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P
Pan-Egoism. The doctrine which attempts
to dissolve the antithesis between noumenon and
phenomenon, mind and matter, Ego and
thing-in-itself, by identifying all reality with
the universal consciousness or Ego; a form of
absolute idealism, asserting the oneness of all
things in the absolute Ego.
Pan-Objectivism. See Neo-Realism.
Pan-Phenomenalism. The doctrine which
holds that the human mind can know nothing but the
phenomena or appearances of things.
Pan-Psychism. The doctrine which
interprets the qualitative essence of material
force and energy as a sort of psychical activity
and appetency, so that all material reality, in its
ultimate analysis, is endowed with psychical
powers.
Pantheism. The doctrine which holds that
the universe is identical with God; the reduction
of God to the universe, or of the universe to
God.
Parallelism, Psycho-Physical. The
doctrine which holds that mind and matter are not
substances, that the psychical and physical are but
a manifold of interrelated occurrences; subject and
object are concepts which are due to the reflection
resulting from the interrelations of the various
components of the absolutely unitary contents of
our immediate experience.
Particular Ideas. Universals taken partly
and indeterminately.
Passion (Reaction). The reception of an
effect from another.
Perception. The cognizing of the object
which produces sensation.
Perceptionism. See Realism,
Presentative.
Perfection. A thing is "perfect" so far
as it has emerged from the incompleteness of
potency, in which all finite entities begin, and
possesses the complete activity required by its
nature for its proper perfection. Only the
"perfect" is desirable or "good."
Peripateticism. See Aristotelianism.
Person. An intellectual hypostasis, i.e.,
an individual, complete, subsistent, intellectual
substance.
Personalism. That form of idealism which
gives equal recognition to both the pluralistic and
monistic aspects of experience and which finds in
the conscious unity, identity, and free activity of
personality the key to the nature of reality and
the solution of the ultimate problems of
philosophy.
Personal Supposition. The use of a term
to signify both the nature and the bearers of this
common nature.
Pessimism. The philosophic theory which
maintains that evil predominates over good, because
the world at large is essentially bad.
Petitio Principii. See Begging
the question.
Phenomenalism. The doctrine that the
appearances of things are their reality; there are
no things in themselves, but only things in
relation to our experience.
Phenomenon. In epistemology, the
appearance that is produced by the action of a
thing upon a percipient.
Philosophy. The science of things in
their ultimate reasons, causes, and principles,
acquired by the aid of human reason alone.
Pluralism. The doctrine which holds that
reality cannot be reduced to either one ultimate
form of being (monism of either mind or matter) or
two ultimate forms of being (dualism of mind and
matter), but to many mutually irreducible ultimate
forms of being.
Polysyllogism. An argumentation
consisting of two or more syllogisms, logically
connected together in such a way that the
conclusion of the preceding syllogism becomes the
premise of the one following.
Positive Ideas. Ideas which signify a
real, actual thing.
Positive Law. The contingent means chosen
by a given community in its particular
circumstances to achieve its common good.
Positivism. A form of naturalism which
denies the legitimacy of philosophical problems and
methods and claims that science is the only
knowledge which is exact and ultimate.
Possibility. Objective potency, or the
capacity or aptitude of a being for existence.
Possibility, Absolute. See
Possibility,
Intrinsic.
Possibility,
Extrinsic. The capacity or aptitude of a being
for existence in virtue of the power of an
efficient cause capable of producing it.
Possibility,
Intrinsic. The capacity or aptitude of a being
for existence, due to the compatibility or
non-contradiction of its constitutive elements.
Possibility, Logical. See
Possibility,
Intrinsic.
Possibility, Metaphysical. See
Possibility,
Intrinsic.
Possibility, Moral. The possibility of
free agents to do something without grave
difficulty.
Possibility, Physical. The possibility
due to the powers of a thing acting according to
the laws of nature.
Possibility, Relative. See
Possibility,
Extrinsic.
Postulate, Idealist. The postulate, or
axiom, considered by idealists as self-evident,
that all objects of knowledge are mental objects,
ideas, conscious states.
Posture. A disposition of parts among
themselves in the sense of "attitude"; immanent or
intransitive action expressed by an intransitive
verb.
Potency. The capacity or aptitude for
something.
Potency, Objective. The capacity of a
nonexistent being for existence.
Potency,
Operative Subjective. The capacity for doing
something.
Potency, Real. See Potency,
Subjective.
Potency, Receptive Subjective. The
capacity for receiving an act.
Pragmatism. The
doctrine, or rather attitude, which places all
knowledge and truth in a direct relation to life
and action; it judges the value of ideas,
judgments, hypotheses, theories, and systems,
according to their capacity to satisfy human needs
and interests in a social way.
Precision. A process in which the mind
fixes its attention upon one or the other
characteristic of a thing or upon one element
common to many things, excluding others which are
joined to it in the real order.
Precision,
Formal. A type of abstraction or precision in
which the ideas drawn out by the abstractive
process are only subjectively different, i.e.,
these ideas mutually include each other implicitly,
though they do not expressly mention each
other.
Precision,
Material. A type of abstraction or precision in
which the ideas drawn out by the abstractive
process are objectively different, i.e., these
ideas have a different comprehension or
thought-content, so that the one does not
necessarily include the other.
Precision, Objective. See
Precision,
Material.
Precision, Subjective. See
Precision,
Formal.
Predicables. The different modes or ways
in which a universal can be predicated of its
subject.
Predicament. An ultimate and supreme mode
of being; a category.
Predicament, Ego-Centric. The predicament
involved in every act of knowledge that no thinker
is able to mention a thing that is not an idea, for
the obvious and simple reason that in mentioning it
he makes it an idea; it is, therefore, impossible
to discover whether the cognitive relationship is
indispensable to things which enter into it.
Predication,
Definition by Initial. The fallacy which
consists in considering an "obvious" characteristic
of a thing as the "exclusive" characteristic of
that thing, and then defines the thing as
consisting solely and exclusively of this
particular characteristic.
Premotion, Physical. An antecedent
physical influence which, according to Thomists, is
required in order that the faculty of a creature
can pass from potentiality to actuality.
Principle. That from which something
proceeds in any manner whatever.
Principle of Causality. See
Causality,
Principle of.
Principle of Change. See Change,
Principle of.
Principle of Contradiction. See
Contradiction,
Principle of.
Principle of Excluded Middle. See
Excluded
Middle, Principle of.
Principle of Identity. See
Identity,
Principle of.
Principle of Sufficient Reason.
See Sufficient
Reason, Principle of.
Principles, First. See Principles,
Supreme.
Principles,
Supreme, of Being. Those highest principles
which are immediately derived from the concept of
"being."
Privative Ideas. Ideas of which one
signifies a perfection and the other denies a
perfection in a subject which naturally ought to
possess it.
Probability, Objective. That condition or
quality of things and facts, when present to the
mind, which enables the mind to decide for the
truth of a judgment concerning these things and
facts, but with the fear of the possibility of
error.
Properties, Transcendental. The supreme
modes or attributes necessarily connected with
every being, which are different phases of the same
fundamental being, but are not explicitly contained
in its concept as such.
Property. The act or actuality perfecting
and determining an essence in such a manner that
the entity it gives to the being flows necessarily
from its nature, without being strictly
essential.
Proposition. A judgment expressed in a
sentence.
Prosody, Fallacy of. See Accent.
Purpose. See End.
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Q
Qualified Statements, Fallacy of. The
fallacy which argues from a statement which is true
in a special instance (qualified statement) to the
general class.
Quality. An absolute accident completing
and determining a substance in its being and in its
operations.
Quality, Affective. A relatively
permanent quality which produces, or results from,
some accidental sensible alteration.
Quality of propositions. The modification
of the copula in a sentence, making it either
affirmative or negative.
Quantity. An attribute of the material
(determinable) element in a being.
Quantity of propositions. The number of
individuals to whom the judgment or proposition
applies.
Quiddity. The "whatness" or essence of a
being.
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