Copy of `Dictionary of Philosophy - Dagobert D. Runes`

The wordlist doesn't exist anymore, or, the website doesn't exist anymore. On this page you can find a copy of the original information. The information may have been taken offline because it is outdated.


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


Aeviternity
(Lat. aevum, never-ending time) Eternity conceived as a whole, apart from the flux of time; an endless temporal medium in which objects and events are relatively fixed. -- R.B.W.

Affect
(Lat. ad + facere, to do) The inner motive as distinquished from the intention or end of action. Cf. Spinoza, Ethics, bk. III. -- L.W.

Aetiology
(Gr. aitiologeo, to inquire into) An inquiry into causes. See Etiology. -- V.F.

Aesthetics
(Gr. aesthetikos, perceptive) Traditionally, the branch of philosophy dealing with beauty or the beautiful, especially in art, and with taste and standards of value in judging art. Also, a theory or consistent attitude on such matters. The word aesthetics was first used by Baumgarten about 1750, to imply the science of sensuous knowledge, whose ai...

Aesthetic Judgment
(German aesthetische Urteilskraft) The power of judgment exercised upon data supplied by the feeling or sense of beauty. Kant devotes the first half of the Critique of Judgment to a 'Critique of Aesthetic Judgment.' (See Kantianism and Feeling.) -- O.F.K. On the origin of the term, see Aesthetics.

Aeon
According to the Gnostics a being regarded as a subordinate heavenly power derived from the Supreme Being by a process of emanation. The totality of aeons formed the spiritual world which was intermediary between the Deity and the material world of sensible phenomena, which was held to be evil. -- J.J.R.

Aequilibrium indifferentiae
The state or condition of exact balance between two actions, the motives being of equal strength. Thomas Aquinas held that in such a condition 'actus haberi non potest, nisi removeatur indifferentia.' This is effected by a determination ab intrinseco, or ab extrinseco, which disturbs the equipoise and makes it possible for the agent to act. -- J.J...

Adventitious Ideas
Those Ideas which appear to come from without, from objects outside the mind. Opposite of innate ideas. Descartes' form of the ontological argument for God was built upon the notion of adventitious Ideas. -- V.F.

Advaita
(Skr. 'non-duality') The Vedantic (q.v.) doctrine of monism advocated by Sankara (q.v.) which holds the Absolute to be personal in relation to the world, especially the philosophically untutored, but supra-personal in itself (cf. nirguna, saguna); the world and the individual to be only relatively, or phenomenally, real; and salvation to consist i...

Adoptionism
A christological doctrine prominent in Spain in the eighth century according to which Christ, inasmuch as He was man, was the Son of God by adoption only, acknowledging, however, that inasmuch as He was God, as was also the Son of God by nature and generation. The Church condemned the teaching. -- J.J.R.

Adiaphora
(Gr. indifferent) A Stoic term designating entities which are morally indifferent. -- C.A.B.

Adler, Alfred
(1870-1937) Originally a follower of Freud (see Psychoanalysis; Freud), he founded his own school in Vienna about 1912. In contrast to Freud, he tended to minimize the role of sexuality and to place greater emphasis on the ego. He investigated the feelings of inferiority resulting from organic abnormality and deficiency and described the unconscio...

Adhyatman
(Skr. adhi, over and atman, s.v.) A term for the Absolute which gained popularity with the reading of the Bhagavad Gita (cf. 8.3) and which Ralph Waldo Emerson rendered appropriately 'Oversoul' (cf. his essay The Oversoul). -- K.F.L.

Adeism
Max Müller coined the term which means the rejection of the devas, or gods, of ancient India; similar to atheism which denies the one God. -- J.J.R.

Adequation
(Ger. Adäquation) In Husserl: verification; fulfilment. -- D.C. (Lat. adequatio) In Aquinas: relation of truth to being.

Actus Purus
See Activism. -- L.W.

Ad hoc
A dubious assumption or argument arbitrarily introduced as explanation after the fact.

Actuality
The mode of being in which things affect or are affected. The realm of fact; the field of happenings. Syn. with existence, sometimes with reality. Opposite of: possibility or potentiality. See Energeia. -- J.K.F.

Actual
In Husserl: see Actuality.

Actuality
In Husserl: 1. (Ger. Wirklichkeit) Effective individual existence in space and time, as contrasted with mere possibility. 2. (Ger. Aktualität) The character of a conscious process as lived in by the ego, as contrasted with the 'inactuality' of conscious processes more or less far from the ego. To say the ego lives in a particular conscious pr...

Actual
(Lat. actus, act) 1. real or factual (opposed to unreal and apparent) 2. quality which anything possesses of having realized its potentialities or possibilities (opposed to possible and potential). In Aristotle: see Energeia.

Acts
In ethics the main concern is usually said to be with acts or actions, particularly voluntary ones, in their moral relations, or with the moral qualities of acts and actions. By an act or action here is meant a bit of behavior or conduct, the origination or attempted origination of a change by some agent, the execution of some agent's choice or de...

Activism
(Lat. activus, from agere, to act) The philosophical theory which considers activity, particularly spiritual activity, to be the essence of reality. The concept of pure act (actus purus) traceable to Aristotle's conception of divinity, was influential in Scholastic thought, and persists m Leibniz, Fichte and modern idealism. -- L.W. Negatively, a ...

Action
(in Scholasticism) Immanent: The terminus is received in the agent, as in a subject; as contemplation. Transient: The terminus is received in a subject distinct from the agent; as ball-throwing. -- H.G.

Act
(in Scholasticism) (1) Operation; as, intellect's act. In this sense, it is generally referred to as second act (see below). (2) That which determines or perfects a thing; as rationality perfects animality. Commanded: An act, originating in the will but executed by some other power; as walking. Elicited: The proper and immediate act of the will, a...

Act-character
(Ger. Aktcharakter) In Husserl: Intentionality. -- D.C.

Act Psychology
(Lat. actum, a thing done) A type of psychology traceable to F. Brentano, Psychologte vom empirischen Standpunkte (1874) which considers the mental act (e.g. the act of sensing a red color patch) rather than the content (e.g. the red color) the proper subject matter of psychology. (See Intentionalism.) -- L.W.

Acroamatic
Communicated orally. Applied especialy to Aristotle's more private teachings to his select advanced students. Hence, esoteric, abstruse. -- C.A.B.

Acosmism
(Gr. kosmos, world) Theory of the non-existence of an external, physical world. See Subjective Idealism. -- W.L.

Acquaintance, Knowledge by
(Lat. adcognitare, to make known) The apprehension of a quality, thing or person which is in the direct presence of the knowing subject. Acquaintance, in the strict sense, is restricted to the immediate data of experience but is commonly extended to include the things or persons perceived by means of such data. See Description, Knowledge by. -- L....

Achilles argument
Zeno of Elea used a reductio ad absurdum argument against the possibility of motion. He urged that if we assume it possible we are led to the absurdity that Achilles, the fastest runner in Greece, could not catch a proverbially slow tortoise. The alleged grounds for this are that during the time, t1 - t2
Acervus argument
A Sophistical argument to the effect that, given any number of stones which are not sufficient to constitute a heap, one does not obtain a heap by adding one more -- yet eventually, if this process is repeated, one has a heap. -- C.A.B.

Accidentalism
The theory that some events are undetermined, or that the incidence of series of determined events is unpredictable (Aristotle, Cournot). In Epicureanism (q.v.) such indeterminism was applied to mental events and specifically to acts of will. The doctrine then assumes the special form: Some acts of will are unmotivated. See Indeterminism. A striki...

Accident
(Lat. accidens) (in Scholasticism) Has no independent and self-sufficient existence, but exists only in another being, a substance or another accident. As opposed to substance the accident is called praedicamentale; as naming features of the essence or quiddity of a being accidens praedicabile. Accidents may change, disappear or be added, while su...

Academy
(Gr. akademia) A gymnasium in the suburbs of Athens, named after the hero Academus, where Plato first taught; hence, the Platonic school of philosophy. Plato and his immediate successors are called the Old Academy; the New Academy begins with Arcesilaus (c. 315-c. 241 B.C.), and is identified with its characteristic doctrine, probabilism (q.v.). -...

Abstractum
(pl. abstracta): (Lat ab + trahere, to draw) An abstractum, in contrast to a concretum or existent is a quality or a relation envisaged by an abstract concept (e.g. redness, equality, truth etc.). The abstractum may be conceived either as an ideal object or as a real, subsistent universal. -- L.W.

Abstractionism
(Lat. ab, from + trahere, to draw) The illegitimate use of abstraction, and especially the tendency to mistake abstractions for concrete realities. Cf. W. James, The Meaning of Truth, ch XIII. Equivalent to A. N. Whitehead's 'Fallacy of misplaced concreteness.' -- L.W.

Abstraction
(Lat. ab, from + trahere, to draw) The process of ideally separating a partial aspect or quality from a total object. Also the result or product of mental abstraction. Abstraction, which concentrates its attention on a single aspect, differs from analysis which considers all aspects on a par. -- L.W. In logic: Given a relation R which is transitiv...

Abstractio intellectus seu rationis
According to the Scholastics the highest degree of abstraction is that of reason which abstracts not only matter and its presence, but also from its appendices, that is, its sensible conditions and properties, considering essence or quiddity alone. -- J.J.R.

Abstractio imaginationis
According to the Scholastics a degree of abstraction below that of reason and above that of the senses, which do abstract from matter, but not from the presence of matter, whereas the imagination abstracts even from the presence of matter, but not from its appendices, or sensible qualities. -- J.J.R.

Abstracta
Such neutral, purely denotative entities as qualities, numbers, relations, logical concepts, appearing neither directly nor literally in time. (Broad) -- H.H.

Abstract
(Lat. ab, from + trahere, to draw) A designation applied to a partial aspect or quality considered in isolation from a total object, which is, in contrast, designated concrete. -- L.W.

Absolutistic Personalism
The ascription of personality to the Absolute. -- R.T.F.

Absorption
The name law of absorption is given to either of the two dually related theorems of the propositional calculus, [p ? pq] = p, p[p ? q] = p, or either of the two corresponding dually related theorems of the algebra of classes, a ? (a n b) = a, a n (a ? b) = a. Any valid inference of ...

Absolute
(Lat. absolvere to release or set free) Of this term Stephanus Chauvin in the Lexicon Philosophicum, 1713, p2 observes: 'Because one thing is said to be free from another in many ways, so also the word absolute is taken by the philosophers in many senses.' In Medieval Scholasticism this term was variously used, for example: freed or abstracted fro...

Absolute Idealism
See Idealism, Hegel. -- W.L.

Absolute, The
(in Metaphysics) Most broadly, the terminus or ultimate referent of thought. The Unconditioned. The opposite of the Relative (Absolute). A distinction is to be made between the singular and generic use of the term. A. While Nicholas of Cusa referred to God as 'the absolute,' the noun form of this term came into common use through the writings of S...

Absolute Ego
In Fichte's philosophy, the Ego or Subject prior to its differentiation into an empirical (or historical) self and not-self. -- W.L.

Abheda
(Skr. 'not distinct') Identity, particularly in reference to any philosophy of monism which does not recognize the distinctness of spiritual and material, or divine and essentially human principles. -- K.F.L.

Abravanel, Judah
Or Judah Leon Medigo (1470-1530), son of Don Isaac, settled in Italy after the expulsion from Spain. In his Dialoghi d'Amore, i.e., Dialogues about Love, he conceives, in Platonic fashion, love as the principle permeating the universe. It emanates from God to the beings, and from the beings reverts back to God. It is possible that his conception o...

Abhasa, abhasana
(Skr.) 'Shining forth', the cosmopsychological process of the One becoming the Many as described by the Trika (q.v.) which regards the Many as a real aspect of the ultimate reality or Parama Siva (cf. Indian Philosophy). Reflection, objectivity. -- K.F.L.

Abduction
(Gr. apagoge) In Aristotle's logic a syllogism whose major premiss is certain but whose minor premiss is only probable. -- G.R.M. In Peirce: type of inference yielding an explanatory hypothesis (q.v.), rather than a result of deductive application of a 'rule' to a 'case' or establishment of a rule by induction.

Abdera, School of
Founded by the Atomist Democritus. Important members, Metrodorus of Chios and Anaxarchus of Abdera (teacher of Pyrrho, into whose hands the school leadership fell), thus inspiring Pyrrhonism. See Democritus, Pyrrhonism. -- E.H.

Abailard, Peter
(1079-1142) Was born at Pallet in France; distinguished himself as a brilliant student of the trivium and quadrivium; studied logic with Roscelin and Wm. of Champeaux. He taught philosophy, with much emphasis on dialectic, at Melun, Corbeil, and the schools of St. Genevieve and Notre Dame in Paris. He was lecturing on theology in Paris c. 1113 whe...

Authenticity
In a general sense, genuineness, truth according to its title. It involves sometimes a direct and personal characteristic (Whitehead speaks of 'authentic feelings'). This word also refers to problems of fundamental criticism involving title, tradition, authorship and evidence. These problems are vital in theology, and basic in scholarship with reg...

Authoritarianism
That theory of knowledge which maintains that the truth of any proposition is determined by the fact of its having been asserted by a certain esteemed individual or group of individuals. Cf. H. Newman, Grammar of Assent; C. S. Peirce, 'Fixation of Belief,' in Chance, Love and Logic, ed. M. R. Cohen. -- A.C.B.

Autistic thinking
Absorption in fanciful or wishful thinking without proper control by objective or factual material; day dreaming; undisciplined imagination. -- A.C.B.

Automatism, Conscious
The automatism of Hodgson, Huxley, and Clifford which considers man a machine to which mind or consciousness is superadded; the mind of man is, however, causally ineffectual. See Automatism; Epiphenomenalism. -- L.W.

Automatism
(Gr. automatos, self-moving) (a) In metaphysics: Theory that animal and human organisms are automata, that is to say, are machines governed by the laws of physics and mechanics. Automatism, as propounded by Descartes, considered the lower animals to be pure automata (Letter to Henry More, 1649) and man a machine controlled by a rational soul (Trea...

Automaton Theory
Theory that a living organism may be considered a mere machine. See Automatism.

Autonomy of ethics
A doctrine, usually propounded by intuitionists, that ethics is not a part of, and cannot be derived from, either metaphysics or any of the natural or social sciences. See Intuitionism, Metaphysical ethics, Naturalistic ethics. -- W.K.F.

Autonomy of the will
(in Kant's ethics) The freedom of the rational will to legislate to itself, which constitutes the basis for the autonomy of the moral law. -- P.A.S.

Autonomy
(Gr. autonomia, independence) Freedom consisting in self-determination and independence of all external constraint. See Freedom. Kant defines autonomy of the will as subjection of the will to its own law, the categorical imperative, in contrast to heteronomy, its subjection to a law or end outside the rational will. (Fundamental Principles of the ...

Autonymy
In the terminology introduced by Carnap, a word (phrase, symbol, expression) is autonymous if it is used as a name for itself -- for the geometric shape, sound, etc. which it exemplifies, or for the word as a historical and grammatical unit. Autonymy is thus the same as the Scholastic suppositio matertalis (q. v.), although the viewpoint is differ...

Autotelic
(from Gr. autos, self, and telos, end) Said of any absorbing activity engaged in for its own sake (cf. German Selbstzweck), such as higher mathematics, chess, etc. In aesthetics, applied to creative art and play which lack any conscious reference to the accomplishment of something useful. In the view of some, it may constitute something beneficent...

Avenarius, Richard
(1843-1896) German philosopher who expressed his thought in an elaborate and novel terminology in the hope of constructing a symbolic language for philosophy, like that of mathematics -- the consequence of his Spinoza studies. As the most influential apostle of pure experience, the posltivistic motive reaches in him an extreme position. Insisting ...

Avesta
See Zendavesta.

Avicenna
(Abu Ali al Hosain ibn Abdallah ibn Sina) Born 980 in the country of Bocchara, began to write in young years, left more than 100 works, taught in Ispahan, was physician to several Persian princes, and died at Hamadan in 1037. His fame as physician survived his influence as philosopher in the Occident. His medical works were printed still in the 17...

Avidya
(Skr.) Nescience; ignorance; the state of mind unaware of true reality; an equivalent of maya (q.v.); also a condition of pure awareness prior to the universal process of evolution through gradual differentiation into the elements and factors of knowledge. -- K.F.L.

Avyakta
(Skr.) 'Unmanifest', descriptive of or standing for brahman (q.v.) in one of its or 'his' aspects, symbolizing the superabundance of the creative principle, or designating the condition of the universe not yet become phenomenal (aja, unborn). -- K.F.L.

Awareness
Consciousness considered in its aspect of act; an act of attentive awareness such as the sensing of a color patch or the feeling of pain is distinguished from the content attended to, the sensed color patch, the felt pain. The psychologlcal theory of intentional act was advanced by F. Brentano (Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkte) and received...

Axiologic Realism
In metaphysics, theory that value as well as logic, qualities as well as relations, have their being and exist external to the mind and independently of it. Applicable to the philosophy of many though not all realists in the history of philosophy, from Plato to G. E. Moore, A. N. Whitehead, and N, Hartmann. -- J.K.F.

Axiological ethics
Any ethics which makes the theory of obligation entirely dependent on the theory of value, by making the determination of the rightness of an action wholly dependent on a consideration of the value or goodness of something, e.g. the action itself, its motive, or its consequences, actual or probable. Opposed to deontological ethics. See also teleol...

Axiological
(Ger. axiologisch) In Husserl: Of or pertaining to value or theory of value (the latter term understood as including disvalue and value-indifference). -- D.C.

Axiology
(Gr. axios, of like value, worthy, and logos, account, reason, theory). Modern term for theory of value (the desired, preferred, good), investigation of its nature, criteria, and metaphysical status. Had its rise in Plato's theory of Forms or Ideas (Idea of the Good); was developed in Aristotle's Organon, Ethics, Poetics, and Metaphysics (Book Lam...

Axiom
See Mathematics.

Axiomatic method
That method of constructing a deductive system consisting of deducing by specified rules all statements of the system save a given few from those given few, which are regarded as axioms or postulates of the system. See Mathematics. -- C.A.B.

Ayam atma brahma
(Skr.) 'This self is brahman', famous quotation from Brhadaranyaka Upanishad 2.5.19, one of many alluding to the central theme of the Upanishads, i.e., the identity of the human and divine or cosmic. -- K.F.L.

Babism
An initially persecuted and later schismatizing religious creed founded in Persia prior to the middle of the last century. International in its appeal the number of its followers increased largely in America. As a development against orthodox Mohammedanism, the Babis deny the finality of any revelation. The sect's former extreme pantheistic tenden...

Background
(Ger. Hintergrund) In Husserl: The nexus of objects and objective sense explicitly posited along with any object; the objective horizon. The perceptual background is part of the entire background in this broad sense. See Horizon. -- D.C .

Bacon, Francis
(1561-1626) Inspired by the Renaissance, and in revolt against Aristotelianism and Scholastic Logic, proposed an inductive method of discovering truth, founded upon empirical observation, analysis of observed data, inference resulting in hypotheses, and verification of hypotheses through continued observation and experiment. The impediments to the...

Bacon, Roger
(1214-1294) Franciscan. He recognized the significance of the deductive application of principles and the necessity for experimental verification of the results. He was keenly interested in mathematics. His most famous work was called Opus majus, a veritable encyclopaedia of the sciences of his day. -- L.E.D

Baconian Method
The inductive method as advanced by Francis Bacon (1561-1626). The purpose of the method was to enable man to attain mastery over nature in order to exploit it for his benefit. The mind should pass from particular facts to a more general knowledge of forms, or generalized physical properties. They are laws according to which phenomena actually pro...

Bahya, ben Joseph Ibn Padudah
(c. 1050) Philosopher and ethicist. The title of his work, The Duties of the Heart (Heb. Hobot ha-Leba-bot), indicates its purpose, i.e., to teach ethical conduct. First part demonstrates pure conception of God, unity and attributes. His basic principle of ethics is thankfulness to God, for His creating the wonderful world; the goal of religious e...

Bahyanumeya-vada
(Skr.) A Hinayana Buddhist theory (vada), otherwise known as Sautran-tika, based upon a realist epistemology. It assumes the reality and independence of mind and object, which atter is inferred (anumeya) as being outside (bahya) consciousness and apprehended only when the sensory apparatus functions and certain physical conditions are fulfilled. -...

Bahyapratyaksa-vada
(Skr.) A Hinayana Buddhist theory (vada) of realism, otherwise known as Vaibhasika. It holds that objects exist outside (bahya) the mind and consciousness, but that they must be directly (pratyaksa) and not inferentially (cf. Bahyanumeya-vada) known. -- K.F.L.

Banausic
(Gr. banausos) Vulgar; illiberal; applied particularly to arts, sciences, or occupations that deform the body or the mind. --G.R.M.

Baptism
A rite of dedication and induction of an individual into a circle of social and religious privilege. The rite is usually of a ceremonious nature with pledges given (by proxy in the case of infants), prayers and accompanied by some visible sign (such as water, symbol of purification, or wine, honey, oil or blood) sealing the bond of fellowship. In ...

Baroque
A style of art, produced especially in the 17th century, considered by classicists a type of false art; by romantictists a product of magic imagination. -- L.V.

Barth, Karl
(1886-1968) Swiss theologian, widely influential among current social pessimists. God, he holds, is wholly other than man, not apprehensible by man's reason nor attainable by human endeavor. Christianity is a revealed and supernatural religion. Man must trust God's plan of salvation or be doomed to utter ruin. God is the sole judge and his judgmen...

Basic Sentences, Protocol Sentences
Sentences formulating the result of observations or perceptions or other experiences, furnishing the basis for empirical verification or confirmation (see Verification). Some philosophers take sentences concerning observable properties of physical things as basic sentences, others take sentences concerning sense-data or perceptions. The sentences ...

Bathmism
A name given by the Lamarckian E.D. Cope to a special force, or growth-force, which he regarded as existing and as exhibiting itself in the growth of organic beings. -- W.F.K.

Baumgarten, Alexander Gottlieb
(1714-1762) A German thinker of the pre-Kantian period and disciple of Christian Wolff whose encyclopaedic work he tried to continue. Among his works the best known is Aesthetica in which he analyzes the problem of beauty regarded by him as recognition of perfection by means of the senses. The name of aesthetics, as the philosophy of beauty and ar...

Becoming
(Medieval) Any kind of change is actualization of potencies. It is often called, following Aristotle, a 'movement', because moving is a striking instance of becoming, and because the thing 'moves' from the lower level of potentiality to the higher of actuality. Actualization is achieved only by a factor which is act itself. The act is in this sens...

Begging the Question
The logical fallacy of assuming in the premisses of an argument the very conclusion which is to be proved. See Petitio principii. -- G.R.M.

Begriffsgefuhl
(Ger. Literally, conceptual feeling) The faculty of eliciting feelings, images or recollections associated viith concepts or capable of being substituted for them. Sometimes, the affective tone peculiar to a given concept. -- O.F.K.

Behaviorism
The contemporary American School of psychology which abandons the concepts of mind and consciousness, and restricts both animal and human psychology to the study of behavior. The impetus to behaviorism was given by the Russian physiologist, Pavlov, who through his investigation of the salivary reflex in dogs, developed the concept of the condition...

Being, hierarchy of
(Scholastic) The Neo-Platonic conception of a hierarchy of 'emanations' from the 'One' persisted throughout the Middle-Ages, though it was given another meaning. Emanationism properly speaking is incompatible with the notion of creation. But the medieval writers agree that there is a hierarchy, comprising within the visible world inanimate beings,...

Being
In early Greek philosophy is opposed either to change, or Becoming, or to Non-Being. According to Parmenides and his disciples of the Eleatic School, everything real belongs to the category of Being, as the only possible object of thought. Essentially the same reasoning applies also to material reality in which there is nothing but Being, one and ...

Belief
Acquiescence in the existence of objects (e.g. external things, other minds, God, etc.) or assent to the truth of propositions (e.g. scientific, moral, aesthetic, or metaphysical statements). The belief in objects is frequently immediate and non-inferential; the belief in propositions usually rests on reflection and inference.Theories of belief ma...