WBCHSE HS Philosophy cheat sheet

Āstika (orthodox) schools accept the authority of the Vedas: Nyāya, Vaiśeṣika, Sāṃkhya, Yoga, Mīmāṃsā, Vedānta. Nāstika (heterodox) schools reject Vedic authority: Cārvāka, Jainism, Buddhism.

Six pramāṇas recognised across schools: pratyakṣa (perception), anumāna (inference), śabda (testimony), upamāna (comparison), arthāpatti (postulation), anupalabdhi (non-apprehension).

Cārvāka accepts only pratyakṣa; Nyāya accepts four (perception, inference, comparison, testimony); Mīmāṃsā and Vedānta accept six.

Ṣaḍdarśana means the six darśanas; each school pairs with a founding sūtra: Nyāyasūtra (Gautama), Sāṃkhyakārikā (Īśvarakṛṣṇa), Yogasūtra (Patañjali), Brahmasūtra (Bādarāyaṇa), Mīmāṃsāsūtra (Jaimini).

Ṛṇa (debt) triad, puruṣārthas: dharma, artha, kāma, mokṣa - mokṣa is the summum bonum in most āstika systems.

Ṣaṭpadārtha of Vaiśeṣika: dravya, guṇa, karma, sāmānya, viśeṣa, samavāya; later abhāva added.

Pramāṇa–prameya–pramātā–pramiti structure: valid cognition requires a means, an object, a knower and the resulting knowledge.

Khyātivāda (theories of error) differ: satkhyāti (Mīmāṃsā), anyathākhyāti (Nyāya), viparītakhyāti (Yoga), ātmakhyāti (Yogācāra), anirvacanīyakhyāti (Advaita).

Cārvāka: perception alone is valid; inference is rejected because vyāpti (universal relation) cannot be perceived; consciousness is an emergent product of matter (bhūta-caitanya).

Nyāya inference: five-membered syllogism - pratijñā (thesis), hetu (reason), udāharaṇa (example), upanaya (application), nigamana (conclusion).

Nyāya vyāpti is established by anvaya (agreement in presence) and vyatireka (agreement in absence); hetvābhāsa are fallacies of the middle term.

Sāṃkhya dualism: puruṣa (pure consciousness, plural, inactive) and prakṛti (primordial matter, active); evolution from prakṛti via mahat, ahaṃkāra, manas, indriyas, tanmātras, mahābhūtas.

Sāṃkhya guṇas: sattva (illumination), rajas (activity), tamas (inertia); imbalance drives creation, equilibrium is pralaya.

Yoga: citta-vṛtti-nirodha is the definition of yoga; aṣṭāṅga - yama, niyama, āsana, prāṇāyāma, pratyāhāra, dhāraṇā, dhyāna, samādhi; Īśvara is a special puruṣa.

Mīmāṃsā: Vedas are eternal and authorless (apauruṣeya); śabda is self-valid; dharma is known only through Vedic injunction; karma and apūrva explain unseen results.

Advaita Vedānta: Brahman is one without a second; māyā makes Brahman appear as world; śruti statements like 'tat tvam asi' yield identity of ātman and Brahman; mokṣa is removal of avidyā.

Branches: metaphysics (what there is), epistemology (knowledge and justification), logic (valid inference), ethics (right action and value), aesthetics, political philosophy.

Method of philosophy: conceptual analysis, argument reconstruction, counterexample testing, thought experiments, dialectic between premises and intuitions.

Distinguish descriptive claims (is) from normative claims (ought); Hume's guillotine forbids deriving ought from is alone.

Argument forms: deductive (conclusion follows necessarily), inductive (probable support), abductive (inference to best explanation).

Valid ≠ sound: validity concerns form only; soundness requires validity plus true premises.

Analytic vs synthetic and a priori vs a posteriori are independent distinctions; Kant's synthetic a priori is a contested fourth category.

Philosophical scepticism differs from Cartesian methodical doubt and from fallibilism (knowledge without certainty).

Philosophy differs from science by armchair conceptual method and normative scope, not by lacking rigour.

Standard analysis: S knows that p iff p is true, S believes p, and S is justified in believing p (JTB); Gettier cases refute sufficiency.

Responses to Gettier: no-false-lemma condition, defeasibility, reliabilism (justification = reliable belief-forming process), virtue epistemology.

Sources of knowledge: perception, reason, memory, testimony, introspection; a priori vs a posteriori justification.

Descartes' method of doubt: doubt everything dubitable; cogito ergo sum is indubitable; clear and distinct ideas guarantee God, hence the external world.

Hume's fork: relations of ideas (a priori, analytic) vs matters of fact (a posteriori); causation reduces to constant conjunction plus custom, not necessary connection.

Rationalism (Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz): reason yields substantive a priori knowledge, including innate ideas. Empiricism (Locke, Berkeley, Hume): all ideas derive from experience; mind is tabula rasa.

Kant's synthesis: experience requires both sensory content and a priori forms (space, time) and categories (causality); phenomena knowable, noumena not.

Scepticism: global (external world), local (other minds, induction); Moore's common-sense reply and Putnam's brains-in-a-vat target the sceptic's premises.

Substance: that which exists in itself and supports attributes; Aristotle's primary substances are individuals, secondary substances are species; Locke's substratum vs bundle theories (Hume, Berkeley).

Causality: Hume's two definitions - constant conjunction and customary transition; regularity theory vs necessitarian and counterfactual accounts.

Mind–body positions: dualism (substance/interactionist, property), physicalism (identity theory, functionalism, eliminativism), idealism, epiphenomenalism, panpsychism.

Interaction problem for Cartesian dualism: how can immaterial mind causally affect extended body without a shared medium? Occasionalism and pre-established harmony are replies.

Personal identity: psychological continuity (Locke's memory criterion, Parfit) vs bodily/soul criteria; fission cases test transitivity.

Free will: hard determinism, libertarianism (agent or event causation), compatibilism (freedom as uncoerced action or capacity to act on reasons).

Frankfurt cases separate moral responsibility from alternative possibilities; the principle of alternate possibilities is thereby challenged.

Universals: realism (Platonic, immanent), conceptualism, nominalism; problem of predication motivates the debate.

Indian frameworks: ṛta (cosmic order), dharma (duty/virtue), karma (action and its unseen consequence), puruṣārthas; mokṣa as ultimate value.

Bhagavadgītā: niṣkāma karma - action without attachment to results; svadharma - one's own duty; sthitaprajña - equanimity of mind.

Buddhist ethics: Four Noble Truths, aṣṭāṅgika-mārga (eightfold path), ahiṃsā, karuṇā, and the middle way between indulgence and asceticism.

Jaina ethics: ahiṃsā as supreme duty, anekāntavāda (many-sidedness), syādvāda, and the three jewels - right faith, knowledge, conduct.

Cārvāka ethics: hedonism - pleasure is the only intrinsic good; no afterlife, so enjoy present pleasures while avoiding excessive pain.

Western normative theories: consequentialism (utility maximisation), deontology (Kant's categorical imperative, respect for persons), virtue ethics (Aristotle's eudaimonia and the mean).

Kant's formulations: universalisability ('act only on that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law') and humanity as end in itself.

Meta-ethics: cognitivism vs non-cognitivism (emotivism, prescriptivism), moral realism vs anti-realism, and the fact–value gap.

Deduction: conclusion follows necessarily; induction: conclusion probable; both are evaluated for validity/strength and premise truth.

Categorical proposition forms: A (All S is P), E (No S is P), I (Some S is P), O (Some S is not P); A and O, E and I are contradictories.

Square of opposition: contraries (A–E cannot both be true), subcontraries (I–O cannot both be false), subalternation (A→I, E→O).

Distribution: A distributes subject only; E distributes both; I distributes neither; O distributes predicate only.

Mood and figure: 4 figures from position of middle term; 256 moods, 24 valid (19 traditionally recognised); e.g., Barbara (AAA-1) is valid.

Rules for validity: middle term must be distributed at least once; no term distributed in conclusion unless distributed in premise; two negative premises yield no conclusion; a negative premise requires a negative conclusion.

Induction: enumeration, analogy, causal reasoning (Mill's methods - agreement, difference, concomitant variation, residues); problem of induction (Hume).

Informal fallacies: ad hominem, ad populum, straw man, begging the question, false dilemma, post hoc ergo propter hoc, hasty generalisation.