PHI Final Flashcards
Metaphysics
The study of “ultimate reality”
Epistemology
The study of knowledge
Philosophy
The love of wisdom
Ethics
The study of moral problems
Social and Political philosophy
The study of the nature and origins of government and its affects on society.
Logic
The study of the rules of correct reasoning.
Aesthetics
The study of values, particularly art and beauty
Thales
Believed that water is the basic substance of all things.
Anaximander
Thought that particular “stuffs” emerged in pairs of opposites (hot-cold, dry-wet, hard-soft, etc.)
Anaximenes
Believed that the first, universal, underlying element is air, or pneuma.
Heraclitus
He said, “Change alone is unchanging.” Traditionally, it has been held that he went so far as to claim that everything is always changing all the time.
Parmenides
A monist who characterized the one real thing that underlies all reality as “being.” Also taught that change is only an appearance. In reality, there is no change.
Empedocles
Concluded that reality must be “completely full,” or a plenum without any gaps. Change comes form the two basic motions of love and strife.
Anaxagoras
Believed that change comes from Nous, or the “all-pervading Mind which imposes (brings about) an intelligible pattern in an otherwise unintelligible universe”
Democritus
Taught that things come into existence when atoms combine in certain ways, and they go out of existence when their parts or atoms separate.
According to our text, Protagoras thought that behaving in a conventional way…
…affords us the most social power.
What is ethnocentrism?
The idea that one’s own way is superior to all others
What is relativism?
The belief that knowledge is determined by the specific qualities of the observer
According to Callicles, who has the natural right to dominate others?
The superior and powerful individual
How many books did Socrates write?
0
When he was on trial, what was Socrates accused of?
Corrupting the youth of Athens
According to Socrates, what is temperance?
Indifference to pleasure
According to Socrates, what is one of the chief reasons that people can’t think clearly?
They don’t know what they’re talking about
What is a techne?
A special kind of knowledge about how to do something
What is the socratic method?
The method of guided questions in an attempt to draw the truth out of the pupil
What was the name of Socrates’ wife?
Xanthippe
What was Plato’s real name?
Aristocles
(true or false) For Plato, the Forms are simply ideas in our imagination.
False, Plato did not believe Forms are simply ideas in our imagination.
For Plato, what are the three parts of the soul?
reason, spirit, appetite
For Plato, what is the most unbalanced personality?
tyrant
Who was the Nichomachean Ethics named after?
Aristotle’s Son
Who was Aristotle’s most famous pupil?
Alexander the Great
What are Aristotle’s four causes?
material, formal, efficient, final
For Aristotle, what are the three types of soul?
vegetative, sensitive, rational
According to Aristotle, how is a person happy?
One is happy when one functions fully and well according to his or her nature
According to Aristotle, which one of the following is NOT one of the elements?
plastic
(true or false) For Plato, the Forms are simply ideas in our imagination.
False, Plato did not believe Forms are simply ideas in our imagination.
What is hedonism?
The philosophy that pleasure is the principle motive for living and that pleasure is always good
What was the name of Epicurus’ school?
Garden
(true or false) The Cynics were known for their lavish lifestyles and for pursuing pleasure wherever they could find it.
False
What are the most influential therapies of today that are based on Stoicism?
Reality therapy, rational-emotive therapy, logo therapy
According to the textbook, what are Augustine’s most important works?
Confessions, City of God
According to Aquinas, what is the chief and only reliable source of knowledge of God and God’s ways?
Revelation
According to Aquinas, what is evil?
Both A(Lack of goodness) and B(A necessary product of free will)
(true or false) According to our textbook, Aquinas’s impact is only relevant to the Catholic Church.
False
(true or false) According to our textbook, Aquinas’s impact is only relevant to the Catholic Church.
False
What is the epistemological position in which reason is said to be the primary source of all knowledge?
Rationalism
According to Descartes, what is the only reliable way to discover the truth about the universe?
Through a mathematically precise method
Which of the following is an example of an ‘a priori’ idea?
Triangles have three sides
What is the only thing that Descartes thought that we could NOT doubt?
That I am a thing that thinks
According to our text, what is a skeptic?
A person who demands clear, observable, undoubtable, evidence based on experience.
What is empiricism?
The epistemological position that all ideas can be traced back to sense data.
What is Locke’s idea of the “tabula rasa?”
The idea that our mind at birth was a completely blank tablet
Berkeley was an idealist. This means that…
the material world does not exist, only ideas exis
What is Hume’s fact-value distinction?
Facts themselves are valueless
(true or false) Hume thought that the cause and effect relationship could be proven scientifically.
False
What is Kantian formalism?
The idea that knowledge is the result of an interaction between the mind and sensation
What is the phenomena and the noumena?
The world as we experience it and the things as they exist independently of us
What are Kant’s three transcendental ideas?
Self, Cosmos, and God
According to Kant, what is the source of morality?
The capacity for reason
What is Kant’s categorical imperative?
Act as if the maxim of your action were to become universal law
Which one of the following is referred to as Kant’s practical imperative?
Act in such a way that you always treat people as ends, never as means to an end
What are the “two masters” Bentham says shape all of human activity?
Pain and Pleasure
Which type of pleasure would Mill rank as the highest?
Reading Fine Literature
According to the author of our text, what was the fatal flaw of Bentham’s work?
He didn’t consider the quality of pleasures
According to our text, Mill argued that the principle cause of unhappiness is…
Selfishness
(true or false) Hume thought that the cause and effect relationship could be proven scientifically.
False
What are the main elements of Hegel’s dialectical process?
Thesis, antithesis, synthesis
What is the bourgeoisie?
upper class
For Marx, the main problems of society were…
economic
According to Marx, alienation results from what?
the transformation of a human being into a commodity
According to Marx, what makes something “work?” (“work” as in a job or career)
how we relate to it
Where did William James earn his PhD?
Harvard medical school (????)
One of William James’s chief purposes was to what?
to be an advocate to convince a wide audience
What is the pragmatic theory of meaning?
the only difference between the meanings of words are how they test out in experience
What is one of the main questions asked in the pragmatic method?
What practical difference does it make to me?
(true or false) For James, it is far better to believe passionately in a “lie” that it is to halfheartedly accept the “truth.”
True
By the end of his life, James equated truth with what?
Usefulness
What is existentialism?
any philosophy that asserts that the most important philosophical matters involve fundamental questions of meaning and choice as they affect actual individuals
Kierkegaard saw himself as a disciple of whom?
Socrates
Kierkegaard’s first important works were called “Either/Or” and “Repetition.” What did he hope to accomplish with these books?
To reestablish his relationship with his former fiance
According to Kierkegaard, what results in inauthenticity?
When the nature and needs of the individual are ignored
What did Kierkegaard mean by the “massing of society?”
All of the above:
- The dimunition of the individual’s role in the face of mass production
- The pernicious influence of the press
- The loss of truth in the face of objectivity and abstraction
Sartre thought that evil was…
real and concrete
What was the major difference between Sartre and Marxism?
Sartre emphasized the individual while Marxism emphasized the collective
Sartre thought that there is only one aspect in which we are not truly free. What is this aspect?
We are not free not to be free
Sartre thought that with awareness of freedom and responsibility come ______?
Anguish
Nietzsche saw himself as the first to recognize the symptoms of a profound sickness at the core of ______?
Modernity
What was Nietzsche’s nickname as a child?
the little pastor
What was one of the main things that Nietzsche learned from Schopenhauer?
That life makes no objective, absolute sense
What was Nietzsche’s purpose in writing Beyond Good and Evil and Toward a Genealogy of Morals?
To destroy conventional morality and replace it with a higher “immoral” ideal
According to Nietzsche, what is the basis for meaning?
Aesthetic vision
What is perspectivism?
The view that every view is only one among many possible interpretations
According to Nietzsche, what is the single goal of science, religion, and philosophy?
The exertion of power
What is nihilism?
The belief that the universe lacks objective meaning and purpose
What is Kantian formalism?
The idea that knowledge is the result of an interaction between the mind and sensation
