Ontology

Question 1

Materialism/Physicalism

Answer 1

There is only one substance and it is material

Problem: How can material things produce consciousness which has so many features

Question 2

Idealism

Answer 2

There is only one substance and it is mental

Problem: Thoughts have content of sensory information that can not be conceived prior to being sensed

Question 3

Dualism

Answer 3

There are two substances, mind and matter

Problem: How can it be that two distinct substances affect one another?

Question 4

Transcendental Idealism

Answer 4

Noumena reality, consisting of the Thing-in-Itself is unknowable; phenomenal reality is constructed by the categories of mind - time, space, causality, etc. - and is knowable

Question 5

Interactionism

Answer 5

Mind and body can affect one another

Question 6

Epiphenimenalism

Answer 6

Bodies can affect minds, but not vice-versa, and the experience of consciousness is irrelevant

Question 7

Occasionalism

Answer 7

All events are directly caused by God

Question 8

Pre-Established Harmony

Answer 8

God has ordered events (at creation) such that they appear to be caused by bodies and minds

Question 9

Nominalism

Answer 9

Abstract objects/universals do not exist, or exist only as names/concepts, and only concrete objects exists

Question 10

Realism (universals)

Answer 10

Abstract objects/universals and concrete objects exist

Question 11

Substance theory

Answer 11

Substance acts as a substratum (Locke’s term) where properties of an object come together in the substance

Question 12

Bundle theory

Answer 12

An object simply consists of a set of properties associated together

Question 13

Form

Answer 13

The structure (or whole) as compared to the matter, which is the material (or parts)

Question 14

Hylomorphism

Answer 14

Aristotle’s theory that all objects are made of matter and form

Question 15

Qualia

Answer 15

The phenomenological experience of the senses as experienced, ex: the redness of red; the sweetness of sweet

Question 16

Intentionality

Answer 16

Thoughts have meaning, they are about something. They have semantic content (meaning), not merely syntax (structure)

Question 17

Mary’s Room

Answer 17

Frank Jackson’s thought experiment that he. argued showed that a neuroscientist with complete knowledge of the working of the brain would still learn something new once experiencing a new qualia for the first time

Question 18

The Chinese Room

Answer 18

John Searle’s thought experiment where a man is placed in a room with a set of instructions on which Chinese symbols to respond to when given Chinese symbols from outside. Searle says the man does not understand the content of any of his conversations in Chinese, and so is in the same situation as a computer is. Consciousness not only manipulates symbols, but understands what those symbols mean

Question 19

John McTaggart Ellis McTaggart’s Unreality of Time

Answer 19

A famous journal article within which McTaggart argued that time was not real. His argument is that there is no argument that does not assume time that can prove time, and because any such argument is invalid by being a vicious circle or begging the question, time cannot exist. Essentially, if we agree that time requires that a moment hold the three properties of being past, present, and future, and that these properties are mutually-exclusive and contradictory, then when we disallow using time to prove time (by saying the moments are held at different times or in succession), then we are left with a simple contradiction of a moment experiencing these states all at once. As contradictions are never true of reality, time is not real.

Question 20

A-Series of Time

Answer 20

Time as organized as past-present-and future. These relations change depending on where in the time-sequence the present is located, e.g. the Civil War, when fought, was in the present, the Revolutionary War in the past, and the Great War in the future.

Question 21

B-Series of Time

Answer 21

Time as organized simply as earlier/later. There is no privileged present, and the relations are permanent. It always is the case that the Revolutionary War occurred before the Civil War

Question 22

C-Series of Time

Answer 22

C-Series of Time: There is an order to time, it is just non-temporal, like the ordering of the alphabet (B comes after A but does not do so in time).

Question 23

Presentism

Answer 23

The belief that only the present moment exists. Committed to an A-Series account of time.

Question 24

Externalism

Answer 24

The belief that all moments exist. Committed to a B-series only account of time.

Question 25

Growing Block/Universe

Answer 25

The present exists, the past is perhaps equally as existent, but the future doesn’t exist yet.

Question 26

The Ship of Theseus

Answer 26

Over the course of 20 years, every plank, nail, sail, oar, et cetera of Theseus’ ship is gradually replaced. Meanwhile, someone gathered all the discarded pieces and created their own boat. Which one is the real ship? A problem of personal identity over time, as similar processes occur with all objects, including human beings.