WBCHSE HS Philosophy flashcards

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

Āstika vs Nāstika

Āstika schools accept Vedic authority as a valid source of knowledge (Nyāya, Vaiśeṣika, Sāṃkhya, Yoga, Mīmāṃsā, Vedānta); Nāstika schools reject it (Cārvāka, Jainism, Buddhism). The distinction is about Vedic authority, not theism.

Pratyakṣa (perception)

Direct cognition produced by contact between a sense organ and its object, held by Nyāya to be the foundational pramāṇa. Cārvāka accepts only this pramāṇa, rejecting inference and testimony as reliable sources.

Anumāna (inference)

Cognition of an unperceived object through a perceived sign (liṅga) linked to it by vyāpti, as when smoke on a hill indicates fire. Nyāya treats it as a valid pramāṇa alongside perception, comparison and testimony.

Anupalabdhi (non-apprehension)

A pramāṇa accepted by Mīmāṃsā and Advaita Vedānta: absence of an object is known through the absence of its apprehension, as when one knows there is no jar on a table because one does not perceive one.

Ṣaḍdarśana (six systems)

The six orthodox Indian philosophical schools: Nyāya, Vaiśeṣika, Sāṃkhya, Yoga, Mīmāṃsā and Vedānta. Each developed from a foundational sūtra text and accepts Vedic authority, though they differ sharply on metaphysics and epistemology.

Cārvāka epistemology

Cārvāka, the Indian materialist school, accepts only perception as a valid means of knowledge. Inference is rejected because the universal relation (vyāpti) on which it depends can never be perceived, only assumed.

Nyāya five-membered syllogism

The Nyāya inference form: pratijñā (thesis), hetu (reason), udāharaṇa (example with vyāpti), upanaya (application to the case) and nigamana (conclusion). It is more elaborate than the three-line Aristotelian syllogism.

Sāṃkhya puruṣa and prakṛti

Sāṃkhya posits two ultimate realities: puruṣa, pure inactive consciousness, which is plural, and prakṛti, active primordial matter. Bondage arises from misidentification of puruṣa with prakṛti; liberation is discriminating knowledge between them.

Sāṃkhya guṇas

The three constituents of prakṛti: sattva (illumination, lightness), rajas (activity, passion) and tamas (inertia, darkness). Their equilibrium is dissolution; disturbance initiates cosmic evolution of intellect, ego, mind, senses and elements.

Yoga: citta-vṛtti-nirodha

Patañjali's definition of yoga: the cessation or restraint of the modifications of citta (mind-stuff). This cessation allows puruṣa to abide in its own nature, and is attained through practice and detachment.

Aṣṭāṅga Yoga

Patañjali's eight limbs: yama (restraints), niyama (observances), āsana (posture), prāṇāyāma (breath control), pratyāhāra (withdrawal of senses), dhāraṇā (concentration), dhyāna (meditation) and samādhi (absorption).

Mīmāṃsā: apauruṣeya Veda

Mīmāṃsā holds that the Vedas are authorless and eternal, so their injunctions are intrinsically valid and free from human error. Dharma, which is imperceptible, is known only through Vedic commands and the unseen apūrva they generate.

Advaita and māyā

Advaita Vedānta holds that Brahman is the sole reality and the perceived world is māyā, a beginningless but sublatable appearance. Avidyā projects multiplicity onto the one Brahman; liberation is the removal of this ignorance.

Valid versus sound argument

An argument is valid when its conclusion cannot be false if its premises are true; it is sound when it is valid and all its premises are actually true. Validity concerns logical form alone, soundness adds truth.

Hume's is–ought gap

Hume observed that arguments moving from descriptive premises about what is to normative conclusions about what ought to be require an unstated normative premise. The gap shows that facts alone cannot logically entail moral obligations.

Abduction

Inference to the best explanation: from observed data one infers the hypothesis that, if true, would best explain them. It is ampliative and fallible, and is used in scientific discovery and diagnosis rather than in purely deductive reasoning.

JTB analysis of knowledge

The standard account: S knows that p if and only if p is true, S believes that p, and S is justified in believing that p. Gettier cases show these three conditions are necessary but not sufficient.

Gettier problem

Gettier's counterexamples present justified true beliefs that are true only by luck, for example a justified belief about the time that happens to be correct. They refute the sufficiency of justified true belief for knowledge.

Cogito ergo sum

Descartes' indubitable first principle: even if an evil demon deceives me about everything, I must exist in order to be deceived. The certainty of the thinking self survives radical methodical doubt and grounds his reconstruction of knowledge.

Hume's fork

Hume divides all objects of knowledge into relations of ideas, known a priori and analytic, and matters of fact, known a posteriori and contingent. Metaphysical claims about necessary connections in nature fall outside both and are rejected.

Rationalism

The view that reason, independently of sense experience, can yield substantive knowledge of reality. Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz hold that some ideas are innate and that a priori reasoning grounds metaphysics.

Empiricism

The view that all knowledge and ideas originate in experience. Locke treats the mind as a tabula rasa, Berkeley reduces bodies to perceptions, and Hume analyses causation as constant conjunction plus custom.

Kant's synthetic a priori

Kant claims some judgments are both ampliative (synthetic) and independent of experience (a priori), such as arithmetic and the causal principle. Space, time and the categories are a priori forms imposed by the mind on experience.

Hume's analysis of causation

Hume reduces causation to constant conjunction among events plus a customary transition of the mind. We never perceive a necessary connection between cause and effect, so the idea of necessity derives from habit, not from experience.

Cartesian dualism

Descartes holds that mind and body are two distinct substances: mind is essentially thinking and unextended, body is essentially extended and non-thinking. Their interaction is problematic because they share no common attribute through which to act.

Compatibilism

The view that free will and determinism are compatible: an action is free when it flows from the agent's own desires and is not externally coerced, even if those desires are themselves causally determined.

Bundle theory of self

Hume's view that the self is nothing over and above a bundle of perceptions in constant flux; introspection reveals no simple, unchanging ego. Personal identity is a fiction produced by resemblance and causal connection among experiences.

Niṣkāma karma

The Bhagavadgītā's doctrine of disinterested action: one should perform one's duty without attachment to the fruits of action. This purifies the agent and leads to liberation, avoiding both selfish action and mere inaction.

Ahiṃsā

Non-violence or non-injury in thought, word and deed. It is central to Jaina ethics as the supreme duty, prominent in Buddhist compassion, and practised by Gandhi as a political and moral principle.

Kant's categorical imperative

Kant's supreme moral principle: act only on that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law. A second formulation requires treating humanity always as an end, never merely as a means.

Syllogism: Barbara (AAA-1)

A valid categorical syllogism of the first figure with two universal affirmative premises and a universal affirmative conclusion: All M is P, all S is M, therefore all S is P. The middle term is distributed in the first premise.

Distribution of terms

In A propositions the subject is distributed; in E both terms are; in I neither; in O only the predicate. A term is distributed when the proposition says something about every member of its class.

Mill's methods

Inductive methods for identifying causes: agreement (the common factor across instances), difference (the factor absent when the effect is absent), concomitant variation, and residues. They systematise eliminative causal reasoning.

Problem of induction

Hume's argument that no non-circular justification exists for inferring future regularities from past ones. Induction presupposes uniformity of nature, which itself can only be supported inductively, so the inference lacks rational foundation.