Dialetheism

A name for the view that the law of contradiction can on occasion and within certain limits be violated without irrationality; ‘…the view that some contradictions are true, or that some things are both true and false’. Also see: paraconsistency Source: G Priest, ‘Contradiction, Belief and Rationality’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society (1985-86) p.99 Motivations

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Double aspect theory of mind

Theory that mind and body, or mental events and some cerebral events, are two aspects of a single thing. The theory resembles neutral monism but is more limited, applying only to certain cerebral (or perhaps neural) events. It is often attributed to Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677), but interpretations of him differ. When the body becomes privileged and usurps the

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Double effect doctrine

Ethical doctrine, associated especially though not exclusively with Roman Catholicism. Though we may not intentionally produce evil, we may intentionally do (in pursuit of a suitably greater good) what we foresee will in fact produce evil, provided we regard this evil as an unwanted side-effect which we would avoid if possible. The occurrence of

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Double negation principle

Principle that, for any proposition P, P logically implies not-not-P, and not-not-P logically implies P. Classical logic accepts both these halves of the principle, but intuitionist logic accepts only the first half, and not the second. This is because it accepts the law of contradiction (and so, given P, cannot allow not-P), but rejects

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Dualism

Any view which analyzes a given subject-matter, be it the universe as a whole or merely some area of concern, in terms of exactly two fundamentally distinct and opposed ideas. Reality may be divided into matter and spirit, a person into body and soul, propositions into analytic and synthetic, judgments into factual and evaluative,

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Eclecticism and syncretism

Periods of philosophical innovation are often followed by periods of consolidation (some would say, decline) when progress is sought by selecting features from different philosophers, regarded as opposed to one another, and combining them to form a unified whole. Alternatively it may be claimed that the philosophers were not really opposed to each other

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Theory of effluxes / effluences

Theory associated with Greek atomism and its revival in the corpuscularian philosophy of the 17th century as well as by non-atomists like Empedocles (5th century BC). It holds that objects continually emit films from their surfaces, which cause them to be perceived, much as we ourselves might explain smell. Lucretius(1st century BC) also uses the

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Egocentric predicament

Term coined by Ralph Barton Perry (1876-1957) for the idea that all our knowledge of the world must take the form of mental representations within our own minds (sensations, images, ideas, and so on), which the mind then operates upon in various ways. Thus we can never have any direct contact with reality outside our minds,

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Egoism

In ordinary speech, selfishness (also called ‘egotism’, a word never used in philosophy). As a philosophical doctrine egoism is either psychological egoism (for which see hedonism), or ethical egoism, which contrasts with universalism and altruism. Like them it is a form of consequentialism, and prescribes that everyone should always act so as to maximize his own

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Eleaticism

A movement in 5th century BC Greek thought stemming from Parmenides of Elea (in southern Italy) and his two main disciples Zeno of Elea (not the Stoic) and Melissus of Samos. The main tenet was an insistence that any kind of change was impossible, and so (on the usual interpretation) was any kind of plurality. Reality was one and

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Emergence theories

Theories of the development of some phenomenon (e.g. life consciousness) where something emerges out of a background from which it could not have been predicted and in terms of which it cannot be fully explained. What emerges may be a law of nature, or a science, though this would normally be because of emergent

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Emotive theory of truth

A theory developed to parallel emotivism in ethics, the point being that what criterion of truth we adopt (e.g. logical intuition, faith, workability, verifiability) depends upon our emotions or attitudes. Also see: pragmatic theory of truth Source: B Savery, ‘The Emotive Theory of Truth’, Mind

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Emotivism

Theory that value judgments, including moral judgments, do not state facts (though they appear to), but are expressions of emotions or attitudes. (Also see: Boo Hurrah Theory.) The theory, a form of speech act theory, arose under the influence of logical positivism (though it had antecedents in the 18th century) because of the difficulties of finding verification conditions

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Empiricism

Any theory emphasizing sense-experience (including introspection) rather than reason or intuition as the basis for either some or all of our knowledge; ‘basis’ referring usually to justification, though sometimes to psychological origin. Empiricism can concern either propositions or concepts, rejecting (most) a priori ones; for John Locke (1632-1704) all concepts (‘ideas’) were empirical, but propositions connecting

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Empiriocriticism

A name for the version of positivism developed by Austrian physicist and philosopher Ernst Mach(1838-1916) and the German Richard Avenarius(1843-1896), and coming between the original positivism of Auguste Comte (1798-1857) and the later logical positivism. Science on this view aims at the most economical  in his Materialism and Empirio-Criticism (1908 translated by Abraham Fineberg (1947)). Source: E Mach, Popular Scientific Lectures

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Epicureanism

Philosophy of Epicurus of Samos (342-271 BC) and his followers, notably the Roman poet Titus Lucretius (c.99-c.55 BC). They developed the atomism of Leucippus and Democritus, and like their contemporary rivals the Stoics they were materialists, though their atomism involved the existence of empty space, which the Stoics rejected. Atoms fell downwards through space, but were subject to a

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Epiphenomenalism

Doctrine that some item under investigation is a mere by-product of some process and has no causal influence of its own. In particular, the claim that the mind is not a separate entity from the body, that conscious phenomena are mere by-products of cerebral or neural processes and have no causal effects on those

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Principle of epistemic closure

Principle that, where P and Q are propositions, if we know that P, and know that P logically entails Q, we know that Q. Sometimes said to support skepticism, because if I know that, for example, I am holding a pen, and know that if I am holding a pen I am not merely dreaming

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Essentialism

Properly speaking, the doctrine that at least some objects have essences; that is, they have some of their properties essentially, not just because they are described in a certain way (a bishop is essentially in holy orders, yet could be defrocked without ceasing to be himself) but because they must have those properties to

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Euclid

Major Ideas – A rigorous, systematic treatment of mathematics requires the statement of all assumptions and the proof of all propositions by means of uniform methodology. – All mathematical quantities can be expressed by geometrical figures, either lines, areas, or solids. – Physical events can be modeled using mathematical expressions. – Space is infinite

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