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

Comparison
(Lat. com- + par, equal) The act of discerning or describing the common properties possessed by two or more objects; or the result of such discernment or description. -- A.C.B.

Compathy
(Ger. Miteinanderfühlen) Men feel with each other the same sorrow, the same pain. It is a with-each-other feeling. Only psychical suffering can thus be felt, not physical pain. There is no symagony. See Sympathy. -- H.H.

Completeness
A logistic system (q.v.) may be called complete if there is no formula of the system which is not a theorem and which can be added to the list of primitive formulas (no other change being made) without rendering the system inconsistent, in one of the senses of consistency (q.v.). The pure propositional calculus -- as explained under logic, formal,...

Complex
(Lat. complecti, to entwine around, comprise) 1. Anything that possesses distinguishable parts, or the property of possessing distinguishable parts. 2. Anything that possesses distinguishable parts which are related in such a way as to give unity to the whole; or the property of having parts so related. -- A.C.B.

Complication
(Lat. com + plicatio, folded together) The union or act of combining more or less disparate elements into a single whole impression or idea. The term usually has reference to the synthesis of sense data in perceptions, or of perceptions in a unifying idea. -- O.F.K.

Composite idea
Any idea that consists of a fusion of sentient elements, which together are presumed to pass the threshold of consciousness. In logic, a compound of undefined ideas by way of definition. -- C.K.D.

Composite
(Scholastic) The existing being as composed of prime matter (q.v.) and form (q.v.). The human composite: matter informed by the spiritual and rational soul. -- R.A.

Composition
is the form of valid inference of the propositional calculus from A ? B and A ? C to A ? BC. The law of composition is the theorem of the propositional calculus: [p ? q][p ? r] ? [p ? qr]. -- A.C.

Compossibility
Those things are compossible in Leibniz's philosophy which are literally 'co-possible,' i.e., which may exist together, which belong to the same possible world. Since metaphysical possibility means for Leibniz simply the absence of contradiction, two or more things are compossible if, and only if, their joint ascription to a single world involves ...

Compound Theory of Mind
The conception of mind as a compound of psychological elements analogous to a chemical compound. See Psychological Atomism. -- L.W.

Compound
(Lat. con + ponere, to place) A complex whole formed by the union of a number of parts in contrast to an element which is a simple unanalyzable part. A mental compound is a state of mind formed by the combination (see Combination) of simple mental elements, either conscious or unconscious. -- L.W.

Comprehension
(Lat. com + prehendere, to grasp) The act or faculty of understanding, intellectual grasp, or insight. Comprehension may be achieved variously by: unifying and relating manifold facts or ideas; deducing something from premises; accommodating new facts or ideas to established knowledge; seeing a thing or idea in its proper or significant context; ...

Compresence
(Lat. compraesentia from praesse, to be present) The togetherness of two or more items, for example, the coexistence of several elements in the unity of consciousness. In the terminology of S. Alexander (Space, Time and Deity), an unique kind of togetherness which underlies cognition. -- F.W.

Comte, Auguste
(1798-1857) Was born and lived during a period when political and social conditions in France were highly unstable. In reflecting the spirit of his age, he rose against the tendency prevalent among his predecessors to propound philosophic doctrines in disregard of the facts of nature and society. His revolt was directed particularly against tradit...

Conation
(Lat. conatio, attempt) Referring to voluntary activity. -- V.F.

Conatus
The drive, force, or urge possessed by a thing which is directed towards the preservation of its own being. Since, for Spinoza, all things are animated, the term is used by him in a broader meaning than that accorded it, for example, in the Stoic philosophy. Spinoza maintains that there is no conatus for self-destruction (Ethica, III, 4; see also ...

Conceivability
The quality or condition of taking into and holding an idea in mind. It has come to mean any affection of the mind or any apprehension, imagining or opinion of the mind. It is a necessary though not sufficient criterion for the truth of said idea or affection, etc. -- C.K.D

Concept
In logic syn. either with propositioned function (q.v.) generally or with monadic propositional function. The terminology associated with the word function is not, however, usually employed in connection with the word concept; and the latter word may serve to avoid ambiguities which have arisen from loose or variant usages of the word function (q....

Conception
(Lat. concipere, to take together) Cognition of abstracta or universals as distinguished from cognition of concreta or particulars. (See Abstractum.) Conception, as a mode of cognition, may or may not posit real or subsistent universals corresponding to the concepts of the mind. See Conceptualism; Conceptual Realism. -- L.W.

Conceptual Realism
Theory which ascribes objectivity of some sort to conceptual cognition, includes extreme or Platonic realism and conceptualism but excludes nominalism. See Conceptualism. -- L.W.

Conceptualism
A solution of the problem of universals which seeks a compromise between extreme nominalism (generic concepts are signs which apply indifferently to a number of particulars) and extreme realism (generic concepts refer to subsistent universals). Conceptualism offers various interpretations of conceptual objectivity: the generic concept refers to a...

Concomitance
(Latin concomitantia, accompaniment), literally the act or state of being associated, the term has received wide currency in logic, particularly since John Stuart Mill clearly formulated the method of concomitant variations, as the concurrent existence, appearance or disappearance of certain characters which, under circumstances, admit but do not ...

Concrete Universal
In Hegel's system a category is concrete when it possesses the basic character of the real, i.e. tension, change dialectical opposition. Such a universal comprises a synthesis of two opposite abstractions; and with one exception, it in turn becomes an abstract member of a piir of logical opposites united or 'sublated' in a higher category. The low...

Concrete
Anything that is specific or individual. The term is opposed to 'general' or to 'abstract', terms which stress common characteristics or qualities considered apart from their specific setting. -- V.F.

Concretion
(Lat. concresco, to grow together) A uniting or growing together. -- V.F. Santayana calls universals 'concretions of discourse.' (Life of Reason, vol. I (Reason in Common Sense)).

Concupiscence
(Lat. con + cupere, to desire wholly or altogether) Desire for pleasure or delight of the senses; as such it is a desire which is natural, necessary and proper to man. But when this desire operates independently of, or contrary to the right rule of reason, then concupiscence is a bad habit or vice, contrary to nature, and thus opposed to the virtu...

Concurrence
The doctrine of Augustine that before the Fall it was possible for man not to sin, but he needed God's help, adjutorium sine quo non. After the Fall man needs God's grace or concurrence which acts with him, adjutotium quo, with which he must co-operate. The term also signifies, concursus, or the general cooperation of God, the primary cause, with ...

Concursus dei (or divinus)
(Lat. Divine concurrent activity) The divine activity in its relation to the finite causes in the development of the world and the free will of man. The term suggests that divine activity runs parallel with the activity of things and creatures. The concursus dei is differently conceived depending on whether the stress is laid on the divine action ...

Condignity
A characteristic of merit which implies equality and proportionality between service rendered and its recompense, to which there is a claim on the ground of justice. Merit of this description is called condign merit, or meritum de condigno. -- J.J.R.

Condillac, Etienne
(l715-1780) French sensationalist. Successor of Locke. In his Traite des sensations, he works out the details of a system based on Lockean foundations in which all the human faculties are reduced in essence to a sensory basis. Understanding in all its phases, is deemed nothing more than the comparison or multiplication of sensations. He is importa...

Condition
(Lat. conditio, agreement, condition) 1. The if-clause in an implicative proposition. 2. Cause (q.v.). 3. Necessary cause (q.v.) as opposed to sufficient cause. -- A.C.B.

Conditional Immortality
A teaching affirming that immortality is a gift of God conferred on believers in Christ, who become the children of God, and denying that the human soul is immortal by nature. -- J.J.R.

Conditional Morality
Any system of morals which has for its basic principle what Kant calls a hypothetical imperative, e.g., a system of morals which reasons that we should act in certain ways because such actions will bring us happiness, assuming that we want happiness. See Hypothetical imperatives. -- W.K.F.

Conditional
The sentential connective ?. See Logic, formal, § 1. A sentence of the form A ? B (or a proposition expressed by such a sentence) -- verbally, 'if A then B' -- may be called a conditional sentence (or proposition). -- A. C.

Conditioned Reflex
See Conditioned Response.

Conditiones sine quibus non
A phrase descriptive of such accompanying conditions without the presence of which it is impossible for a cause to produce an effect, conditions for which there are no substitutes. -- J.J.R.

Conduct
(Lat. conducere, to bring together) (a) Voluntary behavior of any sort, actual or intended. Action for which a person may he held responsible. Subject-matter of ethics which seeks to determine right and wrong action or proper and improper conduct. Deportment. (b) In psychology. Behavior of a living organism reacting to environmental stimuli. See B...

Configuration
(Lat. configurare from con, together and figurare, to form) A structural pattern at the physical, physiological or psychological level. The term has been suggested to translate the German Gestalt. See Gestalt Psychology. -- L.W.

Configurationism
A suggested English equivalent for Gestalt Psychology. See Gestalt Psychology.

Confirmation, Confirmable
See Verification 3, 4.

Conflict
The psychological phenomenon of struggle between competing ideas, emotions or tendencies to action. J. F. Herbart (Lehrbuch der Psychologie, 1816) enunciated a doctrine of conflict of ideas in accordance with which ideas opposed to the mind's dominant ideas are submerged below the threshold of consciousness. The doctrine of conflict has been reviv...

Confucius
(K'ung Ch'iu, K'ung Chung-ni, K'ung Fu-tzu or Grand Master K'ung, 557-479 B.C.) Was born of a poor and common family in the state of Lu (in present Shangtung), a descendant of the people of Sung. His father died soon after his birth. When he grew up, he was put in charge of a granary, then cattle and sheep, and then public works in his native stat...

Confused
(Ger. verworren) In Husserl: Not given distinctly, articulatedly, with respect to implicit components. In Descartes, sensations are confused ideas. -- D.C.

Confusion
(logical) May be due to the ambiguity which is always a possible accompaniment of the use of words or terms with respect to their several meanings. It may also refer to any logical misapprehension which results in a semi-formal or material fallacy. -- C.K.D.

Congruity
A characteristic of merit which implies an intrinsic disproportionality between service rendered and its recompense, to which there is no claim on the ground of justice, but on that of equity alone. Merit of this description is called congruous merit, or meritum de congruo. -- J.J.R.

Conjunction
See Logic, formal, § 1.

Connexity
A dyadic relation R is cilled connected if, for every two different members x, y of its field, at least one of xRy, yRx holds.

Connotation
The sum of the constitutive notes of the essence of a concept as it is in itself and not as it is for us. This logical property is thus measured by the sum of the notes of the concept, of the higher genera it implies, of the various essential attributes of its nature as such. This term is synonymous with intension and comprehension; yet, the dist...

Conscience
(Lat. conscientia, knowledge) Any emotionally-toned experience in which a tendency to act is inhibited by a recognition, socially conditioned, that suffering evil consequences is likely to result from acting on the impulse to act. -- A.J.B.

Conscientalism
The doctrine that contends that the entities we apprehend must be necessarily mental, idealistic; that the real objects are realities of consciousness. -- H.H.

Conscientialism
(Lat. conscientia + al, pertaining to conscience) Originally denoting simple consciousness without ethical bearing, the term conscience came in modern times to mean in contrast to consciousness, viewed either as a purely intellectual function or as a generic term for mind, a function of distinguishing between right and wrong. With the rise of Chri...

Conscious Illusion Theory
The theory that conscious self-illusion, semblance and deliberate make-believe are constant factors in art and art appreciation which free the individual momentarily from the practical and hum-drum and thus enhance and refresh his life. See Konrad Lange, Die bewusste Selbsttäuschung als Kern des aesthetischen Genusses, 1895. -- O.F.K.

Conscious
(Ger. bewusst) In Husserl: 1. Broadest sense: noematically intentional, conscious of something. A process may be 'conscious' in this sense even if it is not 'conscious'' in the following sense. 2. Narrower sense: 'Actual', belonging to the cogito. As living in a process that is 'conscious' in this second sense, the ego is also said to be 'consciou...

Consciousness, Field of
The sum-total of items embraced within an individual's consciousness at any given moment. The total field consists of (a) the focus, where the concentration of attention is maximal and (b) a margin, periphery or fringe of a diminishing degree of attention which gradually fades to zero. -- L.W.

Consciousness-in-general
(Kant's Bewusstsein Ueberhaupt) Consciousness conceived as purely logical, objective, universal, necessarily valid, in contrast to the eccentricity, particularity, subjectivity, irrationality, and privacy of the psychological consciousness. See Kant. -- W.L.

Consciousness
(Lat. conscire, to know, to be cognizant of) A designation applied to conscious mind as opposed to a supposedly unconscious or subconscious mind (See Subconscious Mind; Unconscious Mind), and to the whole domain of the physical and non-mental. Consciousness is generally considered an indefinable term or rather a term definable only by direct intro...

Consectarium
(Lat. consectarius) Peculiar to the philosophical vocabulary of Cicero, it means an inference, a conclusion. It is the substantive for the phrase 'that follows logically'. -- H.H.

Consensus gentium
(Lat. agreement of people) A criterion of truth: that which is universal among men carries the weight of truth. -- V.F.

Consent
Agreement or sympathy in feeling or thought. -- V.F.

Consentience
(Lat. con + sentire, to feel) Conscious unity existing at the level of sensation after the subtraction of all conceptual and interpretative unity. Consentience includes both: (a) the intra-sensory unity of a single sensory continuum (e.g. the visual, tactual or auditory) and (b) the inter-sensory unit embracing the diverse sensory continua. Consen...

Consequence-logic
(Ger. Konsequenzlogik) Consistency-logic (Logik der Widerspruchslosigkeit); pure apophantic analytics (in a strict sense); a level of pure formal logic in which the only thematic concepts of validity are consequence, inconsequence, and compatibility. Consequence-logic includes the essential content of traditional syllogistics and the disciplines m...

Consequence
(Ger. Konsequenz) In Husserl: The relation of formal-analytic inclusion which obtains between certain noematic senses.

Consequence
See Valid.

Consequent
See Antecedent.

Consilience
Whewell calls 'consilience of inductions' what occurs when a hypothesis gives us the 'rule and reason' not only of the class of facts contemplated in its construction, but also, unexpectedly, of some class of facts altogether different. -- C.J.D.

Consistency proofs
See Proof theory, and Logic formal, §§ 1, 3, 6.

Consistency
(1) A logistic system (q.v.) is consistent if there is no theorem whose negation is a theorem. See Logic, formal, §§ 1, 3, 6; also Proof theory. Since this definition of consistency is relative to the choice if a particular notation as representing negation, the following definition is sometimes used instead: (2) A logistic system is con...

Constant
A constant is a symbol employed as an unambiguous name -- distinguished from a variable (q.v.). Thus in ordinary numerical algebra and in real number theory, the symbols x, y, z are variables, while 0, 1, 3, -- 1/2, p, e are constants. In such mathematical contexts the term constant is often restricted to unambiguous (non-variable) names of num...

Constituted
(Ger. konstituiert) In Husserl: Resultant from constitutive synthesis, intentionally synthetized. See Constitution. -- D.C.

Constitution
(Ger. Konstitution) In Husserl: 1. Broader sense: Intentionality in its character as producing, on the one hand, intentionally identical and different objects of consciousness with more or less determinate objective senses and, on the other hand, more or less abiding ego-habitudes (see Habit) is said to be 'constitutive'; its products, 'constitute...

Constitutive
Of the essential nature; internal; component; inherent. Internal relations are constitutive because they are integral parts or elements of the natures which they relate, whereas external, non-constitutive relations may be altered without change in the essential natures of the related entities. In Kant: Whatever enters into the structure of actual ...

Construct, Imaginative
(Lat. construere, to build) See Construction, Psychological.

Construction, Psychological
(In contrast to Logical) A framework devised by the common-sense, scientific or philosophical imagination for the integration of diverse empirical data. In contrast to an hypothesis, a construction is not an inference from experience but is an arbitrary scheme which, though presumably not a true picture of the actual state of affairs, satisfies the...

Construction
(Lat. constructio, from construere, to build) The mental process of devising imaginative constructs or the products of such constructional activities. A construction, in contrast to an ordinary hypothesis which professes to represent an actual state of affairs, is largely arbitrary and fictional. -- L.W.

Contemplation
(Lat. contemplare, to gaze at tentively) (a) In the mystical sense: Knowledge consisting in the partial or complete identification of the knower with the object of knowledge with the consequent loss of his own individuality. In Hugo of St. Victor (1096-1141), Contemplatio is the third and highest stage of knowledge of which cogitatio and meditatio...

Content of Consciousness
(Lat. contentus from continere, to contain) The totality of qualitative data present to consciousness in contrast to the act of apprehending such data. See Act Psychology; Datum. -- L.W.

Contextual definition
See incomplete symbol.

Contiguity, Association by
A type of association, recognized by Aristotle, whereby one of two states of mind, which have been coexistent or successive, tends to recall the other. This type of association has sometimes been considered the basic type to which all others are reducible. See Association, laws of. -- L.W.

Continence
In Aristotle's ethics the moral condition of a person able to control his bodily desires by reason. Aristotle distinguishes continence from temperance in that the former implies a conflict between bodily desires and rational choice, whereas in the temperate man there is no such conflict. -- G.R.M.

Contingency
(Lat. contingere, to touch on all sides) In its broadest philosophical usage a state of affairs is said to be contingent if it may and also may not be. A certain event, for example, is contingent if, and only if, it may come to pass and also may not come to pass. For this reason contingency is not quite equivalent in meaning to possibility (q.v.);...

Continuant
''That which continues to exist while its states or relations may be changing' (Johnson, Logic I, p. 199). The continuant is in Johnson's metaphysics a revised and somewhat more precise form of the traditional conception of substance; it includes, according to him, that residuum from the traditional conception of substance which is both philosophi...

Continuity
A class is said to be compactly (or densely) ordered by a relation R if it is ordered by R (see Order) and, whenever xRz and x?z, there is a y, not the same as either x or z, such that xRy and yRz. (Compact order may thus be described by saying that between any two distinct members of the class there is always a third, or by saying that no memb...

Continuum, Sensory
(Lat. continuere, to hold together) The unity of a single sensory field, (visual, tactual, auditory, etc.) or of the total sensory experience of an individual. (Cf. G. F. Stout, Mind and Matter, Bk. IV, Ch. III.) See Consentience. -- L.W.

Contraction of a genus or species
(in Scholasticism) Is the determination or application of a genus to some species, or of a species to some individual. -- H.G.

Contradictio in adjecto
A logical inconsistency between a noun and its modifying adjective. A favorite example is the phrase 'round square.' -- A.C.

Contradiction, law of
, is given by traditional logicians as 'A is B and A is not B cannot both be true.' It is usually taken to be the theorem of the propositional calculus, ~[p~p]. In use, however, the name often seems to refer to the syntactical principle or precept which may be formulated as follows: A logical discipline containing (an applied) propositional...

Contrapletes
The two opposites or poles of a relationship which while they stand over against each other at the same time fulfil one another. Polarity, Dyadism, Harmony of opposites. -- R.T.F.

Contraposition
The recommended use of this word is that according to which the contrapositive of S(s) ?_x P(x) is ~P(x) ?_x ~S(x). This is, however, not quite strictly in accordance with traditional terminology; see Logic, formal, § 4. -- A.C.

Contraries
(a) Logic: (i) Terms: According to Aristotle, Categ. 1lb-18, contrariety is one of the four kinds of opposition between concepts: contradictory, privative, contrary, relative. Those terms are contrary 'which, in the same genus, are separated by the greatest possible difference' ib. 6a-17. Thus pairs of contraries belong to the same genus, or contr...

Contrast, Association by
(Lat. contrastare, to stand opposed to) Association in accordance with the principle proposed by Aristotle but rejected by Hartley, J. S. Mill and other associationists that contrasting qualities tend to reinstate one another in consciousness. See Association, Laws of. -- L.W.

Contrast
(contrastare, to stand opposed to) Relation, complementary to resemblance, obtaining between qualities. In a continuous qualitative series, the contrast increases as the resemblance diminishes. -- L.W.

Contrast
In aesthetics: the term may refer either to the presence in the object contemplated of contrasting elements (colors, sounds, characters, etc.), or to the principle that the presence of such contrasting elements is a common feature of beautiful objects which, within limits, enhances their beauty. -- W.K.F.

Convention
(Lat. conveniens, suitable) Any proposition whose truth is determined not by fact but by social agreement or usage. In Democritus, 'Sweet is sweet, bitter is bitter, color is color by convention (nomoi).' (Diels, Frag. d. Vorsokratiker B. 125) The Sophists (q.v.) regarded all laws and ethical principles as conventions. -- A.C.B.

Conventionalism
Any doctrine according to which a priori truth, or the truth of propositions of logic, or the truth of propositions (or of sentences) demonstrable by purely logical means, is a matter of linguistic or postulational convention (and thus not absolute in character). H. Poincare (q.v.) regarded the choice of axioms as conventional (cf. Science et hypo...

Converse
See logic, formal, §§ 4, 8.

Coordinates
(from Lat. co + ordinare, to regulate) Logical: Items of the same order and rank in a scheme of classification. Also, class characteristics serving as indices of order or distinction among the elements of a series or assemblage. -- O.F.W. In mathematics, any system of designating points by means of ordered sets of n numbers may be called an n-dime...

Copula
The traditional analysis of a proposition into subject and predicate involves a third part, the copula (is, are, is not, are not), binding the subject and predicate together into an assertion either of affirmation or of denial. It is now, however, commonly held that several wholly different meanings of the verb to be should be distinguished in thi...

Corollary
(Lat. corollarium, corollary) An immediate consequence of a theorem (q.v.). -- A.C.B.

Corporative State
A type of state in which political and economic life is regulated through the medium of occupational associations. 'Corporations' in Italy are the central liaison organs through which the employers and the workers organizations are brought together. -- W.E.

Corrective Justice
Justice as exhibited in the rectification of wrongs committed by membeis of a community in their transactions with each other; distinguished from distributive justice (q.v.) (Aristotle's Ethics). -- G.R.M.