So, the process of taking drugs themselves has a attained or undergone ritualization, which is a sort of unrealistic idealization of their use? Hence, the false lure that they have attained? — Posty McPostface

He's talking about the entheogenic use of mind altering substances.

Not, the same kind of morning ritual of making coffee, taking a shower, and pumping yourself up with positive feedback or thoughts?

Not unless you take a near lethal dose of coffee every morning. Most of those entheogenic uses come down to ordeal rituals (like sweat huts, dancing until exhaustion, fasting for extended periods etc).

The question here, and it's merely speculative, is what does that extra intelligence look like? — tim wood

While chimpanzees aren't more intelligent than humans overall, they do outperform us in certain areas. Here's what that looks like:

What can they do that we cannot?

Take the previous video and extrapolate. :)

And the parallel question, what would better thinking for humans look like?

I think that's what I was talking about when I said there was a contradiction.

What is the relationship between the Tao Te Ching and the I Ching? — T Clark

It and the "Shangshu" are fundamental texts in classical Chinese philosophy. Many treatises in classical Chinese thought assume a familiarity with them; they dictated the vocabulary of the time, at least, in literary circles.

As for the quoted text - I find some of Lao Tzu's ethical verses a bit contradictory. Elsewhere he talks about non-action, about accepting things and people as they are. Here he talks about good and bad men and a good man's role in changing the bad one. I guess in that context, I don't find Mitchell's commentary for this verse very convincing. — T Clark

Laozi is talking about the duty of what's called a "ren":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren_(Confucianism)

It's not specifically a confucian term since the distinction between a "high minded man" and a "low minded man" can already be found in the "I Ching".

Anyway, a better translation would be:

"What is a high minded man but a low minded man’s teacher? What is a low minded man but a high minded man’s job?"

The problem with defining daoism in terms of "good" and "bad" is that daoists don't make such a distinction at all. It's just not part of the cosmology and as such a non-issue. Not being familiar with said cosmology makes daoism a tough nut to crack, though. What Laozi actually is talking about is how the relationship between a high minded man and a low minded man is like the relationship between "Ch'ien" and "K'un":

"Heaven is lofty and honourable; earth is low. Ch'ien and K'un were determined in accordance with this. Things low and high appear displayed in a similar relation; the noble and the mean had their places assigned accordingly. Movement and rest are the regular qualities of their respective subjects. Hence comes the definite distinction of the lines as the strong and the weak.
Affairs are arranged together according to their tendencies, and things are divided according to their classes. Hence were produced what is good and what is evil.
In the heavens there are the figures there completed, and on the earth there are the bodies there formed. Corresponding to them were the changes and transformations exhibited in the "I Ching"."
-"Ta Chuan", section 1, ch. 1.


Regarding the Stephen Mitchell comment:

"The teaching of the Tao Te Ching is moral in the deepest sense. Unencumbered by any concept of sin, the Master doesn’t see evil as a force to resist, but simply as an opaqueness, a state of self-absorption which is in disharmony with the universal process,"

It's funny how he first states that daoism is "unencumbered by any concept of sin", but then goes on to talk about how "the master doesn't see evil...", casting his analysis right back into a western paradigm again. Acting "good" or "not acting bad" isn't the point. Neither is acting in accord with the dao or not.

"Heaven and earth do not act from (the impulse of) any wish to be benevolent; they deal with all things as the dogs of grass are dealt with. The sages do not act from (any wish to be) benevolent; they deal with the people as the dogs of grass are dealt with.

May not the space between heaven and earth be compared to a bellows?'Tis emptied, yet it loses not its power; 'Tis moved again, and sends forth air the more.
Much speech to swift exhaustion lead we see;
Your inner being guard, and keep it free."
-"Daodejing", ch. 5, Legge translation.

So, what is the point? Well:

"Ch'ien, heaven is above; Chên, movement, is below. The lower trigram Chên is under the influence of the strong line it has received form above, from heaven. When, in accord with this, movement follows the law of heaven, man is innocent and without guile. His mind is natural and true, unshadowed by reflection or ulterior designs. For wherever conscious purpose is to be seen, there the truth and innocence of nature have been lost.
Nature that is not directed by the spirit is not true but degenerate nature. Starting out with the idea of the natural, the train of thought in part goes somewhat further and thus the hexagram includes also the idea of the fundamental or unexpected."
-"I Ching" Wilhelm translation, hexagram 25.

Phishing?

Sextus Empiricus - "Outlines of Pyrrhonism"
Maurice Merleau-Ponty "Phenomenology of Perception"
Thomas Kuhn - "Structure of Scientific Revolutions"
Karl Popper - "Conjectures and Refutations"
Franz Brentano "Psychology From an Empirical Standpoint"
Michel Foucault - "Discipline and Punish"

-Various - "I Ching" (Wilhelm translation)
-Laozi (Li Er)- "Daodejing"
-Liezi (Lie Yukou)- "Liezi"
-Zhuangzi (Zhuang Zhou) - "Zhuangzi"
-Sunzi (Sun Wu) - "Art of War"
-Yagyu Munenori - "Hereditary Book on the Art of War"
-Miyamoto Musashi - "Book of Five Rings"

There's been alot of talk here recently about philosophy and its ability to 'uncover' or 'find truths'. I think this is unfortunate, and betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of what philosophy does. — StreetlightX

It's a fairly common misconception though. Rather irksome, since I prefer a dubitative approach. As such, that whole project of "truth seeking" is lost on me. Merleau-Ponty, in his "In Praise of Philosophy" states:

"Even those who have desired to work out a complete positive philosophy have been philosophers only to the extent that, at the same time,they have refused the right to install themselves in absolute knowledge. They taught not this knowledge, but its becoming in us, not the absolute but, at most, our absolute relation to it, as Kierkegaard said. What makes a man a philosopher is the movement which leads back without ceasing from knowledge to ignorance, from ignorance to knowledge, and a kind of rest in this movement."

... which is a much better assessment of the philosophical project imho.

For Bryant - and I agree with him - philosophy operates at a level even more fundamental than truth, which is what he calls framing: philosophy brings things into view in such a way that we can talk about truth at all. Here is how Bryant puts it: "The great debates among philosophers are about something that precedes truthful or veridical statements... The great debates of philosophy are questions of how existence should be framed. Frames make a selection from the infinity of existence, and in doing so draw attention to these features of being rather than those features of being. A frame is an imperative that says attend to or notice this type of existence. And once the frame has been formulated, it then becomes possible to make veridical statements about what appears in the frame."

Every great philosopher then, is measured by what he or she brings into view; Descartes' cogito, Wittgenstein's language games, Nietzsche's will-to-power, Husserl's lived experience, etc. One corollary of this, which Bryant doesn't dwell so much upon, is that philosophy then is largely an exercise is exploring the consequences of what follows once we've fixed our frame; it's an exploration of implications. Gilles Deleuze's formulation remains among the most cogent here: "a philosophical theory is an elaborately developed question, and nothing else; by itself and in itself, it is not the resolution to a problem, but the elaboration, to the very end, of the necessary implications of a formulated question".

Yet another way to put this is that the object of philosophy - I want to say its only object - is sense. Philosophy is an exploration of sense, and not truth. Any philosophical distinction - say between the sensible and the intelligible, the material and the ideal, immanence and transcendence - is an exploration of the sense of these terms, of the way in which they are articulated and the way in which they allow us to speak about the world (in certain ways and not others).

"Hexagram 18, nine at the top means:
He does not serve kings and princes,
Sets himself higher goals.

Not every man has an obligation to mingle in the affairs of the world. There are some who are developed to such a degree that they are justified in letting the world go its own way and refusing to enter public life with a view to reforming it. But this does not imply a right to remain idle or to sit back and merely criticize. Such withdrawal is justified only when we strive to realize in ourselves the higher aims of mankind. For although the sage remains distant from the turmoil of daily life, he creates incomparable human values for the future."
-"I Ching", Wilhelm translation.

That last bit basically sums up what philosophy is all about imho; the creation of "incomparable human values for the future". You'll have to forgive Wilhelm for his flowery prose, there. He's basically talking about novel values. It's a beautifully vague definition of philosophy, which is somehow fitting; the vagueness accounts for the broad scope of the field.

I wanted to solicit your thoughts and opinions on how, or even if, Agrippa's Trilemma has any relevance on major problems in philosophy. Agrippa's Trilemma is the proposition that the attempt to justify any philosophical belief can only end in one of three ways:

1) A circular argument

2) An infinite chain of explanation

3) A foundational assumption that can no longer be questioned

An implicit point behind the Trilemma is that all of these ends are rather terrible, in the sense that they don't offer any satisfying finality. I am neither defending nor rejecting the Trilemma here, but I do want to know if you think it applies in any way to the philosophical issues below. You may also bring up other problems that you think apply. — Uber

Yeah. Sextus Empiricus mentions those when he's talking about the five modes of suspension. Let's not forget in what context those ideas are most relevant. As such, their actual goal is suspension of judgement on non-evident matters, leading to ataraxia or unperturbedness. Most people don't bother with that and just get on with it since axiomatic certainty (or whatever) isn't required for successful communication.

Why on earth would China lay a statue of Marx on Germany? — frank

... Because sending a Sun Yat Sen statue would look weird..?

they want to lay around in the shade of the tree and talk instead of pushing ahead. — Jeremiah

"Huizi said to Zhuangzi, 'I have a large tree, which men call the Ailantus. Its trunk swells out to a large size, but is not fit for a carpenter to apply his line to it; its smaller branches are knotted and crooked, so that the disk and square cannot be used on them. Though planted on the wayside, a builder would not turn his head to look at it. Now your words, Sir, are great, but of no use - all unite in putting them away from them.' Zhuangzi replied, 'Have you never seen a wildcat or a weasel? There it lies, crouching and low, till the wanderer approaches; east and west it leaps about, avoiding neither what is high nor what is low, till it is caught in a trap, or dies in a net. Again there is the Yak, so large that it is like a cloud hanging in the sky. It is large indeed, but it cannot catch mice. You, Sir, have a large tree and are troubled because it is of no use - why do you not plant it in a tract where there is nothing else, or in a wide and barren wild? There you might saunter idly by its side, or in the enjoyment of untroubled ease sleep beneath it. Neither bill nor axe would shorten its existence; there would be nothing to injure it. What is there in its uselessness to cause you distress?"
-Zhuangzi, inner chapters, "Enjoyment in Untroubled Ease", 7.

"The monk Fuyō Dōkai, whilst on Mount Daiyō, once asked Tōsu, “The thoughts and sayings of the Buddha’s Ancestors are like the tea and rice of everyday life. Putting these thoughts and sayings
aside for the moment, is there any word or phrase you might have for the sake of others?”
Tōsu answered, “You, right now, say! The Emperor inside the capital rules it, so does he have to look back to previous emperors of legendary times, like Yü, T’ang, Yao, and Shun?”
Just when Daiyō was intent on opening his mouth, Tōsu picked up his ceremonial hossu and covered Daiyō’s mouth with it, saying, “At the very moment when you gave rise to the intention to realize Buddhahood, you immediately deserved thirty blows."
Thereupon, Daiyō opened up to his enlightenment and, after having bowed in deepest respect to Tōsu, immediately took his leave.
Tōsu called out to him, “Come back a minute, acharya!”*
When Daiyō did not turn his head around, Tōsu said, “Have you, my disciple, arrived at the place where there is no doubt?”
Daiyō covered his ears with his hands and left."
-Dogen Zenji, "Shobogenzo", ch. 62.

Thanks. I wonder if my mind is becoming something, something I don't want. I want to hold on to my empathy. It's valuable to me but I'm afraid I'm losing it becoming ice as you said. — TheMadFool

I'm not saying you have the right mind. I'm saying you're confused. Apparently with a sprinkle of inflation, too. Your mind isn't like "water", obviously. Otherwise you wouldn't be making a thread like this one.

Is this nirvana? — TheMadFool

"THE RIGHT MIND AND THE CONFUSED MIND

The Right Mind is the mind that does not remain in one place. It is the mind that stretches throughout the entire body and self.

The Confused Mind is the mind that, thinking something over, congeals in one place.

When the Right Mind congeals and settles in one place, it becomes what is called the Confused Mind. When the Right Mind is lost, it is lacking in function here and there. For this reason, it is important not to lose it.

In not remaining in one place, the Right Mind is like water. The Confused Mind is like ice, and ice is unable to wash hands or head. When ice is melted, it becomes water and flows everywhere, and it can wash the hands, the feet or anything else.

If the mind congeals in one place and remains with one thing, it is like frozen water and is unable to be used freely: ice that can wash neither hands nor feet. When the mind is melted and is used like water, extending throughout the body, it can be sent wherever one wants to send it.

This is the Right Mind.

THE MIND OF THE EXISTENT MIND AND THE MIND OF NO-MIND

The Existent Mind is the same as the Confused Mind and is literally read as the "mind that exists." It is the mind that thinks in one direction, regardless of subject. When there is an object of thought in the mind, discrimination and thoughts will arise. Thus it is known as the Existent Mind.

The No-Mind is the same as the Right Mind. It neither congeals nor fixes itself in one place. It is called No-Mind when the mind has neither discrimination nor thought but wanders about the entire body and extends throughout the entire self.

The No-Mind is placed nowhere. Yet it is not like wood or stone. Where there is no stopping place, it is called No-Mind. When it stops, there is something in the mind. When there is nothing in the mind, it is called the mind of No-Mind. It is also called No-Mind-No-Thought.

When this No-Mind has been well developed, the mind does not stop with one thing nor does it lack anyone thing. It is like water overflowing and exists within itself. It appears appropriately when facing a time of need.

The mind that becomes fixed and stops in one place does not function freely. Similarly, the wheels of a cart go around because they are not rigidly in place. If they were to stick tight, they would not go around. The mind is also something that does not function if it becomes attached to a single situation.

If there is some thought within the mind, though you listen to the words spoken by another, you will not really be able to hear him. This is because your mind has stopped with your own thoughts.

If your mind leans in the direction of these thoughts, though you listen, you will not hear; and though you look, you will not see. This is because there is something in your mind. What is there is thought. If you are able to remove this thing that is there, your mind will become No-Mind, it will function when needed, and it will be appropriate to its use.

The mind that thinks about removing what is within it will by the very act be occupied. If one will not think about it, the mind will remove these thoughts by itself and of itself become No-Mind.

If one always approaches his mind in this way, at a later date it will suddenly come to this condition by itself. If one tries to achieve this suddenly, it will never get there.

An old poem says:

To think, "I will not think"--
This, too, is something in one's thoughts.
Simply do not think
About not thinking at all."

-Takuan Soho, "The Unfettered Mind"

While I don't have any books I can recommend when it comes to evolution, I do know of a few lecture series:

-"Major Transitions in Evolution"
https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/major-transitions-in-evolution.html
-"Origins of Life"
https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/origins-of-life.html

In what sense do languages evolve? — frank

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drift_(linguistics)

No, I don't think this is an experiment doomed to failure. In fact I suspect the Greeks got a lot of their ideas via the silk road. So perhaps there's an artificial E-W division anyway. But there's many a pitfall to had. The one I mentioned is the one I've experienced first hand. — Kym

Well - yes - that really isn't hypothetical. Pyrrho of Elis, the founder of scepticism, founded the school after meeting wise men in India and Persia (gymnosophists, magi), during his travels with the host of Alexander the Great. Onesikritos of Astypalaia, a cynical philosopher who studied under Diogenes, also had similar experiences.

>No problem. Everything is an assumption to some degree (or so I assume). — Tyler

>Is the purpose of this, to focus on the ways that different aspects of phenomenology react with each other, or react with external factors? Basically taking the concepts of mind functions to a more generalized degree, since the specifics aren't proven?

In it's base, it's a fundamentally different stance on the question "what is the mind"? Instead of starting at concepts, phenomenology proposes that we start at our everyday, daily experience of ourselves. You can do the same thing with the question "what is life?" Instead of focusing on concepts, you focus on the sequence of ones everyday, mundane experiences. The same holds for how it's used in gestalt psychology. Perception for instance is studied as it's own thing, with it's own phenomenological properties, as a mental function. Considerations about non phenomenological entities don't figure into such accounts. They don't need to after all, since the mind functions as a unified whole.

I'm confused why you say there's nothing apparent about a phenomenological act?

That was badly worded on my part. Sometimes figures of speech don't translate well. Anyway, let's restate that: there's nothing fake or hypothetical about the choices we make because those choices are actual phenomenological acts.

I raise you — Cavacava

Alright. :grin:

Nice. My French sucks so I have to rely on translations. :)

Sorry, lost in translation. I took neurosis here to mean nevrose in French, which is just a general term for a (generaly mild) psychopathology. — Akanthinos

Ah, ok. I posted that after just waking up so it might have been a brainfart. Apparently not. :)

M-P talks about ghost limbs and anosognosie (PP 91-96), aphasia (PP 144-156), hysteria (190) and aphony (PP 192).

I've got the Routledge translation here. I'm guessing you've got a French edition?

Edit : Although, now I remember that Merleau-Ponty did talk quite a bit of neurosis, face-blindness and other cognitive-bent problems in Phenomenologie de la Perception. You might want to check it up. It's a great read, as is pretty much everything by M-P. — Akanthinos

I don't remember him talking about neurosis in that text (he did talk about aphasia and the like). A quick control+f of the text yielded no results either (I have both a physical and digital copy of the text). Maybe I missed something though?

Why? — jkg20

Brentano talks about why in the last paragraph I provided.

The question I'm interested in is the one ProcastinationTommorow clarified: do such mental phenomena provide counterexamples to theories of mind that require all mental phenomena to have objects?

OK. I'm not.

Is it that the investigation of the causes of the state will reveal that it actually has an object after all, despite its superficial "lack" of a target?

Talk about the cause of neurosis isn't generally part of phenomenology. So if we are going with the literature instead of mere navelgazing then yes, symptoms like "unfocused anxiety" would point to deeper psychological issues. What kinds of issues? Depends on the type of psychiatrist you're talking to. These issues can range from sexuality, inferiority feelings and psychodevelopmental issues to repressed trauma and delusions. You know, fun stuff like that. And yes, this is categorically different than a mere hangover from the perspective of psychiatry.

Thanks Akanthinos and Ying for the explanations and pointers to further reading. Not that I'm taking any sides here - but what about this unfocussed anxiety of mine? Whether or not it be self-inflicted as a result of drinking too much, it's a mental phenomenon (I presume, although perhaps it depends on definitions of terms) but doesn't seem to have an object. — jkg20

Well, it actually does matter if something is caused by a psychoactive substance or not. As for "unfocused anxiety", well, that would be a topic for psychiatry. What causes such neurotic symptoms can vary though, and there are multiple theories on why such things happen.

Yes, you did cite Bretano, but citation and interpretation are two distinct things. Sometimes philosophers - and I'm presuming Bretano was a philosopher - say contradictory things even within a single work. My hestitation was merely a manifestation of a principle of charity that would allow Bretano some room to shift his position in the face of an apparent counterexample. — ProcastinationTomorrow

Notice that the dude has been dead for a while now. I don't think he's in any position to shift his position on any matter anymore.

Already in the three citations you've given there seems plenty to disagree with in Bretano,

OK. Write a book about it or something, I'm not interested. I was talking to jkg20, who seems to have a somewhat limited notion of intentionality... Which is fine, since Brentano and his work aren't all that well known for some reason. Me quoting the relevant paragraphs highlights the context of said concept though. It's rooted in the Brentanian view of the mind, as can be noted.

Also, jkg20's counterexample was not about drunkenness - unfocussed anxiety may result from a binge drinking session, but could have other causes.

Here's what he stated:

"What about the unfocussed anxiety I often experience when I'm hungover?"

Tell me if I missed something. Also, moving the goalposts is rather impolite dude. Don't do that.

>Yes, I did. — Tyler

Note to self: Don't assume silly things.

Anyway, my bad. Sorry about that. :)

do you mean figure-ground is just an experience, and we'll leave it at that?

No. What I'm talking about is called the primacy of experience. It's looking at phenomenological content on it's own, temporarily disregarding other issues like neurological substructures. A precise correlation between such substructures and their phenomenological contents isn't an exact science at this point anyway, because of how FMRI functions. This way of looking at the mind and it's contents isn't new or anything, as it's employed by both phenomenologists and gestalt psychologists (figure-ground is a concept from gestalt psychology).

Explaining the mechanical function of the mind, implies determinism because if there is a scientific and measurable method which causes the mind to operate the way it does, then functions of the mind like choices, and decisions are predictable and determined.

We still have to pick our clothes in the morning, regardless of any kind of determinism. The same holds for breaking habits. You might not believe in will, but you're going to need it if you're going to quit smoking. We have what might be called "apparent choice" in such cases (if determinism is true or whatever). Here's the thing, though. That choice is a phenomenological act, and as such, there's nothing "apparent" about it. So, there's that (Didn't I go through this already?). Anyway, you basically stated:

"...if there is a scientific and measurable method which causes the mind to operate the way it does, then functions of the mind like choices, and decisions are predictable and determined."

Well, there is a so called "scientific" method to measure the mind. The field of psychometrics. Probably not what you mean though. :)

Do you imagine Lao Tzu and his buddies were unaware of that? It's one of things I like best about Taoism, it's funny and it knows it's funny. Speaking about the unspeakable. LOL. — T Clark

That's why I particularly like reading the "Zhuangzi". Well, the "inner chapters at least. :)

If Bretano did claim that every mental phenomenon includes something as object... — ProcastinationTomorrow

"If"?! Didn't I post the relevant paragraphs?

...then isn't jkg20's unfocussed anxiety a counterexample? A general feeling of unease doesn't really have an object does it?

"Something quite similar is true of the preceding argument. Maudsley is not incorrect in saying that mental activity depends on the organic life of the brain. Whichever of the possible views we adhere to, no one can deny that the processes of the brain which manifest themselves in a succession of physical phenomena exert an essential influence upon mental phenomena and constitute their conditions. It is thereby clear that, even if the vegetative sequence of brain processes, apart from the differences due to the influence of mental phenomena themselves, always took place in the same way, pure psychological analysis would give us nothing but empirical laws requiring further elucidation, because it would not take account of such important joint causes. In other respects, at least the universal validity of its laws would suffer no limitation in this case. But this would not be so if the vegetative life of the brain can vary as a result of different physical influences, and if it is subject to strong abnormal disturbances which produce anomalous mental phenomena. Since this is actually the case, it is clear that the empirical laws discovered by psychological means are valid only within certain limits. It will be necessary, therefore, to determine, on the basis of reliable signs, if we are confronted with one of these limits. However, this has already been done with considerable success. Drunkenness, for example, betrays itself even to the non-psychologist in manifestations which cannot easily be misunderstood. Only within these limits may we trust the laws under discussion, but within these limits we are right in so trusting them."
-Franz Brentano, "Psychology From an Empirical Standpoint", p. 46, 47.

Note that I'm quoting from a text called "Psychology From an Empirical Standpoint", not from "The Phenomenology of Drunkenness".

I've been reading a little bit about so called representational accounts of the mind. — jkg20

OK.

The idea seems to be that what is essential to the mental is that mental states are always about things, and thus the mark of the mental is its representational nature. But, if the idea is that we are going to be able to explain the mind in terms of representational states, don't we end up in a circle, since "representation" is not a two-way relation between a representer and a representee, but a three-way relation: one thing represents another thing to or for some third thing, and that third thing is always something concsious - and so explaining the mind in terms of representation is to explain the mind in terms of the mind : hardly an illuminating circle. Also, is it even true that all mental states are about things? What about the unfocussed anxiety I often experience when I'm hungover?

Are you talking about intentionality? Since if you are, then you might want to brush up on your Brentano, there. Brentano distinguished between mental phenomena and physical phenomena, with intentionality being the main trait that distinguishes them from eachother (physical phenomena don't exhibit intentionality).

"Every idea or presentation which we acquire either through sense perception or imagination is an example of a mental phenomenon.1 By presentation I do not mean that which is presented, but rather the act of presentation. Thus, hearing a sound, seeing a colored object, feeling warmth or cold, as well as similar states of imagination are examples of what I mean by this term. I also mean by it the thinking of a general concept, provided such a thing actually does occur. Furthermore, every judgement, every recollection, every expectation, every inference, every conviction or opinion, every doubt, is a mental phenomenon. Also to be included under this term is every emotion: joy, sorrow, fear, hope, courage, despair, anger, love, hate, desire, act of will, intention, astonishment, admiration, contempt, etc.
Examples of physical phenomena, on the other hand, are a color, a figure, a landscape which I see, a chord which I hear, warmth, cold, odor which I sense; as well as similar images which appear in the imagination."
-Franz Brentano, "Psychology From an Empirical Standpoint", p. 60, 61.

"Every mental phenomenon is characterized by what the Scholastics of the Middle Ages called the intentional (or mental)† inexistence of an object, and what we might call, though not wholly unambiguously, reference to a content, direction toward an object (which is not to be understood here as meaning a thing), or immanent objectivity. Every mental phenomenon includes something as object within itself, although they do not all do so in the same way. In presentation something is presented, in judgement something is affirmed or denied, in love loved, in hate hated, in desire desired and so on.
This intentional in-existence is characteristic exclusively of mental phenomena. No physical phenomenon exhibits anything like it. We can, therefore, define mental phenomena by saying that they are those phenomena which contain an object intentionally within themselves."
-Ibid. p. 68.

Circumambulation: Walking around a sacred object. I sometimes use the term to describe the philosophical process (circumambulating ideas).
Exegesis: Interpretation of religious texts.
Synecdoche: Figure of speech when you use the name of a part or property to represent the whole (or the reverse, where you use a name or property of the whole to represent a part). An example would be calling businessmen "suits".