Philosophical Dictionary: Philia-Poincare (original) (raw)
φιλια [philia]
Greek term for friendship or amiability. In the philosophy of Empedocles, the constructive principle counter-acting the destructive influence ofνεικος [neikos].Aristotle regarded friendship asa crucial component of the good life.
Recommended Reading:Eros, Agape and Philia: Readings in the Philosophy of Love, ed. by Alan Soble (Paragon, 1999).
Also see Brian Mooney andPP.
Philo Judaeus (Philo of Alexandria) (20 B.C.E.-50 C.E.)
Alexandrian Jewish philosopher 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 theλογος [logos] is its mediating creative force.
Recommended Reading: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).
Also see IEP,EB, andFrancesca Calabi.
philosophy {Gk. φιλοσοφια [philosophia]}
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.
| | Recommended Reading: 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); Pablo A. Iannone, Dictionary of World Philosophy (Routledge, 2001); Martin Cohen, 101 Philosophy Problems (Routledge, 1999); and Antony Flew, Introduction to Western Philosophy: Ideas and Argument from Plato to Popper (Thames & Hudson, 1989). | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
φρνησις [phrónêsis]
Greek term for practical wisdom or prudence, the application of good judgment to human conduct, in contrast with the more theoretical inquiry leading toσοφια [sophía], or wisdom generally.
Recommended Reading: F. E. Peters, Greek Philosophical Terms: A Historical Lexicon (NYU, 1967);Practical Rationality and Preference: Essays for David Gauthier, ed. by Christopher W. Morris and Arthur Ripstein (Cambridge, 2001); Joseph Dunne, Back to the Rough Ground: 'Phronesis' and 'Techne' in Modern Philosophy and in Aristotle (Notre Dame, 1993).
Also see Damian G. Konkoly,Sophie Haroutunian-Gordon, andPP.
physicalism
Belief that all mental properties, states, and events can be wholly explained in terms of physical properties, states, and events. Versions of this position—usually focussed ontype rather than token identity—predominate in contemporary application ofmaterialist principles to thephilosophy of mind.
| | Recommended Reading: 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). | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
φυσις [physis]
Greek term for nature, as opposed to τεχνη [technê], or art. Thus, for Aristotle, the governing principle of all movement among inanimate things.
Recommended Reading: F. E. Peters, Greek Philosophical Terms: A Historical Lexicon (NYU, 1967).
Also see PP.
Pico della Mirandola, Giovanni (1463-1494)
Italian thinker who studied in Florence withMarsillio Ficino. Pico's De hominis dignitate(Oration on the Dignity of Man) (1486) is an excellent statement of the principles of Renaissancehumanism. 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.
Recommended Reading: 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).
πιστις [pístis]
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.
Recommended Reading: F. E. Peters, Greek Philosophical Terms: A Historical Lexicon (NYU, 1967).
Also see PP.
pity, appeal to (argumentum ad misericordiam)
The informal fallacy that tries to elicit feelings of mercy from an audience.
Recommended Reading: Douglas N. Walton, Appeal to Pity: Argumentum Ad Misericordiam (SUNY, 1997).
Also see GLF.
Planck, Max Karl Ernst Ludwig (1858-1947)
German physicist whose discovery of the constant rate at which energy can be radiated contributed significantly toEinstein's formulation of a wave/particle theory of light and the development of quantum mechanics. Planck wonthe Nobel Prize in 1918.
Recommended Reading: 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).
Plato (427-347 BCE)
Greek philosopher who drew a strict distinction between appearance and reality, developed thetheory of forms as an account of immutable truth, and argued that only the wisest members of a society should be trusted to rule.
For a discussion of his life and works, see Plato. Also see PP.
plenitude, principle of
Belief that everything that can be, is.Leibniz clearly maintained thatevery genuine possibility must be actualized in thebest of all possible worlds, andA. O. Lovejoy supposed adherence to this notion a significant source for the notion of thegreat chain of being envisioned by such philosophers asPlato,Plotinus, and theNeoplatonics.
Recommended Reading: Arthur Oncken Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being: A Study of the History of an Idea (Harvard, 1970).
Plotinus (205-270)
Egyptian philosopher. In the Enneads(which were collected and published by his pupil Porphyry) Plotinus extrapolated from the writings ofPlato a comprehensiveview of reality in which everything flows in a series ofemanations from the central unity outwards into ever less significant things. On this view, thechain of being extends fromνους [nous] throughψυχη [psychê] toφυσις [physis]. Although human beings are typically caught up in the lowest element of nature, Plotinus supposed each to be amicrocosm of the universe as a whole, capable of contemplative awareness of the divine unity.
| | Recommended Reading: 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). | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
Also see SEP,IEP,EB,ELC, andDouglas Hadley.
pluralism
Belief that reality ultimately includes many different kinds of things. Thus, in ethics, the supposition that there are many independent sources of value and, in political life, acceptance of a multiplicity of groups with competing interests.Epistemological pluralism is a common feature inpostmodernist thought.
Recommended Reading: 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); Byeong-Uk Yi, Understanding the Many (Routledge, 2002); Michael Walzer, Spheres of Justice: A Defense of Pluralism and Equality (Basic, 1984); andPhilosophy and Pluralism, ed. by David Archard (Cambridge, 1996).
Also see IEP,EB,P. J. McGrath, andISM.
πνευμα [pneuma]
Greek term for wind, breath, or spirit. Aristotle relied on the literal senses of the term, butthe 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.
Recommended Reading: F. E. Peters, Greek Philosophical Terms: A Historical Lexicon (NYU, 1967) andLanguage and Thought in Early Greek Philosophy, ed. by Kevin Robb (Open Court, 1990).
Also see PP.
ποιησις [_poiêsis_]
Greek term for creation or production that is aimed at someend(τελος [télos]), unlike mere action (πραξις [praxis]) or doing. Excellence in ποιησις is achieved by skill τεχνη [technê].
Also see PP.
Poincaré, Jules Henri (1854-1912)
French mathematician and philosopher of science. Although he granted the necessity of testing scientific propositions against observed facts about the natural world inLa Science et l'hypothèse (Science and Hypothesis) (1902), Poincaré emphasized that scientific theories areconventional claims best supported by appeal to their simplicity and utility rather than to their truth. This philosophy of science provided a significant impetus forlogical positivism, but Poincaré himself criticized thelogicization of arithmetic in Dernières Pensées (Mathematics and Science: Last Essays) (1912).
| | Recommended Reading:The Value of Science: Essential Writings of Henri Poincare (Modern Library, 2001); Elie Zahar, Poincare's Philosophy: From Conventionalism to Phenomenology (Open Court, 2001); andMathematical Heritage of Henri Poincare, ed. by Felix E. Browder (Am. Math. Soc., 1983). | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |