Personalized Definitions for the Thoughts on these pages.
This glossary defines my version of some concepts that I use periodically. It also references concepts that strike me as being significant. The entries here can reflect a personal use or my sense of humor (or lack of it)
How typical it is that these would be in Roman order
Theory or model that statements are true when they match or correspond with reality. This is a bland and feeble, yet subtle statement, annoying to Logical Positivists because it refuses to be more helpful. Unlike the verificationist idea, the statement “God exists.” is true as long as he, she, or it does. This contrasts to verificationism because that theory requires a methodology for detecting God’s existence.
Back-tracking and revisions from the verificationist camp (Ayer & others) perhaps verify that verificationism is less a theory of truth than a classification of statements. Since verification only sets up a correspondence with observations. When I have verified that my blue socks are in my top drawer, I have verified that a previous statement corresponds with reality. The verification does not make it true, it is the correspondence that something resembling a pair of socks (and able to be put on my feet without too great an embarrassment), matching my conception of ‘blue’ is in a location which can be described as the top drawer of my dresser. That I can walk to the dresser, or think to do so, only impacts what can be done with that statement.
Deconstruction is a school of literary criticism that the author of a text reacts to other texts and that a text is not a single entity, but must be viewed from all possible interpretations of the text, which are mutually contradictory “virtual texts” and cancel each other out.
Deconstructionism expands the literary techniques to a philosophy arguing that our “lives” form a fiction or “virtual text” through which we interpret events. And that words refer only to other words and cannot refer to objects in the external word. (Of course, what that idea of an “external world” could be I have no idea, because if there were such a thing, those two words could not refer to it.)
A Deconstructionist subscribes to the critical or philosophical school.
Also wrongly called Postmodernism.
A fallacy where one meaning of a word (or similar words) is used to support a conclusion using another meaning of the same word. It comes from to use with equal voice. The example below equivocates one meaning of the word “dog” with another of its meanings.
My opponent has called my idea a “dog”, but we must remember that dogs make useful and faithful companions.
The above example, can be used for humor and rhetoric. It is the odd turn that lends the humor. Such twists are used in competitive shows of wit, that we shouldn’t worry if we see phrases like that. And rhetorically, it can say that we forget about all the good things of a dog when we want to call denounce something as a “dog”. But in that it requires us to overlook those good aspects to use the negative label, our opponent might be doing the same thing with the idea they are slagging.
This sense is okay when moving from the opponents view to our own. Equivocation can only be clearly seen as a fallacy when the speaker suggests that one meaning proves the other meaning.
The school of philosophy that deals with individual choices and an individual’s struggle for meaning. Can be either theist or atheist, with atheist writers concluding much less hopeful things, such as the total meaninglessness of our choices.
The view that matters of faith cannot be reduced to a rational explanation. Usually, this position is taken by a believer, and it is seen by that person as defense of their faith.
I subscribe to this viewpoint only by default. As a skeptic, I do not believe that much is reducible to pure logic. If I didn’t find this to be true, I would be neither a skeptic nor a fideist—nor for that matter, most likely a believer.
Logical Positivist
Mathematicians use Induction to prove that a rule holds true for all numbers or an identifiable group of them. We generally try to prove that if a rule is true for one number it is true for the very next number.
So let’s see it in action: Let’s say we've noticed a trend. We notice that
| 1 + 2 = |
|
= 3, and 1 + 2 + 3 = |
|
= 6. |
And perhaps you've broadened this to suspect that the following relationship is true:
| 1 + ... + n = |
|
How do you prove this for all numbers?
The answer, my friend, is Mathematic Induction. Some of us may know induction as making judgments as data comes in view. Putting clues together and coming to a conclusion is our most common exposure to it. Mathematic Induction holds close to this type of thing, but unlike the more common case, our process and conclusion is better understood.
Imagine that we knew that the equation at the top of the page holds for some number we#8217;ll call k. Then,
| 1 + 2 + ... + k = |
|
Should we then add k + 1 to this sum, we have
|
+ k + 1 = |
|
+ |
|
= |
|
| Well, this is |
|
in other words, which is |
|
Should we replace all places where k + 1 pops up, with l, we're looking at
| l(l + 1) |
| 2 |
By this, we note that if one number fits our theory, the next number will fit it as well. Looking back, we see that it fits two. So it must fit three, and four, and five, and so on.
So we started with a guess, but through Induction, we now know that numbers just behave that way.
[It’s pretty cool, if you followed me through that.]
The pessimism (ironically called a “philosophy”) that no knowledge is reliable. Also that nothing can be known or communicated—so known in the common sense.
Note that communicating to you what this is or its foundation should be entirely unreliable should the world conform to a nihilistic model—and you can’t know what that is either. ...So good luck with that.
The doctrine originating with David Hume (1711-1776), that impressions of an object are all that will ever be known of that object. And that deeper nature of the object or our faculties that we use to perceive the object cannot be known, in any greater detail.
Although, close to Phenomenology in appearance, Phenomenalism does not suggest that the objects might not exist, as Phenomenology does, it simply is more content with the necessary ignorance.
The school of philosophy that suggests that only appearances (or phenomena) can be known. It also has a suggestion that perhaps objects exist only within the mind. Although, disbelief in objects is not as important as the methodology of strictly speaking about phenomena and suspending belief in the object.
See Phenomenology
Postmodern art and literature include traditional or classical forms, in rejection of modernism, which conspicuously rejects traditional forms.
Given that definition, I’m a postmodern philosopher! I reject much of 20th-century thought primarily because of its summary dismissal of previous ideas.
Scientistic as an adjective describes beliefs and modes of Scientism. As a noun, it refers to a devotee of scientism.
A fallacy where an opponent’s real argument is substituted for an argument which the writer finds easier to defeat.
I find lesser forms of this acceptable. It is always wrong to knowingly misrepresent the opposing viewpoint, so you can defeat it easily. However, it is often debatable what exactly comprises a Straw Man.
I have been in many discussion where just because I come to conclusions that they don’t my oponents insist I’m mischaracterizing their arguments. Also, I’m somewhat skeptical about how absolute the definitions of fallacies are, and how people seem to miss things by too strict an application of the rules. And because it’s just too easy to call it that, I call it a Straw Man when you target an argument toward an idealized member of a perceived group