The means, consisting in rewards or punishments, by which one is induced to follow a law. E.g., a punishment for breaking a human law might be a fine or imprisonment.
See KNOWLEDGE.
The doctrine according to which all that exists is what can be investigated by the modern natural sciences. It denies the existence of whatever is not subject to investigation according to the methods...
Latin term that can be translated as “in a qualified sense,” “in a way,” or “in some respect.” It is used to express some qualification in what is being claimed. E.g., “The natural moral law is known...
A cognitive power that depends on a bodily organ.
A distinction, introduced by Gottlob Frege, between the descriptive or intelligible content of a term, i.e., its sense (Sinn), and the things in reality that it is supposed to indicate, i.e., its refe...
(also called Sensitive Appetite).— The appetitive power in animals (including rational animals) that is moved or actualized by the perception of the external senses and internal senses. Passions are t...
(also called Sensitive Memory).— The internal sense by which one retains the perceptions of the external senses, and most importantly the images (or “phantasms”) formed by the estimative or cogitative...
That which brings something else into the ambit of a knowing power. According to a number of scholastics, a sign is a relation (relatio secundum esse), not the visible vehicle by which a sign is noti...
Latin term that can be translated as “simply,” “absolutely,” or “unqualifiedly.”
Lack of parts in some way or absolutely.
The doctrine according to which we cannot have certitude about anything and, therefore, must suspend our judgment in all matters.
A stable union of individuals or groups morally bound to each other, who cooperate to achieve a common goal or good under the guidance of some structure of authority.
The first principle of life in living things; the first act of a body capable of life.
The quality of an argument having validity and only true premises.
The principles that determine whether a human action is in conformity with the natural moral law. These include the moral object (what is immediately and essentially attained by the moral act itself),...
In modern scholastic usage, the division of moral philosophy that studies morality as concerning human relationships. Hence, various kinds of “special” ethics focus on rights and society in their vari...
In rationalist divisions of philosophy, those branches of (rationalist) metaphysics that study specific domains of “ontology”: the human self or psyche (rational psychology); the world (cosmology); Go...
1. Scholastic usage (logic). A class of things contained in a genus possessing some attribute called the “specific difference” that distinguishes it from other species contained in the genus. E.g., “r...
That attribute of a species that distinguishes it from other species contained in a genus. E.g., “rational” is the specific difference possessed by human beings that distinguishes them from other spec...
Pertaining to intellectual knowing that immediately aims only at grasping something about the object rather than making or doing.
(also called Civil Society, Political Society, Political Community).— The natural perfect society constituted by families and individuals. “State” is sometimes used as a synonym for “government” or go...
The logical relationship between a particular affirmative proposition and a particular negative proposition with the same terms. Subcontrary propositions cannot both be false but can both be true. The...
In scholastic metaphysics, those finite subjects that possesses attributes of some kind or acts in some way. According to modern terminology, the “inward” intelligent and volitional domain of beings...
That which provokes a feeling of awe or, in some respect, terror in a person. Some philosophers hold that the sublime is a species of beauty but others deny this. There is a range of views as to wheth...
(also called the Principle of Subsidiarity).— The principle according to which higher level societies and institutions should not intervene in matters that that belong, by rights, to the specific comm...
The ordering of substance to independent existence, in distinction from the kind of ordering to existence found in accidents.
1. Primary Substance (also called First Substance). That which is apt to existence in itself, i.e., apart from other things. The word “substance” used without a modifier typically denotes primary subs...
1. The logical relationship between a universal affirmative proposition (the superalternate) and a particular affirmative proposition (the subalternate) with the same terms, or between a universal neg...
An individual substance.
In later medieval logic, a term referring to the substitutionary value that a subject of a proposition takes in relation to its predicate. The suppositio of a term determines what the term itself ref...
An argument containing two premises and a conclusion.
Broadly speaking, a formal logic that employs technical symbols in the place of natural language. Here is a conditional syllogism in natural language with its symbolic counterpart in modern propositi...
The intellectual capacity for knowledge of the first principles of the natural moral law. The root capacity for the knowledge that informs moral-practical cognition and conscience.
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