Philosophy flashcards

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

Gettier problem

A pair of cases in which a subject has justified true belief yet lacks knowledge because the truth of the belief is accidental; challenges the sufficiency of the JTB analysis.

Reliabilism

An externalist theory holding that a belief is justified when produced by a cognitive process that reliably yields true beliefs, regardless of whether the subject can cite reasons.

Synthetic a priori

A judgment that is ampliative, adding information beyond the concepts involved, yet justified independently of experience; Kant cites arithmetic and causal principles as examples.

Multiple realizability

The claim that a single mental state type can be implemented by different physical states in different organisms or systems, supporting functionalism over type identity theory.

Philosophical zombies

Imagined beings physically identical to humans but lacking conscious experience; their apparent conceivability is used to argue that consciousness is not entailed by the physical.

Chinese Room argument

Searle's thought experiment in which rule-based symbol manipulation produces correct outputs without understanding, arguing that syntax does not suffice for semantics.

Qualia

Intrinsic, introspectively accessible properties of experience, such as the felt character of pain or the redness of red, often invoked against reductive physicalist accounts of mind.

Extended mind thesis

Clark and Chalmers argue that external resources count as part of a cognitive system when they are reliably available, easily accessed, and automatically endorsed.

Categorical imperative

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

Doctrine of double effect

A principle permitting an action with a foreseen harmful side effect when the act is good, the harm is unintended and not the means, and the harm is proportionate.

Difference principle

Rawls's claim that social and economic inequalities are just only if they maximize the prospects of the least advantaged group, subject to fair equality of opportunity.

Akrasia

Weakness of will: acting contrary to one's own considered judgment about what is best, often explained by conflicting desires or a failure of practical reasoning.

Validity

A property of deductive arguments: it is impossible for all premises to be true while the conclusion is false, given the meanings of the logical terms involved.

Modus tollens

A valid argument form: from not-Q and the conditional if P then Q, infer not-P. Denying the antecedent has the same surface shape but is invalid.

Bayes's theorem

A formula relating conditional probabilities: the posterior probability of a hypothesis given evidence equals likelihood times prior divided by the evidence's probability.

Begging the question

A fallacy in which an argument assumes its conclusion, or a premise needing support equivalent to the conclusion, thereby making the reasoning circular.

Elenchus

The Socratic method of cross-examination that tests an interlocutor's claims by drawing out inconsistencies, typically ending in aporia rather than a positive definition.

Four causes

Aristotle's explanatory framework: material (what something is made of), efficient (what produces it), formal (its essence), and final (its purpose or end).

Theory of Forms

Plato's doctrine that changeless, non-sensible Forms are the objects of genuine knowledge, while sensible particulars are imperfect, changing participants in them.

Aquinas's five ways

Five arguments from motion, causation, contingency, gradation, and teleology, each concluding in a first cause or necessary being identified with God.

Cogito ergo sum

Descartes's indubitable starting point: even under hyperbolic doubt, the act of thinking establishes the existence of the thinker as a res cogitans.

Hume's is-ought gap

The claim that purely descriptive premises cannot entail a normative conclusion; moving from what is to what ought to be requires an additional evaluative premise.

Verification principle

The logical positivist criterion that a statement is meaningful only if analytic or empirically verifiable; critics note the principle fails its own test.

Hegelian dialectic

A pattern in which a position generates its opposite, and the conflict is resolved at a higher level that preserves and transforms both, driving historical development.

State of nature

A hypothetical condition without political authority; Hobbes describes it as a war of all against all, while Locke sees natural rights and duties persisting within it.

Veil of ignorance

Rawls's device for fair choice: parties selecting principles of justice know general facts but not their own talents, wealth, or social position.

Positive and negative liberty

Berlin's distinction between freedom as non-interference by others and freedom as self-mastery, the latter risking paternalist coercion in the name of a true self.

Entitlement theory

Nozick's account that a distribution is just if holdings were acquired and transferred justly, with rectification for past violations, rejecting patterned redistribution.

Harm principle

Mill's doctrine that interference with a person's liberty is justified only to prevent harm to others, not for the agent's own good or moral disapproval.

Disinterested judgment

Kant's claim that a pure judgment of taste takes no interest in the object's existence or utility, yet claims universal agreement grounded in shared feeling.

Intentional fallacy

Wimsatt and Beardsley's warning that a work's meaning should not be equated with the author's actual intentions, since those are private and often unavailable.

Hard problem of consciousness

Chalmers's question of why physical processing is accompanied by subjective experience at all, as distinct from explaining cognitive functions such as discrimination and report.