|
Fideism
Fideism ( ) is a standpoint or an epistemological theory which maintains that faith is independent of reason, or that reason and faith are hostile to each other and faith is superior at arriving at particular truths (see natural theology). The word ''fideism'' comes from , the Latin word for faith, and literally means "faith-ism". Philosophers have identified a number of different forms of fideism. Strict fideists hold that reason has no place in discovering theological truths, while moderate fideists hold that though some truth can be known by reason, faith stands above reason. Theologians and philosophers have responded in various ways to the place of faith and reason in determining the truth of metaphysical ideas, morality, and religious beliefs. Historically, fideism is most commonly ascribed to four philosophers: Søren Kierkegaard, Blaise Pascal, William James, and Ludwig Wittgenstein; with fideism being a label applied in a negative sense by their opponents, but which ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Faith
Faith is confidence or trust in a person, thing, or concept. In the context of religion, faith is " belief in God or in the doctrines or teachings of religion". According to the Merriam-Webster's Dictionary, faith has multiple definitions, including "something that is believed especially with strong conviction", "complete trust", "belief and trust in and loyalty to God", as well as "a firm belief in something for which there is no proof". Religious people often think of faith as confidence based on a perceived degree of warrant, or evidence, while others who are more skeptical of religion tend to think of faith as simply belief without evidence. In the Roman world, 'faith' (Latin: ) was understood without particular association with gods or beliefs. Instead, it was understood as a paradoxical set of reciprocal ideas: voluntary will and voluntary restraint in the sense of father over family or host over guest, whereby one party willfully surrenders to a party who could harm b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Credo Quia Absurdum
''Credo quia absurdum'' is a Latin phrase that means "I believe because it is absurd", originally misattributed to Tertullian in his '' De Carne Christi''. It is believed to be a paraphrasing of Tertullian's "''prorsus credibile est, quia ineptum est''" which means "it is completely credible because it is unsuitable", or "''certum est, quia impossibile''" which means "it is certain because it is impossible". Early modern, Protestant and Enlightenment rhetoric against Catholicism and religion more broadly resulted in this phrase being changed to "I believe because it is absurd", displaced from its original anti-Marcionite context into a personally religious one. Tertullian's phrase originated in a rebuttal to Marcion's view that a human death for the divine Son of God would be paradoxical and thus ought to be rejected. History of the phrase Origins The original phrase, before being transmuted through Enlightenment rhetoric to its modern form "I believe because it is absurd", ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein ( ; ; 26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrian philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. From 1929 to 1947, Wittgenstein taught at the University of Cambridge. Despite his position, only one book of his philosophy was published during his entire life: the 75-page ''Logisch-Philosophische Abhandlung'' (''Logical-Philosophical Treatise'', 1921), which appeared, together with an English translation, in 1922 under the Latin title ''Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus''. His only other published works were an article, "Some Remarks on Logical Form" (1929); a book review; and a children's dictionary. #Works, His voluminous manuscripts were edited and published posthumously. The first and best-known of this posthumous series is the 1953 book ''Philosophical Investigations''. A 1999 survey among American university and college teachers ranked the ''Investigations ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascal (19June 162319August 1662) was a French mathematician, physicist, inventor, philosopher, and Catholic Church, Catholic writer. Pascal was a child prodigy who was educated by his father, a tax collector in Rouen. His earliest mathematical work was on projective geometry; he wrote a significant treatise on the subject of conic sections at the age of 16. He later corresponded with Pierre de Fermat on probability theory, strongly influencing the development of modern economics and social sciences, social science. In 1642, he started some pioneering work on calculating machines (called Pascal's calculators and later Pascalines), establishing him as one of the first two inventors of the mechanical calculator. Like his contemporary René Descartes, Pascal was also a pioneer in the natural and applied sciences. Pascal wrote in defense of the scientific method and produced several controversial results. He made important contributions to the study of fluids, and clari ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tertullian
Tertullian (; ; 155 – 220 AD) was a prolific Early Christianity, early Christian author from Roman Carthage, Carthage in the Africa (Roman province), Roman province of Africa. He was the first Christian author to produce an extensive corpus of Latin literature, Latin Christian literature and was an early Christian apologetics, Christian apologist and a polemicist against Heresy in Christianity, heresy, including contemporary Christian Gnosticism. Tertullian was the first theologian to write in Latin, and so has been called "the father of Latin Christianity", as well as "History of Christian theology, the founder of Western theology". He is perhaps most famous for being the first writer in Latin known to use the term ''trinity'' (Latin: ''trinitas''). Tertullian originated new theological concepts and advanced the development of early Church doctrine. However, some of his teachings, such as the Subordinationism, subordination of God the Son, the Son and Holy Spirit in C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Absurdity
Absurdity is the state or condition of being unreasonable, meaningless, or so unsound as to be irrational. "Absurd" is the adjective used to describe absurdity, e.g., "Tyler and the boys laughed at the absurd situation." It derives from the Latin ''absurdum'' meaning "out of tune". The Latin ''surdus'' means "deaf", implying stupidity. Absurdity is contrasted with being realistic or reasonable In general usage, absurdity may be synonymous with nonsense, meaninglessness, fancifulness, foolishness, bizarreness, wildness. In specialized usage, absurdity is related to extremes in bad reasoning or pointlessness in reasoning; ridiculousness is related to extremes of incongruous juxtaposition, laughter, and ridicule; and nonsense is related to a lack of meaningfulness. Absurdism is a concept in philosophy related to the notion of absurdity. Philosophy Ancient Greece The Classical Greek philosopher Plato often used "absurdity" to describe very poor reasoning, or the conclusion fro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Of Ockham
William of Ockham or Occam ( ; ; 9/10 April 1347) was an English Franciscan friar, scholastic philosopher, apologist, and theologian, who was born in Ockham, a small village in Surrey. He is considered to be one of the major figures of medieval thought and was at the centre of the major intellectual and political controversies of the 14th century. He is commonly known for Occam's razor, the methodological principle that bears his name, and also produced significant works on logic, physics and theology. William is remembered in the Church of England with a commemoration corresponding to the commonly ascribed date of his death on 10 April. Life William of Ockham was born in Ockham, Surrey, around 1287. He received his elementary education in the London House of the Greyfriars. It is believed that he then studied theology at the University of OxfordSpade, Paul Vincent (ed.). ''The Cambridge Companion to Ockham''. Cambridge University Press, 1999, p. 20.He has long been claim ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Natural Theology
Natural theology is a type of theology that seeks to provide arguments for theological topics, such as the existence of a deity, based on human reason. It is distinguished from revealed theology, which is based on supernatural sources such as scripture or religious experiences. It is thus a form of theology open to critical examination, aimed at understanding the divine. Natural theology does not preclude the concept of divine intervention nor presuppose a clockwork universe; however, it demands that any position be supported through reasoned arguments based on natural reason. In contemporary philosophy, natural theology is not limited to approaches based on empirical facts, such as natural phenomena, nor are its conclusions limited to pantheism. It was once also termed "physico-theology". Natural theology includes theology based on scientific discoveries, arguments for God’s existence grounded in observed natural facts, and interpretations of natural phenomena or co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Church Fathers
The Church Fathers, Early Church Fathers, Christian Fathers, or Fathers of the Church were ancient and influential Christian theologians and writers who established the intellectual and doctrinal foundations of Christianity. The historical period in which they worked became known as the Patristics, Patristic Era and spans approximately from the late 1st to mid-8th centuries, flourishing in particular during the 4th and 5th centuries, when Christianity was in the process of establishing itself as the State church of the Roman Empire, state church of the Roman Empire. For many denominations of Christianity, the writings of the Ante-Nicene Fathers, Nicene Fathers and Christianity in the 5th century#Post-Nicene Fathers, Post-Nicene Fathers are included in Sacred tradition, Sacred Tradition. As such, in traditional dogmatic theology, authors considered Church Fathers are treated as authoritative for the establishment of doctrine. The academic field of patristics, the study of the Chu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pragmatic Theory Of Truth
A pragmatic theory of truth is a theory of truth within the philosophies of pragmatism and pragmaticism. Pragmatic theories of truth were first posited by Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, and John Dewey. The common features of these theories are a reliance on the '' pragmatic maxim'' as a means of clarifying the meanings of difficult concepts such as ''truth''; and an emphasis on the fact that ''belief'', ''certainty'', ''knowledge'', or ''truth'' is the result of an inquiry. Background Pragmatic theories of truth developed from the earlier ideas of ancient philosophy, the Scholastics. Pragmatic ideas about truth are often confused with the quite distinct notions of "logic and inquiry", "judging what is true", and "truth predicates". Logic and inquiry In one classical formulation, truth is defined as the good of logic, where logic is a normative science, that is, an inquiry into a ''good'' or a '' value'' that seeks knowledge of it and the means to achieve it. In this ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Subjectivism
Subjectivism is the doctrine that "our own mental activity is the only unquestionable fact of our experience", instead of shared or communal, and that there is no external or objective truth. While Thomas Hobbes was an early proponent of subjectivism, the success of this position is historically attributed to Descartes and his methodic doubt. He used it as an epistemological tool to prove the opposite (an objective world of facts independent of one's own knowledge, ergo the "Father of Modern Philosophy" inasmuch as his views underlie a scientific worldview). Subjectivism accords primacy to subjective experience as fundamental of all measure and law. In extreme forms like Solipsism, it may hold that the nature and existence of every object depends solely on someone's subjective awareness of it. One may consider the qualified empiricism of George Berkeley in this context, given his reliance on God as the prime mover of human perception. Metaphysical subjectivism Subjectivism is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coherence Theory Of Truth
Coherence theories of truth characterize truth as a property of whole systems of propositions that can be ascribed to individual propositions only derivatively according to their coherence with the whole. While modern coherence theorists hold that there are many possible systems to which the determination of truth may be based upon coherence, others, particularly those with strong religious beliefs, hold that the truth only applies to a single absolute system. In general, truth requires a proper fit of elements within the whole system. Very often, though, coherence is taken to imply something more than simple formal coherence. For example, the coherence of the underlying set of concepts is considered to be a critical factor in judging Validity (logic), validity for the whole system. In other words, the set of base concepts in a universe of discourse must first be seen to form an intelligible paradigm before many theorists will consider that the coherence theory of truth is applicable ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
