Glossary

Abstraction, Degrees of : There are three degrees: (1) Metaphysical, treating being as being, and giving rise to logic and ontology; (2) Mathematical, treating being as quantifiable, and giving rise to discrete and continuum mathematics; (3) Physical, treating being as changeable, and giving rise to our basic notions of change, time development, and biological life. Logic applies to all being insofar as it exists, mathematics to extended and denumerable being, and the basic physical concepts to material being insofar as it is changeable. See Aquinas, Commentary on Boethius’ De Trinitate , QQ. 5 and 6.

Epistemology: The philosophy of knowledge. See Epistemology - An Introduction

Essence: What a thing is. Sometimes termed "quidity." In dynamic ontology, this is the specification of its capacity to act. Essence and existence are coortanted in every being, and so have a transcendental relationship. They my be mentally distinguished, but ate inseparable in reality.

Existence: In dynamic ontology, the bare capacity to act -- as opposed to essence, which specifies a things possible acts. Denoted by saying that a thing is, as opposed to what it is. Obviously, the capacity of a thing to act is proportioned to what it can do. So there is a proportionality between essence and existence.

Existent: Anything that has the capacity to act in some way.

Hermeneutics: A science concerned with problems of interpretation and of the role of human intentionality in the understanding of reality. In its extreme form, the objectivity of experience is completely lost in the subjectivity of one's interpretation as given in various "narrations" of life experience.

Intentional : Characterized by a subject-object relationship. This is often spoken of in terms of "aboutness," since it is characteristic of subjective states to be about an object. Knowledge is a form of intentional existence, while chices are commitmented intentions to act.

Intentional Existence: A known object's mode of existence in the mind. It is a mode of existence of the object because the object can act on the knowing subject through its intentional existence as knowledge.

Model: A theoretical construction embodying a subset of properties of a represented object. (The subset is the sum of the projections considered.) A model is not a description of reality because it almost certainly will leave out features of the reality it represents. More importantly, being a construction, it may incorporate features not found in reality. This last distinguishes models from projections, for projections see only what is there, just not all of it.

Myth: A story that a culture accepts to cover its ignorance of some area of vital concern. In addition to the myths of primative societies, Western society has its own. e.g. that all of nature is mathematically predictable, that science can solve all problems, etc.

Naturalism: A philophy based on the a priori rejection of any immaterial reality, and the idea that hte only aceptable approace to reality is the sceinctific method. It generally holds that that all forms of subjectivity are ultimately reducible to an "objective" physical basis.

Phenomenological Bracketing: The idea that much useful analysis can be done while metaphysical questions, such as that of the reality of the world of experience, the existence of God, etc., are held in suspension, or "bracketed." Some problems with this are treated in connection with Science and Common Sense .

Phenomenology: A philosophy that concentrates its attention on the "lived world" and generally disavows any interest in either the natural sciences or metaphysics. It is concerned with the universality of human experience and has a methodological concentration on the details, nuances and implications of experience, as opposed to existentialism's focus on grand life-problems experienced by the individual philosopher. It refuses to take a stance on the reality of the objects of experience and, therefore, sees little philosophical point in either scientifically probing micro-physical reality or metaphysical reflection on "transcendental" reality.

Projection: A mapping with loss of dimensions. Thus it describes our partial knowledge of reality, i.e. our knowledge as limited by a particular point of view, mode of analysis, or lack of experience. A fuller definition is on a separate page and continues with an Introduction to the Projection Paradigm . Also see the article, "Paradigms for an Open Philosophy."

Resonance: In physics, a marked increase in the magnitude of response at certain energies or frequencies, as when a piano takes up a note played on another instrument. Psychological resonances occur when a concept, idea, or image strikes us as particularly deep, powerful, or intriguing. A resonant thought is seen as is beautiful, or becomes an "insight." See also Rationality and Resonance

Semiotics: The study of with signs, both linguistic and non-linguistic. As a philosophical approach, it sees language as the determining factor in our understanding of the world. In its extreme form Semiotics sees language not merely as a tool of communication, but as the sine qua non of thought, and its forms as so limiting our understanding as to make the notion of objective content meaningless. Words may be seen as defined, not by their reference to objective reality or subjective experience, but solely by their functional interrelations in a closed syntactic structure.

Truth: The adequacy of what is in the mind to reality. Aquinas, following Isaac ben Israel, defined truth as adaequatio rei et intellectus (Summa Theologiae I, 16, 1c). Adaequatio is properly translated as commensuration or an approach to equality. Cf. McKeon (1930), vol. II, p. 427. Thus, truth is the adequacy of the mental structure to the object of thought. As such it admits of degrees: a knowledge adequate to some purposes may be woefully inadequate to others. There are two ways of being adequate.

It can be a projection of the real, i.e. our awareness of the action of an object on us. Or, some conclusion based only on projections and logic, such as the existence of God . Truth in this sense is absolute.
It can be a construction which is adequate to our need for prediction or some other practical purpose. Models and scientific theories, if true, are true in this way. Thus, Newtonian physics is true, even though we know that it does not apply in every case (it applies only to mid-sized objects moving much slower that the speed of light). It is true because, by working in these cases it is adequate to our needs. Truth in this sense is relative to those needs.