Exam Metaphysics

Question 1

Idealism

Answer 1

• Reality that only comes from the mind
• reality is a product of thought
• reality exists in the mind, therefore everybody’s reality is different
• example of an idea of reality as a mental construct and monism

Question 2

Realism/materialism

Answer 2

• believes reality is objective material
• everything in reality comes down to matter/material
• an example of an idea of reality as material based and monism

Question 3

Monism

Answer 3

• strict belief it is either one or the other
• believes it is 100% material or 100% thoughts

Question 4

Dualism

Answer 4

There are 2 substances; extended things (objective reality), and thinking things (thoughts)

Question 5

Heraclitus

Answer 5

• certain that reality is ever changing, never the same
• “I can never step in the same river twice” - suggests that reality is always changing and we cannot step in the same river twice
• no definite edges
• infinite
• everything is governed by “logos”/logic

Question 6

Parmenides

Answer 6

• Reality never changes
• reality is:
  timeless
  uniform
  motionless
  indivisible
• Only that which is can be thought about
• If something is not, it cannot be thought about
• We cannot bring anything in existence, there is nothing new under the sun

Question 7

Plato’s Forms

Answer 7

Perfection exists only in the abstract

Question 8

Nagarjuna: Emptiness

Answer 8

• Anything that is real, is “empty”
• has to do with perspective and perception
• we must be able to detach ourselves in order to understand what we are looking at (seperation)
• his reasoning: all things are dependent in the way that all things originate from other things or conditions which in turn originate from other things or conditions, ad infinitum
• by extension, if the ultimate reality of every thing is that there is no ultimate reality, that everything is ‘empty,’ then even conventional reality & truth are empty

Question 9

the 4 truths of Buddhism

Answer 9

1. understand suffering (mental and physical)
2. Abandon origins: detach from beginnings of suffering
3. Attain cessations: end suffering
4. Practice the eight fold path

Question 10

Descartes’s two types of substance

Answer 10

extended things (objective reality)
- things that take up space
- AKA as ‘extension’
- e.g. rock

thinking things (thoughts)
- ‘thought’ as a thing

Question 11

Spinoza’s Single Substance

Answer 11

• believes there is only one substance: understood as “God” ; All encompassing ; not anthropomorphic (human shaped)
• self causing
• states this one substance can be in things (re: objects, tangible things), but any ‘change’ in these things does not change the substance itself
• there is an infinite number of ways the substance can be expressed and ‘be’ (cf. materialism and idealism)
• Claims that this God is not our traditional understanding of god
• God is: timeless, perfect, infinite

Question 12

Theism

Answer 12

refers to a belief in god; anthropomorphic, intervening, caring

Question 13

Deism

Answer 13

belief that some force started all this but it was not anthropomorphic, intervening, caring god; no miracles

Question 14

Polytheism

Answer 14

belief system that has many gods

Question 15

Pantheism

Answer 15

that god is in and of everything in the world

Question 16

Monotheism

Answer 16

believes in solely one god

Question 17

Atheism

Answer 17

“there is no such thing as god but i wish there was”

Question 18

Agnosticism

Answer 18

fence sitters; really can’t say one way or the other “I don’t know”

Question 19

Arguments for God: Ontological

Answer 19

• one of the three famous arguments for the existence of God
• because I’m imperfect, and can think of something that is not perfect then the perfect thing must exists
• defines God as perfect, and so part of the perfection is God’s existence

Question 20

Arguments for God: Cosmological

Answer 20

• one of the three famous arguments for the existence of God
• Asks prime mover (someone who invited everything) and what made that prime mover and so on
• nothing is self causing
• No one has the capacity to understand God so we shouldn’t begin to comprehend it so we should just have faith that it exists
• our imperfection suggests God (who is perfect) must be beyond us

Question 21

Arguments for God: From Design/Watchmaker

Answer 21

• walking in forest away from civilization, finds watch with nothing human around just nature, investigating and find intricacy can find the details and complexity of the inside of the watch, concludes that the existence of the watch is it had to be created
  1. meaning, we are the watch and somebody must have created the intricate watch
  2. too layered, too complex for us to be accidental

Question 22

Arguments against God: free will paradox

Answer 22

• “All” “knowledge”
• If there is a god and that god is all knowing, then it would know everything it’s creatures would do therefore eliminating free will
• Argument: god bestows free will and that is apart of the creation

Question 23

Arguments against God: omnipotence paradox

Answer 23

• “All” “powerful”
• If there is a god, then why doesn’t that god make a greater god
• If you are a god you cannot make something more powerful
• Argument: there is no need for whoever or whatever god is to create something stronger than themselves because it is unnecessary

Question 24

Arguments against God: parsimony

Answer 24

• Ockham’s razor
• We can explain everything in a simpler way than attributing it to God
• Argument: it may be so that all science can explain more than religious belief, but it cannot explain everything. Therefore, there is still a need for god

Question 25

Arguments against God: poor design

Answer 25

• If there is a god, how come all the bad design?
• Argument: it is not god’s design, it is a human problem

Question 26

Nagarjuna: conventional reality

Answer 26

• how you see the world; what you experience; your own reality
• Example: Mr. Sneath’s daughter believes that she was in danger because of the strange behaviour
• by extension, if everything is ‘empty,’ then even conventional reality & truth are empty

Question 27

Nagarjuna: ultimate reality

Answer 27

It is separate, it exists outside of us

Question 28

Nagarjuna: conventional truth

Answer 28

how you see the world; what you experience

Question 29

Nagarjuna: ultimate truth

Answer 29

Separation, it exists outside of us

Question 30

3 famous arguments for god

Answer 30

1. ontological
2. cosmological
3. from design