Philosophy Glossary Terms

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Philosopher

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lover of wisdome

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philosophical project

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determined by the question the philosopher is asking

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philosophical system

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an attempt to construct philosophy from the ground up which find explanations for all the central philosophical questions

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Transcendent

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divine attribute, existing above and indepndently of the material world

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immanent

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divine attribute, present in the cosmost but no existing apart from it

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fate

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idea that there is an inevitable necessity that controls everything

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predestinations

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God chooses in advance those who will be saved either through foreknowledge that they will respond grace, or without forknowledge and response to grace is affected by God

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grace

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divine gifts without which human salvation would be impossible

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purpose

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the reason something exists or is done; the desired results

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free will

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affirmation of the power of human choice to affect an individual's destiny

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determinism

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fate and free will

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metaphysics

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the branch of philosophy (philosophical project) that treats of first principles (the larger questions beyond and supporting physical reality)

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epistemology

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the study of knowledge, asks what knowledge is and how we can know what we know, one of five classical fields of philosophical inquiry, along with aesthetics, ethics, logic and metaphysics

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archetypes

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the original pattern or model from which all things of the same kind are copied or on which they are based (archetypal, archetypical, forms, ideas)

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Rationalist (rationalism)

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someone who believes that human reason is the primary source of our knowledge of the world

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Empiricist (Empiricism)

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an empiricist will derive all knowledge of the world from what our senses tell us

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continental rationalist

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descartes, spinoza, and leiniz

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British empiricists

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locke, hume and berkeley

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cosmological

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everything that is caused must have a first cause

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ontology

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a branch of metaphysics that studies the nature of existence or being as such

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ontological

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God exists because we can conceive of God

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Teleological

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the design inherent in creation implies a designer

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Atheist

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denies the existence of superhuman beings, of any form of transcendent order or meaning in the universe

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Deist

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Believes God is the creator of the universe but does not thereafter exert control over creation

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Theist

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believes in the existence of one or more divine beings (usually associated with the divine being intimately involved in the world)

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monotheism

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belief that there is only one God, associated with semetic religions-Judaism, Christianity, Islam-and a linear, historical view of the world

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polytheism

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belief that there are many gods, associated with indo-european religions-Greek and Roman, Buddhism, Hinduism,-and a cyclical view of the world

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Paradigm

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an example serving as a model or pattern, often the world paradigm is substituted for the worldview, so that the idea of a clockwork universe became the paradigm of Western though for several hundred years until overshadowed by the paradigm of quantum physics

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feudalism

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economy during the Middle Ages, based on barter, powerful land-owning nobles and very poor peasants

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Hellenism

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the successors of socrates, plato and aristotle-a period of about 800 years from the death of Aristotle the fall of the Roman Empire in 400 CE

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extension

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one of two forms of substance-the property of a body by which it occupies space, length, weight, duration, mass

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matter

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the substance of which any physical object consist

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materialism

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the doctrine that only matter exist, the world and all that is in it operates as a machine

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determinism

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applied primarily to physical laws-there is an unalterable chain of events in which each event is preceded, or caused by another

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Monism

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the belief that the world consists of only one substance-such as atoms, spirit, etc.

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dualism

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the belief that the world consit of two substance-mind/soul and body/matter-associated strongly with Descartes

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mathematics

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the language in which many believe the book of nature to be written

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primary qualities

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the qualities of objects with extension-weight, motion, number, that the sense can reproduce objectively

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secondary qualities

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qualities produced only by the effect of the outer reality on our senses-colog, smell, taste, sound, cannot determine that they are inherent in the things themselves