Final

Question 1

What are Descartes’s Meditations about?

Answer 1

1. Doubt
2. Argument for the Self (Cogito, Ergo Sum)
3. What Caused the Idea of God in His Mind?
4. Error
5. Reiteration of the Ontological Argument
6. The Mind/Body Problem (Dualism)

Question 2

How Does Descartes Divide Up the World and the Essences of Things?

Answer 2

Cartesian Dualism

Descartes can doubt the existence of his body, but he cannot doubt the existence of his mind; since there is a distinction between them (they are two different properties), they are wholly separate in his view

Mind/Body Problem

Question 3

What is “I think, therefore I am” in the original language?

Answer 3

Cogito, Ergo Sum

Question 4

Spinoza’s Substance

Answer 4

Spinoza says that God is the only substance, the ultimate Subject of a sentence

Question 5

Spinoza’s Attributes

Answer 5

(Of the One Substance that encapsulates all that exists):

Thought
Extension

Question 6

Spinoza’s Mode

Answer 6

The particular manifestations of the two infinite attributes of God, thought and extension: a human, a plane, a marker, etc.

Spinoza says that because God has all attributes, nothing else could exist that could be the one substance
Deus, Sive Natura (God, or nature)

God is all there is

Question 7

Leibniz’s Substance

Answer 7

Monads: simple substances that don’t depend upon anything else, except God, for their existence

They don’t truly interact with other monads

A monad is essentially everything that can be said of itself; its essential nature is everything that it is and does

Question 8

Leibniz’s Hierarchy of Monads

Answer 8

God (Supreme Monad)
Human Monad (Spirit Monad)
Animal Monad (Soul Monad)
Plant Monad (Simple Monad)

Question 9

Leibniz’s Solution to the Problem of Evil

Answer 9

Leibniz holds that God decrees whatsoever comes to pass and the existence of secondary causes (although he tries to determine the divine decree, something we can never know)

We live in the best of all possible worlds (God is more of a passive Chooser according to Leibniz)

Question 10

What is Locke’s view on material substances?

Answer 10

Matter is part of the material thing (a rock that is split in half is now two rocks)

Question 11

How does Locke define personhood?

Answer 11

A thinking thing that has self-consciousness

Question 12

In Locke’s epistemology, what are the two sources of knowledge?

Answer 12

We attain knowledge through reason and experience, but the truest form of knowledge comes through reason
Influenced by Plato
Dualistic split between mind (reason) and body (experience)

Question 13

For Berkeley, what is the difference between primary and secondary qualities?

Answer 13

In the case of primary qualities, they exist inside the actual body/substance and create an idea in our mind that resembles the object. Secondary qualities are thought to be properties that produce sensations in observers, such as color, taste, smell, and sound

Question 14

How does Berkeley use the primary-secondary quality distinction in his philosophy?

Question 15

Using his billiard ball illustration, what is Hume’s view of causality?

Answer 15

Hume says that, since we cannot see (gain the impression of) the invisible energies transfer from the cue ball to the 8-ball, we can’t claim knowledge that this is a cause and effect relationship

Question 16

How does Kant divide the world?

Answer 16

The Noumenal (spiritual world/higher reality) and Phenomenal World (the world as we experience it)

Question 17

What concepts belong in Kant’s major division?

Question 18

What are the first two statements in Kant’s Categorical Imperative?

Answer 18

“Act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law”

“Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never merely as a mean, but always at the same time as an end”

Question 19

How does Kant argue for the existence of God?

Answer 19

Kant argued that the goal of humanity is to achieve perfect happiness and virtue and believed that an afterlife must be assumed to exist in order for this to be possible, and that God must be assumed to exist to provide this

Question 20

What are elements of Hegel’s dialectic?

Answer 20

Thesis : A beginning proposition

Antithesis: Negation of beginning proposition

Synthesis: Two ideas are reconciled with each other to create a new proposition

Opposition between Thesis and Antithesis resolved by Synthesis

Hegel: “a process which brings forth an opposition, between a thesis and antithesis, which has within it an urge to be resolved by a synthesis, a combination in which the conflicting elements are preserved and somehow reconciled” (being and non-being come together to create becoming). “Every synthesis will in turn bring forth a new opposite, and so on”

Question 21

What are some features of Hegel’s understanding of the development of history?

Answer 21

Hegel/German Idealists rejected the noumenal realm (the thing itself)

Universal history is spirit (all of human consciousness and human history) marching towards freedom (ideal)

Hegel thinks of reality as a totality

Question 22

What are the characteristics of the three stages of life? (Kierkegaard)

Answer 22

Aesthetic: The Aesthetic life is characterized by a moment by moment existence lived for the self that ultimately ends in boredom and despair

Ethical: The ethical life is characterized by an existence of obligation and commitment to others over self. The problem with this is that you cannot live a perfectly ethical life in and of yourself and it ultimately leads to despair

Religious: The Religious life is characterized by living for God according to His moral standards and objective truth. This life goes against societal norms but it is the only one that does not lead to despair

Question 23

What are some key terms from Kierkegaard’s work Fear and Trembling?

Question 24

Why did Nietzsche declare the death of God?

Answer 24

Nietzsche is essentially saying “Look at what we have done to our foundation for all our morals and truth claims; we have destroyed it: we have murdered Him”

This is Nietzsche heralding the failure of modernity

The implications of this “death of God” are the loss of Truth and Morality

This is the ultimate end of a consistent atheist

Question 25

What is a critical assessment one could make of Nietzsche’s Death of God argument?

Answer 25

Although Nietzsche was no friend to Christianity, he is onto something here and can even be considered an ally in this area

We can’t just throw out philosophy because so many philosophers have rejected Truth, Morality, and God Himself

This is the ultimate end of the consistent atheist

Question 26

What was Sartre’s famous saying?

Answer 26

“Existence precedes essence”

Question 27

What is a critical assessment one could make with the saying “Existence precedes essence”?

Answer 27

What Sartre means: “As human beings, we don’t have the conceptual beginning that a tool has; without God, we are unlike the types of things that we create: we create ourselves; there is no preconceived definition of man: we become what we want”

Implications: “Man never really gains essence because he is constantly moulding himself; since we are perpetually flung into the future, we never get an opportunity to look back and say ‘This is what man is’

Question 28

Analytic

Answer 28

Locke and Leibniz foreshadowed an important distinction between analytic and synthetic; however, the current terminology comes from Kant

“An analytic statement is one in which the predicate is contained in the concept of the subject. A synthetic statement is one in which the predicate is not contained in the concept of the subject”

“An analytic statement cannot be denied without self-contradiction; a synthetic statement can”

Question 29

Dialectic

Answer 29

The art of argumentation, reasoning, and disputation

In ancient Greece, this was a sort of disputational game consisting of “yes” or “no” questions

The art of discourse by which a proposition is either established or refuted

Hegel: “a process which brings forth an opposition, between a thesis and antithesis, which has within it an urge to be resolved by a synthesis, a combination in which the conflicting elements are preserved and somehow reconciled” (being and non-being come together to create becoming). “Every synthesis will in turn bring forth a new opposite, and so on”

Question 30

Problem of Evil

Answer 30

“Bad things happen to people, and people do bad things. These two are typically called physical (or natural) evil and moral evil, respectively”

Another form of evil is “a disproportion between virtue and happiness, vice and misery: an evil exemplified when the wicked prosper and good people meet a grim fate”

Question 31

Interactionism

Answer 31

“A common-sense view that what happens in one’s mind can affect one’s body, and vice versa.” Typically used when speaking of Descartes’s dualism between mind and body

Question 32

Monad

Answer 32

Leibniz:

A simple, indivisible substance

Ultimately real, yet immaterial, indivisible, and infinite

Each one is utterly unique

Cannot interact with one another

Question 33

Noumenon

Answer 33

“An object of reason;” “an object of awareness not produced by sensory experience”

Since all of our experiences are sensory, we can never attain noumenal knowledge

Question 34

Phenomenon; Phenomena

Answer 34

“A thing (a quality, a relation, a state of affairs, an event, etc.) as it appears to us, as it is perceived. Phenomena, appearances, data, etc. are implicitly contracted with the way things really are. This contrast gives rise to one of the fundamental problems of philosophy: whether or how far we can have knowledge of the way things really are”

Kant: involves sense-experience

Question 35

Primary and Secondary Qualities

Answer 35

Locke:

Primary Qualities: “Qualities which inhere in an external object” (solidity, shape, extension, motion, rest, and number)

Secondary Qualities: “the powers in objects to affect our senses, to produce experiences of sensory qualities (colour, sound, etc.). In other authors secondary qualities are identified with the directly experienced sensory qualities”

Question 36

Slave-Morality

Answer 36

Nietzsche:

A replacing of the contrast between good and bad (non-moral) with good and evil (moral) by the unhealthy/downtrodden in order to justify contempt for the healthy and powerful. The healthy and powerful are deemed evil oppressors and the weak are regarded as victims of injustice. Nietzsche claims that this is the heart of Christianity and Judaism and why they must pass away