Bulgaria DZI Philosophy flashcards

32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

Elenchus

The Socratic method of cross-examination that tests a proposed definition by drawing out contradictions, leading the interlocutor to aporia, or recognized ignorance.

Phenomenological epoché

The suspension of the natural attitude and of assumptions about the world's independent existence, so that phenomena can be described exactly as they appear to consciousness.

Hermeneutic circle

The reciprocal relation between understanding a whole text and understanding its parts, where each is interpreted in light of the other and understanding spirals toward greater adequacy.

Hylomorphism

Aristotle's doctrine that every sensible substance is a compound of matter and form, with form actualizing the potentialities of matter.

Four causes

Aristotle's explanatory factors: the material (what it is made of), efficient (what made it), formal (its essence), and final (the end it serves).

Occam's razor

The principle that entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity, so among equally adequate explanations the one positing fewer entities is preferred.

Gettier problem

A counterexample showing justified true belief is insufficient for knowledge, typically where the belief is true only through luck or a false supporting premise.

Reliabilism

An externalist theory holding a belief is justified if it results from a cognitive process that reliably produces true beliefs, whether or not the subject can verify this.

Correspondence theory

The view that a proposition is true when it corresponds to or accurately represents an independent state of affairs in the world.

Modus tollens

A valid inference form: if P then Q; not Q; therefore not P. Denying the consequent validly yields denial of the antecedent.

Falsifiability

Popper's criterion that a hypothesis is scientific only if it entails observable predictions that could, in principle, prove it false.

Paradigm shift

Kuhn's term for the revolutionary replacement of one scientific framework by another when accumulated anomalies make the old paradigm untenable.

Compatibilism

The position that free will and moral responsibility are compatible with causal determinism, since freedom means acting on one's own desires without external constraint.

Bad faith

Sartre's term for self-deception in which a person denies their freedom by identifying with a fixed role, nature, or social expectation.

Being-toward-death

Heidegger's characterization of Dasein as oriented to its own inevitable possibility of non-existence, which authentic existence confronts rather than evades.

Categorical imperative

Kant's unconditional moral principle: act only on maxims that could be willed as universal law, and treat humanity always as an end, never merely as a means.

Doctrine of the mean

Aristotle's account of virtue as a stable disposition lying between excess and deficiency, determined by practical wisdom relative to the particular situation and agent.

Is-ought gap

Hume's observation that purely descriptive premises cannot logically entail a normative conclusion, so values require a separate ground from facts.

Veil of ignorance

Rawls's device for choosing principles of justice without knowing one's talents, social position, or conception of the good, ensuring impartiality.

General will

Rousseau's concept of the collective will directed at the common good, distinct from the sum of private wills and the source of legitimate law.

Civil society

The sphere of voluntary associations, media, and public interaction between the family and the state, which limits state power and forms public opinion.

Disinterested pleasure

Kant's characterization of aesthetic judgment as pleasure arising from the mere form of the object, independent of desire, utility, or personal interest.

Institutional theory of art

Dickie's view that something is an artwork when the artworld collectively confers on it the status of a candidate for aesthetic appreciation.

Catharsis

Aristotle's term for the purgation or clarification of pity and fear produced in spectators by tragic drama, yielding emotional relief and understanding.

Ontological argument

Anselm's proof that since God is the greatest conceivable being and existence is a perfection, God must exist in reality and not merely in thought.

Theodicy

A reasoned attempt to reconcile belief in an omnipotent, omniscient, benevolent God with the evident presence of evil and suffering in the world.

Fideism

The position that religious truth rests on faith rather than reason, and that rational argument is incompetent to establish or assess religious claims.

Cogito ergo sum

Descartes's indubitable first principle: even radical doubt presupposes a thinking subject, so the existence of the thinker cannot be doubted.

Copernican revolution

Kant's reversal holding that objects conform to the mind's forms and categories rather than the mind conforming to objects, making experience possible.

Unmoved mover

Aristotle's first cause of all motion, itself unmoved, purely actual, and the final cause toward which all natural processes strive.

Enthymeme

An argument with an unstated premise or conclusion that the audience is expected to supply; reconstruction requires making the implicit element explicit.

Principle of charity

The interpretive norm of attributing to a text the most coherent and plausible reading available before subjecting it to criticism.