Bihar Intermediate Philosophy (BSEB) flashcards

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

Anekantavada

Jaina doctrine that reality possesses infinite aspects, so every object is both permanent as substance and changing in modes; it grounds non-absolutist description of reality.

Syadvada

Jaina sevenfold predication qualified by 'syat' (in some respect), ranging from 'is' and 'is not' to 'inexpressible', preventing unqualified assertions about many-sided reality.

Jaina karma as pudgala

In Jainism karma is a subtle physical substance that binds the jiva through passions; eight karma types obscure knowledge, perception and conduct until shed by austerity.

Four Noble Truths

Buddha's framework: suffering (duhkha), its arising in craving (samudaya), its cessation (nirodha), and the eightfold path leading to cessation (marga).

Pratityasamutpada

Dependent origination: all phenomena arise in dependence on conditions, described through twelve links from ignorance to old age and death, avoiding eternalism and annihilationism.

Anatta

Buddhist no-self doctrine: the five aggregates constituting a person are impermanent and suffering, hence none is 'mine, I, or my self'; the self is a conventional designation.

Nirvana

In Buddhism, the extinguishing of craving, aversion and ignorance; the unconditioned end of suffering, not annihilation of a self, realised in life and completed at death.

Charvaka epistemology

Lokayata accepts perception alone as a pramana and rejects inference, since invariable concomitance (vyapti) cannot be observed; this grounds its materialist metaphysics.

Charvaka consciousness

Charvaka holds consciousness emerges from the four material elements, as intoxication arises from fermented ingredients; there is no soul separate from the living body.

Charvaka hedonism

Lokayata ethics urges pursuit of pleasure and avoidance of pain while life lasts, rejecting karma, rebirth and scriptural duty as unverifiable; death is final release.

Nyaya pramanas

Nyaya recognises four sources of valid knowledge: perception, inference, comparison (upamana) and verbal testimony (sabda); Mimamsa adds presumption and non-apprehension.

Five-membered inference

Nyaya syllogism: pratijna (thesis), hetu (reason), udaharana (example), upanaya (application) and nigamana (conclusion), with vyapti as the invariable ground.

Vaisheshika padarthas

Six categories of reality: substance, quality, action, universality, particularity and inherence; absence (abhava) was later added as a seventh category.

Hetvabhasa

Nyaya fallacy of inference: a reason that appears valid but fails vyapti, such as the deviant, contradictory, counter-balanced or unproved reason.

Prakriti and Purusha

Samkhya's two ultimates: prakriti is one active primordial matter of three gunas; purusha is plural, passive pure consciousness whose proximity triggers evolution.

Three gunas

Samkhya constituents of prakriti: sattva (clarity), rajas (activity) and tamas (inertia); their equilibrium is unmanifest prakriti and their disturbance begins evolution.

Eight limbs of Yoga

Patanjali's ashtanga: yama, niyama, asana, pranayama, pratyahara, dharana, dhyana and samadhi, progressing from ethical restraint to meditative absorption.

Kaivalya

Samkhya-Yoga liberation: purusha's isolation from prakriti through discriminative knowledge (viveka-khyati), ending the misidentification of consciousness with matter.

Advaita Brahman

Sankara's non-dualism: Brahman alone is real, the world is maya or avidya, and the individual self is Brahman; liberation is knowledge of this identity.

Vishishtadvaita

Ramanuja's qualified non-dualism: one Brahman qualified by conscious souls and matter as its body; differences are real within unity, and liberation is eternal service.

Dvaita five differences

Madhva's dualism asserts five real differences: God and souls, God and matter, souls and souls, souls and matter, and matter and matter; liberation comes by grace.

Mimamsa svatah pramanya

Mimamsa thesis that knowledge is intrinsically valid; validity is assumed unless defeated, while invalidity is established by external defeating conditions.

Cogito ergo sum

Descartes' foundational certainty: even radical doubt presupposes an existing doubter, so 'I think, therefore I exist' is indubitable and grounds rationalist epistemology.

Hume on causation

Hume argues we never perceive a necessary connection between events; causal belief arises from custom and habit after repeated observed conjunctions of similar pairs.

Locke primary qualities

Locke distinguishes primary qualities (extension, figure, motion) inherent in bodies from secondary qualities (colour, taste, sound) which are powers to produce ideas in perceivers.

Kant synthetic a priori

Kant's class of judgments that are informative yet independent of experience, such as arithmetic and causality, made possible by the mind's a priori forms and categories.

Kant categorical imperative

Kant's deontological principle: act only on maxims you could will as universal law, and treat humanity always as an end, never merely as a means.

Nishkama karma

Bhagavadgita's ethic of disinterested action: perform one's own duty (svadharma) without attachment to results, treating success and failure with equanimity.

Utilitarianism

Consequentialist theory judging actions by their tendency to maximise overall happiness; Bentham quantifies pleasure, Mill distinguishes quality as well as quantity.

Aristotelian eudaimonia

Aristotle's highest good: flourishing through habituated virtues chosen according to the mean between excess and deficiency, guided by practical wisdom.

Validity versus soundness

Validity concerns form: no possible case has true premises and a false conclusion. Soundness adds that the premises are actually true, guaranteeing a true conclusion.

Affirming the consequent

Formal fallacy: from 'if P then Q' and 'Q' concluding 'P'; the consequent's truth does not establish the antecedent, since other conditions may produce Q.