Dictionary of Philosophy of Religion

49

CONDORCET, JEAN ANTOINE

community in moral decision-making.
A communitarian may address a moral
dilemma about abortion or physician-
assisted suicide in terms of specific com-
munity values rather than appeal to a
general, abstract theory of human rights.

COMPASSION. Literally “feeling with,”
a compassionate person is one who
empathizes (or sympathizes) with those
believed to be harmed and who is dis-
posed to go to their aid.

COMPATABILISM. The thesis that
determinism can allow for freedom. For
example, it has been argued that a person
is free if she does what she wants and
is not being coerced or manipulated by
other agents, if she is not constrained by
physical shackles, and so on. Such free-
dom seems compatible with determin-
ism, according to which the “free person’s”
acts are necessary, given the laws of nature
and antecedent and contemporary causes.

COMPOSITION / DIVISION, FALLA-
CIES OF. The fallacy of arguing that a
whole has every property of its parts and
vice versa. If every human person has a
mother, it does not follow that humanity
as a whole has a mother. Reasoning from
parts to whole is not always a fallacy, how-
ever. If every part of a table is made out of
wood, then we may infer that the table as
a whole is made out of wood. This fallacy

and the debate over whether it is a fallacy

has a role in the literature on the cosmo-

logical argument.

COMTE, AUGUSTE (1789–1857). An

important defender of positivism, an

anti-theistic movement that celebrates

human power and achievements. He pro-

moted a religious form of humanism.

His works include Course on the Positive

Philosophy 6 vols. (1830–1842), System

of Positive Polity 4 vols. (1851–1854),

Catechism of Positivism (1852), and The

Subjective Synthesis (1856).

CONCEPTUAL RELATIVISM. See

RELATIVISM.

CONCEPTUALISM. The belief that

properties like being a number or being

human have no existence independent of

minds. This is a denial of Platonism. One

of the problems facing conceptualism is

that it appears that there are truths about

properties quite independent of (at least

created human) minds. Thus, it appears

that 1+1 = 2 is true, whether or not any

mind ever thought mathematically.

CONDORCET, JEAN ANTOINE

(1743–1794). A French philosopher

who advocated a philosophy of history

that was essentially progressive, where

human beings move from being hunters