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

Anu
(Skr.) Atom; point. -- K.F.L.

Anumana
(Skr.) Inference. -- K.F.L.

Aorist
(Gr.) Referring to unspecified past time without implication of continuance or repetition; indefinite j undefined. -- C.A.B.

Antitypy
The property of concepts or objects of thought to resist attribution of qualities or postulates incompatible with their semantic value and ontological nature. -- T.G.

Antithesis
(Gr. anti-against, tithenai- to set) In a general sense, the opposition or contrast of ideas or statements. In philosophy, a proposition opposed to a given thesis expressing a fact or a positive statement. With Kant, it is the negative member of the antinomies of reason. With Hegel, it is the second phase of the dialectical process, which denies t...

Antistrophon argument
(Gr. antistrophos, turned in an opposite way) In rhetoric, any argument by an opponent which can be turned against him. -- J.K.F.

Antinomy
(Ger. Antinomie) The mutual contradiction of two principles or inferences resting on premises of equal validity. Kant shows, in the Antinomies of pure Reason, that contradictory conclusions about the cosmos can be established with equal credit; from this he concluded that the Idea of the world, like other transcendent ideas of metaphysics, is a pu...

Antinomies, logical
See paradoxes, logical.

Antinomianism
(Gr. anti, against; nomos, law) A term introduced by Martin Luther. Johann Agricola, contemporary of Luther, held that the gospel rather than the law is determinative in man's repentance. The term is used, more generally, to designate freedom from law or compulsion or external regulation to human living. -- V.F.

Antilogism
If in the syllogism in Barbara the conclusion is replaced by its contradictory there is obtained the following set of three (formulas representing) propositions, M(x) ?_x P(x), S(x) ?_x M(x), S(x) ?_x ~P(x), from any two of which the negation of the third may be inf...

Anticipations of experience
In Kant's Crit. of pure Reason Antizipationen der Wahrnehmung) the second of two synthetic principles of the understanding (the other being 'Axioms of Intuition') by which the mind is able to determine something a priori in regard to what is in itself empirical. While the mind cannot anticipate the specific qualities which are to be experienced, w...

Anticipation
(Lat. ante, before + capere, to take) The foreknowledge of future events and experiences. Anticipation, in contrast to expectation, is allegedly immediate and non-inferential cognition of the future. See Expectation; Foreknowledge. -- L.W. In Lucretius, the Scholastics, Fr. Bacon, and Leibniz, it means a hypothesis without confirmation.

Anthropopathism
(Gr. anthropos, man; pathein, suffer) Sometimes referred to as the pathetic fallacy, i.e., attributing human feelings illegitimately to situations or things lacking such capacities. -- V.F.

Anti-metaphysics
1. Agnosticism (q.v.). 2. Logical Positivism (see Scientific Empiricism (1)) holds that those metaphysical statements which are not confirmable by experiences (see Verification 4, 5) have no cognitive meaning and hence are pseudo-statements (see Meaning, Kinds of, 1, 5), -- R.C.

Anthropology, Philosophical
(in Max Scheler) The philosophical science concerned with the questions about the essence of man. -- P.A.S.

Anthropocentric
Literally, centering in man. A term which may be used in connection with extreme humanism, viewing the world in terms only of human experience. -- V.F.

Anthropolatry
(Gr.) The worshipping or cult of a human being conceived as a god, and conversely of a god conceived as a human being. The deification of individual human beings was practiced by most early civilizations, and added much colour to the folklore and religion of such countries as Egypt, Greece, India and Japan. The human origin of anthropolatry is ill...

Antecedent
In a sentence of the form A ? B ('if A then B'), the constituent sentences A and B are called antecedent and consequent respectively. Or the same terminology may be applied to propositions expressed by these sentences. -- A. C.

Ansichtslosigkeit
(Ger. point-of-viewlessness) Objectivity, or the unmediated approach to bare fact. (Heidegger.) -- H.H.

Antar-atman
(Skr.) 'Inner self', a term for the self found in the Upanishads (q.v.). A similar concept is antar-yamin, meaning 'inner controller.' -- K.F.L.

Anselrn of Canterbury, St.
(1033-1109) Was born at Aosta in Italy, educated by the Benedictines, entered the Order c. 1060. Most of his writings were done at the Abbey of Le Bec in Normandy, where he served as Abbot. In 1093 he became Archbishop of Canterbury, which post he occupied with distinction till his death. Anselm is most noted for his much discussed 'ontological' a...

Anselmian argument
Anselm (1033-1109) reasoned thus: I have an idea of a Being than which nothing greater can be conceived; this idea is that of the most perfect, complete, infinite Being, the greatest conceivable; now an idea which exists in reality (in re) is greater than one which exists only in conception (in intellectu); hence, if my idea is the greatest it mus...

Anschauung
A German term used in epistemology to mean intuition or perception with a quality of directness or immediacy. It is a basic term in Kant's philosophy, denoting that which presents materials to the intellect through the forms of space and time. These forms predetermine what types of objects (schemata) can be set up when the understanding applies it...

Annihilationism
The doctrine of the complete extinction of the wicked or impenitent at death. Edward White in England in the last century taught the doctrine in opposition to the belief in the eternal punishment of those not to be saved. -- V.F.

Anoetic
(Gr. a + noetikos, from nous, the mind) Applied to pure sensations, affective states and other pre-cognitive or non-cognitive states of mind. -- L.W.

Animalitarianism
A term used by Lovejoy in Primitivism and Related Ideas in Antiquity for the belief that animals are happier, more admirable, more 'normal', or 'natural', than human beings, -- G.B.

Animism
(Lat. anima, soul) The doctrine of the reality of souls. Anthropology: (a) the view that souls are attached to all things either as their inner principle of spontaneity or activity, or as their dwellers, (b) the doctrine that Nature is inhabited by various grades of spirits, (s. Spiritism). Biology Psychology: the view that the ground whatever has...

Anima Mundi
See: The World Soul, Bruno.

Angst
(Ger. dread) Concern or care, which are the essence of dread. (Heidegger.) -- H.H.

Anglo-Catholic Philosophy
Anglo-Catholicism is the name frequently used to describe the Church of England and her sister communions, including the Episcopal Church in America. As a religious system, it may be described as the maintenance of the traditional credal, ethical and sacramental position of Catholic Christianity, with insistence on the incorporation into that gene...

Anergy
The hypothesis interpreting sensations in terms of the infinite phases of negative energy, which is motion less than zero. (Montague.) -- H.H.

Anaximenes
(6th Cent. B.C.) With Thales and Anaximander he belongs to the Milesian School of Greek Philosophy; as an Ionian he sought a cosmic material element which would explain the manifold processes of the natural world and declared this to be air. Air, he felt, had the attribute of Infinity which would account for the varieties of nature more readily th...

Anaximander
(6th Cent. B.C.) With Thales and Anaximenes he formed the Milesian School of Greek Philosophy; with these and the other thinkers of the cosmological period he sought the ground of the manifold processes of nature in a single world-principle or cosmic stuff which he identified with 'the Infinite'. He was the first to step out of the realm of experi...

Anaxagoras, of Klazomene
(about 430 B.C.) As a middle-aged man he settled in Athens; later he was accused of impiety and forced to leave the city. Anaxagoras taught that there is an infinity of simple substances, that is, such as are only divisible into parts of the same nature as the whole. These 'seeds' are distributed throughout the universe. Their coming together give...

Anatta-vada
(Pali) Theory (vada) of the non-existence of soul (anatta) one of the fundamental teachings of Gautama Buddha (q.v.) who regarded all ideas about the soul or self wrong, inadequate or illusory. -- K.F.L.

Ananya
(Skr. 'not other') Designating the non-otherness of the cosmic principle from the individual. -- K.F.L.

Anarchism
This doctrine advocates the abolition of political control within society: the State, it contends, is man's greatest enemy -- eliminate it and the evils of human life will disappear. Positively, anarchism envisages a homely life devoted to unsophisticated activity and filled with simple pleasures. Thus it belongs in the 'primitive tradition' of We...

Ananda
(Skr.) Joy, happiness, bliss, beatitude, associated in the thinking of many Indian philosophers with moksa (q.v.); a concomitant of perfection and divine consciousness (cf. sat-citananda). -- K.F.L.

Analyticity
See Meaning, Kinds of; Truth, semantical; Valid.

Anamnesis
(Gr. anamnesis) Calling to mind; recollection; in Plato, the process whereby the mind gains true knowledge, by recalling the vision of the Ideas which the soul experienced in a previous existence apart from the body. -- G.R.M.

Analytical Jurisprudence
Theory of Austin, Markby, Holland, Salmond, etc., considering jurisprudence the formal science of positive law. Its main task is to analyze the necessary notions of law. Term coined by Henry Summer Maine. -- W.E.

Analytic
(Gr. analytike) Aristotle's name for the technique of logical analysis. The Prior Analytics contains his analysis of the syllogism, the Posterior Analytics his analysis of the conditions of scientific or demonstrable knowledge. -- G.R.M. In Kant. One of two divisions of general logic (the other being Dialectic) which discovers by analysis all the ...

Analytic, Transcendental
In Kant: The section of the Critique of Pure Reason which deals with the concepts and principles of the understanding. Its main purpose is the proof of the categories within the realm of phenomena. -- A.C.E.

Analytic Judgment
(Ger. analytisches Urteil) In Kant: A judgment in which the predicate concept is included within the subject concept, as analysis should or does disclose. Such a judgment does not require verification by experience; its sole criterion is the law of contradiction. (See Kantianism.) -- O.F.K.

Analysis
(Chemical) The identification and estimation of chemical individuals in a mixture; the identification and estimation of elements in a compound; the identification and estimation of types of substances in complex mixtures; the identification and estimation of isotopes In an 'element'. -- W.M.M.

Analysis (mathematical)
The theory of real numbers, of complex numbers, and of functions of real and complex numbers. See number; continuity; limit. -- A. C.

Analysis, intentional
(Ger. intentionale Analyse) In Husserl: Explication and clarification of the essential structure of actual and potential (horizonal) synthesis by virtue of which objects are Intentionally constituted. As noematic, intentional analysis discovers, explicates, and clarifies, the focally and horizontally intended objective sense (and the latter's quas...

Analogy
Originally a mathematical term, Analogia, meaning equality of ratios (Euclid VII Df. 20, V. Dfs. 5, 6), which entered Plato's philosophy (Republic 534a6), where it also expressed the epistemological doctrine that sensed things are related as their mathematical and ideal correlates. In modern usage analogy was identified with a weak form of reasoni...

Analogy
(in Scholasticism) Predication common to several inferiors of a name, which is accepted in different senses, in such a manner, nevertheless, that some principle warrants its common applicability. Accordingly as this principle is sought in the relations of cause and effect, proportion or proportionality there are distinguished various types of anal...

Analogies of Experience
(Ger. Analogien der Erfahrung) Kant's three dynamic principles (substantiality, reciprocity, and causality) of the understanding comprising the general category of relation, through which sense data are brought into the unity of experience. (See Kantianism.) -- O.F.K.

Analogy of Pythagoras
(Gr. analogia) The equality of ratios, or proportion, between the lengths of the strings producing the consonant notes of the musical scale. The discovery of these ratios is credited to Pythagoras, who is also said to have applied the principle of mathematical proportion to the other arts, and hence to have discovered, in his analogy, the secret o...

Analogic
(Gr. mystical) Usually employed as a noun in the plural, signifying an interpretation of Scripture pointing to a destiny to be hoped for and a goal to be attained; as an adjective it means, pertaining to the kind of interpretation described above. -- J.J.R.

Anadi
(Skr.) Beginningless, said of the Absolute and the world. -- K.F.L.

An Sich
(Ger. literally in or by self. Lat. in se) Anything taken in itself without relation to anything else, especially without relation to a knowing consciousness. In Hegel's philosophy whatever has disowned its relations is an sich. In this status it reveals its inner potentialities. Thus in Hegel's system an sich frequently refers to that which is la...

Ampliative
(Lat. ampliare, to make wider; Ger. Erweiterungsurteil) Synthetic; serving to expand. In an ampliative judgment the predicate adds something not already contained in the meaning of the subject-term. Contrasted with analytic or explicative. -- O.F.K.

Amphiboly
Any fallacy arising from ambiguity of grammatical construction (as distinguished from ambiguity of single words), a premiss being accepted, or proved, on the basis of one interpretation of the grammatical construction, and then used in a way which is correct only on the basis of another interpretation of the grammatical construction. -- A.C.

Amoral
Action, attitudes, state or character which is neither moral nor immoral, i.e., which is outside the moral realm. Neither right nor wrong. Ethically indifferent. Non-moral. Non-ethical. See Moral, Immoral, Ethics. -- A.J.B.

Amnestic
Characterised by amnesia, loss of memory. -- C.A.B.

Ambiguous middle, fallacy of
See quatemio terminorum.

Amechanical
Term applied to psychologically conditioned movements. (Avenarius.) -- H.H.

Altruism
(Alter: other) In general, the cult of benevolence; the opposite of Egoism (q.v.). Term coined by Comte and adopted in Britain by H. Spencer. 1. For Comte Altruism meant the discipline and eradication of self-centered desire, and a life devoted to the good of others; more particularly, selfless love and devotion to Society. In brief, it involved t...

Alteration
(Lat. alter, other) In Aristotle's philosophy change of quality, as distinguished from change of quantity (growth and diminution) and from change of place (locomotion). -- G.R.M.

Als Ob
(Ger. as if) Fictional; hypothetical; postulated; pragmatic. The term was given currency by Hans Vaihinger's Die Philosophic des Als Ob (1911), which developed the thesis that our knowledge rests on a network of artfully contrived fictions which are not verifiable but pragmatically justifiable. While such fictions, employed in all fields of human ...

Allgemeingültig
(Ger. allgemein + gelten, universally valid) A proposition or judgment which is universally valid, or necessary. Such propositions may be either empirical, i.e., dependent upon experience, or a priori, i.e., independent of all experience. In Kant's theoretical philosophy the necessary forms of the sensibility and understanding are declared to have...

Allen, Ethan
(1737-1789) Leader of the Green Mountain Boys and of their famous exploits during the American Revolution. He is less known but nonetheless significant as the earliest American deist. His Reason, the Only Oracle of Man (1784), expressed his opposition to the traditional Calvinism and its doctrine of original sin. He rejected prophecy and revelatio...

All
All and every are usual verbal equivalents of the universal quantifier. See Quantifier. -- A.C.

Algorithm
(or, less commonly, but etymologlcally more correctly, algorism): In its original usage, this word referred to the Arabic system of notation for numbers and to the elementary operations of arithmetic as performed in this notation. In mathematics, the word is used for a method or process of calculation with symbols (often, but not necessarily, nume...

Algedonic
(Gr. algos, pain + hedone, pleasure) Term applied to feelings of pleasure or pain. -- L.W.

Algebraization
(Ger. Algebraisierung) In Husserl: Substitution of algebraic symbols (indeterminate terms) for the words (determinate terms) in which the material content of an objective sense is expressed. See Formalization. -- D.C.

Algebra of logic
is the name given to the Nineteenth Century form of the calculi of classes and propositions. It is distinguished from the contemporary forms of these calculi primarily by the absence of formalization as a logistic system (q.v.) The propositional calculus was also at first either absent or not clearly distinguished from the class calculus; the dist...

Alexandrists
A term applied to a group of Aristotelians in Italy during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Besides the Scholastic followers of Aristotle there were some Greeks, whose teaching was tinged with Platonism. Another group, the Averroists, followed Aristotle as interpreted by Ibn Rushd, while a third school interpreted Aristotle in the light of t...

Alexandrian School
A convenient designation for the various religious philosophies that flourished at Alexandria from the first to the fourth centuries of the Christian era, such as Neo-Pythagoreanism, the Jewish Platonism of Philo, Christian Platonism, and Neo-Platonism. Common to all these schools is the attempt to state Oriental religious beliefs in terms of Gree...

Alexander, Samuel
(1859-1938) English thinker who developed a non-psychic, neo-realistic metaphysics and synthesis. He makes the process of emergence a metaphysical principle. Although his inquiry is essentially a priori, his method is empirical. Realism at his hands becomes a quasi-materialism, an alternative to absolute idealism and ordinary materialism. It alms ...

Albertus, Magnus
St., O.P. (1193-1280) Count of Bollstädt, Bishop of Ratisbon, Doctor Universalis, was born at Lauingen, Bavaria, studied at Padua and Bologna, entered the Dominican Order in 1223. He taught theology at the Univ. of Paris from 1245-48, when he was sent to Cologne to organize a new course of studies for his Order; St. Thomas Aquinas was his stu...

Albertists
The appellation is conferred on any disciple of Albertus Magnus. In particular it was applied to a group of Scholastics at the University of Cologne during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It was the age of the struggles between the nominalists and the realists, who controlled the University of Cologne, but were themselves split into faction...

Al-Mukamis, David Ibn Merwan
Early Jewish philosopher (died c. 937). His philosophic work, Book of Twenty Tractates shows influence of the teachings of the Kalam (q.v.) reasoning follows along lines similar to that of Saadia. -- M.W.

Al Kindi
Of the tribe of Kindah, lived in Basra and Bagdad where he died 873. He is the first of the great Arabian followers of Aristotle whose influence is noticeable in Al Kindi's scientific and psychological doctrines. He wrote on geometry, astronomy, astrology, arithmetic, music (which he developed on arithmetical principles), physics, medicine, psycho...

Al Gazali
Born 1059 in Tus, in the country of Chorasan, taught at Bagdad, lived for a time in Syria, died in his home town 1111. He started as a sceptic in philosophy and became a mystic and orthodox afterwards. Philosophy is meaningful only as introduction to theology. His attitude resembles Neo-Platonic mysticism and is anti-Aristotelian. He wrote a detai...

Aksara
(Skr.) 'Imperishable', a descriptive synonym for brahman (q.v.), the Absolute, in the Upanishads (q.v.); has also the meaning of 'syllable'. -- K.F.L.

Al Farabi
Died 950, introduced Aristotelian logic into the world of Islam. He was known to posterity as the 'second Aristotle'. He continued the encyclopedic tradition inaugurated by Al Kindi. His metaphysical speculation influenced Avicenna who found in the works of his predecessor the fundamental notion of a distinction between existence and essence, the ...

Akasa
(Skr.) 'Ether'; space) in Indian philosophy the continuum that is to be postulated in connection with the paramanus (q.v.). -- K.F.L.

Ai
(C.) Love; love for all people as a practical way to social welfare (chien ai) (Mo Tzu, between 500 and 396 B.C.); love for all, which is identical with true manhood (jen) (Han Yu, 767-824 A.D. -- W.T.C.

Ahriman
(Middle Persian) Zoroaster, in building upon an ancient Indo-Iranian antecedent, expounded a thoroughgoing dualism in which Ormazd (s.v.) is the good, Ahriman the evil principle, corresponding to the Christian God and Devil, locked in combat on all levels of thought and existence. In that they are reciprocal and of a dialectic necessity, this dual...

Ahanta
(Skr. 'I-ness') Selfhood, state of being an ego; the subject in knowledge. -- K.F.L.

Ahimsa
(Skr.) Non-injury, an ethical principle applicable to all living beings and subscribed to by most Hindus. In practice it would mean, e.g., abstaining from animal food, relinquishing war, rejecting all thought of taking life, regarding all living beings akin. It has led to such varied phenomena as the Buddhist's sweeping the path before him or stra...

Ahamkara
(Skr.) Literally 'I-maker', the principle generating the consciousness of one's ego or personal identity; the ground of apperception. -- K.F.L.

Agnosy
Ignorance, especially universal ignorance. -- C.A.B.

Aham brahma asmi
(Skr.) 'I am brahman', the formula of the Brhadaranyaka Upanishad 1.4.10, denoting the full coincidence of the human and divine, arrived at not so much by a spontaneous mystic insight as by logical deduction from the nature of world and self. -- K.F.L.

Agnosticism
(Gr. agnostos, unknowing) 1. (epist.) that theory of knowledge which asserts that it is impossible for man to attain knowledge of a certain subject-matter. 2. (theol.) that theory of religious knowledge which asserts that it is impossible for man to attain knowledge of God.

Agnoiology
(Gr. agnoio + logos, discourse on ignorance) J. F. Ferrier (1854) coined both this term and the term epistemology as connoting distinctive areas of philosophic inquiry in support of ontology. Agnoiology is the doctrine of ignorance which seeks to determine what we are necessarily ignorant of. It is a critique of agnosticism prior to the latter's a...

Aggregate
1. In a general sense, a collection, a totality, a whole, a class, a group, a sum, an agglomerate, a cluster, a mass, an amount or a quantity of something, with certain definite characteristics in each case. 2. In Logic and Mathematics, a collection, a manifold, a multiplicity, a set, an ensemble, an assemblage, a totality of elements (usually num...

Agglutination
(Lat. ad + glutinare, to paste) Philologically, a method of formation in language whereby a modification of meaning or of relation is given to a word by adherence or incorporation of distinct parts or elements. -- H.H.

Agathobiotik
A good life or the good life. -- C.A.B.

Agathology
(Gr.) The science of the good. -- C.A.B.

Agent
In ethics an agent is always a person who is acting, or has acted, or is contemplating action. Here it is usually held that to be a moral agent, i.e. an agent to whom moral qualities may be ascribed and who may be treated accordingly, one must be free and responsible, with a certain maturity, rationality, and sensitivity -- which normal adult huma...

Agama
(Skr.) One of a number of Indian treatises composed since the 1st cent. A.D. which are outside the Vedic (q.v.) tradition, but are regarded authoritative by the followers of Vishnuism, Shivaism, and Shaktism. Amid mythology, epic and ritualistic matter they contain much that is philosophical. -- K.F.L.

Affirmative proposition
In traditional logic, propositions A, I were called affirmative, and E, O, negative (see logic, formal, § 4). It is doubtful whether this distinction can be satisfactorily extended to propositions (or even to sentences) generally. -- A.C.

Affirmation of the consequent
The fallacy of affirmation of the consequent is the fallacious inference from B and A ? B to A. The law of affirmation of the consequent is the theorem of the propositional calculus, q ? [p ? q]. -- A. C.

Affinity (chemical)
A potential of chemical energy; driving force; attraction. The term should be defined rigorously to mean the rate of change of chemical energy with changes in chemical mass. -- W.M.M.

Affective
(Lat. affectio, from afficere, to affect) The generic character supposedly shared by pleasure, pain and the emotions as distinguished from the ideational and volitional aspects of consciousness. See Affect. -- L.W.