Pragmatic theory of truth: ‘p is true’ means ‘action in accordance with p leads to satisfactory results’. Source: ‘What is Good? What is Bad? The Value of All Values across Time, Place and Theories’ by John McMurtry, Philosophy and World Problems, Volume I-III, UNESCO in partnership with Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems: Oxford, 2004-11. 

Pragmatic utility: The value of scientific hypotheses (including laws and theories), all things considered, including the moral, political and economic consequences of anticipated action based on those hypotheses. Source: ‘What is Good? What is Bad? The Value of All Values across Time, Place and Theories’ by John McMurtry, Philosophy and World Problems, Volume I-III, UNESCO in partnership with Encyclopedia… Read More

Pragmatism: An a-posteriori theory of knowledge and value whose defining idea is “what works”. Naturalistic, experimentalist, developmental, and instrumentalist in its various forms, it repudiates all dualisms, but like science does not answer the question ‘works for what?’ Source: ‘What is Good? What is Bad? The Value of All Values across Time, Place and Theories’ by John McMurtry,… Read More

Primary Axiom of Value: An axiom formally expressing the first and ultimate principle of all value and disvalue, and the measures of each across time, place or culture i.e., x is of value if and only if, and to the extent that, x consists in or enables more coherently inclusive thought/felt being/action. See also Fields… Read More

Primary health care: Primary health care is essential health care made accessible at a cost a country and community can afford, with methods that are practical, scientifically sound and socially acceptable. Reference: Alma Ata Declaration, WHO, Geneva, 1978 The Alma-Ata Declaration, also emphasises that everyone should have access to primary health care, and everyone should… Read More

Principle of Beneficence: One ought to act so that one’s actions tend to impartially improve the quality of life. Source: ‘What is Good? What is Bad? The Value of All Values across Time, Place and Theories’ by John McMurtry, Philosophy and World Problems, Volume I-III, UNESCO in partnership with Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems: Oxford, 2004-11. 

Prisoner’s Dilemma: Famous contemporary problem of rational choice across philosophy and the social sciences in which the dilemma shows that purely self-maximizing decision does not effectively self-maximize. Myriad attempted solutions do not find the problem in the logical structure of choice itself in which pre-set dyadic choices rule out communicative cooperation and all interests beyond self-maximization. (See also Collective… Read More

Proceduralism: A generic pattern of leading philosophies of value which assume that universal values can only be implicit in or decided by procedures of argument (i.e., “contractarian” models of justice and norms of “the ideal speech situation”), and whose rational “procedures” distinguish the different schools (i.e., self-maximizing choice versus undistorted consent). Source: ‘What is Good? What is Bad? The Value of… Read More

Profit: The positive difference between input of value and output of value whose dominant type is private money-capital inputs and private money capital outputs to maximum gain, but in principle can include social profit from the positive difference between public investment and life-value gain of citizens. Source: ‘What is Good? What is Bad? The Value of All Values… Read More

Progress: belief in the steady improvement of civilisation through time. Source: ‘What is Good? What is Bad? The Value of All Values across Time, Place and Theories’ by John McMurtry, Philosophy and World Problems, Volume I-III, UNESCO in partnership with Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems: Oxford, 2004-11.