian dualism (advocating independent mental and physical substances) and Skinnerian behaviourism and physicalism (declaring only physical substances) because it is only concerned with the effective functions of the brain, through its organization or its ‘software programs’. |
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Term
| quilia problems (qualia is plural for quale, which means a specific experimental quality) |
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Definition
| the problem of inverted qualia and the problem of absent qualia (Chinese room). Inverted qualia take two people who see two different colors. These two people are not in the same mental states because they are both experiencing two different colors. Since two different mental states are consistent with the same functional states, the latter cannot be identified with the former (pg.257). The Chinese room with the person inside would stimulate a computer to an outside person and represents a functionalist account of mental states like thinking and understanding meaning. However, all the room does is imitate mental understanding, it does not possess it. (pg.258) |
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Term
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Definition
| There are three types of freedom, freedom of permission, freedom of personal integrity, and freedom of moral and rational responsibility. This last one is what we will be focusing on. This is freedom, whatever it turns out to be, that is part of human action and agency, in which the human being acts as an agent who is in some sense the originator of one's own actions and, in the sense, is in control of one's actions. |
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Term
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Definition
| is the view that a deterministic universe is completely at odds with the notion that people have a free will. Strictly speaking, there is a dichotomy between determinism and free will where philosophers must choose one or the other. |
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Definition
| rejects the determinism/free will dichotomy. Compatibilists maintain free will by defining it as more of a 'freedom to act'. If determinism is true, then every human action is casually necessitated by events that obtained prior to the action, including events that existed before the person acting was born. (pg.269) |
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Definition
| The view that for every event that happens, there are conditions such that, given them, nothing else could have happened. For every event that happens, its happening was caused or necessitated by prior factors such that given these prior factors, the event in question had to occur. The history of the future + law of nature = 1 possible future |
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Definition
incompatiblism, indeterminism, and free will. Claims taht the freedom necessary for responsible action is not compatible with determinism. Real freedom requires a type of control over one's actions-and more importantly, over one's will.
(pg.270) |
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Term
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Definition
incompatiblism, indeterminism, and free will. Claims taht the freedom necessary for responsible action is not compatible with determinism. Real freedom requires a type of control over one's actions-and more importantly, over one's will.
(pg.270) |
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Term
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Definition
incompatiblism, indeterminism, and free will. Claims taht the freedom necessary for responsible action is not compatible with determinism. Real freedom requires a type of control over one's actions-and more importantly, over one's will.
(pg.270) |
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Term
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Definition
| Compatibiblism, determinism, and free will. Argue that it is possible though not likely that libertarianism is true, and thus free choice does not require determinism. But free choice is at least compatible with determinism, and thus the truth of determinism cannot be used as an argument against freedom. (pg.269) |
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Term
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Definition
| incompatiblism, determinism, and no free will. Free choice is inconceivable or impossible without determinism; a free choice is one that must be determined. The only choices that are free are those caused by one's character, belief and desires. |
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Term
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Definition
| Is not conditioned on desires. A person freely does (a), he could have refrained from doing (or willing to do) (a) or he could have done (or willed to have done) (b) without any conditions whatever being different. His ability is not conditioned on any hypothetical difference in his desires at the moment of choice; it is categorial (pg.271). |
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| also called a conditional sense of can. Roughly, this means that the agent would have done otherwise had some other condition obtained; for example, had the agent desired to do so. |
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Term
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Definition
| is equivalent to that which causes change and motion to start or stop (such as a painter painting a house) (see Aristotle, Physics II 3, 194b29). In many cases, this is simply the thing that brings something about. For example, in the case of a statue, it is the person chiseling away which transforms a block of marble into a statue. This is the cause of change, and as such is commonly used in modern conceptions of change, as well as cause-and-effect |
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Term
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Definition
| is defined as the purpose, end, aim, or goal of something. Aristotle, who defined the term, explicitly argued that a telos can be present without any form of deliberation, consciousness or intelligence in general.[11] For example (and according to Aristotle), a seed has the eventual adult plant as its final cause (i.e., as its telos) if and only if the seed would become the adult plant under normal circumstances. |
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Term
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Definition
| is defined as the purpose, end, aim, or goal of something. Aristotle, who defined the term, explicitly argued that a telos can be present without any form of deliberation, consciousness or intelligence in general.[11] For example (and according to Aristotle), a seed has the eventual adult plant as its final cause (i.e., as its telos) if and only if the seed would become the adult plant under normal circumstances. |
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Term
| Event causation (moved movers) |
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Definition
| The only kind of entities that can be put into the casual relation are events. (pg.278) |
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Term
| Agent Causation (unmoved mover) |
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Definition
| Persons are agents and, as such, in free acts they either cause their acts for the sake of reasons or their acts are simply uncaused events they spontaneously do by exercising their powers. When an agent acts freely, no event or efficient cause causes him to act (pg.270) |
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Term
| The traditional view on immortality |
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Definition
| Only God is immortal himself. Human persons survive & are temporarily disembodied. The body dies, but the soul survives. |
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Term
| The immediate resurrection position (immortality) |
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Definition
| When someone dies they are either given a new temporary body or the same body replaced by a corpse. |
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Term
| Re-creation position on immortality |
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Definition
| Person is annihilated at death and then recreated at resurrection. Meaning there is a gap when someone does not exist. |
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Term
| The absolute view of identity |
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Definition
| In absolute sameness, a person moves through time and exists fully at each moment of his life. Persons have no temporal parts or stages; thus tenses and dates are not parts of persons. (pg.287) |
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| The loose and popular view of identity |
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Definition
| Judgement somewhat arbitrary or conventional (space-time worms). Our judgement of sameness is to some extent arbitrary and not to be understood in a strict way. |
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Term
| The absolute view of personal identity |
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Definition
| The same soul view. According to this position, persons differ from physical artifacts in that persons maintain strict, absolute sameness through change. |
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| The Empiricists Views of personal identity |
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Definition
| Both the body view and the memory view. Also, space-time "worms" (4-dimensional objects). First, empiricist positions start with a view of identity through change derived from physical artifacts and extend this to the identity of persons. For the memory view: memories, personality traits, interests and goals and, perhaps, continuity of the brains as the necessary "carrier" of those psychological factors that constitutes personal identity. For the body view, "sameness" of person is constituted by "sameness" of body. |
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