Philosophy Exam PDF

Early Ontology of Thales: Proposed water as the ultimate reality. Plato's theory of forms: A boat is a boat because of its form. Form gives material things their identity Aristotle's substance: Ordinary objects composed of matter and form. Matter and form always occur together and never separate Dia...

Early Ontology of Thales: Proposed water as the ultimate reality. Plato's theory of forms: A boat is a boat because of its form. Form gives material things their identity Aristotle's substance: Ordinary objects composed of matter and form. Matter and form always occur together and never separate Diachronic historiography: Studies historical evolution over time. Synchronic historiography: Concerned with something as it exists in a particular point in time Not concerned with how things develop to that point Strives not to let knowledge of what happened before or after to intrude Preparadigmatic science: Progress is qualitative, with new schools emerging. Psychology's status: Psychology is considered a pre-paradigmatic science. Normal science: Governed by accepted paradigms and beliefs. Anomalies in science: Inconsistencies that challenge existing paradigms. Revolutionary science: Occurs when a paradigm shift happens. Internalist history: Focuses narrowly on specific historical events. -Events internal to a discipline (your book) -Events immediately and directly related to some historical development Tends to be more personalistic oriented Externalist history: Explains events in a broader historical context Focus is on events more remote to some historical development (the zeitgeist). Tends to be more naturalistic oriented Historicism: Antidote for presentism, emphasizes historical context. Origin Myth: Simplified explanations for historical events. Ontology: Study of being and existence. Epistemology: Study of knowledge and its acquisition. Knowledge criteria: Must be true, believed, and justifiable. Peripatetic axiom: Empiricism's foundational belief about knowledge acquisition: Whatever is in the mind was first in the senses, we come into existence with 0 knowledge Rationalism: Philosophy emphasizing reason over sensory experience. Believes innate knowledge truth could emerge from the careful use of reason accept as truth only that which could not be doubted. Thus, reject the evidence of the senses because the senses can deceive "I think, therefore I am René Descartes: -rationalist -first principle "I think, therefore I am" is a necessary truth -mind/body dualism -"I am not more than a thing that thinks" "soul/mind is distinct from body" -self/mind/soul is an immortal substance that is created and maintained by god -self/mind/soul are endowed by god with a faculty called the will: consists of our ability to do or nor do something. Freedom/agency, we choose our actions -Some knowledge is innate to self/mind/soul: god provisioned the mind with ideas so we can know Her and understand the word -these innate ideas include God, good/evil, logic and math, essence of mind and body -believes in free will/freedom Mind/body dualism: Distinction between mind/soul and physical body. Mind and body are separate substances Derived ideas According to Descartes, knowledge gained through sensory experience. Wilhelm Gottfried Leibniz: philosophy arose as an objection to Descartes’ interactionism and Locke’s empiricism -rationalist -monist -idealist- believed ultimate reality was mental -believed in multiple mental substances (seen as both monist and pluralist) -monads: universe is composed by indivisible substances created by god -panpsychist everything has a mental capacity, even inanimate objects Monads: According to Leibniz, the indivisible units that compose everything in the universe. -can change due to pre programming by God - characterized by consciousness but some more so than others. can be arranged in a 3 level hierarchy Unconscious (petite perceptions; inanimate objects and plants)  Conscious (apperceptions, souls of animals) Higher thought including self-consciousness (rational monads; minds or spirits; souls and minds of humans) Panpsychism: Belief that everything has mental capacity. Empiricism: the belief that accurate knowledge comes from experience/observation Founded by John Locke tabula rasa, the mind is blank at birth "nothing is in the intellect that was not first in the senses" rejected innate ideas, believed in innate faculties Truth only comes through observation Hard problem of consciousness: The inability to explain or physically characterize qualia -the inability to do this, despite centuries of effort, is an argument against physicalism Mary's thought experiment: Argue augment against physicalism- Mary is kept in a room and never sees colors, but she learns everything possible there is to know about colors. She is let out and sees colors for the first time. Did she learn something? -The argument is that she did, and that some things cannot be explained rationally. We can't explain what red is like to someone. Qualia: Qualitative experiences that can't be rationally explained. Epiphenomenalism: The notion that mental properties do not cause anything, but merely accompany physical processes. Non-reductive type of materialism Idea that the mind is real, but to avoid the problem of physicalism, it posits that the mind exists but doesn't affect physical processes. Dualism: Mind and body are separate substances. Monism: only one substance exists -the presumption that mind and body are different aspects of the same thing Parallelism: Mind and body run in parallel without interaction. Compatibilism: The belief posed by Locke that free will and determinism are compatible ideas, and that it is possible to believe both without being logically inconsistent. -the will is determined by that which produces pleasure and avoids pain -we do not have to obey the will. The actual doing, volition is voluntary Subjective Idealism: ( Berkely) Reality exists only in perception, not independently. -denies existence of material world - our reality is a "virtual reality" held in the mind of god conceivability argument: -if it can be conceived it's possible, if it can't it's impossible -in order to determine a thing exists external to the mind, we need to be able to think of (conceive) an unconceived thing. This is impossible Solipsism Only one's own mind is certain to exist. Idealism: All reality is mental; no material existence. Conceivability Argument: (Berkely) If conceived, something is possible; if not, impossible. Impressions: Raw sensory experiences that form the basis of ideas. Ideas: Mental constructs formed from impressions. Liveliness Hypothesis: (Hume) Impressions are vivid; ideas are faint representations. Copy Hypothesis: (Hume) Ideas are copies of prior impressions. Eponym: reflective of a personalistic approach to history. Emphasizes the contributions of individual people Anachronism: Temporal error placing events out of time. For example, cave men riding dinosaurs Multiples: Independent emergence of similar ideas by different people. Presentism: Judging past actions by current standards. Historicism: Contextualizes events within their historical timeframe. Naturalism: Philosophy emphasizing nature as the basis of reality. Materialism: Belief that only physical matter exists. Determinism: Theory that all events are determined by prior causes. Deductive reasoning: reasoning in which a conclusion is reached by stating a general principle and then applying that principle to a specific case -if the premises are true, the conclusions must be true. The conclusion is contained in the premises -But a valid ______ argument is not necessarily true; it will not be necessarily true if either of the premises are false Example of deductive reasoning: -A person who supports universal healthcare is a communist (premise 1) -Bernie Sanders supports universal healthcare (premise 2) -Bernie Sanders is a communist (conclusion) Inductive reasoning: A type of logic in which generalizations are based on a large number of specific observations. 1,000 dogs observed have fleas (observations) All dogs have fleas (conclusion) Problem of induction: The truth of the premise does not guarantee the truth of the conclusion; a single observation may prove the conclusion wrong Also, these inferences are not genuinely universal; they do not necessarily apply to all possible observations past, present and future Hypothetico-deductive model: Cycle of hypothesis testing and modification. 1. Generate a hypothesis (a tentative explanation for some phenomenon) 2. Deduce a testable implication of the hypothesis 3. Test the hypothesis empirically using correlational or experimental method 4. Reject (or confirm?) the hypothesis 5. Draw general conclusion through inductive reasoning Semmelweis: Investigated childbed fever using experimental methods. Correlational method: Observational technique to test hypotheses. Experimental method: Manipulating variables to test hypotheses. Immature sciences: Lack consensus, characterized by competing schools. mature sciences: characterized by paradigms School in science: Multiple competing visions of the nature, subject, and methodology of a scientific discipline Hume's Principles of Association: Ideas connect through contiguity and resemblance. resemblance, contiguity, cause and effect Hume's Fork: The only justifiable beliefs are those based on the relations between ideas and matters of fact 1) the relations between ideas (weak) -“Discoverable by the mere operation of thought” Propositions of deductive logic or math Propositions that are true in themselves, e.g., 2+2=4 or “All bachelors are unmarried” Propositions the denial of which is inconceivable or self-contradictory Propositions that are necessarily true 2) Matters of fact Statements about the way the world is E.g., My dog Buddy is hyperactive Problems: depend on induction and matters of fact Relations of Ideas: Propositions true by definition or logic. Matters of Fact: Statements about the world based on observation. Hume's Skepticism about Cause and Effect: Causation is an unjustified belief; ideas must have impressions Cause has no impression. Physicalism: Everything is physical; mental states are physical states. British Empiricism: Knowledge comes from sensory experience. Hartley: Father of associationism Showed that you can condition an infant's grasp reflex- classical conditioning British empiricist, mind/body dualist, parallelist Ideas depend on vibrations in the brain alone Impressions are caused by strong vibrations, ideas by weaker vibrations (variation on the "liveliness hypothesis") Elaborated and extended concept of associationism Principle of association: Contiguity (spatial and temporal) Mill: British empiricist and associationist Accepts similarity and contiguity as principles of association but adds intensity and frequency holism results from a distinction he makes between two modes of conjunctive action of causes. This is the root of emergentism and it is an antecedent of gestalt psychology Emergentism; New properties arise from combined causes. Homeopathic causation: Combined causes equal algebraic sum of separate effects. -The laws that govern the effect of causes are the same when they are combined as when they are separate; each cause produces the exact same effect when in combination as when alone Heteropathic causation: Combined causes produce new, unpredictable effects. The root of emergentism. Example: you can know everything about hydrogen, and everything about hydrogen, but together h20 is altogether something different Principles of associationism: Include contiguity, resemblance, and cause-effect. A priori knowledge: (Kant) Innate knowledge prior to experience. -arguably, human universals; they are innate necessary conditions of all human perception and cognition Transcendental deduction: Proof that cognition requires innate concepts. -Truths derived from a priori intuitions/concepts include space, time, causation, substance, etc. Metaphysical proposition: All events are caused by prior events. Kant's perspective: Reality perceived through a priori mental constructs. Contingent Truth (Kant): It is true, but it doesn't have to be true "All the coins in my pocket are silver colored" -It is not necessary: there is no necessary requirement that coins in my pocket must be silver - It is not genuinely universal: Coins in my pocket past and future and coins in other pockets need not be silver Necessary Truth (Kant): Must be true; inconceivable to be false. usually thought of as genuinely universal; It is true at all times and all places examples: All bachelors are unmarried (logical proposition) The sum of the interior angles of a triangle equals 180°(mathematical proposition) All events are caused (metaphysical proposition) Analytic Proposition Propositions that are true because of the word meanings/true by definition "All bachelors are unmarried" Synthetic Proposition: a proposition that is not true by definition; Ampliative propositions "All dogs have fleas" A Priori Knowledge: Independent of experience; known without observation. A Posteriori Knowledge: Dependent on experience; learned through observation. Phenomena (Kant): Objects as perceived by the mind. Noumena (Kant): Objects existing independently of perception. Metaphysical Proposition: Example- All events are caused. Hume's Relation of Ideas: Basis for analytic propositions. Hume's Matters of Fact: Basis for synthetic propositions. Bishop Berkely: to be is to be perceived" -Empiricist (denies innate ideas, believes we are born blank) -Monist (only one substance) -Idealist (ultimate reality is mental) Subjective idealist- denies existence of material world -external reality exists only in perception, our reality is a "virtual reality" held in the mind of god conceivability argument: -if it can be conceived it's possible, if it cant its impossible -in order to determine a thing exists external to the mind, we need to be able to think of (conceive) an unconceived thing. This is impossible -rejects primary qualities of objects, bc he believes nothing exists independently of the mind. -avoids solipsism by arguing that everything, including other minds exists in the mind of God David Hume: raw elements of mind are impressions, not ideas impressions are imposed upon us, ideas are composed by us All ideas come from impressions, if an idea has no impression it’s not a real idea livelihood hypothesis: impressions are lively or vivid, ideas are faint copy hypothesis principles of association are contiguity and resemblance impressions are tests for ideas, every simple idea must have an impression ideas that cannot be reduced to impressions are not knowledge Kant: The mind constructs perception of reality by the application of a priori rules -Stimulated by Hume’s skepticism - revolutionary philosophical system that is a synthesis of: materialism and idealism; rationalism and empiricism Types of truth 1. Contingent 2. Necessary Types of knowledge claims Analytic Synthetic a priori a posteriori epistemological questions (Kant):  What can we know? o Only the appearances of things (the phenomena) o We are utterly ignorant of things as they exist in themselves (i.e., the noumena) Animal Spirits (Descartes): said to be derived from the heat of the blood and were the driving forces behind movement. Descartes believed these were tiny particles in constant motion and were found in the brain, the nerves, and the muscles. Muscle movement resulted from the action of them. Philosophical positions associated with the scientific world view: Naturalism Materialism Physicalism Determinism