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Problem Of Universals
The problem of universals is an ancient question from metaphysics that has inspired a range of philosophical topics and disputes: "Should the properties an object has in common with other objects, such as color and shape, be considered to exist beyond those objects? And if a property exists separately from objects, what is the nature of that existence?" The problem of universals relates to various inquiries closely related to metaphysics, logic, and epistemology, as far back as Plato and Aristotle, in efforts to define the mental connections a human makes when they understand a property such as shape or color to be the same in nonidentical objects. Universals are qualities or relations found in two or more entities. As an example, if all cup holders are ''circular'' in some way, ''circularity'' may be considered a universal property of cup holders. Further, if two daughters can be considered ''female offspring of Frank'', the qualities of being ''female'', ''offspring'', and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Boethius Initial Consolation Philosophy
Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius, commonly known simply as Boethius (; Latin: ''Boetius''; 480–524 AD), was a Roman Roman Senate, senator, Roman consul, consul, ''magister officiorum'', polymath, historian, and philosopher of the Early Middle Ages. He was a central figure in the translation of the Greek classics into Latin, a precursor to the Scholasticism, Scholastic movement, and, along with Cassiodorus, one of the two leading Christian scholars of the 6th century. The local cult of Boethius in the Diocese of Pavia was sanctioned by the Sacred Congregation of Rites in 1883, confirming the diocese's custom of honouring him on the 23 October. Boethius was born in Rome a few years after the forced abdication of the last Western Roman Empire, Western Roman emperor, Romulus Augustulus. A member of the Anicii family, he was orphaned following the family's sudden decline and was raised by Quintus Aurelius Memmius Symmachus, a later Roman consul, consul. After mastering both Latin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Theory Of Forms
The Theory of Forms or Theory of Ideas, also known as Platonic idealism or Platonic realism, is a philosophical theory credited to the Classical Greek philosopher Plato. A major concept in metaphysics, the theory suggests that the physical world is not as real or true as Forms. According to this theory, Forms—conventionally capitalized and also commonly translated as Ideas—are the timeless, absolute, non-physical, and unchangeable essences of all things, which objects and matter in the physical world merely participate in, imitate, or resemble. In other words, Forms are various abstract ideals that exist even outside of human minds and that constitute the basis of reality. Thus, Plato's Theory of Forms is a type of philosophical realism, asserting that certain ideas are literally real, and a type of idealism, asserting that reality is fundamentally composed of ideas, or abstract objects. Plato describes these entities only through the characters (primarily Socrates) in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Boethius
Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius, commonly known simply as Boethius (; Latin: ''Boetius''; 480–524 AD), was a Roman Roman Senate, senator, Roman consul, consul, ''magister officiorum'', polymath, historian, and philosopher of the Early Middle Ages. He was a central figure in the translation of the Greek classics into Latin, a precursor to the Scholasticism, Scholastic movement, and, along with Cassiodorus, one of the two leading Christian scholars of the 6th century. The local cult of Boethius in the Diocese of Pavia was sanctioned by the Sacred Congregation of Rites in 1883, confirming the diocese's custom of honouring him on the 23 October. Boethius was born in Rome a few years after the forced abdication of the last Western Roman Empire, Western Roman emperor, Romulus Augustulus. A member of the Anicii family, he was orphaned following the family's sudden decline and was raised by Quintus Aurelius Memmius Symmachus, a later Roman consul, consul. After mastering both Latin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Moderate Realism
Moderate realism (also called immanent realism) is a position in the debate on the metaphysics of universals which holds that there is no realm in which universals exist (in opposition to Platonic realism, which asserts the existence of abstract objects), nor do they really exist within particulars ''as universals'', but rather universals really exist within particulars ''as particularised'', and multiplied. Overview Moderate realism is opposed to both the theory of Platonic forms and nominalism. Nominalists deny the existence of universals altogether, even as particularised and multiplied within particulars. Moderate realism, however, is considered a midpoint between Platonic realism and nominalism as it holds that the universals are located in space and time although they do not have separate realms. Aristotle espoused a form of moderate realism as did Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure, and Duns Scotus (cf. Scotist realism). Moderate realism is anti-realist about abstract o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Inductive Reasoning
Inductive reasoning refers to a variety of method of reasoning, methods of reasoning in which the conclusion of an argument is supported not with deductive certainty, but with some degree of probability. Unlike Deductive reasoning, ''deductive'' reasoning (such as mathematical induction), where the conclusion is ''certain'', given the premises are correct, inductive reasoning produces conclusions that are at best ''probable'', given the evidence provided. Types The types of inductive reasoning include generalization, prediction, statistical syllogism, argument from analogy, and causal inference. There are also differences in how their results are regarded. Inductive generalization A generalization (more accurately, an ''inductive generalization'') proceeds from premises about a Sample (statistics), sample to a conclusion about the statistical population, population. The observation obtained from this sample is projected onto the broader population. : The proportion Q of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Empiricism
In philosophy, empiricism is an epistemological view which holds that true knowledge or justification comes only or primarily from sensory experience and empirical evidence. It is one of several competing views within epistemology, along with rationalism and skepticism. Empiricists argue that empiricism is a more reliable method of finding the truth than purely using logical reasoning, because humans have cognitive biases and limitations which lead to errors of judgement. Empiricism emphasizes the central role of empirical evidence in the formation of ideas, rather than innate ideas or traditions. Empiricists may argue that traditions (or customs) arise due to relations of previous sensory experiences. Historically, empiricism was associated with the " blank slate" concept (''tabula rasa''), according to which the human mind is "blank" at birth and develops its thoughts only through later experience. Empiricism in the philosophy of science emphasizes evidence, especi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Present
The present is the period of time that is occurring now. The present is contrasted with the past, the period of time that has already occurred; and the future, the period of time that has yet to occur. It is sometimes represented as a hyperplane in space-time, typically called "now", although modern physics demonstrates that such a hyperplane cannot be defined uniquely for observers in relative motion. The present may also be viewed as a duration. Historiography Contemporary history describes the historical timeframe immediately relevant to the present time and is a certain perspective of modern history. Philosophy and religion Philosophy of time "The present" raises the question: "How is it that all sentient beings experience ''now'' at the same time?" There is no logical reason why this should be the case and no easy answer to the question. In Buddhism Buddhism and many of its associated paradigms emphasize the importance of living in the present moment—being ful ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
De Interpretatione
''On Interpretation'' (Greek: , ) is the second text from Aristotle's ''Organon'' and is among the earliest surviving philosophical works in the Western tradition to deal with the relationship between language and logic in a comprehensive, explicit, and formal way. The work begins by analyzing simple ''categoric'' propositions, and draws a series of basic conclusions on the routine issues of classifying and defining basic linguistic forms, such as ''simple terms'' and ''propositions'', nouns and verbs, negation, the ''quantity'' of simple propositions (primitive roots of the quantifiers in modern symbolic logic), investigations on the ''excluded middle'' (which to Aristotle is not applicable to future tense propositions—the problem of future contingents), and on modal propositions. From the work, comes the idea of ''Apophansis (Greek: ἀπόφανσις), that considers the nature of nouns and verbs and how they might be combined as a proposition, which is the combination of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Categories (Aristotle)
The ''Categories'' (; or ) is a text from Aristotle's '' Organon'' that enumerates all the possible kinds of things that can be the subject or the predicate of a proposition. They are "perhaps the single most heavily discussed of all Aristotelian notions". The work is brief enough to be divided not into books, as is usual with Aristotle's works, but into fifteen chapters. The ''Categories'' places every object of human apprehension under one of ten categories (known to medieval writers as the Latin term ). Aristotle intended them to enumerate everything that can be expressed without composition or structure, thus anything that can be either the subject or the predicate of a proposition. The text The antepraedicamenta The text begins with an explication of what Aristotle means by " synonymous", or univocal words, what is meant by "homonymous", or equivocal words, and what is meant by " paronymous", or denominative (sometimes translated "derivative") words. It then divi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Natural Kind
In the philosophy of science and some other branches of philosophy, a "natural kind" is an intellectual grouping, or categorizing of things, that is reflective of the actual world and not just human interests. Some treat it as a classification identifying some structure of truth and reality that exists whether or not humans recognize it. Others treat it as intrinsically useful to the human mind, but not necessarily reflective of something more objective. Candidate examples of natural kinds are found in all the sciences, but the field of chemistry provides the paradigm example of elements. Alexander Bird and Emma Tobin see natural kinds as relevant to metaphysics, epistemology, and the philosophy of language, as well as the philosophy of science. John Dewey held a view that belief in unconditional natural kinds is a mistake, a relic of obsolete scientific practices. Hilary Putnam rejects descriptivist approaches to natural kinds with semantic reasoning. Hasok Chang and Rasmus Win ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nature (philosophy)
Nature has two inter-related meanings in philosophy and natural philosophy. On the one hand, it means the set of all things which are natural, or subject to the normal working of the Physical law, laws of nature. On the other hand, it means the essence, essential properties and causes of individual things. How to understand the meaning and significance of nature has been a consistent theme of discussion within the history of Western Civilization, in the philosophy, philosophical fields of metaphysics and epistemology, as well as in theology and science. The study of natural things and the regular laws which seem to govern them, as opposed to discussion about what it means to be natural, is the area of natural science. The word "nature" derives from Latin ''wikt:natura#Latin, nātūra'', a philosophical term derived from the verb for birth, which was used as a translation for the earlier (pre-Socratic) ancient Greek, Greek term ''Physis, phusis'', derived from the verb for natural ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Geometry
Geometry (; ) is a branch of mathematics concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. Geometry is, along with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. A mathematician who works in the field of geometry is called a ''List of geometers, geometer''. Until the 19th century, geometry was almost exclusively devoted to Euclidean geometry, which includes the notions of point (geometry), point, line (geometry), line, plane (geometry), plane, distance, angle, surface (mathematics), surface, and curve, as fundamental concepts. Originally developed to model the physical world, geometry has applications in almost all sciences, and also in art, architecture, and other activities that are related to graphics. Geometry also has applications in areas of mathematics that are apparently unrelated. For example, methods of algebraic geometry are fundamental in Wiles's proof of Fermat's Last Theorem, Wiles's proof of Fermat's ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
