1. Knowledge Issues: problems or questions that are caused by knowing something to be true, or thinking about it being true. (Usually “How” questions)
a. COW (Connections, Observations, Wonderings)
i. Connections: Relating previous personal experience, knowledge, or studies with the subject.
ii. Observations: Examining closely and describing what is happening
iii. Wonderings: Questions regarding the subject
2. Ways of Knowing (WOK): How one knows something to be true (through senses, experience, studies, emotions etc.)
3. Areas of Knowledge (AOK): The various topics knowledge is composed of (history, math, science, language, literature, arts etc.)
4. Knowledge Claim: Something one knows as being true through personal experience, studies etc.
5. Empirical Knowledge: Using concrete evidence to justify one’s thoughts (proof, evidence, “see it to believe it”, must have certainty)
6. Rational Knowledge: Using logic and reasoning to justify one’s thoughts (“if…then”, trusting sources, open to new ideas)
7. Solipsism: Believing that the mind is the only thing that exists (everything is in the mind)
8. Skepticism: Disbelief, doubt towards an idea/thought (only your experience is known, nothing else)
9. Relativism: The idea that truth is flexible to change; it is not concrete nor absolute
10. Prejudice: Judgment made about something before knowing about it (quick judgment)
11. Source of Knowledge: Ways in which or where we gain knowledge (websites, parents etc.)
a. Revelation: Something being declared or known as being true or false
b. Faith: Having a strong belief for something being true with absolutely no doubts
c. Print sources: Printed works that allow readers to gain knowledge or ideas (newspapers, books, textbooks, magazines etc.)
d. Live sources: Media that allows for personal interaction between the source and the audience (interviews etc.)
12. Pragmatic Truth Test: Believing something is true, knowing something is true because it will be beneficial for oneself to think in this manner
13. Coherence Truth Test: Believing something is true because it relates to a different justified truth. (“If this equals this, then that equals that”, usually used in science or math)
14. Corresponding Truth Test: Believing something is true by observing, conducting experiments or perceiving (must correspond to reality)
15. Certainty: To know as being true as a fact
16. Ramifications: Problems that may be created or expanded through knowledge
17. Beginner's mind (Concept): The act of emptying one’s mind of previous thoughts, ideas, assumptions, theories, knowledge; willingness to accept new ideas
18. Nonsense: Something that does not make sense, is far from reality, ridiculous, intangible
19. Perception: The act of taking in and understanding with the mind
20. Plato's cave allegory: A story of humans being locked up in a cave since their birth and only being able to perceive through visual perception and by the help of each other. Plato’s cave allegory explains that if people suddenly realize the true reality, some may deny it, some may believe it, and some may have doubts about it as seen when a few people from the cave see the sunlight for the first time in their lives.
21. Justification: Proof or evidence that something is reasonable or true
a. Pictorial: Justification with pictures, visual media
b. Authority: Justification with social class, status, fame or power (Obama, president in general, religious leaders etc,)
22. Elephant and Six Blind Men allegory: Six blind men feel different parts of the elephant and therefore have different ideas about what an elephant is like: (fan, wall, tree, rope, spear, snake). It is important to combine all our knowledge together and collaborate to be able to see the big picture; but details are needed to be able to have a clear idea about a subject.
23. Knowledge by description: Gaining knowledge by hearing about it, imagining what it looks like (public, basic facts)
24. Knowledge by acquaintance: Gaining knowledge by experiencing it, seeing what it looks like (personal, experience)
25. Belief: The act of passionately thinking something to be true when unproven
26. Knower: The person who possesses knowledge and believes this knowledge to be true
27. Common Knowledge: Something that is known and accepted by the majority of the people
28. Opposition: Disproval, criticism of an idea/thought
29. Justified True Belief: Plato’s idea that knowledge is knowledge only if it is perceived and then believed in, then justified as being true. (it is justified true belief if it has evidence to support it, and is considered fact externally, and accepted internally)
30. Reliability/Credibility: If a source, knowledge, or idea is dependable as being true; how much it corresponds with reality/truth
31. Truth: Something that is certain, accepted, justified, corresponding to reality known to us by the ways of knowledge
32. Logic: Common sense, “if…then”
33. Reason: The argument which explains why one believes something to be true
34. Trust: To be able to rely on, have faith in, depend on without concrete proof
35. Sensory Perceptions: Taking in or understanding something using one’s senses (seeing, hearing, tasting, feeling, smelling)
36. Visual perception: Taking in and understanding information through seeing
37. Olfactory perception: Taking in and understanding information through smelling
38. Cutaneous perception: Taking in and understanding information through touching
39. Gustatory perception: Taking in and understanding information through tasting
40. Auditory perception: Taking in and understanding information through hearing
41. Kinesthetic perception: Taking in and understanding information through movement
42. Vestibular perception: Taking in and understanding information through the sense of balance
43. Organic perception: Taking in and understanding information through personal emotions such as hunger, nausea, or thirst
44. Seminal: Turning point, sudden realization of something
45. Inductive Reasoning: The use of specific experiences and observations in order to convince/persuade another of one’s ideas/conclusion about something (includes generalizations and stereotypes).
46. Deductive Reasoning: A specific conclusion drawn from general statements; use of syllogisms
47. Synesthesia: a combination of senses, the opposite of anesthesia (which means to have no senses). The most common form of Synesthesia is seeing numbers associated with specific colors all the time. A person with Synesthesia will perceive one sense (for example hearing) at the same time as (a) different sense(s) (for example seeing).
48. Veil of Perception: The veil of perception states that if one has a specific idea about something before perceiving this “something”, the mind will only see this “something” as how it was thought of previously (and is therefore biased). It states that what we perceive is not necessarily true because it can be heavily influenced by our thoughts and ideas towards a specific subject.
49. Syllogism: A form of deductive reasoning which includes two premises (whether true or false). The conclusion of the syllogism is drawn from these two premises. The conclusion is connected to the premises using the word “therefore”.
50. Naïve Realism: Common sense realism; the idea that what we perceive is true/real. “What I see is true”.
51. Direct Realism: The idea that there is a direct connection to what we perceive and the real world. “What we see every day, is what it is if I constantly see it the same way.”
52. Idealism: The idea that there is nothing in the world; it states that reality is only within the mind and there is nothing behind the veil of perception.
53. Immaterialism: Solipsism; the idea that “if we perceive it, then it exists” or “To exist, is to be perceived”.
54. Premise: a clause containing a quantifier, and two terms showing a relationship between the two terms. In general, it follows the form “All As are Bs” with the possibility of using a different quantifier and being more specific with the terms.
55. Conclusion: The information drawn from the two premises which is introduced by the word “therefore”. This is the main and last point of the reasoning.
56. Terms: the subjects or nouns in a premise.
57. Fallacy: containing a logical argument but containing a flaw or having false reasoning.
58. Indirect Realism: Also referred to as Representative Realism. The idea that we can only understand the representations or perceptions of the objects, but not the object itself.
59. Quantifier: The word recognizing the number of subjects that the premise applies to; this includes words such as “all”, “some” or “none”.
60. Inference: Using information or knowledge that we already have in order to make an educated guess.
61. Argument: Use of reasoning in order to create a proposition (a proposal or a suggestion) or to identify one’s position towards an idea.
62. Logic: Rational; the use of common sense and knowledge in order to create the reasons why something should be considered true or false.
63. Law of simplicity/ Law of parsimony: Grouping things by the patterns observed when they are seen or perceived; choosing the simplest pattern to understand; “we see it as the way it should be”.
64. Context: The way we perceive certain things depend on the situation or context we perceive it to be
65. Expectations: Our mind focuses on what we are looking for, what is expected and doesn’t pay attention to other details that we perceive
66. Selectivity: We only perceive some of the things that we perceive as a whole, these things we understand, are what are chosen to be perceived and understood by our brain
67. Visual grouping: When we see something, we try to understand what we perceive through trying to identify patterns, familiar shapes etc.
68. Figure & Ground: The idea that we usually focus on one aspect of something (usually something in a darker color) and another thing as the background (usually a lighter color).
69. Gestalt principal: Using what we know in order to create an idea of how certain things should be, and then perceiving it to be this certain way due to our knowledge of it.
70. Hasty generalization (fallacy): Making a “rushed” generalization without ample evidence or support therefore creating a larger possibility that this generalization is inaccurate.
71. Enthymeme: A premise that is not recognized or is omitted because it is thought of to be common sense/obvious.
72. Confirmation Bias: The idea that people only perceive what evidence supports their idea towards a specific subject.
73. Belief Bias: tendency to believe an argument is valid because we agree with the conclusion
74. Ad Ignorantium (fallacy): The argument from ignorance; if something is not proven as being false, then it is true.
75. Equivocation (fallacy): Using two different meanings of the same word in order to support your argument.
76. Ad Hominem (fallacy): “against the man”; attacking or supporting the person rather than attacking or supporting the argument he/she is making.
77. Loaded Question (fallacy): A question that a person already knows the answer to or don’t want answered but asks anyways in a sarcastic tone that cannot be answered in a simple “yes” or “no”. If one replies as “yes”, something is implied, but if one replies by saying “no”, a different information is implied usually in a negative way.
78. Argumentum Ad Vericundium (fallacy): appeal to authority; thinking that something is true just because a person of high authority said it is true.
79. Poisoning The Well (fallacy): When another person tells someone information that is true or false about a person he/she is about to meet or haven’t met yet, creating an impression about the person before encountering him/her. This person is poisoning another person’s mind/well.
80. Unpalatable Consequences (fallacy): The argument will be considered as being true or false depending on the thinker’s desire of outcome.
81. Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc (fallacy): Indicating that an event caused another to happen simply because it occurred before the second event.
82. False Dilemma (fallacy): “If something is true, then the other is false”; if two arguments are presented, this fallacy states that one is true and the other is false.
83. Special Pleading (fallacy): Telling another to follow certain rules, expressing their authority and them being correct.
84. Red Herring (fallacy): “argument vs. argument”; another argument is presented that is off-topic in order to divert the person’s attention to another issue that is irrelevant.
85. Slippery Slope (fallacy): Stating that something will happen due to something without explaining why the second event must happen.
86. Guilt by Association (fallacy): Dismissing an idea simply because the people he/she does not like agrees with the idea.
87. Appeal to Common Practice (fallacy): The idea that if something is considered to be something by the mass, then it must be true.
88. Circular Reasoning (fallacy): The conclusion is simply re-worded from the premise.
89. False Analogy (fallacy): Stating that if one thing is similar to another, then they must be similar in other aspects too.
90. Argumentum in Terrorem (fallacy): “Appeal to fear”; creating a reason to support a specific argument by creating a fear factor for the other argument.
91. Argumentum Ad Misericordium (fallacy): “Argument from pity or misery”; creating a reason to support his/her idea by making the other person feel bad for him/her.
92. Non sequitur (fallacy): “does not follow”; having no connection between the premise and the conclusion whether the conclusion is true or false.
93. Pathos: the quality that evokes someone to feel the same emotion for a person. Pathos is usually used when evoking the emotion of sadness or pity towards someone else.
94. Bathos: insincere or overly exaggerated pathos, often to the point of being ridiculous. Bathos can either be deliberate or unintentional.
95. Homeostasis: the state of bodily equilibrium, when all our automated (physiological) functions are working together. The automatic functions of the body working without deliberate thought and/or force.
96. Focalism: The situation in which a person is so caught up with one emotion that he/she is blind and cannot perceive other emotions or thoughts.
97. Jame-Lange Theory of Emotions: The theory that states that after an event occurs, physical body response happens before the emotion is felt by the person. This is explained by our ability to empathize and relate to another person feeling a certain emotion.
98. Cannon-Bard Theory of Emotions: The theory that states that emotion and the physical response happens simultaneously, at the same time. Neither the emotion nor the physical response occurs first.
99. Somatic Marker: a bodily feeling that can be either positive or negative that happens prior
a. to making a decision. Somatic marker influences you in the decision making and is related
b. to the concept of instincts. It can also be referred to as the “gut feeling”.
100. Phineas Gage: a man who had an iron rod driven through his skull from an accident during his job as a railroad constructionist. Through this accident, neurologists were able to determine which parts of the brain determined the person’s personality and behavior.
101. Ekman’s Universality of Emotions Theory: This theory states that no matter who you are, where you’re from, there are certain emotions that are universal. It states that these emotions do not need to be taught, they are expressed and understood in all parts of the world in the same manner.
102. Micro-expressions: Expressions that cannot be controlled or helped by the person when making them. It can be unintentional.
103. Primary Emotions: Emotions that are basic and felt frequently by the people. These emotions are very straight-forward. Examples include happiness, sadness, anger, fear etc.
104. Tertiary/Background emotions: Emotions that are felt generally. These emotions are not necessarily caused by one event. Examples of these emotions are calmness, disappointment, excitement etc.
105. Secondary/Social/Collective Emotions: Emotions that are felt between people. These emotions are felt while interacting with one another, for another person. Examples include hatred, compassion, envy/jealousy etc.
106. Durability Bias: a form of impact bias in which there is a tendency to overestimate or have a bias about how long the event will have an effect emotionally.
107. Impact Bias: a bias or an overestimate of the length of the impact of an emotional event.
108. Social Contagion: the concept that emotion is contagious. When one is around a group of people feeling a particular emotion, one is susceptible to feel the emotion too without meaning to. The atmosphere causes one to “fit in with the crowd” and feel the same emotion.
109. Stoicism: “Without passion”. Stoicism means to have no emotions or to remove, eliminate emotions.
110. Empathy: to be able to relate and feel what another person is feeling.
111. Intuition:
a. General: the of attaining knowledge or understanding without evident rational thought and using this rational thought to draw conclusions
b. Social: using intuition to decide how to interact among people. Using this type of intuition the person is able to judge or have a brief idea of what this person will be like.
c. Educated: using intuition to draw conclusions from what has been known through previous experiences.
112. Denotation: dictionary definition
113. Connotation: a commonly understood, subjective or emotional meaning carried in combination with its denotation
114. Euphemism: a mild statement made in place of an unpleasant one. For example, “a working lady” is a euphemism for a prostitute, or “he passed away” is a euphemism for “he died”.
115. Persuasion: the act of convincing using reasoning, emotion, language, sense perception (WOKs)
116. Problematic Meaning
a. Vagueness: to be unclear, and to manipulate the truth. For example, saying “I passed”, could mean that I received a 62% or a 90%.
b. Ambiguity: uncertainty in interpretation. This includes lexical ambiguity. There can be misunderstandings from the dual meanings. For example if I said, “I want him to sing so badly”, it could mean that I really want him to sing, or it could mean that I want him to be a horrible singer.
c. Secondary Meaning: refers to double-meaning.
d. Metaphor: a statement that creates a comparison between an object to another
i. that is often not looked at as being similar. A problem that may arise from the use of metaphors is that it is hard to distinguish when the speaker is implying the literal meaning or the metaphorical meaning. This creates a dead metaphor.
1. Dead metaphor: words that are used to be metaphorical but are hard to notice. Examples may include “sharp tongue”, “brilliant mind” etc.
e. Irony: Something that means the opposite of what you say. This includes sarcasm.
117. Koch's Postulate: the four categories in which Koch developed in trying to figure out the causative agent of a particular disease
a. the microorganism or other pathogen must be present in all cases of the disease
b. the pathogen can be isolated from the diseased host and grown by itself/pure culture
c. the pathogen from the pure culture must cause the disease when applied to a healthy, susceptible laboratory animal
d. the pathogen must be reisolated from the new host and shown to be the same as the original pathogen.
118. 3 Theories of Meaning
a. Definition Theory: the definition from a dictionary. The problem with this may be that the dictionary is outdated, and within this change in time period, the meaning may have altered. This causes the meaning from the dictionary to be unrealistic. The dictionary also does not allow for interpretation of the word’s connotations. There are no tones to the words which limit the reader’s ability to fully grasp onto the word’s concept.
b. Denotation Theory: this theory states that a meaningful word must stand for something. Thus, if the word is not a representative of something, it is meaningless. A word must be either meaningful or meaningless. Problems with this theory can include abstract concepts such as freedom, or company words such as Kleenex or band-aid, or even names.
c. Image Theory: this theory states that the meaning of a word is the mental image that it stands for. It suggests that all the concepts are in the mind. If one was to be talking without a picture in their mind, this person would be regarded as making noises, and not as a person speaking. Problems with this may be that we are not able to know fully what the other person’s mind is experiencing when the person is using the word. Do people mean the same thing when they use the same word?
119. Sarcasm: an irony in speech. Sarcasm is used when the speaker wishes to imply the opposite of the word’s literal definition to the other person. For example, if one was to say “you are so funny” to another person using sarcasm, this would imply that the speaker thinks that the other person is extremely boring as a person, and not at all funny. Sarcasm is often used to mock or to insult.
120. Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis: also known as the Linguistic determinism. This hypothesis states that language determines our experience of reality. In other words, language shapes our understanding and experiencing of the world.
121. Emotive meaning: the idea that words can be chosen for emotional appeal. Examples may include Genetically Modified Food vs. Franken food, or Terrorist vs. Freedom fighters.
122. Weasel words: words that are not inaccurate but are not true at the same time. Advertisements often use weasel words to attract consumers. For example, they may say, “Eliminates up to 25% of wrinkles!” The problem with this is, this could range from 0~25%. In this way, weasel words are hugely vague and inaccurate.
123. Passive voice: the elimination of the subject responsible for the action. For example, instead of saying, “The drunk driver hit Sam”, the use of passive voice would eliminate the drunk driver’s blame and simply state, “Sam was hit”.
124. Revealing/Concealing: selective language. This may include or leave some details depending on the situation. For example, instead of saying, “My good friend, a marijuana-smoker who is really smart”, I may choose to say “My really smart good friend” to address this person.
125. Propaganda: different terms are used during the war or as a means of propaganda to lessen the effect of the real outcome. For example, instead of saying, “bombed cities”, the media of the country responsible for this bombing may state that it was a “collateral damage”.
126. Double-meaning: words that have double-meaning are words that have two different interpretations depending on the situation it is used in. For example, the word “multiply” can refer to the mathematical computation or as the process of reproduction. Depending on how it is used within the sentence, one is able to figure out which meaning is implied.
127. Context: the situation given.
128. 3 Rules of translation
a. Faithfulness: it must be believed by the mass that the translation is correct.
b. Comprehensibility: the word must be understood.
c. Back translation: the word must be able to transfer both ways: from one language to another in both directions. For example, if I was translating a word in Japanese to Swedish, the word would have to mean the same thing from Swedish to Japanese in order for it to be a successful translation.
129. Untranslatable words: words those are unique to a certain language. There is no translation in other languages for these words. An example may include the word, schlimmbesserung in German which means an improvement that causes in something negative.
130. Idioms/Slang: phrases or words that are not meant literally, but are accepted as being symbolic for something. Idioms and slang are unique to each language. An example of an idiom may include the phrase, “break a leg” in English does not literally mean that the speaker wishes for the other to break his/her leg but rather means “good luck”.
131. 3 features of language
a. Rule-governed: includes grammar, vocabulary, and syntax. These traits are arbitrary but agreed upon by all who speak this language.
b. Intended: language must be intended for communication. If one person is speaking, it is assumed that they are trying to say something.
c. Creative/open-minded: to use language, one must be willing to think “outside the box” as language is not always literal.
132. Naming
a. Significance: creates structure, identity and allows for distinction one from another
b. Cultural effects:
i. Korea: Siblings usually share a syllable within their names
ii. Western: middle names are usually used to honor other family members.
iii. China: names express the expectations of the child carrying this name etc.
c. Role of nicknames: establishes an affinity between people, easier to remember, mock or label people etc
133. Profanity/swear words: the use of negative words in order to convey their emotions usually of anger, sadness or other negative emotions.
134. Discipline: an established branch of knowledge with its own subject area and way of approaching it
135. Science: Testing of a hypothesis, finding support to back up a theory (associated with uncertainty/doubt of the results and leading to the the forming of new theories)136. Social Science: the study of people and their behavior
137. Positive Statements: statements of how things are; facts
138. Normative Statements: statements of "how things should be"; opinions
139. Free Will: the belief that people have the choice to make decisions
140. Determinism: the belief that everything is pre-determined and planned by superior forces
141. Nature: the traits in which one is born with
142. Nurture: the way the person (or any other living thing) is brought up
143. Ethics: system of principles for what's right and wrong driven by their moral values
144. Ethical Egoism: motivated by ethics (cares about the long-run & happiness)
145. Altruism: willing to sacrifice for others rather than oneself
146. Utilitarianism: maximizing the overall benefit for everyone involved
147. Moral Duty: doing something because they should
148. Mens rea: guilty mind
149. Actus rea: guilty action
150. Pseudo-Science: something that claims the status of science but lacks the substance of science
151. Norms: standards (of behaviors) and ideals that everyone follows
-Robert Merton's Norms-
a. Communalism: become part of public knowledge by full disclosure
b. Universalism: be judged independently of personal traits of the contributor
c. Distinterestedness: be made neutrally, impersonally and without regard for personal gain
d. Originality: offer something new to the existing body of knowledge
e. Skepticism: be subjected to systemic doubt by scientific community
152. Law of Large Numbers: this law states that in a large sample size, the random variations and factors cancel out when the data is processed and analyzed.
153. Observer Effect: people will answer or act differently than they naturally would because a person is watching or will read their answers.
154. Holism: the idea that the whole of something is not equal to the sum of its parts.
155. Reductionism: the opposite of holism; it states that we can explain and understand something by looking at its component parts.
156. The Reductive Fallacy: the assumption that the whole is equal to the sum of its parts.
157. Verstehen Position: meaning (trying to determine) of an action (observable), depends on context
158. Hindsight: looking back at the event, one will have a different perspective than one did during the situation
159. 20-20 vision: clear picture/interpretation of the situation
160. Topic choice bias: Historian choice of topics is influenced by the current focus of his/her culture
161. Confirmation bias: Only selecting the events that support your argument/ ignoring counter evidences in favor of what support your perspective
162. National bias: hard to be objective about things like national pride
163. The Great Person Theory of History: course of history is determined mainly by great individuals.
164. Course of Empathy in History (R.G. Collingwood): We should try to understand causes and motives of a historical figure's actions as they would have understood them.
165. Economic Determinism (Theory of History):Course of history is mainly determined by economic & technological factors
166. Categorical Imperative: People should act on what is moral, regardless of the consequences
167. Relativism: depends on taste
168. Collectivism: everyone has the same taste169. Absolutism: the idea that something is either this or that (cannot be in between)
170. Consequentialism (Ends): consequence of the action
171. Deontology (Means): considers the morality of the action
172. The Divine Command Theory: holds that an act is moral or immoral solely because God command us to do it or either prohibits from doing it.
