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ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA
Rationalism
In philosophy, rationalism is the epistemological
view that "regards reason as the chief source
and test of knowledge" or "any view appealing
to reason as a source of knowledge or
justification".
Coherence theory of truth
A coherence theory of truth states that the
truth of any (true) proposition consists in its
coherence with some specified set of
propositions. The coherence theory differs from
its principal competitor, the correspondence
theory of truth, in two essential respects.
Methodic doubt
Methodic doubt, in Cartesian philosophy, a way
of searching for certainty by systematically
though tentatively doubting everything. First, all
statements are classified according to type and
source of knowledge—e.g., knowledge from
tradition, empirical knowledge, and
mathematical knowledge. Then, examples from
each class are examined. If a way can be found
to doubt the truth of any statement, then all
other statements of that type are also set aside
as dubitable. The doubt is methodic because it
assures systematic completeness, but also
because no claim is made that all—or even that
any—statements in a dubitable class are really
false or that one must or can distrust them in an
ordinary sense. The method is to set aside as
conceivably false all statements and types of
knowledge that are not indubitably true. The
hope is that, by eliminating all statements and
types of knowledge the truth of which can be
doubted in any way, one will find some
indubitable certainties.
Innate ideas
Innate ideas are ideas or knowledge prior and
independent of sense experience.
For Plato, knowledge of the Forms derives from
innate ideas which are accessible to memory.
In Descartes, all principles of science and
knowledge are founded on clear and distinct
ideas, or incorrigible truths, which are innate in
the mind and which may be captured by the
method of reason.
Innate ideas came to be the focus of attack by
empiricist philosophers who sought to argue
that the mind is at first a tabula rasa only
subsequently informed by sense experience.
The classic objection to innate ideas occurs in
Locke’s essay concerning Human
understanding, where it is argued that if there
were ideas innate in the mind then we would
expect to find them expressed by infants and
untutored savages. But experience conclusively
shows that it is not the case.
A priori ideas
A priori knowledge, in Western philosophy since
the time of Immanuel Kant, knowledge that is
independent of all particular experiences, as
opposed to a posteriori knowledge, which
derives from experience. The Latin phrases a
priori (“from what is before”) and a posteriori
(“from what is after”) were used in philosophy
originally to distinguish between arguments
from causes and arguments from effects.
A Posteriori
The term a posteriori is used in philosophy to
indicate inductive reasoning. The term is Latin,
meaning “from what comes after”, referring to
that which comes after experience.
Something that is known a posteriori is known
based on logic that is derived from experience.
Reason can be involved in an a posteriori
statement, but that reason still stems from an
assumption made empirically, rather than one
derived from an abstract truth.
Skepticism
Skepticism, also spelled scepticism, in Western
philosophy, the attitude of doubting knowledge
claims set forth in various areas. Skeptics have
challenged the adequacy or reliability of these
claims by asking what principles they are based
upon or what they actually establish. They have
questioned whether some such claims really
are, as alleged, indubitable or necessarily true,
and they have challenged the purported
rational grounds of accepted assumptions. In
everyday life, practically everyone is skeptical
about some knowledge claims; but
philosophical skeptics have doubted the
possibility of any knowledge beyond that of the
contents of directly felt experience. The original
Greek meaning of skeptikos was “an inquirer,”
someone who was unsatisfied and still looking
for truth.
Cogito, ergo sum
Cogito, ergo sum, (Latin: “I think, therefore I
am) dictum coined by the French philosopher
René Descartes in his Discourse on Method
(1637) as a first step in demonstrating the
attainability of certain knowledge. It is the only
statement to survive the test of his methodic
doubt. The statement is indubitable, as
Descartes argued in the second of his six
Meditations on First Philosophy (1641), because
even if an all-powerful demon were to try to
deceive him into thinking that he exists when he
does not, he would have to exist in order for the
demon to deceive him. Therefore, whenever he
thinks, he exists. Furthermore, as he argued in
his replies to critics in the second edition (1642)
of the Meditations, the statement “I am” (sum)
expresses an immediate intuition, not the
conclusion of a piece of reasoning (regarding
the steps of which he could be deceived), and is
thus indubitable. However, in a later work, the
Principles of Philosophy (1644), Descartes
suggested that the cogito is indeed the
conclusion of a syllogism whose premises
include the propositions that he is thinking and
that whatever thinks must exist.
Evil Genius
The Meditations is characterized by Descartes’s
use of methodic doubt, a systematic procedure
of rejecting as though false all types of belief in
which one has ever been, or could ever be,
deceived. His arguments derive from the
skepticism of the Greek philosopher Sextus
Empiricus (fl. 3rd century ce) as reflected in the
work of the essayist Michel de Montaigne
(1533–92) and the Catholic theologian Pierre
Charron (1541–1603). Thus, Descartes’s
apparent knowledge based on authority is set
aside, because even experts are sometimes
wrong. His beliefs from sensory experience are
declared untrustworthy, because such
experience is sometimes misleading, as when a
square tower appears round from a distance.
Even his beliefs about the objects in his
immediate vicinity may be mistaken, because,
as he notes, he often has dreams about objects
that do not exist, and he has no way of knowing
with certainty whether he is dreaming or
awake. Finally, his apparent knowledge of
simple and general truths of reasoning that do
not depend on sense experience—such as “2 +
3 = 5” or “a square has four sides”—is also
unreliable, because God could have made him
in such a way that, for example, he goes wrong
every time he counts. As a way of summarizing
the universal doubt into which he has fallen,
Descartes supposes that an “evil genius of the
utmost power and cunning has employed all his most discussed and contested arguments in the
energies in order to deceive me.” history of thought.

Materialism Mind-body problem

Materialism, also called physicalism, in The mind–body problem is an unsolved

philosophy, the view that all facts (including
facts about the human mind and will and the
course of human history) are causally
dependent upon physical processes, or even
reducible to them.
problem concerning the relationship between
thought and consciousness in the human mind,
and the brain as part of the physical body.

Cartesian Dualism

The central claim of what is often called

Cartesian dualism, in honor of Descartes, is that
the immaterial mind and the material body,
while being ontologically distinct substances,
causally interact.

Mind–body dualism, in philosophy, any

theory that mind and body are distinct
kinds of substances or natures. This
position implies that mind and body not
only differ in meaning but refer to
different kinds of entities. Thus, a
dualist would oppose any theory that
identifies mind with the brain,
conceived as a physical mechanism.

Ontological argument

Ontological argument, Argument that proceeds

from the idea of God to the reality of God. It
was first clearly formulated by St. Anselm in his
Proslogion (1077–78); a later famous version is
given by René Descartes. Anselm began with
the concept of God as that than which nothing
greater can be conceived. To think of such a
being as existing only in thought and not also in
reality involves a contradiction, since a being
that lacks real existence is not a being than
which none greater can be conceived. A yet
greater being would be one with the further
attribute of existence. Thus the unsurpassably
perfect being must exist; otherwise it would not
be unsurpassably perfect. This is among the
FROM BOOK
B.C. Harrison (2015), Power & Society: An
Introduction to the Social Sciences, 14th edition
THE RATIONALIST: RENE DESCARTES
Rationalism
An epistemological position in which reason is
said to be the primary source of all knowledge,
superior to sense evidence. Rationalists argue
that only reason can distinguish reality from
illusion and give meaning to experience.
A priori ideas (innate ideas)
Truths that are from observation or experiment,
characterized as being certain, deductive,
universally true, and independent of all
experience.
Coherence theory of truth
Truth test in which new or unclear ideas are
evaluated in terms of rational or logical
consistency and in relation to already
established truths.
Methodic doubt
Cartesian strategy of deliberately doubting
everything that is possible to doubt in the least
degree so that what remains will be known with
absolute certainty.
A priori knowledge
Derived from reason without reference to sense
experience. Examples include “All triangles
contain 180°” and “Every event has a cause.”
A posteriori knowledge
Empirical knowledge derived from sense
experience and not regarded as universal
because the conditions under which it is
acquired change, perceivers vary, and factual
relationships change.
Cogito, ergo sum
Latin for “I think therefore I am.”
Ontological argument
An attempt to prove the existence of God either
by referring to the meaning of the word God
when it is understood a certain way or by
referring to the purportedly unique quality of
the concept of God.
Materialism (Behaviorism, mechanism)
Belief that everything is composed of matter
(and energy) and can be explained by physical
laws, that all human activity can be understood
as the natural behavior of matter according to
mechanical laws, and that thinking is merely a
complex form of behaving: The body is a fleshy
machine.
Dualism
Any philosophical position that divides
existence into two completely distinct,
independent, unique substances.
Monism
General name for the belief that everything
consists of only one, ultimate, unique substance
such as matter or spirit.
Pluralism
The belief that more than one reality or
substance exist.
THE SKEPTIC: DAVID HUME
Skeptic
From the Greek skeptesthai, “To consider or
examine”, a person who demands clear,
observable, undoubtable evidence before
accepting any knowledge claim as true.
Epistemology
Branch of Philosophy that studies the nature
and possibility of knowledge.
Empiricism
Belief that all knowledge is ultimately derived
from the senses (experience) and that all ideas
can be traced to sense data.
Correspondence (copy or representation)
theory of truth
Truth test that holds that an idea (or belief or
thought) is true if whatever it refers to actually
exists (corresponds to a fact).
Innate ideas (a priori ideas)
Truths that are not derived from observation or
experiment; characterized as being certain,
deductive, universally true, and independent of
all experience.
Tabula rasa
Latin expression for a “clean slate” used by John
Locke to challenge the possibility of innate ideas
by characterizing the mind at birth as a blank
tablet or clean slate.
Primary qualities
According to Locke, objective sensible that exist
independently of any perceiver; shape, size,
location, and motion are examples of primary
qualities.
Secondary qualities
According to Locke, subjective qualities whose
existence depends on a perceiver; color, sound,
taste, and texture are examples of secondary
qualities.
Epistemological dualism
The view that knowing consists of two distinct
aspects: the knower and the known.
Egocentric predicament
Problem generated by epistemological dualism:
If all knowledge comes in the form of my own
ideas, how can I verify the existence of anything
external to them?
Idealism (Immaterialism)
Belief that only ideas (mental states) exist; the
material world is fiction-it does not exist.
Esse est percipi
Latin for Berkeley’s belief that “to be is to be
perceived.”
Empirical criterion of meaning
Meaningful ideas are those that can be traced
back to sense experience (impression); beliefs
that cannot be reduced to sense experience are
not “idea” at all, but meaningless utterances.
Bundle theory of the self
Humean theory that there is no fixed self, but
that the self is merely a “bundle of
perceptions”, a self is merely a habitual way of
discussing certain perceptions.
THE UNIVERSALIST: IMMANUEL KANT
Moral
From the Latin moralis, meaning “custom,” “
manner,” or “conduct”; refers to what people
consider good or bad, right or wrong; used
descriptively as a contrast to amoral or
nonmoral and prescriptively as a contrast to
immoral.
Nonmoral (amoral)
Not pertaining to moral; a value-neutral
descriptive claim or classification.
Immoral most likely consequences according to our
hypothesis.
Morally wrong, bad, or not right; a moral value
judgment or prescriptive claim. Original position

Kantian formalist John Rawl’s imaginary setting in which we can

identify the fundamental principles of justice
Theory that knowledge is the result of the
from an objective, impartial perspective, as
interaction between the mind and sensation
rational agents, rather than as “interested
and is structured by regulative ideas called
parties: similar to the “state of nature” in the
categories; also known as Kantian idealism and
social contract theories of Thomas Hobbes,
transcendental idealism.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and John Locke.
Critical philosophy

Kant’s term for his effort to assess the nature

THE UTILITARIAN: JOHN STUART MILL
and limits of “pure reason,” unadulterated by
experience, in order to identify the actual Psychological hedonism
relationship of the mind to knowledge.
The belief that all decisions are based on
Phenomenal reality considerations of pleasure and pain because it
is psychologically impossible for human beings
Kant’s term for the world as we experience it.
to do so.
Noumenal reality
Principle of utility
Kant’s term for reality as it is, independent of
Always act to promote the greatest happiness
our perceptions; what is commonly called
for the greatest number.
“objective reality.”
Altruism
Hypothetical imperatives
From Latin for “other”; the capacity to promote
Propositions that tell us what to do under
the welfare of others; opposed to egoism.
specific, variable conditions.

Practical imperative (principle of dignity)

Kant’s formulation of the categorical imperative

based on the concept of dignity: “Act in such a
way that you always treat humanity, whether in
your own person or in the person of another,
never; simply as a means but always at the
same time as an end.”

Thought experiment

A way of using our imagination to test a

hypothesis; we think rather than field-test a
hypothesis, using reasoned imagination to
provide the necessary conditions for the
experiment, and carefully reasoning out the