Epistemology Glossary

 

 
A posteriori, a belief, proposition, or argument is said to be a posteriori if its truth or falsity can be established only through observation. Classical empiricism was an attempt to show that all significant knowledge about the world was based on a posteriori truths.

A priori, a belief, proposition, or argument is said to be a priori if its truth or falsity can be established independently of observation. Definitions, the propositions of arithmetic, and the principles of logic are usually held to be a priori. Classical rationalism was an attempt to show that all significant knowledge about the world is based on a priori truths, which most of the rationalists associated with innate ideas.

Aesthetics, the branch of philosophy that studies those features of the world that call for qualitative judgments – typically, but not exclusively, the study of the concept of beauty and of judgments about it. Aesthetics tends to be dominated by the philosophy of art, but it also concerns itself with beauty and related qualities as they are found in nature. Just as ethics asks whether there are such qualities such as the good, duty, and right and wrong, and whether objective judgments and argument about these moral qualities can be legitimately formulated, so does aesthetics ask where there are such objects as beauty, ugliness, the sublime, and the comic, and whether objective judgments and arguments about these aesthetic objects can be legitimately formulated.

Agnosticism, a view that holds openly the possibility the God exists but that claims we do not know, or cannot know, whether in fact a deity exists.

Analytic Geometry, the branch of mathematics created by Rene Descartes in which algebraic procedures are applied to geometry.

Analytic Philosophy, the view that, in philosophy, logical analysis and analysis of meaning must be prior to the construction of believe that certain philosophical theories about the world. Analytical philosophers key concepts in ordinary language and in scientific, moral, religious, and aesthetic discourse are philosophically vague or misleading. Philosophical problems can be solved and pseudophilosophical problems can be dispelled through the clarification of these concepts. The theories that analytical philosophers do generate tend to be demonstrations of the logic relations among these different realms of discourse rather than grandiose metaphysical schemes. Although many pioneers of this school were Continental Europeans, the movement has become primarily an Anglo-American one.

Analytic Proposition, a proposition is analytic if its negation leads to a self-contradiction. For example, "squares have four sides" is analytic because its negation, "squares do not have four sides," is a self-contradiction. See also tautology, conceptual truth, and a priori.

Anarchism, the political doctrine according to which the state is both unnatural and unjustifiable because it necessarily violates the rights of individuals.

Anomie, a sociological term designating a condition in individuals or societies characterized by a loss of direction, meaning, values, and norms.

Apocrypha, works, sayings, or acts misattributed to an important individual or an authoritative tradition when in fact they are inauthentic or fraudulent.

Arête, a term in ancient Greek philosophy usually translated as "virtue," though sometimes as "excellence" or "quality."

Atheism, the view that there is no personal God.

Atomism, as an ontological theory, the views that are the ultimate building blocks of reality are basic, irreducible particles of matter- atoms. (This view is a version of materialism.) As an epistemological theory, the view that the ultimate building blocks of knowledge are basic, irreducible, perceptual units-sense data.

(This view, called "psychological atomism," is a version of empiricism.)

Bad Faith, a technical term in the philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre naming a state of human inauthenticity, a flight from responsibility, freedom, and anguish. A kind of willful self-deception in which one tries to convince oneself that one is not the sole source of one’s being and actions.

Behaviorism, the theory that only observable, objective features of human or animal activity need be studied to provide an adequate scientific account of that activity. See also hard behaviorism, soft behaviorism, and logical behaviorism.

Being-for-itself, a term in the philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre designating human reality.

Being-in-itself, a term in the philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre designating nonhuman reality- “being” as it is prior to human intervention.

Categorical Imperative, the name given by Immanuel Kant to a purported universal moral law: in one form, “So act that the maxim of your action could be willed as a universal law”; in another form, “So act as to treat humanity…always as an end, and never merely as a means.”

Category-Mistake, a key philosophical error noted by the British ordinary language philosopher Gilbert Ryle wherein a term that belongs to one logical category is mistakenly categorized as belonging to another. Then faulty questions are asked based on the miscategorization. An example would be (according to Ryle) Descartes assuming that the mind is a thing in the same way that the body is a thing and then asking how these two “things” interact.

Causal Explanation, a mechanical kind of explanation in which the object or event to be accounted for is rendered intelligible by demonstrating how that object or event follows necessarily from antecedent objects or events. Causal explanations are usually represented in terms of natural laws. Contrast with teleological explanation.

Cognitive Dissonance, a state of perceptual confusion caused by the experience of sensations that are different from those anticipated.

Cognitive Science, an interdisciplinary study involving philosophy, psychology, linguistics and computer science, stressing the computational model of the mind. See also functionalism.

Coherence Theory of Truth, the theory that a  proposition is true if it coheres with the body of all the other propositions taken to be true; that is, if it follows logically from those propositions, or supports them and is supported by them, or at least does not contradict any of them. This theory, which opposes both the correspondence theory of truth and the pragmatic theory of truth, has been especially appealing to rationalists.

 Communism, the political theory that advocates the abolition of private property and asserts that goods must be held in common that the idea social unit is the commune. See also Marxism.

Conceptual Art, a development in art during the last forty years of the twentieth century in which it is claimed that the technique, methods, and materials of production rather than the final artistic product are themselves the real work of art. Also, in some cases, the designation of concepts themselves rather than objects as works of art.

Conceptual Truth, a proposition expresses a conceptual truth if that truth is based on a merely logical relationship rather that on an empirical fact. For example, “widows are female” is a conceptual truth. See also analytic proposition, tautology, and a priori.

Conceptualism, the epistemological view that concepts are generalized ideas existing only in the mind but that they are derived and abstracted by the mind from real similarities and distinctions in nature.

Contingent (or contingency), a relation between two objects or ideas is contingent if one of the terms of the relationship could exist without the other. For example, Descartes says that the relation between the soul and the body is contingent because the soul can exist without the body, and bodies can exist without their souls. Contrast with necessity.

Correspondence Theory of Truth, the theory that a proposition is true if it corresponds with the facts. “Caesar crossed the Rubicon” is true if and only if there was in fact a man called Caesar, and he did in fact cross the Rubicon; otherwise, the proposition is false. This theory, which opposes both the coherence theory of truth and the pragmatic theory of truth, has been especially appealing to empiricists.

Cosmological Argument, an attempt to establish God’s existence by deducing it from some observable facts in the world. For example, Thomas Aquinas’s claim that from the observation of causal chains in the world we can deduce the necessity of a “first cause,” or God.

Dada (or dadaism), from the French word for “hobbyhorse,” a continental art movement conceived as a protest against the mechanized slaughter of World War I. It manifested a nihilistic irrationality calculated to inform the public that all established moral and aesthetic values were meaningless after the horrors of the war.

Deconstruction, the intellectual creation of the contemporary French philosopher Jacques Derrida; based on his eccentric but provocative reading of the linguistic theory of Ferdinand de Saussure, deconstruction is a theory of texts (philosophical, fictional, legal, scientific) according to which, because of the very late nature of thought and language, almost all traditional texts can be shown to “deconstruct” themselves, to undermine and refute their own theses. Or, deconstruction is the activity or demonstrating that a particular text undermines and refutes itself.

Deep Ecology, a development within the ecology movement decrying as “shallow” those currents within the movement that justify conservation as being in the interest of human beings. Deep ecologists (like Arne Naess, George Sessions and Gary Snyder) find an intrinsic value in all living systems, and condemn the human arrogance or anthropocentrism. They are committed to “ecocentric” political action, such as the control of world population and abandonment of the goal of “increased standards of living” in areas where such an increase has already devastated nature.

Determinism, the view that every event occurs necessarily. Every event follows inevitably from the events that preceded it. There is no randomness in reality; rather, all is law governed. Freedom either does not exist (hard determinism) or exists in such a way as to be compatible with necessity (soft determinism).

Dialectic, in the philosophies of Hegel and Marx, the dialectic is a mechanism of change and progress in which every possible situation exists only in relation to its own opposite. This relationship is one of both antagonism and mutual dependency, but the antagonism (a form of violence) eventually undermines the relationship and overthrows it. (However, sometimes the term “dialectical” is used only to emphasize a relationship of reciprocity between two entities of processes.)

Distributive Justice, the form of justice that is achieved in a society when the opportunities and material goods of the society are fairly distributed in ways that recognize both the contributions and needs of all members of the society.

Dualism, the ontological view that reality is composed of two kinds of beings, usually (as in Descartes) minds and bodies.

Efficient Cause, a term from Aristotelian philosophy designating one of the four kinds of causes in the world- the physical force operating on the object undergoing change (e.g., the sculptor’s chiseling of a piece of granite). (The other three Aristotelian causes are “the material cause” [the piece of granite],  “the formal cause” [the idea of the statue in the mind of the sculptor], and “the final cause” [the ultimate purpose of the statue].) arguments possible? Are moral judgments based only on preference?

Ethnocentrism, the biased belief that one’s own ethic, social, or cultural group holds values that are superior to those of other groups, leading to an attitude that blinds the believer to the values of other cultures or social systems.

Eugenics, the advocacy of controlled breeding in order to improve the human race.

Existentialism, a twentieth-century philosophy associated principally with Jean-Paul Sartre but also thought to encompass the work of Karl Jaspers, Simone de Beauvoir, Martin Heidegger, Gabriel Marcel, Albert Camus and Miguel de Unamuno, among others. More than a shared attitude than a school of thought, it can nevertheless be roughly defined by saying with Sartre that existentialists are those who believe that, in case of humans, “existence precedes essence.”  This is the thesis that there is no human nature that precedes our presence in the world. All humans individually create humanity at every moment through their free acts.

Experience, as a technical term in empiricistic epistemology, the term designating the data provided directly by the five senses. See also sense data.

Experimental, a theory or proposition is experimental if observable evidence is pertinent to its confirmation or falsification. See also a posteriori, synthetic proposition, and principle of falsifiability.

Feminism, the sociopolitical theory and practice defending women’s dignity and rights against male chauvinism and male-dominated power structures that have denied legal and social equality to women have demeaned, marginalized, and constricted women throughout history.

Forms, usually associated with the philosophies of Plato or Aristotle. For Plato (in whose philosophy the word “Form” is capitalized in this text), everything that exists in the physical or conceptual world is in some way dependent upon Forms, which exist independently of the world but are the models (essences, universals, archetypes) of all reality. Forms are eternal, unchangeable, and the ultimate object of all true philosophizing. For Aristotle too, forms are the essence of things, but they exist in things and are not independent of them. The form of an object and its function are ultimately related.

Freedom, freedom exists if there are such things as fee acts and free agents, that is, if some acts are performed in such a way that the authors of those acts could legitimately be held responsible for them. Some philosophers (called libertarians) say that these acts do exist, that some acts are freely chosen from among genuine alternatives, and that therefore determinism is false. (“I did X, but under exactly the same circumstances, I could have done Y instead. Therefore X was a free act.”) Other philosophers (called soft determinists) also say that free acts exist but define “free acts” not in terms of genuine alternative choices but in terms of voluntary acts. (“I wanted to do X, and I did do X; therefore X was a free act.”) Still other philosophers (called hard determinists), while agreeing with the definition of “free act” given by libertarians, deny that any such free acts or agents exist.   

Functionalism, a current popular theory in the philosophy of mind according to which minds are not “things”; rather, they are systems capable of interacting with their environment through computational activity. Any computational system capable of manipulating symbols to solve problems can be said to have mental states, according to functionalism, whether those systems be brains, computers, or extraterrestrials. In the case of humans, those mental states (desires, hopes expectations, etc.) are real (i.e. are causally effective). They are realized in the brain but are not themselves brain states. The computations of computers are not themselves physical states but are realized in physical components of the computer hardware. Functionalists consider themselves to be materialists, but they oppose themind-brain identity theory and eliminative materialism.  

Gestalt Psychology, the theory according to which perception does not occur as the summation of a number of perceptual parts; rather, these perceptual parts themselves are derived from the general perceptual field, which has properties that cannot be derived from any or all of the parts.

Hard Behaviorism, the view that there are no minds and that, therefore psychology can study only “behaviors”- an ontological view as opposed to the merely methodological view of soft behaviorism.

 

Hard Determinism, the view that determinism is true and that thereforefreedom and responsibility do not exist. Contrast with soft determinism.

Hedonism, a theory of motivation according to which the motive behind all acts either is pleasure (psychological hedonism) or ought to be pleasure (moral hedonism). See also egoism.

Hypothetical Imperative, the name given by Immanuel Kant to the nonmoral use of the word “ought.” This use of “ought” can always be stated in a hypothetical form (e.g., “You ought to be nice to people if you want them to like you”).

Id in Psychoanalysis, the name given to one of the three aspects of the psyche. It is the mostly unconscious, antisocial, irrational but cunning “animal” self, containing the primitive sexual and aggressive drives, as contrasted with the ego (the rational, mostly conscious social self) and the superego (the irrational, authoritarian, mostly unconscious familial and social conscience).

Idealism, the ontological view that, ultimately, every existing thing can be shown to be spiritual or mental (hence, a version of monism), usually associated in Western philosophy with Berkeley and Hegel.

Identity Theory, see mind-brain identity theory.

Indeterminism, the view that there are such things as uncaused events and that therefore determinism is false.

Innate Idea, an idea present at birth, hence a priori.

Intentionality, as used in the philosophy of mind, the referential feature of mental phenomena; their “aboutness.” Mental states refer to objects beyond themselves. One thinks about something, looks at something, alludes to something, is afraid of something. The term covers intentions in the nontechnical sense (“She intended to drop her philosophy class”) but also desires, hopes, expectations, and fears. A major question in materialist theories in the philosophy of mind is How is it possible for certain material objects (brains or parts of brains) to have intentionality in this sense?

Legal Positivism, the view that justice and legal legitimacy are defined exclusively by the established political powers.

Liberalism, the political view that advocates a democratic government and asserts that the state has a legitimate right and an obligation to set standards of living below which none of its citizens may be forced to live and to enforce laws providing equal opportunity and distributive justice.

Libertarianism, the view that freedom exists.

Logic, the branch of philosophy that studies the structure of valid inference; a purely formal discipline, interested in the structure of argumentation rather than its content.

Logical Behaviorism, the epistemological view that all meaningful mentalistic terms must ultimately be capable of being traced back to some observable behavior and not back to some purely mental facts. For example, the term “intelligent” must ultimately be related to certain observable capacities, not to a mental state called “intelligence.”

Logical Construct, a term from twentieth-century empiricism naming an entity that can be inferred from sense data. For example, the belief that a table exists independently of our perceptions is based on an inference drawn from our perceptions. In this view, only sense data can be known directly. Logical constructs can be shown only indirectly.

Logical Empiricism, see logical positivism.

Logical Entailment, a relation of logical necessity between two concepts or propositions. If concept of proposition X necessarily implies concept or proposition Y, then X logically entails Y. The assertion of X with the simultaneous denial of Y would constitute a self-contradiction; for example, the concept “brother” logically entails both the concept of “sibling” and the concept “male.”
 

Logical Positivism (or Logical Empiricism), a school of philosophy that flourished between the two world wars according to which the only cognitively meaningful utterances are those of science. All other utterances can be shown, under analysis, to be merely expressions of emotions or to be nonsense.

Logical Possibility, something is logically possible if its idea contains no self-contradiction (such as the idea of a one-million-sided figure). Conversely, something is logically impossible if its idea does contain s self-contradiction (such as the idea of a four-sided circle).

Logos, (1) a Greek term meaning “word” or “study,” from which is derived the English term “logic” and the “-logies” of “biology,” “sociology,” etc. (2) In Plato, a term designating the rational justification of beliefs. (3) As opposed to Mythos, Logos designates a scientific or philosophical account of the world.

Marxism, a political or philosophical doctrine based on the writings of Karl Marx: politically a form of communism, philosophically a form of materialism known as dialectical materialism.

Materialism, the ontological view that all reality can be shown to be material in nature (e.g., that “minds” are really brains).

Meno’s Paradox, an epistemological paradox set forth by Meno in the Platonic dialogue of the same name: How is it possible to seek knowledge? If one does not know what one is looking for, one will not recognize it when one finds it. If one does recognize it, then one already knew it and did not need to seek it. Therefore, the pursuit of knowledge is either possible or useless.

 

Metaphysics, the branch of philosophy that attempts to construct a general, speculative worldview: a complete, systematic account of all reality and experience, usually involving an epistemology, an ontology, an ethics, and anaesthetics. (The adjective “metaphysical” is often employed to stress the speculative, as opposed to the scientific commonsensical, features of the theory or proposition it describes.)

Methodological Doubt (or Radical Doubt), the name of the philosophical method employed by Descartes to discover the absolutely certain foundations of all knowledge. Every belief that can be doubted should be doubted until one arrives at a belief that itself is indubitable.

Mimesis, literally, “imitation” or “copy” but in aesthetics, the doctrine that art in its main function is imitative- of reality, ideality, or possibility.

Mind-Brain Identity Theory, the ontological view that minds and brains are not two different kinds of things; rather, that all references to minds and mental states are really references to brains and brain states.

Minimal State, the social ideal of certain theorists such as Robert Nozick according to which the only rights and obligations a government has are those of protecting the persons and property of its citizens, punishing offenses against those citizens, and taxing its citizens to finance these activities. The state has no other legitimate obligations or rights.

Mode, a property of an essential property. For example, for Descartes, “thought” is an essential property of “mind” and “understanding” is a property, or mode, of thought.

Monism, the ontological view that only one identity exists (e.g. Spinoza) or that only one kind of entity exists (e.g., as in Hobbes and Berkeley).

Moral Egoism, see egoism.

Mysticism, the view that a special experience can be achieved that transcends ordinary rational procedures and provides a direct intuition of the presence of God or an extrarational insight into ultimate truth.

Mythos, the whole body of myths, legends, and folktales that attempts to make sense of the world by placing it in a narrative context tracing things back to their supernatural origins. Sometimes contrasted with Logos.

Naïve Realism, the prephilosophical epistemology attributed to the “person in the street,” according to which the perceptual data in the mind accurately duplicate the external world as it actually is.

Nativism, the psychological or epistemological view that there are certain innate ideas, principles, or structures in the mind that organize the data of conscisousness.

Necessary Condition, X is a necessary condition of Y if Y cannot exist in the absence of X. For example, oxygen is a necessary condition of fire. See also sufficient condition.

Necessity, a relation between two things or ideas is logically necessary if the existence of one logically entails the existence of the other. For example, the relation between triangularity and three-sidedness is logically necessary. (Contrast with contingency.) A relation between two things is physically necessary if the existence of one always results physically in the existence of the other. For example, death is the necessary result of the brain’s destruction.

Nihilism, as an ontological view, the theory that nothing exists; as a moral view, the theory that there are no values or that nothing deserves to exist.

Ockham’s Razor (or Occam’s razor), a principle of simplification derived from the medieval philosopher William of Ockham, according to which if there are two competing theories, both of which account for all the observable data, the simpler of the two if the preferable theory. “Do not multiply entities beyond necessity.”

Ontological Argument, an a priori attempt to prove God’s existence by showing that, from the very concept of God, his existence can be deduced. This argument has been defended by a number of religious philosophers in the Platonic tradition. It was the first formulated by St. Anselm and appears in one form of another in the work of Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, and Hegel. It has some able twentieth-century defenders (e.g., Charles Hartshorne and Norman Malcom). But it had been rejected by some notables, too, including St. Thomas, Hume, Kant, and Kierkegaard.

Ontology, the theory of being: the branch of philosophy pursuing such questions as: What is real? What is the difference between appearance and reality? What is the relation between minds and bodies? Are the number and concepts real, or are only physical concepts real.

Operant Conditioning, a method of behavioral control in which habits are created by positive reinforcement (reward) or negative reinforcement (punishment) of the responses to certain stimuli.

Ordinary Language Philosophy, a strong movement in Anglo-American analytic philosophy, especially in the 1960’s and 1970’s, that saw philosophy’s main task as the conceptual and logic analysis of ordinary language as it related to philosophical problems. This school rejected the attack on ordinary language that was engineered by earlier analytic philosophers like Bertrand Russell and the logical positivists. Rather, the ordinary language philosophers held that many philosophical errors were the result of disdain for ordinary language and a confusion about the nature of meaning. The confusion would be eliminated, not through construction of artificial mathematical languages, but only by careful attention to the nuances of the ordinary language. Major participants in this school included  John Austin, Gilbert Ryle, and Ludwig Wiggenstein.

Organicism, the ontological view that reality is more like an organism than like a machine- that the whole is more real than any of the parts and that the parts are dependent on the whole for their reality.

Paradigm Shift, a movement in intellectual history when the key conceptual apparatus of an age gives way to new ones, as when the essentially theological view of reality in the medieval world gave way to a more secular one involving new standards of judgment and criteria of evidence.

Phenomenology, A philosophical school created by Edmund Husserl employing a method of analysis that purports to arrive at the pure data of consciousness and thereby provide foundation for epistemology and ontology. The method involves “bracketing” certain features of experience, stripping them of all assumptions and presuppositions, and laying bare their essence.
Philosophy of Art, the branch of philosophy that studies the aesthetic features of art, and the judgments about those features.

Philosophy of Mind, that branch of philosophy that deals with such ontological problems as the relation between minds and brains, minds and computers, and minds and behavior.

Pluralism, the ontological view that reality is composed of a multiplicity of things or different kinds of things that this multiplicity cannot be reduced to one or two categories.

Political Philosophy, the branch of philosophy that explores questions concerning the justification of political entities and political relationships.

Pragmatism, an American philosophy that claims that the meaning of an idea can be established by determining what practical difference would be produced by believing the idea to be true and that the truth of an idea can be established by determining the idea’s ability to “work.”

Pragmatic Theory of Truth, this theory asserts that to talk about the truth of a proposition is to talk about its power to “work,” that is, its ability to put the individual  who considers the proposition  into a more satisfactory and effective relationship with the rest of the world. This theory employs the correspondence theory of truth and the coherence theory of truth not as criteria of truth but as two of several tests of efficacy. According to the pragmatic theory, the truth is relative and not absolute.

Primary Qualities, a term from seventeenth- and eighteenth-century epistemology and ontology designating properties that inhere in material bodies independently of our perception of them (e.g., size shape, location and divisibility). Contrast with secondary qualities.

Principle of Falsifiability, a criterion of scientific meaning set forth by Sir Karl Popper according to which a proposition or theory is scientific only if it is framed in such a way that it would be possible to state what kind of evidence would refute or falsify the theory, if such evidence existed.

Proposition, as employed in this text, a proposition is whatever is asserted by a sentence. The sentences “It’s raining,” Es regent,” and “Llueve” all assert the same proposition.

Psychoanalysis, the name given by Sigmund Freud to his method of psychotherapy, eventually becoming a theory of the mind, of selfhood, and of culture, in which psychological and social phenomena are traced to their origins in the unconscious mind.

Psychological Egoism, see egoism.

Qualia (singular: quale), a term in the philosophy of mind deriving from the Latin word for “quality,” designating the qualitative (as opposed to quantitative) features of mental experience; the experience itself of softness, redness, pleasure, pain and, so on.

Radical Doubt, see methodological doubt.

Rationalism, the epistemological view that true knowledge is derived primarily from reason (or exclusively from reason in the purer strains of rationalism). Reason is conceived as the working of the mind on material provided by the mind itself. In most versions, this material takes the form ofinnate ideas. Therefore, for the rationalists, a priori knowledge is the most important kind of knowledge. In rationalistic ontologies, the mind and the world are seen to be in conformity- the real is the rational. The classical rationalists were the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Continental philosophers (Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz), but the concept is broad enough to include such philosophers as Plato and Hegel.

Reification, the result of illegitimately  that which is abstract, that which is general, or that which defies concretization. From the Latin res (thing), hence, to “thingify”

Representative Realism, an empiricist epistemology, usually associated with John Locke, according to which the data of perception represent the external world without literally duplicating it, very much the way a photo or a painting does.

Secondary Qualities, a term from seventeenth- and eighteenth-centuryepistemology and ontology designating perceived qualities (such as colors, tastes, odors) that appear to be real properties of material objects but in fact actually exist only in perception and are caused by the properties that do exist in material objects, viz., by primary qualities.

Sense Data, a sense datum is that which is perceived immediately by any one of the senses prior to interpretation by the mind. Sense data include the perceptions of colors sounds, tastes, odors, tactile sensations, pleasures, and pains. Classical empiricism based itself on the supposed epistemologicallyfoundational nature of sense data.

Skepticism (or scepticism), a denial of the possibility of knowledge.General skepticism denies the possibility of any knowledge; however, one can be skeptical about the fields of inquiry (e.g., metaphysics) or specific faculties (e.g., sense perception) without denying the possibility of knowledge in general.

Soft Behaviorism, the view that there is no need to include “minds” in the scientific study of humans, whether or not minds exist. The study of “behaviors” and their physical causes is sufficient for a complete psychology. Contrast with hard behaviorism.

Soft Determinism, the view that determinism is true but that freedom and responsibility can exist despite the truth of determinism. Contrast with hard determinism.

Solipsism, the view that the only true knowledge that one can possess is knowledge of one’s own consciousness. According to solipsism, there is no good reason to believe that anything exists other than oneself.

Structuralism, based on the philosophical anthropology of the contemporary French theorist Claude Levi-Strauss (but also finding followers in all the human sciences), the view that the human mind is universal in that everywhere and in every historical epoch, the mind is structured in such a way as to process its data in terms of certain general formulas that give meaning to those mental data.

Sublimation, a term central to psychoanalysis that names the process whereby certain antisocial drives are directed away from their primary goal (the satisfaction of sexual or aggressive desires) and transformed into the production of socially valuable higher culture- art, religion, philosophy, law, science, and so on.

Substance, in philosophy, traditionally the term naming whatever is thought to be the most basic independent reality. Aristotle defined a substance as whatever can exist independently of other things, so that a horse or a man (Aristotle’s examples) can exist independently, but the color of the horse or the size of a man cannot. The seventeenth- and eighteenth-centuryrationalists took the idea of substance as independent being so seriously that one of their members, Spinoza, claimed there could be only one substance in the world (i.e., only one thing), namely, God, because only God could exist independently. Under Berkeley’s criticism of material substance and Hume’s criticism of spiritual substance, the concept of substance was very much eroded. It turned up again in Kant but only as a “category” of knowledge, not as a basic reality itself.

Sufficient Condition, P is a sufficient condition of Q if the presence of P guarantees the presence of Q. For example, the presence of mammary glands in an animal is a sufficient condition for calling that animal a mammal. (It is also a necessary condition for doing so.)

Superego, in psychoanalysis, the component of the psyche that counteracts antisocial desires and impulses of the id by attaching conscious and unconscious feelings of guilt to them.

Synthetic Proposition, a proposition is synthetic if its negation does not lead to a self-contradiction. For example, “Jupiter has a square moon” is synthetic because its negation, “Jupiter does not have a square moon,” is not self-contradictory (usually associated with a posteriori propositions; the opposite of analytic propositions.

Tabula Rasa, Latin for “blank slate.” Empiricism from John Locke forward assumed that the mind is a tabula rasa at birth and that all knowledge must be inscribed on that blank slate by experience.

Tautology, a proposition is a tautology if it is in some way repetitive or redundant. For example, definitions are tautological because their predicates are equivalents of the term being defined. See also analytic propositions.

Teleological Argument, an attempt to deduce God’s existence from the fact that there is purposeful behavior in nature on the part of nonintelligent beings. (E.G., the “purpose” of the sharp point on the bottom of an acorn is to break the surface of the ground when the acorn falls.)

Teleology, the study of the evidence for the existence of purpose, design and intentionality in both human and nonhuman domains. A teleological explanation is an explanation in terms of goals, purposes or intentions (from the Greek telos=goal). For example, “John closed the window because he didn’t want his budgie to escape” and “An acorn has a sharp tip on its bottom in order to break the ground when it falls from the tree” are both teleological explanations because they describe behavior in terms of intentions and goals. Contrast with causal explanation.

Thanatos, the Greek god of death, which in psychoanalytic theory becomes the name of a purported “death instinct” inherent in all organic matter and that is somehow more basic than its opposing instinct, Eros, the “life instinct.”

Theism, belief in the existence of a personal God or gods.

Theoretical Entity, a term from twentieth-century empiricism naming entities that exist only as parts of theories, not parts of reality. For example, “the average American housewife” is a theoretical entity.

Transformational Grammar, a system of grammatical analysis that uses a set of algebraic formulas to express relations between elements in a sentence or between different forms or tenses of a phrase, such as active, passive, future and present.

Utilitarianism, the moral and social philosophy of Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill according to which the value of any action or legislation can be derived from the principle of utility, which advocates “the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of people.”