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 reminds you to focus on fulfilling your role with others without trying to control theirs.
10. Consciousness — Experiencing reality using senses and cognitive abilities.
11. Daoist Natural Alignment — Daoist Natural Alignment helps you flow with reality. It teaches you to live with nature, simplicity, authenticity, and less forcing.
12. Dichotomy of Advice — A Personal Morality tool that sorts guidance into what should be restrained and what should be cultivated.
13. Dichotomy of Control — The Dichotomy of Control separates what is yours to control from what is not.
14. Eightfold Path — The Eightfold Path is Buddhism’s practical roadmap for seeing clearly, acting ethically, training the mind, and walking a wiser life path.
15. Empirical Idea — An empirical idea is a direct description of the material world.
16. Empirical Pragmatist — An empirical-pragmatic worldview prioritizes empirical truth, and it treats practical usefulness as subordinate to observable reality.
17. Empirically True — An idea is empirically true when it is a validated and supported direct description of reality.
18. Empiricist — The Empiricist is an OVM viewpoint of evidence-calibrated inquiry.
19. Epicurean Happiness Toolkit — Embrace your journey by living today the way you want to feel tomorrow. Choose pleasures that leave your future self better off.
20. Essence — Essence refers to what a thing is, or is claimed to be, at its core.
21. Eternal Recurrence — Eternal Recurrence is Nietzsche’s test of life affirmation: could you honestly affirm a specific choice in this life if you had to live it over and over?
22. Eudaimonia — Eudaimonia is the happiness or well-being that comes from a flourishing life of virtue.
23. Existence — Existence refers to whether or not a thing exists.
24. Existential Lens — A Personal Morality tool for testing whether a choice honestly reflects the person the moral agent is trying to become.
25. Explorative Agnostic — An Explorative Agnostic position on a speculative claim does not pretend certainty but is interested in active exploration.
26. Five Thieves — The Five Thieves are inner forces that steal happiness. In TST, they belong under Personal Morality, specifically the Happiness branch.
27. Flourishing for All — The TST goal of supporting lasting well-being for individuals, groups, societies, and nature.
28. Framework — A framework is a structured set of ideas.
29. Free Will — Free Will is the degree of real choice a person has.
30. Good Intent — To act with good intent, you clarify group guidance. Weigh results. Apply personal morality. Forge a plan.
31. Group Ethics — Group ethics supplies the given guidance surrounding a decision.
32. 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.
33. 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.
34. Idea — An idea forms when a mind recognizes or interprets an impression, or connects two or more impressions.
35. Idea Evaluation — Idea Evaluation is the practice of improving ideas.
36. Identity — Identity is how you see yourself in the world. Exploring it is a personal journey of the self.
37. Ignorance Is Bliss — Ignorance Is Bliss is the balancing of knowing and suffering.
38. Illusion — An illusion is a false perception of reality.
39. Impermanence — Impermanence is the truth that reality is always changing. Everything flows, shifts, transforms, emerges, and passes away.
40. Impression — Impressions inform the mind. Live impressions arise from experience and settle into the mind or fade. They bridge senses, perception, and ideas.
41. Irrational Idea — An irrational idea is an idea that is false in a logical setting.
42. Irrational Pragmatist — An irrational-pragmatic worldview prioritizes usefulness as sufficient reason to hold ideas as true.
43. Irrationally False — An idea is irrationally false when it lacks empirical support, fails logical consistency, or depends on unverified or disproven claims.
44. Karma — Karma is the idea that actions ripple. In TST, its common-ground meaning is cause and effect in moral life.
45. Material World — The material world is reality itself: the shared world that exists whether we notice it, name it, believe in it, or not.
46. Memory — A memory is a retained impression as currently represented by the mind.
47. Non-Self — Non-Self is the idea that the self cannot be located physically within your body.
48. Normalcy — Normalcy is your learned sense of what feels expected.
49. Open Viewpoint Method — The Open Viewpoint Method is a thinking tool for exploring ideas from more than one viewpoint.
50. OVM Linguistic Bridge — The OVM Linguistic Bridge facilitates cross belief understanding.
51. Perception — Perception is the experiencing of sensory information.
52. Personal Language — Personal language is the private meaning-world you carry inside words.
53. Personal Morality — The ethical responsibility and specific judgment used by a moral agent to choose what to do.
54. Personal Philosophy — Personal philosophy is the set of ideas you use to interpret life and decide how to live.
55. Personal Religion — Personal religion is your personal journey into spirituality and belief.
56. 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.
57. Potential — Potential refers to what a thing can become or do within reality’s constraints.
58. Pragmatism — The view that ideas have value primarily by their practical, real-world results. Beliefs primarily matter by the difference they make in life.
59. Prelinguistic Thought — A prelinguistic thought is a thought that takes shape before it is formulated in language.
60. Property — A property is an attribute of a concrete object or abstract entity.
61. Rational Idea — A rational idea is an indirect description of the material world.
62. Rational Pragmatist — A rational-pragmatic worldview prioritizes empirical and rational truth while retaining a limited set of personal beliefs.
63. Rationally True — An idea is rationally true when it is logically consistent inside a rational framework and has empirical application.
64. Reflective Inquiry — Reflective Inquiry is the practice of clearing self-illusion.
65. Relation — A relation is how a concrete object or abstract entity is connected to another.
66. Schema — A schema is the mind’s idea of a repeatable pattern.
67. Science-first — Science-first is an approach to claims anchored entirely in the material world.
68. Secular Spirituality — Science-first spiritual exploration of the self.
69. Sense — A sense is the ability to detect information about the external world or the internal state of the body.
70. Social Construct — A social construct is a shared human-made idea that organizes life.
71. State — A state is the current configuration of a concrete object or abstract entity’s properties, actions, and relations.
72. Stoic Lens — A Personal Morality tool for choosing and acting through wisdom, courage, justice, temperance, and self-command.
73. Stoic Virtue Framework — The Stoic Virtue Framework helps you build virtue. It helps you foster good intent in the good intent-good results recipe.
74. True Believer — The True Believer is an OVM viewpoint of strong commitment to a claim or topic.
75. True Skeptic — The True Skeptic is an OVM viewpoint of strong doubt and a high threshold for belief.
76. TST Ethical Roadmap — Group ethics guides. Personal morality chooses. Act with good intent. Weigh the result. Adjust.
77. Two Tables of the Ten Commandments — The Two Tables of the Ten Commandments separates sacred conscience from civic law. A common floor for church-state separation, it promotes freedom of conscience.
78. Universal — A universal is a repeatable pattern among concrete objects, abstract entities, or both.
79. 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.
80. Viewpoint Prevention — Viewpoint prevention is the avoidance of a rigid mindset.
81. Worldview — A worldview is one’s interpretive lens, shaped by personal language, religion, and philosophy.