Principle of atomic uniformity

Principle used by the English economist John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946) in trying to justify induction. It said that, if induction is to work, a complex change must be resolvable into a set of component changes each of which is separately attributable to some distinct feature of the preceding state of affairs. A principle is a proposition or value

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Atomism

As a physical theory atomism was invented by Leucippus and Democritus in the 5th century BC, developed by Epicurus a century or so later, and revived in the 17th century. In it matter consisted of tiny indivisible, indestructible and unchanging bits of solid stuff, differing in shape and size, and jostling each other in the void to constitute the material

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Isidore Auguste Marie Francois Xavier Comte

Ideas – All human thinking, both for individual persons and for historical cultures, follows the law of the three stages: first seeking explanation in animistic purposes (the theological stage), then in abstract entities (the metaphysical stage), and finally in lawful observable correlations among variables (the positive stage). – There is a definite prder among

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Ayn Rand

Ayn Rand was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, on February 2, 1905. At age six she taught herself to read and two years later discovered her first fictional hero in a French magazine for children, thus capturing the heroic vision which sustained her throughout her life. At the age of nine she decided to

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Behaviorism (1913)

Also referred to as the stimulus-response model, this term was coined by the American psychologist John Broadus Watson (1878-1958) in his paper, ‘Psychology as the Behaviorist Sees It’. It is a theory of animal and human behavior holding that actions can be explained entirely as responses to stimuli; and asserting that observable and measurable

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Benedetto Croce (1866-1952)

Ideas – A work of art is an intuition, an image expressive of and unified by feelings. – Art is lyrical in that it is expressive of life and feeling; it has aesthetic universally that stems from its origin in intuition. – Art is independent of all other expressions of human reason. – Philosophy

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Bertrand Arthur William Russell

Ideas – The Theory of Types: Sentences may not be only true or false but meaningless because of inconcsistent uses of language. – The Theory of Descriptions: Existence is a property of propositional functions; it is not a property of things. – All knowledge of the world is derived from sense data. – We

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Blaise Pascal

Ideas – The weakness of human reason leads to ultimate, complete skepticism. – The misery of man without God is the ordinary human condition. – Scientific knowledge cannot provide haappiness. – There is the need for grace to be moral and happy. – It is the nature of science that it is at best

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Buridan’s ass (14TH CENTURY)

A theoretical illustration of the dilemma posed by the need to make a decision between two equally attractive proposals. The concept itself dates from much earlier times, being discussed first by Aristotle (384-322 BC). In Buridan’s example, an ass faces starvation when it is unable to choose between two equally appetizing piles of hay. History[edit] The

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Categorical imperative

Term from German philosopher Immanuel Kant(1724-1804), who claimed to derive morality – in the form of an imperative valid for all rational beings – from reason. The general idea was that I may not act in ways that I cannot, without inconsistency, will that everyone else should act in too. Suppose that to gain some

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Causal principle

Name for a variety of principles, such as that every event has a cause, that the same cause must have the same effect, or that the cause must have at least as much reality as the effect. This last principle (somewhat akin to the principle of sufficient reason) usually says that what causes something

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Causal theories

Any theory which analyzes a concept in terms of causation can be called a causal theory of that concept. In particular, causal theories have been offered of knowledge, meaning, memory, perception, and reference. All such theories can of course exist in different

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Causal theories of reference

Any theory saying that if we are to refer to an object we must be in some relevant causal contact with it. We cannot therefore refer to fictitious objects, but must be using their names in some other way. Suppose that I try talking about one ‘Ebenezer Pilkington, who is “F”‘ (where ‘F is

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Causal theory of memory

Any theory holding that for me to remember something some present mental experience of mine (or perhaps some present piece of behavior of mine) is causally related to something relevant in the past. This ‘something relevant’ may be what is remembered, but may also be something merely connected with that: I remember to put

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Causal theory of names

Theory advanced especially by American philosophers Saul Kripke (1940- ) and Hilary Putnam (1926- ) that whether a currently used name names a certain object depends on whether current use of the name causally depends on its use by people who originally dubbed the object with that name. ‘Homer’ names whatever person the Greeks used it (or a

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Charles Bonnet

Charles Bonnet, a Swiss naturalist and philosophical writer, was born at Geneva on March 13, 1720, to a French family driven into Switzerland by the religious persecution in the 16th century. He made law his profession, but his favorite pursuit was the study of natural science. The account of the ant-lion in N.A. Pluches

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Charles Robert Darwin

Ideas – Species are related to each other by descent, with the changes from their common ancestors being caused by the survival and reproduction of advantageous genetic variants. – Overpopulation and the resulting shortage of food create the pressure that causes organisms that have advantageous genetic variants to produce a greater number of surviving

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Classical theory of probability

Theory generally attributed to French mathematician and astronomer Pierre-Simon, Marquis de Laplace (1749-1827) in his Essai philosophique sur les probability (1820). It says that the probability of an occurrence in a given situation is the proportion, among all possible outcomes, of those outcomes that include the given occurrence. The main difficulty lies in dividing

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Coherence theory of truth

A theory maintaining that a proposition will be true if it forms part of a system of mutually coherent propositions which is wider than any rival system. The coherence or consistency in question must of course be definable independently of truth, which may be difficult. The theory is favored especially by objective idealism, which rejects

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Compatibilism

View that free will and determinism are compatible. Even though all our actions are caused, it is held, we can still be free in the only senses that are desirable or possible. (Indeed, it is sometimes added, we would not be free at all if our actions were uncaused, since they would then be arbitrary and

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