Words of the Month (November 2024)-Terms from Logic

I could have put "soundness" instead or used "valid" and sound, but the point remains the same. Also, the argument in the example is neither valid nor sound since it commits the logical fallacy of affirming the consequent rather than affirming the antecedent.

Words of the Month

1. Nous/νοῦς (Greek)-mind, intellect,  intelligence, reason, intelligent faculty. See https://biblehub.com/greek/nous_3563.htm

https://www.billmounce.com/greek-dictionary/nous

2. Corpus (Latin)-"body, entity, group of people, collection, compendium." See https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/corpus

3. Amad (Hebrew)-to take one's stand, stand, stand forth. See https://www.biblestudytools.com/lexicons/hebrew/kjv/amad.html

Words of the Month (September 2024)

1) Paradoxical:

Main Entry: par·a·dox·i·cal Pronunciation: \ˌper-ə-ˈdäk-si-kəl, ˌpa-rə-\Function:  adjective
Date: 1598
1 a : of the nature of a paradox b : inclined to paradoxes
2 : not being the normal or usual kind <a paradoxical pulse> <paradoxical drug reactions>

[From Merriam-Webster online]

2) The German term "Welterfahrendesleben" which can be translated "life-experiencing-the-world."

3) ignoratio elenchi-"an ignorance of proof"

See https://www.thefreedictionary.com/ignoratio+elenchi?fbclid=IwY2xjawE3a2RleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHYnfpp993oFMjFN0RvPCrVJdvy6ZGO7wPoC6N2NyzP7zzleIuPMDLh4PBQ_aem_D-2QRQMq-R2u91ZJjHmbpA

Words of the Month (August 2024)

1. Haecceitas (Latin)-"Thisness" or specificity: it's a neologism evidently coined by the medieval philosopher-theologian Duns Scotus (died 1308 CE).

2. Postlapsarian (Latin)-When used theologically, the word can be defined this way:  "occurring after or due to the fall of humankind as expounded in the Bible"

See https://www.thefreedictionary.com/postlapsarian

3. Infralapsarian (Latin)-"any of a group of Calvinists who held that God's plan of salvation for some people followed and was a consequence of the fall of humankind from grace"

https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/infralapsarian

4. Hypostatic union (Greek derivation)- "union in one hypostasis

especially : the union of the divine and human natures of Christ in one hypostasis"

See https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hypostatic%20union

Words of the Month (July 2024)

1. Aphaeresis-The Encyclopedia of Rhetoric defines this term as "a subtractive metaphoneme that omits sounds at the beginning of a word." An example of this device is found in Shakespeare: "Use every man after his desert, and who should 'scape whipping?" (Hamlet 2.2.529-530)

2. Occasionalism-Malebranche and al-Ghazali apparently held to this line of thought. Simply put, it  teaches that God makes our thoughts and bodily motions coincide and that God is the only cause of our mental and somatic activities.

SEP: "A full-blown occasionalist, like Malebranche, then, might be described as one who subscribes to the following two tenets: (1) the positive thesis that God is the only genuine cause; (2) the negative thesis that no creaturely cause is a genuine cause but at most an occasional cause."

3. Inter alios/inter alia-See https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/inter%20alios

Words of the Month (June 2024)

1. Kakistocracy (noun)- "government by the worst citizens." See https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/kakistocracy

The word has a Greek etymology.

2. Apodeictic-"unquestionably true by virtue of demonstration"

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/apodeictic

The adjective has Latin and Greek roots.

3. "Pusillanimity" which means "Want of that firmness and strength of mind which constitutes courage or fortitude; weakness of spirit; cowardliness; that feebleness of mind which shrinks from trifling or imaginary dangers" (Webster's 1928 English Dictionary. From the Latin abstract noun "pusillanimitas.")

4. Egoism-"Ethics. the view that morality ultimately rests on self-interest."

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/egoism

Words of the Month (May 2024)

1) Magniloquent:
"speaking in or characterized by a high-flown often bombastic style or manner."

Its usage dates "back to 1650–60; back formation from Latin magniloquentia elevated language, equivalent to magniloqu ( us ) speaking grandly ( magni- magni- + loqu ( ī ) to speak + -us adj. suffix) + -entia -ence.

See https://www.merriam-webster.com/word-of-the-day/magniloquent-2019-03-24?pronunciation&lang=en_us&dir=m&file=magnil02

2) Schonheit (German)-"beauty, fineness, belle." See https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/german-english/schonheit

3) Vermissen (German)-"to miss, to be missing, to fail to see, to regret."

4) Χήρα (Greek)-primarily, a "widow" or a woman left without a husband. See https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0057:entry=xh/ra

Words of the Month (April 2024)

1. Etymological origin of rigmarole:

"alteration of obsolete 'ragman roll' (long list, catalog)

First Known Use: circa 1736"

Thanks, M-W!


2. Anosognosia.

Neuroscientist Vilayanur S. Ramachandran describes this phenomenon as a "curious disorder" that entails being unable to determine whether one's left arm or leg is paralyzed (Phantoms in the Brain, p. 128). The French neurologist Joseph Francois Babinski evidently coined this term after he observed it clinically in 1908.

"The term anosognosia now more broadly refers to a neurologically based denial of illness and unawareness of disability, not limited to patients with hemiplegia."

(Taken from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4140620/)

The etymology of anosognosia is ancient Greek, coming from nosos + gnosis.

Both of the next words are German terms:

3. Zeitschrift-"periodical, journal, magazine."

4. Wirkungsgeschichte-"historical consequences" or "reception history."

https://www.dict.cc/deutsch-englisch/Wirkungsgeschichte.html

Words of the Month (March 2024)

1. Naufragous has been defined as "causing shipwreck." See https://www.wordnik.com/words/naufragous

The word reminds me of 1 Timothy 1:19-ἔχων πίστιν καὶ ἀγαθὴν συνείδησιν, ἥν τινες ἀπωσάμενοι περὶ τὴν πίστιν ἐναυάγησαν·

2. Prolegomenon-(Oxford Languages)-a critical or discursive introduction to a book. The plural form is prolegomena.

3. Catachresis-From the Oxford English Grammar, page 58:

(Plural catachreses.) The (perceived) erroneous use of a term applied to a concept.

1926 H. W. FOWLER Wrong application of a term, use of words in senses
that do not belong to them.

An old-fashioned term, originally rhetorical. Examples given by Fowler
were the ‘popular’ use of chronic = ‘severe’, asset = ‘advantage’, conservative
(as in conservative estimate) = ‘low’, annex = ‘win’, and mutual =
‘common’.

1589 G. PUTTENHAM Catachresis, or the Figure of abuse . . . if for lacke of
naturall and proper terme or worde we take another, neither naturall nor
proper and do vntruly applie it to the thing which we would seeme to expresse.
 catachrestic, catachrestically.

Words of the Month (February 2024)

1) Anastrophe (English)-"Anastrophe is a rhetorical term for the inversion of conventional word order. It is often used to emphasize one or more of the reversed words." See https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-anastrophe-rhetoric-1689094 Some sources call anastrophe a form of hyperbaton. Examples: Magna cum laude, Summa cum laude; "This love feel I, that feel no love in this" (Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare). One other example from the Roman poet Virgil is Ītaliam contrā, which = contrā Ītaliam. See https://hands-up-education.org/aen1notes2/index.html

Other examples might include Latin constructions, stimulo parentali and emendatione observata. 

2) Anadiplosis (English)-"repetition of the last word or words of one clause or line of verse, at the beginning of the next (Ex.: 'He gave his life; his life was all he could give.')"
See https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/anadiplosis

3) Epistemic (English)-"Wherever it is used, epistemic traces back to the knowledge of the Greeks. It comes from epistēmē, Greek for 'knowledge.' That Greek word is from the verb epistanai, meaning 'to know or understand,' a word formed from the prefix epi- (meaning 'upon"'or 'attached to') and histanai (meaning 'to cause to stand')." See https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/epistemic

Words of the Month (January 2024)

1) The English word "geodesic" has the potential meaning: "relating to or involving the geometry of curved surfaces. noun. 2. Also called: geodesic line. the shortest line between two points on a curved or plane surface" (Collins English Dictionary).

2) Oxymoron (English)-According to Google's Generative AI: "An oxymoron is a figure of speech that combines contradictory words to create a new meaning. For example, 'old news,' 'deafening silence,' or 'organized chaos' are all oxymorons."

Oxford Languages: "a figure of speech in which apparently contradictory terms appear in conjunction (e.g. faith unfaithful kept him falsely true ).

'that fashionable rhetorical novelty, the humblebrag, is itself an oxymoron'"

3) חָרַף (Hebrew)-transliterated, the word is charaph. Michael V. Fox translates charaph as "insults" in Proverbs 27:11. William McKane (in his Proverbs commentary) uses the verbs "denigrate" and vilify" to communicate the idea behind the Hebrew. Another way to translate it would be "reproach" or "taunt."

1. 
   

Words of the Month (December 2023)

1. The English word "agglutination" may denote the "Combination in which root words are united with little or no change of form or loss of meaning" (Webster Dictionary, 1913).

Definition given by AI: "Agglutination is a linguistic term that refers to languages where words are made up of easily distinguishable units, or morphemes. The meaning of a word in an agglutinative language can be understood by breaking it down into its base word and word endings"

Compare the Turkish word ev-ler-du ( evlerdu = from the houses). Here, the word contains a stem and two further morphemes.

See http://www.ello.uos.de/field.php/Morphology/AgglutinatingIncorporatingAndInfixingLanguages

2. Anomalous monism (English)-Collins Dictionary gives this definition: "the philosophical doctrine that although all mental states consist merely in states of the brain, there exist no regular correspondences between classes of mental and physical states, and so no psychophysical laws"

This terminology was first proffered by Donald Davidson in 1970: anomalous monism implies that mental states or events are reducible to physical states or events.

3. σοφία (Greek)-A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament (Abbott-Smith) defines the word thus: "[in LXX chiefly for chokmah] skill, intelligence, wisdom, ranging from knowledge of the arts and matters of daily life to mental excellence in its highest and fullest sense"

See the entry for sophia to access the entire definition given in A-S; compare BDAG.

Words of the Month (November 2023)

1. Luke 4:16 in the Latin Vulgate reads: et venit Nazareth ubi erat nutritus et intravit secundum consuetudinem suam die sabbati in synagogam et surrexit legere

I was curious about the word, nutritus, which one translation renders "brought up." The morphological form nutritus in Latin is a participle singular perfect passive masculine nominative of nutrior, which is a deponent verb.

According to the Dictionary of the Vulgate NT (page 80), the word in Luke 4:16 (Vg) could mean "nurse, rear" in this context.

2. "Isotropic" denotes "exhibiting properties (as velocity of light transmission) with the same values when measured along axes in all directions."

— isot·ro·py \ī-ˈsä-trə-pē\ noun
Origin of ISOTROPIC
International Scientific Vocabulary
First Known Use: 1856
From Merriam-Webster Online 

The universe is said to be isotropic.

3. Black box functionalism-"The mind is a black box, to be explained solely in terms of inputs and outputs. The internal workings of the mind, the black box, that transform the input into the output are internal, hidden from our view, and they are of no concern to the theory. Mental phenomena, such as pain, are reducible to the abstract information-processing functions of a black box. (Input-output plus internal information processing)."

See https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/users/philosophy/courses/100/eb9mich00n.htm#:~:text=Black%20Box%20functionalism%20(e.g.%20David,no%20concern%20to%20the%20theory.

Words of the Month (October 2023)

1. χάρις (Greek)-The KJV famously translates this word as "grace," but that is somewhat vague. χάρις apparently occurs 156 times in the NT and KJV renders it "grace" 130 times. However, other ways to render the word are "undeserved kindness" or "unmerited favor." Paul employs the term over 100 times.

2. δόξα (Greek)-Depending on the context, the word may denote "glory, reputation, opinion" or "splendor/radiance." See https://www.billmounce.com/greek-dictionary/doxa

Compare 2 Corinthians 3:18

3. Secularism (English)-"the belief that religion should not be involved with the ordinary social and political activities of a country" (Cambridge English Dictionary).

Words of the Month (September 2023)

1. Wirkensgesetze (German) which can be translated in some contexts as "causal laws."

Think of Wirkensgesetze in terms of "causal connections." Causal connections describe a relation (r) between an event (A) and another event (B) where event A might be a baseball hitting the window and event B is the window breaking.

2. πρωτότοκος (Greek)-Louw-Nida offers this comment on the word as used in the GNT, particularly at Colossians 1:15.

See Semantic Domain 13.79. There, this lexicon notes that the word may denote: "pertaining to existing prior to something else - ‘existing first, existing before." It states that the construction in Colossians 1:15 could be translated  "existing before all creation" or "existing before anything was created." Col 1.15, an occurrence which is taken to be a figurative use of "firstborn." Moreover, Louw-Nida professes that the word possibly means "superior in status" in Colossians (see 10.39-43; 87.47).

Christopher Beetham offers this perspective on prototokos and related concepts (Echoes of Scripture in the Letter of Paul to the Colossians, page 127):

The word is clearly connected to the ideas of primacy in rank and authority to rule. The reason for the title stems in part also from the idea that the Word or Wisdom existed before the rest of creation,62 as the firstborn of a family would exist before other siblings. This latter concept of temporal priority, as we observed, was the central concern of Prov 8:22–31. According to Philo, the Word/Wisdom is the agent “through whom the universe came into existence.”63 It is “antecedent to all that has come into existence,” the “rudder” by which God “guides all things on their course,” and the “instrument” that “God employed” “when He was fashioning the world” (cf. Col 1:16–17a).

Words of the Month (August 2023)

1. Agnosticism (English)-"In 1869, English biologist T.H. Huxley coined this noun referring to someone whose religious beliefs lie somewhere in between those of a theist and an atheist — that is, a believer and a disbeliever. Huxley combined the Greek prefix a-, meaning 'not,' with gnostos, 'known.' This word can be used as a noun or adjective, and it can also refer to uncertainty about questions other than the existence of God: 'Some philosophers remain agnostic as to whether people have free will.'"

From https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/agnostic

2. Value Pluralism (English)-"Foundational pluralism is the view that there are plural moral values at the most basic level—that is to say, there is no one value that subsumes all other values, no one property of goodness, and no overarching principle of action. Non-foundational pluralism is the view that there are plural values at the level of choice, but these apparently plural values can be understood in terms of their contribution to one more fundamental value."

See https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/value-pluralism/

3. οὗτος (Greek)- οὗτος and ὅδε this usually refer to something near in place, time, or thought; ἐκεῖνος that refers to something more remote. οὑτοσί_ and ὁδί_ are emphatic, deictic (333 g) forms (this here).

From https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0007%3Apart%3D4%3Achapter%3D41%3Asection%3D87

Wiktionary calls οὗτος, a "medial demonstrative determiner and pronoun"

Words of the Month (July 2023)

1. Haustafeln (German)-Scholars employ this term in New Testament studies to describe the "household codes" contained in Ephesians 5:22-6:9 and Colossians 3:18-4:1. See also 1 Peter 2:13-3:7. For more information, see https://dbpedia.org/page/New_Testament_household_code

2. Soter (Greek)-Word normally translated as "Savior." See Titus 2:13.

Brill Dictionary of Ancient Greek: