Glossary

The Parity Principle is a philosophical heuristic stating that if an external resource performs a function that we would readily classify as cognitive if it occurred inside the head, then that resource should be considered a literal part of the cognitive system, regardless of its location.

The Five Aggregates (Skandhas in Sanskrit, Khandhas in Pali) are the five dynamic, interacting components that constitute human experience: form (rupa), sensation (vedana), perception (sanna), mental formations (sankhara), and consciousness (vinnana). Buddhism uses this classification to d

Anatta is the Buddhist concept of non-self or the absence of a permanent, unchanging ego-entity. It is one of the Three Marks of Existence (Tilakkhana), alongside impermanence (anicca) and unsatisfactoriness (dukkha), serving as the metaphysical cornerstone of Buddhist liberation.

Facticity (facticité) is the existentialist term for the concrete, unalterable givens of our existence that we did not choose—such as our place of birth, historical era, biological makeup, and past actions. In Sartre's philosophy, facticity represents the objective limits of our situation,

"Grue" and "Bleen" are artificial, time-dependent color predicates coined by philosopher Nelson Goodman in 1954. They demonstrate how identical empirical data can support contradictory future predictions, revealing that our choice of scientific and everyday language is based on linguistic

Transcendence (transcendance) is the existential capacity of consciousness to project itself beyond its current circumstances, past actions, and immediate physical reality. In Sartre's philosophy, it is our radical freedom to choose our attitude and our future, meaning we are never defined

The Last Man (German: der letzte Mensch) is Friedrich Nietzsche's prophetic archetype of the modern individual who has traded existential depth, creative struggle, and the pursuit of greatness for absolute physical security, predictable comfort, and homogenized social conformity.

A philosophical zombie is a theoretical construct used in the philosophy of mind to demonstrate that physical facts alone do not logically entail or explain the existence of subjective conscious experience (qualia).

The Mere Addition Paradox is the multi-step logical argument used by Derek Parfit to prove the Repugnant Conclusion. It shows that adding a group of people with lives worth living to a population (without affecting the original group) must make the world better or at least no worse, yet a

Patterned principles of justice are theories of distribution which dictate that goods should be allocated according to some specific natural dimension, combination of dimensions, or shifting end-state—such as moral merit, IQ, usefulness to society, or equal share—rather than through the hi