A Rough Glossary of Some Philosophical Terms

A Rough Glossary of Some Philosophical Terms

a posteriori

Posterior to and dependent on sensory or introspective experience. See a priori.

a priori

Logically prior to or independent of experience. Depending on reason alone, self-evident. A belief or claim may be said to be justified or known a priori (or a posteriori). Beliefs or claims which are supposed to be justifiable or knowable a priori are sometimes called a priori claims. Note that the priority claimed is logical or epistemological, not psychological or generative. It is a question of justification, not acquisition of the concepts involved in making or understanding the claim; thus experience may be necessary to understand the claim (one must learn a language), yet be unnecessary for its justification. This last point, and the question of whether there is any such thing as a priori justification/knowledge is debatable.

artificial intelligence

behaviorism

Behaviorism is usefully split into two kinds:

philosophical behaviorism: the view that, strictly speaking, our folk psychological terms refer not to mental states, events, or properties, but to behaviors and dispositions to behave; talk of mental states/properties is to be redefined in terms of complex input-output relations where inputs and outputs are described physically; in principle, all talk of mental states disappears. This can further be divided into two cases. The purely semantic point, which we may call logical behaviorism, is consistent with dualism and materialism (though most adherents were materialists), and to some extent avoids the ontological problem by not committing on the nature of mental states. The stronger position which includes the semantic point and takes the further step of denying the existence of mental states may be called ontological behaviorism.
methodological behaviorism: the view that any new terms in theoretical psychology be operationally defined in terms of publicly observable circumstances and behaviors.

disposition

dualism

Most generally, the view that there are two basic ontological categories. In the philosophy of mind this is a family of positions regarding the ontological problem dividing roughly as follows:

substance dualism
- Cartesian dualism: mind a separate and distinct substance from material, not spatially extended, not subject to causal laws
- popular dualism: mind is an as yet undiscovered kind of spiritual substance, a sort of ghostly, spatially extended substance which can interact with physical substance
property dualism
- epiphenomenalism: all stuff is physical, but certain physical systems display emergent and irreducible non-physical properties, these properties play no causal role in the system’s behavior
- interactionist property dualism: as above, but mental properties do play a causal role in the system's behavior
- elemental property dualism: as interactionist, but mental properties are not emergent, they are basic

See also monism, materialism, minimal physicalism.

eliminative materialism

A non-reductive materialism. See materialism.

emergent

epistemology

The study of the nature knowledge and justification, and the extent to which we have either.

folk psychology

The common-sense, pre-theoretical, “person in the street” understanding of our mental lives and outward behavior, which also forms the starting point of just about all scientific psychology. Though this is controversial in certain ways, folk psychology can be considered a sort of folk theory containing (on the one hand) propositional attitude or belief-desire psychology—relating beliefs and desires to actions; and (on the other hand) the common introspective vocabulary for qualitative mental states (qualia), such as sensation and emotion.

functionalism

A non-reductive materialism. See materialism.

identity theory

Alternate name for reductive materialism.

intensional fallacy

intentionality

materialism

Most generally, the view that the one basic ontological category is material substance or physical substance (for most of our purposes ‘material’ and ‘physical’ will be used equivalently, though the latter connotes some sort of priviledged status for current scientific methodology, whereas the former does not). In the philosophy of mind this is a family of positions regarding the ontological problem dividing roughly as follows:

philosophical behaviorism: See behaviorism.
reductive materialism/identity theory: mental states exist and each (type of) mental state is identical to a specifiable (type of) physical state of the brain; talk of mental states/properties can, in principle, be redefined in terms of talk of brain states/properties; i.e., mental states/properties are reduced to or identical to brain states/properties.
functionalism: mental states are not reducible to physical states (thus, this is a form of non-reductive materialism); instead, they are computational and/or causal states of a system; the nature of a mental state is determined by its computation and/or causal relation to i) environmental stimuli, ii) other mental states, iii) behavioral outputs; one difference from behaviorism is that functionalism admits mental states as part of understanding behaviors; one difference from reductive materialism is that mental states are not identified with brain states, but with computational/causal roles, which may be differently instantiated in the same brain at different times or differently instantiated in different brains (including different species); e.g., pain may be defined (roughly) as the mental state brought on by tissue damage, which gives rise to states of fear, anxiety, and aggression, and gives rise to grimacing and avoidance or attack behavior-such a definition could supposedly apply to a human, a non-human animal, or a silicon-based alien, despite differences in physical structure; in various forms, currently the most widely held view.
eliminative materialism: our common-sense mentalistic, folk psychological understanding of ourselves and much of the scientific psychology based upon it are radically false; a proper theory of mind will be developed by advancing neuroscience, and will no longer contain common-sense mentalistic categories, but will introduce a radically new theory of our cognitive architecture and activities (thus, this is a form of non-reductive materialism).

metaphysics

The study of the fundamental nature of being and reality; supposedly distinct from physics, as it attempts to consider issues concerning the existence and nature of non-physical entities. See ontology, epistemology.

minimal physicalism

According to Jaegwon Kim minimal physicalism is comprised of three claims:

mind-body supervenience: the mental supervenes on the physical in that any two systems exactly alike in all physical respects cannot differ in any mental respects; no mental difference without a physical difference (this does allow for physical difference without a mental difference-i.e., the same type of mental property can be associated with different physical states or systems).
anti-Cartesian principle: there are no purely mental creatures, if x has mental property, then x has a physical property (M-B supervenience technically allows for one purely mental creature).
mind-body dependence: the mental properties of x are determined by x s physical properties (M-B supervenience only states a correlation, it does not give ontological or explanatory priority to either the mental or the physical).

See also dualism, materialism.

monism

Most generally, the view that there one basic ontological category. In the philosophy of mind this encompasses two positions regarding the ontological problem, idealism, and materialism.

nomological danglers

non-reductive materialism

A subset of materialist positions which, in various ways, deny that mental states are reducible to or identical to physical states.

Ockham’s razor

Methodological principle which favors simpler theories over more complex theories. The question of what counts as simplicity and in what aspect a theory ought to enjoy it is a difficult one; the number of types of entities the theory posits (don't posit more types of things than you need) or the number of basic assumptions it involves (simplify the inferential base) are two places one might require simplicity. Named for William of Ockham (c.1285-1347), English Scholastic philosopher, the principle dates back to Aristotle (384-322 BCE).

ontological problem

Also called the mind-body problem, this is the problem of determining the fundamental nature of mental states and processes as well as their relation to physical/material states and processes. See dualism, monism, materialism.

ontology

Metaphysics, or a subdiscipline of metaphysics which investigates the fundamental kinds of entities and relations which hold between them. The ontological commitments of a theory—i.e., what kinds of entities a theory assumes to exist; e.g., the ontology of Cartesian dualism is different from that of eliminative materialism.

operational definition

This form of definition defines a term via the intersubjectively observable tests we could carry out in order to determine whether the term applies. A slightly oversimplified example is ‘x is soluble’ is equivalent to ‘if x were put in unsaturated water, x would dissolve. This style of definition is important to, among other things, behaviorism and behaviorist semantics.

ostensive definition

phenomenology

physicalism

See materialism.

prima facie

at first glance, on the first appearance. In legal contexts prima facie evidence is considered sufficient to establish a claim in the absence of counter-evidence; hence, in this context prima facie evidence is relatively strong. In much philosophical writing, however, it is most often the case that reasons or evidence is called prima facie as a rhetorical preamble to presenting counter-evidence or counter-argument. Thus, in philosophical contexts ‘prima facie’ carries the connotation not of strength, but of weakness.

propositional attitudes

(PAs) Attitudinal states of persons which can be expressed in the form X verbs that P, where X designates a person, verb is an attitudinal verb such as ‘believes’, or ‘desires’, or ‘fears’, and P is a sentence or proposition. This is a large part of folk and scientific psychology as belief-desire explanations are the way we predict and explain people’s (including our own) behavior. Example: Fred believes that there is a wasp buzzing about him; he wants to avoid getting stung (Fred desires that Fred does not get stung); Fred is afraid that he will have an allergic reaction to the sting of a wasp; Fred runs through the yard shrieking and waving his arms wildly. The last one is not a PA, but a description of behavior which (as lightly illustrated) could be explained/predicted by folk psychological propositional attitude ascriptions.

qualia

(singular: quale). Often referred to a “raw feels”, qualia are those subjective, qualitative properties of mental states such as sensations and emotions—the “what it is like” to see red, feel pain, be angry. Such mental states are thought to have intrinsic qualitative features by which we identify them through introspection.

reduction, intertheoretic

One theory and/or domain of theoretical entities is said to reduce to (or be identifiable with) a second theory or domain of entities if, loosely speaking, the second theory captures all that the former does (and more); e.g., Newtonian physics may be said to reduce to the more encompassing Special & General Relativity. But making this idea precise is problematic: classical views of the reduction relation between scientific theories are often too restrictive, requiring full translation of one theory into another, true identity claims regarding entities in the reduced and reducing domain, or that the reduced theory be implied by the reducing theory (with additional assumptions). Churchland analyzes the relation differently: T-old reduces to T-new just in case T-new implies a set of sentences which is smoothly isomorphic with T-old; only then are we warranted in making identity claims or claims of reduction. Note that smoothness is a matter of degree, and that at the opposite end of the continuum from reduction is elimination—T-new takes over, and T-old is rejected as radically false (as opposed to false in the way in which Newtonian physics is false).

reductive materialism

See materialism.

scientific realism

solipsism

supervene, supervenience

See minimal physicalism

Turing machine

Turing, A.

In developing this glossary I have, in some cases, relied heavily on the following:: Matter and Consciousness, Paul M. Churchland. MIT Press (1997).
Philosophy of Mind, Jaegwon Kim. Westview (1998).
The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, Robert Audi, ed. Cambridge UP (1995).