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Birthday paradox: In a random group of only 23 people, there is a better than 50/50 chance two of them have the same birthday. Borel's paradox: Conditional probability density functions are not invariant under coordinate transformations. Boy or Girl paradox: A two-child family has at least one boy.
The categorical imperative (German: kategorischer Imperativ) is the central philosophical concept in the deontological moral philosophy of Immanuel Kant. Introduced in Kant's 1785 Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, it is a way of evaluating motivations for action. It is best known in its original formulation: "Act only according to that ...
A hypothetical imperative is one that we must obey if we want to satisfy our desires: 'go to the doctor' is a hypothetical imperative because we are only obliged to obey it if we want to get well. A categorical imperative binds us regardless of our desires: everyone has a duty to not lie, regardless of circumstances and even if it is in our ...
Affirmation and negation. In linguistics and grammar, affirmation (abbreviated AFF) and negation (NEG) are ways in which grammar encodes positive and negative polarity into verb phrases, clauses, or other utterances. An affirmative (positive) form is used to express the validity or truth of a basic assertion, while a negative form expresses its ...
Kant thinks that the positive understanding of freedom amounts to the same thing as the categorical imperative, and that “a free will and a will under moral laws are one and the same.” [xviii] This is the key notion that later scholars call the reciprocity thesis, which states that a will is bound by the moral law if and only if it is free ...
The imperative mood is a grammatical mood that forms a command or request. The imperative mood is used to demand or require that an action be performed. It is usually found only in the present tense, second person. They are sometimes called directives, as they include a feature that encodes directive force, and another feature that encodes ...
Tag question. A tag question is a construction in which an interrogative element is added to a declarative or an imperative clause. The resulting speech act comprises an assertion paired with a request for confirmation. For instance, the English tag question "You're John, aren't you?"
Moral imperative. A moral imperative is a strongly-felt principle that compels a person “in question” to act. It is a kind of categorical imperative, as defined by Immanuel Kant. Kant took the imperative to be a dictate of pure reason, in its practical aspect. Not following the moral law was seen to be self-defeating and thus contrary to ...