Philosophical Terms and Concepts Explained
Philosophical Terms
Accidental property: Quality that completes or perfects an object or being. However, if this quality is removed, the essence of the object or being is not compromised or changed.
Acculturation: Process by which the members of a culture incorporate the features of a different culture.
Anthropocentrism: Doctrine that positions human beings at the center of philosophical reflection.
Anthropologic dualism: Philosophical doctrine that claims that human beings are made up of two realities: body and soul.
Anthropomorphism: The attribution of human characteristics and properties to non-human entities.
Arche: According to the first Ancient Greek philosophers, this substance originated everything found in nature. The questions these philosophers asked themselves, in order to define and find this substance, were considered to be the beginning of philosophy. (Pitágoras → numbers). Principle where everything is constituted.
Argumentation: Oral or written exposition in which reasons are given in order to defend a particular position or thesis. The aim of argumentation is to convince an audience.
Big Bang theory: This cosmological theory states that the Universe began at a particular point in time. Since then, the Universe has been constantly expanding.
Bipedalism: Anatomical and morphological change undergone by certain hominid species. Due to this change they stopped using four limbs to walk and began walking upright, using two legs.
Body: In philosophy, the body is the visible, material entity that humans possess. It is human’s most immediate reality when perceived by another human.
Butterfly effect: Concept which states that a small change in an initial scenario may lead to alterations that cannot be predicted or calculated.
Causal law: Scientific law that established a relationship between phenomena in such a way that if the phenomenon considered to be a cause takes place, the phenomenon that is considered to be an effect will also take place.
Cause: Event or action capable of producing or originating another different event, which is referred to as effect. Given that the cause of an event allows us to explain a certain effect, the term is also used to refer to the reason for its taking place.
Chance: Any event that occurs in a random manner, with no apparent purpose. It is impossible to determine its cause.
Chaos: Amorphous, undefined state that was supposed to occur before the cosmos existed. If the term “cosmos” refers to the ordered Universe, in Greek mythology the term “chaos” refers to the state of sarray that precedes the formation of the Universe. The term then evolved to refer to any scenario in which no criterion can be established to understand the relationships between the elements forming that particular scenario. (Universe without order).
Character: Behavior of a human which is the result of the habits, virtues and vices held throughout his or her life.
Cognitive faculty: Humankind’s natural ability to develop knowledge.
Condensation: Physical process proposed by the pre-Socratic philosopher Anaximenes, which explains why air can transform into other natural, denser realities such as clouds, water, ice, rock and soil.
Consciousness: Mental activity that enables humans to be aware of their existence, their state of mind, their actions and the environment around them.
Cosmology: Discipline that studies the Universe. Originally, it was part of metaphysics. Later, it became a science or at least a part of physics.
Creationism: Religious belief that claims that God created all biological species. It also states that all biological species have existed unaltered since their creation.
Cultural anthropology: Branch of anthropology that aims to understand human beings from a social and cultural perspective.
Cultural relativism: Anthropological doctrine that denies the existence of universal cultural values.
Cultural universal: Feature present in all human cultures worldwide.
Culture: Complex group of products resulting from human activity that occur within a particular society.
Death: Loss of all characteristics of living.
Emergentism: Philosophical doctrine that declares that the mind emerges as a result of brain activity.
Emic description: Description of a cultural fact from the point of view of a member belonging to the culture itself. This description has to be made by an anthropologist.
Emotional competence: Group of acquired habits, related to emotional intelligence, that generate a person’s ability to perform a professional task in an efficient way.
Emotional intelligence: Ability to interact in a social context by expressing our own emotions. Only our moral emotions are capable of promoting certain actions and condemning others.
Entropy: In any given system, physical quantity that measures the amount of thermal energy that cannot be transformed into mechanical energy.
Epistemological relativism: Philosophical doctrine that denies the existence of a unique truth that is universally valid.
Freedom: Human´s ability to choose from several options without being determined in favor of any of them.
Geocentrism: Conception of the universe in which the Earth occupies the center and is stationary.
Gnoseology: Area of philosophy that studies human knowledge.
Essential property: Quality of a substance that makes it what it is.
Essentialism: Philosophical doctrine that claims that essences exist as separate realities, i.e. they are independent from the individuals to whom they are attributed. Plato was interested in essentialism.
Ethnocentrism: Attitude resulting from believing that the group and culture to which oneself belongs is the standard to which must adjust other groups and cultures.
Evolution: Developmental process of living things or organisms.
Existence: The common characteristic of all beings.
Finalism: Philosophical doctrine that affirms that all natural changes have a purpose that has been predetermined.
Fixism: Theory that claims that all biological species are fixed and do not change. It opposes the theory of evolution.
Human science: One of the two branches of the experimental sciences. It analyzes human-specific behavior and activities.
Humanisation: It refers to the behavioral changes experienced by the humans included in the hominization process. These behavioral changes gave rise to present-day human behavior.
Humanism: Intellectual movement typical of the Renaissance that defended free spirit.
Inertia: Property of all bodies that keeps them at rest or in rectilinear motion, as long as that state is not changed by an external force.
Knowledge: Set of ideas obtained as a result of reflecting on information gathered in relation to a particular subject.
Magic: Practice based on the belief that certain humans have magical powers. This comes from believing that physical objects have human properties such as will or passion (this is animism).