Perspectives Vocab

“Knowledge makes a bloody entrance.”

Bernard Lonergan (Jesuit)

What is the good life and how should I live it?

The question of Perspectives

Doxa

Greek for “opinion”. Refers to ideas we assume are true without testing them or even realizing we hold them.

An education is a self-inflicted wound.

N/A

“You’ll never persuade me to give up the truth.”

Oedipus

“Pollution of bloodguilt”

The notion that murder and/or murderers defile the land and community where they resided, requiring exile or purgation of bloodguilt by killer’s death

Scapegoat

The figure who’s expulsion/persecution/death relieves the community’s (internal and environmental) strife

The output of perspectives

You, whatever transformation occurs in your self

ontology

the fundamental nature or principles of being or reality: what life is most fundamentally like

“cosmos”

greek word for “order”, which comes to mean “beauty” and “world/universe”

Cosmogony

literally “birth of the universe”: a narrative that explains how the cosmos came to be

theogeny

literally “birth of the gods”: a narrative that explains how the gods came to be

myth

a narrative account meant to explain fundamental realities of the world; involves god or gods; recited to keep a community together in its fundamental vision and practices

The “Fall”

the biblical story of humanity’s sin and subsequent exile from paradise into death

Sin

to act from disordered desire

“And the eyes of the two were opened, and they knew they were naked”

Genesis 3:7; Adam and Eve upon eating the forbidden fruit

“Am I my brother’s keeper?”

Cain to God, after killing Abel

“Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the soil.”

God to Cain (Genesis 4:11)

Mimicry

imitation of another’s actions

Mimetic desire

imitation of another’s desire (by “catching” their desire from them)

Model/Mediator

one who mediates a desire

Acquisitive mimesis

desire for a model’s object

Metaphysical mimesis

desire for a model’s status

Restricted object/status

an object of desire that cannot be shared

“You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good”

Joseph to his brothers, referring to their crimes

Dual causality

the idea that both divine figures and human beings cause the same events on earth

Divine Providence

Latin for ‘foresight.’ The doctrine that God directs all earthly events, including moral evil, towards the greater good of all

Logic

Codification of elements of our spontaneous process of inquiry (wonder)

wonder

the desire to know, ordered to truth

truth

a correct or verified insight

premise

the claims offered as evidence for a conclusion

conclusion

an idea whose truth has conditions that have to be met for it to be true

merely valid argument

an argument with correct logical form but false premises

sound argument

an argument with correct logical from and true premises

the principle of non-contradiction

it is impossible for something to be and not be at the same time and in the same respect (way)

performative self-contradiction

to deny in one’s actions what one is affirming in one’s words; when the object of one’s operation contradicts the operation that produces it

counterexample

to provide an exception for a philosophical claim; reveals the goal of philosophical inquiry is a universal form/definition ((omni et soli) - always and only)

“but could you persuade us, if we won’t listen?”

Polemarchus from the Republic

Craft (Techne)

a learned skill with a goal (ex. shipbuilding, medical practice)

“Justice is nothing other than the advantage of the stronger”

Thrasymachus’ definition of justice

Ad hominem

to attack your opponent’s character or intellect instead of critiquing their argument

Philosophy

“love and pursuit of wisdom”

socratic ignorance

the state of humility about one’s knowledge that allows one to pursue genuine inquiry (you would rather ‘get it right’ than just already ‘be right’)

virtue

Greek for ‘excellence’; in Plato and Aristotle, the excellence that human nature is capable of

“For a human, the unexamined life is not worth living.”

Socrates

“Men of Athens, I am grateful and am your friend, but I will obey the god rather than you, and as long as I draw breath am able, I shall not cease to practice philosophy”

Socrates

“It is not difficult to avoid death… it is much more difficult to avoid wickedness, for it runs faster than death.”

Socrates

“A good man cannot be harmed in life or in death, and his affairs are not neglected by the gods.”

Socrates

Performative criterion for recognizing truth

the truth will not be self-contradictory

to speak what is “worthy of the gods”

to depict the gods as they are, not with vices of humans

retributive justice

punishment ordered to paying back the evildoer with evil

restorative justice

punishment that is ordered to the betterment of the evildoer

cardinal (“hinge”) virtues

wisdom, justice, temperance, courage

platonic wisdom

knowledge about the good of the whole of the city/soul, about its internal and external relations: knowing how to order diverse elements

platonic courage

the power to persevere, through everything, the correct belief about what is truly frightening because truly evil, and about which part should rule the city/soul

platonic temperance

the masses’ obedience to rulers and self-mastery concerning pleasures of food, drink, and sex; a harmony between the ruled (appetitive part) and ruler (intellectual part)

platonic justice

for each part of the city/soul to possess and do what belongs to it alone

introspective analysis

to attend to and ask questions about the data of consciousness (using conscious operations to ask about/understand conscious operations)

the form of the good

the cause of being, knowledge, and truth; cannot known directly, only be analogy

the visible

many, mutable, less real because coming in and out of existence, realm of untruth

the intelligible

single, immutable, most real, realm of truth

“education is not putting information into souls”

Socrates

intellectual conversation

to judge that reality includes the intelligible and is more than the sensible; the unconverted think the converted are crazy, but the converted understand the limited viewpoint of the unconverted

the divided line

(see book)

the tyrant

the one in whom Passion (appetite) has become the “captain of everything in the soul,” enslaving the other parts of the soul

telos

greek word for ‘end’, ‘purpose’, or ‘goal’

means

that which is chosen for the sake of an end, because understood to help bring it about

Eudaimonia

greek word for “flourishing”, “thriving”, “blessed”, “happy”

aristotle’s definition of eudaimonia

an activity flowing from human rationality, in accord with virtue, over a lifetime; the most pleasurable kind of life

ethics

the discipline of studying how to live the good life; for aristotle, a part of political life, because unless you know what is good for humans, you can’t organize/lead community life properly

praxis

greek word for ‘self-making activity’; contrasted with ‘poiesis’

poiesis

greek word for activity producing an artifact (house, poem, etc.); contrasted with praxis

“[with every free choice,] we produce the first and only edition of ourselves.”

bernard lonergan

character

the habitual shape of our moral self; seen in stable intentions and actions that reveal value priorities

virtue as a middle state

virtue is the mean between vicious extremes of deficiency and of excess

habit, def. 1

(habitus) a stable disposition to feel and to act in a certain manner

intention

the goal or reason of our intending; part of the intelligibility of a choice

“being a morally good person is all about pleasures and pains.”

aristotle

virtuous person

“does the right thing, to the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right reason, in the right way” - Aristotle

circumstances

facts on the ground that shape the moral goodness of a choice

object

what is chosen/performed in a decision

intention

the end (goal) of the means in a choice

choice

to say ‘yes’ to a means because you have judged it as good or better than another means to reach/attain one’s end/intention

culpable ignorance

ignorance about circumstances of a choice when you should have known better

“the kind of person you are determines what seems good to you”

How character shapes choices

Fairness (justice in external relations)

the virtue that produces a middle in giving and taking goods and evils

temperance/moderation

to desire and act rightly with respect to physical pleasure

continence

to desire partially rightly and wrongly but to act rightly with respect to physical pleasure (possessing self-control)

incontinence

to desire partially right and wrongly but to act wrongly with respect to physical pleasure

intemperance/immoderation

to desire and act wrongly with respect to physical pleasure

Aristotle’s definition of God

understanding understanding (and delighting in) itself

1st Law of Behavior Change

make it obvious/make it invisible

2nd Law of Behavior Change

make it attractive/make it unattractive

3rd Law of Behavior Change

make it difficult/make it easy

Friendship of virtue

friends for the sake of the good (flourishing) of the other, and because of the good (character, virtue) of the other

love

a disposition to consistently choose the good that is proper to the other. Not simply a passing emotion of pleasure in the other.

metaphysics

the study of the whole in being, not the whole of being

the question of “God”

“Why does the universe exist? why is there something rather than nothing?”

potential/potency

the capacity to become differently real in some regard

actuality/act

the current state of a thing’s being real