PAPER NO. 67

CONCEPTUAL MAP

A conceptual map helps us to locate where we are intellectually. It enables us to locate differences appropriately and thus help to avoid secondary disputes and to address the more basic disputes. A conceptual map therefore helps to find meaning and to settle disputes.

  1. Epistemology

    1. Definition of ‘know’: cognitivism; justified true belief vs. objections.
    2. Skepticism: knowledge is not possible; Fideism: belief without proof/understanding.
    3. Empiricism: common sense, science, intuition, mystical experience.
    4. Rationalism: reason as a source of truth (vs. test for meaning).
    5. Testimony: human (tradition), divine (scripture).
    6. Rational Presuppositionalism: thinking of the less basic in light of the more basic.
  2. Metaphysics

    1. Definition of ‘being’: being and non-being; aspects of being; existence and essence; substance: matter and spirit; temporal and eternal; finite and infinite.
    2. Becoming without being: none is eternal—all is process.
    3. Material monism: all is eternal—matter.
    4. Spiritual monism: all is eternal—spirit.
    5. Dualism: all is eternal—matter and spirit.
    6. Theism: only God is eternal—God the creator.
  3. Ethics

    1. Definition of ‘the good’: the end in itself, the highest value, the source of unity, the moral absolute—not the effect or a means, based on human nature, one, clear.
    2. Ethical relativism: there is no rational justification for a universal moral standard.
    3. Hedonism: pleasure/happiness is the good; individual vs. collective.
    4. Deontology: some things are right or good in themselves.
    5. Humanism: instinctual, theoretical, existential forms of human autonomy.
    6. Moral Law: there is a moral law which is clear—based on human nature, comprehensive—applies to all choice, and critical—consequence of life or death.

This paper was originally developed for an Introduction to Logic course.


© 1992 Logos Papers Press