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

Mentalism
Metaphysical theory of the exclusive reality of individual minds and their subjective states. The term is applied to the individualistic idealism of Berkeley and Leibniz rather than to the absolutistic Idealism of Hegel and his followers. -- L.W.

Mesmerism
A term formed from the name of F. Mesmer (1734-1815) to designate hypnotic phenomena (see Hypnotism) but now little used. -- L.W.

Metalanguage
A language used to make assertions about another language; any language whose symbols refer to the properties of the symbols of another language. (Formed by analogy with 'metamathematics', the study of formalized mathematical systems.) -- M.B.

Metalogical
That which belongs to the basis of logic. Metalogical truths are the laws of thought, the formal conditions of thinking inherent in reason. (Schopenhauer.) -- H.H. The same word is now commonly used in quite a different sense, as a synonym of syntactical. See syntax, logical. -- A.C.

Metamathematics
See Proof theory, and Syntax, logical.

Metaphor
Rhetorical figure transposing a term from its original concept to another and similar one. In its origin, all language was metaphoric; so was poetry. Metaphor is a short fable (Vico). -- L.V.

Metaphysical deduction
An examination of the logical functions of thought that there are certain a priori forms of synthesis which belong to the very constitution, the bare, purely formal machinery of the understanding. -- H.H.

Metaphysical essence
(in Scholasticism) The complexus of notes which are in a thing, as it is conceived by us -- i.e. the principle and primary notes by which that thing is sufficiently understood and distinguished from other things. -- H.G.

Metaphysical ethics
Any view according to which ethics is a branch of metaphysics, ethical principles being derived from metaphysical principles and ethical notions being defined in terms of metaphysical notions. -- W.K.F.

Metaphysics
(Gr. meta ta Physika) Arbitrary title given by Andronicus of Rhodes, circa 70 B.C. to a certain collection of Aristotelean writings. Traditionally given by the oracular phrase: 'The science of being as such.' To be distinguished from the study of being under some particular aspect; hence opposed to such sciences as are concerned with ens mobile, e...

Metempsychosis
(Gr. meta, over + empsychoun, to animate) The doctrine that the same soul can successively reside in more than one body, human or animal. See Immortality. The doctrine was part of the Pythagorean teaching incorporated in mythical form in the Platonic philosophy (see Phaedrus, 249; Rep. X, 614). The term metempsychosis was not used before the Chris...

Method of simple enumeration
Inductive process by which the initial probability of a generalization is increased by more instances exactly the same as those previously observed. -- A.C.B.

Method of trial and error
Method of solving a problem, or of accomplishing an end, by putting the hypotheses or means to direct test in actuality rather than by considering them imaginatively in terms of foreseen consequences; opposed to reflection. -- A.C.B.

Method
(Gr. methodos, method) Any procedure employed to attain a certain end. Any knowing techniques employed in the process of acquiring knowledge of a given subject-matter. The science which formulates the rules of any procedure. -- A.C.B.

Methodic Doubt
The suspension of judgment in regard to possible truths until they have been demonstrated to be either true or false; in Cartesianism the criterion is the clearness and distinctness of ideas. -- V.J.B.

Methodology
The systematic analysis and organization of the rational and experimental principles and processes which must guide a scientific inquiry, or which constitute the structure of the special sciences more particularly. Methodology, which is also called scientific method, and more seldom methodeutic, refers not only to the whole of a constituted scienc...

Miao
(a) Mystery of existence, which is unfathomable. (Lao Tzu.) (b) Subtlety, such as the subtle presence of the Omnipotent Creative Power (shen) in the myriad things. -- W.T.C.

Middle Term
(Gr. mesos horos) That one of the three terms in a syllogism which appears in both premisses; so called by Aristotle because in the first, or perfect, figure of the syllogism it is commonly intermediate in extension between the Major Term and the Minor Term. See Aristotelianism; Major Term; Minor Term. See Logic, formal, § 5. -- G.R.M.

Mill's methods
Inductive methods formulated by John Stuart Mill for the discovery of causal relations between phenomena. Method of Agreement: If two or more instances of the phenomenon under investigation have only one circumstance in common, the circumstance in which alone all the instances agree, is the cause (or effect) of the given phenomenon. Method of Dif...

Mill, James
(1773-1836) Father of John Stuart Mill and close associate of Jeremy Bentham as a member of the Utilitarian School of Philosophy. His chief original contributions were in the field of psychology where he advanced an associational view and he is likewise remembered for his History of India. See Utilitarianism. Main work: Analysis of the Phenomena o...

Mill, John Stuart
(1806-1873) The son of James Mill, was much influenced by his father and Jeremy Bentham. Principal philosophical works: Logic, 1843; Liberty, 1859; Utilitarianism, 1861. In logic and epistemology he was a thorough empiricist, holding that all inference is basically induction on the basis of the principle of the uniformity of nature from one partic...

Mimamsi
Short for Purva-Mimamsa, one of the six major systems of Indian philosophy (q. v.), founded by Jaimini, rationalizing Vedic ritual and upholding the authority of the Vedas by a philosophy of the word (see vac). In metaphysics it professes belief in the reality of the phenomenal, a plurality of eternal souls, but is indifferent to a concept of God ...

Mimpathy
(Ger. Nachfühlen) The suffering of another must already be given in some form before it is possible for anyone to become a fellow sufferer. Pity and sympathy as experienced are always subsequent to the already apprehended and understood experience of another person who is pitied. One may share another's feeling about a matter, and yet have no...

Mind-body relation
Relation obtaining between the individual mind and its body. Theories of the mind-body relation are monistic or dualistic according as they identify or separate the mind and the body. Monistic theories include: the theory of mind as bodily function, advanced by Aristotle and adhered to by thinkers as divergent as Hobbes, Hegel, and the Behavioris...

Mind-Dust Theory
Theory that individual minds result from the combination of particles of mind which have always existed in association with material atoms. The rival theory is emergent evolution which assumes that mind is a novel emergent in the process of biological evolution. -- L.W.

Mind-Stuff Theory
Theory that individual minds are constituted of psychic particles analogous to physical atoms. Differs from mind-dust theory in its emphasis on the constitution rather than the genesis of mind. See Mind-Dust Theory. -- L.W.

Mind
(Lat. mens) Mind is used in two principal senses: (a) The individual mind is the self or subject which perceives, remembers, imagines,feels, conceives, reasons, wills, etc. and which is functionally related to an individual bodily organism. (b) Mind, generically considered, is a metaphysical substance which pervades all individual minds and which ...

Ming (dynasty) philosophy
See Li hsueh and Chinese philosophy.

Ming chia
Sophists or Dialecticians, also called hsing-ming chia, including Teng Hsi Tzu (545-501 B.C.?), Hui Shih (390-305 B.C.?), and Kung-sun Lung (between 400 and 250 B.C.), at first insisted on the correspondence between name and reality. The school later became a school of pure sophistry which Chuang Tzu and the Neo-Mohists strongly attacked. See Chie...

Ming te
(a) Illustrious virtue; perfect virtue. (Early Confucianism.) (b) Man's clear character; the virtuous nature which man derives from Heaven. (Neo-Confucianism.) -- W.T.C.

Ming
Fate; Destiny; the Decree of Heaven. The Confucians and Neo-Confucians are unanimous in saying that the fate and the nature (hsing) of man and things are two aspects of the same thing. Fate is what Heaven imparts; and the nature is what man and things received from Heaven. For example, 'whether a piece of wood is crooked or straight is due to its ...

Ming
Name, or 'that which designates a thing.' This includes 'designations of things and their qualities,' 'those referring to fame and disrepute,' and 'such descriptive appellations as 'intelligence' and 'stupidity' and 'love' and 'hate.' ' 'Names are made in order to denote actualities so as to make evident the honorable and the humble and to distingu...

Minor Arts
Empirically distinguished from sculpture and painting. .They are: jewelry, miniature, textiles, pottery, etc. -- L.V.

Minor premiss
See figure (syllogistic).

Minor Term
(Gr. elatton horos) That one of the three terms in a syllogism that appears as subject of the conclusion; so called by Aristotle because it is commonly the term of least extension. See Aristotelianism; Major Term; Middle Term; Logic, formal, § 5. -- C.R.M.

Mishnah, authorities of
The authorities cited in the Mishnah as rings in 'golden chain' of the Jewish masorah (tradition) are: Sopherim (scribes) known also as Anshe Keneseth Hagedolah (men of the great synod), beginning with Ezra of the Bible and terminating with Simeon the Just. Five Zugoth (duumviri) the last pair being the noted Hillel and Shamai. The former was acc...

Mishnah, extra canonical
R. Juda Hanasi included in his Mishnah (now the Mishnah par excellence) selected materials from the older Mishnah-collections, particularly from that of R. Akiba (d. 135 A.D.) and his disciple, R. Meir. In fact, it is assumed that any anonymous statement in the Mishnah is R. Meir's (setam mathnithin R. Meir). The vast traditions not included in th...

Mishnah
(Heb., repetition) Older part of the Talmud (q.v.) containing traditions from the close of the Old Testament till the end of the second century A.D. when it was compiled (in several revisions) by R. Judah Hanasi (the prince, known also as Rabbi (my master) and Rabbenu Nakkadosh (our saintly master) who sedarim (orders), 63 massektot (tractates) an...

Misology
(Gr. miseo: to hate; logia: proposition) A contempt for logic. -- V.F.

Misoneism
A term derived from the Greek, miso, I hate, and neos, new, employed by Lombroso (1836-1909) to express a morbid hatred of the new, or the dread of a new situation. -- J.J.R.

Mneme
(Gr. Mneme, memory) Term proposed by Semon (Die Mneme, 1904; Die mnemeschen Empfindungen, 1909) and adopted by B. Russell (Analysis of Mind) to designate the conservation in a living organism of the effects of earlier stimulation. Ordinary memory is interpreted as an instance of mnemic conservation. -- L.W.

Mnemic Causation
(Gr. mneme, memory) Type of causation of which memory is an instance, in which a present phenomenon (e.g. a present memory) is explained not only by its immediate antecedents but by a remote event in time (e.g. an earlier experience). See Mneme. -- L.W.

Mnemonics
(Gr. mnemonikos, pertaining to memory) An arbitrary framework or device for assisting the memory, e.g. the mnemonic verses summarizing the logically valid moods and figures of the syllogism. See J. M. Baldwin, Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology, II, pp. 87-9. -- L.W.

Mo che
Neo-Mohists, followers of Mo Tzu in the third century B.C., probably organized as a religious or fraternal order, who continued the utilitarian humanism of Mo Tzu wrote the Mo Ching (Mohist Canons) which now form part of Mo Tzu; developed the seven methods of argumentation, namely, the methods of possibility, hypothesis, imitation, comparison, par...

Mo chia
The School of Mo Tzu (Moh Tzu, Mo Ti, between 500 and 396 B.C.) and his followers. This utilitarian and scientific minded philosopher, whose doctrines are embodied in Mo Tzu, advocated: 'benefit' (li), or the promotion of general welfare and removal of evil, through the increase of population and of benevolence and righteousness toward this pract...

Mo
Sometimes spelled Moh. (a) Mo Tzu. (b) Mohism. See Mo chia. (c) Followers of Mo Tzu. See Mo che. -- W.T.C.

Modalism
(Lat. modus, mode) A theological doctrine, of the second and third centuries A.D., affirming the unity of substance and personality in God. The Son and the Holy Ghost are but 'modes' of God the Father. Also known as Monarchism; adherents of this position were Patripassians or Sabellians. -- V.J.B.

Modality
(Kant. Ger. Modalität) Concerning the mode -- actuality, possibility or necessity -- in which anything exists. Kant treated these as a priori categories or necessary conditions of experience, though in his formulation they are little more than definitions. See Kantianism. -- O.F.K. Modality is the name given to certain classifications of prop...

Mode
(Lat. modus, measure, standard, manner) (a) In Augustinism: a measure imprinted upon human minds by God, enabling man to know what is good and true. (b) In mediaeval Aristotelianism: a determination of being-in-general to some limited condition; also, in Non-Thomism, an entitative component of a composite being, as 'union' is called a mode combini...

Moderate Realism
See Realism.

Modus tollens
See Logic, formal, § 2.

Moha
(Skr.) Distraction, perplexity, delusion, beclouding of the mind rendering it unfit to perceive the truth, generally explained as attachment to the phenomenal; in Buddhism, ignorance, as a source of vice. -- K.F.L.

Mohammedanism
The commonly applied term in the Occident to the religion founded by Mohammed. It sought to restore the indigenous monotheism of Arabia, Abraham's uncorrupted religion. Its essential dogma is the belief in the absolute unity of Allah. Its chief commandments are: profession of faith, ritual prayer, the payment of the alms tax, fasting and the pilgr...

Mohism
See Mo chia and Chinese philosophy.

Moksa
(Skr.) Liberation, salvation from the effects of karma (q.v.) and resulting samsara (q.v.). Theoretically, good karma as little as evil karma can bring about liberation from the state of existence looked upon pessimistically. Thus, Indian philosophy early found a solution in knowledge (vidyd, jnana) which, disclosing the essential oneness of all i...

Molecule
A complex of atoms, which may be of the same kind or different. Thus there may be molecules of elements and molecules which are compounds. So far no single molecule has been synthesized larger than the wave length of light so that it could be rendered visible. Molecular aggregates, however, exist, which may be looked upon in a sense as giant molec...

Monad
(Gr. Monas, a unit) In Greek usage, originally the number one. Later, any individual or metaphysical unit. Bruno named his metaphysical units monads to distinguish them from the Democritean atoms. The monads, centers of the world life, are both psychic and spatial individuals. Leibniz (borrowing the term possibly from Augustine, Bruno or Protesta...

Monadology, The New
Expression used by Renouvier for his type of personalism. -- R.T.F.

Monadology
(also Monadism) The doctrine of monads, the theory that the universe is a composite of elementary units. A monad may also be a metaphysical unit. The notion of monad can be found in Pythagoras, Ecphantus, Aristotle, Euclid, Augustine, et al. Plato refers to his ideas as monads. Nicolaus Cusanus regards individual things as units which mirror the w...

Monergism
The view that the human will contributes nothing to its regeneration but that this is the work of one factor, the Divine. -- V.F.

Monism, neutral
The doctrine that regards neither mind nor matter as ultimates. -- H.H.

Monism
(Gr. mones, single) (a) Metaphysical: The view that there is but one fundamental Reality; first used by Wolff. (A Universe.) Sometimes spoken of as Singularism. The classical ancient protagonist of an extreme monism is Parmenides of Elea; a modern exponent is Spinoza. Christian Science is an example of a popular contemporary religion built on an e...

Mono-personalism
A term ascribed by Kohnstamm to Stern's doctrine of an impersonal-God. -- R.T.F.

Monosyllogism
See Polysyllogism.

Montague, William Pepperell
(1873-) Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University. He was among the early leaders of the neo-realist group. He developed views interpreting consciousness, variation and heredity In mechanical terms. He has characterized his view as animistic materialism. Among his best known works are: The Ways of Knowing or the Methods of Philosophy, Belief ...

Montaigne, Michel De
(1533-1592) French novelist whose renowned Essays are famous for his tolerant study of himself and through himself of mankind as a whole. He doubts the possibility of certain knowledge and recommends a return to nature and revelation. He was a keen observer of the frailties of human nature and has left among the essays crowned masterpieces of insi...

Montanism
A Christian movement dated about the middle of the second century centering about the teachings of the prophet Montanus and two women, Prisca and Maximilla. They distinguished between mortal and venial sins, practiced ascetic ideals and believed themselves to possess the pure type of Christian living on the authority of a special revelation from t...

Montesquieu, Charles De Secondat
(1689-1755) French historian and writer in the field of politics. His Lettres persanes, thinly disguise trenchant criticism of the decadence of French society through the letters of two Persian visitors. His masterpiece, L'Esprit des Lois, gives a political and social philosophy in pointing the relation between the laws and the constitution of gov...

Monumentality
Artistic character suggesting the sense of grandeur, even though small in size. -- L.V.

Moods of the syllogism
See figure (syllogistic), and logic, formal, § 5.

Moral Argument for God
Basing the belief upon the fact of man's moral nature which compels him to make moral assertions about the world and destiny. The argument assumes many forms. Kant held, e.g., that the moral consciousness of man is a priori and compels him willy nilly to assert three great affirmatives; his freedom, immortality, and the existence and high characte...

Moral Judgment
(a) good or bad judgment in moral matters, (b) any ethical judgment, especially judgments of good and bad, right, wrong, and duty (see ethics). For Kant a moral judgment or imperative is one which enjoins a categorical imperative as contrasted with the hypothetical imperatives of skill and prudence. -- W.K.F.

Moral Law
(in Kant's ethics) That formula which expresses the necessity of an action done from duty in terms of one's own reflection. -- P.A.S.

Moral Optimism
See Religious meliorism.

Moral Order
The phrase may refer to the order or harmony which is often said to be an essential part of the good or virtuous life, but it is generally used in such expressions as 'the moral order' or 'belief in the existence of a moral order,' which refer either (a) to a conceived transcendental order of what ought to be, an intelligible moral universe or rea...

Moral Philosophy
See Ethics.

Moral Sense School, The
The phrase refers primarily to a few British moralists of the late 17th and early 18th centuries, notably Shaftesbury and Hutcheson, who held the organ of ethical insight to be, not reason, but a special 'moral sense,' akin to feeling in nature. -- W.K.F.

Moral Virtues
(Gr. aretai ethikai) In Aristotle's philosophy those virtues, or excellences, which consist in the habitual control of conduct by rational principle; as distinct from the intellectual virtues, whose end is the knowledge of principles. See Artstotelianism; Dianoetic Virtues. -- G.R.M.

Morals
The term is sometimes used as equivalent to 'ethics.' More frequently it is used to designate the codes, conduct, and customs of individuals or of groups, as when one speaks of the morals of a person or of a people. Here it is equivalent to the Greek word ethos and the Latin mores. -- W.K.F.

More, Paul Elmer
An American literary critic and philosopher (1864-1937), who after teaching at Bryn Mawr and other colleges, edited The Nation for several years before retiring to lecture at Princeton University and write The Greek Tradition, a series of books in which he argues for orthodox Christianity on the basis of the Platonic dualism of mind-body, matter-s...

More, Thomas
(1478-1535) Lord chancellor of England. One of the leading humanists along with his friends Colet and Erasmus. He was beheaded for his refusal to recognize the king as the head of the church. In his classic, Utopia, he has left a vision of an Ideal state in which war and all glories connected with it were abhorrent. The prince and all magistrates ...

Mores
(Lat. mos, usage) Customs, Folkways, Conventions, Traditions. -- A.J.B.

Motion
(in Scholasticism) The passing of a subject from potency to act. -- H.G.

Motion
(Lat. moveo, move) Difference in space. Change of place. Erected into a universal principle by Heraclitus. Denied as a possibility by Parmenides and Zeno. Subdivided by Aristotle into alteration or change in shape, and augmentation or diminution or change in size. In realism: exclusively a property of actuality. -- J.K.F.

Motivation
Designation of the totality of motives operative in any given act of volition or of the mechanism of the operation of such motives. See Motive. -- L.W.

Motive
(Lat. motus, from movere, to move) An animal drive or desire which consciously or unconsciously operates as a determinant of an act of volition. -- L.W.

Mou
The method of parallel in argumentation. See Pien. -- W.T.C.

Mukti
(Skr.) Liberation. Same as moksa (q.v,). -- K.F.L.

Multiple Inherence, Theory of
The view that qualities, secondary qualities in particular can inhere in a triadic or multiple relationship. (Broad.) -- H.H.

Multiplicative axiom
See choice, axiom of.

Multiplicity
The doctrine of the plurality of beings, or the manifoldness of the real, denied by the Eleatics, who contended that the multiplicity of things was but an illusion of the senses, was defended by Aristotle who maintained that the term, being, is only a common predicate of many things which become out of that which is relatively not-being by making ...

Mundus intelligibilis
(Lat.) The world of intelligible realities; Plato's realm of Ideas, or St. Augustine's rationes aeternae in the Divine Mind. Each species of things is represented here by one, perfect exemplar, the pattern for the many, imperfect copies in the world of sense. See Mundus sensibilis. -- V.J.B.

Mundus sensibilis
(Lat.) The world of things perceived by the human senses. In Platonism, Neo-Platonism, Augustinism, and some Renaissance thought (Ficino) this realm of sensible objects was regarded as an imitation of the superior world of Intelligible realities. See Mundus intelligibilis. -- V.J.B.

Muni
(Skr.) A philosopher, sage, especially one who has taken upon himself observance of silence. -- K.F.L.

Mutazilite
(Ar. seceders) Member of a Shiite sect of Islam dating from the 8th century, which stood for free will and against divine predestination.

Mysticism
Mysticism in its simplest and most essential meaning is a type of religion which puts the emphasis on immediate awareness of relation with God, direct and intimate consciousness of Divine Presence. It is religion in its most acute, intense and living stage. The word owes its origin to the Mystery Religions. The initiate who had the 'secret' was ca...

Myth
(Gr. mythes, legend) The truth, symbolically, or affectively, presented. Originally, the legends of the Gods concerning cosmogonical or cosmological questions. Later, a fiction presented as historically true but lacking factual basis; a popular and traditional falsehood. A presentation of cosmology, employing the affective method of symbolic repre...

Na chia
The coordination and interlocking of the Ten Celestial Stems with the Eight Elements (pa kua), to the end that the first Stem, which is the embodiment of the active or male cosmic force, and the second Stem, which is the reservoir of the passive or female cosmic force, gather in the center and the highest point in the universe. Taoist religion. --...

Naive Realism
The view of the man in the street. This view is an uncritical belief in an external world and the ability to know it. -- V.F.

Nama-rupa
(Skr.) 'Name and form', a stereotyped formula for the phenomenal world, or its conceptual and material aspects; also: 'word and beauty', as forms of manifestation. See Rupa. -- K.F.L.