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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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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Computational psychology

An approach to learning which postulates events in the brain which ‘represent’ inferences and so on. It mediates between methodological behaviorism and a purely introspective approach. It broadens out into cognitive science when it studies artificial intelligence and areas bordering on CYBERNETICS and so on. Also see: connectionism Source: M A Boden and D H Mellor,

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Conceptualism

Any view which emphasizes concepts when analyzing something. Primarily, conceptualism is a view about universals (things normally denoted in English by words ending in ‘-hood’, ‘-ness’, or ‘-ty’). It says that these are concepts in the mind (though not necessarily confined to an individual mind), and neither non-material objects with a real existence independent

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Confucianism (5TH CENTURY BC)

Body of teaching associated with the Chinese philosopher Confucius (c.551-479 BC). Confucianism was the traditional state religion of China until the Communists suppressed it after the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s. Confucian ideas are drawn from the five books of ‘Analects’ compiled from the sayings of Confucius himself and his disciples. Although followers acknowledge the existence

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Connexive implication

Term used in a kind of relevance logic, existing in different versions but similarly motivated and using ideas from Aristotle (384-322 BC) and Boethius(CAD 480-524). The relevant kind of implication is defined as holding when the antecedent of a conditional proposition is incompatible with the negation of the consequent. This bans implications of the forms (where P and

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Consequentialism

Doctrine that the moral lightness of an act or policy depends entirely on its consequences; the moral goodness of the agent depending on the act’s expected or intended consequences. This is one form of teleology, utilitarianism is one form of consequentialism. Objections include the apparent moral counterintuitiveness of many consequentialist prescriptions, especially in connection with justice, reward

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Constructivism

A view in the philosophy of mathematics which insists that mathematical entities (numbers, sets, proofs, and so on) can only be said to exist if they can be constructed; that is if some method can be specified for arriving at them on the basis of things we accept already. One advantage of this is

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Contextualism

Any view that sees some phenomenon as relative to a context, or insists on the relevance of context for interpretation. In aesthetics, the doctrine that works of art can be appreciated only by reference to their context, circumstances of production, artist’s intuitions, and so on (also see:ISOLATIONISM). In ethics, the view that values are

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Continental rationalists

Name primarily applied to Rene Descartes (1596-1650), Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677), and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716), together with various lesser figures including Cartesians (followers in a general sense of Descartes) like Arnold Geulincx(1625-1669) and Nicolas Malebranche (1638-1715). Also see: rationalism, occasionalism, double aspect theory of mind, pre-established harmony, British empiricists Continental rationalism is an approach to philosophy based on the thesis that human reason can in principle be the source of all knowledge.

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Law or principle of continuity

Principle of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) which can be roughly rendered as saying that when the difference between two causes is diminished indefinitely, so is the difference between their effects (though Leibniz would not put it in these causal terms, since for him God is the only true cause). ‘Nature makes no leaps’, as he says

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Contractualism

Any theory basing either moral obligation in general, or the duty of political obedience, or the justice of social institutions, on a contract, usually called a ‘social contract’. The idea goes back at least as far as Plato’s Crito (c.395 BC), and contractualists (or contractarians) have also included Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), John Locke (1632-1704), Jean Jacques Rousseau(1712-1778), and various modern

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Law of contradiction

Also called the law (or principle) of non-contradiction. One of the traditional three laws of thought (the other two being the laws of identity and of excluded middle). Variously formulated as saying that no proposition can be both true and not true; or that nothing can be – without qualification – the case and not

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