Questions tagged [terminology]
The study of terms and their use.
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Can you explain the problem with Aristotle's doctrine of terms presented in this excerpt?
I'm really confused about the second paragraph. This is form Kenny's "A New History of Philosophy".
"One of the dysfunctional features of the doctrine of terms is that it fosters ...
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? as a logical connective
I am reading Doubt Truth to be a Liar by Graham Priest. In it he uses the symbol ? as a logical connective, and I am unsure of it's meaning.
Given his use of ? (a ? a) to denote the Law of Identity, ...
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Is the dichotomy between natural and unnatural defensible?
Are not the dictionary definitions of natural and unnatural inconsistent?
Why wouldn't whatever humans create (e.g. money, plastic bags, books, internet, laptop, lamp, buildings, airplanes, etc) be ...
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Term for the dichotomy of blaming a philosophical counter-example on oneself vs. our commonsense
Imagine some philosopher answers a question of the form "What is X?". Then a critic points out that, according to this answer, O is not X, but we clearly consider it to be X. It seems that ...
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Would philosophy exist without semantics?
With so many threads on this forum seeming to me - from my point of view - as wars of words -can it be argued whether semantics are philosophy's oxygen? Would any philosophical debate actually take ...
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Are the terms formula and algorithm synonymous in formal logic?
How to do something in two or more steps would feel/grasped to me as pretty much matching the common usages of both terms, but to find possible nuances common in the philosophical literature in ...
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What is the difference between a model and algorithm?
I would say that an algorithm is a private case of model because it describes how something generally works --- just mathematically.
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Is there any philosophical difference between "I have no horns" and "I have horns, but they have zero volume"?
The common idea is that, on one hand we have "I don't have X", on the other hand we have "I have X, but X has some its quality equal to zero, making it to behave the same way as if it ...
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Is there a term for properties that an entity has at a particular time, but which depend on the properties it has at other times?
Is there a term for properties that an entity has at a particular time, but which depend on the properties it has at other times?
For example, when he was a child, Lebron James had the property of ...
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What is the word if someone starts his argument with a conclusion?
Say, I'm arguing with a believer about Noahs flood. According to their scripture and other sources it is described as global. But there is no evidence for a global flood, hence why the believer says ...
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Why physical force and power in the definition of violence
I've been working my way through the concept of violence. I started with the definition provided by the WHO as a reasonable starting place:
Violence is “the intentional use of physical force or ...
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What is the philosophical term for when a property is emergent from an underlying structure?
There is a term that refers to this, which I can't find anywhere, but I remember it from studies of consciousness and the brain.
For example, "consciousness is ____ on the physical brain".
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Question about Russell's distinction between knowledge of things and knowledge of truths in 'The Problems of Philosophy'
In his book, Russell distinguishes several types of knowledge. He first distinguishes knowledge of truths, and of things.
"the sense in which what we know is true (...) i.e. to what are called ...
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Is Russell's "(im)predicativity" terminology related to (or even derived from) Kant's "existence is not a predicate" argument?
I'm a mathematician who's generally ignorant of philosophy, so forgive me if my question is a bit sloppy. I'm really trying to ask about a historical connection/context.
I recently encountered the ...
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Arguing / Pretending as an Opponent Speaker
What do you call a person or the strategy where the speaker acts as the opponent to know the issue at hand better (as an opponent). For instance, a Vegan (person X) can argue with another Vegan, ...
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Can 'Trust' be quantified?
I believe the concept of trust or the word trust itself can be given many definitions depending on someone's understanding of it.
Agreeing with the definition given on dictionnary.com website as ...
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Atheist, Agnostic...Wait for more data?
I'm a scientist by heart: I believe that while the existence of God, however defined (or any metaphysic question, for that matter), is a tough one, it might not be completely inaccessible to science. ...
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Why isn't astronomy called astrology? [closed]
Many scientific topics are called ---logy. Like psychology, biology, archeology, meteorology, cosmology, physiology, geology, etc. The adjective "logy" means "knowledge of".
One ...
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Is there a single word for an arbitrary closed curved line?
A circle is a circle. A triangle is a triangle. An ellipse is an ellipse. A square is a square. Is there a name for the general case of an arbitrarily formed line (so it can be curved) with the ...
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Why are curved triangles not considered as triangles?
I asked a question on the math side where it was said that this is a philosophical question. So here it is. Why are curved triangles, in Euclidean space, not considered triangles? The only case of a ...
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What word describes the mental structure that determines behavior and thinking of an individual?
I am coming at this question from the view that the brain is a sort of machine that maintains a structure that is built and modified through experiences. From that structure manifests an individual's ...
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What is "natural"?
The term "natural" is often used by people who have faith in "natural" things, by marketers promoting a product, etc.
However, what is the definition of "natural"? ...
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Ethics, axiology, and decision theory
I'm confused about the precise terminology to use when referring to various subjects which are all related to making good choices. I know that axiology is general study of value, including moral, ...
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When to use 'element of' vs 'proper subset of' for thinking?
For example, if I'm thinking of particular colors, are there advantages of construing them as elements of vs proper subsets of the set "color?"
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What is the definition of a statement?
What is the definition of a statement, formally? We talk a lot about statements in math and philosophy, but I have never heard a precise definition of what a statement is. I would like some ...
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What is the definition of a property?
What is the definition of a property? Like, for example, "that apple has the property of being red". I know that properties aren't the same thing as sets. But what are they, exactly?
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A distinction between two types of atheism
What does the word "atheism" actually mean? Does it mean, simply, "lack of a belief in God or gods"? By that definition, babies would be atheists, not to mention cats, trees, and ...
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Antonym(ic) definitions of a phenomenon by its lack of property
I thought I saw the term antonym or antonymic (?) definition occur somewhere on the Stackexchange with a reference, but now I can't find it.
I refer to things like UFO which is characterized by its ...
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What does "true" mean in "justified true belief"?
What does TRUE mean in JUSTIFIED TRUE BELIEF?
We define knowledge as "justified true belief".
Now, my question is what does the term TRUE mean in the formal definition? Why not only "...
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Rawls' phrase "well-ordered society"
Given Rawls' near-constant recourse to mathematical examples and analogies in AToJ, what are the chances that his talk of well-ordered societies is to be understood in part in terms of well-ordered ...
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Are ontic predicates similarly (or even well) defined across philosophers? Do they differ from logic predicates?
I've seen the term "ontic predicate" bandied around in some works. Whenever it has a clear definition it seem no different than how one would define it in (first-order) logic, i.e. it being ...
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Is there a clear cut distinction between Philosophy and Philology?
I’ve been recently mulling over semantic and linguistic issues and I realized that my understanding of these fields may not correspond to the commonly accepted wisdom, so to speak.
Although the ...
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Word for an unending task that one is compelled to do
Absurdism uses The Myth of Sisyphus to give a metaphor for the unending human need to attribute meaning to life.
What would be the most well-understood (or established) word that means: "a ...
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What is the name of the belief that everyone else is a philosophical zombie?
What is the name of the belief that everyone else is a philosophical zombie? I don't think it is quite solipsism, because solipsism denies that an outer world exists in the first place. I am talking ...
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Is Searle mislabeling his position on perception as "direct realism" when it's really intentionalism? Or are there non-realist intentionalists?
Having given Searle's 2015 book (Seeing things as the are) a quick read, to me he seems like he's really (mostly) espousing intentionalism but he calls his position "direct realism". He ...
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What is the difference between "satisfaction" and "verification"?
In Chalmers paper, "consciousness and its place in nature", he makes the following statement:
We can say that if W (world) considered as actual makes S (a statement) true, then W verifies S....
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Is the distinction between software and hardware real?
In computer science education, there exists a dichotomy between what we call "hardware" and what we call "software". Software can exist as patterns on hardware and also as a purely ...
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Term for people who believe God once existed but then disappeared?
Reading Wikipedia, I learnt
Agnosticism is the view that the existence of God, of the divine or the supernatural is unknown or unknowable.
Comment: Am I correct if I say an agnostics would say: &...
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Is there a word or term for the inability to separate what is phenomenal from noumenal?
Phenomenal includes everything originating from personal experience, while Noumenal includes everything except personal experience; something is Ontological when it includes both.
The ability to ...
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Can a carrier of contradicting thoughts be called hypocrite?
Can a carrier of contradicting thoughts be called hypocrite?
We know when people do/pretend something which he does not believe/poses, we call them hypocrite. Now what will happen if someone does not ...
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Has there been an attempt to create a classification system or taxonomy of "everything"
I have only begun digging into the philosophical definitions and study of taxonomy/classification, however I am just wondering if thus far the idea of trying to categorize and classify all objects, ...
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Is this outline typical of the organization of academic analytic philosophy?
After doing some research I came up with the following classification of analytic philosophy. Do certain branches overlap or worse, are there any inclusions that I have missed?
Axiology
Æsthetics
...
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Is there a term for the belief that nothing exists?
Monism is the belief that only one thing exists. Is there a term for the belief that nothing exists, and have any serious philosophers given any arguments for that belief?
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Are all "actions" considered to be a type of "conditions"?
Are all "actions" considered to be a type of "conditions"? Let's take the following sentence:
"Each display and local field can contain one or more rules that
contain a set ...
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What is the Difference Between Mercy and Pity?
I am currently reading about euthanasia and encountered the argument that mercy is a morally different category from pity.
It is written there, that mercy implies a "re-establishment of equality&...
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What are the "Simples" Wittgenstein discusses in Philosophical Investigations?
I first came across this term in §39 of Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations, wherein he writes
[O]ne is tempted to make an objection against what is ordinarily called a name. It can be put ...
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Why is it that philosophers use terms that aren't literally true in their literature?
In lectures and talks that I have attended/watched, I've noticed a propensity to use the term "move" when describing the primary driving force behind an argument. In context, it might sound ...
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What do you call the truest subjective truths?
What do you call the truest subjective truths? There are objective truth such as "Markus scored an IQ of 90 on the Raven Matrices test" and subjective truth such as "Markus is dumb"...
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Is the concept of 'evidence' inherently subjective, and how does that impact the definition of 'faith'?
Claiming that something is 'evidence' of something else requires a mind observing, interpreting and coming to that conclusion. Isn't this a subjective process? If so, does this mean that the concept ...
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What is the difference between 'sense-data' and 'facts'?
There appear to be times when philosophers use these terms 'sense-data' and 'facts' synonymously, and at other times as distinct entities. Is there philosophy that speaks to characterize the ...
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