Notion (philosophy)

A notion in philosophy is a reflection in the mind of real objects and phenomena in their essential features and relations. Notions are usually described in terms of scope and content. This is because notions are often created in response to empirical observations (or experiments) of covarying trends among variables.

Primitive notion

A primitive notion is used in logic or mathematics as an undefined term or concept at the foundation of an axiomatic system to be constructed.

However, in philosophy the term "primitive notion" has historical content. For example, Gottfried Leibniz wrote De Alphabeto Cogitationum Humanarum, an alphabet for human thought. Jaap Maat (2004) reviewed Leibniz for Philosophical Languages of the 17th Century. According to Leibniz, "The alphabet of human thought is a catalogue of primitive notions, or those we cannot render clearer by any definitions." Maat explains, "a thing which is known without other intermediate notions can be considered to be primitive," and further, "a primitive notion is said to be conceived through itself".

Notion

Notion may refer to:

See also

Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of the general and fundamental nature of reality, existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. The Ancient Greek word φιλοσοφία (philosophia) was probably coined by Pythagoras and literally means "love of wisdom" or "friend of wisdom". Philosophy has been divided into many sub-fields. It has been divided chronologically (e.g., ancient and modern); by topic (the major topics being epistemology, logic, metaphysics, ethics, and aesthetics); and by style (e.g., analytic philosophy).

As a method, philosophy is often distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its questioning, critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational argument. As a noun, the term "philosophy" can refer to any body of knowledge. Historically, these bodies of knowledge were commonly divided into natural philosophy, moral philosophy, and metaphysical philosophy. In casual speech, the term can refer to any of "the most basic beliefs, concepts, and attitudes of an individual or group," (e.g., "Dr. Smith's philosophy of parenting").

Graham Priest

Graham Priest (born 1948) is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the CUNY Graduate Center, as well as a regular visitor at the University of Melbourne where he was Boyce Gibson Professor of Philosophy and also at St. Andrews University. He was educated at the University of Cambridge and the London School of Economics. His thesis advisor was John Lane Bell.

Work

He is known for his defence of dialetheism, his in-depth analyses of the logical paradoxes (holding the thesis that there is a uniform treatment for many well-known paradoxes, such as the semantic, set-theoretic and Liar paradoxes), and his many writings related to paraconsistent and other non-classical logics.

Priest, a long-time resident of Australia, now residing in New York City, is the author of numerous books, and has published articles in nearly every major philosophical and logical journal. He was a frequent collaborator with the late Richard Sylvan, a fellow proponent of dialetheism and paraconsistent logic.

Karl Popper

Sir Karl Raimund Popper CH FBA FRS (28 July 1902 – 17 September 1994) was an Austrian-British philosopher and professor. He is generally regarded as one of the greatest philosophers of science of the 20th century.

Popper is known for his rejection of the classical inductivist views on the scientific method, in favour of empirical falsification: A theory in the empirical sciences can never be proven, but it can be falsified, meaning that it can and should be scrutinized by decisive experiments. He used the black swan fallacy to discuss falsification. If the outcome of an experiment contradicts the theory, one should refrain from ad hoc manoeuvres that evade the contradiction merely by making it less falsifiable. Popper is also known for his opposition to the classical justificationist account of knowledge, which he replaced with critical rationalism, "the first non-justificational philosophy of criticism in the history of philosophy."

In political discourse, he is known for his vigorous defence of liberal democracy and the principles of social criticism that he came to believe made a flourishing "open society" possible. His political philosophy embraces ideas from all major democratic political ideologies and attempts to reconcile them: socialism/social democracy, libertarianism/classical liberalism and conservatism.