Metaphysics Flashcards
monism
- strict belief it is either one or the other
- believes it is 100% material or 100% thoughts
dualism: Descartes
There are 2 substances; extended things (objective reality), and thinking things (thoughts)
dualism: property dualism
- extension on descartes
- we have physical world then have mental world that is produced by the physical world
dualism: epiphenomenalism
There is the objective world and that thoughts are physical by-products by the brain specifically
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
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
heraclitus (pre-Socratic)
- 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
parmenidies (pre-Socratic)
- 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
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
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
Descartes: extended substances
- things that take up space
- AKA as ‘extension’
- e.g. rock
Descartes: thinking substances
‘thought’ as a thing
Spinoza
- believes there is only one substance: understood as “God” ; All encompassing ; not anthropomorphic (human shaped)
- does not depend on anything to exist: 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
Metaphysical Questions
what is reality?
what makes humans human?
supreme being?
Sartre: Existence precedes essence
- You exist before any essence
- We come into the world as a physical thing, then our essence develops as we live
Sartre: Initially, a person is nothing
- We come into the world as nothing and become in control of who we are
- “you will yourself to be”
Sartre: subjectivity
we are what we make of ourselves
Sartre: intersubjectivity
when we make ourselves who we are, we subconsciously make people that way we want them to be; the feeling when we realize which is a self opposing responsibility
Sartre: Anguish
The feeling that accompanies intersubjectivity
Sartre: forlorness
If god does not exist anything is possible, if that is true we are left to face the consequences alone; we are condemned to be free
Sartre: Despair
a) The feeling that the world does not adapt to us
b) the only reality is reality in action
- you must do the thing or it is just noise
Sartre: Moral choice is like the making of a work of art
Artists cannot point at the art and claim it to be art, the artwork simply becomes the art
Sartre: Existentialism
- does not pronounce pessimism but optimistic toughness
- one of the first principle is existence precedes essence
Sartre: acta non verba/Deeds not Words
We are not born a certain way, it is our actions that announce who we are
Sartre: Bad Faith
- We convince ourselves of something in the short term to for go long term pain
- we convince ourselves we have no other options because it is easier
- similar to cognitive dissonance
No exit’s famous statement
- “hell is other people”
- each individual faces self-truth and consequences
No exit: items
- ugly bronze ornament
- lack of mirrors
- urn
No exit: Inez Serrano
- her and florence helped kill someone
- postal worker
- Florence leaves on the gas stove to kill her
- says she will be estelle’s mirror
- pleasure tormenting others
No exit: Joseph Garcin
- beat his wife
- pacifist journalist during war
- most worried about his reputation
No exit: estelle rigault
- killed her baby
- married a man three times her age
- her torment is rooted in vanity
theism
refers to a belief in an anthropomorphic god; anthropomorphic, intervening, caring
deism
belief that some force started all this but it was not anthropomorphic, intervening, caring god; no miracles
monotheism
believes in solely one god
polytheism
belief system that has many gods
Pantheism
that god is in and of everything in the world
atheism
“there is no such thing as god but i wish there was,” strong belief that god does not exist
Antitheism
where you are against the very notion of god, and do not wish it to be the other way around
Agnosticism
fence sitters; really can’t say one way or the other “I don’t know”
Apatheism
meh, “I do not care”
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
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
From Design (from intelligent design)
- one of the three famous arguments for the existence of God
- because there is apparent order in the world (the universe) there must be an agent who designed such order
- William Paley’s watchmaker
- Barrow & Tipler - anthropic principle
- as Voltaire points out, even if we accept the existence of order does not equate to god, not a simple equation
- Even if you accept the designer analogy, how do the faculties of God-like design prove God-like omnipotence and omni-benevolence?
Cosmological: Descartes’ Variation
- I’m imperfect
- but I can think of a perfect being
- because I’m imperfect the perfect being must exist/originate beyond me
- beyond me is God/cosmos
Critics say: if you can identify any prime mover/beginning force does not mean that it is god, could be material not a prime being
Ontological: Descartes’ Variation
the only thing i cannot conceive of doing is thinking
🡪 First, ‘existing’ after death: thinking is what makes us human, it is my essence
🡪Next, I have an idea of the perfect being: because of my thinking, this thing must exist because i can think of it
From Design: William Paley’s 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
From Design: Barrow & Tipler
the anthropic principle— the chances of our universe coming to be habitable is 1/60 billion, cannot be accidental and there must be some driving force; too much order to be accidental
From Design: Natural Theology
the work is perfect and infallible which points to god, as the work is at fault (the fault lies on human being due to their lack of understanding)
poor design
- argument against god
- If there is a god, how come all the bad design?
- Why would mental health/war/physical deterioration be designed?
- Argument: it is not god’s design, it is a human problem
non-belief
- argument against god
- If there is a god, why does non-belief exist?
- Argument: it is not up to god to make them believe in god because faith is needed
Parsimony
- argument against god
- 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 than religious belief, but it cannot explain everything. Therefore, there is still a need for god
Omnipotence Paradox
- argument against god
- “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
Free Will (Omniscience) Paradox
- argument against god
- “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
The Problem of Evil/ The Problem of Suffering
- Examples of poor design
- If there was a god that is all powerful, then the god should be able to remove all the suffering in the world
- Argument: it is not a god thing, it is a human thing
The Teapot (Bertrand Russell)
- argument against god
- Unsee-able tea pot in space
- We believe it because of stories passed on through generation
- To question it is to question human history/culture
- Argument: faulty analogy
omnipotence
all powerful
omnibenevolence
all good
Barrow & Tipler
the anthropic principle— the chances of our universe coming to be habitable is 1/60 billion, cannot be accidental and there must be some driving force; too much order to be accidental
Thesus’ Paradox
- If every part of a ship is eventually replaced at what point is it a new ship?
- If to construct the broken pieces into another, what would you call that?
In No Exit, what does Sartre’s depiction of hell lack
- mirrors
- tooth brushes
- night
four truths of buddhism
- understand suffering (mental and physical)
- Abandon origins: detach from beginnings of suffering
- Attain cessations: end suffering
- Practice the eight fold path
the 17th century philosopher closest to Parmenides’ notion of reality is…
spinoza
Plato’s Theory of Forms suggests…
Perfection exists only in the abstract
metaphysics does not ask us to…
deny the existence of a supreme being
The word for the notion of God being an inextricable part of everything in the world…
pantheism
In I’m Thinking of Ending Things what song continues to play over and over?
Hey, Good Look’n
