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Philosophy vocabulary · Logic and Argument

Objection

Meaning in philosophy, with examples

/əbˈdʒekʃən/nounCore term

In philosophy, objection means: A reason given against a claim, theory or argument, suggesting that it may be false, unclear or badly supported.

In Turkish: itiraz, karşı çıkış

How it is used

Philosophy essays are often built around objections and replies: you raise, consider, anticipate, answer or rebut an objection. 'One might object that...' is the standard way of introducing one.

Example sentences

  1. A famous objection to utilitarianism is that it seems to allow punishing the innocent.

  2. In section three I consider two objections and show why neither succeeds.

Common collocations

  • raise an objection
  • reply to an objection
  • anticipate objections
  • serious objection
  • objections and replies
  • counterexampleA particular case showing that a general claim or definition is false, or an example with true premises and a false conclusion showing that an argument form is invalid.
  • argumentA set of statements in which some of them, the premises, are offered as reasons for accepting another one, the conclusion.
  • claimA statement that someone puts forward as true and is ready to defend, often the main point that an essay or argument tries to support.
  • thought experimentAn imagined scenario used to test a theory or to bring out our intuitions, without carrying out any real experiment.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Logic and Argument

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