What is Philosophy? Practice Flashcards

These vocabulary flashcards cover the branches of philosophy, core philosophical skills, key thought experiments, and the foundational distinctions between normative and descriptive ethics as discussed in the lecture.

Philosophy of Science

A subdiscipline in philosophy that aims to provide philosophical analysis of concepts in science, such as defining biological fitness in evolutionary models.

Aesthetics

The study of art and beauty, focused on questions regarding what makes a painting beautiful and whether beauty is subjective or objective.

Philosophy of Mind

A field primarily engaged in the philosophical analysis of consciousness, mental stuff, and the relationship between the mind and the brain.

Ethics

The study of right and wrong, investigating what makes an action morally correct, particularly in specific contexts like business.

Reflective Equilibrium

A three-step method used to make general principles more precise by generating a principle, identifying counterexamples, and revising the principle based on those counterexamples.

Conceptual Analysis

The skill of providing precise definitions of important philosophical concepts to clarify fuzzy or imprecise ideas, often using the form "What is $x$?"

Argument

A technical term in philosophy referring to a set of premises which lead logically to a conclusion.

Argument Evaluation

The process of analyzing an argument to ensure it has good structure (the conclusion follows logically from the premises) and good truth (the premises are true or defensible).

Argument Generation

A method of building strong arguments by first identifying the conclusion, then determining the required logical structure, and finally assessing the truth of the premises.

Tension Dissolution

A skill used to address paradoxes or independently plausible claims that seem incompatible, such as the conflict between free will and determinism.

Determinism

The scientific view that every effect is necessitated by a cause reaching back to the Big Bang, which some argue precludes the possibility of free will.

Normative Claims

Statements that tell us how the world ought to be, focusing on ideal states rather than current facts.

Descriptive Claims

Statements that tell us how the world actually is, focusing on observable facts and sociological data.

Is-Ought Fallacy

Also known as the naturalistic fallacy, this is the error of inferring how the world ought to be solely from how the world currently is.

Applied Ethics

A branch of ethics concerned with specific cases and practical questions, such as "Is insider trading wrong?" or "Is affirmative action discriminatory?"

Fundamental Ethics

A branch of ethics concerned with abstract concepts and theories, such as defining the nature of discrimination or the meaning of being morally wrong.

Epistemology

The study of knowledge, exploring how we know what we know and the distinction between knowledge and mere belief.

Metaphysics

The study of what exists and how it exists, such as investigating if man-made objects like tables exist in the same way as electrons.

The Trolley Problem

A thought experiment where a trolley is heading toward five people, and a person must decide whether to pull a lever to divert it onto a track where it will kill only one person.

Shaquille O'Neal (Trolley Case variation)

A specific character used in a thought experiment variation (the Revenge Problem) where one must decide whether to push a massive human off a bridge to stop a trolley from killing five people.