GLOSSARY (Tillich)

Neurosis - the way of avoiding nonbeing by avoiding being, which is a lack of self-affirmation with imaginary protective walls of security that will overlook doubt on issues that are in need of it, submitting to authorities and structures that eliminate freedom, and at the same time, create doubt on areas that do not need it, that have been proven beyond the doubts entered upon it. Neurotic anxiety is the inability to take one's existential anxiety upon oneself.
Ontological - Ontology is any particular theory that pertains to the nature of being or the kinds of existents. Ontic, from the Greek On, "being, means here the basic self-affirmation of a being in its simple existence. Ontological designates the philosophical analysis of the nature of being.
Despair - is "that a being is aware of itself as unable to affirm itself because of the power of nonbeing. consequently it wants to surrender this awareness and its presupposition, the being which is aware." p. 55
Existential - The expression of the anxiety of meaninglessness and of the attempt to take this anxiety into the courage to be as oneself. A philosophy that emphasizes the uniqueness and isolation of the individual experience in a hostile or indifferent universe, regards human existence as unexplainable, and stresses freedom of choice and individual responsibility for the consequences of one's acts. It is the ambiguous structure and meaninglessness which drives to despair as the center to being. Anxiety in the existential awareness of nonbeing is not the abstract knowledge of nonbeing, which produces anxiety, but the awareness that nonbeing as a part of one's own being. "Twentieth-century man has lost a meaningful world and a self which lives in meanings out of a spiritual center. The man-created world of objects has drawn into itself him who created it and who now loses his subjectivity in it." p. 139
Nominalism - 1: theory that there are no universal essences in reality and that the mind can frame no single concept or image corresponding to any universal or general term. 2 : theory that only individuals and no abstract entities (as essences, classes, or propositions) exist.Nominalism can be described as splitting the universals into individual things, as the individualization of the whole, yet never fully leaving the collective thought of conformism and ceasing to fully enter into the individual and ambiguous nature of existentialism. Opposed to Realism.
Essentialism - A chiefly 20th century philosophical movement embracing diverse doctrines but centering on analysis of individual existence in an unfathomable universe and the plight of the individual who must assume ultimate responsibility for his acts of free will without any certain knowledge of what is right or wrong or good or bad. The philosophical theory ascribing ultimate reality to essence embodied in a thing perceptible to the senses.
Humanism - A philosophy that usually rejects supernaturalism and a supernatural God and stresses the individual's dignity, creativity, self-worth and capacity for self-realization, the creation through reason. Humanism can be both Existential and Non Existential. As humanistic Existential thinking, (The despair of Heidegger, and Sartre), contributes existence to the essence of man, yet remain ambiguous in meaninglessness and despair, while the Non Existential (Descartes - "I think, therefore I am"), removes all subjectivity, thus objectifying all meanings in that of human creation (dehumanization) and meaning.
Romanticism - An artistic and intellectual movement originating in Europe in the late 18th century and characterized by a heightened interest in nature, emphasis on the individual's expression of emotion and imagination, departure from the attitudes and forms of classicism, and rebellion against established social rules and conventions.
Classicism - Aesthetic attitudes and principles manifested in the art, architecture, and literature of ancient Greece and Rome and characterized by emphasis on form, simplicity, proportion, and restraint.
Bohematism - A person with artistic or literary interests who disregards conventional standards of behavior.
Naturalism - Philosophy:. The system of thought holding that all phenomena can be explained in terms of natural causes and laws. Theology: The doctrine that all religious truths are derived from nature and natural causes and not from revelation. Naturalism can be defined as a dogmatic secularism and opposition to a belief in the transcendent. Yet Naturalism is also a form of individualism, and when combined with Romanticism, can transcend natural causes that are immutably contained within objectivity, to that of natural causes in existential and ambiguous meaning.
Pragmatism - Philosophy. A movement consisting of varying but associated theories, by the doctrine that the meaning of an idea or a proposition lies in its observable practical and measurable consequences, that the meaning of conceptions is to be sought in their practical bearings, that the function of thought is to guide action, and that truth is preeminently to be tested by the practical consequences of belief. Originally developed by Charles S. Peirce and William James.
Collectivism - The principles or system of ownership and control of the means of production and distribution by the people collectively, usually under the supervision of a government.
Nihilism - Philosophy: a) An extreme form of skepticism that denies all existence. b) A doctrine holding that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated.
Macrocosm - The entire world; the universe.
Microcosmic - A small, representative system having analogies to a larger system in constitution, configuration, or development
Cynicism - Modern cynics are not ready to follow anybody. They have no belief in reason, no criterion of truth, no set of values, no answer to the question of meaning. They courageously reject any solution which would deprive them of their freedom of rejecting whatever they want to reject. In turn, they are lonely and empty of both preliminary meanings and an ultimate meaning and therefore easy victims of neurotic anxiety, susceptible to compulsive self-affirmation and fanatical self-surrender.
Idealism - The doctrine that ideas are the only reality. theory that the object of external perception, in itself or as perceived, consists of ideas. The system or theory that denies the existence of material bodies, and teaches that we have no rational grounds to believe in the reality of anything but ideas and their relations.
Solipsism - theory that the self is the only thing that can be known and verified, the theory or view that the self is the only reality. The philosophical theory that the self is all that you know to exist. A theory holding that the self can know nothing but its own modifications and that the self is the only existent thing.
Monads - An indivisible, impenetrable unit of substance viewed as the basic constituent element of physical reality in the metaphysics of Leibnitz.
Pantheism /Cosmotheism - Belief in and worship of all gods. A doctrine that equates God with the forces and laws of the universe. The doctrine that the universe, taken or conceived of as a whole, is God; the doctrine that there is no God but the combined force and laws which are manifested in the existing universe.
Realism - 1 : concern for fact or reality and rejection of the impractical and visionary 2 a : a doctrine that universals exist outside the mind; specifically : the conception that an abstract term names an independent and unitary reality b : the conception that objects of sense perception or cognition exist independently of the mind 3 : fidelity in art and literature to nature or to real life and to accurate representation without idealizationAn inclination toward literal truth and pragmatism, opposed to nominalism which is that of universals exist independently of their being thought. Also opposed to idealism, which is that physical objects exist independently of their being perceived.
Anxiety - A state of apprehension, uncertainty, and helplessness resulting from the anticipation of a realistic or fantasized threatening event or situation, often impairing physical and psychological functioning. Since there is no object but uncertainty, there is nothing conquer, only ambiguity.
Fear - A state or condition marked by the feeling of agitation and anxiety caused by the presence or imminence of danger or uncertainty. Unlike anxiety, fear has an object that can be conquered with self-affirmation and courage. Therefore anxiety must be converted into an object of fear.
Entelechy - In the philosophy of Aristotle, the condition of a thing whose essence is fully realized; actuality. In some philosophical systems, a vital force that directs an organism toward self-fulfillment.