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| Glossary
of Philosophical Terms, Acronyms, & Technical Terms
A |
| Abduction
|
The act
of intuiting an idea, or sense of real relation from a presenting
situation. The moment of abduction in thinking is that play
of imagination which obtains the whole of what something
means, prior to its representation by reason. Abduction
can be regarded as a necessary condition for all sensible,
comprehensible representations. It is their aesthetic connection
and ultimate basis for any practical understanding. |
| ADAP
|
AIDS Drug
Assistance Program |
| AIDS
|
AIDS (Acquired
Immunodeficiency Syndrome): Disease caused by the human
immunodeficiency virus. |
| aletheia
|
Ancient
Greek word for truth. Literally, the term means "undisclosedness"
or "unconcealedness" which is to be understood by its root
"lethe" with the negating "a" prefix. Lethe, the name of
the mythical "river of forgetfulness, or concealment" as
found in the Greek tradition's doctrine of reincarnation,
is shown in this word to be negated. In regards to truth,
truth becomes something that is everpresent, but concealed
until uncovered by reason (logos). |
| arete
|
Literally
"excellence" and originally used by the ancient Greeks to
denote the character of the brave and noble warrior. This
is the word that translates into English as "virtue". In
the broad sense it refers to human excellence, generally,
and particularly to those markers of character which indicate
a decided nobility of real connection between the individual
and others. |
| authority
|
Within
the context of ethcial and political philosophy, authority
refers to the power of authorship, including the right to
author. In other words, it deals with the questions "Who's
writing the rules?", and "Does this person have the right
to write the rules?" Accordinglly, issues of authority quite
often come down to questions of legitimacy, where those
authors who lack legitimacy are excluded from consideration
as an informal mistake in reasoning (fallacly). |
| autonomy
|
A term
that refers to the independence of the moral or ethical
agent in decision-making. |
| axiology
|
The study
of value, value theory. |
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| B |
| benificience
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An action
that is beneficial in and of itself. |
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| C |
| CARE
Act |
(Ryan White
Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency Act): The Federal
legislation created to address the health care and service
needs of people living with HIV disease and their families
in the United States; enacted in 1990 and reauthorized in
1996. |
| CDC
|
CDC (Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention): The Federal agency
within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
that administers HIV/AIDS prevention programs, including
the HIV Prevention Community Planning process, among other
programs; responsible for monitoring and reporting of infectious
diseases; administers AIDS surveillance grants and publishes
epidemiological reports such as the HIV/AIDS Surveillance
Report. |
| Charles
Sanders Peirce |
Charles
Sanders Peirce, father of American Philosophy, was born
in 1839 and died in 1914. A career man of science, Peirce
worked for almost 30 years with the U.S. Geodetic Survey,
a continuing survey and mapping of the oceans and continents
of planet Earth. Except for a brief period during the early
1880's when he taught logic for the graduate program in
philosophy at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Peirce
never held an academic position. All the same, he is the
author of numerous articles and published reviews, and left
over 93,000 pages of manuscripts at the time of his death,
which his widow donated to the Houghton Library of Harvard
University. A certified copy of those papers is archived
at the Center For Pragmatic Studies of Texas Tech University,
Lubbock, Texas. |
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| D |
| Deduction
|
Generally,
reasoning from universals to particulars, wholes to parts.
Deductive thinking is thinking within the confines of represented
reality, namely the limits established by concepts. In this
respect, the concept is the universal, it is the whole. |
| definist
|
A definist
is one who holds that ethical terms such as "right", and
evaluative terms such as "good", are definable in non-ethical,
non-evaluative terms. In other words, the definist holds
to a nominalist view of value whereby "worth is what I say
it is". Ethical and evaluative terms are generally held
to be normative. |
| deontology
|
Philosophy
of duty, a term that is often applied to the practical philosophy
of Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), but which was originally coined
by British Philosopher Jeremy Bentham to describe his own
ethics, Utilitarianism. |
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| E |
| Epidemic
|
The spread
of an infectious disease through a population or geographic
area. |
| episteme
|
Pure science,
in the strict sense disinterested, objective, without "telos"
meaning without further aim, hence the meaning "knowing
for its own sake". This form of knowledge stands in contrast
to techne which is knowing with purpose, i.e. practical
knowledge. Episteme may also be translated as theoretical
science. |
| epistemology
|
Philosophy
of Knowledge, from the ancient Greek words "episteme" and
"logos". |
| ethike
|
A compound
word from the root terms "ethos" and "techne" which renders
its literal meaning to be the "art or skill necessary to
produce a showing of characteristic manner or spirit", a
certain bonding "attitude" or sense of comportment toward
others, conceived in practical terms. This word is the etymological
ancestor of our word "ethics". Hence, ethics and its study
aims at a practical understanding of this attitude, including
that kind of judgment necessary to its disclosure. |
| ethos
|
Characteristic
manner or spirit, either of a community, or individual.
This is a word that indicates a certain "attitude" or sense
of comportment towards others, and generally asosciated
with questions of character or moral selfhood, where character
or moral selfhood disclose a bond with others. |
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| F |
| form
|
As found
in logic, form refers to the structure of either a sentence,
or an argument. In the case of a sentence, the form of the
sentence is the layout of terms and operators.For example,
the form of the sentence, All men are liars, is: All ( S
) are ( P ) where the letters S and P merely stand for "subject"
and "predicate" respectively. |
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| H |
| HIV
Care Consortium |
A regional
planning entity established by many State grantees under
Title lI of the CARE Act to plan and sometimes administer
Title II services; an association of health care and support
service providers that develops and delivers services for
PLWHs under Title II of the CARE Act. |
| HIV
Disease |
The entire
spectrum of the natural history of the human immunodeficiency
virus, from post infection through the clinical definition
of AIDS. |
| HRSA
|
(Health
Resources and Services Administration): The agency of the
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that is responsible
for administering the CARE Act. |
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| I |
| Idea
(eidos) |
The word
means "image" and is used in philosophy, particularly ancient
Greek philosophy to indicate "idea" or form. In Aristotle,
we find eidos to be that set of qualities which a scientific
definition (logos) analyzes into its constituent parts.
Elsewhere, in Plato, Kant, and others, the idea is a knowable
aesthetic sense of the whole, a clear intuitive grasp of
synthetic relational meaning, as opposed to that order which
is merely represented in human discourse. |
| Induction
|
Generally,
reasoning from particulars to universals, parts to wholes.
Induction is that movement of thought from the moment a
question is raised, to the moment a concept has been formed
and thoroughly tested. Arguments which follow from inductive
thought remain open-ended probabilities, meaning they are
always subject to further testing, review, and updating.
All practical arguments are ultimately inductive, and our
understanding of those arguments is accordingly of a general
nature and open. |
| inherent
|
Something
has inherent value if and onlly if the experience, awareness,
or contemplation of that something has intrinsic value.
Accordingly, if gazing into The Milky Way on a clear night
has intrinsic value, then The Milky Way has inherent value. |
| instance
|
In logic,
the word applied to a logical sentence (forumla) or argument
that contains actual content. For example, the sentence
form "No S are P" can be seen in the instance of that form
"No (students) are (lazy, or unwilling to put the necessary
work into learning logic). In this case, "students" is the
subject (S), while the predicate (P) is "lazy, or unwilling
to put the necessary work into learning logic" |
| instrumental
|
Value that
is determined according to whether something is seen as
a means, or causative contributor to something of instrinsic
value. |
| intrinsic
|
A sense
of value found to rest within the "thing", whether that
"thing" is conceived in the form of a tangible object, idea,
or concept. The opposite of intrinsic value is "extrinsic"
meaning from outside the "thing". |
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| J |
| justice
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Generally
fairness, understood to be something beneficial and to including
paying this benefit to others. Within Plato's "Republic"
and elsewhere, we find that acts which do not benefit towards
whom they are directed are not just. Neither are they ethical. |
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| K |
| Knowledge
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A true
opinion tied down by reason. |
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| L |
| logos
|
This word
is the ancient Greek term for "word" which beginning with
Heraclitus (F. 500 B.C.E.) took on the broader, philosophical
meaning, which is at bottom that which gives unity to thought,
and by extension, our account of reality. In this sense,
"logos" is synonomous with the word "reason" and by Aristotle's
reckoning, our capacity (faculty of mind) to grasp and follow
reason is the defining character of the human species. Also
understood to indicate scientific definition, and representational
discourse in general. |
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| M |
| metaphysics
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A word
that has come to mean the same thing as epistemology, distinguished
mainly by way of its origin in the postumously given name
to a work of Aristotle wherein he considers the science
of "being as such" or question of cause (account of essential
reality). That naming reflects the chronology of the work
in relation to Aristotles' "Physics". The literal translation
of metaphysics is "after physics". Metaphysics is also refered
to as "First Philosophy". |
| methexis
|
Participation. |
| mimesis
|
Imitation. |
| mores
|
The folkways
and traditions of a people, a culture. |
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| N |
| non-maleficience
|
Not harmful |
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| O |
| objectivity
|
Public,
meaing to have common access to any available evidence.
Some may claim that whatever is objective is also free of
bias, though this view is not supported by either logic
or experience. |
| opinion
(doxa) |
Opinion,
unjustified in a logical sense, not yet tied down by way
of reason (logos). In this regard, opinion may be true,
but not presented in terms which make its claims stand as
objective fact. For this reason, opinion is thought to be
merely subjective, or private in its efficacy. |
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| P |
| philosophy
|
A compound
word from the words "philo" (love) and "sophia" (wisdom),
and generally taken to denote "love of wisdom". However,
the inclusion of "sophia" may also indicate a certain sense
of "techne" (art or skill) or practical wisdom, a meaning
that would have attached to the word philosophy at the time
of both Plato and Aristotle, though by some estimates, Aristotle
seems to lean toward a more theoretical/contemplative rendering
of the term in his own writings (see "phronesis"). Also,
one ancient Latin commentator Diogenes Laertes remarked
that the word "philosophy" was so much a part of ancient
Greek language and culture, that it was impossible to translate
into another language. Part of that difficulty lies in its
practical implications which point toward a proactive way
of being, namely the being of one who is a artful and skilled
lover of practical understanding, i.e. knowing in the broadest
sense. This is the meaning we find disclosed in the person
of Socrates, the architypical philosopher. |
| phronesis
|
Generally
a term that means "wisdom" and often associated with "sophia"
which also means wisdom. However, Aristotle distinguishes
the wisdom of phronesis by assigning it a meaning associated
with action, or movement (the reduction of potentiality
to actuality), hence practical wisdom. Sophia, by Aristotle,
is reserved for wisdom in the sense of theoretical wisdom,
despite the fact that the term "sophia" originally denoted
the wisdom of one with techne, namely an art or skill necessary
to production, hence also practical. Reasonableness. |
| Plato
|
Student
of Socrates, teacher of Aristotle, Plato was the son of
a wealthy Athenian aristocrat, born around 427 B.C.E. He
is the author of the Socratic dialogues, and founder of
The Academy. He died in either late 348 B.C.E. or early
347 B.C.E. In a surviving letter, he wrote that he never
wrote down his own philosophy. This has precipitated a debate
among scholars as to how one should regard the dialogues.
One explanation is that they are teaching pieces, to be
used by Academy students. Another is that they chronicle
the life of his teacher Socrates. A third explanation is
that one's philosophy is somethng that is lived, not written. |
| PLWH
|
Person
Living with HIV Disease. |
| politeia
|
Literally
"the body politic". This word denotes the peculiar bond
which unites citizen with citizen to form the real community.
The disclosure of that bond is the "ethos" or charactistic
manner or spirit of community which is disclosed in both
its informal and formal structures, hence the translation
of this word into our English term "republic". |
| politike
|
The root
word for our English word "politics". This term is a compound
made up of "polis" and "techne" with a subsequent meaning
that is best rendered as the art or skill of practical statescraft. |
| Prevalence
|
The total
number of persons living with a specific disease or condition
at a given time. |
| Prevalence
Rate |
The proportion
of a population living at a given time with a condition
or disease (compared to the incidence rate, which refers
to new cases). |
| Priority
Setting |
The process
used by a planning council or consortium to prioritize service
categories, to ensure consistency with locally identified
needs, and to address how best to meet each priority. |
| Protagoras
|
(ca. 490-420
B.C.E.) Ancient Greek Sophist (teacher) of the fifth century
B.C.E. whose thinking contributed to the development of
dialectic and practical philosophy in general. Protagoras
is best remembered for one of two surviving fragments which
states "Of all things, the measure is man, of the things
that are that they are; and of the things that are not that
they are not." Protagoras lived in Abdera. |
| Public
Health Surveillance |
An ongoing,
systematic process of collecting, analyzing and using data
on specific health conditions and diseases (e.g., Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention surveillance system for
AIDS cases). |
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| R |
| relational
|
the understanding
of meaning and value by the way things stand in relation
to one another. Meaning and worth as understood in logic
are relational grasps and the mapping of those relations. |
| Resource
Allocation |
The legislatively
mandated responsibility of planning councils to assign CARE
Act dollars or percentages across specific service categories,
using key information such as documented need, defined service
priorities and other resources as part of the process. |
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| S |
| SAMs
|
(Self-Assessment
Modules): Self-assessment tools for planning councils and
consortia. |
| sophist
|
From the
ancient Greek word "sophia" meaning "wisdom" in the sense
of possessing a certain art or skill (techne). This term
was used as the name for teachers of rhetoric, and in that
context took on the meaning of "clever" as in "clever speaker". |
| subjectivity
|
personal,
private in origin |
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| T |
| tacit
agreement |
An agreement
based on acceptance without discussion. The term is important
for understanding Socrates claim that anyone who choses
to remain in the city of his or her birth without questioning
or objecting to its laws, tacitly agrees to abide by those
laws. |
| Target
Population |
A population
to be reached through some action or intervention; may refer
to groups with specific demographic or geographic characteristics. |
| techne
|
Ancient
Greek word meaning "Art or Skill" that was originally used
to refer to that kind of knowledge found among artisans
or craftsmen, namely the knowledge necessary to produce
the thing(s) associated with respective arts and crafts.
For example, there is a techne, or skill associated with
the art of a potter, namely everything the potter must know
to produce a finished work, from the kind of clay to use
to decorating it. At the time of Plato and Aristotle, this
term had come to mean knowledge in the broadest sense and
was applied to the arts and skills of mind, particularly
the production or formation of concepts, i.e. rules for
thought. It is also found in Aristotle to mean practical
science. One interesting connection between this word and
the name philosophy appears if we allow that "sophist" is
part of the meaning of philosophy (despite the negative
view of the Sophists we find in Plato). The name sophist
indicates a person of art or skill, there the root word
being Sophia, goddess of wisdom. |
| teleology
|
Philosophy
of ends, or purposes |
| telos
|
Literally
"end". This word is used in philosophy to denote the "end"
or "ends" towards which thinking moves, e.g. for Aristotle,
ethics is a matter of achieving the end of happiness. |
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| V |
| Value
|
The worth
of something. Value can be understood as either intrinsic,
instrumental, inherent, or relational. |
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