Exam Metaphysics Flashcards
Idealism
- 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
Realism/materialism
- 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
Monism
- strict belief it is either one or the other
- believes it is 100% material or 100% thoughts
Dualism
There are 2 substances; extended things (objective reality), and thinking things (thoughts)
Heraclitus
- 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
Parmenides
- 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
Plato’s Forms
Perfection exists only in the abstract
Nagarjuna: Emptiness
- 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
the 4 truths of Buddhism
- understand suffering (mental and physical)
- Abandon origins: detach from beginnings of suffering
- Attain cessations: end suffering
- Practice the eight fold path
Descartes’s two types of substance
extended things (objective reality)
- things that take up space
- AKA as ‘extension’
- e.g. rock
thinking things (thoughts)
- ‘thought’ as a thing
Spinoza’s Single Substance
- 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
Theism
refers to a belief in god; anthropomorphic, intervening, caring
Deism
belief that some force started all this but it was not anthropomorphic, intervening, caring god; no miracles
Polytheism
belief system that has many gods
Pantheism
that god is in and of everything in the world
Monotheism
believes in solely one god
Atheism
“there is no such thing as god but i wish there was”
Agnosticism
fence sitters; really can’t say one way or the other “I don’t know”
Arguments for God: Ontological
- 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
Arguments for God: Cosmological
- 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
Arguments for God: From Design/Watchmaker
- 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
Arguments against God: free will paradox
- “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
Arguments against God: omnipotence paradox
- “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
Arguments against God: parsimony
- 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
Arguments against God: poor design
- If there is a god, how come all the bad design?
- Argument: it is not god’s design, it is a human problem
Nagarjuna: conventional reality
- 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
Nagarjuna: ultimate reality
It is separate, it exists outside of us
Nagarjuna: conventional truth
how you see the world; what you experience
Nagarjuna: ultimate truth
Separation, it exists outside of us
3 famous arguments for god
- ontological
- cosmological
- from design
