QCAA Philosophy & Reason key terms

A set of statements in which one or more premises are offered as support for a conclusion, aiming to show that the conclusion is reasonable to accept.

A statement in an argument offered as a reason for accepting the conclusion; premises are the supporting evidence or grounds the arguer provides.

The statement an argument is trying to establish, which the premises are intended to support or make probable.

The mental move from premises to a conclusion; the reasoning step by which accepted statements are taken to justify accepting another statement.

A property of deductive arguments where, if the premises were all true, the conclusion could not possibly be false; validity concerns form, not actual truth.

A property of deductive arguments that are both valid in form and have all premises actually true, so the conclusion must be true.

A property of arguments where true premises make the conclusion highly probable without guaranteeing it; strength comes in degrees.

Reasoning in which the conclusion is claimed to follow necessarily from the premises, so accepting the premises commits you to the conclusion.

Reasoning that generalises from observed cases to wider claims or predicts future cases, producing conclusions that are probable rather than certain.

Reasoning to the best explanation, where competing hypotheses are compared and the one that best accounts for the evidence is accepted.

The structure of an argument abstracted from its content, shown by replacing specific terms with placeholders to reveal whether the pattern is valid.

A case in which the premises of an argument are true but the conclusion is false, used to demonstrate that the argument's form is invalid.

A common pattern of reasoning that appears persuasive but fails to provide genuine support for its conclusion because of a structural or rhetorical flaw.

A fallacy in which an opponent's position is distorted or exaggerated into a weaker version that is then refuted in place of the real view.

A fallacy that attacks the person making an argument rather than addressing the reasons and evidence they present.

A fallacy that presents only two options as available when other alternatives exist, forcing a choice between artificially limited possibilities.

A fallacy in which the conclusion is assumed in the premises, so the argument presupposes what it is supposed to prove.

Reasoning in which a claim is supported by another claim that ultimately depends on the first, producing no independent justification.

A condition that must be present for something to occur, so its absence guarantees the outcome will not happen, though its presence may not be enough.

A condition whose presence guarantees that something occurs, though the outcome might still happen through other means if it is absent.

The philosophical method of clarifying a concept by specifying the conditions under which it correctly applies, often tested against imagined cases.

An imagined scenario constructed to test a philosophical claim or concept by isolating relevant features and setting aside practical complications.

A considered pre-theoretical judgement about whether a case falls under a concept, used as evidence that a philosophical theory must accommodate.

A method of adjusting particular judgements and general principles until they cohere, revising whichever seems less credible when they conflict.

The view that knowledge or justified belief about some domain is impossible or far harder to attain than commonly assumed.

The reason or evidence that makes a belief reasonable to hold; a central condition alongside truth and belief in analyses of knowledge.

Traditionally analysed as justified true belief, though cases of accidentally justified true belief raise doubts about whether these conditions suffice.

A class of cases where a person has a justified true belief that nonetheless seems not to count as knowledge, challenging the traditional analysis.

The principle that if you know something, and know that it entails another proposition, you can also know that further proposition.

The view that a belief is justified when it is produced by a cognitive process that reliably generates true beliefs.

The metaphysical view that reality consists fundamentally of physical matter or processes, with mental phenomena either identical to or dependent on them.

The view that mind and body are distinct kinds of substance or property, so mental states cannot be fully reduced to physical states.

The subjective, felt qualities of conscious experience, such as the redness of red or the sting of pain, accessible only from the first-person perspective.

The question of what makes a person the same individual over time, despite physical and psychological changes.

The capacity of agents to choose and act on their own reasons, contested by those who hold that prior causes determine all events.

The thesis that every event, including human choices, is caused by prior conditions such that it could not have occurred otherwise.

The position that free will and determinism are compatible, reinterpreting freedom as acting according to one's own desires without external constraint.

The branch of ethics examining the nature and status of moral claims, including whether they can be true and what makes them true.

The view that there are moral facts that hold independently of what anyone believes or feels about them.

The view that the truth of moral judgements depends on the standards of a particular culture or individual rather than on universal facts.