subjectivism

en-noun

subjectivism (countable and uncountable, plural subjectivisms)

Subjectivism takes as its allies the emotions, intuitive insight, imagination, humaneness, art, and a “higher” truth.

1980, George Lakoff, Mark Johnson, chapter 25, in Metaphors We Live By:

(epistemology) The doctrine that knowledge is based in feelings or intuition.


burden of proof

burden of proof (plural burdens of proof)

(epistemology) The obligation of the person making a claim in a dispute to provide sufficient evidence for their position.

التزام بتقديم الدليل

obligation of the person making a claim to provide evidence for their position

証拠を提示する義務

しょうこをていじするぎむ


antinomy

antinomy (countable and uncountable, plural antinomies)

LL-Q1860 (eng)-I learned some phrases-antinomy.wav

Learned borrowing from Latin antinomia + English -y (suffix forming abstract nouns denoting a condition, quality, or state); antinomia is derived from Ancient Greek ἀντινομία (antinomía), from ἀντι- (anti-, prefix meaning ‘against’) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₂ent- (“face; forehead; front”)) + νόμος (nómos, “custom, usage; law, ordinance”) + -ῐ́ᾱ (-ĭ́ā, suffix forming feminine abstract nouns), with νόμος (nómos) derived from νέμω (némō, “to deal out, dispense, distribute”) (from Proto-Indo-European *nem- (“to distribute; to give; to take”)) + -ος (-os, suffix forming nouns indicating actions or their results). The English word may be analysed as anti- (prefix meaning ‘against; opposite of’) + -nomy (suffix indicating a system of laws, rules, or knowledge about a body of a particular field).

confix

This introduces the antinomy that has followed us through the whole study. The solution of this antinomy is found in making the Not-me, which interrupts self-consciousness, really reflect self-consciousness, by manifesting the nature of the I—in other words, by making it conform to the ideal of the soul.

1884, Charles Carroll Everett, Fichte’s Science of Knowledge: A Critical Exposition, page 12:

Of the work that has been done on the liar antinomy, possibly the most profound and certainly the most influential has been that of Tarski

1991, Vann McGee, Truth, Vagueness, & Paradox: An Essay on the Logic of Truth, page 67:

(by extension) Any contradiction or paradox.

(specifically, epistemology, logic) In the thought of the German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804): an apparent contradiction between valid conclusions; a paradox.

التضاد

(epistemology, logic) apparent contradiction between valid conclusions


falsifiable

en-adj

falsifiable (comparative more falsifiable, superlative most falsifiable)

more falsifiable (comparative)
most falsifiable (superlative)

The statement It rains every day, everywhere is falsifiable, because it is contradicted by the basic statement On the third of August, in New York city it was not raining and it is not contradicted by the basic statement On the second of August, in New York city it was raining, while the statement It will rain someday is not falsifiable.

singular existential statement
singular existential statement#English

(epistemology) The demarcation criterion between scientific and non-scientific statements proposed by Karl Popper. In order to be ranked as scientific, statements or systems of statements must be contradicted by an intersubjective singular existential statement, also called a basic statement, and not be contradicted by another, that is, they must also be logically possible.


Occam's razor

Named after the English Franciscan theologist William of Occam, an advocate of the law of parsimony, and the idea of a razor as a tool that trims or shaves.

named-after

Bugger, bugger, bugger dumb the last of academe / Occam's razor makes the cutting clean / Shaven like a banker, Lilac Vegeta

2005, “Burning Beard”, performed by Clutch:

(epistemology, philosophy) The principle of preferring the simplest of competing theories.

when you hear hoofbeats, think of horses, not zebras


falsificationism

(epistemology, philosophy) A scientific philosophy based on the requirement that hypotheses must be falsifiable in order to be scientific; if a claim is not able to be refuted it is not a scientific claim.


PAP

participatory anthropic principle
w:participatory anthropic principle

(cosmology, epistemology) Initialism of participatory anthropic principle.


emergent

en-adj

emergent (comparative more emergent, superlative most emergent)

more emergent (comparative)
most emergent (superlative)

/ɪˈmɜːd͡ʒənt/

/ɪˈmɝd͡ʒənt/

From Latin ēmergēns, present participle of ēmergō. The medical sense is a back-formation from emergency.

an emergent property

A high-level phenomenon is strongly emergent with respect to a low-level domain when the high-level phenomenon arises from the low-level domain, but truths concerning that phenomenon are not deducible even in principle from truths in the low-level domain.[…] A high-level phenomenon is weakly emergent with respect to a low-level domain when the high-level phenomenon arises from the low-level domain, but truths concerning that phenomenon are unexpected given the principles governing the low-level domain.

2008, David J. Chalmers, “Strong and Weak Emergence”, in Philip Clayton, Paul Davies, editors, The Re-Emergence of Emergence: The Emergentist Hypothesis from Science to Religion, →DOI:

(philosophy, epistemology, sciences) That arises at a higher level than that of its components and is not explainable by the behaviour of said components taken individually; having properties as a whole that are more complex than the properties contributed by each of the components individually.

эмердже́нтный

(philosophy, sciences) Having properties as a whole that are more complex than the properties contributed by each of the components individually.


tabula rasa

en-noun

tabula rasa (usually uncountable, plural tabulae rasae or tabulæ rasæ)

tabulae rasae (plural)
tabulæ rasæ (plural)

/ˈtæbjʊlə ˈɹɑːzə/

/ˈtæbjʊlə ˈɹeɪzə/

From Latin tabula (“wax-covered writing tablet”) + rāsa, feminine singular of rāsus (“scraped, erased, cleaned (of text)”).

ubeskrevet blad

the idea that the mind comes into the world as a blank state

We all admit now that the Child does not come into the world with a mental tabula rasa of entire forgetfulness but on the contrary as the possessor of vast stores of sub-conscious memory, derived from its ancestral inheritances; we all admit that a certain grace and intuitive insight and even prophetic quality, in the child-nature, are due to the harmonization of these racial inheritances in the infant, even before it is born; and that after birth the impact of the outer world serves rather to break up and disintegrate this harmony than to confirm and strengthen it.

1920, Edward Carpenter, Pagan and Christian Creeds, New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., published 1921, page 173:

(philosophy, epistemology) A mind, as of a newborn, free of any impressions, notions, ideas, etc.; a blank slate.


prolepsis

en-noun

prolepsis (countable and uncountable, plural prolepses)

From Latin prolepsis, from Ancient Greek πρόληψις (prólēpsis, “preconception, anticipation”), from προλαμβάνω (prolambánō, “take beforehand, anticipate”).

der

Point (1) seems to imply that one may have a false judgement because of a mismatch between different criteria for truth. For example, my sensation is paired with a prolepsis of a horse, therefore I make an assertion that ‘there is a horse’, which upon further inspection may turn out to be a cow.

2017, Attila Németh, Epicurus on the Self, page 42:

(philosophy, epistemology) A so-called "preconception", i.e., a pre-theoretical notion which can lead to true knowledge of the world.


anamnesis

en-noun

anamnesis (countable and uncountable, plural anamneses)

From Ancient Greek ἀνάμνησις (anámnēsis, “remembrance”), verbal noun of ἀναμιμνήσκω (anamimnḗskō), from ἀνα- (ana-) + μιμνῄσκω (mimnḗiskō, “call to mind”).

affix

1990, Stewart Umphrey, Zetetic Skepticism, Longwood Academic, page 13,
There are also reasons for thinking that Socratic anamnesis, inquiry and learning are quite unlike anamnesis, inquiry and learning as ordinarily understood.

(epistemology, Platonism) The recollection of innate knowledge acquired before birth, according to Plato’s theory of epistemology.


factive

(epistemology, of a knowing agent) Which does not know any falsities: which knows only truths.


animalism

en-noun

animalism (countable and uncountable, plural animalisms)

Animalism understands the human person and the human animal to be identical. The major appeal of animalism is that it avoids the spatially coincident thinkers discussed earlier.

2014, Neil A. Manson, Robert W. Barnard, The Bloomsbury Companion to Metaphysics, Bloomsbury Publishing, →ISBN, page 237:

(philosophy, ontology) The doctrine that humans are merely animals, and lack any spirituality.


continuant

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


externalist

en-adj

externalist (comparative more externalist, superlative most externalist)

more externalist (comparative)
most externalist (superlative)

One possible way out would be to appeal to some suitable form of externalist epistemology— based e.g. on facts about reliable empirical connections between the creatures’ responsive dispositions and the content of their experiences—to try to explain just how the content of perceptual experiences informs these subjects’ intentional behaviour.

2008 August 30, Josefa Toribio, “State Versus Content: The Unfair Trial of Perceptual Nonconceptualism”, in Erkenntnis, volume 69, number 3, →DOI:

(epistemology) Contending that there are non-internal factors which can affect the justificatory status of a belief


foundationalism

A radical denial of foundationalism is offered by social constructivism (Ernest 1998 ), an approach that many researchers in mathematics education embrace.

2008 March 21, Bernd Buldt, Benedikt Löwe, Thomas Müller, “Towards a New Epistemology of Mathematics”, in Erkenntnis, volume 68, number 3, →DOI:

(epistemology) The doctrine that beliefs derive justification from certain basic beliefs

fundamentalismi

the doctrine that beliefs derive justification from certain basic beliefs


reliabilism

en-noun

reliabilism (countable and uncountable, plural reliabilisms)

He now rejects reliabilism in favor of a socio-historical conception of knowledge.

2008 November 28, Albert Casullo, “Analyzing a priori knowledge”, in Philosophical Studies, volume 142, number 1, →DOI:

Notice that both the truth-preservation account of logical consequence and GTT constitute a very specific version of reliabilism, where the relevant property a valid argument is reliable about is truth (rather than knowledge, unfalsity, truth together with unfalsity, etc.)

2018, Jeremy Wyatt, Nikolaj J. L. L. Pedersen, Nathan Kellen, Pluralisms in Truth and Logic (page 270)

(epistemology) Any of a group of related doctrines holding that knowledge or justified belief must be the result of a reliable process


sensualism

sensualism (countable and uncountable, plural sensualisms)

1858, The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, No. 1, Gottfried Wilhem von Leibnitz,
He [Locke] repudiated any supposed dowry of original truths or innate or connate ideas, and endeavored to show how, by acting on the report of the senses and personal experience, the understanding arrives at all the ideas of which it is conscious. The mode of procedure in this case is empiricism; the result with Locke was sensualism,--more fully developed by Condillac, [18] in the next century.

For Sensualism the only source of human knowledge is sensation: everything reduces to transformed sensations.

1913, “Philosophy”, in Catholic Encyclopedia:

(epistemology) The doctrine that all knowledge not only originates in sensation, but are transformed sensations, copies or relics of sensations; sensationalism.

сэнсуалізм

doctrine: everything reduces to transformed sensation


endurant

(ontology) An entity that can be observed/perceived as a complete concept, regardless of the point in time.


perdurant

(ontology) A happening; an entity that only exists partially at any given point in time.


duck test

From the expression if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.

(epistemology, philosophy) A form of abductive reasoning, application of intuition, or common sense regardless of technical parameters, to identify an ostensibly unknown subject by observing that subject's characteristics.


blank canvas

blank canvas (plural blank canvases or blank canvasses)

blank canvases (plural)
blank canvasses (plural)

By analogy with artists who begin with a blank canvas, thereby possessing the freedom to shape it according to their creative inclinations.

After his ex-wife moved out, his life was a blank canvas.

Her gaze was wide while she was wondering; then her lids drooped low, and lower, as on the blank canvas of her mental view there grew laboriously a conception.

1903, Leonard Merrick, The Quaint Companions:

But when we're truly engaged with the blank canvas of our lives, moment to moment, a timeless quality emerges.

2014, Panache Desai, Discovering Your Soul Signature, Hachette, →ISBN:

(figuratively, also philosophy, epistemology) An unmarked or empty state, offering a limitless potential for creation, development or interpretation.


Plato's Cave

Described by Plato in the Allegory of the Cave in the Republic.

(philosophy, epistemology) An allegorical cave whose unwitting, chained inhabitants perceive reality only in the form of shadow puppetry cast by the light of a man-made fire, lacking any awareness of the limitations of their perspective or its constructed nature.

Allegory of the Cave
Plato
Republic (Plato)


antifoundationalist

(epistemology) One who rejects foundationalism.


permissivist

(epistemology) A supporter of permissivism.


preparadigmatic

en-adj

preparadigmatic (comparative more preparadigmatic, superlative most preparadigmatic)

more preparadigmatic (comparative)
most preparadigmatic (superlative)

preparadigmatic science: a science at a primitive stage of development, before it has achieved a paradigm and established a consensus about the true nature of the subject matter and how to approach it. […]

2018, American Psychological Association, APA Dictionary of Psychology, American Psychological Association:

(epistemology of science; of a field of inquiry) In an epistemic phase that precedes any truly rigorous scientific form.


antifoundationalism

(epistemology) A philosophy that rejects foundationalism.

antifundacionalismo

a philosophy that rejects foundationalism


antifoundational

antifoundational (comparative more antifoundational, superlative most antifoundational)

more antifoundational (comparative)
most antifoundational (superlative)


evaluativism

Most who have argued for evaluativism have been interested in establishing skepticism, and have assumed that evaluativism implied skepticism.

1989, Raymond Martin, The Past Within Us: An Empirical Approach to Philosophy of History, Princeton University Press, →ISBN, page 97:

[E]valutivism makes plain that any attempt to justify a rule (ultimately by a rule-circular argument) will be an attempt for rules we value and will depend on rules we value (our basic inferential rules).

2007, Stathis Psillos, “Putting a Bridle on Irrationality: An Appraisal of van Fraassen's New Epistemology”, in Bradley Monton, editor, Images of empiricism: essays on science and stances, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 154:

There is prima facie something deeply unappealing about evaluativism: our intuitions rebel at the suggestion that reasonableness is 'not a factual property' and that '[i]n calling a rule reasonable we are evaluating it, and all that makes sense to ask about is what we value'.

2008, Carrie S Jenkins, Grounding Concepts: An Empirical Basis for Arithmetical Knowledge: An Empirical Basis for Arithmetical Knowledge, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 68:

(epistemology) The belief that certain disagreements (even about facts) ultimately stem from differing values, and therefore cannot be resolved as factual disagreements.


infallibilism

en-noun

infallibilism (countable and uncountable, plural infallibilisms)

(epistemology) The theory that belief in a true proposition counts as knowledge only if the proposition is necessarily entailed by the evidence or reasoning that supports this belief.


refutationism

(epistemology) A scientific philosophy based on the requirement that hypotheses must be falsifiable in order to be scientific; if a claim is not able to be refuted it is not a scientific claim.


singular existential statement

singular existential statement (plural singular existential statements)

singular existential statements (plural)

The statement In 1697, during the expedition of Dutch explorer Willem de Vlamingh, there were black swans on the Swan River in Australia is a singular existential statement, while There are black swans is not.

existential quantifier
existential quantifier

(epistemology) In Popperian epistemology, a statement that contains the equivalent of an existential quantifier and one or more proper names.


diallelus

(epistemology) The argument that any proposition requires a justification, but the justification itself requires support, which leads to infinite regress.


principle of parsimony

(epistemology) Synonym of Occam's razor.


Hume's fork

Named after philosopher David Hume (1711–1776).

named-after

Hume's Fork would belong to the category of sophistry and illusion. As Hume's Fork is presented as a tool with which knowable propositions can be distinguished from nonsensical ones, critics need to show that the two categories of knowable propositions are inadequate, or that nonsensical propositions can be true or false.

2020, Jean-Etienne Joullié, Robert Spillane, The Philosophical Foundations of Management Thought, Lexington Books, →ISBN, page 105:

(epistemology) A tenet asserting that all statements are exclusively either "analytic a priori" (universally true by mere definition) or "synthetic a posteriori" (unknowable without exact experience).


permissivism

(epistemology) The belief that there are situations where the evidence for a proposition justifies either believing or doubting that proposition.


epistemic circularity

en-noun

epistemic circularity (countable and uncountable, plural epistemic circularities)

Coined by William Alston in 1986 in his article "Epistemic Circularity".

(epistemology, countable) A circle of (foundational) epistemic arguments where the reliability of a device used within this circle is also proven within the circle.

(epistemology, uncountable) The quality of being such a circle.


pregiven

en-adj

pregiven (comparative more pregiven, superlative most pregiven)

more pregiven (comparative)
most pregiven (superlative)

From pre- + given. The philosophical sense is a calque of the German term Vorgegeben.

For example, when a red spot on a sheet of paper strongly stimulates me, the whiteness of the paper as well as the red spot are pregiven and both of them undergo the structurization of “figure-ground.”

2012, Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, Soul and Body in Husserlian Phenomenology: Man and Nature, page 81:

We therefore arrive at the realization that Aristotle conceived of the truth of a-synthetic wholes as pregiven in the same sense; they, as such, are therefore always actual.

2012, Werner Marx, The Meaning of Aristotle’s ‘Ontology’, page 20:

The ontological and epistemological commitments are basically twofold: We assume that the world is pregiven, that its features can be specified prior to any cognitive activity.

2017, Francisco J. Varela, Evan Thompson, Eleanor Rosch, The Embodied Mind, page 135:

(philosophy, ontology) Existing in the world, as opposed to arising from human apprehension.


pregiven

However, mining an analytic vein above that of Kant's work, Husserl distinguishes clearly between the pregiven to human experience and what is given to the human consciousness that gives the pregiven form, making it pass from the "hidden" to the "apparent," to the given.

2000, Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, Impetus and Equipoise in the Life-Strategies of Reason, page 266:

We live and are conscious against a background of the pregiven.

2006, Kevin Hermberg, Husserl's Phenomenology: Knowledge, Objectivity and Others, page 75:

In a sense, there is a pregiven before any act of the Ego, but in another sense, there can be no pregiven in absolute, no pregiven an sich.

2015, François De Gandt, “Passivity and Interest (Experience and Judgment)”, in Burt Hopkins, John Drummond, editors, The New Yearbook for Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy, volume 13:

(philosophy, ontology) That which is actual, as opposed to our concepts or apprehension of the world.


blank-slatism

(philosophy, epistemology) The Lockean belief that the human mind is a blank slate or tabula rasa at birth, and is subsequently formed by sensory experiences.


fact-value distinction

(philosophy, epistemology) A concept that posits a difference between a statement of fact (descriptive) and a statement of value (normative or prescriptive), with a fact being verifiable through observation and a value encompassing ethics and aesthetics.


predictive power

(sciences, epistemology) The power of a scientific theory to generate testable predictions.