Philosophy

Question 1

Philosophy and Logic

What are the three main movements in philosophy?

Answer 1

1. Premodernism
2. Modernism
3. Postmodernism

Question 2

Philosophy and Logic

What are the three broad types of philosophical question?

Answer 2

• Metaphysics
• Epistemology
• Axiology

Question 3

Philosophy and Logic

What is the basic question in the study of metaphysics?

Answer 3

What is fundamental reality?

What underlies the physical, observable world? What is the essence or true form of any particular object or aspect of our reality?

Question 4

Philosophy and Logic

What is the basic question in epistemology?

Answer 4

How do we arrive at knowledge? What can we know or not know?

Evidential and logical processes are examples of epistemology.

Question 5

Philosophy and Logic

What is the basic question in axiology?

Answer 5

What has value? What does it mean to have value?

Ethics and aesthetics are axiologic schools of thought.

Question 6

Philosophy and Logic

Describe the Socratic method.

Answer 6

A dialectical process of asking and answering questions to stimulate critical thinking and to draw out ideas and underlying presuppositions.

Question 7

Philosophy and Logic

Generally thinking, premodern philosophy placed primacy on which philosophical school of thought as the underpinning of reality?

Answer 7

Metaphysics

I.e., perspectives starting with metaphysical claims like “all is fire,” deistic foundations, etc. to undergird all of society as the basis for all other thought.

Question 8

Philosophy and Logic

Generally thinking, modern philosophy placed primacy on which philosophical school of thought as the underpinning of reality?

Answer 8

Epistemology

I.e., perspectives starting with logical and evidence-based analysis to undergird all of society as the basis for all other thought.

Question 9

Philosophy and Logic

Generally thinking, postmodern philosophy placed primacy on which philosophical school of thought as the underpinning of reality?

Answer 9

Axiology

I.e., perspectives starting with human values/preferences to undergird all of society as the basis for all other thought.

Question 10

Philosophy and Logic

What are the two major pre-Socratic groups of Western philosophy?

Answer 10

• Milesians
• Eleadics

• Milesians - emphasizing the chaos and disorder of the world. Emphasizing sense experience over reason as proper epistemology. Metabole.
• Eleadics - emphasizing the oneness and order of the world. Emphasizing reason over sense experience as proper epistemology. Logos.

Question 11

Philosophy and Logic

Pre-socratic thinkers were largely essentialist and found new ways of making broad, sweeping claims about the nature of the fundamental world. For examples:
* In monism, all is ??.
* In atomism, all is ??.
* In Pythagoreanism, all is ??.

Answer 11

Pre-socratic thinkers were largely essentialist and found new ways of making broad, sweeping claims about the nature of the fundamental world. For examples:
* In monism, all is fire, water, or air.
* In atomism, all is tiny, individual units called atoms.
* In Pythagoreanism, all is math.

Question 12

Philosophy and Logic

What did the sophists of Socrates’ day do?

Answer 12

Taught rhetorical skills without focus on truth.

Focused on how to win arguments and not how to actually be correct.

Question 13

Philosophy and Logic

Socrates asked what basic question?

Answer 13

What underpins our reality?

Socrates encouraged the common person to engage in philsophophical thought in a way never before seen.

Question 14

Philosophy and Logic

• What did Socrates say about the importance of reflecting on one’s life?
• How did Aristotle respond?

Answer 14

• “The unexamined life is not worth living.”
• “The unplanned life is not worth examining.”

Question 15

Philosophy and Logic

True/False.
Socrates wanted to teach everyone around him that we all know nothing.

Answer 15

True.

Unfortuantely, he was put on trial for it and sentenced to death.

Question 16

Philosophy and Logic

How did Plato build on Socrates’ work?

Answer 16

He took the question of what underpins reality and called the ideal, imagined basis of the physical world “forms” and that the ideal world was all that is real and fixed as the physical world changes constantly

E.g., the idea of the “human being” is the form which we should conform ourselves to be. Morality is based on forming ourselves to the ideal, abstract form.

Question 17

Philosophy and Logic

Plato asserted that morals are ?? and universal and also that they are largely self-serving. He asserted that ?? ??, those who could untie themselves from the cave and see the truth, should be cultivated to lead society.

Answer 17

Plato asserted that morals are absolute and universal and also that they are largely self-serving. He asserted that philosopher kings, those who could untie themselves from the cave and see the truth, should be cultivated to lead society.

Question 18

Philosophy and Logic

Describe Plato’s allegory of the cave.

Answer 18

Question 19

Philosophy and Logic

How did Aristotle contradict Plato’s work?

Answer 19

He argued that Plato’s “forms” don’t exist in some separate reality but that they are the essence of the physical world and not just shadows of the physical world

E.g., the “human being” is made of both an essence and also a substantial matter. Morality is the balance between competing, natural human virtues.

Question 20

Philosophy and Logic

Which premodern philosopher is credited with inventing syllogisms, stated that our goal in life should be “to live well,” and was a believer in teleology.

Answer 20

Aristotle

Question 21

Philosophy and Logic

Who was one of Aristotle’s young pupils who may have helped spread premodern ideas of Western philosophy?

Answer 21

Alexander the Great

With the Roman Empire then spreading them further.

Question 22

Philosophy and Logic

• ?? used Plato’s ideas about ideal forms to help spread the Christian teaching of humans having both a physical form and also a soul.
• ?? used Aristotle’s ideas about a prime mover to justify the Christian god.

Answer 22

• Augustine
• Aquinas

Question 23

Philosophy and Logic

Define epicureanism (the ancient school of thought from Athens).

Answer 23

Dictionary definition:

The school rejected determinism and advocated hedonism (pleasure as the highest good), but of a restrained kind: mental pleasure was regarded more highly than physical, and the ultimate pleasure was held to be freedom from anxiety and mental pain, especially that arising from needless fear of death and of the gods.

Question 24

Philosophy and Logic

The shift from premodern to modern philosophy is known as what?

Answer 24

The Enlightenment

An epistemic shift beginning with Descartes.

Question 25

Philosophy and Logic

Which philosopher kicked off much of the epistemic shift (“The Enlightenment”) with his Rationalism?

Answer 25

Descartes

An attempt to deconstruct everything and start from the ground up using nothing but reason and this is the foundation of justified knowledge.

Question 26

Philosophy and Logic

Which philosopher built off Descartes’ work with Empiricism and stated that metaphysics and ethics are not connected; i.e., that we cannot gain an “ought” from an “is”?

Answer 26

Hume

All of our epistemology is based off sense experience. This experience is all we have and can justify us in knowledge of how the world is but does not necessarily dictate causality in how the world operates on a fundamental level.

Question 27

Philosophy and Logic

Describe Kant’s description of the noumenal and phenomenal realms as a response and critique to Descartes’ rationalism and builds off Hume’s empiricism.

Answer 27

1. There are noumenal aspects to the world (the underlying, foundational state) and phenomenal aspects to the world (the state we can observe).
2. We only have access to the phenomenal aspect, and so we are forever barred from the noumenal, meaning rationalism will never lead us to ultimate reality.
3. We can assume from a practical viewpoint that our view of the phenomenal is based on the noumenal, and so we can take the laws of logic (which seem universal) as basic assumptions.

I.e., we will never have justified true belief of how the world actually is.

Question 28

Philosophy and Logic

Essentially, what is Kant’s “categorical imperative”?

Answer 28

That a moral law can be assumed as correct if it can be universalized

E.g., if lying were permissible, then trust would cease to exist, and thus lying as a concept would not exist either, making the concept self-defeating. However, if lying is not permissible, then the concept of both it and trust are upheld and must be universalized, creating moral virtue/imperative.

Question 29

Philosophy and Logic

What did Hegel propose as an argument against Kant’s neoumenal-phenomenal dichotomy?

To argue that we are not locked out of the noumenal and solely confined to the phenomenal world.

Answer 29

That human rational dialectic will lead to continuing refinement of human thought, always further approximating the noumenal until it is justified knowledge

Question 30

Philosophy and Logic

Hegel argued that humans started in a(n) ?? state, moved into a(n) ?? state, and can finally be liberated into a(n) ?? state.

Answer 30

Hegel argued that humans started in a religious state, moved into an ethical state, and can finally be liberated into an aesthetic state.

This is Hegelian existentialism. He argued this was the natural course of individual human lives and of humanity.

Question 31

Philosophy and Logic

How did Kierkegaard argue against Hegel’s idea that humankind (collectively and individually) can progress from religious to ethical to aesthetic stages?

Answer 31

He argued the opposite

That humankind (collectively and individually) can progress from aesthetic (childlike) to ethical to religious (enlightened, divine) stages?

Question 32

Philosophy and Logic

What major world event started the shift from modern to postmodern philosophy?

Answer 32

The Holocaust

As a reaction to the alleged end result of epistemology as the basis of thought leading to dehumanization.

Question 33

Philosophy and Logic

As a reaction to The Holocaust, the postmodern movement sought to do what?

Answer 33

To abandon metaphysical claims and frontload axiologic claims of justice/dignity/morality on which to base reason/rationality.

Question 34

Philosophy and Logic

What is a basic definition of postmodernism?

Answer 34

A reactionary movement seeking to reexamine and deconstruct the epistemic bases of The Enlightenment with a focus on human dignity and value and justice

Question 35

Philosophy and Logic

1. Empiricism/rationalism are most associated with which era of philosophical thought?
2. And essentialism?
3. And nihilism/aburdism and social justice?

Answer 35

1. Modernism
2. Premodernism
3. Postmodernism

Question 36

Philosophy and Logic

Epistemology is the study of what?

Answer 36

Knowledge

(‘How we know what we know’)

Question 37

Philosophy and Logic

Ontology is the study of what?

Answer 37

The nature of being

Question 38

Philosophy and Logic

What is a tautology (in the linguistic sense)?

Answer 38

An assertion which repeats itself

(A redundancy; saying the same thing twice)

Examples: ‘it is what it is.’ ‘Boys will be boys.’

Question 39

Philosophy and Logic

What is a tautology (in the logical sense)?

Answer 39

An assertion which is true no matter what

(You can’t be wrong)

Examples: ‘it is this or it is not this.’ ‘The ball is all red or the ball is not all red.’

Question 40

Philosophy and Logic

Which philosopher came up with the ‘veil of ignorance’ thought experiment as a way of explaining our collective agreement to a hypothetical social contract?

Answer 40

John Rawls

Question 41

Philosophy and Logic

What is teleology?

Answer 41

The philosophical interpretation of natural phenomena as exhibiting purpose or design.

Question 42

Philosophy and Logic

What is a truism?

Answer 42

A claim that is so obvious or self-evident as to be hardly worth mentioning, except as a reminder or as a rhetorical or literary device

Question 43

Philosophy and Logic

What is sophistry?

Answer 43

Plausible but misleading or fallacious arguments

Question 44

Philosophy and Logic

Define stoicism.

Answer 44

Wikipedia definition:

‘as social beings, the path to eudaimonia (happiness, or blessedness) is found in accepting the moment as it presents itself, by not allowing oneself to be controlled by the desire for pleasure or by the fear of pain, by using one’s mind to understand the world and to do one’s part in nature’s plan, and by working together and treating others fairly and justly.’

Question 45

Philosophy and Logic

How does compatibilism attempt to reconciliate the ideas of free will and determinism?

Answer 45

Free will is defined as action in accordance with one’s motivations and in the absence of external coercions.

Thus, you act as determined, but you are still ultimately responsible for your actions.

Ex. I can walk out of this room, or I can be carried out. Although this is determined in advance, it is only freely done if in accordance with my own motivations and absent external force.

Question 46

Philosophy and Logic

Which form of free will (libertarian, compatibilist, or determinist) represents an infinite regress?

Answer 46

Libertarian

Wikipedia: ‘Some forms of libertarianism assert that human actions do not have causes and are chosen consciously – i.e. are not random. This assertion raises the question: what are these conscious decisions based on? Since they can’t be based on nothing (as the possibility of decisions being random is excluded), this question can be asked for each subsequent answer or answers to it, thus forming an infinite regress.’

Question 47

Philosophy and Logic

What is the meaning of the word ‘philosophy?’

Answer 47

‘Love of wisdom’

Question 48

Philosophy and Logic

Describe the moral system generally proposed by utilitarian philosophers.

Answer 48

Morally right = that which maximizes well-being

Question 49

Philosophy and Logic

Describe the moral system generally proposed by Kant-ian philosophers.

Answer 49

Treating others as means to an ends is morally wrong. True altruism is doing things for others when those actions don’t benefit us.

Question 50

Philosophy and Logic

Describe the moral system generally proposed by Rawlsian philosophers.

Answer 50

Whichever society you’d decide upon if you didn’t know who you’d be within it, that is the morally just society.

(This is known as the Rawlsian ‘veil of ignorance.’)

Question 51

Philosophy and Logic

What is a modern cinematic take on Plato’s allegory of the cave?

Answer 51

The red pill in The Matrix

Question 52

Philosophy and Logic

What is “the prisoner’s dilemma”?

Answer 52

A thought experiment in which you and an accomplice have been arrested for a crime and are being held separately. You are given the option of (A) staying silent or (B) confessing. If only one of you confesses, that inmate who confessed goes free, and the other takes the sentence; if both confess, both serve the sentence at a reduced length; if both stay silent, then both go free.

Question 53

Philosophy and Logic

What is the utilitarian response to the trolley dilemma?

What is the Kantian response?

What is the deontological response?

Answer 53

Utilitarian: five beings’ well-being > one being’s well-being; pull the lever

Kantian: you can’t treat the single being as a means to an ends for the five beings; don’t pull the lever

Deontological: the law says not to actively kill your fellow being(s); don’t pull the lever

Question 54

Philosophy and Logic

What is the question raised by the ‘ship of Theseus’ thought experiment?

Answer 54

If an object has had each of its components replaced by corresponding, identical components (e.g., one-by-one, the axe handle, head, and wedge are replaced by an identical handle, head, and wedge), does it remain the same object?

(This can be extended to science-fiction transport machines, etc.)

Question 55

Philosophy and Logic

Give the general gist of the replacement argument thought experiment. (Expound as to how it relates to meat consumption.)

Answer 55

Is life a good in and of itself? Is it better for 20 billion people to live in poor conditions or 10 billion in rich conditions? If the rich conditions, what is lost in the other 10 billion who never lived?

(Ending meat consumption -and thus ending the production/exchange of meat products- would drastically decrease the number of cows/chickens/pigs on the earth.)

Question 56

Philosophy and Logic

Give the syllogistic form of the Kalam cosmological argument in its most commonly accepted version.

Answer 56

1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
2. The universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.

Question 57

Philosophy and Logic

Name some common objections to the Kalam cosmological argument.

Answer 57

“Why should it be supposed that absolutely everything which begins to exist has a cause for its beginning to exist?”

“If time did not exist prior to the big bang, who is to say that the universe ‘began’ with the big bang?”

“We have no other universes to compare this one to in determining if universes generally need to have beginnings.”

(Note: even if the universe has a cause, this argument still is a long way off from proving a personal, intelligent, powerful being as the cause.)

Question 58

Philosophy and Logic

What is a deepity?

Answer 58

A nonsensical or banal statement that is presented as if it held some profound meaning.

(E.g., ‘love is just a word.’)

Question 59

Philosophy and Logic

True/False.

Pascal’s wager is an example of an epistemic justification for the belief in a god.

Answer 59

False.

Pascal’s wager is an example of a pragmatic justification for the belief in a god.

Question 60

Philosophy and Logic

Who are some examples of major philosophers of postmodernism?

Answer 60

• Schopenhauer
• Nietzsche
• Derrida
• Foucault