BCS Written Philosophy key terms

Aristotle's term for human flourishing or living well, the final goal of action sought for its own sake rather than as a means to something else.

An approach holding that right action flows from stable good character traits, such as courage and justice, rather than from rules or consequences alone.

The capacity to perceive what a concrete situation calls for and to deliberate well about action, described by Aristotle as phronesis and acquired through experience.

Explanation of something by reference to the purpose or end it serves; in classical thought, the claim that natural things have inherent goals toward which they tend.

Aristotle's scheme explaining a thing through its material, its form, the source of its coming to be, and the end it serves.

The doctrine that every concrete thing is a compound of matter and form, with form making the thing the kind of thing it is.

Separate, non-physical paradigms that sensible things imitate or participate in; on Plato's account they are the proper objects of knowledge rather than opinion.

The relation by which a sensible particular depends on and derives its character from a Form, without being identical with it.

Plato's image of prisoners mistaking shadows for reality, illustrating the ascent from sensory illusion through belief to knowledge of the Forms.

Knowledge in the strict sense: a justified grasp of necessary truths, distinguished from mere true belief and from opinion about changeable things.

That which exists in its own right and underlies properties; in Aristotelian thought the primary case is the individual composite of matter and form.

The most general classifications of what can be said of beings, such as substance, quality, quantity, and relation, used to map ontological structure.

The act of attributing a property or kind to a subject, as when a general term is said of an individual thing.

A deductive argument in which two premises sharing a middle term jointly entail a conclusion connecting the remaining terms.

The property of an argument whose conclusion cannot be false while all its premises are true, owing to the argument's form.

The combination of validity with actually true premises, so that a sound argument guarantees a true conclusion.

The inference pattern that from a conditional and the affirmation of its antecedent one may conclude the consequent.

A recurring pattern of reasoning that appears persuasive but fails to support its conclusion, whether through faulty form or irrelevant content.

The methodological principle that entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity, favouring simpler explanations when competing accounts fit the evidence equally.

The view that only particular things exist and that general terms such as species or properties are names or concepts rather than independently real entities.

Properties or kinds that can be shared by many particulars at once; the dispute concerns whether such items exist independently of the things instantiating them.

An argument inferring God's existence from the concept of a greatest conceivable being, contending that a being lacking existence would be less than greatest.

A family of arguments inferring a first cause or necessary ground from the existence of contingent, caused, or changing things.

The status of a proposition that could not be false, or of a being whose non-existence is impossible, contrasted with what merely happens to be so.

Knowledge or justification that does not depend on sensory experience for its warrant, as in mathematics or basic logical principles.

Knowledge or justification that depends on experience or observation for its warrant, as in empirical science and everyday perception.

The doctrine that all substantive knowledge or ideas derive ultimately from sensory experience, denying that reason alone can supply content about the world.

The doctrine that reason, independent of sense experience, can furnish substantive knowledge of reality, including necessary truths about the world.

Descartes' formulation that the very act of doubting or thinking establishes the thinker's existence as an indubitable starting point for knowledge.

Descartes' procedure of withholding assent from anything that can be doubted, in order to find a foundation immune to sceptical challenge.

The position that knowledge, or justified belief, about some or all domains is unattainable or must be suspended.

The traditional analysis of knowledge as belief that is true and supported by adequate justification, famously challenged by Gettier-style counterexamples.

Kant's supreme moral principle, requiring that one act only on maxims that could be willed as universal law and never treat humanity merely as a means.

An ethics holding that certain acts are right or wrong in themselves, independently of their consequences, typically grounded in duties or rules.

A family of theories assessing acts solely by the value of their outcomes, with utilitarianism as the best-known member.

The measure of benefit or welfare used in utilitarian calculation, often understood as happiness or preference satisfaction summed across affected parties.

The capacity of an agent to govern itself by principles it endorses, central to Kantian ethics and to political theories of self-rule.

The idea that political authority derives from an agreement, actual or hypothetical, among those subject to it.

A thought-experiment describing human life apart from political institutions, used to justify or critique forms of government.

A device for choosing principles of justice while ignorant of one's own talents, position, and conception of the good, so that choice is impartial.

Rawls' theory that principles of justice are those rational parties would agree to behind a veil of ignorance, combining equal basic liberties with fair distribution.

The subjective, felt character of experience, such as the distinctive way pain or redness appears to the one undergoing it.

The view that everything that exists is physical, or that mental states are identical with or realised by physical states.

The view that mind and body are distinct kinds of thing or property, so that mental phenomena are not exhausted by the physical.

The state of being aware of something or of oneself, encompassing phenomenal experience and the capacity for thought about one's own states.

The directedness of mental states toward objects or contents, as when a belief is always a belief about something.

Frege's distinction between the mode of presentation of an expression and the object it designates, explaining how identity statements can be informative.

An utterance understood as an action, such as promising, warning, or asserting, whose performance depends on conventions and appropriate circumstances.

What an expression or utterance conveys; theories differ over whether this is an object, a concept, a use, or a pattern of truth conditions.

The property of a hypothesis being open to refutation by possible observation, proposed as a demarcation criterion between science and non-science.

In Kuhn's account, the shared assumptions, methods, and exemplary problems that define a scientific community during a period of normal research.

Inference from observed cases to a general conclusion or to predictions about unobserved cases, whose justification remains philosophically contested.

A set of apparently acceptable premises or principles that yields an unacceptable or contradictory conclusion, prompting revision of at least one element.