Great Ideas of Philosophy

Apatheia: Freedom from pathos and suffering.GlossaryAtman: The soul, or core reality of the human individual. Hindu.Brahma: The “creator” within the Hindu divine triad—Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva.Categorical imperative: Driver for one alternative action over another made on principles whose moral authoritytakes precedence over any merely hypothetical imperative. Categorical imperatives derive from the intelligiblerealm governed by “the laws of freedom,” rather than the natural realm of physical determination. Unlikehypothetical imperatives, they must be universally applicable. That is, they do not depend on a calculation of utilityor on any calculation of possible consequences in particular circumstances.Chthonic religion: Earth-centered religion, in which women or female deities are central figures because of theirprocreative power. Common in matriarchal societies.Common sense: Scottish school of thought from the 18 th and early 19 th centuries, holding that in the perception ofthe average, unsophisticated person, sensations are not mere ideas or subjective impressions but carry with them thebelief in corresponding qualities as belonging to external objects.Contiguity: Similarity in time or place.Ecstasis: Greek; “ecstasy.” Stepping outside oneself or being removed from oneself.Ego: According to Sigmund Freud’s theory of psychoanalysis, one of the three parts that make up the self. The egois purported to stand between the id and the superego to balance our primitive needs and our moral/ethical beliefs.Eidola: “Phantoms,” or atomic emanations from material objects that have some access to the organs of sense.Concept proposed by ancient atomists to explain hallucinations, dreams, religious visions, and so on.Empiricism: The philosophical view that all human knowledge is derived from experience and that which cannotbe confirmed via experience is not naturally known.Enlightenment: Eighteenth-century European intellectual movement that rejected the presumptive authority of thepast in favor of a reliance on experience and reason/science.Enthousiasmos: Greek; “enthusiasm.” Presenting oneself in such a way that the gods can enter the self.Ephistemonikon: Abstract and universal statements.Episteme: Scientific knowledge.Epistemology: The study of how we know what we know and whether the way we go about knowing is defensible,one of the central questions in the study of metaphysics. Examines the question of knowledge and attempts tocharacterize the nature of truth and science.Eudaimonia: The doing of something for its own sake, as the gods do. “Happiness.”Experimenta fructifera: One of two types of experiments described in Francis Bacon’s Novum Organum; theseconsequential experiments are designed to allow the observer to choose between competing accounts of facts onhand.Experimenta lucifera: One of two types of experiments described in Francis Bacon’s Novum Organum; these“light-shedding” experiments alert the observer to factors operative in the causal matrix that brings things about.Such studies are essentially exercises in fact gathering.Fallibilism: View that there is always more to the account than any current version can include, because otherexperiences, beliefs, and needs are always in existence.Fatalism: The belief that every event is bound to happen as it does no matter what we do about it. Fatalism is themost extreme form of causal determinism, because it denies that human actions have any causal efficacy.©2004 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership 39