BSEH SS Philosophy key terms

Systematic inquiry into fundamental questions about existence, knowledge, value, reason, and mind, conducted through reasoned argument rather than tradition, authority, or unexamined opinion.

Disciplined practice of evaluating claims and arguments by inspecting evidence, assumptions, and inferential structure before accepting, rejecting, or acting on them.

Branch of philosophy investigating what ultimately exists and what reality is like, including substance, causation, identity, time, mind, and universals.

Branch of philosophy studying knowledge, belief, justification, and truth; it asks what can be known, how knowledge is acquired, and where cognition's limits lie.

Study of valid inference and argument form, distinguishing reasoning in which premises guarantee or support a conclusion from reasoning that fails to do so.

Branch of philosophy concerned with beauty, art, aesthetic experience, and the standards by which artworks, taste, and aesthetic judgments are evaluated.

Property of an argument in which, if the premises are true, the conclusion cannot be false, purely because of the argument's logical form.

Philosophical stance that doubts or suspends judgment about knowledge claims, often because justification seems insufficient or because opposing arguments appear equally strong.

In Advaita and related Vedantic thought, the ultimate non-dual reality underlying self and world, described as infinite being, consciousness, and bliss.

The innermost self or witness consciousness in Indian philosophy; Advaita identifies it with Brahman, while other schools treat it as a distinct, enduring entity.

Non-dualist Vedantic school holding that Brahman alone is ultimately real and that the apparent plurality of selves and world arises from ignorance.

In Advaita, the beginningless power of ignorance that projects apparent multiplicity onto non-dual Brahman; it is not ordinary illusion in every practical sense.

The ongoing cyclical round of birth, death, and rebirth driven by karma and ignorance, from which Indian traditions seek liberation.

Principle that intentional action leaves traces shaping future experience and rebirth; in Indian thought it is causal moral conditioning, not simply fate.

Liberation from samsara and suffering, understood variously as union with Brahman, isolation of pure self, or extinction of defilements, depending on the school.

Buddhist doctrine that persons lack a permanent, unchanging self; what we call 'I' is a stream of conditioned physical and mental events.

View that sensory experience and observation are the primary or sole source of substantive knowledge, typically denying that innate ideas supply content.

View that reason, independent of sense experience, can yield major truths about reality, including substantive innate or a priori knowledge.

Knowledge or justification whose warrant does not depend on any particular experience, such as basic logical truths or mathematical statements.

In Plato's theory, timeless, non-physical paradigms that particular things imitate or participate in, and which ground genuine knowledge as opposed to opinion.

Method of radical doubt used by Descartes, suspending all beliefs that can be doubted in order to find an indubitable foundation for knowledge.

Branch of philosophy examining moral rightness, obligation, virtue, and value, and the principles by which conduct and character are judged.

Approach centering character and flourishing: it asks what kind of person to be and which habits constitute excellence, rather than judging only individual acts.

Consequentialist theory evaluating actions by their tendency to maximize overall welfare or utility, often understood as pleasure, happiness, or preference satisfaction.

Ethics grounding rightness in duty, rules, or respect for persons rather than consequences; Kant's categorical imperative is the classic formulation.

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

A priori argument inferring God's existence from the concept of a greatest conceivable being, which must possess existence in order to be greatest.

Family of arguments inferring a first cause or necessary being from the existence and contingency of the changing contingent world.

Difficulty of reconciling an omnipotent, omniscient, wholly good God with the reality of suffering, especially suffering that appears pointless or excessive.

Attempt to justify belief in God despite evil by explaining how God may have morally sufficient reasons for permitting suffering.

Theory that political authority derives from an actual or hypothetical agreement among people to secure order, rights, or the common good.

Principle governing fair distribution of benefits, burdens, and power, and the fitting treatment of persons according to desert, need, or equality.

Rawlsian device for choosing fair principles: decide as if ignorant of your own talents, status, and conception of the good.

Self-rule, used by Gandhi and other Indian thinkers for national political independence and also for individual self-mastery and moral autonomy.

Gandhi's method of nonviolent resistance through truth-force: active refusal to cooperate with injustice while enduring suffering without hatred.

Principle of non-harm or nonviolence in thought, word, and deed, central to Jainism, Buddhism, and Gandhi's political ethics.

B. R. Ambedkar's reinterpretation of Buddhism emphasizes reason, equality, and social justice while rejecting caste hierarchy, supernatural dogma, and otherworldly passivity.

Branch applying moral theory to concrete dilemmas in medicine, environment, technology, business, and law, often through case-based reasoning.

Study of moral issues in medicine and life sciences, including informed consent, euthanasia, genetic engineering, and allocation of scarce resources.

Inquiry into moral relations between humans and nature, including the value of nonhuman life and duties regarding climate, ecosystems, and future generations.