a posteriori knowledge | Knowledge based on sense experience.
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a priori knowledge | Knowledge that can be acquired prior to or independently of sense experience.
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absent qualia objection | The objection to functionalism based on the belief that a functional state could have all the functional properties of a mental state without having any of its qualitative content.
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accidental property | A property a thing can lose without ceasing to exist.
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actual duty | A duty that should be performed in a particular situation.
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act-utilitarianism | The doctrine that what makes an action right is that it maximizes happiness, everyone considered. Also termed "traditional utilitarianism."
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agent-causation | Causation that occurs when an agent (self, person) causes an event.
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agnostic | One who neither believes nor disbelieves in God.
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analytic proposition | A proposition that is a logical truth or can be turned into a logical truth by substituting synonyms for synonyms.
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animalism | The doctrine that identical persons are those with identical living human bodies.
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apparent memory | A memory of an event that either didn't happen or that was not caused by the event it records.
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argument | A group of statements consisting of one or more premises and a conclusion that purportedly follows from the premises.
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atheist | One who disbelieves in God.
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behavioral disposition | A tendency to respond to certain stimuli in certain ways.
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brain theory | The doctrine that identical persons are those who are psychologically continuous with one another and whose psychology is caused by and realized in the same brain.
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Cartesian dualism | The doctrine that mental states are states of an immaterial substance that interacts with the body.
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categorical imperative I | The doctrine that what makes an action right is that everyone could act on it, and you would be willing to have everyone act on it.
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categorical imperative II | The doctrine that what makes an action right is that it treats people as ends in themselves and not merely as means to an end.
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causal closure of the physical | The principle that no physical effect has a non-physical cause.
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causal determinism | The doctrine that every event is the consequence of past events plus the laws of nature.
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causal impossibility | Something is causally impossible if and only if it violates a law of nature.
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causal indeterminism | The doctrine that some events are not the consequence of past events plus laws of nature.
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causal theory | The doctrine that knowledge is suitably caused true belief.
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closest continuer theory | The doctrine that identical persons are those who are the closest continuers of one another.
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cogent argument | A strong inductive argument that contains only true premises.
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cognitive cultural relativism | The doctrine that a proposition is made true by a society believing it to be true.
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cognitive subjectivism | The doctrine that a proposition is made true by one's believing it to be true.
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coherence theory of truth | The doctrine that a proposition is made true by its coherence with a system of beliefs.
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coherently imaginable | A situation is coherently imaginable when its details can be filled in and its implications drawn out without running into a contradiction.
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conclusion | The claim that an argument is trying to establish.
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consequentialist (teleological) ethical theory | An ethical theory that judges the rightness or wrongness of an action in terms of its consequences.
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contractarianism | The doctrine that what makes an action right is that it is in accord with the principles established by an ideal social contract.
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correspondence theory of truth | The doctrine that a proposition is made true by its correspondence with reality.
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cosmological argument | An argument that attempts to derive the existence of God from the existence of the universe.
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counterexample | An example that runs counter to or conflicts with a theory.
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criteria of adequacy | The features that distinguish a good theory from a bad one: consistency (lack of contradictions), simplicity (quality of relying on only a small number of assumptions), scope (the amount of diverse phenomena explained), conservatism (quality of fitting well with existing theories), and fruitfulness (the number of new facts predicted or problems solved).
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cultural relativism | The doctrine that what makes an action right is that it is approved by one's culture.
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defeasibility theory | The doctrine that knowledge is undefeated justified true belief.
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deist | One who believes that God created the universe and then abandoned it.
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direct memory | A memory that a person can consciously recall.
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direct realism | The doctrine that perception puts us in direct contact with reality.
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divine command theory | The doctrine that what makes an action right is that God commands it to be done.
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double aspect theory | The doctrine that the mind and the body are two aspects of a single underlying substance.
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dualism | The doctrine that reality contains both mental and material things.
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eliminative materialism | The doctrine that there are no mental states.
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emergent property | A property that comes into being (emerges) when things that lack that property interact in certain ways.
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emotivism | The doctrine that moral utterances are expressions of emotion.
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empiricism | The doctrine that sense experience is the only source of knowledge of the external world.
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empiricism | The epistemological theory that the only source of knowledge about the external world is sense experience.
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enthymeme | An argument with an unstated premise or conclusion.
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epiphenomenalism | The doctrine that the mind is an ineffective by-product of physical processes.
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essential property | A property a thing cannot lose without ceasing to exist.
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ethical egoism | The doctrine that what makes an action right is that it promotes one's own best interest.
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event-causation | Causation that occurs when one event causes another.
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evidentialism | The doctrine that you are justified in believing something if and only if evidence supports it.
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evil | Something that is the source or cause of suffering, injury, or destruction.
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explanationist theory | The doctrine that knowledge is justified true belief that provides the best explanation for the justifying evidence.
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first-order desire | A desire directed on an object or a state of affairs.
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folk psychology | Our common-sense theory of mind that explains people's behavior in terms of beliefs and desires.
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formalist (deontological) ethical theory | An ethical theory that judges the rightness or wrongness of an action in terms of its form.
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foundationalism | The theory of knowledge that maintains (1) that there are basic beliefs and (2) that the justification of all other beliefs depends on the basic beliefs.
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functionalism | The doctrine that mental states are functional states.
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hard determinism | The doctrine that there are no free actions.
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hierarchical compatibilism | The doctrine that free actions are caused by second-order volitions that one decisively identifies with.
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idealism | The doctrine that minds and their contents are all that exists.
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identity theory | The doctrine that mental states are brain states.
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imperfect duty | A duty that does not always have to be performed.
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incompatibilism | The doctrine that causal determinism is incompatible with the view that we sometimes act freely.
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indeterminism | The doctrine that free actions are uncaused.
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indirect memory | A memory that an earlier stage of a person can consciously recall.
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indiscernibility of identicals | The principle that if two things are identical, then they must both possess the same properties.
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instrumental (extrinsic) value | Value for the sake of something else.
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intentionality | The property of mental states that makes them of or about something.
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intrinsic value | Value for its own sake.
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inverted spectrum problem | The problem of accounting for the fact that people's color experiences could be very different even though they are functionally equivalent.
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knowledge by acquaintance | Knowledge of what it is to have a certain experience.
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law of noncontradiction | The principle that nothing can both have and lack a property at the same time and in the same respect.
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libertarianism | The doctrine that free actions are caused by selves (agents, persons).
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logical behaviorism | The doctrine that mental states are behavioral dispositions.
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logical impossibility | Something is logically impossible if and only if it violates the law of noncontradiction.
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logical positivism | The philosophical movement based on the assumption that to know what a sentence means is to know what observations would make it true.
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materialism | The doctrine that material objects are all that exists.
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memory theory | The doctrine that identical persons are those who share at least one experience memory.
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mind-body problem | The philosophical problem of explaining how it is possible for a material object to have a mind.
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minimal correspondence theory | The doctrine that a proposition is true if and only if things are as it says they are.
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miracle | A violation of natural law by a supernatural being.
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moral evil | The evil that humans suffer at the hands of other humans.
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multiple realizability | The view that minds can be realized in things other than brains.
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natural evil | The evil that humans suffer at the hands of nature.
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necessary condition | Something X is a necessary condition for something Y if and only if it is impossible for Y to exist without X.
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negative right | People have a negative right to something if and only if others have a duty not to interfere with their pursuit of that thing.
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nonbranching theory | The doctrine that identical persons are those who are psychologically continuous with one another and whose causal connection has not branched.
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numerical identity | Two objects are numerically identical if and only if they are one and the same.
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occasionalism | The parallelist theory of the mind that claims the correlation between mental and physical events is produced on each occasion by God.
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only x and y principle | The principle that whether one thing, x, is identical to another thing, y, can depend only on facts about x and y.
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ontological argument | An argument from the nature of God to the existence of God.
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pantheist | One who believes that the universe is God.
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parallelism | The doctrine that the mind and the body are two separate things that do not interact with one another.
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perfect duty | A duty that must always be performed no matter what.
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performative knowledge | Knowledge of how to perform a certain activity.
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phenomenalism | The view that all talk of things is reducible to talk of sensations.
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philosophical skepticism | The doctrine that we have no knowledge of some realms, such as the external world.
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pluralistic formalism | The doctrine that what makes an action right is that it falls under the highest-ranked duty in a given situation.
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positive right | People have a positive right to something if and only if others have a duty to provide them with what they need to acquire that thing.
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pragmatic theory of truth | The doctrine that a proposition is made true by its practical consequences.
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preestablished harmony | The parallelist theory of mind that claims that the correlation between mental and physical events was established by God at the beginning of the universe.
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premise | A reason given for accepting the conclusion of an argument.
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prima facie duty | A duty that should be performed unless it conflicts with other prima facie duties.
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primary qualities | Qualities possessed by material objects.
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primitive property | A property that cannot be reduced to or analyzed in terms of any more basic property.
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principle of alternative possibilities | One can be held responsible for doing something only if one could have done otherwise
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principle of charity | Choose that interpretation of an argument which makes the most sense from a logical point of view.
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principle of justice | The doctrine that equals should be treated equally (and unequals in proportion to their relevant differences).
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principle of mercy | The doctrine that unnecessary suffering is wrong.
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problem of evil | The philosophical problem of explaining how it is possible for there to be evil in a world created by an all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good being.
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problem of free will | The philosophical problem of explaining how it is possible for a causally determined action to be free.
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problem of moral relativism | The philosophical problem of explaining how it is possible for there to be absolute moral standards.
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problem of other minds | The philosophical problem of explaining how it is possible to know that there are other minds in the world.
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problem of personal identity | The philosophical problem of explaining how it is possible for a person to change and yet remain the same person.
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problem of skepticism | The philosophical problem of explaining how it is possible for there to be knowledge.
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property dualism | The doctrine that mental states have both physical and nonphysical properties.
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propositional knowledge | Knowledge of whether a proposition is true or false.
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psychological connectedness | Two people are psychologically connected if they can directly (consciously) quasi-remember and quasi-desire the same things.
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psychological continuity | Two people are psychologically continuous with one another if they form part of an overlapping series of persons who are psychologically connected with one another.
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psychological continuity theory | The doctrine that identical persons are those who are psychologically continuous with one another.
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psychological hedonism | The doctrine that the only thing individuals can desire is their own happiness.
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qualitative content | The felt quality of certain mental states.
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qualitative identity | Two objects are qualitatively identical if and only if they share the same properties (qualities).
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quasi-desire | An apparent desire that is caused in the right way by an actual desire.
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quasi-memory | An apparent memory caused in the right way by an actual experience.
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rationalism | The doctrine that reason is a source of knowledge of the external world.
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real memory | A memory of an event that was experienced by the person remembering it and that was caused by the event it records.
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reliability theory | The doctrine that knowledge is reliably produced true belief.
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representative realism | The doctrine that sensations are caused by external objects and that our sensations represent those objects.
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reversibility | A principle has reversibility if the person acting on it would be willing to have everyone act on it.
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rule-utilitarianism | The doctrine that what makes an action right is that it falls under a rule that, if generally followed, would maximize happiness, everyone considered.
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secondary qualities | Qualities that exist in the mind but not in material objects themselves.
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second-order desire | A desire directed on a first-order desire.
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second-order volition | A second-order desire on which one wants to act.
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semantics | What a symbol means.
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sense data | The objects that are immediately known in sensation.
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soft determinism | The doctrine that determined actions can nevertheless be free.
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solipsism | The view that there is only one mind in the universe, namely, one's own.
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soul theory | The doctrine that identical persons are those with identical souls.
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sound argument | A valid deductive argument that contains only true premises.
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strong argument | An inductive argument that would establish its conclusion with a high degree of probability if its premises were true.
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subjective absolutism | The doctrine that what makes an action right is that one approves of it.
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subjective relativism | The doctrine that what makes an action right for someone is that it is approved by that person.
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sufficient condition | Something X is a sufficient condition for something Y if and only if it is impossible for X to exist without Y.
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supererogatory action | An action that goes above and beyond the call of duty.
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syntax | How a symbol can be combined with other symbols to form a sentence.
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synthetic proposition | A proposition that is not analytic.
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teleological argument | An argument that attempts to derive the existence of God from the design or purpose of things.
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test implication | A conditional or if-then statement indicating what should be the case if the theory is true.
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theist | One who believes in a god, especially a personal god who rules the world.
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theodicy | An attempt to justify belief in God given the existence of evil.
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thought experiment | The description of a possible situation in which a concept should apply or a condition should be met if the theory in question is true.
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traditional compatibilism | The doctrine that free actions are (1) caused by one's will and (2) not externally constrained.
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universalizability | A principle has universalizability if everyone can act on it.
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valid argument | A deductive argument in which it's logically impossible for the premises to be true and the conclusion false.
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verifiability theory of meaning | The doctrine that the meaning of a statement is its method of verification.
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virtue | An admirable human quality marked by a disposition to behave in certain ways in certain circumstances.
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virtue ethics | A system of ethics based on the concept of a good person rather than that of a right action.
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virtue perspectivism | The doctrine that knowledge is apt belief, that is, belief that is taken to be true because of one's intellectual virtue.
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