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Review and Study Guide #1
Please note as mentioned, the quizzes and exams cover both what is in the readings as well as
what is discussed in class. This review and study guide will be useful as you prepare both for
quiz number one
and the
midterm exam
. Feel free to study together, but the quiz and exam will
be taken individually without using notes or the book.
The Nature of Philosophy
1)
Understand the notion that ideas have consequences and the importance of examining ideas
and arguments.
- Preparation for lifelong learning, acquire more true beliefs about reality and
better desires, to sharpen critical and analytical thinking skills, hones communication skills,
helps us comprehend truth, helps you see challenges from multiple perspectives.
2)
What are the two views of education we discussed?
- Education is a means to an end
("modern" mindset) and education is intrinsically valuable ("classical" mindset).
3)
What’s a worldview?
-
A comprehensive perspective or framework made up of one's beliefs
about reality.
4)
Understand the five benefits of having a good worldview and how they could make it worth
spending significant time and energy on developing one.
- It helps us to know what to live
for, helps us to live a generally good kind of life, brings consistency and order to your life,
good in itself because you can find the answers to the big questions in life, develops you as a
person.
5)
How could the two views we discussed so far of what human beings are like affect one’s view
of education?
- They both provide one with a greater understanding and perspective on how
individuals take in the info that they have learned.
6)
What is philosophy?
- The individual and collective pursuit of knowing what is true and why,
especially about the most important life questions in order to act accordingly and so to live
well.
7)
How has our knowledge of different subjects developed historically in relation to philosophy?
- What we know about the universe could be a part of philosophy or originated in philosophy.
Philosophy is a second order discipline and examines first order disciplines (other subjects)
and their foundations.
8)
What did Postman say was the kind of change that has taken place over the last 100 years
regarding our primary mode of communication?
- We went from a time when our primary
mode of communication is words to one where it is images.
9)
What is a major reason why Postman thinks the ability for abstract reasoning has diminished
in our time?
- The new image-based communication and television tend to be biased towards
entertainment rather than informing or stimulating thinking.
10) Understand the difference between words and images with respect to the notions of
contextualization and coherence.
- Images give legitimacy to the idea of context-free
information, they just need to be recognized, whereas words free speech and allow you to
think about it.
11) What is Sanger’s concern regarding our use of the Internet?
- People don't see the reason to
learn because they can just look up answers, making them passive learners.
12) Are faith and reason compatible according to Locke? Why or why not?
- They are not
compatible as faith lack reasoned support, though it can go beyond reason, it cannot contradict it.
13) What does Locke think is required in the search for truth?
- Love and enthusiasm to reach the
truth with an open mind is required.
14) How do we know if we love the truth?
- Loving the truth for its own sake means preferring
to be sincere and honest with yourself as well as bypasses the reliance of one’s experiences.
15) Why might someone show more confidence that some belief is true than what the evidence
allows, and what is wrong with this practice?
- People may be overconfident in their
beliefs because they have accumulated evidence to support them, when in reality they have
overlooked or ignored a great deal of evidence refuting their beliefs—evidence which, if they
had considered it, should lead them to question their beliefs. (confirmation bias)
16) Understand Locke’s distinction between reason, revelation, and enthusiasm, and the problem
with enthusiasm.
- Locke deemed it necessary to reveal the relationship existing between
reason and revelation by synthesizing instead of opposing them when he affirms that reason
confirms revelation and revelation agrees with reason. So, there is no contradiction or conflict
between reason and revelation. Locke notes that enthusiasm can lead to a strong persuasion in
beliefs relating to religion even without sufficient proof provided, this leads the enthusiasm’s
potential downfall to lead one astray.
17) How did Locke think we know that something is truly a revelation from God, and how have
people in the past known that something was a revelation from God?
- Locke argues that
each person has intuitive knowledge of their own existence and can have consequent
demonstrative knowledge of the existence of an eternal being.
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18) What was the classical pursuit of the philosopher?
- The classical pursuit of philosophers
had involved to need for skepticism in order to analyze and question the set of belief and religion
in order to understand why people think the way they do.
19) What was the message of the Oracle of Delphi, and how did Socrates end up interpreting it?
- The Oracle of Delphi pronounced Socrates the wisest of Greeks; and Socrates took this as
approval of his agnosticism which was the starting point of his philosophy: 'One thing only I
know', he said, 'and that is that I know nothing'.
20) What does Socrates think should be our only concern when we deliberate about how to act,
and what, generally, should we care about most?
- For Socrates, the main concern a person
should have in their life was “the care of the soul” and caring for one's soul meant acquiring
knowledge of those things that were good in themselves, unconditionally good, not merely
good for something else, not instrumentally good.
21) What kind of life does Socrates think is not worth living?
- Socrates famously said,
“The unexamined life is not worth living.” Both psychoanalysts and philosophers are committed
to examining and giving meaning to human experiences.
Logic
1)
What is logic, and why is it important?
- Logic is the study of arguments. It is important
because it is useful for thinking, reason and argument are tools we can use to discover truth, it
is helpful for school, and it is useful for ethics by helping you understand things in more
depth.
2)
Understand what an argument is (and, in turn, a premise and a conclusion), and be able to
identify the premise(s) and conclusion in a piece of writing.
- An argument is a series of
propositions that include premises and a conclusion. A premise is a supporting statement or
claim in favor of a conclusion and a conclusion is a statement in need of support.
3)
Know the difference between a deductive and an inductive argument.
- Deductive arguments
give logically conclusive support to the conclusion and inductive arguments give probable
support to the conclusion.
4)
Understand what soundness and validity are and be able to recognize whether an argument is
valid or invalid and whether it is sound or unsound.
- Soundness is the validity and truth of
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the argument, validity is when the structure of an argument makes it so that when the
premises are true, the conclusion cannot be false.
5)
What is a conditional, an antecedent, a consequent, and a disjunct?
- A conditional is an if-
then premise, an antecedent is the if part of a conditional, a consequent is the then part of a
conditional, and a disjunct is an either-or premise.
6)
Understand what a
reductio ad absurdum
is and be able to identify one.
- An argument
technique that reduces an opposing idea to a contradiction or an absurd result. Ex. Beckwith's
Critique of Moral Relativism.
7)
What is the law of noncontradiction?
- Two opposing claims cannot both be true at the same
time and in the same sense.
8)
Understand and be able to identify examples of these fallacies: hasty generalization, ad
hominem, argument from authority, arguing in a circle, irrelevant reason, argument from
ignorance, false dilemma, slippery slope fallacy, straw man, genetic fallacy, appeal to pity,
and an argument because of age.
- Hasty generalization: when you use too small of a sample when drawing conclusions about
a larger group.
- Ad hominem: an attack on the person or source rather than the argument itself.
-
Argument from authority: accept something because an authority says it's true.
-
Arguing in a circle: introducing the conclusion in the premises, Irrelevant reason, when
someone gives a distraction to the point at issue.
-
Argument from ignorance: assuming something is to be believed unless it is shown to be
false.
-
False dilemma: neglecting to look at a whole range of alternatives and focusing on two
extremes.
-
Slippery slope fallacy: arguing that taking one step will inevitably lead to disaster.
-
Straw man: misrepresenting someone's position and attacking a weakened form of that
view.
-
Genetic fallacy: when someone tries to invalidate a view by saying how it originated.
-
Appeal to pity: saying you should accept something because you feel pity for the person
involved. Argument because of age: thinking that all truth is subject to aging.
!4
9)
Understand and be able to recognize an inference to the best explanation, and the criteria for a
good explanation.
- Reasoning from premises about some state of affairs to an explanation
about that state of affairs. Best explanation will have greater explanatory scope, have greater
explanatory power, be more plausible, be less contrived, not conflict with as many accepted
beliefs
10)What are the two different views of tolerance, and what are the three problems discussed with
the currently popular view of tolerance?
- The two views of tolerance are relativistic
tolerance, which is that you cannot say that something is right or wrong, and classical
tolerance, which is that you treat people equally and evaluate ideas. Three problems with
relativistic tolerance are that anyone can do anything, and no one can stop them, they expect
everyone to be tolerant, which is not tolerant, and it is actually not tolerant, because by saying
you won't take a side, you are saying it is right
Epistemology
1)
What is epistemology?
- A branch of philosophy that investigates the origin, nature, methods,
and limits of human knowledge.
2)
Understand why Socrates is called a torpedo fish, and what Socrates thinks about this
accusation.
- According to Meno, Socrates was like a torpedo fish since he has the ability of
Numbing everyone around him to the point that they felt like they did not know what they
were talking about. Socrates retorts against this as he is not using it as a means to evade the
truth and predicament, he’s in.
3)
What is the Socratic Method, and why did Socrates use it?
- The Socratic Method is a
conversation or discussion wherein two or more people assist one another in finding the
answers to difficult questions.
4)
What is the theory of innate ideas, and why does Socrates bring it up?
- The theory of innate
ideas is the belief that we come to know fundamental truths by recalling our acquaintance
with the objects of those truths before birth. Socrates brings it up to explain and ponder if
knowledge had always been contained within his soul, whether he was or wasn’t man.
5)
Since Aristotle thinks the theory of innate ideas is odd, how does he respond to the question
about how we could acquire knowledge if we are ignorant of it and have no predisposition for
gaining knowledge?
- Aristotle argues that we cannot have innate knowledge of first
!5
principles because if we did, we would have the most precise items of knowledge without
noticing, which is impossible.
6)
What are universals?
- Universals are features that can be shared by many individuals; it may
be said that each individual instantiates or exemplifies the universal.
7)
What are three types of knowledge?
- Knowledge by acquaintance, skill knowledge, and
propositional knowledge
8)
What is the standard definition of propositional knowledge?
- Propositional knowledge
is knowledge of propositions or statements. A proposition or statement is a declarative
sentence with a truth value—that is, a sentence that is either true or false.
9)
What is the coherence theory of truth, and what two objections does Russell raise against it?
-
A coherence theory of truth states that the truth of any (true) proposition
consists in its coherence with some specified set of propositions.
The first
objection is be called the specification objection. The second is the transcendence objection.
According to the specification objection, coherence theorists have no way to identify the
specified set of propositions without contradicting their position.
10)
What is the correspondence theory of truth?
- The correspondence theory of truth argues
that something is true if it corresponds to a fact, i.e., a belief is true if it accurately reflects
reality.
11)
How does Russell analyze the notion of belief? (answer: to help you, given his extended
discussion, simply know that Russell describes belief as a relation that relates a mind
(subject) to several things other than itself (objects), in a certain order)
-
12) How else could we understand what a belief is?
- An intentional, mental state.
Towards something or about something.
13) What are properly basic beliefs, and what examples did we consider?
- Refer
to beliefs that are not based on other beliefs. Immediately justified
14) Understand the distinction between occurrent and dispositional beliefs.
- Occurrent beliefs
are those you are currently consciously aware of. They are right now occurring. Dispositional
beliefs are those you hold even when you're not thinking of those beliefs currently.
15) Understand the ideas of voluntarism and involuntarism.
- Voluntarism says we have some
control over the beliefs we hold, involuntarism says the opposite.
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16) What is the difference between belief in and belief that?
- Belief IN something involves an
element of trust. (Ex. Believing IN using your parachute -> You actually putting it on and using
it)
17) What is justification, or warrant?
-
Justification involves having sufficient evidence for a
belief. Forming and maintaining a belief in a reliable way. There can be different degrees (100%
justified / things that can't be mistaken).
18) What is foundationalism?
- Foundationalism is the theory of justification according to which
all beliefs are either basic or non-basic.
19) Know the difference between knowledge, understanding, and wisdom.
- Knowledge is a
justified true belief, understanding is an adequate comprehension of something, and wisdom is
the ability to take what you know and understand and apply it well in a variety of circumstances
to make, or help others to make, good and right choices or judgements about what to do, to think,
or to say.
Epistemology Continued
1)
Know the difference between a priori knowledge and a posteriori knowledge.
- Priori
knowledge is a kind of knowledge for which justification does not appeal to sensory
experiences. Posteriori knowledge is a kind of knowledge for which justification requires for
having had sensory experience.
2)
Know the difference between an analytic and a synthetic proposition.
- An analytic
proposition is one in which the concept of its predicate is already contained in that of its
subject. A synthetic proposition is one in which the concept of the subject and predicate are
independent of each other.
3)
What is skepticism?
- Skepticism is the philosophy of doubt and uncertainty about the true
nature of the universe and how we know and judge reality.
4)
Understand responses to the idea that we can’t know anything and to the argument that we
must doubt our current beliefs because it’s logically possible that they are mistaken.
-
5)
How can naturalism versus theism respond to the question of whether our faculties are
reliable?
-
Naturalism: God does not exist; only physical things do.
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Argues that this world view is contradictory and shows no confidence is any of our beliefs.
There would be no reason the believe their true, which also shows atheism isn't true.
-
Theism: Belief in God.
Believing the God equipped us about the knowledge we need of the world. Provides a
straightforward answer.
6)
What is relativism, and what’s the first objection to it that we discussed?
- The idea that truth
is relative to the beliefs or values of an individual or group that accepts it. Main objection is
that it is either self-refuting or a mere preference
7)
What is empiricism, and what two objections were raised to the idea?
- Empiricism is the
idea that knowledge ultimately depends on our senses, and what we discover by them. The
first objection is that associative principles are not sufficiently powerful to explain human
cognition. The second is that there is no means to distinguish input from other cognitive
phenomena.
8)
What is logical positivism, and what problem was presented against the idea?
- For any
sentence to even be meaningful, it needs to be true in empiricism, same as showing that is it
false. A claim about MEANING. It is also self-refuting. The claim itself can't even be verified
or live up to its own standard.
9)
What is philosophy of science?
- An investigation of second-order questions, philosophical
questions - about science.
10) What’s the difference between methodological naturalism and metaphysical naturalism?
-
Methodological naturalism is the idea that, for any study of the world to qualify as "scientific," it
cannot refer to any sort of divine activity, it is religiously neutral. Metaphysical naturalism is a
philosophical worldview which holds that there is nothing, but natural elements, principles, and
relations of the kind studied by the natural sciences.
11) In Plantinga’s discussion of the three counterexamples to methodological naturalism, what
did he aim to show?
-
Plantinga aimed to show that methodological naturalism is
implausible, people of different theological commitments should be allowed to proceed in
science, using those commitments to help arrive at the best explanations of the data.
12) What is the demarcation problem?
- The question of how to distinguish between science and
non-science.
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13) What did Duhem think is important, and what is not important, for commonality in science,
as Plantinga pointed out?
-
Duhem thinks that for us all to cooperate in science, we shouldn't
use views that not all of us don't agree with. You shouldn't use views that could end up
dividing us. Maximally inclusive.
14) How does Plantinga think we should do science, which he calls Augustinian science?
- We
should have a broader view of science. A more adequate view of science could help with
working with other people. If we put every response that God created things, it stops science in
its tracks.
15) One of the reasons that’s been offered for holding to methodological naturalism is that
appeals to design prevent further scientific investigation. What objections did we consider to
this view?
- How would we know if God designed something?
It's not clear that a designer will stop science, it might spark further questions.
16) What criteria is used to detect design, which is used in archaeology, forensic science, the
SETI project, and in other areas of scientific investigation?
-
They use specified complexity-
high end probability and a pattern.
Metaphysics
1)
What is metaphysics?
- Metaphysics is the study of being, or the investigation of what kinds
of things exists in the world and what their nature is.
2)
What does Plato’s cave represent, and what is there outside of the cave?
- His cave represents
the state of ordinary human existence / "raised in a cave." The realm of sensible objects, or
the 5 senses. The outside of the cave is reading and thinking of more important topics, an
expansion of knowledge. We will eventually get to understand the nature of goodness.
3)
What are abstract objects?
- Abstract objects are objects that are immaterial, doesn't exist
inside space and time, and doesn't enter casual relations. For example, properties, relations,
and sets.
4)
What are universals?
- Universals are features that can be shared by many individuals; it may
be said that each individual instantiates or exemplifies the universal.
5)
What are propositions?
- Propositions are the contents expressed in declarative sentences and
contained in people’s minds when they are thinking; they are either true or false.
!9
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6)
What is a concrete object?
- A concrete object is an object that can enter into casual relations,
for example, privation, trope, collections, limit, place, event, and time.
7)
What is a substance?
- A substance is a concrete particular that owns properties and exists
independently of another substance existing at that same level.
8)
What’s the difference between an essential property, an accidental property, and an
individuator?
- Essential properties are properties something has without which it could not
be the kind of thing it is. Accidental property are properties something has that, if lost, it
would still be the same kind of thing. Individuator is whatever it is that makes two things that
have the same properties two distinct individuals.
9)
What’s the difference between contingency and necessity?
- A contingent is something that
depends on casual factors outside itself. A necessity is something that does not depends on
casual factors outside itself.
10) Why did Descartes think God is the only substance in the strongest sense?
-
Because He
does not depend on anything else for existence, no outside factors. And He is entirely self-
sufficient.
11) What did Descartes think is the principal property that’s essential to a corporeal substance?
-
That it is extended. A corporeal substance is something that is just physical. In other words, the
property would be that it takes up space.
12) What did Descartes think is the principal property that’s essential to an immaterial mind?
- Is
that it is able to think. Like with imagination, that is centered around thought.
Metaphysics of Agency
1) What is metaphysics of agency?
- The areas of philosophy concerned with fundamental
questions about the nature of reality. Metaphysics asks, "What is real?" or "Is there a difference
between how the world seems to me and how the world really is?"
2) What is determinism?
- Determinism is the idea that for every event that happens, there is a
set of past events that caused it to happen.
3)
What is fatalism, and what problem was raised against the view?
- Fatalism is the view that
there is nothing we can do to change our destiny. The problem raised against the view was
that it is incompatible with human free will.
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4)
What is compatibilism?
- Compatibilism is the belief that we can be both determined and
free at the same time.
5)
What is free will, according to the simple compatibilist, and why does the incompatibilist
think this idea is problematic?
- Free will is having the power or ability to bring about states
of affairs. The incompatilist thinks this idea is problematic because having free will means
that we are able to do what we want, make our own plans, and pursue our own goals; we are
not coerced.
6)
What is free will, according to the deep compatibilist, and what objection was raised against
the idea?
-
To be free, one's first orders desires must be in accord with her second order
desires. We may not be able to violate the laws of gravity or physics, but it seems we have a
limited set of choices and the free will to choose what happens based on our subjective
experience.
7)
What is commonly thought to be an important component of true freedom?
- To have true
freedom you must will the right path and what is truly good. The genuinely free person is one
who adopts and acts on the right values because they are right.
8)
What is the libertarian view of free will?
- The libertarian view of free will states that we
have a genuine ability to cause events to happen, other factors can influence us, but they don't
make us do what we do. We have the power to choose what we want to do.
9)
Why is libertarian free will often thought to be required for moral responsibility?
- Free will
is understood as a necessary condition of moral responsibility since it would seem
unreasonable to say of a person that she deserves blame and punishment for her conduct if it
turned out that she was not at any point in time in control of it.
10) What was the basic solution we considered for how foreknowledge could be compatible with
free will?
- They are fundamentally and harmoniously connected, since the will is a validly
efficient cause known by God.
11) What is natural knowledge, middle knowledge, and free knowledge?
- Natural knowledge
means that God has knowledge of all necessary truths, including knowledge of everything that
could happen. Middle knowledge is that God has knowledge of all contingent truths about
everything that would happen in any appropriately specified set of circumstances. Free
knowledge is that God has foreknowledge of everything that will happen.
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