Logical empiricism

Version of empiricism applying to the meanings of words or sentences, whereby they have meaning only if there are rules involving sense-experience for applying or verifying them; the rules may also constitute the meaning. (Analytic sentences – that is, roughly, those made true or false by logical considerations – are excepted.) Akin to, though some say

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Logical positivism

A 20th century development of positivism which emphasizes questions of language and meaning and the role of logical relations like entailment. It originated in the Vienna Circle and continued mainly in English-speaking countries (with Holland and Scandinavia) until World War II, after which it was replaced by linguistic philosophy in Britain and various movements in the USA and elsewhere. Its

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Logical relation theory of probability

Theory due especially to English economist John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946) in his Treatise on Probability (1921), Chapter 1. It says that the probability of a hypothesis is a logical relation (rather like logical entailment, only weaker) between a hypothesis and a body of evidence for it. Probability is thus made relative to evidence. This could be

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Logicism

Theory, due to Gottlob Frege (1848-1925) and Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), that the concepts and theories of mathematics (in particular of arithmetic) can be derived from those of logic. This, if feasible, would support logical positivism and reductionism in general. Arithmetic was in fact reduced to set theory – developed by Georg Cantor (1845-1918) – as a first step, but set theory

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Titus Lucretius Carus

Lucretius was a Roman poet and the author of the philosophical epic De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of the Universe), a comprehensive exposition of the Epicurean world-view. Very little is known of the poet’s life, though a sense of his character and personality emerges vividly from his poem. The stress and tumult of

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Ludwig Wittgenstein

Ideas – Language and the world share a common logical form. – Sentences are logical pictures of the world: The logical relations between the elements of a sentence reflect the relations between the elements in the world. – Sentences can show their form but they cannot say it; sentences that attempt to say what

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Manicheism

Religious system founded by Mani of Persia (c. AD 215-76) and emphasizing fundamental dualism of good and evil as independent principles, represented by spirit and body and symbolized by light and dark. Sometimes treated as a Christian heresy, Manicheism is rather a separate religion with its roots in Zoroastrianism (founded by Zoroaster (or Zarathustra)

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Marcus Aurelius

Major Ideas – The Universe is governed by reason, which is God. – In a rational universe, everything that happens is not only necessitated but good. – Human happiness consists in a life lived in accordance with nature and reason. – Though his actions are necessitated, an individual becomes free by acting rationally. –

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Marie-Jean Antoine Nicolas de Caritat, Marquis de Condorcet

Ideas – There is limited certainty in all branches of human knowledge. – Probability theory can be applied to natural and social sciences. – Mankind is infinitely perfectible. – There can be continuous progress and improvement in human affairs. – Mathematics can be applied to the social sciences and to human problems. – Human

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Martin Buber

Ideas – The I-Thou approach to relationships is the only way people can be fully authentic; only a part of our being is expressed in the I-It relationship. – Scripture and biblical commentary are of great importance but are not infallible. – Religious law is not immutable but applicable to the times of its

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Martin Heidegger

Ideas – Although the maning of being is the basic issue for philosophy, its true nature has been forgotten and concealed. – Human beings are uniquely open to being but must be understood in terms of existential categories rather than traditional, objectifying categories. – Being must be understood in terms of temporality. – Being

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Martin Luther

Ideas – Human nature is corrupt, weak, self-centered, and in a state of rebellion from God; the fruit of the fall from grace is death. – God’s laws show sinners their distance from God and arouse a desire for redemption. – Although God in his justice could condemn humanity, he chooses out of love

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Mary Wollstonecraft

Ideas – Unwilling submission to any person, institution, or custom is limiting, degrading, and destructive. – Reason, infallible and God-given, should control all human thought and action. – Women must have the freedom to cultivate reason, the key to self-improvement and social change. – Environment and education shape character and morality. – Education is

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Materialism

Any theory emphasizing the existence, priority, or value of matter or material objects; though the popular sense of emphasizing the value of material things is uncommon in philosophy. Usually materialists say that matter alone exists, everything else (notably minds or spirits and their ideas and experiences) being analyzable in terms of matter (a form

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Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck

Ideas – The energy of electromagnetic radiation (such as light, X-rays, and ratio waves) is found only in discrete packets of fine size: quanta. – The amount of such energy must be a whole-number multiple of h (Planck’s constant: 6.55 x 10-27 erg-seconds). Biography Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck was born in Kiel, Germany, on

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Doctrine of the mean

The doctrine of Aristotle (384-322 BC) that moral virtue can be defined as a disposition concerned with choice and lying in a mean. Any given virtue lies between two extremes, for example courage lies in a mean between rashness and cowardice. The mean, however, is not an arithmetical mean, but is ‘relative to us’; that is,

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Theories of meaning (traditional)

Discussed BC in both Greek philosophy and Indian linguistics. Much theoretical progress in latter half of the 20th century. An elusive concept which has been theorized from many different perspectives: meaning as use, as behaviour, as intention, as concepts, as images, as truth-conditions, and so on. It is best to disperse the term into

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Mechanism

As a theory, rather than a device, the view that everything happens mechanically; that is, everything can ultimately be explained in terms of certain laws of nature which apply to the behavior of matter in motion, as in the popular example of clockwork. Ideally the laws should require as few terms as possible –

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Meinong’s jungle

The Austrian philosopher Alexius von Meinong(1853-1920) thought that since we can apparently refer to things that do not exist (the golden mountain, the prime number between eight and ten, and so on) such things must have some sort of being. This he called ‘sosein’, or ‘being so’. Meinong’s jungle is a nickname for the repository

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Meister Eckhart

Ideas – Beyond ‘God’ lies the Godhead; that is, ‘God’ as Father, Son and Spirit is merely representation of the true God, or Godhead. – The ground of God and the ground of the human soul are the same; thus God, or union with God, is to be sought within oneself: Here occurs ‘the

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