All Questions
Tagged with definition or terminology
596 questions
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What is the difference between morality and ethics?
Is there a difference between morality and ethics, and if so, what is it? I have seen those terms used interchangeably, but have any philosophers made a distinction between the two?
- 8,628
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1
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Exact significance, of menthological settings (imagery, symbolism, plans, but where is the role of constructs for obtaining divergence)?
What is a menthological setting?
Is it something, that lets your mind, interleave, expand, (and diverge!), along the lines, of a mental setting?
Thanks.
(For example:
example menthological construct
)....
4
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1
answer
105
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What is the standard name for this mild form of dualism?
Dualism is traditionally thought to be the belief that matter and mind are separate things. However, I have this belief that while matter causes mind to emerge, nonetheless they are separate entities. ...
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2
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60
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How to understand "type-which-corresponds-to"?
In the comment on How do we define this?, user g s wrote a deleted comment indicating that things could be defined using "type-which-corresponds-to" (exact quote from memory). They followed ...
3
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7
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How do we know we've defined a thing properly when all definitions seem to have exceptions? [closed]
I don’t understand how to create definitions. Let’s take this question: “What is a woman?”
Now if I am a Platonic Idealist (or some other essentialist) then I think that all women share the same ...
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3
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458
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Is "Why do we live?" a philosophical question?
After posting a question akin to "Why do we live?" in the r/AskPhilosophy subreddit its moderators got it removed, providing as motivation "All questions must be about philosophy".
...
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2
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165
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Two kinds of abstract objects - circles and sets
Both circles and sets are considered abstract objects. I can visualise a circle in my mind (can 'see it through my mind's eye') but can't visualise a set or a number. I have no picture of a set in my ...
- 633
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3
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97
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Is there an opposite concept to trilemma?
In economics or other fields, there's a concept trilemma. It means
A trilemma is a difficult choice from three options, each of which is
(or appears) unacceptable or unfavourable. There are two ...
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6
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1k
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What is the rigorous definition of free will?
What is the rigorous definition of free will? There has been, and will continue to be, a lot of debate around free will. These debates seem to go nowhere, and that is because (so I think, anyway) ...
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What's the correct term or phrase for "Breaking a complex problem down into its fundamental tenets"?
Any problem I encounter, I distill down into fundamental tenets to create a model where the relationships between the distinct components of the problem are clear and more easily defined / discussed.
...
- 620
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170
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What noun describes the ideology that most things are scams?
What’s the -ism that portrays this outlook. This forgotten -ism is related to — BUT NOT — capitalism, corpocracy, cynicism, Marxism, misanthropy, nihilism, pessimism, socialism or skepticism. Such ...
user64125
3
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1
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46
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What is the term for a property instantiated either verbally or by judgement?
A promise is an example of a speech act. Is there a broader term encompassing nonverbal judgements? For example, consider a domain where objective measures of a property are vague or nonexistent; a ...
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5
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612
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How, in layman's terms, should this Conifold argument against illusionism be interpreted?
There's a discussion about philosophical zombies and illusionism going on in The Symposium, which is the main chat room for Philosophy on Stack Exchange and Conifold posted this a day or two ago (the ...
2
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2
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101
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Is Kant's talk of "homogeneity" the deeper point-of-contact between his theory of categories, and modern category theory?
The SEP article on category theory says:
Categories, functors, natural transformations, limits and colimits appeared almost out of nowhere in a paper by Eilenberg & Mac Lane (1945) entitled “...
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How do terms and concepts map to and relate to each other when thinking across languages?
I am working on creating a cross-linguistic dictionary every now and then, and currently thinking about the relationship between terms (single or multi word), morphemes (word parts), and concepts. At ...
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Is there a name for the relation between a proposition and the proposition formed after applying the diamond modal operator?
I don't know if there is a name for it but, since a negative proposition is the negation of another proposition for e.g. the proposition that "it is not the case that it is sunny" is the ...
user50018
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Is this a fallacy: "A woman is an adult who identifies as female in gender"? [closed]
The phrase tries to avoid the overt circular definition found in the variant, "a woman is anyone who identifies as a woman", by swapping woman with female in gender. But is that still a ...
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what do you call a logical argument between 2 people who hav personal grudges? Its opposite of Ad Hominem bt not Inverse Ad Hominem. what's it called?
If A and B already have personal grudges but keep that aside, they are discussing a subject and a conflict erupts argument. Their points are based on the subject only and nothing personal but the heat ...
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Ethical naturalism and moral naturalism
This article (Shook, 2015) makes a distinction between "ethical naturalism" and "moral naturalism":
Moral naturalism as defined at the conclusion of the previous section
is ...
- 1,818
2
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68
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"Truth" as a description of our cognition versus "truth" as a description of reality
In reading about the feud of foundationalism, infinitism and coherentism, there seems to be some arguments based on how cognition/reasoning works. However, an argument of the form (vaguely put by me) ...
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71
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Would objectivist utilitarianism be considered to be a form of moral absolutism?
Wikipedia defines moral absolutism as the view that "there is at least one principle that ought never to be violated". Does this mean that even someone who holds morally objectivist ...
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216
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What is the difference between token mental state vs type?
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/phenomenology/
Part 6 paragraph 4:
The classical identity theory holds that each token mental state (in a particular person’s mind at a particular time) is identical ...
- 456
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127
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Why is Xenophanes B34 epistemological fragment also gnoseological?
I was reading a History of Ancient Philosophy (from the National Research council in Spain, CSIC) book where the following Xenophanes' fragment B34 is classified as gnoseological, without further ...
user64708
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2
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225
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What is the difference between natural theology and transcendental theology?
According to wikipedia,
Natural theology, once also termed physico-theology, is a type of
theology and deism that seeks to provide arguments for theological
topics (such as the existence of a deity) ...
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3
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3
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368
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"Impredicative" definitions in mathematics
In this blog post, the following definition of an "impredicative definition" is offered:
A definition is said to be impredicative if it defines an object E by means of a quantification over a ...
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15
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6k
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Can you explain clearly the difference between race and ethnicity?
I have tried to look it up but most definitions usually don't make the difference crystal-clear. Many results on Google give overlapping definitions.
What my understanding is is that race is rooted in ...
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2
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177
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Philosophical school of thought that includes "unsatisfaction" or "the yearning for more" as a key component of "happiness"
What is the philosophical term for Callicle's position here? The quotes are from Plato's Gorgias.
SOCRATES: [...] Tell me, then:—you say, do you not, that in the rightly-developed man the passions ...
user64708
1
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2
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172
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Academic consensus on Thales being hylozoist or panpsychist (or alternatives)
For researchers on history of philosophy, taking into account, for example, the typical beliefs in societies predating Thales', which interpretation, if any, is more generally accepted in academia of
...
user64708
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235
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Is there any philosophical English term close to greek aletheia/alethes ( ἀλήθεια/ α-ληθές)?
Aletheia means unveiled mystery, not secret, disclosed facts and intentions, how something works and how it does not work, how it does exist and how it does not exist.
"To say of what is that it ...
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175
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How does assignment work? [closed]
The only place that 'assignment' is dealt with in any kind of formal context is in formal logic, the idea of a variable assignment function is one I wish to understand in simple terms to allow me to ...
- 1,237
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1
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Nomenclature for AND-operation on boolean reasoning
I develop a computer program to summarize a boolean decision. This program takes into account operators AND and OR. For the OR-operator, I can call it alternative, since this is how grammar rules call ...
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25
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Where does the type of practical reason fit into Kant's layered terminology?
At one point in the first Critique, Kant shoots off this list of stipulative definitions:
We are in no want of words to denominate adequately every mode of representation, without the necessity of ...
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7
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How does "if p, then q" compare to "p only if q"?
How do the statements if p then q and p only if q compare
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2
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336
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Help understanding this bit of philosophy in this paper
I was reading about data structuring in computer science in this paper "Record Handling C.A.R. Hoare" when he outlined some philosophy about the properties of objects that I'm struggling to ...
user50018
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3
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Cause-effect fallacy
Person A: "Why is 1 + 1 = 2?"
Person B: "Because if you collect one apple, and then collect
another apple, 1 apple + 1 apple = 2 apples, so you now have 2 apples
in total"
The ...
user63990
8
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12
answers
3k
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How To Distinguish Between Philosophy And Non-Philosophy?
Surely not all thinking or intellectual effort is philosophy, right?
Where to draw line between philosophy and all other thinking?
What, if any, feature is present only in philosophy?
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In cosmology, what do you call a visual representation of fundamental elements/forces in the universe?
I am interested in learning about various cosmological systems that come from various philosophies and religion throughout history. To understand what I really mean, here's a graphical example:
I am ...
user37389
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6
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3k
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What is the name of the philosophy that believes one should do whatever they want?
The philosophy in question believes:
You only live once, and you have predetermined desires from your genetics and environment. If these desires are not fulfilled as short-term or long-term goals you ...
user63990
6
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0
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132
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Does the usage of the words "gnosis" and "episteme" evidentiate a change over time in Ancient Greek philosophy?
"Episteme" is the word of choice in Plato, generally (although there are a few instances of "Gnosis" here and there)
By contrast, "Gnosis" is far more frequent among ...
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1
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What stance values non-coercion over preventing harm?
I hold a particular stance, which may or may not be consistent. I would like to know if this stance has a name.
I believe religion is not just wrong but harmful.
I support freedom of religion.
I do ...
user63845
2
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0
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34
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What does meaning-scepticism mean?
I found the term in The Limits of Realism (Tim Button) (2013) on page 2:
We are, then, looking for an argument that forces realists to consider
semantic questions. A natural place to look is in the ...
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3
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715
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Is it easier to prove something wrong than it is to prove something right?
Constantly I am faced with questions of whether something is the right choice or the wrong choice and I am forced to choose. Often, when faced with a problem, I feel that there is a correct answer and ...
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4
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202
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Does anything exist that doesn't cause effects?
In trying to understand the meaning of the word 'exist', I'm asking if there is anything exists that doesn't cause effects. Or is there anything that causes effects that doesn't exist?
If not then it ...
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101
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Is 'a level of quantity' a poor definition of 'real number'?
I was thinking about how we define numbers with respect to their uses, and came up with the definition of 'a level of quantity' which can have a different physical consequence for each quantity ...
- 1,237
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4
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Is '=' a relationship between the objects or their expressions?
The Wikipedia definiton of equality gives it as a 'relationship between two expressions'
This confuses me as when we define mathematical expressions like 2+2=4 it makes no sense to say that '=' or '...
- 1,237
4
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4
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838
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Why should a person care about what happens to the world now?
Apparently the word 'should' is problematic, but I don't see why. To me it means: "You will be better off if you do this." And, this definition is part of the accepted usage of the word.
I ...
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What qualifies as a volition? Are unconsious acts (walking) volitions? Are things like our heartbeat a volition?
As the title says, I'm not quite sure what exactly qualifies as a volition.
Some sources say that volition must be conscious, so that makes me wonder if things like habits, which are unconscious ...
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Is a variable simply a symbol?
If a 'variable assignment' function maps from a set of symbols, would it be correct to formulate a variable as simply a particular symbol that performs the role of a variable in my language? So when ...
- 1,237
3
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151
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Can an 'abstract object' be a collection of constituent parts?
When I ask this, the use of collection or set is not necessarily 'mathematical', so if in this case I mean a collection of ideas that encapsulate it, 'make up' the idea in the same way the various ...
- 1,237
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34
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Can 'collections' be 'objects'?
Most things we call 'objects' are generally made up of other 'objects' can we consider a collection, such as a physical collection of objects as an 'object' itself?
If we have a 'collection' or an ...
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