Final Exam Study Guide

Question 1

Leibniz

Answer 1

Philosopher who believes that we live in the best of all possible worlds.

Question 2

Best of all Possible Worlds

Answer 2

We live in the best of all possible worlds because this is the world God created. Since he is omni (+) then, it must be the best of all possible worlds.

Question 3

Voltaire

Answer 3

Author of Candide, seems to be ridiculing Leibniz’ idea of this being the best of all possible worlds.

Question 4

Pangloss

Answer 4

Character in Candide; maintains the idea that this is the best of all possible worlds, despite all of the bad crap that happens to him.

Question 5

optimism

Answer 5

interpreting things in the best possible light

Question 6

mosaic theory

Answer 6

This is the best of all possible worlds; therefore anything bad that happens must have some good that it allows.

Question 7

conte philosophique

Answer 7

term coined by Voltaire; in which he uses various fictional forms in the satirical extrapolation of various philosophical issues of his day

Question 8

Lisbon earthquake

Answer 8

Major earthquake that happened in Lisbon, used to debate best of all possible worlds theory.

Question 9

Cacambo

Answer 9

Candide’s servant who is sent to get Cunegunda from Italy. Is with Candide while they are in El Dorado

Question 10

incommensurables/surds

Answer 10

The idea that in order to have good things, sometimes there also must be irrational things (pi, sqrt 2, etc)

Question 11

Bildungsroman

Answer 11

Coming of age story, story in which the character grows

Question 12

Candide

Answer 12

main character in Candide; At the end of Candide, he is said to believe that the best way to deal with suffering is to tend your own garden.

Question 13

Eldorado

Answer 13

City where everything is perfect. Candide and Cacambo leave it in search of Cunegonde

Question 14

Cunégonde

Answer 14

Woman Candide gets thrown out of the castle because of, woman he chases all over the world because he’s “in love” with her. When he finds her, she’s old and ugly.

Question 15

utopia

Answer 15

a perfect society

Question 16

Celan

Answer 16

Author of poem Todesfuge, controversial poem because people didn’t like how beautiful the poem was, describing “that which happened”

Question 17

Todesfuge

Answer 17

Celan’s poem written in direct response to Adorno’s claim that poetry after Auschwitz was barbaric.

Question 18

Holocaust

Answer 18

Systematic killings of millions of people by the German govt, primarily focused on wiping out the Jewish people, but also gypsies, homosexuals, people with disabilities ect

Question 19

Shoah

Answer 19

שואה Hebrew term used to describe the Holocaust (literally means calamity)

Question 20

Adorno

Answer 20

Man who felt that writing poetry after Auschwitz was ‘barbaric’.

Question 21

that which happened

Answer 21

the phrase Adorno uses in place of ‘Holocaust’ because he feels that ‘that which happened’ is unable to be explained by our words.

Question 22

Milgram

Answer 22

Psychologist who conducted a study seeing the impact of deferred responsibility. Set up to make subject think they were shocking a person every time they answered a question wrong. He was seeing how many people would shock to the XXX level.

Question 23

Obedience

Answer 23

doing what an authority figure told you to do. In the Milgram experiment, being told to shock someone in increasingly higher intervals when answered a question wrong.

Question 24

authority

Answer 24

The person you obey

Question 25

Auschwitz-Buna

Answer 25

Concentration/work camp where thousands of people were killed.