A DICTIONARY OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHICAL TERMS
BY
FRANCIS GARDEN, M.A.
TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE
SUB-DEAN OF HER MAJESTY’S CHAPELS ROYAL, CHAPLAIN TO THE HOUSEHOLD
IN ST. JAMES’ PALACE, AND PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY AND RHETORIC AT QUEEN’S COLLEGE, LONDON
RIVINGTONS
WATERLOO PLACE, LONDON
Oxford and Cambridge
MDCCCLXXVIII
TO THE REV. THE PRINCIPAL,
THE PROFESSORS, THE OFFICIAL STAFF, AND
THE STUDENTS, OF
QUEEN’S COLLEGE, LONDON,
THE FOLLOWING PAGES ARE INSCRIBED,
WITH HEARTY GOOD WISHES FOR THE CONTINUED PROSPERITY
OF THAT NOBLE INSTITUTION,
BY
THE AUTHOR.
PREFACE
The following work may be accused if of no other fault, yet of being superfluous, after the Vocabulary of Philosophy by the late Dr. Fleming, of Glasgow, of which a third edition has lately appeared, under Dr. Calderwood’s supervision. But it may be seen at once that my aim is different, even as my labours have run in a line different, from those of Dr. Fleming. He undertook to furnish a Vocabulary of Philosophy, I have endeavoured to produce a Dic-tionary of English Philosophical Terms. Consequently he goes into a variety of metaphysical questions on which I have felt no call to enter, and cites authors who may not be within the reach of the readers whom I have in view.
|
On these, I suspect that Dr. Fleming’s labours, no matter what their value, might have none but a confusing effect. Anyhow, the difference between his scope and purpose and mine will be seen at a glance by going over our tables of contents. These will show that we not only write with a different end, but give very different degrees of attention to the words which we discuss, and so far deal with different subjects. |
I have called my book a Dictionary of English Philosophical Terms, but have admitted two or three technical ones composed of Latin words, such as à priori and the like. Though Latin, they enter without translation into English prose, and the learner has a right to be furnished with a clear view of their meaning.
It is, I think, very important that the English student should know the origin of words which he encounters sometimes in our old and greatest writers, sometimes in his ordinary reading, sometimes in common conversation. Such continually were born in the schools, and escaping from the cradle of their earliest life, have passed into general use with departures from their first meaning, but of which the new sense thus given is comparatively seldom quite unconnected with that. «The manner,» says my friend the Archbishop of Dublin, «is very curious in which the metaphysical or theological speculations, to which the busy world was indifferent, or from which it was entirely averse, do yet in their results descend to it, and are adopted by it; while it remains quite unconscious of the source from which they spring, and counts that it has created them for itself and out of its own resources.»(1) However he may content himself with applying a term to which the schools gave birth in some ordinary sense to which it may have descended, a man will use it better, with more exact force, and a greater security against ambiguity, who has acquired the knowledge and retains the impression of its origin. In reading too our grand old English prose, that of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, we shall generally find scholastic words used in their purely scholastic sense, which sense we must be aware of if we would understand what we read.
Moreover, the student may propose to himself further logical and metaphysical study. It seems desirable, therefore, that he should know something of the language in which it is to be pursued, even before he plunges into the questions which Dr. Fleming presents to his view. For this reason I think myself justified in handling some terms more completely technical than those of which I have hitherto been speaking.
CONTENTS
ABSOLUTE | ABSTRACT, ABSTRACTION | ABSURD, Reduction to the | ACCIDENT | ACT, ACTUAL | ÆSTHETIC | AFFECTION | AFFIRMATION | A FORTIORI | A POSTERIORI, A PRIORI | AMPHIBOLY | ANALOGY | ANALYSIS. See METHOD | ANTECEDENT, CONSEQUENT | ANTHROPOMORPHISM | ANTINOMY | A PARTE ANTE, A PARTE POST | APODEICTIC | APPREHENSION. See CONCEPTION | ARCHETYPE | ARGUMENT | ARGUMENTUM AD HOMINEM | ARGUMENTUM IN TERROREM | ARGUMENTUM AD VERECUNDIAM | ART | ARTS, THE FINE | ARTS, THE LIBERAL | ATOM, ATOMISM | ATTRIBUTE, ATTRIBUTIVE | AUTONOMY | AXIOM
CASUISTRY | CATEGORY | CATEGORICAL | CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE | CAUSE | CAUSES, OCCASIONAL | CLASS, CLASSIFICATION | COMPREHENSION | CONCEPT, CONCEPTION | CONCEPTUALISM | CONCRETE. See ABSTRACT | CONSCIENCE, CONSCIOUSNESS, SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS | CONSEQUENT. See ANTECEDENT | CONTINGENT | CONVERSE, CONVERSION | COPULA | COROLLARY
DEDUCTION | DEFINITION | DEISM | DEMONSTRATION | DETERMINISM | DIALECTIC | DlALLELOUS | DICHOTOMY | DIFFERENCE | DILEMMA | DISCOURSE | DISJUNCTION | DISTRIBUTION | DIVISION | DOGMA, DOGMATIC, DOGMATIST | DUALISM
ECLECTICISM | EGOISM | EMPIRICISM. See DOGMA | ENERGY | ENTELECHY | ENTHYMEME | ENTITY, ENS | EPICHIREMA | ESOTERIC, EXOTERIC | ESSENCE | ETERNITY | ETHICS | EXTENSION
GENERAL, GENERALIZATION, GENUS
IDEA, IDEAL, IDEALIZATION | IDEALISM | IDENTITY, LAW OF | IDENTITY, PERSONAL | IMAGINATION | IMMANENT | INDEFINITE | INDESIGNATE | INDIVIDUAL | INDUCTION | INFINITE | INSTANCE | INTUITION
LAW | LIBERTY OF THE WILL | LOGIC
MANNER | MATTER | MAXIM | METAPHYSICS | METEMPSYCHOSIS | METHOD | MODAL, MODALITY | MONAD | MOOD | MORAL | MOTION
NECESSARY, NECESSITY | NEGATIVE, NEGATION | NOMINALISM | NOTION
OBJECTIVE AND SUBJECTIVE | ONTOLOGY | OPTIMISM
PANTHEISM | PARALOGISM | PASSION | PERCEPTION | PERSON, PERSONALITY | PHENOMENON | PNEUMATOLOGY. See PSYCHOLOGY | POSSIBLE, IMPOSSIBLE | POSTULATE | POTENTIAL, POTENTIALITY | PREDICAMENT | PREDICATE | PRINCIPLE | PRIVATIVE | PROBABLE, PROBABILITY | PROBLEM | PROPERTY | PROPOSITION | PSYCHOLOGY
REALISM | REASON | REMINISCENCE | RESENTMENT
SCIENCE | SENSE, COMMON | SPECIES | SPIRIT | SPIRITS, ANIMAL SPIRITS | SUBJECT, SUBJECTIVE | SUBSISTENCE, SUBSTANCE
TECHNICAL | THEORY | TOPIC | TRANSCENDENT, TRANSCENDENTAL
__________
(1) TRENCH, Select Glossary, art. «Common Sense.» In this, however, I have pointed out that the distinguished author is mistaken in classing Reid with those who denote by Common Sense only «plain wisdom, the common heritage of man.» Reid uses the term for something quite different, and in a sense known to philosophers, though not that, also philosophical, of which Archbishop Trench speaks.
