Perspectives Vocab Flashcards (cumulative)

Oedipus

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

Chorus of Oedipus Tyrannus

“You, Oedipus, your misery teaches me to call no mortal blessed.”

“Pollution of bloodguilt”

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

Scapegoat

the figure whose expulsion/persecution/death relieves the commmunity’s (internal and environmental) strife

Ontology

the fundamental nature or principles of being or reality

“Cosmos”

Greek term for “order,” which comes to mean “beauty” and “world/universe”

Cosmogony

a narrative that explains how the cosmos came to be

Theogony

a narrative that explains how the gods came to be

Polytheism

the acknowledgement and worship of multiple divine/supernatural realities

Monolatry

the worship of only one divine being, while acknowledging the existence of others

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

Theological Anthropology

an account of human nature in light of some divine revelation

Image of God

the doctrine that the human person in some manner reflects some feature(s) of God and exists in relation to God

The “Fall”

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

“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

Etiology

a story that explains an origin (e.g., custom, or place name)

Right of Primogeniture

“Primo” = first; “Geniture” = birth: the right of the firstborn to inherit most or all of father’s estate

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

God to Cain (Genesis 4:11)

“The Lord set a mark upon Cain so that whoever found him would not slay him”

Genesis 4:15

Appetite

a longing fundamental to a nature

Mimicry

imitation of another’s actions

Mimesis

imitation of another’s desire (“catching” desire)

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

Covenant

a treaty between God and individuals/a nation; sometimes with mutual obligations and promises

Anthropomorphism

the depiction of divine beings with human characteristics

Election

God’s choice of one person or nation over another for God’s own reasons and purposes; the elect (one chosen) must suffer

Sin

the choice to let oneself be overtaken by disordered desire

Jacob becomes ‘Israel’

“He who strives with God”

“For seeing your face is like seeing the face of God”

Jacob to Esau showing him mercy

Dei Verbum

Catholic teaching document on how to interpret Scripture (Bible)

Divine Providence

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

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

Joseph to his brothers

Theodicy

a justification of God’s causing of evil and suffering

Traditional problem of theodicy

The inconsistent triad: God is good/just; God is all-powerful; evil exists

Retributive justice

To punish evil and to reward righteousness

Free will theodicy

God responds to free choices through retributive justice

“The Satan”

Hebrew for “accuser, adversary.” A divine being subordinate to God

“Naked I came forth from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord!”

Job’s first response to God

“Oh, that I might have my request, and that God would grant what I long for… that he would put forth his hand and cut me off!”

Job’s second response to God

“But I would speak with the Almighty; I want to argue with God.”

Job’s third response to God

“Reflect now, what innocent person perishes? Where are the upright destroyed?”

Eliphaz to Job

“I am angry at you and your two friends, because you have not spoken rightly of me, as Job has.”

God to Eliphaz

Logic of reciprocity

quid pro quo; I give you if you give to me

“Affirming the consequent”

a logical fallacy that assumes since in some instances A causes B, it is true that if B, therefore A

Theophany

the appearance of a god; often accompanied by meterological phenomena in religious texts

Intrinsic benefit

A benefit built into what we are doing

Extrinsic reward

A reward external to what we are doing

Faith

the affirmation of transcendent meaning, even if it is incomprehensible to us in our state

Apologia

Greek term for “defense speech”

Philosophia

“Love of wisdom”

Wisdom

the knowledge and skill of caring for the health of the soul

Learned ignorance

knowing that one does not know the truth of a matter

Unlearned ignorance

not knowing that one does not know what one thinks one knows

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

“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

Aporia

Greek for ‘dead-end’; comes to mean state of embarrassing confusion

Performative criterion for recognizing truth

the truth will not be self-contradictory

Projection

an unconscious psychological defense mechanism in which we attribute our own feelings to another

Inquiry

the multi-stage unfolding of the desire to know (curiosity); headed towards judging the truth or falsity of an idea

Ad hominem

a logical fallacy in which you attack the character of the person making an argument instead of the strength of the argument

Humility

the virtue of honestly estimating one’s capacities; a precondition for pursuing genuine inquiry

Civil disobedience

to disobey the laws of one’s community/state because one believes they are unjust laws

Martyrdom

dying for faithfulness to one’s commitments, no matter the cost

“Philosophizing is training for dying”

Socrates

“Form” or “Nature”

the one characteristic by virtue of which everything is what it is; grasped by us in an idea

“Surely the love of learning and philosophy are the same thing, aren’t they?”

Socrates

“It is never just to harm anyone.”

Socrates

Natural/Proper function

what activity a being is ordered to by nature

Virtue

Greek for ‘excellence’: in Plato and Aristotle, the excellence that human nature is capable of: excellence in fulfilling one’s natural function as human

Moral realism

the philosophical position that there is an objective measure of good and evil

Moral relativism

the philosophical position that there is no objective measure of good and evil

Intrinsic good

a good (thing or act) that is intrinsically beneficial (e.g., health)

Instrumental good

a good that is good not intrinsically but because it helps you achieving something else (e.g., money)

Divine revelation

communication from God or gods revealing what human beings cannot know on their own (e.g., the afterlife, what the gods desire, etc.)

“To maximize/To get ahead”

Plato’s term for getting more and more of physical goods, power over others, and status; translated as “do better” in Reeve translation

Wonder

the desire to know that drives genuine inquiry; unfolds according to a natural and concrete pattern if not interfered with

Bias

the emotions that interfere with wonder’s natural unfolding

Objectivity in knowing

what wonder in inquiry is headed towards

To speak what is “worthy of the gods”

to depict the gods as they are, not with vices of humans (bad anthropomorphism)

Restorative justice

punishment that is ordered to the betterment of the evildoer

Cardinal (“hinge”) virtues

wisdom, justice, temperance, courage

Platonic divine goodness

gods cause only the good, and punish only to improve evildoers

Platonic divine immutability/simplicity

gods cannot change, for they are perfect, and so they cannot lie by changing form, as poets have depicted them doing

Platonic wisdom

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

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 interior life of consciousness, in order to understand the structure of human consciousness

Insight

the understanding of intelligibility in presentations; the act that produces the first object of the desire to know

Intelligibility

meaning, “makes-senseness,” a “pattern” in data that can only be understood, not sensed; what Plato means by “form”; the first object of wonder

Question

a felt tension oriented towards intelligibility as its object

Data of the senses

data given by bodily senses - what can be seen, heard, touched, smelled, tasted; by nature public

Data of consciousness

the activities of contents of acts of consciousness - insights and the intelligible; by nature private

Logical contradiction

when two concepts are incompatible, such that both cannot be true: “Tom is a married bachelor” or “This circle has four sides.”

Performative self-contradiction

When the content of what one does/says contradicts the performance of doing/saying it: “I can’t write any English at all.”