Dictionary of Philosophy

Alan Lacey

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2002
• ISBN:
  9781134785858
• Edition: 3
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

Providing an illuminating and informed introduction to central philosophical issues, concepts and perspectives in the core fields of metaphysics, epistemology and philosophical logic, the Dictionary takes the most common terms and notions and clarifies what they mean to the philosopher and what sort of problems the philosopher finds associated with them.
Thoroughly revised and updated, the bibliographies supply core reading lists, and each entry uses extensive cross referencing to related themes and concepts to provide a greater sense of access, control and comprehension.
The Dictionary will also provide those working in proximate fields with an understanding of areas of overlapping interest, concepts of common applicability and the full range and diversity of philosophical analysis and insight.

S
Salva Veritate

. See INTENSIONALITY.

Santayana, George

. 1863–1952. Born in Madrid, he worked at Harvard and then in Europe, dying at Rome. An apparently paradoxical figure, a Catholic agnostic who attacked broadchurchmanship and religious and political liberalism, an aesthetically minded Platonist who called himself a materialist, a rejector of modern ideas of inevitable progress who admired the pragmatist William James, he accepted our impulses for what they were but treated reason as a further impulse, a neutral integrator of the rest. He believed in essences, but not as a superior realm. The ordinary world exists, and we must start from ordinary beliefs, and not seek the illusory foundations sought in vain by the sceptic. How far his philosophy changed in his later works is controversial. The Sense of Beauty, 1896. The Life of Reason (five volumes), 1905–6. Winds of Doctrine, 1913 (criticisms). Scepticism and Animal Faith, 1923. Realms of Being (four volumes, on Essence, Matter, Truth, Spirit), 1927–40, in single volume with new introduction, 1942. Dominations and Powers, 1951 (social philosophy).

Sartre, Jean-Paul

. 1905–80. Born in Paris, he worked mostly in France, with some study in Germany. Famous both as a writer of novels and plays and as a philosopher, he represented one form of EXISTENTIALISM, though his later work tended towards Marxism. He was the most explicitly atheistic of existentialists, and took an active part in politics. Esquisse d’une théorie des émotions, 1939. L’Être et le néant, 1943. L’Existentialisme est un humanisme, 1946 (popular, but often regarded as not representing his main thought). Critique de la raison dialectique, 1960 (Marxist in tendency). See also BAD FAITH, MARCEL, MERLEAU-PONTY.

Satisfice

. As an optimizing policy gets, or aims to get, the best results possible so a satisficing policy gets, or aims to get, results sufficient but not necessarily the best possible. The notion derives from the economist H.A.Simon (1916–).

M.Slote and P.Pettit, ‘Satisficing consequentialism’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, supplementary vol., 1984. (Some philosophical implications Cf. also M.Slote, Common Sense Morality and Consequentialism, RKP, 1985, chapter 3.)

Satisfy

. A notion introduced by Tarski to help construct his semantic definition of TRUTH for formalized languages. Consider a sentential FUNCTION ‘x loves y’ and suppose that John loves Mary. Then ‘x loves y’ is satisfied by any ordered sequence of objects whose first two terms are John and Mary taken in that order. In general, suppose a certain sentential function contains n different free VARIABLES (some of which may be repeated: ‘x loves x’ has only one.) Then take any sequence of objects and assign its first n terms, taken in order, to the n variables respectively, also taken in some order (usually alphabetical). Then the sequence satisfies the function if the first n terms of the sequence are related as the resulting sentence says they are. To ensure the sequence is long enough, it is convenient to take only infinite sequences and ignore all superfluous terms, i.e. all after the first n. A sentence, or closed sentential function, contains no free variables, so that all the terms in all sequences are superfluous. ‘John loves Mary’, therefore is (vacuously) satisfied by all sequences if he does, and by none if he doesn’t. Tarski therefore defines truth by calling a sentence true if all sequences satisfy it and false if none do. The limitation to formalized languages has to do with problems like the LIAR PARADOX.

W.V.O.Quine, Philosophy of Logic, Prentice-Hall, 1970, esp. chapter 3. (Priority of satisfaction over truth.)

A.Tarski, ‘The semantic conception of truth and the foundations of semantics’, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 1944, reprinted in H.Feigl and W.Sellars (eds), Readings in Philosophical Analysis, Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1949. (See also the account by M.Black, ‘The semantic definition of truth’, Analysis, 1948, reprinted in M.MacDonald (ed.), Philosophy and Analysis, Blackwell, 1954.)

Saturated

. See CONCEPT.

Scepticism

. Any view involving doubt about whether something exists, or about whether we can know something, or about whether we are justified in arguing in certain ways. Throughout the ages many philosophers have held that unless we know some things for certain we cannot know anything at all, or even legitimately think anything probable (cf. FOUNDATIONALISM). Many of them, especially the Greek sceptics and Descartes, have therefore sought a sure mark or ‘criterion’ of when a proposition is true.

One can doubt whether knowledge can he had in certain spheres, or whether it can be had by certain methods. An extreme rationalist like Plato, sometimes, may doubt if we can ever get knowledge through the senses. An extreme empiricist like Hume may doubt if we can ever get it through reason, or through any reasoning except deductive (Hume again; see INDUCTION). Particular arguments may attack the reliability of particular kinds of alleged knowledge, e.g. memory, precognition, intuition.

The sceptic may doubt whether we can know something, or even have any reason to believe it (cf. agnostics). Less often he may deny that certain things exist, or that they could exist, even though he must then claim to know negative propositions (dogmatic scepticism; cf. atheists). He may deny or doubt the existence of God, of objects when not experienced (Berkeley), of any objects at all beyond our experiences themselves, i.e. beyond our SENSATIONS or SENSE DATA (Hume; cf. PERCEPTION), and that subjects like ethics contain any truths to be known (logical POSITIVISTS; cf. NATURALISM). Sceptics have asked how we could know of the past (Russell asked how we know we did not spring into existence, complete with ‘memories’, five minutes ago), or of minds other than our own. Descartes even tried, unsuccessfully, to doubt his own existence. Milder forms of scepticism allow that we can know something but only by certain methods: perhaps we can know that ordinary objects, or others’ feelings, exist, but only by inference, not by direct observation.

The views that nothing exists outside one’s own mind, or that nothing such can be known to exist, are called solipsism (literally, ‘only-oneself-ism’). A weaker version of solipsism concerns merely the existence of other minds (one form of the other minds problem, though this problem also concerns what we can know, and how, about other minds, e.g. what others are thinking and feeling).

One particular question that the sceptic asks is how I can know that I am not now dreaming.

Methodological scepticism is the adoption of sceptical views not to defend them but as a starting point, departures from which are to be justified. Thus Descartes’ method of doubt involves doubting everything until something necessarily undoubtable is found, on which knowledge can be built. See also METHODOLOGICAL SOLIPSISM.

Radical forms of scepticism have often been unpopular on the grounds that they cannot coherently be stated without presupposing their own falsity (cf. TRANSCENDENTAL ARGUMENTS). See also PRIVATE LANGUAGE ARGUMENT, ACCESS, INCORRIGIBLE, PERCEPTION, SEXTUS EMPIRICUS.

J.L.Austin (see bibliography to SENSE DATA).

J.Bogen and M.Beckner, ‘An empirical refutation of Cartesian scepticism’, Mind, 1979. (Attacks Descartes’ argument from dreaming. For an earlier and different attack see M.Macdonald, ‘Sleeping and waking’, Mind, 1953).

M.F.Burnyeat (ed.), The Skeptical Tradition, California UP, 1983. (Historical essays, half on ancient scepticism and half on modern reactions.)

A.P.Griffiths, ‘Justifying moral principles’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 1957–8. (Tries to rescue morals from the sceptic.)

D.Hume, Treatise, 1739, and Enquiry concerning Human Understanding, 1748. (Nearest among great philosophers to scepticism.)

A.A.Long, Hellenistic Philosophy, Duckworth, 1974. (Includes treatment of Greek sceptics.)

G.E.Moore, Philosophical Papers, Allen and Unwin/Macmillan, 1959. (Several items attack scepticism.)

H.Putnam, ‘Brains in a vat’, chapter 1 of his Reason, Truth and History, Cambridge UP, 1981. (How far can scepticism be coherently stated?)

G.Ryle, Dilemmas, Cambridge, UP, 1954, chapter 7. (Scepticism and perception.)

B.Stroud, The Significance of Philosophical Scepticism, Clarendon, 1984. (Sympathetic treatment of scepticism, emphasizing need to ask how the problem arose and what the significance of philosophical scepticism is.)

P.Unger, Ignorance: a Case for Scepticism, Clarendon, 1975. (Defends scepticism because of high standards required for knowledge.)

M.Williams (ed.), Scepticism, Dartmouth Publishing Company, 1993. (Reprinted essays on issues connected with scepticism and the external world).

M.D.Wilson, ‘Skepticism without indubitability’, Journal of Philosophy, 1984. (Significance of seventeenth-century scepticism. This and the adjacent article by Stroud are summarized by R.J.Fogelin in the same issue, p. 552.)

J.Wisdom, J.L.Austin and A.J.Ayer, ‘Other minds’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, supplementary vol., 1946, Wisdom reprinted in his Other Minds, Blackwell, 1952, and Austin in A. Flew (ed.), Logic and Language, 2nd series, Blackwell, 1966.

Schopenhauer, Arthur

. 1788–1860. Born in Danzig and educated partly in France and England, he worked mostly in Germany. He admired KANT, but, like KIERKEGAARD, reacted against the prevalent philosophy of HEGEL. He saw his chief contribution to philosophy as the identification of the Kantian thing-in-itself with the will, and emphasized the role of will in the world, both animate and inanimate. His treatment of unconscious willing partly anticipated Freud. He combined this with an ethic of pessimistic resignation strongly influenced by Indian thought. Über die vierfache Wurzel des Satzes vom zureichenden Grunde (The Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason), 1813, revised, 1847. Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung (The World as Will and Idea (or Representation)), 1819. Parerga und Paralipomena 1851 (miscellaneous essays).

Science (philosophy of)

. The study of science in the broadest sense, its nature, aims, methods, tools, parts, range, and relation to other subjects.

The study of how science works is normally taken as a fair guide to how it should. This study is often called methodology, a term which can also be relative, e.g. methodology of history. Literally ‘methodology’ means ‘study of method’; a method is not itself a methodology. Inductive logic, or the logic of induction, is normally limited to the study of INDUCTION as a mode of reasoning. Whether strictly there is any inductive reasoning is a question philosophy of science shares with philosophy of logic. But philosophy of science itself studies the process, taken as a whole, whereby we start from premises about the world and reach, by rational means, conclusions about the world which cannot be reached from those premises by deduction alone. Everyday thinking also uses such a process, but science is more systematic and method-conscious, and so more often studied.

The ‘mathematical’ sciences, especially physics, need special mathematical techniques, but scientific argument in general is often taken to presuppose a mathematical apparatus for applying the notions of PROBABILITY and CONFIRMATION, both of which themselves raise many problems. The calculus of chances (see PROBABILITY), which underlies probability, is often, but not always, taken as the basis for scientific ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Preface to the First Edition
• A Dictionary of Philosophy
• A Abelard (Abailard), Pierre
• B Bacon, Francis
• C Calculus
• D Dasein
• E Education (philosophy of)
• F Fact
• G Gambler’s Fallacy
• H Haecceity
• I Icons
• J James-Lange Theory
• L Language (philosophy of)
• M Mach, Ernest W.J.W
• N Naturism
• O Object
• P Paradigm
• Q Quale
• R Radical Interpretation and Translation
• S Salva Veritate
• T Tacit and Implicit Knowledge
• U Uncertainty Principle
• V Vacuous
• W Waismann, Friedrich
• Z Zeno of Citium