Key Philosophical and Sociological Terms Defined
Key Philosophical and Sociological Terms
Moral
It derives from Latin (Mos moris) and refers to Customs.
Ethics
It comes from the Greek (Ethos) and refers to the mode of being.
Politics
Comes from Greek (Polis), which was the organizational form of the Greek city-states.
Arche
The establishing principle of all that exists.
Logos
Order regulating the discourse of nature. It also refers to man’s rational capacity to understand that order and reason.
Demiurge
The computer, not a creator.
Doxa
Greek word translated as “Opinion”. A concept used in distinguishing truth from opinion.
Episteme
Greek word translated as “knowledge”. Greek philosophers were concerned with true knowledge, as opposed to apparent knowledge.
Chaos
The state of messy primordial matter before the creation of the cosmos.
Symbolic Reality
A composite of shared beliefs: beliefs about good and evil, death, etc.
Nomos
Greek word translated as “Law” or “Law of the city.” There is no general moral and political law.
Ontology
The science that deals with “what is in that it is”. It is not intended for this or that facet of reality but for reality as a whole.
Epistemology
The science that deals with human knowledge. It asks, “How do we know reality?”
Empiricism
A generic name given to theories of knowledge that propagate that all our ideas are rooted in the experience gained through the senses alone.
Hermeneutics
The art and technical material for interpreting and fixing its meaning. It tries to make us see what we are not outside of it.
Physis
Greek word translated as “Nature”.
Induction
Moving from the particular to the general.
Deduction
Moving from the general to the particular.
Observational Consequences
General laws deduced from an agreement could be applied to all observers.
Practical Philosophy
A facet of philosophy that reflects on the field of human action.
Socialization
The process by which individuals learn to put themselves in a disposition of living according to social norms.
Freedom
When an act is not dictated by something or someone outside.
Disclaimer
Learning to give a reason for that act or event as the author.
Institution
An organization of a human group that is recognized by law and custom.
Device
A small-scale institution where, through practical actions and speeches, certain types of subjectivity are created.
Subject
A being able to maintain a relationship with the outside world that surrounds him.
Positivism
Consists of accepting no other scientifically valid knowledge but that which comes from experience, rejecting any absolute concept.
Paradigm
Structured thinking that has its bases only in experimentation practices but not using reasoning.
Technoscience
A term used to refer to the social and technological context of science.
Rationalism
A current of thought that posits an intelligible world, essences, or the postulation of a “universal right” organized and a reason for all living or nonliving things.
Heteronomy
A prerequisite of a person or group not endowed with its own laws or rules and that has a dependency on an external power or law.
Range
Ambient conditions of the individual or group that is capable of determining for himself and who has the right to be governed by the laws he has decided to be his.
Essential
That which belongs to the substance, understood as a set of defining characteristics.
Accidental
Characteristics relating to the object in both objects.
Action
Conscious and voluntary operations performed by the human agent with an intention or purpose.
Politics
Refers to the Latin term “Polis”, which was the way of the organization of Greek city-states.