maximal

(logic) Said of a set of well-formed formulas: that it is as large as it can be without being inconsistent; i.e. that for any well-formed formula φ, the set contains either φ or ~φ.


symbolic logic

en-noun

symbolic logic (usually uncountable, plural symbolic logics)

(logic) A formal system of deductive logic in which aspects and relationships of natural language are represented by a system of symbols.


dreamgirl

/ˈdɹiːmɡɜːl/

Coordinate term: dreamboy

The daughter of an Irish bricklayer became the American ideal: the dreamgirl of young, upward-bound males who yearned for the finer things of life

1989, Joseph M. Curran, Hibernian Green on the Silver Screen:

(informal) One's ideal vision of a female companion.


sequent

1550s; borrowed from Middle French sequent, from Old French sequent, itself borrowed from Latin sequentem, present participle of sequī (“to follow”).

A sequent a,b⊢c,d could be interpreted to correspond to an Existential Graph, whose expression in Existential Graph Interchange Format would be
~[(a) (b) ~[(c)] ~[(d)]], which in ordinary language could be expressed as "a and b give c or d".

(logic) A disjunctive set of logical formulae which is partitioned into two subsets; the first subset, called the antecedent, consists of formulae which are valuated as false, and the second subset, called the succedent, consists of formulae which are valuated as true. (The set is written without set brackets and the separation between the two subsets is denoted by a turnstile symbol, which may be read "give(s)".)


cosmological argument

cosmological argument (plural cosmological arguments)

(theology, philosophy) A type of argument for the existence of God arguing that since every thing and event that begins at a point in time has a cause, there must be an uncaused first cause.


Divine Providence

(theology) the sovereignty, superintendence, or agency of God over events in people's lives and throughout history.


FSB

From Russian ФСБ (FSB), initialism of Федеральная Служба Безопасности (Federalʹnaja Služba Bezopasnosti, “Federal Security Service”).

Possible victims included Roman Tsepov, Putin’s bodyguard in 1990s St Petersburg, who died after drinking tea in 2004 at a local FSB office.

2020 August 20, Luke Harding, “Alexei Navalny and the long history of poisoned Kremlin critics”, in The Guardian:

(initialism, Russia, politics, espionage, law enforcement) The Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation.


divine polity

divine polity (usually uncountable, plural divine polities)

But it cannot be expected that the Clergy […] should upon this Revolution by contented to cry peccavi [I have sinned], and openly recant all their former Doctrines of Divine Polity by a hearty active Conformity to your Majesty’s rightful Title and Government.

1698, William Stephens, “A Letter to his most excellent Majesty King William III. […]”, in A Collection of State Tracts, Published During the Reign of King William III, volume 2, published 1706, page 634:

The Divine polity, under which they had hitherto lived, was distasteful to the carnal affections of man: they reject the Lord God of Israel, and exclaim, “Nay, but set a king over us.”

1849, Alfred J. Carver, The Divine Attribute of Mercy as Deduced from the Old Testament, published 1851, page 49:

Let them affirm their unyielding determination to stand, firmly and unreservedly, for the way of Bahá’u’lláh, to avoid the entanglements and bickerings inseparable from the pursuits of the politician, and to become worthy agencies of the Divine Polity which incarnates God’s immutable Purpose for all men.

1936 March 11, Shoghi Effendi, “The Divine Polity”, in The World Order of Bahá’u’lláh: Selected Letters, published 1991, →ISBN, page 65:

(chiefly Christianity, theology) A government or system of governance (especially of a church) said to be instituted by God.


performative

en-adj

performative (comparative more performative, superlative most performative)

more performative (comparative)
most performative (superlative)

Saying "I do" as part of a wedding ceremony is performative, enacting a marriage.

Thus in the example: 'By saying “I do” I was marrying her', the performative 'I do' is a means to the end of marriage. Here 'saying' is used in the sense in which it takes inverted commas and is using words or language, a phatic and not[…]

1975 April 15, J. L. Austin, How to Do Things with Words: Second Edition, Harvard University Press, →ISBN:

(philosophy, linguistics) Being enacted as it is said.


axiological

Students of psychology and epistemology are familiar with the axiological literature of the last forty years, and are here reminded of the great diversity of opinions on this topic.

1922, O. Fred Boucke, “The Relation of Ethics to Social Science,”, in International Journal of Ethics, volume 33, number 1, page 72:

Of or relating to value theory, the philosophical field of axiology.


ethicist

From ethics + -ist, changing /ks/ to /θ/ for ease of pronunciation and dropping the -s.

倫理學者

person who studies principles governing right and wrong conduct

A person, especially a philosopher, who studies ethics (principles governing right and wrong conduct).


axiologist

The moral philosophies are even more important to the moral scientist—the axiologist.

1962, Robert S. Hartman, “Axiology as a science,”, in Philosophy of Science, volume 29, number 4, page 421:

It led willy-nilly to technological determinism, a philosophy that Mumford, the axiologist, generally repudiated. Even in the later pages of Technics and Civilization, he stresses the role of values in shaping technology.

1990, Thomas Hughes, “Review of Lewis Mumford: A Life by Donald Miller,”, in Technology and Culture, volume 31, number 4, page 914:

A person, especially a philosopher, who studies theory of value.


false dichotomy

en-noun

false dichotomy (plural false dichotomies)

(botany) A branching in which the main axis appears to divide dichotomously at the apex but is in reality suppressed, the growth being continued by lateral branches (as in the dichasium).


deontological

en-adj

deontological (comparative more deontological, superlative most deontological)

more deontological (comparative)
most deontological (superlative)

From deontology + -ical (1832). The specialised sense in normative ethics is due to C. D. Broad (1930).

Deontological theories hold that there are ethical propositions of the form: 'Such and such a kind of action would always be right (or wrong) in such and such circumstances, no matter what its consequences might be.'

1930, C. D. Broad, Five Types of Ethical Theory, 206f:

(ethics, philosophy) Of or relating to deontology.


epistemologist

A person, especially a philosopher, who studies theory of knowledge.


dao

From the pinyin romanization of Chinese 道 (Dào, literally “the Way”) or (dào, "circuit").

(Chinese philosophy) Alternative form of Tao: the way of nature and/or the ideal way to live one's life.


materialist

Ironically, today's generation has become the little materialists and "fame whores" (New York Magazine's term) their boomer parents so reviled.

2007 March 2, Christopher Orlet, “The Look-at-Me Generation”, in The American Spectator:

Someone who is materialistic, concerned only with material possessions.

It is weary work enough to argue with an ordinary materialist, who hurls statistics and whole strata of geological facts at your head, whilst you can only buffet him with deductions and instincts and the snowflakes of faith, that are, alas! so apt to melt in the hot embers of our troubles.

1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC:

A follower or proponent of philosophical materialism.


materialist

materialist (comparative more materialist, superlative most materialist)

more materialist (comparative)
most materialist (superlative)

Having features typical of philosophical materialism.

materialistisch

having features typical of philosophical materialism


unsayable

unsayable (comparative more unsayable, superlative most unsayable)

more unsayable (comparative)
most unsayable (superlative)

Whatsoever has been said before me, even on any subject, surely it belongs thereto that it can be repeated by me in rehearsal, and hence it does not seem possible that in this sense it should be so fitly called unspeakable or unsayable.

1851, John Kitto, The Journal of sacred literature, Oxford University, page 296:

Nonetheless, in some unsayable way, value sentences are about values and reflect the structure of values.

1938, G. E. Moore, Ethics, University of Chicago Press, page 215:

The unsaid drives us to “speak;” but, in some ways, there are limitations on what we can say, because some part always remains unsaid — we must always attempt to say the unsayable.

2004, Daniel Fidel Ferrer, Philosophical Aphorisms: Critical Encounters with Heidegger and Nietzsche, page 97:


postlapsarian

/ˌpəʊstlæpˈsɛəɹɪən/

From post- (“after”) + lapsus (“of the fall”) + -arian (“of or pertaining to”).

confix

(Judaism, Christianity) The state of being which followed The Fall (the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden).


two-spirit

Paul's grasp of the Spirit as the sign of the erupting messianic age is at odds with the two-spirit thought of Qumran which never became incompatible with law observance.

1957, The Harvard Divinity School Bulletin, Harvard University Press, page 133:

(theology) Involving two spirits; especially, pertaining to the doctrine of dualism espoused in the so-called Treatise on the Two Spirits in the Dead Sea Scrolls.

«с двумя́ ду́шами»

involving two spirits; pertaining to the doctrine of dualism


defeasible

en-adj

defeasible (comparative more defeasible, superlative most defeasible)

more defeasible (comparative)
most defeasible (superlative)

Back-formation from defeasance + -ible, from Anglo-Norman defesaunce, Old French desfaisance, a deverbal noun from desfaire (“to undo”) (Modern French défaire), from des- (“un-, apart”) + fere, faire (“to do”) + -able, reflecting Latin dis- + facere + -ābilis. Near-doublet of defeatable.

The accounting charge for the non-callable debt is defeasible by an escrow.

(law, logic) Capable of being defeated, terminated, annulled, voided or invalidated.

breekbaar

capable of being defeated, invalidated, …


metaethical

In particular, I argue that (i) moral folkism leads us to the deflationary conclusion that many of the normative and metaethical questions that philosophers discuss are settled by empirical facts about what ordinary folk happen to mean by their words — and so they're not settled by mind-independent facts about reality.

2020, Mark Balaguer, “Moral Folkism and the Deflation of (Lots of) Normative and Metaethics”, in José L. Falguera, Concha Martínez-Vidal, editor, Abstract Objects: For and Against, page 297:

(ethics) Of or pertaining to metaethics.


metaethics

From meta- + ethics. First attested in the 1930s.

However, he holds that ethics is not capable of proving cruelty—or happiness, for that matter—to be either good or bad. This view of the limitations of the reasoning of normative ethics belongs to metaethics.

1985, Kenneth Blackwell, The Spinozistic Ethics of Bertrand Russell, volume 1, →ISBN, page 6:

With respect to metaethics, some philosophers, known as cognitivists, believe that it is possible to identify objective criteria for determining what is ethically right or wrong, or good and bad. Others, however, question whether this is possible.

2006, Frederic G. Reamer, Social Work Values and Ethics, 3rd edition, →ISBN, page 62:

(ethics) The study of the nature and meaning of moral judgments, and the foundations and the possibility of ethical reasoning as such.


percipient

From Latin percipiēns, present participle of percipiō (“to perceive”).

As anatomy, physiology and, later, psychology have developed into more or less well-organized sciences, they have necessarily and rightly come to incorporate the study of, among other things, the structures, mechanisms, and functionings of animal and human bodies qua percipient.

1954: Gilbert Ryle, Dilemmas: The Tarner Lectures, 1953, dilemma vii: Perception, page 99 (The Syndics of the Cambridge University Press)

(philosophy, psychology) One who perceives something.


beingness

en-noun

beingness (usually uncountable, plural beingnesses)

Calque of German Seiendheit, equivalent to English being + -ness. Occasionally also used to translate German Sein (“being”).

Thus, from every example, we may see that Quantity always concerns a Beingness, which is indifferent to the very determinateness which it now, or at any time, has.

1865, James Hutchison Stirling, The Secret of Hegel, page 263:

In the good painting the stone is no longer a stone, i.e., something which we could not possibly be: in the good painting the stone has become visible in its beingness; only in the work of art is the stone truly.

1988, Leo Strauss, What is Political Philosophy?, →ISBN, page 253:

The two approaches remain distinct ways of knowing: mystics are interested in the changeless beingness outside of time, while scientists are only interested in understanding the causes of the changes within the world of time.

2004, Richard H. Jones, Mysticism and Morality: A New Look at Old Questions, →ISBN, page 391:

Existence; the condition of a thing that is.


dogcatcher

Men like him couldn't get elected dogcatcher. He was a natural lieutenant, not a leader, and it was a fact he accepted with neither bitterness nor regret.

2007, Robert Ludlum, The Bancroft Strategy, page 348:

A person whose job is to catch and remove stray dogs.


unknowable

en-adj

unknowable (comparative more unknowable, superlative most unknowable)

more unknowable (comparative)
most unknowable (superlative)

Number fourteen: Some of the things you need to know are things that are unknowable.

2004, George Carlin, “NINETY-NINE THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW”, in When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?, New York: Hyperion Books, →ISBN, →OCLC, →OL, page 39:


essentialism

en-noun

essentialism (countable and uncountable, plural essentialisms)

More problematic is the essentialism that interests modal logicians, namely "the view that some attributes belong to an object by necessity whereas others belong to it contingently."

1991, Garth L. Hallett, Essentialism: A Wittgensteinian Critique, →ISBN, page 2:

Opponents of essentialism argue that "essences" are simply creations of language and culture.

2004, Kelly James Clark, Richard Lints, James K. A. Smith, 101 Key Terms in Philosophy and Their Importance for Theology, →ISBN, page 21:

(philosophy) The view that objects have properties that are essential to them.

اَلْجَوْهَرَانِيَّة

I should also mention that Rousseau's essentialism, unlike many of his contemporaries', is rather limited.

2007, Mark Sydney Cladis, Public Vision, Private Lives, →ISBN, page 85:

But they fed what they saw as raw, unguarded essentialism into work that was anything but naive. Rousseau was a naïf himself; his work as seductively strange to the other modernists as an ancient Iberian sculpture or a child’s drawing.

2015 June 17, Rachel Spence, “Henri Rousseau: Archaic Candour, Palazzo Ducale, Venice”, in Financial Times:

(philosophy) The theory that human beings are by nature (i.e. essentially) good and that evil is the product of society.


exister

We existers are never either ready to hand or present at hand, because our ontological constitution, Existenz, is utterly different from theirs […]

1992, Graeme Nicholson, Illustrations of being: drawing upon Heidegger and upon metaphysics:

It is good that existers enjoy their pleasures. It is also good that pains are avoided.

2006, David Benatar, Better never to have been: the harm of coming into existence:


hylism

(philosophy) Materialism: the theory that there is nothing beyond matter.


mentalese

mentalese (usually uncountable, plural mentaleses)

From mental + -ese (suffix forming adjectives and nouns describing, among other things, languages).

suffix

The concept of a proposition as something that can be expressed by sentences in both Mentalese and, say, English is an analogical extension of the concept of a proposition as something that can be expressed by sentences in both English and German.

1964 November 12, Wilfrid Sellars, “Notes on Intentionality”, in The Journal of Philosophy, volume LXI, number 21, New York, N.Y.: The Journal of Philosophy, →DOI, →ISSN, →JSTOR, →OCLC, page 657:

Translationists are said to treat the coding of thoughts in ‘Mentalese’, whose structure is already known, into a natural language, just like translating a natural language, say Russian, in terms of another known language, say English (G 282). Incorporationists point out the circularity of (36b) because Mentalese, supposed to be intrinsically intelligible, is just English or some other variety of a natural language, and the translation maneuver only postpones the problem, [...]

1977, P. G. Patel, “The Left Parieto-temporo-occipital Junction, Semantic Aphasia and Language Development around Age Seven”, in Linguistics: An Interdisciplinary Journal of the Language Sciences, volume 15, number 196, Berlin, New York, N.Y.: Mouton de Gruyter, →DOI, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 45:

But where does mentalese come from? If it is learned, then what is it related to in the preceding mentaleses? To avoid endless regress, [Jerry] Fodor postulates an internal language that is innate, a claim that he himself calls "horrendous" and "scandalous," yet inescapable.

1979, Gavriel Salomon, “Cultivation of Mental Skills through Symbolic Forms”, in Interaction of Media, Cognition, and Learning: An Exploration of how Symbolic Forms Cultivate Mental Skills and Affect Knowledge Acquisition (Jossey-Bass Social and Behavioral Science Series), San Francisco, Calif.: Jossey-Bass Publishers, →ISBN; republished Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1994 (2009 printing), →ISBN, page 121:

[A]re natural languages merely vehicles for the communication of mentalese? Or does language itself play a role in the formation of our thought? The question is called critical, since a positive response to the latter (language does play a role) would call into question the assumption that all meaning is reducible to mentalese.

1990, Patrick de Gramont, “The Problem of Representation”, in Language and the Distortion of Meaning (Psychoanalytic Crosscurrents), New York, N.Y., London: New York University Press, →ISBN, page 53:

One suggestion is that there is a de facto correlation between words or sentences of natural language and expressions of mentalese and between the logical relations among the former and the causal relations among the latter. This is a curious idea. The alleged correlation is not empirically grounded.

1990, Peter A. French, Theodore Edward Uehling, Howard K. Wettstein, editors, The Philosophy of the Human Sciences (Midwest Studies in Philosophy; XV), Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, →ISBN, →ISSN, page 446:

[I]t is probably misleading to talk about the language of thought, or to talk about ‘Mentalese’, as if it were a single representational system. We should more properly, in the context of a thesis of massive mental modularity, talk about languages of thought, or Mentaleses.

2006, Peter Carruthers, “The Case for Massively Modular Models of Mind”, in The Architecture of the Mind: Massive Modularity and the Flexibility of Thought, Oxford: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, section 6 (The Argument from Computational Tractability), page 51:

[Jerry] Fodor's position stems from his theory, first articulated in The Language of Thought, that there is a type of internal system of representation contained within the human mind out of which thoughts are formed, similarly to the way sentences are formed out of individual words, a "language" which he refers to as "mentalese." Our concepts are the units out of which mentalese constructs thoughts. [...] Importantly, mentalese must be sufficiently rich to enable us to utilize it to learn the natural language of our birth, and we must have this type of system of representation prior to any development of natural language.

2014, Gabriel Keehn, “Does the Theory of Recollection Preclude Learning?: A New Dimension to Platonic Nativism”, in Chris Higgins, editor, Philosophy of Education, Urbana, Ill.: Philosophy of Education Society; University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2019-03-07, page 161:

(philosophy, psychology) A hypothetical non-verbal language in which concepts are represented in the mind.


panpsychism

en-noun

panpsychism (usually uncountable, plural panpsychisms)

By surface analysis, pan- + psychism. From German Panpsychismus (1874), from Latin pampsychia (1591). Cognate with Ancient Greek πάμψυχος (pámpsukhos, “in full life”) and (modern) Greek παμψυχισμός (pampsychismós, “panpsychism”).

cog

As we shall see in chapter 3, the Tiantai school of Buddhism advocated a version of panpsychism without such beliefs, and this demonstrates that the panpsychist thesis stands on its own, and is logically independent of the claim that mentality can somehow be attributed to the universe as a whole.

2004, “Introduction”, in D. S. Clarke, editor, Panpsychism, SUNY Press, →ISBN, page 10:

Generally speaking, elements of panpsychism in phenomenology are faint at best. In [Graham] Harman's opinion, "It's safe to say that there is no panpsychist strain anywhere in the phenomenological movement."

2005, David Skrbina, Panpsychism in the West, The MIT Press (Bradford Books), →ISBN, page 182:

Panpsychism is a family of views whose basic principles are that the mental is both fundamental and ubiquitous.[…]Panpsychism can be usefully contrasted with the opposing doctrine of *emergentism: the view that certain attributes apply to complex systems which do not apply to the system's constituents.

2014, “panpsychism”, in Tim Bayne, Axel Cleeremans, Patrick Wilken, editors, The Oxford Companion to Consciousness, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 500:

[Anne Conway's] treatise, the first philosophical paper published by a woman, was one of the first modern articulations of panpsychism, the idea that consciousness is fundamental to the natural world.

2021, Meghan O'Gieblyn, chapter 9, in God, Human, Animal, Machine […] , →ISBN:

(philosophy, metaphysics, uncountable) The doctrine that all matter has a mental aspect.

panpsixizm

Whitehead devised such a conception, which to my mind definitely supersedes the panpsychisms of the history of metaphysics.

1961, Victor Lowe, “The Approach to Metaphysics”, in Ivor Leclerc, editor, The Relevance of Whitehead, Taylor & Francis (Routledge), published 2013, →ISBN, page 207:

The genius of modern panpsychisms has proved to be their capacity to incorporate rather than reject the mechanistic point of view.

1975, John Howie, Thomas O. Buford, editors, Contemporary Studies in Philosophical Idealism, C. Stark, →ISBN, page 75:

This seems to be due to one factor that they all—the various idealisms, phenomenalisms, positivisms, and panpsychisms—have in common: They reject, or at least fail to endorse, the idea of “matter.”

1997, David Ray Griffin, Parapsychology, Philosophy, and Spirituality: A Postmodern Exploration, State University of New York Press, →ISBN, page 111:

(philosophy, metaphysics, countable) Any specific doctrine or system of panpsychism.


L-bomb

“Then take her on a tour of places that are special to the two of you — the bar where you had your first date, the park where you dropped the L-bomb, [...]”

2003, Joe Kita, Guy Q: 1,305 Totally Essential Secrets You Either Know, Or You Don’t, Rodale, →ISBN, page 139:

(idiomatic) The word love, or an expression of love, usually one that provokes a significant change in a relationship.


handler

From Middle English handler, handiller, equivalent to handle + -er.

The governor received guidance on how to best disseminate key information to the public from her handler.

(in combination) An advisor or manager providing guidance to a person occupying public office or a prominent position.


sensationalism

en-noun

sensationalism (countable and uncountable, plural sensationalisms)

(philosophy) A theory of philosophy that all knowledge is ultimately derived from the senses.


federalist

/ˈfɛdəɹəlˌɪst/


entailment

entailment (countable and uncountable, plural entailments)

Entailment does not imply causation: if a set of premisses entail a conclusion, that does not mean (necessarily) that they cause that conclusion to be true.

An argument hinges upon entailment whereas an if-then sentence hinges upon implication.

That's not an extension at all. It's simply an obvious entailment of the original promise.

2022 May 25, Michael C. Dorf, “Failure to Extend a Precedent Versus Failure to Apply It: A Comment on Shinn v. Martinez Ramirez”, in Dorf on Law:

The act of entailing, the state of being entailed, or something that is entailed.


reductio ad absurdum

reductio ad absurdum (usually uncountable, plural reductio ad absurdums)

Unadapted borrowing from Latin reductiō ad absurdum.

ubor

“You, gentlemen, as representatives of that institution which recognizes only truths that are deduced from reductio ad absurdums will probably have no difficulty in perceiving the truth of this absurdity and hence be ready to excuse the outcome of it—my absence.”

1894, Flora Helm, “Concerns a Talk in Which Anarchy and Love Are Blended”, in Between Two Forces: A Record of a Theory and a Passion, Boston, Mass.: Arena Publishing Company. […], pages 149–150:

Constructing representations out of atoms that are already themselves representations cannot address the origins of the atoms per se. Careful pursuit of such approaches has yielded bizarre reductio ad absurdums such as the implication that virtually all concepts that human beings are capable of having are already in the genes.

1998, Mark H. Bickhard, “Constructivisms and Relativisms: A Shopper’s Guide”, in Michael R[obert] Matthews, editor, Constructivism in Science Education: A Philosophical Examination, Dordrecht, Boston, Mass., London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, →ISBN, page 106:

One way to argue against a position is to demonstrate that it proves too much. Proponents of an HWR analysis of negligence may insist that the conceptual and normative arguments that have been directed against their project ultimately generate reductio ad absurdums suggesting that I have proved too much.

2009, Michael S. Moore, “Normative Problems in Applying the Harm-within-the-Risk Test to Crimes/Torts of Negligence”, in Causation and Responsibility: An Essay in Law, Morals, and Metaphysics, Oxford University Press, published 2010, →ISBN, section III (The First Blind Alley: The Attempt to Replace Proximate Causation with Culpability as a Prerequisite for Legal Liability), page 208:

(mathematics, logic) The method of disproving a statement by assuming the statement is true and, with that assumption, arriving at a blatant contradiction.


sentimentalism

en-noun

sentimentalism (countable and uncountable, plural sentimentalisms)

(philosophy) A view according to which morality is somehow grounded in moral sentiments or emotions.


dysmorphophilia

From Greek dysmorphos (= badly formed) + philia (= love).

Sexual arousal arising from deformed, mentally impaired, or physically impaired partners.

δυσμορφοφιλία

sexual arousal arising from deformed or impaired partners


scandal of particularity

Calque of German Ärgernis der Einmaligkeit

calque

1994: A materialism […] was supposed to be what science favoured: and the ‘scandal of particularity’, God becoming incarnate in Christ in human history, was indeed regarded as a scandal — that is, absurd — by contemporary intellectuals. — Richard Swinburne, Reason and the Christian Religion (Oxford 1994, p. 1)

2006: Reformed theologians look to the scandal of particularity as a way of naming how the unknowable God is known to us. — Cynthia L Rigby, ‘Scandalous Presence’, Feminist and Womanist Essays in Reformed Dogmatics (John Knox 2006, p. 59)

(theology) The paradox inherent in the idea of a particular individual human (Jesus of Nazareth) incarnating the eternal divine God.


genophilia

Apparently coined by Sir Francis Galton, from geno- + -philia.

Although cultural Marxists have tried to extirpate it from Western man's memory, there remains the ancient, conservative notion of a nation, one rooted in ancestry, kith and kin, and genophilia.

2007 September 11, MFOgilvie, “Genocide Against Westerners”, in alt.fan.rush-limbaugh (Usenet):

Some critics have maintained that (unlike modern nationalism, which is a creation of the 19th century nation state) authentic nationalism (as the Latin 'natio' would suggest) must be based in some form of genophilia and the sharing of ancestors in which sense The Vatican does not qualify as a nation-state since membership of Catholicism are scattered all over the world with no possible ties of ancestry pedigree.

2013, James Ohwofasa Akpeninor, Merger Politics of Nigeria and Surge of Sectarian Violence, →ISBN, page 317:

Neocons celebrate this Marxist notion of a 'propositional nation,' because it removes the historic prerequisites of nationhood: borders, a common language, history and genealogy, blood and soil, kith and kin, and genophilia (instinctive attachment to family and tribe)

2013 May, Moisés Damián Perales Escudero, “Teaching intercultural awareness in the English as a foreign language classroom: a case study using critical reading”, in Intercultural Education:

There are certain ethnic groups who choose to form relatively exclusive communities based on their race. Most Australians are even OK with this. However, there are some who do not extend the freedom to express genophilia to white Australians.

2016 January 25, “Open Drum: Blood on the Southern Cross”, in ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) News:

(rare) Love of one's own relations, tribe, kind or race.


Olympian

From Late Middle English Olympyan, from Latin Olympius (“of or relating to Mount Olympus”) and its etymon Ancient Greek Ὀλῠ́μπῐος (Olúmpios, “of or relating to Mount Olympus; living on Mount Olympus; Olympian”) + English -an (suffix forming adjectives meaning ‘of or pertaining to’, or forming agent nouns). Ὀλῠ́μπῐος (Olúmpios) is derived from Ὄλῠμπος (Ólumpos, “Mount Olympus”) (from Pre-Greek) + -ῐος (-ios, suffix forming adjectives meaning ‘of or pertaining to’).

affix

(philosophy and theology) In the Platonist theology of Plethon, a god in one group of supercelestial gods, the other group of such gods being the Tartareans or Titans.


supervention

en-noun

supervention (countable and uncountable, plural superventions)

The poor visibility of a dark celestial body follows from its nonradiative character by supervention.

An act, process, or instance of supervening:


zero-knowledge

(logic) Describing situations in which the veracity of a statement may be shown to be true without revealing any other information.


propitiation

propitiation (countable and uncountable, plural propitiations)

From Latin propitiātiō. By surface analysis, propitiate + -ion.

(theology) The death of Christ as a basis for the forgiveness of sin.


ipseity

ipseity (countable and uncountable, plural ipseities)

(philosophy) selfhood; individual identity


wheel of fortune

wheel of fortune (plural wheels of fortune)

(mythology, philosophy) The wheel of Fortune.


compersion

/kəmˈpɜːʒən/

Coined by Kerista Community in the 1970s, probably following the model of dispersion. Less likely a derivation from the root of the Latin verb partior (“to divide, to share”) + prefix com- (“with”).
Another hypothesis that it may be derived from French compère (“partner”) + -sion, based on an earlier use of the French compérage to denote the practice of brothers-in-law sharing wives observed among Tupi people of the Brazilian Amazon, is less plausible: not only does it not correspond to any known morphological process, but a website run by former members of the community clearly states that neither the word compérage nor Lévi-Strauss's book were known to them at the time.

coin

A major component of jealousy, for many people, is the suspicion or resentment of the rival. In Kerista, on the other hand, the relationship that every man had with the other men and that every woman had with the other women elicited what they called “compersion” rather than jealousy.

1998, Ayala Malach Pines, Romantic Jealousy: Causes, Symptoms, Cures, Routledge, →ISBN, page 140:

There is nothing either magical or wrong with sex with more than one person at the same time. […] The beautiful thing about this dynamic is that it offers opportunities for compersion (the opposite of jealousy) and is symbolic of the expansiveness and unity we can feel in our love for each other.

2003, Mystic Life, Spiritual Polyamory, iUniverse, →ISBN, page 46:

I think this is the easiest way to teach compersion, to immerse oneself in the unconditional approval of another person’s pleasure.
We usually seek compersion in the context of our lover being sexual with another person, which can be very beautiful, but equally scary.
Compersion is the coveted secret elixer of emotions because it promises to turn the pain of jealousy into an ecstatic calm, or ecstatic release.

2005, Serena Anderlini-D’Onofrio, editor, Plural Loves, Haworth Press, →ISBN, page 174:

Some polyamorous people experience compersion, which means feeling joy that one’s partner is sharing closeness with another person (Keener, 2004; Polyamory Society, 1997). Keener’s (2004) study participants noted an absence of worry as to whether their partners might be cheating […]

2006, Ronald C. Fox, Ph.D. (editor), Affirmative Psychotherapy with Bisexual Women and Bisexual Men, Haworth Press, page 140

(neologism) Vicarious joy associated with seeing one's partner have a joyful romantic or sexual relation with another.

myötäilo

joy about partner's relation with another


dormitive principle

en-noun

dormitive principle (plural dormitive principles)

A modern translation of Latin, virtus dormitiva, coined by Molière in The Imaginary Invalid (1673). In the play, he lampoons a group of physicians providing an explanation in macaronic Latin of the sleep-inducing properties of opium as stemming from its "virtus dormitiva". The currency of this phrase as a critique of scientific claims is due to Gregory Bateson (1976, Steps to an Ecology of Mind p. 5), as is the translation of virtus as 'principle'.

We note Bateson's (1968) dormitive principle at work in which behaviors are described as traits such as LD, which then are used to explain the behavior.

1988, Doreen Kronick, New Approaches to Learning Disabilities: Cognitive, Metacognitive, and Holistic:

For Arrow, many socioeconomic phenomena are explained in terms of the "dormitive principle", which, he says, simply repeats the phenomenon being explained.

2000, “Rational Choice and Rationallity”, in The Paradox of Social Order: Linking Psychology and Sociology, page 14:

If we examine traditional explanations of behavior through the lens of recursion, we will sometimes find what Bateson called "dormitive principles," a form of circular description. A "dormitive principle" is a more abstract repackaging of a description of the item you claim to be explaining. To paraphrase Bateson, this occurs when the cause of a simple action, as for example, when aggression is explained as being caused by an "aggressive instinct" or psychotic symptomatology is attributed to "madness."

2002, Bradford Keeney, Aesthetics of Change, The Guilford Press,, →ISBN, page 33:

And to any intelligent reader, explanation of an 'inherent ability' was reminiscent of Molière's mock explanation of the soporific effects of opium - that it contained a 'dormitive principle'.

2003, Ian Glynn, An Anatomy of Thought: The Origin and Machinery of the Mind:

Similarly, to view “leadership" as something that resides in a person is to generate a dormitive principle. This would inspire such pseudoexplanations as “He leads because he possesses leadership qualities.”

2017, Bradford P. Keeney, Aesthetics of Change, page 38:

Prevent disability from becoming a dormitive principle that can, per se, justify any conduct or event in the interaction of the disabled person

2018, Roberto Pereira, Juan Luis Linares, Clinical Interventions in Systemic Couple and Family Therapy, page 215:

To say that "he only uses drugs because he is the black sheep” is to mix up these logical types, also called invoking the dormitive principle.

2018, Michael D. Reiter, Systems Theories for Psychotherapists: From Theory to Practice:

(idiomatic, rhetoric, logic, linguistics) A type of tautology in which an item is explained in terms of the item itself, only put in different (usually more abstract) words.


justifier

(chiefly philosophy) One who, or that which, justifies some belief or action.


Invisible Pink Unicorn

en-proper noun

Invisible Pink Unicorn (plural Invisible Pink Unicorns)

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-Invisible Pink Unicorn.wav

If you feel it is the duty of others to refute the claim, and not of yourself to support it, then how about refuting the existence of invisible pink unicorns?

1990 July 17, je kanker moeder, “Re: 'Proof' of God's Existence”, in alt.atheism (Usenet), retrieved 2010-09-30, message-ID <3704@qip.UUCP>:

Invisible Pink Unicorns are beings of great spiritual power. We know this because they are capable of being invisible and pink at the same time. Like all religions, the Faith of the Invisible Pink Unicorns is based upon both logic and faith. We have faith that they are pink; we logically know that they are invisible because we can't see them.

From a quite opposite perspective, an interesting departure of the 1990s (largely on the internet, and still flourishing) is the cult of the Invisible Pink Unicorn, which is at least in part a philosophical tool for examining the nature of religious faith from a skeptical point of view.

2007, Nigel Suckling, Unicorns, Facts, Figures, & Fun, →ISBN, page 94:

(Internet slang, humorous) A unicorn goddess who is simultaneously invisible and pink, used in arguments against faith in an unprovable deity.


epikeia

Borrowed from Ancient Greek ἐπιείκεια (epieíkeia, “reasonableness”).

bor

(philosophy, theology) The principle in ethics that a law can be broken to achieve a greater good.


Flying Spaghetti Monster

the Flying Spaghetti Monster (canonical)

I and many others around the world are of the strong belief that the universe was created by a Flying Spaghetti Monster.

2005 January, Bobby Henderson, “Open Letter To Kansas School Board”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name):

Is the super-intelligent, super-popular god known as the Flying Spaghetti Monster any match for the prophets of intelligent design?

2005 August 29, Sarah Boxer, “But Is There Intelligent Spaghetti Out There?”, in New York Times, →ISSN, retrieved 2011-10-28:

And now, the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM) is demanding equal teaching time for its theory that the world was created by an FSM.

2006 May 24, Jack Huberman, “#75: Kansas State Board of Education”, in 101 People Who Are Really Screwing America, Nation Books, →ISBN, →LCCN, LCC P95.82.U6 H83 2006, page 76:

A popular deity on the Internet at present — and as undisprovable as Yahweh or any other — is the Flying Spaghetti Monster, who, many claim, has touched them with his noodly appendage.

2006 September 18, Richard Dawkins, “The God Hypothesis”, in The God Delusion, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, →ISBN, →LCCN, LCC BL2775.3.D39 2006, page 76:

Call it what you want — God, Buddha, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, Prime Mover Unmoved. The totality of everything. I don't care.

2008 April 29, Neil Gaiman with Michael Reeves, InterWorld, 1st edition, New York: HarperCollins, →ISBN, →LCCN, LCC PZ7.G1273 Int 2007, page 73:

All rooms, no matter how tough, have someone who hates you the least. Even if you're a Flying Spaghetti Monster disciple speaking at the Vatican, someone in that room will hate you less than everyone else.

2009 October, Scott Berkun, “How to work a tough room”, in Confessions of a Public Speaker, 1st edition, Sebastapol: O'Reilly, →ISBN, →LCCN, LCC PN4129.15.B47 2010, page 51:

(humorous) A deity consisting of spaghetti and meatballs, the creator of the universe according to the religion of Pastafarianism.


romantic friendship

en-noun

romantic friendship (countable and uncountable, plural romantic friendships)

An intensely emotional love relationship between two people, in which sexuality is unimportant and typically absent, but there is greater physical affection or emotional communication than is typical for friendship.


metaphysician

From Middle English methafisicien, from methafisik on the model of fisicien or perhaps from rare and late Old French methafisicien.

Thomas Aquinas was a notable metaphysician.

Professor Jones is an eminent metaphysician; she has produced more than one hundred refereed publications concerning metaphysics.

Now it so happened that Francis was Mrs. Clarke's favourite: whether from having seen the least of him, or from the great difference between them—two common causes of liking—or because she felt some sort of vanity in her near relationship to so very fine a gentleman, are points too curious to be decided by any but a metaphysician.

1831, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter IV, in Romance and Reality. […], volume II, London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, page 65:

PROPOSITION IV.

1854, George Boole, An Investigation Of The Laws Of Thought, On Which Are Founded The Mathematical Theories Of Logic And Probabilities, Watchmaker Publishing, published 2010, →ISBN, §III.15, page 34:

In 1928 Heidegger succeeded Husserl to take a chair at Freiburg and in his inaugural lecture made a pronouncement that earned him a reputation as an archetypal metaphysician with his claim that our awareness of people as a whole depends on our experience of dread in the face of nothingness.

2014 April 12, Michael Inwood, “Martin Heidegger: the philosopher who fell for Hitler [print version: Hitler's philosopher]”, in The Daily Telegraph (Review), London, page R11:

(philosophy) A philosopher who specializes in the scholarly study of metaphysics.


indeterminism

indeterminism (countable and uncountable, plural indeterminisms)

Borrowed from French indéterminisme, equivalent to in- + determinism.

(ethics, religion, uncountable) The doctrine that all human actions are not so much determined by the preceding events, conditions, causes or karma as by deliberate choice or free will.


immanent critique

immanent critique (plural immanent critiques)

(philosophy) The criticism of a philosophy using its own standpoint


transcendental critique

transcendental critique (countable and uncountable, plural transcendental critiques)

(philosophy) A criticism of a philosophy from a religious (or transcendent) standpoint.


memeplex

A set of memes which interact to reinforce each other.


circular argument

circular argument (plural circular arguments)

A logically circular argument’s conclusion is included as one of its premises.

2004 Nov, M Bergmann, “Epistemic Circularity: Malignant and Benign.”, in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, volume 69, number 3, p. 710 n3:

(philosophy, logic) An argument which commits the logical fallacy of assuming what it is attempting to prove.


aevum

Learned borrowing from Latin aevum (“temporal mode of existence between time and eternity”). Doublet of aeviternity and aye.

lbor

(Scholastic philosophy) The temporal mode of existence between time and eternity, said to be experienced by angels, saints, and celestial bodies (which medieval astronomy believed to be unchanging).


durate

en-verb

durate (third-person singular simple present durates, present participle durating, simple past and past participle durated)

durates (present singular third-person)
durating (participle present)
durated (participle past)
durated (past)

But in the same way as we shall say of our simple creature that he perceives his sensation when it exists at all, and that he perceives time when it (the sensation) durates at all, 80 we shall say he perceives a certain definite[…]

1891, Herbert Nichols, The Psychology of Time: Historically and Philosophically Considered, with Extended Experiments:

"Perception of time duration is always a process and never a state — for us to perceive five seconds, something must durate five seconds, for us to perceive a year some definite sensation would have to durate a year."

1903, Mary Hallock-Greenewalt, Pulse and Rhythm, page 430:

Fear is often found associated with the uncertainty of doubt and with the durating sense of strangeness that characterize a well-developed state of marvel.

1910, Benjamin Putnam Kurtz, Studies in the Marvellous, page 88:

Simply because a sentence of, say, ten words necessitates a time period, e.g. 5 seconds, i.e. it durates. The formal description of English during a given period will result in what English is.

1988 02, Richard E. Schade, Lessing Yearbook XIX, Wayne State University Press, →ISBN, page 117:

(uncommon, chiefly philosophy) To have, or last for, some duration (of time).


causate

From Latin causātus, the past participle of causor (“to cause”). The earliest known use of causate is from 1852, in the writing of the poet Philip Bailey.

In the present case, therefore, it now comes closer and closer, in thought, to the first finite; but before taking hold of it, and determining to explore it, the mind proposes, and ruminates, certain middle questions, touching the actual existence of a nexus, and the possibility there is, of discovering the nature, and quality of the nexus, which subsists between the cause, and the causate, or between the infinite, and the first finite.

1848, Emanuel Swedenborg, The Philosophy of the Infinite; Outlines on a philosophical argument on the Infinite:

Hence the causing entity exists before the causate.

1923, Emanuel Swedenborg, The existence of the human soul:

It is also causate-- that is, the effect of a cause--because it has had its beginning in something else.

1940, Apostolos Makrakēs, A New Philosophy and the philosophical Sciences:


romcom

Shortening of romantic comedy. Probably based on the earlier sitcom.


significate

Latin significatus, past participle of significare.

“Britain is an island;” “all tyrants are miserable; ” “no miser is rich; ” are universal propositions, and their subjects are therefore said to be distrubted. being understood to stand, each, for the whole of its Significates: but, “some islands are fertile;” “all tyrants are not assassinated;" are Particular, and their subjects, consequently, not distributed, being taken to stand for a part only of their Significates

1826, Richard Whately, Elements of Logic:

(logic) One of several things signified by a common term.


Machiavelli

Probably from Italian mal- + chiavello, in which the second component is a diminutive of chiavo (“nail”). The name is attested in a Late Latin document in the form Malclavelli.

Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527), Italian statesman and writer, whose work The Prince (1532) advises that acquiring and exercising power may require unethical methods.


Machiavelli

Someone like Niccolò Machiavelli: a Machiavellian person


humanistic

en-adj

humanistic (comparative more humanistic, superlative most humanistic)

more humanistic (comparative)
most humanistic (superlative)

I recognize thee, Satan, and I spit in thine face
Whatever happened to the human race?
What happened to the humanistic faith?
What happens to human waste?

1985, J. G. Thirlwell (lyrics and music), “Descent into the Inferno”, in Nail, performed by Scraping Foetus Off the Wheel:

“The broader one’s understanding of the human experience, the better design we will have.” Apple is a humanistic tech company. It’s also the largest company in the world.

2022 December 6, Stephen Marche, quoting Steve Jobs, “The College Essay Is Dead”, in The Atlantic:


zetetic

From Ancient Greek ζητητικός (zētētikós, “inquisitive, keen”), from ζητέω (zētéō, “I seek”).

uder

1865, Samuel Birley Rowbotham, Zetetic Astronomy, 2022 facsimile reprint, Salzwasser Verlag, page 6,
Hence, in every zetetic process, the conclusion arrived at is essentially a quotient, which, if the details be correct, must, of necessity, be true beyond the reach or power of contradiction.

This^([the assumption that the earth is an extended plain]) is the great central zetetic assumption on which the whole theory is based.

1887, A. Wilford Hall, editor, Scientific Arena: The Organ of the Substantial Philosophy, Volume 1, Hall & Co., page 42:

The zetetic approach or, as Kant translates it, the searching approach, becomes the element by means of which the discourse develops, the medium in which philosophical thinking occurs.

1994, Willi Goetschel, Constituting Critique, page 74:

(philosophy) Proceeding by inquiry or investigation.


adicity

From -adic (taken from monadic/dyadic/triadic [function/operator]) + -ity, or alternatively from -ad (taken from monad/duad/triad) + -icity. Compare Latinate equivalent arity, based on -ary.

1997, Robert W. Burch, 13: Peirce's Reduction Thesis, Nathan Houser, Don D. Roberts, James Van Evra (editor), Studies in the Logic of Charles Sanders Peirce, Indiana University Press, page 233,
Equivalently, it says that all relations of adicity greater than 3 may be reduced to relations of adicities 1, 2, and/or 3. The negative component of the Thesis says, first, that relations of adicity 2 may not in general be constructed from (reduced to) relations exclusively of adicity 1; and, second, that relations of adicity 3 and greater may not in general be constructed from (equivalently: reduced to) relations exclusively of adicities 1 and/or 2.

What can be predicted is that the adicity of any syntactic predicate is the same: since its adicity is a grammatical and not a thematic fact, semantic differences between predicates cannot affect their grammatical structure.

2004, Susan Rothstein, Predicates and Their Subjects, Springer, page 47:

2007, Helier J. Robinson, Relation Philosophy of Mathematics, Science, and Mind, Sharebooks Publishing, 2nd Edition, page 68,
We have seen that every relation, without exception, necessarily has a term set, and the necessary properties of simplicity and an adicity: relations without these are impossible, merely nominal.

(logic, mathematics, computer science) The number of arguments or operands a function or operation takes. For a relation, the number of domains in the corresponding Cartesian product.


heuretic

(logic) The branch of logic concerned with discovery or invention


vivarta

(philosophy, Indian mysticism) A turning or whirling.

(philosophy, Indian mysticism) The cyclonic process of manifestation by which the one becomes the many. It is an essentially Vedantic concept of cosmogonic as well as psychologico-philosophical implications.


meet one's maker

en-verb

meet one's maker (third-person singular simple present meets one's maker, present participle meeting one's maker, simple past and past participle met one's maker)

meets one's maker (present singular third-person)
meeting one's maker (participle present)
met one's maker (participle past)
met one's maker (past)

In various religions, when a person dies, they go to a supernatural place like heaven where they may meet their creator deity.

On the gallows high he has met his Maker...Your victim waits for you to meet your Maker

1871, Unknown (Execution ballad), “Execution of Frederick Baker.”, in Curiosities of Street Literature, Comprising "cocks," Or "catch Pennies", page 205:

He didn't die for a half-hour after that; nor did he speak again—aloud; but just a few seconds before he went to meet his Maker, his lips moved in a faint whisper.

1918 September–November, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “The Land That Time Forgot”, in The Blue Book Magazine, Chicago, Ill.: Story-press Corp., →OCLC; republished as chapter IV, in Hugo Gernsback, editor, Amazing Stories, (please specify |part=I to III), New York, N.Y.: Experimenter Publishing, 1927, →OCLC:

This parrot is no more! It has ceased to be! It's expired and gone to meet its maker! This is a late parrot! It's a stiff! Bereft of life, it rests in peace! If you hadn't nailed it to the perch it would be pushing up the daisies!

1969 December 7, Monty Python, “Full Frontal Nudity, Dead Parrot sketch”, in Monty Python's Flying Circus, spoken by Mr Praline (John Cleese):

(idiomatic, euphemistic) To die or to pass into the afterlife.


self-sacrifice

en-noun

self-sacrifice (countable and uncountable, plural self-sacrifices)

Caring for a loved one with a chronic illness inevitably involves self-sacrifice.

Whatever he was suffering, it was she who had caused it; he had vacated his house on account of her. She was not worth such self-sacrifice; she should not have accepted it of him.

1886 May – 1887 April, Thomas Hardy, chapter VIII, in The Woodlanders […], volume III, London; New York, N.Y.: Macmillan and Co., published 1887, →OCLC, page 165:

Some of those boys came straight from the cornfields with only a summer’s wages in their pockets, hung on through the four years, shabby and underfed, and completed the course by really heroic self-sacrifice.

1918, Willa Cather, My Ántonia, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, Book 3, Chapter 1, p. 292:

Turians have a strong inclination towards public service and self-sacrifice, so they tend to be poor entrepreneurs.

2008, BioWare, Mass Effect, Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →ISBN, →OCLC, PC, scene: Turians: Culture Codex entry:

[…] he turned his resourceful mind away from the serene life of a don on grass lawns in Cambridge to one of self-sacrifice and pure devotion in the thorny bushes of Africa.

2012, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, chapter 15, in In the House of the Interpreter, New York: Anchor Books, published 2015, pages 43–44:

The giving up of one's own benefit for the good of others.

His brave self-sacrifice won him a posthumous medal, but I think he'd have preferred to receive it in person.

[Scott’s Last Expedition] had been one of my own favourite books. It seemed curiously dated now, this heroism with only the ice for enemy, self-sacrifice that involved no deaths beyond one’s own.

1951, Graham Greene, The End of the Affair, New York: Pocket Books, Book 5, Chapter 6, p. 215:

However, something once happened on the railway there which showed the very best of mankind: heroism, duty, self-sacrifice and calm professionalism under terrible pressure. It is a story which gives us far, far better reasons for remembering this attractive little town, which without these heroes would have been blown to smithereens in a gigantic explosion. (Two railwaymen lost their lives in 1944 when a wagon in an ammunition train caught fire and blew up, an even worse disaster was averted however.)

2022 January 12, Benedict le Vay, “The heroes of Soham...”, in RAIL, number 948, page 42:

The act of making the ultimate sacrifice of giving up one's life for a cause.


living dead

This “living dead” industry has been written off time and time again, yet it continues to clamber back to its feet and lumber blindly onward.

Venture's investment in Black Hawk could turn out to be a complete failure (black hole), barely surviving (living dead), or wildly successful (venture utopia).

2014, J. Chris Leach, Ronald W. Melicher, Entrepreneurial Finance, page 423:

Existing in stasis, without meaningful activity or development.


decidable

en-adj

decidable (comparative more decidable, superlative most decidable)

more decidable (comparative)
most decidable (superlative)

intuitionistic logic
intuitionistic logic

(logic) in intuitionistic logic, a proposition P is decidable in a given theory if it can be proven from the theory that "either P or not P", i.e. in symbols: P∨¬P.


industrial espionage

Spying by an employer on labor union activities of employees and on labor unions.

Spying on industrial activities for military advantage.


deflationary

(philosophy, logic) Belonging or relating to a family of theories claiming that assertions that predicate truth of a statement do not attribute a property called truth to such a statement.


determinable

It is certainly not a Moorean fact that there could have been other determinables or combinations of determinables than those that there actually are.

2007 September 5, David Denby, “Generating possibilities”, in Philosophical Studies, volume 141, number 2, →DOI:

(philosophy) An attribute of something that is susceptible of determination into various states


phenomenologically

There is no question that, phenomenologically considered, the experience of perceiving and the experience of having a hallucination are sufficiently similar that, on the strength of what proves to be a hallucination, one may sincerely claim to have (veridically) perceived something.

1969, Joseph Margolis, “Existential Import and Perceptual Judgments”, in The Journal of Philosophy, volume 66, number 13, page 404:

(philosophy) In a manner characteristic of phenomenology or of phenomenological philosophy.

fenomenologicamente

in a manner characteristic of phenomenology


predesignate

From pre- + designate. Adjective coined by Sir William Hamilton.

(logic, of a proposition) Having its quantity indicated by a verbal sign, as with "all", "none", etc.


proception

(philosophy) according to the philosophy of Justus Buchler, the process of the development of a person's experience by the interaction of behaviour and the environment.


bashert

Borrowed from Yiddish באַשערט (bashert), from Middle High German beschern. Compare German bescheren.


prizing

(philosophy) The act or state of prizing something, valuing it highly.


perfectibility

en-noun

perfectibility (countable and uncountable, plural perfectibilities)


particularity

particularity (countable and uncountable, plural particularities)

From Middle French particularité (“part of a whole; something particular, particularity”) (modern French particularité), and from its etymon Late Latin particularitas (“fact or quality of being particular; something particular, particularity”), from Latin particulāris (“particular; partial”) + -tās (suffix forming feminine abstract nouns indicating a state of being). Particulāris is derived from particula (“particle, small part”) (from pars (“a part, piece, portion, share”) (probably ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *per- (“to sell; to go through; to carry forth, fare”)) + -cula (diminutive suffix)) + -āris (suffix denoting a relationship, forming adjectives). The English word is analysable as particular + -ity (suffix forming nouns from adjectives, referring to the properties, qualities, or states of what is denoted by the adjectives).

suffix

The condition of being particular rather than general or universal; specificity.

(Christianity, theology) The doctrine of the incarnation of God as Jesus occurring at a particular place and time.

partikularismi

(Christianity, Judaism, theology, obsolete) Synonym of particularism (“the principle that only certain people are chosen by God for salvation”)


infiltrator

One who infiltrates an organization or territory; an undercover or covert agent.

informant

one who infiltrates an organization or territory


precisely unless

(mathematics, logic) implies a negative and is implied by a negative; i.e. B implies not-A and not-B implies A


unlesss

Attributed to John Horton Conway. From unless, by analogy with the formation of iff from if.

1990, James Glimm, The Legacy of John Von Neumann, American Mathematical Society, →ISBN, page 279,
Partial Order: G ≥ H unlesss (unless and only unless) H ≥ some Gᴿ or some Hᴸ ≥ G.

A subset S is called absorbing if to each x#x5C;inX there is a real number #x5C;epsilon#x3D;#x5C;epsilon#x5F;x#x3E;0 such that #x5C;lambdax#x5C;inS for all #x5C;lambda with 0#x3C;#x5C;left#x7C;#x5C;lambda#x5C;right#x7C;#x5C;le#x5C;epsilon. Trivially the set X is absorbing; on the other hand #x5C;#x7B;0#x5C;#x7D; can never be absorbing (unlesss X#x3D;#x5C;#x7B;0#x5C;#x7D;).

1999, V. K. Balachandran, Topological Algebras, North-Holland, published 2000, →ISBN, pages 78–79:

2004, William Fraser, Susan Hirshberg, and David Wolfe, "The Structure of the Distributive Lattice of Games Born by Day n", in Integers: Electronic Journal of Combinatorial Number Theory 5(2) (2005), page 2,
G ≥ H unlesss H ≥ Gᴿ or Hᴸ ≥ G for some Gᴿ ∈ Gᴿ or some Hᴸ ∈ Hᴸ. ¶ (Analogous to “iff”, the term “unlesss” means “unless and only unless”.)


contrapositive

(logic) The inverse of the converse of a given logical implication.

kontrapositio

the inverse of the converse of a given proposition


positing

Formulated in this fashion, the phenomenological datum evokes the distinction made earlier between those intendings and positings in which the ego is involved and those in which the ego is not engaged.

2012, F. Kersten, Phenomenological Method: Theory and Practice (page 53)

(philosophy) The process by which one posits.


self-contradiction

en-noun

self-contradiction (countable and uncountable, plural self-contradictions)

(logic) A statement that contains a contradiction, or a premise from which one could be derived


real presence

(theology) The actual presence of Christ's body and blood in the Eucharistic sacrament.


dromology

< French dromologie < Ancient Greek δρόμος (drómos, “race, running, racetrack, course, path”) + λόγος (lógos, “account, explanation, narrative”); term coined by the French philosopher Paul Virilio to discuss the importance of speed in warfare and communication. Equivalent to dromo- + -logy.

der

1989, Patrick Camiller (tr.), Paul Virilio (auth.), War and Cinema: The Logistics of Perception, Verso, 0-86091-928-5, page 35,
Everything in this sunlit world is dedicated to speed. Even the tomb contains the instruments of dromology (sophisticated vehicles, chariots, vessels), and sovereign Death is represented holding a symbolic whip and bit tightly to his chest.

(philosophy) The science or logic of speed.


essent

Coined by Ralph Manheim in his 1959 English translation of Martin Heidegger’s Einführung in die Metaphysik to render German Seiendes (as distinct from Sein), on the basis of essens, a faux-Latin present participle of sum.

Why are there essents rather than nothing? That is the question. Clearly it is no ordinary question. “Why are there essents, why is there anything at all, rather than nothing?”—obviously this is the first of all questions, though not in a chronological sense.

1959, Martin Heidegger, translated by Ralph Manheim, An Introduction to Metaphysics, page 1:

As against this, the non-conceptual creative word, instead of enabling us to grasp and lay hold of what is already there before us, instead of serving merely as a means to describing what is present, calls into being. It is evocative of Being; it invokes that presence (Anwesenheit), i.e., Being, within which (in the light of which) anything can appear before us as an essent.

1992, Jarava Lal Mehta, edited by William J. Jackson, J.L. Mehta on Heidegger, Hermeneutics and Indian Tradition, page 51:

The essent can be things at our disposal; things at hand such as tools, or vehicles. The land, the sea, the mountains, rivers, woods are also essents. Trees, birds, insects, grasses and stones are essents.

2007, Marko Zlomislić, Jacques Derrida’s Aporetic Ethics, page 116:

(philosophy) that which is; an entity, a being, an existent


bestie

→ Tagalog: beshie

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-bestie.wav

(informal, chiefly women's speech) best friend; A term of address for someone, usually used to instruct, to make a statement, or to draw attention.


unexperienceable

It is at the cost of making the absolute unknowable, of reducing it to the status of the unexperienceable external world of the dualistic realist.

1912 January 18, W. P. Montague, “The New Realism and the Old”, in The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods, volume 9, number 2, page 45:

It is beyond logic, an inconceivable but not unexperienceable unity of opposites.

2000 Jan, Kevin Schilbrack, “Metaphysics in Dōgen”, in Philosophy East and West, volume 50, number 1, p. 53 n61:

(chiefly philosophy) Incapable of being experienced.


Foucauldian

en-adj

Foucauldian (comparative more Foucauldian, superlative most Foucauldian)

more Foucauldian (comparative)
most Foucauldian (superlative)

From Foucault + -ian, perhaps by contamination with the French surname Foucauld as in Charles de Foucauld.

The best guide to this change is a New York University lecturer named Geoff Shullenberger, who has written a pair of essays exploring the political valence of Foucauldian ideas.

2021 May 25, Ross Douthat, “How Michel Foucault Lost the Left and Won the Right”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

Of or pertaining to the philosophy of Michel Foucault.


Foucauldian

A proponent of the philosophy of Michel Foucault.


nominalize

en-verb

nominalize (third-person singular simple present nominalizes, present participle nominalizing, simple past and past participle nominalized)

nominalizes (present singular third-person)
nominalizing (participle present)
nominalized (participle past)
nominalized (past)


major premise

(logic) In a categorical syllogism, the premise whose terms are the syllogism's major term and middle term.

pääpremissi

premise whose terms are the major term and middle term


akrasia

en-noun

akrasia (countable and uncountable, plural akrasias)

Learned borrowing from Ancient Greek ᾰ̓κρᾰσῐ́ᾱ (akrasíā), a variant of ᾰ̓κρᾰ́τειᾰ (akráteia, “lack of power, debility, impotence; lack of self-control, incontinence; self-indulgence”), from ἀκρατής (akratḗs, “having no authority, powerless; unable to exercise self-control, incontinent”) + -ῐ́ᾱ (-íā, suffix forming feminine abstract nouns). Ἀκρατής (Akratḗs) is derived from ᾰ̓- (a-, prefix forming terms having a sense opposite to the stems or words to which it is attached) + κρᾰ́τος (krátos, “might, strength; dominion, power”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *kret- (“insight, intelligence; strength”)) + -ής (-ḗs, suffix forming third-declension adjectives). Doublet of acratia.

der

His [Homer's] Olympian gods live by passion and propensity rather than by principle; their besetting sin is a fault of inclination to what they like, not of absolute malignity; it belongs to the akrasia, not the absolute kakia of Aristotle.

1887 June, W[illiam] E[wart] Gladstone, “The Great Olympian Sedition”, in The Contemporary Review, volume LI, London: Isbister and Company […], →ISSN, →OCLC, page 762:

The Atasthalié of Homer seems to hold to his Atè a relation resembling that between the kakia and the akrasia of Aristotle: the one indicating innate mischief, the other only inadequate means of defence against evil when it solicits from without.

1890, W[illiam] E[wart] Gladstone, “Section IV: Rudiments of Ethics”, in Landmarks of Homeric Study […], London; New York, N.Y.: Macmillan and Co., →OCLC, subsection IV, page 91:

What I think this depicts is a relationship between the reasons we have to act and the action we do. This problem of acrasia suggests that sometimes we have those reasons. We think smoking is bad for health so the action we would expect is that we would refrain from smoking. Instead, we smoke.

1972 summer, Arthur Cody, “Weakness of the Will”, in Synergist: A Publication of the Office of Academic Affairs, volume 5, number 2, Chicago, Ill.: Northeastern Illinois University, →OCLC, page 115:

So when the badness of a poor doctor or actor is said to be 'similar by analogy' to badness proper[…], and this is used to shed light on the 'similarity' between acrasia proper and the acrasias in respect of anger, honour, and gain[…], the thought must be that a bad doctor stands to doctoring more or less as a bad man stands to action, while a choleric acratic stands to anger more or less as an acratic proper stands to bodily pleasure.

1989, A[nthony] W[illiam] Price, “Aristotle on the Varieties of Friendship”, in Love and Friendship in Plato and Aristotle, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Clarendon Press, →ISBN, page 144:

Augustine's original interpretation of our human condition is that we struggle and fail to do what we want to do and know that we ought to do – the classical problem of weakness of will or acrasia. […] We recognize acrasia in ourselves […] it is an acrasia which is tied to specific weaknesses: the man who yearns for vodka, and who tries and fails to limit his vodka-intake, may have no serious difficulty in avoiding over-eating.

1994, John M[ichael] Rist, “Soul, Body and Personal Identity”, in Augustine: Ancient Thought Baptized, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, published 2000, →ISBN, page 137:

If there are six severally necessary and jointly sufficient conditions of full-blooded akrasia, then perhaps the way to classify the varieties of akrasia and non-akrasia is by means of the statistical array generated by considering the permutations of the six conditions of akrasia. […] Examining this array may make it clear which types of akrasia logically cannot occur; what the range of possible partial akrasias is; and what kinds of cases are not akrasias at all.

1995, T[imothy] D[avid] J[ohn] Chappell, “The Varieties of Akrasia”, in Aristotle and Augustine on Freedom: Two Theories of Freedom, Voluntary Action and Akrasia, London: Palgrave Macmillan, published 1998, →DOI, →ISBN, part I (Aristotle), page 98:

I earlier […] introduced a notion of ‘hard acrasia’, that is, of a conscious failure to live up to what I judge to be best in what I desire most, choose, and do. We need to distinguish this from ‘soft acrasia’: in cases of soft acrasia, the agent’s perception is dimmed and his judgement deflected, so that he acts in a way that he would not have chosen in a cool hour, with judgement and perception unimpaired, and yet not with conscious contrariety to an occurrent choice, in cases of hard acrasia, his perception is clear, his judgement unequivocal—and yet, out of weakness, he acts otherwise.

1995, A[nthony] W[illiam] Price, “Plato”, in Mental Conflict (Issues in Ancient Philosophy), London; New York, N.Y.: Routledge, →ISBN, page 92:

Socrates undertakes to press this indictment against that explanation of acrasia which he takes to be by far the most common of all: that men who know the better will do the worse because they are "overcome" or "defeated" by desire for pleasures.

1995, Gregory Vlastos, “Socrates on Acrasia”, in Daniel W. Graham, editor, Studies in Greek Philosophy, volumes II (Socrates, Plato, and Their Tradition), Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, →ISBN, part 1 (Socrates), page 50:

The paradigm case of akrasia is the person who seems to know that a certain type of food is healthy but is none the less led by desire to eat a more pleasurable food instead. This is an act of akrasia, rather than immoderation, because the agent appears to know better. But his desires are somehow able to prevail over his reason, and he acts as if he were immoderate. Aristotle proposes a variety of explanations for akrasia[…]; on my reading, his implication in all is that, despite appearances, the akratic lacks practical wisdom.

1999, Edward Halper, “The Unity of the Virtues in Aristotle”, in David Sedley, editor, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, volume XVII, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 130:

The structure of the brain exerts constraints on what is easy or difficult to compute—resulting not only in the limits of specific cognitive abilities but in the bounded nature of everyday rationality and our propensity for certain types of systematic biases, errors, and akrasias.

2012, Laurence J. Kirmayer, Ian Gold, “Re-socializing Psychiatry: Critical Neuroscience and the Limits of Reductionism”, in Suparna Choudhury, Jan Slaby, editors, Critical Neuroscience: A Handbook of the Social and Cultural Contexts of Neuroscience, Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell, →ISBN, part V (Beyond Neural Correlates: Ecological Approaches to Psychiatry), page 316:

The concept of akrasia comes from a debate in ancient philosophy about whether it is possible to act against what you know to be good. […] It's important to take a nuanced view of akrasia and separate it from will power, said Reinout Wiers, a psychologist at the University of Amsterdam and the author of a book on akrasia and addiction. […] [Annemarie] Kalis added that changing your environment might be a better way to resist akrasia than trying to improve your willpower. These changes are called commitment devices: they don't allow you to change your mind.

2024 March 21, Shayla Love, “Why do we do things that are bad for us? The ancient philosophers had an answer”, in Katharine Viner, editor, The Guardian, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2024-03-29:

(philosophy, uncountable) Lack of physical or (especially) mental strength; poor willpower; also, the tendency to act contrary to one's better judgment; (countable) an instance of this.

akrasia

lack of physical or (especially) mental strength; poor willpower; tendency to act contrary to one’s better judgment; instance of this


acrasia

en-noun

acrasia (countable and uncountable, plural acrasias)

(philosophy) Alternative spelling of akrasia (“(uncountable) lack of physical or (especially) mental strength; poor willpower; also, the tendency to act contrary to one's better judgment; (countable) an instance of this”)


indiscernible

(chiefly philosophy) Something which is incapable of being discerned.


other woman

Remembering the turmoil she experienced when her father left her mother, she vowed she would never be the other woman.

The other woman finds time to manicure her nails / The other woman is perfect where her rival fails

1956, “The Other Woman”, Jessie Mae Robinson (lyrics)performed by Sarah Vaughan:

(informal) A woman who is romantically involved with someone (usually a man) already in a committed relationship with another woman, especially a woman having an affair with a married man.

小三

woman who is romantically involved with a man already in a committed relationship

Geliebte

all ambiguous, can also refer to a normal girlfriend


meaning of life

The meaning of life here on earth might be defined as consisting in this: To unfold your self, to work what thing you have the faculty for. It is a necessity for the human being, the first law of our existence.

1840 May 22, Thomas Carlyle, “Lecture VI. The Hero as King. Cromwell, Napoleon: Modern Revolutionism.”, in On Heroes, Hero-Worship and The Heroic in History, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1840, →OCLC, page 207:

I asked myself if this were the meaning of life—to be a work-beast? I knew of no horse in the city of Oakland that worked the hours I worked.

1913 August, Jack London, chapter VII, in John Barleycorn, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC, page 63:

But he was no nearer to the meaning of life than he had been before. Why the world was there and what men had come into existence for at all was as inexplicable as ever.

1915, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, chapter LIII, in Of Human Bondage, New York, N.Y.: George H[enry] Doran Company, →OCLC, page 274:

(philosophy, religion) A hypothetical answer to all of life's ultimate questions; the purpose or raison d'être of human life.

مَعْنَى اَلْحَيَاة

hypothetical answer to life’s ultimate questions


Kantianism

transcendental idealism
transcendental idealism

(philosophy) The philosophical system of Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) and his followers; also called transcendental idealism.


Kantian

en-adj

Kantian (comparative more Kantian, superlative most Kantian)

more Kantian (comparative)
most Kantian (superlative)

Gurwitsch's notion of the perceptual noema as a completely idealized phenomenon is more Kantian than Husserlian.

1964 Sep, James M. Edie, “Transcendental Phenomenology and Existentialism”, in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, volume 25, number 1, page 59:

Thus Django becomes the carrier of the “public use of one's reason”—the Kantian road to enlightenment given to him by the German “Forty-Eighter” dentist–turned-bounty hunter Dr. “King” Schultz, and represents the fictive, allohistorical beginning of the battle against slavery and racism in the United States.

2014 July 31, Oliver C. Speck, editor, Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained: The Continuation of Metacinema, Bloomsbury, →ISBN, page 25:

It aimed to pacify intra-European relations through exchange and economic cooperation. The framework was therefore Kantian: it was based on the principle of peace through exchange.

2023 September 30, Patrick Wintour, quoting Zaki Laïdi, “‘No turning back’: how the Ukraine war has profoundly changed the EU”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:

(philosophy) Of, pertaining to, or resembling the philosophical views of Immanuel Kant (1724-1804).

kantià

of, pertaining to, or resembling the philosophical views of Immanuel Kant


Kantian

(philosophy) A person who subscribes to philosophical views associated with Immanuel Kant.


eternal return

(cosmology, religion, philosophy) Eternal recurrence.


eternal recurrence

The concept dates from ancient times and was popularized by the philosopher Nietzsche (1844-1900).

(cosmology, religion, philosophy) The belief or theory that all the events in cosmic history repeat in an endless cycle.


comparate

(logic) One of two things being compared.


agathology

From Ancient Greek ἀγαθός (agathós, “good”) + -ology.


two wrongs don't make a right

"But when it comes to taking what belongs to another—well, a thief is a thief. . . . After all, two wrongs don't make a right, do they?"

1915, William MacLeod Raine, chapter 15, in The Highgrader:

"Late in the fight, Roger told me Zab was going to do something dirty, and he did it," Mayweather said after the fight. "I didn't return it, because two wrongs don't make a right."

2006 April 9, Clifton Brown, “Boxing: Mayweather Is Crowned, but not without a Fight”, in New York Times, retrieved 2009-06-17:

I have no doubt that while the industry loses a great deal of revenue owing to fraudulent travel, it probably more than makes up for it by allowing journey planners to charge too much for journeys - and two wrongs don't make a right.

2023 May 31, Barry Doe, “A potential downside of ticket reform needs consideration”, in RAIL, number 984, page 58:

(ethics) A wrongful action is not a morally appropriate way to correct or cancel a previous wrongful action.

冤冤相報永無完了

a wrongful action is not a morally appropriate way to correct or cancel a previous wrongful action

az egyik fél vétsége nem teszi a másik vétségét semmissé

an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind


alethic

en-adj

alethic (comparative more alethic, superlative most alethic)

more alethic (comparative)
most alethic (superlative)

From Ancient Greek ἀλήθεια (alḗtheia, “truth”) + -ic.

der

The modal operators □ and ◊ stand for alethic necessity and possibility.

2003, Nicholas Asher, Alex Lascarides, Logics of Conversation, page 46:

(logic) Of or pertaining to the various modalities of truth, such as the possibility or impossibility of something being true.

alethisch

logic: pertaining to the modalities of truth


simpliciter

From the Latin simpliciter (“simply”, “plainly”), from simplex (“simple”).

The charge was reduced from aggravated assault to assault simpliciter.

Paragraph 68, Public Prosecutor v CJH ([2022] SGHC 303)
Leaving aside this report, I make the general observation firstly that the CA has pointed out in PP v UI [2008] 4 SLR(R) 500 […] that rape simpliciter "is already ‘an inherently odious and reprehensible act’… that exacts ‘irretrievable physical, emotional and psychological scars on [the] victim’”[…]

(philosophy, law, originally chiefly Scots law, Canadian law) Simply, absolutely; without any qualification or condition.


perfectionism

en-noun

perfectionism (countable and uncountable, plural perfectionisms)

(philosophy) A belief that spiritual perfection may be achieved during life, or that it should be striven for.


castratrix

From Latin castratrix or castrate + -trix with feminine agent-nounal suffix; compare castrator.

For quotations using this term, see Citations:castratrix.

(chiefly used in philosophy or psychoanalysis) A female who castrates (either literally or metaphorically).


mind-body

(philosophy) Describing the physical action of the mind on the body, especially the mode in which a thought can cause an action.


forward reasoning

artificial intelligence
artificial intelligence

(philosophy, logic) In artificial intelligence, modus ponens.


Confucian

One who follows the teachings of Confucius.

confucià

one who follows the teachings of Confucius


mechanistic

en-adj

mechanistic (comparative more mechanistic, superlative most mechanistic)

more mechanistic (comparative)
most mechanistic (superlative)

(philosophy) Having a physical or biological cause.


nontrinitarianism

(theology) The religious belief that rejects the Christian concept of the trinity.


immediacy

en-noun

immediacy (countable and uncountable, plural immediacies)

(philosophy) Immediate awareness or apprehension.

neamh-mheánacht

philosophy: immediate awareness or apprehension


alienans

From Latin aliēnāns, present active participle of aliēnō (“make something another's”), from aliēnus (“another's, foreign”).

The newspaper never called him "the murderer", always "the alleged murderer", but the alienans adjective didn't help very much: the word "murderer" is all people saw.

Because a "decoy duck" is not a duck, "decoy" is an alienans adjective.

(rhetoric, philosophy, of a grammatical modifier, especially an adjective) Negating, denying, modifying, or casting doubt on the applicability of its modificand.


alienans

(rhetoric, philosophy) An alienans adjective.


pronoia

pronoia (countable and uncountable, plural pronoiae or pronoiai or pronoias)

pronoiae (plural)
pronoiai (plural)
pronoias (plural)

Borrowed from Ancient Greek πρόνοιᾰ (prónoia, “foreknowledge, foresight; providence; form of land grant”), from πρόνοος (prónoos, “careful, prudent”) + -ῐᾰ (-ia, suffix forming nouns). πρόνοος is derived from προ- (pro-, prefix indicating a coming forth) + νόος (nóos, “the mind; act of the mind”). The English word is cognate with Latin pronoea (“providence”).
The plural form pronoiae is probably a modification of Latin pronoeae, while pronoiai is from Ancient Greek πρόνοιαι (prónoiai).

der

Now Providence (which the Greekes call Pronoia) is an intellectuall knowledge, both fore-ſeeing, caring for, and ordering all things, and doth not onely behold all paſt, all present, and all to come, but is the cauſe of their ſo being, which Preſcience (ſimply taken) is not: and therefore Providence by the Philoſophers (ſaith S. Auguſtine) is divided into Memory, Knowledge, and Care: […]

1614, Walter Raleigh, “Of the Creation, and Preservation of the World”, in The Historie of the World. In Five Bookes. […], London: Printed for Walter Bvrre, →OCLC, § XIII (Of Providence), page 15:

[page 320] 'And make no provision for the flesh.' [Romans 13:14] 'Provision.' [footnote: Προνοια.] The word implies a forecasting of the mind; and the prohibition therefore is against all deliberation or devising of means or expedients for the gratification of our lusts. […] [page 321] He is a confirmed and advanced learner in the school of wickedness, who can thus in his cooler moments bestow care and calculation on such an enterprise, and in short make a study of the likeliest methods for securing to himself te enjoyment of unhallowed pleasures; and this is the pronoia, the unholy providence, if it may be so termed, on which our text lays its interdict. But it is not against all pronoia, all respect to things future, even though the futurities of this life, that the Bible warns us.

1836–1842, Thomas Chalmers, “Lecture XCIV: Romans, xiii, 11–14”, in Lectures on the Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Romans (The Works of Thomas Chalmers; 25), volume IV, Glasgow: William Collins, […]; London: Hamilton, Adams, & Co., →OCLC, pages 320–321:

The development of the Roman State, therefore, a world-process whose magnitude is truly wonderful, was not brought about as though a drifting mass of elements, by some outward force or inherent affinity became consolidated to revolve at random without any end or aim in that divine pronoia under which the ages move.

1869 January, E. E. Higbee, “Art IV.—The Christian Conception of History.”, in T. G. Apple, editor, The Mercersburg Review; an Organ for Christological, Historical and Positive Theology, volume XVI, Philadelphia, Pa.: Reformed Church Publication Board, […], →OCLC, page 101:

The earlier history of the concept of providence is to be seen in the emergence, from Diogenes to Aristotle, of a notion of an intelligent purpose (telos, q.v.) operating in the universe. In all of these thinker it is clearly associated with the intelligent God whose features begin to appear in the later Plato (see Laws 899 where the denial of pronoia is reckoned blasphemy) and in Aristotle. For the Stoics the immanent Logos governs all by nous and pronoia (D.L. vii, 138; SVF i, 176).

1967, F[rancis] E[dward] Peters, “prónoia: forethought, providence”, in Greek Philosophical Terms: A Historical Lexicon, New York, N.Y.: New York University Press, →OCLC, paragraph 1, page 164:

(philosophy, theology) Divine providence, foreknowledge, foresight.

πρόνοια

divine providence, foreknowledge, foresight — see also foreknowledge, providence


hellhound

From Middle English helle hound; equivalent to hell + hound.

From forth the kennell of thy wombe hath crept / A Hell-hound that doth hunt vs all to death:

c. 1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Richard the Third: […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene iii], page 195, column 2:

Barricading serves not: fly fast, ye Bodyguards; rabid Insurrection, like the hellhound Chase, uproaring at your heels!

1837, Thomas Carlyle, chapter X, in The French Revolution: A History […], volume I (The Bastille), London: Chapman and Hall, →OCLC, book VII (The Insurrection of Women):

(mythology) A demonic dog of hell, typically of unnatural size, strength or speed, with black fur, glowing eyes, and ghostly or phantom characteristics.


self-determination

(ethics, law) The ability or human right to make one's own decisions without interference from others

samostanowienie

ability or right to make one's own decisions without interference from others


hominization

en-noun

hominization (usually uncountable, plural hominizations)

From Latin homo (“human being”) + -ization.

(theology) The beginning of human life, or of a deity's life in human form.


modus tollens

From Latin modus tollendō tollēns (“the mode where the denying denies”), from modus (“mode”) and forms of tollō (“I take away”).

der

1. If P, then Q.

2. Not Q.

3. Therefore, not P.

(philosophy, logic) A valid form of argument in which the consequent of a conditional proposition is denied, thus implying the denial of the antecedent. Modus tollens has this form:

Modus tollens

a valid form of argument in which the consequent of a condition proposition is denied


individuation

en-noun

individuation (countable and uncountable, plural individuations)

(philosophy) The distinction of the individual from the general or universal.


creäture

(archaic, chiefly literary and philosophy) Alternative spelling of creature


unsayably

en-adv

unsayably (comparative more unsayably, superlative most unsayably)

more unsayably (comparative)
most unsayably (superlative)

The aim of TLP is not get us to recognize something that is unsayably true of reality, but rather to cure us of any attempt to represent to ourselves something about reality that cannot be said.

1999, Marie McGinn, “Between Metaphysics and Nonsense: Elucidation in Wittgenstein's Tractatus”, in The Philosophical Quarterly, volume 49, number 197, page 493:

It is only because we can embrace imperatives that cohere with a force beyond being and beyond the world that we can, exceptionally, act as absolutely and "unsayably" free.

2003, Peter Halward, “The one or the other: French philosophy today”, in Angelaki, volume 8, number 2, page 13:

(philosophy, rare) In a manner which is inexpressible or is not describable.


intellectualism

en-noun

intellectualism (countable and uncountable, plural intellectualisms)

(philosophy) The doctrine that knowledge is derived from pure reason.


ontological argument

ontological argument (plural ontological arguments)

(philosophy, theology) A type of argument which maintains that the existence of God can be deduced from an analysis of the concept of God.


argument from design

argument from design (plural arguments from design)

teleological argument
teleological argument


teleological argument

teleological argument (plural teleological arguments)

(philosophy, theology) A type of argument for the existence of God, stating that orderliness of nature is evidence of design, therefore also of a designer.


first cause

(theology, philosophy, sometimes capitalized) An initial cause from which all other causes and effects follow.


just in case

The negation of a disjunction is true just in case both disjuncts are false.


atomism

atomism (countable and uncountable, plural atomisms)

(philosophy) The ancient Greek theory that all matter is composed of very small indestructible and indivisible particles.

(philosophy) The doctrine that society arises from individuals and that larger structures are unimportant.


samsara

samsara (countable and uncountable, plural samsaras)

Until we are released from the law of karma and reach moksha or deliverance, we will be in samsara or the time process.

1957, S. Radhakrishnan, C. A. Moore, editors, A Sourcebook in Indian Philosophy, Princeton Univ. Press, page 38:

(philosophy, religion) In Jainism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and some other eastern religions, the ongoing cycle of birth, death, and rebirth endured by human beings and all other mortal beings, and from which release is obtained by achieving the highest enlightenment.


Discordianism

A minor modern religion with absurdist elements, often seen as a parody, based on the worship of Eris, the Greek goddess of discord and confusion.

diskordianismi

parodic religion based on the worship of Eris


adjunctive

(logic) The property of two operations x and y, such that ax(ayb) = a, and ay(axb) = a.


irrationalism

irrationalism (countable and uncountable, plural irrationalisms)

Finally, with good reason, this psychology aims to be a psychology of a purely empiriological type. It is pervaded and overwhelmed on every side, however, by a pseudometaphysics of the most vulgar character, which Freud is all the less anxious to dispense iwth as he imagines he has no philosophy or metaphysics at all. I say pseudometaphysics of the most vulgar type, because it combines all the prejudices of deterministic, mechanistic scientism with all the prejudices of irrationalism.

1964, Cross Currents of Psychiatry and Catholic Morality, page 351:

A philosophical movement formed as a cultural reaction against positivism in the early 20th century.


speciesism

Coined by British animal rights advocate Richard D. Ryder in 1970 from species + -ism.

coinage

Such is the breathtaking speciesism of our Christian-inspired attitudes, the abortion of a single human zygote (most of them are destined to be spontaneously aborted anyway) can arouse more moral solicitude and righteous indignation than the vivisection of any number of intelligent adult chimpanzees

1996 [1986], Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker, New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., →ISBN:

This human chauvinism is one form of a general type of discrimination known as speciesism. What is speciesism? Think of racism. The term “speciesism” has been strategically used by animal rights activists from the 1970s onward precisely […]

2013, John Huss, Planet of the Apes and Philosophy: Great Apes Think Alike, Open Court, →ISBN, page 84:

Sometimes speciesism is also used to describe a positive rather than a negative attitude as when dolphins are alleged to have rescued humans from danger while ignoring other species in peril.

2017, Richard D. Ryder, Speciesism, Painism and Happiness: A Morality for the Twenty-First Century, Andrews UK Limited, →ISBN:

(philosophy, ethics) An ethical stance that assigns different worth or rights to beings on the basis of their species membership, such as assigning greater rights to human beings than to other animals.


libertarianism

en-noun

libertarianism (countable and uncountable, plural libertarianisms)

/lɪbəˈtɛːɹɪənɪz(ə)m/

Nevertheless, advocates of individual freedom not only continue to exist, but are increasing in number. Refugees from the Old Right, the Old Left and the New Left, they are organizing independently under the New Right banner of libertarianism.

1971 January 10, Stan Lehr, Louis Rossetto, “The New Right Credo–Libertarianism”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

The peculiar brand of libertarianism in vogue within technology circles means a minority of members—a couple of outspoken misogynists—can disproportionately affect the behavior and mood of the group under the cover of free speech.

2014, Astra Taylor, chapter 4, in The People's Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age, Henry Holt and Company, →ISBN:

(economics, philosophy, politics) A political philosophy maintaining that all persons are the absolute owners of their own lives, and should be free to do whatever they wish with their persons or property, provided they allow others that same liberty.

(philosophy) The doctrine of free will, as opposed to necessitarianism.


Spiritism

From spirit + -ism. Calque of French spiritisme.

A philosophical doctrine, established in France in the mid nineteenth century, postulating that humans are essentially immortal spirits that temporarily inhabit physical bodies, and may have influence on the physical world.


dobby

dobby (countable and uncountable, plural dobbies)

(chiefly Nottingham) The children's game of tag.


civil society

civil society (countable and uncountable, plural civil societies)

From the archaic sense of civil, “peaceful and well-ordered”. Later senses of civil society reflect 19th-century Hegelian influence, as well as the earlier argument that tyrannical governments exist in the state of nature in relation to their subjects.

The only Way whereby any one divests himself of his natural Liberty, and puts on the Bonds of civil Society, is by agreeing with other Men to join and unite into a Community, for their comfortable, safe, and peaceable living one amongst another, in a secure Enjoyment of their Properties, and a greater Security against any that are not of it.

1689, John Locke, Two Treatises of Government; republished as The Works of John Locke Esq., volume 2, 1727, page 185:

Rousseau, however, thought that civil society as such […] is characterized by a fundamental self-contradiction and that it is precisely the state of nature which is free from self-contradiction; man in the state of nature is happy because he is radically independent, whereas man in civil society is unhappy because he is radically dependent.

1953, Leo Strauss, Natural Right and History, page 282:

Man’s decision to leave the state of nature is a natural decision. […] Civil society is, in effect, nature rendered reasonable.

1989, Gary B. Herbert, Thomas Hobbes: The Unity of Scientific and Moral Wisdom, →ISBN, page 12:

(philosophy) Organized, internally peaceful human society; civilization.

status cīvīlis

organized and peaceful society — see also civilization


first mover

The chiefeſt God firſt moouer of that Spheare,
Enchac’d with thouſands euer ſhining lamps,
Will ſooner burne the glorious frame of Heauen,
Then ſhould it ſo conſpire my ouerthrow.

c. 1587–1588, [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire, London: Scolar Press, 1973, →ISBN, Act IIII, scene ii:

(philosophy) The initial agent that is the cause of all things; the prime mover.


partialism

partialism (countable and uncountable, plural partialisms)

(Christianity, theology) The doctrine that the three persons of the Trinity are each three parts of God; in other words, each one thirds of God.

(Christianity, theology) The doctrine that Christ's atonement was made for only a part of humanity.