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

Perfectibility
The optimistic belief in the ability of man to attain an eventual complete realization of his moral possibilities. Opposed to the various philosophies and theologies of moral pessimism (e.g., the sinfulness and moral impotence of man, original sin, in Augustinianism, Lutheranism, Barthianism, et al.) -- V.F. See Condorcet, Enlightenment.

Perfectionism
The ethical theory that perfection, our own or that of others or both, is the end at which we ought to aim, where perfection involves virtue chiefly and sometimes also the cultivation of one's talents or endowments. -- W.K.F.

Peripatetics
See Aristotelianism.

Peripety
(Gr. peripeteia) A sudden reversal of condition or fortunes, considered by Aristotle as an essential element in the plot of a tragedy. -- G.R.M.

Perry, Ralph Barton
(1876-) Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University. He was one of the founders of the new realist movement His classic biography of William James won the Pulitzer Prize for 1936. During the first World War he served as a major with the War Department Committee on Education and Special Training and this service has evidenced itself in his ferven...

Perseity
(Lat. per se) The condition of being per se, by itself, that is being such as it is from its very nature. Perseity must not be confused with aseity The former implies independence of a subject in which to inhere, whereas the latter demands a still higher degree of independence of any efficient or producing agency whatsoever, it is predicated of Go...

Persian Philosophy
Persia was a vast empire before the time of Alexander the Great, embracing not only most of the orientnl tribes of Western Asia but also the Greeks of Asia Minor, the Jews and the Egyptians. If we concentrate on the central section of Persia, three philosophic periods may be distinguished Zoroastrianism (including Mithraism and Magianism), Manich...

Persistence
The condition of enduring in time, with or without change. -- R.B.W.

Person
(in Max Scheler) The concrete unity of acts. Individual person, and total person, with the former not occupying a preferential position. -- P.A.S. In scholasticism: The classic definition is given by Boethius: person is an individual substance of rational nature. As individual it is material, since matter supplies the principle of individuation. T...

Personal Equation
(a) Discrepancy between the chronological measurements of different scientific observers due to their differing reaction times. The error was first discovered in astronomical measurements but is a recognized source of error in all scientific measurements. (b) The term has been extended to include all observational error due to the intrusion of idi...

Personal Idealism
The affirmation of reality in the person and the personal nature of the World-Ground. Synonymous with Absolutist P ersonalism. -- R.T.F.

Personal Identity
(Lat. persona) Personal identity is individual identity as possessed by a person or self. Any individual, whether an inanimate thing, a living organism or a conscious self, is identical in so far as it preserves from moment to moment a similarity of structure. Personality identity involves in addition the conscious recognition of sameness. -- L.W....

Personal Realism
That type of Personalism which emphasizes the metaphysical nature of personality, its continuous activity in natural phenomena, and its unanalysable or realistic character as experienced fact, the ultimate real, the object of immediate knowledge. -- R.T.V.

Personalism, Critical
The term used by William Stern to define his concept of person as applied to the organic whole of existence. See Pantheistic Personalism, Mono-Personalism. -- R.T.F.

Personalism
(Lat. persona, actor's mask) A modern term applied to any philosophy which considers personality the supreme value and the key to the meaning of reality. Typical or original Personalism was theistic, the term being first used in America (1863) by Bronson Alcott for 'the doctrine that the ultimate reality of the world is a Divine Person who sustain...

Personalistics
Term used bv William Stern in psychology to indicate a study of the facts that are true of man as a meaningful living whole -- a fundamental science of the human person. The Personalist, XVIII, p 50. -- R.T.F.

Personality
The totality of mental traits characterizing an individual personality or self. See Self. -- L.W.

Perspective
(Lat. perspectus pp. of pelspicio, to look through) The determination of inclusiveness of what can be actual for any organization. The point of view of an individual on the rest of existence. (a) In epistemology: the perspective predicament, the limited though real viewpoint of the individual, the plight of being confined to the experience of only...

Pessimism
(Lat. pessimus, the worst) The attitude gained by reflection on life, man, and the world (psychiatrically explained as due to neurotic or other physiological conditions, economically to over-population, mechanization, rampant utilitarianism; religiously to lack of faith; etc.) which makes a person gloomy, despondent, magnifying evil and sorrow, or...

Petites Perceptions
(Fr. little perceptions) Term by which Leibniz designates confused and unconscious perceptions. (Cf. The Monadology Sects. 21, 23 ) The Leibnizian theory of petites perceptions anticipates the modern theory of unconscious mind See Unconscious Mind. -- L.W.

Petitio principii
, or begging the question, is a fallacy involving the assumption as premisses of one or more propositions which are identical with (or in a simple fashion equivalent to) the conclusion to be proved, or which would require the conclusion for their proof, or which are stronger than the conclusion and contain it as a particular case or otherwise as an...

Phala
(Ski ) 'Fruit', result, effect -- K.F.L.

Phantasm
(Gr. phantasma, appearance) Term used by Hobbes to designate an image or representation directly given to the percipient. See Elements of Philosophy Concerning Body, Part IV, ch XXV. -- L.W.

Phantasy
(in Scholasticism) The internal sense perceptive of objects, even of absent objects, previously pciceived by the external sense. The phantasm is the species of the object perceived by an internal sense and retained in the phantasy. -- H.G.

Pharisaism
The most characteristic type of Palestinian Judaism at the time of Christ. This group is to be thought of as the remnant of the traditional culture of the ancient Hebrews. Scorched by the memory of the long struggle between their fathers' and other cultures which resulted in the unhappy Captivity, these descendants took on a more militant national...

Phase Rule
(chemicil, physical) A relationship between the number of components (C), phases (P), and degrees of freedom (F) (variability) of a heterogeneous system with respect to pressure and temperatuie and similar intensive variables when in equilibrium: P + F = C + 2. Discovered by J. W. Gibbs (1839-1903). -- W.M.M.

Phase
(chemical, physical) A term referring to a homogeneous composition of matter, either solid, liquid, or gaseous. All three phases of a single substance may co-exist. -- W.M.M.

Phenomena
See Appearances.

Phenomenal World
The world of appearance as opposed to the world as-it-is-in-itself. The only world we know, said Kant, is the world-we-know, (appearance). The real world is beyond our knowledge. -- V.F.

Phenomenalism
(Gr. phainomenon, from phainesthai, to appear) Theory that knowledge is limited to phenomena including (a) physical phenomena or the totality of objects of actual and possible perception and (b) mental phenomena, the totality of objects of introspection. Phenomenalism assumes two forms according as it (a) denies a reality behind the phenomena (Ren...

Phenomenological Personalism
Applied to the system of Max Scheler. -- R.T.F.

Phenomenology
Since the middle of the Eighteenth Century, 'Phänomenologie,' like its English equivalent, has been a name for several disciplines, an expression for various concepts. Lambert, in his Neue Organon (1764), attached the name 'Phänomenologie' to the theory of the appearances fundamental to all empirical knowledge. Kant adopted the word to e...

Phenomenon
(Gr. phainomenon, Ger. Phaenomenon) In Kant: Broadly, appearance or that which appears. More specifically, any presentation, cognition or experience whose form and order depends upon the synthetic forms of the sensibility and categories of the understanding. In contrast to noumenon and thing-in-itself which lie outside the conditions of possible e...

Philo of Alexandria
(30 B.C.- 50 A.D.) Jewish theologian and Neo-Platonic philosopher. He held that Greek thought borrowed largely from Mosaic teachings and therefore justified his use of Greek philosophy for the purpose of interpreting Scripture in a spiritual sense. For Philo, the renunciation of self and, through the divine Logos in all men, the achievement of imm...

Philosopheme
(Gr. philosophema) An apodictic syllogism (Aristotle). -- G.R.M.

Philosopher King
In Plato's theory of the ideal state rulership would be entrusted to philosopher kings. These rulers would reach the top by sheer talent and merit after a long period of training in the school of everyday work and leadership and by a prescribed pattern of formal discipline and study. The final test of leadership lay in the ability to see the truth...

Philosopher, The
Generally used name for Aristotle by medieval authors after the 'reception of Aristotle' from the early 13th century onwards. In earlier writers the name may refer to any head of a school, e.g. to Abelard in the writings of his pupils. -- R.A.

Philosophes
French 18th century philosophers, e.g. Condorcet, Condillac, Rousseau, Voltaire (q.v.).

Philosophical Psychology
Philosophical psychology, in contrast to scientific or empirical psychology, is concerned with the more speculative and controversial issues relating to mind and consciousness which, though arising in the context of scientific psychology, have metaphysical and epistemological ramifications. The principal topics of philosophical psychology are the...

Philosophy of Change
The theory that change itself is the only enduring pnnciple and therefore the fundamental reality. Applied to the views of Heraclitus, and in modern times to those of Henri Bergson. -- R.T.F.

Philosophy of Discontinuity
The theory that the principle of change is the fundamental basis of reality; that natural law is but the outward aspect of what is internally habit Being as an irreducible synthesis of possibility and action. God the Creator and Essence of things. Applied to the thought of Renouvier, Boutroux, and Lachelier. -- R.T.F.

Philosophy of Effort
The theory that in the self-consciousness of effort the person becomes one with reality. Consciousness of effort is self-consciousness. Used by Maine de Biran. -- R.T.F.

Philosophy of Mind
Philosophical theory of the nature of mind and its place in the world. See Philosophical Psychology. -- L.W.

Philosophy of Religion
An inquiry into the general subject of religion from the philosophical point of view, i.e., an inquiry employing the accepted tools of critical analysis and evaluation without a predisposition to defend or reject the claims of any particular religion. Among the specific questions considered are the nature, function and value of religion; the valid...

Philosophy
(Gr. philein, to love -- sophia, wisdom) The most general science. Pythagoras is said to have called himself a lover of wisdom. But philosophy has been both the seeking of wisdom and the wisdom sought. Originally, the rational explanation of anything, the general principles under which all facts could be explained; in this sense, indistinguishable...

Phoronomy
Noun derived from the Greek, phorein, used by Plato and Aristotle in the sense of motion, and nomos, law; signifies kinematics, or absolute mechanics, which deals with motion from the purely theoretical point of view. According to Kant it is that part of natural philosophy which regards motion as a pure quantum, without considering any of the qual...

Phronesis
(Gr. phronesis) Practical wisdom, or knowledge of the proper ends of conduct and of the means of attaining them; distinguished by Aristotle both from theoretical knowledge or science, and from technical skill. See Aristotelianism. -- G.R.M.

Physical essence
(or physical composition in Scholasticism) Consists in the composition of the parts by which that composite truly is. Of these parts, that which indifferently constitutes this or that, is called matter, as the body in man, but that which determines and perfects matter is called form, as soul. -- H.G.

Physicalism
The thesis, developed within Scientific Empiricism (q.v., , II B), that every descriptive term in the language of science (in the widest sense, including social science) is connected with terms designating observable properties of things. This connection is of such a kind that a sentence applying the term in question is intersubjectively (q.v.) co...

Physico-Theological Argument
Kant's (q.v.) term for the teleological proof of the existence of God. -- O.F.K.

Physico-Theology
A theology which finds corroboration in natural philosophy. A term now in general disuse. -- V.F.

Physics
(Gr. physis, nature) In Greek philosophy, one of the three branches of philosophy, Logic and Ethics being the other two among the Stoics (q.v.). In Descartes, metaphysics is the root and physics the trunk of the 'tree of knowledge.' Today, it is the science (overlapping chemistry, biology and human physiology) of the calculation and prediction of ...

Physis
See Nature, Physics.

Picturesque
A modification of the beautiful in English aesthetics, 18th century. -- L.V.

Pieh Mo
Neo-Mohists; heretical Mohists. See Mo che and Chinese philosophy.

Pien che
Sophists or Dialecticians. See Ming chia.

Pien hua che
The evolutionary transformation, which of effortless power is the greatest. (Sophism.) -- H.H.

Pien
Argumentation or dialectics, which 'is to make clear the distinction between right and wrong, to ascertain the principles of order and disorder, to make clear the points of similarity and difference, to examine the laws of names and actualities, to determine what is beneficial and what is harmful, and to decide what is uncertain and doubtful. It d...

Pien
Transformation or change in process; change from ens to non-ens; gradual change. See Hua. -- W.T.C.

Pietism
In general, an emphasis upon the individual appropriation of religious truth as over against its formal acceptance. As a movement, the term refers specifically to the reaction against the cold orthodoxies within German Protestantism of the late 17th and 18th centuries. Philip Spener (1635-1705) is regarded as the father of German Pietism. Under Sp...

Ping t'ien hsia
World peace, the ultimate goal of Confucian moral training and education. -- W.T.C.

Pistology
A noun derived from the Greek, pistis, faith, hence in general the science of faith or religious belief. A branch of theology specially concerned with faith and its restricted scope, as distinguished from reason. -- J.J.R.

Pity
A more or less condescending feeling for other living beings in their suffering or lowly condition, condoned by those who hold to the inevitability of class differences, but condemned by those who believe in melioration or the establishment of more equitable relations and therefore substitute sympathy (q.v.). Synonymous with 'having mercy' or 'to ...

Planck's constant
In quantum mechanics (q.v.), a fundamental physical constant, usually denoted by the letter h, which appears in many physical formulas. It may be defined by the law that the quantum (q.v.) of radiant energy of any frequency is equal to the frequency multiplied by h. see further Uncertainty principle. -- A.C.

Planck, Max
(b. 1858) A German physicist who taught at the University of Kiel and later at the University of Berlin. He is world-famous for his theory of quanta, according to which all energy travels in units comparable to atoms of matter. See Planck's constant. -- R.B.W.

Plastic
The effect of relief obtained by the nuance of light and shade. -- L.V.

Platonic Realism
See Realism.

Platonism, medieval
Plato's works were not accessible to the medievil writers previous to the 13th century. They possessed only part of the Timaeus in the translation and commentary by Chalcidius. Nor were they acquainted with the writings of the Neo-Platonists. They had the logical texts by Porphyrius; little besides. St. Augustine, the greatest authority in these a...

Platonism
The philosophy of Plato marks one of the high points in the development of Greek philosophical genius Platomsm is characterised by a partial contempt for sense knowledge and empirical studies, by a high regard for mathematics and its method, by a longing for another and better world, by a frankly spiritualistic view of life, by its use of a method...

Pleasure and pain
In philosophy these terms appear mostly in ethical discussions, where they have each two meanings not always clearly distinguished. 'Pleasure' is used sometimes to refer to a certain hedonic quality of experiences, viz. pleasantness, and sometimes as a name for experiences which have that quality (here 'pleasures' are 'pleasant experiences' and 'p...

Pleasures of the imagination
The moderate, healthful, and agreeable stimulus to the mind, resulting (in the primary class) from the properties of greatness, novelty, and beauty (kinship, color, proportionality, etc. ) in objects actually seen; (in the secondary class) from the processes of comparison, association, and remodelling set up in the mind by the products of art or b...

Pleroma
Literally the Greek term means a filling up, it was used by the Gnostics to denote the world of light, or the spiritual world of aeons full of divine life. -- J.J.R.

Plotinism
The philosophic and religious thought of Plotinus (205-270). His writings were published by Porphyry in six books of nine sections, Enneads, each. All reality consists of a series of emanations, from the One, the eternal source of all being. The first, necessary emanation is that of Nous (mind or intelligence), the second that of Psyche (soul). At...

Pluralism
This is the doctrine that there is not one (Monism), not two (Dualism) but many ultimate substances. From the earliest Ionian fundamentals of air, earth, fire and water, to the hierarchy of monads of Leibniz, the many things-in-themselves of Herbart and the theory of the many that 'works' in the latter day Pragmatism of James and others, we get a ...

Plurality of causes
The doctrine according to which identical events can have two or more different causes. 'It is not true that the same phenomenon is always produced by the same causes,' declared J. S. Mill, author of the doctrine. Quite the contrary, 'many causes may produce some kind of sensation, many causes may produce death.' Mill's position was not taken in s...

Plutarch of Chaeronea
(about 100 AD) Famous biographer and author of several philosophical treatises. -- M.F. Parallel Lives; Opera moralia (tr. Bolin's Classical Libr.)-

Pneuma
(Gr. pneuma, breath) A Stoic, also Epicurean, concept signifying spirit, vital force, or creative fire in its penetration into matter. Sometimes understood as psychic energy, or distinguished as the formative fire-mind and the divinely inspired rational part of man from the more emotional, physical aspect of soul. In early Christian, particularly ...

Pneumatology
(Gr. pneuma, spirit + logos, theory) In the most general sense pneumatology is the philosophical or speculative treatment of spirits or souls, including human, divine and those intermediate between God and man. D'Alembert restricted pneumatology to human souls. Discours preliminaire de I'Encyclopedie, § 73; he considered pneumatology, logic a...

Poiesis
(Gr poiesis) Activity of creating or making, artistic production (Aristotle). -- G.R.M.

Poietic
Relating to production or the arts of production, e.g. poietic knowledge, as distinguished from practical and from theoretical knowledge. See Aristotelianism. -- G.R.M.

Poincare, Henri
(1854-1912) French mathematician and mathematical physicist to whom many important technical contributions are due. His thought was occupied by problems on the borderline of physics and philosophy. His views reflect the influence of positivism and seem to be closely related to pngmatism. Poincare is known also for his opposition to the logistic me...

Point-event
A. N. Whitehead's term signifying an event with all its dimensions ideally restricted. -- R.B.W.

Poissons Law
This rule, which is also called Poisson's Law of Small Numbers, is an elaboration of Bernouilli's Theorem dealing with the difference between the actual and the most probable number of occurrences of an event. 1. In cases of Random Sampling, the Poisson Exponential Limit is used in place of the Normal Probability Function or the strict application...

Polarity, philosophy of
Philosophies that make the concept of polarity one of the systematic principles according to which opposites involve each other when applied to any significant realm of investigation. Polarity was one of the basic concepts in the philosophy of Cusanus and Schelling. Morris R. Cohen made use of the principle of polarity in scientific philosophy, in...

Political Personalism
The doctrine that the state is under obligation to provide opportunity to each citizen for the highest possible physical, mental, and spiritual development, because personality is the supreme achievement of the social order. A movement in France represented by the journal Esprit. -- R.T.F.

Political Philosophy
That branch of philosophy which deals with political life, especially with the essence, origin and value of the state. In ancient philosophy politics also embraced what we call ethics. The first and most important ancient works on Political Philosophy were Plato's Politeia (Republic) and Aristotle's Politics. The Politeia outlines the structure an...

Politics
(Gr. polis, city) The normative science which treats of the organization of social goods. The branch of civics concerned with government and state affairs. See Political Philosophy. -- J.K.F.

Polysyllogism
A chain of syllogisms arranged to lead to a single final conclusion, the conclusion of each syllogism except the last serving as premiss of a later syllogism. In contrast, an argument consisting of a single syllogism is called a monosyllogism. -- A.C.

Polytheism
(Gr. polus, many; and theos, god) A theory that Divine reality is numerically multiple, that there are many gods, opposed to monotheism. See Plotinism. -- V.J.B.

Pons asinorum
The literal meaning of the Latin expression, asses' bridge, has been figuratively applied to a diagram constructed by Petrus Tartaretus about 1480, whose purpose was to aid the student of logic in finding the middle term of a syllogism and disclose its relations. It was assumed that it was as difficult to persuade students to do this as to get ass...

Porphyry
(c. 232-304 B.C.) A disciple of Plotinus, who adapted Aristotelian logic to Neo-Platonic philosophy. His method of classification by means of dichotomy is known as the 'Tree of Porphyry' (q.v.). Cf. Isagoge (tr. by Boethius, q.v.). -- R.B.W.

Port Royal Logic
See Logic, traditional.

Port Royalists
Name applied to a group of thinkers, writers, and educators, more or less closely connected with the celebrated Cistercian Abbey of Port Royal near Paris, which during the seventeenth century became the most active center of Jansenism and, to a certain extent, of Cartesianism in France. The Port Royalists were distinguished by the severity and aus...

Posidonius of Rhodes
(c. 135-50 B.C.) An eclectic philosopher of the Stoic School, who incorporated into his thought many doctrines of Plato and Aristotle. -- R.B.W.

Posit
(Lat. ponere, to put or place) (a) In logic and epistemology, positing is the act of entertaining or asserting a proposition immediately i.e. without recourse to inference. A proposition may be posited either because it is regarded as (1) a self-evident truth or (2) a postulate arbitrarily assumed. The postulational sense of positing is the more c...

Positional
The characters of perception are positional. The positional character of the thought is the idea. (Avenarius.) -- H.H.

Positionality
(Ger. Positionalität) In Husserl: The character common to conscious processes of positing or setting an object, whether believingly, or in valuing or willing. Doxic positionality is common to processes involving belief, disbelief, doubt, etc.. (see Doxa), axiological positionality, to processes of loving, hating, or otherwise valuing; volitio...

Positive Theology
A term referring to doctrines alleged to be grounded upon a 'positive' revelation and not upon the alleged 'negative' conclusions of liberal and rationalistic speculations. The term was used to characterize Scriptural theologies from the freer deistic and rationalistic expositions of doctrines, also, it was used to oppose the conclusions of the so...

Positivism
First associated with the doctrine of Auguste Comte that the highest form of knowledge is simple description presumably of sensory phenomena. The doctrine was based on an evolutionary 'law of three stages', believed by Comte to have been discovered by him in 1822 but anticipated by Turgot in 1750. The three stages were the theological, in which an...

Possibility
According to distinctions of modality (q. v.), a proposition is possible if its negation is not necessary. The word possible is also used in reference to a state of knowledge rather than to modality, as a speaker might say, 'It is possible that 486763 is a prime number,' meaning that he had no information to the contrary (although this proposition...