Epistemology
Abduction
Inference to the best explanation: reasoning from observed facts toward the explanation that would make them most intelligible.
Epistemology
Adequate evidence
Support strong enough for the claim being made, given the stakes, alternatives, error costs, and available methods of checking.
Epistemology
Belief
An action-guiding commitment or confidence state that may be binary in ordinary speech but often needs to be graded in careful reasoning.
Philosophical Inquiry
Correspondence
The idea that truth depends on how claims relate to reality, not merely on usefulness, coherence, or social endorsement.
Epistemology
Credence
A degree of confidence rather than a simple yes-or-no belief; useful when evidence supports partial confidence.
Philosophy of Language
Equivocation
A reasoning failure in which the same word shifts meaning across an argument while pretending to remain stable.
Philosophy of Science
Induction
Reasoning from observed patterns toward broader expectations, always carrying the question of how far the pattern may responsibly travel.
Ethics
Moral non-realism
A family of views denying that moral claims describe objective moral facts in the realist sense, while still allowing moral language to do important work.
Ethics
Moral realism
The view that at least some moral claims are true independently of individual preference or social approval.
Ethics
Normativity
The force of should, ought, reason, permission, or obligation; the dimension of a claim that purports to guide action or evaluation.
Epistemology
Operational rigor
The habit of translating high-minded standards into visible practices: checks, thresholds, tests, objections, and revision procedures.
Philosophy of AI
Prompting
Question design for human-machine dialogue; at its best, a way of shaping the epistemic pressure under which an answer is produced.
Philosophy of Science
Scientism
The overextension of scientific authority into domains where empirical method may inform inquiry without exhausting it.
Philosophical Inquiry
Steel-manning
Reconstructing an opponent's position in its strongest plausible form before criticizing it.
Philosophical Inquiry
Worldview
A broad interpretive frame that organizes what a person treats as real, valuable, knowable, and worth doing.