Some people boil philosophy down to a list of definitions. In one sense, that is not entirely wrong. Every topic, including philosophy, religion, or tradition, can be partly understood through its tradition-specific vocabulary.
But definitions alone are too small. A better way to think about philosophy is in terms of frameworks. A framework is an organized set of ideas, assumptions, categories, methods, and vocabulary.
Alphabetical List of TST Terms
1. Abstract Entity — An abstract entity is a mental construct representing something non-material.
2. Action — An action is what a concrete object or abstract entity does or undergoes.
3. Actual — Actual refers to the realized state of a thing, including its current properties, form, condition, and category.
4. Agnostic — An agnostic position on a speculative claim does not pretend certainty.
5. Agnostic Spirituality — Agnostic spirituality does not claim knowledge of the supernatural. It is one of the three types of spirituality within the Material-Spiritual Framework.
6. Apathetic Agnostic — An Apathetic Agnostic position on a speculative claim does not pretend certainty and is not interested in active exploration.
7. Authentic Self — The Authentic Self is the self you become when you live honestly.
8. Concrete Object — A concrete object is a material thing that exists in reality.
9. Confucian Role Ethics — Confucian Role Ethics helps you with relationships. TST uses five traditional relationships plus ancestor veneration to explore normalcy and social continuity.
10. Daoist Natural Alignment — Daoist Natural Alignment helps you flow with reality. It teaches you to live with nature, simplicity, authenticity, and less forcing.
11. Dichotomy of Advice — A Personal Morality tool that sorts guidance into what should be restrained and what should be cultivated.
12. Dichotomy of Control — The Dichotomy of Control opens the Ethical Roadmap by identifying the moral agent and the boundaries of action.
13. Eightfold Path — The Eightfold Path is Buddhism’s practical roadmap for seeing clearly, acting ethically, training the mind, and walking a wiser life path.
14. Empirical Idea — An empirical idea is a direct description of the material world.
15. Empirical Pragmatist — An empirical-pragmatic worldview prioritizes empirical truth, and it treats practical usefulness as subordinate to observable reality.
16. Empirically True — An idea is empirically true when it is scientifically true.
17. Empiricist — The Empiricist is an OVM viewpoint of evidence-calibrated inquiry.
18. Epicurean Happiness Toolkit — The Epicurean Happiness Toolkit helps you manage pleasure by prioritizing the long-term over the short-term.
19. Essence — Essence refers to what a thing is, or is claimed to be, at its core.
20. Eternal Recurrence — Eternal Recurrence is Nietzsche’s test of life affirmation: could you honestly affirm this choice, pattern, or life if you had to live it again?
21. Eudaimonia — Eudaimonia is the happiness or well-being that comes from a flourishing life of virtue.
22. Existence — Existence refers to whether or not a thing exists.
23. Existential Lens — A Personal Morality tool for testing whether a choice honestly reflects the person the moral agent is trying to become.
24. Explorative Agnostic — An Explorative Agnostic position on a speculative claim does not pretend certainty but is interested in active exploration.
25. Five Thieves — The Five Thieves are inner forces that steal happiness. In TST, they belong under Personal Morality, specifically the Happiness branch.
26. Flourishing for All — The TST goal of supporting lasting well-being for individuals, groups, societies, and nature.
27. Framework — A framework is a structured set of ideas.
28. Free Will — Free Will is the degree of real choice a person has.
29. Good Intent — To act with good intent, you clarify group guidance. Weigh results. Apply personal morality. Forge a plan.
30. Group Ethics — Group ethics supplies the given guidance surrounding a decision.
31. Harm Principle — The Harm Principle says personal freedom should be protected unless a person harms others. In TST, it marks the boundary where Group Ethics begins.
32. Holistic Eudaimonia — Holistic Eudaimonia is an all-encompassing approach to well-being that cultivates flourishing for all through actions that produce good results and ripple into the unknown void.
33. Idea — An Idea is a mental construct that stems from impressions, describing concrete objects or abstract entities of the material world or beyond.
34. Idea Evaluation — Idea Evaluation is the practice of improving ideas.
35. Identity — Identity is the personal journey of exploring the self.
36. Ignorance Is Bliss — Ignorance Is Bliss is the balancing of knowing and suffering.
37. Illusion — An illusion is a false perception of reality.
38. Impermanence — Impermanence is the truth that reality is always changing. Everything flows, shifts, transforms, emerges, and passes away.
39. Irrational Idea — An irrational idea is an idea that is false in a logical setting.
40. Irrational Pragmatist — An irrational-pragmatic worldview prioritizes usefulness as sufficient reason to hold ideas as true.
41. Irrationally False — An idea is irrationally false when it lacks empirical support, fails logical consistency, or depends on unverified or disproven claims.
42. Karma — Karma is the idea that actions ripple. In TST, its common-ground meaning is cause and effect in moral life.
43. Material World — The material world is reality itself: the shared world that exists whether we notice it, name it, believe in it, or not.
44. Non-Self — Non-Self is the idea that the self cannot be located physically within your body.
45. Normalcy — Normalcy is your learned sense of what feels expected.
46. Open Viewpoint Method — The Open Viewpoint Method is a thinking tool for exploring ideas from more than one viewpoint.
47. OVM Linguistic Bridge — The OVM Linguistic Bridge facilitates cross belief understanding.
48. Personal Language — Personal language is the private meaning-world you carry inside words.
49. Personal Morality — The ethical responsibility and specific judgment used by a moral agent to choose what to do.
50. Personal Philosophy — Personal philosophy is the set of ideas you use to interpret life and decide how to live.
51. Personal Religion — Personal religion is your personal journey into spirituality and belief.
52. Philosophy of Fiction — Philosophy of Fiction studies how stories relate to reality. Its central dichotomy explores truth in fiction and alignment with reality in nonfiction.
53. Potential — Potential refers to what a thing can become or do within reality’s constraints.
54. Pragmatism — The view that ideas have value primarily by their practical, real-world results. Beliefs primarily matter by the difference they make in life.
55. Property — A property is an attribute of a concrete object or abstract entity.
56. Rational Idea — A rational idea is an indirect description of the material world.
57. Rational Pragmatist — A rational-pragmatic worldview prioritizes empirical and rational truth while retaining a limited set of personal beliefs.
58. Rationally True — An idea is rationally true when it is logically consistent within a rational framework and does not depend on irrational assumptions.
59. Reflective Inquiry — Reflective Inquiry is the practice of clearing self-illusion.
60. Relation — A relation is how a concrete object or abstract entity is connected to another.
61. Schema — A schema is the mind’s idea of a repeatable pattern.
62. Science-first — Science-first is an approach to claims anchored entirely in the material world.
63. Secular Spirituality — Science-first spiritual exploration of the self.
64. Social Construct — A social construct is a shared human-made idea that organizes life.
65. State — A state is the current configuration of a concrete object or abstract entity’s properties, actions, and relations.
66. Stoic Lens — A Personal Morality tool for choosing and acting through wisdom, courage, justice, temperance, and self-command.
67. Stoic Virtue Framework — The Stoic Virtue Framework helps you build virtue. It helps you foster good intent in the good intent-good results recipe.
68. True Believer — The True Believer is an OVM viewpoint of strong commitment to a claim or topic.
69. True Skeptic — The True Skeptic is an OVM viewpoint of strong doubt and a high threshold for belief.
70. TST Ethical Roadmap — Group ethics guides. Personal morality chooses. Act with good intent. Weigh the result. Adjust.
71. Two Tables of the Ten Commandments — The Two Tables of the Ten Commandments separates sacred conscience from civic law. In TST, it is a common floor for church-state separation and freedom of conscience.
72. Universal — A universal is a repeatable pattern among concrete objects, abstract entities, or both.
73. Unknowable Dao — The Unknowable Dao is a TST term that stems from the Dao of Daoism. It points to a mysterious universal reality that transcends language and thought, while also suggesting the ultimate reality and natural order.
74. Viewpoint Prevention — Viewpoint Prevention is the avoidance of a rigid mindset.
75. Worldview — A worldview is one’s interpretive lens, shaped by personal language, religion, and philosophy.
