I need help finding out the name of a type of philosophical subject.

Discuss any topics related to metaphysics (the philosophical study of the principles of reality) or epistemology (the philosophical study of knowledge) in this forum.
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josephusflav
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I need help finding out the name of a type of philosophical subject.

Post by josephusflav »

I need help finding out the name of a type of philosophical subject.

It bleeds into metaphysics and philosophy of language but I need to no the specifics name of the position

Here is the explanation of my problem

So sometimes Christian's will claim "If you don't know what is ultimate your worldview is meaningless"

I know why they think this, but I want to know what the area of study around this subject is called.

Below is the explanation of why they think this way.

In Christianity God is the ultimate explanation of all things.

This means everything that isn't God needs God in order to exist.

They likewise claim that the properties of creation reflect God, which means the sentence predicates that apply to creatures are analogies of words that apply to God.

The definition of analogies from Aquinas is

"In names predicated of many in an analogical sense, all are predicated because they have reference to some one thing; and this one thing must be placed in the definition of them all. "

(Summa Theologica article 6)

To give a example of the above :

example 1: Healthy means to be biologically functioning well

But when we say powdered mineral vitamins are healthy we don't mean the vitamins are biologically functioning well, as they are not biological life.

What we mean is that vitamins are the cause of good biological health.

The definition of healthy applied to the vitamins contains the word healthy as applied in example 1.

This creates a problem.

If all of creation's descriptions are analogies as above, then if I do not know what it means for God to be a person then I do not know what it means for me to be a person.

This is because implicit in the definition of person when applied to me is the word person as applied to God.

It would be like if I didn't speak english and I saw the definition of healthy "That which causes healthiness" but didn't know the meaning of "healthiness"

Without understanding what God is I cannot understand the definition of what any part of creation is.

With that out of the way, can anyone tell me what should I google in order to find out the name of the philosophical stance that claims "I do not need to know what the ultimate is in order to have meaningful statements "
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Re: I need help finding out the name of a type of philosophical subject.

Post by Belindi »

The area of study is metaphysics. Metaphysics is made up of two areas of study:
1. what if anything we can know(epistemology)

2. theories of existence (ontology).
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Re: I need help finding out the name of a type of philosophical subject.

Post by Elephant »

Cosmological argument, which contains the First Cause.
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Re: I need help finding out the name of a type of philosophical subject.

Post by Leontiskos »

josephusflav wrote: January 22nd, 2022, 12:28 pmSo sometimes Christian's will claim "If you don't know what is ultimate your worldview is meaningless"
I take it that this is a moral claim more than anything else. The idea is that if you don't know what you ultimately desire, then you will not know how to act in order to get there. Or as Aquinas would say, "Absolutely speaking, it is not possible to proceed indefinitely in the matter of ends, from any point of view. For in whatsoever things there is an essential order of one to another, if the first be removed, those that are ordained to the first, must of necessity be removed also" (ST I.II.1.4).
I know why they think this, but I want to know what the area of study around this subject is called.
Maybe "decision theory"?
With that out of the way, can anyone tell me what should I google in order to find out the name of the philosophical stance that claims "I do not need to know what the ultimate is in order to have meaningful statements"
This is a different question. In Thomism both the analogy of being and claims about metaphysical causality are not epistemic in nature. Thomas would say that the order of discovery and the order of being are distinct. For example, following Aristotle, he would say that the order of being goes from essence to powers to acts, but the order of discovery goes from acts to powers to essence.

For example a dog embryo has the essence of a dog, but no powers or ability to act. Once the dog is born it has a limited power of movement, and can exercise this power by moving around. As it grows that power of movement is perfected, at which point it is a mature adult that can act well (by hunting, mating, reproducing, nursing, etc.). The development of a dog goes from having the essence of a dog, to having the essence with the relevant powers, to having essence, powers, and the ability to exercise those powers well (act). That is the order of being.

Contrariwise, when a human being encounters a dog for the first time, one of the first things they will notice and understand is the dog's act of movement. From this knowledge they will move to an understanding of the dog's power to exercise that act in various ways. Finally, after understanding the dogs powers, the human being will come to discover what the essence of a dog is, namely, they will come to know all of the powers that dogs possess, as well as the acts that dogs are capable of.

For Aquinas it is crucial that this statement is true: "I do not need to know what the ultimate is in order to have meaningful statements." This is because, among other things, we learn as we go. Our journey is about learning, growing, and coming in the end to know the ultimate. No one knows the ultimate at the beginning (or the God that all creation is an analogy of). Nevertheless, we do need to have some idea of our goal if we are to move in the right direction.
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