Exploration of Key Philosophical Concepts
Philosophical Concepts
Knowledge
Knowledge: The faculty or effect of knowing. Sentient beings possess knowledge, enabling awareness of the world and their own reality. Knowledge involves the interaction between subject and object. Degrees of knowledge range from basic animal awareness to higher forms of understanding.
Theory of Knowledge (Epistemology): The branch of philosophy studying the foundations of knowledge and truth. It examines the criteria for objective cognitive phenomena.
Sensitive Knowledge: Knowledge derived from the senses. This includes specific sensory inputs (e.g., sight, hearing) and common sensibles (e.g., movement, shape).
Intelligent Knowledge: The faculty of thinking, specifically the human capacity to understand sensory information and form universal abstractions (concepts). Intellligere means “to understand within.” Aristotle and the Scholastics distinguished two intellectual powers: the active intellect, which illuminates the universal within things (hylomorphism), and the passive intellect, which receives the concept.
Theoretical Knowledge (Speculative): Thought leading to pure knowledge of essences and causes. This knowledge is pursued for its own sake, without a utilitarian purpose. It contrasts with practical knowledge (science and arts), which is action-oriented.
Other Concepts
Praxis: (Marxist) Action, emphasizing its importance over speculation or pure knowledge. Human response to material conditions of existence.
Conservation (Instinct): An animal’s innate drive to protect its life and necessities.
Contingent: The status of created beings, whose existence is not essential to their being. This contrasts with the Necessary Being (God), whose essence is existence.
Quotas: (Duns Scotus) Moral rules and laws derive their validity not from rationality or purpose, but from God’s arbitrary decree.
Contract: The idea that society and the state originate from a covenant between individuals, without natural or divine basis (Locke, Hobbes, Rousseau).
Thing Itself (Noumenon): (Kant) The reality of the external world independent of our knowledge. A mysterious, unknowable entity from which sensations arise, integrated into the a priori forms of pure reason and categories of understanding.
Cosmogony: Mythical theories about the world’s origin, particularly its transformation from primordial chaos.
Cosmology: (Wolff) The part of metaphysics/ontology studying the physical world as a unified whole.
Creationism: The theory that the world (and human soul) originated from God’s creative act. Creation: Production ex nihilo (from nothing). Only God creates in the strict sense. Metaphorically applied to artistic works.
Myth: Knowledge acquired through or based on faith.
Criteria: Rules or norms for determining truth. Epistemology seeks criteria to ground certainties and support objectivity. Criteria also exist for moral action.
Criticism: (Kant) Reason’s self-examination.
Body: Any material object. Stoics and Epicureans considered everything, including souls and thoughts, as corporeal. Cartesians divided the world into body (extension) and soul (thought).
Culture: The cultivated potential and personality of an individual. Also, the collective characteristics of a people, period, or civilization. Modern thought sometimes views culture as a primary social principle.
Duty: The reciprocal of right, a moral obligation to respect others’ rights, ultimately grounded in God. Duties can be innate or acquired, directed towards God, others, or oneself. Kant based duty on the “categorical imperative.”
Decision: The final stage of voluntary action, where a choice is made after deliberation.
Deduction: Logical inference from premises. Proceeds from universal to particular.
Definition: Explaining something’s essence by identifying its conceptual boundaries. Types include etymological, descriptive, genetic, and essential (genus and specific difference).
Deism: A rational view of God, affirming existence without revealed or personal attributes.
Discussion: The stage of voluntary action where reason presents motives and counter-motives to the will.
Demagogy: Rule by the populace, often by appealing to passions to gain power.
Demiurge: Greco-Roman concept of God as the world’s creator.
Democracy: Government by the people, directly or through representatives. Aristotle considered it suitable for small communities. Modern democracy emphasizes popular sovereignty.
Demon: A demigod mediating between gods and humans. Socrates’ inner voice. In Christianity, fallen angels.
Proof: Reasoning that reduces propositions to evident truths.
Ethics: The study of duties, including duties to God, others, oneself, the state, and one’s profession.
Right: Subjectively, the ability to act or possess without coercion. Objectively, the rule establishing rights and duties. Also, the science of law.
Destiny: In fatalism, an unavoidable fate. In non-deterministic views, a thing’s natural end or purpose, or a willingly accepted mission.
Determinism: The theory that actions are necessarily caused, denying free will.
Dialectic: (Plato, Aristotle) The art of discussion and pursuing truth through dialogue. (Stoics) Logic, distinct from rhetoric. (Hegel) The synthesis of opposites through thesis, antithesis, and synthesis.