Test 3 Flashcards
The views of one philosopher that we discussed significantly complicate the “problem of evil.” God’s purpose or plan is implanted (or “programmed”) into, and necessarily followed by, all things. This makes every event (the good, the bad, and the ugly) God’s direct responsibility. Who was that?
Descartes
Another philosopher we discussed believed that there are only two kinds of substance: mind and body. Everything that exists is either a mind or a body. Who was that?
Descartes
Who said “the heart has its reasons which the reason does not understand”?
Pascal
Who said that state of nature is a “war of all against all,” where life is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short”?
Hobbes
One philosopher we discussed approached the question of substance from what he considered a common sense point of view. He thought that substances exist. However, he admitted that he could not describe substance with any precision, saying “if anyone will examine himself concerning his notion of pure substance in general, he will find he has no other idea of it at all, but only a supposition of he knows not what . . . .” Who was that?
Locke
Pascal thought that his “wager” argument was a conclusive proof that God exists.
False
Descartes believed that the human mind has two powers. One of these powers allows us to directly grasp simple truths (the basic principles we use as our starting point), without intermediate steps. What did he call this power?
intuition
What was the first of Descartes’ four rules of method?
Demand certainty: never accept anything as true unless you are sure that it is true
In the lecture we discussed Descartes’ famous “dream argument.” [I compared it to modern examples, such as the possibility that The Matrix might be factual.] What was Descartes trying to show with his dream argument?
It is always possible to doubt the senses
Next we discussed his “evil demon” argument – what if our minds were designed and made by an evil demon who delights in tricking us? What issue was Descartes raising with that argument?
Can we be sure that human reason works? Is it possible to doubt our rational faculties?
After doubting everything that could possibly be doubted, Descartes finally found one thing that he thought was impossible to doubt, something absolutely certain. What was that?
That I exist
What is the “Cartesian circle”?
A name we give to Descartes’ use of reason in an attempt to show that reason works
Descartes and Leibniz had a similar style of philosophy. They claimed that reason is the source of real knowledge, and deemphasized the role of the senses. What name do we give to philosophers of this sort?
Rationalists
According to Leibniz, monads are not affected in any way by any other monad. Instead, monads have their own interior principle of activity. What word did he use to describe this property of monads?
windowless
According to Leibniz, monads are like atoms: tiny, material, extended bodies too small for the human eye to see.
True
Monads are not tiny, physical, extended particles. Rather, they are “force or energy.”
Locke denied that humans have any “innate” ideas.
True
When addressing the question of how we gain knowledge, Locke said: “Let us then suppose the mind to be, as we say, white paper, void of all characters, without any ideas. How comes it to be furnished? . . . Whence has it all the materials of reason and knowledge? To this I answer, in one word, from ___________.” What word belongs in that blank?
experience
Which of the following is an example of a secondary quality, according to Locke?
color
Locke and Hume have a similar style of epistemology (theory of knowledge). They stress that knowledge comes from the senses, and deemphasize the role of reason. What name do we give to philosophers of this sort?
Empiricists
Thomas Hobbes believed that there is no moral law in the state of nature; morality is a human creation that first comes into existence with the social contract.
True
John Locke believed in the existence of “natural rights,” naming four of them. The founders of our country also believed in natural rights, stating in the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” Name the two natural rights identified by Locke that are not named in the Declaration of Independence.
Health
Possessions
Property
Private Property
One philosopher we discussed claimed that this is the best of all possible worlds. Who was that?
Gottfried Leibniz
Name one philosophical work written by Descartes.
Discourse on Method
The Meditations
Summarize “Pascal’s Wager.”
- Pascal suggested that we approach the issue of God’s existence from a gambler’s perspective: is it smarter to bet that God exists, or not?
* Assume we bet that God exists: If we’re right, we gain an infinite amount. If we’re wrong, we lose very little.
* Assume we bet that God does not exist: If we’re right, we gain very little. If we’re wrong, we lose an infinite amount.
* Pascal concluded that a belief in God is the smarter bet – for little (or no) cost, we give ourselves a chance at infinite gain and preclude the possibility of infinite loss.
Summarize Descartes’ “dream argument.” What is the point of the argument?
• Sometimes we have dreams so vivid that we cannot distinguish them from reality. Can we be sure that we’re not dreaming right now? We wouldn’t know until we woke up. Can we be sure that our whole life isn’t one giant dream?
• Descartes used this argument to show that it is always possible to doubt the senses. [We can never be 100% certain that our sense experience accurately reflects reality.]
[Be careful with that last bullet point. Don’t say “the senses can fool us” or “it’s possible to doubt the senses.” That’s not strong enough. Make sure you say that it’s always possible to doubt the senses.]
Why (or how) does a batted baseball break a window, according to Leibniz?
- A batted baseball breaks a window because of the “preestablished harmony.”
* Monads are like musicians in different rooms, each playing his or her own music without hearing the music of the others. The music was written by God such that together they form a beautiful harmony.
* So each monad in the baseball and the window is playing its part, unaffected by the world around it. As such, the ball doesn’t really break the window. The window breaks because, according to God’s plan, it was time for it to fly apart at precisely that moment.
Name four ways in which Locke’s political philosophy influenced the founding of our own country.
- Inalienable natural rights.
- The right to revolution.
- The separation of powers.
- Religious tolerance.
Summarize Hume’s views on causation.
- Hume argued that all knowledge comes from sense experience.
- Causality requires that there be a necessary connection between a cause and its effect.
* Unfortunately, we can never have sense experience of a necessary connection.
* So our belief in causation is not a rational belief.
- Causality requires that there be a necessary connection between a cause and its effect.
Explain Hume’s “fork” and summarize the criticism that I gave in class.
- According to Hume, all knowledge concerns either (i) logical truths or (ii) empirical facts (facts which can be confirmed by sense experience).
* Any claim that is not a logical truth nor confirmable by sense experience is ultimately “nothing but sophistry and illusion.”
* The criticism is this: Hume’s “fork” is itself neither a logical truth nor confirmable by sense experience. Therefore, if Hume is correct, his own theory would be “nothing but sophistry and illusion.”
