"Absolute
the","That which is unconditioned and uncaused by anything else; it is frequently thought of as God, a perfect and solitary, self-caused eternal... [Show More] being that is the source or essence of all that exists but that is itself beyond the possibility of conceptualization or definition",
Absolute Idealism
The early nineteenth-century school of philosophy that maintained that being is the transcendental unfolding or expression of thought or reason,
Academics
Philosophers of the third and second centuries B.C.E. in what had been Plato's Academy; they had the reputation of maintaining that all things are inapprehensible,
Act-utilitarianism
A form of utilitarianism (subscribed to by Bentham) in which the rightness of an act is determined by its effect on the general happiness,
Aesthetics
The philosophical study of art and of value judgments about art and of beauty in general,
Alterity
"The condition of being ""Other"" to the center of power and authority",
Analytic philosophy
The predominant twentieth-century philosophical tradition in English-speaking countries; analytic philosophy has its roots in British empiricism and holds that analysis is the proper method of philosophy,
Analytic statement
(Quine): A statement that holds come what may,
Anarchism
A utopian political theory that seeks to eliminate all authority and state rule in favor of a society based on voluntary cooperation and free association of individuals and groups,
Antirepresentationalism
A philosophy that denies that the mind or language contains or is a representation of reality,
Appeal to emotion
Trying to establish a position by playing on someone's emotions,
Applied ethics
"Moral theory applied to speciï¬c contemporary moral issues, such as abortion, afï¬rmative action, pornography, capital punishment, and so on",
A priori/a posteriori pair
"In the philosophy of Saul Kripke, an a priori truth is a statement known to be true independently of any experience, and its opposite, an a posteriori truth, is a statement known to be true through experience",
A priori principle
A proposition whose truth we do not need to know through sensory experience and that no conceivable experience could serve to refute,
Argument
A reason for accepting a position,
Argument by analogy
"As in an argument for the existence of God: the idea that the world is analogous to a human contrivance and therefore, just as the human contrivance has a creator, the world must also have a creator",
Argument from design
A proof for the existence of God based on the idea that the universe and its parts give evidence of purpose or design and therefore require a divine designer,
Argumentum ad hominem
The mistaken idea that you can successfully challenge any view by criticizing the person whose view it is,
Ataraxia
The goal of unperturbedness and tranquility of mind that was considered the highest good by ancient thinkers such as the Skeptics,
Atomism
"The ancient Greek philosophy that holds that all things are composed of simple, indivisible minute particles",
Authenticity
"In Sartre's philosophy, a way of understanding the essential nature of the human being by seeing it as a totality",
Bad Faith
"In the philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre, essentially self-deception or lying to oneself, especially when this takes the form of blaming circumstances for one's fate and not seizing the freedom to realize oneself in action",
Begging the question
The fallacy of assuming as a premise the very conclusion of the argument is intended to prove,
Behaviorism
"The methodological principle in psychology according to which meaningful psychological inquiry conï¬nes itself to psychological phenomena that can be behaviorally deï¬ned; the theory in philosophy that when we talk about a person's mental states, we are referring in fact to the person's disposition to behave in certain ways",
Buddhism
"A philosophical tradition, founded by Gautama Siddhartha Buddha in the ï¬fth century B.C.E., that took on various forms as a religion and spread throughout Asia; Buddhism attempts to help the individual conquer the suffering and mutability of human existence through the elimination of desire and ego and attainment of the state of nirvana",
Bushido
"The way or ethic of the samurai warrior, based on service and demanding rigorous training, usually both in the military and literary arts",
Capabilities approach
"In the philosophy of Martha Nussbaum, the principle that all nations and governments should provide for the core ingredients of human dignity",
Capitalism
An economic system in which ownership of the means of production and distribution is maintained mostly by private individuals and corporations,
Categorical imperative
"Immanuel Kant's formulation of a moral law that holds unconditionally, that is, categorically; in its most common formulation, states that you are to act in such a way that you could desire the principle on which you act to be a universal law",
Clear and distinct criterion
"René Descartes' criterion of truth, according to which that, and only that, which is perceived as clearly and distinctly as the fact of one's own existence is certain",
Code Pink
A third wave women's grassroots peace and justice movement that opposes any kind of military force,
Communism
"(capital ""c"") The ideology of the Communist Party; (lowercase ""c"") an economic system",
Communitarian
"One who holds that there is a common good deï¬ned by one's society, the attainment of which has priority over individual liberty",
Conceptualism
The theory that universals are concepts and exist only in the mind,
Confucianism
A philosophical tradition that began with Confucius in the sixth century B.C.E. and continues to the present day; Confucianism is a practical philosophy that hopes to establish a better world order by means of moral perfection of the individual,
Consequentialism
Ethical theories that evaluate actions by their consequences,
Conservatism
A political philosophy based on respect for established institutions and traditions and that favors preservation of the status quo over social experimentation,
Continental philosophy
"The philosophical traditions of continental Europe; includes phenomenology, existentialism, hermeneutics, deconstruction, and critical theory",
Contractarian theory
"The political theory according to which a legitimate state exists only by virtue of an agreement or ""contract"" among the subjects of the state", [Show Less]
