aesthetics - branch of philosophy concerned with beauty and values in the judgin g of beauty, esp.

in art; esthetics Age of Reason - Enlightenment analytic philosophy - highly structured approach to philosophical problems throu gh modern logic, developed by Ludwig Wittgenstein (20th c.) animism - belief in the conscious life, or soul, of inanimate objects as well as living beings anthroposophy - doctrine that cultivating spiritual development is humankind s mos t important task antinomianism - doctrine that rejects conventional moral law and maintains that salvation derives from faith and grace alone Aristotelianism - practical, empirical philosophy of Aristotle, highly influenti al throughout course of Western history (Greece, 4th c. B.C.) atomism - theory that reality consists of minute, independent material units or atoms (Greece, 5th c. B.C.) axiology - science of and inquiry into values, as in aesthetics and ethics bioethics - study of ethical issues arising from medical and biological research (late 20th c.) Cartesianism - doctrine of Ren Descartes that all knowledge can be firmly establi shed based on certain truths (France, 17th c.) conceptualism - theory that universal ideas exist as mental objects available to all minds Confucianism - quasireligious ethical system of China, based on sayings of Confu cius (6th c. B.C.) cosmology - study of origin and totality of universal realities as basis for met aphysical speculation critical philosophy - doctrine of Immanuel Kant that the world is understood onl y insofar as it conforms to the mind s structure Cynicism - school originating with Diogenes, professing moderation and virtue as sole good, later based on protest and opposition to prevailing philosophical id eas (Greece, 5th c. B.C.) Cyrenaics - hedonistic philosophy of bodily pleasure, precursor to Epicureanism (Greece, 4th c. B.C.) deontology - ethical doctrine of duty as basis of moral obligation determinism - theory that reality and events unfold according to a predetermined , inevitable course dialectical materialism - Marxist form of materialism based on Hegelian dialecti c applied to philosophy of social history dualism - theory that two basic, irreducible opposites, such as light and dark, good and evil, or mind and matter, constitute reality

Eleaticism - Presocratic doctrine of Parmenides that absolute reality is undiffe rentiated and immutable while change is merely apparent (Greece, 6th c. B.C.) empiricism - view that sense perception and experience are sole foundations of k nowledge, esp. held by John Locke (Britain, 17th c.) Encyclopedism - rationalist, humanistic movement to compile an encyclopedic comp endium of knowledge, edited by Denis Diderot (France, 18th c.) Enlightenment - Age of Reason; intellectual movement toward tolerance, positive social action, and humanism, based on belief in perfectibility of people through reason (18th c.) Epicureanism - ethical doctrine of Epicurus, holding pleasure to be highest good , with pleasure deriving from moral conduct (Greece, 3rd c. B.C.) epistemology - theory of knowledge; critical study of nature, limits, and validi ty of knowledge esthetics - aesthetics ethics - science and study of morality and human conduct eudaemonism - ethical system defining moral behavior in terms of happiness and w ell-being existentialism - philosophy emphasizing free will in coming to terms with subjec tive meaning and meaninglessness in one s existence, based on teachings of Sren Kie rkegaard (20th c.) fatalism - doctrine that all events and occurrences are predetermined and inevit able formal logic - branch of logic that emphasizes form and principles of deductive reasoning rather than content of propositions hard determinism - theory that there is no free will or nonpredetermined action hedonism - ethical doctrine of pleasure as highest or only good historical materialism - historicism historicism - deterministic explanation of phenomena in terms of their origins a nd development, associated with Hegel and Marx (19th c.); historical materialism humanism - any philosophical doctrine emphasizing human concerns, motives, and a spirations rather than other natural or spiritual forces, holding human reason t o be the source of its authority hylozoism - doctrine that life is inherent in all matter, whether animal, vegeta ble, or mineral idealism - theory that reality is a creation of mind, and that mental and spirit ual values, rather than matter, constitute reality; immaterialism ideology - scope of ideas within a particular theory or belief system immaterialism - idealism

individualism - political philosophical theory emphasizing personal freedom and autonomy instrumentalism - school of pragmatism that maintains that the value of ideas li es in their practical application to human problems logic - philosophical inquiry into principles and methods of validity and proof logical empiricism - logical positivism logical positivism - school rejecting metaphysics and emphasizing methods of cri ticism and analysis of science, with reliance on principle of verifiability in e xperience or language (20th c.); logical empiricism materialism - theory that reality consists solely of matter, without separate re ality of mind or spirit metaphysics - branch of philosophy concerned with ultimate nature and categories of reality; study of being, existence, and essence; ontology and cosmology monism - doctrine that reality of mind and body are fundamentally one and undiff erentiated and can be reduced to one fundamental force, advocated by Spinoza in 17th c. mysticism - doctrine of direct, inexplicable knowledge and experience of truth a nd reality without rational processes or reliance on creed, orthodoxy, or belief system naturalism - theory that reality consists solely of the natural, observable worl d, with no supernatural or spiritual realm Neoplatonism - school synthesizing Platonic, Aristotelian, Christian, Jewish, an d mystical traditions (3rd-5th c. A.D.) nihilism - doctrine that social and economic order is inherently corrupt and mor ality cannot be justified (Russia, 19th c.) nominalism - theory emphasizing that ideas and objects exist only in particular, not in abstract or general forms, influenced by William of Occam (14th c.) objectivism - theory emphasizing external, objective, rather than internal, subj ective, aspect of reality; ethical theory that good is of value independent of h uman feelings but based on universally valid moral truths optimism - doctrine holding that reality is fundamentally good and the world is governed by benign forces ordinary-language school - movement advocating use of everyday language to resol ve philosophical problems (20th c.) perspectivism - doctrine that reality and truth are known only from perspective of individual or group viewing them at particular moment pessimism - doctrine holding that reality is fundamentally evil and the world is governed by malevolent forces phenomenalism - empirical theory that knowledge exists solely in the appearance of phenomena, or sense data, rather than in the ultimate reality of objects them selves

phenomenology - science of describing and analyzing classes of phenomena and con sciousness (20th c.) philosophes - leading thinkers of the Enlightenment (France, 18th c.) philosophy - study and pursuit of fundamental principles underlying knowledge, c onduct, and universal reality, esp. disciplines of aesthetics, epistemology, eth ics, logic, and metaphysics Platonism - idealistic philosophy of Plato, derived from teaching of Socrates; c lassic idealism and belief that the human mind can attain absolute truth (Greece , 4th c. B.C.) pluralism - theory that reality consists of several distinct, fundamental realit ies political philosophy - study of people as political animals and relationship bet ween government and citizens positivism - theory that truth or knowledge is based solely on what is scientifi cally verifiable by direct experience, based on teachings of Auguste Comte (19th c.) pragmatics - branch of semiotics concerned with causal relationships between sym bols and words and their users pragmatism - philosophical view emphasizing consequences and practical results o f one s conduct rather than principles and categories of reality (19th c.) pre-Socratics - those Greek philosophers of nature who lived before Socrates, es p. the Pythagoreans Pythagoreanism - doctrines of Pythagoras, esp. that universe is manifestation of various combinations of mathematical ratios (Greece, 6th c. B.C.) Ramism - opposition to Aristotelianism and advocacy of new logic in doctrines of Ramus rationalism - theory emphasizing reasoned, not empirical, foundations of knowled ge; truth apprehended by deductive reasoning independent of experience or observ ation (17th c.) realism - theory that universal concepts and reality exist independently of perc eption relativism - theory that truth and ethical values are relative, not absolute and independent, and are contingent on nature of mind scholasticism - medieval, Christian philosophical school based on empiricism of Aristotle and teachings of Thomas Aquinas (11th-13th c.) scientific method - empirical, experimental approach to proof and the analysis o f phenomena semantics - branch of semiotics concerned with signs and things they signify semiotics - theory of signs and symbols used in communication skepticism - theory that man can never attain certain knowledge and that all kno wledge should be questioned

soft determinism - theory that although events are determined by cause and effec t, free will is possible Sophists - wandering teachers who emphasized rhetoric over truth and taught what ever their students wanted to learn (Greece, 5th-4th c. B.C.) Stoicism - pantheistic philosophy founded by Zeno of Citium encompassing doctrin e of submission to divine will and freedom from passions (Greece, 3rd c. B.C.) subjectivism - doctrine limiting knowledge of reality to that which is conscious ly apprehended, with moral values dependent on personal and subjective tastes; t ruth seen as relative to human nature and ability to comprehend syntactics - branch of semiotics concerned with formal properties of language or symbolic systems Thomism - theological philosophy of Thomas Aquinas; rational system teaching tha t at some point reason fails and faith provides revelation (13th c.) transcendentalism - philosophy emphasizing thought processes in discovery of rea lity; philosophy emphasizing intuitive and spiritual rather than empirical basis of knowledge, developed by Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau (U.S., 1 9th c.) utilitarianism - theory of moral conduct based on attainment of maximum good for greatest number of people (19th c.) utopianism - often impractical belief in and advocacy of ideal state vitalism - theory that living beings are governed by a vital force and by laws s eparate from those governing inanimate objects

C Y N I C I S M - - - - - - The cynic is one who never sees a good quality in a man, and never fails to see a bad one. He is the human owl, vigilant in darkness and blind to light, mousing for vermin, and never seeing noble game." - Henry Ward Beecher "A cynic is a blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, and not as they ought to be." - Ambrose Bierce "The cynic never grows up, but commits intellectual suicide." - Dean Charles R. Brown "I'm a hopeful cynic." - Tracy Chapman "A cynic is just a man who found out when he was ten that there wasn't any Santa Claus, and he's still upset." - James G. Cozzens "Don't be a cynic and disconsolate preacher. Don't bewail and moan. Omit the neg ative propositions. Challenge us with incessant affirmatives. Don't waste yourse lf in rejection, or bark against the bad, but chant the beauty of the good." - R alph Waldo Emerson