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Dictionary of Philosophy - Dagobert D. Runes Category: Language and Literature > Philosophy Date & country: 17/05/2009, UK Words: 2784

Augustinianism
The thought of St. Augustine of Hippo, and of his followers. Born in 354 at Tagaste in N. Africa, A. studied rhetoric in Carthage, taught that subject there and in Rome and Milan. Attracted successively to Manicheanism, Scepticism, and Neo-Platontsm, A. eventually found intellectual and moral peace with his conversion to Christianity in his thirty...

Aufklärung
In general, this German word and its English equivalent Enlightenment denote the self-emancipation of man from mere authority, prejudice, convention and tradition, with an insistence on freer thinking about problems uncritically referred to these other agencies. According to Kant's famous definition 'Enlightenment is the liberation of man from hi...

Auctoritas
St. Augustine distinguishes divine from human authority: Auctoritas autem partim divina est, partim humana: sed vera, firma, summa ea est quae divina nominatur. Thus God is the highest authority. It is distinctly advantageous to rely on authority: Auctoritati credere magnum compendium. est, nullus labor. Both authority and reason impel us to learn...

Attributes, differentiating
Are special, simple, not essential to a substance, which if they belong to any complex substance as a whole belong also to its parts. (Broad). -- H.H.

Attribute
Commonly, what is proper to a thing (Latm, ad-tribuere, to assign, to ascribe, to bestow). Loosely assimilated to a quality, a property, a characteristic, a peculiarity, a circumstance, a state, a category, a mode or an accident, though there are differences among all these terms. For example, a quality is an inherent property (the qualities of m...

Attitude
(Ger. Einstellung) In Husserl: A habitual positing or neutral intending by the ego. The natural attitude: the fundamental protodoxic attitude of the transcendental ego towards the world. The natural attitude underlies and enters into all other positings except those of the transcendental ego in the transcendental-phenomenological attitude. -- D.C....

Attention
(Lat. ad + tendere, to stretch) The concentration of the mind upon selected portions of the field of consciousness thereby conferring upon the selected items, a peculiar vividness and clarity. The field of attention may be divided into two parts: the focus of attention, where the degree of concentration of attention is maximal and the fringe of a...

Attention, Span of
The number of simultaneous or successive items or groups of items which can be attended to by a single act of thought; the number varies from individual to individual and for the same individual at different times. -- L.W.

Atonement
Religious act of expressing consciousness of one's sins, penitence, reconciliation, giving satisfaction. Specifically, a theological doctrine meaning the reconciliation between God and man who had sinned against God, hence given offense to Him. This was effected through the Incarnation of Christ, the Son of God, His sufferings and death on the cro...

Atomism
As contrasted with synechism, the view that there are discrete irreducible elements of finite spatial or temporal span. E.g., the atomic doctrine of Democritus that the real world consists of qualitatively similar atoms of diverse shapes. Lucretius, De Natura Rerurn. See Epicurus. Cf. K. Lasswitz, Gesch. d. Atomismus. As contrasted with the view ...

Atomism, psychological
See Psychological Atomism.

Atman
(Skr.) Self, soul, ego, or I. Variously conceived in Indian philosophy, atomistically (cf. anu); monadically, etherially, as the hypothetical carrier of karma (q.v.), identical with the divine (cf. ayam atma brahma; tat tvam asi) or different from yet dependent on it, or as a metaphysical entity to be dissolved at death and reunited with the world...

Ataraxia
The Epicurean doctrine that the complete peace of mind was a pleasurable state of equilibrium. See Epicureanism. -- E.H.

Atheism
(Gr. a, no; theos, god) Two uses of the term: The belief that there is no God. Some philosophers have been called 'atheistic' because they have not held to a belief in a personal God. Atheism in this sense means 'not theistic.' The former meaning of the term is a literal rendering. The latter meaning is a less rigorous use of the term although w...

Astika
(Skr.) 'Orthodox'; one acknowledging the authority of the Veda (q.v,). -- K.F.L.

Astikaya
(Skr.) Bodily or extended substance. In Jaina philosophy only time is not (anasti, the negation of asti) like a body (kaya), hence non-extended. -- K.F.L.

Assumption
A proposition which is taken or posed in order to draw inferences from it; or the act of so taking, posing, or assuming a proposition. The motive for an assumption may be (but need not necessarily be) a belief in the truth, or possible truth, of the proposition assumed; or the motive may be an attempt to refute the proposition by reductio ad absur...

Associationist Psychology
See Associationism. -- L.W.

Associative law
Any law of the form, x o (y o z) = (x o y) o z, where o is a dyadic operation (function) and x o y is the result of applying the operation to x and y (the value of the function for the arguments x and y). Instead of the sign of equality, there may also appear the sign of the biconditional (in the propositional calculus), or of other relations havi...

Associationism
A theory of the structure and organization of mind which asserts that: (a) every mental state is resolvable into simple, discrete components (See Mind-Stuff Theory, Psychological Atomism) and (b) the whole of the mental life is explicable by the combination and recombination of these elemental states in conformity with the laws of association of i...

Association
(Lat. ad + socius, companion) The psychological phenomenon of connection or union between different items in consciousness. The term has been applied to two distinct types of connection: (a) the natural or original connection between sensations which together constitute a single perception and (b) the acquired connection whereby one sensation or i...

Assertoric
See Modality.

Association, Laws of
The psychological laws in accordance with which association takes place. The classical enumeration of the laws of association is contained in Aristotle's De Memoria et Reminiscentia, II, 451, b 18-20 which lists similarity, contrast and contiguity as the methods of reviving memories. Hume (A Treatise on Human Nature, Part I, § 4 and An Enquir...

Assertoric knowledge
Knowledge of what is actual or occurring, as opposed to knowledge of what might occur or is capable of occurring, or of what must occur; opposed to problematic knowledge and apodictic knowledge. -- A.C.B.

Assertion
Frege introduced the assertion sign, in 1879, as a means of indicating the difference between asserting a proposition as true and merely naming a proposition (e.g., in order to make an assertion about it, that it has such and such consequences, or the like). Thus, with an appropriate expression A, the notation -A would be used to make the as...

Assent
The act of the intellect adhering to a truth because of the evidence of the terms; a proof of the reason (medium rationale) or the command of the will. -- H.G.

Asmita
(Skr. 'I am-ness') A kind of egoism repudiated by the Yogasutras (q.v.) in which lower states of mind are presumed to be the self or purusa. -- K.F.L.

Asomatica
(Gr. a + soma, body, Disembodied) The condition of a mind after separation from its body. -- L.W.

Aseitas
(Lat.) Being by and of itself, asserted only of God. All other beings are dependent in their existence on God as creator, they are ab alio. -- R.A.

Asceticism
(Gr. askesis, exercise) The view -- now and then appearing in conjunction with religion, particularly the Christian and Buddhistic one, or the striving for personal perfection or salvation, for self and others -- that the body is an evil and a detriment to a moral, spiritual, and god-pleasing life. Hence the negative adjustments to natural function...

Asat
(Skr.) 'Non-being', a school concept dating back to Vedic (q.v.) times. It offers a theory of origination according to which being (sat; q.v.) was produced from non-being in the beginning; it was rejected by those who believe in being as the logical starting point in metaphysics. -- K.F.L.

Asana
(Skr.) 'Sitting'; posture, an accessory to the proper discipline of mind and thinking deemed important by the Yoga and other systems of Indian philosophy, according to psycho-physical presuppositions. -- K.F.L.

Art
(Gr. techne) (See Aesthetics) In Aristotle the science or knowledge of the principles involved in the production of beautiful or useful objects. As a branch of knowledge art is distinguished both from theoretical science and from practical wisdom; as a process of production it is contrasted with nature. -- G.R.M. In its narrower meaning, the fine ...

Art impulse
A term to account for the origin of all matter falling under the consideration of aesthetics by describing it as due to non-intellectualistic, psychical urges, thoroughly dynamic in nature, such as desire to imitate, proneness to please, exhibitionism, play, utilization of surplus vital energy, emotional expression, or compensation. -- K.F.L.

Ars magna Raymundi
A device by which Raymundus Lullus, Ramon Lul, thought to arrive at all possible conclusions from certain given principles or notions. A very imperfect precursor of Leibniz's mathesis universalis. See Lullic art. -- R.A.

Ars Combinatoria
(Leibniz) An art or technique of deriving or inventing complex concepts by a combination of a relatively few simple ones taken as primitive. This technique was proposed as a valuable subject for study by Leibniz in De Arte Combinatoria (1666) but was never greatly developed by him. Leibniz's program for logic consisted of two main projects: (1) th...

Arithmetic, foundations of
Arithmetic (i.e., the mathematical theory of the non-negative integers, 0, 1, 2, . . .) may be based on the five following postulates, which are due to Peano (and Dedekind, from whom Peano's ideas were partly derived): N(0) N(x) ?_x N(S(x)). N(x) ?_x [N(y) ?_y [[S(x) = S...

Arithmetic mean
The simple average. Thus the arithmetic mean of n quantities is the sum of these quantities divided by n. Contrast with geometric mean. -- C.A.B.

Aristotle, medieval
Contrary to the esteem in which the Fathers held Platonic and especially Neo-Platonic philosophy, Aristotle plays hardly any role in early Patristic and Scholastic writings. Augustine seems not to have known much about him and admired him more as logician whereas he held Plato to be the much greater philosopher. The Middle Ages knew, until the end...

Aristotle's Illusion
See Aristotle's Experiment.

Aristotle's Experiment
An experiment frequently referred to by Aristotle in which an object held between two crossed fingers of the same hand is felt as two objects. De Somniis 460b 20; Metaphysics 1011a 33; Problems 958b 14, 959a, 15, 965a 36. -- G.R.M.

Aristotle's Dictum
(or the Dictum de Omni et Nullo): The maxim that whatever may be predicated (i.e. affirmed or denied) of a whole may be predicated of any part of that whole; traditionally attributed to Aristotle, though perhaps on insufficient grounds. See Joseph, Introduction to Logic, p. 296, note. See also Dictum de Omni et Nullo. -- G.R.M.

Aristobulus
A philosopher of the second century B.C. who combined Greek philosophy with Jewish theology. -- M.F.

Aristocracy
1. In its original and etymological meaning (Greek: aristos-best, kratos-power), the government by the best; and by extension, the class of the chief persons in a country. As the standards by which the best can be determined and selected may vary, it is difficult to give a general definition of this term (Cf. C. Lewis, Political Terms, X. 73). But...

Argumentum ex concesso
An inference founded on a proposition which an opponent has already admitted. -- J.J.R.

Arianism
A view named after Arius (256-336), energetic presbyter of Alexandria, condemned as a heretic by the ancient Catholic Church. Arius held that Jesus and God were not of the same substance (the orthodox position). He maintained that although the Son was subordinate to the Father he was of a similar nature. The controversy on the relation of Jesus to...

Argumentum ad verecundiam
An argument availing itself of human respect for great men, ancient customs, recognized institutions, and authority in general, in order to strengthen one's point or to produce an illusion of proof. -- R.B.W.

Argumentum ad rem
An argument to the point -- distinguished from such evasions as argumentum ad hominem (q.v.), etc. -- A.C.

Argumentum ad misericordiam
An argument attempting to prove a point or to win a decision by appeal to pity and related emotions. -- R.B.W.

Argumentum ad populum
An argument attempting to sway popular feeling or to win people's support by appealing to their sentimental weaknesses; it may avail itself of patriotism, group interests and loyalties, and customary preferences, rather than of facts and reasons. -- R.B.W.

Argumentum ad judicium
A reasoning grounded on the common sense of mankind and the judgment of the people. -- J.J.R.

Argumentum ad ignorantiam
An argument purporting to demonstrate a point or to persuade people, which avails itself of facts and reasons the falsity or inadequacy of which is not readily discerned; a misleading argument used in reliance on people's ignorance. -- R.B.W.

Argumentum ad hominem
An irrelevant or malicious appeal to personal circumstances; it consists in diverting an argument from sound facts and reasons to the personality of one's opponent, competitor or critic. -- R.B.W.

Argumentum ad baculum
An argument deriving its strength from appeal to human timidity or fears; it may contain, implicitly or explicitly, a threat. -- R.B.W.

Argument
See Function.

Argumentum a fortiori
An argument from analogy which shows that the proposition advanced is more admissible than one previously conceded by an opponent. -- J.J.R.

Arete
See Virtue.

Aretology
That branch of ethics concerned with the nature of virtue. -- C.A.B.

Architectonic
(Kant) (Gr. architektonikos; Ger. Architektonik) The formal scheme, structural design, or method of elucidation of a system. The architectonic of Kant's system rests throughout the basic distinctions of the traditional logic. -- O.F.K.

Archeus
See Paracelsus. -- R.B.W.

Archetype
(Gr. arche, first; and typos, form) The original pattern of forms of which actual things are copies. (Platonic). -- J.K.F.

Archelaus
A disciple of Anaxagoras; belonged to the Sophistic period; proclaimed the conventionality of all ethical judgments. He distinguished between man's natural impulses and dispositions and the dictates of human moral laws. The former he held to be superior guides to conduct. -- M.F.

Archelogy
The science of first principles. -- C.A.B.

Arche
(Gr. arche) The first in a series; that from which a thing either is or comes to be; origin; principle; first cause (Aristotle). -- G.R.M.

Archaic
A style which is primitive and incomplete in comparison with a posterior style which is considered perfect and complete. -- L.V.

Archaism
A revival of archaic style as a result of dissatisfaction with a manner previously considered perfect. -- L.V.

Arcadic
Artificial art with the pretence of expressing pastoral simplicity. -- L.V.

Arcanum
An old term almost identical with occultism, its recent equivalent. Arcana were originally used to cover the sacred objects, such as the Playthings of Dionysus in the Eleusinian rites, and a cognate is ark, as in the Ark of the Covenant.

Arbor Porphyrii
(Tree of Porphyry) A representation of the series leading from the individual by means of the numerical and specific differences (corporeal, animate, sentient, rational) to the genus subalternum et supremum. -- R.A.

Arbitrium, liberum
Livy used the expression, libera arbitria, signifying free decisions. Tertullian used either liberum arbitrium or libertas arbitrii, meaning freedom of choice. Augustine spoke of the liberum voluntatis arbitrium, free choice of the will. He held that voluntas and liberum are the same. Since liberum arbitrium implies the power to do evil, it is dis...

Aranyaka
(Skr.) One of early Indian treatises composed in the forest (aranya) by Brahmans retired from life and devoting their time to an interpretation of the meaning of Vedic (q.v.) ritual and usage. -- K.F.L.

Arambha-vada
(Skr.) The theory of evolution expounded by the Nyaya and Vaisesika (q.v.), according to which atoms having been created combine to form the complex world, a sort of emergent evolution. -- K.F.L.

Arabic Philosophy
The contact of the Arabs with Greek civilization and philosophy took place partly in Syria, where Christian Arabic philosophy developed, partly in other countries, Asia Minor, Persia, Egypt and Spain. The effect of this contact was not a simple reception of Greek philosophy, but the gradual growth of an original mode of thought, determined chiefly...

Arabesque
Originally a method of ornament consisting of fantastic lines. Recently, inner design of a form. -- L.V.

Appresentation
(Ger. Appräsentation) In Husserl: The function of a presentation proper as motivating the experiential positing of something else as present along with the strictly presented object. -- D.C.

Apprehension span
The extent or complexity of material which an individual is able to apprehend through a single, very brief act of attention. Also called attention span. -- A.C.B.

Apprehension
(ad + prehendere: to seize) 1. Act involving the bare awareness of the presence of an object to consciousness; the general relation of subject to object as inclusive of the more special forms, such as perceiving or remembering, which the relation may take. 2. Act involving the awareness of the bare presence of an object to consciousness, as oppose...

Appetitive
(Lat. ad + petere, to seek) Adjective of appetite. Applied to desire based on animal wants e.g. hunger, sex, etc. The appetitive, along with the ideational and the affective, are the three principal phases of the conscious life. -- L.W.

Appreciation
(Royce) The faculty by which an individual feels, likes or hates, or, in general, evaluates certain experiences, as opposed to the faculty by which he describes them, communicates them, and renders them permanent through the use of forms or categories. (Royce: Spirit of Modern Philosophy, pp. 390-4.) -- A.C.B.

Appetition
(Lat. ad + petere, to seek) The internal drive which in the Leibnizian psychology effects the passage from one perception to another. Leibniz, The Monodology, § 15. -- L.W. To Spinoza, appetition is conscious desire. It is the essence of man insofar as he is conceived as determined to act by any of his affections. -- J.M.

Appetite
Name given in Scholastic psychology to all strivings. Sensitive appetites tend toward Individual goods. They are concupiscible insofar as they are directed toward a sensible good or strive to avoid a sensible evil; irascible if the striving encounters obstacles. Their movements are the cause of emotions. Rational or intellectual appetite=will, ten...

Appearances
(Ger. Erscheinungen) In Kant, applied to things as they are for human experience as opposed to things as they are for themselves. -- A.C.E.

Apperception
(Lat. ad + percipere, to perceive) (a) In epistemology: The introspective or reflective apprehension by the mind of its own inner states. Leibniz, who introduced the term, distinguished between perception, (the inner state as representing outer things) and apperception (the inner state as reflectively aware of itself). Principles of Nature and of ...

Appearance
Neutrally, a presentation to an observer. Epistemology: A sensuously observable state of affairs. The mental or subjective correlate of a thing-in-itself. A sensuous object existent or possible, in space and time, related by the categories (Kant). It differs from illusion by its objectivity or logical validity. Metaphysics: A degree of truth or...

Apparent
(Lat, ad + parere, to come forth) 1. Property of seeming to be real or factual. 2. Obvious or clearly given to the mind or senses.

Aporia
(Gr. aporla) A theoretical difficulty or puzzle. -- G.R.M.

Aporetics
(Gr. aporetlkos, one who Is Inclined to doubt, who is at a loss about a matter) Obsolete term for sceptics. -- H.H.

Apophantic
(Ger. apophantlsch) In Husserl: Of, or pertaining to, predicative judgments or the theory of predicative judgments. -- D.C.

Apophansis
A Greek word for proposition involving etymologically a reference to its realist onto-logical background (Greek root of phaos, light). In this sense, a proposition expresses the illumination of its subject by its predicate or predicates; or again, It makes explicit the internal luminosity of its subject by positing against it as predicates its ess...

Apology
(Gr. apologia) A speech or writing in defense. Plato's Apology of Socrates purports to be the speech delivered by Socrates in his own defense at the trial in which he was condemned to death. -- G.R.M.

Apologetics
(Gr. apologetikos, fit for a defence) The discipline which deals with a defence of a position or body of doctrines. Traditional Christian theology gave over to Christian Apologetics (or, simply Apologetics) the task of defending the faith. As such the discipline was also called 'Evidences of the Christian Religion.' Each particular faith, however,...

Apollonian
The art impulse in which one sees things as in a dream, detached from real experience. The theoretical, intellectual impulses striving after measure, order, and harmony. (Nietzsche, Birth of Tragedy.) In Spengler, Decline of the West, the classical spirit as contrasted with the Modern Faustian age. -- H.H,

Apollinarianism
The view held by Apollinaris (310-390), a Christian bishop. He defended the deity of Jesus Christ in a manner regarded by the orthodox church as too extreme. Jesus, according to him, lacked a human soul, a human will, the Logos of God taking full possession. -- V.F.

Apodeictic
See Modality.

Apodictic Knowledge
(Gr. apodeiktikos) Knowledge of what must occur, as opposed to knowledge of what might occur or is capable of occurring, or of what is actual or occurring; opposed to assertoric knowledge and problematic i knowledge. -- A.C.B.

Apercu
An immediate insight, not in itself analytical. -- C.A.B.

Apocatastasis
(Gr. apokatastasis, complete restitution) In theology this term refers to a final restitution or universal salvation. -- V.F.

Apeiron
(Gr. apeiron) The boundless; the indeterminate; the infinite. In the philosophy of Anaximander the apeiron is the primal indeterminate matter out of which all things come to be. The apeiron appears frequently elsewhere in early Greek philosophy, notably in the dualism of the Pythagoreans, where it is opposed to the principle of the Limit (peras), ...

Apathia
(Gr. apathla, no feeling) In Epicurean (q.v.) and Stoic (q.v.) ethics: the inner equilibrium and peace of mind, freedom from emotion, that result from contemplation, for its own sake, on the ends of life.

Apagoge
(Gr. apagoge) In Aristotle's logic (1) a syllogism whose major premiss is certain but whose minor premiss is only probable; abduction; (2) a method of indirect demonstration whereby the validity of a conclusion is established by assuming its contradictory and showing that impossible or unacceptable consequences follow; the reductio ad impossibile....