Action (philosophy)
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Action (philosophy)
In philosophy, an action is something an Agency (philosophy), agent does. Actions contrast with events which merely happen to someone and are typically performed for a Goal, purpose and guided by an intention. The first question in the Action theory (philosophy), philosophy of action is to determine how actions differ from other forms of behavior, like Reflex, involuntary reflexes. According to Ludwig Wittgenstein, it involves discovering "What is left over if I subtract the fact that my arm goes up from the fact that I raise my arm". A common response to this question focuses on the agent's intentions. So driving a car is an action since the agent intends to do so, but sneezing is a mere behavior since it happens independent of the agent's intention. The dominant theory of the relation between the intention and the behavior is ''causalism'': driving the car is an action because it is ''caused'' by the agent's intention to do so. On this view, actions are distinguished from other ...
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Philosophy
Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational and critical inquiry that reflects on its methods and assumptions. Historically, many of the individual sciences, such as physics and psychology, formed part of philosophy. However, they are considered separate academic disciplines in the modern sense of the term. Influential traditions in the history of philosophy include Western philosophy, Western, Islamic philosophy, Arabic–Persian, Indian philosophy, Indian, and Chinese philosophy. Western philosophy originated in Ancient Greece and covers a wide area of philosophical subfields. A central topic in Arabic–Persian philosophy is the relation between reason and revelation. Indian philosophy combines the Spirituality, spiritual problem of how to reach Enlightenment in Buddhism, enlighten ...
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False Dilemma
A false dilemma, also referred to as false dichotomy or false binary, is an informal fallacy based on a premise that erroneously limits what options are available. The source of the fallacy lies not in an invalid form of inference but in a false premise. This premise has the form of a disjunctive claim: it asserts that one among a number of alternatives must be true. This disjunction is problematic because it oversimplifies the choice by excluding viable alternatives, presenting the viewer with only two absolute choices when, in fact, there could be many. False dilemmas often have the form of treating two contraries, which may both be false, as contradictories, of which one is necessarily true. Various inferential schemes are associated with false dilemmas, for example, the constructive dilemma, the destructive dilemma or the disjunctive syllogism. False dilemmas are usually discussed in terms of deductive arguments, but they can also occur as defeasible arguments. The h ...
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Enactive
Enactivism is a position in cognitive science that argues that cognition arises through a dynamic interaction between an acting organism and its environment. It claims that the environment of an organism is brought about, or enacted, by the active exercise of that organism's sensorimotor processes. "The key point, then, is that the species brings forth and specifies its own domain of problems ...this domain does not exist "out there" in an environment that acts as a landing pad for organisms that somehow drop or parachute into the world. Instead, living beings and their environments stand in relation to each other through mutual specification or codetermination" (p. 198). "Organisms do not passively receive information from their environments, which they then translate into internal representations. Natural cognitive systems...participate in the generation of meaning ...engaging in transformational and not merely informational interactions: ''they enact a world''." These authors ...
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Negligence
Negligence ( Lat. ''negligentia'') is a failure to exercise appropriate care expected to be exercised in similar circumstances. Within the scope of tort law, negligence pertains to harm caused by the violation of a duty of care through a negligent act or failure to act. The concept of negligence is linked to the obligation of individuals to exercise reasonable care in their actions and to consider foreseeable harm that their conduct might cause to other people or property. The elements of a negligence claim include the duty to act or refrain from action, breach of that duty, actual and proximate cause of harm, and damages. Someone who suffers loss caused by another's negligence may be able to sue for damages to compensate for their harm. Such loss may include physical injury, harm to property, psychiatric illness, or economic loss. Elements of negligence claims To successfully pursue a claim of negligence through a lawsuit, a plaintiff must establish the " elements" of neg ...
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Omission (law)
In law, an omission is a failure to act, which generally attracts different legal consequences from positive conduct. In the criminal law, an omission will constitute an ''actus reus'' and give rise to liability only when the law imposes a duty to act and the defendant is in breach of that duty. In tort law, similarly, liability will be imposed for an omission only exceptionally, when it can be established that the defendant was under a duty to act or duty of care. Criminal law In the criminal law, at common law, there was no general duty of care owed to fellow citizens. The traditional view was encapsulated in the example of watching a person drown in shallow water and making no rescue effort, where commentators borrowed the line, "Thou shalt not kill but needst not strive, officiously, to keep another alive." ( Arthur Hugh Clough (1819–1861)) in support of the proposition that the failure to act does not attract criminal liability. Nevertheless, such failures might be moral ...
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Wishful Thinking
Wishful thinking is the formation of beliefs based on what might be pleasing to imagine, rather than on evidence, rationality, or reality. It is a product of resolving conflicts between belief and desire. Methodologies to examine wishful thinking are diverse. Various disciplines and schools of thought examine related mechanisms such as neural circuitry, human cognition and emotion, types of bias, procrastination, motivation, optimism, attention and environment. This concept has been examined as a fallacy. It is related to the concept of wishful seeing. Some psychologists believe that positive thinking is able to positively influence behavior and so bring about better results. This is called the " Pygmalion effect". Christopher Booker discussed wishful thinking in terms of "the fantasy cycle", which he described as "a pattern that recurs in personal lives, in politics, in history – and in storytelling." He added: "When we embark on a course of action which is unconscious ...
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Meditation
Meditation is a practice in which an individual uses a technique to train attention and awareness and detach from reflexive, "discursive thinking", achieving a mentally clear and emotionally calm and stable state, while not judging the meditation process itself. Techniques are broadly classified into focused (or concentrative) and open monitoring methods. Focused methods involve attention to specific objects like breath or mantras, while open monitoring includes mindfulness and awareness of mental events. Meditation is practiced in numerous religious traditions, though it is also practised independently from any religious or spiritual influences for its health benefits. The earliest records of meditation ('' dhyana'') are found in the Upanishads, and meditation plays a salient role in the contemplative repertoire of Jainism, Buddhism and Hinduism. Meditation-like techniques are also known in Judaism, Christianity and Islam, in the context of remembrance of and prayer and dev ...
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Galen Strawson
Galen John Strawson (; born 1952) is a British analytic philosopher and literary critic who works primarily on philosophy of mind, metaphysics (including free will, panpsychism, the mind–body problem, and the self), John Locke, David Hume, Immanuel Kant and Friedrich Nietzsche. He has been a consultant editor at '' The Times Literary Supplement'' for many years, and a regular book reviewer for ''The Observer'', ''The Sunday Times'', ''The Independent'', the ''Financial Times'' and ''The Guardian''. He is the son of philosopher P. F. Strawson. He holds a chair in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Texas, Austin, and taught for many years before that at the University of Reading, City University of New York, and Oxford University. Education and career Strawson, the elder son of Oxford philosopher P. F. Strawson, was educated at the Dragon School, Oxford (1959–65), where he won a scholarship to Winchester College (1965–68). He left school at 16, after compl ...
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Assassination Of Abraham Lincoln
On April 14, 1865, Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, was shot by John Wilkes Booth while attending the play '' Our American Cousin'' at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. Shot in the head as he watched the play, Lincoln died of his wounds the following day at 7:22 a.m. in the Petersen House opposite the theater. He was the first U.S. president to be assassinated. His funeral and burial were marked by an extended period of national mourning. Near the end of the American Civil War, Lincoln's assassination was part of a larger political conspiracy intended by Booth to revive the Confederate cause by eliminating the three most important officials of the federal government. Conspirators Lewis Powell and David Herold were assigned to kill Secretary of State William H. Seward, and George Atzerodt was tasked with killing Vice President Andrew Johnson. Beyond Lincoln's death, the plot failed: Seward was only wounded, and Johnson's would-be att ...
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John Wilkes Booth
John Wilkes Booth (May 10, 1838April 26, 1865) was an American stage actor who Assassination of Abraham Lincoln, assassinated United States president Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., on April 14, 1865. A member of the prominent 19th-century Booth family, Booth theatrical family from Maryland, he was a noted actor who was also a Confederate States of America, Confederate sympathizer; denouncing Lincoln, he lamented the then-recent Abolitionism in the United States, abolition of slavery in the United States. Originally, Booth and his small group of conspirators had plotted to kidnap Lincoln to aid the Confederate cause. They later decided to murder him, as well as Vice President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William H. Seward. Although the Army of Northern Virginia, commanded by General Robert E. Lee, had surrendered to the Union Army four days earlier, Booth believed that the American Civil War remained unresolved because the Army of Tennessee of ...
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Explanation
An explanation is a set of statements usually constructed to describe a set of facts that clarifies the causes, context, and consequences of those facts. It may establish rules or laws, and clarifies the existing rules or laws in relation to any objects or phenomena examined. In philosophy, an explanation is a set of statements which render understandable the existence or occurrence of an object, event, or state of affairs. Among its most common forms are: * Causal explanation * Deductive-nomological explanation, involves subsuming the explanandum under a generalization from which it may be derived in a deductive argument. For example, “All gases expand when heated; this gas was heated; therefore, this gas expanded". * Statistical explanation, involves subsuming the explanandum under a generalization that gives it inductive support. For example, “Most people who use tobacco contract cancer; this person used tobacco; therefore, this person contracted cancer”. Explan ...
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Motivation
Motivation is an mental state, internal state that propels individuals to engage in goal-directed behavior. It is often understood as a force that explains why people or animals initiate, continue, or terminate a certain behavior at a particular time. It is a complex phenomenon and its precise definition is disputed. It contrasts with #Amotivation and akrasia, amotivation, which is a state of apathy or listlessness. Motivation is studied in fields like psychology, neuroscience, motivation science, and philosophy. Motivational states are characterized by their direction, Motivational intensity, intensity, and persistence. The direction of a motivational state is shaped by the goal it aims to achieve. Intensity is the strength of the state and affects whether the state is translated into action and how much effort is employed. Persistence refers to how long an individual is willing to engage in an activity. Motivation is often divided into two phases: in the first phase, the indi ...
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