PHL-180 Midterm Flashcards
1
Q
What are the 10 reasons to study philosophy?
A
- Response to the great commandment
- Develop analytical and critical thinking skills
- Philosophy helps in constructing a Christian worldview
- Philosophy offers assistance in developing holistic (totality of the person) faith
- Philosophy helps us gain intellectual confidence in the Christian faith
- Philosophy helps with evangelism and apologetics
- To understand history, we need to be familiar with philosophical thinkers, eras, and issues
- We need to study philosophy because “bad philosophy needs to be answered”
- Philosophy is both a first- and second-order discipline
- We should study philosophy because we are all philosophers
2
Q
Define analyze
A
to see connections between ideas and identify assumptions (i.e., connecting the dots); finding out what supports the arguments; digging deeper
3
Q
Define assess
A
to weigh the evidence; decide what is more important
4
Q
Define argue
A
to give a reasoned presentation of ideas; can be very simple or complex
5
Q
Define worldview
A
the lens or filter in which people make sense of the world
6
Q
What is a comprehensive worldview?
A
covers all the facts
7
Q
What is a coherent worldview?
A
holds together
8
Q
What is a livable worldview?
A
can be practiced in the real world; relationship between theory and practice
9
Q
Define apologetics
A
a reasoned defense
10
Q
Define evangelism
A
telling the good news to others despite the environment and amount of people
11
Q
Define second-order discipline
A
allows philosophy to be applied to other subjects
12
Q
Define first-order discipline
A
its own subject with its own pursuits
13
Q
What are the three branches of philosophy?
A
Epistemology, Metaphysics, Axiology
14
Q
Define epistemology
A
the study of knowledge and acquire beliefs; justifying and defending beliefs
15
Q
Define metaphysics
A
the study of ultimate reality and human existence
16
Q
Define axiology
A
the study of quality and value
17
Q
Define revelation
A
God’s self-disclosure according to Christians
18
Q
What are the three types of general revelation?
A
Nature, moral law, and universal patterns
19
Q
What is nature?
A
(1) the design of the world allows us to learn about God, (2) its beauty teaches us about God’s artistic side, and (3) strong storms show us God’s strength
20
Q
Define moral law
A
a conscious and morality to the world
21
Q
Define universal patterns
A
life and death and life and death again
22
Q
What is special revelation?
A
The Bible –> Old and New Testament, Incarnation, and Miracles
23
Q
What is the pre-Socratic era?
A
first group of Greek thinkers to try to make sense of the world without relying on religion and mythology
24
Q
Who believed water was the most important thing?
A
Thales
25
Who was the father of speculative science?
Thales
26
Who believed the world to be cylindrical shaped like a drum and the world did not lie on anything, but held up by force?
Anaximander
27
Who thought about evolution 2000 years before Darwin?
Anaximander
28
Who believed air was the soul to humanity?
Anaximenes
29
Who believed the soul and that it is immortal and has been around forever?
Pythagoras
30
Who theorized reincarnation and embraced a pantheist worldview?
Pythagoras
31
Who believed fire was the fundamental element to reality?
Heraclitus
32
Who believed everything was in constant flux or change?
Heraclitus
33
Who believes that everything is constant and unchanging and that time and motion is misleading?
Parmenides
34
Who believed that everything in the world is made up of atoms, something that is constantly moving and rearranging itself?
Democritus
35
Who focused on human condition and opposed sophists?
Socrates
36
What is the Socratic method?
asking carefully crafted questions
37
What are the three positive teachings of Socrates?
(1) Virtue is knowledge; evil is ignorance; no one knowingly does evil. (2) Learning is remembering, recollection. (3) No evil can ever happen to a good person.
38
Why was Socrates condemned to death?
teaching false gods and leading the youth astray
39
What does Plato's just society correspond to?
his tripartite view of the human soul--productive caste (workers), protective caste (military), and governing caste (philosopher-kings)
40
What is the theory of forms (or ideas)?
we focus on that we can experience through our senses (matter), instead focuses on the idea of inmaterialistic realms (spiritual), and everything in the materialistic realm is just a copy of the actual thing in the the immaterialistic realm.
41
What is Plato known for?
The Theory of Forms, writing the Apology and the Republic, and was a rationalist
42
What did Plato believe?
the soul is immortal and that there is a heirarchy to all of his forms, ideas, and virtues
43
What are the points Aristotle disagreed on with Plato?
viewed God as "Unmoved Mover", rejected Plato's Theory's of Forms, focused on "Particulars", and was an early empiricist
44
What is the Golden Mean?
The way Aristotle understood ethics in terms of character instead of rules.
45
Define virtue
the habit or pattern of thinking, feeling, and living in accordance with wisdom
46
Who said: "The unexamined life is not worth living"?
Socrates
47
Who said: "It is easy to perform a good action, but not easy to acquire a settled habit of performing such actions"?
Aristotle
48
How did Plato see the world?
universals, religion, rationalism, deduction, grace, faith, innate knowledge, idealism, spirit, meaning, and upper story
49
How did Aristotle see the world?
particulars, science, empiricism, induction, nature, reason, sense perception, realism, matter, reality, and lower story
50
Who were the four groups of people during the Hellenistic area?
epicureans, stoics, cynics, skeptics
51
Who were the epicureans?
absence of pain; prolonged to indulgence, but wanted to limit pain, so they would moderate their activity
52
Who were the stoics?
facing life's adversities with calm, collected, and controlled resignation
53
Who were the cynics?
society's drop-outs; weren't engaged in society, and were very critical
54
Who were the skeptics?
suspend judgement about thing which are not evident; to make inquiry
55
What is justified true belief?
what we need for our claim to knowledge
56
S knows P if and only if the following:
S believes P, P is true, and S is properly justified in believing P--good reasons for true belief
57
What two things support belief justification?
decisive proof and good evidence
58
Define foundationalism
all beliefs that we have are built upon our basic beliefs
59
What are the basic beliefs?
memory, sense experience, testimony, logic, and mathematics
60
Define skeptic project
the skeptic sets out to show that some of our most certain, basic beliefs and belief-producing mechanisms may not be properly justified
61
What are the two types of skepticism?
source and radical skepticism
62
Define source skepticism
questions whether the sources for our beliefs concerning the past, present, and future are ever reliable
63
Define radical skepticism
proposes counterintuitive thought experiments concerning the past, present, and future and asks how we know these hypotheses are false
64
What are belief producing sources?
memory, testimony, and sense experience
65
There is no evidence supporting the belief that memory is reliable --> circular reasoning
past source skepticism
66
Testimony can sometimes be reliable, but sense experience is not always reliable (circular reasoning
present source skepticism
67
past + present beliefs =
future beliefs
68
Who is associated with past radical skepticism?
20th century atheist, Bertrand Russel
69
Who is associated with present radical skepticism?
father of modern philosophy--Rene Descartes
70
Who developed the demon and dream hypotheses?
Rene Descartes
71
What is the dream hypothesis?
the idea that what we are currently experiencing is not just an elaborate dream
72
What is the demon hypothesis?
suppose there is a powerful evil demon who has hypnotized us into holding all of our beliefs
73
What can we learn from skepticism?
(1) Source skepticism shows us that we cant offer any good evidence that our most basic belief-forming mechanisms are ever reliable. (2) Radical skepticism shows us that we can't find any evidence to challenge a whole host of wild, counterintuitive proposals. (3) We can't prove or even offer any untainted evidence that our most basic and certain beliefs are true. We believe that memory, testimony, and sense experience are sometimes reliable. And we do so without even a strand of evidence, let alone proof. (4) The skeptic helps us stay humble when it comes to truth claims.
74
Principle of belief conservation
Conclusion: it is more rational for you NOT to take the cognitive stance toward proposition
75
PBC helps us see what we already know to be intuitively true...
...it is rational to trust our basic belief-forming mechanisms in the right situations when we are sober, awake, and there are no distorting factors.
76
What challenges does PBC deflect?
radical and source skepticism
77
What principles are the foundation for all knowledge?
basic beliefs
78
What are the three foundations of knowledge?
rationalism, empiricism, and a middle way
79
What was the famous adage of Rene Descartes?
I think therefore I am
80
Who are three rationalists?
Rene Descartes, Benedict de Spinoza, and Gottfried Leibniz
81
What are the basic beliefs of Rene Descartes?
self-evident truths
82
What are the basic beliefs of John Locke?
sense experience
83
What is John Locke known for?
social contract theory and that the mind is a blank space
84
Who are three empiricists?
John Locke, George Barkeley, and David Hume
85
Who was a middle way?
Immanuel Kant
86
What is the rational response squad?
an atheist activist group that confronts what it considers to be irrational claims, made by theists, particularly Christians
87
What is the Blasphemy Challenge?
An internet based project which claims to get atheists to come out and declare themselves as theists
88
What is the four horsemen of neo-atheism?
a group of prominent atheists
89
Who make up the four horsemen of neo-atheism?
Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennet
90
What are the seven worldview questions?
1. What is prime reality--the really real?
2. What is the nature of the world around us?
3. What is a human being?
4. What happens to a person at death?
5. Why is it possible to know anything at all?
6. How do we know what is right and wrong?
7. What is the meaning of human history?
91
What is theism?
belief in God
92
What is the prime reality of Christian theism?
infinite-persona, triune, transcendent, and immanent God
93
What is external reality of Christian theism?
Open system of uniform cause and effect; Christian theist believes there are natural laws that God created to provide order and they can be predicted; openness between natural realm and supernatural realm
94
What are the humans of Christian theism?
personal, created in the image of God
95
What is the afterlife of Christian theism?
eternity--exist forever
96
What is the epistemology of Christian theism?
we can know things truly, but not exhaustively because we are created in the image of God; He is the ultimate reference point for knowledge
97
What are the ethics of Christian theism?
Moral standards are derived from God's character; humans can know and live according to these standards with God's help.
98
What is the history beliefs of Christian theism?
History is linear with an overarching purpose; humans have a role to play in God's story.
99
What is the prime reality of deism?
clockwork universe, God is transcendent, but not immanent
100
What is the external reality of deism?
closed system of uniform cause and effect
101
What are the humans of deism?
personal, but part of the clockwork system
102
What is the afterlife of deism?
not clear, depends on the form of deism
103
What is the epistemology of deism?
God can only be known through general revelation
104
What are the ethics of deism?
Since the universe is normal, it reveals things the way they should be
105
What is the history of deism?
history is linear and the world is as God intended
106
What is the prime reality of naturalism?
God does not exist, the natural world is ultimate; complete determinism
107
What is the external reality of naturalism?
closed system of uniform cause and effect--no supernatural realm for the naturalist
108
What are the humans of naturalism?
humans are complex machines and part of the clockwork system like the rest of the natural world; personality is a combination of chemical and physical properties.
109
What is the afterlife of naturalism?
death extinguishes all aspects of life, including personality and individuality
110
What is the epistemology of naturalism?
consciousness/self-awareness are a mysterious part of the natural machine that we don't yet fully understand
111
What are the ethics of naturalism?
morality is a human invention or product of evolution
112
What is the history of naturalism?
History is a linear series of cause and effect events without any overarching purpose.
113
What is nihilism?
the logical extension of naturalism, "nothingness", and philosophy of despair
114
Who was Friedrich Nietzsche
believed "God is dead", rejected traditional western core values, and rejected reason in favor of perspectivalism
115
What is atheistic existentialism?
affirms naturalistic assumption, but humans are somehow different; DIY approach to meaning; rational inconsistency
116
Who are two people who believe in atheistic existentialism?
Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus
117
Who said: "Existence precedes essence"?
Jean-Paul Sartre
118
Who said: "Life is absurd"?
Albert Camus
119
What is the prime reality of pantheism?
God and the Universe are one, monistic, impersonal, immaterialism
120
What is the external reality of pantheism?
everything is ultimately immaterial
121
What are the humans of pantheism?
human beings in their truest most fundamental form are impersonal
122
What is the afterlife of pantheism?
death is the end of the individual, personal existence, but it does not alter an individual's essential nature; reincarnation leads to complete openness with the Cosmos
123
What is the epistemology of pantheism?
to realize oneness with the cosmos is to pass beyond knowledge; the principle of non-contradiction does not apply where ultimate reality is concerned
124
What are the ethics of pantheism?
to realize oneness with the cosmos is to pass beyond good and evil; the cosmos is perfect at every moment.
125
What is the history of pantheism?
history is cyclical
126
What are two important things about moralistic therapeutic deism (MTD)?
a God exists who created and orders the world and watches over human life on earth; the central goal of life is to be happy and feel good about oneself
127
What is the prime reality of MTD?
clockwork universe, God is transcendent, but not particularly immanent; God occasionally responds to requests
128
What is the external reality of MTD?
closed system of uniform cause and effect with occasional exceptions
129
What are the humans of MTD?
personal, but part of the modified clockwork system; the purpose of life is to feel good about yourself and be happy
130
What is the epistemology of MTD?
God can be known through a wide variety of methods; just choose the one that works for you; rational consistency not important
131
What is the afterlife of MTD?
if you are basically good you will go to heaven
132
What are the ethics of MTD?
God wants people to bee good and nice to each other; right and wrong is a matter of following your conscience, your religion and the basic common standard of not hurting other people.
133
What is the history of MTD?
History is linear and the world is as God intended, largely a man-made project
134
What does MTD consist of?
deism, naturalism, existentialism, pantheism, and theism
135
Define creationism
starts with Scripture and seeks to fit science into the biblical data
136
Define intelligent design theory (ID)
the study of patterns in nature that are best explained by intelligent causation
137
Define theistic evolution
evolutionary mechanisms are part of God's initial and ongoing creative activity
138
Define naturalistic evolution
all life has evolved through undirected natural causaiton
139
Who is Richard Dawkins?
openness to a certain form of ID and demonstrates his rejection of theism on moral instead of scientific grounds
140
Who is Alister McGrath?
According to him, Dawkins thinks that scientific description is an anti-religious argument, but explaining how does not answer the why uestion
141
What is the importance of ID and the cell?
New insights into the nature of the cell raise questions about aspects of Darwin's theory; there is no comparison between current knowledge about the cell and what was known in Darwin's day.
142
What is eugenics?
the self-direction of human evolution
143
What are properly basic beliefs?
beliefs without which we could not even function in the world; "warranted" without argument
144
Who is Tertullian?
Asked the question: "What does Athens have to do with Jerusalem, the Academy with the Church?"; he did not truly oppose philosophy, but non-Christian philosophies
145
Who is Soren Kierkegaard?
keen to dismiss a faith based on reason, denying that we could figure out the answer to the most important questions of life with our rational minds; opposed reason-based phiolosophy
146
What are the 3 stages of life Kierkegaard?
aesthetic stage, ethical stage, and religious stage
147
Who is Alvin Plantinga?
argued that belief in God is so intrinsic to reality that it is not only beyond reasonable doubt
148
Who believed that the world does not make sense unless we assume God's existence?
Alvin Plantinga
149
What is inductive reasoning?
what is probably true given certain data; about probabilities given the evidence rather than about certainties; facts are certainties, but theories are probabilities
150
What is deductive reasoning?
what must be true given certain assumptions; starts with certain assumptions and then shows what must be true if those assumptions are true
151
What is a proposition?
a truth claim; about valid or invalid ways to move from one thought to the next
152
What does reductio ad absurdum mean?
a line of deductive thinking that results in a false conclusion, thereby implying that one or more of the premises in the argument is false; it is a contrary-to-fact argument where you show that if certain premises are true, they would imply that some other conclusion was true as well.
153
Define begging the question
when you assume your conclusion in your argument; circular reasoning can be tricky because we aren't always aware of our own assumptions
154
Define false alternative
present an either/or option, when in fact other alternatives exist
155
Define equivocation
changes in midargument the sense of the words you are useing
156
Define hasty generalization
you draw an inference when you do not have enough information to do so, or perhaps you ignore important information that should be considered
157
Define appeal to emotion
whatever merit this thought might have in other contexts, it has not merit in logic; whether or not something is true logically has nothing to do with feelings or emotions
158
Define appeal to majority
in general, truth or falsity in logic is not a matter of vote; whether or not an idea is true or false is a matter of, well, whether it is true or false
159
Define slippery slope
a type of false alternative fallacy; refers to the idea that if you start down a certain path or line of reasoning, you will not be able to stop before you reach an undesirable end.
160
Who is St. Augustine?
Reflect the simplistic view that a word is a "sign" to cue in your mind the remembrance of some "thing"; evokes images of how many people suppose a child learns words
161
Who is Ludwig Wittgenstein?
Pointed out that the meaning of words is primarily a matter of how they are used, not of some fixed thing to which they point; recognized that we cannot know the meaning of a word like fire unless we know what language game a person is playing with the word, what a person is "doing" with the word; these games connect to particular forms of life, the distinct contexts in which various words are used.
162
Who is John Locke (as from the reading)?
Considered our minds to be a "blank slate" (tabula rasa) prior to experiences from our senses; have sensations of the world and reflections on the workings of our own minds that result in simple ideas; our minds then rightly connect simple ideas into more complex ideas; continued to believe that the things we experience have "substance" behind them; the substance behind our sensations is matter, and the substance behind our reflections is mind.
163
Who is David Hume (as from the reading)?
Questioned whether the idea of cause and effect really made sense at all, although he no doubt got out of the way of passing carriages just the same; fact-value problem--suggested that there is nothing in experience that can get us from a fact to a moral value we put on that fact; moral judgments are not something that come from our experiences
164
Who is Immanuel Kant (as from the reading)?
That both (reason and experience) are intrinsic to knowing--can seem anticlimatctic and obvious. But if we cut through the tiring repetition and get to the heart of the matter, we see a crucial question of epistemology that we are still wrestling with today; basically says that we must have something in our minds that makes sense of our experiences, that connects them together so they become meaningful;
□ Believed we had certain built-in categories of thinking that help us process the content of our senses
□ Believed that this reasoning "software"--to use a contemporary metaphor--could also help us determine right and wrong
□ Acknowledge that we have no basis in our experiences for saying that happenings are right or wrong
165
Who is George Berkeley (as from the reading)?
□ Affirmed that experience was the source of all our knowledge and denied that we have any innate knowledge
□ Disagreed with dualism
□ All the qualities of the world exist because someone is experiencing them, in particular, because God is perceiving them
□ "to be is to be perceived" (esse est percipi)
□ An idealist--believed that, apart from God, the only kinds of things that actually exist are ideas.
□ Believed we can say something is real only if it can be experienced
□ Suggested that matter did not exist as something different from my perception
□ Believed in only one "substance" of reality, namely, thoughts
166
What is a worldview?
involves a person's whole view of the world; collection of all your paradigms put together.
167
What is a paradigm?
A particular way of thinking about a particular topic; has to do with a person's view of just one particular piece of the puzzle
168
What is ontology?
The part of philosophy that asks what reality is made of, what the nature of existence is; a branch of metaphysics
169
What is deism?
The perspective that God created the universe and set up its rules but does not currently interact with it
170
Describe the enlightenment era
Period from roughly 1650-1800 when many intellectuals in France, England, and Germany questioned all previous assumptions and tried to rely on reason and evidence alone (not revelation) to arrive at the truth; example: Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin
171
What is pantheism?
The belief that everything is god, that the world equates to god
172
Who is Thomas Hobbes?
Believed in the existence of God --> deist; believed God created the world, but saw the world as a kind of machine that ran according to its own laws apart from any divine intervention --> materialistic view
173
What is materialism?
The belief that the universe consists only of matter and energy; does not believe that we have a detachable soul or that reality involves some other distinct type of reality like spirit
174
What is idealism?
Believes that ideas are the most real type of thing or perhaps the only reality at all
175
What is naturalism?
The belief that the natural realm is all that exists
176
What is theism?
The perspective that God created the universe, set up its rules, and continues to be involved with it
177
What are the 4 steps of the scientific method?
1. Observe a relevant set of data in relation to a relevant question
2. Form a hypothesis, a possible rule or pattern that might explain the data and predict what would happen under similar circumstances in the future.
3. Test and retest the hypothesis against similar sets of data
4. Establish a theory, a hypothesis that has proved to have significant predictive power as it has been tested and retested
178
What is Darwinism?
Darwin's version of evolution; could not explain how the new changes came about in the first place; the idea that evolution has taken place gradually over millions of years simply by nature "selecting" organisms better equipped to survive in particular environments
179
What is creation ex nihilo?
creation "out of nothing," with God creating all the materials and, we might say further today, even the emptiness of space itself
180
What is panentheism?
the belief that the world is a part of God
181
What is process theology?
a form of panentheism that sees God evolving and developing along with the world.
182
What is evolution?
the idea that complex organisms developed from less complex ones
183
What is natural selection?
the idea that nature "selects" those organisms that are best suited to survive in a particular environment over time.
184
What is survival of the fittest?
popular way of describing natural selection--the organisms best equipped to survive in a particular environment tend to advance in competition with those less well equipped.
185
What is microevolution?
the idea that variation (such as with the peppered moth) does occur on a small scale, such as within a species or genus, but not on a larger scale
186
What is macroevolution?
the idea that, over millions of years, complex organisms like human beings have evolved from the smallest of micro-organisms.
187
What is mutation?
a change in the fundamental molecular structure of an organism
188
What is neo-Darwinism?
a revision of Darwin's theory that understands mutation as the method by which organisms arise that are better equipped to survive particular environments.
189
What is scientific creationism?
a Christian approach to scientific evidence that arose in the 1970s to counter belief in macroevolution. It assumes a literal seven-day creation and explains the earth's geology by recourse to a world-wide flood.
190
What is intelligent design theory (ID)?
a more recent Christian approach to scientific evidence that suggests it cannot be explained adequately without recourse to an intelligent Designer, namely, God.
191
What is social Darwinism?
the application of the idea of "survival of the fittest" to its "haves" and "have nots," justifying the domination of the powerful of society's weak.
192
What is theistic evolution?
the idea that God in some way directed the evolutionary process or at least that macroevolution is compatible with belief in God.
193
Who is Sir Francis Bacon?
Person who the reemergence of inductive reasoning and scientific method is traced to; he assumes that a person can be more or less objective or unbiased as he or she looks at the data; and he assumes that one can come to a definite and final answer to the question being posed to the data
194
Who is Charles Darwin?
Suggested that the more complex organisms we know today evolved from less complex ones, he could not really explain how such changes took place; version of evolution that simply saw organism gradually changing bit by bit, with nature over time selecting the bits that best helped organisms adapt and survive.
195
Who is Thomas Kuhn?
Argued that no scientific paradigm is ultimately better than another; believed that what is traditionally considered to be scientific development is a kind of organized wandering from on paradigm to another, following a predictable process; basic idea was that science operates most of the time according to a dominant paradigm --> normal science
196
Who is Michael Polyani?
Argued that "tactic knowledge"--elements of thought that are not completely conscious or easily articulated--is involved in all knowing; cannot be completely objective because there are always hidden elements steering our thinking; associated with critical realism
197
What is categorical imperative?
Kant's idea that if something is a "must do," an imperative, then it is always something you must do, without exception
198
What are the 4 cardinal virtues?
wisdom, courage, self-control, and justice
199
What is wisdom?
knowing the right thing to do
200
What is courage?
being willing to do the right thing, despite obstacles
201
What is self-control?
controlling passions that would lead to doing the wrong thing
202
What is justice?
doing the right thing at the right time
203
What is act-based ethics?
Predictably focuses on doing--what we should or should not do, how we should act
204
What are the types of act-based ethics?
duty-based ethics, utilitarianism, and egoist
205
What is duty based ethics?
focuses specifically on actions that are universally--some would say intrinsically--right or wrong. Such things are wrong in themselves whether or not they cause something else bad to happen.
206
What is utilitarianism?
focuses primarily on the consequences of actions. The right course of action is what brings about the "greatest good for the greatest number."
207
What is egoist?
ask, what's in it for me? The "right" course of action is what will most benefit me. In many respects, the egoist approach would seem to be the current default ethic of the West, whether consciously or unconsciously.
208
What are virtue-based ethics?
Interested in being--what sort of people we should be or become; more focused on things like character, motives, and true happiness rather than on whether specific actions are right or wrong
209
Who is Jeremy Bentham?
□ Father of modern utilitarianism
□ Strongest and most influential proponent of utilitarianism as an ethical philosophy
□ Primary concern was to find a "scientific" way of formulating law and social policy
□ Devised a utilitarian theory based on what might bring the greatest pleasure to the greatest number of people
□ Saw superstition and ignorance as the primary obstacles to putting a more rational system of law into place
□ All that mattered was pleasure and pain
□ Creating the laws of the land and making political decisions was a matter of adding up the total pleasure a decision would make for the populace, subtracting the total pain it would bring, and then comparing the result of the calculation with the other potential decisions.
210
Who is John Stuart Mill?
Offered some critique and modification to the utilitarian system of Bentham; started a political group they called the Philosophical Radicals; modified the greatest-happiness principle of Bentham; happiness is something more sophisticated than Bentham's idea of pleasure
