A blupete Essay

Glossary Of Philosophic Terms
In Support of blupete's Essay
"On Philosophy"
-P-
[TOC]
Pantheism § (See Spinoza.)
Phrenology:
§ "The scientific study or theory of the mental faculties." The OED continues, "... that the mental powers of the individual consist of separate faculties, each of which has its organ and location in a definite region of the surface of the brain, the size or development of which is commensurate with the development of the particular faculty; hence, the study of the external conformation of the cranium as an index to the development and position of these organs, and thus of the degree of development of the various faculties. The theory is based on the notion that the hard skull can be; pushed out of place, by muscle-less, jelly like, brain tissue. The theory is wholly erroneous: as the sixth president of the United States, John Quincy Adams said, "I have never been able to prevail on myself to think of phrenology as a serious occupation. I have classed it with alchemy [and] with judicial astrology ..."; or
Emerson, "Astronomy to the selfish becomes astrology; and anatomy and physiology become phrenology and palmistry."
Physics:
§ Physics is the science which examines the properties of matter and energy. It is usual to exclude from any discussion "those properties of matter which depend simply on the nature of the different forms of matter (Chemistry), as also the properties of matter and energy as related to living things (Biology). The line of demarcation separating Physics and Chemistry," as the OED points out "has never been very clear, and of late years has practically vanished."
However, the term physics has changed its meaning down through the years (like so many terms, or words). At the beginning of the time when science became a serious study, circa 1800, physics concerned itself with all Natural Bodies, "and of their proper Natures, Constitutions, Powers, and Operations"; it was a term "for that science which treats of the nature of the qualities which beings derive from birth, in contradistinction to those acquired from art - of the whole mass of beings comprising the universe - and of the laws which govern those beings; natural philosophy." By the break of the 20th century, physics attempted to embrace "the theory of those agents which were formerly designated as imponderables - light, heat, electricity, magnetism, etc.; and all these are now treated as forms of motion, as different manifestations of the same fundamental energy."
The OED: "In current usage, [physics is] restricted to The science, or group of sciences, treating of the properties of matter and energy, or of the action of the different forms of energy on matter in general (excluding Chemistry, which deals specifically with the different forms of matter, and Biology, which deals with vital energy). Physics is divided into general physics, dealing with the general phenomena of inorganic nature (dynamics, molecular physics, physics of the ether, etc.), and applied physics, dealing with special phenomena (astronomy, meteorology, terrestrial magnetism, etc.). There is a tendency now to restrict the word to the former group."
Positivism § (See Comte.)
Priori (A Priori):
§ A priori is a Latin phrase (before) "used to characterize reasoning or arguing from causes to effects, from abstract notions to their conditions or consequences, from propositions or assumed axioms (and not from experience);
deductive; deductively." (OED.) (See blupete's essay "On Argument"):

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Peter Landry

2011 (2019)