(Class and Notes) Philosophy Dictionary - 2022-03-09

PHILOSOPHY
Glossary of Common
PHILOSOPHICAL
TERMS
Edited By
Dharmendra Kumar
Ashish Das
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ABANDONMENT: In the ethical thought of existentialist writers as Sartre and Heidegger, abandonment is the
awareness that there are no external sources of moral authority. No deity provide us with guidance or
direction, we achieve an authentic life by depending only on ourselves.
ABHAVA : (Negation or non-existence) It is the seventh category of the Vaisesika system. Kanada
does not mention it as a separate category. It is added afterwards. The first six categories are positive. This
is negative. It is a relative category.
Abhava is often defined as that whose knowledge is dependent on the knowledge of its counter entity.
Abhava stands for a negative fact which, in other words, means absence of something in relation to another
thing. Non-existence is of four kinds: (1) antecedent non-existence (pragabhava), (2) subsequent non-
existence (pradhvamsabhava), (3) mutual non-existence (anyonyabhava), and (4) absolute non-existence
(atyantabhava).
ABHIHITANVAYAVADA : (Sentence-meaning : Kumarila) : The meaning of a sentence is a
concatenation of the individual items expressed by words. It is merely the synthesis (Anyava) of the meaning
of the separate words composing it. This view is advanced by Kumalila- Mimamsa.
ABSOLUTE: The unconditioned, non-relative, unmodified, unrestricted, totally independent, perfect, and all-
inclusive. God, as entirely unconditioned. In metaphysics, reality considered as a single entity, having no
environment or relations to anything external to it. Cf. Parmenides, Spinoza, Hegel, Bradley.
ABSOLUTE IDEALISM : The doctrine that reality is entirely spiritual or mental and that every aspect of reality
has its being and its character only as an aspect of the whole. Cf. Hegel, Bradley, Royce.
ABSOLUTISM : Opposed to relativism; indicates independence of relations. In metaphysics, theory that reality
is an absolute. In ethics and aesthetics, theory that values are objectively real. In politics, doctrine or practice
of unconditioned sovereign power. A form of government in which political power is concentrated in the
hands of a single individual or small group, in particular, an absolute monarchy.
ABSTRACT : A quality, idea or concept is said to be abstract when it is thought of in isolation from the object
to which it belongs. For example, triangles of different shapes are all triangular.
ABSTRACTION : The process of forming an idea of a characteristic common to, or possibly common to, a
number of objects. In other words, the process of forming a general concept by adding together different
distinguishing feature from our notions of some collection of particular things. Thus, an abstraction is the
concept or idea that results from the process.
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ACADEMY : School founded in Athens by the Philosopher Plato, the Academy eventually became fertile ground
for the rise of ancient skepticism.
ACCIDENT : A characteristic which is not one of the defining characteristic of the object to which it belongs.
ACCIDENTAL AND ESSENTIAL : A property is essential for an object if the object must have the property
to exist and be the kind of thing that it is. A property is accidental if the object has the property, but doesn't
have to have it to exist or be the kind of thing that it is.
ACCOUNTABILITY : Accountability is a concept in ethics and governance with several meanings. It is often
used synonymously with such concepts as responsibility, answerability, blameworthiness, liability, and other
terms associated with the expectation of account-giving. As an aspect of governance, it has been central to
discussions related to problems in the public sector, nonprofit and private (corporate) worlds. In leadership
roles, accountability is the acknowledgment and assumption of responsibility for actions, products, decisions,
and policies including the administration, governance, and implementation within the scope of the role or
employment position and encompassing the obligation to report, explain and be answerable for resulting
consequences.
ACQUAINTANCE KNOWLEDGE BY : Immediate or intimate knowledge as distinct from knowledge by
description; knowledge of as contrasted with knowledge about. In this there is an awareness of feeling,
thought, emotion or any content of consciousness.
ACT/RULE UTILITARIANISM : Act-utilitarianism supposes that each particular action should be evaluated
solely by reference to the merit of its own consequences, while rule-utilitarianism considers the consequent
value of wide spread performance of similar actions.
The act-utilitarian asks, “How much pleasure or pain would result if everyone were to do this?”
ACTUALITY/POTENTIALITY : Aristotle’s distinction between what really is the case and what merely has
the power to change or to come to be the case . Potentiality is a power within a thing which strives to
become actual.
To explain the processes of change and development Aristotle has used the distinction between
potentiality and actuality. Potentiality is the same as matter, actuality as form. For matter is potentially
everything. It may become everything. It is not actually anything. It is a mere potentiality, or pacity of becoming
something. But whatever gives it definiteness as a this or that, whatever makes it an actual thing, is its form.
Thus the actuality of a thing is simply its form.
Aristotle claims, by means of the antithesis of potentiality and actuality, to have solved the ancient
problem of becoming. How is becoming possible? For being to pass into being is not becoming, for it
involves no change, and for not-being to pass into being is impossible, since something cannot come out of
nothing. For Aristotle, the sharp line drawn between not-being and being does not exist. For these absolute
terms he substitutes the relative terms potentiality and actuality, which shade off into each other. Potentiality
in his philosophy takes the place of not-being in previous systems. It solves the riddle because it is not an
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absolute not being. It is not being inasmuch as it is actually nothing, but it is being because it is potential
being. Becoming, therefore, does not involve the impossible leap from nothing to something. It involves the
transition from potential to actual being. All change, all motion, is thus the passage of potentiality into actuality,
of matter into form.
ACOSMISM : A term formed in analogy to ‘atheism’, meaning the denial of the ultimate reality of the world.
ACQAINTNCE: Immediate or intimate knowledge as distinct from knowledge by description; knowledge of as
contrasted with knowledge about.
ADHYATM : (Sanskrit, ‘relating to or belonging to the self’), In early Hindu texts concerning such
topics as knowledge of the self, meditating on that which appertains to the self, or spiritual exercise related
to the self (adhyatma-yoga). Later, it became a term for the Supreme Spirit, the Supreme Self, or the soul,
which, in Indian thought, is other than the ego. In monistic systems, e.g. Advaita Vedanta, the adhyatman is
the one Self that is the impersonal Absolute (Brahman),a state of pure consciousness, ultimately the only
Real. In dualist systems, e.g. Dvaita Vedanta, it is the true self or soul of each individual.
ADHIKARÎ : The competent student is an aspirant of Moksa or self-realization. He undergoes a
strict ethico-spiritual discipline and makes a sincere and incessant endeavour worthy of it; Qualifed to know
Brahman; competent for Brahmajnana. Sankaracharya says that Adhikari of Vedanta is he, who has tranquility
of mind, who has subjugated his senses, who is free from faults, who is obedient to his teacher and who is
endowed with virtues.
ADHYASA : (Superimposition) According to Shankara it is an apparent presentation of something
previously observed over some other thing. It works not only in cases of illusion, but also in the form of false
identification of self with the not-self. The superimposition of unreal on real and vice-versa, is called Adhyasa.
For example, the superimposition of silver over conch shell is Adhyasa.
ADVENTITIOUS : Adventitious ideas are those that come to us from without, through our senses. Descartes
distinguishes them from innate ideas & from ideas that are ourselves create.
ADVAITA : Ultimate reality, according to Sankara, is Brahman or Atman. The two are Identical. The
Upanisadic assertion 'Thou art That' (tattvamasi) means that the individual self is to be regarded as perfectly
identical with the absolute Brahman. Ultimate reality is called atman from the subjective side and Brahman
from the objective side. The two terms are used as synonymous. The advaita philosophy is summarised in
half a verse which runs as : "Brahma satyam jagat mithya, jivo brahmaiva naparah" (Brahman is the
only reality, the world is ultimately false, and the individual self is non-different from Brahman).
AESTHETICS : A branch of philosophy, the philosophy of art, beauty and criticism. The study of the feelings,
concepts and judgments arising from our appreciation of the arts or of the wider class of objects considered
moving or beautiful, or sublime.
AGENT : In ethics the person who acts.
AGNOSTIC : One who believes in agnosticism. Or one who neither believes nor disbelieves in the existence of God.
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AGNOSTICISM : The theory that it is not possible to know whether God exists. The belief that we do not have
sufficient reason either to affirm or to deny God’s existence. Agnosticism implies man’s ignorance of the real
nature of such ultimate as matter, mind and God.
AGOCARA : Inaccessible to the senses; unperceptible Brahman.
AGREEMENT, METHOD OF : One of Mill’s methods for discovery of causal relationships. If a specific
antecedent circumstance is found to be present on every occasion on which a phenomenon occurs, it may be
inferred to be the cause of that phenomenon.
AHAMKARA : In Hindu thought, the ego or faculty that gives the sense of ‘I’ or individual personality;
by extension, egotism, pride, conceit. In the Sankhya and Yoga systems, it is the third element of ever
changing Nature evolving in creation.
AHIMSA : (Sanskrit), traditionally and literally, nonviolence to living creatures; for modern Indian
thinkers, a positive sense of kindness to all creatures. To the Jains, ahimsa was a vow to injure no living
being (jiva) in thought, word, or deed. Many Buddhists practice ahimsa as a precept that denies the existence
of the ego, since injuring another is an assertion of egoism. With the modern period, particularly Gandhi,
ahimsa was equated with self-sacrificial love for all beings.
ALAYA-VIJNANA : Sanskrit term meaning literally ‘storehouse of consciousness’. The granary
of consciousness, containing the "seeds" of all future ideas and the residue of all past thoughts and deeds.
ALIENATION : Separation from one’s genuine or essential nature; for Marxists, the reduction of
labour to a mere commodity.
ALTRUISM : Concern for the interests and welfare of others, based either upon enlightened self-interest or a
belief in a common humanity. In other words - The theory that one ought to act for the good of all concerned.
AMBIGUITY : An expression having more than one meaning.
A MORAL : Neither moral nor immoral.
ANADI : Beginning less.
ANALOGICAL ARGUMENT :An argument based on similarities. A kind of inductive argument in which it is
concluded that two entities are alike in some respect on the ground that they are alike in some other respect
or respects.
As in an argument for the existence of God: the idea that the world is analogous to a human contrivance
and therefore, just as the human contrivance has creator, the world must also have a creator.
ANALOGICAL LANGUAGE : A way of speaking about an object by comparing it to something else, To say
that an animal is intelligent is to say that the animal’s behavior is like the behavior (in this case intelligence)
that belongs properly only to humans. The analogy is as follows: Intelligence: man: animal. Analogical language
has been defended by some philosophers as the only way we can speak of God.
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ANALOGY (Similarity, Likeness) : A likeness drawn between two or more entities in one or more respects.
One of the uses of this concept is in attempts to explain how religious statements can make sense. The
problem is that if our words are used in their ordinary sense, God is reduced to human proportions, but if
they are not, what sense can they make? One important discussion is in Aquinas, a few predicates, all of
them negative, apply univocally to God, e.g. ‘eternal’, ‘simple’ But for the most part, predicates are applied
to God neither univocally, nor equivocally, but by analogy. The analogy of being is based the idea that God,
being the cause of whatever is good in a kind of thing, can be described by the predicate that expresses the
perfection in that kind of thing. Distinct from this is the analogy of proportion; God is to man as a shepherd
to his sheep.
ANALOGY OF THE CAVE (Myth of the Cave) : In the Republic, Plato uses a vivid allegory to explain his
two-realms philosophy. He invites us to imagine a cave in which from childhood some prisoners are bound
so that they can look only at the wall in front of them. Behind them is a fire whose light casts shadows of
various objects on the wall in front of the prisoners. Because the prisoners cannot see the objects themselves,
they regard the shadows they see as the true reality. One of the prisoners eventually escapes from the cave
and, in the light of the sun, sees real objects for the first time, becoming aware of the big difference between
them and the shadow images he had always taken for reality.
The cave, obviously, represents the world we see and experience with our senses, and the world of sunlight
outside the cave represents the realm of Forms. The prisoners represent ordinary people, who, in taking the
sensible world to be the real world, are condemned to darkness, error, ignorance, and illusion. The escaped
prisoner represents the philosopher, who has seen light, truth, beauty, knowledge, and true reality. Most
people are like the prisoners in the cave. They think the shadows are reality. Philosophers, though, are like
the man who escapes the cave and sees the real world. They have true knowledge.
Of course, if the philosopher returns to the cave to tell the prisoners how things really are, they will think his
brain has been addled. This difficulty is sometimes faced by those who have seen the truth and decide to tell
others about it.
ANALYTICAL PHILOSOPHY : The term “analytical philosophy” is often used for a style of doing philosophy
that has been dominant throughout most of the twentieth century in Great Britain, North America, Australia,
and New Zealand. This way of doing philosophy puts great emphasis on clarity, and it usually sees philosophy
as a matter of clarifying important concepts in the sciences, the humanities, politics, and everyday life, rather
than providing an independent source of knowledge. Analytical philosophy is often contrasted with continental
philosophy, the sort of philosophy which has been more dominant in France, Germany, Spain, Italy, and
some other European countries.
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The term was first associated with the movement initiated by Bertrand Russell and G.E. Moore early in the
twentieth century to reject the idealistic philosophy of F.H. Bradley, which had been influenced by the
German Idealism of Hegel and others. Moore saw philosophy as the analysis of concepts. Analytical
philosophy grew out of the approach and concerns of Moore and Russell, combined with the logical positivist
movement and certain elements of pragmatism in America. However, the term “analytical philosophy” now
refers to many philosophers who do not subscribe to the exact conceptions of philosophy held by the
analysts, logical positivists, or pragmatists.
ANALYSIS : Conceptual or philosophical analysis is the process of explaining a concept, a belief, a theory, etc.
by drawing attention to its constituents, its presuppositions, its implications, etc. sometimes, philosophical
analysis is conceived as reductive analysis, for example, the analysis of statements about a physical object
into sits of reports about sense data.
ANALYTIC AND SYNTHETIC : In traditional logic, a proposition in which the predicate is logically implied
by the subject to which it is attributed and therefore gives us no new information about the subject, for
example, ‘All red roses are red.’ or ‘All bachelors are unmarried male.’ According to Kant an analytic
statement is one in which the predicate is contained in the concept of the subject and its negation is self-
contradictory.
A statement is analytic if its truth or falsity can be determined by analysis of the terms in the statement alone.
Statements that are analytically true are said to be true by definition, or logically true.
Analytic statements are those that are true (or false) in virtue of the way the ideas or meanings in them fit
together. A standard example is “No bachelor is married.” This is true simply in virtue of the meanings of the
words. “No bachelor is happy”, on the other hand, is synthetic. It isn’t true or false just in virtue of the
meanings of the words. It is true or false in virtue of the experiences of bachelors, and these can’t be
determined just by thinking about the meanings of the words.
The analytic/synthetic distinction is closely related to the necessary/contingent distinction and the a priori/a
posteriori distinction; indeed, these three distinctions are often confused with one another. But they are not
the same. The last one has to do with knowledge, the middle one with possibility, and the first one with
meaning. While some philosophers think that the three distinctions amount to the same thing, others do not.
Kant maintains that truths of arithmetic are a priori and necessary but not analytic. Kripke maintains that
some identity statements are necessary, but not analytic of a priori.
ANARCHISM : The central belief of Anarchist ideology is that political authority in all its forms, and especially
in the form of the state, is both evil and unnecessary. Anarchists therefore look to the creation of a stateless
society though the abolition of law and government. In their view, the state is evil because, as a repository of
sovereign, compulsory and coercive authority, it is an offence against the principles of freedom and equality.
The core value of anarchism is thus unrestricted personal autonomy. Anarchists believe that the state is
unnecessary because order and social harmony can arise naturally and spontaneously, and do not have to be
imposed ‘from above’ through government. Anarchists have a preference for a stateless society in which
free individuals mange their affairs by voluntary agreement and cooperation, without compulsion or coercion.
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Anarchism is based on the assumption that human beings are, at heart, moral creatures, instinctively drawn
to freedom and autonomy, its energies have often been more directed towards awakening these moral
instincts than to analyzing the system of state oppression and explaining how it can or should be challenged.
A theory or a political movement which interprets the ideals of human freedom and equality very strictly.
There is refusal to accept the legitimacy of state power.
A Utopian political theory that seeks to eliminate all authority and state rule in favor of a society based on
voluntary cooperation and free association of individuals and groups.
ANEKANTAVADA : Jaina’s metaphysics is called anekantavada or the doctrine of the manyness
of reality. According to this theory there are innumerable, material atoms and innumerable individual souls
which are all separately and independently real and each atom and each soul possess innumerable aspects of
its own or an infinite number of characteristics of its own. Every object possesses innumerable positive and
negative characters.
ANIMISM : The belief that material objects and the physical environment are imbued with some kind of soul or
spirit. Anima means breath, vital principle, soul or spirit. For philosophical theories that all matter contains
an element of mind, the term Panpsychism is more appropriate.
ANIRVACHANÎYA : The advaitins explain illusion as experience of a relatively real object, which
is neither absolute being (sat) nor absolute non-being (asat) nor both. Accordingly, it is called anirvachaniya
or indescribable.
ANTHROPOCENTRISM : An outlook that places mankind at the centre of the universe, the view that everything
in nature exists for the sake of man. A belief that human needs and interests are of overriding moral and
philosophical importance; the opposite of eco-centrism.
ANTHROPOMORPHISM : The attribution of human characteristics to God or to inanimate objects. The
term may refer to the portrayal of God as having human form or human characteristics. The ascription of
human characteristic to non-human beings. Views which represent God as closely resembling a human being
are anthropomorphic. Of the known attacks on religious anthropomorphism the first was made by Xenopanes.
A belief that human needs and interests are of overriding moral and philosophical importance; the opposite
of ecocentrism.
God is described in terms of a man. God is like man in at least some respects.
ANTINOMY : A Paradox . A contradiction between two conclusions drawn from equally credible premises.
Kant in his Critique of Pure Reason presents four antinomies: four pairs of thesis and antithesis, both of
which are supplied with proofs. The first thesis is that the world has a beginning in time and is limited in
space. The second thesis is that there are ultimately simple substances. The third thesis is that not everything
in the world is determined by natural causes, that is, there is freedom. The fourth thesis is that there exists
an absolutely necessary being, that is, not everything exists contingently. Each thesis expresses a demand of
reason to find an ultimate basis for everything conditioned, that is, a first cause, and the antithesis in each
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case expresses a demand of reason to regard every condition as being in turn conditioned, that is, to regard
every cause as in turn an effect of something else. Kant resolves the antinomies by asserting that in each
antinomy, one of the two conflicting statement can be thought to apply to phenomena - things as they appear
to us, the other to noumena-things as they are in themselves
The antinomy of pure reason is one of three kinds of "dialectical syllogisms" in which speculative reason is
mis-applied beyond the limits of possible experience, the other two being the transcendental paralogism and
the ideal of pure reason. An antinomy "is directed to the transcendental concept of the absolute totality of the
series of conditions for any given appearance", a concept which we are not entitled to employ.
ANTI-THESIS : An opposite statement : a contrary or a contradictory; A phrase containing a balanced
juxtaposition of two contrasting ideas.
ANUPALABDHI : (Non-Apprehension, Negation) According to Kumarila Bhatta and others non-

apprehension is the sixth independent source of knowledge. Kumarila like Nayayika admits negation as an
independent ontological category, but unlike Nayayikas, he accepts non-apprehension as an independent
means of knowledge to know negation. Nayayikas accept that negation is known either by perception or by
inference as the correlate (pratiyogin) of negation is a subject of perception or of inference.
ANVITABHIDHANVADA : (Sentence-meaning) (Prabhakara) : A sentence is first a

construction (Anvaya) of the words with one another and there in expression of the construed meaning.
Words convey a meaning only of the contexts of a sentence.
APAVARGA : Completion, freedom of the soul from the worldly bondage, and attainment of liberation.
APPEARANCE / REALITY : Distinction between the way things seem to be and the way they are. the distinction
is important in the philosophy of Plato, Descartes, Kant and Bradley.
A POSTERIORI : Refers to Knowledge that is derived from the senses, based on experience. A factual
statement or an empirical statement, which can be confirmed or disproved through experience. Opposite of
apriori statement.
A PRIORI : Refers to first Knowledge that is derived solely form reason independently of the sense. The truth of
a priori knowledge is claimed to be both necessary and universal. A priori statement is a universally and
necessarily true statement, which is true independently of any factual state of affairs. Opposite of a posteriori
statement.
APOHAVADA : The Buddhists maintain that the essence of meaning is negative in character. Dinnaga
first promulgated this theory. According to him a word can express its meaning only by rejecting the opposite
meaning. For instance, the word ‘cow’ denotes the exclusion of all objects that are not cows or the negation
of non-cows.
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APOLOGETICS : Defense against adverse criticism. The word is often used for defense of religious beliefs.
APPERCEPTION : Awareness of one’s own mental representations; also, consciousness of one’s own self.
The term was introduced by Leibnitz.
APPLIED ETHICS : The philosophical examination, from a moral standpoint, of particular problems in private
and public life that are matters of moral judgment. Basically applied ethics is a branch of philosophical
inquiry which guide us to find moral solutions in the sphere of personal relationship, medical science and
practice, questions of race, relations, political terrorism, and environmental issues.
APRITHAKA-SIDDHI : Accepted by Ramanuja, Aprithaka-Siddhi is an inner, inseparable organic

relation between god to mind and body. God is qualified by matter and souls. They form His body and are
inseparable from and utterly dependent of him. Mind and souls are called attributes of God.
According to Ramanuja, the Nyaya inherence (samvaya) is an external relation which is rejected by Ramajuja
because it involves infinite regress.
ARAMBHA-VADA : the "creative" theory of causality, advocated in the Nyaya Vaisesika schools.
According to this theory the effect is a new creation, a real beginning. The effect (karya) does not pre-exist
(asat) in its material cause.
ARCHETYPE : An original essence, an ideal pattern of which individual things are copies, a universal. The
original, or model, of which other things are regarded as the copies, for example, the Platonic Ideas and the
ideas of things existing according to Berkeley in the mind of God.
ARGUMENT : Any group of propositions of which one (the conclusion) is claimed to follow from the others
(the premises) which are regarded as providing support for the truth of that one. An argument is valid or
invalid; correct or incorrect, sound or unsound. But not as true or false.
ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN: A proof for the existence of God based on the idea that the universe and its
parts give evidence of purpose or design and therefore requires a divine designer.
ARISTOCRACY : A class of person enjoying high status and hereditary privileges. in the politics. In the Polities,
Aristotle discusses the relative merits of aristocracy, monarchy and democracy.
ARTHAPATTÎ : (Presumption, Implication) It is an independent source of valid knowledge according
to Kumarila Bhatta and Prabhakara. It is presumption or postulation or implication. It is the assumption of
an unperceived fact in order to reconcile two apparently inconsistent perceived facts. If Devadatta is fat and
he does not eat during day, we presume that he must be eating during night.
The Naiyayika riduces presumption into inference.
ASMITA : Egoism, Ahankara.
ASRAVA : The flow of karmic matter towards the soul (Jaina philosophy).
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ASSIMILATION : The process through which immigrant communities lose their cultural distinctiveness by adjusting
to the values, allegiances and life styles of the ‘host’ society.
ATHEISM: (from Greek a-, ‘not’, and theos, ‘god’),The view that there are no gods. A theory designed to disprove
God’s existence. The view that there is no divine being, no God. It is different from pantheism and agnosticism.
Pantheism is the view that God and the world are identical. Agnosticism (in religion) is the view that it is impossible
for us to know whether God exist.
ATMAN : In Indian philosophy, the self as distinguished from, although essentially the same as, the universal
reality or world soul, Brahma.
ATOMIC PROPOSITION : A simple proposition or statement, one which cannot be analyzed into propositions or
statements or the statement of a basic, atomic fact. The opposite of molecular proposition.
ATOMISM :Atomism is the name given to a materialist theory according to which nothing exists except atoms and the
void; Any theory that describes reality as a pluralistic system composed of separate, discrete, and irreducible
entities.
ATTRIBUTE : A property or characteristic necessary to a thing of a certain sort, an essential property. Or, any
property or characteristic.
AUTHORITARIANISM :A system of decision making without dice consultation with the parties concerned. A
political system in which an elite rules without regard to the opinions of the ruled.
AUTOCRACY : Absolute rule, monarchic rule without constitutional limitations.
AUTONOMY : Literally, Self-government; Self-legislated; self-rule; an autonomous person is rationally self-willed by
virtue of his independence of his or her independence of external authority. For Kant, autonomy was a key notion
for morality, since an act can have moral significance only if it is willed freely and without compulsion by a rational
being.
(in ethics) a person’s capacity for self-determination, the ability to see oneself as the author of a moral law by
which one is bound.
AVARANA : Veiling, concealing, one of the two powers of ajnana; The power of ajnana which hides the self
from the mind of man.
AVOIDANCE OF PSYCHOLOGISM : In his Philosophy of Arithmetic (1891), Husserl tried to derive the principles
of arithmetic from psychological phenomena. Frege criticized Husserl’s position and labeled it as psychologism.
To answer Frege’s criticism, Husserl re-examined his position and gave up his earlier claims. Husserl departed
from psychologism and delivered thorough criticism of it in his ''Logical Investigations".
Husserl argued that logical principles are universal, a priori truths that cannot be reduced to natural facts, while
psychologism entailed skepticism and relativism, which negates the possibility of any such a priori and universal
truth. Husserl’s turn from his ealier psychologism was important since it led him to the idea of phenomenology,
which became one of the major philosophical movements in the twentieth century.
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Husserl argued that science studies knowledge that is considered as a “matter of fact.” The validity of
scientific knowledge is limited by its historical time period; in other words, scientific truths are only valid at
a certain point in history. Thus, truth in science lacks necessity and strict universality. However, truth in
philosophy, as far as Husserl conceived it, must be necessarily true and strictly universal. Husserl argued that
truth in philosophy must be, as he called it, an “apodictic truth” whose negation is inconceivable. Psyhologism
failed to realize this distinction between science and philosophy and their distinct conception of truth. By
attempting to reduce all knowledge into psychological facts, psychologism undermines the foundation of
truth while developing relativism and skepticism. With this conviction, Husserl gradually developed the idea
of phenomenology.
AXIOLOGY : A theory of value. The Philosophical Study of value.
AXIOM : Proposition assumed to be true without proof and taken as basis for proof of other propositions.
Traditionally regarded as self-evident; in modern logic, commonly taken simply as an assumption for the
purposes of formal demonstrations.
B
BAD FAITH : In the philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre, essentially self-deception or lying to oneself, especially
when this takes the form of blaming circumstances for one’s fate and not seizing the freedom to realize
oneself in action.
BASIC PROPOSITION : In some contemporary empiricists, especially Bertrand Russell, a proposition resulting
from a perception and demanding no further evidence in its support.
BEGGING THE QUESTION : (PetitioPrincipii) The fallacy of assuming the conclusion of an argument by
using the conclusion as a premise.
BEHAVIOURISM : Broadly, the view that behavior is fundamental in understanding mental phenomena A method
in psychology which limits empirical investigation of the mind to the study of human behaviour. Philosophically
the doctrine of behaviourism is that mental states are logical constructions out of dispositions to behavior.
BEHAVIOURALISM : The belief that social theories should be constructed only on the basis of
observable behavior, providing quantifiable data for research.
BHAGAVAD GITA : (from Sanskrit Bhagavadgita, ‘song of the blessed one/exalted lord’),
Hindu devotional poem composed and edited between The fifth century B.C. and the second century A.D.
It contains eighteen chapters and seven hundred verses, and forms the sixth book (Chapters 23–40) of the
Indian epic Mahabharata. In its narrative, the warrior Arjuna, reluctantly waiting to wage war, receives a
revelation from the Lord Krishna that emphasizes selfless deeds and bhakti, or devotion. Strictly classified
as smrti or fallible tradition, the Gita is typically treated as shruti or infallible revelation.
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BHAKTI : (Sanskrit), in Hindu theistic thought systems, devotion. Bhakti includes the ideas of faith,
surrender, love, affection, and attachment. Its most common form of expression is worship by means of
offerings, puja etc.
BEING : In early Greek philosophy is opposed either to change, or Becoming, or to Non-Being. According to
Parmenides, everything real belongs to the category of Being, as the only possible object of thought.
Existentialist interpretation of Being refers to the core of human existence which gives birth to meaning and
value. All essences are emanations from man’s being. The term Being defies all classifications, it is rather
the foundation of all enquiries.
BODHISATTAVA : It is a special feature of Mahayana Buddhism. Compassion and wisdom
constitute the essence of the Bodhisattava. Bodhisattava defers his own liberation in order to work for the
liberation of others. He is ready to suffer gladly so that he may liberate others. This ideal distinguishes the
Mahayana school from the spiritual individualism of the Hinyanaschool.
BOURGEOIS IDEOLOGY : A Marxist term, denoting ideas and theories that serve the interests of
the bourgeoisie by disguising the contradictions of capitalist society.
BRAHMA : Also Brahman. The universal reality or world-soul; the supreme, all-pervasive essence and
ground of the universe.
BUDDHA : (From Sanskrit, ‘the enlightened one’), a title (but not a name) of Siddharta Gotama (c.563–
c.483 B.C.), the historical founder of Buddhism, and of any of his later representations. ‘Buddha’ can also
mean anyone who has attained the state of enlightenment (Buddha hood) sought in Buddhism. The Pali
Canon mentions twenty-four Buddhas.
BUDDHISM : The philosophy or religion based on the teachings of Gautama Siddhartha (c. 563-c, 483 B.C.).
The Four Noble Truths teach that life is suffering, that desire is the cause of suffering. That suffering can be
eliminated, and that the way to get rid of suffering is by following the eight-fold path. The eight-fold path
involves right understanding, right resolve, right speech, right conduct, right living, right effort, right intuition
and right concentration.
BUNDLE THEORY : Belief that an object comprises only the features or properties it exhibits, without requiring
the unifying presence of any underlying substance. Hence supposed that the human self is nothing more than
a bundle of perceptions (Hume).
“BUNDLE”, THEORY OF SELF : The conception of the self as a mere aggregate of mental states. The
designation is an allusion to Hume’s famous description of the self as: “a bundle or collection of different
perceptions which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and
movement.”
BUREAUCRACY : Literally, rule of officials; the administrative machinery of the state or, more broadly, a
rational and rule-governed mode of organization.
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C
CAPITALISM : An economic system in which wealth is owned by private individuals or businesses and goods
are produced for exchange according to the dictates of the market.
A system of generalized commodity production in which wealth is owned privately and
economic life is organized according to market principles
CARTESIANISM : The philosophy of Rene Descartes (1596-1650). Descartes used a method of systematic
doubt by which he arrived at the idea which served as the foundation of his philosophy: “Cogito, ergo sum,”
“I think, therefore I exist”.
CATEGORICAL : Unconditional, non-hypothetical, Proposition that asserts unconditionally.
CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE : In the philosophy of Kant, the unconditional moral law for all rational
beings; the purely formal principle of moral action: “Act only according to a maxim by which you can at the
same time will that it shall become a universal law.”
CATEGORY : A wide and universal concept in which the mind habitually formulates its thoughts and judgments.
A basic way of viewing or experiencing the world. In Kant, categories are the a priori forms under which all
experience must be subsumed by the understanding if it is to be intelligible.
A fundamental class; a basic conception; one of the primary ideas to which all other ideas can be reduced.
The term ‘category’ means what is predicated or affirmed of something. Aristotle mentions ten categories
(substance, quantity, relation etc.) while Kant accepts twelve categories. Hegel mentions seventy categories.
In Indian Philosophy, the Vaishesika system deal with the categories and the entire universe is reduced to six
or seven categories (padarthas).
Vaishesika categories (padartha) are a metaphysical classification of all knowable objects or of all reals.
Aristotelean categories are the mere modes of predication and represent a logical classification of predicates.
Kantian categories are, mere moulds of the understanding under which things have to pass before becoming
knowable.
Hegelian categories are, dynamic stages in the development of thought which is identified with reality.
CATEGORY MISTAKE : Confusion in the attribution of properties or the classification of things. Thus to
suppose that sleep is furious or that a city is nothing more than its buildings is to commit a category mistake.
Ryle maintained that Cartesian dualism arises from such a mistake.
CAUSALITY, PRINCIPLE OF : It states that every change, or every event, has a cause.
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CAUSA SUI : (Latin, ‘cause of itself’), an expression applied to God to mean in part that God owes his existence
to nothing other than himself. It does not mean that God somehow brought himself into existence.
CAUSATION:the relation between cause and effect, or the act of bringing about an effect, which may be an
event, a state, or an object.
CAUSE : In Aristotelian philosophy four kinds of cause are distinguished: material cause, that out of which
something is made; formal cause, the plan or idea by reference to which something is made; final cause, the
purpose for which something is made; and efficient cause, the act or event which produces the result.
CHARVAKA : Indian materialism. Its viewed that the mind is simply the body and its capacities, but
differ as to whether every mental property is simply a physical property under some psychological description
(reductive materialism) or there are emergent irreducibly mental properties that are caused by physical
properties and themselves have no causal impact (epiphenomenalism). Some Carvaka epistemologists, at
least according to their critics, accept only perception as a reliable source of knowledge, but in its most
sophisticated form Carvaka, not unlike logical positivism, allows inference at least to conclusions that concern
perceptually accessible states of affairs.
CIRCULARITY : A circular argument implicitly employs its over conclusion as it’s premise. A circular definition
defines an expression in terms of itself.
CIRCULAR ARGUMENT : A fallacious argument in which the conclusion is assumed in one of the premises;
begging the question. Also called petitioprincipii.
CITTA : The word Chitta (mind) means the three internal organs of Sankhya - Buddhi or intellect, Ahankara
or ego and Manas or mind. Chitta is the same as antahkarana. It is the first evolute of Prakrti (primordial
matter) and is, in itself unconscious. But it has the predominance of Sattva and is nearest to Purusa. When
the intelligent but inactive Purusa comes into proximity with non-intelligent but potentially active Prakrti, the
material buddhi reflects the Purusa and appears as if it is conscious.
CITTA VRITI Modification of Citta : When the Chitta is related to an object, it assumes the
'form' of that object. This form is called Vriti or modification.
Kinds of Chitta-vrtti : There are five kinds of mental modification : Pramana (right cognition), Viparyaya
(false cognition), Vikalpa (merely verbal cognition), Nidra (sleep or absence of cognition) and Smrti (memory).
All these avenues of empirical knowledge must be closed before transcendental cognition can arise.
CIVIC CULTURE : A culture that blends popular participation with effective government; supposedly,
the basis for stable democratic rule.
CIVIL LIBERTY : The private sphere of existence, belonging to the citizen not to the state; freedom from
government.
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CIVIL SOCIETY : Civil society is a social formation intermediate between the family and the state. A realm of
autonomous associations and groups, formed by private citizens and enjoying independence from the
government; civil society includes businesses, clubs, families and so on.
The realm of autonomous groups and associations; a private sphere independent from public
authority.
CLASS : Total group or collection of entities possessing a common property.
CLASS-CONSCIOUSNESS :A Marxist term denoting an accurate awareness of class interests and a willingness
to pursue them; a class-conscious class is a class-for-itself.
CLASSICAL LIBERALISM : A doctrine stressing the importance of human rationality, individual property
rights, natural rights, the protection of civil liberties, constitutional limitations of government, free markets
and individual freedom from restraint as exemplified in the writings of Adam Smith, David Ricardo,
Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill and others. it is seem as the fusion of economic liberalism with
political liberalism.
CLEAR AND DISTINCT : An idea is clear if its content is raise and detailed otherwise, it is observe. An
idea is distinct if it can be distinguished from any other idea, confused if it cannot. The two are commonly
supposed to coin cide on the grounds that clarify is a necessary and sufficient condition for distinctness.
Descartes told that the clarity and distinctness of our ideas is a criterion for the truth of what use
believe.
COALITION : A grouping of rival political actors, brought together through the perception of a
common threat or to harness collective energies.
COALITION GOVERNMENT : A government is which power is shared between two or more parties,
based on the distribution among them of ministerial portfolios.
COGITO, ERGO SUM : (Latin, 'I think, therefore I am'), the starting point of Descartes's system of knowledge.
In his 'Discourse on the Method' (1637), he observes that the proposition 'I am thinking, therefore I exist'
(je pense, donc je suis) is "so firm and sure that the most extravagant suppositions of the skeptics were
incapable of shaking it."
Descartes says that “if I am fortunate enough to find a single truth which is certain and indubitable,”
that will suffice to reverse doubt and establish a philosophy. Like Archimedes, who demanded only an
immovable fulcrum to move the earth from its orbit, Descartes searched for his one truth and found it in the
very act of doubting.
Though I can doubt that my body exists, or that I am awake, or that I am being deceived, in short that
all is illusion or false, one thing remains about which I can have no doubt at all, that I think. To doubt is to
think, and “it must necessarily be that I who (think am) something; and remarking that this truth, I think,
therefore I am (cogito ergo sum), was so solid and so certain that all the most extravagant suppositions of
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the skeptics were incapable of upsetting it, I judged that I could receive it without scruple as the first
principle of the philosophy that I sought.” So clear was the truth of his own existence that again Descartes
says, “this conclusion, I think, therefore I am, is the first and most certain of all which occur to one who
philosophizes in an orderly way.” Accordingly, Descartes employed this basic truth for reversing his doubts
about the self, things, true ideas, and God.
COGNITIVE : The term cognitive meaning is used in certain theories of meaning for the (true or false) information
conveyed by a statement.
COGNITIVISM : In metaethics, the thesis that the function of moral sentences (e.g., sentences in which moral
terms such as “right,” “wrong,” and “ought” are used) is to describe a domain of moral facts existing
independently of our subjective thoughts and feelings, and that moral statements can accordingly be thought
of as objectively true or false. Cognitivists typically try to support their position by seeking out analogies
between moral discourse, on the one hand, and scientific and everyday factual discourse, on the other.
Cognitivism is opposed by various forms of noncognitivism, all of which have in common the denial of the
cognitivist claim that the function of moral sentences is to state or describe facts.
COHERENCE THEORY OF TRUTH : The objective idealists (Hegel, Bradley and Bosanquet etc.) consider
coherence to be the test of truth. Coherence is agreement, harmony and consistency among judgements.
The theory that truth is a property not of individual statements or propositions but of the totality of ideas or
of the absolutely inclusive idea. It holds the view that either the nature of truth or the sole criterion for
determining truth is constituted by a relation of coherence between the belief (or judgment) being assessed
and other beliefs (or judgments).
Theory that the truth of a proposition is a property of its logical coherence or consistency with a body of
already accepted propositions.
COLLECTIVE RESPONSIBILITY : The doctrine of cabinet government that holds that all ministers
are obliged to give public support to government policies.
COMMUNISM : The principle of the common ownership of property; communism often refers to
movements or regimes based on Marxist principles.
CONSENSUS : A broad agreemtn on fundamental principles, allowing for disagreement on matters
of emphasis or detail.
CONSEQUENTALISM : The doctrine that the moral rightness of an act is determined solely by the goodness
of the act’s consequences. Prominent consequentialists include J. S. Mill, Moore, and Sidgwick.
Any normative theory holding that human actions derive their moral worth solely from the outcomes or
result that they produce. It maintains that the rightness of an action is determined by the goodness or
badness of relevant consequences. Utilitarianism is a consequentialist theory that holds that what makes
consequences better or worse is, at bottom, the welfare or happiness of sentient beings. A deontological
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ethics rejects consequentialism and holds that the rightness of action depends at least in part on things other
than the goodness of relevant consequences. For example, someone who rejects consequentialism might
hold that the principle under which an act is done determines whether it is right or wrong. Kant held a
version of this view.
CONSERVATISM : An ideology characterized by support for tradition, duty, authority and property, extending
from Tory paternalism to the New Right.
CONSTITUTIONALISM : The theory or practice of limited government brought about by the
existence of a constitution and the fragmentation of power. The belief that government power
should be exercised within a framework of rules (a constitution) that define the duties, powers and functions
of government institutions and the rights of the individual.
CONTINENTAL PHILOSOPHY : The gradually changing spectrum of philosophical views that in the twentieth
century developed in continental Europe and that are notably different from the various forms of analytic
philosophy that during the same period flourished in the Anglo-American world. Immediately after World
War II the expression was more or less synonymous with ‘phenomenology’.
The philosophical traditions of continental Europe; includes phenomenology, existentialism, hermeneutics,
deconstruction, and critical theory.
COLLECTIVISM :A belief that human ends are best achieved through collaborative or collective effort, highlighting
the importance of social groups.
COLONIALISM : The theory or practice of establishing control over a foreign territory, usually by settlement
or economic domination.
COMMUNISM : Communism is a social system in which the community as a whole is the owner of all assets
and all members of the society work for the group to the best of their abilities. In return the group will give
to each member goods according to his or her deeds. (from each according to his abilities, to each according
to his needs). In other words Communism is the principle of the common ownership of wealth; communism
is often used more broadly to refer to movements or regimes that are based on Marxist principles.
COMPATIBILISM : Belief that the causal determination of human conduct is consistent with the freedom
required for responsible moral agency.
COMPLEMENT : The class of all and only those things that are not included in the class designated by a
categorical term.
COMPOSITION, FALLACY OF : The informal fallacy where reasoning mode from part to whole.
CONCEPT : Any idea. Or, any universal which can be the object of thought.
CONCEPTUALISM : The theory that general terms have meaning because universals exist as concepts in the
mind. One of the several theories describing the status of universals in terms of mental concepts and avoiding
the extreme forms of both realism and nominalism.
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CONNOTATION : The properties common to whatever is designated by a particular term. Or, the defining
properties of a term. Or, the ideas and images associated with the use of a particular term.
CONSCIENCE : The faculty of judging morally one’s own actions.
CONSENSUS : An agreement on basic issues or principles that may permit disagreement about matters of detail
or emphasis.
CONTENT OF CONSCIOUSNESS : Whatever is directly apprehended in experience as distinguished from
awareness, the act of experiencing content; the datum of experience.
CONTINGENT : A proposition that could be either true or false.
CONTINGENCY : A state of affairs which need not occur a state of affairs which may or may not occur.
CONTRADICTION : The logical relation which holds between two statements or propositions which cannot
both be true and cannot both be false in that the truth of either involves the falsity of the other.
COOPERATION : Working together, collective effort intended to achieve mutual benefit.
COPERNICAN REVOLUTION : The views of the polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus, who showed that
the sun, not the earth, is the stationary body around which the planets move (thereby reversing the prevailing
view concerning the relationship of the sun and earth). Kant referred to his view as a (second) Copernican
revolution because they reversed the prevailing views in epistemology by emphasizing the active role of the
mind in generating knowledge, in contrast to the mind’s passive role in the empirical philosophies of Locke
and Hume.
COPULA : The expression which joins the predicate to the subject in a sentence. For instance, in the sentence
Socrates is wise, the coupla is‘is’. When the predicate is joined directly to the subject, there is no coupla,
as in the sentence Socrates thinks.
CORRESPONDENCE THEORY OF TRUTH : The realist consider correspondence to be the test of truth.
Correspondence is agreement or harmony of ideas and judgments with fact or object. It is a factual consistency.
The theory that a statement or proposition is true if it corresponds to matter of fact; to correspond to fact, to
actual state of affairs.
COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT : An argument which purports to prove the existence of God by maintaining
that there must have been a first cause which initiated the causal sequence of contingent things.
Inference of the existence of God from the existence of the world, founded upon the assumption that whatever
exists must have a cause or reason. Cosmological arguments for the existence of God begin with very
general facts about the known universe, such as causation, movements, and contingency, and then argue that
God must exist, as first cause, or unmoved mover, or necessary being, to account for these facts.
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COSMOLOGY : The study or theories of the origin, nature, and development of the universe as an orderly
system. The philosophic study of basic causes and processes in the universe; an inquiry into the structure of
the universe.
CREATION EX NIHILO : The act of bringing something into existence from nothing. According to traditional
Christian theology, God created the world ex nihilo.
CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY : criticism, for Kant, meant judging as to the possibilities of knowledge before
advancing to knowledge itself (from the Greek kritike (techne), or "art of judgment"). The initial, and perhaps
even sole task of philosophers, according to this view, is not to establish and demonstrate theories about
reality, but rather to subject all theories--including those about philosophy itself--to critical review, and
measure their validity by how well they withstand criticism.
"Critical philosophy" is also used as just another name for Kant's philosophy itself. Kant said that philosophy's
proper enquiry is not about what is out there in reality, but rather about the character and foundations of
experience itself. We must first judge how human reason works, and within what limits, so that we can
afterwards correctly apply it to sense experience and determine whether it can be applied at all to metaphysical
objects.
CRITICAL REALISM : The theory that most existing things do not depend for their existence upon being
perceived or conceived in mind; the theory that knowledge of independently existing things is possible even
when the ideas by which things are known differ in existence and in character from the things known. Critical
realists insist that only sense data are present in consciousness, but that they indicate the nature of the
external world.
CRITICAL THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE : Kant regards reason and experience both as the source of
knowledge. The matter or material of knowledge is supplied by experience. The forms of knowledge are
supplied by reason. Kant’s theory of knowledge is called critical theory of knowledge.
CRITICISM : An investigation of the nature and limits of reason and knowledge, conducted in a manner to
avoid both dogmatism and skepticism. The term is generally used to designate Kant’s thought after 1770.
CULTURAL NATIONALISM : A form of nationalism that places primary emphasis on the regeneration of the
nation as a distinctive civilization rather than on self-government.
CULTURE : A people’s attitudes, beliefs, symbols and values; broadly, that which is acquired through
learning, rather than through inheritance.
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DARWINANISM : The view that biological species evolve primarily by means of chance variation and natural
selection.
DATUM : The given element. Or, whatever is presented as the content of consciousness.
DECENTRALISATION : The expansion of local autonomy through the transfer of powers and responsibilities
away from national or central bodies.
DECONSTRUCTION : A form of textual analysis, usually combined with theoretical revision. Its aim is to
unmask and overcome hidden (conceptual or theoretical) privilege. This is a key concept in the writings of
Jacques Derrida.
DEDUCTION : One of the two major types of argument traditionally distinguished, the other being induction. A
deductive argument claims to provide conclusive grounds for its conclusion. A valid deductive inference is
one in which the conclusion is a necessary consequence of the premises.
It is the mode of reasoning which involves passing from one or more propositions to other propositions
logically implied by the former.
DEEP ECOLOGY : A green ideological perspective that rejects anthropocentrism and gives priority to the
maintenance of nature, and is associated with values such as biocentric equality, diversity and decentralization.
DE FACTO / DE JURE : Distinction between the grounds for a condition that merely happens to obtain (de
facto) and one that holds as a matter of right or law (de jure)
DEFINITE DESCRIPTION :An expression that claims to refer to the single being that possess some unique
feature. Russell showed nearly a century ago that the proper analysis of such expressions, as the joint
assertion of several distinct propositions, resolves a member of otherwise troubling difficulties.
DEISM: The belief that God is unconcerned with the world he created. Or, the view that God can be understood
by the use of reason and by reference to natural phenomena. It holds the view that true religion is natural
religion. Some self-styled Christian deists accepted revelation although they argued that its content is essentially
the same as natural religion. Deism is largely a seventeenth- and eighteenth-century phenomenon and was
most prominent in England. Among the more important English deists were John To land (1670–1722),
Anthony Collins (1676–1729), Herbert of Cherbury (1583–1648), Matthew Tindal (1657–1733), and
Thomas Chubb (1679–1747). Continental deists included Voltaire and Reimarus. Thomas Paine and Elihu
Palmer (1764–1806) were prominent American deists.
DELIBERATIVE DEMOCRACY : A form of democracy that emphasizes the role of discourse and debate in
helping to define the public interest.
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DEMOCRACY : A systems of government in which all citizens are entitled to participate in political decision-
making, be it directly, or indirectly through elected representative.
DEMONSTRATIONS : Demonstrative knowledge is indirect, attained by proof in contrast to intuition, i.e.
immediate knowledge.
DEMIURAGE:(from Greek demiourgos, ‘artisan’, ‘craftsman’), a deity who shapes the material world from
the preexisting chaos. Plato introduces the demiurge in his Timaeus.
DENOTATION : A general term is said to denote each object to which it refers; The class of entities to which a
term refers; whatever a term designates. The several object to which a term may correctly be applied; its
extension.
DEONTOLOGICAL ETHICS : Any theory of the right and the wrong which relates moral value not to the
value of the consequences of human action but to the formal nature of the act; an ethics which regards an act
as right if it conforms to moral principle.
DESCRIPTIVISM :The thesis that the meaning of any evaluative statement is purely descriptive or factual.
Descriptivism is related to cognitivism and moral realism. The word ‘descriptivism’ was introduced by R.M.
Hare as a contrasting team to his own prescriptivism.
DESIGN ARGUMENT : (or teleological argument) An argument for the existence of God based on the
observation of (apparent) design, order, or purpose exhibited in the world.
DETERMINISM : Determinism is the thesis that all events and states of affairs are determined by antecedent
events and states of affairs. Everything that happens is fully determined by what has gone before it. Every
event has antecedent causes which were sufficient to ensure its occurrence. Theory that everything or event
is totally conditioned by antecedent cause.
DHARMA : In Indian philosophy, the cosmic law, virtue, the right.
DHARMABHUTAJNANA : Ramanuja distinguishes consciousness into two types: substantive

consciousness and attributive consciousness, dharmijnana and dharmabhutajnana respectively. If an individual
self is aware of itself it is because of the essential nature of the Self. The essential nature of the self, for Ramanuja
is substantive consciousness. According to the ability of the function of the attributive consciousness the
individual jiva acquires the knowledge other than itself. The attributive consciousness always works for the other,
here in an individual, works for the individual jiva. An individual’s knowledge other than itself is because of the
function of the attributive awareness. Therefore an individual’s awareness of the knowledge of the waking, dreaming
and deep sleep is different. Ramanuja provides a special character to this attributive consciousness, i.e., to
expand and contract. The attributive consciousness with its ability of expansion goes to the object, fetches the
knowledge and with its ability of contraction comes back to the self and provides the knowledge. Further, Ramanuja
characterizes the attributive consciousness of the self as neither ‘sentient’ (cetan) like the self, nor ‘insentient’
(jada) like the material world. It has both characters. Therefore, the relationship between the substantive and
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attributive consciousness is such that they are not one and the same but they are inseparable. This special character
of the substantive and attributive consciousness plays an important role in Ramanuja’s awareness of the deep
sleep awareness.
DIALECTIC : The art of rational discourse. Or, the method of philosophical inquiry by the use of questions and
answers. Or, the critical treatment of paradoxes arising out of the misapplication of categories.Or, the method
of constructing ideas by resolving apparent contradictories. A process of interaction between two competing
forces, giving rise to a higher stage of development.
A dialectic is a process of development brought about by conflict between two opposing forces. Plato’s
(427-347 BCE) method of developing a philosophical argument by means of a dialogue between Socrates
and a protagonist is thus referred to as dialectical. G.W.F. Hegel (1770-1831) explained the process of
reasoning and both human and natural history in terms of a theory of the dialectic. According to this, both
thought and reality develop towards a determinant end-point through conflict between a ‘thesis’ and the
negation it embodies, the ‘antithesis’, producing a higher stage of development, the ‘synthesis’, which, in
turn, serves as a new ‘thesis’. By contrast with Hegel’s idealism, Karl Marx (1818-1883) gave the dialectic
a materialist interpretation in identifying the driving force of history as internal contradictions within class
society that are manifest in the form of class conflict.
The strength of the dialectical method is that it draws attention to tensions or contradictions within
belief systems and social structures, often providing important insights into the nature of change. In addition,
in emphasizing relationships and interdependence, dialectics can feature as part of a holistic perspective and
be used to analyse ecological processes. Nevertheless, dialectical thinking plays little part in conventional
social and political analysis. Its main drawbacks are that, in always linking change to internal contradictions,
it over-emphasises conflict in society and elsewhere, and, as in the writings of Hegel and, later, Friendrich
Engels (1820-1895), the dialectic has been elaborated into a metaphysical system supposedly operating in
nature as well as human society. ‘Dialectical materialism’ (a term coined by the Russian Marxist Georgi
Plekhanov (1856-1918), not Marx), refers to a crude and deterministic form of Marxism that dominated
intellectual life in orthodox communist states.
DIALECTICAL MATERIALISM: A philosophy founded by Marx and Engels and supported by Lenin and Stalin.
The crude and deterministic form of Marxism that dominated intellectual life in orthodox communist states.
The crude and deterministic form of Marxism that dominated intellectual life in orthodox communist states.
DICHOTOMY : Dividing into two; division of a class into two subclasses that are mutually exclusive and jointly
exhaustive.
DICTATORSHIP : Rule by a single individual; the arbitrary and unchecked exercise of power.
DILEMMA : In ordinary non-technical usage, a dilemma is a situation requiring a difficult choice between
alternatives; A common form of argument in ordinary discourse in which it claimed that a choice must be
made between two alternatives, both of which are bad.
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DIRECT KNOWLEDGE : Awareness of feeling, thought, emotion, or any content of consciousness. See also
awareness, intuition.
DIRECT REALISM : Theory of perceive according to which are perceive material objects directly, without the
mediation of ideas or sensory representations. It is also called “Naive” realism, this view of ten requires a sophisticated
defense, especially in its attempts to account for the occurrence of hallucinations and perceptual error.
DIRECT ACTION : Political action taken outside the constitutional and legal framework; direct action may
range from passive resistance to terrorism.
DIRECT DEMOCRACY : Characterized by the direct and continuous participation of citizens in the tasks of
government.
Popular self-government, characterized by the direct and continuous participation of citizens in the tasks of
government.
DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE: The most fair way to divide the total amount of social goods among all the citizens.
DIVINE RIGHT : The doctrine that earthly rules are chosen by God and thus wield unchallengeable authority;
a defence for monarchical absolutism.
DIVISION, FALLACY OF : The informal fallacy of attributing some feature of a collection to the members of
that collection individually or reasoning from whole to part.
DIVIDED LINE : The Theory of the Divided Line is used by Plato to contrast knowledge, on one hand, with
mere belief or opinion, on the other. Plato illustrates his theory by dividing a line in two parts. The upper
part of the line stands for knowledge, and the lower part stands for belief (opinion). Knowledge is concerned
with absolutes - absolute beauty, absolute good, and so forth - in short, with the Forms. And this is not
unreasonable of Plato. If your "knowledge" of beauty or goodness or circularity or the like is limited to this
or that beautiful car or good deed or round plate, then you really do not have knowledge of absolute beauty,
goodness, or circularity. At best you have a bunch of opinions that, as they are as likely as not to be riddled
with error, come closer to ignorance than to true knowledge.
In Plato's Divided Line, the upper part of the line represents knowledge and the lower part represents
opinion. Plato also subdivided the knowledge section of the line into two parts, and did the same for the
opinion section (How these further subdivisions are to be understood is a matter of controversy). What is
essential to remember is that, according to Plato, the highest form of knowledge is that obtained through the
use of reason because perfect beauty or absolute goodness or the ideal triangle cannot be perceived.
DOGMAS OF EMPIRICISM : According to Quine Modern empiricism has been conditioned in large part by
two dogmas. (1) One is a belief in some fundamental cleavage between truths which are analytic, or grounded
in meanings independently of matters of fact and truths which are synthetic, or grounded in fact. (2) The
other dogma is reductionism: the belief that each meaningful statement is equivalent to some logical construct
upon terms which refer to immediate experience. Both dogmas, I shall argue, are ill founded. One effect of
abandoning them is, as we shall see, a blurring of the supposed boundary between speculative metaphysics
and natural science. Another effect is a shift toward pragmatism.
PATANJALI
DOGMATIC : A dogmatic person is characterized by an authoritative, arrogant assertion of unproved or
unprovable principles.
DOGMATISM : Dogmatism is the dogmatic procedure of pure reason without previous criticism of its own
power. Dogmatism assumes two forms, viz., rationalism and empiricism, as Kant says. Both these theories
dogmatically assume the truth of certain fundamental principles, and deduce conclusion from them, without
enquiring into the capacity of the organ of knowledge to comprehend the reality.
DOUBLE ASPECT THEORY : Belief that mental properties and events on the one hand and physical properties
and events on the other are irreducibly distinct feature or as aspects of one and the same thing that exhibits
them both. Spinoza, for example, maintained that thought and extension are distinct attributes of the one
existing substance that is - “God or Nature”.
According to the double-aspect theory, neither mind nor body is a completely separate and independent
entity. Both mind and matter are two different aspects of the same thing.
DRAVYA : In Vaisesika system, Substance or dravya is defined as the substratum where actions and
qualities inhere and which is the coexistent material cause of the composite things produced from it. Substance
signifies the self-subsistence, the absolute and independent nature of things.
The dravyas are nine and include material as well as spiritual substances. The Vaishesika philosophy is
pluralistic and realistic but not materialistic since it admits spiritual substances. The nine substances are: (1)
earth , (2) water , (3) fire , (4) air , (5) ether , (6) time , (7)
space , (8) spirit and (9) mind or the internal organ .
DUALISM : Any metaphysical theory which reduces the kinds of existing things to two basic substances; In
epistemology, a theory that regards the object of knowledge as not numerically identical with the object as
known, i.e., as the content of the mind in the knowing relationship. Represented in Critical Realism, or in the
knowledge theories of Locke and Descartes. The crux of dualism is an apparently unbridgeable gap between
two incommensurable orders of being that must be reconciled if our assumption that there is a comprehensible
universe is to be justified.
DUÍKHA : (i) ‘Pain’ painful feeling, which may be bodily and mental. (ii) ‘Suffering’ ‘ill’. As the first of the
four noble truths.
DUTIES : What we ought to do, an action that people are required to perform, the practical content of a moral
obligation.
DYAD : A group of two.
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E
EGOCENTRIC PREDICAMENT : The peculiar situation in which any knower finds himself when he attempts
to discover something which is not dependent for its existence upon being known.
ECOCENTRISM : A theoretical orientation that gives priority to the maintenance of ecological balance rather
than the achievement of human ends. A philosophy that recognizes that the eco sphere, rather than any
individual organism is the source and support of all life and as such advises a holistic ad eco-centric approach
to government, industry and individual.
ECO FEMINISM : Belief that human violation of the natural world is an extension of the prevalent patriarchy of
western culture. On this view, efforts to protect the environment at large are feminist in spirit, since they
challenge systemic male domination of the other.
ECOLOGY : The study of the relationship between living organisms and the environment; ecology stresses the
network of relationships that sustain all forms of life.
ECONOMIC GLOBALIZATION : The absorption of national economics into a single global
economy through the internationalization of production and transnational capital flows
ECONOMIC LIBERALISM : A belief in the market as a self-regulating mechanism that tends naturally to
deliver general prosperity and opportunities for all.
ECO CENTRISM : A philosophy that recognizes that the eco sphere, rather than any individual organism is the
source and support of all life and as such advises a holistic ad eco-centric approach to government, industry
and individual.
EFFICIENT CAUSE : The agent or event that produces some changes in the accidental features of a thing, one
of Aristotle’s four causes.
EGOISM : Concern for one’s own interest or welfare, selfishness; or the belief that each individual is the centre
of his or her own moral universe, and is thus entitled to function as a morally autonomous being.
EGOISM, ETHICAL : The theory that one ought to act so as to secure the greatest possible good for oneself.
EIDOS : Greek term for what is seen - figure, shape or form. In the philosophy of Plato, the eidos is the
immutable genuine nature of a thing, one of the eternal, transcendent forms apprehended by human reason.
Arisotole rejected the notion of independently existing forms. Husserl used the term “eidetie” for the
phenomenological apprehension of essences generally.
ELAN VITAL : The life force, the basic creative principle of all living things or the evolutionary principle as
operative in nature.
PATANJALI
EMANATION : The issuing forth from, an arising out of. It is a key concept in Gnostic and neo-Platonic
philosophy. The One, or God, has a fullness, indeed an overflow of being and other things come into being
at various levels as emanations of the divine; The creative process in which all being is derived in a nontemporal
fashion from a single source of being.
EMOTIVE MEANING : The capacity of an utterance to express or to communicate feeling. The descriptive
meaning of an expression is its power to produce an idea or a belief in a hearer. the emotive meaning of an
expression is its power to produce a feeling or an attitude in a hearer.
EMOTIVISM : the meta-ethical theory according to which the meaning of moral language is exhausted by its
expression, evocation or endorsement of powerful human feelings. its origination lies in the non-cognitivist
morality of theme, emotivism reached its height early in the twentieth century, with the mostof the logical
positivists and Stevenson.
In metaethics, the view that moral judgments do not function as statements of fact but rather as expressions
of the speaker’s or writer’s feelings.
EMPIRICAL : Based on use of the senses, observation or experience generally. Hence the empirical coincides
with what is a posteriori.
EMPIRICAL STATEMENT : A statement which can be verified or shown to be false by reference to facts
revealed by experience.
EMPIRICISM : The theory that all knowledge is derived from experience and that no knowledge is innate or a priori.
John Locke, David Hume and John Stuart Mill are among the major philosophers regarded as empiricists.
In the twentieth century, influential representatives have been Bertrand Russell, A.J. Ayer, Rudolf Carnap,
Hans Reichenbach, and other logical positivists.
END : The goal or purpose of a thing, hence, in the philosophy of Aristotle, the final cause.
ENLIGHTENMENT : An intellectual movement that reached its height in the eighteenth century and challenged
traditional beliefs in religion, politics and learning in general in the name of reason and progress. The
Enlightenment is at once a style, an attitude, a temper –critical, secular, skeptical, empirical, and practical. It
is also characterized by core beliefs in human rationality, in what it took to be “nature,” and in the “natural
feelings” of mankind. Four of its most prominent exemplars are Hume, Thomas Jefferson, Kant, and Voltaire.
ENTELECHY : (from Greek entelecheia), In metaphysics, the realization of the essence of a thing; The essence
or vital principle of a thing by virtue of which it is actual.
ENTITY : Whatever can be considered or referred to.
EPIPHENOMENALISM : The theory that mental events reflect bodily changes but have no cause influence on
the body. A theory about the relation between matter and mind, according to which there is some physical
basics for energy mental occurrence. Mental phenomena are seems as by products of a closed system of
physical causes and effects, and they have no causal power of their own.
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EPISTEMOLOGICAL DUALISM : The theory that the content of consciousness and the object known are
distinct in existence even though they may be alike in essence. The view that there are two separate kinds of
entities involved in the knowing process (sense data present in consciousness, and the external world).
EPISTEMOLOGICAL MONISM : The theory that the content of consciousness and the aspect of object
known are distinct in existence even though they may be alike in essence.
EPISTEMOLOGY : Epistemology is the theory of knowledge. It inquires into the origin, nature, validity and
extent of knowledge. The attempt to clarify ideas about knowledge and the methods for securing knowledge.
EPOCHE : Greek term which means bracketing or stoppage. The term was popularized in philosophy by
Edmund Husserl. Husserl elaborates the notion of 'phenomenological epoché' or 'bracketing' in Ideas I.
Through the systematic procedure of phenomenological reduction,
ESSENCE : The distinctive nature of a thing or, more broadly, any characteristic whatsoever, whether or not it is
the characteristic of something.
ESSE EST PERCIPI : Latin for "to be is to be perceived." a doctrine that George Berkeley made the basis of his
philosophy: Only that which is perceived exists; Berkeley held, however, that the minds that do the perceiving
also exist. Minds themselves, however, are not similarly dependent for their existence on being perceived.
Minds are perceivers. For Berkeley, nothing but minds and their ideas exist. To say that an idea exists
means, according to him, that it is being perceived by some mind.
What, then, happens to this desk when everyone leaves the rooms? What happens to the forest when all the
people go away? What happens to sensible things when no one perceives them?
Berkeley's answer is that the perceiving mind of God makes possible the continued existence of sensible
things when neither you nor any other people are perceiving them. Because sensible things do not depend
on the perception of humans and exist independently of them, Berkeley wrote, "There must be some other
mind wherein they exist." This other mind, according to Berkeley, is God. Moore argued that it is indefensible.
ETHNIC CLEANSING : The forcible expulsion or extermination of ‘alien’ peoples; often used as a euphemism
for genocide.
ETHOS : Greek word for western or habit, the characteristic conduct of an individual human life. Hence, beginning
with Aristotle, ethics it the study of human conduct and the stories held that all behavior for good or evil -
arises from the ethos of the individual.
ETERNITY : The infinite temporal duration which includes all time or, a state which transcends time.
ETHICAL RELATIVISM : The theory that the rightness and wrongness of acts are relative to, functions of, the
attitudes of persons judging the acts.
PATANJALI
ETHICAL HEDONISM : The theory that acts are right insofar as they contribute to happiness or pleasure and
wrong insofar as they contribute to unhappiness or suffering.
ETHICS : The philosophy of morality; that part of philosophy which deals with questions concerning the nature
and source of value, rightness, duty and related matters. Mackenzie says that ethics is the ‘study of what is
right or good in conduct.’ William Lillis defines ethics as the ‘normative science of the conduct of human
beings living in societies.
EUDAEMONISM : (from Greek eudaimonia, ‘happiness’,‘flourishing’), The ethical doctrine that happiness is
the ultimate justification for morality. It holds that acts are right insofar as they contribute to man’s well-being
or happiness. The emphasis in eudemonism is not upon pleasure, as in hedonistic ethics, but upon the way of
life most suited to man’s nature.
EVIL : Mean physical pain, mental suffering and moral wickedness.
EVIL, PROBLEM OF : Many philosophers have thought that the existence of evil poses a problem for those
who believe that there is a perfect God. A perfect God, it seems, would be able to do anything (omnipotence),
would know everything (omniscience), and would have all the moral virtues, such as benevolence. If such a
God created the world, why is there any evil? Does God not care if we suffer? Then God is not benevolent.
Is this world the best God could make? Then God is not omnipotent. Or perhaps God wanted to do better,
and had the power, but didn't quite know what to do. Then God is not ominscient. A perfect God would
have made the best of all possible worlds. So, the argument goes, the existence of our imperfect world, full
of sin and suffering, shows that God does not exist, or is not perfect.
The problem of evil is pressed by Pluto, a main character in Hume's Dialogues on Natural Religion. Both
Philo and his main adversary, Cleanthes, give up the idea that God is perfect. Philo concludes that while the
world was probably created by an intelligent being or beings, there is no reason to attribute benevolence to
that being or those beings. Cleanthes allows that God may be only finitely powerful.
Other philosophers have thought, however, that our problems with evil simply show how difficult it is for
finite beings to grasp the plan of an infinitely perfect being. This is, contrary to first impressions, the best of
all possible worlds. This is Leibniz's position in "God, Evil and the Best of All Possible Worlds."
EVOLUTION:The process of conscious existence emerging out of the Inconscient is referred as evolution.
Initially, it emerges gradually in the stages of matter, life, and mind. First matter evolves from simple to
complex forms, then life emerges in matter and evolves from simple to complex forms, finally mind emerges
in life and evolves from rudimentary to higher forms of thought and reason. As each new principle emerges,
the previous stages remain but are integrated into the higher principle. Humanity represents the stage of
development of mind in complex material forms of life. The higher development of mind in the mass of
humanity is not yet a secure possession. Reason and intellect still do not dominate the life of most human
beings; rather, mind tends to be turned to the purposes of the life principle, which is focused on self-
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preservation, self-assertion, and satisfaction of personal need and desire. But evolution does not cease with
the establishment of reason and intellect; beyond mind are higher levels of a spiritual and supramental
consciousness which in the nature of things must also emerge. This higher evolution is described as a dual
movement; inward, away from the surface consciousness and into the depths, culminating in the realization
of the Psychic Being (the personal evolving soul); and then upward to higher levels of spiritual mind (Higher
Mind, Illumined Mind, Intuitive Mind, and Overmind), culminating in the final stage of supramentalisation.
Whereas these higher levels of consciousness have been attained in particular individuals, they must eventually
emerge more universally as general stages in the evolution. When they do emerge, there will come the
embodiment of a new species on earth that will be once again united in consciousness with Sachchidananda.one
is thought to be able to suspend judgment regarding the general or naive philosophical belief in the existence
of the external world, and thus examine phenomena as they are originally given to consciousness.
Husserl argues that bracketing is a neutralization of belief. Husserl uses the term epoche (Greek, for "a
cessation") to refer to this suspension of judgment regarding the true nature of reality.
EXCLUDED MIDDLE, PRINCIPLE OF : The principle that a proposition is either true or it is false.
EXISTENTIALISM : A philosophy which distinguishes between existence and essence and gives priority to
existence; the philosophy which claims that in man existence precedes essence. The existentialist beings with
the fact of an encountered existence and regards essence, or character, as contingent upon the mode of
existence. It is a philosophical and literary movement that came to prominence in Europe, particularly in
France, immediately after World War II, and that focused on the uniqueness of each human individual as
distinguished from abstractuniversal human qualities.
F
FACT : A state of affairs. That which objectively is. Not to be confused with a statement of fact or a factual
proposition. Factual propositions are true or false. Facts simply are.
A truth verified by experience or observation; something that is known to have happened or to be the case.
FACT / VALUE : Distinction between assertions about how things really are, that is, fact and how things ought
to be, that is, value. Drawn by Hume and defended by Stevension, Hare and other ethical non cognitivists,
the distinction is usually taken to entail that claims about moral obligation can never be validly inferred from
the truth of factual premises alone. It follows that people who agree completely on the simple description of
a state of affairs may never the less differ with respect to the appropriate action to take in response to it.
FACTICITY : The continent conditions of an individual human life. In the existentialism of Heidegger and Sartre,
facticity includes all of the concrete details-time and place of birth.
PATANJALI
FAITH : An attitude of trust or belief in the reality, truth, or worth of something that cannot be demonstrated or
proved.
FALLACY : An unsound argument or an error in reasoning.
FALSIFIABILITY : A property of any proposition for which it is possible to specify a set of circumstances the
occurrence of which would demonstrate that the proposition is false. According to Karl Popper, falsifiability
is the crucial feature of scientific hypothesis : belief can never be tested against the empirical evidence are
dogmatic.
FASCISM : A social philosophy that rejects democracy and freedom and glorifies the state as an instrument of
power; a form of totalitarianism.
FASCISM : An ideology characterized by a belief in anti-rationalism, struggle, charismatic leadership,
elitism and extreme nationalism; Fascism refers specifically to the Mussolini regime in Italy.
FATALISM : The belief that all or some events are determined by some supernatural being or power. Or, the
vague belief that somehow certain events are decided upon as historical facts prior to their occurrence.
FEDERALISM : A territorial distribution of power based on the sharing of sovereignty between central (usually
national) bodies and peripheral ones.
FEMINISM : Commitment to the abolition of male domination in human society. Feminists differ widely in their
accounts of the origins of patriarchy, their analyses of its most common consequences, and their concrete
proposals for overcoming it, but all shares is the recognition that the subordination of women to men in our
culture is indigestible and eliminable. Many feminist philosophers oppose Cartesian dualism, scientific
objectively and traditional theories of moral obligation as instances of masculine over- reliance on reason.
Serious attention to the experiences of women would offer a more adequate cannot of human life.
An ideology committed to promoting the social role of women and, in most cases, dedicated to the goal of
gender equality.
FEMINIST PHILOSOPHY : A philosophical viewpoint that refuses to identify the human experience with the
male experience. Writing from a variety of perspectives, feminist philosophers challenge several areas of
traditional philosophy on the grounds that they fail to take seriously women’s interests, identities, and issues;
and to recognize women’s ways of being, thinking, and doing as valuable as those of men.
FEUDALISM : A system of agrarian-based production that is characterized by fixed social hierarchies and a
rigid pattern of obligations.
FIDEISM : Belief that - religious doctrines rest exclusively on faith, instead of on reason. In various forms,
fideism was maintained by philosophers as diverse as Pascal, Bayle and Kierkegaard.
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FIVE WAYS : Five ways to prove God's existence were proposed by Thomas Aquinas in his 'Summa Theologiae'.
Each of the five arguments starts from features of the world as we know it. Very briefly, the starting-points
are (i) change, (ii) efficient causality, (iii) contingency, (iv) degrees of perfection (argument from moral
perfection ), (v) purposiveness (teleological arguments).
FINAL CAUSE : The end or purpose for which something was done.
FIRST CAUSE ARGUMENT : The first cause argument purports to prove the existence of God as the first
cause. In the world we know, everything has a cause and nothing causes itself. The series of causes cannot
go back to infinity, so there must be a first cause, and this is God. St. Thomas Aquinas's second way of
proving the existence of God is a version of the first cause argument.
The general outline, focusing on the second argument, goes something like this:
(i) There exist things that are caused.
(ii) Nothing can be the cause of itself.
(iii) There cannot be an infinite regress of causes.
(iv) Therefore, there exists an uncaused first cause.
(v) The word 'God' means uncaused first cause.
(vi) Therefore, God exists.
FIRST MOVER :(Prime Mover) The being or power that initiated change in the universe; the first cause.
FIRST PRINCIPLE : The first cause of all contingent beings. Or, a necessary truth which serves as the foundation
of a system of ideas.
FORMAL CAUSE : Structural features or attributes of a thing, one of the four causes of Aristotle.
FORMS, PLATONIC : The pure objects of mathematical and dialectical knowledge. In the vigorous realism of
Plato’s middle dialogues, necessary truths are taken to involve knowledge of eternal, unchanging forms or
ideas. Particular things in the realm of appearance are beautiful, or equal, or Good only in so far as they
participate in the universal forms of beauty, equality, or the Good. The doctrine of forms was attacked in
Plato’s own Parmenides and by Aristotle.
FRANCHISE : The right to vote.
FRATERNITY : Literally, brotherhood; bonds of sympathy and comradeship between and amongst human
beings.
FREEDOM : The human capacity to act or not to act, as we choose or prefer, without any external compulsion
or restraint. Freedom in this sense is usually regarded as a presupposition of moral responsibility: the actions
to which I may be praised or blamed, rewarded or punished, are just those which I perform freely.
PATANJALI
FREE MARKET : The principle or policy of unfettered market competition, free from government interference.
FREE TRADE : A system of trading between states not restricted by tariffs or other forms of protectionism.
FREE WILL : A will, or power to decide, which is in no way causally determined. Or, an uncoerced will, a will
free from the excessive influences of other persons.
FUNDAMENTALISM :A belief in the original or most basic principles of a creed, often associated with fierce
commitment and sometimes reflected in fanatical zeal.
A movement or style of thought that holds certain principles to be essential and unchallengeable
‘truths’.
G
GENDER : A social and cultural distinction between males and females, as opposed to sex, which refers to
biological and therefore ineradicable differences between men and women.
A cultural distinction between females and males, based on their different social roles and
positions.
GENERAL WILL : Collective desire for the welfare of a society as a whole. According to Jean Jacques
Rousseau, the citizens of a property contracted civil society are infallibly guided by the general will, rather
than by their conflicting individual self-interests.
GENOCIDE : An attempt to eradicate a people, identified by their nationality, race, ethnicity or

religion, through acts including mass murder, forced resettlement, deliberately induced
starvation, and forced sterilization.
GLOBALIZATION : Refers to increasing global connectivity, integration and interdependence in the economic,
social, technological, cultural, political and ecological spheres.
GOD, EXISTENCE OF : Attempts to demonstrate the existence of God have been a notable feature of western
Philosophy. The Commonly employed theistic efforts include the cosmological argument, the ontological
argument the teleological argument, and the moral argument. The most serious a theological argument is the
problem of evil.
GOOD : The most general term of approval both moral and non-moral, whether intrinsic or extrinsic
GREATEST HAPPINESS PRINCIPLE : The definition of moral value by utilitarian. As stated by Hutcheson,
Bentham and mill, the principle is that action are right only in so far as they tend to produce the greater
balance of pleasure over pain for the largest number of people.
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H
HEDONISM : According to hedonism pleasure is the highest good and supreme end of life. It is the belief that
pleasure is the highest or only source of intrinsic value. Although defended as a moral theory about the
proper aim of human conduct, hedonism is usually grounded on the psychological claim that human beings
simply do act in such ways as to maximize their own happiness. Aristotle argued against any attempt to
identify pleasure as the highest good.
HEGEMONY :The ascendency or domination of one element of a system over others; for Marxists, hegemony
implies ideological domination.
HENOTHEISM : Maxmuller introduces the term ‘Henotheism’ as a transitional stage from polytheism to
monotheism. Henotheism means belief in one only God. It allegiance to one supreme deity while conceding
existence to others; also described as monolatry, incipient monotheism, or practical monotheism. It occupies
a middle ground between polytheism and radical monotheism, which denies reality to all gods save one.
HERMENEUTICS : The art or theory of interpretation, as well as a type of philosophy that starts with questions
of interpretation. Originally concerned more narrowly with interpreting sacred texts, the term acquired a
much broader significance in its historical development and finally became a philosophical position in twentieth-
century German philosophy.
HETVABHASA : The fallacies of inference are called 'hetvabhasa', since they are based on reasons (hetu)
which appear to be reason without really being so. Inference is based on reason or hetu. If the reason is invalid,
the inference is also invalid. According to Nyaya, the fallacies of inference are material fallacies.
There are five kinds of fallacies : Savyabhicara, viruddha, satpratipaksa, asiddha and badhita.
HIERARCHY : A gradation of social positions or status; hierarchy implies structural or fixed inequality in which
position is unconnected with individual ability.
HOLISM : A belief that the whole is more important than its parts; holism implies that understanding is gained by
studying relationships among the parts.
HUMANISM : A philosophical view which emphasizes the centrality of man and rejects the supernatural, a set
of presuppositions that assigns to human beings a special position in the scheme of things. Not just a school
of thought or a collection of specific beliefs or doctrines, humanism is rather a general perspective from
which the world is viewed
PATANJALI
HUMANISTIC NATURALISM : Humanistic naturalism is a philosophy that emphasizes man or human interests
and affairs. The humanistic naturalists have profound respect for modern science: they accept its assumptions,
postulates and discoveries. Humanistic naturalists regard the universe as “self-existing and not created.”
They have abandoned all conceptions of a supernatural Being and all forms of cosmic “support.”
Humanistic naturalism emphasizes the social studies and seeks to do justice to the organic and to human
interests and aspirations. It acknowledges that which is unique in man, and its defenders claim that it is as
sensitive as idealism to man’s interests and welfare.
Humanistic naturalism has much in common with the “Religion of Humanity” of Auguste Comte in the nineteenth
century, with the pragmatism of William James, and with the instrumentalism of John Dewey. While a few of
the humanistic naturalists are realists, many of them are pragmatists.
HYLOZOISM : The belief that all matter is living substance.
HYPOTHESIS : A General principle, tentatively put forward for the purposes of scientific explanation and
subject to disconfirmation by empirical evidence.
I
IDEA : In Platonic philosophy, an eternal essence, a universal archetype of things. In Berkeleian philosophy, any
sense object directly known in experience.
IDEAS : There are two quite different uses of the term 'idea' in philosophy. The term 'idea' is used for the
denizens of Plato's heaven. Sometimes form is used as a less misleading translation of eidos. Plato's ideas
or forms are not parts of our minds, but objective, unchanging, immaterial entities that our minds somehow
grasp and use for the classification of things in the changing world, which Plato held to be their pale imitations.
John Locke uses the term 'idea' for that which the mind is immediately aware of, as distinguished from the
qualities or objects in the external world the ideas are of. This use for the term leaves it rather vague. Idea
can be the images involved in perception, or the constituents of thought. Hume calls the first impressions,
the latter ideas, and the whole class perceptions. For Hume, the class of impressions includes passions
(emotions) as well as sensations. So a feeling of anger would be an impression, as would the sensation of
red brought about by looking at a fire truck. Later memory of the feeling of anger or the fire truck would
involve the ideas of anger and red.
The conception of ideas as immediate objects of perception and thought, intervening between our minds and
the ordinary objects we perceive and think about, was part of a philosophical movement, sometimes called
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"the way of ideas", greatly influenced by Descartes' Meditations. Descartes there uses a form of the argument
from illusion to motivate the distinction between the mental phenomena we are certain of and the external
reality that is represented by them.
IDEALISM :The theory that only minds (spirits) and their ideas exist. It is the philosophical doctrine that reality
is somehow mind-correlative or mind-coordinated – that the real objects constituting the “external world”
are not independent of cognizing minds, but exist only as in some way correlative to mental operations. The
doctrine centers on the conception that reality as we understand it reflects the workings of mind.
IDEOLOGY : A more or less coherent set of ideas that provides the basis for some kind of organized political action.
IDENTITY OF INDISCERNIBLES : The principle that no two things can be identical in character. In the
philosophy of Gottfried Wilhelm Von Leibniz (1646-1716), the principle that no two monads can have
characters without a discernible difference.
IDEOLOGY :A more or less coherent set of ideas that provides the basis for some kind of organized political action.
IMMEDIATE INFERENCE : The relationship between two propositions that are logically equivalent in
categorical logic, the traditional immediate inferences include : conversion, obversion and contraposition.
IMMANENT : Being within, part of, indwelling. The opposite of transcendent.
IMMATERIALISM : The view that objects are best characterized as mere collections of qualities: “a certain
colour, taste, smell, figure and consistence having been observed to go together, are accounted one distinct
thing, signified by the name.
Immaterialism is the metaphysical doctrine held by Berkeley. He maintained that reality consisted entirely of
minds (including God's) and ideas. Ordinary things were collections or congeries of ideas. Berkeley thought
his view came closer to common sense than that of the philosophers he opposed (Descartes and Locke, for
example), which implied the existence of material substances in addition to minds and ideas. Berkeley
explains in his Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous that he thinks we have no evidence for material
substances, that identifying ordinary things with such substances leads to skepticism, and in fact the very
concept of a material substance is incoherent.
IMPERIALISM : The policy or practice of extending the power or rule of a state beyond its borders; imperialism
can be an ideology of expansionism.
INCOMPLETE SYMBOL : A symbol that is a constituent of meaningful sentences but that has no meaning in
isolation. An incomplete symbol is amenable only to a contextual definition, not an explicit one. The idea of
incomplete symbol gained prominence primarily through Russell , who used it to express distinctive views in
logic and metaphysics.
An incomplete symbol is one which has no meaning in isolation, but only in some context. For example – or,
and, if ... then, the so and so, the present king of France etc.
PATANJALI
INDETERMINISM : The theory that some events are not causally determined. Or, the theory that acts of will
are not determined.
INDIVIDUALISM : A belief in the central importance of the human individual as opposed to the social group or
collective.
A belief in the supreme importance of the human individual rather than of any social group or
collective body.
INDUCTION : The process of moving from the particular to General. The method of empirical generalization.
inferring a general conclusion from a number of particular instances. An inductive argument claims that its
premises give only some degree of probability but not certaintity to its conclusion.
INDUCTION, PROBLEM OF : The problem of induction, sometimes known as Hume's problem, has to do
with justifying a very basic sort of nondeductive inference. We often seem to infer from observation that
some sample of a population has a certain attribute to the conclusion that the next members of the population
we encounter will also have that attribute. When you eat a piece of bread, for example, you are concluding
from the many times in the past that bread has nourished you, that it will also do so this time. But it is
conceivable that bread should have nourished in the past, but not this time. It isn't a necessary, analytic, or
a priori truth that the next piece of bread you eat will be like the ones you have eaten before. How does your
inference bridge the gap? It is natural to appeal to various general principles that one has discovered to hold.
But, as Hume points out, the future application of principles found reliable in the past presents exactly the
same problem. For example, consider the most general principle of all, that the future will be like the past.
All one has really observed was that, in the past, the future was like the past. How does one know that in the
future it will be? The problem of induction is stated in Hume's An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding,
Section-IV, and discussed by Salmon, "The Problem of Induction".
INFERENCE : The process of reasoning from one idea or set of ideas (the premises) to a conclusion. Inference
is a kind of activity; implication is a logical relationship.
INNATE IDEAS : Beliefs with which man is born. According to Descartes those ideas which we have from birth
before any experience. Like the Idea of God.
INSTRUMENTALISM : Another term for the pragmatism of John Dewey and others. The view that theories
are not strictly speaking true or false but are to be regarded as tools.
INTEGRAL YOGA: In The Synthesis of Yoga, and in his voluminous correspondence with his disciples collected
under the title Letters on Yoga, Sri Aurobindo laid out the psychological principles and practices of the
Integral Yoga or Poorna Yoga. The aim of Integral yoga is to enable the individual who undertakes it the
attainment of a conscious identity with the Divine, the true Self, and to transform the mind, life, and body so
they would become fit instruments for a divine life on earth.
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INTENTIONALITY : The property of consciousness whereby it refers to or intends an object. The character
of anything as "intending" or pointing beyond itself; self-transcendence
The character of consciousness as pointing beyond itself, as consciousness of something, and as having its
horizon of cointendings: noetic intentionality.
INTERACTIONISM : Descartes is an exponent of dualism. He regards matter and mind as two heterogeneous
substances, mutually exclusive substances. Matter is extended while mind is unextended. Matter is unconscious
while mind is conscious. Matter, including body, is subject to mechanical law, while mind is subject to
purpose and teleology. Here question arises that If, in every respect, matter differs from mind, how are the
two meant to interact? Descartes holds that mind and body interact upon each other through pineal gland.
The body acts upon the mind in sensations and that the mind acts upon the body in volitions. The body and
the mind act upon each other, causally affect each other.
INTRINSIC PROPERTY : Belonging to the nature or essence of a thing. Belonging to something independently
of its relation to other things.
INTUITION : The faculty of knowing by mental inspection and without recourse to reason; direct knowing or
awareness which is neither deductive nor inductive. Or, the product of intuitive recognition.
INVOLUTION:Sri Aurobindo speaks of two movements: that of involution of consciousness from an omnipresent
Reality to creation, and an evolution from creation onward.
The process by which the Energy of creation emerged from a timeless, spaceless, ineffable, immutable
Reality, Sri Aurobindo refers to as the Involution. In that process the Reality extended itself to Being/Existence
(Sat), Consciousness (that generated a Force) - Chit; and Delight (Ananda)-- self enjoyment in existing and
being conscious. Through the action of a fourth dimension, Supermind (i.e. Truth Consciousness), the Force
(Chit) of Sat-Chit-Ananda was divided into Knowledge and Will, eventually formulating as an invisible
Energy that would become the source of creation. Through its own willful self-absorption of consciousness,
the universe would begin as Inconscient material existence.
J
JAINISM:An Indian religious and philosophical tradition established by Mahavira in the latter half of the sixth
and the beginning of the fifth century B.C. The tradition holds that each person is everlasting and indestructible,
a self-conscious identity surviving as a person even in a state of final enlightenment
JUDGEMENT : The simplest form of knowledge is expressed in a judgment. A judgment consists of a subject
and a predicate.
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JUDICIAL ACTIVISM : The willingness of judges to arbitrate in political disputes, as opposed to
merely saying what the law means.
JUSTICE :Each getting what he or she is due. Formal justice is the impartial and consistent application of
principles, whether or not the principles themselves are just. Substantive justice is closely associated with
rights, i.e., with what individuals can legitimately demand of one another or what they can legitimately demand
of their government Retributive justice concerns when and why punishment is justified.
K
KALAM COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT : A version of the cosmological argument for God's existence in
which it is claimed that since whatever begins to exist needs a cause, and since the universe began to exist,
the universe must need a cause; it is further argued that this cause must be a personal creator.
KARMA : In Indian philosophy, deed or action. Or, the causal and moral law of the universe.
KLESHA Sufferings : Purusa (soul) is eternally pure and transcendental consciousness. But when the
noumenal Purusa is reflected in the chitta (mind) it becomes a phenomenal jiva (ego). It passes through
different states of the mind and stages of life. It appears to be subject to birth and growth, decay and death,
pleasurable and painful experiences of life. The inactive Purusa appears to be active (agent) and enjoyer of
worldly objects. It also appears to be subject to five Klesas or sources of affliction.
There are five kinds of sufferings (klesha) to which it is subject. These are : (1) ignorance (avidya ),
(2) egoism (asmita- , (3) attachment (raga- ), (4) aversion (dvesa- ), and (5) clinging to life
and instinctive fear of death (abhinivesha- ).
KNOWLEDGE : Justified true belief. Since Plato, nearly all western philosophers have accepted this deceptively
simple statement of the three necessary and jointly sufficient conditions for knowledge. that is, I know a
proposition if and only if:
a : I Sincerely affirm the proposition
b. the proposition is true and
c. my affirmation is genuinely based upon its truth.
KNOWLEDGE BY ACQUAINTANCE : Knowledge of objects by means of direct awareness of them. The
notion of knowledge by acquaintance is primarily associated with Russell
KNOWLEDGE BY DESCRIPTION : Knowledge about a thing in terms of its properties.
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L
LAISSEZ-FAIRE (French) : Literally, to leave to do; the principle of the noninterference of
government in economic life.
French phrase meaning “allow to do!” hence in political philosophy and economies, a presumption against
the desirability or governmental interference with the natural order of in general and with the conduct of free
trade in particular.
LANGUAGE GAME : A language-game is a philosophical concept developed by Ludwig Wittgenstein, referring
to simple examples of language use and the actions into which the language is woven. In his later work
(Philosophical Investigation) Wittgenstein developed the idea that the job of philosophy was to clear up the
conceptual confusions that arose through our unexamined use of language. Dissatisfied with the traditional
expressionist and reflective approaches to language he sought a new model which would allow greater
flexibility. Central to this was the concept of rule governed activity or 'language game'. Wittgenstein introduces
the concept of 'language games' because of the analogy between using language and playing a game according
to certain rules. It was his contention that our whole use of language was similar to game playing:
We can easily imagine people amusing themselves in a field by playing with a ball so as to start various
existing games, but playing many without finishing them and in between throwing the ball aimlessly into the
air, chasing one another with the ball and bombarding one another for a joke and so on. And now someone
says: The whole time they are playing a ball-game and following definite rules at every throw.[f1 Philosophical
Investigations, remark 83'].
At every step we are following the rules, but not the same rules at every step. In the same way our use of
language is always governed by rules but not always by the same rules, we partake in a large number of
'language games' and confusion usually arises when a statement in one 'language game' is interpreted according
to the rules of another. The concept of 'language games' illuminates the whole issue of meaning in language.
Wittgenstein used the term "language-game" (Sprachspiel) to designate forms of language simpler than the
entirety of a language itself, "consisting of language and the actions into which it is woven" (PI 7), and
connected by family resemblance. The concept was intended "to bring into prominence the fact that the
speaking of language is part of an activity, or a form of life" (PI 23).
LEGITIMACY : Rightfulness; a quality that confers on a command an authoritative or binding character, implying
a duty to obey.
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LIBERALIZATION : The introduction of internal and external checks on government power and/or shifts
towards private enterprise and the market.
LIBERALISM: A political philosophy first formulated during the Enlightenment in response to the growth of
modern nation-states, which centralize governmental functions and claim sole authority to exercise coercive
power within their boundaries.
An ideology based on a commitment to individualism, freedom, toleration and consent; modern liberalism
differs from classical liberalism.
LIBERAL DEMOCRACY: A form of democracy that incorporates both limited government and a system of
regular and competitive election; liberal democracy is also used as a regime type.
LOGIC : That branch of philosophy which deals with the nature and problems of clear and accurate thinking and
argument. The philosophy of rational argument; the clarification of the terms of formal criticism, together
with the invention or specification of forms of inference and rules for their use.
LOGICAL ATOMISM : An ontological theory, according to which reality is ultimately composed of atomic
facts. Logical atomism asserts that "In a logically perfect language the words in a proposition would correspond
one by one with the components of the corresponding fact." The theory was articulated by Bertrand Russell
in the 1910s and 1920s, by Wittgenstein in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, by G.E. Moore, etc.
LOGICAL CONSTRUCTION: The concept of a logical construction plays an important part in logical atomism,
logical positivism, behaviourism, and other kinds of reductionist theory. If statements about M can be reduced
to a set of atomic statements about A1, A2, An, then M is said to be a logical construction out of the A's.
Thus, tables and chairs might be constructions out of simple sensory experiences; nations might be constructions
out of individuals.
something built by logical operations from certain element.The notion originates with Russell’s concept of an
“incomplete symbol,” which he introduced in connection with his theory of descriptions. According to Russell
external word can be logically constructed out of sense-data, actual and possible. Sense-data are those
things which are immediately known in sensation : such things as colours, sounds, smells, hardness, roughnesses
and so on. We shall give the name 'sensation' to the experience of being immediately aware of these things.
Thus, whenever we see a colour, we have a sensation of the colour, but the colour itself is a sense-datum,
not a sensation".
LOGICAL EMPIRICISM : The philosophy which endorses the logical analysis of language as the method of
philosophy and which regards statements as meaningful only if they are either logically analytic or theoretically
verifiable in experience; consequently, the philosophy which relies on logic and science and which rejects
metaphysics as meaningless.
LOGICAL FORM : The structure of a proposition or an argument from which all content has been removed.
tautology and validity are features that hold only in virtue of logical form.
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LOGICAL POSITIVISM :Also called Logical Empiricism, a philosophical movement inspired by empiricism
and verificationism; it began in the 1920s and flourished for about twenty or thirty years. The earlier version
of logical empiricism as developed by the Vienna Circle (Moritz Schlick, Herbert Feigl, Otto Neurath and
others) over the period 1923-1936. Chiefly distinguished from logical empiricism by its more rigid criteria of
empirical meaning.
LOGICAL PRINCIPLES : The principles on which the analysis of the structure of arguments depends; namely,
the principles of identity, contradiction and excluded middle.
LOGICAL SYNTAX : See syntax, logical.
LOGOS : The divine reason; the creative thought or plan of the universe; the word of God.
LOKAYATA : Charvaka Darshan is also called Lokayata, which means a commoner and therefore, by implication,
a man of low and unrefined taste.
M
MANANA ( ) : Intellectual conviction after critical analysis.
MANIFESTO : A document outlining (in more or less detail) the policies or programme a party
proposes to pursue if elected to power.
MARKETIZATION : The extension of market relationships, based on commercial exchange and
material self-interest, across the economy and, possibly, society.
MARXISM : The philosophy of Karl Marx, or any of several systems of thought or approaches to social
criticism derived from Marx.
The theoretical system devised by Karl Mars, characterized by a belief in historical materialism,
dialectical change and the use of class analysis.
MATERIAL CAUSE : Basic stuff of which a thing is made, one of Aristotle’s four causes.
MATERIALISM : The doctrine that everything is composed of matter, it regards matter as the only reality and
life and mind as the products of matter. Everything that exists can be understood as a form of matter. In
ethics, the doctrine that material well-being and self-interest should always govern individual actions.
MATTER : The stuff of which things are made. In Aristotelian philosophy, pure potentiality, the capacity to be
something.
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MAYA : A term with various uses in Indian thought; it expresses the concept of Brahman’s power to act.
Monotheistically conceived, maya is the power of an omnipotent and omniscient deity to produce the world
of dependent things.
MEAN : The middle way between too much and too little of something. Aristotle held that virtue is always a
mean between extremes of excess and deficiency.
MECHANISM : Belief that science can explain all natural phenomena in terms of the causal interaction among
material parties, without any reference to intelligent agency or purpose. As employed by Descartes and
Hobbes, Mechanism offered an alternative to the scholastic reliance on explanatory appeals to final causes.
MERITOCRACY: Meritocracy literally means rules by the able or talented or intellectual elite, merit being
talent plus hard work (Intelligence plus efforts) . The term, however, is most commonly used as a principle
of social justice, implying that social position and material rewards should reflect the distribution of ability
and effort in society at large. Different implications can nevertheless be drawn from meritocracy, depending
on whether emphasis is placed upon talent or hard work. Meritocratic systems that focus primarily upon
talent are designed to encourage people, and particularly the talented, to realise the natural ability to its
fullest potential. Ones that primarily emphasise hard work only regard effort as morally laudable, on the
grounds that to reward talent is to create a ‘natural lottery’ (Rawls, 1971). Meritocracy differs from hierarchy,
in that it allows for social mobility and flexible pattern of inequalities, as opposed to fixed and structural
gradations in social position and wealth.
Meritocracy is a key liberal social principle and can be seen as one of the basic values of liberal
capitalism. Its defenders argue that it has both economic and moral virtues, including the following:
 It guarantees incentives by encouraging people to realise their talents and by rewarding hard work;
 It ensures that society is guided by wise and talented people who are better able to judge the interests of others;
 it is just in that distribution according to merit gives each person what he or she is ‘due’ and respects the
principle of equality of opportunity.
However, the principle of meritocracy is by no means universally accepted. Its principal critics have been
socialists but traditional conservatives have also objected to it. Amongst their criticisms are the following:
 it threatens community and social cohesion by encouraging competition and self-striving; R.H. Tawney (1880-
1962) called it a ‘tadpole philosophy;’
 it is unjust because it implies that inequalities reflect unequal personal endowment when, in reality, they usually
reflect unequal social treatment;
 it is contradictory because, on the one hand, it justifies social inequality, and on the other it can be achieved
only through the redistribution of wealth to create a ‘level playing field’.
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METAPHYSICS : Metaphysics is that branch of philosophy which deals with the nature of the ultimate reality
underlying the world of our experience. It also seeks to determine the relation of the world, mind, life, matter
etc. to the ultimate reality or the Absolute. Speculative inquiry concerning philosophical matters which lie
beyond the range of empirical inquiry. The Fundamental postulate of metaphysics is that there is a super or
hinter phenomena/reality ....... it is the aim of metaphysics to describe a reality lying beyond experience.
Traditionally, that part of philosophy which includes ontology, cosmology and epistemology. Hence, in a
limited sense, the study of being as such (ontology). (The terms ‘metaphysics’ was originally used by Andronicus
of Rhodes (first century B.C.) as a descriptive name for that part of Aristotle’s philosophy which appeared
in the collection ‘after the physics’).In Andronicus’s edition, the fourteen books now known as the
Metaphysics were placed after the Physics, whence comes the word ‘metaphysics’, whose literal meaning
is ‘That comes after the physics’. Aristotle himself prefers ‘first philosophy’ or ‘wisdom’ (sophia).The subject
is defined as the theoretical science of the causes and principles of what is most knowable.
METAPHYSICS : Most generally, the philosophical investigation of the nature, constitution, and structure of
reality. It is broader in scope than science, e.g., physics and even cosmology.
METAPHYSICAL REALISM : In the widest sense, the view that there are real objects exist independently
of our experience or our knowledge of them, and they have properties and enter into relations independently
of the concepts with which we understand them or of the language with which we describe them.
MIND-BODY PROBLEM : The difficulty of explaining how the mental activities of human being relate to their
lining physical organisms. Historically, the most commonly accepted solutions have includes Occasionalism
of Melbronchi Causal Interactionism of Descartes, Parallalism of Spinoza, Pre-establish harmony of Leibniz,
Absolute Idealism of Hegel etc.
MIRACLE : An extraordinary event brought about by God.
MODERATE REALISM : The doctrine that universals exist in things or as concepts in mind but not as
independently subsisting quantities. Opposed to nominalism and to Platonic realism.
MOLECULAR PROPOSITION : A proposition which is analyzable into atomic propositions. For example
“either today is Tuesday or have made a mistake.”
MONAD : In the philosophy of Giordano Bruno (1548-1600), the individual substance, a unity of body and
mind, a manifestation of divine energy. In the philosophy of Leibniz, the individual soul, active, purposive,
self-contained, possessing knowledge only because of a divinely pre-established harmony of experiences.
MONARCHY: A monarchy is a system of rule dominated by a single individual (it literally means ‘rule by one
person’). In general usage, however, it is the institution through which the post of head of state is filled
through inheritance or dynastic succession. Absolute monarchies nevertheless differ from constitutional
monarchies. Absolute monarchies are ones in which the monarch claims a monopoly of political power; the
PATANJALI
monarch is thus literally a sovereign. The classical basis of monarchical absolutism is the doctrine of divine
right, the belief that the monarch has been chosen by God and so rules, with God’s authority on earth.
Constitutional monarchies are ones in which sovereignty is vested elsewhere, and the monarch fulfils an
essentially ceremonial role largely devoid of direct political significance. In some cases constitutional monarchs
may carry out residual political functions, such as selecting the prime minister, while in other cases they serve
as nothing more than formal heads of state.
The advantages associated with the constitutional monarchy include the following:
 It provides a solution to the need for a non-partisan head of state who is ‘above’ party politics;
 The monarch embodies traditional authority, and so serves as symbol of patriotic loyalty and national unity;
 The monarch constitutes a repository of experience and wisdom, especially in relation to constitutional
matters, available to elected governments.
The disadvantages of a constitutional. Monarchy include the following:
 It violates democratic principles in that political authority is not based upon popular consent and is no way
publicly accountable;
 The monarch symbolises (and possibly supports) conservative values such as hierarchy, deference and
respect for inherited wealth and social position;
 The monarchy binds nations to outmoded ways and symbols of the past, thus impending modernisation and
progress.
MONISM : In metaphysics, the theory that all reality is basically of one substance. Opposed to dualism or
pluralism; In epistemology, the theory that the object known and the given element in experience are one in
existence as well as in essence.
MONOTHEISM : (one-God-ism)Monotheism is the belief that there is but one supreme being who is personal
and moral and who seeks a total and unqualified response from human creatures.
MORALITY : an informal public system applying to all rational persons, governing behavior that affects others,
having the lessening of evil or harm as its goal, and including what are commonly known as the moral rules,
moral ideals, and moral virtues.
MORAL ARGUMENT : an attempt to prove the existence of God by appeal to preserve of moral value in the
universe. The fourth of Aquinas’ five ways concludes that God must exist as the most perfect cause of all
lesser goods. Kant argued that postulation of God’s existence is a necessary condition for our capacity to
apply the moral law.
MULTICULTURALISM : The existence of a number of cultures in a single political system’ alternatively, an
ideology which recognizes that fact as important or values such diversity.An endorsement of communal
diversity (usually linked to race, ethnicity, religion or language), usually based upon the belief that different
cultural groups are entitled to respect and recognition.
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Multiculturalism is used as both a descriptive and a normative term. As a descriptive term it refers to cultural
diversity arising from the existence within a society of two or more groups whose beliefs and practices
generate a distinctive sense of collective identity. Multiculturalism is invariably reserved for communal diversity
that arises from racial, ethnic or language differences. As normative term, multiculturalism implies a positive
endorsement of communal diversity, based either on the right of diferent cultural groups to respect and
recognition, or on the alleged benefits to the larger socieyt of moral and cultural diversity. Multiculturalism,
in this sense, acknowledges the importance of beliefs, values and ways of life in establishing self. understanding
and a sense of self-worth for individuals and groups alike. Critics of multiculturalism argue that multicultural
societies are inherently confict-ridden and unstable, and view normative multiculturalism as an example of
political correctness.
MULTILATERALISM : A system of coordinated relation between three or more states based on
principles of conduct laid down by treaties and international organizations.
MYSTICISM : The doctrine that the fundamental nature of reality is ineffable; that is, inaccessible through either
the sense or the intellect, indescribable in any of the terms and categories at the command of ordinary human
consciousness; The belief that knowledge of reality involves the immediate awareness of God’s nature and
presence.
MYTHOLOGY : A collection of myths or stories associated with primitive regions, or the study of such stories.
Myths arise out of man’s unscientific efforts to account for the world around him.
N
NASKARMAYA : Freedom from action. According to Sankara Naiskarmya means freedom from
the selfish desire of action.
NAIVE REALISM : The conventional opinion that the world is directly known and that it has whatever character
we perceive it to have. Sometimes the term is used to refer to new realism.
NAME : Names are names only if they refer to individuals. Where there are no individuals to be referred there
are no names. For example ‘I met a unicorn’. Here ‘A Unicorn’ is not a name but it is an incomplete
symbol, An indefinite description which describes nothing.
NATION : A group of people who share a common cultural inheritance and regard themselves as a
natural political community.
NATION-STATE : A sovereign political association within which citizenship and nationality overlap;
one nation within a single state.
NATURAL LAW : A moral system to which human laws do, or should, conform; natural law lays
down universal standards of conduct.
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NATURAL RELIGION : The term “natural religion” occurs in Hume’s Dialogues. It is basically opposed to
revealed religion. Natural religion is religious belief based on the same sorts of evidence that we use in
everyday life and science: observation and inference to the moist plausible explanations for what is observed
by principles based on experience. It is in this spirit that Cleanthes puts forward his analogical argument for
the existence of an intelligent creator. In contrast, revealed religion relies on sacred texts and the authority
of tradition and Church.
NATURAL RIGHTS : God-given rights that are fundamental to human beings and are therefore inalienable
(they cannot be taken away).
NEGATIVE FREEDOM : The absence of external restrictions or constraints upon the individual, allowing
freedom of choice.
Non-interference, the absence of external constrains on the individual; sometimes seen as freedom ‘from’.
NEGATIVE RIGHTS : Rights that mark out a realm of unconstrained action, and thus check the responsibilities
of government.
NEOCOLONIALISM : Control exercised over a foreign territory through economic (and sometimes cultural)
domination rather than formal political direction.
NEOCONSERVATISM : A modern version of social conservatism that emphasizes the need to restore order,
return to traditional or family values or revitalize nationalism.
NEO-MARXISM : An updated and revised form of Marxism that rejects determinism, the primacy of economics
and the privileged status of the proletariat.
NATURAL THEOLOGY : The theology, or philosophy concerning God, based on ordinary experience and not
dependent on revelation.
NATURALISM : Theory that the universe has no supernatural origin or ground and needs no supernatural
explanation; that it is self-existing and should be explained solely by reference to itself; that its behaviour is
not teleologically explicable by final causes and purposes; that human life and behaviour are in no way
exceptional and outside the course of natural events and are to be explained by the same principles as
obtained throughout the rest of nature and that human values, moral ideals and conducts are determined
entirely by the organic structure and needs characteristic of the human species;
It regards nature as the whole reality, which is composed of energy. Naturalism lays stress on physical
sciences, physics and chemistry and thinks the world of matter life and mind can be satisfactorily explained
by physical and chemical laws. The theory that reality is understandable without reference to the supernatural.
NATURALISTIC ETHICS : Any philosophical theory concerning the right and the wrong, the obligatory, the
good and the bad, which claims that value terms and moral predicates are definable empirically and that
value assertions and moral judgments are empirically verifiable.
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NATURALISTIC FALLACY : The fallacy defined by G.E. Moore (1873-1958) as the error of confusing some
property common to good things but distinct from the property goodness with the property goodness.
NAYA : (Jaina philosophy) Naya means a stand point of thought from which we make a statement about
a thing. All truth is relative to our stand points. Knowledge of one of the innumerable aspects of a thing is
called ‘Naya’. Judgement based on this partial knowledge is also included in ‘Naya’.
NIDIDHYASANA : Practical realization; Profound and constant meditation. For self realization,
the practice of hearing, reflection, profound meditation and absorption is necessary.
NEUTRAL MONISM : Belief that both mental and physical properties are the features of substances of a
single sort, which are themselves ultimately neither mental nor physical., Neutral monism was deferded by
James and Russell.
NEOPLATONISM : A philosophic movement started in the beginning of the third century by AmmoniousSaccas
the teacher of Plotinus (c.204-c, 270) and Origen (c. 185-c, 254). Neo-platonism combines Platonic and
Aristotelian ideas with certain conceptions from Eastern philosophy and maintains that reality is an absolute
oneness, that matter is the negation of being and that the One creates orders of being by a non-temporal
process of emanation.
NETI NETI : It is understood as ‘not thus not this, not this’. Vedantic idea of Neti-Neti is to support
the view that the indeterminate Brahman or Atman is beyond the name and form, thought it is all-pervading.
NEUTRAL MONISM :The theory, proposed by William James (1842-1910), which claims that the elements
of reality are one in kind, neither essentially mental nor essentially material, but neutral. In some contexts the
neutral entities, having been related to consciousness, are described as mental; in other contexts the neutral
entities, having been perceived as the aspects of physical things, are regarded as material.
NEW REALISM : The theory that physical objects exist independently of being perceived and that the knowledge
of physical objects is direct in that physical objects are immediately perceived.
NIHILISM : The doctrine that nothing exists; therefore, nothing can be known or have value. The term more
often is used to refer to the social doctrine that conditions are so evil that the present social order ought to
be swept aside or destroyed to make room for something better. Complete rejection of the existence of
human knowledge and values or denial of the possibility of making any useful distinctions among things.
NIRVANA : (Duhka-Nirodha)Cessation of suffering) Nirvana is the summum bonum of Buddhism.

Etymologically, the word is combination of two words (Ni-vana) which means freedom or departure from
craving. It is the cessation of the vicious circle of samsara or becoming. It is the annihilation of passion,
hatred and delusion (raga, dvesa and moha)
NIR-VIKALPAKA : pure sensation, devoid of any synthesis or thought-construction.
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NISPRAPANCA : inexpressible in speech and irrealizable in concepts - the Absolute.
NOMINALISM : The theory that "universals" or general terms are only names and represent no objectively real
existents; all that exist are particulars.
The theory that general terms do not designate universal properties but are mere vocal sounds. Opposed to
Platonic realism and to moderate realism. Nominalists maintain that universals are just names that we apply
to different objects that resemble one another; metaphysics should recognize particulars that resemble each
other in various ways, but nor universals above and beyond those particulars. A nominalist might claim that
the type/token distinction really amounts to providing two ways of counting tokens, not two kinds of object
to be counted.
NON COGNITIVISM : A meta - ethical theory according to which moral issues are not subject to rational
determination. Dealing with values, not facts, moral assertion are neither true nor false, but merely express
attitudes, feelings, desires, or demands.
NON-NATURALISTIC ETHICS : Any ethics which regards value as unique and unanalisable and which
regards intuition as the only way of knowing the truth of moral claims.
NORMATIVE : The prescription of values and standards of conduct; what ‘should be’ rather than what ‘is’.
NORMATIVE SCIENCE : Normative Science judge the value of a fact in terms of an ideal or standard.
Normative Science is concerned not with factual judgment but judgments of what ought to be. Ethics is a
normative science.
Normative sciences are called appreciative and regulative sciences. Normative sciences are not concerned
with actual facts or their laws, but with norms or ideals which regulate human life.
NOTHINGNESS : The term nothingness as used by Existentialists refers to the human condition which cannot
be characterized either in terms of a thing or a substance. Nothingness is not emptiness but reveals freedom,
dynamism and finitude of man that cannot be grounded on any eternal essence or a-priori framework of
values.
NOUMENON : or things that exist outside experience. In the philosophy of Kant, a thing-in-itself, the unknowable
reality behind phenomena. When rules that apply to the world of experience are applied to a reality-
beyond-experience, contradictions and mistakes result. Kant was willing to say that three “ideas of reason”–
God, world, self – at least point to possibilities in the noumenal realm, but we can have no knowledge of the
realm. Kant’s epistemology limits legitimate metaphysical reasoning to this world.
A thing as it actually exists; a thing in itself, apart from how it may appear to us; to be distinguished from a
phenomenon, or a thing as it appears to us.
NUMINOUS : In the philosophy of Rudalf Otto (1869-1937), the unique state of mind which results from being
aware of God as awesome and mysterious.
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O
OBJECTIVE : External to the observer, demonstrable; untainted by feelings, values or bias.
OBJECTIVITY : A judgment is said to be objective if is based on observable phenomena and is uninfluenced by
emotions or personal prejudices.
OCCASIONALISM : Theory of psycho-physical parallelism where mind and matter do not interact but
correspond in their events as a result of a mediator, especially God; The theory that God causes mental
phenomena to accompany physical events. This theory of causation held by a number of important
seventeenth-century Cartesian philosophers, including Johannes Clauberg (1622–65), Géraud de Cordemoy
(1626–84), Arnold Geulincx (1624–69), Louis de la Forge (1632–66), and Nicolas Malebranche (1638–
1715).
OCKHAM’S RAZOR : The scientific principle introduced by William of Ockham (c. 1280-C, 1350) to the
effect that whatever explanation involves the fewest assumptions is to be preferred.
A plurality should not be asserted without necessity.
What is known as Occam's razor was a common principle in medieval philosophy and was not originated by
William, but because of his frequent usage of the principle, his name has become indelibly attached to it. It is
unlikely that William would appreciate what some of us have done in his name. For example, atheists often
apply Occam's razor in arguing against the existence of God on the grounds that God is an unnecessary
hypothesis. We can explain everything without assuming the extra metaphysical baggage of a Divine Being.
This principle has been used by atheists to reject the God-the-Creator hypothesis in favor of natural evolution:
if a Perfect God had created the Universe, both the Universe and its components would be much simpler.
William would not have approved.
William was somewhat of a minimalist in philosophy, advocating nominalism against the more popular view
of realism. That is, he argued that universals have no existence outside of the mind; universals are just names
we use to refer to groups of individuals and the properties of individuals. Realists claim that not only are
there individual objects and our concepts of those objects, there are also universals. Ockham thought that
this was one too many pluralities. We don't need universals to explain anything.
It might well be argued that Bishop George Berkeley applied Occam's razor to eliminate material substance
as an unnecessary plurality. According to Berkeley, we need only minds and their ideas to explain everything.
Berkeley was a bit selective in his use of the razor, however. He needed to posit God as the Mind who could
PATANJALI
hear the tree fall in the forest when nobody is present. Subjective Idealists might use the razor to get rid of
God. All can be explained with just minds and their ideas. Of course this leads to solipsism, the view that I
and my ideas alone exist, or at least they are all I know exist. Materialists, on the other hand, might be said
to use the razor to eliminate minds altogether. We don't need to posit a plurality of minds as well as a plurality
of brains.
Occam's razor is also called the principle of parsimony. These days it is usually interpreted to mean something
like "the simpler the explanation, the better" or "don't multiply hypotheses unnecessarily."
OMBUDSMAN : An officer of the state appointed to safeguard citizens’ rights and investigate
allegations of maladministration.
ONE : In philosophy, the One is the universe considered as the divine unity of all being.
ONTOLOGY : Inquiry into, or theory of being qua being. This is the central subject-matter or Aristotle’s
Metaphysics. The word ontology was coined in the early 17th century to avoid ambiguities of ‘metaphysics’.
Leibniz was the first major philosopher to adopt the word. Ontology is the general theory of being as such,
and forms the general part of metaphysics. The three special parts are general cosmology, rational psychology,
and natural theology. i.e., the theory of the world, the soul and God.
ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT (PROOF) : Argument for the existence of God based upon the idea of God,
i.e., the logical analysis and definition of his nature. The idea of a perfect being, it is argued, is necessarily
the idea of an existent being, since a being that lacked existence would not be perfect. Reason demands the
idea of an ens realissimum, of a complete, finished, sum total of being, lacking in nothing. Therefore logic
and reason demand that this idea shall have enacted existence. Classic formulation by Anselm.
Ontology is described as the science of ultimate reality. The word 'ontology' is derived from two Greek
words meaning the Science of being. From the very beginning in the history of philosophy, thinkers began
asking about the stuff the universe in made of. Can everything in the universe be resolved into some basic
form of being, some ultimate reality, such as matter or energy or mind? This is the ancient problem of Reality
or the problem of Being and the technical term for it is Ontology. The main ontological problems are: What
is the ultimate reality? Is ultimate reality one or many? If the ultimate reality is many, What is the relationship
in them? These problems are difficult to solve but philosophers and thinkers have given serious thought to
them.
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.
P
PADARTHA : a thing, an entity. In Vaishesika system a category is called padartha and the entire
universe is reduced to seven padarthas. Padartha literally means "the meaning of a word" or 'the object
signified by a word'. All objects of knowledge or all reals come under padartha. A padartha is defined as
that which has reality , knowability and expressibility in language . Any
thing which is real as opposed to the imagined or fictional is a padartha. So the first requirement of anything
being a padartha is that it should be factual and not fictional like a sky-flower or a square circle. The Second
requirement for being a padartha is that it should be capable of being known. Anything which is unknowable
cannot be regarded as a padartha. Lastly every padartha is amenable to linguistic expression. Padartha
means an object which can be thought (jneya, and named (abhidheya,
PANCHA-BHEDA : Madhva has accepted five kinds of differences, which are real and beginningless,
they are followings:-
(i) Difference between God and the individual souls
(ii) Difference between God and matter
(iii) Difference between Soul and Matter
(iv) Difference between one soul and another
(v) Difference between one material thing to another.
This fivefold differences is not a mere appearance. Defence is real. It is always perceived. It is the
foundation of Madhva's pluralistic universe. Matter, soul and God are irreducible to one another.
PANLOGISM : Theory that reality is reason or rational process. E.g., Hegelianism.
PAN-PSYCHISM : The doctrine that everything has a mind or soul. Theory that reality consists of minds or
psychic entities. E.g., Leibnitz’ monadology.
PANTHEISM : The teaching that God and the universe are one and the same thing. Pantheism may be idealistic
(Hegel, Fichte) or materialistic (Holbach, Diderot) or naturalistic (Spinoza) or moral (the Stoics) or mystic
(Plotinus, Scotus Eriugena, Bruno), according to the view taken of the essential character of the real.
The doctrine that everything is an aspect of God. (God-is-all-ism) is the belief that God is identical
with nature or with the world as a whole.
PARALOGISM : False reasoning. Employed by Kant to designate the incorrect reasoning by which the
substantial, simple, and personal character of the soul, is “demonstrated”. Kant uses the word for those
errors of reasoning which give rise to the theory of the incorruptibility and substantiality of the soul.
PATANJALI
PARAMARTHA-SAT : existing in an absolute, non-relative, sense.
PARALLELISM : In connection with the mind-body problem, the theory that mental and physical events occur
concomitantly but are not causally related. See also epiphenomenalism and interactionism.
PARLIAMENTARY DEMOCRACY : A form of democracy that operates through a popularly elected assembly
and emphasizes the importance of deliberation.
PARTICULAR : A member of a class, a thing of a kind, as distinguished from the class, the kind, the universal.
PARTY DEMOCRACY : The principle of the wide and even distribution of power within a party, or its
concentration in the hands of its elected members.
PASCAL'S WAGER : If God exists, he is infinitely incomprehensible. So human reason has no way of determining
whether or not he exists. We cannot make up our minds on the basis of reasoning. But we must make up
our minds. How can it be done? Pascal suggests that adopting belief in God, and leading a Christian life, is
the soundest bet. In the event of winning the bet, an eternity of bliss is gained. In the event of losing the bet,
the loss incurred is utterly insignificant. The alternative, i.e. unbelief, can at best incur an insignificant gain, at
worst an immense loss.
To the objection that one cannot simply decide to make up one's mind and begin to believe in something.
Pascal's reply is that if one wishes to believe, then changing one's mode of life, subduing one's passions,
praying, going to mass, etc. may cause belief to arise.
PERCEPT : A given element in perceptual experience, a sensation or sense datum.
PERCEPTION : Gotama ( The founder of Nyaya School) defines perception as ‘non-erroneous cognition
which is produced by the intercourse of the sense-organs with the object, which is not associated with a
name and which is well-defined’.
According to the Buddhist view the word pratyaksa is to be confined to the knowledge of the unique
(svalaksana) particular object that is given directly through the senses. The name, and the universal concept
through which we generally interpret the particular, should not be included in perception, as they are supplied
by out imagination (kalpana). Dingnaga defines perception as free from construction, name and generality.
PETITIO PRINCIPII : The informal fallacy of begging the question; an argument in which the conclusion is
assumed in one of the premises.
PHENOMENON : That which appears to consciousness. That which is perceived. In Kant, designates any
“object of possible experience”, that is, everything that appears under the form of space and time and in the
ways determined by the categories of the understanding.
According to Kant, our knowledge is limited to phenomena, or experienceable objects – things that could
be the subject of experience. For only things that are experienced are subject to the categorizing and
unifying activity of the mind. To be experienced, objects must be in space and time, be related to one
another by cause and effect.
52
PHENOMENALISM :The belief that we can know only phenomena and not the ultimate nature of things. We
merely know objects as they appear to our senses.
Phenomenalism is an empiricist theory of human knowledge according to which all data conveyed to us by
sense-experience. We stance material objects, exist beyond these immediate data, but on the phenomenalist
view, as proposed e.g. by Carnap and Ayer in the first half of the twentieth century, our beliefs and statements
about such things can make sense only if they are reducible to beliefs or statements about sense-date.
About a century earlier again, Berkely’s denial of the existence of matter can be seen as implying a
phenomenalist theory. (In Hume’s Philosophy too)
PHENOMENOLOGY : The philosophy of Edmund Husserl (1859-1938), which purported to be a science of

the subjective, of phenomena, and of intended objects considered as intended.
Phenomenology is the attempt to describe our experience directly, as it is, separately from its origins and
development. It is basically an investigation of phenomena, and phenomena are a thing as it appears to us, as
it is perceived.
PHILOSOPHY : Literally, the love of wisdom and, consequently search for wisdom. The intellectual attempt to
resolve problems having to do with the nature of matters of common experience and concern; thus, the
attempt to make basic ideas clear and to justify descriptions of reality. It is an attempt to arrive at a rational
conception of the reality as a whole. It enquires into the nature of the universe in which we live, the nature
of the human soul, and its destiny, and the nature of God or the Absolute, and their relation to one another.
It enquires into the nature of matter, time, space, causality, evolution, life, and mind, and their relation to one
another. It is the art of thinking all things logically, systematically, and persistently. It is the art of thinking
rationally and systematically of the reality as a whole.
The major fields of philosophy are aesthetics, the philosophy of art, beauty, and criticism; ethics, the philosophy
of morality; logic, the philosophy of formal argument; and metaphysics, which includes epistemology, the
philosophy of knowledge; ontology, the philosophy of being as such; and cosmology, the philosophy of
cosmic structure.
PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION : Philosophical thinking about religion. It is not an organ of religious teaching.
It is not a branch of theology but a branch of Philosophy. According to Brightman - “Philosophy of Religion
is an attempt to discover by rational interpretation of religion and its relation to other types of experiences,
the truth of religious belief and the value of religious attitude and practices.”
The proper function of the philosophy of religion is to study religious beliefs in an open-minded, impartial
spirit. Its posture is neither acceptance nor rejection of the claims of any particular religion. The philosophical
task is primarily one of criticism in the sense of careful analysis and evaluation.
PATANJALI
PICTURE THEORY OF MEANING : The view expressed in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus of
Wittgenstein, that a sentence must share a pictorial form with whatever state of affairs it reports. Wittgenstein
was impressed by the way a model, for instance of a traffic accident, could be used to illustrate the actual
events, and the picture theory takes the relationship of model to situation as the fundamental semantic
relationship. It requires that elements of the model correspond to elements of the situation, and that the
structure of the model is shared with that of the situation.
PLANNING : A system of economic organization that relies on a rational allocation of resources in line with
clearly defined goals; planning may be directive or indicative.
PLATONIC REALISM : The theory that universals, or general characteristics, have a reality of their own and
subsist eternally, apart from the things which embody them.
PLURALISM : Any theory which asserts that there are many ultimate substances. The view that there is not just
one substance (Monism) or two substances (Dualism) but that there are many, a plurality of substances,
Spinoza was a monist, Descartes was a dualist, Leibnitz was a pluralist.
POLICE STATE : A form of rule characterized by arbitrary and terroristic policing, in which the police act as a
private army controlled by a ruling elite.
POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY : Philosophy, in general terms, is the search for wisdom and understanding using the
techniques of critical reasoning. However, philosophy has also been seen more specifically as a second-order
discipline, in contrast to first-order disciplines which deal with empirical subjects. In other words, philosophy
is not so much concerned with revealing truth in the manner of science, as with asking secondary questions
about how knowledge is acquired and about how understanding is expressed; it has thus been dubbed the
science of questions. Philosophy has traditionally addressed questions related to the ultimate nature of reality
(metaphysics), the grounds of knowledge (epistemology) and the basis of moral conduct (ethics).
Political philosophy is often viewed as a subfield of ethics or moral philosophy, in that it is preoccupied with
essentially prescriptive or normative questions, reflecting a concern with what should, ought or must be
brought about, rather than what is. Its central questions have included ‘why should I obey the state?’, ‘who
should rule?’, ‘how should rewards be distributed?’ and ‘what should be the limits of individual freedom?’
Academic political philosophy addresses itself to two main tasks. First, it is concerned with the critical
evaluation of political beliefs, paying attention to both inductive and deductive forms of reasoning. Second,
it attempts to clarify and refine the concepts employed in political discourse. What this means is that,
although political philosophy may be carried out critically and scrupulously, it cannot be objective in that it is
inevitably concerned with justifying certain political viewpoints at the expense of others and with upholding
a particular understanding of a concept rather than alternative ones. Political philosophy is therefore clearly
distinct from political science. Although political philosophy is often used interchangeably with political
theory, the former deals strictly with matters of evaluation and advocacy, while the latter is broader, in that it
also includes explanation and analysis and thus cuts across the normative/empirical divide.
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POLYTHEISM :Any theory which claims that there is more than one God.
POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY : The principle that there is no higher authority than the will of the people (the
basis of the classical concept of democracy).
POSITIVE FREEDOM : Freedom as personal development, self-realization or self-mastery; sometimes seen

as freedom ‘to’.
POSITIVE RIGHTS : Rights that make demands of government in terms of the provision of resources and
support, and thus extend its responsibilities.
POSITIVISM : The belief that only empirically verifiable or analytic propositions are meaningful, and that
metaphysics is impossible. See also logical positivism.
POSTULATES : Fundamental assumptions used as a basis for developing a system of proofs, but not themselves
subject to proof within the system. While some logicians use axioms and postulates as synonymous, for
others an axiom is a self-evident truth and a postulate is a presupposition or premise of a train of reasoning
and not necessarily self-evident. In this latter sense, all axioms are postulates, but not all postulates are
axioms.
POST MODERNISM : An intellectual movement that rejects the idea of absolute and universal truth, and
usually emphasizes discourse, debate and democracy.
POTENTIALITY AND ACTUALITY : Aristotle delineated the different kinds of imperfect, changing beings in
terms of possibility and actuality. At one extreme is matter, which consists only of possibility. Matter, as we
saw, is that which must be moved because it cannot move or form itself. At the other extreme is god as pure
actuality, which can only move things without god being moved or changed in any way. God is the unmoved
mover. Any movement on god’s part would imply imperfection and is therefore impossible. Nature (physis)
and all the things of the universe exist between these two poles. Things move and are moved as a process
of actualizing some of their potentialities. There is a penchant in each being to take on ever-higher forms of
being in an effort to approach the unmoving perfection of god. It is things love of and longing for perfection
of god that moves the universe. God remains the unmoved mover.
An unrealized or latent capacity or power. Opposite of actuality.
PRAGMATISM : The pragmatists (Peirce, James, Schiller and Dewey) consider workability to be the test of
truth. An idea is true if it works. If it leads to a fruitful consequence, it is true. James said - “Truth happens
to an idea. It becomes true, it is made true by events.”
PRAMA : Knowledge of reality or valid cognition is called Prama.
PRAMANA : Source of valid cognition.
PATANJALI
PRESIDENTIAL GOVERNMENT : A system of government in which executive authority is
concentrated in the hands of a president, whose office is politically and constitutionally separate
from the legislature.
PREDESTINATION : The doctrine that all events are determined by the action of God’s will. Or, the doctrine
that God has foreordained the eternal life of some persons.
PREDICATE : That which is asserted of a subject. A term indicating a property.In metaphysics, an attribute of
a substance.
PRE-ESTABLISHED HARMONY : A theory expounded by Leibniz and adopted in modified form by other
thinkers after him, to refute the theories of interactionism, occasionalism, and the parallelism of the Spinozistic
type, in psycho-physics. According to its dynamism, matter and spirit, body and soul, the physical and the
mortal, each a "windowless", perfect monad (qv) in itself, are once and for all not only corresponding
realities, but they are also synchronized by God in their changes like two clocks, thus rendering the assumption
of any mutual or other influences nugatory.
The metaphysical theory relating the body and mind espoused by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. It argues
that mental events parallel physical events due to a preordained arrangement established by God.
PRESCRIPTIVISM : Prescriptivism is a theory of the language of morals proposed by R.M. Hare. Its central
thesis is that moral judgements are essentially action guiding. In metaethics, the view that moral judgments
are prescriptions and therefore have the logical form of imperatives.
PREMISE : A proposition on which, at least in part, the conclusion of an argument is based.
PRIMARY QUALITIES : The qualities that are said to inhere in material substance and that do not depend on
a knower. In the philosophy of John Locke 1632-1704), characteristics regarded as inseparable from physical
objects and as belonging to them quite apart from any relation to other objects or to knowing minds :
solidity, extension, figure, motion or rest, and number. See also secondary qualities.
PRIME MOVER : (in Aristotelian philosophy) God, seen as the efficient and final cause of the universe.
PRINCIPLE OF SUFFICIENT REASON : In the philosophy of Leibniz, the principle that the series of contingent
events (events that need not have occurred) must be accounted for by reference to some reason or cause
other than that supplied by any of the contingent events in the series.
PRIVATE LANGUAGE ARGUMENT : A language that can be understood by only a single individual. The
impossibility of private language was discussed by Wittgenstein in Philosophical Investigations. Wittgenstein’s
contention that it is impossible for an isolated individual to employ language, since a single person could not
have adequate criteria for following linguistic rules. This arguments is commonly taken as a refutation of
solipsism.
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This Private Language Arguments start from this true premise: If a language were to be private, there would
be no independent checking of putative associations between its signifier (symbol) and the signified (thing) -
no first-person criterion of correctness. It proceeds to argue to the conclusion that 'private language' is
inconsistent.
PRIVATIZATION : The transfer of state assets from the public to the private sector, reflecting a contraction of
the state's responsibilities.
PROGRESS : Moving forwards; the belief that history is characterized by human advancement based
on the accumulation of knowledge and wisdom.
PROPERTY : Any characteristic. Or, any essential characteristic.Or, any defining characteristic or, any relational
characteristic.
PROPOSITION : A state of affairs meant by a declarative sentence. Or, a declarative sentence and hence
always either true or false. They assert but do not command or wish. They symbolize something. They are
complex symbols, being symbols whose parts are symbols.
PROTOCOL SENTENCE : A sentence reporting a sense response. Or, a sentence ascribing a basic sense
property to some physical object; In some logical positivists, especially Neurath and Carnap, sentences
reporting the results of observations. Cf. Basic proposition.
PSYCHOLOGICAL HEDONISM : According to the psychological hedonism, pleasure is the natural end and
motive of human action. We always seek pleasure and avoid pain. Pleasure is the natural object of desire.
PSYCHOLOGISM : Psychologism is a philosophical position that attempts to reduce diverse forms of knowledge
including concepts and principles of logic and mathematics to states of mind or phenomena that occur in the
mind. It takes psychology as the fundamental discipline that can explain and justify knowledge in philosophy.
Studies of the mind had been a part of philosophy since antiquity. Modern philosophers such as Descartes,
Locke, Hume, and Kant made considerable contributions to the studies of the mind. In the nineteenth century,
psychology became an independent discipline and flourished. Along with developments in psychology, some
took psychology as the fundamental discipline upon which all other forms of knowledge are built and receive
their justification. Psychologism is a form of reductionism that attempts to reduce other forms of knowledge
including those of logic and mathematics into psychological concepts. In particular, psychologism challenges
the idea of a priori knowledge of principles and concepts in logic and mathematics.
Frege delivered severe criticisms against psychologism on the ground that principles of logic are universally
true a priori, and therefore are irreducible to psychological concepts. Upon receiving Frege’s criticism,
Husserl gave up his earlier position based on psychologism, and become one of the major opponents of
psychologism.
PATANJALI
Q
QUALITIES : Properties or characteristics
QUINE : Willard Van Orman Quine (1908-2000) American philosopher. In his important article "Two Dogmas
of Empiricism" 1951, where he rejected the analytic/synthetic dichotomy, and the reduction of all meaningful
statements to statements about immediate experiences.
R
RACE : A group of people (supposedly) distinguished from other groups by physical or biological differences.
RACIALISM (or RACISM) : The doctrine that political and social organization should be based on racial
categories; racism may refer to prejudice or hostility towards members of other races.
RATIONALISM : Reason is the source of true knowledge. Descartes, Spinoza and Leibnitz are known as
rationalist thinkers.
REALISM : In metaphysics, the doctrine that physical objects exist independently of being thought or perceived.
Also, the doctrine that universals exist (subsist) apart from things. See also critical realism, new realism,
moderate realism, Platonic realism.
REASON : Reason is the ability or faculty to engage in theoretical and/or practical reasoning. A number of
philosophical issues are concerned with the role of reason in various spheres of human life. Rationalists and
empiricists disagree about the role of reason in the formation of concepts and the development of knowledge,
the latter seeing it only as an aid to experience. Kant supposed that there were fundamental principles of
conduct provided by practical reason; whereas Hume argued that in the practical sphere reason "is, and
ought only to be the slave of the passion."
RELATIVISM : Belief that human judgments are always conditioned by the specific social environment of a
particular person, or place. Moral relativists hold that there are no universal standards of moral value, but
only the cultural norms of particulars societies.
RELIGION : According to Flint “Religion is man’s belief in a Being or Beings, mightier than himself and inaccessible
to his sense, but not indifferent to his sentiments and actions, which the feelings and practices which flow
from such belief.”
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RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE : It refers to any experience of the sacred within a religious context, including
religious feelings, visions, and mystical and numinous experiences. A religious experience is intensely personal,
and it often occurs in the midst of such religious practices as prayer, meditation, worship, chanting, or the
performance of other religious ritual.
RELIGIOUS PLURALISM : Religious pluralism is a set of worldviews that stands on the premise that one
religion is not the sole exclusive source of values, truths, and supreme deity. It therefore must recognize that
at least “some” truth must exist in other belief systems. This is one example of “they can’t all be right.”
Religious pluralism is a loosely defined expression concerning acceptance of various religions, and is used in
a number of related ways:
As the name of the worldview according to which one's religion is not the sole and exclusive source of truth,
and thus that at least some truths and true values exist in other religions.
As acceptance of the concept that two or more religions with mutually exclusive truth claims are equally
valid. This posture often emphasizes religion's common aspects.
Sometimes as a synonym for ecumenism, i.e., the promotion of some level of unity, co-operation, and improved
understanding between different religions or different denominations within a single religion.
As term for the condition of harmonious co-existence between adherents of different religions or religious
denominations.
Religious pluralism, a term used to describe the acceptance of all religious paths as equally valid, promoting
coexistence
REPRESENTATIONALISM :Theory of perception according to which we are aware of objects only through
the mediation of the ideas that represent them. Descartes and Locke were both representationalists.
REPRESENTATIVE REALISM : This theory is accepted by Locke. It is a theory that we perceive objects
indirectly by means of our "representations" or ideas or perceptions of them, some of which are accurate
copies or representations or reflections of the real properties of "external" objects, of objects "outside the
mind."
According to Locke, when we say we are looking at an external object, what we are really doing is
attending to the perceptions or "ideas" of the object in our mind. Some of these perceptions, such as those
of a basketball's size and shape, accurately represent qualities in the object itself. Other perceptions, such
as those of the basketball's color and odor, do not represent anything in the object.
A dualistic theory of perception that claims that objects and ideas are separate. Objects stimulate the
senses, which, in turn, copy, or "represent", the objects to the mind - much as a camera takes pictures of
external objects. The mind processes, or "develops", the sensations to produce ideas. A form of
epistemological dualism.
PATANJALI
REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY : A limited and indirect form of democracy based on the selection (usually
by election) of those who will rule on behalf of the people.
RESPONSIBILITY : Sensible or morally correct behavior; or accountability to a higher authority.
The term responsibility involves accountability and commitment. One is answerable to others for the
action one has performed. One is also accountable to oneself for failing to live up to one's own commitments.
Responsibility presupposes freedom, for every ought' presupposes relevant can, which means that only the
agent's will brings about a particular action despite the various constraints, external as well as internal impinging
on him. Only persons capable of such volitions could be held responsible.
REVELATION : In religion and theology, revelation is the revealing or disclosing, through active or passive
communication with a supernatural or a divine entity(s). Some religions have religious texts which they view
as divinely or supernaturally revealed or inspired.
In religion and the philosophy of religion, the direct communication addressed to human beings from a divine
being concerning the existence, attributes or will of that being, or giving other information of high significance.
The act of communicating, and its content, is known primarily by experience (a vision, a voice, etc.) and
secondarily by oral or written tradition.
Revelation means the disclosure through the agency of God of fundamental truths that would be otherwise inaccessible
to human beings. God is the agent who reveals, and human beings receive the revelation. While natural theology
claims that human reason unaided by revelation can know God's nature , revealed theology insists that the eternal
knowledge about God can only be acquired through revelation. It is through revelation that human beings learn
about the existence, attributes , and purposes of God, and about the moral and other directives that humans have
to follow. The revelation can be through nature, visions, dreams, in God's words and activity. Sometimes it needs
to be communicated through prophets. It is claimed that in revelation the human being enters into a self-manifesting
encounter with God. “We speak of revelation wherever the unconditional import of meaning breaks through the
form of meaning.”
REVISIONARY METAPHYSICS & DESCRIPTIVE METAPHYSICS : In the Introduction to Individuals,
P.F. Strawson distinguishes between descriptive metaphysics and revisionary metaphysics. As he makes the
distinction, "Descriptive metaphysics is content to describe the actual structure of our thought about the
world, revisionary metaphysics is concerned to produce a better structure." He gives us Descartes, Leibniz
and Berkeley as examples of revisionary metaphysicians; Kant and Aristotle are descriptive metaphysicians.
Hume, he says, somewhat disparagingly it seems to me, "is more difficult to place. He appears now under
one aspect, now under another."
Revisionary Metaphysics is a term introduced by P. F. Strawson in Individuals, in contrast to revisionary
metaphysics. Descriptive metaphysics aims to describe the most general features of our conceptual scheme , that
is, to describe reality as it manifests itself to the human understanding. Conceptual analysis is its main method.
Revisionary metaphysics, on the other hand, attempts to revise our ordinary way of thinking and our ordinary
conceptual scheme in order to provide an intellectually and morally preferred picture of the world. Hence, revisionary
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metaphysicians generally like to establish a well-organized system beyond the world of experience. Strawson
claims that the history of metaphysics can be broadly divided into these two kinds of metaphysics. Aristotle and
Kant are considered to be the forerunners of descriptive metaphysics, and Strawson's own Individuals is also
subtitled An Essay in Descriptive Metaphysics , while Descartes, Leibniz , and Berkeley are representatives of
revisionary metaphysics. This distinction may not cover all metaphysical systems, but it has been greatly influential
in reviving work in metaphysics. “Descriptive metaphysics is content to describe the actual structure of our thought
about the world, revisionary metaphysics is concerned to produce a better structure.”
RIGHT : The term ‘right’ is derived from the Latin ‘rectus’ which means straight or according to rule. When
an action is said to be right, it means that it conforms to the rule or law.
A right is an entitlement to act or be treated in a particular way. Rights, however, can be either legal or moral
in character. Legal rights are laid down in law or in a system of formal rules and so are enforceable. Moral
rights, in contrast, exist only as moral claims or philosophical assertions. Human rights, and their predecessors,
natural rights, are essentially moral rights, despite the fact that they have increasingly been translated into
international law and sometimes domestic law. A further distinction can be made between negative rights
and positive rights. Negative rights are rights that mark out a realm of unconstrained action, and thus impose
restrictions upon the behavior of others, particularly the government. Traditional civil liberties, such as
freedom of speech and freedom of movement, are therefore negative rights; our exercise of them requires
that government and fellow citizens leave us alone. Positive rights are rights that impose demands upon
others, and particularly government, in terms of the provision of resources or supports, and thus extend their
responsibilities. Social or welfare rights, such as the right to education or the right to benefits, are positive
rights. Our exercise of them requires that the government provides services and guarantees social supports.
RULE OF LAW : The principle that law should ‘rule’ in the sense that it establishes a framework
within which all conduct or behavior takes place.
S
SAKSIN Pure seer : The word Saksin means a seer, a spectator or onlooker. It witnesses all objects
and experiences, but is itself witnessed by none. It is the permanent subject of all cognition and shines forth
by its own light. In other words, it is the pure element of awareness in all-knowing or the pure consciousness
itself appearing as the constant subject of all varied experiences. However, the saksin as the pure subject or
witnessing consciousness should not be mistaken for Jiva which is the unity of consciousness. The Jiva is the
empirical self which acts and enjoys (karta, bhokta) according to its deeds whereas the saksin neither acts
not enjoys. The former may be the object of self-consciousness, but the latter is the pure element of awareness
in all knowing. Sankara very clearly distinguishes between the different states of the Jiva-waking, dreaming
PATANJALI
and deep sleep, and also shows that the saksin is the illuminator of the states only. The Jiva embraces all
states and conditions through which life passes and the saksin avails itself of all the sources of experiences.
SAMADHI : Samadhi means concentration. This is the final step in Yoga. Here the mind is completely
absorbed in the object of meditation. In dhyana the act of meditation and the object of meditation remain
separate. But here they become one. It is the highest means to realize the cessation of mental modifications
which is the end. It is the ecstatic state in which the connection with the external world is broken and
through which one has to pass before obtaining liberation.
Samadhi is of two kinds : Conscious or samprajnata- and supra-conscious or asamprajnata- .
In the former consciousness of the object of meditation persists, in the latter it is transcended. The former is
Ekagra , the latter is Niruddha .
SAMSARA : The cycle of birth, death, and rebirth from which one can escape only by achieving
nirvana; The circuit of worldly life.
SAMAVAYA : The sixth category (padartha) is Samavaya or inseparable eternal relation called 'inherence'.
It is different from conjunction or samyoga which is a separable and transient relation and is a quality (guna).
Samavaya is an independent category (padartha).
Samavaya is a permanent or eternal relation between two entities, of which one inheres in the other. The
things which are inseparably connected are these - the part and the whole, the quality and the substance, the
action and the substance, the particular and the universal, the Vishesa and the eternal substance.
SAMVRTI SATYA AND PARMARTHA SATYA : In Madhyamika Philosophy
two types of truths are accepted. Parmartha satya, or absolute truth, is the knowledge of the real as it is
without any distortion. The absolute truth is beyond the scope of discursive thought, language and empirical
activity. Parmartha is in fact the unutterable , unteachable etc. Devoid of empirical determination, it is the
object of the innermost experience of the wise.
Samvrti satya is truth so-called, truth as conventionally believed in common parlance. Samvrti is defined in
the sense of avidya, sometimes it is equated with phenomena of practical reality.
SANCTION, MORAL : A force that is supposed to motivate moral agents to perform their duties.
SAPTA-BHANGI-NAYA : Sapta-Bhangi-Naya means ‘dialectic of the seven steps’ or ‘the theory
of seven-fold judgment’. According to Jaina logic, there are seven ways of speaking of a thing or its attributes.
Once it is accepted that truth is conditioned by a point of view, then seven kinds of judgments can be made,
every one of which is true relatively. Each judgment being relative is preceded by the word ‘syat’. The
seven forms are the following :
1. Syat-asti, Relatively, a thing is real.
2. Syat-nasti, Relatively, a thing is unreal.
3. Syat-asti-nasti, Relatively, a thing is both real and unreal.
4. Syat-avaktavyam, Relatively, a thing is indescribable.
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5. Syat-asti avaktavyam, Relatively, a thing is real and is indescribable.
6. Syat-nasti-avaktavyam, Relatively, a thing is unreal and is indescribable.
7. Syat-asti-nasti-avaktavyam, Relatively, a thing is real, unreal and indescribable.
SCHOLASTICISM : Applied to the methods and doctrines of the Schoolmen, or the Christian philosophers of
the medieval period. The main concern of this group was the reconciliation of the Christina doctrines with
reason and the philosophy of Aristotle.
SCIENCE, NORMATIVE : Normative science judge the value of the facts in terms of an ideal. Normative
sciences are concerned not with factual judgments, but with judgments of what ought to be. Ethics is a
normative science. It is concerned with judgment of value or what ought to be. Ethics is not concerned with
giving a mere description of human conduct. It is primarily concerned with what ought to be the right type of
conduct.
SCIENCE, POSITIVE : Sciences are usually classified into two groups (1) the group of theoretical, positive,
natural or descriptive sciences, and (2) the group of normative, appreciative or regulative sciences. Positive
sciences are those which seek to discover the origin of things, to trace the line of their development, and to
discover the actual order of things. Physics, Psychology etc., belong to the group of positive sciences. A
positive science is also called a natural science and a descriptive science. Positive science deals with
things as they are found in nature. It analyses, describes and explains facts.
SCIENTIFIC EXPLANATION : Any theoretical account of some fact or event, always subject to revision,
that exhibits certain essential features; relevance, compatibility with previously well-established hypotheses,
predictive power, and simplicity.
SCIENTIFIC METHOD : A set of techniques for solving problems involving the construction of preliminary
hypotheses, the formulation of explanatory hypotheses, the deduction of consequences from hypotheses,
the testing of the consequences, deduced, and the application of the theory thus confirmed to further problems.
SECONDARY QUALITIES : In the philosophy of Locke, those characteristics of physical objects which do
not belong to the physical objects themselves except as powers to cause sensations; the secondary qualities
are the colors, sounds, tastes, and smells of things. See also primary qualities.
SECULARISM : The belief that religion should not intrude into secular (worldly) affairs, usually
reflected in a desire to separate church from state.
SELF EVIDENT TRUTH : A known truth that requires no further proof or justification.
SEMANTICS : The systematic attempt to discover the meanings of linguistic expressions as used; the branch of
semiotic concerned with the meanings of signs
SENSE DATA LANGUAGE : In recent empiricism, language that describes, or purports to describe, sense
data only, without referring to the properties of material objects.
PATANJALI
SENSE DATUM : The given content of a sense experience; a sense image. Or, the given content of any
experience.
SKEPTICISM : The philosophical position of one who maintains that knowledge is not possible. Or, the view
that all knowledge is merely probable, never certain, simply means doubting; Theory that reliable knowledge
is impossible.
SOCIAL JUSTICE : The morally justifiable distribution of material rewards; social justice is often seen to imply
a bias in favour of equality.
SOCIOLOGY : Sociology is the science of structure, origin and development of human society. It investigates
the habits, manners, customs and institutions of human society in all its stages of development, from the
primitive to the present civilised state.
SOCIALISM: A political and economic theory that advocates the public ownership and management of the
principal means of production, distribution, and exchange. There are various types of socialists.
SOLIPSISM : The belief that only oneself exists; In metaphysics, a form of subjective idealism where an individual
affirms that he alone exists and all other reality, the external world and other selves, is a product of his own
mental operations, without independent existence. The interpretation of the world as our private sense data.
Linguistic solipsism has been treated as a problem especially in logical positivism.
In epistemology, solipsism means that nothing can be known except one’s own self and the contents of its
consciousness.
SORGE (Care) : According to Heidegger man finds himself in a world, which is dasein, and which he cannot but
be related to or concerned about. There may be no validity or reason of the world which surrounds him, but
once there he can not but be concerned about. In the world certain things happen over which he has no
control; on the other hand, there are things which he used as tools. He operates on the world with their help.
The inner principle which organizes his relations to the world is Care or Concern. "Care" is, therefore, the
basis of Being-there. In his relation to the world, man experiences various moods like curiosity, anxiety,
boredom, fear and angst (dread). The mood of boredom signifies that the whole world affects us and that
nothing of permanent interest or value is there in the world for us.
SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY : Etymologically, what is speculative is theoretical , in contrast to the practical

and empirical. Kant connected speculative philosophy with metaphysics and believed that it resulted from
mistakenly applying concepts to things–in–themselves rather than to empirical objects . For Kant, speculative
philosophy has a pejorative sense through being concerned with the transcendent and with reality as a
whole, in spite of lacking the proper support of sense– experience . Hegel described speculative philosophy
in this sense as dogmatism , but called his own system speculative in another sense because it dealt with
conceptual process and not because it dealt with the supersensible. It is a dialectical process in which the
opposition between objectivity and subjectivity is sublated , and in which all branches of human knowledge
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are systematically unified to reveal the true meaning of reality and of humankind. In general, speculative
philosophy employs the results of various sciences and religious and ethical experiences to derive general
conclusions regarding the nature of the universe and our position in it.
"Speculative Philosophy is the endeavour to frame a coherent, logical, necessary system of general ideas in
terms of which every element of our experience can be interpreted."
SRAVANA : Hearing the truth; Listening to scriptures. To understand the meaning of all the Vedantic tenets.
SUBJECTIVE : Internal to the observer; related to or emanating from a person’s feelings, values
and opinions.
SUBJECTIVE IDEALISM : The doctrine that knowledge of the world is limited to the world as a complex
system of sensations; the view that matter is a complex of sensations; the claim by George Berkeley (1685-
1753) that esseestpercipi : to be is to be perceived.
SUBSISTENCE : The mode of existence, involving neither temporal nor spatial location, which is peculiar to
universals Ideas, archetypes, and other abstract entities.
Employed by some modern philosophers to indicate the kind of being possessed by abstract entities,
universals, logical propositions, formulate, type, laws and the like, as distinguished from the existence of
concrete particular objects. Subsistence usually indicates a non-temporal, non-spatial reality, where existence
indicates a space-time location. Used originally and more generally of the kind of being attributed to substances
as contrasted with that of qualities and accidents, and of the duration and persistence of a thing despite the
change and disappearance of its qualities.
SUBSTANCE : A substance is that which is permanent in the midst of changes. A substance or thing is fundamental
entity or reality which manifests and realizes itself. Every being is dependent for its existence on them, either
as a property of them or a relation between them;Descartes defines a substance as what exists in itself and
conceived by itself.
The term "substance" has been used in a variety of ways in philosophy. In modern philosophy, a substance
is a thing capable of independent existence. Substances are contrasted with qualities and relations, on the
one hand, and complexes, on the other. These are all merely ways that substances are. Philosophers have
had dramatically different opinions about what meets these conditions. Descartes thought that there were
two basically different kinds of substance, material and immaterial, and there were many of each, and that no
way of being material was a way of being mental and vice versa. Spinoza thought that there was but one
substance, and material and mental reality were aspects of it (He called this thing God, while many of his
opponents thought his view amounted to atheism). In "Of Scepticism with Regard to the Senses", Hume
treats our perceptions as substance - the ultimate, independent constituents of reality.
PATANJALI
SUBSTRATUM : That which bears properties, the substance which is characterized.
A synonym for substance in the sense of a permanent, self-identical support for modes and accidents and
changes. That which stands under the attributes and in which they inhere. CF. Locke and Berkeley. Not
synonymous, however, with substance in the sense of that which exists in and by itself.
SUMMUM BONUM : Latin phrase meaning “ highest good”. that which is intrinsically valuable, the ultimate
goal or end of human life generally.
The highest good; that which is intrinsically better than any other good and which is thus qualified to serve as
the end of human conduct.
SUFFICIENT REASON ARGUMENT : A second form of cosmological argument is called the sufficient
reason argument, or the cosmological argument from sufficient reason. It is similar to the argument from
contingency but it is based on the premise that there must be a sufficient reason, or explanation (rather than
a cause), for the existence of any contingent being as well for the contingent universe as a whole. The
earliest proponents of the sufficient reason argument were the German rationalist philosopher Gottfried
Wilhelm Leibniz (1644-1716) and the English philosopher Samuel Clarke (1675-1729). The 'Sufficient
reason argument' box shows one way of stating the argument.
1. All things (beings) which exist must have a sufficient reason for their existence.
2. The sufficient reason for the existence of a thing must either lie in the thing itself or outside the thing.
3. All things in the universe are things the sufficient reason of which lie outside themselves (i.e. nothing
in the universe provides its own explanation for its existence).
4. The universe is nothing more than the collection of the things of which it consists.
5. Thus, there must be a sufficient reason for the universe as a whole which lies outside itself.
6. There cannot be an infinite regress of such sufficient reasons, for then there would be no final
explanation of things.
7. Therefore, there must be a first self-explanatory thing (Being) whose sufficient reason for its existence
lies in itself rather than outside itself (i.e. a Necessary Being whose non-existence is impossible).
SVABHAVA-VADA : Svabhava (Own-being) is a key concept of Charvaka School. According to

Charvaka, the four material elements – earth, air, water and fire are the material cause of the world. Each
material element has its own internal nature (svabhava). These material elements combine, by the natures
and laws inherent in them to form the world. This view is known as naturalism (svabhava-vada). There is
thus no necessity for God as an efficient cause of this world.
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Svabhava-vada rules out the role of super-natural being – a god or a creator – either to create, control or
maintain the world. It argues that the world in which we all live is not a lawless world; the order in the world is
run by its own inherent laws. The world determines its own mode of origin, patterns of growth and maintenance
according to its inherent laws.
SYADAVADA : The epistemological and logical theory of the Jaina is called ‘Syadavad’. The word
‘Syat’ literally means probable, perhaps or may be and Syadvada is translated as the theory of probability
or the doctrine of the may-be. But probability and may-be suggest skepticism and Jainism is not skepticism.
Again, the word Syat is translated as somehow or perhaps. Though these suggest agnosticism but Jainism is
not agnosticism.
The word ‘syat’ is used here in the sense of the relative and the correct translation of Syadvada is the theory
of Relativity of knowledge. Reality has infinite aspects which are all relative and we can know only some of
these aspects. All our judgments, therefore, are necessarily relative, conditional and limited. ‘Syat’ or
‘Relatively speaking’ or ‘View from a particular view-point which is necessarily related to other view-
points’ must precede all our judgments. Absolute affirmation and absolute negation both are wrong. All our
judgments, therefore is relative and conditional.
SYLLOGISM : Any deductive argument in which a conclusion is inferred from two premises.
SYNTAX : Formal arrangement of symbols in a symbolic system. Logical syntax indicates the formal rules of a
symbolic system.
SYNTHETIC PROPOSITION (JUDGMENT) : In traditional logic, a proposition in which the predicate is

not necessarily implied by the subject to which it is attributed, as, for example, “The orbits of the planets are
ellipses.” (There is no logical reason why planetary orbits should not be circular instead of elliptical. They
are not elliptical by definition. Hence their elliptical form is not logically implied). In modern logic, a
proposition the truth or falsity of which cannot be established simply by an examination of the proposition
itself, and which must, therefore, be verified empirically. A proposition which is not logically true. A factual
proposition. A proposition or statement which is neither analytic nor self-contradictory.
SYNTHETIC STATEMENT : A statement whose truth value cannot be determined by logical analysis; a
statement in which the subject does not imply the predicate. Hence, a synthetic statement would be a
statement whose truth value cannot be determined by logical analysis and which is nevertheless universally
and necessarily true.
PATANJALI
T
TATTVA : absolute reality
TAUTOLOGY : A statement which is necessarily true by virtue of its logical form, Also, A rule of replacement of
the forms:
THING - IN - ITSELF :An object as it is. As per Kant, we cannot know things - in - themselves but can only
postulate their nature from what we know about observable phenomena.
TABULA RASA : In Locke’s philosophy, the term, meaning ‘’black tablet’’, used to describe the mind’s at birth
as being without innate ideas. It refers to the human mind before it has received information from the senses.
Locke thought that the mind is like a blank slate until the senses impress upon it information about the
external world.
TAUTOLOGY : An analytically true statement; a statement which can be shown to be true by logical analysis. In
contemporary logic, a tautology is a statement that is necessarily true because of its logical form, e.g.,
“Black dogs are black.”
TELEOLOGICAL : Explanation of events not by their antecedents but by their results and purposes; that is, not
by efficient but by final causation. The explanatory purpose may be regarded as external (argument from
design) or internal (biological ends, entelechies). Indicates also attempts to explain the nature and arrangement
of the parts by the whole of which they are the constituents, as, for example, in the case of organic bodies.
TELEOLOGICAL ARGUMENT : An argument devised to prove God’s existence by maintaining that evidence
of design or purpose in nature suggests the existence of a cosmic designer.
TELEOLOGY : Any theory of ends of purposes Or, the study of events as signs of purpose.
THEISM : (Often used as a synonym for monotheism) is belief in a personal deity.
Religious philosophy asserting existence of God as a living being. Usually identified with monotheism. Theism is
opposed to pantheism, q.v., by holding that God is not identical with the world. Often used in opposition to
deism, q.v., as indicating that God is at least partially immanent in the world rather than totally transcendent to it.
THEOCRACY : Literally, rule by God; the principle that religious authority should prevail over political authority,
usually through the domination of church over state.
THEODICY : Theory to justify the goodness of God in view of the evil in the world. A theory which purports to
solve the problems of evil.
THEOLOGY : The philosophical study of God and of problems concerned with God. Natural theology stresses
reason and empirical evidence: revealed theology depends on revelation.
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THINK TANK : An interest group specifically formed to develop policy proposals and campaign for
their acceptance amongst opinion formers and policy-makers.
TRANSCENDENT: Beyond the natural world of sense experience. Opposite of immanent.
TRANSCENDENTAL ILLUSION : A term used by Kant for the illusions of traditional metaphysics; they are
illusions, natural and inevitable (in the same way as the large appearance of the moon at its rising), arising
from the inherent tendency of human reason to trespass beyond its boundaries. The aim of the Transcendental
Dialectic is to expose their illusory character.
TRANSCENDENTAL PHILOSOPHY : Philosophy which studies either the a priori form of experience or
experience as formed a priori. Or, philosophy which regards the spiritual as the essence of reality or as a
mode of being which transcends the empirical and the physical.
TRUTH FUNCTIONAL STATEMENT : A compound statement is said to be a truth functional statement
when its truth or falsity can be determined solely from the truth or falsity of its constituent statements or
propositions.
TYPES, THEORY OF : Theory in modern logic, intended to avoid certain logical paradoxes, based on the
principle that “whatever involves all of a collection must not be one of the collection.”
U
UNIFORMITY OF NATURE : Presumption that the future will be like the past, assumption that the world
exhibits enough regularity to warrant inductive reasoning. Hume pointed out that such uniformity is presupposed
by all of our belief in matters of fact, Mill identified several practical methods for recognizing its instances,
but Goodman raised a significant paradox of induction.
UNMOVED MOVER : That which initiates motion, but which is itself unmoved. The first of the Five Ways of
Aquinas argues for such an entity. The first cause, or mover, not itself moved; God, as the prime mover.
UNIVERSAL : In metaphysics, usually an entity which is apprehended by the intellect rather than by the
senses and whose reality is independent of any exemplification in space and time.
UPADANA ( ) : Constituting matter, material cause.
UPAMANA ( ) (comparison) : A source of valid knowledge (pramana), accepted by Nyaya, Mimamsa and
Advaita Vedanta. Upamana means ‘knowledge by similarity’; According to Nyaya, comparison is the
knowledge of the relation between a word and the object denoted by that word. It is the knowledge of
similarity of an unknown object like wild cow with a known object like a cow.
PATANJALI
UPANISHADS ( ) : Concluding portion of the Vedas containing sacred knowledge of reality.
UTILITARIANISM : According to this moral theory actions are to be judged according to their utility or usefulness
as means for promotion of greatest happiness of the greatest number.
UTOPIA : The word was created by Thomas More. It describes in detail a society with ideal political structures
and an ideal way of life.
Literally, nowhere or good place; an ideal or perfect society.
V
VALIDITY : In logic, a proposition is valid if it follows necessarily from the accepted premises. When this is the
case, the argument or reasoning is valid. Validity is not to be confused with truth. A valid proposition may
or may not be true.
VALUE, INTRINSIC : The value which something has by virtue of its intrinsic quality; the value of something
which is worthwhile on its own account and not merely as a means.
VEDANTA : Vedanta literally means "the end of the Vedas" or the doctrines set forth in the closing
chapter of the Vedas, which are the Upanisads. Upanishads are known as Vedanta. Subsequently, however,
Vedanta came to mean all the thoughts that developed out of the Upanisads. The Upanisads may be regarded
as the end of the Vedas in different senses : (i) Because they are literally the concluding portion, the end of
the Vedas. (ii) Secondly because they are the essence, the cream, the height of the Vedic philosophy.
Upanisads mark the culmination of the philosophical speculation found in the Vedas.
VERIFIABILITY PRINCIPLE : Also called the verification principle, control tenet of logical positivism. It
assumes that meaningful statements can be divided into two broad classes. One contains the statements that
are analytically tree or false, that is, true or false entirely in virtue of their meaning. The other contains
synthetic statements.
The verifiability principle formulates a criterion of meaningfulness of a synthetic statement to be meaningful,

it must be possible to determine the truth-value of the statement directly or indirectly by means of sensory
experience.
VERIFICATION : Process of determining the truth or falsity of a proposition.
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VIENNA CIRCLE : A group of philosophers, scientists, and mathematicians formed in the 1920s that met
regularly in Vienna to investigate scientific language and scientific methodology. The philosophical movement
associated with the Circle has been called variously logical positivism, logical empiricism, scientific empiricism,
neopositivism, and the unity of science movement. Members of the circle included Carnap, Feigl, Gooedl,
Neveralt, Sehlick, Hahn and Waismann. The Vienna Circle, founded by M. Schlick in 1924, ending with his
death in 1936.
The members of the Vienna Circle were especially interested in working out a secure intellectual foundation
for all science. They felt that the sciences, though not now highly unified, belong logically to one coherent
system. The problem was to find an inclusive terminological and conceptual system common to all the
sciences and not limited to one or only a few of them. This led to a study of the language of particular
sciences and an analysis of language in general in the hope of finding a universal language of science. The
members of this philosophical group believe the proper task of philosophy to be the analysis of language,
especially the language of science.
The approach represents a definite shift from the methods and tactics of traditional philosophy. Instead of
attacking the arguments per se of the traditional philosophers, the members of this school have turned to a
criticism of language in an attempt to show that the older issues are meaningless as presented. Logical
positivists tend to claim that their method or approach is independent of metaphysics. Their critics, however,
challenge this claim.
Their aim was a unity of science expressed in a common language to be reached by a logical analysis and,
hence, a clarification of the statements made in the various sciences. In this clarification they adopted a
‘Verifiability Principle’ of meaning which accepted two kinds of statements as meaningful: the analytic ones (plus
their negations), and those whose truth or falsity can be tested by perceptual experience. Other statements were
rejected as unscientific and, indeed, as cognitively meaningless. These included not only some speculations in
science, such as those about phlogiston and the aether, but also the whole of traditional metaphysics. However,
they accepted logical and mathematical statements as meaningful, though not verifiable by perceptual
experience, and this is why their positivism was distinguished from earlier forms by the epithet ‘logical’.
VIDEHA MUKTIH: Liberation after leaving the body.
VISISTADVAITA: While Sankara's Vedanta is called Advaita (non-dualism), Ramanuja's is called

Visistadvaita (non-dualism qualified by difference). The Abssolute is an organic unity, an identity which is
qualified by diversity. It is a concrete whole (vishista) which consists of the interrelated and inter-dependent
subordinate elements which are called 'vishesanas' and the immanent and controlling spirit which is called
'vishesya'. Unity means realization of being a vital member of this organic whole. God or the Absolute is this
whole. He is the immanent inner controller, the Supreme Real who holds together in unity the dependent
matter and individual souls as His body.
PATANJALI
VOLUNTARY ACTION : An action performed by a self-conscious and self-determined agent deliberately and
intentionally to realise some foreseen ends with the free choice of means.
VYAPTI: Vyapti is the logical ground of inference. The invariable concomitance relation between
middle term with the major term is called vyapti. For instance, smoke is perceived on the hill and fire is
inferred. But this inference can take place only when the Vyapti between smoke and fire is already known.
Hence Vyapti leads to the knowledge of the inferred object.
In inference our knowledge of the Sadhya (major term) as related to the Paksa( minor term) depends on the
knowledge of invariable, concomitance, universal, unconditional relation between the middle term and the
major term (Vyapti ).
W
WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION : Weapons capable of destroying large areas or killing large segments
of the population; nonconventional weapons, in particular nuclear, biological, chemical and radiological
weapons.
WELFARE STATE : A state that takes primary responsibility for the social welfare of its citizens, discharged
through a range of social-security, health, education and other services (albeit different in different societies).
WISDOM : Good judgment with respect to abstract truth or theoretical matters. for Plato, wisdom is the virtue
appropriate to the rational soul and for Aristotle, it is the highest intellectual virtue.
WORLD :The universe; the system of totality of whatever exists.
X
XENOPHANES : (c.570–c.475 B.C.) Greek philosopher, who criticized traditional view of the Gods and
developed a rational theology to replace them. He was against the human propensity to create gods in our
own image:
But mortals think the gods are born and have dress and voice and form like into them.
But if horses or oxen or lions had hands
or could draw with their hands and accomplish such works as men,
horses would draw the figures of the gods as similar to horses, and the oxen as similar to oxen,
and they would make the bodies
of the sort which each of them had.
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Y
YOGA : Patanjali the traditional founder of the Yoga System. The world ‘Yoga’, literally means ‘Union’
i.e., spiritual union of the individual soul with the Universal Soul. The word Yoga is used in a variety of
senses. The word Yoga may mean : (1) Spiritual unification, i.e. the union of the soul with the supreme soul;
(2) Concentration of the mind; (3) Complete suppression of the mental modes. In Patanjali, the word Yoga
does not mean union, but spiritual effort to attain perfection through the control of the body, mind and the
senses. In the Patanjali system, the word Yoga is used in the third sense of the term. Here Yoga is defined
as the cessation of the modifications of chitta. This cessation is through meditation of concentration which is
also called Yoga.
Yoga is intimately allied to Sankhya. Sankhya is theory; Yoga is practice. The classical Sankhya is atheistic,
but the Yoga is theistic. The Yoga is, therefore, known as Theistic Sankhya (Sesvara Sankhya).
YOGACHARA BUDDHISM : An important philosophical school of Buddhism. This school is
called Yogachara because it emphasizes the importance of Yogic meditation for the realization of pure
knowledge (Bodhi). Its followers are called Vijnaanavadins (subjective idealists) because they
hold that Vijnaana (idea) or Chitta (mind) is the only reality. The Yogacaras do not recognize the
reality of external objects. They reduce them to cognitions.
REFERENCE BOOKS
(i) The Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy, edited by Thomas Mautner.
(ii) The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, edited by Robert Audi.
(iii) Encyclopedia of Vedanta, Prof. Ram Murti Sharma.
(iv) Dictionary of Indian Philosophical Concepts by Dr. B.N. Singh.
(v) Manual of Buddhist Terms and Doctrines, edited by Nyanaponika
(v) History of Western Philosophy, Bertrand Russell.
(v) History of Philosophy, Fuller and MacMurrin.
(v) Living Issues in Philosophy, Harold H. Titus,
(vi) A History of Philosophy, Central Publishing House, Allahabad.
(vii) Philosophers of East and West, E.W.F. Tomlin.
(viii) Political Ideas and Concepts — An Introduction, by Andrew Heywood.

PATANJALI
Outshining Results in A Tradition of EXCELLENT RESULTS
PHILOSOPHY 2014 Incredible Performance YEAR AFTER YEAR
Nisha
463
Nagesh Pandey
690
Vinod Kr Chaudhary
806

(Class and Notes) Philosophy Dictionary - 2022-03-09

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PHILOSOPHY

ANUPALABDHI : (Non-Apprehension, Negation) According to Kumarila Bhatta and others non-

ANVITABHIDHANVADA : (Sentence-meaning) (Prabhakara) : A sentence is first a

APRITHAKA-SIDDHI : Accepted by Ramanuja, Aprithaka-Siddhi is an inner, inseparable organic

CONTINGENT : A proposition that could be either true or false.

COOPERATION : Working together, collective effort intended to achieve mutual benefit.

DHARMA : In Indian philosophy, the cosmic law, virtue, the right.

DHARMABHUTAJNANA : Ramanuja distinguishes consciousness into two types: substantive

EVIL : Mean physical pain, mental suffering and moral wickedness.

GENOCIDE : An attempt to eradicate a people, identified by their nationality, race, ethnicity or

HYLOZOISM : The belief that all matter is living substance.

MIRACLE : An extraordinary event brought about by God.

NIRVANA : (Duhka-Nirodha)Cessation of suffering) Nirvana is the summum bonum of Buddhism.

NIR-VIKALPAKA : pure sensation, devoid of any synthesis or thought-construction.

PHENOMENOLOGY : The philosophy of Edmund Husserl (1859-1938), which purported to be a science of

POSITIVE FREEDOM : Freedom as personal development, self-realization or self-mastery; sometimes seen

An unrealized or latent capacity or power. Opposite of actuality.

PRAMA : Knowledge of reality or valid cognition is called Prama.

PRAMANA : Source of valid cognition.

PREMISE : A proposition on which, at least in part, the conclusion of an argument is based.

SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY : Etymologically, what is speculative is theoretical , in contrast to the practical

SVABHAVA-VADA : Svabhava (Own-being) is a key concept of Charvaka School. According to

SYNTHETIC PROPOSITION (JUDGMENT) : In traditional logic, a proposition in which the predicate is

UPADANA ( ) : Constituting matter, material cause.

Literally, nowhere or good place; an ideal or perfect society.

The verifiability principle formulates a criterion of meaningfulness of a synthetic statement to be meaningful,

VERIFICATION : Process of determining the truth or falsity of a proposition.

VISISTADVAITA: While Sankara's Vedanta is called Advaita (non-dualism), Ramanuja's is called

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