Philo gloss

• A posteriori


  Knowledge that can only be acquired from experience of the external world
• A priori


  Knowledge that can be acquired without experience of the external world, through thought alone
• Abductive argument


  A form of inductive argument which shows that something is probably true because it is the best explanation
• Ability knowledge


  Knowledge of how to do something
• Acquaintance knowledge


  Knowledge of something or someone
• Analytic reduction


  If X analytically reduces to Y, then the meaning of X is the same as the meaning of Y
• Analytic truth


  A proposition that is true in virtue of the meaning of the words
• Antecedent


  The first part of a conditional statement such as "if A then B"
• Arête


  An ancient Greek word used by Aristotle to describe a property or virtue that enables something to achieve its ergon (function)
• Hard Behaviourism


  The view that propositions about mental states can be (analytically) reduced without loss of meaning to propositions about behaviours using the language of physics
• Soft Behaviourism


  The view that propositions about mental states are propositions about behavioural dispositions
• Blik


  An unfalsifiable belief that is held in the face of conflicting evidence, but that is nevertheless meaningful
• Categorical imperative


  A statement about what you should do that is not conditional on anything
• Cognitive statement


  Statements that aim to literally describe how the world is and are either true or false
• Consequent


  The second part of a conditional statement such as "if A then B"
• Consequentialist


  An ethical theory that values actions as good or bad according to their consequences
• Contingent truth


  Something that is true but that might not have been true
• Contradiction


  Two claims that cannot both be true simultaneously
• Contradiction in conception


  A maxim leads to a contradiction in conception if it would somehow be self-contradictory for everyone to follow it
• Contradiction in will


  A maxim leads to a contradiction in will if you cannot rationally will that everyone follow it
• Deduction


  A method of deriving true propositions from other true propositions (using reason and logical necessity)
• Deductive argument


  An argument where the premises are intended to logically guarantee the conclusion
• Deontological ethics


  Ethical theories that focus on duty, or what must be done
• Direct realism


  The view that a mind-independent external world exists and that we perceive it directly
• Disjunction introduction


  The logical principle that if the statement "P" is true, then the statement "P or Q" must also be true
• Ordinary Doubt / normal incredulity 


  Being unsure whether something in your everyday life is true
• Philosophical Doubt


  Being unsure whether anything you believe is true
• Substance Dualism


  The view that minds can exist completely separately from physical bodies
• Property Dualism


  The view that physical substances can have non-physical mental properties
• Eliminative Materialism/Eliminativism


  The view that our common sense understanding of mental states (folk psychology) is radically mistaken and that some or even all of these mental states don't exist
• Emotivism


  The metaethical view that moral judgements express (non-cognitive) emotional attitudes
• Empiricism


  The view that all knowledge of synthetic truths is acquired a posteriori
• Epiphenomenalism


  A form of dualism that says that the mental and physical interact in only one direction: From physical to mental
• Ergon


  An ancient Greek word used by Aristotle to describe the function or characteristic activity of a thing
• Error theory


  The metaethical view that moral judgements express cognitive statements but that moral properties don't exist and so all moral judgements are false
• Eudaimonia


  An ancient Greek word used by Aristotle to describe the good life for a human being in the broadest sense
• Eternal


  God is said to be eternal if He exists outside of time
• Everlasting


  God is said to be everlasting if He exists within time but is without beginning or end
• Fallacy


  The use of invalid or otherwise faulty reasoning
• Falsifiable


  A belief or proposition that is incompatible with some possible observation