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51 votes
Accepted

Is there a term for the belief that "if it's legal, it's moral"?

We are talking about "Appeal to law" fallacy. When following the law is assumed to be the morally correct thing to do, without justification, or when breaking the law is assumed to be the ...
jo1storm's user avatar
  • 561
28 votes
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Term for people who believe God once existed but then disappeared?

"Theothanatologists" - For more information see Wikipedia. The Death of God movement is sometimes technically referred to as theothanatology, deriving from the Greek theos (God) and ...
Chris Degnen's user avatar
  • 4,432
22 votes

Is there a term for the belief that "if it's legal, it's moral"?

I think what you are looking for is called Legal Interpretivism, which, unlike Legal Positivism (which asserts that laws are distinct from morality), asserts that laws are based on morality, and that ...
SmootQ's user avatar
  • 2,379
20 votes

Is this a fallacy: "A woman is an adult who identifies as female in gender"?

A woman is an adult that identifies as female in gender. A fallacy is an argument that is specious but persuasive. You have presented no substantial argument which often takes the form of first ...
J D's user avatar
  • 17.4k
19 votes

How does "if p, then q" compare to "p only if q"?

In simple cases at least, "if p, then q" and "p only if q" have the same truth conditions. But this is not the same as saying that they mean the same thing. Typically with ...
Bumble's user avatar
  • 19.6k
18 votes
Accepted

What is a "demon"?

A demon is a skilled entity, used in thought experiments, that remarks some fact. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon_(thought_experiment).
RodolfoAP's user avatar
  • 6,082
18 votes

Term for people who believe God once existed but then disappeared?

What you describe is view of some deists who see God as observing humanity but not directly intervening in our lives - for more information see Wikipedia.
PawełT's user avatar
  • 181
16 votes

Is this a fallacy: "A woman is an adult who identifies as female in gender"?

"A woman is anyone who identifies as a woman" is a definition, not an argument (it defines what "woman" means). So it cannot be fallacious. But it's circular*, which means it's not ...
NotThatGuy's user avatar
  • 3,062
14 votes
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In simple terms, what is the difference between logic in mathematics and philosophy?

The definitions of 'logic' and 'mathematics' are themselves subject to dispute. In particular, the word 'logic' is used in different senses. At its narrowest, it is concerned with the relationship of ...
Bumble's user avatar
  • 19.6k
13 votes
Accepted

What's the right term in logic for this phenomenon?

The difference is that between inclusion and equality. The set of Mothers of x is included into the set of Parents of x, but not vice versa: every Mother is a Parent, but not every Parent is a Mother....
Mauro ALLEGRANZA's user avatar
13 votes
Accepted

Are humans and other animals machines?

I like this question. It's thorny. Merriam-Webster defines machine so: a mechanically, electrically, or electronically operated device for performing a task. That is, there is an operator (the entity ...
BillOnne's user avatar
  • 1,499
13 votes

Is this a fallacy: "A woman is an adult who identifies as female in gender"?

It isn't an argument, so cannot be a fallacy. It is merely a definition. A definition can be useful or not. It can be a prescriptive definition or a descriptive definition. Prescriptive definitions ...
James K's user avatar
  • 297
12 votes
Accepted

What is an attribute, as used in Spinoza's Ethics?

Attributes, for Aristotle, scholastics, Descartes, and Spinoza alike, are the non-accidental qualities/properties expressed in language by predicates, as substances are expressed in it by subjects, to ...
Conifold's user avatar
  • 42k
11 votes

Is the dichotomy between natural and unnatural defensible?

Natural is one of those words that fit the description of what John Austin called trouser-words in his book Sense and Sensibilia. Sometimes you can only understand a word by reference to what it is ...
Bumble's user avatar
  • 19.6k
11 votes

Is this a fallacy: "A woman is an adult who identifies as female in gender"?

The following definition is not circular: A woman is somebody who says they are a woman. This definition proposes a test, "do they say they are a woman?", to determine if somebody is a ...
kaya3's user avatar
  • 680
10 votes

What is the difference between a probability and a possibility?

On the prevailing extensional interpretation of modality the difference between possibility and probability is the diffference between quality and quantity, possibility is the quality quantified by ...
Conifold's user avatar
  • 42k
10 votes
Accepted

What does Nietzsche refer to with the "backworldsmen"?

I answer with the authority of being a native German speaker and having graduated in philosophy ;) Back-world is a bad translation here. Presumably, the translator has mistaken the term "...
Philip Klöcking's user avatar
  • 12.9k
10 votes
Accepted

What did Gödel mean by "positive property" in his ontological argument?

"Positive" is what Leibniz and other proponents of the ontological argument called qualities that make something "better" than it is without them (Anselm spoke of "good" ...
Conifold's user avatar
  • 42k
9 votes

Is there a term for the belief that what is popular in society defines what is moral?

My sense is that you are referring to a form of relativism that takes the specific form of morality by convention. Or at least that the social attitude you describe can be set out in these terms. It ...
Geoffrey Thomas's user avatar
  • 35.2k
9 votes
Accepted

How can I understand references in Seneca's Moral letters to Lucilius?

These are standard abbreviations in classical scholarship. N.Q. is Seneca's Naturales quaestiones, Ep./Epp. are the very Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium you are reading (respectively, singular/plural), ...
Conifold's user avatar
  • 42k
9 votes
Accepted

Metaphysicist or Metaphysician?

The reason is historical. "Physics" as science is relatively recent (it was covered by natural philosophy before), and "physicist" as its practitioner was only coined by Whewell in The Philosophy of ...
Conifold's user avatar
  • 42k
9 votes

An sich and Für sich (in itself and for itself)

Sebastian Gardner compiled a Hegel glosssary which is extremely useful if one is looking for concise definitions as a starter. I doubt that you will find many definitions to match your criteria better ...
Philip Klöcking's user avatar
  • 12.9k
8 votes
Accepted

What does Sun Tzu's *Art of War* mean by "victory"?

This is a quotation from The Art of War 4.2. Here's the original: 故善戰者,立于不敗之地,而不失敵之敗也。是故勝兵先勝,而後求戰;敗兵先戰,而後求勝。 Here's my own translation that might help: (1) Hence a good military man puts ...
virmaior's user avatar
  • 24.4k
8 votes

What does "physical" mean to philosophers?

This question seems to be a companion to How can something non-physical exist? Some preliminary thoughts: acknowledging the existence of empirical, or even confining physical to empirical, does not ...
Conifold's user avatar
  • 42k
8 votes

What is a "demon"?

Consider Descartes I will suppose therefore that not God, who is supremely good and the source of truth, but rather some malicious demon [mauvais génie] of the utmost power and cunning has employed ...
CriglCragl's user avatar
  • 16.4k
8 votes

How does one determine the boundary of an object?

It's a pragmatic thing more than a linguistic thing. If you want to go to the store, you think about your car If your car won't drive, you think about what part of it is at fault: engine, ...
Ted Wrigley's user avatar
  • 16.8k
7 votes
Accepted

What is the difference between Philosophy and Theology?

As Nelson Alexander mentions, philosophy encompasses far more than just philosophy of religion, but I assume that's what you mean when comparing the two. Theology and Philosophy (of Religion) are ...
Alexander S King's user avatar
7 votes
Accepted

What makes the material conditional material?

The term "material implication" was coined by Russell, who made a distinction between formal and material implication. Here's a quote from the Principia: [W]herever [...] one particular ...
E...'s user avatar
  • 6,388
7 votes
Accepted

Absolute Truth in Mathematics

According to the formalist view on mathematics, I think the answer should be no - mathematics is not an example of absolute truth according to the definition you've given. This is how mathematics ...
ngn's user avatar
  • 226
7 votes
Accepted

Is there a term for the belief that what is popular in society defines what is moral?

The system of morality being referred to is popular morality, and it is a current area of research in philosophy, with the following notable mentions: Popular Morality and Unpopular Philosophy ...
Carl Masens's user avatar

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