| metaphysics | the area of philosophy concerned with fundamental questions about the nature of reality
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| metaphysical monism | a metaphysical position that claims that there is only one kind of reality
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| metaphysical dualism | a metaphysical position that claims that there are two kinds of realities
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| metaphysical materialism | a type of monism that claims that reality is totally physical in nature
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| idealism | a type of monism that claims that reality is entirely mental or spiritual in nature
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| Ockham's razor | the principle that we should eliminate (shave off) all unnecessary entities and explanatory principles in our theories
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| ontology | the area of metaphysics that asks what is most fundamentally real
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| mind-body dualism | the claim that the mind and the body (which includes the brain) are separate entities.
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| physicalism | the theory that human beings can be explained completely and adequately in terms of their physical or material components
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| interactionism | a type of dualism that claims that the mind and body, though different, causally interact with one another
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| identity theory | a type of physicalism that denies the existence of a separate, nonphysical mind but retains language that refers to the mind; also called reductionism
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| reductionism | see identity theory
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| eliminativism | a type of physicalism that denies the existence of a separate, nonphysical mind and discards all language that refers to mental events
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| functionalism | a philosophy that claims that the mind is characterized by particular patterns of input-processing-output
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| folk psychology | pejorative term used by eliminativists to characterize traditional psychological theories
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| multiple realizability | he property by which something can be realized, embodied, instantiated in multiple ways and in different media
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| Turing Test | test produced by Alan Turing to determine whether a computer can think or not
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| strong AI thesis | the claim that an appropriately programmed computer really is a mind and can be said to literally understand, believe, and have other cognitive states
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| weak AI thesis | the claim that artificial intelligence research may help us explore various theoretical models of human mental processes, while acknowledging that computers only simulate mental activities
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| intentionality | a feature of certain mental states (such as beliefs) by which they are directed at or are about objects or states of affairs in the world
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| circumstantial freedom | the ability and the opportunity to perform whatever action we choose, that is, freedom from external forces, obstacles, and natural limitations that restrict or compel our actions
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| metaphysical freedom | the power of the self to choose among genuine alternatives; free will
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| determinism | the claim that all events are the necessary result of previous causes
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| incompatibilism | the claim that determinism is incompatible with the sort of freedom required to be morally responsible for our behavior
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| hard determinism | the dual claims that (1) having metaphysical freedom is a necessary condition for people to be morally responsible for their choices in any meaningful sense of the word and (2) we do not have the metaphysical freedom required for moral responsibility
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| libertarianism | the thesis that we do have metaphysical freedom; a rejection of determinism
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| compatibilism | the thesis that we are both determined and have the sort of freedom necessary to be morally responsible for our actions; sometimes called soft determinism
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| theological determinist | one who believes that God is the ultimate cause of everything that happens in the world, including human actions
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| pantheism | the belief that God constitutes the whole of reality and that everything in nature, including individual persons, are modes or aspects of God's being
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| behaviorism | a psychological theory that limits the scope of psychology to the scientific study of publicly observable behaviors and their causes while rejecting any explanations that refer to interior mental states or processes
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| agency theory | a version of libertarianism that rejects both determinism and indeterminism; this theory claims that events are brought about by agents
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| event-causation | occurs when a prior event necessarily causes a subsequent event
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| agent-causation | occurs when an event is brought about through the free action of an agent (person, self)
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| facticity | Sartre's term for those features of our past or present that we were not free to choose and yet they seem to set limits on the course of our lives
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| transcendence | Sartre's term for the root of our freedom, for our ability to define ourselves by our possibilities and all the ways in which each of us is continually creating our own future in terms of our choices, our plans, our dreams, and our ambitions
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| bad faith | Sartre's term for when we deny our freedom and our responsibility for who we are
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| soft determinism | see compatibilism
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