Download trilogy 三部曲 obscure = delphic 隐晦的 Idealism 唯心主义 entity 实体

trilogy 三部曲
obscure = delphic 隐晦的
Idealism 唯心主义
entity 实体
agnosticism 不可知论
skeptism 怀疑论
relativism 相对主义
archetypal 原型的
apprehensible 可理解的
formative 格式化的
doctrine 教条，学说
syllogism 三段论
premise 前提
fallacy 谬误
validity 有效性
deductive argument 演绎推论
inductive argument 归纳推论
illusion 幻觉
paradox 悖论
dichotomy 二分悖论
Zeno 芝诺
innate 与生俱来的
inseparable 不可分的
Empiricism 经验论
barbarian 野蛮人
by dint of = because of
utilitarianism (Ends justify means.) 功利主义
legitimate 立法的 legislator 立法者
parsimony 吝啬 parsimonious 吝啬的
omnipotent 无所不能的
benevolent 善心的
dualism 二元论
ritual 例行仪式 (Christian rituals)
intuition 直觉力
transcendentalism 先验论
positivist 逻辑实证主义者
therapy 疗法
dogmatic 独断的 教条的
state of affairs 事态
postulate 假定，基本条件
hostile 敌对的
indifferent 冷漠的
existentialism 存在主义
renounce 声明放弃，宣布终止
here-and-now 目前，此刻 in the here-and-now
Heraclitus:
dialectics:
1 the Law of Unity of the opposites
2 the Law of Transformation from Quantity into Quality
3 the Law of the Negation of the Negation
A man's character is his destiny.
The world is like the flame of a candle: ever the same in appearance, but ever changing in
substance.
Everything is in constant flux, and nothing abides. That means change is constant and inescapable.
Everything is changing but change itself.
You can never step twice into the same river.
In Christian philosophy, the logos became the second person of the Trinity - including the Holy
Father, the Holy Son and the Holy Spirit. Thus the fourth Gospel of the New Testament begins
with the statement, "In the beginning was the Word", where "Word" is translation of "Logos".
Opposition brings concord. That's kind of oxymoron and means the same with the great
philosopher in ancient China Lao Zi's famous remark, "Good does not exist apart from
evil".( "The way up and the way down are one and the same")
guiding principle = organizing force : Logos.
Socrates:
Being put on trial for guilty of impiety and corruption of youth.
Sophists taught eristics, while Socrates pursued true knowledge.
He is considered a radical who would subvert the order and tradition of the city with his speech.
Knowledge is virtue. Vice or evil is ignorance. To know the good is to do the good.
The unexamined life is no life for a man.
One seeks the truth through positive dialectic, questioning and answering, stating pros and cons in
order to reach a positive insight. He claims it's important that one not only knows a great deal, but
also knows that he knows.
Plato:
Despair of democracy. Founded the academy at Athens around 387 BC.
King should be a philosopher.That means authority and knowledge should be combined
appropriately.
distinguish the World of Being and the World of Becoming.
the World of Being:
ideas/forms: stable and ultimate reality. This world is more real than the phenomenal world.
Archetypal idea is an ideal entity that can express itself externally in concrete tangible form
or internally as a concept in the human mind.
the World of Becoming:
phenomenal reality: governed by the shifting participation of ideas or form in the World of
Being.
Concrete phenomena are transient, imperfect and transcendent.
Being is what makes everything be everything.
Let no one unacquainted with geometry enter here.
Plato's Cave:
According to Plato, the whole world is a prison.
Aristotle:
the Three Laws of Thoughts:
1 the Law of identity
2 the Law of non-contradiction
3 the Law of Excluded Middle
Syllogism
Causation:
Material/Formal/Efficient/Final Cause.
Prime Mover:
Everything that happens is caused by something else. All the things in universe form a chain of
causes, where a first cause is needed.
Prime Mover moves without being moved.
Metaphysics
Evolution is impossible.
John Locke:
English physician
<Essay Concerning Human Understanding>
"Let us then suppose the mind to be, as we say, white paper, void of all characters, without any
ideas. How comes it to be furished? To this I answer, in one word, from experience."
All knowledge is learnt from experience or by reflection and reason.
<Treatises on Government>
"Though all men were born equal, some, by dint of greater industry, could legitimately accumulate
more property than others: the primary responsibilities of legitimate governments, therefore, were
to protect life and liberty and to safeguard property."
David Hume:
<Philosophical Essays concerning Human Understanding>
In this book, Hume developed Locke's empiricism to the logical conclusion utter skepticism, and
argued that all ideas come from impressions, of which causality was one.
Immanuel Kant:
The Critique of Pure Reason/ The Critique of Practical Reason/ The Critique of Judgement
In Kant's critique of pure reason, he thought our minds never come into direct contact with
ultimate reality. Because of the way our senses work, and because our brains are prefitted with
various concepts and filters, the reality that we perceive and "understand" is at least a step or two
removed from things in themselves.
There is a real world out there supplying us with appearances: Kant calls this the "noumenal"
world(which we can never experience) as opposed to "phenomenal" world.
William Ockham:
Ockham's razor:
"Of two competing theories or explanations, all other things being equal, the simpler one is to be
preferred."
Entities should not be multiplied needlessly.(the Law of Parsimony/Economy)
Blaise Paskal:
Man is but a reed, the feeblest thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed, that's what makes
difference.
Hobbs:
<Leviathan>
Descartes:
Rationalism
Reason is more reliable than experience. Without some basis for certainty, there could be no true
knowledge at all.
The very fact that you are thinking it proves that you must exist.
I think, therefore I am.
mind-matter dualism
Descartes's rationalism is an outgrowth of the medieval view that truth requires certainty.
Edmund Husserl:
Phenomenology: the study of manifestations
Stripping our perceptions down to their simplest forms, shedding all our layers of habit and
assumption.
"Back to things themselves."
The most basic phenomenon is consciousness itself.
whatsoever 无论什么
Ludwig Wittgenstein:
logical positivist, the student of Russell
The world is the totality of facts, not of things.
Facts: true statements about things
All statements about facts are made in language.
It is language that constructs our sense of the world, our surroundings and experiences.
Our world is constructed out of statements or potential statements.
The limits of my language are the limits of the world.
philosophy is a linguistic therapy.
Friedrich Nietzsche:
In a sense, for a man of woman to live, he or she must kill God - must overcome dogma,
conformity, supersition, and fear. This is the first step on the way to become overman.
Zarathustra, a Persian prophet of the six century BC who serves as Nietzsche's prophetic mask.
Issac Newton:
<Philosophiae Naturalis Prinapia Mathematica>
Law 1: Every body continues in its state or rest, or of uniform motion in a right (i.e.,straight) line,
unless it is compelled to change that state by a force impressed upon it.
Law 2: The change in motion is proportional to the motive force impressed; and is made in the
direction of the right line in which that force is impressed.
Law 3: To every action there is always opposed an equal reaction; or, the mutual actions of two
bodies are always equal, and directed to contrary parts.
Galileo's theory of uniform acceleration;
Galileo's discovery of the property of inertia;
Aristotle's theory of motion;
Rene Descartes's conservation law of physics.
He took Galileo's law of inertia as his own first law of motion.
Space and time is absolute. It is not until the 1860s that serious doubt was cast on this state of
affairs, when Maxwell raised the electromagnetic wave theory of light.
Einstein:
Special Theory of Relativity:
The speed of light through space is constant - regardless of whether the source of light or the
observer are moving. Its first postulate was that the speed of light is the same for all observers,
regardless of their motion relative to the source of the light.
There is no such a thing as absolute movement.
All speed is relative to its particular frame of reference.
Both space and time are relative, changable under different situations.
Earth-shattering Formula:
Matter is solidified energy.
Mass is merely another form of energy and could be somehow converted into energy.
General Theory of Relativity:
Space could be bent, so did time.
Kierkegaard:
Jean Paul Sartre:
novel <Nausea>
We are trapped in a world that is contingent and therefore without sense or purpose, and that
coming to recognize this fact fills us with nausea.
It is our sad fate to find ourselves trapped in a world that makes no sense. Whether we like it or
not, this fact is inescapable. Naturally, we try to make some sense of this senseless world, but
without success. There is no explanation that we can uncover for its existence or nature.
Experiencing all this - coming to see the way we and the world really are - makes us dizzy and
fills us with nausea. Since the world is arbitrary and senseless, it does not matter what we do, for
what difference could it make? We are free to choose but can find no way to decide what we
choose. Choose we must, for not to do so is to remain forever in the nausea of existence. We must
take the risk and choose and act, knowing that the choices may prove disastrous, but no other path
exists to an authentic life and experience.
<Being and Nothingness>(1943), Part Four: I am condemned to be free.
Is there an essential kind of freedom that can never be taken from us?
Yes. To be human is to be absolutely free, to always have the power of choosing. But the one thing
that we can't choose is to renounce choice, for choosing not to act is still a choice. This is the
existential dilemma. If you were always directly attuned to the present, unable to escape it, you
not only couldn't imagine, you could not act. All our actions are directed at a goal that does not
exist in the here-and-now. Our actions, then, being based on nothing, are never necessary either.
Goals are things we freely create for ourselves, and along with them we create our own values.
Sartre's famous 'nauseas' arises out of absolute freedom of choice, the awareness that you are
capable of any possible action whatsoever.
Adam Smith – The invisible hand and Market Economy
The Wealth of Nations
As every individual, therefore, endeavors as mush as he can both to employ his capital in the
support of domestic industry, and so to direct that industry that its produce may be of the greatest
value; every individual necessarily labours to render the annual revenue of the society as great as
he can. He generally, indeed, neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much
he is promoting it. By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he intends
only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the
greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an
invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for
the society that it was no part of it. By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the
society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it.
Laissez Faire Policy. “ That government is best which governs least”.
But as experience shows, laissez faire does not work so well in a contracting economy, or in
developing nations, or when unemployment is high.
Keynes – Keynesian – Keynesianism
The national income equals the sum of consumption and investment.
The level of national employment is directly proportional to national income.
Thus if consumption and investment both grow, so will employment.
Keynes’s Formulas: Any increase in investment must produce a greater increase in income. –
every dollar invested in the economy generates more than a dollar in national income, which in
turn gets you more than a dollar’s worth of new employment.
Keynes’s conclusion; In the normal course of events, public investment – that is, government
spending – is always in the best interests of society. This is true even if an income tax might not
recoup the expenditure, thus leaving the government in debt – which is where the later coinage
“ deficit spending” comes from.
The national level of consumption will always lag behind a rise in national income. This is the
mathematical basis for Keynes’s advocacy of public investment.
New Deal program. Roosevelt’s emergency expenditures.