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20 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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Epistemology
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The study of human knowledge, its nature, its sources, its justification.
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Metaphysics
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The study of the most basic (or “first”) principles. Traditionally, the study of ultimate reality, or “Being as such.” Popularly, any kind of very abstract or obscure thinking. Most philosophers today would define metaphysics as the study of the most general concepts of science and human life, for example, “reality,” “existence,” “freedom,” “God,” “soul,” “action,” “mind.” In general, we can divide metaphysics into ontology, cosmology, and an ill-defined set of problems concerning God and the immortality of the human soul.
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Enlightenment
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A cultural and philosophical movement in the eighteenth century in Europe defined by a new confidence in human reason and individual autonomy. Some of the major figures of this movement were Rene Descartes, the metaphysician Baron Henri d’Holbach, the political philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and the political reformer-writer Voltaire in France. In Great Britain, Enlightenment philosophers were John Locke and David Hume; in Germany, Immanuel Kant.
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Rationalism
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The philosophy that is characterized by its confidence in reason, and intuition in particular, to know reality independently of experience. Continental rationalism is usually reserved for three European philosophers, Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz.
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Empiricism
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The philosophy that demands that all knowledge, except for certain logical truths and principles of mathematics, comes from experience. British empiricism is often used to refer specifically to the three philosophers Locke, Berkeley, and Hume. It is still very much alive, however, and includes Bertrand Russell in the twentieth century and a great many philosophers of the past fifty or so years who have called themselves “logical empiricists” (better known as logical positivists).
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Monism
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The metaphysical view that there is ultimately only one substance, that all reality is one. Less strictly, it may be applied to philosophers who believe in only one kind of substance.
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Dualism
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The distinction between mind and body as separate substances, or very different kinds of states and events with radically different properties.
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Pluralism
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The metaphysical view that there are many distinct substances in the universe and, perhaps, many different kinds of substances as well.
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Rene Descartes
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French philosopher who is usually considered the “father of modern philosophy.” He was raised in the French aristocracy and educated the excellent Jesuit College of La Fleche. He became skilled in the classics, law, and medicine; however, he decided that they fell far short of proper knowledge, and so he turned to modern science and mathematics. His first book was a defence of Copernicus, which he prudently did not publish. He discovered, while still a young man, the connections between algebra and geometry (which we now call “analytic geometry”) and used this discovery as a model for the rest of his career. Basing the principles of philosophy and theology on a similar mathematical basis, he was able to develop a method in philosophy that could be carried through according to individual reason and no longer depended upon appeal to authorities whose insights and methods were questionable. He sought a basic premise from which, as in geometrical proof, he could deduce all those principles that could be known with certainty.
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Baruch (Benedictus de) Spinoza
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Spinoza was born Baruch ben Michael, the son of Jewish refugees from the Spanish Inquisition. He was born and grew up in Amsterdam, a relative haven of toleration in a world still dangerous because of religious hatreds. He studied to be a rabbi, making himself familiar with Christian theology as well. He was always a recluse who wandered about the country making a living by grinding lenses, and was later ostracized by his fellow Jews for his heretical beliefs. His best-known book is Ethics (1677); it is a radical reinterpretation of God as identical to the universe (pantheism) and a protracted argument concerning the uselessness of human struggle in the face of a thoroughly determined universe.
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Epistemology
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The study of human knowledge, its nature, its sources, its justification.
|
|
|
Metaphysics
|
The study of the most basic (or “first”) principles. Traditionally, the study of ultimate reality, or “Being as such.” Popularly, any kind of very abstract or obscure thinking. Most philosophers today would define metaphysics as the study of the most general concepts of science and human life, for example, “reality,” “existence,” “freedom,” “God,” “soul,” “action,” “mind.” In general, we can divide metaphysics into ontology, cosmology, and an ill-defined set of problems concerning God and the immortality of the human soul.
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|
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Enlightenment
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A cultural and philosophical movement in the eighteenth century in Europe defined by a new confidence in human reason and individual autonomy. Some of the major figures of this movement were Rene Descartes, the metaphysician Baron Henri d’Holbach, the political philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and the political reformer-writer Voltaire in France. In Great Britain, Enlightenment philosophers were John Locke and David Hume; in Germany, Immanuel Kant.
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Rationalism
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The philosophy that is characterized by its confidence in reason, and intuition in particular, to know reality independently of experience. Continental rationalism is usually reserved for three European philosophers, Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz.
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Empiricism
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The philosophy that demands that all knowledge, except for certain logical truths and principles of mathematics, comes from experience. British empiricism is often used to refer specifically to the three philosophers Locke, Berkeley, and Hume. It is still very much alive, however, and includes Bertrand Russell in the twentieth century and a great many philosophers of the past fifty or so years who have called themselves “logical empiricists” (better known as logical positivists).
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Monism
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The metaphysical view that there is ultimately only one substance, that all reality is one. Less strictly, it may be applied to philosophers who believe in only one kind of substance.
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Dualism
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The distinction between mind and body as separate substances, or very different kinds of states and events with radically different properties.
|
|
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Pluralism
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The metaphysical view that there are many distinct substances in the universe and, perhaps, many different kinds of substances as well.
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Rene Descartes
|
French philosopher who is usually considered the “father of modern philosophy.” He was raised in the French aristocracy and educated the excellent Jesuit College of La Fleche. He became skilled in the classics, law, and medicine; however, he decided that they fell far short of proper knowledge, and so he turned to modern science and mathematics. His first book was a defence of Copernicus, which he prudently did not publish. He discovered, while still a young man, the connections between algebra and geometry (which we now call “analytic geometry”) and used this discovery as a model for the rest of his career. Basing the principles of philosophy and theology on a similar mathematical basis, he was able to develop a method in philosophy that could be carried through according to individual reason and no longer depended upon appeal to authorities whose insights and methods were questionable. He sought a basic premise from which, as in geometrical proof, he could deduce all those principles that could be known with certainty.
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Baruch (Benedictus de) Spinoza
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Spinoza was born Baruch ben Michael, the son of Jewish refugees from the Spanish Inquisition. He was born and grew up in Amsterdam, a relative haven of toleration in a world still dangerous because of religious hatreds. He studied to be a rabbi, making himself familiar with Christian theology as well. He was always a recluse who wandered about the country making a living by grinding lenses, and was later ostracized by his fellow Jews for his heretical beliefs. His best-known book is Ethics (1677); it is a radical reinterpretation of God as identical to the universe (pantheism) and a protracted argument concerning the uselessness of human struggle in the face of a thoroughly determined universe.
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