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Reductio Ad Absurdum
In logic, (Latin for "reduction to absurdity"), also known as (Latin for "argument to absurdity") or ''apagogical arguments'', is the form of argument that attempts to establish a claim by showing that the opposite scenario would lead to absurdity or contradiction. This argument form traces back to Ancient Greek philosophy and has been used throughout history in both formal mathematical and philosophical reasoning, as well as in debate. Examples The "absurd" conclusion of a ''reductio ad absurdum'' argument can take a range of forms, as these examples show: * The Earth cannot be flat; otherwise, since Earth assumed to be finite in extent, we would find people falling off the edge. * There is no smallest positive rational number because, if there were, then it could be divided by two to get a smaller one. The first example argues that denial of the premise would result in a ridiculous conclusion, against the evidence of our senses. The second example is a mathematical proof ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Pettie - Reductio Ad Absurdum
John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Second Epistle of John, often shortened to 2 John * Third Epistle of John, often shortened to 3 John People * John the Baptist (died c. AD 30), regarded as a prophet and the forerunner of Jesus Christ * John the Apostle (lived c. AD 30), one of the twelve apostles of Jesus * John the Evangelist, assigned author of the Fourth Gospel, once identified with the Apostle * John of Patmos, also known as John the Divine or John the Revelator, the author of the Book of Revelation, once identified with the Apostle * John the Presbyter, a figure either identified with or distinguished from the Apostle, the Evangelist and John of Patmos Other people with the given name Religious figures * John, father of Andrew the Apostle and Saint Peter * Pope ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aristotle
Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical Greece, Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of philosophy within the Lyceum (classical), Lyceum and the wider Aristotelianism, Aristotelian tradition. His writings cover many subjects including Physics (Aristotle), physics, biology, zoology, metaphysics, logic, ethics, aesthetics, Poetics (Aristotle), poetry, theatre, music, rhetoric, psychology, linguistics, economics, politics, meteorology, History of geology, geology, and government. Aristotle provided a complex synthesis of the various philosophies existing prior to him. It was above all from his teachings that Western culture, the West inherited its intellectual lexicon, as well as problems and methods of inquiry. As a result, his philosophy has exerted a unique influence on almost every form of knowledge in the West a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Svabhava
Svabhava ( sa, स्वभाव, svabhāva; pi, सभाव, sabhāva; ; ) literally means "own-being" or "own-becoming". It is the intrinsic nature, essential nature or essence of beings. The concept and term ''svabhāva'' are frequently encountered in Hindu and Buddhist traditions such as Advaita Vedanta (e.g. in the '' Avadhūta Gītā''), Mahayana Buddhism (e.g. in the ''Ratnagotravibhāga''), Vaishnavism (e.g., the writings of Ramanuja) and Dzogchen (e.g. in the seventeen tantras). In the nondual Advaita Vedānta yoga text, ''Avadhūta Gītā'', Brahman (in the Upanishadic denotation) is the ''svabhāva''. In the Mahāyāna Buddhadharma tradition(s) it is one of a suite of terms employed to denote the Buddha-nature, such as "'' gotra''". Indian philosophy The term first appears in the Shvetashvatara Upanishad, as a possible first cause (''jagatkāraṇa'').Ramkrishna Bhattacharya, ''Svabhāvavada'' and the Cārvāka/Lokāyata: A Historical Overview There also seems to h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vaibhāṣika
Sarvāstivāda-Vaibhāṣika ( sa, सर्वास्तिवाद-वैभाषिक) or simply Vaibhāṣika (), refers to an ancient Buddhist tradition of Abhidharma (scholastic Buddhist philosophy), which was very influential in north India, especially Kashmir.Westerhoff 2018, pp. 60–61. In various texts, they referred to their tradition as ''Yuktavāda'' (the doctrine of logic), and another name for them was ''Hetuvāda''.Dhammajoti (2009) pp. 56, 164. The Vaibhāṣika school was an influential subgroup of the larger Sarvāstivāda school. They were distinguished from other Sarvāstivāda sub-schools like the Sautrāntika and the "Western Masters" of Gandhara and Bactria by their orthodox adherence to the doctrines found in the ''Mahāvibhāṣa.'' Vaibhāṣika thought significantly influenced the Buddhist philosophy of all major Mahayana Buddhist schools of thought and also influenced the later forms of Theravāda Abhidhamma (though to a much lesser extent).KL Dh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Abhidharma
The Abhidharma are ancient (third century BCE and later) Buddhist texts which contain detailed scholastic presentations of doctrinal material appearing in the Buddhist ''sutras''. It also refers to the scholastic method itself as well as the field of knowledge that this method is said to study. Bhikkhu Bodhi calls it "an abstract and highly technical systemization of the uddhistdoctrine," which is "simultaneously a philosophy, a psychology and an ethics, all integrated into the framework of a program for liberation." According to Peter Harvey, the Abhidharma method seeks "to avoid the inexactitudes of colloquial conventional language, as is sometimes found in the Suttas, and state everything in psycho-philosophically exact language." In this sense, it is an attempt to best express the Buddhist view of "ultimate reality" (''paramartha-satya''). There are different types of Abhidharma literature. The early canonical Abhidharma works (like the '' Abhidhamma Pitaka'') are no ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nāgārjuna
Nāgārjuna . 150 – c. 250 CE (disputed)was an Indian Mahāyāna Buddhist thinker, scholar-saint and philosopher. He is widely considered one of the most important Buddhist philosophers.Garfield, Jay L. (1995), ''The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way'', Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jan Westerhoff considers him to be "one of the greatest thinkers in the history of Asian philosophy." Nāgārjuna is widely considered to be the founder of the Madhyamaka (centrism, middle-way) school of Buddhist philosophy and a defender of the Mahāyāna movement. His ''Mūlamadhyamakakārikā'' (Root Verses on Madhyamaka, or MMK) is the most important text on the madhyamaka philosophy of emptiness. The MMK inspired a large number of commentaries in Sanskrit, Chinese, Tibetan, Korean and Japanese and continues to be studied today. History Background India in the first and second centuries CE was politically divided into various states, including the Kushan Empire and the Satava ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mūlamadhyamakakārikā
The ''Mūlamadhyamakakārikā'' ( sa, मूलमध्यमककारिका, ''Root Verses on the Middle Way''), abbreviated as ''MMK'', is the foundational text of the Madhyamaka school of Mahāyāna Buddhist philosophy. It was composed by the Indian philosopher Nāgārjuna (approximately around 150 CE).Siderits and Katsura (2013), p. 1. The MMK makes use of reductio arguments to show how ''all'' phenomena ('' dharmas'') are empty of '' svabhava'' (which has been variously translated as essence, own-being, or inherent existence). The MMK is widely regarded as one of the most influential and widely studied texts in the history of Buddhist philosophy. The MMK had a major impact on the subsequent development of Buddhist thought, especially in Tibetan Buddhism and East Asian Buddhism. Background The MMK is the work of Nāgārjuna, an Indian Buddhist monk and philosopher writing in Sanskrit. Very little is known about this figure, including exactly where he lived (somewh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Essentialism
Essentialism is the view that objects have a set of attributes that are necessary to their identity. In early Western thought, Plato's idealism held that all things have such an "essence"—an "idea" or "form". In ''Categories'', Aristotle similarly proposed that all objects have a substance that, as George Lakoff put it, "make the thing what it is, and without which it would be not ''that'' kind of thing". The contrary view— non-essentialism—denies the need to posit such an "essence'". Essentialism has been controversial from its beginning. Plato, in the ''Parmenides'' dialogue, depicts Socrates questioning the notion, suggesting that if we accept the idea that every beautiful thing or just action partakes of an essence to be beautiful or just, we must also accept the "existence of separate essences for hair, mud, and dirt". In biology and other natural sciences, essentialism provided the rationale for taxonomy at least until the time of Charles Darwin; the role and im ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Buddhist Philosophy
Buddhist philosophy refers to the philosophical investigations and systems of inquiry that developed among various schools of Buddhism in India following the parinirvana of The Buddha and later spread throughout Asia. The Buddhist path combines both philosophical reasoning and meditation.Siderits, Mark. Buddhism as philosophy, 2007, p. 6 The Buddhist traditions present a multitude of Buddhist paths to liberation, and Buddhist thinkers in India and subsequently in East Asia have covered topics as varied as phenomenology, ethics, ontology, epistemology, logic and philosophy of time in their analysis of these paths. Pre-sectarian Buddhism was based on empirical evidence gained by the sense organs ('' ayatana'') and the Buddha seems to have retained a skeptical distance from certain metaphysical questions, refusing to answer them because they were not conducive to liberation but led instead to further speculation. A recurrent theme in Buddhist philosophy has been the reifica ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Madhyamaka
Mādhyamaka ("middle way" or "centrism"; ; Tibetan: དབུ་མ་པ ; ''dbu ma pa''), otherwise known as Śūnyavāda ("the emptiness doctrine") and Niḥsvabhāvavāda ("the no ''svabhāva'' doctrine"), refers to a tradition of Buddhist philosophy and practice founded by the Indian Buddhist monk and philosopher Nāgārjuna (c. 150 – c. 250 CE).Wynne, Alexander (2015) ''Early Buddhist Teaching as Proto-śūnyavāda.'' Journal of the Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies, 6. pp. 213-241. The foundational text of the Mādhyamaka tradition is Nāgārjuna's '' Mūlamadhyamakakārikā'' ("Root Verses on the Middle Way"). More broadly, Mādhyamaka also refers to the ultimate nature of phenomena as well as the non-conceptual realization of ultimate reality that is experienced in meditation. Mādhyamaka thought had a major influence on the subsequent development of the Mahāyāna Buddhist tradition. It is the dominant interpretation of Buddhist philosophy in Tibetan Buddhis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hellenistic Philosophy
Hellenistic philosophy is a time-frame for Western philosophy and Ancient Greek philosophy corresponding to the Hellenistic period. It is purely external and encompasses disparate intellectual content. There is no single philosophical school or current that is either representative or dominating for the period. Background The classical period in Ancient Greek philosophy had begun with Socrates (c. 470–399 BC), whose student Plato had taught Aristotle, who, in turn, had tutored Alexander. The period began with the death of Alexander in 323 BC (followed by the death of Aristotle the next year in 322 BC). While the classical thinkers were mostly based in Athens, at end of the Hellenistic period philosophers relocated at Rome or Alexandria. The shift followed Rome's military victories from the middle of the second century. Sulla's capture of Athens in 87 led to destructions and the shipping of Aristotle's manuscripts to Rome. The end of the Hellenistic period does not correspon ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dogma
Dogma is a belief or set of beliefs that is accepted by the members of a group without being questioned or doubted. It may be in the form of an official system of principles or doctrines of a religion, such as Roman Catholicism, Judaism, Islam or Protestantism, as well as the positions of a philosopher or of a philosophical school such as positivism, postmodernism, egalitarianism, and dark enlightenment. It may also be found in political belief-systems, such as Marxism, communism, capitalism, progressivism, liberalism, conservatism, and fascism. In the pejorative sense, dogma refers to enforced decisions, such as those of aggressive political interests or authorities. More generally, it is applied to some strong belief which its adherents are not willing to discuss rationally. This attitude is named as a dogmatic one, or as dogmatism; and is often used to refer to matters related to religion, but is not limited to theistic attitudes alone and is often used with resp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
