Philosophy Past Paper - 2nd Quarter PDF

PHILOSOPHY 2nd Quarter The Psyche W-B5 - Refers to the human mind “Per spatium tempusque datum, stellas optamus alignas” a. Conscious Mind...

PHILOSOPHY 2nd Quarter The Psyche W-B5 - Refers to the human mind “Per spatium tempusque datum, stellas optamus alignas” a. Conscious Mind - Part that governs awareness b. Unconscious Mind LESSON 1 - Latent or repressed emotions, Nature of Man thoughts, and desires Rationality Definition of Terms - Ability to understand experiences in order to solve problems or do tasks and 1. Man involve in decision making or judgment - General term to refer as the entire Intelligence human race - Ability to perceive information, store 2. Human Beings knowledge and apply it in various - Specific; Biological term on a species. situations. 3. Human Introspection - Refers to man as a species - Ability to examine one’s own conscious 4. Person thoughts, feelings, and mental state, - Human beings with recognition of rights, and the capacity for self-reflection protection, and responsibilities. - Human being with dignity 3. Economic Perspective - Man’s ability to engage in productive activities in an effort to meet his wants Perspectives of the Natures of Man and needs. - Emerged in the 19th century and places 1. Biological Perspective emphasis on the “economic man” – - Considers man as part of the natural homo economicus who is driven by world and as a product of evolution. rationality and self-interest in his desire - Humans are closely related to primates, to possess wealth. especially apes, but have developed distinct physical features such as 4. Theological Perspective bipedalism, highly developed hands, - Considers man as god’s creation smaller jaws and teeth, and larger and - Man is considered to have a special more developed brains relationship with the Creator, being - Traits have contributed to the successful created in his image and given an immortal spirit. development of the human species as - Man’s existence was brought about by the most widespread and dominant the purposive creative act of God, and species on the planet at present. his ultimate destiny is part of a divine - Humans also share with other animals plan the so-called primal instincts such as the instincts for survival and reproduction. How does Philosophy view the nature of man? - Humans have progressed and developed additional traits and As a treatment of the meaning of human nature, the capabilities such as the capacity for: course considers the human person as physical being, i. Planning and intentional actions knower, as responsible agent, as a person in relation to ii. Innovation and creativity other persons, to society, to god, and to the end, or iii. Communication through purpose, of human life. language and writing iv. Technology How does Philosophy define the Human Person? v. Symbolic interaction 2. Psychological Perspective Human Person - Places emphasis on human behavior and thought processes in analyzing ○ Refers to the individual and all the human nature attributes and characteristics that set - Man possesses mental faculties that him or her apart from other human enable him to possess awareness, a beings sense of self, and the capacity to Sentience perceive and experience ○ Ability to feel and experience Significant Mental Faculties and Capabilities of Man  ○ Seen as the ability to perceive the Lesson 2 surroundings and react to stimulus such Embodiment as pain Definition of Terms The Nature of Self 1. Embodiment - Based on the idea that the mind is 1. The self as innate integrated into the body’s sensorimotor - Holds that the self is an essential part of systems, and cognitive processes are the human being, and self-awareness is guided by body-based systems – natural and innate (Barsalou, 2008). - Religious views consider the concept of - These theories state that thinking about self as synonymous to the spirit or soul an object or a person triggers the 2. The self as emergent stimulation of the experience itself - Holds that awareness of the self is 2. Soul or Spirit gained through interaction with the - Immortal, noncorporeal essence of man world and other human beings - Speaks of your inner-life in relation to 3. The self as integrated and developing your experience: your mind, heart, will, - Self is composed of varied elements and imagination. Also includes your that change over time. thoughts, desires, passions, and dreams. But your spirit speaks of the same inner-life in relation to God: your faith, hope, love, character, and Definition of Terms perseverance 3. Soul 1. Identity - Often associated with the inner life of a - Defined as the distinct personality of an person. individual - Encompasses their emotions, desires, - Persists through time, though certain thoughts, and consciousness. aspects of it may change - In the old testament, Nephesh is often 2. Personal Identity used to refer to the soul - Composed of a person’s unique a. Genesis 2:7 physical characteristics, mental - God breathed into attributes, experiences, memories, Adam’s nostrils, the ideas, and views. breath of life and the 3. Personhood man becomes a living - Recognition of a human being as a soul, Nephesh. distinct identity – a person. - Viewed as the seat of individuality and personal identity 4. Spirit 1. Person as an “autonomous being” - Ruach in Hebrew - Holds that a human being is considered - Pneuma in Greek a person if he possesses reason, the - Associated with the divine or higher capacity for reflection, and the ability to aspect of a person, connecting them to engage in decision making. This is the God or the spiritual realm. conventional concept of an adult - Seen as the part of a person that can 2. Person in relation to others commune with God, receive divine - Asserts that a human being becomes a revelation and be transformed by the person through interactions with other Holy Spirit human beings 3. Person as “unified individual” - Assets that the human being has the While the soul is often linked to the earthly human inherent capacity to function as a aspect of a person’s existence, the spirit is associated person with the transcendent and divine - It emphasizes the potential of the human being and recognizes that each The soul may be understood as the personal, human possesses the means to achieve psychological and emotional aspect of an individual, his or her capabilities while the spirit is the spiritual and moral aspect that - Based on this perspective, disabled connects with God. people, the unborn fetus, infants, and children are recognized as persons Some interpretations suggest that the spirit is eternal although they may not fully possess the and has a direct relationship with God, whereas the soul cognitive faculties of an adult. pertains more to the temporal earthly life.  Interpretations of Philosophers to the Soul and Spirit How does the spirit define the nature of man? 1. Plato 1. Trichotomic View - Believed that the human spirit or soul is - Man is composed of three essential composed of three parts: parts: body, soul, and spirit - Logos - Soul is defined as the component which - The mind or reason gives man life and will while the spirit - Thymos enables man to establish connection - Emotion with God - Eros 2. Dichotomic View - Desire - Gives no distinction between spirit and - The human mind is immortal and soul and views man as being composed persists after the death of the body of body and spirit. 2. Aristotle 3. Psychosomatic Unity - Regarded as the soul as integrated into - Asserts that man is of a single or unitary the human body; the soul is part of constitution, and that the body and spirit man’s essence which enables him to are inseparable and integrated achieve his ultimate purpose - Holds that the soul (psyche) is the form, or essence of any living thing; it is not a Branches of Philosophy that concerns the God distinct substance from the body that it is in. 1. Theology 3. St. Augustine - Discuss the nature of God and use - Spoke of the soul as a “rider” on the philosophical tools to define and body, making clear that the split understand the concept of divinity and between the material and the religion immaterial, with the soul representing 2. Theism the “true” person. - Belief in the existence of a God or - Although body and soul were separate, several deities. it was not possible to conceive of a soul - Christians believe in a single God – without its body Monotheism 4. St. Aquinas - Agrees with Plato that the soul is immortal, immaterial, and a spiritual Characteristics of the God form. 1. Omniscience - The soul is the principle for knowledge. It - God is all-knowing is distinct from the body. 2. Omnipotence - Follows Aristotle in thinking that the soul - God is all-powerful inheres in a body which is a composite 3. Omnipresence of matter and form - God is ever-present 4. Omnibenevolence - God is perfectly good, just, and all-loving The Mind-Body Problem 5. Eternal - God is timeless and has no beginning The mind-body problem is a philosophical debate and end concerning the relationship between thought and consciousness in the human mind, and the brain as part of the physical body. The debate goes beyond Arguments on the Existence of God addressing the mere question of how the mind and body function chemically and physiologically. 1. Ontological Argument - Man, a rational being, van conceive the 1. Physicalism notion of a supreme being, then it holds - Physical processes determine the state to reason that such supreme being of mind exists 2. Idealism 2. Teleological Argument - Mental processes and thoughts are the - Focuses on the purpose of God would only reality play in the universe. 3. Monism - Argues that a supreme being is - Human being is composed of elements necessary for the continued existence that are neither physical or mental of an orderly but complex universe 4. Dualism 3. Cosmological Argument - Believes in the distinctiveness of the - Takes into account the nature of physical and mental nature of man existence and the universe and  recognizes the existence of God as an - Since we’re already imagining the explanation of how things came to greatest thing possible, there can’t be being in our reality anything better. Therefore, God has to - In this argument, God is the “prime exist, both in our imagination and in mover”, “first cause of existence”, and reality. the “source of being” 4. Moral Argument Summary - Man’s ethical nature is brought by the existence of God - God is the greatest thing we can think of - God is the representation of the greatest - Things can exist only in our imaginations, or they ideal, “the greatest good”, and it is from can also exist in reality him that all standards of goodness are - Things that exist in reality are always better than based things that exist only in our imaginations - If God existed only in our imaginations, he wouldn’t be the greatest thing that we can think LESSON 3 of, because God in reality would be better. Ontological Argument Therefore, God must exist in reality 1 Philosophy of Religion VS Theology - Theology starts by assuming that God exists In Opposition to Ontological Argument - Philosophy of Religion take nothing as given, everything needs an argument and evidence 1. Guanilo’s Criticism needs to be given - Suggested that we could run the same - Some people say religion is the one area where line of reasoning to prove the existence you don’t need arguments – that faith alone is of literally anything we can imagine enough. But philosophers don’t take faith for an - Came up with an argument with the answer exact same formal structure as - Faith is definitionally unprovable, which makes it, Anselm’s, to prove that a mythical Lost from a philosophical perspective, not valuable. Island exists - He proposed: - The best island I can imagine is one where I 2 Philosophy of Religion is NOT: can swim and relax on a - Believing whatever your parents taught you tropical beach and ski - The study of the Bible down snow-covered - Not religious anthropology, or religious mountains all in one sociology, or a psychological understanding of afternoon our reasons for religious beliefs - ; I can imagine it, so it must exist. Otherwise it wouldn’t be the best island - there would be Anselm of Canterbury one better and that one - 11th century French Monk would have to be real - Offered a deductive argument for the existence Necessary Being of God, based on what he understood to be the - Anselm responded to Guanilo’s criticism nature of God’s being or the definition of God by saying he’d missed the point, that the - The study of being is called ontology, this argument only works for necessary argument, and other like it, are called ontological beings, of which there is only one - God argument - A necessary being is one that must - God is, by definition, the best possible exist, so Anselm’s response assumed the very point of contention to be true - thing we can imagine. The Best Thing that God exists - In Anselm’s words, God is “that than Begging the Question Fallacy which no greater can be conceived” - When you beg the question, you - Pointed out that there are just two ways assume the very thing you’re trying to in which something can exist: prove with your argument - Something can exist only in our - By adding this idea of a “necessary minds and be strictly imaginary being” to his definition of God, Anselm or it can exist in our minds but makes God’s existence a part of the also in reality, something that definition of God. we can imagine, but also real. - If we define God as the greatest thing in our minds, the only thing that could possible be greater than him would be a real version 2. Kant’s Criticism In Opposition to the Argument from Motion - “Existence is not a predicate” - A predicate is just something that’s said 1. Infinite Regress of another object - In a chain of reasoning, the evidence for - Anselm’s mistake was in thinking that each point along the chain relies on the existence is something that can be existence of something that came predicated upon a thing or be used as a before it. Which in turn relies on defining characteristic something even further back, and so on, - If God exists, then he must be the with no starting point. greatest being we can imagine - but that doesn’t mean that he does exist Aquinas thought the very idea of infinite regress - Predicates add to the essence of their was absurd, logically impossible because it subjects but they can’t be used to prove implied that any given series of events began their existence with nothing. Or, more accurately, never really 3. John Wisdom’s Criticism began. Instead it could have been going on - “The Parable of the Invisible Gardener” forever - “What’s the difference between an There must have been a time when nothing was invisible, intangible, unsmellable, entirely in motion, Aquinas thought, and there also undetectable gardener and no must’ve been a static being that started the gardener at all?” motion. And that being, According to Aquinas, is God - The Unmoved Mover REMINDER !!! - Both Guanilo and Kant agreed with Anselm’s Summation conclusion. They also believed in God’s (Argument from Motion) existence. They just thought Anselm’s argument didn’t prove it. - Objects are in motion - You can think an argument fails, even if you - Everything in motion was put in motion by accept the conclusion. When this happens, you something else should look for a better argument in favor of your - There can’t be an infinite regress of movers conclusion - So there must be a first mover, itself unmoved, and that is God. LESSON 4 Cosmological Argument Argument from Causation - Some things are caused Cosmological Argument - Anything that’s caused has to be - Composed of: caused by something else (Since 1. Argument from Motion nothing causes itself) 2. Argument from Causation - There can’t be an infinite regress of 3. Argument from Contingency causes 4. Argument from Degrees - So there must have been a first causer, itself - Seek to prove God’s existence through what he uncaused, and that is God. argued were necessary facts about the universe - Effects have causes. If you think about how you wound up doing certain things, you can trace the line of causation back, from moment to moment. Argument from Motion - If you think about it; you can probably go pretty - We currently live in a world in which things are far back. But Aquinas said, again: It can’t go moving back forever. - Movement is caused by movers (Things that cause motion) Necessary Being Contingent Being - Everything that’s moving must have been set into motion by something else that was moving A being that has always Any being that could - Something must have started the motion in the existed, that always will have not existed; Human first place exist, and that can’t not beings are Contingent exist. God Beings - Aquinas believed that there had to be something that prevented an infinite regress of contingency - That would mean that the contingency on which - Self Defeating everything existed would just keep going back in - If Aquinas is right that everything must time. have been put in motion by something else, and everything must have a cause Summation other than itself, then it seems that God (Argument from Causation) should be subject to those same stipulations - We can’t have a world where everything is - And if God is somehow exempt from contingent, because then – by definition – it all those rules, then why couldn’t other could easily have never existed things be exempt from them too - If they can exist without God being responsible for them, then we don’t need God to establish things in the first place Argument from Contingency - There are contingent things - Contingent things can cause other contingent REMINDER things, but there can’t only be contingent things - Because that would mean that there’s an infinite - You can accept a conclusion but reject and regress of contingency, and a possibility that argument nothing might have existed - If you disagree with an argument, you don’t get - An infinite regress is impossible to just say, yeah, you’re wrong. You have to give - So there must be atleast one necessary thing, a counterargument. and that is God. LESSON 5 Summation Teleological Argument (Argument from Contingency) Teleological Argument - Aquinas thought that all of our value concepts would just be floating randomly in space if there - Intelligent Design weren’t some anchor - something that defines - Goal-Oriented or Purposeful the value of everything else, by being perfect - - “There must be a designer” and that, again, is God. - Paley states that just like the purposefulness of a watch compels us to believe in a watchmaker, the purposefulness of the world compels us Argument from Degrees to believe in a world maker – God. - Properties come in degrees. - Cup : Cup Maker - In order for there to be degrees of perfection, - Watch : Watch Maker there must be something perfect against which - World : World Maker everything else is measured - One of the decisive proofs that the Gof the Bible - God is the pinnacle of perfection exists is the incredible design in the natural order. The Universe, the Earth, and all living things on the Earth manifest characteristics that demonstrate purposeful intention in their design In Opposition to Cosmological Argument variables. - They constitute undeniable proof of a Supreme - Cosmological Arguments don’t seem to Designer whose glory is declared by the work of establish the existence of any particular God his hands – Psalm 19:1 - Even if the arguments are correct, it doesn’t look like Aquinas gets us to the personal, loving God that many people pray to William Paley - Instead, we’re left with unmoved movers and uncaused causers who seem to have little in - Believed that the nature of God could be common with the God of Abraham, Isaac, and understood by reference to His creation, the Jacob – the God who feels emotions, and cares natural world. about his creation and answers prayers. - The idea is that, in the interest of consistency, whatever conclusions we’ve drawn about a - Aquinas was wrong in his insistence that there specific situation, we ought to draw about can’t be an infinite regress of anything another specific situation as well. - Aquinas takes it as a given that there - Kung ano ang conclusion ng situation a, had to be a starting point for everything. ang tendency natin is to infer na yun din Whether it’s the movement of object, or ang conclusion for situation b. causes and effects, or contingent beings being created  Watchmaker Analogy 4. Alternative Explanation - Another explanation for how bodies - The teleology demonstrated by a watch would came to have the complexity and lead us to conclude that it was designed by an functionality they have today, is natural intelligent creator with a particular end in time selection and random mutation. - We can concede that the existence of a designer - God helped make sense of Generalization the origins of our world in a pre-scientific age, but now we have a perfectly good scientific explanation for how the The world had order, regularity and purpose complexity of the world came about. The complexity of the universe shows evidence - “So, who needs a watchmaker when you of design have evolution by natural selection?” Such design implies a designer 5. David Hume The designer of the universe is God. - Hume pointed out that the world is chock full of stuff that looks cruel, ridiculous, impractical, and contrary to life. “A flawed world, he said, implies a In Opposition to Teleological Argument flawed creator” 1. Disanalogy - Paley responded that just because we - Situation A and Situation B are don’t know there’s a purpose doesn’t dissimilar enough that the analogy mean there isn’t one doesn’t actually work - Elements of the natural world - like human bodies - are relevantly dissimilar In Support to Teleological Argument to watches 1. Richard Swinburne 2. Why would God have designed our eyes to have - Even if there’s another possible a blind spot? explanation for the universe, we should - Paley responded that it doesn’t matter go with the explanation that’s most likely whether we can understand how to be true. something was created. The point is - It’s simply more probable that God simply that it was. designed the world, than that it came - He might point out, for instance, that I about through the pure chance of actually don’t understand the inner evolutionary process workings of my phone. But I still know it 2. Fine-Tuning Arguments had a creator. Whether or not I can - These arguments accept the Big Bang understand how it was created is beside and evolution as scientific truths, but the point. they maintain that, for the evolution life 3. Some parts of nature seem to be without to occur, it’s most likely that God set up the precise conditions that it required purpose. rather than them coming about by - Paley responded that just because we accident don’t know there’s a purpose doesn’t mean there isn’t one. - But this is a problem because his whole Swinburne and other modern teleologists are right to argument for believing in God is that you recognize that if things were slightly different, then life should look at the world and see maybe wouldn’t have evolved or would have evolved purpose. So if we see some things in the very differently. But that is wholly different from claiming world that are working great, and really that it’s unlikely to have happened in the first place seem to have complexity and a definite use, and others that don’t, that’s a flaw in his argument. - The absence of any obvious purpose in LESSON 7 things can lead people to start Divine Attributes of God searching for purposes, and effectively make them up - The point is: If we’re the ones inventing purposes, rather than recognizing ones that are inherently there, then we’re the real creators of purpose in the world, not God.