Western Civ Terms - Fall '13

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empiricism

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Any philosophical position that emphasizes the role of experience in the formation of our knowledge and beliefs.

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empiricism

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This position sees scientific observation and induction as the primary avenue to reliable knowledge.

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empiricism

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It does not deny the role of logical deduction, but its emphasis is on the import of empirical induction.

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rationalism

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Any philosophical position that emphasizes the role of reason and reasoning in the formation of our knowledge and beliefs.

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rationalism

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This position tends to see logical deduction (as in mathematics or geometry) as the primary avenue to reliable knowledge.

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rationalism

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It does not deny the role of empirical induction, but its emphasis is on the import of indubitable rational deduction.

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British empiricism

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The form of empiricism that developed in the early modern period of philosophy among the philosophers in the British Isles.

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British empiricism

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It tended to dismiss metaphysics and metaphysical speculation as beyond the limits of reliable knowledge and belief.

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Continental rationalism

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The form of rationalism that developed in the early modern period of philosophy among philosopher on the continent of Europe.

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Continental rationalism

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It shared a common view of reality with its philosophical cousin, but it tended to include metaphysics and metaphysical speculation as a valid pursuit of philosophy.

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British empiricists

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Philosophers who advanced various versions of a distinctive form of empiricism in the early modern period of philosophy.

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British empiricists

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The major philosophers who contributed to this tradition were John Locke, David Hume, George Berkeley, and Thomas Reid (although Reid is usually ignored by most historians of philosophy). Francis Bacon was an earlier forerunner who laid the groundwork for this school of thought.

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Continental rationalists

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Those philosophers who advanced various versions of a distinctive form of rationalism in the early modern period of philosophy.

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Continental rationalists

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The major philosophers who contributed to this tradition were Rene Descartes, Wilfried Gottlieb Leibniz, and Baruch Spinoza.

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Christian Wolff

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The philosopher who systematized and extended the philosophical ideas of Leibniz and who served as Immanuel Kant's mentor

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Rene Descartes

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The French philosopher who began the philosophical movement known as Continental rationalism.

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Rene Descartes

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The "Father of Modern Philosophy"

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Father Nicolas Malebranche

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The Cartesian philosopher who developed the philosophical position known as occasionalism.

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occasionalism

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The philosophical position that holds that each and every moment in time is created anew directly by God. It is the position that each moment in time is like the next frame in a clay-mation production, except that each frame is created from nothing.

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David Hume

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An influential British philosopher in the tradition of British empiricism who took empiricism to its radical extremes and advocated a sort of moderate skepticism. He was a particularly strong skeptic with regard to religion, theism, and Christianity.

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John Locke

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A prolific British philosopher who founded the school of British empiricism.

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John Locke

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A philosopher who is perhaps best known for his social, legal and political philosophy. This man's political ideas were among the important ideas that helped shape the thinking of the founders of the United States.

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Thomas Reid

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The founder and leading philosopher in that school of thought known as Scottish Common Sense philosophy. He tried to answer and refute the skepticism of David Hume.

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George Berkeley

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A British empiricist who advocated an idealistic philosophy. He believed that, in terms of the true ontological nature of reality, nothing existed but ideas available to be perceived by human minds or the divine mind.

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Immanuel Kant

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A very important and influential German philosopher who developed a system of ideas he called Transcendental Idealism.

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Immanuel Kant

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This man's important suggestion was that human experience is the result of reason representing the external world to itself in a manner intrinsic to the nature of structure of reason itself. Accordingly, parts of human experience are supplied by human reason itself and are not derived from input by the external world. In other words, part of what constitutes human experience is a priori; it it is not derived from our experience but is rather prerequisite to the experience.

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modern philosophy

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That period of philosophy, beginning with Descartes, that no longer seeks to justify its beliefs by appealing to the authority of the Church or Aristotle or other authorities, but by appealing to the authority of clear reason itself.

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enlightenment

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An intellectual movement of the 17th and 18th centuries instigated by the emergence of modern philosophy - where the authority of the church and church-sanctioned authority was replaced by the authority of individual human reasoning itself.

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enlightenment

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It was characterized by an optimism about the powers of human reason, a keen interest in natural science and a corresponding disparagement of religious and metaphysical ideas, the promotion of religious tolerance, and a desire to construct governments free of oppression and tyranny.

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system/doctrine of ideas

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The term Thomas Reid gave to the theory of knowledge and perception that was shared by Descartes, Locke, and their successors.

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system/doctrine of ideas

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The system held that the human mind created a facsimile of those external objects that we perceived in sense experience and that those facsimiles, or "ideas", were the direct objects of our knowledge.

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system/doctrine of ideas

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The belief that our knowledge of the world consisted of our knowledge of those ideas of the world created by and contained within our own mind.

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system/doctrine of ideas

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This system inevitably led to skepticism, for one could have no way of knowing whether the ideas of the world in one's own mind correspond with the external world itself.

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system/doctrine of ideas

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Reid's philosophy proposed an alternative theory of knowledge and perception to those that presupposed this system.

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natural language

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A sort of communication proposed by Thomas Reid.

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natural language

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In contrast to an "artificial" language like French or English, Reid believed that the meaning of this form of communication is innately understood by the human mind, having been created by God to understand it innately.

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natural language

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Reid believed that the sensations arising from the senses' contact with the external world were a kind of this communication.

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a priori

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A description of a kind of knowledge that is not derived from, based on, nor justified on the ground of our experience, but rather arises, is derived, and finds justification independently of any experience.

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a priori

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We know that such principles are true quite independently of any experience whatsoever. This does not describe when nor how such knowledge arises. It is not suggesting that we have such a belief "before" we have any experience. We may very well develop such beliefs only after many years of experience. But we do not develop such beliefs ON THE BASIS of our experience. Our basis for such beliefs is independent of our experience.

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a posteriori

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A description of a kind of knowledge that is derived from, based on, and justified on the ground of our experience. We could never know that such beliefs are true apart from a basis in our experience.

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analytic

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A description of a proposition where the predicate is logically contained in the subject.

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synthetic

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A description of a proposition where the predicate is not logically contained in the subject but rather is making a claim about the subject that augments our knowledge of the subject.

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transcendental deduction/argument

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A form of argumentation central to Kant's philosophy and conclusions.

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transcendental deduction/argument

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An argument with the following structure: We know that x, y, and z. I can offer an explanation of reality that can account for why x, y, and z are true. I submit that no other explanation of reality exists (or could exist) that can account for why x, y, and z are true. Therefore, since x, y, and z are true and no other explanation of reality but mine can account for why they are true, it follows that my explanation of reality must be true.

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transcendental deduction/argument

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When one concludes something about the way things are that does not involve an object of my experience, but rather that transcends my experience.

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transcendental deduction/argument

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It is a way of gaining knowledge of reality transcending my experience without being able to derive that knowledge empirically from my experience.

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transcendental/critical idealism

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The name Kant gave to his philosophy.

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transcendental/critical idealism

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Derived from the fact that our empirical experience is, in large measure, constituted of a priori "ideas" or concepts which themselves transcend our ecperience and are not derived from our experience.

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Kant's "Copernican Revolution"

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The description given to Kant's radical "revolution" in philosophical thought.

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Kant's "Copernican Revolution"

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The rejection of the phenomena or experiences of the external world as of ultimate epistemological worth in favor of a more rationally compelling view of the nature of reality. Namely, reality as it is in and of itself is not and cannot be known or experienced by us. The phenomena of our experience are constructed by the human mind in terms of a priori intuitions and concepts that dictate the form in which we can experience reality.

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common sense

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That foundational level of knowledge that serves as the ground and basis for all other beliefs a human being holds.

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common sense

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It is a level of beliefs so fundamental to human knowing that no mentally healthy human being would ever seriously doubt such beliefs; such beliefs - even if doubted in theory - could never be doubted in practice.

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Scottish Common Sense Philosophy

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The school of philosophy, founded by Thomas Reid, that prevailed in the Scottish universities in the late 1700's and well into the 1800's.

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Scottish Common Sense Philosophy

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A very influential movement within the intellectual culture of early America

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Scottish Common Sense Philosophy

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After Reid and the lesser-known Dugald Stewart, the movement took a much more skeptical and anti-Christian turn in the likes of Sir William Hamilton.

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Reformation

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A development in 16th century Europe in which theologians and religious leaders tried to bring about a major reformation of the church but were excommunicated. They formed independent church organizations which became known as the Protestant churches.

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Martin Luther

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An Augustinian monk who unintentionally began the Reformation by challenging some of the practices of the Catholic church on theological grounds by appealing directly to Scripture.

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John Calvin

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A Frenchman who was forced to flee to Switzerland where he became the leader of Geneva and a major theologian for Protestant Christianity.

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Zwingli

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A 16th century Swiss theologian who broke with Luther over the significance of the Eucharist. He argued against Luther that the Eucharist was purely symbolic.

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Ignatius Loyola

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The founder of the Society of Jesus, the Jesuits.

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Ignatius Loyola

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His teaching stressed the need for spiritual disciplines as preparation to make oneself fit to fight against errant doctrines.

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Anabaptists

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The most radical denomination that grew out of the Reformation.

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Anabaptists

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There are many different groups that fall into this category but they all share the belief that the church must be pure and do this by withdrawing from the world.

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Anabaptists

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As non-participants in the activities of society, they were seen as pariahs by Catholics, Lutherans, and Calvinists alike.

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Counter Reformation

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A conservative reaction by the Catholic Church to the challenge of Protestant theology. It stressed papal authority and the need for the church to purify itself.

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Inquisition

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A department of the Catholic Church, first established to fight against heresy in the south of France in the 1300's. It was later used to fight against any kind of dissension from the Catholic Church during the 1500 and 1600's.

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William Shakespeare

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An English playwright and poet of the late 16th and early 17th centuries. He is generally considered the most important literary figure in English Literature.

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Galileo

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The Italian astronomer who vigorously defended the heliocentric model of the solar system. His arguments brought him into conflict with the Catholic Church, and he was forced to recant.

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Copernicus

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The Polish astronomer who first proposed a heliocentric model of the solar system.

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Ptolemaic system

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The model of the solar system that reigned supreme from Hellenistic times until the Renaissance,

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Ptolemaic system

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It had the earth at the center with the planets revolving around it in a course of epicycles within cycles.

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cogito ergo sum

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The Latin phrase that expresses the key tenant of Descartes' epistemological reasoning, "I think therefore I am"

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deduction

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A form of reasoning that moves from general principles and definitions to more specific assertions following the rules of formal logic.

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induction

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A form of reasoning that begins with observations of individual phenomena and ends with the assertion of a general principle that accounts for

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Thomas Hobbes

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The English political scientist who argued that man is naturally in a state of war with another and submits to the power of the state as a lesser evil.

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English Revolution

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When the pro-Catholic king Charles I was overthrown and beheaded by Puritan-led resistance. It was followed, and in a sense completed, by the Glorious Revolution in which William and Mary emerged victorious. This resulted in the first constitutional monarchy.

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Oliver Cromwell

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The general who led his New Model Army against King Charles in the English Revolution.

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Oliver Cromwell

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After the King was overthrown, he refused to disband his army and became dictator of England.

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Puritans

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A segment of the Church of England that embraced Calvinistic theology and called for extensive reforms of the church.

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Puritans

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They fell into two camps - those who were willing to be a part of the church and work for reform from within and those who refused to be members of the Church of England until it reformed (Separatists).

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Philosophes

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The term used to describe those eighteenth century thinkers, primarily French, who advocated the use of state power to encourage the use of science to establish sound government, encourage education, and solve social ills.

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Enlightened Despots

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Young rulers who came to Power in large European states during the eighteenth century with the popular expectation that they would conduct their rule in the spirit of the Enlightenment.

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Federalist Papers

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A series of articles published for the purpose of persuading the American public to vote for ratification of the Constitution by explaining and defending the provisions contained in it.

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Representative democracy

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A form of government in which the legislators and chief administrators are elected by the people to serve short terms in that capacity.

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radical democracy

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A form of government in which the people are directly involved in the day-to-day matters of governance.

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laissez-faire economics

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An economic policy which is based on the assumption that the economy works best and provides the most benefits to the general good when government involvement and regulation is minimal.

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mercantile economics

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A theory of national economic management that tries to increase the amount of gold in the possession of the state by using government power to develop industry, control trade, and tax heavily.

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invisible hand

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The term used by Adam Smith to describe the mysterious and impersonal force by which the market automatically adjusts supply to meet demand.

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Industrial Revolution

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The transformation whereby human society abandoned an agrarian economic and social system in favor of an industrial one.