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Trope Theory
Trope denotes figurative and metaphorical language and one which has been used in various technical senses. The term ''trope'' derives from the Greek τρόπος (''tropos''), "a turn, a change", related to the root of the verb τρέπειν (''trepein''), "to turn, to direct, to alter, to change"; this means that the term is used metaphorically to denote, among other things, metaphorical language. The term is also used in technical senses, which do not always correspond to its linguistic origin. Its meaning has to be judged from the context, some of which are given below. Basic meaning as metaphor Here a trope is a figurative and metaphorical use of a word or a phrase. The verb ''to trope'' means then to make a trope. In epistemology A trope or "mode" refers to skeptical stock arguments or "ways of refuting dogmatism." There are two sets of these tropes: the ten modes of Aenesidemus and the five modes of Agrippa. In metaphysics Trope theory (or trope nominalism) in metap ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Figurative Language
Literal and figurative language is a distinction within some fields of language analysis, in particular stylistics, rhetoric, and semantics. *Literal language uses words exactly according to their conventionally accepted meanings or denotation. *Figurative (or non-literal) language uses words in a way that deviates from their conventionally accepted definitions in order to convey a more complicated meaning or heightened effect. Figurative language is often created by presenting words in such a way that they are equated, compared, or associated with normally unrelated meanings. Literal usage confers meaning to words, in the sense of the meaning they have by themselves, outside any figure of speech. It maintains a consistent meaning regardless of the context, with ''the intended meaning corresponding exactly to the meaning'' of the individual words. On the contrary, figurative use of language is the use of words or phrases that ''implies a non-literal meaning which does make se ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Substantial Form
Substantial form was an Aristotelian innovation designed to solve three problems. The first is how physical things can exist as certain types of intelligible things, e.g., Rover and Fido are both dogs because they have the same type of immaterial substantial form. It is the immaterial substantial form that makes the physical thing intelligible as a particular kind of thing. The second problem is how the activities of physical things can transcend the limitations of matter to different degrees: plants through their vegetative substantial form transcend the capacities of inanimate matter via growth and nutritive activities; animals through their sentient substantial form by sensation, perception and emotions; and humans via their rational substantial forms by their abstract thinking and free will. The third problem is how one physical thing can change into another, e.g.the tiger that eats Rover and Fido not only ends the ability of their substantial forms to continue animating their ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Keith Campbell (philosopher)
Keith Campbell (born 1938) is an Australian philosopher working in metaphysics. Biography With D. M. Armstrong, Campbell is one of the founders of so-called '' Australian materialism'' and, within it, of a variety of trope theory. He also has a distinctive view of concrete and abstract objects: the former can exist by themselves, and the latter are incapable of independent existence. He refuses, following Frank P. Ramsey, the necessity of choice between realism and nominalism in the problem of universals, because they both share "a false presupposition being that any quality or relation must be a universal" (Campbell 1991, preface). The separation between the University of Sydney The University of Sydney (USYD), also known as Sydney University, or informally Sydney Uni, is a public research university located in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and is one of the country's ...'s Departments of Traditional and Modern Philos ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Malet Armstrong
David Malet Armstrong (8 July 1926 – 13 May 2014), often D. M. Armstrong, was an Australian philosopher. He is well known for his work on metaphysics and the philosophy of mind, and for his defence of a factualist ontology, a functionalist theory of the mind, an externalist epistemology, and a necessitarian conception of the laws of nature. He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2008. Keith Campbell said that Armstrong's contributions to metaphysics and epistemology "helped to shape philosophy's agenda and terms of debate", and that Armstrong's work "always concerned to elaborate and defend a philosophy which is ontically economical, synoptic, and compatibly continuous with established results in the natural sciences". Life and career After studying at the University of Sydney, Armstrong undertook a B.Phil. at the University of Oxford and a Ph.D. at the University of Melbourne. He taught at Birkbeck College in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British mathematician, philosopher, logician, and public intellectual. He had a considerable influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, linguistics, artificial intelligence, cognitive science, computer science and various areas of analytic philosophy, especially philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of language, epistemology, and metaphysics.Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy"Bertrand Russell" 1 May 2003. He was one of the early 20th century's most prominent logicians, and a founder of analytic philosophy, along with his predecessor Gottlob Frege, his friend and colleague G. E. Moore and his student and protégé Ludwig Wittgenstein. Russell with Moore led the British "revolt against idealism". Together with his former teacher A. N. Whitehead, Russell wrote ''Principia Mathematica'', a milestone in the development of classical logic, and a major attempt to reduce the whole ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Occam's Razor
Occam's razor, Ockham's razor, or Ocham's razor ( la, novacula Occami), also known as the principle of parsimony or the law of parsimony ( la, lex parsimoniae), is the problem-solving principle that "entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity". It is generally understood in the sense that with competing theories or explanations, the simpler one, for example a model with fewer parameters, is to be preferred. The idea is frequently attributed to English Franciscan friar William of Ockham (), a scholastic philosopher and theologian, although he never used these exact words. This philosophical razor advocates that when presented with competing hypotheses about the same prediction, one should select the solution with the fewest assumptions, and that this is not meant to be a way of choosing between hypotheses that make different predictions. Similarly, in science, Occam's razor is used as an abductive heuristic in the development of theoretical models rather than as a rigoro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Parmenides
Parmenides of Elea (; grc-gre, Παρμενίδης ὁ Ἐλεάτης; ) was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher from Elea in Magna Graecia. Parmenides was born in the Greek colony of Elea, from a wealthy and illustrious family. His dates are uncertain; according to doxographer Diogenes Laërtius, he flourished just before 500 BC, which would put his year of birth near 540 BC, but in the dialogue '' Parmenides'' Plato has him visiting Athens at the age of 65, when Socrates was a young man, c. 450 BC, which, if true, suggests a year of birth of c. 515 BC. He is thought to have been in his prime (or " floruit") around 475 BC. The single known work by Parmenides is a poem whose original title is unknown but which is often referred to as ''On Nature.'' Only fragments of it survive. In his poem, Parmenides prescribes two views of reality. The first, the Way of " Alethia" or truth, describes how all reality is one, change is impossible, and existence is timeless and unifor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Abstract Object
In metaphysics, the distinction between abstract and concrete refers to a divide between two types of entities. Many philosophers hold that this difference has fundamental metaphysical significance. Examples of concrete objects include plants, human beings and planets while things like numbers, sets and propositions are abstract objects. There is no general consensus as to what the characteristic marks of concreteness and abstractness are. Popular suggestions include defining the distinction in terms of the difference between (1) existence inside or outside space-time, (2) having causes and effects or not, (3) having contingent or necessary existence, (4) being particular or universal and (5) belonging to either the physical or the mental realm or to neither. Despite this diversity of views, there is broad agreement concerning most objects as to whether they are abstract or concrete. So under most interpretations, all these views would agree that, for example, plants are concr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Berkeley
George Berkeley (; 12 March 168514 January 1753) – known as Bishop Berkeley ( Bishop of Cloyne of the Anglican Church of Ireland) – was an Anglo-Irish philosopher whose primary achievement was the advancement of a theory he called "immaterialism" (later referred to as "subjective idealism" by others). This theory denies the existence of material substance and instead contends that familiar objects like tables and chairs are ideas perceived by the mind and, as a result, cannot exist without being perceived. Berkeley is also known for his critique of abstraction, an important premise in his argument for immaterialism. In 1709, Berkeley published his first major work, '' An Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision'', in which he discussed the limitations of human vision and advanced the theory that the proper objects of sight are not material objects, but light and colour. This foreshadowed his chief philosophical work, ''A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Empiricists
In philosophy, empiricism is an epistemological theory that holds that knowledge or justification comes only or primarily from sensory experience. It is one of several views within epistemology, along with rationalism and skepticism. Empiricism emphasizes the central role of empirical evidence in the formation of ideas, rather than innate ideas or traditions. However, empiricists may argue that traditions (or customs) arise due to relations of previous sensory experiences. Historically, empiricism was associated with the "blank slate" concept (''tabula rasa''), according to which the human mind is "blank" at birth and develops its thoughts only through experience. Empiricism in the philosophy of science emphasizes evidence, especially as discovered in experiments. It is a fundamental part of the scientific method that all hypotheses and theories must be tested against observations of the natural world rather than resting solely on '' a priori'' reasoning, intuition, or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Parmenides (dialogue)
''Parmenides'' ( el, Παρμενίδης) is one of the dialogues of Plato. It is widely considered to be one of the most challenging and enigmatic of Plato's dialogues. The ''Parmenides'' purports to be an account of a meeting between the two great philosophers of the Eleatic school, Parmenides and Zeno of Elea, and a young Socrates. The occasion of the meeting was the reading by Zeno of his treatise defending Parmenidean monism against those partisans of plurality who asserted that Parmenides' supposition that there is a one gives rise to intolerable absurdities and contradictions. The dialogue is set during a supposed meeting between Parmenides and Zeno of Elea in Socrates' hometown of Athens. This dialogue is chronologically the earliest of all as Socrates is only nineteen years old here. It is also notable that he takes the position of the student here while Parmenides serves as the lecturer. The dialogue is likely fictitious. Discussion with Socrates The heart of t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Abstraction
Abstraction in its main sense is a conceptual process wherein general rules and concepts are derived from the usage and classification of specific examples, literal ("real" or " concrete") signifiers, first principles, or other methods. "An abstraction" is the outcome of this process—a concept that acts as a common noun for all subordinate concepts and connects any related concepts as a ''group'', ''field'', or ''category''.Suzanne K. Langer (1953), ''Feeling and Form: a theory of art developed from Philosophy in a New Key'' p. 90: " Sculptural form is a powerful abstraction from actual objects and the three-dimensional space which we construe ... through touch and sight." Conceptual abstractions may be formed by filtering the information content of a concept or an observable phenomenon, selecting only those aspects which are relevant for a particular purpose. For example, abstracting a leather soccer ball to the more general idea of a ball selects only the information on ge ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
