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Moral Realism
pragmatic social philosophy unfettered by moral considerations
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Ethnocentrism
Greek: "the race is the center"
belief that the customs and beliefs of one's own culture are inherently superior to all others
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Barbarian
Greek: term used to mock people who spoke in other languages; referred to other cultures considered "less than human" or uncivilized
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Sophos
Greek: "wise"
Sage/Wise man; term applied to the first philosophers
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Rational Discourse
the interplay of carefully argued ideas; the use of reason to order, clarify, and identify reality and truth according to agreed-upon standards of verification
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Cosmos
Greek: "ordered whole"
First used by Pythagoreans to characterize the universe as an ordered whole consisting of harmonies of contrasting elements
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Psyche
Greek: "Soul"
combination of mind and soul, including capacity for reflective thinking
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Logos
Greek: "intelligence", "speech", "discourse", "thought", "reason", "word", "meaning"
the rule according to which all things are accomplished and the law found in all things
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Cosmology
the study of the universe as an ordered system
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reductio ad absurdum
Latin: "reduce to absurdity"
form of argument that refutes an opponent's position by showing that accepting it leads to absurd, unacceptable, or contradictory conclusions
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Atomism
materialistic view that the universe consists entirely of empty space and ultimately simple entities that combine to form objects
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Atoms
Greek: "indivisible", "having no parts", "uncuttable"
minute material particles; the ultimate material constituents of all things
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Sophists
paid teachers of rhetoric;
relativists who taught that might makes right, truth is a matter of appearance and convention, and power is the ultimate value
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Pragmatism
Greek: "deed"
empirically based philosophy that defines knowledge and truth in terms of practical consequences
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