In French: le Siècle des Lumières, lit. 'the Century of Lights'; and in German: Aufklärung, 'Enlightenment') was an intellectual movement which dominated the world of ideas in Europe during the 18th century, The Century of Philosophy.

The Enlightenment included a range of ideas centered on reason as the primary source of authority and legitimacy, and came to advance ideals like liberty, progress, tolerance, fraternity, constitutional government, and separation of church and state.

In France, the central doctrines of les Lumières were individual liberty and religious tolerance in opposition to an absolute monarchy and the fixed dogmas of the Roman Catholic Church.

The Enlightenment was marked by an emphasis on the scientific method and reductionism along with increased questioning of religious orthodoxy – an attitude captured by the phrase Sapere aude, "Dare to know".

A series of events in 16th century England by which the Church of England broke away from the authority of the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church.

These events were, in part, associated with the wider process of the European Protestant Reformation, a religious and political movement that affected the practice of Christianity across western and central Europe during this period. 

iatrogenic (adj.)

iat·ro·gen·e·sis (noun)

iat·ro·gen·i·cal·ly (adv.)

a priori

apriority

aprioricity

apriorism

a priori:

- From "what comes before" in Latin.

- Or "before experience". 

- 'a priori knowledge' is known independently of experience.

- "a priori" is sometimes used as an adjective to modify other nouns, such as "truth".

- "apriority" and "aprioricity" are sometimes used as nouns to refer (approximately) to the quality of being a priori.

- "from what comes later" in Latin. 

- Or "after experience". 

- 'a posteriori knowledge' is proven through experience.

Conditional probability: given that Y prevails/ exists/ occurs/ is true, what is the probability of Y prevailing/ existing/ occurring/ being true. i.e. - The probability of one thing happening if you know that another thing has happened already. 

Joint probability: the probability of Y and X prevailing/ existing/ being true. i.e. - The probability of two (or more) things will both occur. 

vicissitude \vih-SIS-ih-tood; -tyood\, noun

1. Regular change or succession from one thing to another; alternation; mutual succession; interchange.

2. Irregular change; revolution; mutation.

3. A change in condition or fortune; an instance of mutability in life or nature (especially successive alternation from one condition to another).

A person who seeks favor by flattering people of wealth or influence; a parasite; a toady.

Parsimony

Parsimonious

Parsimony: Extreme care in spending money; reluctance to spend money unnecessarily.

Parsimonious: Excessively sparing or excessively frugal. Really stingy.

Coterie

Aggressively hostile; belligerent; fierce; cruel; savagely brutal.

"Uninterested" means not interested.

"Disinterested" means impartial.

Muddy; thick with or as if with roiled sediment; not clear.

Used of liquids of any kind; Thick; dense; dark; -- used of clouds, air, fog, smoke, etc.

Disturbed; confused; disordered.

Muddy; thick with or as if with roiled sediment; not clear.

Used of liquids of any kind; Thick; dense; dark; -- used of clouds, air, fog, smoke, etc.

Disturbed; confused; disordered.

The senior member of a body or group; One who is knowledgeable or uniquely skilled as a result of long experience in some field of endeavor.

Characterized by or suggestive of flashy vulgarity, crudeness, or rowdiness; tawdry; Marked by a carefree unconventionality or disreputableness; rakish.

Relating to or typical of the countryside or its people; rustic; Of or pertaining to the life and occupation of a shepherd; pastoral; A country person.

An idea that dominates the mind; a fixed idea; an obsession.

Of keen penetration and judgment; discerning and judicious; knowing; shrewd; wise.

1. To make an earnest petition or request; to plead.

2. To ask earnestly; to beseech; to petition for.

1. Openly and shamelessly immoral; dissipated; dissolute.

2. Recklessly wasteful.

Loose in morals and conduct; marked by indulgence in sensual pleasures or vices.

1. Circuit or compass.

2. The boundaries or limits of a district or place.

3. An area in which something acts, operates, or has power or control; extent; sphere; scope.

1. To direct or impose with authority; to order.

2. To prohibit; to forbid.

A written message; a letter.

1. A general sketch or survey of a subject.

2. A synopsis; an outline.

1. Overly optimistic; bright or cheerful.

2. Resembling a rose especially in color.

1. In a dying state; dying; at the point of death.

2. Becoming obsolete or inactive.

1. Transparent; clear; not opaque.

2. Easily understandable.

1. A sermon; a discourse on a religious theme.

2. A moralizing lecture or discourse.

3. An inspirational saying; also, a platitude.

Someone who roams about in search of amusement or social activity.

maunder \MON-duhr\, intransitive verb

1. To talk incoherently; to speak in a rambling manner. 

2. To wander aimlessly or confusedly.

1. To bring together; to fuse together; to join or meld.

2. To combine (as two readings of a text) into one whole.

A practical consequence that follows naturally; "blind jealousy is a frequent corollary of passionate love"

noun:

1. An indication or warning of a future event; an omen.

2. A feeling or intuition of what the future holds.

3. Prophetic significance.

4. [Archaic] A prediction; a prognostication.

transitive verb:

1. To indicate or warn of beforehand; to foreshadow.

2. To have a presentiment of.

3. To predict; to foretell.

intransitive verb:

1. To make or utter a prediction.

Relating to or based on two; twofold 

"What happens at the dyadic level, between mother and infant, ultimately affects the very nature and survival of the larger social group.”

1. The ability of a substance to interact with another or to produce an effect;

2. Psychology. The degree of attraction or aversion that an individual feels toward a specific object or event;

3. The capacity of something to unite, react, or interact with something else.

neologism \nee-OLL-uh-jiz-um\ noun

1. A new word or expression.

2. A new use of a word or expression.

3. The use or creation of new words or expressions.

4. (Psychiatry) An invented, meaningless word used by a person with a psychiatric disorder.

5. (Theology) A new view or interpretation of a scripture.

ex·pe·di·ent   [ik-spee-dee-uhnt]  

–adjective

1. Tending to promote some proposed or desired object; fit or suitable for the purpose; proper under the circumstances: It is expedient that you go.

2. Conducive to advantage or interest, as opposed to right.

–noun

3. A means to an end: "The ladder was a useful expedient forgetting to the second floor."

4. A means devised or employed in an exigency; resource; shift: Use any expedients you think necessary to get over the obstacles in your way.

Note: "political expediency" is a typically used phrase - e.g. - "While the Republicans blame the Democrats for the situation, the latter may want to blame China out of political expediency."

inimical  [ih-nim-i-kuhl] (adjective)

1. Adverse in tendency or effect; unfavorable; harmful: a climate inimical to health.

2. Unfriendly; hostile: a cold, inimical gaze.

— Manichaean or Manichean (adjective)

— Man·i·chae·an·ism or Man·i·che·an·ism (noun)

— Man·i·chae·ism or Man·i·che·ism (noun)

Manichaeism was one of the major Iranian Gnostic religions, originating in Sassanid Persia.

Although most of the original writings of the founding prophet Mani (c. 216–276 AD) have been lost, numerous translations and fragmentary texts have survived.

Manichaeism taught an elaborate cosmology describing the struggle between a good, spiritual world of light, and an evil, material world of darkness. Through an ongoing process which takes place in human history, light is gradually removed from the world of matter and returned to the world of light from which it came.

proctology (noun)

proctologist (noun)

proctological (adj)

proctology - noun: the branch of medical science concerned with the rectum;

proctologist - noun

proctological - adj: e.g. - "In the middle of the room is a stubby stove that also looks vaguely proctological."

de·ter·min·ism  [dih-tur-muh-niz-uhm] (noun)

de·ter·min·ist, noun, adjective

de·ter·min·is·tic, adjective

The doctrine that all events, including human choices and decisions, have sufficient causes (i.e. the event is non-random).

Taleb: a deterministic world is a world stripped of randomness.

a·pos·ta·sy  [uh-pos-tuh-see], (noun)

A total desertion of or departure from one's religion, principles, party, cause, etc.

1. not in accordance with established or accepted doctrines or opinions, especially in theology; unorthodox.

2. holding unorthodox doctrines or opinions.

Morbidity: the relative incidence of a particular disease, proportion of sickness or of a specific disease in a geographical locality. ("morbidity rate" also used).

Mortality

noun

1. the state or condition of being subject to death; mortal character, nature, or existence.

2. the relative frequency of deaths in a specific population; death rate.

The branch of philosophy that concerns itself with knowledge. The theory of knowledge, especially with regard to its methods, validity, and scope, and the distinction between justified belief and opinion.

noun

Mental or emotional stability or composure, especially under tension or strain; calmness; equilibrium.

Pluralism denotes a diversity of views or stands rather than a single approach or method.

Politics and law

Pluralism (political philosophy), the acknowledgement of a diversity of political systems

Pluralism (political theory), belief that there should be diverse and competing centres of power in society

Legal pluralism, the existence of differing legal systems in a population or area

Pluralist democracy, a political system with more than one center of power

Philosophy

Pluralism (philosophy), a doctrine according to which many basic substances make up reality

Pluralist school, a Greek school of pre-Socratic philosophers

Epistemological pluralism or methodological pluralism, the view that some phenomena require multiple methods to account for their nature

Value pluralism, the idea that several values may be equally correct and yet in conflict with each other

Religion

Religious pluralism, the acceptance of all religious paths as equally valid, promoting coexistence

1. Speak or write about in an abusively disparaging manner.

1. The language or dialect spoken by the ordinary people in a particular country or region.

Malthusianism is the idea that population growth is potentially exponential while the growth of the food supply is linear.

It derives from the political and economic thought of the Reverend Thomas Robert Malthus, as laid out in his 1798 writings, An Essay on the Principle of Population

Malthus believed there were two types of "checks" that in all times and places kept population growth in line with the growth of the food supply: "preventive checks", such as moral restraints (abstinence, delayed marriage until finances become balanced), and restricting marriage against persons suffering poverty or perceived as defective, and "positive checks", which lead to premature death such as disease, starvation and war, resulting in what is called a Malthusian catastrophe. The catastrophe would return population to a lower, more "sustainable", level. Malthusianism has been linked to a variety of political and social movements, but almost always refers to advocates of population control.

Neo-Malthusianism is the advocacy of population control programs to ensure resources for current and future populations. In Britain the term 'Malthusian' can also refer more specifically to arguments made in favour of preventive birth control, hence organizations such as the Malthusian League. Neo-Malthusians differ from Malthus's theories mainly in their enthusiasm for contraception. 

adjective

1) Injurious to health: "deleterious gases"

2) Harmful; injurious: "deleterious influences"

1) The state of being dual or consisting of two parts; division into two.

2) Philosophy:

i) The view that there are just two mutually irreducible substances. 

ii) The view that substances are either material or mental.

3) Theology:

i) The doctrine that there are two independent divine beings or eternal principles, one good and the other evil.

ii) The belief that a human being embodies two parts, as body and soul.

1) To perplex or amaze, especially by a sudden disturbance or surprise; bewilder; confuse:

2) To throw into confusion or disorder: The revolution confounded the people.

3) To treat or regard erroneously as identical; mix or associate by mistake: truth confounded with error.

1) The elevation or exaltation of a person to the rank of a god.

2) The ideal example; epitome; quintessence. 

1) Tending to injure or impair; detrimental: a transfer prejudicial to other creditors.

2) Leading to premature judgment or unwarranted opinion: prejudicial evidence.

Relating to or expressing what has not happened or is not the case.

- Someone who follows the Christian teachings of John Calvin, especially the belief that God controls what happens on earth

- Having severe moral standards and considering pleasure to be wrong or not necessary

- Parsimonious. Frugal. 

- German colloquialism about the stereotypical figure of the thrifty housewife from Swabia, often cited in political and economic debate as a model for her purported frugality and austerity in customs

Difference between:

- recursive

- self-similarity

- self-affinity

- fractals

- scale invariance

?

Fractals:

- fractals are infinitely self-similar, iterated, and detailed mathematical constructs

- fractals are not limited to geometric patterns, but can also describe processes in time

- a rough or fragmented geometric shape that can be split into parts, each of which is (at least approximately) a reduced-size copy of the whole

- be only generally characterized by a gestalt of the following features:

Self-similarity, which may include:

- Exact self-similarity: identical at all scales, such as the Koch snowflake

- Quasi self-similarity: approximates the same pattern at different scales; may contain small copies of the entire fractal in distorted and degenerate forms

- Statistical self-similarity: repeats a pattern stochastically so numerical or statistical measures are preserved across scales; 

- Fine or detailed structure at arbitrarily small scales. A consequence of this structure is fractals may have emergent properties

- As a group, these criteria form guidelines for excluding certain cases, such as those that may be self-similar without having other typically fractal features. A straight line, for instance, is self-similar but not fractal because it lacks detail, is easily described in Euclidean language and is fully defined without a need for recursion.

The non-trivial similarity evident in fractals is distinguished by their fine structure, or detail on arbitrarily small scales. As a counterexample, whereas any portion of a straight line may resemble the whole, further detail is not revealed.

Recursion: 

- the process of embedding a constituent inside another constituent of the same kind

Self-similarity: 

- a structural hierarchy that displays similar properties across different levels of embedding

- a self-similar object is exactly or approximately similar to a part of itself (i.e. the whole has the same shape as one or more of the parts)

- fractals are a subset/ demonstrate self-similarity

Scale invariance:

- a feature of objects or laws that do not change if scales of length, energy, or other variables, are multiplied by a common factor, and thus represent a universality.

- any object, function, or statistic that doesn’t change when scales are multiplied by a common factor is scale invariant. 

- “scale invariance” is one of those terms that’s loosely defined; it’s often used interchangeably with “self-similarity”, although technically they aren’t exactly the same. Self-similarity means that a whole or a small part of an object looks exactly the same, or more specifically, that the function is the same under a discrete subset of dilations. Scale invariance means that the object will look the same even if the scale is changed. The definition of scale invariance is slightly different depending on where you’re using it

-  Scale invariance is an exact form of self-similarity where at any magnification there is a smaller piece of the object that is similar to the whole. For instance, a side of the Koch snowflake is both symmetrical and scale-invariant; it can be continually magnified 3x without changing shape.

- fractals are a subset of/ demonstrate scale invariance.

Self-affinity/ self-affine:

- self-affinity is a feature of a fractal whose pieces are scaled by different amounts in the x- and y-directions. This means that to appreciate the self-similarity of these fractal objects, the different axes have to be scaled by different amounts. 

- self-affinity means the pieces are similar to the whole (or vice-versa), but not exactly self-similar

1. Unwilling or refusing to change one's views or to agree about something.

    

    

   Refusing to change your opinions or behaviour

    

1. Showing a lack of respect for people or things that are generally taken seriously.

    

    

   To be irreverent doesn’t necessarily mean you don't like something; it’s just that you don’t display the same honour/ respect for it that other people do.

Adjective

Meditating; contemplating. 

Capable of thinking. Thoughtful

1. feeling or showing anger or annoyance at what is perceived as unfair treatment.

1. (Of language or style) terse and vigorously expressive.

   
   Brief, forceful, and meaningful in expression; full of vigour, substance, or meaning; terse; forcible:
   
   

   A pithy observation

    

    

    

    

    

    

    

    

    

    

    

    

    

    

    

    

1. Telling lies, especially habitually; dishonest; lying; untruthful:

    

    

   A mendacious person is one who tells lies habitually and intentionally.

1. The original or model on which something is based or formed.

   someone or something that serves to illustrate the typical qualities of a class; model; an exemplar. 

    

   A prototypical example of something is a first example from which all later forms can be developed. 

    

1.  

   That impresses favourably; engaging or attractive:

Adjective

Manifesting or characterized by development, aptitude, or interests considered advanced for a given age

1. Serving as a farewell.

    

    

    

1. Relating to rules, or making people obey rules, especially rules of behaviour

    

   Establishing, relating to, or deriving from a standard or norm, especially of behaviour.

    

    

   In most contexts, normative means 'relating to an evaluation or value judgment.'

 adjective

1. Sentimental in an exaggerated or false way. 

    

    

   Sickly sentimentality; weakly emotional; maudlin.

    

    

adjective

Middlebrow

1. Demanding, involving, or having only a moderate degree of intellectual application.

    

    

   The term middlebrow describes easily accessible art, usually literature, and the people who use the arts to acquire culture and "class" (social prestige).

1. Extreme greed for wealth or material gain.

1. - Offering nothing that is stimulating or challenging; bland

    

    

   - Lacking or having lost life, sharpness, or flavour; insipid; flat: 

    

   vapid tea.

    

    

   - Without liveliness or spirit; dull or tedious: a vapid party; vapid conversation.
   

    

Noun of "animosity".

Strong dislike or enmity; hostile attitude; animosity.

Motivating purpose, motivation for doing something. Intention.

Unfairness; favoritism or bias. Lack of equity.

An unfair circumstance or proceeding.

A logical fallacy in which a spectrum of possible options is misrepresented as an either-or choice between two mutually exclusive things.

A false dilemma, also referred to as false dichotomy or false binary, is an informal fallacy based on a premise that erroneously limits what options are available.

Doublespeak is language that deliberately obscures, disguises, distorts, or reverses the meaning of words.

Doublespeak may take the form of euphemisms (e.g., "downsizing" for layoffs and "servicing the target" for bombing), in which case it is primarily meant to make the truth sound more palatable.

It may also refer to intentional ambiguity in language or to actual inversions of meaning. In such cases, doublespeak disguises the nature of the truth.

Empiricist: a person who believes in using methods based on what is experienced or seen rather than on theory. Belief from data and observed evidence gained through experiments and first hand experience. Someone who puts stock in knowledge gained a posteriori.

Theoretician: someone associated with the theory (as opposed to practical aspects) of a subject. One who formulates or studies theories. Someone who puts stock in knowledge gained a prior. (Note:  rationalism -- also known as intellectualism -- also says that knowledge can be gained a priori - by exploring concepts and through deduction, intuition and revelation.)

Practitioner: someone who does. Someone who engages in executing knowledge in the real world. 

Concentricity adjective

Concentric noun

Having a common center, as circles or spheres (as circles inside one another).

In geometry, two or more objects are said to be concentric, coaxal, or coaxial when they share the same center or axis.

Epigram noun

Epigrammatic adjective

Epigrammaticly adverb

Epigram: a pithy saying or remark expressing an idea in a clever and amusing way.

Epigrammatic: concise, clever, and amusing. Containing or favouring the use of epigrams. 

1. neatly or effectively concise; brief and pithy.

2. abruptly concise; curt; brusque.

Identitarian adjective

Identitarianism noun

Relating to or characteristic of politics driven by a particular racial, ethnic or national group are given priority.

Concerned with promoting the interests of one's own cultural group.

Politics based on social identity

1. Ecclesiastical: an elementary book containing a summary of the principles of the Christian religion, especially as maintained by a particular church, in the form of questions and answers.

the contents of such a book.

2. A similar book of instruction in other subjects.

3. Oral instruction. 

("Consonant" is usually followed by "to" or "with".)

In agreement; agreeable; in accord; consistent; compatible.