Free On Line Dictionaire of Philosophy

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-ism
<philosophical terminology> a general suffix commonly used to

designate varieties of philosophical opinion. Although useful
for some purposes, such labels should not be taken too seriously.
Individual philosophers nearly always deal creatively with
complex specific issues, developing arguments in defense of
their own views. It is only later that we who read them find it
convenient to invent simple names for positions that several of
them seem to share. Study of philosophy benefits more from
careful reading of the texts themselves than from the artificial
classification of their themes.
[A Dictionary of Philosophical Terms and Names]
<2002-1-18>
00-00-0000
A Dictionary of Philosophical Terms and Names
<source>
A Dictionary of Philosophical Terms and Names. This is a concise guide to technical terms and personal
names often encountere in the study of philosophy. What you will find here naturally reflects my own
philosophical interests and convictions, but everything is meant to be clear, accurate, and fair, a reliable source
of information on Western philosophy for a broad audience.
By Garth Kemerling (editor).
28-10-2001
a fortiori
<logic, epistemology> "to the stronger," or "even more so".

We are bound to accept an a fortiori claim because of our prior acceptance of a weaker application of the same
reasoning or truth. Thus, for example: Frank can't run to the store in less than five minutes, and the restaurant
is several blocks further away than the store. Thus, a fortiori, Frank can't run to the restaurant in less than five
minutes.
16-11-2001
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A Philosophical Glossary
<source>
A Philosophical Glossary (http://www.hfac.uh.edu/phil/leiber/!glossar.htm) edited by Justin Leiber, Philosophy
department, University of Houston, USA.
Some definitions in this dictionary are based on the version published in 2001-04-05.
25-04-2001
a posteriori
<logic, epistemology>
a sentence, proposition, thought, or judgement is a posteriori (literally "after") if its truth is dependent on how
our actual experience (experiment and observation) turns out. Many have thought that the truths of the
empirical, or nonmathematical, sciences are entirely a posteriori, though the rationalists and some recent
philosophers such as S. Kripke & N. Chomsky seem to deny this. Some take synthetic and a posteriori to be
equivalence. Compare a priori
[A Philosophical Glossary]
25-04-2001
a priori
<logic, epistemology>
a sentence, proposition, thought or judgement is a priori (literally "before") if its truth is not dependent on how
our actual experience (experiment and observation) happens to turn out. Some a priori truths (axiomsor first
principles) are held to be directly intuited; the rest are supposed to be deducible from these. Euclid' s geometry
provides the model for this traditional conception. With a posteriori knowledge or statements, on the other
hand, justification does invoke sensory experience either directly via perception or indirectly via induction.
Many have thought that the truths of logic and mathematics are a priori, though J. S. Mill and W. V. O. Quine
might be thought to maintain the contrary position. Some equate a priori and analytic. The ontological argument
for the existence of God is deemed a priori.
based on [A Philosophical Glossary], [Philosophical Glossary]
28-07-2001
a-consciousness
access consciousness
13-02-2004
A-Life
artificial life
13-02-2004
abduction
<logic> the process of inference to the best explanation.
The term is sometimes used to mean just the generation of hypotheses to explain observations or conclusions,
but the former definition is more common both in philosophy and computing.
The notion was first introduced by Peirce (CP 2.511, 623; 5.270) in an attempt to classify a certain form of
syllogism.
Abductive inferences are of the following form:
i) All beans from this bag are white.
ii) These beans are white.
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iii) Therefore, these beans are from this bag.
This inference results in an explanation of the observation in the second premise.
The semantics and the implementation of abduction cannot be reduced to those for deduction, as explanation
cannot be reduced to implication.
Though this method of reasoning is not logically valid (as the beans may be from a different source), Peirce
argues that scientists regularly engage in this sort of inferential reasoning. Though scientific hypotheses are
not valid by virtue of how they are abducted, abductive reasoning was thought to constitute "a logic of
discovery" in one of Peirce' s four steps of scientific investigation. These steps are:
1) observation of an anomaly
2) abduction of hypotheses for the purposes of explaining the

anomaly
3) inductive testing of the hypotheses in experiments
4) deductive confirmation that the selected hypothesis predicts

the original anomaly
Abduction is currently thought not to be well understood and Peirce' s formulation has been criticised as being
restricted to language-like mediums (Shelley, 1996). It should be noted that for Peirce, abduction was restricted
to the generation of explanatory hypotheses.
The more general characterisation of abduction as inference to the best explanation is a more recent
interpretation.
Applications include fault diagnosis, plan formation and default reasoning.
Negation as failure in logic programming can both be given an abductive interpretation and also can be used to
implement abduction. The abductive semantics of negation as failure leads naturally to an argumentation-
theoretic interpretation of default reasoning in general.
References
Peirce, C. (1958) Volume 2, paragraph 511, 623; Volume 5,

paragraph 270. In Hartshoren and Weiss.
Levesque (1989). A knowledge level account of abduction.

In Sridharan 1989 pp. 1061-1067.
Shelley, C. (1996) Visual abductive reasoning in archaeology.

Philosophy of Science Association, 63. 278-301.
abscissa
<mathematics> The x coordinate on an (x, y) graph; the input f a function against which the output is plotted.
y is the "ordinate". See Cartesian coordinates.
Based on [FOLDOC] and Chris Eliasmith - [Dictionary of Philosophy of Mind] Homepage

(http://artsci.wustl.edu/~philos/MindDict/)
16-03-2001
Abelard Peter
<scholasticism, medioeval phylosophy, logic>, <aristotelianism, theology>, <realism, nominalism, rethoric,

dialectics, ethics>
french scholastic logician (1079-1142) whose sexual relationship with his teen-aged student Heloise provoked
the vengeful anger of her uncle, Fulbert, in 1118. Despite the many distractions of the turbulent life he
described in Historia Calamitatum Mearum (The History of my Misfortunes), Abelard embarked on a monastic
career of detached contemplation marked by intellectual independence from both traditional authorities and
contemporaneous fashions. In commentaries on the logic of Aristotle and his own Dialectica, Abelard invented
a novel solution to the problem of universals that rejected both realism and nominalism in their most extreme
forms. Only individual things exist for Abelard, but general terms have universal applicability to things whose
common features are known by a process of mental abstraction. Abelard also wrote on the difficulties involved
in scriptural interpretation in Sic et Non (For and Against) (1122) and on the importance of human intentions for
theological ethics in Scito te Ipsum (Know Thyself).
Recommended Reading:
Five Texts on the Mediaeval Problem of Universals, ed. by Paul Vincent Spade (Hackett, 1994);
John Marenbon, The Philosophy of Peter Abelard (Cambridge, 1999);
Letters of Abelard and Heloise, ed. by Betty Radice (Penguin, 1998).
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16-11-2001
abscissa
<mathematics> The x coordinate on an (x, y) graph; the input f a function against which the output is plotted.
y is the ordinate.
See Cartesian coordinates.
Based on [FOLDOC] and Chris Eliasmith - [Dictionary of Philosophy of Mind] Homepage

(http://artsci.wustl.edu/~philos/MindDict/)
03-02-2004
Absolute
<substance, essence, Infinite, ontology, metaphysics, absolut spirit, Romanticism> the solitary, uniquely
unconditioned, utterly independent, and ultimately all-encompassing being that comprises all of reality
according to such Romantic idealists as Schelling, and Hegel. British philosopher F.H. Bradley emphasized
that the Absolute must transcend all of the contradictory appearances of ordinary experience, while American
Josiah Royce took the Absolute to be a spiritual entity whose self-consciousness is reflected only imperfectly in
the totality of human thought.
16-11-2001
absolute consistency
<logic> A system S is absolutely consistent iff at least ne wff of the formal language of S is not a theorem.
[Glossary of First-Order Logic]
16-03-2001
absolute inconsistency
<logic> A system is absolutely inconsistent iff all its wffs are theorems.
16-03-2001
absolutism
<ethics, metaphysics, political philosophy> the belief that there is one and only one truth. Those who espouse
absolutism usually also believe that they know or have access to what this absolute truth is.
In ethics, absolutism is usually contrasted to relativism.
See also authoritarianism in political theory.
Based on [Ethics Glossary]
28-04-2001
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absorption
<logic, mathematics, tautology> a rule of inference of the form:
p -> q
______________
p -> ( p & q )
Example: "If Mary comes to the party, then so will George. Therefore, if Mary comes to the party, then both
Mary and
George will."
As a simple truth-table shows, any argument of this form is valid.
16-11-2001
abstract class
<PI> In object-oriented programming, a class designed only as a parent from which sub-classes may be
derived, but which is not itself suitable for instantiation.
Often used to "abstract out" incomplete sets of features which may then be shared by a group of sibling sub-
classes which add different variations of the missing pieces.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
abstract data type
<PI> (ADT) A type whose internal form is hidden behind a set of access functions. Objects of the type are
created and inspected only by calls to the access functions. This allows the implementation of the type to be
changed without requiring any changes outside the module in which it is defined.
Abstract data types are central to object-oriented programming where every class is an ADT.
A classic example of an ADT is a stack data type for which functions might be provided to create an empty
stack, to push values onto a stack and to pop values from a stack.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
Abstract entity
Sorts of things that do not occupy spacetime but are considered to have some kind of existence. For examples,
properties, relations, propositions and mathematical objects are commonly considered as abstract entities. The
main philosophical question about abstract entities is whether they really exist. This problem is strictly
connected to the definition one attaches to the concept of existence.
Giuseppina Ronzitti
See :
• Michael Jubien, Contemporary Metaphysics, Blackwell (1997).
• Bob Hale, Abstract objects, Oxford, Blackwell (1987).
28-01-2004
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abstract interpretation
<computing> A partial execution of a program which gains information about its semantics (e.g. control
structure, flow of information) without performing all the calculations. Abstract interpretation is typically used by
compilers to analyse programs in order to decide whether certain optimisations or transformations are
applicable.
The objects manipulated by the program (typically values and functions) are represented by points in some
domain. Each abstract domain point represents some set of real ("concrete") values.
For example, we may take the abstract points "+", "0" and "-" to represent positive, zero and negative numbers
and then define an abstract version of the multiplication operator, *#, which operates on abstract values:
*# | + 0 -
---|------
+|+0-
0|000
-|-0+
An interpretation is "safe" if the result of the abstract operation is a safe approximation to the abstraction of the
concrete result. The meaning of "a safe approximation" depends on how we are using the results of the
analysis.
If, in our example, we assume that smaller values are safer then the "safety condition" for our interpretation (#)
is
a# *# b# <= (a * b)#
where a# is the abstract version of a etc.
In general an interpretation is characterised by the domains used to represent the basic types and the abstract
values it
assigns to constants (where the constants of a language include primitive functions such as *). The
interpretation of constructed types (such as user defined functions, sum types and product types) and
expressions can be derived systematically from these basic domains and values.
A common use of abstract interpretation is strictness analysis.
See also standard interpretation.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
abstract machine
1. <language> A processor design which is not intended to be implemented as hardware, but which is the
notional executor of a particular intermediate language (abstract machine language) used in a compiler or
interpreter. An abstract machine has an instruction set, a register set and a model of memory. It may provide
instructions which are closer to the language being compiled than any physical computer or it may be used to
make the language implementation easier to port to other platforms.
A virtual machine is an abstract machine for which an interpreter exists.
Examples: ABC, Abstract Machine Notation, ALF, CAML, F-code, FP/M, Hermes, LOWL, Christmas, SDL, S-K
reduction machine, SECD, Tbl, Tcode, TL0, WAM.
2. <theory> A procedure for executing a set of instructions in some formal language, possibly also taking in
input data and producing output. Such abstract machines are not intended to be constructed as hardware but
are used in thought experiments about computability.
Examples: Finite State Machine, Turing Machine.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
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Abstract Machine Notation
<language> (AMN) A language for specifying abstract machine in the B-Method, based on the mathematical
theory of Generalised Substitutions.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
abstract syntax
<language, data> A representation of data (typically either a message passing over a communications link or a
program being compiled) which is independent of machine-oriented structures and encodings and also of the
physical representation of the data (called "concrete syntax" in the case of compilation or "transfer syntax" in
communications).
A compiler' s internal representation of a program will typically be specified by an abstract syntax in terms o
categories such as "statement", "expression" and "identifier". This is independent of the source syntax
(concrete syntax) of the language being compiled (though it will often be very similar). A parse tree is similar to
an abstract syntax tree but it will typically also contain features such as parentheses which are syntactically
significant but which are implicit in the structure of the abstract syntax tree.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
abstract syntax tree
<compiler> (AST) A data structure representing something which has been parsed, often used as a compiler or
interpreter' s internal representation of a program while it is being optimised and from which code generation is
performed. The range of all possible such structures is described by the abstract syntax.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
Abstract-Type and Scheme-Definition Language
<language> (ASDL) A language developed as part of Esprit project GRASPIN, as a basis for generating
language-based editors and environments. It combines an object-oriented type system, syntax-directed
translation schemes and a target-language interface.
["ASDL - An Object-Oriented Specification Language for Syntax-Directed Environments", M.L. Christ-Neumann

et al, European Software Eng Conf, Strasbourg, Sept 1987, pp.77-85].
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
abstraction
1. Generalisation; ignoring or hiding details to capture some kind of commonality between different instances.
Examples are abstract data type (the representation details are hidden), abstract syntax (the details of the
concrete syntax are ignored), abstract interpretation (details are ignored to analyse specific properties).
2. <PI> Parameterisation, making something a function of something else. Examples are lambda abstraction
(making a term into a function of some variable), higher-order functions (parameters are functions), bracket
abstraction (making a term into a function of a variable).
Opposite of concretisation.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
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abstractionism
<metaphysics, aestethics>
1) in metaphysics see idealism.
2) in aesthetics see modernism, also called abstract expressionism.
28-04-2001
absurd
<logic, Aristotle, Leibniz, Kant, epistemology>, <modus ponens, modus tollens, mathematics>, <possible,
impossible, paradox, existensialism> Contrary to reason or beyond the limits of rationality; paradoxical,
nonsensical, or meaningless. According to Camus, Sartre, and other existentialists, absurdity is an inescapable
consequence of any sensitive effort to live in the face of an indifferent reality. The human tendency to desire
most passionately what we can never have is absurd in this sense.
Donald A. Crosby, Specter of the Absurd: Sources and Criticisms of Modern Nihilism (SUNY, 1988);
Richard E. Baker, The Dynamics of the Absurd in the Existentialist Novel (Peter Lang, 1993);
Martin Esslin, The Theatre of the Absurd (Viking, 1992).
16-11-2001
Abunaser
<Aristotle, aristotelianism, mathematics, astronomy>, <medicine, Plato, neoplatonism, islamic philosophy,

logic>, <theology, existence of god> Latinized form of the name of Persian philosopher al-Farabi.
16-11-2001
Acceptable Use Policy
<networking> (AUP) Rules applied by many transit networks which restrict the use to which the network may
be put. A well known example is NSFNet which does not allow commercial use. Enforcement of AUPs varies
with the network.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
acceptance testing
<PI> Formal testing conducted to determine whether a system satisfies its acceptance criteria and thus
whether the customer should accept the system.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
acceptor
Finite State Machine
04-02-2004
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access consciousness
<philosophy of mind> Also known as a-consciousness, is a kind of direct control.

A representation is access-conscious if it is poised to be under direct control of reasoning, reporting and action.
References
Ned Block. On a confusion about a function of consciousness

(http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/bbs/Archive/bbs.block.html)
Behavioral and Brain sciences, 1995, 18: 227-287.
A. Khwaja
Chris Eliasmith - [Dictionary of Philosophy of Mind] Homepage (http://artsci.wustl.edu/~philos/MindDict/)
13-02-2004
accident
<ontology, metaphysics, Aristotle, substance, essence>, <scholasticism, empiricism, idealism> A feature that
something happens to have but might have existed without having, since this feature is no part of the very
nature of the thing, in contrast to the essence without which the thing could not be at all.
16-11-2001
accident fallacy of
<Pietro Ispano, scholasticism, syllogism, Aristotle, logic>, <antinomy, fallacia in dictione, fallacia extra dictione>
(Lat. a dicto simpliciter ad dictum secundum quid) the informal fallacy of applying a generally reliable rule to a
particular case without considering the qualifying features that make it an exception to the rule.
Example: "Since authors of best-selling books usually appear on television talk shows, and the Pope is in fact
the author of a best-selling book, it follows that the Pope will soon appear on a television talk show".
Unlimited applicability to every instance would follow syllogistically only from a genuinely universal proposition,
the truth of which is often difficult to defend. Merely probable guidelines are easier to establish as "rules of
thumb", but do not deserve to be applied so indiscriminately.
16-11-2001
accidentalism
<metaphysics> the position according to which some events are accidental, that is, either they are not
predictable or they lack a cause. Accidentalism is part of some defenses of the freedom of the will (see
libertarianism).
See also indeterminism
[The Ism Book]
Edited by Giovanni Benzi
24-03-2001
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accuracy
<mathematics> How close to the real value a measurement is.
Compare precision.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to Denis Howe and to the many contributors, and especially to the Guest Editors, mirror site
maintainers and the editors of the following resources, from which some entries of FOLDOP originate:
Chris Eliasmith, Dictionary of Philosophy of Mind
Lawrence M. Hinman, Ethics Glossary
Denis Howe, FOLDOC
Justin Leiber, A Philosophical Glossary
Peter Suber, Glossary of First-Order Logic
Peter Saint-Andre' ,The Ism Book
Garth Kemerling, A Dictionary of Philosophical Terms and Names
28-10-2001
acronym
An identifier formed from some of the letters (often the initials) of a phrase and used as an abbreviation..
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
act - rule utilitarianism
<ethics, utilitarianism, Stuart Mill, pleasure>, <good, happiness, moral philosophy, liberalism> <Davide
Ricardo> Distinction between ways of applying the greatest happiness principle for moral evaluation on
utilitarian grounds. Act-utilitarianism supposes that each particular action should be evaluated solely by
references to its own consequences, while rule-utilitarianism considers the consequences of widespread
performance of similar actions. The act-utilitarian asks, "How much pleasure or pain would result if I did this
now?" The rule-utilitarian asks, "What pleasure or pain would result if everyone were always to do this?" Since
the answers to these questions may be quite different, they may lead to distinct recommendations about moral
conduct. Although Mill noted that reliance on moral rules may be of practical use in decision-making, he argued
that their influence should remain defeasible in particular circumstances.
J. J. C. Smart and Bernard Williams,
Utilitarianism: For and Against (Cambridge, 1973).
16-11-2001
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action
<ethics, philosophy of mind, philosophy of AI> that which an agent or actor A does, in contrast to that which
merely happens to A or to A' s parts.
16-03-2001
action theory
<philosophy of action, action, Absolute, romanticism>, <moralism, Blondel, philosophy of politics, Sorel,
violence>, <activism, pragmatism, William James, Dewey, behavior> branch of philosophy concerned with the
analysis and explanation of what human beings do. Understanding the relation between choice or volition and
the performance of an action seems crucial for the ascription of responsibility in ethics.
Readings in the Theory of Action, ed. by Norman S. Care and Charles Landesman (Indiana, 1968);
The Philosophy of Action, ed. by Alfred R. Mele (Oxford, 1997);
Philosophical Perspectives: Action Theory and Philosophy, ed. by James E. Tomberlin (Ridgeview, 1990).
16-11-2001
active object
<PI> An object each instance of which has its own thread running as well as its own copies of the object' s
instance variables.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
actor
1. <PI> In object-oriented programming, an object which exists as a concurrent process.
2. <operating system> In Chorus, the unit of resource allocation.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
Actors
<theory> A model for concurrency by Carl Hewitt. Actors are autonomous and concurrent objects which
execute asynchronously. The Actor model provides flexible mechanisms for building parallel and distributed
software systems.
(http://osl.cs.uiuc.edu/).
["Laws for Communicating Parallel Processes", C. Hewitt et al, IFIP 77, pp. 987-992, N-H 1977].
["ACTORS: A Model of Concurrent Computation in Distributed Systems", Gul A. Agha , Cambridge Press, MA,
1986].
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
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actual
<actualism, ontology, logic, potential, contingent> what really is the case, as opposed to what' spossible (could
be the case) and to what' snecessary (must be the case); all of which are opposed to what' simpossible (can'
be the case). Concerning the latter "opposition": the categories possible and impossible are jointly exhaustive
(everything is either one or the other). Concerning the former "opposition": necessity, actuality, and possibility
are not mutually exclusive: everything necessary is also actual (what must be the case is the case) and
everything actual is possible (whatever is possible). In other words, necessity entails actuality, and actuality
entails possibility. (Also see contingent.)
[Philosophical Glossary]
29-05-2001
actuality - potentiality
<act, action, metaphysics, Aristotle, matter, Aquinas>, <Scholasticism, reality> (Gr. energeia / dynamis)
Aristotle' s distinction between what really is the case and what merely has the power to change or come to be
the case. Thus, for example, this fresh acorn is actually a seed but only potentially an oak tree.
16-11-2001
ad hoc
<methodology> Contrived purely for the purpose in hand rather than planned carefully in advance. E.g. "We
didn' t know what to do about the sausage rolls, so we set up an ad
-hoc committee".
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
ad hominem argument
<logic, fallacy, antinomy, dialectic> (argument against the person) the informal fallacy of supposing that a
proposition should be denied because of some disqualifying features of the person who affirms it.
This fallacy is the mirror image of the appeal to authority. In its abusive form, ad hominem is a direct (and often
inflammatory) attack on the appearance, character, or personality of the individual.
Example: "Jeremy claims that Susan was at the party, but since Jeremy is the kind of person who has to ride to
work on the city bus, it must be false that she was there."
A circumstantial ad hominem accuses the person of having an alternative motive for defending the proposition
or points out its inconsistency with the person' s other views. Tu quoque (the "so do you" fallacy) uses asimilar
method in response to criticism of a position already held.
Recommended Reading: Douglas Walton, Ad Hominem Arguments (Alabama, 1998).
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adaptive learning
<algorithm> (Or "Hebbian learning") Learning where a system programs itself by adjusting weights or strengths
until it produces the desired output.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
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Addams Jane
<pragmatism, politics, ethics> American pragmatist and social worker (1860-1935). Concerned by the dismal
living conditions endured by women, minorities, and the working poor, Addams established Hull House in
Chicago as a social settlement in 1889 and campaigned tirelessly for women' s suffrage, world peace, and
economic justice. Her address to the Chicago Liberty Meeting, Democracy or Militarism (1899) and the
pamphlet Why Women Should Vote (1909) are representative expressions of her belief that women properly
exert a pacifistic influence on American political life.
Her writings on social issues include Democracyand Social Ethics (1902), Newer Ideals of Peace (1907), A
New Conscience and an Ancient Evil (1911),Twenty Years at Hull House (1912), The Larger Aspects of the
Women' s Movement(1914), and Women, War, and Suffrage (1915).
Addams shared the 1931 Nobel Prize for peace.
Allen F. Davis, American Heroine (Ivan
R. Dee, 2000); Mary Jo Deegan, Jane Addams and the Men of the
Chicago School, 1892-1918 (Transaction, 1990).
16-11-2001
addition
<logic, mathematics> a rule of inference of the form:
p
_____
pVq
Example: "It is raining. Therefore, either it is raining or the sun is shining". Although its use in ordinary thought
is notably rare, this pattern of reasoning serves a vital role in the construction of formal proofs in many systems
of logic.
16-11-2001
additive
<mathematics> A function f : X -> Y is additive if for all Z <= X f (lub Z) = lub f z : z in Z (f "preserves lubs").
All additive functions defined over cpos are continuous.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
adiaphora
<stoicism, action, ethics, skepticism, cynicism, happiness>, <Kant, rigorism, > greek term used by the classical
Stoics to designate actions that are morally indifferent. On this view, we have no direct obligation either to
perform or to avoid such actions, even when they might indirectly affect our general well-being. Thus, for
example, although there is no duty to preserve one' s own health, doing so is advisable, since it will probably
feel good and improve one' s capacity for doing what isright. Pyrrho, Carneades, and other Skeptics, on the
other hand, argued that there can be no coherent reason for preferring beneficial acts unless they are
themselves virtuous.
F. E. Peters, Greek Philosophical
Terms:A Historical Lexicon (NYU, 1967).
16-11-2001
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adjectival numerals
numeral
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Adler Alfred
<Psychology> Austrian psychiatrist (1870-1937); author of such books as Studie ueber Minderwertigkeit von
Organen (Study of Organ Inferiority and its Psychical Compensation) (1907),Praxis und Theorie der
Individualpsychologie (Practice and Theory of Individual Psychology) (1918), and Der Sinn des Lebens (What
Life Should Mean to You) (1934).
Influenced by the philosophy of Hans Vaihinger, Adler' s "individual psychology" focussed on the efforts people
invariably make in order to compensate for their (self-perceived) inferiority to others, whether it originally arose
from a specific physical defect, relative position in the family constellation, particular experiences of humiliation,
or a general lack of social feeling for others.
Individual Psychology of Alfred Adler: A Systematic Presentation in Selections from His Writings (Harpercollins,
1989);
Superiority and Social Interest: A Collection of Later Writings, ed. by Heinz L. Ansbacher and Rowena R.
Ansbacher (Norton, 1979);
Harold H. Mosak and Michael Maniacci, A Primer of Adlerian Psychology: The Analytic-Behavioral-Cognitive
Psychology of Alfred Adler (Brunner/Mazel, 1999).
16-11-2001
Adorno Theodor Wiesengrund
<sociology, aesthetics, Frankfurt school>, <philosophy of history, dialectic, storicism>, <marxism, capitalism>
German musicologist, social critic, and political philosopher (1903-1969); author of Philosophie der neuen
Musik (The Philosophy of Modern Music) (1949) and Noten zur Literatur (Notes to Literature) (1958-74). A
leading member of the Frankfurt school, Adorno traced the development and failure of Western reliance on
reason in Dialektik der Aufklaerung (Dialectic of Enlightenment) (1947). In The Authoritarian Personality (1951)
Adorno described the ways conformity to the demands of social propriety imposes paradox and contradiction
on the lives of individual human beings. Negative Dialektik (Negative Dialectics) (1966) openly defends the
critical task of exposing, dissolving, and undermining the harmful influence of rigid conceptual schemes.
The Adorno Reader, ed. by Brian O' Connor (Blackwell, 2000);
Simon Jarvis, Adorno: A Critical Introduction (Routledge, 1998);
Martin Jay, Adorno (Harvard, 1984); Hauke Brunkhorst, Adorno and Critical Theory (U of Wales, 1999);
The Actuality of Adorno: Critical Essays on Adorno and the Postmodern, ed. by Max Pensky (SUNY, 1997).
16-11-2001
aesthetic
<philosophy of art, beauty>, <sublime, imitation, creation, romanticism> branch of philosophy that studies
beauty and taste, including their specific manifestations in the tragic, the comic, and the sublime. Its central
issues include questions about the origin and status of aesthetic judgments: are they objective statements
about genuine features of the world or purely subjective expressions of personal attitudes; should they include
any reference to the intentions of artists or the reactions of patrons; and how are they related to judgments of
moral value? Aesthetics is a significant component of the philosophical work of Plato, Aristotle, Kant, and
Santayana.
A Companion to Aesthetics, ed. by David Cooper, Crispin Sartwell, and Joseph Margolis (Blackwell, 1995);
Aesthetics, ed. by Patrick Maynard and Susan Feagin (Oxford, 1998);
Anne D. R. Sheppard, Aesthetics: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Art (Oxford, 1987).
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aestheticism
<ethics> the position according to which the highest values (including the highest ethical values) are ultimately
aesthetic values. The idea is often associated with nineteenth-century romanticism and personally with
Friedrich Schiller, author of The Aesthetic Education of Man, and with Friedrich Nietzsche, both of whom
sometimes exhorted their readers to "make your life a work of art".
[The Ism Book]
24-03-2001
aesthetics
<philosofy of art> the philosophy of art. The study of contemplation or appreciation of the (nature of) artistic
value of beauty.
29-05-2001
affirmative action
<ethics, political thought> a policy of providing reverse preferences favoring members of classes previously
disadvantaged to compensate victims of previous racial and sexual discrimination, to remedy lingering effects
of such discrimination, or to combat ongoing institutionalized and unintentional discriminatory practices.
29-05-2001
affirmative conclusion from negative premise
<logic, syllogism> the formal fallacy committed in a categorical syllogism that violates a syllogistic rule by
having an affirmative conclusion derived from at least one negative proposition as a premise.
Example: "All senators are eligible to vote on legislation, but no homeless people are senators, so all homeless
people are eligible to vote on legislation." The problem with any such reasoning is that the exclusion of one
class from another cannot provide deductively certain grounds for the inclusion of either of these classes with
another.
16-11-2001
affirmative proposition
<logic, assertion, Aristotle, judgment, assent> a statement whose propositional quality is determined by its
assertion that some or all members of one class of things are also included as members of some other class.
Examples: "All spaniels are dogs." and "Some children are people who play word games." The first affirms that
every spaniel also belongs to the class of dogs, while the latter affirms that there is at least one member
commonly included among both children and people who play word games.
16-11-2001
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affirming the alternative
<logic, alternative proposition> a fallacious inference having the form:
pvq
p
_____
~q
Example: "The softball team will win either Tuesday' s game or Thursday' s. It will win Tuesday' s gam
Therefore, it will not win Thursday' s game" .
Arguments of this form should not be confused with legitimate applications of Disjunctive Syllogism.
The logical relation of disjunction expressed by the symbol "V" purposefully allows for the possibility that both of
its terms are true propositions. In order to exclude that possibility, one must explicitly declare that one or the
other of the terms is true, but not both, using the form:
( p v q ) & ~ ( p & q ).
16-11-2001
affirming the consequent
<logic, consequence, Aristotle, syllogysm, stoicism>, <ockamism, conditional proposition, neopositivism> a

fallacy having the form:
p -> q
q
_______
p
Example: "If Dole had been elected President in 1996, then he would no longer be a Senator. Dole is no longer
a Senator. Therefore, Dole was elected President in 1996."
Arguments of this form should not be confused with a legitimate instance of Modus Ponens.
16-11-2001
agent
<action, politics, ethics, scholasticism> the person who performs an action. Ethical conduct is usually taken to
presuppose the possibility that individual human agents are capable of acting responsibly.
Hugh J. McCann, The Works of Agency: On Human Action, Will, and Freedom (Cornell, 1998);
Relational Autonomy: Feminist Perspectives on Autonomy, Agency, and the Social Self, ed. by Catriona
MacKenzie and Natalie Stoljar (Oxford, 2000);
Carol A. Rovane, The Bounds of Agency (Princeton, 1997).
16-11-2001
aggregate type
<PI> A data type composed of multiple elements. An aggregate can be homogeneous (all elements have the
same type) e.g. an array, a list in a functional language, a string of characters, a file; or it can be
heterogeneous (elements can have different types) e.g. a structure. In most languages aggregates can contain
elements which are themselves aggregates. e.g. a list of lists.
See also union.
[FOLDOC]
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aggregation
<PI> A composition technique for building a new object from one or more existing objects that support some or
all of the new object' s required interfaces.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
agnosticism
<ethics, metaphysics, philosophy of religion> the position according to which one cannot (or should not) take
either a positive or a negative stance with respect to the existence of God. Agnosticism takes a wait-and-see
attitude towards the existence of God. It is often based on skepticism, which argues that one cannot know
whether God exists, although this can also lead to fideism. It may be accompanied with a further conviction that
one need not care whether God exists or not. It should not be confused with atheism, which argues against the
existence of God.
24-03-2001
agreement method of
<method of experimental research, logic, difference>, <concomitance, method of residues, epistemology> one
of Mill' s Methods for discovery of causalrelationships. If a specificantecedent circumstance is found to be
present on every occasion on which a phenomenon occurs, it may be inferred to be the cause of that
phenomenon.
Example: "It snowed in October only three times during the past seventeen years, and each time was during an
"El Nin~o" year, so the warm Pacific waters probably caused our early snows."
John Stuart Mill, System of Logic (Classworks, 1986).
16-11-2001
AI
artificial intelligence
13-02-2004
AI-complete
<artificial intelligence, jargon> /A-I k*m-pleet' / (MIT, Stanford: by analogy with "NP-complete") A term used to
describe problems or subproblems in artificial intelligence, to indicate that the solution presupposes a solution
to the "strong AI problem" (that is, the synthesis of a human-level intelligence). A problem that is AI-complete
is, in other words, just too hard.
See also Gedanken.
[Jargon File] and [FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
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aisthaesis
<epistemology, sense perception, Eleatics, Atomists, Platonism, Aristotle, noesis, empiricism> Greek term for
sense perception, the epistemic significance of which was vigorously debated. The Eleatics argued that mere
sensation is inferior to noesis, while Empedocles and the Atomists regarded it as a vital connection with the
natural world. Plato took perception to be unreliable as a source of knowledge, since it deals only with temporal
objects. For Aristotle, on the other hand, aisthaesis is a basic activity of living organisms, through which they
acquire information about material things.
F.E. Peters, Greek Philosophical Terms: A Historical Lexicon (NYU, 1967).
16-11-2001
aition
<ontology, metaphysics, epistemology, Aristotle, causality>, <reason, scholasticism, Aquinas, occasionalism>,

<foundation, deduction, physics, Laplace> the most general Greek term for cause or responsibility, used by
Aristotle especially in reference to any one of the four kinds of answer it is legitimate to give in response to any
"Why...?" question.
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aka
also known as
16-11-2003
akrasia
<aristotelianism, ethics, Socrates, psychology, will> literally, "bad mixture," the Greek term for the character
flaw of incontinence or weakness of the will, the condition in which an agent is unable to perform actions that
are known to be right. Although Socrates apparently held that doing good follows directly from knowing what is
good, Aristotle believed akratic human behavior to be commonplace, and offered an extended account of its
origin and consequences.
Alfred R. Mele, Irrationality: An Essay on Akrasia, Self-Deception, and Self-Control (Oxford, 1992);
Justin Gosling, Weakness of the Will (Routledge, 1990).
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AL
Artificial Life
16-11-2003
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Albert the Great
<theology, medieval philosophy, Aquinas>, <aristotelianism, arabic philosophy, neoplatonism, Avicenna>,

<Nicholas of Cusa, philosophy of science> German Dominican philosopher and Bishop of Ratisbon (1206-
1280). Revered by his contemporaries as "doctor universalis" for the breadth of his philosophical knowledge,
Albert tried to synthesize many disparate philosophical positions from the tradition but also encouraged
empirical study as a source of knowledge of the natural world. He is remembered chiefly as the teacher and
colleague who encouraged Thomas Aquinas to apply Aristotelian arguments to Christian thought.
16-11-2001
aleph 0
<mathematics> The cardinality of the first infinite ordinal, omega (the number of natural numbers).
Aleph 1 is the cardinality of the smallest ordinal whose cardinality is greater than aleph 0, and so on up to aleph
omega and beyond. These are all kinds of infinity.
The Axiom of Choice (AC) implies that every set can be well-ordered, so every infinite cardinality is an aleph;
-ordered (don' t posses abijection with any ordinal)
but in the absence of AC there may be sets that can' t be well
and therefore have cardinality which is not an aleph.
These sets don' t in some way sit between two alephs; they just float around in an annoying way, and can' t be
compared to the alephs at all. No ordinal possesses a surjection onto such a set, but it doesn' t surject onto any
sufficiently large ordinal either.
[FOLDOC]
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aletheia
<epistemology, truth, doxa, opinion truth as correspondence, Platon, validity, conformity, utility, coherence,
metaphysics, thought, language, logos, stoicism, epicureism, rappresentation, sense experience, subject,
object, Thomas Aquinas, essence, medioeval philosophy, scholasticism, god, Cartesio, logic, empiricism,
idealism, Kant, romanticism, neo-kantian, neo-empiricism, phenomenology, Husserl, Heidegger, philosophy of
science, mathematics, Tarski, semantics> Greek word for truth, which generally marks the distinction between
doxa (mere belief) and episteme genuine knowledge in the philosophy of Plato. According to Aristotle, truth
appears in our propositional judgments, whose logical structure mirrors the nature of things.
16-11-2001
Alexander Samuel
<ethics, aestethics, perceptual realism, idealism, evolution>, <Bergson, existensialism> Australian-English

philosopher (1859-1938). Alexander defended perceptual realism as an alternative to the idealism of his
contemporaries. His theory regarding the "emergent evolution" of mind within the natural order, proposed in
Space, Time, and Deity (1920), was similar in many respects to the views of Henri Bergson. Alexander also
developed a thorough axiology in Beauty and other Forms of Value (1933).
During his tenure at Manchester, Alexander helped Zionist colleague Chaim Weizmann secure the Balfour
agreement, an initial step toward creation of the modern state of Israel.
Samuel Alexander, Collected Works (Thoemmes, 2000);
Samuel Alexander, Philosophical and Literary Pieces (Ayer, 1940).
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Algazel
<arabic philosophy, theology, sufism, medieval philosophy> Latinized name of al-Ghazàlì.
16-11-2001
algebra
<mathematics, logic> 1. A loose term for an algebraic structure.
2. A vector space that is also a ring, where the vector space and the ring share the same addition operation
and are related in certain other ways.
An example algebra is the set of 2x2 matrices with real numbers as entries, with the usual operations of
addition and matrix multiplication, and the usual scalar multiplication. Another example is the set of all
polynomials with real coefficients, with the usual operations.
In more detail, we have:
(1) an underlying set,
(2) a field of scalars,
(3) an operation of scalar multiplication, whose input is a scalar and a member of the underlying set and whose
output is a member of the underlying set, just as in a vector space,
(4) an operation of addition of members of the underlying set, whose input is an ordered pair of such members
and whose output is one such member, just as in a vector space or a ring,
(5) an operation of multiplication of members of the underlying set, whose input is an ordered pair of such
members and whose output is one such member, just as in a ring.
This whole thing constitutes an àlgebra' iff:
(1) it is a vector space if you discard item (5) and
(2) it is a ring if you discard (2) and (3) and
(3) for any scalar r and any two members A, B of the underlying set we have r(AB) = (rA)B = A(rB). In other
words it doesn' t matter whether you multiply members of the algebra first and then multiply by the scalar, o
multiply one of them by the scalar first and then multiply the two members of the algebra. Note that the A
comes before the B because the multiplication is in some cases not commutative, e.g. the matrix example.
Another example (an example of a Banach algebra) is the set of all bounded linear operators on a Hilbert
space, with the usual norm. The multiplication is the operation of composition of operators, and the addition
and scalar multiplication are just what you would expect.
Two other examples are tensor algebras and Clifford algebras.
[I. N. Herstein, "Topics_in_Algebra"].
[FOLDOC]
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algebraic
<mathematics> In domain theory, a complete partial order is algebraic if every element is the least upper bound
of some chain of compact elements. If the set of compact elements is countable it is called omega-algebraic.
[Significance?]
[FOLDOC]
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algebraic data type
<PI> (Or "sum of products type") In functional programming, new types can be defined, each of which has one
or more constructors. Such a type is known as an algebraic data type. E.g. in Haskell we can define a new
type, "Tree":
data Tree = Empty | Leaf Int | Node Tree Tree
with constructors "Empty", "Leaf" and "Node". The constructors can be used much like functions in that they
can be (partially) applied to arguments of the appropriate type.
For example, the Leaf constructor has the functional type Int -> Tree.
A constructor application cannot be reduced (evaluated) like a function application though since it is already in
normal form. Functions which operate on algebraic data types can be defined using pattern matching:
depth :: Tree -> Int

depth Empty = 0
depth (Leaf n) = 1
depth (Node l r) = 1 + max (depth l) (depth r)
The most common algebraic data type is the list which has constructors Nil and Cons, written in Haskell using
the special syntax "[]" for Nil and infix ":" for Cons.
Special cases of algebraic types are product types (only one constructor) and enumeration types (many
constructors with no arguments). Algebraic types are one kind of constructed type (i.e. a type formed by
combining other types).
An algebraic data type may also be an abstract data type (ADT) if it is exported from a module without its
constructors. Objects of such a type can only be manipulated using functions defined in the same module as
the type itself.
In set theory the equivalent of an algebraic data type is a discriminated union - a set whose elements consist of
a tag (equivalent to a constructor) and an object of a type corresponding to the tag (equivalent to the
constructor arguments).
[FOLDOC]
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algebraic structure
<mathematics> Any formal mathematical system consisting of a set of objects and operations on those objects.
Examples are Boolean algebra, numerical algebra, set algebra and matrix algebra.
[Is this the most common name for this concept?]
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
algorithm
<algorithm, PI> A detailed sequence of actions to perform to accomplish some task. Named after an Iranian
mathematician, Al-Khawarizmi.
Technically, an algorithm must reach a result after a finite number of steps, thus ruling out brute force search
methods for certain problems, though some might claim that brute force search was also a valid (generic)
algorithm. The term is also used loosely for any sequence of actions (which may or may not terminate).
Dictionary of Algorithms, Data Structures, and Problems (http://hissa.nist.gov/dads/terms.html).
[FOLDOC]
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Algorithmic Model
<PI> A method of estimating software cost using mathematical algorithms based on the parameters which are
considered to be the major cost drivers. These estimate of effort or cost are based primarily on the size of the
software or Delivered Source Instructions (DSI)s, and other productivity factors known as Cost Driver
Attributes.
See also Parametric Model.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
alias
1. <operating system> A name, usually short and easy to remember and type, that is translated into another
name or string, usually long and difficult to remember or type. Most command interpreters (e.g. Unix' s csh
allow the user to define aliases for commands, e.g. "alias l ls -al". These are loaded into memory when the
interpreter starts and are expanded without needing to refer to any file.
2. <networking> One of several alternative hostnames with the same Internet address. E.g. in the Unix hosts
database (/etc/hosts or NIS map) the first field on a line is the Internet address, the next is the official
hostname (the "canonical name" or "CNAME") and any others are aliases.
Hostname aliases often indicate that the host with that alias provides a particular network service such as
archie, finger, FTP, or World-Wide Web. The assignment of services to computers can then be changed
simply by moving an alias (e.g. www.doc.ic.ac.uk) from one Internet address to another, without the clients
needing to be aware of the change.
3. <file system> The name used by Apple computer, Inc. for symbolic links when they added them to the
System 7 operating system in 1991.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
aliasing
1. <jargon> When several different identifiers refer to the same object. The term is very general and is used in
many contexts.
See alias, aliasing bug, anti-aliasing.
2. <hardware> (Or "shadowing") Where a hardware device responds at multiple addresses because it only
decodes a subset of the address lines, so different values on the other lines are ignored.
[FOLDOC]
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alienation
<communism, political thought, philosophy of politics> (Ger. Entaeusserung or Entfremdung) extreme

separation from one' s ownnature, from the products of one' s labor, or from social reality, which often results in
an indifference or outright aversion toward some aspects of life that might otherwise be attractive and
significant.
Hegel introduced the term, pointing out that human life, unless comprehended through the Absolute, easily
becomes estranged from the natural world. Feuerbach, on the other hand, emphasized the dangerous practical
consequences of an extreme detachment from one' s own nature andactivities. Marx carried this line of thought
further, by noting that conditions in a capitalist society make it impossible for workers to live meaningfully in
relation to each other, to the products of their labor, or even to themselves. Simone de Beauvoir and other
feminist thinkers point out that women in a patriarchal culture undergo additional forms of alienation when they
are pervasively treated as the objects of male sexual desire and effectively coerced into submitting to male-
based political, social, and intellectual norms.
Istvan Meszaros, Marx' s Theory of Alienation (Merlin, 1986);
Bertell Ollman, Alienation: Marx' s Conception of Man in Capitalist Society (Cambridge, 1977);
Arthur G. Neal and Sara F. Collas, Intimacy and Alienation: Forms of Estrangement in Female/Male
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Relationships (Garland, 2000).
16-11-2001
alife
artificial life
16-11-2003
alpha-categoricity
<logic> A first order theory is alpha-categorical iff (1) it has a normal model of cardinality alpha and (2) any two
normal models of cardinality alpha are isomorphic.
16-03-2001
alphanumeric
<character> A decimal digit or a letter (upper or lower case). Typically, "letters" means only English letters
(ASCII A-Z plus a-z) but it may also include non-English letters in the Roman alphabet, e.g., e-acute, c-cedilla,
the thorn letter, and so on. Perversely, it may also include the underscore character in some contexts.
[FOLDOC]
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Alpharabius
<arabic philosophy, Aristotle, aristotelianism, islamism, neoplatonism, mathematics, astronomy, medicine>

Latinized name of al-Farabi.
16-11-2001
alternation
<logic, alternative proposition, disjunction> Logical relation holding between propositions at least one of which
is true; see: disjunction.
16-11-2001
alternative occurrence
<logic, inductive logic, probability, arithmentic of probability> the complex event comprising the occurrence of
one or the other (or both) of its constituent events. The probability of an alternative occurrence may be
calculated by the formula: P(A v B) = P(A) + P(B) - P(A & B). Thus, for example, the chances of getting "heads"
at least once in two flips of a coin are equal to the chances of getting "heads" on the first toss (1/2) plus the
chances of getting "heads" on the second toss (1/2) minus the chances of getting "heads" both times (1/4), or
3/4.
Richard Lowry, The Architecture of Chance: An Introduction to the Logic and Arithmetic of Probability (Oxford,
1989);
Ian Hacking, An Introduction to Probability and Inductive Logic (Cambridge, 2001);
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Donald Gillies, Philosophical Theories of Probability (Routledge, 2000).
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Althusser Louis
<epistemology, structuralism, marxism, dialectics>, <political thought> Algerian-French social philosopher

(1918-1990). In Pour Marx (For Marx) (1965), Lénin et la philosophie (Lenin and Philosophy) (1969), and Lire le
Capital (Reading Capital) (1970), Althusser offered a structuralist re-interpretation of the later work of Marx.
According to Althusser, social organization is determined wholly by ideological consequences expressed in
economic and political power, enforced in home and family as well as in the workplace. The differential roles to
which individuals are assigned in a society, he argued, are clearly signified not only by the presence of
particular notions in its cultural paradigms, but even more dramatically by the absence of others. Elements
d' autocritique (Essays in Self-Criticism) (1974) includes retractions from many of these central themes.
Althusser: A Critical Reader, ed. by Gregory Elliott (Blackwell, 1994).
16-11-2001
altruism
<ethics> selfless concern for other people purely for their own sake. Altruism is usually contrasted with
selfishness or egoism in ethics. As a theoretical position, it is the view according to which the happiness of
others ought to be given greatest importance in the agent' s ethical decisions.
Altruism could give rise to forms of eudaimonism, e.g. when there is only one individual, the agent, involved, or
when the agent' s happines coincides with the happiness of all the others. In practice, eudaimonism is always a
kind of individualism or egoism. Some forms of altruism put the emphasis more on duty or moral law rather
than on the actual interests of other people, for example Kantianism and various other forms of deontologism.
Obviously, altruistic forms of utilitarianism and pragmatism put a practical emphasis on consequences (see
consequentialism), that is, on helping or having regard for the welfare of other people, rather than on some sort
of abstract formulation like "moral law".
Altruism is often taken to be a positive thing, especially by the average citizen. However, one has to tread
carefully here, because in this common usage, "altruism" does not always refer to self-sacrifice, but sometimes
only to an attitude of benevolence toward others (for example, dictionaries often define "altruistic" as
"benevolent"). As always, but especially in this case, it is best to get the other person to clarify what he means
before you "go on the offensive". Technical philosophical definitions do not always agree with any given
individual' s understanding of altruism. (References from collectivism,communism, consequentialism,
deontologism, hedonism, humanism, and utilitarianism).
Thomas Nagel, The Possibility of Altruism (Princeton, 1979);
Altruism, ed. by Jeffrey Paul, Ellen F. Paul, and Fred D. Miller, Jr. (Cambridge, 1993);
Matt Ridley, The Origins of Virtue: Human Instincts and the Evolution of Cooperation (Penguin, 1998).
Based on the [Ethics Glossary] and [The Ism Book]

16-11-2001
ambiguity
<logic, anphiboly, dialectics, semantics, language, euristic>, the presence of two or more distinct meanings for
a single word or expression. In itself, ambiguity is a common, harmless, and often amusing feature of ordinary
language. When unnoticed in the context of otherwise careful reasoning, however, it can lead to one of several
informal fallacies.
Example: "I' ll give you a ring tomorrow." could signify either the promise of a gift of jewelry or merely an
intention to telephone.
Note the difference between ambiguity and vagueness.
Israel Scheffler, Beyond the Letter: A Philosophical Inquiry into Ambiquity, Vagueness and Metaphor in
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Language (Routledge, 1981);

Douglas Walton, Fallacies Arising from Ambiguity (Kluwer, 1996).
16-11-2001
amoral
<ethics, moral philosophy, judgment, moral decision> having no bearing on, declining to be influenced by, or
making no reference to, moral values or judgments.
16-11-2001
amphiboly
<logic, fallacy, antinomy, dialectic, ambiguity>, <fallacia in dictione, Kant> the informal fallacy that can result
when a sentence is ambiguous because of its grammatical structure, even if all of its terms are clear.
Example: "One morning in Africa, Captain Spaulding shot an elephant in his pajamas. Therefore, it is
dangerous for large animals to wear human clothing."
16-11-2001
analog
<spelling> American spelling of analogue.
16-11-2003
analogue
<electronics> (US: "analog") A description of a continuously variable signal or a circuit or device designed to
handle such signals. The opposite is "discrete" or "digital".
Analogue circuits are much harder to design and analyse than digital ones because the designer must take into
account effects such as the gain, linearity and power handling of components, the resistance, capacitance and
inductance of PCB tracks, wires and connectors, interference between signals, power supply stability and
more. A digital circuit design, especially for high switching speeds, must also take these factors into account if
it is to work reliably, but they are usually less critical because most digital components will function correctly
within a range of parameters whereas such variations will corrupt the outputs of an analogue circuit.
See also analogue computer.
[FOLDOC]
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analogue computer
<computer, hardware> A machine or electronic circuit designed to work on numerical data represented by
some physical quantity (e.g. rotation or displacement) or electrical quantity (e.g. voltage or charge) which
varies continuously, in contrast to digital signals which are either 0 or 1.
For example, the turning of a wheel or changes in voltage can be used as input. Analogue computers are said
to operate in real time and are used for research in design where many different shapes and speeds can be
tried out quickly. A computer model of a car suspension allows the designer to see the effects of changing size,
stiffness and damping.
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[FOLDOC]
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analogy
<philosophy of science, logic, epistemology> a systematic comparison between usually two structures that
relies on properties of, and relations between, features (usually entities) of a source structure to infer properties
of, and relations between, features (usually entities) of a target structure.
Analogy is an important method of reasoning, contributing to such cognitive tasks as explanation, planning, and
decision making. Analogical arguments are sometimes used in philosophy, for example to argue that there
exist other minds analogous to one' s own. In artificial intelligence, analogy is often called case-based
reasoning.
References
Gentner, D., Markman, A. B. (1997). Structure mapping in analogy and similarity. American Psychologist, 52,
45-56.
Holyoak, K. J., Thagard, P. (1995). Mental leaps: Analogy in creative thought. Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press/Bradford Books.
Kolodner, J. (1993). Case-based reasoning. San Mateo, CA: Morgan Kaufmann.
Paul Thagard
Chris Eliasmith - [Dictionary of Philosophy of Mind]

Homepage (http://artsci.wustl.edu/~philos/MindDict/)
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analysis
<logic, mathematics, function, complexity, semantics>, <epistemology, process, knowledge, understanding,

concept> process of breaking up a complex concept or expression in order to reveal its simpler constituents,
thereby elucidating it implicit meaning. The significance and value of this method is challenged by the paradox
that analyses seem bound either to be inadequate or incorrect (if they propose major revisions in our
understanding) but trivial and uninformative (if they do not).
16-11-2001
analytic
<logic, Kantian ethics, Kantian aesthetics> true by definition, or the denial of which would lead to a
contradiction.
Example: "all triangles have three angles" and "all bachelors are unmarried males".
Some philosophers have maintained that all the truths of mathematics are analytic, and that all necessary and
a priori truths are analytic. Contrast term: synthetic. Kant coined this terminology and stressed this distinction.
Many contemporary analytic philosophers, following Quine, deny its cogency.
based on [A Philosophical Glossary], [Philosophical Glossary]
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analytic - synthetic
<logic, Kantian ethics, epistemology, semantics>, <thruth, tautology, knowledge, neo-positivism, judgement>
distinction between judgments or propositions. A judgment is analytic if the concept of its predicate is already
contained in that of its subject; if the concepts of its subject and predicate are independent, it is synthetic.
Alternatively, a proposition is analytic if it is true merely by virtue of the meaning of its terms or tautologous;
otherwise, it is synthetic.
For example: "Golden retrievers are dogs" is analytic. "Dogs enjoy chasing squirrels" is synthetic.
Empiricists generally suppose that this distinction coincides with the a priori / a posteriori and necessary /
contingent distinctions, while Kant held that synthetic a priori judgments are possible. Quine has argued that no
strict distinction can be maintained, since the analyticity of any proposition can be denied, with suitable
revisions of the entire system of language in which it is expressed.
Recommended Reading: Analyticity: Selected Readings, ed. by James F. Harris, Jr. and Richard H. Severens
(Quadrangle, 1970);
Arthur Pap, Semantics and Necessary Truth (Yale, 1958);
Willard V. Quine, From a Logical Point of View: Nine Logico-Philosophical Essays (Harvard, 1980).
16-11-2001
analytic philosophy
<logic, positivism, neopositivism, epistemology, semantics>, <ontology, metaphysics, analytical, ethics,

pragmatism>, <knowledge> twentieth-century methods of philosophizing, generally characterized by the careful
effort to uncover logical and philosophical suppositions concealed beneath the superficial structure of
statements in ordinary uses of language, pursuit of clarity in the treatment of genuine philosophical issues, and
a deep respect for the achievements of natural science. In a variety of distinct forms, philosophical analysis
was practiced by Moore, Russell, Wittgenstein, the logical positivists, Ryle, Austin, Bergmann, and Quine.
Greatly influential in England and America, analytic philosophy is sometimes criticized for its excessive
professionalization of the discipline.
James Baillie, Contemporary Analytic Philosophy (Prentice-Hall, 1996);
Michael Dummett, Origins of Analytical Philosophy (Harvard, 1996);
Avrum Stroll, Twentieth-Century Analytic Philosophy (Columbia, 2000).
16-11-2001
Analytical Engine
<history> A design for a general-purpose digital computer proposed by Charles Babbage in 1837 as a
successor to his earlier special-purpose Difference Engine.
The Analytical Engine was to be built from brass gears powered by steam with input given on punched cards.
Babbage could never secure enough funding to build it, and so it was, and never has been, constructed.
(http://www.fourmilab.ch/babbage/).
[FOLDOC]
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Analytical Machine
Analytical Engine
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anamnaesis
<Plato, Croce, storiography, epistemology, aisthaesis>, psyche, learning> Greek term for recollection as a
source of human knowledge. Socrates himself may have argued that recollection establishes mathematical
truths independently of sensory experience (Gk. aisthaesis). In the mature philosophy of Plato, however, our
ability to recollect the immutable form (Gk. eidos) is taken to provide direct evidence of the pre-existence of the
human soul (Gk. psychae).
Dominic Scott, Recollection and Experience: Plato' s Theory of Learning and Its Successors (Cambridge
1995);
16-11-2001
anankae
<Aristotle, necessity, logic> Greek word for the logical or causal necessity of anything cannot be otherwise
than as it is. According to Aristotle, for example, the efficient cause of a thing produces its effect and the
conclusion of a valid syllogism produces its conclusion with anankae .
F.E. Peters, Greek Philosophical Terms:A Historical Lexicon (NYU, 1967).
16-11-2001
anarchism
<ethics, political philosophy> anarchism was a sometimes violent political movement around the turn of the
century, but the word also describes a moral-political ideal of a society untouched by relations of power and
domination among human beings. This moral ideal has most often expressed itself in what is the technical
meaning of the term, namely the "total absence of government". Anarchism, in this sense, differs from the
position of classical liberalism or libertarianism in politics (which upholds not a lack of government but limited
government), but in its moral sense (the abolition of force and domination from human relations) it is consonant
with a rational ethics. Note, however, that this ethical aspect is overshadowed in popular understanding by the
political aspect, and by the former political movement. (Reference from pacifism.)
Peter Kropotkin, The Conquest of Bread (Black Rose, 1989);
Todd May, The Political Philosophy of Poststructuralist Anarchism (Penn. State, 1994);
Michael Taylor, Community, Anarchy and Liberty (Cambridge, 1983);
Robert Paul Wolff, In Defense of Anarchism (California, 1998).
based on [The Ism Book],

24-03-2001
Anaxagoras of Clazomenae
<ancient greek philosophy, mathematics, astronomy>, <presocratic school, philosophy of nature> Presocratic
philosopher (500-428 BC) who taught at Athens, leaving fragments of his philosophical work. Despite his
rejection of a fundamental distinction between appearance and reality and adoption of an atomistic natural
philosophy, Anaxagoras was the first philosopher in the Western tradition to draw a substantial distinction
between inert and chaotic matter on the one hand and mind as an active principle and source of order on the
other hand.
Malcolm Schofield, An Essay on Anaxagoras (Cambridge, 1980).
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Anaximander
<apeiron, ancient greek philosophy, mathematics, astronomy>, <Milesian school, philosophy of nature>
presocratic philosopher (611-547 BC). According to fragmentary reports from other philosophers, Anaximander
speculated that all matter results from the distillation of hot, cold, dry, and wet elements from apeiron (the
Boundless), an infinite, intelligent, living whole. Examination of fossil evidence persuaded Anaximander that
living beings develop from simpler to more complex forms over time.
Charles H. Kahn, Anaximander and the Origins of Greek Cosmology (Hackett, 1994);
Paul Seligman, The Apeiron of Anaximander; A Study in the Origin and Function of Metaphysical Ideas
(Greenwood, 1974).
16-11-2001
Anaximenes
<ancient greek philosophy, Milesian school, philosophy of nature> Presocratic philosopher (c. 550 BC). In
fragmentary reports from other philosophers, Anaximenes is said to hold that condensation and evaporation of
vapor or mist produces the physical world of earth, water, and fire.
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AND
<logic> (Or "conjunction") The Boolean truth-function which is true only if all its arguments (called conjuncts)
are true. Also the connective denoting this function; also the compound proposition built from this connective.
The truth table for the two argument AND function is:
A | B | A AND B
--+---+---------
F|F|F
F|T|F
T|F|F
T|T|T
Notation: p o q; sometimes also p & q or pq or p ^ q.
In the C programming language it is represented by the && (logical and) operator.
16-03-2001
andreia
<Plato, ancient ethics, politics> the Greek term for bravery or courage (from andreios - "manly" or "stubborn").
According to Plato, this is the virtue properly exemplified by soldiers in the ideal state.
Walter T. Schmid, On Manly Courage: A Study of Plato' s Laches (Southern Illinois, 1992).
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Angst
<anxiety, psycology, emotion, existensialism> German word for the anxiety or anguish produced by an acute
awareness of the implications of human freedom. An important notion for existentialist philosophers, including
especially Kierkegaard and Heidegger.
Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, tr. by Joan Stambaugh (SUNY 1997);
Soren Kierkegaard, The Concept of Anxiety, ed. by Albert B. Anderson (Princeton, 1981);
James Leonard Park, Existential Anxiety: Angst (Existential Books, 1996).
16-11-2001
anima
<soul, psychae, substance, psycology, entelecheia, body>, <neo-platonism, scholasticism, Agostino,

ockamism, Descartes, Spinoza, dualism, nous, matter, philosophy of religions> Latin term for wind, breath, life.
Thus, for Descartes and other philosophers, the rational soul of any human being.
16-11-2001
animal rights
<ontology, ethics, moral philosophy> the ontological status accorded to non-human animals has obvious
consequences for the morality of our willingness to use them for our own purposes. Kant argued that animals
do not qualify as members of the kingdom of ends among whom morality properly holds, while Bentham
supposed that the evident pleasure and pain experienced by animals deserve to be included in any utilitarian
calculation. More recently, Mary Midgley makes concern for animals central to moral philosophy, Peter Singer
shows that mistreatment of animals is the result of a morally indefensible ' speciesism,' and Tom Regan argue
that animals are entitled to basic rights.
Mary Midgley, Animals and Why They Matter (Georgia, 1998);
Tom Regan, The Case for Animal Rights (California, 1985);
Peter Singer, Animal Liberation (Avon, 1991);
Richard Alan Young and Carol J. Adams, Is God a Vegetarian? Christianity, Vegetarianism, and Animal Rights
(Open Court, 1998);
Michael P. T. Leahy, Against Liberation: Putting Animals in Perspective (Routledge, 1994).
16-11-2001
animals
<aristotelism, scholasticism, idealism, empiricism, language> many philosophers of the Western tradition have
considered the relationship between human beings and other species of animals. Although some have been
impressed with the obvious similarities in organic structure and behavior, most have tried to draw a clear
distinction between the two. Only recently have a few taken seriously the extent of our moral obligations to
fellow sentient beings. Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, and Aquinas all supposed that the ability to reason makes
human souls uniquely superior to those of all other beings. Descartes regarded it as a consequence of mind-
body dualism that non-human animals are mere machines incapable of thought of any sort. But Locke, E/tienne
de Condillac, and Bayle noticed that many of the capacities and activities exhibited by animals are similar to
those of human beings, and La Mettrie argued that purely mechanistic explanations could be given for both
human and animal behavior.
Leonora Cohen Rosenfield, From Beast-Machine to Man-Machine: Animal Soul in French Letters from
Descartes to La Mettrie (New York, 1941);
Marc D. Hauser, Wild Minds: What Animals Really Think (Holt, 2000).
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animism
<cultural anthropology, philosophy of religion, sociology>, <preanimism, magic> belief that everything in the
universe (or the universe itself) has some kind of soul or is a living being.
Edward Clodd, Animism: The Seed of Religion (Holmes, 1993).
See also panpsychism
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annealing
simulated annealing
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anomalous monism
<philosophy of mind> the view put forward by Donald Davidson that all mental events are identical to physical
events, and that the only laws that govern the relations between events are physical, not psychological, laws.
References
Anomalous Monism Biblio (http://ling.ucsc.edu/_chalmers/biblio3.html#3.5d)
Davidson, D. (1970). Mental Events. In (L. Foster and J. Swanson, eds.) Experience and Theory. Humanities
Press. Reprinted in Davidson (1980) Essays on Actions and Events. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
See monism, supervenience, token identity thesis, physicalism
Pete Mandik

16-03-2001
Anselm - Anselm of Canterbury
<medieval philosophy, christianism, philosophy of religion>, <faith, ethics, metaphysics, existence of god,
logic>, <ontology, ontological argument, scholasticism, dialectic>, <neoplatonism, epistemology> although born
at Aosta in Alpine Italy and educated in Normandy, Anselm (1033-1109) became a Benedictine monk, teacher,
and abbot at Bec and continued his ecclesiastical career in England. Having been appointed the second
Norman archbishop of Canterbury in 1093, Anselm secured the Westminster Agreement of 1107, guaranteeing
the (partial) independence of the church from the civil state. In a series of short works such as De Libertate
Arbitrii (On Free Will), De Casu Diaboli (The Fall of the Devil), and Cur Deus Homo (Why God became Man),
Anselm propounded a satisfaction theory of the atonement, upon which the incarnation promises relief from the
strict demands of divine justice. He defended a notion of the relation between philosophy and theology that, like
Augustine' s, emphasized the methodological priority offaith over reason, since truth is to be achieved only
through "fides quaerens intellectum" ("faith seeking understanding"). Anselm' s combination of Christianity
neoplatonic metaphysics, and Aristotelean logic in the form of dialectical question-and-answer was an
important influence in the development scholasticism during the next several centuries. As a philosopher,
Anselm is most often remembered for his attempts to prove the existence of god: In De Veritate (Of Truth) he
argued that all creatures owe their being and value to god as the source of all truth, to whom a life lived well is
the highest praise. In the Monologion he described deity as the one most truly good thing, from which all real
moral values derive and whose existence is required by the reality of those values. Most famously, in the
Proslogion (Addition), Anselm proposed the famous Ontological Argument, according to which god is
understood as "aliquid quod maius non cogitari potest" ("that than which nothing greater can be conceived").
The being so conceived must necessarily exist in reality as well as in thought, he argued, since otherwise it
would in fact be possible to conceive something greater-namely, something exactly similiar except that it really
does exist. Thus, at least for Anselmian believers guided by a prior faith, god must truly exist as the simple,
unified source of all perfections, a reality that excludes corruption, imperfection, and deception of every sort.
Recommended Reading.
file://C:\_ 04/06/00
Primary sources:
Sancti Anselmi opera omnia (Schmitt, 1938-61);
Anselm of Canterbury: The Major Works, edited by Brian Davies and G. R. Evans (Oxford, 1998).
Additional on-line information about Anselm includes:

The thorough collection of resources at EpistemeLinks.com.
R.J. Kilcullen' s lectures on the Monologion and the Proslogion.
Thomas Williams' s article in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Marilyn McCord Adams' s article in The Oxford Companion to Philosophy.
Also see: credo ut intelligam, medieval philosophy, the ontological argument, and scholasticism.
A paper on Anselm' s Proof from Gyula Klima.
An article in The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
The article in the Columbia Encyclopedia at Bartleby.com.
W.H. Kent' s article in The Catholic Encyclopedia.
A brief entry in The Macmillan Encyclopedia 2001.
16-11-2001
antecedent
<logic, mathematics, consequence, syllogism, stoicism>, <dialectic, conditional statement> the element that
states the prior condition in any conditional statement. For example, "It doesn' t rain" is theantecedent in both
"If it doesn' t rain, then we' ll have a picnic" and "It will reach ninety degrees today if it doesn' t rain." Intrue
a
material implication, the truth of its antecedent is incompatible with the falsity of its consequent.
16-11-2001
Anthony Susan Brownell
<femminist philosophy, political philosophy, revolution>, <rights of women, ethics> American political activist
(1820-1906). As head of the American Woman Suffrage Association and editor of the radical newspaper, The
Revolution, Anthony campaigned vigorously for the abolition of slavery the rights of women. Having cast a
ballot in the election of 1872, Anthony was arrested and fined; despite her tireless efforts, she did not live to
see wide-spread adoption of women' s right to vote.
The Elizabeth Cady Stanton-Susan B. Anthony Reader: Correspondence, Writings, Speeches, ed. by Ellen
Carol Dubois and Gerda Lerner (Northeastern, 1992);
Geoffrey C. Ward, Martha Saxton, Ann D. Gordon, Ellen Carol Dubois, and Paul Barnes, Not for Ourselves
Alone: The Story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony: An Illustrated History (Knopf, 1999).
16-11-2001
anthropic principle
<epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, idealism> belief that the existence of human life entails certain features of
the physical world. In a minimal form, this view merely points out that we would not be here to observe natural
phenomena were they not compatible with our existence. Stronger versions of the anthropic principle, however,
seem to rely upon the idealistic notion that the universe could not exist without intelligent observers.
John D. Barrow and Frank J. Tipler, The Anthropic Cosmological Principle (Oxford, 1988);
Errol E. Harris, Cosmos and Theos: Ethical and Theological Implications of the Anthropic Cosmological
Principle (Humanity, 1992).
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anthropomorphism
<ancient philosophy, philosophy of religion, metaphysics>, <cultural anthropology> attribution of human

characteristics to non-human things. Thus, an anthropomorphic religion treats god as a personal being, and
anthropomorphic natural theories may suppose that plants, animals, or the earth itself think and feel in the
same ways that we do.
Eileen Crist, Images of Animals: Anthropomorphism and Animal Mind (Temple, 2000);
Anthropomorphism, Anecdotes, and Animals, ed. by Robert W. Mitchell, Nicholas S. Thompson, and H. Lyn
Miles (SUNY, 1996).
16-11-2001
antichain
<mathematics> A subset S of a partially ordered set P is an antichain if, for all x, y in S, x <= y => x = y , i.e. no
two different elements are related.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
antinomy
<logic, epistemology> Kant believed that when reason goes beyond possible experience it often falls into
various antinomies, or equally rational but contradictory views. Reason cannot here play the role of establishing
rational truths because it goes beyond possible experience and becomes transcendent. E.g. Kant thought that
one could reason from the assumption that the world had a beginning in time to the conclusion that it did not,
and vice versa. This was part of Kant' s critical program of determining limits to science and philosophica
inquiry.
25-04-2001
Antisthenes
<greek ancient philosophy, cynism, logic, ethics> Greek philosopher, friend of Socrates, and founder of
cynicism (445-360 BC). Fragmentary reports suggest that Antisthenes denied the possibility of contradiction
and supposed that the wise can never act foolishly.
The Cynics: The Cynic Movement in Antiquity and Its Legacy, ed. by R. Bracht Branham and Marie Odile
Goulet-Caze (California, 2000).
16-11-2001
antisymmetric
<mathematics> A relation R is antisymmetric if, for all x and y, x R y and y R x => x == y. I.e. no two different
elements are mutually related.
Partial orders and total orders are antisymmetric. If R is also symmetric (x R y => y R x) then x R y => x == y.
I.e. different elements are not related.
[FOLDOC]
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antitheorem
<logic> A wff whose negation is a theorem.
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antithesis
reversal of an initial conviction;
see: thesis / antithesis / synthesis.
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apeiron
<ancient philosophy, ontology, material principle>, <Anaximander, infinite, boundless, Plato, neoplatonic>
<philosophy, metaphysics> Anaximander' s Greek word for the boundless extent of the universe as
undifferentiated matter. Although Plato made only scant reference to this notion of what is unlimited, the
neoplatonic philosophy of Plotinus elevated it as the material principle of all change.
Paul Seligman, The Apeiron of Anaximander; A Study in the Origin and Function of Metaphysical Ideas
(Greenwood, 1974);
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APF
associated propositional formula
16-11-2003
apodeictic
<epistemology, demonstrative, logic, Aristotle, necessary>, the characteristic feature of any proposition that
states what is necessary (or impossible), perfectly certain (or inconceivable), or demonstrably true (or false).
See: problematic / assertoric / apodeictic.
16-11-2001
apodosis
implication
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aporia
<logic, Aristotle, rational doubt, reasoning, conclusion>, Greek term for a difficulty or puzzle (literally, "with no
pathway"). Aristotle commonly used this term to signify a group of individually plausible but collectively
inconsistent statements. The reconciliation of such statements by considering alternative solutions, he
supposed, is the chief business of philosophy.
16-11-2001
appearance - reality
<reality, Parmenide, being>, <thruth, doxa, opinion, sensation, knowledge, homomensura>, <experience,
objective, subjective, Protagora>, <epistemology, correspondence, skepticism, neoplatonism>, <idealism,
empiricism, phenomenology, existensialism> distinction between the way things seem to be and the way they
are. The merely apparent is often supposed to be internal, subjective, or temporal, but available for direct
awareness, whereas the the real is supposed to be external, objective, or eternal, but known only inferentially.
Drawn in different terms and applied in various contexts, the distinction is important in the philosophies of
Plato, Descartes, Kant, and Bradley.
Julius Moravcsik, Plato and Platonism: Plato' s Conception of Appearance and Reality in Ontology
Epistemology, and Ethics, and Its Modern Echoes (Blackwell, 2000);
John W. Yolton, Realism and Appearances: An Essay in Ontology (Cambridge, 2000).
16-11-2001
apperception
<self-conscoius awareness, sensory perception, epistemology>, <internal, external, Leibniz, animals, plants,
reflection>, <Wolff, psycology, genuine apperception, Kant, representation>, <objectivity, idealism,
consciousness, Herbart> Self-conscious awareness (as opposed to sensory perception of external objects),
including especially the operation of the will, in the philosophy of Leibniz and Kant.
Mark Kulstad, Leibniz on Apperception, Consciousness and Reflection (Philosophia Verlag, 1991).
16-11-2001
Appiah Kwame Anthony
African American philosopher whose work on the foundations of probabalistic semantics is exemplified in
Assertions and Conditionals (1985) and Truth in Semantics (1986). He is also the author of In My Father' s
House: Africa in the Philosophy of Culture (1992), a discussion of the influence of racial concepts on the
development of African literature and art, and Color Conscious: The Political Morality of Race (1996). A native
of Ghana, Appiah is Past President of the Society for African Philosophy in North America.
16-11-2001
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applied ethics
branch of ethics that considers the practical application of ethical principles to specific issues of social or
personal concern.
Peter Singer, Applied Ethics (Oxford, 1986); Peter Singer, Practical Ethics (Cambridge, 1993);
Anthony Weston, A 21st Century Ethical Toolbox (Oxford, 2000).
16-11-2001
approximation algorithm
<algorithm> An algorithm for an optimisation problem that generates feasible but not necessarily optimal
solutions.
Unlike "heuristic", the term "approximation algorithm" often implies some proven worst or average case bound
on performance. The terms are often used interchangeably however.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
Aquinas Thomas
<theology, aristotelianism, scholasticism, mataphysics, ontology, ethics, essence, existence of god,

epistemology, politics, Albert the Great, William of Moerbeke> Born to an aristocratic family living in
Roccasecca, Italy, Thomas Aquinas (1224-1274) joined the Dominican order while studying philosophy and
theology at Naples. Later he pursued additional studies in Paris and Koeln, where he was exposed to
Aristotelean thought by Albert the Great and William of Moerbeke. During the rest of his life, he taught at Paris
and Rome, writing millions of words on philosophical and theological issues and earning his reputation among
the scholastics as "the angelic doctor."
Aquinas developed in massive detail a synthesis of Christianity and Aristotelian philosophy that became the
official doctrine of Roman Catholic theology in 1879. De Ente et Essentia (On Being and Essence) includes a
basic statement of Aquinas' s metaphysical position. His literaryactivity stopped abruptly as the result of a
religious experience a few months before his death. Although he wrote many commentaries on the works of
Aristotle and a comprehensive Summa de Veritate Catholicae Fidei contra Gentiles (Summa Contra Gentiles)
(1259-1264), Aquinas' s unfinished Summa Theologica (1265 -1273) represents the most complete statement of
his philosophical system. The sections of greatest interest for survey courses include his views on the nature of
god, including the five ways to prove god' s existence, and his exposition ofnatural law. Although matters of
such importance should be accepted on the basis of divine revelation alone, Aquinas held, it is at least possible
(and perhaps even desirable) in some circumstances to achieve genuine knowledge of them by means of the
rigorous application of human reason. As embodied souls (hylomorphic composites), human beings naturally
rely on sensory information for their knowledge of the world.
Reading hint: Although the rigidly formal structure of the Summa articles can be rather confusing to a modern
reader, the central portion beginning with the words, "I answer that..." is always a direct statement of Aquinas' s
own position.
Recommended Reading.
Primary sources:
Opera omnia (Rome, 1882- );
Thomas Aquinas, Selected Writings, ed. by Ralph McInerny. (Penguin, 1999);
Thomas Aquinas, Selected Philosophical Writings, tr. By Timothy McDermott (Oxford, 1998);
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae: A Concise Translation, ed. by Timothy McDermott (Christian Classics,
1997);
An Aquinas Reader, ed. by Mary T. Clark (Fordham, 2000);
Thomas Aquinas, On Law, Morality, and Politics, ed. by William P. Baumgarth and Richard J.Regan, S.J.
(Hackett, 1988).
Secondary sources:
Etienne Gilson, The Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas (Dorset, 1981);
The Cambridge Companion to Aquinas, ed. by Norman Kretzmann and Eleonore Stump (Cambridge, 1993);
Ralph McInerny, St. Thomas Aquinas (Notre Dame, 1982);
The Christian Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, by Etienne Gilson, tr. by I. T. Shook (Notre Dame, 1994);
Ralph McInerny, Ethica Thomistica: The Moral Philosophy of Thomas Aquinas (Catholic University of America,
1997);
Guide to Thomas Aquinas by Josef Pieper (Ignatius, 1997).
Additional on-line information about Aquinas includes:
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Daniel J. Kennedy' s extremely thorough treatment of Aquinas and treatise on his relation to medieval though
at The Jacques Maritain Center.
Alexander Broadie' s article in The Oxford Companion to Philosophy.
Also see: concupiscence, the cosmological argument, the first cause argument, the five ways, human nature,
medieval philosophy, moral philosophy, neo-Thomism, ratiocination, philosophy of religion, scholasticism,
suicide, Thomism, analytical Thomism, traversal of the infinite, and just war.
The excellent bibliography prepared by ThÈrËsa Bonin. Walter Farrell' s masterly Companion to the Summa.
Snippets from Aquinas (Latin and English) in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations.
Gyula Klima' s essay onfaith and reason in Aquinas.
The extensive biography of Aquinas at Brother Michael' s Internet Catholic Church.
Robert Sarkissian' s philosophical summary.
The Bloomsbury Guide to Human Thought on Natural Theology.
Bob Beard' s brief guide to Aquinas studies.
16-11-2001
arche
<principle, Milesian philosophers, foundation, cause>, <Anaximander, apeiron, Empedocles>, <mataphysics,

ontology, epistemology>, <absolute principle> Greek term for beginning or ultimate principle. The Milesian
philosophers looked for a single material stuff of which the entire universe is composed, while Empedocles
identified no fewer than four elements whose mixture makes up ordinary things. For both Plato and Aristotle,
however, the arch most worth seeking would be an originating power from which the material order flows and
upon which theoretical knowledge of its nature might be grounded logically.
F. E. Peters, Greek Philosophical Terms: A Historical Lexicon (NYU, 1967).
16-11-2001
Archimedes
<geometry, mathematics, ancient philosophy, physics, science>, <epistemology, machine> Sicilian

geometrician (287-212 BCE) who calculated an accurate value for p, demonstrated the relationship between
the volume of spheres and cylinders, discovered methods for determining the center of gravity of plane figures,
and provided a foundation for the science of hydrostatics. Archimedes also invented many ingenious
machines, including a pump for raising water, effective levers and compound pulleys, and a mechanical
planetarium. He died defending Syracuse against a Roman seige during the second Punic war.
E. J. Dijksterhuis, Archimedes (Princeton, 1987).
16-11-2001
architecture
<architecture> Design, the way components fit together. The term is used particularly of processors, both
individual and in general. "The ARM has a really clean architecture". It may also be used of any complex
system, e.g. "software architecture", "network architecture".
[FOLDOC]
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Arendt Hannah
<philosophy of women, political philosophy, ethics>, <moral philosophy, phenomenology, philosophy of

history>, <existensialism, metaphysics, human action, totalitarianism>, <anti-semitism, philosophy of mind,
human condiction>, <political action, sociology> German-American political philosopher (1906-1975).
Althoughshe had studied with Jaspers and Heidegger in Heidelberg, Arendt fled Germany in 1933 and, from
her new home in the United States, wrote powerfully about the anti-Semitism of the Nazi regime, describing its
emergence as an instance of "the eerie banality of [evil" in Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of
Evil (1963). Arendt' s The Origins of Modern Totalitarianism (1951) decried the concentration ofpolitical power
engendered by imperialism of every sort. In The Human Condition (1958), On Revolution (1963), and The Life
of the Mind (1978), however, she expressed a profound skepticism about the prospect that philosophical
thought could significantly influence the individual actions that determine the political structure of human
culture.
The Portable Hannah Arendt, ed. by Peter Baehr (Penguin, 2000);
Hannah Arendt / Karl Jaspers Correspondence 1926-1969, ed. by Lotte Kohler and Hans Saner (Harcourt
Brace, 1993); Margaret Canovan, Hannah Arendt: A Reinterpretation of Her Political Thought (Cambridge,
1994);
Feminist Interpretations of Hannah Arendt, ed. by Bonnie Honig (Penn. State, 1995);
Dana Richard Villa, Arendt and Heidegger (Princeton, 1995).
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Ares
<arete, philosophy of religion, anthopomorfism> Greek god of destruction, slaughter, and war, later called Mars
by the Romans. Hence, for poets and philosophers, a symbol of strife and discord generally.
16-11-2001
aretae
<ethics> the Greek word for "excellence" or "virtue". For the Greeks, this was not limited to human beings. A
guitar, for example, has its arete' ' in producing harmonious music, just as a hammer has its excellence or virtue
in pounding nails into wood well. So, too, the virtue of an Olympic swimmer is in swimming well, and the virtue
of a national leader lies in motivating people to work for the common good.
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arg
argument
10-02-2004
argument
1. <logic>
a. an inference
b. input to a function
c. a subject-term for a predicate.
See also corresponding argument
2. <PI> ("arg" or parameter) A value or reference passed to a function, procedure, subroutine, command or
program, by the caller. For example, in the function:
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square(x) = x * x
x is the formal argument and in the call
y = square(3+3)
3+3 is the actual argument. This will execute the function square with x having the value 6.
There are many different conventions for passing arguments to functions and procedures including call-by-
value, call-by-name, call-by-need. These affect whether the value of the argument is computed by the caller or
the callee (the function) and whether the callee can modify the value of the argument as seen by the caller (if it
is a variable).
Arguments to a program are usually given after the command name, separated by spaces, e.g.:
cat myfile yourfile hisfile
Here "cat" is the command and "myfile", "yourfile", and "hisfile" are the arguments.
[FOLDOC]
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argument form
<logic, syllogism, logic, mathematics, dialectic>, <epistemology, deduction, induction, demostration, proof>, the
general logical structure of an argument considered apart from any of its specific content. In categorical logic,
an argument form is any one of the 256 distinct varieties of categorical syllogism. In the propositional calculus,
an argument form is a set of two or more statement forms such that the substitution of an actual statement for
each of its statement variables would result in an argument.
16-11-2001
argument from evil
<ethics, teleological argument, metaphysics> argument from the existence of evil to the non existence of an
omnipotent, omniscient and perfectly benevolent being such as God is supposed to be. Since evil exists, it' s
argued, either God can' t prevent it (and so, is not omnipotent) or doesn' t know about it (and so, is no
omniscient) or doesn' t wish to remove it (and so, is not perfectly benevolent). Contrast: teleological argument.
06-06-2001
argumentum
<argument, appeal to force, ad hominem argument>

... ad baculum: see appeal to force.
... ad hominem: see ad hominem argument.
... ad ignoratiam: see appeal to ignorance.
... ad misericordiam: see appeal to pity.
... ad populum: see appeal to emotion.
... ad verecundiam: see appeal to authority.
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argumentum ad populum
emotion appeal
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Aristippus
<ancient philosophy, platonism, Cyrenaic school, edonism>, ethics, pleasure, cynism, wisdom, happiness>
North African philosopher (435-356 BC). Originally a student of Socrates, Aristippus (and his eponymous
grandson) established the Cyrenaic school of philosophy,according to which sensual pleasure in the
presentmoment, tempered only by moderation, is the genuine good for human life.
16-11-2001
aristocracy
<political theory, philosophy of history> political theory that advocates the rule of "the best" whom it identifies,
generally, with a hereditary upper class. Contrast: autocracy, democracy, oligarchy.
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aristotelian logic
<logic, Aristotle> traditional categorical logic, as developed originally in the Organon of Aristotle.
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aristotelianism
<peripatetic school, Aristotle, arabic philosophy, medieval philosophy reinassance, substance, ontology,
methaphysics, logic, dialectic, epistemology, politics, ethics, philosophy, scholasticism, psycology> A tradition,
dating from the medieval period, concerned with promoting and defending significant portions of the philosophy
of Aristotle.
16-11-2001
Aristotle
<aristotelianism, peripatetic school> born at Stagira in northern Greece, Aristotle (384-322 BC) was the most
notable product of the educational program devised by Plato; he spent twenty years of his life studying at the
Academy. When Plato died, Aristotle returned to his native Macedonia, where he is supposed to have
participated in the education of Philip' s son, Alexander (the Great). He came back to Athens with Alexander'
approval in 335 and established his own school at the Lyceum, spending most of the rest of his life engaged
there in research, teaching, and writing. His students acquired the name "peripatetics" from the master' s habi
of strolling about as he taught.
Although the surviving works of Aristotle probably represent only a fragment of the whole, they include his
investigations of an amazing range of subjects, from logic, philosophy, and ethics to physics, biology,
psychology, politics, and rhetoric. Aristotle appears to have thought through his views as he wrote, returning to
significant issues at different stages of his own development. The result is less a consistent system of thought
than a complex record of Aristotle' s thinking about many significant issues.
The aim of Aristotle' s logical treatises (known collectively as the Organon) was to develop a universal method
of reasoning by means of which it would be possible to learn everything there is to know about reality. Thus,
the Categories proposes a scheme for the description of particular things in terms of their properties, states,
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and activities. On Interpretation, Prior Analytics, and Posterior Analytics examine the nature of deductive
inference, outlining the system of syllogistic reasoning from true propositions that later came to be known as
categorical logic.
Though not strictly one of the logical works, the Physics contributes to the universal method by distinguishing
among the four causes which may be used to explain everything, with special concern for why things are the
way they are and the apparent role of chance in the operation of the world. In other treatises, Aristotle applied
this method, with its characteristic emphasis on teleological explanation,to astronomical and biological
explorations of the natural world.
In Metaphysics Aristotle tried to justify the entire enterprise by grounding it all in an abstract study of being qua
being. Although Aristotle rejected the Platonic theory of forms, he defended his own vision of ultimate reality,
including the eternal existence of substance.
On The Soul uses the notion of a hylomorphic composite to provide a detailed account of the functions
exhibited by living things-vegetable, animal, and human-and explains the use of sensation and reason to
achieve genuine knowledge. That Aristotle was interested in more than a strictly scientific exploration of human
nature is evident from the discussion of literary art (particularly tragedy) in Poetics and the methods of
persuasion in the Rhetoric.
Aristotle made several efforts to explain how moral conduct contributes to the good life for human agents,
including the Eudemian Ethics and the Magna Moralia, but the most complete surviving statement of his views
on morality occurs in the Nicomachean Ethics. There he considered the natural desire to achieve happiness,
described the operation of human volition and moral deliberation, developed a theory of each virtue as the
mean between vicious extremes, discussed the value of three kinds of friendship, and defended his conception
of an ideal life of intellectual pursuit. But on Aristotle' s view, the lives of individual human beings are invariably
linked together in a social context. In the Politics he speculated about the origins of the state, described and
assessed the relative merits of various types of government, and listed the obligations of the individual citizen.
He may also have been the author of a model Constitution of Athens, in which the abstract notion of
constitutional government is applied to the concrete life of a particular society.
Primary sources:
Aristotelis opera, ed. by I. Bekker (Prussian Academy, 1831-70);
The Complete Works of Aristotle, ed. by Jonathan Barnes. (Princeton, 1984)
- vol. 1: includes the logical works, Physics, treatises on astronomy and animals, and Of the Soul
- vol. 2: includes additional scientific treatises, Metaphysics, the works on ethics, Politics, Rhetoric, and
Poetics. Basic Works of Aristotle, ed. by Richard McKeon (Random House, 1941);
Aristotle: Introductory Readings, tr. by Terence Irwin and Gail Fine (Hackett, 1996);
Nichomachean Ethics, tr. By Terence Irwin (Hackett, 1985).
Secondary sources:
The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle, ed. by Jonathan Barnes (Cambridge, 1995);
Aristotle the Philosopher, ed. by J.L. Ackrill (Oxford, 1981);
Henry Veatch, Aristotle, a Contemporary Appreciation (Indiana, 1974);
Jonathan Lear, Aristotle: The Desire to Understand (Cambridge, 1998);
Feminist Interpretations of Aristotle, ed. by Cynthia A. Freeland (Penn. State, 1998);
Kenneth McLeish, Aristotle (Routledge, 1999);
Joseph Owens, Doctrine of Being in the Aristotelian Metaphysics (Pontifical Institute, 1978);
Essays on Aristotle' s De Anima, ed. by Martha Nussbaum and Amelie Rorty (Clarendon, 1996);
John M. Cooper, Reason and Emotion (Princeton, 1998);
Sarah Broadie, Ethics with Aristotle (Oxford, 1995);
Aristotle' s Ethics: Critical Essays, ed. by Nancy Sherman (Rowman & Littlefield, 1999);
J. O. Urmson, Aristotle' s Ethics (Blackwell, 1988);
Anthony Kenny, Aristotle' s Theory of the Will (Yale, 1979);
Fred D. Miller, Jr., Nature, Justice, and Rights in Aristotle' s Politics (Oxford, 1997).
Additional on-line information about Aristotle includes:

Richard Hooker' s excellent treatment.
A thorough article in The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
William Turner' s full treatment in The Catholic Encyclopedia.
articles in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy on:
Aristotle' s logic by Robin Smith.
Aristotle' s metaphysics by S. Marc Cohen.
Aristotle' s ethics by Richard Kraut.
Aristotle' s political theory by Fred D. Miller, Jr.
David Charles' s article in The Oxford Companion to Philosophy.
Also see: active and passive intellects, akrasia, ancient philosophy, Aristotelianism, categories, catharsis, final
causes, focal meaning, form and matter, friendship, genus and species, the greatest good, good-in-itself, the
great-souled man, hylomorphism, kinesis, laws of thought, logic, master and slave, the doctrine of the mean,
metaphysics, moral philosophy, motion, Peripatetics, phronaesis, pleasure, the principle of plenitude, political
philosophy, potentiality, prime matter, the prime mover, rhetoric, right action, self-control, the third man
argument, the verb ' to be' , tragedy, universals, virtues, well
-being, and why.

Gordon L. Ziniewicz on the physics and metaphysics and the ethics of Aristotle. the excellent treatment of
virtue ethics from Lawrence Hinman.
A bibliography of recent articles from S. Marc Cohen.
Snippets from Aristotle in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations.
Bjoern Christensson' s guide to Aristotle studies.
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MHBER on Aristotle and Renaissance Aristotelianism.

Eric Weisstein' s entry in Treasure Trove ofScientific
Biography.
Aristotle and the morally excellent brain, from David DeMoss.
A paper on Aristotle' s treatment of homosexuality by Guy Bouchard.
An article by D. K. House on whether Aristotle understood Plato.
A literary analysis in The Perseus Encyclopedia.
The Bloomsbury Guide to Human Thought on Tragedy.
A brief entry in Oxford' s Concise Dictionary ofLinguistics.
An entry in The Oxford Dictionary of Scientists.
An account of Aristotle' s contribution to mathematics from
Mathematical MacTutor a brief entry in The Macmillan Encyclopedia 2001.
16-11-2001
arithmetisation
<logic> A generalized form of Goedel numbering in which distinct numerals Are assigned to distinct symbols in
the alphabet of a formal language.
As a result every wff of the language can be re-expressed as a Numeral concatenating all the numerals for its
component symbols).
When done well, there can easily be an effective method for translating wffs into numerals and vice versa.
16-03-2001
arity
<PI> The number of arguments a function or operator takes. In some languages functions may have variable
arity which sometimes means their last or only argument is actually a list of arguments.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
Arnauld Antoine
<theology, metaphysics, ethics, logic, epistemology>, <occasionalism, rationalism, Port-Royal logic> French
theologian and philosopher (1612-1694). Influential as co-author (with Pierre Nicole) of La logique, ou l' art de
penser (The "Port-Royal" Logic) (1662), Arnauld was active in the seventeenth-century French philosophical
community that also included Mersenne and Pascal. Arnauld wrote the fourth set of Objections that were
published along with Descartes' s Meditations (1641), criticized the occasionalist philosophical system and
theological views of Malebranche in Traite de vraies et fausses idees (On True and False Ideas) (1683), and
engaged in a lengthy correspondence with Leibniz.
Steven Nadler, Arnauld and the Cartesian Philosophy of Ideas (Princeton, 1989).
16-11-2001
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Arrow Kenneth Joseph
<sociology, economics> American economist and social theorist (1921- ). In Social Choice and Individual
Values (1951). Arrow introduced the general impossibility theorem, which shows that the rationally collective
preference of a group cannot always be derived from the transitive preferences of its individual members. (This
point is often illustrated with instances of the voting paradox.) Arrow won the Nobel Prize in Economic
Sciences in 1972.
Kenneth Joseph Arrow, The Limits of Organization (Norton, 1974)
Kenneth Joseph Arrow, Markets, Information, and Uncertainty: Essays in Economic Theory in Honor of
Kenneth J. Arrow, ed. by Graciela Chichilnisky (Cambridge, 1999).
16-11-2001
Artificial Life
<PI> (a-life) The study of synthetic systems which behave like natural living systems in some way. Artificial Life
complements the traditional biological sciences concerned with the analysis of living organisms by attempting
to create lifelike behaviours within computers and other artificial media. Artificial Life can contribute to
theoretical biology by modelling forms of life other than those which exist in nature. It has applications in
environmental and financial modelling and network communications.
There are some interesting implementations of artificial life using strangely shaped blocks. A video, probably by
the company Artificial Creatures who build insect-like robots in Cambridge, MA (USA), has several mechanical
implementations of artificial life forms.
See also evolutionary computing, Life.
[Christopher G. Langton (Ed.), "Artificial Life", Proceedings Volume VI, Santa Fe Institute Studies in the
Sciences of Complexity. Addison-Wesley, 1989].
Yahoo! (http://www.yahoo.com/Science/Artificial_Life/).
Santa Fe Institute (http://alife.santafe.edu/).
The Avida Group

(http://www.krl.caltech.edu/avida/Avida.html).
[FOLDOC]
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artificial neural network
<artificial intelligence> (ANN, commonly just "neural network" or "neural net") A network of many very simple
processors ("units" or "neurons"), each possibly having a (small amount of) local memory. The units are
connected by unidirectional communication channels ("connections"), which carry numeric (as opposed to
symbolic) data. The units operate only on their local data and on the inputs they receive via the connections.
A neural network is a processing device, either an algorithm, or actual hardware, whose design was inspired by
the design and functioning of animal brains and components thereof.
Most neural networks have some sort of "training" rule whereby the weights of connections are adjusted on the
basis of presented patterns. In other words, neural networks "learn" from examples, just like children learn to
recognise dogs from examples of dogs, and exhibit some structural capability for generalisation.
Neurons are often elementary non-linear signal processors (in the limit they are simple threshold
discriminators). Another feature of NNs which distinguishes them from other computing devices is a high
degree of interconnection which allows a high degree of parallelism. Further, there is no idle memory
containing data and programs, but rather each neuron is pre-programmed and continuously active.
The term "neural net" should logically, but in common usage never does, also include biological neural
networks, whose elementary structures are far more complicated than the mathematical models used for
ANNs.
See Aspirin, Hopfield network, McCulloch-Pitts neuron.
Usenet newsgroup: news:comp.ai.neural-nets.
[FOLDOC]
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16-03-2001
asceticism
<ethics> the position according to which the pleasures of this world should be renounced, usually for the sake
of some "higher" purpose like intellectual discipline or mystical insight. The doctrine is often connected with the
mind-body dichotomy, as it consists of an extreme emphasis on the mind and the pleasures of thought
(somewhat akin to psychological rationalism). For the opposite view, see sensualism. (References from
Buddhism, Cynicism, Kantianism, Pythagoreanism, sensualism, and spiritualism.)
Based on [The Ism Book]
24-03-2001
aspectual shape
<philosophy of mind>
Similar to the notion of sense introduced by John Searle in 1992.

16-03-2001
assent
<apprehension, stoicism, >, <evident, Descartes, epistemology, empiricism> make a judgment. For many
philosophers of the modern period, assent is the mental act of accepting the truth of a statement, whether or
not one has adequate evidence for knowing it.
16-11-2001
assertion
<PI>
1. An expression which, if false, indicates an error. Assertions are used for debugging by catching can' t happen
errors.
2. fact or rule added to the database by the program at run time. This is an extralogical or impure feature of
logic programming languages.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
assertoric
<epistemology, demonstrative, logic, Aristotle, necessary>, a propositionstating that something actually is the
case, rather than necessary or merely possible. See: problematic /assertoric / apodeictic.
16-11-2001
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assignment
<PI> Storing the value of an expression in a variable. This is commonly written in the form "v = e". In Algol the
assignment operator was ":=" (pronounced "becomes") to avoid mathematicians qualms about writing
statements like x = x+1.
Assignment is not allowed in functional languages, where an identifier always has the same value.
See also referential transparency, single assignment, zero assignment.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
assignment problem
<mathematics, algorithm> (Or "linear assignment") Any problem involving minimising the sum of C(a, b) over a
set P of pairs (a, b) where a is an element of some set A and b is an element of set B, and C is some function,
under constraints such as "each element of A must appear exactly once in P" or similarly for B, or both.
For example, the a' s could be workers and the b' s projects.
The problem is "linear" because the "cost function" C() depends only on the particular pairing (a, b) and is
independent of all other pairings.
(http://forum.swarthmore.edu/epigone/comp.soft-sys.matlab/bringhyclu).
(http://www.soci.swt.edu/capps/prob.htm).
(http://mat.gsia.cmu.edu/GROUP95/0577.html).
(http://www.informs.org/Conf/WA96/TALKS/SB24.3.html).
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
associated propositional formula
<logic> A wff A of propositional logic created from a wff B of predicatelogic by (1) removing the quantifiers from
B, and (2) replacing each predicate symbol (and its arguments) in B with a propositional symbol. Notation:
B^prop = p.
16-03-2001
association
<equivalence, analogy, similarity, epistemology, logic>, <semantics> a rule of replacement of the forms:
(pv(qvr))=((pvq)vr)
(p&(q&r))=((p&q)&r)
Example: "Harold is over 21, and so are Jane and Kelly." Is equivalent to "Harold and Jane are over 21, and so
is Kelly." The associativity of both disjunction and conjunction can be demonstrated by truth-table analysis.
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association of ideas
<epistemology, Plato, memory, learning, imagine, empiricism>, <imagination, contiguity, psycology, Skinner,
Gestalttheorie>, <associationism, semantics> presumed regularities in the co-existence or succession of
particular mental contents. Noted as unreliable by Locke, the process of association became a central feature
of human thought in the philosophy of Hume and Mill and in the psychology of Skinner.
16-11-2001
associationalism
<epistemology, philosophy of mind> psychological theory of knowledge which holds that all of our concepts
come about through the association of images. David Hume is often called the first associationalist, but the
idea enjoyed its great heyday in the late nineteenth century in tandem with sensationalism.
[The Ism Book]
24-03-2001
assumption
<premise, conclusion, reasoning, proof, evidence, hypothesis>, <logic, epistemology, philosophy of science> a
proposition accepted without proof or evidence as the basis for some further conclusion.
16-11-2001
ataraxia
<Epicureanism, Democritus, stoicism, tranquillity, freedom, Pyrro, Epicurus, apathy, ethics, pleasure,
haedonae> The Greek term used by Pyrrho and Epicurus for tranquillity, or the freedom from disturbance and
pain that characterizes a balanced mind and constitutes its first step toward the achievement of pleasure (Gk.
haedonae).
16-11-2001
atheism
<ethics, philosophy of religion> the belief that, or the philosophical position according to which, God, gods,
deities, and supernatural powers do not exist. In this respect it is similar to secularism and opposed to any
variety of theism.
In the last two centuries, some of the most influential atheistic hilosophers have been Karl Marx, Friedrich
Nietzsche, Bertrand Russell, and Jean-Paul Sartre.
Atheism is to be contrasted with agnosticism, which takes a doubtful attitude towards the existence of God(s)
but does not proclaim disbelief.
Popularly, atheism is often taken to imply a lack of any ideals or values whatsoever (see immoralism), but this
connotation rests on the controversial assumption that religious or supernatural values are the only real values.
(References from agnosticism, secularism, and theism.)
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atomism
<metaphysics, ontology, epistemology> metaphysical or cosmological position according to which reality is

fundamentally made up only of indivisible particles, independent, extremely small, self-sufficient atoms (nothing
more). According to atomism, a complete description of the universe might be given by specifiying the location
and movements of all the atoms composing it.
Democritus is the most notable ancient atomist. According to Leibniz monads are "the true atoms." Locke' s
corpuscular hypothesis is also a version of Atomism.
based on [Giovanni Benzi, A Philosophical Glossary],

28-07-2001
attribute
, <Descartes, limited substance, monism, Spinoza> a propertyor feature possessed by a substance. In the
philosophical nomenclature employed by Aquinas and Descartes, attributes are commonly regarded as
essential to the substances that have them.
16-11-2001
Aufklaerung
<enlightement, spirit of reason, Kant>, German term for Enlightenment, the modern spirit of reliance on reason
espoused by such philosophers as Mendelssohn and Kant.
16-11-2001
Augustine
<theology, ontology, metaphysics, christian philosophy>, <stoicism, neoplatonism, political thought, ethics>,
<manicheism, rethoric, medieval philosophy> <skepticism, epistemology, philosophy of religion>,
<Pelagianism, theodicy, origianal sin, escathology>, <philosophy of history> born to a Christian mother and
pagan father at Tagaste in North Africa, Augustine (354-430) was a confirmed Manichaean during his early
years as a student and teacher of rhetoric at Carthage and Rome. But in Milan, during his early thirties, he
began to study Neoplatonic philosophy under the guidance of Ambrose and eventually converted to
Christianity. An account of his early lifeand conversion, together with a reasoned defense of his Neoplatonic
principles, may be found in the Confessiones (Confessions) (401). He was named the Christian bishop of
Hippo (Annaba, Algeria) in 396, and devoted the remaining decades of his life to the formation of an ascetic
religious community.
Augustine argued against the skeptics that genuine human knowledge can be established with certainty. His
explanation of human nature and agency combined stoic and Christian elements. But it was by reference to the
abstract philosophy of Plato that Augustine sought to prove the existence of god. Acknowledging the difficulties
of divine control and foreknowledge, he used an analysis of the nature of time to defend human freedom in De
Gratia et Libero Aribitrio (On Grace and Free Will). In De Civitate Dei (The City of God) (413-427) Augustine
distinguished religion and morality from politics and tried to establish the proper relations among them, arguing
for the church' s strictindependence from (if not its outright superiority to) the civil state. You might be
interested in viewing portions of a Dutch library' s copy of a fifteenth
-century illuminated manuscript of this text.
Primary sources:
Sancti Aurelii Augustini opera omnia (Paris, 1679-1700);
The Essential Augustine, ed. by Vernon J.Bourke (Hackett, 1974);
Augustine, The Confessions, ed. by Susan B. Varenne (Vintage, 1998);
Augustine, City of God, tr. by Marcus Dods (Modern Library, 2000).
Secondary sources:
Henry Chadwick, Augustine (Oxford, 1986);
James Wetzel, Augustine and the Limits of Virtue (Cambridge, 1992).
Additional on-line information about Augustine includes:

James J. O' Donnell' s excellent survey of Internet resources.
file://C:\_ 04/06/00

John F. Callahan' s lecture on Augustine and the Greek Philosophers.
a thorough article in The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Michael Mendelson' s article in The Stanford Encyclopedia ofPhilosophy.
Christopher Kirwan' s article in The Oxford Companion to Philosophy.
Also see: the problem of evil, medieval philosophy, original sin, Pelagius, philosophy of religion, theodicy, and
just war.

A lecture on Augustine from Charles Ess.
Snippets from Augustine (Latin and English) in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations.
Bj–rn Christensson' s brief guide to Augustine studies.
Robert Sarkissian' s philosophical summary.
16-11-2001
Austin John
<utilitarianism, ethics, philosophy of Law, Bentham>, <legal positivism, moral philosophy> British legal theorist
(1790-1859). Although he shared many of the utilitariangoals of his friend Bentham, Austin became the
foremost representative of legal positivism.
He argued in The Province of Jurisprudence Determined (1832) and the unfinished Lectures on Jurisprudence
(1863) that, as a matter of practical fact, the la is nothing more than the command of a legitimate sovereign,
enforced by the imposition of effective moral sanctions.
Wilfrid E. Rumble, The Thought of John Austin: Jurisprudence, Colonial Reform, and the British Constitution
(Athlone, 1985).
16-11-2001
Austin John Langshaw
<semantics, linguistics>, <philosophy of language, analytic philosophy> J.L. Austin (1911-1960) was born in
Lancaster and educated at Oxford, where he became a professor of philosophy following several years of
service in British intelligence during World War II. Although greatly admired as a teacher, Austin published little
of his philosophical work during his brief lifetime. Students gathered his papers and lectures in books that were
published posthumously, including Philosophical Papers (1961) and Sense and Sensibilia (1962).
In "A Plea for Excuses" (1956), Austin explained and illustrated his method of approaching philosophical issues
by first patiently analyzing the subtleties of ordinary language. In How to Do Things with Words (1961), the
transcription of Austin' s James lectures at Harvard, application of this method distinguishes between what we
say, what we mean when we say it, and what we accomplish by saying it, or between speech actsinvolving
locution, illocution (or "performative utterance"), and perlocution.
Primary sources:
J.L. Austin, How to Do Things with Words (Harvard, 1975);
J.L. Austin, Philosophical Papers, ed. by J. O. Urmson and Geoffrey J. Warnock (Oxford, 1990);
J.L. Austin, Sense and Sensibilia, ed. by Geoffrey J. Warnock (Oxford, 1962).
Secondary sources:
G.J. Warnock, J.L. Austin (Routledge, 1991).
Additional on-line information about Austin includes:

Jennifer Hornsby' s article in The Oxford Companion to Philosophy.
Also see: analytic philosophy, constatives, English philosophy, linguistic acts, linguistic philosophy, the
linguistic turn, ordinary language and philosophy, and Oxford philosophy.

Warren Hedges' s notes on key concepts from Austin.
Brief entries in Oxford' s Concise Dictionary of Linguistics on Austin, speech acts, illocutionary, locutionary
perlocutionary.
A short article in Oxford' s Who' s Who in the Twentieth Century.
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16-11-2001
authentication
the verification of the identity of a person or process. In a communication system, authentication verifies that
messages really come from their stated source, like the signature on a (paper) letter.
16-03-2001
authenticity
<authentic, existensialism, ethics, psychology, Angst>, <anxiety, Jaspers, Dasein, identity, Heidegger> Self-
conscious appropriation of the conditions of one' s ownexistence and identity. According to Heidegger, such
deliberate reflection about the goals and values of life is the only successful response to the experience of
Angst without falling into self-deception.
Michael E. Zimmerman, Eclipse of the Self: The Development of Heidegger' s Concept of Authenticity (Ohio
1986) Heidegger, Authenticity, and Modernity: Essays in Honor of Hubert L. Dreyfus (MIT, 2000).
16-11-2001
authoritarianism
<political philosophy> term used to describe the political practice or philosophical defense of the subordination
by force of the wishes and aims of the individual to the interests of the state. Following the usage of Jeanne
Kirkpatrick, authoritarianism is sometimes held to involve a less egregious violation of individual rights than
totalitarianism. (References from absolutism, collectivism, communism, legalism, and totalitarianism.)
[The Ism Book]
24-03-2001
authority appeal to
<logic, argumentum, argument, syllogysm, fallacia>, <epistemology, opinion, authority> (argumentum ad

verecundiam). The informal fallacy of claiming that we ought to accept the truth of a proposition because of
some personal feature of the individual who affirms it.
Example: "The former Governor believes that aliens have landed in the Arizona desert, so aliens must have
landed in the Arizona desert."
Recommended Reading: Douglas Walton, Appeal to Expert Opinion: Arguments from Authority (Penn. State,
1997).
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autocracy
<political theory> one person rule. Where the rulership is hereditary, the government in question is a
"monarchy"; where nonhereditary, a "dictatorship."
Contrast: democracy.
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automata
automaton
13-02-2004
automata theory
automaton
13-02-2004
automation
Automatic, as opposed to human, operation or control of a process, equipment or a system; or the techniques
and equipment used to achieve this. Most often applied to computer (or at least electronic) control of a
manufacturing process.
See also design automation, office automation, manularity, Manufacturing Automation Protocol, PEARL, QBE.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
automatism
<PI, metaphysics> the doctrine that all animal activities are mechanistically determined. The view is part of
Cartesianism, since Descartes held to a strict determinism in biological affairs. The view is rather extreme, but
persists in some circles under different names see, for example, behaviorism.
[The Ism Book]
24-03-2001
automaton
<robotics, mathematics, algorithm> (Plural automata) A machine, robot, or formal system designed to follow a
precise sequence of instructions.
Automata theory, the invention and study of automata, includes the study of the capabilities and limitations of
computing processes, the manner in which systems receive input, process it, and produce output, and the
relationships between behavioural theories and the operation and use of automated devices.
See also cellular automaton, finite state machine.
[FOLDOC]
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autonomy
<ethics> etymologically, it goes back to the Greek words for "self" and "law." This term is most strongly
associated with Immanuel Kant, for whom it meant the ability to give the moral law to oneself. The term may
have a weaker and a stronger meaning, depending on the nature of the agent:
1. the ability of an agent A to determine A' s course of action. An artificial agent like an applet can be
autonomous in this sense.
2. the ability of a human subject S to determine S' s own course in life freely.In this sense autonomy requires
freedom.
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autonomy - heteronomy of the will
<Kantian ethics, categorical imperativ, willing, metaphysics>, <relational autonomy, freedom, action, philosophy
of action> Kant' sdistinction between ways of choosing how to act.
Autonomous agents are self-legislating; they act according to the categorical imperative of willing only what is
universalizable as moral law. Heteronomous agents derive principles of action from outside themselves, by
considering the objects or consequences of their choices or being influenced by the will of others.
Immanuel Kant, Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals, tr. by James W. Ellington (Hackett, 1993);
Thomas E. Hill, Jr., Autonomy and Self-Respect (Cambridge, 1991);
Thomas E. Hill, Jr., Relational Autonomy: Feminist Perspectives on Autonomy, Agency, and the Social Self, ed.
by Catriona MacKenzie and Natalie Stoljar (Oxford, 2000).
16-11-2001
avatar
1. <chat, virtual reality> An image representing a user in a multi-user virtual reality (or VR-like, in the case of
Palace) space.
2. (CMU, Tektronix) root, superuser. There are quite a few Unix computers on which the name of the
superuser account is "avatar" rather than "root". This quirk was originated by a CMU hacker who disliked the
term "superuser", and was propagated through an ex-CMU hacker at Tektronix.
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Averroes
<arabic philosophy, medieval philosophy, scholasticism>, <averroism, onsotology, metaphysics, epistemology>

Latinized name of the Islamic philosopher Ibn Rushd.
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Avicebron
<Jewish philosophy> Latinized name of the Jewish philosopher Ibn Gabirol.
16-11-2001
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Avicenna
<Persian philosophy, alchimy, magic> Latinized name of Persian philosopher Ibn Sina.
16-11-2001
axiology
<epistemology, ethics, aesthetics> branch of philosophy that studies judgments about value, including those of
both aesthetics and ethics.
Rem B. Edwards, Formal Axiology And Its Critics (Rodopi, 1995)
Rem B. Edwards, Forms of Value and Valuation, ed. by John W. Davis and Rem B. Edwards (Univ.Pr. of Am.,
1992).
16-11-2001
axiom
<logic> A wff that is taken to be true without proof in the construction of a theory or stipulated as unproved
premise for the proof of other wffs inside a formal system (comparelemma).
axiom schema (plural: schemata)
A formula containing variables of the metalanguage which becomes an axiom when its variables are
instantiated to wffs of the formal language.
logical axiom
An axiom that is a logically valid wff of the language of the system. See logical validity
proper axiom
An axiom that is not a logically valid wff of the language of the system (but is a closed wff).
[Glossary of First-Order Logic] and [FOLDOC]
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Axiom of Choice
<mathematics, logic> (AC, or "Choice", also called the multiplicative axiom) A controversial axiom of set theory
asserting that for a non-empty set A of non-empty disjoint sets, there is a set B with exactly one member from
each of the disjoint sets comprising A.
Sometimes the axiom is written so as to assert that there is a function for choosing the members of the disjoint
sets comprising A that will become the members of B:
if X is a set, and S is the union of all the elements of X, then there exists a function f:X -> S such that for all
non-empty sets x in X, f(x) is an element of x.
In other words, we can always choose an element from each set in a set of sets, simultaneously.
Function f is a "choice function" for X - for each x in X, it chooses an element of x.
Most people' s reaction to AC is: "But of course that' s true! From each set, just take the element that' s bigge
stupidest, closest to the North Pole, or whatever". Indeed, for any finite set of sets, we can simply consider
each set in turn and pick an arbitrary element in some such way. We can also construct a choice function for
most simple infinite sets of sets if they are generated in some regular way. However, there are some infinite
sets for which the construction or specification of such a choice function would never end because we would
have to consider an infinite number of separate cases.
For example, if we express the real number line R as the union of many "copies" of the rational numbers, Q,
namely Q, Q+a, Q+b, and infinitely (in fact uncountably) many more, where a, b, etc. are irrational numbers no
two of which differ by a rational, and
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Q+a == q+a : q in Q
we cannot pick an element of each of these "copies" without AC.
An example of the use of AC is the theorem which states that the countable union of countable sets is
countable. I.e. if X is countable and every element of X is countable (including the possibility that they' re finite)
then the sumset of X is countable. This requires AC to be true in general. Even if one accepts the axiom, it
doesn' t tell you how to construct a choice function, only that one exists. Most mathematicians are quite happy
to use AC if they need it, but those who are careful will, at least, draw attention to the fact that they have used
it. There is something a little odd about Choice, and it has some alarming consequences, so results which
actually "need" it are somehow a bit suspicious, e.g. the Banach-Tarski paradox. On the other side, consider
Russell' s Attic.
AC is not a theorem of Zermelo Fr"nkel set theory (ZF). Goedel and Paul Cohen proved that AC is independent
of ZF, i.e. if ZF is consistent, then so are ZFC (ZF with AC) and ZF(~C) (ZF with the negation of AC). This
means that we cannot use ZF to prove or disprove AC.
[FOLDOC] and [Glossary of First-Order Logic]
16-03-2001
Axiom of Comprehension
<mathematics, logic> An axiom schemaof set theory which states:
if P(x) is a property then x : P is a set. I.e. all the things with some property form a set.
Acceptance of this axiom leads to Russell' s Paradox which is whyZermelo set theory replaces it with a
restricted form.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
axiomatic set theory
<mathematics, logic> Set theory, if approached naively, leads to all sorts of problems, the most famous being
Russell' s paradox. For this reason mathematicians do set theory axiomatically: that is, there is aformal
language for talking about sets, and a collection of axioms describing how they behave, and the only legitimate
way of drawing conclusions about sets is to use the axioms.
There are many different axiomatisations for set theory. Each takes a slightly different approach to the problem
of finding a theory that captures as much as possible of the intuitive idea of what a set is, while avoiding the
paradoxes that result from accepting all of it.
The main source of trouble in naive set theory is the idea that you can specify a set by saying whether each
object in the universe is in the "set" or not. Accordingly, the most important differences between different
axiomatisations of set theory concern the restrictions they place on this idea (known as "comprehension").
Zermelo Fr"nkel set theory, the most commonly used axiomatisation, gets round it by (in effect) saying that you
can only use this principle to define subsets of existing sets.
NBG (von Neumann-Bernays-Goedel) set theory sort of allows comprehension for all formulae without
restriction, but distinguishes between two kinds of set, so that the sets produced by applying comprehension
are only second-class sets. NBG is exactly as powerful as ZF, in the sense that any statement that can be
formalised in both theories is a theorem of ZF if and only if it is a theorem of ZFC.
MK (Morse-Kelley) set theory is a strengthened version of NBG, with a simpler axiom system. It is strictly
stronger than NBG, and it is possible that NBG might be consistent but MK inconsistent.
NF (http://math.idbsu.edu/faculty/holmes/nf.html) ("New Foundations"), a theory developed by Willard Van

Orman Quine, places a very different restriction on comprehension: it only works when the formula describing
the membership condition for your putative set is "stratified", which means that it could be made to make sense
if you worked in a system where every set had a level attached to it, so that a level-n set could only be a
member of sets of level n+1. (This doesn' t mean that there are actually levels attached to sets in NF). NF is
very different from ZF; for instance, in NF the universe is a set (which it isn' t in ZF, because the whole point o
ZF is that it forbids sets that are "too large"), and it can be proved that the Axiom of Choice is false in NF!
ML ("Modern Logic") is to NF as NBG is to ZF. (Its name derives from the title of the book in which Quine
introduced an early, defective, form of it). It is stronger than ZF (it can prove things that ZF can' t), but if NF is
consistent then ML is too.
[FOLDOC]
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Ayer Alfred Jules
<neopositivism, the Vienna Circle, semantics>, <philosophy of language, logic, theology, logical positivism>,
English philosopher (1910-1989). After studying with members of the Vienna circle, Ayer published Language,
Truth, and Logic (1936), an excellent statement of the central views of logical positivism, including the use of
verifiability as a criterion of meaning, the rejection of metaphysics and theology as meaningless, and an
emotivist ethical theory. His later works include Foundations of Empirical Knowledge (1940), The Problemof
Knowledge (1956), Logical Positivism (1966), and The Central Questions of Philosophy (1972).
The Philosophy of A. J. Ayer, ed. by Lewis Edwin Hahn (Open Court, 1992);
Oswald Hanfling, Ayer (Routledge, 1999);
Ben Rogers, A. J. Ayer: A Life (Grove, 2000).
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B-tree
<algorithm> A multi-way balanced tree. The "B" in B-tree has never been officially defined. It could stand for
"balanced" or "Bayer", after one of the original designers of the algorithms and structure. A B-tree is not
(necessarily?) a "binary tree".
A B+-tree (as used by IBM' sVSAM) is a B-tree where the leaves are also linked sequentially, thus allowing
both fast random access and sequential access to data.
[Knuth' s Art of Computer Programming].
[Example algorithm?]
[FOLDOC]
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Babbage Charles
<history of philosophy, biography> english mathematician (1792-1871). A century before the development of
electronic computers, Babbage invented a mechanical "difference engine" for the calculation of arithmetical
functions and set out plans for an "analytical engine" whose operation would have included logarithmic and
trigonometric functions as well. Babbage' s interest in the practical conduct of business led to an extensive
commentary on the inefficiency of common practices in The Economy of Machinery and Manufactures (1832),
Comparative View of the Various Institutions for the Assurance of Lives, and Reflections on the Decline of
Science in England.
Charles Babbage: Passages from the Life of a Philosopher, ed. by Martin Campbell-Kelly (Rutgers, 1994)
Bruce Collier and James MacLachlan, Charles Babbage and the Engines of Perfection (Oxford, 2000).
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Bachelard Gaston
<history of philosophy, biography> french philosopher of science (1884-1962); author of Psychoanalyse du feu
(Psychoanalysis of Fire) (1937), Le nouvel esprit scientifique (The New Scientific Spirit) (1934), and L' Actualiti
é
de l' histoire des sciences (History of Science) (1951).
Rejecting both naive realism and absolute idealism, Bachelard maintained that scientific knowledge emerges
from an imaginative interaction between the mind and experimental evidence. His emphasis on discontinuity in
the progress of science anticipated portions of the work of Thomas Kuhn.
Mary Tiles, Bachelard: Science and Objectivity (Cambridge, 1985).
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back-propagation
<networking> (Or "backpropagation") A learning algorithm for modifying a feed-forward neural network which
minimises a continuous "error function" or "objective function."
Back-propagation is a "gradient descent" method of training in that it uses gradient information to modify the
network weights to decrease the value of the error function on subsequent tests of the inputs. Other gradient-
based methods from numerical analysis can be used to train networks more efficiently.
Back-propagation makes use of a mathematical trick when the network is simulated on a digital computer,
yielding in just two traversals of the network (once forward, and once back) both the difference between the
desired and actual output, and the derivatives of this difference with respect to the connection weights.
[FOLDOC]
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Background
<philosophy of mind> a set of nonrepresentational capacities that enable all representing to take place.
The Background includes biological and cultural capacities, skills, stances, assumptions and presuppositions.
Introduced in Searle (1978).
1. Introduction
It should be noted right off that the hypothesis of the Background is, by Searle' s admission, marked by
"obscurity" (1991, p. 289), and accordingly, its developing theorisation has involved a number of shifts and
clarifications (1992, pp. 186- 187; cf. 1991 generally) since it was first introduced to explain the fixing of literal
meaning (1978). The general explanatory function of the Background has remained constant, however, and
that is to account for how intentions are grounded and how skills can be applied.
The Background can be seen as one solution to the rule- or representation-grounding problem: how does one
prevent an infinite regress in the interpretation of a rule or a representation? Searle' s basicargument is that no
rule or meaning is self-interpreting; a person needs a contextual understanding in order to arrive at the correct
application or interpretation.
According to Searle the literal meaning of a sentence underdetermines its truth conditions; our correct literal
reading of, e.g., a verb can only be secured given a certain Background in relation to which a clarifying
interpretive context can be established (1995, p. 132; 1992, pp. 178-179; 1983, pp. 145-148). The Background,
then, functions as the precondition for the intelligibility of representation and intentionality generally.
2. The Topography and Make-Up of the Background
Searle has described the Background as consisting of two major divisions which he calls the Deep Background
and the Local Background (1983, p. 143-144).
The Deep Background is composed of biological skills and universally human capacities, such as eating,
walking, and seeing given patterns of perceptual stimuli as discrete objects.
The Local Background, by contrast, is composed of culturally-bound skills and capacities, such as knowing
what culturally-specific objects are for, recognising culturally-specific situations as appropriate or inappropriate
for certain types of behaviour, and so forth. Within each of these major divisions, Searle further distinguishes
between knowing how things are and knowing how to do things (1983, p. 144) -- roughly, between
presuppositions and stances on the one hand, and skills on the other (see knowledge how). What becomes
apparent almost immediately is the sheer heterogeneity of the items said to make up the Background. Some
appear to be entirely physical skills dependent on automatised sequences of motor activity. For example,
Searle describes the case of a skier who first learns the basics of balance by being taught certain rules, and
who, after having skied enough times, no longer is mindful of those rules but instead lets the learned
responses of the body take over (1983, pp. 150-151). At this point the skills required for skiing have become
part of the skier' s Background; his or her "repeated experiences" have effectively created the right kind o
"physical capacities" (1983, p. 150).
Other Background capacities appear to consist in what might be described as habits. These capacities, which
seem to belong largely to the Local Background, are characterised as skills and abilities that are "functionally
equivalent" to the systems of rules guiding socially- or culturally-situated behaviours and practices, but without
involving any "representation or internalisation of those rules" (1995, p. 142). Rather than internalising rules,
Searle holds, we "evolve a set of dispositions that are sensitive to the rule structure" (1995, p. 145).
A third category of Background capacities consists of the cognitive capacities inhering in stances,
presuppositions, pretheoretical commitments, and the like. One such presupposition or stance, according to
Searle, is the sense that objects are solid, which he claims is simply manifested in one' s behaviour withou
one' s having to have anybelief or conviction about the matter (1992, p. 185). My sitting, walking, and
manipulation of objects for instance, are executed in such a way that manifests my taking for granted the
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solidity of things like tables, chairs, the ground beneath me, and so forth (1992, p. 186; 1983, pp. 142-143).
Searle emphasizes that such stances are not beliefs or expectations, but rather are simply presupposed by the
agent in performing the actions manifesting them (1992, p. 186; 1983, pp. 156-157).
3. Is the Background a Form of tacit knowledge?
There would seem to be a certain amount of ambiguity in the Background. A major source of this ambiguity, as
Searle acknowledges, is the difficulty of avoiding terms associated with mental representation per se for
describing the Background' s nonrepresentational capacities (1983, pp. 156-157). But we might point to another
source, and that is the fact that, in at least some cases, the notion of an embodied commitment is liable to
explanatory elimination.
At one level, some Background capacities can be described as the automatised effects of our having acquired
certain skills (e.g., of grasping objects or walking) under contingent circumstances. To the extent that
contingent facts about our learning how to walk (i.e., that we did so on Earth with its solid ground, particular
gravitational force, etc. rather than in a weightless environment) have produced the physical habits that afford
our walking, we can describe those habits as automatised physical responses to a given environment, and
perhaps leave it at that. What is embodied is simply a certain causal history that has left the right kinds of
traces in the appropriate neural pathways. While the characterisation of Background capacities in terms of
neurophysiological structures is consistent with Searle' s thesis (1995, p. 130; 1992, p. 188), it is difficult to see
how purely automatised physical skills or habits could qualify as mental.
But to the extent that these physical responses can be associated with properly cognitive commitments
regarding the environment, i.e., that it will be reasonably like that in which the physical responses were formed
in the first place, we can say that there is an element of expectation involved, if not of hypothesis formation.
This raises the possibility that at least some Background capacities can be described as a kind of tacit
knowledge or cognitive unconscious in the sense of Reber (1995), which may implicate them as induced
abstract generalisations of some sort. That Background stances can be individuated in terms of specific
contents would further seem to indicate that they are a kind of tacit knowledge.
Searle' s response to the suggestion that the Background' cognitive

s capacities are a kind of tacit knowledge
would probably be that Background capacities are not themselves a form of knowledge (such as beliefs,
theories, empirical hypotheses, and so forth) but rather are the preconditions of knowledge. He might further
argue -- as he in fact does (1983 pp. 156-157) -- that though it is very difficult to describe the contents of the
Background other than in language that is more appropriate to the description of representational content,
Background capacities are not representational. By this he means that Background capacities are not "features
of the world independent of the mind" (1991, p. 291). (For Searle, mental representation is defined in terms of
such mind-independent features as conditions of satisfaction, and directions of fit and causation).
Still, the case for understanding some Background items as elements in a cognitive unconscious is compelling.
Much of what Searle consigns to the Background does seem to contain information about how the world is,
and as with hypotheses is subject to falsification, as in cases of breakdown (1992, pp. 184-185; 1983, p. 155).
In addition, a Background at least partly composed of induced generalizations would flesh out the otherwise
vague suggestion that the Background is (or contains) a mechanism that is sensitive to the appropriate
features of the world, such as socially- or culturally-specific rules (1995, p. 146).
4. The Background as a Mental Causal Mechanism
What Searle wants to capture with the postulation of a Background is a causal mechanism that is mental. Not
only are Background mechanisms described as "causal structures generally" (1995, p. 129), but as specifically
neurophysiological structures (1995, p. 130; 1992, p. 188). While the latter stipulation can be understood to
follow from Searle' s overall position of "biological naturalism" in regard tomental phenomena (1992, p. 1), it
also seems to mean that Background capacities, to the extent that they remain in the Background and do not
manifest themselves in intentional states or behaviours, are simply "neurophysiological rather than
psychological" (1992, p. 188). Although it is difficult to say for certain, Searle here seems to be saying that the
Background as such simply is the capacity for certain neurophysiological events to occur and thus to produce
mental events with their associated intentional contents. The relation of this view of the Background to the
Background skills described above as automatised motor skills is obscure, as the latter seem more or less
independent of the generation of psychological events.
But the postulation of the Background as a physical, causal mechanism also can be interpreted as showing the
way out of a difficulty that turns up in a certain class of explanatory theories. These are theories of "practices"
such as Bourdieu' s, to which Searle' s theory of the Background bears some resemblance (1995, p. 132; 1992
p. 177). ("Practices" can be defined, roughly, as consisting in the agreements and regularities, behavioural and
otherwise, characterising given social groups and communities.) Such theories, as Turner has pointed out
(1995), often suffer from a vagueness regarding "where" practices are located, what kind of entities they may
be, and what exact causal role they may play in producing behaviour. By positing a Background that is in
people' s brains, Searle effectively addresses these issues by redescribing "practices" as ultimately physica
mechanisms in individuals, and thus provides the kind of causal explanation that such theories require.
Lepore, E. and Van Gulick, R., eds. (1991). John Searle and His Critics. Cambridge, MA, Blackwell.
Searle, J. (1978). "Literal Meaning." In Erkenntnis 1, pp. 207-224. Reprinted in Searle (1979).
Searle, J. (1979). Expression and Meaning: Studies in the Theory of Speech Acts. New York, Cambridge
University Press.
Searle, J. (1983). Intentionality: An Essay in the Philosophy of Mind. New York, Cambridge University Press.
Searle, J. (1991). "Response: The Background of Intentionality and Action." In Lepore and Van Gulick (1991).
Searle, J. (1992). The Rediscovery of the Mind. Cambridge, MA, MIT Press.
Searle, J. (1995). The Construction of Social Reality. New York, Free Press.
Turner, S. (1995). The Social Theory of Practices. Chicago, University of Chicago Press.
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See also intentionality, intention-in-action, implicit memory, tacit knowledge
Daniel Barbiero
16-03-2001
backtracking
<algorithm> A scheme for solving a series of sub-problems each of which may have multiple possible solutions
and where the solution chosen for one sub-problem may affect the possible solutions of later sub-problems.
To solve the overall problem, we find a solution to the first sub-problem and then attempt to recursively solve
the other sub-problems based on this first solution. If we cannot, or we want all possible solutions, we
backtrack and try the next possible solution to the first sub-problem and so on. Backtracking terminates when
there are no more solutions to the first sub-problem.
This is the algorithm used by logic programming languages such as Prolog to find all possible ways of proving
a goal. An optimisation known as "intelligent backtracking" keeps track of the dependencies between sub-
problems and only re-solves those which depend on an earlier solution which has changed.
Backtracking is one algorithm which can be used to implement non-determinism. It is effectively a depth-first
search of a problem space.
[FOLDOC]
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backward analysis
<<mathematics, logic> An analysis to determine properties of the inputs of a program from properties or
context of the outputs. E.g. if the output of this function is needed then this argument is needed.
Compare forward analysis.
[FOLDOC]
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backward chaining
<algorithm> An algorithm for proving a goal by recursively braking it down into sub-goals and trying to prove
these until facts are reached. Facts are goals with no sub-goals which are therefore always true. Backward
training is the program execution mechanism used by most logic programming language like Prolog.
Opposite: forward chaining.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
Bacon Francis
<history of philosophy, biography> english politician and philosopher (1561-1626). Bacon became Lord
Chancellor of England in 1618, but was driven immediately from office under charges of official corruption. As
an early empiricist, he rejected scholastic accounts of the natural world in favor of a new method for achieving
knowledge, based exclusively on careful observation and cautious induction, which he described in The
Advancement of Learning (1605) and Novum Organum ( New Organon) (1620).
Bacon warned that effective reasoning must be freed from the "idolatrous" influence of personal interest,
human nature, social conventions, and academic philosophy. In The New Atlantis (1626), Bacon described the
far-reaching social consequences of his epistemological program. Bacon' s Essays (1601) address the whole
range of his philosophical and social interests.
Selected Philosophical Works, ed. by Rose-Mary Sargent (Hackett, 1999);
The Cambridge Companion to Bacon, ed. by Markku Peltonen (Cambridge, 1996);
Stephen Gaukroger, Francis Bacon and the Transformation of Early Modern Philosophy (Cambridge, 2001).
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28-09-2001
Bacon Roger
<history of philosophy, biography> english philosopher (1214-1292) who translated many Aristotelean treatises
from Arabic into Latin. Although passionately interested in alchemy and magic, Roger defended reliance upon
mathematics and experimental methods for the improvement of human knowledge generally and theological
understanding in particular in the Opus Maius (Greater Work) (1267) and On Experimental Science (1268). His
novel educational doctrines were supposed to violate the condemnation of 1277, and much of Roger' s late
work, including the Compendium Studii Theologiae (1292) was suppressed.
Roger Bacon' s Philosophy of Nature, tr. by David C. Lindberg (St. Augustine, 1997);
Stewart C. Easten, Roger Bacon and His Search for a Universal Science (Greenwood, 1984).
28-09-2001
baculum argumentum ad
<logic, philosophy of science> see appeal to force.
28-09-2001
bad faith
<ontology, ethics> in the philosophy of Sartre, an effort to avoid anxiety by denying the full extent of one' s own
freedom. Bad faith, on this view, is an especially harmful variety of self-deception, since it forestalls authentic
appropriation of responsibility for ourselves.
Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, tr. by Hazel E. Barnes (Washington Square, 1993);
Ronald E. Santoni, Bad Faith, Good Faith, and Authenticity in Sartre' s Early Philosophy (Temple, 1995).
28-09-2001
Baier Annette
<history of philosophy, biography> american moral philosopher (1929- ). From a thoughtful reading of Hume,
Baier derives an ethical stance that emphasizes the importance of membership within a moral community in A
Progress of Sentiments: Reflections on Hume' s Treatise (1991). In "What Do Women Want in a Mora
Theory?" (1983), she argues that the concept of trust provides a vital link between traditional (male) accounts
of rational obligation and the equally traditional (female) "ethics of love." Her most recent publications include
and Moral Prejudices: Essays on Ethics (1994) and The Commons of the Mind (Open Court, 1997).
28-09-2001
Baier Kurt
<history of philosophy, biography> american moral philosopher (1917- ). In The Moral Point of View (1958),
Baier argues that practical reasoning that takes into account both individual and social considerations is the
appropriate method for deciding "what is the best thing to do" in particular circumstances. Thus, we are moral
because it is rational so to be, even when our private interests are outweighed by the welfare of others.
Kurt Baier, The Rational and the Moral Order: The Social Roots of Reason and Morality (Open Court, 1994);
Reason, Ethics, and Society: Themes from Kurt Baier With His Responses, ed. by Kurt Baier and J.B.
Schneewind (Open Court, 1996).
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28-09-2001
Bakunin Mikhail Alexandrovich
<history of philosophy, biography> russian philosopher and political anarchist (1814-1876); author of Marxism,
Freedom, and the State (1872) and God and the State (1916). Bakunin participated in several European
revolutionary movements in an effort to derive practical benefits from the theories of Marx and Proudhon. His
philosophical writings emphasized the use of negative arguments as a dialectical method for defining creative
results rather than relying upon pseudo-scientific theories of government.
The Basic Bakunin: Writings 1869-1871, ed. by Robert M. Cutler (Prometheus, 1992)
Brian Morris, Bakunin: The Philosophy of Freedom (Consortium, 1996).
28-09-2001
Banach algebra
<mathematics> An algebra in which the vector space is a Banach space.
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Banach inverse mapping theorem
<mathematics> In a Banach space the inverse to a continuous linear mapping is continuous.
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Banach space
<mathematics> A complete normed vector space. Metric is induced by the norm: d(x,y) = ||x-y||. Completeness
means that every Cauchy sequence converges to an element of the space. All finite-dimensional real and
complex normed vector spaces are complete and thus are Banach spaces.
Using absolute value for the norm, the real numbers are a Banach space whereas the rationals are not. This is
because there are sequences of rationals that converges to irrationals.
Several theorems hold only in Banach spaces, e.g. the Banach inverse mapping theorem. All finite-dimensional
real and complex vector spaces are Banach spaces. Hilbert spaces, spaces of integrable functions, and
spaces of absolutely convergent series are examples of infinite-dimensional Banach spaces. Applications
include wavelets, signal processing, and radar.
[Robert E. Megginson, "An Introduction to Banach Space Theory", Graduate Texts in Mathematics, 183,
Springer Verlag, September 1998].
[FOLDOC]
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Banach-Tarski paradox
<mathematics> It is possible to cut a solid ball into finitely many pieces (actually about half a dozen), and then
put the pieces together again to get two solid balls, each the same size as the original.
This paradox is a consequence of the Axiom of Choice.
[FOLDOC]
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Barbara
<logic, philosophy of science> name given by medieval logicians to any categorical syllogism whose standard
form may be designated as AAA-1. Example: All finches are birds, and all cardinals are finches, so all cardinals
are birds. This most common of all patterns in syllogistic reasoning is one of only fifteen forms that are always
valid.
28-09-2001
Baroco
<logic, philosophy of science> name given by medieval logicians to a categorical syllogism whose standard
form is AOO-2. Example: All cats are furry mammals, but some housepets are not furry mammals, so some
housepets are not cats. This is another of the fifteen forms in which syllogisms are always valid.
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base
<mathematics> radix.
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base class
<PI> (Or "superclass") The class from which another class (a "subclass") inherits.
"base class" is the term used in C++. The term "superclass" is perhaps confusing since objects of the subclass
have a superset of the fields of objects in the superclass.
See inheritance.
[FOLDOC]
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basis
mathematical induction
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Bayes Thomas
<history of philosophy, biography> english clergyman and mathematician (1702-1761). "Bayes theorem," first
stated in his Essay towards solving a problem in the doctrine of chances (1764), proposes that evidence
confirms the likelihood of an hypothesis only to the degree that the appearance of this evidence would be more
probable with the assumption of the hypothesis than without it.
Bradley P. Carlin and Thomas A. Louis, Bayes and Empirical Bayes Methods for Data Analysis (CRC, 2000);
Empirical Bayes and Likelihood Inference, ed. by S. E. Ahmed and N. Reid (Springer Verlag, 2000);
John Earman, Bayes or Bust?: A Critical Examination of Bayesian Confirmation (Bradford, 1992).
28-09-2001
Bayle Pierre
<history of philosophy, biography> although born in France and educated at Toulouse and Geneva, Pierre
Bayle (1647-1706) spent most of his life in Holland, as the leading member of an active intellectual community
at Rotterdam. The early writings of this French Protestant include a plea for broad political toleration of
divergent opinions on religion. His greatest work is the incredibly ambitious Dictionnaire historique et critique
(Historical and Critical Dictionary) (1697), which could reasonably be regarded as Western culture' s firs
significant hypertext document. Although its articles about obscure ancient and modern figures sometimes
contain little information of direct interest, Bayle used them as the starting-points for a complex series of
endnotes, sidenotes, and footnotes in which he addressed contemporary philosophical nand theological
concerns.
Bayle' s predominant theme was a profoundskepticism about human knowledge, derived originally from his
admiration of the ancient Pyrrhonists but applied strictly to the new science and philosophy of his own time. He
used the fact of animal thinking as evidence against Cartesian efforts to establish the unique status of an
immaterial human soul. On the other hand, he also argued that the untenability of the primary / secondary
quality distinction poses an insurmountable difficulty for both rationalism and empiricism.
On religious matters, Bayle delighted in pointing out contradictions between theological tenets and the self-
evident dictates of reason. This declaration of the fundamental irrationality of Christianity, however, left ample
room for adherence to a rigorous fideism about god and revelation. Bayle' s treatment of such issues posed
important challenges for the development of modern thought and were greatly influential on the philosophy of
Hume.
Primary sources: Pierre Bayle, Historical and Critical Dictionary: Selections, ed. by Richard H. Popkin and
Craig Bush (Hackett, 1991);
Pierre Bayle, Political Writings (Cambridge, 2000).
Secondary sources:
Thomas M. Lennon, Reading Bayle (Toronto, 1999).
Additional on-line information about Bayle includes:

Gianluca Mori' s comprehensive treatment at the Centro Interdipartimentale di Servizi Informatici, Universit
ý di
Torino.
Paul F. Johnson' s article in The Oxford Companion to Philosophy.
Also see: dictionaries and encyclopaedias of philosophy, Pyrrhonism, and skepticism.

The thorough collection of resources at EpistemeLinks.com;
28-09-2001
beauty
<aesthetics, ethics, metaphysics> the characteristic feature of things that arouse pleasure or delight, especially
to the senses of a human observer. Thus, "beauty" is the most general term of aesthetic appreciation. Whether
judgments about beauty are objective or subjective has been a matter of serious philosophical dispute.
James Kirwan, Beauty (Manchester, 1999)
Philosophies of Art and Beauty, ed. by Hugh Bredin and Liberato Santoro-Brienza (Edinburgh, 2000).
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Beauvoir Simone de
<history of philosophy, biography> born and educated in Paris, Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986) was among
the first women permitted to complete a program of study at the Šcole Normale SupÈrieure. Through her
lifelong friendship with Sartre, she contributed significantly to the development and expression of existentialist
philosophy.
In Le DeuxiËme Sexe (The Second Sex) (1949), de Beauvoir traced the development of male oppression
through historical, literary, and mythical sources, attributing its contemporary effects on women to a systematic
objectification of the male as a positive norm. This consequently identifies the female as Other, which
commonly leads to a loss of social and personal identity, the variety of alienation unique to the experience of
women. Her works of fiction focus on women who take responsibility for themselves by making life-altering
decisions, and the many volumes of her own autobiography exhibit the application of similar principles in
reflection on her own experiences.
Primary sources:
Simone De Beauvoir: A Critical Reader, ed. by Elizabeth Fallaize (Routledge, 1998);
Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, tr. by H. M. Parshley (Vintage, 1989);
The Prime of Life: The Autobiography of Simone de Beauvoir (Marlowe, 1994).
Secondary sources:
Margaret A. Simons, Beauvoir and the Second Sex: Feminism, Race, and the Origins of Existentialism
(Rowman & Littlefield, 1999);
Debra B. Bergoffen, The Philosophy of Simone de Beauvoir:
Gendered Phenomenologies, Erotic Generosities (SUNY, 1996);
Simone de Beauvoir' s the Second Sex: New Interdisciplinary Essays, ed. by Ruth Evans (St. Martin' s, 1998);
Feminist Interpretations of Simone De Beauvoir, ed. by Margaret A. Simons (Penn. State, 1995); Sally Scholz,
On De Beauvoir (Wadsworth, 1999).
Additional on-line information about Beauvoir includes:

Melanie Garneau' s excellent site on Beauvoir.
Jane O' Grady' s article in The Oxford Companion to Philosophy.
Also see: French philosophy, feminist philosophy, and women in philosophy.

An article in The Macmillan Dictionary of Women' s Biography.
An entry in the Penguin Biographical Dictionary of Women.
Snippets from de Beauvoir (French and English) in The Oxford
Dictionary of Quotations.
A brief summary at The Window; Kristin Switala' s brief
bibliography at the Feminist Theory Website.
An analysis of philosophical influences on The Second Sex from Margaret Simons.
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bedeutung
<logic, mathematics> Frege' s German term for the reference of aconcept. See Sinn / Bedeutung.
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begging the question
<logic, philosophy of science> circular reasoning. The "informal fallacy" of (explicitly or implicitly) assuming the
truth of the conclusion of an argument as one of the premises employed in an effort to demonstrate its truth.
Example: "Since firefighters must be strong men willing to face danger every day, it follows that no woman can
be a firefighter." Although arguments of this sort are formally valid because it is impossible for their conclusions
to be false if their premises are true, they fail to provide logical support for their conclusions, which have
already been accepted without proof at the outset. Known also as petitio principii.
Douglas N. Walton, Begging the Question (Greenwood, 1991).
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begriff
<logic, gnoseology> german term for idea or concept.
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belief
<metaphysics, gnoseology, philosophy of science, logic, theology, ethics> affirmation of, or conviction
regarding, the truth of a proposition, especially when one is not (yet) in possession of evidence adequate to
justify a claim that the proposition is known with certainty.
Kenneth Malcolm Sayre, Belief and Knowledge: Mapping the Cognitive Landscape (Rowman-Littlefield, 1997);
Michael Williams, Groundless Belief (Princeton, 1999).
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belief revision
<artificial intelligence> The area of theory change in which preservation of the information in the theory to be
changed plays a key role.
A fundamental issue in belief revision is how to decide what information to retract in order to maintain
consistency, when the addition of a new belief to a theory would make it inconsistent.
Usually, an ordering on the sentences of the theory is used to determine priorities among sentences, so that
those with lower priority can be retracted. This ordering can be difficult to generate and maintain.
The postulates of the AGM Theory for Belief Revision describe minimal properties a revision process should
have.
[Better definition?]
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bell curve
<statistics> normal distribution.
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benchmark
<benchmark> A standard program or set of programs which can be run on different computers to give an
inaccurate measure of their performance.
"In the computer industry, there are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and benchmarks."
A benchmark may attempt to indicate the overall power of a system by including a "typical" mixture of programs
or it may attempt to measure more specific aspects of performance, like graphics, I/O or computation (integer
or floating-point).
Others measure specific tasks like rendering polygons, reading and writing files or performing operations on
matrices. The most useful kind of benchmark is one which is tailored to a user' s own typical tasks. While no
one benchmark can fully characterise overall system performance, the results of a variety of realistic
benchmarks can give valuable insight into expected real performance.
Benchmarks should be carefully interpreted, you should know exactly which benchmark was run (name,
version); exactly what configuration was it run on (CPU, memory, compiler options, single user/multi-user,
peripherals, network); how does the benchmark relate to your workload?
Well-known benchmarks include Whetstone, Dhrystone, Rhealstone (see h), the Gabriel benchmarks for Lisp,
the SPECmark suite, and LINPACK.
See also machoflops, MIPS, smoke and mirrors.
Usenetnewsgroup: news:comp.benchmarks.
A database of some benchmark results (http://netlib2.cs.utk.edu/performance/html/PDSreports.html).
[Jargon File]
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Bentham Jeremy
<history of philosophy, biography> english philosopher and political radical (1748-1832). In A Fragment on
Government (1776) and An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789) Bentham outlined an
ethical system based on a purely hedonistic calculation of the utility particular actions with a view to the
greatest happiness of all, a view later to be defended in modified form by Mill and others. Bentham supposed
that consistent application of this principle in social and political life would resolve many difficulties in human
conduct, using proportional but perfectly certain punishment to render unacceptably painful to the prospective
criminal any behavior that would otherwise be likely to cause injury to others. Bentham' s unusual bequest still
remains at University College, London.
The Works of Jeremy Bentham, ed. by John Bowring (Thoemmes, 1997);
Ross Harrison, Bentham (Routledge, 1999);
Essays on Bentham, ed. by H. L. A. Hart (Oxford, 1983);
Gerald J. Postema, Jeremy Bentham: Moral, Political, and Legal Philosophy (Ashgate, 2001).
28-09-2001
Berdyaev Nicolai Alexandrovich
<history of philosophy, biography> ukrainian philosopher (1874-1948) who participated in the Revolution but
was exiled to France in 1922. Distressed by totalitarian developments in communism, Berdyaev adopted a
religious version of existentialism in which the themes of anxiety and authenticity are conveyed through the
medium of traditional Christian mythology about sin and redemption. Vselenskost' i konfessionalism
(Universality and Confessionalism) (1933) exemplifies the passionate individualism of this self-styled "believing
freethinker," which seldom won institutional approval.
Nicolai Berdyaev, The Bourgeois Mind and Other Essays (Ayer, 1934);
Nicolai Berdyaev, Origin of Russian Communism (Michigan, 1960);
Nicolai Berdyaev, The Russian Idea (Lindisfarne, 1992);
Howard A. Slaatte, Personality, Spirit, and Ethics: The Ethics of Nicholas Berdyaev (Peter Lang, 1997).
28-09-2001
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Bergmann Gustav
<history of philosophy, biography> Gustav Bergmann (1906-1987) studied mathematics, law, and philosophy in
his native Vienna and participated in the Vienna Circle discussions of logical positivism. After emigrating to the
United States in 1938, Bergmann taught in the Departments of Philosophy and Psychology at the University of
Iowa for forty years, where his Philosophy of Science (1957) was the basis for a popular undergraduate course
of study. Although he shared many of the substantive convictions of his fellow positivists, Bergmann was more
keenly aware than most of the metaphysical commitments presupposed within their ways of thinking.
Pursuing methods of philosophical analysis derived from those of Moore, the early Wittgenstein, and Carnap,
Bergmann sought to resolve philosophical problems by informally discussing the construction of an "ideal
language" whose semantic features would indicate the most fundamental structure of reality.
Thus, for Bergmann, the basic question of ontology is: what kinds of things must exist in order for us to devise
a formal language in which everything can be perspicuously expressed? In three collections of essays, The
Metaphysics of Logical Positivism (1954), Meaning and Existence (1959), and Logic and Reality (1964),
Bergmann sharply criticized the philosophical methods and results of his contemporaries, developing an
extreme realism that drew him ever further from the mainstream of twentieth-century analysis.
His Realism: A Critique of Brentano and Meinong (1967) returned to the work of Brentano and Meinong,
significant figures from the turn of the century, for an understanding of philosophical difficulties against the
background of which he could best express his own views. The posthumously published New Foundations of
Ontology (1992) contains Bergmann' s final reflections on the serious issues with which he had been concerned
for many decades. Bergmann' s contributions to philosophy are explained, honored, and challenged in a
collection of essays by his former students and colleagues, The Ontological Turn (1974).
Primary sources:
Gustav Bergmann, The Philosophy of Science (Wisconsin, 1966).

Gustav Bergmann, The Metaphysics of Logical Positivism (Wisconsin, 1954).
Gustav Bergmann, Meaning and Existence (Wisconsin, 1959).
Gustav Bergmann, Logic and Reality (Wisconsin, 1964).
Gustav Bergmann, Realism: A Critique of Brentano and Meinong (Wisconsin, 1967).
Gustav Bergmann, New Foundations of Ontology, ed. by William Heald and Edwin B. Allaire (Wisconsin,
1992).
Secondary sources:
The Ontological Turn, ed. by Moltke S. Gram and E. D. Klemke (Iowa, 1974).
Additional on-line information about Bergmann includes:
William Heald' s discussion of Bergmann' s philosophy.

Works by Bergmann collected by Steve Bayne.
Edwin B. Allaire' s article in The Oxford Companion to Philosophy.
Also see: artificial language, logically perfect language, realism and anti-realism, and synthetic a priori
judgments.
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Bergson Henri
<history of philosophy, biography> french philosopher (1859-1941). Rejecting sterile mechanistic accounts of
the natural world, including those of Darwin and Spencer, Bergson developed an account that emphasized the
subjective experience of time as the ground for human freedom in Essai sur les données immédiates de la
conscience (Time and Free Will: An Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness) (1889), Matière et
mémoire (Matter and Memory) (1896), and The Creative Mind: An Introduction to Metaphysics (1934). In
L'Évolution créatrice (Creative Evolution) (1907) Bergson argued that thought, creativity, motion, and evolution
are all products of a creative impulse (Fr. Élan vital) that emerges in opposition to material entropy. Bergson
won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1927.
Leszek Kolakowski, Bergson (St. Augustine, 2000);
F. C. T. Moore, Bergson: Thinking Backwards (Cambridge, 1996);
John Mullarkey, Bergson and Philosophy (Notre Dame, 2000).
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Berkeley George
<history of philosophy, biography> irish clergyman George Berkeley (1685-1753) completed his most
significant philosophical work before turning thirty, during his years as a student, fellow, and teacher at Trinity
College, Dublin. Using material from his collegiate notebooks on philosophy, he developed a series of texts
devoted to various aspects of a single central thesis: that matter does not exist. In An Essay Towards a New
Theory of Vision (1709), for example, he argued that the phenomena of visual sensation can all be explained
without presupposing the reality of external material substances; the objects we see are merely ideas in our
minds and that of god. Berkeley spent most of his mature years in London, travelling briefly to Rhode Island in
the vain hope of securing financial support for a college to be established in Bermuda. He was appointed
Anglican bishop of Cloyne in 1734.
His later writings, which rarely receive philosophical attention, include: criticisms of Newton' s calculus and
theory of space in De Motu (1721) and The Analyst (1734); a defence of traditional Christian doctrine in the
Alciphron (1734); and, in the interminable Siris (1744), a lengthy disquisition on the presumed benefits to health
of "tar-water." It is the earlier immaterialist philosophy, in which he employed strictly empiricist principles in
defence of the view that only minds or spirits exist, for which Berkeley is now remembered. He opened A
Treatise concerning the Principles of Knowledge (1710) rather technically, with an extended attack on Locke' s
theory of abstract ideas. The book continues with arguments designed to show that sensible qualities-both
secondary and primary-can exist only when perceived, as ideas in our minds. Since physical objects are, on
Berkeley' s view, nothing more than collections of such qualities, these sensible objects, too, are merely ideas.
In what he believed to be his most devastating point, Berkeley argued that it is literally inconceivable that
anything like a material substance could exist independently of the spirits or active thinking substances that
perceive it. Through the remainder of the Principles, Berkeley tried to distinguish his position from that of
Malebranche, defended its application to the achievements of modern science, and extolled its beneficial
consequences for traditional religion. The same central doctrine, supported by a very similar train of thought, is
expressed in different form in Three Dialogoues between Hylas and Philonous (1713). Here Berkeley spoke
through Philonous ("Mind-lover"), who tries to convince his reluctant friend Hylas ("Woody") that it is only by
rejecting the artificial philosophical concept of material substance that skepticism can be finally defeated and
the truths of common-sense secured.
Primary sources:
The Works of George Berkeley, ed. by A. A. Luce and T. E. Jessop. (London: T. Nelson, 1948-1957);
George Berkeley, Principles of Human Knowledge / Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous, ed. by
Roger Woolhouse (Penguin, 1988).
Secondary sources:
Kenneth P. Winkler, Berkeley: An Interpretation (Clarendon, 1994);

Geoffrey J. Warnock, Berkeley (Penguin, 1969);
Ian C. Tipton, Berkeley: The Philosophy of Immaterialism (Thoemmes, 1994);
David Berman, Berkeley (Routledge, 1999);
Berkeley: Critical and Interpretive Essays, ed. by Colin Murray Turbayne (Minnesota, 1982);
Douglas M. Jesseph, Berkeley' s Philosophy of Mathematics (Chicago, 1993);
George J. Stack, Berkeley' s Analysis of Perception (Peter Lang, 1992);
Margaret Atherton, Berkeley' s Revolution in Vision (Cornell, 1990).
Additional on-line information about Berkeley includes:
Peter Lloyd' s excellent collection of Berkeley Studies.

Geoffrey J. Warnock' s article in The Oxford Companion to Philosophy.
Also see: abstraction, the egocentric predicament, English philosophy, esse est percipi, idealism, Irish
philosophy, jaundice, primary and secondary qualities, spirit, and tar-water.
Allan F. Randall on Berkeley' s rejection of abstract ideas.
G. J. Mattey' s lecture notes on Berkeley.
A section on Berkeley from Alfred Weber' s history of philosophy.
Snippets from Berkeley in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations.
D.R. Wilkins' survey of on -line materials.
Bj–rn Christensson' s brief guide to Berkeley studies.
A discussion of Berkeley' s views on mathematics at Mathematical MacTutor.
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Berlin Isaiah
<history of philosophy, biography> russian-British historian, diplomat, and political philosopher (1909-1997).
In Four Essays on Liberty (1969), Berlin drew an important distinction between the positive freedom to act and
the negative freedom from interference in so acting. Societies that differ in their conceptions of liberty, Berlin
argued, are likely to exhibit profoundly different social structures. Karl Marx: His Life and Environment (1939)
and Historical Inevitability (1954) criticize the philosophy of Marx, with special treatment of his view of history.
Isaiah Berlin, The Crooked Timber of Humanity, ed. by Henry Hardy (Princeton, 1998); The Proper Study of
Mankind: An Anthology of Essays, ed. by Roger Hausheer and Noel Annan (Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux,
2000); John Gray, Isaiah Berlin (Princeton, 1997); and The Legacy of Isaiah Berlin, ed. by Mark Lilla, Ronald
Dworkin, and Robert Silvers (NY Review, 2001).
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Bernstein condition
<parallel> Processes cannot execute in parallel if one effects values used by the other. Nor can they execute in
parallel if any subsequent process uses data effected by both, i.e. whose value might depend on the order of
execution.
[FOLDOC]
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best first search
<algorithm> A graph search algorithm which optimizes breadth first search by ordering all current paths
according to some heuristic. The heuristic attempts to predict how close the end of a path is to a solution.
Paths which are judged to be closer to a solution are extended first.
See also beam search, hill climbing.
[FOLDOC]
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Best Fit
<algorithm> A resource allocation scheme (usually for memory). Best Fit tries to determine the best place to
put the new data. The definition of ' best' may differ between implementations, but one example might be to t
and minimize the wasted space at the end of the block being allocated - i.e. use the smallest space which is big
enough.
By minimising wasted space, more data can be allocated overall, at the expense of a more time-consuming
allocation routine.
Compare First Fit.
[FOLDOC]
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best of all possible worlds
<metaphysics, philosophy of science, logic, ethics> the qualitative character of reality, according to the Stoics,
who supposed that all is as it should be. In a similar vein, Leibniz argued that an omnipotent and benevolent
god would create nothing less, though Voltaire found the claim absurdly naive. In a venerable witticism, the
optimist says brightly, "This is the best of all possible worlds," whereupon the pessimist sighs, "I' m afraid you'
right."
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Discourse on Metaphysics and the Monadology, tr. by R. Montgomery (Prometheus,
1992)
Voltaire, Candide (Bantam, 1984).
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beta abstraction
[lambda-calculus] The conversion of an expression to an application of a lambda abstraction to an argument

expression. Some subterm of the original expression becomes the argument of the abstraction and the rest
becomes its body. E.g.
4+1 --> ( x . x+1) 4
The opposite of beta abstraction is beta reduction. These are the two kinds of beta conversion.
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beta conversion
<mathematics, logic> A term from lambda-calculus for beta reduction or beta abstraction.
[FOLDOC]
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beta reduction
[lambda-calculus] The application of a lambda abstraction to an argument expression. A copy of the body of
the lambda abstraction is made and occurrences of the bound variable being replaced by the argument. E.g.
( x . x+1) 4 --> 4+1
Beta reduction is the only kind of reduction in the pure lambda-calculus. The opposite of beta reduction is beta
abstraction. These are the two kinds of beta conversion.
See also name capture.
[FOLDOC]
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bewusstsein
<psychology, gnoseology, ethics> german term for consciousness.
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Bezier curve
<graphics> A type of curve defined by mathematical formulae, used in computer graphics. A curve with
coordinates P(u), where u varies from 0 at one end of the curve to 1 at the other, is defined by a set of n+1
"control points" (X(i), Y(i), Z(i)) for i = 0 to n.
P(u) = Sum i=0..n [(X(i), Y(i), Z(i)) * B(i, n, u)]
B(i, n, u) = C(n, i) * uî * (1-u)^(n-i)
C(n, i) = n!/i!/(n-i)!
A Bezier curve (or surface) is defined by its control points, which makes it invariant under any affine mapping
(translation, rotation, parallel projection), and thus even under a change in the axis system. You need only to
transform the control points and then compute the new curve. The control polygon defined by the points is itself
affine invariant.
Bezier curves also have the variation-diminishing property. This makes them easier to split compared to other
types of curve such as Hermite or B-spline.
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Other important properties are multiple values, global and local control, versatility, and order of continuity.
[FOLDOC]
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Bezier surface
<graphics> A surface defined by mathematical formulae, used in computer graphics. A surface P(u, v), where
u and v vary orthogonally from 0 to 1 from one edge of the surface to the other, is defined by a set of (n+1)*
(m+1) "control points" (X(i, j), Y(i, j), Z(i, j)) for i = 0 to n, j = 0 to m.
P(u, v) = Sum i=0..n Sum j=0..m [(X(i, j), Y(i, j), Z(i, j)) * B(i, n, u) * B(j, m, v)]
B(i, n, u) = C(n, i) * uî * (1-u)^(n-i)
C(n, i) = n!/i!/(n-i)!
Bezier surfaces are an extension of the idea of Bezier curves, and share many of their properties.
[FOLDOC]
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biconditional
<philosophy of science, logic> the conjunction of two conditionals, the antecedent of each of which is the
consequent of the other; that is, any statement of the form: "P if and only if Q." Although they may have other
uses, all biconditionals involve at least the logical structure of material equivalence.
See equivalence.
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bijection
<mathematics, logic> A function is bijective or a bijection or a one-to-one correspondence if it is both injective

(no two values map to the same value) and surjective (for every element of the codomain there is some
element of the domain which maps to it). I.e. there is exactly one element of the domain which maps to each
element of the codomain.
Only bijective functions have inverses f' where f(f' (x)) = f' (f(x)) = x.
See also injection, surjection, isomorphism.
[FOLDOC]
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binaries
binary file
20-11-2003
binary
1. <mathematics> Base two. A number representation consisting of zeros and ones used by practically all
computers because of its ease of implementation using digital electronics and Boolean algebra.
2. <file format> Any file format for digital data encoded as a sequence of bits but not consisting of a sequence
of printable characters (text). The term is often used for executable machine code.
Of course all digital data, including characters, is actually binary data (unless it uses some (rare) system with
more than two discrete levels) but the distinction between binary and text is well established.
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3. <programming> A description of an operator which takes two arguments. See also unary, ternary.
[FOLDOC]
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binary file
<storage, operating system> A file containing arbitrary bytes or words, as opposed to a text file containing only
printable characters (e.g. ASCII characters with codes 10, 13, and 32-126).
On modern operating systems a text file is simply a binary file that happens to contain only printable
characters, but some older systems distinguish the two file types, requiring programs to handle them
differently.
A common class of binary files is programs in machine language ("executable files") ready to load into memory
and execute. Binary files may also be used to store data output by a program, and intended to be read by that
or another program but not by humans. Binary files are more efficient for this purpose because the data (e.g.
numerical data) does not need to be converted between the binary form used by the CPU and a printable
(ASCII) representation. The disadvantage is that it is usually necessary to write special purpose programs to
manipulate such files since most general purpose utilities operate on text files. There is also a problem sharing
binary numerical data between processors with different endianness.
Some communications protocols handle only text files, e.g. most electronic mail systems, though as of 1995
this is changing slowly. The Unix utility uuencode can be used to convert binary data to text for transmission by
e-mail. The FTP utility must be put into "binary" mode in order to copy a binary file since in its default "ascii"
mode translates between the different text line terminator characters used on the sending and receiving
computers.
Confusingly, some files produced by wordprocessors, and rich text files, are actually binary files because they
contain non-printable characters and require special programs to view, edit, and print them.
[FOLDOC]
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binary search
<algorithm> A search algorithm which repeatedly divides an ordered search space in half according to how the
required (key) value compares with the middle element.
The following pseudo-C routine performs a binary search return the index of the element of vector "thing
[first..last]" equal to "target": if (target < thing[first] || target > thing[last]) return NOT_FOUND; while (first < last)
mid = (first+last)/2; /* truncate to integer */ if (target < thing[mid]) last = mid; else if (target > thing[mid]) first =
mid+1; else return mid; if (target == thing[last]) return last; return NOT_FOUND;
[FOLDOC]
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binary tree
(btree) A tree in which each node has at most two successors or child nodes. In Haskell this could be
represented as data BTree a = NilTree | Node a (BTree a) (BTree a)
See also balanced tree.
[FOLDOC]
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binding-time analysis
<compiler> An analysis to identify sub-expressions which can be evaluated at compile-time or where versions
of a function can be generated and called which are specialised to certain values of one or more arguments.
See partial evaluation.
[FOLDOC]
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bit
<unit> (b) binary digit. The unit of information; the amount of information obtained by asking a yes-or-no
question; a computational quantity that can take on one of two values, such as true and false or 0 and 1; the
smallest unit of storage - sufficient to hold one bit.
A bit is said to be "set" if its value is true or 1, and "reset" or "clear" if its value is false or 0. One speaks of
setting and clearing bits. To toggle or "invert" a bit is to change it, either from 0 to 1 or from 1 to 0.
The term "bit" first appeared in print in the computer-science sense in 1949, and seems to have been coined by
early computer scientist John Tukey. Tukey records that it evolved over a lunch table as a handier alternative
to "bigit" or "binit".
See also flag, trit, mode bit, byte, word.
16-03-2001
bivalence principle of
<philosophy of science, epistemology, logic> supposition that every proposition must be either true or false.
The status of this supposition is controversial, especially with respect to future propositions about human
action. Thus, for example, if "I will vacuum the carpet tomorrow." were regarded as already true (or false)
today, it would seem that I cannot freely choose whether or not to clean. Note the difference between bivalence
and excluded middle.
Ermanno Bencivenga, Logic, Bivalence and Denotation (Ridgeview, 1991).
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black box
<jargon> An abstraction of a device or system in which only its externally visible behaviour is considered and
not its implementation or "inner workings".
See also functional testing.
[FOLDOC]
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black-box testing
functional testing
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Blanshard Brand
<history of philosophy, biography> american philosopher and long-time professor at Yale University (1892-
1987).
In The Nature of Thought (1939), Blanshard defended absolute idealism and argued that causal necessity is a
genuine feature of the natural world. According to Blanshard' s Reason and Analysis (Open Court, 1962), the
philosophical methods of Anglo-American philosophers during the twentieth century were fundamentally
misguided. He also rejected the prevalent non-cognitivism of twentieth-century ethicists by defending a
thoroughly naturalistic moral theory in Reason and Goodness (1962).
Brand Blanshard, On Philosophical Style and Philosophy of Brand Blanshard, ed. by Paul Arthur Schilpp (Open
Court, 1980).
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Bocardo
form has the mood and figure designated as OAO-3. Example: Some local jails are not maximum-security
prisons, but since all local jails are correctional institutions, it follows that some correctional institutions are not
maximum-security prisons. This is one of the fifteen forms of valid syllogism.
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Boethius Anicius Manlius Severinus
<history of philosophy, biography> roman logician (480-524). His Commentary on the Isagoge of Porphyry
(itself a discussion of Aristotle' s Categories) carefully distinguished Aristotelean essences from Platonic Forms
setting the basic terms employed in subsequent medieval discussion of the problem of universals. De
consolatione philosophiae (The Consolation of Philosophy), written during the imprisonment that preceded his
execution, considers the possibility of achieving human happiness despite the inescapable presence of evil,
extols the benefits of reason even in the face of misfortune and bad advice, and proposes a compatibilist
account of human freedom in the face of divine foreknowledge.
Five Texts on the Mediaeval Problem of Universals, ed. by Paul Vincent Spade (Hackett, 1994).
28-09-2001
Boetius of Dacia
<history of philosophy, biography> swedish Dominican philosopher (1230-1285). Doubts about personal
immortality and the espousal of a fideistic account of the relation between faith and reason during his service in
Romania resulted in the condemnation of his teachings, along with those of Siger of Brabant and the other
radical Aristoteleans.
Boethius of Dacia: On the Supreme Good, on the Eternity of the World, on Dreams, tr. by John F. Wippel
(Pontifical Inst., 1987).
28-09-2001
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Bohr Niels Henrik David
<history of science, philosophy of science> danish physicist (1885-1962). Although best known for his
contributions to atomic theory and quantum mechanics, Bohr also reflected on epistemological issues,
defending a sophisticated variety of cultural relativism. Bohr won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922.
Dugald Murdoch, Niels Bohr' s Philosophy of Physics (Cambridge, 1989);

Abraham Pais, Niels Bohr' s Times: In Physics, Philosophy, and Polity (Oxford, 1993);
Andrew Whitaker, Einstein, Bohr and the Quantum Dilemma (Cambridge, 1996).
28-09-2001
Bolzano Bernard
<history of philosophy, biography> austrian mathematician, theologian, and philosopher (1781-1848). In

opposition to the idealism of Kant and Hegel, Bolzano maintained that numbers, ideas, and truths all exist
independently of the human beings who think about them. His Wissenschaftslehre (1837) and Gr–ssenlehre
(1850) offer a philosophical foundation for mathematics, employing a modern theory of classes to define the
real numbers. Bolzano' s work was a significant influence on that ofHusserl, Frege, Lukasiewicz, and Tarski.
Jan Sebestik, Logique et mathÈmatique chez Bernard Bolzano (Paris, 1992).
28-09-2001
Bonaventure
<history of philosophy, biography> franciscan philosopher and theologian, known also as Giovanni di Fidanza
(1221-1274). Following Augustine, Bonaventure held that reason is valuable only in support of faith.
Bonaventure' sphilosophy was predominantly neoplatonic; he accepted Aristotle' s philosophical principles only
when they could be used in service of his Christian aims, but argued against the eternal reality of the universe.
In Itinerarium mentis in deum (The Journey of the Mind to God) (1259) he argued that human beings, as
emanations of the deity, embody a footprint (Lat. Vestiguum) of the divine nature.
Etienne Gilson, The Philosophy of St. Bonaventure (Franciscan, 1965).
28-09-2001
Boole George
<history of philosophy, biography> british logician (1815-1864) whose The Mathematical Analysis of Logic
(1847) proposed the "Boolean algebra" of propositional connectives representing negation and conjunction. An
Investigation into the Laws of Thought (1859) further develops a symbolic system for the expression and
evaluation of categorical syllogisms, understood as elements in the logic of classes.
A Boole Anthology: Recent and Classical Studies in the Logic of George Boole, ed. by James Gasser (Kluwer,
2000).
09-10-2001
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Boolean
<mathematics, logic> 1. Boolean algebra.

<programming> 2. (bool) The type of an expression with two possible values, "true" and "false". Also, a
variable of Boolean type or a function with Boolean arguments or result.
The most common Boolean functions are AND, OR and NOT.
[FOLDOC]
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Boolean algebra
<mathematics, logic> (After the logician George Boole)

1. Commonly, and especially in computer science and digital electronics, this term is used to mean two-valued
logic.
2. This is in stark contrast with the definition used by pure mathematicians who in the 1960s introduced
"Boolean-valued models" into logic precisely because a "Boolean-valued model" is an interpretation of a theory
that allows more than two possible truth values!
Strangely, a Boolean algebra (in the mathematical sense) is not strictly an algebra, but is in fact a lattice. A
Boolean algebra is sometimes defined as a "complemented distributive lattice".
Boole' s work which inspired the mathematical definition concernedalgebras of sets, involving the operations of
intersection, union and complement on sets. Such algebras obey the following identities where the operators ^,
V, - and constants 1 and 0 can be thought of either as set intersection, union, complement, universal, empty; or
as two-valued logic AND, OR, NOT, TRUE, FALSE; or any other conforming system.
a ^ b = b ^ a a V b = b V a (commutative laws)
(a ^ b) ^ c = a ^ (b ^ c)
(a V b) V c = a V (b V c) (associative laws)
a ^ (b V c) = (a ^ b) V (a ^ c)
a V (b ^ c) = (a V b) ^ (a V c) (distributive laws)
a ^ a = a a V a = a (idempotence laws)
--a = a
-(a ^ b) = (-a) V (-b)
-(a V b) = (-a) ^ (-b) (de Morgan' s laws)
a ^ -a = 0 a V -a = 1
a^1=aaV0=a
a^0=0aV1=1
-1 = 0 -0 = 1
There are several common alternative notations for the "-" or logical complement operator.
If a and b are elements of a Boolean algebra, we define a <= b to mean that a ^ b = a, or equivalently a V b = b.
Thus, for example, if ^, V and - denote set intersection, union and complement then <= is the inclusive subset
relation. The relation <= is a partial ordering, though it is not necessarily a linear ordering since some Boolean
algebras contain incomparable values.
Note that these laws only refer explicitly to the two distinguished constants 1 and 0 (sometimes written as
LaTeX op and ot), and in two-valued logic there are no others, but according to the more general mathematical
definition, in some systems variables a, b and c may take on other values as well.
[FOLDOC]
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Boolean logic
<mathematics, logic> A logic based on Boolean algebra.
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Boolean search
<information science> (Or "Boolean query") A query using the Boolean operators, AND, OR, and NOT, and
parentheses to construct a complex condition from simpler criteria. A typical example is searching for
combinations of keywords on a World-Wide Web search engine.
Examples:
car or automobile
"New York" and not "New York state"
The term is sometimes stretched to include searches using other operators, e.g. "near".
Not to be confused with binary search.
See also: weighted search.
[FOLDOC]
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bootstrap
1. <operating system> (From "to pull oneself up by one' s bootstraps") To load and initialise the operating
system on a computer. Normally abbreviated to "boot".
See bootstrap loader.
2. <compiler> (From "to pull oneself up by one' s bootstraps") to use acompiler to compile itself.
The usual process is to write an interpreter for a language, L, in an existing language, M. The compiler is then
written in L and the interpreter is used to run it. This produces an executable for compiling programs in L from
the source of the compiler in L.
This technique is often used to verify the correctness of a compiler. It was first used in the LISP community.
See also my favourite toy language.
[FOLDOC]
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Bordo Susan
<history of philosophy, biography> american philosopher (1947- ). InThe Flight to Objectivity: Essays on
Cartesianism and Culture (1987) she explores the masculinization of thought in Cartesian modernism. Bordo' s
Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body (1993) is a cultural exploration of the
significance of social constructions of the human body.
Similar themes are explored in Bordo' s Twilight Zones: The Hidden Life of Cultural Images from Plato to O.J
(1997) and The Male Body: A New Look at Men in Public and in Private (1999).
09-10-2001
Bosanquet Bernard
<history of philosophy, biography> british philosopher (1848-1923) who defended a modified version of Hegel' s
absolute idealism in Logic, or the Morphology of Knowledge (1888), The Principle of Individuality and Value
(1912), and The Value and Destiny of the Individual (1914). According to Bosanquet, all contradictions are
merely apparent and are wholly harmonized as part of the Absolute, a process said to account for the
possibility of judgments about beauty in his History of Aesthetics (1892).
Bosanquet further argued in The Philosophical Theory of the State (1899) that individual human beings are
properly understood only in terms of their social and cultural efforts at transcendence.
The Collected Works of Bernard Bosanquet, ed. by William Sweet (Thoemmes, 1999).
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bottom
<mathematics, logic> The least defined element in a given domain. Often used to represent a non-terminating
computation.
[FOLDOC]
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bottom-unique
<mathematics> In domain theory, a function f is bottom-unique if f x = bottom <=> x = bottom A bottom-unique

function is also strict.
[FOLDOC]
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bottom-up implementation
<PI> The opposite of top-down design. It is now received wisdom in most programming cultures that it is best
to design from higher levels of abstraction down to lower, specifying sequences of action in increasing detail
until you get to actual code. Hackers often find (especially in exploratory designs that cannot be closely
specified in advance) that it works best to *build* things in the opposite order, by writing and testing a clean set
of primitive operations and then knitting them together.
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bottom-up model
<PI> A method for estimating the cost of a complete software project by combining estimates for each
component.
[FOLDOC]
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bound variable
1. <logic> A bound variable or formal argument in a function definition is replaced by the actual argument when
the function is applied. In the lambda abstraction x . M x is the bound variable. However, x is a free variable of
the term M when M is considered on its own. M is the scope of the binding of x.
[FOLDOC]
2. <predicate logic> In predicate logic, an individual variable at least one of whose occurrences lies within the
scope of a quantifier on the same letter. Because other occurrences may be free, a variable may be both free
and bound in the same wffs. to bind a variable to add a quantifier on an individual variable, x, to a wff so that
one or more previously free occurrences of x lie inside the scope of that quantifier.
See closure, free variable
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bounded
<mathematics> In domain theory, a subset S of a cpo X is bounded if there exists x in X such that for all s in S,
s <= x. In other words, there is some element above all of S. If every bounded subset of X has a least upper
bound then X is boundedly complete.
[FOLDOC]
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bounded minimization
minimization
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boundedly complete
<mathematics> In domain theory, a complete partial order is boundedly complete if every bounded subset has
a least upper bound.
Also called consistently complete.
[FOLDOC]
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boundless the
<<metaphysics, history of philosophy> the eternal, infinite, undifferentiated stuff from which Anaximander
believed the material world to be formed.
09-10-2001
bourgeois
<political theory, political philosophy> <philosophy of history, communism, marxism, proletarian> in its original
designation the term referred to the medieval "middle class" of shopkeepers and artisans.
In Communist theory it refers to the capitalist class of owners of the means and forces of production which, as
Marx recounts, is historically descended from this medieval middle class. Contrast: proletarian. See:
communism.
22-06-2001
Boyle Robert
<history of science, philosophy of science> english scientist (1627-1692) who discovered the relationship
between the temperature, pressure, and volume of a gas and founded The Royal Society.
In The Skeptical Chymist (1661) and The Origins of Forms and Qualities (1666), Boyle helped to establish the
discipline of chemistry and drew a careful distinction between primary and secondary qualities, later used by
his friend Locke. A principled corpuscularian, Boyle defended the reliability of mechanistic philosophy in The
Excellency and Grounds of the Corpuscular or Mechanical Philosophy (1674) and in extended controversies
with Spinoza and Henry More. Boyle employed the teleological argument for god' s existence and defended a
traditional theology in The Excellence of Theology (1674) and The Christian Virtuoso (1690).
Selected Philosophical Papers of Robert Boyle (Hackett, 1991);
Robert Boyle on Natural Philosophy, ed. by Marie Boas Hall (Greenwood, 1980);
Peter Alexander, Ideas, Qualities and Corpuscles: Locke and Boyle on the External World; Peter R. Anstey,
The Philosophy of Robert Boyle (Routledge, 2000);
Rose-Mary Sargent, The Diffident Naturalist: Robert Boyle and the Philosophy of Experiment (Chicago, 1995).
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09-10-2001
Bradley Francis Herbert
<history of philosophy, biography> english philosopher (1846-1924) and absolute idealist. His Ethical Studies
(1876) criticized Mill' sutilitarianism and defended an ethics of self-realization, understood as the conquest of
the bad self by the good. Bradley' s metaphysical views, akin to those ofHegel, with a special emphasis on the
internal relations of the Absolute are developed at length in Appearance and Reality (1893) and defended in
Essays on Truth and Reality (1914). Bradleian metaphysics became the primary target for the anti-idealistic
polemics of Moore and Russell.
F. H. Bradley, Writings on Logic and Metaphysics, ed. by James W. Allard and Guy Stock (Oxford, 1994);
The Collected Works of F. H. Bradley, ed. by W.J. Mander and Carol Keene (Thoemmes, 1999);
Phillip Ferreira, Bradley and the Structure of Knowledge (SUNY, 1999);
W. J. Mander, Perspectives on the Logic and Metaphysics of F.H. Bradley (St. Augustine, 1997).
09-10-2001
branch
1. <mathematics> An edge in a tree.
2. <programming> A jump.
[FOLDOC]
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branch prediction
<processor, algorithm> A technique used in some processors with instruction prefetch to guess whether a
conditionalbranch will be taken or not and prefetch code from the appropriate location.
When a branch instruction is executed, its address and that of the next instruction executed (the chosen
destination of the branch) are stored in the Branch Target Buffer. This information is used to predict which way
the instruction will branch the next time it is executed so that instruction prefetch can continue. When the
prediction is correct (and it is over 90% of the time), executing a branch does not cause a pipeline break.
Some later CPUs simply prefetch both paths instead of trying to predict which way the branch will go.
An extension of the idea of branch prediction is speculative execution.
[FOLDOC]
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Brentano Franz Clemens
<history of philosophy, biography> german philosopher and psychologist (1838-1917). An early

phenomenologist, Brentano proposed the notion that intentionality is the mark of the mental in Psychologie vom
empirischen Standpunkt (Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint) (1874). He developed an associated
theory of truth in Wahrheit und Evidenz (The True and the Evident) (1930) and applied phenomenological
methods to ethical issues in Vom Ursprung sittlicher Erkenntnis (The Origin of Our Knowledge of Right and
Wrong) (1889), defending a pluralistic view of objective intrinsic value.
Victor Velarde, On Brentano (Wadsworth, 1999);
Barry Smith, Austrian Philosophy: The Legacy of Franz Brentano (Open Court, 1996).
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brittle
<jargon> Said of software that is functional but easily broken by changes in operating environment or
configuration, or by any minor tweak to the software itself. Also, any system that responds inappropriately and
disastrously to abnormal but expected external stimuli; e.g. a file system that is usually totally scrambled by a
power failure is said to be brittle. This term is often used to describe the results of a research effort that were
never intended to be robust, but it can be applied to commercially developed software, which displays the
quality far more often than it ought to.
Opposite of robust.
[Jargon File]
[FOLDOC]
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Broad Charlie Dunbar
<history of philosophy, biography> english philosopher (1887-1971). Although he criticized the extravagant
speculation of absolute idealists like McTaggart in his Examination of McTaggart' s Philosophy (1933, 1938)
Broad was more willing than his contemporaries Russell and Moore to engage in metaphysical as well as
epistemological theorizing. The philosophy of mind expressed in Scientific Thought (1923) and The Mind and
its Place in Nature (1925) clearly defended the reality of physical and mental phenomena, including
(notoriously) the possibility of genuine parapsychological phenomena.
Philosophy of C. D. Broad, ed. by Paul A. Schilpp (Open Court, 1964).
09-10-2001
Bruno Giordano
<history of philosophy, biography> (1548-1600) italian philosopher of the Renaissance and follower of Nicolas
of Cusa. An aposotate Dominican, Bruno tried to incorporate both Copernican astronomy and hermetic
mysticism into an atomistic physics. His evident inclination toward pantheism and explicit identification of
infinite matter as the eternal substance of the universe in Dell' infinito, universo e mondi (On the Infinite
Universe and Worlds) (1584), De Gli Eroici Furori (The Heroic Frenzies) (1585) and De immense et
innumerabilibus (1591) earned him the condemnation of the church, which expressed its displeasure by
burning him at the stake in Rome.
J. Lewis McIntyre, Giordano Bruno (Kessinger, 1997);
Frances A. Yates, Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition (Chicago, 1991).
09-10-2001
brute force
<PI> A primitive programming style in which the programmer relies on the computer' s processing powe
instead of using his own intelligence to simplify the problem, often ignoring problems of scale and applying
naive methods suited to small problems directly to large ones. The term can also be used in reference to
programming style: brute-force programs are written in a heavy-handed, tedious way, full of repetition and
devoid of any elegance or useful abstraction (see also brute force and ignorance).
The canonical example of a brute-force algorithm is associated with the "travelling salesman problem" (TSP), a
classical NP-hard problem:
Suppose a person is in, say, Boston, and wishes to drive to N other cities. In what order should the cities be
visited in order to minimise the distance travelled?
The brute-force method is to simply generate all possible routes and compare the distances; while guaranteed
to work and simple to implement, this algorithm is clearly very stupid in that it considers even obviously absurd
routes (like going from Boston to Houston via San Francisco and New York, in that order). For very small N it
works well, but it rapidly becomes absurdly inefficient when N increases (for N = 15, there are already
1,307,674,368,000 possible routes to consider, and for N = 1000 - well, see bignum). Sometimes,
unfortunately, there is no better general solution than brute force. See also NP-complete.
A more simple-minded example of brute-force programming is finding the smallest number in a large list by first
using an existing program to sort the list in ascending order, and then picking the first number off the front.
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Whether brute-force programming should actually be considered stupid or not depends on the context; if the
problem is not terribly big, the extra CPU time spent on a brute-force solution may cost less than the
programmer time it would take to develop a more "intelligent" algorithm. Additionally, a more intelligent
algorithm may imply more long-term complexity cost and bug-chasing than are justified by the speed
improvement.
When applied to cryptography, it is usually known as brute force attack. Ken Thompson, co-inventor of Unix, is
reported to have uttered the epigram "When in doubt, use brute force". He probably intended this as a ha ha
only serious, but the original Unix kernel' s preference for simple, robust and portable algorithms over brittle
"smart" ones does seem to have been a significant factor in the success of that operating system. Like so
many other tradeoffs in software design, the choice between brute force and complex, finely-tuned cleverness
is often a difficult one that requires both engineering savvy and delicate aesthetic judgment.
[Jargon File]
[FOLDOC]
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brute force attack
<cryptography> A method of breaking a cipher (that is, to decrypt a specific encrypted text) by trying every
possible key. The quicker the brute force attack, the weaker the cipher. Feasibility of brute force attack
depends on the key length of the cipher, and on the amount of computational power available to the attacker.
Brute force attack is impossible against the ciphers with variable-size key, such as a one-time pad cipher.
Breaking ciphers with many workstations (http://www.distributed.net/projects.html.en).
[FOLDOC]
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Buber Martin
<history of philosophy, biography, psychology> austrian-Jewish theologian (1878-1965). In Ich und Du (I and
Thou) (1922) Buber suggested that genuinely religious experiences must involve reciprocal intersubjective
relations between persons rather than a merely objective apprehension of abstract reality. After emigrating to
Israel Buber served as first President of the Academy of Science and Humanities.
Dan Avnon, Martin Buber: The Hidden Dialogue (Rowman-Littlefield, 1998);
Martin Buber and the Human Sciences, ed. by Maurice Friedman and Pat Boni (SUNY, 1996).
09-10-2001
Buddhism
<religion, philosophy> individualistic religious and philosophical tradition that originated with the historical
Buddha (c. 563-483 BC) in India and spread throughout the Orient. In this century, it has also spread to
America, in the form of Zen Buddhism. Zen is the Japanese name for the form of Buddhism that was most
successful in China, Ch' an, which represented asyncretism of Indian Mahayana Buddhism and traditional
Chinese beliefs like Confucianism and Taoism. Buddhism, in fact, is quite similar to Taoism: both stress the
belief that we cannot trust in the world of appearances and that there is an underlying unity to the universe (see
holism); both emphasize a certain level of detachment from worldly affairs (sometimes bordering on
asceticism) and the development of a disposition that enables one to enjoy and understand the world.
Buddhism transcendentalism puts a great value on ultimate detachment and eternal enlightenment, known as
Nirvana. (References from holism, humanism, individualism, Neo-Confucianism, and Taoism.)
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bundle theory
<history of philosophy, gnoseology, psychology> belief that an object comprises only the features or properties
it exhibits, without requiring the unifying presence of any underlying substance. Most notably, Hume supposed
that the human self or mind is nothing more than a bundle of perceptions linked to each other only by
contingent associations.
James Bricke Hume' s Philosophy of Mind (Princeton, 1980).
09-10-2001
Buridan Jean
<history of philosophy, biography> french logician and philosopher who first developed a theory of inertial
motion (1295-1356). His commentaries on Aristotle' s theory of action made famous the predicament involved in
choosing (as must "Buridan' s ass") between two equally attractive alternatives. Although he defended
nominalism as a solution to the problem of universals, Buridan rejected the extreme version developed by his
teacher, Ockham.
Jean Buridan' s Logic: The Treatise on Supposition, the Treatise on Consequences, ed. by Peter King (Reidel
1986);
The Metaphysics and Natural Philosophy of John Buridan, ed. by J. M. M. H. Thijssen and Jack Zupko (Brill,
2000).
09-10-2001
Burke Edmund
<history of philosophy, biography> irish politician and philosopher (1729-1797). In the early A Philosophical
Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757) Burke offered an analysis of aesthetic
judgment that greatly influenced the work of Kant. Burke' s Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790
includes an explicit criticism of the social contract theory, an extended appeal for the preservation of
established social and political institutions, and the defence of a society ruled by respect for the rights and
privileges revealed in traditional value-systems, including established religion.
The Portable Edmund Burke, ed. by Isaac Kramnick (Penguin, 1999);
The Enduring Edmund Burke: Bicentennial Essays, ed. by Conor C. O' Brien, Bruce Frohnen, Peter J. Stanlis
and Peter Tann (Intercollegiate, 1997);
Edmund Burke: A Genius Reconsidered, ed. by Roger Scruton (Intercollegiate, 1997).
09-10-2001
Busy Beaver
<logic> (BB) One of a series of sets of Turing Machine programs. The BBs in the Nth set are programs of N
states that produce a larger finite number of ones on an initially blank tape than any other program of N states.
There is no program that, given input N, can deduce the productivity (number of ones output) of the BB of size
N.
The productivity of the BB of size 1 is 1. Some work has been done to figure out productivities of bigger Busy
Beavers – the 7th is in the thousands.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
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Butler Joseph
<history of philosophy, biography> english clergyman and philosopher (1692-1752). Butler' s Fifteen Sermons
upon Human Nature (1726) attempted to establish human morality in the moderation of self-love by the
authority of a divinely-provided conscience, and his The Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed, to the
Constitution and Course of Nature (1736) defended revealed religion in the face of deistic challenges.
Terence Penelhum, Butler (Routledge, 1986).
09-10-2001
byte
<unit> /bi:t/ (B) A component in the machine data hierarchy usually larger than a bit and smaller than a word;
now most often eight bits and the smallest addressable unit of storage. A byte typically holds one character. A
byte may be 9 bits on 36-bit computers. Some older architectures used "byte" for quantities of 6 or 7 bits, and
the PDP-10 and IBM 7030 supported "bytes" that were actually bit-fields of 1 to 36 (or 64) bits! These usages
are now obsolete, and even 9-bit bytes have become rare in the general trend toward power-of-2 word sizes.
The term was coined by Werner Buchholz in 1956 during the early design phase for the IBM Stretch computer.
It was a mutation of the word "bite" intended to avoid confusion with "bit". In 1962 he described it as "a group of
bits used to encode a character, or the number of bits transmitted in parallel to and from input-output units".
The move to an 8-bit byte happened in late 1956, and this size was later adopted and promulgated as a
standard by the System/360 operating system (announced April 1964).
James S. Jones adds: I am sure I read in some historical brochure by IBM some 15-20 years ago that BYTE
was an acronym that stood for "Bit asYnchronous Transmission E__?__" which related to width of the bus
between the Stretch CPU and its CRT-memory (prior to Core).
Terry Carr says:

In the early days IBM taught that a series of bits transferred together (like so many yoked oxen) formed a
Binary Yoked Transfer Element (BYTE).
[True origin? First 8-bit byte architecture?]
See also nibble, octet.
[Jargon File]
[FOLDOC]
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<logic>
Lower-case "c", often in Gothic type. The symbol for
the cardinality of the continuum; c = 2âleph, or
(assuming the continuum hypothesis) aleph1.
See continuum hypothesis
16-03-2001
Caird Edward
<history of philosophy, biography> Scottish Hegelian philosopher. Caird (1835-1908) was one of the first
-dominant empiricist
generation of ' British idealists,' whose philosophical work was largely in reaction to the then
and associationist views of Alexander Bain (1818-1903) and J.S. Mill. Best known for his studies of Kant - A
Critical Account of the Philosophy of Kant (1877) and The Critical Philosophy of Immanuel Kant (1889) - and
Hegel - Hegel (1883), Caird also exercised a strong influence on later idealists such as John Watson and
Bernard Bosanquet, particularly concerning the development of an 'evolutionary' account of religion; see his
two series of Gifford lectures, The Evolution of Religion (1893), and The Evolution of Theology in the Greek
Philosophers (1904). (Contributed by Will Sweet.)
The Collected Works of Edward Caird, ed. by Colin Tyler (Thoemmes, 1999).
file://C:\_ 04/06/00
11-10-2001
calculus
<ethics> a calculus is simply a means of computing something, and a moral calculus is just a means of
calculating what the right moral decision is in a particular case.
See also practical reasoning
[Ethics Glossary]
26-03-2001
Cambridge Platonists
<history of philosophy> an influential group of seventeenth-century English philosophers and latitudinarian

theologians who rejected the tenets of (Oxford-taught) scholasticism in favor of an eclectic rationalism that
employed a neoplatonic metaphysics and placed great emphasis on the role of innate ideas in the acquisition
of worthwhile knowledge of reality, while opposing the mechanism of the new science and the atheism to which
they feared it might lead. Prominent members of the group included Cudworth, Cumberland, Glanvill, More,
Conway and Norris.
The Cambridge Platonists in Philosophical Context: Politics, Metaphysics, and Religion, ed. by G. A. J.Rogers,
J. M. Vienne, and Y. C. Zarka (Kluwer, 1997);
Frederick James Powicke, Cambridge Platonists (Greenwood, 1955).
11-10-2001
Camenes
form is AEE-4.
Example: All first-degree murders are premeditated homicides, but no premeditated homicides are actions
performed in self-defence, so it follows that no actions performed in self-defence are first-degree murders. This
is one of the fifteen forms in which syllogisms are always valid.
11-10-2001
Camestres
form may be designated as AEE-2. Example: All terriers are dogs, while no cats are dogs, so no cats are
terriers. This is another of the fifteen forms of valid syllogism.
11-10-2001
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Camus Albert
<literature, history of philosophy, biography> french-Algerian journalist and novelist (1913-1960). Camus
explored the practical consequences of existentialist philosophy in his novels, L' Ètranger (The Stranger)
(1942), La Peste (The Plague) (1947), L' Homme R èvoltè (The Rebel) (1951), and La Chute (The Fall) (1956).
His essay Le Mythe de Sisyphe (Essai sur l' absurde) (The Myth of Sisyphus) (1943) describes the inheren
absurdity of human life, a profound meaninglessness that can be mitigated only by moral integrity and social
solidarity. Camus was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1957 and died in an automobile accident three years later.
Olivier Todd and Benjamin Ivry, Albert Camus: A Life (Carroll, 2000);
Joseph McBride, Albert Camus: Philosopher and Litterateur (St. Martins, 1992);
Harold Bloom and William Golding, Albert Camus (Chelsea House, 1989).
11-10-2001
canonical
(Historically, "according to religious law")
1. <mathematics> A standard way of writing a formula. Two formulas such as 9 + x and x + 9 are said to be
equivalent because they mean the same thing, but the second one is in "canonical form" because it is written in
the usual way, with the highest power of x first. Usually there are fixed rules you can use to decide whether
something is in canonical form. Things in canonical form are easier to compare.
2. <jargon> The usual or standard state or manner of something. The term acquired this meaning in computer-
science culture largely through its prominence in Alonzo Church' s work in computation theory and
mathematical logic (see Knights of the Lambda-Calculus).
Compare vanilla.
This word has an interesting history. Non-technical academics do not use the adjective "canonical" in any of
the senses defined above with any regularity; they do however use the nouns "canon" and "canonicity" (not
"canonicalness"* or "canonicality"*). The "canon" of a given author is the complete body of authentic works by
that author (this usage is familiar to Sherlock Holmes fans as well as to literary scholars). "The canon" is the
body of works in a given field (e.g. works of literature, or of art, or of music) deemed worthwhile for students to
study and for scholars to investigate.
The word "canon" derives ultimately from the Greek "kanon" (akin to the English "cane") referring to a reed.
Reeds were used for measurement, and in Latin and later Greek the word "canon" meant a rule or a standard.
The establishment of a canon of scriptures within Christianity was meant to define a standard or a rule for the
religion. The above non-technical academic usages stem from this instance of a defined and accepted body of
work. Alongside this usage was the promulgation of "canons" ("rules") for the government of the Catholic
Church. The usages relating to religious law derive from this use of the Latin "canon".
Hackers invest this term with a playfulness that makes an ironic contrast with its historical meaning. A true
story: One Bob Sjoberg, new at the MIT AI Lab, expressed some annoyance at the incessant use of jargon.
Over his loud objections, GLS and RMS made a point of using as much of it as possible in his presence, and
eventually it began to sink in. Finally, in one conversation, he used the word "canonical" in jargon-like fashion
without thinking. Steele: "Aha! We' ve finally got you talking jargon too!" Stallman: "What did he say?" Steele
"Bob just used "canonical" in the canonical way."
Of course, canonicality depends on context, but it is implicitly defined as the way *hackers* normally expect
things to be. Thus, a hacker may claim with a straight face that "according to religious law" is *not* the
canonical meaning of "canonical".
[FOLDOC]
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canonicity
<theory, jargon> The extent to which something is canonical.
[FOLDOC]
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Cantor Georg Ferdinand Ludwig Philipp
<mathematics, history of philosophy, biography> german mathematician. Cantor (1845-1918) developed

modern set theory as the foundation for all of mathematics and used the "diagonal proof" to demonstrate that
lines, planes, and spaces must all contain a non-denumerable infinity of points; that is, they cannot be counted
in a one-to-one correspondence with the rational numbers. The reality of trans-finite quantities within the set of
real numbers leads, in turn to "Cantor' s paradox"- that every set has more subsets than members, so that
there can be no set of all sets.
Georg Cantor, Contributions to the Founding of the Theory of Transfinite Numbers, tr. by Philip E. Jourdain
(Dover, 1955);
Keith Simmons, Universality and the Liar: An Essay on Truth and the Diagonal Argument (Cambridge, 1993)
Joseph Warren Dauben, Georg Cantor (Princeton, 1990).
11-10-2001
Cantorian set theory
set theory Cantor' s theorem <

logic> The power set of a given set has a greater cardinality than the given set.
16-03-2001
capacitor
<electronics> An electronic device that can store electrical charge. The charge stored Q in Coulombs is related
to the capacitance C in Farads and the voltage V across the capacitor in Volts by Q = CV.
The basis of a dynamic RAM cell is a capacitor. They are also used for power-supply smoothing (or
"decoupling"). This is especially important in digital circuits where a digital device switching between states
causes a sudden demand for current. Without sufficient local power supply decoupling, this current "spike"
cannot be supplied directly from the power supply due to the inductance of the connectors and so will cause a
sharp drop in the power supply voltage near the switching device. This can cause other devices to malfunction
resulting in hard to trace glitches.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
capitalism
<political philosophy> economic system in which the principal means of production, distribution, and exchange
are in private (individual or corporate) hands and competitively operated for profit. A mixed economy combines
the private enterprise of capitalism and a degree of state monopoly, as in nationalized industries and welfare
services. Most capitalist economies are actually mixed economies, but some (such as the US and Japanese)
have a greater share of the economy devoted to free enterprise.
The reputation of capitalism, which was quite bad for a while, has recently been on the rise. This is no doubt
due mainly to the universal failure of socialism and communism, but credit must also be given to those scholars
who have emphasized that what has been traditionally lampooned as evil "capitalism" is in fact the idea of
minimal government, which is better described as classical liberalism or libertarianism, which is much more
"human" than the twentieth-century authoritarianism and totalitarianism that supplanted capitalism historically.
However, some economists insist that capitalism is not a doctrine or theory in political philosophy in the way
that Marxism is, because the free market is not an ideology but simply the economic phenomenon that occurs
naturally in the absence of political control.
References from dialectical materialism and social Darwinism.
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cardinal number
The cardinality of some set.
[FOLDOC]
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cardinality
<mathematics> The number of elements in a set; intuitively, the set' s "size" or "magnitude".
Notation: a double bar over the symbol denoting the set; also "|S|" and "card S" when S is the symbol denoting
the set. If two sets have the same number of elements (i.e. there is a bijection between them) then they have
the same cardinality. A cardinality is thus an isomorphism class in the categoryof sets.
aleph 0 is defined as the cardinality of the first infinite ordinal, omega (the number of natural numbers).
16-03-2001
cardinality of an interpretation
interpretation
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Carnap Rudolf
<history of philosophy, biography> german-American philosopher. A leading logical positivist, Carnap (1891-
1970) proposed in Der logische Aufbau der Welt (The Logical Structure of the World) (1929) and Logische
Syntax der Sprache (The Logical Syntax of Language) (1934) that all meaningful assertions in a description of
reality must be derived from basic statements of experience. Carnap' s influential articles "Pseudo -Problems in
Philosophy" (1928) and "The Elimination of Metaphysics trough Logical Analysis of Language" (1932) propose
that many traditional philosophical disputes amount to little more than differences in poetic rhetoric. His
"Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology" (1950) considers the degree of ontological commitment entailed by
linguistic reference to abstract entities.
In Meaning and Necessity: A Study in Semantics and Modal Logic (1947) and Logical Foundations of
Probability (1950), Carnap tried to devise a purely formal representation of the degree of confirmation to which
scientific hypotheses are susceptible. Carnap' s notions about the formation of scientific theories are expressed
in Philosophical Foundations of Physics (1966).
Alan W. Richardson, Carnap' s Construction of the World: The Aufbau and the Emergence of Logica
Empiricism (Cambridge, 1997);
Bryan G. Norton, Linguistic Frameworks and Ontology: A Re-Examination of Carnap' s Metaphilosophy (De
Gruyter, 1977);
Philosophy of Rudolph Carnap, ed. by Paul A. Schilpp (Open Court, 1974).
12-10-2001
Carneades
<history of philosophy, biography> greek philosopher(214-129 B.C.). As leader of the Academy, Carneades
advocated a moderate skepticism, which permitted the qualified assertion of probabile judgments.
In his own time, Carneades was famous for the ability to develop convincing arguments on both sides of any
philosophical dispute.
Edwyn Bevan, Stoics and Skeptics (Ares, 1980).
11-10-2001
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Carroll Lewis
<history of philosophy, biography> english logician, mathematician, and author. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson
(1832-1898). Carroll' s fascination with logical and philosophical puzzles is apparent in the popular books Alice'
Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking Glass (1876) as well as in the more technical
Games of Logic (1887) and Symbolic Logic (1893). The philosophical paper on "What the Tortoise said to
Achilles" (1895) raised a significant issue about the legitimacy of reiterated demands for epistemological
justification.
11-10-2001
Cartesian coordinates
<mathematics, graphics> (After René Descartes, French philosopher and mathematician) A pair of numbers,
(x, y), defining the position of a point in a two-dimensional space by its perpendicular projection onto two axes
which are at right angles to each other. x and y are also known as the abscissa and ordinate.
The idea can be generalised to any number of independent axes.
Compare polar coordinates.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
Cartesian doubt
<epistemology> in his Meditations, Descartes (1596-1650) proposed discarding any kind of belief that could be
doubted, that might be false. Initially, he was inclined to doubt all the evidences of his senses (pointing out that
it seemed impossible to tell for sure whether he was at any point aswake or asleep). The doubt that Descartes
introduced into philosophy has been a characteristic feature as many philosophers since have supposed that
we have no secure rational basis for believing in the existence of a world external to our sense experience, etc.
Compare private language argument, the
25-04-2001
Cartesian interactionist dualism
<philosophy of mind, ontology> the view that

1) ontological independence is the criterion for the identification of substance, that is x = substance iff, for any y
different from x, x exists independently of y
2) following (1), strictly speaking, there is only one substance, that is God = substance
3) if x is ontologically dependent only on God, then x = substance in a weak sense
4) the mental and the material are two weak-substances and;
5) both can have causal effects on the other.
Luciano Floridi
16-03-2001
Cartesian product
<mathematics> (After Renee Descartes, French philosopher and mathematician) The Cartesian product of two
sets A and B is the set
A x B = (a, b) | a in A, b in B.
I.e. the product set contains all possible combinations of one element from each set. The idea can be extended
to products of any number of sets.
If we consider the elements in sets A and B as points along perpendicular axes in a two-dimensional space
then the elements of the product are the "Cartesian coordinates" of points in that space.
See also tuple.
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[FOLDOC]
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Cartesian scepticism
<epistemology>
1. sceptical views against the absolute reliability of empirical and mathematical knowledge.
2. any of a class of sceptical views against empirical knowledge based on the argument that claims to empirical
knowledge are defeated by the possibility that we might be deceived insofar as we might be, for example,
dreaming, hallucinating, deceived by demons, or brains in vats.

16-03-2001
Cartesianism
<metaphysics, epistemology, philosophical school, dualism, innatism> Cartesianism is the name applied in
philosophy to the doctrines of Descartes, and to the tradition of modern philosophy that arose out of his
thought. In a way, much modern philosophy is just a footnote to, or working out of, Descartes. Some signature
ideas and ideals of Cartesianism are dualism and rationalism, a combination of idealism in the spiritual realm
and of mechanism in the physical realm.
(References from automatism and mechanism.)
23-03-2001
Cassirer Ernst
<history of philosophy, biography> german neo-Kantian philosopher (1874-1945) who supposed that the
fundamental categories of human thought are genuinely a priori, yet develop historically. In his massive Die
Philosophie der symbolischen Formen (The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms) (1929) (vol. 1-4), Cassirer
suggested that these basic concepts are most clearly revealed in the cultural symbols of language, science,
and mythology.
Ernst Cassirer, The Philosophy of the Enlightenment, tr. by J. Pettegrove and F. Koelin (Princeton, 1968);
Ernst Cassirer: A ' Repetition' of Modernity, ed. by Steve G. Lofts and Michael Krois (SUNY, 2000).
11-10-2001
casuistry
<ethics, metaphilosophy> approach to ethics that begins by examining a series of concrete cases rather than
by trying to deduce the consequences of a moral rule. Although Pascal criticized this method for the excessive,
misleading, or harmful cleverness with which it was practiced in his day, it remains a common tool for applied
ethics in a theological vein.
The Context of Casuistry, ed. by James F. Keenan, Thomas A. Shannon, and Albert R. Jonsen (Georgetown,
1995);
Richard B. Miller, Casuistry and Modern Ethics: A Poetics of Practical Reasoning (Chicago, 1996).
14-10-2001
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categorical imperative
<kantian ethics> an absolute unconditional command, allowing no exceptions. The commands of morality,
according to Kant, are all of this type and are all derivable from a single root imperative – the Categorical
Imperative -- akin to the Biblical golden rule ("Do unto others as you would have them do unto you"). Kant gives
at least two seemingly different formulations of this basic Categorical Imperative. The first formulation says,
"Act only on that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it should become universal law" (see
maxim).
This first formulation speaks more directly to justice, disallowing self-interested favoritism: it deems only those
maxims you' d be willing for everyone (not just yourself) to act on to be morally acceptable; those you would be
willing to universalize.
The second formulation says, "Act in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in your own person or
in the person of any other, never simply as a means, but always at the same time as an end." In this second
formulation the appeal seems to be more directly to rights, specifically a right of autonomy or self-
determination. What it forbids is using others without their informed consent to achieve one' s owns purposes.
Whether these two formulations are really equivalent -- just saying the same thing in other words -- as Kant
maintains, is controversial.
Contrast: hypothetical imperative.
28-07-2001
categorical logic
<history of philosophy, philosophy of science, logic> the traditional interpretation of the logic of classes
developed by Aristotle and the medieval logicians.
Aristotle, Prior Analytics, ed. by Robin Smith (Hackett, 1989);

Jan Lukasiewicz, Aristotle' s Syllogistic from the Standpoint of Modern Formal Logic (Clarendon, 1957).
14-10-2001
categorical proposition
<history of philosophy, philosophy of science, logic> a statement of the relationship between two classes, each
of which is designated by a categorical term. Within each proposition, the subject term occurs before the
copula and the predicate term after. There are only four forms of categorical proposition, distinguished by their
quantity and quality.
14-10-2001
categorical syllogism
<history of philosophy, philosophy of science, logic> a logical argument consisting of exactly three categorical
propositions, two premises and the conclusion, with a total of exactly three categorical terms, each used in only
two of the propositions.
14-10-2001
categorical term
<history of philosophy, philosophy of science, logic> a word or phrase that designates a class. Each
categorical term divides the world into two parts: the original class and its complement; the things to which the
term applies and those to which it does not.
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categoricity of systems
<logic>
1. A formal system in general is categorical iff all its models are isomorphic.
2. A first-order theory with identity is categorical iff All its normal models are isomorphic.
See isomorphism of models, model, normal.
16-03-2001
category
<history of philosophy, gnoseology, philosophy of science> predicate; hence, a fundamental class of things in
our conceptual framework. In Aristotle' slogic specifically, the categories are the ten general modes of being
(substance, quantity, quality, relation, place, time, position, possession, doing, and undergoing) by reference to
which any individual thing may be described. Following the lead of stoic thought, medieval logicians commonly
employed only the first four of these ten, but allowed for additional, syncategorematic terms that belonged to
none of them.
Kant employed a schematized table of a dozen categories as the basis for our understanding of the
phenomenal realm. Gilbert Ryle used the term much more broadly, warning of the category mistakes that occur
when we fail to respect the unique features of kinds of things.
F. E. Peters, Greek Philosophical Terms: A Historical Lexicon (NYU, 1967);

Aristotle, Categories, ed. by Hugh Tredennick (Harvard, 1938).
14-10-2001
category mistake
<history of philosophy, gnoseology, philosophy of science> confusion in the attribution of properties or the
classification of things. Thus, to suppose that sleep is furious or that a city is nothing more than its buildings is
to commit a category mistake. Ryle maintained that Cartesian dualism arises from the implicit occurrence of
just such an error, the supposition that the origins of human behavior must reside in an immaterial substance.
Gilbert Ryle, The Concept of Mind (Chicago, 1984).
14-10-2001
catharsis
<history of philosophy, aesthetics> cleansing from guilt or defilement; hence, in Aristotle, the elimination of
destructive emotions through appreciation of an aesthetic experience. The notion here is that vicariously
experiencing strong feelings renders us less likely to be overcome by them in our own lives.

Aristotle, Poetics, tr. by Malcolm Heath (Penguin, 1997);
Adnan K. Abdulla, Catharsis in Literature (Indiana, 1985).
14-10-2001
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Cauchy sequence
<mathematics> A sequence of elements from some vector space that converge and stay arbitrarily close to
each other (using the norm defined for the space).
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
causal functionalism
<philosophy of mind> the view that a physical system realizes a mental state not in virtue of the particular stuff
it is made of, but instead in virtue of the causal relations that parts of that system bear to each other.
See functionalism
Pete Mandik

16-03-2001
causation
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cause
<causality, substance, ontology, stoicism, neo-platonism> <occasionalism, logic, epistemology, philosophy of

science> <neo-positivism, determinism, scientific law> whatever is responsible for changes (including the
creation and destruction) of things. According to Aristotle causes fall into four types: material cause, the
substance a thing is made of; formal cause, the structure or design of the thing; efficient cause, the maker or
instigator of the change; and final cause, the purpose or function of it (see teleology). Modern would-be-
scientific conceptions of causality generally eschew final causation or teleology Hume argued that all
knowledge of causation comes from our actual experience of observed regularities and includes no real
knowledge of any objectively necessary connection.
See determinism, scientific law.
22-06-2001
cause - effect
<history of philosophy, gnoseology, philosophy of science, epistemology> distinction between the events
involved in a causal relationship, where the occurrence of one (the cause) is supposed to bring about or
produce an occurrence of the other (the effect). Although the correct analysis of causation is a matter of great
dispute, Hume offered a significant criticism of our inclination to infer a necessary connection from mere
regularity, and Mill proposed a set of methods for recognizing the presence of causal relationships.
Contemporary philosophers often suppose that a causal relationship is best expressed in the counterfactual
statement that if the cause had not occured, then the effect would not have occured either.
Judea Pearl, Causality: Models, Reasoning, and Inference (Cambridge, 2000);

Wesley C. Salmon, Causality and Explanation (Oxford, 1997);
Evan Fales, Causation and Universals (Routledge, 1990).
14-10-2001
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causes the four
<history of philosophy, philosophy of nature, science> Aristotle' s distinction in the Physics among four answers
to the question of why something is:
(1) the material cause is the stuff from which the thing is made;
(2) the formal cause is the pattern or structure it has;
(3) the efficient cause is the agent that imposed this form on that matter; and
(4) the final cause is the purpose for the thing.
Thus, for example, the material cause of this chair is the wood out of which it is made, the formal cause is the
shape into which it was fashioned, the efficient cause was the carpenter by whom the chair was made, and the
final cause is the sitting for the sake of which it was designed. In the case of living beings, Aristotle supposed,
the soul is the formal, efficient, and final cause; the body is only the material cause.
Aristotle, The Physics: Books I-IV, tr. by Philip H. Wicksteed and Francis M. Cornford (Harvard, 1986);
Aristotle' s Physics: A Collection of Essays, ed. by Lindsay Judson (Clarendon, 1995).
23-10-2003
Cavendish Margaret
<history of philosophy, biography> english philosopher and playwright (1623-1673). Cavendish criticized the
natural philosophy of both Hobbes and Descartes in Philosophical Letters (1664), and that of Boyle in
Observations upon Experimental Philosophy (1666). Her own view, developed fully in The Grounds of Natural
Philosophy (1668), was materialist but not mechanistic, supposing that all matter is imbued with soul. In A True
Relation of my Birth, Breeding, and Life (1656) Cavendish commented upon the place of women in
seventeenth-century society.
Margaret Cavendish, The Blazing World and Other Writings, ed. by Kate Lilley (Penguin, 1994);
Anna Battigelli, Margaret Cavendish and the Exiles of the Mind (Kentucky, 1998).
23-10-2003
Celarent
form may be designated as EAE-1. Example: No cold-blooded animals are furry pets, even though all reptiles
are cold-blooded animals; therefore, no reptiles are furry pets. This is one of only fifteen forms of syllogism that
are always valid.
23-10-2003
cellular automata
cellular automaton
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cellular automaton
<algorithm, parallel> (CA, plural "- automata") A regular spatial lattice of "cells", each of which can have any
one of a finite number of states. The state of all cells in the lattice are updated simultaneously and the state of
the entire lattice advances in discrete time steps. The state of each cell in the lattice is updated according to a
local rule which may depend on the state of the cell and its neighbours at the previous time step.
Each cell in a cellular automaton could be considered to be a finite state machine which takes its neighbours'
states as input and outputs its own state.
The best known example is J.H. Conway' s game ofLife.
FAQ (http://alife.santafe.edu/alife/topics/cas/ca-faq/ca-faq.html).
Usenet newsgroups: news:comp.theory.cell-automata, news:comp.theory.self-org-sys.
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censorship
<ethics, political theory> legal or social practices aiming to bar the creation or dissemination (e.g., the
publication or public display) of disapproved forms of artistic expression.
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Cesare
form is EAE-2. Example: Since no truly peaceful nations are places where basic human rights are inadequately
defended, while all countries torn by ethnic strife are places where basic human rights are inadequately
defended, it follows that no countries torn by ethnic strife are truly peaceful nations. This is one of the fifteen
forms of valid syllogism.
23-10-2003
chain of being
<history of philosophy, metaphysics, biology> belief that existing things can be hierarchically ordered, from
least to greatest, in an unbroken series from inanimate particles of matter to the deity. A. O. Lovejoy traced this
concrete application of the principle of plenitude from ancient Greek thought through neoplatonism to its
influence on early twentieth-century idealism.
Arthur Oncken Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being: A Study of the History of an Idea (Harvard, 1970).
23-10-2003
chaos
A property of some non-linear dynamic systems which exhibit sensitive dependence on initial conditions. This
means that there are initial states which evolve within some finite time to states whose separation in one or
more dimensions of state space depends, in an average sense, exponentially on their initial separation. Such
systems may still be completely deterministic in that any future state of the system depends only on the initial
conditions and the equations describing the change of the system with time. It may, however, require arbitrarily
high precision to actually calculate a future state to within some finite precision.
["On defining chaos", R. Glynn Holt

D. Lynn Holt .
(ftp://mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu/pub/etext/ippe/preprints/Phil_of_Science/Holt_and_Holt.On_Defining_Chaos)]
Fixed precision floating-point arithmetic, as used by most computers, may actually introduce chaotic
dependence on initial conditions due to the accumulation of rounding errors (which constitutes a non-linear
system).
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Charron Pierre
<history of philosophy, biography> french theologian (1541-1603).

Although De la Sagesse (Of Wisdom) (1601) expressed many themes from the Stoic tradition, Charron shared
with Montaigne a profound skepticism about general knowledge of god and the world.
23-10-2003
Chinese room
<artificial intelligence, philosophy of mind, philosophy of AI, PI> an argument forwarded by John Searle
intended to show that the mind is not a computer and how the Turing Test is inadequate.
Searle first formulated this problem in his paper "Minds, brains and programs" published in 1980. Ever since, it
has been a mainstay of debate over the possibility of what Searle called "strong AI". Supporters of strong AI
believe that a correctly programmed computer is not simply a simulation or model of a mind, it actually would
count as a mind. That is, it understands, has cognitive states, and can think. Searle' sargument (or more
precisely, thought experiment) against this position, the Chinese room argument, goes as follows:
Suppose that a computer which behaves as if it understands Chinese. In other words, the computer takes
Chinese symbols as input, consults a large look-up table (as all computers can be described as doing), and
then produces other Chinese symbols as output. Suppose that this computer performs this task so
convincingly that it easily passes the Turing Test.
In other words, it convinces a human Chinese speaker that it is a Chinese speaker. All the questions the
human asks are responded to appropriately, such that the Chinese speaker is convinced that he or she is
talking to another Chinese speaker. The conclusion proponents of strong AI would like to draw is that the
computer understands Chinese, just as the person does. Now, Searle asks us to suppose that he is sitting
inside the computer. In other words, he is in a small room in which he receives Chinese symbols, looks them
up on look-up table, and returns the Chinese symbols that are indicated by the table. Searle notes, of course,
that he doesn' t understand a word of Chinese. Furthermore, his lack of understanding goes to show, he
argues, that computers don' t understand Chinese either, because they are in the same situation as he is. They
are mindless manipulators of symbols, just as he is - and they don' t understand what they' re "saying", just a
he doesn' t.
The two most popular replies to this argument (both of which Searle (1980) considers) are the "systems reply"
and the 'robot reply' .
Briefly, the systems reply is simply that though Searle himself doesn' t understand Chinese in thethought
experiment, it is perfectly correct to say that Searle plus look-up table understand Chinese. In other words, the
entire computer would understand Chinese, though perhaps the central processor or any other part might not.
It is the entire system that matters for attributing understanding. In response, Searle claims that if we simply
imagine the person in the Chinese room to memorize the look-up table, we have produced a counter example
to this reply.
The robot reply is similar in spirit. The robot reply notes that the reason we don' t want to attribute
understanding to the room, or a computer as described by Searle is that the system doesn' t interact properly
with the environment. This is also a reason to think the Turing Test is not adequate for attributing thinking or
understanding. If, however, we fixed this problem - i.e. we put the computer in a robot body that could interact
with the environment, perceive things, move around, etc. - we would then be in a position to attribute
understanding properly. In reply, Searle notes that proponents of this reply have partially given up the tenet of
AI that cognition is symbol manipulation. More seriously, he proposes that he could be in a Chinese robot, just
as easily as a Chinese room, and that he still wouldn' t understand Chinese.
Harnad (1995). Minds, Machines and Searle (gopher://gopher.liv.ac.uk/00/phil/philos-l-files/searle.harnad)
Searle, 1995. Power in the Chinese Room (http://tkiwww.kub.nl_2080/tki/Docs/Think/2-1/searle.html)
Chinese Room Biblio (http://ling.ucsc.edu/_chalmers/biblio4.html#4.1c)
Introduction to the Chinese Room (http://www.cas.ilstu.edu/PT/chinroom.htm)
Searle, J. R. (1980). Minds, brains, and programs. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 1: 417-24.
Also in J. Haugeland (ed) (1997). Mind Design II. MIT Press: Cambridge, MA.
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chip
integrated circuit
Chisholm Roderick M.
<history of philosophy, biography> american philosopher (1916-1999) who applied the phenomenological
methods of Brentano and Meinong to the central issues of epistemology in the analytic tradition in such books
as Perceiving: A Philosophical Study (1957), Realism and the Background of Phenomenology (1960), Person
and Object: A Metaphysical Study (1976), and Brentano and Intrinsic Value (1986).
Roderick M. Chisholm, A Realistic Theory of Categories: An Essay on Ontology (Cambridge, 1996);

The Philosophy of Roderick M. Chisholm, ed. by Lewis Edwin Hahn (Open Court, 1997);
Analysis and Metaphysics: Essays in Honor of R. M. Chisholm, ed. by Keith Lehrer (Kluwer, 1975).
23-10-2003
Chomsky Noam Avram
<history of philosophy, biography> american linguist and philosopher (1928- ), author of Syntatactic Structure
(1957), Cartesian Linguistics (A chapter in the history of rationalist thought) (1966), Language and Mind (1968),
and Knowledge of Language (1986). In opposition to prevalent behaviorism, Chomsky' s psycholinguistic
approach holds that competence in the use of language reveals innate possession of universal generative
grammatical structures that cannot be acquired simply by empirical evidence. Chomsky has also been an
outspoken and thoughtful critic of American foreign policy since the 1960s in such books as American Power
and the New Mandarins (1969), Necessary Illusions (1989), and Deterring Democracy (1992).
The Chomsky Reader, ed. by James Peck (Pantheon, 1987).
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Christianity
<religion> name given to the religion and, later, theology that arose out of the teachings of Jesus, known to
believers as "the anointed one", the Christ. The development of Christian doctrine owes much to the Neo-
Platonism that was accepted by Augustine. In the late Middle Ages, Thomas Aquinas turned Christian theology
more towards Aristotelianism.
(References from Buddhism, dualism, pessimism,polytheism, and Thomism)
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Chrysippus
<history of philosophy, biography> primary author of the stoic philosophy (280-207 B.C.). Although none of his
many writings survived antiquity, Chrysippus reportedly made significant contributions to the development of
logic and ethics. He is generally credited with invention of the propositional calculus and eloquent expression of
the doctrine of eternal return.
J. B. Gould, The Philosophy of Chrysippus (Brill, 1997);

Brad Inwood, Ethics and Human Action in Early Stoicism (Oxford, 1992);
Stoic Studies (Cambridge, 1996) A. A. Long.
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Church Alonzo
<history of philosophy, biography> american logician and mathematician (1903- ); author of Introduction to
Mathematical Logic (1956). Building on the work of G–del, Church showed that there can be no systematic
decision procedure for the theorems of sophisticated formal systems like arithmetic, since such systems
characteristically involve non-recursive formulae for which there is no computable algorithm.
Alonzo Church, A Bibliography of Symbolic Logic (1666-1935)

(Association of Symbolic Logic, 1985).
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Church-Rosser Theorem
<logic> This property of a reduction system states that if an expression can be reduced by zero or more
reduction steps to either expression M or expression N then there exists some other expression to which both
M and N can be reduced. This implies that there is a unique normal form for any expression since M and N
cannot be different normal forms because the theorem says they can be reduced to some other expression
and normal forms are irreducible by definition. It does not imply that a normal form is reachable, only that if
reduction terminates it will reach a unique normal form.
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Cicero Marcus Tullius
<history of philosophy, biography> (106-43 B.C.) roman politician whose philosophical writings primarily
translated the work of Greek philosophers into his own polished Latin. Thus, De re publica and De legibus (Of
the State and Of the Laws) owe much to dialogues of Plato on political structure. Cicero also relied heavily
upon the Stoics for much of his philosophy of nature and ethics, exemplified nicely in Tusculanae disputationes
(Disputations at Tusculum) and "The Dream of Scipio." The influence of Aristotle is evident in De officiis (On
Duties) and Laelius, sive de Amicitia (Essay on Friendship) (44 B.C.).
Marcus Tullius Cicero, Selected Works, tr. by Michael Grant (Viking, 1960);
Cicero the Philosopher: Twelve Papers, ed. by Jonathan Powell (Oxford, 1999);
and Neal Wood, Cicero' s Social and Political Thought: An Introduction (California, 1991).
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circuit
1. <communications> A communications path in a circuit switching network.
2. <electronics> A complete path through which an electric current can flow.
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circularity
<logic, philosophy of science> reasoning that improperly assumes the truth of what is at issue. A circular
argument implicitly employs its own conclusion as a premise. A circular definition defines an expression in
terms of itself. The problem is that circular reasoning - however accurate – is bound to be uninformative.
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Cixous Hélène
<history of philosophy, biography> algerian-French philosopher and literary critic (1937- ). Employing Derrida' s
methods of deconstruction in Entré l'Écriture (Coming to Writing) (1986) and Le Jeune Née (The Newly Born
Woman) (1975), Cixous proposed the creation of literary works by Ècriture féminine, "writing the body" in order
to undermine the influence of masculine language. Since the feminine is always regarded as other and inferior
in the dichotomies fostered by logocentric patriarchy, Cixous maintains that women can elude male domination
only by rejecting the binary oppositions inherent in symbolic language. By celebrating historically-repressed
differences, she believes, victims of repression forge the new identities upon which a genuinely post-colonial
and post-patriarchal society might be founded.
The Hélène Cixous Reader, ed. by Susan Sellers and Jacques Derrida (Routledge, 1994);
Verena Andermatt Conley, Hélène Cixous: Writing the Feminine (Nebraska, 1991);
The Body and the Text: Hélène Cixous, Reading and Teaching, ed. by Helen Wilcox, Keith McWatters, Ann
Thompson, and Linda R. Williams (St. Martin' s, 1991);
Hélène Cixous (Toronto, 1992).
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Clarke Samuel
<history of philosophy, biography> english theologian and philosopher (1675-1729). In an extended

correspondence with Leibniz, Clarke defended Newtonian concepts of space and time against Leibniz' s
relational notions. Clarke' s published Discourses Concerning the Unchangeable Obligations of Natural Religion
and the Truth and Certainty of Christian Revelation (1705) and Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of
God (1711) employed Locke' s methods of demonstration against the deists, to prove the existence and nature
of god, the human obligation to worship, and the fundamental rules of morality. This view, shared by the
Cambridge Platonists, became a target of Hume' s criticism of natural religion.
Leibniz and Clarke: Correspondence, ed. by Roger Ariew (Hackett, 2000).
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class
1. <PI> The prototype for an object in an

object-oriented language; analogous to a derived type in a
procedural language. A class may also be considered to be a
set of objects which share a common structure and behaviour.
The structure of a class is determined by the class
variables which represent the state of an object of that
class and the behaviour is given by a set of methods
associated with the class.
Classes are related in a class hierarchy. One class may be

a specialisation (a "subclass") of another (one of its
"superclasses") or it may be composed of other classes or it
may use other classes in a client-server relationship. A
class may be an abstract class or a concrete class.
See also signature.
2. <programming> See type class.
3. <networking> One of three types of Internet addresses

distinguished by their most significant bits.
3. <language> A language developed by the Andrew Project.

It was one of the first attempts to add object-oriented
features to C.
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class hierarchy
<PI> A set of classes and their interrelationships.
One class may be a specialisation (a "subclass" or "derived

class") of another which is one of its "superclasses" or
"base classes".
When a method is invoked on an object it is first looked

for in the object' s class, then the superclass of that class,
and so on up the hierarchy until it is found. Thus a class
need only define those methods which are specific to it, and
inherits methods from all its superclasses.
See also: multiple inheritance.
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class library
<PI> A library of reusable classes for use with an object-oriented programming system.
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class method
<PI> A kind of method, available in some

object-oriented programming languages, that operates on the
class as a whole, as opposed to an "object method" that
operates on an object that is an instance of the class.
A typical example of a class method would be one that keeps a

count of the number of objects of that class that have been
created.
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classical logic
<logic> Non-intuitionistic logic.
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classicism
<aesthetics>
the word classicism is usually used to describe an emphasis or
over-emphasis on past practice, examples, and rules, especially in
the making of art. In aesthetics, classicism is usually contrasted
historically and philosophically with romanticism. (References
from formalism and romanticism).
[The Ism Book]
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clear and distinct
<gnoseology, philosophy of science, logic> features of ideas

considered as mental entities, without regard for their
external relation to objects they are supposed to represent. An
idea is clear if its content is precise and detailed;
otherwise, it is obscure. An idea is distinct if it can be
distinguished from any other idea, confused if it cannot.
(Although the two notions are formally distinct, they are commonly
supposed to coincide, on the grounds that clarity is a
necessary and sufficient condition for distinctness.)
Descartes held that the clarity and distinctness of our
ideas is a criterion for the truth of what we believe.
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Clifford William Kingdon
<history of philosophy, biography> english mathematician and

philosopher (1845-1879). Arguing that belief in
uncertain propositions
is a public act with moral consequences, Clifford endorsed
a wide-ranging agnosticism, asserting in "The Ethics of Belief"
(1879) that "It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to
believe anything on insufficient evidence."
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clone
<jargon> 1. An exact copy of a product, made legally or

illegally, from documentation or by reverse engineering,
and usually cheaper.
E.g. "PC clone": a PC-BUS/ISA, EISA, VESA, or PI

compatible x86-based microcomputer (this use is sometimes
misspelled "klone" or "PClone").
These invariably have much more
bang per buck than the IB PCM they resemble.
E.g. "Unix clone": An operating system designed to deliver a

Unix-like environment without Unix licence fees or with
additional "mission-critical" features such as support for
real-time programming.
2. <chat> A clonebot.
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closed set
<mathematics> A set S is closed under an operator * if x*y is in S for all x, y in S.
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closed term
<logic> A term with no free variables.
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closed-box testing
functional testing
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closure
1. <PI> In a reduction system, a closure is a data

structure that holds an expression and an environment of
variable bindings in which that expression is to be evaluated.
The variables may be local or global. Closures are used to
represent unevaluated expressions when implementing
functional programming languages with lazy evaluation. In
a real implementation, both expression and environment are
represented by pointers.
A suspension is a closure which includes a flag to say
whether or not it has been evaluated. The term "thunk" has
come to be synonymous with "closure" but originated outside
functional programming.
2. <theory> In domain theory, given a partially ordered

set, D and a subset, X of D, the upward closure of X in D is
the union over all x in X of the sets of all d in D such that
x <= d. Thus the upward closure of X in D contains the
elements of X and any greater element of D. A set is "upward
closed" if it is the same as its upward closure, i.e. any d
greater than an element is also an element. The downward
closure (or "left closure") is similar but with d <= x. A
downward closed set is one for which any d less than an
element is also an element.
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3. <logic>
a. closure of a system
A system with at least one closed term is closed iff |- At/x

implies |- (x)Ax for each closed term t and each 1-wff A.
(A 1-wff is a wff with exactly one free variable.)
Informally, the system is closed if the fact
that A is a theorem
when its free variable is replaced with any closed term in the
language implies
the universal generalization (x)A. It follows
from closure that every member of the domain is named by some
closed term; hence the domain is countable.
See omega-completeness, term, closed, open wff
b. closure of a wff
In predicate logic, the binding of all free variables

from a wff by
placing them within the scope of suitable quantifiers. A
closed
wff is considered its own closure. The closure of a closure
of a wff A is considered a closure of A.
Notation: A^c (a closure of wff A).
Closed wffs are also called sentences.
See bound variable, generalization,

instantiation
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closure conversion
<logic> The transformation

of continuation passing style code
so that the only free variables of functions are names of
other functions.
See also Lambda lifting.
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co-option
<phylosophy of history, political philosophy> being

assimilated. Especially, for Herbert Marcuse, the
sociopolicticoeconomic assimilation of works of art --
and simultaneous subversion of their liberative
tendencies -- for commercial and control purposes.
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coarse grain
granularity
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Cockburn Catherine Trotter
<history of philosophy, biography> english philosopher and

playwright (1679-1749). She endorsed the philosophical methods
of Locke
in Defense of Mr. Locke' s Essay of Human Understanding (1702).
In Remarks upon some Writers in the Controversy concerning the
Foundation of Moral Virtue and Moral Obligation (1743), Cockburn
defended the demonstrably rational morality of Clarke
against the promotion of individual self-interest emphasized
by Hobbes, Shaftesbury, and Hutcheson.
Recommended Reading: The Works of Mrs. Catharine Cockburn
(Thoemmes, 1998).
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codomain
<logic> The set of values or type containing

all possible results
of a function.
The codomain of a function f of type D -> C is C.
A function' simage is a subset of its codomain.
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cogito argument
<cartesianism, awarness, idealism, epistemology, realism>

<method of doubt, dualism, apperception> this argument of
Descartes gets its name from the concluding phrase of
his first formulation of it (in his Discourse on Method)
-- cogito ergo sum, "I think therefore I am." In his
Meditations on First Philosophy Descartes concludes from the
impossibility of doubting his own existence as
thinking "that this proposition: I am, I exist, is
necessarily true each time I pronounce it, or that I
mentally conceive it" (2nd Meditation); my existence as a
thinker is thereby assured. This assurance, Descartes thinks,
can provide a secure foundation for all scientific
knowledge. See also: method of doubt.
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cognition
<gnoseology, psychology, cognitive science, neurosciences, pedagogy> the portion of human experience
comprising thought,
knowledge, belief, and inference (as opposed to sensation,
volition, or feeling).
Recommended Reading: David Braddon-Mitchell and Frank Jackson,
The Philosophy of Mind and Cognition (Blackwell, 1996) and Mind
As Motion: Explorations in the Dynamics of Cognition, ed. by
Robert F. Port and Timothy Van Gelder (MIT, 1998).
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cognitive architecture
<architecture> A computer architecture involving

non-deterministic, multiple inference processes, as found
in neural networks. Cognitive architectures model the human
brain and contrast with single processor computers.
The term might also refer to software architectures,

e.g. fuzzy logic.
[Origin? Better definition? Reference?]
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cognitive science
<philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, epistemology>

the interdisciplinary study which attempts to
further our understanding of the nature of thought.
The major contributing disciplines to cognitive science include

philosophy, psychology, computer science, linguistics,
neuroscience and anthropology.
There are two standard computational approaches to modelling

cognitive systems in cognitive science. The first is
classicism (or symbolicism) and deals with thought in terms
of symbolic processing. The second is known as connectionism
and understands thought processes as a set of connections
between nodes in a distributed network.
One goal of cognitive science is to design a cognitive

architecture on which to build intelligent systems. According
to Andy Clark, cognitive science, "sets out to explain the
mechanisms implicated in events which are recognizably
psychological in nature, such as reasoning, planning, and
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object recognition." (Clark, 1993).
References
Clark, A. (1993). Associative Engines: Connectionism, Concepts,

and Representational Change, Cambridge: M.I.T. Press.
Thagard, P. (1996). Mind: Introduction to Cognitive Science.

Cambridge, MA. MIT Press.
William Willaford
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cognize
to have access to knowledge that has the properties of knowledge
in the ordinary sense, but is not necessarily accessible to
consciousness or dependent on warrant or justification.
Cognize is a technical term Chomsky introduces (1980, p. 69)

to denote a relation a subject S has to S' knowledge.
Just as S can be said to know that p, S can
be said to cognize that q, where p and q stand for
propositions representing some state of affairs or another.
As such, cognising is said to differ very little from knowing
in the ordinary sense. But there are some important features
of cognising that set it off from the standard conception of
what it is to know something.
Perhaps the most salient feature of cognising is that it is

a relation primarily -- though apparently not exclusively --
associated with unconscious or tacit knowledge. As Chomsky
describes it, cognising "has the structure and character of
knowledge" in that it is a matter of knowing-that
(see knowledge that, which is
to say it is propositional and may involve belief
(1980, pp. 70;
93-94; 1986, p. 269). What distinguishes cognising per se from
ordinary knowing is that in many cases, what is cognised is
inaccessible to consciousness (1980, p. 70; 1986, p. 269).
However, it would seem that cases of explicit
or conscious knowing
entail cognising as well. Chomsky states, for example, that when
we know that p, we cognize that p (1986, p. 265). What he means
is that specific facts that are explicitly known may derive from
rules and principles that are (presumably) unconsciously
cognised (1986, p. 265). As an example, Chomsky cites the
case of a person who, having unconscious knowledge of the
binding principles, through deduction (or a similar process)
can determine whether or not a pronoun and common noun
encountered in the same sentence are coreferring (1986, p. 270).
Cognising would thus seem to undergird at least some instances
of explicit "knowing that" in important ways.
Despite the apparent fact that what is implicitly cognised

often issues in conscious knowledge, it is hypothesised that
at least some of what is cognised is inaccessible to consciousness
in principle. The prototypical example of knowledge that is both
cognised and is claimed to be inaccessible to consciousness in
principle is a native speaker' sknowledge of grammar. Chomsky
is careful to point out that to the extent that cognised knowledge
is tacit or implicit, it is not the equivalent of knowledge which
is conscious but that the holder cannot articulate (1986, p. 271).
But although cognising is largely, if not primarily, associated
with cognitive structures inaccessible to consciousness,
the line
between the cognised cognitive unconscious and consciously
accessible knowledge is, according to Chomsky, not inviolable.
Rather, what is cognised can produce conscious knowledge, as is
illustrated by the example of the binding principles' affording
explicit knowledge of coreference, described just above. Cognised
knowledge is thus not held to be inferentially insulated from
ordinary, i.e., conscious, beliefs.
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One feature of cognising that sets it apart from many ordinary

concepts of knowledge is that what is cognised is held not to
consist in warranted or justified belief. Instead, Chomsky holds
that cognised knowledge counts as a case of caused belief (1980,
pp. 93-95). What this means is that cognised knowledge is caused
by triggering experiences, which in at least some instances interact
with innate principles to produce specific instances of knowing
that p, where p is a cognised content of some sort. A prime
example of caused knowledge is of course knowledge of grammar,
which Chomsky has long hypothesised to arise from the interaction
of an innate universal grammar and the triggering experiences
afforded by exposure to a particular language. In Chomsky' s
example, a native English speaker, when exposed to evidence
that the phrase "each other" is a reciprocal, will
now that this is the case by virtue of the triggering effect
such evidence has on the innate principle of opacity
(1980, p. 94).
but such knowledge does not, on Chomsky' s account, stand as
justified or warranted; as he puts it, "[e]ven where there is a
triggering experience, this does not supply "good reasons" in
any useful sense of the term"; (1980, p. 96).
Although the term "cognize" was introduced to dispel certain

ambiguities in Chomsky' s theory of the nature of human knowledge,
some ambiguities seem to remain. It is not always clear, for
example, exactly how or even whether cognising differs from
knowledge as such. Matters are not helped by Chomsky' s statement,
after the term is introduced, that he will simply use "know" to
mean "cognize" (1980, p. 70), or by his other statements that
appear to conflate the two terms.
Nevertheless, the concept does appear to have two main functions.

The first is to de-link knowledge from any necessary dependence
on justification or warrant, thus forestalling possible empiricist
objections to a theory of knowledge grounded, as Chomsky' s is, in
content nativism. The second is to provide a covering term
encompassing two kinds of knowledge -- explicit and implicit --
that otherwise might be treated as highly dissimilar and possibly
unrelated (or in the case of implicit knowledge, simply dismissed
outright).
One plausible interpretation of "cognising" then, is that it

denotes an epistemological relation that is
a) neutral in regard to whether or not what is known (or "cognised")

is known explicitly, and
b) can be fixed independently of justification or warrant.
References
Chomsky, N. (1980). Rules and Representations. New York,

Columbia University Press.
Chomsky, N. (1986). Knowledge of Language. New York, Praeger.
See also tacit knowledge, implicit memory, rules.
Daniel Barbiero
24-10-2003
coherence
<logic>
also cohesiveness, a semantic relation among a number
of elements,
such as propositions or concepts, that fit together well.
Philosophers have offered coherence theories of truth,

knowledge and ethics. For example, scientific theories
can be justified on the basis of how well they cohere
internally and externally, with evidence and other beliefs.
Connectionist algorithms have been used to provide

computational models of coherence-based inferences,
with applications to abduction, impression formation,
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and analogy.
Coherence is a semantic concept (the meaning or truth

of p is
compared to the meaning or truth of q),
consistency is a
syntactical concept (p is compared to not-p).
See practical reasoning, connectionism
25-10-2003
coherence theory of truth
truth theories
00-00-0000
collectivism
<political philosophy, ethics>

doctrine in political, or ethical, philosophy
which holds that the individual' s actions should benefit some
kind of wider organized group to which the individual belongs,
e.g. the members of a
certain profession, the state, a community, etc., rather than (just)
the individual himself.
Collectivism in political theory can depend on
altruism in ethics. There are many forms of collectivism in
political reality, such as tribalism, communism, socialism,
certain forms of trade unionism, authoritarianism,
totalitarianism, communalism, and so on. Collectivism is a
rather technical term, and is not used very often in everyday
language. (References from communalism, communism,
Hegelianism, holism, individualism, Platonism, socialism,
and totalitarianism).
25-10-2003
Collingwood Robin George
<history of philosophy, biography> english philosopher

(1889-1943).
Influenced by Hegel, Cook Wilson, and Croce,
Collingwood explored the implications of idealism for
aesthetics and the philosophy of history in Speculum Mentis
(1924), Essay on Philosophical Method (1933), The Principles of
Art (1938), and The Idea of History (1946). Collingwood proposed
that historical understanding be achieved through
empathetic reconstruction of the thoughts that motivated the
actions of historical figures.
Recommended Reading: Aaron Ridley, Collingwood (Routledge, 1999);
Philosophy, History and Civilization: Essays on R. G. Collingwood,
ed. by David Boucher (U of Wales, 1996); and William H. Dray,
History As Re-Enactment: R. G. Collingwood' s Idea of History
(Oxford, 1999).
25-10-2003
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colour perception theories of
<philosophy of mind, epistemology, philosophy of science>

theories of colour perception propose to explain how it is that
colours are perceived as properties of physical
objects. What proposal one makes depends in turn on what
proposal one makes about the nature of colour.
By contrast with theories of colour see colours theories of,

which address the
problem of the nature of colour, theories of colour perception
address the problem: how is it that colours (whatever their
nature) are perceived as properties of physical objects?
However, the answer one gives to this question about colour
perception does depend on one' s theory of colour. If one
proposes that the colours we perceive physical objects as
having are mental qualitative properties of visual states
themselves (the proposal about the nature of colour called
subjectivism), then one must explain how it is that
mental qualitative properties are perceived as properties
of mind-independent objects. The subjectivist' s options
seem to be limited to sense datum theories (see sense data)
and projectivist theories.
If one proposes that the colours we perceive physical

objects as having are properties of physical objects (as
is claimed by physicalist and dispositionalist proposals
about the constituting nature of colour), then an explanation
of how it is colours are perceived as properties of physical
objects is relatively straightforward. However, the question
remains whether this access is mediated by visual states with
mental qualitative properties.
Intentionalist theories of perception claim that visual states

of colour are representational states which have no qualitative
properties apart from those that they represent. Thus, it holds
that the qualitative aspects of colour experience aren' t
determined by mental qualitative properties of experience
itself. Most intentionalists hold physicalism about the
nature of colour, which claims that the colours we attribute
to physical objects in visual states are physical properties
of physical objects. Also, most physicalists (including Smart,
Armstrong, Hilbert, Byrne and Hilbert) are intentionalists.
Intentionalism is rejected by most dispositionalists about the

nature of colour. According to dispositionalism, the colours we
perceive physical objects as having are dispositions of physical
objects to produce perceptual responses. The most common version
of dispositionalism holds that perceptual responses are visual
states of colour characterised in terms of mental qualitative
properties, in particular, colour qualia (currently, Peacocke
and McDowell; formerly, McGinn and Johnston).
However, even though most dispositionalists reject intentionalism,

these theorists do not thereby claim that the colours we perceive
physical objects as having are colour qualia themselves. (If they
were to claim this, they would have to explain how qualia are
perceived as properties of mind- independent objects--the options
would be some version of sense datum theory or projectivism).
Rather,
Peacocke, for example, claims that the colours we perceive physical
objects as having are dispositional properties of physical objects.
Colour qualia determine what it' s like to experience physical
properties of physical objects as colours.
Thompson' s answer to the problem of colour perception cannot be

easily categorised as intentionalist or nonintentionalist. He
addresses the problem from the standpoint of the evolution of
colour perception in different species. His answer takes an
ecological approach to characterising colour perception.
According to sense datum theories, perceptual states are

relations between perceivers and sense data, mental objects
that have mental colours and mental shapes. According to Jackson' s
sense datum theory (which Jackson has by now rejected--see Jackson
and Pargetter), physical objects seem to be coloured because
coloured sense data are caused by physical objects and the
spatial properties of sense data vary as a function of the
spatial properties of physical objects. Sense datum theories
face difficulties in explaining how sense data, as mental
objects, are related to the physical states and in particular
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the neural states of perceivers. Furthermore, according to

Jackson' s theory, sense data, which are mental objects, are
located in three-dimensional physical space. Jackson' s theory
faces difficulties in explaining the relation between
perceivers and sense data located outside of their bodies in
physical space. By contrast with sense datum theories,
adverbialist theories claim that perceptual states are
relations between perceivers and (actual or nonactual) physical
objects rather than sense data, and that perceptual states
themselves have mental properties such as mental colours.
Mental colours are then held to be identified with, or
supervenient on, properties of neural states of perceivers.
Most current theories of colour perception which claim that
perceptual states have mental colours assume an adverbialist
theory of perceptual states of colour.
According to projectivist theories, in colour perception mental

colours, characterised as properties of perceptual states
rather than sense data, are experienced as properties of
mind- independent objects. There are two versions of
projectivism, which provide different explanations for
how it is that mental colours are experienced as properties
of mind-independent objects. According to one, proposed by
Boghossian and Velleman, mental colours are experienced as
properties of physical objects. But since mental colours are
properties of visual states, experiencing mental colours as
properties of physical objects involves experiencing
properties of mental states as properties of physical
objects. Since states are fundamentally different sorts
of things than objects, it' s not clear that it even makes
sense to hold that we experience properties of mental
states as properties of physical objects. According to the
other version of projectivism, proposed by McGilvray, we
are not aware of physical objects or any of their
properties in perception. McGilvray doesn' t deny that
there are physical objects. Rather, he claims that the
spatial properties as well as the colours we' re aware of in
visual perception are mental qualitative properties of
visual states themselves. Thus what we' re aware of in
visual perception are mind-dependent patches with mental
colours and mental shapes. (Although this claim suggests a
sense datum theory, McGilvray explicitly accepts an
adverbialist theory of perceptual states.) McGilvray claims
that projective representation of colour involves experiencing
such mind-dependent colour patches as external to our minds.
But if the locations we' re aware of in visual experience
are never physical locations, the problem now is that it' s
difficult to characterize these mental locations that
McGilvray claims we are aware of. He holds that we can
describe mental locations as external to our minds by way of
describing them as points in a three-dimensional visual field.
However, McGilvray provides no explanation of the relation
between perceivers, located in physical space, and the
three-dimensional visual field comprised of mental
locations, rendering mental locations mysterious.
Intentionalist theories of perception claim that visual

states of colour are representational states which have no
qualitative properties apart from those that they represent.
Any proposal about colour perception that claims that visual
states of colour have mental qualitative properties, for
example, colour qualia, rejects intentionalism. An objection
to intentionalist theories asserts that such theories cannot
account for the colours of afterimages. In a recent formulation
of this objection, Boghossian and Velleman claim that when we
represent an afterimage as an afterimage, and not a physical
object, what' s represented as coloured can' t be a physical
object, but rather must be a part of the visual field itself.
(Although this claim suggests a sense datum theory, Boghossian
and Velleman state that their claim is consistent with
adverbialism.). Boghossian and Velleman assume that when
we represent an afterimage as coloured, then something is
represented as coloured. However, it isn' t clear that their
assumption is correct. We may make the inference that if we
represent an afterimage as coloured, then we represent
something as coloured. But we can' t make the inference that
there is something that is represented as coloured, namely, the
visual field. Rather, intentionalists would argue that when we
represent an afterimage as coloured, we attribute a physical
qualitative property to a merely
intentional--not an actual--object.
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What intentional objects are and how physical qualitative

properties relate to them is indicated by a theory of
intentionality. However, those who accept that visual
experiences have mental colours, for example, qualia, may
claim that afterimage colours are mental colours. And this
may seem to be a more plausible way of accounting for
afterimage colours.
Thompson addresses the question of how colours are perceived

as properties of physical objects from the standpoint of
the evolution of colour perception in different species.
On the basis of comparative studies of the visual systems
of different species, Thompson claims that different species'
colour vision has evolved to perform biological functions
which must be described in ecological terms. But how we are
to characterize the biological function of colour vision is
controversial. (The notion of biological function used in
this context is Wright' s notion, or some variation on it.).
Hilbert addresses the problem of colour perception from the
standpoint of computational colour vision, according to which
vision involves the processing of information contained in
representations that encode physical properties of objects
in the world. A focus of research in computational colour
vision is the problem of how a visual system achieves what' s
called colour constancy. colour constancy is a visual effect
in which the colour a physical object looks remains fairly
constant despite changes in the light illuminating the object.
As it turns out, the constant colours that we perceive
physical surfaces as having are correlated with surface
reflectance. (Surface reflectance is the ratio of reflected
to incident light for a surface, where light is measured by
its wavelength composition and its intensity at each
wavelength.) Hilbert argues that colour constancy shows
that the biological function of colour vision is to detect
physical object surfaces by way of surface reflectance,
and thus characterizes the biological function of colour
vision in physical terms. By contrast, Thompson offers an
alternative characterisation of the biological function of
colour vision in ecological terms. Thompson appeals to
Mollon' s proposal that the biological function of primate
colour vision includes promoting the detection of objects
in contexts described in ecological terms, for example,
the detection of fruit against a background of foliage,
or the detection of objects against backgrounds which may
include things without surfaces, such as volumes of water or
the sky. According to Thompson, comparative colour vision
indicates that there are nonhuman species with colour vision,
and that for these species the biological function of colour
vision cannot be described merely in terms of detecting object
surfaces by way of surface reflectances. Hatfield provides further
considerations in favour of characterising the biological
function of colour vision in ecological terms. Psychophysics
indicates that objects with different surface reflectances
can produce perceptions of the same determinate colour (such as
teal). Such physically distinct objects are called metamers.
If we describe the biological function of colour vision as the
detection of object surfaces by way of reflectance properties,
then metamerism marks a failure of the visual system. Hatfield
points out that if the biological function of colour vision isn' t
best described as the detection of object surfaces by way of
surface reflectance, but rather as, for example, the detection
of objects against backgrounds, then it doesn' t follow that
metamerism marks a failure--the task of detecting fruit against
a background of foliage isn' t hampered by metamerism. In fact,
the detection of objects against backgrounds is better served
by a relatively small number of broad colour categories which
include starkly contrasting pairs, such as red and green, and
yellow and blue. Thompson argues that if the biological function
of colour vision is to be described in ecological terms, then
colours are relations between perceivers and objects. Thompson
supports this claim by citing studies that indicate that species
which have evolved in different ecological niches have different
categories by which colours are classified as qualitatively
identical or similar. But it may be that whereas the colour
categories of a species are best explained in terms of ecological
relations between members of the species and objects in their
environments (over the course of evolution), the colours
themselves are nonrelational properties of objects.
References (Note: "*" indicates more central reference)
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Armstrong, D. M. (1987). "Smart and the Secondary Qualities"

in Metaphysics and Morality: Essays in Honour of J. J. C. Smart,
eds. Philip Pettit, Richard Sylvan, and Jean Norman. Oxford:
Basil Blackwell, 1-15.
*Boghossian, Paul A. and J. David Velleman (1989). "Colour as

a Secondary Quality" Mind, Vol. 98, No. 389 (January 1989): 81-103.
*Byrne, Alex and David R. Hilbert (1997).

"colours and Reflectances"
in Readings on colour, Vol. 1, The Philosophy of colour, eds.
Alex Byrne and David R. Hilbert. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press.
*Hatfield, Gary (1992). "colour Perception and Neural Encoding:

Does Metameric Matching Entail a Loss of Information?" in
Proceedings of the 1992 Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of
Science Association, Vol. 1, Contributed Papers, eds. David Hull,
Micky Forbes, and Kathleen Okruhlik, 492-504.
*Hilbert, David R. (1992). "What Is colour Vision?",

Philosophical Studies, Vol. 68, No. 3 (December 1992): 351-370.
*Jackson, Frank (1977). Perception: A Representative Theory.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Jackson, Frank and Robert Pargetter (1987). "An Objectivist' s

Guide to Subjectivism about Colour", Revue Internationale de
Philosophie, Vol. 41. No. 160 (fascicule 1/1987): 127-141.
Johnston, Mark (1992). "How to Speak of the colours"

Philosophical Studies, Vol. 68, No. 3 (December 1992): 221- 263.
McDowell, John (1985). "Values and Secondary Qualities" in

Morality and Objectivity: A Tribute to J. L. Mackie, ed.
Ted Honderich. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 110-129.
*McGilvray, James A. (1994). "Constant colours in the Head"

Synthese, Vol. 100, No. 2 (August 1994): 197-239.
McGinn, Colin (1983). The Subjective View: Secondary Qualities

and Indexical Thoughts. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Mollon, J. D. (1989). "' Tho" She Kneel' d in That Place Where

They Grew . . ." The Uses and Origins of Primate Colour Vision"
Journal of Experimental Biology, Vol. 146 (September 1989): 21-38.
*Peacocke, Christopher (1984). "colour Concepts and colour

Experiences" Synthese, Vol. 58, No. 3 (March 1984): 365- 381.
*Smart, J. J. C. (1975). "On Some Criticisms of a Physicalist

Theory of colours" in Philosophical Aspects of the Mind-Body
Problem, ed. Chung-ying Cheng. Honolulu: University of Hawaii
Press, 54-63.
*Thompson, Evan (1995). Colour Vision: A Study in Cognitive

Science and the Philosophy of Perception. London: Routledge.
Peter Ross
25-10-2003
colour theories of
<philosophy of mind, epistemology, philosophy of science>

theories of colour make proposals about the
nature of the colours that
we attribute to physical objects in visual
perception. The most common proposals are that these colours are
mental properties of perceptual states
(subjectivism), they are physical properties of physical objects
(physicalism), or they are dispositions of physical
objects to produce perceptual states
of colour (dispositionalism).
The problem of the constituting nature of colour is typically put

in terms of the following question about the intentional content
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of visual states of colour: what sorts of properties are the colours

that we attribute to physical objects in virtue of our visual states
of colour? Are attributed colours, for example, physical properties of
physical objects? Or are they other sorts of properties,
such as mental
properties of visual states themselves, or dispositions of physical
objects to produce visual states of colour?
The problem of the constituting nature of colour has been largely

motivated by concerns about how colour fits into a scientific
description of the world. In the seventeenth century, Galileo and
Newton undertook a comprehensive description of nature in terms of
mathematical physics. Physics requires that if colours are
properties of physical objects, then they are describable in
physical terms.
However, due to problems with understanding how colours can be

describable in physical terms, many philosophers and scientists
since the time of Galileo have come to reject the claim that
colours are physical properties of physical objects. Most theorists
assume that if we reject this claim, then the nature of colours
must be characterised--at least in part--in terms of our mental
nature.
In addressing the problem of the nature of the colour we attribute

to physical objects in visual states we must consider the following
question: how do we characterize the nature of these visual states
(also commonly called visual experiences). Some theorists claim
visual experiences of colour have both intentional properties and
mental qualitative properties which I' ll call mental colours; other
theorists claim they have intentional properties but don' t have
mental colours. Those who claim that colour experiences have both
intentional properties and mental colours include some physicalists
(Lewis, Shoemaker), most dispositionalists (currently, Peacocke
and McDowell; formerly, McGinn and Johnston), and all subjectivists.
Those who claim that visual experiences of colour have intentional
properties but do not have mental colours include some
dispositionalists (Smart [1961]) and most physicalists (Smart
[1975], Armstrong, Hilbert [1987 and 1992], and Byrne and Hilbert).
Mental colours are mental qualitative properties of colour

experiences. Amongst those who characterize colour experiences
as having mental colours, there' s a controversy as to how to
describe mental colours. The main divide is between those who
claim that mental colours are what it' s like for a perceiver
to be conscious of colour (Peacocke, McGinn, Shoemaker, Block),
and those who describe mental colours in terms of causal relations,
for example, in terms of functionally described processes of our
visual systems (Hardin, Clark, McGilvray, Lewis).
Proponents of the claim that mental colours are what it' s like
for a perceiver to be conscious of colour hold that mental
colours cannot be described in terms of causal relations.
Mental colours described as what it' s like to be conscious
of colour are typically called qualia.
According to subjectivism, the colours that we attribute to

physical objects in colour experiences are mental colours,
which are mental qualitative properties of visual states
themselves. Thus subjectivism claims that physical objects
are colourless. (Because subjectivism denies the existence
of coloured physical objects, it is sometimes called colour
eliminativism.) Two kinds of argument are offered in support
of subjectivism. One kind stresses epistemological and
phenomenological considerations; the other is founded on
evidence from colour science, in particular, psychophysics
and neurophysiology. Boghossian and Velleman provide
arguments of the first kind. In their 1991, they claim
against physicalism that qualitative similarity relations
among colours, such as that orange is more similar to red than
it is to blue, specify essential features of determinate colours.
Furthermore, they assert, ordinary experience provides access to
these essential features. However, if physicalism were correct,
these essential features would be relations among physical
properties. They conclude that physicalism is false because
ordinary experience doesn' t provide access to relations among
the relevant physical properties (namely, relations among
surface reflectances). Furthermore, in their 1989 they claim
against dispositionalism that colours cannot be dispositions to
produce visual states of colour, for colours don' t look like
dispositions in our ordinary experience. However, disputable
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epistemological assumptions
underlie both of these arguments.
Against dispositionalism, they assume the very controversial claim
that ordinary experience provides access to the constituting nature
of colour, a claim that Johnston calls Revelation. Against
physicalism, they assume a claim that physicalists deny, namely,
that the qualitative similarity relations among colours specify
essential features of determinate colours.
Hardin and McGilvray

provide arguments for subjectivism founded on evidence from
psychophysics and neurophysiology. Psychophysics indicates that
objects with different surface reflectances can produce
perceptions of the same determinate colour (such as teal); such
physically distinct objects are called metamers. Metamerism is
explained in terms of neurophysiology, and this neurophysiological
explanation shows that for each determinate colour, indefinitely
many different surface reflectances look that colour. Also,
functionally described processes of our visual systems called
opponent processes explain the qualitative similarity relations
among perceived colours (such as that orange is qualitatively
more similar to red than it is to blue) (see Hurvich).
Furthermore, there is no range of physical properties of
objects the members of which are related intrinsically in ways
that correspond with the qualitative similarity relations.
(Members of a range of properties are related intrinsically so
long as these relations are don' t hold in virtue of relations
between members of the range and members of a distinct range
of properties.) Rather, physical properties of objects are
related extrinsically in these ways, in virtue of relations
between these physical properties and properties of the human
visual system. Thus the qualitative identity and similarity
relations among perceived colours are explained in terms of
neurophysiology. Because Hardin and McGilvray assume that on
any tenable proposal of the constituting nature of colour, this
constituting nature must explain these qualitative relations,
they conclude colour science shows that perceived colours aren' t
physical properties of physical objects. Rather, Hardin and
McGilvray claim colours are neural events of our visual systems.
However, physicalists object to Hardin' s and McGilvray' s assumption.
Physicalists propose that we distinguish between the neural
properties that explain the qualitative relations among
perceived colours and the perceived colours themselves, which
are physical properties of objects.
Physicalism claims that colours we attribute to physical objects

in colour experiences are physical properties of those objects,
or as I' ll call them physical colours. There are several versions
of physicalism. According to one type of physicalism held by
Hilbert (1987 and 1992), physical colours are surface reflectances,
and are individuated as finely as surface reflectances. However,
objects with different surface reflectances can be perceived as
the same determinate colour (such physically distinct objects are
called metamers). Thus perceived colours are indeterminate with
respect to physical colour. And because colour science shows that
metamerism is explained in terms of the neurophysiology of the
human visual system, Hilbert calls perceived colours anthropocentric
colours. Nevertheless, Hilbert claims that perceived colours are
objective, nonrelational properties of physical objects.
On another type of physicalism held by Smart, Armstrong, and Lewis,
no distinction is drawn between physical colours
and perceived colours.
Physical colours just are the colours perceived by standard human
colour perceivers in standard viewing conditions. Since the
neurophysiological explanation of metamerism shows that for
each determinate perceived colour indefinitely many different
surface reflectances look that colour, physical colours are
indefinitely large disjunctions of surface reflectances.
Shoemaker proposes a third type of physicalism. He draws a
distinction between the intentional contents and the qualitative
contents of colour experiences. He claims that physical colours are
included in intentional contents. But, he holds, these physical
properties aren' t perceived colours --the colours included in
qalitative contents. Rather, perceived colours are relations between
physical colours and visual experiences with colour
qualia (which are
mental qualitative properties which determine qualitative contents).
Of course, Shoemaker' s proposal depends on the controversial claim
that visual states have qualia. Hilbert (1987 and 1992) argues for
physicalism largely on the basis of the visual effect called colour
constancy. Colour constancy is an effect in which the colour a
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physical object looks remains fairly constant despite changes in

the light illuminating the object. As it turns out, the constant
colours that we perceive physical surfaces as having are correlated
with surface reflectance. Hilbert (1992) argues that colour
constancy shows that the biological function of colour vision is
to detect physical object surfaces by way of surface reflectance,
and that, therefore, the colours we attribute to physical objects
in visual states of colour are surface reflectances.
However, some dispute Hilbert' s characterisation of the biological
function of colour vision in physical terms, and rather characterize
this function in ecological terms. For example,
Thompson and Hatfield
object to Hilbert' s physicalism from the standpoint of an ecological
approach to colour perception, and claim that perceived colours are
relations between objects and colour experiences. The
Smart/Armstrong/Lewis view holds that descriptions of relations
between physical objects and colour experiences of standard
perceivers in standard viewing conditions merely serve to fix
the reference of colour terms (for a similar claim, see Kripke).
However, the claim that perceived colours are disjunctions of
physical properties is controversial. But crucial to a defence of
this view is a distinction between properties and universals.
Whereas Armstrong denies that universals can be disjunctive, he
allows that properties can be disjunctive, where disjunctive
properties can be explained in terms of ranges of universals. And
perceived colours can be explained in terms of psychophysical laws
that quantify the relations between ranges of physical properties
of objects and visual states of colour. Since visual science
indicates that the qualitative identity and similarity relations
among perceived colours are explained in terms of neurophysiology,
independently of the physical colours themselves, physicalists
claim that these qualitative relations don' t specify essential
features of determinate perceived colours. However, this claim
is controversial (Boghossian and Velleman [1991], as well as
Hardin and McGilvray assume that it' s false; Johnston argues
against it).
According to dispositionalism, the colours we attribute to physical

objects in colour experiences are dispositions of physical objects
to produce perceptual responses. Different versions of
dispositionalism characterize perceptual responses differently.
Smart (1961) characterizes perceptual responses nonqualitatively,
namely, in terms of the discriminatory behaviour of perceivers.
But the most common version of dispositionalism characterizes
perceptual responses in terms of visual experiences with colour
qualia, in particular such visual experiences of standard
perceivers in standard viewing conditions (currently, Peacocke
and McDowell; formerly, McGinn and Johnston). If the colours we
attribute to objects are dispositions to produce visual
experiences with colour qualia, then these colours are constituted
by relations between some physical property or other of objects
and visual experiences with colour qualia. According to current
versions of this view, even though the colours we attribute to
objects are in part constituted by colour qualia, the colours
we attribute to objects aren' t themselves colour qualia. Rather,
colour qualia determine what it' s like to experience physical
properties of physical objects as colours, and colours we attribute
to physical objects are dispositional properties of physical
objects. Proponents of this version of dispositionalism argue
that the colours we attribute to objects are in part constituted
by colour qualia on epistemological grounds, in particular on the
basis of the claim that ordinary experience provides access to
essential features of colour. For example, Johnston claims that
qualitative similarity relations among colour specify essential
features of determinate colours to which ordinary experience
provides access, and supports this claim with considerations
about scepticism. However, physicalists reject this argument,
and it remains controversial as to whether qualitative similarity
relations specify essential features of determinate colours at all.
References (Note: "*" indicates more central reference)
A bibliography of colour and philosophy (http://web.mit.edu/philos/www/colour-biblio.html)
Stanford Encyclopedia entry on colour (http://www.uic.edu/_hilbert/index.html)
Hilbert' s web page (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/colour/index.html)
*Armstrong, D. M. (1987). "Smart and the Secondary Qualities"

in Metaphysics and Morality: Essays in Honour of J. J. C. Smart,
eds. Philip Pettit, Richard Sylvan, and Jean Norman. Oxford:
file://C:\_ 04/06/00
Basil Blackwell, 1-15.
Block, Ned (1990). "Inverted Earth" in Philosophical Perspectives,

4: Action Theory and Philosophy of Mind, ed. James E. Tomberlin.
tascadero, Cal.: Ridgeview Publishing Company, 53-79.
*Boghossian, Paul A. and J. David Velleman (1989). "Colour as a

Secondary Quality", Mind, Vol. 98, No. 389 (January 1989): 81-103.
Boghossian, Paul A. and J. David Velleman (1991). "Physicalist

Theories of colour", Philosophical Review, Vol. 100, No. 1 (January
1991): 67-106.
*Byrne, Alex and David R. Hilbert (1997). "colours and Reflectances"

in Readings on colour, Vol. 1, The Philosophy of colour, eds. Alex
Byrne and David R. Hilbert. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press.
*Clark, Austen (1993). Sensory Qualities. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
*Hardin, C. L. (1993). colour for Philosophers: Unweaving the

Rainbow, Expanded Edition. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing
Company.
Hatfield, Gary (1992). "colour Perception and Neural Encoding:

Does Metameric Matching Entail a Loss of Information?" in
Proceedings of the 1992 Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of
Science Association, Vol. 1, Contributed Papers, eds. David Hull,
Micky Forbes, and Kathleen Okruhlik, 492-504.
*Hilbert, David R. (1987). colour and colour Perception: A Study in

Anthropocentric Realism. Stanford: Center for the Study of
Language and Information.
Hilbert, David R. (1992). "What Is colour Vision?", Philosophical

Studies, Vol. 68, No. 3 (December 1992): 351-370.
*Hurvich, Leo M. (1981). colour Vision. Sunderland, Mass.: Sinauer

Associates Inc.
Hurvich, Leo M. (1981). colour Vision. Sunderland, Mass. Sinauer

Associates Inc.
Kripke, Saul (1972). Naming and Necessity. Cambridge, Mass.

Harvard University Press.
Lewis, David (1995). "Should a Materialist Believe in Qualia?",

Australasian Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 73, No. 1 (March 1995):
140-144.
*Johnston, Mark (1992). "How to Speak of the colours",

Philosophical Studies, Vol. 68, No. 3 (December 1992): 221- 263.
McDowell, John (1985). "Values and Secondary Qualities" in

Morality and Objectivity: A Tribute to J. L. Mackie, ed. Ted
Honderich. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 110-129.
McGilvray, James A. (1994). "Constant colours in the Head",

Synthese, Vol. 100, No. 2 (August 1994): 197-239.
McGinn, Colin (1983). The Subjective View: Secondary Qualities

and Indexical Thoughts. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
*Peacocke, Christopher (1984). "colour Concepts and colour

Experiences", Synthese, Vol. 58, No. 3 (March 1984): 365- 381.
*Shoemaker, Sydney (1996). "colours, Subjective Relations, and

Qualia" in Philosophical Issues, 7: Perception, ed. Enrique
Villanueva. Atascadero, Cal.: Ridgeview Publishing Company, 55-66.
Smart, J. J. C. (1961). "Colours", Philosophy, Vol. 36, No.

137 (April and July 1961): 128-142.
*Smart, J. J. C. (1975). "On Some Criticisms of a Physicalist

Theory of colours" in Philosophical Aspects of the Mind-Body
Problem, ed. Chung-ying Cheng. Honolulu: University of Hawaii
Press, 54-63.
Thompson, Evan (1995). Colour Vision: A Study in Cognitive

Science and the Philosophy of Perception. London: Routledge.
See also colour perception theories of
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Peter Ross
25-10-2003
combination
1. <mathematics> A set containing a certain number of

objects selected from another set.
The number of combinations of r objects chosen from a set of n

is
n C r = n! / ((n-r)! r!)
where "n C r" is normally with n and r as subscripts or as n

above r in parentheses.
See also permutation.
2. <reduction> In the theory of combinators, a combination

denotes an expression in which function application is the
only operation.
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combinator
<logic> A function with no free variables.

A term is either a
constant, a variable or of the form A B denoting the
application of term A (a function of one argument) to term
B. Juxtaposition associates to the left in the absence of
parentheses. All combinators can be defined from two basic
combinators - S and K. These two and a third, I, are defined
thus:
S f g x = f x (g x)
Kxy=x
Ix=x=SKKx
Combinatory logic is equivalent to the lambda-calculus but

a lambda expression of size O(n) is equivalent to a
combinatorial expression of size O(n^2).
Other combinators were added by David Turner in 1979 when he

used combinators to implement SASL:
B f g x = f (g x)
Cfgx=fxg
S' c f g x = c (f x) (g x)
B* c f g x = c (f (g x))
C' c f g x = c (f x) g
See fixed point combinator, curried function,

supercombinators.
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combinatory logic
<logici> A system for reducing the

operational notation of logic,
mathematics or a functional language to a sequence of
modifications to the input data structure. First introduced
in the 1920' s by Schoenfinkel. Re -introduced independently
by Haskell Curry in the late 1920' s (who quickly learned of
Schoenfinkel' s work after he had the idea). Curry is really
responsible for most of the development, at least up until
work with Feys in 1958.
See combinator.
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communication system
<communications> A system or facility capable of providing

information transfer between persons and equipment. The
system usually consists of a collection of individual
communication networks, transmission systems, relay
stations, tributary stations, and terminal equipment capable
of interconnection and interoperation so as to form an
integrated whole. These individual components must serve a
common purpose, be technically compatible, employ common
procedures, respond to some form of control, and generally
operate in unison.
["Communications Standard Dictionary", 2nd Edition, Martin

H. Weik].
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communism
<political philosophy, marxism, anarchism>

political theory according to which
the individual' s actions should benefit the community or the state
rather than the individual himself. It is the most radical kind of
political collectivism, and depends on an equally radical
form of collectivism or altruism in ethics.
In practice, communism has
always been a form of authoritarianism or of totalitarianism.
When referring to actual political systems, communism is sometimes
called Marxism-Leninism
because of communism' s link with the
revolutionary doctrines of Marxism and with countries inspired by
the examples of Lenin' s revolution in Russia, and Mao' s in China.
(References from capitalism, collectivism,
dialectical materialism, and socialism).
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compactness preserving
<logic>
In domain theory, a function f is compactness
preserving if f c is compact whenever c is.
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compatibilism
<ethics, determinism, political theory, libertarianism> also

known as "soft determinism" and most famously championed by
Hume, this theory holds that free will and determinism
are compatible. Properly understood, according to Hume,
freedom is not an absolute ability to have chosen
differently under exactly the same inner and outer
circumstances. Rather it is a hypothetical ability to
have chosen differently if one had been differently
psychologically disposed by some different beliefs or
desires. Alternately, Hume maintains that free acts are
not uncaused (or mysteriously self-caused as Kant would
have it) but caused in the right way, i.e., by our choices
as determined by our our beliefs and desires, by our
characters. See determinism. Contrast: hard
determinism, libertarianism.
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compatibility
compatible
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compatible
<jargon> Different systems (e.g., programs, file formats,

protocols, even programming languages) that can work
together or exchange data are said to be compatible.
See also backward compatible, forward compatible.
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complement
<logic>
1. The other value or values in the set of possible

values.
See logical complement, bitwise complement, set

complement.
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2. complement of a set
<logic>
The complement of a set A is the set of elements that are
not members of A.
Notation: A with a single bar over the top, or -A, or A' .
a. Absolute complement of a set
The set of all things whatsoever that are not members of the
given set.
Standard set theory does not recognize absolute complements.
See Russell' s paradox
b. Relative complement of a set
The set of all things that are not members of the given
set, A, but that
are members of some particular "background" set, B.
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This can be expressed

through the notation for set difference:
the relative complement
of A in B or relative to B (A against the background of B)
is the set
x : (x : B) o (x /: A).
The background set is sometimes called the
universe or universe of discourse. Notation: B-A, or BA.
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complementary non-deterministic polynomial
<complexity> (Co-NP) The set (or property) of problems with a

yes/no answer where the complementary no/yes problem is in the
set NP.
[Example?]
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complete
See complete theory,

negation completeness, omega-completeness,
semantic completeness, syntactic completeness
complete graph, complete inference system,
complete lattice, complete metric space, complete partial
ordering
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complete graph
<mathematics, logic> A graph which has a link between

every pair of nodes. A
complete bipartite graph can be partitioned into two subsets
of nodes such that each node is joined to every node in the
other subset.
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complete inference system
<logic> An inference system A is complete with respect to

another system B if A can reach every conclusion which is true
in B. The dual to completeness is soundness.
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complete lattice
<mathematics>. A lattice is a partial ordering of a set

under a relation
where all finite subsets have a least upper bound and a
greatest lower bound. A complete lattice also has these for
infinite subsets. Every finite lattice is complete. Some
authors drop the requirement for greatest lower bounds.
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complete metric space
<mathematics, logic>
A metric space in which every sequence that
converges in itself has a limit. For example, the space of
real numbers is complete by Dedekind' s axiom, whereas the
space of rational numbers is not - e.g. the sequence a[0]=1;
a[n_+1]:=a[n]/2+1/a[n].
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complete partial ordering
<logic> (cpo) A partial ordering of a set under a

relation, where all directed subsets have a least upper
bound. A cpo is usually defined to include a least element,
bottom (David Schmidt calls this a pointed cpo). A cpo
which is algebraic and boundedly complete is a (Scott)
domain.
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complete theory
<logic> An abstract logical theory in which all true

statements have formal proofs within the theory.
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completeness
complete theory,
negation completeness, omega-completeness,
semantic completeness, syntactic completeness
complete graph, complete inference system,
complete lattice, complete metric space, complete partial
ordering
a (logical) language is said to be complete iff all the

formulas in the language that must be true (in any world in
which the axioms of the language are true) can be proved from
the axioms. Goedel' sincompleteness theorem shows that any
language in which the truths of basic arithmetic can be
formulated cannot be complete (unless the number of axioms
is infinite).
<2001-04-25, 2001-03-16>
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complex number
<mathematics> A number of the form x+iy where i is the square

root of -1, and x and y are real numbers, known as the
"real" and "imaginary" part. Complex numbers can be plotted
as points on a two-dimensional plane, known as an Argand
diagram, where x and y are the Cartesian coordinates.
An alternative, polar notation, expresses a complex number

as (r eît) where e is the base of natural logarithms, and r
and t are real numbers, known as the magnitude and phase. The
two forms are related:
r eît = r cos(t) + i r sin(t)

=x+iy
where
x = r cos(t)
y = r sin(t)
All solutions of any polynomial equation can be expressed as

complex numbers. This is the so-called Fundamental Theorem
of Algebra, first proved by Cauchy.
Complex numbers are useful in many fields of physics, such as

electromagnetism because they are a useful way of representing
a magnitude and phase as a single quantity.
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complex question
<philosophy of science, logic> the informal fallacy of framing

an issue as if it involved genuine alternatives while implicitly
assuming the truth of the desired conclusion. Example: "Do you
expect Peter to speak for thirty minutes or fifty? In either case,
you acknowledge that he will be long-winded." Denying the
presumption that lies behind both alternatives (in this case,
that Peter will speak for at least thirty minutes) would eliminate
the supposed evidence that the conclusion is true.
25-10-2003
complexity
<algorithm> The level in difficulty in solving mathematically

posed problems as measured by the time, number of steps or
arithmetic operations, or memory space required (called time
complexity, computational complexity, and space complexity,
respectively).
The interesting aspect is usually how complexity scales with

the size of the input (the "scalability"), where the size of
the input is described by some number N. Thus an algorithm
may have computational complexity O(N^2) (of the order of the
square of the size of the input), in which case if the input
doubles in size, the computation will take four times as many
steps. The ideal is a constant time algorithm (O(1)) or
failing that, O(N).
See also NP-complete.
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complexity class
<algorithm> A collection of algorithms or computable

functions with the same complexity.
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complexity measure
<algorithm> A quantity describing the complexity of a

computation.
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component
<logic>
a proposition that is part of a compound proposition.
A component may itself be compound. For example, p is a
component in p => q, and p => q is a component in
(p => q) v r.
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composite
aggregate
16-03-2001
composition
1. <logic>
One of the simple function-building operations of recursive
function theory.
Given the one-place functions f(x) and g(x),
composition allows
us
to create function h
thus: h(x) = f(g(x)). More generally, if
f is an
m-place, f(x1...xm), and there is a series of n-place
functions g, g(x1...xn), then we can create the
n-place function h by composition: h(x1...xn) =
f(g(x1...xn),...,gm(x1...xn)).
Also called substitution.
2. typesetting.
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composition fallacy of
<philosophy of science, logic> the informal fallacy of

attributing some feature of the members of a collection to the
collection itself, or reasoning from part to whole. Example:
"Each of the elements in this compound (NaCl) is poisonous to
human beings; therefore, this compound is itself poisonous
to human beings."
25-10-2003
compositionality
representations may be said to be compositional insofar
as they retain the same meaning across diverse contexts.
Thus, "kick" means the same thing in the context of "...the ball",
"... a rock", "... a dog", although it changes
meaning in the context of "... the bucket". One might say that
according to the principle of the compositionality of
representations atomic representations make the same semantic
contribution in every context in which they occur.
The term "compositionality of representations" is also used

to refer to a putative psychological regularity that is
supposed to support the view that there exists a syntactically
and semantically combinatorial language of thought. The locus
classicus for this argument is Fodor and Pylyshyn, 1988.
According to Fodor and Pylyshyn, in normal cognitive agents,

there exist intrinsic connections between some thoughts and
others. Thoughts come in clumps. This putative fact is the
systematicity of cognitive representations. The
compositionality of representations says something about
the nature of the thoughts that are intrinsically connected.
It says something about the nature of the clumps of mental
thoughts: the thoughts in the clumps are semantically related.
The thoughts in the clumps have common terms and predicates,
for example. Thus, the thoughts "John loves Mary" and "Mary
loves John" are compositional sets of representations since
they both represent John, loving, and Mary.
According to Fodor and Pylyshyn, the reason that cognitive

representations are compositional, as well as systematic is
that there exists a syntactically and semantically combinatorial
language of thought that respects the principle of
compositionality, that atomic representations mean the same
thing in all contexts in which they occur. The existence of a
syntactically and semantically combinatorial language of thought
respecting the principle of compositionality explains the
compositionality of representations.
A theory that admits mental representations, but rejects

combinatorial structure, lacks a genuine explanation of the
compositionality of representations. Even if a normal cognitive
agent has thoughts that are intrinsically connected to each
other, there is no principled reason why it should be the case
that these thoughts should be semantically related. Suppose
that one thought involves the mental representation that is
intrinsically connected to the mental representation . Even
if it means John loves Mary, why should mean Mary loves John,
rather than say, Alfred likes pizza? There seems to be no
principled answer to this question.
References
Fodor, J., and Pylyshyn, Z. (1988). "Connectionism and cognitive

architecture: A critique." Cognition, 28, 3-71.
See systematicity, productivity, symbolicism.
Ken Aizawa
25-10-2003
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compound proposition
<logic>
A proposition made up of two or more simple propositions
(components)
joined by a connective. A compound proposition has just one
truth-value for
a given interpretation. Also called "molecules"
(by writers who call simple propositions "atoms").
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computability theory
<mathematics> The area of theoretical computer science

concerning what problems can be solved by any computer.
A function is computable if an algorithm can be implemented

which will give the correct output for any valid input.
Since computer programs are countable but real numbers are

not, it follows that there must exist real numbers that
cannot be calculated by any program. Unfortunately, by
definition, there isn' t an easy way of describing any of them!
In fact, there are many tasks (not just calculating real

numbers) that computers cannot perform. The most well-known
is the halting problem, the busy beaver problem is less
famous but just as fascinating.
["Computability", N.J. Cutland. (A well written

undergraduate-level introduction to the subject)].
["The Turing Omnibus", A.K. Dewdeney].
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computable
see computability theory, computable function
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computable function
<logic>
A total function for which there is an effective method
for determining the value (output, member of the range),
given the arguments (inputs, members of the domain).
Incomputable function
A function for which there is no such effective method.
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computation
<philosophy of mind, PI, philosophy of science>

a series of rule-governed state transitions whose rules
can be altered.
There are numerous competing definitions of computation.

Along with the initial definition provided here,
the following three definitions are often encountered:
1) rule-governed state transitions
2) discrete rule-governed state transitions
3) rule-governed state transitions between interpretable

states.
The difficulties with these definitions

can be summarised as follows:
(1) admits all physical systems into the class of computational

systems, making the definition somewhat vacuous.
(2) excludes all forms of analog computation, perhaps including

the sorts of processing taking place in the brain.
(3) necessitates accepting all computational systems as

representational systems. In other words, there is no computation
without representation on this definition.
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Computational Adequacy Theorem
<PI> This states that for any program

(a non-function typed term in
the typed lambda-calculus with constants) normal order
reduction (outermost first) fails to terminate if and only if
the standard semantics of the term is bottom. Moreover,
if the reduction of program e1 terminates with some head
normal form e2 then the standard semantics of e1 and e2 will
be equal. This theorem is significant because it relates the
operational notion of a reduction sequence and the
denotational semantics of the input and output of a
reduction sequence.
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computational architecture

the structure and organisation of a given computing device
(the way in which it handles memory, the organisation of
data, the set of primitive instructions it executes, and the
ordering of instruction application or execution)
define a device' s computational architecture. Computational
architecture involves only the structure and
organisation relevant to computation;
implementational details to
not constitute computational architecture.
In actual practice, the notion of computational architecture

inherits some ambiguity/vagueness from the ambiguity/vagueness
in one' s notion of computation. For example, computation might
refer exclusively to forms of effective computation i.e.
Turing-machine-equivalent computation, or it might also
include weaker computational devices (e.g. finite state
automata and push-down automata) or analog computational devices.
On the hypothesis that cognition is computation, one research goal
is the determination of the computational architecture that
constitutes the structure and organisation of cognition. In
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other words, if the brain is a type of computing device, one

wishes to know exactly what type of computing device. Even on
the hypothesis that cognition is a form of effective computation
(Turing-machine-equivalent computation), one still wishes to
know exactly which of the computationally equivalent forms of
computation constitutes the hypothetical computational
architecture of cognition. Even if diverse forms of computation
are equivalent in the sense of computing the same functions,
one wishes to know exactly what mechanisms the brain uses to
compute those functions.
See also functionalism, Turing machine
Ken Aizawa
25-10-2003
computational complexity
<algorithm> The number of steps or arithmetic operations

required to solve a computational problem. One of the three
kinds of complexity.
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computational model
computational models
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models based on the overarching hypothesis that the mind
is a type of computer which can be described in algorithmic
terms.
The two major types of computational model are symbolic

(symbolicism and connectionist (connectionism).
Recently there has been a third, dynamicist approach
(dynamical systems theory) which has been postulated as an
alternative to either symbolicism or connectionism.
However, it is not yet clear if dynamicism offers a
true alternative or whether it can be considered a
special class of connectionist models.
References
Churchland, P. S. and T. Sejnowski (1992).

The computational brain. Cambridge, MA, MIT Press.
Newell, A. (1990). Unified theories of cognition.

Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press.
Thelen, E. and L. B. Smith (1994). A dynamic systems approach

to the development of cognition and action. Cambridge,
MIT Press.
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computer
<computer> A machine that can be programmed to manipulate

symbols. Computers can perform complex and repetitive
procedures quickly, precisely and reliably and can quickly
store and retrieve large amounts of data.
The physical components from which a computer is constructed

(electronic circuits and input/output devices) are known as
"hardware". Most computers have four types of hardware
component: CPU, input, output and memory. The CPU (central
processing unit) executes programs ("software") which tell
the computer what to do. Input and output (I/O) devices allow
the computer to communicate with the user and the outside
world. There are several kinds of memory - fast, expensive,
short term memory (e.g. RAM) to hold intermediate results,
and slower, cheaper, long-term memory (e.g. magnetic disk
and
magnetic tape) to hold programs and data between jobs.
See also analogue computer.
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computer crime
<legal> Breaking the criminal law by use of a computer.
See also computer ethics, software law.
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computer dictionary
Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (http://www.foldoc.org)
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computer ethics
<ethics> Ethics is the field of study that is concerned

with questions of value, that is, judgments about what human
behaviour is "good" or "bad". Ethical judgments are no
different in the area of computing from those in any other
area. Computers raise problems of privacy, ownership, theft,
and power, to name but a few.
Computer ethics can be grounded in one of four basic

world-views: Idealism, Realism, Pragmatism, or Existentialism.
Idealists believe that reality is basically ideas and that
ethics therefore involves conforming to ideals. Realists
believe that reality is basically nature and that ethics
therefore involves acting according to what is natural.
Pragmatists believe that reality is not fixed but is in
process and that ethics therefore is practical (that is,
concerned with what will produce socially-desired results).
Existentialists believe reality is self-defined and that
ethics therefore is individual (that is, concerned only with
one' s own conscience). Idealism and Realism can be considered
ABSOLUTIST worldviews because they are based on something
fixed (that is, ideas or nature, respectively). Pragmatism
and Existentialism can be considered RELATIVIST worldviews
because they are based or something relational (that is,
society or the individual, respectively).
Thus ethical judgments will vary, depending on the judge' s

world-view. Some examples:
First consider theft. Suppose a university' s computer is used
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for sending an e-mail message to a friend or for conducting a

full-blown private business (billing, payroll, inventory,
etc.). The absolutist would say that both activities are
unethical (while recognising a difference in the amount of
wrong being done). A relativist might say that the latter
activities were wrong because they tied up too much memory and
slowed down the machine, but the e-mail message wasn' t wrong
because it had no significant effect on operations.
Next consider privacy. An instructor uses her account to

acquire the cumulative grade point average of a student who is
in a class which she instructs. She obtained the password for
this restricted information from someone in the Records Office
who erroneously thought that she was the student' s advisor.
The absolutist would probably say that the instructor acted
wrongly, since the only person who is entitled to this
information is the student and his or her advisor. The
relativist would probably ask why the instructor wanted the
information. If she replied that she wanted it to be sure
that her grading of the student was consistent with the
student' s overall academic performance record, the relativist
might agree that such use was acceptable.
Finally, consider power. At a particular university, if a

professor wants a computer account, all she or he need do is
request one but a student must obtain faculty sponsorship in
order to receive an account. An absolutist (because of a
proclivity for hierarchical thinking) might not have a problem
with this divergence in procedure. A relativist, on the other
hand, might question what makes the two situations essentially
different (e.g. are faculty assumed to have more need for
computers than students? Are students more likely to cause
problems than faculty? Is this a hold-over from the days of
"in loco parentis"?).
"Philosophical Bases of Computer Ethics", Professor Robert

N. Barger (http://www.nd.edu/~rbarger/metaethics.html).
Usenet newsgroups: news:bit.listserv.ethics-l,

news:alt.soc.ethics.
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computer language
programming language
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computer law
<legal> Apart from software law, other relevant laws include

those concerning the sale of goods. Communication law is more
relevant to the Internet, it has to do with media issues in
general, e.g. free speech.
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Computer Mediated Communication
<messaging> (CMC) Communication that takes place through, or

is facilitated by, computers. Examples include Usenet and
e-mail, but CMC also covers real-time chat tools like
lily (http://www.lily.org/), IRC, and even video
conferencing.
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computer program
software
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computing
computer
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computing dictionary
Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (http://www.foldoc.org)
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computron
/kom' pyoo -tron"/ 1. A notional unit of computing power

combining instruction speed and storage capacity, dimensioned
roughly in instructions-per-second times
megabytes-of-main-store times megabytes-of-mass-storage.
"That machine can' t run GNU Emacs, it doesn' t have enough
computrons!" This usage is usually found in metaphors that
treat computing power as a fungible commodity good, like a
crop yield or diesel horsepower. See bitty box, (Get a real
computer!), toy, crank.
2. A mythical subatomic particle that bears the unit quantity

of computation or information, in much the same way that an
electron bears one unit of electric charge (see also bogon).
An elaborate pseudo-scientific theory of computrons has been
developed based on the physical fact that the molecules in a
solid object move more rapidly as it is heated. It is argued
that an object melts because the molecules have lost their
information about where they are supposed to be (that is, they
have emitted computrons). This explains why computers get so
hot and require air conditioning; they use up computrons.
Conversely, it should be possible to cool down an object by
placing it in the path of a computron beam. It is believed
that this may also explain why machines that work at the
factory fail in the computer room: the computrons there have
been all used up by the other hardware. (This theory probably
owes something to the "Warlock" stories by Larry Niven, the
best known being "What Good is a Glass Dagger?", in which
magic is fuelled by an exhaustible natural resource called
"mana".)
25-10-2003
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Comte Auguste
<History of philosophy, biography> French philosopher.

As an early exponent of positivism, Comte was a
founder of the discipline of sociology. In an early
letter to M. Valat Comte identified a methodological
culture of science. His "Cours de philosophie positive"
Course in Positive Philosophy (1830-1842) traces the
historical development of philosophy from its origins
in the theological and metaphysical thought to its
culmination in observational science, especially the
discipline of sociology. Comte proposed in "Système de
politique positive" ("System of Positive Polity") (1851)
that political development should follow a similar path,
resultimg in a highly-organized communitarian state.
"Discours sur l’Ensemble du positivisme" ("A General View
of Positivism") (1848) offers a convenient summary of his
views.
Recomended Reading: Auguste Comte, "Introduction to
Positive Philosophy", ed. by Frederick Ferre (Hackett, 1988);
"Auguste Comte and Positivism: The Essential Writings",
ed. by Gertrude Lenzer (Transaction, 1998); "Comte: Early
political Writings", ed. by H.S. Jones (Cambridge, 1998); and
Mary Pickering, "Auguste Comte: An Intellectual
Biography" (Cambridge, 1993). Also see Emmanul Lazinier,
noesis, ELC, BIO, and Andy Blunden.
17-09-2003
concept
a semantically evaluable, redeployable constituent of thought,
invoked to explain properties of intentional phenomena such as
productivity and systematicity. Applied to an
assortment of phenomena including mental representations,
images, words,
stereotypes, senses, properties, reasoning
abilities, mathematical functions, etc.
See nonconceptual content
Pete Mandik
25-10-2003
conceptual role semantics
functional role semantics
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conceptualisation
<artificial intelligence> The collection of objects, concepts

and other entities that are assumed to exist in some area of
interest and the relationships that hold among them. A
conceptualisation is an abstract, simplified view of the
world that we wish to represent. For example, we may
conceptualise a family as the set of names, sexes and the
relationships of the family members. Choosing a
conceptualisation is the first stage of knowledge
representation.
Every knowledge base, knowledge-based system, or

knowledge-level agent is committed to some
conceptualisation, explicitly or implicitly.
[FOLDOC]
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conceptualism
<epistemology, scholasticism, nominalism, realism, ockhamism, logic>

the theory that universals are general ideas,
such as the idea of man or of redness, which exist
in mind and only in mind, but it is grounded on experience.
This view is typically
contrasted with -- and held as a kind of compromise between
-- nominalism and realism.
In the history of philosophy Peter Abelard (1079-1142)
is usually called a conceptualist. He was a
logician who opposed both the nominalism and the intrinsicism of
his age. Abelard sought a middle position between these two
poles of thinking, and ended up with views in epistemology
that were
quite similar to those of Aristotle or the later Aristotelians
namely, that conceptual knowledge consists in an objective relation
between reality and the mind (see objectivism and
Aristotelianism). (Reference from nominalism).
based on [The Ism Book, Philosophical Glossary]
25-10-2003
conclusion
<logic>
The result of an argument or inference.
The wff derived from or supported by premises.
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concomitant variation method of
<philosophy of science, epistemology, gnoseology> one of Mill' s

Methods. If an antecedent circumstance is observed to change
proportionally with the occurrence of a phenomenon, it is
probably the cause of that phenomenon.
Example: "The more coffee I drink, the more difficult it is to fall
asleep at night. Therefore, drinking coffee may be a cause of my
insomnia."
Recommended Reading: John Stuart Mill, System of Logic
(Classworks, 1986).
27-10-2003
concrete class
<PI> In object-oriented programming, a class

suitable to be instantiated, as opposed to an abstract
class.
[FOLDOC]
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concrete syntax
<language> The concrete syntax of a language including all the

features visible in the source program such as parentheses
and delimiters. The concrete syntax is used when parsing
the program or other input, during which it is usually
converted into some kind of abstract syntax tree.
Compare: abstract syntax.
[FOLDOC]
27-10-2003
concretism
<metaphysics>
the view according to which only concrete things actually exist, and
there are no such things as actual universals. Both Aristotle
and Abelard are, in this sense of the word, concretists.
(References from individualism and physicalism).
[The Ism Book]
23-03-2001
concurrency
multitasking
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Condillac Etienne Bonnot de
<history of philosophy, biography> french philosopher and

clergyman (1715-1780); author of Logique (Logic) (1741),
Essai sur l' origine
des connaissances humaines (Essay on the Origins of Human
Knowledge) (1746), Traité des systémes (Treatise on Systems)
(1749), Traité des sensations (Treatise on Sense Perception)
(1754), Traité des animaux (Treatise on Animals) (1755), and
Langue des calculs (The Language of Numbers) (1777). As one of
the Encyclopedists, Condillac was the foremost French
popularizer of the empiricist philosophy of Locke.
Recommended Reading: Philosophical Writings of Etienne Bonnot,
Abbe De Condillac, ed. by Franklin Phillip (Erlbaum, 1987) and
Jacques Derrida, The Archeology of the Frivolous: Reading
Condillac, tr. by John P. Leavey (Nebraska, 1987).
27-10-2003
conditional
<philosophy of science, epistemology, logic> any statement of

the form: "If (antecedent), then (consequent)." Although
conditionals may have several uses in ordinary language, all
share at least the truth-functional structure of
material implication.
Recommended Reading: Anthony Appiah, Assertion and Conditionals
(Cambridge, 1985); Nelson Goodman, Fact, Fiction, and Forecast
(Harvard, 1983); Frank Jackson, Conditionals (Oxford, 1991); H.
McLaughlin, On the Logic of Ordinary Conditionals (SUNY, 1990);
and Michael Woods, Conditionals, ed. by David Wiggins and Dorothy
Edgington (Clarendon, 1997).
See implication.
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confirmation
<philosophy of science, epistemology, logic> the relationship

between empirical evidence and the scientific hypotheses it
is used to support. Although abductive reasoning can provide
only partial or incomplete support for such hypotheses, their
falsification by contadictory evidence can be absolute.
Hempel pointed out a systematic paradox regarding the nature
of confirming instances.
Recommended Reading: Karl R. Popper, Logic of Scientific Discovery
(Routledge, 1992); Richard Swinburne, An Introduction to
Confirmation Theory (Methuen, 1973); Lawrence Sklar, Probability
and Confirmation (Garland, 1999); and Induction, Probability, and
Confirmation, ed. by Maxwell Grover and Robert Anderson.
27-10-2003
Confucianism
<religion>
Confucianism derives its name from the great sage K' ung Fu Tzu or
Confucius (550-480 BC), who was in many ways the Chinese equivalent
of Socrates(470-399 BC). Confucianism is the main stream of Chinese
philosophy, just as Western philosophy is mostly in the Socratic
tradition. Although his views have been interpreted in various ways
throughout history, no one denies that the philosophy of Confucius
is a powerful variety of humanism. Herbert Fingarette' s book on
Confucius is subtitled "The Secular as Sacred". Confucius holds that
the most important, indeed sacred, aspect of life is our dealings
with other people, so that he puts a great emphasis on virtues like
honesty, justice, integrity, and so on. He provides a great many
insights about human relationships.
Sometimes, when
people talk about "Confucianism" they are referring not so much to
Confucius' actual views as to the way his writings were used by
later interpreters to justify reactionary political practices like
a large bureaucracy and the stratification of society. (References
from Buddhism, humanism,
Neo-Confucianism, and Taoism).
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conjunction
AND
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Conjunctive Normal Form
<logic> (CNF) A logical formula consisting of a

conjunction of disjunctions of terms where no disjunction
contains a conjunction. Such a formula might also be
described as a product of sums. E.g. the CNF of
(A and B) or C
is
(A or C) and (B or C).
Contrast Disjunctive Normal Form.
[FOLDOC]
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connected graph
<mathematics> A graph such that there is a path between any

pair of nodes (via zero or more other nodes).
Thus if we start from any node and visit all nodes connected
to it by a single edge, then all nodes connected to any of
them, and so on, then we will eventually have visited every
node in the connected graph.
[FOLDOC]
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connected subgraph
<mathematics> A connected graph consisting of a subset of

the nodes and edges of some other graph.
[FOLDOC]
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connectionism
a computational approach to modelling the brain which relies on the
interconnection of many simple units to produce
complex behaviour.
Connectionism has a number of important considerations for

the philosophy of mind. By positing connectionist models
as the best way to model human cognition, philosophers have
begun to see high level mental properties as "emergent
properties... that depend on lower-level phenomena in some
systematic way" (Churchland and Sejnowski, 1992, p.2).
These commitments have redefined for many the best way to
understand the nature of representation and computation
in the human mind. In his well known paper "On the proper
treatment of connectionism' , Paul Smolensky forwards a
connectionist (or subsymbolic) hypothesis in order to
capture these new ideas:
"The intuitive processor is a subconceptual connectionst

dynamical system that does not admit a complete, formal,
and precise conceptual-level description."
This commitment to a "subconceptual" level of description

of cognitive processes is a direct rejection of the
symbolicist(see symbolicism)
or GOFAI approach to human cognition.
Connectionist models can be classified by representational

commitments in two categories; distributed and localist.
Distributed representations are vectors
in a representational
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state space, and are processed simultaneously by many nodes

in a connectionist network. Localist models use individual
nodes to represent one entire concept such as "dog". In
general, distributed representations are more neurologically
realistic that localist representations. However, distributed
models are often far more complex and difficult to analyse
than localist models.
Critiques of connectionism have been forwarded by

dynamic systems theorists (dynamism), symbolicists
(symbolicism), and neuroscientists.
In particular, dynamic systems theorists claim that
connectionist models are unrealistically wedded to ideas of
representation and computation. Neuroscientists often note
the lack of neurological realism in connectionist networks.
These networks often have too little recursion, far too much
inhibition, unrealistic learning algorithms, simplistic
transfer functions, and no analog to the large number of
neurotransmitters and hormones which affect human cognition.
Symbolicists have taken a number of lines of argument. Fodor

and Pylyshyn (1988) have criticised connectionism as not being
able to support the systematic and productive natures of
human thought. As well, it is thought that the only role for
connectionist work is to provide a method for implementing a
symbolicist system in a manner similar to the brain. Thus,
the best level of description of human cognition remains at
the symbolic level. In recent years, however, a number of
connectionist models have been produced which shows these
criticisms to be questionable.
References
Connectionist Philosophy Biblio (http://ling.ucsc.edu/_chalmers/biblio4.html#4.3)
Neural Net Biblio (http://glimpse.cs.arizona.edu_1994/bib/Neural/index.html
Neural Parallel Archive (http://alumni.caltech.edu/_ingber/index.html
Jordan Pollack (http://www.cs.brandeis.edu/_pollack/index.html
Computer Science Technical Reports Archive (http://www.rdt.monash.edu.au/tr/siteslist.html
Churchland, P. S. and T. Sejnowski (1992).

The computational brain. Cambridge, MA, MIT Press.
Fodor, J. and Z. Pylyshyn (1988). "Connectionism and

cognitive architecture: A critical analysis" Cognition 28: 3-71.
Rumelhart, D. E. and J. L. McClelland, Ed. (1986).

Parallel distributed processing: Explorations in the
microstructure of cognition. Cambridge MA, MIT Press/Bradford Books.
See also connectionism history of
28-10-2003
connectionism history of
construed broadly, connectionism maintains that cognitive
processes are (implemented in) processes taking place in
networks of nerve cells. Thus construed, the history of
connectionism spans a wide range of research in numerous
disciplines over the course of centuries.
A central concern for connectionists is the idea that

we must "take the brain seriously" in our psychological
theorising. This idea, of course, dates to ancient Greek
speculations concerning the action of animal spirits in the
nervous system. Later, notable speculations may be found in
Rene Descartes" Treatise of Man (composed circa 1633, first
published posthumously in 1662) and David Hartley' s
Observations on Man (1749).
During the 19th Century, histologists developed staining
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and fixing techniques that enabled them to study the

microscopic structure of the brain. With this information,
the idea of taking the brain seriously took the form of
relating psychological processes to neuronal processes. The
existence of the nerve cell came to be widely accepted over
the course of the 1890' s. At this time, it was widely believed
that psychological processes were associative processes. A
long tradition of associationism was thus linked to theories
of neural networks by the supposition that the biological
correlate of the psychological process of association was
the formation or strengthening of synaptic connections between
neurons. Versions of late 19th Century neural network theorising
may be found in Herbert Spencer' s Principles of Psychology,
3rd edition (1872), Theodore Meynert' s Psychiatry (1884),
William James" Principles of Psychology (1890), and Sigmund
Freud' s Project for a Scientific Psychology (composed 1895).
Neural network theories with an associationist flavour were
quite common around the turn of the century, up into the 1930' s.
Beginning in the 1910' s, Karl Spencer Lashley began a series of

animal experiments aimed at determining the effects of brain
lesions. Lashley supposed that lesions would selectively remove
the neurons dedicated to specific tasks, hence destroy an animal' s
ability to perform those tasks. Rather than complete, selective
loss of abilities, Lashley found that degradation of task
performance was proportional to the amount of tissue removed.
(See, for example, Lashley, 1929.) These results led to a decline
in the popularity of neural network theories.
During the 1930' s, Nicolas Rashevsky proposed to use differential

equations and physical concepts, such as energy minimisation, to
describe how the behaviour of nerves and networks of nerves that
might be related to psychological processes, such as Pavlovian
conditioning. (See, for example, Rashevsky, 1931a, 1931b, 1935).
Rashevsky' s work was part of a larger project of developing a
mathematical biophysics that
would mirror the methods of mathematical
physics. Rashevsky was instrumental in bringing together Warren S.
McCulloch and Walter Pitts, who in 1943 published a seminal
contribution to many fields, "A Logical Calculus of Ideas Immanent
in Nervous Activity". This work described how networks of binary
threshold neurons might be described in terms of sentences of
first-order logic. Although popularly remembered
for having contributed
the idea that networks might carry out logical inferences,
McCulloch and Pitts were themselves more interested in the
description of networks
containing closed loops. This interest stemmed in part
from McCulloch' s
work in tracing neural pathways using strychnine neuronography.
Neuroscientific findings by Rafael Lorente de No also increased the
interest in closed neural circuits.
In 1949, Donald Olding Hebb, a student of Lashley' s, proposed a cell

assembly theory of cognition.
This version of connectionism was meant
to circumvent Lashley' s problematic lesion results by supposing that
the brain contains numerous redundant neural pathways spatially
distributed over relatively broad regions of the brain. In roughly
the same years, there was considerable neuroscientific investigation
of so-called "post-tetanic potentiation' . It had been found that a
large tetanic stimulation of a nerve innervating a muscle would lead
to an enhanced effect of the nerve on the muscle. This provided a
kind of confirmation of the hypothesis that learning at
the psychological
level might be realised by facilitation at the biological level. Sir
John Eccles, among others, pursued this line of research for over
two decades. This research is in some respects a precursor of the
current immense interest in so-called "long-term potentiation"
and "long-term depression".
(See, for example, Baudry & Davis, 1994).
During the 1950' s and 60' s, Frank Rosenblatt investigated

the properties of mathematically described neural networks
with modifiable connections, discovering the so-called "perceptron
convergence procedure" that could train a two-layer network
to compute any two-layer-network-computable function. In 1969,
Marvin Minsky and Seymour Papert published Perceptrons, a
critique of this sort of neural network model. This work
showed that two-layer networks were limited in the functions
they could compute, thereby providing a major cause for a
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decline in neural network research during the 1970' s.
During the late 1970' s, Geoffrey Hinton, James McClelland,

David Rumelhart, Paul Smolensky, and other members of the
"Parallel Distributed Processing Research Group" became
interested in neural network theories of cognition. Their
landmark Parallel Distributed Processing: Explorations in the
Microstructure of Cognition, (1986), marks the return of
connectionism as a significant theory of cognition. Where
previous strains of connectionism were more or less explicitly
linked with associationism or logical inference, the new
connectionism in PDP guise has been more cognitively eclectic,
suggesting that cognitive processes might be constraint
satisfaction processes, energy minimisation processes, or
pattern recognition processes. It has also been, in large
measure, defined, both by its supporters and opponents, in
relation to a computational theory of cognition. In this
regard, contemporary advocates of connectionism often endorse
a "subsymbolic paradigm" in contrast to the "symbolic paradigm"
of the computational theory of cognition.
References
Baudry, M., Davis, J. L. (1994) (Eds.). Long-Term Potentiation,

vol. 2. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Descartes, R. (1972, composed 1633). Treatise of man. Cambridge,

MA: Harvard University Press.
Freud, S. (1895). Project for a scientific psychology.

First published in Strachey, J. (ed.). The standard edition
of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud. London:
The Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psycho-Analysis.
Hartley, David. (1749). Observations on man, his frame, his

duty, and his expectations. London: S. Richardson.
Hebb, D. O. (1949). The organisation of behavior: A

neuropsychological approach. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
James, W. (1890). Principles of psychology. New York, NY: Holt.
Lashley, K. S. (1929). Brain mechanisms and intelligence: A

quantitative study of injuries to the brain. New York: Dover
Publications, Inc.
McCulloch, W. S., and Pitts, W. "A Logical Calculus of Ideas

immanent in Nervous Activity. Bulletin of mathematical
biophysics", 5, 115-133. Reprinted in McCulloch, W. S.,
Embodiments of mind. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Meynert, Theodore (1884). Psychiatry. trans. B. Sachs. New

York: G.P. Putnam' s Sons.
Minsky, M., and Papert, S. (1988). Perceptrons: An introduction

to computational geometry, expanded edition. Cambridge, MA:
MIT Press.
Rashevsky, N. (1931a). "Learning as a Property of Physical

Systems" Journal of general psychology, 5, 207-229.
Rashevsky, N. (1931b). "Possible brain mechanisms and their

physical models" Journal of General Psychology, 5, 368-406.
Rashevsky, N. (1935). "Outline of a physico-mathematical theory

of the brain" Journal of General Psychology, 13, 82-112.
Rosenblatt, F. (1962). Principles of neurodynamics: Perceptrons

and the theory of brain mechanisms. Washington, D.C.: Spartan Books.
Rumelhart, D., McClelland, J. L., and the PDP Research Group (1986).
Parallel distributed processing: Explorations in the microstructure
of cognition. vols. 1 & 2. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Spencer, Herbert. (1872). Principles of psychology, 3rd ed.

London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans.
Ken Aizawa
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connective
<logic>
A symbol that functions to join two or more propositions
into a compound
proposition. Sometimes applied to symbols (like "~" for
negation) which
apply only to one proposition at a time. Sometimes
applied to the function
denoted by the symbol, rather than the symbol itself.
A truth-functional connective is a truth-function; its
components are
its arguments and the truth-value of the compound it forms
is its value.
Truth-functional connectives that apply to
only one proposition
at a time are monadic;
those that join two propositions are dyadic; those that join
three are
triadic, and so on. Monadic connectives are also called
operators.
See truth-functional compound proposition
16-03-2001
connotation
<philosophy of science, linguistic> the associative meaning

of a term, including especially those features in virtue of which
the term is properly applied; see denotation / connotation.
Recommended Reading: Beatriz Garza-Cuaron, Connotation & Meaning
(De Gruyter, 1991).
28-10-2003
conscience
<philosophy, psychology> inner awareness of the difference

between right and wrong in one' s own actions, usually
understood as a divinely-inspired moral sense. Although
Aquinas noted that an individual conscience may err,
Butler held that it is the fundamental motive for
good conduct.
Recommended Reading: Joseph Butler, Fifteen Sermons on Human
Nature (Classworks, 1986) and James Q. Wilson, The Moral
Sense (Simon & Schuster, 1997).
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consciousness
self-awareness. Subjective experience. The way things
seem to us. Immediate phenomenological properties.
See also phenomenal consciousness, access consciousness
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consciousness objection
<epistemology, materialism, philosophy of science>

<artificial intelligence> an objection to materialism
that maintains that, since mentality is fundamentally
conscious and consciousness cannot be materialistically
explained or reduced, mentality is something (a property or
substance that is fundamentally immaterial. Also, an
objection to artificial intelligence that maintains that,
since consciousness cannot be mechanically (or
computationally) generated, that machines (or computers)
cannot think.
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consequence
semantic consequence, syntactic consequence
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consequent
<logic, philosophy of science> the element of a

conditional statement that states its outcome or result.
For example, "You' ll see me tomorrow" is theconsequent of
both: "If you come by the office, then you' ll see me tomorrow."
and "You' ll see me tomorrow, unless I see you first."
See implication
28-10-2003
consequentialism
<ethics>
any position in ethics which claims that the
moral rightness or wrongness of actions depends on
their consequences
and therefore that moral decisions should be made on
the basis of the expected outcome or consequences of the actions
involved. pragmatism and utilitarianism are common forms of
consequentialism. Consequentialist theories in ethics tend to
be varieties of altruism, although hedonism can be
represented as a coherent form of consequentialism.
The term has some connotations of
subjectivism, of deciding according to what the individual
merely thinks is expedient. "Consequentialism" is a technical
term in philosophy and is not used in popular discourse, where
pragmatism and utilitarianism are more common.
(References from altruism, pragmatism, and utilitarianism.)
Based on [The Ism Book] and [Ethics Glossary]
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consistency
<logic>
<philosophy of science, logic> feature of any formal system

from whose axioms no direct contradiction follows. The
customary proof of consistency is to show that there is at
least one interpretation of the system upon which all of
its axioms are true.
Recommended Reading: Richard C. Jeffrey, Formal Logic: Its Scope
and Limits (McGraw-Hill, 1990).
See absolute consistency, m-consistency,

omega-consistency, proof-theoretic consistency,
relative consistency proof, simple consistency
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consistently complete
boundedly complete
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constant
<logic>
A symbol whose referent has been fixed.
An abbreviation or name, as
opposed to a place-holder (a variable).
Individual constant
A symbol standing for an individual object

from the domain of a system.
Predicate constant
A symbol standing for an attribute or relation.
Propositional constant
A symbol standing for a proposition.
16-03-2001
constraint
<PI, mathematics> A Boolean relation, often an

equality or inequality relation, between the
values of one or
more variables (often two). E.g. x>3 is a constraint on x.
constraint satisfaction is the process of assigning values
to variables so that all constraints are true.
Usenet newsgroup: news:comp.constraints. FAQ

(http://web.cs.city.ac.uk/archive/constraints/constraints.html).
[FOLDOC]
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constraint satisfaction
<application> The process of assigning values to variables

while meeting certain requirements or "constraints". For
example, in graph colouring, a node is a variable, the
colour assigned to it is its value and a link between two
nodes represents the constraint that those two nodes must not
be assigned the same colour. In scheduling, constraints
apply to such variables as the starting and ending times for
tasks.
The Simplex method is one well known technique for solving

numerical constraints.
The search difficulty of constraint satisfaction problems can

be determined on average from knowledge of easily computed
structural properties of the problems. In fact, hard
instances of NP-complete problems are concentrated near an
abrupt transition between under- and over-constrained
problems. This transition is analogous to phase transitions
in physical systems and offers a way to estimate the likely
difficulty of a constraint problem before attempting to solve
it with search.
Phase transitions in search

(ftp://parcftp.xerox.com/pub/dynamics/constraints.html) (Tad
Hogg, XEROX PARC).
[FOLDOC]
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constructed type
A type formed by applying some type constructor function to

one or more other types. The usual constructions are
functions: t1 -> t2, products: (t1, t2), sums: t1 + t2 and
lifting: lift(t1).
See also algebraic data type, primitive type
[FOLDOC]
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constructive
<mathematics> A proof that something exists is "constructive"

if it provides a method for actually constructing it.
Cantor' s proof that thereal numbers are uncountable can
be thought of as a *non-constructive* proof that irrational
numbers exist. (There are easy constructive proofs, too; but
there are existence theorems with no known constructive
proof).
Obviously, all else being equal, constructive proofs are

better than non-constructive proofs. A few mathematicians
actually reject *all* non-constructive arguments as invalid;
this means, for instance, that the law of the excluded
middle (either P or not-P must hold, whatever P is) has to
go; this makes proof by contradiction invalid. See
intuitionistic logic for more information on this.
Most mathematicians are perfectly happy with non-constructive

proofs; however, the constructive approach is popular in
theoretical computer science, both because computer scientists
are less given to abstraction than mathematicians and because
intuitionistic logic turns out to be the right theory for a
theoretical treatment of the foundations of computer science.
[FOLDOC]
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constructive proof
<logic>
A proof that actually produces an example of that which it
proves to
exist (which might be a number, wff, function, proof,
etc. with certain properties).
See existence proof constructive
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constructor
<PI> 1. In functional programming and type

theory, one of the symbols used to create an object with an
algebraic data type.
2. A function provided by a class in C++ and some other

object-oriented languages to instantiate an object,
i.e. to name it and initialise it. The constructor function
has the same name as the class. A class may also have a
destructor function to destroy objects of that class.
[FOLDOC]
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container class
A class whose instances are collections of other objects.

Examples include stacks, queues, lists and arrays.
[FOLDOC]
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context
That which surrounds, and gives meaning to, something else.
<grammar> In a grammar it refers to the symbols before and

after the symbol under consideration. If the syntax of a
symbol is independent of its context, the grammar is said to
be context-free.
[FOLDOC]
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context clash
<grammar> When a parser cannot tell which alternative

production of a syntax applies by looking at the next
input token ("lexeme").
E.g. given syntax
C -> A | b c
A -> d | b e
If you' re parsing non

-terminal C and the next token is ' b' ,
you don' t know whether it' s the first or second alternative of
C since they both can start with b.
To discover whether a grammar has a context clash:
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For each non-terminal, N, with multiple alternatives, look at

the first symbol of each alternative' s right -hand side, call
it s. If s is the empty string, then find the set FOLLOWER(N)
otherwise find the set FIRST*(s). If any of the sets for N' s
alternatives intersect then there will be a context clash when
parsing N. If the next input symbol is one of those in the
intersection of two sets then you won' t know which of the
alternatives applies.
FIRST(s) is the set of symbols with which s can start,

including s itself. If s is a non-terminal then FIRST(s) also
includes the first symbol of each alternative right-hand side
of s. The ' *' in FIRST*(s) means thetransitive
" closure"
of FIRST which means keep applying FIRST to each element of
the result until the result doesn' t change. I.e. start with
just the set R = s, then for each non-terminal x in R, add
FIRST(x) to R. Keep doing this until nothing new is added.
(We are really only interested in the terminals in FIRST*(s)
but some definitions include the non-terminals).
FOLLOWER(N) is the set of symbols which can come after N in a

sentence. Find each occurrence of N on the right-hand side of
a rule, e.g.
M -> ... | ... N ... | ...
If there is a symbol s immediately following N then add

FIRST*(s) to the result (again, we' re only interested in the
terminal symbols in FIRST*(s)) if there is no symbol after N
in the alternative then add FOLLOWER(M) to the result (i.e. if
N can be the last symbol in an M then anything that can follow
M can also follow N).
If a grammar can generate the same sentence in multiple

different ways (with different parse tress) then it is
ambiguous. An ambiguity must start with a context clash (but
not all context clashes imply ambiguity). The context clash
occurs when trying to parse the first token of the phrase with
multiple parses - you will not be able to tell which
alternative to take. To see if a context clash is also a case
of ambiguity you would need to follow the alternatives
involved in each context clash to see if they can generate the
same complete sequence of tokens.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
context-free
Said of a grammar where the syntax of each constituent is

independent of the symbols occurring before and after it in a
sentence. Parsers for such grammars are simpler than those
for context-dependent grammars because the parser need only
know the current symbol.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
continence - incontinence
<philosophy, ethics> distinction between modes of human action

in the ethics of Aristotle. A continent agent is able to
carry out actions that conform to the demands of reason,
while an incontinent agent is overcome by desire and said to
suffer from weakness of the will.
Recommended Reading: Nichomachean Ethics, tr. by Terence Irwin
(Hackett, 1985); Robert Dunn, The Possibility of Weakness of Will
(Hackett, 1987); and Anthony Kenny, Aristotle' s Theory of the
Will (Yale, 1979).
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28-10-2003
contingency
<logic>
In truth-functional propositional logic, any proposition
that is neither
a tautology nor a contradiction, hence any proposition that
is sometimes
true, sometimes false, depending on the row of its truth
table column or the
interpretation.
16-03-2001
contingent
<logic, ontology>
a sentence proposition, thought or judgement is contingent
if it is true of this actual world, though it is not true in all
possible worlds. Some philosophers claim that contingent
a posterori, and synthetic are equivalent, holding that the
notion of synthetic explains the other two. necessary
28-10-2003
continuous function
<logic, mathematics> A function f : D -> E,

where D and E are cpos,
is continuous if it is monotonic and
f (lub Z) = lub f z | z in Z
for all directed sets Z in D. In other words, the image of

the lub is the lub of any directed image.
All additive functions (functions which preserve all lubs)

are continuous. A continuous function has a least fixed
point if its domain has a least element, bottom (i.e. it
is a cpo or a "pointed cpo" depending on your definition of a
cpo). The least fixed point is
fix f = lub f^n bottom | n = 0..infinity
28-10-2003
continuum
<logic>
The numerical continuum is the series of real numbers;
the linear
continuum is the series of points on a geometrical line.
16-03-2001
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continuum hypothesis
<logic>
There is no cardinal, a, such that
aleph0 < a < c, where c is the cardinality
of the continuum. Proving or disproving the continuum
hypothesis was the
first problem on Hilbert' s famous list of problems in 1900.
Goedel (1938) and
Cohen (1963) have proved that it is neither provable nor
disprovable from
standard set theory. Usually abbreviated to CH.
Generalized continuum hypothesis
For every transfinite cardinal, a, there is no cardinal b

such that a < b2â. Usually abbreviated to GCH.
16-03-2001
contraction
reduction
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contradiction
<logic>
1. The conjunction of any proposition and its negation,
2. In truth-functional propositional logic, the

negation of any tautology, hence
any proposition that is false in every row of its truth table
or in every
interpretation.
See contingency
16-03-2001
contradictories
<philosophy of science, logic> a pair of

categorical propositions, each of which is true
if and only if iff the other is false. In the traditional
square of opposition, an A proposition and its corresponding
O proposition are contradictories, as are an E proposition
and its corresponding I proposition. Thus, for example: "All
dogs are mammals and Some dogs are not mammals" are
contradictories, as are "No fish are tuna and Some fish are
tuna."
28-10-2003
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contraposition
<philosophy of science, logic> the reciprocal relationship

between two categorical propositions of the same form such
that the subject term of each is the complement of the
predicate term of the other. Contraposition is a valid
immediate inference for both A and O propositions. Thus,
for example: "All voters are citizens and All non-citizens are
non-voters", "Some ants are not biters and Some non-biters are
not non-ants" are legitimate cases of contraposition.
28-10-2003
contraries
<philosophy of science, logic> a pair of

categorical propositions which (provided that we assume
existential import) cannot both be true, but can both be
false. In the traditional square of opposition, an
A proposition and its corresponding E proposition are
contraries. Thus, for example: "All cars are green and No
cars are green are contraries."
28-10-2003
control flow
<PI> (Or "flow of control") The sequence of execution

of instructions in a program. This is determined at run-time
by the input data and by the control structures (e.g. "if"
statements) used in the program.
Not to be confused with "flow control".
[FOLDOC]
28-10-2003
conventionalism
<ethics, epistemology>
technical term for a form of subjectivism
(or relativism) which holds that truth, good, and beauty are
merely a matter of social convention. Conventionalism is a social
kind of subjectivistic theory (the usual understanding is that the
word "convention" does not refer to the beliefs or values of
individuals, only of groups). In popular meaning, however,
conventionalism refers to a person' s tendency to adhere to or
have regard for what is customary (in thought or action).
(References from logical positivism, nominalism, and
subjectivism.)
[The Ism Book]
23-03-2001
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converse
<logic> the truth of a proposition of the

form A => B and its
converse B => A are shown in the following truth table:
A B | A => B B => A
------+----------------
ff|tt
ft|tf
tf|ft
tt|tt
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
converse accident
<philosophy of science, logic> the informal fallacy of using

exceptional specific cases as the basis for a general rule,
omitting reference to their qualifying features. Example: "It
rained on my birthday this year and it rained on my birthday
last year. Therefore, it always rains on my birthday."
(a dictum secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter).
28-10-2003
conversion
<philosophy of science, logic> the reciprocal relationship

between two categorical propositions of the same form such
that the subject term of each is the predicate term of the
other. Conversion is a valid immediate inference for both
E and I propositions. Thus, for example: "No snakes are mammals
and No mammals are snakes", like "Some carnivors are birds and
Some birds are carnivors" are each the converse of the other.
28-10-2003
Conway Anne Finch
<history of philosophy, biography> english philosopher

(1631-1679);
author of Principia philosophiae antiquissimae et recentissimae
de Deo, Christo & Creatura (The Principles of the Most Ancient
and Modern Philosophy) (1690). A student of Henry More, she
engaged in a lengthy correspondence with Leibniz, who borrowed
her use of the term, "monad." Conway developed and defended
a monistic system in which all beings are modes of God, the
one and only spiritual substance.
Recommended Reading: The Conway Letters: The Correspondence of
Anne, Viscountess Conway, Henry More, and Their Friends,
1642-1684, ed. by Marjorie Hope Nicolson (Clarendon, 1992) and
Women Philosophers of the Early Modern Period, ed. by Margaret
Atherton (Hackett, 1994).
28-10-2003
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coordinate
<mathematics> One member of a tuple of numbers which defines

the position of a point in some space. Commonly used
coordinate systems have as many coordinates as their are
dimensions in the space, e.g. a pair for two dimensions. The
most common coordinate system is Cartesian coordinates,
probably followed by polar coordinates.
[FOLDOC]
28-10-2003
Copernicus Nicolas
<history of philosophy, biography> (1473-1543)

polish astronomer whose De
Revolutionibus Orbium Caelestium (About the Revolutions of the
Heavenly Spheres) (1543) proposed a heliocentric view of the
universe. Copernicus argued that geocentric astronomies,
with their complex appeals to epicyclic motion in the planets,
should not be regarded as scientific. His own explanation,
in terms of circular motion about the sun, was a much more
simple (if somewhat less accurate) way of accounting for the
observed facts.
Recommended Reading: Alexandre Koyre, Astronomical Revolution:
Copernicus-Kepler-Borelli (Dover, 1992) and Thomas S. Kuhn, The
Copernican Revolution: Planetary Astronomy in the Development
of Western Thought (Harvard, 1957).
29-10-2003
copyright
<computer ethics> The exclusive rights of the owner of the copyright on

a work to make and distribute copies, prepare derivative
works, and perform and display the work in public (these last
two mainly apply to plays, films, dances and the like, but
could also apply to software).
A work, including a piece of software, is under copyright by

default in most countries, whether of not it displays a
copyright notice. However, a copyright notice may make it
easier to assert ownership. The copyright owner is the person
or company whose name appears in the copyright notice on the
box, or the disk or the screen or wherever.
A copyright notice has three parts. The first can be either a

c with a circle around it (LaTeX copyright), or the word
Copyright or the abbreviation Copr. A "c" in parentheses:
"(c)" has no legal meaning. This is followed by the name of
the copyright holder and the year of first publication.
Countries around the world have agreed to recognise and uphold

each others' copyrights, but this world-wide protection
requires the use of the c in a circle.
Originally, most of the computer industry assumed that only

the program' s underlying instructions were protected under
copyright law but, beginning in the early 1980s, a series of
lawsuits involving the video screens of game programs extended
protections to the appearance of programs.
Use of copyright to restrict redistribution is actually

immoral, unethical, and illegitimate. It is a result of
brainwashing by monopolists and corporate interests and it
violates everyone' s rights. Copyrights and patents hamper
technological progress by making a naturally abundant resource
scarce. Many, from communists to right wing libertarians, are
trying to abolish intellectual property myths.
See also public domain, copyleft, software law.
file://C:\_ 04/06/00
US Copyright Office Circular 61 - Copyright Registration for

Computer Programs
(gopher://marvel.loc.gov:70/0/copyright/circs/circ61).
The US Department of Education' s "How Does Copyright Law

Apply to Computer Software"
(gopher://ericir.syr.edu:70/0/FAQ/CopyrightSoftware).
Usenet newsgroup: news:misc.legal.computing.
[FOLDOC]
29-10-2003
Cordemoy
<history of philosophy, biography> french philosopher and

early follower of Descartes (1622-1684). In his efforts to resolve
Cartesian difficulties with the unobservable interaction of
mind and body in his Le discernment du corps et de l' aime
(The Mind-Body Distinction) (1666), Cordemoy noted how
commonly the two elements of any human being fail to
correspond with each other.
Recommended Reading: GÈraud de Cordemoy, A Philosophical
Discourse Concerning Speech (Scholars' Facsimilies, 1999).
29-10-2003
corpuscularianism
<history of philosophy, natural philosophy> seventeenth century

physical theory that supposed all matter to be composed of
minute particles. Corpuscularians included Gassendi,
Boyle, and Locke.
Recommended Reading: Peter Alexander, Ideas, Qualities and
Corpuscles: Locke and Boyle on the External World (Cambridge,
1983); Robert Boyle on Natural Philosophy, ed. by Marie Boas
Hall (Greenwood, 1980); and The Concept of Matter in Modern
Philosophy, ed. by Ernan McMullan (Notre Dame, 1969).
29-10-2003
correspondence theory of truth
<logic, epistemology, truth theories>

a correspondence theory of truth includes the assertion
that a sentence (or proposition) is true if and only
if that which the sentence expresses corresponds to
the "facts" or to "reality".
The correspondence theory may be analysed into three

components (following, e.g., Devitt (1984)).
Sentences of a type x are true or false in virtue of:
(i) their structure
(ii) the referential relations between parts of

the sentences and some reality, and
(iii) the nature of this reality.
The analysis is restricted to sentences of type x

so as to allow the correspondence theory to hold of
some sentences (e.g., of the type "physics") while
not of others (e.g., of the type "ethics"). (ii)
concerns the nature of the referential relation, and
various theories have been proposed, e.g. causal accounts
(Dretske, Stampe, Putnam, Kripke), teleofunctional
accounts (Millikan), and descriptive accounts. (iii)
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concerns the nature of the reality to which the parts

of the sentences correspond. A realist will hold that
this reality is objective and mind-independent.
An idealist may hold that it is objective yet not
mind-independent. Obviously, many flavours are available.
References
Devitt, Michael (1984). Realism and Truth.

Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Whit Schonbein
16-03-2001
corresponding argument or derivation
<logic>
Every conditional statement, A
=>B, can be re-expressed as a derivation, A |- B, called
the corresponding argument or derivation of the conditional.
16-03-2001
corresponding conditional
<logic>
Every derivation, A1, A2,...An
therefore B, can
be re-expressed as a conditional statement, (A1 o A2 o
...o An)
=>B, called
the corresponding conditional of the argument.
16-03-2001
cosmological arguments
<metaphysics, scholasticism, possible, necessary>

<a posteriori, existence of God> arguments purporting to
prove the existence of God a posteriori from the fact
of the existence of the universe or of certain
properties of the universe and things. Aquinas' "five
ways" include arguments from the existence of, the
efficient causal order of, and the motion of the
universe, to the existence of a first cause thereof, which
he identifies with God.
29-10-2003
countable
<mathematics> A term describing a set which is isomorphic

to a subset of the natural numbers. A countable set has
"countably many" elements. If the isomorphism is stated
explicitly then the set is called "a counted set" or "an
enumeration".
Examples of countable sets are any finite set, the natural

numbers, integers, and rational numbers. The real
numbers and complex numbers are not.
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See also uncountable set
[FOLDOC]
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countably many
countable
00-00-0000
counted
<mathematics> A term describing a set with an explicit

isomorphism to the natural numbers.
See countable.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
counter-example
<logic>
an example which undermines or refutes

the principle or theory against which it is advanced.
Note that examples can illustrate, explain and support
a theory but not prove it, whereas counter-examples can refute it.
16-03-2001
counterfactual
<philosophy of science, logic> a conditional statement whose

antecedent is known (or, at least, believed) to be contrary to
fact. Thus, for example, "If George Bush had been
born in Idaho, then he would never have become President." Unlike
material implications, counterfactuals are not made true by
the falsity of their antecedents. Although they are not
truth-functional statements, counterfactuals may be
significant for the analysis of scientific hypotheses.
Recommended Reading: Igal Kvart, A Theory of Counterfactuals
(Ridgeview, 1986) and David K. Lewis, Counterfactuals (Blackwell,
2000).
29-10-2003
coupling
<PI, hardware> The degree to which components depend

on one another. There are two types of coupling, "tight" and
"loose". Loose coupling is desirable for good software
engineering but tight coupling may be necessary for maximum
performance. Coupling is increased when the data exchanged
between components becomes larger or more complex.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
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courage
<philosophy, ethics> willingness to take reasonable risks in

pursuit of a worthwhile goal. According to Plato, courage is
vital for both social and personal embodiments of virtue.
Recommended Reading: Walter T. Schmid, On Manly Courage: A Study
of Plato' s Laches (Southern Illinois, 1992).
29-10-2003
creativity
<philosophy of mind, philosophy of AI> creativity is an acid test for artificial intelligence and cognitive science. If
computers cannot be creative, then (a) they cannot be intelligent, and (b) people are not machines. However,
the standard arguments against machine intelligence are not convincing.
Issues in computers and creativity include: Can computers be creative? Can they help us understand human
creativity? How can they best enhance human creativity? What would the implications be for AI and cognitive
science if computers could not be creative? This entry limits itself to two initial questions: Why is creativity
important for AI and cognitive science? and How convincing are the standard arguments against machine
creativity?
Haugeland, J. (1985). Artificial Intelligence: The Very Idea, MIT/Bradford Books, Cambridge. Mass;
Dartnall, T. (ed.) (1994). Artificial Intelligence and Creativity: an Interdisciplinary Approach, Kluwer, Dordrecht.
Boden, M. (1990). The Creative Mind: Myths and Mechanisms, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London. Revised
edition, 1992, Cardinal, London. (Precis, with peer reviews, in Behavioural and Brain Sciences, 17.3, 1994.)
16-03-2001
Crescas Hasdai ben Abraham
<history of philosophy, biography> jewish poet and philosopher (1340-1412). An outspoken opponent of the
Aristotelian philosophy of Maimonides and Gersonides, Crescas argued in Or Adonai (The Light of the Lord)
(1410) that happiness is to be achieved in mystical union with God rather than through the application of
human reason. His work was a significant influence on that of Spinoza.
Hasdai Crescas, The Refutation of the Christian Principles, tr. by Daniel J. Lasker (SUNY, 1992);
Harry Austryn Wolfson, Crescas' s Critique of Aristotle: Problems of Aristotle' s Physics in Jewish and Arab
Philosophy (Cambridge, 1929);
Warren Zev Harvey, Physics and Metaphysics in Hasdai Crescas (Benjamin' s, 1999).
29-10-2003
criptography
<spelling> It' s spelled cryptography".

"
16-03-2001
crisp
<logic> (Or "discrete") The opposite of "fuzzy".
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
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criterion - criteria
<philosophy of science, logic> a standard by means of which to judge the features of things. Possession of
appropriate criteria necessarily constitutes adequate evidence for our attribution of the feature in question.
Thus, as Wittgenstein noted, for example, observation of writhing and groaning are criteria for our belief that
someone is in pain.
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Blue and Brown Books (Harpercollins, 1986);

Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, tr. by G. E. M. Anscombe (Prentice Hall, 1999);
John V. Canfield, Wittgenstein, Language and the World (Massachusetts, 1981).
29-10-2003
critical theory
<history of philosophy, philosophy> the theoretical approach of the Frankfurt School of social philosophers.
Relying on the work of Hegel and Marx, they tried to exhibit dialectically the contradictions imposed upon
modern human beings by varieties of social organization that abuse formal rationality in order to deny power to
classes of citizens. Rejecting the detached insularity of traditional efforts at objectivity, critical theorists of any
sort generally hope that their explanation of the causes of oppression will result in practical efforts to eliminate
it.
Max Horkheimer, Critical Theory, tr. by Mathew J. O' Connell (Continuum, 1975);
David Held, Introduction to Critical Theory: Horkheimer to Habermas (California, 1981);
Hauke Brunkhorst, Adorno and Critical Theory (U of Wales, 1999);
Ben Agger, Critical Social Theory: An Introduction (Westview, 1998).
29-10-2003
Croce Benedetto
<history of philosophy, biography> (1866-1952) italian philosopher whose Estetica come scienza
dell' espressione e linguistica generale (The Aesthetic as the Science of Expression and of the Linguistic in
General) (1902) proposed a non-cognitivist account of artistic intuition as an expression of personal creativity.
In Materialismo storico ed economia marxista (Historical Materialism and the Economics of Karl Marx) (1914)
and Teoria e storia della storiografia (Theory and History of Historiography) (1921), Croce defended an
understanding of history akin to that of Hegel. He was also an outspoken critic of the Fascist movement.
Benedetto Croce, My Philosophy, and Other Essays on the Moral and Political Problems of Our Time, tr. and
ed. by Raymond Klibansky and E. F. Carritt (AMS, 1977);
Thought, Action and Intuition: A Symposium on the Philosophy of Benedetto Croce (Lubrecht & Cramer, 1976).
29-10-2003
CRS
conceptual role semantics
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Cudworth Ralph
<history of philosophy, biography> english philosopher (1617-1688). His True Intellectual System of the
Universe (1678) and Eternal and Immutable Morality (1731) are excellent expositions of Cambridge Platonism
in opposition to the mechanistic philosophy of Hobbes. Cudworth' s daughter,Damaris Masham, also became
an influential philosopher.
Frederick James Powicke, Cambridge Platonists (Greenwood, 1955).
29-10-2003
cultural relativism
<anthropology, aestethics, ethics, subjectivism, relativism> moral theory that holds that what' sgood or bad or
right or wrong varies from society to society depending on what each society says to be, or believes to be,
good or bad or right or wrong. See:ethical relativism. Compare subjectivism.
29-10-2003
Cumberland Richard
<history of philosophy, biography> english philosopher (1631-1718). Cumberland opposed the ethical egoism
of Hobbes in his De Legibus Naturae Disquisitio Philosophica (Treatise of the Laws of Nature) (1672), arguing
that a universal benevolence motivates each human being to seek the happiness of all, leaving no room for the
exercise of free will.
Jon Parkin, Science, Religion and Politics in Restoration England: Richard Cumberland' s De Legibus Nature
(Royal Historical Society, 1999).
29-10-2003
curried function
<mathematics, programming> A function of N arguments can be considered as a function of one argument

which returns another function of N-1 arguments. E.g. in Haskell we can define:
average :: Int -> (Int -> Int)
(The parentheses are optional). A partial application of average, e.g. (average 4), is a function of type (Int ->
Int) which averages its argument with 4. In uncurried languages a function must always be applied to all its
arguments but a partial application can be represented using a lambda abstraction:
x -> average(4,x)
Currying is necessary if full laziness is to be applied to functional sub-expressions.

It was named after the logician Haskell Curry but the 19th-century formalist Frege was the first to propose it
and it was first referred to in ["Ueber die Bausteine der mathematischen Logik", M. Schoenfinkel,
Mathematische Annalen. Vol 92 (1924)].
David Turner said he got the term from Christopher Strachey who invented the term "currying" and used it in
his lecture notes on programming languages written circa 1967. Strachey also remarked that it ought really to
be called "Schoenfinkeling".
Stefan Kahrs reported hearing somebody in Germany trying to introduce "scho"nen" for currying and "finkeln"
for "uncurrying". The verb "scho"nen" means "to beautify"; "finkeln" isn' t a German word, but it suggests "to
fiddle".
["Some philosophical aspects of combinatory logic", H. B. Curry, The Kleene Symposium, Eds. J. Barwise, J.
Keisler, K. Kunen, North Holland, 1980, pp. 85-101]
[FOLDOC]
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currying
Turning an uncurried function into a curried function.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
Cusa Nicolas of
<history of philosophy, biography> german theologian (1400-1464); author of De docta ingnorantia (Of Learned
Ignorance) (1440) and De visione dei (Of the Vision of God) (1554). Cusa' s late exposition of neoplatonic
philosophy, according to which all contradictions are unified in the infinite divine nature, was greatly influential
on major figures of the Renaissance.
Jasper Hopkins, A Concise Introduction to the Philosophy of Nicholas of Cusa (Banning, 1986);
Karl Jaspers and Hannah Arendt, Anselm and Nicholas of Cusa, tr. by Ralph Manheim (Harcourt Brace, 1974);
and Jasper Hopkins, Nicholas of Cusa' s Metaphysic of Contraction (Banning, 1983).
29-10-2003
cybernetics
<robotics> The comparative study of the internal workings of organic and machine processes in order to
understand their similarities and differences. Cybernetics often refers to machines that imitate human
behaviour.
See artificial intelligence, robot.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
cyberpunk
/si:' ber
-puhnk/ (Originally coined by SF writer Bruce Bethke and/or editor Gardner Dozois) A subgenre of SF
launched in 1982 by William Gibson' s epoch -making novel "Neuromancer" (though its roots go back through
Vernor Vinge' s "True Names" to John Brunner' s 1975 novel "The Shockwave Rider"). Gibson' s near -total
ignorance of computers and the present-day hacker culture enabled him to speculate about the role of
computers and hackers in the future in ways hackers have since found both irritatingly na"ive and
tremendously stimulating. Gibson' s work was widely imitated, in particular by the short -lived but innovative
"Max Headroom" TV series. See cyberspace, ice, jack in, go flatline.
Since 1990 or so, popular culture has included a movement or fashion trend that calls itself "cyberpunk",
associated especially with the rave/techno subculture. Hackers have mixed feelings about this. On the one
hand, self-described cyberpunks too often seem to be shallow trendoids in black leather who have substituted
enthusiastic blathering about technology for actually learning and *doing* it. Attitude is no substitute for
competence. On the other hand, at least cyberpunks are excited about the right things and properly respectful
of hacking talent in those who have it. The general consensus is to tolerate them politely in hopes that they' ll
attract people who grow into being true hackers.
[Jargon File]
[FOLDOC]
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cybersex
<networking> Sex performed in real time via a digital medium.
[FOLDOC]
29-10-2003
cyberspace
<jargon> /si:' ber

-spays/
1. (Coined by William Gibson) Notional "information-space" loaded with visual cues and navigable with brain-
computer interfaces called "cyberspace decks"; a characteristic prop of cyberpunk SF. In 1991 serious efforts
to construct virtual reality interfaces modelled explicitly on Gibsonian cyberspace were already under way,
using more conventional devices such as glove sensors and binocular TV headsets. Few hackers are
prepared to deny outright the possibility of a cyberspace someday evolving out of the network (see network).
2. Occasionally, the metaphoric location of the mind of a person in hack mode. Some hackers report
experiencing strong eidetic imagery when in hack mode; interestingly, independent reports from multiple
sources suggest that there are common features to the experience. In particular, the dominant colours of this
subjective "cyberspace" are often grey and silver, and the imagery often involves constellations of marching
dots, elaborate shifting patterns of lines and angles, or moire patterns.
[Jargon File]
[FOLDOC]
29-10-2003
cycle
<unit> A basic unit of computation, one period of a computer clock.

Each instruction takes a number of clock cycles. Often the computer can access its memory once on every
clock cycle, and so one speaks also of "memory cycles".
Every hacker wants more cycles (noted hacker Bill Gosper describes himself as a "cycle junkie"). There are
only so many cycles per second, and when you are sharing a computer the cycles get divided up among the
users. The more cycles the computer spends working on your program rather than someone else' s, the faste
your program will run. That' s why every hacker wants more cycles: so he can spend less time waiting for the
computer to respond.
The use of the term "cycle" for a computer clock period can probably be traced back to the rotation of a
generator generating alternating current though computers generally use a clock signal which is more like a
square wave.
Interestingly, the earliest mechanical calculators, e.g. Babbage' sDifference Engine, really did have parts which
rotated in true cycles.
29-10-2003
cynicism
<ethics> the word comes from a group of thinkers in ancient Greece who were called Cynics, from the Greek
word for "dog". The Cynics held that pure virtue is the only good, and they cultivated an asceticism more
rigorous than that of Epicureanism or stoicism. Because of their independence from worldly concerns, they
were critical of the rest of society and of conventional morality, somewhat akin to exponents of the skepticism
that was arising around the same time.
The most famous Cynic was Diogenes (412-323 B.C.), who so faithfully put his ideas into practice that,
according to legend, he took to living in a bathtub. It is often reported that, when Alexander the Great came to
visit him in search of wisdom, and inquired if there was anything the great leader could do for him, Diogenes
replied that, yes, there was: Alexander could move aside and stop blocking his sunshine. It is often forgotten
that Alexander replied that, had he not been Alexander, he would have liked to be Diogenes.
In common usage, cynicism often denotes a combination of skepticism and pessimism.
[The Ism Book]
29-10-2003
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dagger function
<logic > The dyadic connective or truth function "neither/nor". One of only two dyadic connectives capable of
expressing all truth functions by itself.
Notation: p |/ q. Also called joint denial.
See also stroke function
16-03-2001
Daly Mary
<history of philosophy, biography> american philosopher and theologian (1928-).
Author of Pure Lust: Elemental Feminist Philosophy (1984) and the autobiographical Outercourse: The Be-
Dazzling Voyage: Containing Recollections from My Logbook of a Radical Feminist Philosopher (be-ing an
account of my time/space travels and ideas - then, again, now, and how) (1992). Reacting against her early
training in neo-Thomist theology, Daly' s early work, in The Church and the Second Sex (1968) and Beyond
God the Father: Toward a Philosophy of Women' s Liberation (1973), noted that the Christian tradition helps to
support patriarchal society and explicitly rejected its conception of a supreme male deity. Daly went on to
develop an ethical position that regards woman-centered self-creation as the primary means of escaping male
domination, and in Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism (1978) she proposed that the life forces
embodied in women can achieve their full effect only in a separate women' s culture. In an effort to escape the
linguistic embodiment of patriarchy, Daly often expresses herself by using inventive neologisms that are playful
in tone but serious in purpose; Webster' s First New Intergalactic Wickedary of the English Language (1987
offers a delightful glimpse of the advantages of a "gynomorphic" language.
Recommended Reading: Mary Daly, Quintessence... Realizing the Archaic Future: A Radical Elemental
Feminist Manifesto (Beacon, 1999);
Feminist Interpretations of Mary Daly, ed. by Sarah Lucia Hoagland and Marilyn Frye (Penn. State, 2000).
11-11-2001
darii
form may be designated as AII-1. Example: All logicians are philosophers, and some serious scholars are
logicians, so some serious scholars are philosophers. This is one of the fifteen forms in which syllogisms are
always valid.
12-11-2001
Darwin Charles
<history of biology, biography, history of philosophy> english biologist (1809-1882) who recorded his notes
from the field in The Voyage of the Beagle (1848). Darwin' s Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection
(1859) and The Descent of Man (1871) revolutionized modern science by proposing a non-teleological
explanation for the survival of otherwise random variations in animal species. Despite opposition from biblical
literalists, a Darwinian version of the theory of evolution became widely accepted within a few decades.
The Portable Darwin, ed. by Duncan M. Porter and Peter W. Graham (Penguin, 1993);
Daniel C. Dennett, Darwin' s Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life (Touchstone, 1996);
Janet Radcliffe Richards, Human Nature After Darwin: A Philosophical Introduction (Routledge, 2001);
The Book of Life: An Illustrated History of the Evolution of Life on Earth, ed. by Stephen Jay Gould and Peter
Andrews (Norton, 2001);
Gertrude Himmelfarb, Darwin and the Darwinian Revolution (Dee, 1996).
12-11-2001
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dasein
<ontology,history of philosophy> Heidegger' s German term for "Being

-there," the kind of existence that self-
conscious human beings uniquely possess.
Being and Time: A Translation of Sein and Zeit, tr. by Joan Stambaugh (SUNY, 1997)
Hubert L. Dreyfus, Being-In-The-World: A Commentary on Heidegger' s Being and Time, Division I (MIT, 1991).
12-11-2001
data
<data, data processing,jargon> /day' t*/ (Or "raw data") Numbers, characters, images, or other method o
recording, in a form which can be assessed by a human or (especially) input into a computer, stored and
processed there, or transmitted on some digital channel. Computers nearly always represent data in binary.
Data on its own has no meaning, only when interpreted by some kind of data processing system does it take
on meaning and become information.
People or computers can find patterns in data to perceive information, and information can be used to enhance
knowledge. Since knowledge is prerequisite to wisdom, we always want more data and information. But, as
modern societies verge on information overload, we especially need better ways to find patterns.
1234567.89 is data.
"Your bank balance has jumped 8087% to $1234567.89" is information.
"Nobody owes me that much money" is knowledge.
"I' d better talk to the bank before I spend it, because of what has happened to other people" is wisdom.
[FOLDOC]
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data abstraction
abstract data type
17-02-2004
data dictionary
A data structure that stores meta-data, i.e. data about data. The term "data dictionary" has several uses.
Most generally it is a set of data descriptions that can be shared by several applications.
Usually it means a table in a database that stores the names, field types, length, and other characteristics of
the fields in the database tables.
An active data dictionary is automatically updated as changes occur in the database. A passive data dictionary
must be manually updated.
In a DBMS, this functionality is performed by the system catalog. The data dictionary is a more general
software utility used by designers, users, and administrators for information resource management.
The data dictionary may maintain information on system hardware, software, documentation, users, and other
aspects.
Data dictionaries are also used to document the database design process itself and can accumulate meta-data
ready to feed into the system catalog.
[FOLDOC]
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data dictionary file
<database> (DDF) A set of files describing the structure of a database file. DDFs define database tables and
include information about file locations, field layouts and indexes. DDFs are the standard method for defining
field and index characteristics for Btrieve files.
[FOLDOC]
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data flow
<database> A data flow architecture or language performs a computation when all the operands are available.
Data flow is one kind of data driven architecture, the other is demand driven. It is a technique for specifying
parallel computation at a fine-grain level, usually in the form of two-dimensional graphs in which instructions
that are available for concurrent execution are written alongside each other while those that must be executed
in sequence are written one under the other. Data dependencies between instructions are indicated by directed
arcs. Instructions do not reference memory since the data dependence arcs allow data to be transmitted
directly from the producing instruction to the consuming one.
Data flow schemes differ chiefly in the way that they handle re-entrant code. Static schemes disallow it,
dynamic schemes use either "code copying" or "tagging" at every point of re-entry.
An example of a data flow architecture is MIT' s VAL machine.
[FOLDOC]
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data flow analysis
<PI> A process to discover the dependencies between different data items manipulated by a program. The
order of execution in a data driven language is determined solely by the data dependencies. For example,
given the equations
1. X = A + B
2. B = 2 + 2
3. A = 3 + 4
a data-flow analysis would find that 2 and 3 must be evaluated before 1. Since there are no data dependencies
between 2 and 3, they may be evaluated in any order, including in parallel.
This technique is implemented in hardware in some pipelined processors with multiple functional units. It allows
instructions to be executed as soon as their inputs are available, independent of the original program order.
[FOLDOC]
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Data Flow Diagram
<data> A graphical notation used to describe how data flows between processes in a system. An important tool
of most structured analysis techniques.
[FOLDOC]
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data glove
<hardware,virtual reality> An input device for virtual reality in the form of a glove which measures the
movements of the wearer' s fingers and transmits them to the computer. Sophisticated data gloves also
measure movement of the wrist and elbow. A data glove may also contain control buttons or act as an output
device, e.g. vibrating under control of the computer. The user usually sees a virtual image of the data glove
and can point or grip and push objects.
Examples are Fifth Dimension Technologies (5DT)' s5th Glove, and Virtual Technologies' CyberGlove. A
cheaper alternative is InWorld VR' s CyberWand.
["Full freedom plus input", PC Magazine, Mar 14 1995, pp. 168-190].
[Inventor?]
[FOLDOC]
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data hierarchy
<data> The system of data objects which provide the methods for information storage and retrieval. Broadly, a
data hierarchy may be considered to be either natural, which arises from the alphabet or syntax of the
language in which the information is expressed, or machine, which reflects the facilities of the computer, both
hardware and software.
A natural data hierarchy might consist of bits, characters, words, phrases, sentences, paragraphs, and
chapters. One might use components bound to an application, such as field, record, and file, and these would
ordinarily be further specified by having data descriptors such as name field, address field, etc. On the other
hand, a machine or software system might use bit, byte, word, block, partition, channel, and port.
Programming languages often provide types or objects which can create data hierarchies of arbitrary
complexity, thus allowing software system designers to model language structures described by the linguist to
greater or lesser degree.
The distinction between the natural form of data and the facilities provided by the machine may be obscure,
because users force their needs into the molds provided, and programmers change machine designs. As an
example, the natural data type "character" and the machine type "byte" are often used interchangeably,
because the latter has evolved to meet the need of representing the former.
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data mining
<database> Analysis of data in a database using tools which look for trends or anomalies without knowledge of
the meaning of the data. Data mining was invented by IBM who hold some related patents.
[FOLDOC]
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data model
<database> The product of the database design process which aims to identify and organize the required data
logically and physically.
A data model says what information is to be contained in a database, how the information will be used, and
how the items in the database will be related to each other.
For example, a data model might specify that a customer is represented by a customer name and credit card
number and a product as a product code and price, and that there is a one-to-many relation between a
customer and a product.
It can be difficult to change a database layout once code has been written and data inserted. A well thought-out
data model reduces the need for such changes. Data modelling enhances application maintainability and future
systems may re-use parts of existing models, which should lower development costs.
A data modelling language is a mathematical formalism with a notation for describing data structures and a set
of operations used to manipulate and validate that data.
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One of the most widely used methods for developing data models is the entity-relationship model. The
relational model is the most widely used type of data model. Another example is NIAM.
["Principles of Database and Knowledge-Base Systems", J.D. Ullman, Volume I, Computer Science Press,
1988, p. 32].
[FOLDOC]
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data modeling
<spelling> US spelling of "data modelling".
17-02-2004
data modelling
data model
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data processing
application The input, verification, organisation, storage, retrieval, transformation, and extraction of information
from data. The term is normally associated with commercial applications such as stock control or payroll.
[FOLDOC]
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data rate
<communications> The amount of data transferred per second by a communications channel or a computing
or storage device. Typically measured in units of bits per second (bps), bytes per second (Bps) or baud.
[FOLDOC]
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data striping
<storage> Segmentation of logically sequential data, such as a single file, so that segments can be written to
multiple physical devices (usually disk drives) in a round-robin fashion. This technique is useful if the processor
is capable of reading or writing data faster than a single disk can supply or accept it. While data is being
transferred from the first disk, the second disk can locate the next segment.
Data striping is used in some modern database s, such as Sybase, and in certain RAID devices under
hardware control, such as IBM' s RAMAC array subsystem (9304/9395).
Data striping is different from, and may be used in conjunction with, mirroring.
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data type
type
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data warehouse
<database>
1. A generic term for a system for storing, retrieving and managing large amounts of any type of data. Data
warehouse software often includes sophisticated compression and hashing techniques for fast searches, as
well as advanced filtering.
2. A database, often remote, containing recent snapshots of corporate data. Planners and researchers can use
this database freely without worrying about slowing down day-to-day operations of the production database.
[FOLDOC]
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data warehousing
data warehouse
[FOLDOC]
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database
1. One or more large structured sets of persistent data, usually associated with software to update and query
the data. A simple database might be a single file containing many records, each of which contains the same
set of fields where each field is a certain fixed width.
A database is one component of a database management system.
See also ANSI/SPARC Architecture, atomic, blob, data definition language, deductive database, distributed
database, fourth generation language, functional database, object-oriented database, relational database.
(http://www.bus.orst.edu/faculty/brownc/lectures/db_tutor/db_tutor.htm).
2. A collection of nodes managed and stored in one place and all accessible via the same server. Links outside
this are "external", and those inside are "internal".
On the World-Wide Web this is called a web site.
3. All the facts and rules comprising a logic programming program.
16-03-2001
database normalisation
<database> A series of steps followed to obtain a database design that allows for efficient access and storage
of data in a relational database. These steps reduce data redundancy and the chances of data becoming
inconsistent.
A table in a relational database is said to be in normal form if it satisfies certain constraints. Codd' s origina
work defined three such forms but there are now five generally accepted steps of normalisation. The output of
the first step is called First Normal Form (1NF), the output of the second step is Second Normal Form (2NF),
etc.
First Normal Form eliminates repeating groups by putting each into a separate table and connecting them with
a one-to-many relationship.
Second Normal Form eliminates functional dependencies on a partial key by putting the fields in a separate
table from those that are dependent on the whole key.
Third Normal Form eliminates functional dependencies on non-key fields by putting them in a separate table. At
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this stage, all non-key fields are dependent on the key, the whole key and nothing but the key.
Fourth Normal Form separates independent multi-valued facts stored in one table into separate tables.
Fifth Normal Form breaks out data redundancy that is not covered by any of the previous normal forms.
(http://home.earthlink.net/~billkent/Doc/simple5.htm).
[What about non-relational databases?]
[FOLDOC]
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datagram
<data> A self-contained, independent entity of data carrying sufficient information to be routed from the source
to the destination computer without reliance on earlier exchanges between this source and destination
computer and the transporting network.
See also connectionless, frame, packet.
16-03-2001
datisi
<logic, philosophy of science> name given by medieval logicians to a categorical syllogism with the standard
form AII-3.
Example: Since all bookstores are places that sell popular novels and some bookstores are coffee shops, it
follows that some coffee shops are places that sell popular novels. This is one of only fifteen forms of syllogism
that are always valid.
12-11-2001
Davidson Donald
<history of philosophy, biography> american philosopher (1917-) who, like Quine, applies the methods of
logical and linguistic analysis to the study of human nature. On Davidson' s view, interpretation of a language
should always be governed by a "principle of charity" that maximizes its true statements. Although he regards
mental events as irreducibly intentional and denies the possibility of psycho-physical laws , Davidson defends a
sophisticated identity theory ("anomalous monism") under which every mental event supervenes upon some
physical event, subject to the usual physical laws of nature, even though it cannot be fully described in purely
physical terms. Many of Davidson' s most influential essays are collected in Essays on Actions and Events
(1980) and Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation (1984).
Simon Evnine, Donald Davidson (Stanford, 1991);
The Philosophy of Donald Davidson, ed. by Lewis Edwin Hahn (Open Court, 1999);
Donald Davidson: Truth, Meaning, and Knowledge, ed. by Urszula M. Zeglen (Routledge, 1999);
Interpretations and Causes: New Perspectives on Donald Davidson' s Philosophy, ed. by Mario De Caro
(Kluwer, 1999).
13-11-2001
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Day Dorothy
<history of philosophy, biography> American social activist (1897-1980). Day combined communist social
concern with Christian convictions in the autobiographical From Union Square to Rome (1938). She founded
The Catholic Worker magazine in 1933, established a "hospitality house" in New York City, and supported
pacifistic resistance to several wars.
Dorothy Day: Selected Writings, ed. by Robert Ellsberg (Orbis, 1992);
The Long Loneliness: The Autobiography of Dorothy Day, ed. by Daniel Berrigan (Harper, 1997);
Voices from the Catholic Worker, ed. by Rosalie Riegle Troester (Temple, 1993);
June E. O' Connor, The Moral Vision of Dorothy Day: A Feminist Perspective (Crossroad, 1991).
13-11-2001
de dicto - de re
<gnoseology, philosophy of science> distinction between ways of understanding the logical necessity or truth
of statements, either in terms "of what is said" (de dicto) or in terms "of the thing" (de re). Someone who does
not know that the morning star is the planet Venus, for example, could believe the truth, de dicto, of the
proposition, "The morning star is larger than Venus," even though no one would believe de re that Venus is
larger than itself.
Alvin Plantinga, The Nature of Necessity (Clarendon, 1989)
Saul A. Kripke, Naming and Necessity (Harvard, 1980).
13-11-2001
de facto - de jure
<philosophy of science, epistemology> distinction between the grounds for a condition that merely happens to
obtain (de facto) and one that holds as a matter of right or law (de jure). The maximum speed at which an
automobile may lawfully travel on the highway is 70 m.p.h. de jure, but the de facto speed limit on a busy
afternoon is only about 50 m.p.h.
13-11-2001
de facto standard
A widespread consensus on a particular product or protocol which has not been ratified by any official
standards body, such as ISO, but which nevertheless has a large market share.
The archetypal example of a de facto standard is the IBM PC which, despite is many glaring technical
deficiencies, has gained such a large share of the personal computer market that it is now popular simply
because it is popular and therefore enjoys fierce competition in pricing and software development.
[FOLDOC]
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de jure
<philosophy of science, epistemology> as a matter of law, not merely as a matter of fact. See de facto / de jure.
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De Morgan Augustus
<history of philosophy, biography> british mathematician (1806-1871) who recognized the need to expand the
notion of logical validity beyond the narrow confines of Aristotelian syllogistic. His works include Essay on
Probabilities (1838), Formal Logic (1847), and Budget of Paradoxes (1872). De Morgan developed the
standard statement of De Morgan' s Theorems, a pair of logical relationships earlier noted byOckham and
Geulincx.
Robert Adamson, Short History of Logic (Irvington, 1961)
Daniel Davy Merrill, Augustus De Morgan and the Logic of Relations (Kluwer, 1991).
14-11-2001
de re
<gnoseology, philosophy of science> "Of the thing," not "of what is said" See de dicto/de re.
18-11-2001
decidability
<mathematics, logic> A property of sets for which one can determine whether something is a member or not in
a finite number of computational steps. See also effective method, recursive set, undecidable set
Decidability is an important concept in computability theory. A set (e.g. "all numbers with a 5 in them") is said to
be "decidable" if I can write a program (usually for a Turing Machine) to determine whether a number is in the
set and the program will always terminate with an answer YES or NO after a finite number of steps.
Most sets you can describe easily are decidable, but there are infinitely many sets so most sets are
undecidable, assuming any finite limit on the size (number of instructions or number of states) of our programs.
I.e. how ever big you allow your program to be there will always be sets which need a bigger program to decide
membership.
One example of an undecidable set comes from the halting problem. It turns out that you can encode every
program as a number: encode every symbol in the program as a number (001, 002, ...) and then string all the
symbol codes together. Then you can create an undecidable set by defining it as the set of all numbers that
represent a program that terminates in a finite number of steps.
A set can also be "semi-decidable" - there is an algorithm that is guaranteed to return YES if the number is in
the set, but if the number is not in the set, it may either return NO or run for ever.
The halting problem' s set described above is semi -decidable. You decode the given number and run the
resulting program. If it terminates the answer is YES. If it never terminates, then neither will the decision
algorithm.
[FOLDOC]
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decidable
decidability
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decidable system
<logic> A formal system in which there is an effective method for determining whether any given wff is a
theorem. A system in which the set of theorems is a decidable set. The question whether a system is decidable
is often called the Entscheidungsproblem, or decision problem.
See decidable set, effective proof procedure
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decidable wff
<logic> A wff that is either a theorem or the negation of a theorem.
Either the wff or its negation is a theorem.
Jargon: if wff A is decidable in system S, we often say that "S decides A".
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decidibility
<logic, decidable system, decidable wff> a (logical) language is said to be decidable iff all of its theorems (or
logical truths) can be shown to be true through a finite mechanical procedure. Propositional logic is decidable;
predicate logic is not.
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decision problem
<logic> A problem with a yes/no answer. Determining whether some potential solution to a question is actually
a solution or not.
E.g. "Is 43669" a prime number?". This is in contrast to a "search problem" which must find a solution from
scratch, e.g. "What is the millionth prime number?".
See decidability.
[FOLDOC]
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decision procedure
<logic, philosophy of science, information theory> an algorithm by means of which to establish, in a finite
number of steps, whether a statement form is tautologous or whether an argument form is valid. Drawing Venn
diagrams provides a decision procedure for a modern interpretation of categorical logic, and truth-tables give a
decision procedure for the propositional calculus, but there is no decision procedure for quantification theory.
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decision theory
<probability> A branch of statistics concerning strategies for decision making in non-deterministic systems.
Decision theory seeks to find strategies that maximise the expected value of a utility function measuring the
desirability of possible outcomes.
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deconstruction
<analysis of texts, linguistics, philosophy> interpretive method that denies the priority or privilege of any single
reading of a text (even if guided by the intentions of its author) and tries to show that the text is incoherent
because its own key terms can be understood only in relation to their suppressed opposites. Deconstructionists
like Derrida seek to uncover the internal conflicts that tend to undermine (or at least to "decenter") the putative
significance of any text. In ordinary language, for example, someone who says, "If I may be perfectly candid for
a moment, . . ." thereby betrays a reluctance - at least in the past and, probably, even in the present case - to
do so, and this difference points toward a systematic ambiguity in the very notions of honesty and truth.
Deconstruction in a Nutshell: A Conversation With Jacques Derrida, ed. by John D. Caputo (Fordham, 1997);
Deconstruction in Context: Literature and Philosophy, ed. by Mark C. Taylor (Chicago, 1986);
Penelope Deutscher, Yielding Gender: Feminism, Deconstruction, and the History of Philosophy (Routledge,
1997).
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deduction
<logic> an inference in which (when valid) the conclusion contains no information that was not already present
in the premises, or whose corresponding conditional is a tautology.
See also induction, validity, logic, hypothetical deductive method
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deduction - induction
<logic, philosophy of science, epistemology> distinction in logic between types of reasoning, arguments, or
inferences. In a deductive argument, the truth of the premises is supposed to guarantee the truth of the
conclusion; in an inductive argument, the truth of the premises merely makes it probable that the conclusion is
true.
Patrick Suppes, Introduction to Logic (Dover, 1999) and Richard L. Wilson, Logic: Deductive, Inductive and
Informal Reasoning (Kendall/Hunt, 1993).
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deduction theorem
<logic> When G is a set of wffs, and A and B are wffs, then if G , A |- B, then G |- (A =>B).
Also called the rule of conditional proof.
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deductive apparatus
<logic> The axioms and rules of inference of a formal system.
Formal systems may lack axioms or rules of inference but not both.
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deductive tableau
<logic> A theorem proof system consisting of a table whose rows contain assertions or goals. Variables in
assertions are implicitly universally quantified and variables in goals are implicitly existentially quantified. The
declarative meaning of a tableau is that if every instance of every assertion is true then some instance of at
least one of the goals is true.
[FOLDOC]
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definite clause
<logic> A Horn clause that has exactly one positive literal.
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definite description
<logic, philosophy of science> an expression that claims to refer to the single being that possesses some
unique feature. Russell showed nearly a century ago that the proper analysis of such expressions, as the joint
assertion of several distinct propositions, resolves a number of otherwise troubling difficulties.
Definite Descriptions: A Reader, ed. by Gary Ostertag (Bradford, 1998);
Stephen Neale, Descriptions (Bradford, 1993);
Jaakko Hintikka and Jack Kulas, Anaphora and Definite Descriptions: Two Applications of Game-Theoretical
Semantics (Kluwer, 1985).
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definite sentence
<logic> A collection of definite clauses.
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definition
<logic, epistemology, philosophy of science, science, linguistics> an explanation of the meaning of a word. The
five major kinds of definition (distinguished by the functions they may be used to perform) include: stipulative,
lexical,precising, theoretical, and persuasive.
Recommended Reading: Essays on Definition, ed. by Juan C. Sager (Benjamins, 2000);

Richard Robinson, Definition (Clarendon, 1950);
Richard Robinson, Definitions and Definability: Philosophical Perspectives, ed.by James H. Fetzer, David
Shatz, and George N. Schlesinger (Kluwer, 1991).
13-11-2001
degrees of freedom
<robotics> The number of independent parameters required to specify the position and orientation of an object.
Often used to classify robot arms. For example, an arm with six degrees of freedom could reach any position
close enough and could orient it' s end effector (grip or tool etc.) at any angle about the three perpendicula
axes.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
deism
<metaphysics, philosophy of religion> the idea that God created the universe but then left it alone to operate on
its own principles - principles that human reason and science can discover. Thus, according to deism, God is
not involved in the day-to-day workings of the universe, and there are no miracles. Deism was a creation of the
rational, scientific spirit of the Enlightenment, and continues to be held to this day by many people, especially
those of a scientific bent. (For other views about the relationship between God and the universe, see theism
and pantheism.) (References from naturalism and theism.)
[The Ism Book]
<philosophy, religion, metaphysics> belief in god based entirely on reason, without any reference to faith,
revelation, or institutional religion. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, advances in the natural
sciences often fostered confidence that the regularity of nature reflects the benevolence of a divine providence.
This confidence, together with a widespread distrust of the church, made deism a popular view in England and
on the continent. Thus, in distinct ways, Toland, Lord Herbert, Paine, Rousseau, and Voltaire were all deists.
John Toland' s Christianity Not Mysterious: Text, Associated Works and Critical Essays, ed. by Alan Harrison
Richard Kearney, and Philip McGuinness (Dufour, 1997);
Thomas Paine, Age of Reason (Lyle Stuart, 1989);
William Stephens, An Account of the Growth of Deism in England (AMS, 1995);
William Stephens, The Radical Rhetoric of the English Deists: The Discourse of Skepticism, 1680-1750, ed. by
James A. Herrick and Thomas W. Benson (South Carolina, 1997).
06-01-2002
Delaunay triangulation
<mathematics, graphics> (After B. Delaunay) For a set S of points in the Euclidean plane, the unique
triangulation DT(S) of S such that no point in S is inside the circumcircle of any triangle in DT(S). DT(S) is the
dual of the voronoi diagram of S.
[FOLDOC]
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Deleuze Gilles
<history of philosophy, biography> french philosopher (1925-1995) who used critical interpretations of Spinoza
(Spinoza et le problËme de l' expression / Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza, 1968) and Nietzsche
(Nietzsche et la philosophie / Nietzsche and Philosophy, 1962) as the basis for a profound attack on modernist
rationality. Like Foucault, Deleuze was sharply critical of the neo-Freudian psychoanalytic theories of Jacques
Lacan. In collaboration with psychoanalyst Fèlix Guattari, Deleuze published L' Anti -Oedipe (Anti-Oedipus:
Capitalism and Schizophrenia) (1972), an extended critique of contemporary political structures, and Qu' est-ce
que la philosophie? (What is Philosophy?) (1981). Deleuze developed his own theories of meaning and
interpretation in DiffÈrence et rÈpÈtition (Difference and Repetition) (1968) and Logique du sens (The Logic of
Sense) (1969).
Deleuze: A Critical Reader, ed. by Paul Patton (Blackwell, 1996);
Dorothea Olkowski, Gilles Deleuze and the Ruin of Representation (California, 1999);
Todd May, Reconsidering Difference: Nancy, Derrida, Levinas, and Deleuze (Penn. State, 1997);
Tamsin E. Lorraine, Irigaray & Deleuze: Experiments in Visceral Philosophy (Cornell, 1999);
John Rajchman, The Deleuze Connections (MIT, 2000).
14-11-2001
delta reduction
<logic> In lambda-calculus extended with constants, delta reduction replaces a function applied to the required
number of arguments (a redex) by a result. E.g. plus 2 3 --> 5. In contrast with beta reduction (the only kind of
reduction in the pure lambda-calculus) the result is not formed simply by textual substitution of arguments into
the body of a function. Instead, a delta redex is matched against the left hand side of all delta rules and is
replaced by the right hand side of the (first) matching rule. There is notionally one delta rule for each possible
combination of function and arguments. Where this implies an infinite number of rules, the result is usually
defined by reference to some external system such as mathematical addition or the hardware operations of
some computer. For other types, all rules can be given explicitly, for example Boolean negation:
not True = False

not False = True
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
democracy
<political theory> form of government in which the people rule, either by directly voting on issues (direct
democracy), or indirectly through electing representatives to decide issues (representative democracy).
22-06-2001
Democritus
<history of philosophy, biography> presocratic Greek philosopher (460-370 BC). As the originator of classical
atomism, Democritus maintained in opposition to the Eleatics that the universe comprises a plurality of distinct
entities that really do move. The haphazard collisions of these individually indestructible atoms, he believed,
account for the formation and dissolution of all observable things. Long before its appropriation by Epicurus,
this doctrine produced an attitude toward human life that earned Democritus a reputation as "the laughing
philosopher."
Paul Cartledge, Democritus (Routledge, 1999)
C. C. W. Taylor, The Atomists: Leucippus and Democritus (Toronto, 1999).
14-11-2001
file://C:\_ 04/06/00
denotation - connotation
<logic, philosophy of science> Mill' s distinction between the things to which a term refers (itsdenotation) and
the meaning of the term (its connotation). In modern logic, this distinction is often assimilated to the distinction
between the extension and intension of an expression.
Ermanno Bencivenga, Logic, Bivalence, and Denotation (Ridgeview, 1991).
18-11-2001
denotational semantics
<logic> A technique for describing the meaning of programs in terms of mathematical functions on programs
and program components. Programs are translated into functions about which properties can be proved using
the standard mathematical theory of functions, and especially domain theory.
Compare axiomatic semantics, operational semantics, standard semantics.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
denumerable set
<logic> A set whose cardinality is exactly aleph0, for example the set of natural numbers.
16-03-2001
denying the antecedent
<logic, philosophy of science> a formal fallacy of the form:
p -> q
~p
_______
~q
Example: "If Rover is a cat, then Rover is a mammal. But Rover is not a cat. So, Rover is not a mammal."
Notice the crucial difference between this pattern of reasoning and the valid Modus Tollens.
18-11-2001
deontologism
<ethics> any ethical position claiming that the rightness or wrongness of actions depends on whether they
correspond to our duty or not. The word derives from the Greek word for duty, "deon".
More generally, any kind of ethical theory that puts its emphasis on universal imperatives like moral laws,
duties, obligations, prohibitions, and so on (sometimes this is also called "imperativism"). Kantianism is the
prime example of a deontological theory, and generally speaking such theories are varieties of altruism. Some
thinkers even go so far as to claim that deontology is the extent of ethics, and that any interest in personal
happiness or fulfillment is mere egoism and therefore not a matter for ethical theory.
(References from altruism, formalism, imperativism, and Kantianism.)
Based on [The Ism Book] and [Ethics Glossary]
file://C:\_ 04/06/00
16-03-2001
deontology
<philosophy, ethics, morality, justice> study of moral necessity, duty, or obligation. A deontological normative
theory holds that moral worth is an intrinsic feature of human actions, determined by formal rules of conduct.
Thus, deontologists like Kant suppose that moral obligation rests solely upon duty, without requiring any
reference to the practical consequences that dutiful actions may happen have.
Roger J. Sullivan, An Introduction to Kant' s Ethics (Cambridge, 1994);
Philip Stratton-Lake, Kant, Duty, and Moral Worth (Routledge, 2001).
See deontologism.
18-11-2001
derivation
<logic> A finite, non-empty sequence of wffs in which the last member is the wff derived, and each of the
others (the premises) is either an axiom, a member of a set of accepted premises, or the result of applying a
rule of inference to wffs preceding it in the sequence.
Notation: Gamma |- A (the wff A can be derived from the set of wffs G ).
See corresponding argument, proof
16-03-2001
Derrida Jacques
<history of philosophy, biography> french philosopher and leader of the deconstructionist movement (1930-).
From the work of Husserl and Heidegger, Derrida derives the view that meaning emerges only provisionally,
from an endless process of re-interpretation based on the interaction between reader and text. In La Voix et le
phÈnomÈne (Speech and Phenomena) (1967), L' ecriture et la differance (Writing and Difference) (1967), De la
Grammatologie (Of Grammatology) (1967), and La DissÈmination (Dissemination) (1972), Derrida argues that
all dichotomies between subject and object or appearance and reality are ultimately untenable.
A Derrida Reader, ed. by Peggy Kamuf (Columbia, 1991);
Deconstruction in a Nutshell: A Conversation With Jacques Derrida, ed. by John D. Caputo (Fordham, 1997);
Deconstruction and Philosophy: The Texts of Jacques Derrida, ed. by John Sallis (Chicago, 1989);
Geoffrey Bennington, Interrupting Derrida (Routledge, 2000);
Todd May, Reconsidering Difference: Nancy, Derrida, Levinas, and Deleuze (Penn. State, 1997);
Christopher Johnson, Derrida (Routledge, 1999);
Feminist Interpretations of Jacques Derrida, ed. by Nancy J. Holland
(Penn. State, 1997).
14-11-2001
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Descartes Rene
<history of philosophy, biography> after receiving a sound education in mathematics, classics, and law at La
Fleche and Poitiers, Rene Descartes (1596-1650) embarked on a brief career in military service with Prince
Maurice in Holland and Bavaria. Unsatisfied with scholastic philosophy and troubled by skepticism of the sort
expounded by Montaigne, Descartes soon conceived a comprehensive plan for applying mathematical
methods in order to achieve perfect certainty in human knowledge. During a twenty-year period of secluded life
in Holland, he produced the body of work that secured his philosophical reputation. Descartes moved to
Sweden in 1649, but did not survive his first winter there.
Although he wrote extensively, Descartes chose not to publish his earliest efforts at expressing the universal
method and deriving its consequences. The Regulae ad directionem ingenii (Rules for the Direction of the
Mind) (1628) contain his first full statement of the principles underlying the method and his confidence in the
success of their application. In Le Monde (The World) (1634), Descartes clearly espoused a Copernican
astronomy, but he withheld the book from the public upon learning of Galileo' s condemnation.Descartes finally
presented (in French) his rationalist vision of the progress of human knowledge in the Discours de la mÈthode
pour bien conduire sa Raison et chercher la Verite dans les Sciences (Discourse on Method) (1637). In this
expository essay, Descartes assessed the deficient outcomes of a traditional education, proposed a set of
rules with which to make a new start, and described the original experience upon which his hope for unifying
human knowledge was based. The final sections of the Discourse and the essays (on dipotric, meteors, and
geometry) appended to it illustrate the consequences of employing this method. A few years later, Descartes
offered (in Latin) a more formal exposition of his central tenets in Meditationes de Prima Philosophia
(Meditations on First Philosophy) (1641). After an expanded statement of the method of doubt, he argued that
even the most dire skepticism is overcome by the certainty of one' s own existence as a thinking thing. From
this beginning, he believed it possible to use our clear and distinct ideas to demonstrate the existence of god,
to establish the reliability of our reason generally despite the possibility of error, to deduce the essence of body,
and to prove that material things do exist. On these grounds, Descartes defended a strict dualism, according to
which the mind and body are wholly distinct, even though it seems evident that they interact. The Meditations
were published together with an extensive set of objections (by Hobbes, Gassendi, Arnauld, and others) and
Descartes' s replies.Descartes later attempted a more systematic exposition of his views in the Principia
Philosophiae (Principles of Philosophy) (1644) and an explanation of human emotion in Les Passions de
L' Ame (The Passions of the Soul).
Primary sources:
Oeuvres de Descartes, ed. by C. Adam and P. Tannery (Cerf, 1896-1913);
The Philosophical Works of Descartes, tr. by E. S. Haldane and G. T. R. Ross. (Cambridge, 1968);
The Philosophical Writings of Descartes: The Correspondence, ed. by John Cottingham, et. al. (Cambridge,
1991);
Rene Descartes, Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy, tr. by Donald A. Cress (Hackett,
1999);
The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, tr. by John Cottingham Robert Stoothoff, and Dugald Murdoch
(Cambridge, 1985);
RenÈ Descartes, Philosophical Essays and Correspondence, ed. by Roger Ariew (Hackett, 2000);
RenÈ Descartes, The World and Other Writings, ed. by Stephen Gaukroger (Cambridge, 1998);
Rene Descartes, Discourse De La Methode / Discourse on the Method (Bilingual Edition), ed. by George
Heffernan (Notre Dame, 1994);
Rene Descartes, Meditationes De Prima Philosophia / Meditations on First Philosophy (Bilingual Edition), ed.
by George Heffernan (Notre Dame, 1990).
Secondary sources:
The Cambridge Companion to Descartes, ed. by John Cottingham (Cambridge, 1992);
Marjorie Grene, Descartes (Hackett, 1998);
Anthony Kenny, Descartes: A Study of His Philosophy (St. Augustine, 1993);
Margaret Dauler Wilson, Ideas and Mechanism (Princeton, 1999);
Feminist Interpretations of Rene Descartes, ed. by Susan Bordo (Penn. State, 1999);
John Cottingham, Descartes (Routledge, 1999);
George Dicker, Descartes: An Analytical and Historical
Introduction (Oxford, 1993);
Daniel Garber, Descartes Embodied: Reading Cartesian Philosophy Through Cartesian Science (Cambridge,
2001);
Martial Gueroult, Descartes' Philosophy Interpreted according to the Order of Reasons, tr. by Roger Ariew (in
two volumes) (Minnesota, 1984);
E. M. Curley, Descartes Against the Skeptics (Iuniverse, 1999);
Daniel Garber, Descartes' Metaphysical Physics (Chicago, 1992).
Additional on-line information about Descartes includes:

Detailed lessons on Descartes from Alistair Lyall and Seonaid Woodburn.
John Cottingham' s article in The Oxford Companion to Philosophy.
Also see: animal spirits, Cartesianism, certainty, cogito ergo sum, doubt, dualism, foundationalism, French
philosophy, human nature, ideas, arguments from illusion, innate ideas, the malin genie, philosophy of
mathematics, mechanism, mentality, metaphysics, philosophy of mind, the mind-body problem, modernism, the
pineal gland, primary and secondary qualities, rationalism, the representative theory of perception, res
cogitans, skepticism, and thinking.
Kurt Smith ' s article on Descartes' s life and works in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Lex Newman' s article on Descartes' s epistemology in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
file://C:\_ 04/06/00
A section on Descartes from Alfred Weber' s history of philosophy.

Adriane Baillet' s La Vie de M. Descartes.
Stephen H. Daniel' s discussion of Cartesian epistemology.
Snippets from Descartes (French, Latin, and English) in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations.
Clodius Piat' s discussion in The Catholic Encyclopedia.
A paper on Cartesian dualism by Zuraya Monroy-Nasr.
Robert Tremblay' s discussion at Encephi (in French).
A discussion of eternal truths from Floy E. Andrews.
A paper by Juan Carlos Moreno Romo on the Cartesian Circle.
Eric Weisstein' s discussion at Treasure Trove of Scientific Biography.
Discussions of mathematical contributions at Mathematical MacTutor.
The Bloomsbury Guide to Human Thought on The Cartesian Co-ordinate System.
David Wilkins, Bj–rn Christensson' s brief guide to Descartes.
14-11-2001
descent function
If a recursive function is of the form
f x = ... f (d x) ...
then d is known as the descent function.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
descriptive ethics
<philosophy, ethics, morality, justice> branch of ethics that non-judgmentally examines the moral tenets of a
particular society or tradition, analyzing the logical relations among them and observing the extent of their
application in practice.
May M. Edel and Abraham Edel, Anthropology & Ethics: The Quest for Moral Understanding (Transaction,
2000);
Hunter Lewis, A Question of Values: Six Ways We Make the Personal Choices That Shape Our Lives (Axios,
2000);
The Book of Virtues: A Treasury of Great Moral Stories, ed. by William J. Bennett (Touchstone, 1996).
18-11-2001
descriptivism
<ethics> the view that ethics is purely descriptive and should never prescribe actions or values. The most
famous proponents of this view were David Hume and, in the political sphere, Machiavelli. The opposing view
is called prescriptivism.
[The Ism Book]
16-03-2001
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design
<process> The approach that engineering (and some other) disciplines use to specify how to create or do
something. A successful design must satisfies a (perhaps informal) functional specification (do what it was
designed to do); conforms to the limitations of the target medium (it is possible to implement); meets implicit or
explicit requirements on performance and resource usage (it is efficient enough).
A design may also have to satisfy restrictions on the design process itself, such as its length or cost, or the
tools available for doing the design.
In the software life-cycle, design follows requirements analysis and is followed by implementation.
["Object-Oriented Analysis and Design with Applications", 2nd ed., Grady Booch].
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
design - argument from
<teleology, god, metaphysics, religion> belief that the operation of the universe evidences its providential
origin.
See teleological argument.
18-11-2001
determinable - determinate
<logic, philosophy of science> relative terms for general predicates and particular instances that are not (like
the species of a common genus) distinguishible by differentiae. Thus, for example, "red," "yellow," "orange,"
and "maroon" are all determinates of the determinable "color."
18-11-2001
determinism
<metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of science, epicureism> <hard determinism, compatibilism,

libertarianism, ontology> the position according to which all physical events and human actions are determined
or settled (by external forces) before they happen. In other words, determinists deny the existence of freely
chosen human activity, and the more consistent determinists even deny any personal responsibility for human
actions. Determinists are usually, in fact almost exclusively, adherents of materialism although there are social
or economic determinists also, especially those influenced by Marxism. Determinism means pretty much the
same thing in practice as it does in philosophical theory, except that popularly it has connotations of fatalism. In
some technical discussions determinism is called necessitarianism, the opposite of which is libertarianism.
(References from automatism, fatalism, historical determinism, indeterminism, libertarianism, materialism,

necessitarianism, physicalism, reductionism, and vitalism.)
16-03-2001
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deterministic
1. <probability> Describes a system whose time evolution can be predicted exactly.
Contrast probabilistic.
2. <algorithm> Describes an algorithm in which the correct next step depends only on the current state. This
contrasts with an algorithm involving backtracking where at each point there may be several possible actions
and no way to chose between them except by trying each one and backtracking if it fails.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
deterministic automaton
<logic> A finite-state automaton in which the overall course of the computation is completely determined by the
program, the starting state, and the initial inputs. The class of problems solvable by such automata is the class
P (see polynomial-time algorithm).
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
Dewey John
<history of philosophy, biography> educated in his native Vermont and at Johns Hopkins University, John
Dewey (1859-1952) enjoyed a lengthy career as an educator, psychologist, and philosopher. He initiated the
progressive laboratory school at the University of Chicago, where his reforms in methods of education could be
put into practice. As a professor of philosophy, Dewey taught at Michigan, Chicago, and Columbia University.
He was instrumental in founding the American Association of University Professors as a professional
organization for post-secondary educators.
Drawn from an idealist background by the pragmatist influence of Peirce and James, Dewey became an
outstanding exponent of philosophical naturalism. Human thought is understood as practical problem-solving,
which proceeds by testing rival hypotheses against experience in order to achieve the "warranted assertability"
that grounds coherent action. The tentative character of scientific inquiry makes Dewey' s epistemology
thoroughly fallibilistic: he granted that the results of this process are always open to criticism and revision, so
that nothing is ever finally and absolutely true. This approach provides a significant opportunity for progress in
morality and education, however. In "Logical Conditions of a Scientific Treatment of Morality" (1903), for
example, Dewey tried to show how moral precepts develop and function as confirmable hypotheses.
Democracy and Education (1916) describes in detail how an ability to respond creatively to continual changes
in the natural order vitally provides for individual and community life. Dewey' s social theories shaped during his
long association with George Herbert Mead.
Primary sources:
John Dewey, Works (Southern Illinois, 1967- );
The Essential Dewey: Ethics, Logic, Psychology, ed. by Thomas M. Alexander and Larry A. Hickman (Indiana,
1998);
John Dewey, Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education (Simon & Schuster,
1997);
John Dewey, Experience and Nature (Dover, 1958); John Dewey, How We Think (Prometheus, 1991).
Secondary sources:
The Philosophy of John Dewey, ed. by John J. McDermott (Chicago, 1981);
Reading Dewey: Interpretations for a Postmodern Generation, ed. by Larry Hickman (Indiana, 1998);
Sidney Hook and Richard Rorty, John Dewey: An Intellectual Portrait (Prometheus, 1995);
Jennifer Welchman, Dewey' s Ethical Thought (Cornell, 1997).
Additional on-line information about Dewey includes:

Richard Field' s detailed article in The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Karen Hanson' s article in The Oxford Companion to Philosophy.
Also see: American philosophy, philosophy of education, philosophy of mind, the pragmatic theory of truth, and
pragmatism.

Charles Lowney on Dewey' s pragmatism.
Suzanne Rice on educational implications of Dewey' s concept of virtue.
News from The Center for Dewey Studies.
file://C:\_ 04/06/00
A paper on Dewey' s individualism from S. Scott Zeman.

14-11-2001
dialectic
<philosophy, history of philosophy, philosophical inquiry> process of thinking by means of dialogue, discussion,
debate, or argument.
In ancient Greece, the term was used literally. Parmenides and the other Eleatics used such methods to
defend paradoxical claims about thenatural world. Dialectic is questioning and conversation for Socrates, but
Plato regarded it as a systematic method for studying the Forms of suprasensible reality. Although he
frequently employed dialectical methods in his own writing, Aristotle maintained that it is inferior to the careful
logical reasoning that aims at theoretical knowledge (Gk. epistÍmÍ).
German philosophers of the modern era applied the term "dialectic" only to more narrowly-defined patterns of
thinking. Thus, Kant' s "Transcendental Dialectic" is an attempt to show the general futility of abstrac
metaphysical speculation, but dialectic is, for Hegel, the fundamental process of development - in both thought
and reality - from thesis to antithesis to synthesis.
Francisco J. Gonzalez, Dialectic and Dialogue: Plato' s Practice of Philosophical Inquiry (Northwestern, 1998);
Hans-Georg Gadamer, Dialogue and Dialectic: Eight Hermeneutical Studies on Plato, tr. by P. Christopher
Smith (Yale, 1983);
Howard P. Kainz, Paradox, Dialectic, and System: A Contemporary Reconstruction of the Hegelian
Problematic (Penn. State, 1988);
Hans-Georg Gadamer, Hegel' s Dialectic, tr. by P. Christopher Smith (Yale, 1982);
Richard Norman and Sean Sayers, Hegel, Marx and Dialectic: A Debate (Humanities, 1980).
18-11-2001
dialectical materialism
<metaphysics,political philosophy, philosophy of history> the doctrine or theory of history espoused by

Marxism. Literally (i.e., in ancient Greek), "dialectic" means dialogue or conversation, but the Hegelian
understanding of dialectic posits the progression of history in determined stages. The materialist aspect of
Marxism replaced Hegel' s collectiveconsciousness (see Hegelianism) with the concept of economic classes.
Thus dialectical materialism is the doctrine that history progresses in stages that are based solely on the
supremacy of different economic classes: feudalism replaced aristocracy, capitalism replaced feudalism, and
socialism or communism will replace capitalism - all according to inexorable, immutable laws (see historical
determinism).
(References from historical determinism and Marxism.)
16-03-2001
dianoia
<gnoseology, philosophy of science> greek term used by Plato to signify understanding or intellectual activity
as a discursive process, in contrast with the immediate apprehension characteristic of noesis. In the taxonomy
of Aristotle, dianoia includes both the theoretical episteme and the more practical techne.
Recommended Reading: F. E. Peters, Greek Philosophical Terms: A Historical Lexicon (NYU, 1967).
18-11-2001
file://C:\_ 04/06/00
Dictionary of Philosophy of Mind
<source> the Dictionary of Philosophy of Mind edited by Chris Eliasmith, Philosophy Department, Washington
University in St. Louis.
From the home page "This dictionary is intended as a free resource for all those interested in the philosophy of
mind. The dictionary has a policy of blind peer review for all submissions to the dictionary. Advisory, editorial
and review boards have been established. For more information on copyright, editorial policy, or submission
guidelines see the
submission information page."
Many definitions in FOLDOP are from the version published in 2001-02-27. Whenever an entry was edited by a
specific author, the name is indicated.
Chris Eliasmith - the Dictionary of Philosophy of Mind
16-03-2001
Diderot Denis
<history of philosophy, biography> french philosopher who edited the EncyclopÈdie. Diderot (1713-1784)
promoted Locke' s thought in France through his Pens Èes sur l' interpr
Ètation de la nature (1746) and Lettre sur
le aveugles (Essay on Blindness) (1749). In his later years, Diderot wrote essays and plays expressing favored
Enlightenment themes, including atheism and social contract theory.
Denis Diderot, Selected Philosophical Writings (Greenwood, 1987);
Denis Diderot, Rameau' s Nephew, and Other Works, tr. by Jacques Barzun and Ralph H. Bowen (Hackett,
2001);
Denis Diderot, Thoughts on the Interpretation of Nature and Other Philosophical Works (Clinamen, 2000);
Diderot' s Early Philosophical Works (Open Court, 1970).
14-11-2001
Difference Engine
<computer, history> Charles Babbage' s design for the first automatic mechanical calculator. The Difference
Engine was a special purpose device intended for the production of mathematical tables. Babbage started
work on the Difference Engine in 1823 with funding from the British Government. Only one-seventh of the
complete engine, about 2000 parts, was built in 1832 by Babbage' s engineer, Joseph Clement. This was
demonstrated successfully by Babbage and still works perfectly. The engine was never completed and most of
the 12,000 parts manufactured were later melted for scrap.
It was left to Georg and Edvard Schuetz to construct the first working devices to the same design which were
successful in limited applications. The Difference Engine No. 2 was finally completed in 1991 at the Science
Museum, London, UK and is on display there.
The engine used gears to compute cumulative sums in a series of registers: r[i] := r[i] + r[i+1]. However, the
addition had the side effect of zeroing r[i+1]. Babbage overcame this by simultaneously copying r[i+1] to a
temporary register during the addition and then copying it back to r[i+1] at the end of each cycle (each turn of a
handle).
Difference Engine at the Science Museum

(http://www.nmsi.ac.uk/on-line/treasure/plan/2ndcomp.htm#babbage).
[FOLDOC]
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difference equation
<mathematics> A relation between consecutive elements of a sequence. The first difference is
D u(n) = u(n+1) - u(n)
where u(n) is the nth element of sequence u. The second difference is
D2 u(n) = D (D u(n))
= (u(n+2) - u(n+1)) - (u(n+1) - u(n))
= u(n+2) - 2u(n+1) + u(n)
And so on. A recurrence relation such as
u(n+2) + a u(n+1) + b u(n) = 0
can be converted to a difference equation (in this case, a second order linear difference equation):
D2 u(n) + p D u(n) + q u(n) = 0
and vice versa. a, b, p, q are constants.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
difference method of
<logic, philosophy of science> one of Mill' s Methods for discovering causal relationships. If an anteceden
circumstance is present only on those occasions when a phenomenon occurs, it may be inferred to be the
cause of that phenomenon.
Example: "Levi and Jarod lived in the same house and were both exposed to the same children at daycare, but
only Levi, who also plays T-ball, caught the measles. So Levi probably caught the measles from one of his
teammates."
Recommended Reading: John Stuart Mill, System of Logic (Classworks, 1986).
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difference of sets
<logic> The difference of set B from set A is the set of all members of A that are not also members of B.
Notation: A-B, or AB.
A-B =df x : (x : A)o(x /: B)
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digital
<data> A description of data which is stored or transmitted as a sequence of discrete symbols from a finite set,
most commonly this means binary data represented using electronic or electromagnetic signals.
The opposite is analogue.
[FOLDOC]
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dike
<philosophy,ethics, justice> greek term for legal compensation or justice; the corresponding human virtue of
being just is dikaiÙsunÍ. According to Plato, justice in this sense is best exemplified by harmonious relations in
the ideal state.
Aristotle, on the other hand, focussed primarily upon the equitable distribution of goods in a properly-run city.
Eric Alfred Havelock, The Greek Concept of Justice: From Its Shadow in Homer to Its Substance in Plato
(Harvard, 1978);
Richard D. Parry, Plato' s Craft of Justice (SUNY, 1996) .
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dilemma
<ethics, applied ethics, logic> a difficult choice between equally undesirable alternatives. In a disadvantageous
rhetorical position, one is said to be impaled on the horns of a dilemma, but logicians employ Constructive
Dilemma as a rule of inference.
Howard Kahane and Nancy Cavender, Logic and Contemporary Rhetoric (Wadsworth, 1997)
Douglas N. Walton, Informal Logic: A Handbook for Critical Argumentation (Cambridge, 1989).
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Dilthey Wilhelm
<history of philosophy, biography> german philosopher (1833-1911) who derived from the thought of Kant a
conception of philosophical study as one of the social sciences in Einleitung in die Geisteswissenshaften
(Introduction to the Human Sciences) (1883). Metaphysical speculation in particular, Dilthey held in Die Typen
der Weltanschauung (1912), is an expression of the world-view of one' s culture rather than a timeless
expression of perfect rationality.
Wilhelm Dilthey, ed. by Frithjof Rodi and Rudolf A. Makkreel (Princeton, 1996);
Rudolf A. Makkreel, Dilthey (Princeton, 1992);
Richard E. Palmer, Hermeneutics: Interpretation Theory in Schleiermacher, Dilthey, Heidegger and Gadamer
(Northwestern, 1969).
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dimaris
form is IAI-4.
Example: Some beloved household pets are golden retrievers, and since all golden retrievers are dogs, it must
follow that some dogs are beloved household pets. This is one of only fifteen forms of syllogistic reasoning that
are always valid.
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ding an sich
<philosophy,metaphysics, ontology> german phrase for thing in itself.
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Diogenes
<history of philosophy,biography> greek philosopher (400-325 BC). As one of the original Cynics, Diogenes
both preached and practiced a life of complete self-sufficiency, utter simplicity, and total disregard for the
conventional morality of what he took to be a corrupt human society. Diogenes was the teacher of Zeno of
Citium.
The Cynics: The Cynic Movement in Antiquity and Its Legacy, ed. by R. Bracht Branham and Marie Odile
Goulet-Caze (California, 2000)
D. R. Dudley, A History of Cynicism (Ares, 1980).
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Diophantine equation
<mathematics> Equations with integer coefficients to which integer solutions are sought. Because the results
are restricted to integers, different algorithms must be used from those which find real solutions.
[FOLDOC]
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direct realism
<gnoseology, perception, philosophy of science, epistemology> theory of perception according which we

perceive material objects directly, without the mediation of ideas or sensory representations. Although it is also
called "naÔve" realism, this view often requires a sophisticated defence, especially in its attempts to account
for the occurrence of hallucinations and perceptual error.
Thomas Reid, An Inquiry into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common Sense, ed. by Derek Brookes
(Penn. State, 2001);
H. H. Price, Perception (Greenwood, 1982);
Moltke S. Gram, Direct Realism: A Study of Perception (Nijhoff, 1983).
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directed graph
(digraph) A graph with one-way edges.
See also directed acyclic graph.
[FOLDOC]
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directed set
<logic> A set X is directed under some relation, <= (less than or equal), if it is non-empty and if for any two
elements x and y there exists an element z such that x <= z and y <= z. I.e. all pairs have an upper bound.
[FOLDOC]
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directive use of language
<philosophy, linguistics> communication that aims to bring about or to forestall the performance of some
action.
Example: "Don' t forget to take out the trash."
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disamis
form may be designated as IAI-3.
Example: Some nutritious dinners are vegetarian delights, and all nutritious dinners are well-rounded meals, so
some well-rounded meals are vegetarian delights. This is one of fifteen forms in which any syllogism is valid.
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discriminated union
<logic> The discriminated union of two sets A and B is
A + B = (inA, a) | a in A U (inB, b)| b in B
where inA and inB are arbitrary tags which specify which summand an element originates from.
A type (especially an algebraic data type) might be described as a discriminated union if it is a sum type whose
objects consist of a tag to say which part of the union they belong to and a value of the corresponding type.
[FOLDOC]
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disjoint sets
<logic> Two sets are disjoint iff they share no members, i.e. iff their intersection is the null set.
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disjoint union
In domain theory, a union (or sum) which results in a domain without a least element.
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disjunct
disjunction
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disjunction
<logic> A truth function that is true when one or the other of its components (called disjuncts) is true, and false
otherwise. Also the connective denoting this function; also the compound proposition built from this connective.
Exclusive disjunction
One or the other of the disjuncts is true, but not both.
Notation: no standard symbol, but the concept is accurately captured thus:

p
/<=> q
(negation of material equivalence).
Inclusive disjunction
One or the other or both of the disjuncts is true.
Notation: p v q.
disjunctive normal form (DNF)
<logic> The form of a of truth-functional compound when it is expressed as a series of disjuncts when each
disjunct is either a simple proposition or the conjunction of simple propositions and the negations of simple
propositions.
E.g. the DNF of (A or B) and C is (A and C) or (B and C).
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disjunctive syllogism
<logic, philosophy of science> a rule of inference of the form:
pvq
~p
_____
q
Example: "Either Ellen brought him to the party or eith did. But Ellen didn' t. So, Keith brought him to the party.
The validity of this pattern of reasoning is evident from a simple truth-table.
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disposition
<philosophy of science> a tendency or propensity to respond in specific ways to particular circumstances.

Things are commonly supposed to have dispositional features only in virtue of their possession of intrinsic or
non-dispositional properties. Thus, for example, sugar is soluble in water (even when it is not in water) because
of its chemical composition. Ryle maintained that mental states can be wholly analyzed as dispositions of
human bodies.
Gilbert Ryle, The Concept of Mind (Chicago, 2000).
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distributed memory
<architecture> The kind of memory in a parallel processor where each processor has fast access to its own
local memory and where to access another processor' s memory it must send a message via the inter -
processor network.
Opposite: shared memory.
[FOLDOC]
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distributed representation
<philosophy of mind> a distributed representation is one in which meaning is not captured by a single symbolic
unit, but rather arises from the interaction of a set of units, normally in a network of some sort.
The concept of distributed representation is a product of joint developments in the neurosciences and in
connectionist work on recognition tasks (Churchland and Sejnowski 1992). Fundamentally, a distributed
representation is one in which meaning is not captured by a single symbolic unit, but rather arises from the
interaction of a set of units, normally in a network of some sort. In the case of the brain, the concept of
"grandmother" does not seem to be represented by a single "grandmother cell" but is rather distributed across
a network of neurons (Churchland and Sejnowski 1992). This method of representation stands in direct
opposition to the symbolic representation used by adherents of classical artificial intelligence.
To introduce distributed representations concisely it is helpful to contrast them with the more familiar symbolic
representations. Symbolic representations are the easiest for us, as language users, to understand and apply.
A symbol, such as a word or a number, is an everyday occurrence for most of humankind. For instance, each
word contained in this entry is a symbolic representation of a particular meaning associated with that word.
These symbols are joined into propositions based on the rules of a grammar. Of course, symbols are not
restricted to being words or numbers, but this is their most common application in classical AI. From
computational, psychological, and neurological standpoints, there are a number of shortcomings in using purely
symbolic representations in modelling human behaviour. I will briefly examine three of the more important
limitations of symbolic representation that serve to distinguish them from distributed representations.
First, symbolic representations are strongly propositional. Thus, when this method of representation is used in
non-language based applications such as image processing it becomes extremely difficult to explain many
psychological findings. Similarly, taste, sound, touch, and smell are very awkward to handle with symbolic
representations. In contrast, distributed representations are equally well suited to all modes of perception.
Second, symbolic representations are "all-or-none". This means that there is no such thing as the degradation
of a symbolic representation, it is either there, or it is not there; this property is referred to as brittleness. The
brittleness of symbolic representations is highly psychologically unrealistic. People often exhibit behaviour that
indicates partial retrieval of representations, as in the "tip-of-the-brain" recall, prosopagnosia (loss of face
recognition), and image completion. Furthermore, minor damage to a symbolic conceptual network causes loss
of entire concepts, whereas a distributed network loses accuracy, as people do, not entire concepts
(Churchland and Sejnowski 1992).
Third, symbolic representations are not, in themselves, statistically sensitive. In other words, they are not
constructed based on statistical regularities found in the environment. Therefore, symbolic representations are
not amenable to modelling low-level perception. This sort of low-level perceptual learning seems to be common
to all animals, and is an important part of human development. It is the case, however, that though symbolic
representations are not statistically sensitive, they are superbly structurally sensitive. To many, this had
seemed a reasonable trade-off in light of structurally insensitive alternatives. However, with the more recent
development of distributed representations that exhibit both structural and statistical sensitivity, this trade-off is
no longer as justifiable.
With these limitations in mind, many cognitive scientists have found distributed representations very appealing.
Though distributed representations are a far less intuitive form of representation, the advantages they provide
easily outweigh the difficulty in initially understanding them. In order to minimize a reliance on a technical
description of distributed representations, I have constructed an analogy which will aid in explaining distributed
representations in general. The analogy is this: imagine all of your concepts are mapped to the surface of a
sphere - a conceptual golf ball, if you will. Each concept is nestled in a dimple on surface of the golf ball. The
more similar two concepts are, the closer together they will be on the surface of the golf ball. Also, the distance
from the centre of the golf ball to any particular dimple (i.e. concept) is approximately the same. The easiest
way to identify the position of a concept on the surface of the ball is to provide its coordinates. These
coordinates are in the units of "golf ball radii" and are continuous real values. Such a set of coordinates is
commonly referred to as a vector. In order for us, as symbol users, to distinguish this vector from others, we
assign it a tag e.g. "cherub". Thus, the vector (0.5, 0.5, 0.707) may be used to represent the position of the
"cherub" dimple on the surface of the conceptual golf ball. Such a representation of "cherub" is a distributed
representation, because the "cherub" dimple can only be located through knowing all three values. Thus, the
concept of "cherub" is shared, or distributed, across the three dimensions of the golf ball' s coordinate system
Notably, a dimple on a golf ball is not a single point, rather it is a collection of points which are in proximity on
the surface of the sphere. This makes the dimple particularly appealing as an analog for a concept for the
following reasons:
1) A prototype for a concept could be considered to be the centre of the dimple.
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2) Multiple vectors define the dimple/concept' s boundaries; thus it is a collection of examples. Typically, these
"boundary" concepts would be specific examples which the cognizer had observed from its environment.
3) Because of 2, the prototype for a concept would not be defined by one particular example, but rather a
superposition of all available examples of the concept.
However, as with any analogy, there are a number of issues which may be obscured or inadequately
addressed by the conceptual golf ball analogy. For instance, when equating concepts to dimples, we must
realize that it is misleading to think of concepts as being defined by a static circular boundary as a dimple is.
Rather, conceptual boundaries may be dynamic, oddly shaped, "fuzzy", and possibly not even contiguous.
Furthermore, such boundaries do not delineate two or three dimensional figures but rather some n-dimensional
figures where n is possibly in the thousands or even millions. As we are equating a three dimensional golf ball
to an n-dimensional hypersphere, it is important to bear in mind the limitations of such a simplification.
In the introduction to this discussion, I noted that much of the reason researchers were motivated to look for
alternate forms of representation was due to the failings of symbolic representations. In particular we discussed
the propositional, brittle, and statistical insensitivity nature of symbolic representations. Distributed
representations do not fall prey to these short-comings. Rather, distributed representations:
1) Are the natural result of organisation of statistical input and thus provide a natural means to capturing
semantic information (Smolensky 1995);
2) Have been successfully applied to visual, olfactory, auditory and tactile problems;
3) Have been proved to degrade gracefully with noise and are commonly tested with simulated lesions (i.e. a
removal of part of the representation).
Furthermore, distributed representations have a number of properties which lend significant psychological and
neurological plausibility to models employing them. In many instances distributed representations:
1) Represent concepts continuously;
2) Can be processed in parallel (see parallel processing;
3) Can be learned using proven methods (Hinton 1986).
These powerful properties, coupled with the ability of distributed representations to overcome important short-
comings of symbolic representation provide a solid foundation for realistic computational models of human
cognition.
References
Connectionist Representation Biblio (http://ling.ucsc.edu/_chalmers/biblio4.html#4.3b?)
Churchland, P. S. and T. Sejnowski (1992). The computational brain. Cambridge, MA, MIT Press.
Hinton, G. E. (1986). Learning distributed representations of concepts. Eighth Conference of the Cognitive
Science Society, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Smolensky, P. (1995). Computational models of mind. A companion to the philosophy of mind. Cambridge, MA,
Blackwell.
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distributed system
<logic> A collection of (probably heterogeneous) automata whose distribution is transparent to the user so that
the system appears as one local machine. This is in contrast to a network, where the user is aware that there
are several machines, and their location, storage replication, load balancing and functionality is not transparent.
Distributed systems usually use some kind of client-server organisation.
Distributed systems are considered by some to be the "next wave" of computing.
Distributed Computing Environment is the Open Software Foundation' s software architecture for distributed
systems.
(http://www.dstc.edu.au/AU/research_news/dist-env.html)
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distributed systems
distributed system
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distribution of terms
<logic, philosophy of science> a feature that categorical terms come to have by virtue of their use in a specific
categorical proposition. The term is distributed if the proposition refers to every member of the class it
designates, unidistributed if it does not. Thus, the subject term is distributed in all and only universal
propositions; the predicate term is distributed in all and only negative propositions.
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distributive lattice
<logic> A lattice for which the least upper bound (lub) and greatest lower bound (glb) operators distribute over
one another so that
a lub (b glb c) == (a lub c) glb (a lub b)
and vice versa.
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diverge
<logic> If a series of approximations to some value get progressively further from it then the series is said to
diverge.
The reduction of some term under some evaluation strategy diverges if it does not reach a normal form after a
finite number of reductions.
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divine command theory
<ethics> any ethical position claiming that the rightness or wrongness of actions depends on whether they
correspond to God' scommands.
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division - fallacy of
<logic, philosophy of science> the informal fallacy of attributing some feature of a collection to the members of
that collection individually, or reasoning from whole to part.
Example: "Today' s newspaper has a lot of grocery ads, so each page of today' s newspaper has a lot of groce
ads."
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divisor
<mathematics> A quantity that evenly divides another quantity.
Unless otherwise stated, use of this term implies that the quantities involved are integers. (For non-integers,
the more general term factor may be more appropriate.)
Example: 3 is a divisor of 15.

Example: 3 is not a divisor of 14.
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DNA computing
<architecture> The use of DNA molecules to encode computational problems. Standard operations of
molecular biology can then be used to solve some NP-hard search problems in parallel using a very large
number of molecules.
The exponential scaling of NP-hard problems still remains, so this method will require a huge amount of DNA
to solve large problems.
[L. M. Adleman, "Molecular Computation of Solutions to Combinatorial Problems", Science 266:1021-1024,

1994].
[FOLDOC]
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DNF
disjunctive normal form
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doctrine of pre-established harmony
<philosophy of mind, ontology> a view originated by G. W. Leibniz whereby:
1) the mental and the material comprise two different kinds of substance;
2) neither has any direct causal effect on the other and;
3) the coincidence between mental and material events is due to both substances being created to act in
concert even though there is no post-creation interaction between the two.
See dualism, occasionalism, parallelism
Pete Mandik
Chris Eliasmith - [Dictionary of philosophy of Mind] Homepage (http://artsci.wustl.edu/~philos/MindDict/)
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document
A term used on some systems (e.g. Intermedia) for a hypertext node. It is sometimes used for a collection of
nodes on related topics, possibly stored or distributed as one.
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dogmatism
<philosophy>
1. originally, the position of any philosopher who was not a skeptic.
2. authoritarian approach to ideas which emphasizes rigid adherence to doctrine over rational and enlightened
inquiry. The opposite approach is probably best characterized as tolerant humanism or critical rationalism (in
the sense of devotion to reason and independent thinking).
[The Ism Book]
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dolors
<ethics> utilitarian units of pain or displeasure. See also hedons.
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domain
<logic>
1. Of a function, the set of objects or sequences of objects that may serve as the arguments (inputs) of the
function. See domain theory.
2. Of an interpretation of a formal language of predicate logic, the set of objects that may serve as the assigned
referents of the constants of the language, the arguments of functions, and the arguments of predicates.
Cardinality of a domain: the cardinality of the set of objects comprising the domain.
3. <networking> A group of computers whose hostnames share a common suffix, the "domain name". The last
component of this is the top-level domain.
See administrative domain, Domain Name System, fully qualified domain name.
4. Distributed Operating Multi Access Interactive Network.
5. <programming> A specific phase of the software life cycle in which a developer works. Domains define
developers' and users' areas of responsibility and the scope of possible relationships between products.
6. The subject or market in which a piece of software is designed to work.
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Domain Analysis
<systems analysis>
1. Determining the operations, data objects, properties and abstractions appropriate for designing solutions to
problems in a given domain.
2. The domain engineering activity in which domain knowledge is studied and formalised as a domain definition
and a domain specification. A software reuse approach that involves combining software components,
subsystems, etc., into a single application system.
3. The process of identifying, collecting organising, analysing and representing a domain model and software
architecture from the study of existing systems, underlying theory, emerging technology and development
histories within the domain of interest.
4. The analysis of systems within a domain to discover commonalities and differences among them.
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domain architecture
<systems analysis> A generic, organisational structure or design for software systems in a domain. The
domain architecture contains the designs that are intended to satisfy requirements specified in the domain
model. A domain architecture can be adapted to create designs for software systems within a domain and also
provides a framework for configuring assets within individual software systems.
[FOLDOC]
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domain engineering
<systems analysis> 1. The development and evolution of domain specific knowledge and artefacts to support
the development and evolution of systems in the domain. Domain engineering includes engineering of domain
models, components, methods and tools and may also include asset management.
2. The engineering process of analysing and modelling a domain, designing and modelling a generic solution
architecture for a product line within that domain, implementing and using reusable components of that
architecture and maintaining and evolving the domain, architecture and implementation models.
3. A reuse-based approach to defining the scope (domain definition), specifying the structure (domain
architecture) and building the Assets (requirements, designs, software code, documentation) for a class of
systems, subsystems or applications. Domain engineering can include domain definition, domain analysis,
developing the domain architecture domain implementation.
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domain maturity
<systems analysis> The level of stability and depth of understanding that has been achieved in an area for
which applications are developed.
[FOLDOC]
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domain model
<systems analysis>
1. A definition of the functions, objects, data, requirements, relationships and variations in a particular domain.
2. A product of domain analysis which provides a representation of the requirements of the domain. The
domain model identifies and describes the structure of data, flow of information, functions, constraints and
controls within the Domain that are included in software systems in the domain. The Domain Model describes
commonalities and variabilities among requirements for software systems in the domain.
[FOLDOC]
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domain selection
<systems analysis> The prioritisation and selection of one or more domains for which specific software reuse
engineering projects are to be initiated.
[FOLDOC]
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domain theory
<mathematics> A branch of mathematics introduced by Dana Scott in 1970 as a mathematical theory of

programming languages, and for nearly a quarter of a century developed almost exclusively in connection with
denotational semantics in computer science.
In denotational semantics of programming languages, the meaning of a program is taken to be an element of a

domain. A domain is a mathematical structure consisting of a set of values (or "points") and an ordering
relation, <= on those values. Domain theory is the study of such structures.
Different domains correspond to the different types of object with which a program deals. In a language
containing functions, we might have a domain X -> Y which is the set of functions from domain X to domain Y
with the ordering f <= g iff for all x in X, f x <= g x. In the pure lambda-calculus all objects are functions or
applications of functions to other functions. To represent the meaning of such programs, we must solve the
recursive equation over domains,
D = D -> D
which states that domain D is (isomorphic to) some function space from D to itself. I.e. it is a fixed point D = F
(D) for some operator F that takes a domain D to D -> D. The equivalent equation has no non-trivial solution in
set theory.
There are many definitions of domains, with different properties and suitable for different purposes. One
commonly used definition is that of Scott domains, often simply called domains, which are omega-algebraic,
consistently complete CPOs.
There are domain-theoretic computational models in other branches of mathematics including dynamical
systems, fractals, measure theory, integration theory, probability theory, and stochastic processes.
See also abstract interpretation, bottom, pointed domain.
[FOLDOC]
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domain-specific language
<language> A machine-processable language whose terms are derived from a domain model and that is used
for the definition of components or software architectures supporting that domain. A domain-specific language
is often used as input to an application generator.
[FOLDOC]
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double aspect theory
<gnoseology, perception> belief that mental properties and events on the one hand and physical properties
and events on the other hand are irreducibly distinct features or aspects of one and the same thing that
exhibits them both. Spinoza, for example, maintained that thought and extension are distinct attributes of the
one existing substance that is "god or nature."
Keith Campbell, Body and Mind (Notre Dame, 1984);
Genevieve Lloyd, Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Spinoza and the Ethics (Routledge, 1996);
Michael Della Rocca, Representation and the Mind-Body Problem in Spinoza (Oxford, 1996).
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double negation
<logic, philosophy of science> a rule of replacement of the form:
p=~~p
Example: "Alan is clever" is equivalent to "It is not the case that Alan is not clever." Although trivial in ordinary
language, this rule is vital for the completeness of the propositional calculus.
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doubt - method of
<history of philosophy, metaphysics, gnoseology, epistemology> the starting-point for Descartes' s philosophy
He used perceptual illusions, the dream problem, and the possibility of a deceiving god to show the uncertainty
of many common beliefs. Only the cogito then survives as an indubitable foundation for knowledge.
RenÈ Descartes, Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy, tr. by Donald A. Cress (Hackett,
1999);
E. M. Curley, Descartes Against the Skeptics (Iuniverse, 1999);
The Cambridge Companion to Descartes, ed. by John Cottingham (Cambridge, 1992).
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doxa
<history of philosophy, philosophical inquiry> greek term for opinion, belief, or judgment, as opposed to
systematic knowledge (Gk. epistÍmÍ). According to Plato, this limited awareness of the sensible world
encompasses the lower portion of the divided line. In Aristotle' s works onlogic, the same terms are used to
distinguish contingent from necessary truths about the world.
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doxastic
<philosophy of mind, epistemology> pertaining to belief, from the Greek word "doxa", meaning "opinion",
"belief". Alternatively, also pertaining to states sufficiently similar to beliefs, such as thoughts, judgments,
opinions, desires, wishes, fears.
Often the distinction between doxastic and sub-doxastic states is a way of cashing out the distinction between
personal and sub-personal states where instances of the latter include information bearing states not available
to awareness (like the information processing going on in the cerebellum). Examples of non-doxastic contentful
states would be the numbers of rings in a tree' s cross -section: they carry information about the age of the tree,
but are neither beliefs (doxastic states), nor states of an entity that has beliefs (sub-doxastic states).
Pete Mandik

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Du Bois William Edward Burghardt
<history of philosophy, biography> american historian and sociologist (1868-1963). After completing his
education with a Ph.D. from Harvard, Du Bois embarked on a long and distinguished career as a university
professor and social activist. His The Souls of Black Folk (1903) was a penetrating analysis of the origins,
practices, and consequences of racial discrimination in the United States. Du Bois also participated in efforts at
social reform, founding the National Association fot the Advancement of Colored People in 1910 and editing
the influential journals Crisis and Phylon. Details of Du Bois' s life are to be found in his autobiography, Dusk o
Dawn (1940).
The Oxford W. E. B. Du Bois Reader, ed. by Eric J. Sundquist (Oxford, 1996);
W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk: Authoritative Text, Contexts, Criticism, ed. by Henry Louis Gates,
Jr. and Terri Hume Oliver (Norton, 1999);
W. E. B. Du Bois, Writings: The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade: The Souls of Black Folk: Dusk of
Dawn: Essays: Articles from the Crisis (Library of America, 1996);
W.E.B. Du Bois on Race and Culture: Philosophy, Politics, and Poetics, ed. by Bernard W. Bell, Emily
Grosholz, and James B. Stewart (Routledge, 1996).
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dual
<mathematics, logic> Every field of mathematics has a different meaning of dual. Loosely, where there is some
binary symmetry of a theory, the image of what you look at normally under this symmetry is referred to as the
dual of your normal things.
In linear algebra for example, for any vector space V, over a field, F, the vector space of linear maps from V to
F is known as the dual of V. It can be shown that if V is finite-dimensional, V and its dual are isomorphic
(though no isomorphism between them is any more natural than any other).
There is a natural embedding of any vector space in the dual of its dual:
V -> V' ' :->

v (V' : w-> wv : F)
(x' is normally written as x with a horizontal bar above it). I.e. v' ' is the linear map, from V' to F, which maps
w to the scalar obtained by applying w to v. In short, this double-dual mapping simply exchanges the roles of
function and argument.
It is conventional, when talking about vectors in V, to refer to the members of V' as covectors.
[FOLDOC]
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dual-aspect theory
<philosophy of mind, ontology> a view forwarded by Spinoza (also called the dual-attribute theory) in which the
unitary substance God is expressed in the distinct modes of the mental and the physical.
See dualism

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dualism
<metaphysics, philosophy of mind, cartesianism> in metaphysics, the view that reality consists of two disparate
parts or that there are only two fundamental things or substances or constituents of things in the world at large
or in the human soul. The first influential dualist theory in the West was Platonism, which claimed that there are
actually two different worlds: the physical world of appearances and the higher world of intelligible Forms or
Ideas or Essences (thus note the common connection of dualism to transcendentalism and idealism), with a
similar separation in the human person between mind and body. These ideas were picked up by stoicism and,
later, by Christianity. Thus the idea of dualism was current throughout the Christian era - but it received a
renewed impetus from Descartes, who held that reality is made up exclusively of Spirit and Matter, and that
these two substances can never meet or interact - except in the human soul (which gives rise to the mind-body
dichotomy). Aristotelianism, by contrast, holds that mind and body are not two distinct substances but two
aspects of the same thing, of the same complete human person (cf. also holism). Even though dualism is a
kind of
pluralism and is opposed by monism, practically speaking dualists often put their emphasis on the "higher",
more spiritual reality that their theoretical separations construct, so that they are often construed as adherents
of idealism or transcendentalism, even though this is not strictly the case.
2. In philosophy of mind, the belief that the mental and physical are deeply different in kind: thus the mental is
at least not identical with the physical.
See occasionalism, doctrine of pre-established harmony substance dualism, property dualism, Cartesian
interactionist dualism, mind-body problem, monism.
Introduction
Dualism is a time-honoured philosophical position which is exemplified by:
1) Pre-Socratics' appearance/reality distinction
2) Plato' s forms/world distinction
3) Hume' s fact/value distinction
4) Kant' s empirical phenomena/transcendental noumena distinction
5) Heidegger' s being/time distinction
6) Russell' s existence/subsistence distinction
7) Descartes' mind/matter distinction
It is, of course, the last of these which is of most immediate interest to philosophers of mind. There has been a
recent revival of interest in the topic of Cartesian dualism amongst modern philosophers of mind and cognitive
scientists. Arguments against dualism have been provided on the basis of both empirical evidence and on
philosophical grounds, and clearly express the predominant view (e.g. Dennett, Damasio, Churchland).
However, a number of modern philosophers of mind, though in the minority, have come to the defence of
dualism (e.g. Hart). The question of dualism is not only of historical interest, it also has important implications
for the scientific enterprise. If a convincing rejection of dualism can be formulated, the classic mind-body
problem will be solved by its becoming a non-problem and the materialist approach of modern science will be
vindicated. If, conversely, dualism can be convincingly maintained, it is by no means obvious that empirical
evidence will suffice for a thorough understanding of the mind -- in other words, understanding the brain may
not be enough for understanding the mind.
Descartes
Descartes' mind/matter distinction can be found in his Meditations and is a particular kind ofdualism Cartesian
interactionist. Often, the term "Cartesian dualism" is used to refer to the general class of substance dualist
theories. Substance dualists hold that mind and matter are different kinds of substances. Cartesian
interactionist dualism is a particular kind of substance dualism in which these two different kinds of substance
can causally interact. Thus, mind substance can cause matter substance (i.e. the body) to act and matter
substance (i.e. the body) can cause mind substance to have certain "sensations", most often by itself being
acted on by other material objects. For Descartes, the essence of matter is extension (i.e. having spatial
dimensions and being located, res extensa) whereas that of mind is active thinking (res cogitans). Because
Descartes thought these two sorts of substance are essentially different, he held that they are also
independent. Thus, matter can exist without minds and minds can exist without matter.
Descartes' position raises an important question: How do mind and matter interact? It is one thing to claim tha
they do interact, it is another to explain convincingly how, particularly when mind and matter are conceived of
so differently. It is this question that must be answered to solve the classic mind-body problem. The Cartesian
solution to the problem is to insist that the mental representation, though caused by the physical, does not
resemble the physical. However, this does not seem to explain, still, how the mental comes to represent the
physical at all. It seems that Descartes' final position is to insist that God, as the only substance in the strong
sense (i.e. as the only entity that can exist independently of anything else) is responsible for these interactions.
Solving the mind-body problem
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Subsequent to Descartes, there were a number of attempts to provide dualistic solutions to the mind-body
problem. These included:
Occasionalism. Espoused by Clauberg, de la Forge and Malebranche, occasionalism entails the contention
that everything is devoid of causal efficacy and that God is the only truly causal agent. So, for example, placing
your hand on a hot stove is does not cause pain, but is rather an occasion for God to cause the mental state of
pain. So, not only mind/body interactions, but all causal interactions become the work of God.
doctrine of pre-established harmony. This doctrine was formulated by Leibniz and is basically Cartesian
interactionist dualism without the interaction. Thus, rather than causal interaction, God has provided setup in
which the mental and physical are synchronised so as to provide this appearance. However, it should be noted
that Leibniz himself was not a dualist: for him there were no physical substances, these were just appearances.
Nevertheless, this position is often considered a possible dualistic solution to the mind-body problem.
Both occasionalism and the doctrine of pre-established harmony are considered instances of parallelism: the
view that the mental and physical realms co-occur but are not causally connected.
Modern dualists
More recently, some philosophers have suggested that the interaction problem is not due to a problem with a
dualist ontology, but a problem with our notion of causation (Hart). Indeed, this problem is just as evident in
physics as in dualism: a conversion of, say, light to "psychic energy" seems no more a problem than a
conversion of energy to matter. Both seem potentially able to contradict a standard notion of causation. Under
this view, dualism is at least a viable possibility once we realize the difficulty may lie elsewhere than with a
commitment to a dualist ontology.
Another approach to strengthening the dualist position has been to examine critically the claims that our mental
lives can be adequately explained by reference to the physical brain. Philosophers of mind have, for the past
ten years, begun to question seriously the possibility that science will be able to close the explanatory gap
between the brain and our conscious experience, or qualia (termed the hard problem by Chalmers). Clearly, a
reason this gap may be unbridgeable is because mind and matter are so different. Those holding this position
have been called new mysterians because they insist that mind/consciousness is fundamentally mysterious
and can not be explained by standard reductionist scientific means.
References
Dualism Biblio (http://ling.ucsc.edu/_chalmers/biblio3.html#3.3d
Chalmers, D. (1996). The conscious mind: In search of a fundamental theory. Oxford, Oxford University Press.
Churchland, P. M. (1996). The engine of reason, the seat of the soul. Cambridge, MA, MIT Press.
Damasio, A. R. (1994). Descartes' error: Emotion, reason, and the human brain. New York, NY
Grosset/Putnam.
Descartes, R. (1989). Discourse on Method and the Meditations. Translated by John Veitch. Prometheus
Books.
Dennett, D. C. (1991). Consciousness explained. New York, Little, Brown and Company.
Hart, W.D. (1988). The engines of the soul. Cambridge University Press.

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Durkheim Emile
<history of philosophy, biography> french philosopher and sociologist (1858-1917). Durkheim argued that since
society is something more than merely a collection of individual human beings, it follows that social events
cannot be explained wholly in biological or psychological terms. This insight was a significant impetus for the
independence of sociology as a science.
His major writings include ŠlÈments de sociologie (1889), Les Regles de la methode sociologique (Rules for
Sociological Method) (1895), De la division du travail social (The Division of Labor in Society) (1893), and Le
Suicide (Suicide: A Study in Sociology) (1897). Durkheim criticized pragmatism in Pragmatism and Society
(1914).
Recommended Reading: Emile Durkheim, On Morality and Society: Selected Writings, ed. by Robert N. Bellah
(Chicago, 1975);
Gianfranco Poggi, Durkheim (Oxford, 2000);
Steven Lukes, Emile Durkheim, His Life and Work: A Historical and Critical Study (Stanford, 1985).
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duty
<ethics, stoicism, metaphysics, categorical imperative> <hypothetical imperative, political philosophy,

psychology> what an individual is obliged to, or ought to do. If an individual has a duty to do X it is not
permissible for them not to do X; and if they have a duty not to do X then it is not permissible for them to do it.
Kant believed the commands of morality, being categorical, create perfect duties allowing no exceptions.
Nonmoral imperatives, on the other hand, being hypothetical, create imperfect duties which allow of
exceptions. See categorical imperative, hypothetical imperative.
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Dworkin Ronald Myles
<history of philosophy,biography> american political philosopher (1931-). In Taking Rights Seriously (1977) and
Law' s Empire (1986)Dworkin defends a version of legal positivism that relies heavily upon the principled
adjudication of disputes by the judiciary. His treatment of concrete legal issues concerning abortion and
euthanasia is to be found in Life' s Dominion (1993). "Objectivity and Truth: You' d Better Believe It" argues tha
a moderate notion of objectivity secures the objectivity of moral claims.
Ronald Dworkin, Freedom' s Law: The Moral Reading of the American Constitution (Harvard, 1997);
The Philosophy of Law, ed. by Ronald M. Dworkin (Oxford, 1977);
Stephen Guest, Ronald Dworkin (Stanford, 1992);
Ronald Dworkin and Contemporary Jurisprudence, ed. by Marshall Cohen (Rowman & Littlefield, 1984).
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dynamic systems theory
dynamical systems theory
06-03-2004
<philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, PI> an area of mathematics used to describe the behaviour of
complex systems by employing differential and difference equations. Recently, this approach has been
advanced by some as the best way to describe human cognition.
Proponents of the dynamical systems theory approach to cognition believe that systems of differential or
difference equations are the most appropriate tool for modelling human behaviour. These equations are
interpreted to represent an agent' s cognitive trajectory through a high dimensional state space. In other words
cognition is explained as a multidimensional space of all possible thoughts and behaviours that is traversed by
a path of thinking followed by an agent under certain environmental and internal pressures, all of which is
captured by sets of differential equations. The terminology of dynamical systems theory is also adapted. Thus,
cognition is spoken of in terms of state spaces; point, cyclic and chaotic attractors; trajectories; and
deterministic chaos.
Dynamicists, including van Gelder, Port, Thelen and Smith, believe that they have a mandate to prove that this
dynamicist conception of cognition is the correct one to the exclusion of symbolicism and connectionism. Van
Gelder has formulated this as the Dynamicist Hypothesis (van Gelder, 1995, p. 4):
"Natural cognitive systems are certain kinds of dynamical systems, and are best understood from the
perspective of dynamics."
Those "certain kinds" of systems are identified as (van Gelder and Port, 1995, p. 5):
"state-determined systems whose behaviour is governed by differential equations... Dynamical systems in this
strict sense always have variables that are evolving continuously and simultaneously and which at any point in
time are mutually determining each other' s evolution."
In sum, van Gelder and Port assign the following criteria to dynamicist explanations of cognition. Dynamicist
descriptions must be:
- deterministic
- generally complex (i.e. nonlinear)
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- described with respect to the independent variable of time
- of low dimensionality
- intimately linked (i.e. coupled)
There are also various claims made about the status of computation and representation in such systems.
Often, it is claimed that dynamical systems are noncomputational and nonrepresentational.
Criticisms of dynamic systems theory are numerous. Some focus on the rejection of representation and
computation. These either claim that the systems are indeed representational and computational or that
dynamic systems theory will not be able to explain how cognitive systems are able to be both representational
and computational. As well, the similarity between behaviourism and the dynamicist approach is often used to
discredit dynamicism because of the numerous and debilitating difficulties faced by early behaviourists.
Another important criticism stems from the relation between dynamic systems theory and connectionist
networks. Though many dynamicists feel that connectionism should be replaced by dynamicism, it is not clear
why. Connectionist networks exhibit many of the features that behaviours dynamicist note as being central to
cognition and incompatible with classical, or symbolicist artificial intelligence. Though many connectionist
networks do not live up to the expectations of dynamicists, there are a number which do, while not discarding
the notions of computation and representation. Though a strong normative claim may be made concerning the
importance of dynamical systems theory to connectionist models, it is far from clear that dynamicist cognitive
approach will, or should, replace the connectionist approach.
References
Dynamic Systems Biblio (http://ling.ucsc.edu/_chalmers/biblio4.html#4.4

Eliasmith, C. (1996) (http://ascc.artsci.wustl.edu/_celiasmi/index.html#publications)
The third contender: a critical examination of the dynamicist theory of cognition. Philosophical Psychology, 9
(4), 441-463.
Van Gelder, T. (1995) "What might cognition be, if not computation?" Journal of Philosophy, 91, 345-381.
Van Gelder, T. and Port, R. (1995). "It' s about time: an overview of the dynamical approach to cognition." in
Mind as motion: explorations in the dynamics of cognition. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

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dynamicism
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dynamis
<history of philosophy, metaphysics> greek term for power or force, used by presocratic philosophers in
reference to the qualities or features of material elements. Aristotle later used the term to signify potentiality, or
the capacity for undergoing change. The neoplatonic tradition, on the other hand, developed a conception of
personified causal agents.
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dynamism
<metaphysics> the idea that the universe is fundamentally made up of force(s); this idea is often augmented by
the notion that much of the stability we perceive is illusory and that everything is constantly changing or in flux
(sometimes called a Heraclitean view of the universe, after the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus). The
most famous dynamists of recent times are probably Whitehead and Bergson, who are also called "process
philosophers".
[The Ism Book]
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E proposition
in the traditional notation for categorical logic, a proposition that is both universal and negative. Example:
"No reptiles are insects." This proposition affirms that the designated classes have no common members. Its
contradictory is an "I" proposition with the same subject and predicate terms.
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Eckhart Johannes
<history of philosophy, biography> known as Meister Eckhart (1260-1327). German Dominican theologian
whose Von unsagbaren Dingen and other writings and sermons identified the being and intellect of a unified
deity that could be apprehended only through mystical apprehension of the divine through an inner spark
(scintilla animae) of the soul. Condemned as pantheistic in his own time, Eckhart' s doctrines were a significan
application of neoplatonic thought.
Meister Echkart, Selected Writings, ed. by Oliver Davies (Penguin, 1995);
Bernard McGinn, The Mystical Thought of Meister Eckhart: The Man from Whom God Hid Nothing (Crossroad,
2001);
Passion for Creation: Earth-honoring Spirituality of Meister Eckhart, ed. by Matthew Fox (Inner Traditions,
2000).
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eclecticism
<philosophy> approach or way of doing philosophy that does not respect the boundaries of the current or
traditional schools, but instead takes whatever seems true from each of them. Eclecticism is usually applied in
a negative way, implying a lack of systematic or philosophical consistency, or even implying the presence of
subjectivism. (Reference from syncretism.)
[The Ism Book]
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Eco Umberto
<history of philosophy, biography> Italian novelist, critic, and philosopher (1932- ); author of Opera aperta (The
Open Work) (1962), Trattato di semiotica generale (A Theory of Semiotics) (1976), and Semiotica e filosofia
del linguaggio (Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language) (1984).
A serious scholar of semiotics, Eco examines the use of signs, both in literary texts and - as in "Travels in
Hyperreality" (1991)- in popular culture. His novels, Il Nome della Rosa (The Name of the Rose) (1980),
Foucault' s Pendulum (1988), and The Island of the Day Before (1994) offer the kind of postmodern
entertainment, deliberately open to re-interpretation at many different levels, that he had proposed in
Apocalittici e integrati (Apocalyptic Postponed) (1964).
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Umberto Eco, The Limits of Interpretation (Indiana, 1994); Umberto Eco, Misreadings (McClelland & Stewart,
1994);
Umberto Eco, Six Walks in the Fictional Woods (Belknap, 1995);
Reading Eco: An Anthology, ed. by Rocco Capozzi (Indiana, 1997);
Michael Caesar, Umberto Eco: Philosophy, Semiotics and the Work of Fiction (Blackwell, 1999);
Out of Chaos: Semiotics: A Festschrift in Honor of Umberto Eco, ed. by William E. Tanner, Anne Gervasi, and
Kay Mizzel (Liberal Arts, 1992).
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ecofeminism
<human rights, ecology> belief that human violation of the natural world is an extension of the prevalent
patriarchy of Western culture. On this view, efforts to protect the environment at large are feminist in spirit,
since they challenge systemic male domination of the other.
Ecofeminism: Women, Culture, Nature, ed. by Karen Warren and Nisvan Erkal (Indiana, 1997);
Carol J. Adams, The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory (Continuum, 1999);
Ivone Gebara, Longing for Running Water: Ecofeminism and Liberation, tr. by David Molineaux (Fortress,
1999);
Ecofeminism: Women, Animals, Nature, ed. by Greta Claire Gaard (Temple, 1993);
Beneath the Surface: Critical Essays in the Philosophy of Deep Ecology, ed. by Eric Katz, Andrew Light, and
David Rothenberg (MIT, 2000).
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effect
<ontology> an event that is taken to result from or to be produced by another event, with which it stands in a
causal relationship.
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effective computable
<logic> A term describing a function for which there is an effective algorithm that correctly calculates the
function. The algorithm must consist of a finite sequence of instructions.
[FOLDOC]
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effective computation
effective computable
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effective enumeration
enumerable set
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effective method
<logic> An effective method for a class C of problems is a method for solving problems in C when the method
(1) is logically bound as opposed to physically bound (2) to give some answer, as opposed to no answer, (3)
that is correct, as opposed to incorrect, (4) in a finite number of steps, as opposed to an infinite number, (5)
every time, or for all inputs, or for all problems in the class, as opposed to selectively, (6) if the method is
followed carefully, as opposed to carelessly, (7) as far as necessary, as opposed to only as far as our
resources permit, (8) when each step in the process is "dumb" or "mechanical". The eighth requirement
introduces an irreducibly intuitive element into the definition. Some add (9) when given a problem from outside
the class for which the method is effective, the method may halt or loop forever without halting, but must not
return a value as if it were the answer to the problem. (The wording of this definition was influenced by
Geoffrey Hunter.) Also called algorithm; decision procedure.
See also Church' s Thesis
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effective proof procedure
<logic> An effective method for generating the proof of any theorem in a formal system. A system for which
there exists an effective proof procedure is decidable; but not all decidable systems have effective proof
procedures.
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efficient cause
<ontology> the agent or event that produces some change in the accidental features of a thing; one of
Aristotle' s fourcauses.
Aristotle, Physics, tr. by Robin Waterfield and David Bostock (Oxford, 1999).
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egalitarianism
<ethics, political philosophy> the view that equality is a very high, or even the most important, ethical and
societal value (sometimes also called equalitarianism). Egalitarians usually focus on equality of results, rather
than equality of opportunity or equality before the law, which are ideas associated with classical liberalism or
libertarianism. In practical terms, egalitarian policies in political reality usually focus on the equal re-distribution
of wealth, often verging on socialism. (Reference from liberalism.)
[The Ism Book]
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egoism
<ethics> belief that human conduct is governed by self-interest. Psychological egoism holds that all human
beings are, as a matter of fact, motivated to act only in pursuit of their own (at least apparent) advantage, never
for the sake of others. Ethical egoism is the normative theory that right conduct can be defined in terms of (an
enlightened notion of) one' s own welfare. Though often held jointly, the distinction between fact and value
clearly renders the two views distinct: some might argue that human beings ought to act on their own behalf
even though they don' t always do so, while others could suppose that they invariably do act selfishly even
though they ought not.
Robert William Shaver, Rational Egoism: A Selective and Critical History (Cambridge, 1998)
Kim-Chong Chong, Moral Agoraphobia: The Challenge of Egoism (Peter Lang, 1996).
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eidos
<ontology> Greek term for what is seen-figure, shape, or form. In the philosophy of Plato, the eidos is the
immutable genuine nature of a thing, one of the eternal, transcendent Forms apprehended by human reason.
Aristotle rejected the notion of independently existing Forms and understood them instead as abstract
universals. By extension, Husserl used the term "eidetic" for the phenomenological apprehension of essences
generally.
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eigenvalue
<mathematics> The factor by which a linear transformation multiplies one of its eigenvectors.
[FOLDOC]
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eigenvector
<mathematics> A vector which, when acted on by a particular linear transformation, produces a scalar multiple
of the original vector. The scalar in question is called the eigenvalue corresponding to this eigenvector.
It should be noted that "vector" here means "element of a vector space" which can include many mathematical
entities. Ordinary vectors are elements of a vector space, and multiplication by a matrix is a linear
transformation on them; smooth functions "are vectors", and many partial differential operators are linear
transformations on the space of such functions; quantum-mechanical states "are vectors", and observables are
linear transformations on the state space.
An important theorem says, roughly, that certain linear transformations have enough eigenvectors that they
form a basis of the whole vector states. This is why Fourier analysis works, and why in quantum mechanics
every state is a superposition of eigenstates of observables.
An eigenvector is a (representative member of a) fixed point of the map on the projective plane induced by a
linear map.
[FOLDOC]
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eikasia
<epistemology> Greek term used by Plato, to signify human imagination, which is focussed exclusively on a
temporal appearance or image.
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Einstein Albert
<history of philosophy, biography> german physicist (1879-1955). Einstein' s combination of simple thought -
experiments with complex mathematical formulae transformed twentieth-century conceptions of matter, space,
and time and earned him the Nobel Prize for physics in 1921. His special (1905) and general (1915) theories of
relativity emphasized the role of the observer in determining the content of our observations of the natural
world. Although he assisted the careers of several of the logical positivists, his own philosophical reflections
emphasized the independence of theory-formation from empirical evidence.
Albert Einstein, Relativity: The Special and the General Theory (Crown, 1995);
Albert Einstein, Out of My Later Years: The Scientist, Philosopher and Man Portrayed Through His Own Words
(Outlet, 1993);
Richard Feynman, Six Not-So-Easy Pieces: Einstein' s Relativity, Symmetry, and Space -Time (Perseus, 1998);
Albrecht Folsing, Albert Einstein: A Biography (Penguin, 1998).
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Eleatics
< history of philosophy, school> presocratic philosophers, including Parmenides and Zeno, who used
dialectical methods to argue that reality is a unified whole within which no motion or change is possible.
The Cambridge Companion to Early Greek Philosophy, ed. by A. A. Long (Cambridge, 1999).
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elegant
(From Mathematics) Combining simplicity, power, and a certain ineffable grace of design. Higher praise than
"clever", "winning" or even cuspy.
The French aviator, adventurer, and author Antoine de Saint-Exup' ery, probably best known for his classic
children' s book "The Little Prince", was also an aircraft designer. He gave us perhaps the best definition o
engineering elegance when he said "A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing
left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."
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eliminativism
<philosophy of mind> belief that language should be purged of all reference to the (none-existent) things of a
certain kind; the most extreme variety of reductionism. Thus, while a reductive materialist may hold that pains
are really just activities of the central nervous system, an eliminative materialist proposes that we speak only of
brain-states.
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ELIZA
<artificial intelligence> A famous program by Joseph Weizenbaum, which simulated a Rogerian psychoanalyst
by rephrasing many of the patient' s statements as questions and posing them to the patient. It worked by
simple pattern recognition and substitution of key words into canned phrases. It was so convincing, however,
that there are many anecdotes about people becoming very emotionally caught up in dealing with ELIZA. All
this was due to people' s tendency to attach to words meanings which the computer never put there.
See also ELIZA effect.
[FOLDOC]
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ELIZA effect
<jargon> /e-li:' z* -fekt'

* / (FromELIZA) The tendency of humans to attach associations to terms from prior
experience. For example, there is nothing magic about the symbol "+" that makes it well-suited to indicate
addition; it' s just that people associate it with addition. Using "+" or "plus" to mean addition in a compute
language is taking advantage of the ELIZA effect.
The ELIZA effect is a Good Thing when writing a programming language, but it can blind you to serious
shortcomings when analysing an Artificial Intelligence system.
Compare ad-hockery; see also AI-complete.
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Elizabeth of Bohemia
<history of philosophy, biography> German princess (Elisabeth von der Pfalz) (1618-1680). In he extensive
correspondence with Descartes, Elizabeth deftly identified the impossibility of genuine interaction between
mental and physical substances as the central difficulty with mind-body dualism.
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emanation
<ontology, Plotinus> that which inevitably flows outward from the transcendental central principle of reality ("the
One") in the neoplatonic philosophy of Plotinus. Individual things, including human beings, are therefore
presumed to be nothing more than the faint ripples left by a primordial big splash.
The timeless reality of a central intelligence, Plotinus held, inexorably results in the formation of both soul as an
active principle of organization and, eventually, inert matter.
Plotinus, The Enneads, ed. by John Dillon and Stephen MacKenna (Penguin, 1991)
The Cambridge Companion to Plotinus, ed. by Lloyd P. Gerson (Cambridge, 1996).
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emanationism
<metaphysics> a doctrine in both gnosticism and especially the Neo-Platonism of Plotinus, who posited that
the physical world emanated from a "world soul", which in turn emanated from a divine presence, which in turn
emanated from a higher divinity, and so on - the whole process having started with an emanation from the
divine God or "One".
[The Ism Book]
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embedding
1. <mathematics> One instance of some mathematical object contained with in another instance, e.g. a group
which is a subgroup.
2. <theory> (domain theory) A complete partial order F in [X -> Y] is an embedding if (1) For all x1, x2 in X, x1
<= x2 <=> F x1 <= F x2 and (2) For all y in Y, x | F x <= y is directed.
[FOLDOC]
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emergence
<PI, philosophy of mind, ontology> properties of a complex physical system are emergent just in case they are
neither (i) properties had by any parts of the system taken in isolation nor (ii) resultant of a mere summation of
properties of parts of the system.
A system exhibits emergent properties when those properties are more than the sum of its parts" properties.
Emergence is a notion cherished by those philosophers of mind who are mental realists, and physicalists who
nonetheless reject the reducibility of the mental to the physical. Mental emergentists, then, posit that mental
properties emerge from certain complex sets of physical properties, for instance, physical properties of human
brains. Thus they hold that mental events are not identical to any brain events but instead emerge from them.
Ernest Nagel (1961) and Brain McLaughlin (1992) cite Mill' s ' Of the Composition of Causes" chapter of System
of Logic (1843) as the locus classicus on the notion of emergence. For Mill, the key to the distinction between
emergent and non-emergent properties centres on a distinction regarding two different ways in which conjoint
causes can produce an effect: Non-emergent properties are effects that are mere summations of the effects of
each of the causal conjuncts, whereas emergent properties are effects that are not sums of the effects of each
causal conjunct. These respective notions might be best conveyed by the following examples.
A paradigmatic example of an effect best construed as non-emergent is the way that multiple force vectors
sum to propel a body in a given direction. Mill writes:
"If a body is propelled in two directions by two forces, one tending to drive it to the north and the other to the
east, it is caused to move in a given time exactly as far in both directions as the two forces would separately
have carried it; and is left precisely where it would have arrived if it had been acted upon first by one of the two
forces, and afterwards by the other. This law of nature is called, in dynamics, the principle of the Composition
of Forces: and in imitation of that well-chosen expression, I shall give the name of the Composition of Causes
to the principle which is exemplified in all cases in which the joint effect of several causes is identical with the
sum of their separate effects. (1843, p. 428)"
A key determinant of whether a behaviour is emergent on this view is whether removing any of the causal
conjuncts prevents the remaining conjuncts from contributing their effects to the remaining system. If not, then
the behaviour of the system in question is non-emergent. If so, then it is emergent. Mill offers as examples of
emergent effects chemical reactions. Consider the following chemical process: CH4 + 2O2 --> CO2 + 2H2O
(Methane + oxygen produces carbon dioxide + water). For Mill, the products of such chemical reactions are
not, in any sense, the sum of the effects of each reactant (McLaughlin, 1992, p.60).
While the mechanics underlying chemical reactions are understood well enough today to render Mill' s poin
dubious, we can see why the above chemical reaction would impress Mill and his contemporaries as
significantly different in kind from the Composition of Forces for moving bodies. In the case of the chemical
reaction, the resulting compounds exhibit properties significantly different from those of the reactants. For
instance, methane is violently combustible, whereas carbon dioxide and water are not. This contrasts sharply
against the case of a north-westerly moving object being propelled by two forces--one towards the north, the
other towards the west-- insofar as the subsequent motion is so obviously decomposable into the effects of the
conjoint causes. A very live possibility to consider in connection with these examples is that an enhanced
understanding of the processes that underlie some observed property of a system may show that system not to
be an example of emergence. That is, an increase of knowledge about the way certain effects are obtained
may reveal that certain effects are decomposable into the effects contributed by subcomponents of that
system. Mill' s chemical examples fail as properly emergent for just this reason. With the development o
quantum mechanical explanation, we have been able to see how chemical reactions are composed of additive
properties of individual electrons (McLaughlin, 1992, p.89).
Pete Mandik
Objection
I disagree with the definition of emergent properties. This definition would automatically make the shape of a
composite body an "emergent" property. Consider a brick in the shape of a cube. The parts of this object are,
let' s say, molecules. Now (1) None of the molecules is cubical in shape, and (2) "cubical" is not the "sum" o
the shapes of the molecules, nor the sum of anything else. (In fact, only quantities can be sums. Since
"cubical" isn' t a quantity, it can' t be the sum of anything.) Thus, the existence of emergent properties would be
trivial.
Instead, we should take Broad' s definition from The Mind and its Place in Nature. Roughly: a property, P, of a
composite object, O, is emergent if it is not metaphysically necessary that an aggregate composed of parts
having exactly the (intrinsic) properties that the parts of O in fact have and arranged in the way that the parts of
O are in fact arranged, should have P.
(Broad says, if you were given all the intrinsic properties of the parts plus their arrangement, you could not
predict the properties of the whole. I think this is what he means.)
Michael Huemer
Reply to the Objection
While I agree that any good definition of "emergence" should exclude the shapes of bricks from counting as
emergent properties, I disagree that my definition fails to do so. Superimpose a coordinate system (such as
Descartes' ) on a brick, and it becomes a simple exercise to see that the particular way that the brick occupies
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space is a sum of the ways its parts occupy space. Given the techniques of analytic geometry, particular
shapes can be converted into particular quantities and summed all day long.
As regards the definition attributed to Broad, the following problem arises. According to that definition, my
mental properties would count as emergent if and only if it is metaphysically possible that my microphysical
doppleganger lacks (qualitatively identical) mental properties. Thus, Broad' s definition of "emergence" is
inconsistent with many formulations of psychophysical supervenience, which, I think, would strike many
contemporary emergentists as an unhappy result.
Pete Mandik
Emergence Biblio (http://ling.ucsc.edu/_chalmers/biblio3.html#3.3c)
Lewes, George Henry. (1875). Problems of Life and Mind. Vol 2. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Turbner, Co.
McLaughlin, Brain P. (1992). The rise and fall of British Emergentism. Emergence or Reduction?: Essays on
the Prospects of Nonreductive Physicalism. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
Mill, John Stuart. (1843). System of Logic. London: Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer. (Eight edition, 1872).
Nagel, Ernest. (1961). The Structure of Science. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Wilson.
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emergent property
<ontology> an irreducible feature (now commonly called supervenient) of a complex whole that cannot be
inferred directly from the features of its simpler parts. Thus, for example, the familiar taste of salt is an
emergent property with respect to the sodium and chlorine of which it is composed.
Jaegwon Kim, Mind in a Physical World: An Essay on the Mind-Body Problem and Mental Causation (Bradford,
2000);
William Hasker, The Emergent Self (Cornell, 1999);
Benjamin Pinkel, Consciousness, Matter, and Energy: The Emergence of Mind in Nature (DeVorss, 1992).
see emergence
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Emerson Ralph Waldo
<history of philosophy, biography> American essayist and anti-slavery activist (1803-1882). Emerson' s
enthusiastic celebration of the individual person expressed a prominent element of nineteenth-century
optimism in his Essays - First Series (1841) and Second Series (1844). Among his best-known philosophical
works are "The American Scholar" (1837), a speech on American intellectual values, and the confidently
humanistic essay, "Self-Reliance" (1841). Influenced by German Romanticism, Emerson helped to establish a
lasting American taste for non-theistic spirituality.
Ralph Waldo Emerson: Essays and Lectures, ed. by Joel Porte (Library of America, 1983);
The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, ed. by Brooks Atkinson and Mary Oliver (Modern Library,
2000);
The Portable Emerson, ed. by Malcolm Cowley (Viking, 1987);
The Cambridge Companion to Ralph Waldo Emerson, ed. by Joel Porte and Saundra Morris (Cambridge,
1999).
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emotion appeal
<argument> known also as to argumentum ad populum. The informal fallacy of persuading someone to accept
(or reject) a conclusion by arousing favorable (or unfavorable) emotions toward it or by emphasizing its
widespread acceptance (or rejection) by others. Example: "Nobody with an ounce of common sense or a single
shred of integrity believes that our President is truly an effective leader. Therefore, the President is not an
effective leader."
Douglas Walton, Appeal to Popular Opinion (Penn. State, 1999).
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emotionalism
<ethics, epistemology> any theory of knowledge that considers emotion to be the basic valid means of
knowledge (cf. intuitionism), or more commonly to an ethical theory that is based on emotion rather than reason
(often having connotations of nihilism or irrationalism). In popular discource, the word "emotionalist" tends to be
used to characterize those who are hypersensitive, over-emotional, or even irrational.
(References from hedonism, irrationalism, romanticism, and subjectivism.)
[The Ism Book]
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emotive meaning
<language> attitudes and feelings associated with the use of a word, phrase, or sentence, in contrast with its
literal significance.
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emotivism
<ethics> the meta-ethical theory according to which the meaning of moral language is exhausted by its
expression, evocation, or endorsement of powerful human feelings. Thus, for example, saying "Stealing is
wrong," is just an especially strong way of reporting that I disapprove of stealing, evoking a similar disapproval
from others, and thereby attempting to influence future conduct-both mine and theirs. Although its origins lie in
the non-cognitivist morality of Hume, emotivism reached its height early in the twentieth century, with the work
of the logical positivists and Stevenson.
Charles L. Stevenson, Ethics and Language (Yale, 1944);
J. O. Urmson, The Emotive Theory of Ethics (London, 1968);
Stephen Satris, Ethical Emotivism (Martinus Nijhoff, 1987).
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Empedocles
<history of philosophy, biography> Greek presocratic philosopher (d. 433 B.C.) who supposed that the four
elements are irreducible components of the world, joined to and separated from each other by competing
principles. Love invariably strives to combine everything into a harmonious sphere, which Strife tries to shatter
into distinct entities. Human beings corrupted by eating animal flesh, Empedocles, supposed, pursue
philosophy in an effort to contribute positively to the cosmic cycle.
Empedocles: The Extant Fragments, ed. by M. R. Wright (Hackett, 1995);
Empedocles, ed. by Brad Inwood (Toronto, 2001);
and Peter Kingsley, Ancient Philosophy, Mystery, and Magic: Empedocles and Pythagorean Tradition (Oxford,
1997).
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empirical
<epistemology, philosophy of science, metaphysics> <empiricism, neo-empiricism, kantian logic, a priori> <a
posteriori> based on experience, or observation -- describing knowledge derived from or warranted by sense
perception. Compare: a posteriori. Contrast: a priori.
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empiricism
<epistemology, neo-empiricism, cartesianism, innatism> <rationalism, ockhamism, skepticism, metaphysics,

test> the view that all ideas, and all knowledge of the world derives solely from sensory experience or
perception; denying the existence of innate ideas in opposition to rationalism.
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empiricist
<philosophical school> specifically, a British philosopher of the 17th and 18th century such as Hobbes, tended
to believe that knowledge derives from our sensory experience and its ramifications. Berkeley and Hume, in
particular, maintained (as nominalists) that the mind has no essentially abstract, rational ideas of the sort that
were supposed to form the basis of science for the rationalist. neo-empiricist, neo-rationalist
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emulation
<logic> One system is said to emulate another when it performs in exactly the same way, though perhaps not
at the same speed. A typical example would be emulation of one computer by (a program running on) another.
You might use an emulation as a replacement for a system whereas you would use a simulation if you just
wanted to analyse it and make predictions about it.
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emulator
Hardware or software that performs emulation.
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encapsulation
<PI> 1. The technique used by layered protocols in which a layer adds header information to the protocol data
unit (PDU) from the layer above. As an example, in Internet terminology, a packet would contain a header from
the physical layer, followed by a header from the network layer (IP), followed by a header from the transport
layer (TCP), followed by the application protocol data.
2. The ability to provide users with a well-defined interface to a set of functions in a way which hides their
internal workings. In object-oriented programming, the technique of keeping together data structures and the
methods (procedures) which act on them.
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encode
1. <algorithm, hardware> Any program, circuit or algorithm which encodes.
Example usages: "MPEG encoder", "NTSC encoder", "RealAudio encoder".
2. <hardware> A sensor or transducer for converting rotary motion or position to a series of electronic pulses.
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encoder
1. <algorithm, hardware> Any program, circuit or algorithm

which encodes.
Example usages: "MPEG encoder", "NTSC encoder",

"RealAudio encoder".
2. <hardware> A sensor or transducer for converting rotary

motion or position to a series of electronic pulses.
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encryption
<algorithm, cryptography> Any procedure used in cryptography to convert plaintext into ciphertext in order to
prevent any but the intended recipient from reading that data. There are many types of data encryption, and
they are the basis of network security. Common types include Data Encryption Standard and public-key
encryption. The Unix command crypt performs encryption.
(http://eff.org/)
[FOLDOC]
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Encyclopedists
<history of philosophy, school> a group of French philosophers, including Condillac, d' Alembert, d' Holbac
Diderot, Helvetius, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Turgot, and Voltaire, who expressed their anti-institutional views
on morality, politics, and religion in the seventeen-volume Encyclopédie ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences,
des arts, et des métiers (Encyclopedia, or a Descriptive Dictionary of the Sciences, Arts, and Trades) (1751-
1772), a generative text of the French Enlightenment
Jean Le Rond D' Alembert, Preliminary Discourse to the Encyclopedia of Diderot, tr. by Richard N. Schwab
(Chicago, 1995);
Encyclopedie (French & European, 1997): Vol. I, Vol. II, Vol. III, and Vol. IV.
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end
<ethics, metaphysics, philosophy of history, finalism> <causality, stoicism,> that which is sought, or the object
of pursuit. Aristotle maintains that all our pursuits aim ultimately at ends that are sought or desired intrinsically,
i.e. for their own sakes, and that the greatest of these intrinsic goods is happiness. Things sought not for their
own sake but for the sake of something else are desired extrinsically or instrumentally, as means.
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energeia
<ontology>
Greek term for the operation or activity of anything. More technically, in the philosophy of Aristotle, energeia is
the actuality characteristic of every individual substance toward some end, in contrast with its potentiality or
capacity to change.
George A. Blair, Energeia and Entelecheia: Act in Aristotle (Ottawa, 1992);
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Engels Friedrich
<history of philosophy ,biography> German political activist and philosopher (1820-1895). Engels collaborated
with Karl Marx on the Manifest der kommunistischen Partei (Communist Manifesto) (1848) and other political
works. His own philosophical writing, including Lage der arbeitenden Klasse in England (The Condition of the
Working Class in England) (1845), Socialism, Utopian and Scientific (1880), and Ludwig Feuerbach and the
Outcome of Classical German Philosophy (1888), provided an excellent exposition of dialectical materialism
and significantly influenced the development of the ideology of modern communism.
His analysis of bourgeois family life in The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State (1884) offers an
interesting anticipation of feminist concern with the place of women in society by noting the role of patriarchal
oppression in preserving the capitalist order and by urging the elimination of private domestic labor for women.
Terrell Carver, Friedrich Engels: His Life and Thought (St. Martins, 1993);
Introduction to Marx and Engels: A Critical Reconstruction, ed. by Richard Schmitt, Keith Lehrer, and Norman
Daniels (Westview, 1997);
and Engels After Marx, ed. by Manfred B. Steger and Terrell Carver (Penn. State, 1999).
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Enlightenment
<history of philosophy, school> an eighteenth-century movement that placed great emphasis on the use of
reason in the development of philosophical, social, political, and scientific knowledge. Enlightenment
philosophers include Bayle, Hume, Wollstonecraft, Kant, and many lesser figures.
The Portable Enlightenment Reader, ed. by Issac Kramnick (Penguin, 1995);
Ernst Cassirer, The Philosophy of the Enlightenment, tr. by J. Pettegrove and F. Koelin (Princeton, 1968);
Peter Gay, The Enlightenment (The Rise of Modern Paganism (Norton, 1995) and The Science of Freedom
(Norton, 1996));
Age of Enlightenment: The Eighteenth Century Philosophers, ed. by Isaiah Berlin (Plume, 1993).
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entailment
<logic> relation between propositions such that one of them is strictly implied by the other(s); that is, its falsity
is logically impossible, given the truth of what entails it. Thus, the premises of a valid deductive argument entail
its conclusion.
Charles F. Kielkopf, Formal Sentential Entailment (U. Press of America, 1986)
and Entailment, ed. by Alan Ross Anderson, Nuel D. Belnap, and J. Michael Dunn (Princeton, 1992).
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entelecheia
<ontology> Aristotle' s Greek term for the complete reality or perfection of a thing, as thesoul is of the human
body. For Leibniz, then, an "entelechy" is the active force resident in every monad.
George A. Blair, Energeia and Entelecheia: Act in Aristotle (Ottawa, 1992);
and The Cambridge Companion to Leibniz, ed. by Nicholas Jolley (Cambridge, 1994).
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enthusiasm
<emotion, anthropology> an exaggerated state of religious fervor or reliance on divine inspiration.

Enlightenment philosophers such as Locke and Leibniz decried manifestations of enthusiasm as incompatible
with the proper employment of rational faculties.
Michael Heyd, ' Be Sober and Reasonable' : The Critique of Enthusiasm in the Seventeenth and Ear
Eighteenth Centuries (Brill, 1995);
and Josef Pieper, Enthusiasm and Divine Madness: On the Platonic Dialogue Phaedrus, tr. by Richard and
Clara Winston (St. Augustine, 2000).
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enthymeme
<logic> a deductive argument (especially a categorical syllogism) from whose ordinary-language expression
one or more propositions have been omitted or left unstated. Example: "Since some finches are cardinals, it
follows that some birds are cardinals."
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entropy
<PI, mathematics, logic> A measure of the disorder of a system. Systems tend to go from a state of order (low
entropy) to a state of maximum disorder (high entropy).
The entropy of a system is related to the amount of information it contains. A highly ordered system can be
described using fewer bits of information than a disordered one. For example, a string containing one million
"0"s can be described using run-length encoding as [("0", 1000000)] whereas a string of random symbols (e.g.
bits, or characters) will be much harder, if not impossible, to compress in this way.
Shannon' s formula gives the entropy H(M) of a message M in bits:
H(M) = -log2 p(M)
Where p(M) is the probability of message M.
[FOLDOC]
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enumerable set
<logic> Roughly, a set that can be translated into a sequence. More precisely, a set such that every one of its
members has at least one counterpart in a certain sequence (though they may have more than one
counterpart), and every term in the sequence has a counterpart in the set. The resulting sequence is called an
enumeration of the set. The set a, b, c is enumerated by the sequence <a, b, c>, but also by the sequence <a,
a, c, b>; it is not enumerated by the sequence <a, a, c, c>.
Effectively enumerable set
An enumerable set for which there is an effective method for ascertaining the nth term of the sequence for
every positive integer n.
Recursively enumerable set
A set that is effectively enumerable by some recursive function. Under Church' s thesis, a set is recursively
enumerable iff it is effectively enumerable.
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enumerated type
<programming> (Or "enumeration") A type which includes in its definition an exhaustive list of possible values
for variables of that type. Common examples include Boolean, which takes values from the list [true, false], and
day-of-week which takes values [Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday].
Enumerated types are a feature of strongly typed languages, including C and Ada.
Characters, (fixed-size) integers and even floating-point types could be (but are not usually) considered to be
(large) enumerated types.
[FOLDOC]
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enumeration
1. <mathematics> A bijection with the natural numbers; a counted set.
Compare well-ordered.
2. <programming> enumerated type.
[FOLDOC]
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environment
environment variable
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environment variable
<PI, operating system> A variable that is bound in the current environment. When evaluating an expression in
some environment, the evaluation of a variable consists of looking up its name in the environment and
substituting its value.
Most programming languages have some concept of an environment but in Unix shell scripts it has a specific
meaning slightly different from other contexts. In shell scripts, environment variables are one kind of shell
variable. They differ from local variables and command line arguments in that they are inherited by a child
process. Examples are the PATH variable that tells the shell the file system paths to search to find command
executables and the TZ variable which contains the local time zone. The variable called "SHELL" specifies the
type of shell being used.
These variables are used by commands or shell scripts to discover things about the environment they are
operating in. Environment variables can be changed or created by the user or a program.
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To see a list of environment variables type "setenv" at the csh or tcsh prompt or "set" at the sh, bash, jsh or ksh
prompt.
In other programming languages, e.g. functional programming languages, the environment is extended with
new bindings when a function' s parameters are bound to itsactual arguments or when new variables are
declared. In a block-structured procedural language, the environment usually consists of a linked list of
activation records.
[FOLDOC]
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Epictetus
<history of philosophy, biography> even though he was born a slave in Hierapolis and endured a permanent
physical disability, Epictetus (55-135) held that all human beings are perfectly free to control their lives and to
live in harmony with nature. After intense study of the traditional Stoic curriculum (established by Zeno of
Citium and Chrysippus) of logic, physics, and ethics, Epictetus spent his entire career teaching philosophy and
promoting a daily regime of rigorous self-examination. He eventually gained his freedom, but was exiled from
Rome by Domitian in 89. Epictetus' s pupil Arrianus later collected lecture notes from the master and published
them as the Discourses.
The more epigrammatic Encheiridion, or Manual represents an even later distillation of the same material.
From a fundamental distinction between our ability to think or feel freely and our lack of control over external
events or circumstances, Epictetus derived the description of a calm and disciplined life. We can never fail to
be happy, he argued, if we learn to desire that things should be exactly as they are. That the same approach to
human life may work for others as well as for a slave is suggested by the persuasive oratory of the Roman
statesman Seneca. The Meditations of Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius illustrate the practical value of a Stoic
approach even in the best of circumstances.
Primary sources:
Epictetus, Enchiridion, tr. by George Long (Prometheus, 1955).
Secondary sources:
Malcolm Schofield, The Stoic Idea of the City (Chicago, 1999);
Adolf Friedrich Bonhoffer, The Ethics of the Stoic Epictetus, tr. by William O. Stephens (Peter Lang, 2000);
A. A. Long, Hellenistic Philosophy: Stoics, Epicureans, Sceptics (California, 1986).
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Epicureanism
<ethics> school in ancient ethics founded by the Greek philosopher Epicurus (341-271 BC). This school began
in the generation after the death of Aristotle and lasted over 500 years. Although Epicurus was an avowed
advocate of hedonism, he did not advocate the wanton pursuit of pleasure. In fact, his doctrine was quite strict
and was far removed from our sense of the word "hedonism", since he held that the greatest pleasure a person
can achieve lies in the absence of all pains and disturbances, and that the pleasures and pains of the mind are
of greater importance than those of the body. While Epicureanism was much more individualistic than stoicism,
its view of happiness was less "activist" than that of Aristotelianism and one could even draw comparisons
between Epicureanism and Eastern views like Taoism. (References from cynicism, hedonism, pessimism,
stoicism, and Taoism.)
[The Ism Book]
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Epicurus
<history of philosophy, biography> Epicurus (341-270 B.C.) was born in the Greek colony on Samos, but spent
most of his active life in Athens, where he founded yet another school of philosophy. At "the Garden," Epicurus
and his friends lived out their ideals for human life, talking about philosophical issues but deliberately detaching
themselves from active involvement in social affairs. Epicurus whole-heartedly adopted the atomism of
Leucippus and Democritus, maintaining that all objects and events-including human lives-are in reality nothing
more than physical interactions among minute indestructible particles. As they fall toward the center of the
earth, atoms swerve from their paths to collide with each other and form temporary compound beings. There is
no necessity about any of this, of course; everything happens purely by chance.
In his Letter to Menoeceus and Principle Doctrines, Epicurus discussed the consequences of this view for the
human attempt to achieve happiness. Since death is a total annihilation that cannot be experienced, in our
present lives we need only live a simple life and seek always to avoid physical pain. It is pleasure, understood
in this negative sense, that is the highest good for Epicurus. Freedom from mental disturbance is the very most
for which one can hope.
Primary sources:
The Essential Epicurus: Letters, Principal Doctrines, Vatican Sayings, and Fragments, tr. by Eugene Michael
O' Connor (Prometheus, 1993).
Secondary sources:
Howard Jones, The Epicurean Tradition (Routledge, 1992);
A. A. Long, Hellenistic Philosophy: Stoics, Epicureans, Sceptics (California, 1986).
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Epimenides paradox
liar paradox
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epiphenomenalism
<anthropology, philosophy of mind> belief that consciousness is an incidental side-effect ("epiphenomenon") or

by-product of physical or mechanical reality. On this view, although mental events are in some sense real they
have no causal efficacy in the material realm.
D. M. Armstrong, The Mind-Body Problem: An Opinionated Introduction (Westviesw, 1999);
and Jaegwon Kim, Mind in a Physical World: An Essay on the Mind-Body Problem and Mental Causation
(Bradford, 2000).
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epistemology
<epistemology> one of the major branches of philosophy, also known as philosophy of knowledge. It concerns
the forms, nature, preconditions, sources, types and limits of knowledge.
Most of contemporary Anglo-American epistemology concentrates on:
1. the analysis of propositional knowledge (knowing that) as opposed to, e.g., procedural knowledge (knowing
how) and knowledge by acquaintance (knowing who);
2. the nature, sources, and justification of its major types, e.g. a priori and empirical;
3. the tripartite analysis of knowledge as justified true belief (see Gettier problem;
4. supplying a theory of the justification of empirical knowledge (foundationalism, coherentism, or other).
5. the analysis of sceptical arguments.
Luciano Floridi
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epoché
<epistemology, skepticism, phenomenology> Greek term for cessation or stoppage; hence, in the philosophy of
the skeptics, the suspension of judgment. Only by refusing either to affirm or to deny the truth of what we
cannot know, they supposed, can we achieve the ataraxia of a peaceful mind.
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equals
<character> "=", ASCII character 61.
Common names: ITU-T: equals; gets; takes. Rare: quadrathorpe; INTERCAL: half-mesh.
Equals is used in many languages as the assignment operator though earlier languages used ":=" ("becomes
equal to") to avoid upsetting mathematicians with statements such as "x = x+1". It is also used in compounds
such as "<=", ">=", "==", "/=", "!=" for various comparison operators and in C' s "+=", "*=" etc. which mimic the
primitive operations of two-address code.
[FOLDOC]
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equational logic
<logic> First-order equational logic consists of quantifier-free terms of ordinary first-order logic, with equality as
the only predicate symbol. The model theory of this logic was developed into Universal algebra by Birkhoff et
al. [Birkhoff, Gratzer, Cohn]. It was later made into a branch of category theory by Lawvere ("algebraic
theories").
[FOLDOC]
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equivalence
<logic> A truth function that returns truth when its two arguments have the same truth-value, and false
otherwise. Also the connective denoting this function; also the compound proposition built from this connective.
Syntactically: the two propositions imply one another. Semantically: they have the same models. Also called a
biconditional, or biconditional statement.
Logical equivalence
A tautologous statement of material equivalence (next).
Material equivalence
A truth function that is true when its two arguments have the same truth-value (not necessarily the same
meaning). Notation: p <=> q, or p iff q.
See also equivalence thesis partial equivalence relation.
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equivalence class
<mathematics, logic> An equivalence class is a subset whose elements are related to each other by an
equivalence relation. The equivalence classes of a set under some relation form a partition of that set (i.e. any
two are either equal or disjoint and every element of the set is in some class).
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equivalence class partitioning
<programming> A software testing technique that involves identifying a small set of representative input values
that invoke as many different input conditions as possible.
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equivalence relation
<mathematics, logic> A relation R on a set including elements a, b, c, which is reflexive (a R a), symmetric (a R
b => b R a) and transitive (a R b R c => a R c). An equivalence relation defines an equivalence class.
See also equivalence partial equivalence relation.
[FOLDOC]
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equivalence thesis
<logic> the equivalence thesis states that, for any proposed notion of truth, each instance of the schema "S is
true if and only if P" resulting from the substitution of a translation of the sentence designated by S for P, is
true. This thesis is often taken to be a minimal requirement on any notion of truth.
Note that the equivalence thesis does not presuppose a correspondence notion of truth. For example,
deflationary notions of truth, such as the Quinian "disquotational" notion, satisfy the equivalence thesis.
Dummett, Michael (1978). Truth and Other Enigmas. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Devitt, Michael (1984). Realism and Truth. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Whit Schonbein
16-03-2001
equivalent sets
<logic> Two sets are equivalent iff they have the same cardinality, that is, if they can be put into one-to-one
correspondence. Also called equinumerous sets. Notation: A =~ B; sometimes A~B.
16-03-2001
equivocal
having more than one meaning.
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equivocation
the informal fallacy that can result when an ambiguous word or phrase is used in different senses within a
single argument. Example: "Odd things arouse human suspicion. But seventeen is an odd number. Therefore,
seventeen arouses human suspicion."
29-10-2001
ER
Entity-Relationship
22-11-2003
Erasmus Desiderius
<history of philosophy, biography> Dutch humanist (1466-1536). Erasmus produced editions of classical texts
far superior to those of the medieval period and, in Diatribe de libero arbitrio (Discourse on Free Will) (1524)
defended the moral freedom of individual human beings. The Ecomium moriae id est Laus stultitiae (Praise of
Folly) (1509) satirized the political and religious institutions of his time, and many of his Colloquia (1518) are
stinging condemnations of ecclesiastical fraud.
Christian Humanism and the Reformation: Selected Writings of Erasmus, ed. by John C. Olin (Fordham, 1987);
Erasmus: His Life, Works and Influence, tr. by J. C. Grayson (Toronto, 1996)
29-10-2001
Eratosthenes
<history of philosophy, biography> African mathematician (276-197 B.C.) who discovered a method for
identifying prime numbers and calculated the circumference of the earth. Eratosthenes served for several
decades as head of the famous Greek library at Alexandria.
P. M. Fraser, Eratosthenes of Cyrene (Oxford, 1972).
29-10-2001
Erigena John Scotus
<history of philosophy, biography> Irish philosopher (812-877). In De Divisione Naturae (On the Distribution of
Nature) (863), Erigena notoriously combined Greek and neoplatonic elements into a highly rationalized scheme
in which everything both emanates from and later is reabsorbed by god. Although the divine is incomprehnsible
for Erigena, god may be known indirectly, as manifested in the created order. The views on human freedom he
defended in De praedestinatione (On Predestination) (851) earned for Erigena the official condemnation of the
church.
Deirdre Carabine, John Scottus Eriugena (Oxford, 2000)
Henry Bett, Johannes Scotus Erigena: A Study in Medieval Philosophy (Hyperion, 1979).
29-10-2001
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eros
<anthropology, affective life> Greek personification of love; hence, sexual desire or love generally. Plato' s
Symposium offers a set of speeches on the nature of love in human life.
Louis A. Ruprecht, Jr., Symposia: Plato, the Erotic, and Moral Value (SUNY, 1999);
Jamey Hecht, Plato' s Symposium: Eros and the Human Predicament (Twayne, 1999).
29-10-2001
error
1. A discrepancy between a computed, observed, or measured value or condition and the true, specified, or
theoretically correct value or condition.
2. <programming> A mental mistake made by a programmer that may result in a program fault.
3. (verb) What a program does when it stops as result of a programming error.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
error detection and correction
<algorithm, storage> (EDAC, or "error checking and correction", ECC) A collection of methods to detect errors
in transmitted or stored data and to correct them. This is done in many ways, all of them involving some form of
coding. The simplest form of error detection is a single added parity bit or a cyclic redundancy check. Multiple
parity bits can not only detect that an error has occurred, but also which bits have been inverted, and should
therefore be re-inverted to restore the original data. The more extra bits are added, the greater the chance that
multiple errors will be detectable and correctable.
Several codes can perform Single Error Correction, Double Error Detection (SECDEC). One of the most
commonly used is the Hamming code.
At the other technological extreme, cuniform texts from about 1500 B.C. which recorded the dates when Venus
was visible, were examined on the basis of contained redundancies (the dates of appearance and
disappearance were supplemented by the length of time of visibility) and "the worst data set ever seen" by
[Huber, Zurich] was corrected.
RAM which includes EDAC circuits is known as error correcting memory (ECM).
[Wakerly, "Error Detecting Codes", North Holland 1978].
[Hamming, "Coding and Information Theory", 2nd Ed, Prentice Hall 1986].
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
esse est percipi
Latin phrase meaning "to be is to be perceived." According to Berkeley, this is the most basic feature of all
sensible objects; for spirits, on the other hand, esse est percipere ("to be is to perceive"). Granting this to be
the most fundamental principle of idealistic philosophy, Moore argued that it is indefensible.
George Berkeley, Principles of Human Knowledge / Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous, ed. by
Roger Woolhouse (Penguin, 1988);
Kenneth P. Winkler, Berkeley: An Interpretation (Clarendon, 1994).
29-10-2001
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essence
<ontology, metaphysics, accident, existentialism> that without which a specific thing or substance would not be
one and the same (type of) individual it is, those features of an object that make it the kind of object it is as
opposed to its accidents (e.g. a person' s ability to reason is an essential human feature, while hair color would
be an accident) - Essentialism is the view that the essence - accident distinction is not arbitrary but rooted in
the nature of reality.
based on [A Philosophical Glossary, Philosophical Glossary]
28-07-2001
essence - accident
<ontology, metaphysics, accident, existentialism> distinction among the attributes, properties, or qualities of
substances. A thing' s possession of its essential properties is necessary either for its individual existence or, a
least, for its membership in a specific kind. Accidental features, by contrast, are those which the thing merely
happens to have, even though it need not. Thus, for example, rationality may be part of the essence of any
human being, but being able to calculate square roots accurately in one' s head is (surely) an accident. The
legitimacy of the distinction itself is called into question by philosophers ("anti-essentialists") who doubt whether
any features are genuinely essential to the things that have them.
Charlotte Witt, Substance and Essence in Aristotle: An Interpretation of Metaphysics vii-ix (Cornell, 1994);
Saul A. Kripke, Naming and Necessity (Harvard, 1982);
Garth L. Hallett, Essentialism: A Wittgensteinian Critique (SUNY, 1991).
29-10-2001
essentialism
<metaphysics, epistemology>
1) Platonic idealism
2) the view that all things have essential properties which can be discerned by reason (sometimes attributed to
Aristotelianism).
See substantialism
[The Ism Book]
16-03-2001
estrangement
withdrawal from things or people; see alienation.
29-10-2001
eternal return
belief that everything that happens has happened before and will happen again, since the universe (or time
itself) is fundamentally cyclical. A standard feature of Pythagorean and Stoic thought, this view was more
recently adopted as a basis for practical hope by Nietzsche.
Joan Stambaugh, Nietzsche' s Thought of Eternal Return (Taylor & Francis, 1988)
Mircea Eliade, Myth of the Eternal Return, tr. by Willard R. Trask (Princeton, 1971).
29-10-2001
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ethical relativism
<ethics, anthropology, cultural relativism, subjectivism> the view that what is morally permissible, obligatory,
and forbidden differs among individuals or between cultures. According to ethical relativism nothing is
absolutely good or bad or right or wrong: rather, relativists hold, what is right or wrong is so for a given
individual or within a given culture or society: the underlying idea is that the individual or society' s judging things
right or wrong or good or evil makes them so for that individual or society. See cultural relativism, subjectivism.
22-06-2001
ethics
<ethics> branch of philosophy concerned with the evaluation of human conduct. Philosophers commonly
distinguish: descriptive ethics, the factual study of the ethical standards or principles of a group or tradition;
normative ethics, the development of theories that tematically denominate right and wrong actions; applied
ethics, the use of these theories to form judgments regarding practical cases; and meta-ethics, careful analysis
of the meaning and justification of ethical claims.
Lawrence M. Hinman, Ethics: A Pluralistic Approach To Moral Theory (Harcourt, 1997);
A Companion to Ethics, ed. by Peter Singer (Blackwell, 1993);
D. D. Raphael, Moral Philosophy (Oxford, 1994);
James Rachels, The Elements of Moral Philosophy (McGraw-Hill, 2000);
The Blackwell Guide to Ethical Theory, ed. by Hugh Lafollette (Blackwell, 1999).
29-10-2001
Ethics Glossary
<source> the Ethics Glossary (http://ethics.acusd.edu/Glossary.html) edited by Lawrence M. Hinman,

Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Values Institute at the University of San Diego. It is part of the
service "Ethics Updates".
From the home page "Ethics Updates is" designed primarily to be used by ethics instructors and their students.
It is intended to provide updates on current literature, both popular and professional, that relates to ethics.
Some definitions in FOLDOP are from the version published in 2001-03-27.
27-03-2001
ethnicity
<ethics> a person' s ethnicity refers to that individual' s affiliation with a particular cultural tradition that may be
national (French) or regional (Sicilian) in character. Ethnicity differs from race in that ethnicity is a sociological
concept whereas race is a biological phenomenon.
26-03-2001
ethos
<morality> Greek word for custom or habit, the characteristic conduct of an individual human life. Hence,
beginning with Aristotle, ethics is the study of human conduct, and the Stoics held that all behavior - for good or
evil - arises from the eqos of the individual.
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Euclid
<history of philosophy, biography> Greek mathematician (365-300 B.C.) whose Elementae (Elements) offered
an axiomatic system for geometry based only on a few "common notions" and five basic postulates: (1) Any
two points can be joined by a unique straight line. (2) A straight line can be extended indefinitely in either
direction. (3) From a center point, a circle can be drawn with any radius. (4) All right angles are equal to each
other. (5) If two straight lines crossing a third form angles less than two right angles on one of its sides, then
indefinite extensions of these lines eventually meet. Although rejection of the fifth postulate eventually led to
the development of alternative geometries by Lobachevsky and Riemann, Euclid' s emphasis on axiomatic
structure remained significant for mathematicians like Peano and Hilbert and served as a significant model for
such philosophers as Hobbes and Spinoza.
Thomas L. Heath, History of Greek Mathematics: From Thales to Euclid (Dover, 1981).
29-10-2001
Euclidean Algorithm
Euclid' s Algorithm Euclid' s Algorithm algorithm>

< (Or "Euclidean Algorithm") An algorithm for finding the
greatest common divisor (GCD) of two numbers.
It relies on the identity gcd(a, b) = gcd(a-b, b)
To find the GCD of two numbers by this algorithm, repeatedly replace the larger by subtracting the smaller from
it until the two numbers are equal. E.g. 132, 168 -> 132, 36 -> 96, 36 -> 60, 36 -> 24, 36 -> 24, 12 -> 12, 12 so
the GCD of 132 and 168 is 12.
This algorithm requires only subtraction and comparison operations but can take a number of steps
proportional to the difference between the initial numbers (e.g. gcd(1, 1001) will take 1000 steps).
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
eudaimonia
<ethics> this is the word that Aristotle uses for "happiness" or "flourishing." It comes from the Greek "eu,"
which means "happy" or "well" or "harmonious," and "daimon," which refers to the individual' s spirit.
It is a crucial term in virtue ethics. See also eudaimonism.
28-04-2001
eudaimonism
<ethics> the word eudaimonism comes from the Greek word for happiness (eudaimonia), and refers to any
conception of ethics that puts human happiness and the complete life of the individual at the center of ethical
concern. This is solely a technical term and has no popular equivalent, though sometimes humanism comes
close. Aristotle is the founder of eudaimonism. By contrast, note that existentialism rejects happiness as a
bourgeois fantasy, and that even stoicism and Epicureanism may turn their backs on eudaimonism since they
don' t advocate individual fulfillment but only the lack of emotion or pain. (References from altruism,
Aristotelianism, existentialism, individualism, optimism, and pessimism.)
16-03-2001
eudaimonistic
eudaimonia
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Euler Leonhard
<history of philosophy, biography> Swiss mathematician and physicist (1707-1783); author of Introductio in
analysin infinitorum (Introduction to infinite analyses) (1748) and many other mathematical treatises. Euler
made significant contributions to the development of number theory, introduced the use of many now-familiar
mathematical symbols, and devised (a century before Venn) a convenient set of topographical diagrams for
representing the logical relationships expressed in categorical propositions and syllogisms. Euler' s chie
accomplishments are expressed in non-technical language in the Lettres à une princesse d' Allemnagne
(Letters for a German Princess) (1772).
Leonhard Euler, Foundations of Differential Calculus, tr. by John D. Blanton (Springer Verlag, 2000);
Morris Kline, Mathematical Thought from Ancient to Modern Times (Oxford, 1990);
William Dunham, Euler: The Master of Us All (Math. Assn. of Amer., 1999).
06-12-2003
event
1. <software> An occurrence or happening of significance to a task or program, such as the completion of an

asynchronous input/output operation. A task may wait for an event or any of a set of events or it may (request
to) receive asynchronous notification (a signal or interrupt) that the event has occurred.
See also event-driven.
2. <data> A transaction or other activity that affects the records in a file.
[FOLDOC]
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event-driven
<PI> A kind of program, such as a graphical user interface, with a main loop which just waits for events to
occur. Each event has an associated handler which is passed the details of the event, e.g. mouse button 3
pressed at position (355, 990).
For example, X window system and most Visual Basic application programs are event-driven.
See also callback.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
evidence
support for the truth of a proposition, especially that derived from empirical observation or experience.
Karl R. Popper, Logic of Scientific Discovery (Routledge, 1992).
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evil problem of
<ontology, ethics> bad things sometimes happen. Whether they are taken to flow from the operation of the
world ("natural evil"), to result from deliberate human cruelty ("moral evil"), or simply to correlate poorly with
what seems to be deserved ("non-karmic evil"), such events give rise to basic questions about whether or not
life is fair. The presence of evil in the world poses a special difficulty for traditional theists, as both Epicurus
and Hume pointed out. Since an omniscient god must be aware of evil, an omnipotent god could prevent evil,
and a benevolent god would not tolerate evil, it should follow that there is no evil. Yet there is evil, from which
atheists conclude that there is no omniscient, omnipotent, and benevolent god.
The most common theistic defense against the problem, propounded (in different forms) by both Augustine and
Leibniz, is to deny the reality of evil by claiming that apparent cases of evil are merely parts of a larger whole
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that embodies greater good. More recently, some have questioned whether the traditional notions of
omnipotence and omniscience are coherent.
The Problem of Evil: A Reader, ed. by Mark Larrimore (Blackwell, 2000);
The Problem of Evil, ed. by Marilyn McCord Adams and Robert M. Adams (Clarendon, 1991);
Richard Swinburne, Providence and the Problem of Evil (Oxford, 1998).
29-10-2001
evolution strategy
(ES) A kind of evolutionary algorithm where individuals (potential solutions) are encoded by a set of real-valued
"object variables" (the individual' s "genome"). For each object variable an individual also has a "strategy
variable" which determines the degree of mutation to be applied to the corresponding object variable. The
strategy variables also mutate, allowing the rate of mutation of the object variables to vary.
An ES is characterised by the population size, the number of offspring produced in each generation and
whether the new population is selected from parents and offspring or only from the offspring.
ES were invented in 1963 by Ingo Rechenberg, Hans-Paul Schwefel at the Technical University of Berlin (TUB)
while searching for the optimal shapes of bodies in a flow.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
evolutionary algorithm
<algorithm> (EA) An algorithm which incorporates aspects of natural selection or survival of the fittest. An
evolutionary algorithm maintains a population of structures (usually randomly generated initially), that evolves
according to rules of selection, recombination, mutation and survival, referred to as genetic operators. A
shared "environment" determines the fitness or performance of each individual in the population. The fittest
individuals are more likely to be selected for reproduction (retention or duplication), while recombination and
mutation modify those individuals, yielding potentially superior ones.
EAs are one kind of evolutionary computation and differ from genetic algorithms. A GA generates each
individual from some encoded form known as a "chromosome" and it is these which are combined or mutated
to breed new individuals.
EAs are useful for optimisation when other techniques such as gradient descent or direct, analytical discovery
are not possible. Combinatoric and real-valued function optimisation in which the optimisation surface or fitness
landscape is "rugged", possessing many locally optimal solutions, are well suited for evolutionary algorithms.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
evolutionary computation
Computer-based problem solving systems that use computational models of evolutionary processes as the key
elements in design and implementation.
A number of evolutionary computational models have been proposed, including evolutionary algorithms,
genetic algorithms, the evolution strategy, evolutionary programming, and artificial life.
The Hitchhiker' s Guide to Evolutionary Computation (http://www.cis.ohio

-
state.edu/hypertext/faq/bngusenet/comp/ai/genetic/top.html).
(http://liinwww.ira.uka.de/bibliography/Ai/EC-ref.html).
Usenet newsgroup: news:comp.ai.genetic.
[FOLDOC]
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evolutionary programming
(EP) A stochastic optimisation strategy originally conceived by Lawrence J. Fogel in 1960. An initially random
population of individuals (trial solutions) is created. Mutations are then applied to each individual to create new
individuals. Mutations vary in the severity of their effect on the behaviour of the individual. The new individuals
are then compared in a "tournament" to select which should survive to form the new population.
EP is similar to a genetic algorithm, but models only the behavioural linkage between parents and their
offspring, rather than seeking to emulate specific genetic operators from nature such as the encoding of
behaviour in a genome and recombination by genetic crossover.
EP is also similar to an evolution strategy (ES) although the two approaches developed independently. In EP,
selection is by comparison with a randomly chosen set of other individuals whereas ES typically uses
deterministic selection in which the worst individuals are purged from the population.
[FOLDOC]
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exclusive disjunction
disjunction
30-12-2003
exclusive premises
the formal fallacy committed in a categorical syllogism that is invalid because both of its premises are negative.
Example: "Since no mammals are fish and some fish are not whales, it follows that some whales are not
mammals."
29-10-2001
existence
<ontology> instantiation in reality, or actual being. Kant pointed out that existence is not a predicate, and Frege
proposed that it is a second-order property of those first-order properties that happen to be instantiated. The
metaphysical question of what kinds of things exist is the subject of ontology, as is the even more general
question of why there is something rather than nothing.
Colin McGinn, Logical Properties: Identity, Existence, Predication, Necessity, Truth (Clarendon, 2001);
Jean-Paul Sartre, Truth and Existence, tr. by Adrian Van Den Hoven and Ronald Aronson (Chicago, 1995);
Emmanuel Levinas, Existence and Existents, tr. by Robert Bernaeconi (Duquesne, 2001).
29-10-2001
existence proof
<logic> A proof that something exists (e.g. a number, wff, proof, etc. with certain properties) but that does not
produce an example.
constructive proof
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existential fallacy
<logic> the formal fallacy committed in a categorical syllogism that is invalid because it has two universal
premises and a particular conclusion. Example: "All inhabitants of another planet are friendly people, and all
Martians are inhabitants of another planet. Therefore, some Martians are friendly people."
29-10-2001
existential import
<logic> Quantified statements have existential import iff (in the standard interpretation) they are taken to assert
the existence of their subjects. Aristotle held that all quantified propositions have existential import.
The modern view, due to George Boole, is that existentially quantified statements do and that universally
quantified statements do not.
Hence in the modern view, (x)(Ax => Bx) ("All A' s are B' s") is non -committal on the existence of any A' s; it may
be true even for an interpretation whose domain contains no objects to instantiate x, or none that happen to be
A' s. By contrast, (Ex)(AxoBx) ("Some A' s are B' s") asserts the existence of at least one A, and it would be fa
for any interpretation whose domain contained no such values for x.
See predicate logic, quantifier
16-03-2001
existential instantiation
instantiation
30-12-2003
existential quantifier
quantifier
30-12-2003
existentialism
<ethics, subjectivism> a (mostly) twentieth-century approach that emphasizes the primacy of individual
existence over any presumed natural essence for human beings. Although they differ on many details,
existentialists generally suppose that the fact of my existence as a human being entails both my unqualified
freedom to make of myself whatever I will and the awesome responsibility of employing that freedom
appropriately, without being driven by anxiety toward escaping into the inauthenticity or self-deception of any
conventional set of rules for behavior, even though the entire project may turn out to be absurd. Prominent
existentialists include Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Jaspers, Beauvoir, Sartre, and Camus.
Existentialism: From Dostoevsky to Sartre, ed. by Walter Kaufmann (Meridian, 1988);
L. Nathan Oaklander, Existentialist Philosophy: An Introduction (Prentice-Hall, 1995);
Robert C. Solomon, Existentialism (McGraw-Hill, 1974);
Robert Goodwin, An Introduction to Existentialism (Dover, 1962);
William Barrett, Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy (Anchor, 1962).
29-10-2001
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expected value
the net return it is reasonable to anticipate as the result of an action or investment. Expected value may be
calculated as the sum of the products of each possible outcome and the relative likelihood that it will occur.
James T. Fey, Elizabeth D. Phillips, and Catherine Anderson, What Do You Expect?: Probability & Expected
Value (Seymour, 1997).
<2001-10-29>
experientialism
empiricism
00-00-0000
experiment
<epistemology, philosophy of science,hypothesis, ockhamism> <empiricism, neo-empiricism> <hypotetical

deductive method> a trial or test of a scientific hypothesis or generalization by manipulation of environmental
factors to observe whether what results agrees, or disagrees, with what the hypothesis predicts.
See: hypothesis.
22-06-2001
experimentalism
<philosophy of science> empiricism, especially as applied to the methods of scientific inquiry.
[The Ism Book]
16-03-2001
expert system
<artificial intelligence> A computer program that contains a knowledge base and a set of algorithms or rules
that infer new facts from knowledge and from incoming data.
An expert system is an artificial intelligence application that uses a knowledge base of human expertise to aid
in solving problems. The degree of problem solving is based on the quality of the data and rules obtained from
the human expert. Expert systems are designed to perform at a human expert level. In practice, they will
perform both well below and well above that of an individual expert.
The expert system derives its answers by running the knowledge base through an inference engine, a software
program that interacts with the user and processes the results from the rules and data in the knowledge base.
Expert systems are used in applications such as medical diagnosis, equipment repair, investment analysis,
financial, estate and insurance planning, route scheduling for delivery vehicles, contract bidding, counselling for
self-service customers, production control and training.
[Difference from "knowledge-based system"?]
[FOLDOC]
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explanandum
"that which needs to be explained", plural = explananda
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explanation
<philosophy of science, logic> a structure, act, or process that provides understanding.

Providing explanations is one of the most important activities in high level cognition. The nature of explanation
and its role in thinking have been addressed by philosophers, psychologists, and artificial intelligence
researchers; inference to the best explanation can be understood in terms of maximising coherence among
competing hypotheses and evidence.
Chi, M. T. H., Bassok, M., Lewis, M. W., Reimann, P., Glaser, R. (1989).
Self-explanations: How students study and use examples in learning to solve problems. Cognitive Science, 13,
145-182.
Harman, G. (1986). Change in view: Principles of reasoning. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press/Bradford Books.
Kitcher, P., Salmon, W. (1989). Scientific explanation. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Leake, D. B. (1992). Evaluating explanations: A content theory. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Mitchell, T., Keller, R., Kedar-Cabelli, S. (1986). Explanation-based generalisation: A unifying view.
Machine Learning, 1, 47-80.
Schank, R. C. (1986). Explanation patterns: Understanding mechanically and creatively. Hillsdale, NJ:
Erlbaum.
Thagard, P. (1992). Conceptual revolutions. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Paul Thagard
16-03-2001
explicit memory
<philosophy of mind> those memories which a subject is able to cite as being a memory of a particular event.
See also implicit memory
16-03-2001
exponential
1. <mathematics> A function which raises some given constant (the "base") to the power of its argument. I.e.
f x = b^x
If no base is specified, e, the base of natural logarithms, is assumed.
2. <complexity> exponential-time algorithm.
[FOLDOC]
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exponential-time
<complexity> The set or property of problems which can be solved by an exponential-time algorithm but for
which no polynomial-time algorithm is known.
[FOLDOC]
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exponential-time algorithm
<complexity> An algorithm (or Turing Machine) that is guaranteed to terminate within a number of steps which
is a exponential function of the size of the problem.
For example, if you have to check every number of n digits to find a solution, the complexity is O(10^n), and if
you add an extra digit, you must check ten times as many numbers.
Even if such an algorithm is practical for some given value of n, it is likely to become impractical for larger
values. This is in contrast to a polynomial-time algorithm which grows more slowly.
See also computational complexity, polynomial-time, NP-complete.
[FOLDOC]
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expression tree
<mathematics, grammar> The syntax tree of an expression.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
expressionism
<aesthetics, ethics> 1. aesthetics a kind of modernism which holds that the essential function of art is to
provide a vehicle for the subjective, emotional expressions of the artist (at its most extreme and anti-
representational, this doctrine takes the form of abstract expressionism).
2.in ethics, "expressionism" refers to the view that value judgments are mere expressions of emotion, although
this is more commonly called emotivism.
(References from abstractionism and modernism.)
[The Ism Book]
16-03-2001
expressive use of language
communication that gives vent to feelings, attitudes, or emotions. Example: "Yeow-hot, hot, hot!."
<2001-10-29>
06-12-2003
extension
<logic>
1. extension of a system
A system S' is an extension of Siff every theorem of S is a theorem of S' . It follows that every model of S' is
model of S.
2. finite extension of a system

System S' is a finite extension of Siff S' has all of the axioms of S, and differs from S only by adding a finite
number of additional axioms that are wffs but not axioms of S.
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extension - intension
<philosophy of language> distinction between ways in which the meaning of a term may be regarded: its
extension, or denotation, is the collection of things to which the term applies; its intension, or connotation, is the
set of features those things are presumed to have in common.
D. Alan Cruse, Meaning in Language: An Introduction to Semantics and Pragmatics (Oxford, 2000).
29-10-2001
extensional
<logic, semantics> having, or presupposing, a use of terms that is wholly determined by what falls under them
(in this actual world). The meaning of a term in the extensional sense is given just by listing, or somehow
indicating what things are referred to by the term. The extensional meaning of "Evening Star," "morning Star,"
and "Venus" is the same because they all refer to one and the same planet, though the sense, or intension,
might be different. Some philosphers (nominalists) have hoped that we could describe the world in wholly
extensional terms. intension
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extensional equality
(Or extensionality). Functions, f and g are extensionally equal if and only if

f x = g x for all x.
where "=" means both expressions fail to terminate (under some given reduction strategy) or they both
terminate with the same basic value.
Two functions may be extensionally equal but not inter-convertible (neither is reducible to the other). E.g. x .
x+x and x . 2*x. See also observational equivalence, referential transparency.
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extensionality
the feature of a formal system in which the meaning of every non-logical term is wholly determined by its
extension; this ensures that compound statments of the system will be truth-functional.
extensional equality
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externalism
<philosophy of mind> externalists hold that there are mental events that do not supervene merely on physical
events internal to the agent' s body, but supervene on environmental events as well. Also known as anti -
individualism.
For some externalists, mental events, namely those in which concepts are involved, can be seen to be partially
constituted by the entities that those concepts are concepts of. This intuition gets pumped by the famous Twin
Earth thought experiments of Putnam (1975) and Burge (1979), which I assume are familiar enough to not
require recounting. Suffice it to mention that the upshot of the experiments is that the Earthling Pete and his
molecule for molecule Twin Earth counterpart Twin Pete have divergent mental characteristics solely in virtue
of their divergent environments: Pete' s "water" thoughts are about H2O whereas Twin Pete' s "water" though
are about XYZ.
Externalism does not apply solely to natural kind concepts like "water". Externalist arguments, using Twin Earth
style thought experiments, have been advanced for all sorts of concepts. Further, externalist arguments have
also been advanced for non-conceptual mental states, so externalism can apply to any contentful mental state.
Some have advanced arguments for the externalist individuation of qualia on the grounds that they are
representational in character (Dretske 1995; Tye 1995).
It is important to note that Burge, in formulating his externalist arguments, considered them as arguments
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explicitly against, among other things, functionalism (Burge 1979). However, the functionalism Burge had in
mind was a strictly internalist functionalism--he left as an open issue whether a functionalism that quantified
over environmental as well as bodily states of cognizers could be viable. In fact, the dominant reaction in the
literature to Burge' sarguments has been to retain functionalism, but allow that events in one' s environment are
part of the causal topology that constitutes mental states.
Dretske, F. (1995). Naturalizing the Mind. Cambridge, MA, MIT Press.
Putnam, H. (1975). Mind, language, and reality. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Burge, T. (1979). Individualism and the mental. Midwest Studies in Philosophy IV: Studies in Metaphysics. P.
French, et al. Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press.
Tye, M. (1995). Ten problems of consciousness: A representational theory of the phenomenal mind.
Cambridge, MA, MIT Press.
See supervenience, internalism
Pete Mandik
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extrinsic
bearing some relation to something else. See intrinsic - extrinsic.
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fact
<artificial intelligence, PI> The kind of clause used in logic programming which has no subgoals and so is
always true (always succeeds).
E.g.
wet(water).
ale(denis).
This is in contrast to a rule which only succeeds if all its subgoals do. Rules usually contain logic variables,
facts rarely do, except for oddities like "equal(X,X).".
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fact - value
<truths of reason, truths of facts, empiricism, Hume>, <experience, Kant, positivism, phenomenology,
Sachverhalt>, <moral philosophy> Distinction between assertions about how things really are (fact) and how
things ought to be (value). Drawn by Hume, but also defended by Stevenson, Hare, and other ethical
noncognitivists, the distinction is usually taken to entail that claims about moral obligation can never be validly
inferred from the truth of factual premises alone. It follows that people who agree completely on the simple
description of a state of affairs may nevertheless differ with respect to the appropriate action to take in
response to it.
David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (Oxford, 1996)
Charles L. Stevenson, Ethics and Language (Yale, 1944).
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facticity
<fact, Husserl, existensialism, Sartre, casuality>, <contingent, Heidegger, effectivity, hermeneutics, ontology>
The contingent conditions of an individual human life. In the existentialism of Heidegger and Sartre, facticity
includes all of the concrete details-time and place of birth, for example, along with the prospect of death-
against the background of which human freedom is to be exercized.
Martin Heidegger, Ontology: The Hermeneutics of Facticity, tr. by John Van Buren (Indiana, 1999)
Alterity and Facticity: New Perspectives on Husserl, ed. by Natalie Depraz and Dan Zahavi (Kluwer, 1998).
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factor
A quantity which is multiplied by another quantity.

See coefficient of X. See also divisor.
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failure
The inability of a system or system component to perform a required function within specified limits. A failure
may be produced when a fault is encountered.
[FOLDOC]
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fallacy
<logic, syllogism, rethoric, argument>, <antinomy, dialectic, deduction>, <induction, demostration, persuasion,
reason>, A mistake in reasoning; an argument that fails to provide adequate logical support for the truth of its
conclusion, yet appears convincing or persuasive in some other way. Common examples include both formal
fallacies (structural errors in deductive logic) and informal fallacies (efforts to persuade by non-rational
appeals).
Nicholas Capaldi, The Art of Deception: An Introduction to Critical Thinking (Prometheus, 1987);
T. Edward Damer, Attacking Faulty Reasoning: A Practical Guide to Fallacy-Free Arguments (Wadsworth,
2000);
Douglas Walton, A Pragmatic Theory of Fallacy (Alabama, 1995).
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fallibilism
<epistemology, knowledge, Peirce, pragmatism, mistake>, <verificationism, Popper, conjecture, refutation,

Quine>, Belief that some or all claims to knowledge could be mistaken. Although Peirce limited the application
of fallibilism to the empirical statements of natural science, Quine extended it by challenging the notion that any
proposition can be genuinely analytic. Unlike a skeptic, the fallibilist may not demand suspension of belief in
the absence of certainty.
Charles S. Peirce: Selected Writings, ed. by Philip P. Wiener (Dover, 1980);
Charles S. Peirce and the Philosophy of Science, ed. by Edward C. Moore (Alabama, 1993);
Roger F. Gibson, Enlightened Empiricism: An Examination of W.V. Quine' s Theory of Knowledge (Florida
1988);
Arthur Franklin Stewart, Elements of Knowledge: Pragmatism, Logic, and Inquiry (Vanderbilt, 1997).
See also probabilism.
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false cause
<informal fallacy, causality, theory of fallacy, logic>, <syllogism, rethoric, method, argument, antinomy,
demostration, reason, knowledge> the informal fallacy of affirming the presence of a causal relationship on
anything less than adequate grounds. Post hoc, ergo propter hoc is a common variety of this fallacy.
Example: "After drinking milk for twenty years, Melanie became addicted to cocaine. Therefore, drinking milk
caused her cocaine addiction".
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falsifiability
<epistemology, empirical method, philosophy of science>, <Popper, scientific hypothesis, deduction,

verification>, <experience, induction> A property of any proposition for which it is possible to specify a set of
circumstances the occurrence of which would demonstrate that the proposition is false. According to Karl
Popper, falsifiability is the crucial feature of scientific hypotheses: beliefs that can never be tested against the
empirical evidence are dogmatic.
Karl R. Popper, Logic of Scientific Discovery (Routledge, 1992)
Karl R. Popper, Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (Routledge, 1992).
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FAQ
frequently asked question
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FAQL
frequently asked question
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Farabi al - Abu Nasr
<aristotelianism, mathematics, astronomy>, <medicine, neoplatonism, islamic philosophy, logic>, <theology,

existence of god> Persian Islamic neoplatonist (872-950) who employed Aristotelian logic in support of his
arguments for the existence of god and used Plato' s Republic as the model for his own description of civil
society in Principles of Citizens of the Virtuous City.
Alfarabi: ' Philosophy of Plato and Aristotle' , tr. by Muhin Mahdi, Charles E. Butterworth, and Thomas L. Pang
(Cornell, 2001)
Ian Richard Netton, Al-Farabi and His School (Curzon, 2000).
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fatalism
<ethics, stoicism, destiny, islamic philosophy, philosophy of religion, Spinoza, fate, Wolff, Kant, moral
philosophy, causal determinism, action, causality> Belief that every event is bound to happen as it does no
matter what we do about it. Fatalism is the most extreme form of causal determinism, since it denies that
human actions have any causal efficacy. Any determinist holds that indigestion is the direct consequence of
natural causes, but the fatalist believes that it is bound occur whether or not I eat spicy foods.
Jordan Howard Sobel, Puzzles for the Will: Fatalism, Newcomb and Samarra, Determinism and Omniscience
(Toronto, 1998)
Ted Honderich, Consequences of Determinism: A Theory of Determinism (Clarendon, 1990).
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fault
1. <PI> A manifestation of an error in software. A fault, if encountered, may cause a failure.
2. <architecture> page fault.
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fault tolerance
<architecture>
1. The ability of a system or component to continue normal operation despite the presence of hardware or
software faults. This often involves some degree of redundancy.
2. The number of faults a system or component can withstand before normal operation is impaired.
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fault tolerant
fault tolerance
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feature
<jargon>
1. A good property or behaviour (as of a program). Whether it was intended or not is immaterial.
2. An intended property or behaviour (as of a program). Whether it is good or not is immaterial (but if bad, it is
also a misfeature).
3. A surprising property or behaviour; in particular, one that is purposely inconsistent because it works better
that way - such an inconsistency is therefore a feature and not a bug. This kind of feature is sometimes called
a miswart.
4. A property or behaviour that is gratuitous or unnecessary, though perhaps also impressive or cute. For
example, one feature of Common LISP' s "format" function is the ability to print numbers in two differen
Roman-numeral formats (see bells, whistles, and gongs).
5. A property or behaviour that was put in to help someone else but that happens to be in your way.
6. A bug that has been documented. To call something a feature sometimes means the author of the program
did not consider the particular case, and that the program responded in a way that was unexpected but not
strictly incorrect. A standard joke is that a bug can be turned into a feature simply by documenting it (then
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theoretically no one can complain about it because it' s in the manual), or even by simply declaring it to be good
"That' s not a bug, that' s a feature!" is a common catch
-phrase. Apparently there is a Volkswagen Beetle in San
Francisco whose license plate reads "FEATURE".
See also feetch feetch, creeping featurism, wart, green lightning.
The relationship among bugs, features, misfeatures, warts and miswarts might be clarified by the following
hypothetical exchange between two hackers on an airliner:
A: "This seat doesn' t recline."
B: "That' s not a bug, that' s a feature. There is an emergency exit door built around the window behind you, and
the route has to be kept clear."
A: "Oh. Then it' s a misfeature; they should have increased the spacing between rows here."
B: "Yes. But if they' d increased spacing in only one section it would have been a wart- they would' ve had to
make nonstandard-length ceiling panels to fit over the displaced seats."
A: "A miswart, actually. If they increased spacing throughout they' d lose several rows and a chunk out of the
profit margin. So unequal spacing would actually be the Right Thing."
B: "Indeed."
"Undocumented feature" is a common euphemism for a bug.
7. An attribute or function of a class in Eiffel.
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feed-forward
A multi-layer perceptron network in which the outputs from all neurons (see McCulloch-Pitts) go to following but
not preceding layers, so there are no feedback loops.
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feedback
<electronics> Part of a system output presented at its input. Feedback may be unintended. When used as a
design feature, the output is usually transformed by passive components which attenuate it in some manner;
the result is then presented at the system input.
Feedback is positive or negative, depending on the sign with which a positive change in the original input
reappears after transformation. Negative feedback was invented by Black to stabilise vacuum tube amplifiers.
The behaviour becomes largely a function of the feedback transformation and only minimally a function of
factors such as transistor gain which are imperfectly known.
Positive feedback can lead to instability; it finds wide application in the construction of oscillators.
Feedback can be used to control a system, as in feedback control.
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feedback control
<electronics> A control system which monitors its effect on the system it is controlling and modifies its output
accordingly. For example, a thermostat has two inputs: the desired temperature and the current temperature
(the latter is the feedback). The output of the thermostat changes so as to try to equalise the two inputs.
Computer disk drives use feedback control to position the read/write heads accurately on a recording track.
Complex systems such as the human body contain many feedback systems that interact with each other; the
homeostasis mechanisms that control body temperature and acidity are good examples.
[FOLDOC]
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Feigl Herbert
<neo-positivism, the Vienna Circle, logical positivism>, <epistemology, empiricism, philosophy of minad>
Austrian-American philosopher (1902-1988). A member of the Vienna Circle of logical positivists, Feigl later
taught at the University of Minnesota. He defended a materialist account of the human mind in The "Mental"
and the "Physical" (1958).
Herbert Feigl: Inquiries & Provocations, Selected Writings 1929 to 1974, ed. by Robert S. Cohen (Kluwer,
1980)
Wilfrid Sellars, Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind, ed. by Robert Brandom (Harvard, 1997).
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feminism
<sociology, theory of politics, philosophy of women>, <anthropology, dualism, Cartesian dualism, tradition,
power> Commitment to the abolition of male domination in human society. Feminists differ widely in their
accounts of the origins of patriarchy, their analyses of its most common consequences, and their concrete
proposals for overcoming it, but all share in the recognition that the subordination of women to men in our
culture is indefensible and eliminable. Many feminist philosophers oppose Cartesian dualism, scientific
objectivity, and traditional theories of moral obligation as instances of masculine over-reliance on reason.
Serious attention to the experiences of women would offer a more adequate account of human life.
The Cambridge Companion to Feminism in Philosophy, ed. by Miranda Fricker and Jennifer Hornsby
(Cambridge, 2000);
The Second Wave: A Reader in Feminist Theory, ed. by Linda Nicholson (Routledge, 1997);
A Companion to Feminist Philosphy, ed. by Alison M. Jaggar and Iris Marion Young (Blackwell, 1999);
Seyla Benhabib, Judith Butler, Drucilla Cornell, Nancy Fraser, and Linda J. Nicholson, Feminist Contentions: A
Philosophical Exchange (Routledge, 1995);
Sandra Harding, Whose Science? Whose Knowledge?: Thinking from Women' s Lives (Cornell, 1991);
Eva Feder Kittay, Love' s Labor: Essays on Women, Equality, and Dependency (Routledge, 1998).
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Ferio
<scholasticism, logic, syllogism, medieval philosophy> Name given by medieval logicians to any categorical
syllogism whose standard form may be designated as EIO-1.
Example: No mendicant friars are wealthy patrons of the arts, but some medieval philosophers are mendicant
friars, so some medieval philosophers are not wealthy patrons of the arts. This is one of the fifteen forms of
valid syllogism.
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Ferison
syllogism whose standard form is EIO-3.
Example: Since no people who admire Marx are political conservatives and some people who admire Marx are
South Carolinians, it follows that some South Carolinians are not political conservatives. This is another of the
fifteen forms in which syllogisms are always valid.
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Fermat Pierre de
<mathematics, epistemology, philosophy of science, Descartes, Pascal, theory of probability, last theorem>
French jurist and amateur mathematician (1601-1665). Although he engaged in a lengthy and bitter dispute
with Descartes, Fermat worked together with Pascal on the development of the modern theory of probability.
The famous "Last Theorem" Fermat proposed in a marginal notation-that for any n greater than 2, there are no
integers that satisfy the equation xn + yn = zn -was proven only in 1994.
Michael Sean Mahoney, The Mathematical Career of Pierre de Fermat, 1601-1665 (Princeton, 1994);
Simon Singh and John Lynch, Fermat' s Enigma: The Epic Quest to Solve the World' s Greatest Mathematic
Problem (Bantam, 1998);
Morris Kline, Mathematical Thought from Ancient to Modern Times (Oxford, 1990).
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Fermat prime
<mathematics> A prime number of the form 2^2^n + 1. Any prime number of the form 2^n+1 must be a Fermat
prime. Fermat conjectured in a letter to someone or other that all numbers 2^2^n+1 are prime, having noticed
that this is true for n=0,1,2,3,4.
Euler proved that 641 is a factor of 2^2^5+1. Of course nowadays we would just ask a computer, but at the
time it was an impressive achievement (and his proof is very elegant).
No further Fermat primes are known; several have been factorised, and several more have been proved
composite without finding explicit factorisations.
Gauss proved that a regular N-sided polygon can be constructed with ruler and compasses if and only if N is a
power of 2 times a product of distinct Fermat primes.
[FOLDOC]
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Festino
<scholasticism, logic, syllogism, medieval philosophy> Name given by medieval logicians to a categorical
syllogism with the standard form EIO-2.
Example: No people deserving of our admiration and praise are inveterate liars, but some wealthy industrialists
are inveterate liars; therefore, some wealthy industrialists are not people deserving of our admiration and
praise. This is one of the fifteen forms in which syllogisms are always valid.
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Feuerbach Ludwig Andreas
<Kant, idealism, Hegel, Hegelian school, marxism, ethics>, <philosophy of religion, Absolute, metaphysics>
German philosopher (1804-1872). As a follower of Kant and critic of idealism, Feuerbach supposed that Hegel
had mistakenly inverted the relationship between individuals and the Absolute. In Das Wesen des
Christientums (The Essence of Christianity) (1841) he argued that religion is a projection of human values onto
the concept of the divine. Eliminating the vestiges of theological dependence, Feuerbach maintained in
Grundsëtze der Philosophie der Zukunft (Principles of the Philosophy of the Future) (1843), will make it
possible to avoid alienation and enjoy a thoroughly humanistic life.
Van A. Harvey, Feuerbach and the Interpretation of Religion (Cambridge, 1997).
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Feyerabend Paul
<epistemology, philosophy of science, Popper, scientific method, cultural pluralism, scientific anarchism>
Austrian-American philosopher (1924-1994). An outspoken opponent of Popper' s philosophy of science
Feyerabend argued in Against Method (1975) that there is no privileged method for the confirmation of
scientific theories. Thus, Feyerabend defended cultural pluralism and "scientific anarchism" in Science in a
Free Society (1978), Farewell to Reason (1987), and Three Dialogues on Knowledge (1991).
Killing Time: The Autobiography of Paul Feyerabend (Chicago, 1996);
John Preston, Feyerabend: Philosophy, Science and Society (Polity, 1997);
The Worst Enemy of Science: Essays in Memory of Paul Feyerabend, ed. by John Preston and Gonzalo
Munevar (Oxford, 2000).
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Feynman Richard Phillips
<physics, quantum mechanics, philosophy of science, space>, <time, sub-atomic physics, Einstein,
superfluidity> American physicist (1918-1988), who contributed significantly to the development of modern
quantum mechanics, the phenomena of superfluidity, and the nature of weak subatomic particle interactions.
Feynman shared the Nobel Prize for physics in 1965. His colorful career and criticism of NASA are detailed in
the autobiographical Surely You' re Joking, Mr. Feynman (1984).
Richard Feynman, Six Easy Pieces: Essentials of Physics Explained by Its Most Brilliant Teacher, ed. by Paul
Davies and Robert B. Leighton (Perseus, 1996);
Richard Feynman, Six Not-So-Easy Pieces: Einstein' s Relativity, Symmetry, and Space -Time, ed. by Gerry
Neugebauer and Roger Penrose (Perseus, 1998),
Richard Feynman, The Character of Physical Law (MIT, 1967);
James Gleick, Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman (Vintage, 1993).
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Fibonacci
<mathematics, medieval logic, Fibonacci series>, <philosophy of science, Arabian philosophy, Arabian
science> Leonardo Pisano (1170-1250) Italian mathematician. After travelling in North Africa, Fibonacci wrote
Liber Abaci (1202), introducing the use of Arabic numerals for the decimal system into European arithmetic.
His Liber quadratorum (Book of Square Numbers) (1225) introduced the "Fibonacci series" of natural numbers:
0, 1, 1, 2, 3 ,5 ,8, 13, . . . ., each element of which is the sum of the preceding two.
Morris Kline, Mathematical Thought from Ancient to Modern Times (Oxford, 1990)
Paul Chika Emekwulu, Fibonacci Numbers For Research Mathematicians & AI Applications (Novelty, 2000).
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Fibonacci series
<mathematics> The infinite sequence of numbers beginning
1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, ...
in which each term is the sum of the two terms preceding it.
The ratio of successive Fibonacci terms tends to the golden ratio, namely (1 + sqrt 5)/2.
[FOLDOC]
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Fichte Johann Gottlieb
<idealism, romanticism, ethics, moral philosophy>, <metaphysics, Kant, reality, noumenal self, epistemology>,
<Schelling, philosophy of religion, nationalism> German philosopher (1762-1814). In Versuch einer Kritik aller
Offenbarung (Critique of all Revelation) (1792) Fichte turned the critical philosophy of Kant into full-fledged
idealism by emphasizing the metaphysical reality of the noumenal self as well as its moral autonomy. His
amplification of this theme in Grundlage der gesamten Wissenschaftslehre (Foundations of the Science of
Knowledge) (1794-95) and Darstellung der Wissenschaftslehre (Outlines of the Doctrine of Knowledge) (1810)
greatly influenced Schelling and Hegel. Die Bestimmung des Menschen (The Vocation of Man) (1800) is
Fichte' s effort to defend himself against the charge of atheism. Fichte encouraged the development of German
nationalism in opposition to Napoleonic threats in Der geschlossene Handelsstaat (The Closed Commercial
State) (1800) and Reden an die deutsche Nation (Speeches to the German Nation) (1808).
Fichtes Werke, ed. by Immanuel H. Fichte (de Gruyter, 1971);
George J. Seidel, Fichte' s Wissenschaftslehre of 1794: A Commentary on Part I (Purdue, 1993);
Gunter Zoller, Fichte' s Transcendental Philosophy: The Original Duplicity of Intelligence and Will (Cambridge
1998);
Frederick Neuhouser, Fichte' s Theory of Subjectivity (Cambridge, 1990).
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Ficino Marsillio
<neoplatonism, Plotinus, philosophy of Reinassance, magic>, <myth, love, philosophy of nature, philosophy of
science>, Christian thought, ethics> Italian philosopher (1433-1499), whose translations into Latin made the
works of Plato and Plotinus accessible during the Renaissance. Despite his fascination with myth and magic,
Ficino endorsed a synthesis of neoplatonic thought with the doctrines of Christianity.
Marsilio Ficino, Commentary on Plato' s Symposium on Love (Spring, 2000);
Marsilio Ficino, Three Books on Life, ed. by Carol V. Kaske, John R. Clark (Medieval & Renaissance, 1989);
Renaissance Philosophy of Man, ed. by Ernst Cassirer, Paul Oskar Kristeller, and John H. Randall (Chicago,
1956).
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fideism
<theology, individual reason, common reason, intuition>, <philosophy of religion, metaphysics, sckepticism>
Belief that religious doctrines rest exclusively on faith (Lat. Fides), instead of on reason. In various forms,
fideism was maintained by philosophers as diverse as Pascal, Bayle, and Kierkegaard.
Delbert J. Hanson, Fideism and Hume' s Philosophy: Knowledge, Religion and Metaphysics (Peter Lang, 1993)
Terence Penelhum, God and Skepticism: A Study in Skepticism and Fideism (Reidel, 1983).
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field
<data, database> An area of a database record, or graphical user interface form, into which a particular item of
data is entered.
Example usage: "The telephone number field is not really a numerical field", "Why do we need a four-digit field
for the year?".
A database column is the set of all instances of a given field from all records in a table.
[FOLDOC]
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fifth generation language
<language, artificial intelligence> A myth the Japanese spent a lot of money on. In about 1982, MITI decided it
would spend ten years and a lot of money applying artificial intelligence to programming, thus solving the
software crisis. The project spent its money and its ten years and in 1992 closed down with a wimper.
[FOLDOC]
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figure
<syllogism, mode, rethoric, middle term, Aristotle, scholasticism, logic, Gestalt, Hegel, phenomenology>
A systematic way of indicating the position of the middle term in a categorical syllogism.
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Filmer Robert
<political thought, philosophy of politics, power, Locke> English political philosopher (1588-1653). Filmer' s
posthumously-published defense of a divinely-ordained hereditary monarchy in Patriarcha, or the Natural
Power of Kings (1680) was attacked at length in the first of Locke' s Two Treatises of Civil Government.
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final cause
<metaphysics, Aristotle, theology, ethics, physics>, <causality, telos, teleology, Ficino, philosophy of history>
the ultimate purpose, end, or goal of a thing; one of Aristotle' s four causes. Explanations of how a thing is tha
rely on reference to its end (Gk. télos) are often called "teleological;" their use fell into disfavor during the
Renaissance.
00-00-0000
finitary formal system
<logic>
A formal system in which (1) there are countably many symbols in the formal language, (2) wffs are finite in
length, and (3) every rule of inference takes only a finite number of premises.
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Finite Automata
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Finite Automaton
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finite differencing
strength reduction
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Finite State Automata
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Finite State Automaton
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<mathematics, algorithm, theory> (FSM or "Finite State Automaton", "transducer") An abstract machine
consisting of a set of states (including the initial state), a set of input events, a set of output events and a state
transition function. The function takes the current state and an input event and returns the new set of output
events and the next state. Some states may be designated as "terminal states". The state machine can also be
viewed as a function which maps an ordered sequence of input events into a corresponding sequence of (sets
of) output events.
A deterministic FSM is one where the next state is uniquely determined by a single input event. The next state
of a non-deterministic FSM (NFA) depends not only on the current input event, but also on an arbitrary number
of subsequent input events. Until these subsequent events occur it is not possible to determine which state the
machine is in.
It is possible to automatically translate some (but not all) non-deterministic FSMs into deterministic ones which
will produce the same output given the same input. [Is this true?]
In a probabilistic FSM [proper name?], there is a predetermined probability of each next state given the current
state and input (compare Markov chain).
The terms "acceptor" and "transducer" are used particularly in language theory where automata are often
considered as abstract machines capable of recognising a language (certain sequences of input events). An
acceptor has a single Boolean output and accepts or rejects the input sequence by outputting true or false
respectively, whereas a transducer translates the input into a sequence of output events.
FSMs are used in computability theory and in some practical applications such as regular expressions and
digital logic design.
See also state transition diagram, Turing Machine.
[J.H. Conway, "regular algebra and finite machines", 1971, Eds Chapman & Hall].
[S.C. Kleene, "Representation of events in nerve nets and finite automata", 1956, Automata Studies.
Princeton].
[Hopcroft & Ullman, 1979, "Introduction to automata theory, languages and computations", Addison-Wesley].
[M. Crochemore "tranducters and repetitions", Theoritical. Comp. Sc. 46, 1986].
[FOLDOC]
05-11-2003
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first-order
Not higher-order.
21-03-2004
first-order logic
<language, logic> The language describing the truth oof mathematical formulas. Formulas describe properties
of terms and have a truth value. The following are atomic formulas:
True
False
p(t1,..tn) where t1,..,tn are terms and p is a predicate.
If F1, F2 and F3 are formulas and v is a variable then the following are compound formulas:
F1 ^ F2 conjunction - true if both F1 and F2 are true,
F1 V F2 disjunction - true if either or both are true,
F1 => F2 implication - true if F1 is false or F2 is true, F1 is the antecedent, F2 is the consequent (sometimes
written with a thin arrow),
F1 <= F2 true if F1 is true or F2 is false,
F1 == F2 true if F1 and F2 are both true or both false (normally written with a three line equivalence symbol)
~F1 negation - true if f1 is false (normally written as a dash '-' with a shorter vertical line hanging from its righ
hand end).
For all v . F universal quantification - true if F is true for all values of v (normally written with an inverted A).
Exists v . F existential quantification - true if there exists some value of v for which F is true. (Normally written
with a reversed E).
The operators ^ V => <= == ~ are called connectives. "For all" and "Exists" are quantifiers whose scope is F. A
term is a mathematical expression involving numbers, operators, functions and variables.
The "order" of a logic specifies what entities "For all" and "Exists" may quantify over. First-order logic can only
quantify over sets of atomic propositions.
(E.g. For all p . p => p).
Second-order logic can quantify over functions on propositions, and higher-order logic can quantify over any
type of entity. The sets over which quantifiers operate are usually implicit but can be deduced from well-
formedness constraints.
In first-order logic quantifiers always range over ALL the elements of the domain of discourse. By contrast,
second-order logic allows one to quantify over subsets of M.
["The Realm of First-Order Logic", Jon Barwise, Handbook of Mathematical Logic (Barwise, ed., North Holland,
NYC, 1977)].
See also predicate logic
[FOLDOC]
05-11-2003
first-order predicate logic
predicate logic
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first-order theory
<logic>
A formal system of first-order predicate logic in which (1) there may be countably many new individual
constants in the formal language, provided they are effectively enumerable, and (2) there may be countably
many proper axioms to supplement the logical axioms.
16-03-2001
first-order theory with identity
<logic>
A first-order theory with (x)(x=x) as an axiom, and the following axiom schema,
[(x=y) => (A =>A' )]^c,
when B^c is an arbitrary closure of B, and when A' differs from A only in that y may replace any free occurrence
of x in A so long as y is free wherever it replaces x (y need not replace every occurrence of x in A).
See identity, predicate logic with identity
16-03-2001
five ways
<theology, metaphysics, medieval philosophy, Aquinas>, <existence of god, cosmological argument, moral
philosophy>, <teleology, teleological argument, final cause> the attempts to prove the existence of god
included in Thomas Aquinas' s Summa Theologica I, 2, 3. They include three versions of the cosmologica
argument, an argument from moral perfection, and the teleological argument.
Thomas Aquinas, Selected Philosophical Writings, tr. by Timothy McDermott (Oxford, 1998);
Basic Writings of Saint Thomas Aquinas: God and the Order of Creation, ed. by Anton Charles Pegis (Hackett,
1997);
Anthony Kenny, The Five Ways: Saint Thomas Aquinas' Proofs of God' s Existence (Routledge, 1991).
29-11-2001
fix
1. <mathematics> The fixed point combinator. Called Y in combinatory logic. Fix is a higher-order function
which returns a fixed point of its argument (which is a function).
fix :: (a -> a) -> a

fix f = f (fix f)
Which satisfies the equation
fix f = x such that f x = x.
Somewhat surprisingly, fix can be defined as the non-recursive lambda abstraction:
fix = h . ( x . h (x x)) ( x . h (x x))
Since this involves self-application, it has an infinite type. A function defined by
f x1 .. xN = E
can be expressed as
f = fix ( f . x1 ... xN . E) = ( f . x1 ... xN . E)

(fix ( f . x1 ... xN . )) = let f = (fix ( f . x1 ... xN . E))
in x1 ... xN . E
If f does not occur free in E (i.e. it is not recursive) then this reduces to simply
f = x1 ... xN . E
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In the case where N = 0 and f is free in E, this defines an infinite data object, e.g.
ones = fix ( ones . 1 : ones) = ( ones . 1 : ones) (fix ( ones . 1 : ones)) = 1 : (fix ( ones . 1 : ones)) = 1 : 1 : ...
Fix f is also sometimes written as mu f where mu is the Greek letter or alternatively, if f = x . E, written as mu x .
E.
Compare Quine.
[Jargon File]
2. bug fix.
[FOLDOC]
05-11-2003
flourishing
eudaimonia
Flynn' s taxonomy A classification of computer architectures based on the number of streams of instructions
and data:
Single instruction/single data stream (SISD) - a sequential computer.
Multiple instruction/single data stream (MISD) - unusual.
Single instruction/multiple data streams (SIMD) - e.g. an array processor.
Multiple instruction/multiple data streams (MIMD) - multiple autonomous processors simultaneously executing
different instructions on different data.
["A Survey of Parallel Computer Architectures", Duncan, Ralph, IEEE Computer. February 1990, pp. 5-16].
[Flynn' s original paper?]
05-11-2003
FOLDOC
<source>
The Free On-Line Dictionary of Computing edited by Denis Howe.
FOLDOC is a searchable dictionary of acronyms, jargon, programming languages, tools, architecture,
operating systems, networking, theory, conventions, standards, mathematics, telecoms, electronics,
institutions, companies, projects, products, history, in fact anything to do with computing.
FOLDOP begun as a project based on FOLDOC and many definitions in this dictionary are from the version
published in 2000-07-18, which contained 13220 entries.
16-03-2001
folk psychology
<philosophy of mind> the common-sense conceptual framework that we, as human beings, employ to
understand, predict, and explain the behaviour of other humans and higher animals.
References
Folk Psychology Biblio http://ling.ucsc.edu/_chalmers/biblio2.html#2.1e)
Horgan, T. & Woodward, J. 1985. Folk psychology is here to stay. Philosophical Review 94:197-225. Reprinted
in (W. Lycan, ed) Mind and Cognition (Blackwell, 1990).
Jackson, F. Pettit, P. 1990. In defense of folk psychology. Philosophical Studies 59:31-54.
Chris Eliasmith - [Dictionary of Philosophy of Mind] Homepage http://artsci.wustl.edu/~philos/MindDict/)
05-11-2003
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force - appeal to
<dialectic, logic, rethoric, method, argument>, <demostration, proof, persuasion>, (argumentum ad baculum)
the informal fallacy of securing agreement by threatening adverse consequences in case of disagreement.
Example: "Anyone who believes that the government has exceeded its proper authority under the constitution
will be subjected to severe harassment by the provincial police. Therefore, the government has not exceeded
its authority."
Douglas Walton, Scare Tactics: Arguments That Appeal to Fear and Threats (Kluwer, 2000).
29-11-2001
formal cause
<metaphysics, ontology, causality, Aristotle, physics>, <aristotelianism, Nicholas of Cusa, medieval

philosophy> structural features or attributes of a thing; one of the four causes.
29-11-2001
formal fallacy
<logic, syllogism, rethoric, method, argument>, <antinomy, mathematics, dialectic, epistemology, deduction>,
<induction, demostration, proof, reason, knowledge, aristotelianism, Aquinas, scholasticism, proposition, logic
of Portroyal, semantics> Invalid arguments that may appear convincing at first glance because they closely
resemble legitimate patterns of reasoning.
Commonly occurring formal fallacies include: (1) four terms (quaeternio terminorum), (2) undistributed middle,
(3) illicit major, (4) illicit minor, (5) exclusive premises, (6) affirmative conclusion from negative premises, (7)
existential, (8) affirming the consequent, (9) denying the antecedent, (10) converting the conditional, (11)
negating the antecedent and the consequent, and affirming the alternative.
05-11-2003
formal language
<logic> an alphabet and grammar.
The alphabet is a set of uninterpreted symbols.
The grammar is a set of rules that determine which strings of symbols from the alphabet will be cceptable
(grammatically correct or well-formed) in that language. The grammar may also be conceived as a set of
functions taking strings of symbols as input and returning either "yes" or "no" as output. The rules of the
grammar are also called formation rules.
See decidable system, finitary formal system, wff
16-03-2001
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formal methods
<mathematics, specification> Mathematically based techniques for the specification, development and
verification of software and hardware systems.
Referentially transparent languages are amenable to symbolic manipulation allowing program transformation
(e.g. changing a clear inefficient specification into an obscure but efficient program) and proof of correctness.
Oxford FM archive (http://www.comlab.ox.ac.uk/archive/formal-methods.html)
[FOLDOC]
00-11-2003
formal system
<logic> a formal language (alphabet and grammar) and a deductive apparatus (axioms and rules of inference).
See categoricity of systems, closure of a system, decidable system, formal language, deductive apparatus
05-11-2003
formalism
<ethics, aesthetics> the term usually refers to an over-emphasis in ethics or aesthetics on form over content. In
this sense, both deontologism in ethics and classicism in aesthetics might be described as varieties of
formalism. More recently, formalism has been used to describe a twentieth-century view in aesthetics, art
history, and literary criticism that values artistic form over artistic content and that is therefore opposed both to
representationalism and realism in the arts.
[The Ism Book]
16-03-2001
formation rules
formal language
25-03-2004
forms
<metaphysics, scholasticism, essence, epistemology, ideas> <cartesianism, form, aesthetics, idealism,

innatism, mymesis> for Plato, the ideal Archetypes or patterns according to which all things are constructed.
These are grasped by rational insight -- which Plato held to be a kind of recollection -- and not by sensory
perception. The Forms, according to Plato, intelligible realities which are transcend the material world of
sensible objects which somehow resemble or participate in them: they are ideals which material or sensible
things imitate or aspire to.
For Aristotle forms or essences are immanent aspirations -- teleological principles of development -- in the
things themselves.
05-11-2003
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formula
1. In logic, a string or sequence of symbols from the alphabet of a formal language.

It may or may not conform to the grammar of the formal language; if it does it is also called a well-formed
formula or wff.
2. <language, music> FORTH Music Language. An extension of FORTH with concurrent note-playing
processes. Runs on Macintosh and Atari ST with MIDI output.
["Formula: A Programming Language for Expressive Computer Music", D.P. Anderson et al Computer 24(7):12
(Jul 1991)].
3. Preprocessor language for the Acorn Archimedes, allowing inline high-level statements to be entered in an
assembly program. Written in nawk.
[FOLDOC]and [Glossary of First-Order Logic]
05-11-2003
forward analysis
an analysis which determines properties of the output of a program from properties of the inputs.
16-03-2001
forward chaining
a data-driven technique used in constructing goals or reaching inferences derived from a set of facts. Forward
chaining is the basis of production systems. Oppose backward chaining.
[FOLDOC]
05-11-2003
Foucault Michel
<French philosophy, semantics, psychology>, <structuralism, hermeneutics, freedom, philosophy of language>

French philosopher (1926-1984). As he explained in Folie et deraison (Madness and Civilization) (1961), Le
Mots et les choses (The Order of Things) (1966), and L' Archeologie du savoir (The Archaeology of Knowledge
(1969), Foucault used historical investigations as a method of exposing how the structure of contemporary
thought is shaped by conventional social institutions and practices, including especially the forceful
marginalization of deviant behavior by discursive rationality. Surveiller et Punir (Discipline and Punish) (1975)
and the unfinished Histoire de la sexualite (History of Sexuality: Introduction, Care of the Self, and The Use of
Pleasure) (1976, 1984) focus on the use of social power to circumscribe and control subjective human
experience. Genuine freedom, Foucault maintained, can be achieved only through detachment from what is
expected of us as "normal."
The Foucault Reader, ed. by Paul Rabinow (Random House, 1984);
Michel Foucault, The Birth of the Clinic: An Archaeology of Medical Perception (Vintage, 1994);
James Miller, The Passion of Michel Foucault (Harvard, 2000);
Barry Smart, Michel Foucault (Routledge, 1993);
The Cambridge Companion to Foucault, ed. by Gary Gutting (Cambridge, 1994);
Hubert L. Dreyfus, Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics (Chicago, 1983);
Feminist Interpretations of Michel Foucault, ed. by Susan J. Hekman (Penn. State, 1996);
Gary Gutting, Michel Foucault' s Archaeology of Scientific Reason (Cambridge, 1989).
29-11-2001
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Foucher Simon
<Descartes, Cartesianism, Malebranche, Leibniz, skepticism>, <epistemology, dialectic, truth, Bayle, Berkeley>
french philosopher (1644-1696), who offered trenchant criticisms of Cartesianism, Malebranche , and Leibniz .
The skeptical arguments of Foucher' s Dissertation sur la recherche de la verite (On the Search for Truth
(1673) influenced the rejection of the primary / secondary quality distinction by Bayle and Berkeley.
Richard A. Watson and Marjorie Grene, Malebranche' s First and Last Critics: Simon Foucher and Dortous De
Mairan (Southern Illinois, 1995).
05-11-2003
foundation
the axiom of foundation states that the membership relation is well founded, i.e. that any non-empty collection
Y of sets has a member y which is disjoint from Y. This rules out sets which contain themselves (directly or
indirectly).
05-11-2003
four colour map theorem
<mathematics, application> (Or "four colour theorem") The theorem stating that if the plane is divided into
connected regions which are to be coloured so that no two adjacent regions have the same colour (as when
colouring countries on a map of the world), it is never necessary to use more than four colours.
The proof, due to Appel and Haken, attained notoriety by using a computer to check tens of thousands of
cases and is thus not humanly checkable, even in principle. Some thought that this brought the philosophical
status of the proof into doubt.
There are now rumours of a simpler proof, not requiring the use of a computer.
See also chromatic number
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
four colour theorem
four colour map theorem
25-03-2004
four terms - fallacy of
<fallacia, syllogism, logic, rethoric>, <argument, antinomy, mathematics, dialectic>, <epistemology, deduction,
induction, demostration, proof>, <persuasion, reason, knowledge, aristotelianism, Aquinas>, <scholasticism>
(quaternio terminorum) - the formal fallacy committed in a categorical syllogism that is invalid because it
employs more than three distinct categorical terms.
Example: "All managers are politicians, and all sybarites are administrators, so all sybarites are politicians."
29-11-2001
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Fourier Jean - Baptiste Joseph
<mathematics, philosophy of science, physics>, <mathematical function, analysis, series of Fourier> French
Egyptologist and mathematician (1768-1830). In his Theorie analytique de la chaleur (The Analytical Theory of
Heat) (1822) Fourier demonstrated the use of infinite series for calculation of the conduction of heat.
Accompanying Napolean' s army into Egypt, he devoted his later years to archaeological research and
occasional essays.
John Herivel, Joseph Fourier: The Man and the Physicist (Clarendon, 1984);
Who Is Fourier?: A Mathematical Adventure, tr. by Alan Gleason (Blackwell, 1995);
Morris Kline, Mathematical Thought from Ancient to Modern Times (Oxford, 1990);
M. J. Lighthill, An introduction to Fourier analysis and generalized functions (Cambridge, 1958).
29-11-2001
Fourier transform
<mathematics> A technique for expressing a waveform as a weighted sum of sines and cosines.
Computers generally rely on the version known as discrete Fourier transform.
Named after J. B. Joseph Fourier (1768 -- 1830).
See also wavelet, discrete cosine transform.
[FOLDOC]
05-11-2003
fractal
<mathematics, graphics> A fractal is a rough or fragmented geometric shape that can be subdivided in parts,
each of which is (at least approximately) a smaller copy of the whole.
Fractals are generally self-similar (bits look like the whole) and independent of scale (they look similar, no
matter how close you zoom in).
Many mathematical structures are fractals; e.g. Sierpinski triangle, Koch snowflake, Peano curve, Mandelbrot
set and Lorenz attractor. Fractals also describe many real-world objects that do not have simple geometric
shapes, such as clouds, mountains, turbulence, and coastlines.
Benoit Mandelbrot, the discoverer of the Mandelbrot set, coined the term "fractal" in 1975 from the Latin fractus
or "to break". He defines a fractal as a set for which the Hausdorff Besicovich dimension strictly exceeds the
topological dimension. However, he is not satisfied with this definition as it excludes sets one would consider
fractals.
sci.fractals FAQ (ftp://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/usenet/usenet-by- group/sci.fractals/).
See also fractal compression, fractal dimension, Iterated Function System.
Usenet newsgroups: news:sci.fractals, news:alt.binaries.pictures.fractals, news:comp.graphics.
["The Fractal Geometry of Nature", Benoit Mandelbrot].
[Are there non-self-similar fractals?]
[FOLDOC]
05-11-2003
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fractal dimension
<mathematics> A common type of fractal dimension is the Hausdorff-Besicovich Dimension, but there are
several different ways of computing fractal dimension. Fractal dimension can be calculated by taking the limit of
the quotient of the log change in object size and the log change in measurement scale, as the measurement
scale approaches zero. The differences come in what is exactly meant by "object size" and what is meant by
"measurement scale" and how to get an average number out of many different parts of a geometrical object.
Fractal dimensions quantify the static *geometry* of an object.
For example, consider a straight line. Now blow up the line by a factor of two. The line is now twice as long as
before. Log 2 / Log 2 = 1, corresponding to dimension 1. Consider a square. Now blow up the square by a
factor of two. The square is now 4 times as large as before (i.e. 4 original squares can be placed on the original
square). Log 4 / log 2 = 2, corresponding to dimension 2 for the square. Consider a snowflake curve formed by
repeatedly replacing ___ with _/_, where each of the 4 new lines is 1/3 the length of the old line. Blowing up the
snowflake curve by a factor of 3 results in a snowflake curve 4 times as large (one of the old snowflake curves
can be placed on each of the 4 segments _/_). Log 4 / log 3 = 1.261... Since the dimension 1.261 is larger than
the dimension 1 of the lines making up the curve, the snowflake curve is a fractal. [sci.fractals FAQ].
16-03-2001
fragile
brittle
28-03-2004
Frankfurt school
<sociology, philosophy of history, moral philosophy, ethics>, <psychology, Horkeimer, Adorno, Benjamin,
Marcuse, Fromm>, <Habermas, dialectic, aesthetics, philosophy of politics> A community of German thinkers
in the Institut fuer Sozialforschung (Institute for Social Research) who developed the methodology of critical
theory. Prominent members include Horkheimer, Adorno, Benjamin, Marcuse, Fromm, and Habermas.
The Essential Frankfurt School Reader, ed. by Andrew Arato and Eike Gebhardt (Continuum, 1982);
Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History of the Frankfurt School and the Institute of Social Research
1923-1950 (California, 1996);
Rolf Wiggerhaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History, Theories, and Political Significance, tr. by Michael
Robertson (MIT, 1995).
28-03-2004
Free On-line Dictionary of Philosophy
FOLDOP is a searchable dictionary of technical words, concepts, acronyms, ideas, theories and some jokes in
philosophy. As the name indicates, it is based on FOLDOC (http://www.foldoc.org), the Free On-line Dictionary
of Computing edited, by Denis Howe.
Without Denis' help and technical support FOLDOP would have never been possible.
The philosophical contents of FOLDOP are copyright 2001 by Luciano Floridi, unless an entry is a quotation, in
which case the source to which the copyright belongs, is indicated.
Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this dictionary or works derived from it,
provided that every such copy or derived work carries the above copyright notice and is distributed under terms
identical to these.
Individual definitions from this dictionary may be used without restriction provided no more than twenty are
used in any one work.
Please refer to the dictionary as "The Free On-line Dictionary of Philosophy Version 3", Editors Luciano Floridi,
Gian Paolo Terravecchia".
Entries are cross-referenced to each other and to related resources elsewhere on the net.
Cross-references to other entries look like this. Note that not all cross-references actually lead anywhere yet,
but if you find one that leads to something inappropriate, please let us know.
You can search the latest version of the dictionary by WWW . If you find an entry that is wrong or inadequate
please let us know by sending an email to floridi@ermine.ox.ac.uk,mailto:gterrave@tin.it.
16-03-2001
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free variable
1. A variable referred to in a function, which is not an argument of the function. In lambda-calculus, x is a

bound variable in the term M = x . T, and a free variable of T.
We say x is bound in M and free in T. If T contains a subterm x . U then x is rebound in this term. This nested,
inner binding of x is said to "shadow" the outer binding. Occurrences of x in U are free occurrences of the new
x.
Variables bound at the top level of a program are technically free variables within the terms to which they are
bound but are often treated specially because they can be compiled as fixed addresses. Similarly, an identifier
bound to a recursive function is also technically a free variable within its own body but is treated specially.
A closed term is one containing no free variables.
See also closure, lambda lifting, scope.
[FOLDOC]
2. In predicate logic, an individual variable at least one of whose occurrences in a wff does not lie within the
scope of a quantifier on the same letter. Because other occurrences may be bound, a variable may be both
free and bound in the same wff.
3. free occurrence of a variable
Any occurrence of an individual variable not within the scope of a quantifier on the same letter.
See bound variable, closure
05-11-2003
free will
<ethics, political philosophy, psychology, metaphysics> <libertarianism, determinism, causality, compatibilism>

liberty of choice or self-determination. On the absolute or libertarian conception, free will is opposed absolutely
to causal determination: given a situation, a person could simply have chosen and done otherwise than they
did, unconditionally. Choices, on this conception, are uncaused or self-caused causings. On the compatibilist
or hypothetical conception, free will is opposed to constraint; a person is free if they could have done otherwise
if they' d so chosen; though our choices, like everything else, are effects of antecedent causes. On this
conception free acts are not uncaused, they' re just caused in the right way, by our own preferences and
desires. Acting freely on this "soft determinist" view is doing what you want (because you want to).
See also: determinism.
05-11-2003
freedom
<aesthetics, ethics, will, action>, <political thought, self-causality, necessity, possibility>, <metaphysics,
philosophy of nature>, <free will, self-determination>, <necessity, liberalism, empiricism, psychology,
Enlightment> (Lat. libertas Ger. Freiheit) - the human capacity to act (or not to act) as we choose or prefer,
without any external compulsion or restraint. Freedom in this sense is usually regarded as a presupposition of
moral responsibility: the actions for which I may be praised or blamed, rewarded or punished, are just those
which I perform freely. The further question of whether choice-the volition or will to act-is itself free or subject to
ordinary causality raises the issue of determinism in human conduct. But most modern philosophers have held
that (internal) determination of the will by desire or impulse does not diminish the relevant sense of moral
responsibility.
Free Will, ed. by Gary Watson (Oxford, 1983);
Ilham Dilman, Free Will: An Historical and Philosophical Introduction (Routledge, 1999);
Robert Kane, The Significance of Free Will (Oxford, 1998);
Laura Waddell Ekstrom, Free Will: A Philosophical Study (Westview, 2000);
Graham McFee, Free Will (McGill, 2001); Daniel C. Dennett, Elbow Room (MIT, 1984).
29-11-2001
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Frege Gottlob
<semantics, philosophy of language, metaphysics, ethics>, <epistemology, logic> German mathematician and
philosopher (1848-1925) who tried to develop effective ways of representing human thought in language and
symbols. Frege was an early exponent of the view that arithmetical truth could be established on purely logical
grounds. To that end, he developed a formal symbolic language for the expression of truth in Begriffsschrift
(Concept-notation) (1879), which introduced quantifiers as logical operators, and employed this symbolic
method in Die Grundlagen der Arithmetik (The Foundations of Arithmetic) (1884) and both volumes of
Grundgesetze der Arithmetik (The Basic Laws of Arithmetic) (1893, 1903). In "Ðber Sinn und Bedeutung" ("On
Sense and Reference") (1892), Frege proposed a strict distinction between the sense and the reference of
terms as a way of avoiding difficult epistemological paradoxes about informative statements of identity.
The Frege Reader, ed. by Michael Beaney (Blackwell, 1997);
Joan Weiner, Frege (Oxford, 1999);
Michael Dummett, The Interpretation of Frege' s Philosophy (Harvard, 1981);
Michael Dummett, Frege and Other Philosophers (Oxford, 1996);
Anthony Kenny, Frege: An Introduction to the Founder of Modern Analytic Philosophy (Blackwell, 2000); Hans
D.
Sluga, Gottlob Frege (Routledge, 1999); Wolfgang Carl, Frege' s Theory of Sense and Reference: Its Origins
and Scope (Cambridge, 1994).
29-11-2001
frequently asked question (FAQ)
<convention> (FAQ, or rarely FAQL, FAQ list) A document provided for many Usenet newsgroups (and, more
recently, World-Wide Web services) which attempts to answer questions which new readers often ask. These
are maintained by volunteers and posted regularly to the newsgroup. You should always consult the FAQ list
for a group before posting to it in case your question or point is common knowledge.
The collection of all FAQ lists is one of the most precious and remarkable resources on the Internet. It contains
a huge wealth of up-to-date expert knowledge on many subjects of common interest. Accuracy of the
information is greatly assisted by its frequent exposure to criticism by an interested, and occasionally well-
informed, audience (the readers of the relevant newsgroup).
The main FTP archive for FAQs is on a computer called RTFM at MIT, where they can be accessed either by
group (ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet-by-group/comp.answers/) or by hierarchy (ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet-by-
hierarchy/).
There is another archive at Imperial College (ftp://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/usenet/news-info/), London, UK and a
World-Wide Web archive in Ohio
(http://www.cis.ohio- state.edu/hypertext/faq/usenet/top.html), USA.
The FAQs are also posted to Usenet newsgroups: news:comp.answers, news:news.answers and
news:alt.answers.
[FOLDOC]
05-11-2003
Fresison
syllogism whose standard form may be designated as EIO-4. Example: Since no fish are mammals while some
animals that live in water are mammals, it follows that some animals that live in water are not fish. This is one
of the fifteen forms in which syllogisms are always valid.
29-11-2001
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Freud Sigmund
<psychology, psychoanalysis, subjectivity> <theory of dreams, emotion, passion, repression>, <unconscious,

sublimation, eros> Austrian physician and psychoanalyst (1856-1939). Freud offered a series of extended
accounts of the mechanism of repression, by means of which the motives of human behavior are
unrecognizably disguised even from their agents. A series of lectures entitled Vorlesungen zur Einfuehrung in
die Psychoanalyse (The Origin and Development of Psychoanalysis) (1917) offer a summary of his methods
and results. In Die Traumdeutung (The Interpretation of Dreams) (1900), Freud proposed the analysis of
dreams as a method of discovering the substantive content of the individual unconscious. In Die Zukunft einer
Illusion (The Future of an Illusion), he offered a naturalistic account of religious belief.
The Basic Writings of Sigmund Freud, ed. by A. A. Brill (Modern Library, 1995);
The Freud Reader, ed. by Peter Gay (Norton, 1995); The Cambridge Companion to Freud, ed. by Jerome Neu
(Cambridge, 1992);
Paul Ricoeur, Freud and Philosophy: An Essay on Interpretation, tr. by Denis Savage (Yale, 1986); Anthony
Storr, Freud (Oxford, 1989);
Donald Levy, Freud Among the Philosophers: The Psychoanalytic Unconscious and Its Philosophical Critics
(Yale, 1996).
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Freudianism
<philosophy> name for the ideas of Sigmund Freud, and for the tradition of psychological thought (and
psychoanalytic practice) spawned by his theories. The philosophical importance and influence of freudianism
or psychoanalysis derives from its view of human nature, which emphasizes the importance of unconscious
forces in determining the beliefs and actions of human beings.
[The Ism Book]
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Fuller Sarah Margaret
<philosophy of women, sociology, political thought> American journalist and social reformer (1810-1850). In
Woman in the Nineteenth Century (1845), Fuller advocated political equality and intellectual opportunity for
women. She died in a shipwreck off the coast of New York during her return from work as a newspaper
correspondent in Italy. The posthumously-published Life Without and Life Within (1869) includes essays on
several key intellectual figures of the nineteenth century.
The Essential Margaret Fuller, ed. by Jeffrey Steele (Rutgers, 1992);
The Portable Margaret Fuller, ed. by Mary Kelley (Penguin, 1994);
Bell Gale Chevigny, The Woman and the Myth: Margaret Fuller' s Life and Writings (Northeastern, 1994).
29-11-2001
function
1. <mathematics> (or "map", "mapping") Intuitively, a rule for associating a member or a sequence of members
of one set (the domain) with a member of another set (the range). If D and C are sets (the domain and
codomain) then a function f from D to C, normally written "f : D -> C" is a subset of D x C such that:
1. For each d in D there exists some c in C such that (d,c) is an element of f. I.e. the function is defined for
every element of D.
2. For each d in D, c1 and c2 in C, if both (d,c1) and (d,c2) are elements of f then c1 = c2. I.e. the function is
uniquely defined for every element of D.
See also image, inverse, partial function composition, computable function, definability of a function,
minimization, n-adic function, partial function, primitive recursion, propositional function, recursive function,
recursive theory, representation of a function, total function, truth function
2. <programming> Computing usage derives from the mathematical term but is much less strict. In
programming (except in functional programming), a function may return different values each time it is called
with the same argument values and may have side effects.
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A procedure is a function which returns no value but has only side-effects. The C language, for example, has
no procedures, only functions. ANSI C even defines a type, void, for the result of a function that has no result.
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functional requirements
<specification> What a system should be able to do, the functions it should perform.
This term is used at both the user requirements analysis and software requirements specifications phases in
the software life-cycle.
[When is a requirement not "functional"?]
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functional role semantics
<philosophy of mind> also known as conceptual role semantics or CRS. The meaning of a representation is
the role of that representation in the cognitive life of the agent. It is an extension of the well known theory of
meaning as it supplements external use by including the role of a symbol inside a computer or a brain.
(The following discussion is published in The Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
According to Conceptual Role Semantics (CRS) [i.e. functional role semantics], the meaning of a
representation is the role of that representation in the cognitive life of the agent, e.g. in perception, thought and
decision-making. It is an extension of the well known use theory of meaning, according to which the meaning of
a word is its use in communication and more generally, in social interaction. CRS supplements external use by
including the role of a symbol inside a computer or a brain. The uses appealed to are not just actual, but also
counterfactual: not only what effects a thought does have, but what effects it would have had if stimuli or other
states had differed.
The view has arisen separately in pphilosophy (where it is sometimes called "inferential," or "functional" role
semantics) and in cognitive science (where it is sometimes called "procedural semantics").
The source of the view is Wittgenstein (1953) and Sellars, but the source in contemporary philosophy is a
series of papers by Harman (see his 1987) and Field (1977). Other proponents in pphilosophy have included
Block, Horwich, Loar, McGinn and Peacocke (1992). In cognitive science, they include Woods (1981) and
Miller and Johnson-Laird (1976). (See references in Block, 1987.)
Further Discussion:
Linguistic and Metaphysical Semantics

(http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/philo/faculty/block/papers/ConceptualRoleSemantics.html#anchor695450)
Motivations for Functional Role Semantics

Two-factor Conceptual Role Semantics

Criticisms of CRS
Framework, Not Theory

Ned Block
References
Block, N. (forthcoming) Conceptual Role Semantics

(http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/philo/faculty/block/papers/ConceptualRoleSemantics.html)
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functional specification
<PI, project> A description of what a system (e.g. a piece of software) does or should do (but not how it should
do it). The functional specification is one of the inputs to the design process.
See IEEE/ANSI Std. 610.12-1990.
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functional unit
A subsystem of the central processing unit of a computer. E.g. arithmetic and logic unit, memory address
register, barrel shifter, register file.
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functionalism 1
1. See functionalism 1, the view that the physical realisation of a functional component is not, in some sense,
its essence. Rather, what makes a functional component the type it is, is characterised in terms of its role in
relating inputs to outputs and its relations to other functional components.
See multiple realisability, Turing machine, causal functionalism.
2. See functionalism 2 an explanatory approach to behaviour and the constitution of cognitive states that
regards particular behaviours and cognitive structures and capacities as playing functional roles in particular
domains or contexts.
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functionalism 2
<philosophy of mind> see also functionalism.
a. Introduction
functionalism (2) is an explanatory approach to behaviour and cognition that assumes the framework of
evolutionary biology. Consequently, functionalism (2) regards specific behaviours and faculties or capacities as
playing correspondingly specific and adaptive functional roles in the lives of the individuals and/or species that
evidence them.
Functionalism (2) differs from the functionalism 1, sometimes designated as "input-output functionalism", that
often appears in the literature of cognitive science and philosophy of mind. This latter functionalism may be
described as holding that the defining characteristic of a mental state is the set of causal relations it bears to
inputs, other mental states, and outputs. Functionalism (2), by contrast, can be described as a quasi-
teleological theory of adapted faculties and their functions.
b. Defining a Function
Functionalism (2) assumes a definition of function that, following Wright (1973/1995, p. 42), can be stated as:
The function of X is Z means (a) X is there because it does Z, (b) Z is a consequence (or result) of X' s being
there.
In other words, for an organism O, the function of faculty or organ X is that particular thing Z that X is good for
and that explains why Os have Xs.
This conception of a function is meant to capture two central ideas: first, that Z is a function proper of X and not
merely an accidental consequence or by-product of X, and second, that X is selected by virtue of its doing Z.
This latter feature is what Wright calls "consequence-selection," or "selection by virtue of resultant
advantage" (1973/1995, p. 43).
c. The Interaction and Isolation of Functions
Although under ordinary circumstances an organism' s various functions can be expected to interact, individua
functions are hypothesised to have been shaped by the pressures of the specific domains in which the
organism is active. It is in terms of such discrete domains that specific functions can be approached, or, as
Reber puts, we can only understand a given behaviour or capacity by "recognising the role of the conditions
under which it emerged and the functions that it has" (Reber 1995, p. 156). This has a practical consequence
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in that attempts to study individual functions will be carried out within domains contrived as narrowly as
possible, in order that the target function can be brought to the foreground to the greatest extent. One such
attempt at the experimental isolation of a given function can be found in the artificial grammar learning
experiments carried out by Reber and others. For these experiments the researchers designed situations
meant to articulate effects that could be attributed to a single function, that is, the cognitive faculty
hypothesised to afford acquisition of a grammar.
It should be emphasised, however, that the isolation of a function under experimental conditions is no more
than a pragmatic expedient. A fuller, more natural account of the isolated function would have to locate it within
the context of various interacting functions, the sum of which make up an organism' s complex repertoire o
capacities and behaviours.
But functional isolation does buy us a measure of understanding in that it allows us to model the components
making up an organism' s cognitive and behavioural resources.
Admittedly, the models resulting from functional isolation are necessarily idealisations of the actual processes
and faculties under consideration. But as with all such idealisations, these models allow us to try to carve an
organism' s various functions at the joints.
d. Functionalism and Adaptation
Like input-output functionalism 1, functionalism (2) is subject to intentionalist criticism of the type found in
Searle (1992). According to this critique, ascribing a function to a faculty or organ is always done against a
background of the ascriber' s intentions (1992, p. 237).
The conclusion to be drawn is that the functional ascription is therefore not intrinsic to the faculty or organ, but
rather to the teleology imposed on it from the outside by the observer. However, in the case of functionalism (2)
it may be argued that consequence selection answers this concern. As Wright notes (1973/1995, p. 43),
framing selection in terms of resulting advantage effectively separates selection from any necessary
dependence on volition. For if the function is selected on the basis of the relative adaptive advantage it brings
its possessor, we need only say that it is adaptive pressure of whatever sort that determines selection. If this is
the case, then ascriptions of function can be taken as hypotheses about the intrinsic properties of a faculty or
organ, which are in turn necessarily constrained by the best available theory of what counts as adaptive.
It is worth noting, however, that consequence selection can also accommodate functions that are in fact
intentionally selected or designed. Consciously designed functions, no less than naturally selected functions,
are functions "by virtue of their being the reason the thing with the function ' is there' " (Wright 1973/1995, p. 43
In sum, consequence selection allows intentional design to define functions without mandating it as a
necessary condition of function definition.
e. Implications for Representational Theory and Content Ascription
Functionalism (2) carries important implications for content ascription and for representational theories
generally. Specifically, functionalism (2) requires that given limits be placed on exactly what content states can
be ascribed to a person. As Reber points out, content ascriptions made under functionalism (2) are constrained
less by pure representational theory than by an understanding of what it is for a person to behave in an
adaptive manner (Reber 1995, p. 58). While functionalist (2) content ascriptions still will be formulated in terms
of what it is possible for a person to represent, the understanding of what "possible" means in any given
situation will be characterised in terms of specifically adaptive possibilities. In sum, under functionalism (2), our
attribution of a given representational content to a person will be constrained by what it is possible for that
person to represent, given that his or her behaviour or cognitive state is an adaptive response to the domain or
situation in question.
References
Reber, A. (1995). Implicit Learning and Tacit Knowledge: An Essay on the Cognitive Unconscious. New York,
Oxford University Press.
Searle, J. (1992). The Rediscovery of the Mind. Cambridge, MA, MIT Press.
Sober, E. ed. (1995). Conceptual Issues in Evolutionary Biology. Cambridge, MA, MIT Press.
Wright, L. (1973/1995). Functions. In Sober (1995) pp. 27-48.
Daniel Barbiero
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functor
In category theory, a functor F is an operator on types. Fis also considered to be a polymorphic operator on
functions with the type
F : (a -> b) -> (F a -> F b).
Functors are a generalisation of the function "map". The type operator in this case takes a type T and returns
type "list of T". The map function takes a function and applies it to each element of a list.
[FOLDOC]
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fuzzy computing
fuzzy logic
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fuzzy logic
A superset of Boolean logic dealing with the concept of partial truth -- truth values between "completely true"
and "completely false". It was introduced by Dr. Lotfi Zadeh of UCB in the 1960' s as a means to model the
uncertainty of natural language.
Any specific theory may be generalised from a discrete (or "crisp") form to a continuous (fuzzy) form, e.g.
"fuzzy calculus", "fuzzy differential equations" etc. Fuzzy logic replaces Boolean truth values with degrees of
truth which are very similar to probabilities except that they need not sum to one. Instead of an assertion pred
(X), meaning that X definitely has the property associated with predicate "pred", we have a truth function truth
(pred(X)) which gives the degree of truth that X has that property. We can combine such values using the
standard definitions of fuzzy logic:
truth(not x) = 1.0 - truth(x)

truth(x and y) = minimum (truth(x), truth(y))
truth(x or y) = maximum (truth(x), truth(y))
(There are other possible definitions for "and" and "or", e.g. using sum and product).
If truth values are restricted to 0 and 1 then these functions behave just like their Boolean counterparts. This is
known as the "extension principle".
Just as a Boolean predicate asserts that its argument definitely belongs to some subset of all objects, a fuzzy
predicate gives the degree of truth with which its argument belongs to a fuzzy subset.
Usenet newsgroup: news:comp.ai.fuzzy.
E-mail servers:
fuzzynet@aptronix.com
rnalib@its.bldrdoc.gov
fuzzy- server@til.com
(ftp://ftp.hiof.no/pub/Fuzzy), (ftp://ntia.its.bldrdoc.gov/pub/fuzzy).
FAQ (ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet-by-group/comp.answers/fuzzy-logic).
James Brule, "Fuzzy systems - a tutorial", 1985

(http://life.anu.edu.au/complex_systems/fuzzy.html).
STB Software Catalog

(http://krakatoa.jsc.nasa.gov/stb/catalog.html), includes a few fuzzy tools.
[H.J. Zimmerman, "Fuzzy Sets, Decision Making and Expert Systems", Kluwer, Dordrecht, 1987].
["Fuzzy Logic, State of the Art", Ed. R. Lowen, Marc Roubens, Theory and Decision Library, D: System theory,
Knowledge Engineering and Problem Solving 12, Kluwer, Dordrecht, 1993, ISBN 0-7923-2324-6].
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fuzzy subset
In fuzzy logic, a fuzzy subset F of a set S is defined by a "membership function" which gives the degree of
membership of each element of S belonging to F.
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Gadamer Hans-Georg
<biography, history of philosophy> German philosopher; a student of Nicolai Hartmann (1900-2002). In

Wahrheit und Methode, Grundzuege einer philosophischen Hermaneutik (Truth and Method) (1960),
Philosophical Hermeneutics (1977) Reason in the Age of Science (1983), Gadamer develops a hermeneutic
according to which the meaning of any text is a function of the historical situations of both author and
interpreter. Since each reading is grounded in its own context, no one reading offers a definitive or final
interpretation of the text; the virtual dialogue continues indefinitely.
Hans-Georg Gadamer, Praise of Theory: Speeches and Essays, tr. by Chris Dawson (Yale, 1999);
The Philosophy of Hans-Georg Gadamer, ed. by Lewis Edwin Hahn (Open Court, 1996);
Brice R. Wachterhauser, Beyond Being: Gadamer' s Post -Platonic Hermeneutic Ontology (Northwestern,
1999);
James Risser, Hermeneutics and the Voice of the Other: Re-Reading Gadamer' s Philosophical Hermeneutics
(SUNY, 1997);
Ingrid Scheibler, Gadamer (Rowman & Littlefield, 2000);
Richard E. Palmer, Hermeneutics: Interpretation Theory in Schleiermacher, Dilthey, Heidegger, and Gadamer
(Northwestern, 1969).
04-01-2002
Galilei Galileo
<biography, history of philosophy> Italian mathematician and scientist (1564-1642) who developed modern
scientific method and applied it to the study of astronomy and terrestrial motion. Author of Il Saggiatore (The
Assayer) (1623), Dialogo Sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo (Dialogue on the Two Chief World Systems)
(1632), and Discorsi e dimostrazioni matematiche intorno a due nuove scienze (Discourse on Two New
Sciences) (1638). Despite his careful delineation of scientific and religious concerns in Considerations on the
Copernican Opinion (1615), Galileo' s advocacy of Copernican astronomy earned him condemnation by the
church. Artifacts from Galileo' s career are displayed at the Museum of the History of Science in Florence, and
his Lettere (Letters) are available on-line.
Stillman Drake, Galileo at Work: His Scientific Biography (Dover, 1995);
The Cambridge Companion to Galileo, ed. by Peter K. MacHamer (Cambridge, 1998);
Stillman Drake, Essays on Galileo and the History and Philosophy of Science (Toronto, 2000);
Dava Sobel, Galileo' s Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith, and Love (Penguin, 2000).
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Game of Life
Life
04-04-2004
game tree
<games> A tree representing contingencies in a game. Each node in a game tree represents a possible
position (e.g., possible configuration of pieces on a chessboard) in the game, and each branching ("edge" in
graph terms) represents a possible move.
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Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand
<biography, history of philosophy> Indian political leader (1869-1948), also called "Mahatma" (the Great-
Souled). In opposition to racial discrimination against Indian nationals in South Africa and to British colonial rule
of India itself, Gandhi urged the practice of Satyagraha in a practical effort to achieve peaceful resolution of
political differences as head of the Indian National Congress. Constructive Programme: Its Meaning and Place
(1941) includes a detailed description of the method he espoused. Active in efforts to reduce Hindu-Muslim
ethnic conflict, Gandhi himself was assassinated by a Hindu fanatic.
The Essential Gandhi: His Life, Work, and Ideas: An Anthology, ed. by Louis Fischer (Vintage, 1983);
Gandhi on Non-Violence, ed. by Thomas Merton (Norton, 1965);
An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments With Truth, tr. by Mahadev Desai (Beacon, 1993);
Bhikhu Parekh, Gandhi (Oxford, 1997);
Glyn Richards, The Philosophy of Gandhi: A Study of His Basic Ideas (Curzon, 1992).
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Gassendi Pierre
<biography, history of philosophy> French logician and philosopher (1592-1655). Gassendi revived interest in
ancient atomism by defending a strictly mechanistic account of the physical world. Like Descartes, however, he
exempted all thinking beings from this explanation. Gassendi proposed a limited empirical skepticism in
Exercitationes Paradoxicae adversus Aristoteleos (Exercises against the Aristoteleans) (1624) and in the fifth
set of Objections that were appended to the publication of Descartes' s Meditations in 1641. The Disquisitio
Metaphysica (1644) and Syntagma Philosophiae Epicuri (1649) contain a clear defence of his adherence to an
atomistic natural philosophy.
Pierre Gassendi' s Institutio Logica: A Critical Edition With Translation and Introduction (Van Gorcum, 1981);
Pierre Gassendi, Selected Works;
Margaret J. Osler, Divine Will and the Mechanical Philosophy: Gassendi and Descartes on Contingency and
Necessity in the Created World (Cambridge, 1994).
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Gauss Carl Friedrich
<biography, history of philosophy> German physicist and mathematician (1777-1855). Gauss established the
foundations of modern number theory with his work on primes in Disquisitiones arithmeticae (1801) and
contributed significantly to the study of electromagnetic forces. Gauss was the teacher of Riemann and
Dedekind.
W. K. Buhler, Gauss: A Biographical Study (Springer Verlag, 1981)
Morris Kline, Mathematical Thought from Ancient to Modern Times (Oxford, 1990).
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Gaussian distribution
<statistics> normal distribution.
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Gay John
<biography, history of philosophy> English moral philosopher (1699-1745). Gay' s Dissertation concerning the
Fundamental Principle of Virtue or Morality (1731) provided an early statement of the utilitarian theory. The
greatest happiness principle, he supposed, represents a middle ground between the egoism of Hobbes and
Hutcheson' s moral sense theory.
D. D. Raphael, British Moralists (Hackett, 1990).
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Gemeinschaft - Gesellschaft
<social philosophy, community> German distinction between community, characterized by traditional practices
and a personal sense of belonging, and the more individualistic, competitive, and impersonal organization of
mere society.
Ferdinand Tonnies, Community and Society (Transaction, 1988)
Larry Lyon, The Community in Urban Society (Waveland, 1999).
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gender
<sociology> distinction between the socially-constructed expectations associated with masculinity and
femininity and the biological categories of male and female. De Beauvoir, MacKinnon, and other feminists draw
attention to the disparate power relationships established by gender differentiation in our culture.
Martha Craven Nussbaum, Sex & Social Justice (Oxford, 2000);
Judith P. Butler, Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex (Routledge, 1993);
Feminism / Postmodernism, ed. by Linda J. Nicholson (Routledge, 1989);
Gender / Body / Knowledge: Feminist Reconstructions of Being and Knowing, ed. by Alison M. Jaggar and
Susan R. Bordo (Rutgers, 1989).
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General Recursion Theorem
<mathematics> Cantor' stheorem, originally stated for ordinals, which extends inductive proof to recursive
construction. The proof is by pasting together "attempts" (partial solutions).
[Better explanation?]
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general will
<political philosophy, collectivism> collective desire for the welfare of a society as a whole. According to Jean
Jacques Rousseau, the citizens of a properly-contracted civil society are infallibly guided by the general will,
rather than by their conflicting individual self-interests.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract, tr. by Maurice Cranston (Penguin, 1987);
Robert Wokler, Rousseau (Oxford, 1995);
Patrick Riley, The General Will Before Rousseau (Princeton, 1991);
Andrew Levine, The General Will: Rousseau, Marx, Communism (Cambridge, 1993).
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generality constraint
<philosophy of mind> constraint on concept possession (and hence on the ability to entertain genuine
thoughts) to the effect that a subject has the concept C only if the set of thoughts the subject is able to
entertain is closed under recombination of C with all other semantically and categorically appropriate concepts
that the subject possesses.
Pete Mandik
16-03-2001
generalization
<logic> To add a quantifier to a wff so that it either binds previously free variables, or binds new variables
substituted for constants.
See bound variables, free variables, instantiation, quantifier
Existential generalization
To generalize using the existential quantifier. For example to move from propositional functions like Px or
propositions like Pa to (Ex)Px; from "x is purple" or "alabaster is purple" to "something is purple". Valid without
restriction.
Universal generalization
To generalize using the universal quantifier. For example to move from propositional functions like Px or
propositions like Pa to (x)Px; from "x is purple" or "alabaster is purple" to "everything is purple". Valid only
under several restrictions.
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generate
To produce something according to an algorithm or program or set of rules, or as a (possibly unintended) side
effect of the execution of an algorithm or program.
The opposite of parse.
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genetic algorithm
(GA) An evolutionary algorithm which generates each individual from some encoded form known as a
"chromosome" or "genome". Chromosomes are combined or mutated to breed new individuals. "Crossover",
the kind of recombination of chromosomes found in sexual reproduction in nature, is often also used in GAs.
Here, an offspring' s chromosome is created by joining segments chosen alternately from each of two parents
chromosomes which are of fixed length.
GAs are useful for multidimensional optimisation problems in which the chromosome can encode the values for
the different variables being optimised.
Illinois Genetic Algorithms Laboratory (http://GAL4.GE.UIUC.EDU/illigal.home.html) (IlliGAL).
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genetic algorithms
genetic algorithm
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genetic programming
<programming> (GP) A programming technique which extends the genetic algorithm to the domain of whole
computer programs. In GP, populations of programs are genetically bred to solve problems. Genetic
programming can solve problems of system identification, classification, control, robotics, optimisation, game
playing, and pattern recognition.
Starting with a primordial ooze of hundreds or thousands of randomly created programs composed of functions
and terminals appropriate to the problem, the population is progressively evolved over a series of generations
by applying the operations of Darwinian fitness proportionate reproduction and crossover (sexual
recombination).
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genus and differentia
<logic, definition> latin terms used by medieval logicians in an effort to define a term by indicating the general
kind (genus) of things to which it refers and then specifying the special feature (differentia) which sets them
apart from other things of the same kind. This usage derives from Aristotle' s logic, where the highest kind to
which an individual thing belongs is one of the basic categories of being.
04-01-2002
Gersonides Levi ben Gershom
<biography, history of philosophy> French Jewish mathematician and philosopher (1288-1344). Following the
leads of Maimonides and Ibn Rushd, Gersonides maintained that truths of reason cannot conflict with revealed
religion. He denied the possibility of creation ex nihilo, supposing instead that matter is eternal. On Gersonides
view, however, genuine human freedom is possible because the omniscience of god extends only to
knowledge of universals.
Jacob J. Staub, The Creation of the World According to Gersonides (SBL, 1982)
Gersonides on Providence, Covenant, and the Chosen People: A Study in Medieval Jewish Philosophy and
Biblical Commentary (SUNY, 1995).
04-01-2002
Gettier Edmund
<biography, history of philosophy> American philosopher (1927- ) whose Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?
(1963) offers counter-examples to show that even justified true belief may not be genuine knowledge in cases
where that which justifies one' s belief happens not to be related directly to the truth of what one believes.
Empirical Knowledge, ed. by Paul K. Moser (Rowman & Littlefield, 1996);
A Companion to Epistemology, ed. by Jonathan Dancy and Ernest Sosa (Blackwell, 1994);
Robert Audi, Epistemology: A Contemporary Introduction to the Theory of Knowledge (Routledge, 1998).
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Gettier problem
<epistemology> a type of counterexample to the definition of knowledge as justified true belief. The first
examples of the Gettier problem were published in 1963 by Edmund Gettier. In that paper, Gettier makes very
clear that the tripartite definition concerns not knowledge per se, but a knowing subject' s epistemic state:
S knows that p iff
1) p is true
2) S believes that p
3) S is justified in believing that p

Sceptical arguments usually accept (2) and (3) and try to show that, no matter how one reinforces these two
conditions, (1) does not necessarily follow. Gettier-type counterexamples concern (3) and are not to be
confused with sceptical arguments. They show that even if (1) and (2) are granted, one can always prove that
S has merely guessed that p, since circumstances may be such that (3) only appears to apply, but actually
does not, or issatisfied only in a sense too week to be satisfactory. This shows that the tripartite definition is
incorrect.
Suggestions on how to improve it have abunded.

Consider the following example, taken from Theory of Knowledge Course (http://www-
philosophy.ucdavis.edu/phi102/tkch1.htm).
A teacher has two students, Mr. Nogot and Mr. Havit, in her class. Mr. Nogot seems to be the proud owner of a
Ferrari (a rare and expensive car). He says he owns one, drives one around, and has papers which state that
the car he drives is his. However, he does not actually own a Ferrari.
The teacher, on the basis of this evidence, concludes that someone in her class owns a Ferrari. This is true
enough, but only because Mr. Havit, who shows no signs of Ferrari ownership, secretly owns one. So, it seems
that the three conditions (truth, belief and justification) of knowledge have been met, but that there is no
knowledge.
Another example of a Gettier case can be developed from an example concerning whether an executive' s
secretary is in his office. Suppose that she looked into the office and saw, sitting behind the desk, a figure who
looked to her exactly like her secretary. We may suppose that she would be completely justified in accepting
that her secretary is in his office. However, it may be that the person sitting at the desk is her secretary' s
identical twin brother. The real secretary is hiding behind the desk, waiting to leap up and surprise her. So it is
true that the secretary is in the office, the executive accepts that it is true, and she is completely justified in so
accepting that he is.
A third example, very simple, is provided by a broken watch. Suppose it is 3.15 pm and that my watch stopped
working yesterday exactly at 3.15 pm. Suppose that checking the time on my watch has always been a very
reliable and hence strongly justification-affording procedure in the past. I wish to know what the time is and I
check my watch. Do I know that it is 3.15 pm? Of course not, I am just extremely lucky, although the procedure
followed is reliable by hypothesis, and my belief that it is 3.15 pm is true.
Gettier counterexample are easy to construct by maintaining but decoupling the justification of p from the truth
of p. This can happen whenever p is, or refers to, an empirical (i.e. contingent) fact. In mathematical
knowledge, where p is a theorem and its justification is a logical proof, not "Gettierisation" seems possible.
Luciano Floridi
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Geulincx Arnold
<biography, history of philosophy> Belgian philosopher (1624-1669); author of Quaestiones quodlibeticae

(Miscellaneous Questions) (1653), Logica restituta (Restored Logic) (1662), and De virtute (On Virtue) (1665).
As a devoted Cartesian, Geulincx sought to resolve the dualist' s problem of mind -body interaction by appealing
to divine intervention as the genuine source of all causation, presaging the occasionalism of Malebranche. The
coincidence of mental thoughts with bodily motions, he argued, is like the conformity between unconnected but
synchronized clocks.
Causation in Early Modern Philosophy: Cartesianism, Occasionalism, and Preestablished Harmony, ed. by
Steven Nadler (Penn. State, 1993)
G. Nuchelmans, Geulincx Containment Theory of Logic (Royal Netherlands, 1988).
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Gilligan Carol
<biography, history of philosophy> American psychologist (1936- ). Gilligan' s In a Different Voice

Psychological Theory and Women' s Development (1983) applies psychological research on female
adolescents to theories of moral development, discovering in women a greater inclination toward an "ethics of
care," characterized by focus on responsibilities within particular human relationships, than toward the male
"ethics of justice," with its emphasis on rules and rights conceived in general terms. In Mapping the Moral
Domain (1988), Gilligan further examines the social significance of her psychological theories.
Susan J. Hekman, Moral Voices, Moral Selves: Carol Gilligan and Feminist Moral Theory (Penn. State, 1995)
Caring Voices and Women' s Frames: Gilligan' s View, ed. by Bill Puka (Garland, 1994).
04-01-2002
Gilman Charlotte Perkins
<biography, history of philosophy> American novelist and social philosopher who chronicled the abuses of
androcentric culture (1860-1935). "The Yellow Wallpaper" (1892) describes the brutality suffered by married
women under the guise of treatment of mental illness. Gilman' s utopian novel Herland (1915) provides an
imaginative vision of a matriarchal society free from any taint of male domination. In Women and Economics: A
Study of the Economic Relation between Men and Women as a Factor in Social Evolution (1898), Gilman
maintained that securing the personal and political rights of women requires their achievement of genuine
economic equality. His Religion and Hers: A Study of the Faith of Our Fathers and the Work of Our Mothers
(1923) explored the patriarchal elements of traditional Christianity. Gilman described her personal resistance of
gender models in the autobiographical The Living of Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1935).
The Charlotte Perkins Gilman Reader, ed. by Ann J. Lane (Virginia, 1999);
Charlotte Perkins Gilman: A Nonfiction Reader, ed. by Larry Ceplair (Columbia, 1991);
Ann J. Lane, To Herland and Beyond: The Life and Work of Charlotte Perkins Gilman (Virginia, 1997);
The Captive Imagination: A Casebook on the Yellow Wallpaper, ed. by Catherine Golden (Feminist, 1992).
04-01-2002
Glanvil Joseph
<biography, history of philosophy> English philosopher (1611-1680) whose Vanity of Dogmatizing (1661) used
skeptical arguments to show the fallibility of empirical study of the natural world. Sharing the Cambridge
Platonists' concern with the realm ofsoul and spirit, however, Glanvill later argued that denying the reality of
ghosts and witches would be the first step toward atheism.
Robert M. Burns, The Great Debate on Miracles: From Joseph Glanvill to David Hume (Bucknell, 1981);
Sascha Talmor, Glanvill: The Uses and Abuses of Skepticism;
Joseph Glanvill, Saducismus Triumphatus: Or, Full and Plain Evidence Concerning Witches and Apparitions
(Scholars' Facsimilies, 1966).
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globalisation
internationalisation
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Glossary of First-Order Logic
<source> the Glossary of First-Order Logic (http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/courses/logsys/glossary.htm)

edited by Peter Suber, Philosophy Department, Earlham College, USA "This glossary is limited to basic set
theory, basic recursive function theory, two branches of logic (truth-functional propositional logic and first-order
predicate logic) and their metatheory."
Many definitions in this dictionary are from the version published in 2001-02-05.
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God
<God-proofs of the existence of> <metaphysics, ontological argument, teleological argument, > <ethics,
existence, tomism, scholasticism, evil, stoicism> omnipotent (all powerful), omniscient (all knowing), and
perfectly benevolent creator of the universe. Conceived of as transcending the created universe (as in the
Christian tradition) God is thought to exist prior to and beyond the universe which he created from nothing or ex
nihilo. Conceived of as immanent (as on pantheistic and
Stoic conceptions) God is in the universe (as its guiding spirit or logos) and coextensive with it, not beyond it or
prior to it.
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God existence of
<God-proofs of the existence of, metaphysics> attempts to demonstrate the existence of God have been a
notable feature of Western philosophy. The most commonly employed theistic efforts include: the cosmological
argument, the ontological argument, the teleological argument, and the moral argument. The most serious
atheological argument is the problem of evil.
The Existence of God, ed. by John Hick and Paul Edwards (Macmillan, 1964);
Alvin Plantinga, God and Other Minds: A Study of the Rational Justification of Belief in God (Cornell, 1990);
Richard M. Gale, On the Nature and Existence of God (Cambridge, 1993);
Richard. Swinburne, The Existence of God (Clarendon, 1991);
John L. Mackie, The Miracle of Theism: Arguments for and Against the Existence of God (Oxford, 1983).
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God-proofs of the existence of
<metaphysics, ontological argument, unmoved mover, > <watchmaker argument>
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Godwin William
<biography, history of philosophy> English social reformer (1756-1836) and husband of Mary Wollstonecraft.
Godwin' s Enquiry Concerning Political Justice and its Influence on Modern Morals and Happiness (1793) and
Thoughts on Man, his Nature, Productions, and Discoveries (1831) employed utilitarian principles to show the
corrupting influence of government and to defend political anarchism. Godwin also wrote the novel The
Adventures of Caleb Williams (1794).
The Anarchist Writings of William Godwin, ed. by Peter Marshall (Freedom, 1986);
D. H. Monro, Godwin' s Moral Philosophy: An Interpretation of William Godwin (Greenwood, 1980);
George Woodcock, William Godwin: A Biographical Study (Black Rose, 1989).
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Goedel Kurt
<biography, history of philosophy> Czech logician and mathematician (1906-1978). By applying an arithmetical
method to the syntactical study of formalized logical languages, Goedel demonstrated in "Ueber formal
unentscheidbare Saetze der Principia Mathematica und vervadter Systeme" ("On formally undecidable
propositions of Principia Mathematica and related systems") (1931) that any consistent formal system powerful
enough to contain arithmetic must contain at least one proposition whose truth or falsity cannot be proven
within the system. It follows further that the consistency of a formal system cannot be evaluated from within the
system itself. These discoveries brought an abrupt end to hopes for the purely-syntactical logicization of
arithmetic. Goedel' s own reflections on the significance of his work may be found in "The modern developmen
of the foundations of mathematics in the light of philosophy" (1961).
G–del' s Proof (NYU, 1983); S. G. Shanker, Goedel' s Theorem in Focus (Routledge, 1988);
Raymond M. Smullyan, Forever Undecided: A Puzzle Guide to Goedel (Oxford, 1988);
Raymond M. Smullyan, Goedel' s Incompleteness Theorems (Oxford, 1992);
John L. Casti and Werner Depauli, Goedel: A Life of Logic, the Mind, and Mathematics (Perseus, 2000).
04-01-2002
Goedel numbering
<logic> A code in which distinct numerals are assigned to the expressions of a language such that we can tell
from the numeral whether it is assigned to a symbol, a sequence of symbols (potential wff), or a sequence of
wffs (potential proof). There must be an effective method for translating symbols, formulas, or sequences of
formulas into their Goedel numbers, and vice versa.
See arithmetisation
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GOFAI
Good Old-Fashioned Artificial Intelligence
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Goldman Emma
<biography, history of philosophy> Lithuanian-American political activist (1869-1940); author of Anarchism and
other Essays (1911). An outspoken advocate of free speech and social freedom, Goldman defended the rights
of women to control their own economic and reproductive activities in The Traffic in Women (1909). Her views
on religion are expressed in "The Philosophy of Atheism" (1916).
Goldman was influential in the development of the trade union movement, but was imprisoned for her anti-war
activities and deported from the United States in 1919, continuing her involvement in world affairs from abroad.
Living My Life (1931) details many of the events in her adventurous life.
Red Emma Speaks: An Emma Goldman Reader, ed. by Alix Kates Shulman (Humanity, 1996);
Martin Gay and Kathlyn Gay, The Importance of Emma Goldman (Lucent, 1996);
Emma Goldman: American Individualist, ed. by John Chalberg and Oscar Handlin (Addison-Wesley, 1991).
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good
<ethics, ontology, metaphysics> the most general term of approval, both moral and non-moral, whether
intrinsic or extrinsic.
G. E. Moore, Principia Ethica (Prometheus, 1988);
R. M. Hare, The Language of Morals (Clarendon, 1991);
Being and Goodness: The Concept of the Good in Metaphysics and Philosophical Theology, ed. by Scott
MacDonald (Cornell, 1991).
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Good Old-Fashioned Artificial Intelligence
see symbolicism, artificial intelligence
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Goodman Nelson
<biography, history of philosophy> American philosopher (1906-1998). In The Structure of Appearance (1951)
and Ways of Worldmaking (1978), Goodman defended an extreme nominalism according to which things,
qualities, and even similarities are entirely the products of our habits of speaking, without any ontological
foundation in reality. The "new riddle of induction" introduced by Goodman in Fact, Fiction, and Forecast (1954)
uses the color-predicate "grue" to raise significant doubts about our ability to project natural predicates into the
future. Goodman' s Languages of Art (1969) proposes that art -forms are properly understood as symbolic
systems that establish inter-related networks of meaning without attempting to represent reality.
Nelson Goodman and Catherine Z. Elgin, Reconceptions in Philosophy and Other Arts and Sciences (Hackett,
1990);
The Philosophy of Nelson Goodman: Selected Essays, ed. by Catherine Elgin (Garland, 1997);
How Classification Works: Nelson Goodman Among the Social Sciences, ed. by Mary Douglas and David Hull
(Edinburgh, 1993).
04-01-2002
grammar
A formal definition of the syntactic structure of a language (see syntax), normally given in terms of production
rules which specify the order of constituents and their sub-constituents in a sentence (a well-formed string in
the language). Each rule has a left-hand side symbol naming a syntactic category (e.g. "noun-phrase" for a
natural language grammar) and a right-hand side which is a sequence of zero or more symbols. Each symbol
may be either a terminal symbol or a non-terminal symbol. A terminal symbol corresponds to one "lexeme" - a
part of the sentence with no internal syntactic structure (e.g. an identifier or an operator in a computer
language). A non-terminal symbol is the left-hand side of some rule.
One rule is normally designated as the top-level rule which gives the structure for a whole sentence.
A grammar can be used either to parse a sentence (see parser) or to generate one. Parsing assigns a terminal
syntactic category to each input token and a non-terminal category to each appropriate group of tokens, up to
the level of the whole sentence. Parsing is usually preceded by lexical analysis. Generation starts from the top-
level rule and chooses one alternative production wherever there is a choice.
See also BNF, yacc, attribute grammar, grammar analysis, formal language
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grammatical inference
Deducing a grammar from given examples. Also known as "inductive inference" and recently as "computational
learning".
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Gramsci Antonio
<biography, history of philosophy> Italian social philosopher (1891-1937) whose Quaderni del carcere (Prison
Notebooks) (1929-1935) defended a humanistic version of the political philosophy of Marx as an alternative to
Italian fascism. Like Croce, Gramsci deplored authoritarian government of every variety and argued that social
classes are shaped as much by their characteristic patterns of thought as by their material circumstances.
The Antonio Gramsci Reader: Selected Writings 1916-1935, ed. by David Forgacs and Eric J. Hobsbawm
(NYU, 2000);
Antonio Gramsci: Pre-Prison Writings, ed. by Richard Bellamy and Virginia Cox (Cambridge, 1994);
Sue Golding, Gramsci' s Democratic Theory: Contributions to a Post -Liberal Democracy (Toronto, 1992);
Gramsci, Historical Materialism and International Relations, ed. by Stephen Gill (Cambridge, 1993).
04-01-2002
granularity
<jargon, parallel> The size of the units of code under consideration in some context. The term generally refers
to the level of detail at which code is considered, e.g. "You can specify the granularity for this profiling tool".
The most common computing use is in parallelism where "fine grain parallelism" means individual tasks are
relatively small in terms of code size and execution time, "coarse grain" is the opposite. You talk about the
"granularity" of the parallelism.
The smaller the granularity, the greater the potential for parallelism and hence speed-up but the greater the
overheads of synchronisation and communication.
[FOLDOC]
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graph
1. <mathematics> A collection of nodes and edges.
See also connected graph, degree, directed graph, Moore bound, regular graph, tree.
2. <graphics> A visual representation of algebraic equations or data.
[FOLDOC]
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greatest common divisor
<mathematics> (GCD) A function that returns the largest positive integer that both arguments are integer
multiples of.
See also Euclid' s Algorithm. Compare:lowest common multiple.
[FOLDOC]
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greatest happiness principle
<ethics, utiliarianism> the definition of moral value by utilitarians. As stated by Hutcheson, Bentham, and Mill,
the principle is that actions are right only insofar as they tend to produce the greatest balance of pleasure over
pain for the largest number of people.
Francis Hutcheson, Philosophical Writings, ed. by R.S. Downie (Everyman, 1919);
Jeremy Bentham, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (Prometheus, 1987);
John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism and Other Essays, ed. by Alan Ryan (Viking, 1987);
Alan O. Ebenstein, The Greatest Happiness Principle: An Examination of Utilitarianism (Garland, 1999).
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greatest lower bound
<mathematics, logic> (glb, meet, infimum) The greatest lower bound of two elements, a and b is an element c
such that c <= a and c <= b and if there is any other lower bound c' then c' <= c.
The greatest lower bound of a set S is the greatest element b such that for all s in S, b <= s. The glb of
mutually comparable elements is their minimum but in the presence of incomparable elements, if the glb exists,
it will be some other element less than all of them.
glb is the dual to least upper bound.
[FOLDOC]
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Green Thomas Hill
<biography, history of philosophy> English philosopher (1836-1882). Green' s defense of the idealism of Hege
found its best expression in the critical introduction to his editions of Hume' s Treatise and in his own
Prolegomena to Ethics (1883), where he argued that all human knowledge and action derive from abstract
thought. In Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation (1885) Green applied Hegelian notions in
opposition to laissez-faire liberal politics.
T. H. Green, The Theory of Free Will & the Compulsion of Human Actions (Caribe, 1991);
Geoffrey Thomas, The Moral Philosophy of T. H. Green (Oxford, 1987);
The Politics of Conscience: T. H. Green and His Age, ed. by Melvin Richter and Peter Johnson (St. Augustine,
1997);
William D. Lamont, Introduction to Green' s Moral Philosophy (Sterling, 1980).
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Grosseteste Robert
<biography, history of philosophy> English philosopher (1170-1253). Grosseteste used Arabic and Jewish
commentaries on the philosophy of Aristotle to develop his own scientific and religious theories, using practical
experimentation to study the nature of light.
James McEvoy, Robert Grosseteste, Exegete and Philosopher (Variorum, 1994);
Robert Grosseteste - On the Six Days of Creation: A Translation of the Hexaemeron, tr. by C.F.J. Martin
(British Academy, 1999);
James McEvoy, Robert Grosseteste (Oxford, 2000).
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Grotius Hugo
<biography, history of philosophy> Dutch legal theorist (1583-1645). In De Iure Belli ac Pacis Libri Tres (Three
Books on the Law of War and Peace) (1625) Grotius developed a natural law theory of relations between
human beings who are both social and competitive that was influential on the work of Hobbes and Locke.
Though he notoriously claimed that the princples of international cooperation did not depend upon the
existence or benevolence of god, Grotius also wrote an extended defense of traditional theology, De veritate
religiones Christianae (On the Truth of the Christian Religion) (1627). He died of pneumonia at the court of
Queen Kristina.
Edward Dumbauld, The life and legal writings of Hugo Grotius (Lyle Stuart, 1978);
Hugo Grotius and International Relations, ed. by Hedley Bull, Benedict Kingsbury, and Adam Roberts (Oxford,
1992);
Grotius, ed. by John Dunn andIan Harris (Elgar, 1997).
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grue
<philosophy of science> a color-predicate used by Goodman to illustrate a significant problem with inductive
predictions. With respect to a designated future time, an object is grue if it is seen to be green when first
observed before that time or if it is seen to be blue when first observed after that time. The problem is that our
present observations of green grass seem to provide equal support for hypotheses that grass is green and that
grass is grue (or gred, for that matter). There is no simple and apparent way of forestalling this gruesome
difficulty.
Nelson Goodman, Fact, Fiction, and Forecast (Harvard, 1954)
Grue!: The New Riddle of Induction, ed. by Douglas Stalker (Open Court, 1994).
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Habermas Juergen
<history of philosophy, biography> german philosopher (1929-). As a prominent member of the Frankfurt
school, Habermas engages in critical study of the historical origins of human knowledge in many disciplines.
His Theorie und Praxis: Sozial-Philosophische Studien (Theory and Practice) (1963) and
Legitimationsprobleme im Spaetkapitalismus (Legitimation Crisis) (1973) examine the social conditions under
which the uninhibited dialogue of an "ethics of discourse" is possible in the public literary sphere, serving the
basic human needs to gain control over the natural world, to explore the character of interpersonal
relationships, and to escape the domination of social power-structures. In Erkentniss und Interesse
(Knowledge and Human Interests) (1968) Habermas again emphasized the implications of social context for
the development of epistemology. Habermas is also the author of Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns (The
Theory of Communicative Action) (1981) and Der philosophische Diskurs der Moderne (Philosophical
Discourse on Modernity) (1985), where he criticizes the more radical views of Foucault and Lyotard.
Jurgen Habermas, Postmetaphysical Thinking: Philosophical Essays, tr. by William Mark Hohengarten (MIT,
1994);
Jurgen Habermas, Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action, tr. by Shierry Weber Nicholsen and
Christian Lenhardt (MIT, 1992);
Habermas: A Critical Reader, ed. by Peter Dews (Blackwell, 1999);
Perspectives on Habermas, ed. by Lewis Edwin Hahn (Open Court, 2000);
The Cambridge Companion to Habermas, ed. by Stephen K. White (Cambridge, 1995);
John B. Thompson, Critical Hermeneutics: A Study in the Thought of Paul Ricoeur and Jurgen Habermas
(Cambridge, 1984);
Habermas and the Unfinished Project of Modernity: Critical Essays on the Philosophical Discourse of
Modernity, ed. by Maurizio P. D' Entreves and Seyla Benhabib (MIT, 1997);
Jane Braaten, Habermas' s Critical Theory of Society (SUNY, 1991).
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hacker
<person, jargon> (Originally, someone who makes furniture with an axe) 1. A person who enjoys exploring the
details of programmable systems and how to stretch their capabilities, as opposed to most users, who prefer to
learn only the minimum necessary.
2. One who programs enthusiastically (even obsessively) or who enjoys programming rather than just
theorizing about programming.
3. A person capable of appreciating hack value.
4. A person who is good at programming quickly.
5. An expert at a particular program, or one who frequently does work using it or on it; as in "a Unix hacker".
(Definitions 1 through 5 are correlated, and people who fit them congregate.)
6. An expert or enthusiast of any kind. One might be an astronomy hacker, for example.
7. One who enjoys the intellectual challenge of creatively overcoming or circumventing limitations.
8. (Deprecated) A malicious meddler who tries to discover sensitive information by poking around. Hence
"password hacker", "network hacker". The correct term is cracker.
The term "hacker" also tends to connote membership in the global community defined by the net (see The
Network and Internet address). It also implies that the person described is seen to subscribe to some version
of the hacker ethic.
It is better to be described as a hacker by others than to describe oneself that way. Hackers consider
themselves something of an elite (a meritocracy based on ability), though one to which new members are
gladly welcome. Thus while it is gratifying to be called a hacker, false claimants to the title are quickly labelled
as "bogus" or a "wannabee".
9. (University of Maryland, rare) A programmer who does not understand proper programming techniques and
principles and doesn' t have a Computer Science degree. Someone who just bangs on the keyboard until
something happens. For example, "This program is nothing but spaghetti code. It must have been written by a
hacker".
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hacker ethic
<ethics> 1. The belief that information-sharing is a powerful positive good, and that it is an ethical duty of
hackers to share their expertise by writing free software and facilitating access to information and to computing
resources wherever possible.
2. The belief that system-cracking for fun and exploration is ethically OK as long as the cracker commits no
theft, vandalism, or breach of confidentiality.
Both of these normative ethical principles are widely, but by no means universally, accepted among hackers.
Most hackers subscribe to the hacker ethic in sense 1, and many act on it by writing and giving away free
software. A few go further and assert that *all* information should be free and *any* proprietary control of it is
bad; this is the philosophy behind the GNU project.
Sense 2 is more controversial: some people consider the act of cracking itself to be unethical, like breaking
and entering. But the belief that "ethical" cracking excludes destruction at least moderates the behaviour of
people who see themselves as "benign" crackers (see also samurai). On this view, it may be one of the highest
forms of hackerly courtesy to (a) break into a system, and then (b) explain to the sysop, preferably by e-mail
from a superuser account, exactly how it was done and how the hole can be plugged - acting as an unpaid
(and unsolicited) tiger team.
The most reliable manifestation of either version of the hacker ethic is that almost all hackers are actively
willing to share technical tricks, software, and (where possible) computing resources with other hackers. Huge
cooperative networks such as Usenet, FidoNet and Internet (see Internet address) can function without central
control because of this trait; they both rely on and reinforce a sense of community that may be hackerdom' s
most valuable intangible asset.
[FOLDOC]
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haecceity
<history of philosophy, ontology, metaphysics> thisness; the property that uniquely distinguishes each
individual thing from others of its kind. Introduced by Duns Scotus as a name for the individuating essence of
any particular, the term has been used more recently in connection with the view that rigidly designated
individuals can exist in each of many possible worlds.
John Duns Scotus, Philosophical Writings: A Selection (Hackett, 1987)
Gary S. Rosenkrantz, Haecceity: An Ontological Essay (Kluwer, 1993).
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halting problem
The problem of determining in advance whether a particular program or algorithm will terminate or run forever.
The halting problem is the canonical example of a provably unsolvable problem. Obviously any attempt to
answer the question by actually executing the algorithm or simulating each step of its execution will only give
an answer if the algorithm under consideration does terminate, otherwise the algorithm attempting to answer
the question will itself run forever.
Some special cases of the halting problem are partially solvable given sufficient resources. For example, if it is
possible to record the complete state of the execution of the algorithm at each step and the current state is
ever identical to some previous state then the algorithm is in a loop. This might require an arbitrary amount of
storage however.
Alternatively, if there are at most N possible different states then the algorithm can run for at most N steps
without looping.
A program analysis called termination analysis attempts to answer this question for limited kinds of input
algorithm.
[FOLDOC]
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Hamilton William
<history of philosophy, biography> scottish philosopher (1788-1856); author of Lectures on Metaphysics and
Logic (1860). Hamilton followed Reid in defending common sense against the skepticism of empiricists like
Hume Hamilton' s thought was subjected, in turn, to sharp criticism byMill.
James McCosh, Scottish Philosophy: Biographical, Expository, and Critical (AMS, 1980)
John Stuart Mill, An Examination of Sir William Hamilton' s Philosophy and of the Principle Philosophica
Questions Discussed in His Writings (Classic, 2000).
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Hamiltonian cycle
Hamiltonian problem
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Hamiltonian path
Hamiltonian problem
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Hamiltonian problem
<computability> (Or "Hamilton' s problem") A problem ingraph theory posed by William Hamilton: given a
graph, is there a path through the graph which visits each vertex precisely once (a "Hamiltonian path")? Is
there a Hamiltonian path which ends up where it started (a "Hamiltonian cycle" or "Hamiltonian tour")?
Hamilton' s problem is NP
-complete. It has numerous applications, sometimes completely unexpected, in
computing.
Home http://www.ing.unlp.edu.ar/cetad/mos/Hamilton.html).
[FOLDOC]
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Hamiltonian tour
Hamiltonian problem Hamilton' s problem
Hamiltonian problem
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Hampshire Stuart
<history of philosophy, biography> english philosopher (1914-) whose careful study of the philosophy of
Spinoza in Spinoza (1951) prompted the development of a detailed description of the presuppositions
necessary for human behavior in Thought and Action (1959) and Morality and Conflict (1983). Hampshire
suggests that the nature of human freedom can best be understood by considering the difference between the
declaration of what one intends to do and a prediction of what one is likely to do.
Stuart Hampshire, Innocence and Experience (Harvard, 1991)
Stuart Hampshire, Public and Private Morality (Cambridge, 1978).
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Happiness
<philosophy, ethics, moral, justice, psychology> general well-being in human life, an important goal for many
people and a significant issue for theories in normative ethics. Aristotle disagreed with the identification of
happiness with bodily pleasure defended by Aristippus and other hedonists. Most utilitarians accept this
identification, but emphasize the importance of considering the greatest happiness of everyone rather than
merely one' s own.
L. W. Sumner, Welfare, Happiness, and Ethics (Oxford, 1999);
Aristotle, Kant, and the Stoics: Rethinking Happiness and Duty, ed. by Stephen Engstrom and Jennifer Whiting
(Cambridge, 1998);
Victoria S. Wike, Kant on Happiness in Ethics (SUNY, 1994).
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Haraway Donna Jeanne
<history of philosophy, biography> american feminist (1944-) philosopher of science who proposes a
fundamental re-examination of the concepts of human nature and political identity in light of postmodern
rejection of stark dualisms. Her "Manifesto for Cyborgs" (1965) suggests that the extent of our reliance on
technology makes it difficult to understand ourselves independently of mechanical devices. Although we are all
fabricated hybrids of organism and machine, Haraway supposes that feminist cyborgs have the opportunity to
escape the perils of patriarchal capitalist technology.
Donna J. Haraway, Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (Routledge, 1991);
Donna J. Haraway, Primate Visions: Gender, Race and Nature in the World of Modern Science (Routledge,
1990);
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The Cyborg Handbook, ed. by Chris Hables Gray, Heidi J. Figueroa-Sarriera, and Steven Mentor (Routledge,
1996).
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Harding Sandra
<history of philosophy, biography> american philosopher of science (1935-). In Discovering Reality: Feminist
Perspectives on Epistemology, Methodology and Philosophy of Science (with Merrill Hintikka) (1983), The
Science Question in Feminism (1986), and Whose Science? Whose Knowledge?:
Thinking from Women' s Lives (1991),Harding shows that it may be possible to eliminate such basic concepts
of traditional Western epistemology as "objectivity," "universality," and "duality." Doing so would create the
possibility of alternative ways of thinking, grounded in fundamentally different standpoints, including a feminist
perspective borne of women' s experience ofreality.
Sandra Harding, Is Science Multicultural? Postcolonialisms, Feminisms, and Epistemologies (Indiana, 1998).
22-11-2001
Hare Richard Mervyn
<history of philosophy, biography> english philosopher (1919-). In The Language of Morals (1952), Freedom
and Reason (1963), and Moral Thinking (1981) Hare defended a noncognitivist ethical theory according to
which moral assertions are prescriptive commands whose genuine universalizability makes them applicable to
every moral agent.
R. M. Hare, Essays in Ethical Theory (Oxford, 1993);
R. M. Hare, Essays on Political Morality (Oxford, 1998);
R. M. Hare, Essays on Religion and Education (Oxford, 1998);
Hare and Critics: Essays on Moral Thinking, ed. by Douglas Seanor (Oxford, 1997).
22-11-2001
Hart Herbert Lionel Adolphus
<history of philosophy, biography> english legal philosopher (1907-1992) who applied the methods of analytic
philosophy to the foundations of jurisprudence in The Concept of Law (1961), rejecting the rival claims of
modern legal positivism. Hart' s Law, Liberty, and Morality (1963) and The Morality of the Criminal Law (1965
offer a classic defence of the view that private sexual conduct ought not to be subjected to public legislation.
He is also the author of Punishment and Responsibility (1968) and Essays on Bentham (1982), both of which
examine details of the utilitarian moral theory.
Michael Martin, The Legal Philosophy of H.L.A. Hart: A Critical Appraisal (Temple, 1991)
Eric J. Boos, Perspectives in Jurisprudence: An Analysis of H. L. A. Hart' s Legal Theory (Peter Lang, 1998)
N. MacCormick, H. L. A. Hart (Stanford, 1981)
Law, Morality, and Society: Essays in Honour of H. L. A. Hart (Oxford, 1996)
Michael D. Bayles, Hart' s Legal Philosophy: An Examination (Kluwer, 1992).
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Hartley David
<history of philosophy, biography> english physician and philosopher (1705-1759). Hartley' s Observations on
Man: his Frame, his Duty, and his Expectations (1749) offered a physiological explanation for the association
of ideas in purely mechanistic terms. His classification of various types of pleasure experienced by individual
human beings was the basis for the later work of Bentham.
Richard C. Allen, David Hartley on Human Nature (SUNY, 1999)
Hartley' s Theory of the Human Mind: On the Principles of the Association of Ideas (AMS, 1990).
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Hartmann Nicolai
<history of philosophy, biography> german philosopher (1882-1950) whose early writings, including Grundz• ge
eine Methaphysik der Erkenntnis (Metaphysics of Knowledge) (1921) and Ethik (Ethics) (1926) used the
philosophy of Kant as the starting point for idealistic accounts of reality and human freedom. In such later
works as M–glichkeit und Wirklichkeit (Possibility and Actuality) (1938), Der Aufbau der realen Welt
(Construction of the Real World) (1940), and Neue Wege der ontologie (New Ways of Ontology) (1949),
however, Hartmann employed phenomenological methods in defence of a vigorous realism.
Eva Hauel Cadwallader, Searchlight on Values: Nicolai Hartmann' s Twentieth
-Century Value Platonism (Univ.
Press of America, 1985)
W. H. Werkmeister, Nicolai Hartmann' s New Ontology (Florida, 1990).
22-11-2001
Hayek Friedrich August von
<history of philosophy, biography> austrian-British economist (1899-1992). In Economics and Knowledge

(1936), The Road to Serfdom (1944), and Individualism and Economic Order (1949), Hayek agreed with
Popper, in opposition to Keynes that the limitations of human knowledge subvert rational attempts at social
planning, leaving only "free market" forces as the foundations of economic life. Hayek won the Nobel Prize in
1974, and is also the author of The Constitution of Liberty (1960) and the three-part Law, Legislation, and
Liberty (1978) - Rules and Order; The Mirage of Social Justice; and The Political Order of a Free People.
John Gray, Hayek on Liberty (Routledge, 1998);
G. R. Steele, The Economics of Friedrich Hayek (Palgrave, 1997);
Hayek: Economist and Social Philosopher, ed. by Stephen F. Frowen (Palgrave, 1997).
22-11-2001
Hebbian
Refers to the most common way for a neural network to learn, namely supervised learning. Using a training
sample which should produce known responses, the connection weights are adjusted so as to minimise the
differences between the desired and actual outputs for the training sample.
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hedon
<ethics> This is a term that utilitarians use to designate a unit of pleasure. Its opposite is a dolor, which is a
unit of pain or displeasure. The term "hedon" comes from the Greek word for pleasure.
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hedonism
<epicureism, ethics> the view accordin to which the fundamental standard of ethical judgment should be
pleasure (see also sensualism). While nowadays hedonism has connotations of total pleasure-seeking and
emotionalism, it was not always so. For example, although Epicureanism was one of the original hedonistic
theories in ethics, it is quite strict as to what true pleasure really is (being a kind of naturalism), so that it is
often described as a variety of "enlightened hedonism". While hedonism is usually a species of individualism,
this is not always the case; for instance, the ethical standard of utilitarianism, which is a form of altruism, is "the
greatest pleasure for the greatest number" - which could be construed as a kind of universalized hedonism.
(References from Epicureanism and sensualism.)
The Essential Epicurus, tr. by Eugene Michael O' Connor (Prometheus, 1993);
Lionel Tiger, The Pursuit of Pleasure (Transaction, 2000);
Fred Feldman, Utilitarianism, Hedonism, and Desert: Essays in Moral Philosophy (Cambridge, 1997);
Rem B. Edwards, Pleasures and Pains: A Theory of Qualitative Hedonism (Cornell, 1987);
Kate Soper, Troubled Pleasures: Writings on Politics, Gender, and Hedonism (Verso, 1991).
based on: [A Dictionary of Philosophical Terms and Names],

[The Ism Book]
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Hegel Georg Wilhelm Friedrich
<history of philosophy, biography> born in Stuttgart (1770-1831) and educated in Tuebingen, Georg Wilhelm
Friedrich Hegel devoted his life wholly to academic pursuits, teaching at Jena, Nuremberg, Heidelberg, and
Berlin. His Wissenschaft der Logik (Science of Logic) (1812-1816) attributes the unfolding of concepts of reality
in terms of the pattern of dialectical reasoning (thesis---antithesis---synthesis) that Hegel believed to be the
only method of progress in human thought, and Die Encyclopaedie der philosophischen Wissenschaften im
Grundrisse (Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences) (1817) describes the application of this dialectic to all
areas of human knowledge, including history. Hegel' s Naturrecht und Staatswissenschaft im Grundrisse and
Gundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts (Philosophy of Right) (1820) provide an intellectual foundation for
modern nationalism. Hegel' sabsolute idealism is evident even in the early Phaenomenologie des Geistes
(Phenomenology of Mind) (1807). There Hegel criticized the traditional epistemological distinction of objective
from subjective and offered his own dialectical account of the development of consciousness from individual
sensation through social concern with ethics and politics to the pure consciousness of the World-Spirit in art,
religion, and philosophy.
Primary sources:
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Gesammelte Werke (Meiner, 1968- );
The Hegel Reader, ed. by Stephen Houlgate (Blackwell, 1998);
Hegel' s Science of Logic, tr. by A. V. Miller (Humanity, 1998);
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, tr. by A. V. Miller and J. N. Findlay (Oxford, 1979);
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Philosophy of History, tr. by J. Sibree (Dover, 1956);
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Elements of the Philosophy of Right, tr. by A. Wood and H. Nisbet (Cambridge,
1991).
Secondary sources:
The Cambridge Companion to Hegel, ed. by Frederick C. Beiser (Cambridge, 1993);
Walter Kaufmann, (Notre Dame, 1997);
Peter Singer, Hegel (Oxford, 1983);
Charles Taylor, Hegel and Modern Society (Cambridge, 1979);
Feminist Interpretations of G.W.F. Hegel, ed. by Patricia J. Mills (Penn. State, 1996);
Quentin Lauer, Hegel' s Idea of Philosophy (Fordham, 1983);
Raymond Plant, Hegel (Routledge, 1999);
Justus Hartnack, An Introduction to Hegel' s Logic (Hackett, 1998);
Judith Butler, Subjects of Desire (Columbia, 1999);
Jon Stewart, The Phenomenology of Spirit Reader: Critical and Interpretive Essays (SUNY, 1997);
William Maker, Philosophy Without Foundations: Rethinking Hegel (SUNY, 1994);
Allen W. Wood, Hegel' s Ethical Thought (Cambridge, 1990);
Joseph McCarney, The Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Hegel on History (Routledge, 2000);
Herbert Marcuse, Reason and Revolution: Hegel and the Rise of Social Theory (Humanity, 1999);
Additional on-line information about Hegel includes:

Paul Redding' s thorough article in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Peter Singer' s article in The Oxford Companion to Philosophy.
Also see: the Absolute, concrete universals, German philosophy, Hegelianism, philosophy of history, idealism,
master and slave, metaphysics, nationalism, the owl of Minerva, political philosophy, progress, philosophy of
religion, philosophical romanticism, the State, Vorstellung, and world-soul.

A glossary of Hegelian terminology from Carl Mickelesen.
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Andy Blunden' s extensive Hegel by Hypertext site.

A section on Hegel from Alfred Weber' s history of philosophy.
Snippets from Hegel in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations.
Andrew Buchwalter on Hegel' s philosophy of law.
An outline of the Encyclopedia by W. T. Stace.
A summary discussion from G. J. Mattey.
An analysis of Hegel' s system by Herbert Marcuse.
A philosophical biography from Uwe Wiedemann.
Antoinette M. Stafford' s feminist critique of Hegel.
William Turner' s article in The Catholic Encyclopedia.
The Bloomsbury Guide to Human Thought on Nationalism.
A summary treatment from Robert Sarkissian.
Bjoern Christensson' s brief guide to Hegel on -line.
The Macmillan Encyclopedia 2001 on Hegel and Hegelianism.
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Hegelianism
<philosophical school> Hegelianism is the name for the philosophical system of G.W.F. Hegel (1770-1831) and
for the philosophical tradition he started. Hegel did not have strong positions of his own in ethics, since he was
more interested in the great movements of history than in the individual - he probably even thought that
individuals don' t have independent spiritual existence and that they are just part of the collective
consciousness. Hegel' sabsolute idealism is often contrasted with the subjective or transcendental idealism of
Kant (1724-1804), on whose innovations - in addition to the absolutism of Spinoza (1632-1677) Hegel based
much of his philosophy. In political theory, Hegel advocated what is called "the organic theory of the state",
which is one of the most consistent kinds of collectivism to be found in philosophical literature (Plato is often
said to have advocated such a theory, as well). Hegel was probably the first philosopher to think of history in
terms of a dialectic, which is what gave Marx (1818-1883) the inspiration for his doctrine of dialectical
materialism. Hegel, by contrast, was a fervent believer in rationalism and absolute idealism, almost even to the
point of spiritualism. (References from dialectical materialism and Marxism.)
[The Ism Book]
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Heidegger Martin
<history of philosophy, biography> after studying with Husserl, Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) undertook an
academic career in Germany, teaching at both Marburg and Freiburg. He became Rector of the University of
Freiburg in 1933, where he continued to teach until 1944. Because of his public support for the Nazi regime,
Heidegger was forbidden to teach after the end of World War II. Heidegger' s Sein und Zeit (Being and Time
(1927) applied the methods of phenomenology to ontology, in an effort to comprehend the meaning of "Being"
both in general and as it appears concretely. This led Heidegger to a conception of human existence as active
participation in the world, "being-there" (Ger. Dasein), despite its inherent limitations and the threat of
inauthenticity. Heidegger' s most familiar themes are evident in The Basic Problems of Phenomenology (1927
and Einfuehrung in die Metaphysik (Introduction to Metaphysics) (1953). "Hegel and the Greeks" is a sample of
Heidegger' s reflections on the history of philosophy.
Primary sources:
Martin Heidegger Gesamtausgabe (Klostermann, 1975- );
Martin Heidegger, The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, tr. by Albert Hofstadter (Indiana, 1988);
Martin Heidegger, Being and Time: A Translation of Sein and Zeit, tr. by Joan Stambaugh (SUNY 1997);
Martin Heidegger, An Introduction to Metaphysics, tr. by Ralph Manheim (Yale, 1986);
Martin Heidegger, The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic, tr. by Michael Heim (Indiana, 1992);
Martin Heidegger, On the Way to Language (Harper San Francisco, 1982).
Secondary sources:
Joan Stambaugh, The Finitude of Being (SUNY, 1992);
The Cambridge Companion to Heidegger, ed. by Charles B. Guignon (Cambridge, 1993).
Steven Mulhall, Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Heidegger and Being and Time (Routledge, 1996);
George Pattison, Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to the Later Heidegger (Routledge, 2000);
Michael Inwood, Heidegger (Oxford, 1997);
John D. Caputo, The Mystical Element in Heidegger' s Thought (Fordham, 1986);
Herman Philipse, Heidegger' s Philosophy of Being (Princeton, 1998);
Jonathan Ree, Heidegger (Routledge, 1999).
Additional on-line information about Heidegger includes:

Robert Cavalier' s thorough lectures on Being and Time.
M. J. Inwood' s article in The Oxford Companion to Philosophy.
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Also see: abandonment, Angst, authenticity, Dasein, death, "existence precedes essence", existentialism,
German philosophy, hermeneutics, metaphysics, nothingness, and phenomenology.

An interesting introduction by Christopher Scott Wyatt.
Lawrence Hatab' s discussion of Heidegger' s moral philosophy.
A paper on Heidegger' s view of technology and communications by George Teschner.
Bjoern Christensson' s brief guide.
An excellent collection of links at Ereignis.
22-11-2001
Heisenberg Werner
<history of science, biography, philosophy> german physicist (1901-1976) who expressed the uncertainty
principle, according to which the position and momentum of a subatomic particle cannot both be determined
precisely at the same time, as a crucial element of modern quantum mechanics, described in his Physik und
Philosophie (Physics and Philosophy) (1958). Heisenberg won the Nobel Prize for physics in 1932.
Werner Heisenberg, Physical Principles of the Quantum Theory (Dover, 1930);
Werner Heisenberg, Philosophical Problems of Quantum Physics (Ox Bow, 1979);
David C. Cassidy, Uncertainty: The Life and Science of Werner Heisenberg (Freeman, 1993).
22-11-2001
Held Virginia Potter
<history of philosophy, biography> american philosopher (1929-); author of Rights and Goods: Justifying Social
Action (1984), Feminist Morality: Transforming Culture, Society, and Politics (1993), and Liberalism and the
Ethics of Care (1997). Held maintains that the experience of women in our culture promotes the development
of ethical practices appropriate in a private rather than in a public sphere of influence.
Justice and Care: Essential Readings in Feminist Ethics, ed. by Virginia Held (Westview, 1995)
Ethics in International Affairs, ed. by Andrew Valls and Virginia Held (Rowman & Littlefield, 2000).
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Helvaetius Claude-Adrien
<history of philosophy, biography> french philosopher (1715-1771), Encyclopedist, and committed hedonist.
Both De l' esprit (Of Mind) (1758) and De l' homme (Of Man) (1773) use
empiricist methods to defend a strictly
materialist account of human life, according to which ethical egoism is generated y the natural desire to
maximize pleasure.
Claude-Adrien Helvetius, Philosophical Works (Thoemmes, 2000)
David W. Smith, Helvetius: A Study in Persecution (Greenwood, 1982).
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Hempel Carl Gustav
<history of philosophy, biography> german-american philosopher of science (1905-1997). In Fundamentals of

Concept Formation in Empirical Science (1952) and Aspects of Scientific Explanation (1965) Hempel pointed
out that a paradox arises from the supposition that confirming evidence provides equal support for all logically
equivalent hypotheses: Since "All swans are white" is logically equivalent to "All non-white things are non-
swans" (by contraposition), it follows that observing a brown dog should increase confidence in our belief that
swans are white.
Carl Gustav Hempel, Selected Philosophical Essays, ed. by Richard C. Jeffrey (Cambridge, 2000);
Carl Gustav Hempel, Philosophy of Natural Science (Prentice-Hall, 1966);
The Philosophy of Carl G. Hempel: Studies in Science, Explanation, and Rationality, ed. by James H. Fetzer
(Oxford, 2000).
22-11-2001
henotheism
<metaphysics, religion, philosophy of religion> term used to describe a belief in one god that at the same time
does not deny the existence of other gods. This idea or practice is obviously opposed by monotheism, which
regards henotheism' s tolerance of other gods as patently ridiculous.
(Reference from polytheism.)
[The Ism Book]
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Heraclitus
<history of philosophy, biography> greek presocratic philosopher (540-475 BC) who used paradox and riddles
to argue that the world is constantly changing in discussions preserved only in fragmetary reports. Although he
identified fire as the original stuff (Gk. archÍ) of the universe, Heraclitus supposed that its changeable nature
results in the formation of all of the traditional opposites.
Fragments: The Collected Wisdom of Heraclitus, tr. by Bruce Haxton and James Hillman (Penguin, 2001);
Henry W. Johnstone, Jr., Heraclitus (Bryn Mawr, 1989);
Richard G. Geldard, Remembering Heraclitus (Lindisfarne, 2000).
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Herbert of Cherbury Baron
<history of philosophy, biography> english philosopher (1583-1648). His rationalistic defence of theology in De
Religione Laici (The Layman' s Religion) (1645) and De Religione Gentilium (On the Religion of the Gentiles
(1663) was an early statement of the principles of seventeenth-century deism. Herbert' s claim, in De Veritate
(On Truth) (1624), that human beings are divinely endowed with "common notions" about god and religion,
however, was a primary target of Locke' s attack on innate ideas.
John A. Butler, Lord Herbert of Cherbury 1582-1648: An Intellectual Biography (Edwin Mellen, 1990);
Eurgen D. Hill, Edward, Lord Herbert of Cherbury (Twayne, 1987);
R. D. Bedford, The Defence of Truth: Herbert of Cherbury and the Seventeenth Century (Princeton, 1987).
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heredity
<logic> A property possessed by all the wffs in a set is logically hereditary iff the accepted rules of inference
pass it on (transmit it) to all the conclusions derivable from that set by those rules.
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hermeneutics
<philosophy, philosophical inquiry, history of philosophy> formal study of appropriate methods of interpretation
(Gk. hermÍneuma), first developed as a formal discipline of study by Schleiermacher. Following the work of
Dilthey, Gadamer, and Ricouer, the hermeneutical process is often regarded as involving a complex interaction
between the interpreting subject and the interpreted object. The task is complicated by the apparent circularity
of understanding particular elements in light of the text as a whole, which can in turn be understood only by
reference to them.
John D. Caputo, Radical Hermeneutics: Repetition, Deconstruction, and the Hermeneutic Project (Indiana,
1987);
John D. Caputo, More Radical Hermeneutics: On Not Knowing Who We Are (Indiana, 2000);
Jean Grondin and Hans-Georg Gadamer, Introduction to Philosophical Hermeneutics, tr. by Joel Weinsheimer
(Yale, 1997);
Paul Ricoeur, Hermeneutics and Human Sciences: Essays on Language, Action, and Interpretation, ed. by
John B. Thompson (Cambridge, 1981);
Hans Georg Gadamer, Philosophical Hermeneutics (California, 1977);
Gianni Vattimo, Beyond Interpretation: The Meaning of Hermeneutics for Philosophy, tr. by David Webb
(Stanford, 1997).
22-11-2001
heterogeneous
Composed of unrelated parts, different in kind.
Often used in the context of distributed systems that may be running different operating systems or network
protocols (a heterogeneous network).
For examples see: interoperable database, middleware.
Contrast homogeneous.
[FOLDOC]
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heterological paradox
Grelling' s paradox
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heteronomy
<ethics> for Kant, heteronomy is the opposite of autonomy. Whereas an autonomous person is one whose will
is self-determined, a heteronomous person is one whose will is determined by something outside of the person,
such as overwhelming emotions. Etymologically, heteronomy goes back to the Greek words for "other" and
"law."
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heuristic
<philosophy of science, logic> an informal method for solving problems in the absence of an algorithm for
formal proof. Heuristics typically have only restricted applicability and limited likelihood of success but, as
George Polya showed, contribute significantly to our understanding of mathematical truths.
George Polya, How to Solve It (Princeton, 1971);
Gerd Gigerenzer amd Peter M. Todd, Simple Heuristics That Make Us Smart (Oxford, 1999);
George Polya, Mathematics and Plausible Reasoning (Princeton, 1990).
00-00-0000
hex
1. hexadecimal.
2. A 6-pack of anything (compare quad). Neither usage has anything to do with magic or black art, though the
pun is appreciated and occasionally used by hackers. True story: As a joke, some hackers once offered some
surplus ICs for sale to be worn as protective amulets against hostile magic. The chips were, of course, hex
inverters.
3. <character> The hash character, used to introduce hexadecimal constants in some assembly languages.
16-03-2001
hexadecimal
<mathematics> (Or "hex") Base 16. A number representation using the digits 0-9, with their usual meaning,
plus the letters A-F (or a-f) to represent hexadecimal digits with values of (decimal) 10 to 15. The right-most
digit counts ones, the next counts multiples of 16, then 16^2 = 256, etc.
For example, hexadecimal BEAD is decimal 48813:
digit weight value

B = 11 16^3 = 4096 11*4096 = 45056
E = 14 16^2 = 256 14* 256 = 3584
A = 10 16^1 = 16 10* 16 = 160
D = 13 16^0 = 1 13* 1 = 13
-----
BEAD = 48813
There are many conventions for distinguishing hexadecimal numbers from decimal or other bases in programs.
In C for example, the prefix "0x" is used, e.g. 0x694A11.
Hexadecimal is more succinct than binary for representing bit-masks, machines addresses, and other low-level
constants but it is still reasonably easy to split a hex number into different bit positions, e.g. the top 16 bits of a
32-bit word are the first four hex digits.
The term was coined in the early 1960s to replace earlier "sexadecimal", which was too racy and amusing for
stuffy IBM, and later adopted by the rest of the industry.
Actually, neither term is etymologically pure. If we take "binary" to be paradigmatic, the most etymologically
correct term for base ten, for example, is "denary", which comes from "deni" (ten at a time, ten each), a Latin
"distributive" number; the corresponding term for base sixteen would be something like "sendenary". "Decimal"
is from an ordinal number; the corresponding prefix for six would imply something like "sextidecimal". The
"sexa-" prefix is Latin but incorrect in this context, and "hexa-" is Greek. The word octal is similarly incorrect; a
correct form would be "octaval" (to go with decimal), or "octonary" (to go with binary). If anyone ever
implements a base three computer, computer scientists will be faced with the unprecedented dilemma of a
choice between two *correct* forms; both "ternary" and "trinary" have a claim to this throne.
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hierarchy
An organisation with few things, or one thing, at the top and with several things below each other thing. An
inverted tree structure. Examples in computing include a directory hierarchy where each directory may contain
files or other directories; a hierarchical network (see hierarchical routing), a class hierarchy in object-oriented
programming.
[FOLDOC]
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high-level language
(HLL) A programming language which provides some level of abstraction above assembly language. These
normally use statements consisting of English-like keywords such as "FOR", "PRINT" or "GOTO", where each
statement corresponds to several machine language instructions. It is much easier to program in a high-level
language than in assembly language though the efficiency of execution depends on how good the compiler or
interpreter is at optimising the program.
Rarely, the variants "VHLL" and "MLL" are found.
See also languages of choice, generation
[FOLDOC]
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higher-order function
(HOF) A function that can take one or more functions as argument and/or return a function as its value. E.g.
map in (map f l) which returns the list of results of applying function f to each of the elements of list l. See also
curried function.
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higher-order logic
predicate logic
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higher-order predicate logic
predicate logic
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Hilbert David
<history of mathematics, history of philosophy, biography> german mathematician (1862-1943) whose

influential lecture at Paris, "Mathematical Problems" (1900), outlined the development of classical mathematics
as the application of Kant' s notion of a regulative principle.Hilbert' s Grundlagen der Geometrie (Foundations o
Geometry) (1899), "Axiomatisches Denken" ("Axiomatic Thinking") (1917), "Die Grundlagen der
Mathematik" ("Foundations of Mathematics") (1926), and Principles of Mathematical Logic (1931) proposed the
axiomatic formalization of mathematics in order to demonstrate consistency by syntactical or
metamathematical methods.
Constance Reid, Hilbert (Copernicus, 1996);
Jeremy Gray and David Rowe, The Hilbert Problems: A Perspective on Twentieth Century Mathematics
(Oxford, 2000).
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Hippias
<history of philosophy, biography> presocratic philosopher and mathematician (485-415 BC) who emphasized
the use of empirical methods in pursuit of knowledge. Although his efforts to trisect the angle geometrically
failed, they led Hippias to the discovery of the quadratrix, a curve satisfying the modern algebraic formula y = x
tan(py/2a) , whose construction would render trisection of acute angles unproblematic.
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historical determinism
<metaphysics, political philosophy, philosophy of history> the view according to which the movement of history
is determined by material or spiritual forces that are not open to human volition or change. Hegel' s spiritualized
dialectical understanding of history is an example of this doctrine, as is the dialectical materialism that is part of
Marxism. (Reference from dialectical materialism.)
[The Ism Book]
25-03-2001
historicism
<history of philosophy, historiography, epistemology> belief that social structures, events, and texts are best to
be understood in the context of their historical development. Versions of this view were defended by Dilthey,
Lukacs, and Gramsci. More recently, Popper and Hayek criticized the extreme version of this view, according
to which the historical outcomes are inevitably determined. In the milder form embraced by Croce, Kuhn, and
Gadamer, however, historicism is simply the notion that a purely ahistorical perspective on human affairs would
be misleading.
H. Aram Veeser, The New Historicism Reader (Routledge, 1993);
Paul Hamilton, Historicism: The New Critical Idiom (Routledge, 1996);
Charles R. Bambach, Heidegger, Dilthey, and the Crisis of Historicism: History and Metaphysics in Heidegger,
Dilthey, and the Neo-Kantians (Cornell, 1995);
Robert D' Amico, Historicism and Knowledge (Routledge, 1992);
Karl Popper, The Poverty of Historicism (Routledge, 1993).
23-11-2001
Hoagland Sarah Lucia
<history of philosophy, biography> american moral philosopher (1945-). In Lesbian Ethics: Toward New Value
(1988) Hoagland attributes a host of individual and social evils to their origin in a patriarchal and
heterosexualist culture and proposes a moral revolution based on the formation of lesbian communities
purposefully separated from the society at large.
For Lesbians Only: A Separatist Anthology, ed. by Sarah Lucia Hoagland and Julia Penelope (Onlywomen,
1992).
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Hobbes Thomas
<history of philosophy, biography> decades after completing his traditional education as a classicist at Oxford
and serving as tutor of William Cavendish, Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) became convinced that the methods
employed by mathematicians and scientists-geometry, in particular-hold the greatest promise for advances in
human knowledge. Voluntarily exiled to Holland during the years of Parliamentary Rule, the royalist Hobbes
devoted much of his time to the development and expression of a comprehensive philosophical vision of the
mechanistic operation of nature. Although he returned to England with the restoration of Charles II, Hobbes
was for the remainder of his life embroiled in bitter political and religious controversies.
They did not prevent the ninety-year-old Hobbes from completing his English translation of the works of Homer.
Hobbes' s first systematic statement of apolitical philosophy, Elements of Law,
Natural and Politic (1640), relies heavily upon the conception of natural law that had dominated the tradition
from Aquinas to Grotius. But his views had begun to change by the time he reissued portions of his work in a
Latin version known as De Cive (1642). The Leviathan (1651) is the most complete expression of Hobbes' s
philosophy. It begins with a clearly materialistic account of human nature and knowledge, a rigidly deterministic
account of human volition, and a pessimistic vision of the consequently natural state of human beings in
perpetual struggle against each other.
It is to escape this grim fate, Hobbes argued, that we form the commonwealth, surrendering our individual
powers to the authority of an absolute sovereign. For Hobbes, then, individual obedience to even an arbitrary
government is necessary in order to forestall the greater evil of an endless state of war.
Primary sources:
The English works of Thomas Hobbes, ed. by Sir William Molesworth (Oxford, 1962);
Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, ed. by J.C.A. Gaskin (Oxford, 1998);
Thomas Hobbes, On the Citizen, ed. by Richard Tuck and Michael Silverthorne (Cambridge, 1998);
Secondary sources:
The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes, ed. by Tom Sorell (Cambridge, 1996);
Richard Tuck, Hobbes (Oxford, 1989);
Quentin Skinner, Reason and Rhetoric in the Philosophy of Hobbes (Cambridge, 1997);
Samuel I. Mintz, The Hunting of Leviathan: Seventeenth-Century Reactions to the Materialism and Moral
Philosophy of Thomas Hobbes (St. Augustine, 1997);
Aloysius P. Martinich, Thomas Hobbes (St. Martin' s, 1997).
Additional on-line information about Hobbes includes:

Bernard Gert' s article in The Oxford Companion to Philosophy.
Also see: conservatism, the social contract, English philosophy, the Leviathan, materialism, "nasty, brutish, and
short", the people, the persecution of philosophers, political philosophy, and the state of nature.

Hobbesiana from Nicola Caleffi.
G. J. Mattey' s summary discussion of Hobbes.
A section on Hobbes from Alfred Weber' s history of philosophy.
Steven Darwall' s lectures on Hobbes.
A summary treatment by Robert Sarkissian.
Snippets from Hobbes in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations.
Rosalba Dur¥n Forero' s comparison of Hobbes with Spinoza on gender equality.
The Bloomsbury Guide to Human Thought on The State and Sovereignty.
A paper by Juhani Pietarinen on Hobbes and the Prisoner' s Dilemma.
Bj–rn Christensson' s brief guide to on
-line resources.
Discussion of Hobbes' s mathematical significance at Mathematical MacTutor.
22-11-2001
Hofstadter Douglas
<history of philosophy, biography> american computer scientist and philosopher (1945-). In Goedel, Escher,
Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid (1979), Hofstadter offers an insightful account of major developments in the
metamathematics of recursive functions, tracing its importance for artificial intelligence research and human
self-understanding through metaphorical comparisons with art and music. Hofstadter is also author of
Metamagical Themas (1985) and co-editor (with Dan Dennett) of The Mind' s I (1981).
Douglas R. Hofstadter, Fluid Concepts & Creative Analogies: Computer Models of the Fundamental
Mechanisms of Thought (Basic, 1996)
Douglas R. Hofstadter, Le Ton Beau De Marot: In Praise of the Music of Language (Basic, 1998).
23-11-2001
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holism
<philosophy of mind, ontology> the view that parts of a system have significance mostly in virtue of their
interrelations with other parts.
(The following discussion is from The Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Mental (or semantic) holism is the doctrine that the identity of a belief content (or the meaning of a sentence
that expresses it) is determined by its place in the web of beliefs or sentences comprising a whole theory or
group of theories. It can be contrasted with two other views: atomism and molecularism.
Molecularism characterizes meaning and content in terms of relatively small parts of the web in a way that
allows many different theories to share those parts. For example, the meaning of "chase" might be said by a
molecularist to be try to catch.
Atomism characterizes meaning and content in terms of none of the web; it says that sentences and beliefs
have meaning or content independently of their relations to other sentences or beliefs.
One major motivation for holism has come from reflections on the natures of confirmation and learning. As
Quine (1953) observed, claims about the world are confirmed not individually, but only in conjunction with
theories of which they are a part. And typically, one cannot come to understand scientific claims without
understanding a significant chunk of the theory of which they are a part. For example, in learning the
Newtonian concepts of "force", "mass", "kinetic energy" and "momentum", one doesn' t learn any definitions o
these terms in terms that are understood beforehand, for there are no such definitions. Rather, these
theoretical terms were all learned together in conjunction with procedures for solving problems.
The major problem with holism is that it threatens to make generalisation in psychology virtually impossible. If
the content of any state depends on all others, it would be extremely unlikely that any two believers would ever
share a state with the same content. Moreover, holism would appear to conflict with our ordinary conception of
reasoning. What sentences one accepts influence what one infers. If I accept a sentence and then later reject
it, I thereby change the inferential role of that sentence, so the meaning of what I accept wouldn' t be the same
as what I later reject. But then it would be difficult to understand on this view how one could rationally --or even
irrationally!-- change one' s mind. And agreement and translation are also problematic for much the same
reason.
Holists have responded (1) by proposing that we should think not in terms of "same/different" meaning but in
terms of a gradient of similarity of meaning, (2) by proposing "two factor" theories or (3) by simply accepting the
consequence that there is no real difference between changing meanings and changing beliefs.
References
Ned Block Holism, Mental and Semantic

(http:://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/philo/faculty/block/papers/MentalSemanticHolism.html)
Ned Block
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homogeneous
(Or "homogenous") Of uniform nature, similar in kind.
1. In the context of distributed systems, middleware makes heterogeneous systems appear as a homogeneous
entity. For example see: interoperable network.
Contrast heterogeneous.
2. <mathematics> (Of a polynomial) containing terms of the same degree with respect to all the variables, as in
x^2 + 2xy + y^2.
3. <mathematics> (Of a function) containing a set of variables such that when each is multiplied by a constant,
this constant can be eliminated without altering the value of the function, as in cos x/y + x/y.
4. <mathematics> (of an equation) containing a homogeneous function made equal to 0.
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homogenous
homogeneous
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homological - heterological
<philosophy of science, logic> distinction between concepts or words. A homological term applies to itself, a
heterological term does not. Thus, for example: "short" and "having fewer than ten syllables" are homological
terms; "big" and "having more than ten syllables" are heterological terms. Although "homological" is itself a
homological term, a self-referential paradox arises when we consider the word "heterological." If we suppose
that it applies to itself (thus being homological), then it is not heterological and does not apply to itself. But if we
suppose that it does not apply to itself (thus being heterological), then it does apply to itself and is homological.
What, then, are we to make of an expression such as, "The smallest integer not namable in fewer than twenty
syllables?"
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homomorphism
A map f between groups A and B is a homomorphism of A into B if f(a1 * a2) = f(a1) * f(a2) for all a1,a2 in A.
where the *s are the respective group operations.
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homonymous - synonymous - paronymous
<philosophy, logic, linguistics> Aristotle' s distinction among different uses of a term: they are said to be
homonymous if the uses are entirely distinct, synonymous if they are the same, and paronymous if they are
different but related. Thus, for example: In "Colleen is a cat," and "Garfield is a cat," "cat" is used
homonymously. In "Carter was president in 1978," and "Bush was president in 1990," "president" is used
synonymously. In "Jean was brave," and "What Jean did was brave," "brave" is used paronymously.
Aristotle' s Categories and De Interpretatione, tr. by J.L. Ackrill (Oxford, 1975).
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Hopfield model
Hopfield network
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Hopfield network
<artificial intelligence> (Or "Hopfield model") A kind of neural network investigated by John Hopfield in the early
1980s. The Hopfield network has no special input or output neurons (see McCulloch-Pitts), but all are both
input and output, and all are connected to all others in both directions (with equal weights in the two directions).
Input is applied simultaneously to all neurons which then output to each other and the process continues until a
stable state is reached, which represents the network output.
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Hopper Grace
<history of philosophy, biography> american mathematician and computer scientist (1906-1992). During her
service in the U.S. Navy (where she rose to the rank of Admiral) Hopper pioneered the development of
programming languages (including COBOL) for digital computers and introduced use of the term "bug" to
denote a software flaw.
Grace Murray Hopper and Steven L. Mandell, Understanding Computers (Wadsworth, 1990)
Nancy Whitelaw, Grace Hopper: Programming Pioneer.
23-11-2001
Horkheimer Max
<history of philosophy, biography> german philosopher (1895-1973). Co-founder (with Adorno and Marcuse) of
the Frankfurt School, Horkheimer proposed unification of abstract philosophy with social science in the practice
of critical theory in Dialektik der Aufkl”rung (Dialectic of Enlightenment) (1947). Zur Kritik der instrumentellen
Vernunft (Critique of Instrumental Reason) (1967), Eclipse of Reason (1974), and other late writings express
Horkheimer' s growing pessimism about the possibility of genuine progress.
Max Horkheimer, Between Philosophy and Social Science: Selected Early Writings, tr. by G. Frederick Hunter,
Matthew S. Kramer, and John Torpey (MIT, 1995);
Max Horkheimer, Critical Theory, tr. by Mathew J. O' Connell (Continuum, 1975);
Max Horkheimer: A Bibliography, ed. by Joan Nordquist (Ref. & Res. Serv., 1990).
23-11-2001
Horn clause
<logic> A set of atomic literals with at most one positive literal. Usually written
L <- L1, ..., Ln

or
<- L1, ..., Ln
where n>=0. If L is false the clause is regarded as a goal.

Horn clauses can express a subset of statements of first order logic.
The name "Horn Clause" comes from the logician Alfred Horn, who first pointed out the significance of such
clauses in 1951, in the article "On sentences which are true of direct unions of algebras", Journal of Symbolic
Logic, 16, 14-21.
A definite clause is a Horn clause that has exactly one positive literal.
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Horney Karen
<history of philosophy, biography> german-american psychoanalyst (1885-1952) who emphasized the role of
social conditions in the formation of personality. In New Ways in Psychoanalysis (1939), Horney showed that
Freud' s notion of penis
" envy" is a misrepresentation of female psychology, generated in fact by phallocentric
resentment of women. Horney was also the author of Our Inner Conflicts: A Constructive Theory of Neurosis
(1945), Self-Analysis (1947), and Neurosis and Human Growth: The Struggle Toward Self-Realization (1950).
Karen Horney, The Neurotic Personality of Our Time (Norton, 1994);
Karen Horney, Feminine Psychology (Norton, 1993); The Unknown Karen Horney: Essays on Gender, Culture,
and Psychoanalysis, tr. Bernard J. Paris (Yale, 2000);
Bernard J. Paris, Karen Horney: A Psychoanalyst' s Search for Self
-Understanding (Yale, 1994).
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human rights
rights
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Human-Computer Interaction
<software, hardware> (HCI) The study of how humans interact with computers, and how to design computer
systems that are easy, quick and productive for humans to use.
See also Human-Computer Interface.
HCI Sites (http://www.acm.org/sigchi/hci-sites/).
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Human-Computer Interface
<software, hardware> (HCI) Any software or hardware that allows a user to interact with a computer. Examples
are WIMP, command line interpreter, or virtual reality.
See also Human-Computer Interaction.
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humanism
<history of philosophy, philosophy, literature> belief that individual human beings are the fundamental source of
all value and have the ability to understand - and perhaps even to control - the natural world by careful
application of their own rational faculties. During the Renaissance, humanists such as Bruno, Erasmus, Valla,
and Pico della Mirandola helped shift attention away from arcane theological disputes toward more productive
avenues of classical study and natural science.
The Cambridge Companion to Renaissance Humanism, ed. by Jill Kraye (Cambridge, 1996); Impact of
Humanism, ed. by Lucille Kekewich (Yale, 2000);
Rebecca W. Bushnell, A Culture of Teaching: Early Modern Humanism in Theory and Practice (Cornell, 1996);
John C. Olin, Erasmus, Utopia, and the Jesuits: Essays on the Outreach of Humanism (Fordham, 1994).
23-11-2001
Hume David
<history of philosophy, biography> soon after completing his studies at Edinburgh, Scottish philosopher David
Hume (1711-1776) began writing his comprehensive statement of the views he believed would contribute to
philosophy no less than Newton' s had toscience. But the public reception for the three books of his magisterial
Treatise of Human Nature (1739) was less than cordial, and Hume abandoned his hopes of a philosophical
career in order to support his family as a librarian, historian, diplomat, and political essayist, a course of action
he described in the autobiographical My Own Life (1776). Hume' s Essays Moral and Political (1741 -1742)
found some success, and the multi-volume History of England (1754-1762) finally secured the modest
livelihood for which he had hoped. Although he spent most of his life trying to produce more effective
statements of his philosophical views, he did not live to see the firm establishment of his reputation by the
criticisms of Kant and much later appreciation of the logical positivists. The central themes of Book I of the
Treatise receive a somewhat more accessible treatment in An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding
(1748), a more popular summary of Hume' s empiricism. According toHume, little human knowledge can be
derived from the deductively certain relations of ideas. Since the causal interactions of physical objects are
known to us only as inherently uncertain matters of fact, Hume argued, our belief that they exhibit any
necessary connection (however explicable) can never be rationally justified, but must be acknowledged to rest
only upon our acquired habits. In similar fashion, Hume argued that we cannot justify our natural beliefs in the
reality of the self or the existence of an external world. From all of this, he concluded that a severe (if mitigated)
skepticism is the only defensible view of the world. Hume recast the moral philosophy of the Treatise' s Book III
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in An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals (1751). In both texts Hume clearly maintained that human
agency and moral obligation are best considered as functions of human passions rather than as the dictates of
reason. In the posthumously published Dialogues concerning Natural Religion (1780), Hume discussed the
possibility of arriving at certain knowledge of god through the application of reason and considered defense of
a fideistic alternative.
Primary sources:
David Hume, Philosophical Works, ed. by T. H. Green and T. H. Grose (Longmans, Green, 1874-1875);
David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, ed. by Ernest C. Mossner (Viking, 1986);
David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, ed. by Anthony Flew (0812690540);
David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (Free Press, 1966);
David Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, ed. by Martin Bell (Penguin, 1990).
Secondary sources:
The Cambridge Companion to Hume, ed. by David Fate Norton (Cambridge, 1993);
Feminist Interpretations of David Hume, ed. by Anne Jaap Jacobson (Penn. State, 2000);
Jonathan Bennett, Locke, Berkeley, Hume: Central Themes (Oxford, 1971);
Anthony Quinton, Hume (Routledge, 1999);
Donald W. Livingston, Hume' s Philosophy of Common Life (Chicago, 1984);
Barry Stroud, Hume (Routledge, 1981);
Terence Penelhum, David Hume: An Introduction to His Philosophical System (Purdue, 1992);
George Dicker, Hume' s Epistemology and Metaphysics: An Introduction (Routledge, 1998);
Harold W. Noonan, Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Hume on Knowledge (Routledge, 1999);
Hume' s Moral and Political Philosophy, ed. by Henry David Aiken (Free Press, 1975);
James Baillie, Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Hume on Morality (Routledge, 2000).
Additional on-line information about Hume includes:

The Hume Archives from James Fieser.
Ty Lightner' s excellent David Hume Homepage.
Justin Broackes' s article in The Oxford Companion to Philosophy.
Also see: backgammon, the bundle theory of the self, causality, the cement of the universe, empiricism,
English philosophy, the external world, Hume' s fork, induction, ' is' and ' ought' , natural or scientific
miracles, moral philosophy, moral sense, reason as slave of the passions, skepticism about religion,
skepticism, Scottish philosophy, sentiments, suicide, sympathy, taste, utility, and virtues.

G. J. Mattey' s lectures on Hume.
A section on Hume from Alfred Weber' s history of philosophy.
William Edward Morris' s article in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Snippets from Hume in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations.
Marcia L. Homiak' s discussion of Hume' s Ethics.
A paper on Hume' s Construal of the Virtues by James Fieser.
Bjoern Christensson' s brief guide to on
-line resources.
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Husserl Edmund Gustav Albrech
<history of philosophy, biography> german philosopher t (1859-1938). Student of Brentano and teacher of
Heidegger, Husserl pursued the development of phenomenology as a pure investigation into the nature and
content of consciousness in Logische Untersuchungen (Logical Investigations) (1901-13) vol. 1 and vol. 2. This
pursuit requires that we ' bracket' ournatural beliefs in order to understand their structural sources. Husserl
described his methods in Pure Phenomenology, Its Method and Its Field of Investigation (1917), his inagural
lecture at Freiburg. As Husserl made clear in Meditations CartÈsiennes (Cartesian Meditations) (1931), only
the transcendental self thus remains as both the agent and the object of phenomenological study.
The Essential Husserl: Basic Writings in Transcendental Phenomenology, ed. by Donn Welton (Indiana, 1999);
Joseph J. Kockelmans, Edmund Husserl' s Phenomenology (Purdue, 1994);
The Cambridge Companion to Husserl, ed. by Barry Smith and David Woodruff Smith (Cambridge, 1995); Paul
S. MacDonald, Descartes and Husserl: The Philosophical Project of Radical Beginnings (SUNY, 1999);
Victor Velarde, On Husserl (Wadsworth, 1999).
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Hutcheson Francis
<history of philosophy, biography> scottish philosopher (1694-1746). In his Inquiry into the Original of our Ideas
of Beauty and Virue (1725), An Essay on the Nature and Conduct of the Passions and Affections with
Illustrations on the Moral Sense (1728), and A System of Moral Philosophy (1755), Hutcheson introduced the
notion of a "moral sense" by means of which we not only recognize the rectitude of particular actions but are
also motivated to perform them, together with a formulation of the greatest happiness principle. These
conceptions, also developed (in different directions) by Butler, Hume, and Bentham, became staples of British
moral philosophy in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. His later work included a set of Remarks (1750)
on Mandeville' s Fable of the Bees.
Francis Hutcheson, Philosophical Writings, ed. by R. S. Downie (Everyman, 1994)
William R. Scott, Francis Hutcheson: His Life, Teaching and Position in the History of Philosophy (Thoemmes,
1998).
23-11-2001
hyle
<history of philosophy> greek term for wood or forest; hence, in the philosophy of Aristotle, the term is used for
matter considered more generally. Among the four causes, hylÍ is the material cause that underlies any sort of
substantial change.
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hylomorphic
<history of philosophy, metaphysics> Aristotle' s theory thatnatural objects are irreducible composites of matter
(Gk. hyle) and form (Gk. morphÍ).
Aristotle, The Physics: Books I-IV, tr. by Philip H. Wicksteed and Francis M. Cornford (Harvard, 1986).
23-11-2001
Hypatia
<history of philosophy, biography> egyptian mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher (370-415). Hypatia
was a popular teacher and head of the neoplatonic philosophical community at Alexandria until her torture and
death at the hands of a clergy-led Christian mob. The Alexandrian intellectual community declined significantly
after her death.
Maria Dzielska, Hypatia of Alexandria (Harvard, 1996) Charles Kingsley, Hypatia (Dent, 1968).
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hypercube
A cube of more than three dimensions. A single (2^0 = 1) point (or "node") can be considered as a zero
dimensional cube, two (2^1) nodes joined by a line (or "edge") are a one dimensional cube, four (2^2) nodes
arranged in a square are a two dimensional cube and eight (2^3) nodes are an ordinary three dimensional
cube. Continuing this geometric progression, the first hypercube has 2^4 = 16 nodes and is a four dimensional
shape (a "four-cube") and an N dimensional cube has 2^N nodes (an "N-cube"). To make an N+1 dimensional
cube, take two N dimensional cubes and join each node on one cube to the corresponding node on the other.
A four-cube can be visualised as a three-cube with a smaller three-cube centred inside it with edges radiating
diagonally out (in the fourth dimension) from each node on the inner cube to the corresponding node on the
outer cube.
Each node in an N dimensional cube is directly connected to N other nodes. We can identify each node by a
set of N Cartesian coordinates where each coordinate is either zero or one. Two node will be directly
connected if they differ in only one coordinate.
The simple, regular geometrical structure and the close relationship between the coordinate system and binary
numbers make the hypercube an appropriate topology for a parallel computer interconnection network. The
fact that the number of directly connected, "nearest neighbour", nodes increases with the total size of the
network is also highly desirable for a parallel computer.
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hypermedia
hypertext
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hypertext
<hypertext> A term coined by Ted Nelson around 1965 for a collection of documents (or "nodes") containing
cross-references or "links" which, with the aid of an interactive browser program, allow the reader to move
easily from one document to another.
The extension of hypertext to include other media - sound, graphics, and video - has been termed
"hypermedia", but is usually just called "hypertext", especially since the advent of the World-Wide Web and
HTML.
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hypostasization
<philosophy, philosophical inquiry, metaphysics> the variety of reification that results from supposing that
whatever can be named or conceived abstractly must actually exist. When (in Through the Looking Glass) his
Messenger declares "I' m sure nobody walks much faster than I do," the White King hypostasizes "Nobody" by
Plato, Hegel, and
responding that "He can' t do that, or else he' d have been here first." Such philosophers as
Heidegger are sometimes accused of similar flights of ontological whimsy.
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hypothesis
<epistemology, philosophy of science, hypothesis, ockhamism> <empiricism, neo-empiricism, hypotetical

deductive method> in science, a testable assertion -- especially a generalization or lawlike assertion, e.g.,
Newton' slaw of universal gravitation which states (in part) "All bodies attract each other with a force inversely
proportional to their distance." Hypotheses that survive testing come to be confirmed, whereupon they are
provisionally accepted as scientific laws.
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hypothetical deductive method
<epistemology, philosophy of science, hypothesis, ockhamism> <empiricism, neo-empiricism> Heisenberg' s

uncertainty relations> <hypotetical deductive method> the scientific method of testing would-be laws
(hypotheses) by making predictions of particular observable events, then observing whether the events turn out
as predicted. If so, the hypothesis is confirmed. If not, the hypothesis is disconfirmed, or (some would say)
refuted.
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hypothetical imperative
<kantian ethics, categorical imperative, metaphysics> a command that applies, not unconditionally, but only
under certain conditions, or given certain purposes. e.g., "If you want to see a good movie rent The Big
Lebowski": the command, here, to rent The Big Lebowski applies only on the condition that you want to see a
good movie. Similarly, the command to change your oil frequently applies only if you want your car to last; the
command to look both ways before crossing only applies if you seek a safe crossing; etc. According to Kant,
nonmoral commandments are all of this hypothetical sort. Compare: categorical imperative.
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hypothetical syllogism - HS
<philosophy of science, logic> a rule of inference of the form:
p -> q
q -> r
_______
p -> r
Example: "If Debbie is promoted, then Gene will be, too. But if Gene is promoted, then Kim will be angry.
Therefore, if Debbie is promoted, then Kim will be angry." A truth-table shows the validity of this inference.
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I proposition
<philosophy of science, logic> in the traditional notation for categorical logic, a proposition that is both
particular and affirmative. Example: "Some birds are Canada geese". Such a proposition affirms that there is at
least one thing that belongs to both of the designated classes. Its contradictory is an E proposition with the
same subject and predicate terms.
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Ibn Daud Abraham ben David Hallevi
<history of philosophy, biography> jewish philosopher ( 1110-1180). Ibn Daud was the first Jewish Aristotelean.
His Sefer ha-Qabbalah (The Book of Tradition) (1161) and Emunah Ramah (The Exalted Faith) (1161)
grounded Jewish theology on the metaphysics of Ibn Sina, providing an important influence on the work of
Maimonides. Ibn Daud defended free will by proposing limitations on the extent of divine omnipotence.
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Ibn Gabirol Solomon
<history of philosophy, biography> jewish philosopher and poet (1020-1057). Translated into Latin as Fons
Vitae (The Source of Life), Ibn Gabirol' s hilosophical work expressed a unique version ofneoplatonism. His
distinction between the essence and the will of god had significant influence on the thought of Duns Scotus.
Solomon B. Ibn-Gabirol, Improvement of the Moral Qualities: An Ethical Treatise of the Eleventh Century
(AMS, 1990);
Selected Poems of Solomon Ibn Gabirol, tr. by Peter Cole (Princeton, 2000);
Isaac Goldberg, Solomon Ibn Gabirol: A Bibliography (Word Works, 1998).
01-09-2002
icon
<graphics> (From miniature religious statues) A small picture intended to represent something (a file, directory,
or action) in a graphical user interface. When an icon is clicked on, some action is performed such as opening
a directory or aborting a file transfer. Icons are usually stored as bitmap images.
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ICT
Information and Communication Technology
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idea
<psychology, gnoseology, metaphysics> the content of conscious thought. Plato used the Greek word idea to
designate the universal Forms. For modern representationalists like Descartes and Locke, however, ideas are
the immediate objects of every mental activity. Ideas in this sense are supposed to represent things - present
or absent - before the mind.
Gail Fine, On Ideas: Aristotle' s Criticism of Plato' s Theory of Forms (Clarendon, 1995);
David Hausman and Alan Hausman, Descartes' s Legacy: Mind & Meaning in Early Modern Philosophy
(Toronto, 1997);
John W. Yolton, Locke and the Way of Ideas (St. Augustine, 1993);
Richard A. Watson, Representational Ideas: From Plato to Patricia Churchland (Kluwer, 1995).
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ideal
<mathematics, logic> In domain theory, a non-empty, downward closed subset which is also closed under
binary least upper bounds. I.e. anything less than an element is also an element and the least upper bound of
any two elements is also an element.
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idealism
<metaphysics, philosophical school> in metaphysics, idealism is a term used to describe the sort of theory
which claims that something "ideal" or non-physical or non-material or non-extended is the primary reality. In
this sense, Plato, Berkeley, Leibniz and Hegel are among the most significant of the idealists (Leibniz is
perhaps the most inconsistent, since he said that all physical things are actually made up of little bundles of
consciousness he called "monads", an idea that is close to panpsychism). Obviously, spiritualism is similar to
idealism, but spiritualism tends to be used to refer more to religious, supernatural conceptions of reality, rather
than to philosophical theories like those of Plato or Hegel. Plato can be considered the "Founding Father" of
idealism in Western philosophy, since he claimed that what is fundamentally real are ideas, of which physical
objects are pale imitations. The opposite of idealism is materialism. Just as materialism in metaphysics is often
linked with subjectivism in epistemology, idealism is often linked with intrinsicism in epistemology (though
epistemological intrinsicism is sometimes also called, confusingly, idealism, since intrinsicism holds that we
literally perceive universals or ideas). In popular usage, "idealism" is more of an ethical term, characterizing
people who have a strong code of values or a great deal of integrity, though sometimes to an excessive degree
(often contrasted with those who are merely or healthily pragmatic).
(References from absolutism, abstractionism, Cartesianism, dualism, essentialism, Hegelianism, intrinsicism,

Kantianism, Marxism, materialism, mentalism, monism, Neo-Platonism, Platonism, realism, spiritualism, and
transcendentalism.)
[The Ism Book]
<history of philosophy, gnoseology, metaphysics> belief that only mental entities are real, so that physical
things exist only in the sense that they are perceived. Berkeley defended his "immaterialism" on purely
empiricist grounds, while Kant and Fichte arrived at theirs by transcendental arguments.
German, English, and (to a lesser degree) American philosophy during the nineteenth century was dominated
by the monistic absolute idealism of Hegel, Bradley, and Royce.
David Berman, George Berkeley: Idealism and the Man (Oxford, 1996);
German Idealist Philosophy, ed. by Rudiger Bubner (Penguin, 1997);
The Cambridge Companion to German Idealism, ed. by Karl Ameriks (Cambridge, 2001);
John Foster, The Case for Idealism (Routledge, 1982);
Current Issues in Idealism, ed. by Paul Coates and Daniel D. Hutto (St. Augustine, 1997).
14-01-2002
ideas
<idealism, ockhamism, empiricism, epistemology, rationalism> on Locke' s conception ideas are thecontents
with which minds are "furnished" (as he puts it). From "simple ideas" (e.g., or red, of round, of sweet) furnished
by sense-perception the mind constructs "complex ideas" (e.g., of apple). Conception being nothing but this
compounding of sense based ideas, and reasoning being nothing but transitions between ideas thus
compounded, all knowledge -- Locke maintains -- derives ultimately from sensory experience. See also:
empiricism, impressions.
22-06-2001
idempotent
1. A function f : D -> D is idempotent iff (f x) = f x for all x in D.
I.e. repeated applications have the same effect as one. This can be extended to functions of more than one
argument, e.g. Boolean & has x & x = x. Any value in the image of an idempotent function is a fixed point of the
function.
2. This term can be used to describe C header files, which contain common definitions and declarations to be
included by several source files. If a header file is ever included twice during the same compilation (perhaps
due to nested #include files), compilation errors can result unless the header file has protected itself against
multiple inclusion; a header file so protected is said to be idempotent.
3. The term can also be used to describe an initialisation subroutine that is arranged to perform some critical
action exactly once, even if the routine is called several times.
[Jargon File]
[FOLDOC]
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identity
<logic>A 2-adic predicate, say Ixy, asserting that its two arguments are identical. Customarily immbolized by
"=" and written in infix notation, "x=y". While all systems of polyadic predicate logic can express identity as
easily as any other 2-adic relation, a system is said to be "with identity" iff it also contains axioms, axiom
schemata, and/or rules of inference determining how "=" is to be used. Note that an axiom like "(x)(x=x)" or "(x)
Ixx" is not logically valid because there are interpretations of "=" or "I" that do not take the meaning of identity.
See first-order theory with identity, predicate logic with identity, interpretation, normal
16-03-2001
identity theory
<philosophy of mind> the identity theory of mind is standardly understood to be the claim that every mental
property is identical with some physical property.
1. Identity theories of mind (IT) and multiple realisation
The version of physicalism that gained ground in the middle of this century was in the first place committed to
the identity thesis, namely, that every property (and thereby every mental property) is identical with some
physical property.
IT: Every property is identical with some physical property.
Smart' s "Sensations and Brain Processes" (1959) provides the classic statement of this view. At that point, the
primary concern of physicalists was to establish the point that two nonsynonymous terms could nonetheless
pick out the same property.
Even though "pain" and, say, "C-fibers firing," are not synonymous, the property of being in pain could be
identical with the property of having one' s C
-fibers firing. Very soon, however, the predominant concern shifted
to what is now famous as the problem of multiple realisability and its implications for identity theories.
It' s important to distinguish the problem of multiple realisability from the justification of multiple realisability. The
justification stems from functionalism. According to functionalism, each mental property can be defined as a
second-order property, the property of having some property or other that plays a certain functional role,
defined in terms of other functional properties and physical causes and effects. As a result, it is likely that many
different first-order physical properties can play the same functional role. There will (likely) be a very large set
of different physical properties such that each can play the functional role, so that different instances of M may
be correlated with various members of that set.
The way in which this constitutes a problem for identity theories is by implying a failure of coextension. Call this
the Coextension argument:
There exists at least one mental property M such that there is a set of distinct physical properties (P1, v P2 v ...
Pn), no one of which realizes M on every occasion, while each realizes it on some occasion.
1. If M is identical with any physical property, it is identical with one of (P1, v P2 v ... Pn)
2. M can' t be identical with any of (P1, v P2 v ... Pn) because there is no member of it with which it is
coextensive
3. There is no physical property with which M is coextensive, and hence none with which it is identical.
Therefore, IT is false. A property M exists which is not identical to any physical property.
The identity theory IT can be saved in light of this argument by rejecting either premise 1 or premise 2. The
disjunction option and elimination options discussed below correspond to those moves. If these prove
unpalatable, the physicalist can still propose some theses that maintain the spirit, if not the letter, of IT; these
are trope theories and second-order definition theories. I address each option in turn.
1.1. The disjunction option
One could deny 2 by finding some further physical property, unrelated to the realizers, which that is indeed in
common to all the instances of M. But there is no reason to expect there to be any such property. The
disjunction option instead locates the common property as the property defined by disjoining the members of
(P1, v P2 v ... Pn). The property M is identical with a physical property after all, namely, P1 v P2 v ... Pn.
Advocates of the disjunction option face two important questions. First, is P1 v P2 v ... Pn a property? Second,
is it in fact identical with M? Many philosophers are suspicious of such disjunctive properties as that allegedly
named by "P1 v P2 v ... Pn" (Armstrong 1978; Lewis 1983). If one believes that every predicate corresponds to
a property or a universal, then this problem cannot arise. But if you reject this presumption, then the question
becomes pressing. (For debate, see Fodor 1974, Kim 1989, Kim 1992.)
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Even if we decide that P1 v P2 v ... Pn is a genuine physical property, the question remains whether it can be
identified with M. The original problem multiple realisability posed for IT was a failure of coextension, and P1 v
P2 v ... Pn is supposed to be coextensive with M. But this is ambiguous: do we mean coextensive in the actual
world, in all nomologically possible worlds, or all worlds whatsoever? If P1 v P2 v ... Pn is to be identical with M
then, trivially, we must mean that they are coextensive in all worlds whatsoever. But, in fact, if we are tempted
to the disjunctive option because of functionalism, we cannot appeal to a purely physical disjunction for an
identity claim. It' s a familiar point that functionalism not only allows variable physical realisation; it also allows
nonphysical realisation. In some worlds, nonphysical properties will realize the mental. Hence, if P1 v P2 v ...
Pn is to be coextensive with M in all possible worlds whatsoever, it must include some nonphysical properties
as disjuncts. In that case, however, it is not a physical property with which we are identifying the physical
property (Melnyk 1996).
1.2. The eliminative option
If one is an eliminativist about the mental in general, one is of course unfased by the Coextension argument.
However, one could adopt a mild sort of eliminativism by denying, not that any mental properties exist at all, but
by denying the more limited claim that is the first premise of the Coextension argument.
The strategy is simple. For each of the members of (P1 v P2 v ... Pn) there is said to correspond a mental
property, a species of M. If M is the property of pain, there will be many different kinds of pain, but no such
thing as pain, period. Each of those kinds is then identified with its corresponding physical realizer, and IT is re-
established.
Unlike a more thoroughgoing eliminativism, this view is not saddled with the implausible claim that people are
not conscious, that they have no thoughts, etc. But it does face the charge that its invocation of these kinds of
pain, and so on, is arbitrary and misleading. Why call it pain if doesn' t have the features common to all pains?
We cannot, on this view, say that it has those features, because there is no such thing as the property of pain,
period, and hence no such thing as what is in common to each such instance.
Perhaps, again invoking the distinction between predicates that correspond to properties and those that don' t,
the advocate of milder eliminativism could say that each such instance is picked out by the predicate "pain,"
and that is what they have in common; but this predicate fails to pick out any property (Kim 1992; Hooker
1981).
2. Identity theories and tropes
The remaining two responses to the Coextension argument admit that IT is, in fact, false; they propose closely
related theses instead, however, that maintain the basic idea of IT.
The first of these switches from an identity theory about properties to one about tropes. A trope is the particular
instance of a property, an abstract particular. The Coextension argument is powerless against this thesis:
IT1: Every actual trope is identical with a physical trope.
Even if there are properties -- universals -- that fail to be coextensive with physical properties, each instance of
a nonphysical property could be identical with an instance of a physical property. If that were the case,
physicalist intuitions would, it seems, be assuaged.
It' s important to see that IT1 is more than a token identity thesis. It' s not just that all particular events, or a
particular objects, are physical; it' s that all particular property instances are physical (Robb 1997).
The primary difficulty with this approach is simply that the nature of tropes is obscure and, as a result, it is
nearly impossible to evaluate the claim that we have in certain cases not two tropes but one. Property
individuation is puzzling enough; trope individuation is worse yet.
3. The second-order option
Finally, if functionalism is adopted, one has already provided an identity theory of a sort. That is, one has
already subscribed to the following thesis:
IT2: Every property is identical with a physical property or a second-order property defined in purely physical
and logical terms.
IT2 is not, of course, an identity theory in the standard sense. It does not imply that every property is a physical
property, unless every physically definable second order property thereby counts as a physical property.
One problem with IT2 is that it requires that one buy into functionalism for every property for which multiple
realisability is a problem. This may seem innocuous enough if one is convinced of multiple realisability because
of a commitment to functionalism in the first place, but IT2 highlights how contentious a thesis functionalism is
in the first place. It is fair to call it a sort of "reductionism," since it claims that every property can be defined
using only logical apparatus and physical terms. If IT2 is one' s method of saving the spirit of the identity theory
one certainly doesn' t dilute its strength at all (Field 1992).
Increasingly, physicalists (see Papineau 1993; Melnyk 1996) have appealed to a related thesis:
IT3: Every property is identical with a physical property or is realised on every occasion by a physical property.
Depending on exactly how the notion of realisation is cashed out, this may turn out to be identical with IT2. The
notion of realisation has, however, been neglected in the philosophical literature, even as its appeal has grown.
References (in order of importance)
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Smart, J. J. C. 1959. "Sensations and Brain Processes." The Philosophical Review 68: 141-156.
Putnam, Hilary. 1967. "The Nature of Mental States." Originally appeared as "Psychological Predicates" in W.
H.
Capitan and D. D. Merrill, eds., Art, Mind and Religion. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. Reprinted
(1975) in Putnam, Mind, Language and Reality: Philosophical Papers, Volume 2. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 429-40.
Fodor, Jerry. 1974. "Special Sciences." Synthese 28: 97-115. Reprinted (1981) in Fodor, Representations:
Philosophical Essays on the Foundations of Cognitive Science. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 127-146.
Armstrong, David. 1978. A Theory of Universals: Universals and Scientific Realism, Volume 2. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Lewis, David. 1983. "New Work for a Theory of Universals." Australasian Journal of Philosophy 61: 343-377.
Hooker, Clifford. 1981. "Towards a General Theory of Reduction." Parts 1 - 3. Dialogue 20: 38-59, 201-236,
496-529.
Kim, Jaegwon. 1989. "The Myth of Nonreductive Materialism." Proceedings and Addresses of the American
Philosophical Association 63: 31-47. Reprinted in Kim (1993)
Kim, Jaegwon. 1992. "Multiple Realisation and the Metaphysics of Reduction. Philosophy and
Phenomenological Research 52: 1-26. Reprinted in Kim (1993).
Kim, Jaegwon. 1993. Supervenience and Mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Melnyk, Andrew. 1996. "Formulating Physicalism: Two Suggestions." Synthese 105, 381-407.
Robb, David. 1997. "The Properties of Mental Causation." The Philosophical Quarterly 47: 178-194.
Papineau, David. 1993. Philosophical Naturalism. Oxford: Blackwell.
Field, Hartry. 1992. "Physicalism." In J. Earman, ed., Inference, Explanation and other Frustrations. Essays in
the Philosophy of Science. Berkeley: University of California Press, 271-291.
Gene Witmer gwitmer@phil.ufl.edu
16-03-2001
iff
<logic> Abbreviation of "if and only if", which designates material equivalence.
16-03-2001
ignorance appeal to
<logic, philosophy of science> known also as <argumentum ad ignoratiam>. The informal fallacy of supposing
that a proposition must be true because there is no proof that it is false. Example: "The F.B.I. investigation was
never able to establish that Smith was not at the scene of the crime on the night of June 25th, so we may
safely conclude that he was there".
Douglas N. Walton, Arguments from Ignorance (Penn. State, 1996).
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ignoratiam argumentum ad
<logic, philosophy of science> see appeal to ignorance.
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ignoratio elenchi
<logic, philosophy of science> latin phrase meaning, "misunderstanding of the refutation". See irrelevant
conclusion.
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illicit major
<logic, philosophy of science> the formal fallacy committed in a categorical syllogism that is invalid because its
major term is undistributed in the major premise but distributed in the conclusion. Example: "All dogs are
mammals. No cats are dogs. Therefore, no cats are mammals."
14-01-2002
illicit minor
minor term is undistributed in the minor premise but distributed in the conclusion. Example: "All poodles are
mammals. All poodles are pets. Therefore, All pets are mammals".
17-01-2002
illocutionary act
<philosophy of language, linguistics> the speech act of doing something else-offering advice or taking a vow,
for example - in the process of uttering meaningful language. Thus, for example, in saying "I will repay you this
money next week," one typically performs the illocutionary act of making a promise.
J. L. Austin, How to Do Things With Words (Harvard, 1975);
John R. Searle, Speech Acts (Cambridge, 1970);
William P. Alston, Illocutionary Acts and Sentence Meaning (Cornell, 2000);
Jerrold J. Katz, Propositional Structure and Illocutionary Force: A Study of the Contribution of Sentence
Meaning to Speech Acts (Harvard, 1980).
18-01-2002
image
1. <data, graphics> Data representing a two-dimensional scene. A digital image is composed of pixels
arranged in a rectangular array with a certain height and width. Each pixel may consist of one or more bits of
information, representing the brightness of the image at that point and possibly including colour information
encoded as RGB triples.
Images are usually taken from the real world via a digital camera, frame grabber, or scanner; or they may be
generated by computer, e.g. by ray tracing software.
See also image formats, image processing.
2. <mathematics> The image (or range) of a function is the set of values obtained by applying the function to all
elements of its domain. So, if f : D -> C then the set f(D) = f(d) | d in D is the image of D under f. The image is a
subset of C, the codomain.
[FOLDOC]
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image recognition
<graphics, artificial intelligence> The identification of objects in an image. This process would probably start
with image processing techniques such as noise removal, followed by (low-level) feature extraction to locate
lines, regions and possibly areas with certain textures.
The clever bit is to interpret collections of these shapes as single objects, e.g. cars on a road, boxes on a
conveyor belt or cancerous cells on a microscope slide. One reason this is an AI problem is that an object can
appear very different when viewed from different angles or under different lighting.
Another problem is deciding what features belong to what object and which are background or shadows etc.
The human visual system performs these tasks mostly unconsciously but a computer requires skilful
programming and lots of processing power to approach human performance.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
imagination
<philosophy of mind> traditionally, the mental capacity for experiencing, constructing, or manipulating "mental
imagery" (quasi-perceptual experience). Imagination is also regarded as responsible for fantasy, inventiveness,
idiosyncrasy, and creative, original, and insightful thought in general, and, sometimes, for a much wider range
of mental activities dealing with the non-actual, such as supposing, pretending, "seeing as", thinking of
possibilities, and even being mistaken.
See representation
Nigel J.T. Thomas
16-03-2001
immanent
<kantian metaphysics, ethics, pantheism, stoicism> internal or indwelling as opposed to external or out
dwelling: in particular, what is internal to the material, sensible world as opposed to what is above or beyond it,
or transcendent. On pantheistic views (e.g., those of the Stoics or Spinoza) God is held to be an immanent
guiding spirit in and of the sensible material world, not existing apart or beyond it. Orthodox Christian views, by
contrast hold God be transcendent. Similarly, Plato asserts the transcendence while Aristotle maintains the
immanence of the Forms or essences of things.
29-07-2001
immediate inference
<logic, philosophy of science> the relationship between two propositions that are logically equivalent. In
categorical logic, the traditional immediate inferences include: conversion, obversion, and contraposition.
18-01-2002
immoralism
<ethics> intellectual stance that involves an outright rejection of conventional morality, of systematic
approaches to ethics, or even of ethics as such. Friedrich Nietzsche is famous for having called himself an
immoralist. (References from atheism and secularism.)
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immortalism
<metaphysics, philosophy of religion> the view according to which human beings, or their souls at least,
survive after death. This idea is sometimes called athanatism (from the Greek word for immortal), the opposite
of which is thanatism.
[The Ism Book]
25-03-2001
impartiality
<ethics, justice> the absence of any bias toward or away from a particular person or opinion. Enlightenment
philosophers often upheld the use of human reason as an impartial tool, but postmodern thinkers raise
significant doubts about the possibility and value of such objectivity. Although moral impartiality has traditionally
been regarded as a virtue, in strict practice it would require callous disregard for every special relationship with
another person. In public life, however, impartiality is a crucial component of justice.
Stephen L. Darwall, Impartial Reason (Cornell, 1995);
Shane O' Neill, Impartiality in Context: Grounding Justice in a Pluralist World (SUNY, 1997);
Paul Kelly, Impartiality, Neutrality and Justice (Columbia, 2001).
18-01-2002
imperative
<ethics> a command. Philosophers often distinguish between hypothetical imperatives and categorical
imperatives.
26-03-2001
imperativism
deontologism
15-05-2004
implementation
1. execution (the process of carrying out a course of action)
2. effectuation (providing a practical means for accomplishing something)
3. realisation (e.g. of a model or blueprint)
4. the outcome of 1-3
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implicans
implication
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implicate
implication
05-05-2004
implication
<logic> A statement of the form, "if A, then B," when A and B stand for wffs or propositions. The wff in the if-
clause is called the antecedent (also the implicans and protasis). The wff in the then-clause is called the
consequent (also the implicate and apodosis). As a truth function, see material implication. Also called a
conditional, or a conditional statement.
See corresponding conditional
Logical implication
A tautologous statement of material implication (next)
Material implication
A truth function that is false when its antecedent is true and its consequent false, and true otherwise. Also the
connective that denotes this function; also the compound proposition built from this connective.
Notation: p => q (or a thin right arrow).

A => B is true unless A is true and B is false.
The truth table is
A B | A -> B
----+-------
FF|T
FT|T
TF|F
TT|T
It is surprising at first that A => B is always true if A is false, but if X => Y then we would expect that (X & Z) =>
Y for any Z. This truth function is rarely what implication or "if...then" means in English, but it captures the
logical core of that usage and is truth-functional.
Paradoxes of material implication
Two consequences of the formal definition of material implication that violate informal intuitions about
implication: (1) that a material implication is true whenever its antecedent is false, and (2) that a material
implication is true whenever its consequent is true. These so-called paradoxes do not create contradictions.
16-03-2001
implicit memory
implicit memory is evident when the performance of a subject on a task is improved despite the inability of the
subject to consciously recollect memories which facilitate to the task.
See also explicit memory
16-03-2001
impossible
<logic, epistemology> what cannot be the case, under any circumstances, is impossible. What is logically
impossible is self contradictory; inconsistent with the basic principles of logic itself (to be both human and
nonhuman, e.g., is logically impossible). It is convenient for many purposes to recognize types of impossibility
weaker than strict logical impossibility. Natural or nomological impossibility is the next strongest generally
recognized type: what is nomologically impossible, while it may be logically consistent, is inconsistent with the
laws of nature: e.g., it' s nomologically impossible (current physics tells us) for anything to travel faster than the
speed of light. Practical impossibility is a weaker variety yet: what is practically impossible may be consistent
with the laws of nature, but is inconsistent given the circumstances; e.g., it' s nomologically possible for a
human being to run a four minute mile but it' s not practically possible for most of us (given our ages, physiques
and physical conditions) to do so.
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Contrast: possible. See also: necessary, contingent, actual.
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impressions
<epistemology, empiricism, idealism> Hume terms the direct experiential deliverances of sensation
impressions; simple ideas,for Hume are faint copies (in memory) of these sensory impressions, and complex
ideas (all the rest) are compounded from these simple ideas, much as they are for Locke. See also:
empiricism, ideas.
22-06-2001
inclination
<ethics> this is the word that Kant used (actually, he used the German word Neigung) to refer to our sensuous
feelings, emotions, and desires. Kant contrasts inclination with reason. Whereas inclination was seen as
physical, causally-determined, and irrational, reason was portrayed as non-physical, free, and obviously
rational.
26-03-2001
inclusive
<mathematics, logic> In domain theory, a predicate P : D -> Bool is inclusive iff For any chain C, a subset of D,
and for all c in C, P(c) => P(lub C)
In other words, if the predicate holds for all elements of an increasing sequence then it holds for their least
upper bound.
[FOLDOC]
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inclusive disjunction
disjunction
30-05-2004
inclusive predicate logic
predicate logic
30-05-2004
inclusive quantification theory
predicate logic
30-05-2004
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incommensurability
<logic, philosophy of science> incapable of being measured against a common standard. The presumed
incommensurability of individual human pleasures is sometimes raised as an objection against hedonistic
versions of utilitarianism.
Feyerabend and Kuhn suppose that rival scientific theories are incommensurable if neither can be fully stated
in the vocabulary of the other.
Nola J. Heidlebaugh, Judgement, Rhetoric, and the Problem of Incommensurability (South Carolina, 2001);
Howard Sankey, The Incommensurability Thesis (Avebury, 1994);
Incommensurability, Incomparability, and Practical Reason, ed. by Ruth Chang (Harvard, 1999).
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incomparable
<mathematics> Two elements a, b of a set are incomparable under some relation <= if neither a <= b, nor b <=
a.
[FOLDOC]
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incontinence
<ethics, justice> inability to act reasonably because of weakness of will; lack of self-control.
Alfred R. Mele, Irrationality: An Essay on Akrasia, Self-Deception, and Self-Control (Oxford, 1992)
Robert Dunn, The Possibility of Weakness of Will (Hackett, 1987).
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incorrigible
<logic, philosophy of science, epistemology> incapable of being corrected; hence, a putative criterion of
certainty. An incorrigible proposition is one about which it is impossible to be mistaken, such as (perhaps) "I am
now in pain." Whether any human knowledge is actually incorrigible is one of the central questions of
epistemology.
Ludwig Wittgenstein, On Certainty (Harpercollins, 1986);
Certainty, ed. by Jonathan Westphal (Hackett, 1995);
William P. Alston, Epistemic Justification: Essays in the Theory of Knowledge (Cornell, 1993).
[A Dictionary of Philosophical Terms and names]
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incremental analysis
<testing> Partial analysis of an incomplete product to allow early feedback on its development.
[FOLDOC]
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independence of an axiom
<logic> If "S-A" denotes system S minus axiom A, then for many logicians an axiom A is independent of
system S iff neither A nor ~A are theorems of S-A.
For some, A is independent iff A is not a theorem of S-A, even if ~A is a theorem of S-A. The former concept is
equivalent to the undecidability of wff A in S.
16-03-2001
indeterminism
<metaphysics> view, similar to accidentalism, according to which at least some events or human actions are
not determined by outside causes; obviously this idea is opposed to determinism.
Epicurus' idea of the "atomic swerve" is an example of an indeterminist doctrine.
[The Ism Book]
25-03-2001
indexical
<logic, philosophy of science> an expression whose meaning depends upon the context in which it is
employed. Thus, for example, in the sentence, "I came back from there an hour ago," the words "I" and "there,"
along with the phrase "an hour ago," are all indexicals - the person, place, and time to which they refer is
different on each occasion of their use.
Philosophical Logic, ed. by T. J. Smiley (Oxford, 1999);
Lawrence D. Roberts, How Reference Works: Explanatory Models for Indexicals, Descriptions, and Opacity
(SUNY, 1993);
John Perry, The Problem of the Essential Indexical (CSLI, 2001);
Ingar Brinck, The Indexical ' I' : The First Person in Thought and Language (Kluwer, 1997).
18-01-2002
indirect proof
<logic, philosophy of science> demonstration of the truth of a proposition from the impossible consequences of
its contradictory; see reductio ad absurdum.
18-01-2002
individual constant
<logic, philosophy of science> a symbol (usually lowercase letters such as a, b, c, etc.) used to represent a
specific thing in quantification theory.
18-02-2002
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individual variable
<logic, philosophy of science> a symbol (usually lowercase letters such as x, y, z, etc.) used to represent any
individual generally in quantification theory.
18-01-2002
individualism
<ethics, metaphysics>
1. while the word individualism usually pertains to ethics, we can also speak of metaphysical individualism (that
only particular, individual things exist - see concretism and nominalism), epistemological individualism (that
only individual minds can come to have knowledge), political individualism (respect for individual rights), and
methodological individualism (as in Austrian economics). In ethics, individualism refers to the principle that it is
the unique, unrepeatable person who should be the beneficiary of action, not any sort of collective entity (thus
individualism is essentially the same as egoism and is opposed to ethical collectivism). Most varieties of ethical
individualism are brands of eudaimonism, but this is not true of, for example, existentialism or stoicism. In
popular usage, the connotations of "individualism" can be positive or negative, depending on who is using the
term. Though it is a positive word for many people, the term can imply a kind of atomism that necessarily puts a
low or even negative value on relations with other people. (References from altruism, Aristotelianism,
Buddhism, egoism, gnosticism, hedonism, humanism, naturalism, stoicism, transcendentalism, and
utilitarianism.)
2. see internalism
25-03-2001
indubitable
<philosophy of science, gnoseology> the characteristic of a proposition whose truth cannot be doubted, such
as "My father is older than I am," even though (given bizarre suppositions about time and/or human
conception) it might be false.
Descartes and other modern philosophers supposed that only such propositions would provide a suitable
foundation for human knowledge.
Michael Williams, Unnatural Doubts (Princeton, 1995);
David Owens, Reason Without Freedom: The Problem of Epistemic Normativity (Routledge, 2000); Nicholas
Nathan, The Price of Doubt (Routledge, 2000).
18-02-2002
induction
<logic> an inference in which the conclusion contains information that was not contained in the premises. Or,
also, a form of reasoning in which one moves from one or more premisses to a conclusion in such a way that
while the conclusion seems to have been given some justification, it is logically possible for the premisses to be
true and the conclusion false. deduction, mathematical induction
Based on [A Philosophical Glossary, Glossary of First-Order Logic]
05-06-2001
induction hypothesis
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induction step
30-05-2004
inductive inference
grammatical inference
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inductive relation
A relation R between domains D and E is inductive if for all chains d1 .. dn in D and e1 .. en in E,
16-03-2001
ineffable
<metaphysics, gnoseology, philosophy of science> incapable of being expressed in language, as the

experience of qualia generally and mystical insight in particular are sometimes held to be.
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (Routledge, 1995)
Ben-Ami Scharfstein, Ineffability: The Failure of Words in Philosophy and Religion (SUNY, 1993).
18-02-2002
inference
<logic> 1. The logical process by which new facts are derived from known facts by the application of inference
rules.
See also symbolic inference, type inference.
[FOLDOC]
2. A series of wffs or propositions in which some (called premises) support another (called the conclusion);
also the act of concluding the conclusion from the premises.
See deduction, derivation, induction, proof
<logic, philosophy of science> the relationship that holds between the premises and the conclusion of a logical
argument, or the process of drawing a conclusion from premises that support it deductively or inductively.
Henry E. Kyburg, Jr., Epistemology and Inference (Minnesota, 1982);
D. S. Clarke, Jr., Practical Inferences (Routledge, 1985);
Robert B. Brandom, Articulating Reasons: An Introduction to Inferentialism (Harvard, 2000);
K.I. Manktelow, Inference and Understanding: A Philosophical and Psychological Perspective (Routledge,
1990);
Inference, Explanation, and Other Frustrations: Essays in the Philosophy of Science, ed. by John Earman
(California, 1992).
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inference engine
A program that infers new facts from known facts using inference rules. Commonly found as part of a Prolog
interpreter, expert system or knowledge based system.
[FOLDOC]
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inference rule
A procedure which combines known facts to produce ("infer") new facts. For example, given that
1. Socrates is a man and that

2. all men are mortal,
we can infer that Socrates is mortal. This uses the rule known as "modus ponens" which can be written in
Boolean algebra as
(A & A -> B) -> B
(if proposition A is true, and A implies B, then B is true).
Or given that,
1. Either Denis is programming or Denis is sad and

2. Denis is not sad,
we can infer that Denis is programming. This rule can be written
((A OR B) & not B) -> A
(If either A is true or B is true (or both), and B is false, then A must be true).
[FOLDOC]
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inference to the best explanation
abduction
30-05-2004
infimum
greatest lower bound
30-05-2004
infinite
<mathematics> 1. Bigger than any natural number. There are various formal set definitions in set theory: a set
X is infinite if
(i) There is a bijection between X and a proper subset of X.
(ii) There is an injection from the set N of natural numbers to X.
(iii) There is an injection from each natural number n to X.
These definitions are not necessarily equivalent unless we accept the Axiom of Choice.
2. The length of a line extended indefinitely.
See also infinite loop, infinite set.
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infinite loop
<PI> (Or "endless loop") Where a piece of program is executed repeatedly with no hope of stopping. This is
nearly always because of a bug, e.g. if the condition for exiting the loop is wrong, though it may be intentional if
the program is controlling an embedded system which is supposed to run continuously until it is turned off. The
programmer may also intend the program to run until interrupted by the user. An endless loop may also be
used as a last-resort error handler when no other action is appropriate. This is used in some operating system
kernels following a panic.
A program executing an infinite loop is said to spin or buzz forever and goes catatonic. The program is "wound
around the axle".
A standard joke has been made about each generation' s exemplar of the ultra
-fast machine: "The Cray-3 is so
fast it can execute an infinite loop in under 2 seconds!"
See also black hole, recursion, infinite loop.
16-03-2001
infinite regress
<logic, philosophy of science> a definitional, explanatory, or justificatory procedure that entails its own
reapplication without any limit. Thus, for example, the claim that everything in the world has only extrinsic value
would lead to an infinite regress. Since the lack of any intrinsically worthwhile starting-point would render all
value open to question, the procedure seems to be self-defeating.
John Passmore, Philosophical Reasoning (Basic, 1969).
18-02-2002
infinite set
<mathematics> A set with an infinite number of elements. There are several possible definitions, e.g.
(i) ("Dedekind infinite") A set X is infinite if there exists a bijection (one-to-one mapping) between X and some
proper subset of X.
(ii) A set X is infinite if there exists an injection from N (the set of natural numbers) to X.
In the presence of the Axiom of Choice all such definitions are equivalent.
[FOLDOC]
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Infinite-Monkey Theorem
<humour> "If you put an infinite number of monkeys at typewriters, eventually one will bash out the script for
Hamlet." (One may also hypothesise a small number of monkeys and a very long period of time.) This theorem
asserts nothing about the intelligence of the one random monkey that eventually comes up with the script (and
note that the mob will also type out all the possible *incorrect* versions of Hamlet). It may be referred to semi-
seriously when justifying a brute force method; the implication is that, with enough resources thrown at it, any
technical challenge becomes a one-banana problem.
This theorem was first popularised by the astronomer Sir Arthur Eddington. It became part of the idiom through
the classic short story "Inflexible Logic" by Russell Maloney, and many younger hackers know it through a
reference in Douglas Adams' s "Hitchhiker' s Guide to the Galaxy".
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infinity
1. <mathematics> The size of something infinite.
Using the word in the context of sets is sloppy, since different infinite sets aren' t necessarily the same size
cardinality as each other.
See also aleph 0
2. <programming> The largest value that can be represented in a particular type of variable (register, memory
location, data type, whatever).
See also minus infinity.
16-03-2001
infix notation
<language> One of the possible orderings of functions and operands: in infix notation the functions are placed
between their operands, such as "1+2". Although infix notation is limited to binary functions most languages
mix infix notation with prefix or postfix notation, as a form of syntactic sugar.
[FOLDOC]
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infix syntax
infix notation
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informal fallacy
<logic, philosophy of science> an attempt to persuade that obviously fails to demonstrate the truth of its
conclusion, deriving its only plausibility from a misuse of ordinary language. The informal fallacies include: (1)
fallacies of relevance: appeal to ignorance, appeal to authority, ad hominem argument, and appeal to emotion,
appeal to force, irrelevant conclusion, and appeal to pity; (2) fallacies of presumption: accident, converse
accident, false cause, begging the question, and complex question; (3) fallacies of ambiguity: equivocation,
amphiboly, accent, composition, and division.
Nicholas Capaldi, The Art of Deception: An Introduction to Critical Thinking (Prometheus, 1987);
S. Morris Engel and Rudolf Steiner, With Good Reason: An Introduction to Informal Fallacies (Bedford, 1994);
Douglas N. Walton, Informal Fallacies: Towards a Theory of Argument Criticisms (Benjamins, 1987).
18-01-2002
Information and Communication Technology
<education> (ICT) The study of the technology used to handle information and aid communication. The phrase
was coined by [?] Stevenson in his 1997 report to the UK government and promoted by the new National
Curriculum documents for the UK in 2000.
(http://rubble.ultralab.anglia.ac.uk/stevenson/ICTUKIndex.html).
See also IT
[FOLDOC]
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information technology
<business, jargon> (IT) Applied computer systems - both hardware and software, and often including
networking and telecommunications, usually in the context of a business or other enterprise. Often the name of
the part of an enterprise that deals with all things electronic.
The term "computer science" is usually reserved for the more theoretical, academic aspects of computing,
while the vaguer terms "information systems" (IS) or "information services" may include more of the human
activities and non-computerised business processes like knowledge management.
[FOLDOC]
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informative use of language
<logic, philosophy of science> communication employed for the purpose of asserting propositions or
presenting arguments.
18-02-2002
infrared
<electronics> (IR) Electromagnetic waves in the frequency range just below visible light corresponding to
radiated heat. IR waves can be generated by a kind of LED and are often used for remote controls for
televisions etc. and in some docking stations.
[FOLDOC]
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Ingarden Roman
<history of philosophy, biography> polish philosopher (1893-1970) who developed a comprehensive aesthetic
theory in Das literarische Kunstwerk (The Literary Work of Art: An Investigation on the Borderlines of Ontology,
Logic, and Theory of Literature) (1931). Ingarden' s Vom formalen Aufbau des individuellen Gegenstandes (The
Structure of Individual Objects) (1935) proposed using the phenomenalist methods of Husserl to defend
perceptual realism.
Bohdan Dziemidok, On the Aesthetics of Roman Ingarden: Interpretations and Assessments, ed. by Peter
McCormick (Kluwer, 1989).
12-01-2002
ingenium
<gnoseology, philosophy of science> latin term for natural capacity or understanding.
18-02-2002
inherence
<metaphysics, essence, attribute, logic> the relation between individuals or particulars and their attributes or
universals: when an individual has an attribute, the attribute is said to "inhere" in the the thing.
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inheritance
<PI, object-oriented> In object-oriented programming, the ability to derive new classes from existing classes. A
derived class ("subclass") inherits the instance variables and methods of the "base class" ("superclass"), and
may add new instance variables and methods. New methods may be defined with the same names as those in
the base class, in which case they override the original one.
For example, bytes might belong to the class of integers for which an add method might be defined. The byte
class would inherit the add method from the integer class.
See also multiple inheritance.
[FOLDOC]
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initialise
<PI> To give a variable its first value. This may be done automatically by some languages or it may require
explicit code by the programmer. Some languages allow initialisation to be combined with variable definition,
e.g. in C:
int i = 0;
Failing to initialise a variable before using it is a common programming error, but one which compilers and
automatic checkers like lint can easily detect.
[FOLDOC]
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injection
1. <mathematics> A function, f : A -> B, is injective or one-one, or is an injection, if and only if for all a,b in A, f
(a) = f(b) => a = b. I.e. no two different inputs give the same output (contrast many-to-one). This is sometimes
called an embedding. Only injective functions have left inverses f' where f' (f(x)) = x, since if f were not an
injection, there would be elements of B for which the value of f' was not unique. If an injective function is also a
surjection then is it a bijection.
2. <reduction> An injection function is one which takes objects of type T and returns objects of type C(T) where
C is some type constructor. An example is f x = (x, 0).
The opposite of an injection function is a projection function which extracts a component of a constructed
object, e.g. fst (x,y) = x.
We say that f injects its argument into the data type and fst projects it out.
[FOLDOC]
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innate ideas
<cartesianism, innatism, idealism, epistemology, monism> <rationalism, empiricism, neo-empiricism> ideas

that are inborn rather than acquired through sensory experience. Socrates and Plato taught that such ideas
were acquired by direct acquaintance (prior to birth) with the archetypes or Forms or according to which all
things are constructed. Descartes, as well as other rationalists (in agreement with Plato) believe such "clear
and distinct" innate ideas are the source of all real knowledge. Belief in innate ideas is the distinguishing
feature of rationalism.
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inner product
<mathematics> In linear algebra, any linear map from a vector space to its dual defines a product on the vector
space: for u, v in V and linear g: V -> V' we have gu in V' so (gu): -> V scalars, whence (gu)(v) is a scalar,
known as the inner product of u and v under g. If the value of this scalar is unchanged under interchange of u
and v (i.e. (gu)(v) = (gv)(u)), we say the inner product, g, is symmetric.
Attention is seldom paid to any other kind of inner product.
An inner product, g: V -> V' , is said to be positive definite iff, for all non
-zero v in V, (gv)v > 0; likewise negative
definite iff all such (gv)v < 0; positive semi-definite or non-negative definite iff all such (gv)v >= 0; negative
semi-definite or non-positive definite iff all such (gv)v <= 0. Outside relativity, attention is seldom paid to any
but positive definite inner products.
Where only one inner product enters into discussion, it is generally elided in favour of some piece of syntactic
sugar, like a big dot between the two vectors, and practitioners don' t take much effort to distinguish between
vectors and their duals.
16-03-2001
input
<architecture> data transferred from the outside world into a computer system via some kind of input device.
Opposite output.
[FOLDOC]
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insertion sort
<algorithm> A sorting algorithm that inserts each item in the proper place into an initially empty list by
comparing it with each item in the list until it finds the new element' s successor or the end of the list.
Compare bubble sort.
[FOLDOC]
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instance
<PI> An individual object of a certain class. While a class is just the type definition, an actual usage of a class
is called "instance". Each instance of a class can have different values for its instance variables, i.e. its state.
[FOLDOC]
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instance variable
<PI> In object-oriented programming, one of the variables of a class template which may have a different value
for each object of that class. Instance variables hold the state of an object.
[FOLDOC]
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instantiate
instantiation
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instantiation
<logic> 1. In predicate logic, to remove a quantifier from a wff and either leave the previously bound variables
free or replace them with constants.
See generalization, quantifier
Existential instantiation
Instantiation from the existential quantifier. For example, to move from statements like (Ex)Px to Px or Pa; from
"something is purple" to "x is purple" or "alabaster is purple". Valid only under several restrictions.
Universal instantiation
Instantiation from the existential quantifier. For example, to move from statements like (x)Px to Px or Pa; from
"everything is purple" to "x is purple" or "alabaster is purple". Valid without restriction.
<programming>
2. Producing a more defined version of some object by replacing variables with values (or other variables).
3. In object-oriented programming, producing a particular object from its class template. This involves
allocation of a structure with the types specified by the template, and initialisation of instance variables with
either default values or those provided by the class' sconstructor function.
4. In unification, (as used in logic programming, type checking and type inference), binding a logic variable
(type variable) to some value (type).
[FOLDOC]
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instrumental
<ethics, instrumentalism, hedonism> a feature of values or valued things which is extrinsic: had by things
insofar as they are not desirable or commendable in and of themselves but rather for the sake of, or as a
means to, something else. Money (which gets its value from enabling us to purchase good) and medical
treatment (which is valuable for the health it maintains or restores) are classic examples of extrinsic or
instrumental goods. Contrast: intrinsic.
22-06-2001
integer
<mathematics> (Or "whole number") One of the finite numbers in the infinite set
..., -3, -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, 3, ...
An inductive definition of an integer is a number which is either zero or an integer plus or minus one. An integer
is a number with no fractional part. If written in as a fixed-point number, the part after the decimal (or other
base) point will be zero.
A natural number is a non-negative integer.
[FOLDOC]
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integers
integer
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integrated circuit
<electronics> (IC, or "chip") A microelectronic semiconductor device consisting of many interconnected

transistors and other components. ICs are constructed ("fabricated") on a small rectangle (a "die") cut from a
Silicon (or for special applications, Sapphire) wafer. This is known as the "substrate". Different areas of the
substrate are "doped" with other elements to make them either "p-type" or "n-type" and polysilicon or aluminium
tracks are etched in one to three layers deposited over the surface. The die is then connected into a package
using gold wires which are welded to "pads", usually found around the edge of the die.
Integrated circuits can be classified into analogue, digital and hybrid (both analogue and digital on the same
chip).
Digital integrated circuits can contain anything from one to millions of logic gates - inverters, AND, OR, NAND
and NOR gates, flip-flops, multiplexors etc. on a few square millimetres. The small size of these circuits allows
high speed, low power dissipation, and reduced manufacturing cost compared with board-level integration.
The first integrated circuits contained only a few transistors. Small Scale Integration (SSI) brought circuits
containing transistors numbered in the tens. Later, Medium Scale Integration (MSI) contained hundreds of
transistors. Further development lead to Large Scale Integration (LSI) (thousands), and VLSI (hundreds of
thousands and beyond). In 1986 the first one megabyte RAM was introduced which contained more than one
million transistors.
LSI circuits began to be produced in large quantities around 1970 for computer main memories and pocket
calculators. For the first time it became possible to fabricate a CPU or even an entire microprocessor on a
single integrated circuit. The most extreme technique is wafer-scale integration which uses whole uncut wafers
as components.
[Where and when was the term "chip" introduced?]
[FOLDOC]
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integrationist
<ethics> any position which attempts to reconcile apparently conflicting tendencies or values into a single
framework. Integrationist positions are contrasted with separatist positions, which advocate keeping groups
(usually defined by race, ethnicity, or gender) separate from one another.
26-03-2001
integrity constraint
<database> A constraint (rule) that must remain true for a database to preserve integrity. Integrity constraints
are specified at database creation time and enforced by the database management system.
Examples from a genealogical database would be that every individual must be their parent' s child or that they
can have no more than two natural parents.
[FOLDOC]
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intellectual property
<legal> (IP) the ownership of ideas and control over the tangible or virtual representation of those ideas. Use of
another person' s intellectual property may or may not involve royalty payments or permission, but should
always include proper credit to the source.
[FOLDOC]
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intellectualism
<ethics, philosophy> the first historical figure who is usually called an intellectualist is Socrates (470-399 BC),
since he enunciated the principle that "knowledge is sufficient for excellence" - in other words, that one will do
what is right or best just as soon as one truly understands what is right or best. As an approach to philosophy
and to values, the word intellectualism often has the same meaning as philosophical or psychological
rationalism and commonly has the same negative connotations of over-reliance on theoretical models to the
detriment of practical living.
(References from Platonism and Socraticism.)
[The Ism Book]
25-03-2001
intensional
<logic> having, or presupposing, a use of terms that relates not to the extension (that is, the individual things
that actually happen to fall under these terms in this world) but determines what could or could not fall under
the term (in for example any possible world).
E.g. the extension of "having a heart" and "having a kidney" is the same in this world because in fact all
creatures that have one have the other. But the intension is not the same because a creature with one feature
might not have the other. extension
05-06-2001
intention-in-action
<philosophy of mind> the intentional or mental component of an action. The intention in action causes, and is
contemporaneous with, the agent' s bodily movement or state that is its condition ofsatisfaction. Introduced by
Searle in 1983.
See also intentionality, prior intention, Background, phenomenological critique of representationalism, will
Daniel Barbiero
16-03-2001
intentional phenomena
intentionality
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intentional phenomenon
intentionality
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intentional state
intentionality
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intentional states
intentionality
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intentionalism
<metaphysics, philosophy of mind> the principle that consciousness is always consciousness of something,
that is, of some aspect of reality. This idea is common to most varieties of epistemological realism. A different
formulation defines "intentionalism" as the thesis that all mental states are representational states. Specifically,
raw feels and qualia, are said to have representational content.
Based on [Dictionary of Philosophy of Mind] and [The Ism Book]
25-04-2001
intentionality
<gnoseology, moral philosophy> the characteristic feature of cognitive states - that they invariably represent or
are about something beyond themselves. The intentions of a moral agent are, therefore, the states of mind that
accompany its actions.
Daniel C. Dennett, The Intentional Stance (MIT, 1989); William Lyons, Approaches to Intentionality (Oxford,
1998);
John R. Searle, Intentionality (Cambridge, 1983); Robert C. Stalnaker, Context and Content: Essays on
Intentionality in Speech and Thought (Oxford, 1999); Hubert L. Dreyfus, Husserl, Intentionality and Cognitive
Science (Bradford, 1990);
Edward N. Zalta, Intentional Logic and the Metaphysics of Intentionality (MIT, 1988);
Michael Bratman, Faces of Intention: Selected Essays on Intention and Agency (Cambridge, 1999).
18-02-2004
intentionality derived
<philosophy of mind> the power of a system (e.g. the mind) to be "about" something if that power is derived
from that system' s connection to another, already intentional system.
Language' sintentionality is said to be derived from that of the mind.
Alan J. Laser
16-03-2001
interactionism
<history of philosophy, metaphysics> the supposition, defended by Descartes and others, that the minds and
bodies of human beings exert direct causal influence on each other, even though they are distinct substances
of different kinds.
The Incorporated Self, ed. by Michael O' Donovan
-Anderson (Rowman & Littlefield, 1996);
Karl Popper, Knowledge and the Body-Mind Problem: In Defence of Interaction (Routledge, 1996);
Matthew Buncombe, The Substance of Consciousness: An Argument for Interactionism (Avebury, 1995).
18-02-2002
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interactive
<PI> A term describing a program whose input and output are interleaved, like a conversation, allowing the
user' s input to depend on earlier output from the same run.
The interaction with the user is usually conducted through either a text-based interface or a graphical user
interface. Other kinds of interface, e.g. using speech recognition and/or speech synthesis, are also possible.
This is in contrast to batch processing where all the input is prepared before the program runs and so cannot
depend on the program' s output.
[FOLDOC]
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interface
<jargon> A boundary across which two systems communicate. An interface might be a hardware connector
used to link to other devices, or it might be a convention used to allow communication between two software
systems. Often there is some intermediate component between the two systems which connects their
interfaces together. For example, two EIA-232 interfaces connected via a serial cable.
See also graphical user interface, Application Program Interface.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
internalism
<philosophy of mind> internalists hold that mental events supervene only on physical events internal to the
body of the subject of those mental events. Also known as individualism.
See also supervenience, externalism.
P. Mandik
16-03-2001
Internet
<networking>
1. (Note: not capitalised)

Any set of networks interconnected with routers. The Internet is the biggest example of an internet.
2. (Note: capital "I").

The Internet is the largest internet (with a small "i") in the world. It is a three level hierarchy composed of
backbone networks (e.g. ARPAnet, NSFNet, MILNET), mid-level networks, and stub networks. These include
commercial (.com or .co), university (.ac or .edu) and other research networks (.org, .net) and military (.mil)
networks and span many different physical networks around the world with various protocols, chiefly the
Internet Protocol.
Until the advent of the World-Wide Web in 1990, the Internet was almost entirely unknown outside universities
and corporate research departments and was accessed mostly via command line interfaces such as telnet and
FTP. Since then it has grown to become an almost-ubiquitous aspect of modern information systems,
becoming highly commercial and a widely accepted medium for all sort of customer relations such as
advertising, brand building, and online sales and services. Its original spirit of cooperation and freedom have,
to a great extent, survived this explosive transformation with the result that the vast majority of information
available on the Internet is free of charge.
While the web (primarily in the form of HTML and HTTP) is the best known aspect of the Internet, there are
many other protocols in use, supporting applications such as electronic mail, Usenet, chat, remote login, and
file transfer.
There were 20,242 unique commercial domains registered with InterNIC in September 1994, 10% more than in
August 1994. In 1996 there were over 100 Internet access providers in the US and a few in the UK (e.g. the
BBC Networking Club, Demon, PIPEX).
There are several bodies associated with the running of the Internet, including the Internet Architecture Board,
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the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, the Internet Engineering and Planning Group, Internet Engineering
Steering Group, and the Internet Society.
See also NYsernet, EUNet.
The Internet Index http://www.openmarket.com/intindex) - statistics about the Internet.
[FOLDOC]
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interpolation
<mathematics, algorithm> A mathematical procedure which estimates values of a function at positions between
listed or given values. Interpolation works by fitting a "curve" (i.e. a function) to two or more given points and
then applying this function to the required input. Example uses are calculating trigonometric functions from
tables and audio waveform synthesis.
The simplest form of interpolation is where a function, f(x), is estimated by drawing a straight line ("linear
interpolation") between the nearest given points on either side of the required input value:
f(x) ~ f(x1) + (f(x2) - f(x1))(x-x1)/(x2 - x1)
There are many variations using more than two points or higher degree polynomial functions. The technique
can also be extended to functions of more than one input.
[FOLDOC]
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interpolation theorem
<logic> If |= (A =>B), and if A and B share at least one propositional symbol, then there is a wff C all of whose
propositional symbols occur in A and B such that |= (A =>C) and |= (C =>B).
A syntactic version of the theorem replaces "|=" with "|-".
16-03-2001
interpretation
<logic> The assignment of objects from the domain to the constants of a formal language, truth-values to the
proposition symbols, truth-functions to the connectives, other functions to the function symbols, and extensions
to the predicates (when these extensions consist of subsets of the domain).
These assignments are made by the human logician and are not native to the symbols of the formal language.
These assignments can be captured by a function f so that (for example) for a constant, f(c) = object d from
domain D; for a proposition, f(p) = true; for a truth-function, f( =>) = material implication; for a function, f(g) =
squaring the successor; or for a predicate, f(P) = the set of purple things. In propositional logic, an
interpretation is just such a function; in predicate logic, it is some set (the domain) together with such a function
defined for members of that domain.
Cardinality of an interpretation
The cardinality of the domain of the interpretation.
See domain, model, model theory
Normal interpretation
An interpretation for systems with identity in which the relation of identity is assigned to the symbol "=" or some
other 2-adic predicate.
See first-order theory with identity, model, normal, predicate logic with identity
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intersection of sets
<logic> The intersection of two sets, A and B, is the set of elements that are members of both A and B.
Notation: A / B, or sometimes, AB. Also called the product of A and B. A / B =df x : (x : A)o(x : B)
16-03-2001
intertextuality
<linguistics, philosophy, semantic theory> the complex mosaic of relationships by means of which signifiers
have meaning in the semantic theories of Lyotard and Kristeva.
Graham Allen, Intertextuality (Routledge, 2000); Criticism, History, and Intertextuality, ed. by Richard Fleming
and Michael Payne (Bucknell, 1987);
Michael Worton and Judith Still, Intertextuality: Theories and Practices (Manchester, 1991).
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intrinsic - extrinsic
<philosophy of science, epistemology, ethics> distinction between the features of things. The intrinsic features
of a thing are those which it has in and of itself; while its extrinsic features are those which it has only in its
relation to something else. Thus, for example, I am intrinsically a human being, but only extrinsically a father. It
might reasonably be disputed whether my being male is an intrinsic biological feature or an extrinsic cultural
construction. In epistemology, the distinction between primary and secondary qualities points out the difference
between the intrinsic and the extrinsic properties of material objects, and in normative ethics, deontologists and
consequentialists disagree about whether the moral value of human actions resides in their intrinsic or their
extrinsic features.
Noah M. Lemos, Intrinsic Value: Concept and Warrant (Cambridge, 1994)
Michael J. Zimmerman, The Nature of Intrinsic Value (Rowman & Littlefield, 2001).
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intrinsicism
<epistemology, ethics> intrinsicism in epistemology claims that our evaluations of things as true or valuable are
not affected by our nature as human beings, but that truth and values exist out there in reality, divorced from
human interests and concerns. A classic example is the intrinsic theory of value in the economic thought of the
Middle Ages, which held that there is one natural, intrinsically-correct price for each product in the world. This
example shows the priinciple that intrinsicism is frequently the flip side of subjectivism, since the "natural price"
was the price that the authorities or the guilds set up for themselves according to their own interests. Forms of
objectivism attempt to offer workable alternatives to the false dichotomy of intrinsicism vs. subjectivism.
(References from conceptualism, idealism, intuitionism, Kantianism, objectivism, perspectivism, Platonism,
realism, and subjectivism.)
[The Ism Book]
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intuitionism
<logic, philosophy of science, moral philosophy> reliance on unmediated awareness as a criterion of truth. In
logic and mathematics, intuitionism denies the independent reality of mathematical objects and the principle of
excluded middle. In moral philosophy, intuitionism is the metaethical theory that moral judgments are made by
reference to a direct, non-inferential awareness of moral value. Ethical intuitionists usually hold that we
recognize our duties in the specific features of particular moral decisions.
Gisele Fischer Servi, Intuitionism and Models of Cognition (Giro, 1996);
Michael Dummett, Elements of Intuitionism (Oxford, 2000);
Grant C. Sterling, Ethical Intuitionism and Its Critics (Peter Lang, 1994);
James Q. Wilson, Moral Intuitions (Transaction, 2000).
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intuitionism (b)
<ethics, philosophy of mathematics>

1. in ethics the term refers to the doctrine (popular in Britain around the turn of the century) that all of our moral
judgments are made through an appeal to our moral intuitions or "moral sense". This ethical doctrine is derived
from a more general idea in epistemology dating back to Plato: namely, a radical intrinsicism which holds that
all of our knowledge is gained through intuition, immediate insight, or spiritual vision of a transcendent higher
reality. In addition, the movement of ethical intuitionism picked up on the ideas of the earlier "moral sense
theorists" such as David Hume (1711-1776) and Adam Smith (1723-1790). Even though intuitionism is a form
of intrinsicism, it ends up being a kind of subjectivism, in which the justification for ethical values is the fact that
a certain person or philosopher thinks they are true. Historically, intuitionism has tended to be a kind of
deontologism, although the cause may have been simply the beliefs of the intuitionists themselves and not
anything about intuitionism in general.
(References from emotionalism and mysticism.)
[The Ism Book]
2. in philosophy of mathematics see intuitionistic logic
28-04-2001
intuitionistic logic
<logic, mathematics> Brouwer' s foundational theory of mathematics which says that you should not count a
proof of (There exists x such that P(x)) valid unless the proof actually gives a method of constructing such an x.
Similarly, a proof of (A or B) is valid only if it actually exhibits either a proof of A or a proof of B.
In intuitionism, you cannot in general assert the statement (A or not-A) (the principle of the excluded middle); (A
or not-A) is not proven unless you have a proof of A or a proof of not-A. If A happens to be undecidable in your
system (some things certainly will be), then there will be no proof of (A or not-A). This is pretty annoying; some
kinds of perfectly healthy-looking proofs by contradiction just stop working. Of course, excluded middle is a
theorem of classical logic (i.e. non-intuitionistic logic).
[FOLDOC]
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invariant
<PI> A rule, such as the ordering of an ordered list or heap, that applies throughout the life of a data structure
or procedure. Each change to the data structure must maintain the correctness of the invariant.
[FOLDOC]
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inverse
<mathematics> Given a function, f : D -> C, a function g : C -> D is called a left inverse for f if for all d in D, g (f
d) = d and a right inverse if, for all c in C, f (g c) = c and an inverse if both conditions hold. Only an injection has
a left inverse, only a surjection has a right inverse and only a bijection has inverses. The inverse of f is often
written as f with a -1 superscript.
[FOLDOC]
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Irigaray Luce
<history of philosophy, biography> french psycholinguist and philosopher (1932-), author of Passions
Elementaires (Elemental Passions) (1982), Ethique de la Difference Sexuelle (An Ethics of Sexual Difference)
(1984), Je, Tu, Nous: Pour une Culture de la Difference (Je, Tu, Nous: Toward a Culture of Difference) (1990).
Irigaray examines the systematic suppression of feminine and maternal concerns from the history of Western
philosophy in Ce sexe qui en est pas un (This sex which is not one) (1977), arguing that valorization of the
masculine is destructive to the fluid multiplicity of feminine sexuality. Her essays often try to convey the
significance of subjectivity by modifying the conventions of putatively ' objective' speech. In Speculum de l' au
femme (Speculum of the Other Woman) (1974), Irigary argues that women can de-center the "master
discourse" of linguistic communication by affirming their biological duality. Recent translations of Irigaray' s work
include Sexes and Geneologies (1993), To Be Two (2001), Speech is Never Neuter (2001), and Democracy
Begins Between Two (2001).
The Irigaray Reader, tr. and ed. by Margaret Whitford and David Macey (Blackwell, 1991);
Joan Nordquist, French Feminist Theory: Luce Irigaray and Helene Cixous: A Bibliography (Ref. & Res., 1991);
Margaret Whitford, Luce Irigaray: Philosophy in the Feminine (Routledge, 1991);
Engaging with Irigaray, ed. by Carolyn Burke, Naomi Schor, and Margaret Whitford (Columbia, 1994);
Tina Chanter, Ethics of Eros: Irigaray' s Rewriting of the Philosophers (Routledge, 1995);
Tamsin E. Lorraine, Irigaray & Deleuze: Experiments in Visceral Philosophy (Cornell, 1999).
12-01-2002
irony
<philosophy, psychology, linguistics> use of language to convey something entirely different from its literal
meaning. Thus, Socrates professed an ignorance that was the mark of true wisdom, and Kierkegaard often
tried to provoke his readers by writing exactly the opposite of what he intended for them to believe.
Soren Kierkegaard, The Concept of Irony, tr. by Howard V. Hong (Princeton, 1992);
Alexander Nehamas, The Art of Living: Socratic Reflections from Plato to Foucault (California, 2000); David
Wisdo, The Life of Irony and the Ethics of Belief (SUNY, 1992);
Richard Rorty, Contingency, Irony and Solidarity (Cambridge, 1989).
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irrational number
<mathematics> A real number which is not a rational number, i.e. it is not the ratio of two integers. In decimal
notation, they are the fractions represented by infinite, non-repeating decimal expansions. Examples of
irrational numbers are pi, e and the square root of two.
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irrefutable
The opposite of refutable.
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irrelevant conclusion
<logic, philosophy of science, ignoratio elenchi> reasoning that misses the point. The informal fallacy of
defending the truth of a proposition by appeal to an argument that is actually concerned with something else.
Example: "Parents with large incomes can buy lots of things for their children. Therefore, the children of
wealthy parents are happy".
18-01-2002
isochronous
<communications> /i:-sok' rn -*s/ A form of data transmission that guarantees to provide a certain minimum data
rate, as required for time-dependent data such as video or audio.
Isochronous transmission transmits asynchronous data over a synchronous data link so that individual
characters are only separated by a whole number of bit-length intervals. This is in contrast to asynchronous
transmission, in which the characters may be separated by arbitrary intervals, and with synchronous
transmission [which does what?].
Asynchronous Transfer Mode and High Performance Serial Bus can provide isochronous service.
Compare: plesiochronous.
[ANIXTER, LAN Magazine 7.93]
[FOLDOC]
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isochronous transfer
isochronous
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isometry
<mathematics> A mapping of a metric space onto another or onto itself so that the distance between any two
points in the original space is the same as the distance between their images in the second space. For
example, any combination of rotation and translation is an isometry of the plane.
[FOLDOC]
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isomorphic
<mathematics> Two mathematical objects are isomorphic if they have the same structure, i.e. if there is an
isomorphism between them. For every component of one there is a corresponding component of the other.
[FOLDOC]
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isomorphism
<mathematics> A bijective map between two objects which preserves, in both directions, any structure under
consideration. Thus a `group isomorphism' preserves group structure; an order isomorphism (betweenposets)
preserves the order relation, and so on. Usually it is clear from context what sort of isomorphism is intended.
[FOLDOC]
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isomorphism class
<mathematics> A collection of all the objects isomorphic to a given object. Talking about the isomorphism
class (of a poset, say) ensures that we will only consider its properties as a poset, and will not consider other
incidental properties it happens to have.
[FOLDOC]
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isomorphism of models
<logic>Roughly, when models are identical in form and differ (if at all) only in content. Or when their domains
map onto one another in the sense that their elements can be put into one-to-one correspondence and they
stand in the same relations. To define isomorphism more precisely, let us say that D and D' are the domains o
the two models under comparison, that for every member d of D there is a counterpart d' of D' and vice vers
that every function f defined for D has a counterpart function f' defined for D' and vice versa, and that eve
predicate P defined for D has a counterpart predicate P' defined for D' and vice versa. Now the two models a
isomorphic iff these three conditions are met: (1) D and D' can be put into one -to-one correspondence, (2) for
all functions f and f' , f(d1...dn) = dn+1iff f' (d1' ...dn' ) = dn+1' and (3) forpredicates
all P and P' , Pd1...dniff
P' d1' ...dn' .
See categoricity of systems, L"wenheim-Skolem theorem
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IT
1. <PI> information technology.
2. <language, mathematics, history> Internal Translator.
[FOLDOC]
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iteration
<PI> Repetition of a sequence of instructions. A fundamental part of many algorithms. Iteration is characterised
by a set of initial conditions, an iterative step and a termination condition.
A well known example of iteration in mathematics is Newton-Raphson iteration.
Iteration in programs is expressed using loops, e.g. in C:
new_x = n/2;
do x = new_x; new_x = 0.5 * (x + n/x); while (abs(new_x-x) > epsilon);
Iteration can be expressed in functional languages using recursion:
solve x n = if abs(new_x-x) > epsilon
then solve new_x n
else new_x
where new_x = 0.5 * (x + n/x) solve n/2 n
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[FOLDOC]
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James, William
James, William (1842-1909)

William James was raised in a highly intellectual household: his father Henry, Sr. was a Swedenborgian
theologian, his sister Alice wrote lengthy, literary diaries, and his brother Henry, Jr. became a renowned
novelist. William himself studied art and geology before recieving a professional medical degree from Harvard
university, where he taught for thirty-five years. Despite an energetic constitution, James struggled throughout
life with such severe bouts of hypochondria, melancholy, and depression that he regarded himself as persisting
only by means of a deliberate effort of will. Upon his death, however, a friend expressed great respect for
James' s wisdom, integrity, and equanimity.
Work in psychology with Hugo Munsterburg at Harvard resulted in publication of James' s Principles o
Psychology (1890), the classic exposition of a discipline in transition from reliance upon anecdotal introspection
toward its experimental foundations as a natural science. James himself emphasized the notion of the
individual self or person as a continuous "stream of consciousness" capable of exercising free will.
In Pragmatism: A New Name for some Old Ways of Thinking (1907) James offered significant expansions of
C.S. Peirce' s philosophy of pragmatism. He not only accepted Peirce' s method of using pragmatic meaning
resolve dispute, but also spelled out a pragmatic theory of truth as whatever is "expedient in the way of our
thinking." During the same period, James wrote the mature expression of his epistemological principles that
was published posthumously in Essays in Radical Empiricism (1912). There, his application of empirical
principles results in neutral monism as a foundation for a phenomenalist analysis of human experience. Since
for James it was the consequences of believing that matter, he argued in "The Will to Believe" (1897) that
belief must remain an individual process and that we may rationally choose to believe some crucial
propositions even though they lie beyond the reach of reason and evidence. This position has important
implications for religious convictions in particular, which James explored in detail in The Varieties of Religious
Experience (1902). A frequent commentator on public affairs, James proposed a system of national voluntary
service in The Moral Equivalent of War (1906).
Primary sources:
William James, Works, ed. by Frederick Burkhardt (Harvard, 1975- );
William James, Pragmatism and Other Writings (Penguin, 2000);
William James, Essays in Radical Empiricism, ed. by Ellen Kappy Suckiel (Nebraska, 1996);
William James, The Meaning of Truth (Prometheus, 1997);
William James, Principles of Psychology (Dover, 1955), Vol 1, 2;
William James, The Will to Believe and Human Immortality (Dover, 1985);
William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience (Random House, 1999).
Secondary sources:
Howard M. Feinstein, Becoming William James (Cornell, 2000);
The Cambridge Companion to William James, ed. by Ruth Anna Putnam (Cambridge, 1997);
Charlene Haddock Seigfried, Pragmatism and Feminism: Reweaving the Social Fabric (Chicago, 1996);
Ralph Barton Perry, The Thought and Character of William James, ed. by Charlene Haddock Seigfried
(Vanderbilt, 1996).
Additional on-line information about James includes:

The comprehensive James Site from Frank Pajares.
T. L. S. Sprigge' s article in The Oxford Companion to Philosophy.
Also see: American philosophy, emotion and feeling, empiricism, Harvard philosophy, philosophy of mind, the
pragmatic theory of truth, pragmatism, the stream of consciousness, tender- and tough-minded, and the will to
believe.

Russell Goodman' s article in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Owen Thomas' s collection of links to on -line material on James.
R. H. Albright' s lofty assessment of the work of James.
Snippets from James in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations.
An article by Tadeusz Zawidzki in The Dictionary of the Philosophy of Mind.
Excellent on-line resources on James (en Español) from Gustavo Parra.
A brief entry (with his brother) in The Macmillan Encyclopedia 2001.
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Jansenism
Theological belief that obedience to divine will is possible only for those on whom god has already chosen to
bestow grace, leaving no room for the exercise of human freedom. This view was originated by Dutch bishop
Cornelius Jansen (1585-1638) and defended against Jesuit attacks by members of the Port-Royal community,
including Arnauld and Pascal.
Leszek Kolakowski, God Owes Us Nothing: A Brief Remark on Pascal' s Religion and on the Spirit o
Jansenism (Chicago, 1998);
William Doyle, Jansenism: Catholic Resistance to Authority from the Reformation to the French Revolution
(Palgrave, 2000).
24-10-2003
Jargon File
<source> The on-line hacker Jargon File. A large collection of (often amusing) definitions of computing terms.
Many definitions in this dictinoary are from v3.0.0 of 1993-07-27.
Current version: 4.0.0 (1996-07-25), as of 1998-02-22, corresponds to the third paper edition entitled "The New
Hacker' s Dictionary", due out in September 1996.
The file is available through ftp at any of the GNU archives as jarg400.txt.
Home (http://www.tuxedo.org/jargon/).
See also Yellow Book, Jargon.
30-10-2003
Jaspers, Karl Theodor
(1883-1969) German physician, psychiatrist, and philosopher educated at Heidelberg and Göttingen. In
Philosophie (1931), Von der Wahrheit (On Truth) (1947), and Einführung in die Philosophie (Way to Wisdom)
(1950) Jaspers developed a version of existentialism in which the effort to understand our concrete existence
leads from careful self-analysis to a personal quest for authenticity in relation to the transcendent
"Encompassing." Jaspers also wrote on topics in the history of philosophy in Vom Ursprung und Ziel der
Geschichte (On the Origin and Goal of History) (1949) and Die großen Philosophen (The Great Philosophers)
(1957). He also commented on the national emotions associated with the aftermath of World War II in Die
Schuldfrage (The Question of German Guilt) (1946). A basic statement of his philosophical development may
be found in On My Philosophy (1941).
Karl Jaspers: Basic Philosophical Writings: Selections (Humanity, 1994);
Karl Jaspers, Philosophy of Existence, tr. by Richard F. Grabau (Pennsylvania, 1971);
Karl Jaspers, Reason and Existenz: Five Lectures (Marquette, 1997);
Hannah Arendt / Karl Jaspers Correspondence 1926-1969, ed. by Lotte Kohler and Hans Saner (Harcourt
Brace, 1993);
Philosophy of Karl Jaspers, ed. by Lewis Edwin Hahn (Open Court, 1981);
Richard Wisser, Karl Jaspers: Philosoph unter Philosophen, ed. by Leonard H. Ehrlich (Rodopi, 1993);
Karl Jaspers Today, ed. by Leonard H. Ehrlich and Richard Wisser (UPA, 1988).
24-10-2003
Jefferson, Thomas
(1743-1826) American political leader. Jefferson' s draft for the Declaration of Independence (1776) and his
Autobiography (1821) reflect thorough absorption of the philosophical and political views of John Locke , many
of which he shared with other American founders.
Allen Jayne, Jefferson' s Declaration of Independence: Origins, Philosophy, and Theology (Kentucky, 2000);
Garrett Ward Sheldon, The Political Philosophy of Thomas Jefferson (Johns Hopkins, 1993);
Daniel J. Boorstin, The Lost World of Thomas Jefferson (Chicago, 1993).
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join
1. <database> inner join (common) or outer join (less common).
2. <theory> least upper bound.
[FOLDOC]
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Joint Method of Agreement and Difference
One of Mill' s Methods for the discovery of a causal relationship. If an antecedent circumstance is invariably
present when, but only when, a phenomenon occurs, it may be inferred to be the cause of that phenomenon.
Example: "The seventeen students who attended the review session earned grades of C or better on the final
exam, while the eleven students who did not earned grades of D or F. Therefore, attending the review session
was an effective way to prepare for the final exam."
John Stuart Mill, System of Logic (Classworks, 1986).
24-10-2003
joint occurrence
The complex event comprising the occurrence of both of its constituent events. The probability of a joint
occurrence is calculated by the formula:
P(A • B) = P(A) × P(B, if A)
Thus, for example, the chances of getting "heads" both times on two tosses of a coin are equal to the chances
of getting "heads" on the first toss (1/2) times the chances of getting "heads" on the second toss (1/2), or 1/4.
Richard Lowry, The Architecture of Chance: An Introduction to the Logic and Arithmetic of Probability (Oxford,
1989);
Ian Hacking, An Introduction to Probability and Inductive Logic (Cambridge, 2001);
Donald Gillies, Philosophical Theories of Probability (Routledge, 2000).
24-10-2003
judgment
(Ger. Urteil)
The mental act of affirming a proposition or the capacity for distinguishing truth from falsity.
See also Kant
24-10-2003
Jung, Carl Gustav
(1875-1961) Swiss psychiatrist. Jung rejected Freudian accounts of infant sexuality as the source of the libido
and emphasized a generalized will to live. In Wandlungen und Symbolen der Libido (The Psychology of the
Unconscious) (1912), Jung developed a rich account of the unconscious, positing shared primordial
"archetypes" as elements established innately in the collective unconscious of all human beings rather than as
features of individual personality in The Archetypes and The Collective Unconscious (1926). Such underlying
mental contents, Jung claimed in The Association Method (1910), can be observed most easily through the
free association of words. A simple statement of his most basic principles may be found in chapter IX of
Modern Man in Search of a Soul (1933).
Carl Gustav Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections (Vintage, 1989);
The Essential Jung, ed. by Anthony Storr (Princeton, 1999);
The Portable Jung, ed. by Joseph Campbell and R. F. C. Hull (Viking, 1976);
The Cambridge Companion to Jung, ed. by Polly Young-Eisendrath and Terence Dawson (Cambridge, 1997);
Marilyn Nagy, Philosophical Issues in the Psychology of C.G. Jung (SUNY, 1991);
Thomas Mulvihill King, Jung' s Four and Some Philosophers: A Paradigm for Philosophy (Notre Dame, 1999).
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just war theory
The attempt to provide acceptable conditions for international conflict. As developed by Augustine and
Aquinas, just war theory typically distinguishes the conditions under which war may be intitiated (ius ad bellum),
including a legitimate authority exercising a right intention in pursuit of a just cause, from the rules under which
war may be conducted (ius in bello), including concern with proportionality of the means and discrimination
between combatants and non-combatants.
Just War Theory, ed. by Jean Bethke Elshtain (NYU, 1991);
Richard J. Regan, Just War: Principles and Cases (Catholic U. of A., 1996);
Paul Christopher, The Ethics of War and Peace: An Introduction to Legal and Moral Issues (Prentice Hall,
1998);
Paul Ramsey, Speak Up for Just War or Pacifism (Penn. State, 1988).
24-10-2003
Justice
(Gk. díkê; Lat. Iustitia)

Equitable distribution of goods and evils, including reward and punishment. After surveying alternative notions
of the virtue of justice (Gk. dikaiôsunê), Plato defined it as the harmonious function of diverse elements of
society or of the distinct souls within an individual person. Most social philosophers of the Western tradition,
however, have followed Aristotle' s conceptions of retributive and distributive justice. Contemporary discussions
often focus on Rawls' s notion of "justice as fairness."
Richard D. Parry, Plato' s Craft of Justice (SUNY, 1996);
John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Belknap, 1999); Martha Craven Nussbaum, Sex & Social Justice (Oxford,
2000);
Michael Walzer, Spheres of Justice: A Defense of Pluralism and Equality (Basic, 1984);
Randy E. Barnett, The Structure of Liberty: Justice and the Rule of Law (Oxford, 2000).
24-10-2003
justification
What is offered as grounds for believing an assertion. Hence, also, an explanation of the legitimacy of each
step in the formal proof of the validity of a deductive argument.
Empirical Knowledge, ed. by Paul K. Moser (Rowman & Littlefield, 1996);
Robert Audi, The Structure of Justification (Cambridge, 1993);
The Justification of Deduction (Oxford, 1974).
24-10-2003
k-validity
<logic> A wff is k-valid iff it is true for every interpretation with a domain of exactly k members.
See logical validity, omega-completeness
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Kant Immanuel
<history of philosophy, biography> Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) was born in the East Prussian city of
Koenigsberg, studied at its university, and worked there as a tutor and professor for more than forty years,
never travelling more than fifty miles from home. Although his outward life was one of legendary calm and
regularity Kant' s intellectual work easily justified his own claim to have effected a Copernican revolution in
philosophy. Beginning with his Inaugural Dissertation (1770) on the difference between right- and left-handed
spatial orientations, Kant patiently worked out the most comprehensive and influential philosophical programme
of the modern era. His central thesis-that the possibility of human knowledge presupposes the active
participation of the human mind-is deceptively simple, but the details of its application are notoriously complex.
The monumental Kritik der reinen Vernunft (Critique of Pure Reason) (1781, 1787) fully spells out the
conditions for mathematical, scientific, and metaphysical knowledge in its "Transcendental Aesthetic"
"Transcendental Analytic" and "Transcendental Dialectic" but Kant found it helpful to offer a less technical
exposition of the same themes in the Prolegomena zu einer jeden kuenftigen Metaphysik die als Wissenschaft
wird auftreten koennen (Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysic) (1783). Carefully distinguishing judgments as
analytic or synthetic and as a priori or a posteriori, Kant held that the most interesting and useful varieties of
human knowledge rely upon synthetic a priori judgments, which are, in turn, possible only when the mind
determines the conditions of its own experience. Thus, it is we who impose the forms of space and time upon
all possible sensations in mathematics, and it is we who render all experience coherent as scientific knowledge
governed by traditional notions of substance and causality by applying the pure concepts of the understanding
to all possible experience. But regulative principles of this sort hold only for the world as we know it, and since
metaphysical propositions seek a truth beyond all experience, they cannot be established within the bounds of
reason.
Significant applications of these principles are expressedin Metaphysische Anfangsgruende der

Naturwissenschaft (Metaphysical Foundations of the Science of Nature) (1786) and Beantwortung der Frage:
Ist es eine Erfahrung, dass wir denken? (On Comprehension and Transcendental Consciousness) (1788-
1791). Kant' s moral philosophy is developed in the Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten (Grounding for the
Metaphysics of Morals) (1785). From his analysis of the operation of the human will, Kant derived the necessity
of a perfectly universalizable moral law, expressed in a categorical imperative that must be regarded as binding
upon every agent. In the Third Section of the Grounding and in the Kritik der practischen Vernunft (Critique of
Practical Reason) (1788), Kant grounded this conception of moral autonomy upon our postulation of god,
freedom, and immortality.
In later life, Kant drew art and science together under the concept of purpose in the Kritik der Urteilskraft
(Critique of Judgment) (1790), considered the consequences of transcendental criticism for theology in Die
Religion innerhalb die Grenzen der blossen Vernunft (Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone) (1793),
stated the fundamental principles for civil discourse in Beantwortung der Frage: Was ist Aufklaerung? ("What
is Enlightenment?") (1784), and made an eloquent plea for international cooperation in Zum ewigen Frieden
(Perpetual Peace) (1795).
Primary sources:
Kants gessamelte Schriften, ed. by der Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (de Gruyter, 1902-1956);
Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, tr. by Werner S. Pluhar and Patricia Kitcher (Hackett, 1996);
Kant: Critique of Practical Reason, tr. by Lewis W. Beck (MacMillan, 1992);
Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgment, ed. by Werner S. Pluhar (Hackett, 1987);
Immanuel Kant, Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics That Will Be Able to Come Forward As Science, tr.
by Paul Carus (Hackett, 1977);
Immanuel Kant, Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals, tr. by James W. Ellington (Hackett, 1993).
Secondary sources:
Ernst Cassirer, Stephan Korner, and James Haden, Kant' s Life and Thought (Yale, 1986);
Roger Scruton, Kant (Oxford, 1983);
The Cambridge Companion to Kant, ed. by Paul Guyer (Cambridge, 1992);
Ralph C.S. Walker, Kant (Routledge, 1999);
Sebastian Gardner, Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Kant and the Critique of Pure Reason (Routledge,
1999);
Norman Kemp Smith, Commentary to Kant' s Critique of Pure Reason (Humanity, 1991);
Paul Guyer, Kant and the Claims of Knowledge (Cambridge, 1987);
Jonathan Bennett, Kant' s Analytic (Cambridge, 1966);
Karl Ameriks, Kant' s Theory of Mind: An Analysis of the Paralogisms of Pure Reason (Oxford, 2000);
Kant' s Critique of Pure Reason: Critical Essays, ed. by Patricia Kitcher (Rowman & Littlefield, 1998);
Henry E. Allison, Kant' s Transcendental Idealism: An Interpretation and Defense (Yale, 1986);
Rudolf A. Makkreel, Imagination and Interpretation in Kant: The Hermeneutical Import of the Critique of
Judgment (Chicago, 1994);
Feminist Interpretations of Immanuel Kant, ed. by Robin May Schott (Penn. State, 1997);
Roger J. Sullivan, An Introduction to Kant' s Ethics (Cambridge, 1994);
Kant' s Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals: Critical Essays, ed. by Paul Guyer (Rowman & Littlefield
1997);
Christine M. Korsgaard, Creating the Kingdom of Ends (Cambridge, 1996).
Additional on-line information about Kant includes:

Stephen Palmquist' s comprehensive Kant on the Web site.
The excellent Kant Glossary from Andrew Carpenter.
Richard Lee' s excellent collection of links on Kant.
Henry E. Allison' s article in The Oxford Companion to Philosophy.
Related OCP articles on: aesthetics, the antinomies, apperception, autonomy and heteronomy, the categorical
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imperative, duty, ethical formalism, German philosophy, the golden rule, good will, idealism, ideas of reason,
immortality, incongruent counterparts, inner sense, Kantian ethics, Kantianism, liberalism, the manifold of
sense, philosophy of mathematics, metaphysics, modernism, moral law, moral philosophy, neo-Kantianism,
obligation, phenomena and noumena, practical reason, rationality, realism and anti-realism, regulative
principles, philosophy of religion, right action, sexual morality, sincerity, space, the sublime, synthetic a priori
judgments, thing-in-itself, transcendental analytic, transcendental arguments, virtues, ethical voluntarism,
Vorstellung, and will.
Immanuel Kant Information Online, from Das Marburger Kant-Archiv.

G.J. Mattey' s thoughtful summary of Kant' s philosophy.
A section on Kant from Alfred Weber' s history of philosophy.
William Turner' s thorough article in The Catholic Encyclopedia.
Ethics Updates discussion of Kant and Kantian ethics, by Lawrence Hinman.
Snippets from Kant (German and English) in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations.
The Bloomsbury Guide to Human Thought on Kantian
Ethics and The Sublime.
A discussion of Kant' s notion of freedom from K • roly KÛkai.
A paper on Non-spatiotemporality and the Unknowability of Things in Themselves from JuanAdolfo Bonaccini.
Some Essential Points in Reading The Critique of Pure Reason from Eduardo Shore.
Robert Greenberg on Kant' s Categories.
A Kantian Interpretation of Demonstrative Reference by Wing-Chun Wong.
Bj–rn Christensson' s brief guide to Internet resources on Kant.
Robert Sarkissian' s brief summary of Kant' s philosophy.
20-11-2003
Kelsen Hans
<history of philosophy, biography> Austrian legal philosopher (1881-1973) who wrote the constitution adopted
by the Austrian republic in 1920. Kelsen rejected both natural law theory and legal positivism in Allgemeine
Staatslehre (General Theory of Law and State) (1925) and Reine Rechtslehre (Introduction to the Problems of
Legal Theory) (1934). Kelsen' s own view, most fully developed in the posthumous Allgemeine Theorie de
Normen (General Theory of Norms) (1975), traced the legitimacy of social legislation back to a fundamental
"ground rule" (Ger. Grundnorm) whose universal status is independent of morality.
David Dyzenhaus, Legality and Legitimacy: Carl Schmitt, Hans Kelsen and Hermann Heller in Weimar (Oxford,
2000)
Essays in Honor of Hans Kelsen, ed. by California Law Review Staff (Rothman, 1971).
03-11-2003
Kemerling Garth
<history of philosophy, biography> American philosopher (1948-). Since completing a program in the history of
modern philosophy at the University of Iowa in 1974, Kemerling has taught a variety of undergraduate courses
in philosophy, served on the editorial staff of Studies in Short Fiction, and written about John Locke, ethical
development, and the practice of teaching philosophy. During the past several years, he has been occupied
chiefly with the development of these on-line materials in support of philosophical learning.
For additional information, see the curriculum vitae elsewhere on this site.
03-11-2003
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Kepler Johannes
<history of philosophy, biography> German astronomer (1571-1630) who modified the heliocentric views of
Copernicus by postulating that planets move in elliptical (not circular) orbits with the sun at one focus, each of
them sweeping through arcs of equal area in equal times. Despite his penchant for neoplatonic explanations,
Kepler' s achievement, published in Astronomia Nova (A New Astronomy based on Causes) (1609) and
Harmonia Mundi (The Harmony of the World) (1618), provided an important step toward the comprehensive
mathematical theory of celestial motion developed by Newton.
Recommended Reading: Johannes Kepler, Epitome of Copernican Astronomy, tr. by Charles Glenn Wallis
(Prometheus, 1995);
Max Caspar, Kepler, tr. by C. Doris Hellman (Dover, 1993);
Bruce Stephenson, Kepler' s Physical Astronomy (Princeton, 1994);
Charlotte Methuen, Kepler' s Tuebingen: Stimulus to a Theological Mathematics (Ashgate, 1998);
Alexandre Koyre, Astronomical Revolution: Copernicus - Kepler - Borelli (Dover, 1992).
03-11-2003
kernel
(Note: NOT "kernal").
1. <operating system> The essential part of Unix or other operating systems, responsible for resource
allocation, low-level hardware interfaces, security etc.
See also microkernel.
2. <language> An essential subset of a programming language, in terms of which other constructs are (or
could be) defined. Also known as a core language.
[FOLDOC]
03-11-2003
Keynes (John Maynard)
<history of philosophy, biography> English economist who developed economic theories that were widely
accepted during the twentieth century. Keynes (1883-1946) was the author of The Economic Consequences of
the Peace (1919), Treatise on Money (1930), and General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money (1936).
His A Treatise on Probability (1921) was an important contribution to the classical theory regarding the logical
probability of propositions.
John Maynard Keynes, A Tract on Monetary Reform (Prometheus, 2000);
D. E. Moggridge, Keynes (Toronto, 1993);
John Bryan Davis, Keynes' s Philosophical Development (Cambridge, 1994);
Mark Blaug, John Maynard Keynes: Life, Ideas, Legacy (Palgrave, 1990).
03-11-2003
KK-thesis
<epistemology> If S knows p, then S knows that S knows p.
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know how
knowledge how
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knowledge
1. see <epistemology>
2. <artificial intelligence, information science> The objects, concepts and relationships that are assumed to
exist in some area of interest. A collection of knowledge, represented using some knowledge representation
language is known as a knowledge base and a program for extending and/or querying a knowledge base is a
knowledge-based system.
Knowledge differs from data or information in that new knowledge may be created from existing knowledge
using logical inference. If information is truthful data plus meaning then knowledge is information plus
justification/explanation.
A common form of knowledge, e.g. in a Prolog program, is a collection of facts and rules about some subject.
For example, a knowledge base about a family might contain the facts that John is David' s son and Tom is
John' s son and therule that the son of someone' s son is their grandson. From this knowledge it could infer the
new fact that Tom is David' s grandson.
See also Knowledge Level Gettier problem, know how, knowledge tacit
Luciano Floridi
03-11-2003
Knowledge Analysis and Design System
<process> (KADS) A structured way of developing knowledge-based systems (expert systems). KADS was
developed as an alternative to an evolutionary approach and is now accepted as the European standard for
knowledge based systems.
(http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~timm/pub/slides/kltut/index.html).
["Knowledge Based Systems Analysis and Design: A KADS Developers Handbook", Tansley and Hayball]
[FOLDOC]
03-11-2003
knowledge argument
<philosophy of mind> an argument from Frank Jackson (1982) purporting to show that physicalism is false on
the ground that there exist facts that cannot be known solely in virtue of knowing all the physical facts.
See dualism, consciousness
Adam Vinueza
16-03-2001
knowledge base
<artificial intelligence> A collection of knowledge expressed using some formal knowledge representation
language. A knowledge base forms part of a knowledge-based system (KBS).
[FOLDOC]
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knowledge by acquaintance
<philosophical terminology, knowledge by description> Russell' s distinction between ways of knowing. Only the
objects of immediate experience are known by acquaintance, through our direct awareness of them.
Other things are known only by description, through the mediation of our apprehension of true propositions
about them. For example: "I have a headache now." may be known by acquaintance, but "Aspirin will relieve a
headache." can be known only by description. Despite its apparently narrow extent, knowledge by
acquaintance is supposed to provide the foundation for knowledge by description.
Bertrand Russell, Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits (Routledge, 1994);
Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy (Oxford, 1998);
John G. Slater, Bertrand Russell (St. Augustine, 1994).
03-11-2003
knowledge how
<philosophy of mind, epistemology> epistemically praiseworthy, non-propositional procedural elements of a

cognitive system thought to underlie abilities where performance of a task is consistently better than chance.
See knowledge
Charles Wallis
03-11-2003
knowledge level
<artificial intelligence> A level of description of the knowledge of an agent that is independent of the agent' s
internal symbol-level representation. Knowledge can be attributed to agents by observing their actions. An
agent "knows" something if it acts as if it had the information and is acting rationally to achieve its goals. The
"actions" of agents, including knowledge base servers and knowledge-based systems, can be seen through a
"tell and ask" functional interface, where a client interacts with an agent by making logical assertions (tell), and
posing queries (ask).
[FOLDOC]
03-11-2003
knowledge representation
The subfield of artificial intelligence concerned with designing and using systems for storing knowledge - facts
and rules about some subject.
A body of formally represented knowledge is based on a conceptualisation - an abstract view of the world that
we wish to represent. In order to manipulate this knowledge we must specify how the abstract
conceptualisation is represented as a concrete data structure. An ontology is an explicit specification of a
conceptualisation.
[FOLDOC]
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knowledge theoretical
<philosophical terminology> an organized body of learning, the ultimate aim of human study for many classical
philosophers
03-11-2003
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knowledge under entailment
See principle of closure of knowledge under entailment, knowledge under known entailment principle of closure
of
16-03-2001
knowledge under known entailment principle of closure of
<epistemology> If S knows p, and S knows that p entails q, then S knows q.
See Cartesian scepticism, principle of closure of knowledge under entailment
P. Mandik
16-03-2001
knowledge-based system
<artificial intelligence> (KBS) A program for extending and/or querying a knowledge base.
The related term expert system is normally used to refer to a highly domain-specific type of KBS used for a
specialised purpose such as medical diagnosis.
The Cyc project is an example of a large KBS.
[FOLDOC]
03-11-2003
KQML
Knowledge Query and Manipulation Language
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KR
knowledge representation
31-05-2004
Kripke Saul Aaron
<history of philosophy, contemporary philosophy, biography> American logician and philosopher (1940-). His
early work, "A Completeness Theorem in Modal Logic" (1959) and "Semantical Considerations on Modal Logic
(1963), focussed on technical issues in modal logic. In Naming and Necessity (1972) Kripke proposed a causal
theory of referential meaning, on which proper names and natural kinds are not merely definite descriptions but
rather rigid designators, whose reference must obtain in all possible worlds. On the basis of such semantics,
Kripke holds that the necessary / contingent and a priori / a posteriori distinctions do not coincide. This raises
significant doubts about theories that try to establish the contingent identity of mental events and brains states.
Saul A. Kripke, Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language (Harvard, 1984);
The New Theory of Reference -Kripke, Marcus, and Its Origins, ed. by Paul W. Humphreys and James H.
Fetzer (Kluwer, 1999);
Consuelo Preti, On Kripke (Wadsworth, 2001).
03-11-2003
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Kristeva Julia
<history of philosophy, contemporary philosophy, biography> Bulgarian-French literary critic and psychoanalyst
(1941-) influenced by the deconstructive methods of Derrida. In La RÈvolution du language poetique (The
Revolution in Poetic Language) (1974) and Semeiotiche: Recherches pour une Semanalyse (Desire in
Language: A Semiotic Approach to Literature and Art) (1980), she distinguishes between the pre-linguistic
(feminine) semiotic of subjectivity on the one hand and the (masculine) symbolic representation of logic and
language on the other.
Kristeva describes ways in which literature(especially "feminine writing") can combine both in a joyful symbolic
representation of the more fundamental semiotic reality.
Powers of Horror (1981), Histoires d' amour (Tales of Love) (1983), and Soleil Noir (Black Sun) (1987) offe
thorough analyses of horror, romantic love, melancholy, and depression. Kristeva' s application of her centra
themes to political thought may be found in Etrangers à nous-méme (Strangers to Ourselves) (1988).
Catherine Clement and Julia Kristeva, The Feminine and the Sacred (Columbia, 2001);
The Portable Kristeva, ed. by Kelly Oliver (Columbia, 1997);
The Kristeva Reader, ed. by Toril Moi (Columbia, 1986);
Kelly Oliver, Reading Kristeva: Unraveling the Double-Bind (Indiana, 1993);
John Lechte, Julia Kristeva (Routledge, 1990);
Martha J. Reineke, Sacrificed Lives: Kristeva on Women and Violence (Indiana, 1997);
Michael Payne, Reading Theory: An Introduction to Lacan, Derrida and Kristeva (Blackwell, 1993).
03-11-2003
Kristina Wasa
<history of philosophy, biography> queen of Sweden (1626-1689, queen from 1632) who pursued wide-ranging
intellectual interests and corresponded with many of the seventeenth century' s leading thinkers. BothGrotius
and Descartes (to their peril) visited her court, and she published her Lettres de Descartes (Correspondence
with Descartes) (1663). Kristina greatly admired the skepticism of Sextus Empiricus and Gassendi. After her
refusal to marry led to a decision to abdicate the throne in 1654, Kristina first became an outspoken atheist and
then converted to Catholicism.
Susanna Akerman, Queen Christina of Sweden and Her Circle: The Transformation of a Seventeenth-Century
Philosophical Libertine (Brill, 1991).
03-11-2003
KRL
Knowledge Representation Language. A frame-based language.
["An Overview of KRL, a Knowledge Representation Language", D.G. Bobrow and T. Winograd, Cognitive Sci
1:1 (1977)].
03-11-2003
Kuhn Thomas Samuel
<history of philosophy, biography> American philosopher of science (1922-1996). In The Structure of Scientific
Revolution (1962, 1970) Kuhn emphasized the discontinuity of scientific progress, characterized by long
periods of "normal research" (conducted entirely within the framework of a prevailing theoretical paradigm) that
are punctuated by brief and largely inexplicable periods of paradigm-shifting scientific revolution. On this view,
there can be no rational grounds for choosing between incommensurable paradigms, each of which solves its
own set of problems. Such themes are illustrated and expanded in The Essential Tension: Selected Studies in
Scientific Tradition and Change (1977) and The Road Since Structure: Philosophical Essays, 1970-1993
(2000).
Thomas S. Kuhn, Black-Body Theory and the Quantum Discontinuity, 1894-1912 (Chicago, 1987);
World Changes: Thomas Kuhn and the Nature of Science, ed. by Paul Horwich (MIT, 1994);
Howard Margolis, Paradigms & Barriers: How Habits of Mind Govern Scientific Beliefs (Chicago, 1993);
Alexander Bird, Thomas Kuhn (Princeton, 2001);
Steve Fuller, Thomas Kuhn: A Philosophical History for Our Times (Chicago, 2000);
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Hanne Andersen, On Kuhn (Wadsworth, 2000).
03-11-2003
La Mettrie Julien Offray de
<history of philosophy, biography> French physician and

philosopher (1709-1751) who offered a
materialistic account of
human nature. Rejecting Cartesian dualism, La Mettrie
explained mental activity by reference to physiology in
Histoire naturelle de l'’me (Natural History of the Soul) (1745)
and then explained physiology in purely mechanistic terms in
his L' homme machine (Man a Machine) (1747). On this view, human
conduct inevitably flows from physical causes, leaving no
grounds for free will or moral responsibility. The
Cartesians were correct when they regarded all animal
behavior as emerging from soulless machines, La Mettrie
maintained, but the same explanation will also account for
human behavior.
Recommended Reading: Julien Offray de La Mettrie, Machine Man
and Other Writings, ed. by Ann Thomson (Cambridge, 1996).
19-01-2002
Lacan Jacques
<history of philosophy, biography> French

psychoanalyst (1901-1981) whose
The Language of the Self: The Function
of Language in Psychoanalysis (1959) modified
Freudian psychology' s analysis of human sexuality by proposing
that the individual unconscious is represented most accurately
in linguistic and rhetorical structures like metonymy and
metaphor, which disrupt the flow of ordinary communication
and reveal a repressed message. Relying upon the imaginary and
the symbolic, Lacan supposed, each person endeavors to
establish not only working relationships with other people but
also some accomodation with the insatiable desires of the Other,
expressed in dreams. Lacan' s analytic theory and practice,
as expressed in The Ethics of Psychoanalysis (1960) and The
Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis (1964), were an
influence (both positive and negative) on the philosophical work
of Foucault, Derrida, and Irigaray.
Recommended Reading: Jacques Lacan, On Feminine Sexuality, the
Limits of Love and Knowledge, ed. by Jacques-Alain Miller
(Norton, 1999); Joel Dor, Introduction to the Reading of Lacan:
The Unconscious Structured Like a Language (Other Press, 1998);
Introducing Lacan, ed. by Darian Leader, Judy Groves, and Richard
Appignanesi (Totem, 2000); Elisabeth Roudinesco, Jacques Lacan,
tr. by Barbara Bray (Columbia, 1999); and Dylan Evans, An
Introductory Dictionary of Lacanian Psychoanalysis
(Routledge, 1996).
19-01-2002
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laissez-faire
<political philosophy> French vocative phrase meaning

"Allow to do!". Hence, in political philosophy and economics,
a presumption against the desirability of governmental
interference with the natural order of society in general and
with the conduct of free trade in particular.
Recommended Reading: Rajani Kannepalli Kanth, Political Economy
and Laissez Faire: Economics and Ideology in the Ricardian Era
(Rowman & Littlefield, 1986) and Gilbert Faccarello, Foundations
of ' Laissez-Faire' (Routledge, 1999).
19-01-2002
Lakatos Imre
<history of philosophy, biography> Hungarian-British philosopher

of science (1922-1974). In Proofs and Refutations
(1976) Lakatos applied
Popper' s account ofscientific falsifiability to mathematical
reasoning as well. Sharing Polya' s emphasis on the role of
heuristic methods, Lakatos regarded mathematical proof as an
invitation to objection and criticism.
Recommended Reading: Imre Lakatos, For and Against Method, ed. by
Matteo Motterlini (Chicago, 2000); Imre Lakatos, The Methodology of
Scientific Research Programmes, ed. by J. Worrall and Gregory
Currie (Cambridge, 1980); Imre Lakatos, Mathematics, Science and
Epistemology, ed. by J. Worrall and Gregory Currie
(Cambridge, 1988); John David Kadvany, Imre Lakatos and the Guises
of Reason (Duke, 2001); and Brendan Larvor, Lakatos: An
Introduction (Routledge, 1998).
19-01-2002
Lamarck Jean Baptiste de Monet Chevalier
<history of philosophy, biography> French biologist (1744-1829);

author of
Flore franc,ais (French Flora) (1773) and Philosophie zoologique
(Zoology) (1809). Lamarck' s study of invertebrates in Histoire
des animaux sans vertèbres (Natural History of Invertebrate
Animals) (1822) led to the conviction that species evolve
through the hereditary transmission of acquired traits, by
means of which species perfect their adaptationto their
environmentin an optimal fashion.
Recommended Reading: Alpheus Packard, Lamarck: The Founder of
Evolution (Ayer, 1980); L.J. Jordanova, Lamarck (Oxford, 1984);
and Richard W. Burkhardt, The Spirit of System: Lamarck and
Evolutionary Biology (Belknap, 1995).
19-01-2002
LAMBDA
A version of typed lambda-calculus, used to describe

semantic domains.
["Outline of a Mathematical Theory of Computation",

D.S. Scott, TM PRG-2, PRG, Oxford U, 1971].
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lambda abstraction
A term in lambda-calculus denoting a function. A lambda

abstraction begins with a lower-case lambda (represented as
"" in this document), followed by a variable name (the "bound
variable"), a full stop and a lambda expression (the body).
The body is taken to extend as far to the right as possible
so, for example an expression,
x . y . x+y
is read as
x . ( y . x+y).
A nested abstraction such as this is often abbreviated to:
xy.x+y
The lambda expression ( v . E) denotes a function which takes

an argument and returns the term E with all free occurrences
of v replaced by the actual argument. Application is
represented by juxtaposition so
( x . x) 42
represents the identity function applied to the constant 42.
A lambda abstraction in Lisp is written as the symbol

lambda, a list of zero or more variable names and a list of
zero or more terms, e.g.
(lambda (x y) (plus x y))
Lambda expressions in Haskell are written as a backslash,

"", one or more patterns (e.g. variable names), "->" and an
expression, e.g. x -> x.
[FOLDOC]
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lambda expression
<mathematics> A term in the lambda-calculus denoting an

unnamed function (a "lambda abstraction"), a variable or a
constant. The pure lambda-calculus has only functions and
no constants.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
lambda lifting
A program transformation to remove free variables. An

expression containing a free variable is replaced by a
function applied to that variable. E.g.
f x = g 3 where g y = y + x
x is a free variable of g so it is added as an extra argument:
f x = g 3 x where g y x = y + x
Functions like this with no free variables are known as

supercombinators and are traditionally given upper-case names
beginning with "$". This transformation tends to produce many
supercombinators of the form f x = g x which can be eliminated
by eta reduction and substitution. Changing the order of
the parameters may also allow more optimisations. References
to global (top-level) constants and functions are not
transformed to function parameters though they are technically
free variables.
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A closely related technique is closure conversion. See also

Full laziness.
[FOLDOC]
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lambda-calculus
<mathematics> (Normally written with a Greek letter lambda).

A branch of mathematical logic developed by Alonzo Church in
the late 1930s and early 1940s, dealing with the application
of functions to their arguments. The pure lambda-calculus
contains no constants - neither numbers nor mathematical
functions such as plus - and is untyped. It consists only of
lambda abstractions (functions), variables and applications
of one function to another. All entities must therefore be
represented as functions. For example, the natural number N
can be represented as the function which applies its first
argument to its second N times (Church integer N).
Church invented lambda-calculus in order to set up a

foundational project restricting mathematics to quantities
with "effective procedures". Unfortunately, the resulting
system admits Russell' s paradox in a particularly nasty way;
Church couldn' t see any way to get rid of it, and gave the
project up.
Most functional programming languages are equivalent to

lambda-calculus extended with constants and types. Lisp
uses a variant of lambda notation for defining functions but
only its purely functional subset is really equivalent to
lambda-calculus.
See reduction
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
Langer Susanne
<history of philosophy, biography> American philosopher

(1895-1985), author
of Mind: An Essay on Human Feeling (1967, 1972, 1982).
Extrapolating from the methods of Ernst Cassirer, Langer used
aesthetic analysis of music as the starting point for her
comprehensive account of human emotions that cannot be
adequately expressed by language, in Philosophy in a New Key:
A Study in the Symbolism of Reason, Rite, and Art (1942) and
Feeling and Form (1953).
19-01-2002
language
1. <PI> programming language
2. <logic> formal language
2. <human language> natural language.
16-03-2001
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language of thought
<philosophy of mind, philosophy of language>

a phrase coined by Fodor to voice the view that all mental
representations are linguistic expressions within an "internal"
language which significantly resembles spoken language.
16-03-2001
Laplace Pierre Simon de
<history of philosophy, biography> French mathematician and

philosopher (1749-1827) noted for
his defense of strict determinism in
the mechanical operation of the universe, independently of
divine intervention in Traites de la meccanique celeste (On
Celestial Mechanics) (1799-1826). Complete knowledge of
the position and velocity of every particle in the universe,
together with straightforward application of Newtonian mechanics
would permit perfect prediction of every future event. Since we
lack such knowledge, however, Laplace developed and applied
relatively modern methods for the calculation of the probability
of natural events in The/orie analytique des probabilite/s
(Analytic Theory of Probabilities) (1812) and Essai
philosophique sur les probabilite/s (Philosophical Essay on
Probabilities) (1814).
Recommended Reading: Charles Coulston Gillispie, Ivor
Grattan-Guinness, and Robert Fox, Pierre-Simon Laplace,
1749-1827 (Princeton, 2000).
20-01-2002
latency
<communications> 1. The time it takes for a packet to cross

a network connection, from sender to receiver.
2. The period of time that a frame is held by a network device

before it is forwarded.
Two of the most important parameters of a communications

channel are its latency, which should be low, and its
bandwidth, which should be high. Latency is particularly
important for a synchronous protocol where each packet
must be acknowledged before the next can be transmitted.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
LaTeX
<language, text, tool> (Lamport TeX) Leslie Lamport

' s document preparation system built on
top of TeX. LaTeX was developed at SRI International' s
Computer Science Laboratory and was built to resemble
Scribe.
LaTeX adds commands to simplify typesetting and lets the user

concentrate on the structure of the text rather than on
formatting commands.
BibTeX is a LaTeX package for bibliographic citations.
Lamport' s LaTeX book has an exemplary index listing every

symbol, concept and example in the book. The index in the,
now obsolete, first edition includes (on page 221) the
mysterious entry "Gilkerson, Ellen, 221". The second edition
(1994) has an entry for "infinite loop" instead.
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["LaTeX, A Document Preparation System", Leslie Lamport, A-W

1986, ISBN 0-201-15790-X (first edition, now obsolete)].
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
lattice
A partially ordered set in which all finite subsets
have a least upper bound and greatest lower bound.
This definition has been standard at least since the 1930s and
probably since Dedekind worked on lattice theory in the 19th
century; though he may not have used that name.
See also complete lattice, domain theory.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
Le Doeuff Michèle
<history of philosophy, biography> French philosopher (1948-);

translator of Shakespeare. In Recherches sur l' Imaginaire
Philosophique (The Philosophical Imaginary) (1980), she examines
the use of imagery in the philosophical texts of More,
Bacon, and Descartes. Le Dúuff points out that feminist
criticism of gender categories demonstrates the
susceptibility of purportedly objective philosophical
discourse to social and political power in L' E/tude et le
rouet (Hipparchia' s Choice) (1991).
Recommended Reading: Michele Le Doeuff: Operative Philosophy and
Imaginary Practice, ed. by Max Deutscher (Humanity, 2001) and
Joan Nordquist, French Feminist Theory II: Michele Le Doeuff,
Monique Wittig, Catherine Clement: A Bibliography
(Reference & Research, 1993).
20-01-2002
leaf
<mathematics, data> (Or "terminal node") In a tree, a node

which has no daughter.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
least fixed point
A function f may have many fixed points (x such that f x =

x). For example, any value is a fixed point of the identity
function, ( x . x). If f is recursive, we can represent it
as
f = fix F
where F is some higher-order function and
fix F = F (fix F).
The standard denotational semantics of f is then given by

the least fixed point of F. This is the least upper bound
of the infinite sequence (the ascending Kleene chain)
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obtained by repeatedly applying F to the totally undefined

value, bottom. I.e.
fix F = LUB bottom, F bottom, F (F bottom), ....
The least fixed point is guaranteed to exist for a

continuous function over a cpo.
16-03-2001
least upper bound
(lub or "join", "supremum") The least upper bound of
two elements a and b is an upper bound c such that a <= c and
b <= c and if there is any other upper bound c' then c <= c' .
The least upper bound of a set S is the smallest b such that
for all s in S, s <= b. The lub of mutually comparable
elements is their maximum but in the presence of incomparable
elements, if the lub exists, it will be some other element
greater than all of them.
Lub is the dual to greatest lower bound.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
legal positivism
<philosophical terminology> belief that the laws of a society

express nothing other than the will of the sovereign that
legislates them. Thus, in opposition natural law theory,
legal positivist John Austin denied that the law is in
grounded upon any higher morality.
Recommended Reading: John Austin, The Province of Jurisprudence
Determined (Prometheus, 2000); Anthony James Sebok, Legal
Positivism in American Jurisprudence (Cambridge, 1998); and
The Autonomy of Law: Essays on Legal Positivism, ed. by Robert
P. George (Oxford, 1999).
20-01-2002
Leibniz Gottfried Wilhelm
<history of philosophy, biography> after completing his

philosophical and legal education at Leipzig and Altdorf,
Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716) spent
several years as a diplomat in France,
England, and Holland, where he became acquainted with the leading
intellectuals of the age. He then settled in Hanover, where he
devoted most of his adult life to the development of a
comprehensive scheme for human knowledge, comprising logic,
mathematics, philosophy, theology, history, and
jurisprudence. Although his own rationalism was founded upon
an advanced understanding of logic, which Leibniz largely
kept to himself, he did publish many less technical expositions
of his results for the general public. These include a survey of
the entire scheme in The New System of Nature (1695), a critical
examination of Locke' sphilosophy in Nouveaux Essaies sur
l' entendement humain (New Essays on Human Understanding) (1704),
and an attempt to resolve several theological issues in the
The/odice/e (Theodicy) (1710). La Monadologie (Monadology) (1714)
is a highly condensed outline of Leibniz' smetaphsics.
Complete individual substances, or monads, are dimensionless
points which contain all of their properties-past, present,
and future-and, indeed, the entire world. The
true propositions that express their natures follow inexorably
from the principles of contradiction and sufficient reason.
The same themes are presented more popularly in the Discours
de Metaphysique (Discourse on Metaphysics) (1686). There Leibniz
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emphasized the role of a benevolent deity in creating this,

the best of all possible worlds, where everything exists in a
perfect, pre-established harmony with everything else. Since
space and time are merely relations, all of science is a
study of phenomenal objects. According to Leibniz, human
knowledge involves the discovery within our own minds of all
that is a part of our world, and although we cannot make it
otherwise, we ought to be grateful for our own inclusion in it.
Primary sources:
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Saemtliche Schriften und Briefe
(Reichl, 1923- ); Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Philosophical Texts,
ed. by Richard Francks and R. S. Woolhouse (Oxford, 1998);
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Discourse on Metaphysics and the
Monadology, tr. by R. Montgomery (Prometheus, 1992); Gottfried
Wilhelm Leibniz, New Essays on Human Understanding, ed. by Peter
Remnant and Jonathan Bennett (Cambridge, 1997); Philosophical
Papers and Letters, ed. by Leroy Loemker, (Chicago: University
Press, 1956). Leibniz and Clarke: Correspondence, ed. by Roger
Ariew (Hackett, 2000).
Secondary sources:
Bertrand Russell, A Critical Exposition of the Philosophy of
Leibniz: With an Appendix of Leading Passages (Routledge, 1993);
The Cambridge Companion to Leibniz, ed. by Nicholas Jolley
(Cambridge, 1994); Leibniz: Critical and Interpretive Essays
ed. by Michael Hooker (Minnesota, 1982); Anthony Savile,
Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Leibniz and the Monadology
(Routledge, 2000); Donald Rutherford, Leibniz and the Rational
Order of Nature (Cambridge, 1997); Hide Ishiguro, Leibniz' s
Philosophy of Logic and Language (Cambridge, 1991); Nicholas
Jolley, The Light of the Soul: Theories of Ideas in Leibniz,
Malebranche, and Descartes (Clarendon, 1998); Robert Merrihew
Adams, Leibniz: Determinist, Theist, Idealist (Oxford, 1998).
Additional on-line information about Leibniz includes:
Greg Brown' s excellent The Leibniz Page.
R. C. Sleigh' s article in The Oxford Companion to Philosophy.
Also see: apperception, German philosophy, pre-established
harmony, the identity of indiscernibles, infinitesimals,
metaphysics, monadology, pessimism and optimism, the principle
of plenitude, possible worlds, rationalism, the nature of
relations, salva veritate, the principle of sufficient reason,
and theodicy.
An article on Leibniz' s philosophy of mind in the Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy, by Mark Kulstad and Laurence Carlin.
An article on Leibniz and the problem of evil in the Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy, by Michael J. Murray.
G. J. Mattey' s lectures on Leibniz. Snippets from Leibniz
(French and English) in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations.
GWL info from Znort! A section on Leibniz from Alfred Weber' s
history of philosophy. Eric Weisstein' s discussion at Treasure
Trove of Scientific Biography. A paper on natural and
artificial machines in Leibniz by Paul Raymont. Leibniz on
Material Things by Arto Repo. Brandon Look' s paper on Leibniz' s
explanation of unity and reality. A brief biographical note from
Oesterreich-Lexikon. A philosophical biography from Uwe Wiedemann.
Bjoern Christensson' s brief guide to Internet resources on Leibniz.
An entry in The Oxford Dictionary of Scientists. Discussions of
Leibniz as mathematician from Mathematical MacTutor and David
Wilkins. A brief entry in The Macmillan Encyclopedia 2001.
20-01-2002
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lemma
<logic>
A theorem (or metatheorem) proved only for the sake of another
theorem
(or metatheorem).
16-03-2001
Lenin Vladimir Ilyich
<history of philosophy, biography> Russian revolutionary

(1870-1924) who
led the October Revolution of 1917 and became head of state. His
State and Revolution (1917) discusses the practical application of
Marx' s principles to the success of theBolshevik revolution.
On Lenin' s view, thedictatorship of the proletariat is a
temporary expedient that will inevitably lead to the creation of a
truly socialist government. In his Materialism and
Empiro-Criticism (1909) and the Philosophical Notebooks (1929),
Lenin sought to purge Marxism of any tendency toward
subjective idealism by encouraging critical study of Hegel.
Recommended Reading: Vladimir Lenin, Essential Works of Lenin:
' What Is to Be Done?' and Other Writings, ed. by Henry M.
Christman (Dover, 1987); Robert Service, Lenin: A Biography
(Harvard, 2000); Louis Althusser, Lenin and Philosophy and Other
Essays (Monthly Review, 2001); Georg Lukacs, Lenin: A Study in
the Unity of His Thought (Verso, 1998); and Kevin Anderson,
Lenin, Hegel, and Western Marxism: A Critical Study
(Illinois, 1995).
20-01-2002
Lessing Gotthold Ephraim
<history of philosophy, biography> German philosopher (1729-1781),

critic, and playwright who vigorously opposed dogmatism
in any form and supported the ideals of the Enlightenment.
In Die Erziehung des Menschengeschlechts (The Education of the
Human Race) (1780) he argued that both revealed religion and
philosophical rationality represent stages of historical
development rather than expressions of eternal truth. Lessing' s
aesthetic writings, including the Laokoon (1766), helped to
revive German interest in Shakespeare and Spinoza.
Recommended Reading: Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Nathan the Wise,
Minna Von Barnhelm, and Other Plays and Writings, ed. by Peter
Demetz (Continuum, 1991).
20-01-2002
Leucippus
<history of philosophy, biography> Presocratic philosopher (c 450 BC)

and atomist who opposed the Eleatics and argued that
everything that happens is strictly determined by rational laws.
His views were more fully developed and expressed by Democritus
and Epicurus.
Recommended Reading: George Sarton, Ancient Science Through the
Golden Age of Greece (Dover, 1993) and C. C. W. Taylor, The
Atomists: Leucippus and Democritus (Toronto, 1999).
20-01-2002
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Lewis Clarence Irving
<history of philosophy, biography> American philosopher and

logician (1883-1964). Lewis' s Symbolic Logic (1932) contributed
significantly to the development and refinement of modern
modal logic. His empiricist epistemology, employing
significant elements of pragmatism, is developed in Mind
and the World-Order (1929). An Analysis of Knowledge and
Valuation (1946) defends a naturalistic account of human
morality.
Recommended Reading: E. Paul Colella, C.I. Lewis and the
Social Theory of Conceptualistic Pragmatism: The Individual
and the Good Social Order (Edwin Mellen, 1992) and The
Philosophy of C. I. Lewis, ed. by Paul A. Schilpp
(Open Court, 1981).
20-01-2002
lex talionis
<philosophical terminology> Latin phrase meaning "law of

retaliation". Hence, a strictly retributive notion of
punishment, according to which anyone who causes injury to
another should suffer exactly the same injury in return.
Recommended Reading: Hugo Adam Bedau, Retribution and the
Theory of Punishment (Rowman & Littlefield, 1981) and
Charles K. B. Barton, Getting Even (Open Court, 1999).
20-01-2002
lexeme
<grammar> A minimal lexical unit of a language. Lexical

analysis converts strings in a language into a list of
lexemes. For a programming language these word-like pieces
would include keywords, identifiers, literals and
punctuation. The lexemes are then passed to the parser for
syntactic analysis.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
lexical definition
<philosophical terminology> a faithful report of the way in

which a term is used within a particular language-community.
<A Dictionary of Philosophical Terms and Names>
20-01-2002
liar paradox
<philosophical terminology> the sentence "I am now lying" would

seem to be true (because I am lying) only in those cases when
it is false (since what I say is the case) and false
(because I am not lying) when it is true (since what I say is
not the case). Less personally, the statement "This sentence is not
true" generates a similar perplexity. These are particular instances
of the self-referential semantic paradoxes that have troubled
logicians since Epimenides, the Cretan who is supposed to have
said, "All Cretans are liars."
Recommended Reading: Paradox of the Liar, ed. by Robert L. Martin
(Ridgeview, 1979); Recent Essays on Truth and the Liar Paradox,
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ed. by Robert L. Martin (Oxford, 1997); Vann McGee, Truth,

Vagueness, and Paradox: An Essay on the Logic of Truth (Hackett,
1990); Robert C. Koons, Paradoxes of Belief and Strategic
Rationality (Cambridge, 1992); and Benson Mates, Skeptical
Essays (Chicago, 1981).
23-01-2002
liberalism
<political philosophy>
at least in the classical sense of the word,
liberalism is a
doctrine or principle in political philosophy that is very similar
to modern libertarianism - namely, that what matters in
political affairs is the absolute freedom and rights of the
individual. Unfortunately, this word has lost its original
meaning (at least in the United States), so that it now refers to
something akin to egalitarianism or a watered-down version of
socialism. (References from anarchism, Aristotelianism,
capitalism, egalitarianism, and libertarianism.)
[The Ism Book]
25-03-2001
libertarianism
<metaphysics, political philosophy>

1. in metaphysics,
the term libertarianism refers the idea that human
beings have free will (opposed to necessitarianism and
determinism).
2. in political philosophy, libertarianism (sometimes

also called classical liberalism) espouses the right of
individuals to act in whatever way they please, so long as
they do not initiate force or fraud against other people;
sometimes libertarianism verges on anarchism. (References from
accidentalism, anarchism, capitalism, determinism,
egalitarianism, liberalism, necessitarianism, and
voluntarism.)
[The Ism Book]
25-03-2001
libertas
<philosophical terminology> Latin word for freedom.

Recommended Reading: Chaim Wirszubski, Libertas As a Political
Idea at Rome During Late Republic and Early Principate
(Cambridge, 1950).
23-01-2002
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Life
<PI> aka Game of Life.

The first popular cellular automata based
artificial life "game". Life was invented by British
mathematician John Horton Conway in 1970 and was first
introduced publicly in "Scientific American" later that year.
Conway first devised what he called "The Game of Life" and

"ran" it using plates placed on floor tiles in his house.
Because of he ran out of floor space and kept stepping on the
plates, he later moved to doing it on paper or on a
checkerboard, and then moved to running Life as a computer
program on a PDP-7. That first implementation of Life as a
computer program was written by M. J. T. Guy and
S. R. Bourne (the author of Unix' sBourne shell).
Life uses a rectangular grid of binary (live or dead) cells

each of which is updated at each step according to the
previous state of its eight neighbours as follows: a live cell
with less than two, or more than three, live neighbours dies.
A dead cell with exactly three neighbours becomes alive.
Other cells do not change.
While the rules are fairly simple, the patterns that can arise
are of a complexity resembling that of organic systems -- hence
the name "Life".
Many hackers pass through a stage of fascination with Life,

and hackers at various places contributed heavily to the
mathematical analysis of this game (most notably Bill Gosper
at MIT, who even implemented Life in TECO!; see
Gosperism). When a hacker mentions "life", he is more
likely to mean this game than the magazine, the breakfast
cereal, the 1950s-era board game or the human state of
existence.
Yahoo!
(http://www.yahoo.com/Science/Artificial_Life/Conway_s_Game_of_Life/).
Demonstration
(http://www.research.digital.com/nsl/projects/life/).
["Scientific American" 223, October 1970, p120-123, 224;

February 1971 p121-117, Martin Gardner].
["The Garden in The Machine: the Emerging Science of

Artificial Life", Claus Emmeche, 1994].
["Winning Ways, For Your Mathematical Plays", Elwyn

R. Berlekamp, John Horton Conway and Richard K. Guy, 1982].
["The Recursive Universe: Cosmic Complexity and the Limits of

Scientific Knowledge", William Poundstone, 1985].
16-03-2001
like this
You weren' t supposed to follow that link, it was just an

example of what a link looks like.
16-03-2001
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linear argument
A function argument which is used exactly once by the
function.
If the argument is used at most once then it is safe to

inline the function and replace the single occurrence of the
formal parameter with the actual argument expression. If the
argument was used more than once this transformation would
duplicate the argument expression, causing it to be evaluated
more than once.
If the argument is sure to be used at least once then it is

safe to evaluate it in advance (see strictness analysis)
whereas if the argument was not used then this would waste
work and might prevent the program from terminating.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
linear function
A recursive function is linear if it is of the form
f x = if p x then q x else h f x
where h is a "linear functional" which means that
(1) for all functions, a, b c and some function ht
h (if a then b else c) = if ht a then h b else h c
Function ht is known as the "predicate transformer" of h.
(2) If for some x,
h ( y . bottom) x /= bottom
then
for all g, ht g x = True.
I.e. if h g x terminates despite g x not terminating then ht g

x doesn' t depend on g.
See also linear argument.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
linear logic
(http://www.csl.sri.com/linear/sri-csl-ll.html)
[Wadler, P., "Is there a use for linear logic", ACM/IFIP PEPM
Conference, 1991].
[Summary?]
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
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linear map
<mathematics> (Or "linear transformation") A function from a

vector space to a vector space which respects the additive
and multiplicative structures of the two: that is, for any
two vectors, u, v, in the source vector space and any
scalar, k, in the field over which it is a vector space, a
linear map f satisfies f(u+kv) = f(u) + kf(v).
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
linear programming
<application> A procedure for finding the maximum or minimum

of a linear function where the arguments are subject to
linear constraints. The simplex method is one well known
algorithm.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
linear space
<mathematics> A vector space where all linear combinations

of elements are also elements of the space. This is easy for
spaces of numbers but not for a space of functions. Roughly,
this is to say that multiplication by numbers, and addition of
elements is defined in the space.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
linear transformation
linear map
00-00-0000
linear type
1. <theory, PI> An attribute of values which are used

exactly once: they are neither duplicated nor destroyed. Such
values require no garbage collection, and can safely be
updated in place, even if they form part of a data structure.
Linear types are related to the linear logic of J.-Y Girard.

They extend Schmidt' s notion ofsingle threading, provide an
alternative to Hudak and Bloss' update analysis, and offer a
practical complement to Lafont and Holmstr"m' s elegant linear
languages.
[' Use -Once' Variables and Linear Objects- Storage Management,

Reflection and Multi-Threading, Henry Baker.
(ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/hb/hbaker/Use1Var.html)].
["Linear types can change the world!", Philip Wadler,

"Programming Concepts and Methods", April 1990, eds. M. Broy,
C. Jones, pub. North-Holland, IFIP TC2 Working Conference on
Programming Concepts and Methods, Sea of Galilee, Israel].
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
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list
<data> A data structure holding many values, possibly of

different types, which is usually accessed sequentially,
working from the head to the end of the tail - an "ordered
list". This contrasts with a (one-dimensional) array, any
element of which can be accessed equally quickly.
Lists are often stored using a cell and pointer arrangement

where each value is stored in a cell along with an associated
pointer to the next cell. A special pointer, e.g. zero, marks
the end of the list. This is known as a (singlely) "linked
list". A doublely linked list has pointers from each cell to
both next and previous cells.
An unordered list is a set.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
Lobachevsky Nikolai Ivanovich
<history of philosophy, biography> Russian mathematician who

developed a non-Euclidean geometry
(1792-1856), denying the truth of
Euclid' s parallel postulate by supposing that there may be
two or more such lines passing through a given point.
Recommended Reading: H. S. Coxeter, Non-Euclidean Geometry
(Math. Assn. of Amer., 1998); Marvin Jay Greenberg, Euclidean
and Non-Euclidean Geometries: Development and History
(Freeman, 1995); Non-Euclidean Geometry, ed. by Roberto Bonola
and H. S. Carslaw (Dover, 1954); and Morris Kline, Mathematical
Thought from Ancient to Modern Times (Oxford, 1990).
23-01-2002
Locke John
<history of philosophy, biography> although he completed a

philosophical education at Oxford,
John Locke (1632-1704) declined
the offer of a permanent academic position in order to avoid
committing himself to a religious order. Having also studied
medicine, he served for many years as private physician and
secretary to Anthony Ashley Cooper, the first Earl of
Shaftesbury and one of the Lord Proprietors of the Carolina
Colonies. Locke' s involvement with this controversial
political figure led to a period of self-imposed exile in
Holland during the 1680s, but after the Glorious Revolution
of 1688 he held several minor governmental offices. A friend of
Isaac Newton and Robert Boyle, Locke was also an early
member of the Royal Society. He studied and wrote on
philosophical, scientific, and political matters throughout
his life, but the works for which he is best known were
published in a single, sudden burst. The fundamental principles
of Locke' sphilosophy are presented in An Essay Concerning
Human Understanding (1690), the culmination of twenty years
of reflection on the origins of human knowledge. According
to Locke, what we know is always properly understood as the
relation between ideas, and he devoted much of the Essay to
an extended argument that all of our ideas-simple or
complex-are ultimately derived from experience. The
consequence of this empiricist approach is that the
knowledge of which we are capable is severely limited in
its scope and certainty. Our knowledge of material substances,
for example, depends heavily on the secondary qualities by
reference to which we name them, while their real inner natures
derive from the primary qualities of their insensible parts.
Nevertheless, Locke held that we have no grounds for complaint
about the limitations of our knowledge, since a proper
application of our cognitive capacities is enough to guide
our action in the practical conduct of life. The Essay brought
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great fame, and Locke spent much of the rest of his life
responding to admirers and critics by making revisions in later
editions of the book, including detailed accounts of human
volition and moral freedom, the personal identityon which
our responsibility as moral agents depends, and the dangers
of religious enthusiasm. One additional section that was never
included in the Essay itself is Of the Conduct of the
Understanding, a practical guide to the achievement of useful
beliefs about the world. The bachelor philosopher' s notions
about childrearing appeared in Some Thoughts concerning Education
(1693). By contrast, Locke chose to avoid controversy by
publishing his political writings anonymously. With the Two
Treatises of Civil Government (1690) Locke established himself
as a political theorist of the highest order. The First
Treatise is a detailed refutation of the (now-forgotten)
monarchist theories of Robert Filmer, but the Second
Treatise of Government offers a systematic account of the
foundations of political obligation. On Locke' s view, all
rights begin in the individual property interest created by
an investment of labor. The social structure or
commonwealth, then, depends for its formation and maintenance
on the express consent of those who are governed by its
political powers. Majority rule thus becomes the cornerstone
of all political order, and dissatisfied citizens reserve
a lasting right to revolution. Similarly, Locke' s Letter
Concerning Toleration (1689) argued for a broad (though not
limitless) acceptance of alternative religious convictions.
Primary sources:
John Locke, Works (Clarendon, 1975); John Locke, An Essay
Concerning Human Understanding, ed. by Peter H. Nidditch
(Clarendon, 1989); John Locke, Some Thoughts Concerning
Education and of the Conduct of the Understanding, ed. by
Ruth W. Grant and Nathan Tarcov (Hackett, 1996); John Locke,
Two Treatises of Government, ed. by Peter Laslett (Cambridge,
1988); John Locke, A Letter Concerning Toleration (Prometheus
Books, 1990).
Secondary sources:
Richard I. Aaron, John Locke (Clarendon, 1971);
Nicholas Jolley, Locke: His Philosophical Thought (Oxford, 1999);
John W. Yolton, Locke and the Way of Ideas (St. Augustine, 1993);
The Cambridge Companion to Locke, ed. by Vere Chappell
(Cambridge, 1994); Locke on Human Understanding, ed. by I. C.
Tiption (Oxford, 1977); Locke' s Philosophy: Content and Context,
ed. by G. A. J. Rogers (Oxford, 1997); Michael Ayers, Locke:
Epistemology and Ontology (Routledge, 1994); John L. Mackie,
Problems from Locke (Oxford, 1976); Michael Ayers, Locke
(Routledge, 1999); John Locke: An Essay Concerning Human
Understanding in Focus, ed. by Gary Fuller, Robert Stecker,
and John P. Wright (Routledge, 2000); E. J. Lowe, Routledge
Philosophy Guidebook to Locke on Human Understanding (Routledge,
1995); David L. Thomas, Locke on Government (Routledge, 1995).
Additional on-line information about Locke includes:
Roger Woolhouse' s article in The Oxford Companion to Philosophy.
Also see: the social contract, empiricism, English philosophy,
ideas, innate ideas, inner sense, natural kinds, philosophy
of language, latitudinarianism, liberalism, mixture of labour,
the Molyneux problem, the people, personal identity, pleasure,
political philosophy, primary and secondary qualities, property,
qualities, the representative theory of perception, revolution,
the rule of law, political self-determination, the state of
nature, tabula rasa, toleration, and trust.
G. J. Mattey' s lectures on Locke.
A section on Locke from Alfred Weber' s history of philosophy.
Snippets from Locke in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations.
The Bloomsbury Guide to Human Thought on The State and Revolution.
Discussion of Locke' s critique of innatism by Syliane Charles.
Bjoern Christensson' s brief guide to Internet resources.
23-01-2002
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locutionary act
<philosophical terminology> the simple speech act of generating

sounds that are linked together by grammatical conventions so as
to say something meaningful. Among speakers of English, for
example, "It is raining" performs the locutionary act of saying
that it is raining, as "Grablistrod zetagflx dapu" would not.
Recommended Reading: J. L. Austin, How to Do Things With Words,
ed. by Marina Sbisa and J. O. Urmson (Harvard, 1975) and John
R. Searle, Speech Acts (Cambridge, 1970).
23-01-2002
Loebner Prize
<artificial intelligence> An annual competition in artificial

intelligence started by Dr. Hugh Gene Loebner
of New York City in 1991. A $100,000 prize
is offered to the author of the first computer program to pass
an unrestricted Turing test. Annual competitions are held
each year with a $2000 prize for the best program on a
restricted Turing test.
Sponsors of previous competitions include: Apple Computer,

Computerland, Crown Industries, GDE Systems, IBM Personal
Computer Company' sCenter for Natural Computing, Greenwich
Capital Markets, Motorola, the National Science
Foundation, The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and The Weingart
Foundation.
The 1995 and 1996 events were unrestricted Turing Tests,

requiring computer entries to converse indefinitely with no
topic restrictions. So far, even the best programs give
themselves away almost immediately, either by simple
grammatical mistakes or by repetition.
Complete transcripts and IBM compatible diskettes that play

the 1991, 1992, and 1993 conversations in real-time are
available for purchase from the Cambridge Center for
Behavioral Studies (telephone: +1 (617) 491 9020, Fax: 1072).
Sponsorship opportunities are available.
Home (http://info.acm.org/~loebner/loebner-prize.htmlx).
Dr. Hugh G. Loebner

Prize Donor
Telephone: +1 (201) 672 2277 (fax 7536).
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
Loewenheim-Skolem theorem
<logic>
Every first-order theory with a model has a denumerable model. The
theorem implies that consistent first-order theories, including
those
intended to capture the real numbers or other uncountable sets, will
be
non-categorical; hence it implies that there is no consistent,
categorical
description of the reals in a first-order theory.
See categoricity of systems, Skolem paradox
Downward Loewenheim-Skolem theorem
If a first-order theory has a model of any infinite cardinality k,

then
it has a model of every infinite cardinality j, j
<= k.
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Upward Loewenheim-Skolem theorem
If a first-order theory has a model of any infinite cardinality,

then it
has a model of any arbitrary infinite cardinality, and hence,
models
of
every infinite cardinality. Variation for systems with identity:
if a
first-order theory has a normal model of any infinite cardinality,
then it has a normal model of any arbitrary infinite cardinality.
16-03-2001
logarithmus dualis
<mathematics> (ld) Latin for logarithm base two. More

commonly written as "log" with a subscript "2".
Roughly the number of bits required to represent an

integer.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
logic
<discipline>
1. <logic, mathematics> A branch of philosophy and
mathematics that deals with the formal principles, methods and
criteria of validity of inference, reasoning and
knowledge.
Logic is concerned with what is true and how we can know

whether something is true. This involves the formalisation of
logical arguments and proofs in terms of symbols
representing propositions and logical connectives. The
meanings of these logical connectives are expressed by a set
of rules which are assumed to be self-evident.
Boolean algebra deals with the basic operations of truth

values: AND, OR, NOT and combinations thereof. Predicate
logic extends this with existential and universal
quantifiers and symbols standing for predicates which may
depend on variables. The rules of natural deduction
describe how we may proceed from valid premises to valid
conclusions, where the premises and conclusions are
expressions in predicate logic.
Symbolic logic uses a meta-language concerned with truth,

which may or may not have a corresponding expression in the
world of objects called existence. In symbolic logic,
arguments and proofs are made in terms of symbols
representing propositions and logical connectives. The
meanings of these begin with a set of rules or primitives
which are assumed to be self-evident. Fortunately, even from
vague primitives, functions can be defined with precise
meaning.
Boolean logic deals with the basic operations of truth

values: AND, OR, NOT and combinations thereof. Predicate
logic extends this with existential quantifiers and
universal quantifiers which introduce bound variables
ranging over finite sets; the predicate itself takes on
only the values true and false. Deduction describes how we
may proceed from valid premises to valid conclusions, where
these are expressions in predicate logic.
Carnap used the phrase "rational reconstruction" to describe

the logical analysis of thought. Thus logic is less concerned
with how thought does proceed, which is considered the realm
of psychology, and more with how it should proceed to discover
truth. It is the touchstone of the results of thinking, but
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neither its regulator nor a motive for its practice.
See also fuzzy logic, logic programming, arithmetic and logic unit,
first-order logic,
See also Boolean logic, fuzzy logic, logic programming,

first-order logic, logic bomb, combinatory logic,
higher-order logic, intuitionistic logic, equational
logic, modal logic, linear logic, paradox.
2. <electronics> Boolean logic circuits.
See also arithmetic and logic unit, asynchronous logic,

TTL.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
logic gate
An integrated circuit or other device whose inputs and

outputs represent Boolean or binary values as voltages
(TTL uses 0V for False or 0, +5V for True or 1). Different
gates implement different Boolean functions: AND, OR,
NAND, NOR (these may take two or more inputs) NOT (one
input), XOR (two inputs). NOT, NAND and NOR are often
constructed from single transistors and the other gates made
from combinations of these basic ones. These functions are
all combinatorial logic functions, i.e. their outputs depend
only on their inputs and there is no internal state. Gates
with state, such as latches and flip-flops, are
constructed by feeding some of their outputs back to their
inputs.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
logic programming
<artificial intelligence, PI, language> A

declarative, relational style of programming based on
first-order logic. The original logic programming language
was Prolog. The concept is based on Horn clauses.
The programmer writes a "database" of "facts", e.g.
wet(water).
("water is wet") and "rules", e.g.
mortal(X) :- human(X).
("X is mortal is implied by X is human"). Facts and rules are

collectively known as "clauses".
The user supplies a "goal" which the system attempts to

prove using "resolution" or "backward chaining". This
involves matching the current goal against each fact or the
left hand side of each rule using "unification". If the
goal matches a fact, the goal succeeds; if it matches a rule
then the process recurses, taking each sub-goal on the right
hand side of the rule as the current goal. If all sub-goals
succeed then the rule succeeds.
Each time a possible clause is chosen, a "choice point" is

created on a stack. If subsequent resolution fails then
control eventually returns to the choice point and subsequent
clauses are tried. This is known as "backtracking".
Clauses may contain logic variables which take on any value

necessary to make the fact or the left hand side of the rule
match a goal. Unification binds these variables to the
corresponding subterms of the goal. Such bindings are
associated with the choice point at which the clause was
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chosen and are undone when backtracking reaches that choice

point.
The user is informed of the success or failure of his first

goal and if it succeeds and contains variables he is told what
values of those variables caused it to succeed. He can then
ask for alternative solutions.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
logic variable
<PI> A variable in a logic programming language

which is initially undefined ("unbound") but may get bound to
a value or another logic variable during unification of the
containing clause with the current goal. The value to which
it is bound may contain other variables which may themselves
be bound or unbound.
For example, when unifying the clause
sad(X) :- computer(X, ibmpc).
with the goal
sad(billgates).
the variable X will become bound to the atom "billgates"

yeilding the new subgoal "computer(billgates, ibmpc)".
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
logical axiom
axioms
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logical complement
<logic> In Boolean algebra, the logical complement or

negation of a Boolean value is the opposite value, given by
the following truth table:
A | -A
--+---
T|F
F|T
-A is also written as A with a bar over it or with a small

vertical line hanging from the right-hand end of the "-"
(LaTeX
eg) or as A' . In theC programming language, it
is !A and in digital circuit design, /A.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
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logical empiricist
<philosophical school>
a term for those 20th century philosophers who maintain that
empiricism is right on purely logical
(not psychological) grounds.
Empiricism becomes a theory about the meaning of synthetic
propositions: namely, that their meaning can be given entirely in
experiential, or phenomenal terms.
30-04-2001
logical form
<philosophical terminology> the structure of a proposition or

an argument from which all content has been removed.
Tautology and validity are features that hold only in
virtue of logical form.
Recommended Reading: William G. Lycan, Logical Form in Natural
Language (MIT, 1969) and Robert May, Logical Form (MIT, 1985).
23-01-2002
logical implication
implication
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logical positivism
<epistemology, philosophical movement>

Logical positivism is a movement in 20th century philosophy that
originated as a reaction against nineteenth-century idealism.
The word logical in the name refers to the belief that logic is
all-important for philosophy (thus this movement is a sort of
logicism), while "positivism" here is really a certain form of
empiricism which claims that empiricism is the whole of
philosophy and that there is no validity to anything which could be
called conceptual experience or conceptual insight. The movement
is also a form of conventionalism, since its adherents hold that
things are true only by convention. Logical positivists denigrate
or ignore ethics, and some have even gone so far as to say that all
values are merely expressions of emotion (see emotivism). Thus
the logical positivists, while holding a deep respect for reason
in the limited context of logic and mathematics, have had such
a limited view of what reason is (a process of contraction started
by Kant) that they have ended up holding some extremely
subjectivistic views, especially in ethics. (References from
logicism, nominalism, positivism, and scholasticism.)
[The Ism Book]
<philosophical terminology> twentieth-century

philosophical movement that used a strict principle of
verifiability to reject as meaningless the
non-empirical statements of metaphysics, theology, and
ethics. Under the influence of Hume, Russell, and the
early Wittgenstein, the logical positivists regarded as
meaningful only statements reporting empirical observations,
taken together with the tautologies of logic and mathematics.
Prominent logical positivists included members of the
Vienna Circle and Ayer.
Recommended Reading: A. J. Ayer, Logical Positivism (Free Press,
1966); Michael Friedman, Reconsidering Logical Positivism
(Cambridge, 1999); and Science and Philosophy in the Twentieth
Century: Basic Works of Logical Empiricism, ed. by Sahotra Sarkar
(Garland, 1996) - Vol. 1: The Emergence of Logical Empiricism:
From 1900 to the Vienna Circle, Vol. 2: Logical Empiricism at Its
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Peak: Schlick, Carnap, and Neurath, Vol. 3: Logic, Probability,

and Epistemology: The Power of Semantics, Vol. 4: Logical
Empiricism and the Special Sciences: Reichenbach, Feigl, and
Nagel, Vol. 5: Decline and Obsolescence of Logical Empiricism:
Carnap vs. Quine and the Critics, and Vol. 6: The Legacy of the
Vienna Circle: Modern Appraisals.
23-01-2002
logical relation
A relation R satisfying
f R g <=> For all a, b, a R b => f a R g b
This definition, by Plotkin, can be used to extend the

definition of a relation on the types of a and b to a relation
on functions.
16-03-2001
logical validity
<logic>
For a wff, to be true for every interpretation of the
formal language;
to have every interpretation be a model. "Every interpretation"
here is
understood to mean all, but only, those interpretations in which the
connectives and/or quantifiers take their standard meanings. In
truth-functional propositional logic, logically valid wffs are
also
called
tautologies. In standard predicate logic, logical validity is
limited
to
interpretations with non-empty domains. Logical validity is also
called
logical truth.
Notation:
|= A (A is a
logically valid wff).
See k-validity, model, predicate logic, tautology, true for

an
interpretation
16-03-2001
logicization of arithmetic
<philosophical terminology> the program - conceived by Dedekind,

Peano, Frege, and Hilbert, but completed by Russell and
Whitehead in Principia Mathematica (1913)- of showing that
arithmetical knowledge can be demonstrated upon the basis of
purely logical axioms and definitions. The project was
effectively demolished by G–del' s proof that sometrue
formal propositions must nevertheless remain undecidable
within the system.
Recommended Reading: Howard Whitley Eves, Foundations and
Fundamental Concepts of Mathematics (Dover, 1997); Ivor
Grattan-Guinness, The Search for Mathematical Roots, 1870-1940
(Princeton, 2001); and From Frege to Godel 1879-1931: A Source
Book in Mathematical Logic, ed. by Jean Van Heijenoort
(iUniverse, 1999).
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23-01-2002
logos - mythos
<philosophical terminology> Plato' s Greek distinction between

two ways of explaining what happens: either by providing an
explicit rational account (logos), which combines with
belief to form accurate knowledge (Gk. episteme) of the
essence of things; or merely by telling a story with
figurative significance (mythos). The Stoics elevated
logos into an active principle that generates the specific
"seminal reasons" (Gk. logoi spermatikoi) from which individual
things flow. Philo Judaeus fully personified this notion as the
divine agent responsible for creation of the world.
Recommended Reading: F.E. Peters, Greek Philosophical Terms: A
Historical Lexicon (NYU, 1967).
23-01-2002
Lombard Peter
<history of philosophy, biography> Italian theologian and

philosopher (1095-1160 )whose
Sententiae in quattuor libris distinctae
(Four Books of Sentences) (1158) compiled the assertions
and arguments of ancient philosophers and patristic theologians,
providing a traditional background upon which late medieval
scholasticism frequently commented.
Recommended Reading: Marcia L. Colish, Peter Lombard (Brill, 1994).
23-01-2002
long term memory
the permanent memory store accessed after a considerable gap
between the presentation of a stimulus and its recall.
See also short term memory, memory.
16-03-2001
loop
<PI> A sequence of instructions that the

processor repeats, either until some condition is met, or
indefinitely.
In an structured language (e.g. C, Pascal, BASIC, or

Fortran), a loop is usually achieved with for loop, while
loop or repeat loop constructs.
In other languages these constructs may be synthesised with a

jump (assembly language) or a GOTO (early Fortran or
BASIC).
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
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Lorenz attractor
<mathematics> (After Edward Lorenz, its discoverer) A region

in the phase space of the solution to certain systems of
(non-linear) differential equations. Under certain
conditions, the motion of a particle described by such as
system will neither converge to a steady state nor diverge to
infinity, but will stay in a bounded but chaotically defined
region. By chaotic, we mean that the particle' s location,
while definitely in the attractor, might as well be randomly
placed there. That is, the particle appears to move randomly,
and yet obeys a deeper order, since is never leaves the
attractor.
Lorenz modelled the location of a particle moving subject to

atmospheric forces and obtained a certain system of ordinary
differential equations. When he solved the system
numerically, he found that his particle moved wildly and
apparently randomly. After a while, though, he found that
while the momentary behaviour of the particle was chaotic, the
general pattern of an attractor appeared. In his case, the
pattern was the butterfly shaped attractor now known as the
Lorenz attractor.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
Lorenz Konrad
<history of philosophy, biography> Austrian biologist

(1903-1989); author
of King Solomon' s Ring (1949) and Man Meets Dog (1950).Lorenz' s
comparative studies of animal behavior led to the development
of the discipline of ethology. He is best known for On
Aggression (1966), an exploration of the instinctual
foundations of aggressive behavior in animals, including
human beings. He shared the Nobel Prize for medicine in 1973.
Recommended Reading: Animal and Human Aggression, ed. by Pierre
Karli and S.M. Carmona and The Foundations of Ethology (Springer
Verlag, 1981).
23-01-2002
Lotze Rudolf Hermann
<history of philosophy, biography> German philosopher

(1817-1881). As a
committed idealist, Lotze argued in Mikrocosmus (1856-1864)
that the apparent success of mechanistic explanations of the
natural world derives only from the organic unity of
consciousness through laws of nature which express the will
of the Absolute. This position was a significant influence on
Royce and Santayana.
Recommended Reading: George Santayana, Lotze' s System of
Philosophy; Hermann Lotze, Grundzuge der praktischen Philosophie
(Rodopi, 1969); and Hermann Lotze, Outlines of Psychology
(Ayer, 1973).
23-01-2002
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Lovejoy Arthur Oncken

(1873-1962) whose
Revolt against Dualism (1930) defended perceptual realism by
arguing that material objects exist independently of our
perception of them. The historical sweep of Lovejoy' s The
Great Chain of Being introduced an influential set of methods
for the study of the history of ideas and used them to trace
the recurrence of the principle of plenitude in
Western philosophy.
Recommended Reading: Arthur O. Lovejoy and George Boas,
Primitivism and Related Ideas in Antiquity (Johns Hopkins,
1997) and The History of Ideas: Canon and Variations, ed. by
Donald R. Kelley (Rochester, 1990).
23-01-2002
lower set
<mathematics> A finite non-empty downward closed subset of

a partial order.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
LTM
long term memory
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Lucretius Titus Lucretius Carus
<history of philosophy, biography> Roman philosopher (99-55 BC).

Lucretius' sphilosophical poem De rerum natura (On the
Nature of Things) (50 B.C.) expounded the atomism of Leucippus,
Democritus, and Epicurus. Lucretius denied the immortality
of the soul and criticized the superstitious adherence to
religious belief.
Recommended Reading: G. D. Hadzsits, Lucretius and His Influence
(Cooper Square, 1930) and K. A. Algra, M. H. Koenen, and P. H.
Schrijvers, Lucretius and his Intellectual Background (Royal
Netherlands Academy, 1997).
23-01-2002
Lukacs Grygory
<history of philosophy, biography> Hungarian philosopher

(1885-1971). In
Geschichte und Klassen-bewuþtsein (History and Class
Consciousness) (1923) Luk• cs offered an extended defense of
European communism as a means of overcoming the harmful
effects of alienation. He also applied the philosophy of
Marx to literary theory in Die Eigenart des Ÿesthetischen
(The Specificity of the Aesthetic) (1963), articulating an
influential conception of "socialist realism."
Recommended Reading: The Lukacs Reader, ed. by Arpad Kadarky
(Blackwell, 1995); Mary Gluck, Georg Lukacs and His Generation,
1900-1918 (Harvard, 1991); Eugene Lunn, Marxism and Modernism:
An Historical Study of Lukacs, Brecht, Benjamin, and Adorno
(California, 1984); Agnes Heller, Lukacs Reappraised (Columbia,
1984); and Galin Tihanov, The Master and the Slave: Luk• cs,
Bakhtin, and the Ideas of the Time (Oxford, 2000).
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23-01-2002
Lukasiewicz Jan
<history of philosophy, biography> Polish logician

(1878-1956) whose
Aristotle' s Syllogistic from the Standpoint of Modern Formal
Logic (1957) introduced a bracketless logical notation and
developed an axiomatic treatment of Aristotelean syllogistic.
He also proposed the use of a three-valued logic for
interpretation of future contingent propositions as neither
true nor false but merely possible, in order to vitiate
the difficulties traditionally associated with the
principle of bivalence.
Recommended Reading: Aristotle & Lukasiewicz on the Principle
of Contradiction, ed. by Frederick Seddon (Modern Logic, 1996)
and Philosophical Logic in Poland, ed. by Jan Wolenski
(Kluwer, 1994).
23-01-2002
Lull Raimond
(1235-1315) was born in Palma de Mallorca. After a tumultuous youth, he joined the Franciscan order firmly
convinced that his mission was to convert the infidels. To accomplish his purpose, he amalgamated Agostinism
and Aristotelism . Since the only way to convert Muslims to the Catholic faith is to demonstrate the truths of
faith by means of reason, Lull develops his Ars Magna, or Ars Generalis, in which he states a series of rigorous
logical deductions starting from certain and evident supreme principles that also the Muslims can accept. His
polemic targets were Averroè and Sigier of Brabant, whose doctrine of double truth he opposed. His thought
found excellent reception in Paris, Valencia and Barcelona; successively, Leibniz salvaged the Lullian idea of a
Mathesis Universalis as a rational project. Raimond Lull died in Tunisia during the umpteenth attempt to
convert Muslims to Christianity.
Primary sources:
Raimondi Lulli Opera Latina cum cura et studio Instituti Raimundi Lulli in universitate friburgense brisivagorum
ad fidem codicum manu scriptorum edita (Palma de Mallorca voll. I-V - Thurnholt vol. VI-XXIII). The remaining
volumes are under publication.
Secondary sources:
J. A. Yates, The Art of Raimond Lull (1955);
Carlo Ottaviano, L’ars compendiosa de R. Lull avec un étude sur la bibliographie et le fond Ambrosien de Lull
(1930);
Louis Sala-Molins, La philosophie de l’amour chez R. Lulle, ed. V. Jankélevitch,
Revista de Estudios Lulianos (1974);
Web-bibliography: www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/5284/estev.html
Sandro Borzoni
11-05-2004
Luxemburg Rosa
<history of philosophy, biography> Polish

political activist (1871-1919),
author of Sozialreform oder Revolution? (Social Reform or
Revolution?) (1899) and Die Akkumulation des Kapitals: Ein
Beitrag zur Okonomischen Erklarung des Imperialismus (The
Accumulation of Capital: An Anti-Critique) (1913). After
studying law and economics in Switzerland, Luxemburg
helped to establish socialist revolutionary movements in both
Poland and Germany. Although she supported the Russian
revolution, she disagreed with Lenin about the totalitarian
structure of the state. The War and the Workers (1916) was
written during her imprisonment in Germany. She was assassinated
in Berlin.
Recommended Reading: Rosa Luxemburg: Writings and Reflections,
ed. by Paul Le Blanc (Humanity, 1999); Rosa Luxemburg and Emma
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Goldman: A Bibliography, ed. by Joan Nordquist (Reference &

Research Services, 1996); Rosa Luxemburg Speaks, ed. by Mary-Alice
Waters (Pathfinder, 1979); Rosa Luxemburg: A Revolutionary for
Our Times, ed. by Stephen Eric Bronner (Penn. State, 1997); and
Raya Dunayevskaya, Rosa Luxemburg, Women' s Liberation, and
Marx' s Philosophy of Revolution (Illinois, 1991).
23-01-2002
Lyotard Jean-Francois
<history of philosophy, biography> French philosopher and

literary theorist (1924-1998).
Lyotard maintained in Le Diffèrend (The
Differend) (1983) that human discourses occur in any number
of discrete and incommensurable realms, none of which is
privileged to pass judgment on the success or value of any
of the others. Thus, in Šconomie libidinale (Libidinal Economy)
(1974), La Condition postmoderne: Rapport sur le savoir (The
Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge) (1979), and Au
juste: Conversations (Just Gaming) (1979), Lyotard attacked
contemporary literary theories and encouraged experimental
discourse unbounded by excessive concern for truth.
Recommended Reading: Jean-Francois Lyotard, Political Writings,
tr. by Kevin P. Geiman (Minnesota, 1993); Jean-Francois Lyotard,
The Inhuman: Reflections on Time, tr. by Rachel Bowlby and
Geoffrey Bennington (Stanford, 1992); The Lyotard Reader, ed. by
Andrew Benjamin (Blackwell, 1989); Jean-Francois Lyotard,
Phenomenology, tr. by Brian Beakley (SUNY, 1991); Jean-Francois
Lyotard, Postmodern Fables, tr. by Georges Van Den Abbeele
(Minnesota, 1999); James Williams, Lyotard: Towards a Modern
Philosophy (Polity, 1998); David Carroll, Paraesthetics:
Foucault, Lyotard, Derrida (Routledge, 1987); James Williams,
Lyotard and the Political (Routledge, 2000); Judging Lyotard,
ed. by Andrew Benjamin (Routledge, 1992); and Jean-Francois
Lyotard: Time and Judgment, ed. by Robert Harvey and Lawrence
R. Schehr (Yale, 2001).
23-01-2002
m-consistency
<logic> (model-theoretic consistency)

The state of having a model
(see also proof-theoretic consistency)
Model-theoretic consistent wff
A wff that has a model
Model-theoretic consistent set of wffs (m-consistent set)
A set of wffs for which there is a model, I, in which each

member of the
set is true for I.
Model-theoretic inconsistency (m-inconsistency)
The state of not having a model; being true in no interpretations.
16-03-2001
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magnanimity
<history of philosophy, ethics, philosophy of politics>

greatness of soul; one of Aristotle' s most
important virtues.
15-02-2002
Maimonides Moses Moses ben Maimon or Rambam
<biography, history of philosophy> jewish philosopher and

theologian (1135-1204) whose
Sefer ha-Mizvot (Book of Commandments)
codified Talmudic law. In Moreh Nevukhim (Guide to the
Perplexed) (1190), Maimonides offered for the benefit of
the intellectually elite an effective synthesis of
medieval Judaism with the philosophy of Aristotle. On
this view, reason is the primary source for human knowledge,
but it remains acceptable to rely upon faith in cases beyond
the reach of rationality. Maimonides' s opposition to the
neoplatonism of al-Farabi and Ibn Sina was a significant
influence on the work of Aquinas and Spinoza.
Recommended Reading: Ethical Writings of Maimonides, ed. by
Charles E. Butterworth (Dover, 1983); Maimonides Reader, ed.
by Isadore Twersky (Behrman House, 1989); Jose Faur, Homo
Mysticus: A Guide to Maimonides' s Guide for the Perplexed
(Syracuse, 1999); Marvin Fox, Interpreting Maimonides:
Studies in Methodology, Metaphysics, and Moral Philosophy
(Chicago, 1995); Idit Dobbs-Weinstein, Maimonides and St.
Thomas on the Limits of Reason (SUNY, 1995); and Maimonides:
A Collection of Critical Essays, ed. by Joseph A. Buijs
(Notre Dame, 1990).
15-02-2002
major premise
<philosophy of science, logic> in a categorical syllogism,

the premise whose terms are the syllogism' smajor term
and middle term.
15-02-2002
major term
<philosophy of science, logic> the predicate term of the

conclusion of a categorical syllogism.
15-02-2002
Malebranche Nicolas
<biography, history of philosophy> french priest and

philosopher (1638-1715). As a leading Cartesian, Malebranche
argued in De la Recherche de la Ve/rite/ (The Search after
Truth) (1675) and Entretiens sur la mÈtaphysique et sur
la religion (Dialogues on Metaphysics and on Religion) (1688)
that our ideas provide no direct, certain knowledge of bodies,
but that instead we "see all things in god." This divinely
ordained occasionalism provided for the apparent regularity
of the natural world without appealing to any genuine
causal interaction among things. Malebranche' s explanation
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of the imperfection of a divinely-created universe in the

TraitÈ de la nature et de la grace (Treatise on Nature and
Grace) (1680) and other theological writings influenced the
theodicy of Leibniz.
Recommended Reading: Nicolas Malebranche, Oeuvres Completes
(French & European, 1978); Patricia Easton, Thomas M. Lennon,
and Gregor Sebba, Bibliographia Malebranchiana: A Critical Guide
to the Malebranche Literature into 1989 (Southern Illinois,
1992); Nicholas Jolley, The Light of the Soul: Theories of Ideas
in Leibniz, Malebranche, and Descartes (Clarendon, 1998); and
The Cambridge Companion to Malebranche, ed. by Steven M. Nadler
(Cambridge, 2000).
16-02-2002
Malthus Thomas Robert
<biography, history of philosophy> english economist (1766-1834).

In his
Essay on the Principle of Population (1798) Malthus pointed
out that since human populations tend to grow more rapidly than
their supply of food, they are eventually reduced by war,
disease, and famine. In opposition to the optimism of social
reformers like Godwin, Malthus urged the prohibition or
postponement of marriage as a responsible social policy in
Principles of Political Economy (1820).
Recommended Reading: William Petersen, Malthus: Founder of
Modern Demography (Transaction, 1998); Thomas Robert Malthus:
Critical Assessments, ed. by John Cunningham Wood (Routledge,
1986); Malthus: Critical Responses, ed. by Geoffrey Gilbert
(Routledge, 1997); and Beyond Malthus: Nineteen Dimensions of
the Population Challenge, ed. by Lester R. Brown, Gary Gardner,
and Brian Halweil (Norton, 1999).
16-02-2002
Mandelbrot Benoit
<biography, history of philosophy> polish-american

mathematician (1924-). Mandelbrot' s
The Fractal Geometry of Nature
(1982) made significant contributions to the study of
fractal geometry as a method of understanding the
scale-symmetries of natural objects and artifacts.
Recommended Reading: Fractal Geometry and Analysis, ed.
by C.J.G. Evertsz, H.-O. Peitgen, and R. F. Voss (World
Scientific, 1996) and Complex Dynamical Systems: The
Mathematics Behind the Mandelbrot and Julia Sets, ed.
by Robert L. Devaney (Am. Math. Soc., 1995).
16-02-2002
Mandelbrot set
<mathematics, graphics> (After its discoverer, Benoit

Mandelbrot) The set of all complex numbers c such that
| z[N] | < 2
for arbitrarily large values of N, where
z[0] = 0
z[n+1] = z[n]^2 + c
The Mandelbrot set is usually displayed as an Argand

diagram, giving each point a colour which depends on the
largest N for which | z[N] | < 2, up to some maximum N which
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is used for the points in the set (for which N is infinite).

These points are traditionally coloured black.
The Mandelbrot set is the best known example of a fractal -

it includes smaller versions of itself which can be explored
to arbitrary levels of detail.
The Fractal Microscope

(http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Edu/Fractal/Fractal_Home.html/).
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
Mandeville Bernard
<biography, history of philosophy> dutch physician and

philosopher (1670-1733). Mandeville' s The Fable of the
Bees; or, Private
Vices, Public Benefits (1723) offered an account of human
society as a purely conventional construction, governed by
economic and moral principles serving only to secure the
rational self-interest of its individual citizens. The only
motive for altruistic conduct, Mandeville supposed, is the
condescending self-satisfaction an agent feels when proudly
acting for the benefit of others.
Recommended Reading: M. M. Goldsmith, Private Vices, Public
Benefits: Bernard Mandeville' s Social and Political Thought
(Cambridge, 1991); Jack Malcolm, The Social and Political
Thought of Bernard Mandeville (Garland, 1991); and Paradox
and Society: The Work of Bernard Mandeville, ed. by Louis
Schneider and Jay Weinstein (Transaction, 1986).
17-02-2002
manichaeanism
<religion, ethics, history of philosophy> persian religion.

Followers of Manes (216-277) adhered to a radical dualism
between good and evil, or spirit and body, and
recommended an ascetic way of life.
Augustine, who had been a Manichaean before his conversion
to Christianity, later wrote an extended refutation of this
heretical doctrine.
Recommended Reading: Augustine and Manichaeism in the Latin
West, ed. by Johannes Van Oort, Otto Wermelinger, and Gregor
Wurst (Brill, 2001); Emerging from Darkness: Studies in the
Recovery of Manichaen Sources, ed. by Paul Allan Mirecki and
Jason Beduhn (Brill, 1997); and Jason David Beduhn, The
Manichaean Body: In Discipline and Ritual (Johns Hopkins, 2000).
17-02-2002
Mao Zedong
<biography, politics, history of philosophy> chinese

revolutionary leader and founder of the People' s Republic
of China (1893-1976). While leading
the Chinese revolution, Mao wrote
extensively on the theoretical application of Marx' s
philosophy to the traditional values of Chinese culture.
Many of his comments are included in Quotations from Chairman
Mao. Other significant articles include Analysis of the Classes
in Chinese Society (1926) On Practice (1937), and On New
Democracy (1940).
Recommended Reading: Zedong Mao, On Guerrilla Warfare, tr. by
Samuel B. Griffith (Illinois, 2000); Jonathan D. Spence, Mao
Zedong (Viking, 1999); and Critical Perspectives on Mao Zedong' s
Thought, ed. by Arif Dirlik, Paul Michael Healy, and Nick Knight
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(Promethean, 1997).
17-02-2002
map
1. <mathematics> function.
2. <programming> In functional programming, the most common

higher-order function over lists. Map applies its first
argument to each element of its second argument (a list) and
returns the list of results.
map :: (a -> b) -> [a] -> [b]

map f [] = []
map f (x:xs) = f x : map f xs
This can be generalised to types other than lists.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
mapping
function
00-00-0000
Marcel Gabriel
<biography, history of philosophy> french philosopher

(1889-1973) whose
Le Mystère de l' etre (The mystery of Being) (1950), The
Existentialist Background to Human Dignity (1963), and The
Philosophy of Existentialism (1967) are often considered
classic statements of theistic existentialism, in which
despair and self-deception are overcome by hope and a
spirit of truth. Marcel also wrote plays exhibiting similar
themes, including Un Homme de Dieu (A Man of God) (1925) and La
Dimension Florestan (The Florestan Dimension) (1956).
Recommended Reading: Joe McCown, Gabriel Marcel and the
Phenomenology of Human Openness (Scholars' Press, 1978); Seymour
Cain, Gabriel Marcel' s Theory of Religious Experience (Peter
Lang, 1995); Reflections on Gabriel Marcel: A Collection of
Essays, ed. by William Cooney (Edwin Mellen, 1989); and The
Philosophy of Gabriel Marcel, ed. by Paul Arthur Schilpp and
Lewis Edwin Hahn (Open Court, 1984).
17-02-2002
Marcus Aurelius
<biography, history of philosophy> roman emperor and

philosopher (121-180 CE); author of
an intensely personal statement of
stoic principles in the aphorisms of the Meditations.
Written during his frequent military campaigns, these sayings
provided Marcus with reminders of his ethical obligations.
Recommended Reading: Pierre Hadot, The Inner Citadel: The
Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, trans. by Michael Chase
(Harvard, 1998) and Anthony R. Birley, Marcus Aurelius
(Routledge, 2000).
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17-02-2002
Marcuse Herbert
<biography, history of philosophy> german-american political

philosopher associated with the Frankfurt School
(1898-1979). Author of
Eros and Civilization (1955) and One-Dimensional Man (1964).
Marcuse combined Marx' s economic analysis with
Freudian psychology in an effort to show that a fundamental
social transformation could liberate individual human beings
from the alienation and repression that characterize
patriarchal capitalist societies.
Recommended Reading: Herbert Marcuse, Towards a Critical Theory
of Society, ed. by Douglas Kellner (Routledge, 2001); Joan
Nordquist, Herbert Marcuse: A Bibliography (Ref. and Res. Serv.,
2000); Douglas Kellner, Herbert Marcuse and the Crisis of
Marxism (California, 1992); Marcuse, ed. by Robert Pippin, Andrew
Feenberg, and Charles P. Webel (Greenwood, 1987); and Charles
Reitz, Art, Alienation, and the Humanities: A Critical Engagement
With Herbert Marcuse (SUNY, 2000).
19-02-2002
Maritain Jacques
<biography, history of philosophy> french philosopher (1882-1973).

After
studying with Bergson, Maritain became the leading exponent
of neo-Thomistic thought. His works include: Art et scholastique
(Art and Scholasticism) (1920), Distinguer pour unir, ou les
degre/s du savoir (The Degrees of Knowledge) (1932), and Humanisme
inte/gral (True Humanism) (1936), along with many commentaries on
the philosophy of Aquinas. In Approaches de Dieu (Approaches to
God) (1953), for example, Maritain defended the five ways of
proving God' s existence.Maritain was also one of the authors
of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights approved by the
United Nations in 1948.
Recommended Reading: Jacques Maritain, Man and the State (Catholic
Univ. of Amer., 1998); Jacques Maritain, An Essay on Christian
Philosophy, ed. by Edward H. Flannery (Irvington, 1955); The
Future of Thomism: The Maritain Sequence, ed. by Deal W. Hudson,
Dennis William Moran, and Donald Arthur Gallagher (Notre Dame,
1992); Charles A. Fechek, The Philosophy of Jacques Maritain
(Greenwood, 1953); and James V. Schall, Jacques Maritain (Rowman
& Littlefield, 1998).
19-02-2002
Markov chain
<probability> (Named after Andrei Markov) A model of

sequences of events where the probability of an event
occurring depends upon the fact that a preceding event
occurred.
A Markov process is governed by a Markov chain.
In simulation, the principle of the Markov chain is applied

to the selection of samples from a probability density
function to be applied to the model. Simscript II.5 uses
this approach for some modelling functions.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
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Markov model
<probability, simulation> A model or simulation based on

Markov chains.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
Markov process
<probability, simulation> A process in which the sequence of

events can be described by a Markov chain.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
Marsilius of Padua
<biography, history of philosophy> italian political theorist

who taught in Paris and Nuremberg (1277-1342).
His Defensor Pacis (Defender
of Peace) (1324) refuted papal claims to political as well as
ecclesiastical power and argued that the chief function of
republican government is the resolution of conflicts among
citizens.
Recommended Reading: Marsilius of Padua, Writings on the Empire:
Defensor Minor and De Translatione Imperii, ed. by Cary J.
Nederman (Cambridge, 1993) and Alan Gewirth, Marsilius of
Padua (Ayer, 1979).
04-03-2002
Marx Karl
<biography, history of philosophy> Karl Marx

(1818-1883) was born and
educated in Prussia, where he fell under the influence of
Ludwig Feuerbach and other radical Hegelians. Although he
shared Hegel' s belief indialectical structure and
historical inevitability, Marx held that the foundations
of reality lay in the material base of economics rather
than in the abstract thought of idealistic philosophy. He
earned a doctorate at Jena in 1841, writing on the materialism
and atheism of Greek atomists. Although he attempted to earn
a living as a journalist in K–ln, Paris, and Brussels, Marx' s
participation in unpopular political movements made it difficult
to support his growing family. He finally settled in London in
1849, where he lived in poverty while studying and developing
his economic and political theories. Above all else, Marx
believed that philosophy ought to be employed in practice to
change the world. The core of Marx' seconomic analysis found
early expression in the ÷konomisch-philosophische Manuskripte
aus dem Jahre 1844 (Economic and Political Manuscripts of 1844)
(1844). There, Marx argued that the conditions of modern
industrial societies invariable result in the estrangement
(or alienation) of workers from their own labor. In his review
of a Bruno Baier book, On the Jewish Question (1844), Marx
decried the lingering influence of religion over politics and
proposed a revolutionary re-structuring of European society.
Much later, Marx undertook a systematic explanation of his
economic theories in Das Capital (Capital) (1867-95) and
Theorien Ðber den Mehrwert (Theory of Surplus Value) (1862).
Marx and his colleague Friedrich Engels issued the Manifest
der kommunistischen Partei (Communist Manifesto) (1848) in the
explicit hope of precipitating social revolution. This work
describes the class struggle between proletariat and
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bourgeoisie, distinguishes communism from other

socialist movements, proposes a list of specific social
reforms, and urges all workers to unite in revolution against
existing regimes. You may wish to compare this prophetic
document with the later exposition of similar principles in
Lenin' s State and Revolution (1919).
Primary sources:
Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Gesamtausgabe, ed. by the Institut
fuer Marxismus-Leninismus (Dietz, 1972- );
The Portable Karl Marx, ed. by Eugene Kamenka (Viking, 1983);
The Communist Manifesto, ed. by Frederic L. Bender (Norton, 1988);
Karl Marx, Early Writings, tr. by Rodney Livingstone (Penguin,
1992);
Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, tr. by Ben
Fowkes (Penguin, 1992).
Secondary sources:
The Cambridge Companion to Marx, ed. by Terrell Carver (Cambridge,
1992);
Terry Eagleton, Marx (Routledge, 1999);
Sidney Hook and Christopher Phelps, From Hegel to Marx: Studies
in the Intellectual Development of Karl Marx (Columbia, 1994).
Additional on-line information about Marx includes:
Comprehensive coverage from The Marx/Engels Archive.
Allen Wood' s article in The Oxford Companion to Philosophy.
Also see: alienation, base and superstructure, bourgeoisie and
proletariat, capitalism, class struggle, communism, dialectical
materialism, the dictatorship of the proletariat, exploitation,
false consciousness, German philosophy, historical materialism,
ideology, Marxist philosophy, material contradiction, political
philosophy, property, social constructionism, socialism, and
Soviet philosophy.
The Bloomsbury Guide to Human Thought on Marxism, Capitalism,
The Labour Theory Of Value, The Bourgeoisie, Class, Ideology,
and The Sociology Of Knowledge.
Paul Warren' s paper on Marxist objections to exploitation.
Snippets from Marx and The Communist Manifesto in The Oxford
A contemporary defense of Marxist aims from Bob Stone.
Bjoern Christensson' s brief guide to on -line resources.
The Macmillan Encyclopedia 2001 on Marx and Marxism.
05-03-2002
Masham Damaris Cudworth
<biography, history of philosophy> English philosopher (1659-1708).

The daughter of Ralph Cudworth and an intimate friend of
John Locke, Masham used religious arguments to encourage
the education of women in Occasional Thoughts in Reference
to a Christian Life (1694) and A Discourse concerning the
Love of God (1696).
Recommended Reading: Women Philosophers of the Early Modern
Period, ed. by Margaret Atherton (Hackett, 1994).
05-03-2002
material cause
<metaphysics, history of philosophy> basic stuff of which a thing

is made; one of Aristotle' sfour causes.
Recommended Reading: Aristotle, The Physics: Books I-IV, tr. by
Philip H. Wicksteed and Francis M. Cornford (Harvard, 1986) and
Aristotle' s Physics: A Collection of Essays, ed. by Lindsay Judson
(Clarendon, 1995).
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05-03-2002
material equivalence
<logic, philosophy of science> the logical relationship

between any two propositions that have the same truth-value.
See equivalence.
05-03-2002
material implication
<logic, philosophy of science> the logical relationship

between any two propositions such that either the first
is false or the second is true. See implication.
Recommended Reading: David H. Sanford, If P, Then Q:
Conditionals and the Foundations of Reasoning (Routledge,
1992); W. L. Harper, R. Stalnaker, and G. Pearce, Ifs:
Conditionals, Belief, Decision, Chance, and Time (Kluwer,
1980); and Michael Woods, Conditionals, ed. by David Wiggins
and Dorothy Edgington (Clarendon, 1997).
See implication.
05-03-2002
materialism
<metaphysics, philosophy of mind>

the view according to which the only thing that really exists in
the world is matter in its various states and movements (commonly
atoms or other physical particles). Thus materialism is the
opposite of idealism. Note that
many philosophers and scientists now use the
terms "material" and "physical" interchangeably (for a
version of physicalism distinct from materialism, see physicalism.
Materialism considers any talk of, say,
the soul to be complete nonsense and a throwback to the bad old
days of spiritualism and vitalism in
philosophy. Note that because matter can be completely known
by means of physical laws and mathematical description (see
reductionism), materialism tends to be used to lend heavy support
to determinism. (References from behaviorism, determinism,
idealism, monism, reductionism, and vitalism.)
and Other Writings, ed. by Ann Thomson (Cambridge, 1996); Richard
C. Vitzthum, Materialism: An Affirmative History and Definition
(Prometheus, 1995); Materialism and the Mind-Body Problem, ed.
by David M. Rosenthal (Hackett, 2000); Jennifer Trusted, The
Mystery of Matter (Palgrave, 1999); and Physicalism and Its
Discontents, ed. by Carl Gillett and Barry Loewer (Cambridge,
2001).
Based on [The Ism Book] and the [Dictionary of Philosophy of Mind]

06-03-2002
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<logic>
A powerful technique for proving that a theorem holds for all
cases in a
large or infinite well-ordered sets. The
proof has two steps, the basis and
induction
step. Roughly, in the basis the theorem is proved to hold for
the
"ancestor"
case, and in the induction step it is proved to hold for all
"descendant"
cases.
Example: if S is a well-ordered set with

ordering "<", and we
want to show that a property P holds for every element of S,
it is sufficient to show that, for all s in S,
IF for all t in S, t < s => P(t) THEN P(s)
I.e. if P holds for anything less than s then it holds for s.

In this case we say P is proved by induction.
The most common instance of proof by induction is induction

over the natural numbers where we prove that some property
holds for n=0 and that if it holds for n, it holds for n+1.
(In fact it is sufficient for "<" to be a well-founded

partial order on S, not necessarily a well-ordering of S.)
For a more precise definition, see sub-items below.
See heredity, induction
Basis
Proof that the theorem in question holds for the minimal case.
Induction hypothesis
Assumption that the theorem in question holds (in weak

mathematical
induction) for an arbitrary case k, or that it holds (in strong

mathematical induction) for all cases up to and including k.
Induction step
Proof that if the induction hypothesis is true, then the

theorem in
question holds for case k+1.
Strong and weak mathematical induction
Two versions of the induction hypothesis (see above).
16-03-2001
Mathematical knowledge
Understanding of mathematical entities and ideas and ability to elaborate mathematical ideas into theories.
Thinkers disagree on whether mathematical knowledge is `knowledge that something is so'
(propositional knowledge) or `knowledge of something' (non
-propositional knowledge). A further distinction can
be drawn according to whether mathematical knowledge is, entirely or in part, empirical (a posteriori) or non-
empirical (a priori).
Giuseppina Ronzitti.
See :
• Stewart Shapiro, Philosophy of Mathematics: Structure and Ontology, Oxford University Press (1997).
• Philip Kitcher, The Nature of Mathematical knowledge, New York, Oxford University Press (1983).
28-01-2004
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Mathematical object
An abstract entity that is thought to exist in a mathematical realm. Numbers, functions, sets, points, lines and
triangles are examples of mathematical objects. A main philosophical problem is whether the existence of
mathematical objects is or is not dependent on human mathematical knowledge of them. A related problem is
that of finding out whether mathematical objects come into existence by means of the achievements of such
knowledge or are rather eternal by essence.
Giuseppina Ronzitti
See :
• Paul Benaceraff, “What Numbers could not be” in Philosophical Review 74:47-73 (1965); reprinted in
Benaceraff and Putnam (1983).
• Paul Benacerraf and Hilary Putnam, Philosophy of Mathematics, Selected Readings. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press (1983).
28-01-2004
Mathematical structuralism
The claim that mathematics concerns mathematical structures, rather than isolated objects. In this view, for
example, arithmetics is the study of the form of systems of natural numbers structured by a designated initial
object and a successor function.
Giuseppina Ronzitti
See :
• Charles Parsons, The Structuralist View of Mathematical Objects, Sinthese 84:303-346 (1990)
28-01-2004
matrix
[FidoNet] 1. What the Opus BBS software and sysops call

FidoNet.
2. Fanciful term for a cyberspace expected to emerge from

current networking experiments (see network, the).
3. The totality of present-day computer networks.
[Jargon File]
4. <logic>
In wffs of predicate logic in which all quantifiers are
clustered
together at the left side, the section to the right of the
quantifiers.
See prefix, prenex normal form.
16-03-2001
matter
<metaphysics, cosmology> physical stuff-whatever has size

and shape, is solid and tangible, takes up space, and can
move. Hence, for many philosophers of the Western tradition,
material objects are substances that have the attribute of
extension. Idealists deny the reality of any such stuff,
while materialists deny that there is anything else.
06-03-2002
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mauvaise foi
<ethics, moral philosophy> Sartre' s French term for

"bad faith," the culpable self-deception involved in
declining to accept responsibility for one' schoices.
Recommended Reading: Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness:
A Phenomenological Essay on Ontology, tr. by Hazel E. Barnes
(Washington Square, 1993); Joseph S. Catalano, A Commentary
on Jean-Paul Sartre' s ' Being and Nothingness' (Chicago, 1985);
and Ronald E. Santoni, Bad Faith, Good Faith, and Authenticity
in Sartre' s Early Philosophy (Temple, 1995).
06-03-2002
maxim
<medioeval logic, ethics> an action guiding principle or

policy, e.g., the carpenter' s maxim, "Measure twice, cut
once." According to Kant, a maxim is the subjective rule that
an individual uses in making a decision. For him, all human
actions are undertaken under the
color of maxims, and the moral character of the act --
whether it' sright or wrong -- depends on the
universalizability or nonuniversalizability of the maxim
under color of which it is undertaken. See categorical
imperative.
based on [Ethics Glossary, Philosophical Glossary]
06-03-2002
maximal proof-theoretic consistent set
<logic>
A set of wffs that cannot be enlarged without becoming
p-inconsistent.
See proof-theoretic consistency
16-03-2001
maximin principle
<logic, mathematics, game-theory> supposition that the

preferable alternative is one whose worst outcome is least
harmful, originally in mathematical and game-theoretical
contexts. Thus, when success in any venture is uncertain, it
is better to choose courses of action that risk the least, even
if they don' t offer achance at the most. Rawls argued that
this maximization of the minimum gain to be achieved is a
rational guide for social decision-making.
Recommended Reading: V. F. Dem' Yanov and V. N. Malozemov,
Introduction to Minimax (Dover, 1990); Stephen Simons, Minimax
and Monotonicity (Springer Verlag, 1999); Ronald Christensen,
General Description of Entropy Minimax (Entropy, 1981); and
John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Belknap, 1999).
06-03-2002
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McCulloch-Pitts neuron
<artificial intelligence> The basic building block of

artificial neural networks. It receives one or more inputs
and produces one or more identical outputs, each of which is a
simple non-linear function of the sum of the inputs to the
neuron. The non-linear function is typically a threshold or
step function which is usually smoothed (i.e. a sigmoid) to
facilitate learning.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
McTaggart John McTaggart Ellis
<biography, history of philosophy> british philosopher (1866-1925).

In Studies in the Hegelian Dialectic (1896), Studies in
the Hegelian Cosmology (1901), and Commentary on Hegel' s
Logic (1910) McTaggart criticized and modified Hegel' s use
of dialectical methods. McTaggart' s own effort to unfold
the consequences of the supposition that something exists in
The Nature of Existence (1921, 1927) notoriously resulted in
an extreme version of idealism, according to which space,
time, and material objects have no genuine reality. Only
individual minds, related to each other by love, are real in
the most fundamental sense.
Recommended Reading: J. McT. Ellis McTaggart, Philosophical
Studies, ed. by S. V. Keeling and Gerald Rochelle (St.
Augustine, 1996); Gerald Rochelle, The Life and Philosophy of
J. McT. E. McTaggart, 1866-1925 (Edwin Mellen, 1991); Gerald
Rochelle, Behind Time: The Incoherence of Time and McTaggart' s
Atemporal Replacement (Ashgate, 1998); and C. D. Broad,
Examination of McTaggart' s Philosophy (Thoemmes, 2000).
15-02-2002
Mead George Herbert
<biography, history of philosophy> american philosopher

(1863-1931) who
applied the principles of pragmatism to the development of the
modern discipline of sociology. In The Social Self (1913),
Mead developed a notion of self-consciousness grounded in
social interaction that would be more fully explained in Mind,
Self, and Society from the Standpoint of a Social Behaviorist
(1934).
Recommended Reading: George Herbert Mead, Essays on Social
Psychology, ed. by Mary Jo Deegan (Transaction, 2001);
Philosophy, Social Theory, and the Thought of George Herbert
Mead, ed. by Mitchell Aboulafia (SUNY, 1991); Hans Joas, G.H.
Mead: A Contemporary Re-Examination of His Thought, tr. by
Raymond Meyer (MIT, 1997); and Gary A. Cook, George Herbert
Mead: The Making of a Social Pragmatist (Illinois, 1993).
06-03-2002
mean
<ethics, philosophy of politics> the middle way between

too much and too little of something. Aristotle held that
virtue is always a mean between vicious extremes of excess
and deficiency.
Recommended Reading: Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics, tr.
by W. D. Ross, J. L. Ackrill, and J. O. Urmson (Oxford, 1998);
Aristotle, Virtue and the Mean, ed. by Richard Bosley, Roger
A. Shiner, and Janet D. Sisson (Academic Pr. & Pub., 1995);
James S. Hans, The Golden Mean (SUNY, 1994); Sarah Broadie,
Ethics With Aristotle (Oxford, 1995); and Amelie Rorty, Essays
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on Aristotle' s Ethics (California, 1981).
06-03-2002
meaning
<logic, philosophy of science, linguistics> the customary

significance attached to the use of a word, phrase, or sentence,
including both its literal sense and its emotive associations;
what is elucidated in a definition. Philosophical theories of
meaning endeavor to explain the conditions under which an
expression comes to have internal significance and
external reference.
Recommended Reading: A. W. Moore, Meaning and Reference (Oxford,
1993); Paul Grice, Studies in the Way of Words (Harvard, 1991);
The Meaning of Meaning: A Study of the Influence of Language upon
Thought and of the Science of Symbolism, ed. by I. A. Richards
and C. K. Ogden (Harvest, 1989); Truth and Meaning: Essays in
Semantics, ed. by Gareth Evans and John McDowell (Oxford, 2000);
and Gilles Fauconnier, Eve Sweetser, and George Lakoff, Mental
Spaces: Aspects of Meaning Construction in Natural Language
(Cambridge, 1994).
07-03-2002
means
<ethics>
philosophers often contrast means and ends. The ends we
seek are the goals we try to achieve, while the means
are the actions or things which we use in order to accomplish
those ends. A hammer provides the means for pounding a
nail in a piece of wood. Some philosophers, most notably
Immanuel Kant, have argued that we should never treat human
beings merely as means to an end.
26-03-2001
mechanicism
<philosophy of complexity, atomism, finalism, materialism>

<causalism, physics, biology, psychology, sociology>
philosophical theory that denies "action at a distance"
and holds, that natural systems,including living organisms,
are complex machines. Descartes famously held this to be
true of all nonhuman animals but not of human minds and
their freely willed actions.
29-07-2001
mechanism
<metaphysics, history of philosophy> belief that science can

explain all natural phenomena in terms of the
causal interactions among material particles, without any
reference to intelligent agency or purpose. As employed by
Descartes and Hobbes, mechanism offered an alternative
to the scholastic reliance on explanatory appeals to
final causes.
and Other Writings, ed. by Ann Thomson (Cambridge, 1996);
and Roger J. Faber, Clockwork Garden: On the Mechanistic
Reduction of Living Things (Massachusetts, 1986).
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07-03-2002
megalopsychia
<ethics, moral philosophy> Greek term for magnanimity or

greatness of soul, one of the greatest of the moral virtues
in the ethics of Aristotle.
07-03-2002
Meinong Alexius Ritter von Handschuchsheim
<biography, history of philosophy> Austrian philosopher (1853-1928).

In Untersuchungen zur Gegenstandtheorie und Psychologie (On
the Theory of Objects and Psychology) (1904), Ðber Annahmen
(On Assumptions) (1907), and Ðber M–glichkeit und
Wahrscheinlichkeit (On Possibility and Probability) (1915),
Meinong drew a strict distinction between the content of a
mental act and its object. Protesting what he called the
"prejudice in favor of the actual" by traditional ontology,
Meinong posited many levels of reality, including not only
existence but also being, subsistence, and "being-so." In
Meinong' s fully developed theory of objects, it is possible
not only to think about the golden mountain - even though it
does not exist and may even be impossible - but also to know
of it that it most certainly is made of gold.
Recommended Reading: Reinhardt Grossmann, Meinong (Routledge,
1999); Roderick M. Chisholm, Brentano And Meinong Studies
(Rodopi, 1982); Rudolf Haller, Meinong Und Die
Gegenstandstheorie (Rodopi, 1996); Kenneth J. Perszyk,
Nonexistent Objects: Meinong and Contemporary Philosophy
(Kluwer, 1993); and Marie-Luise Schubert Kalsi, Meinong' s
Theory of Knowledge (Martinus Nijhoff, 1987).
07-03-2002
meliorism
<metaphysics>
the view according to which the universe is getting better all the
time - a belief in progress which we could call a kind of
optimism.
[The Ism Book]
25-03-2001
membership
<logic>
The relation of an element to the sets to which it belongs.
Notation: x
:S
(x is a member of set S).
16-03-2001
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meme
<sociobiology, philosophy of biology, anthropology> a

self-replicating unit of cultural meaning. Transmitted
socially among individuals of different generations, memes
evolve through processes of mutation and natural selection.
Thus, for example, the jingles sung by children while skipping
rope, the conventional standards for fashionable dress, and the
notions comprising the "common-sense" view of the world are all
passed on through time, gradually modifying without any
deliberate guidance.
Recommended Reading: Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene (Oxford,
1990); Richard Brodie, Virus of the Mind: The New Science of
the Meme (DeVorss, 1995); Susan Blackmore and Richard Dawkins,
The Meme Machine (Oxford, 2000); and Aaron Lynch, Thought
Contagion: How Belief Spreads Through Society (Basic, 1999).
07-03-2002
memetic algorithm
<algorithm> A genetic algorithm or evolutionary algorithm

which includes a non-genetic local search to improve
genotypes. The term comes from the Richard Dawkin' s term
"meme".
One big difference between memes and genes is that memes are
processed and possibly improved by the people that hold them -
something that cannot happen to genes. It is this advantage
that the memetic algorithm has over simple genetic or
evolutionary algorithms.
These algorithms are useful in solving complex problems, such

as the "Travelling Salesman Problem," which involves finding
the shortest path through a large number of nodes, or in
creating artificial life to test evolutionary theories.
Memetic algorithms are one kind of metaheuristic.
UNLP memetic algorithms home page

(http://www.ing.unlp.edu.ar/cetad/mos/memetic_home.html).
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
Memex
<hypertext> Vannevar Bush' s original name forhypertext,

which he invented in the 1930s.
Fantastic article
(http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/elab/hfl0051.html).
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
memory
<philosophy, gnoseology, psychology, neurosciences> the

capacity to recall past experience or information in the
present. The reliability of memory as a source of knowledge
and the extent of its contribution to personal identity are
matters of philosophical dispute.
Recommended Reading: Edward S. Casey, Remembering: A
Phenomenological Study (Indiana, 2000); Charles E. Scott, The
Time of Memory (SUNY, 1999); Edward S. Casey, Spirit and Soul:
Essays in Philosophical Psychology (Spring, 1991); and Ian
Hacking, Rewriting the Soul (Princeton, 1998).
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1. <storage> These days, usually used synonymously with Random

Access Memory or Read-Only Memory, but in the general sense
it can be any device that can hold data in
machine-readable format.
[FOLDOC]
2. <philosophy of mind> See LTM, STM
07-03-2002
Mendel Gregor
<biography, genetics, history of philosophy>

Austrian botanist (1822-1884)
whose observation of successive generations of garden peas,
published in Experiments in Plant Hybridization (1865),
suggested principles of heredity which helped give rise to the
modern science of genetics.
Recommended Reading: William Bateson, Mendel' s Principles of
Heredity (Genetics Heritage, 1996); Robin Marantz Henig, The
Monk in the Garden: The Lost and Found Genius of Gregor Mendel,
the Father of Genetics (Mariner, 2001); and Edward Edelson,
Gregor Mendel and the Roots of Genetics (Oxford, 1999).
07-03-2002
Mendelssohn Moses
<biography, genetics, history of philosophy> German Jewish

philosopher (1729-1786). Mendelssohn' s arguments
for the existence of
god in Morgenstunden (Morning Hours) (1785) and defense of
human immortality in his commentary on Plato' s Ph ”don
(Phaedo) (1767) were greatly influential on his friends
Lessing and Kant. Relying upon natural law theory to
argue for religious toleration in Jeruaslem (1783),
Mendelssohn expressed high hopes for political progress,
but his intellectual life was often disturbed by growing
German discrimination against Jews. His grandson, the composer
Felix Mendelssohn, was raised as a Christian.
Recommended Reading: Moses Mendelssohn, Philosophical Writings,
tr. by Daniel O. Dahlstrom (Cambridge, 1997); Allan Arkush,
Moses Mendelssohn and the Enlightenment (SUNY, 1994); Walter
Hermann, Moses Mendelssohn, Critic and Philosopher (Ayer, 1973);
and David Jan Sorkin, Moses Mendelssohn and the Religious
Enlightenment (California, 1996).
07-03-2002
mens
<philosophical terminology> latin term for mind.
07-03-2002
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mental content
as distinguished from vehicle, mental content is that
aspect of mentality which, ideally, refers to an object,
property or relation and specifies some properties of
that item. externalism, internalism, sense, reference
16-03-2001
mentalism
<metaphysics, psychology, philosophy of mind>

the view according to which only mind or spirit really exists, or
that mind or spirit is the fundamental substance in the universe.
Mentalism is sometimes called immaterialism, and is usually held
to be similar to or equivalent to idealism.
[The Ism Book]
25-03-2001
mention
<logic, linguistics> reference to an expression considered

merely as a unit of language; see use / mention.
07-03-2002
mereology
<logic>
branch of logic that studies part-whole formal
relationships.
See set theory
Luciano Floridi
16-03-2001
Merleau-Ponty Maurice
<biography, history of philosophy> French philosopher (1908-1961).

Applying
the methods of Husserl' sphenomenology to the relation of
mind and body in La Phaenomaenalogie de la perception (The
Phenomenology of Perception) (1945) and Le visible et l' invisible
(The Visible and the Invisible) (1964), Merleau-Ponty rejected
dualism and diagnosed a pervasive ambiguity in the character of
human life. Attributing all consciousness to pre-reflective
sensual awareness of the corporeal, Merleau-Ponty tried to
overcome the traditional dichotomy between objective and
subjective elements of human experience.
Recommended Reading: Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Structure of Behavior
(Duquesne, 1983); The Merleau-Ponty Aesthetics Reader: Philosophy
and Painting, ed. by Galen A. Johnson and Michael B. Smith
(Northwestern, 1994); Gary Brent Madison, The Phenomenology of
Merleau-Ponty: A Search for the Limits of Consciousness (Ohio,
1981); Merleau-Ponty: Interiority and Exteriority, Psychic Life
and the World, ed. by Dorothea Olkowski and James Morley (SUNY,
1999); and M. C. Dillon, Merleau-Ponty' s Ontology (Northwestern,
1997).
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07-03-2002
Mersenne Marin
<biography, history of philosophy> French priest (1588-1648).

Through his
own voluminous correspondence, Mersenne kept several early
modern philosophers in touch with each other' s development.
He translated into French the philosophical works of Galileo,
Herbert of Cherbury, and Hobbes; he gathered the
objections to which his friend Descartes replied in the
original edition of the Meditations; and he composed his own
reply to the threats of skepticism and atheism in La Ve/rite/
des sciences contre les sceptiques ou pyrrhoniens (The Truth of
Science against the Skeptics or Pyrrhonians) (1625).
Recommended Reading: Peter Dear, Mersenne and the Learning of the
Schools (Cornell, 1995) and Grotius to Gassendi, ed. by Vere
Chappell (Garland, 1998).
07-03-2002
mesos
<ethics, moral philosophy> Greek term for middle or mean.

The Pythagoreans regarded a balance between extremes as part
of the harmonious life proper for human conduct.
Aristotle argued more specifically that virtue in human
life invariably emerges as the mean between vicious extremes.
Recommended Reading: F. E. Peters, Greek Philosophical Terms:
A Historical Lexicon (NYU, 1967); Aristotle, The Nicomachean
Ethics, tr. by W. D. Ross, J. L. Ackrill, and J. O. Urmson
(Oxford, 1998); Sarah Broadie, Ethics With Aristotle (Oxford,
1995); and Aristotle, Virtue and the Mean, ed. by Richard Bosley,
Roger A. Shiner, and Janet D. Sisson (Academic Pr. & Pub., 1995).
10-03-2002
message
<PI>
In object-oriented programming sending a message to an
object (to invoke a method) is equivalent to calling a
procedure in traditional programming languages, except that
the actual code executed may only be selected at run-time
depending on the class of the object. Thus, in response to
the message "drawSelf", the method code invoked would be
different if the target object were a circle or a square.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
meta
<logic> /me' t*/ or /may' t*/ or (Commonwealth) /mee' t*/ A

prefix meaning one level of description higher. If X is some
concept then meta-X is data about, or processes operating on,
X.
For example, a metasyntax is syntax for specifying syntax,

metalanguage is a language used to discuss language,
meta-data is data about data, and meta-reasoning is
reasoning about reasoning.
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[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
meta-data
<data> /me' t*-day` t*/, or combinations of /may'-/ or

(Commonwealth) /mee'-/; /-dah` t*/ (Or "meta data") Data about
data. In data processing, meta-data is definitional data
that provides information about or documentation of other data
managed within an application or environment.
For example, meta data would document data about data

elements or attributes, (name, size, data type, etc) and
data about records or data structures (length, fields,
columns, etc) and data about data (where it is located, how it
is associated, ownership, etc.). Meta data may include
descriptive information about the context, quality and
condition, or characteristics of the data.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
Metaclass
The class of a class. A metaclass is a class whose instances

are themselves classes.
16-03-2001
metaethics
<ethics, moral philosophy> branch of philosophical ethics

concerned with the meaning of moral propositions and the
grounds upon which moral judgments are to be justified.
Meta-ethical theories typically offer an account of
moral language and its uses together with an explanation
of the logical relations between assertions of fact and
value.
Recommended Reading: Robin Attfield, Value, Obligation, And
Meta-ethics (Rodopi, 1995); David O. Brink, Moral Realism and
the Foundations of Ethics (Cambridge, 1989); Bernard Williams,
Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy (Harvard, 1986); T. Tannsjo,
The Relevance of Metaethics to Ethics (Coronet, 1976); and
Andrew Minase, A Book of Metaethics (iUniverse, 2000).
10-03-2002
metaheuristic
<algorithm, complexity, computability> A top-level general

strategy which guides other heuristics to search for
feasible solutions in domains where the task is hard.
Metaheuristics have been most generally applied to problems

classified as NP-Hard or NP-Complete by the theory of
computational complexity. However, metaheuristics would
also be applied to other combinatorial optimisation
problems for which it is known that a polynomial-time
solution exists but is not practical.
Examples of metaheuristics are Tabu Search, simulated

annealing, genetic algorithms and memetic algorithms.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
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metalanguage
1. [theorem proving] A language in which proofs are

manipulated and tactics are programmed, as opposed to the
logic itself (the "object language"). The first ML was
the metalanguage for the Edinburgh LCF proof assistant.
[FOLDOC]
2. [logic] The language in which we talk about a

formal language.
The "target" of
the metalanguage is called the object language.
16-03-2001
metalogic
<logic>
The study of formal systems, especially those intended to capture
branches of logic, e.g. truth-functional propositional logic,
resulting
in
metatheorems about those systems. Reasoning about reasoning.
See metalanguage
16-03-2001
metanarrative
<philosophy, psychology, sociology> stories employed to

legitimate the mechanisms of social control. Thus, for
example, when parents tell their children, "We only want to
help you avoid our mistakes," they are constructing a
metanarrative that justifies the imposition of rules of
conduct they are unwilling to follow themselves. Lyotard
supposed that the deliberate subversion of prominent
metanarratives is a significant tool of postmodernism.
Recommended Reading: Jean-Francois Lyotard, Postmodern Fables,
tr. by Georges Van Den Abbeele (Minnesota, 1999) and
Jean-Francois Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report
on Knowledge, tr. by Brian Massumi (Minnesota, 1985).
10-03-2002
metaphilosophy
<philosophy, philosophical terminology> branch of philosophy

that tries to determine the proper aims, methods, and
conditions for the discipline of philosophy itself.
Recommended Reading: Jerry H. Gill, Metaphilosophy: An
Introduction (U. Press of Am., 1986); Nicholas Rescher,
Philosophical Reasoning: A Study in the Methodology of
Philosophizing (Blackwell, 2001); and Kai Nielsen, On
Transforming Philosophy: A Metaphilosophical Inquiry (Westview,
1996).
10-03-2002
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metaphysics
<philosophy, philosophical terminology> branch of philosophy

concerned with providing a comprehensive account of the most
general features of reality as a whole; the study of
being as such. Questions about the existence and nature of
minds, bodies, god, space, time, causality, unity,
identity, and the world are all metaphysical issues. From
Plato onwards, many philosophers have tried to determine what
kinds of things (and how many of each) exist. But Kant argued
that this task is impossible; he proposed instead that we
consider the general structure of our thought about the world.
Strawson calls the former activity revisionary metaphysics,
and the latter descriptive metaphysics.
Recommended Reading: A Companion to Metaphysics, ed. by Jaegwon
Kim and Ernest Sosa (Blackwell Pub, 1996); Metaphysics: The Big
Questions, ed. by Peter Van Inwagen and Dean W. Zimmerman
(Blackwell, 1998); Metaphysics: An Anthology, ed. by Jaegwon
Kim and Ernest Sosa (Blackwell, 1999); and D. M. Armstrong,
A World of States of Affairs (Cambridge, 1997).
10-03-2002
metasyntax
<grammar> Syntax used to describe syntax. The best known

example is BNF and its variants such as EBNF.
A metasyntactic variable is a variable used in

metasyntax.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
metatheorem
<logic>
A statement about a formal system (as opposed to a wff inside it)
proved
either informally or by appeal to axioms and rules from another
system (as
opposed to proved inside the system as a theorem).
16-03-2001
method
<PI> The name given in Smalltalk and other

object-oriented languages to a procedure or routine
associated with one or more classes. An object of a
certain class knows how to perform actions, e.g. printing
itself or creating a new instance of itself, rather than the
function (e.g. printing) knowing how to handle different types
of object.
Different classes may define methods with the same name

(i.e. methods may be polymorphic). The term "method" is used
both for a named operation, e.g. "PRINT" and also for the code
which a specific class provides to perform that operation.
Most methods operate on objects that are instances of a

certain class. Some object-oriented languages call these
"object methods" to distinguish then from "class methods".
In Smalltalk, a method is defined by giving its name,

documentation, temporary local variables and a sequence of
expressions separated by "."s.
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[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
method of doubt
<cartesianism, epistemology, skepticism> method of doubting

everything conceivably doubtful, proposed by Descartes, with
the aim of discovering what -- if anything -- can be known
indubitably, with absolute certainty. Descartes concludes
that the "Archimedian point" of certainty he seeks can be
found in his unshakable assurance of his own existence as a
thinker. See also: cogito argument.
22-06-2001
methodology
1. <PI> An organised, documented set of procedures

and guidelines for one or more phases of the software life
cycle, such as analysis or design. Many methodologies
include a diagramming notation for documenting the results of
the procedure; a step-by-step "cookbook" approach for carrying
out the procedure; and an objective (ideally quantified) set
of criteria for determining whether the results of the
procedure are of acceptable quality.
An example is The Yourdon methodology.
2. A pretentious way of saying "method".
16-03-2001
methods of Mill
<logic, philosophy of science> patterns of inductive inference

elaborated by John Stuart Mill for the purpose of understanding
the grounds upon which it is appropriate to make judgments
about causal relationships. The five methods include:
the Method of Agreement, the Method of Difference, the
Joint Method of Agreement and Difference, the
Method of Residues, and the Method of Concomitant Variation.
(Classworks, 1986).
11-03-2002
microcosm
<metaphysics, moral philosophy> literally, a "little world."

(Gk. mikros + kosmos) In the philosophy of the Stoics, many
neoplatonists, and Leibniz, individual human beings are
taken to reflect the structure of the universe as a whole.
10-03-2002
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middle term
<logic, philosophy of science> the term that occurs in both

premises (but not in the conclusion) of a
categorical syllogism.
10-03-2002
Midgley Mary
<biography, history of philosophy> English philosopher

(1919-), author
of Heart & Mind: The Varieties of Moral Experience (1981),
Women' s Choices: Philosophical Problems Facing Feminism (1983),
and Wickedness: A Philosophical Essay (1984). In Beast and Man:
The Roots of Human Nature (1978), Animals and Why They Matter
(1983), and The Ethical Primate: Humans, Freedom, and Morality
(1994), Midgley uses ethological studies of animal behavior
to develop principles for morality that explicitly extend its
concerns to include the welfare of non-human species.
Recommended Reading: Mary Midgley, Can' t We Make Moral
Judgements? (St. Martin' s, 1993); Mary Midgley, Utopias,
Dolphins and Computers: Problems of Philosophical Plumbing
(Routledge, 2000); and Mary Midgley, Science and Poetry
(Routledge, 2001).
07-03-2002
milesians
<history of philosophy> presocratic philosophers at Miletus -

including Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes - who
speculated about the fundamental principle (Gk. archÍ)
that unifies the composition of the world.
Recommended Reading: Jonathan Barnes, The Presocratic
Philosophers (Routledge, 1982) and Richard D. McKirahan,
Philosophy Before Socrates: An Introduction With Text and
Commentary (Hackett, 1994).
10-03-2002
Mill James
<biography, history of philosophy> Scottish philosopher and

economist (1773-1836). As a friend of
Jeremy Bentham and the father of
John Stuart Mill, James Mill exerted an important influence
on the development of utilitarianism by arguing that since
each individual acts in self-interest, any collection of people
must therefore act in the interest of the whole. In An Analysis
of the Phenomena of the Human Mind (1829) Mill defended a
strictly associationist psychology. He also wrote The Elements
of Political Economy (1844).
Recommended Reading: Collected Works of James Mill (Routledge,
1992); James Mill: Political Writings, ed. by Terence Ball
(Cambridge, 1992); Alexander Bain, James Mill: A Biography; and
Bruce Mazlish, James and John Stuart Mill: Father and Son in
the Nineteenth Century (Transaction, 1988).
10-03-2002
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Mill John Stuart
<biography, history of philosophy> the son of James Mill,

a friend and follower of Jeremy Bentham,
John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)
was subjected to a rigorous education at home: he mastered
English and the classical languages as a child, studied logic
and philosophy extensively, read the law for several years, and
then embarked on a life-long career with the British East India
Company at the age of seventeen. (He also suffered through a
severe bout of depression before turning twenty-one.) Despite
such a rich background, Mill credited the bulk of his
intellectual and personal development to his long and intimate
association with Harriet Hardy Taylor. They were devoted
friends for two decades before the death of her husband made
it possible for them to marry in 1852; she died a few years
later. Mill continued to write and to participate in
political affairs, serving one term in Parliament (1865-68).
The best source of information about Mill' s life is his own
Autobiography (1873). Philosophically, Mill was a
radical empiricist who held that all human knowledge,
including even mathematics and logic, is derived by
generalization from sensory experience. In A System of Logic,
Ratiocinative and Inductive (1843) he explained in great detail
the canons for reasoning inductively to conclusions about the
causal connections exhibited in the natural world. Mill' s
moral philosophy was a modified version of the
utilitarian theory he had learned from his father and
Bentham. In the polemical Utilitarianism (1861) Mill
developed a systematic statement of utilitarian ethical theory.
He modified and defended the general principle that
right actions are those that tend to produce
the greatest happiness of the greatest number of people,
being careful to include a distinction in the quality of the
pleasures that constitute happiness. There Mill also
attempted a proof of the principle of utility, explained
its enforcement, and discussed its relation to a
principle of justice. Mill' s greatest contribution to
political theory occurs in On Liberty (1859), where he
defended the broadest possible freedom of thought and
expression and argued that the state can justify interference
with the conduct of individual citizens only when it is clear
that doing so will prevent a greater harm to others. Mill
also addressed matters of social concern in Principles of
Political Economy (1848) and Considerations on Representative
Government (1861) and eloquently supported the cause of
women' s rights in The Subjection of Women (1869).
Primary sources:
The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill (Toronto, 1963- );
John Stuart Mill, Autobiography, ed. by John Robson (Penguin,
1990);
John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism and Other Essays, ed. by Alan
Ryan (Viking, 1987);
John Stuart Mill, On Liberty and Utilitarianism (Bantam, 1993);
John Stuart Mill, The Subjection of Women (Prometheus, 1986);
John Stuart Mill, Principles of Political Economy: And Chapters
on Socialism, ed. by Jonathan Riley (Oxford, 1999).
Secondary sources:
Mill' s on Liberty: Critical Essays, ed. by Gerald Dworkin
(Rowman & Littlefield, 1997);
The Cambridge Companion to Mill, ed. by John Skorupski
(Cambridge, 1997);
Roger Crisp, Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Mill on
Utilitarianism (Routledge, 1997);
Jonathan Riley, Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Mill
on Liberty (Routledge, 1998).
Additional on-line information about Mill includes:
John Skorupski' s article in The Oxford Companion to Philosophy.
Also see: denotation and connotation, empiricism, the
enforcement of morals, English philosophy, political freedom,
the golden rule, the greatest happiness principle, happiness,
moral and political individualism, liberalism, philosophy of
mathematics, the method of agreement, the method of difference,
the joint method, the method of concomitant variations, the
method of residues, moral philosophy, political philosophy,
pushpin and poetry, right action, the rule of law, self-regarding
and other-regarding actions, the uniformity of nature, and
utilitarianism.
Lawrence Hinman' s survey of utilitarianism at Ethics Updates.
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Lecture notes on utilitarianism by Donna Summerfield.
Snippets from Mill in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations.
Bj–rn Christensson' s brief guide to on -line resources.
A brief entry (with his father) in The Macmillan Encyclopedia
2001.
10-03-2002
mimesis
<philosphical terminology, history of philosophy> Greek term for

imitation or representation. Hence, for Plato, mimÍsis
is one of the ways in which sensible particulars copy the
eternal forms; thus he criticized the arts as doubly removed
from ultimate reality. Although Aristotle rejected the
theory of forms, he agreed with Plato that
aesthetic experience is fundamentally mimetic.
A Historical Lexicon (NYU, 1967); Theories of Mimesis, ed. by
Arne Melberg, Donald Melcalf, and Nicos A. Nicola (Cambridge,
1995); Laurence R. Goldman, Child' s Play: Myth, Mimesis and
Make-Believe (Berg, 1998); and Andrew Benjamin, Art, Mimesis
and the Avant-Garde: Aspects of a Philosophy of Difference
(Routledge, 1991).
11-03-2002
mind
<philosophy, psychology, neurosciences> that which thinks,

reasons, perceives, wills, and feels. Philosophy of mind
is concerned with explaining the characteristic features of
mental events, the proper analysis of conscious experience,
the relation between mind and body, and the moral status of
persons. For comprehensive treatment of technical terms
employed in contemporary discussion of these and related issues,
see Chris Eliasmith' s Dictionary of Philosophy of Mind and David
J. Chalmers' s Contemporary Philosophy of Mind: An Annotated
Bibliography.
Recommended Reading: A Companion to the Philosophy of Mind, ed.
by Samuel Guttenplan (Blackwell, 1996); Jaegwon Kim, Philosophy
of Mind (Westview, 1996); Fred Dretske, Naturalizing the Mind
(Bradford, 1997); The Mind, ed. by Daniel N. Robinson (Oxford,
1999); Thomas Nagel, Other Minds: Critical Essays 1969-1994
(Oxford, 1999); Stephen P. Stich, Deconstructing the Mind
(Oxford, 1998); and Michael Tye, Ten Problems of Consciousness:
A Representational Theory of the Phenomenal Mind (Bradford, 1996).
11-03-2002
mind-body dichotomy
<philosophy of mind, metaphysics>

dualism between mind (soul, spirit) and body (brain, matter),
see the mind-body problem.
28-04-2001
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mind-body problem
most generally, the problem of describing the relationship
between the mind and body (or brain). First explicitly
raised by Descartes, it is, perhaps, the best known
problem in the philosophy of mind.
See dualism, epiphenomenalism, monism,

and materialism
<history of philosophy, gnoseology, psychology> the difficulty

of explaining how the mental activities of human beings relate
to their living physical organisms. Historically, the most
commonly accepted solutions have included mind-body dualism
(Descartes), reductive materialism (Hobbes) or idealism
(Berkeley), and the double aspect theory (Spinoza).
Although many contemporary philosophers accept some form of
identity theory, they often rely on behavioral or functional
methods of analyzing mental events and upon the achievements
of neuroscience.
Recommended Reading: History of the Mind-Body Problem, ed. by
Tim Crane and Sarah Patterson (Routldge, 2001); Materialism and
the Mind-Body Problem, ed. by David M. Rosenthal (Hackett, 2000);
Jaegwon Kim, Mind in a Physical World: An Essay on the Mind-Body
Problem and Mental Causation (Bradford, 2000); Paul M. Churchland,
Matter and Consciousness: A Contemporary Introduction to the
Philosophy of Mind (MIT, 1988); and Sergio Moravia, The Enigma
of the Mind: The Mind-Body Problem in Contemporary Thought
(Cambridge, 1995).
11-03-2002
minimization
<logic>
One of the simple function-building operations of recursive
function
theory. Roughly, if we are given a computable function f(x,y),
then we
posit
another function g which computes the least value of y (a natural
number)
such that f(x,y) = 0. We say that g is created from f by
minimization.
One
way that g might work is to start from 0 and test every natural
number in
order, stopping at the first value which makes f(x,y) = 0.
Also called ' (Greek letter mu).
Bounded minimization
To insure that g is a total function, we create it from f by

bounded
minimization. We pick a bound z and try every value 0...z as the
value of
y;
the first one to make f(x,y) = 0 is returned as the value of g; if
none
makes f(x,y) = 0, then g returns 0. Since g always returns a value,
it is
a
total function; since z is always finite, g is computable.
Unbounded minimization
If f(x,y) never equals 0, then g is undefined; hence g is a

partial,
hence incomputable, function. Think of g running on a computer;
when it
is
unbounded, it will run forever with some inputs. It might test
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the values
0,
1, 2... in search of a value for y which will make f(x,y) = 0.
But if
there
is no such y, and if no bound is put on the search, then the search
will
never halt.
16-03-2001
minor premise
<logic, philosophy of science> in a categorical syllogism, the

premise whose terms are the syllogism' sminor term and
middle term.
11-03-2002
minor term
<logic, philosophy of science> the subject term of the

conclusion of a categorical syllogism.
11-03-2002
Minsky Marvin
<biography, history of philosophy> american mathematician and

cognitive scientist (1927-). A leader in research of semantic information
processing and artificial intelligence, Minsky proposes in The
Society of Mind (1985) a detailed explanation of human thought,
memory, and feeling in terms of the interaction of multiple
internal agents, none of which are themselves conscious.
12-03-2002
misericordiam argumentum ad
<ethics, moral philosophy> literally, an appeal to "distress

of the heart;" see appeal to pity.
Recommended Reading: Douglas N. Walton, Appeal to Pity:
Argumentum Ad Misericordiam (SUNY, 1997).
13-03-2002
modal logic
An extension of propositional calculus with operators that

express various "modes" of truth. Examples of modes are:
necessarily A, possibly A, probably A, it has always been true
that A, it is permissible that A, it is believed that A.
"It is necessarily true that A" means that things being as

they are, A must be true, e.g.
"It is necessarily true that x=x" is TRUE
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while
"It is necessarily true that x=y" is FALSE
even though "x=y" might be TRUE.
Adding modal operators [F] and [P], meaning, respectively,

henceforth and hitherto leads to a "temporal logic".
Flavours of modal logics include: Propositional Dynamic

Logic (PDL), Propositional Linear Temporal Logic (PLTL),
Linear Temporal Logic (LTL), Computational Tree Logic
(CTL), Hennessy-Milner Logic, S1-S5, T.
C.I. Lewis, "A Survey of Symbolic Logic", 1918, initiated the

modern analysis of modality. He developed the logical systems
S1-S5. JCC McKinsey used algebraic methods (Boolean

algebras with operators) to prove the decidability of Lewis'
S2 and S4 in 1941. Saul Kripke developed the relational
semantics for modal logics (1959, 1963). Vaughan Pratt
introduced dynamic logic in 1976. Amir Pnuelli proposed the
use of temporal logic to formalise the behaviour of
continually operating concurrent programs in 1977.
[Robert Goldblatt, "Logics of Time and Computation", CSLI

Lecture Notes No. 7, Centre for the Study of Language and
Information, Stanford University, Second Edition, 1992,
(distributed by University of Chicago Press)].
[Robert Goldblatt, "Mathematics of Modality", CSLI Lecture

Notes No. 43, Centre for the Study of Language and
Information, Stanford University, 1993, (distributed by
University of Chicago Press)].
[G.E. Hughes and M.J. Cresswell, "An Introduction to Modal

Logic", Methuen, 1968].
[E.J. Lemmon (with Dana Scott), "An Introduction to Modal

Logic", American Philosophical Quarterly Monograph Series,
no. 11 (ed. by Krister Segerberg), Basil Blackwell, Oxford,
1977].
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
mode
1. A general state, usually used with an adjective describing

the state. Use of the word "mode" rather than "state" implies
that the state is extended over time, and probably also that
some activity characteristic of that state is being carried
out. "No time to hack; I' m in thesis mode."
In its jargon sense, "mode" is most often attributed to

people, though it is sometimes applied to programs and
inanimate objects. In particular, see hack mode, day
mode, night mode, demo mode, fireworks mode, and yoyo
mode; also chat.
2. More technically, a mode is a special state that certain

user interfaces must pass into in order to perform certain
functions. For example, in order to insert characters into a
document in the Unix editor "vi", one must type the "i" key,
which invokes the "Insert" command. The effect of this
command is to put vi into "insert mode", in which typing the
"i" key has a quite different effect (to wit, it inserts an
"i" into the document). One must then hit another special
key, "ESC", in order to leave "insert mode". Nowadays,
modeful interfaces are generally considered losing but
survive in quite a few widely used tools built in less
enlightened times.
16-03-2001
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model
<simulation> <logic>
1. A description of observed behaviour, simplified
by ignoring certain details. Models allow complex systems
to be understood and their behaviour predicted within the scope
of the model, but may give incorrect descriptions and
predictions for situations outside the realm of their intended
use. A model may be used as the basis for simulation.
[FOLDOC]
2. An interpretation in which expressions of interest to us

(e.g. a wff,
a
set of wffs, a system) come out true for that interpretation.
See isomorphism of models, true for an interpretation
Cardinality of a model
The cardinality of the domain of the model.
Model of a wff or set of wffs

An interpretation, I, that makes those wffs true for I.
Model of a formal system

An interpretation, I, that makes its set of theorems true for I.
A
model
of a system is a model of its set of theorems.
Non-standard model
Weakly, any non-standard interpretation that is a model.
Strongly, any
model that is not isomorphic with the intended (standard) model.
See isomorphism of models
Normal model
A normal interpretation that is a model. See interpretation,
normal
16-03-2001
model checking
<theory, algorithm, testing> To algorithmically check whether

a program (the model) satisfies a specification.
The model is usually expressed as a directed graph

consisting of nodes (or vertices) and edges. A set of
atomic propositions is associated with each node. The nodes
represents states of a program, the edges represent possible
executions which alters the state, while the atomic
propositions represent the basic properties that hold at a
point of execution.
A specification language, usually some kind of temporal

logic, is used to express properties.
The problem can be expressed mathematically as: given a

temporal logic formula p and a model M with initial state s,
decide if M,s models p.
["Automatic verification of finite state concurrent systems

using temporal logic", E.M. Clarke, E.A. Emerson, and
A.P. Sisla, ACM Trans. on Programming Languages and Systems
8(2), pp. 244--263, 1986].
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
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model theory
<logic>
The study of the interpretations of formal languages of
formal systems
and associated questions of the truth and isomorphism of
interpretations.
See categoricity, interpretation, isomorphism of models,
L"wenheim-Skolem theory, model, proof theory
16-03-2001
modelling
model
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moderation
<ethics, moral philosophy> self-control. According to Plato,

a person who has the virtue of moderation subordinates the
desire for pleasure to the dictates of reason. For
Aristotle, all virtues are to be understood as the mean
between vicious extremes.
Recommended Reading: James S. Hans, The Golden Mean (SUNY,
1994); Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics, tr. by W. D. Ross,
J. L. Ackrill, and J. O. Urmson (Oxford, 1998); Sarah Broadie,
Ethics With Aristotle (Oxford, 1995); and Charles Hartshorne,
Wisdom As Moderation: A Philosophy of the Middle Way (SUNY,
1987).
13-03-2002
modernism
<aesthetics>
modernism (sometimes called abstractionism) is an aesthetic
doctrine and movement of the 20th century that repudiates the
traditional purpose of art to represent reality and/or address
timeless human values; instead, modernism holds that the purpose of
art is to enable the artist to express his or her emotions, often
in an utterly non-representational manner (also called abstract
expressionism). Modernism is usually an aesthetic variety of
subjectivism. (References from abstractionism and
expressionism.)
[The Ism Book]
25-03-2001
modus ponens
p -> q
p
_______
q
Example: "If Tuesday is the 14th, then Friday must be the 17th.
Tuesday is the 14th. Therefore, Friday is the 17th". A simple
truth-table shows the validity of this pattern of reasoning.
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11-03-2002
modus tollens
p -> q
~q
_______
~p
Example: "If it had rained this morning, then the grass would
still be wet. But the grass is not wet. Therefore, it did not
rain this morning." A simple truth-table shows that any
argument of this form must be valid.
11-03-2002
molecule
<logic>
In propositional logic, a compound proposition as opposed
to a simple
proposition or atom
16-03-2001
monad
<metaphysics, ontology, monism, dualism, atomism, idealism>

<spiritualism> according to Leibniz, monads are the ultimate
indivisible units or "true atoms" of all existence.
Monads are not material: each monad is a self-activating,
unique, center of "purpose" and "perception." Monads
cannot interact, but are in a "preestablished harmony" with
each other, by the grace of God.
Recommended Reading: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Philosophical
Texts, ed. by Richard Francks and R. S. Woolhouse (Oxford, 1998);
Anthony Savile, Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Leibniz and the
Monadology (Routledge, 2000); Bertrand Russell, A Critical
Exposition of the Philosophy of Leibniz (Routledge, 1993); and
Donald Rutherford, Leibniz and the Rational Order of Nature
(Cambridge, 1997).
based on [A Dictionary of Philosophical Terms and Names]

13-03-2002
monadic predicate logic
predicate logic
00-00-0000
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monism
belief that only things

of a single kind exist. In its most extreme form, monism may
lead to Spinoza' s conviction that only a single being is real
or the idealist' s supposition that everything is comprised by
the Absolute. Contemporary philosophers more commonly suppose
that many distinct things exist, each of them exhibiting both
mental and physical properties.
Recommended Reading: Errol E. Harris, Spinoza' s Philosophy:
An Outline (Humanity, 1992); German Idealist Philosophy, ed.
by Rudiger Bubner (Penguin, 1997); and Mafizuddin Ahmed,
Bertrand Russell' s Neutral Monism.
<metaphysics> answer offered to philosophical

dualism by adherents of idealism and of
materialism. Monism holds that reality is made up of only one
type of substance, historically either spirit/mind
(according to
idealists Berkeley) or matter.
See also materialism, idealism, neutral monism,

anomalous monism, dualism
13-03-2002
monoid
An operator * and a value x form a monoid if * is

associative and x is its left and right identity.
16-03-2001
monotheism
<metaphysics, philosophy of religion>

the belief there is only one god, or that the gods of
different religions are really just different manifestations of the
one true god. Monotheism is opposed to both henotheism and
polytheism.
[The Ism Book]
25-03-2001
monotonic
In domain theory, a function f : D -> C is monotonic (or

monotone) if
for all x,y in D, x <= y => f(x) <= f(y).
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
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monotonicity
<logic>
The property of a system by which new wffs can be added to
any set of
wffs without invalidating previously valid derivations
from that set. If A
is any wff, and
G and
D any sets
of wffs, a system is monotonic iff
G
|- A
=>
D,
G
|- A. In
non-monotonic logics derivations can be invalidated when
the set of premises
is enlarged.
16-03-2001
Montaigne Michel Eyquem de
<biography, history of philosophy> french humanist (1533-1592)

whose motto
was "Que sais-je?" ("What do I know?"). Montaigne' s Essais
(Essays) (1580, 1588) drew attention to the vain pretensions of
human rationality and thereby revived modern interest in
classical skepticism, against which Descartes tried to argue.
Recommended Reading: Hugo Friedrich, Montaigne, tr. by Dawn Eng
(California, 1991); Craig B. Brush, From the Perspective of the
Self: Montaigne' s Self-Portrait (Fordham, 1994); Montaigne' s
Message and Method, ed. by Dikka Berven (Garland, 1995); and
Marcel Tetel, Montaigne (Twayne, 1990).
12-03-2002
Montesquieu Charles-Louis de Secondat
<biography, history of philosophy> french political

philosopher (1689-1755)
who significantly influenced the founders of the American
republic. In the multi-volume L' esprit des lois (On the Spirit
of the Laws) (1748), Montesquieu considered the fundamental
principles of government, emphasizing respect for
individual liberty and (extrapolating from a suggestion of
Locke) urging a sharp separation of executive, legislative,
and judicial powers.
Recommended Reading: Montesquieu' s Science of Politics, ed.
by Michael A. Mosher, David W. Carrithers, and Paul A. Rahe
(Rowman & Littlefield, 2001); Thomas L. Pangle, Montesquieu' s
Philosophy of Liberalism: A Commentary on the Spirit of the
Laws (Chicago, 1989); and Peter V. Conroy, Montesquieu
Revisited (Twayne, 1992).
12-03-2002
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mood and figure
<logic, philosophy of science> a unique description of the

logical form of a categorical syllogism. The mood lists the
forms of its three categorical propositions (in standard
form order), while the figure indicates the position of its
middle term.
12-03-2002
Moore bound
An upper limit on the number of nodes in a regular graph of

degree d>2 and diameter k:
N(d,k) <= d(d-1)^k - 2

------------
d-2
16-03-2001
Moore George Edward
<biography, history of philosophy> during his long career at

Cambridge University and as Editor of the premier British
philosophical journal, Mind, G. E. Moore (1873-1958)
made an enormous
contribution to the development of twentieth-century
Anglo-American thought. Although he had studied with Bradley
and McTaggart, Moore was an early leader in the revolt
against absolute idealism. Amazed by the peculiar character
of philosophical controversy, Moore supposed that common-sense
beliefs about the world are correct as they are. The purpose of
philosophy is not to debate their truth, but rather to seek
an appropriate analysis of their significance. Moore was a
significant influence on Russell, Wittgenstein, Ryle.
Moore' s departure fromidealistic philosophy began with
a criticism of internal relations in the careful analysis of
truth and falsity in "The Nature of Judgment" (1899). In
"The Refutation of Idealism" (1903) he also drew a sharp
distinction between consciousness and its objects and
argued explicitly against the idealistic belief that
esse est percipi. Continuing to develop his realistic
convictions, Moore argued in "A Defence of Common Sense"
(1925) that we all certainly know the truth of many
propositions about ourselves, bodies, and other people, even
though we may be uncertain about the correct analysis of these
propositions. Both idealists and skeptics, Moore argued,
implausibly deny this simple, everyday knowledge. Moore' s
preoccupation with these issues is evident even in Some Main
Problems of Philosophy (1953). Moore applied similar methods
of analysis to moral philosophy in Principia Ethica (1903)
and Ethics (1912). There he used the open question argument
to reject the "naturalistic fallacy" of identifying good
with anything else. On Moore' s view,good is a simple,
non-natural, indefinable quality of certain things, including
especially personal friendship and aesthetics appreciation.
This conception of the possibilities for human life was a
significant influence on John Maynard Keynes and other
members of the Bloomsbury group.
Primary sources:
G. E. Moore, Philosophical Studies (Routledge, 1965);
G. E. Moore, Principia Ethica (Prometheus, 1988);
G. E. Moore, Some Main Problems of Philosophy (Collier, 1962).
Secondary sources:
E. D. Klemke, A Defense of Realism: Reflections on the
Metaphysics of G. E. Moore (Humanity, 1999);
Philosophy of G. E. Moore, ed. by Paul A. Schlipp (Open Court,
1993).
Additional on-line information about Moore includes:
Geoffrey J. Warnock' s article in The Oxford Companion to
Philosophy.
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Also see: analysis, analytic philosophy, Cambridge philosophy,

English philosophy, linguistic philosophy, moral philosophy,
the naturalistic fallacy, non-natural properties, the open
question argument, and internal and external relations.
10-03-2002
Moore graph
A graph which achieves the Moore bound. These are

complete graphs, polygon graphs (regular graphs of
degree 2) and three others: (nodes, degree, diameter) =
(10,3,2), (50,7,2) and the possible but undiscovered
(3250,57,2).
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
moral
<ethics, moral philosophy> distinction between types of value,

judgments, or propositions. Although a precise line is
difficult to draw, there seems to be a genuine difference
between universalizable moral concerns that impinge upon other
people and merely personal matters of taste. For example: "Murder
is wrong." is a moral assertion, but "This coffee is good." is
a non-moral assertion.
Recommended Reading: R. M. Hare, The Language of Morals
(Clarendon, 1991); Fact and Value: Essays on Ethics and
Metaphysics for Judith Jarvis Thomson, ed. by Alex Byrne,
Robert Stalnaker, and Ralph Wedgwood (MIT, 2001); and Gilbert
Harman, Explaining Value: And Other Essays in Moral Philosophy
(Clarendon, 2000).
10-03-2002
moral argument
<ethics, moral philosophy> an attempt to prove the

existence of god by appeal to presence of moral value
in the universe. The fourth of Aquinas' s five ways concludes
that god must exist as the most perfect cause of all lesser
goods. Kant argued that postulation of god' s existence is
a necessary condition for our capacity to apply the moral law.
Recommended Reading: Thomas St. Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles:
God, tr. by Anton C. Pegis (Notre Dame, 1997); Immanuel Kant,
The One Possible Basis for a Demonstration of the Existence of
God, tr. by Gordon Treash (Nebraska, 1994); Joseph Owens, St.
Thomas Aquinas on the Existence of God (SUNY, 1980); and Gordon
E. Michalson, Kant and the Problem of God (Blackwell, 1999).
10-03-2002
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moral ballpark
<ethics>
the domain of actions, motives, traits, etc. that are open
to moral assessment, that is, can be said to be morally good
or morally bad.
26-03-2001
moral isolationism
<ethics>
the view that we ought not to be morally concerned with,
or involved with, people outside of our own immediate group.
Moral isolationism is often a consequences of some versions
of moral relativism.
26-03-2001
moral luck
<ethics>
the phenomenon that the moral goodness or badness of
some of our actions depends simply on chance. For
example, the drunk driver may safely reach home without
injuring anyone at all, or might accidentally kill
several children that run out into the street while the
drunken person is driving home. How bad the action of
driving while drunk is in that case depends in part on luck.
26-03-2001
moral rights
rights
00-00-0000
moral sense
<ethics, moral philosophy> a putatively innate human faculty

for distinguishing right from wrong. In the
moral intuitionism of Shaftesbury and Hutcheson, the
moral sense motivates proper conduct by enabling us to perceive
the distinctive pleasure of moral rectitude.
Recommended Reading: Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments
(Prometheus, 2000); Francis Hutcheson, Philosophical Writings,
ed. by R.S. Downie (Everyman, 1994); and James Q. Wilson, The
Moral Sense (Simon & Schuster, 1997).
10-03-2002
morality
<ethics>
"morality" refers to the first-order beliefs and
practices about good and evil by means of which we
guide our behaviour. Contrast with ethics, which is
the second-order, reflective, critical and normative
consideration of our moral beliefs and practices.
26-03-2001
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More Henry
<biography, history of philosophy> English theologian and

philosopher (1614-1687); author of
The Immortality of the Soul (1659)
and Divine Dialogues (1668). A leading member of the
Cambridge Platonists, More claimed to demonstrate the
existence of god, the immortality of the human soul,
and the compatibility of faith and reason.
Recommended Reading: A. Rupert Hall, Henry More: Magic,
Religion and Experiment (Blackwell, 1984); Henry More:
Tercentenary Studies, ed. by Sarah Hutton (Kluwer, 1990);
and A. Rupert Hall, Henry More and the Scientific Revolution
(Cambridge, 1996).
11-03-2002
More Thomas
<biography, history of philosophy> English humanist and

politician (1478-1535). An advocate of classical
learning, More imagined
in Utopia (1516) an egalitarian Christian hedonistic society
based on the philosophy of Epicurus.
Recommended Reading: John Guy, Thomas More (Edward Arnold,
2000); Richard Marius, Thomas More: A Biography (Harvard, 1999);
Peter Ackroyd, The Life of Thomas More (Anchor, 1999); Louis L.
Martz, Thomas More: The Search for the Inner Man (Yale, 1992);
and Gerald B. Wegemer, Thomas More on Statesmanship (Catholic
U. of Am., 1998).
11-03-2002
morphe
<philosophical terminology, history of philosophy> Greek word for

the shape or figure of a thing. Hence, for Aristotle, the
fundamental cause which, in conjunction with hylÍ, constitutes
a natural object as a hylomorphic composite.
11-03-2002
morphing
<graphics> The animated transformation of one image into

another by gradually distorting the first image so as to move
certain chosen points to the position of corresponding points
in the second image.
Compare tweening.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
mother
parent
00-00-0000
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multiple realisability
the thesis that a mental state is the type it is
independent of the physical realisation of that
mental state.
See functionalism
16-03-2001
multitasking
<computer, parallel> (Or "multi-tasking", "multi-processing",

"multiprogramming", "concurrency", "process scheduling") A
technique used in an operating system for sharing a single
processor between several independent jobs. The first
multitasking operating systems were designed in the early
1960s.
Under "cooperative multitasking" the running task decides

when to give up the CPU and under "pre-emptive multitasking"
(probably more common) a system process called the
"scheduler" suspends the currently running task after it has
run for a fixed period known as a "time-slice". In both
cases the scheduler is responsible for selecting the next task
to run and (re)starting it.
The running task may relinquish control voluntarily even in a

pre-emptive system if it is waiting for some external event.
In either system a task may be suspended prematurely if a
hardware interrupt occurs, especially if a higher priority
task was waiting for this event and has therefore become
runnable.
The scheduling algorithm used by the scheduler determines

which task will run next. Some common examples are
round-robin scheduling, priority scheduling, shortest job
first and guaranteed scheduling.
Multitasking introduces overheads because the processor

spends some time in choosing the next job to run and in saving
and restoring tasks' state, but it reduces the worst
-case time
from job submission to completion compared with a simple
batch system where each job must finish before the next one
starts. Multitasking also means that while one task is
waiting for some external event, the CPU to do useful work
on other tasks.
A multitasking operating system should provide some degree of

protection of one task from another to prevent tasks from
interacting in unexpected ways such as accidentally modifying
the contents of each other' s memory areas.
The jobs in a multitasking system may belong to one or many

users. This is distinct from parallel processing where one
user runs several tasks on several processors. Time-sharing
is almost synonymous but implies that there is more than one
user.
Multithreading is a kind of multitasking with low

overheads and no protection of tasks from each other, all
threads share the same memory.
[FOLDOC]
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multithreaded
multithreading
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multithreading
<parallel> Sharing a single CPU between multiple tasks (or

"threads") in a way designed to minimise the time required to
switch threads. This is accomplished by sharing as much as
possible of the program execution environment between the
different threads so that very little state needs to be saved
and restored when changing thread.
Multithreading differs from multitasking in that threads

share more of their environment with each other than do tasks
under multitasking. Threads may be distinguished only by the
value of their program counters and stack pointers while
sharing a single address space and set of global
variables. There is thus very little protection of one
thread from another, in contrast to multitasking.
Multithreading can thus be used for very fine-grain

multitasking, at the level of a few instructions, and so can
hide latency by keeping the processor busy after one thread
issues a long-latency instruction on which subsequent
instructions in that thread depend.
A light-weight process is somewhere between a thread and a

full process.
TL0 is an example of a threaded machine language.

Dataflow computation (E.g. Id and SISAL) is an extreme
form of multithreading.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
mutual recursion
recursion
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mysticism
<metaphysics, philosophical terminology> belief in direct

apprehension of divine or eternal reality by means of
spiritual contemplation distinct from more ordinary avenues
of human knowledge.
Recommended Reading: Evelyn Underhill, Mysticism: The Nature
and Development of Spiritual Consciousness (Oneworld, 1999);
William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience (MacMillan,
1997); Mysticism: A Study and an Anthology, ed. by Frank C.
Happold (Viking, 1991); and Gershom Scholem, Major Trends in
Jewish Mysticism (Schocken, 1995).
11-03-2002
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mythos
<philosophical terminology, history of philosophy> Greek term for

a speech, tale, or story, as opposed to a rational explanation.
See logos / mythos. Although Plato typically derided myth
as inferior to analysis, Philo Judaeus incorporated it as
allegorical interpretation in order to synthesize theology
and philosophy.
A Historical Lexicon (NYU, 1967).
11-03-2002
n-adic function or predicate
<logic> A function of predicate that takes n

arguments. Also called n-ary functions and
predicates.
16-03-2001
n-formula
wff, open
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n-tuple
<logic> A sequence of n terms.
16-03-2001
n-valued logics
truth-value
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n-wff
wff, open
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Nagel Ernest
<history of philosophy, biography> American

philosopher of science (1901-1985) who improved
understanding of scientific explanation in his
"Introduction to Logic and Scientific Method" (1934)
and "Principles of the Theory of Probability" (1939).
Nagel combined the pragmatic method of Peirce
with the logical positivism of the Vienna Circle.
His "The Structure of Science" (1961) argues on
behalf of the systematic reduction to physical
science of social and behavioral sciences, despite
their apparent reference to non-observable entities
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and appeal to judgments of value.
Recommended Reading: Ernest Nagel and James R.

Newman, "Goedel' s Proof" (NYU, 1983); Ernest Nagel,
"Teleology Revisited" (Columbia, 1982); and "Logical
Empiricism and the Special Sciences: Reichenbach,
Feigl, and Nagel", ed. by Sahotra Sarkar (Garland,
1996).
<A Dictionary of Philosophical Terms and Names>
21-02-2002
Nagel Thomas

philosopher (1937-); author of "The Possibility of
Altruism" (1970), Brain Bisection and the "Unity of
Consciousness" (1971) and "What Is It Like to Be a
Bat?" (1974). In "The View from Nowhere" (1989)
Nagel tries to reconcil the subjective and personal
elements of human life with the urge to achieve
objective and impersonal truths about life and
value. On-line papers by Nagel include "Justice and
Nature" (1996), Conceiving the Impossible and the
"Mind-Body Problem" (1998), and "Concealment and
Exposure" (1998).
Recommended Reading: Thomas Nagel, "What Does

It All Mean: A Very Short Introduction to Philosophy"
(Oxford, 1987); Thomas Nagel, "Mortal Questions"
(Cambridge, 1991); Thomas Nagel, "The Last Word"
(Oxford, 1996); Thomas Nagel, "Other Minds: Critical
Essays 1969-1994" (Oxford, 1999); and Thomas
Nagel, "Equality and Partiality" (Oxford, 2001).
21-02-2002
NAND
Not AND. The Boolean function which is true unless

both its arguments are true, the logical complement
of AND:
A NAND B = NOT (A AND B) = (NOT A) OR (NOT B)
Its truth table is:
A | B | A NAND B
--+---+---------
F|F|T
F|T|T
T|F|T
T|T|F
NAND, like NOR, forms a complete set of Boolean

functions on its own since it can be used to make
NOT, AND, OR and any other Boolean function:
NOT A = A NAND A
A AND B = NOT (A NAND B)
A OR B = (NOT A) NAND (NOT B)
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
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narcissism
<ethics> an excessive preoccupation with oneself. In

mythology, Narcissus was a beautiful young man who
fell in love with his own image reflected in a pool of
water.
26-03-2001
natural deduction
A set of rules expressing how valid proofs may be

constructed in predicate logic.
A horizontal line separates premises (above) from

conclusions (below). Vertical ellipsis (dots) stand for
a series of applications of the rules. "T" is the
constant "true" and "F" is the constant "false".
"^" is the AND (conjunction) operator, "v" is the

inclusive OR (disjunction) operator and "/" is NOT
(negation or complement.
P, Q, P1, P2, etc. stand for propositions such as

"Socrates was a man". P[x] is a proposition possibly
containing instances of the variable x, e.g. "x can fly".
A proof (a sequence of applications of the rules) may

be enclosed in a box. A boxed proof produces
conclusions that are only valid given the assumptions
made inside the box, however, the proof demonstrates
certain relationships which are valid outside the box.
For example, the box below labelled "Implication
introduction" starts by assuming P, which need not be
a true proposition so long as it can be used to derive
Q.
Truth introduction:
--
T
(Truth is free).
Binary AND introduction:
-----------
|.|.|
|.|.|
| Q1 | Q2 |
-----------
Q1 ^ Q2
(If we can derive both Q1 and Q2 then Q1^Q2 is true).
N-ary AND introduction:
----------------
| . | .. | . |
| . | .. | . |
| Q1 | .. | Qn |
----------------
Q1^..^Qi^..^Qn
Other n-ary rules follow the binary versions similarly.
Quantified AND introduction:
---------
|x.|
|.|
| Q[x] |
---------
For all x . Q[x]
(If we can prove Q for arbitrary x then Q is true for all x).
Falsity elimination:
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F
--
Q
(Falsity opens the floodgates).
OR elimination:
P1 v P2
-----------
| P1 | P2 |
|.|.|
|.|.|
|Q|Q|
-----------
Q
(Given P1 v P2, if Q follows from both then Q is true).
Exists elimination:
Exists x . P[x]
-----------
| x P[x] |
|.|
|.|
|Q|
-----------
Q
(If Q follows from P[x] for arbitrary x and such an x

exists then Q is true).
OR introduction 1:
P1
-------
P1 v P2
(If P1 is true then P1 OR anything is true).
OR introduction 2:
P2
-------
P1 v P2
(If P2 is true then anything OR P2 is true). Similar

symmetries apply to ^ rules.
Exists introduction:
P[a]
-------------
Exists x.P[x]
(If P is true for "a" then it is true for all x).
AND elimination 1:
P1 ^ P2
-------
P1
(If P1 and P2 are true then P1 is true).
For all elimination:
For all x . P[x]

----------------
P[a]
(If P is true for all x then it is true for "a").
For all implication introduction:
-----------
| x P[x] |
|.|
|.|
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| Q[x] |
-----------
For all x . P[x] -> Q[x]
(If Q follows from P for arbitrary x then Q follows from P

for all x).
Implication introduction:
-----
|P|
|.|
|.|
|Q|
-----
P -> Q
(If Q follows from P then P implies Q).
NOT introduction:
-----
|P|
|.|
|.|
|F|
-----
/P
(If falsity follows from P then P is false).
NOT-NOT:
//P
---
P
(If it is not the case that P is not true then P is true).
For all implies exists:
P[a] For all x . P[x] -> Q[x]

-------------------------------
Q[a]
(If P is true for given "a" and P implies Q for all x then Q
is true for a).
Implication elimination, modus ponens:
P P -> Q
----------
Q
(If P and P implies Q then Q).
NOT elimination, contradiction:
P /P
------
F
(If P is true and P is not true then false is true).
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
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natural language
<application> A language spoken or written by

humans, as opposed to a language use to program or
communicate with computers. Natural language
understanding is one of the hardest problems of
artificial intelligence due to the complexity, irregularity
and diversity of human language and the
philosophical problems of meaning.
See also Pleuk grammar development system, proof.
An on-line demonstration
New York U.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
natural law
<ethics> in ethics, believers in natural law hold (a)

thatthere is a natural order to the human world, (b) that
this natural order is good, and (c) that people therefore
ought not to violate that order.
26-03-2001
natural numbers
<logic> <mathematics> The set 0, 1, 2, 3..., that is

any integer greater than or equal to zero. A natural
number is an isomorphism class of a finite set.
Negative numbers and fractions are not natural
numbers. The cardinality of this set is aleph0 by
definition.
16-03-2001
natural rights
rights
00-00-0000
natural theology
<metaphysics, ethics, epistemology> knowledge

about God that can be obtained by natural means
by the exercise of reason and sense perception.
Contrast: revealed theology.
22-06-2001
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naturalised semantics
<philosophy of language> the project of explaining

semantic notions, such as "means", "refers",
"denotes", in terms of non-semantic notions, such as
correlation, causation, resemblance,
structural isomorphism, or teleological function.
Some leading efforts in this area include Dretske' s,
Fodor' s, and Millikan' s works.
Ken Aizawa Chris Eliasmith
[Dictionary of Philosophy of Mind]
16-03-2001
naturalism
<philosophy of mind, metaphysics, aesthetics, ethics>
1. in relation to mind, the view that mental phenomena

can be explained as part of the natural order and are
empirically accessible features of the world.
2. in metaphysics, the view according to which reality

operates according to natural laws, without spiritual
intervention (opposed to theism and spiritualism,
but compatible with deism).
3. in aesthetics, the view according to which art (and

especially literature) should present human
experience "as is", without evaluating reality or
projecting ethical ideals (historically, naturalism in
literature developed in reaction to romanticism).
4. in ethics, the view according to which at least

some human values (though not necessarily all) are
determined by, and hence can be derived from, the
nature of the human organism and our situation on
earth - values like food, water, shelter, safety,
psychological closeness, actualization of human
talent and potential, the attainment of knowledge, and
so on. By way of illustration, existentialism could be
considered a humanistic form of individualism, but it
differs from many other forms of humanism in
denying ethical naturalism. Since, according to
naturalism, moral values can be derived from facts
about the world and human nature, the naturalist
holds that "is" can imply "ought."
Based on [Ethics Glossary], [The Ism Book] and the

29-04-2001
naturalistic fallacy
<ethics> according to G. E. Moore, any argument

which attempts to define the good in any terms
whatsoever, including naturalistic terms. For Moore,
good is simple and indefinable. This is revealed,
Moore thought, by the fact that, after listing
any "natural" quality of something (pleasurable, for
example), we can always raise the question "but is it
good?". prescriptivism
Recommended Reading: G. E. Moore, "Principia

Ethica" (Prometheus, 1988); Brian Hutchinson, "G. E.
Moore' s Ethical Theory: A Reassessment"
(Cambridge, 2001); Dennis Rohatyn, "The Reluctphit
Naturalist: A Study of G.E. Moore' s ' Principia Ethica' "
(Univ. Pr. of Am., 1987); Tom Regan, "Bloomsbury' s
Prophet: G. E. Moore and the Development of His
Moral Philosophy" (Temple, 1986); and Peter
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Simpson, "Goodness and Nature: A Defense of

Ethical Naturalism" (Martinus Nijhoff, 1987).
Based on [A Philosophical Glossary], [Ethics Glossary],

21-02-2002
necessary
<logic, semantics> a sentence, proposition,

thought, or judgement is necessary if it is true of any
possible world. Some philosophers (e.g. A.J. Ayer)
maintain that the truths of logic and mathematics are
necessary because they are a priori, and a priori
simply because they are analytic; similarly
maintaining that contingent, a posteriori, and
asynthetic are equivalent.
30-04-2001
necessary - contingent
<philosophical terminology> distinction between kinds

of truth. Necessary truth is a feature of any
statement that it would be contradictory to deny.
(Contradictions themselves are necessarily false.)
Contingent truth (or falsehood) happens to be true
(or false), but might have been otherwise. Thus, for
example: "Squares have four sides." is
necessary. "Stop signs are hexagonal." is
contingent. "Pentagons are round." is contradictory.
This distinction was traditionally associated (before
Kant and Kripke) with the distinctions between a priori
and a posteriori knowledge and the distinction
between analytic and synthetic judgment.
Necessity may also be defined de dicto in terms of
the formal logical property of tautology.
Recommended Reading: Jules Vuillemin, "Necessity

or Contingency?" (C S L I, 1995); Alvin Plantinga, "The
Nature of Necessity" (Clarendon, 1989); and Margaret
Dauler Wilson, "Leibniz' Doctrine of Necessary Truth"
(Harvard, 1984).
21-02-2002
necessary - sufficient
<philosophical terminolgy> distinction between

logical or causal conditions. In logic, one
proposition is a necessary condition of another
when the second cannot be true while the first is
false, and one proposition is a sufficient condition
for another when the first cannot be true while the
second is false. Thus, for example: "I have a dog" is
a necessary condition for "My dog has fleas," and
"You scored ninety-five percent" is a sufficient condition
for "You received an A." In causal relations, a
necessary condition for the occurence of an event
is a state of affairs without which the event cannot
happen, while a sufficient condition is a state of
affairs that guarantees that it will happen. Thus, for
example: the presence of oxygen is a necessary
condition for combustion, and the flow of electrical
current is a sufficient condition for the induction of a
magnetic field.
Recommended Reading: Brian McLaughlin, "On the
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Logic of Ordinary Conditionals" (SUNY, 1990);

"Conditionals", ed. by Michael Woods, David Wiggins,
and Dorothy Edgington (Clarendon, 1997); and David
Lewis, "Counterfactuals" (Blackwell, 2000).
21-02-2002
necessitarianism
<metaphysics> determinism applied to human

beings: the doctrine that human beings do not have
free will but are determined in their actions by
antecedent, external causes. Necessitarianism is
thus opposed to libertarianism regarding human
action. (References from determinism and
libertarianism.)
[The Ism Book]
25-03-2001
negating the antecedent and the consequent
<philosophical terminology> a fallacy of the form:
p -> q
___________
~ p -> ~ q
Example: "If my daughter is sixteen, then I am over

thirty. Therefore, if my daughter is not sixteen, then I
am not over thirty." This pattern of reasoning should be
distinguished from legitimate cases of transposition.
21-02-2002
negation
<logic> A truth function that is true when its argument

is false, and false when its argument is true (in 2-valued
logics). Also the operator or connective denoting this
function; also the proposition built from this operator.
Notation: ~p, also °p, also, p with a bar on top. (By
convention an unadorned propositional symbol, p, is
the affirmation of proposition p.)
16-03-2001
negation by failure
An extralogical feature of Prolog and other logic programming

languages in which failure of unification is treated as
establishing the negation of a relation. For example,
if Ronald Reagan is not in our database and we
asked if he was an American, Prolog would answer
"no".
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
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negation completeness
<logic> A system is negation-complete when for

every closed wff A of its language, either A or ~A is a
theorem. That is, all closed wffs are decidable.
16-03-2001
negation incompleteness
A system is negation-incomplete when for at least

one closed wff A neither A nor ~A is a theorem, or
when there is at least one undecidable closed wff.
16-03-2001
negative proposition
<philosophical terminology> a statement whose

propositional quality is determined by the assertion
that some or all members of one class of things are
excluded from membership in some other class.
Examples: "No fish are birds." and "Some birds are
not geese." The first declares that the classes of fish
and birds have no common members, while the
second maintains that there is at least one member of
the class of birds that is excluded from the class of
geese.
21-02-2002
negative rights
rights
00-00-0000
neikos
<philosophical terminology> Greek term for a quarrel,

feud, or battle; hence, in the philosophy of
Empedocles, the spirit of discord or strife in constant
struggle with the benevolent influence of philia.
Recommended Reading: Empedocles: "The Extant

Fragments", ed. by M. R. Wright (Hackett, 1995) and
Peter Kingsley, "Ancient Philosophy, Mystery, and
Magic: Empedocles and Pythagorean Tradition"
(Oxford, 1997).
21-02-2002
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neo-Confucianism
<religion> variety of Confucianism that survived as a

response to the introduction of Buddhism to China
from India. While this is strictly a technical or scholarly
term, it helps to be aware that philosophical
development occurred in the East as in the West (the
changes in Confucianism are similar to the changes
in Aristotelianism and Platonism in the West), and
that the modern understanding of Confucianism is
not necessarily true to the original tenets held by
Confucius himself.
[The Ism Book]
25-03-2001
neo-Thomism
<history of philosophy> a nineteenth- and twentieth-

century movement (encouraged by Leo XIII' s Aeterni
Patris in 1879) that attempts to defend the philosophical
and theological doctrines of Thomas Aquinas in a
contemporary context. Prominent neo-Thomists
include Gilson, Maritain, and Lonergan.
Recommended Reading: Gerald A. McCool, "The Neo-

Thomists" (Marquette, 1996); "The Future of Thomism:
The Maritain Sequence", ed. by Deal W. Hudson,
Dennis William Moran, and Donald Arthur Gallagher
(Notre Dame, 1992); "Conflict and Community: New
Studies in Thomistic Thought", ed. by Michael B.
Lukens (Peter Lang, 1993); W. Norris Clarke, "The
One and the Many: A Contemporary Thomistic
Metaphysics" (Notre Dame, 2001); and John F. X.
Knasas, "The Preface to Thomistic Metaphysics: A
Contribution to the Neo-Thomist Debate on the State
of Metaphysics" (Peter Lang, 1991).
21-02-2002
neoplatonism
<philosophical school> neplatonism refers

specifically to the doctrines of Plotinus (205-270 CE)
and his followers in the early centuries CE, and more
generally to the tradition of such thought stretching
through late antiquity into the Middle Ages and early
Renaissance. Neo-Platonism was a revamped
Platonism which put greater emphasis on Plato' s
dualism and idealism, even to the point of a
spiritualism which early Christian theologians like
Augustine found congenial despite the basic
pantheism of Neo-Platonic ideas.
Recommended Reading: "Select Passages Illustrating

Neoplatonism", tr. by E. R. Dodd (Ares, 1980); Baine
Harris, "The Significance of Neoplatonism" (SUNY,
1976); R. T. Wallis, "Neoplatonism" (Hackett, 1995);
and Sara Rappe, "Reading Neoplatonism: Non-
Discursive Thinking in the Texts of Plotinus, Proclus,
and Damascius" (Cambridge, 2000).
Based on [A Dictionary of Philosophical Terms and Names]
21-02-2002
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neorationalist
<philosophical school> a term for those 20th century

philosophers who wish to revive aspects of
rationalism. Specifically, maintaining mentalism,
as opposed to behaviourism, in psychology, possibly
insisting on innateness in learning theory and on
intensional structures in a scientific description of the
world.
30-04-2001
netiquette
<convention, networking> /net' ee

-ket/ or /net' -ket/
i Network
etiquette.
The conventions of politeness recognised on Usenet

and in mailing lists, such as not (cross-)posting to
inappropriate groups and refraining from commercial
advertising outside the biz groups.
The most important rule of netiquette is "Think before

you post". If what you intend to post will not make a
positive contribution to the newsgroup and be of
interest to several readers, don' t post it! Personal
messages to one or two individuals should not be
posted to newsgroups, use private e-mail instead.
When following up an article, quote the minimum

necessary to give some context to your reply and be
careful to attribute the quote to the right person. If the
article you are responding to was posted to several
groups, edit the distribution ("Newsgroups:") header to
contain only those groups which are appropriate to
your reply, especially if the original message was
posted to one or more inappropriate groups in the first
place.
Re-read and edit your posting carefully before you

post. Check the spelling and grammar. Keep your
lines to less than 70 characters. Don' t post test
messages (except to test groups) - wait until you have
something to say. When posting humorous or
sarcastic comments, it is conventional to append a
smiley, but don' t overuse them.
Before asking a question, read the messages already

in the group and read the group' sFAQ if it has one.
When you do post a question, follow it with "please
reply by mail and I will post a summary if requested"
and make sure you DO post a summary if requested,
or if only a few people were interested, send them a
summary by mail. This avoids umpteen people
posting the same answer to the group and umpteen
others posting "me too"s.
If you believe someone has violated netiquette, send

them a message by _private e-mail_, DO NOT post a
follow-up to the news. And be polite, they may not
realise their mistake, they might be a beginner or may
not even have been responsible for the "crime" - their
account may have been used by someone else or
their address forged.
Be proud of your postings but don' t post just to see

your name in pixels. Remember: your future employer
may be reading.
"net.acceptable".
16-03-2001
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network
<networking> Hardware and software data

communication systems.
The OSI seven layer model attempts to provide a way

of partitioning any computer network into independent
modules from the lowest (physical) layer to the
highest (application) layer. Many different
specifications exist at each of these layers.
Networks are often also classified according to their

geographical extent: local area network (LAN),
metropolitan area network (MAN), wide area network
(WAN) and also according to the protocols used.
See BITNET, Ethernet, Internet, Novell, PSTN,

network, the.
[Tanenbaum, A., "Computer Networks; 2nd ed.",

Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1989.]
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
neural nets
00-00-0000
neural network
00-00-0000
Neurath Otto
<history of philosophy, biography> Austrian

philosopher (1882-1945) who founded and edited the
"International Encyclopedia of Unified Science". As a
member of the Vienna Circle, Neurath advanced the
development of logical positivism by rejecting
epistemological (as well as metaphysical)
assertions as meaningless. In Protocolls”tze (Protocol
Statements, 1932) urged abandonment of efforts to
ground science in uninterpreted phenomenal
contents. His defence of the practical political
doctrines of Marx necessitated emigration from Nazi
Germany to England.
Recommended Reading: Otto Neurath, "Philosophical

Papers, 1913-1946" (Reidel, 1983); Otto
Neurath: "Philosophy Between Science and Politics",
ed. by Nancy Cartwright, Jordid Cat, and Thomas
Uebel (Cambridge, 1996); "Encyclopedia and Utopia:
The Life and Work of Otto Neurath", ed. by Elisabeth
Nemeth and Friedrich Stadler (Kluwer, 1996); "Logical
Empiricism at Its Peak: Schlick, Carnap, and Neurath",
ed. by Sahotra Sarkar (Garland, 1996); and Thomas E.
Uebel, "Overcoming Logical Positivism from Within:
The Emergence of Neurath' s Naturalism in the Vienna
Circle' s Protocol Sentence Debate" (Rodopi, 1992).
21-02-2002
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neuron
00-00-0000
neutral monism
<philosophical terminology> belief that both mental

and physical properties are the features of
substances of a single sort, which are themselves
ultimately neither mental nor physical. In distinct
varieties, neutral monism was defended by James
and Russell.
Recommended Reading: William James: "Writings

1902-1910", ed. by Bruce Kuklick (Lib. of Am., 1988);
"The Cambridge Companion to William James", ed.
by Ruth Anna Putnam (Cambridge, 1997); Ray Monk,
"Bertrand Russell and the Origins of Analytical
Philosophy" (St. Augustine, 1997); and Mafizuddin
Ahmed, "Bertrand Russell' s Neutral Monism".
21-02-2002
Newton Isaac
<history of philosophy, biography> English

mathematician and scientist (1642-1727).
Newton made incomparable contributions to the
development of optics and mechanics. He
demonstrated the composite structure of light in
"Opticks: Or a Treatise of the Reflections Inflections
and Colours of Light" (1704). Newton' s "Philosophiae
naturalis principia mathematica" ("The Mathematical
Principles of Natural Philosophy") (1687) provided a
comprehensive account of both celestial and
terrestrial motion by reference to simple laws of
motion and the notion of universal gravitation. Newton
also served as Master of the Mint and
President of the Royal Society.
Recommended Reading: Richard Westfall, "The Life

of Isaac Newton" (Cambridge, 1994); Dana
Densmore, "Newton' s Principia: The Central
Argument" (Green Lion, 1996); and "Philosophical
Perspectives on Newtonian Science", ed. by Phillip
Bricker and R. I. G. Hughes (MIT, 1990.)
21-02-2002
Nicole Pierre
<history of philosophy, biography> French philosopher

(1625-1695). Nicole was a long-time associate of
Antoine Arnauld, with whom he co-wrote "La logique
ou l' art de penser", also known as "The Port
-Royal
Logic" (1662). In the "Essais de Morale" ("Moral
Essays") (1678) Nicole offered an enlightened
defence of egoism.
Recommended Reading: Edward Donald James,

"Pierre Nicole, Jansenist and Humanist A study of his
Thought" (Martinus Nijhoff, 1981).
21-02-2002
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Nietzsche Friedrich
<history of philosophy, biography> born the son of a

Lutheran pastor in Roecken, Saxony, Friedrich
Nietzsche (1844-1900) quickly abandoned his own
pursuit of theology in order to specialize in philology
at Leipzig. His study of classical literature led to an
academic appointment at Basel and the publication
of "Die Geburt der Trag–die aus dem Geiste der
Musik" ("The Birth of Tragedy") (1872), with its
distinction between Apollonian and Dionysian
cultures. When ill health forced an early end to his
teaching career, Nietzsche began to produce the less
scholarly, quasi-philosophical, and anti-religious
works for which he is now known, including
"Menschliches, allzumenschliches" ("Human, All Too
Human") (1878), "Also Sprach Zarathustra" ("Thus
Spoke Zarathustra") (1883), "Die Fr–hliche
Wissenschaft" ("The Gay Science") (1882),
and "Jenseits von Gut und B–se" ("Beyond Good and
Evil") (1886). Nietzsche never recovered from the
mental collapse he suffered in 1889; his "Der Wille zur
Macht" ("Will to Power") (1901) and the
autobiographical "Ecce Homo" ("Ecce Homo") (1908)
were published posthumously. Nietzsche sharply
criticized the Greek tradition' s over-emphasis on
reason in his "Die G–tzend”mmerung" ("Twilight of the
Idols") (1889). Reliance on abstract concepts in a
quest for absolute truth is merely a symptom of the
degenerate personalities of philosophers like
Socrates. From this Nietzsche concluded that
traditional philosophy and religion are both erroneous
and harmful. Progress beyond the stultifying
influence of philosophy, then, requires a
thorough «revaluation of values». In "Zur Geneologie
der Moral" ("On the Genealogy of Morals") (1887)
Nietzsche bitterly decried the slave morality enforced
by social punishment and religious guilt. Only the
noble one - the Ðbermensch - can rise above all
moral distinctions to achieve a healthy life of truly
human worth.
Primary sources:
"Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Werke", ed. by Georgio
Colli and Mazzino Montinari (de Gruyter, 1967- ); "Basic
Writings of Nietzsche", ed. by Peter Gay (Modern
Library, 2000); "A Nietzsche Reader", tr. by R. J.
Hollingdale (Penguin, 1978); Friedrich Wilhelm
Nietzsche, "Beyond Good and Evil", tr. by Helen
Zimmern (Prometheus, 1989); Friedrich Wilhelm
Nietzsche, "The Birth of Tragedy", ed. by Douglas
Smith (Oxford, 2000); Friedrich Wilhelm
Nietzsche, "Ecce Homo: How One Becomes What
One Is", tr. by R. J. Hollingdale (Penguin, 1993);
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, "The Genealogy of
Morality and Other Writings", ed. by Keith Ansell-
Pearson and Carol Diethe (Cambridge, 1994);
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, "Thus Spoke
Zarathustra", tr. by R.J. Hollingdale and Walter
Kauffmann (Penguin, 1978); Friedrich Wilhelm
Nietzsche, "Twilight of the Idols or How to
Philosophize With a Hammer", ed. Duncan Large
(Oxford, 1998); Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, "The Will
to Power", tr. by R. Hollingdale and Walter Kaufmann
(Random House, 1987).
Secondary sources:
"The Cambridge Companion to Nietzsche" , ed. by
Bernd Magnus and Kathleen Marie Higgins
(Cambridge, 1996); Michael Tanner, "Nietzsche"
(Oxford, 1995); R. J. Hollingdale, "Nietzsche: The Man
and His Philosophy" (Cambridge, 1999); "Feminist
Interpretations of Friedrich Nietzsche", ed. by Kelly
Oliver and Marilyn Pearsall (Penn. State, 1998);
Ronald Hayman, "Nietzsche" (Routledge, 1999);
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Richard Schacht, "Nietzsche" (Routledge, 1985); "The

New Nietzsche: Contemporary Styles of Interpretation",
ed. by David B. Allison (MIT, 1985); Robert C. Solomon
and Kathleen M. Higgins, "What Nietzsche Really
Said" (Schocken, 2000); "Reading Nietzsche", ed. by
Robert C. Solomon and Kathleen M. Higgins (Oxford,
1990); James I. Porter, "The Invention of Dionysus: An
Essay on the Birth of Tragedy" (Stanford, 2000); Arthur
Coleman Danto, "Nietzsche as Philosopher"
(Columbia, 1965).
Additional on-line information about Nietzsche

includes: Douglas Thomas' s outstanding Nietzsche
page. Robert Wicks' s article in "The Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy". Richard Schacht' s article
in "The Oxford Companion to Philosophy". Also see:
«Dionysian and Apollinian», eternal recurrence, «God
is dead», irrationalism, moral philosophy, nihilism,
skepticism about religion, resentment, slave morality,
superman, tragedy, the transvaluation of values, and
the will to power. The thorough collection of resources
at EpistemeLinks.com. Katharena Eiermann' s
Nietzcsche page. Gary Brent Madison on Nietzsche' s
influence on postmodern thinkers. The article in the
"Columbia Encyclopedia" at Bartleby.com. G. J.
Mattey' s lecture on Nietzsche' s metaphysics. A
comparison of Nietzsche and Kant by Scarlett Marton.
Snippets from Nietzsche (German and English) in
"The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations". An interesting
page (in German) from Jens Suckow. Bjoern
Christensson' s brief guide to Internet resources. A
brief entry in The Macmillan Encyclopedia 2001.
21-02-2002
nihil est in intellectu quod non prius fuerit in sensu
<philosophical terminology> Latin phrase meaning

"Nothing is in the understanding that was not earlier in
the senses". Hence, the central doctrine of the
empiricism of Gassendi, Locke, and Mill.
21-02-2002
nihilism
<ethics> the belief that there is no value or truth.

Literally, a belief in nothing (nihil in Latin). Most
contemporary discussions of nihilism arise out of a
consideration of Friedrich Nietzsche' s remarks on
nihilism, especially in "The Will to Power". Nihilism
can also be described as an extreme form of
existentialism or pessimism which holds that life
has no meaning and that even if you try to achieve your
goals, in the end your life must necessarily come to
nothing - thus nihilism is similar to fatalism.
Sometimes, nihilism is worse than fatalism because
nihilists don' t usually say that life comes to zero but to
less than zero, since they hold that life really just
consists of one thing: pain. Nihilism is popularly taken
to refer to wanton destruction for its own sake, a sort of
activist irrationalism.
Recommended Reading: Stanley Rosen, Nihilism: "A

Philosophical Essay" (St. Augustine, 2000); Simon
Critchley, "Very Little-Almost Nothing: Death,
Philosophy, Literature" (Routledge, 1997); Karl Lowith,
"Martin Heidegger and European Nihilism", ed. by
Richard Wolin and Gary Steiner (Columbia, 1998); and
David Levin, "The Body' s Recollection of Being:
Phenomenological Psychology and the
Deconstruction of Nihilism" (Routlege, 1990).
file://C:\_ 04/06/00
Based on [The Ism Book] and the [Ethics Glossary]

21-02-2002
Noddings Nel

philosopher (1929-). In her Caring: "A Feminine
Approach to Ethics and Moral Education" (1984)
and "Women and Evil" (1989), Noddings emphasizes
the importance of personal relationships as the
foundation for ethical conduct. "Educating for
Intelligent Belief or Unbelief" (1993) offers a general
account of epistemological values. Her comments
on "Excellence as a Guide to Educational
Conversation" (1992) are available on line.
In "Philosophy of Education" (1995) Noddings
examines in detail the relevance of philosophy- both
historical and contemporary - for educational theory
and practice.
Recommended Reading: Nel Noddings, "The

Challenge to Care in Schools: An Alternative Approach
to Education" (Teachers' College, 1992) and Nel
Noddings, "Starting at Home: Caring and Social
Policy" (California, 2002).
21-02-2002
node
1. A point or vertex in a graph.
2. An addressable device attached to a computer

network. More often called a "host".
3. A hypertext document.
16-03-2001
noesis
<philosophical terminology> Greek word for intuition

or thinking; the operation of nous without benefit of
the discursive reasoning that characterizes dianoia.
According to Plato, such awareness represents the
highest portion of human knowledge. From this
foundation, Plotinus developed a detailed theory
about the operation of the human soul in relation to
the world. Husserl later appropriated this Greek
term in order to emphasize the characteristic
intentionality of mental acts.
Recommended Reading: F. E. Peters, "Greek

Philosophical Terms: A Historical Lexicon" (NYU,
1967).
21-02-2002
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nominalism
<logic, scholasticism, universals, nominalist>

<ockhamism> the view (held by Berkeley, among
others) that general terms, such as "table," do not
express or refer to general concepts, abstract
ideas, or any sort of really existing universals; there
are just individual words and the individual things
they refer to.
22-06-2001
nominalist
1. in the middle ages, someone who maintained that

there where no universals above and beyond
particular individual things and words (marks on
paper) in particular languages. realist
2. today, we tend to call someone a nominalist whose

general account of the universe tries to get along
without sanctioning things that are not realized
completely in our experience. Goodman is often said
to be a nominalist, and Quine may be said to have
such tendencies (though Quine sanctions sets).
30-04-2001
non parity
parity
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non sequitur
<philosophical terminology> Latin phrase meaning, "It

does not follow." The characteristic feature of
arguments that fail to provide adequate support for
their conclusions, especially those that commit one of
the fallacies of relevance.
25-02-2002
non-algorithmic procedure
heuristic
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non-contradiction
<logic, metaphysics, essence, causality, syllogism, idealism>

<mathematics, intuitionism, epistemology, excluded middle>
a fundamental logical principle, first formulated by
Aristotle, which maintains that one and the same
proposition (or thought or statement) cannot be
both true and false or that a statement and its
denial or contradictory cannot both be true. Compare:
Excluded Middle.
28-07-2001
non-determinism
<algorithm> A property of a computation which may

have more than one result.
One way to implement a non-deterministic algorithm

is using backtracking, another is to explore (all)
possible solutions in parallel.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
non-deterministic
Exhibiting non-determinism.
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non-deterministic automaton
<theory> (Or "probabilistic automaton") An

automaton in which there are several possible
actions (outputs and next states) at each state of the
computation such that the overall course of the
computation is not completely determined by the
program, the starting state, and the initial inputs.
See also non-deterministic Turing Machine.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
non-deterministic polynomial time
<complexity> (NP) A set or property of computational

decision problems solvable by a non-deterministic Turing Machine
in a number of steps that is a polynomial function of
the size of the input. The word "non-deterministic"
suggests a method of generating potential solutions
using some form of non-determinism or "trial and
error". This may take exponential time as long as a
potential solution can be verified in polynomial time.
NP is obviously a superset of P (polynomial time

problems solvable by a deterministic Turing Machine
in polynomial time) since a deterministic algorithm
can be considered as a degenerate form of non-
deterministic algorithm. The question then arises: is
NP equal to P? I.e. can every problem in NP actually
be solved in polynomial time? Everyone' s first guess
is "no", but no one has managed to prove this; and
some very clever people think the answer is "yes".
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If a problem A is in NP and a polynomial time

algorithm for A could also be used to solve problem B
in polynomial time, then B is also in NP.
See also Co-NP, NP-complete.
[Examples?]
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
non-deterministic Turing Machine
<complexity> A normal (deterministic) Turing Machine

that has a "guessing head" - a write-only head that
writes a guess at a solution on the tape first, based on
some arbitrary internal algorithm. The regular
Turing Machine then runs and returns "yes" or "no" to
indicate whether the solution is correct.
A non-deterministic Turing Machine can solve

non-deterministic polynomial time computational
decision problems in a number of steps that is a
polynomial function of the size of the input
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
non-polynomial
<complexity> The set or property of problems for which

no polynomial-time algorithm is known.
This includes problems for which the only known

algorithms require a number of steps which
increases exponentially with the size of the problem,
and those for which no algorithm at all is known.
Within these two there are problems which
are "provably difficult" and "provably unsolvable".
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
non-truth-functional
<logic> an operator (i.e. something which if added to

one or more propositions makes a (molecular)
proposition) is non-truth-functional iff the truth-value
of a proposition in which it appears is not wholly
determined by the truth-value of the subsiduary
propositions on which it operates. E.g. the truth-value
of "it is necessary that there are nine planets" and "it is
believed that there are nine planets" is not determined
by the truth value of "there are nine planets." Hence the
operators "it is believed that" are non-truth-functional
operators. truth-functional
30-04-2001
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non-volatile
non-volatile storage
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non-volatile memory
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Non-Volatile Random Access Memory
<storage> (NVRAM) Static random access memory

which is made into non-volatile storage either by
having a battery permanently connected or by saving
its contents to EEPROM before turning the power off
and reloading it when power is restored.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
<storage> (NVS, persistent storage, memory) A term

describing a storage device whose contents are
preserved when its power is off. Storage using
magnetic media (e.g. magnetic disks, magnetic tape
or bubble memory) is normally non-volatile by nature
whereas semiconductor memories (static RAM and
especially dynamic RAM) are normally volatile but
can be made into non-volatile storage by having a
(rechargable) battery permanently connected.
Dynamic RAM is particularly volatile since it looses

its data, even if the power is still on, unless it is
refreshed. An acoustic delay line is a (very old)
example of a volatile storage device.
Other examples of non-volatile storage are EEPROM,

CD-ROM, paper tape and punched cards.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
noncognitivism
<philosophical terminology> a meta-ethical theory

according to which moral issues are not subject to
rational determination. Dealing with values, not facts,
moral assertions are neither true nor false, but
merely express attitudes, feelings, desires, or
demands.
Recommended Reading: "Hume' s Ethical Writings",

ed. by Alasdair MacIntyre (Notre Dame, 1979);
Routledge "Philosophy Guidebook to Hume on
Morality", ed. by James Baillie (Routledge, 2000); and
Charles L. Stevenson, Facts and Values (Greenwood,
1975).
25-02-2002
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nonconceptual content
<philosophy of mind> a content, possibly of a non- or

sub-doxastic state, whose canonical specification
employs concepts which the subject need not
possess in order to entertain the content, but rather
might, for instance, be canonically specified in terms
of abilities and skills the subject possesses, or in
terms of significant though nonconceptualised
experience.
Rick Grush and

Pete Mandik
16-03-2001
nonlinear
(Scientific computation) A property of a system whose

output is not proportional to its input. For example, a
transistor has a region of input voltages for which its
output voltage is found by multiplying the input voltage
by the gain of the transistor. Outside this region
though, the transistor behaves non-linearly, meaning
that it does not obey this simple equation. The
behaviour of a system containing non-linear
components is thus harder to model and to predict.
[Jargon File]
16-03-2001
NOR
<logic> Not OR.
The Boolean function which is true if none of its

inputs are true and false otherwise, the logical complement
of inclusive OR. The binary (two-input) NOR function
can be defined (written as an infix operator):
A NOR B = NOT (A OR B) = (NOT A) AND (NOT B)
Its truth table is:
A | B | A NOR B
--+---+---------
F|F|T
F|T|F
T|F|F
T|T|F
NOR, like NAND, forms a complete set of Boolean

functions on its own since it can be used to make
NOT, AND, OR and any other Boolean function:
NOT A = A NOR A
A OR B = NOT (A NOR B)
A AND B = (NOT A) NOR (NOT B)
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
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norm
<mathematics> A real-valued function modelling the

length of a vector. The norm must be
homogeneous and symmetric and fulfil the
following condition: the shortest way to reach a point is
to go straight towards it. Every convex symmetric
closed surface surrounding point 0 introduces a
norm by means of Minkowski functional; all vectors
that end on the surface have the same norm then.
The most popular norm is the Euclidean norm; it is

calculated by summing up squares of all coordinates
and taking the square root; this is the essence of
Pythagoras' s theorem. In the infinite -dimensional
case, the sum is infinite or is replaced with an integral
when the number of dimensions is uncountable.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
normal distribution
<statistics> (Or "Gaussian distribution", "bell curve")

The frequency distribution of many natural
phenomena such as the height of people of a certain
age and sex. The formula looks something like:
P(x) = e^(((x-m)/s)^2)
where P(x) is the probability of a measurement x, m is

the mean value of x and s is the standard deviation.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
normal form
1. <reduction> In reduction systems, the state of a

term which contains no reducible expressions.
Variants include head normal form, weak head normal
form.
2. <database> See database normalisation.
16-03-2001
normal interpretation
interpretation
16-03-2001
normal order reduction
Under this evaluation strategy an expression is

evaluated by reducing the leftmost outermost redex
first. This method will terminate for any expression for
which termination is possible, whereas applicative
order reduction may not. This method is equivalent
to passing arguments unevaluated because
arguments are initially to the right of functions applied
to them. See also computational adequacy theorem.
16-03-2001
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normalisation
1. <data processing> A transformation applied

uniformly to each element in a set of data so that the
set has some specific statistical property. For
example, monthly measurements of the rainfall in
London might be normalised by dividing each one by
the total for the year to give a profile of rainfall
throughout the year.
2. <programming> Representation of a floating-point

number so that its mantissa' s left -most digit is non-
zero. If the leftmost fraction digit are zeros, the number
is said to be unnormalised. Unnormalised numbers
are normalised by shifting the fraction left, one digit at
a time, until the leftmost digit is nonzero and reducing
the exponent by the number of shifts.
3. <database> database normalisation.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
normalised
normalisation
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normative ethics
<philosophical terminology> branch of philosophical

ethics concerned with developing theories that
determine which human actions are right and which
are wrong. It is useful to distinguish normative
theories according to the way in which they derive
moral value from duties or rights: deontological
theories hold that actions are intrinsically right or
wrong, while consequentialist theories evaluate
actions by reference to their extrinsic outcomes. Virtue
ethics theories locate the highest moral value in the
development of persons.
Recommended Reading: William K. Frankena,

"Ethics" (Prentice Hall, 1973); Stephen Darwall,
"Philosophical Ethics" (Westview, 1998); "The
Blackwell Guide to Ethical Theory", ed. by Hugh
Lafollette (Blackwell, 2000); and "Normative Ethics",
ed. by Shelly Kagan, Keith Lehrer, and Norman
Daniels (Westview, 1997).
25-02-2002
normed space
<mathematics> A vector space with a function, ||F||,

such that
||F|| = 0 if and only if F=0

||aF|| = abs(a) * ||F||
||F+G|| <= ||F|| + ||G||
Roughly, a distance between two elements in the

space is defined.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
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Norris John

philosopher (1657-1711). In his Essay towards the
Theory of an Ideal World, Norris defended the
philosophy of Malebranche against the
empiricism of Locke.
Recommended Reading: John Norris, "Treatises

upon Several Subjects" (Garland, 1993) and Richard
Acworth, "The Philosophy of John Norris of Bemerton"
(Lubrecht & Cramer, 1976).
25-02-2002
NOT
<logic> The Boolean function which is true only if its

input is false. Its truth table is:
A | NOT A
--+----------
F|T
T|F
See also negation
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
noumenal
<ethics, epistemology, ontology> a Kantian term that

refers to the unknowable world as it is in itself.
According to Kant, we can only know the world as it
appears to us, as a phenomenon. We can never
know it as it is in itself, as a noumenon. The
adjectival forms of these two words are "phenomenal"
and "noumenal," respectively.
26-03-2001
noumenon
<kantian ontology, epistemology> for Kant noumena

or "things-in-themselves" are realities transcending
all possible thought and experience. Since the
Categories of thought do not apply to things-in-
themselves but only "things-for-us" or phenomena,
knowledge is possible only of these phenomena.
29-07-2001
noun numeral
numeral
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nous
<philosophical terminology> Greek term for mind,

reason, or intellect. Thus, in the philosophy of
Anaxagoras, nous is an organizing principle for
the universe as a whole. Plato distinguished this
cosmic sense from the more ordinary operation of
the human soul in achieving higher knowledge.
Aristotle typically regarded nous as the distinctive
faculty involved in the acquisition of general
knowledge. As always, Plotinus elevated this into a
quasi-divine principle.

1967).
25-02-2002
Nozick Robert

philosopher (1938-2002); author of "Philosophical
Explanations" (1981) and "The Examined Life" (1990).
Although Nozick has dealt with a wide range of
philosophical issues, he is best known for the
libertarian political philosophy he defended
in "Anarchy, State, and Utopia" (1974). According to
Nozick, direct action by the state is rarely warranted,
and justice is appropriately evaluated by reference to
the means by which social policies are
implemented, rather than their consequences.
Recommended Reading: Robert Nozick, "The Nature

of Rationality" (Princeton, 1994); Robert Nozick,
"Socratic Puzzles" (Harvard,1999); Robert Nozick,
"Invariances: The Structure of the Objective World"
(Harvard, 2001); Simon A. Hailwood, Exploring
Nozick: "Beyond ' Anarchy, State and Utopia' " (Avebury,
1996); and Reading Nozick: "Essays on ' Anarchy,
State and Utopia' ", ed. by Jeffrey Paul (Rowman &
Littlefield, 1981).
25-02-2002
NP
<complexity> non-deterministic polynomial time.
[Jargon File]
16-03-2001
NP time
non-deterministic polynomial time
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NP-complete
<complexity> (NPC, non-deterministic Polynomial time

complete) A set or property of computational decision problems
which is a subset of NP (i.e. can be solved by a non-
deterministic Turing Machine in polynomial time),
with the additional property that it is also NP-hard.
Thus a solution for one NP-complete problem would
solve all problems in NP. Many (but not all) naturally
arising problems in class NP are in fact NP-complete.
There is always a polynomial-time algorithm for

transforming an instance of any NP-complete problem
into an instance of any other NP-complete problem.
So if you could solve one you could solve any other by
transforming it to the solved one.
The first problem ever shown to be NP-complete was

the satisfiability problem. Another example is
Hamilton' s problem.
See also computational complexity, halting problem,

Co-NP, NP-hard.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
NP-hard
<complexity> A set or property of computational

search problems. A problem is NP-hard if solving it
in polynomial time would make it possible to solve
all problems in class NP in polynomial time.
Some NP-hard problems are also in NP (these are

called "NP-complete"), some are not. If you could
reduce an NP problem to an NP-hard problem and
then solve it in polynomial time, you could solve all NP
problems.
See also computational complexity.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
null set
<logic>
The set with zero members. Notation: ?, sometimes 0 or
&. Also called the empty set.
16-03-2001
number crunching
<application, jargon> Computations of a numerical

nature, especially those that make extensive use of
floating-point numbers. The only thing Fortrash is
good for.
This term is in widespread informal use outside

hackerdom and even in mainstream slang, but has
additional hackish connotations: namely, that the
computations are mindless and involve massive use
of brute force. This is not always evil, especially if it
involves ray tracing or fractals or some other use
that makes pretty pictures, especially if such pictures
can be used as wallpaper.
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16-03-2001
numbers
(Scientific computation) Output from a computation

that may not be significant but at least indicates that
the program is running. Numbers may be used to
placate management, grant sponsors, etc. "Making
numbers" means running a program because output -
any output, not necessarily meaningful output - is
needed as a demonstration of progress.
See integers, irrational numbers, natural numbers,

numeral, rational numbers, real numbers.
16-03-2001
numeral
<logic> A symbol or wff whose intended interpretation

is a number. Notation: ("n" with a bar over it), also "n"
(numeral for number n).
Adjectival numerals
Numerals that adjectivally modify nouns, as in "three

bags full" and "two turtle doves". Predicate logic can
express adjectival numerals unambiguously, but not
noun numerals.
Noun numerals
Numerals that function as nouns or substantives in

the propositions in which they occur, as "three is the
successor of two".
16-03-2001
Nussbaum Martha Craven

philosopher (1947-). In "The Fragility of Goodness"
(1986) and "The Therapy of Desire" (1994) Nussbaum
argues for the continuing relevance of the
moral philosophy of Aristotle and the schools of the
Hellenistic era. An on-line example of her use of this
method may be found in "Victims and Agents: What
Greek tragedy can teach us about sympathy and
responsibility". She employs more modern literary
texts as significant sources of insight into human
emotions and decision-making in "Love' s Knowledge"
(1990).
Recommended Reading: Martha Craven Nussbaum,

"Poetic Justice: The Literary Imagination and Public
Life" (Beacon, 1997); Martha Craven Nussbaum,
"Cultivating Humanity" (Harvard, 1998); Martha Craven
Nussbaum, "Women and Human Development: The
Capabilities Approach" (Cambridge, 2000); Martha
Craven Nussbaum, "Sex & Social Justice" (Oxford,
2000); and Ronald L. Hall, "The Human Embrace: The
Love of Philosophy and the Philosophy of Love:
Kierkegaard, Cavell, Nussbaum" (Penn. State, 1999).
25-02-2002
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Nyquist Theorem
<communications> A theorem stating that when an

analogue waveform is digitised, only the frequencies
in the waveform below half the sampling frequency
will be recorded. In order to reconstruct (interpolate) a
signal from a sequence of samples, sufficient
samples must be recorded to capture the peaks and
troughs of the original waveform. If a waveform is
sampled at less than twice its frequency the
reconstructed waveform will effectively contribute only
noise. This phenomenon is called "aliasing" (the
high frequencies are "under an alias").
This is why the best digital audio is sampled at 44,000

Hz - twice the average upper limit of human hearing.
The Nyquist Theorem is not specific to digitised

signals (represented by discrete amplitude levels) but
applies to any sampled signal (represented by
discrete time values), not just sound.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
O proposition
<logic, philosophy of science> in the traditional notation for categorical logic, a proposition that is both
particular and negative. Example: "Some trees are not evergreens." Such a proposition affirms that there is at
least one tree that is not also an evergreen. Its contradictory is an "A" proposition with the same subject and
predicate terms.
12-11-2001
Ob-
/ob/ prefix Obligatory. A piece of netiquette acknowledging that the author has been straying from the
newsgroup' s charter topic. For example, if a posting in alt.sex is a response to a part of someone else' s posting
that has nothing particularly to do with sex, the author may append "ObSex" (or "Obsex") and toss off a
question or vignette about some unusual erotic act. It is considered a sign of great winnitude when one' s Obs
are more interesting than other people' s whole postings.
[Jargon File]
16-03-2001
object
In object-oriented programming, a unique instance of a data structure defined according to the template
provided by its class. Each object has its own values for the variables belonging to its class and can respond to
the messages (methods) defined by its class.
16-03-2001
object code
The machine code generated by a source code language processor such as an assembler or compiler. A file of
object code may be immediately executable or it may require linking with other object code files, e.g. libraries,
to produce a complete executable program.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
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object identifier
<programming, PI> (OID) Generally an implementation-specific integer or pointer that uniquely identifies an
object.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
object language
<logic> The formal language of a system. The language used to talk about the object language is called the
metalanguage. Outside logic,an object language need not be formal; it is any referent language of any
metalanguage.
16-03-2001
object-orientation
object-oriented
12-11-2003
object-oriented
1. <programming, PI> (OO) See object-oriented programming, object-oriented analysis, object-oriented

database, object-oriented design.
2. <graphics> vector graphics.
16-03-2001
object-oriented analysis
(OOA) See object-oriented design
16-03-2001
object-oriented database
<database> (OODB) A system offering DBMS facilities in an object-oriented programming environment. Data
is stored as objects and can be interpreted only using the methods specified by its class. The relationship
between similar objects is preserved (inheritance) as are references between objects. Queries can be faster
because joins are often not needed (as in a relational database). This is because an object can be retrieved
directly without a search, by following its object id.
The same programming language can be used for both data definition and data manipulation. The full power of
the database programming language' s type system can be used to model data structures and the relationship
between the different data items.
Multimedia applications are facilitated because the class methods associated with the data are responsible for
its correct interpretation.
OODBs typically provide better support for versioning. An object can be viewed as the set of all its versions.
Also, object versions can be treated as full fledged objects. OODBs also provide systematic support for
triggers and constraints which are the basis of active databases. Most, if not all, object-oriented application
programs that have database needs will benefit from using an OODB.
Ode is an example of an OODB built on C++.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
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object-oriented design
<programming, PI> (OOD) A design method in which a system is modelled as a collection of cooperating
objects and individual objects are treated as instances of a class within a class hierarchy. Four stages can be
identified: identify the classes and objects, identify their semantics, identify their relationships and specify class
and object interfaces and implementation. Object-oriented design is one of the stages of object-oriented
programming.
["Object-oriented analysis and design with applications", Grady Booch, 2nd ed., pub. Benjamin/Cummings,
Redwood CA, 1994].
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
object-oriented language
object-oriented programming
12-11-2003
object-oriented programming
<programming, PI> (OOP) The use of a class of programming languages and techniques based on the
concept of an "object" which is a data structure (abstract data type) encapsulated with a set of routines, called
"methods", which operate on the data. Operations on the data can only be performed via these methods, which
are common to all objects that are instances of a particular "class". Thus the interface to objects is well
defined, and allows the code implementing the methods to be changed so long as the interface remains the
same.
Each class is a separate module and has a position in a "class hierarchy". Methods or code in one class can
be passed down the hierarchy to a subclass or inherited from a superclass. This is called "inheritance".
A procedure call is described as invoking a method on an object (which effectively becomes the procedure' s
first argument), and may optionally include other arguments. The method name is looked up in the object' s
class to find out how to perform that operation on the given object. If the method is not defined for the object' s
class, it is looked for in its superclass and so on up the class hierarchy until it is found or there is no higher
superclass.
OOP started with SIMULA-67 around 1970 and became all-pervasive with the advent of C++, and later Java.
Another popular object-oriented programming languages (OOPL) is Smalltalk, a seminal example from Xerox' s
Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). Others include Ada, Object Pascal, Objective C, DRAGOON, BETA,
Emerald, POOL, Eiffel, Self, Oblog, ESP, POLKA, and Loops. Other languages, such as Perl and VB, permit,
but do not enforce OOP.
FAQ (http://iamwww.unibe.ch/~scg/OOinfo/FAQ/).
(http://zgdv.igd.fhg.de/papers/se/oop/).
(http://cuiwww.unige.ch/Chloe/OOinfo).
Usenet newsgroup: news:comp.object
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
objective
something is objective insofar as it is independent of either a particular human mind or minds altogether.
Pete Mandik and Luciano Floridi
16-03-2001
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objective - subjective
<gnoseology, philosophy of science> distinction between propositions or judgments about the way things are
and those about how people think or feel about them. The truth of objective claims is presumed to be entirely
independent of the merely personal concerns reflected in subjective expressions, even though is difficult to
draw the distinction precisely. Thus, for example: "Spinach is green" is objective, while "I like spinach" is
subjective. "Seventy-three percent of people in Houston don' t like spinach," however, seems to be anobjective
claim about certain subjects. The legitimacy of this distinction is open to serious question, since it is unclear
whether (and how) any knowing subject can achieve genuine objectivity. Nevertheless, because objective truth
is supposed to carry undeniable persuasive force, exaggerated claims of objectivity have often been used as
tools of intellectual and social oppression.
Richard Rorty, Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth (Cambridge, 1991);
Thomas Nagel, The View from Nowhere (Oxford, 1989); Richard J. Bernstein, Beyond Objectivism and
Relativism: Science, Hermeneutics, and Praxis (Pennsylvania, 1983); and The Authority of Reason, ed. by
Jean E. Hampton and Richard A. Healey (Cambridge, 1998).
12-11-2001
objective truth
<epistemology, metaphysics, logic, empiricism, idealism>

<stoicism, epicureism, ockhamism, theology, existentialism> <phenomenology, pragmatism> objective truths
are true regardless of what anyone thinks. Example: The earth revolves around the sun. This was true, a
believer in objective truth would say, long before anyone thought so (the earth being long uninhabited) and
even despite everyone thinking otherwise for a long time (prior to Copernicus, for millennia, virtually everyone
thought the sun revolved around the earth).
22-06-2001
objectivity
the property of being objective.
16-03-2001
obscenity
<aesthetics, ethics> artistic expression which appeals solely to prurient interests and is without redeeming
artistic merit or social importance. (As defined under U. S. law.)
22-06-2001
observational equivalence
Two terms M and N are observationally equivalent iff for all contexts C[] where C[M] is a valid term, C[N] is also
a valid term with the same value.
16-03-2001
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obversion
<logic, philosophy of language> the reciprocal relationship between two categorical propositions of opposite
quality such that the predicate term of each is the complement of the predicate term of the other. Obversion is
a valid immediate inference for categorical propositions of every form. Thus, for example: All lizards are reptiles
and No lizards are non-reptiles. No spiders are insects and All spiders are non-insects. Some fish are birds
and Some fish are not non-birds. Some mammals are not dogs and Some mammals are non-dogs. They are
all legitimate cases of obversion; either member of each pair can be substituted for the other.
04-12-2001
occasionalism
<philosophy of mind, ontology> a view popularised by Nicholas Malbranche whereby:
1) the mental and the material comprise two different kinds of substance;
2) neither has any direct causal effect on the other and;
3) all seeming interactions between the two are due to the continual intervention by God who brings about a
change in one on the occasion of a change in the other.
See dualism, doctrine of pre-established harmony, parallelism
16-03-2001
Ockham William of
<history of philosophy, biography> english philosopher (1285-1349) who defended the logic, physics, and
metaphysics of Aristotle in Summa Logicae (The Whole of Logic) (1328) vol. 1 and vol. 2 and the Dialogus. An
extreme nominalist, Ockham held that general terms are signs that indefinitely signify discrete (though similar)
particulars. Ockham is best known for his statement of the law of parsimony as the ontological principle often
called Ockham' s Razor: "Frustra fit per plura quod potest fieri per pauciora" ("It is pointless to do with more
what can be done with less"). Thus, according to Ockham, we ought never to postulate the reality of any entity
unless it is logically necessary to do so.
Recommended Reading: William of Ockham, Opera Philosophica (Franciscan, 1975); William of Ockham,
Philosophical Writings: A Selection, tr. by Philotheus Boehner (Hackett, 1990); The Cambridge Companion to
Ockham, ed. by Paul Vincent Spade (Cambridge, 1999); Rega Wood, Ockham on the Virtues (Purdue, 1997);
and Five Texts on the Mediaeval Problem of Universals: Porphyry, Boethius, Abelard, Duns Scotus, Ockham,
ed. by Paul Vincent Spade (Hackett, 1994).
12-11-2001
octal
<mathematics> Base 8. A number representation using the digits 0-7 only, with the right-most digit counting
ones, the next counting multiples of 8, then 8^2 = 64, etc. For example, octal 177 is digital 127:
digit weight value

1 8^2 = 64 1* 64 = 64
7 8^1 = 8 7* 8 = 56
7 8^0 = 1 7* 1 = 7
---
127
Octal system used to be widespread back when many computers used 6-bit bytes, as a 6-bit byte can be
conveniently written as a two-digit octal number. Since nowadays a byte is almost always 8-bit long the octal
system lost most of its appeal to the hexadecimal system.
hexadecimal.
For a brief discussion on the word ` octal' see
[FOLDOC]
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Omega-algebraic
In domain theory, a complete partial order is algebraic if every element is the lub of some chain of compact
elements. If the set of compact elements is countable it is omega-algebraic. Usually written with a Greek letter
omega.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
omega-completeness
<logic> A system is omega-complete iff there is no wff W with one free variable such that (1) Wn is a theorem
for every natural number n, and (2) (x)Wx is not a theorem.
See closure of a system
16-03-2001
omega-consistency
<logic> A system is omega-consistent iff there is no wff W with one free variable such that (1) Wn is a theorem
for every natural number n, and (2) ~(x)Wx is also a theorem.
omega-inconsistency
There is a wff W with one free variable such that (1) Wn is a theorem for every natural number n, and (2) ~(x)
Wx is also a theorem.
omega-incompleteness
There is a wff W with one free variable such that (1) Wn is a theorem for every natural number n, and (2) (x)Wx
is not theorem. Wx is true for every n by instantiation but not by generalization.
See k-validity
16-03-2001
one-to-one correspondence
<logic> The pairing-off of the members of one set with the members of another set such that each member of
the first has exactly one counterpart in the second and each member of the second has exactly one
counterpart in the first. The method of pairing off need not be effective. Notation: A =~ B (set A can be put into
one-to-one correspondence with set B)
16-03-2001
ones complement
A system used in some computers to represent negative numbers. To negate a number, each bit of the
number is inverted (zeros are replaced with ones and vice versa). This has the consequence that there are two
representations for zero, either all zeros or all ones.
...
000...00011 = +3
000...00010 = +2
000...00001 = +1
000...00000 = +0
111...11111 = -0
file://C:\_ 04/06/00
111...11110 = -1
111...11101 = -2
111...11100 = -3
...
Naive logic for ones complement addition might easily include that -0 + 1 = +0. The twos complement avoids
this by using all ones to represent -1.
16-03-2001
ontological commitment
<ontology> commitment (of a theory) to an existence claim, usually concerning some individual entity. It is often
implicit.
Luciano Floridi
16-03-2001
ontology
1. <ontology, metaphysics> A systematic account of what there is, an inventory of what exists.
2. <artificial intelligence> An explicit formal specification of how to represent the objects, concepts and other
entities that are assumed to exist in some area of interest and the relationships that hold among them.
For AI systems, what "exists" is that which can be represented. When the knowledge about a domain is
represented in a declarative language, the set of objects that can be represented is called the universe of
discourse. We can describe the ontology of a program by defining a set of representational terms. Definitions
associate the names of entities in the universe of discourse (e.g. classes, relations, functions or other objects)
with human-readable text describing what the names mean, and formal axioms that constrain the interpretation
and well-formed use of these terms. Formally, an ontology is the statement of a logical theory.
A set of agents that share the same ontology will be able to communicate about a domain of discourse without
necessarily operating on a globally shared theory. We say that an agent commits to an ontology if its
observable actions are consistent with the definitions in the ontology. The idea of ontological commitment is
based on the Knowledge-Level perspective.
3. <information science> The hierarchical structuring of knowledge about things by subcategorising them
according to their essential (or at least relevant and/or cognitive) qualities. See subject index. This is an
extension of the previous senses of "ontology" (see 2 above) which has become common in discussions about
the difficulty of maintaining subject indices.
Recommended Reading: Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: A Phenomenological Essay on Ontology,
tr. by Hazel E. Barnes (Washington Square, 1993); Herman Philipse, Heidegger' s Philosophy of Being
(Princeton, 1998); Gustav Bergmann, New Foundations of Ontology, ed. by William Heald and Edwin B. Allaire
(Wisconsin, 1992); W. V. O. Quine, Ontological Relativity (Columbia, 1977); and Roger F. Gibson, Jr., The
Philosophy of W. V. Quine: An Expository Essay (Florida, 1986).
based on [A Dictionary of Philosophical Terms and Names]
04-12-2001
open
1. To prepare to read or write a file. This usually involves checking whether the file already exists and that the
user has the necessary authorisation to read or write it. The result of a successful open is usually some kind of
capability (e.g. a Unix file descriptor) - a token that the user passes back to the system in order to access the
file without further checks and finally to close the file.
2. Abbreviation for "open (or left) parenthesis" - used when necessary to eliminate oral ambiguity. To read
aloud the LISP form (DEFUN FOO (X) (PLUS X 1)) one might say: "Open defun foo, open eks close, open,
plus eks one, close close."
3. Non-proprietary. An open standard is one which can be used without payment.
16-03-2001
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open source
<legal> A method and philosophy for software licensing and distribution designed to encourage use and
improvement of software written by volunteers by ensuring that anyone can copy the source code and modify it
freely.
The term "open source" is now more widely used than the earlier term "free software" (promoted by the Free
Software Foundation) but has broadly the same meaning - free of distribution restrictions, not necessarily free
of charge.
There are various open source licenses available. Programmers can choose an appropriate license to use
when distributing their programs.
The Open Source Initiative promotes the Open Source Definition.
The Cathedral and the Bazaar

(http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral-bazaar.html)
was a seminal paper describing the open source phenomenon.
Open Sources - O' Reilly book with full text online

(http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/opensources/book/perens.html).
Articles from ZDNet

(http://www.zdnet.com/pcmag/features/opensource/).
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
Open Source Definition
<standard> (OSD) Definition of distribution terms for open source software, promoted by the Open Source
Initiative.
Home (http://www.opensource.org/osd.html).
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
Open Source Initiative
<body> (OSI) An organisation dedicated to managing and promoting the Open Source Definition for the good
of the community.
Home (http://www.opensource.org/).
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
Open source license
<legal> Any document that attempts to specify open source usage and distribution of software. These licenses
are usually drafted by experts and are likely to be more legally sound than one a programmer could write.
However, loopholes do exist.
Here is a non-exhaustive list of open source licenses:
1. Public Domain - No license.
2. BSD License - An early open source license
3. General Public License (GPL) - The copyleft license of the Free Software Foundation. Used for GNU
software and much of Linux.
4. Artistic License
(http://www.my-opensource.org/Artistic.txt) Less restrictive than the GPL, permitted by Perl in addition to the
GPL.
5. Mozilla Public Licenses (http://www.mozilla.org/MPL/) (MPL, MozPL) and Netscape Public License (NPL).
["Open Sources", pub. O' Reilly, full text
file://C:\_ 04/06/00
(http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/opensources/book/perens.html)].
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
operational semantics
<semantics> A set of rules specifying how the state of an actual or hypothetical computer changes while
executing a program. The overall state is typically divided into a number of components, e.g. stack, heap,
registers etc. Each rule specifies certain preconditions on the contents of some components and their new
contents after the application of the rule.
It is similar in spirit to the notion of a Turing machine, in which actions are precisely described in a
mathematical way.
Compare axiomatic semantics, denotational semantics.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
operator
<programming, PI>
1. A symbol used as a function, with infix syntax if it has two arguments (e.g. "+") or prefix syntax if it has only
one (e.g. Boolean NOT). Many languages use operators for built-in functions such as arithmetic and logic.
<logic>
2. see connective
16-03-2001
opinion
<gnoseology, philosophy of knowledge and science>

acceptance of a proposition despite a lack of the conclusive evidence that would result in certain knowledge of
its truth.
04-12-2001
optimal
1. <mathematics> Describes a solution to a problem which minimises some cost function. Linear programming
is one technique used to discover the optimal solution to certain problems.
2. <programming, PI> Of code: best or most efficient in time, space or code size.
16-03-2001
optimise
To perform optimisation.
16-03-2001
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optimism
<metaphysics> optimism is something of a "marginal" term in philosophy, in the sense that it is not really used
in technical philosophy (when it is used, it refers to Leibniz' s belief that this is "the best of all possible worlds")
The term is useful, however, since it describes a metaphysical affirmation of the possibility of knowledge and
happiness in opposition to pessimism. In this sense, for example, eudaimonism can be a form of optimism. The
popular usage of optimism is related to the meaning described here, but it is not as fundamental or
"metaphysical".
See also meliorism

Recommended Reading: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Theodicy: Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom
of Man, and the Origin of Evil, ed. by Austin Marsden Farrer (Open Court, 1988) and The Cambridge
Companion to Leibniz, ed. by Nicholas Jolley (Cambridge, 1994).
based on [A Dictionary of Philosophical terms and Names]
04-12-2001
OR
<logic> The Boolean function which is true if any of its arguments are true. Its truth table is:
A | B | A OR B
--+---+---------
F|F|F
F|T|T
T|F|T
T|T|T
See also disjunction
[FOLDOC]
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order-embedding
A function f : D -> C is order-embedding iff for all x, y inD,
f(x) <= f(y) <=> x <= y.
I.e. arguments and results compare similarly. A function which is order-embedding is monotonic and one-to-
one and an injection.
[FOLDOC]
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ordering
A relation.
See partial ordering, pre-order, total ordering.
16-03-2001
ordinal
<mathematics> An isomorphism class of well-ordered sets.
[FOLDOC]
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ordinate
<mathematics> The y-coordinate on an (x,y) graph; the output of a function plotted against its input.
x is the "abscissa".
See Cartesian coordinates.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
organicism
<metaphysics, aesthetics>
1. in metaphysics the view according to which the universe is or is like a living organism. The same basic idea
is behind the Gaia hypothesis, which claims that the earth is a living thing. Sometimes this is what is meant by
holism, especially in popular usage, but holism simply says that all parts of reality are interconnected and does
not claim that the earth or the universe is a living thing.
2. in aesthetics, the word organicism is sometimes used in aesthetics to refer to the idea (which goes back at
least to Aristotle) that a work of art should be an "organic whole" with all its parts or aspects serving one central
purpose.
25-03-2001
Ortega y Gasset José
(1883-1955); a disciple of Hermann Cohen, Ortega y Gasset was professor of Metaphysics at the Central
University of Madrid from 1911 to 1936. He studied in Germany under the guidance of Herman Cohen. After
moving away from neo-Kantianism and the ideas of the Marburg school, of which he was adherent for a short
time, he developed a doctrine which went against both idealism and realism and which he called
“perspectivism”. “I am: myself and my surrounding” (yo soy: yo y mi circumstancia). Man as a concrete reality
here and now acquires knowledge through a series of impressions upon which he focuses, because he is first
and foremost a living being. The cultural world follows the biological one but does not run counter to it. The
development of this idea subsequently (from 1923 onwards) led him to “ratiovitalism”. Philosophy is not a
reflection on life, but its starting point should be that it is living reason. Man is not an abstract entity endowed
with reason, but a reality that uses reason to live. There is a continuum between the world of culture (razón)
and that of biology (vital) and therefore human life is not biology but biography; man does not have a nature but
a history, according to Ortega.
Ortega y Gasset is also remembered for his influence in public life and his opposition towards any form of
totalitarian regimes. Ortega also believed that intellectuals had a role to fulfil in society, which he understood in
a twofold sense. In a positive sense it was an essential instrument for life (like the flexible skin of an organism)
and in a negative sense it was oppressive and asphyxiating (like an orthopaedic apparatus).
Meditaciones del Quijote, El Espectador (1916-1934),España Invertebrada, Que es filosofía, Europa y la idea
de Nación, Epistolario Unamuno-Ortega (1964).
Bibliography: Udo Rusker, Bibliografía de Ortega (1971), José Ferrater Mora, An Outline of his philosophy
(1957), Paulino Garagorri, Ortega, una reforma de la filosofía (1958), Ciriaco Morón Arroyo, El sistema de
Ortega y Gasset (1968), Domingo Hernández Sánchez, Índice de autores y conceptos de la obra de José
Ortega y Gasset (2000).
Online Bibliography: www.ortegaygasset.edu
Sandro Borzoni
11-05-2004
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orthogonal
Mutually independent; well separated; sometimes, irrelevant to. Used in a generalisation of its mathematical
meaning to describe sets of primitives or capabilities that, like a vector basis in geometry, span the entire
"capability space" of the system and are in some sense non-overlapping or mutually independent.
In logic, the set of operators "not" and "or" is orthogonal, but the set "nand", "or", and "not" is not (because any
one of these can be expressed in terms of the others).
Also used in comments on human discourse: "This may be orthogonal to the discussion, but ..."
16-03-2001
other minds problem
<epistemology, computer science, AI, consciousness objection> the problem of how we know that there are
minds other than our own on the assumption that mental life consists, essentially, of private conscious
experiences directly accessible only to oneself.
22-06-2001
Otto Rudolf
<history of philosophy, biography> german philosopher of religion (1869-1937).

Extrapolating from the philosophy of Kant in Naturalistische und religi–se Weltansich (Naturalism and Religion)
(1904) and Das Heilige (The Idea of the Holy) (1917), Otto tried to identify, describe, and classify the variety of
"numinous" feelings that give rise to the cognitive content of religious belief.
Rudolf Otto, Autobiographical and Social Essays, ed. by Gregory D. Alles (De Gruyter, 1996);
Philip C. Almond, Rudolf Otto: An Introduction to His Philosophical Theology (North Carolina, 1992);
Melissa Raphael, Rudolf Otto and the Concept of Holiness (Clarendon, 1997); and Todd A. Gooch, The
Numinous and Modernity: An Interpretation of Rudolf Otto' s Philosophy of Religion (De Gruyter, 2000).
[A Dictionaary of Philosophical Terms and Names]
06-12-2001
ousia
<metaphysics, ontology> greek term for being or substance. Thus, in the philosophy of Aristotle, the most
crucial of the categories by means of which to describe a natural object.
06-12-2001
output
<architecture> Data transferred from a computer system to the outside world via some kind of output device.
Opposite: input
[FOLDOC]
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outsourcing
<business> Paying another company to provide services which a company might otherwise have employed its
own staff to perform, e.g. software development.
16-03-2001
overriding
<programming, PI> Redefining in a child class a method or function member defined in a parent class.
Not to be confused with "overloading".
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
overrun
1. A frequent consequence of data arriving faster than it can be consumed, especially in serial line
communications. For example, at 9600 baud there is almost exactly one character per millisecond, so if a silo
can hold only two characters and the machine takes longer than 2 milliseconds to get to service the interrupt, at
least one character will be lost.
2. Also applied to non-serial-I/O communications. "I forgot to pay my electric bill due to mail overrun." "Sorry, I
got four phone calls in 3 minutes last night and lost your message to overrun." When thrashing at tasks, the
next person to make a request might be told "Overrun!" Compare firehose syndrome.
3. More loosely, may refer to a buffer overflow not necessarily related to processing time (as in overrun screw).
[Jargon File]
16-03-2001
pacifism
<political philosophy> the view according to which the highest political or social value is peace, which must be
sought at all costs. Another meaning of pacifism - connected with the actions and views of reformers like
Thoreau, Ghandi, and Martin Luther King - is the ideal of non-violence in human affairs (akin to the moral
aspect of anarchism).
[The Ism Book]
<philosophical terminology> opposition to war, killing, and violence; support for peace (Lat. Pax). Pacifism may
be defended deontologically as respect for the value of human life, on the consequentialist grounds that the
consequences of violence are clearly harmful, or personally as a significant component of good character.
Robert L. Holmes, Nonviolence in Theory and Practice (Waveland, 2001);
Lisa Sowle Cahill, Love Your Enemies: Discipleship, Pacifism, and Just War Theory (Fortress, 1997); and
Catherine Clement, Gandhi: The Power of Pacifism, tr. by Ruth Sharman (Abrams, 1996).
03-03-2002
Paine Thomas
<history of philosophy, biography> American patriot (1737-1809) whose Common Sense (1776) argued
forcefully for the independence of American colonies. Paine' s activism continued after the success of the
American revolution; in The Rights of Man (1792) - a response to Burke - he presented his radical political and
economic theories in support of the French Revolution as well, and in The Age of Reason (1794) and Essays
on Religion (1797) he defended deism as an alternative to traditional religion.
The Thomas Paine Reader, ed. by Isaac Kramnick and Michael Foot (Penguin, 1987);
Thomas Paine: Collected Writings, ed. by Eric Foner (Lib. of Am., 1995);
Thomas Paine, Political Writings, ed. by Bruce Kuklick (Cambridge, 2000);
Jack Fruchtman, Thomas Paine: Apostle of Freedom (Four Walls, 1996); and Howard Fast, Citizen Tom Paine
(Grove, 1983).
file://C:\_ 04/06/00
03-03-2002
Paley William
<history of philosophy, biography> English philosopher and theologian (1743-1805). Paley' s Principles of Mora
and Political Philosophy (1785) rejected the moral sense theory and defended a variety of utilitarianism,
claiming that human conduct is properly founded upon respect for the divine will, as evidenced in the natural
connection between virtue and happiness. A View of the Evidences of Christianity (1794) upholds the
reasonability of belief in miracles in contrast with Hume' s famous essay to the contrary. Paley' s analog
between the operation of nature and the movements of a well-designed watch in Natural Theology: Evidences
of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity (1802) is often regarded as a classic statement of the teleological
argument for god' sexistence.
The Works of William Paley, ed. by Victor Nuovo (Thoemmes, 1998).
03-03-2002
panpsychism
<philosophical terminology> belief that everything in the world has some mental aspect. This view attributes
some degree of consciousness- however small - even to apparently inert bits of matter. Varieties of
panpsychism have been defended by the Pythagoreans, Plotinus, Leibniz, Schopenhauer, and Whitehead.
Timothy Sprigge, The Vindication of Absolute Idealism (Edinburgh, 1984) and Ralph Abraham, Chaos, Gaia,
Eros (Harper, 1994).
03-03-2002
pantheism
<metaphysics, stoicism, epistemology> the belief that God and the universe are identical; among modern
philosophers, Spinoza is considered to be a pantheist. Among the ancients the Stoics were the most notable
exponents of pantheism. According to Stoicism, the material universe is the Body of God, and the God' s spiri
or soul is the Mind (or logos) guiding and governing this universal body. In effect, universal Body and indwelling
Mind together comprise the divine Person.
Michael P. Levine, Pantheism: A Non-Theistic Concept of Deity (Routledge, 1994) and Paul Harrison, The
Elements of Pantheism: Understanding the Divinity in Nature and the Universe (Thorsons, 1999).
based on [Philosophical Glossary],

03-03-2002
Paracelsus Phillippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus
<history of philosophy, biography> Swiss chemist and physician (1493-1541). Rejecting the ancient reliance on
concern for bodily "humours", Paracelsus transformed the practice of medicine by employing careful
observation and experimentation. Although his chemical knowledge was rudimentary by modern standards,
Paracelsus envisioned using pharmaceutical methods for treating disease and something like inoculation for
preventing it.
Four Treatises of Theophrastus Von Hohenheim, called Paracelsus, tr. by C. Lilian Temkin, George Rosen,
and Gregory Zilboorg (Johns Hopkins, 1996);
Paracelsus, ed. by Jolande Jacobi and Norbert Guterman (Princeton, 1995);
Manly P. Hall, Paracelsus, His Mystical and Medical Philosophy (Phil. Res. Soc., 1990); and Andrew Weeks
and David Appelbaum, Paracelsus: Speculative Theory and the Crisis of the Early Reformation (SUNY, 1997).
03-03-2002
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paradigm
<philosophical terminology> an exemplary instance or model; hence, also, a set of background assumptions.
Thus, a "paradigm case" argument shows that an adequate philosophical analysis must conform to the most
ordinary applications of what it analyzes. According to Kuhn, procedural paradigms control our study of the
natural world during periods between scientific revolutions.
John A. Passmore, Philosophical Reasoning (Basic, 1969);
Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago, 1996); and Paul Hoyningen-Huene,
Reconstructing Scientific Revolutions: Thomas S. Kuhn' s Philosophy of Science, tr. by Alexander J. Levine
(Chicago, 1993).
03-03-2002
paradox
<logic> Originally, any surprising, puzzling, or counter-intuitive claim, especially a counter-intuitive truth, or an
apparently sound argument leading to a contradiction. Most paradoxes stem from some kind of self-reference.
In modern logic, a concept or proposition that is not only self-contradictory, but for which the obvious
alternatives are either self-contradictory or very costly.
Glenn W. Erickson and John A. Fossa, Dictionary of Paradox (U. Pr. of Am., 1998);
Nicholas Rescher, Paradoxes: Their Roots, Range, and Resolution (Open Court, 2001); and R. M. Sainsbury,
Paradoxes (Cambridge, 1995).
See Grelling' s paradox,Liar paradox, implication, Russell' s paradox,Skolem paradox
based on [Glossary of First-Order Logic], [FOLDOC],

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paradoxes of material implication
implication
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parallel computer
parallel processor
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parallel computing
parallel processing
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parallel distributed process
parallel distributed processing
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also known as PDP. See connectionism, parallel processing parallelism, artificial neural network.
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parallel processing
<parallel> The simultaneous use of more than one computer to solve a problem. There are many different
kinds of parallel computer (or "parallel processor"). They are distinguished by the kind of interconnection
between processors (known as "processing elements" or PEs) and between processors and memory. Flynn' s
taxonomy also classifies parallel (and serial) computers according to whether all processors execute the same
instructions at the same time ("single instruction/multiple data" - SIMD) or each processor executes different
instructions ("multiple instruction/multiple data" - MIMD).
The processors may either communicate in order to be able to cooperate in solving a problem or they may run
completely independently, possibly under the control of another processor which distributes work to the others
and collects results from them (a "processor farm"). The difficulty of cooperative problem solving is aptly
demonstrated by the following dubious reasoning:
If it takes one man one minute to dig a post-hole then sixty men can dig it in one second.
Amdahl' s Law states this more formally.
Processors communicate via some kind of network or bus or a combination of both. Memory may be either
shared memory (all processors have equal access to all memory) or private (each processor has its own
memory - "distributed memory") or a combination of both.
A huge number of software systems have been designed for programming parallel computers, both at the
operating system and programming language level. These systems must provide mechanisms for partitioning
the overall problem into separate tasks and allocating tasks to processors. Such mechanisms may provide
either implicit parallelism - the system (the compiler or some other program) partitions the problem and
allocates tasks to processors automatically or explicit parallelism where the programmer must annotate his
program to show how it is to be partitioned. It is also usual to provide synchronisation primitives such as
semaphores and monitors to allow processes to share resources without conflict.
Load balancing attempts to keep all processors busy by moving tasks from heavily loaded processors to less
loaded ones.
Communication between tasks may be either via shared memory or message passing. Either may be
implemented in terms of the other and in fact, at the lowest level, shared memory uses message passing since
the address and data signals which flow between processor and memory may be considered as messages.
See also cellular automaton.
Usenet newsgroup: news:comp.parallel.
Institutions (http://www.ccsf.caltech.edu/other_sites.html)
Research groups (http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~scandal/research-groups.html).
[FOLDOC]
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parallel processor
<parallel> A computer with more than one central processing unit, used for parallel processing.
[FOLDOC]
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parallelism
1. <philosophy of mind> the view that mental and physical phenomena occur in parallel but that these
simultaneities never involve causal interactions.
See dualism, pre-established harmony, occasionalism
2. parallel processing
3. <PI> The maximum number of independent subtasks in a given task at a given point in its execution. E.g. in
computing the expression (a + b) * (c + d) the expressions a, b, c and d can all be calculated in parallel giving a
degree of parallelism of (at least) four. Once they have been evaluated then the expressions a + b and c + d
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can be calculated as two independent parallel processes.
The Bernstein condition states that processes P and Q can be executed in parallel (or in either sequential
order) only if:
(i) there is no overlap between the inputs of P and the outputs of Q and vice versa and
(ii) there is no overlap between the outputs of P, the outputs of Q and the inputs of any other task.
If process P outputs value v which process Q reads then P must be executed before Q. If both processes write
to some variable then its final value will depend on their execution order so they cannot be executed in parallel
if any other process depends on that variable' s value.
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param
argument
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parameter
argument
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parametric polymorphism
polymorphism.
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parent
<mathematics, data> (Or "mother", "predecessor") In a tree, a node which points to at least one daughter node.
[FOLDOC]
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Pareto Vilfredo
<history of philosophy, biography> Italian economist (1848-1923) who proposed a non-utilitarian method for
assessing the distribution of goods in a society in New Theories of Economics (1897). A state of affairs is said
to be "Pareto efficient" if and only if any change that would improve the situation for someone would at the
same time make it worse for someone else. Pareto' s elitist social policies may be found in Trattato di sociologia
generale (Mind and Society) (1916).
Vilfredo Pareto, The Rise and Fall of Elites: An Application of Theoretical Sociology, tr. by Hans L. Zetterberg
(Transaction, 1991);
Vilfredo Pareto, ed. by John Cunningham Wood and Michael McLure (Routledge, 1999);
Raymond Aron, Main Currents in Sociological Thought (Transaction, 1999);
R. Cirillo, Economics of Vilfredo Pareto (Frank Cass, 1979); and Michael McLure, Pareto, Economics and
Society: The Mechanical Analogy (Routledge, 2001).
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Parmenides
<history of philosophy, biography> Presocratic philosopher (510 BC) whose work is best known to us in
fragmentary reports from other philosophers. Parmenides used sophisticated logical language in the epic poem
Peri Fuseos (On Nature) to argue that all of reality is a single, unchanging substance. Everything is what it is -
complete and immobile - and can never become what it is not. Followers of Parmenides included Zeno of Elea
and other Eleatics.
Parmenides of Elea: Fragments, ed. by David Gallop (Toronto, 1991);
Patricia Curd, The Legacy of Parmenides (Princeton, 1997);
Martin Heidegger, Parmenides, tr. by Andre Schuwer and Richard Rojcewicz (Indiana, 1998); and Karl Popper,
World of Parmenides, ed. by Arne F. Petersen and Jorgen Mejer (Routledge, 2001).
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paronymous
<philosophical terminology> related though different use of an expression; see homonymous / synonymous /
paronymous.
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parser
<language> An algorithm or program to determine the syntactic structure of a sentence or string of symbols in
some language. A parser normally takes as input a sequence of tokens output by a lexical analyser. It may
produce some kind of abstract syntax tree as output. One of the best known parser generators is yacc.
[FOLDOC]
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parser generator
A program which takes a formal description of a grammar (e.g. in BNF) and outputs source code for a parser
which will recognise valid strings obeying that grammar and perform associated actions. Unix' s yacc is a well
known example.
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parsimony law of
<philosophical terminology> belief that the simplest answer is most likely to be the correct one. As a
methodological principle, this may be no more than an initial bias in favor of uncomplicated solutions. Its
ontological form - that we ought never to multiply entities without necessity - is also known as "Ockham' s
razor".
Sharon M. Kaye and Robert M. Martin, On Ockham (Wadsworth, 2000);
The Cambridge Companion to Ockham, ed. by Paul Vincent Spade (Cambridge, 1999); and Elliott Sober,
Reconstructing the Past: Parsimony, Evolution, and Inference (Bradford, 1991).
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parsing
parser
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partial equivalence relation
(PER) A relation R on a set S where R is symmetric (x R y => y R x) and transitive (x R y R z => x R z) and
where there may exist elements in S for which the relation is not defined. A PER is an equivalence relation on
the subset for which it is defined, i.e. it is also reflexive (x R x).
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partial function
A function which is not defined for all arguments of its input type. E.g.
f(x) = 1/x if x /= 0.
The opposite of a total function. In denotational semantics, a partial function
f : D -> C
may be represented as a total function
ft : D' -> lift(C)
where D' is a superset of D and
ft x = f x if x in D
ft x = bottom otherwise
where lift(C) = C U bottom.
See total function
[FOLDOC]
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partial ordering
A relation R is a partial ordering if it is a pre-order (i.e. it is reflexive (x R x) and transitive (x R y R z => x R z))
and it is also antisymmetric (x R y R x => x = y). The ordering is partial, rather than total, because there may
exist elements x and y for which neither x R y nor y R x.
In domain theory, if D is a set of values including the undefined value (bottom) then we can define a partial
ordering relation <= on D by
x <= y if x = bottom or x = y.
The constructed set D x D contains the very undefined element, (bottom, bottom) and the not so undefined
elements, (x, bottom) and (bottom, x). The partial ordering on D x D is then
(x1,y1) <= (x2,y2) if x1 <= x2 and y1 <= y2.
The partial ordering on D -> D is defined by
f <= g if f(x) <= g(x) for all x in D.

(No f x is more defined than g x.)
A lattice is a partial ordering where all finite subsets have a least upper bound and a greatest lower bound.
[FOLDOC]
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partially ordered set
A set with a partial ordering.
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particular proposition
<philosphical terminology> a statement whose propositional quantity is determined by the assertion that at
least one member of one class of things is either included or excluded as a member of some other class.
Examples: "Some cows are Jerseys." and "Some school holidays are not postal holidays." are both particular.
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particularity
<ethics> In recent discussions, ethicists have contrasted particularity with universality and impartiality and
asked how, if morality is necessarily universal and impartial, it can give adequate recognition to particularity.
Particularity refers to specific attachments (friendships, loyalties, etc.) and desires (fundamental projects,
personal hopes in life) that are usually seen as morally irrelevant to the rational moral self.
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particulars
<logic> individual existents (e.g., Ben Franklin): as to kinds (e.g., inventor) or attributes (e.g., inventiveness),
which are universals.
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partition
1. <storage> A logical section of a disk. Each partition normally has its own file system. Unix tends to treat
partitions as though they were separate physical entities.
2. <mathematics> A division of a set into subsets so that each of its elements is in exactly one subset.
[FOLDOC]
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Pascal Blaise
<history of philosophy, biography> French mathematician and theologian (1623-1662). A member of the
community at Port-Royal, Pascal in the Lettres provinciales (Provincial Letters) (1657) defended his Jansenist
friends against the persecution of the Jesuits. In Les Pense/es (Thoughts) (1665), Pascal defended a fideistic
approach to religion, according to which "Le coeur a ses raisons que le raison ne connait point." ("The heart
has its reasons that reason does not know at all.")
Pascal' s work withFermat on the nature of probability presaged the development of modern decision theory,
on the basis of which he argued that belief in god, although not rational, is a clever wager.
Bernard Rogers, Pascal (Routledge, 1999);
Dawn M. Ludwin, Blaise Pascal' s Quest for the Ineffable (Peter Lang, 2001);
Leszek Kolakowski, God Owes Us Nothing: A Brief Remark on Pascal' s Religion and on the Spirit o
Jansenism (Chicago, 1998); and Buford Norman, Portraits of Thought: Knowledge, Methods, and Styles in
Pascal (Ohio State, 1989).
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patriarchy
<philosophical terminology> literally, "rule by the father"; hence, any social or political system that grants
privileged status to males and permits or encourages their domination of females. Most Western cultures have
been, and continue to be, patriarchal in this sense.
Sandra Lee Bartky, Femininity and Domination: Studies in the Phenomenology of Oppression (Routledge,
1991);
Gerda Lerner, The Creation of Patriarchy (Oxford, 1987);
Frances B. O' Connor and Becky S. Drury, The Female Face in Patriarchy: Oppression As Culture (Michigan
State, 1998);
Carole Pateman, The Disorder of Women: Democracy Feminism and Political Theory (Stanford, 1990); and
After Patriarchy: Feminist Transformations of the World Religions, ed. by William R. Eakin, Jay B. McDaniel,
and Paula Cooey (Orbis, 1991).
03-03-2002
pattern matching
1. A function is defined to take arguments of a particular type, form or value. When applying the function to its
actual arguments it is necessary to match the type, form or value of the actual arguments against the formal
arguments in some definition. For example, the function
length [] = 0
length (x:xs) = 1 + length xs
uses pattern matching in its argument to distinguish a null list from a non-null one.
There are well known algorithm for translating pattern matching into conditional expressions such as "if" or
"case". E.g. the above function could be transformed to
length l = case l
of [] -> 0
x:xs -> 1 : length xs
Pattern matching is usually performed in textual order though there are languages which match more specific
patterns before less specific ones.
2. Descriptive of a type of language or utility such as awk or Perl which is suited to searching for strings or
patterns in input data, usually using some kind of regular expression.
[FOLDOC]
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pattern recognition
<artificial intelligence, data processing> A branch of artificial intelligence concerned with the classification or
description of observations.
Pattern recognition aims to classify data (patterns) based on either a priori knowledge or on statistical
information extracted from the patterns. The patterns to be classified are usually groups of measurements or
observations, defining points in an appropriate multidimensional space.
A complete pattern recognition system consists of a sensor that gathers the observations to be classified or
described; a feature extraction mechanism that computes numeric or symbolic information from the
observations; and a classification or description scheme that does the actual job of classifying or describing
observations, relying on the extracted features.
The classification or description scheme is usually based on the availability of a set of patterns that have
already been classified or described. This set of patterns is termed the training set and the resulting learning
strategy is characterised as supervised. Learning can also be unsupervised, in the sense that the system is not
given an a priori labelling of patterns, instead it establishes the classes itself based on the statistical regularities
of the patterns.
The classification or description scheme usually uses one of the following approaches: statistical (or decision
theoretic), syntactic (or structural), or neural. Statistical pattern recognition is based on statistical
characterisations of patterns, assuming that the patterns are generated by a probabilistic system. Structural
pattern recognition is based on the structural interrelationships of features. Neural pattern recognition employs
the neural computing paradigm that has emerged with neural networks.
[FOLDOC]
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PDP
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Peano arithmetic
<mathematics> A system for representing natural numbers inductively using only two symbols, "0" (zero) and
"S" (successor).
This could be expressed as a recursive data type with the following Haskell definition:
data Peano = Zero | Succ Peano
The number three, usually written "SSS0", would be Succ(Succ(Succ Zero)). Addition of Peano numbers can
be expressed as a simple syntactic transformation:
plus Zero n = n
plus (Succ m) n = Succ (plus m n)
[FOLDOC]
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Peano Giuseppe
<history of philosophy, biography> Italian mathematician and logician (1858-1932) who formalized Dedekind' s
insight that the arithmetic of natural numbers could be constructed as an axiomatic system. In Arithmetices
principia nova methodo exposita (The principles of arithmetic, presented by a new method) (1889) Peano
showed how to derive all of arithmetic from the principles of logic, together with a set of nine postulates about
numbers: 1 is a number. Every number is equal to itself. Numerical equality is commutative. Numbers both
equal to a third are equal to each other. Anything equal to a number is a number. The successor of any number
is a number. No two distinct numbers have the same successor. 1 is not the successor of any number. Any
property that is: (a) true of 0, and (b) if true of any number is true of its successor, must be true of all numbers.
This foundation for mathematical induction was an important step toward the twentieth-century logicization of
arithmetic.
Selected works of Giuseppe Peano (Toronto, 1973);
Hubert Kennedy, Peano: Life and Work of Guiseppe Peano (Kluwer, 1980); and D. A. Gillies, Frege, Dedekind,
and Peano on the Foundation of Arithmetic (Van Gorcum, 1988).
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Peirce Charles Sanders
<history of philosophy, biography> Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914) studied philosophy and chemistry at
Harvard, where his father, Benjamin Peirce, taught mathematics and astronomy. Although he showed early
signs of great genius, an unstable personal life prevented Peirce from fulfilling his early promise. Although he
wrote widely and delivered several series of significant lectures, he never completed the most ambitious of his
philosophical projects. After a respectable scientific career, studying the effects of gravitation with the U.S.
Coast and Geodetic Survey, Peirce taught briefly at John Hopkins before retiring to a life of isolation, poverty,
and illness in Milford, Pennsylvania. Peirce' s place as a founder of Americanpragmatism was secured by a
pair of highly original essays that apply logical and scientific principles to philosophical method. In The Fixation
of Belief (1877) he described how human beings converge upon a true opinion, each of us removing the
irritation of doubt by forming beliefs from which successful habits of action may be derived. This theory was
extended in How to Make Our Ideas Clear (1878) to the very meaning of concepts, which Peirce identified with
the practical effects that would follow from our adoption of the concept. In his extensive logical studies, Peirce
developed a theory of signification that anticipated many features of modern semiotics, emphasizing the role of
the interpreting subject. To the traditional logic of deduction and induction, Peirce added explicit
acknowledgement of abduction as a preliminary stage in productive human inquiry. Using a Kantian system of
categories, Peirce proposed a descriptive metaphysics that emphasized the role of chance.
Primary sources: Philosophical Writings of Peirce, ed. by Justus Buchler (Dover, 1986);
Charles S. Peirce: Selected Writings, ed. by Philip P. Wiener (Dover, 1980);
Peirce on Signs: Writings on Semiotic, ed. by James Hoopes (North Carolina, 1991);
Charles Sanders Peirce, Chance, Love, and Logic: Philosophical Essays, ed. by Morris R. Cohen (Nebraska,
1998).
Secondary sources: James K. Feibleman, An Introduction to the Philosophy of Charles S. Peirce (MIT, 1969);
Christopher Hookway, Peirce (Routledge, 1992);
Karl-Otto Apel, Charles Peirce: From Pragmatism to Pragmaticism (Prometheus, 1995);
Joseph Brent, Charles Sanders Peirce: A Life (Indiana, 1998);
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Sandra B. Rosenthal, Charles Peirce' s Pragmatic Pluralism (SUNY, 1994);

C. F. Delaney, Science, Knowledge, and Mind: A Study in the Philosophy of C.S. Peirce (Notre Dame, 1993);
Floyd Merrell, Peirce, Signs, and Meaning (Toronto, 1997).
Additional on-line information about Peirce includes:
Joseph Ransdell' s excellent site on Peirce, Arisbe.
A biography and bibliography from the Peirce Society.
C. J. Hookway' s article in The Oxford Companion to Philosophy.
Also see: abduction, American philosophy, Harvard philosophy, indexicals, pragmaticism, the pragmatic theory
of truth, pragmatism, semiotics, and sign and symbol.
The Peirce Edition Project.
Eric M. Hammer' s article on Peirce' s logic in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
A paper by Peter Skagestad on Peirce' s notion of Virtuality.
Robert Tremblay' s essay on Peirce (in French) at Enc Èphi.
Brief entries on Peirce and ' symbol' in Oxford' s Concise Dictionary of Linguistics.
A discussion of Peirce' s mathematical significance from Mathematical MacTutor.
The Macmillan Encyclopedia 2001.
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per se - per accidens
<philosophical terminology> Latin phrases meaning "through itself" and "by accident," used by medieval
philosophers to distinguish essential and accidental features of substances.
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perceive
<epistemology, psychology, phenomenology> to detect or become aware of via the outward senses of sight,
hearing, touch, taste, and smell, and also (according to the usage of some) via "reflection" (Locke) or
introspection.
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perception
<philosophical terminology> awareness of an object of thought, especially that of apparently external objects
through use of the senses. Since things don' t always turn out actually to be as they seem to us, there is ample
reason to wonder about the epistemological reliability of sense perception, and theories of perception offer a
variety of responses. The skeptical challenge to direct realism is often answered by representative realism,
phenomenalism, or idealism.
Howard Robinson, Perception (Routldege, 2001);
John Foster, The Nature of Perception (Oxford, 2000);
R. J. Hirst, Problems of Perception (Prometheus, 1992);
Fred I. Dretske, Perception, Knowledge and Belief (Cambridge, 2000); and Maurice Merleau-Ponty,
Phenomenology of Perception (Routledge, 1992).
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perceptron
1. A single McCulloch-Pitts neuron.
2. A network of neurons in which the output(s) of some neurons are connected through weighted connections
to the input(s) of other neurons. A multilayer perceptron is a specific instance of this.
16-03-2001
perceptual illusion
<philosophical terminology> cases in which what we apprehend by sensation does not correspond with the way
things really are. Thus, for example, the apparent discontinuity between the portions of a spoon in and out of a
glass of water is a visual illusion caused by the different indices of refraction of water and air.
Representationalists commonly try to account for such cases by appeal to the distinction between primary and
secondary qualities, but skeptics and idealists use perceptual illusion to raise more general doubts about the
reliability of sensory knowledge.
John W. Yolton, Perception & Reality: A History from Descartes to Kant (Cornell, 1996);
William P. Alston, The Reliability of Sense Perception (Cornell, 1996); and Mark B. Fineman, The Nature of
Visual Illusion (Dover, 1996).
04-03-2002
perfectibility
<philosophical terminology> the enlightenment belief that proper employment of reason will result in the full
achievement of human potential. To various degrees, this optimistic supposition was held by Godwin,
Rousseau, Saint-Simon, Kant, Hegel, Comte and Marx.
John Arthur Passmore, The Perfectibility of Man (Liberty Fund, 2000) and Virginia L. Muller, The Idea of
Perfectibility (Univ. Pr. of Am., 1986).
04-03-2002
performative utterance
<philosophical terminology> a linguistic expression used to do something. When spoken by someone in an

appropriate position: "I' m sorry." makes an apology; "Play ball!" begins a baseball game; and "I now declare
you husband and wife." performs a marriage. Thus, performatives are important instances of what Austin later
called illocutionary acts.
J. L. Austin, How to Do Things With Words, ed. by Marina Sbisa and J. O. Urmson (Harvard, 1975), and John
R. Searle, Speech Acts (Cambridge, 1970).
04-03-2002
performatives
<logic, pragmatics> sentences (or performative utterances) that serve more to do (than describe) something.
Typically, these sentences are in the first person present noncontinuous, with a main verb that indicates a
speech action. e.g. "I promise to come to your party" as opposed to the non-performative (or descriptive) "he
promises...," or "I kick him". Performatives are important because they make us realize that many declarative
sentences are not so much true or false as they are actions which are well or badly done (orders,
appointments, christenings, exorcisms, rulings, sentences, etc.).
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peripatetics
<philosophical terminology> Greek philosophers who followed the principles of Aristotle, so-named because
they learned from the master while strolling about (Gk. peripate) in the covered walkways of the Lyceum.
04-03-2002
perlocutionary act
<phlosophical language> the speech act of having an effect on those who hear a meaningful utterance. By
telling a ghost story late at night, for example, one may accomplish the cruel perlocutionary act of frightening a
child.
J. L. Austin, Philosophical Papers, ed. by Geoffrey J. Warnock and J. O. Urmson (Oxford, 1990) and A
Companion to the Philosophy of Language, ed. by Crispin Wright and Bob Hale (Blackwell, 1999).
04-03-2002
permutation
<mathematics> An ordering of a certain number of elements of a given set. For instance, the permutations of
(1,2,3) are (1,2,3) (2,3,1) (3,1,2) (3,2,1) (1,3,2) (2,1,3).
Permutations form one of the canonical examples of a "group" - they can be composed and that you can find
an inverse permutation that reverses the action of any given permutation.
A permutation is a bijection.
The number of permutations of r things taken from a set of n is
n P r = n! / (n-r)!
where "n P r" is usually written with n and r as subscripts and n! is the factorial of n.
What the football pools call a "permutation" is not a permutation but a combination - the order does not matter.
[FOLDOC]
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perplexity
The geometric mean of the number of words which may follow any given word for a certain lexicon and
grammar.
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Perry Ralph Barton
<history of philosophy, biography> American philosopher (1876-1957); author of a prize-winning biography of

William James, The Thought and Character of William James.
Perry participated in the early twentieth-century movement toward perceptual realism, arguing against the
idealistic identification of knower and known in The Ego-Centric Predicament (1910) In The General Theory of
Value (1926) and Realms of Value (1954) Perry defended a naturalistic definition of value in terms of
subjective interest. Puritanism and Democracy (1944) is a popular exposition of American intellectual
principles.
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persistence
1. <programming, PI> A property of a programming language where created objects and variables continue to
exist and retain their values between runs of the program.
2. <hardware> The length of time a phosphor dot on the screen of a cathode ray tube will remain illuminated
after it has been energised by the electron beam. Long-persistence phosphors reduce flicker, but generate
ghost-like images that linger on screen for a fraction of a second.
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persistent
persistence
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perspective
<games> In computer games, the virtual position from which the human player views the playing area. There
are three different perspectives: first person, second person, and third person.
First person perspective: Viewing the world through the eyes of the primary character in three dimensions. e.g.
Doom, Quake.
Second person perspective: Viewing the game through a spectator' s eyes, in two or three dimensions
Depending on the game, the main character is always in view. e.g. Super Mario Bros., Tomb Raider.
Third person perspective: a point of view which is independent of where characters or playing units are. The
gaming world is viewed much as a satellite would view a battlefield. E.g. Warcraft, Command & Conquer.
[FOLDOC]
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perspectivism
<epistemology> the view according to which judgments of truth and value depend on one' s "perspective". This
view is similar to contextualism and can be a valuable tonic to intrinsicism. However, some "radical" versions of
perspectivism (for example some interpretations of Nietzsche' s thought) come close to making perspectivism a
form of relativism.
27-03-2001
pessimism
<philosophy, ethics> the view according to which any belief in the possibility of knowledge and happiness is, to
say the least, naive (see also fatalism). Pessimism has a long history in Western philosophy, beginning in a
mild form with stoicism in Greece and Rome and continuing through to existentialism in the twentieth century
(consider the rejection of eudaimonism in both of these philosophies). The arch-pessimist of all intellectual
history, and the only major thinker whose philosophy is "officially" said to be one of pessimism, is
Schopenhauer (1788-1860), whose ideas held sway over the young Nietzsche and who had a strong influence
on the existentialists (and who is reputed to have been influenced by Indian philosophy). Schopenhauer
believed that reality, human nature, existence as such are all positively evil. In contrast to the totalistic
pessimism of Schopenhauer, other thinkers are often pessimistic only about this world, and can be quite
optimistic about the possibility of happiness in an afterlife - for example, Christianity is, or can be seen as, this
kind of pessimism. The popular meaning of pessimism is related to the philosophical one, though not as
fundamental.
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Petri net
<parallel, simulation> A directed, bipartite graph in which nodes are either "places" (represented by circles) or
"transitions" (represented by rectangles), invented by Carl Adam Petri. A Petri net is marked by placing
"tokens" on places. When all the places with arcs to a transition (its input places) have a token, the transition
"fires", removing a token from each input place and adding a token to each place pointed to by the transition
(its output places).
Petri nets are used to model concurrent systems, particularly network protocols.
Variants on the basic idea include the coloured Petri Net, Time Petri Net, Timed Petri Net, Stochastic Petri Net,
and Predicate Transition Net.
FAQ (http://www.daimi.aau.dk/PetriNets/faq/answers.htm).
[FOLDOC]
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phenomena
phenomenon
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phenomenal
noumenal
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phenomenal consciousness
<philosophy of mind> phenomenal consciousness [p-consciousness] is just experience thus, p-conscious

states are experiential states. The totality of the experiential properties of a state are p-consciousness, i.e.
"what it is like" to have it.
References:
Ned Block. On a confusion about a function of consciousness
(http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/bbs/Archive/bbs.block.html) in Behavioural and Brain sciences, 1995, 18:227-
287
A. Khwaja: akhwaja@hudsonet.com
16-03-2001
phenomenalism
<philosophy of science, epistemology, ontology> the monistic view that all empirical statements (such as the
laws of physics) can be placed in a one to one correspondence with statements about only the phenomenal
(i.e. mental appearances).
See monism, idealism, neutral monism
16-03-2001
phenomenological
phenomenology
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phenomenological critique of representationalism
<philosophy of mind> rejection of the notion that representational states define and explain the most basic kind
of human interaction with the environment.
See also phenomenology, intention-in-action, background,

Daniel Barbiero
16-03-2001
phenomenology
<discipline, philosophical school> a philosophic movement that originated around the turn of the century on the
Continent (see Husserl' s Cartesian Meditations for example). This movement-- like Russell, G. E. Moore, and
the analytic movement generally -- insisted on divorcing philosophy from (empirical) psychology, thus avoiding
something labeled psychologism. The phenomenologists insisted that philosophers could directly study the
pure phenomenon of thought (intensional objects) by a bracketing technique which avoided any commitments
about empirical psychology.
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phenomenon
<metaphysics, epistemology, phenomenology> for Kant, phenomena are "things for us" -- things as understood
& experienced. Phenomena contrast with noumena -- the "things in themselves" -- which transcend our
understanding and experience.
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phenominalism
<ontology> the view that immediate experience (sensations, thoughts, etc.) is all there might be to reality. B.
Russell for example, often took the phenominalist view that talk about the external world of objects is more
properly understood as talk about a series of experiences or potentialities of experience.
30-04-2001
philia
<philosophical terminology> Greek term for friendship or amiability. In the philosophy of Empedocles, the
constructive principle counter-acting the destructive influence of neikos. Aristotle regarded friendship as a
crucial component of the good life.
Eros, Agape and Philia: Readings in the Philosophy of Love, ed. by Alan Soble (Paragon, 1999).
05-03-2002
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Philo Judaeus Philo of Alexandria
<history of philosophy, biography> Alexandrian Jewish philosopher (20 BC - 50 CE) who tried to synthesize
Greek philosophy with Judaism by means of an allegorical interpretation of scripture. According to Philo, the
personal deity of scripture is identical with Form of the Good in Plato, and the logos is its mediating creative
force.
The Works of Philo, ed. by David M. Scholer and C. D. Yonge (Hendrickson, 1993);
Kenneth S. Guthrie, Message of Philo Judaeus of Alexandria (Kessinger, 1997); and Robert M. Berchman,
From Philo to Origen: Middle Platonism in Transition (Brown, 1985).
05-03-2002
Philosophical Glossary
<source> Philosophical Glossary (http://members.aol.com/lshauser2/lexicon.html) edited by Larry Hauser

homepage (http://members.aol.com/lshauser/).
Some definitions in this dictionary are based on the version published in 2001-04-13.
22-06-2001
philosophy
<philosophical terminology> literally, love of wisdom. Hence, careful thought about the fundamental nature of
the world, the grounds for human knowledge, and the evaluation of human conduct. As an academic discipline,
philosophy' s chief branches includelogic, metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics, and the appropriate aims
and methods of each are the concern of metaphilosophy.
Nigel Warburton, Philosophy: The Basics (Routledge, 1999);
Thomas Nagel, What Does It All Mean: A Very Short Introduction to Philosophy (Oxford, 1987);
Simon Blackburn, Think: A Compelling Introduction to Philosophy (Oxford, 1999);
The Great Philosophers: An Introduction to Western Philosophy, ed. by Bryan Magee (Oxford, 2000);
Martin Cohen, 101 Philosophy Problems (Routledge, 1999); and Antony Flew, Introduction to Western
Philosophy: Ideas and Argument from Plato to Popper (Thames & Hudson, 1989).
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Philosophy of mathematics
Philosophers have several reasons to be interested in mathematics. To begin with, mathematics offers the
main example of exactness of thought and thus a model of that rationality whose inner
principles philosophy strives to individuate. At the same time, mathematics poses some problems to
philosophy, for example it raises the question of the existence of objects (numbers,
triangles, etc.) that nobody can see or touch, while someone claims to know things about them with the highest
degree of precision and certainty.
Philosophy of mathematics is, in this respect, the conceptual study of the subject matter of mathematics and its
practice, aiming to account for the ultimate nature of its objects and for the possibility for us to know them.
Ancient and long-standing philosophical frameworks for mathematics are realism (platonism) and nominalism.
More recent conceptual schemes are antirealism, naturalism and structuralism. There are both metaphysical
and
epistemological questions that philosophy of mathematics faces and to which it tries to offer answers. Some
examples are the following: what does it mean for an abstract entity to exist ? what is a mathematical object ?
what is the nature of mathematical knowledge ? which is the source of the certainty of mathematical
knowledge ? etc. At the beginning of the 20th century, the discipline of mathematical logic, then at its
beginnings, started playing a major role both in mathematics and in philosophical investigations. Formalized
languages and formalized proofs were recognized as powerful tools for the study of the foundations of
mathematics and offered solutions that philosophy alone could notprovide. The usefulness of the logical
method seemed to particularly reside in its being independent of any particularmathematical field while
permitting reasonings which are valid generally. Via logic one can detect forms in mathematical reasonings and
frame them in logical schemes. Three foundational schools were formed, the first two leaning on logical
methods and the third reacting to the spreading use of logic in mathematical and philosophical enquires:
Logicism (Frege Gottlob and Russell Bertrand), Formalism (Hilbert David) and Intuitionism (L. E. J. Brouwer).
Mathematics has always been a source for philosophy, and philosophy also has fruitfully contributed to
mathematical thinking, in the sense that mathematical research has sometimes been stimulated and directed
by philosophical reflection. Nowadays the increasing specialization of both mathematics and philosophy makes
it more difficult for researchers of each side to get real expertise in the other and the probability of mutual
influence decreases consequently. Nevertheless, mathematically-minded philosophers and philosophically-
minded mathematicians keep on lively discussing those undying themes that have always fascinated and
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puzzled humanity.
Giuseppina Ronzitti
See :
• Paul Benacerraf and Hilary Putnam, Philosophy of Mathematics, Selected Readings. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press (1983).
• Philip Kitcher, The Nature of Mathematical knowledge, New York, Oxford University Press (1983).
• Charles Parsons, Mathematics in Philosophy, Ithaca, New York, Cornell University Press (1983).
• Bertrand Russell, Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy, New York: Simon and Schuster (1919).
• Jean Van Heijenoort, From Frege to Gödel, Cambridge, Harvard University Press (1967).
. Alexander George and Daniel J. Velleman, Philosophies of Mathematics, Blackwell (2002).
Keywords: mathematical object, existence, infinite
Web sites:
History of Mathematics: http://www.archives.math.utk.edu/topics/history.html;
Mathematical Logic around the world: http://www.uni-bonn.de/logic/world.html
Discussion list:
FOM (Foundations of Mathematics): http://cs.nyu.edu/mailman/listinfo/fom
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philosophy of mind
<philosophy of mind> the branch of philosophy that is concerned with the nature of mental phenomena in
general and the role of consciousness, sensation, perception, concepts, action, reasoning, intention, belief,
memory, etc. in particular.
Standard problems include those of free will, personal identity, mind-body problem, other minds,
computationalism.
16-03-2001
philosophy of psychology
<philosophy of mind> the branch of the philosophy of science concerned specifically with psychology. It is
concerned with the sorts of models, theories and explanations used in psychology to address psychological
phenomena.
See also philosophy of mind
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phronesis
<philosophical terminology> Greek term for practical wisdom or prudence, the application of good judgment to
human conduct, in contrast with the more theoretical inquiry leading to sophia, or wisdom generally.
Joseph Dunne, Back to the Rough Ground: ' Phronesis' and ' Techne' in Modern Philosophy and in Aris
(Notre Dame, 1993).
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physicalism
<philosophy of mind, metaphysics, philosophy of science> the view according to which everything that is real
is, in some sense, physical. Since physical entities are the only real existents, mental phenomena like
consciousness are illusory or reducible to physical phenomena. Physicalism makes a stronger claim about the
specific nature of reality than concretism and in so doing strays from metaphysics or ontology into cosmology.
The idea often appears in concert with determinism, reductionism, and epiphenomenalism.
See also materialism, physicalism non-reductive, idealism.
Jeffrey Poland, Physicalism: The Philosophical Foundation (Clarendon, 1994);
Physicalism and Its Discontents, ed. by Carl Gillett and Barry Loewer (Cambridge, 2001);
Emergence or Reduction?: Essays on the Prospects of Nonreductive Physicalism, ed. by Ansgar Beckermann,
Hans Flohr, and Jaegwon Kim (De Gruyter, 1992); and Joseph E. Corbi, Minds, Causes and Mechanisms: A
Case Against Physicalism (Blackwell,1999).
Based on [The Ism Book],

[Dictionary of Philosophy of Mind],
05-03-2002
physicalism non-reductive
<philosophy of mind, ontology> the claim that functional properties cannot be reduced to physical properties,
but that nevertheless all causality is physical.
See physicalism, multiple realisability, functionalism
Teed Rockwell <74164.3703@compuserve.com>
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physis
<philosophical terminology> Greek term for nature, as opposed to techne, or art. Thus, for Aristotle, the
governing principle of all movement among inanimate things.
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Pico della Mirandola Giovanni
<history of philosophy, biography> Italian thinker (1463-1494) who studied in Florence with Marsillio Ficino.
Pico' s De hominis dignitate (Oration on the Dignity of Man) (1486) is an excellent statement of the principles o
Renaissance humanism. He supposed it possible for an individual human being, as a microcosm of nature, to
reconcile all philosophical positions in a single grand system of thought.
Pico Della Mirandola, A Platonic Discourse on Love (Holmes, 1994) and S. A. Farmer, Syncretism in the West:
Pico' s 900 Theses (Medieval & Renaissance, 1998).
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picture
image
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picture element
<graphics> (pixel) The smallest resolvable rectangular area of an image, either on a screen or stored in
memory. Each pixel in a monochrome image has its own brightness, from 0 for black to the maximum value
(e.g. 255 for an eight-bit pixel) for white. In a colour image, each pixel has its own brightness and colour,
usually represented as a triple of red, green and blue intensities.
[FOLDOC]
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pipeline
<architecture> A sequence of functional units ("stages") which performs a task in several steps, like an
assembly line in a factory. Each functional unit takes inputs and produces outputs which are stored in its output
buffer. One stage' s output buffer is the next stage' s input buffer. This arrangement allows all the stages to wo
in parallel thus giving greater throughput than if each input had to pass through the whole pipeline before the
next input could enter. The costs are greater latency and complexity due to the need to synchronise the stages
in some way so that different inputs do not interfere. The pipeline will only work at full efficiency if it can be filled
and emptied at the same rate that it can process.
Pipelines may be synchronous or asynchronous. A synchronous pipeline has a master clock and each stage
must complete its work within one cycle. The minimum clock period is thus determined by the slowest stage.
An asynchronous pipeline requires handshaking between stages so that a new output is not written to the
interstage buffer before the previous one has been used.
Many CPUs are arranged as one or more pipelines, with different stages performing tasks such as fetch
instruction, decode instruction, fetch arguments, arithmetic operations, store results. For maximum
performance, these rely on a continuous stream of instructions fetched from sequential locations in memory.
Pipelining is often combined with instruction prefetch in an attempt to keep the pipeline busy.
When a branch is taken, the contents of early stages will contain instructions from locations after the branch
which should not be executed. The pipeline then has to be flushed and reloaded. This is known as a pipeline
break.
[FOLDOC]
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pipeline break
<architecture> (Or "pipeline stall") The delay caused on a processor using pipelines when a transfer of control
is taken. Normally when a control-transfer instruction (a branch, conditional branch, call or trap) is taken, any
following instructions which have been loaded into the processor' s pipeline must be discarded or "flushed" and
new instructions loaded from the branch destination. This introduces a delay before the processor can resume
execution.
"Delayed control-transfer" is a technique used to reduce this effect.
[FOLDOC]
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piracy
software piracy
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pirate
software pirate
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pistis
<philosophical terminology> most general Greek term for belief or faith as a subjective state. According to
Plato, this occupies a higher part of the lower portion of the divided line.
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pity appeal to
<philosophical terminology, argumentum ad misericordiam> the informal fallacy that tries to elicit feelings of
mercy from an audience.
Douglas N. Walton, Appeal to Pity: Argumentum Ad Misericordiam (SUNY, 1997).
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plan
<philosophy of mind> a stable, often incomplete formulation of a program of action.
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Planck Max Karl Ernst Ludwig
<history of philosophy, biography> German physicist (1858-1947) whose discovery of the constant rate at
which energy can be radiated contributed significantly to Einstein' s formulation of a wave/particle theory of ligh
and the development of quantum mechanics. Planck won the Nobel Prize in 1918.
Max Planck, Eight Lectures on Theoretical Physics, tr. by A. P. Wills (Dover, 1998);
Max Planck, Treatise on Thermodynamics (Dover, 1990); and J. L. Heilbron, Dilemmas of an Upright Man: Max
Planck and the Fortunes of German Science (Harvard, 2000).
05-03-2002
Plato
<history of philosophy, biography> the son of wealthy and influential Athenian parents, Plato (427-347 BC)
began his philosophical career as a student of Socrates. When the master died, Plato travelled in Italy, studied
with students of Pythagoras, and spent several years advising the ruling family of Syracuse. He returned to
Athens and established his own school of philosophy, the Academy, in 387. For students enrolled there, Plato
tried both to pass on the heritage of a Socratic style of thinking and to guide their progress through
mathematical learning to the achievement of abstract philosophical truth. The written dialogues on which his
enduring reputation rests also serve both of these aims. In his earliest literary efforts, Plato tried to convey the
spirit of Socrates' s teaching by presenting accurate reports of the master' s conversational interactions, f
which these dialogues are our primary source of information. Early dialogues are typically devoted to
investigation of a single issue, about which a conclusive result is rarely achieved. Thus, the Euthyphro raises a
significant doubt about whether morally right action can be defined in terms of divine approval by pointing out a
significant dilemma about any appeal to authority in defence of moral judgments. The Apology offers a
description of the philosophical life as Socrates presented it in his own defense before the Athenian jury. The
Crito uses the circumstances of Socrates' s imprisonment to ask whether an individual citizen is ever justified in
refusing to obey the state. Although they continue to use the talkative Socrates as a fictional character, the
middle dialogues of Plato develop, express, and defend his own, more firmly established, conclusions about
central philosophical issues. Beginning with the Meno, for example, Plato not only reports the Socratic notion
that no one knowingly does wrong, but also introduces the doctrine of recollection in an attempt to discover
whether or not virtue can be taught. The Phaedo continues development of Platonic notions by presenting the
doctrine of the Forms in support of a series of arguments that claim to demonstrate the immortality of the
human soul.
The masterpiece among the middle dialogues is Plato' s Republic. It begins with aSocratic conversation about
the nature of justice but proceeds directly to an extended discussion of the virtue (Gk. areté) of justice (Gk.
dikaiosyne), wisdom (Gk. sophìa), courage (Gk. andreia), and moderation (Gk. sophrosyne) as they appear
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both in individual human beings and in society as a whole. This plan for the ideal society or person requires
detailed accounts of human knowledge and of the kind of educational program by which it may be achieved by
men and women alike, captured in a powerful image of the possibilities for human life in the allegory of the
cave. The dialogue concludes with a review of various forms of government, an explicit description of the ideal
state, in which only philosophers are fit to rule, and an attempt to show that justice is better than injustice.
Among the other dialogues of this period are Plato' s treatments of humanemotion in general and of love in
particular in the Phaedrus and Symposium. Plato' s later writings often modify or completely abandon the forma
structure of dialogue. They include a critical examination of the theory of forms in Parmenides, an extended
discussion of the problem of knowledge in Theaetetus, cosmological speculations in Timaeus, and an
interminable treatment of government in the unfinished Laws.
Primary sources:
Platonis opera, ed. by J. Burnet (Oxford, 1899-1906);
Plato, Complete Works, ed. by John M. Cooper and D. S Hutchinson (Hackett, 1997);
The Collected Dialogues of Plato, ed. by Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns. (Princeton, 1961);
Great Dialogues of Plato, tr. by W. H. D. Rouse (Signet, 1999);
Plato, The Republic, tr. by G. M. Grube (Hackett, 1992).
Secondary sources:
The Cambridge Companion to Plato, ed. by Richard Kraut (Cambridge, 1992);
Bernard A. O. Williams, Plato (Routledge, 1999);
R. M. Hare, Plato (Oxford, 1983); David Melling, Understanding Plato (Oxford, 1988);
Feminist Interpretations of Plato, ed. by Nancy Tuana (Penn. State, 1994);
Plato I: Metaphysics and Epistemology, ed. by Gregory Vlastos (Anchor, 1971);
Plato II: Ethics, Politics, and Philosophy of Art, Religion, ed. by Gregory Vlastos (Anchor, 1971);
John M. Cooper, Reason and Emotion (Princeton, 1998);
Nickolas Pappas, Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Plato and the Republic (Routledge, 1999);
Daryl H. Rice, Guide to Plato' s Republic (Oxford, 1997);
Plato' s Republic: Critical Essays, ed. by Richard Kraut (Rowman & Littlefield, 1997);
Alexander Nehamas, Virtues of Authenticity (Princeton, 1998);
Engendering Origins: Critical Feminist Readings in Plato and Aristotle, by Bat-Ami Bar On (SUNY, 1994).
Additional on-line information about Plato includes:

Exploring Plato' s Dialogues, the fine source from Anthony F. Beavers.
Richard Hooker' s excellent treatment.
A thorough explanation of Plato' s philosophy from Christopher S. Planeaux.
David Bostock' s article in The Oxford Companion to Philosophy.
Also see: the Academy, anamnesis, ancient philosophy, appearance and reality, the allegory of the cave, the
demiurge, philosophy of education, form and matter, Platonic Forms, human nature, immortality, innate ideas,
philosophy of language, love, philosophy of mathematics, mimesis, moral philosophy, Neoplatonism, the noble
lie, the one-over-many problem, the philosopher-king, Platonism, political philosophy, Speusippus, teaching
philosophy, the third man argument, tragedy, universals, and virtues.
Bernard Suzanne' s alternative interpretation of Plato and his dialogues.
MHBER on Plato, the Platonic Academy, and Renaissance Platonism.
The Bloomsbury Guide to Human Thought on Platonism.
Bj–rn Christensson' s brief guide to on -line work on Plato.
A brief entry in Oxford' s Concise Dictionary of Linguistics.
A literary analysis of Plato' s work in The Perseus Encyclopedia.
The Bloomsbury Guide to Human Thought on Academe.
Snippets from Plato in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations.
Discussion of Plato' s mathematical thought at Mathematical MacTutor.
The Macmillan Encyclopedia 2001 on Plato and Platonism.
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Platonic realism
<idealism, metaphysics, epistemology, conceptualism> <nominalism> view that affirms the existence of
universals. Extreme or Platonic realism holds that universals ("forms" or "ideas") exist independently of both
particular things and human minds. Moderate or Aristotelian realism holds that universals only exist as inhering
in, or being instantiated by, particulars. Also see conceptualism. Contrast: nominalism.
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platonism
<philosophy, philosophical school> The word platonism refers both to the doctrines of Plato (427-347 BC) and
to the manner or tradition of philosophizing that he founded. While it can be difficult to pin down what Plato
actually believed (he often tried things out as hypotheses and changed or criticized many of his earlier views
late in life), the term refers centrally to Platonic idealism and dualism - though it also refers to the more
debatable portions of his thought, such as his collectivism or totalitarianism (as revealed in his dialogue The
Republic), his rationalism or intellectualism, his distrust of art, and so on. Often, in philosophy, "Platonism" is
virtually equivalent to idealism or intrinsicism, since Plato was the first Western philosopher to claim that reality
is fundamentally something ideal or abstract and that knowledge largely consists of insight into or perception of
the ideal. In common usage, the adjective "Platonic" refers to Platonic love, the idea that the best form of love
is non-sexual or non-physical (originally put forth in Plato' s dialogue The Symposium).
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plenitude principle of
<philosophical terminology> belief that everything that can be, is. Leibniz clearly maintained that every genuine
possibility must be actualized in the best of all possible worlds, and A. O. Lovejoy supposed adherence to this
notion a significant source for the notion of the great chain of being envisioned by such philosophers as Plato,
Plotinus, and the Neoplatonics.
Arthur Oncken Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being: A Study of the History of an Idea (Harvard, 1970).
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pleonasm
redundancy of expression, tautology.
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Plotinus
<history of philosophy, biography> Egyptian philosopher (205-270). In the Enneads (which were collected and
published by his pupil Porphyry) Plotinus extrapolated from the writings of Plato a comprehensive view of
reality in which everything flows in a series of emanations from the central unity outwards into ever less
significant things. On this view, the chain of being extends from nous through psychÍ to physis. Although
human beings are typically caught up in the lowest element of nature, Plotinus supposed each to be a
microcosm of the universe as a whole, capable of contemplative awareness of the divine unity.
Dominic J. O' Meara, Plotinus: An Introduction to the Enneads (Oxford, 1995), ed. by Lloyd P. Gerson
(Cambridge, 1996);
John N. Deck, Nature, Contemplation, and the One: A Study in the Philosophy of Plotinus (Larson, 1991); and
Lloyd P. Gerson, Plotinus (Routledge, 1998).
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pluralism
<metaphysics, political philosophy, ethics>

1. in ontology the theory that reality is composed or can be explained in terms of two or more fundamental
(types of) substance, energy, or force. In the modern era Cartesian dualism represents the most notable
pluralist hypothesis. Among the ancients, the pluralism of Pythagorus and Democritus is usually contrasted to
the monism of the Milesians (Thales, Anaximenes, Anaximander) and Eleatics (Parmenides, Miletus, Zeno).
2. in political philosophy the term pluralism is also used to refer to political systems that allow more than one
political party (roughly equivalent to democracy as opposed to totalitarianism).
3. in ethics, the belief that there are multiple perspectives on an issue, each of which contains part of the truth
but none of which contain the whole truth. Moral pluralism is the belief that different moral theories each
capture part of truth of the moral life, but none of those theories has the entire answer.
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Andrew L. Blais, On the Plurality of Actual Worlds (Massachusetts, 1997);
John Kekes, Pluralism in Philosophy: Changing the Subject (Cornell, 2000);
Michael P. Lynch, Truth in Context: An Essay on Pluralism and Objectivity (MIT, 1998);
Nicholas Rescher, Pluralism: Against the Demand for Consensus (Clarendon, 1995);
Michael Walzer, Spheres of Justice: A Defense of Pluralism and Equality (Basic, 1984); and Philosophy and
Pluralism, ed. by David Archard (Cambridge, 1996).
based on [The Ism Book, Ethics Glossary, Philosophical Glossary], [A Dictionary of Philosophical Terms and
Names]
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ply
<mathematics, data>
1. Of a node in a tree, the number of branches between that node and the root.
2. Of a tree, the maximum ply of any of its nodes.
[FOLDOC]
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pneuma
<philosophical terminology> Greek term for wind, breath, or spirit. Aristotle relied on the literal senses of the
term, but the Stoics gave it a quasi-divine cosmological significance. Hence, pneumatology is the study of
spiritual beings, the branch of Christian theology concerned with third person of the trinity.
F. E. Peters, Greek Philosophical Terms: A Historical Lexicon (NYU, 1967) and Language and Thought in
Early Greek Philosophy, ed. by Kevin Robb (Open Court, 1990).
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PNF
prenex normal form
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poiesis
<philosophical terminology> Greek term for creation or production that is aimed at some end (telos), unlike
mere action (praxis) or doing. Excellence in poiesis is achieved by skill techne.
11-03-2002
Poincaré Jules Henri
<history of Philosophy, biography> French mathematician and philosopher of science (1854-1912). Although
he granted the necessity of testing scientific propositions against observed facts about the natural world in La
Science et l' hypoth ése (Science and Hypothesis) (1902), Poincaré emphasized that scientific theories are
conventional claims best supported by appeal to their simplicity and utility rather than to their truth. This
philosophy of science provided a significant impetus for logical positivism, but Poincaré himself criticized the
logicization of arithmetics in Derniéres Pensées (Mathematics and Science: Last Essays) (1912).
The Value of Science: Essential Writings of Henri Poincare (Modern Library, 2001);
Elie Zahar, Poincare' s Philosophy: From Conventionalism to Phenomenology (Open Court, 2001); and
Mathematical Heritage of Henri Poincare, ed. by Felix E. Browder (Am. Math. Soc., 1983).
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point
1. <text, unit> (Sometimes abbreviated "pt") The unit of measurement for text characters. One point is 1/72
inches (approx 0.35mm) so 12 point text would be 1/6th inch (approx 4.2mm) high when printed.
2. <hardware> To move a pointing device so that the on-screen pointer is positioned over a certain object on
the screen such as a button in a graphical user interface. In most window systems it is then necessary to click
a (physical) button on the pointing device to activate or select the object. In some systems, just pointing to an
object is known as "mouse-over" event which may cause some help text (called a "tool tip" in Windows) to be
displayed.
[FOLDOC]
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Polish notation
<philosophical terminology> an alternative representation for symbolic logic, introduced by Jan Lukasiewicz.
Use of the basic notation is illustrated in the following table:
Np negation ~ p
Kpq conjunction p & q
Apq disjunction p v q
Cpq material implication p -> q
Epq material equivalence p = q
PxFx universal quantifier (x)Fx
SxGx existential quantifier (Ex)Gx
Polish notation eliminates any need for parenthetical bracketing by relying upon a rigorous principle of order.
Thus, for example,
((pvr) & ((p -> ~q) & (r->s))) -> (~q v s)
can be expressed in Polish notation as
CKAprKCpNqCrsANqs.
Philosophical Logic in Poland, ed. by Jan Wolenski (Kluwer, 1994) and Jan Lukasiewicz, Aristotle' s Syllogistic
from the Standpoint of Modern Formal Logic (Clarendon, 1957).
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politics
<philosophical terminology> what pertains to the life of the city (Gk. polis) or state. Hence, study of citizenship
or the art of governance generally. Political philosophers, including Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke,
Rousseau, Mill, Marx, and MacKinnon examine the origins, forms, and limits of political power as exercised in
practical life.
Political Philosophy, ed. by Anthony Quinton (Oxford, 1989);
Jene M. Porter and John Hallowell, Political Philosophy: The Search for Humanity and Order (Prentice Hall,
1997);
Classics of Moral and Political Theory, ed. by Michael L. Morgan (Hackett, 1997);
History of Political Philosophy, ed. by Leo Strauss and Joseph Cropsey (Chicago, 1987); and The Routledge
Dictionary of Twentieth Century Political Thinkers, ed. by Robert Benewick and Philip Green (Routledge, 1998).
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Polya George
<history of philosophy, biography> Hungarian-American mathematician (1887-1985) whose books How to

Solve It (1957) and Mathematical Discovery (1962) offered an interesting variety of heuristics for the solution of
mathematical and logical problems and contributed significantly to a transformation in the methods for teaching
mathematics.
George Polya, Mathematics and Plausible Reasoning (Princeton, 1990); and Gerald L. Alexanderson, The
Random Walks of George Polya (Math. Assn. of Am., 2000).
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polyadic predicate logic
predicate logic
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polymorphic
polymorphism
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polymorphic lambda-calculus
(Or "second order typed lambda-calculus"). An extension of typed lambda-calculus allowing functions which
take types as parameters. E.g. the polymorphic function "twice" may be written:
twice = / t . (f :: t -> t) . (x :: t) . f (f x)
(where "/" is an upper case Greek lambda and "(v :: T)" is usually written as v with subscript T). The parameter
t will be bound to the type to which twice is applied, e.g.:
twice Int
takes and returns a function of type Int -> Int. (Actual type arguments are often written in square brackets [ ]).
Function twice itself has a higher type:
twice :: Delta t . (t -> t) -> (t -> t)
(where Delta is an upper case Greek delta). Thus / introduces an object which is a function of a type and Delta
introduces a type which is a function of a type. Polymorphic lambda-calculus was invented by Jean-Yves
Girard in 1971 and independently by John C. Reynolds in 1974.
[FOLDOC]
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polymorphism
A concept first identified by Christopher Strachey (1967) and developed by Hindley and Milner, allowing types
such as list of anything. E.g. in Haskell:
length :: [a] -> Int
is a function which operates on a list of objects of any type, a (a is a type variable). This is known as parametric
polymorphism. Polymorphic typing allows strong type checking as well as generic functions. ML in 1976 was
the first language with polymorphic typing.
Ad-hoc polymorphism (better described as overloading) is the ability to use the same syntax for objects of
different types, e.g. "+" for addition of reals and integers or "-" for unary negation or dyadic subtraction.
Parametric polymorphism allows the same object code for a function to handle arguments of many types but
overloading only reuses syntax and requires different code to handle different types.
See also variable.
In object-oriented programming, the term is used to describe variables which may refer at run-time to objects of
different classes.
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polynomial
1. <mathematics> An arithmetic expression composed by summing multiples of powers of some variable.
P(x) = sum a_i xî for i = 0 .. N
The multipliers, a_i, are known as "coefficients" and N, the highest power of x with a non-zero coefficient, is
known as the "degree" of the polynomial. If N=0 then P(x) is constant, if N=1, P(x) is linear in x. N=2 gives a
"quadratic" and N=3, a "cubic".
2. <complexity> polynomial-time.
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polynomial-time
<complexity> (P) The set or property of problems which can be solved by a known polynomial-time algorithm.
[FOLDOC]
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polynomial-time algorithm
<complexity> A known algorithm (or Turing Machine) that is guaranteed to terminate within a number of steps
which is a polynomial function of the size of the problem.
See also computational complexity, exponential time, non-deterministic polynomial-time (NP), NP-complete.
[FOLDOC]
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polytheism
<metaphysics, philosophy of religion> a kind of theism which holds that there is more than one god. It is
compatible with henotheism but incompatible with monotheism, by which it was supplanted in the history of
Western religion. Polytheism was the dominant view of the supernatural among the ancients, for example in
Greek and Roman religion. By contrast, both Judaism and Christianity are monotheistic world-views.
[The Ism Book]
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Popper Karl Raimund
<history of philosophy, biography> Austrian philosopher of science and political thinker (1902-1994). According
to Popper in Logik der Forschung (The Logic of Scientific Discovery) (1935), knowledge of the natural world
never advances by direct confirmation of scientific theories - which cannot occur - but only indirectly, through
the systematic falsification of their alternatives by reference to our experience. He defended a realistic
epistemology in Objective Knowledge (1966). Applying the same methods to political science in The Open
Society and its Enemies (1945) vol. 1 and vol. 2, Popper argued that the unintended harmful consequences of
social planning outweigh its benefits and that citizens, therefore, must always retain an absolute right to change
their form of government.
Karl Raimund Popper, Poverty of Historicism (Routledge, 1993);
Karl Raimund Popper, Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (Routledge, 1992);
Roberta Corvi, An Introduction to the Thought of Karl Popper, tr. by Patrick Camiller (Routledge, 1996);
Bryan Magee, Philosophy and the Real World: An Introduction to Karl Popper (Open Court, 1985); and
Frederic Raphael, Popper (Routledge, 1999).
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populum argumentum ad
<philosohical terminology> an attempt to persuade by reference to commonplace sentiments; see appeal to

emotion.
Douglas Walton, Appeal to Popular Opinion (Penn. State, 1999).
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Porphyry
<history of philosophy, biography> Phoenecian philosopher (232-304). A disciple of Plotinus, Porphyry

defended the neoplatonic philosophy in Peri agalmaton (On Images) and several commentaries on the logic of
Aristotle, including an influential exposition of the Categories.
Porphyry, Life of Plotinus (Holmes 1983) and Five Texts on the Mediaeval Problem of Universals, ed. by Paul
Vincent Spade (Hackett, 1994).
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Port-Royal
<history of philosophy> monastery outside Paris that fostered Jansenism during the seventeenth century.
During its heyday, Port-Royal hosted Antoine Arnauld (whose sister AngÈlique was its abbess), Pierre Nicole,
and Blaise Pascal, along with Jean Racine.
Antoine Arnauld and Pierre Nicole, Logic
or the Art of Thinking: Containing, Besides Common Rules, Several New Observations Appropriate for
Forming Judgement, ed. by Jill V. Buroker (Cambridge, 1996);
Marc Escholier, Port-Royal: The Drama of the Jansenists (Hawthorn, 1968); and William Doyle, Jansenism:
Catholic Resistance to Authority from the Reformation to the French Revolution (Palgrave, 2000).
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portability
<operating system, programming, PI> The ease with which a piece of software (or file format) can be "ported",
i.e. made to run on a new platform and/or compile with a new compiler.
The most important factor is the language in which the software is written and the most portable language is
almost certainly C (though see Vaxocentrism for counterexamples). This is true in the sense that C compilers
are available for most systems and are often the first compiler provided for a new system. This has led several
compiler writers to compile other languages to C code in order to benefit from its portability (as well as the
quality of compilers available for it).
The least portable type of language is obviously assembly code since it is specific to one particular (family of)
processor(s). It may be possible to translate mechanically from one assembly code (or even machine code)
into another but this is not really portability. At the other end of the scale would come interpreted or semi-
compiled languages such as LISP or Java which rely on the availability of a portable interpreter or virtual
machine written in a lower level language (often C for the reasons outlined above).
The act or result of porting a program is called a "port".

E.g. "I' ve nearly finished the Pentium port of my big bang simulation."
Portability is also an attribute of file formats and depends on their adherence to standards (e.g. ISO 8859) or
the availability of the relevant "viewing" software for different platforms (e.g. PDF).
[FOLDOC]
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portable
portability
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poset
partially ordered set
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positive rights
rights
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positivism
<epistemology, philosophy of science, philosopphical movement> while positivism sounds like it should be
synonymous with optimism (as in the power of positive thinking), it isn' t. Sometimes the word positivism is
equivalent to empiricism (as in logical positivism), since positivism in the philosophy of science holds that we
should admit as knowledge only that about which we can be absolutely certain, i.e., what is immediately
graspable or "empirical". The first thinker who is labeled a positivist was the nineteenth-century French
philosopher August Comte. Comte put great stress on science and progress and was interested only in
observable phenomena and the laws that determine how they act together, without any investigation of ultimate
causes or metaphysics. Another aspect of his thought was a humanism that bordered on a "religion of
humanity", in which the object of worship was taken to be humanity as a whole. In more recent usage,
positivism usually refers to logical positivism.
Auguste Comte, The Positive Philosophy (AMS, 1987);
A. J. Ayer, Logical Positivism (Free Press, 1966); and Jonathan H. Turner, Classical Sociological Theory: A
Positivist' s Perspective (Burnham, 1993).

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possible
<metaphysics> what might be the case, as opposed to what' snecessary (what must be the case) and what' s
actual (what really is the case).
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post hoc ergo propter hoc
<philosophical terminology> Latin phrase meaning "After this, therefore because of this." Thus, mistaken
reliance upon temporal succession alone as enough to establish the presence of a causal relationship between
two events.
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postfix notation
<language> (Or "Reverse Polish Notation", RPN) One of the possible orderings of functions and operands: in
postfix notation the functions are preceded by all their operands. For example, what may normally be written as
"1+2" becomes "12 +". Postfix notation is well suited for stack based architectures but modern compilers
reduced this advantage considerably. The best-known language that with strictly postfix syntax is FORTH.
Compare infix notation, prefix notation.
[FOLDOC]
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postfix syntax
postfix notation
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postmodernism
<philosophical terminology> most generally, abandonment of Enlightenment confidence in the achievement

objective human knowledge through reliance upon reason in pursuit of foundationalism, essentialism, and
realism. In philosophy, postmodernists typically express grave doubt about the possibility of universal objective
truth, reject artificially sharp dichotomies, and delight in the inherent irony and particularity of language and life.
Various themes and implications of postmodern thought are explored by Foucault, Derrida, Lyotard, Rorty,
Haraway, and Cixous.
Postmodernism: A Reader, ed. by Patricia Waught (Edward Arnold, 1992);
Jean-Francois Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, tr. by Brian Massumi (Minnesota,
1985);
Steven Best and Douglas Kellner, Postmodern Theory (Guilford, 1991); and James N. Powell, Postmodernism
for Beginners (Writers and Readers, 1998).
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postulate
<philosophical terminology> a proposition assumed to be true without any appeal to evidentiary support,
especially when it is then used to derive further statements in a formal system or general theory.
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potentiality
<philosophical terminology> what might have been or could be, as opposed to what is the case. Hence, for
Aristotle, a disposition or tendency to manifest itself. See actuality - potentiality.
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powerdomain
<mathematics, logic> The powerdomain of a domain D is a domain containing some of the subsets of D. Due
to the asymmetry condition in the definition of a partial order (and therefore of a domain) the powerdomain
cannot contain all the subsets of D. This is because there may be different sets X and Y such that X <= Y and
Y <= X which, by the asymmetry condition would have to be considered equal.
There are at least three possible orderings of the subsets of a powerdomain:
Egli-Milner:
X <= Y iff for all x in X, exists y in Y: x <= y
and for all y in Y, exists x in X: x <= y
("The other domain always contains a related element").
Hoare or Partial Correctness or Safety:

X <= Y iff for all x in X, exists y in Y: x <= y
("The bigger domain always contains a bigger element").
Smyth or Total Correctness or Liveness:

X <= Y iff for all y in Y, exists x in X: x <= y
("The smaller domain always contains a smaller element").
If a powerdomain represents the result of an abstract interpretation in which a bigger value is a safe
approximation to a smaller value then the Hoare powerdomain is appropriate because the safe approximation
Y to the powerdomain X contains a safe approximation to each point in X.
[FOLDOC]
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powerset
<mathematics> <logic> The powerset of a set S is the set of all the subsets of S, usually written PS or 2^S.
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PPLambda
<language> essentially the first-order predicate calculus superposed upon the simply-typed polymorphic
lambda-calculus. PPLambda is the object language for LCF.
L. Paulson, Logic and Computation: Interactive Proof with Cambridge LCF (Cambridge 1987).
[FOLDOC]
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practical reasoning
<philosophy of mind, ethics, logic> figuring out what to do; reasoning directed towards action (as contrasted
with reasoning directed towards arriving at belief).
1. Introduction
Practical reasoning is a rapidly changing area of study; this article describes the state of the field as it has
shaped up over the 1980s and 1990s. For earlier work, see Raz (1978). The current debate in practical
reasoning focuses on the question: what inference patterns are legitimate methods of arriving at decisions or
intentions to act, or other characteristically practical predecessors of actions such as evaluations, plans,
policies, and judgments about what one ought to do? The spectrum of competing theories ranges from the very
minimal, allowing only one form of practical inference (or even none), to maximally permissive views that "let a
thousand flowers bloom." The remainder of this entry surveys the most prominent positions on this spectrum.
Other important questions in the field include: What mental states and processes are involved in practical
reasoning? Is there a principled distinction to be made between practical and theoretical reasoning (that is,
reasoning directed towards belief rather than action)? How can one argue about what putative forms of
practical inference are legitimate, i.e., are really inference? Is there a fixed list of forms of practical inference to
be discovered, or can methods of practical reasoning be invented?
2. Nihilism
Nihilism about practical reasoning is the view that there are no legitimate forms of practical inference, and that
consequently there is no such thing as practical reasoning: appearances notwithstanding, there is no mental
activity that counts as figuring out what to do. This position is the most minimal on the spectrum of views about
practical reasoning; it suffers from a shortage of contemporary defenders, but was argued for by Hume
(1739/1978, pp. 413-418, 456-470). (Nihilism is canvassed as a possible form of irrationality by Korsgaard
(1986, sec. 3). For discussion of Hume, see Hampton (1995) and Millgram (1995).) Nihilism was probably
entailed by early twentieth-century noncognitivism in metaethics, in particular by emotivism; however, it was not
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discussed at the time. Nihilism should be regarded as the null hypothesis against which other accounts of
practical reasoning must be defended.
3. Instrumentalism
Instrumentalism holds that all practical reasoning is means-end reasoning, that is, that figuring out what to do is
entirely a matter of determining how to achieve one' s goals or satisfy one' s desires. Such reasoning ma
consist in finding causes for the outcomes one wants; but it may also involve -- for instance -- scheduling, or
picking one among the various options that would achieve one' s goals. (Instrumentalism in this broad sense--
as opposed to the sense in which it is restricted to finding causes for outcomes -- has sometimes also been
called "internalism about reasons for action" in the last few years, however, usage has been shifting to make
internalism a distinct notion.) Because infinite regresses are generally thought not possible in instrumental
justification (finite creatures have only finitely many suitably distinct desires), and because circularity in
instrumental justification is thought to be unreasonable, the instrumentalist position usually has it that practical
justification bottoms out in desires one just has: you can reason about how to get what you want, but not about
what to want in the first place. Instrumentalism is the default view in the field, and probably among philosophers
in general. However, despite its pervasiveness, there is very little explicit argument for it. Hume (1777/1975, p.
293) is perhaps the locus classicus of the view, which is -- despite Hume' s apparent commitment elsewhere to
nihilism about practical reasoning -- often called Humeanism. Smith (1987) attempts to tie instrumentalism to
belief-desire psychology (see folk psychology) and to an understanding of beliefs and desires in terms of
direction of fit. Williams (1981) argues that reasons for action must invoke desires on the grounds that only
desires, broadly construed, can explain actions, and that reasons for action must be able, in suitable
circumstances, to explain actions.
The shortfall of argument notwithstanding, there are a number of things to be said for the position. First,
means-end reasoning is perhaps the least controversial form that practical reasoning has been alleged to take:
we all know what it is like to try to figure out how to achieve a goal, and it is often straightforward to determine
whether a mistake has been made. Second, since instrumental reasoning proceeds from desires you have,
your stake in the results of such reasoning seems very clear -- the actions it tells you to take promise to get you
things you already want. Third, when people do seem to act for reasons, it is generally possible to ascribe to
them an appropriate desire. Fourth, non-instrumental practical reasoning would evidently allow one' s ultimate
desires to be corrected by others; but we are familiar with such attempts at correction, and they as a rule are
paternalistic, heavy-handed, dogmatic, and unconvincing. Accordingly, instrumentalists insist that the burden of
proof lies with their opponents. Whether or not instrumental reasoning is the only kind of practical reasoning
there is, there is widespread agreement that it is a kind of practical reasoning (Thompson (1998) is a very
interesting dissenting voice). But although it is uncontroversial in this respect, it is by no means well-
understood. The central problem is the defeasibility of instrumental reasoning, that is, the fact that an
apparently satisfactory instrumental inference can be defeated by adding further premises, and that we have
no means of specifying the defeating conditions up front. For instance, if my end is to have an espresso, a
suitable means might be going to a particular cafe... but I might quite properly retract my decision when I learn
that its management donates a percentage of the cafe' s profits to a terrorist group. There are obviously
indefinitely many defeating conditions of this kind, and so we do not know how to say under what
circumstances a means-end inference ought to go through. Whether or not instrumentalism is correct, perhaps
the most important advance that could be made in the field would be to figure out how means-end reasoning
really works.
4. Satisficing
In 1976, Jimmy Carter ran for President on the slogan: "Why not the best?" One answer, given some time back
by Herbert Simon (1957, chs. 14, 15; see also 1979), is that finding the best choice can be computationally and
otherwise too expensive. Another is that choice sets may fail to contain maximal elements; when there is no
best, choosing the best is not an option (Landesman 1995, Fehige 1994). The alternative to maximising is
satisficing, that is, choosing an option that is, while perhaps not the best, good enough. Satisficing is naturally
thought of as instrumentalist in spirit, and defended as a kind of second-level maximising: the best first-level
strategy, once typical information costs are taken into account, may be satisficing rather than maximising.
However, satisficing has also been defended as simply being in line with our intuitions about the rationality of
particular choices (Slote 1989).
5. Reasoning with maieutic ends

A standard objection to instrumentalism is that it makes ultimate ends come out arbitrary: your ultimate ends
are the things you just happen to want, they are beyond the reach of deliberation and rational control, and we
know from experience that this is unrealistic. A response to the objection can stay within the spirit of
instrumentalism by appealing to maieutic ends (also called second-order ends or second-order desires), that is,
ends that consist in having other ends or desires. For example, you might want to have a career in medicine for
entirely financial reasons; in order to have the career, you have to care about the right things, e.g., healing the
sick; so you come to want to have the end of healing the sick. As the example suggests, it is possible to reason
about the desirability of wanting something, without expanding the repertoire of inference patterns beyond the
instrumental. One can (it is held) adopt desires that are ultimate in the sense that their objects are not wanted
as means to further ends; but one can adopt these desires for instrumental reasons, because although the
desires' objects are not wanted as means to further ends, the desires themselves are so wanted. This
approach is developed and defended by Schmidtz (1995).
6. Plans and intentions

On the planning view of rational deliberation advanced by Bratman (1987; see Bratman 1983 for an early but
more concise presentation of the view), practical reasoning consists largely in the adoption, filling in, and
reconsideration of intentions and plans. (In Bratman' s usage, a plan is a more elaborate and developed
intention, and an intention is a small plan.) Plans have two important characteristics that distinguish them from
desires. First, they are typically incomplete: your plan for flying to Spain may include the intention of getting to
the airport, but until the day arrives it may well not include a subplan for getting to the airport e.g., calling a taxi,
waiting for it, getting in, and taking it there. Second, plans are stable: normally, one reasons about how to
execute and fill in one' s plan, but not, unless special circumstances arise, about whether to reject the plan in
favour of some other.
Practical reasoning that avails itself of plans has advantages over reasoning that uses only beliefs and desires.
Because plans are stable, plans make the practical reasoning one has to do manageable by framing one' s
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deliberations, and so restricting the number of options that need to be considered. For instance, in considering
how to get to the airport, you must weigh the merits of driving, taking a cab, taking the bus, and getting a friend
to drop you off; but because the plan to go to Spain frames your deliberations, you need not consider the option
of going to Peru instead. Because plans are usually filled in as needed, they can efficiently take account of
information that becomes available later rather than earlier: when you formed the intention of going to Spain,
you could not know whether your spouse would want to use the car that day. Because plans are stable, they
can facilitate interpersonal coordination: knowing that Joe plans to be at the cafe at 3:00 is an entirely different
matter from knowing that he wants to be there at 3:00; I am much more willing to go there to meet him on the
former basis than on the latter, because I know he will not reconsider unless special circumstances arise.
Because plans are stable, they also facilitate intrapersonal coordination, that is, coordination over different
times; knowing that you will finish the paper you have now started to write, because your intention to do so is
stable, provides some assurance that the effort spent in starting it will not have been wasted.
Bratman' s views regarding when reconsideration of plans is rational have been developing over the las
decade. One argument turns on the consequences of having the policy that triggers reconsideration: if you
must reconsider every time a new bit of information turns up, your decision making task will swamp your
cognitive resources. Consequently, the planning theory of practical rationality can deliver prescriptions for
action that differ from those of the traditional instrumentalist theory. For example, suppose you adopt a plan
because you believe, rationally, that it will best satisfy your desires; suppose circumstances change so that it
no longer does, but your rationally held policy for reconsidering plans does not take the change in
circumstances to warrant reconsideration. Then the instrumentalist theory may hold that it is rational for you not
to perform the actions dictated by the plan, whereas the planning theory may hold that it is rational -- even
though executing the plan will not satisfy your desires anymore.
7. Specificationism
Many of our ends -- runs one objection to instrumentalism -- are simply too vague or indefinite to serve as
starting points for means-end reasoning, so practical reasoning must consist partly in further specifying the
overly indefinite ends. For instance, I want to improve my looks; but, before actually making purchases at the
makeup counter, I need to figure out just what improvement in my looks would be. (The early pivotal papers are
by Kolnai (1978) and Wiggins (1991); Kolnai, who thinks that Aristotle was an instrumentalist, develops the
view as an alternative to Aristotle' s, while Wiggins attributes the specificationist view to Aristotle.) Richardson
(1994) advances a further reason for specification of ends. Many of our ends conflict, but often those conflicts
(whether between one' s own ends, or the ends of different people) can be removed by further specification o
the ends in question. Since the point of cospecification is to remove conflict between ends, specifications
should be chosen that make the ends cohere with one another (and with other background elements of one' s
evaluative system). In contrast to the three immediately preceding positions, which remain instrumentalist in
spirit, specificationism is (like the further positions we will survey) a full-fledged alternative to the view that all
practical reasoning is means-end reasoning: only when supplemented with the rational specification of ends is
instrumental reasoning viable at all. The most important item on the specificationist agenda is to make out what
distinguishes correct or rational from incorrect or irrational specifications of an insufficiently definite goal.
8. Practical contradiction resolution

One important aspect of theoretical reasoning (that is, reasoning directed towards belief) is resolving
contradictions in one' ssystem of beliefs. The way in which this is done is not well-understood, but it is
nonetheless possible to ask whether it has a practical analog: a form of practical reasoning directed towards
resolving (something that would count as) a practical contradiction. It has been suggested by Candace Vogler
that such contradictions may be generated by practical versions of so-called "evening star-morning star" cases,
as when one wants to visit Siam, and to avoid visiting Thailand, but then becomes aware that Siam is Thailand.
Korsgaard (1990) has a useful discussion of the notion of a practical contradiction in Kant.
9. Coherence-driven reasoning
Practical reasoning is sometimes thought to be a matter of adjusting one' s practical take on things, togethe
with one' s actions, in the direction of greatercoherence. Just what this suggestion comes to will depend both
on what the elements of one' s practical take on things are thought to be, and on what the coherence of such
elements with one another is supposed to consist in. For instance, if preferences are the relevant items,
coherence might be understood to consist in the agent' s preferences satisfying the conditions for his having a
well-defined utility function. (For the canonical account of utility functions, see Luce and Raiffa, 1957, ch. 2.)
However, the expected-utility approach to coherence has the problem that no sense is given to the notion of a
set of preferences being more or less coherent; your preferences are either coherent (if they induce -- that is,
can be represented by -- a utility function), or they are not. The expected-utility approach to coherence
specifies an ideal that is unattainable for human beings, without saying what it would be to move closer to it, or
farther away.
The elements of one' s practical take on things might alternatively be thought to consist in goals, subgoals and
actions. In this case, coherence-driven practical deliberation would amount to choosing the subset of the goals
and actions under consideration that best cohere with one another. Practical reasoning of this kind can be
described as "inference to the most coherent plan" -- in the event that finding the most coherent plan is
impractical, the recommendation is to find as coherent a plan as one can. The most urgent issue in this area is
the development of comparative notions of coherence that are precise enough to give clear answers to
questions of the form: of these competing plans, which is the most coherent? Without notions of coherence
that are usable in this way, appeals to coherence are empty, and the merits of coherence-driven accounts of
practical reasoning cannot be assessed. One such comparative notion has been modeled computationally, by
using quasi-connectionist networks to represent the competing plans. (Thagard and Millgram, 1995; Millgram
and Thagard, 1996) Another is specified as a constraint satisfaction problem. (Thagard and Verbeurgt, 1998)
Coherence-driven accounts are yet another alternative to the instrumentalist paradigm; on the goal-oriented
notion, for example, goals can be adopted on the ground that they cohere with other goals that one already
has, even if achieving them would not be a means to any end that one already has. If coherence-driven
accounts of practical reasoning are to make headway, improved definitions of coherence and further
development of techniques for modelling them are necessary.
10. Universalisability
Kantian theories of practical reasoning typically require that reasons be universalisable: roughly, that it be
possible for everyone in like circumstances to act likewise on the basis of a similar reason. Nell (1975) argues
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that the requirement imposes substantial constraints on what actions are permissible, and explains how the
requirement can be proceduralised. Universalisability acts as a filter through which proposed actions and the
reasons for them are passed, but it can also be used to generate reasons on its own, when not acting on a
proposed reason would fail the universalisability test. Contemporary interest in universalisability is primarily due
to the role it plays in Kantian moral theory, which is today one of the most prominent positions in ethics;
Korsgaard (1990) reconstructs Kant' s reasons for insisting on the universalisability requirement.
11. Identity-based practical reasons

Korsgaard has recently suggested that a theory of practical reasoning should make room for a class of reasons
that express one' s self-conception or "practical identity," "a description under which you value yourself ...find
your life to be worth living and your actions worth undertaking" (1996, p. 101), e.g., being a philosophy
professor, a Canadian, a "made man," and so on. The appeal to practical identities goes some of the way
towards meeting a challenge posed by Williams on behalf of the instrumentalist position, that of showing how
the practical reasons of different persons in what are substantially similar situations can vary, without (as the
instrumentalist does) simply referring the difference to their differing desires. (Williams 1995, pp. 186-194)
12. Practical empiricism

On the views we have seen so far, the source of an agent' s reasons foraction lies within the agent: in his goals
or ends or desires (instrumentalism, satisficing, maieutic ends), in his intentions (the planning view, Kantian
universalisability), in the ways all these cohere with one another, or in his practical identity. On the
instrumentalist view, for instance, experience can supply the facts needed to determine how to attain one' s
ends, but the ends themselves are set from inside, by one' s desires. Against this, practical empiricism has i
that it is both possible and necessary to learn what matters, and what is important, from experience. There is
no reason to think that goals, priorities, evaluations and other like pieces of an agent' s cognitive equipment will
be useful guides to action if the world is not allowed to have its say in what they look like. The desires and
intentions with which one comes to a situation may be simply irrelevant (likely when the circumstances are
novel), or their objects may prove disappointing when obtained; successful agency requires an ability to correct
one' s assessments and agenda on the fly. For example, perhaps I originally took climate control in a car to be
more important than mechanical reliability; after many unpleasant experiences with mechanics, I conclude that
I was mistaken, and that a reliable car is generally to be preferred to an air conditioned one. This suggests that
the basis for correction will be a practical analog of observation, and that, because learning from experience
requires the ability to generalize from past observations to future instances, practical empiricism should be
committed to a practical version of inductive inference, one that moves from particular to general practical
judgments. A version of practical empiricism along these lines is developed by Millgram (1997).
13. Redescription as practical reasoning

In order to draw the right conclusion about what to do, you normally have to proceed on the basis of an
adequate description of your situation. Arriving at the description is usually regarded as theoretical rather than
practical reasoning; you are reasoning about the facts, rather than about the values. Murdoch (1970) differs on
this point: arriving at the description that is ultimately the basis for action is the important and hard part of
practical reasoning (in part because facts cannot be distinguished from values -- or, more interestingly,
because the attempt to do so is itself the expression of a particular set of values; on this last point, see
Diamond 1996). Although Murdoch' s work predates the two -decade period under review, her writing is only
now coming to be seen as advancing a view about practical reasoning. Murdoch' s discussion focusses almos
entirely on one aspect of the process of redescription, that of overcoming the temptation to see situations in
emotionally convenient ways. In her most famous example, a mother conquers her jealousy, and learns to see
her daughter-in-law as refreshing, simple, spontaneous, and delightfully youthful, rather than vulgar, rude,
undignified, and tiresomely juvenile. Her insight is important but incomplete: even if one agrees that
redescribing one' s situation is practical reasoning, it will be hard to accept that such redescription is all there
really is to figuring out what to do; and it will be as hard to agree that all there really is to successful
redescription is getting past the emotionally induced distortions.
14. Other positions

There are a handful of other positions that deserve mention but are difficult to place on the spectrum.
First, there is the common idea that expected-utility theory (see Luce and Raiffa 1957) is a satisfactory
rendition of practical reasoning; this is hard to place because the formalism is advanced both as a kind of
instrumentalism (where the agent' s goal is to maximize his expected utility), and as a formal notion o
coherence (see above). What is more, some of the justifications for the coherentist interpretation are meant to
be instrumentalist in form and spirit; see, e.g., McClennan (1990). Hampton (1994) contains a recent critical
discussion of the instrumentalist interpretation.
As a matter of fact, the formalism may well be compatible with other positions on the spectrum as well. It is
certainly compatible with nihilism, and the wide availability of personal computers has made this easy to see.
To the computer-literate, the expected-utility formalism looks like a data compression technique, or perhaps an
encryption device, rather than a representation of reasoning, or even of rationality in one' s preferences. The
formalism gives a way of representing one' s preferences-- provided that they satisfy a handful of actually quite
demanding conditions -- by assigning real numbers to outcomes, such that selecting the action with the highest
expected utility (the sum of the products of those numbers and the probabilities of the respective outcomes,
given that the action is performed) will be choice conforming to one' s preferences. That is, it performs a
function analogous to those of the popular ZIP and Compress programs: just as these store your information in
a file formatted to take up less space on your hard disk than an uncompressed file, so the expected utility
formalism allows you to encode unmanageably many preferences as much more manageable real numbers. Of
course, there may be as many numbers as there were preferences in the first place, and, if one is unlucky, they
may not be much more manageable than the preferences had been; in that case, one can think of the encoding
as encryption rather than compression. But, thought of in either of these two ways, retrieving your original
preferences via an expected-utility calculation would be no more practical reasoning than retrieving your
original file by decompressing a "zipped" file (or by decrypting an encrypted file) is theoretical reasoning. And
the formalism could be used to encode suitably structured preferences even if there was nothing that counted
as practical reasoning at all -- that is, even if nihilism were correct.
Second, Velleman (1989; see 1985 for a shorter and easier-to-read discussion) argues that intentions are self-
fulfilling predictions (and so practical reasoning is in fact a variety of theoretical reasoning). The predictions are
self-fulfilling because agents desire to understand what they are doing, and acting on the basis of such a self-
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fulfilling prediction produces the requisite kind of self-understanding.

Third, Brandom (1994, pp. 243-253) claims that desire ascriptions merely express commitments to the material
correctness of practical inferences that do not themselves involve desires. For instance, to say that someone
desires not to get wet is to make explicit his commitment to inferring "I will take my umbrella" from "It is going to
rain;" the desire is not itself a suppressed premise of the inference. This amounts to an argument against
instrumentalism, to the effect that the instrumentalist position radically misconceives the point of desire
ascriptions. The omnipresence of desires served by one' s actions is not, as it has been taken to be, evidence
for instrumentalism. Rather, that one' s practical inferences can generally be recast in a form that invokes
desires is entirely neutral with respect to the question: what patterns of practical inference are legitimate?
15. The state of the field

Two decades ago, practical reasoning was, in the minds of most professional philosophers, not separable as
an area of study from ethics, and it tended to be associated with historical scholarship. Instrumentalism was
the clearly dominant position, to which a revived Kantian morality was the most visible alternative. Some strong
work was being done on prudential (i.e., future-regarding) reasons as well, since these were regarded as a
possible model for a treatment of altruistic reasons (Nagel 1970). But, by and large, the field was stagnant.
It has since come a long way. Practical reasoning is no longer the handmaiden of ethics, and today theories of
practical reasoning are not normally advanced merely as components of some favoured moral theory. The
fortification and defence of a very small number of entrenched positions inherited from the great dead
philosophers has given way to a healthy profusion of competing and largely new views. Important ideas and
arguments turn up annually or semi-annually -- a rate that marks a philosophical subspecialty as rapidly
developing. Work on practical reasoning has consequences for ethics and philosophy of mind: moral reasoning
is practical reasoning concerned with moral subject matter; philosophical ontologies of the mental typically
reflect whatever happens to be the current view of rationality. (E.g., the popularity of belief-desire psychology is
partly attributable to the recently widespread acceptance of instrumentalism, a view in which desires loom very
large.) So we can expect recent developments in practical reasoning to produce ripple effects in those areas
also.
References
Brandom, R. (1994) Making It Explicit. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press.

Bratman, M. (1983) "Taking Plans Seriously" Social Theory and Practice 9(2-3): 271-287.
Bratman, M. (1987) Intention, Plans, and Practical Reason Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press.
Broome, J. (1991) Weighing Goods Oxford, Basil Blackwell.
Diamond, C. (1996) "We Are Perpetually Moralists": Iris Murdoch, Fact, and Value" M. Antonaccio and W.
Schweiker, Iris Murdoch and the Search for Human Goodness Chicago, University of Chicago Press.
Fehige, C. (1994) "The Limit Assumption in Deontic (and Prohairetic) Logic" G. Meggle and U. Wessels,
Analyomen 1 Berlin: de Gruyter.
Hampton, J. (1994) "The Failure of Expected-Utility Theory as a Theory of Reason" Economics and Philosophy
10(2): 195-242.
Hampton, J. (1995) "Does Hume Have an Instrumental Conception of Practical Reason?" Hume Studies 21(1):
57-74.
Hume, D. (1739/1978) A Treatise of Human Nature Oxford, Clarendon Press. Edited by L. A. Selby-Bigge and
P. H. Nidditch.
Hume, D. (1777/1975) Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals Oxford, Oxford University Press. Edited by
L. A. Selby- Bigge and P. H. Nidditch.
Kolnai, A. (1978) "Deliberation is of Ends" Ethics, Value and Reality Indianapolis, Hackett.
Korsgaard, C. (1986) "scepticism about Practical Reasoning", Journal of Philosophy 83(1): 5-25.
Korsgaard, C. (1990) The Standpoint of Practical Reason. New York, Garland Publishing. Reprint of doctoral
dissertation (Harvard University, 1981).
Korsgaard, C. (1996) The Sources of Normativity. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Landesman, C. (1995) "When to Terminate a Charitable Trust?" Analysis 55(1): 12-13.
Luce, R. D. and H. Raiffa (1957) Games and Decisions New York, John Wiley and Sons.
McClennan, E. (1990) Rationality and Dynamic Choice Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Millgram, E. (1995) "Was Hume a Humean?" Hume Studies 21(1): 75-93.
Millgram, E. (1997) Practical Induction Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press.
Millgram, E. and Thagard, P. (1996) "Deliberative Coherence" Synthese 108(1): 63-88.
Murdoch, I. (1970) The Sovereignty of Good London, Routledge/Ark.
Nagel, T. (1970) The Possibility of Altruism Princeton, Princeton University Press.
Nell, O. (1975) Acting on Principle New York, Columbia University Press.
Raz, J. (1978) Practical Reasoning. Oxford, Oxford University Press.
Richardson, H. (1994) Practical Reasoning about Final Ends. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Schmidtz, D. (1995) Rational Choice and Moral Agency. Princeton, Princeton University Press.
Simon, H. (1957) Models of Man. New York, John Wiley and Sons.
Simon, H. (1979) "From Substantive to Procedural Rationality" F. Hahn and M. Hollis, Philosophy and
Economic Theory (Oxford, Oxford University Press): 65-86.
Slote, M. (1989) Beyond Optimizing. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press.
Smith, M. (1987) "The Humean Theory of Motivation", Mind 96(381): 36-61.
Thagard, P. and Millgram, E. (1995) "Inference to the Best Plan: A Coherence Theory of Decision" D. Leake
and A. Ram, Goal-Driven Learning (Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press): 439-454.
Thompson, M. (1998) "Naive Action Theory" (unpublished manuscript).
Thagard, P. and Verbeurgt, K. (1998) "Coherence as Constraint Satisfaction" Cognitive Science 22.
Velleman, J. D. (1985) "Practical Reflection", Philosophical Review 94(1): 33-61.
Velleman, J. D. (1989) Practical Reflection Princeton, Princeton University Press.
Wiggins, D. (1991) "Deliberation and Practical Reason," Needs, Values, Truth. Oxford, Blackwell.
Williams, B. (1981) "Internal and External Reasons", Moral Luck. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Williams, B. (1995) "Replies", J. Altham and R. Harrison, World, Mind, and Ethics: Essays on the Ethical
Philosophy of Bernard Williams. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Elijah Millgram
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pragmatic theory of truth
<philosophical terminology> belief that a proposition is true when acting upon it yields satisfactory practical
results. As formulated by William James, the pragmatic theory promises (in the long term) a convergence of
human opinions upon a stable body of scientific propostions that have been shown in experience to be
successful principles for human action.
William James, Pragmatism and the Meaning of Truth (Harvard, 1978); Alan R. White, Truth (Anchor, 1970);
and Richard L. Kirkham, Theories of Truth: A Critical Introduction (Bradford, 1995).
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pragmatics
<logic, discipline> the characterization, for a natural or artificial, language or relationships between sentences,
the world, and the situation of speaker and hearer. Pragmatics is particularly concerned with indexical words
such as "I," "Here," "That," "She," "Now," which are sensitive to the context of utterance or statement.
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pragmatism
<philosophical school> Pragmatism is generally considered to be the only truly philosophical school and
tradition to have emerged in America (mainly because it is more technically rigorous than transcendentalism).
While the term itself was originated by C.S. Peirce, pragmatism' s most famous exponents were WilliamJames
and John Dewey, although there were numerous lesser figures involved during its heyday in the late nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries (G.H. Mead, F.S.C. Schiller, etc.).
The original formulation of pragmatism by Peirce applied to epistemology (the idea that knowledge must be
tested by its usefulness), but the concept was quickly extended by James. Pragmatism in ethics is a form of
consequentialism, but it differs from utilitarianism in that pragmatism emphasizes action while utilitarianism
emphasizes usefulness (Greek pragma = "action" while Latin utilis = "use"). Pragmatism is often said to be a
kind of humanism, since it stresses the importance of meeting human needs and the real interests of human
beings. Pragmatism rejects any kind of ethical naturalism and tends to be a kind of relativism.
In popular usage, to say that a person is pragmatic may indicate that he or she lacks principles, although it can
simply be a positive statement that he or she has a "can-do attitude" or "knows how to get things done".
(References from altruism, consequentialism, empiricism, humanism, instrumentalism, realism, and
tilitarianism.)
Pragmatism: A Reader, ed. by Louis Menand (Vintage, 1997);
H. Standish Thayer, Meaning and Action: A Critical History of Pragmatism (Hackett, 1981);
Louis Menand, The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America (Farrar, Straus, &l Giroux, 2001);
Howard Mounce, The Two Pragmatisms: From Peirce to Rorty (Routledge, 1997);
Charlene Haddock Seigfried, Pragmatism and Feminism: Reweaving the Social Fabric (Chicago, 1996);
Cornel West, The American Evasion of Philosophy: A Genealogy of Pragmatism (Wisconsin, 1989); and
Richard Shusterman, Practicing Philosophy: Pragmatism and the Philosophical Life (Routledge, 1997).

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praxis
<philosophical terminolgy> Greek term for action or doing, as opposed to creative production (poiesis).
According to Aristotle, actions are subject to moral valuation if they result from deliberate choice.
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pre-order
1. See pre-order traversal.
2. A relation R is a pre-order if it is reflexive (x R x) and transitive (x R y R z => x R z). If it is also antisymmetric

(x R y R x => x = y) then it is a partial ordering.
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pre-order traversal
A pre-order traversal of a tree visits each node in the tree before visiting its children. The opposite is post-order
traversal.
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precision
<mathematics> The number of decimal places to which a number is computed.

Compare accuracy.
[FOLDOC]
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predecessor
parent
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predicate
<logic> Intuitively, whatever is said of the subject of a sentence. A function from individuals (or a sequence of
individuals) to truth-values.
Notation: in "Px", P is the predicate.
See matrix, function, n-adic predicate, predicate logic, prefix, propositional function, relation.
Argument of a predicate
Any of the individuals of which the predicate is asserted.
Notation: in "Pxyz", x, y, and z are the arguments of predicate P. In first-order predicate logic, only terms can
be arguments.
Extension of a predicate
The set of all objects of which the predicate is true.
Notation: the extension of predicate P is x : Px. See Russell' s paradox.
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predicate calculus
<philosophical terminology> a formal logical system constructed to symbolize assertions that individual things
have features; see quantification theory.
Graeme Forbes, Modern Logic: A Text in Elementary Symbolic Logic (Oxford, 1994);
Joseph Bessie and Stuart Glennan, Elements of Deductive Inference: An Introduction to Symbolic Logic
(Wadsworth, 1999); and Merrie Bergmann, James Moor, and Jack Nelson, The Logic Book (McGraw-Hill,
1997).
predicate logic
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predicate constant
<philosophical terminology> a symbol (usually uppercase letters such as F, G, H, etc.) used to represent a
specific feature or property in quantification theory.
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predicate logic
<logic, discipline> the branch of logic dealing with propositions in which subject and predicate are separately
signified, reasoning whose validity depends on this level of articulation, and systems containing such
propositions and reasoning. Also called quantification theory or predicate calculus.
First-order predicate logic

Predicate logic in which predicates take only individuals as arguments and quantifiers only bind individual
variables.
Higher-order predicate logic

Predicate logic in which predicates take other predicates as arguments and quantifiers bind predicate
variables. For example, second-order predicates take first-order predicates as arguments.Order n predicates
take order n-1 predicates as arguments (n > 1).
See Grelling' s paradox.
Inclusive predicate logic

Predicate logic that does not exclude interpretations with empty domains. Standard predicate logic excludes
empty domains and defines logical validity accordingly, i.e. true for all interpretations with non-empty domains.
Also called inclusive quantification theory.
See existential import, logical validity.
Monadic predicate logic

Predicate logic in which predicates take only one argument; the logic of attributes.
Polyadic predicate logic

Predicate logic in which predicates take more than one argument; the logic of n-adic predicates (n > 1); the
logic of relations.
Predicate logic with identity

A system of predicate logic with (x)(x=x) as an axiom, and the following axiom schema, [(x=y) => (A =>A' )]^c
when A' differs from A only in that y may replace any free occurrence of x in A so long as y is free wherever i
replaces x (y need not replace every occurrence of x in A), and when B^c is an arbitrary closure of B.
See first-order theory with identity, identity.
Pure predicate calculus

A system of predicate logic whose language contains no function symbols or individual constants. As opposed
to a number-theoretic predicate calculus which contains these things.
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predicate logic with identity
predicate logic
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prediction
<philosophical terminology> the explanation of an event that has not yet occurred by reference to observed
regularities in the natural world.
Wesley C. Salmon, Causality and Explanation (Oxford, 1997);
Peter Spirtes, Clark Glymour, and Richard Scheines, Causation, Prediction, and Search (MIT, 2001);
Judea Pearl, Causality: Models, Reasoning, and Inference (Cambridge, 2001); and Karl Raimund Popper,
Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (Routledge, 1992).
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predomain
<mathematics, logic> A domain with no bottom element.
[FOLDOC]
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prefix
1. <logic> In predicate logic wffs in which all quantifiers are clustered at the left, the section of quantifiers.
See matrix, prenex normal form
2. <unit> The standard metric prefixes used in the SI (Syst` eme International) conventions for scientific
measurement. With units of time or things that come in powers of 10, such as money, they retain their usual
meanings of multiplication by powers of 1000 = 10^3. When used with bytes or other things that naturally come
in powers of 2, they usually denote multiplication by powers of 1024 = 2^(10).
Here are the SI magnifying prefixes, along with the corresponding binary interpretations in common use:
prefix abr decimal binary

yocto- 1000^-8
zepto- 1000^-7
atto- 1000^-6
femto- f 1000^-5
pico- p 1000^-4
nano- n 1000^-3
micro- * 1000^-2 * Abbreviation: Greek mu
milli- m 1000^-1
kilo- k 1000^1 1024^1 = 2^10 = 1,024
mega- M 1000^2 1024^2 = 2^20 = 1,048,576
giga- G 1000^3 1024^3 = 2^30 = 1,073,741,824
tera- T 1000^4 1024^4 = 2^40 = 1,099,511,627,776
peta- 1000^5 1024^5 = 2^50 = 1,125,899,906,842,624
exa- 1000^6 1024^6 = 2^60 = 1,152,921,504,606,846,976
zetta- 1000^7 1024^7 = 2^70 = 1,180,591,620,717,411,303,424
yotta- 1000^8 1024^8 = 2^80 = 1,208,925,819,614,629,174,706,176
The prefixes zetta-, yotta-, zepto-, and yocto- have been included in these tables purely for completeness and
giggle value; they were adopted in 1990 by the "19th Conference Generale des Poids et Mesures". The binary
peta- and exa- loadings, though well established, are not in jargon use either - yet. The prefix milli-, denoting
multiplication by 1000^(-1), has always been rare in jargon (there is, however, a standard joke about the
"millihelen" - notionally, the amount of beauty required to launch one ship). "Femto" and "atto" (which,
interestingly, derive not from Greek but from Danish) have not yet acquired jargon loadings, though it is easy to
predict what those will be once computing technology enters the required realms of magnitude (however, see
attoparsec).
The abbreviated forms of these prefixes are common in electronics and physics. k, M and G are also common
in computing where they stand for powers of two more often than powers of ten. Thus "MB" stands for
megabytes (2^20 bytes). In speech, the unit is often dropped so one may talk of "a 40K salary" (40000 dollars)
or "2M of disk space" (2*2^20 bytes).
The accepted pronunciation of the initial G of "giga-" was once soft, /ji' ga/ (like "gigantic"), but now the hard
pronunciation, /gi' ga/, is probably more common.
Note that the formal SI metric prefix for 1000 is lower case "k"; some, including this dictionary, use this strictly,
reserving "K" for multiplication by 1024 (KB is thus "kilobytes").
Confusing 1000 and 1024 (or other powers of 2 and 10 close in magnitude) - for example, describing a memory
in units of 500K or 524K instead of 512K - is a sure sign of the marketroid. One example of this: it is common
to refer to the capacity of 3.5" microfloppies as "1.44 MB" In fact, this is a completely bogus number. The
correct size is 1440 KB, that is, 1440 * 1024 = 1474560 bytes. So the "mega" in "1.44 MB" is compounded of
two "kilos", one of which is 1024 and the other of which is 1000. The correct number of megabytes would of
course be 1440 / 1024 = 1.40625. Alas, this fine point is probably lost on the world forever.
In 1993, hacker Morgan Burke proposed, to general approval on Usenet, the following additional prefixes:
groucho (10^-30), harpo (10^-27), harpi (10^27), grouchi (10^30). This would leave the prefixes zeppo-,
gummo-, and chico- available for future expansion. Sadly, there is little immediate prospect that Mr. Burke' s
eminently sensible proposal will be ratified.
3. <language> Related to the prefix notation.
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prefix notation
<language> One of the possible orderings of functions and operands: in prefix notation the function precedes
all its operands. For example, what may normally be written as "1+2" becomes "(+ 1 2)". A few languages (e.g.,
lisp) have strictly prefix syntax, many more employ prefix notation in combination with infix notation.
Compare: postfix notation, prefix.
[FOLDOC]
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premise
<logic> A wff from which other wffs are derived or inferred.

In an argument or inference, all the propositions that support the conclusion.
Also spelled "premiss".
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prenex normal form
<logic> A wff of predicate logic is in prenex normal form iff (1) all its quantifiers are clustered at the left, (2) no
quantifier is negated, (3) the scope of each quantifier extends to the end of the wff, (4) no two quantifiers
quantify the same variable, (5) every quantified variable occurs in the matrix of the wff.
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prescriptivism
<ethics> R. M. Hare' s contention that the use ofmoral language conveys an implicit commitment to act
accordingly. Thus, for example, saying that "Murder is wrong" not only entails acceptance of a universalizable
obligation not to kill, but also leads to avoidance of the act of killing.
R. M. Hare, Moral Thinking: Its Levels, Methods, and Point (Oxford, 1982); and R. M. Hare, Objective
Prescriptions: and Other Essays (Oxford, 1999).
The view according to which the function of ethics is to tell us what we should do, and not just describe what
we actually do; thus it is opposed to descriptivism.
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presocratic philosophers
<philosophical terminology, history of philosophy> Greek philosophers of the sixth and fifth centuries B.C.,
many of them known to us only through fragmentary reports by later writers, whose speculative and practical
thought predates the development of critical philosophy by Socrates and Plato.
Prominent presocratics include: Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Xenophanes,
Parmenides, Zeno of Elea, Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Protagoras, Hippias, Leucippus, Democritus, and the
Sophists.
Kathleen Freeman, Ancilla to the Pre-Socratic Philosophers (Harvard, 1983);
G. S. Kirk and J. E. Raven, The Presocratic Philosophers: A Critical History With a Selection of Texts
(Cambridge, 1988);
Jonathan Barnes, The Presocratic Philosophers (Routledge, 1982); and The Cambridge Companion to Early
Greek Philosophy, ed. by A. A. Long (Cambridge, 1999).
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presupposition
<philosophical terminology> what is implicitly involved in making an assertion. Hence, according to P.F.
Strawson, a presupposition is a necessary condition for either the truth or the falsity of the statement that
presupposes it. Thus, for example, "My grand-daughter is a smart baby" - whether or not she exhibits intelligent
behavior - presupposes that I do, in fact, have at least one female grand-child.
Douglas N. Walton, Argumentation Schemes for Presumptive Reasoning (Erlbaum, 1995);
Nirit Kadmon, Formal Pragmatics: Semantics, Pragmatics, Presupposition, and Focus (Blackwell, 2001); and
Gennaro Chierchia, Dynamics of Meaning: Anaphora, Presupposition, and the Theory of Grammar (Chicago,
1995).
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Price Henry Habberly
<history of philosophy, biography> British philosopher (1899-1984) who defended a comprehensive theory of
the relation between sense-data and material objects in Perception (1932), Hume' s Theory of the Externa
World (1946), and Thinking and Experience (1953).
The Collected Works of Henry H. Price, ed. by Martha Kneale (Thoemmes, 1997); and Philosophical
Interactions With Parapsychology: The Major Writings of H. H. Price on Parapsychology and Survival, ed. by
Frank B. Dilley (Palgrave, 1995).
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Price Richard
<history of philosophy, biography> Welsh philosopher and theologian (1723-1791). Price was an early
proponent of an intuitionistic moral theory in his A Review of the Principle Questions and Difficulties in Morals
(1758), where - in opposition to Hume - he argued that moral obligation has a rational foundation. Price' s firm
commitment to individual liberty made him a vocal supporter of the American and French Revolutions. The
actuarial principles expounded in Observations on Reversionary Payments (1771) provided a mathematical
foundation for the development of the modern insurance industry.
W. D. Hudson, Reason and Right: A Critical Examination of Richard Price' s Moral Philosophy (Anchor, 1984).
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prima facie
<jargon> in the original Latin, this phrase means "at first glance."
In ethics, it usually occurs in discussions of duties. A prima facie duty is one which appears binding but which
may, upon closer inspection, turn out to be overridden by other, stronger duties.
[Ethics Glossary]
Latin phrase meaning "at first sight." Thus, in the ethics of W. D. Ross, a prima facie duty is a defeasible
presumption that we are obligated to perform an action.
W. D. Ross, The Right and the Good (Hackett, 1988) and Mary Anne Warren, Moral Status: Obligations to
Persons and Other Living Things (Clarendon, 1997).
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primary qualities
<ontology> qualities such as shape, extension, duration, etc. which are perceived by several senses and which
are thought to be more or less as much a part of the world as of our perception of it. As opposed to secondary
qualities such as color, texture, pitch, odor, etc. which are perceived by particular senses and which are though
(by people making the distinction) to correspond to anything outside sensation, being an essentially subjective
reaction.
Distinction between perceived aspects of things. The primary qualities are intrinsic features of the thing itself
(its size, shape, internal structure, mass, and momentum, for example), while the secondary qualities are
merely its powers to produce sensations in us (its color, odor, sound, and taste, for example). This distinction
was carefully drawn by Galileo, Descartes, Boyle and Locke, whose statement of the distinction set the tone for
future scientific inquiry. But Foucher, Bayle and Berkeley argued that the distinction is groundless, so that all
sensible qualities exist only in the mind of the perceiver.
Selected Philosophical Papers of Robert Boyle (Hackett, 1991);
Peter Alexander, Ideas, Qualities and Corpuscles: Locke and Boyle on the External World (Cambridge, 1983);
E. J. Lowe, Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Locke on Human Understanding (Routledge, 1995);
P. M. S. Hacker, Appearance and Reality: A Philosophical Investigation into Perception and Perceptual
Qualities (Blackwell, 1986);
Colin McGinn, The Subjective View: Secondary Qualities and Indexical Thoughts (Clarendon, 1983); and
Austen Clark, Sensory Qualities (Oxford, 1996).
12-03-2002
prime number theorem
<mathematics> The number of prime numbers less than x is about x/log(x). Here "is about" means that the
ratio of the two things tends to 1 as x tends to infinity. This was first conjectured by Gauss in the early 19th
century, and was proved (independently) by Hadamard and de la Vall' ee Poussin in 1896. Their proofs relied
on complex analysis, but Erds and Selberg later found an "elementary" proof.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
primitive
<programming, PI> A function, operator, or type which is built into a programming language (or operating
system), either for speed of execution or because it would be impossible to write it in the language. Primitives
typically include the arithmetic and logical operations (plus, minus, and, or, etc.) and are implemented by a
small number of machine language instructions.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
primitive recursion
<logic> One of the simple function-building operations of recursive function theory. If we are given the
functions f(x) and g(x), then we can create a new function h(x) from f and g by primitive recursion thus:
when x = 0,
then
h(x) = f(x);
but when x > 0,
then
h(x) = g(h(x-1)).
(For rigor, the minus sign in the last expression should be replaced by another function, but I leave it this way
for informal clarity.) Not to be mistaken for "primitive recursive functions".
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principal type
The most general type of an expression. For example, the following are all valid types for the lambda
abstraction
( x . x):
Int -> Int
Bool -> Bool
(a->b) -> (a->b)
but any valid type will be an instance of the principal type: a -> a. An instance is derived by substituting the
same type expression for all occurrences of some type variable. The principal type of an expression can be
computed from those of its subexpressions by Robinson' s unificationalgorithm.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
principle of closure
See principle of closure of knowledge under entailment, knowledge under known entailment principle of closure
of
16-03-2001
principle of closure of knowledge under entailment
<epistemology> if S knows p, and p entails q, then S knows q.

See Cartesian scepticism, knowledge under known entailment principle of closure of
P. Mandik
16-03-2001
principle of non contradiction
<logic, boolean logic, neo-empiricism, mathematics>, excluded middle (law of), <epistemology>, <essence>,
causality, <syllogism, ontology> dating back to Aristotle, this basic logical principle or "law of thought" holds
that a statement cannot simultaneously be both true and false or that nothing can at once both have an
attribute, like redness, and lack it.
22-06-2001
principle of the compositionality of representations
compositionality
01-12-2003
Pringle-Pattison Andrew Seth
<history of philosophy, biography> see Seth Pringle-Pattison Andrew.
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prior intention
<philosophy of mind> intention formed prior to the action that is its condition of satisfaction. The prior intention
represents the projected action as a unified whole. Introduced by Searle in 1983.
See also intentionality, intention-in-action
Daniel Barbiero
16-03-2001
privacy
Where only the intended recipients can read a message.
16-03-2001
private language argument
<philosophy of language> Descartes' arguments Cartesian ( Doubt) eventually led many philosophers
(especially Logical empiricists) to adopt phenomenalism and solipsism. Wittgenstein argued (against this) that
such a view amounts to a belief in an essentially-private language (the language in which the phenominalist-
solipsism philosopher states what he know, that is, the contents of his purely private experience). And
Wittgenstein argues that a purely private language is really impossible (language is essentially objectual and
social in nature).
Marie McGinn, Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Wittgenstein and the Philosophical Investigations
(Routledge, 1997);
Owen Roger Jones, The Private Language Argument (Anchor, 1979); and Andreas Roser, Die Privatsprache
der Privatsprachenkritik bei Ludwig Wittgenstein.
based on [A Philosophical Glossary], [A Dictionary of Philosophical Terms and Names]
12-03-2002
probabilism
<epistemology> the view according to which rational certainty about reality is unattainable; it is similar to
fallibilism and can even border on total skepticism.
[The Ism Book]
27-03-2001
probabilistic
<probability> Relating to, or governed by, probability. The behaviour of a probabilistic system cannot be
predicted exactly but the probability of certain behaviours is known. Such systems may be simulated using
pseudo-random numbers. Evolutionary computation uses probabilistic processes to generate new (potential)
solutions to a problem.
See also deterministic, non-probabilistic.
[FOLDOC]
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probabilistic automaton
non-deterministic automaton
01-12-2003
probability
<philosophical terminology> the likelihood that an event will occur, expressed quantitatively by a number
ranging from 0 (impossible) to 1 (certain). Initial probabilities are often assigned either on the classical
assumption that every possible outcome is equally likely to occur or by careful empirical observation of the
relative frequency with which events have actually occurred in the past. The likelihood of alternative and joint
occurrences can be calculated directly from these initial values.
Patrick Suppes, Foundations of Probability With Applications (Cambridge, 1996);
Richard Jeffrey, Probability and the Art of Judgment (Cambridge, 1992);
Donald Gillies, Philosophical Theories of Probability (Routledge, 2000);
Henry Kyburg, Studies in Subjective Probability (Krieger, 1980); and The Theory of Gambling and Statistical
Logic, ed. by Richard A. Epstein (Academic, 1995).
12-03-2002
problematic - assertoric - apodeictic
<philosophical terminology> distinction among the modalities of propositions. A problematic proposition states
what is possible; an assertoric proposition states what is actual; and an apodeictic proposition states what is
necessary. For example: "A novel could be larger than a dictionary." is problematic. "Atlanta is larger than
Knoxville." is assertoric. "142 is larger than 37." is apodeictic.
12-03-2002
procedural language
<language> (Or "imperative language") A term used in contrast to declarative language to describe a language
where the programmer specifies an explicit sequences of steps to follow to produce a result. Common
procedural languages include Basic, Pascal, C and Modula-2.
[FOLDOC]
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procedure
subroutine
01-12-2003
process
<operating system, software> An executing program. A process consists of the program code (which may be
shared with other processes which are executing the same program), and some private data. It may have other
associated resources such as a process identifier, open files, CPU time limits, shared memory, child
processes, and signal handlers.
A multitasking operating system can run multiple processes concurrently or in parallel.
[FOLDOC]
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product
tuple
01-12-2003
product of sets
intersection
01-12-2003
production system
A production system consists of a collection of productions (rules), a working memory of facts and an algorithm
known as forward chaining for producing new facts from old. A rule becomes eligible to "fire" when its
conditions match some set of elements currently in working memory. A conflict resolution strategy determines
which of several eligible rules (the conflict set) fires next. A condition is a list of symbols which represent
constants, which must be matched exactly; variables which bind to the thing they match and "<> symbol" which
matches a field not equal to symbol. Examples are OPS5, CLIPS, flex.
16-03-2001
productivity
<philosophy of mind> thought is said to be productive, since, in a sense, normal cognitive agents are capable
of having denumerably many distinct thoughts. In other words, to say that thought is productive means that
normal cognitive agents have the competence to entertain denumerably many distinct thoughts.
Ken Aizawa
16-03-2001
program
software
01-12-2003
programming
1. The art of debugging a blank sheet of paper (or, in these days of on-line editing, the art of debugging an
empty file).
2. A pastime similar to banging one' s head against a wall, but with fewer opportunities for reward.
3. The most fun you can have with your clothes on (although clothes are not mandatory).
[Jargon File]
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programming language
<language> A formal language in which computer programs are written. The definition of a particular language
consists of both syntax (how the various symbols of the language may be combined) and semantics (the
meaning of the language constructs).
Languages are classified as low level if they are close to machine code and high level if each language
statement corresponds to many machine code instructions (though this could also apply to a low level
language with extensive use of macros, in which case it would be debatable whether it still counted as low
level).
A roughly parallel classification is the description as first generation language through to fifth generation
language.
Another major distinction is between imperative languages and declarative languages.
[FOLDOC]
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projection
<mathematics, logic> In domain theory, a function, f, which is (a) idempotent, i.e. f(f(x))=f(x) and (b) whose
result is no more defined than its argument. E.g. F(x)=bottom or F(x)=x.
In reduction systems, a function which returns some component of its argument. E.g. head, tail, (x,y) . x.
In a graph reduction system the function can just return a pointer to part of its argument and does not need to
build any new graph.
[FOLDOC]
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projective plane
<mathematics> The space of equivalence classes of vectors under non-zero scalar multiplication. Elements
are sets of the form
kv: k != 0, k scalar, v != O, v a vector
where O is the origin. v is a representative member of this equivalence class.

The projective plane of a vector space is the collection of its 1-dimensional subspaces. The properties of the
vector space induce a topology and notions of smoothness on the projective plane.
A projective plane is in no meaningful sense a plane and would therefore be (but isn' t) better described as a
"projective space".
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
proletarian
<political theory, marxism, communism, capitalism> a worker or wage laborer under capitalism. Contrast:
bourgeois.
See: communism.
22-06-2001
Pronunciation
In this dictionary slashes (/../) bracket phonetic pronunciations of words not found in a standard English
dictionary. The notation, and many of the pronunciations, was adapted from the Hacker' sJargon File.
Syllables are separated by dash or followed single quote or back quote. Single quote means the preceding
syllable is stressed (louder), back quote follows a syllable with intermediate stress (slightly louder), otherwise
all syllables are equally stressed.
Consonants are pronounced as in English but note:
ch soft, as in "church"
g hard, as in "got"
gh aspirated g+h of "bughouse" or "ragheap"
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j voiced, as in "judge"
kh guttural of "loch" or "l' chaim"
s unvoiced, as in "pass"
zh as "s" in "pleasure"
Uppercase letters are pronounced as their English letter names; thus (for example) /H-L-L/ is equivalent
to /aych el el/. /Z/ is pronounced /zee/ in the US and /zed/ in the UK (elsewhere?).
Vowels are represented as follows:
a back, that
ah father, palm (see note)
ar far, mark
aw flaw, caught
ay bake, rain
e less, men
ee easy, ski
eir their, software
i trip, hit
i: life, sky
o block, stock (see note)
oh flow, sew
oo loot, through
or more, door
ow out, how
oy boy, coin
uh but, some
u put, foot
*r fur, insert (only in stressed syllables; otherwise use just "r")
y yet, young
yoo few, chew
[y]oo /oo/ with optional fronting as
in ` news' (/nooz/ or /nyooz/)
A /*/ is used for the ` schwa' sound of unstressed or occluded vowels (often written with an upside -down ` e'
The schwa vowel is omitted in unstressed syllables containing vocalic l, m, n or r; that is, "kitten" and "colour"
would be rendered /kit' n/ and /kuhl' r/, not /kit' *n/ and /kuhl' *r/.
The above table reflects mainly distinctions found in standard American English (that is, the neutral dialect
spoken by TV network announcers and typical of educated speech in the Upper Midwest, Chicago,
Minneapolis/St.Paul and Philadelphia). However, we separate /o/ from /ah/, which tend to merge in standard
American. This may help readers accustomed to accents resembling British Received Pronunciation.
Entries with a pronunciation of ` //' are written
-only.
[FOLDOC]
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proof
1. <logic> A finite, non-empty sequence of wffs F1, F2, ... Fn, where each Fi either is an axiom, or follows by
some rule of inference from some of the previous F' s, and Fn is the statement being proved. In short, a
derivation in which all premises are theorems.
See constructive proof, derivation, existence proof proof theory
2. A left-associative natural language parser by Craig R. Latta . Ported to Decstation 3100, Sun-4.
(ftp://scam.berkeley.edu/pub/src/local/proof/)
Proof, Logic and Formalization, ed. by Michael Detlefsen (Routledge, 1992);
Donald C. Benson, The Moment of Proof: Mathematical Epiphanies (Oxford, 2000);
Lance J. Rips, The Psychology of Proof: Deductive Reasoning in Human Thinking (Bradford, 1994);
and Handbook of Proof Theory, ed. by Samuel R. Buss (Elsevier, 1998).
based on [FOLDOC],
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proof theory
<logic> The study of the deductive apparatuses of formal systems and associated questions of what is
provable in a system (hence, consistency, completeness, and decidability (decidable system), even though
these concepts have a semantic motivation). Broadly, any study of formal systems that makes no reference to
the interpretation of the language but describes procedures for combining logical statements to show, by a
series of truth-preserving transformations, that one statement is a consequence of some other statement or
group of statements.
See also model theory, proof
[Glossary of First-Order Logic]and [FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
proof-theoretic consistency
<logic> (p-consistency) The state of not implying a contradiction.
See maximal p-consistent set, model-theoretic consistency
16-03-2001
proof-theoretic consistent set of wffs
<logic> (p-consistent set) A set of wffs is p-consistent there is no wff A such that both A and ~A can be derived
from the set.
Proof-theoretic inconsistency (p-inconsistency). The state of implying a contradiction.
16-03-2001
proper axiom
axioms
03-12-2003
proper names
<logic, philosophy of language> the view that proper names simply stand for, or denote, individuals without
describing them in any way by philosophers such as J. S. Mill, Russell, and S. Kripke.
The contrary view is that proper names are equivalent to (or have the same meaning as) a definite description
or a cluster of definite descriptions: i.e. that "Aristotle was a student of Plato" is equivalent to "The teacher of
Alexander was a student of Plato", or in the cluster version "The individual who was most of the following --
teacher of Alexander, born in Stagira, wrote the Metaphysics, etc., was a student of Plato". Proper names, as
understood in Mill or Russell' s manner are sometimes also called "logically proper names" or rigid "
designators".
30-04-2001
proper subset
subset
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property dualism
<philosophy of mind> the view that the mental and the physical comprise two different classes of property that
are coinstantiated in the same objects.
According to property dualism, even though mental properties are totally different than physical properties, they
are nonetheless all properties of the same kinds of objects. Thus, for example, a single object instantiates the
property of my being six feet tall and my believing that the Eiffel tower is in France.
Property dualism is compatible with the token identity thesis, but not the type identity thesis. Property dualists
are typically, if not unanimously, anti-reductionists about the mental, which is to say, they deny that it is in-
principle possible to translate mental predicates into physical predicates.
See dualism, substance dualism
Pete Mandik
16-03-2001
proposition
<logic>
1. In truth-functional propositional logic, any statement.
2. In predicate logic, a closed wff, as opposed to a propositional function or open wff.
3. In logic generally (for some), the meaning of a sentence that is invariant through all the paraphrases and
translations of the sentence.
See compound proposition, contingency, contradiction, simple proposition, tautology.
Recommended Readings:
Gabriel Nuchelmans, Judgment and Proposition (Royal Netherlands Academy, 1983) and Philip L. Peterson,
Fact, Proposition, Event (Kluwer, 1997).
based on [Glossary of First-Order Logic],

12-03-2002
propositional calculus
<philosophical terminology> A formal system of symbolic logic concerned with compound statements formed
by the use of truth-functional logical connectives.
Richard L. Epstein, Propositional Logics: The Semantic Foundations of Logic (Wadsworth, 2000);
Hans Kleine Buning and Theodor Lettman, Propositional Logic: Deduction and Algorithms (Cambridge, 1999);
and Howard Pospesel and William G. Lycan, Introduction to Logic: Propositional Logic (Prentice Hall, 1999).
12-03-2002
propositional function
<logic> In predicate logic, a function from individuals to truth-values.

A wff of predicate logic with at least one free variable.
An open wff.
A propositional function becomes a proposition when it is closed (see closure of a wff); it is closed either by
generalization or instantiation, that is, either by binding free variables or replacing them with constants.
See generalization, instantiation, wff, open
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propositional logic
<discipline> also called sentence logic and the sentential calculus. Such a logic concerns elementary
propositions - p, q, r, s, etc. -- respecting which the only assumption is that they should individually be either
true or false, and operators that form complex propositons when joined with appropriate numbers of elementary
propositons. The operators include conjunction (&) hence ' p and q' ; disjunction (v), hence ' p or q' ; negation
-),
hence '-p' ; conditional -->
( ), hence ' If p then q' ; and equivalence ( =), hence ' p is equivalent to q' .
This logic is concerned with determining which complex propositions are logical truths, or tautologies; this
effectively determines what are valid arguments because such can always be treated as complex propositions
in which the premisses of the argument appear as the antecedent and the conclusion as the consequence.
This logic, as opposed to first, or higher, order predicate logic, is complete and decidable.
30-04-2001
Protagoras of Abdera
<history of philosophy, biography> presocratic philosopher (485-415 BC); one of the sophists. Protagoras is
best known for the relativistic assertion that human beings are "the measure of all things".
G. S. Kirk and J. E. Raven, The Presocratic Philosophers: A Critical History With a Selection of Texts
(Cambridge, 1988) and Jonathan Barnes, The Presocratic Philosophers (Routledge, 1982).
12-03-2002
protasis
implication
03-12-2003
protocol
A set of formal rules describing how to transmit data, especially across a network. Low level protocols define
the electrical and physical standards to be observed, bit- and byte-ordering and the transmission and error
detection and correction of the bit stream. High level protocols deal with the data formatting, including the
syntax of messages, the terminal to computer dialogue, character sets, sequencing of messages etc.
Many protocols are defined by RFCs or by OSI.
See also handshaking.
16-03-2001
prototyping
The creation of a model and the simulation of all aspects of a product. CASE tools support different degrees of
prototyping. Some offer the end-user the ability to review all aspects of the user interface and the structure of
documentation and reports before code is generated.
16-03-2001
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Proudhon Pierre-Joseph
<history of philosophy, biography> French anarchist (1809-1865). Proudhon' s Qu' est -ce que la propriètè?
(What is Property?) (1840) defined property as theft and demanded that individual workers be allowed to
control the means of their own production. Proudhon was notoriously anti-feminist, arguing in La Pornocratie
(Pornocracy) that sexual equality and economic independence for women would undermine traditional
marriage.
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, The General Idea of the Revolution in the Nineteenth Century (Pluto, 1989);
John Ehrenberg, Proudhon and His Age (Prometheus, 1996); and George Woodcock, Pierre-Joseph
Proudhon: A Biography (Black Rose, 1996).
12-03-2002
provably difficult
The set or property of problems for which it can be proven that no polynomial-time algorithm exists, only
exponential-time algorithms.
16-03-2001
provably unsolvable
The set or property of problems for which no algorithm at all exists. E.g. the Halting Problem. See also provably
difficult.
16-03-2001
prudence
<philosophical terminology> practical wisdom; sound judgment in everyday life as distinguished from
theoretical wisdom. According to Aristotle, this ability to discover and carry out the proper goals of human life is
a vital element in moral deliberation.
Daniel Mark Nelson, The Priority of Prudence: Virtue and Natural Law in Thomas Aquinas and the Implications
for Modern Ethics (Penn. State, 1992) and Douglas J. Den Uyl, The Virtue of Prudence (Peter Lang, 1991).
12-03-2002
psyche
<philosophical terminology> Greek term for soul as the essential principle of life and the locus of
consciousness. Although used pre-philosophically simply in reference to the "breath of life," the term was
associated by presocratic philosophers, including especially Anaxagoras, with an explanatory principle.
Pythagorean thought proposed that the psyche be understood as the persistent element in the life of an
individual. Plato expanded upon this view with a detailed account of the tripartite soul, with associated human
virtues, and an argument for the immortality of its rational component. Aristotle restored a broader sense of the
term, using it for the several functions characteristic of living things generally. Neoplatonic thinkers made it the
cosmic principle of all motion.
12-03-2002
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psychological egoism
<ethics, psychology> in ethics and psychology, the view that in fact all human beings act solely in their
individual self-interest (so far as they calculate correctly as to what this is). This view -- particularly in the
ethical tradition established by Hobbes -- is often combined, or confused, with the view, which is labeled
"ethical egoism" that all human being ought (whether they do or don' t) each to act in their individual self -
interest.
30-04-2001
psychologism
<philosophy, philosophy of mind> the view according to which psychology (orr cognitive science) is the
foundation for philosophy. Psychologism tends to hold that the current branches of philosophy will become
superfluous or be absorbed by psychology with the development of that science, just as the development of
astronomy removed cosmology from the realm of philosophy.
27-03-2001
public domain
(PD) The total absence of copyright protection. If something is "in the public domain" then anyone can copy it
or use it in any way they wish. The author has none of the exclusive rights which apply to a copyright work.
The phrase "public domain" is often used incorrectly to refer to freeware or shareware (software which is
copyrighted but is distributed without (advance) payment). Public domain means no copyright -- no exclusive
rights. In fact the phrase "public domain" has no legal status at all in the UK.
See also archive site, careware, charityware, copyleft, crippleware, guiltware, postcardware and -ware.
Compare payware.
16-03-2001
public domain software
public domain
03-12-2003
public-key cryptography
public-key encryption
03-12-2003
Public-Key Cryptography Standards
<cryptography, standard> (PKCS) A set of standards for public-key cryptography, developed by RSA Data
Security, Inc. in cooperation with an informal consortium, originally including Apple, Microsoft, DEC, Lotus, Sun
and MIT. The PKCS have been cited by the OSI Implementers' Workshop (OIW) as a method fo
implementation of OSI standards.
PKCS includes both algorithm-specific and algorithm-independent implementation standards. Many algorithms
are supported, including RSA and Diffie-Hellman key exchange, however, only the latter two are specifically
detailed. PKCS also defines an algorithm-independent syntax for digital signatures, digital envelopes, and
extended digital certificates; this enables someone implementing any cryptographic algorithm whatsoever to
conform to a standard syntax, and thus achieve interoperability.
[FOLDOC]
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public-key encryption
<cryptography> (PKE, Or "public-key cryptography") An encryption scheme, introduced by Diffie and Hellman
in 1976, where each person gets a pair of keys, called the public key and the private key. Each person' s public
key is published while the private key is kept secret. Messages are encrypted using the intended recipient' s
public key and can only be decrypted using his private key. This is often used in conjunction with a digital
signature.
The need for sender and receiver to share secret information (keys) via some secure channel is eliminated: all
communications involve only public keys, and no private key is ever transmitted or shared.
Public-key encryption can be used for authentication, confidentiality, integrity and non-repudiation.
RSA encryption is an example of a public-key cryptosystem.
alt.security FAQ
(http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/bngusenet/alt/security/top.html).
See also knapsack problem.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
Pufendorf Samuel
<history of philosophy> German political philosopher (1632-1694). In De jure naturae et gentium (On the Law
of Nature and Nations) (1672) and De officio hominis et civis (On the Duty of Man and Citizen) (1673)
Pufendorf defended a social contract with significant attention to the regulative force of natural law.
Grotius, Pufendorf and Modern Natural Law, ed. by Knud Haakonssen (Dartmouth, 1999) and The Political
Writings of Samuel Pufendorf, ed. by L. Carr Craig and Michael J. Seidler (Oxford, 1995).
12-03-2002
punishment
<philosophical terminology> deliberate infliction of harm as a moral sanction against offenders. Punishment
may be understood, designed, and applied according to any of the three major varieties of normative theory:
retribution and reparation focus on satisfaction of duties, deterrence and prevention on securing desirable
outcomes, and reform and rehabilitation on improving moral character.
Nigel Walker, Why Punish? (Oxford, 1991);
David A. Hoekema, Rights and Wrongs: Coercion, Punishment and the State (Susquehanna, 1987);
Punishment, ed. by John Simmons, Marshall En, Joshua Cohen, and Thomas Scanlon (Princeton, 1994);
Louis P. Pojman and Jeffrey Reiman, The Death Penalty (Rowman & Littlefield, 1998); and David Garland,
Punishment and Modern Society: A Study in Social Theory (Chicago, 1993).
12-03-2002
pure lambda-calculus
Lambda-calculus with no constants, only functions expressed as lambda abstractions.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
pure predicate calculus
predicate logic
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Putnam Hilary
<history of philosophy, biography> American philosopher (1926-). Author of Mind, Language, and Reality
(1975) and Reason, Truth, and History (1981), Putnam decisively rejects the verificationism of the logical
positivists. Although he had earlier defended functionalist accounts of human nature and the external world,
Putnam criticized them in Representation and Reality (1988) and Realism with a Human Face (1990),
preferring a more moderate position he calls "internal realism".
Hilary Putnam, Renewing Philosophy (Harvard, 1995);
Hilary Putnam, The Threefold Cord (Columbia, 2001);
The Twin Earth Chronicles: Twenty Years of Reflection on Hilary Putnam' s ' The Meaning of ' Meaning' ' , ed
Andrew Pessin and Sanford Goldberg (M. E. Sharpe, 1996); and Mark Q. Gardiner, Semantic Challenges to
Realism: Dummett and Putnam (Toronto, 2000).
12-03-2002
Pyrrho of Elis
<history of philosophy, biography> Greek philosopher (365-270 BC) who originated classical skepticism. Since
there are plausible arguments for both sides of any issue, Pyrrho argued, the only rational practice is to
suspend all judgments, abandon worries of every kind (Gk. ataraxia), and live comfortably in an appreciation of
the appearances. His teachings were preserved and amplified by his pupil Timon of Philius.
Edwyn Bevan, Stoics and Skeptics (Ares, 1980) and Richard Bett, Pyrrho, His Antecedents, and His Legacy
(Oxford, 2000).
12-03-2002
Pythagoras
<history of philosophy, biography> legendary presocratic philosopher (585-497 BC) whose followers studied
mathematics, astronomy, and music in their pursuit of lives of harmony with the natural world. The work of the
Pythagoreans is known to us only through fragmentary reports in the writings of other philosophers. According
to Aristotle, for example, the Pythagoreans held that the ultimate constituents of all material objects are
numbers, perhaps understood as geometrical points. Apparently they also held with religious devotion that
souls are naturally immortal and therefore transmigrate at death to other human or animal bodies.
Edouard Schure, Pythagoras and the Delphic Mysteries (Kessinger, 1997);
The Pythagorean Sourcebook and Library, ed. by Kenneth Sylvan Guthrie (Phanes, 1991);
Dominic J. O' Meara, Pythagoras Revived: Mathematics and Philosophy in Late Antiquity (Oxford, 1991); and
John Strohmeier and Peter Westbrook, Divine Harmony: The Life and Teachings of Pythagoras (Berkeley Hills,
1999).
12-03-2002
QED - quod erat demonstrandum
<logic, rethoric> Latin for "what was to be proven". Hence, a common way of identifying the conclusion of a
mathematical or logical argument. (It doesn' t really mean "Quite Easily Done").
02-06-2002
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qualia
<ontology> the intrinsic phenomenal features of subjective consciousness, or sense data. Thus, qualia include
what it is like to see green grass, to taste salt, to hear birds sing, to have a headache, to feel pain, etc.
Providing an adequate account of qualia is sometimes held to be a difficult problem for functionalist
explanations of mental states.
Leopold Stubenberg, Consciousness and Qualia (Benjamins, 1998);
Emotion, Qualia and Consciousness, ed. by Alfred Kaszniak (World Scientific, 2001);
Ming Singer, Unbounded Consciousness: Qualia, Mind and Self (Free Assn., 2001);
Joseph Levine, Purple Haze: The Puzzle of Consciousness (Oxford, 2000).
02-06-2002
quality
the totality of features and characteristics of a product or service that bear on its ability to satisfy stated or
implied needs. Not to be mistaken for "degree of excellence" or "fitness for use" which meet only part of the
definition.
[ISO8402].
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
quality - propositional
<philosophical terminology> along with propositional quantity, one of the distinguishing features among
categorical propositions: an affirmative proposition (A or I) states a relation of inclusion between members of
the classes designated by its terms; a negative proposition (E or O) states a relation of exclusion between
members of the classes designated by its terms.
02-06-2002
Quality Assurance
<testing> (QA) A planned and systematic pattern of all actions necessary to provide adequate confidence that
the product optimally fulfils customer' s expectations.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
Quality Control
<testing> The assessment of product compliance. Independently finding deficiencies assures compliance of
the product with
stated requirements.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
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quantification rules
<philosophical terminology> valid argument forms, including: Universal Instantiation, Universal Generalization,
Existential Instantiation, and Existential Generalization, whose substitution instances may be used to
manipulate the use of quantifiers in a formal proof of the validity of a more complex deductive argument.
02-06-2002
quantification theory
<philosophical terminology> the formal system of logic (also known as the predicate calculus) that incorporates
the entire propositional calculus and adds a set of quantification rules.
02-06-2002
quantifier
<logic> In predicate logic, a symbol telling us of how many objects (in the domain) the predicate is asserted.
The quantifier applies to, or binds, variables which stand as the arguments of predicates. In first-order logic
these variables must range over individuals; in higher-order logics they may range over predicates. See bound
variable, existential import, free variable, generalization, instantiation, predicate logic.
Existential quantifier
The quantifier asserting, "there are some" or "there is at least one".

Notation: E, also V.
For example, the natural translation of (Ex)Px is,
"There is at least one thing with property P."
Universal quantifier
The quantifier asserting, "for all" or "for all things". Notation: (x).
For example, the natural translation of (x)Px is, "All things have property P." The "all" in the universal quantifier
refers to all the objects in the domain of the interpretation (universe of discourse), not to all objects whatsoever.
Vacuous quantifier
A quantifier that binds no variables, e.g. "(y)" in (x)(y)(Ax > Bx).
18-10-2003
quantity - propositional
<philosophical terminology> along with propositional quality, one of the distinguishing features among
categorical propositions: a universal proposition (A or E) refers to all members of the class designated by its
subject term; a particular proposition (I or O) refers only to some members of that class.
02-06-2002
quantum bogodynamics
A theory that characterises the universe in terms of bogon sources (such as politicians, used-car salesmen, TV
evangelists, and suits in general), bogon sinks (such as taxpayers and computers), and bogosity potential
fields. Bogon absorption causes human beings to behave mindlessly and machines to fail (and may also cause
both to emit secondary bogons); however, the precise mechanics of bogon-computron interaction are not yet
understood.
Quantum bogodynamics is most often invoked to explain the sharp increase in hardware and software failures
in the presence of suits; the latter emit bogons, which the former absorb.
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16-03-2001
quantum computer
<computer> A type of computer which uses the ability of quantum systems, such as a collection of atoms, to be
in many different states at once. In theory, such superpositions allow the computer to perform many different
computations simultaneously. This capability is combined with interference among the states to produce
answers to some problems, such as factoring integers, much more rapidly than is possible with conventional
computers. In practice, such machines have not yet been built due to their extreme sensitivity to noise.
Oxford University (http://eve.physics.ox.ac.uk/QChome.html),

Stanford University (http://feynman.stanford.edu/qcomp/).
A quantum search algorithm

(ftp://parcftp.xerox.com/pub/dynamics/quantum.html) for constraint satisfaction problems exhibits the phase
transition for NP-complete problems.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
quantum computing
quantum computer
15-05-2004
quantum consciousness theories of
<philosophy of mind> theories which explore possible connections between quantum mechanical phenomena
and consciousness.
Rick Grush
16-03-2001
quantum mechanics
<philosophical terminology> a physical theory developed by Planck, Heisenberg, and Schroedinger. Quantum
theory typically permits only probable or statistical calculation of the observed features of subatomic particles,
understood in terms of wave functions.
Roland Omnes, Understanding Quantum Mechanics (Princeton, 1999);
Peter Kosso, Appearance and Reality: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Physics (Oxford, 1997);
Hans Reichenbach, Philosophic Foundations of Quantum Mechanics (Dover, 1998);
A. P. French and Edwin F. Taylor, Introduction to Quantum Physics (Norton, 1978);
What Is Quantum Mechanics?: A Physics Adventure, ed. by John Nambu and Philip Heit (Blackwell, 1996).
[A Dictionary of Philsophical Terms and Names]
02-06-2002
quaternio terminorum
<philosophical terminology> Latin name for the fallacy of four terms.
04-06-2002
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Queens Puzzle
Eight Queens Puzzle
15-05-2004
query
1. <database, information science> A user' s (oragent' s) request for information, generally as a formal reques
to a database or search engine.
SQL is the most common database query language.
2. <character> question mark.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
queue
<programming, PI> A first-in first-out data structure used to sequence multiple demands for a resource such as
a printer, processor or communications channel. Objects are added to the tail of the queue and taken off the
head.
A typical use of queues in an operating system involves a user command which places something on a queue,
e.g. a file on a printer queue or a job on a job queue, and a background process or "demon" which takes things
off and processes them (e.g. prints or executes them). Another common use is to pass data between an
interrupt handler and a user process.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
Quine Willard Van Orman
<history of philosophy> born in Ohio, Quine (1908-2000) studied at Oberlin College and Harvard University,
where he became professor of philosophy in 1936. His contributions to the development of contemporary
philosophy often involve subtle modification of the empiricist traditions of pragmatism and logical positivism. In
" Two Dogmas of Empricism" (1951), for example, Quine criticized excessive reliance on the analytic/synthetic
distinction, maintaining that a whole system of beliefs must be held up for scrutiny in the light of new
experience. The other papers collected in From a Logical Point of View (1953) amplify on this suggestion. In
the naturalistic mode of Word and Object (1960) Quine proposed the indeterminacy of radical translation, on
which a single sentence must always be taken to have more than one different meaning. Author of the textbook
Mathematical Logic (1940), Quine applied the techniques of formal reasoning in The Ways of Paradox (1966),
and Ontological Relativity (1969), holding that the ontological commitments of any view can be determined by
examining the entities over which a formal language expressing it is employed to quantify. More recent
expositions of Quine' sphilosophy appear in The Roots of Reference (1973) and Pursuit of Truth (1990).
Although his own positions are commonly naturalistic and physicalistic, Quine' s major contribution to
contemporary American philosophy has been the consistent application of his analytic methods.
Primary sources:
W.V.O.Quine, From a Logical Point of View: Nine Logico-Philosophical Essays (Harvard, 1980);
W.V.O.Quine, Word and Object (MIT, 1964);
W.V.O.Quine, The Ways of Paradox, and Other Essays (Harvard, 1976);
W.V.O.Quine, Ontological Relativity (Columbia, 1977);
W.V.O.Quine, From Stimulus to Science (Harvard, 1998);
W.V.O.Quine, Theories and Things (Belknap, 1986);
W.V.O.Quine, Pursuit of Truth (Harvard, 1992);
W.V.O.Quine, Quiddities: An Intermittently Philosophical Dictionary (Harvard, 1989).
Secondary sources:
Ilham Dilman, Quine on Ontology, Necessity, and Experience (SUNY, 1984);
The Philosophy of W. V. Quine, ed. by Lewis Edwin Hahn and Paul A. Schilpp (Open Court, 1998).
Additional on-line information about Quine includes:

Douglas Boynton Quine' s professional and personal information.
Eddie Yeghiayan' s bibliography of Quine' s writings.
C. J. Hookway' s article in The Oxford Companion to Philosophy.
Also see: American philosophy, analytic and synthetic statements, analytic philosophy, existence, Harvard
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philosophy, intersubjectivity, philosophy of language, philosophy of mathematics, meaning, opposition to

metaphysics, neo-pragmatism, things, ' to be' , the verb, and the indeterminacy of translation.

Roger Gibson' s discussion of Quine' s ontology.
Nicke Bostrum on Quine' s theories of indeterminacy.
Snippets from Quine in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations.
Assessment of Quine' s mathematical logic from
Mathematical MacTutor.
[A Dictionary of Philosophical Terminology]
04-06-2002
quotient
The number obtained by dividing one number (the "numerator") by another (the "denominator"). If both
numbers are rational then the result will also be rational.
16-03-2001
radix
<mathematics> (Or "base", "number base") In a positional

representation of numbers, that integer by which the
significance of one digit place must be multiplied to give the
significance of the next higher digit place. Conventional
decimal numbers are radix ten, binary numbers are radix two.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
Ramsey Frank Plumpton
<biography, history of philosophy> British mathematician

and philosopher (1903-1930) who contributed to the second
edition of Russell and Whitehead' s Principia Mathematica.
Ramsey' s "Truth and Probability" (1926) and Foundations of
Mathematics (1931) clarified the nature of semantic paradox,
developed modern applications of the probability calculus,
and introduced the redundancy theory of truth. He was an
early admirer of Wittgenstein,whose Tractatus Ramsey
translated into English and whose return to England in 1929
he helped to arrange.
Recommended Reading: Frank Plumpton Ramsey, Philosophical
Papers, ed. by D. H. Mellor (Cambridge, 1990) and Nils-Eric
Sahlin, The Philosophy of F. P. Ramsey (Cambridge, 1990).
25-11-2003
Ramus Petrus - Pierre de la Ramee
<biography, history of philosophy> French logician (1515-1572).

In his Dialecticae Partitiones (The Structure of Dialectic)
(1543), Ramus attacked the influence of Aristotelean thinking
on education and philosophy, proposing an alternative method of
reasoning that emphasized the invention of
rhetorical dichotomies. This work was a significant influence
on that of Bacon and Hobbes.
Recommended Reading: Arguments in Rhetoric Against Quintilian:
Translation and Text of Peter Ramus' s Rhetoricae Distinctiones
in Quintilianum, tr. by James Murphy and Carole Newlands
(Northern Illinois, 1986).
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25-11-2003
Rand Ayn - Alissa Rosenbaum
<biography, history of philosophy> Russian-American novelist

and essayist (1905-1982). In addition to the social theories
reflected in her popular novels, Rand introduced the
philosophy of objectivism in Introduction to Objectivist
Epistemology (1966) and defended a version of ethical egoism
in The Virtue of Selfishness: A New Concept of Egoism (1964).
Recommended Reading: Chris Matthew Sciabarra, Ayn Rand: Her
Life and Thought (Objectivist Center, 1999); David Kelley,
The Contested Legacy of Ayn Rand (Objectivist Center, 2000);
Leonard Peikoff, Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand
(Meridian, 1993); and Feminist Interpretations of Ayn Rand,
ed. by Mimi Reisel Gladstein and Chris Matthew Sciabarra
(Penn. State, 1999).
25-11-2003
random
1. Unpredictable (closest to mathematical definition); weird.

"The system' s been behaving pretty randomly."
2. Assorted; undistinguished. "Who was at the conference?"

"Just a bunch of random business types."
3. (pejorative) Frivolous; unproductive; undirected. "He' s

just a random loser."
4. Incoherent or inelegant; poorly chosen; not well organised.

"The program has a random set of misfeatures." "That' s a
random name for that function." "Well, all the names were
chosen pretty randomly."
5. In no particular order, though deterministic. "The I/O

channels are in a pool, and when a file is opened one is
chosen randomly."
6. Arbitrary. "It generates a random name for the scratch

file."
7. Gratuitously wrong, i.e. poorly done and for no good

apparent reason. For example, a program that handles file
name defaulting in a particularly useless way, or an assembler
routine that could easily have been coded using only three
registers, but redundantly uses seven for values with
non-overlapping lifetimes, so that no one else can invoke it
without first saving four extra registers. What randomness!
8. A random hacker; used particularly of high-school students

who soak up computer time and generally get in the way.
9. Anyone who is not a hacker (or, sometimes, anyone not

known to the hacker speaking). "I went to the talk, but the
audience was full of randoms asking bogus questions".
10. (occasional MIT usage) One who lives at Random Hall. See
also J. Random, some random X.
25-11-2003
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randomness
1. An inexplicable misfeature; gratuitous inelegance.
2. A hack or crock that depends on a complex combination

of coincidences (or, possibly, the combination upon which the
crock depends for its accidental failure to malfunction).
"This hack can output characters 40--57 by putting the
character in the four bit accumulator field of an XCT and then
extracting six bits - the low 2 bits of the XCT opcode are
the right thing." "What randomness!"
3. Of people, synonymous with "flakiness". The connotation is

that the person so described is behaving weirdly,
incompetently, or inappropriately for reasons which are (a)
too tiresome to bother inquiring into, (b) are probably as
inscrutable as quantum phenomena anyway, and (c) are likely to
pass with time. "Maybe he has a real complaint, or maybe it' s
just randomness. See if he calls back."
[Jargon File]
25-11-2003
range
<logic>
The set of objects that may serve as the values (outputs)
of a function.
16-03-2001
rational
<Mathematics> a fractional number n/d, where n and d are

integers, n is the numerator and d is the denominator. The
set of all rational numbers is usually called Q.
Computers do not usually deal with rational numbers but
instead convert them to real numbers which are represented
(approximately in some cases) as floating-point numbers.
Compare irrational.
<logic, epistemology> respecting logical principles of

validity and consistency and answering to the evidence
of experience.
based on [Philosophical Glossary]
25-11-2003
rational numbers
<logic>
All numbers that are equal to the ratio of two integers.
16-03-2001
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rationalism
<philosophical terminology> reliance on reason

as the only reliable source of human knowledge. In the most
general application, rationalism offers a naturalistic
alternative to appeals to religious accounts of human nature
and conduct. More specifically, rationalism is the
epistemological theory that significant knowledge of the
world can best be achieved by a priori means; it therefore
stands in contrast to empiricism. Prominent rationalists
of the modern period include Descartes, Spinoza and
Leibniz.
Recommended Reading: The Rationalists (Anchor, 1960); The
Rationalists: Critical Essays on Descartes, Spinoza, and
Leibniz, ed. by Dirk Pereboom (Rowman & Littlefield, 1999);
John Cottingham, Rationalism (St. Augustine Press, 1997);
David Miller, Critical Rationalism: A Restatement and
Defence (Open Court, 1994); and Laurence Bonjour, In Defense
of Pure Reason: A Rationalist Account of A Priori
Justification (Cambridge, 1997).
25-11-2003
rationalist
specifically, continental philosopher of the 17th-18th century
such as Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz. These philosophers tended
to believe that science abounds in pure, a priori, necessary,
rational truths that may be discovered through introspective,
rational analysis of concepts or ideas that derive more
from innate
principles of human though than from
our actual sensory experience.
empiricist, neorationalist, neo-empiricist
25-11-2003
raw data
data
25-11-2003
Rawls John
<history of philosophy, biography> American political

philosopher born in 1921. As presented in A Theory of
Justice (1971), Rawls' s concept of "justice as fairness"
offers a non-historical or hypothetical variation on the
social contract theory, in which rational agents make
social decisions from behind a "veil of ignorance" that
prevents them from knowing in advance what status they
will hold. According to Rawls, this method will produce
a society where individual liberties are maximized for
all citizens and social inequality is justifiable only
under conditions that would be beneficial for its
least-favored members. Further exposition of this theory,
along with a restatement Rawls' s opposition to
utilitarianism and an examination of political pluralism,
appear in Political Liberalism (1993). Two Concepts of
Rules (1955) is an early statement of Rawls' s basic
principles.
Recommended Reading: John Rawls, Collected Papers, ed. by
Samuel Freeman (Harvard, 2001); John Rawls, The Law of
Peoples (Harvard, 2001); Chandran Kukathas and Philip Pettit,
Rawls: A Theory of Justice and Its Critics (Stanford, 1991);
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and Reading Rawls: Critical Studies on Rawl' s ' A Theory of

Justice' , ed. by Norman Daniels (Stanford, 1989).
25-11-2003
re-engineering
reverse engineering
00-00-0000
real
1. Not simulated. Often used as a specific antonym to

virtual in any of its jargon senses.
2. <mathematics> real number.
16-03-2001
real number
<mathematics> Briefly,
The rational plus the irrational numbers. The real number
line is also
called the real number (or numerical) continuum.
One of the infinitely divisible range of values

between positive and negative infinity, used to represent
continuous physical quantities such as distance, time and
temperature.
Between any two real numbers there are infinitely many more
real numbers. The integers ("counting numbers") are real
numbers with no fractional part and real numbers ("measuring
numbers") are complex numbers with no imaginary part. Real
numbers can be divided into rational numbers and irrational
numbers.
Real numbers are usually represented (approximately) by

computers as floating point numbers.
Strictly, real numbers are the equivalence classes of the

Cauchy sequences of rationals under the equivalence
relation "~", where a ~ b if and only if a-b is Cauchy with
limit 0.
The real numbers are the minimal topologically closed

field containing the rational field.
A sequence, r, of rationals (i.e. a function, r, from the

natural numbers to the rationals) is said to be Cauchy
precisely if, for any tolerance delta there is a size, N,
beyond which: for any n, m exceeding N,
| r[n] - r[m] | < delta
A Cauchy sequence, r, has limit x precisely if, for any

tolerance delta there is a size, N, beyond which: for any n
exceeding N,
| r[n] - x | < delta
(i.e. r would remain Cauchy if any of its elements, no matter

how late, were replaced by x).
It is possible to perform addition on the reals, because the

equivalence class of a sum of two sequences can be shown to be
the equivalence class of the sum of any two sequences
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equivalent to the given originals: ie, a~b and c~d implies

a+c~b+d; likewise a.c~b.d so we can perform multiplication.
Indeed, there is a natural embedding of the rationals in the
reals (via, for any rational, the sequence which takes no
other value than that rational) which suffices, when extended
via continuity, to import most of the algebraic properties of
the rationals to the reals.
[FOLDOC]
25-11-2003
Real World
1. Those institutions at which "programming" may be used in

the same sentence as "Fortran", "COBOL", "RPG", "IBM",
"DBASE", etc. Places where programs do such commercially
necessary but intellectually uninspiring things as generating
payroll checks and invoices.
2. The location of non-programmers and activities not related

to programming.
3. A bizarre dimension in which the standard dress is shirt

and tie and in which a person' s working hours are defined as 9
to 5 (see code grinder).
4. Anywhere outside a university. "Poor fellow, he' s left MIT

and gone into the Real World." Used pejoratively by those not
in residence there. In conversation, talking of someone who
has entered the Real World is not unlike speaking of a
deceased person. It is also noteworthy that on the campus of
Cambridge University in England, there is a gaily-painted
lamp-post which bears the label "REALITY CHECKPOINT". It
marks the boundary between university and the Real World;
check your notions of reality before passing. This joke is
funnier because the Cambridge "campus" is actually coextensive
with the centre of Cambridge.
25-11-2003
real-time
1. Describes an application which requires a program to

respond to stimuli within some small upper limit of response
time (typically milli- or microseconds). Process control at a
chemical plant is the classic example. Such applications
often require special operating systems (because everything
else must take a back seat to response time) and speed-tuned
hardware.
2. In jargon, refers to doing something while people are

watching or waiting. "I asked her how to find the calling
procedure' s program counter on the stack and she came up with
an algorithm in real time."
Used to describe a system that must guarantee a response to an

external event within a given time.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
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realism
<philosophical terminology> belief that universals exist

independently of the particulars that instantiate them.
Realists hold that each general term signifies a real
feature or quality, which is numerically the same in all
the things to which that term applies. Thus, opposed to
nominalism.
Recommended Reading: The Problem of Universals, ed. by
Andrew B. Schoedinger (Humanity, 1991); Richard I. Aaron,
Our Knowledge of Universals (Haskell House, 1975);
Theodore Scaltsas, Substances and Universals in Aristotle' s
Metaphysics (Cornell, 1994); Properties, ed. by D. H. Mellor
and Alex Oliver (Oxford, 1997); and D. M. Armstrong,
Universals: An Opinionated Introduction (Westview, 1989).
25-11-2003
realism perceptual
<philosophical terminology> belief that material objects

exist independently of our perception of them. (Thus,
opposed to idealism.) Realistic theories of perception
include both representationalism, in which awareness of
objects is mediated by our ideas of them, and
direct realism, which presumes an immediate relation
between observer and observed.
Recommended Reading: Critical Realism: Essential Readings,
ed. by Margaret Archer, Roy Bhaskar, Andrew Collier, and
Tony Lawson (Routledge, 1999); David Kelley, The Evidence of
the Senses: A Realist Theory of Perception (Louisiana State,
1988); Hilary Putnam, Realism With a Human Face (Harvard,
1992); Gustav Bergmann, Realism: A Critique of Brentano &
Meinong (Wisconsin, 1967); and Simon Blackburn, Essays
in Quasi-Realism (Oxford, 1995).
06-05-2002
realist
<epistmology, realism, philosophical school>

1. generally, someone who claims that various sorts of things that
are not realized completely in our (sensory) experience are real.
The things in question might be, e.g.: numbers, infinite
constructions, material objects, theoretical entities (atoms, the
unconscious mind, etc.) and so on.
2. during the middle ages "realist" specifically meant someone who

maintained that there are
universals (e.g. "horsiness", "humanity")
corresponding to words such as "horse" and "human" and not just
individual things. nominalist
30-04-2001
reality
<philosophical terminology> the totality of what is, as

opposed to what merely seems to be. Metaphysicians and
ontologists differ widely in their convictions about what
kinds of entities are properly included.
Recommended Reading: Peter Loptson, Reality: Fundamental
Topics in Metaphysics (Toronto, 2001); Milton K. Munitz,
The Question of Reality (Princeton, 1992); John W. Yolton,
Realism and Appearances: An Essay in Ontology (Cambridge,
2000); John R. Searle, The Construction of Social Reality
(Free Press, 1997); and Robert Kirk, Relativism and Reality:
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A Contemporary Introduction (Routledge, 1999).
06-05-2002
reason
<philosophical terminology> the intellectual ability to

apprehend the truth cognitively, either immediately in
intuition, or by means of a process of inference.
Recommended Reading: Thomas Nagel, The Last Word (Oxford,
1996); Harold I. Brown, Rationality (Routledge, 1988);
Martin Hollis, The Cunning of Reason (Cambridge, 1988);
Max Horkheimer, Eclipse of Reason (Continuum, 1974);
Ernest Gellner, Reason and Culture: The Historic Role of
Rationality and Rationalism (Blackwell, 1992); and Paul
M. Churchland, The Engine of Reason, the Seat of the Soul:
A Philosophical Journey into the Brain (MIT, 1996).
06-05-2002
recipient
<communications> One who receives; receiver. E.g. "No

recipient of the e-mail message will know about the other
addresses who were listed in the BCC header."
[FOLDOC]
25-11-2003
recollection
<philosophical terminology> belief that we come to know

fundamental truths by recalling our acquaintance with their
eternal objects before birth. Plato (perhaps following the
lead of Socrates) defended recollection as the source
of our knowledge of mathematics and morality in
Meno, Phaedo, and The Republic.
Recommended Reading: Plato, Five Dialogues: Euthyphro,
Apology, Crito, Meno, Phaedo, tr. by G.M.A. Grube (Hackett,
1983) and Dominic Scott, Recollection and Experience:
Plato' s Theory of Learning and Its Successors (Cambridge, 1995).
06-05-2002
record
<data, database> An ordered set of fields. The term is

used in both files (where a record is also called a "line")
and databases (where it is also called a "row"). In a
spreadsheet it is always called a "row". In all these cases
the records represent different entities with different values
for the attributes represented by the fields.
Fields may be of a fixed width (bits or characters) or

they may be separated by a delimiter character, often
comma (CSV) or HT (TSV).
The collection of all values of a given field from all records

is called a column.
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recourse
To perform recursion.
16-03-2001
recursion
<mathematics, programming, PI> When a function (or procedure)

calls itself. Such a function is called "recursive". If the
call is via one or more other functions then this group of
functions are called "mutually recursive".
If a function will always call itself, however it is called,

then it will never terminate. Usually however, it first
performs some test on its arguments to check for a "base case"
- a condition under which it can return a value without
calling itself.
The canonical example of a recursive function is

factorial:
factorial 0 = 1
factorial n = n * factorial (n-1)
Functional programming languages rely heavily on recursion,

using it where a procedural language would use iteration.
See also recursion, recursive definition, tail recursion.
<philosophical terminology> capable of being indefinitely

re-applied to the results of its own application. Hence,
a recursive definition is one that begins with one or
more initial instances and then specifies the repeatable
rules for deriving others. Thus, for example: "A person' s
descendants include that person' s children and all of
their descendants" is a recursive definition (not a
circular definition) of the word "descendant".
(The compound statements of the propositional calculus
and the natural numbers of arithmetic are often defined
recursively.)
Recommended Reading: Robert L. Causey, Logic, Sets, and
Recursion (Jones & Bartlett, 2001); Raymond M. Smullyan,
Recursion Theory for Metamathematics (Oxford, 1993); George
S. Boolos and Richard D. Jeffrey, Computability and Logic
(Cambridge, 1989); and Joseph R. Shoenfield, Recursion Theory
(A. K. Peters, 2001).
27-11-2003
recursive
recursion
00-00-0000
recursive definition
recursive definition.
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recursive function
<logic>
Any function obtained from a small number of
intuitively computable
functions by a finite number of applications
of function-building
operations.
General recursive functions
The set of primitive recursive functions plus those

that can be built
with terminating unbounded minimization.
Partial recursive functions

The set of general recursive functions plus those
that can be built with
non-terminating unbounded minimization.
Primitive recursive functions
The set of recursive functions that can be built

using only composition,
primitive recursion, and bounded (hence terminating) minimization.
16-03-2001
recursive function theory
<logic>
If we start with a small number of intuitively
computable functions, and
a small number of operations that create new computable functions
from
old
ones, then we can generate a large set of functions
called recursive
functions. If we pick the initial functions and
building operations
so as to
capture what we take to be all the intuitively computable
functions,
then we
generate a set with the same extension as the set of
Turing-computable
functions. (This led Church to conjecture - Church' s thesis-
that all intuitively
computable
functions or effective methods are recursive functions.)
Recursive
function
theory studies these functions, their method of generation,
ways to
prove
that some functions are not recursive in this sense, and related
matters.
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recursive set
<logic>
A set for which there is a recursive function to determine
whether any
given object is a member. See decidable set, recursive function
See recursively enumerable set
16-03-2001
recursive type
A data type which contains itself. The commonest example is

the list type, in Haskell:
data List a = Nil | Cons a (List a)
which says a list of a' s is either an empty list or a cons

cell containing an ' a' (the "head" of the list) and another
list (the "tail").
Recursion is not allowed in Miranda or Haskell synonym

types, so the following Haskell types are illegal:
type Bad = (Int, Bad)

type Evil = Bool -> Evil
whereas the seemingly equivalent algebraic data types are

acceptable:
data Good = Pair Int Good

data Fine = Fun (Bool->Fine)
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reductio ad absurdum
<philosophical terminology> a method of proving that a

proposition must be false (or true) by assuming the
truth (or falsity) of the proposition and then
showing that this assumption, taken together with other
premises whose truth is already established, would lead
to a contradiction (or, at least, to an obvious falsehood).
This method is sometimes called indirect proof.
27-11-2003
reduction
<PI>
(Or "contraction") The process of transforming an expression
according to certain reduction rules. The most important
forms are beta reduction (application of a lambda
abstraction to one or more argument expressions) and delta
reduction (application of a mathematical function to the
required number of arguments).
An evaluation strategy (or reduction strategy), determines

which part of an expression (which redex) to reduce first.
There are many such strategies.
See graph reduction, string reduction, normal order

reduction, applicative order reduction, parallel
reduction, alpha conversion, beta conversion, delta
conversion, eta conversion.
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reductionism
<philosophical terminology> belief that statements or

expressions of one sort can be replaced systematically by
statements or expressions of a simpler or more certain kind.
Thus, for example, some philosophers have held that
arithmetic can be reduced to logic, that the mental
can be reduced to the physical, or that the life sciences
can be reduced to the physical sciences.
Recommended Reading: Ernest Nagel, Structure of Science
(Hackett, 1979); Richard H. Jones, Reductionism: Analysis
and the Fullness of Reality (Bucknell, 2000);
Reduction, Explanation and Realism, ed. by David Charles and
Kathleen Lennon (Oxford, 1993); Valerie Gray Hardcastle,
How to Build a Theory in Cognitive Science (SUNY, 1996);
and Harold Kincaid, Individualism and the Unity of Science
(Rowman & Littlefield, 1997).
27-11-2003
redundancy
1. <parallel> The provision of multiple interchangeable

components to perform a single function in order to cope with
failures and errors. Redundancy normally applies primarily to
hardware. For example, one might install two or even three
computers to do the same job. There are several ways these
could be used. They could all be active all the time thus
giving extra performance through parallel processing as well
as extra availability; one could be active and the others
simply monitoring its activity so as to be ready to take over
if it failed ("warm standby"); the "spares" could be kept
turned off and only switched on when needed ("cold standby").
Another common form of hardware redundancy is disk
mirroring.
Redundancy can also be used to detect and recover from errors,

either in hardware or software. A well known example of this
is the cyclic redundancy check which adds redundant data to
a block in order to detect corruption during storage or
transmission. If the cost of errors is high enough, e.g. in a
safety-critical system, redundancy may be used in both
hardware AND software with three separate computers programmed
by three separate teams and some system to check that they all
produce the same answer, or some kind of majority voting
system.
2. <communications> The proportion of a message' s gross

information content that can be eliminated without losing
essential information.
Technically, redundancy is one minus the ratio of the actual

uncertainty to the maximum uncertainty. This is the fraction
of the structure of the message which is determined not by the
choice of the sender, but rather by the accepted statistical
rules governing the choice of the symbols in question.
[Shannon and Weaver, 1948, p. l3]
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redundancy theory of truth
<philsophical terminology> belief that it is always logically

superfluous to claim that a proposition is true, since this
claim adds nothing further to a simple affirmation of the
proposition itself. "It is true that I am bald" means the
same thing as "I am bald".
Recommended Reading: Theories of Truth, ed. by Paul Horwich
(Dartmouth, 1994) and Richard L. Kirkham, Theories of Truth:
A Critical Introduction (Bradford, 1995).
27-11-2003
reference
<philosophical terminology> the relation that holds between

a term and the things to which it applies;
Recommended Reading: A. W. Moore, Meaning and Reference

(Oxford, 1993); The Varieties of Reference, ed. by Gareth Evans,
Garbeth Evans, and John McDowell (Oxford, 1983); P. T. Geach,
Reference and Generality: An Examination of Some Medieval and
Modern Theories (Cornell, 1962); The Frege Reader, ed. by
Michael Beaney (Blackwell, 1997); and The New Theory of Reference
- Kripke, Marcus, and Its Origins, ed. by Paul W. Humphreys and
James H. Fetzer (Kluwer, 1999).
27-11-2003
reflection
<epistemology, psychology> according to Locke: the inner

perception by which minds are aware of their own
thoughts. See apperception.
27-11-2003
reflexive
A relation R is reflexive if, for all x, x R x.
Equivalence relations, pre-orders, partial orders and

total orders are all reflexive.
[FOLDOC]
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reflexive domain
A domain satisfying a recursive domain equation.

E.g. D = D -> D.
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Reflexive transitive closure
Two elements, x and y, are related by the reflexive transitive

closure, R+, of a relation, R, if they are related by the
transitive closure, R*, or they are the same element.
16-03-2001
refutable
In lazy functional languages, a refutable pattern is one which

may fail to match. An expression being matched against a
refutable pattern is first evaluated to head normal form
(which may fail to terminate) and then the top-level
constructor of the result is compared with that of the
pattern. If they are the same then any arguments are matched
against the pattern' s arguments otherwise the match fails.
An irrefutable pattern is one which always matches. An

attempt to evaluate any variable in the pattern forces the
pattern to be matched as though it were refutable which may
fail to match (resulting in an error) or fail to terminate.
Patterns in Haskell are normally refutable but may be made

irrefutable by prefixing them with a tilde (~). For example,
( (x,y) -> 1) undefined ==> undefined

( ~(x,y) -> 1) undefined ==> 1
Patterns in Miranda are refutable, except for tuples which are

irrefutable. Thus
g [x] = 2
g undefined ==> undefined
f (x,y) = 1
f undefined ==> 1
Pattern bindings in local definitions are irrefutable in both

languages:
h = 1 where [x] = undefined ==> 1

Irrefutable patterns can be used to simulate unlifted products
because they effectively ignore the top-level constructor of
the expression being matched and consider only its components.
16-03-2001
Regan Tom
<history of philosophy, biography> American philosopher born

in 1938. In The Case for Animal Rights (1983) and The Thee
Generation: Reflections on the Coming Revolution (1991)
Regan develops a comprehensive theory in favor of granting
moral respect to non-human animals.
Recommended Reading: Tom Regan, Defending Animal Rights
(Illinois, 2001) and Carl Cohen and Tom Regan, The Animal
Rights Debate (Rowman & Littlefield, 2001).
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Regis Pierre-Sylvain
<history of philosophy, biography> French Cartesian

philosopher (1632-1707). Unable to secure an adequate
metaphysical defense of mind-body dualism, Regis
proposed that the interaction of accidentally conjoined
substances can only be accepted on faith.
27-11-2003
regression
1. <mathematics> A mathematical method where an empirical

function is derived from a set of experimental data.
2. regression testing.
[FOLDOC]
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Reichenbach Hans
<history of philosophy, biography> German-American philosopher

of science (1891-1953) whose Philosophie der Raum-Zeit-Lehre
(The Philosophy of Space and Time) (1928) considered the
philosophical implications of Einstein' s theory of relativity.
Reichenbach contributed significantly to the mathematical
conception of probability as relative frequency of occurrence.
Despite his long association with the logical positivists, in
Experience and Prediction (1938), he explicitly rejected their
reductionist and phenomenalist aims. The Rise of Scientific
Philosophy (1951) provides an accessible summary of
Reichenbach' s thought.
Recommended Reading: Hans Reichenbach, Philosophic Foundations
of Quantum Mechanics (Dover, 1998); Hans Reichenbach,The
Direction of Time (Dover, 2000); Karin Gerner, Hans Reichenbach:
sein Leben und Wirken: eine wissenschaftliche Biographie; and
Logical Empiricism and the Special Sciences: Reichenbach, Feigl,
and Nagel, ed. by Sahotra Sarkar (Garland, 1996).
27-11-2003
Reid Thomas
<history of philosophy, biography> Scottish philosopher

(1710-1796) who developed "common-sense" philosophy in reaction
against the skepticism of Hume in his An Inquiry into the
Human Mind on the Principles of Common Sense (1764). Reid
criticized the trend of modern philosophy in Essays on the
Intellectual Powers (1785), rejecting the representationalism
he called "the way of ideas" in order to defend direct realism
in perception. In Essays on the Active Powers of the Human
Mind (1788) Reid developed an intuitionist moral theory that
drew heavily upon the natural law tradition.
Recommended Reading: Thomas Reid' s Inquiry and Essays
(Hackett, 1983); Keith Lehrer, Thomas Reid (Routledge, 1999);
Peimin Ni, On Reid (Wadsworth, 2000); Nicholas Wolterstorff,
Thomas Reid and the Story of Epistemology (Cambridge, 2001);
The Philosophy of Thomas Reid, ed. by Melvin Dalgarno and
Eric Matthews (Kluwer, 1989); and William L. Rowe, Thomas Reid
on Freedom and Morality (Cornell, 1991).
27-11-2003
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reification
<philosophical terminology> improperly treating something as if

it were an object. In the political thought of Lukacs and
other Marxists, reification often involves trying to turn human
beings into marketable commodities. The philosophical reification
of abstract concepts is commonly called hypostasization.
Recommended Reading: Joseph Gabel, False Consciousness: An Essay
on Reification (Harpercollins, 1985) and Bryan D. Palmer,
Descent into Discourse: The Reification of Language and the
Writing of Social History (Temple, 1990).
12-05-2002
reify
to regard something abstract as a material thing.
16-03-2001
reinvent the wheel
<jargon> To design or implement a tool equivalent to an

existing one or part of one, with the implication that doing
so is silly or a waste of time. This is often a valid
criticism. On the other hand, automobiles don' t use wooden
rollers, and some kinds of wheel have to be reinvented many
times before you get them right. On the third hand, people
reinventing the wheel do tend to come up with the moral
equivalent of a trapezoid with an offset axle.
16-03-2001
relation
1. <logic>
A way in which two or more objects are connected, associated, or
related, or (at a different level) a polyadic predicate
symbolizing such
a
relation. See attribute, predicate logic
2. <mathematics> A subset of the product of two sets, R : A

x B. If (a, b) is an element of R then we write a R b,
meaning a is related to b by R. A relation may be:
reflexive (a R a), symmetric (a R b => b R a),
transitive (a R b & b R c => a R c), antisymmetric (a R b
& b R a => a = b) or total (a R b or b R a).
See equivalence relation, partial ordering, pre-order,

total ordering.
3. <database> A table in a relational database.
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relational algebra
<database, theory> A family of algebra with a well-founded

semantics used for modelling the data stored in relational
databases, and defining queries on it. The main operations
of the relational algebra are the set operations (such as
union, intersection, and Cartesian product), selection
(keeping only some lines of a table) and the projection
(keeping only some columns).
The relational data model describes how the data is

structured.
Codd' s reduction algorithm can convert from relational

calculus to relational algebra.
[FOLDOC]
27-11-2003
relational calculus
<database> An operational methodology, founded on predicate

calculus, dealing with descriptive expressions that are
equivalent to the operations of relational algebra. Codd' s
reduction algorithm can convert from relational calculus to
relational algebra.
Two forms of the relational calculus exist: the tuple

calculus and the domain calculus.
["An Introduction To Database Systems" (6th ed), C. J. Date,

Addison Wesley].
[FOLDOC]
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relative consistency proof
<logic>
The proof that some system S is consistent by appeal to
theorems and
methods of reasoning from some other system S' . The result is
that we
know
that S is consistent only if system S' is consistent.
Hilbert' s program
27-11-2003
relatively prime
<mathematics> Having no common divisors (greater than 1).
Two numbers are said to be relatively prime if there is no

number greater than unity that divides both of them evenly.
For example, 10 and 33 are relatively prime. 15 and 33 are not

relatively prime, since 3 is a divisor of both.
[FOLDOC]
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relativism
<ethics, epistemology>
generally speaking,
relativism holds that truth and value are relative to an observer
or group of observers.
In ethics, there are two main type of relativism.
1. Descriptive ethical relativism simply claims as a

matter of fact that different people have different
moral beliefs, but it takes no stand on whether those
beliefs are valid or not.
2. Normative ethical relativism

claims that each culture' s (or group' s) beliefs are
right within that culture, and that it is wrong to
judge another culture' s values from the outside.
Relativism is often just another word for subjectivism.

Popularly, relativism is usually contrasted with some form of
ethical objectivism, while subjectivism has connotations of a sort
of individualism and, in the extreme, of solipsism.
Based oon the [Ethics Glossary] and the [The Ism Book]
<philsophical terminology> belief that human judgments are

always conditioned by the specific social environment of a
particular person, time, or place. Cognitive relativists hold
that there can be no universal knowledge of the world, but
only diverse interpretations of it. Moral relativists hold
that there are no universal standards of moral value, but
only the cultural norms of particular societies.
Recommended Reading: Robert Kirk, Relativism and Reality:
A Contemporary Introduction (Routledge, 1999); Larry Laudan,
Science and Relativism: Some Key Controversies in the Philosophy
of Science (Chicago, 1990); Ernest Gellner, Relativism and the
Social Sciences (Cambridge, 1987); Moral Relativism: A Reader,
ed. by Paul K. Moser and Thomas L. Carson (Oxford, 2000);
Richard Rorty, Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth (Cambridge,
1991); and Christopher Norris, Against Relativism:
Philosophy of Science, Deconstruction, and Critical Theory
(Blackwell, 1997).
12-05-2002
relevance
<information science> A measure of how closely a given object

(file, web page, database record, etc.) matches a user' s
search for information.
The relevance algorithms used in most large web search

engines today are based on fairly simple word-occurrence
measurement: if the word "daffodil" occurs on a given page,
then that page is considered relevant to a query on the word
"daffodil"; and its relevance is quantised as a factor of the
number of times the word occurs in the page, on whether
"daffodil" occurs in title of the page or in its META
keywords, in the first N words of the page, in a heading,
and so on; and similarly for words that a stemmer says are
based on "daffodil".
More elaborate (and resource-expensive) relevance algorithms

may involve thesaurus (or synonym ring) lookup; e.g. it
might rank a document about narcissuses (but which may not
mention the word "daffodil" anywhere) as relevant to a query
on "daffodil", since narcissuses and daffodils are basically
the same thing. Ditto for queries on "jail" and "gaol", etc.
More elaborate forms of thesaurus lookup may involve

multilingual thesauri (e.g. knowing that documents in Japanese
which mention the Japanese word for "narcissus" are relevant
to your search on "narcissus"), or may involve thesauri (often
auto-generated) based not on equivalence of meaning, but on
word-proximity, such that "bulb" or "bloom" may be in the
thesaurus entry for "daffodil".
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Word spamming essentially attempts to falsely increase a web

page' s relevance to certain common searches.
See also subject index.
[FOLDOC]
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reliability
<system> An attribute of any system that consistently produces

the same results, preferably meeting or exceeding its
specifications. The term may be qualified, e.g. software
reliability, reliable communication.
Reliability is one component of RAS.
[FOLDOC]
27-11-2003
reliable communication
Communication where messages are guaranteed to reach their

destination complete and uncorrupted and in the order they
were sent. This reliability can be built on top of an
unreliable protocol by adding sequencing information and
some kind of checksum or cyclic redundancy check to each
message or packet. If the communication fails, the sender
will be notified. Transmission Control Protocol is a
reliable protocol used on Ethernet.
28-11-2003
renaissance
<philosophical terminolgoy> fourteenth-, fifteenth- and

sixteenth-century European intellectual movement characterized
by rejection of scholastic authority, renewed interest in
classical antiquity, and excitement about the prospect of
achieving scientific knowledge. Prominent Renaissance
thinkers include Lorenzo Valla, Marsilio Ficino,
Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Desiderius Erasmus,
Thomas More, Giordano Bruno, and Francisco Suarez.
Recommended Reading: Cambridge Translations of Renaissance
Philosophical Texts, ed. by Jill Kraye (Cambridge, 1998);
Paul Oskar Kristeller, Renaissance Thought and Its Sources
(Columbia, 1981); The Cambridge History of Renaissance
Philosophy, ed. by Charles B. Schmitt, Quentin Skinner,
and Jill Kraye (0521397480); and Renaissance Philosophy
of Man: Petrarca, Valla, Ficino, Pico, Pomponazzi, Vives,
ed. by Ernst Cassirer, Paul Oskar Kristeller, and John H.
Randall (Chicago, 1956).
28-11-2003
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replacement - rules of
<philosophical terminology> tautologies that express the

logical equivalence of pairs of elementary statement forms,
each of whose substitution instances may be used to replace
those of the other wherever they occur within a formal proof
of the validity of a deductive argument. The rules of
replacement that we employ here include: De Morgan' s Theorems,
Commutation, Association, Distribution, Double Negation,
Transposition, Implication, Equivalence, Exportation, and
Tautology. These, taken together with the nine rules of
inference, adequately secure the completeness of the
propositional calculus.
28-11-2003
representationalism
<epistemology, aesthetics>
1. in epistemology, representationalism is the view that the only
things we can know are our representations of the world
(e.g., ideas, perceptions, beliefs, etc.), not the world itself.
Epistemological representationalism is therefore opposed to
realism, especially to direct realism. The term is most often
used in discussions of perception, phenomenalism being the more
general term of this sort.
2. in aesthetics, representationalism is
the idea that art ought to represent reality. This view is
sometimes and especially popularly called realism, at least in the
visual arts - in literature, realism is something akin to
naturalism. (References from empiricism, formalism,
realism, and sensationalism).
[The Ism Book]
<philsophical terminology> theory of perception according to

which we are aware of objects only through the mediation of the
ideas that represent them. Descartes and Locke were both
representationalists. Although it handily accounts for
perceptual illusion and memory, such a theory often leads
(as in Hume) to skepticism about the existence of external
objects.
Recommended Reading: Robert Audi, Epistemology: A Contemporary
Introduction to the Theory of Knowledge (Routledge, 1998);
Hilary Putnam, Representation and Reality (MIT, 1991); Richard
A. Watson, Representational Ideas: From Plato to
Patricia Churchland (Kluwer, 1995); Richard Rorty, Philosophy and
the Mirror of Nature (Princeton, 1981); and Ray Jackendoff,
Languages of the Mind: Essays on Mental Representation (MIT, 1995).
28-11-2003
repression
<psychoanalysis> freudian mechanism by which unacceptable

wishes and thoughts are banished from conscious
awareness but continue to unconsciously and, thence, find
expression in dreams and slips of the tongue, and
sometimes in compulsive behavior, obsessive thoughts, and
other forms of psychopathology. Herbert Marcuse
distinguishes necessary repression (without which
civilization could not exist) from surplus repression
(which serves to maintain unnecessary forms of economic and
political control and oppression). Compare:
sublimation.
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requirements
<programming, PI> The first stage of software development which

defines what the potential users want the system to do. In
modern methods these requirements should be testable, and will
usually be traceable in later development stages. A common
feature of nearly all software is that the requirements change
during its lifetime.
See software life-cycle.
[FOLDOC]
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requirements analysis
<project> The process of reviewing a business' s processes to

determine the business needs and functional requirements
that a system must meet.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
Requirements Engineering
<programming, PI> The task of capturing, structuring, and

accurately representing the user' srequirements so that they
can be correctly embodied in systems which meet those
requirements (i.e. are of good quality).
[FOLDOC]
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res cogitans - res extensa
<philsophical terminology> Descartes' s Latin distinction of

the two major ontological categories comprising reality:
thinking things and extended things, or minds and bodies.
Recommended Reading: RenèDescartes, Meditationes De Prima
Philosophia / Meditations on First Philosophy (Bilingual Edition),
ed. by George Heffernan (Notre Dame, 1990).
12-05-2002
residues - method of
<philosophical terminology> one of Mill' s Methods for

discovering causal relationships. If portions of a complex
phenomenon can be explained by reference to parts of a
complex antecedent circumstance, whatever remains of that
circumstance may be inferred to be the cause of the remainder
that phenomenon. Example: "The old prescription contained
vitamins A, B-12, and C, and taking it regularly improved
night vision, reduced stress, and prevented colds. The new
prescription contains calcium along with vitamins A, B-12,
and C, and taking it regularly improves night vision, reduces
stress, prevents colds, and increases bone density. Therefore,
taking calcium regularly increases bone density."
(Classworks, 1986).
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12-05-2002
resolution
1. <hardware> the maximum number of pixels that can be

displayed on a monitor, expressed as (number of horizontal
pixels) x (number of vertical pixels), i.e., 1024x768. The
ratio of horizontal to vertical resolution is usually 4:3, the
same as that of conventional television sets.
2. <logic> A mechanical method for proving statements of

first order logic, introduced by J. A. Robinson in 1965.
Resolution is applied to two clauses in a sentence. It
eliminates, by unification, a literal that occurs
"positive" in one and "negative" in the other to produce a new
clause, the resolvent.
For example, given the sentence:
(man(X) => mortal(X)) AND man(Socrates).
The literal "man(X)" is "negative". The literal

"man(Socrates)" could be considered to be on the right hand
side of the degenerate implication
True => man(Socrates)
and is therefore "positive". The two literals can be unified

by the binding X = Socrates.
The truth table for the implication function is
A | B | A => B
--+---+-------
F|F|T
F|T|T
T|F|F
T|T|T
(The implication only fails if its premise is true but its

conclusion is false). From this we can see that
A => B == (NOT A) OR B
Which is why the left hand side of the implication is said to

be negative and the right positive. The sentence above could
thus be written
((NOT man(Socrates)) OR mortal(Socrates))

AND
man(Socrates)
Distributing the AND over the OR gives
((NOT man(Socrates)) AND man(Socrates))

OR
mortal(Socrates) AND man(Socrates)
And since (NOT A) AND A == False, and False OR A == A we can

simplify to just
mortal(Socrates) AND man(Socrates)
So we have proved the new literal, mortal(Socrates).
Resolution with backtracking is the basic control mechanism

of Prolog.
See also modus ponens, SLD Resolution.
3. <networking> address resolution.
[FOLDOC]
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responsibility
<philosophical terminology> accountability for the actions one

performs and the consequences they bring about, for which a
moral agent could be justly punished or rewarded. Moral
responsibility is commonly held to require the agent' s
freedom to have done otherwise.
Recommended Reading: John Martin Fischer and Mark Ravizza,
Responsibility and Control: A Theory of Moral Responsibility
(Cambridge, 2000); Peter A. French, Responsibility Matters
(Kentucky, 1994); Marion Smiley, Moral Responsibility and the
Boundaries of Community: Power and Accountability from a
Pragmatic Point of View (Chicago, 1992); and Hans Jonas, The
Imperative of Responsibility (Chicago, 1985).
[A Dicitonary of Philosophical terms and Names]
12-05-2002
restructuring
the transformation from one representation form to another at

the same relative abstraction level, while preserving the
subject system' s external behaviour (functionality and
semantics).
16-03-2001
reusability
reuse
00-00-0000
reuse
Using code developed for one application program in another

application. Traditionally achieved using program libraries.
Object-oriented programming offers reusability of code via
its techniques of inheritance and genericity. Class
libraries with intelligent browsers and application
generators are under development to help in this process.
Polymorphic functional languages also support reusability
while retaining the benefits of strong typing.
See also DRAGOON, National Software Reuse Directory,

RLF.
28-11-2003
revealed theology
<theology, metaphysics, ethics> truths about God that can

only be revealed by supernatural means and cannot be
discovered by the unaided exercise of reason and
perception. Compare: natural theology.
28-11-2003
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reverse engineering
aka re-engineering.
The process of analysing an existing system to identify its
components and their interrelationships and create
representations of the system in another form (implementation)
or at a higher
level of abstraction. Reverse engineering is usually
undertaken in order to modify or redesign the system for better
maintainability or to produce a copy of a system without
access to the design from which it was originally produced.
For example, one might take the executable code of a

computer program, run it to study how it behaved with
different input and then attempt to write a program oneself
which behaved identically (or better). An integrated circuit
might also be reverse engineered by an unscrupulous company
wishing to make unlicensed copies of a popular chip.
[FOLDOC]
28-11-2003
Reverse Polish Notation
postfix notation
00-00-0000
Ricoeur Paul

theologian born in 1913. Influenced by the work of Husserl
and Marcel, Ricoeur' s Le Volontaire et l' involontaire
(Freedom and Nature) (1950) analyzes human volition into
decision, movement, and consent - each of which is to be
understood in relation to an involuntary analogue.
L' Homme faillible (Fallible Man) (1965) and La Symbolique du mal
(The Symbolism of Evil) (1967) provide a hermeneutic account
of the existence and nature of human evil.
Recommended Reading: A Ricoeur Reader, ed. by Mario J. Valdes
(Toronto, 1991); Paul Ricoeur, Freud and Philosophy: An Essay
on Interpretation, tr. by Denis Savage (Yale, 1986); Paul Ricoeur,
Oneself As Another, tr. by Kathleen Blarney (Chicago, 1994);
Paul Ricoeur and Narrative: Context and Contestation, ed. by Joy
Morny (Calgary, 1997); Charles E. Reagan, Paul Ricoeur: His Life
and His Work (Chicago, 1998); John B. Thompson, Critical
Hermeneutics: A Study in the Thought of Paul Ricoeur and Jurgen
Habermas (Cambridge, 1984); and The Philosophy of Paul Ricoeur,
ed. by Lewis Edwin Hahn (Open Court, 1994).
28-11-2003
Riemann Georg Friedrich Bernhard
<history of philosophy, biography> German mathematician and

physicist (1826-1866). Riemann developed field theory
as a mathematical description of phenomena as apparently
diverse as gravitation, magnetism, electricity, and light
and contributed to the development of topology and
non-Euclidean geometry.
Recommended Reading: Bernhard Riemann, Gesammelte Mathematische
Werke, Wissenschaftlicher Nachlass & Nachtrage: Collected Papers
(Springer Verlag, 1998); Detlef Laugwitz, Bernhard Riemann,
1826-1866: Turning Points in the Conception of Mathematics,
tr. by Abe Shenitzer (Springer Verlag, 1999); and Krzysztof
Maurin, The Riemann Legacy: Riemannian Ideas in Mathematics
and Physics (Kluwer, 1997).
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28-11-2003
rights
<ethics>
rights are entitlements to do something without
interference from other people (negative rights)
or entitlements that obligate others to do something
positive to assist you (positive rights). Some rights
(natural rights, human rights) belong to everyone by
nature or simply by virtue of being human; some rights
(legal rights) belong to people by virtue of their
membership in a particular political state; other rights
(moral rights) are based on acceptance of a particular
moral theory.
26-03-2001
rigid designator
<philosophical terminology> an expression that refers to

the same thing in every possible world. According to
Saul Kripke, proper names and terms that signify
natural kinds (unlike definite descriptions) designate
rigidly, so that we can make counterfactual assertions
about their referents whether or not they exist in our world.
Recommended Reading: Saul A. Kripke, Naming and Necessity
(Harvard, 1982) and The New Theory of Reference - Kripke,
Marcus, and Its Origins, ed. by Paul W. Humphreys and
James H. Fetzer (Kluwer, 1999).
28-11-2003
ring network
<networking, topology> A network topology in which all nodes

are connected to a single wire in a ring or point-to-point.
There are no endpoints. This topology is used by token ring
networks.
Compare: bus network, star network.
[FOLDOC]
28-11-2003
ring topology
ring network
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Ritchie David George
<historyof philosophy, biography> Scottish idealist

philosopher (1853-1903). Ritchie is usually remembered for
his political thought, and primarily for his analysis of
natural rights and for his criticisms of the positions of
Spencer Herbert and Mill on the nature and role of the
state in The Principles of State Interference (1891) and Natural
Rights (1895). Ritchie is also known for his attempts to
reconcile Darwinism and idealist thought in Darwinism and
Politics (1889) and Darwin and Hegel with Other Philosophical
Studies (1893). (Contributed by Will Sweet.)
Recommended Reading: The Collected Works of D. G. Ritchie,
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ed. by Peter Nicholson (Thoemmes, 1998).
28-11-2003
robot
1. <robotics> A mechanical device for performing a task which

might otherwise be done by a human, e.g. spraying paint on
cars.
See also cybernetics.
2. <chat> An IRC or MUD user who is actually a program.

On IRC, typically the robot provides some useful service.
Examples are NickServ, which tries to prevent random users
from adopting nicks already claimed by others, and MsgServ,
which allows one to send asynchronous messages to be
delivered when the recipient signs on. Also common are
"annoybots", such as KissServ, which perform no useful
function except to send cute messages to other people.
Service robots are less common on MUDs; but some others,
such as the "Julia" robot active in 1990--91, have been
remarkably impressive Turing test experiments, able to pass
as human for as long as ten or fifteen minutes of
conversation.
3. <World-Wide Web> spider.
02-12-2003
robust
Said of a system that has demonstrated an ability to recover

gracefully from the whole range of exceptional inputs and
situations in a given environment. One step below
bulletproof. Carries the additional connotation of elegance
in addition to just careful attention to detail. Compare
smart, opposite: brittle.
[Jargon File]
28-11-2003
Rohault Jacques

physicist (1620-1672); author of System of Natural Philosophy
(1667). As a follower of Descartes, Rohault argued tha
animal behavior can be explained in purely mechanistic terms.
But, unlike many of his fellow Cartesians, he held that in human
beings, the mind and the body participate in reciprocal
relations of genuine causal interaction.
[A Dictinary of Philosophical Terms and Names]
28-11-2003
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romanticism
<aesthetics>
name for the theory and movement
of art and philosophy that developed in the nineteenth century in
opposition to classicism. The term is not clearly defined and has
different meanings in different disciplines. In art and aesthetics
the term usually refers to the various attributes of Romantic art
in contrast with classicism and naturalism, including a
free-flowing style, expression of emotion, concern with values
and personal experience, etc. In philosophy the term is often
equivalent to emotionalism. (References from aestheticism,
classicism, emotionalism, and naturalism.)
[The Ism Book]
27-03-2001
Rorty Richard

born in 1931; author of Consequences of Pragmatism (1982)
and Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (1989). Extolling the
critical work of Dewey, Heidegger, and Wittgenstein,
Rorty attacked the foundationalist presumptions of
traditional epistemology in Philosophy and the Mirror
of Nature (1979), proposing instead a postmodern conception
of philosophical method as edifying discourse. Rorty' s
philosophical papers are collected in Objectivity, Relativism,
and Truth, Essays on Heidegger and Others, and Truth and Progress.
Recommended Reading: Richard Rorty, Philosophy and Social Hope
(Penguin, 2000); Reading Rorty: Critical Responses to Philosophy
and the Mirror of Nature and Beyond, ed. by Alan Malachowski
(Blackwell, 1990); Rorty & Pragmatism: The Philosopher Responds
to His Critics, ed. by Herman J. Saatkamp, Jr. (Vanderbilt, 1995);
Rorty: And His Critics, ed. by Robert B. Brandom (Blackwell, 2000);
David L. Hall, Richard Rorty: Prophet and Poet of the New
Pragmatism (SUNY, 1994); Recovering Pragmatism' s Voice: The
Classical Tradition, Rorty, and the Philosophy of Communication,
ed. by Lenore Langsdorf and Andrew R. Smith (SUNY, 1995);
and Rorty, ed. by Matthew Festenstein and Simon Thompson
(Polity, 2001).
02-12-2003
Ross William David
<history of philosophy, biography> British moral philosopher

(1877-1971) who also produced valuable translations of the
philosophical works of Aristotle. In The Right and the Goo
(1930) Ross criticized the ethical theory of Moore and
offered in its place an intuitionist theory giving central
importance to the possession of prima facie moral duties to
perform certain actions.
Recommended Reading: W. David Ross, Foundations of Ethics
(Oxford, 2000).
12-05-2002
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Rousseau Jean-Jacques
<history of philosphy, biography> as a brilliant and

self-educated (but undisciplined and unconventional) thinker,
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) spent most of his life
being driven by controversy back and forth between Paris and
his native Geneva. His autobiographical Les Confessions
(Confessions) (1783) offer a thorough (if somewhat self-serving)
account of his turbulent life. Rousseau first attracted
wide-spread attention with his prize-winning essay Discours
sur les Sciences et les Arts (Discourse on the Sciences and the
Arts) (1750), in which he decried the harmful effects of modern
civilization. He continued to explore this theme throughout
his career, proposing in Šmile, ou l' education (1762) a method
of education that would minimize the damage by noticing,
encouraging, and following the natural proclivities of the
student instead of striving to eliminate them. Rousseau began
to apply these principles to political issues specifically in
his Discours sur l' origine et les fondements de l' égalité
in
parmi les hommes (Discourse on the Origin of Inequality) (1755),
which maintains that every variety of injustice found in human
society is an artificial result of the control exercised by
defective political and intellectual influences over the healthy
natural impulses of otherwise noble savages. The alternative he
proposed in Du contrat social (On the Social Contract) (1762)
is a civil society voluntarily formed by its citizens and wholly
governed by reference to the general will (Fr. volonté
générale) expressed in their unanimous consent to authority.
Rousseau also wrote Discourse on Political Economy (1755),
Constitutional Program for Corsica (1765), and Considerations
on the Government of Poland (1772). Although the authorities
made every effort to suppress Rousseau' s writings, the
ideas they expressed, along with those of Locke, were of
great influence during the French Revolution. - For a very
different interpretation of that historical event, you might
wish to look at Edmund Burke' s Reflections on the Revolution
in France (1790).
Primary sources:
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Oeuvres complËtes, ed. by B. Gagnebin
and M. Raymond (PlÈiade, 1959-); Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The
Social Contract, tr. by Maurice Cranston (Penguin, 1987);
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Discourses and Other Early Political
Thought, ed. by Victor Gourevitch (Cambridge, 1997); Jean-Jacques
Rousseau, Confessions, ed. by Patrick Coleman and Angela Scholar
(Oxford, 2000); Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile or on Education,
tr. by Allan Bloom (Basic, 1979).
Secondary sources:
Robert Wokler, Rousseau (Oxford, 1995); Elizabeth Rose Wingrove,
Rousseau' s Republican Romance (Princeton, 2000).
Additional on-line information about Rousseau includes:
Nicholas Dent' s article in The Oxford Companion to Philosophy.
An introduction to Rousseau' s political thought by Frederick
Watkins.
Also see: the social contract, philosophy of education,
French philosophy, the general will, master and slave,
and political philosophy.
A brief article in The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
An article on The Social Contract in The Catholic Encyclopedia.
Snippets from Rousseau (French and English) in The Oxford
Bj–rn Christensson' s brief guide to Internet resources.
[A Dictionary of Philosopphical Terms and Names]
02-12-2003
routine
subroutine
00-00-0000
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Royce Josiah

(1855-1916). Royce' s subtle reasoning in defence of absolute
idealism in The Religious Aspect of Philosophy
(1885) and The World and the Individual (1901) fostered
(in opposition) the development of pragmatism by James.
Recommended Reading: The Philosophy of Josiah Royce
(Hackett, 1982); Josiah Royce, The Spirit of Modern
Philosophy (Dover, 1983); Josiah Royce, Metaphysics, ed. by
William Ernest Hocking and Frank Oppenheim (SUNY, 1998);
Josiah Royce: Selected Writings, ed. by John E. Smith and
William Kluback (Paulist, 1988); John Clendenning, The Life
and Thought of Josiah Royce (Vanderbilt, 1998); and Griffin
Trotter, On Royce (Wadsworth, 2001).
02-12-2003
Ruddick Sara Loop
<history of philosophy, biography> American philosopher born

in 1935. In Maternal Thinking: Towards a Politics of Peace
(1989), Ruddick argues that focus on preserving, fostering,
and training children has a transformative effect on moral
judgment and practice. People who empathize with others, teach
the need for interpersonal respect, and aim for reconciliation,
she argues, can be freed from the violent effects of (masculine)
human aggression.
Recommended Reading: Mother Troubles: Rethinking Contemporary
Maternal Dilemmas, ed. by Julia E. Hanigsberg, Sara Ruddick,
and Amy Caldwell (Beacon, 1999).
12-05-2002
rule
<philosophy of mind, ethics, philosophy of AI>

a theoretical device for the explanation of behavioural
regularities and/or cognitive states.
Rules are generally, but not always, characterised in

terms of causally-operative mental representations.
See computation, symbolicism, connectionism
Daniel Barbiero
02-12-2003
rules of inference
<logic>
Explicit rules for producing a theorem when given one or more
other
theorems. functions from sequences of theorems to
theorems. In a
formal
system they should be formal (that is, syntactical or typographical)
in
nature, and work without reference to the meanings of the strings
they
manipulate. Also called rules of transformation, rules of
production.
See
for example
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16-03-2001
run-time
(Or "runtime", occasionally "run time").
1. The elapsed time to perform a computation on a particular

computer, that is the period of time during which a
program is being
executed, as opposed to compile-time or load time.
2. The amount of time a processor actually spends on one

process and not on other processes or overhead (see
time-sharing).
02-12-2003
Russell Bertrand Arthur William
<history of philosophy, biography> orphaned at the age of four,

Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) studied (and later taught) both
mathematics and philosophy at Cambridge. As the grandson
of a British prime minister, Russell devoted much of his
public effort to matters of general social concern. Jailed
as a pacifist during the First World War, he later supported
the battle against Fascism but deplored the development of
weapons of mass destruction, as is evident in "The Bomb and
Civilization" (1945), New Hopes for a Changing World (1951),
and his untitled last essay. Throughout his life, Russell was
an outspoken critic of organized religion, detailing its harmful
social consequences in "Why I Am Not a Christian" (1927) and
defending an agnostic alternative in "A Free Man' s Worship"
(1903). His Marriage and Morals (1929) is an attack upon the
repressive character of conventional sexual morality.
Russell' s Autobiography (1967 -69) is an excellent source of
information, analysis, and self-congratulation regarding his
interesting life. Its pages include his eloquent statements of
"What I Have Lived For" and "A Liberal Decalogue". Russell was
awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1950. Through an
early appreciation of the philosophical work of Leibniz,
published in A Critical Exposition of the Philosophy of Leibniz
(1900), Russell came to regard logical analysis as the
crucial method for philosophy. In Principia Mathematica
(1910-13), written jointly with Alfred North Whitehead, he
showed that all of arithmetic could be deduced from a
restricted set of logical axioms, a thesis defended in less
technical terms in Russell' s Introduction to Mathematical
Philosophy (1919). Applying simlarly analytical methods to
philosophical problems, Russell believed, could resolve
disputes and provide an adequate account of human experience.
Indeed, his A History of Western Philosophy (1946) tried to
show that the philosophical tradition had moved slowly but
steadily toward just such a culmination. The attempt to account
clearly for every constituent of ordinary assertions soon proved
problematic, however. Russell proposed a ramified theory of
types in order to avoid the self-referential paradoxes that might
otherwise emerge from such abstract notions as "the barber who
shaves all but only those who do not shave themselves" or
"the class of all classes that are not members of themselves".
In the theory of descriptions put forward in On Denoting (1905),
Russell argued that proper analysis of denoting phrases
enables us to represent all thought symbolically while avoiding
philosophical difficulties about non-existent objects. As his
essay on "Vagueness" (1923) shows, Russell long persisted in
the belief that adequate explanations could provide a sound basis
for human speech and thought. In similar fashion, the
analysis of statements attributing a common predicate to
different subjects in "On the Relations of Universals and
Particulars" (1911) convinced Russell that both particulars
and universals must really exist. He developed this realistic view
further in The Problems of Philosophy (1912). Our Knowledge of
the External World (1914) continues this project by showing how
Russell' sphilosophy of logical atomism can construct a
world of public physical objects using private individual
experiences as the atomic facts from which one could develop
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a complete description of the world. Although Russell' s

philosophical positions were soon eclipsed by those of
Wittgenstein and the logical positivists, his model of
the possibilities for analytic thought remains influential.
Primary sources:
Bertrand Russell, A Critical Exposition of the Philosophy of
Leibniz: With an Appendix of Leading Passages (Routledge, 1993);
Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Arthur Russell, Principia
Mathematica (Cambridge, 1997); Bertrand Russell, The Principles
of Mathematics (Norton, 1996); Bertrand Russell, Introduction to
Mathematical Philosophy (Dover, 1993); Bertrand Russell, The
Philosophy of Logical Atomism, ed. by David Pears (Open Court,
1985); Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy (Oxford, 1998);
Bertrand Russell, Why I Am Not a Christian, and Other Essays
on Religion and Related Subjects (Simon & Schuster, 1977);
Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy and Its
Connection With Political and Social from the Earliest Times
to the Present Day (Simon & Schuster, 1975);
The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell (Routledge, 2000).
Secondary sources:
Ray Monk, Russell (Routledge, 1999);
Essays on Bertrand Russell, ed. by E. D. Klemke (Illinois, 1971);
John G. Slater, Bertrand Russell (St. Augustine, 1994);
Peter Hylton, Russell, Idealism, and the Emergence of
Analytic Philosophy (Oxford, 1992);
Jan Dejnozka, Bertrand Russell on Modality and
Logical Relevance (Ashgate, 1999).
Additional on-line information about Russell includes:
McMaster University' s The Bertrand Russell Archives.
The Bertrand Russell Society Home Page, hosted by John Lenz.
A.D. Irvine' s article in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Mark Sainsbury' s article in The Oxford Companion to Philosophy.
Also see: acquaintance and description, analysis,
analytic philosophy, logical atomism, Cambridge philosophy,
descriptions, logical empiricism, English philosophy,
impredicative definition, logic, logically proper names,
logicism, philosophy of mathematics, mnemic causation, names,
the persecution of philosophers, the axiom of reducibility,
referential opacity, the nature of relations, skepticism about
religion, Russell' s paradox, set theory, ' to be' , the verb,
the theory of types, and vicious circles.
Eric Weisstein' s discussion at Treasure Trove of
Scientific Biography.
Snippets from Russell in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations.
Bjoern Christensson' s brief guide to Internet material on Russell.
Discussion of Russell' s logical treatment of mathematics
from Mathematical MacTutor.
02-12-2003
Ryle Gilbert
<history of philosophy, biopgraphy> Oxford professor and editor

of the journal Mind for nearly twenty-five years, Gilbert Ryle
(1900-1976) had an enormous influence on the development of
twentieth-century analytic philosophy. In "Systematically
Misleading Expressions" (1932) Ryle proposed a
philosophical method of dissolving problems by correctly
analyzing the derivation of inappropriate abstract inferences
from ordinary uses of language. Applying this method more
generally in "Categories" (1938), Ryle showed how the
misapplication of an ordinary term can result in a
category mistake by which philosophers may be seriously
misled. Dealing with the traditional mind-body problem in
The Concept of Mind (1949), Ryle sharply criticized
Cartesian dualism, arguing that adequate descriptions of
human behavior need never refer to anything but the operations
of human bodies. This form of logical behaviorism became a
standard view among ordinary language - philosophers for
several decades. Ryle' s Dilemmas (1954) and Collected Papers
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(1971) cover a wide range of topics in philosophical logic

and the history of philosophy.
Primary sources:
Gilbert Ryle, The Concept of Mind (Chicago, 2000);
Gilbert Ryle, Dilemmas (Cambridge, 1954).
Additional on-line information about Ryle includes:
Geoffrey J. Warnock' s article in The Oxford Companion
to Philosophy.
Also see: analytic philosophy, the category mistake, dualism,
English philosophy, the ghost in the machine, infinite regress,
philosophy of mind, Oxford philosophy, privileged access,
and topic-neutrality.
Snippets from Ryle in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations.
02-12-2003
Saadiah Gaon Sa adyah ben Joseph
<history of philosophy, biography> Jewish philosopher (882-942)

and linguist who translated classic Hebrew literature into
Arabic and offered rational arguments in defense of religious
doctrine in his "Sefer ha-Nivhar ha-Emunot ve-D' eol" ("The Book of
Critically Chosen Beliefs and Convictions") (933). According to
Saadiah, the destructive force of pleasure in human life can
be overcome only by attention to the Torah.
Recommended Reading: Saadiah Ben Joseph Al-Fayyumi, "The Book
of Theodicy: Translation and Commentary on the Book of Job",
tr. by L. E. Goodman (Yale, 1988) and "The Jewish Philosophy
Reader", ed. by Daniel H. Frank , Oliver Leaman, and Charles
H. Manekin (Routlege, 2000).
Also see noesis e ColE.
17-09-2003
safety-critical system
A computer, electronic or electromechanical system whose

failure may cause injury or death to human beings. E.g. an
aircraft or nuclear power station control system. Common
tools used in the design of safety-critical systems are
redundancy and formal methods.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
Saint-Simon Claude-Henri de Rouvroy
<history of philosophy, biography> French political thinker

(1760-1825) whose socialism greatly influenced the work of
Comte and Marx. Saint-Simon' s "Du syst Ëme industriel"
("On the Industrial System") (1821) acknowledged the functional
difference between distinct social classes, decried reliance
on a feeble bureaucracy, and suggested that the organized state
would wither away once economic benefits have been equitably
distributed. "Letters from an Inhabitant of Geneva" (1803) offers
a brief statement of several of these notions. Saint-Simon' s
criticism of traditional religion may be found in "Nouveau
christianisme" ("New Christianity") (1825).
Recommended Reading: Henri Comte De Saint-Simon: "Selected
Writings", ed. by F.M.H. Markham (Hyperion, 1991); Henri
Saint-Simon: "Selected Writings on Science, Industry and Social
Organization", ed. by Keith Taylor (Holmes & Meier, 1975);
and Emmanuel De Witt, "Saint-Simon Et Le Systeme Industriel"
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(Frankfort, 1973).
17-09-2003
salva veritate
<philosophical terminology> Latin for «saving the truth».

If two expressions can be interchanged without changing the
truth-value of the statements in which occur, they are said
to be substitutable salva veritate.
21-03-2002
sanction moral
<philosophical terminology> an extrinsic force that is

supposed to motivate moral agents to perform their duties.
Positive and negative sanctions commonly include reward and
punishment by the state, praise and blame by other people,
and the dictates of one' s ownconscience. The natural
consequences of one' s actions are not usually regarded as
sanctions.
Recommended Reading: Martin Lawrence Friedland, "Sanction
and Rewards in the Legal System: A Multidisciplinary Approach"
(Toronto, 1989) and Herbert L. Packer, "Limits of the Criminal
Sanction "(Stanford, 1968).
21-03-2002
Santayana George
<history of philosophy, biography> Spanish-American

philosopher(1863-1952) who defended the primacy of aesthetic
value in human life. In "Scepticism" and "Animal Faith" (1923)
Santayana argued that all human knowledge derives from
an instinctive urge to believe, even though objective truth
necessarily lies beyond our capacity. He also wrote the
multivolume works "The Life of Reason" (1905-6), extolling the
unique values of a spiritual appreciation of the universe,
and "Realms of Being" (1927-1940), identifying matter,
spirit, essence, and truth as his basic categories.
Recommended Reading: George Santayana, "Sense of Beauty: Being
the Outline of Aesthetic Theory" (Dover, 1985); George Santayana,
"The Genteel Tradition: Nine Essays", ed. by Douglas L. Wilson
and Robert Dawidoff (Nebraska, 1998); George Santayana, "Persons
and Places" (MacMillan, 1981); George Santayana, "The Last
Puritan: A Memoir in the Form of a Novel", ed. by Herman J.,
Jr. Saatkamp and William G. Holsberger (MIT, 1995); "George
Santayana: A Bibliographical Checklist 1880-1980", ed. by Herman
J. Saatkamp and John Jones (Phil. Doc. Center, 1982); Timothy
L. S. Sprigge, "Santayana: An Examination of His Philosophy"
(Routledge, 1995); Michael P. Hodges and John Lachs, "Thinking
in the Ruins: Wittgenstein and Santayana on Contingency"
(Vanderbilt, 2000); and Irving Singer, "George Santayana,
Literary Philosopher" (Yale, 2000).
Also see SEP, T.P. Davis, ColE, ELC, and BIO.
21-03-2002
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Sartre Jean-Paul
<history of philosophy, biography> Educated at Paris

and Goettingen, Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980)
participated actively in the French resistance to
German occupation. Recognizing a connection
between the principles of existentialism and the
concerns of social and political struggle, he wrote
philosophy, fiction, and political treatises, becoming
one of the most respected leaders in post-war French
culture. Sartre declined the Nobel Prize for literature
in 1964. "L' etre et le ne/ant" ("Being and Nothingness")
(1943) offers an account of existence in general,
including both that of objects and the being-for-itself
that only humans have. Sartre devotes particular
concern to human emotions and action, including
the self-deception by which one may try to elude the
consequences of freedom. In the
lecture "L' Existentialisme est un humanisme"
("Existentialism is a Humanism") (1946), Sartre
described the human condition in summary form:
freedom entails total responsibility, in the face of
which we experience anguish, forlornness, and
despair. Sartre' s Marxist inclinations are more
evident in Critique de la raison dialectique (Dialectical
Reason) (1960).
Primary sources: "The Philosophy of Jean-Paul
Sartre", ed. by Robert D. Cummings (Random House,
1972); Jean-Paul Sartre, "Being and Nothingness: A
Phenomenological Essay on Ontology", tr. by Hazel E.
Barnes (Washington Square, 1993); Jean-Paul
Sartre, "Existentialism and Human Emotions" (Lyle
Stuart, 1984).
Secondary sources: "The Cambridge
Companion to Sartre", ed. by Christina Howells
(Cambridge, 1992); "Feminist Interpretations of
Jean-Paul Sartre", ed. by Julien S. Murphy (Penn.
State, 1999); Gregory McCulloch, "Using Sartre: An
Analytical Introduction to Early Sartrean Themes"
(Routledge, 1994).
Additional on-line information about Sartre includes:
Katharena Eiermann' s discussion of Sartre atThe
Realm of Existentialism. Also see:
abandonment, bad faith, dirty hands, emotion and
feeling, existence precedes essence, existentialism,
for-itself and in-itself, French philosophy,
self-deception, sexual morality, and slime. The article
in the Columbia Encyclopedia at Bartleby.com. Heiner
Wittman' s siteon Sartre' s aesthetics. The thorough
collection of resources at EpistemeLinks.com. Andy
Blunden' sbiography of Sartre. Snippets from Sartre
(French and English) in "The Oxford Dictionary of
Quotations". A short article in Oxford' s "Who' s Who in
the Twentieth Century". A brief entry in The
Macmillan Encyclopedia 2001.
18-09-2003
satisfaction
<logic>
1. In truth-functional propositional logic, a

wff A is satisfied iff at least one row of its truth-table
makes it true, i.e. iff A is either a contingency or a
tautology.
2. In predicate logic, a wff A is satisfied

iff there is a sequence of objects from the domain of
some interpretation such that A is true for that
sequence. What it means for a wff to be true for a
sequence is satisfaction defined differently for
several distinct kinds of predicate logic wff, e.g.
quantified wffs, atomic wffs, wffs compounded
with the various connectives of the language, and
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naked propositional symbols. Among atomic wffs,

satisfaction is defined differently depending on
whether the arguments of the predicate are
constants, variables, or functions, and in the last
case, whether the arguments of the functions are
constants, variables, or functions. Hence the
concept of satisfaction cannot be made more precise
without giving each of perhaps a dozen precise tests
for different kinds of wff.
See truth for an interpretation.
16-03-2001
satisfiability
<logic>
A wff is satisfiable iff there is some
interpretation in which it is satisfied.
Simultaneous satisfiability
A set of wffs is simultaneously satisfiable iff there is

an interpretation in which each member of the set is
satisfied. In predicate logic, each member may be
satisfied by a different sequence from that
interpretation, but all must be satisfied in the same
interpretation.
25-09-2003
satisfiability problem
A problem used, as an example, in complexity theory.

It can be stated thus:
Given a Boolean expression E, decide if there is

some assignment to the variables in E such that E is true.
A Boolean expression is composed of Boolean

variables, (logical) negation (NOT), (logical)
conjunction (AND) and parentheses for grouping.
The satisfiability problem was the first problem to be
proved to be NP-complete (by Cook).
["Introduction to Automata Theory, Languages, and

Computation" by Hopcroft and Ullman, pub.
Addison-Wesley].
[FOLDOC]
25-09-2003
satisficing
<philosophy of mind, philosophy of AI>
a concept, due to Herbert Simon, which identifies the

decision making process whereby one chooses an
option that is, while perhaps not the best, good
enough.
See practical reasoning
25-09-2003
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Satyagraha
<philosophical terminology> Sanskrit term (literally,

truth-force) used by Gandhi for the practice of
non-violence in the face of political oppression.
Recommended Reading: M. K. Gandhi, "Non-Violent

Resistance" (Dover, 2001); M. K. Gandhi, "Satyagraha
in South Africa" (Greenleaf, 1979); and K. S.
Bharathi, "Satyagraha of Mahatma Gandhi" (South
Asia, 1990).
21-03-2002
Saussure Ferdinand de
<history of philosophy, biography> Swiss linguist

(1857-1913). Saussure' s emphasis on the
communicative value of language in "Cours de
linguistique gènèrale" ("Course in General Linguistics")
(1916) constituted the foundation of modern
structuralism.
According to Saussure, each signifying concept is
produced in the context of a system of differences,
the range of alternative choices that its user might
have employed in its stead. Thus, the meaning of a
word has less to do with its referent than with its
relation to other words. On this view, the structured
language of a society is a closed system whose
coherence and generality are independent of what it
signifies.
Recommended Reading: Jonathan Culler, "Ferdinand

De Saussure" (Cornell, 1986); David
Holdcroft, "Saussure: Signs, System and
Arbitrariness" (Cambridge, 1991); Roy
Harris, "Reading Saussure: A Critical Commentary on
the Cours De Linquistique Generale" (Open Court,
1987); Paul J. Thibault, "Re-Reading Saussure: The
Dynamics of Signs in Social Life" (Routledge, 1996);
and Roy Harris, "Language, Saussure, and
Wittgenstein: How to Play Games With Words"
(Routledge, 1990).
21-03-2002
scalability
How well a solution to some problem will work when

the size of the problem increases. For example, a
central server of some kind with ten clients may
perform adequately but with a thousand clients it
might fail to meet response time requirements. In this
case, the average response time probably scales
linearly with the number of clients, we say it has a
complexity of O(N) ("order N") but there are problems
with other complexities. E.g. if we want N nodes in a
network to be able to communicate with each other,
we could connect each one to a central exchange,
requiring O(N) wires or we could provide a direct
connection between each pair, requiring O(N^2) wires
(the exact number or formula is not usually so
important as the highest power of N involved).
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
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scalar
1. <mathematics> A single number, as opposed to a

vector or matrix of numbers. Thus, for example,
"scalar multiplication" refers to the operation of
multiplying one number (one scalar) by another and is
used to contrast this with "matrix multiplication" etc.
2. <architecture> In a parallel processor or vector

processor, the "scalar processor" handles all the
sequential operations - those which cannot be
parallelised or vectorised.
See also superscalar.
3. <programming, PI> A data type in Perl combining

what in many other languages is either a string or a
number.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
scepticism
<epistemology> any of a class of views that denies

some claim to knowledge.
See Cartesian scepticism
Pete Mandik
16-03-2001
Schelling Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von
<history of philosophy, biography> German

philosopher (1775-1854) whose "System des
Transzendentalen Idealismus" ("System of
Transcendental Idealism") (1800) introduced
Romantic elements into the development of
post-Kantian idealism. Arguing that Fichte' s
idealism put too much emphasis on the merely
subjective individual ego, Schelling proposed a
notion of objective transcendental consciousness.
His identification of nature with intellect in "Darstellung
meines Systems der Philosophie" ("Presentation of
my System of Philosophy") (1801), and "Vorlesungen
ueber die Methode des akademishen Studiums"
("Lectures on the Method of Academic Study") (1803)
provided a basis from which Hegel would derive the
fully considered concept of the Absolute.
Recommended Reading: Dale E. Snow, "Schelling

and the End of Idealism" (SUNY, 1996); Andrew
Bowie, "Schelling and Modern European Philosophy:
An Introduction" (Routledge, 1994); "Schelling:
Between Fichte and Hegel", ed. by Christoph Asmuth,
Alfred Denker, and Michael Vater (Benjamins, 2001);
and Martin Heidegger, "Schelling' s Treatise on the
Essence of Human Freedom" (Ohio, 1984).
26-03-2002
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schema
<logic> (Plural: schemata). See axiom schema, tautology schema, theorem schema
16-03-2001
Schiller Johann Christoph Friedrich von

philosopher and poet (1759-1805) who wrotes a series
of popular «Sturm und Drang» plays, including "Die
Raeber and Wilhelm Tell". Although he criticized
Kant' sethical theory in "Ueber Anmuth und Wuerde"
("On Grace and Dignity") (1793), Schiller applied
Kantian notions to the sensuous appreciation of
aesthetic experience in "Briefe ueber die
Aesthetische Erziehung des Menschen" ("Letters on
the Aesthetic Education of Man") (1795).
Recommended Reading: Frederick Schiller,

"Aesthetical and Philosophical Essays" (Erlbaum,
2001); Friedrich Von Schiller, "Wilhelm Tell", tr. by
William F. Mainland (Chicago, 1973); Friedrich
Schiller, "Five Plays", tr. by Robert David MacDonald
(Consortium, 1998); and Patricia Ellen Guenther-Gleason,
"On Schleiermacher and Gender Politics" (Trinity,
1997).
26-03-2002
Schleiermacher Friedrich Daniel Ernst
<history of philosophy, biography> German philosopher

and theologian (1768-1834); author of "Der Christliche
Glaube" ("The Christian Faith") (1822). In "Ðber die
Religion. Reden an Gebildeten unter ihren
Veraechtern" ("On Religion: Speeches to its Cultured
Despisers") (1799), Schliermacher proposed that
religious experience be based on human emotions
(especially the feeling of dependency) rather than on
reason. He also founded the University of Berlin,
translated the dialogues of Plato into German,
and invented the modern study of hermeneutics.
Recommended Reading: Friedrich Daniel Ernst

Schleiermacher, "Kritische Gesamtausgabe", ed. by
Hermann Fischer and Gerhard Ebeling (de Gruyter,
1994); Friedrich Schleiermacher, "Hermeneutics and
Criticism: And Other Writings", ed. by Andrew Bowie
(Cambridge, 1999); James M. Brandt, "All Things New:
Reform of Church and Society in Schleiermacher' s
Christian Ethics" (Westminster, 2001); Thandeka,
"The Embodied Self: Friedrich Schleiermacher' s
Solution to Kant' s Problem of the Empirical Self"
(SUNY, 1995); and Patricia Ellen Guenther-Gleason,
"On Schleiermacher and Gender Politics" (Trinity,
1997).
26-03-2002
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Schlick Moritz
<history of philosophy> Austrian philosopher (1882-1936).

As the personable leader of the Vienna Circle,
Schlick was instrumental in the formation of the logical
positivist movement, whose work is preserved in
the "Gesammelte Ausätze" ("Collected Essays")
(1938). Some of Schlick' s basic principles are
expressed in "Allgemeine Erkentnisslehre"
("Epistemology & Modern Physics") (1925). Unlike
many of his fellow positivists, Schlick was willing to
include ethics (understood as a strictly empirical
study of human desires and their consequences for
human action) within the province of meaningful
(verifiable) scientific discourse, as in "Fragen der
Ethik" ("Problems of Ethics") (1930).
Recommended Reading: Moritz Schlick, "General

Theory of Knowledge", tr. by Albert E. Blumberg and
Herbert Feigl (Open Court, 1985); "Moritz Schlick", ed.
by Brian McGuinness (Reidel, 1986); "Logical
Empiricism at Its Peak: Schlick, Carnap, and Neurath",
ed. by Sahotra Sarkar (Garland, 1996); and "Rationality
and Science: A Memorial Volume for Moritz Schlick",
ed. by Eugene T. Gadol (Springer Verlag, 1983).
26-03-2002
Scholastic logic
Traditional, scholastic, or aristotelian logic
28-09-2003
scholasticism
<philosophical terminology> philosophical study as

practiced by Christian thinkers in medieval
universities. The scholastics typically relied upon
ancient authorities as sources of dogma and
engaged in elaborate disputations over their proper
interpretation. These practices were largely
discontinued by philosophers of the Renaissance.
Recommended Reading: Etienne Gilson, "The Spirit

of Medieval Philosophy", tr. by A.H.C. Downes (Notre
Dame, 1991); John W. Baldwin, "The Scholastic
Culture of the Middle Ages, 1000-" (Waveland, 1997);
"Individuation in Scholasticism: The Later Middle Ages
and the Counter-Reformation 1150-1650", ed. by Jorge
J. E. Gracia (SUNY, 1994); and "Scholasticism:
Cross-Cultural and Comparative Perspectives", ed. by
Jose Ignacio Cebazon and Laurie L. Patton (SUNY, 1998).
26-03-2002
Schopenhauer Arthur

philosopher (1788-1860). Rejecting the idealism of
Hegel, Schopenhauer' s "Die Welt als Wille und
Vorstellung" (vol. 1-4) ("The World as Will and
Representation") (1818) (vol. 1-2) employed Kant' s
notion of the noumenal self as the foundation for a
comprehensive account of human nature, in contrast
to the phenomenal realm of objects. We are, for better
or (much more commonly, according to the
pessimistic Schopenhauer) for worse, manifestations
of our own wills, rarely exhibiting the universal
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compassion for others that would render our egoistic

impulses aesthetically valuable. Only by eliminating
desire can we hope to achieve harmony and peace,
he argued, but even that is possible only in ascetic
living or death. Our very name for the "world",
Schopenhauer suggested, is an acronym for the
characteristics of human life - woe, misery, suffering,
and death (Ger. WELT = Weh, Elend, Leid, Tod).
Recommended Reading: Arthur Schopenhauer,

"Philosophical Writings", ed. by Wolfgang Schirmacher
(Continuum, 1994); Arthur Schopenhauer, "Prize
Essay on the Freedom of the Will", ed. by Gunter Zoller
and Eric F. J. Payne (Cambridge, 1999); Bryan Magee,
"The Philosophy of Schopenhauer" (Oxford, 1997);
Patrick Gardiner, "Schopenhauer" (St. Augustine,
1997); "The Cambridge Companion to
Schopenhauer", ed. by Christopher Janaway
(Cambridge, 1999); Christopher Janaway,
"Schopenhauer" (Oxford, 1994); Michael
Tanner, "Schopenhauer" (Routledge, 1999); Rudiger
Safranski, "Schopenhauer and the Wild Years of
Philosophy" (Harvard, 1991); and Christopher
Janaway, "Self and World in Schopenhauer' s
Philosophy" (Oxford, 1999).
26-03-2002
Schrodinger Erwin
<history of philosophy, biography> Austrian physicist

(1887-1961) who established modern wave mechanics
and employed thought-experiments about the
superposition of contradictory states to explore the
apparently paradoxical consequences of quantum
mechanics. Schrodinger shared the Nobel Prize for
Physics in 1933.
Recommended Reading: Erwin Schrodinger, "Statistical

Thermodynamics" (Dover, 1989); Erwin Schrodinger,
"Space-Time Structure" (Cambridge, 1985); Erwin
Schrodinger, "What Is Life?:' The Physical Aspect of the
Living Cell' with ' Mind and Matter' and
' Autobiographical Sketches' ", ed. by Roger Penrose
(Cambridge, 1992); Walter Moore, "Schrodinger: Life
and Thought" (Cambridge, 1989); Jagdish Mehra and
Helmut Rechenberg, "Erwin Schrodinger and the Rise
of Wave Mechanics: Schrodinger in Vienna and Zurich
1887-1925" (Springer Verlag, 2000); and John Gribbin,
"In Search of Schrodinger' s Cat: Quantum Physics and
Reality" (Bantam, Doubleday, Dell, 1985).
26-03-2002
scientia
<philosophical terminology> Latin term for an

organized body of theoretical knowledge
(Gk.
✁✄✂ ☎✝✆ ✞✠✟✡✞ , epistêmê).
26-03-2002
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scientific law
<epistemology, determinism, cause> a general

scientific hypothesis that is true or (more weakly
understood) well confirmed or established. On
realist conceptions the laws of science are generally
regarded as expressing the causal laws according
to which all occurs, or by which all is governed. See
cause, determinism.
22-06-2001
scientific method
<philosophical terminology> a procedure for the

development and evaluation of explanatory
hypotheses.
Recommended Reading: Barry Gower, "Scientific

Method: A Historical and Philosophical Introduction"
(Routledge, 1997); Henry H. Bauer, "Scientific Literacy
and the Myth of the Scientific Method" (Illinois, 1994);
and Edgar Bright Wilson, "An Introduction to Scientific
Research" (Dover, 1991).
26-03-2002
scientific realism
<epistemology, metaphysics, instrumentalism> view

that holds that reality really is as science describes
it or as science ultimately would describe it at the
ideal end-point of inquiry. Contrast: instrumentalism.
22-06-2001
scientific theory
<epistemology> a logically closely interconnected set

of scientific laws.
22-06-2001
scientism
<epistemology, philosophy of science> the view

according to which the methods of the natural or
phsyical sciences are universally valid, and therefore
should apply to the "social sciences" and the
humanities as well. Scientism is often roughly
equivalent to reductionism, since the outcome for the
study of human and social affairs of applying each of
these approaches is much the same.
[The Ism Book]
27-03-2001
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Scott domain
<mathematics, logic> An algebraic,

boundedly complete, complete partial order.
Often simply called a domain.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
Scott-closed
<logic>
A set S, a subset of D, is Scott-closed if
(1) If Y is a subset of S and Y is directed then

lub Y is in S and
(2) If y ☛ s in S then y is in S.
I.e. a Scott-closed set contains the lubs of its

directed subsets and anything less than any
element. (2) says that S is downward closed
(or left closed).
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
Scotus John Duns
<history of philosophy, biography> British Franciscan

philosopher (1266-1308). Scotus developed the
notion of a formal distinction (more than nominal but
less than real) as the key to resolving problems of
individuation. On this basis, Scotus distinguished
intellect from volition and defended freedom of the
will against the determinism of the radical
Aristotelians. His "Treatise on God as First
Principle" employs a revision of Anselm' s
ontological argument in defence of the existence of
god.
Recommended Reading: John Duns Scotus,

"Philosophical Writings: A Selection" (Hackett,
1987); "Duns Scotus on the Will and Morality", tr. by
William A. Frank and Alan B. Wolter (Catholic U. of
Am., 1998); Richard Cross, "Duns Scotus" (Oxford,
1999); William A. Frank and Allan B. Wolter, "Duns
Scotus, Metaphysician" (Purdue, 1995); and "Five
Texts on the Mediaeval Problem of Universals":
"Porphyry, Boethius, Abelard, Duns Scotus, Ockham",
ed. by Paul Vincent Spade (Hackett, 1994).
26-03-2002
search problem
<computability> A computational problem that

requires identifying a solution from some, possibly
infinite, solution space (set of possible solutions).
E.g. "What is the millionth prime number?". This
contrasts with a decision problem which merely
asks whether a given answer is a solution or not.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
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search term
<information science> An element of a search or

query. A search term is the basic building block of a
Boolean search or a weighted search. In a search
engine a search term is typically a word, phrase, or
pattern match expression. For example: cosmonaut
or "space travel" or astronaut*.
In a database a term is typically the comparison of a
column with a constant or with another column. For
example: last_name like ' Smith%' .
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
Searle John

philosopher born in 1932. Expanding on the work of
Austin John Langshaw, Searle' s "Speech Acts: An
Essay in the Philosophy of Language" (1969) treats all
communication as instances of the performance of
speech acts. In "Intentionality: An Essay in the
Philosophy of Mind" (1983) and "The Rediscovery of
the Mind" (1992) Searle emphasizes the irreducibility
of consciousness and intentionality to the merely
physical elements of human existence. The "Chinese
Room" thought-experiment in his "Minds, Brains, and
Programs" (1980) purports to show that even effective
computer simulations do not embody genuine
intelligence, since rule-governed processes need not
rely upon understanding by those who perform them.
Recommended Reading: John R. Searle, "Minds,

Brains and Science" (Harvard, 1986); John R. Searle,
"Mind, Language, and Society: Philosophy in the Real
World" (Basic, 2000); John R. Searle, "The Mystery of
Consciousness" (N. Y. Review, 1997); John R. Searle,
"The Construction of Social Reality" (Free Press, 1997);
Nick Fotion, John Searle (Princeton, 2001); "John
Searle and His Critics", ed. by Robert Van Gulick and
Ernest Lepore (Blackwell, 1993); and William
Hirstein, "On Searle" (Wadsworth, 2000).
26-03-2002
second-order desire
<philosophy of mind> desire about desires, that is,

desire of the form "S wants x" where x is a desire".
16-03-2001
secondary qualities
<history of philosophy, biography> the extrinsic

features that things produce in us when we perceive
them, as opposed to the primary qualities the things
are supposed to have in themselves.
Recommended Reading: "Selected Philosophical

Papers of Robert Boyle" (Hackett, 1991); P. M. S.
Hacker, "Appearance and Reality: A Philosophical
Investigation into Perception and Perceptual Qualities"
(Blackwell, 1986); Colin McGinn, "The Subjective View:
Secondary Qualities and Indexical Thoughts"
(Clarendon, 1983).
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26-03-2002
secularism
<metaphysics, ethics> the view according to which

there exist no gods or purely spiritual entities.
Sometimes the sense of the word is less strong,
connoting something close to humanism, i.e., that
affairs of this world should be the most important
concerns for ethics and human life (it is in this sense
that Aristotelianism and other classical philosophies
can be described as secularist). Thus, while atheism
is a form of secularism, not every secularist is an
atheist. In popular usage, secularism often has the
same connotations of immoralism that are imputed
more strongly to atheism. (References from atheism,
Christianity, humanism, and pessimism.)
27-03-2001
secundum quid
<philosophical terminology> Latin for «according to

something» (in contrast with simpliciter). Hence, a
common abbreviation for «a dicto simpliciter ad
dictum secundum quid» and «a dicto secundum quid
ad dictum simpliciter». Latin designations for the
informal fallacies of accident and converse accident.
16-03-2002
self-deception
<philosophical terminology> avoidance or outright

denial of unpleasant aspects of reality, especially
those which might otherwise warrant an unfavorable
opinion about ourselves. Thus, for example, the
wishful thought, "I' m not really addicted to nicotine; I
could quit smoking any time." is clearly self-deceptive.
Kierkegaard, Heidegger, and Sartre condemned
self-deception as bad faith, or an inauthentic
response to the anxiety produced by contemplation of
human freedom. Although most of us retrospectively
acknowledge the role of such a practice in our own
lives, it isn' t clear what makes it possible for a single
person to be both deceived and deceiver. How can I
both know the truth and yet keep it from myself at the
same time? Unless the deception is entirely
unconscious, there must be some degree of willful
disregard of the evidence that I suspect would lead to
the unpleasant truth I would rather not face.
Recommended Reading: Jean-Paul Sartre, "Being

and Nothingness: A Phenomenological Essay on
Ontology", tr. by Hazel E. Barnes (Washington Square,
1993); "Perspectives on Self-Deception", ed. by Brian
P. McLaughlin and Amelia O. Rorty (California, 1988);
Alfred R. Mele, "Self-Deception Unmasked" (Princeton,
2001); Daniel P. Goleman, "Vital Lies Simple Truths:
The Psychology of Self-Deception" (Touchstone,
1996); Mike W. Martin, "Self-Deception and Morality"
(Kansas, 1988); Herbert Fingarette, "Self-Deception"
(California, 2000); Alfred R. Mele, "Irrationality: An
Essay on Akrasia, Self-Deception, and Self-Control"
(Oxford, 1992); and Annette Barnes, "Seeing Through
Self-Deception" (Cambridge, 1998).
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26-03-2002
self-evident
<philosophical terminology> certainly known without

proof. The notion of self-evidence is commonly
assimilated either to that of a priori knowledge or to
that of logical tautology.
26-03-2002
Sellars Wilfrid

philosopher (1912-1989); author of "Science,
Perception, and Reality" (1963) and "Essays in
Philosophy and its History" (1974). Sellars employed
the methods of logical positivism and analytic philosophy
to forge a unique account of human knowledge.
In "Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind" (1956)
Sellars tried to develop functional descriptions of
human behavior by means of which to reconcile
intentionality with materialism.
Recommended Reading: Wilfrid Sellars,

"Philosophical Perspectives: Metaphysics and
Epistemology" (Ridgeview, 1967); Wilfrid Sellars,
"Philosophical Perspectives: History of Philosophy"
(Ridgeview, 1979); Wilfrid Sellars, "Naturalism and
Ontology" (Ridgeview, 1980); C. Delaney, "The
Synoptic Vision: Essays on the Philosophy of Wilfrid
Sellars" (Notre Dame, 1977); and "Knowledge, Mind,
and the Given: Reading Wilfrid Sellars' s "Empiricism
and the Philosophy of Mind", Including the Complete
Text of Sellars' s Essay", ed. by Willam A. DeVries and
Tim Triplett (Hackett, 2000).
26-03-2002
semantic
semantics
00-00-0000
semantic completeness
<logic> The condition of a formal system in which

(1) the formal language has the power to express as
wffs all the propositions intended by the maker to
be meaningful, and (2) the deductive apparatus has
the power to prove as theorems all the propositions
intended by the maker to be true. The second
condition can be put more succinctly: all logically valid
wffs of the language are theorems of the system.
The first of these is also called expressive
completeness; the second is called deductive
completeness.
Semantic incompleteness: Failure of semantic

completeness, but especially when not all logically
valid wffs are theorems.
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16-03-2001
semantic consequence
<logic>
1. In truth-functional propositional logic, B is the

semantic consequence of A iff there is no
interpretation, I, in which A is true for I and B is false
for I, or in short, if all models of A are models of B.
2. In predicate logic, B is the semantic consequence

of A iff for every interpretation, every sequence that
satisfies A also satisfies B. Or, there is no sequence
in any interpretation that satisfies A but not B.
Notation: A |= B.
See satisfaction.
16-03-2001
semantic gap
The difference between the complex operations

performed by high-level language constructs and the
simple ones provided by computer instruction sets. It
was in an attempt to try to close this gap that computer
architects designed increasingly complex instruction
set computers.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
semantic network
<data> A graph consisting of nodes that represent

physical or conceptual objects and arcs that describe
the relationship between the nodes, resulting in
something like a data flow diagram. Semantic nets
are an effective way to represent data as they
incorporate the inheritance mechanism that prevents
duplication of data. That is, the meaning of a concept
comes from its relationship to other concepts and the
information is stored by interconnecting nodes with
labelled arcs.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
semantic tautology
<logic> A wff of truth-functional propositional logic

whose truth table column contains nothing but T' s
when these are interpreted as the truth-value Truth.
See syntactic tautology
16-03-2001
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semantic theory of truth
<philosophy of science, logic> belief that any claim

that a proposition is true can be made only as a
formal requirement regarding the language in which
the proposition itself is expressed. Thus, according
to Tarski, «It rained today» is true iff it rained
today. The distinction between different levels of
language employed by this theory is presumed to
offer a convenient evasion of otherwise troublesome
semantic paradoxes.
Recommended Reading: Richard L. Kirkham,

"Theories of Truth: A Critical Introduction" (Bradford,
1995); "Theories of Truth", ed. by Paul Horwich
(Dartmouth, 1994); and "Truth", ed. by Simon
Blackburn and Keith Simmons (Oxford, 1999).
26-03-2002
semantic validity
<logic> An inference is semantically valid iff it can

not be the case that all the premises are true and
the conclusion false at the same time.
See syntactic validity
16-03-2001
semantics
1. <philosophy of language, PI> the meaning of a

string in some language, as opposed to syntax
which describes how symbols may be combined
independent of their meaning.
The semantics of a programming language is a

function from programs to answers. A program is a
closed term and, in practical languages, an answer
is a member of the syntactic category of values. The
two main kinds are denotational semantics and
operational semantics.
2. <philosophy of mind> the study of relations

between a representation and what it represents.
See also naturalised semantics
16-03-2001
semiotics
<philosophical terminology> theory of signs,

comprising both semantics and syntactics,
especially in the philosophy of language of Peirce
and Saussure.
Recommended Reading: Charles Morris, "Signs,

Language, and Behavior" (Braziller, 1955); Umberto
Eco, "Theory of Semiotics" (Indiana, 1979); Thomas A.
Sebeok, "Signs: An Introduction to Semiotics"
(Toronto, 1995); Winfried Noth, "Handbook of
Semiotics" (Indiana, 1995); and Umberto Eco,
"Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language" (Indiana,
1986).
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26-03-2002
Seneca Lucius Annaeus
<history of philosophy, biography> Roman statesman

(4 BC - 65 CE) whose "Epistulae Morales" ("Moral
Letters") and "Dialogi" ("Dialogues") propounded the
stoic philosophy, of which his suicide was popularly
taken to be an exemplary application.
Recommended Reading: "Seneca: Essays and

Letters", tr. by Moses Hadas (Norton, 1968); "Seneca:
Moral and Political Essays", ed. by John M. Cooper
and J. F. Procope (Cambridge, 1995); and "Seneca: A
Critical Bibliography, 1900-1980: Scholarship on His
Life, Thought, Prose, and Influence", ed. by Anna L.
Motto (Hakkert, 1989).
26-03-2002
sensationalism
<epistemology> radical form of representationalism

which posits that all knowledge is constructed from
or consists in pure sensations (such as blotches of
color, pure tones, etc.). Some adherents go further
and claim that we do not have any direct knowledge
of reality, only of sensations. The popular meaning
is obviously non-philosophical and quite unrelated.
(References from associationalism and sensualism.)
[The Ism Book]
27-03-2001
sensations
<epistemology, metaphysics, empiricism> what we

experience directly -- such as shapes, colors, and
smells - in perceptual experience. Roughly
identifiable, with Locke' s«simple ideas» and
Hume' s«impressions». For Kant these are the
«matter» of perception for which time and space
are the a priori forms. Among contemporary
philosophers, sensations (or their distinctive «felt»
properties) are commonly called «qualia». Among the
presumed contents of the mind, sensations (being
concrete & particular) stand in contrast to
(abstract & general, or universal) concepts:
compare the experience of seeing red to the idea of
redness.
22-06-2001
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sense
<philosophy of language> the property of

representations of a part of the world that
captures that part as being a certain way;
meaning.
See sense-reference.
01-10-2003
sense data
<philosophical terminology> immediate objects of

sensation, also known as sensa or sensibilia,
especially in representationalist theories of
perception.
Recommended Reading: Bertrand Russell, "The

Problems of Philosophy" (Oxford, 1998); J. L.
Austin, "Sense and Sensibilia", ed. by Geoffrey J.
Warnock (Oxford, 1962); R. J. Hirst, "Problems of
Perception" (Prometheus, 1992); and D. M.
Armstrong, "A World of States of Affairs" (Cambridge,
1997).
28-03-2002
sense-reference
<philosophical terminology> distinction about the

meaning of words introduced by Frege. The
sense of an expression is the thought it expresses,
while its reference is the object it represents. Since
the ability to use a term presupposes familiarity with
its sense but not knowledge of its reference,
statements of identity can be genuinely informative
when they link two terms with the same reference but
distinct senses, as in «The husband of Barbara Bush
is the President who succeeded Ronald Reagan».
Recommended Reading: "The Frege Reader", ed. by

Michael Beaney (Blackwell, 1997); Wolfgang Carl,
"Frege' s Theory of Sense and Reference: Its Origins
and Scope" (Cambridge, 1994); and "Frege: Sense
and Reference One Hundred Years Later", ed. by John
Biro and Peter Kotatko (Kluwer, 1995).
28-03-2002
senses
<psychology, empiricism, epistemology>

metaphorically, "the doors of perception" (Wm.
Blake): the input channels by which the mind is
affected by the external world. Following Aristotle,
traditionally, there are said to be five: taste, touch,
smell, hearing, and sight. See perceive.
29-07-2001
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sentence
<logic> A collection of clauses.

See also closure, wff, proposition
16-03-2001
sequence
<logic> An ordered series or string of elements (called

terms). Also called an n-tuple when n is the number of
terms in the sequence. Notation: angled braces, <...>.
Notation: s(d/k), the sequence s when the kth member
is replaced by object d from the domain. Notation: t*s,
the member of the domain of an interpretation I
assigned by I to term t for sequence s.
16-03-2001
set
A collection of objects, known as the elements of the

set, specified in such a way that we can tell in principle
whether or not a given object belongs to it. E.g. the set
of all prime numbers, the set of zeros of the cosine
function.
For each set there is a predicate (or property) which

is true for (possessed by) exactly those objects which
are elements of the set. The predicate may be defined
by the set or vice versa. Order and repetition of
elements within the set are irrelevant so, for example,
1, 2, 3 = 3, 2, 1 = 1, 3, 1, 2, 2.
Some common set of numbers are given the following

names:
N = the natural numbers 0, 1, 2, ...
Z = the integers ..., -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, ...
Q = the rational numbers p/q where p, q are in Z and q ☞ 0.
R = the real numbers
C = the complex numbers.
The empty set is the set with no elements. The

intersection of two sets X and Y is the set containing
all the elements x such that x is in X and x is in Y. The
union of two sets is the set containing all the elements
x such that x is in X or x is in Y.
The intuitive notion of a set leads to paradoxes, and

there is considerable mathematical and philosophical
disagreement on how best to refine the intuitive
notion. In a set, the order of members is irrelevant,
and repetition of members is not meaningful.
See also complement of a set, complement,

countable set, decidable set, denumerable set,
difference, disjoint sets, enumerable set,
equivalent sets, intersection, membership
null set, power set, proper subset,
representation of a set, Russell' s paradox,
set theory, subset, superset, symmetric difference,
uncountable set, union, universal set
16-03-2001
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set theory
<mathematics> A mathematical formalisation of the

theory of "sets" (aggregates or collections) of objects
("elements" or "members"). Many mathematicians
use set theory as the basis for all other mathematics.
Axiomatic set theory

The study of formal systems whose theorems, on
the intended interpretation, are the truths of set theory.
Cantorian set theory

Set theory in which either the generalized continuum
hypothesis or the axiom of choice is an axiom.
Constructible set theory

Set theory limited to sets whose existence is assured
by the axioms of restricted set theory (see below). In
1938 Goedel proved that the axiom of choice,
continuum hypothesis, and generalized continuum
hypothesis are theorems (even if not axioms) of
constructible set theory.
Non-Cantorian set theory

Set theory in which either the negation of the
generalized continuum hypothesis (GCH) or the
negation of the axiom of choice (AC) is an axiom.
Since GCH => AC, if ~AC is an axiom, then ~GCH will
be a theorem.
Restricted set theory

standard set theory minus the axiom of choice.
Goedel proved in 1938 that if restricted set theory is
consistent, then it remains consistent when the
axiom of choice is added (and also when the
continuum hypothesis is added).
Standard set theory

The formal system first formulated by Ernst Zermelo
and Abraham Frankel. Also called Zermelo-Frankel
set theory or ZF.
Mathematicians began to realise towards the end of

the 19th century that just doing "the obvious thing" with
sets led to embarrassing paradoxes, the most
famous being Russell' s Paradox. As a result, they
acknowledged the need for a suitable axiomatisation
for talking about sets. Numerous such
axiomatisations exist; the most popular among
ordinary mathematicians is Zermelo Fr"nkel set
theory.
The translation into Latin of Sextus' s comprehensive

criticism of ancient schools of thought in "Adversos
Mathematicos" ("Against the Dogmatists") provided an
important resource for the development of modern
skepticism during the sixteenth century.
Recommended Reading: "The Original Sceptics: A

Controversy", ed. by Myles Burnyeat and Michael Frede
(Hackett, 1997); Tad Brennan, "Ethics and
Epistemology in Sextus Empircus" (Garland, 1999);
and Luciano Floridi, "Sextus Empiricus: The
Transmission and Recovery of Pyrrhonism" (Oxford,
2001).
28-03-2002
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Shaftesbury - Third Earl of - Anthony Ashley Cooper
<history of philosophy, biography> English moral

essayist (1671-1713). Raised in genteel
circumstances by his grandfather, one of the Lords
Proprietor of the Carolina colonies and a close
associate of Locke, Shaftesbury proposed a set of
practical rules for living that he claimed to arise from
the natural dispositions of all human beings, without
any reliance on divine revelation in "An Inquiry
concerning Virtue or Merit" (1699). This was an
important step in the development of the notion of a
moral sense by Hutcheson and Hume.
Shaftesbury' s works were collected in
"Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, and
Times" (1711).
Recommended Reading: "The Shaftesbury Collection"

(Thoemmes, 1997); John L. Hammond and Barbara
Hammond, "Lord Shaftesbury" (Ayer, 1970); Lawrence
E. Klein, "Shaftesbury and the Culture of
Politeness: Moral Discourse and Cultural Politics in
Early Eighteenth-Century England" (Cambridge,
1994); and John Andrew Bernstein, "Shaftesbury,
Rousseau, and Kant: An Introduction to the Conflict
Between Aesthetic and Moral Values in Modern"
(Fairleigh Dickinson, 1980).
28-03-2002
Sheffer stroke
stroke function
00-00-0000
short term memory
<philosophy of mind> STM, the temporary memory

store accessed after recent exposure to a stimulus
to be recalled.
See also long term memory, memory
16-03-2001
Sidgwick Henry
<history of philosophy, biography> English moral and

political philosopher (1838-1900). In "The Methods of
Ethics" (1874) and "Outlines of the History of Ethics"
(1886), Sidgwick surveyed the varieties of argument
that may be applied to moral judgments, including
intuitive common-sense, calculation of self-interest,
and a utilitarian normative theory. He supposed that
although each is well-founded, the three cannot be
wholly reconciled with each other. We are therefore
perpetually vulnerable to the possibility of conflicting
moral obligations.
Recommended Reading: "The Works of Henry

Sidgwick", ed. by John Slater (Thoemmes, 1997);
Henry Sidgwick, "Essays on Ethics and Method", ed.
by Marcus G. Singer (Oxford, 2001); "Henry Sidgwick,
Philosophy: Its Scope and Relations" (St. Augustine,
1998); J. B. Schneewind, "Sidgwick' s Ethics and
Victorian Moral Philosphy" (Oxford, 1977); and "Essays
on Henry Sidgwick", ed. by Bart Schultz (Cambridge,
1992).
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28-03-2002
Siger of Brabant
<history of philosophy, biography> French philosopher

(1235-1282). As one of the radical Aristoteleans in
Paris, Siger endorsed the philosophy of Ibn Rushd
and rejected medieval preoccupation with theological
concerns in his "Quaestiones in Metaphysicam"
("Metaphysical Questions"). Suspected of pursuing
a «double truth», Siger became one of the chief
targets of the Condemnation of 1270.
Recommended Reading: Tony Dodd, "The Life and

Thought of Siger of Brabant" (Edwin Mellen, 1998).
28-03-2002
signal
<operating system> A predefined message sent

between two Unix processes or from the kernel to
a process. Signals communicate the occurrence of
unexpected external events such as the forced
termination of a process by the user. Each signal has
a unique number associated with it and each process
has a signal handler set for each signal. Signals can
be sent using the kill system call.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
signal-to-noise ratio
1. <communications> (SNR, "s/n ratio", "s:n ratio")

"Signal" refers to useful information conveyed by some
communications medium, and "noise" to anything
else on that medium. The ratio of these is usually
expressed logarithmically, in decibels.
2. <networking> The term is often applied to Usenet

newsgroups though figures are never given. Here it is
quite common to have more noise (inappropriate
postings which contribute nothing) than signal
(relevant, useful or interesting postings). The signal
gets lost in the noise when it becomes too much
effort to try to find interesting articles among all the
crud. Posting "noise" is probably the worst breach of
netiquette and is a waste of bandwidth.
16-03-2001
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signalling rate
<communications> The number of times per second

the amplitude, frequency or phase of the signal
transmitted down a communications channel
changes each second. The signalling rate is
measured in baud.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
silicon chip replacement thought experiment
<philosophy of mind> a thought experiment

proposed to support the notion of causal functionalism
by Pylyshyn.
Pete Mandik
16-03-2001
simple consistency
<logic> A system is simply consistent iff there is no

wff A such that both A and ~A are theorems.
Simple inconsistency
A system is simply inconsistent if there is some wff

A such that both A and ~A are theorems.
16-03-2001
simple propositions
<logic> A proposition whose internal structure does

not interest us; hence a proposition whose internal
structure we do not make visible in our notation.
Notation: p, q, r, etc.
16-03-2001
simpliciter
<philosophical terminologhy> Latin for "simply"

or "naturally" (in contrast with secundum quid).
Hence, what anything is when considered absolutely
or without qualification.
28-03-2002
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simplification
<logic, philosophy of science> a rule of inference of

the form:
p.q
_____
p
Example: "Jevona is tall and Jevona is thin. Therefore,

Jevona is tall". Although trivial in ordinary language,
this pattern of reasoning is vital for proof construction
in the propositional calculus.
28-03-2002
simulated annealing
A technique which can be applied to any minimisation

or learning process based on successive update
steps (either random or deterministic) where the
update step length is proportional to an arbitrarily set
parameter which can play the role of a temperature.
Then, in analogy with the annealing of metals, the
temperature is made high in the early stages of the
process for faster minimisation or learning, then is
reduced for greater stability.
16-03-2001
simulation
Attempting to predict aspects of the behaviour of some

system by creating an approximate (mathematical)
model of it. This can be done by physical modelling, by
writing a special-purpose computer program or using
a more general simulation package, probably still
aimed at a particular kind of simulation (e.g. structural
engineering, fluid flow). Typical examples are aircraft
flight simulators or electronic circuit simulators. A
great many simulation languages exist, e.g. Simula.
See also emulation, Markov chain.
Usenet newsgroup: news:comp.simulation.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
sine qua non
<philosophical terminology> Latin for "without which,

not"; hence, an alternative way of expressing the
presence of a necessary condition.
28-03-2002
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Singer Peter
<history of philosophy, biography> Australian

philosopher born in 1946. Singer is an ethicist
whose "Practical Ethics" (1979) emphasizes the
application of consequentialist moral principles to
matters of personal and social concern. He is most
widely admired for "Animal Liberation" (1975), in which
Singer shows that, since a difference of species
entails no moral distinction between sentient beings,
it is wrong to mistreat non-human animals; it follows
that animal experimentation and the eating of animal
flesh are morally indefensible. In "Do Animals Feel
Pain?", Singer argues for the moral relevance of
animal pain.
Recommended Reading: Peter Singer, "How Are We to Live?: Ethics in an Age of Self-Interest" (Prometheus,
1995); Peter Singer, Rethinking "Life & Death: The Collapse of Our Traditional Ethics" (St. Martin' s 1996)
Peter Singer, "Ethics Into Action" (Rowman & Littlefield, 1998); Peter Singer, "Writings on an Ethical
Life" (Ecco, 2000); and "Singer and His Critics", ed. by Dale Jamieson (Blackwell, 1999).
28-03-2002
singleton
singleton variable
00-00-0000
singleton variable
<programming, PI> A variable which is only referred

to once in a piece of code, probably because of a
programming mistake. To be useful, a variable must
be set and read from, in that order. If it is only referred
to once then it cannot be both set and read.
There are various exceptions. C-like assignment

operators, e.g. "x += y", read and set x and return its
new value (they are abbreviations for "x = x+y", etc). A
function argument may be passed only for the sake
of uniformity or to support future enhancements. A
good compiler or a syntax checker like lint should
report singleton variables but also allow specific
instances to be marked as deliberate by the
programmer.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
singular proposition
<philosophical terminology> a statement that some

individual has a particular feature. In categorical logic,
since its subject term designates a unit class, the
singular proposition should be interpreted as the
conjuction of corresponding universal and particular
propositions (either as A and I or as E and O).
28-03-2002
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Sinn - Bedeutung
<philosophical terminology> Frege' s German

distinction between the sense and reference of a
term, intended to account for the possibility of
genuinely informative statements of identity.
28-03-2002
skepticism
<philosophical terminolgy> belief that some or all

human knowledge is impossible. Since even our
best methods for learning about the world
sometimes fall short of perfect certainty, skeptics
argue, it is better to suspend belief than to rely on the
dubitable products of reason. Classical skeptics
include Pyrrho and Sextus Empiricus. In the
modern era, Montaigne, Bayle, and Hume all
advocated some form of skeptical philosophy.
Fallibilism is a more moderate response to the lack
of certainty.
Recommended Reading: "Skepticism: A

Contemporary Reader", ed. by Keith Derose and Ted
A. Warfield (Oxford, 1998); "Skepticism", ed. by Ernest
Sosa an, Enrique Villanueva (Blackwell, 2000);
Richard Henry Popkin, "The History of Skepticism from
Erasmus to Spinoza" (California, 1979); Barry Stroud,
"The Significance of Philosophical Skepticism"
(Clarendon, 1984); Panayot Butchvarov, "Skepticism in
Ethics" (Indiana, 1989); and Skepticism, ed. by
Michael Williams (Dartmouth, 1993).
28-03-2002
Skinner Burrhus Frederic

psychologist (1904-1990); author of "Science and
Human Behavior" (1953) and "Verbal Behavior" (1957). Expanding on the behaviorist theories of Watson,
Skinner engaged in strict scientific study of human behavior and proposed the application of
psychology to the deliberate engineering of human
societies. Skinner' s "Two Types of Conditioned Reflex"
(1935) provided a technical description of the ways in
which animals acquire novel patterns of behavior.
"Walden 2" (1948) proposed the systematic use of
psychological conditioning in pursuit of an improved
society. Skinner rejected the notion of moral autonomy
more generally in "Beyond Freedom and Dignity"
(1971). In "The Origins of Cognitive Thought" (1989)
Skinner offered a behaviourist explanation for
human thinking.
Recommended Reading: B. F. Skinner, "About

Behaviorism" (Random House, 1976); William T.
O' Donohue and Kyle E. Ferguson, "The Psychology of
B. F. Skinner" (Sage, 2001); "Modern Perspectives on
B. F. Skinner and Contemporary Behaviorism", ed. by
James T. Todd and Edward K. (Greenwood, 1995);
and Robert D. Nye, "The Legacy of B. F. Skinner:
Concepts and Perspectives, Controversies and
Misunderstandings" (Wadsworth, 1992).
28-03-2002
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Skolem normal form
<logic> A wff of predicate logic is in Skolem normal

form iff (1) it is in prenex normal form, (2) it contains
no function symbols, and (3) all existential
quantifiers are to the left of all universal quantifiers.
See prenex normal form
16-03-2001
Skolem paradox
<logic> The paradox that results from the

Lowenheim-Skolem theorem (LST). Does LST
mean that the real numbers have the same cardinality
as the natural numbers? Does it mean that the
difference between the real numbers and the natural
numbers that explains the greater cardinality of the
reals cannot in principle be described or proved?
Does it mean that no set is "absolutely" uncountable
but only "relatively" to a given set of axioms and a given
interpretation?
16-03-2001
Skolemisation
A means of removing quantifiers from first order logic

formulas.
See Skolem normal form.
16-03-2001
Smart John Jameison Carswell
<history of philosophy, biography> English-Australian

philosopher born in 1920. Influenced by the methods
of Ryle, Smart defends a strictly physicalist
philosophy of mind in "Philosophy and Scientific
Realism" (1963). Smart' s noncognitivist approach to
morality yields a defence of act utilitarianism in
"Utilitarianism: For and Against" (1973), co-authored
with Bernard Williams.
Recommended Reading: J. J. C. Smart and J. J.

Haldane, "Atheism and Theism" (Blackwell, 1996).
28-03-2002
Smith Adam
<history of philosophy, biography> Scottish

philosopher and economist (1723-1790). Smith
modified the moral sense theory in his "Theory of
Moral Sentiments" (1759), placing greater emphasis
than had Hutcheson on the sentiment of sympathy
and the virtue of self-control. Smith' s "An Inquiry into
the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations"
(1776) proposed the economic theory that social
goods are maximized when individual human beings
are permitted to pursue their own interests, restricted
only by the most general principles of justice.
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Recommended Reading: Jack Russell Weinstein, "On

Adam Smith" (Wadsworth, 2000); "Three Great
Economists: Smith, Malthus, Keynes", ed. by D. D.
Raphael, Donald Winch, Robert Skidelsky, and Keith
Thomas (Oxford, 1997); Charles L. Griswold, Jr.,
"Adam Smith and the Virtues of Enlightenment"
(Cambridge, 1998); and Jerry Z. Muller, "Adam Smith
in His Time and Ours" (Princeton, 1995).
28-03-2002
social constructivism
<epistemology> view marked by its rejection of the

objectivity of truth, generally, and of scientific truth
in particular. Constructivists hold that scientific laws,
descriptions, and even observations are social
constructs -- products or projections of human
cultures or communities. As such, they are thoroughly
theory laden and vary between cultures.
Consequently scientific truth is neither objective nor
universal. Contrast: objective truth. Compare
theory laden, theory neutral.
22-06-2001
social contract theory
<philosophical terminology> belief that political

structures and the legitimacy of the state derive from
an (explicit or implicit) agreement by individual human
beings to surrender (some or all of) their private rights
in order to secure the protection and stability of an
effective social organization or government. Distinct
versions of social contract theory were proposed by
Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, and Rawls.
Recommended Reading: "Social Contract: Essays by

Locke, Hume, and Rousseau", ed. by Ernest Barker
(Oxford, 1962); "The Social Contract Theorists: Critical
Essays on Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau", ed. by
Christopher W. Morris (Rowman & Littlefield, 1999);
Brian Skyrms, "Evolution of the Social Contract"
(Cambridge, 1996); John Rawls, "The Law of
Peoples" (Harvard, 2001); and Patrick Riley, "Will and
Political Legitimacy: A Critical Exposition of Social
Contract Theory in Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Kant,
and Hegel" (iUniverse, 1999).
28-03-2002
social Darwinism
<ethics, political philosophy> movement of thought

that started in the late nineteenth century as an
application of Charles Darwin' s insights to human
affairs; its most (in)famous exponent was Herbert
Spencer. Social Darwinism holds that the principle of
"the survival of the fittest" applies to human ethics and
politics just as it does to biological evolution. Left-leaning
critics often allege that social Darwinism provides an
accurate description of - or an inexcusable attempt at
justification for - life under capitalism.
[The Ism Book]
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27-03-2001
Socrates
<history of philosophy, biography> Greek philosopher

(470-399 BC). As the heir of an wealthy Athenian
sculptor, Socrates used his financial independence
as an opportunity to invent the practice of
philosophical dialogue. Since he wrote nothing of his
own, we are dependent upon contemporary writers
like Aristophanes and Xenophon for our information
about his life. After dignified service as a soldier in the
Peloponnesian War, he lived for the rest of his life in
Athens and devoted nearly all of his time to free-wheeling
discussion with its aristocratic young citizens,
insistently questioning their confidence in the
truth of popular opinions, even though he often
offered no clear alternative. Unlike the professional
Sophists, Socrates declined to accept payment for
his work with students, many of whom were fanatically
loyal to him. Their parents, however, were often
displeased with his influence, and his association
with opponents of the democratic regime made him a
controversial political figure. An Athenian jury officially
convicted Socrates (of corrupting youth and
interfering with the religion of the city) and sentenced
him to death in 399 BC. Accepting this outcome,
Socrates drank hemlock and died in the company of
his friends and disciples. Our best sources of
information about Socrates' s philosophical views are
the early dialogues of his student Plato, who
attempted to provide a faithful picture of the methods
and teachings of the master. Here the extended
conversations of Socrates aim at understanding
(and, therefore, achieving) virtue (Gk. aretÍ) through
the careful application of a dialectical method that
uses critical inquiry to undermine the plausibility of
widely-held doctrines. In "Eutifron" ("Euthyphro"), for
example, Socrates systematically refutes the
superficial notion of piety or moral rectitude defended
by a confident young man. Plato' s "Apologia"
("Apology") is an account of Socrates' s (unsuccessful)
speech in his own defense before the Athenian jury; it
includes a detailed description of the motives and
goals of philosophical activity as he practiced it. The
"Kriton" ("Crito") reports that during Socrates' s
imprisonment he responded to friendly efforts to
secure his escape by seriously debating whether or
not an individual citizen can ever be justified in
refusing to obey the laws of the state. The Socrates of
the "Menon" ("Meno") investigates the nature of virtue,
defending the doctrine of recollection as an
explanation of our most significant knowledge and
maintaining that knowledge and virtue are so
closely related that no human agent ever knowingly
chooses evil: improper conduct is a product of
ignorance rather than of weakness of the will (Gk.
akr• sia). The same view is also defended in the
"Protagora" ("Protagoras"), along with the unity of the
virtues. Although Socrates continues to appear as a
character in the later dialogues of Plato, these
writings more often express philosophical positions
Plato himself developed long after Socrates' s death.
Primary sources:
Plato, "The Last Days of Socrates", ed. by Hugh
Tredennick (Penguin, 1995); Xenophon,
"Conversations of Socrates", ed. by Hugh Tredennick
(Penguin, 1990).
Secondary sources:
"Essays on the Philosophy of Socrates", ed. by Hugh
H. Benson (Oxford, 1992); Christopher Taylor,
"Socrates" (Oxford, 1999); Anthony Gottlieb, "Socrates"
(Routledge, 1999); Gregory Vlastos, "Socrates, Ironist
and Moral Philosopher" (Cornell, 1991); Alexander
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Nehamas, "Virtues of Authenticity" (Princeton, 1998); I.

F. Stone, "The Trial of Socrates" (Anchor, 1989).
Additional on-line information on Socrates includes:

Richard Hooker' s excellent treatment. C. C. W. Taylor' s
article in "The Oxford Companion to Philosophy".
Also see: ancient philosophy, divine command ethics,

elenchus, Euthyphro problem, Socratic irony, Socratic
method, and the Socratic paradox. The article in the
Columbia Encyclopedia at Bartleby.com. The thorough
collection of resources at EpistemeLinks.com.
Snippets from Socrates in The Oxford Dictionary of
Quotations. A brief entry in The Macmillan
Encyclopedia 2001.
04-04-2002
Socraticism
<ethics, epistemology> Socraticism is not a word that

pops up very often (even in philosophy). It refers to
either of two things: Socrates' position of
intellectualism in ethics, or his method of asking
questions in order to arrive at universal definitions of
concepts such as courage and justice (what' s come to
be known as the "Socratic method"). His
intellectualism has not been very influential, but his
methodology forms the foundation of Western
philosophy. The legacy of Socrates was transmitted
through the works of Plato and Aristotle, who
continued on the paths he started and who are
sometimes called Socratic philosophers. Socrates is
also a central figure of Western humanism, since he
insisted that the central concerns of philosophy must
be ethics and the good life, not technical issues that
are of little or no interest to human beings in general.
[The Ism Book]
27-03-2001
software
<programming, PI> (Or "computer program",

"program") The instructions executed by a computer,
as opposed to the physical device on which they run
(the "hardware"). "Code" is closely related but not
exactly the same.
Programs stored on non-volatile storage built from

integrated circuits (e.g. ROM or PROM) are usually
called firmware.
Software can be split into two main types - system software

and application software or application programs.
System software is any software required to support
the production or execution of application programs
but which is not specific to any particular application.
Examples of system software would include the
operating system, compilers, editors and sorting
programs.
Examples of application programs would include an

accounts package or a CAD program. Other broad
classes of application software include real-time
software, business software, scientific and
engineering software, embedded software, personal
computer software and artificial intelligence software.
Software includes both source code written by
humans and executable machine code produced by
assemblers or compilers. It does not usually
include the data processed by programs unless this
is in a format such as multimedia which depends on
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the use of computers for its presentation. This

distinction becomes unclear in cases such as spread
sheets
which can contain both instructions (formulae and
macros) and data. There are also various
intermediate compiled or semi-compiled, forms of
software such as library files and byte-code.
Some claim that documentation (both paper and
electronic) is also software. Others go further and
define software to be programs plus documentation
though this does not correspond with common usage.
The noun "program" describes a single, complete and

more-or-less self-contained list of instructions, often
stored in a single file, whereas "code" and "software"
are uncountable nouns describing some number of
instructions which may constitute one or more
programs or part thereof. Most programs, however,
rely heavily on various kinds of operating system
software for their execution.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
software law
<legal> Software may, under various circumstances

and in various countries, be restricted by patent or
copyright or both. Most commercial software is sold
under some kind of software license.
A patent normally covers the design of something with

a function such as a machine or process. Copyright
restricts the right to make and distribute copies of
something written or recorded, such as a song or a
book of recipies. Software has both these aspects - it
embodies functional design in the algorithms and
data structures it uses and it could also be considered
as a recording which can be copied and "performed"
(run). "Look and feel" lawsuits attempt to monopolize
well-known command languages; some have
succeeded. Copyrights on command languages
enforce gratuitous incompatibility, close opportunities
for competition, and stifle incremental improvements.
Software patents are even more dangerous; they
make every design decision in the development of a
program carry a risk of a lawsuit, with draconian
pretrial seizure. It is difficult and expensive to find out
whether the techniques you consider using are
patented; it is impossible to find out whether they will
be patented in the future.
The proper use of copyright is to prevent software piracy

- unauthorised duplication of software. This is
completely different from copying the idea behind the
program in the same way that photocopying a book
differs from writing another book on the same subject.
Usenet newsgroup: news:misc.legal.computing.
["The Software Developer' s and Marketer' s Legal Companion",

Gene K. Landy, 1993, AW, 0-201-62276-9].
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
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software life-cycle
<programming, PI> The phases a software product

goes through between when it is conceived and when
it is no longer available for use. The software life-cycle
typically includes the following: requirements analysis,
design, construction, testing (validation),
installation, operation, maintenance, and retirement.
The development process tends to run iteratively

through these phases rather than linearly; several
models (spiral, waterfall etc.) have been proposed to
describe this process.
Other processes associated with a software product

are: quality assurance, marketing, sales and support.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
Software Method
Software Methodology
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Software Methodology
<programming, PI> The study of how to navigate

through each phase of the software process model
(determining data, control, or uses hierarchies,
partitioning functions, and allocating requirements)
and how to represent phase products (structure
charts, stimulus-response threads, and state transition diagrams).
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
software metric
A measure of software quality which indicate the

complexity, understandability, testability, description
and intricacy of code.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
software patent
<legal> A patent intended to prevent others from using

some programming technique.
There have been several infamous patents for

software techniques which most experienced
programmers would consider fundamental or trivial,
such as the idea of using exclusive-or to plot a
cursor on a bitmap display. The spread of software
patents could stifle innovation and make
programming much harder because programmers
would have to worry about patents when designing or
choosing algorithms.
There are over ten thousand software patents in the

US, and several thousand more are issued each
year. Each one may be owned by, or could be bought
by, a grasping company whose lawyers carefully plan
to attack people at their most vulnerable moments. Of
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course, they couch the threat as a "reasonable offer" to

save you miserable years in court. "Divide and
conquer" is the watchword: pursue one group at a
time, while advising the rest of us to relax because we
are in no danger today.
Compuserve developed the GIF format for graphical

images many years ago, not knowing about Unisys' s
1985 patent covering the LZW data compression
algorithm used in GIF. GIF was subsequently
adopted widely on the Internet. In 1994 Unisys
threatened to sue Compuserve, forcing them to
impose a sublicensing agreement for GIF on their
users. Compuserve users can accept this agreement
now, or face Unisys later on their own. The rest of us
don' t have a choice-- we get to face Unisys when they
decide it' s our turn. So much trouble from just one
software patent.
Patents in the UK can' t describealgorithms or

mathematical methods.
See also LPF, software law.
patent search
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
software piracy
software theft
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software pirate
software theft
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software theft
<legal> The unauthorised duplication and/or use of

computer software. This usually means
unauthorised copying, either by individuals for use by
themselves or their friends or, less commonly, by
companies who then sell the illegal copies to users.
Many kinds of software protection have been
invented to try to reduce software theft but, with
sufficient effort it is always possible to bypass
or "crack" the protection, and software protection is
often annoying for legitimate users.
Software theft was estimated for 1994 to have cost

$15 billion in worldwide lost revenues to software
publishers. It is a serious offence under the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988, which states that "The
owner of the copyright has the exclusive right to copy
the work.".
It is illegal to: 1. Copy or distribute software or its

documentation without the permission or licence of
the copyright owner. 2. Run purchased software on
two or more computers simultaneously unless the
licence specifically allows it. 3. Knowingly or
unknowingly allow, encourage or pressure employees
to make or use illegal copies sources within the
organisation. 4. Infringe laws against unauthorised
software copying because a superior, colleague or
friend compels or requests it. 5. Loan software in
order that a copy be made of it.
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Both individuals and companies may be convicted of

piracy offences. Officers of a company are also liable
to conviction if the offences were carried out by the
company with their consent. On conviction, the guilty
party can face imprisonment for up to two years (five in
USA), an unlimited fine or both as well as being sued
for copyright infringement (with no limit) by the
copyright owner.
When software is upgraded it is generally the case

that the licence accompanying the new version
revokes the old version. This means that it is illegal to
run both the old and new versions as only the new
version is licensed.
Some people mistakenly think that, because it is so

easy to make illegal copies of software, that it is less
wrong than, say, stealing it from a shop. In fact, both
actions deprive software producers of the income they
need to continue their business and develop their
products.
Software theft should be reported to the

Federation Against Software Theft (FAST).
See also Business Software Alliance, software audit,

software law.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
solipsism
<philosophical terminology> belief that only I myself

and my own experiences are real, while anything
else - a physical object or another person - is nothing
more than an object of my consciousness. As a
philosophical position, solipsism is usually the
unintended consequence of an over-emphasis on the
reliability of internal mental states, which provide no
evidence for the existence of external referents.
Recommended Reading: Gilbert Ryle, The Concept of

Mind (Chicago, 1984); P. F. Strawson, Individuals: an
Essay in Descriptive Metaphysics (Routledge, 1979);
and Albert A. Johnstone, Rationalized Epistemology:
Taking Solipsism Seriously (SUNY, 1991).
04-04-2002
sophia
<philosophical terminology> Greek term for the

intellectual virtue of wisdom, in contrast with the more
practical function of phrÛnÍsis. According to Plato,
this is the distinctive feature of rulers in the ideal state
and the crowning achievement of the rational soul of
an individual.
Recommended Reading: F.E. Peters, Greek

Philosophical Terms: A Historical Lexicon (NYU, 1967).
04-04-2002
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sophism
<philosophical terminology> a plausible argument

that is actually fallacious, especially when someone
dishonestly presents it as if it were legitimate
reasoning.
[A Dictionary of Phlosophical Terms and Names]
04-04-2002
sophists
<philosophical terminology> Presocratic philosophers

who offered to teach young Athenians how to use
logic and rhetoric to defeat opponents in any
controversy. Socrates and Plato sharply criticized
most of the sophists because they accepted
monetary rewards for encouraging unprincipled
persuasive methods.
Recommended Reading: W. K. C. Guthrie, The

Sophists (Cambridge, 1971); The Older Sophists, ed.
by Rosamond Kent Sprague (Hackett, 2001); The First
Philosophers: The Presocratics and Sophists, ed. by
Robin Waterfield (Oxford, 2000); and Susan C. Jarratt,
Rereading the Sophists: Classical Rhetoric Refigured
(Southern Illinois, 1998).
04-04-2002
sophrosine
<philosophical terminology> Greek term for moderation, the capacity to exercise self-control over one' s desire
for pleasure. For Plato, this is the virtue best exemplified by the masses in the ideal state.
According to Aristotle, however, sofrosune is even
more crucial, since every moral virtue is properly
conceived as the mean between vicious extremes.
Recommended Reading: F. E. Peters, Greek

Philosophical Terms: A Historical Lexicon (NYU, 1967).
04-04-2002
sorites
<philosophical terminolgy> a complex variety of

arguments consisting entirely of categorical
syllogisms linked together by the use of the same
propositions as the conclusions of some and the
premises of others. Example: "Some pets are
cardinals, but all cardinals are finches, while every
finch is a bird, and only warm-blooded animals are
birds. Hence, some pets are birds." Applied to vague
predicates, such chains of reasoning may result in
paradox: if one grain of sand does not make a heap,
and the addition of a second grain of sand does not
make a heap, and the addition of a third grain of sand
does not make a heap, etc., etc., then it would seem to
follow (contrary to fact) that a collection of ten billion
grains of sand must not be a heap.
Recommended Reading: Lewis Carroll, Symbolic

Logic & Game of Logic (Dover, 1958) and Linda Claire
Burns, Vagueness: An Investigation into Natural
Languages and the Sorites Paradox (Kluwer, 1991).
[A Dictionary of Pjilosophical terms and Names]
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06-04-2002
soul
<philosophical terminology> the active principle

present in living things. Plato distinguished three
distinct components of the human soul, and
Aristotle supposed that plants and animals, no less
than human beings, have souls of some sort. Under
the influence of Christianity, medieval philosophers
focussed on the intellectual component of the human
soul, and Descartes identified it as an immaterial
substance.
Recommended Reading: Plato, Phaedo (Oxford,

1999); Aristotle, De Anima / On the Soul (Penguin,
1987); Thomas Aquinas, On Human Nature (Hackett,
1999); Jan N. Bremmer, The Early Greek Concept of
the Soul (Princeton, 1987); and Whatever Happened to
the Soul? Scientific and Theological Portraits of
Human Nature, ed. by Warren S. Brown, Nancey C.
Murphy, and H. Newton Malony (Fortress, 1998).
06-04-2002
sound - unsound
<philosophical terminology> distinction among

deductive arguments. A sound argument both has
true premises and employs a valid inference; its
conclusion must therefore be true. An unsound
argument either has one or more false premises or
relies upon an invalid inference; its conclusion may
be either true or false.
06-04-2002
soundness
<logic> An argument or inference is sound iff its

reasoning is valid and all its premises are true. It is
unsound otherwise, i.e. if either its reasoning is
invalid, or at least one premise is false, or both.
16-03-2001
source
source code
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source code
<language, programming, PI> (Or "source", or

rarely "source language") The form in which a
computer program is written by the programmer.
Source code is written in some formal programming
language which can be compiled automatically into
object code or machine code or executed by an
interpreter.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
Souvre Madeleine de Marquise de Sable
<history of philosophy, biography> French intellectual

leader. Madame de SablÈ (1599-1678) hosted an
influential salon at Port-Royal and wrote Maximes et
Pensees Diverses (Moral Maxims and Reflections)
(1691) summarizing her view of human nature.
06-04-2002
space complexity
<complexity> The way in which the amount of storage

space required by an algorithm varies with the size of
the problem it is solving. Space complexity is normally
expressed as an order of magnitude, e.g. O(N^2)
means that if the size of the problem (N) doubles then
four times as much working storage will be needed.
See also computational complexity, time complexity.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
specialisation
A reduction in generality, usually for the sake of

increased efficiency. If a piece of code is specialised
for certain values of certain variables (usually function
arguments), this is known as "partial evaluation". In
a language with overloading (e.g. Haskell), an
overloaded function might be specialised to a
non-overloaded instance at compile-time if the types
of its arguments are known.
16-03-2001
speech acts
<philosophical terminology> the complex group of

things we typically perform when speaking. J.L.
Austin famously distinguished the simple
locutionary act of saying something meaningful, the
force of the illocutionary act of employing this
language for some purpose, and the further
perlocutionary act of having an actual effect on those
who hear the utterance. Thus, for example, in saying
(locution) to a friend, "That' s an ugly necktie", I may
also insult him (illocution) and persuade him to dress
differently (perlocution).
Recommended Reading: J.L. Austin, Philosophical

Papers, ed. by Geoffrey J. Warnock and J. O. Urmson
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(Oxford, 1990); J.L. Austin, How to Do Things With

Words, ed. by Marina Sbisa and J. O. Urmson
(Harvard, 1975); and John R. Searle, Speech Acts
(Cambridge, 1970).
06-04-2002
speech recognition
<application> (Or voice recognition) The identification

of spoken words by a machine. The spoken words
are digitised (turned into sequence of numbers) and
matched against coded dictionaries in order to identify
the words.
Most systems must be "trained," requiring samples of

all the actual words that will be spoken by the user of
the system. The sample words are digitised, stored in
the computer and used to match against future
words. More sophisticated systems require voice
samples, but not of every word. The system uses the
voice samples in conjunction with dictionaries of
larger vocabularies to match the incoming words. Yet
other systems aim to be "speaker-independent", i.e.
they will recognise words in their vocabulary from any
speaker without training.
Another variation is the degree with which systems

can cope with connected speech. People tend to run
words together, e.g. "next week" becomes "neksweek"
(the "t" is dropped). For a voice recognition system to
identify words in connected speech it must take into
account the way words are modified by the preceding
and following words.
It has been said (in 1994) that computers will need to

be something like 1000 times faster before large
vocabulary (a few thousand words), speaker-independent,
connected speech voice recognition will be feasible.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
Spencer Herbert

philosopher (1820-1903) whose Education (1861)
promoted a scientific approach to the creative
development of intellect. In the systematic
philosophical work that began with First Principles
(1862) Spencer tried to generalize from Darwinian
evolution a comprehensive account of progress in
human knowledge, morality and society. The
political views expressed in Man versus the State
(1884) include a nearly absolute defence of individual liberty and a strict opposition to governmental
interference.
Recommended Reading: Herbert Spencer, Principles

of Ethics, ed. by Tibor R. Machan (Liberty Fund, 1981);
W. H. Hudson, An Introduction to the Philosophy of
Herbert Spencer (Thoemmes, 1999); Robert G. Perrin,
Herbert Spencer: A Primary and Secondary
Bibliography (Garland, 1993); and Herbert Spencer
and the Limits of the State: The Late Nineteenth-Century
Debate Between Individualism and Collectivism, ed. by Michael Taylor (St. Augustine, 1996).
06-04-2002
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Spinoza Baruch
<history of philosophy, biography> born into the

Portuguese-Jewish community living in exile in
Holland, Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) engaged in
profound study of medieval Jewish thought as well as
modern philosophy and the new science. Expelled for
his heretical theological opinions from the synagogue
at Amsterdam in 1656, he supported himself by
grinding optical lenses and began a serious study of
Cartesian philosophy. Private circulation of his
philosophical treatises soon earned him a significant
reputation throughout Europe, but Spinoza so
treasured his intellectual independence that in 1673
he declined the opportunity to teach at Heidelberg.
Spinoza' s first published work was a systematic
presentation of the philosophy of Descartes, together
with his own modifications. The Principles of
Descartes' s Philosophy (1663). While completing
the development of his own philosophical views,
Spinoza turned his attention to other issues. The
Tractatus Theologico-Politicus (A Theologico-Political
Treatise) (1670) is a treatment of popular religion and
toleration. Spinoza disavowed anthropomorphic
conceptions of god, proposed modern methods for
biblical interpretation, and defended political
toleration of alternative religious practices, especially
between Christians and Jews. In the metaphysical
speculations that dominated his philosophical
reflections, the firm conviction that the universe is a
unitary whole led rationalist Spinoza to express his
philosophy in a geometrical form like that of Euclid' s
Elements. Thus, each of the five books of the Ethica
Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata (Ethics) (1677)
presents a series of significant propositions, each of
which is deduced from self-evident definitions and
axioms. In Book I Spinoza claimed to demonstrate
both the necessary existence and the essential nature
of the unique, single substance that comprises all of
reality. The infinite attributes of this being ("god or
nature") account for every feature of the universe. Book
II describes the parallel structure and necessary
function of the ideas and things we, with our dual
natures, comprehend through the two attributes best
known to us, thought and extension. It also
accounts for the possibility of human knowledge
based ultimately on the coordination of these diverse
realms. Spinoza applied similar principles to human
desires and agency in Books III-V of the Ethics,
recommending a life that acknowledges the
fundamental consequences of our position as mere
modes of the one true being. Recognizing the
invariable influence of desire over our passionate
natures, we must always strive for the peace of mind
that comes through an impartial attachment to
reason. Although such an attitude is not easy to
maintain, he concluded that "All noble things are as
difficult as they are rare". Spinoza' s Tractatus de
Intellectus Emendatione (On the Improvement of the
Understanding) (1677) provides additional guidance
on the epistemological consequences of his
metaphysical convictions. Here Spinoza proposed
a "practical" method for achieving the bestknowledge
of which human thinkers are capable.
Primary sources:
Spinoza Opera, ed. by C. Gebhardt (Heidelberg, 1925);
The Collected Works of Spinoza, Volume I, ed. by
Edwin Curley (Princeton, 1985); Benedict De Spinoza,
Ethics including the Improvement of the
Understanding, tr. by R. H. M. Elwes (Prometheus,
1989); Baruch Spinoza, Theologico-Political Treatise,
tr. by R. H. M. Elwes (Dover, 1951).
Secondary sources:
The Cambridge Companion to Spinoza, ed. by Don
Garrett (Cambridge, 1995); Henry Allison, Benedict de
Spinoza: An Introduction (Yale, 1987); Roger Scruton,
Spinoza (Oxford, 1987); Genevieve Lloyd, Routledge
Philosophy Guidebook to Spinoza and the Ethics
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(Routledge, 1996); Steven M. Nadler, Spinoza: A Life

(Cambridge, 1999); Edwin M. Curley, Behind the
Geometrical Method: A Reading of Spinoza' s Ethics
(Princeton, 1988); Errol E. Harris, Spinoza' s
Philosophy: An Outline (Humanity, 1992); Harry
Austryn Wolfson, The Philosophy of Spinoza: Unfolding the Latent Processes of His Reasoning
(Harvard, 1983).
Additional on-line information about Spinoza includes:

Ron Bombardi' s comprehensive guide to Spinoza at
Studia Spinoziana. Joseph B. Yesselman' s tribute to
the philosophy of Spinoza. T. L. S. Sprigge' s article in
The Oxford Companion to Philosophy.
Also see: double aspect theory, Jewish philosophy,

metaphysics, the persecution of philosophers, and
rationalism. The article in the Columbia Encyclopedia
at Bartleby.com. The thorough collection of resources
at EpistemeLinks.com. Santiago Barona' s
SpinozaWeb. A section on Spinoza from Alfred
Weber' s history of philosophy. Snippets from Spinoza
(Latin and English) in The Oxford Dictionary of
Quotations. Rosalba Dur' n Forero' s comparison of
Hobbes with Spinoza on gender equality. A paper on
Spinoza' s treatment of Cartesian ideas by Timo
Kajamies. Olli Koistinen' s paper on the practical aims
of Spinoza' s philosophy. An unfinished article in The
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Bjoern
Christensson' s brief guide to Internet resources. A
brief entry in The Macmillan Encyclopedia 2001.
08-04-2002
Stael-Holstein Anne Louise Germaine Necker Baronne de
<history of philosophy, biography> French novelist,

essayist and philosopher (1766-1817). Although her
controversial political views were often condemned,
Madame de Stael' s De l' influence des passions sur
le boneur des individuals et des nations (A Treatise
on the Influence of the Passions on the Happiness of
Individuals and of Nations) (1796) was the chief
source of her generation' s information about the
philosophies of Rousseau and Kant, while her De
l' Allemagne (On Germany) emphasized the work of
Fichte, Schelling, and the Romantics.
Recommended Reading: Germaine De Stael, Politics,

Literature, and National Character, tr. by Monroe
Berger (Transaction, 2000); Major Writings of
Germaine De Stael, ed. by Vivian Folkenflik (Columbia,
1992); and J. Christopher Herold, Mistress to an Age
(Greenwood, 1975).
[A Dictionary of Philosphical terms and Names]
08-04-2002
standard form
<philosophical terminology> a consistent way of

organizing deductive arguments. The standard form
for a categorical syllogism is: Major Premise,
Minor Premise, Conclusion.
08-04-2002
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standard semantics
The standard interpretation of a term in some

language yields the term' s standard denotational
semantics, i.e. its "meaning". This is usually given by
a semantic function which maps a term in the abstract
syntax to a point in some domain. The domain is the
interpretation of the term' s type. The semantic function
also takes an environment - a function which maps
the free variables of the term to their meaning. We say
that a domain point "denotes", or "is the denotation of",
a term. A non-standard semantics results from some
other interpretation, e.g. an abstract interpretation.
16-03-2001
Stanton Elizabeth Cady
<history of philosophy, biogrphy> American journalist

and political activist (1815-1902). Author of
Degradation of Disenfranchisement (1892) and The
Woman' s Bible (1898), where she postulated an
androgynous deity and defended the historical reality
of matriarchy. Stanton founded the National
Woman' s Suffrage Association and devoted her career
to the abolition of slavery and efforts to secure the
rights of women to vote. Her speech "Dare to
Question" argues for a strict separation between
church and state.
Recommended Reading: The Elizabeth Cady Stanton-Susan

B. Anthony Reader: Correspondence, Writings,
Speeches, ed. by Ellen Carol Dubois and Gerda
Lerner (Northeastern, 1992); Elizabeth Cady Stanton:
A Radical for Woman' s Rights, ed. by Lois W. Banner
and Oscar Handlin (Little, Brown, 1995); Elisabeth
Griffith, In Her Own Right: The Life of Elizabeth Cady
Stanton (Oxford, 1985); and Geoffrey C. Ward, Martha
Saxton, Ann D. Gordon, Ellen Carol Dubois, and Paul
Barnes, Not for Ourselves Alone: The Story of
Elizabeth Cady Stanton & Susan B. Anthony: An
Illustrated History (Knopf, 1999).
08-04-2002
state
<storage, architecture, jargon, theory> How something

is; its configuration, attributes, condition, or
information content. The state of a system is usually
temporary (i.e. it changes with time) and volatile (i.e. it
will be lost or reset to some initial state if the system
is switched off).
A state may be considered to be a point in some

space of all possible states. A simple example is a
light, which is either on or off. A complex example is
the electrical activation in a human brain while solving
a problem.
In computing and related fields, states, as in the light

example, are often modelled as being discrete
(rather than continuous) and the transition from one
state to another is considered to be instantaneous.
Another (related) property of a system is the number of
possible states it may exhibit. This may be finite or
infinite. A common model for a system with a finite
number of discrete state is a finite state machine.
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state diagram
state transition diagram
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state machine
finite state machine
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state transition diagram
A diagram consisting of circles to represent states

and directed line segments to represent transitions
between the states. One or more actions (outputs)
may be associated with each transition. The diagram
represents a finite state machine.
16-03-2001
statement
<philosophical terminology> the content of a

declarative sentence employed in its typical use; a
proposition.
[A DIctionary of Philosophical Terms and Names]
08-04-2002
statement constant
<philosophical terminology> a symbol (usually

uppercase letters such as A, B, C, etc.) used to
represent a specific simple statement in the
08-04-2002
statement form
<philosophical terminology> in the propositional calculus,

a string of symbols including only statement
variables, and connectives (along with parenthetical
punctuation) such that the substitution of a statement
for each of its variables would result in a well-formed
compound statement.
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statement variable
<philosophical terminology> a symbol (usually

lowercase letters such as p, q, r, s, etc.) used to
represent any statement whatsoever in the
08-04-2002
statistics
<statistics, mathematics> The practice, study or result

of the application of mathematical functions to
collections of data in order to summarise or
extrapolate that data.
The subject of statistics can be divided into descriptive

statistics - describing data, and analytical statistics -
drawing conclusions from data.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
Stevenson Charles Leslie

philosopher (1908-1979). Stevenson' s "The Emotive
Meaning of Ethical Terms" (1937), "Persuasive
Definitions" (1938), and Ethics and Language (1944)
developed emotivism as a meta-ethical theory in
which moral judgments invariably express and
encourage human feelings of characteristic sorts. His
papers are collected in Facts and Values (1963).
Recommended Reading: Stephen Satris, Ethical

Emotivism (Martinus Nijhoff, 1987).
08-04-2002
Stewart Dugald
<history of philosophy, biography> Scottish

philosopher (1753-1828) whose Elements of the
Philosophy of the Human Mind (1792) helped to
perpetuate Reid' sphilosophy of common sense realism.
Stewart was an influential teacher whose students
included Benjamin Constant, James Mill, and
Walter Scott.
Recommended Reading: Collected Works of Dugald

Stewart, ed. by William Hamilton (Thoemmes, 1997)
and Dugald Stewart, Biographical Memoir of Adam
Smith (Kelley, 1993).
08-04-2002
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stipulative definition
<philosophical terminology> the arbitrary assignment

of meaning to a term not previously in use. Although
it may be relatively inconvenient or useless, such a
definition can never be mistaken or incorrect.
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STM
short term memory
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stochastic
probabilistic
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stoicism
<history of philosophy, philosophical terminology>

School of philosophy organized at Athens in the third
century BC by Zeno of Citium and Chrysippus. The
stoics provided a unified account of the world that
comprised formal logic, materialistic physics, and
naturalistic ethics. Later Roman stoics, including
Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius
emphasized more exclusively the development of
recommendations for living in harmony with a natural
world over which one has no direct control.
Recommended Reading: Stoicorum Veterum

Fragmenta, ed. by Johannes ab Arnim (Irvington,
1986); Handbook of Epictetus, tr. by Nicholas P. White
(Hackett, 1983); A. A. Long, Stoic Studies (California,
2001); Brad Inwood, Ethics and Human Action in Early
Stoicism (Oxford, 1987); Marcia L. Colish, The Stoic
Tradition from Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages:
Stoicism in Classical Latin Literature (Brill, 1990); and
Lawrence C. Becker, A New Stoicism (Princeton,
1999).
08-04-2002
storage
<storage> (Or "memory") A device into which data can

be entered, in which they can be held, and from which
they can be retrieved at a later time.
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strength reduction
An optimisation where a function of some

systematically changing variable is calculated more
efficiently by using previous values of the function. In a
procedural language this would apply to an
expression involving a loop variable and in a
declarative language it would apply to the argument
of a recursive function. E.g.
f x = ... (2
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strict
A function f is strict in an argument if
f bottom = bottom
(See bottom).
In other words, the result depends on the argument so

evaluation of an application of the function cannot
terminate until evaluation of the argument has terminated.
If the result is only bottom when the argument is

bottom then the function is also bottom-unique.
See also strict evaluation, hyperstrict.
[FOLDOC]
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strict evaluation
Call-by-value evaluation order is sometimes called

"strict evaluation" because, in a sequential system, it
makes functions behave as though they were strict,
in the sense that evaluation of a function application
cannot terminate before evaluation of the argument.
Similarly, languages are called strict if they use
call-by-value argument passing.
Compare eager evaluation, lazy evaluation.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
stroke function
<logic> The dyadic truth function "not both". One of

only two dyadic truth functions capable of expressing
all truth functions by itself.
Notation:
p|q. Also called the Sheffer stroke, and alternative
denial.
See dagger function
pqp|q
TTF
TFT
FTT
FFT
A truth-functional connective that suffices to

symbolize every dyadic relation between
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statements. Since " p | q " (or "not both p and q")

takes the truth-values illustrated in the truth-table
at right, negation can be defined as " p | p " and
disjunction as " ( p | p ) | ( q | q )". From these, in turn,
all of the other connectives can be derived.
Recommended Reading: Willard V. O. Quine,

Mathematical Logic (Harvard, 1981) and Alfred North
Whitehead and Bertrand Arthur Russell, Principia
Mathematica to 56 (Cambridge, 1997).
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strongly connected component
(SCC) A subset, S, of the nodes of a directed graph

such that any node in S is reachable from any other
node in S and S is not a subset of any larger such set.
SCCs are equivalence classes under the transitive closure
of the "directly connected to" relation.
[FOLDOC]
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structural recursion
The process of transforming an expression by

expressing its structure as a syntax tree and applying
a certain transformation rule to each kind of node,
starting from the top. Rules for non-leaf nodes will
normally return a result which depends on applying
the rules recursively to its sub-nodes. Examples
include syntax analysis, code generation,
abstract interpretation and program transformation.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
structuralism
<history of philosophy, philosophical terminology>

method of interpreting social phenomena in the
context of a system of signs whose significance
lies solely in the interrelationships among them.
Initiated in the linguistics of Saussure and
Chomsky, structuralism was applied to other
disciplines by LÈvi-Strauss, Piaget, Althusser,
Lacan, Barthes, Foucault, and Eco. Most
structuralists share a conviction that individual human
beings function solely as elements of the (often
hidden) social networks to which they belong.
Recommended Reading: Edith Kurzweil, The Age of

Structuralism: From Levi-Strauss to Foucault
(Transaction, 1996); Peter Caws, Structuralism: A
Philosophy for the Human Sciences (Prometheus,
1997); Structuralism and Since: From Levi Strauss to
Derrida, ed. by John Sturrock (Oxford, 1981); and
Donald D. Palmer, Structuralism and
Poststructuralism for Beginners (Writers & Readers,
2001).
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structure diagram
<programming, PI, data> A pictorial representation of

the composition, grouping and relationship of data
items.
[FOLDOC]
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structured analysis
one of a number of requirements analysis methods

used in software engineering.
16-03-2001
structured design
<programming, PI> (SD) One of a number of

systematic top-down design techniques used in
software engineering, usually after structured analysis.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
structured language
<programming, PI> A programming language where

the program may be broken down into blocks or
procedures which can be written without detailed
knowledge of the inner workings of other blocks, thus
allowing a top-down design approach.
See also abstract data type, module.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
structured programming
<programming, PI> Any software development

technique that includes structured design and
results in the development of a structured program.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
Suarez Francisco
<history of philosophy, biography> Spanish

philosopher and theologian (1548-1617) whose
rejection of Aristotelian authority in the Disputationes
Metaphysicae (Metaphysical Disputations) (1597)
became a significant component of much
Renaissance thinking. In De legibus ac Deo
legislatore (On Law) (1612) Su• rez qualified the
natural law theory of Aquinas, defending instead a
voluntaristic notion of the effect of legislative edicts.
Recommended Reading: Jorge J. Gracia, Suarez on

Individuation (Marquette, 1982).
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sub specie aeternitatis
<philosophical terminology> Latin for "under the

aspect of eternity"; hence, from Spinoza onwards, an
honorific expression describing what is universally
and eternally true, without any reference to or
dependance upon the merely temporal portions of
reality.
08-04-2002
subalternation
<philosophical terminology> in the traditional

square of opposition, the relationship between a
universal proposition and its corresponding
particular proposition. Thus, an I is the subaltern
of its A proposition, and an O is the subaltern of its E
proposition. Thus, for example: "Some larks are birds
is subaltern to All larks are birds", and "Some robins
are not fish is subaltern to No robins are fish".
Subalternation is a reliable pattern of inference only
on the assumption of existential import for universal
propositions.
08-04-2002
subclass
<programming, PI> In object-oriented programming,

a class that is derived from a superclass by
inheritance. The subclass contains all the features of
the superclass, but may have new features added or
redefine existing features.
[FOLDOC]
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subcontraries
<philosophical terminology> a pair of categorical

propositions which (provided that we assume
existential import) cannot both be false, although
both could be true. In the traditional square of opposition,
an I proposition and its corresponding O are
subcontraries. Thus, for example: "Some business
leaders are women" and "Some business leaders are
not women" are subcontraries.
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subject
<programming, PI> In subject-oriented programming,

a subject is a collection of classes or class
fragments whose class hierarchy models its domain
in its own, subjective way. A subject may be a
complete application in itself, or it may be an
incomplete fragment that must be composed with
other subjects to produce a complete application.
Subject composition combines class hierarchies to
produce new subjects that incorporate functionality
from existing subjects.
[FOLDOC]
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subject index
<information science> An information resource that

contains references to other resources, categorised
by subject, usually in a hierarchy.
Yahoo is the most popular Internet subject index.

Like most other subject indices, Yahoo is
arranged ontologically.
Subject indices are not to be confused with search engines,

which are based not on subject, but instead on
relevance, although (1) this difference is often
(possibly rightly) hidden from the unsophisticated
user, and (2) future integration of knowledge representation
into relevance ranking algorithms will make this a
hazy distinction.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
subjective
<philosophical terminology> that which depends upon

the personal or individual, especially where - in
contrast with the objective - it is supposed to be an
arbitrary expression of private taste.
Recommended Reading: Nick Mansfield, Subjectivity:

Theories of the Self from Freud to Haraway (NYU,
2001); Roger Frie, Subjectivity and Intersubjectivity in
Modern Philosophy and Psychoanalysis (Rowman &
Littlefield, 1997); and Sonia Kruks, Retrieving
Experience: Subjectivity and Recognition in Feminist
Politics (Cornell, 2001).
08-04-2002
subjectivism
<ethics> an extreme version of relativism, which

maintains that each person' s beliefs are relative to
that person alone and cannot be judged from the
outside by any other person.
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subjectivity
the property of being subjective.
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sublimation
<psychoanalysis> the redirection, according to Freud,

of antisocial sexual and aggressive impulses into
socially constructive activity. Compare: repression.
22-06-2001
sublime
<philosophical terminology> the aesthetic feeling

aroused by experiences too overwhelming in scale to
be appreciated as beautiful by the senses. The awe
produced by standing on the brink of the Grand
Canyon or the terror induced by witnessing a
hurricane are properly said to be sublime.
Recommended Reading: Immanuel Kant,

Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and
Sublime, ed. by John T. Goldthwait (California, 1991);
Paul Crowther, The Kantian Sublime: From Morality to
Art (Oxford, 1991); and The Sublime Reader: A Reader
in British Eighteenth-Century Aesthetic Theory, ed. by
Andrew Ashfield and Peter De Bolla (Cambridge,
1996).
08-04-2002
subroutine
<programming, PI> (Or "procedure") A sequence of

instructions for performing a particular task. Most
programming languages, including most machine languages,
allow the programmer to define subroutines. This
allows the subroutine code to be called from multiple
places, even from within itself (in which case it is
called recursive). The programming language
implementation takes care of returning control to (just
after) the calling location, usually with the support of
call and return instructions at machine language
level.
Most languages also allow arguments to be passed

to the subroutine, and one, or occasionally more,
return values to be passed back.
A function is often very similar to a subroutine, the

main difference being that it is called chiefly for its
return value, rather than for any side effects.
[FOLDOC]
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subset
<logic> A set all of whose members belong to a

second set (a superset of the subset).
Proper subset
A subset lacking at least one member of its superset.
Set A is a proper subset of set B iff all members of A
are members of B, but at least one member of B is not
a member of A.
16-03-2001
substance
<ontology, epistemology, causality, necessity, empiricism> technically (for Leibniz, Spinoza,

Descartes, et. al.) - a self-subsistent entity or
thing, not depending on anything (except, possibly
God) for its existence: also, the ultimate bearer of
attributes or properties. In a somewhat looser
sense (closer to Aristotle' s) "substance" is used to
refer to the individuals which are the bearers of
attributes or havers of properties as opposed to the
attributes or properties - universals - that they have or
which inhere in them.
<philosophical terminology> what a thing is made of;

hence, the underlying being that supports, exists
independently of, and persists through time despite
changes in, its accidental features. Aristotle
identified substance - both primary and secondary -
as the most fundamental of the ten categories of being.
According to Spinoza, there can be no more than one
truly independent being in the universe.
Recommended Reading: Mary Louise Gill, Aristotle on

Substance (Princeton, 1991); Charlotte Witt,
Substance and Essence in Aristotle (Cornell, 1994);
R. S. Woolhouse, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz: The
Concept of Substance in Seventeenth-Century
Metaphysics (Routledge, 1993); Jeffrey Edwards,
Substance, Force, and the Possibility of Knowledge:
On Kant' s Philosophy of Material Nature (California,
2000); Joshua Hoffman and Gary S. Rosenkranz,
Substance: Its Nature and Existence (Routledge,
1996); Anthony Quinton, The Nature of Things
(Routledge, 1993); and David Wiggins, Sameness
and Substance Renewed (Cambridge, 2001).
08-04-2002
substance dualism
<philosophy of mind, ontology> the view that the

mental and the physical comprise two different
classes of objects: minds and bodies.
Perhaps the most famous proponent of substance

dualism was Descartes, who cashed out the
distinction between minds and bodies as follows:
minds are things that think but lack spatial magnitude,
and bodies are things that have spatial magnitudes,
but don' t think. Different substance dualists may
disagree as to how best to define what' s essential to
being mental and physical, but they do agree that the
difference in question is one of objects, not properties.
So, for example, my belief that the Eiffel tower is in
France and my being six feet tall are properties of
different objects, i.e., my mind and my body,
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respectively.
See property dualism
Pete Mandik
16-03-2001
substantialism
essentialism
substitution
<logic> To replace one symbol with another or with a

wff. In axiom schemata, to replace metalanguage
variables with object language wffs. In instantiation,
to replace a variable with a constant. In generalization,
to replace a constant with a variable. Notation (for one
of these): At/v (the result of substituting term t for the
free occurrences of variable v in wff A).
16-03-2001
substrate
<hardware> The body or base layer of an integrated circuit,

onto which other layers are deposited to form the
circuit. The substrate is usually Silicon, though
Sapphire is used for certain applications, particularly
military, where radiation resistance is important. The
substrate is originally part of the wafer from which
the die is cut. It is used as the electrical ground for
the circuit.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
subtype
<programming, PI> If S is a subtype of T then an

expression of type S may be used anywhere that one
of type T can and an implicit type conversion will be
applied to convert it to type T.
In object oriented programming, this means that

objects of type S must accept every message that
one of type T would.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
sufficient condition
<philosophical terminology> what logically or causally

secures the occurrence of something else; see
necessary - sufficient. Thus, Leibniz supposed that
there must always be a sufficient reason for the way
things are.
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sufficient reason
<determinism> principle formulated by Leibniz

according to which, for whatever is the case, there is a
sufficient reason why it is the case. Closely akin to this
is the Law of Universal Causation, according to
which every event has a cause. See also:
Determinism.
22-06-2001
sui generis
<philosopphical terminology> Latin for «of its own

kind»; hence, whatever is absolutely unique or
distinctive about something.
08-04-2002
sum
1. <mathematics> In domain theory, the sum A + B of

two domains contains all elements of both domains,
modified to indicate which part of the union they come
from, plus a new bottom element. There are two
constructor functions associated with the sum:
inA : A -> A+B inB : B -> A+B

inA(a) = (0,a) inB(b) = (1,b)
and a disassembly operation:
case d of isA(x) -> E1; isB(x) -> E2
This can be generalised to arbitrary numbers of

domains.
See also smash sum, disjoint union.
2. <tool> A Unix utility to calculate a 16-bit

checksum of the data in a file. It also displays the
size of the file, either in kilobytes or in 512-byte
blocks. The checksum may differ on machines with 16-bit
and 32-bit ints.
Unix manual page: sum(1).
[FOLDOC]
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sum of sets
union
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summum bonum
<philosophical terminology> Latin phrase meaning

"highest good". Hence, that which is intrinsically
valuable, the ultimate goal or end of human life
generally.
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superclass
base class
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supercomputer
<computer> A broad term for one of the fastest

computers currently available. Such computers are
typically used for number crunching including
scientific simulations, (animated) graphics,
analysis of geological data (e.g. in petrochemical
prospecting), structural analysis, computational fluid
dynamics, physics, chemistry, electronic design,
nuclear energy research and meteorology. Perhaps
the best known supercomputer manufacturer is Cray Research.
A less serious definition, reported from about 1990 at

The University Of New South Wales states that a
supercomputer is any computer that can outperform
IBM' s current fastest, thus making it impossible for
IBM to ever produce a supercomputer.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
supererogatory
<ethics> literally, "above the call of duty." A

supererogatory act is one that is morally good and that
goes beyond what is required by duty. Some ethical
theories, such as certain versions of utilitarianism,
that demand that we always do the act that yields the
most good have no room for supererogatory acts. It is
sometimes used negatively, to object that an ethical
prescription is too demanding.
<philosophical terminology> above and beyond the

call of duty. Although agents are not obliged by the
dictates of ordinary morality to perform
supererogatory acts - extraordinary feats of heroism
or extreme deeds of self-sacrifice, for example - they
may be commended for doing so. Normative
theories that demand the performance of the best
possible action in every circumstance render
supererogation impossible by identifying the
permissible with the obligatory.
Recommended Reading: Gregory Mellema, Beyond

the Call of Duty: Supererogation, Obligation, and
Offence (SUNY, 1991).
08-04-2002
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superset
<logic> A set some of whose members form a

reference set. If A is a subset of B, then B is a
superset of A.
16-03-2001
supervenience
<philosophy of mind, ontology> a set of properties or

facts M supervenes on a set of properties or facts P if
and only if there can be no changes or differences in M
without there being changes or differences in P.
Pete Mandik
16-03-2001
supervenient
<philosophical yterminology> belonging to or

characteristic of something only in virtue of its having
other features. Although a supervenient property
cannot be defined in terms of, or reduced to, the
properties on which it supervenes, nothing possess
(or can possess) those properties without also having
it. In this sense, Hare supposed that moral
properties are supervenient with respect to
straightforward descriptions of human conduct, and
Davidson proposes that mental events supervene
on physical events.
Recommended Reading: R. M. Hare, The Language

of Morals (Clarendon, 1991); Supervenience, ed. by
Jaegwon Kim (Ashgate, 2001); Gabriel M. A. Segal, A
Slim Book About Narrow Content (MIT, 2000);
Supervenience: New Essays, ed. by Elias E. Savellos
and Umit D. Yalcin (Cambridge, 1995); Jaegwon Kim,
Supervenience and Mind: Selected Philosophical
Essays (Cambridge, 1993); and Reality and Humean
Supervenience:Essays on the Philosophy of David
Lewis, ed. by Gerhard Preyer and Frank Siebelt
(Rowman & Littlefield, 2000).
[A Dictionary of Philosophical Terms and Names
08-04-2002
supremum
least upper bound
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surjection
<mathematics> A function f : A -> B is surjective or

onto or a surjection if f A = B. I.e. f can return any value
in B. This means that its image is its codomain.
Only surjections have right inverses, f' : B-> A where

f (f' x) = x since if f were not a surjection there would be
elements of B for which f' was not defined.
See also bijection, injection.
[FOLDOC]
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surjective
surjection
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syllogism
<philosophical terminology> an important variety of

deductive argument in which a conclusion follows
from two or more premises; especially the
categorical syllogism.
Recommended Reading: "Aristotle, Categories, On

Interpretation, Prior Analytics", tr. by Hugh Tredennick
(Harvard, 1938); Jan Lukasiewicz, "Aristotle' s
Syllogistic from the Standpoint of Modern Formal Logic"
(Clarendon, 1957); "The New Syllogistic", ed. by George
Englebretsen (Peter Lang, 1987); and Bruce E. R.
Thompson, "An Introduction to the Syllogism and the
Logic of Proportional Quantifiers" (Peter Lang, 1993).
08-04-2002
symbolic inference
The derivation of new facts from known facts and

inference rules. This is one of the fundamental
operations of artificial intelligence and
logic programming languages like Prolog.
Inference is a basic part of human reasoning. For

example given that all men are mortal and that
Socrates is a man, it is a trivial step to infer that
Socrates is mortal. We might express these
symbolically:
man(X) => mortal(X).

man(Socrates).
("if X is a man then X is mortal" and "Socrates is a

man"). Here, "man", "mortal" and "Socrates" are just
arbitrary symbols which the computer manipulates
without reference to or knowledge of their external
meaning. A forward chaining system (a production system)
could use these to infer the new fact
mortal(Socrates).
simply by matching the left-hand-side of the

implication against the fact and substituting Socrates
for the variable X.
[FOLDOC]
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16-03-2001
symbolic logic 1
<philosophical terminology> the systematic

representation of logic. See propositional calculus
and quantification theory.
Recommended Reading: P. H. Nidditch, "The

Development of Mathematical Logic" (St. Augustine,
1998); Graeme Forbes, "Modern Logic: A Text in
Elementary Symbolic Logic" (Oxford, 1994); Irving M.
Copi, "Symbolic Logic" (Prentice Hall, 1979); Willard V.
O. Quine, "Mathematical Logic" (Harvard, 1981); and
Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Arthur Russell,
"Principia Mathematica to 56" (Cambridge, 1997).
[A Dictionary of Philosophical Terminology]
08-04-2002
symbolic logic 2
<logic> The discipline that treats formal logic by

means of a formalised artificial language or symbolic
calculus, whose purpose is to avoid the ambiguities
and logical inadequacies of natural language.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
symbolic mathematics
<mathematics, application> (Or "symbolic math") The

use of computers to manipulate mathematical
equations and expressions in symbolic form, as
opposed to manipulating the numerical quantities
represented by those symbols. Such a system might
be used for symbolic integration or differentiation,
substitution of one expression into another,
simplification of an expression, change of subject etc.
One of the best known symbolic mathematics

software packages is Mathematica. Others include
ALAM, ALGY, AMP, Ashmedai, AXIOM*,
CAMAL, CAYLEY, CCalc, CLAM, CoCoA(?),
ESP, FLAP, FORM, FORMAL, Formula ALGOL,
GAP, JACAL, LiE, Macaulay, MACSYMA, Magic Paper,
MAO, Maple, Mathcad, MATHLAB, MuMath,
Nother, ORTHOCARTAN, Pari, REDUCE, SAC-1,
SAC2, SAINT, Schoonschip, Scratchpad I,
SHEEP, STENSOR, SYMBAL, SymbMath,
Symbolic Mathematical Laboratory, TRIGMAN,
UBASIC.
Usenet newsgroup: news:sci.math.symbolic.
[FOLDOC]
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symbolicism
<philosophy of mind> an approach to understanding

human cognition that is committed to language like
symbolic processing as the best method of
explanation.
See also distributed representation,

connectionism, dynamical systems theory
16-03-2001
symbols - logical
<logic, philosophy of science, philosophical terminology>

throughout this site, references to connectives of the
propositional calculus and the quantifiers of
quantification theory employ the following logical symbols:
~ negation
& conjunction
v disjunction
--> material implication
<-> material equivalence
/(x) universal quantifier
V(x) existential quantifier
08-04-2002
symmetric
<mathematics> 1. A relation R is symmetric if, for all x and y,
x R y => y R x
If it is also antisymmetric (x R y & y R x => x == y) then

x R y => x == y, i.e. no two different elements are
related.
2. In linear algebra, a member of the tensor product

of a vector space with itself one or more times, is
symmetric if it is a fixed point of all of the linear isomorphisms
of the tensor product generated by permutations of
the ordering of the copies of the vector space as
factors. It is said to be antisymmetric precisely if the
action of any of these linear maps, on the given tensor,
is equivalent to multiplication by the sign of the
permutation in question.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
symmetric difference of sets
<logic> The symmetric difference of two sets, A and B,

is the set of objects that are members of either A or B
but not both. No standard notation. The symmetric
difference of sets A and B is the set x : (x A) (x B).
✌ ✍ ✎
The symmetric difference of sets is the set-theoretic

equivalent of exclusive disjunction; for the equivalent of
inclusive disjunction.
16-03-2001
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syncategorematic
<philosophical terminology> not included among the

categories of Aristotle and therefore incapable of
serving as a categorical term. Hence, any linguistic
expression that does not refer to anything else. Thus,
"if", "while", and "and" are all syncategorematic terms.
08-04-2002
synchronous
<operating system, communications>
1. Two or more processes that depend upon the

occurrences of specific events such as common
timing signals.
2. Occurring at the same time or at the same rate or

with a regular or predictable time relationship or
sequence.
Opposite: asynchronous.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
syncretism
<philosophy> the word syncretism refers to attempts

to unify existing and seemingly inharmonious theories
or systems of philosophy. In general, syncretism
reflects a more serious intellectual endeavor than
eclecticism.
[The Ism Book]
27-03-2001
synderesis
<philosophical terminology> immediate, intuitive

apprehension of the fundamental principles of
morality. For such medieval ethicists as Peter
Lombard and Aquinas, synderesis, unlike mere
conscience, is both infallible and general.
Recommended Reading: Ralph M. McInerny, "Ethica

Thomistica: The Moral Philosophy of Thomas
Aquinas" (Catholic U. of Am., 1997) and Daniel
Westberg, "Right Practical Reason: Aristotle, Action,
and Prudence in Aquinas" (Clarendon, 1994).
08-04-2002
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synonymous
<philosophical terminolgogy> having exactly the same

meaning in more than one use; see
homonymous - synonymous - paronymous.
Although many since Aristotle have supposed this to
be essential for effective communication, Quine
has shown that the indeterminacy of translation
renders genuine synonymy difficult to secure.
08-04-2002
syntactic
syntax
00-00-0000
syntactic completeness
<logic> A system is syntactically complete iff there is

no unprovable schema B that could be added to the
system as an axiom schema without creating simple
inconsistency.
Syntactic incompleteness
The failure of syntactic completeness; there is at least

one unprovable schema that could be added as an
axiom schema without creating simple inconsistency.
16-03-2001
syntactic consequence
<logic> A is the syntactic consequence of a set G of

wffs iff A can be derived from G (and the axioms).
Notation:
G |- A.
16-03-2001
syntactic tautology
<logic> A wff of truth-functional logic whose truth

table column contains nothing but T' s when these T' s
are uninterpreted tokens rather than, say, truth-values.
The rules for generating the truth table column tell us
to use one of these uninterpreted T' s in exactly those
cases where semantic considerations would have led
us to use the truth-value Truth.
See semantic tautology.
16-03-2001
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syntactic validity
<logic> An inference is syntactically valid iff the

conclusion can be derived from the premises by
means of stipulated rules of inference.
See semantic validity
16-03-2001
syntactics 1
<philosophical terminology> study of the

grammatical relationships among signs,
independently of their interpretation or meaning,
which is the subject of semantics.
Recommended Reading: Rudolf Carnap, "Philosophy

and Logical Syntax" (Thoemmes, 1997); Noam
Chomsky, "Aspects of the Theory of Syntax" (MIT,
1965); and Robin Cooper, "Quantification and
Syntactic Theory (Reidel, 1983).
08-04-2002
syntactics 2
<logic, discipline, syntax> the characterization, for an

artificial, or natural, language, of what constitutes a
well-formed sentence, or, to put it another way, a
grammatical sentence, or a sentence of the language.
It is usually assumed that a well-formed, or
grammatical, sentence need not be meaningful.
semantics
30-04-2001
syntax
The structure of strings in some language. A

language' s syntax is described by agrammar. For
example, the syntax of a binary number could be
expressed as
binary_number = bit [ binary_number ]
bit = "0" | "1"
meaning that a binary number is a bit optionally

followed by a binary number and a bit is a literal zero
or one digit.
The meaning of the language is given by its

semantics.
See also abstract syntax, concrete syntax.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
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syntax tree
<mathematics, theory, language> A tree

representing the abstract syntax of some
tokens in a language.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
synthesis
<philosophical terminology> the combination or

reconciliation of opposed notions; see
thesis - antithesis - synthesis.
08-04-2002
synthetic 1
<logic, epistemology, ontology, empiricism> having

factual or empirical content; i.e. not being true or
false by definition. Contrast term: analytic.
22-06-2001
synthetic 2
<philosophy of language> a sentence, proposition,

thought, or judgement is synthetic if it is neither
logically (analytically) true, or false; generally, synthetic
claims are said to be empirical in that they are
discovered through experiment and observation, and
in that "a bare conception of the subject" will not make
it immediately obvious that the predicate applies to it.
30-04-2001
systematicity
<philosophy of mind> a number of putative

psychological properties or regularities go by the
name of systematicity. These diverse regularities are
meant to constitute explananda that are supposed to
support the view that there exists a syntactically and
semantically combinatorial language of thought.
See productivity of thought, compositionality,

symbolicism
Ken Aizawa
16-03-2001
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tacit knowledge
<philosophy of mind, epistemology> knowledge that

enters into the production of behaviours and/or the
constitution of mental states but is not ordinarily
accessible to consciousness.
See also cognize, implicit memory, background,

rules.
Daniel Barbiero
16-03-2001
taoism
<philosophy, religion> Taoism is an ancient strand of

Chinese philosophical thought, similar in many ways
to Platonism in the West (just as Confucianism
holds a position similar to Aristotelianism). However,
Taoism was a reaction against the conservative and
action-oriented thought of Confucius: one of the
central Taoist concepts was wu-wei or "non-activity".
Taoists stress the necessity of living in accordance to
nature (their policy of non-activity could be phrased
as "do nothing that is contrary to nature or to your own
native character"), and their doctrines can be
compared to stoicism in this regard. The Taoist
emphasis on lack of emotion and "disturbance" - that
is, on inner peace - can also be compared to the
doctrines of Epicureanism. Taoist thinkers, foremost
among them Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu (the two great
authors of classical Taoism), stressed the inherent
untrustworthiness of appearances, the unity of the real
world behind the appearances, the necessity of
understanding this real unity "spontaneously", and the
cultivation of one' s character so that one could
become a "free spirit". Taoism was and is a strong
tradition in China, which accounts for the fact that
Chinese forms of Buddhism (e.g., Ch' an or Zen
Buddhism) show such a heavy dependence on Taoist
concepts. (References from Buddhism,
Epicureanism, and humanism.)
[The Ism Book]
27-03-2001
Tarski Alfred
<biography, history of philosophy> Polish-American

logician (1902-1983) who defended a
correspondence theory of truth in "The Concept of
Truth in Formalized Languages" (1933) and "The
Semantic Conception of Truth and the Foundations of
Semantics" (1944). According to Tarski, we must
distinguish between a formal language and its
interpretation as applicable within a specific domain,
in order to define the truth of propositions within the
formal language in terms of their satisfaction by the
external conditions that obtain. Tarski' s logical
papers were collected in "A Decision Method for
Elementary Algebra and Geometry" (1948) and "Logic,
Semantics, Metamathematics" (1956).
Recommended Reading: Alfred Tarski, "Introduction to

Logic and to the Methodology of Deductive Sciences",
tr. by Olaf Helmer (Dover, 1995) and "Alfred Tarski and
the Vienna Circle: Austro-Polish Connections in
Logical Empiricism", ed. by Jan Wolenski and Eckhart
Kohler (Kluwer, 1998).
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15-04-2002
tautology
<logic> a logically valid wff of truth-functional

propositional logic. A compound proposition that is
true in every row of its truth table or in every
interpretation. contingency, contradiction, logical validity,
semantic tautology, syntactic tautology. Or also, a
non-atomic, or molecular, proposition that is true
no matter what the assignment of truth value to the
atomic propositions that it contains. Example: "p or
not-p". This molecular proposition is true whether we
assign "p" the value true or the value false.
based on [A Philosophical Glossary]
05-06-2001
tautology schema
<logic> (plural: schemata). A formula containing

variables of the metalanguage which becomes a
tautology when the variables are instantiated to wffs
of the formal language.
16-03-2001
Taylor Harriet Hardy
<biography, history of philosophy> English

philosopher (1807-1858). In The "Enfranchisement of
Women" (1851) Taylor argued that the confinement
of women to domestic pursuits was harmful to all
human beings. She wrote eloquently on behalf of
voting rights for women, equal opportunities in
education and employment, and the abolition of
restrictive laws governing marriage and divorce.
Through her long and intimate association with
Mill John Stuart, Taylor significantly contributed to
the application of utilitarian principles to social and
political issues.
Recommended Reading: "The Complete Works of

Harriet Taylor Mill", ed. by Jo Ellen Jacobs and Paula
Harms Payne (Indiana, 1998) and "Sexual Equality: A
John Stuart Mill, Harriet Taylor Mill, and Helen Taylor
Reader", ed. by Ann P. Robson and John M. Robson
(Toronto, 1994).
23-04-2002
techne
<philosophical terminology> ( ✏ ✑✓✒✕✔✠✑ ) Greek term for the

art, craft, or skill involved in deliberately producing
something (✖✘✗✚✙ ✛✕✜✝✙ ✢ [poiesis]), by contrast with those
things that merely derive from nature ( ✣ ✤✦✥★✧ ✩ [physis]
or chance ( ✪ ✤✓✫✡✬ [tyche]). Both Plato and Aristotle
distinguished its productive and practical components
from more theoretical concerns.

1967) and David Roochnik, "Of Art and Wisdom:
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Plato' s Understanding of Techne" (Penn. State, 1999).
23-04-2002
teleological argument
<metaphysics, philosophical terminology> an attempt

to prove the existence of god based upon an
observation of the regularity or beauty of the universe.
As employed by Cicero, Aquinas, and Paley, the
argument maintains that many aspects of the
natural world exhibit an orderly and purposive
character that would be most naturally explained by
reference to the intentional design of an
intelligent creator. Hume pointed out that since we
have no experience of universe-formation generally,
supposed inferences to its cause are unwarranted.
Moreover, Darwin' s theory of natural selection
offered an alternative, non-teleological account of
biological adaptations. In addition, anyone who
accepts this line of argument but acknowledges the
presence of imperfection in the natural order is faced
with the problem of evil. Nevertheless, reasoning of
this sort remains a popular pastime among convinced
theists.
Recommended Reading: "Thomas St. Aquinas", tr. by

Anton C. Pegis (Notre Dame, 1997); William Paley,
"Natural Theology: Evidences of the Existence and
Attributes of the Deity" (Classworks, 1986); David
Hume, "Principal Writings on Religion, Including
' Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion'
and ' Natural History of Religion' ", ed. by J. C. A. Gaskin
(Oxford, 1998); and Delvin Lee Ratzsch, "Nature,
Design, and Science: The Status of Design in Natural
Science" (SUNY, 2001).
23-04-2002
teleological ethics
<ethics> it claims that it is the consequences (or

goals-fostered-by) of actions that determine their
moral worth. Mill' sutilitarianism ("act so as to
achieve the greatest possible balance of pleasure
over pain for all sentient creation") is considered a
typical example. deontological.
Based on [A Philosophical Glossary]
30-04-2001
teleology
<philosophy of history, ethics, finalism, metaphysics>

<scholasticism, philosophy of nature, epicureism, ockhamism>
<vitalism, mechanism, determinism> purpose or direction.
22-06-2001
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telos
<philosophical terminology> Greek term for the end,

completion, purpose, or goal of any thing or activity.
According to Aristotle, this is the final cause which
accounts for the existence and nature of a thing.
Following Wolff, modern philosophers (often pejoratively)
designate as teleological any explanation, theory, or
argument that emphasizes purpose.

1967); F. M. J. Waanders, "History of Telos and Teleo
in Ancient Greek" (Benjamins, 1984); Immanuel Kant,
"Critique of Judgment", tr. by Werner S. Pluhar
(Hackett, 1987); Rowland Stout, "Things That Happen
Because They Should: A Teleological Approach to
Action" (Oxford, 1996); and Ernest Nagel, "Teleology
Revisited" (Columbia, 1982).
23-04-2002
temporal logic
<logic> An extension of predicate calculus which

includes notation for arguing about *when*
statements are true. Time is discrete and extends
indefinitely into the future. Three prefix operators,
represented by a circle, square and diamond mean "is
true at the next time instant", "is true from now on"
and "is eventually true". x U y means x is true until y is
true. x P y means x precedes y.
There are two types of formula: "state formulae" about

things true at one point in time, and "path formulae"
about things true for a sequence of steps. An example
of a path formula is "x U y", and example of a state
formula is "next x" or a simple atomic formula such
at "waiting".
"true until" in this context means that a state formula

holds at every point in time up to a point when another
formula holds. "x U y" is the "strong until" and implies
that there is a time when y is true. "x W y" is the "weak
until" in which it is not necessary that y holds
eventually.
There are two types of temporal logic used: branching

time and linear time. The basic propositional
temporal logic cannot differentiate between the two,
though. Linear time considers only one possible
future, in branching time you have several alternative
futures. In branching temporal logic you have the extra
operators "A" (for "all futures") and "E" (for "some
future"). For example, "A(work U go_home)" means "I
will work until I go home" and "E(work U go_home)"
means "I may work until I go home".
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
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tensor product
<mathematics> A function of two vector spaces, U

and V, which returns the space of linear maps from
V' sdual to U.
Tensor product has natural symmetry in interchange

of U and V and it produces an associative
"multiplication" on vector spaces.
Writing * for tensor product, we can map UxV to U*V

via: (u,v) maps to that linear map which takes any w in
V' sdual to u times w' s action on v. We call this linear
map u*v. One can then show that
u * v + u * x = u * (v+x)
u * v + t * v = (u+t) * v
and
hu * v = h(u * v) = u * hv
ie, the mapping respects linearity: whence any

bilinear map from UxV (to wherever) may be
factorised via this mapping. This gives us the degree
of natural symmetry in swapping U and V. By rolling it
up to multilinear maps from products of several vector
spaces, we can get to the natural associative
"multiplication" on vector spaces.
When all the vector spaces are the same, permutation

of the factors doesn' t change the space and so
constitutes an automorphism. These permutation-induced
iso-auto-morphisms form a group which is a
model of the group of permutations.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
Teresa of Avila
<biography, history of philosophy> Teresa Sanchez

de Cepeda y Ahumada, Spanish mystic (1515-1582).
Teresa' s "The Way of Perfection" (1566) and "The
Interior Castle" sharply distinguished intellectual from
volitional portions of human nature and
recommended the total surrender of the soul to god
through both prayerful meditation and ecstatic union
with the divine.
Recommended Reading: "The Life of Saint Teresa of

Avila" by Herself, tr. by J.M. Cohen (Penguin, 1988);
Rowan Williams, "Teresa of Avila" (Continuum, 2000);
and Cathleen Medwick, "Teresa of Avila: The Progress
of a Soul" (Doubleday, 2001).
17-04-2002
term
<logic> Grammatically, the type of expression that can

serve as the argument of a predicate or function.
The subject of predication; the input of a function. As
such (in first-order predicate logic) either an
individual constant, individual variable, or a function
(with its own arguments) defined for a domain and
range of individuals.
16-03-2001
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terminus
«terminus a quo» - «terminus ad quem» Latin

phrases for «limit from which» and «limit to which»;
hence, the temporal starting-point and ending-point
for the occurrence of any event, the moments of its
beginning and its completion.
24-04-2002
test
1. The process of exercising a product to identify

differences between expected and actual behaviour.
Typically testing is bottom-up: unit test, integration test
and finally system test. Ideally testing should be done
by real users bashing on a prototype long enough to
get thoroughly acquainted with it, with careful
monitoring and followup of the results.
Test coverage attempts to assess how complete a

test has been.
2. The second stage in a generate and test search

algorithm.
[Jargon File]
16-03-2001
texture
<graphics> A measure of the variation of the intensity

of a surface, quantifying properties such as
smoothness, coarseness and regularity. It' s often
used as a region descriptor in image analysis and
computer vision.
The three principal approaches used to describe

texture are statistical, structural and spectral.
Statistical techniques characterise texture by the
statistical properties of the grey levels of the points
comprising a surface. Typically, these properties are
computed from the grey level histogram or grey level
cooccurrence matrix of the surface.
Structural techniques characterise texture as being

composed of simple primitives called "texels" (texture
elements), that are regularly arranged on a surface
according to some rules. These rules are formally
defined by grammars of various types.
Spectral techniques are based on properties of the

Fourier spectrum and describe global periodicity of the
grey levels of a surface by identifying high energy
peaks in the spectrum.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
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Thales
<biography, history of philosophy> presocratic

philosopher (c. 585 BCE) who first proposed rational
explanation of the natural world. In fragmentary
reports from other philosophers, Thales is
supposed to have held that «All is water». His
Milesian followers commonly disagreed with this
simple identification of the ✭ ✮✰✯✡✱ [arche].
Recommended Reading: G. S. Kirk and J. E. Raven,

"The Presocratic Philosophers: A Critical History With
a Selection of Texts" (Cambridge, 1988); Jonathan
Barnes, "The Presocratic Philosophers" (Routledge,
1982); and "The Cambridge Companion to Early
Greek Philosophy", ed. by A. A. Long (Cambridge, 1999).
16-04-2002
The Ism Book
<source> The Ism Book edited by Peter Saint-André.

From the Home Page: "I wrote The Ism Book in 1990
at the request of a businessman who wanted a brief
guide to philosophy in the form of a dictionary. I
included the popular meanings of the isms, brought
out the practical consequences of viewpoints in all the
branches of philosophy, defined various types of isms,
and even tried to make it entertaining. While I' ve
changed several of these features over the years, the
book retains much of its original stamp".
Definitions in this dictionary are from the version 3.0

(1999).
23-03-2001
theism
<metaphysics, philosophy of religion> the word

theism is used to describe any belief in the existence
of a god or divine powers. While the true opposite of
theism is atheism, in Western philosophy theism is
sometimes contrasted with deism or with
pantheism, in which case it refers to the active
involvement of God in the world or to the separation of
God from his creation. (References from atheism,
deism, humanism, naturalism, and polytheism.)
Recommended Reading: Richard Swinburne, "The

Coherence of Theism" (Clarendon, 1993); J. J. C.
Smart and J. J. Haldane, "Atheism and Theism"
(Blackwell, 1996); Alvin Plantinga, "God and Other
Minds: A Study of the Rational Justification of Belief in
God" (Cornell, 1990); Richard Swinburne, "The
Existence of God" (Clarendon, 1991); and Stephen T.
Davis, "God, Reason, and Theistic Proofs" (Eerdmans,
1997).
based on [The Ism Book]

16-04-2002
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theodicy
<metaphysics, teleology> an attempt to explain or

defend the perfect benevolence of god despite the
apparent presence of evil in the world. In this vein, for
example, Leibniz devoted great effort to
demonstrating that this is the best of all possible
worlds.
Recommended Reading: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz,

"Theodicy: Essays on the Goodness of God, the
Freedom of Man, and the Origin of Evil", ed. by Austin
Marsden Farrer (Open Court, 1988); "The Problem of
Evil: A Reader", ed. by Mark Larrimore (Blackwell,
2000); Richard Swinburne, "Providence and the
Problem of Evil" (Oxford, 1998); and Alvin Plantinga,
"God, Freedom, and Evil" (Eerdmans, 1978).
16-04-2002
theorem
<logic> A wff that is proved or provable. Axioms are

special cases of theorems.
Notation:
|- A (A is a theorem);
or |- SA (A is a theorem in system S).
See antitheorem, proof
16-03-2001
theorem schema
<logic> (plural: schemata). A formula containing

variables of the metalanguage which becomes a
theorem when the variables are instantiated to wffs
of the formal language.
16-03-2001
theoretical definition
<biography, history of philosophy> a proposal for

understanding the meaning of a term in relation to a
set of scientificaly useful hypotheses.
16-04-2002
theoretical knowledge
<philosophical terminology> an organized body of

learning, the ultimate aim of human study for many
classical philosophers.
28-09-2003
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theory
The consensus, idea, plan, story, or set of rules that is

currently being used to inform a behaviour. This
usage is a generalisation and (deliberate) abuse of
the technical meaning. "What' s the theory on fixing
this TECO loss?" "What' s the theory on dinner
tonight?" ("Chinatown, I guess.") "What' s the current
theory on letting lusers on during the day?" "The
theory behind this change is to fix the following
well-known screw...."
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
theory change
<artificial intelligence> The study of methods used to

incorporate new information into a knowledge base
when the new information may conflict with existing
information.
Belief revision is one area of theory change.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
theory laden
<epistemology, philosophy of science> the property

of observations varying with or depending upon the
theoretical commitments of the observer. Insofar as
observations are theory laden, your beliefs -- as
shaped by the theory or paradigm you accept --
determines what you observe, so that partisans of
different theories (or paradigms) will observe
differently.
22-06-2001
theory neutral
<epistemology, philosophy of science> the property

of observations being uninfluenced by the theoretical
commitments of the observer. Insofar as observations
are theory neutral, your beliefs -- as shaped by the
theory (or paradigm) you accept -- do not color what
you observe, so that partisans of different theories
(or paradigms) all observe alike.
22-06-2001
theory of definite descriptions
Russell' s theory of description.
08-10-2003
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thesis - antithesis - synthesis
<philosophical terminology, history of philosophy> in

the philosophy of Hegel, the inevitable transition of
thought, by contradiction and reconciliation, from
an initial conviction to its opposite and then to a new,
higher conception that involves but transcends both of
them. Thus, for example: Being / Non-being /
Becoming, subjective / objective / absolute, or
symbolic / classical / romantic. Since he identified
reality with thought, Hegel believed that the same
triadic movement is to be found in nature, cultural
progress, and history.
Recommended Reading: "Hegel' s Science of Logic",

tr. by A. V. Miller (Humanity, 1998); Quentin Lauer,
"Essays in Hegelian Dialectic" (Fordham, 1977); and
Hans-Georg Gadamer, "Hegel' s Dialectic", tr. by P.
Christopher Smith (Yale, 1982).
16-04-2002
thing-in-itself
<metaphysics, ontology> an object as it is (or would

be) independently of our awareness of it; the
noumenon. As Kant showed, we cannot know
things-in-themselves but can only postulate their
nature from what we know about observable phenomena.
Recommended Reading: Immanuel Kant, "Critique of

Pure Reason", tr. by Werner S. Pluhar and Patricia
Kitcher (Hackett, 1996); Sebastian Gardner, Routledge
"Philosophy Guidebook to Kant and the Critique of
Pure Reason" (Routledge, 1999); Gerold
Prauss, "Kant und das Problem der Dinge an sich";
and Rae Langton, "Kantian Humility: Our Ignorance of
Things in Themselves" (Clarendon, 1998).
16-04-2002
Thomas Aquinas
<biography, history of philosophy> Italian Dominican

philosopher and theologian. For a discussion of his
life and works, see Aquinas.
16-04-2002
thomism
<philosophical school> term used to describe the

doctrines and legacy of Thomas Aquinas, who
effected a synthesis between Christianity and
Aristotelianism. Thomist philosophers continue to be
active today, mostly at Catholic or Jesuit universities
(neothomism, neoscholasticism).
[The Ism Book]
27-03-2001
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Thomson Judith Jarvis
<biography, history of philosophy> American moral

philosopher (1929- ); author of "Acts and Other Events"
(1977), "The Realm of Rights" (1990), and "Moral
Relativism and Moral Objectivity" (1996). In "Rights,
Restitution, and Risk: Essays in Moral Theory" (1986)
Thomson develops an ethical stance grounded upon
the defeasible presumption of individual rights.
Thomson' s "A Defence of Abortion" (1971) famously
establishes that termination of pregnancy, under
certain circumstances, is morally permissible even if
the fetus is granted status as a person entitled to
rights. "Abortion" (1995) offers her more recent
reflections on the same subject.
Recommended Reading: "Fact and Value: Essays on

Ethics and Metaphysics for Judith Jarvis Thomson",
ed. by Alex Byrne, Robert Stalnaker, and Ralph
Wedgwood (MIT, 2001).
16-04-2002
Thoreau Henry David
<literature, history of philosophy> American writer

(1817-1862). Thoreau' s essay "On Civil
Disobedience" (1849) is a classic statement of the
principles, later employed by Gandhi and King, of
passive resistance against governmental authority
on the basis of individual conscience. Thoreau' s
"Walden, or Life in the Woods" (1854) describes and
recommends a spontaneous life of creativity in
purposeful union with the natural world.
Recommended Reading: "The Portable Thoreau", ed.

by Carl Bode (Viking, 1977) and Robert D. Richardson,
Jr. and Barry Moser, "Henry Thoreau: A Life of the
Mind" (California, 1988).
16-04-2002
thought
<philosophy of mind> an intentional mental

phenomenon which has contents about
things in the world.
See intentionality
16-03-2001
throughput
1. The rate at which a processor can work expressed

in instructions per second or jobs per hour or some
other unit of performance.
2. The amount of data a communications channel can

carry, usually in bytes per second.
The other important characteristic of a channel is its

latency.
[FOLDOC]
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16-03-2001
Tillich Paul
<biography, history of philosophy> German-American

theologian (1886-1965). Tillich' s "Systematic
Theology" (1951-1964) (vol. 1-2) defines religion as
the most ultimate of all human concerns, identifies
god with the ground of all being, and treats religious
language and ritual as symbolic. In "The Courage to
Be" (1952) Tillich employed central concepts from
existentialism to recommend a life of personal
authenticity in the face of cultural and political
obstacles.
Recommended Reading: Paul Tillich, "Theology of

Culture", ed. by Robert C. Kimball (Oxford, 1959); Paul
Tillich, Dynamics of Faith (Harpercollins, 1986); "The
Essential Tillich: An Anthology of the Writings of Paul
Tillich", ed. by F. Forrester Church (Chicago, 1999);
John Heywood Thomas, "Tillich" (Continuum, 2000);
and Richard Grigg, "Symbol and Empowerment: Paul
Tillich' s Post-Theistic System" (Mercer, 1985).
16-04-2002
time
<metaphysics, ontology, gnoseology, philosophy of

science> temporal duration. Philosophers have
traditionally addressed such questions as: whether
time is an independent feature of reality or merely an
aspect of our experience; whether or not it makes
sense to think of time as having had a beginning;
why time is directional and the past and future are
asymmetrical; whether time flows continuously or is
composed of discrete moments; and whether there is
absolute time in addition to relations of temporal
succession.
The Eleatics developed general arguments to show

that time and motion are impossible, and Augustine
employed the analysis of time to explain human
freedom in the face of divine power. Leibniz
maintained that time is nothing more than temporal
relations, Newton and Clarke defended its absolute
character, and Kant tried to mediate by regarding
space and time as pure forms of sensible intuition.
Later idealists commonly followed McTaggart in
denying the reality of time.
Recommended Reading: "The New Theory of Time",

ed. by L. Nathan aklander and Quentin Smith (Yale,
1994); Martin Heidegger, "Hystory of the Concept of
Time", tr. by Theodore Kisiel (Indiana, 992); Michael
Tooley, "Time, Tense, and Causation" (Oxford, 2000);
L. Nathan Oaklander, "Temporal Relations and
Temporal Becoming" (Univ. Pr. of Am., 1984); and
Michael Friedman, "Foundations of Space-Time
Theories" (Princeton, 1986).
17-04-2002
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time complexity
<complexity> The way in which the number of steps

required by an algorithm varies with the size of the
problem it is solving. Time complexity is normally
expressed as an order of magnitude, e.g. O(N^2)
means that if the size of the problem (N) doubles then
the algorithm will take four times as many steps to
complete.
See also computational complexity, space complexity
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
time-sharing
<operating system> (Or "timesharing") An operating

system feature allowing several users to run several
tasks concurrently on one processor, or in parallel on
many processors, usually providing each user with his
own terminal for input and output. time-sharing is
multitasking for multiple users.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
timeout
A period of time after which an error condition is raised

if some event has not occurred. A common example
is sending a message. If the receiver does not
acknowledge the message within some preset
timeout period, a transmission error is assumed to
have occurred.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
Timon of Philius
<biography, history of philosophy> Greek skeptic

(320-230 BC) who expounded and defended the views
of Pyrrhonism by offering satirical commentary on the
works of Plato, Aristotle, and other Greek
philosophers.
17-04-2002
token
1. <grammar> A basic, grammatically indivisible unit

of a language such as a keyword, operator or
identifier. Compare: lexeme.
2. <convention> (Or "pumpkin") An abstract concept

passed between cooperating agents to ensure
synchronised access to a shared resource. Such a
token is never duplicated or destroyed (unless the
resource is) and whoever has the token has exclusive
access to the resource it controls. See for example
token ring.
If several programmers are working on a program,

one programmer will "have the token" at any time,
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meaning that only he can change the program

whereas others can only read it. If someone else
wants to modify it he must first obtain the token.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
token identity thesis
<philosophy of mind> the view that for each mental

event token there is a physical event token that it is
numerically identical to.
Pete Mandik
16-03-2001
Toland John

philosopher (1670-1722). Toland' s "Christianity not
Mysterious" (1696) offered a purely rational defense of
god' s existence and relation to the natural world,
marking a transition between the philosophy of
John Locke and the rise of Deism.
Recommended Reading: Robert Rees Evans,

"Pantheisticon: The Career of John Toland" (Peter
Lang, 1991) and Stephen Daniel, "John Toland: His
Methods, Manners, and Mind" (McGill Queens,1984).
17-04-2002
top-down design
<programming, PI> (Or "stepwise refinement"). The

software design technique which aims to describe
functionality at a very high level, then partition it
repeatedly into more detailed levels one level at a time
until the detail is sufficient to allow coding. This
approach to software design probably originated
at IBM, and grew out of structured programming
practices.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
topology
1. The study of interconnections.
2. A network topology shows the hosts and the

links between them. A network layer must stay
abreast of the current network topology to be
able to route packets to their final destination.
16-03-2001
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total function
<logic> A function whose value is defined for all

possible arguments (from that domain). See
partial function.
16-03-2001
total ordering
<mathematics> A relation R on a set A which is a

partial ordering; i.e. it is reflexive (xRx), transitive
(xRyRz xRz) and antisymmetric (xRyRx x=y)
✲ ✲
and for any two elements x and y in A, either x R y or

y R x.
See also equivalence relation, well-ordered.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
totalitarianism
<political philosophy> totalitarianism is

authoritarianism or political collectivism taken to its
logical and physical conclusion - the state in which
government possesses total control over the
individual. (References from authoritarianism,
capitalism, collectivism, communism, Marxism,
Platonism, and pluralism.)
[The Ism Book]
27-03-2001
totally ordered set
<mathematics> A set with a total ordering.
16-03-2001
traditional logic
<philosophical school> traditional logic was first

developed by Aristotle and systematized (somewhat
differently) by the medieval school persons. It was
thought to be all there was to logic by most until the
end of the nineteenth century (until G. Frege, for
example, came out with a version of modern logic in
his Concept-Writing (Begriffsschrift). The assumption
of traditional logic was that all propostions
(sentences) are of a subject - predicate form (strictly,
SUBJECT TERM + COPULA + PREDICATE TERM: for
example, fist + are + backboned mammals). This
exclusive emphasis on the subject - predicate form is
though misleading, and the underlying cause of
mistaken metaphysics by many modern logicians
(vice versa for some recent critics of modern logic).
Traditional logic is concerned with immediate and
mediate inferences between (subject - predicate)
propositons. Immediate inference is from one
(premiss) to one (conclusion) with the two terms of the
premiss both appearing in the conclusion. Mediate
inference involves more premisses with the use
of "mediating", or middle, terms that do not appear in
the conclusion. The syllogism, the primary study of
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traditional logic, is an argument in which the

premisses connect the subject and predicate of the
conclusion by means of a middle term.
30-04-2001
transcendent
<metaphysics, ethics, epistemology, theology, pantheism>

surpassing or apart from sensible or material reality.
For Kant, what is beyond the realm of either outer
(perceptive) or inner (apperceptive) experience.
In some religious views (on orthodox Christian views,
e.g.) God is held to be transcendent (beyond the
world). On other pantheistic views (e.g., those of the
Stoics or Spinoza) God is held to be an immanent
guiding spirit in and of the sensible material world, not
existing apart or beyond it. Similarly, Plato asserts
the transcendence while Aristotle maintains the
immanence of the Forms or essences of things.
29-07-2001
transcendental
<epistemology> relating to the grounds of possible

experience. E.g. Kant thought that most of our pure
rational knowledge is synthetic or a priori, or
transcendental. Thus Kant believed that geometry
expresses the pure form of our intuitive faculty for
experienceing things visually as in space: this faculty
sets the rules for what can be a possible experience
of vision.
30-04-2001
transcendental argument
<metaphysics, philosophical terminology> reasoning

from the fact that we do have experiences or engage in
practices of a certain sort to the truth of those
conditions without which these experiences or
practices would not be possible. Kant employed
transcendental arguments to establish our
synthetic yet a priori knowledge of mathematics
and natural science as features of the world as it
appears to us. Strawson employs a similar pattern of
reasoning to show that our identification of particulars
presupposes the existence of material objects.
Recommended Reading: Immanuel Kant, "Critique of

Pure Reason", tr. by Werner S. Pluhar and Patricia
Kitcher (Hackett, 1996); F. C. White, "Kant' s First
Critique and the Transcendental Deduction" (Avebury,
1996); Henry E. Allison, "Kant' s Transcendental
Idealism: An Interpretation and Defense" (Yale, 1986);
and Frederick C. Doepke, "The Kinds of Things: A
Theory of Personal Identity Based on Transcendental
Argument" (Open Court, 1996).
17-04-2002
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transfinite cardinal
<logic> Any infinite cardinal number, that is,

any cardinality greater than or equal to aleph0.
16-03-2001
transformation rules
rules of inference
00-00-0000
transitive
A relation R is transitive if x R y & y R z x R z.

✳
Equivalence relations, pre-, partial and total orders

are all transitive.
16-03-2001
transitive closure
The transitive closure R* of a relation R is defined by
xRy ✳
x R* y
x R y and y R* z ✳
x R* z
I.e. elements are related by R* if they are related by R

directly or through some sequence of intermediate
related elements.
E.g. in graph theory, if R is the relation on nodes "has

an edge leading to" then the transitive closure of R is
the relation "has a path of zero or more edges to". See
also Reflexive transitive closure.
16-03-2001
transparent
1. <jargon> Not visible, hidden; said of a system which

functions in a manner not evident to the user. For
example, the Domain Name System transparently
resolves a fully qualified domain name into an
Internet address without the user being aware of it.
Compare this to what Donald Norman calls

"invisibility", which he illustrates from the user' s point
of view:
"You use computers when you use many modern

automobiles, microwave ovens, games, CD players
and calculators. You don' t notice the computer
because you think of yourself as doing the task, not as
using the computer." ["The Design of Everyday
Things", New York, Doubleday, 1989, p. 185].
2. <theory> Fully defined, known, predictable; said of a

sub-system in which matters generally subject to
volition or stochastic state change have been chosen,
measured, or determined by the environment. Thus
for transparent systems, output is a known function of
the inputs, and users can both predict the behaviour
and depend upon it.
[FOLDOC]
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16-03-2001
transposition
<logic, philosophy of science> a rule of replacement

of the form:
( p -> q ) = ( ~ q -> ~ p )
Example: "If it produces pleasure, then it is right." is

equivalent to "If it isn' t right, then it doesn' t produce
pleasure". A simple truth-table shows the reliability of
inferences of this sort.
17-04-2002
travelling salesman problem
<algorithm, complexity> (TSP or "shortest path", US:

"traveling") Given a set of towns and the distances
between them, determine the shortest path starting
from a given town, passing through all the other towns
and returning to the first town.
This is a famous problem with a variety of solutions of

varying complexity and efficiency. The simplest
solution (the brute force approach) generates all
possible routes and takes the shortest. This becomes
impractical as the number of towns, N, increases
since the number of possible routes is
!(N-1). A more intelligent algorithm (similar to
iterative deepening) considers the shortest path to
each town which can be reached in one hop, then two
hops, and so on until all towns have been visited. At
each stage the algorithm maintains a "frontier" of
reachable towns along with the shortest route to
each. It then expands this frontier by one hop each
time.
Pablo Moscato' s TSP bibliography

Fractals and the TSP
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
tree
<mathematics, data> A directed acyclic graph; i.e. a

graph wherein there is only one route between any
pair of nodes, and there is a notion of "toward top of
the tree" (i.e. the root node), and its opposite
direction, toward the leaves. A tree with n nodes has
n-1 edges.
Although maybe not part of the widest definition of a

tree, a common constraint is that no node can have
more than one parent. Moreover, for some
applications, it is necessary to consider a node' s
daughter nodes to be an ordered list, instead of
merely a set.
As a data structure in computer programs, trees are

used in everything from B-trees in databases and
file systems, to game trees in game theory, to
syntax trees in a human or computer languages.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
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triad - Hegelian
<philosophical terminology> see

thesis - antithesis - synthesis.
17-04-2002
Trotsky Leon - Lev Davidovich Bronstein
<biography, history of philosophy> Russian social and

political philosopher (1879-1940) who participated in
the Bolshevik revolution but was later exiled by Stalin.
Although he often expressed respect for the
psychological theories of Freud, Trotsky' s effort to
establish philosophical foundations for the political
theories of Marx in the later book In "Defence of
Marxism" emphasized a narrow reliance on
dialectical materialism as a comprehensive view of
social reality.
Recommended Reading: Leon Trotsky, "The

Revolution Betrayed: What Is the Soviet Union and
Where Is It Going" (Mehring, 1990); Leon Trotsky,
"History of the Russian Revolution" (Pathfinder, 1980);
Dmitri Volkogonov, "Trotsky: The Eternal
Revolutionary", tr. by Harold Shukman (Free Press,
1996); and Alex Callinicos, "Trotskyism" (Minnesota,
1990).
18-04-2002
truth
<epistemology, logic, correspondence, coherence, metaphysics>

<evidence, phenomenology, pragmatism, theology>
a property of statements, thoughts, or judgments.
According to correspondence theories, a statement
(e.g.) is true if it corresponds to the facts, and false if
it doesn' t. (SeeUniversals, below, for further
explanation.) According to coherence theories, the
truth of thoughts (e.g.) consists in their coherence
with other thoughts.
22-06-2001
truth for an interpretation
<logic>
1. For a wff of propositional logic, to be true under

the assignments of a given interpretation.
2. For a wff of predicate logic, to be true for all

sequences of some interpretation. Also called true for
I. How a wff can be true for an interpretation must be
defined separately for each connective in the
language.
See logical validity, satisfaction
16-03-2001
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truth function
<logic> an operator in a logical language

(sentence, logic) is said to be truth functional iff
the truth-value of a proposition in which it appears
is wholly determined by the truth-value of the
subsiduary propositions on which it operates.
E.g. the truth value of p&q is wholly determined once
we know the truth-value of p and the truth-value of q;
hence the operator, &, is truth functional.
non-truth-functional conjunction, dagger function,
disjunction, equivalence, implication, negation,
stroke function .
05-06-2001
truth of fact
<epistemology, empiricism> as distinguished by

Leibniz, these truths could have been otherwise
since their denials are possible and
noncontradictory: such truths hold only contingently
(as a matter of fact), so knowledge of them requires
observation or empirical evidence for its
certification. Contrast: truth of reason.
22-06-2001
truth of reason
<epistemology, rationalism> as distinguished by

Leibniz, these are truths which cannot be false
because their denials would be contradictory and
impossible: such truths hold of necessity and can
be known to be true by the exercise of reason
alone. Contrast: truth of fact.
22-06-2001
Truth Sojourner - Isabella Baumfree van Wagener
<law, history of philosophy> American advocate for

human rights (1797-1883). After her emancipation
from slavery, Sojourner Truth became famous as
public speaker; one of her best-known orations
is "Ain' t I a Woman?" (1851), an eloquent plea for
recognition of the dignity of working-class women.
The Narrative of Sojourner Truth, a "Bondswoman of
Olden Time" (dictated to Olive Gilbert in 1850) is a
clear statement of her principled defence of women' s
rights, temperance, and the abolition of slavery.
Recommended Reading: Sojourner Truth, "Book of

Life" (X-Press, 1999) and Nell Irvin Painter, "Sojourner
Truth: A Life, a Symbol" (Norton, 1997).
18-04-2002
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truth table
<logic> A table listing all possible combinations of

inputs and the corresponding output of a Boolean
function such as AND, OR, NOT, IMPLIES, XOR,
NAND, NOR. Truth tables can be used as a means
of representing a function or as an aid in designing a
circuit to implement it.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
truth theories
<logic> the correspondance theory of truth insists on

the common sense view that what makes a
sentence true is its correspondance to something
external to language (usually), some state of affairs.
The coherence theory emphasizes that truth involves
above all a coherence between some sentence we
are considering and the rest of our beliefs (rest of the
sentences that we hold). semantics
30-04-2001
truth-functional compound proposition
<logic> a compound proposition whose truth-value

can be determined solely on the basis of the
truth-values of its components and the definitions of
its connectives.
16-03-2001
truth-functional connective
<logic> a connective that makes only truth-functional

compounds.
16-03-2001
truth-functional propositional logic
<logic> the branch of logic that deals with the

truth-functional connectives and the relations they
permit among propositions. The logic of the relations
between or among propositions, as opposed to
predicate logic which covers the structure within
propositions.
16-03-2001
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truth-value
<logic> The state of being true or the state of being

false.
2-valued logics
Logics in which there are only two truth-values,

namely, truth and falsehood.
Many-valued logics
Logics that recognize more than two truth-values. In

3-valued logics, for example, the third truth-value is
often "unknown" or "unprovable" or "neither true nor
false". Also called n-valued logics.
16-03-2001
tu quoque
<logic, philosophy of science> the informal fallacy of

replying to criticism by arguing that one' s opponent is
guilty of something equally improper. Example:
"Republicans claim that Democrats make illegal use
of campaign funds. But they do the same thing
themselves, so there is no reason to enforce
campaign finance laws." This fallacy is usefully
regarded as a special case of the circumstantial
ad hominem argument.
18-04-2002
Turing Alan Mathison

mathematician (1912-1954). Extrapolating from the
mathematical discoveries of Goedel, Turing
proposed in Computing Machinery and Intelligence
(1950) a specific description of just what an idealized
machine could, in principle, compute. In addition to
its practical importance for the development of digital
computing equipment, Turing' s theory provides
support for a functionalist account of the mind by
proposing the practical test of whether or not we would
attribute intelligence to a system whose performance
is indistinguishible from that of a human agent.
Recommended Reading: Alan Mathison Turing,

"Mathematical Logic" (Elsevier, 2001); Andrew
Hodges, "Alan Turing: The Enigma" (Walker, 2000);
Andrew Hodges, "Turing" (Routledge, 1999); and "
Machines and Thought: The Legacy of Alan Turing",
ed. by Peter Millican and Andy Clark (Oxford, 1999).
18-04-2002
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Turing Machine
<computability> A hypothetical machine defined in

1935-6 by Alan Turing and used for
computability theory proofs. It consists of an infinitely
long "tape" with symbols (chosen from some
finite set) written at regular intervals. A pointer marks
the current position and the machine is in one of a
finite set of "internal states". At each step the machine
reads the symbol at the current position on the tape.
For each combination of current state and symbol
read, a program specifies the new state and either a
symbol to write to the tape or a direction to move the
pointer (left or right) or to halt.
In an alternative scheme, the machine writes a symbol

to the tape *and* moves at each step. This can be
encoded as a write state followed by a move state for
the write-or-move machine. If the write-and-move
machine is also given a distance to move then it can
emulate an write-or-move program by using states
with a distance of zero. A further variation is whether
halting is an action like writing or moving or whether it
is a special state.
[What was Turing' s original definition?]
Without loss of generality, the symbol set can be

limited to just "0" and "1" and the machine can be
restricted to start on the leftmost 1 of the leftmost
string of 1s with strings of 1s being separated by a
single 0. The tape may be infinite in one direction
only, with the understanding that the machine will halt
if it tries to move off the other end.
All computer instruction sets, high level languages

and computer architectures, including
parallel processors, can be shown to be equivalent
to a Turing Machine and thus equivalent to each other
in the sense that any problem that one can solve, any
other can solve given sufficient time and memory.
Turing generalised the idea of the Turing Machine to

a "Universal Turing Machine" which was programmed
to read instructions, as well as data, off the tape, thus
giving rise to the idea of a general-purpose
programmable computing device. This idea still exists
in modern computer design with low level microcode
which directs the reading and decoding of higher level
machine code instructions.
A busy beaver is one kind of Turing Machine program.
Dr. Hava Siegelmann of Technion reported in

"Science" of 28 Apr 1995 that she has found a
mathematically rigorous class of machines, based on
ideas from chaos theory and neural networks, that
are more powerful than Turing Machines. Sir Roger
Penrose of Oxford University has argued that the
brain can compute things that a Turing Machine
cannot, which would mean that it would be impossible
to create artificial intelligence. Dr. Siegelmann' s work
suggests that this is true only for conventional
computers and may not cover neural networks.
See also Turing tar-pit, finite state machine.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
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Turing test
<artificial intelligence> A criterion proposed by

Alan Turing in 1950 for deciding whether a computer
is intelligent. Turing called it "the Imitation Game" and
offered it as a replacement for the question, "Can
machines think?"
A human holds a written conversation on any topic

with an unseen correspondent (nowadays it might be
by electronic mail or chat). If the human believes
he is talking to another human when he is really
talking to a computer then the computer has passed
the Turing test and is deemed to be intelligent.
Turing predicted that within 50 years (by the year 2000)

technological progress would produce computing
machines with a capacity of 10 ...
09-10-2003
twin earth
<philosophy of mind, philosophy of language> the

duplicate planet in a series of thought experiments
inspired by Hilary Putnam.
See externalism.
16-03-2001
two-valued logic
<logic> (Commonly known as "Boolean algebra") A

mathematical system concerning the two truth values,
TRUE and FALSE and the functions AND, OR and
NOT. Two-valued logic is one of the cornerstones of
logic and is also fundamental in the design of digital
electronics and programming languages.
The term "Boolean" is used here with its common

meaning - two-valued, though strictly
Boolean algebra is more general than this.
Boolean functions are usually represented by

truth tables where "0" represents "false" and "1"
represents "true". E.g.:
A | B | A AND B
--+---+--------
0|0|0
0|1|0
1|0|0
1|1|1
This can be given more compactly using "x" to mean

"don' t care" (either true or false):
A | B | A AND B
--+---+--------
0|x|0
x|0|0
1|1|1
Similarly:
A | NOT A
--+------
0|1
1|0
A | B | A OR B
--+---+--------
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0|0|0
x|1|1
1|x|1
Other functions such as XOR, NAND, NOR or

functions or more than two inputs can be constructed
using combinations of AND, OR and NOT. AND and
OR can be constructed from each other using
De Morgan' s Theorem:
A OR B = NOT ((NOT A) AND (NOT B))

A AND B = NOT ((NOT A) OR (NOT B))
In fact any Boolean function can be constructed using

just NOR or just NAND using the identities:
NOT A = A NOR A
A OR B = NOT (A NOR B)
and De Morgan' s Theorem.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
tyche
<metaphysics, moral philosophy> Greek term for

fortune, luck, or chance, as opposed to the necessity
(Gk. anankÍ) of logical or causal connections.
In moral life, especially, this significantly diminishes
the tendency of virtue to produce happiness with
any regularity or certainty.

1967); Martha C. Nussbaum, "The Fragility of
Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and
Philosophy" (Cambridge, 2001); Bernard Williams,
"Moral Luck" (Cambridge, 1982); and Claudia Card,
"The Unnatural Lottery: Character and Moral Luck"
(Temple, 1996).
18-04-2002
type
<theory, programming, PI> (Or "data type") A set of

values from which a variable, constant, function, or
other expression may take its value.
Types supported by most programming languages

include integers (usually limited to some range so
they will fit in one word of storage), Booleans,
real numbers, and characters. Strings are also
common, though they may be represented as lists of
characters in some languages.
If s and t are types, then so is s -> t, the type of

functions from s to t; that is, give them a term of type
s, functions of type s -> t will return a term of type t
Some types are primitive - built-in to the language,

with no visible internal structure - e.g. Boolean; others
are composite - constructed from one or more other
types (of either kind) - e.g. lists, structures, unions.
Some languages provide strong typing, others allow

implicit type conversion and/or explicit type conversion.
[FOLDOC]
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type - token
<philosophical terminology> a distinction, first drawn

by Peirce, between signs considered as abstract
things (types) or as particular instances (tokens).
Thus, for example, the number of words (tokens) in
this Dictionary - the "word-count" of its content - may
be quite large, but the number of different words
(types) it uses-the working vocabulary of its author -
is surely much smaller. The distinction is also used by
Davidson and other philosophers of mind to
emphasize that a reasonable identity theory need
only argue for the identity of mental and physical
events as types, not necessarily as tokens.
18-04-2002
type assignment
A mapping of the free variables of some expression

E to types. This is used in type inference to deduce
the type of E and its subexpressions.
16-03-2001
type class
A set of types for which certain operations or method

s are defined. E.g. the class Number might have
methods for addition and subtraction. Classes are a
feature of object oriented languages and of the
functional programming language Haskell. See
also inheritance.
16-03-2001
type inference
<programming, PI> An algorithm for ascribing types

to expressions in some language, based on the types
of the constants of the language and a set of type
inference rules such as
f :: A -> B, x :: A
------------------------- (App)
f x :: B
This rule, called "App" for application, says that if

expression f has type A -> B and expression x has type
A then we can deduce that expression (f x) has type B.
The expressions above the line are the premises and
below, the conclusion. An alternative notation often
used is:
G |- x : A
where "|-" is the turnstile symbol and G is a type

assignment for the free variables of expression x. The
above can be read "under assumptions G, expression
x has type A". (As in Haskell, we use a double "::" for
type declarations and a single ":" for the infix list
constructor, cons).
Given an expression
plus (head l) 1
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we can label each subexpression with a type, using

type variables X, Y, etc. for unknown types:
(plus :: Int -> Int -> Int)

(((head :: [a] -> a) (l :: Y)) :: X)
(1 :: Int)
We then use unification on type variables to match

the partial application of plus to its first argument
against the App rule, yielding a type (Int -> Int) and a
substitution X = Int. Re-using App for the application to
the second argument gives an overall type Int and no
further substitutions. Similarly, matching App against
the application (head l) we get Y = [X]. We already
know X = Int so therefore Y = [Int].
This process is used both to infer types for

expressions and to check that any types given by the
user are consistent.
See also generic type variable, principal type.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
type scheme
A typing of an expression which may include

type variables.
E.g.
x . x :: a -> a
where a is a generic type variable which may be

instantiated to any type.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
typed lambda-calculus
<mathematics, logic> (TLC) A variety of lambda-calculus

in which every term is labelled with a type.
A function application (A B) is only syntactically valid if

A has type s --> t, where the type of B is s (or an
instance or s in a polymorphic language) and t is
any type.
If the types allowed for terms are restricted, e.g. to

Hindley-Milner types then no term may be applied to
itself, thus avoiding one kind of non-terminating
evaluation.
Most functional programming languages, e.g.

Haskell, ML, are closely based on variants of the
typed lambda-calculus.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
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types - theory of
<logic, philosophy of science> the solution proposed

by Russell for the self-referential paradox that
arises from the notion of "the class of all classes that
are not members of themselves." Russell
envisioned an indefinite hierarchy of types to be
symbolized: ordinary objects; the properties and
relations of ordinary objects; the features of
properties of objects; etc. Defining each item by
reference only to those of a lower type avoids paradox,
but may not resolve every instance of difficulty with
self-reference.
Recommended Reading: Irving M. Copi, "The Theory

of Logical Types" (Routledge, 1971); Bertrand Russell,
"Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy" (Dover,
1993); and Roy L. Crole, "Categories for Types"
(Cambridge, 1994).
19-04-2002
uebermensch
<ethics, history of philosophy> German term for "Overman" or "Superman." Hence, in the philosophy of
Nietzsche, an extraordinary individual who transcends the limits of traditional morality to live purely by the will to
power.
03-05-2002
Unamuno Miguel de
<biography, history of philosophy> Spanish philosopher (1864- 1936). In Del sentimento tragico de la vida en
los hombres y en los pueblos (The Tragic Sense of Life) (1913), Unamuno described human existence as torn
between the irrational hope for immortality and the rational expectation of death.
Since faith can never outweigh reason, Unamuno supposed, the best we can achieve is a life of authentic
struggle with the human predicament.
Miguel De Unamuno, Three Exemplary Novels, tr. by Angel Flores (Grove, 1987);
Victor Ouimette, Reason Aflame: Unamuno and the Heroic Will (Yale, 1986);
Gemma Roberts, Unamuno: afinidades y coincidencias kierkegaardianas (Colorado, 1986).
03-05-2002
unbounded minimization
minimization
31-05-2004
unconscious the
<philosophy of mind> those mental states of which a human being is unaware and can normally only access
and/or alter with great difficulty, if at all.
<psychology, philosophical terminology> mental activity of which the person engaging in it is not aware; hence
a presumed source of unknown internal influences over the conduct of human agent.
Psychoanalysts like Freud, Jung, and Lacan supposed it possible to discover the content and significance of
such influences with suitable methods of psychiatric investigation.
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Alasdair C. McIntyre, The Unconscious: A Conceptual Analysis (St. Augustine, 1997);
Cogito and the Unconscious, ed. by Slavoj Zizek (Duke, 1998);
John Hanwell Riker, Ethics and the Discovery of the Unconscious (SUNY, 1997);
Donald Levy, Freud Among the Philosophers: The Psychoanalytic Unconscious and Its Philosophical Critics
(Yale, 1996).
03-05-2002
uncountable
countable
31-05-2004
uncountable set
<logic> A set whose cardinality is greater than aleph0 (see countable set)
16-03-2001
undecidable set
<logic> A set for which there is no effective method.
See decidable set, decidable system, decidable wff
16-03-2001
undecidable system
<logic> A system for which there is no effective method.
See decidable system
16-03-2001
undecidable wff
<logic> A wff that is neither a theorem nor the negation of a theorem. See decidable wff
16-03-2001
underdetermination
<logic, philosophy of science> the characteristic of rival hypotheses each of which is consistent with the
available evidence. The possibility that every scientific theory must always remain undetermined raises
significant doubt about the success of abductive reasoning.
04-05-2002
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understanding
<theory of knowledge, gnoseology> the human capacity for comprehending the nature of reality. In Plato' s
theory of knowledge, we comprehend the truths of mathematics through understanding. For modern
philosophers following Descartes or Locke, the understanding is the intellectual faculty considered more
broadly or generally.
Vincent G. Potter, On Understanding Understanding: A Philosophy of Knowledge (Fordham, 1994);
John Carriero, Descartes and the Autonomy of the Human Understanding (Garland, 1990);
Nicholas Rescher, Nature of Understanding: The Metaphysics and Method of Science (Oxford, 2001); Michael
Martin, Verstehen: The Uses of Understanding in the Social Sciences (Transaction, 2000).
04-05-2002
undistributed middle
middle term is not distributed in either premise. Example: All dogs are mammals. Some mammals are whales.
Therefore, some dogs are whales.
04-05-2002
uniformity of nature
<philosophy of science> presumption that the future will be like the past; assumption that the world exhibits
enough regularity to warrant inductive reasoning. Hume pointed out that such uniformity is presupposed by all
of our belief in matters of fact, Mill identified several practical methods for recognizing its instances, but
Goodman raised a significant paradox of induction.
Barry Stroud, Hume (Routledge, 1981);
Nelson Goodman, Fact, Fiction, and Forecast (Harvard, 1954);
Grue!: The New Riddle of Induction, ed. by Douglas Stalker (Open Court, 1994).
04-05-2002
union of sets
<logic> The union of two sets, A and B, is the set of objects that are members of either A or B or both. Also
called the sum of two sets.
The union of sets is the set-theoretic equivalent of inclusive disjunction; for the equivalent of exclusive
disjunction
See symmetric difference of sets.
16-03-2001
universal
<logic, dialectic, ockhamism, ontology, epistemology> pertaining to all, especially all times, all places, and all
things.
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universal algebra
<logic> the model theory of first-order equational logic.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
universal generalization
<logic, philosophy of science> inference from the features of a representative individual to a general truth
about everything of the same sort; hence, a quantification rule of the form:
ÿy
_______
(x)(ÿx)
Example: "Any arbitrarily chosen spaniel must also be a dog. Therefore, all spaniels are dogs". With
appropriate qualifications, this pattern of reasoning provides an important basis for proofs in quantification
theory.
04-05-2002
universal instantiation
instantiation
31-05-2004
universal proposition
<logic, philosophy of science> a statement whose propositional quantity is determined by its assertion that all
members of one class of things are either included or excluded from membership in some other class.
Examples: "All spaniels are dogs" and "No wristwatches are nuclear weapons" are both universal. Although it is
often difficult in practice to establish the truth of universal propositions, those that are accepted have extensive
deductive consequences.
04-05-2002
universal quantifier
quantifier
31-05-2004
universal set
<logic> The set of all things. Cantor' stheorem (that the power set of a given set has a greater cardinality than
the given set) implies that there is no largest set or all-inclusive set, at least if every set has a power set.
Hence as "the set of all things", the universal set is not recognized in standard set theory. Sometimes the set of
all things under consideration in the context; the universe of discourse. The complement of the null set.
Notation: 1 (numeral one), or V.
See universe of discourse
16-03-2001
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universalisability
<ethics> Immanuel Kant used this term when discussing the maxims, or subjective rules, that guide our
actions. A maxim is universalisable if it can consistently be willed as a law that everyone ought to obey. The
only maxims which are morally good are those which can be universalised. The test of universalisability
ensures that everyone has the same moral obligations in morally similar situations.
[Ethics Glossary]
<ethics, moral philosophy> the applicability of a moral rule to all similarly situated individuals. According to both
Kant and Hare, universalisability is a distinguishing feature of moral judgments and a substantive guide to
moral obligation: moral imperatives must be regarded as equally binding on everyone. The force of this
principle, however, depends upon the generality of the judgments and the particularity of the situations to which
they are applied.
Marcus George Singer, Generalization in Ethics (Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1967);
Morality and Universality: Essays on Ethical Universalizability, ed. by Nelson Potter (Reidel, 1985).
04-05-2002
universals problem of
<philosophy of science, metaphysics>, <controversy about universals, metaphysics, scholasticism> <realism,

nominalism, ockhamism, formalism, logic> <conceptualism> universals are features (e.g., redness or tallness)
shared by many individuals, each of which is said to instantiate or exemplify the universal. Although it began
with dispute over the status of Platonic Forms, the problem of universals became a central concern during the
middle ages. The metaphysical issue is whether or not these features exist independently of the particular
things that have them: realists hold that they do; nominalists hold that they do not; conceptualists hold that they
do so only mentally.
Properties, ed. by D. H. Mellor and Alex Oliver (Oxford, 1997);
Richard Ithamar Aaron, Our Knowledge of Universals (Haskell, 1975);
The Problem of Universals, ed. by Andrew B. Schoedinger (Humanity, 1991);
Five Texts on the Mediaeval Problem of Universals, ed. by Paul Vincent Spade (Hackett, 1994);
D. M. Armstrong, Universals: An Opinionated Introduction (Westview, 1989).
the properties or attributes expressed (or kinds denoted) by abstract or general words or predicates in speech
(or concepts in thought). Just as the words (or concepts) apply to many things, properties corresponding to the
words (or concepts) inhere in many individuals; in just those same individuals to which the word (or concept)
can be truly applied. The relation between the universal corresponding to the word and the things to which the
word is applied in speech (or the concept in thought) is supposed to explain the truth of that application. If the
universal the word expresses does belong to the thing to which the word is applied then the application (an
assertion, or affirmative judgement) is true; if the universal does not belong to the thing, then the application is
false. "Grass is green" is true because grass has the property of being green; "Grass is carnivorous" is false
because grass hasn' t the property of being carnivorous; etc. Seenominalism and realism above.
04-05-2002
universe of discourse
<logic> The set of all things under consideration in the context; the set of things covered by universal
quantification.
See complement, universal set
16-03-2001
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univocal - equivocal
<philosophical terminology> distinction among statements, expressions, and terms: those are univocal which
have only one meaning; ambiguous terms are equivocal, having more than one meaning.
04-05-2002
upper bound
An upper bound of two elements x and y under some relation <= is an element z such that x <= z and y <= z.
See also least upper bound.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
ursache
<philosophical terminology> German term for cause.
04-05-2002
urteil
<philosophical terminology> German term for judgement.
04-05-2002
usability
<programming, PI> The effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction with which users can achieve tasks in a
particular environment of a product. High usability means a system is: easy to learn and remember; efficient,
visually pleasing and fun to use; and quick to recover from errors.
(http://www.orrnet.com/).
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
use - mention
<philosophical terminology> distinction between two ways of employing a word or phrase: in order to refer to
something else (use) or in order to draw attention its own features (mention). "Sarah does well in chemistry"
uses the name "Sarah". But: Sarah" is an anagram for "a rash", merely mentions it. Thus, the first proposition
expresses a truth about my daughter, while the second merely points out an odd feature of her name.
04-05-2002
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use theory of meaning
<philosophy of mind, philosophy of language> the semantic theory according to which the meaning of a word is
determined by its use in communication and more generally, in social interaction.
Ned Block
16-03-2001
utilitarianism
<ethics, liberalism, finalism> a moral theory originally advanced by Jeremy Bentham according to which the
moral character of an act -- whether it' s good or bad or right or wrong-- is entirely determined by its
consequences, and likening moral reasoning to economic calculation Utilitarians maintain the right course of
action is always the one that has the most beneficial or least detrimental consequences overall, for all affected.
Bentham' s hedonistic brand of utilitarianism identifies the benefits in question with pleasure and the costs with
pain. John Stuart Mill speaks, instead, of "happiness": according to Mill' s greatest happiness principle, ou
moral aim should be "the greatest happiness for the greatest number." Contemporary utilitarians, like Peter
Singer, are more apt to speak of the benefits to be counted as "preference satisfactions" or "interest
satisfactions," counting the corresponding dissatisfactions as costs. Rule utilitarians hold that utilitarian
calculation should be used to make rules rather than directly applied to evaluate actions.
<ethics, moral philosophy> normative theory that human conduct is right or wrong because of its tendency to
produce favorable or unfavorable consequences for the people who are affected by it. The hedonistic
utilitarianism of Bentham, Mill, and Sidgwick maintains that all moral judgments can be derived from the
greatest happiness principle. The ideal utilitarianism espoused by G. E. Moore, on the other hand, regarded
aesthetic enjoyment and friendship as the highest ethical values.
Contemporary utilitarians differ about whether the theory should be applied primarily to acts or rules.
John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism and Other Essays, ed. by Alan Ryan (Viking, 1987);
Ernest Albee, History of English Utilitarianism (Prometheus, 1957);
M. D. Bayles, Contemporary Utilitarianism (Peter Smith, 1980);
Anthony Quinton, Utilitarian Ethics (Open Court, 1989); Robert E. Goodin, Utilitarianism As a Public Philosophy
(Cambridge, 1995);
J. J. C. Smart and Bernard Williams, Utilitarianism: For and Against (Cambridge, 1973);
Amartya Sen and Bernard Williams, Utilitarianism and Beyond (Cambridge, 1982).
<ethics> form of consequentialism made famous by John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) and continued by mostly
British philosophers of the 19th and 20th centuries. According to utilitarinism, what is morally right is whatever
produces the greatest overall amount of pleasure (hedonistic utilitarianism) or happiness (eudaimonistic
utilitarianism). Some utilitarians (act utilitarians) claim that we should weigh the consequences of each
individual action, while others (rule utilitarians) maintain that we should look at the consequences of adopting
particular rules of conduct. Utilitarianism' s famous creed is "the greatest good for the greatest number", which
sounds like and in fact tends to result in a kind of altruism, but which is not necessarily altruistic (for instance,
Mill advocated a kind of individualism and individual fulfillment in life, since he thought that the best way for
humanity to make progress was through the achievements of individuals).
Utilitarianism has never made a deep impression in America, where consequentialism has generally taken the
form of pragmatism. Popularly, utilitarianism has the same mild connotations of expediency and lack of
principles that pragmatism does, although without the positive emphasis on action.
(References from altruism, behaviorism, consequentialism, hedonism, and pragmatism.)
Based on the [Ethics Glossary] and on [The Ism Book]
28-04-2001
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utility
<ethics, utilitarianism> for utilitarians, the measure of the moral character of an act or (or for Rule utilitarians a
rule), of whether it' s good (or right) or bad (or wrong). The utility of an act (or rule) equals the sum of its
beneficial consequences minus the sum of its detrimental consequences: the principle of utility says whatever
course of action (or rule) has the most utility -- the best overall benefit-cost outcome -- is the morally right
choice.
22-06-2001
vagueness
<philosophical terminology, philosophy of science> the

characteristic of words or phrases whose meaning is not
determined with precision. Use of one or more vague terms
typically renders it impossible to establish the truth or
falsity of the sentences in which they appear. Example: "The
temperature is warm today." is difficult to evaluate because
there is no clear borderline between "warm" and "not warm".
Note the difference between vagueness and ambiguity.
Recommended Reading: Timothy Williamson, Vagueness (Routledge,
1996); Vagueness: A Reader, ed. by Rosanna Keefe and Peter
Smith (MIT, 1999); Linda Claire Burns, Vagueness: An
Investigation into Natural Languages and the Sorites Paradox
(Kluwer, 1991); and Rosanna Keefe, Theories of Vagueness
(Cambridge, 2001).
06-05-2002
Vaihinger Hans
<biography, history of philosophy> German philosopher (1852-1933).

In Die Philosophie des Als-Ob (The Philosophy of As-If) (1911))
Vaihinger extrapolated from Kant' sepistemology (as
understood by Schopenhauer) the notion that all of our
concepts - including those involved in both science and
morality - are nothing more than useful fictions. This outlook
was a significant influence on the psychological theories of
Alfred Adler. Vaihinger described the origins of his theory
in Wie die Philosophie des Als Ob entstand (1924).
Recommended Reading: Hans Vaihinger, Commentar zu Kants Kritik
der reinen Vernunft (Garland, 1992) and Andrea Wels, Die Fiktion
des Begreifens und das Begreifen der Fiktion: Dimensionen und
Defizite der Theorie der Fiktionen in Hans Vaihingers Philosophie
des Als Ob.
06-05-2002
valid
<logic, epistemology> a property of arguments: being

such that the truth of the premises guarantees or
necessitates the truth of the conclusion.
22-06-2001
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valid - invalid
<logic, philosophy of science> the most crucial distinction among

deductive arguments and the inferences upon which they rely.
In a valid argument, if the premises are true, then the
conclusion must also be true. Alternatively: it is impossible
for the premises of a valid argument to be true while its
conclusion is false. All other arguments are invalid; that
is, it is possible for their conclusions to be false even when
their premises are true. Thus, even the most reliable
instances of inductive reasoning fall short of deductive
validity.
Recommended Reading: Graham Priest, Logic: A Very Short
Introduction (Oxford, 2000) and Patrick Suppes, Introduction to
Logic (Dover, 1999).
06-05-2002
validity
<logic>
1. For wffs or propositions, see logical validity
2. For arguments and inferences, see semantic validity,

soundness, syntactic
validity.
16-03-2001
Valla Lorenzo
<biography, history of philosophy> a leader of the

Italian Renaissance (1407-1457). Valla' s
humanistic philosophy criticized the sterility of scholastic
logical distinctions and tried to synthesize Christian
principles with Stoic and Epicurean thought. In De libero
arbitratio (Of Free Choice) Valla noted the incompatibility
of divine omnipotence with human freedom.
Recommended Reading: The Treatise of Lorenzo Valla on the
Donation of Constantine, tr. by Christopher B. Coleman (Toronto,
1993) and Renaissance Philosophy of Man: Petrarca, Valla, Ficino,
Pico, Pomponazzi, Vives, ed. by Ernst Cassirer, Paul Oskar
Kristeller, and John H. Randall (Chicago, 1956).
06-05-2002
value
<ethics, axiology> worth in some respect, which may be either

intrinsic or extrinsic to the things that have it. The most
general philosophical issue in the study of value (axiology)
is whether values arise from objective or subjective features
of experience. Noncognitivists defend a strict distinction
between fact and value, and many contemporary thinkers
challenge the presumption that human knowledge can ever be
genuinely free of value-judgments.
Recommended Reading: Michael J. Zimmerman, The Nature of
Intrinsic Value (Rowman & Littlefield, 2001); Joel J. Kupperman,
Value...and What Follows (Oxford, 1999); Gilbert Harman,
Explaining Value: And Other Essays in Moral Philosophy (Clarendon,
2000); Forms of Value and Valuation, ed. by John W. Davis and Rem
B. Edwards (Univ. Pr. of Am., 1992); Robin Attfield, Value,
Obligation, And Meta-ethics (Rodopi, 1995); and Elizabeth
Anderson, Value in Ethics and Economics (Belknap, 1996).
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06-05-2002
variable
<logic>
A symbol whose referent varies or is unknown. A place-holder,
as opposed
to an abbreviation or name (a constant). See bound variables,
constant, free variables.
Individual variable of a system
Only individual variables and constants can serve as the

arguments of
functions and first order predicates. See domain
Metalanguage variable
A variable in the metalanguage of some system S which ranges

over wffs
of S.
Predicate variable
A variable ranging over attributes and relations in higher

order logic.
16-03-2001
Veblen Thorsten
<biography, history of philosophy> American social philosopher

(1857-1929) whose work contributed to the sociology of knowledge
by emphasizing the influence of material conditions on the
development of human thought. Veblen' s critical analysis of
American capitalism is evident in The Theory of the Leisure
Class (1899), and The Higher Learning in America (1918) comments
on the devastating effect of treating higher education as a
business.
Recommended Reading: Thorstein B. Veblen, (Kelley, 1964); John
Patrick Diggins, Thorstein Veblen (Princeton, 1999); Michael
Keaney and Douglas Fitzgerald Dowd, Thorstein Veblen (Transaction,
2000); and Samuel Schneider, An Identification, Analysis and
Critique of Thorstein B. Veblen' s Philosophy of Higher Education
(Edwin Mellen, 1998).
06-05-2002
vector
1. <mathematics> A member of a vector space.
2. <graphics> A line or movement defined by its end points, or

by the current position and one other point. See vector
graphics.
3. <operating system> A memory location containing the address

of some code, often some kind of exception handler or other
operating system service. By changing the vector to point
to a different piece of code it is possible to modify the
behaviour of the operating system.
Compare hook.
4. <programming, PI> A one-dimensional array.
[FOLDOC]
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16-03-2001
vector space
<mathematics> An additive group on which some (scalar)

field has an associative multiplicative action which
distributes over the addition of the vector space and respects
the addition of the (scalar) field: for vectors u, v and
scalars h, k; h(u+v) = hu + hv; (h+k)u = hu + ku; (hk)u =
h(ku).
[Simple example?]
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
Venn diagrams
<logic, mathematics> John Venn' s modern pictorial method

of representing and evaluating the validity of
categorical syllogisms. The classes designated by the
terms of a syllogism are represented by overlapping circles,
with shading and ×s indicating, respectively, the impossibility
and existence of their common members.
Recommended Reading: Sun-Joo Shin, The Logical Status of
Diagrams (Cambridge, 1994).
06-05-2002
Venn John
<biography, history of philosophy> British logician (1834-1923).

In Symbolic Logic (1881) Venn applied the insights of Boole,
Euler, and others in developing a diagrammatic method for
testing the validity of categorical syllogisms. He also
contributed to the development of modern theories of probability
in The Logic of Chance (1867) and The Principles of Empirical or
Inductive Logic (1889).
06-05-2002
verbal dispute
<philosophy of science> the appearance of disagreement between

parties who have not resolved the ambiguity of one or more key
terms. Agreement on the definition of these terms eliminates a
verbal dispute completely.
06-05-2002
verecundiam - argumentum ad
<logic, philosophy of science> the fallacy of making an illicit

appeal to authority.
06-05-2002
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verifiability principle
<logic, philosophy of science> the claim that the meaning of a

proposition is just the set of observations or experiences which
would determine its truth, so that an empirical proposition is
meaningful only if it either actually has been verified or could
at least in principle be verified. (Analyticstatements are
non-empirical; their truth or falsity requires no verification.)
Verificationism was an important element in the philosophical
program of logical positivism.
Recommended Reading: A. J. Ayer, Language, Truth, and Logic
(Dover, 1946); Carl Gustav Hempel, Selected Philosophical Essays,
ed. by Richard C. Jeffrey (Cambridge, 2000); C. J. Misak,
Verificationism: Its History and Prospects (Routledge, 1995);
and Michael Friedman, Reconsidering Logical Positivism
(Cambridge, 1999).
06-05-2002
verification
The process of determining whether or not the products of a

given phase in the life-cycle fulfil a set of established
requirements.
16-03-2001
veritas
<philosophy of science, methaphysics> Latin word for truth.
06-05-2002
vernunft
<philosophical terminology> German term for reason. Kant

distinguished reine Vernunft ("pure reason") or abstract
thought from praktische Vernunft ("practical reason") or
volition.
06-05-2002
Verstehen
<philosophical terminology> German term for understanding.
06-05-2002
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vice
<ethics, psychology, anthropology> an undesirable or

despicable personality trait, such as cruelty, or cowardice.
According to Aristotle vices are either of excess or defect:
e.g., cowardice is not facing up to danger enough (a vice
of defect); rashness is facing up to danger too much (a vice
of excess); while courage, the intermediate virtue, is facing
up to danger appropriately, at the right time, in the right
place, for the right reasons.
22-06-2001
Vico Giambattista
<biography, history of philosophy> Italian philosopher

(1668-1744). In Principi di una scienza nuova d' intorno alla
comune natura delle nazioni (Principles of a New Science of the
Common Nature of Nations) (1725) Vico argued that study of the
cycles exhibited in human history rests on a foundation and
methodology (distinct from that pursued by the natural sciences)
under which the genius of each age must be understood in its own
terms alone. This position was a significant influence on the
work of Hegel, Marx, and Croce.
Recommended Reading: Benedetto Croce, The Philosophy of
Giambattista Vico, tr. by Alan Sica (Transaction, 2001); Vico,
ed. by Robert Mayer and J.P. Flint (Ayer, 1979); Leon Pompa,
Vico: A Study of the ' New Science' (Cambridge, 1990); Mark Lilla,
G. B. Vico: The Making of an Anti-Modern (Harvard, 1994); and
Isaiah Berlin, Three Critics of the Enlightenment (Princeton,
2000).
31-05-2002
Vienna Circle
<history of philosophy> a group of philosophers, mathematicians,

and scientists in Austria during the 1920s and early 1930s who
founded logical positivism with their joint publication of
Wissenschaftliche Weltauffassungóder Wiener Kreis (A Scientific
World-viewóThe Vienna Circle) in 1929. Members of the Circle
included Carnap, Feigl, G–del, Hahn, Neurath,
Schlick, and Waismann. Schlick died in 1936, and the
others all left for England or the United States by 1938.
Recommended Reading: Friedrich Stadler, The Vienna Circle
(Springer Verlag, 2000); Edmund Runggaldier, Carnap' s Early
Conventionalism: An Inquiry into the Historical Background of
the Vienna Circle (Rodopi, 1984); Ramon Cirera, Carnap and the
Vienna Circle: Empiricism and Logical Syntax (Rodopi, 1994);
and Rediscovering the Forgotten Vienna Circle: Austrian Studies
on Otto Neurath and the Vienna Circle, ed. by Thomas E. Uebel
(Kluwer, 1991).
31-05-2002
virtual
(Via the technical term virtual memory, probably from the

term "virtual image" in optics) 1. Common alternative to
logical; often used to refer to the artificial objects (like
addressable virtual memory larger than physical memory)
created by a computer system to help the system control access
to shared resources.
2. Simulated; performing the functions of something that isn' t

really there. An imaginative child' s doll may be a virtual
playmate.
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Opposite of real or physical.
16-03-2001
virtual reality
aka VR
1. <application> Computer simulations that use 3D graphics and

devices such as the data glove to allow the user to interact
with the simulation.
2. <games> A form of network interaction incorporating aspects

of role-playing games, interactive theatre, improvisational
comedy, and "true confessions" magazines. In a virtual
reality forum (such as Usenet' s news:alt.callahans
newsgroup or the MUD experiments on Internet and
elsewhere), interaction between the participants is written
like a shared novel complete with scenery, "foreground
characters" that may be personae utterly unlike the people who
write them, and common "background characters" manipulable by
all parties. The one iron law is that you may not write
irreversible changes to a character without the consent of the
person who "owns" it, otherwise, anything goes.
See cyberspace.
[Jargon File]
16-03-2001
virtue
<ethics, politics, moral philosophy> excellence, skill, or art.

In classical thought, virtues are admirable human
characteristics or dispositions that distinguish good people
from bad. Socrates sought a singular virtue for human life,
while Plato identified four central virtues present in the
ideal state or person. Aristotle held that every moral virtue
is the mean between vicious extremes. Modern deontologists
and utilitarians tend to suppose that individual virtues
are morally worthwhile only when they encourage the performance
of duty or contribute to the general welfare.
Recommended Reading: Virtue and Vice, ed. by Ellen Frankel Paul,
Fred D. Miller, and George Sher (Cambridge, 1998); Nancy Sherman,
Making a Necessity of Virtue: Aristotle and Kant on Virtue
(Cambridge, 1997); Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study
in Moral Theory (Notre Dame, 1997); John Casey, Pagan Virtue:
An Essay in Ethics (Oxford, 1992); Jonathan Jacobs, Choosing
Character: Responsibility for Virtue and Vice (Cornell, 2001);
and Michael A. Weinstein, Finite Perfection: Reflections on
Virtue (Massachusetts, 1985).
31-05-2002
virtue ethics
<ethics, moral philosophy> normative theory that all moral value

is derived from the character of moral agents. Aristotle and
many medieval Christians assumed that the acquisition of virtue
is the proper goal of human conduct, though they differed
significantly in their valuation of particular virtues.
Rejecting the impersonality of moral judgments in the ethical
theories of Kant and Mill, contemporary virtue ethicists
emphasize the achievement of a meaningful life.
(Hackett, 1985); Virtue Ethics, ed. by Roger Crisp and Michael
Slote (Oxford, 1997); Virtue Ethics: A Critical Reader, ed. by
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Daniel Statman (Georgetown, 1997); Rosalind Hursthouse, On

Virtue Ethics (Oxford, 2000); and Christine McKinnon,
Character, Virtue Theories, and the Vices (Broadview, 1999).
31-05-2002
virus
(By analogy with biological viruses, via SF) A cracker

program that searches out other programs and "infects" them by
embedding a copy of itself in them, so that they become
Trojan horses. When these programs are executed, the
embedded virus is executed too, thus propagating the
"infection". This normally happens invisibly to the user.
Unlike a worm, a virus cannot infect other computers without

assistance. It is propagated by vectors such as humans
trading programs with their friends. The virus
may do nothing but propagate itself and then allow the program
to run normally. Usually, however, after propagating silently
for a while, it starts doing things like writing "cute"
messages on the terminal or playing strange tricks with the
display (some viruses include display hacks). Many nasty
viruses, written by particularly antisocial crackers, do
irreversible damage, like deleting all the user' s files.
In the 1990s, viruses have become a serious problem,

especially among IBM PC and Macintosh users (the lack of
security on these machines enables viruses to spread easily,
even infecting the operating system). The production of
special antivirus software has become an industry, and a
number of exaggerated media reports have caused outbreaks of
near hysteria among users; many users tend to blame
*everything* that doesn' t work as they had expected on virus
attacks. Accordingly, this sense of "virus" has passed into
popular usage (where it is often incorrectly used to denote a
worm or even a Trojan horse).
16-03-2001
visualisation
The act of making a visible presentation of numerical data,

particularly a graphical one. This might include anything
from a simple X-Y graph of one dependent variable against one
independent variable to a virtual reality which allows you
to fly around the data.
Gnuplot is the Free Software Foundation' s utility for

producing various kinds of graphs.
Usenet newsgroup: news:comp.graphics.
The Computer Graphics Resource Listing contains pointers to

several visualisation tools.
FAQ
(ftp://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/usenet/news-info/comp.graphics/).
Electronic Visualization Laboratory, University of Illinois

at Chicago (http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/EVL/docs/Welcome.html).
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
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vitalism
<metaphysics>
vitalism was a reaction against the currents of materialism and
mechanistic determinism in the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries. The vitalists posited that human beings are not purely
physical but contain some kind of spiritual component or "vital
essence". In practice, since the vitalists could not deny the
progress of materialist science, they advocated a kind of dualism
of matter and life.
25-03-2001
voice recognition
speech recognition
00-00-0000
volition
<ethics, moral philosophy> exercise of the faculty of willing.

The supposition that an act of volition is a necessary
precondition for any voluntary action notoriously leads to an
infinite regress in explaining the voluntary nature of the
volition itself.
Recommended Reading: Peter Van Inwagen, An Essay on Free Will
(Clarendon, 1983); Thomas Pink, The Psychology of Freedom
(Cambridge, 1996); Experimental Slips and Human Error: Exploring
the Architecture of Volition, ed. by Bernard J. Baars (Plenum,
1992); and Richard Freadman, Threads of Life: Autobiography and
the Will (Chicago, 2001).
31-05-2002
Voltaire - Francois Marie Arouet
<biography, history of philosophy> French philosopher (1694-1778).

Like the other Encyclopedists, Voltaire greatly admired the
philosophy of John Locke, and he defended his own version of
sensationalism in the Dictionnaire Philosophique (Philosophical
Dictionary) (1764) and Lettres Philosophiques (Letters Concerning
the English Nation) (1734). As a freethinker and deist,
Voltaire opposed institutional religion generally. In Poeme sur
la Dèsastre de Lisbonne (On the Lisbon Disaster) (1756) and
Candide, ou l' optimisme (Candide) (1759), Voltaire' s
acknowledgement of the presence of evil grounded a bitter
rejection of Leibniz' s conviction that god has created the best
of all possible worlds.
Recommended Reading: Voltaire, Oeuvres Completes (French &
European, 1999); The Portable Voltaire, ed. by Ben Ray Redman
(Viking, 1977); Francois Voltaire, Treatise on Tolerance: And
Other Writings, tr. by Brian Masters and Simon Harvey (Cambridge,
2000); Voltaire: Political Writings, ed. by David Williams
(Cambridge, 1994); and John Gray, Voltaire (Routledge, 1999).
03-06-2002
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voluntarism
<metaphysics> The word voluntarism in philosophy is usually used to

describe the doctrine of Schopenhauer that all the universe is
fundamentally or exclusively will. The term is sometimes used as
another word for libertarianism with regard to freedom of the
will.
[The Ism Book]
25-03-2001
voluntarism
<ethics, philosophy of politics> belief that the nature of

reality, the principles of morality, or the structure of
society derives from the determinations of human or (especially)
divine will.
03-06-2002
voluntary - involuntary
<ethics, moral philosophy> in moral philosophy since

Aristotle, the distinction between actions that are freely
performed in accordance with determination of the will of a
moral agent and those which are produced by force or ignorance.
(Hackett, 1985) and T. D. J. Chappell, Aristotle and Augustine
on Freedom: Two Theories of Freedom, Voluntary Action and Akrasia
(Palgrave, 1995).
03-06-2002
von Neumann integer
<mathematics> A finite von Neumann ordinal.
The von Neumann integer N is a finite set with N elements

which are the von Neumann integers 0 to N-1. Thus
0==
1=0=
2 = 0, 1 = ,
3 = 0, 1, 2 = , , ,
...
The set of von Neumann integers is infinite, even though

each of its elements is finite.
[FOLDOC]
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von Neumann John
<biography, history of philosophy> Hungarian-American

mathematician (1903-1957) whose work included study of
mathematical logic, set theory, and game theory. The
complex calculations required for work on weapons systems led
to the invention of modern computing machinery, and von Neumann
was the first to devise a functional set of program instructions
for an electronic computer. Any device that sequentially reads
and performs a stored program, providing for input and output,
through a central processing unit, is commonly called a
"von Neumann machine."
Recommended Reading: John Von Neumann, Mathematical Foundations
of Quantum Mechanics (Princeton, 1996); John Von Neumann, The
Computer and the Brain, ed. by Paul M. Churchland and Patricia
Smith Churchland (Yale, 2000); Oskar Morgenstern and John Von
Neumann, Theory of Games and Economic Behavior (Princeton, 1980);
Norman MacRae, John Von Neumann: The Scientific Genius Who
Pioneered the Modern Computer, Game Theory, Nuclear Deterrence,
and Much More (Am. Math. Soc., 2000); William Poundstone,
Prisoner' s Dilemma: John Von Neumann, Game Theory and the Puzzle
of the Bomb (Anchor, 1993); and William Aspray, John von Neumann
and the Origins of Modern Computing (MIT, 1990).
03-06-2002
von Neumann ordinal
<mathematics> An implementation of ordinals in set theory

(e.g. Zermelo Fr"nkel set theory or ZFC). The von Neumann
ordinal alpha is the well-ordered set containing just the
ordinals "shorter" than alpha.
"Reasonable" set theories (like ZF) include Mostowski' s

Collapsing Theorem: any well-ordered set is isomorphic to
a von Neumann ordinal. In really screwy theories (e.g. NFU --
New Foundations with Urelemente) this theorem is false.
The finite von Neumann ordinals are the von Neumann

integers.
[FOLDOC]
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voting paradox
<sociology, philosophy of politics> a systematic difficulty with

the attempt to make consistent social choices by majority rule.
Suppose that among three options, equal portions of the population
rank them 1-2-3, 2-3-1, and 3-1-2. Then, even though the relative
preferences seem rational and evenly divided, in head-to-head
competitions, two-thirds of the voters favor 1 over 2, and
two-thirds 2 over 3, yet two-thirds favor 3 over 1. Although
several Enlightenment thinkers had pointed out similar
difficulties in the foundations of social contract theory,
twentieth-century economist Kenneth Arrow demonstrated formally
that the collective preferences of groups cannot always be
determined from the individual preferences of their members.
Recommended Reading: Kenneth J. Arrow, Social Choice and
Individual Values (Yale, 1970); Michael A. E. Dummett, Voting
Procedures (Clarendon, 1985); and James M. Buchanan and Gordon
Tullock, The Calculus of Consent (Michigan, 1962).
03-06-2002
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Wahrheit
<philosophical terminology> German term for truth.
09-06-2002
Waismann Friedrich
<history of philosophy, biography> Austrian philosopher (1896-1959). One of the original members of the
Vienna Circle gathering of logical positivists, Waismann defended a conventionalist logic in Einf• hrung in das
mathematische Denken (An Introduction to Mathematical Thinking) (1936).
Sprachspiele und Vagheit der Sprache and his later lectures, published posthumously as The Principles of
Linguistic Philosophy (1965), contributed to the development of analytic philosophy by encouraging serious
analysis of ordinary language. Waismann held that even precisely-defined terms have an "open texture", since
novel circumstances might always render their appication uncertain.
Friedrich Waismann, Lectures on the Philosophy of Mathematics, ed. by Wolfgang Grassl (Rodopi, 1982).
09-06-2002
watchmaker argument
<metaphysics, God-proofs of the existence of> the world is an orderly and beautiful structure; we can tell that it
must have been made by someone, just as if you found a watch on an empty beach, you would know, even if
you had never seen a watch before, that it must have been made by someone.
02-05-2001
Watson John Broadus
<history of philosophy, biography> American psychologist (1878-1958)whose Psychology from the Standpoint
of a Behaviorist (1913) and Behavior: an Introduction to Comparative Psychology (1914) founded modern
behaviorism by requiring that the science of psychology study only public, external stimuli and responses,
rather than appealing to the introspection of putatively private, internal experiences.
John B. Watson, Behaviorism (Transaction, 1998) Modern Perspectives on John B. Watson and Classical
Behaviorism, ed. by James T. Todd and Edward K. Morris (Greenwood, 1991).
09-06-2002
weakness of will
<philosophical terminology> inability to carry out an action in accordance with reason or virtue. Socrates held
that agents never knowingly do wrong, but Aristotle maintained that the influence of the passions often results
in incontinence.
Justin C. B. Gosling, Weakness of the Will (Routledge, 1990);
Robert Dunn, The Possibility of Weakness of Will (Hackett, 1987);
Alfred R. Mele, Irrationality: An Essay on Akrasia, Self-Deception, and Self-Control (Oxford, 1992).
09-06-2002
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Weber Max
<history of philosophy> German social theorist (1864-1920) who developed many of the principles of the
modern discipline of sociology; author of Sociology as Science (1897) and Methodology of the Social Sciences
(1907). Weber argued for a strict separation between scientific objectivity and all judgments of value in Die
"Objectivit”t" sozialwissenschaftlicher und sozialpolitischer Erkentniss (The "Objectivity" of Knowledge in Social
Science and Social Policy) (1904). Ultimately, Weber supposed, ethical and political commitments are properly
embraced without any effort to supply their rational foundations. In Die protestantische Ethik und der Geist des
Kapitalismus (The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism) (1905) Weber warned against the loss of
individual freedom to the efficient but over-rationalized bureaucracy that arises in service of economic
investment.
Max Weber, Essays in Sociology, ed. by C. Wright Mills and Hans H. Gerth (Oxford, 1958);
Dirk Kasler, Max Weber: An Introduction to His Life and Work, tr. by Philippa Hurd (Chicago, 1989); Reinhard
Bendix, Max Weber: An Intellectual Portrait (California, 1978);
The Cambridge Companion to Weber, ed. by Stephen Turner (Cambridge, 2000);
Stephen Kalberg, Max Weber' s Comparative -Historical Sociology (Chicago, 1994);
Martin Albrow, Max Weber' s Construction of Social Theory (Palgrave, 1990).
09-06-2002
Weil Simone
<history of philosophy, biography> French philosopher and mystic (1909-1943); author of Waiting for God,
Gravity and Grace, and LeÁons de Philosophie (Lectures on Philosophy).
Following her conversion to Christianity in 1938, Weil argued in Intimations of Christianity Among the Ancient
Greeks that its central theological themes could be discerned by a careful reader in the philosophical works of
Plato and other Greek sages. In Oppression et libertÈ (Oppression and Liberty) (1955) Weil argued that
individuals can overcome the alienation characteristic of modern society only through their engagement in
meaningful work.
Simone Weil: An Anthology, ed. by Sian Miles (Grove Press, 2000);
The Simone Weil Reader, ed. by George A. Panichas (Moyer Bell, 1985);
Francine Du Plessix Gray, Simone Weil: A Penguin Life (Viking, 2001);
Stephen Plant and Peter Vardy, Simone Weil (Liguori, 1997);
Miklos Veto, The Religious Metaphysics of Simone Weil, tr. by Joan Dargan (SUNY, 1994);
Diogenes Allen and Eric O. Springsted, Spirit, Nature, and Community: Issues in the Thought of Simone Weil
(SUNY, 1994).
09-06-2002
well-formed formula
wff
31-05-2004
well-ordered set
<mathematics> A set with a total ordering and no infinite descending chains. A total ordering "<=" satisfies x <=
x; x <= y <= z => x <= z; x <= y <= x => x=y; and for all x, y, x <= y or y <= x. In addition, if a set W is well-
ordered then all non-empty subsets A of W have a least element, i.e. there exists x in A such that for all y in A,
x <= y.
Ordinals are isomorphism classes of well-ordered sets, just as integers are isomorphism classes of finite sets.
[FOLDOC]
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Weltanschauung
<philosophical terminology> German term for "World-view", a general outlook on human life and its place in the
greater order of the universe.
09-06-2002
Wert
<philosophical terminology> German term for value. Max Weber held that all social science is properly Wertfrei
("value-free").
09-06-2002
West Cornel
<history of philosophy, biography> American theologian and social philosopher born in 1953. His The American
Evasion of Philosophy: A Genealogy of Pragmatism (1989) traces the origins of American thought in the work
of Emerson and Thoreau. In The Ethical Dimensions of Marxist Thought (1991) and Race Matters (1993),
West addresses the significance of racial concerns in contemporary American culture.
Cornel West, Keeping Faith: Philosophy and Race in America (Routledge, 1994);
The Cornel West Reader (Basic, 2000);
Cornel West: A Critical Reader, ed. by George Yancy (Blackwell, 2001);
bell hooks and Cornel West, Breaking Bread: Insurgent Black Intellectual Life (South End, 1991).
[A Dictionary of Philosophical terms and Names]
09-06-2002
wetware
<jargon> /wet' weir/ (Probably from the novels of Rudy Rucker, or maybe Stanislav Lem) The human nervous
system, as opposed to electronic computer hardware or software. "Wetware has 7 plus or minus 2 temporary
registers." Also, human beings (programmers, operators, administrators) attached to a computer system, as
opposed to the system' s hardware or software.
See liveware, meatware.
[True origin? Dates?]
16-03-2001
wff
<logic> Acronym of "well-formed formula", pronounced whiff. A string of symbols from the alphabet of the
formal language that conforms to the grammar of the formal language.
See decidable wff, formal language,
Closed wff
In predicate logic, a wff with no free occurrences of any variable; either it has constants in place of variables, or
its variables are bound, or both. Also called a sentence.
See bound variables, free variables, closure of a wff
Open wff
In predicate logic, a wff with at least one free occurrence a variable. Some logicians use the terms, 1-wff, 2-
wff,...n-wff for open wffs with 1 free variable, 2 free variables, ...n free variables. (Others call these 1-formula,
2-formula,...n-formula.)
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16-03-2001
Whately Richard
<history of philosophy, biography> English logician and theologian (1787-1863). Considered largely
responsible for the revival of the study of logic in England in the early part of the nineteenth century, Whately
was the author of two standard texts-Elements of Rhetoric (1828) and Elements of Logic (1826). His logic was
largely Aristotelian, but explicitly followed Locke in many respects. Whately was also the author of numerous
books, essays, and pamphlets in politics, economics, and religion. He admired the work of William Paley and,
in his most famous work, the Historic Doubts relative to Napoleon Buonaparte (1819), argued that, if one were
to adopt Hume' s criteria for judging the reliability of testimony, one could deny that Napoleon had ever existed
(Contributed by Will Sweet.)
Craig Parton, Richard Whately: A Man For All Seasons (Canadian, 1997)
Erkki Patokorpi, Rhetoric, Argumentative and Divine: Richard Whately and His Discursive Project of the 1820s
(Peter Lang, 1996).
09-06-2002
Whewell William
<history of philosophy, biography> British philosopher of science (1794-1866). In the Philosophy of the
Inductive Sciences, Founded upon Their History (1840) and The Plurality of Worlds (1858) Whewell defended
a hypothetico-deductive model of Baconian natural science, emphasizing the role of intellectual creativity in
theory-formation and defending a strict scientific realism in opposition to the strictly empiricist views of Mill.
Thus, he held that Newton' smechanics for celestial and terrestrial motion provides necessary truths about the
structure of the universe. Whewell considered the implications of this view for ethics in The Elements of
Morality (1856).
Collected Works of William Whewell, ed. by Richard Yeo (Thoemmes, 2001);
William Whewell, Mathematical Exposition of Some Doctrines of Political Economy (Augustus Kelley, 1971);
William Whewell: Theory of Scientific Method, ed. by Robert E. Butts (Hackett, 1989);
William Whewell: A Composite Portrait, ed. by Menachem Fisch and Simon Schaffer (Oxford, 1991); Richard
Yeo, Defining Science: William Whewell, Natural Knowledge, and Public Debate in Early Victorian Britain
(Cambridge, 1993).
09-06-2002
Whitehead Alfred North
<history of philosophy, biography> English mathematician and philosopher (1861-1947) who collaborated with
Russell on Principia Mathematica (1910-13). After a long career in mathematics at Cambridge and London,
Whitehead accepted a position in philosophy at Harvard in 1924. In Process and Reality (1929) he developed
an abstract methodology through which to propose a comprehensive metaphysical view according to which
events and processes, rather than independent substances constitute reality. This view points toward the
progressive development of conscious organic beings mutually involved in prehensive relations to each other.
Alfred North Whitehead, Science and the Modern World (Free Press, 1997);
A Key to Whitehead' s ' Process and Reality' , ed. by Donald W. Sherburne (Chicago, 1981);
Nathaniel Lawrence, Alfred North Whitehead: A Primer of His Philosophy (Elliot' s, 1974);
Leemon B. McHenry, Whitehead and Bradley: A Comparative Analysis (SUNY, 1992);
Judith A. Jones, Intensity: An Essay in Whiteheadian Ontology (Vanderbilt, 1998).
11-06-2002
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Wiener Kreis
<history of philosophy, biography> group of Austrian analytical philosophers known (in English) as the Vienna
Circle.
11-06-2002
will
<philosphical terminology> the faculty of deciding, choosing, or acting.
Gary Watson, Free Will (Oxford, 1983)
Robert Kane, The Significance of Free Will (Oxford, 1998).
11-06-2002
Wilson Edward Osborne
<history of philosophy, biography> American biologist born in 1929; author of Sociobiology: The New Synthesis
(1975) and On Human Nature (1978). Extrapolating from his zoological studies, Wilson promotes the discipline
of "sociobiology", offering explanations of human social behavior in strictly biological terms. In Biophilia (1986)
Wilson proposes that human appreciation of the natural world is an innate expression of a vital biological
aspect of our evolutionary development.
Edward O. Wilson, The Diversity of Life (Norton, 1999); Edward O. Wilson, Consilience: The Unity of
Knowledge (Random House, 1999);
Ullica Segerstrale, Defenders of the Truth: The Battle for Science in the Sociobiology Debate and Beyond
(Oxford, 2000).
11-06-2002
Wilson John Cook
<history of philosophy, biography> English logician and philosopher (1849-1915). Although he had studied with
Green, Wilson rejected idealism in favor of a realistic epistemology. His classroom teaching and posthumously-
collected papers - Statement and Inference - were influential on a generation of Oxford philosophers.
11-06-2002
Wirklichkeit
<philosophical terminology> German term for reality.
11-06-2002
Wirkung
<philosophical terminology> German term for effect.
11-06-2002
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wisdom
<philosophical terminology> good judgment with respect to abstract truth or theoretical matters (in contrast to
prudence in concrete, practical affairs). For Plato, wisdom is the virtue appropriate to the rational soul, and for
Aristotle, it is the highest intellectual virtue.
[A Dictionary of Philosophical Terms and Names ]
11-06-2002
Wisdom John
<history of philosphy, biography> British philosopher (1904-1993) whose Other Minds (1952) and Philosophy
and Psychoanalysis (1953) applied the analytic methods of Moore and the later Wittgenstein to significant
issues in the philosophy of mind.
John Wisdom, Paradox and Discovery (California, 1987);
John Wisdom, Philosophy and Its Place in Our Culture (Gordon & Breach, 1975);
Philosophy and Life: Essays on John Wisdom, ed. by Ilham Dilman (Martinus Nijhoff, 1984).
11-06-2002
Wissen
<philosophical terminology> German term for knowledge.
11-06-2002
Wittgenstein Ludwig
<history of philsophy, biography> raised in a prominent Viennese family, Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951)
studied engineering in Germany and England, but became interested in the foundations of mathematics and
pursued philosophical studies with Moore at Cambridge before entering the Austrian army during World War I.
The notebooks he kept as a soldier became the basis for his Logische-Philosophische Abhandlung (Tractatus
Logico-Philosophicus) (1922), which later earned him a doctorate and exerted a lasting influence on the
philosophers of the Vienna circle. After giving away his inherited fortune, working as a village schoolteacher in
Austria, and designing his sister' s Vienna home,Wittgenstein returned to Cambridge, where he developed a
new conception of the philosophical task. His impassioned teaching during this period influenced a new
generation of philosophers, who tried to capture it in The Blue and Brown Books (1958). From the late ' thirties
Wittgenstein himself began writing the materials which would be published after his death as the Philosophical
Investigations (1953). In the cryptic Tractatus, the earlier Wittgenstein extended Russell' s notion of logica
analysis by describing a world composed of facts, pictured by thoughts, which are in turn expressed by the
propositions of a logically structured language. On this view, atomic sentences express the basic data of sense
experience, while the analytic propositions of logic and mathematics are merely formal tautologies. Anything
else is literally nonsense, which Wittgenstein regarded as an attempt to speak about what cannot be said.
Metaphysics and ethics, he supposed, transcend the limits of human language. Even the propositions of the
Tractatus itself are of merely temporary use, like that of a ladder one can discard after having climbed up it:
they serve only as useful reminders of the boundaries of our linguistic ability.
This work provided the philosophical principles upon which the logical positivists relied in their development of
a narrowly anti-metaphysical standpoint. But just as his theories began to transform twentieth-century
philosophy, Wittgenstein himself became convinced that they were mistaken in demanding an excessive
precision from human expressions.
The work eventually published in the Investigations pursued an different path. In ordinary language, he now
supposed, the meaning of words is more loosely aligned with their use in a variety of particular "language
games". Direct reference is only one of many ways in which our linguistic activity may function, and the
picturing of reality is often incidental to its success. Belief that language can perfectly capture reality is a kind of
bewitchment, Wittgenstein now proposed.
Thus, philosophy is properly a therapeutic activity, employed to relieve the puzzlement generated by
(philosophical) misuses of ordinary language. In particular, the philosophical tradition erred in supposing that
simple reports of subjective individual experience are primary sources for human knowledge.
Efforts to employ a private language as expressions of interior mental states, for example, Wittgenstein argued
to be an avoidable mistake that had caused great difficulties in the philosophy of mind. His views on this issue
were a significant influence on Ryle and others. In his later work, Wittgenstein applied this method of analysis
to philosophical problems related to epistemology, mathematics and ethics.
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Primary sources:
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Schriften, ed. by Friedrich Waismann (Suhrkamp, 1960- );
Wittgenstein Reader, ed. by Anthony Kenny (Blackwell, 1994);
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Notebooks, 1914-1916, ed. by G. E. M. Anscombe and George H. Von Wright (Chicago,
1984);
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, ed. by D. F. Pears (Routledge, 1981);
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Blue and Brown Books (Harpercollins, 1986);
Ludwig Wittgenstein, On Certainty / Ðber Gewissheit, ed. by G. E. M. Anscombe and G .H. Von Wright
(Harpercollins, 1986);
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics, ed. by Rush Rhees and G. E. M.
Anscombe (MIT, 1983).
Secondary sources:
P. M. S. Hacker, Wittgenstein (Routledge, 1999);
Marie McGinn, Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Wittgenstein and the Philosophical Investigations
(Routledge, 1997);
The Cambridge Companion to Wittgenstein, ed. by Hans D. Sluga (Cambridge, 1996);
Joachim Schulte, Wittgenstein: An Introduction, tr. by John F. Holley and William H. Brenner (SUNY, 1992);
Ray Monk, Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius (Penguin, 1991);
A. C. Grayling, Wittgenstein (Oxford, 1988).
Additional on-line information about Wittgenstein includes:

The outstanding guide (in German) from Deutsche
Ludwig Wittgenstein Gesellschaft.
Duncan J. Richter' s thorough article in The Internet
Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
The University of Bergen' s The Wittgenstein Archives.
Peter Hacker' s article in The Oxford Companion to Philosophy.
Also see: analytic philosophy, the beetle in the box, Cambridge philosophy, criteria, the duck-rabbit, English
philosophy, family resemblance, forms of life, the autonomy of grammar, grammatical proposition, the paradox
of identity, philosophy of language, language-games, linguistic philosophy, the linguistic turn, logic, logically
perfect language, meaning, open texture, the picture theory of meaning, the private language problem,
philosophy of religion, representation, rules, explanation by samples, saying and showing, seeing as, solipsism,
truth-functions, and Wittgensteinians.

Jean Laberge' s article (in French) at EncÈphi.
An article by Tadeusz Zawidzki in The Dictionary of the
Philosophy of Mind.
Robert Sarkissian' s summary treatment of Wittgenstein' s philosophy.
Bj–rn Christensson' s brief guide to on
-line resources.
Snippets from Wittgenstein (German and English) in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations.
A personal tribute from Screaming Chimp Productions.
Brief entries on Wittgenstein and ' family resemblance' in Oxford' s Concise Dictionary of Linguistics.
Andy Blunden' s biography of Wittgenstein.
A brief biography from ÷sterreich-Lexikon.
Discussion of Wittgenstein' s mathematical significance from Mathematical MacTutor.
11-06-2002
Wolff Christian
<history of philosophy, biography> German philosopher (1679-1754) who wrote in both Latin and German,
developing an extensive philosophical nomenclature for his native tongue and introducing a style that insisted
upon thorough treatment of every issue.
Wolff developed a philosophical system similar to that of Leibniz in his Philosophia Prima sive Ontologia (First
Philosophy, or Ontology) (1721). Although his rationalistic metaphysical doctrines were condemned for their
fatalistic implications in ethics, they remained influential until subjected to Kant' scritique.
11-06-2002
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Wollstonecraft Mary
<history of philosophy, biography> a self-taught native of London, Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) worked as
a schoolteacher and headmistress at a school she established at Newington Green with her sister Eliza. The
sisters soon became convinced that the young women they tried to teach had already been effectively
enslaved by their social training in subordination to men. In Thoughts on the Education of Daughters (1787)
Wollstonecraft proposed the deliberate extrapolation of Enlightenment ideals to include education for women,
whose rational natures are no less capable of intellectual achievement than are those of men. Following a
period of service as a governess to Lord Kingsborough in Ireland, Wollstonecraft spent several years
observing political and social developments in France, and wrote History and Moral View of the Origins and
Progress of the French Revolution (1793). Her A Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790) is a spirited defense
of the ideals of the Revolution against the conservative objections of Burke. Upon her return to England, she
joined a radical group whose membership included Blake, Paine, Fuseli and Wordsworth.
Her first child, Fanny, was born in 1795, the daughter of American Gilbert Imlay. After his desertion, he joined
the radical activist William Godwin, a long-time friend whom she married in 1797. Wollstonecraft died a few
days after the birth of their daughter, Mary, who later married Percy Bysshe Shelley and wrote Frankenstein, or
The Modern Prometheus and other novels. Wollstonecraft' s lasting place in thehistory of philosophy rests
upon A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792). In this classical feminist text, she appealed to egalitarian
social philosophy as the basis for the creation and preservation of equal rights and opportunities for women.
The foundation of morality in all human beings, male or female, is their common possession of the faculty of
reason, Wollstonecraft argued, and women must claim their equality by accepting its unemotional dictates.
Excessive concern for romantic love and physical desirability, she believed, are not the natural conditions of
female existence but rather the socially-imposed means by which male domination enslaves them. The
posthumously-published Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman develops similar themes.
Primary sources:
Mary Wollstonecraft, Political Writings: A Vindication of the Rights of Men; A Vindication of the Rights of
Woman;
An Historical and Moral View of the Origin and Progress of the French Revolution, ed. by Janet Todd (Toronto,
1993);
Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (Penguin, 1993);
Mary Wollstonecraft, Maria or the Wrongs of Woman, ill. by Anne K. Mellor (Norton, 1994).
Secondary sources:
Jane Moore, Mary Wollstonecraft (Mississippi, 1999);
Feminist Interpretations of Mary Wollstonecraft, ed. by Maria J. Falco (Penn. State, 1996);
Janet Todd, Mary Wollstonecraft: A Revolutionary Life (Columbia, 2000);
Gary Kelly, Revolutionary Feminism: The Mind and Career of Mary Wollstonecraft (St. Martin' s, 1995);
Calvin Craig Miller, Mary Wollstonecraft and the Rights of Women (Morgan Reynolds, 1999).
Additional on-line information about Wollstonecraft includes:

The comprehensive guide maintained by Harriet Devine Jump.
Jennifer Hornsby' s article in The Oxford Companion to Philosophy.
Also see: feminism and women in philosophy.

An entry in the Penguin Biographical Dictionary of Women.
An article in The Macmillan Dictionary of Women' s Biography.
Literary analysis from Patrice Cucinello.
A timeline of Wollstonecraft' s life from Bill Uzgalis.
Snippets from Wollstonecraft in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations.
Steven Kreis' s brief biography.
A brief tribute from Philosopher All-Stars.
11-06-2002
Xenocrates
<history of philosophy, biography> Greek philosopher (396-314 BCE)who defended the philosophy of Plato
against the criticism of Aristotle. As head of the Academy in the fourth century, Xenocrates held forth the quasi-
Pythagorean view that the Platonic Forms, including even the individual human soul, are all numbers.
11-06-2002
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Xenophanes of Colophon
<history of philosophy, biography> Presocratic philosopher (570-475 BCE). He criticized the militarism and
anthropomorphism of traditional Greek morality and religion, arguing that fundamental truth about the world is
difficult to achieve. His opposition to conventional notions earned him the respect of later, more completely
skeptical thinkers. Parmenides and Zeno studied with Xenophanes in Sicily before establishing their own
school at Elea.
Xenophanes of Colophon: Fragments, tr. by J. H. Lesher (Toronto, 1992).
11-06-2002
Xenophon
<biography, philosophical historiography> Greek historian (430-350 B.C.E.). Xenophon' s dialogues, especially
the Apologhma (Apology) and Memorabilia, offer an account of the philosophical career of Socrates through
more practical, worldly eyes than do the dialogues of Plato.
Xenophon: Memorabilia, Oeconomicus, Symposium, Apologia, tr. by E. C. Marchant and O. J. Todd (Harvard,
1923);
Xenophon, Conversations of Socrates, tr. by Hugh Tredennick (Penguin, 1990);
Leo Strauss, Xenophon' s Socrates (St. Augustine, 1997).
11-06-2002
xor
/X' or/, /kzor/ Exclusive or. "A xor B" means "A or B, but not both". Thetruth table is
A | B | A xor B
-- --- --------
F|F|F
F|T|T
T|F|T
T|T|F
16-03-2001
Zeit
<metaphysics, philosophy of science> German term for time; thus die Zeitgeist, or "Spirit of the Age" is the set
of conceptions characteristic of the thinkers of a particular era.
11-06-2002
Zen
Buddhism
30-05-2004
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Zeno
<history of philosophy, biography> Greek philosopher (334-262 BCE). An early exponent of stoic philosophy,
he devised its characteristic separation of logic, natural science, and ethics. According to Zeno, only
acceptance of objective reality permits human beings to overcome their subjective passions.
Edwyn Bevan, Stoics and Skeptics (Ares, 1980).
11-06-2002
Zeno of Elea
<history of philosophy, biography> follower of Parmenides whose work is known to us only through fragmentary
reports from other philosophers. Zeno (c. 450 BCE) was the presocratic philosopher who devised clever
paradoxes to show that motion of any kind is impossible and that reality must be unitary and unchanging.
J. A. Farris, The Paradoxes of Zeno (Avebury, 1996) Zeno' s Paradoxes, ed. by Wesley C. Salmon (Hackett,
2001).
11-06-2002
Zermelo - Ernst Friedrich Ferdinand
<biography, history of philosophy> German mathematician (1871-1953) who developed the first systematic
axiomatization of set theory. This achievement drew attention to the importance of the axiom of choice.
Gregory H. Moore, Zermelo' s Axiom of Choice: Its Origins, Development, and Influence (Springer Verlag
1988).
11-06-2002
Zermelo Fraenkel set theory
<mathematics> A set theory with the axioms of Zermelo set theory (Extensionality, Union, Pair-set, Foundation,
Restriction, Infinity, Power-set) plus the Replacement axiom schema:
If F(x,y) is a formula such that for any x, there is a unique y making F true, and X is a set, then F x : x in X is a
set. In other words, if you do something to each element of a set, the result is a set.
An important but controversial axiom which is NOT part of ZF theory is the Axiom of Choice.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
Zermelo set theory
<mathematics> A set theory with the following set of axioms:
Extensionality: two sets are equal if and only if they have the same elements.
Union: If U is a set, so is the union of all its elements.
Pair-set: If a and b are sets, so is a, b.
Foundation: Every set contains a set disjoint from itself.
Comprehension (or Restriction): If P is a formula with one free variable and X a set then x: x is in X and P(x) is
a set.
Infinity: There exists an infinite set.
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Power-set: If X is a set, so is its power set.
Zermelo set theory avoids Russell' s paradox by excluding sets of elements with arbitrary properties- the
Comprehension axiom only allows a property to be used to select elements of an existing set.
Zermelo Fraenkel set theory adds the Replacement axiom.
[FOLDOC]
16-03-2001
zombie
<philosophy of mind, philosophy of AI> <science-fiction, computing machines, artificial intelligence> in

contemporary discussions of the philosophy of mind, a hypothetical being whose appearance, behavior, and
speech is indistinguishible from that of a normal human being despite its total lack of conscious experience in
any form.
Daniel C. Dennett, Consciousness Explained (Little, Brown, 1992)
The Nature of Consciousness: Philosophical Debates, ed. by Ned Block and Owen Flanagan (MIT, 1997).
11-06-2002
Zubiri Xavier Apalàtegui
Xavier Zubiri Apalátegui (1898-1983) was born in San Sebastian in the Basque country and studied philosophy
and theology in Madrid, Louvain, Freiburg, Brisgovia and Rome. He met Ortega y Gasset in 1919: it was an
important event for his education, as Ortega introduced him to all the main currents of contemporary European
philosophy, in particular to the Husserl’s phenomenology. Ortega was also the supervisor of his doctoral thesis,
entitled Ensayo de una teoría fenomenológica del juicio.
He taught History of philosophy at the University of Madrid from 1926 to the outbreak of Civil War (1936). After
he was for a short time at the University of Barcelona, in 1941 he went back to Madrid to give cycles of private
lectures. The genesis of his oeuvre can be only partially reconstructed thanks to his lecture notes and the
articles he published in several reviews, because a huge amount of notes and works he developed during his
life were published only after his death.
His extremely complex ontology aims at discovering what reality is grounded on: Zubiri claims that it is not the
being the ground of reality, as it is commonly believed, but that it is reality what is primary and grounds the
being. It is not naive realism, because our apprehensions and things-in-themselves, which is the task of
philosophy to investigate, are not confused. Zubiri’s anthropology aims at showing the deep unity of reality,
expressed by the formula “sensible intelligence”. Zubiri’s interest extends to all the great problems of classical,
modern and contemporary philosophy and it provides an absolutely original view of philosophy.
Primary sources:
Socrates and greek Wisdom. Translated by R.S. Willis, Jr. The Thomist. Washington 1944. pp. 1-64.
The origin of man. Translated by A. Robert Caponigri, with an Introduction. University of Notre Dame. Indiana-
USA 1967.
On Essence. Translation and Introduction (pp.13-37) by A. Robert Caponigri. The Catholic University of
America Press. Washington, D.C. 1980.
Nature, History, God. Translation and Introduction by Thomas B. Fowler Jr., University Press of America.
Washington D.C. 1981.
Sentient Intelligence: Intelligence and Reality*. Intelligence and Logos**. Intelligence and Reason***,
Translated by Thomas B. Fowler.
Dynamic Structure of Reality, Traducida y anotada por Nelson R. Orringer, University of Illinois Press, Urbana
y Chicago, 2003.
Secondary sources:
Rafael Lazcano, Panorama bibliográfico de Javier Zubiri (1993)
Web-bibliography: www.zubiri.org
Sandro Borzoni
11-05-2004
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- Management -
Chief Editor and Project Coordinator Gian Paolo Terravecchia
Editors Luciano Floridi, Gian Paolo Terravecchia
Executive editor for the Editorial Board Federica Russo

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Chiefs web engineers Alberto Rinaldi

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Members of the editorial board Alessandro Volpone

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FOLDOP - Free On Line Dictionary Of Philosophy - Off Line Version Pagina 1 di 644

Current number of entries: 2418

This is the free offline version of the FOLDOP 3.

<philosophical terminology> a general suffix commonly used to

[A Dictionary of Philosophical Terms and Names]

A Dictionary of Philosophical Terms and Names

<logic, epistemology> "to the stronger," or "even more so".

[A Dictionary of Philosophical Terms and Names]

based on [A Philosophical Glossary], [Philosophical Glossary]

<logic> the process of inference to the best explanation.

Abductive inferences are of the following form:

i) All beans from this bag are white.

ii) These beans are white.

iii) Therefore, these beans are from this bag.

This inference results in an explanation of the observation in the second premise.

2) abduction of hypotheses for the purposes of explaining the

3) inductive testing of the hypotheses in experiments

4) deductive confirmation that the selected hypothesis predicts

Applications include fault diagnosis, plan formation and default reasoning.

Peirce, C. (1958) Volume 2, paragraph 511, 623; Volume 5,

Levesque (1989). A knowledge level account of abduction.

Shelley, C. (1996) Visual abductive reasoning in archaeology.

Based on [FOLDOC] and Chris Eliasmith - [Dictionary of Philosophy of Mind] Homepage

<scholasticism, medioeval phylosophy, logic>, <aristotelianism, theology>, <realism, nominalism, rethoric,

[A Dictionary of Philosophical Terms and Names]

See Cartesian coordinates.

Based on [FOLDOC] and Chris Eliasmith - [Dictionary of Philosophy of Mind] Homepage

[A Dictionary of Philosophical Terms and Names]

[Glossary of First-Order Logic]

In ethics, absolutism is usually contrasted to relativism.

See also authoritarianism in political theory.

Based on [Ethics Glossary]

<logic, mathematics, tautology> a rule of inference of the form:

As a simple truth-table shows, any argument of this form is valid.

[A Dictionary of Philosophical Terms and Names]

abstract data type

where a# is the abstract version of a etc.

A common use of abstract interpretation is strictness analysis.

See also standard interpretation.

A virtual machine is an abstract machine for which an interpreter exists.

Examples: Finite State Machine, Turing Machine.

Abstract Machine Notation

abstract syntax tree

Abstract-Type and Scheme-Definition Language

["ASDL - An Object-Oriented Specification Language for Syntax-Directed Environments", M.L. Christ-Neumann

1) in metaphysics see idealism.

2) in aesthetics see modernism, also called abstract expressionism.

[A Dictionary of Philosophical Terms and Names]

<Aristotle, aristotelianism, mathematics, astronomy>, <medicine, Plato, neoplatonism, islamic philosophy,

[A Dictionary of Philosophical Terms and Names]

Acceptable Use Policy

Finite State Machine

<philosophy of mind> Also known as a-consciousness, is a kind of direct control.

Ned Block. On a confusion about a function of consciousness

Behavioral and Brain sciences, 1995, 18: 227-287.

Chris Eliasmith - [Dictionary of Philosophy of Mind] Homepage (http://artsci.wustl.edu/~philos/MindDict/)

[A Dictionary of Philosophical Terms and Names]