GLOSSARY OF CONCEPTS IN CRITICAL THEORY

I find that I receive emails from others on overblog who appear to have never read any of my essays or, if they have tried to do so, have no understanding of what I write.

You are wasting your time, I don't read pandering emails, I simply delete them immediately.

If anyone ever does attempt to understand what I’m writing about I have decided to provide a glossary of terminology that I frequently use. I’ve simply put it together from various sources on the Internet. If you desire any additional explanation of these terms you may contact me.

So I won't delete your email, put the concept you are interested in learning more about in the subject line.

If the subjective does not challenge the objective, there is no class consciousness.

This means that most of you are living a life of alienation and have no control of your life. That's too bad, you really should take control of your own life. Think about it.

THE GLOSSARY

ANALYTIC: Quality of a sentence, statement, or proposition which does not purport to say anything about reality but simply explicates some part of the meaning of one or more if its terms. (Ex: “All circles are round.”) See SYNTHETIC q.v.

A POSTERIORI: Completely dependent on, and a product of, experience; mode of knowledge in which experience is the source as well as the occasion of knowledge. See A PRIORI q.v.

A PRIORI: Not completely dependent on experience; independent in the sense that experience, though it may be the occasion for one’s coming to know, is not the source. See A POSTERIORI q.v.

COHERENCE: A theory that holds that beliefs are true if they relate to the systematic whole sought as an interpretation of experience.

COMMON SENSE OR NAÏVE REALISM: The view that the world as it really is does not differ in any important respect from the world as it appears to be; direct realism.

CORRESPONDENCE: The assumption that thought corresponds directly to facts, objects, or states of affairs.

COSMOLOGY: In metaphysics is the reflection on the totality of all phenomena.

CRITICAL REALISM: Any view which affirms that the world as it really is, is in some respects similar to, and in some respects different from the world as it appears.

DEDUCTION: The act of drawing a conclusion from a set of premises; the act of inferring. In the case of a correct deduction, the conclusion (inference) must be true if the premises are true. In this respect DECUDTION differs from INDUCTION q.v.

DUALISM, ONTOLOGICAL: The theory that reality consists of two different kinds of being (for example, mind and matter) neither of which is reducible to the other.

EMPIRICAL: (1) Derived from observation; A POSTERIORI q.v. (2) about the real world; capable of being exhibited in sense experience.

EMPIRICISM: The epistemological theory that all knowledge or reality originates in and is a producer of sense experience, that is, that all knowledge of synthetic truths arise out of experience. See RATIONALISM q.v.

EPISTEMOLOGY: (1) a study of the nature and limits of human knowledge. (2) A theory concerning the same (for example, “the EPISTEMOLOGY of Kant”).

HPER-CRITICAL REALISM: The view that the world as it really is, is highly dissimilar to the world as it appears to be; a radical form of CRITICAL REALISM q.v.

IDEALISM: Any system or theory maintaining that the real is of the nature of thought or that the object of external perception consists of ideas.

INDUCTION: The act of affirming a general statement about a class of things on the basis of observation of some members of the class; the act of making an empirical generalization.

INFERENCE: (1) A proposition which follows as a logical consequence of certain other propositions; that which is inferred; an implication. (2) The act of inferring, that is, of deriving the actual or apparent logical consequences from a set of assumed premises.

INTUITION: The act whereby, according to rationalists, the mind discerns non-empirical qualities and grasps a priori truths. See A PRIORI q.v.

LOGICAL POSITIVISM: A movement that stresses philosophy as a method of criticizing and analyzing science and that rejects all transcendental metaphysics, statements of fact being held to be meaningful only if they have verifiable consequences in experience and statements of logic, mathematics, or philosophy, deriving their validity from the rules of language.

MATERIALISM: The metaphysical theory that the whole of reality consists of matter and its determinations.

METAPHYSICS: (1) The study of the nature and structure of being (ONTOLOGY q.v.) and of the origin and general structure of the universe (COSMOLOGY q.v.); first philosophy. (2) A theory or system concerning the same. Some scientists use this term simply as a synonym for ontology, excluding cosmology. Others use it pejoratively as a synonym for “nonsense”).

MONISM: The view that the whole of reality consists of various determinations of someone ultimate substance, or kind of “stuff”. The principal forms of monism: Materialism (all is matter), Idealism (All is mind), and NEUTRAL MONISM (all is some substance that is neither mind nor matter, but is the ground of both). Monism contracts with DUALISM PLURALISM.

ONTOLOGY: The study of the nature or structure of being. (Some philosophers use this term as a synonym for METAPHYSICS q.v.; others use it as the name for one main branch of metaphysics, the other being COSMOLOGY q.v.).

PAN-PSYCHISM: The view that the world of reality consists of minds (“psyches”) of varying degrees of consciousness; one of the classical ways of attempting to overcome ontological dualism.

PARADOX: An apparently self-contradictory assertion which is made nonetheless on the ground that to eliminate the apparent contradiction would allegedly involve denying some truth.

PERCEPTION: The act or process of taking cognizance of the world by means of the senses.

PLURALISM: The view that reality is not reducible to one ultimate substance, or kind of “stuff,” but that on the contrary there are several. Contrasts with MONISM q.v. and DUALISM q.v.

PRAGMATISM: A movement generally stressing practical consequences as constituting the essential criterion in determining meaning, truth and value.

PRIMARY QUALITY: According to the critical realism of John Locke, a quality that belongs to an object in such a way that no partial of which the object is composed could be conceived to exist without it. Locke gives extension, shape, size and mobility as example of such quality. Contrasts with SECONDARY QUALITIES q.v.

RATIONALISM: (1) The view that some truth about reality are knowable in a way that is in some degree independent of experience, that is that some synthetic truths may be knows as A PRIORI q.v. (2) A European philosophical movement the most prominent representatives of which were Rene Descartes, Benedict de Spinoza, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz, Christian Wolff and Immanuel Kant.

REALITY: (1) The totality of the real, everything that is. (2) What truly or in actuality is the case, as over against what may appear to be the case. In this sense, reality is often contrasted with NAÏVE REALISM q.v.

REIFICATION: Treating something abstract (form, model) as real.

SECONDARY QUALITY: According to the critical realism of John Locke, the capacities of a material object to produce in a perceiver an impression (of color, sound, taste (unlike anything in the object itself. Such a quality is thus said to be “mind-dependent.” Contrasts with PRIMARY QUALIITY q.v.

SENSE DATA: The immediate, uninterrupted objects of sense experience; the patches of color, geometrical shapes et cetera, which one sees when looking at a material object, the variable-pitched noises which one sometimes hears (which may subsequently be interpreted as a melody on a violin), Et cetera.

SOLIPSISM: The theory that one is the only mind or consciousness which exists, and that everything else exists only as a perception of this self.

SUBJECTIVE IDEALISM: The view, associated with George Berkeley, that the being of material objects consists in their being perceived by some perceiver ESSE EST PERCIPI - to be is to be perceived), that they have no “independent” existence; phenomenalism.

SUBSTRATUM: That which, according to realist catalogues, underlies and supports the perceived qualities of material objects; that in which the accidents or attributes of material objects are said to inhere.

SYNTHETIC: Quality of a sentence, statement or proposition which purports to say something about reality. (Ex: “some camels have two humps.”) Contrasts with ANALYTIC q.v.

SYSTEM: A comprehensive set of coherent and interdependent propositions in terms of which one attempts to understand and explain the phenomena within the range of its alleged relevance. An ETHICAL SYSTEM, for example, purports to provide a context for the understanding and explanation of all ethical phenomena. A PHILOSOPHICAL SYSTEM purports to provide a context for the understanding and explanation of all phenomena.

TELEOLOGICAL: Of or pertaining to ends, goals, purposes (from the Greek TELOS, meaning “end” or “Goal”). TELEOLOGICAL explanation (explanations in terms of ends), for example, are often contrasted with scientific explanations (explanations in terms of causes). The term is sometimes used to describe a kind of thinking, also to designate a very famous argument for the existence of God.

TRANSCENDENT: (1) (Kant’s usage) beyond the categories of human experience. (2) (as commonly used in theology and philosophy of religion) Beyond the world of space and time.