One of the things that I regret doing on this site is casually throwing around words like “ontological”, “causal”, or “existential”, and using terms like “a priori“, “ad hominem”, and “reductio ad absurdum” without acknowledging that most non-philosophy majors probably aren’t too familiar with them. And while I love Wikipedia, I hate to sidetrack people there all the time, so I’ve included some common philosophical jargon here for clarity’s sake.
Definitions
- Causal, Causation, and Causality
Causal simply refers to cause, more specifically, to cause-and-effect. A “causal chain” is basically a chain of events which have a cause-and-effect relationship.
Causation is the term for this phenomenon. Causality is the adjective.
Darwin’s Origin of Species explains the causality behind the emergence of species (namely that of natural selection).
- Descriptive and Normative
A descriptive statement says something about what IS. A normative statement says something about what SHOULD be.
Jordan: There is no milk in the fridge. (Descriptive)
Caitlin: There SHOULD be milk in the fridge. (Normative)
In morality, Descriptive states what one is doing, while the Normative states what one should do.
Jordan: I am going to take that baby’s candy. (Descriptive)
Caitlin: You shouldn’t take that baby’s candy. (Normative)
Normative statements are often moral statements, while Descriptive statements are pretty much never moral statements.
-ologies and -isms
- Ontology
Ontology is basically the nature of being, or the study of being therein. It is an integral concept for metaphysics.
An example would be the Ontological Argument for the Existence of God, which proves God via the nature of God.
Ontological is the adjective.
- Teleology
Teleology is basically concerned with design, and the considerations of the form of things. The best example is that the Teleological Argument for the Existence of God argues for the existence of God via the “design” argument (this is the technical name for the Intelligent Design argument).
- Cosmology
Cosmology is a fairly vast sphere and deals with the nature of the universe as we know it, what can be known, and so forth. It’s the big question, in a sense, of “what is all this around us and what is it like?”
- Epistemology
Epistemology is concerned with what is knowable. It’s primary question is, “how do I know?”
- Existentialism
People have hesitated when asked for a definition of existentialism because it does not have a clear-cut definition. My high-school philosophy teacher described it as “more of an attitude than an ideology” because of the great diversity of those who have been called “existential.” Sartre was a stark atheist, Kierkegaard was a devout Christian, for example. But what did these thinkers have in common? As the term existentialism implies, they had a concern with existence, namely, the existence of man. Existentialism is basically the ‘big question’ of normative philosophy: “Who am I? What does it mean to be me? What does it mean to exist? What am I to do with myself? Why?” Existentialists focus on individuality, authenticity, and self-actualization; they tend to reject ‘easy answers’ for life, whether it be Kierkegaard rejecting the Danish church or Sartre rejecting the contemporary French bourgeois.
Latin
- ad hominem
Literally: “at the person.”
Definition: A logical fallacy which attacks the person instead of the argument. For example,
Jordan: “Feminism is outdated, unprogressive, and contrary to reality.”
Caitlin: “You only say that because you’re a boy.”
In this example, Caitlin fails to address Jordan’s specific arguments against feminism, and instead focuses on something that has nothing to do with what they are talking about.
- reductio ad absurdum
Literally: “Reduce to absurdity”
Definition: This is an argumentative strategy, which accepts a basic idea, but then shows how it does not work by carrying it to its logical conclusion. For example,
Caitlin: “Plato’s Republic is the perfect form of government! Of course there should be a ruling class with power over the masses!”
Jordan: “Okay, so say that we have this form of government. What happens when someone motivated by greed and self-interest manages to seize power? The populace would be helpless against him.”
Here, Jordan has accepted Caitlin’s initial argument, but has then shown problems when one carries it to its extreme, and has thus effectively reduced the argument to absurdity.
- a posteriori
A posteriori is knowledge that is gained solely from experience. This is the most common kind of knowledge, and includes pretty much what you know about anything. You know that a green light means go and a red one means stop because someone told you or you saw it; i.e., you know it from your experiences in the world.
- a priori
This kind of knowledge is the opposite of a posteriori, and therefore a bit trickery to define. Knowledge is a priori if one does NOT need experience to know it. For example, that a triangle has three angles and consequently three sides can be known a priori, as the triangle contains the definition of itself within itself.
In my post Starting Points, I outlined what I felt were three truths that can be known a priori.
More coming soon!
