Finalism

View that there are final causes (see Aristotle’s four causes) in nature; that is, that at least some things other than the products of deliberate human activity can be explained in terms of their end or purpose. The idea that the world, or certain features of it, were amenable to such explanation goes back at

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Finitism

Usually regarded as a form of CONSTRUCTIVISM in the philosophy of mathematics, emphasizing that the construction in question must be possible in finitely many steps with finitely many elements. The views that the construction must be possible in practice (not just in principle), and that a mathematical statement only gets its sense from the

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Five ways (13TH CENTURY)

The five methods employed by St Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225-1274) in his attempt to prove the existence of God by reference to natural facts about the universe, in Summa Theologiae. The five ways were: argument from design; the cosmological argument; the degrees of perfection argument; the First Cause theory; the First Mover theory; and

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Folk psychology

Term used in recent philosophy of mind for the view that beliefs, desires and so on exist and operate much as common sense assumes they do; that is, the operations of the mind can be adequately explained in terms of such notions, or (more strongly) that they cannot be adequately explained without them. Strictly

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Formalism

Any doctrine emphasizing form as against matter or content, especially in aesthetics, ethics, and philosophy of mathematics. (The term is not, however, normally used of a metaphysical preoccupation with Platonic or Aristotelian forms.) In ethics formalism sees the value or rightness of an action in what kind of action it is (what formal description

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Foundationalism

Doctrine that knowledge must have foundations; that is, if we are to know anything at all there must be some things that we can know incorrigibly, so that it is impossible – or perhaps does not even make sense – for us to be mistaken. The usual candidates for such knowledge have been facts

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Four humors

Four bodily juices (blood, phlegm, black bile, yellow bile) whose balance or imbalance in the body was commonly regarded in Ancient Greek medicine as the source of health or disease. The doctrine was made influential for later thought by Galen (129-C.AD 199), though its origins are much earlier in the Hippocratic tradition (see the

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Francis Bacon

Ideas – The purpose of scientific knowledge is to make possible great works for the betterment of the human condition. – Experiments are essential to the testing of theories. – The human mind is prey to certain typical intellectual failures. – In the generation and testing of theories, the negative instance is fundamental. –

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Francis Herbert Bradley

He was born at Clapham, Surrey, England. He was the child of Charles Bradley, an Evangelical preacher, and his second wife, Emma Linton. In 1865, he entered University College, Oxford. He was a member of the movement known as British idealism and famous for his pluralistic approach to philosophy. His pluralistic outlook saw a

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Franz Clemens Brentano

Franz Brentano studied philosophy at the universities of Munich, Würzburg, Berlin (with Trendelenburg) and Münster. He had a special interest in Aristotle and scholastic philosophy. He wrote his dissertation in Tübingen On the manifold sense of Being in Aristotle. Subsequently he began to study theology and entered the seminar in Munich and then Würzburg,

Frequency theory of probability

Theory due to German philosopher and mathematician Richard von Mises (1883-1954) in Probability, Statistics and Truth (1928, 2nd edition translated 1939). Here he defined the probability of something in terms of the relative frequency of its occurrence on occasions when it might occur. Von Mises limits his definition to cases where we have a collective, or potentially

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Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Ideas – Self-deception is a particularly destructive characteristic of Western culture. – Life is the will to power; our natural desire is to dominate and to reshape the world to fit our own preferences and to assert our personal strength to the fullest degree possible. – Struggle, through which individuals achieve a degree of

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Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher

Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher was a theologian and philosopher. The son of a Prussian army chaplain of the Reformed confession, he was born at Breslau. He was educated in a Moravian school at Niesky in upper Lusatia, and at Barby near Halle. Moravian theology soon ceased to satisfy him, and his doubts took shape.

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Functionalism

Any theory analyzing something in terms of its function; that is, any theory claiming that the best, or only, way of defining something is in terms of what it does or the role it plays in the ongoing course of events. Functionalism tends to define things in terms of their causes and effects, and,

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Gabriel Marcel

French philosopher, dramatist, and critic, b. Paris. A leading Christian existentialist, he became a Roman Catholic in 1929. He called himself a ‘concrete philosopher’, indicating a reaction to his early idealism. He saw philosophy not as formulation of a system but rather as a personal reflection on the human situation. He held that the

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Galileo Galilei

Ideas – Observation bears out the truth of the Copernican theory that the earth is not the center of the universe. – Aristotle’s claim that heavier bodies fall faster thab lighter ones can be disproved by observation. – Controlled experimentation and the use of quantitative methods of reporting observations yield better results than do

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George Berkeley

Ideas – To be is to be perceived. (A physical thing exists only when it is perceived through the use of the senses.) – Physical things are complexes of ideas (sensations). – Since no idea or sensation exists outside the mind, no physical thing exists outside the mind. – The primary qualities (solidity, extension,

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George Edward Moore

George Edward Moore, also known as G.E. Moore, (November 4, 1873 – October 24, 1958) was a distinguished and hugely influential English philosopher who was educated and taught at the University of Cambridge. He was, with Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and (before them) Gottlob Frege, one of the founders of the Analytic tradition in

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George Fox

Ideas – God can be experienced by every person through the presence of the indwelling Christ or Spirit. – Every human being must be respected because there is ‘that of God’ in everyone. – Social inequalities are, therefore, abhorrent and must be eliminated. – Worship takes place wherever the soul discovers God; it requires

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George Henry Lewes

George Henry Lewes was a British philosopher and literary critic. He was born in London, a grandson of Charles Lee Lewes, the actor. He was educated in London, Jersey, Brittany, and finally at Dr Charles Burney’s school in Greenwich. Having abandoned successively a commercial and a medical career, he seriously thought of becoming an

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