A barrier is something, either real or immaterial, that obstructs or prevents one thing from accessing another thing. A fence is a barrier in that it obstructs people from accessing what is on the opposite side of the fence. A cattle grid is a barrier to cloven-hooved animals, precenting their passage over the grid, while allowing vehicles and other animals free passage. Barrier creams are substances which prevent germs, water, the sun's rays or other substances from reaching the skin or a wound. In abstract terms, language can be a barrier to communication, if two people do not speak a common language then communication between them is seriously impaired and obstructed. Research Barrier
Brahmanism is a religious and social system prevalent amongst the Hindus, and so called because it was developed and expounded by the sacerdotal caste known as the Brahmans. Brahmanism is founded on the ancient religious writings known as the Vedas and regarded as sacred revelations, of which the Brahmans as a body became custodians and interpreters, being also the officiating priests and the general directors of sacrifices and religious rites.
As the priestly caste increased in numbers and power they went on elaborating the ceremonies, and added to the Vedas other writings tending to confirm the excessive pretensions of this now predominant caste, and give them the sanction of a revelation. The earliest supplements to the Vedas are the Brahmanas, more fully explaining the functions of the officiating priests. Both together form the revealed Scriptures of the Hindus.
In time the caste of Brahmans came to be accepted as a divine institution, and an elaborate system of rules defining and enforcing by the severest penalties its place as well as that of the inferior castes was promulgated. Other early castes were the Kshattriyas or warriors, and the Vaisyas or cultivators, and it was not without a struggle that the former recognized the superiority of the Brahmans. It was by the Brahmans that the Sanskrit literature was developed;
and they were not only the priests, theologians, and philosophers, but also the poets, men of science, lawgivers, administrators, and statesmen of the Aryans of India.
The sanctity and inviolability of a Brahman are maintained by severe penalties. The murder of one of the order, robbing him, etc, are inexpiable sins; even the killing of his cow can only be expiated by a painful penance. A Brahman should pass through four states: First, as Brahmachari, or novice, he begins the study of the sacredVedas, and is initiated into the privileges and the duties of his caste. He has a right to alms, to exemption from taxes, and from capital and even corporal punishment. Flesh and eggs he is not allowed to eat. Leather, skins of animals, and most animals themselves are impure and not to be touched by him. When manhood comes he ought to marry, and as Grihastha enter the second state, which requires more numerous and minute observances. When he has begotten a son and trained him up for the holy calling he ought to enter the third state, and as Vanaprastha, or inhabitant of the forest, retire from the world for solitary praying and meditation, with severe penances to purify the spirit; but this and the fourth or last state of a Sannyasi, requiring a cruel degree of asceticism, are now seldom reached, and the whole scheme is to be regarded as representing rather the Brahmanical ideal of life than the actual facts.
The worship represented in the oldest Vedic literature is that of natural objects: the sky, personified in the god Indra; the dawn, in Ushas; the various attributes of the sun, in Vishnu, Surya, Agni, etc. These gods were invoked for assistance in the common affairs of life, and were propitiated by offerings which, at first few and simple, afterwards became more complicated and included animal sacrifices. In the later Vedic hymns a philosophical conception of religion and the problems of being and creation appears struggling into existence; and this tendency is systematically developed by the supplements and commentaries known as the Brahmanas and the Upanishads. In some of the Upanishads the deities of the old Vedic creed are treated as symbolical. Brahma, the supreme soul, is the only reality, the world is regarded as an emanation from him, and the highest good of the soul is to become united with the divine. The necessity for the purification of the soul in order to its reunion with the divine nature gave rise to the doctrine of metempsychosis or transmigration.
This philosophical development of Brahmanism gave rise to a distinct separation between the educated and the vulgar creeds. Whilst from the fifth to the first century BC the higher thinkers amongst the Brahmans were developing a philosophy which recognized that there was but one god, the popular creed had concentrated its ideas of worship round three great deities - Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, who now took the place of the confused old Vedic Pantheon. Brahma, the creator, though considered the most exalted of the three, was too abstract an idea to become a, popular god, and soon sank almost out of notice. Thus the Brahmans became divided between Vishnu, the preserver, and Siva, the destroyer and reproducer, and the worshippers of these two deities now form the two great religious sects of India. Siva, in his philosophical significance, is the deity mostly worshipped by the conventional Brahman, while in his aspect of the Destroyer, or in one of his female manifestations, he is the god of the low castes, and was often worshipped with degrading rites. But the highly cultivated Brahman was still a pure theist, and the educated Hindu in general professes to regard the special deity he chooses for worship as merely a form under which the One First Cause may be approached
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The sharp division of the people of India into 'civilized' Aryans and crude non-Aryans had a great influence upon Brahmanism, and thus the spiritual conceptions of the old Vedic creed were mixed in later Hinduism with superstitions and customs belonging to the so-called aboriginal races. Suttee, for example, or the burning of widows, has no authority in the Veda, but like most of the darker features of Hinduism is the result of a compromise which the Brahmanical teachers had to make with the non-Aryan races in India. The Buddhist religion has also had an important influence on the Brahmanic.
The system of caste originally no doubt represented distinctions of race. The early classification of the people was that of 'twice-born' Aryans (priests, warriors, husbandmen) and once-born non-Aryans (serfs); but intermarriages, giving rise to a mixed progeny, and the variety of employments in later times, profoundly modified this simple classification. Innumerable minor distinctions have grown up, so that amongst the Brahmans alone there are several hundred castes who traditionally cannot intermarry or eat food cooked by each other.
The Brahmans represent the highest culture of India, and as the result of centuries of education and self-restraint have evolved a type of man considered by the West as distinctly superior to the castes around them. They still had great influence at the start of the 20th century, and occupied the highest places at the courts of princes. Many, however, were driven by need or other motives into trades and employments inconsistent with the original character of their caste. Research Brahmanism
In logic, concrete is a technical term applied to an object as it exists in nature, invested with all its attributes, or to the notion of such an object. Concrete is opposite to abstract. The names of individuals are concrete; those of classes, abstract. A concrete name is a name which stands for a thing; an abstract name is a name which stands for the attribute of a thing.
The Eleatic School was a Grecian philosophical sect, so called because it originated in Elea (Latin, Velia), a town of Magna Graecia in Southern Italy, of which also three of its most celebrated teachers, Parmenides, Zeno, and Leucippus, were natives. The founder was Xenophanes of Colophon, who came to Elea late in life, bringing with him the physical theories of the Ionian school, to which he added a metaphysic. The two schools soon drifted widely apart especially in respect of method. Starting from the observation of external nature, the lonians endeavoured to discover some elementary principle, as water, air, fire, or a combination of elements, by the action of which the phenomena they observed might be accounted for. The Eleans made the abstract idea of Being or God, deduced from the contemplation of the universe as a whole, their starting-point; and their reasonings sometimes led them to deny the reality of external phenomena altogether. Research Eleatic School
Ethics (from the Greek ethikos, 'dealing with nature'), in philosophy, can roughly be characterised as dividing into three parts: normative ethics; practical ethics; and meta-ethics. Normative ethics is the study of general normative principles or virtues. There are various doctrines concerning general normative principles. Altruists hold that when deciding how to act one ought to take the interests of others into account, as well as one's own. Hedonists hold that one ought to pursue only pleasure or happiness for oneself and others. The Golden Rule states that one should act towards others-as one wants them to act towards oneself. Consequentialists believe that one ought to do whatever will have the best consequences. (Utilitarianism, the doctrine that one ought to do whatever will maximise well-being or happiness is one version of consequentialism). Deontologists hold that the rightness or wrongness of actions is a matter of how they accord with moral rules, not of their consequences.
One must obey the rule that one ought to tell the truth, even if the consequences of breaking the rule would be better. Others hold that rightness or wrongness cannot be captured by a set of moral rules at all, and that it is not simply the consequences of an action which determine its moral status. Rather, one ought to be a virtuous person, one who has certain emotional reactions to various situations, reactions which lead one to behave in ways which are virtuous, honest, generous or kind. Practical ethics is the study of specific, practical ethical problems such as abortion, euthanasia, war and out treatment of animals. Clearly, the study of practical ethical issues is not independent of the study of general normative principles. General normative principles have implications for specific practical ethical problems, so acceptance of a general normative principle may lead one to change one's opinions about a specific practical issue, and one's firm conviction concerning a specific practical issue may lead one to see the failing of a general normative principle.
Meta-ethics is not concerned with which moral principles which we should follow, or how they relate to specific practical problems, but investigates abstract conceptual and metaphysical issues which arise for any moral principle. One meta-ethical claim is that any moral judgement concerning a particular is universal to all similar particulars. Emotivism claims that moral judgements are simply expressions of emotions. Descriptivism claims that moral terms are purely descriptive. Prescriptivism claims that moral terms have two independent components of meaning: descriptive and evaluative. Ethical relativism is the doctrine that moral judgements are true or false only relative to a particular context. Some hold that murder is wrong because God has commanded us not to commit murder. Ethical Intuitionism is the doctrine that there is a special faculty of moral intuition which gives us access to moral facts, to facts about how we ought to behave. The naturalistic fallacy is the supposed fallacy of inferring an 'ought' from an 'is': the issue
being whether ethics is objective or subjective. Research Ethics
In logic, Generalization is the act of comprehending, under a common name, several objects agreeing in some point which we abstract from each of them, and which that common term serves to indicate. Research Generalization
Memetic evolution is the theory of the spread and development of memes (units of ideas, behaviours, habits and culture that are self-replicating and changeable. That pass through the ages from person to person by non-genetic means). Religion is an example of a meme, the development of Christianity through the ages may be seen as the memetic evolution of Christianity, as new ideas are proposed and accepted, and as interpretations of dogmas are amended, suggested and adopted. The word 'meme' was first proposed by the British biologist Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book, 'The Selfish Gene'. A key supporter of the concept of memes and of memetic evolution is the psychologist Susan Blackmore. Memes are still a theoretical abstract providing a label to group together those parts of behaviour and philosophy which are passed from generation to generation and person to person. Many scientists believe that describing abstract entities in such a physical manner, liking ideas to biological genes, is misleading. Research Memetic Evolution
Neoplasticism is a style of abstract painting evolved by Mondrian and the Dutch de Stijl movement. It is characterised by the use of horizontal and vertical lines and planes and by black, white, grey, and primary colours. Research Neoplasticism
Nominalism is a philosophical view which denies the existence of abstract objects and universals, holding that these are not required to explain the significance of words apparently referring to them. Nominalism holds that all that really exists are particular, usually physical, objects, and that properties, numbers, and sets (for instance) are not further things in the world, but merely features of our way of thinking or speaking about those things that do exist. In making claims about what there really is,
nominalism is a thesis about existence; but it also involves views about meaning related to reductionism. Research Nominalism
The Probert Encyclopaedia was designed, edited and programed by
Matt and Leela Probert
Abbreviations
Research Abstract
