Prolegomenon - (plural: prolegomena): a critical introduction to a thesis or work; prefatory remarks. Realism - 1. The doctrine in epistemology that the external world exists independently of perception. 2. The view that universal ideas correspond to objective realities. Relativism - See moral relativism. Scholasticism - a philosophical movement of medieval times characterized chiefly by speculative thought, the merging of theological conceptions with metaphysical ones (as, say, in the work of Aquinas). Socratic Method - An approach to teaching and philosophizing pioneered by Socrates (470-399 B.C.) which consists of asking a succession of questions. The aim is to expose some weakness or inadequacy in the thinking of the interrogated. The questions serve as an impetus for further study and reflection. Specious - an argument that seems plausible but is in fact fallacious. Subjective - existing in thought as opposed to the "external" world. Theism - 1. belief in a God or Gods. 2. the view that God transcends the universe but is also, in some way, immanent in it. Transcendental - that which is beyond the reach of the senses, of ordinary experience. [literally, "to climb over".] Transcendentalism - 1. The philosophical disposition to look for truth within oneself, as against the conventions of culture or society. 2. A form of realist metaphysical thought, esp. in Plato, which sees Truth beyond the phenomenal, material world. 3. A part of Kantian philosophy in which real knowledge is achievable when one can transcend mere empiricism and ascertain the a priori. 4. A New England movement, associated most often with Ralph Waldo Emerson, that sought to express spiritual reality and the ideal, relying exclusively on intuition.
