MATSEC IM Philosophy flashcards

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

Validity

A property of deductive arguments: it is impossible for all the premises to be true while the conclusion is false. Validity concerns form, not the actual truth of the premises.

Soundness

An argument is sound when it is valid and all its premises are actually true. Soundness guarantees a true conclusion, which validity alone does not.

Modus ponens

A valid argument form: if P then Q; P; therefore Q. Affirming the antecedent is always deductively valid, regardless of the subject matter of P and Q.

Modus tollens

A valid argument form: if P then Q; not Q; therefore not P. It denies the consequent; denying the antecedent, by contrast, is invalid.

Affirming the consequent

An invalid form: if P then Q; Q; therefore P. The consequent may hold for reasons other than P, so the conclusion does not follow necessarily.

Straw man fallacy

Misrepresenting or exaggerating an opponent's position so that it is easier to attack, then refuting the distorted version instead of the actual claim.

Begging the question

Assuming the conclusion, or a claim equivalent to it, among the premises. The argument appears to support the conclusion but presupposes it, so it cannot establish it.

Necessary condition

A condition that must hold for something to occur: B only if A. Without A there is no B, though A alone may not be enough to produce B.

Sufficient condition

A condition whose presence guarantees the outcome: if A then B. A sufficient condition need not be necessary, since other conditions might also produce B.

Counterexample method

To refute a universal claim, describe one case in which it fails. To show a deductive argument invalid, describe a possible case with true premises and a false conclusion.

Plato's theory of Forms

Sensible particulars are imperfect copies that participate in eternal, immaterial Forms. Knowledge concerns Forms; opinion concerns changing particulars. The Form of the Good ranks highest.

Aristotle's doctrine of the mean

Virtues are stable character traits lying between excess and deficiency, relative to the person and situation. Courage, for example, sits between cowardice and recklessness.

Eudaimonia

Aristotle's term for human flourishing or living well, achieved through activity in accordance with virtue over a complete life, not through pleasure or honour alone.

Cartesian doubt

Descartes' method of rejecting anything that can be doubted, including sensory evidence and mathematics under the evil-demon hypothesis, to find an indubitable foundation for knowledge.

Cogito ergo sum

Descartes' 'I think, therefore I am': even while doubting everything, the doubter cannot doubt that he exists as a thinking thing.

Hume's fork

Hume's division of knowledge into relations of ideas (a priori, demonstrable, e.g. mathematics) and matters of fact (a posteriori, probable, grounded in experience and custom).

Problem of induction

Hume's point that past regularities cannot non-circularly justify expectations about the future, since any such inference itself presupposes that nature is uniform.

Kant's synthetic a priori

Judgements that are informative yet independent of experience, made possible because the mind imposes forms of intuition and categories on all experience.

Categorical imperative

Kant's unconditional moral law: act only on maxims you could will as universal law, and treat humanity as ends, never merely as means.

Utilitarianism

The consequentialist theory that the right action maximises overall welfare. Bentham used a hedonic calculus; Mill distinguished higher and lower pleasures.

Mill's harm principle

The view that coercion of an adult is justified only to prevent harm to others; self-regarding conduct and the person's own good are insufficient grounds.

Virtue ethics

An approach centring on character rather than acts or rules: what kind of person should I be? It emphasises habituation, practical wisdom and flourishing.

Gettier problem

Cases of justified true belief that are true only by luck, suggesting justification and truth are not jointly sufficient for knowledge.

Rationalism vs empiricism

Rationalism holds some knowledge is independent of experience or innate; empiricism holds all ideas derive from experience, the mind beginning as a blank slate.

Falsificationism

Popper's view that scientific theories are those that forbid observable outcomes and so can be refuted; confirmation never proves a theory, refutation can.

Functionalism

The mind–body view that mental states are defined by their causal roles between inputs, other states and outputs, so they could be realised in non-biological substrates.

Compatibilism

The view that free will and determinism are compatible: freedom means acting on one's own desires without external coercion, not being exempt from causation.

Moral realism

The metaethical view that moral facts exist independently of human beliefs and attitudes, so moral judgements can be objectively true or false.

Rawls' veil of ignorance

A device for choosing principles of justice without knowing one's place in society, yielding equal basic liberties and the difference principle for inequalities.

Ontological argument

Anselm's and Descartes' a priori argument that a greatest conceivable being must exist, since a being lacking existence would be less great.

Problem of evil

The argument that an omnipotent, omniscient, wholly good God would not permit evil, so the existence of evil counts against such a God.

Is–ought gap

Hume's observation that purely factual premises cannot by themselves entail a normative conclusion; a value premise must be supplied.

Ship of Theseus

A thought experiment about identity: if all parts of an object are gradually replaced, is it the same object? It tests whether identity depends on matter or on continuity of form.